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Boundless Uses GIS Imagery to Search for MH370 Debris

August 12, 2015  - By

MH370-Boundless

Geospatial experts at Boundless, a geospatial IT company, discuss how GIS imagery can help find debris from missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370.

The blog post Georeferencing Imagery in the Hunt for MH370 takes the complicated location of debris from MH370, and puts it through the open-source software used by Boundless to overlay two major ocean currents, the South Equatorial Current, and the West Australian Current. Prevailing winds graphics and additional vector data of the MH370 search areas and potential flight path are also included.

“While we wait for additional information regarding the missing Boeing 777, I wanted to examine if GIS could add plausibility that debris may have washed up this far west from the original search areas,” writes Anthony Calamito, solutions architect with Boundless. A piece of a wing known as a flaperon from a Boeing 777 was found on Reunion Island, thousands of miles from the plane’s flight path and official search area. No other Boeing 777 airplanes are missing. Flight MH370 vanished on March 8 last year with 239 passengers and crew.

Boundless says in the post that the georeferenced and digitized graphics illustrate how the debris could have washed on shore as the surface currents rotating around the Indian Ocean Gyre could have moved the debris in a general western direction.

According to Boundless, this is an example of how geospatial solutions can use existing data and intelligence to produce answers when none seem to be forthcoming, as it’s been during the search for MH370.

Read the full blog post here.

This article is tagged with , , , and posted in Featured Stories, GIS Software, Technology

About the Author: Tracy Cozzens

Senior Editor Tracy Cozzens joined GPS World magazine in 2006. She also is editor of GPS World’s newsletters and the sister website Geospatial Solutions. She has worked in government, for non-profits, and in corporate communications, editing a variety of publications for audiences ranging from federal government contractors to teachers.