As readers of this blog or my Kindle Single (or, now, New York magazine) know, I’m intrigued by the possibility that MH370 might have been hijacked and flown north to the Yubileyniy Aerodrome within the Baikonur Cosmodrome. If so, it would have come to rest on the specially-milled concrete at approximately an hour and a half before sunrise on Sunday, March 8. And then what? If it stayed where it was, it would have been easy to spot by land-imaging satellites overhead. To avoid detection, it would have to have either refueled and taken off again, or found some kind of shelter.
As it happens, the Kazakh steppe is a terrible place to hide a 210-foot long, 60-foot-high airplane. The flat, desert plain is sparsely populated and almost featureless, so that anything large and unusual is apt to stand out. There is no natural canopy of trees to shelter under. Though there are large buildings at the cosmodrome where space vehicles are serviced, there are no large structures near Yubileyniy.
After I began developing my “Spoof” hypthesis I spent days scouring first Google Earth, then free commercial satellite imagery looking for any hint that a plane could have been stashed in the vicinity. The pickings were slim. The Yubileyniy complex was built in the ‘80s as the landing site for the Buran space plane, and after the program was cancelled in 1989 it has largely sat disused. Occasionally the runway is used by planes carrying inbound VIPs and cosmonauts, but otherwise nothing has really happened there in decades. An overview of the area is depicted above.
The dark, fishhook-shaped line is the rail line connecting the airstrip to the rest of the Baikonur complex. Alongside it is a road from which a series of driveways lead off to the north. One of them leads to an isolated six-story building that stands surrounded by debris, berms, and trenches. I came to think of the area as Yubileyniy North. Here’s what it looked like in 2006 (click on images to enlarge):
As you can see, the area is desert, where vehicle tracks persist for many years. The six-story building casts a dark, short shadow to the northwest — the sun is nearly overhead. The road from the airstrip comes up from the bottom of the frame and curves to the right. Here and there rectangular patches of debris suggest where buildings once stood. Essentially, it’s a ruin. Here’s the same area, six years later:
Not much has changed. The sun is lower in the sky, so the six-story building’s shadow is longer. But nothing seems to have changed at all. The entire area of Yubileyniy is like this—the place seems have been left to slowly crumble in the desert sun for decades. There’s nowhere to stash a 777. On the other hand, the most recent imagery viewable here in Google Earth comes from 2012. Perhaps something has happened since then? I didn’t know anything about what kind of imagery is available from commercial sources, but I set out to learn. Before long I came upon a company called Terraserver, which lets you view high-resolution satellite imagery for free. I used it to scope around the general area of the Yubileyniy complex, and here’s what I found in an image of Yubileyniy North from October 31, 2013:
Suddenly, things are happening. A number of trucks are lined up in the parking lot in the upper-right part of the image. The six-story building is being disassembled. And what looks like a large rectangle of dirt has been bulldozed to the left of the building. The image resolution is so good that you can make out what I take to be the stripes left by the bulldozer blade as it worked back and forth horizontally. At the northern end of the rectangle is a berm which casts a shadow to the north. At the far northeastern corner lies what appears to be a trench with a well-defined corner on the upper right, with treadmarks leading out of it toward the southeast. I’m not sure what this dirt rectangle represents — are they building a pile of dirt, or a hole? — but what really gets my attention is the size of the thing. To give you a sense of scale, I’ve superimposed an equivalently proportioned 777 silhouette onto the image:
This struck me as interesting, to say the least. Naturally, I wondered what happened next. Fortunately, Terraserver had one more image that I could browse for free. This next one was taken on April 26, 2014:
Holy cow. All traces of both the building and the dirt rectangle have been erased. Various debris piles have been swept away, too. At first I thought that maybe the image had been digitally scrubbed, but if you look closely you can easily make out individual pieces of junk in between the cleared areas. So my interpretation is that the site was actually cleared and swept up.
So here’s the situation: nothing happens at Yubileyniy for decades; then, four months before MH370 disappears, the Russians start building a 777-sized something-or-other a mile and a half from a giant disused airstrip. Then, a month after the plane disappears, the area looks like it’s been erased.
What had happened in the meantime? To find out, I had to shell out cash from my own pocket to buy imagery from the main commercial satellite imagery provider, Digital Globe, via one of its resellers—in this case, a company called Apollo Mapping. The cash drain was painful, but at this point I was very far down the rabbit hole. Here’s what Yubileyniy North looked like on December 17, 2013:
The sun is low on the snow-dusted steppe; it’s almost winter. In a month and a half, workers have removed all but the bottom-most floors of the six-story building. You can make out the shadow of a crane projecting to the north from the middle of the remaining structure. A handful of trucks can still be seen in the parking lot. The dirt pile has been extended a few yards to the north; the berm at that end now overlies the what we saw as the sharp corner of the trench in the October image. Beyond the berm lies either a dark strip that could either be a long trench or just a shadow; to my eye the line of brightness at its northern edge implies the lip of a trench, but who knows. Work is clearly continuing. The next image, in black and white, is from three weeks later, January 9, 2014:
Now winter is in full effect. Snow blankets the entire region, and cold has descended: in the four days before this picture was taken, the temperature fluctuated between -15F and +14F. The disruption of the snow cover shows that work is very much underway. The building seems to be down to its last story. Trucks can be seen in the parking lot. I’m not sure what to make of the northern end of the rectangle; two dark strips are visible, perhaps one of them is a trench and the other is the shadow of a berm. Unforunately the resolution is not very good because the image was taken at a fairly low angle. The fact that work is continuing under such harsh conditions suggests a sense of urgency, to my mind; or perhaps these are simply hardy mofos. By the time the next image is taken, nearly two months have passed.
In this black-and-white image, the building has been completely dismantled and the dirt rectangle bulldozed flat. No berm remains at the northern end. Horizontal bulldozer tracks are still visible. The dark dirt is framed with a lighter border, suggesting perhaps a snowy slope. No trucks are visible, suggesting that the work crew has moved on. A color image taken four days later looks almost identical:
This image was taken two days before MH370 disappeared, on March 6. The next one was taken eight days after, on March 16:
When I first saw this picture, my heart leapt. The two scenes, taken just before and after the disappearance, looked so different that I was certain that something significant had occurred in the interim. Perhaps what was a rectangular depression in the March 6 image has now been filled in with sand (along with maybe, oh, who knows, a plane?).
I began pricing out tickets to Kazakhstan and searching the internet for advice on detecting large buried things with metal detectors. I located a Russian from St. Petersburg who’d made a gonzo two-day bike trek across the steppe to reach the Yubileyniy strip and sought his advice on how to get to the area without permission; he told me that he’d camped out at the airstrip overnight without anybody noticing him but then had tried to visit a busier part of the cosmodrome and gotten arrested. After he told them he was just scouting around because he was a huge fan of the Buran project, they let him go. I figured that if I was more careful I had a good chance of making it in and back.
But then I looked more closely, and examined the weather records. It just so happened that during this time interval spring fell on Baikonur like a hammer. On March 6, the temperature had only just peeked above freezing, by the 16th the daily highs had been in the 40s for the better part of a week. The thaw has completely changed the color palette. Everything that was covered in snow, and hence lighter colored, is now sodden and hence darker colored. White plains of snow are now damp brown sand. The darker earth of the rectangle is now drier and lighter-colored. After staring at these images for many hours I concluded that the most likely interpretation is that nothing has changed except for a temperature change.
And so we wind up back at our April 26 image:
By now the desert has returned to its normal dried-out state. The cluttered jumble seen over the winter has been replaced by almost featureless swatches of tan. A vehicle track overlies the northernmost part of the dirt rectangle, its borders now smudged and indeterminate.
I showed some of these images to construction experts and satellite imagery professionals, and received very little encouragement. Most likely, they told me, the work being performed was site remediation: a building was torn down, and construction debris thrown in a trench and covered up. As successive trenches are dug and filled in, a rectangular shape is formed. Simple as that.
And yet: the entire cosmodrome is littered with decades of abandoned equipment and derelict buildings, evincing a constitutional lack of interest in the concept of remediation. There is no commercial or residential activity for miles of Yubileyniy. Why, after decades, did the Russians suddenly need to clear this one lonely spot, in the heart of a frigid winter, finishing just before MH370 disappeared? And why is it that the greater part of the dirt rectangle was already laid out in the Oct 31 image, before the building was substantially demolished?
I don’t know. I tried to reach out to people who might know, but had no luck, and eventually I had to turn my attention to projects that might earn me some money. But I’d love to find out. If any readers have any special insight, I’d love to hear it.
UPDATE 4/3/2106: Since I wrote the above, Google Earth has added a new high-quality image of the site, taken October, 12, 2014. It gives a different impression from the last image–it doesn’t look any longer like the dirt was swept flat, like someone trying to cover their tracks.
Regarding what CTobserver said about a CBS reporter telling him gold was on board. There has been much speculation about the cargo manifest, so I decided to look back at it. The manifest showed that NNR Global shipped 133 pieces of one item weighing 1.99 tonnes and 67 pieces of another item weighing 463kg for a total weight of 2.453 tonnes. We know that ~200kg of this is lithium batters
According to Malaysian company NNR Global Logistics the batteries formed only a small part of a “consolidated” shipment weighing 2.453 tonnes. Even though the MAS said the batteries weighed 221 kg, a company spokesman said they weighed less than 200kg. He, however, did not say what the remaining 2.253 tonnes of cargo was.
“I cannot reveal more because of the ongoing investigations. We have been told by our legal advisers not to talk about it,” he was quoted as saying by the daily.
A gold bar weighs ~12kg. There were 133 items on board that weighed a total of 1990kg. So, each of these items weighed ~12.9kg. If you account for the shipping container or packing material, it seems to me to be a pretty close match..
@littlefoot: alsm brought a full description of the LANL analysis – and its estimate of [S40.4, E83.0] – to this forum; please see:
airlandseaman’s comment, Feb.14 at 12:29 AM (Guest Post: Why Did…)
Here’s the hydroacoustic study to which I’ve been referring:
http://permalink.lanl.gov/object/tr?what=info:lanl-repo/lareport/LA-UR-14-24972
You can easily derive the coordinate yourself by starting at HA01 (a few nmi west of Leeuwin Peninsula, SW corner of Oz), head out at the 246.9 degrees they give, and stop when you hit the 7th arc.
So while the LANL information in the personal e-mail from alsm to me on Feb.22 was DESCRIBED as confidential, my comments on LANL in this forum have related strictly to information already posted online within one or both of the above two sources.
littlefoot, most of this is repeat info for diligent readers – while I’m guilty of not doing this enough myself, I recommend reading all back comments as best you can.
@Oleksandr – not sure if anyone responded to you. Curtin’s June report – which became an Appendix in the June ATSB report, yes – was issued prior to any study of Scott Reef data, so yes, it would show a long, thin confidence interval (can’t tell distance from a single recorder). But by September, Curtin had checked Scott Reef, and found an acoustic profile deemed likely to have been the same event; this triangulated both time (00:25 UTC) and location (roughly [2.1N, 69.3E]) – the “dot” in the nature article to which we were linked by littlefoot this week (and Nihonmama months earlier).
@Brock, thanks a lotfor running it by me.
Believe me. I’ve done plenty of catch-up reading, not only here and I will continue to do so. But I’ve never come across the LANL report. My bad if I’ve overlooked it. But your discussion seemed to rest on a lot of privately exchanged thoughts and info.
Guys, I realize, I might really have missed something. Sorry for that.
But the urgency of this alley seems to have somewhat diminished anyway…
[Redacted — Matty, I appreciate your contributions, and you have every right to express your opinions, but at this particular point in time I would like everyone to take a deep breath and try to get along. We’re all in this together. Let’s make this National Kindness to Fellow Commenters Day.]
Do we have any information about how far in advance the Russian/Ukrainian passengers made their travel plans, or when exactly they booked their flight tickets? (I imagine this information might be obtainable by travel industry insiders. Could a travel agent get this information from a reservation system like Galileo or Sabre?)
If the putative hijackers wanted to be seated in a specific part of the cabin, they would have booked their fights earlier than most other passengers, to ensure availability of the seats they wanted.
If they were targeting other specific passengers or cargo on the plane, they would have booked their trip only after the target(s)’ travel arrangements were made.
If the hijacking was related to U.S. sanctions against Russia, the tickets could not have been booked before Russia knew that the sanctions would happen.
(Jeff Wise reported that passenger Brodsky “cut short” a diving trip in Bali to fly home to his wife, but do we know when he booked the return ticket?)
Unrelated, but I wonder… was there anything suspicious about the sudden death of the Inmarsat analyst who was working on the MH370 data?
@Victor: I’m willing to confess to perhaps being overly suspicious. But the debate here was beginning to tilt towards abandonment of the 7th arc. If the overarching goal of the “narrative-management” team is to maintain trust in arc7, then putting out impressive-looking documents (and hoping they don’t get scrutinized for content (or date stamps)) which offer a hint of corroborating PHYSICAL evidence (only a HINT, mind you – scant enough to facilitate future back-tracking, yet strong enough to attract agnostics) would certainly fit the bill.
If the LANL study can be demonstrated to be well-meaning in intent (and published online back in July, as claimed…), then I will eat crow.
In my defense: I was already a basket case of nerves over my first-ever appearance on national TV, and Mike’s e-mail threw me for a terrible loop. If I’m overly suspicious as a result, I’m sorry.
But this should in no way be construed as an indication I no longer care about the answers to my ten (yes, this math geek STILL can’t count well enough to number a list) questions I’d like Mike to answer about this new data on which he clearly meant us all to place material weight.
@GlobusMax: You have nothing for which to apologize. I, too, thought Mike was describing “hard” evidence from LANL – until Dr. Duncan showed it to be so “soft” as to invite suspicion it is, in fact, “rotten”.
Ironically, I’ve publicly supported E83/84 since Bobby first proposed it in August – but always with the proviso: “IF the signal data is valid”. Rest assured it is that CONDITION I am questioning, not your science.
No Naiads at the Yubileyniy Aerodrome would make an autopilot landing very difficult. Supplying the aircraft with fuel and crew would not be difficult. The aircraft contents, cabin and freight, would need quick disposal. The large rectangular earthworks may conceal this.
Roger that Jeff. Would it be appropriate then to desist from using the initials LANL as they have no actual place in the discussion?
Meanwhile – Russian opposition leader shot dead on street. Putin takes his country towards an absolute dictatorship.
@Brock
It would be a stretch, for me, to call the flight path calculations “science”. The math is very straightforward relative to determining a flight path based on the Inmarsat data. The difficulty is in the assumptions. A fixed AP mode has a significant speed dependency – different speed assumptions will produce different terminal locations. If one allows altitude and speed variations it is possible to fit the data to virtually any 7th arc location in the Southern hemisphere.
I hesitate to categorize guessing at flight parameters as science.
With all due respect, Brock McEwen, but you come off as a crazed, paranoid psycho to be honest. I do not know what you are gosh-darn suspicious about at this point in time. I understand that there is a lot fishy having to do with MH370 as a whole, but those list of 10 absurd questions you posed to ALSM, ridiculous.
All it takes is one read-thru of the published LANL study to find out that there is cearly not enough evidence to support that they picked up anything having to do with MH370. This is what they themselves state in their conclusion. So honestly, what are you rambling about?
@Jay: thanks for your contribution. Have you read the entire thread? My concerns have nothing at all to do with the study’s conclusions, and everything to do with its quality, apparent back-dating, absence from (hydroacoustic kingpin) Alec Duncan’s radar screen, and use by ALSM to promote the 7th arc (at a time when faith in it is fading). And if it weren’t for the last item on that list, I wouldn’t give a rip about any of it.
While the conclusions are appropriately caveat-laced (I agree with you), the study – wrongly – was used to give a glimmer of hope that the 7th arc was corroborated by physical evidence. You believe there is NO chance this could have been by design. I believe there is SOME chance, and choose to probe further. Let’s heed Jeff’s excellent advice re: getting along, and respectfully agree to disagree.
@Jeff: thanks for the characteristically wise words. It’s been a long week. (If you’re buying another virtual round this weekend, I’ll take one of those 70cm cans of Foster’s.)
Brock: You are so far from reality it is scary, dude. I don’t understand any of your logic. The motives you attribute to me are ridiculous. I was only trying to help you. So sorry now I tried to help you. Sorry I ever mentioned anything about the LANL work to you. And “…use by ALSM to promote the 7th arc…” is absolutely BS. The 7th arc is established fact as far as I am concerned, and the only question remaining is where along that arc? Reasonable people can find rational logic to explain areas IVO 37.7S or 40.0S or points inbetween or near by. The fact that multiple independent people and groups have converged on a small range along an arc is remarkable. You should be thrilled. I don’t know what you are trying to accomplish by making up a bunch of paranoid nonsense about my motives. We should all be pulling together to urge the ATSB to search both sides of the arc (I’m sure they will) and consider extending the search a bit further south west if they don’t turn up anything in the current area.
this is a little off the current discussion but has anyone taken a real good look at a man named micheal john, and his tomnod pics of a 777 in the indian ocean in parts. there are enlarged pictures and you can clearly see the blue and orange stripes on the nose cone. I have been following this disappearance since day one and these pics are the real deal.
Jeff,
I think you’re probably right about the mound – lots of dirt, no plane but no rational explanation either.
One thing about dirt and excavation – you don’t move dirt far. It’s heavy and expensive.
In the pictures you saw, did you see any indication of an area where dirt was missing? In the middle of Kazakhstan, where little is developed, none of the dirt should have come from very far. The mound could only be as big as any nearby hole or grading effort. There’s no reason to “import” fill in that area.
40% of the priority area now covered.
No more LANL then? Did we even need to see it?
@ALSM: thank you for your response. Since it sounds like you have from the outset put the probability of MH370 having impacted near the putative signal data’s indicated location at effectively 100% – despite no seismic record of an impact on it, no surface debris near it, and no radar record of a path to it. So I will, in the spirit of conciliation, retract questions labeled 7 & 8, which are effectively answered by that expressed certainty.
I agree 100% with you that we should ALL be rallying together to seek closure for the NoK, by uncovering the TRUTH of MH370’s fate. I am very relieved to hear that all you ever wanted to do was help me in that pursuit.
Boy, will I ever be embarrassed to have treated a helpful ally so shabbily, after you rattle off the answers to the remaining eight questions.
(If I am as “far from reality” as you observe, this should be a snap for you.)
Jeff,
Great piece here and great New York Magazine piece as well. This is very interesting, especially the flurry of construction activity before March 8th. It’s certainly intriguing and I applaud your efforts. I think it provides some support to your theory. That’s a great question, why no remedial repair or cosmetic construction on the area for years until or around March 8th? I guess we’ll get that answer about as fast as we’ve gotten why the SDU (or should it be AES) powered back up at 18:25. SDU off, SDU on an hour later, still perplexed by that one but I still feel it holds some key.
The only problem I see with the drome site changes is how do you keep workers, caretakers, diggers, etc. silent for so long? Surely someone would spill the beans to a family member, in a bar, or brag, or have a rift between themselves in the hijacker camp. Can humans anywhere keep such a secret for so long?
It’s either somewhere on the 7th arc or something close to your theory. But here we all sit, almost a year after this flight took off and then vanished without a trace, not all that much closer to the truth or wreckage than we were then. At least most of the models have tweaked the data to basically the same area now and that is good.
Great stuff Jeff. Keep up the great work. Sorry I’ve had to step out for a couple months moving, ugh, but it’s great now. Nice to see a lot of new names on your blog as well as the old faithfuls. Never give up.
@ME & BM
Please agree to disagree. It’s gonna be a long ride.
Berzow Shooting
@Matty
Seems to be a very sad event not only for Russia. Berzow, representing economic development and liberal ideas, might have been the best choice for succession of Putin. There are nothing but military alternatives now. That makes this narrative about russian involvement into the disappearance somewhat more plausible.
I am not quite sure by now if the capture can be attributed to terrorist hijacking (which somehow went wrong/was thwarted by a good defence) or would rather be tied to actions of a state agency (there are not many choices). If there is reason to believe in a russian link, i am amazed about the silence of US and the abscence of any reaction.
@Brock, @all:
I did some checking and the Curtin boom and the alledged Maldive sighting can’t be connected, since the timing isn’t compatible.
The Curtin boom happened around 0:25 UTC. The alledged Maldive sighting was around 01:15 (06:15 local time). Even if we take the uncorrected Curtin boom time of 01:30, it can’t be connected, since the low and slow flying plane could’ve hardly gone within 15 min. to the location of the boom. And witnesses can’t have seen the plane earlier because sunrise was at 01:16 UTC (06:16 local time) on 08/03/2014) at Kudahuvadhoo.
Which makes me think, that the witnesses can’t have properly seen the color scheme of the plane anyway or they must’ve seen it even later. But the timing (sunrise on a Saturday) is right for one of the show stunts the charter pilots are so fond of when approaching the Maldives of according to a German traveller.
Anything wrong with my reasoning?
@Brock, @all:
The Curtin boom and the alledged Kudahuvadhoo sighting can’t be connected, since the timing isn’t compatible. The Curtin boom happened around 00:25 UTC. But the plane was seen around 01:15 UTC (06:15 local time). Even if we take the originally given time of the boom (01:30 UTC) it can’t be connected since the low and slow flying plane of the witnesses can’t have gone within 15 minutes to the Curtin boom location.
And the witnesses can’t have seen the plane earlier, since sunrise was at 01:16 UTC (06:16 local time) on 08/03/2014. But the timing of the sighting – sunrise on a Saturday – was perfect for one of the stunt approaches the charter pilots are so fond of for newly arriving passengers according to a German traveller.
Anything wrong with my reasoning?
Note to Jeff: If this turns out to be a double post, please delete one of them.
@CosmicAcademy
The HM370 involvement & Putin involvement leaves me cold. Could the steps of Russia really hold the secret?
Pardon me me..but, why would a nation with so many lackadaisical AC’s, available would be hijacking a 777?….to what end???
I will always listen to, not necessarily accept nearly some scenarios coming from the “Front-End” & “Back-End” of things regarding 370.
CosmicAcademy – In the past it has fallen to the US to stand up to Russia but I’d say that Putin senses, and correctly, that Obama is the first US president that does not have that resolve. I don’t want to go too far as a non US citizen bu he seemed to have more of a domestic policy sort of fix. A big bingle with Vlad was not in his script. Obama piped up at the time of MH370 and said it’s in the water, everyone go home. And he’s said nothing since. I don’t see a successor to Putin unless he dies and he has a bucket list for this life and not the next, and it’s a big concern. Assassinating people in the street – that’s brazen. Didn’t even bother with the polonium this time.
Cheryl – Russia is becoming a very worrying picture. They love this guy and they know he murders people. Propaganda must be in their DNA, or receptivity to it. And they all understand not to annoy Vlad. The west is still evil. Are they about to have their Hitler moment?
airlandseaman – If it’s in the search zone we will see it, in the meantime there is a movement away from the SIO among observers from all walks. It clearly doesn’t sit well with you but that’s their prerogative.
@chris Butler
The capture was not about the aircraft. From the perfect planning and execution it should be assumed that there is no trace of the aircraft left by now (maybe molten in a steel oven) in this scenario. The possible motif will come out sooner or later through leaks in the investigation if there is any.
The probability of this scenario seems a couple of 5 percent higher to me than the SIO, because the activity discovered by Jeff Wise is at least some hard fact, while nobody observed anything relating to the “FMT”. The FMT is only an idea, a virtual construct to align diverging facts. You have the plane heading NW from the radar docs and you have the plane heading due south from INMARSAT. Scientific logic would assume that only one of the two can be true. To make it fit we have the invention of the FMT, which might well be everything from a lucky shot to wishful thinking or even a spin from some spin doctor. Maybe there is classified satellite imagery to prove the FMT. Unless i see that, alternate narratives look much more promising to me.
@Chris, I don’t think it’s on the table anymore that whoever absconded with mh370 did it in order to get a 777 for nefarious purposes – unless the hijackers failed for some reason and the plane ended up accidentally at an location so far unknown. The same is true for for the idea that this was an attempt to abduct the passengers for ransom or political consessions since nobody has come forward with demands. Nor is it likely – as Jeff agrees by now – that it was some sort of retalliation of Putin for the March 6 sanctions. Personally I don’t believe that Putin abducted a plane full of Chinese and Malaysian passengers just for distraction from the Krim invasion. Putin simply didn’t care too much about the reaction of the Western world. It didn’t work anyway. Not in Europe where it was theme No1. If we are looking at a successesfully executed plan,the perps were more likely after items in the cargo or something a passenger might’ve carried. Or it was a hit at MAS and maybe the Malaysian government.
@Cheryl, Thank you. It’s great to have you back! You raise a good issue, with the problem of workers leaking the story. One potential answer — just spitballing here — is that the workers weren’t told the true nature of the work they were doing.
@Jeff
See May 30, 2014 11:06pm tweet by Steven Frischling @flyingwithfish:
“My sources at US DHS has remained steadfast since March that #MH370 landed safely and was dismantled & disposed of.”
~LG~
Brock,
Thanks for the clarification; I did not know about Scott Reef data. Is it available online somewhere?
But my question still stands: based on what Curtin Univ. discarded sections of the “sound line” back in June? Obviously, this could not be done based on 2 points, and they did not provide more details.
Airlandseaman,
Re: “Reasonable people can find rational logic to explain areas IVO 37.7S or 40.0S or points inbetween or near by”.
Exactly in opposite way: Reasonable people CANNOT find rational logic to explain areas IVO 37.7S or 40.0S or points inbetween or near by”.
If you can find logic, please tell: I am ready to accept any logical explanation. So far I did not hear any.
Please don’t mix logic and math – these are two different things, which have to complement each other rather than confront each other.
@LGHamilton,
this source (Steven Frischling) might not be trustworthy according to this site:
http://flightafrica.blogspot.de/20011706/impersonator-steven-frischling-aka.html
Sorry, typo in the link from my last comment:
http://flightafrica.blogspot.de/2011/06/impersonator-steven-frischling-aka.html
@ALSM
Why would you think that solution convergence is remarkable? Working with the same data and the same assumptions should lead to almost exactly the same location. I would find it unsettling if the solutions did not converge under those circumstances.
littlefoot Posted February 28, 2015 at 8:07 AM
Hi littlefoot ~
Thanks for the corrected link. I’ll add that to my dossier on Mr. Frischling. I am aware that Steven’s a “colorful character” but his comment took on a new twist in the light of Jeff’s current topic. The aftermarket for B777 parts is interesting:
http://m.aviationweek.com/awin/scarce-777-parts-will-affect-aftermarket
@littlefoot and @Cheryl ~
So nice to see both of you again!
~LG~
@LGHamilton,
Thanks for the welcome back.The looming anniversary of this sad conundrum as well as Jeff’s book seems to draw us in again.
As to your link: Who would’ve thought that a disassembled B 777 could be quite valuable. A good argument not to bury it anywhere, even if plane burials seem to be more common than we thought. But could the perps – in case they landed it safely somewhere and could hide it long enough – really sell parts of the plane without anybody identifying them as belonging to hm370?
@LGHamilton,
Are you hinting at Steven Frischling advertizing a disassembled B 777?
The guy sure has enraged a lot of people. There is whole blog dealing just with him and his frauds. lol!
littlefoot Posted February 28, 2015 at 9:32 AM
@littlefoot ~
Yes, it’s an ongoing problem. I assume the perpetrators would use a “chop shop serial number removal method”, and in the case of the engines I think there is a metal plate with all the manufacturing identification information that might need to be replaced with a fake plate.
https://www.locatory.com/en/news/view-press/stolen-and-counterfeit-spares-is-still-one-of-the-major-issues-in-the-aviation-industry-29.html
“According to the Russian Ministry of Transportation, in 2010 14500 out of all 60000 spares in the Russian aviation market were counterfeit.”
~LG~
littlefoot Posted February 28, 2015 at 10:03 AM
@littlefoot ~
No, I am not hinting that about Mr. Frischling. That thought never even crossed my mind. I was only intrigued by the word “dismantled” in his tweet. The “Maintenance Repair & Overhaul” industry refers to the process as a “teardown” operation.
~LG~
@LGHamiltonUSA Posted February 28, 2015 at 10:32 AM
@littlefoot ~
“Maintenance, Repair & Overhaul”
Aircraft Registration “9M-MRO”
Strange it is “MRO” in this case!
~LG~
@LGHamilton, I was joking, when I suggested Frischling was advertizing a stolen B777. Forgot the “twinkly”.
But to take up your ball – and don’t laugh at me, but we had so many strange narratives, that one more can’t hurt:
If you want to sell a disassembled B777, Russia/Kazakhstan seems to be the right place to go according to your links. And a crook/conman like Steven Frischling might’ve heard something. In this case the Russian mafia seems to be a likelier perp than Putin. If there was valuable cargo onboard – even better. This narrative would solve motive and the question where the plane is now: most likely sold! And if they were after the spare parts of a B777, it would make sense to assume a long and careful planning period, which poses a big problem with other narratives. Distorted pings would also make a lot of sense. If everybody assumes the plane to have crashed into the SIO, the buyers of spare parts won’t suspect that their black market purchases are from the missing mystery plane. If on the other hand the plane had simply vanished without trace, suspicions would be rampant.
I don’t know, if I should add a twinkly to my narrative or not…Is the Russian mafia really that unscrupolous and sophisticated?
littlefoot Posted February 28, 2015 at 11:03 AM
@littlefoot ~
I’m not an expert on Russian criminal activities but if you add in 3~5 tonnes of gold bullion then that would make a nice booty worth stealing which would appeal to a variety of unscrupulous actors.
~LG~
@LG and Littlefoot,
One could further divert suspicion simply by throwing some of those spare parts in the SIO. A single seat cushion tossed off a boat would expand the confidence in the SIO route dramatically. Or a suitcase left on a beach in WA or Indonesia for that matter.
It raised a few questions, though. The lack of debris implies the lack of any planted debris, so presumably it hasn’t happened. The other challenge would be making sure the debris is planted in the right place. Had debris been planted in the SCS, the gig would be up once the radar data arrived.
@All ~
The video for the lecture that Richard Cole attended is currently available online for IMarEST Members:
http://www.imarest.org/events-courses/events-conferences/stanley-gray-lecture/stanley-gray-lecture-2015
“IMarEST Stanley Gray Lecture 2015 – The Search for Malaysian Airlines Flight 370”
~LG~
“‘Wait,’ I say. ‘Are you saying that after the plane doors closed, nobody sent a single message?’
‘Before the doors closed!’ Ethan says.”
“Our PI has found out that the pilot asked for two hours of extra fuel.”
http://t.co/jmKSAeVs1B
@LGHamilton,
Yes the financial incentive would definetely be there, especially since it could probably be a slim operation. Only a few people would be needed to abduct the plane. The biggest challenge would be to find a suitable place for secretly disassembling and transporting the pieces to garages where they could be modified. Organized crime could probably do it.
And yes, there could be a number of actors and clients meeting the requirements. Victor’s Malaysian/Kazakh heist scenario would fit the scheme as well. And would tie Malaysia and it’s crappy handling of the case back into the story.
This scenario reminds me of the joke our Russian friends used to tell after a couple of vodkas about a worker who carried every day loads of transport boxes from a production plant and was strongly suspected of stealing something. But the cops could never figure out what it was – until they found out that the guy was stealing transport boxes.
After a couple of vodkas I could probably warm to this scenario. It has a certain simplicity going for it.
@JS, that’s the sad truth about this search. So much time has elapsed that the find of a few spare parts somewhere in the SIO would be met with a lot of suspicion if they don’t find parts of the fuselage as well. And even then suspicion won’t go away completely. The only remedy would be the retrieval of the black boxes and their analysation by an independent team. Slim chance that this will happen…
@Nihonmama
So with this extra fuel it wound seem all calculations and data models need re-evaluation.
No more 7th arc potentially somewhere else…
Where is Ivan The Terrible Jr’s chop shop ??
@Myron:
Re flight fuel planning — which is usually done by the airline’s operations center — and per confirmation from RWMann, it goes like this:
Block fuel (to destination)
PLUS fuel to filed ALTERNATE (destination)(unknown – we don’t have the complete manifest)
PLUS 30 minutes required ICAO reserves.
Myron,
Extra fuel is red herring.
MH370 took off at ~16.40, engines (apparently) flamed out at ~00.19, a total flying time of ~7 hrs 40 mins.
The normal duration of the flight from KL to Beijing is ~5 hrs 30 mins.
The aircraft therefore did have 2 hours extra fuel. This was considered completely normal by several different pilots posting on PPrune, for example this one from 15th March :
“quite common to have an extra couple of hours fuel for the unexpected behavior of Chinese ATC”
Pervasive in SO MANY peoples’ conversations about MH370, that it’s often breathtaking. Whoever you are anonymous sender on G+, thank you.
“People make use of other peoples’ cultural biases so its worth treating with suspicion any mass information incorporating them. Such as the idle Malay didn’t bother trying to contact the plane, alerting anyone to look for it, or worry about an unidentified plane flying very close to the enormous multinational military airbases in Butterworth.”
ALSM has made the public statement:
“And “…use by ALSM to promote the 7th arc…” is absolutely BS. The 7th arc is established fact as far as I am concerned”
The public record must be corrected.
On Feb.19 at 5:14pm in this forum, I asked ALSM, in essence: why do you still trust arc7, when no acoustic event near it was detected?
ALSM’s e-mail response, in essence: Oh, but there WAS, Brock! Hush, hush, and caveat, caveat, but the boys at LANL sure did find SOMETHING, all right, and “the strongest correlation was near 38-40 degrees south (on the 7th arc).”
If that is not “using the LANL study to promote the 7th arc”, I don’t know what is.
ALSM’s rebuttal (“why would I promote the 7th arc, if I already consider it established fact?”) is amusing. By that logic, there should be no such thing as evangelists (since, you know, they ALREADY believe), and the NRA would NEVER try to convince others of the right to bear arms.
At a VERY sensitive time for me, ALSM tried to convince me of the 7th arc’s provenance, by hinting strongly at acoustic evidence we now know to be bunk. I have a right to probe further.