UPDATED 1/29/16: Here’s an image from Victor Iannello showing how EY440 diverted from its normal flight path about two minutes after takeoff on January 7, when it was still climbing and at an altitude of 5000 feet:
Just to clear up any potential confusion, it seems most likely that this incident does not have anything to do with MH370, but it’s very interesting in its own right. What is the dynamic at work here? Is it part of a trend? If so, does it potentially represent a system-wide vulnerability?
Here’s another image from Victor showing the plane’s continued path over Malay Peninsula. He writes: “I re-examined the FlightAware ADS-B data and noticed that there is a gap starting at BIBAN and ending at Kota Bharu. The FlightRadar24 coverage looks more comprehensive than the FlightAware data, especially in the South China Sea (SCS). I have re-plotted the flight path such that each underlying FlightAware data point is shown, and estimated the path in the SCS from the FlightRadar24 video. The path does indeed seem to follow airways across the SCS. (It would be helpful to have the underlying FR24 data.) The route seems to be ANHOA-L637-BIBAN-L637-BITOD-M765-IGARI-M765-Kota Bharu-B219-Penang-G468-GUNIP-HOLD-Langkawi-B579-Phuket.”
ORIGINAL POST:
The case of missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 is an incredible strange one, as we all know. But what only the true obsessives know is that orbiting around the giant mystery is an Oort Cloud of lesser enigmas. I’d like to briefly diverge from this blog’s main line of inquiry to cast a glance at some of these issues.
My first installment concerns Etihad Airways Flight 440, which took off on January 7 for Ho Chi Minh City bound for Abu Dhabi. Scheduled to depart at 20:10 UTC, it actually left 13 minutes early. Then, instead of flying along its normal route, to the northwest, it flew almost due south, crossed waypoint IGARI, then flew along the Thai/Malaysia border to the Malacca Straits, where it flew in circles for an hour before finally heading off in the direction of Abu Dhabi. By this point, however, the plane no longer had the fuel to reach Abu Dhabi, so it stopped to refuel in Bombay and reached its destination many hours late, leaving some passengers irate. (Special thanks to reader @Sajid UK for bringing this to our collective attention via the comment section.)
This is all very strange, but what makes it interesting to the MH370 crowd is the fact that a portion of its bizarre route was an exact match with that taken by the Malaysian 777 when it initially took a runner. Had EY440 been taking part in some kind of experiment to recreate MH370’s route, perhaps to get a better understanding of the Inmarsat data or the radar data?
We may never know. Katie Connell, who heads up Etihad’s media relations for North America, was very friendly when I called her and asked her what had happened. She said she’d check with her colleagues at the head office in Abu Dhabi. “It was simply a scheduling decision by ops that was later adjusted,” she wrote me in a text earlier today. I wrote back, asking if her contacts had been able to explain why the plane had flown south instead of northwest, and why it had flown a holding pattern over the Malacca Strait. She answered: “No; I did not get into that level of detail. I go with what my folks said.”
So there you have it. Make of it what you will.
UPDATE: I should have pointed out that this topic has been discussed for quite a while in the comments section of “Free the Flaperon!” and “A Couple of MH370 Things.” One of the ideas mooted there was that the flight crew inadvertently entered the wrong route into the Flight Management System, somehow overlooked the fact that they were heading in the wrong direction (scary!) and then circled for an hour until they could get the proper flight plane figured out, filed and cleared. This would be embarrassing enough to the airline that they would prefer to call it a “scheduling decision that was later adjusted.”
UPDATE #2, 27 Jan 2016: I’ve received a clarification from Etihad via Katie Connell, who writes: “The standard route flown by Flight EY440 from Ho Chi Minh City to Abu Dhabi on January 7, 2016 was automatically amended by the Flight Planning System which calculated and filed an alternative route as the most favorable, due to high winds. Shortly after takeoff, a new route was re-plotted which required Flight EY440 to fly through Thai airspace. While awaiting the overflight clearances the aircraft went into a holding pattern which resulted in the aircraft needing to refuel in Mumbai prior to continuing its journey to Abu Dhabi.”
So it sounds like the problem was not a human mis-entry, but a faulty flight-plan solution by a computer, which then had to be fixed while in transit. Software bug? Non-optimal algorithm? It will be worth keeping an eye out for more incidents like this one. Here’s one that took place in December involving a Malaysia Airlines flight from Auckland to Kuala Lumpur.
UPDATE #3: Victor Iannello has directed my attention to a Wired article suggesting that hackers have disrupted flight plans in the past and could do so again.
Here’s a chart showing the path the flight took as it circled over the Malacca Strait, created by reader Oleksandr:
@Victor
I have always maintained that there is no such thing as bad data (so long as it is accurate). However, in this case the fact that the plane flew West after IGARI is unambiguous from the ISAT data per the discussion I had with Oleksandr recently. We know MH370 had to to get to the 18:25 ring, and the only way to do that was to fly due West from IGARI. The exact nature of the flight path in the vicinity of IGARI seems immaterial to me.
What happened in the 18:00 to 19:40 time period is my personal “black hole”, and I think it holds the key to the subsequent flight path both in terms of the physics and the possible motive. JMO.
“The exact nature of the flight path in the vicinity of IGARI seems immaterial to me.”
In my view there are three decisive, dramatic, enigmatic moment in this flight:
– the turn past IGARI
– the turn south past Sumatra
– the end of flight
To start with IGARI: why was it overflown in a non-standard mode?
In my opinion the turn at Penang is more “decisive” and “dramatic” than the end of flight. But the most important, decisive, dramatic and mysterious moment is the reboot of SDU.
@Gysbreght
No quarrel at all relative to the turn at IGARI being decisive, dramatic, and enigmatic. I am not trying to discourage anyone from trying to add whatever “color” to it they can. However, in terms of a inferring a terminus the events near IGARI add little value from my perspective.
One of my favorite questions to an employee laboring to find an answer to some obscure issue was “what would you do differently if you knew the answer?”. That question was designed to infer a value, however obscure, on the effort. If the answer to a question is not actionable, it makes little sense to spend a lot of effort seeking the answer. My assumption here is that we are trying to locate the aircraft.
@DennisW,
Yes, but … in the background there are always those lingering questions – who? why? where to? Until the Mode-S symbol disappeared from the radar screens past IGARI, we have to assume that the co-pilot (on a check ride) was flying and the captain (as examiner) was monitoring and communicating. Then … (something happened, but what?).
@Gysbreght
That is a very good question IMO. I am happy to see people asking it instead of saying we don’t have to consider what happened or why it happened. We have all seen where that approach has taken us.
We now have three minor irregularities preceding the loss of Mode-S:
– the repetion of the report “maintaining FL350”
– the incomplete acknowledgement of the handover to HCM ATC
– the overflying of IGARI before turning towards BITOD
@Dennis,
That mh370 has really turned around at IGARI and made the radar tracks across the peninsula and up the Strait is the cornerstone of the whole case! How can the turn-around be not so important? If someone topples the radar data conclusively the whole case collapses like a house of cards, because then the sat data can’t have come from mh370 either. Which means they have either been made up from scratch or they came from an SDU in another plane which spoofed mh370’s identity – which is technically not impossible.
Because the whole case rests on that 180°turn at IGARI it’s of utmost importance to be sure that it was really executed by mh370. Therefore it’s essential that the raw data will be published and openly analyzed.
Come to think of it, it is a scandal that this most important piece of evidence has been presented in such an incomplete and unprecise way.
@littlefoot
The radar data had a usefulness horizon of a few days. It would have been useful for SAR if the Malays had not bungled that inexplicably. I cannot think of a single thing that the radar data (actually radar graphics) has provided us in terms of trying to formulate a terminal location for the aircraft. Once the ISAT data was in hand it was very clear that MH370 flew due West from IGARI. There is no other direction it could have flown to reach the 18:25 ring on time.
No one has been able to make any sense of the Lido Hotel graphic relative to what actually happened before 19:40.
If, as Gsybreght suggests, the IGARI radar data can shed some light on causality that would be awesome.
@dennisW: only if ISAT data was good/clean, but it is also has issues and questions, reboots etc.
@Dennis, your whole argument rests on your trust in the sat data. Therefore your argument: “but the sat data are proof thst the plane has indeed turned around”. But the sat data can’t be real or can’t have come from mh370’s SDU if the plane never turned around in the first place. Therefore the radar tracks are the cornerstone of every scenario. True, they are of limited use for predicting where mh370’s flight ended. But if they haven’t been made by mh370 the whole case collapses. Therefore they need utmost scrutiny – especially the 180° turn at IGARI.
Dennis,
Re: “Once the ISAT data was in hand it was very clear that MH370 flew due West from IGARI. There is no other direction it could have flown to reach the 18:25 ring on time.”
You surprised me. No. MH370 didn’t fly West from IGARI. And the time was sufficient to reach 18:25 ping ring if it flew approximately as shown in ATSB report.
@littlefoot
I do trust the ISAT data. It is the only thing we have. If we don’t trust it (with reasonable error bounds in place) we have nothing. We might as well just watch CNN.
The primary radar returns actually havie no MH370 specific signature. They are simply reflections from “something out there”. Victor has correctly pointed out that we cannot be sure the primary returns were from MH370.
Question to those, who demand disclosure of raw radar data. Do you really understand what you are asking for? Because I don’t.
@Oleksandr: It’s simple. For each capture, the location, time, and the corresponding identity of the radar head. Additional information would be captures associated with other traffic, identified and unidentified.
Victor,
That is not raw data. That is why I said you and others don’t really understand what you are asking for. You would better ask for something simpler, say time, longitude, latitude, altitude, and ground speed in some of MS Excel formats.
@DennisW: If we are better off just watching CNN, I would like to know. I don’t ascribe to the axiom that “ignorance is bliss”. I see no reason to assume that the satellite data is valid. Like other assumptions, we need to test this one. However, with what we know today, the BTO data in particular does seem to be solid.
I don’t dismiss the possibility of massive deception involving false radar targets and false satellite data. I am not saying it is likely. However, the anomalies surrounding the radar data, which were amplified by the DSTG report, could be the result of this deception. This needs to be properly run down, even if it leads nowhere. After all, the data is already in hand and has been supplied in some form to the DSTG. And I do believe that if the radar data is wrong through deception, that reduces the confidence that we should be place in the satellite data because there could have been an attempt to deceive us there, too.
@Oleksandr: We only have poor quality images. We need the underlying data. Call it what you wish. Asterix format is fine if that is available. Or give us what was given to the DSTG. This is not complicated.
@Victor
I was speaking tongue in cheek with respect to CNN, but it would come to that if we toss the ISAT data.
While the ISAT system is an “inviting” spoof for someone so inclined, I don’t think it was spoofed. I do trust the Inmarsat guys to have not tampered with the data after the fact. Maybe I am just gullible.
I fully endorse any investigation – radar data, ISAT data, flaperon,… My comments were only intended to put realistic expectations on what the results might be.
Why journalists are not screaming their heads off relative to disclosure issues is something I struggle with greatly. I suppose there is a “don’t shoot yourself in the foot” restraint going on there. After all you have to play nice with authorities or they may elect not talk to you at all.
The raadar data have a source. like the ISAt data have. I see no sense in dissregarding either one.
Primary radar data have no specific designator like an IFF code for secondary radar data. The military has to work and rely on those data, and the air defence units train in doing so, as during open conflicts the secondary radar data are close to useless. The identifacation of primary radar targets had been done before secondary radar was invented. The method lacks precision and speed in identification compared to identification by secondary radar or ADSB, but that does not make this method useless. Based on my military knowlwdge of such systems, although from two centuries agao, I´m sure that the radar data themselv are genuine and real.
If something is amiss with the radar data, then it is the presentation and / or the misinterpretation of the limited available published material.
But haven´t we seen limited crude information all over the place since the disapearance of MH370? Which kind of actual data do we have anyway? They are all somehow second hand, incomplete and selective.
We know, what the investigating bodies allow us to know. No more, no less.
Victor,
Figures are the final post-processing product. But radars do not measure longitude and latitude. These are results of post-processing of raw data, which might involve quite sophisticated procedures. Also, note a radar installation is usually not a single dish, but it comprised of several dishes connected into a network. How the data is measured, analysed and stored by radar hardware and software affects accuracy and reliability of output. Update frequency, signal strength, customizable input parameters, etc might be accounted somehow. So, when someone asks for “raw radar data”, I am wondering what that mean.
@Oleksandr,
At the risk of oversimplifying a subject I know little about, aren’t we asking for the following?
-Time of day
-Round trip time
-Direction
-Location of ground antenna
Isn’t that the lowest level information of any significant value?
JS,
So you prefer to deal with azimuth and WGS’84 ellipsoid by yourself, apply filters to eliminate noise, etc. And do it using binary arithmetic, because original data might not be in IEEE 754 format? You may also add reflected signal strength, angular size of object to your list, and detailed operating and service manuals. And ask to provide this information for all the detected objects, identified or not. And for all the stations in their network.
But is it really what you want?
Why does nobody here demand disclosure of details of AES software?
I trust Inmarsat because they are reputable western company that doesn’t have any motivation to produce false data which would always have some probability to get discovered.
I also trust malaysian radar presentation because it fits Inmarsat data and they most probably had their radar active at the time anyway, too bad they didn’t employ a professional radar operator but some inept cousin of a government clerk…
I believe FI shows all available data from the civilian radar, but only gives verbal statements referring to military radar. Perhaps the military don’t want their data to be published. Do the military use ASTERIX ?
Note that the “radar data” and the “sat data” are not simply independently convergent. The latter was cited specifically as “proof” of the former by PM in his media conference on 15 March. It the sat data (or even just the 18.25-27 ping rings) were “wrong” then the radar trace / blip at 18:22 attribution to MH370 is also wrong, or at the very least the “proof” of it is removed. What astonishes me is that the radar evidence was insufficiently conclusive after a full 7 days of review and investigation.
Or perhaps it was clear and conclusive, but the truth was too uncomfortable to admit to.
@Oleksandr
“Why does nobody here demand disclosure of details of AES software?”
The reality is we are in no position to demand anything. We have no standing in this investigation.
@Oleksandr,
I’m not asking for anything, necessarily, just trying to understand what “raw data” means. I’m obviously not qualified to distinguish signal from noise so it wouldn’t do me any good.
That said, I don’t think it’s a reach to ask for the type of data you describe. It may require some skill but even a layperson can understand that out of millions of data points you have to separate noise and reflections from signals.
The data that we do have is difficult (for some) to believe and/or reconcile. Better to get the rawest data possible than to make several trips back to the well.
I made the same point about BTO data. What we have appears to be the delta between the actual raw data and a 495,679us constant. I understand that the raw data is a record of bytes in a log. But anytime there is a transformation I think it’s reasonable for someone to ask for both sides of the data – before and after the transformation.
It may be that 99% of the observers feel there is no need, and there is nothing hidden in the raw data and nothing wrong with the transformation from the raw data to the published radar path. But even though I don’t need raw radar data, I think it’s a reasonable request given that there’s still no plane.
@JS
Oleksandr has a point.
The Lido picture is a summary of one or few selected primary radar targets replayed over a period of time. It is not the picture the controller would be looking at and it is not showing all traffic in the timeframe.The information for such a picture, or raw data if you like, can come from all kind of sources, in the end it shows the combined information of the air defence system. Oleksandr opened a little window to show, that the raw data into such an air defence system are multiple ones from different sources, filtered and generated by different analyzing techniques. In modern air defence systems informations from stationary radar stations (civil and military), mobile ground and water based systems as well as airborne systems would go into a central processing unit and create the global air defence picture.
Even the most basic information, which radar stations contributed to the generation of the Lido picture, would not be much helpfull.
It is not that simple like an equation consisting only of MH370, one fixed radar antenna , one radar scope and the asociated environmental and physical factors. Malaysia will not communicate their air defence capabilities or deficencies to the public, neither would any other country do.
Nothing substantial has been published concerning the radars of Thailand and Indonesia, wether stations had been active or shut down, and nothing usable has been said about the Australian Jorn system.
What do you all make of the multiple reports of “return to Kuala Lumpur”, “reciprocal heading” etc in the period 9-12 March before comms were shut down and the “official version of events” as presented by PM on 15th, “proven by sat data” took precedence?
Strictly for performance geeks: Assuming constant total energy, I’ve plotted (in blue) the altitude that corresponds to the speed trace in Fig. 4.2 of “Bayesian Methods”.
The altitudes stated in Factual Information, par. 1.1.3(a), Malaysia Military Radar, are indicated in red.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/rf493he89wlvln0/BM_TE_Alt.jpg?dl=0
The crucial question is whether or not the airplane stayed within range of the radar during the turn-back.
@StevanG
I agree – too risky to play with Inmarsat reputation; but other investments can be reasonable
@Gysbreght: Thank you for the altitude chart. I was going to do the same “zoom-climb” calculation for the first dip in speed. Perhaps this calculation was the basis for initial reports of a steep climb. It is possible that sharp turn occurred at peak altitude when the speed was low.
In order to understand the turn around IGARI,we need the underlying radar data. At a bare minimum, we need the position and timestamp for each radar capture.
RetiredF4,
You got my point.
And I absolutely agree that neither Malaysia, nor any other country would release this sort of information. Simply because this would expose all the gaps and vulnerability of their air defence, which can later be used by terrorists, various criminals, etc., not even talking about military conflicts.
However, I would be interested in examining the altitude data in any form. I recall some plots were “flashed” by CNN or BBC, but I was unable to retrieve them later, when altitude data was discarded as unreliable.
Gysbreght,
FL440 or FL450 sounds familiar. Another interesting coincidence. Or not?
https://twitter.com/harunmaruf/status/694502436166193152
Tweet regarding an explosion, hull breach, decompression without loss of aircraft.
Could a similar occurrence have severed the left AC bus on MH370?
Factual Information 1.1.3(a):
I think the inescapable conclusion must be that the “Air Turn Back” was not a standard turn at constant bank angle, airspeed and altitude, but must have involved some pretty wild maneuvering, vertically or horizontally or both, depending on whether there is a gap in the radar data or not.
Rambling thoughts here.
The figure of a plane passing a waypoint “with overfly” posted by Gysbreght on Jan 31 at 11:31 am looks similar to the path that MH370 took as it went around Penang. It inspired me to do a bit of investigating to see if it would work. The idea of “fly-by” and “fly-over” waypoints is a feature of “RNAV” and is somewhat recent in aviation, requiring accurate navigation such as GPS. Most waypoints are “fly-by”, which means that if a plane needs to change its heading at that point, it will cut the corner, so to speak, and not pass exactly over the waypoint. Some waypoints, particularly on take-off and landing patterns around airports, are designated “fly-over”, typically done to avoid terrain or noise-sensitive areas. Such waypoints are drawn on aviation charts with a circle around them, although this convention is sufficiently recent that some charts don’t follow it.
Charts of airport SID/STAR patterns often have lots of waypoints, but most do not appear on skyvector.com maps (presumably to avoid clutter, but skyvector does know about them). It has been noted in the past, but it is worth repeating, that the radar track for MH370 (Figure 2 of the ATSB Underwater Search report) passed very close to such waypoints at both Kota Bahru and Penang airports. The nearest waypoint at Kota Bahru is KADAX, while two waypoints fall close to the path going around Penang: ENDOR and OPOVI. The latter is the one that would want to be passed in fly-over mode. However, it is not one by default, so whoever was controlling MH370 would have had to set it to that mode by hand.
Note that this chart:
http://aip.dca.gov.my/aip%20pdf/AD/AD2/WMKP/INDI%20CHTS/WMKP%202-61.pdf
draws OPOVI as a star with a circle, but the legend indicates that this symbol is a fly-by waypoint. This publication:
aip.dca.gov.my/aip%20pdf/AIP%20AMDT%204_2009/ad/Wmkp.pdf
lists the waypoints around WMKP, and only one (REKUS) is a fly-over.
It should also be noted that, after passing Penang, MH370 made a slight turn left and followed a path towards Pulau Perak that exactly falls on a line from OPOVI to VAMPI. It is as if the plane flew an “intercept” route. Possibly LNAV was engaged at this time? Or an alternate flight plan enabled in the CDU?
As usual, comments/corrections welcome.
All this wild manoeuvring and interception style flying sounds more like military bogies that were caught on radar.
@Gysbreght,
Re.:
“I think the inescapable conclusion must be that the “Air Turn Back” was not a standard turn at constant bank angle, airspeed and altitude, but must have involved some pretty wild maneuvering, vertically or horizontally or both, depending on whether there is a gap in the radar data or not.”
Something like this maybe:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/5clik9n10qpwffc/AlternateExplanationSharpCornerRadarTrack.pdf?dl=0
or maybe the opposite (climb) rather than dive, or a combination of both?
The combination, up then down, would somewhat gel with your derived altitude profile.
@Gysbreght: Unfortunately, we have only the “smoothed” speed profile. If, for instance, there were two planes traveling at different speeds whose tracks crossed with a time offset, with the first tracked plane arriving at the crossing point before the second, the derived speed would be step changes starting with the first speed, then a low speed, and the second speed. When smoothed, this would look like a continuous dip as shown in DSTG’s Figure 4.2 rather than a series of step changes. Even the speed oscillations shown in Fig 4.2 could be manifestations of the type of smoothing filter used.
In short, we need to see the underlying position versus time data before we can conclude anything based on Fig 4.2. We are forced to guess because we have not succeeded in getting a proper response from Malaysia.
Victor,
IGARI is quite far from the radars, and position data may not be accurate enough to derive accurate speed.
Take a look at Lido image. There are “clusters” of blips. They do not form a line strictly speaking. And they are getting wider as the aircraft moved further away. Now imagine you have time stamps and position for each individual dot. What are you going to do with this info? You can’t derive speed from two neighbour points. You have to apply some smoothing technique. A radar computer essentially does the same smoothing/filtering to derive speed. But a lot more info can be accounted for, such as combination of data from several stations supplemented by Doppler shift. It is complex. Are you going to compete in this with radar manufacturers?
@VictorI:
The possibility that a second plane crossed the path of MH370 2-3 minutes later, flying at nearly the same speed and altitude, without transponder or communications, is way down on my list, just above the aliens.
@sk999
really, more military-like behavior; or if somebody pushed race-mode button, gear-down, heavy right foot and then u-turn with hand-brake…
… and that one hour later someone was inserting fake data among thousands of records in the Inmarsat communications log …
@MuOne
just saw on youtube also 707 prototype doing lag displacement roll; but quite crazy to do something like that with passengers
@SK999
I came to this conclusion :
http://img5.fotos-hochladen.net/uploads/penangbjker9bp4xm.jpg
@sk999:
“This publication:
aip.dca.gov.my/aip%20pdf/AIP%20AMDT%204_2009/ad/Wmkp.pdf
lists the waypoints around WMKP, and only one (REKUS) is a fly-over.”
but the chart on the 4th page shows REKUS as FLYBY waypoint?
The “air turnback” has not been described in any detail in the FI.
We do not know:
a) if it was contiguous with the prior trace of MH370 ie actual time and estimated position of alleged “first right then continuous left turn”
b) what was the gap (f any) between this turnback and the subsequent trace approaching Kota Bharu
c) what speed, rate or turn or altitude was estimated for this turnback
As the only link between MH370 and subsequent radar detections attributed to the aircraft, it is astonishing that the FI report contained such little *ahem* “Factual Information” on this point
We do know that Thai radar reported having picked up a non-normal target on reciprocal heading. Not clear how long their detection lasted and whether or not contiguous with prior MH370 trace. With distance of 200NM from Khok Muan radar head, Thai radar should be able to shed light on the nature of turnback.