Potential MH370 wreckage found
July 29, 2015 1:02 PM   Subscribe

Potential MH370 wreckage found Wreckage of an actuator from a Boeing 777 has washed ashore on the island of Reunion.

It appears to be encrusted in sea life, so it's been floating in the sea for some time. Clearly it could have floated this far in 16 month from the theorized crash area – but will confirming its origins give searchers any insight into the missing planes final resting place? Could technology work this backwards?

Previously and previously.
posted by bobloblaw (89 comments total) 13 users marked this as a favorite
 
So it wasn't God or a black hole after all. CNN lied to me.
posted by Sangermaine at 1:04 PM on July 29, 2015 [6 favorites]


I look forward to hearing about nothing else but this on the news for the next six months.
posted by Itaxpica at 1:06 PM on July 29, 2015


How amazing would it be if MH370 was tracked down by looking at the DNA of colonizing sea life?
posted by effugas at 1:06 PM on July 29, 2015 [9 favorites]


So it wasn't God or a black hole after all. CNN lied to me.

Well, you never know what could have happened before a crash. You can't pin down any timeline.
posted by Drinky Die at 1:07 PM on July 29, 2015 [10 favorites]


A helicopter is surely en route to plaid shirt guy's GPS coordinates - evac imminent!
posted by fairmettle at 1:09 PM on July 29, 2015 [1 favorite]


How amazing would it be if MH370 was tracked down by looking at the DNA of colonizing sea life?
posted by effugas at 4:06 PM on July 29


Did you happen to hear the Radiolab story Fu-Go? Somewhat along those same lines, although not DNA being analyzed.
posted by glaucon at 1:10 PM on July 29, 2015


I was not previously aware of Reunion Island or, indeed, any of the little islands east of Madagascar. Fascinating!
posted by Joey Michaels at 1:10 PM on July 29, 2015 [3 favorites]


I look forward to hearing about nothing else but this on the news for the next six months.

So does Walter Palmer.
posted by bondcliff at 1:11 PM on July 29, 2015 [16 favorites]


I look forward to hearing about nothing else but this on the news for the next six months.

Honestly, if this is the worst / most newsworthy thing that happens in the next six months, I'd be super happy.
posted by Dashy at 1:12 PM on July 29, 2015 [19 favorites]


Looking at an ocean currents map, if it did crash where they suspect (in the south-east Indian Ocean) then the debris could have been picked up by the South Indian, then West Australian, then the South Equatorial currents, and finally the Mozambique.
posted by sbutler at 1:13 PM on July 29, 2015 [1 favorite]


I know there's a lot of jokes about this, and CNN sucks, but if this is an actual confirmation for real that this flight went down so far off course, and it was a deliberate hijacking, I just feel awful for everyone involved.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 1:14 PM on July 29, 2015 [8 favorites]


Is anyone else but me amazed that such a piece could float for this long?
posted by ZenMasterThis at 1:15 PM on July 29, 2015 [5 favorites]


It's quite large (takes 4 men to carry) but potentially sealed or contains sealed apparatus, so there's a good chance it would be buoyant.
posted by bobloblaw at 1:24 PM on July 29, 2015


So the Russians broke off a piece of the plane in their secret base in Kazakhstan, soaked it in the ocean for a year, and then deposited it on the beach on Reunion?
posted by Bee'sWing at 1:29 PM on July 29, 2015 [10 favorites]


As terrible as this sounds, I really hope that's the wreckage, so that people can stop emailing us with Conspiracy Theory/Google Maps Search/Psychic Dream of the Week.
posted by divabat at 1:33 PM on July 29, 2015 [4 favorites]


(Also honestly I am resentful that conspiracy theorists with no background in aviation are able to make money off their blustering while our couple-months-long critical media analysis project that we worked on for free while I was finishing grad school and the other worked as a full-time journalist has not led to actual job opportunities.)
posted by divabat at 1:35 PM on July 29, 2015 [15 favorites]


Isn't it essentially a 100% chance that this is from MH370? There are no other unaccounted for 777s.
posted by Justinian at 1:40 PM on July 29, 2015 [2 favorites]


It's not 100% certain at this point it's from a 777.
posted by sbutler at 1:41 PM on July 29, 2015 [3 favorites]


I was not previously aware of Reunion Island or, indeed, any of the little islands east of Madagascar. Fascinating!

The Aubreyad community has been discussing various Indian Ocean scenarios for some time now...
posted by Nevin at 1:42 PM on July 29, 2015 [6 favorites]


Although I guess I'm not prepared to accept a random tweet as confirmation this is definitively from a 777. For all I know the actuator on a 767 is identical to the actuator on a 777.
posted by Justinian at 1:42 PM on July 29, 2015


It's not 100% certain at this point it's from a 777.

But random french tweet said it is.
posted by Justinian at 1:43 PM on July 29, 2015 [7 favorites]


As terrible as this sounds, I really hope that's the wreckage, so that people can stop emailing us with Conspiracy Theory/Google Maps Search/Psychic Dream of the Week.

Except in this era of epidemic denialism and truthers, no reasonable explanation can discourage a crackpot conspiracy theory anymore once it's gotten traction with the ill-informed, poorly-educated, or ideology-crazed.
posted by aught at 1:43 PM on July 29, 2015 [3 favorites]


At first I wrote this off because it looked like a wing section, but it could in fact be the flaperon. There's a lot missing, though, and the real tell will be simple if there's a serial number somewhere on that part, it will match up in Boeing's database to what plane it was installed on.
posted by eriko at 1:44 PM on July 29, 2015 [2 favorites]


The link to the diagram in the op is pretty convincing, but regardless of which aircraft it's from, it's pretty darn large to be unaccounted for…
posted by bobloblaw at 1:46 PM on July 29, 2015


How it got there? Simple, it floated. Wing components are basically empty boxes, except the fuel tanks. With a year on the southern oceans, I can easily see it drifting all the way over from the last reported position. This doesn't help us find the rest of the plane one bit, it just tells us something we already suspected, if this is from MH370, that this plane crashed into the ocean some time ago.
posted by eriko at 1:46 PM on July 29, 2015 [1 favorite]


Given the size of the island, it's kinda cwazy that a piece of the wreckage would land, and be found there, but nothing else has been discovered on the larger mainland of Madagascar (assuming that much of the wreckage migrated in a similar direction).
posted by bobloblaw at 1:50 PM on July 29, 2015


“Too early to say if debris in Reunion is from MH370 flight: police,” Emmanuel Jarry and Matthias Blamont, Reuters, 29 July 2015
posted by ob1quixote at 1:52 PM on July 29, 2015


but nothing else has been discovered on the larger mainland of Madagascar

My understanding is that the east coast of Madagascar is pretty sparsely inhabited, so maybe not that cwazy.
posted by aught at 1:55 PM on July 29, 2015 [1 favorite]


My bad, I had east and west backwards in my mind in terms of where people live, though I think compared to other islands and coasts with vibrant tourist trade, Madagascar's east coast is still relatively sparsely populated.
posted by aught at 1:59 PM on July 29, 2015 [1 favorite]


But random french tweet said it is.

Is that more or less reliable than random internet commentator? I'm trying to keep a scale of these things.

Seriously. They may need to take this thing apart to find a serial number. Supposedly, there's one number they've spotted but it doesn't immediately match anything obvious, it could be an inventory number, or just a general part number, or just a random number that really don't mean anything, like a lot number on the material they made that thing from. It's going to take some time to find out what airplane this thing is from.
posted by eriko at 2:00 PM on July 29, 2015


Given the size of the island, it's kinda cwazy that a piece of the wreckage would land, and be found there, but nothing else has been discovered on the larger mainland of Madagascar (assuming that much of the wreckage migrated in a similar direction).

My understanding is that the east coast of Madagascar is pretty sparsely inhabited, so maybe not that cwazy.


And also, if you think about it, a wing is the most "airplane" type of wreckage you can get. It would be more or less unmistakable among all the other random flotsam and jetsam you might run into and discount as being uninteresting.

There's likely plenty of wreckage everywhere, but this is the first one that would make an onlooker go, "Heyyyy..."
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 2:02 PM on July 29, 2015 [2 favorites]


Old planes are disposed of all the time, and I don't doubt that some of the people doing the disposal are less than scrupulous (although the salvage value of aluminum is high enough that I doubt anybody is deliberately dumping wings in the ocean)

I don't doubt that there are TONS of old 727s that are "unaccounted for.".
posted by schmod at 2:02 PM on July 29, 2015




I'm not sure if I'm ready to accept evidence from the French when it comes to Hunting the Boeing.
posted by Sunburnt at 2:11 PM on July 29, 2015


Okay, on the Airliners.net forum, they have a picture of a B777-200ER flaperon removed from a plane, the data plate on the part has a serial number of WB203. This matches up well with the code they found on this part, BB670.

The data plate also clearly says this part is from a 777, so they know this is from a 777, and they're probably already matching up the serial number with Malaysian Air and/or Boeing.

AP has just tweeted "BREAKING: US official: Debris in photo belongs to same type of aircraft as the missing Malaysia plane." If they've just read the data plate, that would tell them that the first line on the data plate says "AIRCRAFT MOD______" and on the part show in the Airliners.net forum it's stamped 777.
posted by eriko at 2:39 PM on July 29, 2015 [1 favorite]


If it's from a 777 then it has to be from MH370. Unless the Russians tossed the parts from the one they shot down off the coast of Africa I guess. (spoiler: they didn't).
posted by Justinian at 2:44 PM on July 29, 2015 [3 favorites]


My personal feeling -- I'm thinking this is real.

But a Yemeni A310 and a 747 went down relatively near, so it's not quite a lock -- though if that AP report holds up, this is a 777, and the number of 777 hull losses is so low that we know where they are. There's BA 38 at Heathrow that landed short, MH-17 that was shot down over the Ukraine, an EgyptAir bird that had a ground fire and was written off, Asiana 214 that landed short at SFO and was written off. We know where all four of those planes landed up.

And then there's MH 370. If this is really a flaperon from a 777, and it really looks like it is, it's a flaperon from MH 370.
posted by eriko at 2:46 PM on July 29, 2015 [2 favorites]


There are actually a bunch of 777s that are no longer in service.
posted by schmod at 2:51 PM on July 29, 2015 [1 favorite]


Looks like there are lots of places MH370 could have crashed in the Indian Ocean and had debris carried to Reunion by the Indian Ocean gyre.
posted by jamjam at 2:55 PM on July 29, 2015


Here's the AP update - definitely from a 777.
posted by Devonian at 2:57 PM on July 29, 2015 [1 favorite]


*Updates list of small exotic islands to visit with lottery winnings*

Seriously, I zoomed in with Google Earth, & while there's no street view (gasp!) there are some panoramic photos & it looks absolutely beautiful.
posted by Devils Rancher at 3:00 PM on July 29, 2015


Oops, link failed:
posted by jamjam at 3:00 PM on July 29, 2015


But random french tweet said it is.

Le Beck?
posted by Beholder at 3:01 PM on July 29, 2015


There are actually a bunch of 777s that are no longer in service.

No longer in service isn't the same as "pieces lost at sea", though. We'll know soon enough in any case.
posted by Justinian at 3:04 PM on July 29, 2015


First people who are going to be told are Malaysian Air officials.

They're then going to tell the families.

Then they will tell us.

As it should be.
posted by eriko at 3:08 PM on July 29, 2015 [8 favorites]


My immediate reaction to news like this is "what else is going on?" Is it Sam Dubose?
posted by Lyn Never at 3:20 PM on July 29, 2015


Lyn Never: "My immediate reaction to news like this is "what else is going on?" Is it Sam Dubose"

Since Sam Dubose's death is the first police killing where prosecutors have done the right thing, I don't think that's something the Powers That Be would want to cover up, even if your borderline conspiracy theory line of reasoning was correct in general.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 3:44 PM on July 29, 2015 [4 favorites]


Well this would dramatically undermine my Liam Neeson/Benedict Cumberbatch MH370 conspiracy theory fan fic. (Don't miss the surprise ending.)

I actually wrote like 20 pages of it, with the Aussie model using the underwires from her bra to help hook up the kludged satellite phone that Neeson MacGyvers together, before I started to forget how all the technical radar stuff worked and gave up.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 3:44 PM on July 29, 2015 [3 favorites]


As terrible as this sounds, I really hope that's the wreckage, so that people can stop emailing us with Conspiracy Theory/Google Maps Search/Psychic Dream of the Week.

I don't believe those people will suddenly become rational and see evidence for what it is, i.e. evidence. If anything, this will trigger even more nonsense "theories". It's sort of like those who say the world was to end in the year 19xx and when it didn't, they revised the date to 20xx, and when that didn't happen, it's now 21xx and all the failed end of the worlds before were not the fault of "facts" or "reality" but the fault of a lack of information, or faulty information, which is both laughable in absurdity and sad in it's absurdity.
posted by juiceCake at 4:24 PM on July 29, 2015


As terrible as this sounds, I really hope that's the wreckage, so that people can stop emailing us with Conspiracy Theory/Google Maps Search/Psychic Dream of the Week.

We still have moon-landing deniers after forty years of evidence. What makes you think one piece of debris is going to be accepted as "proof"?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:59 PM on July 29, 2015 [1 favorite]


My car has the VIN stamped onto nearly every freaking part. Large commercial jets do something similar, one would hope?
posted by schmod at 5:15 PM on July 29, 2015 [1 favorite]


Though this seems plausibly related, it's hard for me to see how this will give us much information on the flight. It's better than nothing though.
posted by kiltedtaco at 5:22 PM on July 29, 2015


schmod - That's covered in the Airliners.net thread cosmic.osmo linked up-thread. The part has a metal plate with the part number, serial number, etc. that's either glued or riveted to the part. It's not stamped/etched into the structure like a car part.
posted by nathan_teske at 5:26 PM on July 29, 2015


It might not end conspiracy theories (and why should it? That's just what they want you to think, man) but it might being some sense of resolution to the families, at least.

Amazing that in this day and age a 777 just vanishes and stays vanished for 15 months and counting.
posted by RedOrGreen at 5:45 PM on July 29, 2015 [1 favorite]


RedOrGreen: "Amazing that in this day and age a 777 just vanishes and stays vanished for 15 months and counting."

Oceans are big. Like, really big. And deep.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 5:49 PM on July 29, 2015 [8 favorites]


I'm a bit surprised that it's taken this long to tells us whether it was part of MH370 or not. I would have thought it's a matter of LOOK AT SERIAL PLATE ... TAPITITAPTAP. "Yup, sure is!" or "No, wow, that's a bit of [otherplane] that went down [otherplace, othertime]."
posted by Joe in Australia at 6:12 PM on July 29, 2015 [1 favorite]


My car has the VIN stamped onto nearly every freaking part. Large commercial jets do something similar, one would hope?

Cars have it stamped/etched because cars are easy to steal and there's a huge market for spare parts that doesn't ask any questions about where those parts come from. So, they're marked in ways that make it hard to unmark them.

Planes have gently attached plates because stealing planes is rare, etching/stamping numbers on them creates stress concentrations which weaken them and make them break at bad times, and if you remove those plates, those parts become untraceable, which means that they also become unsellable -- there is no market for a 737 part that has no record of being manufactured or inspected.
posted by eriko at 6:13 PM on July 29, 2015 [12 favorites]


Most of the conspiracy theory emails I get for Where Is MH370 tend to be "I know where the plane is", not so much "I know what happened to it". People assume we have a direct line to "the authorities" and therefore have some sway in influencing the search & rescue process. The "I know how the plane went down" messages tend to come via Tumblr asks but we haven't gotten any since we went dormant.
posted by divabat at 6:49 PM on July 29, 2015


Amazing that in this day and age a 777 just vanishes and stays vanished for 15 months and counting.

When AF447 crashed in the Atlantic ocean we knew almost exactly where it went down, and found debris on the surface rather quickly. Still, it took almost two years to locate the hull and retrieve the flight data and voice recorders (mad props to Metron Aviation and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute).

We know considerably less about MH370. However, I believe that one day we will find it. It just takes time.
posted by sbutler at 7:07 PM on July 29, 2015 [1 favorite]


CNN: "Crying Wolf [Blitzer]."
posted by Alterscape at 10:05 PM on July 29, 2015


I look forward to hearing about nothing else but this on the news for the next six months.

The LNP here in Australia have been desperate for anything to break the current news cycle, so you can be sure it will be played for everything it's worth. Warren Truss has already blathered on pointlessly in a press conference today. They'll be hoping it finally displaces Chopper Gate as the the lead story.
posted by michswiss at 12:12 AM on July 30, 2015 [2 favorites]


Model of possible drift* by professor Prof Charitha Pattiaratchi, University of Western Australia. He did this 12mo ago, and it's consistent with the find this week (assuming it is confirmed as MH370). I bet people are now looking at this map again and soon are going to start searching some other shorelines.

* If that link didn't work, scroll down to 23:45.
posted by sbutler at 1:12 AM on July 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


effugas: you're not far off
posted by divabat at 1:18 AM on July 30, 2015


eriko: "though if that AP report holds up, this is a 777, and the number of 777 hull losses is so low that we know where they are."
Fox News are reporting the following quote from a "David Cenciotti, editor at TheAviationist.com":
“I’m not so sure that those parts belong to the MH370 flight. The Malaysia Airlines B777 is not the only plane that went missing, and there are some mysteriously disappeared in Africa."
*eyeroll*
posted by brokkr at 2:37 AM on July 30, 2015


"David Cenciotti, editor at TheAviationist.com":

Punchy eriko is getting punchy again.

In other news, we either have confusion as to the number on the part, or two numbers. Number #1 is BB670, which matches the serial number pattern seen on other parts and was reported by various sources. Number #2, is 657BB, which has been reported from a source in Reunion, reported as a mechanic (who would be the type to look for just such a number.) This matches a part number in the 777 manual -- it's a part of the 777 right wing flaperon leading edge. There would be many of these numbers on that part we see -- the leading edge alone, according to the manual, has six part numbers alone. 57AT, BB, CB, DB, EB, and CT, with a leading 5 for the left wing and 6 for the right, so 657BB would be the right wing 57BB part.

Note: *both* numbers could be real, but finding 675BB on that part would definitely prove it being a 777 right wing flaperon.
posted by eriko at 5:08 AM on July 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


Hope this leads to some resolution for the families. I'm also pleased that flaperon is the name of an actual airplane part.
posted by longdaysjourney at 5:42 AM on July 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


A Reunion news website has a picture that claims to show a part number, 657-BB, visible from an inspection hole.

The construction certainly looks like what you'd see in modern aircraft structures, it's a composite structure -- note the sockets that are riveted on to allow bolts to gain purchase for attachment to the other parts. Composite matches the part as well.

If this is fake, it's fake by someone making a real one dirty and taking a picture. Assuming the picture came from Reunion, how many of these parts are likely to be on the island right now? I would guess not many, but it's not certain that the number would be 0 other than this one.

My confidence that this is MH-370 has gained another 9, and is sitting at about 99.99%
posted by eriko at 6:02 AM on July 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


And, adding at least another 5 to that 99.99%.

If we look here, we see a picture of the flaperon, and the hole in it. If we look at the part drawing here, and invert it, because this is showing the left wing and we're looking at the right wing, we'd expect to look through that hole and be looking right at part 657BB on the bottom, and 657AT on the top.

The photo shows exactly the part number we'd expect to see, 657BB, if you were looking through the hole at the bottom part.
posted by eriko at 6:12 AM on July 30, 2015 [3 favorites]


Turns out Boeing body part numbers, at least on the 777, follow a pretty simple scheme. This is completely unsurprising, when you think about it, there are a *lot* of a parts in an airplane, doubly so in a wide body airliner.

The first number is a major assembly number. 5 is the left wing, 6 is the right wing. I'll bet (but haven't checked) that 7 is the right horizontal stabilizer, 8 is the left, and 9 is the vertical stabilizer. 1-4 would be the fuselage sections and *possibly* the engines, though since Boeing doesn't make the engines, those body parts may not have Boeing part numbers.

The second number is a section of that major assembly. So, 65 is the Right Wing, Rear Inspar area (that is, rear of the wing, outside of the inside section, but still inside the wing spar, the big structural element holding the wings to the fuselage.) The third is a element number, 657 is the Right Wing Flaperon. Parts within that element are given two letter codes, so all the parts for a given element have that element's number attached to them. Thus, if you find a part with 657 on it, you know it's a part for the Right Wing Flaperon.

They may well have a unique scheme for each aircraft so that you can tell at a glance which plane a part is for just by the part number format, but I haven't done the research to confirm that. But it was pretty clear to mechanics who've worked with 777s the moment they saw that number that they were looking at a 777 flaperon.
posted by eriko at 6:25 AM on July 30, 2015 [5 favorites]


The photo shows exactly the part number we'd expect to see, 657BB, if you were looking through the hole at the bottom part.

A HOLE HAS BEEN DISCOVERED IN THE AIRCRAFT DEBRIS. RÉUNION POLICE ARE LOOKING INTO IT.
posted by Joe in Australia at 6:28 AM on July 30, 2015 [11 favorites]


While it won't help much in locating the wreckage (if it is tied to MH370) this assembly will be able to provide a lot of information on how the airplane crashed. Microscopic analysis of the material, particularly any broken parts, will indicate how fast it was going when it hit the water, what direction it was travelling in, and if it was still attached to the airplane at the time.
posted by cardboard at 6:35 AM on July 30, 2015


A suitcase was found washed up on the beach this morning, on the same part of the island as the flaperon.
posted by helloknitty at 6:56 AM on July 30, 2015


Oceans are big. Like, really big. And deep.

Not only that, the South Indian ocean is the most remote and treachous water on Earth, the MH 370 southern search areas extend nearly to the Heard Islands, closer to Antartica than Australia. There literally is not a worse place on Earth to go looking for something that crashed.
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:13 AM on July 30, 2015


I think there's an (understandable) tendency to approach this as, "Jinkies! A mystery!" Seeing a suitcase is a reminder that a lot of innocent people died.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:47 AM on July 30, 2015 [5 favorites]


Not to derail, but I stumbled across a fascinating story about Reunion. They are building an offshore freeway that apparently is going to circle the island much like the rings of Saturn. I mention this for those who have an interest in weird feats of engineering.
posted by Beholder at 1:06 PM on July 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


For those of you wondering about the obscure little island, it is quite a nice place, with fabulous hiking, volcanoes, beaches, and great food. And almost no English. I went in April. Pics here, for those wondering: https://flic.kr/s/aHsk79NSPV
posted by kaszeta at 1:17 PM on July 30, 2015 [8 favorites]


Were you going to link that story, Beholder? I ask because that sounds like the stupidest fucking thing I've heard in a long time and I'm eager to read about it myself.
posted by entropicamericana at 1:31 PM on July 30, 2015




roomthreeseventeen: "Part number spotted on plane wreckage is from a Boeing 777, same as MH370"

It's from MH370, then. There's basically nothing else it could be.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 1:09 AM on July 31, 2015


Model of possible drift* by professor Prof Charitha Pattiaratchi, University of Western Australia.

Interesting. I'm curious about the degree to which the discovery of a piece of debris that corresponds to the drift model might help to focus the search of other parts of the plane. If a part of the wing made it to Rèunion does that imply that the bulk of other pieces might have gone in the same direction and at the same pace?

(It reminds me of Moby Duck, a little)
posted by rongorongo at 7:39 AM on July 31, 2015


entropicamericana,
you can see some info about the offshore freeway here.
posted by blueberry at 8:42 AM on July 31, 2015 [1 favorite]


...if this is an actual confirmation for real that this flight went down so far off course, and it was a deliberate hijacking, I just feel awful for everyone involved.

(I know this comment was days ago, but I couldn't respond in depth on my mobile phone last night, so apologies for necro-responding.)

We don't know (and may never know) why the flight went off course, and hijacking may not be the cause. If I were a betting woman, my money would be on a hypoxia event right now. It's also what the ATSB is going with for most likely scenario.

Christine Negroni has a good blog post not only about MH370 but other hypoxia events (Payne Stewart's final flight, the Helios Flight 255). Hypoxia seems like the best guess to me because of the strange route and the fact the plane kept flying on. Even the odd turn of the plane makes sense because when you're oxygen-deprived, things that don't make sense do. See also the 1996 Everest disaster, where at least one misstep was due to people not having enough oxygen in their brains to make rational decisions.

But we'll probably never know, because cockpit recordings overwrite themselves after 2 hours, and we still haven't made it an urgent enough issue to get this vital data beamed to a satellite or something.

As for me, I'm an "optimist", or as much of an optimist as one can be with a horrible event like this. I want to believe the pilots didn't want to die or cause harm that day. I'd much rather blame the plane (and then figure out what went wrong) than blame a human being for doing terrible things to fellow human beings. And also, if I have to go, hypoxia isn't the worst way to die. I'd much rather go out thinking everything's fine and I just need to close my eyes and take a nap than the Germanwings people, who surely knew they were being driven to their deaths.
posted by offalark at 9:27 AM on July 31, 2015 [1 favorite]


Fear of Landing: Straight-Talk about Malaysia Airlines flight 370 and the flaperon. Nice readable summary of what we know and might learn from the flaperon. The source is a reliable writer on airplane accidents.
posted by Nelson at 9:59 AM on August 1, 2015 [2 favorites]


MH370 search: more debris washes up on Reunion Island, reports say
[...] Mr Ferrier, whose job is to trawl beaches for trash and dispose of it, said he took the seat and several suitcases that washed up along with it and burned them without realising their possible significance.
[...]
"I burnt them," he said, pointing to the pile of ashes lying on the boulders. "That's my job. I collect rubbish and burn it. I could have found many things that belonged to the plane, and burnt them, without realising."
posted by Joe in Australia at 4:36 AM on August 2, 2015 [1 favorite]


That hurts.
posted by cashman at 5:35 AM on August 2, 2015 [2 favorites]


Confirmed as from flight MH370.
posted by Bee'sWing at 11:11 AM on August 5, 2015


Malaysia Confirms Plane Debris Is From Flight MH370

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak confirmed on early on Thursday that a Boeing 777 wing segment discovered in the Indian Ocean island of Reunion is from the missing Flight MH370, the first real breakthrough in the search for the plane that disappeared 17 months ago.
posted by RedOrGreen at 11:14 AM on August 5, 2015


.
posted by divabat at 12:52 PM on August 5, 2015




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