MH370: Fragment Is From Missing Flight 272
hcs_$reboot writes: The plane part (the flaperon) that was found on a beach in the Indian Ocean on Réunion island was determined to be part of MH370, the Malaysia Airlines flight that vanished more than a year ago. Some experts have postulated that the damage suggests the flaperon may have been deployed when the plane hit the water, meaning that someone in the cockpit was consciously manipulating the controls. The Malaysian Prime Minister said at a press conference "We now have physical evidence that ... Flight MH370 tragically ended in the Southern Indian Ocean.".
Solves part of the mystery. (Score:2)
So at least we know the plane went down, unless someone dumped 777 parts in the ocean as a diversion. We don't know exactly where or why, but we know it wasn't diverted and stolen, and this should re-energize the search attempts. It's there, somewhere (or several somewheres).
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Well, that's why they went to check the part to see if it could've been a part form MH370. There are plenty of identifying marks they can choose form so if some are gone, they still have extras to choose from.
Basically when we found the piece, we were basically confident it was, but then we subject the article to extra verification and we know for sure.
(Such identifying marks include serial numbers and other marks that can be traced back to when Boe
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Many moons ago I used to have a paperweight that cost the company a few hundred quid. It was basically a hex nut that held something important in place. However some berk in stores had mixed two batches together so nobody knew which one any of them belonged to. Can't have that, in case one cracks and they have to do a recall.
After that it wasn't worth much at all, which is why the QA guy was giving them away.
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(911 Truther response)
The jet fuel didn't. It actually burned off rather quickly. But it did start a fire. What were the Twin Towers? Massive office buildings, with massive paper stores. Paper burning hot for hours was able to weaken the steel.
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There's a helluva lot of other volatiles in an office building. I'm looking at my office, seeing office furniture, clothing, plastics, heck probably even the carpet when the temperatures get high enough. Fires have destroyed other steel-framed buildings, so why exactly would the Trade Towers be exempt?
Re:Solves part of the mystery. (Score:5, Insightful)
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And more to the point, only a few beams needed to lose structural integrity from fire, collision, whatnot.
Those buildings were really not designed to protect against that level of failure.
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And there's some agreement that the very open plan of the floors might have contributed to the failure as there were no internal supports for the floors save for the center column which mostly contained the elevators.
Re:Solves part of the mystery. (Score:5, Informative)
> The twin towers was the first case when the design explicitly considered impact from the largest jet airliner of the time (DC9) fully loaded and the subsequent fire
So, what you're saying is they didn't consider the impact from an aircraft 8 feet taller, 67 feet wider, 55 feet longer, three hundred thousand pounds heavier and carrying sixty thousand gallons more fuel?
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Pedantic note: They were designed to withstand the impact of a 727, a larger plane than the DC-9 that was already in service when the DC-9 first flew.
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This is exactly right. All that was needed was to weaken the tensile strength of the structural steal enough to compromise the structure. In the WTC, the temperature that was required to collapse a floor beam was not that high and well within what could reasonably be the contents of the building.
What happened in this case is that the airplane fuel started the fire which collapsed the floors above.. Once the falling floors above exceeded the load capacity of the intact floor at the bottom, the whole bui
Re:Solves part of the mystery. (Score:5, Interesting)
From my 9-11 experience....I watched the news about 13 min before the second plane hit and for hours afterward. There was a newsman on the ground who asked a chief about building 7 needing to be demo'd and the chief, obviously alarmed that the newsman might be creating an unsubstantiated panic, almost called him an idiot and said there is no reason for that nor would there be based on conditions, finally that he had not heard anything like that and it was absurd. I have not met another person who remembers that shocking exchange nor have I seen the footage anywhere. It happened and I do not understand how such a national broadcast seemingly disappeared and is never spoken about again.
Re:Solves part of the mystery. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Solves part of the mystery. (Score:4, Informative)
https://www.google.co.nz/searc... [google.co.nz] And as I mentioned elsewhere, a warm day can warp and bend steel to the point it "collapses" so "melt" is not required for structural failure. Anyone who claims that is lying.
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With decent airflow (no windows left, building is hundreds of feet tall with no horizontal obstructions at that level), and enough temperature, virtually anything will burn. The airflow and temperature are competing factors to some extent, but I'm sure that fire got quite hot.
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When you go into large buildings with multiple floors and see "exposed" metal beams you will frequently notice they seem to have been sprayed with some concrete or foam like substance. This is usually concrete that is sprayed on the beams to slow heat transfer. The builders and designers are generally required to show that there is enough of this protective insulation to allow the contents of the building to burn for two hours before the steel would be heated to the point where it become soft enough to co
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You do understand that ocean currents are not straight lines, right? For chrissake it's taken years for the Tohoku tsunami's wreckage to make it the Pacific Northwest.
Re:Solves part of the mystery. (Score:4, Informative)
You do understand that ocean currents are not straight lines, right? For chrissake it's taken years for the Tohoku tsunami's wreckage to make it the Pacific Northwest.
My favorite example [wikipedia.org] is the shipping container full of rubber ducks that an oceanographer tracked for 15 years! We may be finding pieces for decades.
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Occam's razor.
There you go... Using logic again....
Didn't Occam have a beard?
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It was the French!
They're still mad about Monty Python's Holy Grail.
Re:Solves part of the mystery. (Score:4, Funny)
Do you spend a lot of time wondering about why the sun comes up in the East every day?
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Interesting? Yes... Related, so very unlikely that I'd consider it impossible...
Both where apparently accidents... One was likely an onboard fire or other such accident and the other was some Russian enlisted man having a bad day running the anti-aircraft system who thought he was shooting down a Ukrainian military jet...
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Nice headline (Score:5, Funny)
You're saying that a fragment from flight MH370 is from the missing flight MH370? That's amazing.
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You're saying that a fragment from flight MH370 is from the missing flight MH370? That's amazing.
Flight numbers are reused, so perhaps it was from a different MH370 flight that lost a wing fragment yet was not missing. Stuff like that probably happens all the time.
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Oh, yeah, airplanes lose flaperons all the time, no big deal, flight controls are hardly a critical part of the airplane, the mechanics just glue on a new one with duct tape and the plane's good to go again.
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Oh, yeah, airplanes lose flaperons all the time, no big deal, flight controls are hardly a critical part of the airplane, the mechanics just glue on a new one with duct tape and the plane's good to go again.
That's exactly what I was thinking. Thanks for confirming.
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Works for slowstick, should work for a 777.
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In mid-air, no less! One of the flight crew puts on his super suction shoes, depressurizes the cabin and walks out and gets the krazy glue and sticks a new one on.
I mean, I can't tell you the number of times I've had flaperons fall in my back yard, along with flight crew whose super suction shoes failed.
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What's the legal situation on that? Do you get to keep them, or are you obliged to give them back? I assume in the latter case shipping is at their expense, otherwise it'd just be stupid.
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I keep the bodies for the Nativity display at Christmas.
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This may qualify as the single most retarded post in the history of the Internet. Congrats.
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This may qualify as the single most retarded post in the history of the Internet. Congrats.
You must be new to the internet. Welcome!
Re:Nice headline (Score:4, Informative)
Flight numbers are reused, so perhaps it was from a different MH370 flight that lost a wing fragment yet was not missing. Stuff like that probably happens all the time.
No, it doesn't. But anyway...
The flaperon did not have "MH370" written on it. It was traced to the actual plane that disappeared on the MH370 route on that day.
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Flight numbers are reused
Not infamous, doomed flight numbers, or not at least until many years have passed.
http://blogs.wsj.com/indonesia... [wsj.com]
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Flight numbers are reused
Not infamous, doomed flight numbers, or not at least until many years have passed.
http://blogs.wsj.com/indonesia... [wsj.com]
Yet the fact remains that there were hundreds or even thousands of MH370 flights prior to the one that was lost.
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No, it's just the incompetent Slashdot editors and their tenuous grasp of English once again.
PS nobody will ever re-use a flight number like MH 370 ever again. I wonder what a marketing firm would tell you would be the negative value of that brand.
No one will use it again, but it was used for hundreds, maybe thousands of times previously.
If they said "Wing fragment confirmed from MH370" all of the pedants here would be asking *which* MH370.
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Huh? I think you don't understand how flight numbers work. MH means Malaysian Airlines, genius. Airlines regularly retire flight numbers associated with crashes. http://www.npr.org/sections/th... [npr.org]
But they don't retire them in advance of crashes, so there were likely hundreds or thousands of successful flight MH370's prior to the missing flight.
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But the airplane is an airplane. It's got it's own call number, which is not the flight number. They know which airplane went down. It has serial numbers on the parts. There are no airplanes with MH370 stamped on them.
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PS nobody will ever re-use a flight number like MH 370 ever again. I wonder what a marketing firm would tell you would be the negative value of that brand.
Of course not. Malaysian Air certainly wouldn't use that number again so you won't see MH 370 (most if not all airlines will retire a flight number if it is involved in major incident like a crash/disappearance). However other airlines could and are using the flight number 370, along with 447, 11, 93, 175, etc. But they would all have their own airline code attached to the number (AA, DL, AF, KL, etc).
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PS nobody will ever re-use a flight number like MH 370 ever again.
Lightning never strikes twice....
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PS nobody will ever re-use a flight number like MH 370 ever again.
Lightning never strikes twice....
That's exactly why I carry a bomb on board the plane with me - I mean what are the chances that there will be *two* bombs on the same flight!?
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Well, considering the circumstances I would not have ruled out that someone bought a piece of a 777 and put it where it should be found because some insurance refuses to pay as long as there is no evidence for them being dead...
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Are there any factories along the Indian Ocean fabricating these parts for Boeing?
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Details! Details! (Score:3)
I'd be very interested in how they're stating the possibility ("pustulated", "may", "suggests") that the aircraft could've made a landing in the water. Dents or other damage on bottom surface of the flaperon) vs elsewhere? The way the hinges or control rods were damaged? This is VERY important, and I dislike people just speculating how it might have happened without some damned solid evidence.
Re:Details! Details! (Score:4, Funny)
Ewwww.....
Re:Details! Details! (Score:5, Informative)
If you RTFA, there's a link to another article that states their reasons.
http://abcnews.go.com/Internat... [go.com]
Based on preliminary observations, Former NTSB Aviation Safety Director Tom Haueter says the part –- identified by Malaysia Airlines as a “flaperon,” a wing component used for balance –- appears to have a pristine leading edge. The rear section, called the trailing edge, appears to be missing.
“To me, it indicates that it was not a high speed, high angle impact, because if that had happened, the leading edge would be crushed,” Haueter, an ABC News contributor, said. “What I don’t see is a severe nose down impact.”
The condition of the debris suggests the flaps were down at the time of the crash, possibly indicating that “somebody's controlling the aircraft,” when it hit the water, said Haueter.
“The airplane wouldn’t have done that on its own,” he added. But “you’re trying to land or ditch the airplane – you’d have the flaps folded down.”
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if the plane was flying entirely by auto pilot and then the fuel ran out the auto pilot would likely disengage and expect the pilots to take over. if the pilot were in the cockpit and aware, it is likely that as the plane neared the ocean he would lower the flaps to allow the plane to fly slower to reduce the speed at impact. Lowered flaps help prevent stalls at low air speeds and are deployed while landing. While cruising at altitude they are kept up to reduce drag. If up and attached to the plane at i
Re:Details! Details! (Score:4, Funny)
Pustulate n: An asserted proposition that stinks.
Cue CNN (Score:5, Funny)
Cue the CNN 24 Hour Over-Coverage Machine in 3... 2... 1...
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Are you saying they stopped coverage at some point?
I cut the cord from cable and CNN's website is absolutely terrible (can't even pause the videos any more, appears to have happened late last week or early this week). It used to be my primary news site, but now I don't even follow Google News links to CNN.
I am disappointed in CNN (Score:2)
They couldn't keep up the 24 hour coverage of MH370 for a few more months? And only *now* that this flaperon was found, they are all of a sudden want to cover MH370 cover it again?
Fuck you CNN, you had your chance and you blew it.
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In other news, the first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club.
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The part is specific to a Boeing 777. MH370 is the only missing Boeing 777.
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Interesting)
Airplanes are one of the safer modes of travel. Why? Because we investigate all crashes thoroughly and try to prevent the same crash from happening again. If a plane crashes now it's an event, and one that had to have multiple failure modes because a single failure is no longer enough to take down a plane.
Also, some people thought the plane got hijacked, or flown to some secret desert base. Some subset of those people (but not all) may be convinced their family is truly gone, and be able to take next steps.
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Funny)
flown to some secret desert base
Flown to a secret base under the sea. I know, I know. Oh, oh, oh...
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You are wrong, a single failure can take down a craft. That would be one located between the ears of someone in the cockpit. An evil person who has given the matter forethought will always be able to surprise and immediately incapacitate a good person in the cockpit who is focusing on tasks
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If you look at the design philosophy of the automated flight control systems on Airbus planes, they're taking steps to minimize that, too. Their philosophy is that, while the automated systems are not perfect, they're less likely to make a fatal mistake than a pilot. They can still be overcome, but for how much longer is a question.
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Another single point of failure is "The airplane broke and crashed". Even if a deranged pilot crashes the plane, that's not a single point of failure either. Pilots are psychologically evaluated. There are copilots and other crew members that can try to stop the pilot. There are safety systems that try to prevent the pilot from doing things that would crash the plane. There are systems where planes can be controlled from the ground, etc.
Every failure is single point, if you group all the causes into a
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There were multiple failures in that chain. Lubitz was found unfit to fly and was told as much. He was then given a note to pass on to his employer. He didn't, was able to lock the captain out of the cockpit, and crashed the plane.
The failures included, at a minimum, the apparent lack of procedure for doctors to directly notify the airline and pilot certification authority that they were revoking his medical, and lack of procedure requiring that two people be in the cockpit at all times. A direct notifi
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Sort of. Aircraft manufacturers try to avoid repairing their design flaws as long as they can, even if people may die.
Case in point: McDonnel Douglas cargo door, ATR-72 wing icing (still not fully corrected after more than 20 years), the deep stall tendency of Tupolev 154, Boeing's 737 rudder problems, A380 wing cracks (that one was a chance find when investigating the Qantas engine fire).
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Wrong airplanes are seen as a "safe" mode of transport as a consequence of how the statistics are generated/reported.
Almost all airplane crashes occur during take off or landing. Once at cruising altitude the number of crashes are very low per mile/km travelled. In effect a flight from London to Paris is almost as dangerous as a flight from London to New York. The statistics however are presented as the number of fatalities per million km/mile travelled.
On other modes of transport such as car and train the
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If you took these differences into account air travel becomes much more dangerous than is portrayed by the airline industry.
And they are still way safer than cars.
Key to the right of the M (Score:5, Funny)
I thing right ones are better. Wright ones too.
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Almost all car crashes occur at intersections. Once at cruising speed the number of crashes are very low per mile/km travelled. In effect a trip from Seattle to Los Angeles is almost as dangerous as a trip from Seattle to Tacoma. The statistics however are presented as the number of fatalities per km/mile travelled.
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not so. More people get killed commuting to and from airports than they do flying, even though that's the shorter distance.
And one of the more recent air crashes had 2 casualties. One of whom was run over by a rescue vehicle while on the ground.
Airplane crash rates are at an all-time low and survivability is at an all-time high. However, the sheer number of people who can be killed in one incident makes them noteworthy.
Kind of like the WTC attack. Considerably more people died on the US highways that year than did in the planes and towers, but 9/11 caused us to shred a good-sized chunk of the 200+ year old hard-won freedom that Bin Laden so hated, whereas we didn't bat an eye at the highway carnage. Unless we happened to either be involved in one, related to one or rubbernecked one.
Re: Who cares? (Score:4, Insightful)
the 200+ year old hard-won freedom that Bin Laden so hated,
Please spare us the outdated cold-war rhetoric. Al-Qaeda and the Mujahideen started in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
Their anger with the US had nothing to do with domestic freedoms and everything to do with US foreign policy. What do the Soviets and US have in common? Not freedom. Al Qaeda was not bombing other liberal democracies. Yes they are horrible nasty people, but they really couldn't care less about your "freedoms".
Sorry for the OT rant. Yes, airlines are safe, and I'd happily fly on Malaysian airlines again. (Its their neighbours in Indonesia who have the relatively poor safety record.)
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You are right about the distance thing as the majority of crashes take place getting to and descending from cruising altitude.
However if you take terrorist incidents out of the equation the chances of surviving a plane crash is from memory *OVER* 50%. So take the two worst disasters in the UK in the last 30 years. The British Airtours Flight 28M on 22nd August 1985 where 137 people on board, 55 died. Or you could take the British Midland Flight 92 on 8th January 1989, 126 people aboard 47 died.
Basically pe
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Why not? Okay, the takeoff might be somewhat unpleasant, but other than that...
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I get uncomfortable if am moving in a direction that I am not facing. I don't like roller coasters that go backwards. On trains where some of the chairs are backwards, I always sit in the forward facing chairs and switch if the train changes direction.
I also prefer window seats, to reinforce in my own brain the fact that I am going forward.
I can sit backwards (and sometimes have to), when it's the only option (e.g. a full train), but this added safety is not worth the discomfort for me.
If there were some
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Air plane crash, you are almost certainly dead.
Incorrect. The majority of air crashes are survivable.
If you look at all the commercial airline accidents between 1983 and 2000, the National Transportation Safety Board found that 95.7% of the people involved survived. Even when they narrowed down to look at only the worst accidents, the overall survival rate was 76.6%.
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Air planes are not the safer form of transport. Two reasons. One, it just counts the miles while flying when the plane is not in danger. It flies faster than cars, boats, etc so it seems better because it travel longer distance. Second, if you get in car, boat crash you have a good chance to survival. Air plane crash, you are almost certainly dead.
Yes. You are less likely to die in a plane than a car per mile traveled, but per unit time you travel much further in a plane. If you flew in a plane for as much time as you spend in a car you are more likely to die in the plane than the car.
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Huh? In the last 5 years there have been a total of about 5 people killed on commercial flights in the US. In the same time there have been about 200,000 killed in car accidents.
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Huh? In the last 5 years there have been a total of about 5 people killed on commercial flights in the US. In the same time there have been about 200,000 killed in car accidents.
There are a lot more car miles that air miles traveled in the US per unit time.
The most recent 2013 data [dot.gov]
If you consider the risk per trip, it is higher for planes, but less per mile. So don't drive to Europe from the US. It won't end well. The difference isn't big and it may be the other way around right now because planes have had a good few years. But I don't have 2014/2015 data.
But as far as risk goes, these are small numbers. There are things that are much more likely to kill you. Cars and planes don't
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According to your first link, there are about 589G air Passenger-Miles per year compared to 4 230G highway Passenger-Miles.
Let's say 10x more for road.
From 2000 to 2015, there has been about 630 death in (air carrier) plane crashes in the US, that includes 9/11 but not people on the ground. Hell, from 2006 to 2015 there's been something like 5 deaths! That's about 42 per year. (Counted from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org])
In 2013, there was 32 000 killed in road accidents, let's say it 30k now. ( https:// [wikipedia.org]
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Quite the opposite, they are "more dead" now. At least they are now officially dead and no insurance can still delay payments because they just might surface again.
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"MH370 Fragment Is From Missing Flight"
Well duh, if it's called the "MH370 Fragment", and MH370 is missing, it's obvious--then this is not news.
Title should read: found aircraft fragment believe to be from missing MH370 airline.
But now it's been confirmed to have been from the missing MH370 flight and since there were likely hundreds MH370 flights (that presumably did not lose wing fragments), it's not incorrect to say to say "MH370 Fragment Is From Missing Flight".
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Well duh, if it's called the "MH370 Fragment", and MH370 is missing, it's obvious--then this is not news.
Good thing it was labeled.
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We do? I'd love to hear it, then, because I haven't heard anything of the sort.
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Hey buddy, you've got a hell of a lot giant ocean to cover here. That's gonna take some time.
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Expert, m/f: Some person we managed to interview who was coherent enough to be understood and gave us an answer we liked, i.e. one that provides a story.