Martin 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 —
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 5: People on the Plane
And that’s all there is for now.
@Bobby: what I did was actually plot the two turns, as you’ve done. My coordinates at…
Last Primary Radar Fix (18:22:12): [6°47’14.57″N, 96°20’38.72″E]
Early turn point (18:28): [7° 4’26.44″N, 95°34’41.63″E]
Late turn point (18:40): [7°42’56.75″N, 94° 2’37.32″E]
These points should line up with primary radar bearing, with separation consistent with 500KGS.
I then fly directly through the arcs. For an 18:28 turn, FL400 intersects the 7th arc at E87. This in turn implies a performance limit intersection of the 7th arc at E84.
It is these last 3 degrees over which I feel we must now quibble. I get them simply by inspecting Fig.3, where
1) the performance limit is an “18:40 only” version, as the purple-shaded region lies strictly inside (yes, INSIDE – I verified in Google Earth it’s the POINT of the teardrop that matters) the 18:40-turn flight paths, and
2) even this partial performance region extends out to E88.3 (or so, by my eye).
So if we correctly plot FL400 in Fig.2, we also need to correctly plot the natural extrapolation out to the western intersection point. I suspect this 3 degrees is our difference, Bobby.
To anticipate the claim that the MRC endpoint boundary statement:
“The end points of the MRC boundary are associated with the paths that terminated very near the 7th arc. To the south (1828 – 40,000ft) and to the north (1840 – 20,000ft)”
…TRUMPS Fig.3: I submit that that bullet, like others in the two ATSB reports, were written with intent to deceive. The FL400 path ends “very near the 7th arc” in Fig.3, too – but not so close that the feasibility zone doesn’t extrapolate out another 3 degrees! And – if they’d bothered to plot it – the same extension must – MUST – have applied in Fig.2.
Teardrops; truncated FL350; omitted FL400; “very close”. VERY cleverly presented.
I have been shaking the limp, dead carcass of the JIT’s credibility at the IG for several months, now, in the faint hope someone will actually listen before the FDR has corroded beyond hope of recovery.
Bobby:
Recent BFO analysis leads some of us to believe that the “1825-1840 turn” was actually in process at the time of the “1840 data”. I estimate the turn started around 18:39, was still in progress at 18:41 and was completed by 18:42. Will publish a one pager soon. Heading at 18:41 was ~200-210 degrees. Calibration of the C channel BFO data provided the clue.
@Brock:
It’s late, late in the game — but the entity that could really be helpful is Anonymous.
@spencer
Yes, all true. I did not want to belabor it in that detail because I thought it was so obvious it was not required. Apparently, I was wrong.
The FBI was also furious with Malaysian authorities for not interviewing Shah’s wife in depth. The local culture is not to interfere with a person’s bereavement. The FBI knuckle draggers were having none of it, but there was little they could do about it.
What we have is almost certainly a criminal act by someone on board the aircraft, and Shah is a logical primary suspect.
When the NYPD finds a body in a New York alley they do not routinely call Columbia University to request the aid of a mathematician or two to help sort it out. They resort to good old fashioned police work, and that is what is lacking in this investigation.
I’ve been involved in several investigations over the years. Most recently the investigation of the death of Laci Peterson. We provided the GPS tracking devices that were used on rental cars to track the movements of husband Scott Peterson who was eventually convicted of the crime. Yes, we had to testify, and it was brutal. The defense attorney was famous and clever. Something an academic is ill suited to deal with. I bring this up as a point of contrast between the rarified air breathed by the math geeks compared to the guys carrying Glocks. My point is that it is time to take off the gloves here, get serious, and quit arguing over a few Hz of BFO noise.
I don’t recall if it was stated capt Z had a strong military career training him to fly almost stealth like back over Malaysia and avoiding Indonesia radar plus spoofing the flight path to either SIO or a northern route. In my view its hard enough in a military bird never mind a b777
@Myron,
Zaharie had a strong predilection and affection for circuitry and gadgetry. Whether he ‘spoofed’ anything, who knows.
As for radar avoidance, the picture is murky. But he certainly had an intimate knowledge of country respective FIR’s and radar capabilities.
I’ll leave you with what a pilot in the region who is familiar with MAS told me: ““For the guys in Malaysia, these problems in Indonesian military, is well known amongst military enthusiasts… and there is little need to avoid Indonesian radar, just stay out of Indonesian territory and no one would bother MH370. To boost your theory of “the captain did it”, the problems that Indonesian military face, is well known amongst some circles of the MH 777 crew, whether Zaharie belonged to that group that knows or not, well, we don’t know. Feel free to assume either way”.
This seems quite an interesting comment, and very revealing.
We also know that he was friendly with Butterworth military personnel.
What’s most frightening is what we DO NOT KNOW about the man who was responsible for the safety of the pax and crew.
Journos, for reasons difficult to ascertain, seem to not be all that interested in the man who was piloting the a/c that morning. Sigh.
@Dennis
Yes.
@airlandseaman: if (and that is an increasingly big IF) the primary radar and signal data are all valid, then logic takes me here:
(1) maximum likelihood impact point is SW intersection of performance limit and 7th arc
(2) some consensus, now, that this is roughly FL400 / 500KTAS
(3) only x-factor is turn south time; ATSB thinks the BFO forces an 18:28-18:40 RANGE
(4) so best place to search is the SET of all possible (1) which MAP to (3)
(5) Fig.3 + trigonometry proves this set lies along the 7th arc between E84 & E88
If you and your colleagues are (suddenly…) so confident in this brand new insight you’ve extracted from the stale BFO data, fine – I defer to your recommendation that the three contracted ships START at E88.
But they need to search WEST from there.
(Now…if only I can figure out how to get myself out through this tricky front door of mine…)
Good stuff Brock. Unfortunately, no one cares anymore. We (and I am truly one of you) have had our day in the sun, and the sun is setting.
M Pat – some geopolitical waffle coming on here so a warning: I’m pretty sure there will be no more money from Australia of Malaysia on offer. That leaves it open for some mad billionaire to take it on and one might, but he might not be a BFO purist either? He could be a another wide eyed waffler? Maybe some are under the impression that the show will just roll on but I don’t see it. One official search is all we are likely to see, and if it’s empty then there could be a lot of shattered modelers lying about.
If this data means anything then the current search should be adequate, and spending all that money and time over 7 instances of frequency drift is already going above and beyond.
Dennis – a while ago I said this needs a policeman’s mindset, and if you are used to dealing with crooks you would be nervous about someone switching the SDU back on 2 minutes after they exit the radar screen. For the crunchers though numbers are numbers?
@ Matty Perth:
“if it’s empty then there could be a lot of shattered modelers lying about.”
Why would they be? The modelers don’t address the width of the search area. That was arbitrarily set at 50 NM, whereas is could be 200+ NM. The reason: “a maximum glide distance of 100+ NM would result in an impractically large search area”.
Gysbrecht – well, at the start some of more mathematically inclined contributors(esteemed ones) were saying that this search should be “over pretty soon.” Don’t get me wrong, a fruitless search gives me no joy and I’ve said ad-nauseum that I don’t want to be right about this. Is the confidence drying up? I started pessimistic, and going further that way.
@ Matty Perth:
” at the start some of more mathematically inclined contributors(esteemed ones) were saying that this search should be “over pretty soon.” ”
And the more realistic contributors quickly reminded us that the search as planned takes about a year to complete.
from research of locating something lost , one must go to the first place it went dark ( or missing ). Is it possible mh370 was shredded over gulf of thailand. And the sad ending of the flight . From 130sh on has been the spoof.
Gysbreght:
I’m not sure who you are referring to by the “modelers”, but the ATSB and the IG have both addressed the “search width question” in detail. See ATSB AE-2014-054, Aug 18 at Page 32-35 and ATSB Update, Oct 8th, section titled “End of Flight Scenarios”. The IG also addressed the rational for a “relatively narrow” search width. See September 9th Recommendation at Section 2.3 and September 26th Update at Page 4-5. Thus, your statement “The modelers don’t address the width of the search area.” and your assertion that the width was “… arbitrarily set at 50 NM…” are both factually wrong. Dead wrong. You can disagree with the analysis, but you cannot keep claiming the question has not been addressed.
Since those 4 reports, I reported the results of B777-200 simulator tests I conducted November 2 that confirmed the ATSB simulator tests. Both the ATSB and IG simulator tests showed that a 100 NM glide is very unlikely, if not impossible. The 0019 data is most consistent with a steep, spiral (circling) descent with some phugoid oscillations embedded, ending less than 90 seconds after the 001937 data. Regardless of the actual rate of descent, all the simulations show that the aircraft does not continue on a straight course after loss of the autopilot. In most simulations, a turn starts within seconds after the loss of the second engine and the bank angle increases to 80-90 degrees after a few minutes. Thus, it is best to search *first* in the 50 NM width ATSB has chosen, which is conservative according to the IG analysis.
Gysbrecht – A year? Well before then they will be heading up the arc, in a region well away from the hopspots. Would this waffler be right in concluding that the further up the arc they go the less reliable the BFO data gets? Or, if it’s not in the priority areas we might need a bit of luck?
@ airlandseaman:
The ATSB selection of search area width and your simulator experiments were both based on the assumed scenario of an “unresponsive” crew. The maximum glide distance of 100+ NM assumes controlled flight.
Gysbreght:
Like I said, you are free to make different assumptions about the crew, but your assertions “The modelers don’t address the width of the search area. That was arbitrarily set at 50 NM” are both factually wrong.
Gysbreght:
Please clarify your assumptions. Do you really believe one or more people in the cockpit set the autopilot to fly down to the SIO, then sat back for 6 hours waiting for the fuel to run out, and then took manual control so they could glide 100 NM further?
@ airlandseaman (cont’d):
“Thus, it is best to search *first* in the 50 NM width ATSB has chosen, which is conservative according to the IG analysis.”
I completely agree. I was responding to a post which said that the modelers would be “shattered” if the plane is not found in the priority area.
@ airlandseaman:
“Please clarify your assumptions.”
Assumptions are assumptions. Some assumptions are more probable than others.
Gysbreght:
OK. What is more likely in your opinion: Human controlled flight after 6 hrs on AP and fuel exhaustion, or uncontrolled flight?
airlandseaman:
You seem to be “certain” that the airplane was controlled by a B777 pilot who followed standard operating procedures regarding autoflight speed, heading and altitude. What would be abnormal about 6 hrs on AP?
airlandseaman:
I admit that flight to fuel exhaustion is unusual. But is it evidence of uncontrolled flight?
To answer your question – IMO it is more probable that the flight became uncontrolled at some point than that is was controlled until it hit the surface. The question is: at what point did it become uncontrolled?
Dennis W: While I have a fine appreciation for your use of metaphor, and then probably more than most, I would suggest you wait until morning before sulking off in disgust, as the sun is certain to rise once again tomorrow. All sorts of people visit this blog regularly, including members of the ATSB and, quite obviously, the IG. Keep at it; no part of any of it is in vain.
Brock: Can you again dig up your letter to the JIT and summarize for us here where they have been less than forthcoming or otherwise exhibiting ‘performance issues’?
It seems that while it is clear that the ATSB, SSWG, JAAC and AMSA have various roles in either establishing the parameters or pursuing the execution of the ocean search, it is less clear as to the totality of the role of the JIT. I understand that the JIT has three working groups (airworthiness, operations, and a medical and human factors group), while the Malaysian authorities have also established committees covering the NOK, the formation of the JIT and the management of Malaysian assets involved in the search.
The investigation into any criminal actions associated with the flight, having been excluded from the purview of any of the all-of-the-above, is then solely a matter for the Royal Malaysian Police. Meaning, the above, inclusive of the JIT, are not really charged with investigating ‘the flight’, but rather ‘the crash’ – and determining the location of the remains of the aircraft. It’s thus not a surprise that there isn’t much talk about the who and the how re the loss of the flight, as perhaps the criminal investigation in reality comes down to little more than a moonlighted joint effort between the RMP Kuala Lumpur Vice and Burglary units.
Indeed, who is properly investigating the possibility of a hijacking, much less the response of the Malaysian authorities to a 777 going AWOL in their airspace? What, it’s ‘irrelevant’, and we are to wait until the recorders are recovered and any remains of the airframe are examined before we turn our attention to speculation regarding a hijacking?
Ted Baxter would have had a comment here:
“Really?”
I’m sorry, but unless I am missing something, it would appear that there isDennis W: While I have a fine appreciation for your use of metaphor, and then probably more than most, I would suggest you wait until morning before sulking off in disgust, as the sun is certain to rise once again tomorrow. All sorts of people visit this blog regularly, including members of the ATSB and, quite obviously, the IG. Keep at it; no part of any of it is in vain.
Brock: Can you again dig up your letter to the JIT and summarize for us here where they have been less than forthcoming or otherwise exhibiting ‘performance issues’?
It seems that while it is clear that the ATSB, SSWG, JAAC and AMSA have various roles in either establishing the parameters or pursuing the execution of the ocean search, it is less clear as to the totality of the role of the JIT. I understand that the JIT has three working groups (airworthiness, operations, and a medical and human factors group), while the Malaysian authorities have also established committees covering the NOK, the formation of the JIT and the management of Malaysian assets involved in the search.
The investigation into any criminal actions associated with the flight, having been excluded from the purview of any of the all-of-the-above, is then solely a matter for the Royal Malaysian Police. Meaning, the above, inclusive of the JIT, are not really charged with investigating ‘the flight’, but rather ‘the crash’ – and determining the location of the remains of the aircraft. It’s thus not a surprise that there isn’t much talk about the who and the how re the loss of the flight, as perhaps the criminal investigation in reality comes down to little more than a moonlighted joint effort between the RMP Kuala Lumpur Vice and Burglary units.
Indeed, who is properly investigating the possibility of a hijacking, much less the response of the Malaysian authorities to a 777 going AWOL in their airspace? What, it’s ‘irrelevant’, and we are to wait until the recorders are recovered and any remains of the airframe are examined before we turn our attention to speculation regarding a hijacking?
Ted Baxter would have had a comment here:
“Really?”
I’m sorry, but unless I am missing something, it would appear that there is presently no such live animal as a centrally controlled, official investigation into the potentially more ‘nefarious’ events surrounding the utter, unprecedented disappearance of a large airliner. Questions as to relevance, then, may be appropriate to the location effort, but they have no place out here where the real wind blows.
Apologies, please ignore my last post; yikes, what a cut-and-paste mess.
Dennis W: While I have a fine appreciation for your use of metaphor, and then probably more than most, I would suggest you wait until morning before sulking off in disgust, as the sun is certain to rise once again tomorrow. All sorts of people visit this blog regularly, including members of the ATSB and, quite obviously, the IG. Keep at it; no part of any of it is in vain.
Brock: Can you again dig up your letter to the JIT and summarize for us here where they have been less than forthcoming or otherwise exhibiting ‘performance issues’?
It seems that while it is clear that the ATSB, SSWG, JAAC and AMSA have various roles in either establishing the parameters or pursuing the execution of the ocean search, it is less clear as to the totality of the role of the JIT. I understand that the JIT has three working groups (airworthiness, operations, and a medical and human factors group), while the Malaysian authorities have also established committees covering the NOK, the formation of the JIT and the management of Malaysian assets involved in the search.
The investigation into any criminal actions associated with the flight, having been excluded from the purview of any of the all-of-the-above, is then solely a matter for the Royal Malaysian Police. Meaning, the above, inclusive of the JIT, are not really charged with investigating ‘the flight’, but rather ‘the crash’ – and determining the location of the remains of the aircraft. It’s thus not a surprise that there isn’t much talk about the who and the how re the loss of the flight, as perhaps the criminal investigation in reality comes down to little more than a moonlighted joint effort between the RMP Kuala Lumpur Vice and Burglary units.
Indeed, who is properly investigating the possibility of a hijacking, much less the response of the Malaysian authorities to a 777 going AWOL in their airspace? What, it’s ‘irrelevant’, and we are to wait until the recorders are recovered and any remains of the airframe are examined before we turn our attention to speculation regarding a hijacking?
Ted Baxter would have had a comment here:
“Really?”
I’m sorry, but unless I am missing something, it would appear that there is presently no such live animal as a centrally controlled, official investigation into the potentially more ‘nefarious’ events surrounding the utter, unprecedented disappearance of a large airliner. Questions as to relevance may be appropriate to the location effort, but they have no place out here where the real wind blows.
Two questions about autoflight modes:
(a) Will the plane maintain constant altitude when the weight reduces due to fuel consumption, starting in the following condition: AP in VNAV SPD mode, FMS in either LRC or ECON mode, autothrottle OFF and thrustlevers set to maintain present altitude.
(b) The LAL B777 Operations Manual, section Flight Management, Navigation – Flight Management System Operation, pages 11.31.31 – 11.31.35 describes crew actions in response to engine failure after takeoff, during climb and during cruise. For example during cruise:
“Engine Out Modification
Condition: Select the ENG OUT> prompt on the VNAV CRZ page.
Result: The FMC creates a modification and displays the applicable engine out
driftdown (D/D) performance data to enable the airplane to descend to the engine
out maximum altitude.
2 Drift Down Execution
Condition 1: Set the MCP altitude at or below EO MAX altitude and execute the
FMC modification. This condition assumes clearance is approved to descend
slowly to a non–standard altitude; for example, FL233.
Result: The reference thrust limit becomes CON, VNAV commands a very
shallow descent in VNAV SPD as the airplane decelerates to EO SPD, the EO
MAX altitude becomes the cruise altitude at 1L, and the autothrottle sets CON
thrust on the operative engine. Time and distance for the D/D to EO MAX altitude
display at 2R. (…).
Engine Out Cruise
When VNAV captures the EO MAX altitude (Condition 1 only), the VNAV cruise
page title becomes EO CRZ and the pitch annunciation is VNAV PTH, regardless
of the MCP altitude window setting. Predictions for EO Step Climb display at 2R.
Thrust limit remains in CON.”
If the system does that automatically in the event of an “unresponsive crew”, why are the crew required to “select and execute” ENG OUT mode?
@Dr. Ulich – I do not know the details of the AP/Auto-Thrust systems in any aircraft and not to contradict the above answers but, per Wikipedia, golfer Payne Stewart’s “Ghost Flight” was cruising at 23,000ft when ATC cleared the flight to FL390, which was then confirmed by the pilot. After not being able to make radio contact for a certain period, the flight was intercepted by F-16’s at 46,000ft and eventually reached 48,900ft before fuel exhaustion. This indicates that this Learjet continued to climb after reaching FL390 (and also kept the same approximate heading/track) after the apparent hypoxia of the crew and passengers. This does not necessarily prove that MH370 climbed higher than the oft modeled FL350, but I believe it needed to be around FL360 to reach your location (or over 40,000ft after the turn south if it flew at around 10,000-15,000ft through the Straight of Malacca).
@All – In addition to the above mentioned “facts,” unless MH370 landed somewhere, and if you accept a fuel exhaustion circa 00:16UTC, the fuel burn rate after the last ACARS data would have been 6.13Metric Tons/Hr as presented in Addendum# 3 to Dr. Ulich’s white paper.
The Burn Rate is governed by TAS, outside air density and pitch of the a/c. Using various test results you can determine a speed and corresponding altitude necessary for the given endurance and ping ring distances.
@gysbrecht and airlandseaman
As irrelevant as it may well be, Shah was said to be passionate about aviation. One B777 pilot even mentioned that for a B777 captain to have a B777 simulator in his basement is akin to a bus driver having a bus simulator in his basement.
How often would Shah have the opportunity to dead stick a 777 into the ocean? Would a person passionate about aviation prefer to fall asleep from hypoxia (another popular assumption) or live the dream to the end?
Of course, that assumption leads to other possibilities that fall outside the model boundaries. Bad Dennis.
@Dennis,
While were here, an addendum:
Shah, after installing the motion component of his sim, says this, verbatim: “Now we can do some REAL flying”.
@Gysbreght & @Bobby: Here is a possibility worth considering. The VNAV could have been programmed for a SLOW, constant climb. This could only approximate the cruise climb because the ideal altitude versus time is not exactly linear, but it might allow you to increase the range relative to a constant altitude cruise.
re: “Now we can do some REAL flying”.
wonder what the context of his statement–
was he trying to fly the b777 like a sports car? or just he will get motion feedback to maneuvers (ie: hard landings, quick landings)..
I wonder if those who are inclined to think that Capt Zaharie MUST have been the perpetrator because he had a simulator at home know any commercial pilots.
The ones I know all use simulators. For fun, to refine skills and to practice scenarios that they may (or may not) face in real life.
MAS has eight simulators, and the cost to rent is not cheap:
http://www.malaysiaairlines.com/us/en/commercial-services/flight-simulator.html
Zaharie was a professional pilot and an avid tech geek. Some enthusiasts build customized computers, radios or model airplanes. Zaharie built himself a home flight simulator. At minimum, we can conclude that he might have done so because he was passionate about flying. Moreover, having a home simulator would not only be more convenient, it would be far cheaper than the almost $500/hour (or other with an employee discount) MAS charges to use one of theirs.
As mentioned in prior conversations with Luigi, Zaharie (who was not in the military) and the 1st officer are the two people on MH370 we KNOW OF who had the skills/qualifications to fly a 777-2. But were there others on MH370 with the same?
While from an investigative perspective Zaharie would be a logical suspect (and perhaps the prime), unless and until you can exclude all other possible perpetrators (children would obviously not be suspects), you don’t know. And IF everyone on MH370 other than Zaharie and the 1st have been excluded, that hasn’t been made public by the authorities (assuming there’s a criminal investigation in motion somewhere).
@VictorI,
@LaurenH,
As Victor suggested, a pilot could instigate a slow climb rate using the VNAV instead of selecting a fixed, higher altitude. Perhaps that is what happened on Payne Stewart’s flight. With no later inputs from the pilot, I suppose the aircraft would continue climbing until it either hit a software altitude limit (if any) or until the aircraft was unable to climb anymore. On Payne Stewart’s flight, the altitude change was very large (FL230 to FL390), so it might make sense here to just put in a climb rate with a plan to set a fixed altitude hold later on when the desired altitude was reached, but maybe that never happened because of hypoxia. I wouldn’t say this scenario is likely for MH370, but I wouldn’t say it was impossible either.
@Bobby & @LaurenH: I was not suggesting this scenario occurred for Payne Stewart’s flight. I don’t know the details, but I imagine that if speed is held constant for a given pitch, then as the plane burns fuel, it will climb.
@airlandseaman,
Mike,
I will be interested in seeing your BFO analysis near 18:40. I believe all the BFO values from 18:39 to 18:41 are between 86 and 90 Hz. Is this correct? Four Hz peak-to-peak actually seems like a pretty small variation with ~1-2 Hz one-sigma read noise and other possibly other variables, too.
If any “steps” in the BFO due to the AES TX frequency algorithm occurred during this time period, which would seem likely if a turn was underway, then I am surprised the BFO does not appear to vary more.
Could you explain why you believe the fixed frequency offset would vary according to channel? I am not familiar with the inner workings of the SDU, and I don’t have a block diagram. Is there only one crystal oscillator? What other hardware is there that would cause the FFB to vary with channel?
Well put @Nihonmama
I don’t see how he is guilty by association with the gadgets and some personal issues he may have…
maybe if he was in association with some elements dealing with terrorism then its possible.
From the NTSB Aircraft Accident Brief: “According to FAA records, the accident airplane, a Gates Learjet Model 35, serial number (S/N) 060, was manufactured in 1976 and had been maintained and operated by Sunjet Aviation since January 1999.”
The autopilot of the Learjet 35 and the AFDS of a 777 are from different ages.
Can someone please explain why the investigators didn´t fly with an real B777 and the same Satcom-System an board as MH370 to compare the output of the data on an predicted southpath with the DCL-Data MH370 had produced ?
@Brock I would not be surprised if there has been a period of lower FL’s around and after the turn south,followed by higher FL’s in the final hours of the flight. This in combination with what you call a late turn. How would that affect your analysis?
All: We have a short paper on the Final Major Turn timing posted here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ra7ylx9la7p4l7u/MH370%20Final%20Major%20Turn_Rev2.pdf?dl=0
LouVilla – because this data is so touchy, effected by temperature/atmospherics etc, that it would be pointless. In other words we can’t replicate those numbers – depressing isn’t it? All we have is what happened on the night(measured)and a few bits sampled from other 777’s that intersected the earlier parts of MH370’s route that evening. Those bits were used to build a model that would hopefully allow a construction of a southern leg. That’s why this data is not normally used this way.
@LouVilla
The conditions of the flight would be different. Things like satellite position/eclipse, winds aloft, oscillator calibrations, and on and on. It would be in interesting exercise, but I doubt it would actually shed much light on the problem.
I am sure Inmarsat and their collaborators continue to monitor air traffic to test and refine their algorithms. Something the IG and others, unfortunately, are not able to do.
@airlandseaman
I would be interested to see details of flight path model V13.1
Has it been shared / could it be shared?
Hi Dennis
Apologies for my earlier brevity, a bit more flesh for you :
We were talking about hard evidence and you offered up a number of items, one of which was ‘lack of Sumatra radar observations’. My questions would be : did the radar detect the aircraft and they know it did, but chose not to report it? Or did the radar detect the aircraft and they don’t know that it did, and have nothing to report? Or did the radar not detect the aircraft? I would not be remotely surprised if they were asleep at the wheel, but as a line of evidence it is rather weak without an audit of their systems and protocols. ‘Yet’ meant that as a potential future source of hard data, access to radar recordings from key stations (if they were made) would be a treasure trove. We can still hope that something might emerge from those down the line, but I am not holding my breath.
As far as Shah is concerned, for every person convinced that he did it there is another who is sure that the aircraft was hijacked and a third who believes a fire was responsible. It is rather surprising how passionately these scenarios are believed by some given the flimsy nature of the evidence supporting any of them. What they do all have in common however is that they all have to generate the same satcom data. Embracing the range of possibilities is useful for example in thinking about the impact on aircraft systems or the ‘human factors’ which might influence a particular choice of navigation setting. But do I think Shahs alleged marriage difficulties (etc) are relevant to the critical effort to find the plane? No. If you think they are I’d genuinely be interested to know in what way you would alter the actions currently being undertaken.
@M Pat
Thanks that was helpful on the radar comment. I suspected that is what you meant, but I could not be sure.
With respect to Shah no one really knows obviously. One could certainly entertain the notion that his intention was to make a statement to both the government (persecuting his friends) and to his wife (see, I am not just a little aviation geek). That would support the Christmas Island attempt. I do not believe he is a criminal or intended to harm anyone including himself. Is it a stretch? Sure.
There is a long history of solving problems with humans involved that includes means, motive, and opportunity, Those are the underpinnings of detective procedure along with any physical evidence, of course. While I admire the IG’s pure data driven approach one has to acknowledge the appropriateness of including other factors, even if you do not elect to do so yourself.
M Pat: it is indeed interesting how many individuals have perceived a pattern in the associated data, information and communications and then later are unable to distance themselves from their own, rather idiosyncratic ‘view of choice’. We are all open to seduction the by standing waves that set up in our neural networks; I would suggest to you that to focus only on the data set as it presents itself is no less such a form of this sort of somewhat dogmatic behavior.
You are correct to state that perhaps we should not get hung up on whether the Captain was culpable. I would suggest, however, that knowing more about the events of Mar 8/9 is the primary objective, and that the recovery of the flight data and voice recorders are but one means to this end. Meanwhile, I would offer that their recovery is not likely to provide a complete answer, given the indications/level of probability of the involvement of criminality.
Yes, a proper investigation executed in the criminal domain of things could perhaps assist in the pursuit of the secondary objective of locating the remains of the aircraft. Meanwhile, it will prove altogether necessary to the primary objective of bringing into awareness what happened Mar 8/9.
As for suggesting what I would propose to do, I am doing it here: chiming in from the peanut gallery with observations. And if I could put the Malaysian authorities into a half-Nelson, I bet I could assist the efforts to locate the aircraft. In fact, I am rather sure of it, in my own idiosyncratic way.
Spencer and Dennis W.,
Captain Zaharie is in the mix of suspects yes, one of the most experienced men on that flight, and yes he is and has to be on the suspect list, but innocent until proven guilty.
Here’s my take on some of your points:
1. We have no idea how “close” his relationship was to Tim Pardi or what role she played in his life, political, friend, wife,romantic interest, wife of a friend, all, or none of the above.
2. Captain Zaharie can/could have 4 wives if he wanted to. Muslim law states that if a man can support all of them then he can have them. I have yet to see any muslim man “upset” over a relationship, he’ll go out and get another one, and believe me there would be many ready to “arrange” a marriage in that culture. So I don’t buy the “he was upset over a marriage” thing whatsoever.
3. According to his brother-in-law, Aswad Khan, Captain Shah was not getting a divorce, his simulator was broken this year, and he was repairing his bathroom door the afternoon of the flight. Hardly suggesting he was waiting impatiently for a court ruling.
4. What is there some grand MAS chalk board calendar with all pilots’ work scheduled on it? What calendar had no work scheduled for Captain Zaharie and who the heck keeps a personal one, that was never clarified?
5. His friend, Peter Chong, suggested that the mere idea of Captain Zaharie commandeering that flight in that manner hours after the court ruling is proposterous, or in his word, “ridiculous.”
You’ve got the profile of a stable man, a man who provided a beautiful home for his family, who doted on his daughter in college and his one and only grandson, a “Mr. Fix-it” around the house (heck this guys sounds more like every woman’s dream man), a tech savvy, intelligent man. I think an aviator having a flight simulator is more comforting knowing our pilots are honing their skills. So to incriminate him one would have to say this stable man came unraveled and undone and lost his mind.
I’ll go this far, as I’ve stated before, if MAS was pensioning him, which we don’t rightly know, then that is a more personal affront and would he or did he “wig out” over that, I have no idea but I’ve considered it. I’d always thought since the hijacking did not seem to be national or international (unless Jeff’s intriguing scenario play out) that is of a more personal nature.
Cheryl: apologies, but this is not a western criminal proceeding and all are not innocent until proven guilty. You will need solid, exculpatory evidence before you eliminate him from his position as a higher probability suspect, given his ability to aviate and navigate the aircraft.
A large building burned to the ground last night in L.A.; the authorities are considering it a case of arson without any evidence of such until proven otherwise.
@airlandseaman,
Mike,
Are you saying that the BFO shift of 0.83 Hz you calculated over 1 minute (as reported in “MH370 Final Major Turn Timing”) is determined so precisely that you can say that the final turn was underway then within an error of only 30 seconds?
The statistical significance of this small frequency difference is actually less than one sigma. The standard deviation of the BFO sequences near the time in question are about 1.2 Hz per read. The first BFO value (88 Hz) is based on a single value, so it has an uncertainty of at least 1.2 Hz. The second BFO value you quote (88.83 Hz) is based on six values, so it has a statistical value of 1.2 / SQRT(6) = 0.5 Hz. The difference between the two BFO values (0.83 Hz) then has en error of 1.3 Hz. Thus the change in BFO over this one minute time interval, which is in effect what you are using to determine the turn time, is actually 0.83 +/- 1.3 Hz. In other words, it is statistically insignificant. You cannot determine a precise turn time from these BFO values.
I will also point out that virtually every turn time between 18:28 and 18:40 has a corresponding set of speeds and southerly directions that also match the 18:39 – 18:40 BFO data with small errors. Your proposed route is not unique in this respect. The BFO data here are just not sufficient to establish a precise turn time. They are equally well fit by a prior turn completed before this period of time.