My thoughts are turning that way too. Just how long do we keep paying for this huge effort? (I'm only talking about the Australian component, but I understand we are liable for other nations' expenses, if claimed.) Its been, what, a month? Say they found something today. Say they found five things tomorrow. I know AF was found by some sea bed searching after some clever modeling, but they knew roughly where it went down. But the location of anything found now , after a month in the southern ocean would not yield a skerric of information on where the jet crashed, let alone where the black boxes might be. Yes, it would tell us that the jet ended up in the ocean. What are the current odds that it did not?
I asked up thread what might still be floating after a month. Markis10 pointed out about 300 seat cushions. More might be floating just under the surface. Lets face it; very little chance of surface debris being diagnostic of the cause of the crash.
But I think it is a fair thing to say - we have given it a really good effort; time, if not now, then pretty soon, to scale back to a background search. I suspect we'll get things washed up on the west coast before long.
