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- Title
Drift simulation of MH370 debris using supersensemble techniques.
- Authors
Jansen, Eric; Coppini, Giovanni; Pinardi, Nadia
- Abstract
On the 7th of March 2014 (UTC), Malaysia Airlines flight 370 vanished without a trace. The aircraft is believed to have crashed in the southern Indian Ocean, but despite extensive search operations the location of the wreckage is still unknown. The only part of the aircraft that has been recovered so far is a small piece of the right wing. It was discovered 17 months after the disappearance on the island of Réunion, approximately 4,000 km from the assumed crash site. This paper presents a numerical simulation using high resolution oceanographic and meteorological data to predict the movement of floating debris from the accident. It combines multiple model realisations into a superensemble, and includes the discovery of debris on Réunion to improve the final result. The superensemble is used to predict the distribution of debris at various moments in time. The results for the initial probability density show good agreement with the current underwater search area. Results at later times show that the most probable locations to discover washed up debris are along the African west-coast and the southeast of Australia. The debris remaining at sea from late 2015 is spread out over a wide area and its distribution changes only slowly.
- Subjects
MALAYSIAN Airlines Bhd; AIRCRAFT accidents; COMPUTER simulation
- Publication
Natural Hazards & Earth System Sciences Discussions, 2016, p1
- ISSN
2195-9269
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.5194/nhess-2016-88