Malaysian Flight 370?

[StyrbjornSterki]

Ocean Infinity's search vessel steamed around for a couple of weeks then gave up (apparently having found nothing) and went back to Singapore. They're not communicating with the world (not that I can find anyway) but Malaysian government sources say they quit because the weather wasn't suitable but they'll be back later in the year.

IMHO it doesn't speak to highly of OI's planning capabilities that they hadn't checked the weather before deciding to travel there and set up shop.

I've found no end of 'click-bait' sites purporting to offer the latest on MH370 but the only one I check any longer is the YouTube channel of Australian aviation boffin, Geoffrey Thomas. Thomas' daily guest-commentator is the inventor of using WSPR technology to track planes in flight, Richard Godfrey, so they don't lack for expertise.

Most days their 'show' is fluff like viewer polls and answering naive questions from viewers but on occasion they do have detail I don't think you'll find elsewhere.

One thing I've learned from them is that Godfrey's WSPR tracking technique has been subjected to several "blind" tests. He's been given an airport, the departing runway and the time of take-off and without fail he's been able to correctly detail the path of flight and destination airport, without so much as knowing the flight number. Which significantly raised my estimation of the odds that he might be right about the possible crash area. Whether that leads to finding the wreckage, time will tell.

 

[Unchained]

Ocean Infinity's search vessel steamed around for a couple of weeks then gave up (apparently having found nothing) and went back to Singapore. They're not communicating with the world (not that I can find anyway) but Malaysian government sources say they quit because the weather wasn't suitable but they'll be back later in the year.

IMHO it doesn't speak to highly of OI's planning capabilities that they hadn't checked the weather before deciding to travel there and set up shop.

I've found no end of 'click-bait' sites purporting to offer the latest on MH370 but the only one I check any longer is the YouTube channel of Australian aviation boffin, Geoffrey Thomas. Thomas' daily guest-commentator is the inventor of using WSPR technology to track planes in flight, Richard Godfrey, so they don't lack for expertise.

Most days their 'show' is fluff like viewer polls and answering naive questions from viewers but on occasion they do have detail I don't think you'll find elsewhere.

One thing I've learned from them is that Godfrey's WSPR tracking technique has been subjected to several "blind" tests. He's been given an airport, the departing runway and the time of take-off and without fail he's been able to correctly detail the path of flight and destination airport, without so much as knowing the flight number. Which significantly raised my estimation of the odds that he might be right about the possible crash area. Whether that leads to finding the wreckage, time will tell.

Travel is very complicated, many large vessels could possibly get fuel and re- fortified but the logistics are super expensive and complicated. Usually for military or major government budgets exclusively. If the ship is not prepared to steam passed weather systems that usually means that they just went out prepared for best case scenario. Many military battle groups have ships of various displacements, sizes and they stay in and encounter foul weather as normal operation. No Captain wants to navigate in and around storm conditions but they do it routinely. In short, not a big deal, business as usual.
I don't have any idea of what type of device(s) would be deployed to the depths to look for the aircraft, but I highly doubt that they are tethered to the ship..so you need a few things, decent weather to launch, extended capability of search craft and decent weather for recovery.. So if a storm was going to last for 5,6+ days and the drone or submarine can't stay submerged for extended period it would make sense to turn around.. The capabilities of large ships are all weather but doing launch and recovery might not be possible during storm conditions..
I personally have never seen large ocean vessels run out of gas, or run from medium size storms.
Some examples were launching and recovering a remote vehicle might be hard...

View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cMNH4nmOims&pp=ygUXU3Rvcm0gY29uZGl0aW9ucyBhdCBzZWE%3D

 

[StyrbjornSterki]

No sooner had the Ocean Infinity vessel left the search area than a Chinese-flagged research vessel arrived.

The ship previously had been in New Zealand waters doing marine research and once that was concluded they sailed west past the Great Australian Bight and into the Indian ocean. They supposedly were there to doing multi-beam sonar mapping of a feature of the ocean floor called "Broken Ridge," which might well be the truth and the whole truth.

However, Broken Ridge is EXACTLY where U. of Tasmania scientist Vincent Lyne has predicted MH370 will be found.

Lyne describes Broken Ridge as a a 20,000-foot sea floor hole surrounded by high ridges and other deep holes, the "perfect 'hiding' place" for the aircraft. These "canyons" also likely are full of silt, which would be stirred up by a high-speed impact such as a relatively intact airframe gliding such a great distance in the water, and the settling ejecta would fall on top of it and camouflage its final resting place.

Not only do I find it odd that the Chinese are able to conduct similar research in weather that Ocean Infinity found unsuitable -- which, I will admit, could be as simple as the differences in the sensor packages they're using -- but the focus of the Chinese search (Broken Ridge, 31°S, 95°E) is only 132 nautical miles, 245 km, from the ground zero of Richard Godfrey's WSPR-predicted crash site at 33.177°S 95.300°E.

It's an awfully big ocean and a difference of only 245 km is awfully suspicious, especially if you consider both are searching over an area of probability, not looking for a mere pinpoint, so the actual difference is considerably less.