Clash of Expert Opinion
"To give up on that much debris so quickly -- they were talking about pieces 23 metres long -- I don't know how you don't follow up on it and have a look. Up until a few days it was the key -- now we just pick up and more 700 miles away ... I wonder if there is a bit of additional information that excludes that debris."
John Gallo, experienced search expert
"We have moved on from those search areas to the newest credible lead."
"The analysis is in fact the same form as we started with. I don't count the original work a waste of time."
John Young, Australian Maritime Safety Authority
The Boeing 777 was just leaving Malaysia-controlled air space when the final words were heard. Photograph: Greg Wood/Pool/EPA
What seems to be wasting time in a directionless, frantic effort to discover wreckage somewhere in the vast ocean off Perth, Australia where the Indian Ocean in the massive area being searched has not yet given up any of its floating jetsam to connect to the Boeing 777 with its 239 souls aboard, is, in reality, a methodical sweep of a massive area where the plane is believed to have surrendered itself as a gift from the sky to the sea.
That most likely prospect, sealing the fate of all aboard does not sit well with grieving families, much preferring, understandably, while the mystery continues and even deepens, to believe that something unexpected, something not yet discerned has temporarily waylaid their family members. David Gallo whose experience helped in the two-year search for the flight recorders when an Air France plane crashed in the Atlantic in 2009, has joined the bereaved families in their confusion.
The decision to abandon the areas where the debris flow spotted by satellites might lead to solid information puzzles him. Analysts, he feels, may be in possession of more information than they have been authorized to release. Precisely the impression of the families waiting to hear word that their family members' whereabouts have finally been traced.
But ostensibly the diagnosis of 'new information' has led to the belief that the Boeing 777 was not flying at the imagined speed that would take them to the dauntingly large area the fruitless search has scoured for the past week or so. The plane, it is now felt, was travelling at a speed higher than imagined and in so doing would have gone through more fuel than thought. Which could lead one to the avenue of thought that travelling at a higher speed would move it further as well, until the fuel gave out; so it's a toss-up, isn't it?
Still the search effort that had its place in the Strait of Malacca, then moved south to the remote southern Indian Ocean, now has shifted again, north to calmer waters, about 2,000 kilometres west of Perth. Winter is approaching in that hemisphere, bringing more storms and more search-inclement conditions. Although Malaysia formally announced almost a week ago that the plane had crashed, and there could be no survivors, no sign of wreckage has been confirmed.
Re-imagined data from satellite sources have re-directed the search. Three Australian P3 Orions, a Japanese P3, a Chinese Il-76, a Korean Orion, a U.S. Poseidon, and two Malaysian C-130s are feverishly searching for detritus, along with eight ships. Australian Navy Commodore Peter Leavy in an update, stated no debris that could be linked with the flight has been found. Before, the search was in a desolate, isolated area of the ocean. Now, the search zone is in shipping lanes, frequently visited.
Satellite imagery up to now has guided the search with various countries taking part, all attempting to discover where the plane went down. That proverbial needle in the haystack has been transliterated to a blackbox/flight recorder in the vastness of the very deep, blue sea reluctant to surrender its drowned treasures.
posted by Pieface @ Monday, March 31, 2014
<< Home