It’s two years since Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 disappeared with 239 passengers and crew on board. Despite an intense search, the only confirmed wreckage has been part of a flaperon found washed up on a beach on the island of La Reunion, in the Indian Ocean.
There are reports this week that another possible piece of the missing aircraft has been found near the same island.
The debris found last week on a sandbank in Mozambique has been sent to Australia for testing to see if it’s from the missing Boeing 777-200ER.
The confirmation that the first wreckage was from the aircraft validated military radar data, which indicated flight MH370 diverted away from its scheduled route, flew back across the Malaysian peninsula and over the Indian Ocean. Why it diverted is still a mystery.
Flight MH370 was en route to Beijing after leaving Kuala Lumpur, in Malaysia, early on March 8, 2014. A couple of hours into the flight, it lost contact with air traffic controllers and disappeared from radar.
The initial search along the scheduled route to China was diverted when an analysis of satellite pings from the aircraft revealed the flight more likely ended up in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of Western Australia.
The Australian-led search has been going ever since but so far, there’s nothing to indicate exactly where the aircraft ended its flight. So two years on, is it time to give up the search?
Is the search over?
About 85,000 square kilometres of the 120,000 square kilometre search zone has been covered so far. The searchers are hoping the aircraft may be found in the area still to be searched.
But as the search nears its end without finding the wreckage, the focus is on where to go next. Should the search continue and, if so, where?
Many people would like to see the search continue and find out what happened to this aircraft. But searchers face a real conundrum.
All the analysis of satellite data and aircraft range estimates based on maximum and minimum fuel-burn scenarios places the most likely final resting place of the plane in the present search area.
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Once that area has been searched without success, where do you go next?
A lot of effort will be expended on reviewing all the data and assumptions that pointed to the current search area. The aim will be to see if there was some detail that was missed; an error made in an assumption or an assumption that was overly optimistic; or anything that might suggest an amendment to the existing search area, or maybe a new one.
Oceanographers forecast that any floating wreckage originating from the existing search area would come ashore along the African coast, near La Reunion Island, about the time it did. This suggests, if the wreckage is not actually in the search area, it might be tantalisingly close.