malaysia airlines mh 370 drift of potential debris dr david griffin csiro marine and atmospheric...
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Malaysia Airlines MH 370 Drift of potential debrisDr David Griffin CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research
David Griffin
One of the most tragic and mysterious aviation disasters of all time
• How can a plane full of passengers disappear without trace?• Conspiracy theories thrive on mysteries• So Australia suddenly found itself, on 18 March 2014, in charge of
a huge investigation• The surface search was all but completely halted on 28 April• No evidence of the missing plane has yet been found• I will not cover the search of the sea-floor for the flight recorders
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Our job: to advise aircraft where to look for debris that had been drifting for 10+ days, given a range of possible splashpoints
• Debris with freeboard drifts with the wind+current• Submerged debris drifts with current
only• Near-surface current is sheared• Mesoscale and submesoscale eddies
take items in various directions• Convergences and divergences
aggregate and disaggregate items• We used 2 Australian models and 2 US
models. Today I show only the former
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Conclusions
• We can’t be sure why no debris has been found• ‘Sightings’ by satellites were unable to be verified• There is great uncertainty over the location of the crash
site• Many days elapsed between the crash and
commencement of search operations in the area• There might not have been many buoyant items• Until any wreckage is found on the sea floor, we can’t
validate the surface search areas
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Conclusions
• AMSA deployed many GPS-tracked, 1m-deep surface buoys• These largely vindicate the drift modelling done in aid of
the search• The search really put Australia’s real-time oceanographic
capability to the test• AMSA were very pleased with our work• Several timely lessons were learnt
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The Drift Planning Working Group
• AMSA Rescue Coordination Centre• Asia-Pacific ASA• GEMS• CSIRO• BoM• US Coast Guard
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