BBC (UK) A wild and chilling theory about what happened to MH370, by Robert Cottrell
What if the MH370 flew north and landed safely on a Russian airstrip in Kazakhstan? Of course it’s a wild theory. It’s also a great yarn, with just enough data points to sound plausible.
Le Monde (France): Un an après, l’improbable disparition du MH370, by Florency de Changy
Mais si l’avion n’est pas au fond de l’océan Indien, où est-il ? Pour certains, il ne s’agit plus d’affiner des calculs déjà suraffinés, mais bien de remettre en cause la démarche tout entière. Se peut-il qu’une partie des données Inmarsat aient été trafiquées ? C’est la thèse du journaliste américain Jeff Wise qui vient de publier un livre numérique The Plane That Was not There (« L’avion qui n’était pas là »). Il propose un scénario dans lequel les « vraies fausses » informations d’Inmarsat ne sont là que pour faire diversion, alors que les vrais coupables sont les deux Ukrainiens et le Russe qui étaient assis à l’avant de l’avion et dont les passeports sont les seuls à ne pas avoir été vérifiés par leurs autorités nationales respectives. Le Groupe indépendant a immédiatement exclu Jeff Wise.
Das Bild (Germany): Das Sind die Theorien
Der amerikanische Wissenschaftsautor und Pilot Jeff Wise, der das Drama um MH370 seit Monaten für den US-Nachrichtensender CNN begleitet, glaubt sogar: Rebellen könnten die Maschine nach Zentralasien entführt haben – um die Boeing eines Tages für ihre Zwecke einzusetzen. Wise zu BILD: „Die Idee, MH 370 könnte nach Kasachstan verschleppt worden sein, ist nicht neu.”
Il Post (Italy): La teoria di Jeff Wise sul volo MH370, di Andrea Fiorello
Un anno dopo la scomparsa nel cielo dell’Asia del volo Malaysia Airlines MH370 – di cui non si hanno notizie dalle 2,40 del 3 marzo 2014, quando i radar persero le tracce dell’aereo circa due ore dopo il decollo da Kuala Lumpur con destinazione Pechino – il giornalista americano Jeff Wise ha pubblicato sul New York Magazine un lungo articolo che racconta la sua personale storia di “esperto” del volo MH370 e gli sviluppi delle teorie su cosa sia successo all’aereo, che lo hanno portato di recente a un’ipotesi che racconta come incredibile e convincente insieme.
RT (Russia): ‘True story!’ MSM spins theory that Putin hijacked MH370 and landed it in Kazakhstan, by Nebojsa Malic
Judging by his observations about MH17 and Russia, Wise has clearly fallen victim to what psychologists call confirmation bias – a tendency to see and interpret information in a way that confirms one’s preconceptions. However, almost the entire mainstream press in the West suffers from this when it comes to Russia – prompting several commentators to dub the phenomenon ‘Putin Derangement Syndrome.’ Witness the recent announcement by a “Pentagon think-tank” that Vladimir Putin is supposedly autistic, dutifully reported as fact. Now it seems Jeff Wise’s fantasy is due for the same treatment.
Daily Mail (UK): Vladimir Putin ordered Russian special forces to steal MH370 and secretly landed it at huge space port in Kazakhstan, claims expert
Jeff Wise, a U.S. science writer who spearheaded CNN’s coverage of the Boeing 777-200E, has based his outlandish theory on pings that the plane gave off for seven hours after it went missing… However Wise admits in New York Magazine that he does not know why Vladimir Putin would want to steal a plane full of people and that his idea is somewhat ‘crazy’.
Associated Press: Alien abduction? Stolen by Russia? MH370 theories keep coming, by Jane Wardell
The Independent Group (IG), comprised of around a dozen satellite, data, maths and aviation experts, expelled Wise this week following articles linked to his book.
“It’s a bunch of garbage,” said New Zealand-based IG member Duncan Steel.
Maclean’s (Canada): Inside the search for Flight MH370, by Chris Sorenson
Of course, because nothing to do with MH370 is ever simple, one of the Independent Group’s members, science writer and CNN aviation analyst Jeff Wise, recently wrote an article for New York magazine that laid out an alternative scenario, where MH370 might have flown north and landed at a remote runway in Kazakhstan. He called it his pet theory on MH370 and claims it fits the available data as well as any other.
News Corp Australia: Expert Jeff Wise links Vladimir Putin to MH370 disaster, by James Law
Now, a far-out theory from one of CNN’s chief commentators on the aviation disaster, science journalist Jeff Wise, has been circulated worldwide — and has more credibility than you might think.
WAToday (Australia): MH370 flew to Kazakhstan: Jeff Wise outlines new theory, by Michael Koziol
Others who have examined the hypothesis regard it as fanciful. Aviation expert Sylvia Wrigley, who wrote her own book on MH370, said no aircraft had previously been tracked using Inmarsat’s BFO data. “The idea that it was even possible was a major revelation, even to Inmarsat,” she wrote. Therefore, the notion that hijackers would deliberately falsify the data in order to lead investigators on a wild goose chase was “crazy” and “inconceivably sophisticated”, she said.
La Press (Canada): Et Si L’Avion S’Était Posé… Au Kazakhstan?, par Philippe Mercure
Les gens qui défendent des théories du complot cherchent habituellement à vous persuader à tout prix qu’ils détiennent la vérité. Jeff Wise est un autre type de personnage. Le pilote et journaliste scientifique américain a été l’un de ceux qui ont le plus commenté la disparition de l’avion MH370 depuis un an. Et il vient de lancer une thèse particulièrement controversée, celle voulant que l’avion ait été dérouté par des Russes, qui l’auraient fait atterrir… au Kazakhstan. La théorie, on s’en doute, a été accueillie avec beaucoup de scepticisme, incluant par son propre auteur.
« Il y a des matins où je me réveille et je me dis que c’est ce qui est arrivé. Et il y a d’autres matins où je juge que c’est complètement fou… et que je le suis aussi. »
GQ: The Vanishing, by Sean Flynn
The specifics are very technical, and there are problems matching parts of it to the available data. “The fuel model,” Wise says, for instance, “doesn’t really allow it.” The route would have traversed militarized and tightly monitored airspace, and the motive is completely unclear, except Vladimir Putin is an irrational thug. But it’s a reasoned, good-faith exercise, and Wise argues Kazakhstan is more probable than any other terrestrial landing and no more improbable than a crash into the ocean. “You either think the debris must have washed up by now or you think it evaded all those northern radars,” he says. “Which seems more impossible to you?”
@Matty,
that being said, concerning your question re: BFOs: I’d say, the calculations which places the plane in the Southern hemisphere are absolutely sound. It’s as “hard” as it gets. I have no problem with that. So, if someone will find the plane tomorrow in the Northern hemisphere, the data going into the calculations must’ve been faulty or fraudulent somehow, not the calculations themselves.
More tricky are the calculations where in the Southern hemisphere the plane might be, because all sorts of estimates and suppositions with varying degrees of accuracy are introduced into the calculations, thus producing different results.
@StevanG, All:
“why would they fake their own data if they are not allied with perpetrators?”
You may have missed this, but here’s the bigger question to ask: Why would Malaysia have invited BEA (France) to be involved in the overall investigation of MH370 if they (Malaysia) faked the radar data?
Nihonmama
Posted December 14, 2014 at 3:31 PM
Up Close: Inside an IG Southern Route
Victor:
“British sources told _The West Australian _that within 24 hours of the disappearance on March 8, Inmarsat advised the relevant Malaysian authorities of their findings but were rebuffed.
‘They didn’t want to know,’ the source said.”
That sure is an interesting article.
1. British sources (and unnamed).
2. Because of what’s missing — (and Geoffrey Thomas, who wrote that article, wouldn’t have any reason to know this unless he was following DS blog – or was tipped off) — namely, what was told to Duncan Steel:
“Duncan
2014/04/05 at 22:15
My information is (as noted in other comments from me) that the UK AAIB has refused to make the ping data to others. I do not mean ‘the public’. Specifically, I have been told that the UK AAIB has refused to make the ping data available to the relevant French authority (the BEA: Bureau d’Enquêtes et d’Analyses pour la sécurité de l’aviation civile) despite the French transport ministry making a direct request. The BEA – which I am again told was invited to be involved in the overall investigation by the Malaysian Government due to the fact that it was the BEA that was investigating the last event even vaguely like this, the Air France crash into the Atlantic a few years ago – apparently sent a team to KL but after waiting for ten days for the ping data they gave up and went home to Paris. Of course, the information I have been given by someone who wishes to remain anonymous might be wrong, but s/he is an experienced airline captain with close contacts to the BEA.
The above might mean that the JACC does not have the ping data; or perhaps the British would give the data to Australia and not to France?
Whichever, I’d suggest to readers that they might prompt some decent investigative journalists to follow that lead and shake it until it hurts. Not your local media. I am talking about the NY Times, the Washington Post, Le Monde, Der Spiegel, The Times, The Daily Telegraph (London), The Guardian.
Cheers and best of luck,
Duncan”
http://www.duncansteel.com/archives/549/comment-page-1#comment-903
Now of course, Duncan’s source could have it all wrong. But if it’s true, there’s a major disconnect in this part of the ‘narrative’.
Did anyone bother to pass Duncan’s tip on to the media?
StevanG asks “…but isn’t the SIO theory based on fixed altitude (and/or speed and/or heading)?!”?
Great question. The answer is yes, but these variables are bounded by a number of physical, practical and human factors. They are not random variables. The possibilities fall within manageable ranges. I don’t care to wander too far into the weeds trying to explain all those factors, but the bottom line is that we (and others) have investigated how sensitive the end point location estimate is to all those variables and many more. So, for example, one can vary the time of the assumed FMT (Final Major Turn) and end up on the 7th arc anywhere along the arc within a range of a few hundred miles. Or one can vary the altitude between FL350 and FL410, and that also has a small effect on the 7th arc latitude. But these parametric sensitivity studies do not lead to a conclusion that we are up against insurmountable odds and uncertainty. Quite the opposite.
It is important to note that these parametric sensitivity studies provide insight into which variables cause the greatest uncertainty. But we don’t just guess at values for each variable separately, then plug them in to a model. Instead, we specify ranges for the variables, and then allow an iterative computation to find global minimums where all the variables are required to be internally consistent. It’s like a Kalman filter or LSF.
We also try to answer key questions using more than one algorithm and data set to look for independent validation of methods and assumptions. So for example, we believe based on post 1825 BFO analysis that the FMT was close to 1840. Some others, like Ulich, believe it was sooner, around 1825-1828. But we have also run separate models to compute the end point based only on the post 1941 data set, using no point assumption for the starting point, then back propagated the path to see where it intersected with the post 1822 radar path extrapolation. And guess what. They intersect at the 1840 location, not the 1825 location. This does not guarantee the FMT, but it is an example of the methods we have used to make every effort to verify assumptions. Here, we have two independent models using independent data sets that give the same answer. That provides added confidence in the models and data interpretation.
I said I did not want to wander off too far into the weeds, and we are getting close, so I’ll stop here and just urge everyone to have some confidence in the Inmarsat data, the models and analysis, and cheer for the search team. They have money for about 3 more months. Let’s hope they have enough to complete the search.
@alsm thanks! Valuable information there.
So does that mean there is not even 1% chance the plane finished a bit northern from the search area if we let speed/heading/altitude all to be variable in a kind of erratic flight path?
@MuOne,
I agree with you that the radar tracks deserve the forensic treatment as well. I’m not worried about the different altitudes of the plane which circulated in the beginning because primary radar isn’t that precise re: altitude. That’s one of the many things I learned here. That’s why I try to tell myself that spending time here, searching the net and trying to understand things I never needed to know in the first place, is not wasted time at all. 😉
My gut – which of course is not reliable at all – tells me that the presented radar tracks were “better” and less spliced together if they were completely invented for some nefarious reason. If someone wanted to convince us that the plane eventually ended up in the SIO, wouldn’t it be sensible to invent radar tracks which actually show a major turn south instead of having the plane travelling northwestwards before it vanished from screen? You wouldn’t even need the BFO analysis then. So, I’d say the tracks are real and my only questions are if they really show mh370 and why the Malaysian officials presented them so late and told contradicting stories. Most experts believe the tracks do show mh370, so personally I’m not questioning it atm.
And I certainly don’t want to start a new debate on that subject, especially if the word “Light..ing” or “Blitz” in German features prominently in it.
What I DO question is their completeness or that they are really the only tracks available, since nations are traditionally cagey if it concerns military radar coverage.
“So, I’d say the tracks are real and my only questions are if they really show mh370 and why the Malaysian officials presented them so late and told contradicting stories.”
I’d say it’s because of their general ineptitude&clumsiness not because of any conspiracy. I see it’s really hard for you people from the west to comprehend such things but if you lived in a 3rd world country(like me) you would understand it better 😉
@ALSM: sorry – though the analysts (inside AND out) and searchers are heroes in my book, my pompoms have lost 98% of their strands.
Time to take a hard look at the Inmarsat data’s chain of custody.
For the record: I’ve never accused Inmarsat of masterminding ANYTHING; by far the most plausible scenarios have them either ignorant of any spoof, or (at worst) arm-twisted into it by a flagship client.
@Stevan,
Believe me, there’s a lot of ineptness and clumsiness in Germany, where I live, as well 😉
but nothing like here, mein Freund 😉
StevanG:
Nothing is 100% certain. The question is, where are you going to look first? I emphasize “where first?”. The 7th arc close to 37.71S, 88.75E is the IG recommendation. If not there, then look up and down the arc near there, and on both sides of the arc within ~20 NM or so. It is not an exact science, but the plane is certainly not 100 miles from the arc, or even 50. Again, where do you start? Where do you go next if that does not work out?
They should not look too far from the area described above, absent some new information leading to a completely different analysis. The only new information that could lead us away from this current search area would be evidence that the Inmarsat data has some unknown systematic error. There is no credible evidence or analysis to support the various theories that the BFO or BTO data was somehow hacked. But what if the BFO or BTO bias values, calibrated on the ground at KL Gate C1, somehow changed after the power went off for an hour? That is a reasonable question to ask. But it is also a question that has been thoroughly investigated by the ATSB Satellite Working Group (Honeywell/Thales, Boeing, Square Peg, Inmarsat, …). They ran tests on multiple AES terminals of the same type and learned that the BTO and BFO bias values are very repeatable after multiple power on/off cycles. So we ask ourselves, OK, but what if the AES was cold soaked (around -30C if the A/C was off) between 1730 and 1822? Would that have changed the bias values after 1825? Again, a good question, but there is no reason to believe that would happen from a design POV. The equipment is designed to work over a very large operating temperature range, and we see the MH370 AES come back to life promtly after 1825 and settle down within minutes. It did take slightly longer for the BFO values to stabilize after the 1825 login, compared to the logins at 1559 and 0019, but by 1840 at the very latest, the evidence is clear that the bias values were once again consistent with the overall 8 hr pattern.
So we keep asking probing questions. We constantly challenge our own assumptions and analysis. But we have not found any reason to doubt the overall integrity of the Inmarsat data base, notwithstanding a handful of questionable values which we do not use. We don’t rely on every individual data point. We rely on the total data set as a pattern. As long as the working assumption remains that this data set is sound, then ATSB is generally looking in the right place.
@ Brock McEwen
“H370 shot down shortly after 17:21 UTC in Gulf of Thailand (war games gone wrong)”
how would they take care of the myriad of pieces of the downed plane, so that not a single piece would get washed up on shores, thus revealing the war games accident ?
“Again, where do you start? Where do you go next if that does not work out?”
the main problem is the search is economically constrained, the assigned money isn’t infinite otherwise we could just search the whole area around 7th(and 6th) arc
so maybe looking first at the areas cheaper for search although there is less probability? Or maybe revising assumptions to cover wider area?
What I’m struggling with is why the flight that prior to FMT changed speed&heading&altitude several times is assigned constant altitude all of a sudden, like another pilot took control after FMT?
StevanG:
The heading changed a couple of times, but I have seen no evidence of any significant changes in TAS or altitude. Early reports that the altitude changed between IGARI and 1822 were totally bogus. From a detailed analysis of the primary radar track, there is no evidence that the speed changed significantly except to the extent that the Ground Speed changed a little due to wind.
“Many, but not all, of the investigators and experts who have reviewed the limited evidence say Mr. Zaharie, or perhaps the co-pilot, Fariq Abdul Hamid, is the likeliest culprit, though they caution that the evidence is limited and circumstantial, and that the theory is full of holes, like lack of a motive.”
http://t.co/KiExJe8enf
From that NYT “Rogue Pilot” article’s sidebar in reference to transponder and ACARS: “Both of those systems were turned off.”
Can these definitively be said to have been turned off vs. not functioning?
Over 26,000 km2 now covered(ATSB) – rounds out to about 44% done.
@Peter Norton: I did not expect to have the “where is the debris?” argument thrown in my face for the SCS scenario. Surely this concern doesn’t drive you from my speculation over to the debris-free SIO speculation, whose surrounding shores are just as debris-free, and whose current impact best-estimate region was SCOURED in mid-March by planes, ships, and satellites – for miles in every direction…?
But first off: I don’t BELIEVE this scenario. Like Jeff’s, it is a HYPOTHESIS which explains an awful lot. I offer it mainly to ensure the list of suspects doesn’t leave out folks I know for a fact have lied to us about the search, and their role in it. Until the search leaders (the ones pulling the Aussies’ strings) who have made a hash of this search turn over their models and data for detailed public scrutiny – and explain to us why they lied about key evidence – scenarios like these can’t be ruled out.
Second, this hypothesis is part of a FAMILY of signal-data-as-cover-story scenarios – some of which involve a landing. While a landing deals with your debris issue, I don’t even want to think about what it would mean. So I’ll give your question a go:
China photographed some big pieces March 9; Viet Nam reported having a bead on the whole crash site. And once the whole world’s attention was fixated on the SIO, it may have been easier to quietly fine-tooth-comb the calm waters of the SCS.
Finally: I can imagine types of ordinance which effectively disintegrate their target at altitude (although this relegates McKay’s sighting back to the “unexplained” pile, along with every other eyewitness account).
@Brock,
I see – as long as the search roughly spirals out from highest to lowest, I’m on board. However, note that in Matty’s article there is discussion of prioritizing “bad weather” areas first. I’d almost suggest a cellular model in which each “cell” of the search region is assigned a probability (according to the model, not according to what hasn’t been found there). That way, for example, you could say that half of the areas within 1 stddev of the mean have been searched, so 34% can be ruled out.
The answer should be between Matty’s by-area number of 44% and your cumulative probability of 98%. I suspect it’s closer to 98% myself. On the other hand, if it isn’t, we really shouldn’t be cheering them but rather asking them why they are wasting millions on low prob areas before exhausting the high prob areas.
On the chain of custody, I couldn’t agree with you more. I would focus on both the human and non-human aspects – for example, the chain of custody between the time the signal was received and the time the exact value was written in the log. Of all the links in the satellite data chain, non-critical software operations like logging tend to be poorly tested.
Interesting that we have several values that can be categorically excluded. Yet these made it to the log. If the log was really measuring round trip, the laws of physics would seem to preclude bad data. The fact that bad data can appear in the log suggests the value is not raw, but derived, and that the derivation is incorrect for certain conditions. If any of the BTOs must be excluded, the logging mechanism is suspect, because a round trip is s round trip, and it should properly handle a round trip time from a cold AES as well as a warm AES.
@Nihonmama
Those reprehensible NYT reporters and investigators daring to point a finger at Zaharie. Shameful, really.
@Brock,
My post was written on the basis that arc 6 represents time near flame out, arc 7 late state of spiral dive.
This then infers, that arc seven intersects the focal area of Richard’s spiral. I.e.the plane would be within a couple of miles of arc seven with equal high probability inside and outside, while the probability right ON the arc would be higher than a couple of miles perpendicular away from the arc.
Cheers
Will
@alsm but what happened between 18:22 and 19:41 arc? If you assume the speed was constant that would undoubtedly mean it would have to cross indonesian airspace no? And we have very strong statements from indonesian officials that it didn’t happen.
http://031c074.netsolhost.com/WordPress/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Interim-Report-Figure-1b.jpg
(although you probably saw it already)
is it possible the flight around FMT was erratic and would it corroborate Kate the sailoress sighting which doesn’t confirm south heading at that moment?
StevanG:
Of course, the exact path is unknown, but this path is consistent with the 1825-1840 BFO data and a back progated independent solution for the path derived from the 1941-0019 data set.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vwi0j4mc6a89wt4/V13.1%20with%20Yap%20Intersection.pdf?dl=0
I understand that, but if you could plot the most probable path from 18:22 to 19:41 would it help narrowing the analysis?
I didn’t follow that well but why investigators didn’t in cooperation with Indonesia and MAS set up the base in Banda Aceh with B777 in MAS livery and then simulate what happened that night, putting the sailoress on the same route and trying to recreate the same situation from her sighting? She can’t draw the exact picture in her head but if she saw it live again she would much easier remember it.
If they could do that and find her sighting true it would greatly help investigators, no?
Also looking at your path, what’s suggesting going north to IGOGU instead of going SANOB -> NOPEK? Is Yap’s intersection the only possible place of FMT?
CNN will air that special on MH370 tonight at 10 p.m. I’ll be watching, and I hope there’s a lot of Jeff Wise airtime this weekend so I can get my fix!
StevanG:
“…what’s suggesting going north to IGOGU instead of going SANOB -> NOPEK?…”?
The raadar track cleaarly shows that the path was N571.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/9kd04jpok4wz17o/FMT_2015-03-06.pdf?dl=0
‘A British pilot’s theory that flight MH370 performed a final “fly-past” of Penang island before intentionally landing in the sea has been described as “credible” by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau. He believes the “fly-past” holds the key to the perpetrator, suggesting that Shah did a “nice long turn and looked down on Penang”.’
http://www.theweek.co.uk/flight-mh370/57641/flight-mh370-pilot-carried-out-final-fly-past-of-penang
Wouldn’t a ‘fly-past’ imply an altitude change? Described as “credible” by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau? Interesting.
alsm : indeed, but only for a 20 miles or so past MEKAR, that turn could be started at NILAM too then(although it would be not that sharp turn like at IGOGU)?
@DL that’s right, I have also read somewhere that he started climbing after entering Malacca Strait however I can’t remember if that was officialy confirmed.
“PhilD
Posted March 5, 2015 at 8:51 PM
From that NYT “Rogue Pilot” article’s sidebar in reference to transponder and ACARS: “Both of those systems were turned off.”
Can these definitively be said to have been turned off vs. not functioning?”
Hey Phil, yes, I too keep noticing this assumption that it was a full power off. Unless more tests have been done, I believe no one knows for sure either way? And I feel it’s very important to keep this in mind, as the nefarious and mysterious connotations of a full power off are very different to the conclusions that are suggested by a loss of signal occurring at a sharp turn.
I’d put my money on Ghyslain.
VIDEO: Ghyslain Wattrelos says France isn’t being supportive and he has no hope in the official MH370 investigation. So now he’s using an investigator with secret service connections.
http://t.co/hYPK0hCt97
Airlandseaman,
You really deserve a warning from Jeff for presenting a hypothesis as a fact. It is not clear at all that MH370 followed N571, and even that it followed WPs. If your theory and accuracy are correct, why was not the airplane found where it was supposed to be? To me it is already a sufficient proof that at least one of your assumptions is wrong.
Jeff,
Have you considered the Freescale employees as a motive for Putin? Freescale (previously Motorola) makes embedded chip technology. The dozen or more Freescale employees on the flight traveled from plant to plant for quality control. What if one or more of them actually worked for the NSA and also assured NSA backdoor/evesdropping technology was embedded on these chips? What if Putin wanted access to this technology without suspicion that he had access? What better way then to fake an accident that allowed him to kidnap the techs that had the access? No bodies, no suspicion that they are still alive or captured. What do you think of that theory as a motive?
Oleksandr they can’t pinpoint exact location and the area is not searched completely so there is still a chance.
Also they’ve got N571 from the malaysian radar track and I believe the pilot would want to take official air route as to be less suspicious to indonesian radar operator(although he was out of their airspace).
No need to be rude.
Airlandseaman, Brock:
Re Curtin data.
ALSM post March 2, 2015 at 8:29 PM:
“The HA01 signal had a bearing of 246.9 ± 1.0°”.
– Could any of you pls remind where this information is coming from? I think I see this number for the very first time.
– Which signal is it about (time)?
– Why did this information pop up only now?
Brock, could you pls confirm which time series of the pressure correspond to which station in the plot you provided earlier?
Thanks.
Jeff,
This article appeared about 10 days ago. The assertion is made that it is impossible to take over control of a 777
in flight from the E/E bay. I was wondering if anyone had looked into the validity (or not) of that claim.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/johngoglia/2015/02/25/hijacking-malaysia-airlines-flight-370-from-electronics-bay-not-possible/
I am not following thinks closely, so I may have missed where it was discussed, in which case, I apologize for the duplication.
Path after loss of 2nd engine
@MuOne @Brock
I have continued the analysis of the aircraft path after loss of the 2nd engine and folded in the BTO measurements at 00:11:00 and 00:19:29UT. The second measurement is corrected in the Ashton et al paper to 18400us.
I considered constant bank angle turns from 00:15:49UT, the estimated time of loss of the second engine (3m40s before the 00:19:29 BTO measurement) and calculated the bank angle needed for the aircraft to acquire the 7th arc at that instant. The turn then continues for a total period of 12mins, a time mentioned as the potential duration of the flight after loss of the 2nd engine. As the speed reduces the path has a spiral form.
I then added the standard errors on the BTO measurements to represent the range of actual 6th and 7th arc positions that are consistent with the BTO data, and run the simulation of the aircraft path for each case (several thousand simulations were run).
I found that the final destinations (at the end of the 12 minute simulation) can be split into two groups. The first is very widespread, over 180 degrees of azimuth, and follows from paths that turn to the South, or go roughly straight on. The bank angles for these paths are small, less than 6 degrees.
The other group of destinations is grouped inside the 7th arc, at an average distance of 15km from that arc. The bank angles for these paths are between 12 and 22 degrees.
There are varying online accounts of what was has been seen in aircraft simulators. Some work described in John Fiorentino’s blog discusses low bank angles between 5 and 25 degrees, and flight durations of 12 minutes. Mike Exner has mentioned much higher bank angles and thus high rates of descent.
The work described here is consistent with the former interpretation, with the turn being to the left and ending inside the 7th arc. So far only around 50% of the area of the left turn possible destinations have been covered by the detailed search.
The report discusses the details and also the sensitivities of the model to the variables, which do not seem to be large.
Clearly, this is taking the analysis down to the single data point level – there is absolutely no redundancy in the data. Comments welcome of course, but this work is firmly within the paradigm that the data is a valid representation of the aircraft path to within the errors. Data spoofing has been discussed elsewhere.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/gbdj6qib6jrxfiv/MH370_final_path_analysis_RE_Cole_issue_1.pdf?dl=0
StevanG,
This topic has been discussed many times. In brief, the radar data show that MH370 has flown along only one section of N571, between two its waypoints. Based on the radar data, the altitude was varying. The later was discarded by IG on the basis of incompatibility with the AP hypothesis.
ALSM is a very knowledgeable person, but unfortunately he stubbornly mixes up assumptions and facts…
Brocks hypothesis
@Brock
By coincidence, the day before you posted your entry, i was thinking about expressing the event in terms of formal logic. And if i try to find the most simple of all possible solvings, that would be an end to the flight at IGARI, which allows for your scenario.
Its interesting that something similar indeed did happen in my youth, where a commercial airliner flying from Lybia to Rome, Italy was shot down by NATO forces, i dont recall the thing very good, its more than 40 years away, but it was declared an air traffic accident and the files closed for some decades. The shootdown was much later proved. In this incident the location of the wreckage was known, but the effort of spins and desinformation to deny any NATO involvement was similar and very effective.
So the hypothesis is not just trash, but although the probability values for the allowance of radar plot and southpole flight would be quite low in my model, they need to be accounted for in any hypothesis at least in form of the event of their mere existence.
I think, a big step forward could be, to assign probabilities to all events in your list and then try to formalize a couple of most probable chains of events.
@airlandseaman compromise suggestion
i do understand that you defend your friends and partners in the business, and you do right so. I would do the same. As to the Inmarsat data we have different assessments of the probability of electronic attacks against this A/C target. For me the probability is very high, you see the probability very low. If INMARSAT would consider to check its logs for possible test runs of a spoofing scenario that eventually took place during the last 4 years (according to GerryS information), and they honestly dont find anything, the probability for a spoofing scenario would be considerably lower and it would be more responsible to continue a search in the SIO locations.
Capt Simon Hardy’s calculations. MH370 Track from waypoint Anoko to “Splashdown”.The position is S38.082 E87.400.
http://www.flightglobal.com/features/mh370/
@CosmicAcademy
Spoofing is just going too far with imagination, anyone having logistics to precisely spoof the data and jam all the radars around would have much easier ways to acquire a 777 and/or anything/anyone which/who was on board.
It doesn’t make any sense only for that reason.
Still a nice movie scenario which should be put on the screens(I don’t watch movies but I’d gladly visit cinema for that one).
@CosmicAcademy,
The plane crash you alluded to was “Aerolinee Itavia Flight 870”. It’s indeed a chilling example of how obfuscation and misinformation can be employed very effectively.
Please read the English and the German wikipedia version, if you’re able to do so. They are interestingly quite different. It’s extremely worrying that experts are possibly willing to lie and give false testimony as to the cause of the crash, in this case bomb vs missile. The case is apparently still not completely solved.
@CosmicAcademy, @Brock:
“a commercial airliner flying from Lybia to Rome, Italy was shot down by NATO forces”.
Are you referring to Itavia870, aka ‘Ustica’?
That flight was from Bologna to Palermo, Italy — but there was a Libya component. The potential parallel has always been a question for me.
“At the time, proponents say, Italy was covertly allowing Libyan aircraft to fly through its airspace undisturbed. They did so by gliding in the slipstream of Italian domestic aircraft, where they could not be detected by radar. On the night of June 27, 1980, there were unsubstantiated reports that Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi was on one of those planes, the theory goes, and French forces tried to shoot it down to kill the Libyan leader, but hit the DC-9 by mistake. Don’t ask why. It has to do with rebels in North Africa and jockeying for oil concessions between Italy and France.
But Colonel Qaddafi had been warned of the plan and never boarded his plane, according to this reconstruction, which also says the pilot made a successful emergency landing at sea. There, a British submarine reached it and deployed scuba divers to plant explosives to sink the plane and to silence potential witnesses to the assassination attempt.”
http://t.co/bnSXuJDl2X
StevanG,
In addition to the previous.
These assumptions are:
1. AP;
2. FMT;
3. Constant altitude;
4. WPs;
5. BFOs are not affected by environmental factors such as turbulence;
6. INS provides accurate data to other systems;
7. Spiral dive.
Did I forget anything else?
However, this set of assumptions is not compatible with the logic and all the [presumably] facts.
Take, for example, ALSM’s:
“From a detailed analysis of the primary radar track, there is no evidence that the speed changed significantly except to the extent that the Ground Speed changed a little due to wind”.
I want to ask him: have you received and analyzed the raw radar data to make such a statement? As far as I know, even a reason for the discrepancy between the “Lido image” track and ATSB track was not confirmed.
I agree those assumptions don’t have to be 100% right however they are basing them on a BFO&BTO model they fit nicely, they don’t fit any logic or motivation but the math says so.
The thing is I myself wouldn’t dismiss completely other locations on the southern arc until hard evidence disproves them(that’s why asked alsm for detailed explanation), at the end the assumptions they have set are still just assumptions and they don’t have to be the only solution to the equation.
@CosmicAcademy:
“If INMARSAT would consider to check its logs for possible test runs of a spoofing scenario that eventually took place during the last 4 years (according to GerryS information), and they honestly dont find anything, the probability for a spoofing scenario would be considerably lower and it would be more responsible to continue a search in the SIO locations.”
A sound suggestion.
@StevanG:
Did you read what Gerry Soejatman disclosed?
If you think spoofing is something too far-fetched for anything but the movies, consider this:
1.Hackers spoofed the AIS system – which tracks ships worldwide.
MIT Technology Review, 10.18.13
“Ship Tracking Hack Makes Tankers Vanish from View”
2. Brad Haines, aka ‘RenderMan’ (@ihackedwhat on Twitter) spoofed ADS-B at DEFCON (2012) http://t.co/QF9BZfiqMC
Haines and Kyle Sanders, a combat pilot with a background in space systems engineering, wrote about that spoof and other in Recode: 4.10.14 “#MH370: Tragic Flights of Fancy”
@Nihon
it’s not about spoofing, it’s about the motivation for spoofing and everything which would have to be done after.
It requires awful lot of imagination.
StevanG,
In opposite way: BTO & BFO model is developed to fit these assumptions. If you make other assumptions, and manage to find such a trajectory that fits BTO & BFO, then you will have other terminal point.
Even within the “AP class” of hypothesis, there are many trajectories that can fit BTO/BFO, depending on the assumptions with regard to the whereabouts of the airplane during the period 18:25-19:41 (replace a single FMT with something else).
@StevanG:
On motive:
IF (hypothetical) some clever perp with loads of imagination (and there are MANY of those in the world) used a spoof to take MH370, does it make sense to think they’d employ such an elegant scheme simply to dump the plane in the ocean?
That’s why Einstein said: “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
And it all brings to mind one of my favorite (Chinese) proverbs:
“People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.”
StevanG – They clearly didn’t bother to jam radars. If the plane didn’t go missing then we would never have heard about any Malay/Thai/Indon radar. People seem to be under the impression that radar is some kind of dragnet, not so. And it’s not proposed that acquiring “a” 777 was the game. Maybe “this” 777. In the late 90’s Putin is suspected to have dropped an apartment block and killed many of his own to justify military action in Georgia. Since then it’s been Chechnya, Crimea, Ukraine. Crimea and Ukraine line up as perfect cover with MH370 and MH17.
On the night it went missing MH370 proved you can sail down borders while everyone just monitors. That was already known. Many parts of the world that is the case.
http://www.watoday.com.au/world/russia-expert-warns-western-powers-are-in-the-logic-of-1914-on-putin-ukraine-20150306-13wzq0.html
Remember that MH17 was in a train of aricraft on a commercial route. It had planes 90 seconds in front and behind. The launcher came in the day before and immediately left. An Antonov? Really?
Oleksandr I know that but they don’t have another way to test if it’s a mere coincidence or not other than to try to find the plane there… and I can’t say they must be wrong as long as the whole that area is not searched.
I also think there is a possibility someone from the australian part of the team has got a confidential information from australian military regarding JORN radar sightings that night (if it was active at all at full power). And that’s the information they wouldn’t want to disclose.
@Nihon where would he go with the plane then? The only non-monitored reachable runway he could land on is somewhere in Somalia and to reach it he would have to fly there directly which would imply flying at altitude relatively close to Diego Garcia and getting visible on their radar.
Just too far fetched sorry.