Survey conducted by @Jay (Joel Kaye) via the comments section of “Guest Post: Northern Routes and Burst Frequency Offset for MH370.”
635 thoughts on “Where Do We Think MH370 Went?”
@Littlefoot:
“Unless you want to accuse someone of falsifying the records of the Curtin Boom the Kudahuvadhoooan plane can’t have caused the boom.”
There’s a WORLD of difference between pointing out that because information hasn’t been confirmed (and iT SHOULD BE), that the suggestion is that the information is falsified.
Twisting, or attempting to attach an unintended meaning to someone’s comments is not only unconstructive, it’s unpersuasive.
Nevertheless, it happens on this board a lot.
@DennisW:
“I don’t do well with riddles.”
That’s unfortunate. 😉
“The fact is that no one has come up with a plausible reason for the plane to be in the Maldives… It is absolutely a non-starter. You have to do much better to bring it to life.”
Swollen with assumptions.
Namely:
1. That the plausibility of MH370 flying over Kudahuvadhoo turns on my persuading YOU that it’s plausible.
2. That I am not “bringing to life” the possible reasons for the Maldives scenario ELSEWHERE.
@Nihonmama, in the case of the Curtin Boom you don’t have to wait for any official confirmation. You can simply just ask the most knowledgeable person – who happens to be Dr. A. Duncan. I’m sure he will give you his best estimation of the time when it occurred. He has answered Brock’s inquiries as well.
Part of the public confusion stems from the fact that uninformed people mix up the time when the sound hit the underwater-microphones at Australia’s west coast with the time when the sound was actually generated at the location west of the Maldives – which was roughly an hour earlier, since the sound takes that long to travel to the microphones.
@Nihonmama
Answer my question or go away. Either is acceptable to me. I have little patience for contrived arguments that go nowhere.
Sorry to be brief, but I am growing tired of your line of “reasoning” relative to the Maldives .
@Nihonmama
Sorry, i replied before your pst was up. I won’t be polite and will categorize it as pathetic.
Dennis – to understand motive is to perceive and understand everything. That’s not where we are. It’s been made much harder for groups to acquire a passenger jet in the last decade or so, they have to do more if they wanted one, and groups like AQ for example are limited to stealing/hijacking. Firstly you would have to create the impression that the jet was no more. Hitler hid battleships in Norwegian fjords but today he would need to extinguish the will to look, or force people to look in the wrong place.
The geopolitics haven’t been this crazy since the sixties I reckon and as an example we have hit a tipping point in Islamic consciousness. The next story that will soon hit is the Iranian backed Houthi’s in Yemen are having the same sort of battlefield success against the Saudi’s as IS had against the Iraqi’s. Both groups see the Saudi fall as inevitable and that will shake everything up. The Pakistani navy renegades who tried to commandeer their ship to attack the US vessel are another pointer. We have made it harder to hijack planes but they have not stood still. The Syrian war started with a bunch of people waving olive branches at soldiers. It will end with a totally redrawn ME and the US rightly keeps it’s powder dry for the South China Sea.
Motives – there are many.
@littlefoot, Nihonmama
I was the one who simply pointed out here that Maldives time (MVT) is UTC+5 so, as littlefoot says, MH370 cannot have been seen over K. after sunrise and then crashed at the “Curtin boom” location. As we know, for MH370 to have been anywhere near the Maldives we have to throw out the Inmarsat BTOs & BFOs and perhaps the time-stamps as well (although we tend to cling to those as they seem to tally with fuel exhaustion calculations). Of the very little data we have (including satellite, radar and fuel) I find Dr Duncan’s data the most solid, including the fact that his team did not detect an acoustic event in or near the current search area.
It is very unfortunate that the media will not drop the Maldives sightings and it seems the only way to rule those out as being MH370 is to find out which plane was seen; my request to ABC Media watch for more info has not yet been answered.
@All. There could be many motives for hijacking a plane and flying West, the Maldives just happen to be on the way to plenty of places (once you discard satellite data and allow refueling). Our current discussions though about whether MH370 went near Port Blair etc., when was the FMT and who said what when seem much more productive; thanks to Victor and Niels particularly for digging up such useful information.
AM2 – flying west is a bridge too far for many because the BTO’s are seen as sacrosanct but if I had my hijackers hat on that’s the first thing I would want to manipulate and access to the SDU is not hard.
The Iranians successfully cyber-hijacked a US drone and brought it safely down on one of their strips and imagine for a moment the complexity of that? What kind of security is built into a drone that was intended to operate over unfriendly space?
@AM2, thanks.
So you were the voice of reason who finally got the time converted correctly. I was arguing myself silly a few month ago with trying to convince everybody that the Maldive plane could’ve only have made it with near supersonic speed to the location of the Curtin Boom just in time to crash there. And all the while I was arguing with the assumption that Kudahuvadhooan time was UTC +6 instead of the correct +5 hours! I could’ve saved my virtual ink 😉
But I’m really angry with journalists like Hedley Thomas whose job it is to get these things right, but who nevertheless continue to point to the Maldivian sighting and the Curtin Boom location in the same breath so to speak and apparently never troubled themselves with such boring things as time tables and conversions.
While I’m personally convinced that mh370 was never anywhere near the Maldives, everybody is free to develop their own opinions and scenarios. But they should realize that they have to make up their minds: either mh370 crashed near the Curtin boom location and the KudahKudahuvadhooans have seen a different plane. Or they have seen mh370 and the Curtin Boom was caused by an earthquake.
@Matty. Thanks too for your geopolitical comments. FWIW (n=1) I doubt that MH370 went west and find myself in a don’t-know camp; yes, possible motives for went-west are there for sure but real evidence is not.
AM2 – the hijacked drone could also have been a team effort(Russia-China-Iran etc) and imagine the technical download once they got hold of it? It isn’t catching butterflies – you would need a lot of info to attempt it? If you had an operative on MH370 would it potentially get a bit easier?
@littlefoot. Yes, ta, I agree with most of your post of 9:14 PM but suspect you meant to add the other option of MH370 not sighted and Curtin Boom caused by something other than MH370.
@Matty. Geopolitics and hijacking methodology are not things I know much about so won’t comment.
@All
The Maldives story is a complicated one. I fully agree with Nihonmama that it stinks, given the behaviour of authorities and leMonde story. The (rough) timing and the acoustic event registered make an association with MH370 normal. That we cannot explain something does not mean we should drop it.
Also for me a BTO/BFO spoof or fabrication sounds like science fiction, but it is not impossible.
While technology has advanced over the past 10000 years, human nature has not. So back then the choice was to hit a mammoth with the bludgeon or a fellow human being, now there are many more options. History teaches that technology will always be used to the limit, for good and for bad.
So let’s not hit the open mind of those bringing forward something we cannot explain with the virtual bludgeon.
@Niels, I fully agree with you and Nihonmama that something is deeply wrong with the various explanations of the plane sighting given over the last year. The Le Monde story falls apart upon closer inspection.
That’s not what I was arguing about. I’m trying to make people aware that the popular notion of the Kudahuvadhooan plane having crashed and thereby caused the Curtin Boom is physically impossible – unless the crew of the plane used the Harry-Potter time-turner 😉
Here I simply trust Dr.Duncan’s expertise. Especially since even laymen can do the math: what is known precisely is the time when the sound hit the microphones at the Australian coast. If I recall correctly that was around 1:30 UTC, give or take a few minutes. Everybody can readily see that the sound can’t have traveled fast enough to give the sighted plane even a remote chance to make it in time to the location of the sound. Heck, around 1:30 many Kudahuvadhooans claimed to have still seen the plane.
But that makes the Maldivian story – as you say- so complicated. Since you can rule out that the plane crashed and caused the boom it becomes a lot harder to argue that it was a crippled mh370. But if it wasn’t mh370 what was the plane’s identity? And how might it be connected to mh370 nevertheless?
I still believe there’s a perfectly innocent explanation possible. But it becomes harder and harder to believe that, when stories keep cropping up like the one from Le Monde.
@Littlefoot
That’s fine. Personally I did not have time to look into the details of the acoustic event(s) yet. I would like to know how common they are and what was the time window analyzed. I remember discussing that with Brock a while ago.
And sometimes it is not bad to park a subject for a while when it is difficult to make something out of it 🙂
@AM2, that the Curtin Boom was not caused by mh370 and the sighted plane was not mh370 is what I currently believe.
However,if we throw out the sat data as completely unreliable, we cannot rule out that mh370 did travel West and crashed indeed and caused the famous boom. The time would be about right. In this case the Kudahuvadhooan plane can’t have been mh370, but for all we know it could have been a plane searching for the crashed mh370. Since it arrived almost an hour after the boom happened the time could be right and it would make sense then that it was flying slowly and lowly. If the powers that be wanted to keep the plane crash under wraps then of course the true identity and destination of the search plane can’t be publicly revealed.
If mh370 did travel westwards, then this version is the only one which is not physically impossible and makes some sense. You have to throw out the BTOs and BFOs, though.
Interestingly Rand’s research around Christmas last year brought up the possibility that the Kudahuvadhooan plane was also sighted near other islands in the vicinity over a time span of two hours. That would match with a plane searching for something.
@Niels, yes, I will let it go now 😉
But it’s definitely worth trying to ferret out the true identity of the Maldive plane. If only for being able too retire the Maldive scenario for good.
Littlefoot – Prior to flying off radar the plane in the net sense flew west in a determined and planned way. It’s only a strange looking reboot that has us searching down south and without it the Maldive sighting would considered our best bit of evidence. Scary?
The sat data is all we have it is said often but it’s also the one bit that doesn’t fit. When you bend everything around it nothing makes sense. It always bothered me that as we splice from radar to satellite data the path skews off the page. If it was an assignment you wouldn’t hand it in.
@littlefoot. I think there are a number of possible scenarios including planes searching (military?) as you said and the Royal couple being taken to safety (as has been mentioned a few times). In any case, I suspect the Maldivians would known the difference between a Twin Otter or similar, a large commercial jet plane and a military jet. Agreed, it would be good to find the identity of the plane(s) sighted…
I think we just had a preview of the situation we are in if BTO turns out to be corrupted. In which case we would thank God on our knees for every piece of info there is, as we should literally search the whole globe.
I’m sure it will be further investigated by people who really dare to stick out their necks. Julie @Nihonmama is clearly one of them; they should be honoured.
@Matty, you keep saying that the plane flew westward in a determined way. But that isn’t really true. The radar tracks indicate that it flew more in a Northern direction when it was last seen on a screen. The plane would’ve to make another turn in order to fly directly to the Maldives. It could’ve done so of course, but it’s simply not true that the plane went westwards when last detected. Even if you throw the sat data out of the window, nothing is clear cut and straightforward with this case. You always have to add unproven assumptions in order to construct a halfway plausible scenario.
@AM2, I think the known schedule pretty much excludes this evacuation scenario of the Royal couple – and the behaviour of the sighted plane – flying lowly and slowly – doesn’t make the least bit of sense in an evacuation, especially if the plane really hung around, as Rand’s research seems to indicate. And you’re right, the witnesses would reckognize a military jet – which would certainly be used in an evacuation. But in a search and rescue operation that’s not necessarily the case.It doesn’t have to be a military plane at all.
I wonder if the sighting in Kudahuvadhoo was another MAS aircraft on a deviation path (or a MAS special charter mission) for searching for the missing MH370. They did this because of the early satellite data analysis pointed to somewhere in the Indian Ocean.
@Niels:
Thank you for your kinds words. But no honour needed (or sought) here. I share information in the hopes that it may be helpful.
Dare we repeat it? The assertion of an opinion is not a fact and preliminary or “approximate” information, including scientific data, requires confirmation before it can be considered EVIDENCE OF. This is beyond elementary.
But unfortunately, what we see on many of the boards devoted to discussion of MH370, is the emergence of a cult of the personality — wherein people confuse THEIR opinions (or the opinions of those who support their POV) with fact. So rather than following the information WHERE IT LEADS (which is how crimes and mysteries are unraveled), much energy is spent trying to quash (or mischaracterize) any information put forth that conflicts with (or tends to weaken) the ‘narrative’. But if the narrative is actually TRUE, it will stand not because people defend it (or ignore information that the SHOULD be paying attention to), but because the narrative withstands rigourous scrutiny in its own.
That is certainly not the case with respect to the SIO STORY that has been sold to the public. With every day that passes, that boat, not unlike the Titanic, is filling up with water. And pretty soon, I suspect, the stern will begin to rise up out of the water, and a whole lot of folks are going to find themselves hanging on to that last railing screaming “what just happened?” as the boat plunges downward…
That is why the media (and others) are actively engaged in spinning, distorting and trying to discredit the villagers on Kudahuvadhoo. They want all discussion of the Maldives go away. And not just the Maldives.
But here’s the good news: there are a whole lot of people out there who are digging and sharing important, probative information. And their ability to do so does not depend on them getting a consensus — from folks on this board — or any other.
In my experience, people don’t push back on information this hard if what is being surfaced is NOT germane — and is making someone somewhere uncomfortable. In that regard, the well-placed person who warned Blaine Gibson BEFORE Le Monde’s story was published that his report from the Maldives would generate a big disinformation campaign was right on the money. https://twitter.com/nihonmama/status/610855587396464641
For me, finding MH370 is not an academic exercise. And if I were on that plane, I’d want people to aggressively turn over every rock, never stop asking questions and fight like hell to find the truth. Because it won’t be gotten to otherwise.
#onwards
@Nihonmama
I’m afraid you are right. This case can only be clarified by “fighters” who turn around every rock and not let go (with a little help of scientists possibly :-))
Now as scientists we are doing a miserable job so far: we are still working with uncorroborated data.
So here we go, some more questionable science:
Under the usual disclaimer:
– the Isat log summary correctly represents the recorded data
– the AES was located in 9M-MRO
– the AES was working normally
I’ve done a level flight path prediction starting at Port Blair latitude @1900 UTC
The path passes sailoress latitude at 1922 UTC and crosses the 0011UTC ping ring at S20.7 E103.2.
Add a SW glide and you end up remarkably close to the end point given at MH370site.com
A document with more details will be posted after some sleep.
Littlefoot – I’m aware that it was heading NW as it left radar and was going SE after it diverted, I meant west in the net sense. Made a B line for the Thai/Malay border, veered up the Strait corralled by land, then into the open. Did the pilot want open sea? In the net sense the plane traveled west but the course was governed by land as it disappeared.
Littlefoot – sorry I meant SW not SE. But, he/they definitely chose the IO over the Pacific and took risks to do it. The plane exhibits a determination to make it to the IO when a dark flight into the Pacific would have sufficed for any suicide scenario. Where was it going? I believe there was a destination inputted.
The problem, Nihonmama, is that more often than not you hinder the search for the truth by repeating misinformation uncritically. On the balance I fear your contributions detract from the search for truth rather more than promote it.
“I believe there was a destination inputted.”
Sure there was.
@littlefoot,
re: your thoughts on possible SAR at “Curtin Boom” location – yes and no. If it did occur there the military at DG would surely be well aware of the exact location. IMO a plane such as a 777 wouldn’t be used for SAR, more likely helicopters etc.. So, still a big ? over all this and lets hope for more evidence to be unearthed to settle this one way or another.
@Matty, maybe it wasn’t very risky to track back over the Malaysian peninsula – maybe the perps knew a thing or two about how the Malaysian airforce and MAS would react – or should I rather say not react. By staying close to the Malaysian border they might’ve chosen the advantageous home court.
@AM2, of course one would not use a big plane like a 777 for SAR missions. But who says that the islanders really saw such a big plane? As had been said many times, they are only used to see small “boat planes” over there. And if a plane flies lowly and makes a lot of noise it might appear bigger than it actually is. What makes me doubt the Le Monde story nevertheless is that we are supposed to believe the Maldivians would not recognize a plane from their national airline.
Dear Mr. Wise:
I had a bad reaction to your recent comment, but first wanted to thank you for your role in posting a continuing chain of interesting aviation articles, and providing a forum for exchange of ideas. I check into this site almost daily, in vain hope that crowd sourcing, deep thought, the scientific method, all else, etc., will produce breakthroughs, find the plane, and perhaps even answer the question of life, the universe and everything. Generally, I’m thrilled with this site. Today, I was upset, for the first time, to read one or your comments. You wrote to Julie / Nihon Mama: “On the balance I fear your contributions detract from the search for truth rather more than promote it.” Hope you apologize and take it back, as it was the first unbecoming thing I’ve seen you post. We can all misstep on occasion. From a reader’s perspective, who has read many forums for more than a year on the MH370 subjects, Julie/Nihon Mama has provided far more contribution than detraction to the various forums where she posts. I love reading not merely her ideas, but also the ideas of so many of your various contributors, whether it is Victor Ianello, Dr. Simon Proud, “Little foot”, or others. I even loved your very creative post on the spoof, even if some readers thought it might have hindered the search for the truth or detracted from the search for truth rather more than promoted it. I loved the detail. I hope the posts here can return to being interesting, mutually respectful, intellectually challenging, etc. And hope Dr. Ulich can provide an update regarding his work with contrails and acoustics. Have a happy 4th of July, all you American MH370 searchers. And for the searchers from other nations, best of everything, and keep the interesting work and comments flowing.
While I do always look forward to reading Nihonmamas interesting and distinct posts, I think I may see where Jeff is coming from. I personally get the feeling that she is not truly objective in her stance and overall tone. It’s obvious that she strongly believes there was a nefarious cover-up, and that the cover-up had something to with the various militaries and geopolitical circumstances in that region of the world. This is evidenced by her extreme interest in the various military exercises going on at the time in the Malacca Strait, etc. Although there is no problem with having a theory, I tend to think she is biased towards what she believes, or wants to believe happened, by commonly quoting, an thus indirectly telling us a story through selected news articles and twitter conversations. This, as opposed to staying objective, even if the objectivity doesnt fit with your desired narrative. Nihonmama, I hope you are not offended by this and take it the wrong way, as I think many (most) people behave in a similar manner, I just figured I’d jump in as mainly an observer. And for the record, I do think your posts are among the most interesting to read. And I also get a kick out of how you speak like a lawyer when defending yourself. Theres no way that you’re not a lawyer.
By the way, as sad as it is, there’s about a 0.5% chance this plane is found by the current search team. Possibly in the future by accident. I think I would pay at least $10,000 out of my pocket to be able to just know the truth of this case, from start to finish. That’s no disrespect to the families who lost loved ones, it’s just something I am so darned curious and intrigued about. How much would you guys pay to be able to know the entire truth, start to finish?
@Jay, while some might take your last paragraph as disrespectful, I don’t see it that way. I understand perfectly where you’re coming from. I do feel for the ordeal the nok are going through, since the people onboard probably became victims not just of another disaster but also victims of a cold blooded crime.
But the Black Swan nature of this crime – something like this never happened before in modern aviation history – also makes it an intriguing riddle. And I hate unsolved riddles! I can get very compulsive in my desire to solve them. And you know what? That’s not the worst motivation for trying to get to the bottom this. Someone who truly wants to get to the bottom of this – no matter what – might be a little less prone to biases. Although we all have them as you said in your last comment. Unfortunately the odds are stacked heavily against us, since we don’t have all the available facts. I suspect that some factions clearly are not playing fair and are withholding important facts.
I came to realize lately btw that we may have paid too little attention to the military exercises going on in the SCS. Not because I believe that mh370 might have been shot down but because there might be a geopolitical motive hidden somewhere in that direction. And since the attention might’ve been focused on the SCS it could have facilitated the execution of the perps’ plan.
The WSJ is hot on the trail of transfers between the Malaysian sovereign fund (which owns MAS) and what appears to be the PM’s personal accounts.
This can only get much worse for Najib.
KUALA LUMPUR, July 3 ― A Putrajaya spokesman has insisted to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) that Datuk Seri Najib Razak has never exploited funds from 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) for personal use, after the international business paper confronted the government with claims that some US$700 million (RM2.6 billion) have been deposited into what is believed to be the prime minister’s private accounts.
@victor – With a $2.5 billion insurance policy, perhaps the investigators should use the famous quote from Deep Throat to Bob Woodward in the movie about Watergate, “Follow the money?” (Apparently that line was from the movie only. The book does contain the phrase “The key was the secret campaign cash, and it should all be traced,” which Woodward says to Senator Sam Ervin)
@Lauren H: “Follow the money” as a phrase is short, sweet, and accurate. I didn’t know it only appeared in the movie version of “All the President’s Men”.
Relative to MH370, perhaps there is incriminating evidence in the way of financial transactions, diplomatic cables, emails, telephone calls, sealed court documents, etc., that could be exposed through an organization like Wikileaks or by a whistleblower. Barring this, it will be difficult to reconstruct a scenario involving the international players.
I wonder for how much longer the PM can get away with his shenanigans. His own party would do well to axe him. The former PM who is no saint either by anyone’s standards has gone more than once into that direction.
And we should not lose sight of the Malaysian angle in the mh370 saga.
I wrestle with the idea for some time now, that there is a Malaysian faction who wanted MAS to be exactly where it is now: 100 % state owned and ripe for a complete new start including the sacking of a considerable percentage of the employees. Which would have caused an enormous stink before mh370 – but is readily accepted as necessary nowadays.
Unfortunately I have no expertise whatsoever with “money trails”. But it might be an important aspect of the conundrum.
“a Malaysian faction who wanted MAS to be exactly where it is now: 100 % state owned and ripe for a complete new start” to achieve its objective destroyed two airplanes, killing 537 passengers and crew in the process. Of course, that’s perfectly plausible.
@VictorI – I checked before posting. Per online sources “Follow the money” is in the movie but not in the book.
The implication on MH370 is money could be added to the list of possible motives for making a plane disappear. And categorizing it as an “Accident” could be required to meet a provision of the insurance policy. Perhaps there are different payouts for different types of losses?
@Niels – You said, “the AES was located in 9M-MRO.” If it weren’t, you could add that the spoof theory list. An AES swap could be a reason for the 1-hour AES silence.
@Gysbreght, I didn’t say that the story can be reduced to Malaysian factions being the main perps just in order to rake in the insurance money and start freshly with a reorganized airline which was in financial trouble well before mh370. While the idea of a gigantic insurance scam isn’t as absurd as you make it out – it’s a time honored tradition to destroy your own assets if you’re financially reeling and if you have a generous insurance policy – the length they would have gone to sound a bit extreme even for Malaysian standards. But if someone – let’s say a superpower like China – wanted to secure Malaysian cooperation or make sure that they would simply look the other way, then the future fate of MAS might well have come into play. And, as Nihonmama has pointed out some time ago, MAS had an unusually generous insurance policy. And the complete reorganisation might well be helpful for covering up past embezzlements and irregularities.
@Lauren, the idea of and SDU/AES swap has been brought up before. But Inmarsat has dismissed it by pointing out that each device has an individual signature in the way it performes and that a swap is highly unlikely in this case.
@Lauren, or are you talking about the possibility that mh370’s SDU was transfered somehow to another plane? Which then flew into the SIO?
@ littlefoot: Transferring the SDU is not a new idea. Maybe they sent off a drone. Maybe MH370 never flew very far. Why is everybody so certain about it?
Anyway, all:
Hishammudin said something along the lines: some things are terrible, they must never be revealed to the public. I’ve searched quite some time for the quote, but can’t find it anymore. I’m absolutely certain, however, that various news articles quoted him. Does anybody remember it? When did he say it? I’m wondering if maybe they found the plane at S21 and – upon what they found – decided to keep it secret.
@littlefoot: I don’t think Inmarsat ever said that the SDU has a unique performance that cannot imitated. Rather, there is a unique ICAO identifier, but this surely can be changed.
At one point on Duncan’s site, I made the observation that the same frequency bias seen in the BFO before and after 18:25 would indicate that the units were the same. Later, I changed my opinion on this. If two different units were either cross-calibrated or accurately calibrated to the same precise reference, I don’t see why it would not be possible for two units to have the same frequency bias.
@Littlefoot – Yes, I pictured the SDU in the SIO on board a different flying machine than 9M-MRO. 9M-MRO then flew to another destination. Not sure if a new SDU would have had to have been installed and calibrated in 9M-MRO, but if it was, it would use an identifier from an out-of service plane.
Note, unloading the cargo and pax while swapping the SDU’s could increase its range by 400-500 nm.
I do not believe this really happened. I just put forward the possibility. I believe that 9M-MRO is in the SIO either further away from the 7th Arc or further north or south along the arc than the area searched.
how much time is needed to install or swap a SDU? if such occurred it could have happened at an airport near the east coast of Malaysia ie: Kota Bharu or Kuala Terengganu ?
@Victor, I’m fairly sure that Inmarsat addressed the problem of the SDU’s identity. I think they said that each device has certain idiosyncracies, which makes them unique beyond the ICAO identifier. And that they were satisfied that after the log-on around 18:25 the same SDU was answering the handshakes. This question was put forward after all: how can you be sure that the same SDU is communicating? And Inmarsat said they were satisfied that it was the same device. But I will try to find confirmation for this.
@Littlefoot:
“Unless you want to accuse someone of falsifying the records of the Curtin Boom the Kudahuvadhoooan plane can’t have caused the boom.”
There’s a WORLD of difference between pointing out that because information hasn’t been confirmed (and iT SHOULD BE), that the suggestion is that the information is falsified.
Twisting, or attempting to attach an unintended meaning to someone’s comments is not only unconstructive, it’s unpersuasive.
Nevertheless, it happens on this board a lot.
@DennisW:
“I don’t do well with riddles.”
That’s unfortunate. 😉
“The fact is that no one has come up with a plausible reason for the plane to be in the Maldives… It is absolutely a non-starter. You have to do much better to bring it to life.”
Swollen with assumptions.
Namely:
1. That the plausibility of MH370 flying over Kudahuvadhoo turns on my persuading YOU that it’s plausible.
2. That I am not “bringing to life” the possible reasons for the Maldives scenario ELSEWHERE.
@Nihonmama, in the case of the Curtin Boom you don’t have to wait for any official confirmation. You can simply just ask the most knowledgeable person – who happens to be Dr. A. Duncan. I’m sure he will give you his best estimation of the time when it occurred. He has answered Brock’s inquiries as well.
Part of the public confusion stems from the fact that uninformed people mix up the time when the sound hit the underwater-microphones at Australia’s west coast with the time when the sound was actually generated at the location west of the Maldives – which was roughly an hour earlier, since the sound takes that long to travel to the microphones.
@Nihonmama
Answer my question or go away. Either is acceptable to me. I have little patience for contrived arguments that go nowhere.
Sorry to be brief, but I am growing tired of your line of “reasoning” relative to the Maldives .
@Nihonmama
Sorry, i replied before your pst was up. I won’t be polite and will categorize it as pathetic.
Dennis – to understand motive is to perceive and understand everything. That’s not where we are. It’s been made much harder for groups to acquire a passenger jet in the last decade or so, they have to do more if they wanted one, and groups like AQ for example are limited to stealing/hijacking. Firstly you would have to create the impression that the jet was no more. Hitler hid battleships in Norwegian fjords but today he would need to extinguish the will to look, or force people to look in the wrong place.
The geopolitics haven’t been this crazy since the sixties I reckon and as an example we have hit a tipping point in Islamic consciousness. The next story that will soon hit is the Iranian backed Houthi’s in Yemen are having the same sort of battlefield success against the Saudi’s as IS had against the Iraqi’s. Both groups see the Saudi fall as inevitable and that will shake everything up. The Pakistani navy renegades who tried to commandeer their ship to attack the US vessel are another pointer. We have made it harder to hijack planes but they have not stood still. The Syrian war started with a bunch of people waving olive branches at soldiers. It will end with a totally redrawn ME and the US rightly keeps it’s powder dry for the South China Sea.
Motives – there are many.
@littlefoot, Nihonmama
I was the one who simply pointed out here that Maldives time (MVT) is UTC+5 so, as littlefoot says, MH370 cannot have been seen over K. after sunrise and then crashed at the “Curtin boom” location. As we know, for MH370 to have been anywhere near the Maldives we have to throw out the Inmarsat BTOs & BFOs and perhaps the time-stamps as well (although we tend to cling to those as they seem to tally with fuel exhaustion calculations). Of the very little data we have (including satellite, radar and fuel) I find Dr Duncan’s data the most solid, including the fact that his team did not detect an acoustic event in or near the current search area.
It is very unfortunate that the media will not drop the Maldives sightings and it seems the only way to rule those out as being MH370 is to find out which plane was seen; my request to ABC Media watch for more info has not yet been answered.
@All. There could be many motives for hijacking a plane and flying West, the Maldives just happen to be on the way to plenty of places (once you discard satellite data and allow refueling). Our current discussions though about whether MH370 went near Port Blair etc., when was the FMT and who said what when seem much more productive; thanks to Victor and Niels particularly for digging up such useful information.
AM2 – flying west is a bridge too far for many because the BTO’s are seen as sacrosanct but if I had my hijackers hat on that’s the first thing I would want to manipulate and access to the SDU is not hard.
The Iranians successfully cyber-hijacked a US drone and brought it safely down on one of their strips and imagine for a moment the complexity of that? What kind of security is built into a drone that was intended to operate over unfriendly space?
@AM2, thanks.
So you were the voice of reason who finally got the time converted correctly. I was arguing myself silly a few month ago with trying to convince everybody that the Maldive plane could’ve only have made it with near supersonic speed to the location of the Curtin Boom just in time to crash there. And all the while I was arguing with the assumption that Kudahuvadhooan time was UTC +6 instead of the correct +5 hours! I could’ve saved my virtual ink 😉
But I’m really angry with journalists like Hedley Thomas whose job it is to get these things right, but who nevertheless continue to point to the Maldivian sighting and the Curtin Boom location in the same breath so to speak and apparently never troubled themselves with such boring things as time tables and conversions.
While I’m personally convinced that mh370 was never anywhere near the Maldives, everybody is free to develop their own opinions and scenarios. But they should realize that they have to make up their minds: either mh370 crashed near the Curtin boom location and the KudahKudahuvadhooans have seen a different plane. Or they have seen mh370 and the Curtin Boom was caused by an earthquake.
@Matty. Thanks too for your geopolitical comments. FWIW (n=1) I doubt that MH370 went west and find myself in a don’t-know camp; yes, possible motives for went-west are there for sure but real evidence is not.
AM2 – the hijacked drone could also have been a team effort(Russia-China-Iran etc) and imagine the technical download once they got hold of it? It isn’t catching butterflies – you would need a lot of info to attempt it? If you had an operative on MH370 would it potentially get a bit easier?
@littlefoot. Yes, ta, I agree with most of your post of 9:14 PM but suspect you meant to add the other option of MH370 not sighted and Curtin Boom caused by something other than MH370.
@Matty. Geopolitics and hijacking methodology are not things I know much about so won’t comment.
@All
The Maldives story is a complicated one. I fully agree with Nihonmama that it stinks, given the behaviour of authorities and leMonde story. The (rough) timing and the acoustic event registered make an association with MH370 normal. That we cannot explain something does not mean we should drop it.
Also for me a BTO/BFO spoof or fabrication sounds like science fiction, but it is not impossible.
While technology has advanced over the past 10000 years, human nature has not. So back then the choice was to hit a mammoth with the bludgeon or a fellow human being, now there are many more options. History teaches that technology will always be used to the limit, for good and for bad.
So let’s not hit the open mind of those bringing forward something we cannot explain with the virtual bludgeon.
@Niels, I fully agree with you and Nihonmama that something is deeply wrong with the various explanations of the plane sighting given over the last year. The Le Monde story falls apart upon closer inspection.
That’s not what I was arguing about. I’m trying to make people aware that the popular notion of the Kudahuvadhooan plane having crashed and thereby caused the Curtin Boom is physically impossible – unless the crew of the plane used the Harry-Potter time-turner 😉
Here I simply trust Dr.Duncan’s expertise. Especially since even laymen can do the math: what is known precisely is the time when the sound hit the microphones at the Australian coast. If I recall correctly that was around 1:30 UTC, give or take a few minutes. Everybody can readily see that the sound can’t have traveled fast enough to give the sighted plane even a remote chance to make it in time to the location of the sound. Heck, around 1:30 many Kudahuvadhooans claimed to have still seen the plane.
But that makes the Maldivian story – as you say- so complicated. Since you can rule out that the plane crashed and caused the boom it becomes a lot harder to argue that it was a crippled mh370. But if it wasn’t mh370 what was the plane’s identity? And how might it be connected to mh370 nevertheless?
I still believe there’s a perfectly innocent explanation possible. But it becomes harder and harder to believe that, when stories keep cropping up like the one from Le Monde.
@Littlefoot
That’s fine. Personally I did not have time to look into the details of the acoustic event(s) yet. I would like to know how common they are and what was the time window analyzed. I remember discussing that with Brock a while ago.
And sometimes it is not bad to park a subject for a while when it is difficult to make something out of it 🙂
@AM2, that the Curtin Boom was not caused by mh370 and the sighted plane was not mh370 is what I currently believe.
However,if we throw out the sat data as completely unreliable, we cannot rule out that mh370 did travel West and crashed indeed and caused the famous boom. The time would be about right. In this case the Kudahuvadhooan plane can’t have been mh370, but for all we know it could have been a plane searching for the crashed mh370. Since it arrived almost an hour after the boom happened the time could be right and it would make sense then that it was flying slowly and lowly. If the powers that be wanted to keep the plane crash under wraps then of course the true identity and destination of the search plane can’t be publicly revealed.
If mh370 did travel westwards, then this version is the only one which is not physically impossible and makes some sense. You have to throw out the BTOs and BFOs, though.
Interestingly Rand’s research around Christmas last year brought up the possibility that the Kudahuvadhooan plane was also sighted near other islands in the vicinity over a time span of two hours. That would match with a plane searching for something.
@Niels, yes, I will let it go now 😉
But it’s definitely worth trying to ferret out the true identity of the Maldive plane. If only for being able too retire the Maldive scenario for good.
Littlefoot – Prior to flying off radar the plane in the net sense flew west in a determined and planned way. It’s only a strange looking reboot that has us searching down south and without it the Maldive sighting would considered our best bit of evidence. Scary?
The sat data is all we have it is said often but it’s also the one bit that doesn’t fit. When you bend everything around it nothing makes sense. It always bothered me that as we splice from radar to satellite data the path skews off the page. If it was an assignment you wouldn’t hand it in.
@littlefoot. I think there are a number of possible scenarios including planes searching (military?) as you said and the Royal couple being taken to safety (as has been mentioned a few times). In any case, I suspect the Maldivians would known the difference between a Twin Otter or similar, a large commercial jet plane and a military jet. Agreed, it would be good to find the identity of the plane(s) sighted…
I think we just had a preview of the situation we are in if BTO turns out to be corrupted. In which case we would thank God on our knees for every piece of info there is, as we should literally search the whole globe.
I’m sure it will be further investigated by people who really dare to stick out their necks. Julie @Nihonmama is clearly one of them; they should be honoured.
@Matty, you keep saying that the plane flew westward in a determined way. But that isn’t really true. The radar tracks indicate that it flew more in a Northern direction when it was last seen on a screen. The plane would’ve to make another turn in order to fly directly to the Maldives. It could’ve done so of course, but it’s simply not true that the plane went westwards when last detected. Even if you throw the sat data out of the window, nothing is clear cut and straightforward with this case. You always have to add unproven assumptions in order to construct a halfway plausible scenario.
@AM2, I think the known schedule pretty much excludes this evacuation scenario of the Royal couple – and the behaviour of the sighted plane – flying lowly and slowly – doesn’t make the least bit of sense in an evacuation, especially if the plane really hung around, as Rand’s research seems to indicate. And you’re right, the witnesses would reckognize a military jet – which would certainly be used in an evacuation. But in a search and rescue operation that’s not necessarily the case.It doesn’t have to be a military plane at all.
I wonder if the sighting in Kudahuvadhoo was another MAS aircraft on a deviation path (or a MAS special charter mission) for searching for the missing MH370. They did this because of the early satellite data analysis pointed to somewhere in the Indian Ocean.
@Niels:
Thank you for your kinds words. But no honour needed (or sought) here. I share information in the hopes that it may be helpful.
Dare we repeat it? The assertion of an opinion is not a fact and preliminary or “approximate” information, including scientific data, requires confirmation before it can be considered EVIDENCE OF. This is beyond elementary.
But unfortunately, what we see on many of the boards devoted to discussion of MH370, is the emergence of a cult of the personality — wherein people confuse THEIR opinions (or the opinions of those who support their POV) with fact. So rather than following the information WHERE IT LEADS (which is how crimes and mysteries are unraveled), much energy is spent trying to quash (or mischaracterize) any information put forth that conflicts with (or tends to weaken) the ‘narrative’. But if the narrative is actually TRUE, it will stand not because people defend it (or ignore information that the SHOULD be paying attention to), but because the narrative withstands rigourous scrutiny in its own.
That is certainly not the case with respect to the SIO STORY that has been sold to the public. With every day that passes, that boat, not unlike the Titanic, is filling up with water. And pretty soon, I suspect, the stern will begin to rise up out of the water, and a whole lot of folks are going to find themselves hanging on to that last railing screaming “what just happened?” as the boat plunges downward…
That is why the media (and others) are actively engaged in spinning, distorting and trying to discredit the villagers on Kudahuvadhoo. They want all discussion of the Maldives go away. And not just the Maldives.
But here’s the good news: there are a whole lot of people out there who are digging and sharing important, probative information. And their ability to do so does not depend on them getting a consensus — from folks on this board — or any other.
In my experience, people don’t push back on information this hard if what is being surfaced is NOT germane — and is making someone somewhere uncomfortable. In that regard, the well-placed person who warned Blaine Gibson BEFORE Le Monde’s story was published that his report from the Maldives would generate a big disinformation campaign was right on the money. https://twitter.com/nihonmama/status/610855587396464641
For me, finding MH370 is not an academic exercise. And if I were on that plane, I’d want people to aggressively turn over every rock, never stop asking questions and fight like hell to find the truth. Because it won’t be gotten to otherwise.
#onwards
@Nihonmama
I’m afraid you are right. This case can only be clarified by “fighters” who turn around every rock and not let go (with a little help of scientists possibly :-))
Now as scientists we are doing a miserable job so far: we are still working with uncorroborated data.
So here we go, some more questionable science:
Under the usual disclaimer:
– the Isat log summary correctly represents the recorded data
– the AES was located in 9M-MRO
– the AES was working normally
I’ve done a level flight path prediction starting at Port Blair latitude @1900 UTC
The path passes sailoress latitude at 1922 UTC and crosses the 0011UTC ping ring at S20.7 E103.2.
Add a SW glide and you end up remarkably close to the end point given at MH370site.com
A document with more details will be posted after some sleep.
Littlefoot – I’m aware that it was heading NW as it left radar and was going SE after it diverted, I meant west in the net sense. Made a B line for the Thai/Malay border, veered up the Strait corralled by land, then into the open. Did the pilot want open sea? In the net sense the plane traveled west but the course was governed by land as it disappeared.
Littlefoot – sorry I meant SW not SE. But, he/they definitely chose the IO over the Pacific and took risks to do it. The plane exhibits a determination to make it to the IO when a dark flight into the Pacific would have sufficed for any suicide scenario. Where was it going? I believe there was a destination inputted.
The problem, Nihonmama, is that more often than not you hinder the search for the truth by repeating misinformation uncritically. On the balance I fear your contributions detract from the search for truth rather more than promote it.
“I believe there was a destination inputted.”
Sure there was.
@littlefoot,
re: your thoughts on possible SAR at “Curtin Boom” location – yes and no. If it did occur there the military at DG would surely be well aware of the exact location. IMO a plane such as a 777 wouldn’t be used for SAR, more likely helicopters etc.. So, still a big ? over all this and lets hope for more evidence to be unearthed to settle this one way or another.
@Matty, maybe it wasn’t very risky to track back over the Malaysian peninsula – maybe the perps knew a thing or two about how the Malaysian airforce and MAS would react – or should I rather say not react. By staying close to the Malaysian border they might’ve chosen the advantageous home court.
@AM2, of course one would not use a big plane like a 777 for SAR missions. But who says that the islanders really saw such a big plane? As had been said many times, they are only used to see small “boat planes” over there. And if a plane flies lowly and makes a lot of noise it might appear bigger than it actually is. What makes me doubt the Le Monde story nevertheless is that we are supposed to believe the Maldivians would not recognize a plane from their national airline.
Dear Mr. Wise:
I had a bad reaction to your recent comment, but first wanted to thank you for your role in posting a continuing chain of interesting aviation articles, and providing a forum for exchange of ideas. I check into this site almost daily, in vain hope that crowd sourcing, deep thought, the scientific method, all else, etc., will produce breakthroughs, find the plane, and perhaps even answer the question of life, the universe and everything. Generally, I’m thrilled with this site. Today, I was upset, for the first time, to read one or your comments. You wrote to Julie / Nihon Mama: “On the balance I fear your contributions detract from the search for truth rather more than promote it.” Hope you apologize and take it back, as it was the first unbecoming thing I’ve seen you post. We can all misstep on occasion. From a reader’s perspective, who has read many forums for more than a year on the MH370 subjects, Julie/Nihon Mama has provided far more contribution than detraction to the various forums where she posts. I love reading not merely her ideas, but also the ideas of so many of your various contributors, whether it is Victor Ianello, Dr. Simon Proud, “Little foot”, or others. I even loved your very creative post on the spoof, even if some readers thought it might have hindered the search for the truth or detracted from the search for truth rather more than promoted it. I loved the detail. I hope the posts here can return to being interesting, mutually respectful, intellectually challenging, etc. And hope Dr. Ulich can provide an update regarding his work with contrails and acoustics. Have a happy 4th of July, all you American MH370 searchers. And for the searchers from other nations, best of everything, and keep the interesting work and comments flowing.
While I do always look forward to reading Nihonmamas interesting and distinct posts, I think I may see where Jeff is coming from. I personally get the feeling that she is not truly objective in her stance and overall tone. It’s obvious that she strongly believes there was a nefarious cover-up, and that the cover-up had something to with the various militaries and geopolitical circumstances in that region of the world. This is evidenced by her extreme interest in the various military exercises going on at the time in the Malacca Strait, etc. Although there is no problem with having a theory, I tend to think she is biased towards what she believes, or wants to believe happened, by commonly quoting, an thus indirectly telling us a story through selected news articles and twitter conversations. This, as opposed to staying objective, even if the objectivity doesnt fit with your desired narrative. Nihonmama, I hope you are not offended by this and take it the wrong way, as I think many (most) people behave in a similar manner, I just figured I’d jump in as mainly an observer. And for the record, I do think your posts are among the most interesting to read. And I also get a kick out of how you speak like a lawyer when defending yourself. Theres no way that you’re not a lawyer.
By the way, as sad as it is, there’s about a 0.5% chance this plane is found by the current search team. Possibly in the future by accident. I think I would pay at least $10,000 out of my pocket to be able to just know the truth of this case, from start to finish. That’s no disrespect to the families who lost loved ones, it’s just something I am so darned curious and intrigued about. How much would you guys pay to be able to know the entire truth, start to finish?
@Jay, while some might take your last paragraph as disrespectful, I don’t see it that way. I understand perfectly where you’re coming from. I do feel for the ordeal the nok are going through, since the people onboard probably became victims not just of another disaster but also victims of a cold blooded crime.
But the Black Swan nature of this crime – something like this never happened before in modern aviation history – also makes it an intriguing riddle. And I hate unsolved riddles! I can get very compulsive in my desire to solve them. And you know what? That’s not the worst motivation for trying to get to the bottom this. Someone who truly wants to get to the bottom of this – no matter what – might be a little less prone to biases. Although we all have them as you said in your last comment. Unfortunately the odds are stacked heavily against us, since we don’t have all the available facts. I suspect that some factions clearly are not playing fair and are withholding important facts.
I came to realize lately btw that we may have paid too little attention to the military exercises going on in the SCS. Not because I believe that mh370 might have been shot down but because there might be a geopolitical motive hidden somewhere in that direction. And since the attention might’ve been focused on the SCS it could have facilitated the execution of the perps’ plan.
The WSJ is hot on the trail of transfers between the Malaysian sovereign fund (which owns MAS) and what appears to be the PM’s personal accounts.
This can only get much worse for Najib.
KUALA LUMPUR, July 3 ― A Putrajaya spokesman has insisted to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) that Datuk Seri Najib Razak has never exploited funds from 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) for personal use, after the international business paper confronted the government with claims that some US$700 million (RM2.6 billion) have been deposited into what is believed to be the prime minister’s private accounts.
http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/najib-never-took-1mdb-funds-for-personal-use-putrajaya-says-after-money-lin
@victor – With a $2.5 billion insurance policy, perhaps the investigators should use the famous quote from Deep Throat to Bob Woodward in the movie about Watergate, “Follow the money?” (Apparently that line was from the movie only. The book does contain the phrase “The key was the secret campaign cash, and it should all be traced,” which Woodward says to Senator Sam Ervin)
@Lauren H: “Follow the money” as a phrase is short, sweet, and accurate. I didn’t know it only appeared in the movie version of “All the President’s Men”.
Relative to MH370, perhaps there is incriminating evidence in the way of financial transactions, diplomatic cables, emails, telephone calls, sealed court documents, etc., that could be exposed through an organization like Wikileaks or by a whistleblower. Barring this, it will be difficult to reconstruct a scenario involving the international players.
I wonder for how much longer the PM can get away with his shenanigans. His own party would do well to axe him. The former PM who is no saint either by anyone’s standards has gone more than once into that direction.
And we should not lose sight of the Malaysian angle in the mh370 saga.
I wrestle with the idea for some time now, that there is a Malaysian faction who wanted MAS to be exactly where it is now: 100 % state owned and ripe for a complete new start including the sacking of a considerable percentage of the employees. Which would have caused an enormous stink before mh370 – but is readily accepted as necessary nowadays.
Unfortunately I have no expertise whatsoever with “money trails”. But it might be an important aspect of the conundrum.
“a Malaysian faction who wanted MAS to be exactly where it is now: 100 % state owned and ripe for a complete new start” to achieve its objective destroyed two airplanes, killing 537 passengers and crew in the process. Of course, that’s perfectly plausible.
@VictorI – I checked before posting. Per online sources “Follow the money” is in the movie but not in the book.
The implication on MH370 is money could be added to the list of possible motives for making a plane disappear. And categorizing it as an “Accident” could be required to meet a provision of the insurance policy. Perhaps there are different payouts for different types of losses?
@Niels – You said, “the AES was located in 9M-MRO.” If it weren’t, you could add that the spoof theory list. An AES swap could be a reason for the 1-hour AES silence.
@Gysbreght, I didn’t say that the story can be reduced to Malaysian factions being the main perps just in order to rake in the insurance money and start freshly with a reorganized airline which was in financial trouble well before mh370. While the idea of a gigantic insurance scam isn’t as absurd as you make it out – it’s a time honored tradition to destroy your own assets if you’re financially reeling and if you have a generous insurance policy – the length they would have gone to sound a bit extreme even for Malaysian standards. But if someone – let’s say a superpower like China – wanted to secure Malaysian cooperation or make sure that they would simply look the other way, then the future fate of MAS might well have come into play. And, as Nihonmama has pointed out some time ago, MAS had an unusually generous insurance policy. And the complete reorganisation might well be helpful for covering up past embezzlements and irregularities.
@Lauren, the idea of and SDU/AES swap has been brought up before. But Inmarsat has dismissed it by pointing out that each device has an individual signature in the way it performes and that a swap is highly unlikely in this case.
@Lauren, or are you talking about the possibility that mh370’s SDU was transfered somehow to another plane? Which then flew into the SIO?
@ littlefoot: Transferring the SDU is not a new idea. Maybe they sent off a drone. Maybe MH370 never flew very far. Why is everybody so certain about it?
Anyway, all:
Hishammudin said something along the lines: some things are terrible, they must never be revealed to the public. I’ve searched quite some time for the quote, but can’t find it anymore. I’m absolutely certain, however, that various news articles quoted him. Does anybody remember it? When did he say it? I’m wondering if maybe they found the plane at S21 and – upon what they found – decided to keep it secret.
@littlefoot: I don’t think Inmarsat ever said that the SDU has a unique performance that cannot imitated. Rather, there is a unique ICAO identifier, but this surely can be changed.
At one point on Duncan’s site, I made the observation that the same frequency bias seen in the BFO before and after 18:25 would indicate that the units were the same. Later, I changed my opinion on this. If two different units were either cross-calibrated or accurately calibrated to the same precise reference, I don’t see why it would not be possible for two units to have the same frequency bias.
@ Brian Anderson
http://mh370corner.blogspot.com
@Littlefoot – Yes, I pictured the SDU in the SIO on board a different flying machine than 9M-MRO. 9M-MRO then flew to another destination. Not sure if a new SDU would have had to have been installed and calibrated in 9M-MRO, but if it was, it would use an identifier from an out-of service plane.
Note, unloading the cargo and pax while swapping the SDU’s could increase its range by 400-500 nm.
I do not believe this really happened. I just put forward the possibility. I believe that 9M-MRO is in the SIO either further away from the 7th Arc or further north or south along the arc than the area searched.
how much time is needed to install or swap a SDU? if such occurred it could have happened at an airport near the east coast of Malaysia ie: Kota Bharu or Kuala Terengganu ?
@Victor, I’m fairly sure that Inmarsat addressed the problem of the SDU’s identity. I think they said that each device has certain idiosyncracies, which makes them unique beyond the ICAO identifier. And that they were satisfied that after the log-on around 18:25 the same SDU was answering the handshakes. This question was put forward after all: how can you be sure that the same SDU is communicating? And Inmarsat said they were satisfied that it was the same device. But I will try to find confirmation for this.