After millions of dollars and years of effort the ATSB has suspended it’s search for the wreck of MH370. There’s some bureaucratic weasel words, but we are done people. Of course had the ATSB applied Bayesian search techniques, as the USN did in the successful search for it’s missing USS Scorpion, we might actually know where it is.
Piece of wing found on La Réunion Island (Image source: reunion 1ere)
If this really is a flaperon from MH370 then it’s good news in a way because we could use wind and current data for the Indian ocean to determine where it might have gone into the water. That in turn could be used to update a probability map of where we think that MH370 went down, by adjusting our priors in the Bayesian search strategy. Thereby ensuring that all the information we have is fruitfully integrated into our search strategy.
Well… perhaps it could, if the ATSB were actually applying a Bayesian search strategy, but apparently they’re not. So the ATSB is unlikely to get the most out of this piece of evidence and the only real upside that I see to this is that it should shutdown most of the conspiracy nut jobs who reckoned MH370 had been spirited away to North Korea or some such. 🙂
With a Bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering and a Master’s in Systems Engineering, Matthew Squair is a principal consultant with Jacobs Australia. His professional practice is the assurance of safety, software and cyber-security, and he writes, teaches and consults on these subjects. He can be contacted at mattsquair@gmail.com
