CSIRO ‘drift modelling’ study backs bid to restart MH370 search

Australian authorities have launched the first salvo in an expected campaign to persuade Malaysia to resume the hunt.

Australian authorities have launched the first salvo in an ­expected campaign to persuade Malaysia to resume the hunt for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, with a key new study released in conjunction with the CSIRO.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau yesterday said the new “drift modelling” research has confirmed its view that the wreckage of MH370 lies in a proposed new search area of the ­Indian Ocean.

The announcement raises hopes that Malaysia, which under international law has responsibility for the investigation, might decide to resume the search for the Boeing 777 that was suspended in January.

“We are now even more confident that the aircraft is within the new search area identified and recommended in the MH370 First Principles Review,” the ATSB said in a statement, ­referring to the 25,000sq km proposed new target zone identified by an international panel of experts in December.

The CSIRO study is one of three elements the ATSB is expected to release in coming weeks, the others being a further analysis of satellite data on the track of the flight, and a report on the original failed search.

An ATSB spokesman said the new material could “possibly inform any future search activity”.

Senior ATSB officers are known to be keen to see the search resumed, and they might quietly encourage Transport Minister Darren Chester and other ministers to mount a ­behind-the-scenes diplomatic initiative to persuade Malaysia to agree to a new joint effort also including China.

The CSIRO scientist who led the new study, David Griffin, said he hoped the hunt would restart. “I think everyone who has been involved in the search in the ATSB is absolutely determined to bring it to a successful outcome,” Dr Griffin said.

His research involved releasing into the ocean off Tasmania replicas of the part of the wing called a flaperon which washed up on the French Indian Ocean island of Reunion in July 2015, which was subsequently confirmed to be from MH370.

Released with them were an actual flaperon from a Boeing 777 cut down to reflect the damage to that on the MH370 flaperon, and buoys like those the US had used to measure ocean current and wind drift in the oceans over 30 years.

The objects were tracked by transmitters, and the study ­determined the actual flaperon was caught by the wind in a fashion different from the other ­objects, and moved distinctly to the left of directly downwind.

Dr Griffin said this explained how the flaperon from MH370 could have reached Reunion and confirmed a high certainty that the aircraft lies to the north of the original failed search area.