by Victor Iannello
Note: Ever since the idea of spoofing was first discussed, one of the main issues has been how falsified BFO values might have been calculated. Most of assumed that the values were arbitrarily selected to suggest a flight in a generally southward direction. Here, Victor Iannello presents an ingenious suggestion: that hijackers might have altered a single parameter in the Satellite Data Unit frequency precompensation algorithm. — JW
Notice: The views expressed here are solely mine and do not representthe views of the Independent Group (IG), Jeff Wise, or any other group or individual. — VI
Summary
In previous work, paths were reconstructed for MH370 using the available radar and satellite data. Paths to the north of Malaysia were studied bymatching the measured Burst Timing Offset (BTO) data, but relaxing the constraint of matching theBurst Frequency Offset (BFO), which is appropriate if the BFOdata waseithercorrupted or misinterpreted. It was found that there are paths to the north that end at airports that could be reached with the fuel that was loaded onto MH370.In this work, the conventional interpretation of the BFO is challenged. In particular, the possibility that the operation of the SATCOM was deliberately modified so that a northern path would have the BFO signature of a southern path is studied. Some of the findings are:
- The Honeywell Thales MCS-6000 SATCOM used by MH370 hasafrequencycorrection algorithm withthe capability to correct for the Doppler shift caused by inclination of thesatellite. This is known to the official investigation team butis not generally known by independent researchers.
- The value of inclination for the Inmarsat I3F1 satellite that was broadcast by the Ground Earth Station (GES) at Perth, Australia, to be used by SATCOMs logged into the satellite, was zero. The true inclination of the satellite was around 1.65⁰. The two parameters that describe the satellite inclination, the inclination angle and the time of the ascending node, are stored in the System Table of the SATCOM in non-volatile memory, and are used by the frequency compensation algorithm.
- If an individual obtained unauthorized access to the non-volatile memory of the SATCOM, the value of the inclination used by the frequency correction algorithm could be changed from 0 to 3.3⁰, or about twice the true inclination of the satellite. With this change, the BFO signature of a northern path that satisfied the BTO data would resemble the BFO signature of a southern path that satisfied the BTO data.
- The apparent turn to the south between 18:28 and 18:40 UTC that is suggested by the measured BFO data might have been caused by a change to the inclination parameters stored in the SATCOM’s System Table during that time interval.
- The calculated values of BFO for northern paths with the inclination parameter changed to 3.3⁰match the measured BFO values with an RMS error less than 3.8 Hz. This is true for Mach numbers between 0.65 and 0.85 at FL350, with little variationin errorseen in this speed range.
- At each log-on, the inclination parameters would be reset to zero. Therefore, the BFO data associated with the log-ons at 18:25 and 00:19 UTC should be evaluated with inclination parameters set to zero. The BFO data at times between these log-ons should be evaluated with the possibility that a change was made.
- The BFO value at 00:19 matches an aircraft along the northern part of the 7tharc on the ground and stationary once the BFO is adjusted for the log-on offset seen at 16:00 UTC. This suggests that if MH370flew north, it might havesuccessfully landed.
- Researchers have identified security vulnerabilities in other SATCOMs, including backdoors and access to memory, although the MCS-6000 has not been specifically studied. The possibility of “spoofing” the BFO to disguise location has been considered before.
Read the whole report here.
Nothing most here haven’t already heard before, but
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/computer-security-expert-claims-have-taken-over-planes-sytems-n360331
What chance that Victor’s findings will be met with stony silence????
Technically feasible? Most likely. Victor is darned careful, but the work does need to be checked.
Missing is motive. Why would someone or some group perpetrate this diversion?
Motive? Seeking for the real truth, globally?
Hi Victor,
I was wondering if you could reproduce the same BFO profile with the same “trick” by using other values of inclination and phase, for any straight line path in any direction.
If this is the case it does not make it less interesting, however it means that IMO this spoofing theory does not really add confirmative evidence for the northern routes.
A point which I would like to recalculate in detail is the possible stationary position at 00:19 in this scenario. Would you have the “spoofed” sat. positions and velocities at that moment used in the compensation? What was the extra freq. offset you used?
Regards,
Niels.
@Dennis: I agree that all technical works needs to be checked. When I first noticed that the effect of the inclination parameters on the BFO of northern routes, I asked Henrik to see if he saw the same effect. He ran some calculations and the results were similar. More checking would be welcome.
A complete theory certainly needs to explain who and why. However, those elements would be highly speculative, and so to not have the technical work rejected because of the speculative elements, I chose to keep them out of this reports.
@Niels: I only looked at routes in which the BTO was matched exactly and I allowed turns at handshake times. This produced slightly curving routes. For the large range of speeds studied (M = 0.65 to 0.85), there was only a single set of inclination parameters (within a small range) that matched the BFO.
As for the BFO at 00:19, the satellite position and velocity were not “spoofed” at that point because the inclination parameters would be set to zero at the log-on, as it was at 18:25.
The value of bias that was used was B = 167 Hz, calculated as follows:
1. Geoff Hyman and Barry Martin found that for channels R4 and R11, B = 150 Hz. For channels T10, T12, R8, and T8, B = 154 Hz
2. Looking at the data at 16:00, we see an indication that the bias for R10 is 4 Hz less than R8, which would suggest B = 150 Hz for R10, which is the same as for R4 and R11.
3. Additionally, we see a drop of around 17 Hz in R8 before and after 16:00:27.
4. Therefore, I proposed that the 00:19 log-on be treated with a bias of 150 + 17 = 167 Hz.
Duncan has posted the work on Northern Routes and the BFO with a preface on his site at http://www.duncansteel.com/archives/1739
@Victor, thank you for publishing your findings. They are important beyond the mystery of mh370, since they point out an unrecognized security gap.
Whether this or any other method of spoofing was actually used for BFO manipulation onboard of mh370 remains an open question. But after Victor’s research this question can’t be ignored any longer.
The motive for implementing such a spoof:
Many have argued, that potential perps would’ve been better off if they had disconnected the AES/SDU for good, thus leaving no trail of electronic breadcrumbs behind at all. That might well be true for some perps and some scenarios.
But if the perps belonged to a group of people who were suspected from the very beginning of having a plausible motive to abduct the plane and take it North, and if those perps were aware of the danger, that potential radar tracks might show the plane’s last documented movements going indeed into a Northwestern direction over the Strait, thus strengthening that first suspicion, it becomes almost mandatory for those perps to throw everybody off their scent by falsifying the real direction of the plane. Without the spoof everbody would look to the North and possibly into their direction for a long time to come even without an electronic trail. No debris was found after all and the plane was last “seen” flying into a Northern direction*. But if they could manage to persuade everybody that the plane had gone South and crashed into the unknown crevasses of the SIO, these perps would fall immediately off everybody’s favorite suspect list.
Victor’s research showed that a BFO spoof is most likely possible. If we venture from here into speculation territory and start discussing possible motives, destinations and suspects, we should start with asking ourselves who of all potential perps would’ve benefited more from a spoof rather than simply going completely dark for the whole duration of the plane’s strange trip.
*I don’t want to discuss here the dicey question of the reliability of the radar tracks shown to us. For perps who planned this hijack carefully it’s enough to consider it highly probable that some telltale radar tracks of their flight will be caught during the critical phase of their journey – before they implemented the spoof.
@Victor
Sleeping on your observations has led me to conclude that they are intrinsically obvious (like most things are after someone shows them to you). A very simple example serves to illustrate.
Postulate a stationary AES with a satellite moving directly at the AES at a speed V0 producing a Doppler shift of F0. If the AES compensates for F0 by offsetting its transmit frequency by -2F0 it would create the illusion that the satellite was moving away from the AES at V0.
It is quite obvious to me that Northern routes can easily be created that satisfy BFO and BTO in the manner you are suggesting. The physics is clear, the actual path is just a computational detail.
Great insight, Victor.
@DennisW, thanks for coming up with such a simple “Gedankenexperiment” 🙂
@DennisW: That’s the basic idea. Thank you for taking the time to try to understand it.
Victor
@VictorI
Thanks, Victor, for providing further details. I’ll have a closer look at the 0019 data as well. Anyway this has high priority because of the points brought forward by Oleksandr.
Niels.
By God, Victor. Brilliant. I cannot stop staring at Figure 2. The fit there is uncanny.
If the inclination parameter were deliberately altered, is it possible this could have contributed to the anomalous BFO at 18:27? I mean, if someone were in there, monkeying around with the parameter table at that particular moment, could this have caused some sort of “glitch” in the BFO figure?
@Hudson: Perhaps the spike at 18:27 is related to a change in parameters. However, at 18:28, the value is again consistent with the inclination angle set to zero.
@Victor,
You’re right, and fair point. But I’m wondering if the inclination parameter was still set to 0 at both 18:27 and at 18:28. Rather, could it have been the compromised state of the SDU at 18:27 (that is, at a particular point in the process of being hacked) that resulted in the unusual BFO reading?
Nice work Victor. Your creativity and technical capabilities to analyze data and develop alternate potential theories remain impressive.
I too slept on your excellent report and it made me think of the incredible forethought required if this was indeed pulled off. Some elementary thoughts include the knowledge that (1) the pings would indeed occur after shutting other systems down. (2) More bizarre, the pings MUST occur (and be spoofed) to serve as key evidence leading all investigations on a blind rabbit hunt in the opposite direction. In addition a decision to broadcast the pings vs shut them off to achieve 100% silence. This response to your report is certainly not meant to offer speculative resistance, instead it’s just the result I personally got from pondering the softer aspects…
In a strange way it would seem easier to digest if Inmarsat had a press release next week apologizing for mis-analyzing the data (inclination, + vs -, dog ate homework.). Boy that would send chills up my spine. (By the way, sure would be nice to have technical data on the post MH370 test flights used to originally validate Inmarsat’s N/S analysis.)
I still sense there will be a day when it is announced wreckage found in SIO, until then we might as well explore every possibility. Your technical explorations open doors to more thought, analysis, discussion and ideas; “no venture, no gain”.
Thanks for all your high quality work Victor!
According to the “Manual for Aeronautical Mobile Satellite (Route) Service” Part III, the broadcast satellite inclination is quantized in units of 5/8 (or 0.625) degrees, and the broadcast satellite ascending node is quantized in units of 10 time-minutes (or 2.5 degrees). Thus, VictorI’s inclination of 3.3 degrees would actually be encoded as 5, meaning somewhere between 3.125 and 3.75 degrees (if I’ve done the math correctly), and the ascending node time of 14:12 UTC would actually be encoded as something between 14:10 and 14:20. The range in inclination is not insignificant and can dramatically affect the rms residuals in the BFO. So the question for VictorI’s “knowledgeable individual” is – what is exact algorithm used in the MCS-6000 software? Did it pick the middle of the interval (which is what I would do), an endpoint, or something else? Furthermore – was the algorithm programmed properly and tested so it delivers a correct result? We know that Miteq couldn’t get it right.
@sk999: You are correct. When I wrote the paper, I debated whether to talk about the implications of the precision of the inclination angle and the ascending node. For better or worse, I chose to not discuss this.
The Ascending Node has an additional complication in that it is defined by the what the time would be on the first day of the year, and then corrected for the number of days into the year based on a shift of 4 minutes per day, if I recall correctly.
I believe it is not the MCS-6000 that decides what value of inclination to use. The AES uses the value broadcast by the GES, which should have the same precision (8 bits) as the inclination stored in the AES.
For the path to Almaty, the RMS error in BFO increases to about 4.5 Hz due to an inclination angle of 3.125 deg (compared to the optimal value of 3.3 Hz) with a peak error of 7.7 Hz at 19:41. For a +/- 5 min change in ascending node, the variation in RMS error can increase to to 4.9 Hz.
The bottom line is the even when using discrete values for inclination angle and ascending node, the match to the measured data is still acceptable, and well within the error range seen in the test flight reported in Ashton et al.
@Benaiahu: Thank you for your comments. You raise a critical question that cuts to the heart of this scenario: This scenario could only occur if the perps had some reason to believe that the BFO would be interpreted so that the directional information could be extracted. If there was no reason to believe that, there would be no reason to spoof the BFO.
I have received feedback from others that insist that the perps would not have had reason to have believed that the BFO would be interpreted in this way. My feeling is that we have no absolute knowledge of what methods Inmarsat had developed in the past and what the perps might have been aware of. Gerry Soejatman’s comments, which I include in my paper, indicate that a spoof of the BFO was considered in the past, and I have found Gerry to be knowledgeable and honest.
So I ask the question to this group. Do we have reason to believe that the perps did not have knowledge of Inmarsat’s capabilities to extract directional information from the BFO? Do we have reason to believe that in fact they did have this knowledge?
Victor
VictorI,
I actually don’t care about the Northern route – the scenario has more holes than a slice of Swiss cheese. However, you hit on something very interesting regarding the Southern route when you wrote:
“… this table was broadcast in no inclination for the 3F1 satellite at the time of the incident. Hence AES was not compensating for satellite Doppler.”
There is no such thing as “no inclination” – at best, the ground station broadcasts a code 0, which means inclination between 0 and 5/8 degrees. What does the AES do? Use a value of exactly 0? 0.3125 degrees? It matters. The ascending node matters as well. It is possible that we have been miscalculating the Southern route all along. Or not.
Benaiahu – On “incredible forethought”
My thinking would be that if you intended to misappropriate a 777 for whatever reason it would not be enough to simply make it disappear. You would also need to misinform the the many thousands of people who would come looking for it. As I’ve said often, in the case of a sinister act, it would have been anticipated fully that any electronic trace the plane left behind was always going to get the full forensic treatment from experts worldwide. It’s a bridge too far for many but such subterfuge was standard fare in the cold war – which seems to be on again in earnest?
@sk999: If the value broadcast by the GES is zero, then that is what would be used by the AES for frequency correction. The satellite would be treated as geostationary, as stated by Inmarsat. I doubt that Inmarsat has this wrong.
@sk999
if probablility to find wreckage when SIO was the path is now >99%, then for me it is not SIO for >99%
@matty-perth
@victorl
as I think its all in fact very complex military psy-op orchestrated by “good guys” to force worldwide self-disclosure of truth (so WHO is/are in fact good and/or bad guy, which isnt obvious because of (social)media war), I think preps and inmarsat and target airports and airways on path are all the same entity, so they know everything needed to make the spoof – and it was expected that such big search effort happens, having sliced hints in media just-in-time when required… but thats enough which I want to say here, sure I dont know anything for sure; its all about published articles and speeches analysis and emotions behind, while some are doing number-crunching too – this all done together leads to solution; good, I hope
@Victor
So ‘they’ (why always the plural form), in your spoof scenario, would be a cabal of mastermind electronic wizards, acrobatic t7 pilot(s).
Confident enough of successful commandeering at the precise moment of hand-off, avoiding Malaysian PSR all the while assured that fighters would not be scrambled in pursuit. Then, fake south, jog north and evade numerous air defense systems while breaching multiple countries FIR’s.
And then a buttery smooth landing in some stan. LOL.
Give me a freaking break.
Oh, and all for WHAT again? The gold.
Spencer – you should really be just concentrating on why there is no wreckage.
@Matty
And you think a jog north as described above, with an airplane still yet to reveal itself a full year and 3 months later is plausible?
You should really concentrate on the fallibility of said scenario. It’s absolutely rubbish.
Spencer – If you are going to use the word plausible then yes. All scenarios have issues here. If it went in as one piece as you say then the bathy would have pinged it during the big initial sweep. If it didn’t go in as one we should have seen something of it by now.
@spencer:
1. I never claimed the spoof required a “cabal of mastermind electronic wizards”. In fact, what drew me to this scenario was the relative simplicity of the spoof.
2. Nowhere is there any mention of acrobatic maneuvers. I have no idea where you got this.
3. You say, “Confident enough of successful commandeering at the precise moment of hand-off, avoiding Malaysian PSR all the while assured that fighters would not be scrambled in pursuit”. Yes, that is what might have happened. A lot of people agree, including Malaysia.
4. You say, “And then a buttery smooth landing in some stan.” I proposed a landing on runways that would not make the landing challenging. These do exist in these countries.
5. You say, “Then, fake south, jog north and evade numerous air defense systems while breaching multiple countries FIR’s.” This is the only thing so far you have said of any value. A complete scenario would require an explanation of how and why the incursion might occur. I cited this in the paper related to incursion into Chinese space.
6. You call the work “rubbish.” Read some of the other comments here: “nice work, impressive, brilliant, great insight”. Those are adjectives I have not heard ascribed to any of your posts.
Oh by the way, what IS your proposed scenario?
@VictorI:
Has it been confirmed that the SATCOM System Table can be manually altered in-flight outside the log-on protocol?
@Gysbreght: I have no confirmation that there is a way to alter the values stored in the non-volatile memory of the Honeywell MCS-6000. Ruben Santamarta’s work suggests that SATCOMs are vulnerable to this kind of attack, although the MCS-6000 was not specifically studied. I don’t expect Honeywell Thales to confirm this vulnerability, if it does exist.
@VictorI:
Thanks for your reply. It just seems odd to me that, if the AES is designed to receive those data from the ground station as part of the log-on process, that it would provide a means to alter those data. For what purpose?
@Gysbreght: Embedded systems often have undocumented ways to read to and write from memory locations for troubleshooting and maintenance. Please refer to the work of Ruben Santamarta that I cite at the end of the second paper (both his whitepaper and his presentation at BlackHat are excellent) where he was able to reverse engineer the firmware for SATCOMs and discover backdoors and other vulnerabilities which allowed unauthorized access, including access from the CDU in the cockpit.
From the JACC-ATSB:
“The search into the expanded area has already commenced, with search efforts focused in the south to take advantage of the last of the usable weather in that area,” it said. “The search plan has been modified to enable continuous search operations during winter and to ensure that the entire [46,000 square mile] area is searched as quickly and effectively as possible.
The statement added: “Expert advice is that the highest probability of locating the aircraft is within the [46,000 square mile] search area. Beyond that, it is not possible to refine the search area to one of greater likelihood.”
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/missing-jet/missing-mh370-search-expands-not-possible-know-where-next-n361761
Or better yet, read the full JACC statement here:
http://www.jacc.gov.au/families/operational_reports/opsearch-update-20150520.aspx
@spencer,
Others have made this point before, but I feel compelled to make it again. Fifteen months after this terrible tragedy, most thoughtful observers agree that there are a handful of viable scenarios regarding MH370’s fate:
1. Unusually prolonged pilot suicide, either as a political statement, or with the hope that the plane is never found, thus concealing the evidence and the crime.
2. Onboard fire or mechanical failure that compromised the communication equipment and possibly the flight controls, but did not bring down the plane.
3. Hijacking that was foiled or otherwise went wrong over the Strait of Malacca.
4. Highly sophisticated hijacking, involving spoofing the satellite data, flying the plane north, and landing it there.
None is ironclad, but until the plane is found, all are squarely on the table. Each has its strengths and weaknesses. And each of us will assign them slightly different probabilities. But we cannot snidely deride someone for thinking one of them more or less likely.
As for the notion that the plane could have flown over or near multiple countries without attracting military attention: the best evidence we have indicates that the plane did just that with no fewer than eight – Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, Myanmar and India.
@ Victor, nice response to Spencer.
Brock’s guest article is very illuminating. It looks indeed increasingly like the plane simply isn’t where it should be according to the sat data. And since I have confidence in the calculation and reasoning skills of the IG and others who were more officially involved – even if they made some very questionable decisions along the way – the plane simply should’ve been found by now. Or at least parts should’ve turned up drifting along somewhere. Since this didn’t happen it’s only logical to assume that the sat data were corrupted…deliberately by someone. Because – I may wield the famous Razor once in a while, too – it’s hardly likely that the data got spoilt by chance.
Victor simply followed this logical trail of thoughts and came up with an intriguingly simple method of faking the BFOs. He showed that it can be done if a group of perps thought it was in their best interest to make the world believe the plane got lost forever in the deepest crevasses of the SIO. So no need to look elsewhere – especially not North…
@Hudson, very true. The plane demonstrated that it is very possible to fly over several air spaces without getting challenged in real time. It’s not inconceivable that it found a “sneaky” route North. I have several ideas how it could’ve mostly skirted non-volatile borders. Getting into Tibet might’ve been the trickiest part, but there might’ve been possibilities, too…After that it was flying mostly over the nearly empty Tibet plateau and the Taklamakan Desert in the dead of the night. And who says it wasn’t seen by anyone – maybe not in real time but after some radar tracks were discovered later. I could well imagine that a country might be very embarrassed by that big glaring hole in their air defense and choose to hush it up. Or someone further down the food chain hushed it up because he feared for his job.
@hudson @all
Seems to me the top three scenarios can be discarded, bacause probability calculations would rate them into oblivion:
probability pilot suicide is about one in 20 years, while traffic multiplied. pilot suicide with taking passengers lives with the act probability is about one in ten millions of suicide acts, the probability that the resolve can be kept for more than 7 hours has another probability of a tiny fraction in millions of suicides. not necessary even to point to the missing patterns of suicide in the lives of the pilots. so the likelihood of thi event in a scientific sense is in the micro section behind the comma …
the onboard fire needs so many coincidences to happen with similar low probabilities, that we have likewise a probability of in tiny fractions for this event.
since review of Dr. Ulichs very valuable contribution did not confirm his corroboration of the Inmarsat data , we can now be quite sure, that we either overlooked something in the math or that we have some sort of a spoof, where i would deeply merit Jeff Wise and Victor Ianello for exploring that route.
For a sophisticated spoof we need the cooperation of INMARSAT now, because, we can be dead sure, that the organization behind it would have done exercises and trial runs, including the trials INMARSAT itself did before Mar 8 2014. These trials would have the mark of irregular and unexpected logons of A/C inflight. Those logons can be found in the INMARSAT logs. I proposed 5 months ago, that this review of the INMARSAT logs should be done. As there is no reaction to this reasonable proposal i feel there they might have found something , that could be embarassing. In light of this the undue death of one of the key operators of the Company sheds some light on the questions already asked here
@Hudson
5. Accidental/defensive shoot-down and cover-up
6. Abduction to a state’s black ops site, to acquire/prevent escape of intel buried within cargo/computers/docs/minds on board, capable of imparting a game-changing military advantage.
Both require merely inventing a fake path, searching plausibly at its terminus until the public loses interest, and blaming the locals for the changing story.
I’m NOT endorsing EITHER of these two (versions of your #2 or #3 – involving negligence sufficient to incur massive legal &/or political liability – rank highly among my own guesses), but each deserves to make your list, by any objective measure. Both do a better job than any of 1-4 in explaining BOTH zero debris in the SIO AND zero radar detection over land.
More importantly: each explains why, from the very beginning, search leaders have been cleverly misleading us about where they think the wreckage is, and the odds of finding it.
Even if you don’t “like” these options: keeping them on the table is a good way to incent these leaders to tell the truth about what’s really been going on since March, 2014. The longer they go without coming clean, the more I’m prepared to assume the worst.
@CosmicAcademy, where did you get the info about Inmarsat’s running trials before March 8, 2014? I must’ve missed this. If true it could be an important clue re: what could the perps have possibly known about Inmarsat’s proceedings. No need to implicate Inmarsat wholesale btw. I think that’s unlikely for many reasons. But research results can be leaked and get into the wrong hands. Does anyone know about Inmarsat’s level of corporate protection and security?
@Brock,
Regarding your #6, what if I changed #4 to read: “…flying the plane north (or west), and landing it there.” Would that work?
@Brock, your No 5 (defensive shootdown) is highly unlikely for several reasons: if it happened before the alleged turnaround at IGARI, there should have been a huge debris field in the SCS (or wherever it could’ve been downed). Very hard to clear that up so quickly, especially since the search remained focused there even after the turnaround was discovered. And as history shows us, accidental shootdowns happen. Normally the offending party owns up or tries feeble denials and the consequences are minimal – especially in cases where a plane really had invaded foreign air space either planned or accidentally. No need for a complicated cover up with multiple nations with totally varying interests and a corporation to boot being complicit.
Your No 6 (abduction to a state’s black op site) is possible and feasible. I wouldn’t exclude it from any list. I would exclude, though, that this state gone rogue would press Inmarsat wholesale into complicitship. Not very elegant and certainly not safe to have many people in the know. I would expect such a state rather going down Victor’s route and spoof the data convincingly. Since your favorite perp in that scenario is probably the US who took the plane to Diego Garcia, they needed to spoof the BTOs as well though.They would’ve certainly the technical know how to do just that.
Btw, the BTOs will remain a bone of contention in any spoofing scenario: did or didn’t the perps know about Inmarsat’s new policy of storing them? Depending on who the perps were, is it even likely that they knew? And in case they did know, why didn’t they fake them as well? Or did they???
Before people go too overboard on the speculative solutions, the search has still hardly touched the area inside the surface 7th arc along a length of over 600km. There are still plenty of reasons for the aircraft to have ended up in that unsearched area (and no proof that it could not). Fugro Discovery looks to be now heading towards the centre unsearched section and Go Phoenix had just started its Northern section before the current port call.
@Richard: where is the surface debris, then?
@Brock
That’s a feature of this case but I don’t think it rules out the SIO – there are plenty of ships that have been lost at sea without trace. Would you have spent all that time on analysing possible final flight paths of the aircraft if you thought the lack of surface debris was a fatal point?
@Brock
As I think has been pointed out, by you, the original search jumped around over a large area. The map below shows the area covered in the first 25 days and the current 60000sq.km. search box. Most of the early search was far away.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/fvz9mxyu35p0bj5/search_areas.jpg?dl=0
I was on a call just this morning about what makes a successful entrepreneur — and one of the biggest factors (and this is no secret) is creativity — a big part of which is being open-minded.
IMO, there are a world of possibilities to consider as it pertains to the fate MH370 IF people can let go of their existing constraints (read: mind sets) and try to IMAGINE what is possible — versus eliminating possibles because they appear “unreasonable” or not simple (read: not Occam) enough. How can anyone eliminate scenarios (or potential actors) when we actually know is dwarfed by what we don’t know?
Further, to imagine what is possible requires stepping back and looking at the larger landscape. And if one looks at the MH370 picture squarely and in totality, they’d have to be blind or criminally naive to exclude Inmarsat — because, Malaysia notwithstanding, the satellite data flows from Inmarsat. Full stop. Therefore, the key questions pertaining to Inmarsat — IF the data has been spoofed (my personal view from day one) or otherwise “corrupted” — concern *knowledge* and level of *involvement*.
Are higher ups in the company involved (with or without the knowledge of Inmarsat)? If Inmarsat is *involved*, are they a queen or a pawn? Was there a rogue employee (or a plant) who may have been in on a scheme (read: co-conspirator) to cover up what happened to MH370 by corrupting/cooking the data — or were people at Inmarsat used as accessories — with (or without) their knowledge? And lest we not forget, Stuart Fairbairn, described as one of Inmarsat’s “key operators”, dies, reportedly of a heart attack, the same day the search was moved to the SIO? The timing of this death, against the broader context of what’s happening would give reasonable people (and any first year law student) great pause. But IF Inmarsat is not *involved* in any way and Fairbairn’s untimely death is only that, then PROVING those facts, as opposed to merely asserting that they’re “fact” is what’s on order.
From where I sit, every plausible scenario and potential actor is on the table.