back to article Last attempt to find MH370 starts this week

The probably-final attempt at finding MH370, the Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 missing since March 2014, has commenced. The initial search effort led by Australian authorities could not find the plane after more than two years scouring the sea floor in remote southern areas of the Indian ocean. Australia, India and China, …

  1. Dodgy Geezer Silver badge

    It WILL be found...


    They found Richard III's body eventually. Might take a hundred years or more, though, and technology that we don't have today...

    1. Pier Reviewer

      Re: It WILL be found...

      I have my doubts sadly. Dick was found where they left him. The ocean floor is a rather less static affair. The scale of the two areas is significantly different too.

      I think they’ll find some of it every now and again, but enough to figure out with any certainty what happened? Maybe, but I’m not heading down the bookies...

    2. DougS Silver badge

      Re: It WILL be found...

      Richard III was located where there is a lot of human activity, MH370 is where there is no and never will be any human activity. We'd be far more likely to find it if it had crashed on one of Jupiter's moons - at least we are likely to go there in the future.

      1. ZanzibarRastapopulous

        Re: It WILL be found...

        ..and it's gradually getting buried of course.

      2. tomban

        Re: at least we are likely to go there in the future

        except Europa, attempt no landing there

    3. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      Re: It WILL be found...

      They only dug Richard III up so they could charge him for overstaying his parking ticket...

    4. Mark 85 Silver badge

      Re: It WILL be found...

      The ocean is very corrosive to metals. Part of this problem is the currents and how broken up was the craft before (from the dive when engines died) and how hard it hit. It's not like it did a nice controlled ditching.

      1. DougS Silver badge

        Re: It WILL be found...

        Before someone says "what about the Titanic, it survived for nearly a century" it had a hull (sadly, only one) inches thick, while airplanes have a paper thin skin. It also hit the water at hundreds of mph, rather than slowly sinking like the Titanic.

        Before long the debris will be covered by the normal detritus of the ocean and it wouldn't be found even if James Cameron's submersible was 5' above the largest piece.

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: It WILL be found...

      If they looked in Islamabad when it went down, they might have found it. Its long ago been cut up for scrap now, and a few "sacrificial" parts dumped on Reunion Island or Mauritius to cover it up.

  2. Denarius
    Thumb Up


    on how many conspiracy theories are not true and the accuracy of some very careful data examination. kudos to the company for effort by putting money where mouth is, even if plane was not there either. NB. I dont believe any of the theories. They imply the spooks are competent which is inconceivable.

    1. wolfetone Silver badge

      Re: depends

      "They imply the spooks are competent which is inconceivable."

      Well, they killed Kennedy (John and Bobby). So anything is possible to be honest.

  3. arctic_haze Silver badge

    What is important is why, not where

    In is still one of the weirdest air catastrophes ever. The interesting part is more what happened and why than where exactly the plane ended up.

    By the way, even if they find finally the plane, it will be most probably a debris field scattered over tens of square kilometers of the ocean bottom. It will be difficult to recover more than the largest fragments of the fuselage.

    1. Baldrickk Silver badge

      Re: What is important is why, not where

      Though of course, the flight recorders are what would be most valuable now - assuming they are still intact.

      We might never find it, but its disappearance has started a push towards better tracking of aircraft - so hopefully we won't lose one like this again.

      1. Tom 7 Silver badge

        Re: What is important is why, not where

        I thought the flight recorders would have overwritten any useful data - assuming they recorded any - as the expected time of flight after it turned and headed south was far beyond the storage capacity.

        1. Baldrickk Silver badge

          Re: What is important is why, not where

          Depends exactly where it ended up and why - if it was purposeful, they should show that the crew was in control - if something had happened to the crew, e.g. depressurisation (for some reason) knocking them out - it would show that they were unresponsive. If there were faults with the plane, these should be able to be determined too - at least the cause of the eventual crash, and maybe whatever caused it to be off course could be determined by the state of the system before that.

          There would be some important data to recover, even if not everything was recorded - though I have to admit that I don't know how much capacity they actually have.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: What is important is why, not where

      Even if it is scattered, they then can use modelling of ocean currents to get a pretty good idea of where the other bits may of gone. And flight recorders are pretty heavy, so may not have travelled to far.

    3. Pascal Monett Silver badge

      Re: What is important is why, not where

      Yeah, but unfortunately to get the why, the where would be useful because we won't know why until the plane has been found and examined.

  4. andy gibson

    Excuse the DM Link

    But some nice pictures of some things they've found while looking for the MH370:

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The Seabed Constructor is an interesting ship, with some interesting fleet-mates.

    I wonder where the other two are?

    I'm sure they're not up to anything dodgy...

    1. Neil Spellings

      Just plug their IMOs (9671632 and 9533244) into and voila..their exact location.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        That shows you the last time they were picked up by a shore based AIS system. Once they're away from the coast they can head anywhere (and turn down/off their AIS so they're less likely to be picked up by another ship).

        The last data for Surveyor is from 2013, the last data for Worker is from two weeks ago.

        AIS web tracking is only useful close to shore.

  6. Brex

    When conspiracies are real

    Try Diego Garcia for a change...

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Maybe they should have collected shark poo and looked for traces of human DNA.

    1. Overflowing Stack

      Sharks with frickin' laser beams I hope!

  8. W.S.Gosset Bronze badge

    "With the Southern Hemisphere’s winter closing in"

    Oh yes, the frozen storm-wracked tropical winter. I live on the same latitude, so close to the demon pole, and it is brisk already, BRISK I tell you! Today it plunged to 26ºC! I am running out of furniture to burn and I can't feel my toes... the end is near.

    1. Barry Mahon

      Re: "With the Southern Hemisphere’s winter closing in"

      Where? what latitude? I assume you don't live in the Southern Ocean? 26deg means very little without location and climatic data.

  9. Overflowing Stack

    They aren't looking on the moon



  10. Tezfair

    a silly suggestion, but bare with me

    Clearly this is no help to the plane, but maybe they should install sealed plastic balls so in the event of a crash at sea the balls are released and may give a clue to tidal direction. This is based on the rubber ducks that scientists monitor on the ocean. There's little or no weight and can be shoved in any void.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I just saw the Channel 5 story called "MH370 Inside the situation room". I can't believe how arrogant the Malaysian officials are.

    They constantly claim they didn't cover anything up, despite not telling anyone what was happening for days, they carry on about how many countries rallied to the call for help and deployed "assets" to help Malaysia, and that Malaysia was doing everything it could to find MH370.

    The fact is, Malaysia did pretty much nothing to look for the plane. Australia spent hundreds of millions of dollars, and a few other countries also spent some money on it, but Malaysia did F* ALL.

    In the latest search, they will pay NOTHING if the plane isn't found, and it was an unsolicited offer to look for it under a no find no fee arrangement.

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