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Tim Harford explains the numbers and statistics in the news and in life

Tim Harford explains the numbers and statistics in the news and in life.

More or Less: Missing Planes

Factual

Vigil for passengers on the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370

22/03/2014

Missing Planes

BBC World Service - More or Less, Missing Planes

Could Bayesian statistics help find Flight MH370?

Could a branch of statistics named after an 18th Century mathematician, Thomas Bayes, be used to find flight MH370 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing? 

Senior analyst Colleen Keller, from Metron Inc in the US, tells More or Less how her team used Bayesian statistics to help locate the wreckage of Air France flight 447 from Brazil to France which disappeared in 2009. 

This niche form of statistical modelling has been used to find everything from submarines to missing people. Could it help locate MH370?

(Image: Heart and a plane made from lighted candles, Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

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