MH370: No, they did not find the plane [Updated]

This image is from a document released by Malaysian officials that originates with the British Air Accidents Investigation Branch.


But you might have gotten the impression that the plane was found based on the news from Malaysia, where the prime minister, Najib Razak, announced that Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 went down in the southern Indian Ocean. Simultaneously, there have been multiple reports of possible debris being spotted on the surface of the water in several locations roughly 1,500 miles from Perth, Australia.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said Monday that new information from satellite data showed missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 "ended in the southern Indian Ocean.” (AP)


Let’s be clear: The debris reports are ambiguous at best. The ocean is covered with “marine litter.” The fact that planes and satellites have spotted objects on the surface of the ocean is not surprising. Nothing has been seen that closely matches objects associated with an aircraft or with this flight in particular.

The conclusion that the plane went down in the southern Indian Ocean is based on an innovative interpretation of the “handshake” between the airplane and a ground station as relayed by a geostationary satellite. We have known for nearly two weeks that this satellite information led investigators to believe that the plane kept flying for at least six hours. Last week in our story on satellites, we reported that the northern corridor was eliminated not through any technical analysis, but simply through a survey of the radar coverage on the Asian mainland, which picked up no sign of a stray Boeing 777. But over the weekend, there was a new development, as we reported last night:


The analysts concluded that the airplane was moving away from the satellite. That, by itself, did not reveal whether the plane was flying north to Asia or south to the Indian Ocean. But, with help from an unnamed European aerospace expert and from Boeing, Inmarsat scrutinized the pings from other Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777s flying to the north and to the south.



The plane typically flies on autopilot at 450 nautical mph, he said. That gave authorities a rough idea of how far the jet is likely to have flown. There were six hourly pings after the plane disappeared, but not a seventh because the aircraft presumably ran out of fuel.










Obviously this does not answer the question of what happened on the plane as it was flying toward China, or where it ultimately wound up. It just indicates that it went south, far into the southern Indian Ocean. There is nothing out there, and thus all signs point to a crash at sea. It’s a terrible and tragic event, and still slathered in mystery.

Now comes more analysis to try to refine the likely location of the plane when it made its final handshake. Navy vessels will drag a ping detector to see if they can pick up a signal from the plane on the ocean floor. Time is precious: The pinger runs on batteries and will go silent after roughly 30 days.


I spoke to Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and an expert on satellites, and he said this looks like a robust analysis. But he makes a key point: “In terms of finding the debris, you’d really like to narrow it down to a hundred miles or so, and you can’t do that because small changes in assumptions about the airplane’s speed are going to change the search area by thousands of miles. All this analysis does is tell you that yes it is in the southern Indian Ocean, it’s on the southern track, it’s west of Australia, but how far west, how far south, we can’t do that.”

[FYI, we're working up a complete story (not an A-blog) on this issue and should have it ready this afternoon.]

Even after Malaysia's prime minister confirmed the flight "ended" in the Indian Ocean, many questions still remain. Here's a chronology of the baffling aviation mystery. Updated Mar. 26, 2014. (Gillian Brockell and Kate M. Tobey/The Washington Post)


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