Australia working on new drift modelling for MH370 wreckage

Monday, 8 December 2014 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Reuters: Australia is working on new drift modelling to expand the geographical area in which wreckage from missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 may come ashore, the Australian search coordinator said recently. Initial analysis had suggested that the first debris from the plane could come ashore on Indonesia’s Western Sumatra after about 123 days.

Graphics on a TV screen shows the current search area for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, during a media briefing at Dumas House in Perth – REUTERS “But we are currently working with CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) to see if we can get an amended drift model for the much wider area, so we can indicate to the world where there might be possibilities of debris washing up,” search coordinator Peter Foley told reporters in Canberra. Foley said the research centre was receiving reports at least once a week of debris washed up on the Australian coastline, but none has so far been identified as coming from the missing aircraft. The drift modelling supplements an ongoing surface and underwater search for the plane, which disappeared over the remote Indian Ocean on March 8, with 239 people on board. Foley said he was confident the plane was located on the 7th arc. “But in terms of where we are searching, we are very confident with the satellite comms models that we’ve worked and reworked and we’ve had very expert people arriving at where we are searching. So we are very confident the aircraft is on the 7th arc and we are covering a big enough area so that we cover every possibility, every practical possibility as far as the location of the aircraft is concerned, within reason,” he said. Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) Chief Commissioner Martin Dolan on Tuesday dismissed suggestions there was disagreement among the five groups that make up the international team - America’s Boeing Co, France’s Thales, US investigator the National Transportation Safety Board and the Australian Defence Science and Technology Organisation – on where to search. The teams initially agreed an area about 600 kilometres long by 90 km wide west of Perth was most likely. A new report released last month specified two high-priority areas further to the south. All five groups agree that MH370’s final resting place is near the ‘7th arc’ a curve that stretches from about 1,000 km off Exmouth, Western Australia, to a point about 2,000 km southwest of Perth, Dolan said. More than 6,900 sq km of sea floor has been searched so far.