[Peetwo]

DOI Update 28 July 2016 - Italian researchers new debris drift model; & Hoody stands by ATSB priority search area...
   
Courtesy the Oz, it would appear that yet another team of independent & international researchers have analysed & developed a drift model that contradicts the current ATSB priority search area.. :

Debris finds cast new doubt over MH370 search zone
Investigators examine aircraft debris found off the coast of Tanzania.

• Mitchell Bingemann
  
• The Australian
  
• 10:15AM July 28, 2016
  

Reporter
Sydney
@Mitch_Hell
[img=0x0]http://pixel.tcog.cp1.news.com.au/track/component/author/4c134add4c3a9e4881f7841b69d9ac85/?esi=true&t_product=the-australian&t_template=s3/austemp-article_common/vertical/author/widget&td_bio=false[/img]
Missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 could be as far as 500 kilometres north of the Australian-led search zone, according to new debris drift analysis conducted by a team of Italian researchers.

The researchers — whose findings were published in research journal Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences today — have run a new computer simulation that indicates wreckage from the plane could have originated up to around 500km further to the north than where the search is currently being conducted by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau.

The two-and-a-half year search is scouring the last 10,000sq km of its designated 120,000sq km search area along a zone on the “seventh arc” in the southern Indian Ocean.

But nothing related to MH370 — which disappeared during a flight from the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, to Beijing in March 2014, carrying 239 passengers and crew — has been found in the area that stretches from 35.5 degrees south to 39.5 degree south.

The new drift modelling shows that pieces of aircraft debris discovered in Réunion, Mozambique, South Africa and Rodrigues Island most likely originated from an area further north than the search area, between the latitudes of 28 degrees and 35 degrees south.

“Our simulation shows that the debris could also have originated up to around 500km further to the north. If nothing is found in the current search area, it may be worth extending the search in this direction,” said Eric Jansen, a researcher at the euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change in Italy and lead-author of the study.

“Our result is the first to calculate the movement of the debris that best agrees with all five of the currently confirmed discoveries. This should make it the most accurate prediction.”

This is not the first time that it has been suggested the ATSB has been searching in the wrong place for the missing Boeing 777. Other research groups, including the so-called Independent Group of professionals who have been conducting their own work to locate MH370, argued in a July paper that the ATSB was also looking in the wrong spot.

The ATSB yesterday declined to respond to the paper’s findings.

The search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 will be suspended if it is not found in the current search area, transport ministers from Malaysia, China and Australia said last week.

The Italian team of researchers came to their conclusion by running a computer simulation using oceanographic data from the EU Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service. This included data of global surface currents and winds over the past two years.

To improve their simulation they used the locations of the five confirmed debris found to date and placed a large number of virtual particles in the ocean to map their routes along the ocean currents and winds.

A number of variables, including the exact crash location and the effect of wind and currents on the debris remain unknown, so the researchers simulated different scenarios to construct a so-called superensemble: a combination of simulations that best describes the debris found so far.

The results indicate that the most probable locations to discover additional washed up debris are Tanzania and Mozambique, as well as the islands of Madagascar, Réunion, Mauritius and the Comoros.

“The disappearance of flight MH370 is probably one of the most bizarre events in modern history. It is important to understand what happened, not only for all the people directly involved, but also for the safety of aviation in general. We hope that we can contribute to this, even if our study is just a small piece of a very complicated puzzle,” Mr Jansen said.

I am not sure whether Chief Commissioner Hood was also privy to the Italian research teams new debris drift modelling but if he was it would appear, in a recent interview with the West Oz publication, that he is already discounting the veracity or potential importance of their findings...

Via Yahoo7:

MH370 'plunging at 400km/h before it hit the sea'
The West Australian on July 28, 2016, 1:00 am

Video Search for MH370 could be wrapped up

Australia’s crash investigator has revealed that data indicates MH370 could have been plunging at almost 400km/h just before it smashed into the sea with 239 passengers and crew.

MALAYSIA AIRLINES SAFETY RATING

In his first interview as chief commissioner of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, Greg Hood toldThe West Australian the automated satellite link with the Boeing 777 showed its descent increased dramatically from about 1200m a minute to up to 6700m a minute.
Australian Transport Safety Bureau commissioner Greg Hood. Picture: Michael Wilson

The fast acceleration suggested no one was in control, he said.

Media outlets recently cited a two-year-old FBI report on a flight simulator on MH370 captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah’s home computer to claim he glided the plane in a controlled water landing and that the ATSB was looking in the wrong place.

Video Labor calling for the release of MH370 report

The FBI analysis was widely publicised in 2014 and it was reported in June that year that investigators found a route plotted into the Indian Ocean on Capt. Shah’s computer.

“We have known about the FBI report for two years and it was widely reported,” Mr Hood said.

“It’s nothing new.

“It potentially shows planning and possibly intent but it does not tell us where the aircraft is.”

MH370 disappeared on March 8, 2014, after communications from it were cut during what was to be a routine flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

Australia’s Defence Science and Technology Group analysed hourly pings from the Boeing 777 to a satellite and information about the aircraft. Its sophisticated modelling targeted 120,000sqkm where the plane most likely hit the ocean.

The Fugro Equator is one of the vessels searching for MH370.

Though the main communications systems were disabled, MH370’s satellite link was still sending information but no explicit positional data.

As well as five routine hourly contacts, the satellite twice asked the aircraft to log on to it.

Experts studied the time delay as the signals went to the satellite with performance limits and the Doppler shift — the change in frequency when an object moves towards or away from an observer — to calculate the likely Indian Ocean impact zone.

Mr Hood said he came into the search with fresh eyes and was confident after reviewing all the data that it was in the most likely site. “I am still confident that we will find it,” he said.

Video Missing plane hunt 'to be suspended'

The recent claims suggest the plane came down south-west of the search area but ATSB analysis indicates MH370 did not have enough fuel to reach the “end point” of the reported FBI route.

Mr Hood also defended the modelling used to define the search area, saying DSTG used extensive satellite and flight data from the plane and sister aircraft to validate its modelling.

He said the search strategy working group had specialists from Britain, the US, Australia, Inmarsat, Thales and Boeing. It also exchanged information with other interested groups.

Mr Hood said it might take until December to search the last 10,000sqkm because a special underwater vehicle had to be used to search difficult terrain and some sonar contacts of interest.

Sea conditions for several weeks, including one 24m wave, made it impossible to launch the vehicles.

Investigators also continued to examine debris found on African beaches and islands.

MTF...P2