Ten years have passed since Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, carrying 239 passengers and crew, disappeared less than an hour after takeoff from Kuala Lumpur on March 8, 2014. Absolutely unsolvable puzzle.
There are numerous theories about the plane’s disappearance and the current location of the wreckage. Unusually, all communications on the plane were shut down shortly after takeoff.
Satellite location information received intermittently thereafter suggested that the aircraft flew south on a very different flight path than expected, into a remote and deep oceanic region of the Southern Indian Ocean before contact was lost.
Advanced international surveillance aircraft initially conducted more than 300 flights to visually search for aircraft debris on the surface while actively searching for MH370. Surface and underwater vehicles then conducted further searches, searching 120,000 square kilometers of ocean before ending the search in 2017.
The effort to find MH370 became one of the most expensive aviation searches in history. These searches used both sonar (active acoustic instruments that image the seafloor to locate the aircraft) and listening devices to retrieve the aircraft’s flight data recorder.
The wreckage of aircraft MH370 was confirmed to have been found on Reunion Island in July 2015 and off the coast of Mozambique in February 2016; this was consistent with what we know about ocean currents. In 2018, OceanInfinity, a private exploration company, also searched an area of 25,000 square kilometers but was unsuccessful.
Since then, a group of highly trained experts and members of the public have attempted to assist in the search. These efforts range from simple to truly advanced data analysis. They attempted to map the locations and timing of aircraft wrecks and other marine debris, as well as model drift currents. While doing this, they are trying to reconstruct where these may have originated, which is no small task.
The analysis of MH370’s flight path was pieced together from two different types of radar, primary and secondary, as well as intermittent “ping” data from the aircraft to the Inmarsat satellite. The results show that the aircraft deviated south from its intended flight path.
Another technique, called weak signal propagation (WSPR data (a way of using radio emission to track objects such as aircraft)) had identified a specific but very broad search area, some of which had already been searched.
Available hydroacoustic data of the seafloor (based on the way sound propagates in water) was also analyzed. However, only a relatively small area is covered and the seabed in this area can be very rugged. There are deep submarine canyons that can hide objects much larger than an airplane.
Lessons learned from past flight disasters also informed the search. These included the Yemenia plane crash in the Indian Ocean in 2009.
recovery process
For searches in inland or coastal waters, a phased search strategy is recommended as best practice, in which searchers attempt to determine water depths, significant current strengths and directions, together with pre-existing field information, before expert search teams are deployed using methods and equipment configurations. and fully accredited staff.
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But this dependence on technology can be problematic. Even in small waterways, the presence of vegetation in the search area or a target buried in sediment can make these searches difficult.
Much of the southern Indian Ocean seafloor is rugged and relatively uncharted, with water depths of up to 7.4 km. Far from regular shipping routes and commercial flight patterns, there are few fishing vessels, no significant land masses, and some of the worst wind and weather conditions in the world. These factors also make search a very challenging field.
Deploying sonar in deep water (more than 2 to 3 km) is laborious and prohibitively expensive. Data also takes a long time to generate. A major challenge for scanning technologies is achieving accuracy at such depths due to the scattering of the signal caused by irregular, especially rocky, surfaces on the seafloor.
The development of more advanced autonomous submersible vehicles could be key to finding MH370 in the southern Indian Ocean, with post-processing of raw data that could clarify what is attributable to rocks, humps and pockets on the seafloor.
This can distinguish between the seabed and searched objects. However, the area where MH370 disappeared is very large; This means future searches will be as challenging as when the plane first disappeared in 2014.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Jamie Pringle receives funding from HLF, Nuffield Foundation, Royal Society, NERC, EPSRC and EU Horizon2020. He is a member of the Geological Society of London. Jamie works at Keele University.
Alastair Ruffell receives funding from: ProjectBoost (IntertradeIreland); Arts and Humanities Research Council; Natural Environment Research Council; Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.
Ruth Morgan has received funding from the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council and the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.