Earlier this month, at a meeting between ministers from Australia, China, and Malaysia, the countries involved in the search for MH370 announced that, in the event that the plane was not found within the current search zone by the end of mission in May, the area would be increased “to extend the search by an additional 60,000 square kilometres to bring the search area to 120,000 square kilometres.” (The new area is outlined in red in the image shown here.)
I think it’s worth considering the logic behind this decision.
Last year the ATSB spent months carefully calculating the boundaries of the original 60,000 sq km area. What they wound up with was a rectangle about 1200 km long and ranging in width from 48 to 62 kilometers wide, straddling the 7th arc.
This area fit what the ATSB believed to be the most likely scenario for the final phase of the plane’s flight: that it flew straight on a southerly heading on autopilot and then shortly after 0:11 ran out of fuel — first one engine, then the second. After the second engine stopped, a backup system called the Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) would have kicked in, restoring a limited amount of electrical power. The plane’s satellite communications system would have rebooted, leading to the final “half ping” at 0:19.
As soon as the second engine failed, the engine would have entered a unpowered glide, much as the “Miracle on the Hudson” A320 did after its engines ingested a flock of geese. In this case, however, there would have been no pilot at the controls to guide the plane in for a smooth landing. What’s more, the power interruption would have turned off the autopilot. Uncontrolled, the plane would have gradually banked into a turn, which then would have grown steeper, devolving into a tight spiral dive that would have ended with the plane impacting the water at high velocity.
Let’s call this the “Unpiloted Fuel Exhaustion Scenario,” or UFES.
Under these circumstances, it would be virtually impossible for the plane to have traveled very far from the 7th ping arc. In a paper released last week, IG member Brian Anderson calculates that by 0:19 the plane would low and have been traveling downward at a tremendous rate:
… the 7th arc position calculation should assume that the aircraft was at or near sea level (the surface of the reference ellipsoid) at time 00:19:38, and hence only a little above sea level at 00:19:29, and descending rapidly.
The UFES, combined with careful analysis of the Inmarsat data, adds up to a clear and falsifiable hypothesis about the location of MH370’s final resting place: it should lie within a few kilometers of the 7th arc, and certainly be within the ATSB search area. The search team has consistently expressed absolute confidence in the hypothesis. Indeed, their language has only gotten stronger with the passage of time. Earlier this month, a Fugro executive told Bloomberg, “We’re absolutely in the right spot — all the analysis has been done. It’s actually getting more exciting as we get closer.”
The fly in the ointment is that the search area described in the area is now almost completely scanned, and the plane is not inside it. When the last square kilometer of the current 60,000 square kilometer search zone is scanned sometime next month, the hypothesis will have been falsified. The UFES will have been shown to be incorrect.
The failure to find the plane in the search area should not be regarded as failure. Rather, it is an important piece of information about the fate of MH370. It allows us to narrow down the list of possibilities going forward.
But it does force us to confront a difficult question: How do we best rationally proceed?
One approach would be to assess the different assumptions that underlie the UFES, judge which ones are most likely wrong, and then examine the available alternatives. Perhaps, for instance, the 0:19 half-ping was not caused by fuel exhaustion, but some other event. In that case, the plane might have flown on for an unknown period of further time.
Perhaps aircraft performance calculations, which would rule out scenarios like that proposed by Simon Hardy, are incorrect and the plane really did fly far to the southwest.
Another alternative is that the airplane was not unpiloted, but that a conscious individual was actively flying the plane at the time of fuel exhaustion. If that were the case, then the plane could have glided a considerable distance before impacting the sea; the ATSB’s June report states “the aircraft could glide for 100+ NM.”
A fourth alternative is that, as I have suggested, the BFO data upon which the UFES is predicated cannot be trusted, because it was tampered with by sophisticated hijackers. Indeed, we know that the system that generates the BFO data was indeed tampered with, in a way that implies sophisticated knowledge by whoever carried it out. If such a spoof were carried out, then the plane would likely be many thousands of miles from the southern Indian Ocean—most likely, in Kazakhstan. That scenario would explain why no debris has been found in the southern Indian Ocean, and provide a link to what would otherwise be an extremely unlikely coincidence: the Russian shoot-down of a second Malaysian Airlines 777 just four months later.
The ATSB has as yet given no indication that they realize that the the UFES is incorrect, or what kind of scenario would be compatible with the new search area. They have specifically stated that they view the Kazakhstan scenario as impossible, but have not revealed any evidence that would rule out a spoof.
The only insight we have into the ATSB’s actual line of reasoning is by looking at the new search area that they have laid out. Essentially what they’ve done is to take the current search area and make it bigger in every direction. There doesn’t seem to be any operational principle besides “let’s keep looking.”
The ATSB’s proposed new search area might simply be an example of what psychologists call “perseveration.” This is a pattern of behavior often seen in individuals who are highly stressed to the point of panic, and, unable to come up with a solution to their problem, simply continue to repeat the same unsuccessful actions over and over again. (An example I cite in my book Extreme Fear is the case of Civil War soldiers who, after suffering a misfire in their muskets, simply continue to cram more and more cartridges down their rifle barrels; after one battle guns were found stuffed with 10 or 11 cartridges.)
Perhaps the time has come for the taxpayers funding the SIO search to demand a more rational approach.
UPDATE: Soon after I put up this post, one reader commented via Twitter that continuing to search the southern Indian Ocean at least provided jobs and did no actual harm. I disagree. Apart from spending taxpayers’ money unnecessarily, it serves to put the mystery of MH370 on ice–allowing the authorities can say “we’re doing the best we can” while running out the clock on the public’s interest in the case. They’re buying the right to pretend, for one more year, that their assurances haven’t been empty and that the UFES is still a reasonable (indeed, the only reasonable) possibility. This means that more profitable lines of inquiry will continue to be ignored.
Jeff:
If there is a flaw in the analysis, it is at the margin. IOW…they are looking in the right general area, but the plane could be just slightly outside the 60km^2 area…not thousands of miles away. The question should be: Which side(s) should be stretched a little? My best guess is that it is inside the 7th arc, for the reasons outlined by Brian. For this reason, I would make additional area “inside the arc” IVO S37-S38 the highest “add-on priority area”.
@airlandseaman, I think a strong case could be made for what you suggest, as well as for stretching the zone to the southwest. If the search is to continue I think the ATSB would do well to explain their reasoning in a paper like the ones they released in June and October.
Jeff:
I agree. My second “stretch” would be to the area further SW along the arc. The 3rd choice would be further outside the arc. I would reduce, not increase, the area to the NE along the arc. GO Phoenix should head down to the Fugro Area.
@ALSM: the areas slightly down-current of EVERY zone you nominate…
…was SCOURED for floating debris in weeks 1 and 2 of the search.
…has prevailing currents which would eventually push such debris to Australian shores.
Wouldn’t the ATSB (and you yourself, if you still champion this process) be required to at least REBUT – with actual scientific ANALYSIS, whose verifiable details are actually PUBLISHED – the on-record conclusions of drift experts, which suggest (by Bayesian logic) the plane is NOT close to that location?
I get that you are determined to trust these people (or at least not to mistrust them publicly) – I respect that. But logic is logic. Where is the surface debris?
Jeff:
Thanks for highlighting my paper.
One point: The piloted, extended glide scenario cannot fit the time and distance analysis because for an extended glide the speed must be much lower [to achieve best L/D]. If the speed is much lower then the aircraft cannot intercept the 7th arc at 19:29.
There is another pilot/glide scenario though – – one in which the speeds are similar to the narrow speed band required to fit the time and distance. In this scenario the pilot has accepted the inevitable and hastens the outcome by managing the glide, but not extending it. The outcome is similar to the uncontrolled scenario.
@ Brian Anderson:
In your paper you assume somewhat arbitrarily that the fuel flow of the right engine is 0.8 percent greater than that of the left engine:
If that were the case, then that difference would also have existed in the previous flight, i.e. the fuel remaining in the left tank would have been greater than in the right tank. According to the Factual Information the opposite applied:
Without other evidence, it therefore seems likely that the observed fuel flow difference was due to a calibration problem of the two fuel flow transducers, rather than an actual fuel flow difference between the engines.
@Brock:
Maybe the wreckage was missed in between a whirlpool of whitecaps with storms reducing the range of sight and the wreckage eventually passed south of Australia ?
Or maybe Shaw wilfully timed the flight so as to use morning sun’s first rays to attempt an impossible Hudson landing sinking the plane in 1 (or just a handful of) big, non-floating piece(s) [despite all the previously discussed counter-arguments regarding a better location for that purpose] ?
Just as improbable as all other theories.
Gysbreght:
Sorry, but your logic is faulty. There is nothing in the records showing what the starting fuel imbalance was for the previous flight, thus nothing can be inferred by the ending fuel imbalance on the previous flight. However, from the data in Appendix 1.6B and Table 1.9A, it is clear that the ratio of consumption started out at L/R=1.019 at takeoff and decreased to ~1.008 at the beginning of the cruise segment (17:01-17:06 average). The average over the final 7 hours was slightly lower, 1.006. Thus, the right engine flamed out at ~00:10:54. Brain’s preliminary estimate is not that far off from the final number I computed, and Richard came up with nearly the exact same numbers in an independent analysis. This estimate (delta time from 1st to 2nd= 04:55) is also consistent with the Boeing estimate given to me by an ATSB official (3-5 minute difference).
There is one more confirming data point. Table 1.6D indicates that the right engine consumed 1.5% more fuel on Nov 7, 2013. (The “cap T” is a typo…note the proximity of the cap T and % on the keyboard). This was probably the rate difference for a short flight. Thus, the rate difference has not changed significantly.
All the data taken together shows that the rate difference is a function of absolute burn rate. As the rate goes down the ratio also goes down. That is why the rate difference was high (1.9%) at takeoff (burning 48,000 lbs/hr) and lower (1.3%) during climb (burning 31,000 lbs/hr) and dropping to 0.6% for the high altitude cruise (burning only 13,600 lbs/hr).
Hope that clarifies the data and calculations.
What data support those values?
A B777 does not often do short flights, and if it does the pilot is too busy to observe stabilized fuel flows and write a report. The pilot observation is based on the fuel flow indicated on EICAS, as transmitted by the same left and right fuel flow transducers that measured the fuel flows in the EHM reports. It is curious that this was entered in the “Deferred Defects” list. If the fuel flow difference is due to the engines, there is nothing Maintenance can do about it, short of pulling an engine. The first Maintenance action would be to check or cross-exchange the fuel flow transmitters.
See above.
I have some difficulty understanding this. At FL350 ISA 389 kTAS equates to 226 KIAS. In a piloted glide the pilot would fly the engine inop driftdown speed indicated on the MFDU which IS the speed for best L/D (219 KIAS at the MH370 ZFW of 174,4 t).
Gysbreght:
I gave you the data sources. The math is simple. Good luck.
Notice: The views expressed here are solely mine and do not represent the views of the Independent Group (IG), Jeff Wise, or any other group or individual.
I completed a short paper documenting some of the work I did evaluating northern paths ending at airports. The summary from the report is:
Paths were reconstructed for MH370 using the available radar and satellite data. Paths to the north of Malaysia were studied by relaxing the constraint of matching the Burst Frequency Offset (BFO), which is appropriate if the BFO data was either corrupted or misinterpreted. The choice of paths was constrained by matching the Burst Timing Offset (BTO) data. Three airports were identified that are located near the 7th arc, as defined by the last BTO data point at 00:19 UTC: Kyzlorda, Almaty, and Kuqa Qiuci. The viability of each airport was determined based on fuel requirements. A fuel flow model was developed by reverse engineering performance data at Long Range Cruise (LRC) and Holding speeds, and then extrapolating the data to other speeds and temperatures.
The fuel flow model coupled with the path reconstruction model predicts that a flight ending at Kyzylorda is unlikely due to the high speeds and unfavorable headwinds. A flight ending at Almaty was deemed viable even when considering the uncertainty in the fuel consumption model. Alternatively, Boraldai Airport, which is close to Almaty Airport, is also viable. Finally, a flight ending at Kuqa Qiuci is considered possible, although the fuel margin is small.
The possibility that the plane reached a runway at Yubileyniy was also considered. As Yubileyniy is 237 km (128 nm) beyond Kyzylorda, a landing there is predicted to be very unlikely.
Here is the link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/693pvqgqpawglj6/2015-04-29%20Northern%20Routes%20for%20MH370.pdf?dl=0
comparison of ocean crashes: http://imgur.com/kUzCwVp.jpg
Perhaps I may suggest that the investigators should establish the fuel imbalance at dispatch of the previous flight(s) from the MAS records.
Thanks for the new articles Jeff and Victor.
As one of the Aussie taxpayers who should perhaps be demanding a more rational approach, my “money” would go to abandoning the current search area if nothing is found in May and using the same proposed funds to search around Dr Bobby’s original location and his and Kirill’s contrail location (once that analysis is fine-tuned). Perhaps Dr Bobby would comment on feasibility. OK, I have been too lazy to do any of these calculations myself but don’t have the expertise to choose between the various assumptions used in any of the estimates of final location. The proposed extension of the current search area in all directions seems desperate and would at least need rationale published. I expect that at least someone from the ATSB reads this blog.
Assorted thoughts, gut feelings and some crumbs of info:
If we are still sitting here another year on and have still not located MH370 and not searched any further in the SIO, I for one would regret that we had not given the SIO one last try (as no doubt would the NoK).
Jeff and Victor’s various theories about flying North etc. are very well written and thought-provoking but where is the evidence or motive? I doubt that the BTOs and associated timings are correct but the BFOs are corrupted (or fake); it would be surprising if hijackers were that sophisticated but I worry that we have created a great how-to manual. Putin has demonstrated various shows of strength and power; is it possible that the MH17 downing just capitalised on the MH370 loss? Many think he was responsible for both but perhaps the first was just at no cost to him.
If Jeff allows me to use the M-word one more time, after finding this comment by Simon Gunson on the Crikey blog: “Incidentally Indegogo the organisation set up by relatives to independently investigate sent two private investigators to Kuda Huvadhoo and they were able to determine that the aircraft seen there was a low flying private jet.”(item 10, PED chips more vital in MH370 mystery…) I now think the Maldives sightings should come off the table permanently.
The “Curtin Boom” is interesting mainly due to the absence of such an accoustic event in the SIO around the 00:19 timeframe. I see from earthquaketrack(dot)com that there was an earthquake 4.9 magnitude in the Carlsberg Ridge on 7 Mar 2014 at 07:40 UTC and fairly frequent events there. I also found details of searches for seismic activity re: MH370 on earthquake(dot)usgs(dot)gov (search for Sinabang, Indonesia) which I hadn’t seen before. These events and others might be useful if there was any supporting evidence.
Sorry to be negative but if there has been a major cover-up then I doubt we will succeed now in getting any confessions from any of our govts. I’m hoping that the plane is found within a year’s search in the SIO or that a whistleblower is brave enough to come forward.
PM – re Kudahuvadhoo: did they(investigators) identify a plane?
@Matty
I don’t know and Simon Gunson didn’t comment further or confirm (although asked). If it wasn’t MH370 then it probably doesn’t matter who it was or the reasons why they were there. We have explored this a bit earlier without coming up with any definite answers. Can anyone here back up Simon’s comment?
@Brian, It was a nice bit of work! (As usual.) The thing about having a pilot at the controls is that things don’t have to be monotonic anymore — you could imagine a situation where the pilot does what he has to do such that the plane winds up on the 7th arc, but then changes his mind and increases/decreases the pitch or changes the direction. Basically, with a conscious pilot, all bets are off. In fact, you might need to go back to those more northerly parts of the southern arc that the ATSB was looking at roundabout last April, May…
Why is everyone so adamant about fuel exhaustion? And that it was in auto pilot? Lack of debris proves that out. We just witnessed Germanwings go down. At the other end of the spectrum we have a vast sea search going on, just as he had planned. As Matty stated weeks or months ago. WWII pilots were at the yoke 10-12 hours at a time, at altitude, in much harsher conditions doing bombing runs. He had the Cadillac of the skies at his disposal.
if they are just mapping the ocean floor, then it makes sense
Section Study of MH370 Radar-Indicated Return Flightpath
https://www.dropbox.com/s/5lp1mw77o9866fl/mh370-radar-study.pdf?dl=0
Would a phugoid motion result in higher speeds in the troughs and lower speeds at the peaks?
@orion
Thanks for your marvellous graphic posted April 30, 2015 at 11:20AM.
My initial (admittedly only partially-educated) thoughts start with how on earth could/would a Boeing 777 survive the accelerations and decelerations necessary to hit the timing points at each section? For instance: Gap 1, scantly more than one-and-a-half minutes, goes from 525kts to AN AVERAGE of 588kts, AND BACK DOWN AGAIN to 529kts. Surely to achieve this, the TOP speed would have to be more than ~650 kts (GS), which would exceed the operational airspeed of a 777 (~530kts)? My knowledge of calculus is way too inadequate to calculate the acc- and decelerations necessary – suffice to say I’m glad I wasn’t on that section of flight for comfort reasons alone.
Thus, if I have understood your graphic correctly, we come to one of three interpretations:
A) The radar information is, to a greater or lesser extent, incorrect;
B) The radar plot is of another aircraft with higher performance capabilities than a 777, flown by a maniac;
C) The radar plot is actually of three separate aircraft all travelling circa 500-530kts GS in convoy. Which then begs why the radar seemingly only picked up ONE aircraft.
Good old Occam and his sharp instrument is leading me towards option A.
Thanks BT-77,
After carefully analyzing the FI radar narratives, I was left with the impression that a scant radar trace had been picked up by a Military and then correlated with the more complete Kota Bharu segments. Perhaps this correlation where coverage overlapped helped to verify the few altitudes given.
Here is a similar Section Study for Take-off thru IGARI:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/7fqajh77jdx1h65/mh370-takeoff-profile.pdf?dl=0
@orion
You’re entirely welcome. And thanks for your further take-off analysis too – very thorough.
Your take on the radar sources may well be true, and I’m sure you and many others know FAR more about that than I do, but nevertheless we are surely led to the conclusion that the radar information as presented in the FactualInformation.pdf does not stack up. I gather Mike Exner (@airlandseaman) feels broadly the same.
And thanks Julie (@nihonmama)for “twitterising” my post. I’m flattered!
@orion, BT-77,
Nice work on the radar track analysis!
2 questions.
1. Orion, you show two tracks for the actual turn back (dashed and solid shaded portions). What are their sources? Your 2 suggestions of the infinite possibilities of connecting pre-Igary track to the post-Igari?
2. You show many dots per segment of radar track, which suggests you have hi-res data. Was this contained in the FI. If so, i missed it. If not, where can one find that high res data?
Re option A, radar tracks reported don’t stack up. It is interesting to note that the FI completely omits the “sharp turnback” portion of the radar track (orion’s dashed, solid shaded lines), which was so prominently shown in the earliest JIT/JACC/ATSB reports.
I am keen to see the next version of the FI. Will it omit the radar track altogether, because the peanut gallery has shown that it doesn’t stack up?
In my view, the “Initial condition 18:22” is becoming weaker again. It more and more looks like a case of “because Malaysia said so”. Its high time for Malaysia to release the raw radar data for independent analysis by independent experts.
In the absence of such a release, we should put more weight on the possibility, that the radar info needs to be discarded altogether and BTO/BFO path modelling starting from around IGARI appears more appropriate.
Cheers
Will
@Orion: Thanks for BOTH of your radar related posts today and agree with what you tweeted: “raised more questions than answers.”
@BT-77: Don’t mention it and thank you for the thought-provoking response. It takes a village. And I’m flattered that your flattered. 😉
And to both of you: please see the “New York: How Crazy Am I…” thread. I just put up something that may interest.
Thanks MuOne for your comments and questions.
1. Regarding the “turnarounds”: The sharp turn (dashed) is a trace of the turn as depicted in the ‘hi-res’ flight path shown in the early report. I believe that is the one which you and Ron Black had studied possible turn maneuvers for. The second path I show is just a more generalized turn, similar to what was shown in the later report.
2. I don’t have any more radar info than what is shown in the FI. The only altitudes I found are shown as the large bold dots with the Military annotation attached. Apologies if the circles appear to construe precision- instead of drawing a line to connect the few data points, I used the series of circles to try and show a ‘broad’ stroke of the possible flight profile.
@MuOne Cheers! I replied but don’t see it. If it has indeed vanished, I will re-post shortly.
@Nihonmama Thank you for bringing all of the bits and pieces together so comprehensively.
Somebody please correct me if I’m mistaken- but can we only assume ACARS was made unavailable sometime before 17:37 when it missed the update? It would be logical to assume it went down with the other systems at 17:21, but doesn’t the remote possibility remain that it was still active for the turnaround?
Regarding the RR data, first it was reported to yield clues, then we were told that MAS didn’t subscribe. Yet as indicated in the FI there was clearly some RR data available in the early part of the flight.
An interesting picture emerges when considering that the intermittent radar may also indicate erratic speeds, and then combining it with those early reports of altitude variations from ‘uncalibrated’ radar, ‘non-existent’ RR data showing an extreme drop, ‘fighter pilot’ maneuvering, and eyewitness reports from Ketereh and KB describing a fast descent and low flight.
It’s possible the officials have more data- but that it’s too scant and/or speculative to make public in a Factual document. I believe the Lido image falls into this category- yet had to be released unofficially to connect the dots to the sat data.
Thanks MuOne for your comments and questions.
1. Regarding the “turnarounds”: The sharp turn (dashed) is a trace of the turn as depicted in the ‘hi-res’ flight path shown in the early report. I believe that is the one which you and Ron Black had studied possible turn maneuvers for. The second path I show is just a more generalized turn, similar to what was shown in the later report.
2. I don’t have any more radar info than what is shown in the FI. The only altitudes I found are shown as the large bold dots with the Military annotation attached. Apologies if the circles appear to construe precision- instead of drawing a line to connect the few data points, I used the series of circles to try and show a ‘broad’ stroke of the possible flight profile.
@MuOne
>In the absence of such a release, we should put more weight on the possibility,
>that the radar info needs to be discarded altogether and BTO/BFO path modelling
>starting from around IGARI appears more appropriate.
As you know, the ‘data error optimisation’ models (at defined by ATSB, though that is a wide class) tend to work from the 19:41 (or 20:41UT) point forward and hence are not sensitive to how the aircraft got to that position. The example reconstructed flight path in the Inmarsat paper covers the start and end of the flight separately and then adds a line to connect the two, as the paper states, so its final destination is not dependent on the radar data in the Malaysia/Indonesia area.
So I think this type of model (in its various manifestations) already covers the case of part or all of the radar data being discounted. In general this class predicts end points in the northern two-thirds of the original 60000sq.km. search area – the part least searched to date.
Yes, that is essentially correct. However, ACARS is silent when there is no message to be sent or received.
That rumour is a misunderstanding. MAS does subscribe to EHM offered by Rolls-Royce, but does not subscribe to AHM (Airplane Health Monitoring), a similar maintenance tool offered by Boeing to monitor the operation of airplane systems other than the engines.
@ orion;
P.S. Obviously, ACARS is also silent when it is denied access to communication systems such as VHF and SATCOM, or those systems are inoperative.
Richard, Thank you for this comment, which I assume many of us didn’t fully understand until now.
With regard to the return flightpath, I guess a large variable still on the table is how much fuel was actually used. It would seem that if there is more to the flight profile than just a high straight line, then more fuel would have been burned- placing the plane further up the arc.
Gysbreght, Thanks for the clarification. Looking back at the article, it would seem that EHM would have provided the data in question:
As it’s likely all communication systems were denied at 17:21- then it wouldn’t have been possible to obtain any data afterwards. Yet, it still doesn’t sit right that the report mentioning 40,000 ft was completely false. I would understand if the readings were in error- but just completely fabricated?
@Richard Cole,
Thanks for your comments, but you give me too much credit when saying “as you know” ;o).
I understand that the local minimum in distance from the satellite around the 19:41 ping ring provides some constraints on the relative alignment between flight path and ping ring, i.e. they need to be near tangential and close to each other.
But I was under the impression that the post 19:41 path models, of which ever flavour, are all “fixed” to a point on the 19:41 arc, determined on the basis of connecting it with the 18:22 “last known radar position” and the outgoing tangent of that radar track.
In that sense, I feel, the models do not already cover the case of the radar track being discarded in total.
If that last known radar position and track tangent were required to be discarded, the 19:41 ping would no longer provide a (smudgy) “point” but would open up to a long section of the 19:41 arc from where the path could reasonably have started.
This arc section would be the set of all points on that arc reachable under consideration of aircraft performance characteristics and tangentiality at the arc intercept, but now from a starting point of near IGARI.
@Brock’s performance dial comes to mind. The post 19:41 paths would now be “diallable” around the 19:41 sub satellite point to the extent that the 19:41 point hits the above mentioned limiting arc section.
Cheers
Will
@Brock
Where is the debris you ask? I see that no one responded to your query. It is one of the elephants in a room crowded with elephants relative to the SIO hypothesis. To wit:
E1> Where is the debris?
E2> What is the motive? Suicide leaves a trail as in the German Wings episode. We have no such trail in this case.
E3> The fixed AP flight mode. The only rationale I have heard relative to this assumption is that it is the way pilots normally like to fly. How silly does that sound in the context of MH370?
The plane is not in the SIO. There is not a single shred of evidence to suggest that it is. The BTO and BFO are not evidence. That data can be satisfied by many other flight paths and terminal locations.
@Brian Anderson: thanks for your fine efforts and expertise – in this latest paper, and in general.
My first question is re: “Flight path after the first engine failure”, para 6:
“An immediate conclusion should be drawn at this point. Taking a conservative view (conservative, that is, in terms of the plausible distance travelled from the 6th ping arc at 00:11), the 7th arc position calculation should assume that the aircraft was at or near sea level.”
I read your entire paper carefully – thrice – and could not for the life of me figure out how that (key) conclusion followed from anything presented either before or after. Please help a non-expert!
Thanks in advance.
@Muone
>I was under the impression that the post 19:41 path models, of which ever flavour,
>are all “fixed” to a point on the 19:41 arc, determined on the basis of connecting it with the
>18:22 “last known radar position” and the outgoing tangent of that radar track.
No, that is not correct. The models (of the type we are discussing – I am not referring to the constrained autopilot models in any of this) vary the start position along the 19:41 arc and calculate the differences from the BTO and BFO data for each candidate track. There is no requirement on the geometry of the track with respect to the 19:41 arc, as far as I understand it. It just so happens that the potential tracks of the aircraft are roughly tangential to the 19:41UT arc, but I don’t read anything into that.
>If that last known radar position and track tangent were required to be discarded, the 19:41
>ping would no longer provide a (smudgy) “point” but would open up to a long section of the
>19:41 arc from where the path could reasonably have started.
Yes, an extended section of the 19:41 arc is possible as the starting points of the tracks, but after an analysis of the whole dataset, not just the 19:41 point. The selection of tracks from the total possible set is performed using the BTOs (simple and non-controversial data) and the BFOs, where the errors are not fully understood outside the Investigation (at least not by me). The extended length of possible starting points on the 19:41 arc is reflected in the length of the search area (700km at least) that corresponds to the potential end points of the tracks. This length is dictated by the errors in the BFO data.
As in all these models the magic ingredient is what type of possible track to inject into the system. The primary ones are constant heading/course/great circle/speed/altitude with variations around that. If there were large changes in those parameters during the flight after 19:41 then the whole approach will give incorrect results. IMHO changing one of key parameters (even by small amounts) gives no fit to the data, implying that at least two of the parameters have to change to maintain a fit (e.g slow and turn, climb and turn etc). The proof or falsification of this approach will come with the detection/non-detection of the aircraft on the seafloor, I don’t know of any other test.
@Richard
Yes, I agree with all that you wrote.
Still, I am troubled by some details. The main one is the loss of the Butterworth radar trail. The raw graphics presented show the last contact at 200nm@295R. The ATSB (and others) have morphed this into 250nm@285R. Going through the math, the radar contact would be lost at an altitude of 12,000′ and 20,000′ respectively. These observations support a low altitude, and a correspondingly low speed going into and through the FMT. Frankly, I am more inclined to trust the 200nm@295 since it is pretty hard to screw that up (time of flight and azimuth encoder).
The plane was obviously being actively piloted at that time, and prior to that time. My own calculations on the FMT also support Kate’s astern sighting with the aircraft traveling from port to starboard.
The above suggests the plane was flying low and slow, possibly to avoid radar, and was being actively piloted. Given those observables it is difficult to postulate an AP path at FL350 and 450+ knots for the duration of the flight. Certainly one can construct paths that fit the Inmarsat data very well the into the SIO with constrained AP assumptions. I have such a path of my own. I just have a hard time reconciling it with the observables prior to the FMT.
@MuOne: in appreciation of your “arc dial” shout-out, I’ve done some Google Earthing on your question.
If primary radar and BTOs are both valid, MH370 hits arc 1 (18:25, 1902nmi from 3F1) at roughly [6°54’N 95°50’E] (see, e.g. JON paper, p20). Fuel limits have generally all emanated from this common starting point.
If BTOs are deemed valid – but primary radar is rejected – then, at 500 KGS, arc1 could be intersected as far north as [9°4’N 95°28’E] (131nmi counterclockwise), and as far south as [3°2.5’N 96°11’E] (231nmi clockwise).
So, by the “arc dial rotation” method (really just ratioing distances around any two arcs), chucking primary radar (but retaining BTOs) moves performance limits 180nmi west for northern routes, and 318nmi west for southern routes.
Interestingly, each extreme path happens to suggest a possible motive for doctoring the primary radar (if MH370 flew straight WSW from IGARI, fake radar protects Indonesia; if straight WNW, protects Thailand).
However:
1) Such paths are likely BFO-incompatible (unless you’re ATSB in Apr/May, this is a game-breaker)
2) Accordingly, you’d still need dubious “partial spoofing” theories to explain the BFOs – with both cop AND perp in on it, now – at which point, I’d wonder why we’re still respecting the BTOs.
Here’s a map:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-r3yuaF2p72enFLdjE2RUx3ck0/view?usp=sharing
I have an idea, which I think has not been mentioned before.
short version:
see images http://imgur.com/ZpVqeOZ.jpg and http://imgur.com/YAALZID.jpg
I have an idea, which I think has not been mentioned before.
short version:
see images http://imgur.com/ZpVqeOZ.jpg and imgur.com/YAALZID.jpg (add http in front)
.
long version = rest of this posting:
It concerns the pilot suicide scenario, which I really hope not to have taken place, as I have stated numerous times. But since this is not about what we hope, but about finding the plane, I will share my thoughts begrudgingly.
[[ As a sidenote:
I’ll disregard my own counter-argument that “there would have been lots of MAS flights better suited than the one to Beijing” (see point 10 of j.mp/my_16_points ) as it was dismissed as follows: “Not if the PFP would be limited in their ability to gain routine access to a flight deck in the near future.” (The Examinator, 7 postings further below) ]]
As quoted above, the 2 main counter-arguments against the suicide scenario that came up in discussions were:
(1) If the goal was to attempt sinking MH370 in one piece, one wouldn’t choose the Roaring Forties but a place with less swell.
(2) If the goal was to direct MH370 to a location as remote as possible, the path would have led more SW than S, thus farther away from Australia.
But what if – and this is where my idea starts – the plan was to accomplish BOTH goals (i.e. sinking the plane in 1 [or just a handful of] big, non-floating piece[s] so as to avoid surface debris giving away the location AND as far away from mainland as possible) e.g. for the purpose of making it as difficult as possible to find the plane, thus reserving a place for him in aviation history OR obfuscating his suicide so as not to be a disgrace to his family given that suicide is a crime under Malaysian penal code¹, forbidden by Islam² and heavily stigmatized in Malaysian culture¹ ?
Admittedly, it is generally considered next to impossible to accomplish a Hudson type landing on the open sea, but this does not mean the pilot didn’t try it.
Now, if the plan was to accomplish both goals, goal 2 would require him to fly either into the Pacific or south-west into the Southern Indian Ocean (which is what he did, according to the Inmarsat data). More to the west would be better as it would take him further away from Australia, but goal 1 would require him to stay on Earth’s sunlit side (as you couldn’t try a water landing in the darkness), which forbids going further west.
A look at the terminator on 8 March 2014 at 00:19 UTC: imgur.com/ZpVqeOZ.jpg
demonstrates that according to the Inmarsat data, MH370 flew to the only place in the Indian Ocean, where both goals 1 and 2 could have been accomplished.
scenario:
• One pilot would have managed to lock the other out of the cockpit (e.g. by telling him, he can now use the bathroom like in the Germanwings crash; or by asking him to check something in the cabin).
• pilot disables ACARS
• pilot depressurizes cabin, incapacitating everyone
• pilot waits for ATC handover request, says good-night w/o reading back frequency
• pilot disables transponder and shuts off remaining communication devices (including AES by isolating left AC bus), aircraft goes dark
• pilot flies somewhat erratic course to make it look like a technical emergency, knowing the flight path would be recorded on primary radar (he could not do anything more obvious to pretend a technical emergency, such as radioing a mayday, because that would have alerted people too soon).
• at 18:25 (which was either coincidentally right after the last radar fix, or intentionally because he knew at what point he would be beyond the radar horizon) he needed a system powered by the AC bus: e.g. cabin pressurization control system in case he had been using the oxygen mask up to that point; or opening of the cabin door for whatever purpose.
• pilot flies to his precalculated location in the Southern Indian Ocean and sinks the plane
• maybe Broken Ridge was chosen as location, because a/c would be especially difficult to find there in this jagged underwater terrain
• pilot either achieved the impossible and sank the plane in 1 piece (does anyone know swell height and period for that region and date?) or with wings breaking off, but cabin remaining in 1 piece (because otherwise there is no way luggage and passengers would remain trapped inside, right?); or drift models are inaccurate and debris was not washed ashore but passed south of Australia
• explains lack of debris
• explains lack of communication
• explains a/c destination in SIO
• explains why a/c was not simply brought down in the South China Sea
• explains erratic flight path
• compatible with recorded acoustic events
• compatible with Dr. Bobby Ulich dis/contrail sightings; the resulting crash location would be even closer to the night/day terminator then the location calculated by the IG, thus maximizing the distance from Australia, see: imgur.com/YAALZID.jpg
It could have been either one of the pilots. Shah had more experience, Hamid would have used his very first (B777) flight without a training pilot (or was that just yet another coincidence?).
—
¹ freemalaysiatoday.com/category/opinion/2013/09/13/stigma-on-suicide
² wki.pe/Islam_and_suicide
PS: by “cabin door” I meant “cockpit door”
Brock:
It’s a simple argument. As far as I am aware there has never been a definitive statement in any of the official releases as to exactly where the 7th arc is located. Yes, it is calculated for the corrected BTO at 19:29, and presumably with reference to the WSG84 ellipsoid, but at what altitude? What I am saying here is that the conservative view should place the arc at the sea level since that is the closest to the sub satellite position, and therefore can be reached at the slowest speed from the 00:11 position.
Perhaps instead of “an immediate conclusion – – ” I should have used the words “an important observation should be made – – “
(2ee = “2nd engine exhaustion”)
Thanks, Brian. Sounds to me like that statement is BEST described as an assumption, which you are arguing is made reasonable by known SDU behavior (logging on 3.5min after 2ee), and the fact that 35,000′ in 3.5min is well within the range of observed unpiloted 777 behavior. Fair?
If so, I guess my concern is that this is a very wide range. Even the flight sim experiences on which you heavily draw seem to paint a different picture than does your point estimate of final trajectory. Last November, a week after his sim trials, ALSM summarized them thus:
“I don’t think it is possible to estimate the actual path over ground from the observations we made. The turn rates were constantly changing with very high rates of change in speed and attitude common for at least part of every sim. The highest turn rate I recall was 2 degrees per second, but we also observed bank angles up to 90 degrees…almost going inverted, and vertical speeds that must have been 20-30,000 ft/min for brief transients. All I can say is that there were always turns, and depending on the manual rudder trim setting and the success or failure of the auto engine restart, you could be in the water in 4 -13 minutes, probably within 1-5 NM of the 7th arc.”
In a later post, he clarified further that, in some cases, the sim came OUT of turns.
Given the width of the range of each of
– vertical speed
– change in vertical speed
– change in heading
– change in change in heading (not a typo)
– change in horizontal speed
– change in change in horizontal speed
…I think we would be wise to place VERY wide confidence intervals around your point estimates of altitude, speed and bearing at arc 7.
Interestingly, ALSM seemed far LESS confident of altitude at arc 7 (4-13 minutes to go from 2ee [FL350] to impact [FL0] implies a VERY wide range of altitudes after 3.5min) than he was of the final impact distance away from it (l-5nmi)…
@Brian: I do get your point about a lower assumed altitude helping MH370 attain arc7 at slower initial speeds. But to me, this seems like fixing the holes in one arbitrary assumption by positing another. If unpiloted behavior is so erratic, we should not ASSUME zero altitude just because it brings arc 7 closer to our slow plane – why not instead just assume a faster plane? I’m not convinced anyone’s analysis ever ruled out FL400.
In fact, I could turn your argument right around, and assert via Bayesian logic that the plane MUST have been moving very fast at 2ee: the slower it was going, the smaller the chances it would be on arc 7 3.5min later.
I don’t mean to quibble – I don’t think we’re far apart on the main thrust – I just don’t see a strong argument for searching INSIDE arc 7 emerging from this, until I see a full set of sensitivity analyses on every assumption that went into it.
In the absence of surface debris, I think the burden of proof must of necessity shift to the “let’s keep searching in the SIO” team.
@brian
From the sound of things your insights, to me, imply that the ac was piloted by human means to fruition. It has been my opinion that this is indeed the case. This is, and was, a very carefully planned mystery. My best guess that he “Landed” with about 50000 lbs on on board. This was to assure he had total control w/o the bs thinking of spiral at altitude. After Panang (his fly by) he never went to any “ascribed” altitude. By this time his psychosis was bound for the SIO as planned and into history. While I reserve great hopes for her being found, probability is low. Air France 447 with only a 14 sq., mile search area, it took two years. MH370 search is embryonic at best.
Correction
5000 lb’s of fuel on board.
@DennisW
>Frankly, I am more inclined to trust the 200nm@295 since it is pretty hard to
>screw that up (time of flight and azimuth encoder).
I am personally not much interested in the radar data so don’t want to get into a battle on it, but measuring (many months ago) off the photographs of the radar plot taken at the early briefing and comparing to the waypoints etc. shown on the plot, the last point just wasn’t 200nm from Butterworth, 250nm was more like it. That briefing was probably quickly organised and someone added the label without doing the proper calculation or measurement. There was a graph of satellite elevations shown at a similar, early briefing (the ‘7 Data Point’ graph) that was not supported in detail by later information.
@DennisW; @Richard Cole
Further to your correspondence regarding the last military radar position and its distance from Butterworth, I can confirm (from my own calculations on Google Earth at any rate) that the distance from “10nm beyond MEKAR along N571” to RMAF Butterworth is indeed 251nm. Hope this helps….
@BT-77
Yep. That location is well inside the 18:25 ping ring which causes me to doubt it. The plane would have had to make a series of very abrupt heading changes to get back to the 18:25 ring and be flying at a heading which comes close to satisfying BFO at that time.
This is why most serious analytics are started with the 19:40 handshake. Earlier than that things are very confusing.
The radar data has some serious problems and I have no idea what they are.