Hot on the heels of a reported possible MH370 piece in South Australia, news reaches us that Blaine Alan Gibson has found three pieces of suspected MH370 debris in Madagascar. This article says, in part:
Three new fragments which could have come from Malaysia Airlines Flight 270 were discovered on the morning of Monday, June 6, on the Island of Nosy Boraha, in the northeast of Madagascar…
These fragments were found by Blaine Alan Gibson, an American businessman, while he was accompanied by a from the France 2 TV show “Complément d’enquête.” They were on a long, almost deserted beach near the village of Sahasifotra, where tons of waste arrive every day from the Indian Ocean.
One piece in particular, 77 cm wide by 50 cm, apparently made by composite materials, strongly resembles another fragment which Gibson found in February on the coast of Mozambique.
” These two fragments are very very similar: the same paint color, the diameter of the attachment holes is identical. and on the back the texture is the same. I believe that it is a piece from MH370,” Blaine Alan Gibson told our colleagues. Two other parts were also found, a smaller panel with the inscription “FB” as well as another plastic part which could be the frame of an economy class seat’s video screen.
UPDATE 6/9/16: Here’s a screengrab of a YouTube video showing a Malaysia Airlines 777 economy class seatback (thanks to reader @sk999). The coat hook in particular looks like a good match for the third piece.
Here’s an even better shot, via @BBCwestcott. Note the color of the fabric around the “COAT HOOK” button:
Honestly, I think this is just parts and pieces of MH17 that were scooped up and planted. Call me crazy, but I still believe MH370 landed somewhere.
@JS
Maybe you are right. The ‘noise’ showing up lately may indicate some things discussed here become troubling to ‘some people’.
Why?
But if you allow it there is a risk of a blog disintegrating.
That could be a goal on itself by ‘some people’.
@Ge Rijn,
Agreed. You may recall not too long ago somebody was posting very factual statements, to the effect of “you’ll find it here.” They turned out to be garbage and the poster was banned.
But wisely, pardon the pun, Jeff let the person go for a few laps. You never know when a disgruntled co-conspirator, employee, whistleblower, etc. will start leaking information.
If this was a coordinated act involving more than one person, chances are it will someday be leaked. Given that only Jeff and maybe Reddit are maintaining a forum on the subject, it has a good chance of being leaked here.
This is a presentation on the search made by a Fugro representative in London last week, which I attended. Put on-line by the Institute of Civil Engineers, hosts of the meeting.
https://vimeo.com/170002842#collections
@JS, on the subject of conspiracies and leaks, I think it’s worth taking a look at how the story of Russian Olympic doping came to light. It turned out that the operation was so complex and sophisticated that anyone who would have guessed its dimensions beforehand certainly would have been labeled a paranoid delusional conspiracy nutter. But it was real! The only way the truth came to light was because an insider defected.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/13/sports/russia-doping-sochi-olympics-2014.html?_r=0
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/05/13/sports/russia-doping-sochi-olympics-2014.html?version=meter+at+0&contentId=&mediaId=&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F&priority=true&action=click&contentCollection=Sports&module=RelatedCoverage®ion=EndOfArticle&pgtype=article
@Richard Cole, Thanks for the link, and thanks as well for your continued invaluable contributions. For those of us who won’t be able to get to the video right away, were there any big takeaways?
@Richard Cole
Richard, I know the weather has been bad of late but has there been any significant activity outside the 7th arc recently?
@jeffwise
Those “Ruskies” couldn’t play fairly, if their lives depended on it. It’s in the nature of the beast, unfortunately.
@Rob, The Kremlin feels the same way about the West. I’ve just finished reading an excellent biography of Vladimir Putin called “Mr Putin: Operative in the Kremlin,” which lays out in great detail how the era of close cooperation during the Yeltsin era gave way to mutual distrust. The lamentable fact is that the Western media (of which I count myself a part) has not given much effort to understanding what the Russian point of view regarding Ukraine is. We see it as a simple issue of self-determination; Russia on the other hand sees the overthrow of Viktor Yanukovych as part of a systemic attempt to dismantle the historical unity of the Russian sphere. There are real stakes here, and a willingness on both sides to fight hard using a variety of means. While I admire falken’s relentless optimism, it’s not all unicorns and rainbows.
@Jeffwise
You’re right of course. How to break down the barrier of mutual mistrust, that’s the big problem. And setting up IRBM’s on Polish soil isn’t going to help things, as I’m sure you will agree. There are two sides to every argument. As long as we keep talking, there is always hope.
@RetiredF4
Well said.
@JS
I don’t recall that one but I sure built some confidence in the abilities of Jeff Wise moderating his blog as I stated before.
And for the rest I hope to trust on the intelligence of serious contributors not to get distracted or tempted to react too much on the ‘noice’.
Interesting to read from you this is possibly the only blog next to Reddit that’s still going on.
The more important imo it stays on.
It would be only one of two independent sources people can still go to for the latest news and thoughts on the subject from experts and layman all over the world. I’m even quite sure then relatives and friends of those affected directly by this drama are reading here. Which brings an extra responsabilty.
So Jeff: keep going the good work.
@RetiredF4: the debris does not bring consensus – and thus generates more heat than light in discussions, as you note – for two reasons:
1. among those who feel strongly MH370 hit the Indian Ocean (IO) somewhere, the locations and timing do very little to narrow things down (try adrift-dot-com-dot-au from any IO start point, and you’ll see what I mean – Africa acts like a gentle magnet, drawing debris from everywhere, after 2+ years).
2. among those who feel strongly it did not hit the water, clever evidence-planting is indicated – by logical corollary, by the fact that officials have pulled the shades down on forensic analysis, etc.
But one thing analysis of the debris CAN help us with, I think, is the energy of impact. If we can reach consensus that debris size and condition points strongly toward an explosive, high-energy impact, then the likelihood sensitive hydrophones picked this up increases. Accordingly, we would be wise to explore the two seismic events recorded as occurring at suspiciously perfect times:
Near time and location of initial disappearance: Chinese seismologists reported an event triangulated to one of two places: just east of IGARI, or just SW of Sumatra:
http://seis.ustc.edu.cn/News/201403/t20140314_191123.html
Very near time of fuel exhaustion: Curtin Boom (got 3 orders of magnitude more ink in the press, so I’ll stay within my link limit and make you Google it). I’m analyzing this event carefully right now.
I’m still surprised the equipment located off the SW corner of Australia picked up a seismic event too slight to be recorded in earthquake databases occurring NW of – and thus blocked by…? – the Maldives archipelago, yet missed a high-energy impact four times closer to it. So perhaps the Chinese detections are what are “worth a much closer look”…?
I’m afraid I forgot the nationality of the boaters who located the ULBs with handheld hydrophones.
@Jeff, yes, and a lot of the info on KAL007 came about either from defections, or from the collapse of the entire government 8 years later. We may have to wait it out a bit.
In case anyone is wondering, KAL007 was hit by an air-air missile at 35,000 feet, then flew for at least 12 minutes under some amount of control by the crew. No bodies were ever found that I’m aware of.
It was a controlled glide for most of the 12 minutes but the exact conditions of the impact remain unknown.
There are many possible parallels to MH370.
@Ge Rijn, Thanks for your ongoing support.
@Gysbreght
“I’m afraid I forgot the nationality of the boaters who located the ULBs with handheld hydrophones.”
You beat me on that one! If I had a suspect list, they would lead with quite some distance to the next in the row, and their search inputs in the first days of this accident are the main reason for it.
@Brock
Imho there is no ground anymore for a soft landing, the debris evidence speaks for itself. Jeffs post concerning a possible boom event due to a surface noise sounds reasonable, A boom event event would point againto a vast search area, taking long time, lots of money and awful amount of luck tosucceed. That will not happen, not after the failure of the present search. If such a search would reveal the resting place lets say in a year from now, the quality of information after such long time would be doubtfull and limited in its usefullness.
I was in the debris planted camp from the beginning, but rational tells me I was wrong. I think we still look at the few remains of a disposed evidence. In Jeffs take about a possible landing in Kaszachstan the Jet was buried after it landed. The logic behind was not to dig it out later on, but to get rid of revealing evidence. you cannot hide a landed 777 anywhere on the planet without a high probability of detection in short time. To dump it in the sea is an uncomplicated option to get rid of the aircraft, while destroying it, restricting access to it and make it even look like an accident if ever found.
The future overall goal must be to intensify the search for the details of the first hours, search for suspects and motives, look for possible operators, colaborators and followers. We have to rattle each door to spill out the desired whistleblower. Here I agree, that would be a big step forward.
My concern is, that the forensics on the last minutes of the flight cannot help us there anymore.
@Brock McEwen: The USGS dismissed the SCS as the location of the seismic event in favor of the location off the coast of Sumatra. So either the USGS is part of the cover-up, or there was no seismic event detected in the SCS.
From http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/03/14/malaysia-airlines-search/6409061/ :
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) located a magnitude-2.7 earthquake off the west coast of Sumatra at the time of the “seismic event” noted by the Chinese, said Harley Benz of the USGS National Earthquake Information Center in Denver.
Benz said tremors of that size are a daily occurrence in the region, refuting the Morning Post’s claim. Other earthquake experts said such seismic activity is unlikely to be caused by a plane crash.
“It’s very unlikely that the aircraft would have hit the undersea floor strong enough to cause a seismic event that we could detect,” said Paul Caruso, a geophysicist with USGS.
“The bump from the plane hitting bottom of the ocean would not be noticeable,” said earthquake expert John Vidale of the University of Washington.
@Brock McEwen
Your latest drift study was mostly based on found and not found debris (on WA shores) and pushed the probable search area more north. I think this study was significant.
The latest drift study from Godfrey builds upon yours (imo) and with introducing more debris pushes the area even more north in a smaller area.
So I don’t quite understand why you now dismiss the role of debris.
And I doubt Africa is a random magnet for debris in this case. The places where debris is found make a perfect string that follows nicely the prevaling currents all the way to Rodrigues and beyoud all the way east and south till around the current search area.
The timeframe fits and it could well fit the Inmarsat data.
A hydrophonic deep sea recording could maybe be helpfull but they are proved to be so random and often happening and near to impossible to registrate a surface impact of a plane.
To hope for better results on that is more than wishfull thinking I’m afraid.
I’m sure the debris will be key in making the most progress from now on. And I’m sure there is still more to come.
Jeff,
The Fugro presentation was similar to one I attended (by same speaker) 15 months ago. Some new points were:
1. Details of the AUV operations (around 49m00s) and its complex flight path around the rugged terrain in the centre of the search area
2. Operational reasons for the loss of the Intrepid tow-fish
3. The state of the seas that were encountered and impact on the crews
4. No suggestion by the speaker of any search extension beyond the current declared area
@Richard Cole: I think it is of value to note the question posed by @GuardedDon and the response. At around 1:07:57, Don asks Fugro’s Rob Luijnenburg about the probability of missing MH370 considering the challenging terrain and the sonographic difficulty of detecting hard objects against hard objects. Mr. Luijnenburg responded that the probability of detection would be high due to the unique nature of the debris field and the high sonar reflectivity off of metal. Mr. Luijnenburg further claimed that if the plane is there, they’ll find it.
@VictorI
Yes, Don and I discussed that after the lecture. We had both noted the banking movement of the AUV and the effect of that on the sea-floor coverage during the bank. Of course that may have been fully and properly considered in the search pattern planning.
@ROB
Equator was bathyscanning 101km outside the 7th arc just before it left for Fremantle. The recent bathyscanning outside the arc has been west of 90.5E, that is at the southwest end of the search area.
@Richard Cole
Thank you Richard. Just one more question please; is it 101km as measured due south from the 7th arc, or radially outwards from the 7th arc?
@Ge Rijn: thanks – but if you reread my slide deck, you will note that all I conclude is that “either there is something wrong with my model, or something is wrong with the search.”
Where do you get the idea that I think the search should be moved further northeast?
In my opinion, as we move the hypothetical impact point northeast, we run out of BFO fit long before we run into plausibility of empty Oz shores.
@Brock
The BFO fit can be made much further North than your post implies.
As far as people “dropping out” is concerned, don’t believe that. Everyone is still here, but there is nothing fresh to contribute. I am not going to get involved in the minutiae relative to debris finds that is currently being discussed.
With regards to the problem of “acoustically detecting an aircraft hitting the bottom of the ocean”, it is instructive to remember, that on the 14th June 1999, the Collins Class Submarine, HMAS Farncomb, fired a live Mark 48 Mod 4 torpedo (as part of her combat system trials) at the decommissioned Destroyer Escort, HMAS Torrens, breaking her in half, and sinking her, just off the West Australian coast.
The event was recorded by the ABC.
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2005/09/01/1448475.htm
It would be interesting to know if that event was recorded by any of the hyro acoustic arrays.
@buyerninety.”Couldn’t this mean, upon left engine fuel exhaustion (and therefore
flameout), that the EEC could disable the auto-relight function,
and so when the APU eventually started, even though the APU could
try to provide fuel to the left engine, the EEC may still have
the relight function disabled?
Assuming you mean APU fuel pump, my assumption is that like the GE engine it would start for the RR when fuel manifold pressure fails at fuel exhaustion. My reading is that the RR would give a relight the one try, fuel being injected as the engine drops below idle.
I think this second APU pump designed function is to relight the left engine after flame out and also AC failure, using its DC supply and the normal fuel supply.
I have no information on relight prospects at altitude for the RR.
Incidentally, some simulations might have been with GE or PW.
I forgot to add, the position of sinking HMAS Torrens:
Position Information
Latitude: -31.783333333
Longitude: 114.783333333
Reported position by RAN
You could make small and crushed plane parts by running an empty plane over with an earth mover. Such an action might even temporarily turn on the SDU (I think it’s called) by causing a short while the plane is being crushed. But I cannot get to why. What was on the plane and how did it get there? Was it important to recover it or destroy and bury it?
Are these parts definitively from MH370? If you can’t say yes then it’s plausible that they are definitively not part of MH370.
Why plane parts and no personal effects? Does no one carry or pack anything that floats? No shattered cell phones or tablets washed up.
So I guess on the other hand if some one did plant those parts in the ocean to be found on shore, they were short sighted in not placing personal effects making it definitively from MH370.
Unless they don’t have any.
Those poor people. They deserve better
@Susie Crowe
As one of the recent one hit wonders I apologise for earlier comments I made about your interpretation of the interaction between the Malaysian and Indonesian Chief of Police in September 2014. You are probably right and no doubt much better researched than myself.
I have actually been a keen follower of 9M-MRO early on in the piece. However contributions to a blog like this is difficult because of the conversational nature and timely need to make comments.
@buyerninety,
The APU fuel feed system can supply fuel to the left engine in the air when there is no pressure in the left engine feed manifold and the left engine is not operating.
In other words the APU DC pump will not operate until the engine actually goes sub idle. In this instance the engine fuel feed manifold is full of air (the reason for the flameout) and N3 winding down.
Sure the APU pump would start as the engine winds down but the engine HP fuel valve would have closed at 35% N3. There’s not enough time to push the air out of the feed manifold and fill it to supply fuel.
So what you are saying is right, there is no relight until someone moves the fuel control switch to cutout and back to run.
OZ
Oleksandr and I have long held that MH370 made a long, curved sweep to the left as it flew south into the Indian Ocean. While much has been said about the aeronautical slip as the flight mechanism, a better cause is the slip’s cousin, the aeronautical skid.
A skid happens when there is not enough bank for the applied rudder deflection. The lack of bank is understandable as the plane’s automation held the wings level. So what would cause a rudder deflection? The TAC — Thrust Asymmetry Compensation. With the left engine shut down (more about that below), the TAC compensates by adding in as much rudder as needed (within limits). The TAC calculates the degree of compensation by measuring an engines performance data (zero in the case of MH370) and skids the tail to the left to compensate.
What clues are there that the left engine was shut down? Loss of left electrical bus, critical loss of altitude over the Malacca Strait, an upset with Flight Envelope Protection recovery, an automated attempt at left engine restart (including a re-energized left electrical bus), a slow climbing circle up to the north (which Kate Tee observed; the shorter radius turn due to limited rudder authority), and finally the long curve towards Australia. Not a rigorous proof by any means — more of a starting point.
The TAC doesn’t account for any drag, so any damage (cowling? fuselage?) or drag (engine in core lock?) on the left side will further turn the plane left. This takes the plane to the 7th arc between Zenith Plateau (21 deg South) down towards 25 deg South.
In the Aeronautical section of my web page, I have a few diagrams to show how a left skidding turn works.
@js
It’s most likely that new readers are stumbling across this forum as a result of Internet search on mh370. I only discovered it as a result of wondering what the latest news on mh370 was about 4 (?) Months ago.
Such contributors are unlikely to reread every post on the forum, much in the same way they would behave in a Facebook group etc, before they contribute hence the rehashing.
@jeffwise
excuse me, but I am almost sure the book you read about Putin cant provide full picture, or may be even plain wrong; try at least to watch this documentary, where are mentioned russian oligarchs, Yeltsin era and falldown because of corruption and pure intentional internal PR about Putin for russians, themselves – he was unknown and they admited that they used hard core propaganda to spread info about him to be voted, as in fact alternative was that hardcore bolsheviks can return after failed Yeltsin; there is even CIA mentined and problems with Yeltsin-Clinton meetings; I completelly understand why Putin has lot of unfriendly realtions with oligarchs who lost their power; the book you read is anotated with things like Satan or so… sorry 🙂
(3 years ago, I wouldnt imagine that I will be defending him so much, absolutelly – USSR and our own alies attacked our country in 1968 but I intentionally want to treat this as history; but lot of good people here still refuse to do the same; understandably too – but also lot of people are intentionally hateful the same as theirs oligarchs, they are afraid of fair-play, I am sure; they idealize west as anarchy, they abused EU funds, they cheat, steal and chaos and uncertainty is what they like to see to spread criminal activities and blame some external enemy for everything)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kau7O546ROA
@Brock McEwen
If you read my post well you’ll see I did not state ‘north east’ but ‘north’.
Then I’ll quote from your own drift study page 12 underlined and in captitals:
‘Until the startpoint is moved up to 33S -well NORTH of thePSZ- 100% of scenarios fail to travel far enough to reach Réunion’.
I think you made a sound statement there based on the then available data and debris (only the flaperon).
Godfrey had the possibility to introduce 9 pieces (of which 5 confirmed) and came to a similar conclusion.
That underlines imo the importance of the work you have done with your drift study and the importance of the debris in this regard to the overall investigation.
@ROB
All distances I refer to the 7th arc are radially inwards, or outwards. Outwards in this case, of course.
@Richard Cole
Yes, thank you Richard. I realized afterwards that it was a rather silly question, in the first place. If I had applied logic, I could have worked that one out.
Thanks
Rob
@ Ge Rijn, @ Ventus45 and anyone else who is interested:
Ken Staubin has posted a Facebook status from the chap who found the piece on Kangaroo Island.
It explains about the mangosteen angle.
https://twitter.com/search?f=tweets&vertical=default&q=%23mh370
I hope this link works, if not let me know and I will try to copy and paste.
Apparently they turn woody on the outside and can therefore last a very long time in these conditions.
Who knew.
Sorry, my link failed – here is another, let’s try again:
https://twitter.com/kstaubin/status/742803900089110528
@Susie
That’s interesting to read about those mangosteens rotting from the inside and becoming woody on the outside. It suggests some will float a considerable time.
But it will remain impossible to relate one to MH370 also regarding the millions of mangosteens produced every year and exported all around the world.
@Susie
It’s a bit like the towelette found in WA but then a lot worse imo.
@ Ge Rijn, Yes, understood and agreed. It was just interesting to me that they can float!
from Germany with love … to scientology (d)evils
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qot3Ubz16Jo&index=10&list=PLUntIRA3bYXzv_NesL73tb0ZSET_TKQ43
(sorry, little bit upset by local civil war of politics )
Have to bore some people a bit more with forensics on the debris..
Also the cowling piece has a hole right through it. Like a bullet shot through a door.
Look at the pictures from the front and back.
On the front right in the middle of the big ‘R’ you can see the small impact hole and on the back side same position there is the larger escape hole. You can see the white background shining through. Scroll down a bit for the pictures:
http://avherald.com/h?article=4710c69b/0508
I assume a small massive object must have hit with high speed from the outside inwards through this engine cowling.
This would rule out this engine exploded imo but points to a possible explosion of something outside and not that far from this engine.
Speculative I know but together with other holes and cuts in other debris it could be something serious to keep in mind.
Maybe a forensic specialist can take a look at it?
@Crobbie,
Yes, that’s a possibility. But don’t you think that anybody searching for MH370 on Google, today, for example, had previously searched for it? People looking for news on MH370 have been looking every day for over two years. Those people found Jeff’s blog months ago.
Granted, there would be fresh spikes after any news event. But I also get the sense that there is some keyword monitoring going on. I’ve seen it before with government agencies monitoring any blog for their name and then dropping bad info.
@JS if I only found this a few months ago then others will be in the same boat. It is a fairly standard behaviour to come across blogs that interest, read a bit and begin to post on them. Why would you expe t people to have followed it all the way through???
It’s interesting that the new names have popped up when there had been new debris and mh370 is back in the news. It may well have prompted someone who only had a previously passing interest in mh370 to Google it to find out a bit more. Jeff’s posts being timely as they are means his blog pops up in the first few listings on the Google news tab at some times more than others.
Doesn’t negate your suggestion but to me by jumping to that conclusion you are missing the obvious explanation. Hear hooves think horses and all.
@Crobbie – it’s just wierd that somebody would be interested this whole time and not find Jeff’s blog. It’s also wierd that someone would not be interested until now. Not impossible, just odd.
In my experience, agencies with precarious funding tend to be active in monitoring their online reputations. In the US, examples that come to mind would be Amtrak or the TSA. In Malaysia I’m sure there are counterparts.
@ JS
I’ve been following the situation since April 2014 when it first came to my attention (not a big news watcher, back then – also not that interested in aviation)
I became quite heavily involved in the PPRuNe thread about it, and that forum in general – my contributions often rightly deleted – it was a steep learning curve.
That went on for months; I read a lot about it, but didn’t come across this blog until about the same time as Crobbie, I suppose, a few months ago.
I had seen various refrences to Jeff’s work, and the name was very familiar to me but I suppose I dismissed his ideas somewhat as what seemed to me to be rather sensationalist journalism, talking about Khazakstan and so on. I didnt think it very likely (no offence, Jeff!)
But I began to look into that theory briefly last year, studying maps and so on, and eventually a few months ago I came here as it seemed to be one of the only places where people could still discuss the case. I think I may have come here via twitter, which is another platform I didn’t really use until last year.
I’ve found it very interesting, and topical, and wish I had known about the blog before.
When I began posting here I hadn’t read back much and didn’t realise it was a community. I thought comments were just from random readers, like with a newspaper article.
So I kind of just jumped in, saying all the wrong things!
I’m definitely not some sort of intelligence plant. You have probably figured that out by now : )
@All
Interesting feature just posted on Master Herald, a Muscat based news portal.
Headed “Flight MH370 believed to have changed course under pilot control of a conscious pilot before crashing”.
Nothing really new, though.
@Susie – I’ve also come and gone. The difference is that you and I are more or less part of the conversation. The curious ones, to me, are those who appear out of nowhere.
Equally curious is that the arriving news correlates slightly with the conversation here. Complain about no debris? Flapperon. Complain about no barnacles? Barnacles. Could all be coincidental, of course.
I’ll let this drop for now but it will be interesting to see what happens when the topic changes again or more debris is found.