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?”
Addendum: that Inmarsat said they were sure it was the same SDU doesn’t necessarily mean that they were right about that.
@Dennis
pilot decided landing from the south is bad because of wind, tried to get around and land from the north and failed? Quite reasonable theory for me.
Anyway you can make up many flight scenarios that would suit BFO&BTO values…it’s not the problem.
@Dennis
Well done! If the point of closest approach to the sub satellite position indeed occurred at 1941utc, then our speeds agree very closely.
My observation, confirmed by others in the IG, is that this tangential point occurred a little after 1941 (about 11 minutes later), and hence the postulated ground speed at that time would be greater.
It is well over a year since this was first proposed, but it has become a yardstick in terms of comparing the results for many path models.
@jeff
contribution of nihonmama
There are some more sciences beyond the horizon of sciences of nature. Law being one of them. A very strange and probably apalling crime seems to have happened here and possible perpetrators must be served justice.
The way Julie acts here and contributes is like a prosecutor building its case. She is very successful about it and in civilized nations would be able to bring the case to a court. Her most valuable contribution was, that she folowed the trail of the money very early and found the unusual insurance of 9M MRO. This now sems to work out as a noose tightening around the neck of the responsible malaysian politicians. And i will be happy if law takes its due course.
BUT, Julie is on a very difficult terrain here. There is no international jurisdiction provided in the ICAO treaties or at the UN how to prosecute a crime covered by a government. The international court in the HAgue is limited to crimes against humanity. So if you dont find someone who is prepared to go to war, the malaysian leadership might go unharmed for the time being, although i believe that the pressure from the public, press and blogs will force a better outcome.
Nihonmama is doing just fine, i suppose. Well, she is not in the tec hnicaql stuff, but this is for special expertise anyway.
If there is anything unusual in MAS’s insurance, who benefits from accidents like MH370 and MH17?
“The way Julie acts here and contributes is like a prosecutor building its case.”
based on a very wrong/moot premise, which doesn’t qualify a good prosecutor
I think we should focus first on things a lot more believable to have happened and leave far-fetched movie like theories for after we exhaust them.
Hi Dennis, after all this time only now cottoned on to your blog. Enjoyed reading it, thanks! Do you have any more posts prior to march 2015?
@ M pat
The blog belongs to “dreamer”, and Isreali contributor. He allows me to use it. I think the March date is when dreamer started the blog.
Imagine that MH370 is NOT a crime, but some kind of wake-up call orchestrated by some entities and they really landed somewhere. Sounds crazy, ya.
Imagine that MH17 IS a crime, maybe absolutelly unexpected and strange thing worth of Hague.
Imagine that even here on this forum some people may(??) exactly know what happened and some who dont know are intentionally spinning stories to some preffered conclusions for some reason.
May be usefull to analyze this forum raw database using statistics and semantic-analysis data mining?
Be sure, I am still confused and tired too, without any hard evidence. Question is if its good or bad to disclose it all by us here.
@Gysbreght.
Here’s quite an old article about insurance (May 2014) but I found it quite interesting. http://fortune.com/2014/05/01/the-big-money-surprise-about-malaysia-airlines-flight-370/
Its seems clear that MH17 was not an accident and MH370 probably not either, especially if the radar track is accurate. It would be interesting to see the exact wording in the policy and find out how it was underwritten. Presumably it all turns on whether any part of the plane can be found or it can be established as any form of accident or fault by any parties can be proven or crime proven (all inclusive or).
@AM2:
Thanks for the link to an interesting article. Ignoring the cost of loosing a hull (and replacing it) is creative bookkeeping and journalistic hype.
just another fact contributing to Xmas Island theory, distance from Maldives to Australia is around 4500 miles, the 7th arc falls some 50 miles off the one of only two islands with airports situated between, coincidence? Maybe, but the same way BTO&BFO that suit AP straight path could also be one.
also has this triangulating with sea level monitoring data been discussed before? Very interesting I’d say…
Dennis, this link connects with a blog post in which you propose deriving the north-south component of MH370’s velocity from the BFO value at 19:41 by noting that the satellite velocity at this time was nearly zero, and that the Doppler component was therefore almost entirely due to the motion of the aircraft. Unless I’m mistaken, however, you’ve left out the precompensation carried out by the SDU. The value of this term will depend on the difference between where the SDU “thought” the satellite was (right on the equator) and where it actually was (1.7 degrees north) as well as the plane’s speed and orientation.
@jeffwise: I believe that Dennis’s factor (R_s-R_e)includes the Doppler precompensation contributed by the SDU.
There is an interesting post by MillwallSean on the a.net forum about the personalities of captain and FO on MH370.
@Gysbreght
thanks just found it now
“I think its important for those that aren’t familiar with Malay governments to understand how they think. Malaysia is polarised. The old parties are desperately clinging to power, while being attacked from several different directions. The political battle is deep and bitter.
However the fact that the captain is an Anwar supporter is no surprise. Id say 85% of all pilots at MH are. The 15% that aren’t are the ones who have been given the job by connections and since the company is run by the government party that means they have contacts in the governing party.
The first officer is an example of one who has his new job only because of his contacts with the government party. Speaking to pilots and other senior staff at MH non are pleased with the latest wave of politically connected staff that has gotten plum positions under the present CEO.
MH like the society is a very divided company, for or against and the captain and the first officer would have had completely opposite opinions about most in Malaysia and the pilots respect for the new lad is likely to have been minimal.”
This would corroborate my theory about possible conflict between Captain and FO.
The big question then is: who left the cockpit at top of climb and who stayed inside? The answer to that question provides a possible motive for the Malaysian government not being too keen on getting to the bottom of this.
Then there is that redundant report of arriving at FL350. Was there some distraction that made the PM unsure whether or not he had made that required report? Could that distraction have been a heated dispute between the two pilots?
What was it the Indonesian police chief let loose after a meeting with his Malaysian counterpart that he actually knew what actually happened?
“The big question then is: who left the cockpit at top of climb and who stayed inside?”
I think it’s quite possible that both stayed inside, maybe even until the end, intermittently fighting along the way.
On the other hand, if one of the pilots locked the other out after a dispute that got out of hand, what would have been the thought processes in the mind of the one inside, and what would have been the options for the one locked out?
That’s what happened when ethiopian copilot hijacked the plane so there is certainly a possibility.
If FO was a government supporter then he would be against diverting to another country but he would still have to obey as he was the subordinate, challenging situation for him.
He wouldn’t have lot of options if he was locked out except to persuade several passengers to try to break the door, the cockpit door is hard but if he tried simultaneously banging into it with several other people and all that for hours then who knows…
@Jeff
Yes, Victor is right. I apologize for the “cluttered” diagram in my link, but it was created to show how BFO is generated, not specifically for this purpose.
D1 is the aircraft pre-comp, and D2 is the Doppler experienced at the actual satellite position. The difference between D2 and D1 is the only significant contributor to the Doppler residual at 19:40. The Doppler residual of ~(-38Hz) includes the bias of 150.5Hz and the small Perth correction of 0.5Hz.
I should have emphasized more strongly that 408knots is a lower bound, and that any deviations from a 180 degree heading or from an equatorial aircraft position would increase the speed required to produce the Doppler residual. We are dealing with the cosines of small angles here, so the increase is quite gradual.
@StevanG
Nice find on the sea level link. The author of the link ponders why the plane would have flown past CI. My speculation is the aircraft flew by South of the island to visually verify a clear runway, and then turned North to begin a North to South landing approach. The surface winds at the time were from the SouthEast.
@StevanG,
You said”I think it’s quite possible that both stayed inside, maybe even until the end, intermittently fighting along the way”.
I’m not trying to be rude, but do you know how ridiculous this sounds? Utterly.
@Spencer
My own theory of the crime is that Shah locked the FO out of the flight deck, and calmed everyone by saying he intended to divert the aircraft. “Sorry for the inconvenience, but you will all be fine if you behave yourselves.” or some such thing. He did not say where he was diverting to.
When Fariq saw the lights of Penang disappearing he realized Shah did not intend to land on the Malay peninsula, and decided to act. He went into the EE bay and flipped a few breakers believing that one of them held the key to unlocking the flight deck door. Hence, the SDU reboot around 18:25 or so.
@spencer
I just said it’s possible, why do you find it so ridiculous? Similar situations happened before and you can find some on wikipedia(not sure if those were on passenger flights though), mostly resulting with crashes.
Of course if we take into account SDU reboot at ~18:25 it’s quite possible that one of the pilots (most likely Fariq) was locked out and tried to fiddle with electronics to get access to the cockpit.
@StevanG
Yes. It is hard to construct an exact timeline. Fariq could have cut power to the SDU much earlier when he realized that Shah was not descending for a peninsular landing, and subsequently restored power because the PAX wanted to watch a movie, and he had disabled the IFE. Who knows?
@Dennis
I’ve inferred as such. I wish (contrary to what you may believe) that I could subscribe to this scenario (CI), if for no other reason than to paint Zaharie in a slightly brighter light (though it is still unforgivable).
Sadly, IMO, despite an inherent logic that is plausible (more so than the SIO in many ways)), there are several apparent facts (and several less so apparent hints) that suggest to me that this was not Zaharie’s intention. It may at one point in time have been so, but I believe he finally saw the futility in such a stunt.
First and foremost, there is the absence of any attempted calls from the pax. I personally don’t buy the idea that they would just sit back and enjoy the ride all the while the FO is locked out and serenely complying with Zaharie. Fariq’s purported call further supports this.
I understand that is such a situation one would be scared shitless, but it seems like a stretch to believe that pax wouldn’t attempt calls, particularly when the FO is hacking into the EE bay and using his phone.
I also refuse to discard the now ‘retracted’ story (WSJ) of the FL435 or whatever. This was also reported with an supposed RR engine report that had the plane descending at gut-wrenching clip. I just don’t believe BOTH of these materialized out of thin air, or were COMPLETElY in error.
The report also clearly shows speeds not conducive to a mellow run through the gauntlet.
There is also, imho, some supportive evidence per Zaharie’s words and postings, that suggests he was willing to sacrifice it all, literally, for county.
We have no idea what underlying psychopathies he may have been burdened with, contrary to the popular opinion.
We can be certain that he was irate the night of the flight, per the Anwar verdict. Murdering 100+ Chinese, fellow countrymen and international pax is not the worst way to see to it that the repercussions for the regime are severe. Particularly if there is more to this story ( like an attempt to communicate with H, he was being persecuted–which he almost surely was- etc.)
Bottom line, if you could in any way demonstrate that anyone on that a/c was alive post 18:25, I’d change my mind in a NY minute…as the CI is so much more palatable.
I also much prefer the left bus to the EE bay, fwiw.
@All
I think it needs to be said that this is where the discussion should have been centered for the last 15 months. For reasons I cannot fathom, nor appreciate, this was not the case.
@spencer
Yes, there are difficulties. One of the reasons I was so interested in the previously reported lack of calls from MH370 prior to take-off was exactly for the considerations you raised above. Could someone have brought a jammer onto the plane in anticipation of the diversion? Don’t know. I still have not gotten a reliable story on calls or lack thereof prior to take-off. Have you? If so a link would be appreciated.
@Dennis
To the best of knowledge, calls and/or communications were made and received after boarding. Ethan Hunt by necessity (evidently) clarified this, after having stated the opposite (that NO calls/comms were evidenced).
I entertained the idea of a jammer as well. This would surely lend more credence to the CI scenario if it were proven to be the case. I don’t have the link as I believe this was a twitter thin with Nihonmama.
Zaharie was not only a circuitry/electronics guy, but he was also VERY much the prankster…makes one think a little more.
@Spencer
No doubt Shah was a capable guy, and could have pulled off a jammer if he wanted.
Of course, the SIO hypothesis (short of killing all the PAX via hypoxia after the turn West) suffers from the same lack of calls over Penang as well.
I have a lot of difficulty with the suicide and mass murder scenario implicit in the SIO terminus. Sure, Shah had problems, but so does everyone else when scrutinized from an a posteriori point of view. If I walked into a shopping mall and started firing at people there would be a line of shrinks claiming to be able to infer it from my previous behavior patterns. That is what shrinks do.
From an a priori standpoint the probability of a plane disappearance or crash by pilot suicide is extremely low.
@spencer there is usually no phone signal at cruising altitude, especially if you are flying far from base stations and if we take for a fact that he has flown along the border where there are usually no base stations at all(they are usually set up further from the border in a way to cover only the area up to the border and little behind(on land, so add some 10 kms of cruising altitude and you get no signal), to not mix with mobile operator from the neighbour country)
@Dennis
Accept that he constantly made reference to the necessity of sacrifice for change.
And if you were to walk into a mall and begin to shoot, those shrinks would rightly and correctly delve into your history for any ominous warning signs. IMO they were there in spades with Z. He wasn’t the type to talk the talk and not walk the walk. This much I am sure of. He said so himself!
Anyways, this conversation will lead us nowhere. I understand your reservations and difficulty. Fair enough.
However, IMO the FACTS as we believe them to be more strongly support a rapid depressurization and a cabin full of deceased pax. I don’t like it any more than you do.
What bothers me is why we (everyone) haven’t been hashing out these very issues over the past year. Sigh.
If I come up with anything new and revelatory, and more exculpatory, I’ll let you know.
Cheers
@StevanG
LOL. The a/c was NOT at cruising altitudes when over much of the land mass. And, AGAIN, Fariq’s phone somehow managed to ping the tower near Penang, yet NO others? Doe NOT add up.
are you sure? It flew very fast across Malaysia, to do that it had to fly at some altitude(as the air becomes very dense at lower altitudes and reduces air speed drastically).
it’s not strange that Fariq phone pinged only tower near Penang because it’s probably the most populated area overflown with strongest mobile transmitters, bear in mind that base stations usually reach only 15 km or so, if you add altitude to the equation it gets a lot lower…
@Spencer
I think the avoidance of speculation and adherence to the numbers was stated as a clear mandate early on in Duncan’s blog. I understand the reasons, and I respect that decision.
OTOH it doe explain why despite running an organization with more than 200 engineers and scientists in it, I never once had a law enforcement representative ask me if he could borrow a couple of my guys to help solve a crime.
@Spencer: Can you please elaborate on what evidence you have pertaining to the altitude for MH370 at any point during the flight after 17:21 UTC?
@StevanG
MH370 was not at cruise when it flew it across Malaysia. There has been a fiction purported that it remained at FL350 until the FMT. I believe in the accident report the radar paint has it around FL230. I could be incorrect about this.
My QUESTION, StevanG, is why NO other oax phones pinged??? That it was ONLY Fariq’s suggest to me that it was only he who was able to hit SEND.
@Dennis
I’m admittedly not the brightest of this bunch by ANY stretch. But to not conclude fairly early on that it was indeed deliberate, and from there winnow down the possible scenarios to a mere several is beyond inexcusable. The NOK deserved the decency of common sense by consensus…but the TRUTH is that too many people with a ‘voice’ and ‘expertise’ (some on this thread often) had agendas that were anything but in the spirit of the truth. For quite a few, it was (and still is) all about protecting the reputation of pilots, period.
You can’t be THAT stupid…you just can’t.
@Spencer
I put the Penang alleged connection and the information regarding cellular activity prior to take-off in the red herring category. I have never seen it mentioned other than in the “popular” press. I don’t have a lot of confidence in that source. These reports always refer to unnamed sources.
Hussein flatly denied any knowledge of it.
begin cut-paste//
Asked Sunday by CNN about the newspaper report about a purported effort to make a call by the first officer, Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said: “As far as I know, no, but as I said that would be in the realm of the police and the other international (authorities) and when the time comes that will be revealed. But I do not want to speculate on that at the moment.”
end cut-paste//
@Spencer: The in-flight cell phone call has never been confirmed.
Again, what evidence you have that the plane was not at cruise altitude? According to the FI, the radar registered 35,700′ at 17:30, 31,100′ – 33,000′ at 17:36, and 32,800′ at 17:39:59.
You have made the statement that the plane was NOT at cruise altitude over land, and it was fiction that the plane remained at FL350 until the FMT. Please let me know your source for this information. I would like to do my own evaluation.
@Victor
The accident report section 1.1 I believe. The PSR altitudes in the report:
17:35 UTC=FL357
17:36 UTC=FL311-330
17:39 UTC=FLFl328
It clearly deviated from FL350 as I said. PSR has a margin of error, granted, but these are the ranges given in the report.
More curiously is the absence of any other altitude markers in the report despite several other PSR paints.
There is also the now discounted reports by the WSJ I mentioned previously.
And the IMO ONLY credible eyewitness reports by a group of fisherman who saw a plane coming in low and hot.
Also, as noted by other posters, the gaps in radar suggest altitude fluctuations as do YOUR OWN 18:25 BFO interpretations IIRC.
@Victor
I just saw your post. I suppose ‘cruise’ can mean many things. My point was that the it deviated from FL350.
Do you really believe that the in-flight phone scenario was fabricated?
@Dennis
Hishammuddin did everything BUT DENY the story. That’s as good as confirming it IMO.
@Victor
You’re the smart guy here. How do you reconcile the speeds in the report according to Orion?
I highly doubt Zaharie just casually flew through Malay airspace in some laissez-faire manner. Just saying.
And does anyone have any info on the engine report suggesting the plane descended some many thousands of feet in roughly a minute. What was the supposed genesis of this report? It makes no sense that it was purely fiction.
@Dennis
I remember H’s ‘denial’ well. This was some days after it had been out there that the call took place. We’ll just disagree on whether he’s telling the truth…he almost never is.
@Spencer. I don’t know of any knowledgeable person that would not consider those altitudes to be “cruise”. And at those altitudes, it would be nearly impossible for a cell phone to contact to a tower.
The cell phone story has never been substantiated. You may choose to believe that cell phone connections are possible at cruise altitudes. I will cast such unsubstantiated evidence to the side until something more sensible is presented.
I have asked you for evidence that the plane was not at a cruise altitude as you claim. You have yet to produce any.
In fact, for a number of reasons, I do think there might have been an altitude change around the time of the log-on at 18:25, which is why I was interested to hear what data you might have.
@Victor
Serious question. How do you account for the WSJ report that the plane descended 30 some odd thousand feet in minutes?
Is the just bs like the Fariq phone story? If so, how do you believe it came to be reported as such?
Shit like this isn’t just without any basis. It materialized how?
@Victor
Lastly, I’m not saying the cell-phone connection was established while the a/c was at cruise! This is precisely my point.
The cell phone connection NEAR PENANG is further ‘potential’ evidence of an a/c flying at low altitude. That NO other pax phones made connections is problematic IMO in regards to Dennis’s scenario that the pax were still alive.
@Spencer: The rapid descent/climb behavior was extracted altitude values from primary radar data. Later, it was conceded that the calibration accuracy of the radar heads was insufficient to substantiate the dive/climb behavior that was reported earlier, and those claims were not made again.
There were MANY falsely reported stories in the early days, such as confusion about ACARS and satellite network signaling, and engines independently sending data back to RR. Also, there may have been disinformation campaigns, some of which continue.
I see “follow the money” generated healthy discussion earlier. Let’s generalize, and ask: “who benefits?”
I still haven’t ruled out a) Curtin boom due to event at IGARI->turn west->hypoxia, or b) war games gone bad in the SCS, with the SIO charade to cover up embarrassing potency or impotency, respectively. However, I’m definitely with those who lean toward a nefarious act.
Even assuming nefarity(tm), we can’t assume the effects we SEE are those INTENDED: we must concede the possibility that the perp a) was thwarted, or b) plans some FUTURE consequence. I consider BOTH of these to be of material probability, worthy of serious exploration.
But for argument’s sake, let’s suppose MH370’s disappearance DID achieve its goal: what are the primary far-reaching consequences of this bizarre event?
1) the Malaysian economy has been dealt a body blow (via collapse of wholly-owned MAS)
2) broad swaths of the SIO have now been bathy surveyed (at some naïve insurer’s expense)
3) the general public is now galvanized in support of enhanced/centralized commercial aircraft tracking
(surely I’ve missed several – and I’ve excluded impacts to NOK, whose pain is of course the most important consequence from a HUMAN perspective, but highly unlikely to be anything but incidental to what, under the above assumptions, would have to be a psychopathic person/group/state.)
Who benefits from these consequences?
From 1): an ENEMY (&/or economic rival) of Malaysia
From 2): whatever private interests are granted free access to the bathy work
From 3): while seemingly ludicrous to connect tighter tracking to some crass advantage – I mean, don’t we ALL benefit from safer skies? – something deep inside me wishes to explore this angle. (Perhaps it’s the way public perceptions of MH370 have been so forcefully manipulated by our government/media complex.) Surely enhanced/centralized tracking has been within our TECHNOLOGICAL grasp for decades – why hasn’t it been IMPLEMENTED? Have some nations RESISTED it? If so, WHY? Depending on the answers, it may be at least PLAUSIBLE to suppose public opinion is being (ab)used to force a tracking program advantageous to the perps’ agenda. Would full knowledge/control of every single commercial aircraft in the world be of value during, e.g., WWIII? If so, to WHOM?
I am persuaded by how well 3) ties in MH17 (et al?), but freely concede I’m just spitballing, here. I eagerly await the opinions of folks who, unlike me, have the geopolitical savvy to assess this angle with rigour.
Addendum: that Inmarsat said they were sure it was the same SDU doesn’t necessarily mean that they were right about that.
@Dennis
pilot decided landing from the south is bad because of wind, tried to get around and land from the north and failed? Quite reasonable theory for me.
Anyway you can make up many flight scenarios that would suit BFO&BTO values…it’s not the problem.
@Dennis
Well done! If the point of closest approach to the sub satellite position indeed occurred at 1941utc, then our speeds agree very closely.
My observation, confirmed by others in the IG, is that this tangential point occurred a little after 1941 (about 11 minutes later), and hence the postulated ground speed at that time would be greater.
It is well over a year since this was first proposed, but it has become a yardstick in terms of comparing the results for many path models.
@jeff
contribution of nihonmama
There are some more sciences beyond the horizon of sciences of nature. Law being one of them. A very strange and probably apalling crime seems to have happened here and possible perpetrators must be served justice.
The way Julie acts here and contributes is like a prosecutor building its case. She is very successful about it and in civilized nations would be able to bring the case to a court. Her most valuable contribution was, that she folowed the trail of the money very early and found the unusual insurance of 9M MRO. This now sems to work out as a noose tightening around the neck of the responsible malaysian politicians. And i will be happy if law takes its due course.
BUT, Julie is on a very difficult terrain here. There is no international jurisdiction provided in the ICAO treaties or at the UN how to prosecute a crime covered by a government. The international court in the HAgue is limited to crimes against humanity. So if you dont find someone who is prepared to go to war, the malaysian leadership might go unharmed for the time being, although i believe that the pressure from the public, press and blogs will force a better outcome.
Nihonmama is doing just fine, i suppose. Well, she is not in the tec hnicaql stuff, but this is for special expertise anyway.
If there is anything unusual in MAS’s insurance, who benefits from accidents like MH370 and MH17?
“The way Julie acts here and contributes is like a prosecutor building its case.”
based on a very wrong/moot premise, which doesn’t qualify a good prosecutor
I think we should focus first on things a lot more believable to have happened and leave far-fetched movie like theories for after we exhaust them.
Hi Dennis, after all this time only now cottoned on to your blog. Enjoyed reading it, thanks! Do you have any more posts prior to march 2015?
@ M pat
The blog belongs to “dreamer”, and Isreali contributor. He allows me to use it. I think the March date is when dreamer started the blog.
Imagine that MH370 is NOT a crime, but some kind of wake-up call orchestrated by some entities and they really landed somewhere. Sounds crazy, ya.
Imagine that MH17 IS a crime, maybe absolutelly unexpected and strange thing worth of Hague.
Imagine that even here on this forum some people may(??) exactly know what happened and some who dont know are intentionally spinning stories to some preffered conclusions for some reason.
May be usefull to analyze this forum raw database using statistics and semantic-analysis data mining?
Be sure, I am still confused and tired too, without any hard evidence. Question is if its good or bad to disclose it all by us here.
@Gysbreght.
Here’s quite an old article about insurance (May 2014) but I found it quite interesting.
http://fortune.com/2014/05/01/the-big-money-surprise-about-malaysia-airlines-flight-370/
Its seems clear that MH17 was not an accident and MH370 probably not either, especially if the radar track is accurate. It would be interesting to see the exact wording in the policy and find out how it was underwritten. Presumably it all turns on whether any part of the plane can be found or it can be established as any form of accident or fault by any parties can be proven or crime proven (all inclusive or).
@AM2:
Thanks for the link to an interesting article. Ignoring the cost of loosing a hull (and replacing it) is creative bookkeeping and journalistic hype.
just another fact contributing to Xmas Island theory, distance from Maldives to Australia is around 4500 miles, the 7th arc falls some 50 miles off the one of only two islands with airports situated between, coincidence? Maybe, but the same way BTO&BFO that suit AP straight path could also be one.
also has this triangulating with sea level monitoring data been discussed before? Very interesting I’d say…
sites.google.com/site/mh370tibet/updates/05june2014
Dennis, this link connects with a blog post in which you propose deriving the north-south component of MH370’s velocity from the BFO value at 19:41 by noting that the satellite velocity at this time was nearly zero, and that the Doppler component was therefore almost entirely due to the motion of the aircraft. Unless I’m mistaken, however, you’ve left out the precompensation carried out by the SDU. The value of this term will depend on the difference between where the SDU “thought” the satellite was (right on the equator) and where it actually was (1.7 degrees north) as well as the plane’s speed and orientation.
@jeffwise: I believe that Dennis’s factor (R_s-R_e)includes the Doppler precompensation contributed by the SDU.
There is an interesting post by MillwallSean on the a.net forum about the personalities of captain and FO on MH370.
@Gysbreght
thanks just found it now
“I think its important for those that aren’t familiar with Malay governments to understand how they think. Malaysia is polarised. The old parties are desperately clinging to power, while being attacked from several different directions. The political battle is deep and bitter.
However the fact that the captain is an Anwar supporter is no surprise. Id say 85% of all pilots at MH are. The 15% that aren’t are the ones who have been given the job by connections and since the company is run by the government party that means they have contacts in the governing party.
The first officer is an example of one who has his new job only because of his contacts with the government party. Speaking to pilots and other senior staff at MH non are pleased with the latest wave of politically connected staff that has gotten plum positions under the present CEO.
MH like the society is a very divided company, for or against and the captain and the first officer would have had completely opposite opinions about most in Malaysia and the pilots respect for the new lad is likely to have been minimal.”
This would corroborate my theory about possible conflict between Captain and FO.
The big question then is: who left the cockpit at top of climb and who stayed inside? The answer to that question provides a possible motive for the Malaysian government not being too keen on getting to the bottom of this.
Then there is that redundant report of arriving at FL350. Was there some distraction that made the PM unsure whether or not he had made that required report? Could that distraction have been a heated dispute between the two pilots?
What was it the Indonesian police chief let loose after a meeting with his Malaysian counterpart that he actually knew what actually happened?
“The big question then is: who left the cockpit at top of climb and who stayed inside?”
I think it’s quite possible that both stayed inside, maybe even until the end, intermittently fighting along the way.
On the other hand, if one of the pilots locked the other out after a dispute that got out of hand, what would have been the thought processes in the mind of the one inside, and what would have been the options for the one locked out?
That’s what happened when ethiopian copilot hijacked the plane so there is certainly a possibility.
If FO was a government supporter then he would be against diverting to another country but he would still have to obey as he was the subordinate, challenging situation for him.
He wouldn’t have lot of options if he was locked out except to persuade several passengers to try to break the door, the cockpit door is hard but if he tried simultaneously banging into it with several other people and all that for hours then who knows…
@Jeff
Yes, Victor is right. I apologize for the “cluttered” diagram in my link, but it was created to show how BFO is generated, not specifically for this purpose.
D1 is the aircraft pre-comp, and D2 is the Doppler experienced at the actual satellite position. The difference between D2 and D1 is the only significant contributor to the Doppler residual at 19:40. The Doppler residual of ~(-38Hz) includes the bias of 150.5Hz and the small Perth correction of 0.5Hz.
I should have emphasized more strongly that 408knots is a lower bound, and that any deviations from a 180 degree heading or from an equatorial aircraft position would increase the speed required to produce the Doppler residual. We are dealing with the cosines of small angles here, so the increase is quite gradual.
@StevanG
Nice find on the sea level link. The author of the link ponders why the plane would have flown past CI. My speculation is the aircraft flew by South of the island to visually verify a clear runway, and then turned North to begin a North to South landing approach. The surface winds at the time were from the SouthEast.
@StevanG,
You said”I think it’s quite possible that both stayed inside, maybe even until the end, intermittently fighting along the way”.
I’m not trying to be rude, but do you know how ridiculous this sounds? Utterly.
@Spencer
My own theory of the crime is that Shah locked the FO out of the flight deck, and calmed everyone by saying he intended to divert the aircraft. “Sorry for the inconvenience, but you will all be fine if you behave yourselves.” or some such thing. He did not say where he was diverting to.
When Fariq saw the lights of Penang disappearing he realized Shah did not intend to land on the Malay peninsula, and decided to act. He went into the EE bay and flipped a few breakers believing that one of them held the key to unlocking the flight deck door. Hence, the SDU reboot around 18:25 or so.
@spencer
I just said it’s possible, why do you find it so ridiculous? Similar situations happened before and you can find some on wikipedia(not sure if those were on passenger flights though), mostly resulting with crashes.
Of course if we take into account SDU reboot at ~18:25 it’s quite possible that one of the pilots (most likely Fariq) was locked out and tried to fiddle with electronics to get access to the cockpit.
@StevanG
Yes. It is hard to construct an exact timeline. Fariq could have cut power to the SDU much earlier when he realized that Shah was not descending for a peninsular landing, and subsequently restored power because the PAX wanted to watch a movie, and he had disabled the IFE. Who knows?
@Dennis
I’ve inferred as such. I wish (contrary to what you may believe) that I could subscribe to this scenario (CI), if for no other reason than to paint Zaharie in a slightly brighter light (though it is still unforgivable).
Sadly, IMO, despite an inherent logic that is plausible (more so than the SIO in many ways)), there are several apparent facts (and several less so apparent hints) that suggest to me that this was not Zaharie’s intention. It may at one point in time have been so, but I believe he finally saw the futility in such a stunt.
First and foremost, there is the absence of any attempted calls from the pax. I personally don’t buy the idea that they would just sit back and enjoy the ride all the while the FO is locked out and serenely complying with Zaharie. Fariq’s purported call further supports this.
I understand that is such a situation one would be scared shitless, but it seems like a stretch to believe that pax wouldn’t attempt calls, particularly when the FO is hacking into the EE bay and using his phone.
I also refuse to discard the now ‘retracted’ story (WSJ) of the FL435 or whatever. This was also reported with an supposed RR engine report that had the plane descending at gut-wrenching clip. I just don’t believe BOTH of these materialized out of thin air, or were COMPLETElY in error.
The report also clearly shows speeds not conducive to a mellow run through the gauntlet.
There is also, imho, some supportive evidence per Zaharie’s words and postings, that suggests he was willing to sacrifice it all, literally, for county.
We have no idea what underlying psychopathies he may have been burdened with, contrary to the popular opinion.
We can be certain that he was irate the night of the flight, per the Anwar verdict. Murdering 100+ Chinese, fellow countrymen and international pax is not the worst way to see to it that the repercussions for the regime are severe. Particularly if there is more to this story ( like an attempt to communicate with H, he was being persecuted–which he almost surely was- etc.)
Bottom line, if you could in any way demonstrate that anyone on that a/c was alive post 18:25, I’d change my mind in a NY minute…as the CI is so much more palatable.
I also much prefer the left bus to the EE bay, fwiw.
@All
I think it needs to be said that this is where the discussion should have been centered for the last 15 months. For reasons I cannot fathom, nor appreciate, this was not the case.
@spencer
Yes, there are difficulties. One of the reasons I was so interested in the previously reported lack of calls from MH370 prior to take-off was exactly for the considerations you raised above. Could someone have brought a jammer onto the plane in anticipation of the diversion? Don’t know. I still have not gotten a reliable story on calls or lack thereof prior to take-off. Have you? If so a link would be appreciated.
@Dennis
To the best of knowledge, calls and/or communications were made and received after boarding. Ethan Hunt by necessity (evidently) clarified this, after having stated the opposite (that NO calls/comms were evidenced).
I entertained the idea of a jammer as well. This would surely lend more credence to the CI scenario if it were proven to be the case. I don’t have the link as I believe this was a twitter thin with Nihonmama.
Zaharie was not only a circuitry/electronics guy, but he was also VERY much the prankster…makes one think a little more.
@Spencer
No doubt Shah was a capable guy, and could have pulled off a jammer if he wanted.
Of course, the SIO hypothesis (short of killing all the PAX via hypoxia after the turn West) suffers from the same lack of calls over Penang as well.
I have a lot of difficulty with the suicide and mass murder scenario implicit in the SIO terminus. Sure, Shah had problems, but so does everyone else when scrutinized from an a posteriori point of view. If I walked into a shopping mall and started firing at people there would be a line of shrinks claiming to be able to infer it from my previous behavior patterns. That is what shrinks do.
From an a priori standpoint the probability of a plane disappearance or crash by pilot suicide is extremely low.
@spencer there is usually no phone signal at cruising altitude, especially if you are flying far from base stations and if we take for a fact that he has flown along the border where there are usually no base stations at all(they are usually set up further from the border in a way to cover only the area up to the border and little behind(on land, so add some 10 kms of cruising altitude and you get no signal), to not mix with mobile operator from the neighbour country)
@Dennis
Accept that he constantly made reference to the necessity of sacrifice for change.
And if you were to walk into a mall and begin to shoot, those shrinks would rightly and correctly delve into your history for any ominous warning signs. IMO they were there in spades with Z. He wasn’t the type to talk the talk and not walk the walk. This much I am sure of. He said so himself!
Anyways, this conversation will lead us nowhere. I understand your reservations and difficulty. Fair enough.
However, IMO the FACTS as we believe them to be more strongly support a rapid depressurization and a cabin full of deceased pax. I don’t like it any more than you do.
What bothers me is why we (everyone) haven’t been hashing out these very issues over the past year. Sigh.
If I come up with anything new and revelatory, and more exculpatory, I’ll let you know.
Cheers
@StevanG
LOL. The a/c was NOT at cruising altitudes when over much of the land mass. And, AGAIN, Fariq’s phone somehow managed to ping the tower near Penang, yet NO others? Doe NOT add up.
are you sure? It flew very fast across Malaysia, to do that it had to fly at some altitude(as the air becomes very dense at lower altitudes and reduces air speed drastically).
it’s not strange that Fariq phone pinged only tower near Penang because it’s probably the most populated area overflown with strongest mobile transmitters, bear in mind that base stations usually reach only 15 km or so, if you add altitude to the equation it gets a lot lower…
@Spencer
I think the avoidance of speculation and adherence to the numbers was stated as a clear mandate early on in Duncan’s blog. I understand the reasons, and I respect that decision.
OTOH it doe explain why despite running an organization with more than 200 engineers and scientists in it, I never once had a law enforcement representative ask me if he could borrow a couple of my guys to help solve a crime.
@Spencer: Can you please elaborate on what evidence you have pertaining to the altitude for MH370 at any point during the flight after 17:21 UTC?
@StevanG
MH370 was not at cruise when it flew it across Malaysia. There has been a fiction purported that it remained at FL350 until the FMT. I believe in the accident report the radar paint has it around FL230. I could be incorrect about this.
My QUESTION, StevanG, is why NO other oax phones pinged??? That it was ONLY Fariq’s suggest to me that it was only he who was able to hit SEND.
@Dennis
I’m admittedly not the brightest of this bunch by ANY stretch. But to not conclude fairly early on that it was indeed deliberate, and from there winnow down the possible scenarios to a mere several is beyond inexcusable. The NOK deserved the decency of common sense by consensus…but the TRUTH is that too many people with a ‘voice’ and ‘expertise’ (some on this thread often) had agendas that were anything but in the spirit of the truth. For quite a few, it was (and still is) all about protecting the reputation of pilots, period.
You can’t be THAT stupid…you just can’t.
@Spencer
I put the Penang alleged connection and the information regarding cellular activity prior to take-off in the red herring category. I have never seen it mentioned other than in the “popular” press. I don’t have a lot of confidence in that source. These reports always refer to unnamed sources.
Hussein flatly denied any knowledge of it.
begin cut-paste//
Asked Sunday by CNN about the newspaper report about a purported effort to make a call by the first officer, Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said: “As far as I know, no, but as I said that would be in the realm of the police and the other international (authorities) and when the time comes that will be revealed. But I do not want to speculate on that at the moment.”
end cut-paste//
@Spencer: The in-flight cell phone call has never been confirmed.
Again, what evidence you have that the plane was not at cruise altitude? According to the FI, the radar registered 35,700′ at 17:30, 31,100′ – 33,000′ at 17:36, and 32,800′ at 17:39:59.
You have made the statement that the plane was NOT at cruise altitude over land, and it was fiction that the plane remained at FL350 until the FMT. Please let me know your source for this information. I would like to do my own evaluation.
@Victor
The accident report section 1.1 I believe. The PSR altitudes in the report:
17:35 UTC=FL357
17:36 UTC=FL311-330
17:39 UTC=FLFl328
It clearly deviated from FL350 as I said. PSR has a margin of error, granted, but these are the ranges given in the report.
More curiously is the absence of any other altitude markers in the report despite several other PSR paints.
There is also the now discounted reports by the WSJ I mentioned previously.
And the IMO ONLY credible eyewitness reports by a group of fisherman who saw a plane coming in low and hot.
Also, as noted by other posters, the gaps in radar suggest altitude fluctuations as do YOUR OWN 18:25 BFO interpretations IIRC.
@Victor
I just saw your post. I suppose ‘cruise’ can mean many things. My point was that the it deviated from FL350.
Do you really believe that the in-flight phone scenario was fabricated?
@Dennis
Hishammuddin did everything BUT DENY the story. That’s as good as confirming it IMO.
@Victor
You’re the smart guy here. How do you reconcile the speeds in the report according to Orion?
I highly doubt Zaharie just casually flew through Malay airspace in some laissez-faire manner. Just saying.
And does anyone have any info on the engine report suggesting the plane descended some many thousands of feet in roughly a minute. What was the supposed genesis of this report? It makes no sense that it was purely fiction.
@Dennis
I remember H’s ‘denial’ well. This was some days after it had been out there that the call took place. We’ll just disagree on whether he’s telling the truth…he almost never is.
@Spencer. I don’t know of any knowledgeable person that would not consider those altitudes to be “cruise”. And at those altitudes, it would be nearly impossible for a cell phone to contact to a tower.
The cell phone story has never been substantiated. You may choose to believe that cell phone connections are possible at cruise altitudes. I will cast such unsubstantiated evidence to the side until something more sensible is presented.
I have asked you for evidence that the plane was not at a cruise altitude as you claim. You have yet to produce any.
In fact, for a number of reasons, I do think there might have been an altitude change around the time of the log-on at 18:25, which is why I was interested to hear what data you might have.
@Victor
Serious question. How do you account for the WSJ report that the plane descended 30 some odd thousand feet in minutes?
Is the just bs like the Fariq phone story? If so, how do you believe it came to be reported as such?
Shit like this isn’t just without any basis. It materialized how?
@Victor
Lastly, I’m not saying the cell-phone connection was established while the a/c was at cruise! This is precisely my point.
The cell phone connection NEAR PENANG is further ‘potential’ evidence of an a/c flying at low altitude. That NO other pax phones made connections is problematic IMO in regards to Dennis’s scenario that the pax were still alive.
@Spencer: The rapid descent/climb behavior was extracted altitude values from primary radar data. Later, it was conceded that the calibration accuracy of the radar heads was insufficient to substantiate the dive/climb behavior that was reported earlier, and those claims were not made again.
There were MANY falsely reported stories in the early days, such as confusion about ACARS and satellite network signaling, and engines independently sending data back to RR. Also, there may have been disinformation campaigns, some of which continue.
I see “follow the money” generated healthy discussion earlier. Let’s generalize, and ask: “who benefits?”
I still haven’t ruled out a) Curtin boom due to event at IGARI->turn west->hypoxia, or b) war games gone bad in the SCS, with the SIO charade to cover up embarrassing potency or impotency, respectively. However, I’m definitely with those who lean toward a nefarious act.
Even assuming nefarity(tm), we can’t assume the effects we SEE are those INTENDED: we must concede the possibility that the perp a) was thwarted, or b) plans some FUTURE consequence. I consider BOTH of these to be of material probability, worthy of serious exploration.
But for argument’s sake, let’s suppose MH370’s disappearance DID achieve its goal: what are the primary far-reaching consequences of this bizarre event?
1) the Malaysian economy has been dealt a body blow (via collapse of wholly-owned MAS)
2) broad swaths of the SIO have now been bathy surveyed (at some naïve insurer’s expense)
3) the general public is now galvanized in support of enhanced/centralized commercial aircraft tracking
(surely I’ve missed several – and I’ve excluded impacts to NOK, whose pain is of course the most important consequence from a HUMAN perspective, but highly unlikely to be anything but incidental to what, under the above assumptions, would have to be a psychopathic person/group/state.)
Who benefits from these consequences?
From 1): an ENEMY (&/or economic rival) of Malaysia
From 2): whatever private interests are granted free access to the bathy work
From 3): while seemingly ludicrous to connect tighter tracking to some crass advantage – I mean, don’t we ALL benefit from safer skies? – something deep inside me wishes to explore this angle. (Perhaps it’s the way public perceptions of MH370 have been so forcefully manipulated by our government/media complex.) Surely enhanced/centralized tracking has been within our TECHNOLOGICAL grasp for decades – why hasn’t it been IMPLEMENTED? Have some nations RESISTED it? If so, WHY? Depending on the answers, it may be at least PLAUSIBLE to suppose public opinion is being (ab)used to force a tracking program advantageous to the perps’ agenda. Would full knowledge/control of every single commercial aircraft in the world be of value during, e.g., WWIII? If so, to WHOM?
I am persuaded by how well 3) ties in MH17 (et al?), but freely concede I’m just spitballing, here. I eagerly await the opinions of folks who, unlike me, have the geopolitical savvy to assess this angle with rigour.