Guest Editorial: Why This Plague of False Information?

By Victor Iannello

Don’t be fooled by claims of the red tape causing the delay in the determination of the provenance of the flaperon.

Boeing and the NTSB were parties to the investigation when the flaperon was first brought to Toulouse. It is very unlikely that the Spanish subcontractor ADS-SAU did not immediately turn over all documentation when requested by Boeing. The investigators had to know soon after the start of the investigation what the provenance of the part is, whether or not that determination was made public.

I have said before and continue to believe that there was an attempt to delay the release of the results of the investigation in parallel with planting a seed of doubt regarding the provenance of the part. Just look at the series of events this week. First the claim that Spanish vacation schedules have delayed the identification of the part. Then the claim that the identification was not possible. This was followed by the claim that the flaperon was certainly from MH370.

The pattern of leaking contradictory or false information to the media from off-the-record sources continued in full force this week. I believe this is a story in its own right that should be getting a lot of attention. Perhaps when enough journalists are made to look foolish by reporting contradicting statements, their “reputation instincts” will kick in and compel them to dig deeper.

We who are following this incident should demand that more facts be fully disclosed. Technical reports should be released so that we are not parsing statements from a judge-prosecutor to understand the true meaning of what was written. And journalists should not blindly report statements without attribution.

872 thoughts on “Guest Editorial: Why This Plague of False Information?”

  3. Trip,

    The way I see it the two Iranians were seeking refuge and asylum in Germany. I think it would be easier for them going by way of China to Amsterdam and entering from Europe rather than entering Germany from Asia. Otherwise, if they had 20,000 to purchase the fake passports from this Mr. Ali in Thailand, why not just book passage on Malaysian 6, (or any other Malaysian flight to Frankfort, Germany) that left for their destination of Frankfort, Germany the same night as MH370 from KLIA? So entering Germany from Europe may be less questionable. But where did they get the money in the first place to secure the passports? I think Ian Hunt did research on this.

  4. @Gysbreght, VictorI,

    Discussion about the sharp turn/cut off loop. I am loving it, keep at it!

    I have been advocating investigating this obvious impossibility for a long time now, especially after stumbling across Ron Black’s work.

    It is one mother of an elephant in the room. Earlier discussions of it nearly got me banned here. I am glad to see it finally back on the table.

    I’d like to thank you Victor for seemingly taking my suggestion on board to un-pin the sharp turn in your radar path and speed model and have that end free float, (apparent from your assertion that a cut off loop could explain the time discrepancy of the path segment time stamps).

    What impact does that have on the reachability of the 18:22 radar fix? Have you considered un-pinning that as well and instead pinning only the start of first and end of last FI radar segments?

    If such a pinning would result in a very good fit of the timing of FI radar segments plus a good fit of a right hand turn self crossing loop near IGARI, that would strengthen the case for the FI radar data being genuine MH370 data. What impact would that path have for the reachability of the 18:22 fix?

    If the above would make the 18:22 fix unviable, you would have a very strong case to make to the ATSB to reassess the underlying assumptions of the Malacca Straight path being authentic. This is of similar (if not greater) gravity to when you/IG pointed out the required loiter in the Andaman Sea, some time back.

    Cheers

    Will

  5. Cheryl – I always felt that the two Iranians had been “cleared” far too quickly for it to be real. The Israeli’s didn’t buy it. I would have thought you would be off your rocker to go to China on a stolen passport but we are told they were freedom hunters.

    Trip – unless they had someone on the inside: I’ve got nothing serious to put up but worthwhile to remember for future developments – In the last decade the US has become energy independent while China is grooming an unshackled Iran as their major oil supplier going forward(currently Saudi Arabia), they are now the worlds big oil hungry economy. They also do have a stake in the current mid-east powerplays with Russia now firmly backing Shia Islam with real bullets. Chinese getting bolshy in the South China Sea because they have to be able to guarantee their Iranian oil flow if push ever became shove. This sort of stuff is years in the planning and there is an Iranian/Russian/Chinese axis at work.

  6. Cheryl/Trip – add to it that Iran is the only UN member with the expressed intention to destroy another UN member – Israel – and that Russia/China voice no objection. Then remember that in 09 they discovered a large oil/gas deposit off the coast of Haifa in Israel. So for once it really is “all about oil” and the anti-war left are dead silent. For Chine it’s like oxygen and the Russians are are being helpful but they want something back of course.

  7. @Oleksandr, Wow, very impressive. You’ve come up with an easy-to-visualize way to playing with an intriguing idea. You just might be onto something.

  8. @Trip, you wrote, “Why on earth would the Iranians try to enter China with false passports?” That’s a great point that I hadn’t even considered before. Going to Europe via Beijing doesn’t really make any sense at all.
    On the other hand, if you’re just making a connection in Beijing you wouldn’t have to clear immigration, right? So it wouldn’t be especially risky. Just very inconvenient and exhausting.

  9. @Oleksandr

    Nice work. I have allowed myself to slip into a state of ambivalence (perhaps even despair). I stopped my own analytics at 00:11 simply because my route was so far removed from consensus that it made little sense to carry it any further. Likewise with 18:25. I am so annoyed with the radar data that I lost interest in refinements before 19:40. You are a beacon.

  10. While I am posting I may as well express what I feel. The French are next to useless, which is highly correlated with my opinion when I interacted with them in my working life.

  11. That is Ethan Hunt, not Ian.

    Jeff,

    Apparently this Mr. Ali requested the cheapest route and did not request for them to be on MH370. And Jeff you may be right since they were connecting and would be in an in-transit area in Beijing, their passports may not be checked in China. The question is would it be easier to declare refuge on a flight coming in from Amsterdam to Germany or on one coming in from Malaysia to Germany, or does it matter? But, again if that is not the reason if they had $20,000 for the tickets, why did they go the cheapest route?

  12. Jeff/Cliff/Trip,

    I wonder if the Iranians only needed those stolen passports initially to board MH370, on the two connections perhaps a risk but maybe they would not have gotten checked (Beijing and Amsterdam). Then once in Germany discard the passports or whatever they do with them and declare their refuge? I have no idea how that works, just assuming. Exhausting trip yes, but “desperate people do desperate things” I guess can be applied.

  16. @Oleksandr

    Interesting paper!
    “Notably, the sequence of the records during normal logon at KLIA was different, or it was
    trimmed/modified by Inmarsat.”

    Was the aircraft fully de-powered while at KLIA? Isn’t it supposed to be connected to ground power?

    If it was de-powered, velocity at the time of reconnection would have been 0.
    Last known location would have been if not exactly the same very close to the one when power was interrupted.

    The BFO at KLIA would then not seem abnormal…

    It would really be nice to know what algorithm is used to compute deltaFcomp in case of no data. It is very possible as this equipment is not safety essential that there is no provision for in flight powerloss. So your assumptions of default to 0 or last data in memory could be valid.

    You’d have a loop that continuously reads the velocity data and writes it in memory. And a separate routine that reads that memory when needed to compute deltaFcomp. With the assumption by the programmer that velocity data is always available when needed (because when it’s not available it’s not needed as the plane is depowered on the ground – in 100% of cases minus 2 so far).

  17. @Oleksandr: That is the most interesting paper I have read in a while. I have a couple of comments:

    1. The lateral offset maneuver at 18:25 cannot explain the anomalous value of 273 Hz without introducing an extreme ascent, which is not likely to have occurred exactly at the time of the log-on. The lateral offset was meant to explain the remaining sequence of BTO and BFO values between 18:25 and 18:28.

    2. It is possible that for the MCS-6000, it is normal (but not intended) behavior that the second transmission after log-on does not apply a Doppler correction. This would eliminate the need for interruption or tampering of the navigational inputs. For the case of the log-on at rest around 16:00 UTC, the Doppler correction is zero so there would be no sudden change between the first and second transmissions.

    I need to think more about some of the implications of your work, such as a more northerly track around 18:25 and a potential descent.

    Again, great work Oleksandr!

  19. @Oleksandr: You made the statement “Each of the locations has two pairs of (ROC, heading) corresponding to the same ground
    speed, except the minimum groundspeed, for which only one solution exists. The latter
    visually appears to be corresponding to the solution with the heading perpendicular to the 7th arc, but the solution was not analytically analyzed to draw a generalized conclusion.”

    By your assumption, the difference of BFO values between the Log-on Request and the Log-On Acknowledge is only due to the Doppler correction term, which assumes the satellite is at the nominal subsatellite position (0,64.5). Therefore, the Doppler correction, for a given horizontal speed and ROC, will be symmetric about the track angle corresponding to a line between the position of the plane and the nominal subsatellite position. That is why it appears the track angle for minimum ground speed is perpendicular to the ping arc. Actually, it is perpendicular to an arc centered on the nominal subsatellite position, but the difference is too subtle to visually see.

  20. VictorI – You said, “The sharp turn could be a loop that was “snipped”. That would also help with some of the timing offset I identified.”

    In addition to the impact to the timing, distance and fuel consumption couldn’t a loop also be an indication of initial intent?

    For example, the “perps” made a turn to the right back towards Kuala Lumpur but were overcome by “the good guys” who then continued the loop but were stopped before they completed a full 360 deg. The next hour of turns was a struggle for control of the a/c between the two groups.

    What I’m trying to say is that if the loop existed, it could point to a change in plans during the execution of the loop.

  22. Jeff,

    Thanks. The main problem now is to get comments from specialists who designed the hardware and software. They can tell with 100% confidence whether my assumption with regard to the abnormal BFOs is correct or wrong. The two abnormal BFOs cannot be wrong for no reason. And the only plausible reason appears to be in Doppler compensation.

    Combined with the “IDGs-APU-PMGs-RAT-GPS-ADIRU-SAARU-FMC-flameout” dependencies, and bearing in mind that if the IDGs and APU do not provide power then TCAS, SATCOM and right HF do not work, the whole picture is getting interesting. I think all this stuff and coincidences are somehow interconnected. The question is “How?”

  23. @Oleksandr

    I would not rule out oscillator errors. Oscillators behave erratically when powered on/off. I would certainly be mistrustful of the 00:19 value for that reason.

  24. Victor,

    Thanks for the clarification with regard to the lateral offset. I have lost the link to your paper, and that is why I did not include a proper reference. Interestingly, the descent may also help to explain why BTO 18:25:27.421 (17120-4600=12520 microseconds) is greater than BTO 18:27:03.905(12560 microseconds). Previously I attributed this effect only to the uncertainty in the offset value of 4600 microseconds, error in the measurements, and truncation (discrete nature of BFOs). But generally, the remaining sequence of BTO & BFO 18:25-18:27 is yet to be explained.

    With regard to the Doppler correction on the second transmission, I think only the respective hardware/software developers can tell this for sure. And sure they can tell.

    With regard to the minimum ground speed, I think you are right. I just was too lazy to study this effect analytically.

  25. Dennis,

    Thanks for your comments too. Chinese saying: “Don’t afraid to move slowly; afraid of not moving”.

    While erratic behavior of oscillators can not be ruled out 100%, this would be very unlikely:

    1. No such erratic behavior was observed on the startup at KLIA.
    2. The first BFOs in both the sequences appear to be correct (“Log-on request”), which would likely be wrong if the reason was erratic behavior of oscillators.
    3. BFOs are abnormal only for the “Log-on/Log-off” transmissions, which occurred 8 to 9 seconds after “Log-on request”. Coincidently?
    4. Abnormal BFOs are accompanied by abnormal BTOs, which have nothing to do with possible erratic behavior of oscillators. It could rather be associated with AES trying to obtain required data.

    Does this sound reasonably?

  26. Sinux,

    You’ve just kicked in an interesting thought, which is in line with other power-related issues.

    Indeed, if an aircraft is in the air, it is assumed that de-powering is very unlikely, while when it is on the ground, AES correction is not really needed. The tricky part is that when an aircraft is on the ground, it is powered by external sources as you said, and switching between sources occurs ‘instantly’ to avoid power interruption (FI). That means all the units can be powered instantly, or in a certain boot-up order. This is in contrast to the case when an aircraft is de-powered in the air, when some flight-critical units remain powered by numerous backups, while other units are not.

  27. Falken,

    Re: “everything around us are in fact data”.

    Not really. Everything around us is a game of our imagination.

  28. @Oleksandr

    Yes, except for KLIA. The oscillator may have been powered for some time before logon was initiated.

  29. Oleksandr – I can’t even open it but it sounds interesting. As far as data goes I guess it will either lead to a plane or tell us our search was pointless?

    “Games of imagination” are all tied to teasing out a motive and I sort of agree with Dennis here that it’s hard to press on without one with what we have.

  30. Oleksandr,
    Nice work on your last paper !

    Regarding the compensator and oscillator, do you know if there is any ‘control circuit’ between the two which adjusts the oscillator frequency based on the output of the compensator ?
    Assuming the bias is part of the compensator output, and is passed through this ‘control circuit’ – and if the ‘control circuit’ fails then a very large BFO error will occur. Would a ‘control circuit’ failure also fit your analysis ?

    For your CTS final location of ~ 17 S, do you have any detailed graphics of the path to this location ? from ~ 18:28 onward ?

    What was the average speed ? was there any fuel remaining ?

    Can you comment on the difference of your CTS path with a ‘manual’ throttle mode ?

    Would the ‘manual’ throttle’ path be north or south of 17 S ?

    Thanks.

  31. Jeff,

    One article I read about Ethan Hunt helping the families stated that he did some digging and the cheapest price he could find on a fake passport was $20,000. I’ll have to go back and find that link to that article. Have no idea if they got a better deal than that with this Mr. Ali?

  32. @Oleksandr

    I’m with Matty-Perth, unable to open it with the link. In my case it will be a difficult to grasp but want to make an effort.

    Based on the reactions here, kudos for sticking to the facts and forcing more information from them!

  33. Cheryl – I don’t see why you need a stolen passport to gain asylum unless you have a record or are on a no-fly list etc? Any other angles?? I don’t get that bit at the moment.

  34. I’ve been under the impression that Iranians travel pretty freely – maybe you need connections?

  35. Jeff,

    Here is the link to that article about Ethan Hunt, Iraniana, etc. It was written by a Jon Ronson. It explains how Ethan met Sarah Bajc, etc. It also has a seat map of MH370 and shows where the Iranians were seated. It also states, interestingly enough, Ethan felt there was a Russian connection.

    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/28/flight-mh370-malaysia-missing-one-year-on-jon-ronson

    Matty,

    I don’t know the regulations but I read one thing that said Malaysia had lesser Visa restrictions so it had become a hub for students and asylum seekers to Europe for Iranian nationals. Would there be restrictions on going into Germany straight on an Iranian passport perhaps? They must have gotten into Malaysia on their Iranian passports, then secured the false ones through the Thai travel agent once in Malaysia to continue on their what became aborted journey to Beijing/Amsterdam/Germany for one man, another country for the other?

  37. Cheryl – still a bit smelly to me though. The passports were not forgeries but stolen Italian ones. Italy is part of the EU and their citizens have freedom of movement but couldn’t claim asylum of course. They would have to break cover in Germany and admit to being Iranian using a passport belonging to an EU citizen. Not a good start. One call to interpol……

    Around here they dump their documents in the ocean and walk up as clean skins. Littlefoot might know more….

  38. Matty, yes agreed still fishy. Maybe it’s that Germany would be tight on entry Visas and if proof of subsistence and return to Iran could not be provided then no Visas would be granted. Whatever the case they needed Euro passports to enter Germany. When exactly they would have declared their refuge is another risky matter I guess. I read some percentage that over 50% were granted the asylum so who knows? Did they leave Iran under “their” own Iranian passports or were they secured as well to get to Malaysia? That article you linked said Iranian males had to do national service to get a passport, so did they I wonder? The older one perhaps but the 19yr. old?

  39. Oleksandr,

    I too cannot access your dropbox link but it sounds like great work. Although I don’t understand all of it, it sounds like you might be getting to the meat and potatoes of the reboot. Comments from Thales and software mfgrs. I hope are forthcoming to you. Keep going, your work is vital here.

    Victor,

    Kudos to you as well for all your brilliant work. The radar questions were spot on. I hope they answer your email.

  40. @ Jeff, Cheryl, Cliff
    I’ve flown in and out of China 30 times in the last 7 years, including flying from KL to Shanghai. China initiated in-transit visas January 2013 for up to 72 hours from approved countries. Italy would be one of those countries, so the airline would have allowed them to board. But it seems like a very poor choice to transit through China on a stolen passport.

    I think the fact that the Iranians and Ukrainians both purchased through China Southern Airlines website is very suspicious. China Southern has a poor website for non-Chinese. MA has a much better site for English speakers. I’ve found it very difficult to purchase on-line tickets through Chinese airlines.

  41. Cheryl – There are scores of young Iranian males bumping around out there who lie about their age for national service reasons. An 18 y/o with a spare $20,000 for a stolen passport? He would need to be a privileged kid, and in which case he wouldn’t need a stolen one. And wouldn’t need asylum either.

    Imagine me showing up in the US seeking asylum with a passport that said Jeff Wise? Not smart. Would he have made it into Germany with someone else’s passport anyway? How did they make it onto the plane?

  42. @Trip
    My understanding is the reservations were made on 3/1/14 by a Thai travel agency (Grand Horizon), per instructions for “least inexpensive flights to Europe”. The client was an Iranian gentleman, “Mr. Ali”.

    They were both flying Kl to Beijing, Beijing to Amsterdam with one going on to Copenhagen and the other to Frankfort. It would appear the agent booked these flights without knowledge these men were traveling with stolen passports and cost being the primary objective

  43. @Cheryl: Regarding my email to the Malaysian authorities with the questions on the radar data, I did receive the following, not very helpful, response:

    “Please be assured that your queries are being studied carefully and will be addressed in our next report on 8th March 2016.”

    I responded as follows:

    *****
    Dear Safety Investigation Team for MH370:

    Thank you for your response.

    Although ICAO Annex 13 requires Interim Reports on each anniversary of the disappearance of MH370, it is in the interest of all parties to disclose what is known in a timely manner. Yet the Factual Information from March 2015 did not disclose much of what is known relative to the radar data. Certainly, the answers to most of the questions that I posed are known to the Malaysian investigators without the need for further analysis. In fact, most of the answers were known within days of the incident. For instance, certainly you have the following information:
    1. Which Malaysian radar installations captured which targets
    2. Details of the captures related to the turn after IGARI
    3. Explanation of why the radar signal was intermittent
    4. Details of other traffic in the vicinity of MH370

    Those of us that have reconstructed paths for MH370 using the satellite data have relied on the sparse radar data to determine the status of the aircraft at 18:22 UTC. Any uncertainty in the position, horizontal speed, track, vertical speed, altitude, and onboard fuel, for instance, has an important effect on the predicted path, and these values could be better estimated if the raw radar were available.

    You have stated that the answers to my questions will be addressed in the next report in March 2016. I respectfully ask that you re-consider and release more information about the radar data in a timely manner. At this point, we do not have the luxury of waiting until March 2016.

    Best regards,
    Victor Iannello, ScD
    *****

    I have alerted some in the press that have an interest in this matter that we are being stone-walled.

  44. @Victor

    Sometimes it is useful to reflect on forensic experiences that occurred in your own career. Having shipped products to a number of “high profile” commercial customers, I know how “well-intentioned” outside help can be very painful. The more the customer knows, the more questions they ask, and the more time is spent addressing those questions. It diluted the team that was most capable of finding the answers. As a result, I tended to isolate my key people from those interactions, and I and my VP of engineering would sit in endless meetings that were not very productive. At least it kept those best qualified to find the problem focussed on the forensics.

    Maybe there is an element of that philosophy at work here. Despite the fact that we think we are (and probably are) smarter than the average bear, our questions are viewed as more of an annoyance than a source of help.

  45. @DennisW
    “I would not rule out oscillator errors. Oscillators behave erratically when powered on/off. I would certainly be mistrustful of the 00:19 value for that reason.”

    The MCS7200 manual page 6-5 states :
    (b) Test Initiation
    1 The correct operation of much of the internal circuitry of the SDU depends on clocks derived from the high-stability frequency reference generated by the oven-controlled crystal oscillator (OCXO). Therefore, it is inappropriate to
    perform BITE tests until this clock frequency has achieved gross stability. If
    the SDU is powered on after having stabilized at a cold external temperature
    (e.g., –55° C), it can take several tens of seconds for the frequency drift rate to be low enough before the phase locked oscillators (PLO) that derive the
    dependent clocks can lock onto the OCXO frequency reference.

    2 The SDU defers testing of sensitive equipment until a positive indication of
    settling is detected, or sufficient time passes so the lack of settling itself can be classified as a failure. Deferral of these sections of POST also result in normal operation being deferred, including access to the user interfaces
    (SCDU, CFDS, and CMT) and all automatic calibration processing.
    Consequently, the SDU suspends POST until the SDU detects the first of the following conditions:
    • OCXO heater monitor indicates it has achieved operating temperature.
    • Power supply unit (PSU) temperature sensor indicates a reading above 25 °C.
    • Channel filter module transmit and receive PLO lock detectors both indicate that lock has been achieved.
    • More than 4 minutes have elapsed since primary power was applied.
    –end of quote–

    My understanding is that following power interruption and sub-sequent restoration, the system performs a POST.
    In worst case, it allows 4 minutes for the OCXO to stabilise.
    Only then packets can be transmitted.

    Do you think it’s still possible to have such drift after POST is successful?
    (if POST is not successful we wouldn’t have data)

  46. @Victorl
    Do you see this as Malaysia being in violation of ICAO Annex 13 because they did not include known information in the FI? Is it their obligation to disclose regardless of what they believe is pertinent or is it arbitrary of the one leading the investigation?

  47. @Sinux

    Certainly the status of the oscillator is qualified. However, one has to differentiate what is adequate for communication, and what is appropriate for extracting meaningful navigation data (BFO data). The Inmarsat system was never designed to be a navigation system. We are, in effect, turning a sow’s ear into a silk purse.

    What might be perfectly useable for communication, might still be highly corrupted relative to the use we are attempting to extract from the system. Even a one Hertz BFO error has a significant effect on the navigation performance.

    I am not suggesting that oscillator error dominates the 18:25 and 0:11 BFO anomalies. What I am suggesting is that oscillator error is a component of those anomalies that should not be ignored. It is for this reason (and the fact that I am lazy) that I have restricted my own analytics to ISAT data from 19:40 to 0:11. Use of the 18:25 and 0:19 data must be done with an awareness that there are likely to be errors which cannot be accurately estimated.

    As a matter of personal philosophy, and I have pointed this out before, I view the ISAT data as a “qualifier” for flight paths rather than as a primary means of determining where the aircraft went. For example, we can take the Maldives and the Bay of Bengal off the table, but we cannot rule out any position on the 7th arc South of the coast of Sumatra based on the ISAT data.

  48. @Trip, Do we know that the Ukrainians purchased their tickets from China Southern? I’ve seen this in reference to the Iranians, but not them.

  49. Re: Oscillator variances. Perhaps the variances noted are from more than one aircraft avionics equipment.

  50. @Oleksandr,

    Great work.

    A while ago I raised questions about the accuracy of the BTO and received a less-than-positive response.

    However, in this case, it sounds like you are suggesting that both the BTO and the BFO are out of whack.

    We’re told that the BTO isn’t compensated, though it’s not clear why it wouldn’t be as this would be straightforward and would improve the system efficiency. With that in mind, the signal from the AES would appear to have some degree of flexibility in when it was transmitted, and a delay would be permissible.

    My speculation is that the longer delays are not a failure of the AES to transmit in time, but a failure of the logging software (which was developed as an afterthought) to correctly account for each signaling type. It doesn’t make sense to me that a slotted aloha protocol would accept a signal both out of time and out of frequency.

    And yet, it did, leading me to the conclusion that only the log is incapable of reconciling the timing.

    The opposite of your theory would be that the GES is expecting an uncompensated signal and gets a compensated one, logging the difference as if it’s uncompensated.

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