Aussies set for more studies on MH370 flaperon

KUALA LUMPUR: Six replicas of a MH370 flaperon, found in July last year on Reunion Island in the western Indian Ocean, will be sent to the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), in Tasmania, according to a report by impactpub.com.au.

“Here, scientists at the Oceanography Department, will work on more accurate drift modelling.”

It’s expected that further analysis of the flaperon could help pinpoint a search area outside the current location in the 7th Arc in the southern Indian Ocean, southwest of Australia. The sea journey of the flaperon may pin point the exact location of the ill-fated B777-200 which went missing.

Only 10,000 sq km of the 120,000 sq km search area remains to be covered. The search has been delayed by bad weather.

Malaysia, China and Australia have agreed to suspend the search once the last remaining patch was covered. So far, the three countries have spent A$160 million on the search, 80 per cent of it from Malaysia and Australia.

They will only resume the search if new evidence can pin point the exact location where MH370 lies.

If more money was made available, the flaperons will be fitted with satellite beacons and set afloat at different locations in the southern Indian Ocean.

Those familiar with the project say that if all goes ahead as planned, the six replicas will be set adrift on March 8 next year, the 3rd anniversary of MH370 going missing.

Australian analysis of the MH370 flaperon indicates it was not deployed at the moment of impact with the water, said the report by the website. “It had instead been retracted inside the wing.”

Experts cited by the website stressed that “a pilot attempting a soft landing would have extended the wing flaps”.

The first of the most likely scenarios is that the plane glided to a watery landing, with no one alive at the controls, after running out of fuel.

The second theory is that a pilot hijacked the plane, for unknown reasons, and glided it beyond the 7th Arc.

The third scenario is that the ill-fated aircraft ended up in a watery grave after it exhausted its fuel supply.

Two hundred and thirty people, including cabin crew, were on board MH370. Most of the passengers were Chinese nationals. Six of the passengers were Australian nationals and permanent residents.

The plane was on a routine flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, on 8 March 2014, when it stopped short of Vietnam and turned back.

It was tracked by Malaysian military radar across the peninsula, over Pulau Perak in the Straits of Malacca, before it made for the northern tip of Sumatra

Thereafter, it’s not known where the plane went.

Satellite pings — electronic handshakes — has the plane making for the southern Indian Ocean, in the direction of the current search zone.