News Mar 14, 2014 at 8:11 am

Comments

1
Indeed, I read that the depth of the Indian Ocean is far deeper than that of the Gulf of Thailand/South China Sea. I've read that the average depth of the former is 3000' vs. 250' for the latter. It will be one labor intensive search. Most unfortunate.
2
my prediction based on nothing: they'll find the wreckage where they thought it would be in the first place, right on course.
3
It should be easy, then, because salt is readily available in San Francisco.

These analogies are poor. Salt can be found in lots of places in SF. There are not millions of airplanes in the sea.
4
@3 Okay, since you want to be contrary... They are searching for one particular grain of salt in SF. Better?
5
@3 I think you are joking right? It is like looking for one specific grain of salt (say someone painted it a unique color), and dropped it somewhere in the city.
6
I am mystified that this could happen in 2014.
7
This guys math is wrong. He's scaling the length of the plane by the change in area of the search region. But the plane also has area - he needs to scale length by change in length or area by change in area.

The way he's doing it vastly exaggerates the difficulty of the search.
8
If it's the plane they are searching for yes, but initially it was the beacon which can have a footprint of many square miles (depending on how deep it is and whether it's in a trench).

If the plane landed intact then they have to search for just a plane (and who knows if they took it underground or camouflaged it).

But really, what if it just became disabled, or lost pressure incapacitating the pilots, but with the autopilot continuing to fly it! The pilot merely selects a heading and the autopilot does the rest. It would go until the fuel ran out...
9
I agree with @7. From the data on his site, it seems like he's just considering the length of the plane, then placing that within the context of square mileage. Or am I misreading?
10
@4
Slightly better. I think the sesame seed analogy is better, because you would go to place where people have been, rather than just anywhere. but scalewise, I'm not sure these are comparable--what is the size of Burning Man? Is the difference in scale the same proportion as the other two--and are those of similar proportions?
11
Who the fuck cares, finally someone outside of the aerospace industry has a fucking clue about how difficult this search actually is. Bravo!
12
Either the claims by multiple governments about their investments and developments in modern, technological capabilities has been greatly exaggerated in their propaganda or one or more of them is lying about not knowing the location of this plane.
13
@10 these are not analogies for how the actual search might be done, it's just to put the scale in perspective. Wow, you are being contrary just for fun, or are plain obtuse.
14
Has any one looked into any possible involvement by the Dharma Initiative.
15
I found a whole bunch of blood at Burning Man once! Although I think it was mine from earlier in the week. :(

@10 - Burning Man is at least a 9-mile circumference pentagon (tends to change each year a little bit). Probably bigger than that now. Geometry is not my strong suit, and I'm busy at the moment so I can't calculate the area. Sorry.
16
I don't care. I wish everyone would stop wasting so much time on this (and any other air travel story). The only reason shit like this eats up so much of the news cycle is because rich people fly a lot. For 99% of the world this is as relevant to my life as a Japanese patent clerk getting a toothache.

Some hundreds of people died in an accident. How many people died in car crashes in the USA today?
17
What 16? Flying is for rich people? Have you been on a Southwest fly lately? It's like a winged Nickelsville.
18
The website has been updated - the guy admitted he did his math wrong.

The actual real comparison is finding a *shoe* in yosemite or a *pen* in san francisco.

Much more doable (doable-et?) methinks.

19
@7: It looks like the article writer updated the values. Now it is like finding a big-ass shoe in Yosemite or a grain of rice in Disneyland, values that make a lot more sense. Additionally, the actual search area will be based on probable paths, which would narrow it down a lot more. And an actual impact would probably spread debris over a far larger area. Let's say the debris spreads out to a length of a mile with the same general dimensions of the aircraft and that the search has narrowed down to only 10% of the Indian Ocean. This would be like finding a dime in Disneyland if Disneyland was a big 1/2 square mile swimming pool and the dime was pretty faint and oily. It would be tough as fuck to find, but it would still be possible.
20
@18: No, that's pin (though it would be the length of a pin but with the other dimensions of an aircraft). Look at the length. I've never seen a 16 mm pen.

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