by Sabine Lechtenfeld
Note: On the comment thread for “Northern Routes and Burst Frequency Offset for MH370” last week Sabine (posting under the handle @littlefoot) made a very cogent observation about the use of speculative scenarios in cases like the disappearance of MH370. She’s given me permission to reprint it here. — JW
Note #2: Language of paragraph 3 modified per Sabine’s request –JW
Getting into a potential perp’s (or group of perps’) mind is a very worthwhile exercise. And that approach has been sorely lacking in the official search. One can argue that this is not their business; it’s the criminal investigation’s job. But even if we would have an ounce of trust in the handling of the case by the Malaysian authorities (I don’t), this argument is very flawed.
Most people agree by now that we’re looking at a crime rather than an accident or disaster (although some argue it might’ve been a combination of both: a hijack gone wrong which leads to a runaway plane).
If the evidence gathered in a preliminary investigation leads to a criminal investigation, a competent handling demands the construction of several possible scenarios featuring plausible perps who might’ve had a valid motive. The next question is how those perps could have tried to achieve their goals. Then you can revisit the available data (radar tracks, handshakes, performance limits, fuel supply, credible eyewitness accounts if there are any) and try to determine if there are any scenarios which fit the known data. If there are no plausible scenarios which fit the available data then you have to question the validity of those data. Fuel-and performance-limits are pretty unassailable. Radar tracks are already in a weaker category and need to be carefully looked at. And Victor and others have shown that the sat data most likely can be manipulated–which doesn’t mean of course that it actually happened. But such a scenario needs to be checked.
The current search has it mostly backwards. The available data were used to determine where it was physically possible for the plane to come down. That was combined with a few assumptions which are very debatable: the plane was flown solely by autopilot and came finally down because the fuel ran out. The question of who were the perps, what could’ve been their motives and how would they most likely have tried to achieve their goals was totally left out, thus leading to an impossibly large search area. And this area isn’t even especially compatible with any logical scenarios. Nor was it ever backed up by a scrap of physical evidence.
In this sense the investigation was indeed deeply flawed to begin with. I don’t blame the investigators that they had a preference for a Southern scenario–the sat data seemed to hint into that direction. But their “destination-SIO-with-autopilot-at-cruising-speed/height-terminated-by-fuel-exhaustion” scenario doesn’t make sense if we assume this was an accident. And it doesn’t make a lot of sense if we assume that we’re dealing with a crime.
The backward method–the place where the plane came down will eventually lead us to the wreckage which will then tell us what actually happened–is only practical if there is enough physical evidence to lead the investigators to a relatively narrow area of impact. As the sole approach it simply doesn’t work with MH370. There isn’t even enough evidence that the plane really crashed. Even the satellite data taken at face value only allow that conclusion if coupled with a set of unproven assumptions. So far the physical evidence doesn’t support these assumptions: no ELT signals, no wreckage and not a scrap of drifting debris after more than a year of searching in the designated areas.
@littlefoot: It is valuable to remember the constraints imposed on the Search Strategy Work Group (SSWG). In a nutshell, in order to limit the size of the search area, only a “zombie” southern flight was considered, and no criminal actions were considered. So the SSWG was limited from the outset as to what scenarios it could consider. Based on this, it is no surprise that the new search area is basically the old search area with borders extended out to increase the overall area by 2x.
Any terminus other than in the designated SIO search area, be it due to a 100 nm glide, a curved path, or a diversion to the northern arc, was not even considered because it was outside of the work scope of the SSWG.
The best I can tell, some of the basic assumptions which defined the search area were never re-visited as new assumptions would be considered “hypothetical”, and therefore out-of-scope. (I have seen language to this effect coming out of the ATSB.)
Malaysia, on the other hand, is in charge of the overall investigation, including the criminal investigation. It should be investigating “non-zombie flights” and the like. I doubt this is occurring.
Here is the language from the ATSB report from June 2014:
End of flight scenario
Note: Given the imprecise nature of the SATCOM data, it was necessary to make some assumptions regarding pilot control inputs in order to define a search area of a practical size. These assumptions were only made for the purposes of defining a search area and there is no suggestion that the investigation authority will make similar assumptions.
In the case of MH370, there were multiple redundant communications systems fitted to the aircraft (3 x VHF radios, 2 x HF radios, SATCOM system, 2 x ATC transponders). However, no radio communications were received from the aircraft after 1719.29, 7 hours prior to the last SATCOM handshake at 00:19. Analysis of the SATCOM data also showed that there were probably no large changes to the aircraft’s track after approximately 1915, about 5 hours prior to the last SATCOM handshake.
Given these observations, the final stages of the unresponsive crew/ hypoxia event type appeared to best fit the available evidence for the final period of MH370’s flight when it was heading in a generally southerly direction: loss of radio communications,long period without any en route manoeuvring of the aircraft, a steadily maintained cruise altitude,fuel exhaustion and descent.
This suggested that, for MH370, it was possible that after a long period of flight under autopilot control, fuel exhaustion would occur followed by a loss of control without any control inputs.
Note: This suggestion is made for the sole purpose of assisting to define a search area. The determination of the actual factors involved in the loss of MH370 are the responsibility of the accident investigation authority and not the SSWG.
Also allowing for the fact that a maximum glide distance of 100+ NM would result in an impractically large search area, the search team considered that it was reasonable to assume that there were no control inputs following the flame-out of the second engine. Accordingly the aircraft would descend and, as there would be some asymmetry due to uneven engine thrust/drag or external forces e.g. wind, the descent would develop into a spiral.
Littlefoot said, “A competent criminal investigation demands the construction of several possible scenarios featuring plausible perps who might’ve had a valid motive. [etc]”
Would you provide a citation for that statement?
I would counter that the “get the data” is the first action in any investigation & has been for some time.
Cellphones, laptops, smartphones, disk drives, service provider data, auto number/license plate recognition cameras, CCTV, etc, etc.
For example, Germanwings 4U9525: BEA requested data from Flightradar24 nearly immediately, ADS-B and SSR data was available from the French ANSP, the CVR was recovered within a few hours of the crash. The technical investigation had sufficient data within 36hrs to conclude the cause of the crash. The conclusion was sufficiently robust for the Marseille prosecutor, Brice Robin, to make his public statement within 48hrs.
In the case of MH370 Malaysia appears to have failed to ‘grab the data’. Reports suggested that they even rebutted Inmarsat’s initial approach.
:Don
@Victor
“The determination of the actual factors involved in the loss of MH370 are the responsibility of the accident investigation authority and not the SSWG.”
The Nuremberg Defense… 🙂
@DennisW: Yup. Or CYA.
Constructing scenarios I suspect is something they refrained from as it was always going to be damaging for Malaysia, who were themselves doing some diplomatic juggling to conduct a search at all. Deliberate diversion, but an accident?? Smells like politics. Scenarios became the domain of online contributors.
Talking scenarios – Shah as the sole perp with the intention of disappearing a plane without trace: the last place he would have headed for is the roaring forties? People paint him as the meticulous nerdy schemer so he would have headed for flat water? If a clean ditch was a plan that takes SIO off the table? He could have fluked it, but not planned it? How am I going Littlefoot(Sabine)?
Matty – Perth/Matt, same old me, better keep glasses on!
@Victor,
thank you for laying out again the search considerations and criteria of the SSWG in some detail, as well as the constraints they faced. That is very helpful for assessing their proceedings. I will add some thoughts later.
@Don,
I never ever said you should not get first at the data and as many hard facts as possible first. How do you get this idea?
Re: GermanWings, it’s not quite correct what you say. The immediate data from Flightradar24, ADS-B and SSR only made it possible to exclude a few things and make an educated guess of what happened to the plane. But those data could by no means tell the whole story within a few hours. It was only possible to nail down the co-pilot so quickly because the criminal investigation in Düsseldorf yielded plenty of incriminating material AFTER the voice recorder, which made the chilling facts very clear, was found within two days. If that hadn’t happened pretty swiftly, the data from the first hours would’ve left everybody marveling what exactly had happened to the plane:was it a computer glitch, did someone in the cockpit black out, was it a hijack and a terror act? It wouldn’t have been so different from mh370. Since the data strongly suggested a voluntary act the investigators would’ve done exactly what I said a competent investigation would do: They would’ve taken a hard look at everybody who was on board, what their potential motives could’ve been and what exactly they might’ve done to make the plane crash into the mountainside. They would’ve constructed scenarios and investigated them one by one if necessary. And, yes, in order to arrive at a plausible group of suspects they would’ve tried to lay their hands at as much hard evidence as possible. You named a few: security videos,laptops, cellphones, cellphone records, background checks and so on. Since the voice recorder was found fairly soon, the investigators could zero in on the copilot as the one who was apparently locked in the cockpit.
Granted, investigators of mh370’s vanishing act didn’t have this kind of material, since the plane wasn’t there and the Malaysian criminal investigation left a lot to be desired – maybe deliberate acts of obfuscation were at work here, too. But that this was probably an act of criminal intent became fairly clear pretty early into the investigation. Or it was at least one very likely scenario. The Malaysian authorities actually said so within two weeks.
http://www.watoday.com.au/world/malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370-nosedived-into-indian-ocean-dr-goong-chen-says-20150610-ghl8cd.html
Had to show up, plus a bit from Tim Clark.
@Matty, yes, my name is Sabine. What do you mean by the pilot – or whoever flew the plane – fluked it? Did you mean the outcome wasn’t as planned and the plane ended up jn the SIO by mistake? I should think that whatever really happened to the plane wasn’t the envisioned result is a possibility. Maybe the plan failed.
And you’re right: if the pilot wanted to ditch the plane then the Roaring Forties weren’t exactly the best area to do so and a plausible motive for such an act isn’t evident either.
Littlefoot – it’s been put forward that Shah wanted to disappear the plane cleanly and so headed down there to do it. He needed flat water though and could not have realistically planned a smooth ditch in the SIO. The Shah they illustrate would not have headed for mountainous seas. Even I wouldn’t.
@Matty – Perth: That is a very good point. The desire to execute a clean ditch is not consistent with a terminus in the SIO.
I should make it clear that I believe that the ATSB’s search area and the specific crash locations in the SIO recommended by the IG and me last year were the most likely based on the evidence at hand. (Others may disagree.) But with the lack of success to date searching in these areas and no debris found floating or washed ashore, it is time to re-examine assumptions. However, I do not think the SSWG will do this because new assumptions would be “hypothetical”. So it becomes unlikely that new scenarios will surface from the SSWG unless there is a change in the mandate from what was previously stated.
When your ditching in oblivion, perfection is hardly necessary. I have no doubt that Shah was confident in his ability to achieve his desired result. Daylight had indeed broken. Bleed enough speed on a t7 and you will have a relatively uncompromised airframe. More than sufficient given the locale.
IMO Zaharie wasn’t so naive as to believe that he would not be identified by the world as the guilty actor. There’s a whole lot of story out there that we’ve no idea of yet…and it starts and ends with Hishammuddin.
@Matty, Littlefoot
Dr.Chen & the Aggies make a thought provoking story, but how was Z to know this? While he had a flight simulator to practice on, he didn’t have a super computer to inform him of Dr. Chen’s results. Even if that were the case the a/c would have been under power. Meaning…she would have still had fuel on board, pushing her back into the arch, not further out to sea under fuel exhaustion.
@Chris Butler
A controlled ditching allows Z much more control (and therefore predictability) in regard to the outcome. All about control.
@Spencer
I agree wholeheartedly, but at what point? How much fuel on board? I would imagine about 200 lb,s aside. Where that put’s her mathematically is beyond my slide-rule capabilities.
@Chris Butler
Right. I wouldn’t even try to game/math it. What’s the hiccup in the scenario where he just goes until fuel exhaustion and then an extended glide? Although thrust would be desirable for a best case ditching, If Z felt OK with sea conditions and was confident that he could achieve whatever amount of debris was acceptable (especially given the remote locale..and who even knows how much he REALLY cared about debris anyway), then??
Fariq’s phone? I believe you said that z likely turned it on to muddy the waters. This was my initial thought as well. However I now believe that he (Fariq) was in possession of the phone when Z locked him out. I believe (as was initially reported) that he was trying to dial his mother. Sad if true.
@Chris Butler: Dr. Chen’s hydrodynamic analysis is what required the use of the supercomputer. The associated structural analysis was simplistic, incorrectly applied, and resulted in erroneous conclusions. When correctly applied, the methods presented in the paper predict global failure of the structure, i.e., a large debris field.
Please ignore this paper. The authors told me that they plan to use the hydrodynamic results as part of a more accurate simulation of the fracture mechanics. The reported results in the current paper are premature and incorrect.
A controlled ditching is the most likely way to reduce structural damage, which is obviously very dependent on the wave height.
@littlefoot
The ADS-B & Mode-S SSR logs included the D-AIPX’s ‘flight intent’ data in addition to the typical current position. That data was transmitted as a direct consequence of manual intervention to settings on the A320 Flight Control Panel. The CVR provided the evidence of who made that intervention.
In paragraph 3 of your post you describe 1) possible scenarios 2) possible execution 3) fit the data in that order. Machine generated data is simply a form of evidence: collect evidence then build the investigation.
:Don
@VictorI
Even when alleviating the constant track / constant speed restriction IMO one reaches roughly to the same search area (based on BFO only calculations as well as combined BFO/BTO calculations (under level flight assumption).
I think the main problem is in the end of flight scenario, so one should drastically widen the area in the direction perpendicular to the 7th arc. Practically it means we need extra info to limit at least the N-S uncertainty, to end up with a searchable area in terms of square kms.
@All: “BFO only” preliminary results can be downloaded from:
http://www.science4u.org/satcom-based-path-modelling.html
@littlefoot
To be clear, the ‘flight intent’ data describes what the autoflight system has been commanded to do rather than describing the simple aircraft position. This data showed that a target altitude of 100ft and negative RoC had been commanded.
The collection of further evidence concerning the co-pilot’s medical status certainly added weight to why the co-pilot might have followed such a course of action.
:Don
@Spencer
Yeah…the fuel burn off rate along with the bto/bfo equations are enough to send Isaac Newton going cross-eyed, but i really do think they should model the fuel burn off rate model with 400-500 lb’s on board if possible.
My best guess is that he ditched her under power w/o the glide scenario in place. He had & wanted full control to the end at his own hand. Although he had killed all of those folks for whatever reason, he came to rest with them in the most comfortable way he could manage at the time, with the vastness of the SIO,in total secrecy.
As for the phone…Man…it’s anyone’s guess. Such a mess!! Littlefoot got it right. Can’t prove it’s an accident, incident or crime. All three wrapped up in one. What went on between Igari & Panang run will always have me puzzled. Something happened, & by that I mean, he was either double crossed in some way, or some demands weren’t reached, but something went wrong & he headed out to sea, then he ditched her.
@VictorL
Agreed…Thank You
Spencer – You seem to be saying he got it down in 10 metre seas, with no debris, wasn’t worried about debris anyway, and backed his ability to do so.
I think your theory has Shah as some kind of supernatural evil.
Evil is as Evil does.
Whether your Andreas Lubitz or Capt., Z. Mass murder on any level is Evil.
Sea state at the time and location of a possible ditching is obviously a factor to consider. Is any information available?
Significant sea states require high piloting skill for a successful outcome, and add an element of good luck or bad luck. The US Airways Engine Dual Failure Checklist for the A320 reproduced in the NTSB accident report on the Hudson ditching gives the following advice:
“In case of strong crosswind, ditch facing into wind. In the absence of strong crosswind, ditch parallel to the swell. Touchdown with approximately 11 degrees of pitch and minimum vertical speed”.
Other information I’ve seen states that when landing across the swell, the pilot should aim to touchdown just behind the crest of a wave.
@Matty
10 m seas? Source please for March 9th, 2014 at 0:11-??.
As for ‘supernatural evil’, huh? Because I disagree with your logic in regard to the SIO locale all but ruling out a Zaharie ditching scenario? LOL, mate.
And FYI, the swell was between 1-4 m that day (morning) per surface wind data, courtesy of I believe Pihero (I’ll have to scour the a.net archives and double check). Please feel free to correct this.
Little inflated with the 10m there.
@Don, re:your comment from 6/11/at 03:03am,
You are right insofar as I have left out the basic first step of evidence gathering in a preliminary investigation – which then might lead to a criminal investigation. I will add this for more clarity.
As to the GermanWings investigation:I don’t disagree with you at all that the preliminary investigation pointed squarely at a crime having been committed. Mike Exner said pretty soon, that we might look at a terror act. But the data could certainly not tell us who the perp was and what had been his motive. There were many possibilities, including a hijack. That the copilot was responsible became clear after the voice recorder was found. His mental state of mind and his apparent premeditation was uncovered by the criminal investigation in Düsseldorf.
In the case of mh370 the evidence also pointed strongly at a crime having been committed, although it wasn’t quite as clear cut as in the GermanWings case. The Malaysian authorities but also many experts like Philip Baum said so very early on. Unfortunately the cooperation and communication of the Malaysian authorities and the SSWG wasn’t very effective.
@Niels
Thanks for the BFO only link. I had not seen that paper before. I’ve been fumbling with it myself for a little while recently. That paper will be helpful. I’ll dive into it over the coming weeks.
@Victor
We have long disagreed over the notion of what constitutes likelihood. I think the SIO is the simplest terminus from a mathematical perspective. I think it is an unlikely terminus from a motive/causality and debris perspective. The analysts have consistently ignored anything but the numbers. As you suggested in an earlier post, they may have been directed to do so. I really don’t know about that, but someone has to be looking at a bigger picture.
I put very little weight on the negative search results, BTW. The searchers may have simply missed the plane (there has to be a finite probability of that). The plane might be lying just outside the width of the search area, on and on. I’ve found car keys in a drawer on the third or fourth look through it. Negative search results should not be taken too seriously, IMO.
@Dennis, my original comment which became this contribution to Jeff’s blog, was addressed to you, as you might remember.
While I don’t necessarily subscribe to your Christmas Island theory, I realized when I was reading your blog, that you had done something important. You have tried to look beyond the available data. You have tried to translate the data into plausible human actions. Others have tried to do that, too. Globus Max came up with the idea a couple of months ago to look for a way point constructed path which lead away fom all land as far as possible because he had the idea that the perp wanted to make the search as difficult as possible. Peter Norton came up with the sensible idea, that a ditching demands to land in an area where there was daylight. You can argue how plausible every single approach is, but they all try to get a handle on the vast search area by trying to predict what a perp would probably do. And that approach has been sorely lacking right from the beginning. I agree with Victor that, considering the unique circumstances, it’s hard to critize the SSWG for the way they initially conducted the search, but the authorities can be definitely called out for not changing their approach after more than a year of unsuccessful search. And the validity of the data was never questioned. That’s the step I would go further than you, Dennis.
@Chris Butler – Real rough numbers but 400lb of fuel is good for about 2 minutes
Thanks Lauren H
Be cutting way to close then. I was reading viewing Orion’s post. Really good stuff. It stated that she had 43800 Kg’s of fuel on board when the last ACARS message was sent & fuel burn was re-estimated at that time. In hours, with pax & cargo what would the flight time be? I’m sure other factors such as weather, alt, speed, etc.
@Chris – On May 11, 2015 Gysbreght posted a graph with two plots showing the endurance and range for a B-777 with Trent 892 engines. The data is based on info in the FCOM and assumes LRC, no wind and ISA and uses the time and location of last radar (18:22, 10 nm NW of MEKAR) with 35,600 kg fuel. These plots account for the fact that the fuel flow decreases as the plane gets lighter. Different speeds would generate different plots.
If these plots were revised to include the effects of the winds and the actual temperature, they should show a small range of probable location of 2nd engine flameout.
03.24.15 — Ben Sandilands (@planetalking)
MH370: Last incomplete ping from jet ‘not understood’
“No response was received from the aircraft at 0115 UTC, when the ground earth station sent the next log on / log off message. This indicates that the aircraft was no longer logged on to the network.
Therefore, some time between 0011 UTC and 0115 UTC the aircraft was no longer able to communicate with the ground station. This is consistent with the maximum endurance of the aircraft.
The minister said he would not answer technical questions about this or other aspects of the analysis that Inmarsat and the UK Air Accident Investigation Board provided to the Malaysia Government the previous evening (Monday) which caused the Prime Minister Najib Razak to make a late night announcement that the flight had ended in the middle of the southern Indian Ocean and that all onboard were presumed lost.”
1:15 UTC: The time of MH370’s last incomplete ping coincides with the time Abdul Rasheed told Blaine Gibson he saw a plane over Kudahuvadhoo.
https://twitter.com/BloggerAround/status/607948574249385985
@DennisW
You’re welcome, Dennis. Please check carefully the assumptions with respect to the max. lon. velocity component in the error analysis; as I suppose you may want to apply it to the less Southerly scenarios 😉
I will soon post a free track/speed path calculator which can handle all level flight scenarios and explicitly delivers the path & velocity, however it needs both BFO and BTO curves.
Niels.
@nihonmama: Please forgive me but I don’t understand your point. The last (partial) handshake was at 00:19, suggesting the power to the SATCOM was cut then. At 01:16 the Perth GES transmitted a message and did not receive a reply. How is this transmission from Perth related to a sighting in the Maldives around 1:15?
The only way the plane could have been in the air at 01:15 was a refuel or by deliberately modifying the fuel loading and ACARS data. Is that what you are suggesting?
@Victor:
You said:
“At 01:16 the Perth GES transmitted a message and did not receive a reply.”
Ben Sandilands wrote: “No response was received from the aircraft at 0115 UTC”
“How is this transmission from Perth related to a sighting in the Maldives around 1:15?”
I’m pointing out that Abdul Rasheed told Blaine he saw A plane was at 6:15 Maldives time (1:15 UTC) — which is right about the time of the (unanswered) Perth transmission
You said:
“The only way the plane could have been in the air at 01:15 was a refuel or by deliberately modifying the fuel loading and ACARS data. Is that what you are suggesting?”
I only mentioned the TIME correlation.
But thanks for pointing out those two possibilities.
@nihonmama: I am still confused. How is the handshake request, initiated in Perth by the expiration of a 1 hr inactivity timer and well-documented in the satellite logs, related to a sighting in the Maldives? To me they are completely unrelated other than they happened at about the same time. A timing coincidence of two events does not mean correlation of the events.
@Victor:
You said:
“A timing coincidence of two events does not mean correlation of the events.”
Again, I only mentioned the TIME correlation. “Coincidence” is not my word.
@nihonmama: The word “correlation” implies dependence. Coincidence does not. I see no dependence between those events. For you to use the word correlation, you must see dependence. I am asking what you believe that dependence to be. I am not trying to play games. I am just sincerely trying to understand your point.
Spencer – I said 10 metres because during any 8 hour trip down that is what you may see. Utterly unpredictable. Swell of 1-4 metres is not insignificant. 4 metres is 13 ft, try skiing on it!
@Matty
In actuality. there is no way to know what precisely wave heights were where the a/c was perhaps ditched. It’s all very variable and unpredictable as you state.
Surfing (skiing?) 4 meters is HUGE. Not at all insignificant. However, the thrust of my point was that I believe Zaharie was comfortable ENOUGH with the sea state and his skill to do whatever it was he was hoping to accomplish. And who wants to be searching in the SIO year round?
There are many more rational reasons for an SIO terminus as opposed to, say, the Pacific, but I’ll let that dog sleep.
Even in very heavy seas there is every chance he would have been able to leave no trace. With minimal debris (engines would sink), the location is just so remote that I believe it served his purpose quite well. What little debris there was can be readily explained away due to the vastness.
I understand you see this very differently. Cheers.
(Sorry for being a bit off-topic here)
For those interested: I’ve just uploaded a short preliminary doc explaining an explicit path calculation method with minimum number of restrictions (speed and track free).
http://www.science4u.org/satcom-based-path-modelling.html
(download2)
It can easily be implemented for example in Excel (that’s what I have been using)
Note that the level flight assumption is needed. Which implies that it automatically follows an early FMT scenario.
Late FMT scenarios are consistent with a different (non-zero ROC) interpretation of the 18:40 BFO, and can of course not be excluded.
Critics and suggestions for improvement are welcomed!
A complete analysis/report including (small) parameter study, discussion and recommendation section is on the agenda for coming weeks.
Niels.
@Matty, Spencer,
4 meter swell in the remote open ocean (very long and smooth waves) is still a benign state of affairs. That’s very different to 4 meter surf (short and steep waves) building up on approach to shores or shallows or continental shelves.
Archival wave data down there needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Unless they are ship based or wave buoy observations of the exact impact location, they are likely estimated values from some predictive modelling and will not represent actual local conditions, more a regional averaged estimated value with a large margin for error.
A general disclaimer used in official wind and wave forecasts is that actual conditions could have gusts and wave heights exceed the forecast by 30-40%. The same margin then also applies in the other (more benign) direction. Wind soeed and wave heights can be that much less.
Cheers
Will
@Victor:
You said:
“I see no dependence between those events”
That’s fine. I’m of the mind that the timing is not a coincidence — and that the plane Abdul saw could very well have been MH370.
Now, whether that was possible — because of a refuel or the deliberate modification of the fuel loading and ACARS data (or something else) — I can’t say.
But go back to the Nature article (11 June 2014 ‘Sound clue in hunt for MH370’) and note “estimated location of sound’s origin” in the graphic.
Now look at this. It’s always bothered me.
https://twitter.com/IpohHappenings/status/446926885973262336
Stand by — there is another report coming.
MuOne – 4 metres is a benign state of affairs – for a ship. But I agree, a grain of salt is what is required. If you started the engines in KL intending to get there in 8 hours time there would be little reliable indication to what was waiting for you. Most of the rocky points in the south/west have warning signs on them because if you turn your back on that sea you can end up in it – happens every year sadly. Even on clam days.
I suppose my point is you could not sensibly budget for a smooth ditch down there. Difficult to see how that would have been part of any plan – to me.
@Matty
Because being ‘smooth’ wasn’t a requirement. The only criteria needing to be met was Zaharie’s. If he felt OK about what he would be met with down there, then that’s well and good enough.
In an ‘average’ ditching by a pilot of his skill, in this hinterland, the chances of debris turning up anywhere, ever, are very remote.
And if he didn’t believe or realize that the a/c could be tracked, what difference does it make?
A piece of debris washes up in Aus, or Chile, or Africa, so what?
In his mind, the plane would still remain missing for a very long time. We would just have proof that it did indeed crash ‘somewhere’.
That said, I’m not at all convinced that his SIO terminus wouldn’t be seen/discovered somehow.
Edit
*meant to imply that that it very possible that Z was aware of at least the possibility of being tracked to the terminus. He certainly couldn’t know in the absolute.
@Nihonmama: I agree with your main thrust – that Kudahuvadhoo should be THICK with the world’s top investigative reporters, digging out just what it was those folks DID see.
But I’m with Victor on whether the eyewitness timing is related to the 0116 failed handshake request. The latter is, to me, one of the LEAST suspicious records in the ISAT log: if you trust that a logon request was received at 0019, you’d be surprised if the data log did NOT contain a handshake request an hour later, since (I’m told) “are you there?” requests are automatically generated whenever nothing happens for an hour. If there is a fully deterministic and unrelated explanation for this record’s existence, we really have no basis for relating it to the KH sightings.
I consider [the entire last 6 hours of ISAT data was a complete fabrication] several orders of magnitude less unlikely than [the KH sighting and the final unanswered handshake request had a common cause or effect].
@Littlefoot: thank you for this thoughtful guest post. I’d amplify your central point, by pointing out that the evidence is not only of insufficient PRECISION to pinpoint the plane, it is of insufficient PROVENANCE. A good cop would consider the ISAT data merely one “story” being offered by a prime SUSPECT (US govt). As the story started falling apart, we’d bring the suspect in for harsher questioning. We might even charge them with something, to get them to flip.
Instead, we’re inventing progressively more outlandish theories, and ever-more tortured interpretations of the physical evidence, in a desperate attempt to avoid even QUESTIONING the suspect’s story.
This is neither good science NOR good detective work. Grilling a prime suspect’s flunky agencies (ATSB, ISAT) puts (in my view) our best foot FORWARD in pursuit of this mystery’s solution.