The discovery last week of what appeared to be a piece of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 on the shores of Réunion Island seemed at first blush a giant leap toward solving the famously perplexing mystery. Officials declared that, based on photos, the part could only have come from a Boeing 777. And since only one 777 has ever been lost at sea, physical evidence of the vanished plane seemed at last to be irrefutably in hand.
This marked a huge break in the case, since before now not a single piece of wreckage had ever been spotted. The only evidence that the plane had gone into the ocean was a series of difficult-to-decipher signals received by the satellite company Inmarsat. The incongruity led some, including me, to question whether the plane had really wound up in the Indian Ocean at all. Back in February, I explained in New York how sophisticated hijackers might have infiltrated the plane’s electronic bay in order to spoof the satellite signals and take the plane north to Kazakhstan. MH370 wreckage on the shores of Réunion makes such explanations unnecessary.
Investigators hope to glean from the six-foot-long chunk important clues about where and how the plane went down. The piece, called a flaperon, forms part of the trailing edge of the wing, and was located just behind the right engine. The front part of it looks dinged up but more or less intact, but pieces on the side and much of the rear part have been ripped away. That damage might have taken place in the ocean, but if on inspection it appears to have been caused by high-speed airflow (as a plane might experience in a steep dive) or impact with the water, it could shed light on the flight’s final moments.
The fact that the debris was found on Réunion itself provides a hint as to where the plane went down. The island lies on the far side of the Indian Ocean from the suspected crash area, a distance of some 2,500 miles. The ocean’s strongest east-to-west current, the South Equatorial Current, runs about a thousand miles north of where searchers are currently looking. Should the search area be moved up? In the coming weeks oceanographers will be refining their models in order to figure that out. To lend a hand, biologists will examine the barnacles and other sea life found living on the debris in order to determine how long it was in the water and what part of the ocean it passed through.
But, as if steeped in the weirdness of all things MH370, the Réunion flaperon came wrapped in an unexpected layer of ambiguity.
All airline parts carry identifying labels, much as cars carry Vehicle Identification Numbers etched on the engine block. In the normal course of things, this plate should have been attached to the rib end of the flaperon and allowed investigators to make an instantaneous identification. As fate would have it, the plate is missing.
It’s going to be a tricky job, and the stakes are high: MH370 has unnerved the aviation community like no crash before. Until we can figure out what took it down, the danger is ever-present that it could happen again.
While the world’s attention is on the flaperon, however, the sonar-scanning of the seabed on the other side of the Indian Ocean promises to tell us even more about MH370’s fate. If the small flotilla of search ships can locate the plane’s primary debris field on the ocean floor, they’ll likely find the black boxes that can tell us exactly what happened to the flight. But even if they don’t, they’ll reveal something important about what happened.
The area they’re scouring was defined through analysis of the Inmarsat satellite data. Part of the data tells investigators that the plane must have wound up somewhere along a broad arc 3,000 miles in radius. Another part, subjected to a new and complex form of analysis, showed that the plane headed in a generally southern direction. Where, exactly, depends on how it flew. If the plane flew slowly it would have taken a curving path and wound up north of a subsea feature called Broken Ridge. If it flew fast, its path would have been straighter and taken it south of Broken Ridge.
Among the attractions of the latter option was that it fit with an easy-to-imagine scenario: that, after flying up the Malacca Strait, whoever had been in control became incapacitated and the plane flew straight south on autopilot as a “ghost ship” until it ran out of fuel. Once that happened, the plane would have quickly spiraled into the ocean within a few miles of the final arc, meaning that the debris would have to be located within a fairly small area of seabed.
Last October, after months of internal debate, Australian officials decided that the straight-and-fast scenario was more likely. They laid out a 60,000-square-kilometer search grid and hired contractors to begin scanning. Their confidence in their analysis was so great that they reportedly kept a bottle of Champagne in the fridge, ready to be popped at any time. The longer they searched without finding the plane, officials said, the more their confidence grew, because they knew the plane had to be inside that box.
As time went by, however, a problem emerged: The plane wasn’t there. After six months, there was a 99 percent probability that the search had covered the calculated end point, and that number only kept climbing toward 100. Authorities stopped talking about how sure they were that it was in the 60,000-square-kilometer area, and announced that they would expand the search zone to twice that size.
What went unremarked upon in the general press was that there was no theoretical justification for the authorities to continue the search in this way. To get so far from the final arc, the plane would have to have been actively piloted, because only a conscious pilot could have kept the plane out of a death spiral. So the ghost-ship scenario was out the window. A plane held in a glide by a conscious pilot could travel for a hundred miles or more, far too huge an area of ocean to scan. The only reason to search the extra 60,000 square miles was that, for the authorities, it was better than admitting they had no idea what they were doing.
It also kept them from having to contemplate other unattractive alternative scenarios. Perhaps the plane didn’t fly straight and fast, but slow and curvy, and wound up north of Broken Ridge. It’s hard to imagine why someone would fly like this, but then again it’s hard to imagine why someone would sit patiently on a six-hour death flight to nowhere. If a slow, curvy flight was what happened, then again a terminal death spiral could by no means be assumed, and the required search area would be impossibly large.
To be sure, none of these scenarios make a lot of sense. But then, so much of what we know about MH370 is baffling. If the perps flew into the southern Indian Ocean because they wanted to disappear, why didn’t they just fly to the east instead of turning back over the Malay peninsula? If the aim was suicide, why not just put the nose down and crash right away, like every other suicide pilot we know of? And why did the perps turn off the satellite communication, and then turn it back on again, a procedure that — by the way — few airline pilots know how to do?
Though it has earned much less attention from the world press, the failure of the seabed search actually tells us a lot about what did or did not happen to MH370. And what it tells us is that this case is as weird as ever.
This piece originally ran on the New York magazine website on August 4, 2015.
That’s the kind of experience-based evidence that would not pass muster in front of a judge, he would demand proof of similarity of machining marks, extrusion qualities (paint) etc. etc. As I suspect is the case here.
@Taipan
Yes, we are in war already. Its war with stupid parts of our souls, where somebody thinks that green military toys can solve something, and sometimes we must respond the same way to the (d)evils, but for core problem such toys are absolutelly useless and everybody on top knows it very well already too. I am sure MH17 is separate case, but some devil modulated this tragedy on top of MH370 intentionally, while pushing for war; but he failed and will end up in Hague finally, sure.
So what does the comment from reddit tell us?
Shouldn’t they know by now for sure if the flap belongs to mh370 or not? I realize there’s a legal difference between 99% and 100% sure. Are they trying to erase that 1% of doubt?
I have to day – missing serial number plate or not – I didn’t expect that they would keep us still guessing as of today.
on another note: didn’t LG Hamilton post an article a while back about a florishing black market for B777 spare parts? She even suggesed that someone might be tempted to make money that way in case of a landing scenario. The plates with the serial numbers get routinely removed in order to obfuscate where the part comes from. If that’s true – and the article was pretty credible – then it cannot be completely true that every part ever made for a B777 is accounted for.
@susie crowe
seeing the whole picture
Thanks for you bringing up the question of a resume, where we stand at the moment and taking stock, for what to work further on.
there are multiple dilemmas here that make MH370 a mystery:
1) There was a chain of events that leads a lot of highly qualified engineers including the NTSB to the conclusion, that there was no such thing as a mechanical failure at the start of those events.
But others showed credible scenarios that would make a wheel-well fire responsible or another theory says one of the known structural crack problems led to a sudden decompression at altitude 35000 ft and phugoid flight until to the end (its important to know here, that the mobile oxygen masks for the crew have oxygen for about 80 minutes – thats the time where the a/c seems to have stopped maneuvering – a flight attendant or a knowledgable person among the passengers that was not familiar with a triple seven might have tried to reinstall the lost left AC Bus and tried a autolanding at banda aceh) All these theories cannot explain that there was no distress signal at all in 80 minutes. (Remembering the Hedos flight, the flight attendant in the cockpit tried a mayday but did not know how to switch to the right frequency).
2) There is suspicion about possible sabotage. when you have a PM who takes 700 million $ in presumed bribes, you should expect anything. Like in the swiss air 111 flight, where diamonds today worth around 300 million $ (they were never found since) might have tempted to an insurance fraud, the unknown freight aboard MH370 might have been highly insured valuables. The deposition of the plane in the SIO would be to make sure, that nobody could discover the abscence of the valuables on this flight.
Sabotage within a broader scheme would explain, why the HoChiMinh ATC got plain wrong information about the whereabouts of the plane and the due declaration of emergency was delayed for 6 hours. Also why the due identification of a possibly rogue plane by military aircraft was not done, with no credible explanation to the very day today. Also no other country was informed about the flight after it left malaysian radar. After all, most documentary for maintenance of 9M MRO got lost in a fire that resulted from arson . Also the misleading of the search party by malaysia sems to point in the direction, that someone wanted to buy time for a cover-up of a sabotage.
3) There is until now no suspicion raised against the pilots. While it would be a deep surprise if those settled middle class persons would suddenly have a coming-out as the super-bad-men of our time, there is a specific issue with suicide scenarios in muslim countries. The governments of egypt and indonesia did not rule cases as suicide, that were quite reasonably being identified by the NTSB as such. So we have to take into account that there might be surprises in the asian muslim attitude towards suicide, that change the picture. A political demonstration is very unlikely, because nothing at all came up from that direction.
It might be highly probable that the event was a mix of some of those aspects. We dont know that yet. But the investigation seems to deliberately shroud everything . Facts become obscure somehow and wild speculation is often treated as fact.
You can be sure, that the world public will not let malaysia go away with this.
@Gysbreght
I think you are right about national law trumping ICAO rules, but why even go there if you don’t have to? Keep it as a backup.
Bobby,
If you happen to read this blog these days, could you please remind (describe in detail) how you derived the ‘hook’ from NPP VIIRS? So far I was unable to reproduce it from the IR images you shared a while ago.
Don,
Re “I assume the SLDMB buoys are optimised to record a detailed drift path in a localised area”.
What does it mean “localised area”, and what was design life of buoys? I would expect the main purpose to be finding crash site when debris are located. Of course, at that time it was hard to anticipate that some debris would be found in 1.5 year. But what did they expect?
@DennisW: Recently, Malaysia claimed that additional aircraft debris has been recovered from La Reunion, which was followed by a statement from the French stating no additional aircraft debris has been recovered. What is your theory behind this sequence of events?
CosmicAcademy, Conspiracies that are most catastrophic and covert we rarely know exist. This tragedy delivered no survivors, jumbled with an airline in monetary turmoil (mostly due at that time to Asia Air under-cutting MA fares), countries risking exposure of their capabilities to the world if they shared factual information and a country whose political actions are incomprehensible to most, leading the initial investigation. You have to question the sanity of someone not screaming conspiracy so we continue to toss around crazy scenarios until something sticks. I use to tell companies back in the days of arbitrage the worst thing they could do was placate the employees by telling them nothing because they weren’t placated and human nature dictates if we have no information then we will speculate until we create some. So….having said all that, I still lean toward the motive, means of the Malaysian government, the airline itself (whom now is the government) and the pilot who is said to have supreme allegiance to the airline
@Victor – I realize the question was directed at Dennis, so I’m not being rude by jumping in as well.
As I mentioned before, the French control the investigation until the part is proven to belong to MH370. Since the French are in possession of the part, they can basically control the investigation as long as they want. Which is probably good for everybody, or at least better than it was.
Eventually, though, as more debris shows up, the French will probably have to yield to the Malaysians. In the meantime, we’ll have a war of words: the Malaysians saying they found a part, the French saying the didn’t. In fact, probably neither is true and the only difference will be how strongly the part can be connected to 1) any aircraft, 2) a B777, 3) 9M-MRO, and finally 4) flight MH370.
Notice the distinction between 3 and 4, and the potential for a part to get planted now just to swing jurisdiction back to the Malaysians.
@VictorI
On the surface the statement that “additional debris has been found is true”. Whether it is from MH370 is different question.
There is also probably a fair amount of ambiguity in public statements due to the selection of words and expressions.
It is also true, as JS says above, that there is little love between the French and Malaysians at the moment. The ill will is bound to spill over into public statements from time to time.
@JS
The Malaysians control the investigation under ICAO. I think what you meant is that the French retain control of examining the flaperon.
@JS and @DennisW: The Malaysians said additional aircraft debris was found, without tieing it to MH370. The French said unequivocally that no additional aircraft debris was found. The two statements cannot both be true.
In the (known to me) history of aircraft disappearances at sea, the flaperon is the first piece of debris to wash ashore.
Madonna would say that if it happened once, you know it happens twice. But I’m not holding my breath awaiting the second.
@VictorI
The French could claim that to them “aircraft” means MH370. Who knows? We are dealing with widely differing cultures, and language is imprecise even within a given culture. At this moment I am inclined to think it is ambiguity as opposed to lying.
We are quite fortunate that the flaperon is the part that was found, along with the replaced seal. In fact, according to the FI Section 1.6.3, an inspection was performed on Apr 12, 2013, leading to a Certificate of Airworthiness review, dated May 15, 2013. The only inspection defect noted was a torn left hand flaperon inboard seal, which was replaced.
I hope the French investigate thoroughly. The WSJ is reporting that the French counterterrorism judge Alain Guadino plans to travel to Malaysia as part of his criminal investigation.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/french-deepen-role-in-mh370-probe-1438987656?mod=fox_australian
I think there will be some general reluctance to let the French authorities do this, that is, break into the middle of an accident investigation and demand all the data be revealed to them for their own separate enquiry. Then there would be endless French questions and demands for more analysis.
If for some reason the French had done the same during the TWA800 investigation (there were French dead on that flight and the final determined cause was not uncontroversial) I can’t see the US authorities would have been pleased, or helpful.
I would expect the Malaysians to ignore the French requests and insist the part is released.
@Richard Cole: Without a doubt!
@Dennis, yes and no about the investigation. It is true they control the flaperon investigation. But by extension, they control the accident/disappearance investigation, even if they are not formally in charge of it. I predict the French will be able to go a long way before any significant pressure ends their inquiry. I don’t see the US stopping them here.
I agree that ambiguity is probably the cause of the discrepancy, but perhaps a better question is “how do the Malaysians know what washed ashore on French territory?” Have they been granted any access?
I’ve been curious about the mode of failure of the flaperon, with the damage more or less limited to
the trailing edge. So I wondered how they are
supposed to work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sg0SndLjtfE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_HIcbpzpZw
Discussion from airlines.net:
“I’ve been meaning to ask this question every time I step off a 777, but I keep forgetting. This time I took notes
The 777 high-speed (inboard) ailerons droop with the flaps, and are thus technically flaperons. However there are two instances when their behavior is different.
– During the take off run, up until a certain speed (80kt?) they are in line with the wing in the non-drooped center position. When the aircraft has accelerated to a certain speed, they droop again.
– During landing, when the spoilers deploy, they are again in line with the wing in the non-drooped position. They then droop again when the spoilers are retracted.
Does anyone know why they are programmed to do this?”
“Your observations are generally correct. However only flap position and speedbrake lever position determine flaperon droop. Speed has nothing to do with it.
From the 777 SDS(Systems Description Section of the AMM)
The flaperons droop to 10 deg TED(Trailing Edge Down) when the flaps are at the 5 position. They droop to 20 deg TED when the flaps are at the 15 or 20 position. They droop to 31 deg TED when the flaps are at the landing position (25 or 30).
On the ground, the PFCs (Primary Flight Computers) remove the flaperon droop command in proportion to the speedbrake lever movement from 17 to 55 deg. When the speedbrake lever goes back to the down position, the flaperons gradually droop to the position commanded by the flaps.
To answer as to why they retract during rollout. The flaperon droop is a lift augmenting feature. When you touch down and the speedbrakes are deployed you want to get rid of all the lift that you can so the plane stays firmly planted on the ground. Since the logic that controls this comes from the speedbrake lever position sensor, then when the lever goes back to below 17 deg the flaperons droop again.
Hope this helps.
Dl757Md”
@JS
My understanding is that there Malaysians searching the beach Reunion Island.
Why I think the flaperon is from MH370.
1> No one would plant a flaperon on French territory. The French are very highly regarded relative to aircraft crash forensics. There is no possibility that a planted flaperon would fool them.
2> Why plant a flaperon in the first place? The “experts” both inside and outside the SSWG remain convinced that the wreckage is near the current search area in the SIO. As Napoleon so eloquently put it, never disrupt your enemy when they are making a mistake. There was no intent to move the search area or do anything differently so it would be best to simply let the search continue where the plane will not be found.
3> While it is possible according to a’priori drift models that the flaperon arrived at Reunion, these same models would show a much higher likelihood from other locations. Again, don’t disrupt something that is not working.
What happened to the plane?
Here are my four scenarios:
1. Mechanical problem.
2. Suicide/Revenge with an agenda.
3. Hijacking that went bad.
4. Sabotage by a technician with a possible agenda.
Further explanation:
1. To me saying the plane had a mechanical problem is my way of saying that the ‘mechanical problem’ scenario is the simplest explanation for what happen to the plane.
Example:
Question: Why the zig zag route?
Answer: When the plane experienced the mechanical problem the plane’s controls took over. Please remember the plane can fly itself.
Any question concerning the ‘mechanical problem’ scenario can have the following response—the plane can fly itself.
Now, you may say that the ‘mechanical problem’ scenario is too simplistic. You could be right. You could be thinking that ‘the plane can fly itself’ is just too simple. You could be right. But in my mind any other scenario drops you down a rabbit hole.
2. The pilot committed suicide and was out for revenge. You have two problems here. They are:
1. There is no suicide note.
2. There is no clear motive for revenge.
What is the agenda? The pilot was thinking the following—Find me if you can.
The pilot wanted to be a modern day Amelia Earhart. This could explain the hard left turns, the zig zag route, the reboot, and the plane‘s final resting place in the southern India Ocean. The pilot was playing peek-a-boo with the authorities.
What do I think of this scenario? Not much. You have to make too many assumptions because of the lack of hard evidence. With this scenario you are going down a rabbit hole.
3. I believe ‘Hijacking that went bad’ is self-explanatory. To make this work you will be going down a rabbit hole the size of a giant black hole
4. A technician could have sabotaged the plane by going down into the electrical bay and while there reprogram the plane’s controls to fly to the southern India Ocean. After the technician finished his/her work he/she would go home to watch the “fun”.
Is this possible? I do not have a clue. Boeing/contractors could tell me but then they would have to kill me. I am thinking (hoping) that the pilot would be able to override the autopilot and take control of the plane.
What would be the agenda? I do not know—maybe another ‘Amelia Earhart’.
In conclusion, I believe the simplest scenario is the one to pick. I thus pick the
‘Mechanical problem’ scenario. I am not using Occam’s Razor principle here. There are not enough facts to use the principle. I am picking the ‘Mechanical problem’ scenario because I do not want to go down a rabbit hole.
Comments are welcomed.
Thank you.
@Joe
A mechanical problem does not explain the lack of communication. And no, contrary to your belief the plane cannot fly itself. That is a fairy tale.
Arthur,
The flaperon operation shows fascinating attention to detail: at first, on take off roll, minimising drag by fairing in the slipstream (the PCUs are switched into ‘bypass’ mode) then bringing the PCUs active again, ‘drooping’ to align with the t/e flaps & maximise lift. And the converse on landing. Interactions between a number of systems and dependencies: not least, weight on wheels. Of course, the whole ‘flap’ influence and the biased downward deflection is dependent on manual selection of flap extension using the big lever in the aisle stand on the flight deck.
OleksAndr,
Localised: in the vicinity of where the lost craft is expected to be. The endurance is either 30 or 120 days depending on how recently they were procured (onward march of features and capability). The SLDMBs are an SAR tool.
The ocean drifters that inform drift models employ sea ‘anchors’ so as they are subject to current and wind influenced drift. This flaperon looks to have floated ‘on its back’: the upper surface submerged (where the marine life attached). Could any model offer a bias to illustrate predominantly wind influenced drift?
:Don
@everyone
What is happening among us hardcore MH370 obsessives all around the planet is that each “camp” has become driven by details whose validity cannot be agreed upon.
The “hypoxic pilots” camp claim the radar plot showing all the turns is a complete fabrication and their case is bolstered by the notion that the Malaysians have never released the raw radar. The “Zaharie did it” camp is driven by the very radar plot the other camps reject, but they’re a little sad to have to rely on information put out by the Malaysians. The “spoof” camp depends on everyone involved in the SIO search, including the ATSB, being wrong. The “hijack” camp loves the radar plot and the Inmarsat handshakes but can’t figure out why the pilots never radioed or squawked 7500. Believe it or not, there’s also a “shot down in a naval exercise” camp who, of course, can’t abide the radar plot nor the Inmarsat handshakes because for them, the transponder went off when the thing exploded over the S China Sea (apparently with a massive, coordinated debris clean-up operation).
The lack of consensus is driven, in my opinion, by the amateurishness of the reporting from day one by the world’s news media. Yes, the Malaysians created confusion at every turn. Yes, they’re corrupt and incompetent. But still, organizations with the resources of CNN really ought to be able to squash rumor and innuendo better than they have.
So…
Why is it that we, the MH370 Obsessives, with our varied backgrounds and expertises, have not banded together and written them an “OPEN LETTER,” with a list of questions the world, and especially the MH370 families, deserve to have answered?
I have about six questions I’d like answers to, once and for all.
Anyone else have questions they’d like to put to someone with the access to have them answered? Who should an “Open Letter” be addressed to? Miles O’Brien? Mythbusters? James Cameron? Who should it be written by?
Has anyone already done this?
My burning question is who comprises the SSWG? I have the IG characterized, just not the other players involved.
@Joe
3. is actually the most probable, and something that happened before
look at Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961 for instance, if hijackers were more technically verse (and had pilot skills) they could turn off transponder and other tracking and if they crashed somewhere on the opean ocean instead near land we would have a very similar case to this one
@DennisW
Quote: A mechanical problem does not explain the lack of communication.
End of quote .
By ‘mechanical problem’ I mean any incident that can damage the plane. A wheel that drops off a plane would not cause the communications to turn off, but a fire could.
Quote: And no, contrary to your belief the plane cannot fly itself. That is a fairy tale.
End of quote.
Please read the following articles:
http://bfaviation.com/mo/201503/a_Can_a_B_747_Fly_itself_and_the_main_reason_they_need_the_Pilots_is_for_passengers_to_feel_safe_.html
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-07-09/jets-flying-themselves-can-lull-pilots-into-complacency
http://www.askthepilot.com/malaysia-airlines-flight-370/
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/travel/columnist/getline/2005-03-07-ask-the-captain_x.htm
The last article will cause some people on this site to produce smoke from their ears.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/03/19/how-flight-370-could-have-become-a-zombie.html
Looks like takeoffs and landings are best handled by the pilot. After the pilot sets the course the “autopilot” can take over with attention by the pilot.
DennisW, if you have evidence to the contrary please provide same.
Thank you.
@StevanG
The problem, of course, is that there is no plausible motive for a hijacking. I’ve beat this one to death.
@DennisW
Great question. SSWG allegedly comprised of “experts from various countries such as China, United Kingdom, United States as well as Malaysia, had collaborated to independently review and refine all available data…”
I wouldn’t might knowing who they are and what entities/agencies they represent
@Matt
I’ve been in “the business” for more than 30 years, and I have no idea who these people might be. Certainly the advanced degree professionals, with a pedigree in navigation science, I know what not touch these analytics. That should tell you something.
“what not touch” should be “would not touch”
@GuardedDon I don;’t see much horizontal movement
of the flaperon. Nothing like a Fowler flap. Mostly it
drops and comes up to level with the wing.My physical intuition is that that actuators would be the first to go
with flutter. Then the whole unit. I see no reason for
the trailing edge box to tear off because of flutter. But,
then, I am no expert.
As coincidence has it, Channel 7, just screened “Air Crash Investigations” episode about AA191, featuring our host Jeff.
One quote that caught my attention was that the engines (here of a DC10) are designed to ROLL OVER the wing. While a different aircraft it immediately raises the question, is this design philosophy applicable to a B777?
The background of the DC10 accident is that one pylon bracket had failed during or shortly after takeoff and the left engine came off during the climb, rolling over the wing, causing the total loss of AA191.
I see distinct differences between the dynamics of an engine under thrust coming loose vs an unpowered engine hitting the water first in a controlled ditch.
I guess it would come down to a question of what attitude the plane would be in during such a ditch. Do the engines “bounce off” the surface like a flat stone, i.e applying a moment forcing the engine over the wing, or does the engine “scoop” the water and shear off and go under the wing?
Now if the “roll over” wing is a design feature of B777, that would be a counterargument to the dismissal of ditch in the flutter theory. The engine would be off and a lowered flaperon would not get damaged by the engine, but rather would be subject to a sudden huge breaking moment once immersing into the water, possibly snapping it in half, then the rest being ripped off the attachments, when the dragging force becomes too high.
Another thing I noticed in the underside image of the flaperon being loaded into the police car is the scratch mark pattern. There are many longish linear scratches, but ONLY in the upper half. There seem to be none in the lower half, the one that would be protected by the wing.
This observation would suggest the possibility of small pieces coming off the wing and/or fuselage in front of the flaperon (or some non plane floating garbage) then impacting a lowered flaperon causing these scratches on the exposed portion and leaving the inside wing portion relatively unscathed.
I’ll attach that image again for reference.
http://www.francebleu.fr/sites/default/files/article/maxnewsworldthree805990.jpg
Cheers
Will
MuOne – OZ did remark the other day that the engine(777) is designed to “project” over the wing in the event of a crash.
Bruce Lamon – Speaking of Madonna, if her nightie washed up on Reunion at the moment the Malaysian govt would probably call it MH370 debris. They just want to close the book and if they were to actually get the flaperon you could forget due diligence. That govt is an embarrassment to it’s people.
Victor – So the last bit of MH370 that was repaired is the only bit to show up? The mind boggles….
@ Matt Moriarty
What a comically accurate depiction. Like the idea of rallying the troops toward a unified demand as long as they don’t go to Donald Trump. I am still stuck on motive so my questions are not yet calibrated. Currently I am looking for confirmation of a Fortune magazine article regarding the insurance payment in excess of $200M that MAH received for MH 360 last year
Have to agree with ya Matty,
I flip-flop washing ashore right now would cause a Red Alarm at this point. While the Maylays are hoping & praying that it be accepted as a 7-8 hour “Accident”. Exit stage right…. Sadly enough, some Chinese NOK will not be satisfied until a/c is raised & a passenger manifest is matched with DNA. IT’S that unbelievable to them, and should be. A 777 disappears while on routine flight. SOME of us accept the obvious but, “The Mystery” still hounds some. From Hypoxia, Hijacking gone wrong, to 007 BS, or all above…. He did it, accept it & lets find her.
Susie,
Regarding insurance: Malaysia Airlines may not have received anything from insurance, it didn’t own 9M-MRO.
In the 2013 refinancing operation of the airline the aircraft ownership went to a specific aircraft leasing subsidiary (AMB or PMB?) of Khazanah, a government sovereign wealth fund/investment vehicle. The asset may even have been sold on, IIRC the two MH B777s disposed of prior to Mar 2014 involved lessors based in the Gulf states or Saudi.
There was an insurance payment made, it comprised 50:50 from two risk coverers, one to repay the other when a final cause is determined.
HTH, mostly from memory, my relevant notes are somewhere!
:Don
Arthur,
Yes, the flaperon is an aileron & its ‘neutral/zero’ defection is variable depending extent to which the fowler flaps are deployed. No ‘fowler’ like action.
As to why detached? I’ve set my stall out on that.
:Don
@Matty-Perth,
Yes, I do recall posts regarding engines designed to go over rather than under wings. Kudos to those who brought it up here. Also to whoever posted regarding the video about the Ethiopian (?) flight, showing the engine rolling over the wings, rather than going under.
My inspiration for the post were those accounts, which didn’t seem to get the traction I thought they deserved.
While having a lot of respect for the IG and ALSM, I do have issues with Mike’s recent paper about the implications of the Reunion debris.
Mike had three reasons for preferring the flutter scenario over the controlled ditching:
1. rugged trailing edge
2. engines shearing off during ditch and damaging leading edge of flaperon
3. Video of flutter
1. In my view, the picture, I linked to, is negating the rugged edge assertion. It shows a clean linear break of the flaperon as viewed from the underside. I believe the images of the flaperon on the beach exaggerate the ruggedness due to perspective. It is not rugged, but rather linear.
2. there are now several accounts which state that engines depart “over the wing” not “under the wing”. This anulls the “engines shear off, damage leading edge of flaperon” argument.
3. The video of flutter, provided by ALSM, shows many examples of catastophic failures of wings as a whole and mainly in an axial (front to back) direction, but not in a lateral direction (as per Reunion flaperon). The one full separation of flaperon from wing in the video left the flaperon intact, while the wing disintegrated.
Sofar, I am not convinced by the flutter argument. A lateral break due to exceeding breaking moment by a broad based drag induced force along the trailing edge still appears more likely to me.
Cheers
Will
@MuOne,
I agree. The fractures of the flaperon do not indicate flutter or contact with the engine.
@Matty – Perth: As Richard Cole noted on Twitter, the seal to the left flaperon was replaced in 2013 and the right flaperon was found on La Reunion. I wonder how much disassembly, if any, is required to replace a seal on a flaperon, and I wonder how often a seal needs to be replaced.
Despite some statements from others that might indicate otherwise, I don’t have an opinion about how the flaperon failed. Whether the condition of the flaperon indicates failure from aeroelastic flutter, contact with water during a ditch, or some other failure mode, will provide an important clue about pilot actions, mode of flight, and ultimately the location of the wreckage. Boeing and the crash investigation team are infinitely more qualified than me to make this determination. I await that determination.
@VictorI
Quote from March 1, 2015 “Statement of the Independent Group” (linked below):
begin quote//
The IG operates by consensus. Any opinion that is expressed by an individual member of the group should not be attributed to the IG as a whole.
end quote//
http://www.duncansteel.com/archives/1222
@VictorI
I neglected to add that reviewing a member’s analytics for accuracy does not constitute an endorsement. I never really believed you were endorsing the flutter theory. It may turn out to be correct, but you are right – let the experts do it.
@DennisW
I meant the pilot divert/hijack not someone else, I didn’t express myself clearly in that post.
If the flight origined in Africa then we could make a parallel with ethiopian flight and assume there could be some other hijackers that forced the Captain to go to CI. But from Malaysia it’s very unlikely unless it was the Captain himself.
@ everyone
Here it goes guys…forgive the intrusion of flaperon discussion but given the superior intellect and knowledge here, I propose a question, as stated earlier I am stuck on motive so I ask; What do 3 airline disasters (MH370, MH17, Air Asia QZ-8501) within a 10-month period claiming 682 lives all have in common?
@ everyone
No mystery to the answer of course I just feel it’s equally as important for the families to know WHY this plane went down as well as HOW. The world’s largest company….really????
@Susie Crowe
The motive is simple: to create a distraction for the world from Russia taking over Crimea. The downing of the MH17 served for a similar reason.