Tuesday, August 4, 2015

Day 511 — Hydrodynamic simulation model

As the world waits for the French to declare the origins of a Boeing 777 flaperon, a group of Dutch hydrodynamic experts has released modelling they believe shows the MH370 search is occurring in the wrong place.

The engineers from independent research institute Deltares, produced the simulation model based on the belief the wing flap is from the missing aircraft.

Using their knowledge of surface currents, Marten van Ormondt and Fedor Baart found that particles released in the northern part of the search off central Western Australia reached the coast of Reunion Island within a year of release.

“Those released at the southern section do not travel as far and do not make it to Africa within the simulation period,” the researchers said.

Saturday, August 1, 2015

Day 511 — Debris 'definitely' from lost flight

Confirmation that plane debris washed up on a remote Indian Ocean island is from missing Malaysian airlines MH370 appears imminent.

A team from aircraft maker Boeing has been dispatched to France to confirm that barnacle-encrusted debris is from the plane that disappeared in March last year with 239 people on board.

Sources close to Boeing have been quoted in the United States as saying the company believes the two-metre long wing part known as a flaperon is from MH370, but company experts would confirm it when they arrived at the offices of France's crash investigation agency laboratory in Toulouse over the weekend.

New debris washed ashore on the island of Reunion have revived hopes of unlocking one of aviation's biggest mysteries. Details are seen for a liquid soap container label, marked Jakarta - Indonesia, that was part of newly-discovered debris washed onto the beach at Saint-Andre, some 4,000km from the area where MH370 is thought to have gone down.