777 Down?

[J]

Debris Found on Island in Indian Ocean. Perhaps Verbal can comment on the photograph:


Twitter was aflutter Wednesday, after photos surfaced of what appeared to be a plane flap or wing that had washed up on a remote Indian Ocean island, fueling speculation that it could be from Malaysian Air Flight MH370, which vanished in March 2014.

The debris shown in one photo, “if it is from a jetliner,” looks like a flap and not a wing, according to Jon Ostrower, the aerospace and Boeing beat reporter for The Wall Street Journal. Ostrower noted that a jet like MH370, a Boeing 777, “has a single-piece outboard and a two-piece inboard flap system.”

The extensive barnacles collected on the plane debris may indicate that it had been in the ocean for a significant period of time, according to India Today.

The discovery was made by employees of a company responsible for cleaning the shoreline of the island, India Today reported. Reunion Island, near Madagascar, is thousands of miles west of the MH370 search area, which covers some 75,000 square miles.


MH370 was flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing March 8 when it disappeared somewhere over the South China Sea less than an hour after takeoff with all of its 12 Malaysian crew members and 227 passengers. Investigators later discovered the plane flew south toward the southern Indian Ocean.

A massive search effort that to date has cost more than $100 million has so far proved fruitless. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau is leading the effort.

This map shows the intended route of MH370 and the area that plane debris was found in on Wednesday. MH370 was less than an hour into its flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing when it disappeared from radar. Investigators believe it veered off course and went missing somewhere in the southern Indian Ocean.

“Our work will continue to be thorough and methodical, so sometimes weekly progress may seem slow,” the ATSB posted to its MH370 search website early Wednesday, an update seemingly unrelated to the Reunion find. “Please be assured that work is continuing and is aimed at finding MH370 as quickly as possible.”

While the cause of MH370’s disappearance has never been diagnosed, and foul play has not been proved, some suspicion has fallen on the 53-year-old pilot of the plane. After MH370 turned off its transponder, investigators found that the plane appeared to execute evasive maneuvers that would suggest a skilled pilot was in control. Capt. Zaharie Ahmad Shah, who had extensive experience in the cockpit, also had a flight simulator in his home. Additionally, Shah was reported to be having relationship issues.

Reunion, a volcanic French island with a population of nearly 850,000, is about 39 miles long and 28 miles wide. It is located about 500 miles east of Madagascar.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/07/29/de ... questions/

[Verbal]

It is certainly a flap, though just by looking at the photos I can't tell what airplane type it may have come from. If it is a 777 part, it would be a left hand outboard aft flap.

I expect someone will be able to confirm the airplane type pretty quickly. Stay tuned to these internets.

[Verbal]

It's a little hard to see in the photos, but it looks like the lower surface has an ever-so-slight concave shape to it (not perfectly flat). This concave shape is indeed common to the 777 flap design.

[monchavo]

It is certainly a flap, though just by looking at the photos I can't tell what airplane type it may have come from. If it is a 777 part, it would be a left hand outboard aft flap.

I expect someone will be able to confirm the airplane type pretty quickly. Stay tuned to these internets.

Given my scant knowledge of these matters, the part does appear large enough to contain at least one element which may have a serial number or some other kind of explicit markage which would tie it at least to a manufacturer - if not the explicit airframe. I imagine that Airbus (at Filton where they make wings?) keep some form of database allowing such explicit linking of airframes with serial numbers, one would assume Boeing do the same. Speculation elsewhere that the part is from the Yemenia 2009 bird that went down by Cormoros.

[monchavo]

It's a little hard to see in the photos, but it looks like the lower surface has an ever-so-slight concave shape to it (not perfectly flat). This concave shape is indeed common to the 777 flap design.

I am sure we are all wondering if the A310 flap shares the same characteristic!

[Verbal]

There will be parts marking all over it. They may have to open it up to find a legible one. But they won't need to, because there are people at Boeing (or Airbus as the case may be) could identify it by sight.

I don't know if flaps are serialized, so unknown if it could be tied to a specific airplane.

[Verbal]

Looks more like a 777 flaperon than an aft flap actually.

[J]

More Photos

http://metro.co.uk/2015/07/29/piece-of- ... 0-5318318/

[monchavo]

News sources are reporting that Malaysian Airlines are sending "representatives".

[monchavo]

http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking ... h370-wing/

[3WE]

Looks more like a 777 flaperon than an aft flap actually.

Please, no more hybrid name discussions, let's use "control surface" or "airfoil".

...and ban all V-tail Bonanzas and their ruddervators or elevudders or whatever the hell they are.

I'm also surprised that this is the first discovery and not some plastic drink cup or some document in a plastic bag...

Also intriguing- does it have too much gunk growing on it or about the right amount?

[Verbal]

Yes.

[J]

The airplane fragment found on the Indian Ocean island of Reunion is from a Boeing 777 — the same as missing Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 — sources told NBC News on Thursday.
The barnacle-covered plane piece was found by a crew cleaning the coastline Wednesday. On it was a number — 657-BB — which sources said is attached to a Boeing 777.

The debris found Wednesday is a flaperon from the wing's trailing edge, sources confirmed. That's a mashed-up word describing a combination of a flap — which helps determine a plane's altitude, or vertical direction — and an aileron, which controls how it "rolls" into a new direction horizontally.


http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/missin ... 77-n401281

[monchavo]

and now to reverse engineer the maritime drift..... paging Ancient Mariner!

[3WE]

and now to reverse engineer the maritime drift..... paging Ancient Mariner!

Through all the terminology and wild speculation over in flight breakup vs ocean breakup, I haven't seen comments that the location here is a small, medium or big surprise.

[monchavo]

and now to reverse engineer the maritime drift..... paging Ancient Mariner!

Through all the terminology and wild speculation over in flight breakup vs ocean breakup, I haven't seen comments that the location here is a small, medium or big surprise.

Grossly oversimplified interpretation of the ocean current charts indicates that this is the kind of place you might expect something to wash up, no? That is, if you agree with the original hypothesis of where the bird went down.

[Ancient Mariner]

and now to reverse engineer the maritime drift..... paging Ancient Mariner!

I'm a Marine Chief Engineer, we make sure stuff that floats moves in the direction requested.
Drifting around the world oceans willy-nilly is left to amateur sailors and unlucky aviators.
Per

[3WE]

and now to reverse engineer the maritime drift..... paging Ancient Mariner!

I'm a Marine Chief Engineer, we make sure stuff that floats moves in the direction requested.
Drifting around the world oceans willy-nilly is left to amateur sailors and unlucky aviators.
Per

Maybe it's of no practical significance, but your genius watermanship (shipmanship?, sailorship?, steermanship?) involves adjusting to these currents...

[Ancient Mariner]

and now to reverse engineer the maritime drift..... paging Ancient Mariner!

I'm a Marine Chief Engineer, we make sure stuff that floats moves in the direction requested.
Drifting around the world oceans willy-nilly is left to amateur sailors and unlucky aviators.
Per

Maybe it's of no practical significance, but your genius watermanship (shipmanship?, sailorship?, steermanship?) involves adjusting to these currents...

I supply the power, others do the pointing. It will be their responsibility adjusting to whatever external forces trying to influence the vessels ability to sail from point A to point B in the shortest possible period of time.
If they are unable we do have traditions. Shape up or face the consequences, there's always a plank to walk.
Us Engineers are omnipotent and talented, we can always find land without stinking deck monkeys, they would not survive one week without us.
Per

[reubee]

Another interesting story of something floating from Australia westwards to that area http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/western ... 6795703739

Must admit I thought bits of MH370 would eventually wash up here in NZ or further on in Chile if it had gone down far enough south.

[J]

Malaysian premier: Wreckage found on Reunion Island came from Flight MH370

The news was broken by Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, who said that his thoughts were with the families of the 239 people aboard the flight and that he hoped the confirmation would “lift the fog of uncertainty” for grieving relatives.

“A team of international experts has confirmed that the debris found in Reunion was that of flight MH-370,” Razak told journalists.

Around 2 p.m. French time (5 a.m. PDT), investigators and other officials began arriving at a defense laboratory near the southern French city of Toulouse, where the flaperon was taken last Saturday after being flown from Reunion.

The first group of a dozen people was made up of Malaysian officials and members of France's air accident bureau, the Bureau d'enquêtes et d'analyses. One BEA employee was carrying a large case.

The examination of the flaperon was taking place in the presence of representatives of Malaysian Airlines, Chinese legal officials and representatives from Boeing, as well as French gendarmes and magistrates leading the investigation.

France is heading the inquiry because the debris was found on the French island of Reunion and because four of the 239 people aboard Flight MH370 were French.

A piece of suitcase found on the same beach as the wing debris is being analyzed at a laboratory near Paris.
http://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la- ... story.html

[Not_Karl]

I was reading an important local newspaper when the following headline caught my eye:

Una falla eléctrica convirtió al vuelo MH370 en un "zombi" sin rumbo

("An electrical fault turned flight MH370 into an aimless 'zombie'")

I googled the quoted note on RT ( ) -which in turn quotes the "Daily Beast"- and it says it is a theory, not "a conclusion" as the Argentine newspaper said... So nothing new (I think the possibility of an electrical failure has already been discussed there and in the media).

Power surge turned missing flight MH370 into 'zombie', report indicates
Published time: 10 Dec, 2015 10:47
Edited time: 10 Dec, 2015 14:27

The mysterious disappearance of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 in 2014 may have been caused by a power surge that rendered the plane uncontrollable, a fresh Australian technical report indicates.

(...)The report by the Australian Transport Bureau released last week has evidence backing the theory, the Daily Beast reported.

“It’s the first official acknowledgement of what had previously been only speculation, that there was a sudden loss of electrical power capable of disabling vital systems,” the news website said.

The catastrophic loss of power may have happened anytime in a 56-minute window between the final scheduled transmission from the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) and an unsuccessful attempt by the airline’s dispatchers to contact the crew, according to the Australian report. ACARS monitors the critical systems of aircraft and automatically transmits the data at half-hourly intervals.

After the power failure, at least one system managed to reboot and continue functioning, the ATB report said. Twenty-one minutes after the failed attempt to communicate with MH370 the Satellite Data Unit (SDU) system performed a scheduled ‘handshake’ with a satellite operated by Inmarsat. Such handshakes, or pings, are made every hour and MH370 transmitted seven of them during its flight. The pings allowed rescuers to narrow down the search area in the Indian Ocean from vast to merely big.

The ATB considered four possible scenarios leading to a catastrophic power loss, two of them involving human tampering with neither implying the MH370 crew went rogue, another popular theory on the plane’s disappearance.

The Daily Beast says the report’s findings back a scenario in which a consignment of lithium-ion batteries started a fire in the front cargo hold of the Boeing 777, which breached a wall and damaged the plane’s Main Equipment Center. The SDU, which continued to function right until the flight’s crash, is located in the roof of the cabin rather than in the Main Equipment Center, which may explain why it managed to reboot.

(...)

Linky.


(No, I didn't check AVHerald nor googled The Daily Beast to see if it is a serious newspaper.)

[J]

More Debris

An American man’s quest for MH370 wreckage uncovers small piece of debris on Mozambique beach

MAPUTO, Mozambique — An American who discovered an aircraft part in Mozambique that may be from missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 said Thursday that he initially thought it was from a much smaller plane.

Blaine Gibson, who has been searching the region’s beaches for the debris, said in an interview with The Associated Press that a boat operator who took him to a sandbank named Paluma called him over after seeing a piece of debris with “NO STEP” written on it.

“It was so light,” Gibson said.

He said the discovery happened after he decided to go “somewhere exposed to the ocean” on the last day of a trip to the Mozambican coastal town of Vilankulo.
“At first, all I found were usual beach detritus — flip flops, cigarette lighters. Then ’Junior’ called me over,” said Gibson, using the nickname of the boat operator.

The location of the debris turned up in a spot that matches investigators’ theories about where wreckage from the plane would have ended up, according to Australian officials.

The plane is believed to have crashed somewhere in a remote stretch of the southern Indian Ocean far off Australia’s west coast and about 6,000 kilometres (3,700 miles) to the east of Mozambique. But authorities have long predicted that any debris from the plane that isn’t on the ocean floor would eventually be carried by currents to the east coast of Africa.

Gibson, from Seattle, said the piece of debris that he discovered is in the hands of civil aviation authorities in Mozambique, and that he expects it to be transferred to their Australian counterparts.

“It’s important to keep it in perspective,” Gibson said. “This is about the families of the 239 victims, who haven’t seen their relatives for two years now.”

Photos of the debris appear to show the fixed leading edge of the right-hand tail section of a Boeing 777, said a U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak publicly. Flight 370 is the only known missing 777.

Australian Transport Minister Darren Chester said Thursday the location of the debris in Mozambique matches investigators’ drift modeling and would therefore confirm that search crews are looking in the right part of the Indian Ocean for the main underwater wreckage. Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai also said the location of the debris lines up with investigators’ predictions.

People who have handled the part, called a horizontal stabilizer, say it appears to be made of fiberglass composite on the outside, with aluminum honeycombing on the inside, the U.S. official said.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau, which is running the search for the plane in remote waters off Australia’s west coast, said the part is expected to be transported to Australia for examination.

Malaysian representatives from the nation’s Civil Aviation department and Malaysia Airlines were heading to Mozambique to discuss the find, Liow said.

From the pictures shown, it’s high probability that the plane debris is from Boeing 777, Liow told reporters. He did not know how long it would be before the part was sent to Australia. Meanwhile, authorities in Mozambique were searching the area where it was found for other potential debris, Liow said.

Australian officials have seen photographs of the part and have been in communication with Gibson, said Dan O’Malley, a spokesman for the Australian Transport Safety Bureau.

“We’re aware of these reports that debris has been found in Mozambique,” O’Malley said. “We’re working with officials in Mozambique and Malaysia to investigate.”

Australia will work with Malaysian investigators to examine the object once it arrives in Australia, he said. The ATSB hasn’t made any determinations yet about the potential origins of the debris.

“We have to wait until we have the actual debris examined,” O’Malley said. “We’re not going to draw conclusions from the photos.”

Some have expressed skepticism that the part could be from the missing aircraft because it appears to be remarkably clean and free of sea life — unlike the barnacle-encrusted wing part that washed ashore on the French island of Reunion last year. That part, known as a flaperon, remains the only confirmed trace of Flight 370.

But Charitha Pattiaratchi, an oceanographer with the University of Western Australia, said if the part was discovered on a sandbank, the motion of the waves pushing it against the abrasive sand may have shaved any sea life off it.

“If somebody actually found it in the middle of the ocean while they were sailing and picked it up, I would say, ’Well, that should have some barnacles,”’ he said. “But if it’s been on a beach, it’s basically been sandblasted.”

Also, the part appears to be very flat and barnacles need something to grip, he said.

Last year, Pattiaratchi met with Gibson. Pattiaratchi has used computer modeling to predict where floating debris might end up and Gibson wanted to get Pattiaratchi’s opinion on where to look. Pattiaratchi’s models showed it would likely end up around Madagascar or Reunion Island, and possibly in the Mozambique Channel.

Flight 370 disappeared on March 8, 2014, while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Authorities who scrutinized data exchanged between the plane’s engine and a satellite determined that after veering sharply off course, the jetliner continued on a straight path across the Indian Ocean, leading them to believe that it flew on autopilot for hours before running out of fuel and crashing into the water.

http://news.nationalpost.com/news/world ... ique-beach

[Ancient Mariner]

Never mind.
Per

[J]

The part in the photograph looks like a cheap composite plastic.