More pieces of MH370 (?) spark calls for renewed search

This is the 42nd post in which Walt has discussed or mentioned the mystery of the Malaysian Airlines B-777, operating as flight MH370, which vanished off the face of the earth on 8 March 2014. Here are the links to some of the key pieces.
14/3/14 "MH370: Three guesses from Walt" - Note the third suggestion!
19/3/14 "MH370: 1 + 3 = ??? Walt puts two possibilities together"
26/3/14 "For the second time: Diego Garcia is a key piece of the MH370 puzzle" - Diego Garcia is the site of a huge US military installation which dominates south Asia and the Indian Ocean
17/6/14 "Latest on MH370: Inmarsat says search was off target; Canadian ex-pilot blames Malaysian authorities for "bungled inquiry", suggests ulterior motive"
18/12/14 "MH370 - Just fancy that!"

Up to this point, not a trace of the missing aircraft had been found. The theories of Walt and others as to what happened to MH370 were based largely on speculation. Then, in July of 2015, pieces of debris started to turn up. See
29/7/15 "Wreckage of MH370 (?) surfaces" and
31/7/15 "Current thinking on MH370" - Here's where I made a diagram of the currents which brought the debris to the shores of Réunion and (later) Mozambique, Madagascar and South Africa. See
24/3/16 "Wreckage on shores of WESTERN Indian Ocean IS from MH370" and
12/5/16 "MH370: 5 pieces now, all in "the wrong place"

For reasons about which we can only speculate, the "authorities" and "experts" kept searching off the west coast of Australia, and, as Walt predicted, came up with nothing. Nada. Zippo. Lifetime pct .984.
20/12/16 "'Experts' admit looking in the wrong place for MH370"
6/1/18 "New search for MH370 - Walt's advice on how to get answers"
30/7/18 "MH370: 'Third party interference' (= hijacking?) can't be ruled out" - The final report of the official investigation, in which the "authorities" concede that they had no explanation whatever for one of the Great Mysteries of the Sea. Having ignored Walt's advice, they said they really didn't have a clue. Nothing to see here, folks. Fuggedaboutit.

But the families of the 239 people who went down with the plane don't want to forget. They want answers, and are demanding another search, the more so since more pieces of wreckage keep turning up. Here we see the Malaysian Transport Minister, Anthony Loke, examining a piece of debris believed to be from the missing aircraft. This is one of five pieces presented to the Malaysian government today by representatives of people who perished.

Their spokesperson, whose mother was on flight MH370, said the new debris was found by villagers in Madagascar (again!) over the past two years as part of a privately funded search. She said one of the pieces has a readable label and is believed to be a floor panel from the plane. She urged the Malaysian government to make a thorough search in the area Walt suggested years ago -- for debris that could be either buried in sand or floating in waters off the coast of southern Africa and the adjacent islands.

Minister Loke said the debris will be verified by investigators but the government is only open to continuing the search if there is credible evidence of the plane's location. Kind of a funny condition when you consider that without a search, the location of the plane (or what's left of it) can't be determined.

American wreckage hunter Blaine Gibson, on the right in the picture, said the debris has been inspected by independent experts, who believe it is from a Boeing 777. The piece that may be a floor panel indicates the plane may have shattered on impact and that there is no intact fuselage underwater, he said.

As Walt reported, the Malaysian-led independent investigation report released in July highlighted shortcomings in the government's response to the plane's disappearance, including lapses by air traffic control, and a failure to monitor radar continuously and immediately initiate an emergency response.

It also raised the possibility of "intervention by a third party" -- not the US military, of course -- and reiterated the Malaysian theory that the plane was deliberately diverted and flown (by whom?) for over seven hours after severing communications. The report said there was insufficient information to determine if the aircraft broke up in the air or during an impact with the ocean. In summary, the authorities don't have a clue, and, for some mysterious reason, don't seem to want one. Nothing to see here, folks. Fuggedaboutit.

New search for MH370 - Walt's advice on how to get answers

Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, a Boeing B-777, vanished into thin air -- or deep water -- on 8 March 2014, on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. 227 pas and 12 crew members were on board, and are presumed dead after a 22-month search of a large chunk of the Indian Ocean failed to find the lost plane or any trace of it.

I followed the story closely, from its beginning -- see "MH370: Three guesses from Walt", WWW 14/3/14 -- until the search was ended in December 2016: "'Experts' admit looking in the wrong place for MH370", WWW 20/12/16. And I was among the first to put forward the suggestions that (a) the plane went down far from where the "experts" theorized, and (b) its disappearance was not unrelated to activities at the US military base on Diego Garcia. See "MH370: 1 + 3 = ??? Walt puts two possibilities together", WWW 19/3/14.

Conspiracy theory? You damn betcha! Just because it's a theory doesn't mean there was no conspiracy. All it means is that there's no proof!

But proof may yet be found. Today, Malaysia's government announced that it has approved a new attempt to find the wreckage of MH370. Earlier this week, an American company called Ocean Infinity sent a search vessel to have another look for debris in the southern Indian Ocean. Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said the company, which is working on a "no find, no fee" basis, "are willing to search the area of 25,000 square kilometers (9,653 square miles) pointed out by the expert group near the Australian waters." He did not offer further details.

The company itself said in a statement that the search vessel Seabed Constructor left the South African port of Durban -- take note of that -- on Tuesday, and was taking advantage of favourable weather to move toward "the vicinity of the possible search zone". But where is that, exactly? The first search, from the surface of the Indian Ocean, covered an area of several million square miles west of Australia. The subsequent underwater search mapped 710,000 square kilometers (274,000 square miles) of seabed at depths of up to 6,000 meters, slightly to the west of the initial search area. As Walt predicted, nothing was found. (Lifetime pct .988.)

However... this is where it gets interesting... some debris was found, on Réunion Island and off the coast of Moçambique and South Africa, 1000s of miles away from where the "experts" were looking, on the other side of the Indian Ocean. Here is a nice neat map showing the locations from which debris has been recovered.

How did the bits and pieces, identified specifically on the map, get so far from where the "experts" thought the plane had gone down after (they hypothesized) running out of fuel? Let's look once again at Walt's not-so-nice-and-neat diagram of the ocean currents which likely carried the debris to the south-western shores of the Indian Ocean.

This is the fourth time I've published this map. The first time was in "Current thinking on MH370", on 31 July 2015! (I used it again in "Piece of MH370 engine cover washes up on South African shore", WWW 23/3/16 and "Wreckage on shores of WESTERN Indian Ocean IS from MH370", WWW 24/3/16.)

I've drawn in the location of three major ocean currents -- the Moçambique, Aquinas and South Equatorial currents -- as well as the location of Diego Garcia, a small island leased by the USA from the British and the site of a huge American military establishment. There is some evidence of a sighting of a large airplane with red and blue stripes low in the sky near the Maldives -- due north of Diego Garcia, in the path of the South Equatorial current. See "MH370 - Just fancy that!", WWW 18/12/14. Now then...

My theory is that MH370 was shot down or brought down by some other type of weapon -- a laser beam or interference with the plane's onboard computer -- by persons or forces unknown (not necessarily American, you understand), for reasons only they know, somewhere in the vicinity of Diego Garcia. The wreckage then drifted west and south with the ocean currents named above, with bits of it washing ashore at the points shown on the nice map.

The logical place to search -- as I've been saying for well over three years -- would be around Diego Garcia. Since that's still a pretty large area to cover, especially nearly four years after the fact, I have an even better suggestion. Since the disappearance of MH370, the US of A has had a change of administration. Some of the "mistakes" of the Prez and his Secretary of State Hellery Clinton -- like the Libya debacle -- are coming to light. I suggest that the Malaysian authorities ask President Trump to order an investigation into what the US military knows about the disappearance of MH370. My guess is that if they didn't do it, they know who did!

Wreckage on shores of WESTERN Indian Ocean IS from MH370

This is the third time I've posted a map of the Indian Ocean, to which I've added arrows showing the direction of key ocean currents, and a red star showing the location of the US military base at Diego Garcia. Look at this as you read my list of the three pieces of aircraft wreckage which have washed up on the shores of Réunion, Mozambique and South Africa. Australian authorities have now confirmed that the second piece, recovered earlier this month, is "highly likely" to have come from Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, which disappeared just over two years ago.

To summarize... MH370 was carrying 239 pax and crew when it vanished shortly after taking off from Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia, just above centre right on the map) bound for Beijing on 8 March 2014. When last "observed" by radar, it was heading to the northwest, roughly in the direction of the West Equatorial current, which I've drawn on in black.

For reasons about which we can only speculate, the Australian authorities who took charge of the search thought that the plane then made a turn of roughly 180 degrees, flying on southeasterly course for as long as five hours before plunging into the ocean somewhere off the west coast of Australia, which is where they've been searching ever since.

Even though the search area has been doubled from 60,000 square kilometres (as shown) to 120,000 sq.km., they've found... wait for it... nil, nada, bupkis... nothing at all.

Meanwhile... in July of 2015 a piece of aircraft wreckage was found on the island of Réunion. You'll find it on the other side of the map, in the western part of the Indian Ocean, 1000 of kilometres from the search area. The wreckage turned out to be a flaperon, which French experts confirmed in September came from the ill-fated B-777.

Fast forward to the first week of this month, when a US adventurer who was carrying out his own independent search for MH370 found a white, metre-long chunk of metal off the coast of Mozambique. That's in the southeastern part of Africa, at the west end of the Indian Ocean. The Aquinas Current flows in a southerly direction between the island of Madagascar and the African mainland. Today, Reuters reports that a Malaysian government investigation team has found that "both pieces of debris" [sic] are consistent with panels from a Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 aircraft.

Reuters quotes Australia's minister for infrastructure and transport, Darren Chester, as saying that "The analysis has concluded the debris is almost certainly from MH370. That such debris has been found on the east coast of Africa is consistent with drift modelling...and further affirms our search efforts in the southern Indian Ocean."

Excuse me for doubting, but it seems to me equally if not more plausible that the wreckage found along the paths of the Aquinas and Moçambique Currents -- see map!!! -- drifted south from from the site of a "water landing" somewhere in the northwest sector of the Indian Ocean. Let's say somewhere around, oh, Diego Garcia!

But wait (as Vince Offer would say), there's more! Just yesterday we learned that yet another piece of debris -- an inlet cowling from a Rolls Royce jet engine -- had been found. Guess where? Off the coast of Australia? Errr, no. See "Piece of MH370 engine cover washes up on South African shore". A Malaysian team is en route to Seff Africa to retrieve this latest find. Walt waits with bated breath to hear what Mr. Chester will say if this piece too turns out to belong to MH370.

What investigators really need to find is the main underwater wreckage, which would hold the plane's "black boxes" (flight data recorders). These should reveal details related to the plane's controls, including whether aircraft systems that might have helped track the plane were deliberately turned off, as some investigators believe. Walt suggests (once again) that the investigators ask the US military for a little help. They would surely lend a hand, wouldn't they... unless of course they had something to hide.

Further reading: Walt presented this map for the first time in "Current thinking on MH370", 31/7/15. I'll wait until the Americans fess up before saying I told you so.

Credible report of another piece of MH370 found far from search area

About five weeks ago Walt passed on a report of the finding, on a beach in southern Thailand, of what looked like a piece of wreckage from some sort of aircraft. The accompanying pix were far from proof that the debris was from a B-777, the kind of plane operated by Malaysian Airlines as flight MH370, or indeed from an airplane, period. The flotsam could have been part of a surfboard, as some experts suggested at the time.

A further problem with that report was the location of the finding -- a beach in southern Thailand, far from the island of Réunion, in the western Indian Ocean, which was where the only authenticated part from the missing aircraft washed up months earlier. Nothing further was heard about this, so the initial suspicion must be assumed to have been well founded.

Today, however, AP reports that debris that washed up in Moçambique (or Mozambique, using the English spelling) has been tentatively identified as a part from a Boeing 777, according to a US official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly. (Walt asks again why these reports about a Malaysian aircraft which supposedly disappeared in international airspace/waters always seem to come from unnamed American officials!)

According to AP, photos of the debris that washed up over the weekend appear to show the fixed leading edge of the right-hand tail section of a B-777. People who have handled the part, called a horizontal stabilizer, say it appears to be made of fibreglass composite on the outside, with aluminum honeycombing on the inside, the official said. The part is being transported to Malaysia.

Joao Abreu, Mozambique’s National Director of Civil Aviation, denied that authorities have found part of the missing plane, but Malaysian transport minister Liow Tiong Lai tweeted to confirm the discovery. "Based on early reports, high possibility debris found in Mozambique belongs to a B777," he wrote. "It is yet to be confirmed & verified. dca—malaysia working w Australian counterparts to retrieve the debris." He also urged "everyone to avoid undue speculation as we are not able to conclude that the debris belongs to #mh370 at this time."

A glance at the atlas tells us that Mozambique is on the southeast coast of Africa, to the west of Madagascar which in turn is west of Réunion. As the map in "Current thinking on MH370" (WWW 31/7/15) shows, the Aquinas and Moçambique currents could easily have carried debris to Réunion or Madagascar or Moçambique from the site of a "water landing" somewhere around... wait for it... Diego Garcia, the location of a massive US military base.

The map also shows that Diego Garcia and the possible site of the crash are in the north central part of the Indian Ocean, 1000s of miles from the search area suggested by, errr, the US military. Draw your own conclusions.

Could it be MH370? Wreckage found on Thai beach

Walt has spent much of this weekend meditating [= dozing off. Ed.] so has just now seen a report of the finding, on a beach in southern Thailand, of what looks like a piece of wreckage from some sort of aircraft.

Reuters reports that villagers in the Pak Phanang district of Nakhon Si Thammart province found a large piece of curved metal, measuring about 6 feet by 9 feet, heavily encrusted with barnacles, and reported the find to authorities for identification. We have a couple of photos.

The presence of numerous barnacles suggests that the piece of metal was in the ocean for some length of time. Note the resemblance to the condition of the flaperon (a part of the wing of a Boeing 777) which washed up on the French island of Réunion in July of last year.

The site of this week's discovery is 1000s of miles east of Réunion, but only a couple of hundred miles to the northwest of the last reported radar "sighting" of the B-777 flown by Malaysian Airlines as flight MH370, which vanished in March of 2014.

The find has therefore fuelled speculation in the Thai media that the debris could belong to MH370. If this turns out to be the case, much doubt will be cast on the officially approved theory that the plane flew (either on autopilot or under the control of suicidal pilots) into the south Indian Ocean, to the west of Australia. That would mean that the "authorities" are looking in the wrong place. Which is what Walt has said all along.

We must take note, however, of the opinion of "experts" like Greg Waldron, Asia managing editor at Flightglobal, an industry publication. He is quote in the Australian meeja as saying that while powerful currents sweeping the Indian Ocean could deposit debris thousands of kilometres away, wreckage was extremely unlikely to have drifted across the equator into the northern hemisphere.

Mr. Waldron goes so far as to suggest that the wreckage is not from an airplane at all, but perhaps something that dropped into the sea from outer space! "The markings, engineering, and tooling apparent in this debris strongly suggest that it is aerospace related," he said. "It will need to be carefully examined, however, to determine its exact origin."

A spokesthingy for the Joint Agency Coordination Centre, the Australian authority that is overseeing the international search for MH370, told Reuters it was "awaiting results of the official examination of the material". So are the families of the hundreds of (mostly Chinese) pax on board the ill-fated flight. So are we all...

Further reading: "MH370 passengers alive and being held captive?" WWW 7/1/16

MH370 passengers alive and being held captive?

Is it possible... really... that the conspiracy theories surrounding the fate of missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 are right? Could it be... really... that the plane was hijacked and landed in a remote location, to be "repurposed", and that the passengers are alive and being held captive?

That theory sounds a bit far-fetched to me, but it's what some of the families of the missing pax (like those shown here, demonstrating in Beijing some months ago) believe.

In a statement released earlier this week, the families said they offered their forgiveness to whoever is holding the passengers, adding "We believe our loved ones may still be alive and are being held at an undisclosed location for unknown reasons. In the absence of proof to the contrary, we believe it is possible the missing may still be alive. If this is so, we would willingly grant to the perpetrators amnesty in return for the release of the missing."

The "official" story, according to Malaysian, Australian and French "authorities", is that the B-777 flew southwest from its last confirmed position for hours, until it (perhaps) ran out of fuel or (perhaps) was flown very gently and skilfully into the south Indian Ocean by its suicidal pilot(s). French officials claim that a flaperon which washed up on the shores of Réunion -- on the other side of said ocean, some 3000 miles of the area now being searched -- was from the missing aircraft.

In this week's statement, the families of the missing said they don't trust the official account of the incident. "We do not believe any of the series of official statements starting from March 24, 2014, up to and including that of September 3, 2015," they said. "There is no real proof justifying any of these statements." They urged that an investigation into exactly what happened be broadened and extended beyond June, which is when the official search for the missing plane is scheduled to end.

The problem with their request, as I see it, is that no investigation will uncover anything unless and until the relevant governments fess up. Who do I mean? Weellll... perhaps the Chinese, perhaps the Indians, or... more likely... the Americans who operate the gigantic military base on Diego Garcia. If the missing plane in fact landed somewhere on terra firma, I'll bet a dollar to your donut that's where it is.

The more likely explanation is that the Americans shot MH370 out of the sky, perhaps accidentally... perhaps not. See "Current thinking on MH370", WWW 31/7/15. (And please pardon the pun in the headline.)

More MH370 wreckage found? In Philippines??!!

Walt was wondering just yesterday how the search for debris from Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, which vanished in March 2014, was progressing. It seemed odd to me that only one piece should be found. Today we have a report -- just in from Channel NewsAsia! -- that parts of a plane painted with the Malaysian flag have been sighted in the southern Philippines!

A man named Jamil Omar lodged a report at the Sandakan police station, claiming that a family member discovered the wreckage in a forest at Pulau Sugbay, on the island of Tawi-Tawi, in early September.

As the map shows, Tawi-Tawi is in the far southwest of the Philippine Islands, just east of Malaysia. It lies in the opposite direction from that presumed to have been taken by MH370 when last sighted, and 1000s of miles, again in the opposite direction, from the island of Réunion, where the B-777 flaperon was found.

Mr. Omar's report also claimed human skeletal remains and a Malaysian flag were inside the plane.

While Mr. Omar's report (which also claimed human skeletal remains and a Malaysian flag were inside the claim) sounds rather fanciful, Malaysian police are looking into it. Inspector-General Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar Knacker told The Sun Daily,  "There was no photograph to support the claim, so we have asked our counterpart in the Philippines to check whether there was such wreckage."

Malaysian authorities have called on the public not to speculate on the claimed sighting until officials are able to carry out an investigation, since past reports of debris sightings have, for the most part, been inaccurate. But let's speculate anyway! [Do you speculate often? How many times? Ed.]

If it turns out that whatever Mr. Omar's family saw really is wreckage from MH370, how did debris from that ill-fated plane wind up on islands in two different oceans, 1000s of miles apart? Is it possible that bits and pieces were deliberately planted, either on Réunion or Tawi-Tawi? Who would do such a thing? And why? And where did they get the pieces in the first place? Interesting questions. Great food for speculation!

French experts confirm flaperon is from MH370

What with all the flap about the refugee crisis, the lamestream media didn't devote a lot of space to other stories. One that got buried was a pronouncement by French investigators examining a piece of aircraft debris found on the Indian Ocean island of Réunion in late July. They have concluded "with certainty" that the flaperon -- a wing part -- came from the Malaysia Airlines B-777 that, while operating as flight MH370, disappeared in March of 2013 while flying to Beijing.

So what have we learned? MH370 went down somewhere in the Indian Ocean. Anything else? Errr... that's all.

We do not know where it went down. We do not know how it went down. We do not even know if any of the 239 passengers and crew were still on board when it went down.

Most important, we do not know what caused it to go down. Maybe it was an accident. Maybe not. What some have called "wild conspiracy theories" -- e.g. that MH370 was shot down, accidentally or on purpose, by the US military operating out of Diego Garcia -- have not been disproved.

Further reading: "Current thinking on MH370" (WWW 31/7/15)

More MH370 debris found? Guess where!

There has been a report of the finding of more debris, possibly from an aircraft -- Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 ??? -- which washed ashore on Baa Atoll Fehendhoo and Fulhahdhoo, both in the Southern Maalhosmadulhu Atoll, which is part of... wait for it... the Maldive Islands. Here's a picture of the large piece of flotsam found nearly a month ago.

So what is it? There's a resemblance to the B-777 flaperon found on Réunion late last month. On the other hand, as the South China Morning Post suggests, it could be just a piece of "an unusual make of surfboard".

Inspector Mohammed of the local police has the debris in custody, and "officials" from Malaysia and Australia are on the way to take a closer look [and maybe catch some waves? Ed.]

While it's much too soon to declare a Told-You-So, Walt can't help but be reminded of the investigation by French author Marc Dugain -- see "MH370 - Just fancy that!" (WWW 18/12/14) -- who theorized that there has been a cover-up in the disappearance of the airliner, which could have been shot down by the American military operating out of their huge base at Diego Garcia!

Take a good look at this map. The blue horizontal line running across the middle of the image is the Equator. The olive-coloured island straddling the Equator at the right edge is one of the islands of Indonesia. The last radar "sighting" of MH370 placed the aircraft just about there -- let's call it Point A -- heading northwest.

The "experts" looking for the missing plane claim that it then turned nearly 300 degrees to head southeast to the area in which the search has been concentrated. See the map in "Current thinking on MH370" (WWW 31/7/15).

In the centre of the map above, just southwest of India, are the Maldives -- Point B. Due south of the Maldives is the British Indian Ocean Territory, which includes Diego Garcia, leased by the Brits to the US military. It's marked separately, the dot to the southeast of the island group.

Now look again at the map in "Current thinking on MH370". You will see that the North Equatorial Current of the Indian Ocean runs from Point A to Point B, almost in a straight line. If a plane came down, by accident or by design, anywhere along that line, any debris would most likely wash up on the Maldives first.

That's exactly what M Dugain thought. But his theory, propounded last year, was dismissed by the "experts" because, errr, that would lend credence to the idea that the US military had something to do with the disappearance of MH370 and, for some reason, didn't want their involvement to be known. Imagine that.

Current thinking on MH370

On Wednesday, in "Wreckage of MH370 (?) surfaces" (updated yesterday), Walt expressed doubt -- great doubt -- as to the probability of a piece of debris from Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 having drifted more than 3000 miles westward across the southern Indian Ocean to the island of Réunion, where a B-777 "flaperon" has washed ashore. (Yes, Walt has now learned that a "flaperon" is a part of the trailing edge of an aircraft's wing.)

Turns out, now, that the party line being put out by the Australian and Malaysian "authorities" responsible for the search doesn't say that. They deny the suggestion made by Walt [and others! Ed.] that they've been looking in the wrong place, off the coast of western Australia. No, they say, the debris (the flaperon and possibly a beat-up suitcase) could have drifted considerably farther, in a counter-clockwise fashion north following the Western Australia current, then west along the South Equatorial current, then southwest with the Moçambique (Mozambique) current to La Réunion. Do I have to draw you a picture? Voilà!

Yes, I've taken a map of the Indian Ocean and drawn on the currents named and a couple of others. No, I didn't make those up. The source for the location and direction of the warm (red), cold (blue), and luke-warm (I guess, in black) currents is "Currents and Tides", on the Marinebio website.

The spokesthingies for the governments involved are certainly correct in saying that the currents of the southern Indian Ocean move counter-clockwise. And yes, it's possible that if a plane fell into the sea -- "made a water landing", as the airlines would say -- in the search area (highlighted in yellow), pieces of debris could have gone all the way around from, say, 4 o'clock, counter-clockwise to 9 o'clock.

What the "authorities" aren't saying is that it's even more possible that the plane came down -- accidentally or on purpose -- closer to 12 o'clock, which I have starred in red because it's the location of Diego Garcia, site of a huge US military (air and naval) base.

From Diego Garcia, the Americans control virtually the entire Indian Ocean and the airspace above it. Suppose for a minute that a paranoid US radar operator and/or a trigger-happy US pilot mistook MH370 for an enemy aircraft and shot it down. Would the Pentagon (and the Prez) admit and say, "Gee, we're really sorry but you have to understand that we're protecting the world from terrorism and there's bound to be a bit of collateral damage, every now and then?" Walt thinks not.

Further reading: In "MH370 - Just fancy that!" (18/12/14), Walt reports on the theory of French author Marc Dugain -- a former CEO of Proteus Airlines -- that there has been a cover-up in the disappearance of the airliner, which could have been hacked and then shot down by the Americans! IMHO, the finding of debris on the shore of La Réunion adds strength to M. Dugain's version of what happened, the "official" version notwithstanding.

UPDATED: Wreckage of MH370 (?) surfaces

Walt found it hard to believe that no trace of the Boeing 777 being flown by Malaysian Airlines as flight MH370, which vanished in March of 2014, would ever be found. Regular readers of WWW will remember that Walt maintained from the get-go that searchers were looking in the wrong place, and that if they really wanted to know where to look, they should ask the US military.

Before saying "I told you so", I'll summarize today's news, as reported by the BBC. Then I'll ask a couple of pertinent questions.

La Réunion is a small island in the Indian Ocean, located just to the east of Madagascar. It is technically a part of France, a relic of the French Empire. So, when something that looked like part of an airplane wing washed up on its shores, it was a matter for the local gendarmerie.

Experts, including at least one American, were called right sharpish, and are conducting tests to ascertain whether the single piece of debris was in fact a wing component from a 777. There have been a number of crashes much closer to the island than the sport west of Malaysia where MH370 was last "seen" on radar.

Malaysia is sending a team to investigate the debris discovered today. Australian investigators, who are leading the hunt, are also reported to be in touch with manufacturers over the find. However, an anonymous US official told Associated Press that investigators had a "high degree of confidence" that the part was a "flaperon" unique to a Boeing 777 wing.

BBC News also quotes an aviation expert, Xavier Tytelman, as saying it presented "incredible similarities" to a Boeing 777 flaperon. [Perhaps Agent 17 could e-mail us an explanation of what a "flaperon" is. "Ailerons" we've heard of, but "flaperons"? Errr, no.]

French experts, however, say it is too early to tell. An anonymous member of the French Air Force told CNN it was "way too soon" to say if it was from the missing flight. BBC News points out that La Réunion is over 3700 miles west of the search area, in the southeastern quadrant of the Indian Ocean, off the western coast of Australia.

That's way off, a long way off indeed. Have a look at this map, which shows the Indian Ocean and its currents.

Madagascar is the large island east of Africa. La Réunion is just to the east of Madagascar, at the tip of the long red arrow extending southwest from the middle of the Indian Ocean. Australia... well, you know which landmass is Australia, right? The area which was being searched for the remains of MH370 is close to the black arrow pointing northeast, next to the number 14. Diego Garcia, site of a huge US military base, is located about at the foot of the "A" in "INDIAN". So let me ask...

* Would debris found on Réunion more likely have floated there from the search area or from somewhere in the centre of the Indian Ocean? Note the direction of the currents represented by the black and red arrows.

* Why were American "experts" called in by the French at the first moment? The search was being carried out mainly by the Australians and Malaysians.

* Who told the searchers to look in the location represented by "14", to the exclusion of the northeast and central parts of the Indian Ocean, in spite of considerable doubt expressed by Walt [and others! Ed.] as to why MH370 would have made a turn of some 270 degrees away from its last observed course?

To whom should these questions be addressed? Walt suggests... again... asking the US military, particularly those authorities responsible for operations at the US base on Diego Garcia. Of course the buck doesn't stop at the Pentagon. If no answers are forthcoming from that quarter, perhaps the Republican presidential candidate [Donald who? Ed.] could ask Hellery Clinton.

Previously on WWW: "MH370 - Just fancy that!" (18/12/14) and "Search for MH370 being quietly scaled down" (3/6/15)

"Fancy that!" Dept: Dawn is breaking to the east of Walt's cabin in the pines. CBC News has an update titled "MH370 search: Indian Ocean currents could have deposited debris on Réunion Island, experts say". Perhaps some of the experts have read this post. Erik van Sebille, an oceanographer at Imperial College London, is quoted as saying that, if the debris on Reunion was indeed from MH370, "this westward drift from near Australia all the way across the Indian Ocean can really only happen if the plane went into the water relatively close to the equator."

Or perhaps not. All that Charitha Pattiaratchi, Professor of Coastal Oceanography at the University of Western Australia, could add is that the point of origin of the debris "will definitely be in the Southern Hemisphere." Mind you, "the southern Hemisphere" could include the island of St. Helena and the Andes mountains, so no matter where the decide the "flaperon" came from, the good doctor will be proven right! Brilliant!