Debris

By mid-2015, the search for MH370 had entered a kind of limbo. The designated seabed search area had been scanned without success. So what evidence was there that the plane had really gone south? Attention turned to the topic of floating debris and where it might be found. If the plane had impacted the ocean in the way the Inmarsat data implied — namely, with catastrophic velocity — then there should be many thousands of pieces of wreckage floating on the surface. Oceanographers turned to the science of drift modeling, which can produce probabilistic models of where floating objects in any given stretch of ocean might go. It seemed like the most likely place for stuff to wash ashore was going to be the western shore of Australia, where thousands of beachcombers waited expectantly. They were disappointed. But then a stunning discovery emerged thou ...