Until fairly recently, the default assumption about MH370 is that, based on the interpretation of satcom signals recorded by Inmarsat, the plane made a final turn to the left sometime after 18:25 UTC and flew south on autopilot before running out of fuel. This default scenario, sometimes referred to as the “ghost ship” scenario, was endorsed by both the ATSB and the Independent Group.
However, if the plane flew south in this manner and ran out of fuel, it would have been found by now, as Brock McEwen explained here recently. It was not found. Therefore the default scenario is incorrect: the plane did not make a final turn and fly straight to the south without human intervention.
At this point, only three possible scenarios still make sense for MH370:
- As was first mooted in the June ATSB report, the plane lingered near Sumatra before flying straight or took a curving path to the south. In either case, the plane wound up intersecting the 7th arc somewhere north of Broken Ridge, beyond the current search area.
- The plane flew straight south after a final major turn, then was hand-flown by a conscious pilot on a long glide that took it far from the 7th arc, beyond the current search area.
- The plane did not go south at all. If this is the case, then the satellite communications system must have been compromised by hijackers who either flew the plane north to Kazakhstan or China (if only the BFO values were spoofed) or somewhere else within a huge circle encompassed by the 7th ping ring (if both BTO and BFO values were spoofed).
Each of these options has unpalatable aspects, but they’re all we’ve got.
I would argue that these unpleasant choices can be further subdivided into two categories: inside the cockpit, or outside the cockpit. By “inside the cockpit,” I mean that the airplane was controlled from the flight deck, presumably by either the captain or the first officer; by “outside the cockpit,” I mean that hijackers managed to seize control of the plane either by accessing the E/E bay or hacking in through the inflight entertainment system. The reason I feel we can make this assertion is that only one minute elapsed between the captain calmly saying “Good night Malaysia 370” and the diversion at IGARI. It’s scarcely imaginable that hijackers would have time to breach the fortified cockpit door, overcome the flight crew, and reprogram the flight management system in such a short time. So whoever took the plane had to be either on one side of the door or the other.
The first two of our three options would fall under the category of “inside the cockpit.” They present a number of difficulties:
- They require the pilots to behave in ways that are hard to explain. For example, a curving route might make sense when flying over land, when one might wish to avoid mountains or weather, but a southern route would have passed over unobstructed sea, in clear weather. Likewise, it’s hard to fathom why a suicidal pilot would sit alert for six hours while waiting for his plane to run out of fuel, and then fly it in a long glide into the ocean. Such behavior would only needlessly prolong what must be an intensely uncomfortable situation. Indeed, of the handful of pilot-suicide incidents that are believed to have taken place, all involve the pilots pointing the nose down and crashing the plane quickly.
- Lack of surface debris. Last year, it was widely accepted that debris would begin washing ashore imminently. Needless to say, no debris has washed ashore. Some commenters have convinced themselves that this is no big deal after all, but this is an ex post facto judgement.
- Reboot of the SDU. Since last year I’ve asked quite a few airline pilots if they know how to log the SDU off and back on again. Not one has said yes. It’s a huge problem, then, that whoever was in command of 9M-MRO managed to turn off the satcom system and then turn it back on again. According to the June ATSB report, “A log-on request in the middle of a flight is not common and can occur for only a few reasons.” (One of the members of the IG spent a good deal of time trying to figure out ways by which the SDU might have accidentally logged itself off and back on again, and was unable to find any.) It has been hypothesized that the pilot might have accidentally turned the SDU off by isolating the left AC bus, but no one has managed to come up with a plausible scenario for why anyone would want to isolate the left AC bus. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the fact that the SDU was rebooted is a huge clue that the IG and the ATSB are unable to explain and instead have chosen to ignore.
A further wrinkle is that the SDU appears to have been rebooted less than a minute after the plane disappeared from primary radar. Either this is another incredible coincidence, or whoever took the plane had a remarkable degree of sophistication concerning primary radar coverage in the Malacca Strait, because someone armed with a basic level of knowledge would have expected the plane to remain under primary radar surveillance for some time to come, since the aircraft at that time was well within the claimed detection range of the Thai radar installation at Phuket and Indonesian radar facilities at Lhokseumawe and Sabang. - The strangeness of the path. If the pilot/s intended to fly the plane deep into the southern Indian Ocean, why would they fly northwest up the Malacca Strait? As I wrote back in December, “The radar track released by the Australian Transport Safety Board (ATSB) in June shows that the plane came within 60 nautical miles of the installation before it disappeared from Malaysian and/or Thai military radar. Afterwards, according to the consensus view, the plane’s track should have stayed within the radar’s viewing range as it headed west, made a turn to the south, and proceeded into the southern Indian Ocean.” That is to say, the IG/ATSB view is that the plane diverted hundreds of miles, and several hours off course, to avoid radar coverage that didn’t in fact exist, and whose nonexistence the perps seem to have been aware of, given the timing of the SDU reboot. (If the perps did believe that Indonesia’s radar coverage was operational, their behavior is still perplexing, since a final major turn to the south would cause them to penetrate Indonenesian airspace deep within the coverage zone of the Sabang radar.)
In the past, some people have speculated that the reason for the FMT was that there was some kind of rebellion on the plane, in the aftermath of which the plane flew south as a ghost ship. But now that we’ve ruled out the ghost ship scenario this explanation no longer holds up.
Now that we’ve run through the problems with the “inside the cockpit” scenarios, let’s review the problems with the “outside the cockpit” scenario.
- Incredible sophistication. At a gut level, many people have a hard time accepting that the hijacking of MH370 was carried out by people who understood the workings of the Inmarsat communications system better than Inmarsat itself. However, given the manipulation of the SDU, it’s clear that whoever took MH370 did indeed have uncannily sophisticated knowledge of the aircraft’s systems.
- Lack of motive. When I ran my “Spoof” idea up the flagpole in March, the most common criticism I received was, “But what’s the motive?” I speculated at the time that the hack might have been a show of prowess made by Russia at a time when it felt like it might be drawn towards war with the much more powerful Western alliance. I also pointed out that motive was going to be a problem with any MH370 scenario, as no one visibly benefitted.
- Lack of detection by radar. If MH370 flew north, why wasn’t it detected by radar systems in India or China? This indeed is an important problem with the spoofing scanario. However, based on the SDU reboot at 18:25, I would argue that the perps seemed to have had an extraordinary understanding of precisely where radar coverage existed, and adjusted their behavior accordingly. What’s more, it turned out that the coverage over the Malacca Strait by radars belonging to Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia were far less than a casual observer would expect. To put it bluntly, primary radar coverage is far spottier (there and probably everywhere) than people realize, and a perp who knows where the holes are can slip through unobserved.
Obviously, I have my perspective on things, and other people have their perspective. I don’t expect everyone to jump on the “spoof” bandwagon. However, whatever disagreements we all may have, my fond wish is that we keep our future discussions anchored in the reality of the data at hand. Recently there has been a lot of back-and-forth in the comments section of this blog about the Maldives, contrails, the Curtin boom, along with lots of speculation about global conspiracies and insurance payments. Some people have gone so far as to congratulate themselves on turning over every rock. The fact is, when someone brings up a point that has already been hashed over and discarded, or that is patently nonsensical, or that is impossible to verify, it doesn’t count as “turning over rocks,” it counts as drawing attention away from the job at hand, which is to make sense of a very limited data set and try to move toward consensus about what is possible and what is not. I happen to believe that the mystery of MH370 can be solved. There are a lot of smart and resourceful people who take part in the discussion here, and I think if we can focus we can move the ball forward collectively.
@Jeff
“Indeed, if anyone would care to chip in and offer a plausible scenario I’d love to hear it.”
IMO there are a few scenarios which might be stretched to cover those items, yet some seem more likely than others.
As an example, here’s a quick illustration of just one of the more common theories floating around:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/zdzbl7h4jpgh3uq/mh370-rogue.pdf?dl=0
However, very small differences in the details can greatly sway the narrative between suspects and motives.
As you have rightly pointed out – one of the most critical unknowns remaining is to pin down the functions tied to the Left AC Bus.
Why is it seemingly impossible to find out EXACTLY what systems would be lost with the left AC bus.
It’s wonderful that we are told that no CRITICAL flight systems are compromised, but is there not someone, somewhere who might be able to provide such information.
I think many of us are not so much interested in what is not lost, but in exactly what is lost?
16 months and we still do not have an answer to this question.
Thanks for the correction, Brock.
I doubt that the failure of the underwater search tells us much of anything about where MH370 ended. As Mike points out, the search is not complete. Plus there has been industry criticism of the efficacy of the search methodology and equipment even if the search were complete.
But most significantly, as far as I know, there is insufficient data or other basis to assess with any confidence the likelihood of finding the debris assuming it’s within the area searched.
E.g., the surface debris located by the satellites has been dismissed as a random sample of ubiquitous ocean rubbish, but what’s the explanation for the underwater search apparently finding only one old ship? Is the ocean floor so pristine? Does nothing sink?
(I say “apparently” because I have not heard of any debris, including any from the old ship, having been retrieved; or any debris other than the old ship having been found and ruled out.)
To me, the results to date confirm that MH370 is hard to find and suggest that continuing the search or expanding it to less likely locations isn’t going to be worthwhile. And that’s about it.
AAP JULY 09, 2015 3:50PM
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Supplied Editorial Tomi (Tommy) Abu Alfatih – Facebook 2014
Australian Federal Police are monitoring two Indonesian pilots who appear to be influenced by pro-Islamic State elements, on concerns they may pose a security threat, an intelligence website says.
The apparent radicalisation of Ridwan Agustin, alias Hobi Panahan, and Tommy Hendratno, alias Tomi Abu Alfatih, was detailed in a March 18 operational intelligence report compiled by the AFP and obtained by website The Intercept.
The AFP report — marked “for official use only” — analyses Facebook posts by the two pilots, appearing to support IS.
The Intercept reports that Agustin formerly worked for AirAsia Indonesia, while Premiair says Hendratno ceased working for them on June 1.
Agustin graduated from the AirAsia academy in 2010 and flew international and domestic routes, the intelligence report states. He began posting material indicating his support for IS from September 2014 — posts which Hendratno “liked”.
The AFP also notes that Agustin comments on the page of Heri Kustyanto, who it’s believed left his Indonesian family to fight with IS in Syria or Iraq.
At the time of the report, Agustin was active on Facebook as Hobi Panahan, was befriending radicals and listed his current city as Raqqa, Syria.
The AFP report says Hendratno, meanwhile, lives in Bogor, near Jakarta, and was a pilot for the Indonesian Navy before Garuda and Premiair.
He had posted photos of trips around the world, including to Australia, but by December 2014 was posting pro-Islamic State material.
His friends list included many military and commercial pilots. The report concluded that radicalised pilots were an obvious threat, “as witnessed by past global events” and noted that a recent edition of the al-Qa’ida magazine had encouraged aviation attacks.
Both men were trained pilots with contacts in the industry, it said.
The AFP distributed the report to partners in Turkey, Jordan, London, the US and Europol, The Intercept reported.
In a statement, the AFP said it did not comment on matters of intelligence.
“The AFP maintains strong relationships with its domestic and foreign law enforcement partners to ensure the ongoing safety of Australians both within Australia and abroad,” it said.
The Intercept was initially created to report on documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Link here –
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/in-depth/terror/pro-islamic-state-pilots-afp-tracked-indonesians-report-says/story-fnpdbcmu-1227435399488
@Matty.
re:AFP. Thanks, important post, a great worry.
A few more snaps
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3154346/Pictured-Indonesian-pilot-Australian-police-believe-radicalised-Islamic-State-poses-Opera-House.html
@Gysbreght
“IMO there are quite a few details that argue against a carefully planned, prepared and executed operation. I’m looking for some un-planned occurence, and then one thing led to another.”
There is one thing about this deviation, that kills every objection to seeing it as a planned act – that is the perfection of the disappearance. No trace, no clue, very scarce facts and evidence.
Perfection makes not only the difference between natural events and human intervention but also between an “occurence” and a premeditated act. Maybe you could consider the way operfection worked here to its limits as evidence for a well prepared capture?
@Spencer
The above applies as well to any suicide scenario.
A suicide is result of a severe mental illness. The unfolding of this personal catastrophy is like a flood that cannot be controlled and leaves inevitable traces. Because everything, that is unfolding by itself will turn out to take no care of concealing evidence, buying time or so. Also the worlds top pychiatrists ruled a suicide highly improbable because of the length of time it took and the killing of hundreds of people. Just to give an idea of probability here: In the last 20 years we had about 3 or 4 known pilot suicides in-flight. That compares with about at least 300 million departures per year, which would be a ratio to one pilot suicide in 1.5 billion departures. The chances for such an event are extremely remote.
If you say, that this might not apply here, because it was an islamic terrorist background and therefore a premeditated act, we would have to ask how any islamic faction could live up to such a sophistication about the technique of a 777?
In any flight, the pilot is the one who can act most effectively in any nefarious act, because he is in the cockpit. But this is it. Nearly never this happens. What is most probable in this deviation is, that the pilot and FO were the first victims of the capture, who were immediately silenced to avoid any chance for distress signals and the like. The pilots were probably not participating in any way but the most important resistance to the capture. I really wish you, not to wake up the other morning and have a living Zaharie on your doorstep.
AM2 – a radicalized pilot was my very first thought and when you look at the IS demographic it was always inevitable they would have some pilots in the ranks.
@Matty
And the fanatics would not have exploited that?
If you say, that this might not apply here, because it was an islamic terrorist background and therefore a premeditated act, we would have to ask how any islamic faction could live up to such a sophistication about the technique of a 777? …
We don’t know what they know. 911 should have taught us that lesson.
@orion: “here’s a quick illustration of just one of the more common theories floating around:”
That is a great graphic… very helpful for me!
@nina
well, if there is sort of russian support from the old middle east networks of KGB, theat would of course enhance their capabilities. i doubt somehow that the russians are prepared for that abyss yet.
@Matty (and @Brock):
This last is just for you.
Re The Intercept (“Pro-ISIS Airline Pilots…”) —
Dec. 28, 2014
“Why was that Wolfhound caught flying near the tip of Sumatra, Indonesia?”
http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1sjhibl
Stock up on that red. Be well.
FIN
Wolfhound and many other planes forced to land by indonesian AF show that MH370 most probably did not violate their airspace at all and any theory suggesting it went through their airspace should be revised or taken with a pinch of salt, including official one.
@StevanG: Or perhaps Indonesia turns off its military radar at night unless there is a specific threat.
They have intercepted planes at night too, they are very serious about their airspace.
@StevanG, I’ve heard from multiple sources that the Indonesians turn their radar off at night. Can you provide any links to stories about nighttime interceptions?
“They have intercepted planes at night too”
Not this night, apparently.
@Cosmic Academy
> I really wish you, not to wake up the other morning and have a living Zaharie on your doorstep.
LOL. That would certainly be a grave encounter (pun intended).
Luckily, I’m quite sure (like 100%) that the only Zaharie i will come across is some apparition…but alas, I don’t believe in ghosts. I’m not sweating this one.
BTW, your waxing and pontificating on suicide is laughably in error.
And nowhere have I ever mentioned Islam and/or Islamic terrorists. Zaharie’s religion or lack thereof was IMO a secondary matter…not to say that it didn’t have trid and true role.
You spin all matter of yarn, you do…and it is clear you have a vested interest in doing what you can to conflate and convolute the Zaharie issue. Sigh.
Cheers
@Jeff re: Indo radar
Gerry would be your best (good) source, obviously.
It is interesting, however, to remember (IIRC) that they (Indo) have never said they didn’t see MH370, only that their was no incursion into their airspace.
Of course, this could also be bluster as to their radar capabilities/alertness.
I doubt any aircraft flying along the Eastern border of India would get challenged. They would likely be assumed to be commercial, and there is no perceived threat from that direction.
Cosmic academy – not quite sure of the context of your reply but you mention Russia as technically capable and a potential cohort, are you dismissing Islamic terrorism as inept with a sophisticated hijacking? The biggest sponsor of Intl terrorism in the world is Iran – a theocratic regime, who neatly landed a US drone on one of their own strips, and I suspect it was a team effort involving possibly Russia. We use the word sophisticated a lot but all that is really required is a research period.
@Jeff
“JAKARTA – In a tense encounter above the Java sea, a group of US warplanes went into attack mode and were ready to fire on Indonesian jet fighters dispatched to intercept them after they flew into Indonesia’s airspace, a senior officer said yesterday.
Rear Air Marshal Wresnowiro, head of Indonesia’s air defence command, told a news conference that the US navy F-18 Hornets locked onto the Indonesian F-16 warplanes late on Thursday before communication was established and the incident resolved.
There were five Hornets in the group, although Rear Air Marshal Wresnowiro did not say if all of them had locked on.
‘They adopted an attack manoeuvre. After they locked on, they asked whether the planes were friends or foe and an international sign indicating we’re friends was relayed back.’
He said the US-made F-16s were dispatched after the US Hornets were picked up by air force radar and also noticed by an Indonesian airliner off the main island of Java.”
“late on Thursday” should imply night-time, no?!
Also civilian planes have their transponder turned on(well, except in MH370 case) so it wouldn’t make a difference if their primary radar operated at night or not, their SU30s are night-capable(and F16s too) and civilian ATC would sure notice military about intruder so I think it’s just coincidence that all intercepted flights you have found happened during daylight.
@Gysbreght we don’t know if it violated indonesian airspace, if somebody controlled that plane I’d say no as it was much simpler to spend 100 miles worth of fuel more than violate their airspace.
Dennis – absolutely agree. It was clear many commentators had a very neat concept of radar coverage and effective monitoring of space with fighter planes standing by. Reality is often a lot more messy.
StevanG – “late on Thursday” is completely ambiguous. Jeff I think is alluding to early hours of the morning.
ALSM–“I think we are very confident now that antenna orientation was not the cause of the 1707-1825 AES outage”
Would you mind detailing why you have confidence that the antennae orientation (or even a possible malfunction of one antennae?) did not simply cause a loss of signal at major turns. with a resulting preset pause to reconnect? In MH370’s case, I believe this pause is set by MAS at 30 mins to prevent a log-on storm? I feel as many arguments are for it, as against it, and I am curious as to whether some new findings have come to light that rule this possibility out completely and definitely? Thank you for your thoughts, and I appreciate the time you take, every day.
If this cannot be ruled out, I feel this simple explanation should be added to the list of possibilities Jeff.
@StevanG:
We do know that MH370 came within radar range.
The occasional incident does not demonstrate that they maintain full alert status round the clock seven days a week. I think Gerry’s comment is appropriate.
@Matty
The former Soviet Union fostered and actively supported terrorism and terror organizations in the middle east with training, retreat, forged identities and all kind of supervision and advise. You find that in the files of the german RAF terror proceedings and in the files of the Carlos Judgement. They also advised and supervised the palestinian terror and held close ties to egypt, algerian, lybian, syrian and iraquian military. This included sending training personnel and knowledge transfer.
I see the coincidence between the sudden and unexpected rise of ISIS and the split between NATO and Russia over the Crimea issue as connected: Russia since last March ceased to support the western war against terror, which means, their contacts and old friends in the middle east did no longer suppress islamic factions. And since ISIS military success is amazing, my idea would be, that they got active supervisional and logistic support by trainers from maybe russian province chechnya. with chechen nationals who melt well with sunni muslims, like the Boston bomber came from that territory.
ISIS as a Sunni muslim faction will sure not benefit from Iranian sponsoring and Malaysian and indosian muslims are Sunni too. So they can akquire that needed sphisitcation only from russia. The chechens were known to execute the dirty jobs for the Kremls elite. like silencing of journalists or certain politicians.
@curious, As the June ATSB report says in the section that I block-quoted, “A log-on request in the middle of a flight is not common.” I interpret this to mean that log-offs caused by aircraft motion are rare. How rare, I don’t know, but apparently rare enough that the ATSB discounted this possibility. In the absence of better information I feel we should follow their lead.
CosmicAcademy – Yes there was a surprisingly big representation of Chechens from the very start with ISIS and Russia does have a long history of wanting Israel off the map. What was interesting about the emergence of the group Khoroasan which is an old name for northern Iran, is that it’s alleged to have sheltered there before moving onto Syria where it was targeted. The characterization of Iran as the big sponsor of intl terror comes from Israeli sources. Russia and Iran are pretty cosy.
Hi Jeff,
The side mounted antenna system to the aircraft is not without it’s faults (Dropouts being one of them). Taken in the context of the ACARS possibly being disabled; the ATSB information shows we only have an outage window 1807 and 1825 = 18 minutes.
I’ve read all sorts (may be garbage) on various anomalies on the night including solar activity.
Has your mobile not dropped out for 18 minutes?
My bet is the FMT or a sideways change of track caused the reboot.
OZ
@OZ, Thanks for your insights. Given the clear deliberate efforts to suppress communication and avoid surveillance that occurred with the same very narrow time frame, I would find it strange to look to a low-probability accidental cause for the failure of the satcom system.
Hi Jeff,
On the contrary; no one would have expected (even the perp/s) that an attempted Satphone connection from MAS would have initiated the whole Inmarsat conundrum.
As the saying goes “from small things; big things grow”.
Keep up the quest!
OZ
CosmicAcademy – Iranian terror:
The report states as well that Iran has remained unwilling to bring to justice senior members of Al Qaeda that it continued to detain, and also refused to publicly identify these senior members, as well as that Iran has allowed Al Qaeda members to operate a core facilitation pipeline through Iranian territory, which has enabled Al Qaeda to carry funds and move facilitators and operatives to South Asia and elsewhere.[9][10][11]
They also fund Hamas so it looks like they crossed the sectarian divide ages ago with their cultivation of terror.
@Matty “StevanG – “late on Thursday” is completely ambiguous. Jeff I think is alluding to early hours of the morning.”
what difference would that make? It’s clear that Malaysia and Thailand operated their radars at that time (we could see malaysian radar plot and statements of thai officials), I highly doubt that Indonesia would differ as their security situation is significantly worse than in Malaysia or Thailand.
One seemingly small detail, related to the partial release of Inmarsat’s Data Communication Logs by the Malaysia Dept. of Civil Aviation, has always raised my curiosity. The data was released, and remains available, to the public using Adobe PDF. The Malaysian’s PDF file was password protected using 128-bit RC4 encryption. Effectively making the PDF viewable and printable only. No copying or extracting data or pages allowed.
The encryption was broken, the data extracted to a MS Excel file, and the Excel sheet was in the hands of the IG within hours, however, did the Malaysian’s think that it would delay mathematical analysis of data until painstakingly, manually, transcribed? Was there a need to be able to show openness in sharing data with the hopes of buying extra time to “manage” other sensitive issues?
It appears ALL other MH370 PDF documents released by DCA are unsecured. Why did the Malaysian’s encrypt the pdf file disallowing data extraction?
I’m not convinced, by observation of MH370 and QZ8501 incidents, that the Malaysian’s have sufficient savvy to even think of encrypting that file. I sense they were directed to do so by a more savvy nation for the purpose of keeping independent investigations behind the curve as much as possible.
Now through in the subtleties and criticality of the data itself, it seems appropriate to mention this curiosity.
I’m not savvy enough to spell throw.
Additionally, if you protect and secure a pdf full of fake data wouldn’t that make the data seem more official and believable?
My understanding is that the pilot of MH370 was breaking up with his wife at the time of the disappearance. Is this correct? Other air crashes have been linked to serious marital or girlfriend problems; why is this not being talked about in this case, either on NOVA “Why Planes Vanish?” or in other programs and fora? If this is right, then suicide would appear to be a very likely motive, and other evidence should be looked at, hard, with this in mind. Please advise. Thx.
I understand, that as long as MH370 was actively painted, by regional military radar…
Then MH370 flew more than less straight & level, on established air routes, mimicking regular commercial air traffic…
Presuming that there are also similar such routes southwards from IGOGU past Sumatra, then a FMT at IGOGU onto a southerly commercial flight path through the periphery of Indonesian military radar coverage, would be completely in keeping with MH370’s prior “quiet commercial aircraft” behavior.
Regarding terminal descent behavior, firstly, could a porpoising plugoid descent extend the glide range to something resembling human control ?
And, also, could a shallow banking turn to port, i.e. eastwards, so that the a/c was travelling directly perpendicular to the 8:10-20am ping rings, increase relative velocity of the AES w.r.t. the Inmarsat so as to substitute for a steep, rapid descent ?? Flight simulators seem to predict a steep, hard roll and spiral, but what if the sims are really only mostly right… the plane entered a shallow roll, on a porpoising plugoid, veering eastwards, but extending the glide from FL410 at Mach 0.84 out to 80-100km ???
According to the NOVA documentary “Why Planes Vanish”, MH370 was uploaded a special, last minute course adjustment, described as a “short cut”, through waypoint IGARI. Could the in-flight course adjustment have introduced a “virus” into the auto-pilot computer ??
If the plane was thrown into a high-G aerobatic maneuver at IGARI, and depressurized so as to make human life aboard impossible… And if the plane was afterwards thrown away into the SIO like a discarded toy…
Then perhaps the psychological profile of the hijacker… would be that of someone NOT aboard the airplane… Toying with a planeload of people sounds more like a remote actor viewing the events from a safe distance… And the most obvious gain anybody could derive from MH370 would be to demonstrate prowess… Is that not the hallmark of a hacker ?
Uninterruptible AP is not interruptible, but it is hackable ? A hacker could even have amused themselves by playing with the cabin and aircraft lighting, perhaps explain the colorful display observed by Katherine Tee, and possibly even the 2:25am reboot, to display “the real Napster” on all of the IFE screens ? And maybe, after napping and coding for a few hours, they re-hacked the plane, using UAP to do a graceful 10-point touchdown to demonstrate superior prowess to all of the onboard systems ?
Would it be possible to ‘super spoof’ the signals sent from the a/c? If someone could spoof the BFOs, then perhaps they could spoof the BTOs too? According to physics, BTOs could not be decreased (unless signal processing times could be slightly decreased with faster computer hardware, say)… But they could hypothetically be increased, by inputting an extra, artificial delay, so as to make the a/c seem to be farther from the satellite than it really was . If so, then the ping rings represent outer limits to the plane’s location, which could also be anywhere inside of the ring. The ping rings would become ping disks… The plane could have flown to Sri Lanka , touched down , and kept squawking deception to the satellite, inserting increasingly long delays into the handshakes, so as to appear to be moving away from the surface subsatellite location.