There have been a number of interesting developments in MH370 land:
NEW MH370 PATH ANALYSIS by frequent commenter sk999 has impressed a lot of the old hands. Using somewhat different statistical techniques than the ATSB and IG before him, sk999 analyzes the Inmarsat data to assess where the plane would wind up under various autopilot modes. His results generally jibe with his predecessors’ work and add more weight to the idea that if the ATSB really believes that the plane was flying on autopilot-only, they would be better served by searching further to the north along the arc, beyond the limits of the current search box (though not north of Broken Ridge), rather than further away from the 7th arc as currently planned. What’s also notable, in my opinion, is sk999’s very clear elucidation of the problems with the routes that he assesses; for instance, he points out that all of the routes have problems accounting for speed inconsistencies in the 90 minutes between the fifth and sixth ping. These discrepencies are too large to be easily explained away as being due to inaccuracies in the winds-aloft data. Sk999’s frankness about these issues is refreshing; in the past, there has often been a tendency by those describing possible routes to adopt a position of, “Hey, here’s a route I came up with, it works really well, take my word for it.” (I’m probably as guilty of this as anyone.)
NAJIB IS IN TROUBLE and at last it looks like he may have to go. Is it possible that his ouster will lead to disclosures about what really happened in the aftermath of MH370’s disappearance? In a report last year, ICAO offered an uncharasterically harsh assessment of Malaysian government interference in the search process. Among their most glaring sins: allowing the search to proceed in the South China Sea for a week even though the military had spotted the plane turning toward the Andaman Sea the night of the disappearance; refusing to pass along crucial Inmarsat data to Australian officials who were tasked with searching the ocean for the plane; and lying about the determination that the flaperon had come from MH370 (it did, but that hadn’t yet been determined at that point). What the heck??
THE ATSB zinged airline pilot Byron Bailey, who wrote an error-filled article in the newspaper The Australian arguing that the only possible explanation for the disappearance of MH370 was pilot suicide. The ATSB had never before gone after an article in such detail before; they didn’t even touch Clive Irving’s piece in the Daily Beast, which was much worse (but which, on the other hand, was friendlier to the ghost-ship scenario that the ATSB still favors.) Personally I think it’s great to see the ATSB engage with the media coverage in this way; there’s too much nonsense about MH370 being peddled in the general media. Bailey responded to the ATSB critique with a second piece in The Australian.
THE ATSB ALSO perked up my ears with their response to an inquiry from reader Susie Crowe, who asked ATSB spokesman Dan O’Malley whether the Australians had received information from the French regarding their investigation into the Réunion Island flaperon. O’Malley replied, “The ATSB looks forward to receiving the report on the flaperon from the French judicial authorities, once it is completed.” In other words, Australia is spending over $100 million in taxpayer money to dispatch search crews to one of the most difficult and dangerous stretches of ocean in the world, and the French have not even shared with them information about the flaperon that might indicate whether or not they are looking in the right place! To which I might add: !!!!!!
Lumping Saudi and Malaysia in the same basket is pretty ridiculous. Malaysia is multi-ethnic, multi-religious, relatively modern and far more open. A tourist destination for Christ’s sake!
And if someone is prone to think so myopically, I would seriously begin to doubt the reasoning for any ‘pet theory’ they might have.
It seems some have never ventured out of their backyards, or at least allowed their minds to do so.
@Oleksandr
I have met some Malaysians and all of them told me the same story, it’s basically a dictatorship with corruption and nepotism all around.
Isn’t the same party on power for like half a century? It’s just democracy show for the outer world and all elections are bought/rigged.
In such circumstances where noone is held accountable for anything you can’t expect professionalism.
@Sajid UK
Malaysia records barely twice as much visits as S. Arabia which is basically a desert. It is a tourist destination but internally it’s another story.
Now tell us who was responsible for MH370 disappearance and letting it go over malay peninsula?! Anybody?! If it was a first world country PM would likely resign together with airforce commanders. It was totally unacceptable.
Dennis,
Re “Earlier you stated that you thought the ATSB was doing a good job relative to the conduct of the search. My initial reaction was to wonder how I could get a job where I could get a good performance rating without producing any results.”
I can’t recall I said ATSB was doing a good job; what I said is that I support their approach and actions. At least until their recent “robotic” decision to extent width of the search zone.
If you were a leed of this investigation in ATSB, what things would you do in a different way and why? Of course, now, for example, you can say a lot of money were wasted for the air search by Malaysia and Australia, first in the Gulf of Thailand, then in the Adman Sea, then in the SIO, which did not bring any results. But where would you search in March-April 2014? Near CI because Australia is a democratic country?
You can say ATSB is searching in a wrong area now. I also can. Everybody can. But where would you shift it? What would be your search strategy?
P.S. ISAT data don’t tell us that “The plane was near the equator at 19:40 flying generally South at speed of around 450 knots.” Proximity to the equator follows from the radar data, while nothing is certain about velocity. How do you know the speed if you don’t know what was vertical component at that time? We even don’t know for sure if AES and ADIRU were functioning properly. Postulating yours #1, you are implicitly making a number of assumptions.
Oleksandr:
“what is relation between bank angle and horizontal rate of turn?”
That relation depends on true air speed (TAS). You can work that out with the equations id this article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_rate_turn
@StevanG
“rape…arms robbery…drugs” … I dont want to judge them; contrary to this, we have mass murderer Breivik laughing at us and complaining from luxury prison about human rights… something is wrong
@Matty – Perth:
“….so why go all the way to IGARI?”
I would agree, it doesn’t make sense. In the ‘Political demands’ scenario whoever contemplated taking those steps would know that the consequences could be, at the best, political asylum, loss of home life, income and career, and in the worst case, a long term of imprisonment. So it would likely be planned carefully, and in advance – not a spur-of-the-moment decision caused by Anwar – and didn’t his wife/brother-in-law say that the Captain, although off work, didn’t attend the trial?
If you really needed to be west, best opportunity would be to wait until you are rostered on a 7am/8am weekday flight to Northern Europe (more fuel, and already heading west) with the whole day ahead of you. Set up into a holding pattern outside of radar range west of Aceh and have your friends of like mind send pre-prepared statements and demands to MAS, the MYG, news agencies, local, national and social media. You’d want both attention and sympathy, and the longest bargaining period possible. Your demands could be in the local and world news by 9am. ‘Yellow shirt’ protests on the streets also, perhaps, as local MY people heard the news.
Keep your transponder and radios on – you don’t want a collision, let KLATC keep you safe. You’re not likely to be shot down unless you threaten people/property on the ground. Hold SATphone calls with the media during the day to explain your demands. You’d want publicity, but of the positive type.
So why do it at zero-silly-hours on a flight East (lost an hour’s + fuel already) when everyone is asleep (including the MYG – more bargaining time lost while they get themselves up and back into MAS) and without any statements/demands to the local/world/social media? And why be stealthy? Why take the risk of collision?
And what would your demands be? The moment you threatened the lives of your passengers you would stop being a ‘Political activist / fighter for democracy’ and instead become a ‘Terrorist’. The MYG could simply say ‘We will not set a precedent by giving into terrorist demands’.
Your plan (b)? – To land somewhere that’s ‘neutral’, democratic and therefore sympathetic, and has no extradition agreement with MY – and release the passengers? That would be the best outcome for the MYG, and one not needing a cover-up or any intervention from them. They could simply refuse your demands, wait until you have to land, and then tell the truth. Passengers freed and on their way home, aircraft returned to service without damage, Captain being pursued for return to MY to face trial.
But no demands made to the media, or to MAS / the MYG, and no landing – as far as we know. And no communications at all.
@Matty – Perth: IGARI is on the other hand, the likely first chance Hamid had to take the controls.
Good point. But shares the same ‘problems’ as the ‘Captain’ theory. More so perhaps since the FO was on the establishment side of things and well-connected with a good career/marriage/life ahead of him. Not political, as far as we know – the Status Quo was good for him.
Sajid UK,
Can’t agree more with what you said.
In my personal subjective rating Malaysians are the most friendly nation. I haven’t seen “dictatorship with corruption and nepotism all around” as StevanG described it.
Gysbreght,
Thanks, usual balance of forces. I expected rudder to have some impact.
StevanG,
You said “Now tell us who was responsible for MH370 disappearance and letting it go over malay peninsula?! Anybody?! If it was a first world country PM would likely resign together with airforce commanders.”
So, in case of successful landing on CI in accordance to the motive of your scenario, would Australian PM Tony Abbott resign together with his air defense commanders?
@Oleksandr
A direct quote from you below.
“Nothing went wrong with the search; I am a strong supporter of ATSB actions, and I would do exactly the same.”
So you did not say they were doing a good job, but you do say you would do exactly the same thing. That is even worse. You don’t think they are doing a good job, but you would not change a thing? Do you have nay idea how stupid that sounds?
Do not imply that I am taking advantage of recent events. I have been opposed to starting an acoustic search long before it was initiated, and I can bring up many posts to support that statement. That is more misinformation coming from you, and I will not tolerate it.
“Search strategy” is an oxymoron. There can be no strategy associated with searching anywhere based on the data we have. The best course of action would be to wait for debris to be found (like the flaperon). Get the detailed information that debris can provide, both drift modeling and damage forensics, and then make a decision relative to what that debris implies. That decision may or may not be to begin an acoustic search.
“Proximity to the equator follows from the radar data”???
What are you talking about? We don’t have any radar data. If you have radar data please share it with the rest of us.
As far as speed is concerned, both Brian Anderson and I computed what the minimum speed had to be to produce the observed Doppler residual using two different methods. The results agreed almost perfectly. Brian’s method would be almost completely immune to corruption by vertical velocity.
@StevanG
Malaysia isn’t Japan, but neither is it ‘third world.’ Culturally, ethnically, and religiously, the society is far more progressive than many others in the region.
As for tourist numbers, 13 million people don’t visit Saudi Arabia each year for its beaches (so those stats are misleading).
You’re right about the endemic corruption, though it isn’t unique in that either. Just take a look across the border.
And I also agree with you that it seems unbelievable the Malaysians ever allowed the plane to disappear like that. But something else might be at play here; the strange behaviour of the Malaysians is just one part of the puzzle.
By the way, I don’t seem to recall President Bush or Rumsfeld or George Tenet resigning after 9/11. The last time I checked the USA was a first world country.
If anyone knows anyone who may have flown Maldivian Airlines on March 8, 2014 – as passenger or crew – I’d dearly love it if you could check to see if it was near dawn – and whether it involved Malé–Kaadedhdhoo transit (in EITHER direction). If it did, I’d deeply appreciate it if they could contact me via e-mail (best address is on my Jan/’15 “Investigate the Investigators” report).
Fair warning: I’d eventually require hard evidence of participation in such a flight, to weed out pretenders.
Huge thanks in advance!
(If the official DQA149 story falls apart, it would prove an interesting development. Thusfar, neither Maldives CAA nor Maldivian Airlines has published a shred of hard evidence to support their contention that this flight flew in a direction opposite to its schedule, added an unscheduled landing at Thimarafushi, and was blown (or otherwise veered) 30nmi off course. Several pilots assure me a thick paper trail would exist. CAA Board Chair Faisal Ibrahim has twice promised to have a deputy get back to me, but we are now approaching Day 80 of this latest runaround.)
@Stevan G
“And if someone is prone to think so myopically, I would seriously begin to doubt the reasoning for any ‘pet theory’ they have.”
I apologize for the comment above. It’s rude and certainly not my place to question anyone’s chosen theory. Though I do tend to disagree with your comments about Malaysia, I certainly don’t wish to be abrasive.
From the Australian:
Australia is relying on Malaysia to fund a potential $100 million shortfall in the search for Flight MH370, as it emerges that a survey vessel promised by Malaysia to join the search never showed up.
Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss’s office would not produce any public statement from the Malaysian government in which it committed to meet the remaining cost of the search, and the Malaysian high commission did not respond to a similar request.
The Weekend Australian can also reveal that while nearly two months ago Mr Truss, whose transport portfolio covers the search for the Malaysia Airlines plane, said a Chinese vessel would join the search this summer, none has appeared; his department did not say when one would.
The federal government has taken prime responsibility for the search for MH370, which disappeared on March 8, 2014, on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, because its presumed final resting place, in the southern Indian Ocean, is within Australia’s search and rescue zone.
The hunt will be called off once the designated 120,000sq km target zone has been searched, expected in June.
Australia has committed $60m to the cost of the search, and China has recently committed $20m in “assets and financial contribution”.
In a statement this week to The Weekend Australian, the Joint Agency Co-ordination Centre, set up within Mr Truss’s department to orchestrate the search, said: “It is expected that the underwater search may cost up to $180m.’’
Asked how the $100m gap, understood to be the result in part of a declining Australian dollar against a US contract with the Dutch Fugro survey group whose three ships are conducting the search, would be met, Mr Truss’s spokesman said: “Malaysia has committed assets and financial contribution to fund the balance of the cost of the underwater search.”
The spokesman would not provide a copy of the tripartite agreement he said embodied the commitment, or produce any other corroborating statement from the Malaysian government.
Since the Boeing 777 was Malaysian-registered, under international aviation law Malaysia is charged with investigating its disappearance.
This point has been repeatedly stressed by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau when asked why, rather than work on the dominant opinion put by commercial airline pilots and other aviation experts that MH370 was hijacked by its captain, it relies on a theory consistent with the pilots becoming unconscious due to lack of oxygen during decompression or otherwise “unresponsive.”
Early last month, Mr Truss said “within the coming months a fourth vessel to be provided by China will add to the search effort’’.
Recent weekly bulletins from the joint co-ordination centre about the search have made no mention of a Chinese vessel joining the effort.
“Any new vessel entering the search will be announced at an appropriate time, prior to it arriving in the search area,” a co-ordination centre representative said.
Dennis,
The current search area:
– Fits BTO, BFO and available radar data (I will continue calling it data despite your protests; Victor and Don did a comprehensive analysis of this data based on FI report and Lido image);
– Corresponds to the simplest flight kinetics;
– Has at least one silly, but plausible logical explanation.
In absence of any other mature/credible scenario/analysis, I would do exactly the same thing as ATSB does. I don’t have opinion whether ATSB is doing good or bad job; so far they didn’t succeed. So it is premature to judge in my opinion. But I don’t see a better alternative at this time.
Re “The best course of action would be to wait for debris to be found”.
This is the most absurd thing I heard from you in two years. You are suggesting doing nothing. What if there is no more debris? What if forensic analysis of potential debris comes out with nothing new? How are you going to explain this to the relatives of those, who dissappeared? In addition, you largely overestimate predictive capabilities of present drift models.
Do you understand that you contradict yourself denying the existence of radar data? Just imagine you don’t have radar data, but have the last position near IGARI and 19:41 arc. Anything within the performance range of B777 on 19:41 arc would be feasible. That is a big arc. What equator you are talking about? When you state yours #1 you are implicitly making at least the following assumptions:
– BTO and BFO data are correct;
– Radar data are nearly correct;
– There was a single FMT before 19:41;
– The aircraft was at constant altitude;
– The aircraft flew at nearly cruise speed.
You may get rid of the last 3 assumptions if you assume something with regard to the flight kinetics and subsequent BTO and BFO. But you are not doing this.
In summary: you deny a batch of assumptions you made, but implicitly use them to support your own postulates. How come?
@Jeff and Victor,
If I understand correctly, the major problem with a ghost ship path is that it requires a gradual change, and that autopilot does not have a setting that does a gradual curve, ascent/descent, or speed change.
So the autopilot ensures that a constant path is produced, as an OUTPUT, with varying inputs. Conversely, constant INPUTS would eventually lead to varying outputs, i.e. irregular paths or speeds as conditions changed.
So what is the possibility that such a path could be caused by a constant physical INPUT?
Viewing a car going up and down hills at wildly varying speeds we might say, hey, there’s no way cruise control could do that because you can only set it for a fixed speed. We’d assume that a variable speed must have a human in control of it. But what if there was a simpler explanation, like the pedal got stuck? Constant input, variable output.
For example, a dead body on the controls or a short in the FBW system?
@Middleton
I fully agree with your analysis (and it’s well detailed) however we don’t know if he carefully pre-planned this or not (I lean on the not side), so he might have very well done this on a whim…taking the first available flight, embarrassing malaysian military/government on the way and trying to land somewhere.
@Oleksandr
“So, in case of successful landing on CI in accordance to the motive of your scenario, would Australian PM Tony Abbott resign together with his air defense commanders?”
nope, CI is a small island far from mainland which doesn’t have any primary radars active, all big countries have some far-away islands without permanent air-defense, it’s not unique
regarding situation in Malaysia :
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_Malaysia
“According to a 2013 public survey in Malaysia by Transparency International, a majority of the surveyed households perceived Malaysian political parties to be highly corrupt.”
hope this settles it for you
@Sajid UK
US air-defense is set up to intercept incoming planes, not those from the inner US.
Fighters were scrambled that day but they were a bit late… guess noone would accuse Malaysia if they did the same and came late but they would inform Indonesia and other countries some of those would redirect couple of satellites to track the plane. Indonesia would likely scramble couple of fighters, India too (if they have them near Andaman).
This was totally different, they needed quite some time to even recognize the plane went over their peninsula…and they continued search in SCS and Malacca Strait for days. That’s either total ineptitude or total deceit, there is no 3rd option and none works in their favour.
Dennis,
Short addendum. When you are stating that ISAT data allow you to say that:
“The plane was near the equator at 19:40 flying generally South at speed of around 450 knots”
you make one more important assumption (in addition to the list above) with regard to velocity: you either assume heading (South) or speed (450 knots). You can’t derive 2 unknowns from a single BFO equation.
@Oleksandr
The radar “data” to which you refer (Lido Hotel) shows the plane heading to the Northwest at approximately 6N. How you can infer this data (which is not really data) is what supports “near to the equator” at 19:40? That is an absurd statement to make. The only way for MH370 to reach the 18:25 arc within the performance limits of the aircraft would be to travel nearly straight at it from IGARI. You do recall that speed, distance, and time are related by a rather simple equation? You do not need radar data for the conclusion that the aircraft must have flown due West after IGARI. Duh? What happened between 18:25 and 19:40 is a puzzle for which no one has a definitive answer.
Whether you see an alternative to the ATSB actions is not relevant to anything. I have certainly not asked for your opinion (on that or any other subject), so why provide it to me? You asked for mine, and I graciously provided it. I would certainly not spend $180M on a search whose objective was to make relatives happy. If the aircraft is found it is very likely that the CVR will be blank and FDR will show that the aircraft was flown to where it was found. There is absolutely no urgency. The prudent course of action is information gathering – from additional debris, from the Malays, and from the French (by way of the Malays presumably).
I do not express every detail of what leads to my conclusions. I know you are focussed on the position of every knob and switch in the cockpit. I expect the settings of the cooking equipment in the gallies to be part of your next quest for information. I sensibly paint on a much broader canvas. Of course, the arrival on range rings beyond 19:40 plays into my 19:40 statement. Just because I did not explicitly say so does not mean it was not part of the consideration.
I have a very difficult time with your attitude, and I am growing very tired of it.
I stand by my statement that the plane was near the equator, flying generally South, at a speed around 450 knots at 19:40. I said that conclusion was the result of considering the ISAT data, and that is true. I have never used the radar data (if you insist on calling it that) for any purpose whatsoever.
@JS
You make a very good observation, especially since this type of input failure is what took Air France 447 down. It happens with some regularity that ice or other blockage disables the static port or the pitot tube, producing errant altitudes, climb rates, and/or airspeed. A failure of the ADIRU on a B777 off of Perth produced quite a wild ride as the pilots and FMS weren’t quite sure of speed or altitude. (http://www.airlinesafety.com/faq/777DataFailure.htm)
So, what might happen if one or more flight data inputs on MH370 had gone awry or missing altogether?? Would the FMS spend hours chasing speed and altitude targets based on errant inputs? This has been my thinking for almost two years now. (www.mh370site.com)
@Oleksandr
@DennisW
Didn’t someone do an analysis to determine the maximum western excursion of MH370? I recall the time of the western extreme at about 19:52. Can’t one infer, then, a southerly heading at 19:41?
If we have to be “focussed on the position of every knob and switch in the cockpit” and with that flight simulator study but still not getting sonar hits in the SIO then this SIO theory doesn’t fit.
@Bruce, thanks. Interesting point that I hadn’t thought of.
Let me reframe my analogy though because you’ve added a third possibility.
Let’s say we have a car, and the GPS record shows that the speed of the car fluctuated.
Conventional wisdom says the cruise control was off, because it can’t be programmed to do fluctuating speeds.
Your theory, I think, is akin to the speedometer cable being defective, causing an otherwise functional cruise control to produce fluctuating speed.
My theory, on the other hand, was that the cruise control was OFF, the pedal was stuck halfway, and the car was encountering outside influences (like hills or ice), also causing fluctuating speeds.
Importantly, neither your theory nor mine requires a live operator, yet both produce a record that can’t always be distinguished from one created with intentional human control.
To the extent that either scenario can be applied to an airplane without immediate catastrophic results, I’m wondering if it’s even possible to rule in or out the autopilot based on path.
I don’t believe that somebody flew it for 6 hours. But can we rule out a relatively stable, dead-stick, non-autopilot flight, and can we rule out an autopilot flight steered off course by bad sensors? Or do both cause a feedback loop that ends the flight quickly? We do have examples of jets flying dead stick.
@JS I think you are misinterpreting the most recent analysis I performed, which was for the special case of a plane following a constant magnetic heading and with no pilot input. This required a constant decrease in speed which I proposed could have been due to a constant indicated air speed (IAS) with a programmed descent rate.
There are other solutions which assume constant true track paths and automated speed control that satisfy the BTO and BFO data sets. These paths are also consistent with no pilot input and end in the current search zone.
@Matty
Abbott and Truss were very foolish to allow things to progress the way they did. I feel your pain.
The Aussies are going to get screwed by the Malaysians and the Chinese. Imagine that. Who could have predicted that? Just about anyone with a brain. Use your vote.
@Matty
Sorry. The Aussie budget deficit of $35Bfor 2015 makes $180M well below the radar screen of your leaders. Carry on.
@Bruce,
Yes, I determined that the point of closest approach to the satellite was at about 19:52, and furthermore, that if the track was relatively straight at the time, then the average speed between 19:41 and 20:41 was about 484 knots. This was done way back in Mid 2014, and I published a report on Duncan Steel’s website a few months later. My report has been refernced here by JW, and elsewhere.
Bruce, Brian,
That is true IF track was relatively straight, at constant altitude, and if this mode commenced prior to 18:41. You have to keep in mind the possibility that mh370 crossed 19:41 ping ring from inside, rather than from outside.
@Oleksandr
Re: your animation of EY440 flight path.
I’ve compared it with the FR24 image posted on twitter. The two don’t match.
See :
http://oi65.tinypic.com/2hoefer.jpg
Can you explain the discrepancy please.
The data you display overlayed on the animation corresponds to FR24 but the animation doesn’t.
EY440 clearly went through Thai airspace according to FR24’s data.
Thanks in advance
Sinux,
Thanks for pointing this out; I actually noticed the same discrepancy when I tried to make zoomed-in figure yesterday, but I was unable to reload flightradar image again to confirm this.
Right now I lean to think the reason is liner transformation I applied when I overlayed google-map background image with the path. I will use a proper software to check this. But I can’t open your image either (the site appears to be blocked).
Dennis,
This time your arguments is a batch of nonsense. Can you please explain:
– Why you think radar longitude 18:22 is not reliable, but radar latitude is reliable?
– Why earlier (prior 18:22) radar data is not reliable or nonexistent according to you? I thought you had experience with radars to judge where data is more reliable.
– Where does it come from that MH370 was heading westward by 18:22, if not from the radar data? ISAT data do not support this at all.
– Can use explain in detail how your simple distance, speed and time relationship proves that MH370 was moving straight westward from IGARI?
– You contradict to yourself: if MH370 flew straight towards 19:41 ping ring or 18:25 ping ring, it would not fly over Malaysia, but rather over Thailand. Then why you do you blame Malaysian air defense?
With regard to your approach to wait when the other flaperon popes up elsewhere, I will leave this to others to comment.
@Oleksandr
here is the FR24 image :
drive.google.com/file/d/0B9Ki1VW2DvthWE9CdF9PdGVueFE/view?usp=sharing
and here is the comparison :
drive.google.com/file/d/0B9Ki1VW2DvthZzJFcThodDkwcWM/view?usp=sharing
What’s odd is that your starting point and end point match FR24.
@all
Breaking News !!!
Possible B777 Engine Panel Discovered in the Gulf of Thailand!!!
Story is all over Twitter atm !!!
Pictures and video in link below (excellent compilation by FelineNut):
http://felinenut.tumblr.com/post/137867835027/mh370-b777-engine-panel-discovered-gulf-of
@all:
The English translation (from the original Thai) is confusing. Story is still fresh so I’m sure we’ll get a proper translation soon.
Brief points:
– On 23 January 2016 local fishermen informed Mr. Pramot Rueangdit, subdistrict chief of Nakhon Si Thammarat, about the discovery. Mr Pramot subsequently arrived to inspect the part.
– The panel has a width of 2 meters and is 3 meters thick, and not less than a year old if looking at barnacle growth.
– Weight was 100 kg or thereabouts so it had to be dragged up by villagers onto the shore.
– Current thoughts are it might be an aircraft part or possibly satellite debris.
(The above may contain errors but its what I could make out so far).
Thanks, @SajidUK! Very interesting development. The part definitely looks aircraft-like, and the marine growth looks strikingly similar to that on the Réunion flaperon, right down to the size and distribution of the barnacles and the brownish algal grunge. On the other hand, it would be really hard to understand how two pieces of debris from the same crash could wash up in both Réunion and the Gulf of Thailand. Doing some image searching now…
Sajid UK,
Very interesting. The piece is definitely from an aircraft, and honeycomb structure visible in the video suggests it could float. Strange that no news channels are reporting about this discovery so far.
If this piece is confirmed to be from mh370, then mechanical failure would be the only plausible scenario.
@Sajid UK
interesting, no doubt
meanwhile, while in my personal war against scientology, which sideband activities are unfortunatelly still founded sometimes even by EU sponzoring, hopefully only by accident and dumbness of individuals, I wish to destroy this fraud and heartwashing cult worldwide the same as Daesh, because its even more dangerous than any clearly visible violence
Jeff,
Nothing strange. On contrary, as it could be expected in case of mechanical failure: this piece fell out into the Gulf of Thailand when aircraft was in the air around IGARI; the flaperon came from a crash site somewhere in the SIO.
An Airbus A320 PK-AXC crashed on 28 December 2014 North of Surabaya, Indonesia.
@Sajid UK
excuse for missile fired (my mind was on something else just now)… but scanning a map quickly, can anybody tell us how this thing can reach Gulf of Thailand and quite undamaged? Somebody forgot to tighten screws or so?? pretty unimaginable
@Oleksandr
“this piece fell out into the Gulf of Thailand when aircraft was in the air around IGARI;”
you are so sure about what you write as you saw it personally…however it’s 99,99% a part from the AirAsia Airbus
StevanG,
Did you read what I wrote? I wrote if this piece is confirmed from MH370.
And if it is confirmed to be from MH370, than yes, nearly 100% mechanical failure.
you didn’t write a single “if” in that post 😉
StevanG,
Can’t you see that the two posts are discussions of the same and connected? In the previous post I clearly wrote “if”. The next post was response to Jeff’s “how two pieces of debris from the same crash…”. I explained how. Perhaps I should have made it clearer.
Bayesian Methods Fig. 4.2 shows smoothed estimates of speed and heading obtained from a Kalman filter applied to radar data. The speed curve shows a strange ‘dip’ around 17:24. The report say about this:
“The speed estimates vary dramatically during the first turn, which is not an accurate representation of the aircraft speed at this time. It is likely due to the mismatch between the assumed linear Kalman filter model and the high acceleration manoeuvre performed by the aircraft.”
Also there may be a difficulty with the timescale. Factual Information says nothing about a speed ‘dip’ but states:
“Radar recording showed that MH370 passed through waypoint IGARI at 1720:31 UTC”
and
“At 1721:13 UTC [0121:13 MYT] the Military radar showed the radar return of MH370 turning right but almost immediately making a constant left turn to a South Westerly direction.”
Fig. 4.2 on the other hand, starts the right turn at 17:17 and turns right at 17:22.
The trajectory representing the speed and track data of figure 4.2 (adjusted to pass IARI at 1720:31 UTC) is shown here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/q0xakkow4cf44dw/IgariTurn.jpg?dl=0
It does look somewhat different from the radar trace in Fig. 4.1, but perhaps that is due to the mismatch between the assumed linear Kalman filter model and the high acceleration manoeuvre performed by the aircraft.
Apologies> these two lines:
Fig. 4.2 on the other hand, starts the right turn at 17:17 and turns right at 17:22.
The trajectory representing the speed and track data of figure 4.2 (adjusted to pass IARI at 1720:31 UTC)
should read:
Fig. 4.2 on the other hand, starts the right turn at 17:17 and turns left at 17:22.
The trajectory representing the speed and track data of figure 4.2 (adjusted to pass IGARI at the start of the right turn)
I wonder, if Kalman filtering distorts radar data (one point every 10 seconds) like this, what does it do to the small amount of data (one point every hour) available after 18:25?
@Gysbreght
Good point, made me laugh. Search radars are slow and not for nothing called non precision radars. An awake and able controller on the scope made the difference in my days though.
As the dust of “the new debris find” has cleared, I like to pick up the discussion about wthe possible autopilot modes. There seems to be (mis)understanding, that a modern air transpport aircraft can only stay aloft for some time, if a pilot or an autopilot is tending the office. That is a misleading assumption. I´m not going into a detailed discussion of the 777 systems, but keep it general.
The early flight pioneers found out that an aircraft had to have an natural positive stability in order to keep the work of the pilot managable. With the beginning of the jet age stability augmentation systems helped in the control of the aircraft when the rate of positive stability changed over a wide speed range.
Modern flight control systems are even capable to cope with neutral and negative stability with the help of some computers and several sensor inputs.
Modern transport aircraft types use such sophisticated FCS systems to keep the aircraft in the air without pilot input.
There are two main stratrgies, the one from airbus and the one from Boeing. Airbus designes its jets to be flightpath stable. Once a flightpath is set, the pilot can release the contols and the aircraft will maintain this flightpath, until it receives a different command or unless it reaches preset limits and the “protections” cut in. In simple terms, the aircraft will maintain bank angle, climb or descents, while the speed is either variable or controlled by the autothrust system.
Boeing designs its jets to be speed stable. Without pilot or autopilot input the aircraft will change trim and thus flightpath to maintain the “trimspeed”, unless autothrust maintains a set speed.
Both Airbus and Boeing jets behave basically identical, if autothrust is set. They maintain a given speed and a given trajectory. When autothrust is not available, the Airbus type will maintain its flightpath and sacrifice or gain speed to maintain this flightpath, the Boeing type will maintain its trimmed speed and sacrifice or increase its altitude to maintain this trimspeed.
It was the discussion about which autoflight mode would maintain a constant bank of more than 5°, which made me write this down. There is no autopilot mode necessary for maintaining a bank angle above the threshold bankangle (imho 5° in a A320, probably similar in a B777), the Flight control sysem itself will do that alone.
Neither a B777 nor an Airbus will crash, when the Autopilot is switched off or manual flight control input is stopped under normal flight conditions, flight attitude speed and thrust and the flight control system is working normally. The A models would have constant flightpath but speed changes over time and the B models would have constant speed but altitude changes over time. This assumes no autothrust available / selected.
The autopilot isjust an aditional gadget and uses the flight control systems and the autothrottle to direct the aircraft to programmed waypoints and vertical profiles with modes for different purposes. .
A B777 without pilot or autopilot input with or without autothrust could fly under the above given starting conditions on a set flightpath with constant speed until fuel ecxhaustion. And that could as well be a continuous X° bank turn.
@RetF4
Great info. Kinda flies (pun intended) in the face of what a lot of others have been saying.
@RetF4
This is certainly music to my ears. I’ve been a strong proponent of a curved flight path for almost two years now but haven’t gained much traction. I’ve heard nothing but True This, Magnetic That, and Waypoint-Waypoint-Waypoint.
It’s long past time we left the SIO.
I´ve edited the graph I posted January 23, 2016 at 3:55 PM to align the trajectory with the ACARS position report at 17:06:43 and added the location at 17:01:43 and waypoint BITOD.