With every passing day, the odds go down that searchers will find the wreckage of MH370 on the Indian Ocean seabed. (Indeed, many independent researchers suspect that the game is essentially over.) If nothing comes up before the search’s scheduled wrap date this June, then the entire case will hang on a single piece of physical evidence: the flaperon that washed up in Reunion Island last July and is now being held by French judicial authorities at a facility near Toulouse, France.
The good news is that the flaperon could provide a wealth of information. I’ve seen photographs of the serial numbers located inside the plane, and I’m convinced that, despite my previously expressed reservations, they do indeed prove that the piece came from MH370. And experts have told me that the sea life found growing on it offers a number of different clues about the airplane’s fate.
The bad news is that the French authorities have apparently made little effort to follow up.
As I’ve described earlier, the predominant form of life growing on the flaperon is an accumulation of goose barnacles of the genus Lepas. In all the world, the number of marine biologists who study these animals is tiny; those who have carried out peer-reviewed research specifically on animals of the genus Lepas could fit in an elevator. Each has contributed something unique to the field; each has a unique body of experience with which to inform the investigation of this important Lepas population. Yet the French authorities have reached out to none of them. (I have been informed that they have contacted two French marine biologists, one of whom is unknown to me and the other of which is an expert in crustaceans of the southern ocean; Lepas belong within this much broader category of animal.)
That’s a shame, because only by tapping the world’s leading experts in this little-understood species can we hope to wrest the most information from this solitary piece of evicence. Here’s what we could learn:
- Hans-Georg Herbig and Philipp Schiffer in Germany of the University of Cologne have carried out genetic analysis of the world’s Lepas species to understand their geographic distribution. By examining the animals on the flaperon up close they could determine the mix of species growing on it, they could derive a sense of were the flaperon has drifted. The image above shows Dr. Schiffer’s best guess of the identities of some barnacles in one small section, based on photographic imagery alone.
- Knowing the species of the barnacles, and measuring their exact size, would allow scientists to gauge their age, and hence the amount of time that the flaperon has been in the water. Such an analysis has been performed forensically before: Cynthia Venn, a professor of environmental science at Bloomsburg University, helped Italian researchers identify the how long a corpse had been floating in the Adriatic Sea, as described in their paper “Evaluation of the floating time of a corpse found in a marine environment using the barnacle Lepas anatifera.”
- By measuring the ratio of oxygen isotopes in the animals’ shells, scientists could determine the temperature of the water through which they traveled as they grew. “All one needs in an appropriate shell, a fine dental bit in a handheld Dermel drill, a calculator and access to a mass spectrometer,” says legendary marine biologist Bill Newman, who helped pioneer the technique at the Scripps Instition of Oceanography in La Jolla. In the past, this technique has been used to track the passage of barnacle-encrusted sea turtles and whales. But again, it would require access to the flaperon barnacles.
Why haven’t the authorities been more proactive in seeking help from the world’s small band of Lepas experts? One possible answer is that they’re befuddled. As I’ve described earlier, photographic analysis of the barnacles’ size seems to suggest that they are only about four to six months old. This is hard to reconcile with a presumed crash date 16 months before the flaperon’s discovery. Something weird might be going on—which would not be that surprising, given that the case of MH370 has been tinged with weirdness from day one.
After nearly two years of frustration, the key to the entire mystery may well lie in this single two-meter long wing fragment. But if the authorities don’t examine it—and publish their findings—we’ll never know.
PS: In my aforementioned piece about the barnacle distribution on the Reunion flaperon, I argued that the piece must have been completely submerged for months—an impossibility without human intervention. However, it’s been pointed out to me that barnacles sometimes grow on surfaces that are only intermittently awash. A very vivid example of this is a section of SpaceX rocket that was found floating off the coast of Great Britain last November. The piece (pictured below) had spent 14 months floating across the Atlantic with its top surface apparently above the waterline, yet sufficiently awash to support a healthy population of Lepas.
While this suggests that the Reunion flaperon could have accumulated its load of Lepas while floating free, it also provides another example of how thickly covered by large barnacles a piece can be after more than a year in the ocean.
For the debris visualisers…
Late Thursday evening a CRJ200 operating a mail/packet cargo flight between Oslo and Tromso, Norway was lost.
FR24 recorded the final descent, in 60sec the aircraft descended from FL330 to FL110 (22,000fpm, about 220kts vertical component). Both AF447 & QZ8501 were recorded as descending at approximately half that rate.
Posting for consideration only.
A Norwegian news site has posted a video of the [crash site](http://www.nrk.no/norge/postfly-styrtet-pa-vei-fra-oslo-til-tromso-1.12738917)
Apologies if the above line isn’t processed as I expected, the URL should be clear between the parentheses.
:Don
@Plastrio
He attended some hearings before and it’s not clear if he attended that one, malaysian government “for some reason” doesn’t want to publish anything related to him, all they do is bringing confusion and muddying the waters.
@Guardeddon – Your video reminds me of the impact crater created when Valuejet 592 crashed in the Everglades. In either accident, there were no large pieces of debris visible.
Many on this site are saying the lack of MH370 debris indicates a soft landing. I believe the opposite. I think the crash was so violent that there was little recognizable debris remaining. People question why no life jackets were washed up on any shore? I suggest that searchers do not recognize a 2 cm x 3 cm piece of foam on a beach as being a part of MH370. The flaperon is large because it detached prior to impact.
@Lauren
even if it crashes, plane is relateively lightweight object, except engines and seats and computers racks and landing gears and few other structuraly massive things; there always must remain thousands of floating cabin and personal debris (and plane is designed to leave lot of floating things in such case) and not only exactly one piece – the flaperon
@all – this fresh article found today, and apologies to realtives in case brainstorming goes too far
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3388271/Relatives-missing-MH370-passengers-insist-loved-ones-held-prisoner-offer-captors-forgiveness-release-unharmed.html
Here’s a list of identifiable surface wreckage from QZ8501:
The left and right rear escape slides and the inflation bottles;
the overhead cabin head rack which were attached to row 6 right:
Passenger Services Unit (PSU) including of oxygen generators, lights and
speakers.
Two (2) sets of passenger seats identified as seat row 22 left and 17 right.
That’s it. (Source – Final Report on the accident).
Back in november 2014 I posted a graph here showing tracks that matched the measured BFO exactly at each arc starting at 0° latitude on the 1941 arc for various values of the Fixed Frequency Bias (FFB). The brown line is for the FFB calibrated while MH370 was still on the tarmac at Kuala Lumpur. The graph is shown below with two lines added:
(a) The black dashed line is for the track “reconstructed” in the paper of INMARSAT engineers in the Journal of Navigation.
(b) The red track with the ‘X’es is constructed from the ‘red spot’ at 38S 88.5E in the Bayesian Methods paper, and the track angles shown as a blue line in Fig. 10.5 of that paper. The accompanying text states: “Note that the horizontal scale is measurement index, not time, but time values are used to label the measurements to give perspective.” However, the labels are not correctly placed because the large turn took place between 18:28 and 18:39. Therefore I shifted the labels one position to the right.
The so constructed path seems to miss the 1941 arc. Strange? Also the speeds don’t seem to correspond to the speeds in Fig.10.6, but that could be due to the assumed winds.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/m627dswc32vtiw4/BFOtracks_12.jpg?dl=0
lookback… all doors are still wildly open;
this good guy sourced on wikipedia and youtube knows lot about security and relations with china, etc; fact is, he is relaxed all the time
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPvnJG_yGhM
I can accept baileys scenario except why fly to a perfect ditching in the middle of nowhere? Shah seems to be a very competent and politically active. He showed no signs of suicidal behavior. I was struck by a comment about the plane turning back. The 7th arc only means he is somewhere along that line. Could he be somewhere in between instead of at the terminus, either north or south? Georesonance location is along the 7th arc in the Bay of Bengal.
Dear IG members: re: latest analysis of indicated impact latitudes, as a function of AP mode (Rydberg) – specifically, the key statement on Duncan’s site:
“There is also a general fit to the fuel range in each case, when one allows for the additional distance flown due to the curvature of some of the flight paths…”
I’m not sure what technical correctness supports this statement, but the point of making it is clearly to leave the reader believing that eastward curvature increases the distance.
But the opposite is true: all else equal, curving east SAVES distance and fuel. Because [Math].
And the IG KNOWS it is true: not only is distance reduction a trivially provable geometric fact, but @airlandseaman in fact USED this fact a few months ago: only by curling east could distance be REDUCED enough to have MH370 attain Arc 7.
Why the intellectual sleight-of-hand?
@Brock
There are a lot of moving parts to the distance vs fuel vs heading interplay. Certainly paths curving to the East reduce the distance between ring intersections. That part is the trivial part. However flying slowly enough to satisfy BTO when heading “more” Easterly is a less efficient use of the fuel.
I’m not disagreeing with you. I just think the answer is more complex than geometry alone would suggest. Frankly, I have avoided the whole fuel burn issue entirely. My bad.
@Trip, the 7th arc does not go through the Bay of Bengal. Georesonance appears to be fraudulent.
@sk999, That was just what they found in the first week.
“CBS News’ Allen Pizzey reports that the first six bodies were recovered relatively quickly, and then searchers began reporting more and more bodies floating in the sea 100 miles from land and a mere 6 miles from where the airliner was last in contact with air traffic control. French news agency AFP reported that as many as 40 bodies had been recovered, but that information was not immediately confirmed.”
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/most-significant-finding-yet-in-search-for-airasia-jetliner/
Ultimately bodies and debris were found up to 1000 km away.
@Brock McEwen: I believe you are misunderstanding Duncan’s word and certainly misunderstanding his intent by implying there was a deliberate attempt to mislead.
Duncan understands that if all the BTO values are satisfied, slower speeds imply paths that are curving towards the east, and therefore shorter paths. (As far as I know, Duncan was the first person to show this effect back in March/April 2014.) However, the curved paths are longer than a great circle path between the same starting and ending points. That is probably the point Duncan was making.
As for fuel consumption, as Dennis said, this is not straightforward because there are so many variables. At a given altitude, slowing the speed from LRC to Holding will decrease fuel flow, i.e., increase endurance, while reducing fuel efficiency, i.e., reducing the range. So, at a given air speed, as long as it is possible to find an altitude where the fuel is not exhausted by 00:15 or so, it is also possible to find an altitude where the burn rate is higher and fuel is exactly exhausted at 00:15 (or whatever time you believe fuel exhaustion occurred).
Please ask for clarification before jumping to conclusions such as there was “intellectual sleight-of-hand”. Did you even bother to contact Duncan before leveling the accusation against the entire IG?
@all:
Without wanting to get in the way of more technical discussions on here, please can anyone who missed my earlier post take a quick look at this:
http://www.scoopnest.com/user/flightradar24/685191879361703941
And the usual route for this flight (over Thailand – Andaman – India…):
http://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/ey440/#86f909d
Few nights ago on Jan 7th, an Etihad Airways flight scheduled from Hanoi to Abu Dhabi oddly decided to plunge southwards, do a little pirouette over the Malacca Strait, run out of fuel, and subsequently divert to Mumbai. (Etihad never explained why in the end). Weather was also normal that night.
Oleksandr suggested an extremely fascinating possibility – a test of some sort related to MH370. He was also right in asking whether any news channels carried the story (even if limited to tickertape) – no, not even a mention!
It would be interesting to see what others on here make of it? In your opinion, likely just an ordinary event (regular diversion etc) or would you say something a little more unusual than that?
@Sajid. Thanks for that, I had a look at the flight24 picture and you are right, it is very interesting. An airline pilot could probably make a qualified stab at what was going on. Your theory about it doing some kind of test is possible, I think.
@Ed, @Sajid: Weird indeed. It does look like the flight went way out of its way to retrace the route of MH370 from IGARI to Penang. Why, then, the circling over the Malacca Strait? If there was some sort of trouble at that point, why continue on all the way to Bombay? Perhaps an attempt to measure BFO values in a variety of orientations? If so, why run this procedure in an A330 rather than a B777, and why Etihad?
As I commented earlier, Etihad tweeted after the event that the plane “diverted to Bombay to refuel due to route changes.”
(https://twitter.com/flightradar24/status/685585802584264705)
Obviously this doesn’t shed any light at all.
@DennisW
It has always been clear that simple constant speed, constant course models starting from NW of Indonesia end up around 38S. The range of speeds consistent with the BTO data is an output from the model, not an input. The DSTG work starts with a wide range of speeds but ends up with a much narrower range, hardly surprising. Its power is that it determines the significant width of the search area.
The DSTG book is a write up of the current state of the constrained autopilot dynamics model that has been in play since the June 2014 ATSB report, it’s not a new approach – the book states that DSTG has been involved since May 2014. The October 2014 ATSB report shows the northern limit of the search area derived from that model to be around 35S which is where the December 2015 search area terminates (actually 35.5S). The other model in the October 2014 report (data error optimisation) which used the BFO data as a major element extended the search area to 33S – this was largely where Go Phoenix subsequently worked. The change in December 2015 was that that second model was dropped, presumably because the errors in the BFO data mean its conclusions have low significance while the DSTG model’s performance has improved, and there is a desire to limit the length of the search area so the searched width could be increased.
@Richard
Totally understand your post above, but as you know I have a lot of residual heartburn with that methodology. All the constrained autopilot analytics are a variation on the same theme. That is minimize residuals, BTO and to a lesser extent BFO, while assuming a “straight” path. Picking a speed and heading which achieves this minimization has been the mantra of the IG, ATSB, DTSG, and other investigators, yourself included, from the get-go.
As additional information is added such as lack of surface debris, lack of underwater debris, drift modeling relative to the flaperon, and the elephant in the room, motive, it is becoming increasingly clear that the constrained AP analytical basis is suspect. While you cannot prove a negative, I remain convinced, on the basis of motive alone, that the plane was not flown to 38S. I know your position relative to motive conjectures, and I respect it, just as I respect Duncan’s similar position.
I do, however, believe that outsiders (and some insiders) are not fully appreciative of how tenuous the pin sticking and elegant colored pdf’s are – they all hang on the belief that the same simple assumption is correct.
@Victor: I am not disputing that IG members are now entertaining yet more path circuitry near Sumatra and/or bizarre altitudes/altitude changes as a way to run fuel to zero, yet still arrive at the area just NE of the latest NE boundary.
I was specifically questioning the statement I quoted. As I predicted, TECHNICAL correctness has come to the IG’s rescue: “no, we didn’t mean greater distance relative to the paths we’ve promoted for 18 months – we meant greater distance relative to [a path that doesn’t even hit the BTO arcs].” Good grief.
The intent of a paper should be to add light, not heat. The introduction of a paper which suggests 400-450 KTAS paths merit searching should emphasize that such paths, DESPITE their curvature, are shorter, and thus CREATE an excess fuel endurance problem, which require arbitrary path circuitry and/or bizarre altitude pre-programming to resolve.
PARTICULARLY when the paper reverses the bedrock principle upon which its authors have based their previous eighteen months of work: that the best place to search is the intersection of the BTO data (which, at least geometrically, argues for a fast and straight path, and thus by logical extension a near-max range fuel flameout) and the performance limit.
I accept that, before abandoning the signal data, the IG feels it needs to explore yet more ways to rationalize it. But we need marketing to take a back seat to science. That “greater distance” statement was very disconcerting. It indicated, in my view, a desire to paper over some significant concerns that the IG, a few short months ago, would have been among the first to point out.
@Richard Cole
I’m sure IG (and ATSB to an extent) did perfect job pinpointing search area based on given assumption, I have never questioned that.
The problem is the assumption itself should have never been assigned such a big probability as it doesn’t fit any sensible motivation and lately even flaperon drift analysis.
@Brock McEwen: As I have stated many times, articles written by individual IG members do not represent the views of the entire group. You would be better to direct questions to Duncan and Richard.
As I have explained to you in private emails, the prediction of fuel exhaustion is extremely difficult without knowing the speed/altitude conditions. (You have solicited me by email to perform fuel predictions for you on multiple occasions.) Even then, without specific information known to Boeing and not us, it is very difficult except for special cases such as LRC, M0.84, and Holding, for which we have tabular information.
You are free to continue to parse words and assign dishonest motives to Duncan and Richard. I have more productive ways to spend my time than to continue with you. Good luck!
@ Trip “Georesonance location is along the 7th arc in the Bay of Bengal.”
Actually, it is not on the 7th arc as has been plotted.
The ATSB’s Dec 3, 2015 report shows the “high-probability” search area to be near S38º and E88º/89º.
An interesting observation related to that “high-probability” search area:
3,480 n.m. north, (and it is nearly straight north), is the longitude location for the Georesonance:
89°59’58.82″E.
From the Australian today –
Australian air safety investigators are sticking to their preferred theory that Malaysian Flight MH370 crashed after the pilots lost consciousness for lack of oxygen, despite mounting opinion in the aviation community that the “rogue pilot” captain hijacked his own aircraft.
As revealed by The Weekend Australian, Australian veteran fighter pilot and airline captain Byron Bailey has joined British pilot Simon Hardy in saying the oxygen deprivation, or hypoxia, scenario does not stack up.
He suggested the known facts point to the captain, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, flying the Boeing 777 for more than seven hours and ditching it in the Southern Ocean.
Captain Bailey yesterday told The Australian many in the aviation community believed Australian authorities were under pressure from Malaysia to stick with the “pilot hypoxia” theory because the alternative “rogue pilot” theory would be awkward for the Malaysian government since it could mean Zaharie took the plane and the lives of 239 people including his own in an act of political protest.
Zaharie was a strong supporter of Malaysian opposition figure Anwar Ibrahim’s People’s Justice Party, and a relative.
A day before the doomed flight on March 8, 2014, Zaharie is believed to have attended Anwar’s court hearing that overturned his 2012 acquittal on sodomy charges, in what is widely seen as a politically motivated case.
“I have friends that say: ‘I smell a rat.’ ” Captain Bailey said.
“It could be a political act, and that would be embarrassing for the Malaysian government.”
While Australian authorities, in conjunction with Malaysian and Chinese officials, are co-ordinating the search for MH370, under international law Malaysia is responsible for the investigation. The search area was last month adjusted and now includes the area Captain Hardy identified as the likely resting place based on the controlled-ditching thesis.
Air Transport Safety Bureau spokesman Dan O’Malley said the authority was standing by its preferred unconscious aircrew theory. “The limited evidence available for MH370 was compared with three accident classes: an in-flight upset, an unresponsive crew/hypoxia event, and a glide event (generally characterised by a pilot-controlled glide),” Mr O’Malley said in a statement to The Australian.
“The final stages of the ‘unresponsive crew/hypoxia’ event-type appeared to best fit the available evidence for the final period of MH370’s flight when it was heading in a generally southerly direction.”
Not long into its flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, radio contact was lost with MH370, and its radar transponder signal disappeared, but Malaysian military radar tracked the plane flying back over Malaysia, including Zaharie’s home island of Penang, before turning south towards the Southern Ocean, where electronic satellite “handshake” data from the aircraft indicates it flew.
Captain Bailey says this shows the aircraft was under pilot control well after communications were lost, because had the pilots lost consciousness through hypoxia, the autopilot would have continued the track to Beijing.
Captain Bailey also said an Australian government source had told him the FBI believed Zaharie hijacked the aircraft.
@StevenG
My two posts have not mentioned the IG, nor am I part of that group. I was not commenting on any IG model.
The DSTG model doesn’t assume a straight line course, but it does assume that MH370 flew in the same way as other commercial aircraft in normal enroute navigation and derived statistical models of manoeuvres on that basis. If the aircraft was not flown in that way (for example its path employed continuous turns or continuous change of speed or 360 degree turns, or similar) it will not be applicable. The curiosity remains, of course,that such ‘odd’ paths would give the same BTO values as much simpler, straighter courses.
@StevanG
Richard has heard all that before. I actually regret bringing it up again. It is pointless. While I agree with those who eschew motive when there is an ensemble of motives to chose from. It really does fall into the “who cares” category in that case. It is when there is no plausible motive or causality to assign that I would personally struggle with promulgating a theory of the terminus. It is no longer a high road in that case.
@Victor Iannello: I have never failed to support the IG’s work – nor have I ever mistakenly assumed they spoke with one voice. Nor have I ever, to my knowledge, expressed anything but fervent appreciation for your work – both within this forum, and in frequent private correspondence. I thank you again publicly for your patient and vital assistance.
I addressed the IG in this forum because this is the best public MH370 forum we have. You responded on their behalf – appropriate, I thought, because your name appears in the credits of the IG reports I’m trying to understand.
All I’ve ever sought is the truth. This pursuit should never cause animosity among scientists. I apologize for any errors in tone I may have made.
But all IG members affixed their names to a report stating the following:
“We doubt that a pilot would select 400kts, and a lower altitude to match, regardless of the motivation.”
…and
“Our analysis of the expected range and flight time endurance for cruise at normal altitudes and speeds, taking account of the reported initial fuel load, take-off mass and non-standard atmospheric temperatures, strongly supports our most-probable end point.” (s38, e89)
The IG argued persuasively – it sure persuaded me – that s38 was indicated by the combination of signal and fuel data.
The IG – as a group, or as individuals – are of course free to reverse their positions. Heck, it’s not even a reversal, if an IG member were to say: “look, slow paths with a gentle curve made no sense to us a year ago – from either a CAD or a fuel perspective – but given the search results to date, we now feel it’s less unlikely than a piloted end game, northern routes, or inauthentic signal data.”
And I am aware of the chasm of difference between publishing a report arguing for a search priority, and privately rejecting all three possibilities I list; two of those three are beyond the reach of the Fugro ships, anyway.
And the IG – as a whole, or in part – is free – encouraged, in fact – to come up with inventive new ways (e.g. altitude) to rationalize away the fuel and speed problems which have always dogged ithe curved scenarios. Bravo for creative thinking.
All I seek is clearer wording in the preamble, so that readers aren’t led to believe that the chronic fuel problem is somehow resolved by “extra distance” which does not in fact exist. I will pursue with Duncan directly, per your suggestion.
@Brock
I’ve had issues from time to time with IG people. Most notably Exner relative to his BFO “manifestos” and his “logic” relative to the constrained AP dynamic. Also Duncan’s recent rant relative to the CSIRO data (which supported his then current views), and labeled questioners as “infidels” certainly rubbed me the wrong way.
Still, I have a high regard for their competence and their sincerity. I have never had much regard for their terminal analytics.
There are two general methodologies to addressing the MH370 mystery — a top-down analysis or a bottoms-up analysis.
The top-down approach starts with an excellent plane that should have made its way to Beijing without a problem — except for human intervention. This approach assumes the plane flies exactly to design performance with all systems fully functional. Anything out of the ordinary is conveniently assigned to human fault. Most analyses use the top-down approach with all known B777 performance and specific flight data. Unsurprisingly, the results are quite similar with terminals down near 38 degrees South. It’s a neat and tidy solution. And simply proving to be wrong.
The bottoms-up approach starts with a seriously compromised plane that should have ended up in the waters off Vietnam — except for human intervention. Everything non-functional can be assigned to multiple system failures and only efforts by the pilots and Boeing engineers kept the plane aloft in the face of insurmountable odds. There was unlikely any attempt to fly at the most efficient speeds and altitudes nor pay heed to a cost index; MH370 was one very broken airplane. The remainder of the flight is only a battle for mere survival, conducted first by pilots and then by automation. Probabilities now favor this approach.
It’s time to use the bottoms-up approach to solve this intractable puzzle and find the plane. Airline passengers past and future demand no less.
Bruce,
Yes, you are absolutely correct except that the time for the second approach started roughly a year ago.
Most of the accidents in the modern aviation happen because of technical failures or environmental factors followed by incorrect human response. There is general misunderstanding about low probability. Yes, accident rate is low, 1 to 4.5 mln in average for major airlines. But the issue is that in this case something has happened “for sure”, so one needs to look at the probability of technical failures among the accidents (including hijacking, suicides, etc.), but not among all the “healthy” flights.
While IG is lost in their defense strategy, and while other “not-as-smart” scientists and engineers are trying to decipher what IG was trying to say, there is a very interesting case of EY440 on Jan 7 2016, noted by Sajid.
——-
Regular flight EY440:
Aircraft: A330-200
Origin: Ho Chi Minh, VN
Destination: Abu Dhabi, UAE
Departure schedule: 19:50 UTC+7
Average departure time: 20:02 UTC+7
Arrival schedule: 00:30 UTC+4
Flight duration: 7:30 to 8 hrs
Flight distance: 3525 miles / 5674 km.
——-
This flight:
Aircraft: Airbus A330-200
Departure time: 20:13 UTC+7
Arrival time: 05:25 UTC+4
Flight duration: 12:11 hrs
Stopover in Mumbai for refueling.
Brief description:
Shortly after takeoff EY440 made 90 deg turn to the south in relation to regular flight route. From the middle of the Gulf of Thailand its trajectory coincided with the trajectory of MH370. It flew over the same zig-zag border, passed by Penang, and reached the mid of Malacca Strait. After that it made 3 (!) small-radius loops, and then flew along the coastline of Malay Peninsula, and then over the Andaman Sea towards Mumbai:
flightradar24.com/data/flights/EY440/#878b38f
No accident/incident was subsequently reported by Etihad or in media.
The landing at Mumbai was explained by Etihad as the need in refueling. Which is nonsense given such a path.
I can’t think of any other logical explanation besides an experiment was conducted in relation to MH370: BFO, radars, or fuel performance. Inmarsat is a geostationary satellite, meaning that period of its oscillations should be approximately 24 hours, which is roughly consistent with MH370. Flight duration is also consistent with MH370. Why Etihad? Perhaps the experiment was pre-planned based on similar conditions, and minimization of its cost.
@Oleksandr
The case of EY440 on 7 Jan is bizarre. It’s also incredible for no reporting by any media outlet (that I have found) in contrast to the relatively benign issue of the MAS departure from NZ over Christmas.
EY440’s flight is described by: ANHOA L637 BITOD M765 (via IGARI) VKB B129 VPG G468 GUNIP (holding, then direct to) VPL B579 PUT L515 OBMOG L301 SADUS … onward to Bombay (“traced” from FR24). A deviation from its normal flight path of more than 500nm. Any suggestion that it was avoiding Thai airspace conflicts with 250nm of flight through the Bangkok FIR after passing VPL.
:Don
Isn’t Etihad run by a guy called Sir Tim Clark – who has had a fair bit to say about MH370????
Don,
Re: Any suggestion that it was avoiding Thai airspace conflicts with 250nm of flight through the Bangkok FIR after passing VPL.
Unless this was also an object of investigation.
EY440 does not need to avoid Thai airspace at all, unless some circumstances forced it to do so. But was EY440 authorised to enter Malaysian airspace if this was not a part of experiment?
Is there any way to download digital data from flightradar?
@Matty – Perth
Sir Tim Clark is the president of EMIRATES.
It remembers on EY23 a little over a year ago. A planned 7 hour flight from Abu Dhabi to Duesseldorf (Germany) that needed a duration of over 30 hours to reach his destination.
All of a sudden right before Take-Off in Abu Dhabi EY23 couldn´t start because of fog and the passengers were waited 13 hours in this aircraft before this flight started. Right over Europe an passenger died on an heart attack and EY23 made a stopover in Vienna.
After over 30 hours EY23 landed safely in Duesseldorf. All people on board were totally exausted and some of the passengers described this flight as “pure chaos”.
The Airline said :”There had been an unprecedented level of flight disruptions, we feel so sorry for that….”.
It seems “Chaos” isn´t nothing new for ETIHAD AIRWAYS.
@Oleksandr
Take a look….
https://it.flightaware.com/live/flight/ETD440/history/20160107/1250Z/VVTS/OMAA/tracklog
It seems EY440 flew on FL360 and with lower groundspeed on B216 (Kota Bharu – Penang) compared with MH370.
EY440 flew loops over the straight of Malacca for nearly an hour.
I’ve reached out to Etihad public relations and asked for an explanation. I’ll post their response as soon as I have it. In the meantime, if someone can figure out how to take a screenshot movie from FlightAware or FlightRadar24 that would be invaluable.
@jeffwise
Try screencastify on google chrome.
LouVilla – oops, close, no cigar
@Bruce Robertson
“There was unlikely any attempt to fly at the most efficient speeds and altitudes nor pay heed to a cost index; MH370 was one very broken airplane. The remainder of the flight is only a battle for mere survival, conducted first by pilots and then by automation. Probabilities now favor this approach.”
MH370 didn’t need to be broken for it to be flown at not really efficient speed and altitude… we don’t know what Captain’s motivation was, I’m quite sure certainly not to take the plane to Beijing
LouVilla,
Great, thanks.
Yes, it appears EY440 was cycling at FL360 for 1 hour or even longer… there is a gap in the data of ~2.5 hr, which makes timing suspiciously similar to MH370 in terms of matching satellite position and velocity (my guess).
I bet EY440 had no permission to fly through thailand airspace on whatever reasons.
After nearly one hour of flying loops over the Straight of Malacca they received finally permission to cross the Thailand airspace but the proceedings lasted to long and EY440 burned to much fuel in the meantime. So, this flight needed an stopover in Mumbai.
I can imagine it must be to embarrassing for Etihad Airways to talk about this incident.
LouVilla,
No. A regular route of EY440 is through Thailand, and moreover just in the proximity to Bangkok. They didn’t require a special permit to enter Thai airspace. Unless it was closed for whatever reason and EY440 was not informed in advance, this could not happen. In the worst case they would return back to Ho Chi Minh, or cycled near it waiting for the clearance.
@Oleksandr
Help me out here. When the plane was wandering around the Malacca Strait it was already past Thai airspace. I can’t make sense out of what you are suggesting.
@DennisW: Do you think the DSTG stochastic model would have predicted the path taken by EY440? (Rhetorical question.)
@Victor
I think it (DSTG model) would need a lot tweaking…
As a general observation modeling human behavior has proved to be very difficult. 🙂
@VictorI, @DennisW: I think this question is actually worth diving into. Back in mid-2014 a considerable amount of time was spent looking at scenarios in which MH370 lingered somewhere north of Banda Aceh (or even attempted a landing there) as a way of killing time so as to produce a slower average speed in order to wind up north of Broken Ridge. Once the ATSB agreed that a “Final Major Turn” scenario fit the data better, as proposed by the IG, this kind of lingering went out the window. But maybe it’s back? To address Victor’s rhetorical question, the DSTG’s model obviously wouldn’t predict circling over the Malacca Strait, but perhaps a more constraint-relaxed one like early ATSB models, which allowed the plane to be anywhere on the 19:40 arc, would allow room for EY440’s ultimate path.
@Everybody, I just had a long chat with Etihad’s US PR person, explained why the official Etihad tweet didn’t really satisfy our curiosity, she’s going to check with the higher ups and let me know what they say, hopefully tomorrow.
Dennis,
What I meant is that a regular EY440 heads directly towards Bangkok after takeoff. Via Cambodia, approximately NW.
Going SSW up to the mid of Malacca immediately after takeoff only for the purpose of waiting there for the permission to enter Thai airspace doesn’t make sense to me. In addition this would have to be agreed with Malaysian traffic controllers. Why would they opt for this?
Thanks Oleksandr.
@LouVilla
I agree, sounds sensible.