To watch Deep Dive: MH370 on YouTube, click the image above. To listen to the audio version on Apple Music, Spotify, or Amazon Music, click here. For a concise, easy-to-read overview of the material in this podcast I recommend my 2019 book The Taking of MH370, available on Amazon. At 8.30am on July 29, 2015, on the … Continue reading Deep Dive MH370 Episode 18: The Flaperon
In my last post, I reviewed Malaysia’s analysis of the MH370 debris its investigators have gathered. Not included in that study was the flaperon found on Réunion, as it is being held by the French. So today I’d like to look at what the damage patterns seen on the flaperon suggest about the crash, based … Continue reading How Did MH370’s Flaperon Come Off?
As As I wrote back in September, Patrick De Deckker is an Australian scientist to whom the French authorities entrusted a 2.5-cm-long Lepas anatifera shell. De Deckker has analyzed the shell to determine the ratio of magnesium to calcium within it. Because this depends on the temperature of the water in which the barnacle is growing, and … Continue reading The Flaperon’s Path to Réunion
Last month Robyn Ironside, the National Aviation Writer at the News Corp Australia Network, published what struck me as an extremely important article in the Daily Telegraph about the work of scientist Patrick De Deckker, who had obtained a sample of a Lepas anatifera barnacle from the French judicial authorities and conducted an analysis to determine the temperature of … Continue reading Fascinatingly Mysterious New Flaperon Barnacle Data
With every passing day, the odds go down that searchers will find the wreckage of MH370 on the Indian Ocean seabed. (Indeed, many independent researchers suspect that the game is essentially over.) If nothing comes up before the search’s scheduled wrap date this June, then the entire case will hang on a single piece of physical evidence: … Continue reading Free the Flaperon!
Goose barnacles of the genus Lepas live exclusively on debris floating in the open ocean. Like other barnacles, their larvae spend the early part of their life swimming freely and then, in a final larval phase called the cyprid stage, search out a floating object on which to settle. Once they find a suitable object, says marine biologist Hank … Continue reading How the MH370 Flaperon Floated — UPDATED
Florence de Changy has provided me with the text of the announcement released today, September 3, 2015: Dans le cadre de l’information judiciaire relative à la disparition du vol MH 370 de la Malaysia Airlines le 8 mars 2014, les opérations d’expertises initiées le 5 août 2015, suite à la découverte du flaperon à La Réunion le … Continue reading Text of French Prosecutor’s Announcement Confirming Flaperon Link to MH370
According to the New York Times, shortly after the discovery of the 777 flaperon on Reunion Island, Boeing and the NTSB found discrepancies between the part and details recorded in Malaysia Airlines’ maintenance data. This claim was reinforced by an article published by Le Monde on Wednesday, which reported that “maintenance work that Malaysia Airlines … Continue reading What Are the Discrepancies in the Reunion Flaperon? — UPDATED
One of the many important details yet to emerge publicly about the Reunion flaperon is how it floated in the water. Presumably, French investigators have immersed it in saltwater to see how it settles. Since the results of that test haven’t been released, the only clue available to us is the the sea life visible in photographs. As … Continue reading How Did the Reunion Flaperon Float?
I am grateful to reader @AM2, who early this morning alerted us to a report in the French website LaDepeche.fr stating that investigors who have been examining the flaperon found on Reunion have been unable to find any evidence linking it to MH370. Soon after, reader @Jay provided the translation below, which I’ve tweaked and edited … Continue reading French Report: Investigators Can’t Link Reunion Flaperon to MH370