Occam’s Razor is Overrated

conspiracy theoryMartin Dolan, chief commissioner of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), is plagued by conspiracy theorists. According to an article in the Sydney Morning Herald, since the disappearance of MH370, “conspiracy theorists have been busy trying to solve the mystery themselves. Many have contacted Dolan.”

“You’ve got this big mystery and everyone wants to know the answer and everyone wants to help,” the SMH quotes Dolan as saying. “It’s unhelpful, for the sake of the families more than anything else, in the sense that it has the potential to undermine confidence in what we are doing.”

I feel somewhat guilty for being one of those peanut-gallery denizens who have tormented him. Along with my fellow obsessives in the Independent Group, I’ve been straining my brain for the last eight months trying to make sense of the strangest aviation mystery in history. Yes, I’d like to be helpful; yes, I’d like to know the answers. And yes, I may have unwittingly undermined confidence in what the ATSB was doing, for instance by publicly saying that I thought they were looking in the wrong place. (Though, to be fair, they were in fact looking in the wrong place.)

Nevertheless, I must take issue with one aspect of the article’s characterization of my subculture: the use of the term “conspiracy theorist.” Now, look: I get it. My wife says that I remind her of the Kevin Costner character in “JFK.” I ruminate about the intracacies of a famous case and try to piece them together in a new way that makes more sense. I’m obsessed.

There’s a big difference, however, between true grassy-knoll conspiracy theorists (or 9/11Truthers, or the-moon-landing-was-faked believers) and MH370 obsessives like me. It’s this: there is no default, mainstream narrative about the missing Malaysian airliner. There is no story that officials and all reasonable people agree makes sense.

This isn’t the result of laziness or incompetence. It’s just that the data is so strange.

A lot of people don’t get that. Ever since the mystery began, certain voices have been invoking the principle of Occam’s razor, saying that when we try to formulate a most likely scenario for what happened to the plane, we should choose the answer that is simplest. People who are making this argument are usually in favor of the argument that the plane suffered a massive mechanical failure and then flew off into the ocean as a ghost ship, or that the pilot locked his co-pilot out of the cockpit and committed suicide. However, as I’ve argued over the course of several earlier posts, neither theory matches what we know about the flight.

Instead, I’ve argued that an accumulation of evidence suggests that MH370 was commandeered by hijackers who had a very sophisticated understanding of airline procedure, air traffic control, avionics systems, military radar surveillance, and satellite communications. In other words, what happened on the night of March 7/8 of this year was a intentional act. And when it comes to human schemes, Occam’s razor goes out the window. Instead of simplicity, we should expect complexity, not to mention red herrings and any other form of subterfuge.

Whenever I hear Occam’s razor invoked, I inevitably find myself thinking of something that Sarah Bajc said on CNN. Bajc’s partner, Philip Wood, is one of the missing passengers, and she has been very open minded in considering alternative explanations to what happened that night. “There are 40 crazy stories that you could tell about MH370,” she told the anchor. “And one of them is going to turn out to be true.”

I’ve come to think of this as the Bajc Postulate, which I think should replace Occam’s Razor in situations like this. It goes like this: “When trying to unravel human deception, don’t expect simplicity.”

Remember Operation Mincemeat? In 1943, a fisherman found the body of a British officer floating in the sea off the Spanish coast. The authorities turned the corpse over to German intelligence, who discovered that it carried a number of secret documents, including one indicating that the expected Allied assault from North Africa would target Sardinia, not Sicily, as widely expected. The authenticity of the documents was vouched for by every detail of the body, its clothes, and the accompanying possessions, which included several love letters, a photo of a fiancee, a bill from an exclusive tailor, and a theater ticket stub. Either this man and his belongings had all been elaborately and meticulously forged, or he really was who he seemed to be: Occam’s Razor. Hitler himself was utterly convinced. And yet, of course, the whole thing was a ruse, an elaborate deception cooked up with painstaking care by British intelligence. Hitler shifted three divisions to Sardinia, the invasion landed at Sicily, and the war was that much closer to being over.

I think it’s distinctly possible that MH370 represents a deception crafted at the same level of complexity.

In my mind, the crux is what happened at 18:25. Until that moment, the plane had been on radio silence for nearly an hour. After following a zig-zag path along national airspace boundaries, it had reached the limit of military radar coverage and had disappeared. But then, mysteriously, the satcom system reconnected to the Inmarsat satellite overhead. For it to do this, the hijackers would have had to either climbed into the electronics bay or carried out a complex procedure in the cockpit that few people outside of Boeing itself would now how to accomplish. All this, to no evident purpose: no attempt was subsequently used to communicate via the system.

Other things were odd about the 18:25 logon. The frequencies that the system transmitted over the next few minutes were inexplicable to the scientists at Inmarsat. Though the electronics of the system are perfectly understood by the equipment’s manufacturers, they cannot explain how the frequencies were produced. Investigative efforts within the IG suggest that there was another mysterious aspect to the satcom’s behavior post-18:25: when a pair of incoming calls was received at 18:41, the system was unable to pass the calls through. We’re not sure why, but the most likely cause is that errors in the system’s configuration prevented it from aiming the satellite dish correctly.

By 19:41, the satcom system seemed to settle down and transmit at stable frequencies. If taken at face value, these frequencies indicated unambiguously that the plane was flying south. Yet the ATSB has never able to completely make sense of these values. As I wrote last week, it has proven frustratingly difficult to make the two distinct halves of the Inmarsat data—the timing and the frequency data—match up in a way that makes sense.

Regardless of these difficulties, most reasonable people share the conviction that, regardless of what particular track the plane happened to fly, it definitely flew south into the most remote reaches of the southern Indian Ocean. I’ve examined the data myself, and come away convinced that, indeed, the frequency data unequivocally supports this conclusion. But no one knows why anyone would do this. One popular notion is that the hijackers had a destination in mind, but something went wrong, they became incapacitated, and the plane flew on autopilot until it ran out of fuel and crashed. This scenario is certainly possible, but as I recently pointed out, a new speed-analysis technique suggests the plane was under deliberate control until the very end.

So if they weren’t incapacitated, why were these very motivated, very sophisticated hijackers flying a perfectly good jet off into the middle of the ocean? As I see it, there are two possibilities:

  • The hijackers were very sophisticated, but for some unknown reason chose to fly the plane off into the middle of the ocean, or
  • They were very, very, very sophisticated, and not only survived, but managed to cover their tracks in a way that has fooled absolutely everybody — and turning on the SDU was an essential part of their plan. This explains why there has been no debris found, why there was no radar track over the southern Indian Ocean, and why Inmarsat has been baffled by the BFO values.

This kind of thinking would have been considered outlandish a few months ago, but the more time goes by without any trace of the plane turning up, the more reasonable it is starting to seem. No less an industry eminence than Emirates CEO Tim Clark, whose airline operates the largest 777 fleet in the world, recently told Der Spiegel: “We have not seen a single thing that suggests categorically that this aircraft is where they say it is, apart from this so-called electronic satellite ‘handshake,’ which I question as well.”

To accomplish a disappearing act, the hijackers would have had to have pulled off a plan that the authorities not only couldn’t anticipate beforehand, few could wrap their heads around it afterward. A plan so devious, it would literally be —

Inconceivable

What could such a plan have been? Frankly, there’s no way we can be sure. Until the plane is located, and the black boxes are found, all we can do is speculate. But some speculation runs in accordance with the facts, and some runs counter to it. Over the last few months, I’ve pieced together a narrative that I think matches well the facts we do know, explains some otherwise baffling conundrums, and basically ties together a means, a perpetrator, and a destination. (Which, paranthetically, is something that no one else, official or amateur, has yet attempted.)

In the past, I’ve invited others to share their “conspiracy theories,” and I tip my hat to the very, very few (two) who’ve had the courage to take me up on my offer. For the most part, their efforts were met with skepticism, but polite skepticism, and that reaction has emboldened me to press forward with my own big reveal. I hope that some people will find it thought-provoking, perhaps even convincing. I expect that a great many will find it, yes, inconceivable, perhaps even outrageous or even offensive. Remember, it is speculation, not a statement of fact; but if we don’t risk trotting out our speculations eventually then we will never get any closer to figuring out the truth.

If you care to dive down my rabbit hole, click below:

The Spoof, Part 1: Why (A Speculative Scenario)

The Spoof, Part 2: How (A Speculative Scenario)

The Spoof, Part 3: Where (Not a Speculative Scenario)

The Spoof, Part 4: Motive

The Spoof, Part 5: People on the Plane

The Spoof, Part 6: MH17

And that’s all there is for now.

450 thoughts on “Occam’s Razor is Overrated”

  1. The passengers of MH370, to plagiarize the letter to Mrs. Bixby, have been laid upon the altar of aviation safety. Even if no debris is ever found and no cause ever determined, I would be ready to declare the battle won.

    Regardless of what happened, a lot of impetus has been given to changes that will save future lives. E.g. ADS-C and other tracking initiatives; E/E bay security (surely Tim Clark is busy retrofitting the world’s largest 777 fleet!); better protection against battery fires (see the recent NTSB report on the 787 APU battery fires). If the FAA is reading Alex Siew, it may even accelerate the work it is doing on the seals that protect against lightning strikes!

    But if your goal is to unmask Putin’s “boomerang” against western sanctions (diabolically packaged as the anonymous abduction of a Malaysian airliner carrying Chinese to Beijing), this silver lining might be harder to appreciate.

  2. @Ron: I encouraged the formation of your group and encouraged diversity of opinion in a polite manner. I am not sure what the offense was.

  3. @Victorl

    As a courtesy, a sneak preview might be in order. We will probably not be using a constant heading auto throttle model.

    Seriously, no malice toward the IG or their views was ever intended. At least not on my part. You personally have helped me overcome more than one technical obstacle.

    I do feel quite strongly that the BFO data is highly suspect for reasons already beat to death. A view not shared by the IG, but you have a lot invested in BFO so that is not surprising.

    It should be mentioned, and I have not seen it highlighted in any recent posts, that the example tracking paths offered in the ATSB reporting have some significant path variations. Presumably these paths were cherry picked to reinforce the analytics. It is also true that these paths were made under ideal routine flight conditions with respect to AP controlled heading and speed.

    At the end of the day the Inmarsat system was never designed to be a tracking system. We are all trying to turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse.

  4. @ron
    Whoever you are please don’t use other people’s names without consent. I am with the IG on this one.

  5. Ron:

    I appreciate your comment, but I’m not (remotely) interested in being an administrator (or anything else) for any group related to the search for MH370. I’m currently focused (professionally) on getting back to Asia. And to the degree that I’m able to have a meaningful contribution to the effort to find MH370, my knowledge and skills will be the most valuable if I am not ‘aligned’ with anyone. But I’ll continue to offer assistance and insights where I can.

    Victor:

    I agree with you re the import of the article. The ISI and their ties to the Taliban is certainly a relevant comparison. Where I differ (and I’ve said this publicly before)is on my “read” regarding H20’s Four Corners interview. Based on my professional experience (and I could be wrong, but I’d bet money on my gut), H20 is not communicating disdain. He’s communicating (verbally and non-verbally) irritation. A subtle, but huge difference.

    Watching that interview left me extremely frustrated. Had I been the interviewer, I would have capitalized on the open door H20 provided by following up with a vigorous line of questioning. I still can’t believe the Four Corners correspondent dropped that ball.

  6. I appreciate very much the work done by the IG and in particular have a very high esteem for Victor. I apologize for not being more diplomatic, that’s a common trait where I live and probably the reason we had survived. There was no intention to insult just lack of social skill and bad national habits.

    In open source projects it’s common to fork the development when the original team gets stuck. They may very well restart and lead but this is the essence of open source.

    @Richard Cole – I apologize.

  7. @Ron and @Dennis: I really don’t take offense to a group developing a competing theory to the IG’s. In fact, Jeff and I have done just that, mine less radical than Jeff’s. Others here, including Bobby, sk999, Gysbreght, and Richard C., have a done a great job in offering alternate analyses, and I don’t dismiss any of their results. I would like to think my relationship with all is cordial. I certainly have tried to share information when asked.

    In fact, and I think I have said this too many times already, I don’t think any person or group can definitively come up with a single path or scenario. At best, we can subjectively rank the relative likelihood of various scenarios, and subjectively propose the “most likely” candidate.

    You will find, if you succeed in forming a group that really has the diversity of opinion that you seek, that it will be extremely difficult to develop a consensus view. Developing a consensus to disagree with a particular scenario (and perhaps the people associated with it) is much, much easier. So instead, you are likely to develop a scenario that reflects the view of a particular person or a small subset of the group, and in doing so, alienate the rest of the group. Already Dennis has announced that “We will probably not be using a constant heading auto throttle mode.” I take no offense to this assumption, but others in your group might.

    In fact, I am amazed that the IG ever reached the consensus within our group to publish the reports we did. There was heated debate on many topics.

    Is the plane in the SIO? I don’t know. My best guess is it is. If it is not in the SIO (and it will take many more months before we can reach this conclusion) then I think a scenario like Jeff’s becomes more likely. I still think it was the right thing, based on the information at hand, to conduct the search in the SIO, regardless of what we learn the truth to be.

  8. Ron:

    I really wish you’d attempted to communicate with me regarding your intentions to post your idea (mentioning me) here BEFORE you did it.

    Now, you’ve opened yourself up to gas-lighting, which is unfortunate (and not productive). And you will be outnumbered.

    Sadly, we’ve seen certain members of the IG (or those ‘associated’ with the group) do the exact same on Twitter – especially to those who don’t agree with all of their opinions, or who they view as being conspiracists — or crazy. I’ve been on the receiving end of it, as have others, including RWMann — when he was ridiculed (and had a picture of his HOME posted on Twitter) because he had the temerity to disagree in a conversation about the backup battery issue.

    The two people who were involved are part of the IG — and they know who they are. I was there to witness it in real time (and responded to it), so I can tell you for a fact it happened. RwMann is too much of a gentlemen and didn’t respond to them. But most others would not have stayed silent in the face of such behaviour. And it all left an indelible impression on me.

    That kind of low-ball, puerile, unprofessional behaviour not only sullies the overall reputation of the IG (and efforts of others in it who are sincerely working to find MH370 — whether their theories are correct or not), but it contributes to more than a few people’s (not unreasonable) perception that the IG (or shall I say, some of those in it) are not only not interested in diverse views, it’s supremely arrogant. And rapaciously competitive.

    I shared the above to underscore that you should not take anything anyone says here personally. It can be (and is) a dirty business.

  9. @Victorl

    Already Dennis has announced that “We will probably not be using a constant heading auto throttle mode.”

    But Victor, I have learned more than technical details blogging with you guys. You might recall that when I tried to put forth a non constant heading AP mode, I was told by Duncan to go elsewhere if I wished to pursue that. Easy solution to dissent.

    I did not take it personally, but then again I have the hide of a rhino.

    Furthermore, I doubt anyone can improve upon the IG model, and I don’t want to suggest searching in the same place.

  10. IG part of the problem? Sounds harsh I guess but I reckon I know what Dennis was getting at here. The crunchers have said with every justification that the data is all we have. But this became a license, or a modelers dream, to go to the end of the earth on a handful of numbers with a raft of assumptions and guesses. Something that will never happen again, a one-off, and in they came from everywhere. And many – like the IG – did a grindingly thorough and expert job but it has degenerated in recent times also. In Ireland there is a saying(I’m not Irish) – you can stop shaking the rat, the rat is dead.

    And….I have never set out to offend, I don’t believe Dennis did either. It’s the business end and things are fraying a bit, so maybe step back and have a glass.

    No takers on the Margaret River red????

  11. @Dennis: The IG has about a dozen members and most of us have had individual interactions with others. I can’t defend the words of others, as I can barely defend my own. Duncan was the moderator of his website, which was not the IG’s, and he had a right to impose order in any way he saw fit. I was also sanctioned at times for pushing the envelope too far, which I often did. I respected Duncan’s right to run his website as he saw fit, and I published my more extreme thoughts elsewhere.

    Jeff has the same right here.

  12. Another round of apologies and explanations.

    I’m sorry for not contacting and asking permission from people here before using their names. It was stupid and rude. I apologize. Anyway without email addresses and private messages it was technically very difficult almost impossible.

    @VictorI, if you’ll read my note you will see that I don’t intend to start any groups. I lack the skills needed. I suggested to help people more capable than me if they will do so.

    Regarding consensus why is it so important? People may have different opinions and if one manages to prove his argument or theory then everyone benefits. That’s the way science works.

    By the way, I’m still waiting for your apology and please include the other people you have defamed along.

    @Nihonmama, the situation you are describing is very ugly! I think that people behaving like this are disgracing their group and themselves. A real scientist or engineer have respect for other opinions.

  13. @Victor

    “Is the plane in the SIO? I don’t know. My best guess is it is. If it is not in the SIO (and it will take many more months before we can reach this conclusion) then I think a scenario like Jeff’s becomes more likely. I still think it was the right thing, based on the information at hand, to conduct the search in the SIO, regardless of what we learn the truth to be.”

    Excellently put as always.

    In the developing battle (!) between the ‘nerdy number crunchers’ and the ‘wafflers’ (and I mean those terms fondly) I know where my money lies. I sincerely hope you and the other technical contributors continue to post your findings here and uphold the analytical and science-based content of this blog.

    The satellite data is the ONLY hard evidence that we have for what happened to the aircraft in its final hours. We absolutely have to do everything we can to quantify its reliability and to extract every last bit of information from it. There would rightly be hell to pay if the ATSB failed to do this.

    The ‘waffle’ is of course entertaining, and I enjoy it and learn from it. But are sage observations and penetrating insights into the geo-politics of South East Asia and elsewhere going to move the search forward? Charged with mobilising a search team, right now this minute, with substantial public funding, and being accountable for the actions taken, I’d love to see what some commenters would actually do.

    My work involves subsea operations in deep water and far flung places. It is relatively easy for me to think of even a large airliner as a tiny drop in the vastness of the ocean. Some people seem to think the lack of an immediate result from the sidescan sonar, and the lack of debris on beaches mean it is time to return to square one. But in truth the search has hardly started.

  14. @Jeff

    Your contribution to uncovering the fate of MH370 has been tremendous to date, but I feel you may be moving into tricky territory with your recent speculations.

    I find the concept of a sophisticated attack to be very interesting; I was an avid follower for example of the emerging story of the Stuxnet cyber attack on the Iranian nuclear industry (the Ralph Langner blog is required reading, starting back in Sept 2010). It is a startling example of the sort of devious, imaginative and intricate scheme that a specialist team with nation state backing can execute.

    It will be interesting to hear more from experts such as Mr Exner on the technical challenges in implementing a plan to spoof the data. But I can’t help thinking that if it were done, it would be done in a much more effective manner. A partial spoof? One that allows the true course of the aircraft to be easily extracted when the sole object was presumably to hide the route? And a route that involves literally flying on completely empty tanks at the ‘planned’ destination? Hmm, not very sophisticated after all! I think one of the most compelling elements of a SIO crash location is the agreement between the flight duration as evidenced by the handshakes, and the endurance expected based on fuel load.

    I sense some anchor bias here, an attempt to fit too many things into a preconceived storyline (and for me linking to MH17 is surely a step too far). If the data has been properly spoofed, the plane could of course be absolutely anywhere.

    I do find myself wishing that you hadn’t singled out the Russian and the two Ukrainians. Photos too. What was the idea with that? To show that they look like military types? I think you are treading a bit of a fine line there to be honest, though I understand that with investigative journalism these judgements can be hard to make.

  15. for the lack of any debris if MH370 crashed in the SIO, maybe it got to an island like Île Saint-Paul’s crescent bay keeping most flotsam contained. Or in one of the uninhabited atolls of the Maldives it crashed into the deeper centre watery part.

  16. @M Pat: Thank you for your kind words. I think you understand the spirit of my posts here.

    @Ron: I defamed nobody. That is the last I will say on this topic.

  17. @M Pat, I think your criticisms are spot on; you’ve identified the aspects of my theory that I, too, think are its weakest elements, by which in particular I mean the fuel issue.
    If my speculation is correct, then the hijackers didn’t set out to carry out a partial spoof, they set out to do a full spoof, but didn’t realze that Inmarsat had started to record BTO values.
    On the other hand, if it’s not in the SIO, then it had to have gone north. If it’s not in Russia because both the BFO and BTO were spoofed, and I was wrong because I underestimated the sophistication of the hijackers, well, that would be kind of an amazing outcome.
    As for the “partial spoof” idea, I’m not suggestingn the hijackers set out to carry out a partial spoof; they set out to do a full spoof, but didn’t realize that Inmarsat had started to record BTO values.

  18. M Pat – getting the most from the data? Been done I’d say and any big move of the search area now would be a shitstorm. I trust what’s been done, I don’t trust the numbers like a lot of people. If its not in the box we are done. Any revisiting of assumptions will widen the search and the money will be hone. Then you will see waffling in earnest.

  19. M Pat –

    Potential double post coming up but here goes:

    I think there is no reason to doubt the thoroughness with the data but not everyone trusts the data itself. Saying it’s all we have does not vouch for it’s quality. The sums are done and die is cast. If it isn’t in the box then we are probably done as there is no more money after this. Any revisiting of the basic assumptions will not give us a smaller search area and moving it now would be tumultuous. They had no choice but to proceed with that analysis but there is I guess the full spectrum of confidence in it on display. The BFO doubters have sat back mainly but they exist.

  20. he plane was under deliberate control until the very end.- absolutely BUAP was installed a decoy jetdrone was flown to VAMPI GIVAL EGREX and self-destroyed by R/C
    the swap was at IGARI our B772 jammed VHF
    played throughthe vietnam ATC from close range escort Sukoi 30 and against HMC of course blanket out Captain shah and hamid were cut off from controllingthis aircraft.

  21. Confidence seems to be suddenly lacking, in anticipation, of the IG claiming victory in pointing ATSB where to SIO search.

    Of course, they could run over it and miss it, as they did with AF447 (found on 3rd search, 2nd in area). A non-result is a non-result.

    (I don’t expect it to be found there. That is unrelated to whether it is there somewhere)

  22. Jeff – this is paywalled so I’ll chuck it all in,

    Ukraine ignored warning to close Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 airspace before tragedy
    BOJAN PANCEVSKI THE TIMES DECEMBER 07, 2014

    Source: AFP
    UKRAINE was urged to close the east of the country to civil aviation days before the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in July but ignored the warning.

    Sources at Eurocontrol, the organisation that manages Europe’s air traffic, said its experts spoke privately to their Ukrainian counterparts about the potential threat after more than 20 Ukrainian military aircraft were destroyed by Russian-backed rebels.

    The Ukrainians continued to let planes fly over the affected area, however. The sources said Eurocontrol did not have the power to interfere with countries’ decisions.

    All 38 Aussie MH17 victims identified

    The revelation looks certain to fuel the anger of the families of the 298 passengers and crew — 38 of them Australians — who died when the plane was shot down on July 17.

    Some families are taking legal action against the Ukrainian government for refusing to shut the airspace above the conflict zone. They say there was abundant evidence rebel forces were using missiles that could have endangered civilian aircraft.

    In the week before the downing of MH17, separatist militias shot down at least four Ukrainian Sukhoi-25 airforce jet fighters and one Antonov-26 transporter, which was flying at 6500m.

    Following the destruction of the Antonov on July 14, Ukrainian authorities raised the minimum height at which civilian aircraft were required to fly over the region from 8000m to 9700m but refused to close the airspace. MH17 was flying at 10,000m when it was hit.

    According to a source at Eurocontrol, experts from the organisation identified at least three reasons for serious concern: first that pro-Russian separatists had already downed a number of Ukrainian military aeroplanes using anti-aircraft weapons; second, separatist forces were jamming communication frequencies; and third, there had been a breakdown in communications between Russian and Ukrainian air-traffic control.

    Several airlines re-routed their flights weeks before the attack on the Malaysian plane, which is believed to have been targeted by mistake. Several others, including Malaysia Airlines, did not.

    Elmar Giemulla, a lawyer acting for the families of four German victims, has filed a lawsuit against the Ukrainian government at the European Court of Human Rights for its failure to close the airspace. He said the lives of passengers had been endangered for financial and political reasons.

    “Presumably the Ukrainian authorities wanted to avoid losing the revenue from transit fees — up to $US1 billion ($1.19bn) per year — and also for political reasons, as shutting your airspace means admitting a loss of control and a loss of sovereignty,” he said.

    Siemon Wezeman, a weapons expert at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, also criticised the Ukrainians’ failure to act. “Considering the Antonov was shot down with heavy anti-aircraft systems, and how widely they were used in the area, one must wonder why the airspace wasn’t shut down completely,” he said.

    There was further controversy last week when it emerged that Dutch authorities had removed from their report into the crash a clause in an earlier version that said Ukraine had raised the altitude level for civilian airlines.

    Ukraine intelligence sources said they had been made aware that several anti-aircraft systems had crossed from Russia into Ukraine at least a week before the MH17 incident. But they claimed the intelligence was not “100 per cent reliable” and could not have been used as grounds for “drastic moves” such as shutting airspace.

    “I blame the Ukrainian authorities for not closing the airspace and Malaysia Airlines for not taking a decision to avoid it,” said Robby Oehlers, who lost a cousin in the tragedy.

    The Sunday Times

  23. Hi Jeff!

    Interesting thoughts but too many assumptions IMO.
    The most weakest point is the motive. What is the intent? Doing it as revenge for sanctions has no sense for me, especially the majority of passengers were Chinese.
    We didnt hear anything about hijackers motive, demands. Many months passed since the event but the hijackers are silent.

    About “how”, I doubt that any airliner could pass above India unobserved. You can get any northern destination only by passing indian airspace (with the given fuel).

    A last remark: Im writing from East-Europe. Im worrying a little bit about increasing Russia and Putin phobia. As far I know, not the Russians are the masters of covert operations and for now I feel the linkage weak between MH370 and Russians (MH17 is an another story, though I know many want link the two events.). Maybe it is already said, but I dont see why Russians risk their good relationship with China killing many Chinese people on board.

    However, if no tracks appear in next year in south searching, your theory will be more probable…

  24. “and a pair of poney tanks”

    btw you cant use scuba diver emergency tanks on an airplane, in low pressure environment, thats why oxigen masks used in emergency for passengers.

  25. Jeff: whoa, who would have thought that the madness of a drinking establishment could be surpassed by that of a Waffle House? Must be the moon…

    M Pat: I will raise my hand and concede that you are probably correct in stating that some of us wax a bit too geopolitical on occasion. In our collective defense (i.e., a dodge on personal culpability), the general point of much of the wandering is to explore various corners where the investigation could be better informed. Meanwhile, I also perceive the location of the remains of the aircraft to be nested in the totality of the investigation, rather than the primary objective of it. One need only begin with how the Malaysian authorities continue to obfuscate the circumstances of the loss of the aircraft and the apparent lack of Indonesian radar data to perceive how perhaps (and from what sources) additional data/information could better inform the location effort. And even if we don’t want to get our hands dirty regarding how the aircraft ‘disappeared,’ the fact remains that it did. This is indeed a rather singular mystery, goading one to select from a menu that includes a disappearance by an intentional deletion of information or a damn sophisticated, end-to-end hijacking. Finally, waffling is a warranted pastime, if even simply because ‘we’ are making contributions to this blog (irrespective of what now amounts clearly to an obsession for several regulars). And then we do have our limits, as well as the watchful eye our barkeep and host.

    BTW, please don’t inform my wife that I am ‘here’ on a Sunday family evening – again.

    Ron: such a glorious and humble apology tainted by one loose line. Don’t worry, Victor has proven himself to be rather a forgiving (if not insanely preoccupied) sort.

    Nihonmama: just get on the damn plane and get over to Tokyo; you can always return to the land of More Guns than Pets after another sojourn abroad. And it was the auto-correct on ‘ginko,’ rather than me.

    Bruce: Alex Lives!

  26. @ M Pat

    The assertion that the data (Inmarsat BTO and BFO) is all we have has certainly been given a lot of play. I would remind you of the old (and true) metaphor – when you are a carpenter the whole world looks like a nail. So it is when you are an engineer/scientist/mathematician the whole world looks like a number. We actually do have more than the Inmarsat data – some old and some new.

    1> Thai radar observations

    2> Lack of Sumatra radar observations

    3> Shah’s marital difficulties

    4> Shah’s political dissatisfaction

    5> Lack of debris

    6> Possible low altitude sightings near the Maldives and by the sailoress.

    The absence of any explanation, logical or not, for the ATSB and IG routes is in itself troubling. What is missing is what seasoned practitioners call the “gut check”. You cannot quantify it (the gut check), but it is very useful and very real, despite not being a number. Simply put, is the answer sensible? If you cannot answer yes to that question the need for additional thinking is usually indicated.

  27. @Dennis W,

    You’re absolutely right there is other data. Some of it is “soft” some is “hard facts”, some has implications for route analytics but most is related to the how and why of this case.

    After about half a year of following every lead and finding many fruitful ones I think it’s time for a synthesis. Unfortunately the usual forums are inflicted with high school dynamics and are not suitable for this aim. My email address appears in a former comment and I would be glad if you’ll use it. I don’t bite, certainly not via email.

  28. Rand:

    I’ll be in Tokyo soon. Believe me.

    The land of More Guns than Pets, You Don’t Need a Hood and a Sheet — just a Badge and a Gun, and Don’t Do A Damn Thing While that (Black — but we use the N word on Twitter) President is Office is really some kind of other.

    My parents fled the brutality, inequity and insanity of the American South during the time the Feds (law enforcement AND the courts) had to intervene (repeatedly) because the States used their ‘rights’ — stridently and with great disdain — to run roughshod over Civil Rights — @100 MPH. And now look…

    More than one person has written about the increasing parallels between the US and hegemonic, hubristic, equality-doesn’t-apply-to-plebes-women-or-slaves Rome — right before it burned.

    We are there.

    The promise of Asia has never looked better.

    Have they found the plane yet?

  29. All,

    Does anyone know if the FMS can be enabled by the pilot to increase altitude (either continually or periodically in steps) as fuel is burned with no further pilot interaction? That is, if one assumes that there was no further human input after the final turn south, is the aircraft limited to flying at a single altitude thereafter, or could the altitude increase with time until fuel exhaustion? I believe the FMS does recommend altitude steps, but I don’t know if these always require an enabling action by a pilot in order to actually occur.

  30. @Bobby: In the past, I have searched for an altitude control mode that automatically achieved either a cruise (continuous) or stepped (periodic) climb for a B777. Although the Concorde was allowed to cruise climb (at higher altitudes where there was essentially no traffic), I don’t think this is an autopilot mode for a B777, nor would it be allowed by ATC as altitude changes would be requested. Of course, we don’t expect MH370 to be following ATC instructions, but it would be odd to have an autopilot mode that would not be consistent with ATC procedures.

  31. Bobby:
    According to one 777 pilot I know well, the pilot must step the altitude manually (using VNAV). Steps can’t be programmed because ATC clearance is needed. In ECON Mode, the CDU will display the best altitude automatically, and the crew watches for a change as the fuel is burned off. Once a new altitude is recommended by the FMS, the pilot calls ATC for cleaarance to climb to a new FL, then does it.

  32. @Bobby, the big upshot of what Victor and Mike are saying (and I assume this is what you were getting at) is that a plane flown actively can fly further and faster than one in a ghost-plane scenario. I believe that the performance-limit line drawn by the ATSB assumes that the flight post 19:40 took place at a constant altitude. To be remotely plausible, both your scenario and mine require step-climbing (IMHO).

  33. @jeffwise,
    ” a plane flown actively can fly further and faster than one in a ghost-plane scenario”

    Yes and no. The October Performance limit is based on the MRC (maximum range cruise) speed, which is slower than LRC (long range cruise) speed. MRC and LRC both reduce with weight for constant altitude. The plane can fly faster but then it will get less far.

  34. Well, all right, then – let’s sort out altitude. My questions:

    1) Given known speed of MH370’s purported primary radar track, what is the probability distribution function of possible ALTITUDES at 18:22? Mightn’t a good chunk of this 5,000′ of “impossible” altitude climb have already occurred on the westward leg?

    2) Even if a step-function requires manual intervention, doesn’t [constant thrust]+[reducing fuel]=[GRADUALLY increasing altitude]? Mightn’t the “max” or “average” altitude of such a flight be what the Fig.2 and Fig.3 charts actually describe?

    3) If FL400-enabled range is only permissible via manual flight modes, why does the ATSB – who last I checked are still on the hypoxia scenario – show their FL400 scenario making it well past the 7th arc in Fig.3?

    4) Isn’t the Oct. 8 report’s switch from speeds to altitudes itself yet another example of deliberate insertion of ambiguity and opacity on the part of the JIT – and doesn’t that make more people than me spitting mad?

  35. @VictorI,
    @airlandseaman,
    @jeffwise,

    Thank you for your responses to my question regarding an automated climb. It appears that the FMS probably cannot do this on its own.

    @Brock,

    I agree we don’t know the altitude after 17:07. In my opinion, 9M-MRO could have climbed to be at FL400 already at the final turn.

    I’m not exactly sure what you mean by “If FL400-enabled range is only permissible via manual flight modes . . .”. My understanding is that the VNAV is used to control altitude, and the pilot manually sets this altitude to be held, but the VNAV autopilot thereafter maintains it. The HNAV can simultaneously be controlled either by the FMS or by the TRK HLD function in the MCP.

    The fact that the ATSB’s MRC tracks extend beyond the 7th arc in the ATSB Figures 2 and 3 demonstrates, in my opinion, the inconsistency of the supposed tracks they have solved for using the combination of BTO and BFO data with the end point predicted for the case of MRC speed control. In other words, for the MRC case, one should rotate the tracks so that the maximum range occurs just inside the 7th arc (the intersection of the MRC arc and just inside the 7th arc).

    I always found Figure 2 (the case for the 18:28 turn) in the Oct. 8 ATSB update to be odd because they omitted the 40,000 foot case in the plot, although the text refers to it. To check their performance limit curve, I first took the distance traveled from the 18:40 turn location to the end point shown in Figure 3 for FL400. Then I went this same distance from the 18:28 turn point to the 7th arc. The result I got is indeed very close to the SW end of the ATSB’s “Fugro Discovery Search Area” at 38.5S, 87.6E. This performance limit intersection is inside the SW end of the Wide Search Area on the 7th arc at 39.0S, 86.6E. It is also a bit inside the extension recently surveyed by Fugro Equator down to 38.9S, 86.8E.

    Brock, I believe you did a superposition of the two graphs to estimate 40S, 84E. My result is not consistent with your result, but mine does seem to match the ATSB result.

    I’m not saying I think the ATSB’s performance limit is quite accurate. I still think they could be in error by as much as several %. I’m just saying that the SW tip of their MRC performance limit curve intersects the 7th arc for the 40,000 ft case, and this might have been the determining factor in their defining the SW end of the original “Fugro Discovery Search Area.”

    The ATSB’s recent extension of the bathymetric survey to the SW along the 7th arc adds area that is outside their 40,000 foot MRC performance limit. I don’t know what their rationale for this shift might be, unless it is simply allowing for some error in the calculated maximum range.

  36. @Jeff, the problem is that a sophisticated hijacker with intimate knowledge of the sat coms might be expected to regard the use of the BTO by investigators as more of a problem. Following AF447 its use by INMARSAT in that search may already have been in the public domain. Using the BFO was a novelty dreamt up during the MH370 analysis and in March INMARSAT called it ‘ground breaking’.

    @Matty, I agree there very possibly is no more money after this, though it will be interesting to see how the international community reacts if no sign of wreckage is forthcoming from this effort, an eventuality that is not unlikely. However a deep understanding of the systems and the data does help to say something about its reliability, and revisiting the basic assumptions is an entirely reasonable thing to do isn’t it? Who knows what influence a revised and compelling case might yet have in the long months ahead.
    And of course we may yet see James Cameron on location…. 🙂

    @Rand, like I said, I enjoy a good waffle. (Especially with maple syrup!). Keeping the pressure on for more data is important, but in the meantime I just think far more will come from the hard focus on the location of the wreckage rather than musings on the ‘totality’. The plane either flew on for hours, ran out of fuel and crashed, or the sat data was spoofed in an astonishingly intricate way with its final location almost anywhere. For the latter, the ‘totality’ approach might be all we have, but I give that scenario a tiny chance of occurrence. For the former I think we should encourage more insights from Exner/Don/Victor/Cole/Ulrich and co.

    @Dennis, the sat data is the only hard evidence we have for what happened to the flight in the final hours. Earlier in the flight we have radar data important in establishing scenarios for the starting position of the track south, though arguably this data has a less certain provenance than the sat data. And there are other hard data important in modelling different cases for the later trajectory (fuel on board, aircraft and engine performance characteristics, measured wind conditions and so on). For your other points however :

    2> Lack of Sumatra radar observations – not well enough quantified to tell us anything at all (yet)
    3> Shah’s marital difficulties – irrelevant
    4> Shah’s political dissatisfaction – irrelevant
    5> Lack of debris – a fact but hard evidence of what? That the SIO is utterly vast?
    6> Possible low altitude sightings near the Maldives and by the sailoress – entirely circumstantial, together with a host of other sightings, and identifications on Tomnod images, all of which cannot simultaneously be true.

    This is not to discourage casting the net widely and following up leads with vigour, but right now after 9 months of rooting, the cupboard seems a little bare.

  37. I missed a few days here, in part because I was still watching the last article. Oops.

    But I’m glad to see that the spoof theory is at least being considered. I am one of the contrarians who suggested it early on. It’s not the cleanest theory, but none of the others seem all that tight at this point.

    My reason for backing this theory is that most of the facts fit perfectly with a spoof once any of the weak assumptions are ignored.

    For example, there is doubt that a perp would be this sophisticated. But if a perp understood BTO and BFO data, a spoof is EXACTLY what they would do.

    For another example, if a path was going to be spoofed, the SIO is EXACTLY where the spoofed path would lead because 1) it’s mathematically simple and 2) the failure to find the plane, will, mark my words, not convince everyone that it went somewhere else.

    The next one is the idea that a path wouldn’t fit so well if the data was spoofed. But the path is derived from the data, so the fact that any proposed path fits the data is meaningless. The SDU wasn’t on long enough to corroborate any path in my opinion.

    On the other hand, I see a potential problem in that a perp probably wouldn’t know the bias of every plane at every time, which might be required for a spoof.

    I’m intrigued by one of Victor’s comments about the timing, though. Is there any information in the log, redacted or otherwise, showing whether the signal was returned in the soonest window possible? I suppose we should be asking for Inmarsat’s “sent” logs as well – that could be used to establish the maximum distance from 64.5E that the “spoofer” could have been sitting.

  38. It’s well known that in the weeks directly proceeding MH370s disappearance there was a large number of reports and accusations, many of which later turned out not to be credible. Others, however, simply seemed to have dropped and forgotten about altogether. I realize that there were numerous rumors which were not given too much credence, and in many cases it was for good reason. However, there was one particular report which was given a fair amount of media attention by credible news sources, only to have vanished soon thereafter. Despite the fact that this discussion is largely based on the technical aspects of known data, there has been a fair amount of speculation and theorizing, and thus I think it’s fair to bring up this aforementioned report in case anybody has any opinions on it’s relevance.

    The report was discussed within the first 3 weeks after the disappearance, and had to do with a 2-minute phone call to Zaharies cell phone shortly before take-off. The phone call was traced back to a pay-as-you-go SIM card which was bought in a shop in Kuala Lumpur. Police found that it had been bought ‘very recently’ by someone who gave a woman’s name – but was using a false identity. The report was never discredited, but seemed to have simply been forgotten about. Here is one of the many links with the report: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11224831

    Any thoughts?

  39. They won’t get the truth otherwise.

    “Relatives of MH17 crash victims, angered by what they see as Dutch mishandling of inquiries into the disaster, want a special U.N. envoy to launch an international investigation.”

    http://t.co/Nu2LpHgbPG

  40. @M Pat

    I suppose relevance has an element of “in the eye of the beholder”, but your critique is exceptionally blunt and without elaboration.

    Lack of radar data not being quantified? I have no idea what you mean by that. How do you quantify something that is not there? The whole point is the absence of detection not the interpretation, thereof. The parenthetical (yet) is confusing. Do you expect something to change relative to this unobservable? If so, what?

    Shah’s mental state is highly relevant. No experienced investigator would dismiss it as irrelevant. Along with a completely empty planning calendar. The information we have to date is that Shah was the only experienced 777 pilot on board the aircraft. His simulator had evidence of short field landings in the Indian Ocean. Unfortunately I have not seen the location of these simulated landings published. Have you or anyone else?

    The lack of debris is damning. Yes, the SIO is a big place. Are you suggesting all of it needs to searched? There is no evidence of debris in the relatively much smaller area defined by the analytics.

    I do agree that eye witness sightings are unreliable at best, and need to be considered with appropriate skepticism. I hesitated to include that point actually for that very reason. I am inclined to give you that one.

  41. @Dennis W,

    We have quite a bit more that is known what you have produced in your post above.

    1) We have corroborating reports that it was Zaharie who made the final 17:19 transmission. We know that this was the hand off transmission and that HCM was never contacted by Zaharie. We also know that he failed to read the frequency back to KLATCC.

    2) We know there were redundant FL350 transmissions. One at 17:01 and the other at 17:07.

    3) We know we lost ACARS sometime between 17:07 (the last transmission) and 17:37.

    4) We know that Anwar’s 5 year prison sentence for sodomy was upheld by the appeals court in KL just that very morning.

    5) We know that Zaharie and Shah were friends, political allies and, in fact, related.

    6) We know that Anwar at first denied knowing Zaharie. It later turned out they were much closer than anyone suspected.

    7) Given the above, we know Zaharie was almost without doubt upset over events that transpired that very morning. Thus,we know his state of mind on the evening of the flight. Not a happy one.

    8) We know he was a close acquaintance of Tim Pardi. It is widely believed that this reported phone call was between the two of them.

    9) We know who BEST had the opportunity, capability and motive. Zaharie.

    10) We know co-pliot Fariq Hamid was on his first ever unsupervised 777 flight.

    11) We know Mr. Zaharie, in a facebook post, fancied himself a ‘lone soldier’.

    12) We know, without any shadow of a doubt, that it is this man who would best be able to execute what appears to be a deliberate act. He was positioned perfectly.

    @M Pat,

    I suppose this is all ‘irrelevant’ as well?

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