Mystery Flight MH370 missing

[Geelong_Sicko]

Which source is that? The official French report states the Malaysians matched the part by the maintenance seal which was still intact. Also the paint matches what was used on the original aircraft. Furthermore Boeing changed suppliers for the flaperon assembly to a company in Indian with the previous manufacturer coming from Spain. This also matches up with the flaperon being pre 2009.

The French won't 100% conclusively identify the part which is often misreported (usually on conspiracy theory websites ) as them saying it is not from the plane which is not the case. They are simply saying there is no 100% foolproof way of linking it to the accident aircraft but in all likelihood is the actual aircraft.

Here's the New York Times source;

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/06/world/asia/mh370-wing-reunion.html

...A person involved in the investigation said, however, that experts from Boeing and the National Transportation Safety Board who had seen the object, a piece of what is known as a flaperon, were not yet fully satisfied, and called for further analysis.

Their doubts were based on a modification to the flaperon part that did not appear to exactly match what they would expect from airline maintenance records, according to the person, who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

French and Malaysian officials did not share the American hesitation, not least because no other Boeing 777 is unaccounted for....

About the missing ID plate

http://www.airlineratings.com/news/534/missing-id-plate-delays-confirmation-of-mh370

A critical identification plate on the Boeing 777 flaperon washed up on the Reunion Island that would tie it to MH370 is missing because of the effect of sea water on the adhesive that bonds it to the structure.

According to a former crash investigator the metal ID plate has almost certainly come away because of the “exposure to sea water.”

So what should have been a simple ID exercise now becomes a time consuming forensic investigation.

A Boeing part number (657BB) painted on to the flaperon confirms the object is from a Boeing 777, the Malaysian Deputy Transport Minister said yesterday.

“From the part number, it is confirmed that it is from a Boeing 777 aircraft. This information is from MAS (Malaysia Airlines). They have informed me,” Deputy Transport Minister Abdul Aziz Kaprawi said Friday. The flaperon has been sent to Toulouse in France to government laboratories, where the police, crash investigators and Boeing representatives expect to verify if it came from MH370.

Under French law air crashes are treated as criminal investigations and thus led by the police.

Malaysia Airlines MH370 disappeared on March 8 last year with 239 passengers and crew aboard on a flight from KL to Beijing.

Investigators will likely have to disassemble the flaperon to find other ID numbers that will link it to MH370...

Based on this second article, as soon as they take the flaperon apart they should know for sure, as the interior parts ought not to have been exposed to the elements like the missing ID plate was.

 

[Geelong_Sicko]

And I've just read the article. No sources linked or named. Just stuff made up. Terrible click bait article. Also the stuff about how things can't float underwater is absolute rubbish. Any object with a trapped air pocket will be able to float underwater & drift with currents.

Agreed. And barnacles can grow on debris in shallow waters - the flaperon could have attracted shellfish sitting just off Reunion Island like it was. No doubt a marine biologist would be able to tell if the barnacles came from deeper waters or a shallow part of the ocean as well.

 

[Zidane98]

Here's the New York Times source;



About the missing ID plate



Based on this second article, as soon as they take the flaperon apart they should know for sure, as the interior parts ought not to have been exposed to the elements like the missing ID plate was.

The interior parts only have a Boeing part no stamped on them. This is the same for all 777 aircraft built prior to 2009.

 

[Zidane98]

Agreed. And barnacles can grow on debris in shallow waters - the flaperon could have attracted shellfish sitting just off Reunion Island like it was. No doubt a marine biologist would be able to tell if the barnacles came from deeper waters or a shallow part of the ocean as well.

Thee was a report on the barnacles. Unfortunately my 8 year old Imac has finally died making it cumbersome to google it on my tablet but I do remember the report saying the crustaceans were long dead before the part washed ashore and were endemic to the southern indian ocean.

 

[Geelong_Sicko]

The interior parts only have a Boeing part no stamped on them. This is the same for all 777 aircraft built prior to 2009.

Would they have records of which parts went to a particular airframe and ID the airline company that way? For example, part 99 went to airframe 33E, which was bought by Malaysian Airlines.

 

[Zidane98]

Would they have records of which parts went to a particular airframe and ID the airline company that way? For example, part 99 went to airframe 33E, which was bought by Malaysian Airlines.

Boeing has a database of 777 parts by MSN (Manufacturers Serial No). Each unique Boeing 777 flaperon has a Boeing part no (the same on all 777's) & a ID plate (broken off on this part).

All things considered nobody cannot say the part is 100% from MH 370 because of the missing serial id but be almost certain it is.

 

[andana]

You can really see why family and friends are getting angry.

 

[MacMum]

Have just read a report on HUN website that the full report by the French authorities won't resume until next week.....the whole country goes on their annual holidays in August.......I kid you not!!

...so even given the importance of this discovery, it seems nothing must interfere with their holidays. The investigators included.

What a bloody farce.

 

[Geelong_Sicko]

The flaperon has now finally been CONFIRMED as coming from MH-370.

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/mi...-first-debris-missing-malaysia-flight-n421061

PARIS, France — The Boeing 777 wing part found on the remote Indian Ocean island of La Reunion is from missing flight MH370, French authorities said Thursday after almost one month of forensic analysis.

Investigators were finally able to match a serial number on the flaperon, which washed shore on the French island on July 29, to parts used in the manufacture of the doomed Malaysia Airlines plane.

The match was made following confirmation with a technician from Airbus Defense and Space (ADS-SAU) in Spain, which had made the part for Boeing,

"It is now possible to state with certainty that the flaperon found on July 29, 2015 corresponds to the flight MH370," French investigators said in a statement.

The fragment — a 6-foot-long, barnacle-encrusted wing flaperon — was discovered by a crew cleaning the beach.

It is the first confirmed piece of wreckage from the flight, which disappeared on March 8, 2014 with 239 people on board.

Malaysian authorities said straight away that the flaperon was linked to MH370 but French experts said they wanted to eliminate any doubt using forensic analysis...

 

[Zidane98]

Was never in doubt.

 

[Geelong_Sicko]

Was never in doubt.

I think the French just wanted to follow through with their 'due diligence', even if just to kill that part of the speculation surrounding the whole thing. After all, there's a grand total of ONE Boeing 777 as yet unaccounted for. I'm glad it's settled, and I hope they can find more of the aircraft in the future.

 

[Zidane98]

I think the French just wanted to follow through with their 'due diligence', even if just to kill that part of the speculation surrounding the whole thing. After all, there's a grand total of ONE Boeing 777 as yet unaccounted for. I'm glad it's settled, and I hope they can find more of the aircraft in the future.

There will be a detailed report released about how the flaperon likely separated from the aircraft and the forces involved in doing so. I imagine it will be determined whether the aircraft crashed under control or whether it crashed at high speeds with little to no control.

 

[SJ]

I think the French just wanted to follow through with their 'due diligence', even if just to kill that part of the speculation surrounding the whole thing. After all, there's a grand total of ONE Boeing 777 as yet unaccounted for. I'm glad it's settled, and I hope they can find more of the aircraft in the future.

I just happened to be listening to ABC radio late last night and they were discussing the airline industry.

At one point they got onto the prospects of Malaysian Airlines and then onto MH370. The airline industry expert said there had been a delay on the confirmation of the flaperon as the French wanted to conduct their own investigation on the disaster (as there were four French nationals on board) but the Malaysian government didn't give them their information. So then the French refused to cooperate by conducting the investigation to confirm the part.

 

[Geelong_Sicko]

I just happened to be listening to ABC radio late last night and they were discussing the airline industry.

At one point they got onto the prospects of Malaysian Airlines and then onto MH370. The airline industry expert said there had been a delay on the confirmation of the flaperon as the French wanted to conduct their own investigation on the disaster (as there were four French nationals on board) but the Malaysian government didn't give them their information. So then the French refused to cooperate by conducting the investigation to confirm the part.

Wow. What's Malaysia playing at?

 

[Zidane98]

The French are not conducting their own investigating into the disaster. The delay was because of French national holidays. ICAO rules clearly state that the responsibility of investigating an accident that occurs in international waters falls to the country where the aircraft is registered.

Most countries that lost nationals including Australia have sent liasons to the official Malaysian investigation.

 

[Geelong_Sicko]

This Wall Street Journal article maintains that the French did in fact launch their own seperate investigation, due to the four French nationals on board;

http://www.wsj.com/articles/french-to-lead-initial-probe-of-plane-debris-1438625819

The hunt for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 reflects the inherent complexities of a global air-accident investigation, compounded by a French criminal probe operating entirely independently of the international effort.

Long-established protocols have guided the 17-month international effort, led by Malaysian aviation authorities, but there aren’t any comparable, widely accepted rules for coordinating such work with law-enforcement agencies from various countries.

Meeting behind closed doors Monday at a courthouse in central Paris, an antiterrorism judge laid out how France will take the lead in investigating a plane part suspected of being linked to the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 that disappeared more than a year ago, a judicial official said.

But safety experts watching the process from the outside worry the French moves—including the appointment of still another independent expert—could further complicate the search. These experts said the result could muddle jurisdictional lines, and in a worst-case scenario, potentially create friction with the larger investigation.

Efforts to ascertain what happened to Flight 370 have already been hobbled at times by the multinational nature of the probe, which slowed the process and sometimes sent conflicting public messages.

From the beginning, Malaysian officials were suspicious of their U.S. counterparts from the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board), and gravitated toward seeking help from Australia and the U.K., according to people involved in the process.

Leaders of the countries participating in the international effort pledged to work more effectively together after a series of high-profile snafus. Those included failing to brief families of the victims before publicly announcing that the plane was believed to have crashed; designating early search areas that turned out to be far from the area now believed to contain the crash site; and erroneously linking floating debris to the missing plane.

France had already opened a separate criminal probe after the flight disappeared on its way to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur last year, because four French citizens were among the 239 people on board. That probe largely stayed out of the limelight until recently, when the debris found last week on Réunion Island, a French territory off the coast of Madagascar, prompted Monday’s meeting.

“The French tend to be pretty aggressive” when it comes to asserting the authority of prosecutors, said Robert Francis, a former vice chairman of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board who has years of experience working with the French government.

Because investigators suspect the plane went down as a result of an intentional act, Flight 370 has been “far removed from an average aircraft accident,” Mr. Francis said in an interview. Therefore, he said, French law-enforcement officials “shouldn’t have a great deal of difficulty defending what they have done.”

But the involvement of French judges has left other aviation experts scratching their heads, with some questioning the prosecutors’ motives.

Under the rules of the International Civil Aviation Organization—the arm of the United Nations that governs traditional airline-accident probes—the normal procedure after finding the part would have been to assemble representatives of the plane’s manufacturer and Malaysian investigators to determine next steps, according to a veteran safety expert familiar with the rules. But instead, “the French are jumping into the middle of this suddenly, with both feet...”

This, from Forbes, seems to particularly damn the French;

http://www.forbes.com/sites/johngog...are-the-french-following-international-rules/

...The treaty, known as the Convention on International Civil Aviation signed in Chicago in 1944, establishes international rules for, among other things, the conduct of accident investigations. The accident investigation rules are contained in what is called Annex 13, which is intended to establish an orderly system for investigating airline accidents worldwide when one or more countries is involved, either because of the location of the accident, the country of registry of the aircraft, the country of the manufacturer or designer or even the country of the majority of passengers.

Annex 13 specifies the country responsible for the accident investigation. While it is normally the country where the accident occurs, in this accident because the location of the accident is not known, Annex 13 provides that the country of aircraft registry is responsible. In this case, it is Malaysia. Under Annex 13, Malaysia may delegate in whole or in any part the investigation to another country. Malaysia, for example, has delegated to Australia search functions in the Indian Ocean while maintaining overall control of the accident investigation. I have not seen any indications that Malaysia has delegated any part of the investigation to the French.

In fact, at yesterday’s press conference announcing results of its preliminary identification of the flaperon, the French deputy prosecutor did not claim that the French had been delegated any investigatory role by Malaysia, instead stating that France’s role resulted from a Ministry of Justice investigation into possible acts of terrorism involved in the downing of MH370 and the death of four French citizens on board.

According to ICAO, the accident investigation authority – in this case Malaysia – “shall have independence in the conduct of the investigation and have unrestricted authority over its conduct.” This includes, “the gathering, recording and analysis of all available information on that accident.” It is hard for me to understand why the French would not have given the wing part over to the Malaysians for investigation consistent with treaty obligations. Those obligations also give the US – through the NTSB – the right to participate as the country of design and manufacture of the Boeing 777.

France, as the country of four citizens on board and where wreckage was discovered, could have requested to participate in the investigation. But it seems to me that taking over the analysis of the part appears to be contrary to international agreement on the conduct of airline accident investigations and has led to an unseemly public disagreement that can only further anguish the families of the victims...

 

[Zidane98]

The French started up an investigation about the flaperon because it washed ashore on French Territory. Nothing unusual about that because it would be their legal responsibility to do so. They certainly were not conducting their own investigation prior to the flaperon discovery.

 

[Geelong_Sicko]

The French started up an investigation about the flaperon because it washed ashore on French Territory. Nothing unusual about that because it would be their legal responsibility to do so. They certainly were not conducting their own investigation prior to the flaperon discovery.

They had an ongoing independent criminal probe into the disappearance. From the WSJ article I quoted earlier;

...France had already opened a separate criminal probe after the flight disappeared on its way to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur last year, because four French citizens were among the 239 people on board. That probe largely stayed out of the limelight until recently, when the debris found last week on Réunion Island, a French territory off the coast of Madagascar, prompted Monday’s meeting....

 

[Zidane98]

They had an ongoing independent criminal probe into the disappearance. From the WSJ article I quoted earlier;

That isn't a crash investigation though. Whenever a french national dies they automatically conduct a criminal investigation even if it was an accident.

AF 447 for example had a crash investigation run by the BEA and a separate criminal investigation despite being an accident. It's just how French law operates and not specific to MH 370.

 

[Geelong_Sicko]

Fair enough

 

[Pugz89]

No further developments still. Safe to say that if we haven't found anything else by now, doubt we ever will.

 

[Zidane98]

No further developments still. Safe to say that if we haven't found anything else by now, doubt we ever will.

Difficult task when they've narrowed the search area to the size of NSW.

 

[Mighty P]

I still maintain it was the aliens that did it.

 

[Moonwatcher]

I still maintain it was the aliens that did it.

There is no other explanation.

 

[Mitchell Madness]

No further developments still. Safe to say that if we haven't found anything else by now, doubt we ever will.

Only took them 70 odd yrs to find the titanic