Why the Search for MH370 Is Not Really Over
The news came yesterday that the three countries leading the search for Malaysia Air Flight 370 are finally pulling the plug after two and a half years. This appears to have dimmed hopes for ever finding the errant plane and the 239 people aboard.
Or has it?
Despite the pessimistic tone of the announcement from Australia's Joint Agency Coordination Center, which said the decision "has not been taken lightly nor without sadness," Australia has previously said it would open to resuming the quest if "credible evidence" emerges. Malaysia and China, the other two nations that have supported the search, also have balked at continuing the thus-far futile expedition unless a more solid lead surfaces.
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Such a lead may already be bubbling up: Last month, a team of Australian scientists identified a new area north of the 46,000 square-mile zone that has just been exhaustively combed for signs of the plane. The scientists are "very confident" that the plane landed in this area, which is just 9,600 square miles in area, according to a report in the Daily Beast. That report also revealed that the remaining Dutch search vessel on the case has made several sweeps of this region in recent weeks. Some of that time was spent mapping the ocean floor-which would be necessary only if a new search is likely to be authorized, the story asserted.
What led this team of experts to this spot was a combination of technology and an old-fashion sleuthing, using the confirmed MH370 debris that has washed up as clues to retrace the path of the doomed plane. Oceanographers created replicas of a large piece of debris that was found on Reunion island, off Africa, and floated them in ocean currents to measure the speed of their drift. The effort also relied on data from meteorologists and oceanographers who have pulled together detailed data on conditions that existed in the region from the time when the plane disappeared on March 8, 2014, to when pieces were discovered more than a year later.
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Resuming a full-blown search will be difficult, and not just because of the lack of funding. Weather conditions will soon deteriorate and won't improve until the following summer in the Southern Hemisphere. Meanwhile, sources tell PM that there may be another effort to replicate the path of the flotsam; this time, test objects with GPS tracking equipment would be dropped into the sea in early March to replicate as closely as possible the exact conditions of the ocean at that time.
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