[Editor’s note: One of the most intriguing clues in the MH370 mystery is the fact that the airplane’s satcom system logged back on to the Inmarsat network at 18:25. By understanding how such an event could take place, we can significantly narrow the range of possible narratives. In the interest of getting everyone on the same page in understanding this event, I’ve asked Mike Exner for permission to post the content of a detailed comment he recently provided. One piece of background: a lot of us have been referring to the satellite communications system aboard the aircraft as the “SDU,” but as Mike recently pointed out in another comment, it technically should be called the “AES.” — JW.]
Until we have more evidence to support the theory that the loss of AES communications was due to the loss of primary power to the AES, we must keep an open mind. Loss of power may be the most likely cause (simplest explanation), but the fact is we do not know why the sat link was down between 17:37 and 18:25. My reluctance to jump to the conclusion that it must have been due to the loss of primary AES power is based on decades of experience in the MSS (mobile satellite service) industry. It’s not just another opinion based on convenience to support a theory. Let me elaborate on a few possible alternative explanations.
The potential for loss of the pilot carrier, due to the orientation of the aircraft in relation to the satellite, was increased as soon as the airplane turned WNW. Between the time of this turn (circa 17:50) and the time of the FMT (final major turn circa 18:25-18:40), the aircraft was flying more or less toward the satellite where the antenna pattern was near a null. Don and I have both looked at the antenna pattern in some detail and concluded that the antenna pattern and coincidental direction of flight were unlikely to be so bad that the pilot carrier would be lost due to this geometry. Moreover, according to a MAS Press Conference on March 20, 2014, there should have been an ACARS message transmitted at 17:37, but none was received. ( bit.ly/QFbF6C ) At 17:37, the aircraft was still over Malaysia SW bound, so the HGA pattern would not have been an issue at that point. Taken together, loss of the pilot carrier due to antenna orientation appears to be a possible, but unlikely explanation for the outage.
Ionospheric scintillation has also been suggested as a possible explanation for the loss of service during this period, but there have been no reports of other aircraft in the vicinity suffering a loss of service, so this explanation is also unlikely. (Note: Ionospheric scintillation in the equatorial regions can be a big problem for VHF and UHF communications, but it does not affect communications in the L band as much.)
The MCS6000 AES, located in the back of the airplane, requires a continuous feed of INS data (position, speed, etc.) via an ARINC 429 link from the computers in the front of the plane. If the AES stopped receiving INS data for any reason, then it would not have been able to steer the HGA, or compute the required Doppler corrected transmitter frequency. Thus, it is very likely that the AES would be out of service if there was any loss of this 429 data link, or the information carried over the link. Given that there was no VHF voice communications after 17:19:24 and the Transponder Mode S data was lost after 17:21:13, it is certainly possible that the INS data flowing to the AES was disrupted due to a common failure in some piece of equipment in the E-Bay. This explanation for the loss of service cannot be dismissed as easily as the two previous theories.
However, there is one additional observation that tends to favor the loss of primary power theory over the loss of INS data theory (or the other two theories above). We note that when the AES logged on at 18:25:26, the BFO values for the first few minutes thereafter appear to have been drifting in a way that is more consistent with a restoration of primary power event than a restoration of INS data event. If the AES power had been on during the outage, the oven controlled reference oscillator would have maintained a stable frequency and there should not have been any significant BFO transients following the 18:25:26 logon.
In summary, there are multiple alternative explanations for the AES outage, but loss of primary power is the most likely explanation. Like so many other necessary assumptions, like the mode of navigation after the FMT, we have no choice. We must base the search on the most likely assumptions while maintaining an awareness that few of the assumptions have probabilities of .999.
(Or, why that missing Malaysian Airlines MH370 is a really, really big deal — besides the murder of 239 souls aboard.)
Onboard flight MH370 were twenty employees of Freescale Semiconductor, a major microchip producer, owner of major fabrication facilities (referred to as foundries in the industry).
Back in 2012, some researchers at an institute connected with Cambridge University discovered a backdoor, at the hardware level, in the Actel/Microsemi chip used for military purposes, designed and manufactured by the Microsemi Corporation. What the authors didn’t mention in their highly technical paper was that these chips are also to be found in ARINC avionics (ACARS: Aircraft Communications and Addressing Reporting System, formerly known as ARINC Communications and Addressing Report System — plus other avionics communications systems), transponders and the black boxes (flight data recorders, cockpit voice recorders, crash recorders, etc.).
Microsemi chips are produced at Freescale foundries, as well as Freescale chips are also to be found in ARINC avionics, transponders along with a wide range of other industry applications.(Technically, they are produced at TMC, Taiwan, which outsources to Freescale’s foundry.)
It is important to note that the owners of Freescale Semiconductors are the Blackstone Group, the major private equity/leveraged buyout (PE/LBO) firm, and the majority owner, and the Carlyle Group, another PE/LBO firm and a minority owner.
It is also important to note that ARINC (designer and manufacturer of major avionics systems (fly-by-wire) aboard Boeing and Airbus jets was until recently owned by the Carlyle Group, and a portion of ARINC still is, as they moved ARINC’s DoD division over to Booz Allen, the major government intelligence contractor (where Edward Snowden last worked in America), and also owned by the Carlyle Group.
Malaysian Airlines, which may have figured into it, was at that time partially owned by the hedge fund of Lord Jacob Rothschild, long an advisor to the aforementioned Blackstone Group.
The previously mentioned Microsemi Corporation, whose chips are backdoored, or compromised, is managed by James Peterson, CEO and board member. Peterson is one of the sons of Peter G. Peterson, founding member of the Blackstone Group.
Both the process of chipping (purposely introducing defects into chips for cryptographic penetration) and backdoors in chips, dates back to the late 1950s (chipping) and 1980s (backdoors).
When the U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union, it contained chipped cryptographic communications gear (early chips which NSA had first adopted), developed by the NSA at the instigation of the CIA, which the CIA hoped the Soviets would copy, allowing deep penetration by the NSA.
Unfortunately, this was around the time of the real defection of two NSA employees (Martin and Mitchell), so after being given the coordinates of the U-2’s air route by previous “defector” Lee Oswald to allow the Soviets to shoot it down, they were now possibly savvy to the covert operation’s agenda.
The first major successful operation involving backdoored chips was supposed to have occurred in the 1980s, when an American industrial controls computer system (SCADA) was sold illegally through a Swiss firm to the Soviets, and resulted in a series of major explosions at their northern Baltic Sea naval installation (chips set to control maximum temperatures of fuels did the opposite).
When a group is seeking to compromise, and therefore control, both the Internet and a wide spectrum of computer hardware applications (communications, transportation, industrial, financial, etc.) the process of chip access is crucial, and to do that covertly it must be done at the chip fabrication point.
Hence the use of, and subsequent disposal (murder), of those Freescale Semiconductor engineers aboard flight MH370.
Below is the Youtube link to a video from a SAIConference, the expert from University College London (who spent years with the GCHQ), explains in general how to hack into a Boeing 777, but then ends with his opinion that it wasn’t hacked into — unfortunately, he refrains from mentioning who the systems are designed and manufactured by, and also their ownership!
(And by the way, just how many Microsemi FPGAs are onboard the Boeing 777’s systems? 1,000!)
Very crucial data . . .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVWc9P4EiME
Suggested reading:
https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~sps32/Silicon_scan_draft.pdf
http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/MSCC/2567075557x0x658020/F3056DCF-9622-4F91-BF0F-1388772756CF/MSCC_PP_Presentation_4_.pdf
Allan Schuster and his team may have
conceived the 7 hour ring relying on instant response from the plane based on the time it took from the ping hand shake request for response broadcast from the 3F1 satellite to the plane and the time it took to receive the reply. The time referred too is in microseconds and any slight delay would lead to miscalculations
One such scenario could be an minor overload of the data processor at Inmarsats headquarters.
This is the most palatable explanation of what happen to MH370
From the cargo hold of the 777 there is access to the cockpit through a manhole in the cockpit floor.
The plane was hijacked by stowaway (s) familiar with Boeing aircrafts, most of which have similar cockpit layout.
The Objective: Land the plane in Somalia’s Islamic rebel (Al Shabaab) held territory say Bu’aaly which has a 1.5Km runway on which a 777 could safely land and hold the plane and passengers for ransom same like they did with merchant ships. As with the merchant ships, by the end the Insurance companies paid the ransom which was allot less then having to payout the fully insured sum.
Since there was not enough fuel, the fate of flight 370 was similar to Ethiopian Airlines flight 961.
Ref… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopian_…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnBkH_Uu…
Going from this it is likely that the plane is somewhere in the Southern Arabian Sea of the coast of Somalia.
Malaysian authorities should be looking for any airport worker who has vanished since that time.
Regarding the Flaperon found in Reunion.
It was found on the northern coast of Reunion because it drifted from the north. Since marine biologist can not find traces of livening forms prevalent to colder waters then it is more than likely the plane has maintained the flight direction last reordered on the military radar heading west to Somalia. This also correlates with reports of the plane sightings overflying the Maldives.
As they say …” The apple does not fall far from the tree”
I know there are more than 600 comments regarding the question that Jeff posed :
“Why Did MH370 Log Back on with Inmarsat?”
Yet, there are VERY few true answers to this question.
Let us stay clear headed and analyze the evidence.
Satcom switched off hard (its power was cut). If it would have switched off softly (from the flight deck) it would have send a “log-off” message to Inmarsat, similar to how your cell phone would send a “log-off” message to your cell phone provider when your phone is about to switch off.
Without pulling the circuit breakers in the E/E bay (which would make the subsequent power-on a clear deliberate act), there is only ONE way by which SATCOM came down hard :
The left AC bus was powered down.
That left AC bus can be powered down hard from only two locations :
1) The cockpit, by tediously isolating the left AC bus, or
2) The E/E bay, by flipping the right circuit breakers.
So, when the power to Satcom came back on at 18:25, somebody powered back up the left AC bus.
And let there be no question that whoever powered up the left AC bus, and then decided NOT to use Satcom for the 6 hours after that, MUST have been one of the perpetrators.
So, the question “Why did MH370 log back on with Inmarsat” comes down to the following question :
Why did the perpetrators power the left AC bus back on at 18:25 ?
There are VERY few rational answers to that question.
The answer must be that the perpetrator(s) needed to switch ON one of the systems that are powered from the left AC bus.
As Jeff pointed out earlier,
http://jeffwise.net/2015/07/09/the-mysterious-reboot/
here are those systems powered from the left AC bus :
– TCAS (Traffic Collision Avoidance System)
– Cockpit door lock
– The centre tank override and jettison pumps
– Some galley equipment
– IFE (in-flight entertainment system)
– One of the high-frequency radios
– The main passenger cabin lighting system
If the perpetrator was one of the pilots, then none of these systems seem necessary to be powered back up.
However, if MH370 was hijacked, and the perpetrators powered down the left AC bus (from the E/E bay) so that the cockpit door lock would disengage, then they would have to engage the power on the left AC bus again. Just so that the cockpit door would be locked when they leave the cockpit and the plane…
Otherwise, if anyone survived the asphyxiation hour (between 17:23 and 18:25) they would be able to enter the cockpit and control the plane.
So the short answer is : So the cockpit door would be locked.
And the long answer is : The fact that Satcom logged back on suggests that the perpetrators LEFT the cockpit shortly after 18:25.
@Rob, I think this kind of reasoning process is essential. However, I should point out a couple of errors in your comment. First, pulling circuit breakers in the E/E makes it possible to turn off the Satellite Data Unit without isolating the left AC bus. Also, after I put up the original post “The Mysterious Reboot” other systems on the left AC bus came to light, most notably the Cockpit Voice Recorder.
Yes, I understand the errors in reasoning I made. And I forgot about the circuits breakers and the Cockpit Voice Recorder too.
Also, I realized there is a second ‘spoof’ scenario that actually makes a lot of sense, because it leads us AWAY from the crash site rather than towards it as we currently assume.
Remember that the satcom transmitter does not need to be on the plane. Inmarsat does not know from which direction a signal comes (it has wide angle antenna that covers the entire Indian ocean).
So the satcom transmitter could be anywhere on the India ocean, such as on a ship or so.
The only thing that Inmarsat knows about where the signal came from is the TBO and FBO setting.
So if you accurately adjust time delay and frequency offset responses to Inmarsat pings from that transmitter, you create TBO and FBO offsets let Inmarsat think you are actually somewhere completely different. Over 6 hours you can simulate any path you like to whatever destination you want everyone to start searching (such as the SIO).
While in fact you crashed the plane in the Andaman sea,
and the Inmarsat pings were simply generated by a transmitter on a ship somewhere on the Indian ocean.
Maybe we are looking in the wrong place..
@Rob, You are correct, and indeed @airlandseaman has said that such a spoof would be even easier technically than one which originates in the plane. The only limitation is that the actual position would have to be closer to the satellite than the ping ring at that time.
The drawback I see with such a scenario is that it would require close coordination between hijackers in the plane and spoofers on the ground in order to effect the transition from radar (up to 18:22) to BFO/BTO tracking (from 18:25).