Goose barnacles of the genus Lepas live exclusively on debris floating in the open ocean. Like other barnacles, their larvae spend the early part of their life swimming freely and then, in a final larval phase called the cyprid stage, search out a floating object on which to settle. Once they find a suitable object, says marine biologist Hank Carson, “cyprids in general do do a fair bit of exploration for that cementation spot” upon it, and with good reason: they’ll spend the rest of their life there. Among the criteria they assess is how crowded a spot is, what the underlying substrate consists of, and how deep it is. Once satisfied, they glue their heads in place.
In general Lepas barnacles like to spread out, and prefer a spot in the shade; they grow best away from the top of the water column. The reason is that close to the waterline, the rising and falling of waves periodically exposes the animals to the air, which interferes with their feeding. It’s unhealthy for them in other ways, too. “The uppermost centimeters of water are normally a quite harsh environment with strongly changing ecological parameters, like water temperature, salinity (heavy rains or intense evaporation in tropical areas). Moreover they are subjected to intensive UV radiation,” says Hans-Georg Herbig of the Institut für Geologie und Mineralogie in Cologne, Germany. “From several organism groups it is known that they avoid the uppermost centimeters of the water column.”
Given a healthful environment, Lepas barnacles are notoriously fast-growing. The animals evolved to live on floating organic debris which after a time will break apart and sink, so time is of the essence. Whereas a species of goose barnacle that lives attached to a rock might take five years to reach sexual maturity,1 Lepas can do it in mere weeks. Japanese researcher Yoichi Yusa and his colleagues raised L. anserifera barnacles on tethered debris in a bay in Japan and found that “individuals on the average grew from 3 mm to more than 12 mm in capitulum length within 15 days and some were brooding.” Thus, in less than a month after settling onto a piece of debris, Lepas can begin producing new generations to further their colonization.2
As a result Lepas-settled flotsam can become extremely crowded in short order, with individuals crammed onto every available surface right up to the uppermost limit of what they can survive. Pictured above in Figure 1 is a Japanese skiff that was swept to sea after the Tohoku tsunami in March, 2011, and made landfall on a beach in Washington state in June of the following year, meaning that it floated capsized for about 15 months. If you think it’s remarkable that the barnacles could have grown so huge in so little time, think again. “They grow really fast,” says Cynthia Venn, a professor of oceanography and geology at Bloomsburg University in Pennsylvania. “That boat could get covered like that in six months, even.”
Venn has studied the genus Lepas intensively for more than twenty years. For ten of them, she collected specimens from NOAA’s Tropical Ocean and Atmosphere array of research buoys dotted across the central Pacific Ocean, carefully preserving material that the maintenance crews considered pesky marine fouling. “It was basically a 3-D time series of barnacle settlement,” she says. “I couldn’t find anyone to take the project so I just did it myself. I was able to go two cruises, for the rest I sent my studentsand they then shipped the barnacles back to me so I could work on them. I’ve got hundreds of thousands of barnacles in my garage.”
Looking at the skiff more closely, we see that the upper part of the hull is ringed with a very well-defined boundary below which the Lepas are cheek-by-jowl (orange line in Fig. 2, below). Above that lies an intermediary zone, extending to the waterline (green line), where algae predominate. While some barnacles are visible, they are small and few in number. “They get a better shot at what they’re going to eat if they’re a little bit below that,” says Venn. “I don’t know if it’s too much UV or just they don’t like the temperature changes, or what.”
A Lepas line is also easily seen in the picture below (Figure 3), which shows meteorological research buoys before (“a”) and after (“b”) a 26-month deployment in the North Pacific. “The waterline is at the center (max diameter) of the buoy, where there is a seam in the hull,” says Jim Thomson, a scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography who studies the buoys.3 “The barnacles appear to start about 10 cm below that line.”
Here’s another piece of tsunami debris, this one a refrigerator that made landfall in Hawaii in October, 2012, meaning that it was in the water for just over a year and a half. Both the Lepas line and the algae zone are clearly visible. The waterline, Venn says, would lie about where the green algae shades into black:
You may have noticed that while the hard part, called the capitulum, is of similar sizes in all these pictures, the fleshy, goose-neck part (called the peduncle) is dramatically smaller on the Hawaii debris. Like other fleshy appendages, peduncles can change in size fairly dramatically, especially when they’ve been pulled from the sea. “How long they are kind of depends on how long they’ve had to dry out,” says Venn. So when scientists talk about the growth rate of barnacles, they usually talk about the length of the capitulum.
How Composite Objects Float
According to reader Gavin Grimmer, The upper and lower surfaces of 777 flaperon are “made of honeycombed composite – presumably carbon fiber” while “the leading edge is mainly made from high tensile aluminum (2024-T3) apart from the fibreglass doubler.”4 As a general rule, things made of composite material exhibit excellent buoyancy. The honeycomb materials which makes up most of the volume of the composite skin weighs only about 5 percent as much as water.5 Composite aircraft parts, therefore, tend to float fairly high in the water, like this:
Mike Exner, one of the leading members of the Independent Group, conducted his own study of how the flaperon must have floated, building a model out of plastic poster board. After the interior compartment was flooded it settled into the water like this:
Another example of a composite floating object is this motor boat, which capsized in a storm off the northwestern coast of Australia and then was carried for eight months by waves and currents across the Indian Ocean to the island of Mayotte, near Madagascar — a very similar route that the MH370 presumably took on its journey from the 7th arc. Though the resolution is too low to discern the Lepas line from the algae zone, you can clearly see which part was above the water and which part was below:
Now let’s turn our attention to the 777 flaperon that washed up on a rocky beach on Reunion Island. More than two months later, the French authorities still haven’t released a report detailing what they’ve learned about the piece, which now resides at a facility near Toulouse. Fortunately journalists took photographs of the flaperon from every angle shortly after it was discovered so that just by gathering publicly available images from the web we can assess the whole surface.
As a general observation, we should note that the general shape of the flaperon is plank-like: rectangular when seen from above, with an airfoil cross section. In referring to the part, I will use the nomenclature shown in Fig. 8, below.
Note that the geometry of the piece is essentially planar, by which I mean that the faces do not bulge outwards. As a result, if one point on the edge of an end-cap is underwater, and the corresponding point on the edge of the far end-cap is under water, then the surface between them will be immersed, too. (You can get a sense of this “flatness” in Figures 10 and 14, below.)
To begin with, let’s look at the outboard end cap. Barnacles, either individual or in clumps, are circled in green. I have not necessarily circled all of them, but at least those necessary to show the range of distribution. (To see the full-resolution version of this and all subsequent images, click on the link in the caption.)
Given that the end-cap is rimmed in barnacles, it must have all floated below the waterline. One could argue that a small portion of the strip marked with the red line could emerge from the water, but to my eye it lies between the outer edges of the barnacle clusters marked “A” and “B,” which would not grow up out of the water.
Moving on to the leading edge, we see in Figure 10 (below) that there is a substantial accumulation of barnacles on the outboard end of it, as well as some growth on the inboard side. Though there is little or no growth between these areas, that portion must have been submerged by virtue of lying between those two submerged areas:
This view offers more detail of the inboard end of the leading edge. Growth is quite heavy, though only the tips of barnacle clusters extend outward beyond the plane of the leading edge:
It’s fairly self-evident that the top surface was immersed:
As well as the trailing edge, where the flaperon was evidently severed along the line of a transverse spar. Here we see the top edge, along with some of the bottom:
Here’s the rest of the bottom part of the trailing edge:
Now let’s look at the inboard end cap.
Onward to the object’s final face, the bottom surface. It does not exhibit the same degree of encrustation as we see on the top side. In Figure 16, below, we see the underside of the flaperon with the trailing edge at top. We’ve already noted the presence of barnacles on the bottom of the trailing edge and the bottom of the inboard end cap. We haven’t seen as much yet of the bottom of the outboard end cap, so I’ll focus on that area in this image:
Barnacle growth is much less profuse on the bottom than it is on the trailing edge, but there are enough individuals present on this portion to suggest that the entire bottom edge of the outboard end cap must have been submerged. So, therefore, must have the entire underside. Note that the numbers “1,” “2,” and “3” correspond to the clusters of barnacles marked likewise in Figure 9.
How did the Reunion flaperon float?
The contrast between the Reunion flaperon and other floating debris we’ve looked at is quiet stark. The piece that came off MH370 does not have a Lepas line. There is no significant area that could have protruded above the waterline. The entire surface resembles the deeply submerged areas seen on the other flotsam.
This fact evidently did not escape the French investigators who took custody of the piece. On August 21, the French news outlet La Depeche reported in August that “According to a Toulouse aeronautics expert who requested anonymity, the element of the wing would not have floated for several months at the water’s surface but would have drifted underwater a few meters deep.” Similarly, an article that ran in Le Monde on September 3, 2015, stated that “Les études de flottabilité du flaperon ont quant à elles confirmé que le débris flottait légèrement en dessous de la surface de la mer.”: “Studies of the flaperon’s flotation have… confirmed that the debris floated slightly below the surface of the ocean.”
This seems a reasonable assessment to Venn, based on the distribution of barnacles visible in photographs of the flaperon. “I think it was probably floating just barely subsurface,” she says.
This presents something of a paradox. “It is very hard to build something that will float slightly below the surface,” wrote David Griffin, an oceanographer with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), in an email. “The probability that an aircraft part does this is miniscule. The only way it can do this is if some of the object breaks the surface. If it does not break the surface AT ALL it must sink.”
One could just about imagine that, by sheer good luck, the flaperon might have wound up taking just enough water to give it an overall density almost exactly that of seawater, so that it floated with perhaps a minuscule portion above the water. But such a situation would not be stable. Objects floating with only very slightly positive buoyancy can be pushed below the surface by the action of large waves, says Sean Kery, a hydronamicist at CSC Defense Group who has extensive experience modeling the impact of waves on floating objects. If storm waves push down an object being held afloat by open air pockets, the increase in depth would cause those pockets to shrink, reducing their buoyancy and causing the object to sink further, a phenomenon well-known by recreational scuba divers, who must learn to keep inflating their BCDs as they descend. Of course, without an active compensation system like a BCD a flaperon that was neutrally buoyant at the surface would become negatively buoyant below it.
What’s more, even if an object did manage to float just barely touching the surface, it would eventually sink lower as marine life accumulated. “Things never stay statically neutral,” says oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer. “It’s a dynamic situation. It has to do with infiltration of water, it has to do with the weight of barnacles growing on it.”
Thus, the distribution of barnacles on the Reunion flaperon is difficult to understand. Because they are found all over its surface, the flaperon must have settled into the ocean with a buoyancy exactly identical to that of seawater. And somehow it remained there, floating in a stable manner. Yet this is close to physically impossible.
How could the flaperon have remained underwater?
Given the seeming impossibility of the flaperon floating free across the ocean while submerged, is there another way it might have arrived in its current barnacle-encrusted condition? Since the piece must have been completely underwater, it might have become colonized on the sea bottom. That explanation, however, is problematic. The 7th arc passes through an area of the southern Indian Ocean that is thousands of feet deep. In order to have become colonized by Lepas on the seabed, it would have had to have floated thousands of miles to shallower water, sunk, then refloated to the surface and almost immediately been washed ashore. Also, while Venn says that while she has collected specimens from as deep as 100 meters, “that was not on the bottom or anywhere close to the bottom. It was simply 100 meters below the surface where the ocean was probably more than 5000 meters deep. I have never heard of Lepas colonizing anything on the sea bottom.”
Another possibility is that the flaperon was positively bouyant but remained beneath the ocean surface because it was tethered to the seabed. As it happens, in the past researchers have successfully managed to raise Lepas on substrates anchored offshore. In Yoichi Yusa’s experiment noted above, he collected Lepas specimens growing on pieces of driftwood and floating plastic and attached them to tethers in a bay in Japan. There he monitored their progress as they grew over the next month and a half.
The view of the flaperon seen in Figure 17, below, might provide evidence of how the tethering was accomplished. On the inboard edge of the upper face one can observe a peculiar strip where the surface appears considerably less weathered than the surrounding area:
When this was first pointed out to me I figured it had to do with the missing piece of rubber gasket along the inboard edge of the top surface, which might have been knocked off by contact with a reef. But now that I look closer I see that it isn’t actually that. I’ve marked the “white area” on a photo of a new flaperon below (image reversed to make a left flaperon look like a right one):
It seems that something was clamped to the “lighter patch” that isn’t normally attached to a flaperon, and which was detached after the part spent some time in the ocean. Since it’s hard to imagine this happening without human agency, perhaps it was part of a tethering/untethering operation. Perhaps an anchor line was attached there.
Duration of immersion
Up until now, it has been assumed that the flaperon was deposited somewhere along the 7th arc soon when MH370 impacted the southern Indian Ocean on March 8, 2014. If it was actively tethered to the seabed, obviously, this timeline is no longer relevant. Instead, we can turn to the barnacles to provide some indication of the likely duration of the flaperon’s immersion.
“Assuming they have enough food, and the temperature is good, barnacles will follow a steady growth progression,” Venn says.
The clock starts running the moment the flaperon hits the water: So long as the water is warm enough, Lepas will begin to colonize an object almost immediately. (Yachtsman who make long oceanic passages report that after spending a few weeks heeled over on a single tack a section of hull that is normally high and dry can pick up a colony of Lepas; Venn says she has seen cyprids attach to material as ephemeral as floating paper bags.) While the precise growth rate depends on water temperature and food availability, a rough notion of these parameters is enough to yield a ball-park figure for how long immersion has continued. Earlier this year, Venn co-authored a paper in which she and her colleagues ascertained that a human body found floating off the cost of Italy must have been in the water at least 65 to 90 days, based on the size of the Lepas barnacles growing on its clothes.6
We can do something similar for the barnacles on the flaperon, using the Mayotte boat as a reference. Since both traveled through a similar stretch of the southern Indian Ocean, their growth rates should be in the same ball park.
By comparing features on the flaperon to reference objects of a known size (e.g., the rear door of a Gendarmerie Land Rover Defender in Figure 16) we can estimate the capitulum lengths of the largest barnicles on the flaperon. They turn out to be approximately 2.3 cm.
Applying the same technique to the Mayotte barnacles yields capitulum lengths of about 3.5 cm.
Yusa’s paper on Lepas growth rates states that “Individuals <5 mm long (mean ± SE = 3.09 ± 0.19 mm) grew rapidly, reaching 12.45 ± 0.54 mm on day 15 (Fig. 2). After that, their growth slowed and finally reached 16.26 ± 0.49 mm on day 42.”
The Lepas anserifera that Yusa studied are somewhat smaller than the Lepas anatifera that predominate on the flaperon, but if we use Yusa’s growth rate as a conservative lower bound, and suppose that the largest flaperon barnacles were 16.3 mm at day 42 and grew at 0.1 mm/day thereafter, that means it would take them another 67 days to reach 2.3 cm, for a total growth time of 109 days, or about four months.
If they proceeded to grow at 0.1 mm for the following four months, that would take them to 3.5 cm, which is what the Mayotte barnacles achieved.
Interestingly, when I asked Yusa via email how long it seemed to him that the colony had been growing on the Reunion Island flaperon, based on photographs I sent, Yusa answered: “I would guess that they had been there for a short time (between 2 weeks and a few months).”
Venn’s seat-of-the-pants estimate was “less than six months.”
Conclusion
Photographs of barnacles living on the MH370 flaperon discovered on Reunion Island, combined with expert insight into the lifecycle and habit preferences of the genus Lepas, suggest that the object did not float there from the plane’s presumed impact point, but spent approximately four months tethered below the surface.
UPDATE 10/10/15: Could the distribution of barnacles be explained by continual flipping?
Since I posted this piece yesterday evening, a number of people have suggested that perhaps the flaperon flipped over every few hours, allowing barnacles to survive on both sides. Such a scenario might also explain why the density of Lepas is rather low compared to that seen on other objects. It faces two difficulties, however.
First, the flaperon is broad and flat, and once its inner cavities were filled with water it would weigh thousands of pounds. With only a few inches of freeboard in even the most optimistic scenarios, it would be very resistant to being flipped — much more so than, say, the fridge, which nonetheless clearly floated in a stable manner. Even if it were fairly easy to invert, high waves and wind would be required to do so, which would mean that flaperon would have had to have spent a year or more in constant storm conditions. Yet tranquil conditions are actually more normal. “Calm seas are actually pretty common in the stable high pressure cells that more-or-less permanently inhabit the center of ocean basins,” says Hank Carson, who has traveled across the Pacific gathering floating debris. It’s hard to envisage anyhing flipping over a day like this.
Second, the reason that the Lepas line exists is that these animals don’t like to be exposed, even for a few seconds. They can survive close to the waterline, where they are risk being exposed and immersed with every wave cycle, but only a few small outliers attempt it. They are simply not adapted to frequent long-duration exposure, like their relatives who live attached to rocks in the intertidal zone. “I do not think they can survive more than one day above the water,” Yoichi Yusa told me, while Venn says she has seen them live as long as three days. Apart from the physiological stress of being exposed to what to them is a toxic environment, the animals would spend half their time unable to feed. So even if we imagine the essentially impossible scenario in which the flaperon keeps flipping back and forth every few hours, we would not expect to see dense aggregations of mature individuals.
The implications of low settlement density
While we can learn a lot about how long an object has been afloat by the length of Lepas capitula, it’s harder to draw conclusions based on the density with which they settle. Barnacles do not land randomly, like plant seeds, but actively sniff out an object’s surface in the cyprid stage before settling down in the spot they like best. While they prefer living in the shade, they even more prefer cracks and crevices, and dislike a smooth surface. You can see several places on the top of the flaperon where they’ve preferentially settled down into dings and divots. Most of the broad expanse of the upper and lower surfaces they have avoided, most likely because it’s just too smooth and exposed. They especially seem to like the exposed broken honeycomb on the trailing edge, which presumably offers a nice rough surface for holding fast to. Here they are living in quite high density, with some actually growing on top of one another:
By way of comparison, here’s a shot of the barnacles on the Mayotte motorboat. Their distribution is much more uniform on every surface — here Lepas seem to like everything equally well:
Therefore, I wouldn’t necessarily say that Lepas density on the flaperon is low, but rather that the suitability of the substrate is very heterogeneous.
@RetiredF4
Unless an unimaginably complex set of mechanical failures occurred, there was a motive for this event. Just because we don’t for sure know what it is, does not mean it is unknowable. Motive is everything. Centuries of crime solving have underscored the value of motive.
Oleksandr,
If something had wiped out navigational systems and comms, yet they had flight controls, were they really technically “navigating” in the Straits? We know they were “aviating,” but the B777 can just about fly itself, but they were not landing, or could not land so do you think they could really successfully navigate at that point (18:22 point prior to the FMT)? So they were aviating, not so successfully navigating after the Straits, and for sure not communicating. I still keep going back to “get back, get down, aviate, navigate, communicate.” The SDU or AES reboot was perhaps that last point, time to communicate, yet they don’t. Is the speed of 500 knots was it, indicative of getting back quickly across Malaysia, would that be faster than average speed for a commercial airliner?
Go back to the fuel dumping and that fuel pump switch left AC bus thing, engine related sdu log on, any connection there?
“I would generally replace “valuable” with “item or person of special interest”. It may even be the combination of both.”
if this plane was going towards Somalia Madagascar etc. then I would consider that motive too, but I think it’s clear the goal was to evade indonesian airspace and land onto one of two australian islands in SIO
@RetiredF4, @Dennis, @StevanG
Item 1. True, no state would go public with a missing nuclear device, and yet we know–or are fairly certain–that not all nuclear devices are accounted for. Many of those devices have been presumed to have disappeared from former states of the Soviet Union, where they are presumed to be offered for sale from time to time.
Item 2. Almost immediately after people realized there was something suspicious about the MH370 disappearance, speculation arose that the aircraft could have been taken so as to be later used as a delivery system.
Item 3. Noting various claims by hackers, people have also speculated on the ability for a remote takeover of such aircraft.
Each of those items is plausible on its own, none is ridiculously far fetched.
Questions: What if the aircraft was already a delivery system on the night of 8 March 2014? What if that delivery was of a nuclear or atomic device? What if it were remotely piloted away to spare Beijing a horrible fate?
It’s not so ridiculous to imagine that such an aircraft would avoid land as much as possible and seek to get to a location as far away from populated areas as possible–both for safety reasons and secrecy reasons. It is not so ridiculous to imagine the aircraft doing so at maximum speed. In that case its path and attitude post Igari–with the north, east and direct south being far to populous–makes sense as dose a FMT turn south. Could such maneuvering throw off a flaperon? And if the flight stayed airborne until the 7th arc when, say, a timing device ticked down to zero, would there be any debris to find?
Maybe this is all just action novel rambling. And wishful thinking (in that we hope for a good guys win/James Bondian solution to the most awful possibilities). But I’m afraid MH370 has made me think things i wouldn’t normally entertain.
@StevanG
We do not know where it intended to go, for what purpose and wether it was piloted throughout the flight.
That the turn to the south was for the purpose of landing is one of more possibilities and not supported by the outcome. At the moment we even dont have evidence that it ended somewhere in the vicinity of the 7th arc except some second hand numbers from ISAT and a lone flaperon attributed with one offical sentence to MH370 without further explanation, which is the main theme of this thread.
The intention to land at an airport to the south is an option, although the “political motive Shah did it connection” is more than questionable”. But that is just my opinion, as you and others may have different ones.
Cheryl,
It is nearly impossible something happened to navigational systems… B777 has 3 error-redundant ADIRUs, SAARU (can’t recall how many), and 2 GPS, all are capable of providing data independently, all are powered by various sources. It also has a magnetic compass as the very last resort. Also it appears MH370 flew close to several waypoints over the Malacca (VAMPI, MEKAR, NILAM). So, it was ‘navigated’ rather than ‘aviated’.
However, in case of the loss of communications with the engines, it would be expected the crew tried to dump/burn fuel before landing attempt. I don’t think it is possible to land B777 with the engines ‘stuck’ at 80% or so of the max thrust.
The groundspeed of 500 knots is normal. Some variations can likely be associated with wind and, possibly, altitude changes in my opinion.
StevanG,
Re: “…if this plane was going towards Somalia Madagascar etc. then I would consider that motive too…”
Ironically, it was going towards Somalia, etc. Check maps.
Re: “I think it’s clear the goal was to evade indonesian airspace and land onto one of two australian islands in SIO”
I think the opposite is quite clear. There is no single sign that MH370 was going to one of two Australian islands.
StevanG,
The idea that the plane was intending to reach Australian territory is extremely implausible. It must be obvious that the first thing the Australians would do is arrest the pilots and crew, and return them, and the plane to Malaysia. Can you suggest any reason why they would not? Asylum? What reason would well-paid pilots of a national airline (no matter what their political views) give to warrant such an action? It’s fantasy football.
@Oleksandr: I apologize for not responding sooner to a question you posed to me but I was traveling.
In my opinion, the biggest shortcoming in any theory involving a ghost flight to the SIO, be it from hypoxia, getting locked out, or any other cause, is no floating or subsea debris has yet been recovered in that area. As more area is searched, the likelihood of this scenario further diminishes.
As for the flaperon, I think it is premature to use the photographic evidence we have to draw any conclusions regarding the location of the crash or how the aircraft may have crashed.
@StevanG
“also private flights are so cheap these days noone would risk putting valuable stuff on an airliner”
It does happen, for whatever reason:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brussels_Airport_diamond_heist
@Oleksandr
“B777 with the engines ‘stuck’ at 80% or so of the max thrust.”
Interesting idea, perhaps I missed it being discussed before. If they could navigate, wouldn’t they have chosen to circle somewhere over ocean but not far from an airport while burning fuel?
@RetiredF4
“We do not know where it intended to go, for what purpose and wether it was piloted throughout the flight.”
While there is a possibility the perp(s) just entered waypoints in computer, I very much doubt it because they would want to be in control as noone could suppose the RMAF would not intercept, there was always a chance to scramble their jets.
“That the turn to the south was for the purpose of landing is one of more possibilities and not supported by the outcome.”
You assume this outcome was planned, I’m very much certain it was not.
” At the moment we even dont have evidence that it ended somewhere in the vicinity of the 7th arc except some second hand numbers from ISAT”
BTO numbers are very hard to spoof unless you work for ISAT.
drift analysis of the flaperon shows that it could come from 7th arc if you move the search area a few bits to the north
“The intention to land at an airport to the south is an option, although the “political motive Shah did it connection” is more than questionable”.”
well unless we find better motive I’ll stick to that one, especially because this seems to be done by only one person which was more than motivated to do something
@Oleksandr
“Ironically, it was going towards Somalia, etc. Check maps.”
last time I checked SIO map Somalia was on the opposite side of the 7th arc
unless you believe that hijacking to Somalia failed exactly at the point which would just evade indonesian airspace if they went SE around Indo
“There is no single sign that MH370 was going to one of two Australian islands.”
umm, at one point they were going straight towards Cocos Islands…
imagine this, you have a mountainuous region with two airports to the north, airplane goes to the north towards them and disappears…would you assume it was going to land on one of those or to suicide crash or whatever?
@el_gato
that heist has been done on the ground…
@StevanG
I assume as much as nothing, and not at all that somebody planned on ditching in the SIO or on landing on australian turf as a way to spend the rest of life in some jail. Neither do I assume that a locked out crew and passengers oversee the possibility to use a ready available mobile ELT to communicate to somebody.
I’m interested in turning every aspect of known evidence and probing its usefullness, its integrity and its fit into a bigger picture. Turning a few of these stones and then trying to sove the puzzle with guessing, assuming or mind reading to construct a motive and from that a detailed scenario will not work, therefore I will not be part of it. But if you can deliver motive and scenario without the words “if, assume, could, maybe, probable ……”) and can provide solid evidence then I start listening.
It has now been 12 weeks since the flaperon was discovered. With no other debris turning up at or near Réunion over this period, I thought it might be a good time to update whoever is interested on a few “who knew what, when” audits I’m conducting on official drift analyses.
(long post – apologies)
Re: GEMS drift study (“to Indonesia”) Freedom of Information (FOI) request update:
AMSA appears to be exercising the maximum degree of foot-dragging permitted them under the Australian FOI Act: their Oct.5 form response to my Oct.2 request opened a 30-day statutory window, within which they must get back to me on cost and expected turnaround time.
Unless, of course, they don’t: the form letter included this cute little caveat:
“Please note the statutory period for processing your request may be extended under the FOI Act if third party consultations are undertaken.”
Third party consultations? Do they anticipate having to fly in Microsoft executives for a month-long seminar on how to attach PDFs to an e-mail? (Sorry – had to vent.)
While they may respond to me in advance of their pretend deadline – and may honour my requests to send it to me ASAP, with charges waived – I have put all my money on the[delayed many months]/[arm & a leg] box in the office pool.
The reason I seek this study, FYI, is to confirm neither it nor its endorsement by the ATSB was fabricated to serve an agenda. Squirming out of an expensive Australian shoreline search, for instance. Such a study/interpretation would be PARTICULARLY useful if it were known beforehand that no surface debris would be found…
Re: “When did ATSB first learn the GEMS study was bunk?” update:
Sam Blake (GEMS) told me via e-mail that they phoned ATSB/AMSA within roughly a week of the “to Indonesia” announcement, to alert them to the error. I e-mailed Sam back to confirm that the announcement to which he referred was the Oct. 22, 2014 ATSB Operational Update which caught this forum’s attention. He did not respond (which was odd, as he has been very helpful and forthright generally). I e-mailed him again, asking for clarification: again, no response. I’ll follow up a third time.
So either…
1) I am being deliberately baited into believing the ATSB misled the public, perhaps in the hope I will lose credibility by jumping to conclusions,
2) the ATSB misled the public about when it first found out the GEMS study was bunk: the ATSB claims to have uncovered the error only after spotting incongruity with CSIRO results they hadn’t even commissioned until November, or
3) the study didn’t exist in the first place (which I hope the FIO request will sort out).
Re: “Does the latest CSIRO study support the current search zone?” update:
No, it doesn’t – unless one cheerfully assumes the flaperon caught lots of wind on its journey. This is something the Toulouse testing is reported to have ruled OUT. Why wouldn’t CSIRO have the official buoyancy test results in hand, so as to properly customize this hyper-sensitive assumption?
When I read Blaine Gibson’s online account of a Sept.10, 2015 in-person meeting he had with David Griffin and Warren Truss – in which Blaine says David says he spoke to French officials earlier that same day, and was told they had not yet put the flaperon in the water. The plot thickens.
So I asked David Griffin about this. He said he had no direct contact with the French investigators. (This isn’t really what I asked, but this was his response).
So I asked Blaine whether their discussion was recorded. He said it wasn’t, but offered a little more detail (essentially as above, with just a bit more colour). Arthur Blackwell then posted to this same online forum, asserting that he, too, was present at this meeting, and vouched for Blaine’s account.
So I asked David about this again – stressing my need to eliminate all ambiguity re: both past history and current state of flaperon buoyancy testing. David responded by repeating the curious bit about having no DIRECT contact with French investigators, explaining that he gave Blaine/Arthur the state of affairs as he knew them to be, and expressing a firm desire never to be contacted again (which was odd, as our conversations over the months have always been professional and cordial).
It is hard for me to process this episode without forming the distinct impression that we are witnessing either…
– yet more gross negligence (buoyancy testing should have been done ASAP, with results used to improve CSIRO’s drift model),
– yet more disinformation designed to maximize confusion and/or separate outside investigators from our credibility by leading us down rabbit holes. If the flaperon was, e.g., fabricated on short notice to bolster eroding faith in the Inmarsat data and the SIO impact point it purports to indicate, the need to blow smoke at anyone trying to dig deeper is self-evident.
@RetiredF4
“But if you can deliver motive and scenario without the words “if, assume, could, maybe, probable ……”) and can provide solid evidence then I start listening.”
well ATSB did exactly that, and spent $100M searching the area where there was no any valid reason for the plane to crash, based only on their assumption about straight flight path
and I don’t accuse them because they had to set some assumption with only BTO data as hard evidence, when you don’t have lot of evidence you have to do such things if you ever want to find it, it’s inevitable
Mike,
Yes, it was discussed several times.
If an engine loses communication, it would likely maintain its current thrust settings (“failsafe” mode). Something similar has happened in case of Qantas 32 flight. Citation from Wiki: “…segregated wiring routes were cut by two out of the three individual pieces of disc debris and as a result, engine No. 1 could not be shut down after landing”.
Re: “If they could navigate, wouldn’t they have chosen to circle somewhere over ocean but not far from an airport while burning fuel?”.
Exactly. After an initial assessment of the damages (35 minutes vs 50 minutes Qantas32) a decision could be taken to circle over the Malacca. KLIA is not very suitable for an emergency landing due to orientation of its runways and possible on-ground collision. Penang and Langkawi are better candidates. That explains turn westward at Penang. In addition, there are Maimun Saleh and Car Nicobar runways with the approach over the water.
@StevanG
RE::without the words “if, assume, could, maybe, probable ……”
“well ATSB did exactly that, (…), based only on their assumption about straight flight path”
Perhaps you should read the ATSB reports again, this time more carefully?
Victor,
Re: “…the biggest shortcoming in any theory involving a ghost flight to the SIO, be it from hypoxia, getting locked out, or any other cause, is no floating or subsea debris has yet been recovered in that area.”
If we do not seriously consider aliens, black holes, Bermuda, etc., we have only two possibilities: (1) MH370 has crashed somewhere; (2) it has landed somewhere. Both of these things are of low probability. However, one of them did happen.
@Oleksandr: I am sorry but I don’t follow your logic. If a theory predicts the plane crashed in a particular area, and that area has been searched to some degree, the probability that the theory is correct is diminished. That does not require an allusion to aliens, black holes, Bermuda triangle, or any other improbable explanation.
@Oleksandr
Yes, not a single sign that it was, but unlike your theory there is not a single sign that it was not. That is the strength over time of the hypothesis.
1) motive (none for SIO)
2) fits ISAT data
3) most plausible for flaperon drift (SIO unlikely)
4) no aerial search for debris (SIO extensively searched above and below water)l
The horse you are beating on died a long time ago.
StevanG,
Re: “last time I checked SIO map Somalia was on the opposite side of the 7th arc”.
I am sure, it is still somewhere there. Perhaps moved by a few cm due to tectonic activity.
Re: “unless you believe that hijacking to Somalia failed exactly at the point which would just evade indonesian airspace if they went SE around Indo”
Yes, I believe that if it was “failed hijacking” (not necessarily by Somalia pirates; there are many other criminal groups in the Middle East), the culmination would be between 18:22 and 18:41. During 20 minutes of flight, the aircraft covered roughly 300 km. What point are you talking about? Also why would they need to avoid specifically Indonesian airspace given your motive? I was not convinced by your previous explanation.
Re: “at one point they were going straight towards Cocos Islands”.
Of course, U-turn at IGARI, followed by another turn at Penang. Sure, at some point they also were going straight to Paris, London, New York, …
Dennis,
On contrary, it is your CI hypothesis dried up. Absurd motive, which is inconsistent with data/observations…
Regarding your points:
1) motive (none for SIO).
Not true. There are at least two plausible motives for the terminus in the SIO. No plausible motive for CI.
2) fits ISAT data
CI path does not fit as good as AP or CTS models. If I recall correctly, your residuals for CI exceeded threshold suggested by ATSB. In contrast to AP and CTS models.
3) most plausible for flaperon drift (SIO unlikely)
Not true. CTS terminus appears to be the most likely (I cannot state it as I did not properly analyze this aspect), but AP terminus is still in the range.
4) no aerial search for debris (SIO extensively searched above and below water)
Not true. SIO was not as extensively searched from the air as you imagine. Plenty of gaps. The seabed at CTS area was not scanned at all.
@Oleksandr
“Exactly. After an initial assessment of the damages (35 minutes vs 50 minutes Qantas32) a decision could be taken to circle over the Malacca. KLIA is not very suitable for an emergency landing due to orientation of its runways and possible on-ground collision. Penang and Langkawi are better candidates. That explains turn westward at Penang. In addition, there are Maimun Saleh and Car Nicobar runways with the approach over the water.”
it wouldn’t make any sense to divert to Indonesia or Nicobar because of technical problem, also it seems you fail to recognize there is maybe one in a gazillion chance that technical problem turns off all comms and flies the plane along the borders and FIRs
I think aliens are more probable than that, seriously
“If we do not seriously consider aliens, black holes, Bermuda, etc., we have only two possibilities: (1) MH370 has crashed somewhere; (2) it has landed somewhere. Both of these things are of low probability. However, one of them did happen.”
at least one of those things has to hold at least 50% of probability, I wouldn’t call that low
btw there is 0,00000000001% of chance(if so) that it landed somewhere, which leaves crash as the only real possibility
“Also why would they need to avoid specifically Indonesian airspace given your motive?”
because why would he risk going over Indonesia and getting intercepted? Indonesia would have the right to shoot at the plane if it didn’t respond
it was an obstacle that was better avoided in that case
“Of course, U-turn at IGARI, followed by another turn at Penang. Sure, at some point they also were going straight to Paris, London, New York, …”
after they went around Indonesia they had to fly towards Cocos Islands at some point, yes they had to fly towards Antarctica too but Cocos Islands was at least reachable and had a suitable runway
“1) motive (none for SIO).
Not true. There are at least two plausible motives for the terminus in the SIO. No plausible motive for CI.”
what are those motives for terminus in the SIO? Failed hijacking to australian mainland? What’s another one? Why would hijacking to australian mainland (which was barely reachable) be more plausible than hijacking to CI which is also aussie territory?
you’re slipping here…
“2) fits ISAT data
CI path does not fit as good as AP or CTS models. If I recall correctly, your residuals for CI exceeded threshold suggested by ATSB. In contrast to AP and CTS models.”
it exceeded threshold only if you assume constant altitude, again..assume
“3) most plausible for flaperon drift (SIO unlikely)
Not true. CTS terminus appears to be the most likely (I cannot state it as I did not properly analyze this aspect), but AP terminus is still in the range.”
nah, look at all drift analysis again
better just look at Brock McEwen analysis of all those
“4) no aerial search for debris (SIO extensively searched above and below water)
Not true. SIO was not as extensively searched from the air as you imagine. Plenty of gaps. The seabed at CTS area was not scanned at all.”
the area is huge admittedly, but there were many ships going up and down and around next months and nothing has been spotted in the area, nothing
@Gysbreght
“Perhaps you should read the ATSB reports again, this time more carefully?”
http://www.atsb.gov.au/infocus/posts/2014/cautious-optimism-in-search-for-mh370.aspx
here the comment from ATSB chief Martin Dolan
“Martin Dolan, Chief Commissioner (author) said…
Based on various starting assumptions,” etc.
need more?!
@Oleksandr
We are not getting anywhere. Further discussion is a waste of my time and yours.
Anyone noticed comment of Marciniak on that ATSB blog?
Especially this part :
“2) In addition, the BTO values have structure and Bit Periods within; These values increase the BTO value in the event such as 0019, which must be calculated for removal to determine TRUE measurement within total BTO value;
A) BFO value is NOT to be used on Geostationary Satellite; any reference to Geosynchronous is Simply WRONG and ignorant for adjustment to BTO with BFO as it deflects the entire TRUE value, no matter what Math is used to trick the numbers making them False;
B) SatGrp configured numbers untrue to actual operations of Designed Systems and it’s values are False;
C) Boeing Flight Avionics Operations will NOT allow the B777 to fly off into the middle of NO-Where, Auto-pilot will determine a Path, as it did here Phuket 2 Perth and the last known ALT was 12100 feet by design; Autopilot will NOT climb back to 35000 ft unless commanded to do so; same with speed after ATN TCAS completes its safety maneuvers, B777 when FMS total default Fail Mode will seek nearest waypoint to circle or Airport as ATN grabbed the Phuket 2 Perth Path flying thru Thai into Straits into Indian Ocean triggering SDU back into ops after being cool down had completed and SDU auto Fail mode initiated. B777 would have continued to circle unless system acceptable path was acknowledged, as the Altimeter UAT and Terrain Mapping would NOT have allowed a crossing of Malay or Thai except thru Phuket Valley being acceptable for Terrain Mapping as it does NOT distinguish land from Water; and
D) B777 terrain Mapping would NOT have allowed aircraft to fly over Ridges at Sumatra;
E) B777 does not Bank in 90 degrees unless Emergency Descent Bank and autopilot takes control in flight to use the most sensible turn radius;
F) B777 flight path was initiated Phuket 2 Perth by design and the previous stated was functioned by design; You can NOT cheat the operations; or design functions!”
kinda makes autopilot to SIO (even in case of failed hijack) pretty much flawed theory?
Oleksandr,
Thank you for your response to my aviate vs. navigate in the Straits percentage question. What I was hinting at was in the article Victor referenced for us from the Daily Beast it states that it is entirely conceivable that a fire could have (there’s that “could have” again), gotten the navigational systems in the EE Bay, wiping out electronics with it (transponder, etc.) and leaving only engines and hydraulics functioning. Would then it have wiped out all the navigational redundant back-ups as well? Could a fire have wiped out all the brains of all the navigational systems? It seems they navigated very well across Malaysia but the navigating in and of itself seems to get quirky afterwards?
One correction (irrelevant to any argument, but important for the sake of accuracy, since I name names):
Blaine Gibson and Arthur Blackwell had two meetings in succession: one with David Griffin alone, and one with Warren Truss and Peter Foley. My addled memory teamed Truss up with Griffin, instead of with Foley. Truss was not at the Griffin meeting to which I refer in my prior post.
Apologies for the oversight, and thanks to Blaine for sorting me out.
@StevanG
Thanks for the contribution from Marciniac
IMHO the complete comments of Marciniac on the following linked blog are interesting, although I myself am out of my depth with it. Another stone to be looked under!
http://www.atsb.gov.au/infocus/posts/2014/cautious-optimism-in-search-for-mh370.aspx?commenter=M%20E%20Marciniak
@StevenG
“kinda makes autopilot to SIO (even in case of failed hijack) pretty much flawed theory”
Really?. So you are prepared to throw out all the calculations and investigative work done by many seriously skilled people on the basis of a few blog posts that are just a complete jumble of “gobbledegook”. I think there may have been some posts to other blog sites by the same Mr Marciniak which again are a complete nonsense.
Come on Steven, get real.
@Flitzer_Flyer
I didn’t say everything he said must be true, but I’d like someone to jump in and confirm or deny specifically this part because it seems to be extremely important.
also “all the calculations and investigative work done by many seriously skilled people” have just turned $100M into nothing
read my post above that one and you’ll see they also have set various starting assumptions that have showed to be wrong, skilled or not they were still assuming so it’s kinda normal they could be wrong, it doesn’t decrease their skill level
@Scott
Interesting speculation relative to Beijing as a target.
I believe that if a nuclear device were detonated anywhere in the atmosphere it would be readily detectable. The nations who are capable of such detection would have to all be “in on it”, and they might be :-).
Cheryl,
I don’t think fire in the cargo compartment could disable navigation and communication systems, and their power supply virtually instantly. Cargo compartments are equipped with fire/smog detectors and fire extinguishing systems.
But I think nose landing gear tire blast followed by fire, or undetected fire followed by blast could. There were quite many instances of main tire blast followed by catastrophic disintegration and inferno.
Citation from B777 manual (Section 8.20.4):
“The main wheel well has fire detection only. There is no fire extinguishing system. The nose wheel well does not have a fire detection system.”
The most important aspect is that the nose landing gear well is just under EE-Bay. I believe that pieces of rubber could cut communication wires concentrated exactly in that area and cause depressurization of the cabin. In contrast to many contributors here, I think chances are quite material, but this requires knowledge of the routing of the wires to make a proper assessment.
Oleksandr I do agree with you that chances exist for that happen, but not for everything that happened later in that case.
Unless you believe someone in the plane got mad because of fire and decided to take the plane to SIO following the best possible path for not getting intercepted…
StevanG,
I think our discussion is counter-productive.
—–
Re: “it wouldn’t make any sense to divert to Indonesia or Nicobar because of technical problem”
Who said “divert to Indonesia or Nicobar”? You completely missed my point. I mentioned Nicobar only in connection with its military runway, with the approach over the water. It is always good to have a back-up plan in case something goes wrong, isn’t it? In addition, Nicobar option has relatively small chances of on-ground collision. The idea could be to circle between several major runways suitable for B777 emergency landing. Where else?
—–
Re: “, also it seems you fail to recognize there is maybe one in a gazillion chance that technical problem turns off all comms and flies the plane along the borders and FIRs”
It is you, who fail to recognize that FIR over the Gulf of Thailand coincides with the direction of the shortest distance to the shore, the nearest airport, and one of the major airports in Malaysia. The chances are 50/50 why such a heading was chosen.
—–
Re: “I think aliens are more probable than that, seriously”
Congratulations with this idea. You can discuss it with Dennis.
—–
Re: “at least one of those things has to hold at least 50% of probability, I wouldn’t call that low btw there is 0,00000000001% of chance(if so) that it landed somewhere, which leaves crash as the only real possibility”.
You can discuss you assessment of landing probability with Victor or Jeff. I can only state that you contradict to yourself: first you use the lack of debris as an argument against crash, then you admit that the crash is only realistic possibility. How to understand this?
—–
Re: “because why would he risk going over Indonesia and getting intercepted? Indonesia would have the right to shoot at the plane if it didn’t respond”
Why wouldn’t it respond? Such a behavior would be inconsistent with the motive you suggested, which on contrary requires as much attention as possible. Also, wouldn’t Malaysia, Thailand, and Australia do the same? Why are you so much against Indonesians?
—–
Re: “after they went around Indonesia they had to fly towards Cocos Islands at some point”
I already asked you, but you did not comment: why do you think they went around Indonesia? On the basis of what?
—–
Re: “yes they had to fly towards Antarctica too but Cocos Islands was at least reachable and had a suitable runway”?
What about Jakarta or Bali? Bali is a perfect place for a political statement.
—–
Re: “what are those motives for terminus in the SIO?”
Look through. I am tired to repeat.
—–
Re: “Failed hijacking to australian mainland?”
You seem to be paranoid by Australia.
—–
Re: “Why would hijacking to australian mainland (which was barely reachable) be more plausible than hijacking to CI which is also aussie territory?”
I don’t know: you suggested – you explain.
—–
Re: “it exceeded threshold only if you assume constant altitude, again..assume”
So you need assumption that the aircraft rapidly changed altitude exactly at the times of pings… Or turbulence occurred exactly at the times of pings. I am curious, why do you discard northern routes then?
—–
Re: “nah, look at all drift analysis again better just look at Brock McEwen analysis of all those”
You look. And read comments of experts in this area, with whom I totally agree from a professional point of view (I mean comment at CSIRO, NOC).
—–
Re: “the area is huge admittedly, but there were many ships going up and down and around next months and nothing has been spotted in the area, nothing”.
So there are no ships near CI? And no possibility of glided landing?
—–
Re: “Unless you believe someone in the plane got mad because of fire and decided to take the plane to SIO”
Strange thought. I will not comment it.
—–
Re: “best possible path for not getting intercepted…”
Why do you think it is the best possible path? Path to where? SIO? CI? Australia? Why would it go there? Here you are getting inconsistent.
Dennis,
Agree.
“Who said “divert to Indonesia or Nicobar”? You completely missed my point. I mentioned Nicobar only in connection with its military runway, with the approach over the water. It is always good to have a back-up plan in case something goes wrong, isn’t it? In addition, Nicobar option has relatively small chances of on-ground collision. The idea could be to circle between several major runways suitable for B777 emergency landing. Where else?”
there were many airports from IGARI to divert without crossing malaysian peninsula, if you have technical problem you look for nearest airport to divert not go thousand miles with broken plane
“t is you, who fail to recognize that FIR over the Gulf of Thailand coincides with the direction of the shortest distance to the shore, the nearest airport, and one of the major airports in Malaysia.”
he would fly lower if his intention was to land, not at cruise altitude
“I can only state that you contradict to yourself: first you use the lack of debris as an argument against crash, then you admit that the crash is only realistic possibility. How to understand this?”
we have debris that washed ashore Reunion, however drift models show it could came only from way up to the north of the 7th arc
I was talking about lack of debris in current search area that was thoroughly searched, you certainly do understand the difference between that area and those not searched at all?
“Why wouldn’t it respond? Such a behavior would be inconsistent with the motive you suggested, which on contrary requires as much attention as possible. Also, wouldn’t Malaysia, Thailand, and Australia do the same? Why are you so much against Indonesians?”
because his goal was to land in a proper democratic country like Australia, not another backwards dictatorship like Indonesia
“I already asked you, but you did not comment: why do you think they went around Indonesia? On the basis of what?”
“What about Jakarta or Bali? Bali is a perfect place for a political statement.”
see above
“Look through. I am tired to repeat.”
the only motive you suggested was theory that they got locked into lavatory, however mr. Marciniak has commented on ATSB blog that 777 avionics wouldn’t let autopilot just fly to nowhere or to any airport that is not reachable, it would actually get to the nearest airport and circle around (I am not sure about this but it seems noone denies it (yet) and it seems logical to me)
“You seem to be paranoid by Australia.”
well they went towards australian territory after getting around Indo, there was no other reachable country there but Australia, what is paranoid about that?
“I don’t know: you suggested – you explain.”
well you suggested that hijackers wanted to get to australian mainland and got locked into lavatory, why would I have to explain it now?
“So you need assumption that the aircraft rapidly changed altitude exactly at the times of pings… Or turbulence occurred exactly at the times of pings. I am curious, why do you discard northern routes then?”
no actually you need just slight rate of ascent/descent at just a couple of pings (not every)
I discard northern routes because some country would likely see the plane on the radar, India is on alert because of China and Pakistan etc.
If not immediately they would review radar logs and see it after. It’s a huge airliner not some stealthy military plane.
“You look. And read comments of experts in this area, with whom I totally agree from a professional point of view”
CSIRO and NOC state only theoretical possibility under quite a wind.
99% of probability falls lot to the north
“So there are no ships near CI? And no possibility of glided landing?”
no, ships actively looking for MH370 debris no
possibility of glided landing is a lot bigger than in current search area because the ocean was lot calmer that day around that area(and on average)
current search area is not really suitable for glided landing on the water most days of the year
“Why do you think it is the best possible path? Path to where? SIO? CI? Australia? Why would it go there? Here you are getting inconsistent.”
CI, I’ve already explained why would he go there. The court procession happening earlier that day was hardly a coincidence.
It’s the best possible path because he went right between Thailand and Malaysia so not to alarm thai ATC, then went right around Indonesia so not to breach their airspace and then went SE after getting around
that path (if you exclude bizarre suicide) shows the only goal could be one of two australian islands
StevanG,
I see you have several serious problems.
May I ask you to do me a favor: do not attribute certain nonsense to me? I’ve never suggested “locked in lavatory”, “hijacking to Australia”, etc. Speak out for yourself, not for me.
P.S. Just my curiosity: how did you derive the figure of 0,00000000001%?
You have suggested to me a theory about hijackers getting locked out of cockpit, am I wrong? Were they locked in lavatory or anywhere else in the plane is not important at all.
For this plane to have landed somewhere you’d need a conspiracy of many countries done in a most inappropriate way ever, yes that’s around that number if not lower.
Moving along from CI and locked boggers:
Sour grapes or a stone unturned?
http://www.todayonline.com/world/experts-say-sonar-debris-images-should-be-reexamined-search-malaysian-jet?singlepage=true
Whatever it be, I guess the money bag will have to be stretched a bit wider.
@Scott and All
Your theory of Beijing as target is an extremely ugly scenario but may be plausible and this, or some variation, would explain a lot of the behaviour of the several countries involved. However, whether remote takeover was technically feasible for 9M-MRO is way beyond my knowledge – does anyone know? A complete guess… but I would be surprised if the plane hadn’t been under pilot control until the FMT at least.
The flaperon might well have been planted and I agree with Brock’s reasoning; I wouldn’t rule out that it was sourced from the occasion when the plane had wing damage (in 2012 apparently).
@StevenG,
“I’d like someone to jump in and confirm or deny specifically this part”
I thought that is exactly what I did . . to deny. It is ALL “gobbledegook”.
If you think otherwise, then how about you spend the time to try to make any sense of the issues and arguments, then present us here with a concise, understandable, and demonstrably sound resume.
@StevanG
“For this plane to have landed somewhere you’d need a conspiracy of many countries done in a most inappropriate way ever, yes that’s around that number if not lower.”
For a northern path with a landing in China / Tibet you need only two countries in the game, China an Myanamar. They are close friends. All others would have got no hint what was happening.
As long as the BFO data are considered valid and correctly interpreted it is not a routing I’m still following. It was just an example to show you that there are and might be routings which involve lesser conspiracy participants than you think.
But if we take it as fact that an aircraft this size is easy to detect you have to ask yourself, why this aircraft could fly to CI without being detected by the australian surveilance radars. That is the main hemisphere Australia has to be military concerned and it seems completely unplausible that all systems missed an aircraft flying to their turf at cruise altitude for landing, ditching or crashing. And they probably search elsewhere, because they know by their radar data that MH370 couldn’t fly there undetected.
@Flitzer_Flyer
I think it was obviously deliberate action to evade interception and get to one of australian islands, judging by flight path.
At this moment I can’t find better motivation than political one.
Can’t be more concise than that.
The day MH370 goes missing seems to be the same day that Russian activity in Crimea goes openly militaristic(Russian soldiers with badges on uniforms) after a two week build up of mainly sabre rattling and galling propaganda by Putin. It was just a prelude. Russian political architecture is now playing out in the middle east in ways not anticipated by anyone. Anyone. Expanding their air base at Latakia and performing hundreds of sorties a day. Cultivating statehood with the Syrian Kurds and actively re-drawing the region as they go. Muscling towards the huge oil/gas finds off the Israeli coast and entrenching Iranian influence across the region. Bullying Turkey, a Sunni NATO member and deliberately violating their air space numerous times. Doing the same to their Scandinavian neighbours continually as well as repeated submarine incursions. Acting in concert with the biggest state sponsor of terrorism in the world(Iran). They are redesigning their region, the middle east with diminished Sunni power, and giving the big finger to the west – none foreseen. It’s a huge projection of influence and they knew that it was high stakes. At the same time China are drawing lines in the sand in the South China Sea and preparing for war – interesting timing, as Iran develops ICBM’s that can reach the US with Obama’s blessing.
I’m beginning to suspect that this is why we will most likely pass the two year point none the wiser about MH370. Everywhere you look it’s the Vlad show. And what’s happening with that flaperon?????
@Matty – Perth Last month Ben Sandilands wrote, “….My own feeling is that there is something of immense importance to this whole saga that if shared with the wider world, would change a number of things…” Ben Sandilands 9/6/15 @10:21AM
If this was a component of something larger and not a singular event, it would or should change our expectations. Average citizens are simply not entitled to information that far exceeds their parameters, but how is the world to know what it doesn’t know.
If it was an event with only mechanical issues or a singular internal agenda, why present an illusion (or maybe not) of deceit and secrecy? The investigation has mostly been a mockery and it’s absurd to pretend otherwise. On the other hand, if it involved internal and or external participation of far greater proportions that dictated absolute secrecy, then why portray it as if there is much to hide, the very image you need to protect?
Sadly, THIS is the mystery that has taken the stage, smothering the truth as it becomes surrounded by poorly managed hypocrites. As you mentioned with Russia and China, the precarious vying for power is at best, unsettling.
@Matty @Susie
Lets try to imagine… few years ago, both US and Russia started to build-up hate in the media, because of failing reset etc. I hope nobody thinks that everything in any country foreign politics changes by the will of just single person, even its president. There is one very strong entity – the 7th empire, sometimes controlled by very weird guys and there definitely can be private bad guys forcing the coldwar-like hate for their own profit, worldwide. But it seems that at least on MH370 case the 7th empire is simply failing till now, and may be, not only on just this case… somewhere has been told “the cards has been dealt, we may start playing the game”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkznxGuINyk
(and I mean ALL the big players)
and the most important issue for Earth these days…
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/10/23/3715200/bipartisan-security-experts-climate-change-threat/
hah, nobody blamed climate change for MH370 yet? falken here is your chance
@Stevan
no, it is about “common sense” mostly
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emKcqBql4rs
(dirty dirty cheats of the world just for fun)