The discovery of what seems certain to be confirmed as a Boeing 777 flaperon washed up on Reunion Island will have the conspiracy wonks who have been pushing the "stolen and hidden airliner" theories, scratching around desperately for a way to fit this into their fantasies.
Right now there is a mood of acceptance by the aircraft manufacturer and the relevant aviation authorities that the recovered component cannot be anything other than what it appears to be and despite a general unwillingness to call it at this point, unofficially it's a done deal. It's the starboard flaperon from MH-370.
So that means we're on the cusp of solving the mystery, right? Well sadly, no. This component has been drifting around the Indian Ocean for 17 months now, it's aquatic starting place well camouflaged by wind and tide, and gyre and current since the moment it separated from the rest of the 777.
Despite the best efforts of the oceanographers, meteorologists, metallurgists, marine biologists and accident investigators, there is little that will be gleaned from the find except surety that the Malaysian flight terminated in a crash into the Indian Ocean. Even that seemingly obvious fact will be bitterly contested by many with their own reasons for wanting a different outcome.
It's understandable and very human that the loved ones of the victims would prefer to keep alive the hope that there's a slim chance of survival. And many of the conspiracy theorists who have advanced their fanciful explanations for the airliner's disappearance will do their utmost to try not to look utterly ridiculous in the aftermath of this finding.
But a damaged aircraft part with proven connection to the missing airliner, bearing evidence of spending 17 months in an ocean environment and carrying sea life of the type found in that region of the world's oceans, is a difficult hurdle to overcome for even the most ardent believer in that aircraft's continued integrity.
Nine days after the disappearance of MH-370, I wrote that it was highly unlikely that the B777 would ever be found and as a result, that the cause of its vanishing might well remain a mystery forever.
Despite the discovery of the flaperon, I have no reason to change my opinion. The reovered part itself, while proving that the jet terminated its flight into the Indian Ocean, (something the rational public and authorities had accepted all along) gives us no particular reason to expect that the fuselage and other large components will be located soon. Nor as a consequence, that the black box recorders, vital for determining the events involved in MH-370's demise, will likely ever be recovered.
And despite claims among those self-professed "aviation experts", the darlings of the popular media, that a sudden decompression caused the aircraft to become a ghost ship, doomed to fly until fuel exhaustion resulted in its eventual descent into water, the facts when taken together simply don't support such a scenario.
The evidence shows that the aircraft departing from its flight planned track could only have been the result of human intervention. We don't know who the culprit was, but we do know that he/she was a skilled pilot or somebody intimately familiar with the aircraft systems, whose mission was to kill all on board and hide the evidence. The who and why are likely to remain unanswered.
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