The disappearance of Malaysia Airlines plane MH370 remains one of the biggest aviation mysteries in recent times. The plane, en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, disappeared from radar on March 8, 2014, with 239 people on board. It is believed to have crashed somewhere in the Indian Ocean, but despite a decade-long multinational search that saw an area of 46,300 square kilometers scanned and more than £100 million spent, the plane remains missing. But now small sea creatures have become the focus of scientists who believe they can reveal the exact site of the crash, according to a report in Subway.
These creatures, called barnacles, were found clinging to the first piece of debris confirmed to be from MH370. The debris, marked 657 BB written in stencil, was a flaperon from the plane's right wing that washed up on Reunion Island off the coast of Africa a year after the crash.
Flaperons are the metal flaps that run along the tail edge of the wing and are visible from the window and move up and down as the aircraft maneuvers.
Satellites and radars have been scanning the suspected crash area for years, but have not been able to determine the exact location of the plane. Scientists think barnacles can help them with this.
The reason: the shells of these little monsters contain a record of their lives, like the rings of a tree. Scientists say that if this information is decoded, it may be possible to track their path on the flaperon backwards to the impact site. New York Magazine.
“We came across something that provided much more certainty about the plane's whereabouts than we expected,” the newspaper quoted David Griffin, who led a team of Australian government scientists tasked with solving the case.
These barnacles, called Lepas anatifera, have previously helped researchers track down “ghost nets” that endanger wildlife, find missing boats and even investigate mysterious deaths.