In a groundbreaking discovery, scientists have demonstrated a novel approach to tracking the stays of a plane crash that occurred greater than a decade ago. Surprisingly, barnacles play a key role on this method.
The investigation, published in AGU Advances, shows how analyzing the chemical composition of barnacle shells growing on the stays of a crashed plane provides priceless insight into the placement of the crash site.
This cutting-edge technique has significant implications for locating the unique wreckage of Flight MH370, the Malaysia Airlines plane that disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014. The Boeing 777 plane, carrying 239 people, is believed to have sunk somewhere within the Indian Ocean . Notably, the whole stays of the plane have remained elusive. Nassar al-Qattan, a geochemistry graduate student on the University of South Florida who participated within the study, emphasized the emotional nature of the research, stating: “Our collective determination to make clear a tragic mystery has led us to gather and publish this data.’
The motivation for this method stems from the unsolved mystery surrounding the disappearance of MH370, which halted the search in January 2017. The team’s modern approach rekindles hope for closure among the many families affected by the tragedy. Key was the presence of barnacle-covered debris from MH370 discovered on Reunion Island, off the coast of Africa. Gregory Herbert, co-author and associate professor of marine ecology on the University of South Florida, saw the potential of barnacle shell chemistry to make clear the circumstances of the disaster. Herbert, with extensive experience studying crustacean shells, developed a way to extract historical ocean temperature information from the chemical composition of the shells, reflecting the conditions under which each layer formed.
The research involved applying this method to barnacles found on the stays of MH370. By combining shell measurements with oceanographic models, scientists developed a partial drift reconstruction, tracing the potential path of the debris for the reason that disaster. Although there have been no barnacles examined on the wreck on the time of the disaster, which provided only a partial picture, the effectiveness of this method was demonstrated.
Herbert lamented the unavailability of the biggest and oldest barnacles to check. Nevertheless, the study successfully demonstrated the feasibility of using barnacles colonizing shortly after a disaster to reconstruct a comprehensive drift trajectory back to the source of the disaster.
French biologist Joseph Poupin, certainly one of the primary to look at the plane’s flaperon, suggested that the biggest barnacles attached to it could have colonized the wreckage soon after the crash, possibly near the crash site. Herbert emphasized the importance of this phenomenon, stating: “If these barnacles got here from the crash site, the recorded crust temperatures could significantly narrow the search area.”
Essentially, this groundbreaking research leverages the unlikely alliance between barnacles and scientific knowledge, renewing the seek for answers to the fateful disappearance of MH370.”
