How Wide Should the MH370 Search Area Be?

At a press conference earlier this month, Australian officials released a new report updating the scientific rationale for their continuing search of the southern Indian Ocean, which is expected to wrap up no later than June, 2016 after the expenditure of an estimated $130 million. “We have a high level of confidence that we are searching in the right area,” declared Assistant Minister for Defence Darren Chester.

As a result of this new analysis, the width of the area to be searched has expanded: from 20 nautical miles inside the 7th arc and 30 nm outside, to 40 nm inside the arc and 40 nm outside.

The key piece of data deployed to justify this reassessment was the newly announced finding that that the satellite data unit (SDU) requires only 120 seconds from fuel exhaustion to first log-on attempt, rather than the 220 seconds cited in earlier reports.

Assuming that the plane was operating as a “ghost ship” without a conscious pilot at the controls, its final moments played out like this:

  • 00:11:00 Transmission from SDU to [ground station]. Hourly ping as previously described.
  • 00:17:30 Approximate APU start time. APU requires approximately 60 seconds to provide electrical power.
  • 00:18:30 Approximate time of SDU power restoration. SDU required approximately 60 seconds after power application to begin transmitting a log-on request.
  • 00:19:29 SDU initiated log-on request. SDU began log-on process to satellite system.
  • 00:19:37 Log-on request complete. SDU successfully logged onto satellite system.
  • 00:21:06 Expected IFE [Inflight Entertainment System] set up of first ground connection. IFE set up request did not occur.

Here’s a nice visualization, from page 11 of the report:

End of flight sequence
Click for full size. Credit: ATSB

A shorter log-on time for the SDU means that the plane must have run out of fuel later than originally believed, and therefore would have been higher and/or faster at time of the 7th ping. The important question is: what are the implications of this new timeline for how far the plane could have traveled after it sent the final ping? Here are a few different ways of looking at the problem.

#1: Historical data. On page 14 of the ATSB report we read: “A large sample of previous accidents was reviewed including the results of an analysis commissioned by the French investigation authority the Bureau d’Enquetes et d’Analyses (BEA) during the search for flight Air France 447… The BEA found that in the case of an upset followed by a loss of control, all the resulting impact points occurred within 20 NM from the point at which the emergency began.” Of course, by the time MH370 reached the 7th arc, its loss of control had been underway for two minutes, so the impact distance should be even less than this.

#2: Simulator data. From page 13 of the ATSB report: “The aircraft behaviour after the engine flame-out(s) was tested in the Boeing engineering simulator. In each test case, the aircraft began turning to the left and remained in a banked turn… The final position of the
aircraft was within a region defined by 10 NM forward and 10 NM left of the position where the flame-out occurred. Therefore, relative to the arc location, it was determined that 10 NM forward and 10 NM behind the arc would encompass the simulation impact area.” To take into account various uncertainties, the ATSB felt justified in adding an additional 10 nm in either direction, resulting in, once again, an endpoint no more than 20 nm in either direction.

#3: Stochastic Analysis. Back in May Brock McEwen conducted a stochastic analysis of MH370’s final path using the data current at the time. Asked to rerun his numbers using the new SDU reboot time, he produced the chart below (note that the label “Distribution DESCENT RATES” should actually read “Distribution of DISTANCE from impact point to 7th arc (FL0), in nmi.”

Brock stochastic model update
Click to enlarge. Source: Brock McEwen.

The key rectangle to look at is the light blue one, which refers to the area shown marked off in the thick baby-blue line below. As you can see, it encompasses the core “fried egg” of the probability distribution published in the ATSB’s report:

SIO Search Overlay 2
“Search Zone 2” is demarcated by the thick baby-blue line.

According to Brock’s calculations, the number of paths that hit the 7th arc and have endpoints 20 nm beyond the arc is invisibly small. Similarly few paths hit the 7th arc and wind up 5 nm within the arc.

#4: Assumption of functioning IFE. All of the above methods assume no more than a second-engine flame-out two minutes before the 7th ping. There is, however, a constraint that can be considered. The new ATSB report says on page 10 that an IFE system transmission was expected at 0:21:06, or 97 seconds after the 7th ping. But that never happened. That means that either someone turned off the IFE after 18:28, or the plane had hit the water by then (or was in a very unsual attitude, which let’s assume would be bad enough that the plane was about to hit.) Traveling at 500 knots, a plane can go no further than 13.47 nautical miles in 97 seconds.

#5: The ATSB Approach. In addition to #1 and #2 above, the ATSB paper considered what it calls “basic trajectory analysis of an uncontrolled but stable aircraft…. this analysis included constant and increasing bank angles, but did not include variations in speed or pitch angle.” It is not clear what exactly this analysis exactly entails, or how valid it might be; one would expect that increasing speed and downward pitch would naturally be part of a terminal spiral. At any rate, this methodology produced scenarios in which the plane wound up as far as 40 nm from the 7th arc. The ATSB acknowledges the inherent weakness of this approach: “ Due to the generic nature of this analysis it was given a lower weighting” in calculating the final probability distribution.

Putting all of the above together, the ATSB concluded that in all likelihood the plane hit the water within 20 nm of the 7th arc, yielding a total width of 40 nm. It calls this area the “highest priority width.” In addition, it designated a “secondary priority width” extending out another 20 nm based on “possible uncertainty in the simulation results and the trajectories from the turn analysis.”

The official search area has been redefined to match the results of the ATSB analysis; three ships are now tasked to search a box that stretches nearly 400 nm along the 7th arc and 40 nm on either side.

This strikes me as a remarkable state of affairs.

The report issued by the ATSB on December 3, 2015 is 28 pages long; its data and reasoning were further explicated in a densely erudite book by analysts at Australia’s Defense Science and Technology Group that is 128 pages long. Yet the broadening of the search area, which will entail the expenditure of tens of millions of dollars, is justified only by a fleeting invocation of “possible uncertainty.” This is hand-waving.

Continuing the search beyond the 40 nm “highest priority width” is not justified by the ATSB’s own analysis. Most of this region has already been searched; a remaining 5 nm-wide strip on the inner section of the 7th arc could be accomplished in short order. The ATSB should fulfil its duty to search the area suggested by its analysis. If the plane is not there, then the ATSB’s initial assumptions were incorrect. This will be a crucial piece of information guiding future efforts to solve the mystery of MH370.

148 thoughts on “How Wide Should the MH370 Search Area Be?”

  1. @Brock McEwen: I don’t think you’ll find many “folks who are zealous in their determination to trust search officials”. I am simply advising that from a practical vantage point, the biggest nail in the coffin for the current strategy is that it has been unsuccessful. The ATSB will always be able to hide behind technical analyses and incompetence as reasons why their story is not self-consistent despite your best efforts to prove malfeasance. I am more interested in finding the plane than embarrassing the ATSB.

    If you are able to show that the official Maldives story has holes, that is a valuable contribution.

  2. I’d like to shine a light on something Victor wrote earlier:

    “I believe we should not wait until June 2016 to consider alternative scenarios, be it end points in the SIO or elsewhere.”

    That might as well be the motto of this blog. I think we should all stitch this into needlepoint samplers and hang them on our walls.

    Hopefully an increasing number of people in a position of influence and authority will come to share this position.

  3. Cheryl,

    Re dual flameout 18:25 and landing. The other distinct possibility I am thinking about is that the engine(s) ‘stuck’ in a failsafe mode due to cut wiring and lost communication with FMC similar to QA32. Near-ground speed would approximately be 290 knots in such a case, which makes successful landing impossible. Thus the crew could opt to shut down one of the engines, perhaps the left one, especially if only this engine was damaged. As a result the altitude dropped (consequently causing disappearance on the radars and mess in BFOs), and also the left bus switched to the right IDG as the primary source of power, causing SDU to reboot. If I am not mistaken this would be consistent with Kate Tee’s testimony. And perhaps this would also be consistent with the feature Bobby found in the processed IR image. Indeed, the remaining portion of the flight would be performed with a single working engine in such a case. Does this explanation make sense?

  4. Oleksandr,

    It makes sense and sounds very brilliant. If that was the scenario it answers a lot of questions, the reboot, the funky BFO values, the black contrail in Dr. Bobby’s images and whatever Kate Tee saw.

    As far as Kate, remember Jeff says that eyewitness accounts especially in aviation cases are not that reliable. And she now supposedly saw two planes, the one with the orange glow and the one heading due south. We don’t actually know what she saw so her testimony is shelved for now.

    I agree with the blog motto Victor created. Wait until June 2016? How can these families wait a minute longer? The sad fact remains that in just 3 short months it will be 2 years ago that 239 people took off from Kuala Lumpur never to be heard from again, with only a lonely flaperon hailing their cause. This should be totally unacceptable in the entire aviation industry.

  5. On a related note, EU has enacted new rules regarding the tracking of aircraft.

    – underwater locator beacons for the blackbox must be active for 90 dys instead of 30, and must broadcast on an easy to listen frequency.
    – aircraft must be tracked every 3 minutes
    – Cockpit Voice Recorder must record conversations for the last 25 hours, instead of just the last 2 hrs.

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-16/crashed-airliners-will-be-easier-to-locate-under-new-eu-rules

    QUESTION: I get the need for the first 2 requirements, but why 25 hrs on the CVR? Was that an arbitrarily chosen amount of time, or is there any significance to that amount?

  6. Nevermind. I found it here:

    http://www.transportstyrelsen.se/globalassets/global/regler/remisser/luftfart/icao-sl-2015-15.pdf

    “An incident might occur during take-off but due to the flight being longer than two hours, the CVR recordings would not cover the take-off phase, which would be a valuable tool for the investigations. A robust solution would be to extend the CVR recording duration to twenty-five hours, which would include a long-haul flight, its pre-flight and post-flight crew activities.
    It is expected that long-haul flights may extend to nineteen hours. It was estimated that a CVR with a recording duration of twenty-five hours would cover all flights in the foreseeable future, including the pre-flight activities and post-flight activities.”

    There is also suggestion in this report about DEPLOYABLE Flight Data and Voice recorders.

  7. Cheryl,

    I am not relying on Kate’s testimony as an ‘input’, but rather use it as a supporting observation. In addition, I think her original statement was the most accurate. In this way IG most likely has done a very bad job by convincing Kate and others in that what she saw was not mh370. They did it because her original testimony was inconsistent with the hypothesis promoted by IG. Instead of changing a questionable assumption IG has preferred changing a questionable Kate’s statement, which may turn out to be a correct one.

  8. Does anyone know what are logical conditions to be met to switch power source to cross-IDG? Voltage, current, or anything else? If, say, the left IDG was mulfunctioning, being unable to provide required current under load, but meantime being able to provide nominal voltage without load, what would happen? Would the left bus be constantly switching between the left and right IDGs?

  9. oleksandr said:

    “I am not relying on Kate’s testimony as an ‘input’, but rather use it as a supporting observation. In addition, I think her original statement was the most accurate. In this way IG most likely has done a very bad job by convincing Kate and others in that what she saw was not mh370. They did it because her original testimony was inconsistent with the hypothesis promoted by IG. Instead of changing a questionable assumption IG has preferred changing a questionable Kate’s statement, which may turn out to be a correct one.”

    Katies statement chopped and changed as she was fed more nourishment from others from day one onwards. Have a read of her thread in the sailors forum where it first came to light and her blog as well. No offence to Kate intended, I am sure her intentions were/still are well meaning.

    To criticise the IG for their beliefs on her testimony is unfair, whether it coincides with their theory or not. Plenty fed her sustenance to be able to convince herself what she think she saw was MH370 as well. The whole story was a bit of a blonde moment. Its got less credence than Mike Mckay’s sighting, which has never changed but has been shown that he was be too far away geographically to be able to see MH370 near Igari.

    Pending further evidence, Kate’s testimony belongs on the shelf. If you wish to use it as a supporting argument, that is a good thing, there is very little supporting evidence of anything. But to criticise those that that believe she didn’t see it, cause it doesn’t fit their theory, is a long bow to draw.

  10. Sharkcaver,

    1. There is a principal difference between Kate and other “witnesses”. Her original testimony and description is consistent with the data we have, and it fits some theories. This is in contrast to others.

    2. Her testimony changed under pressure from IG (just in case if you are not aware), which had a task to protect their thesis at that time. That is how the second plane appeared (at FL 350 or so indeed), etc. I am well aware of how her testimony evolved. And why.

    3. The main difference between me and IG is that I follow the principle “Change assumptions first if a hypothesis does not fit data”. Indeed, bearing in mind that data can also be erroneous. The best proof IG was wrong is that the plane was not found where it was supposed to be. And in my opinion this is because of wrong assumptions. But some still think this is because of wrong or inaccurate data.

    4. The majority of us is looking for the justification of why what Kate saw was not MH370. And only a few of us are looking for the explanation of why what she saw could be MH370.

    5. To make her testimony plausible you just need to get rid of one (!) assumption, which is that MH370 was a ghost flight in the AP mode by 18:40. You even don’t need to discard the AP hypothesis as a base.

  11. Spot on Oleksandr, however they won’t change their hypothesis even if someone else finds the plane somewhere else on the 7th arc, I have the feeling ATSB would claim the plane was planted.

  12. Oleksandr — Kate Tee saw something….what…what….what….? ?…applicable significance…? ? ( that’s two questions ). Maybe just verification of a plane ( low and slow and aglow ) not to be flip, but she comes off as about as reliable, and credible as a person can get. But it only is one more breadcrumb, piece of the puzzle, that should be not taken lightly as evidence.

  13. George,

    That is what I am saying: Kate’s testimony cannot be taken as evidence to dismiss other theories, but equally an assumption cannot be used to dismiss her testimony. However, her testimony can be used as a supportive observation if it is consistent with some other hypothesis. Why not?

    Something = low + slow + unusual orange glow. The latter effect can simply be explained as a result of open window shields (as it could be expected in case of emergency), high humidity at 3 km altitude at that place and time, and condensation resulting in the mist and wet aircraft’s exterior (increased albedo).

    So, what is wrong with Kate’s original description? The only incompatibility with the AP starting between 18:25 and 18:40 at FL350, isn’t it? In other words incompatibility with one of these three assumptions.

  14. @ Big “O” — thanks for the come back….a huge …I mean huge question in my squishy grey matter is has this “complete engulfment” of the aircraft by a glowing “entity” ( ? ) ever been witnessed by anyone…in the sense that they would describe it in her terms..? Like you, i have read as much about Kate as I could, and her troubles (predicament)..very interesting, to say the very least….basically…she’s got my vote…i’m in her corner. I would feel comfortable eliminating: 1- plane on fire…2- some powerful spotlight…3- flight crew roasting weenies on the wings….what..what…what..?

  15. I’d say Kate Tee was always going in the bin. She could have been a dedicated plane spotter doing a night shift – the only witnesses admitted were ones that adhered to the song sheet.

  16. @George C: As for illuminating the aircraft, an attempted restart of the left engine could cause fuel to trail out the back where it burns with great ferocity. While putting on a great show, it wouldn’t immediately doom the aircraft to a catastrophic failure.

  17. @Oleksandr,

    Switching of the Left Bus to the right IDG will not cause a reboot of the SDU; this is even stated in the ATSB report.

    Generator switching is controlled by computer; it looks at various parameters to determine the health of the generator and itself to determine subsequent switching action. These would typically be:

    Under speed
    Over voltage and under voltage
    Over frequency and under frequency
    Differential fault
    Open phase
    Generator diode
    Over and under excitation
    Shorted PMG
    Reverse power
    CPU failure

    If the generator is not healthy…..it’s outa there.

    OZ

  18. Oz,

    Thanks. Yes, indeed a one-time switch does not cause SDU reboot as per B777 manual and FI. If both IDGs fail, the buses switch to the APU, and also without interuption of power but only if APU was on. Otherwise 1 minute delay or so, which would be consistent with “dual flameout 18:23” hypothesis.

    But right now my question is whether there are such conditions (e.g. short circuit, cut wires, software glitch, etc), when in unloaded state the computer identifies IDG as operational, while in the loaded state – as failed. What is going to happen in such a case? Will the computer continuously attempt to bring left bus back to the left IDG, and then to the right IDG again and again? Or once the left bus connects to the right IDG, it cannot be reconnected to the left IDG till the rest of the flight? Or a number of attempts is limited? Or such conditions are impossible (in contrast to improbable)? What is going to happen if the computer identifies both the IDGs and APU as unhealthy?

    When the logic is sophisticated there is always vulnerability bottleneck…

  19. @Oleksandr: The Boeing philosophy, in contrast to Airbus, is to trust the pilot. If the pilot takes an action that overrides what the computer thinks is correct, the pilot’s action will prevail. If an MH370 pilot cuts the left engine and the bus tie, my assumption is the computer would not override that action — yet.

    If MH370 did enter an upset condition as I set out in mh370site.com, then the plane’s computers would go into Flight Envelope Protection mode. Part of the FEP recovery would be to increase power on the left engine. Finding the engine not running, the computers would attempt a restart, necessitating closing the bus tie in order to engage the starter. With power back on the left bus, the SDU would reboot and log on.

  20. @Oleksandr,

    There is more than one computer involved; basically one for each power source. The computer would illuminate a fault light/message and the generator is isolated.

    To get it back would necessitate cycling the generator switch.

    @Bruce,

    In a word………..rubbish!

    OZ

  21. George Connelly / Oleksandr,

    In all fairness to the IG, I don’t think it is right either as George says to suggest they worked with the sighting to “fit their criteria.” I think they (that would be Mike and Don both I have the utmost respect for)just tried to work through the “visual” and the “image” itself with her. They took the extra time and effort to investigate what other possibilities were out there that night that could have fit the description of what she saw. The bottom line is that Kate does not know what the heck she saw, the IG does not know what the heck she saw, we don’t know what the heck she saw, but I agree she did see “something.” It could have been this India based military patrol plane in the Straits, it could have been MH370, a cargo plane, or none of the above. Has anyone from the IG attempted to contact this India military fleet to see if they have a log of them being out in the Straits the night of March 7, 2014 into the morning hours of March 8, 2014 and if they saw Kate’s yacht? The lines of that Indian plane do fit the artists rendering of what Kate described very well as far as lines, shape, and form go, as for the orange glow that is another matter altogether.
    As far as Kate’s remembrance of the second plane sighting, I don’t think that was due to IG pressuring, as she states her memory became untangled and she remembered it. Make of it what we will, there is no way to prove what she saw so……….Shelved.

  22. Oz,

    Thanks again. So if the computer(s) responsible for the selection of power source for the left bus ‘thinks’ both IDGs have problem, it will switch to the APU? Correct? And if APU was not on at that time, power interruption would occur (only essential instruments would remain continuosly powered, but not SDU), correct?

  23. Cheryl,

    This time I only partially agree. IG has put high pressure on Kate, forcing her to change her initial description to make it fit into their specific AP theory. But fortunately there were some other investigators who helped her to record details without preference to any theory. Of course, the accuracy of these details are questionable, but I strongly disagree her sighted should be shelved. Leave IG with what they have created.

    In fact, the main reason I am a lot more interested in Kate’s testimony than others is because my CTS model predicts position of the aircraft ~280 km south of her sighting and at ~5.5 km altitude by 19:41(see Fig. 5). Coincidence? Maybe. But there is a number of other coinsidences. The most intriguing thing is that you ‘shift’ the whole CTS-trajectory by ~1 deg eastward, the location at 18:25 would be perfectly coinciding with the location of Aaza Dana, while the terminus would be perfectly coinciding with the source of sound recorded by the Curtin University should it be at the 7th arc. Isn’t this at least suspicious?

    Finally don’t forget about the lack of radar data. IG has no credible explanation as the aircraft would be reachable by at least 1 Thai and 2 Indonesian radars should it be at FL340.

  24. @Oleksandr: The IG has not forced Kate into changing her story any more than the IG has theorized about northern paths and BFO spoofs. Members of the IG are free to say and do as they please without speaking or acting for the group.

  25. It would have been good if someone would have got a sample of the oil slicks in the South China Sea.It was quite a coincidense.This has always kept thinking something sinister at Igari. But who knows.

  26. @ all the little christmas elves– it’s not so much she did not know what she saw …the poor girl just did not know the significance, the significance (until 2-3 months later), she knew what she saw at the time, around 2:00 am or so, but the glowing plane may not be the focus, it’s the one up higher, heading south, that’s the one I think we should focus the attention on….. oh and by the by, we don’t have a
    clue what the motivations of the IG are, they’re trying their damndest to get to the bottom of this, like everybody else. Let’s cut them a little slack, not too much, but a little will do. @ Bruce R. — that flaming fire would be well behind the plane, not making it glow like an ember, that is perplexing, and from Kate Tee’s recollection she was pretty close to the aircraft, the color was some kind of pale grey….she could see no markings on the plane, windows were not clearly dilleaneated (sic), it looks like she was within 3/4 mile of the glowing plane , the higher up one was maybe 25,000-32,000 “normal” cruise altitude….heading south to “maybe Antartica” ( her question…why south ? )

  27. Victor,

    A lot more efforts were made by IG to dismiss relevance of Kate’s story to MH370 than to understand what impacts would her sighting have on trajectory if it was MH370. Subsequent interviewing and interpretations of her description were made in the sole context of IG’s AP theory. That is how the second aircraft appeared at FL340 as she was supposed to observe MH370 either way. And that is why she was later forced to conclude that her original sighting was unlikely related to MH370. Perhaps I should have used “forcedly conveinced” instead of “forced”.

  28. @Oleksandr,

    Trying to keep this as simple an explanation as possible.

    If Left AC is lost due to a generator problem, then the APU will supply if it is running; if not then the right generator supplies.

    If Left AC is lost due to a bus fault, lets say due to fused wiring that cannot be isolated by circuit breakers; then Left AC is gone for good.

    The system is designed to supply the Transfer buses as a priority; these are essentially the need to have power requirements. Left and Right Main buses normally supply the respective Transfer buses.

    The Transfer buses cannot supply the Main buses; it’s one way traffic only!

    The Left Transfer bus normally supplies the Standby bus but this can also be supplied by other means (the battery); Standby bus supplies the final must have requirements.

    If Left AC is lost due to a generator fault; keeping in mind the system is trying to maintain power to the Transfer buses (in this case the Left) then the priority goes something like this:

    -APU (if running) supplies Left AC then L Transfer, if not
    -Right generator supplies Left AC then L Transfer, if not
    -Left Backup Generator supplies L Transfer, if not
    -Right Backup Generator supplies L Transfer

    If the Left and Right Transfer buses are both lost, we then have no normal supply to the Standby bus (we are now using aircraft battery through an inverter to supply Standby); the RAT deploys and then APU auto start sequence comes in.

    When considering the systems “thinking” capabilities, consider their are on only 2 states……..Fault (1) or No Fault (0).

    OZ

  29. @Oleksandr: You have completely missed the point of my post. Let me try again. You often attribute the actions of the IG as a whole with the actions of individual members. Please do not.

    Relative to Kate Tee, in my discussions with her, I have not tried to persuade of her anything. I also choose to not use anything that she says as evidence except in a very general way because her story has shifted so many times and she has been inadvertently coached even in the early days. I do believe, however, that she sincerely does want to help.

  30. re: Kate Tee

    Eyewitness testimony has a horrible track record relative to accuracy. A lot of research supports that conclusion.

    http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-the-eyes-have-it/

    Secondly, I don’t find Kate’s observation to make much of a bifurcation in the set of terminal possibilities. Frankly, it is in the “so what?” category when you believe, as I do, that the search area is thousands of kilometers in error.

    While I also believe that Kate is sincere, the actual information content (in a Shannon sense) relative to her observation is quite low.

  31. Accepting this plane was in flight for several hours, roughly 20-25% of those hours would have flown during light. It seems implausible, NO ONE sighted this plane, so which witness(es) potentially saw what they think they saw?

    Distortions of darkness lend more credibility to witness reports during hours of light, automatically favoring Maldives sightings. The predominantly Sunni Muslim archipelago has had a president jailed and his successor, a possible assassination attempt since March 8, 2014.

    The Maldives sightings have received the least credence yet have the most validity for criteria

  32. @Susie

    The Maldives cannot be reconciled with the Inmarsat data. It is not even close. To consider the Maldives would necessitate tossing that data aside or postulating some form of elaborate data spoofing. The Maldives are some 2000 nautical miles from the 7th arc.

    The Inmarsat data remains far and away the best if not the only pointer to where the plane may have terminated.

  33. @DennisW
    Thank you Dennis, it seemed important after latest ATSB debacle that this was unequivocally stated again

  34. Oz,

    Thank you for the detailed explanation. Then it appears that besides various conspiracy theories, only dual flameout around 18:23 can explain coincidental dissaperence on radars, reboot of SDU and mess in BFOs. Am I right?

    Would RAT wait for APU to start if it was off, or it will be deployed immediately in such a case? How long does it take to restart an engine in the air?

  35. Victor,

    I did not imply you… Do you agree that “low flying aircraft” Kate saw from her yaht could be MH370? If no – then why? If yes – would you agree the aircraft was not in the AP mode at least by 18:41, and that the terminus would be to the east of the current search area?

  36. Ted Wintemute said “It would have been good if someone would have got a sample of the oil slicks in the South China Sea.It was quite a coincidense.This has always kept thinking something sinister at Igari. But who knows.”

    At the time the media reported they did just that. And when analysed, it was not an aviation specific slick. google might be your friend?? I have no references but old grey matter on that.

    Victorl said “I also choose to not use anything that she says as evidence except in a very general way because her story has shifted so many times and she has been inadvertently coached even in the early days. I do believe, however, that she sincerely does want to help.”

    There is an echo in here 🙂 And I would also go so far to say the coaching Kate received was far biased towards implanting what she saw was MH370. Those trying to discredit her sighting was the minority. Oleksander doesn’t agree.

    What she saw could possibly be MH370. It also could not. As said, it belongs on the shelf pending further substantiating evidence. Take it off the shelf for your own theory if you will.

  37. Dennis,

    With regard to the accuracy, yes. But if we assume that Kate’s description is correct, then we would quite accurately know lon/lat of the aircraft at approximately 19:25. She did not known exact time, but it was already after the moonset, which took place 1 hour earlier. It could not be much later, as the aircraft had to reach 19:41 ping ring. Also, her description is consistent with the lack of radar data – low altitude. The assumption that Kate was correct, is already sufficient to explain why the aircraft was not found where it was predicted to be by ATSB and IG. And if so, widening of the search area will not help – it is not there.

  38. @Oleksandr: Yes, Kate might have seen MH370. And yes, if she did, the current search area is likely too far south on the 7th ping arc.

    In my opinion, the possibility of a straight flight path starting at a time between 18:28 and 18:40 is not consistent with no debris found in the current search area. And as I have said here many times, the DSTG report is incorrectly being used to justify the current search area. There is an unrecognized bias towards straight paths in the study.

  39. @Victor

    True, but that theme has been embedded in all the “mainstream” analytics used to guide the search. It is part and parcel of previous ATSB calculations, and it (a straight path) is certainly a fundamental assumption in the analytics of the IG, Richard Cole, and Dr. Bobby.

    I think a more general statement is one I have been making almost from the get-go. The Inmarsat data is insufficient as a predictive tool. It is a necessary condition, but not a sufficient condition. Its value lies in qualifying or disqualifying terminal locations inferred by other means.

    http://tmex1.blogspot.com

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