It’s been more than six months since MH370 vanished, and in some ways we know no more now than we did in late March: no new clues have emerged, no more data has been discovered. In a sense, though, we have come a very long way. For one thing, we now understand how many of the “breaking news” developments that occurred in the early days were actually untrue. (There were no wild altitude swings, no “fighter plane-like” maneuvering, and probably no cell-tower connection with the first officer’s phone.) What’s more, thanks no doubt to a drumbeat of public pressure, the authorities have released a tremendous amount of data and provided useful explanations of how that data is being interpreted. And finally, a spontaneous collaboration between technical experts and enthusiasts around the world has provided a trove of insight into avionics, aerodynamics, satellite communications, and a whole host of other topics that collectively shed light on what might and what might not have taken place on the night of March 7/8, 2014.
While a great deal of information has become available, it has not always been easy to find; much of it, for instance, has been exchanged via email chains and Dropbox accounts. For my part, I often find myself rummaging through emails and folders looking for information that I’m pretty sure I’ve seen, but can’t remember where. So what I’d like to do with this post is try to aggregate some of the most basic facts — a set of canonical values, if you will, of the basic data on MH370. Necessarily, some of this data comes with implicit assumptions attached, so as far as possible I’ll try to make these assumptions explicit.
Okay, on to the data. What we know now:
The bedrock data. In the wake of MH370’s data, there were numerous news reports concerning information leaked by anonymous sources from within the investigation and elsewhere that have subsequently been either disproven or inadequately verified. For the purposes of the present discussion, the following are considered the bedrock sources of information upon which our understanding of the incident can be built — the “Holy Trinity” of MH370 data:
- Up to 17:21: radio communications, ACARS, transponder, ADS-B
- 17:22-18:22: military radar track. This information is of uncertain provenance but has been endorsed by the governments of both Malaysia and Australia. Furthermore, it plausibly connects the prior and following data sets.
- 18:25-0:19: Inmarsat data, especially BFO and BTO values. There is some discussion as to how this data is best interpreted, but the numbers themselves are assumed to have been received and recorded by Inmarsat from MH370 via their 3F-1 satellite. The “ping rings” in particular are derived through relatively simple mathematics and should be regarded as established fact unless someone comes up with a specific mechanism by which some other result could be obtained.
Timeline. Courtesy of Richard Godfrey and Don Thompson, here is a basic timeline of MH370’s disappearance (all times UTC):
- 16:41:43 MH370 departs runway at KUL runway 32R
- 17:01:14 MH370 flight crew report top of climb at 35,000 feeet
- 17:07:48.907 Last acknowledged DATA-2 ACARS message sent from plane
- 17:19:29 Last radio voice transmission
- 17:21:04 Plane passes over IGARI waypoint
- 17:21:13 MH370 disappears from air traffic control (secondary) radar screens
- 18:22 Last primary radar fix
- 18:25:27 Inmarsat log-on request initiated by aircraft
- 0:19 Final transmission from aircraft to satellite
A more complete table of values, including the location of the plane at each point in time, can be found here, courtesy of the inimitable Paul Sladen. And Don Thompson has created an impressively detailed breakdown of the sequence of events, with a special focus on radio communications between the aircraft, ground, and satellite, here.
More stuff after the jump…
Physical characteristics. MH370 was a Boeing 777-200ER. Its “zero fuel mass” (ZFM) was 174,000 kg. With 49,200 kg of fuel aboard, its takeoff weight was 223,200 kg. (We know the fuel aboard on takeoff at 16:41 thanks to Paul Sladen’s deciphering of ACARS data shown briefly onscreen during a CNN segment. Note that in a press statement Malaysia Airlines indicated that the fuel load on takeoff was 49,100 kg.) UPDATE: Thanks to the October ATSB report, we now know that the fuel remaining at 17:07 was 43,800 kg.
UPDATE 2: Don Thompson has rounded up four publications which contain a wealth of 777 technical information: Boeing 777 Flight Management System Pilot’s Guide, Qatar Airways 777 Flight Crew Operations Manual, United Airlines 777 Aircraft Maintenance Manual/Satcom System, and Honeywell Multi-Channel SATCOM System Description, Installation, and Maintenance Manual.
Communications. In addition to a traditional transponder for use with ATC secondary radar, MH370 was equipped with ADS-B equipment that was operational the night it disappeared. The plane was equipped with VHF and HF radios for voice and data communication, which could also be sent and received via a satcom system that relied on one low-gain and two high-gain antennae mounted near the rear of the aircraft. (Specs, courtesty of Don Thompson, here.) These antennae were connected to a Honeywell/Thales MCS6000 satellite communications system located in the ceiling beneath them; this unit received location and velocity information needed to aim the high-gain antenna and to precompensate the transmission frequency via ARINC cable from the Inertial Reference System in the E/E bay. After the plane disappeared from primary radar, Malaysia Airlines made three attempts to reach its crew via satphone, but the calls did not go through; Don’s signal analysis of the three attempted phone calls suggests that the high-gain antenna might not have been working properly, perhaps because the antenna was not steered correctly.
Wind speed and temperature aloft. Stare at this for a while if you want to. If you like your data a bit rawer, you can find historical radiosonde data at the website of the University of Wyoming. For a more granular idea of what the weather was doing on the night in question, Barry Martin has compiled a large table of reanalyzed weather-model data from NOAA here.
Speed. As part of his paper detailing his estimate of where MH370 might have gone, Dr. Bobby Ullich has produced an impressive analysis of MH370’s speed before it disappeared from radar. While I’m agnostic as to the correctness of Bobby’s conclusions, I think he makes an excellent point with regard to the plane’s speed, which is that it clearly accelerated after the diversion at IGARI. The ground speed before the turn was about 470-474 knots, after, it was around 505-515 knots. Given that the winds aloft at the time were somewhere around 20 knots from the east-northeast, this would be broadly consistant either with an acceleration in airspeed or with a steady airspeed in the range of 490-495 knots.
In his ongoing analysis of MH370’s performance, Barry Martin points out that a likely speed for the plane to fly would be “Long Range Cruise,” or LRC, which can be selected through the flight management system. LRC is faster than the Maximum Range Cruise speed and 1 percent less fuel efficient. To quote a Boeing manual: “This speed… is neither the speed for minimum fuel consumption nor the speed for minimum trip time but instead is a compromise speed somewhere in between. It offers good fuel mileage but is faster than the maximum range cruise speed.” LRC is given as a Mach number, and varies with weight. At MH370’s takeoff weight, LRC at 35,000 feet would be Mach 0.84, which translates to 481 knots in a standard atmosphere. At the time, however, the temperature was 11 deg C higher than that of a standard atmosphere, so its true airspeed would be 494 knots.
It’s worth noting as well that Brian Anderson has devised an entirely different means of calculating airspeed, based on the observation that between 19:40 and 20:40 the plane reached its point of closest approach to the satellite; by calculating this distance, and estimating the time at which it occured, one comes up with a groundspeed that turns out to be, by Brian’s (and other’s) reckoning to be in the neighborhood of 494 knots. Brian observes that “by removing the wind vector, the answer becomes about 486 knots TAS.”
Richard Godfrey has run the numbers for the early part of the flight and come up with slightly different figures from Bobby Ullich.
The last ADS-B data shows a speeds around 471 to 474 knots. Last calculated Ground Speed was 474.3 knots. The average Ground Speed required to follow this path from the turn back point and get to Pulau Perak by 18:02:37 for the start of the Beijing Radar Trace is 510.7 knots. The difference between 474.3 and 510.7 is accounted for by an 18 knot head wind that becomes an 18 knot tail wind after turn back. The wind in the area was around 18 knots at the time. This would make the Air Speed 492.5 knots. The Ground Speed required to get from the start to the end of the Beijing Radar Trace by 18:22:12 is 503.6 knots.
He adds:
The major turns and turn back flight path occur at borders between Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore, Thailand and India. Indonesian Airspace is carefully avoided in the Malacca Strait. The major turns are just out of range of the Malaysian, Thai and Vietnam radars. The Satcom Login at 18:25:27 is just 14 seconds after reaching NILAM which represents the point just out of range of the Malaysian and Thai radars.
Performance. As the plane flew along, it burned fuel, and thus became lighter. As a consequence its optimum altitude — that is to say, the altitude at which it would experience the greatest fuel efficiency — became higher, and its LRC at a given altitude would become lower. Additionally, as the plane moved to higher latitudes, the air would have gotten colder, which would reduce its true airspeed for a given Mach number. All these factors would tend to gradually reduce the measured ground speed of the plane, which is indeed what we see geometrically for straight-line flight through the ping rings. For more on aircraft performance, see Barry Martin’s excellent Analytic Fuel Flow Analysis.
The Satellite. From 18:25 onward the sole evidence we have of MH370’s fate comes from the analysis of a handful of electronic exchanges between the plane and Inmarsat satellite 3F-1, which occupies a geosynchronous orbit above the equator at 64.5 degrees east longitude. Its position was not fixed; two years before, due to the fact that its hydrazine thrusters were getting low on fuel, Inmarsat had begun to let its inclination slowly increase. By March 7/8, it had reached an inclination of 1.7 degrees. Paul Sladen has published a table of ephemera. Here is a chart produced by Duncan Steel, showing the progression of the subsatellite point during the course of MH370’s final hours (click to enlarge):
The Search. Via Don Thompson: As announced at a JACC press conference 28th April, on the occasion of the end of surface search, “Australia has been coordinating the search for 41 of the 52 days since MH370 went missing. In this period, more than 4.5 million square kilometres of ocean has been searched. There have been 334 search flights conducted, an average of eight a day for a total of over 3000 hours.”
On September 24, 2014, the ATSB announced that “over 106,000 square kilometres of the wide search area have been [bathymetric] surveyed.”
Inmarsat Raw Data and ATSB report. For two months after MH370 disappeared, members of the press and the general public begged and pleaded for the authorities to release the raw data logs of transmissions between Inmarsat and the missing plane. On May 27, 2014, they finally did.
In June, the Australian Transport Safety Board released a report (later updated) that provided even more useful information, this time explaining how the raw data had been interpreted. More recently, Inmarsat’s Chris Ashton was the lead author of a paper in the Journal of Navigation explaining how the company conducted its analysis.
Thanks to these documents, we now have a much better understanding of what transpired, and have the wherewithal to undertake a critical assessment of the official investigation–which, as I described in my last post, seems to be paying off.
Burst Frequency Offset is a measure of how the signal received by the satellite from the airplane has been shifted by various factors. You can measure how closely a prospective route matches the values recorded from MH370’s actual flight by using Yap’s BFO calculator.
End of the flight. The BFO data associated with the final “half ping” at 0:19 is anomalous in comparison to the preceding pings; it values that could not be generated by any combination of speed, location or heading that is physically possible for a 777. The data is compatible with a steep descent into the ocean at an acceleration of 0.7 g, which Mike Exner, Victor Iannello and others have interpreted as a spiral dive resulting from the fuel tanks running dry. There is some dispute at present as to whether fuel exhaustion would result in such a dramatic maneuver. While plans to enlist a professional-grade simulator are underway, John Fiorentino reports that he has already researched such an experiment, and says that the plane did not spiral dive but instead descended wings-level in a phugoid oscillation, that is to say, with the plane pitching down and gaining speed, then pitching up and losing speed, then pitching down and gaining speed, and so on. I’ve excerpted his report here.
More to come…
Who would want the gear down when looking for a place to land with two engines out?
If necessary the gear can be lowered without hydraulics by releasing the uplocks and allowing gravity forces to lower the gear and engaging the downlocks.
Matty-Perth
It’s part of the emergency system who’s name escapes me at the moment.
The RAT at cruising speed should be able to do the job. The landing gear deployment is part of the overall sequence.
Of course, no airspeed means no gear down as there would be insufficient hydraulic pressure.
@Gysbreght
I believe the rationale is you don’t want to try and land with no gear down.
If you can restart, you would retract the gear, if you can’t restart, you have gear down.
P.S.
For a ditching the gear is kept up.
@MuOne: Thank you for your comments, Will. We are all trying to do the best we can with the scant data at our disposal. Nobody will be proven right or wrong until the plane is found.
@VictorI
“We are all trying to do the best we can with the scant data at our disposal. Nobody will be proven right or wrong until the plane is found.”
I couldn’t agree more, and I’ve also thanked the IG and Ulich just as examples.
And thanks again for fielding some of my questions last night.
I’m wondering if you will address a few we didn’t get to?
Pls. indicate the number of other scenarios the IG has investigated (as indicated by the BTO data) which indicated a descent rate similar to the above.
(If none, state “none”)
Pls. show where they can be accessed.
I believe you did answer with this…….
“I know the group has had access to simulations, and I know that more is planned. Others closer to this work can comment on the specifics.”
I responded by indicating flight sims don’t generate BTO and BFO values.
And would you please identify those “others” who may be more versed on the specifics?
Thanks
@VictorI
Again BTO above should read BFO
I am not sure that I understand the hang up regarding a lack of any surface debris. Certainly, the lack of so much as a seat cushion is uncanny and leaves one feeling highly uncertain as to the present location of the aircraft, but then it apparently did go down in the SIO, which does provide somewhat of an explanation, in and of itself. The SIO is a wilderness by a factor of perhaps 10,000 over any land form of wilderness. The fact that no surface debris has been discovered could simply be due to the fact that the aircraft went down in a remote and relatively inaccessible location.
Or, you can choose the SIO as the intended destination and a pilot managed to bring the aircraft down into the water gently, so as to deliberately sink the aircraft intact…is this more probable?
That the aircraft is in the SIO in the middle of bumf**k nowhere speaks for itself – res ipsa loquitur, as Hunter S. Thompson was known to say. It doesn’t need to be complicated: most probably, no person flew the aircraft to the SIO – a non-destination – given the facts as they are. The aircraft (a 777!) could very easily have managed relatively stable flight to a terminus in the SIO on auto-pilot supplemented by its fly-by-wire systems. Therefore, it most probably did exactly this, which is, in fact, what it was designed to do (i.e., fly with minimal human direction). A 777, after all, is a sort of semi-sentient beer can with wings, an early-Kurzweilian bit of an AI wannabe with enough built-in redundancy to keep it flying – alone – for months (with refueling, of course). Again, res ipsa loquitur: the aircraft most likely flew to a terminus in the SIO on auto pilot with its pitch and yaw controlled to such a point where it ran out of fuel, its engines burped themselves dry and it fell into the sea. A spiral dive or a glide path, you ask? Well, what do you believe any number of scientists have been doing all these long months?
Perhaps we would be better to focus the truly mysterious questions, such as HOW the aircraft ended up on auto-pilot and flying off to nowhere. Personally, while I appreciate the location science and marvel at the process, I find this area of inquiry far more interesting. Somebody diverted the aircraft to “over here”, and then somehow it ended up “over there,” which is truly nowhere at all. Meanwhile, taking a closer look at Malaysia, continuing to dice and slice their communications and the sequence of events, examining and pondering the silence and the obfuscation and the feigned incompetence and the incomplete data sets and the leaked report that is later recanted…for those of you whom are more verbally than mathematically inclined, over this way, folks, your noodles are needed.
As for the IG, consider it a panel of global expertise that has been randomly selected. It has coalesced into a rigorous and well-credentialed team from its beginnings as nothing more than a few long exchanges on a number of blogs. It is thus the product of a rather grassroots selection process, grounded in meritocracy and science, with each member providing a ‘scientific check’ on the rigor of the other. Personally, I find their technical exchanges rather tiresome, while I am grateful their work and thankful that they eventually produce relatively concise reports on their reasonably well-tested results. Moreover, I trust not the science of the IG, but rather the scientific process itself, of which they are but a manifestation. If the members of the IG were to produce a report that was fallacious, I am absolutely certain that it would be challenged on its merits. Again, the IG is a sort of random global sample of generally higher functioning scientists from a range of disciplines. We could do ‘differently’ – and we should. Indeed, there are a number of other scientists, some of whom have appeared here in this forum and elsewhere, whom have fulfilled and continue to pursue this role. But could we do better? I think not.
If anyone is interested in checklist procedures and training for dual-engine failure and ditching, a good read is:
National Transportation Safety Board. 2010. Loss of Thrust in Both Engines After Encountering a Flock of Birds and Subsequent Ditching on the Hudson River, US Airways Flight 1549, Airbus A320-214, N106US, Weehawken, New Jersey, January 15, 2009. Aircraft Accident Report NTSB/AAR-10 /03. Washington, DC.
in particular sections 1.17.1.2 (page 52) through section 1.17.3.3 (page 61).
@spencer
From “Goodnight Malaysian 370:”
…What follows is a delay in which there is confusion about whether MH370 has entered Cambodian airspace, a suggestion prompted by a Malaysia Airline source. Why it should even have been even suggested is a mystery. MH370’s flight plan had no mention of going into Cambodian airspace. It was an horrendous, unforgivable and also inexplicable mistake.
At 2:03am KL ATCC confirms with HCM that there was no radar contact and no verbal communications. Then KL ATCC relays this strange information received from Malaysia Airlines Operations (MA Ops) that the aircraft is in Cambodian airspace.
At 2:15am KL ATCC watch supervisors query MA Ops who inform them that MH370 was able to exchange signals with the flight and it was flying in Cambodian airspace.
By 2:18am HCM has checked and Cambodia advised that it had no information or contact with MH370. It was a red herring and a costly waste of time.
Despite this, the ridiculous misapprehension continues…
My question about the gear is based on an autopilot landing. On water, it would appear that gear up is favorable. Does the autopilot have the ability to land in a gear up configuration?
If Dennis is saying it was a manual landing, the question becomes somewhat moot. But regardless, it’s a difficult landing. Though I don’t fully understand the physics involved, it seems to me that the only safe way to land on water is to “ski” until the speed is dissipated, with the cold water minimizing the effects of friction. I imagine that contact with the fuselage approximately halfway between the wings and tail is optimal?
Clipping a wave at 100mph isn’t significantly different from clipping a building at that speed. The luck and skill is required to prevent any clipping at high speed, with the exception on the engines, which I believe are designed to break off, and which are partly hollow to begin with.
I don’t see the odds being good on the ocean surface. Is there any precedent for this?
Latest from Ben Sandilands (@planetalking):
“There are two glaring inconsistencies in the official narratives concerning the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370…
The first inconsistency became known when the White House went public less than a week after the Boeing 777-200ER and the 239 people on board vanished without publicly apparent trace and said it had crashed into the southern Indian Ocean west of Perth.
How US intelligence had come to this conclusion so soon, and why the US chose to make it public without consulting with the Malaysian government (which fiercely denied the reports for several days) has never been officially explained.
The second, and quite shocking inconsistency in the Malaysia government narrative was revealed by its then acting minister for transport, Hishammuddin Hussein…
He disclosed that Malaysia’s cabinet knew on the morning of the ‘disappearance’ that it had been seen by its military radar diverting from its intending course when it was over the Gulf of Thailand and flying west across the Malaysia peninsula.
Yet the government and its authorities held daily press briefings where they lied about the situation by denying the US reports, denying the Malaysia military radar reports, and insisting on the widening of the search areas further into the South China Sea and even as far NW as Kazakhstan.”
http://t.co/ZwJrNhcGb4
[https://twitter.com/nihonmama/status/514150228585615361]
@nihonmama, @spencer
Looks like the cover-up started in real-time, well before H2O took the podium to speak to the world’s press. Quite understandable, considering the stakes.
Sandilands (@planetalking):
“However the US initiative came after China began to apply fierce criticism through its state media on Kuala Lumpur for its lack of candor about the disaster…”
http://t.co/qbnxsjJKDn
Nihonmama
Posted October 3, 2014 at 7:51 PM
@Matty:
Food for thought.
The Chinese government, which was SO vocal early on, and critical of the Malaysians’ handling of the investigation —
https://twitter.com/nihonmama/status/443091055630512128
— then turns on Chinese relatives of MH370 pax http://t.co/zgVipqLLga
The MH370 related protests in China weren’t directed at the Chinese authorities. So what changed?
@Luigi:
YES.
@JS
The autopilot disconnects automatically after the second engine flame-out – see the ATSB report. If engaged, it controls the ailerons/spoilers, elevator/stabilizer, and the rudder. Airbrakes, flaps&slats, and landing gear are not controlled automatically.
The autothrottle controls engine thrust and doesn’t do anything when the engines are dead.
Autoland requires ground-based landing aids such as ILS glideslope and localizer. I doubt that it is of any use for ditching in the ocean.
Nihonmama: thanks for the Sandilands update. While I would support his portrayal of the general nonsense and outright lies coming out of Malaysia in the days following the event, I would again question allusions to the US having independent knowledge of an SIO terminus. I chopped down this same tree and examined the timeline carefully, going so far as to plot it in UTC to account for the time difference between KL and DC. I was looking for ‘US prescience’, but after examining the ABC report, Carney’s White House press briefing and a DoD briefing, the obvious conclusion was that the White House and DoD had learned of the SIO location when the Malaysians sent the Inmarsat analysis to the NTSB for additional analysis. No thermal signature or visible contrail data required: the US was made aware of the Inmarsat analysis c. Mar 13.
(all speeds below = KTAS; performance limit = PL)
A minor fuzziness in my reconstruct of the ATSB’s original PL is now resolved, whose rectification further WIDENS the gap between the ATSB’s April/May search zone and what had to have been its working PL.
The fuzziness traced to the ATSB’s description of its original PL (p 5, June 26 Report). While my reconstruct (http://bit.ly/WIb2Ng http://bit.ly/1nI3V0Q)
followed their instructions carefully, the report was imprecise as to starting point (“NW tip of Sumatra”). I chose my starting point (N5° 59′ E94° 52′ at UTC 18:36:03) so as to be a) just offshore from the NW tip of Sumatra, and b) reached at a time consistent with cruising speed from last radar coordinate. Since my solved-for paths had speeds which generally aligned with other evidence (the longest, straightest paths were flown at near-MRC, e.g.), I felt I was “close enough”, and that my findings would not be disputed.
And they haven’t been. Despite their clear implications (that the ATSB was searching in a place they would have known MH370 was NOT), I have yet to be challenged on inputs, model, or outputs. But that doesn’t mean my research has been embraced – or even appreciated. Folks must still be assuming (or hoping?) I’ve done something wrong.
So I’ve been searching for a way to further improve the precision of my reconstruction. I think I’ve found it – thanks to a conversation on this site with Richard Cole.
We were speaking of the exact same point – the coordinate to which the ATSB moved the search on March 28 – yet he was referencing a speed of 400, whereas my reconstruction suggested 390. Close enough, I wrote – and felt.
But last week, I stumbled on what Richard must have been referencing: the March 28 AMSA-issued search map which clearly plotted three paths AND SPEEDS (one of which was the new 400 path they were now calling their “most likely” path). While 400 looks like a rounded number, the other two – 475 and 469 – did not.
So I needed only to plot those three paths – but instead of starting at Sumatra, and flying south, I started at their termini (intersects of the FINAL arcs), and flew north. The last (temporally, the first) leg was connected to the 18:40 ping ring at a latitude consistent with radar at 18:25, and then “stretched” around Sumatra until it was. The result was a slightly wider berth around Sumatra.
Unsurprisingly, this resulted in a simple shift in all speeds listed in the linked maps: whenever you see a speed of x, the refined value os now x+10. So Richard and I are now fully in alignment.
Unfortunately for trusters in the ATSB, this makes their April & May search location even LESS feasible. I had estimated (from inspection of the linked close-up map) the ATSB believed in a minimum speed of 342 (interpolation between 330 and 350 paths) in order to reach the “7th arc”. Upon refining, this is now 352 (interpolation between 340 and 360).
This means the ATSB’s PL model was telling them that – under regular fuel burn, and the above solved-for turn-south point – MH370 had to fly FASTER than 352 in order to reach the 7th arc.
If extra fuel was consumed in the Malacca Strait, this number goes UP.
If the turn-south point occurs earlier – at 18:27, e.g. – this number goes UP.
The “most likely path” leading to the “red zone” flew at 323. This is infeasible.
To forestall the most common objection: I summarily dismiss claims that circuitous routes were viewed as best estimates at this (or any other) point in the search. No mention was made of such an assumption change until months later, after questions of the variety I’ve raised began swirling. They are not assuming a late turn NOW; they were not assuming a late turn ORIGINALLY; the Inmarsat signal data COUNTER-INDICATES a late turn. So does Occam’s Razor. Yet, for those key few days at end-March, it secretly and temporarily became their BEST ESTIMATE? Please.
I feel that this reconstruction is damning evidence that the ATSB knowingly misdirected the search. I also believe that this misdirection and MH370’s fate may well be connected. For this reason, I beg anyone with the time, energy and expertise to please consider replicating my work, and reporting their findings to this site.
Thanks again for your patience with me, and my “idée fixe”. Surely everyone agrees that its implications are profound, and thus merit broader investigation.
AMSA search map, March 28, 2014 (see legend for referenced speeds): http:// bit.ly/10FlUx7
“consistent with radar at 18:25” – misprint; s/b 18:22. Apologies.
Hey Rand:
You said:
“the obvious conclusion was that the White House and DoD had learned of the SIO location when the Malaysians sent the Inmarsat analysis to the NTSB for additional analysis.”
I think that’s one conclusion. But it’s never one that’s struck me as the most obvious. Why? For the simple reason that the US came out with its statement BEFORE Inmarsat. Inmarsat wasn’t driving US knowledge of the SIO location. Per the BBC Horizon doc, Inmarsat got their info from top secret radar. And the set-up in the piece (which implies the WHO) says it all:
https://twitter.com/nihonmama/status/514985593432850432
““stretched” around Sumatra until it was”…of the required total arc-length (i.e. speed).
Apologies for the “cliffhanger” sentence.
@Rand:
And if, as BBC Horizon notes, Inmarsat derived the arcs from classified radar, there are (at least) two (obvious) choices:
Diego Garcia and JORN.
My gosh, I am full of refinements today. One more, accompanied by one more apology.
Re: “If the turn-south point occurs earlier – at 18:27, e.g. – this number goes UP.” Not true – I should have said:
“If the turn-south point occurs earlier – at 18:27, e.g. – this speed DOES NOT GO DOWN. And furthermore, the latitude corresponding to this minimum speed drifts further SOUTH.”
A techinical clarification (the s21 feasibility gap widens either way), but a key one.
@Gysbreght
After reviewing this it appears the landing gear is not deployed automatically with RAT deployment which makes more sense as you alluded to.
The gear would be extended through the (EAS) emergency alternate system at the pilots discretion.
@Greg Yorke
Greg,
I really appreciate the work you are doing, especially shedding some light on plotting a northern route.
Do you know why there is no ping data for the 23:41 time? Starting at 18:30,there were regular hourly pings at 19:41, 20:41, 21:41, 22:41….then a 90 minute skip to 0:11 and 0:19. Did it just not send a handshake, or has this data been withheld?
What would a search zone in BOB look like if plotted at 139 knots but ignoring the 0:11/0:19 data, since it seems so far out of line with the other data? Where would the search zone be at 22:41, if that was the last ping?
But if you do use the final 2 pings, here is some information that might help with the satellite data plotting, especially the final 2 pings. I have credible sources in the region who have used other methods for plotting the flight path/crash site separate from Inmarsat data. Sorry I can’t elaborate more, but there is strong evidence that the crash site is definitely in BOB.
One other thing that could assist your northern plotting… very credible evidence that between the 22:41 and the 0:11 pings, the plane made an abrupt and very significant change of direction at a waypoint and began flying in an easterly direction until 0:19.
My calculation pegs the 0:11 ping occurring about 3 minutes after the engines failed, while the plane was in an 11 minute, 30 mile glide pattern, and the altitude could have been as low as 7 or 8,000 ft.
Greg Yorke,
Sorry I wasn’t clear. My question the other day concerned whether your proposed northern track had MH370 proceeding far enough westward to have entered the Inmarsat Atlantic Ocean East satellite’s coverage area.
It looks like the eastern edge of that satellite’s coverage area (which overlaps somewhat with the Indian Ocean satellite’s coverage area) runs along roughly 60 degrees east.
Your updated document suggests MH370 didn’t get that far west. Whether that is good news or bad news remains to be seen.
Dennis (D Hatfield),
Please define the term BOB. Then I can probably answer your questions better.
Ping data. You need to read the latest ATSB report – apparently no 23:40 handshake occurred.
Re your search if 0:11 never occurred.
This is easy – but what is the point ?
My method requires accurate Doppler data.
It is critical.
Hopefully the ATSB – which I am independently trying to contact will confirm/deny their Doppler data.
It sounds like you are assuming that MH370 is flying by waypoints. Not sure I want to consider these scenarios. Is it consistent
with other Doppler ?
You would have to give me a time and a Doppler value for your hypothetical northern route path change at 23:41. You would then need to add another hypothetical change before 0:11 to be consistent with the Doppler at 0:11.
Since you only said that for hard right (Doppler goes ~ 0) but no following hard left
– then the path you propose is inconsistent.
I think you need to check your credible sources.
However my method would do it.
The reality of the matter is that the ‘raw’ Inmarsat data is inaccurate and is ‘random’
in the worst case. There are multiple error sources. The SDU was in a very abnormal operating mode shortly after the flight began.
At the best – we can only refine the estimate of the final location maybe to a
200 nm X 500 nm area.
Everyone has been struggling with the critical time period from 18:30 to about
21:41.
If the ATSB Doppler data is accurate for this
time period (~0 Doppler) then MH370 flew north. Period.
(The 0 Doppler south route needs to go
through Indonesia for 2 hours and is variable direction.)
The IG south route becomes inconsistent with the Doppler. The ATSB south route becomes inconsistent with the Doppler.
I need ATSB to confirm/deny the ATSB Doppler data for 18:40, 19:40, 20:40, 21:40.
IS THERE ANYONE OUT THERE THAT CAN HELP !
PhilD,
The northern route final location is
about N44 E73 +/- 200-300 nm.
So not too close to 60E.
Suppose it was. How would this other satellite try to communicate with MH370?
Could the pilot somehow ‘trick’ the
Inmarsat system into disguising MH370
as another Malaysian plane flying into this space ?
Also, despite observing reasonable repeatable
time delay data while at the KL Airport –
it would be useful to independently test
the Inmarsat Perth Ground Station software
is see if the algorithm is missing any data
and creating any possible additional time delay. Hopefully not, and the SDU is the main culprit in normal and abnormal mode.
Greg Yorke: “The IG south route becomes inconsistent with the Doppler. The ATSB south route becomes inconsistent with the Doppler.”
I am not sure what you are referring to. The BFO data is the sum of the bias, the uplink Doppler, the AES correction, the downlink Doppler, and the EAFC correction. If properly modeled, the BFO does not allow northerly paths, and there are southerly paths that match well. Are you properly including all these terms in your BFO model? The BFO is not just Doppler shift.
Victor1,
I don’t have a BFO model.
Maybe you can help me.
I want to know the following about the Doppler values in the ATSB report.
Are they 0 for 19:40, -0.5 for 20:40, -37.7 for 0:11 (and 0.5 for 18:40).
I rescale/normalize these values. They should be approximately proportional to the
total Doppler.
They should be determined completely independently of any other time delay data. What is the % uncertainty considering the operation of the SDU ?
Thanks.
Greg Yorke,
BOB is short for Bay of Bengal, like SIO for that other ocean.
Starting at 2:15 or (18:15)on P628 it only followed multiple navigation routes from waypoint to waypoint. It made several direction changes and most were small degree turns but the last turn was a big easterly turn, which may have skewed the data for the final 0:11/0:19 arcs that direction.
You just need to keep in mind that for a BOB crash site, any satellite data which shows it terminating over land cannot be accurate, for whatever reason.
Looking at your yellow line over BOB, you within a close proximity to where we believe it is. But obviously at 490 knots, that airspeed takes it way over land.
That’s why the July 19th IG map was extremely helpful, because it told us what the airspeed was (139 knots),and that it was already a ghost plane on autopilot. The plane never deviated from that speed the next 6+ hours.
That’s about all I can say.
You said: “The SDU was in a very abnormal operating mode shortly after the flight began.”
Did it only show signs of malfunctioning after the time of the turn-around (1:22am) or from leaving the airport forward?
Dennis,
The yellow + marker in BOB is the satellite
ground position.
The final location of MH370 cannot be inside the largest ring shown.
The BOB crash site is not possible.
The ‘yellow line’ for the north route terminates on land at about N44 E73
Hope this clarifies this part.
RE SDU operation:
At the KL airport it was apparently fine
(small ~ 10-20 us). I think the
18:26 was ~ OK.
It seems ~ consistent with radar data.
But 19:40, 20:40 showed MH370 heading east !
This is more the 1500 us of abnormal SDU operation. Then 21:40 and onward were considered good.
The big question was then how to get good values for 18:26, 19:40, 20:40 and also 21:40.
In Jeff Wise’s earlier topic ~ August 20 ?, he showed the ‘shocker’.
In performing their magic (and the south-only declaration), Inmarsat studied several other fights with similar SDUs (operating in normal mode I think)- and they all exhibited the same non-repeatable time delay response.
The variation in the time delay would be similar to MH370 at KL airport, small 10 – 20 us values, then all of sudden – very a large value occurred (300 – 1000 us), and then back small variations.
They were able to determine these actual time delay values by independently monitoring the fight position.
Unfortunately we did not have MH370 flight position.
Therefore – Inmarsat had to apply ‘magic’.
Inmarsat was somehow able to revise at least the 19:40 and 20:40 values and now showing a westerly and then south-only turn.
The Inmarsat method has not been disclosed.
There is great uncertainty here.
The only method I know to resolve the
19:40 and 20:40 handshake inconsistency in this situation is to use independent Doppler Analysis.
I am hoping the recent ATSB report
indicating very relatively small total Doppler is accurate.
@Greg Yorke: “The Inmarsat method has not been disclosed. There is great uncertainty here.”
Have you read the ATSB report from June? The BFO model is clearly defined and an example worked.
I cannot in several sentences explain the intricacies of the BFO model, but it is not trivial to extract the uplink Doppler from the BFO as the effect of the AES correction term renders the residual Doppler shift a function of the position and velocity vectors of the plane and also the position and velocity vectors of the satellite.
Yap provided a BFO calculator on Duncan’s site that some are using. After reading the ATSB report, perhaps you can learn to use that calculator. I will look for the link when I have more time.
In the meantime, please be careful about making claims that the BFO data is consistent with a northerly route. I don’t see how that is possible.
Victor
Nihonmama: Ugh, ok, I will be less equivocating in my use of language.
My analysis concluded that there was no ‘smoking gun’ that would indicate that the US had prescient or independent knowledge of the SIO location. The conclusion of this analysis was that the Inmarsat analysis had been passed to the Malaysians who had in turn passed it to the US for further analysis. There was no other conclusion, and while I have not once played the card of absolutism in this forum, I will now: US awareness of the SIO search location did not precede Inmarsat’s, this is factually incorrect. Did Inmarsat go straight to the Brits or the Yanks before informing the Malaysians? Perhaps.
Radar data: all military radar data is ‘secret.’ Journalists (and then most especially TV docudramatists) have a penchant for embellishment, and thus is ‘secret’ ever-so-subltely translated to ‘top secret.’ Radar data is embedded in a military hierarchy where unity of command is paramount; classified information is handled no differently. A ‘slip’ or violation of unity of command is very carefully defined with legal (criminal) consequences likewise defined. In short, one can lose ones job over leaking classified information. If you are a politician, you have political enemies that are salivating over your position and waiting watchfully for you to make just such a mistake. So, you don’t. And you build in an extra margin of safety to ensure that you don’t.
It is a fact that Malaysia has not openly shared their radar data for the western track, so that it can be properly analyzed. Meanwhile, it is reasonable to assume that perhaps Indonesia has additional radar data that would better inform the analysis, although it is by no means certain. If Indonesia did, in fact, track the plane, perhaps they only agreed to share their data with the Malaysians with assurances that it would not be shared publicly. Perhaps the US was likewise informed of Indonesian radar data. Regardless, we may want to recall that Indonesia was in the midst of a historically very important presidential election, where ultimately the military ended up on the outs for the first time. This would be reason enough for there to be an amount of circumspection regarding Indonesian military radar.
Additional radar data would better inform the search; of this there is no doubt.That various militaries are withholding this data while politicians are unwilling to force their military constituencies to out the information represents callous disregard for the NOK, this does not a conspiracy make. Hishammuddin and Najib are obfuscating the truth; this is now quite clear. If they are cloaking anything more than their incompetence is the fundamental question. As for the americans, perhaps Matty will prove correct and MH370 will surface as a terror-related event. Then again, perhaps Luigi will prevail and we will find that the matter is wholly intrinsic to Malaysia.
@Greg Yorke, All:
Today, I tweeted a link to you North route and your comment:
“The reality of the matter is that the ‘raw’ Inmarsat data is inaccurate and is ‘random’ in the worst case.” —
To which Mike Exner (@airlandseman) tweeted back at me:
“Not even close to true. The ISAT data is excellent, and in any case, the best we have. Pls stop the propagation of such fiction.”
If your take is in error, without merit and ‘fiction’, then I would hope and expect that members of the IG (other than Victor, who is professional enough to engage with you in the open here) who have a problem with your view would engage in debate with you directly, as opposed to trying to shut down me down because I referenced it in social media.
@Rand:
I agree with most everything you say, but this —
“US awareness of the SIO search location did not precede Inmarsat’s, this is factually incorrect.” — is interesting.
How do you know for a fact that this is the case?
Jeff: can we soon expect an aviation-centric piece from you on the Ebola epidemic? You may need the room for posts on the disease.
We now have the first ex-Africa transmission, in Spain. A nurse, she contracted the disease while treating an infected missionary and a priest flown to Spain from West Africa for treatment. She developed a fever some time later – and then went on holiday, perhaps mingling with other travelers. It was a week or so before she was hospitalized and isolated.
Nihonmana: I am referring to any sort of attempt to reference the ABC report, the White House briefing or DoD briefings or the timing of the same in building a case for US foreknowledge of events that preceded Inmarsat’s analysis indicating the SIO. There is zero evidence of US foreknowledge within the scope of this public available information. Furthermore, Carney’s rather candid and even casual remarks are indicative of a White House that is monitoring the situation while not having come to any alarming conclusion that would earmark it as an immediate threat to national security.
If you are looking for something interesting here, consider the virtual non-response of the US to the loss of MH370. A commercial airliner goes missing – and there is virtually nothing forthcoming from the US counter-terrorism establishment, other than rumor and innuendo and comments regarding ‘no radar chatter?’ This is quite odd, in the wake of 9-11 where with wheels or wings or in a spray bottle larger than 100ml is now suspect. Or is it? Perhaps the americans booted up their sources in Malaysia (both live and mechanical) and very early in the process concluded that this was a matter wholly intrinsic to Malaysia. Fears of terrorism assuaged, they moved on to other things, allowing MH370 efforts to focus on providing assistance in the location of the remains of the aircraft. THIS would make for an interesting story; the US prescience thing is DOA. And, yes, I am relatively certain!
Double ugh: that was to be ‘no radio chatter’ and ‘…anything with wheels or wings or in a spray bottle larger than 100ml…”
@Rand:
“If you are looking for something interesting here, consider the virtual non-response of the US to the loss of MH370.”
Thank you. Exactement. Already noted.
Which, from where I sit, makes the US statement ahead of Inmarsat, that much more interesting.
Nihonmama: it’s very simple: Inmarsat was not at liberty to be the first to publicly disclose the data, as it was not their property, but rather that of MAS and its largest shareholder, the government of Malaysia. They provided the information to the Malaysians – and then the US got their hands on it from here, the information was disseminated amongst the US agencies and ABC got wind of what was apparently deemed ‘no big deal’.
How the US so quickly came to the conclusion that MH370 did not represent a threat to national security IS the interesting story, while the timing of US awareness of the Inmarsat analysis has virtually no relevance here.
@Rand:
🙂
@Rand:
“How the US so quickly came to the conclusion that MH370 did not represent a threat to national security IS the interesting story”
Fascinating.
We don’t even where the plane is (or isn’t). How do we (you) know the US concluded MH370 was no threat?
@Nihonmama and @Rand:
My guess is that the US assisted Inmarsat to interpret the satellite data, but the US had no prior knowledge of the satellite data. I also think that the US knows more than it has publicly revealed, including access to the military radar from Malaysia, Thailand, and possibly Indonesia, and perhaps other data sources.
Why would the US not publicize all it knows? My guess is that the full story is politically difficult for Malaysia, either because it demonstrates Malaysia’s incompetence, or perhaps it demonstrates that there are rogue elements within the country that contributed to the disappearance.
It might be that the US has not revealed completely what it knows because it is using that knowledge and the threat of its disclosure as leverage over Malaysia. Knowledge is power.
Please note the following story with a dateline of Sept 12 in which Malaysia has “offered” to allow the US to use a Malaysian base to host P-8 aircraft. Malaysia is strategically important to the US because its vicinity to China provides a means to counter China’s influence in the region and also a presence in Malaysia provides a means to counter a growing terrorist threat in the region.
Once the US guided the search into the SIO out of respect for the NOK, the use of this base and perhaps other shared intelligence might have been the quid pro quo for US silence regarding MH370.
http://online.wsj.com/articles/malaysia-offers-to-host-u-s-navy-aircraft-military-official-says-1410524618
In the world of geopolitics, actions speak louder than words.
Victor
@Victor, Rand:
“My guess is that the US assisted Inmarsat to interpret the satellite data, but the US had no prior knowledge of the satellite data.”
Yes, easy to think US might have assisted with data interpretation. And again, is it a FACT that the US had no prior knowledge of the satellite data?
“the US knows more than it has publicly revealed, including access to the military radar from Malaysia, Thailand, and possibly Indonesia, and perhaps other data sources.”
Couldn’t agree more. And why is it a stretch to think that US data sources wouldn’t also be in that mix?
“It might be that the US has not revealed completely what it knows because it is using that knowledge and the threat of its disclosure as leverage over Malaysia.”
Indeed. OR, the US has not revealed because there is another (parallel) investigation going on.
“In the world of geopolitics, actions speak louder than words.”
Indeed:
Nihonmama
Posted September 13, 2014 at 4:43 PM
Oooops.
The big, fat, multi-colored elephant in the room pops up yet again – GEOPOLITICS:
Malaysia offers US the use one of its bases for a detachment of new maritime surveillance planes https://t.co/dh2ILbN3SK
aka Quid Pro Quo.
Let’s go back.
In May 2013, an unmarked Dornier en route from the Maldives to Singapore was forced down in Banda Aceh, Indonesia. Turns out that plane was a U.S. Special Ops “Wolfhound” https://twitter.com/nihonmama/status/506945975143763968 The claim was that they ran out of fuel. Really.
Less than a year later, comes MH370. And guess what? The Maldives finds its way into the mix – SIX individual witnesses tell the same story:https://twitter.com/nihonmama/status/446326016626024448
But their story is dismissed – by the Malaysian authorities and others, who say it doesn’t ‘fit’ the data.
OK.
And then, just over four months after MH370 vanishes, Malaysia Airlines loses a SECOND plane:
“there were three other large commercial planes in the area, two 777s and an A330. MH17 was the victim of the awfulness of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.” http://t.co/vf39JEWfm2
What, pray tell, is the statistical likelihood that an MAS plane would be THE one hit over Ukraine – with the step-grandmother of both Malaysian PM Najib and Defense Min Hishammuddin aboard?
The common denominator in both events is Malaysia. Folks, it defies credulity to believe that these two disasters, months apart and befalling the SAME airline are not related. And clearly, there are other players in this affair who benefit from all of the obfuscation. As it relates to both MH17 and MH370.
@Greg Yorke: Here is Yap’s BFO calculator. I hope this helps you.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6gvsOWO81hTcGUxUDM1RGVfeGs/edit?usp=sharing
Victor
@Nihonmama: As you know, you are preaching to the choir. I have openly speculated about the links between MH370, MH17, Banda Aceh, Ukraine, the Maldives, and Malaysia.
http://jeffwise.net/mh370-scenario-with-a-landing-at-banda-aceh-by-victor-iannello-august-23-2014/
Unfortunately, until real evidence surfaces, it will remain pure speculation. These are topics we can debate here, but frankly I think it is becoming a worn-out debate without something new surfacing.
@Victor:
You know that I know that you know.
Merely looping to underscore your geopolitics point.
The facts will take care of themselves.
@rand
There are indications from early statements made by US officials along with the general hands-off approach displayed that there was an appreciation from the get-go that the flight ended up “in the water” (location unknown) and that the incident did not involve international terrorism. I would be surprised if knowledgeable officials didn’t have this one figured out pretty quickly — that’s their job, and this is the routine stuff of diplomatic cables. These days it’s probably also reasonable to assume that the NSA has a treasure-trove of SIGINT to go to verify their conclusions, including intercepts of the Malaysian leadership’s communications and, at minimum, any traffic that goes through satellites, plus at least metadata on everything else. KL was the site of the last big planning meeting for 9/11, so Malaysia is hardly a backwater from an intel standpoint.
@Gysbrecht – thanks. No ILS, no water autolanding, gear or no gear.
@Dennis – I’d say that means any water landing without major damage, if even possible, had to be performed by a human. The lack of debris does not prove an intact landing, of course, but an intact landing more of less proves a human pilot.
I don’t see much point in a human landing in the BoB, though. Do you have a motive?