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.
@Jeff: “MH370 lingered somewhere north of Banda Aceh”
In March 2014, I suggested an orbit of the northern Malacca Strait followed by a continuously curved path to the southeast. It’s been difficult to gain much traction in such a theory in the face of exquisite calculations pointing to the SIO. At this point, however, any serious search effort must consider such a possibility.
@Bruce Robertson
I think I can remember that…IIRC it was the circular path that (provided enough fuel) would end right at KLIA…
@StevenG: “circular path”
Actually, I termed it an exponential spiral as it had an ever-increasing radius.
Re EY440.
Given the recent reports of several planes performing erratic detours, what about outside interference?
Is someone or something uploading corrupted flight paths, sending planes straying off course?
The holding pattern could indicate the crew reprogramming to a valid flight path after unauthorized diversion.
Any thoughts?
MuOne,
In this case it would be treated as an attempt of hijacking, and we would read a lot of stories about happy ending and brave actions of the crew.
Oleksandr,
Or, THAT is what’s being obscured.
Imagine the catastrophic loss of faith in air travel by all PAX of the world, if there was such a thing.
@Bruce
Your “spiral” comment resonated with me, and I decided to post something that is not ready for prime time (disclaimer, disclaimer, disclaimer,…) In any case I have been playing around with this for awhile, but it needs a lot more work to automate the process, and eliminate sighting errors. There may also be some residual propagator mistakes.
http://tmex1.blogspot.com
MuOne,
Bad flight plan, just like MH132 a couple of weeks ago, was my first guess. Inadvertent, but if you continue it, you end up at Reunion Island (and after that Johannesburg.) Pilot only realized it after crossing Malaysian Peninsula, circled for an hour to figure out what to do next. Never mind that Etihad doesn’t fly any routes in that direction.
Should anyone be interested, the CEO of Etihad is Al Baker.
Re: EY440
The MH132 incident out of Auckland was explained as the correct flight downloaded to the FMS but the wrong one with ATC.
I’d be seriously worried if the Etihad crew flew this bizarre route for EY440 in error.
The reaction of the DCA Lumpur Radar controllers and the RMAF ‘MADGE’ operators would be of interest.
Jeff: eagerly awaiting update back from Etihad, thanks for picking this up.
Oops!
I knew I was ahead of myself. Found an error in how D2 is handled while searching for something else. Satellite motion is not treated correctly. It is fixable. Stay tuned, and please forgive me for jumping the gun.
BTW, the net effect of the error is to make aircraft speeds too low. So the fix should “unbend” the depicted paths substantially.
GuardedDon,
“I’d be seriously worried if the Etihad crew flew this bizarre route for EY440 in error.”
Exactly my point.
What if MH370 had wrong plan loaded. Crew checks last way point to be PEK. Accepts plan and takes off.
Thing is, last point could have been PER. “R” and “K” can easily be confused on a digital display.
Crew engages A/P after climb and it throws around the plane…
So maybe this was “hack” via a modified flight plan of the normal one which may have had embedded instructions to turn off communications of all kinds.
@DennisW,
Your work looks promising. I look forward to seeing your next revision.
Quite more interesting is….
1.)….the fact that MH370 flew for nearly 400 Kilometers on route N571 as the FO had flown 7 days earlier on his MH6-Flight from Kuala Lumpur to Frankfurt, Germany, on March 1st. His last flight before MH370.
Graphic :
http://fs5.directupload.net/images/160112/mwliv2md.jpg
Maybe his short-term memory didn´t work anymore under hypoxic condition but his long-term memory did. That´s why he could thought he should fly MH370 to Frankfurt under emergency before he lost his consciousness.
Pilot´s who suffering hypoxia could doing stupid things.
But why the turn @IGOGU (IG Richard Godfrey-Version) ?
On Route N571 to Frankfurt, after IGOGU, we have the waypoints “BIKEN” and “IDASO”. An Pilot who is suffering hypoxia might easily mixed up “BIKEN” with “BEDAX” and “IDASO” with “ISBIX”.
2.)…the fact that MH370 flew on 26th February from Kuala Lumpur to Amsterdam.
Maybe this flightplan was still stored in the FMS and one of the pilots might activated this flightplan under hypoxic conditions and 1.) comes into place.
@MuOne
Concerning flight plan: the flight plan used by the FMS describes a route by a series of waypoints. ATC cleared MH370 from its standard departure plan to fly straight to IGARI, the crew’s action would have been to set the FMS to fly an intercept with the pre-planned route at IGARI. The route includes many intermediate waypoints to ZBAA/PEK (tracking wide of Hainan Island, for example) so a mistyped PEK/PER would have implied an erroneous turn at the penultimate waypoint no when LNAV was engaged.
In addition to Jeff’s request for information from Etihad Might I suggest that readers trawl social media (Facebook pages, Twitter, Instagram) for posts related to travellers on EY440. Facebook “checkins” at SGN, Mumbai, Abu Dhabi, by pax on the flight, etc. A perfect opportunity for some crowdsourced investigation.
:Don
LouVilla,
The graphic and associated statement are erroneous with regard to MH370.
GuardedDon,
Excellent idea re croudsourcing.
Re flight plan, my thinking is that a wrong flight plan with many way points could have been uploaded, but not recognized by the crew. Such a wrong flight plan could include the first few correct waypoints to IGARI but end in PER. Crew scrolls through first few waypoints, recognising all fine to IGARI, then scrolls to the end and sees PER as PEK and is satisfied, all is in order.
Maybe they “hand flew” for a long time, expecting to get clearance for the requested new altitude, then programmed the intercept to IGARI and finally engaged the A/P after that. At IGARI, the A/P does its thing and follows the wrong flight plan, waypoints to follow the track as per the radar data around Penang, through the Malacca Straight and then South.
MH132 is a precedence for a discrepancy between FMS and ATC flight paths, undetected until way into the flight.
Such a sudden unexpected change of flight path could easily serve as a decoy, create crew disorientation, chaos, for some hijackers to take control, switch off communications, etc. etc. Or, the crew, recognizing the “hack”, trying to regain control by turning off, re-booting things.
Re EY440, @MuOne – I suspect @Oleksandr was suggesting attempted physical hijacking as a potential “cover story” for electronic/remote interference. The problem with that though would be the passengers needing to be ‘bought into the tent’ – i.e. such a cover story would surely imply visible nefarious action initiated from the cabin – therefore witnessed by pax – therefore backed up in interviews re the ‘heroics’, etc.
In the (unlikely?) event of something fishy, this would perhaps explain a preference for obscurity rather than said cover story (and indeed only the flight crew need be ‘in the tent’).
Prompts me to ask though, have any EY440 passengers mentioned any on-board explanation from the pilots?
@DennisW
your few last blogposts are interesting; ya, enemies making mistakes; this is it, IMHO
R.E. EY440, another aircraft, EY9937 (cargo) diverted to Hanoi the same day; then to Abu Dhabi. Common theme is that both avoided Thai airspace. Someone (can’t refind the post) claimed it was because Etihad didn’t have permit to overfly.
Here’s one thread of comments:
https://twitter.com/flightradar24/status/685191879361703941
OT, but Air France did yesterday last regular flight of 747; I can imagine that when lifetime of it will be ending together with spare parts production, some plane can replace even Air Force One; and then, why not 777 as prooven and probably most realiable thing ever; watch the wonderful 5x1h documentary “Jet for the 21 century” on youtube
@Bruce
The “propagator” is very crude, and will never be a tool used to guide a search. You need the detailed analytics of the type done by Richard Godfrey (and others) for that. The motivation for tinkering with a propagator was to explore the general sensitivity of flight path to starting point on the 19:40 arc. I have long felt that the ambiguity of this starting point is the weakest link in all of the calculations performed to date (by everyone – me, IG, SSWG, DTSG, and others). The propagator is not going to provide a “eureka” experience.
Dennis,
Sorry, you are wrong. Perhaps you forgot that quite a few of us follow residual minimization approach, which is indifferent to starting point.
@sk999, Thanks, good catch! I’ve emailed my Etihad contact to see if she could shed some light.
@Oleksandr
I might be wrong. It happens a lot, BTW. However, it is unlikely that I forgot what most of you are doing.
A simple way to look at it is as follows. Suppose you have your path all nice and minimized for a speed, S, and a heading theta. Then you move your starting point one degree North on 19:40 ring. Your heading, theta, will have to drift Eastward to arrive at the 20:40 ring on time or your speed, S, will have to increase. Take your pick. It is one or the other or a combination of both.
MuOne – hacking ticked a lot of boxes and was looked at here a few times over a year ago and a heap of crunchers kicked sand at it predictably, even after the exploits of Ruben Santamarta and others were presented, but at that stage it was still a BFO frenzy and people were positioning for the trophy. I agree – if this Etihad plane(CEO Al Baker)plane did an involuntary diversion you would not be reading about it.
@DennisW
If the speed and starting point are highly correlated, can one use your calculated 408 knot speed at 19:40 to then determine the starting point? And then the rest of the flightpath?
(Off topic)
I got inspired by a twitter convo with Ed Baker (@edward_767) about the cockpit door.
My google search came up with the following links:
(Add http colon slash slash etc.)
37000feet.com/report/597055/B777-200-crew-found-the-meled-fortified-cockpit-door-could-be-opened-from
smartcockpit.com/docs/B777-Airplane_General_and_Emergency_Equipment
The first link is purporting to be a 777 crew failure report extracted from a nasa database about an inoperative dead bolt mechanism, which was unrepairable, at least in the short term.
If MH370 had a similar problem, a lot of people (crew, maintenance personnel, supervisors) would have known about it and word could have gotten out to the wrong people. Question is, how prevalent are such failures? Does it happen often enough to make a “plan and wait for it, then act” approach viable?
The second link has a graphic about the cockpit door security features on page 1.30.14. Features of note are
– lower break away panel allowing emergency egress
– panel is held by SHEAR pins (emphasis mine)
– openable compression panels, alas secured by security grills
The doc states “shear pins retract from break away panel when levers rotate down”
Reading between the lines, (shear pins are designed to be shearable, i.e. disintegrate under force and release whatever they otherwise hold in place) one could argue that a sufficient impact force applied to the right door area from the passenger side could shear those pins and release the break away panel, providing access to the cockpit with dead bolts in place.
A second, less violent, option would be to remove the compression panels and reach through the security grid (might need appropriate tools) to rotate the shear pin levers to release the break away panel.
Matty,
I also thought then (and still doo) that the hacking angle should be explored much more than it was/is.
DO (darn)!
@Bruce
No. The Doppler shift produced by aircraft motion at the position of the satellite is not a sensitive function of the position of the aircraft on the 19:40 ring. The Doppler shift is dominated by the speed and heading of the aircraft. The 408 knot speed is minimally required at a heading of 180 degrees. Headings on either side of 180 degrees would require a higher speed to produce the observed Doppler shift.
@DennisW: If you are able to derive continuous curves for the BTO and BFO functions using the measured data at discrete points, then theoretically knowing the position at 19:41 uniquely determines the path of the plane. You can think of the BTO at each time as describing the arc, and the BFO represents the rate of change of latitude. So the BFO can theoretically be integrated to determine the latitude at each time, which combined with an arc, defines a position at each time. The integration constant for the BFO function is therefore related to the latitude at 19:41. This is similar to the way Henrik and Neils are generating paths.
However, it’s not as easy as it may sound. First, we don’t know the latitude at 19:41. Second, we only approximately know the BFO function due to measurement error. Third, even if we knew the BFO exactly at ping times, there is no guarantee we are correctly interpolating for other times. Fourth, any vertical velocity will drastically change the BFO relationships.
Victor
@Victor
Totally agree with all that. I have become OK with holding altitude constant. The analytics become meaningless if you have to use ROC as a bandaid for a solution or wonder if it is a corrupting factor. Of the issues above I would regard the latitude at 19:41, and the BFO drift as the real nasties in the mix.
The BFO is useful for eliminating a Northern path. Beyond that, I just don’t know. I was spoiled integrating Doppler in a previous life. You don’t miss a cesium until you don’t have one. 🙂
Dennis,
The main concept of a residual minimization approach is that initial conditions are also “optimized” to minimize the value of a target functional.
In other words you may start from the 7th (or 6th) arc, integrate backward in order to hit 19:41 arc. The residual minimization approach is symmetrical with regard to this.
However, one of the main issues is whether 18:40 BFO should be included or not. So far I didn’t include it for the following reason.
If MH370 was cycling for 1 hour in the same way as EY440 did, 18:40 BFO might be irrelevant. But why would MH370 be cycling for 1 hour? First we need to know the answer why EY440 was cycling also for 1 hour, and also in the same place.
ATSB update
http://www.atsb.gov.au/mh370-pages/updates/operational-update.aspx
The new shipwreck site was picked up in mid-December by Harmony. Harmony’s scan pattern at that time does not suggest investigation of a target from the previous tow-fish work. That a whole ship was missed (for whatever reason) by the tow-fish scanning indicstes the size of gaps that the AUV is now plugging.
A few days ago, there was a discussion about a controlled ditching end of flight scenario.
The main argument against it was that it would not explain the SDU restart.
However it might be possible to explain it :
On impact with water both engines are severed from the aircraft. This leads to a loss of power on both AC transfer busses. The SDU loses power. The APU then automatically starts (regardless of APU selector position).
If the ditching is successful, the airplane stops in more or less one piece and floats (supposedly indefinitely according to the manual).
The pitot probes are under water so the pressure they send to ADIRU ultimately used to calculate deltaFcomp are wrong.
After a few minutes the crew finishes the check list and pulls APU Fire Switch which shuts down power to SDU for good.
Richard Cole – How do you read this?
““On December 19, 2015, an anomalous sonar contact was identified in the course of the underwater search, with analysis suggesting the object was likely to be man-made, probably a shipwreck,” said the Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC).
One of three ships searching for MH370, Havila Harmony, used an autonomous underwater vehicle to further examine the find and captured high-resolution sonar imagery.
Sounds like it was a routine detection that was followed up? I haven’t looked at the report yet…..
@Matty
See my post a few hours ago. It seems that later analysis of data from the first pass by Harmony+AUV in December triggered the contact. Harmony travelled back at the start of January to rescan the area in detail, presumably at closer range.
See pages 1 and 8 of
https://www.dropbox.com/s/dskl2o1g3vsfagt/Search-status-current.pdf?dl=0
The SDU uses groundspeed obtained from inertial sensors or GPS, i.e. not affected by pitot error.
@Oleksandr
Likewise, with respect to 18:40 and earlier. I don’t use that data at all anymore.
Perhaps MH370 was circling for about 53 mins to dump and burn fuel for a safer landing at one of the airports / military bases nearby the Malacca Straight ..
@MH
then it wouldn’t have enough fuel left to reach 7th arc (regarding dump)
MH,
You start copying/pasting 1-year old discussions.. yes, under technical failure scenario that is what they likely attempted to do. The question remains whether this B777 had fuel dumping facility or not – so far I was unable to find answer.
StevanG,
No, they had enough fuel if the didn’t succeed in dumping.
Sinux,
How do you imagine a restart of APU in a partially or fully submerged fuselage with torn away engines and flaperons? Where does APU take oxygen? Salty water would cause short circuits. AES does not need to know ambient air pressure or airspeed to compute Doppler compensation. Why would not crew switch on APU before flame out to avoid power interruption? Why would they need to switch it off later? Finally, why do you need such an exotic scenario to explain this SDU reboot?
@StevenG, @Oleksandr
They may have hit the 7th arc while circling and dumping in the Gulf of Thailand. May have made it to the eastern Malaysia or an island close off shore.
MH,
Then Innmarsat data and military radar data would be wrong. In addition, it is not clear how the flaperon could reach Reunion in such a case. And you discard everything, what are reasons to think MH370 was cycling in the Gulf of Thailand and ended at the 7th arc?
@Oleksandr,
the drift models show it is possible for the flaperon to reach Reunion from some where near the 7th arc of SCS/GoT. Not saying Inmarsat data wrong, but can be applied to this scenario..RADAR I’ve seen seems suspect.
MH,
Theoretically yes, the flaperon could travel from SCS through the Singapore or Bali Straits. Unnoticed. Although I am very sceptical about this. Could you please remind what drift studies are you referring to?
Also, please elaborate how Inmarsat data could be applied to this case? So far radar data were consistent with Inmarsat.