Two weeks ago, I wrote a couple of posts about the strange reboot of MH370’s satcom system that occurred shortly after the plane disappeared from primary radar, and asked if anyone could come up with a reasonable explanation. I drew attention in particular to the left AC bus, which the satcom equipment is connected to. This bus can be electrically isolated using controls located in the cockpit, and this appears to be the only way to recycle the satcom without leaving the flight deck. I suggested that there might be some other piece of equipment that the perpetrator wanted to turn off and on again by using the left AC bus, thereby causing the satcom to be recycled as an unintended side effect.
The readers rose to the occasion. Gysbreght pointed out that paragraph 1.11.2 of Factual Information states that “The SSCVR [Solid State Cockpit Voice Recorder] operates any time power is available on the Left AC transfer bus. This bus is not powered from batteries or the Ram Air Turbine (RAT).”
This is an incredibly interesting observation. Reader Oz fleshed out Gysbreght’s insight, writing to me via email:
We could isolate the Left Main AC by selecting the generator control switch to OFF and the Bus Tie switches to OFF; SATCOM is now dead. What else happens……….the Backup generator kicks in automatically to supply the Left Transfer bus. Here’s what’s so spine chilling; if you now simply reach up and select the Backup Generator switch to OFF………..you now lose Left transfer as well. The CVR is gone! I couldn’t believe how easy the CVR was to isolate!
To recap;
Left Gen Control to OFF
Bus Ties to OFF (Isolate)
Left Backup Gen to OFF.
I now firmly believe your mystery reboot was Left AC power being switched back ON……….. after something that had occurred that the perp or perps didn’t want any possible evidence of on the CVR……whatever was being hidden was done by around 1822; AC back to normal.
Gysbreght notes that the Factual Information also identifies the location of the CVR as Electronic Equipment Rack, E7, in the aft cabin above the ceiling, and suggests: “Later [the perp] could have opened Electronic Equipment Rack E7, physically pulled the SSCVR power supply plug from its socket, and then gone back to the MEC to restore power to the Left AC bus.”
Oz has his own theory: “If you are thinking why the hell you would turn Left AC/Left transfer back on? Flight deck temperature control comes from these…”
There’s a precedent for a suicidal airline pilot depowering the black boxes before flying a plane into the ocean: the pilot of Silkair Flight 185 appears to have done just that before pointing the nose down and crashing in December, 1997. It’s easy to imagine Zaharie reading the accident reports and realizing he should also figure out a way to disable the CVR before implementing his suicide plan. When the moment came, near IGARI, one can imagine the veteran 777 pilot suddenly flipping various switches while the baffled newbie, Fariq, looked on.
It’s certainly an intriguing scenario, but it is not without its flaws. As Gysbreght notes, “I would expect the Captain to know that the CVR only retains the last two hours and overwrites older recordings.” So if Zaharie planned to commit suicide by flying the plane for hours into the remotest reaches of the southern ocean, he wouldn’t have needed to turn the CVR off: the portion between 17:07 and 18:25 would have been erased anyway. This is not in insurmountable problem, however. Maybe he orginally intended to crash right away, a la Silkair, but then lost his nerve.
I’m not quite ready to declare, as Gysbreght has, “Case closed,” but I have to admit that the CVR idea is fascinating. Great work, Gysbreght and Oz!
@Littlefoot re:Imagined Scenario
How about the hacker group Anonymous took control of the plane for some protest against Malaysia or China. They figure that they only need to control it long enough to make a point and then the crew could reboot it and safely fly it to an airport. Flaw in the plan is that the crew isn’t familiar enough to do a reboot, or the programming, for some reason can’t be removed, and the plane get’s locked in a southerly course with passengers and crew unable to do anything, but wait. Might explain the mystery reboot?
@Jon
Perhaps more telling is the ATSB’s promised drift model which somehow never showed up. When something does not fit the consensus model it gets suppressed. I believe that is what is what happened here when debris failed to show up on the beaches of WA many months ago.
I think Dolan said something about that recently, but I am not going to waste time looking for a link to something that Dolan said.
@Brian Anderson
I read Exner’s explanation of the trailing edge damage. I am not qualified to comment in that domain and I never step out of my comfort zone, but I will say that I found it strange that it was published at all.
Since the part is in the hands of experts who do this for a living, and have the tools to do forensics far beyond anything we can glean from pictures, what is the point? Why not wait for those conclusions? Time is obviously not of the essence. Why speculate?
Just curious. Is there an agenda here?
“now I see confirmed reports from various witnesses that some debris washed ashore in May…which would put the location of origin even norther than somewhere NW of Australia.” – StevenG
Does it? Even the expert drift modellers can not agree on the items origin at this stage. Its an iffy science at best with as many variables (if not more than) as that which caused the disappearance in the first place. As to that being confirmed, well it has been reported. Confirmed is a step far removed.
But I has to laugh. I think this best sums up the collective effort to date:
“ “They found two bottles on Friday,” he said conspiratorially. “And they were definitely from the plane, because they were special drinking water given to pilots to keep them awake during long flights.”
The two local police standing nearby smiled and rolled their eyes.” – WA TODAY
“The oceanographer Erik von Sebille’s drift model appears, unless I am reading the NYT graphic from a couple of days ago wrong, to suggest there’s a 10% chance the part came from the northern end of the search zone and no chance it can from the southern end.” – Jon
As Dennis said – roll up, roll up. The circus is in town.
“Just curious. Is there an agenda here?” – DW
No more agenda than anyone else here postulating or probing what little fact is on the table. Just a desire to put pieces together, like we all have done.
http://www.9news.com.au/world/2015/08/02/11/18/reunion-island-garbo-burned-suspected-mh370-debris
Burned a plane seat! Bloody hell. I never accepted that there could be no debris – funny how many did?
Sharkcaver – On agendas: Whenever the narrative gets away from an SIO terminus some people get angry. Plenty of credibility staked on this one.
The seat is an interesting issue if we can trust it? It means a degree of break-up.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/wife-of-paris-attacker-now-frances-most-wanted-woman/2015/02/02/b03c6950-a7da-11e4-a162-121d06ca77f1_story.html
Since the Malaysian chief of police strenuously denies that the Hebdo terorists were EVER in Malaysia, despite the clear proof in these vacation photos published in the Washington Post, can we really believe in the results of the MH370 criminal investigation of the pilots and passengers?
curious – My ten cents would be a short no. The Iranian checks came back within a day or two – laughable really.
If a large debris field traveled north all the way from the search area we did a pretty good job of missing it in those early days?
@ALSM,
This image of the flaperon’s underside shows a rather clean linear break along a row of rivets (?) for most of its width. The image in your report seems to appear much more rugged than it actually is.
Would this change any of your conclusions regarding which scenario is the more likely?
http://www.francebleu.fr/sites/default/files/article/maxnewsworldthree805990.jpg
Cheers
Will
MuOne – Nice one. I see also that the damage at the right end(image)extends some distance from the rear towards the front of the flaperon. A pancake or a ditch is my ten cents.
Actually, thinking about that straight break, it would appear to fit the bending moment scenario (being dragged in water) better.
The underside would experience tension and snap along the line of weakness, the top side would remain intact for a short while holding on to the broken portion until the turbulence eventually tears it off complete, leaving the more rugged edge on that side.
Cheers,
Will
Some thoughts on flaperon failure points and layman analysis. No claim of expertise, just trying to help, critical comments welcome.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/c6f13p2spib2hgw/MH370%20Flaperon%20Failure%20Points%20%28Rev%20A%29.pdf?dl=0
MuOne – yes I see it the same way.
Benaiahu – Interesting indeed. I think if we factor in speed any engine/flaperon tear off would occur in a small fraction of a second. The eng tear away would not quite be as instantaneous as the flap tear away? Thoughts?
@dennis,
No agenda. Never has been. Just trying to consider possible failure modes.
Because the flaperon does not extend very far below the wing, in any circumstance, in any ditching attempt the engine will hit first. Engine mounts are designed to shear. That would cause massive damage to all wing components behind the engine.
Consider instead the stresses induced with aerodynamic flutter. This is not just a trivial vibration. It is violent and almost always catastrophic. The flexure occurring might easily shear off the trailing edge portion, and tear the flaperon from its hinge points.
I’m very happy to let Boeing determine the cause of failure, but like everyone else here I can occasionally be tempted to offer my 2c worth if I think it appropriate.
@Matty
no way an experienced group of searchers flying on Orion planes would miss a huge debris field if it really was there
one or two pieces they could miss but a huge debris field – no
before discovery of flaperon and other debris there was a tiny bit of chance that someone somehow has managed to sink the plane there intact, but now that theory is shattered to pieces, literally
@Dennisw
Exner will be dissapointed when it becomes known that the plane ditched or belly flopped.
A second plane part is now believed to have been discovered, this time, a door:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-
33750811.
If this is (also) a part from MH370, I wonder if the search strategy needs some reappraisal? For a start, a thorough
scanning of all West Indian Ocean beaches….
Sorry, link part-corrupted:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-33750811.
comparing the northernmost reachable point on the 7th arc with current search area, if we are about probabilities it is much more probable the plane lies a lot northern than ATSB thought(what a surprise eh)
http://www.dodaj.rs/f/1H/I4/2Nh4gyC5/debris.jpg
you know, whatever crazy or bad finally happened to the plane and all the people, such good things are happening now too… re-unite in peace!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JozAmXo2bDE
Brian Anderson’s point about the engine location (in front of the Flaperon) was considered in the Flaperon separation analysis. It is an important observation. Consider how all the facts add up:
• the engines are immediately in front of the Flaperons
• the engine mounts are designed to break away (before major damage to the wings)
• the engines will hit the water before the Flaperons
• there is little Flaperon leading edge damage,
• Flaperon trailing edge damage is more consistent with flutter induced separation than water impact damage
Taking all the facts together, it is far more likely that the Flaperon separated before water impact. If this is true, then it follows that 9M-MRO reached a very high velocity before impact, which was the predicted outcome from B777-200 “end of flight” simulations, assuming uncontrolled flight post fuel exhaustion. But it is also consistent with controlled flight if the pilot was deliberately descending at a high rate of speed. Thus, the Flaperon evidence and preliminary analysis points to an impact close to the 7th ARC, but it does not provide any further insight into the question of whether or not there was controlled flight at the end.
@StevanG It’s actually quite interesting to use adrift.org.au to plot various possibilities. You’ve only modeled the drift at one year, but if you watch it at up to 18 months there are many places along the southern arc that show greater likelihood of debris washing up on Reunion than the presumed SIO spot, including the FMT.
I’d be interested to know if anyone here can shed light on whether the AC could have continued to fly had the flaperon been ripped off via aerodynamic flutter, for example, during radical maneuvers earlier in the flight.
Must the the ocean origin of the flaperon be more or less in the same place as the rest of the aircraft? Is its loss–or whatever caused its loss–that catastrophic?
Based on the damage of SilkAir 184, and the location of the B-777 Flaperon, it is extremely unlikely that the 9M-MRO Flaperon hit the water while attached to the wing.
Brian got this exactly right. Near supersonic air flexed the thin edge (sort of like bending a wire hanger back and forth) and ripped it away from the Flaperon. Now, this high speed air vortex is concentrated on the balance of the think, reinforced Flaperon and eventually breaks its hinges. It then drifted to the water making a comparatively low speed impact.
In March 2014 satellite pix of similar looking debris was posted on one site but when the ships arrived for verification, they couldn’t find it.
Many reading this blog may not be familiar with “Flutter”. The following video provides a few examples of Aeroelastic Flutter that show what I suspect caused the separation of the trailing edge section of 9M-MRO’s Right Flaperon, prior to separation of the main piece of the Flaperon from the wing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mJ_CAR52h4
ALSM please see – http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/granule/FR-2005-12-16/05-24050
scott you can’t model it up to 18 months because wreckage on Reunion was first seen in May and it’s likely that some debris washed ashore anywhere from January to May, I think one year is good approximation
So maybe it’s time to review the various models versus inmarsat’s “nominal” …. i was tutored on a model using the Inmarsat Data {ACARS} which is showing some promising verification to the “real” model.
@ALSM
Great video. Another reason I’ll never get in a “V” tail Bonanza. Flutter is in the tail section kills.
Regarding 370…water channeled through the flaps…?
New debris path model paper by IG member Henrik:
http://bitmath.org/mh370/debris-origin.pdf
A new drift analysis by Henrik Rydberg, using the model available online as developed by Erik van Sebille, is now available at
http://bitmath.org/mh370/debris-origin.pdf
The model predicts that the mostly likely origin for an object reaching La Reunion is 34S,94E, assuming that no debris has reached land at earlier times, and landfall should be in 10 – 14 months.
@Gene, hi!
Are you still the same Gene who explained the Doppler to us last year with whirling 6packs?
If so, nice to have you back! We could well use your humor here from time to time 😉
I’m not in the speculation business right now. I decided to sit back and wait until they tell us a bit more about that flap.
Interesting times ahead: if from mh370 (which is very likely) and if it drifted to La Reunion without human aid, then it whirls around quite a few pet theories: Northern scenarios would only work if the plane lost the flap after it had recrossed the peninsula but kept flying, or if the perps took it North and then, after taking what or whom they were after, flew it back to the Indian Ocean and discarded the incriminating evidence speedily in the IO while everyone was still looking in the SCS. Both scenarios aren’t totally impossible but also not very likely. Especially the latter one would only work with a very limited range of perps.
The SIO scenario on the other hand still suffers from the search having come up empty so far. And according to many oceanographers there’s only a 10% chance that the flap came from the current search areas in the SIO – especially since as far as we know nothing ever arrived at the Australian beaches
And the CI scenario would fit better with the IO drift patterns but can’t come up with a convincing explanation of what went wrong in the end.
Maybe the investigation can at least shed some light on how the flap most likely separated from the plane and for how long it was in the water – or lying on the beach for that matter.
Victor, Mike,
Can you advise how Henrik gets a probability equal to 1 for 34S at month 10? The raw maps (and excel data) from adrift do not show a condensation of the debris patch at the location of Reunion for month 10. Is there a normalisation factor?
@Richard Cole: Henrik advises that it is a relative probability. He has normalized the values in the graph so that the peak at 34S and 10 months has a value of unity.
You have Henrik’s email address. I am sure he would be happy to answer any questions you might have.
Victor
@littlefoot
time for fantasy seems over now. lets focus on the facts. we can happy that france is in charge now and not malaysia and can be quite safe to expect a valuable result within short time like in the Dubitz case. In the meantime the research into an explanation for the mysterious reboot ne3eds to be addressed even more than before, since the reboot is even more mysterious after we now find that the plane a) crashed and b) somewhere in the Indian ocean. Especially Oleksandrs scenarios will have to be revisited, but also the early suggestion of Victor Ianello of a landing at Banda Aceh.
You are free to suggest a stretch like “planting” of evidence, but how did possible perps make that arrive on that tiny island? We should expect good analysis from the French here.
@ALSM @Victor
Well , the paper of Mr. Rydberg does nowhere address the question, why no debris from 34 S 94 E was found on the SW coastline of Australia , where it would have been due since 6 months! Its very easy to explain the possible drift of some floating matter from any location on the subaequatorial side of the indian ocean ending up on the beaches of Reunion. But this is a tunnel view. Because the question to analyse is, why nothing at all was observed in the high probability areas.
@Matty – Perth: Regarding engine detachment like airlandseaman mentions above, Boeing uses strength-controlled fuse pins at critical attachment points to limit damage to the wings, fuselage and tail due to an engine strike or engine destabilization. I’m guessing the engines come off of wing during ditch attempt in ocean.
Reference: https://www.dropbox.com/s/hj2ztf7br1qozni/Boeing%20777-236ER%20Engine%20Nacelle%20Attachment.pdf?dl=0
@CosmicAcademy: Henrik’s proposal that 34S,94E is a likely crash site is related to the following observations:
– We are only now, or some months ago, starting to receive debris from the crash site.
– We have not missed any major debris on other major landmasses
In the paper, he states the following:
A debris injection at the northern end of the arc, here represented by 11S, is most likely to end up in Madagascar. Only a small fraction of the total deposit is found on the target islands. Hence, if what we witness now is the onset of debris from 11S, we should be seeing a lot of debris
elsewhere, and not on Reunion. Similarly, injections at 18S to 24S mostly hit Madagascar and parts of Africa. The 30S origin gets split between continents, with some deposit in Madagascar and some in Java and West Australia. Conversely, injections in the other end, below 36S or so, mostly hit West Australia. In sharp contrast, an injection at 34S is very localized and exclusively hits the target islands. The most likely explanation to both the lack of debris to date and the initial debris turning up on la Reunion is that the debris originates from an area around 34S.
Perhaps I can entice Dr. Rydberg to post here so he can answer questions directly.
Victor
@Cosmic Academy, I agree with you, that hopefully the investigation is in good hands. And I’m sure they will also look at the possibility of a plant. I think to get the flap on that island crusted with barnacles is the least of the problem. I could think of many methods that would work. I’m not going to list any of them because – after having mulled it over – I consider a plant not very likely for several reasons: the investigation was slowing down and the public had lost interest anyway: why firing the investigation all up again and risk making mistakes? The problems aren’t the barnacles and the drift to the island but the damage to the flap which tell the investigators many many things about what happened to the flap. A plant wouldn’t have been in anybody’s interest as far as I can see. But to contemplate the possibility and try to exclude it has nothing to with phantazising. It’s called crime investigation. And I still consider the vanishing of the plane a crime.
But enough words on that. I agree with all the rest you said.
@Richard Cole: In an email, Henrik writes the following:
“[Victor:] BTW, you did cite one thing incorrectly: the coastline probability distribution is not scaled so that the value at 34S is one. The whole distribution over the coastline is scaled so that the sum is one. The fact that it becomes one at 34S, at 10 months, simply reflects the extreme ocalization of debris at those islands when starting at 34S.”
I’ve asked Henrik to post here directly.
@Richard, Victor:
I think you refer to the coastline probability distribution. It is normalized so that the sum over all coastal sites yields one. That the distribution shows a one at the extremum simply reflects the extreme concentration to the target islands when starting at one particular point along the arc.
@cosmic:
On the contrary, the writeup explains in detail why no debris has been found on the WA coast. The last figure shows the distribution of debris versus longitude. From there, it is evident that most initial points leave no deposit on that coast. What you refer to as high-probability areas simply are not high-probability areas, according to the drift model at hand.
For those interested in having a look for them selves, you can try this link:
http://www.adrift.org.au/map?lat=-34&lng=93.9¢er=17.6&startmon=Mar
It gives an animated view of the particular starting point that shows a strong localization of initial debris on la Reunion and neighboring islands.
Miles O’Brien is making some very interesting statements that have not been widely reported. He claims he has a source claiming that the FBI found a deleted flight simulation on Shah’s computer that detailed the entire flight into the SIO.
Readers here might recall that there were reports to this effect back in June 2014, but they were discounted, like a lot of other evidence that proved to be false.
If true, it does not explain why this evidence was not used to help refine the flight path and the ultimate end point.
I am hoping that Miles will not be so obtuse and lay out all the details.
@VictorI
“The model predicts that the mostly likely origin for an object reaching La Reunion is 34S,94E, assuming that no debris has reached land at earlier times, and landfall should be in 10 – 14 months.”
LOL they STILL beat the same drum even if it’s now obvious the plane is not there and their assumption was oh so wrong.
Nice “science”.
@StevanG: Dr. Rydberg is more of a scientist than you will ever be in your wildest dreams. His assumptions and analysis are clearly presented. If you are capable of adding critical technical comments about his work, please do so. Otherwise, you are just creating more noise.
And we don’t yet know if the MH370 is on the arc near 34S as the width of the area searched at that latitude is not as wide as for more southern latitudes.
@All
Take a break & wishing you the best….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dt0R-8HMtGs
Victor please look at the picture and tell me how could the left starting position be more probable than the right one which is some 1500 miles to the north?
http://www.dodaj.rs/f/1H/I4/2Nh4gyC5/debris.jpg
Please do tell.
@StevanG: Read what I wrote above regarding Henrik’s observations. Hint: it’s not just about where the debris is likely to be found, but also where it has not been found. Then learn about conditional probabilities. Perhaps if you politely phrase the question you might even get Henrik to respond directly.
@StevanG. Is seems the more north the more likely the likely the debris coming ashore on Reunion Island. It even seems from such a long delay in showing up, the SCS could be the crash site.
@Myron – interesting find. So the left flaperon has separated from the airplane, either during normal flight, abnormal flight, or ditching. Likewise, it was the left bus that lost power.
The AD does not suggest that loss of a flaperon would automatically be fatal, but acknowledges that it could result in loss of control. So the plane may or may not be flyable without it, depending on the circumstances.
It seems entirely possible that the part was poorly maintained, broke, departed the wing, caused damage to the electrical system and possibly the horizontal stabilizer. It doesn’t quite fit the complete lack of communication, but if the plane found itself in a condition like that of the Alaska Air flight, it could be in the air for a while.
I’d be curious to know which spots along the KNOWN flight route, if any, could result in drift to Reunion.
@Victor
so here is the polite question, some debris from the current search area would wash ashore WA coast, so how is absence of it increasing chances for the current search area?
if we move to the north probability of anything washing ashore WA coast decreases to zero
IG,
I tried to refrain from commenting this, but finally I could not resist doing so.
1. I would not afraid to characterize Mike’s and Brian’s statement about the flaperon detachment in the air and justification of their conclusion by the proximity of the engine as nonsense. Fracture mechanics is a very complex thing. Everything does matter. The speed, angle of impact, the presence of microcracks in the flaperon materials, state of the water surface (waves first of all), what part of the aircraft hit water first, etc. Hopefully the residual deformation (i.e. reshaping) of this flaperon, scratches, and traces of other chemical substances on its surface may shad some light on the cause of the detachment and forces during the impact. Thus, I lean to repeat what DennisW asked above: “Why not wait for those conclusions?”
2. The analysis presented by Henrik is interesting, but unfortunately it proves almost nothing (btw, the link to the model in the text should be adrift.org.au, not adrift.com.au). I am afraid the claimed accuracy “The drift simulation is accurate to within 2 degrees in latitude and longitude” is largely overstated. A while ago I was involved in the drogue study, and it was interesting to observe how the drogues launched from the same place within a few minutes could end up several kilometers away from each other during the time interval of several hours. It was interesting to observe that the real stochastic component, apparently due to sub-grid features of the flow, waves, and wind plays such a great role, which was impossible to correctly reproduce by the means of numerical modeling, either deterministic or stochastic. In this light Henrik’s estimation “The most likely origin of the flaperon is currently a 120 square nautical miles area” resembles earlier IG’s prediction of the terminal location. Perhaps 120,000 square nautical miles area would be a more accurate estimate. Unfortunately it is very unlikely that drift models can help to refine the search area: too long time interval.