Independent Group member Bill Holland appears to have sorted out the head-scratcher concerning the location of the QZ8501 tail section. His explanation jibes with where we’d expect the plane’s fuselage to wind up, given the fact that just before it disappeared from radar it was descending with alarming speed. I’m pasting here Bill’s recent email in toto:
I think I have the tail GPS coordinates figured out…
I kept finding references to the tail being found that translate as:
The mapping experts who are in MGS Ship Geo Survey finds it precisely in the coordinate 03.3839S (South latitude) and 109.4343E (East Longitude).But, I searched and found a version that seems to make more sense:
Aga pun menyampaikan titik koordinatnya, yakni: Latitude 3;38;39S, Longitude 109;43;43 E.
…in English:
Aga also convey the point coordinates, namely: Latitude 3; 38; 39s, Longitude 109; 43; 43 E.The numbers being quoted are correct, … Only the punctuation was wrong!
-03° 38′ 39″ 109° 43′ 43″ (degrees minutes seconds)
This is about 2.5nm South East of the last SSR/ADS-B location (Google Maps measures 3.03 statute miles = 2.63nm)In my screen grab [above]:
– the lower yellow start marke the tail section (and the blue annotation is the distance from the purple star)
– the purple circle is the last lat/lon from the SSR (ADS-B),
– the purple star is the approx location from the primary radar image.
– The red box is supposed to be “Most Probable Area 2”,
– the black tilted rectangular outline is the left (Western) section of the “Underwater Search Area”.
– The yellow diagonal line is Route M635 between TAVIP to RAFIS.
– The black diagonal line is the FR24 estimated flight path (the inverted teardrops are individual extrapolations from FR24 after the last valid ADS-B data data they received)[ignore the white square, the blue square, the Northern yellow star, and the green diagonal line]
-Bill
Really, it’s remarkable that searchers didn’t scour this location right away, and instead spent a week searching far down-current. There appears to have been some confusion between the nature of floating debris, which disperses as it’s carried by currents, and debris on the seabed, which will tend to remain where it falls, more or less directly under the point where it impacts the water.
The latest news is that preparations are underway to raise the tail section and hoist it onto a ship. Hopefully, the black boxes will be found within, and the cause of the accident one step closer to being revealed.
Out of sheer intellectual curiosity:
Assuming the Inmarsat data is valid, and that the correct impact point was deduced from it:
I get that uncertainty in the 7th arc’s actual position, plus uncertainty in distance between this arc and the impact point, would be working AGAINST quick discovery of wreckage.
But isn’t an expected distribution of wreckage along the ocean floor working FOR quick discovery?
Wouldn’t all this debris which has “waterlogged and sunk” be strewn along the ocean floor in something of a LINE, which should have improved the chances of a quicker discovery?
(I’m not interested in debating the “plane is intact” theory – for the sake of this debate, let’s assume this impact was typical of a jumbo jet impacting a swelling ocean at very high speed.)
If there WAS an expected directional drift in the sea-floor wreckage, would it not be prudent to ensure the search sweeps were biased toward – and running perpendicular to – THAT direction?
Brock: I would also expect some distribution of wreckage on the ocean floor, a la AF447. The trouble is that the direction of the aircraft at impact is not known. The simulated and hypothesised end point scenarios point to a spiral dive with descent rate increasing, perhaps with some phugoids before the final spiral was fully developed. So, at impact, in which direction was the aircraft travelling [in a horizontal sense]. It could have been anything in the full 360 degrees of azimuth.
Brock – I’ve been assuming all along that a largely disintegrated aircraft helps the searchers as I read that their gear can detect a coke can from 1 km. Any seabed wreckage field would be pretty big with a M1 impact, I would have thought?
As for the data, do we already know that it wasn’t as good as hoped – or am I jumping the gun?
@F_F: thanks – but I was talking about a swath created by debris sinking at different times/rates (and drifting downwind/downcurrent in the meantime) – not any line generated by the plane’s vector at impact (though I understand your point that this, too, would contribute to debris distribution).
@Matty: I have suspected the Inmarsat data’s veracity ever since they needed an extra 2 months to supply it in detail (and forever, apparently, to supply it in full). Finding a plane at its terminus won’t change this view, because neither “intact” (without fuel? onto large swells? after altitude changes indicated by 00:19 signal data?) nor “broke up on impact” (with zero recovered surface debris – both during initial intensive search, and ever since?) make any sense.
@Brock
You asked for feedback. So here it is. Exhibit 4 of your report and the glib qualifier “any takers” is an appalling misrepresentation. There are many straight line paths that can be constructed into this region.
These paths are consistent with BTO, BFO, and fuel range. The later being demonstrated by both analytics and 777 flight simulators.
@Dennis: thanks for the feedback – appreciated.
I may not have been sufficiently clear about the point of Exhibit 4, which was most certainly NOT intended to rule out ALL data-compliant paths. I am actually more liberal than our host, Jeff, in adjudicating how well some of the best proposed paths on this site actually fit the data: in my opinion, many do, to within the error margins.
Exhibit 4 – presented in the section which addressed the decision to move the search all the way up to s21 – was intended strictly to help make the distinction between POSSIBILITY and PLAUSIBILITY. Constructing a POSSIBLE path ending at s21 is easy; constructing a PLAUSIBLE one is impossible.
I trust that by “this region”, you refer in your post to the CURRENT search region (or thereabouts), and not to s21 – a time zone away. If you have simulation results and/or signal data compliance tests of a direct path ending at s21, I am quite keen to see them.
@Brock
That information was published previously at the request of Flitzer_Flyer, including the link to the 777 simulation.
The route toward Christmas Island is actually much more plausible than the SIO routes favored by the IG and ATSB since it addresses motive, lack of debris, and lack of radar sightings.
@Dennis: I will try to review, when I have time. To expedite matters, can I ask you please to play “devil’s advocate”, and summarize for me why the IG and ATSB have both dismissed the Xmas Island scenario? My (admittedly fuzzy) memory is giving me the strong impression that @airlandseaman’s (signal data-based) assessed probability came in at precisely zero.
Believe me: I am NOT dismissive of your Xmas Isle scenario (as I understand it, that is Ocean Shield’s current location…) – just skeptical of your claim of compatibility with the published data.
@Brock
There are probably several reasons, but the main reason is the IG and ATSB both adopted what the IG calls a normal AP flight profile – ~35K feet and speed typical of that altitude. Certainly that would qualify as “normal” for that aircraft.
The more Notherly routes require lower speeds and lower altitudes to satisfy BFO, BTO, and fuel range. I don’t know specifically why those routes were excluded.
http://tmex.smugmug.com/Other/My-Smug-Mug/i-5XnvGxw/0/L/Screen%20Shot%202014-12-21%20at%204.36.05%20AM-L.png
http://tmex.smugmug.com/Other/My-Smug-Mug/i-7kTm8qb/0/L/Screen%20Shot%202014-12-21%20at%205.03.37%20AM-L.png
@Dennis: typically, BFO [predicted. vs actual] in Hz is displayed prominently, so as to demonstrate fit. Forgive me, but I’ll need you to direct me to this stat, or its equivalent.
@Brock
I tend to do things slightly differently than what you are accustomed to seeing. I should have probably modified my data to fit the IG and ATSB norms.
In any case the last column in the upper table is Doppler residual – meaning after all the sources of BFO are accounted for this is the remainder that must be accounted for by aircraft motion. These are the values that must be attributed to aircraft motion relative to the satellite for any scenario.
The last column of the lower table is Doppler attributable to the aircraft, and should match the Doppler residual for a valid solution. I included the 17:07 calculation simply as a methodology sanity check.
In the lower table I repeated some values with a zero and non-zero ROC.
@Dennis: if I’m reading the spreadsheet correctly (likely I’m not), then my initial impression is that your model seems hyper-sensitive to a couple m/s diff in RoC. Seems nearly any path could be made to “satisfy” the BFO resids by adding/subtracting a few of those whenever needed.
I am far from expert, but this simply does not jive with my understanding of how much RoC could reasonably be expected to affect the predicted BFO. I’d check this aspect of your model.
Brock/Dennis – a bit of an entry level query for you both. We know that we can’t replicate these numbers because of some environmental reasons etc – something that always unsettled me, but to what extent can those same factors manifest over a 7 hour flight? If the plane is heading south at speed and all the comparison data was from more northern locations?
@Brock
ROC is uncompensated by the AES. BFO is extremely sensitive to ROC – on the order of 3.5 Hz per m/s at the L band uplink frequency and satellite elevation angle.
Yes, many paths can be made to work. I have mentioned this before.
@Matty
I have never tried to see how creative one would have to be to make a Northern path fit. On the face of it, Southern paths seem to offer relatively straight forward solutions.
Dennis – I think my point got lost there – If frequency drift is subject to a range of factors that vary from day to day – preventing replication, to what extent could those same factors manifest over the duration of MH370’s 8 hour air-time remembering that it is flying almost due south at speed, and that the data gathered for modeling purposes was taken from more northern locations – as I understand it.
@Matty
I think the oscillator chain stability over the flight time should be pretty good. Probably on the order of 5-10 Hz over the flight time and temperature variations (mostly in the AES). I am satisfied that the satellite eclipse event has been adequately modeled.
In my view, the largest uncertainties relative to BFO are unknown and unmodeled ROC’s (if any).
The AES master oscillator stability should be much better than 10Hz over 8 hours. Probably <1Hz drift. It is an oven TCXO so ambient temperature changes would have no measurable effect over the normal range of temperatures in the cabin. These oscillators are typically good to 1ppb/day or better.
The only significant BFO Bias uncertainty is that associated with the eclipse, and that is probably at the 2Hz level. It is that good because Inmarsat measured (not calculated or modelled) the transponder LO Offset with a second pilot and reported the results in Table 1. IOW, Table 1 values are good to 1Hz except during the eclipse, and maybe 1-3 Hz during the eclipse effected period. It should be noted that Inmarsat no doubt has much higher time resolution data, but has not published it. So we are stuck interpolating table 1 values, thus the uncertainty.
Dennis,
A long while ago I posted a trajectory at Duncan’s blog corresponding to the “uncorrected gyro” (broken INS) scenario, which ended in the area 105E, 17S, where the endurance curve by ATSB (June) crosses the 7th arc. Interestingly, the ‘uncorrected’ heading vector corresponded to N direction at KLIA with ~0.5 deg accuracy. What discouraged me from further investigation of this scenario are: (1) a question “why would INS did not work correctly, while other systems did?”, (2) a clear trend in the BFO residuals, (3) larger BFO residuals compared to other scenarios.
So, not to say that the northern trajectories of the SIO were not looked at all… The version that the original intent was to get to the Christmas Island or somewhere around it (not necessarily by the Captain or the first officer), and than something went wrong certainly deserves further investigation in my opinion.
http:(slash)(slash)www(dot)duncansteel(dot)com/archives/899/comment-page-2#comment-8726
@Olekandr
Of course, the problem with the ATSB endurance curve is that it assumes a flight profile that may or may not be appropriate. Who knows? Lower altitudes and speeds will result in less distance traveled. My sense is that time in the air is probably a sensible metric as opposed to distance traveled.
I really put very little time into the Christmas Island scenario or the SIO scenario for that matter. I tend to regard the BTO and BFO analytics as feasibility tools more than reliable indicators of precisely where to search.
Like most posters here, I am hoping for some additional information to refine a recommended search area. Not sure we are ever going to get it. In the meantime others are working hard to wring the last drop out of the analytics, and I am following those efforts with interest.
Brock,
You are asking “why the IG and ATSB have both dismissed the Xmas Island scenario”. They dismissed not only this scenario, but some other scenarios as well.
AP was originally suggested due to a few reasons:
1. It is the simplest hypothesis with regard to the flight mode that satisfies BTO/BFO.
2. AP is consistent with the “incapacitated crew” hypothesis, supported by BFO trend and unanswered calls.
3. Visa versa: “incapacitated crew” explains AP for 6 hours.
However, a close analysis of what happened between 17:25 and 18:40 provides more reasons to believe that the crew was still alive during this period, and possibly later.
In summary, I think both ATSB and IG simply afraid to consider something else as it will be a big step back.
With regard to the uncertainty in BFO data, IG always mixes up the error in the measurements, and the errors due to random forcing. Turbulence, wind, gust winds are examples of the stochastic forcing. On top of it add INS errors (both location and direction supplied by INS affects Doppler compensation). I would rather lean to think that the overall tolerance of 5 Hz, originally suggested by ATSB, is quite reasonable estimate, rather than 1-2 Hz due to the eclipse, or interpolation of Inmarsat tables. A strong turbulence was unlikely due to relatively weak winds at that time; also the turbulence is unlikely to impact all the BFO samples.
With regard to the settling down, there are indeed oceanic currents that disperse debris in case of break-up. The depth and location would have a great impact on the final debris field on the seabed.
I was addressing the question of oscillator stability, not any other sources of BFO measurement error.
It is true that “AP is consistent with the “incapacitated crew” hypothesis”, but use of the AP is in no way dependent on “incapacitated crew” hypothesis.
Personally, I believe at least one person remained alive until at least ~18:40. It is not possible tell from the available data whether anyone was alive after that, or possibly alive till the end. Whether someone was alive or not after 18:40, the plane appears to have been on AP headed south without any further turns.
@airlandseaman
I have no real quarrel with your estimate. I think single digit Hz is probably a good working assumption. Not sure you can do much more with it than that.
Does anyone know the actual part number of the oscillator used in the aircraft? Also do we know if it is located in the cockpit or the electronics bay? My assumption is that there is more than one oscillator in the aircraft i.e. the oscillator in the mobile terminal, and a mixing LO for L band. Is this your understanding?
@Oleksandr said, “You are asking ‘why the IG and ATSB have both dismissed the Xmas Island scenario’. They dismissed not only this scenario, but some other scenarios as well.”
In my mind, other scenarios are judged as less likely, not as impossible, a distinction that detractors of the IG don’t seem to understand. A scenario with fewer degrees of freedom is more likely than a scenario with more degrees of freedom because there are more possible outcomes with more degrees of freedom. That does not mean that a scenario with more degrees of freedom is incorrect. It just means that any of those scenarios individually has lower probability than a scenario with fewer degrees of freedom.
By removing the autopilot constraint and allowing turns, changes in altitude, and atypical cruise speeds, the number of degrees of freedom increases, making any scenario that requires these to be less probable.
The IG has been focused on extracting every last ounce of value from the scant satellite data we have in order to find a path with (subjectively) the highest probability. The purpose is to guide the search in the SIO.
@Victor
I do understand the logic Victor, and it was very clear early on that the IG was not going to entertain divergent scenarios for the reasons you state.
I have become much more critical of that logic as time marches on. The lack of debris (a huge issue), radar sightings, and motive all work against it. I have never felt as strongly about the usefulness of the Inmarsat data as the members of the IG team. Granted, that is all we have. My thoughts were to embrace alternative scenarios (within the scope of the data we have) that more fully addressed all the observables (or non-observables in this case).
Within the framework you and your team have established, what you have done is flawless and quite remarkable actually. I am truly hopeful that wreckage will be found in the SIO area that the IG and ATSB have recommended. There is still a lot of ocean floor to be searched.
Dennis:
There is a single 10 MHz master oscillator in the SDU from which all other local oscillator signals are derived by standard phase locked synthesizer methods. This OCTCXO is located in the back of the airplane inside the SDU, which is part of the AES.
Airlandseaman,
I think we start converging with regard to “at least one person remained alive until at least ~18:40”. However, in my opinion there are two likely consequences:
1. Inability to make a call at ~18:25 and answer the call 18:40 could be caused by some other reason than the incapacitation of the crew.
2. A single FMT in the interval 18:25-18:40 to the “middle of nowhere” using WPs entered into the AP is hardly consistent with “somebody alive”. As a result, to add sense to the AP hypothesis, it is required to replace a single FMT hypothesis with some more complex maneuvering targeted to achieve some goal (for example landing) during the interval 18:40-19:40, or even 18:40-20:40.
Btw, relatively large deviation of the BFO cluster 18:40 from the “trend line” can be nothing, but the indication that MH370 did not yet entered into the final “AP phase” by 18:40.
Victor,
If you have 1 peach, 1 green apple and 1 red apple in a single bag, does this make probability to get peach higher than the red apple? And what are chances to get orange?
@Oleksandr: I don’t understand your analogy. If you don’t believe that a scenario with a larger number of degrees of freedom has a lower probability of being correct (ignoring all factors not included in the model), then we are not likely to find agreement on this topic, so let’s stop here.
@Victor
Your reasoning is ONLY correct IF the scenario modeled with the lesser number of degrees of freedom is more probable than the scenario with the larger number of degrees of freedom.
I submit to you that it is not AT ALL probable, which in essence makes it null and void.
The call wasn’t answered because it wasn’t in the interest of the individual party in command and control of the cockpit at that time to answer the call. In other words, he choose to ignore it.
Sorry folks, but Shah didn’t just decide to kill himself immediately after switching back to AP for the 6 hour southern leg. He still had much to accomplish (staging the final scene)…along with some more ‘real’ (as he fondly referred to his sim experience post motor/motion installation) flying right up until the very end.
6 hours on AP…what, twiddling thumbs? I think not.
I think it’s safe to assume that further control inputs were made at various stages/periods throughout the 6 hour jaunt, interspersed with AP. Clearly, someone (Shah) was alive during this time.
Spencer
@Spencer: I said, “a scenario with a larger number of degrees of freedom has a lower probability of being correct (ignoring all factors not included in the model)”.
Yet you assert my statement is “null and void” by making an argument based on factors not included in the model, such as the reason behind the unanswered phone calls.
You state assumptions as though they are facts. I am not sure whether you are doing this for emphasis or you really believe them with certainty.
For instance, it is possible that the phone call was not answered because it never rang in the cockpit. Others with technical knowledge in this field are coming to this conclusion based on the signaling. Do you have technical insight they do not? If so, please let us know.
Shah really must have been a genius, even more so than people here understand. He managed to carry out his mission, including “control inputs that were made at various stages/periods throughout the 6 hour jaunt.” What was truly amazing was that simultaneous to completing his mission, he precisely navigated a path with BTO and BFO signatures that mimicked a straight path at cruising speeds, similar to as if the plane was efficiently flying on autopilot with no additional pilot inputs. He also managed to fake the signature of an engine flame out at precisely the time the fuel would be predicted to be exhausted on this fake straight path.
That was no small feat and proves he was fully in control, as you unequivocally state.
@Spencer
I agree with you, but I would wrap a little more tinsel around it. Let’s put the math aside for a moment, and look at the MH370 disappearance from the classical criminal perspective – that is, means, motive, and opportunity.
Certainly the flight crew had the means and the opportunity. We can probably rule out the co-pilot who was on his very first unsupervised flight on that aircraft type. That leaves Shah. If there were other people on the aircraft capable of hijacking it, the background checks certainly did not find them.
Shah was a troubled man when he took off from KL. His wife was leaving him as was his girlfriend. He had some disappointing political news as well which you have no doubt all read about. That certainly raises suspicions of a motive. An angry and frustrated man.
I don’t believe the motive was suicide. When you scrub history a bit you find, remarkably enough, that all suicides using an aircraft occur a short time after take off – less than one hour. Shah could have dumped the plane in the the South China Sea.
That leaves the notion of a plan. What could the plan be? I have my theory. Perhaps there are others out there that are better. There is no evidence to support that Shah was involved with known “bad guys”. So logically one might conclude some sort of “statement” was on his agenda.
The notion of a disabled aircraft, and a crew struggling to save it is very far fetched. It simply does not fit the known maneuvering West of the Malay peninsula nor the fact that the plane continue to fly for several more hours.
Why other people close to the investigation are incapable of connecting these very simple dots is a mystery to me. Certainly spending what will amount to close to $100M searching in the SIO is not something I would have done if I were in a position to make the call.
@Victor
The problem is that ANY other scenario is utterly preposterous.
No cadre of ‘terrorists’ commandeered the a/c. No gold bullion was surreptitiously festering in the cargo. No Russian underwater demolition scuba fellows doing Vlad’s bidding. Oh, and no freak ‘accident’…although aliens still remain a strong second consideration after Shah.
I’m waiting with baited breath the announcement from Hishammuddin that the scientific community in Malaysia has discovered evidence supporting the idea that the a/c was abducted by alien intelligent life, and there’s nothing to be done.
I mean, do you really believe this is anything other than an internal Malaysian matter (not necessarily the ramifications, as they are clearly more far reaching)? Jeez.
Here’s a gambit that no one will take (wonder why???) : If anyone on this thread (including you) would care to put their money where their mouths are and donate all ‘winnings’ to the families, I will gladly cough up stated sum and put it in escrow until a determination as to cause is made.
Should any ‘legitimate’ agencies (AAIB, ATSB, BEA etc…we can ‘vet’ these later) agree with ANY finding OTHER than Shah commandeering the a/c as the cause of the disappearance, I’ll pay 5 times the divvy. Or 10. Really, I’ll pay any amount..
Any takers???…And I’m dead serious.
As to the AP, believe what you want. BUT, there was a t7 Kapten alive and in the cockpit during those 6 hours…that’s why we still don’t have a plane, or debris, stating the obvious.
You can believe in twiddling thumbs, BTO, BFO and fuel exhaustion as evidence of AP until flame out, but it makes no sense that he would leave such loose ends…and relinquish CONTROL so early on in his action. After all, this was ENTIRELY about control.
I won’t even bother to address the ‘experts’ now, 10 months later, saying that PERHAPS the phone didn’t actually ring. It’s irrelevant, really.
He wasn’t a ‘genius’ as you curiously intimate he HAD to be (really, a genius??) to execute such a masterful plan. Just a highly intelligent, capable, motivated and VERY angry man who was fed up with it all.
@Victor
First of all the engine flameout did not have to be faked. The engine flameout was the result of running out of fuel which could occur with any scenario.
Secondly, the BTO and BFO data can be made to fit many flight paths. There is no constant heading and speed route that fits the data perfectly. What you can say is that there is a best fit, and that is what you have chosen to use. There are better fits that can be constructed if one varies speed and heading. Why not use one of these?
If you are carpenter, the whole world looks like a nail. If you are an analyst the whole world looks like a number. I don’t expect you to break this paradigm, but there are other factors at work here that are just as real as BTO and BFO, but are not numbers.
The lack of debris and the lack of any plausible explanation for how the airplane ended up in the SIO dooms your theory, IMO.
I’ll ask a direct question to any member of the IG – how do you think MH370 ended up on AP for 6 hours heading into the SIO? It is your theory. How about backing it up with just a touch of causality no matter how far fetched. When a question of this sort arose on Duncan’s blog it was quickly dismissed as speculative and somehow “un-pure”. Well, I think that is nonsense. You have to have some logic to explain that conclusion. I don’t care if it is speculative.
@Dennis
I agree with you as well. just read your post. The suicide/homicide vs.’othe’r plan is something I have mulled over at great length.
I ultimately concluded that the SIO and a ‘martyrdom’ operation for the greater good (ostensibly the peoples of Malaysia) were the best fits to both the data AND some psychological insight gleaned from Shahs social media.
I do not discount, however, a Christmas Island attempt.There are certainly some aspects that support this scenario more than a suicide/homicide.
Have you seen the repost that Shah put up on his FB page of an ‘ode to a LONE SOLDIER”???? Kinda interesting.
@Dennis:
“If there were other people on the aircraft capable of hijacking it, the background checks certainly did not find them.”
You’re right. At least that’s what’s been reported or relayed by people privy to that information.
That logically leaves the Capt as the prime suspect (assuming the aircraft was not take over by other means) IF stowaways have been ruled out. But have they?
@Nihonmama
A highly skilled 777 pilot with intimate knowledge of the regions protocols and FIR’s (and the exact moment of handover), along with with some ‘strongmen’, were reported to have been spotted in the wheel well of MH370 before takeoff.
Presumably they breached/infiltrated the cabin during the early minutes of flight…then pounced. Like leopards in the night.
Luigi (I mean, Spencer):
Still at it, huh?
Spencer – all the angles have their own issues but. Sailing down the Thai/Malaysia border represents a risk he didn’t have to take? Chopping across Aceh(if MH370 in fact did?) represents another one. He didn’t have to do this, unless the pilot had somewhere to go? The Pacific is as good as anywhere if you wanted to disappear a plane without intruding on anyone’s radar. He had the fuel. It comes back to Dennis’s favourite gnawed old bone – what was the bloody motive for doing that?
@Matty
Lets pretend the Inmarsat data is authentic and accurate (scrapping the BFO and keeping to BTO). Thus, lets accept the SIO as the terminus, somewhere on the 7th arc.
Now, lets also pretend that Shah was the sole actor responsible for the diversion.
In a scenario where Shah ‘had somewhere to go’, he also would have needed a cabin full of LIVING pax, otherwise, well, what’s the point of going anywhere???
IF you believe the pax were still all alive post 18:40, then, sure, a fuel miscalculation or pax intervention could have stymied his plan.
I don’t believe for a second that there were 238 living, breathing pax in that cabin at 18:40 (for numerous reasons). IMO everyone had by then succumbed to oxygen starvation.
And, if in fact the pax were already deceased, the SIO becomes a perfect place to disappear. Particularly the trench.
I don’t think Shah was interested so much in a message as he was in punishing his oppressors and taking revenge. Of course, a shoe may still be waiting to drop.
As for his chosen route, IMO he wasn’t worried in the least about ‘risk’. He knew once he got Fariq out of the cockpit it was game over. He was just adding insult to injury by flying through Malaysian FIR (and he succeeded, making them look ever the incompetent gang).
As for Aceh, well, they apparently DIDN’T see him, so he skirted the range pretty much perfectly, conserving more fuel in order to ensure reaching far enough south to his ideal destination (ideal in this context is truly frightening).
I have a million other reasons as to why I believe the SIO was always the intended destination..and IMO these reasons support this over the ‘somewhere to go’ scenario.
It’s all quite disturbing.
Victor,
I believe that it is more difficult to create a scenario with a larger number of degrees of freedom, but a propability of such a scenario would depend on the joint propability of input assumptions, rather than its degree of freedom. Color of apples is an example of a degree of freedom in my analogy.
Perhaps citing Donald Rumsfeld would help to better understand what I mean:
“There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know.”
Spencer – I think you are a long way out on a tangent with Shah. It’s all so logical to you but out there unprecedented at the same time. Precedent is not the bible I know but what do a lot of senor pilots do after formalities are done on an 8 hour flight? They hand over. A co-pilot is fully capable to fly the plane, your 1st opportunity to do so(in Hamid’s case)makes it just as logical – to me, but I doubt it’s a sole perp thing anyway.
If one just follows the data without making any assumptions the only degree of freedom is the latitude on the 19:40 arc.
Gysbreght said, “If one just follows the data without making any assumptions the only degree of freedom is the latitude on the 19:40 arc.”
Yes. If the plane flew straight starting before 19:40, then setting the latitude at 19:40 determines the speed and end point, more or less. I think many here have come to this same conclusion. Unfortunately, we know little about what happened between 18:28 and 19:41, so in order to choose the latitude at 19:41, we have to add additional degrees of freedom.
The flight either ended in the SIO or somebody did a good job of making it look that way.
I feel we are making little progress here. Without additional information, we just keep running over the same ground. People have become hardened in their absolute faith in one scenario over another. Hopefully, the search in the SIO provides additional clues.
Rather than beating ourselves over the head trying to prove one scenario over another, perhaps we can brainstorm about ways we can get more data. That might be the most productive activity at this point.
@Spencer
Now we diverge. I don’t believe Shah was a murderer. He was, by all accounts, a sensitive and loving man. It is more plausible that something simply went wrong with a plan, whatever that plan may have been.
As far as hijackers in wheel wells and the like, why would they fly the plane into the SIO? If it was a suicide mission carried out by some terror group, someone would be taking credit for it.
If the plane ended in the SIO, where is the debris? We have the recent QZ8501 incident to guide us, and the Air France 447 incident before that. As Tim Clark (Emirates CEO) stated, planes do not crash into the ocean without leaving debris.
In my view the following are necessary conditions for any MH370 theory to be acceptable.
1> Underlying motive (or causality) no matter how preposterous it may seem.
2> An explanation for lack of debris.
3> Flight dynamics aligned with the Inmarsat BTO and BFO data.
Victor: Your advice is dead center. Since we are not there, perhaps we need to develop more relationships with journalists and others on the ground in KL, Canberra and other centers involved. In my view, the raw primary radar data between 16:41 and 18:22…all of it from all sources…would be the most helpful new information. Even if it only confirms what we have been given so far, that would remove doubt and help focus on the post 18:22 path with confidence.
@VictorI, @DennisW: I agree with both of you. The slow accumulation of evidence in the SIO is tending to falsify the IG’s hypotheses, but I hope we not take that as discouragement but rather as a spur to further efforts. The plane is somewhere! We could reinvestigate a more southerly path to see if it indeed might be possible to fly beyond the southern end of the seabed scan given known fuel load and 777 performance (perhaps the winds aloft data is further off than we realize). We could reinvestigate Mike’s final spiral data to see if the plane might have gone further outward or inward from 0:19. We could take a more serious look at potential spoofing modes. And who knows what else?
I like DennisW’s list but have some comments:
1> In criminal cases, prosecutors are not required to establish motive. I think this is a sound principle. Motives can be inscrutable. I imagine that if this case is ever solved, motive will be the last thing we’ll figure out.
2>Explanation for the lack of debris. Frequent readers of this blog will know that I am very much troubled by the lack of debris, and feel it is a powerful reason to ask whether the plane wound up in the SIO at all. At the same time, however, one cannot deny the power of the simplest explanation: the ocean is a big place. Without knowing where the plane went down, or how it impacted, it’s hard to have more than a gut-level estimation of how likely it is that floating debris should have been discovered by now.
3>I modify this to say that an explanation must either conform with the BTO/BFO data, or explain how that data was physically generated.
If I was the ATSB, I would be expending serious resources in trying to figure out how a Honeywell Thales MCS6000 Satellite Data Unit could generate the strange set of BFO data points recorded at 18:25-18:28.
@Dennis
A ‘sensitive’, ‘loving’ man doesn’t steal a plane and effectively terrorize 238 innocent human beings. He only needed to be not so sensitive and loving on that day, in that moment, but I digress.
Further to this point, it is not in dispute that he advocated all manner of VIOLENT resistance towards the regime and authorities.
Honestly, and I say this respectfully (and surprisingly), you seem to vastly underestimate the degree of anger and rage this man had…or you are choosing to believe otherwise.
His over 700 facebook posts (almost all, 98%, are overtly political…some quite hostile) are still there to be seen to all).
And of course we had a precipitating event that very morning.We KNOW beyond any doubt his state of mind that evening…filled with rage. This inference cannot be plausibly refuted.
When a person is perhaps so enraged by personal insult to his self and/or perceived more noble ideology, behavior can become quite unpredictable.
I also believe in the Fariq cell phone call attempt AND the early reports of a zoom climb to near FL450. These make perfect sense, IMO. They fit a pattern of events that I find most likely.
Lastly, my post about terrorists in the wheel well was VERY sarcastic, and directed towards those who continue to put forward such rubbish.
ps…now, YOU are not listening. I have gone over the ‘debris’ issue numerous times. My scenario has a Kapten gently setting the a/c down in the morning glow, daylight now upon him…a final act of superiority and demonstrative skill.
You have him ‘failing’ to attain his set out goal…this is pretty unlikely, IMO. We’ll agree to disagree.
@Matty
I don’t understand your point about Hamid and the handover.
Can someone please explain why anyone flying the plane would attempt to climb to 45,000 feet for any reason whatsoever? There seems to be some false assumption that climbing would be needed to incapacitate passengers. The fact is that passengers would be incapacitated at 35,000 or even 30,000 feet if the cabin pressure valves were opened. So why climb? Besides, a 777 could not get to 45,000 feet with 239 soles and 7 hours of fuel on board. So why does this keep surfacing?
Airlandseaman,
This time I’m 100% on the same page. I think processed (time, lon, lat, alt) data would also be sufficient as Malay/Thai/Indonesian military will unlikely release raw data ever.
In addition, this is in my understanding that Inmarsat might be in possession of some additional data with regard to engine performances during the flight. Or not?