本帖最后由 半杯水 于 2014-3-13 10:31 编辑
The Difficulty and Mystery of MH370 Search Explained in Two GraphicsBlog
图说MH370失联事件的费解之处
Three days after Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 went missing on its way to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur, investigators are still at a loss to explain what happened or even where the plane is. (Malaysia's acting transport minister, Hishamuddin Hussein, used the word 'bewildered.') 吉隆坡飞往北京的马来西亚航空(Malaysian Airlines)的MH370次航班失去踪影已有三天，然而调查人员对客机上发生了什么事情仍是一头雾水，甚至连客机现在何处都不得而知。（马来西亚代交通部长希山慕丁(Hishamuddin Hussein)称这件事“令人费解”。）
Almost as surprising as the Saturday morning disappearance of the Boeing 777-200, which happened without so much as a peep from the pilots, is the absence of any floating wreckage. Debris spotted earlier by search and rescue planes in the Gulf of Thailand turned out not to have come from the jet, and oil slicks found in Malaysian waters north of where the plane lost contact are confirmed to have come from fuel used in ships, not aviation fuel. 这架波音777-200客机上周六凌晨出乎意料地失去踪迹，飞行员没有发出任何信号；同样令人意外的是，迄今为止找不到任何漂浮残骸。早些时候搜救飞机在泰国湾发现的“残骸”最终被证明不是来自于失踪客机；失联地点以北的马来西亚海域出现的浮油也被证实是来自于船只用燃油，并非航空燃料。
Large passenger jets have disappeared before, most notably Air France flight 447, which crashed into the Atlantic Ocean on its way to Paris from Rio de Janiero in 2009. It took search and rescue teams five days to find the first wreckage in that case, and another two years to recover the plane's black box. But as the first chart below shows, AF447 crashed in a much deeper part of the ocean 3, 900 meters ((Should we put feet conversion in here?)) compared with the Gulf of Thailand's average of 45 meters. 历史上也曾经出现过大型客机失踪事件，最知名的就是法国航空公司(Air France) 447次航班失事：2009年，这架从里约热内卢飞往巴黎的班机在途中坠入大西洋。搜救队花了五天的时间才找到第一块残骸，两年后才打捞起黑匣子。不过，正如下图一所示，当时法航447次航班坠入了3,900米深的水下，而相比之下，此次泰国湾的平均水深只有45米。
The second chart shows how shallow the Gulf of Thailand is compared with the length of a Boeing 777, which makes the absence of debris even more surprising, though winter water currents could carry any away from the site of a crash. 从图二可以看出，泰国湾的水深还不及波音777的机体长度（63.7米），意味着迟迟找不到残骸这件事显得越发出人意料——就算冬季洋流可能将碎片从失事地点冲走，这也让人难以理解。
Authorities have expanded their search to the western side of the Malaysian peninsula because, officials say, Malaysian radar showed the plane may have tried to turn around in that direction. As WSJ's aerospace reporter Jon Ostrower noted on Twitter, if it were found there, the jet would have had to cross the country again unnoticed. 有关方面已经将搜救范围扩大到了马来西亚半岛西边的水域。官员们说，这是因为马来西亚的雷达显示失联客机或许曾经尝试朝那个方向掉头。《华尔街日报》航空业记者Jon Ostrower曾在推特(Twitter)上指出，假若真的在马来西亚半岛以西发现了该客机，那就意味着客机必须再度飞越马来西亚、而且没被发现。
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