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:
Gysbreght,
R.E. table v. chart, yes – looks like somebody messed up. Table says one thing, chart says the exact opposite. Who knows what is actually programmed into the FMC database?
LouVilla, assuming that ATSB Figure 2 is accurately drawn, your initial route to MADUM goes too far South, and your yellow path misses ENDOR.
My 2 cents regarding what form we would like radar data in – just latitude, longitude, timestamp, and estimated errors in each would be a big step forward – no need to squint at low resolution charts (each different from one another in some way) in the various reports.
http://auntypru.com/forum/-Australia-ATSB-and-MH-370?pid=3403#pid3403
@Oleksandr: This is really quite simple. DSTG says it was provided radar data with “regular estimates of latitude, longitude, and altitude at 10 second intervals from 16:42:27 to 18:01:49.” I’d like to have this data set, before DSTG have applied their filters, which might have removed useful information, to better understand the turn at IGARI.
Do I think it is possible to extract information that the DSTG ignored? Without a doubt. Otherwise, we should just accept that the DSTG statisticians got it all correct and the plane is on the 7th arc at 38S latitude.
You may have forgotten that we went through a similar process with the satellite data. It was first released in graphical form with little explanation. Only after applying pressure to the authorities were we able to obtain the exact recorded values as well as other information (such as the downlink corrections applied by the MITEQ pilot receiver)that allowed many of us to construct our own paths.
Note carefully that I never implied I was trying to compete with the radar manufacturers. I am simply asking for the underlying data that was provided to the DSTG. Frankly, I am surprised that you would not support this effort.
@Gysbreght: You rank the possibility of crossing radar tracks of two aircraft just ahead of aliens. I strongly disagree, as this possibility has been the subject of serious debate since the time of the disappearance, including among the Malaysians that first analyzed the data. And the possibility that the radar captures were not MH370 does not require anybody inserting fake data in the Inmarsat logs, as you incorrectly claim.
@Susie
Truss is just putting some sandbags in place. Certainly Bailey’s remarks are not the worst thing that people have said relative to the ATSB effort. It would take me less than 10 minutes to eclipse Bailey in that regard. Perhaps because Bailey is an Aussie, Truss felt like it was a good time to be defensive.
As a practical matter I view both the CSIRO inputs and the DTSG inputs with suspicion relative to their unbridled support of the ATSB search strategy. I am reminded of studies I have funded in the past where the funded parties clearly understood what the results were expected to be. That is the way the world really works.
The cost of the search will amount to less the 0.1% of the Aussie federal budget, so it is still in the noise level category, and the Aussies have put a well-defined exit strategy in place (always a good thing to have).
I was surprised by Bailey’s remarks relative to the NTSB. That organization is among the last places I would turn to to solve a problem of this kind.
Victor,
OK, that is really simple. But keep in mind that this data can hardly be called “raw” radar data. I am sure you understand the difference. But others may not.
That is why earlier I asked, whether everyone, who asked for “raw radar data”, had a clear picture of what data he/she was asking for.
@Oleksandr
Victor wants “raw information” dataset, cleaned enough to contain minimum but enough info about all the events to be queried, ok; but there is other interesting info: why Inmarsat released their logs to public at all (even after some pressure of somebody outside official investigators) with all the media narative about first time usage of timing and doppler to track plane, as this is raw principle of every radar too, and I dont believe nobody used this technique before to estimate target movement when real radar is not available. Happened something like this before? Closed investigation team releasing something to public about case not closed??
Oleksandr,
By AES software, do you mean the Classic Aero system? I assume Thales manufactured the AES/SDU unit itself, and does Inmarsat have ownership of the Classic Aero system and would that be the “software” you are referring to or other software programmed into the AES?
Does anyone know if EY440 was directed to cancel SID route and go direct to IGARI as was MH370? This is a stretch, but could whatever was manually (keystrokes) entered by each separate set of pilots (EY440 and MH370) have caused that identical route over Malaysia? Is there some default route connected to waypoint IGARI or to whatever they entered? Did EY440 veer slightly in the opposite direction of MH370 (MH370 went I think a little right before due West or left turn) before proceeding across Malaysia?
My take on the most important phases or aspects of this whole MH370 thing:
1. The IGARI Incident
2. The SDU/AES Rebooting at 18:25
3. The strange loitering
4. The FMT
5. The Terminus
@Cheryl
I have a corresponding “political” list;
1. Delayed and fumbled initial Malay response.
2. Initial SAR directed through political channels rather than standard ICAO protocol.
3. Unrelenting Malay obstructionist behavior.
4. Failure to disclose flaperon forensics or radar data.
5. DSTG “groundbreaking” analytics overlapping previous work, and conveniently positioned and “sized” with a probability profile compatible with “completing” search by the end of June.
Think about 5) for a moment. How much of a coincidence is that? New analytics, virtually identical conclusion, with a very convenient area and geometry. A degree of two difference could have added months to the search. Plus that the inclusion of the flaperon discovery location was not even noticeable in the probability density “change” when it was included it in the DSTG model. I call BS.
I am not at all a conspiracy theorist, but something stinks very badly here.
As per @dennisW “but something stinks very badly here.”
Totally in agreement
DennisW,
Great political list there. I agree, it certainly seems like all that. Either they know and it is an event intrinsic to Malaysia (Did Shah “take a Brodie” in the SIO or not?) or they are as clueless as we are and everyone else is?
I still say since this is such an unprecedented aviation disaster, that they follow suit and release the raw data on everything, and all other information, and, since “they” cannot seem to solve this, let someone else out there have at it like the scientists and aviation and avionics experts on here and elsewhere.
A bit out of the topic: today’s morning I read a new article about Julian Assange, a founder of WikiLeaks. I didn’t know he is being threatened with the minimum of 45 years in prison in the US for disclosure of classified information and similar charges. This is apart from apparently false charges in Europe.
Now compare with Malaysians… Aren’t they a way more “democratic”, particularly in the case of MH370? Or definition of democracy must include “it is when democratic party rules”?
Cheryl,
Yes, Classic Aero. I don’t know who holds ownership and patents of its software: Thales, Inmarsat or some other company. But I trust commercial interests should not be put above human lives.
I am interested in the software behavior in case of forced reboot; also when some input information with regard to position and velocity is missing or apparently wrong:
– Explain two abnormal BFOs. The chance of them to be attributed to physical reasons is less than 1:1000.
– Explain why the first BFO after 18:25 reboot is the same as it would be expected at IGARI? Coincidence?
– Explain why there was no aircraft ID on the two logons? Without lon/lat AES does not proceed with transaction even it can assume the last known coordinates for some time, but absence of ID is ok?
I’ve corrected an error in the chart I posted February 2, 2016 at 2:54 PM.
Apologies for any inconvenience.
@Oleksandr, A key difference being that there are a lot of people in the US who support Assange, who are deeply suspicious of the establishment that spies on them and stirs up fears of terrorism in order to infringe our civil liberties, who are angry about the systemic corruption that infuses the highest levels of government and politics, and who have a real shot at effecting a significant political change. In other words, who are feeling the Bern.
@Oleksandr
I really do believe the abnormal BFO’s are a hardware issue. Power cycling an oscillator is known to require a settling time to achieve the same frequency output observed prior to the power cycle. I would simply not use those BFO’s. Of course, BTO would not be affected.
Dear @JeffWise, I really think you need to weigh in here and make some sort of final decision on this whole debacle (#MH370) The subject and discussion has become stagnant like never before. There’s a fine line between investigating and making a fool of ourselves. Just because we use the phrase ‘I may be crazy’ doesn’t make it any more okay to follow that phrase with whatever gibberish we feel is relevant in the moment. Far as I’m concerned whoever knows clearly doesn’t want people like us to know. What are you going to do? (Rhetorical question) Sincerely, jG.
@ jG – it kinda sounds like your suggesting that jeff unzip his pants….i won’t argue with you on that note….
@jG, I couldn’t disagree with you more strongly. First of all, MH370 isn’t a debacle, it’s the most fascinating aviation mystery of all time, and certainly (in my book) the most interesting of any kind that’s currently playing out. Do you feel that the experts and the amateurs around the world have failed to clarify matters? So they have. But that to me only underscores how important it is that good, knowledgeable people continue to do solid work. Over the last two years the pace of the conversation has ebbed and flowed, and it’s true right now we don’t have much new information to go on. But there are a ton of new ledes to chase down, and soon we will get more info: the second annual report from the Malaysians, the results of the MH17 criminal investigation from the Dutch, and perhaps the French analysis of the flaperon. I personally do not despair at all about how the case is playing out. In fact, I believe that we already have all the information right in front of our eyes already.
@jG
Wasn’t sure whether to add the (James).
Hi “jG”, within the huge realm of social media there most likely are many places where acting like an asshole are not only welcomed but encouraged, this is not one of them. Surely you can figure out a more productive way of getting attention.
@Susie
Well said. I am constantly amazed how focussed this site is relative to other sites I have been on relative to a number of issues (not just MH370 issues).
Of course, the geeks (and I number myself among them) sometimes get carried away, but that is typical. It is like the astro-physicists who claim to understand how the universe started some 13 billion years ago, but cannot explain why the moon looks bigger on the horizon (when it is actually farther away from the observer).
Carry on, and hopefully March will bring something for us to talk about.
Dennis,
– BTOs paired with abnormal BFOs are also affected. Moreover, these two BTOs are the only weird BTOs among all the samples we have. Something else got frozen besides oscillator.
– The two very first values of BFOs in each logon sequence appear to be in normal ranges. Coincidence? Respective BTOs are also normal.
– A number of subsequent BFOs in the first logon instance (18:25) do not show any signs of instability. Why?
– It would probably be weird for AES to proceed without waiting for oscillator to become stable on power startup.
BTW, how does frozen oscillator fit into your CI theory, or any other political-motive-based scenario?
@Oleksandr
I’ll have to go look at the raw data again. It has been awhile.
Relative to AES “waiting”, I am not sure what you could do beside implement a fixed time delay. There is no reference for the AES to use other than perhaps GPS, and that seems very doubtful due to implementation details.
Relative to CI, I don’t use any data before 19:40 or after 00:11.
It would be very interesting if the logs could be searched for if the engines pinged again after 00:11?
@ “Susie Crowe” Calling me an asshole because you don’t like what I wrote to JEFF, not you. This is the second time you’ve been rude to me and I’ve had enough of it. Do not tag me again. I STRONGLY dislike you. PEACE AND LOVE TO ALL. FLY SAFE AND BE SAFE.
I hear what you are saying Jeff and once again I appreciate your response. I don’t mean to be negative. I just wish I had the info to clear all this up 🙁
Two minor random bits of info.
I watched Thai Airlines flight 425 pass over waypoint OPOVI on its way into Penang Airport. Flew it as a fly-by. At the point of closest approach the aircraft altitude was exactly at the minimum as marked on the airport chart. So my speculative idea about how MH370 flew the hook route around Penang is squashed.
I have digitized the DCA radar chart (Figure 1.1F from Factual Information). This is the portion of the route picked up by the Kota Bharu ATC primary radar. [Curiously, this chart is embedded in the PDF document as over a dozen narrow .png images.] The route does, indeed lie very close to the military radar track published by the ATSB in various reports (but NOT by the Malaysians, unless I have missed it), aside from one dogleg as the aircraft passed close to KB airport. Someone (VictorI?) suggested that the dogleg was due to slant-range effects (the high altitude of the aircraft is interpreted as being due to a greater range.) The start of the last radar segment South of Penang falls squarely on top of ENDOR.
Factual Information states as follows: “All the primary aircraft targets that were recorded by the DCA radar are consistent with those of the military data that were made available to the Investigation Team.” I concur in that assessment.
Oleksandr,
Regarding the “no aircraft ID on the two logons,” do you think it could be possible that if the AES remains “on” constantly one could log on X amount of times and no ID would be required since it probably was present at the beginning of flight (initial log on) and it (AES) “knows” who is logging on, but once the AES is actually “off,” then that next log on after it is turned on again, would submit the ID? Was the ID present in the hourly handshakes and just not on the log ons? And we are assuming that the AES remained on during the whole MH370 flight right? I suppose all that is a possibility, or the AES was operating abnormally. This needs a Thales/Inmarsat systems specialist.
@jG well said. Jeff is the moderator here not Susie Crowe. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion.
Need help. What does the following, from Bayesian Methods, mean?
“For the accident flight, primary radar data provided by Malaysia is available from after the loss of communications up until 18:22:12. The radar data contains regular estimates of latitude, longitude and altitude at 10 second intervals from 16:42:27 to 18:01:49.”
First sentence – we have data from “AFTER THE LOSS OF COMMUNICATIONS”, which is around 17:21 UT.
But then, second sentence: “The radar data contains regular estimates of latitude, longitude and altitude at 10 second intervals FROM 16:42:27 …”
Excuse me, but 16:42:27 is nowhere close to 17:21. Whaaa??? I am missing something.
Sk999,
Looking at it linguistically, which is how I have been approaching this entire investigation if that is even possible to do, it seems that their verbiage is misleading. They either mean that just the primary Malaysia covers from loss of comms 17:21 to 18:22, and some other radar (not primary?) covers from 16:42 to 18:01, or they should have said we have primary radar data provided by Malaysia “prior to” loss of comms, not “after?” They have not explained it well as I see it.
@sk999. Yes, most likely @Cheryl is correct. In the second sentence, the phrase “The radar data contains” refers to the secondary surveillance radar (SSR) data obtained before 17:21 and the primary surveillance radar (PSR) obtained after 17:21.
I think more problematic is the statement that the data contains estimates at 10 second intervals up until 18:01:49. Likely, the underlying data is less regular as it is probable that not every sweep resulted in a return. The question then becomes whether there were substantial intervals for which there were no captures and how estimates were constructed during these intervals.
what does the radar show at KB as unexpected and how does it disappear near there? i.e.: is the radar beginning to miss the MH370 target on the regular 10 sec internal… would there be other aircraft crossing its path at those moments? Could it be circling about KB and/or appear to be attempting a landing at airports nearby?
Wouldn’t they have both PSR and SSR before 1721?
@jeffwise
OT lookback; Sanders: “yes sir, we can”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emKcqBql4rs
@Gysbreght: Of course.
Sk999,
I think it is quite simple:
– From 16:42:27 to 17:21 they have military radar data with regular time intervals. This data is supplemented with SSR data.
– From 17:21 to 18:01:49 they have military radar data with regular time intervals.
– From 18:01:49 to 18:22:12 they have radar data from some other sources, possibly Thai or Indonesian radars (although the latter do not admit this) with gaps.
Does this clarify your question?
@Oleksandr, Susie Crowe has pointed out to me an interesting document put together in Malaysia last year by the Malaysian ICAO Annex 13 Safety Investigation Team for MH370, reviewing some of the key aspects of their work up to that date:
http://www.icao.int/APAC/Meetings/2015%20AIG%20Workshop/02%20MAL%20-%20MH370%20INVESTIGATION%20TEAMS%20PRESENTATION.PDF
And interesting excerpt:
“CONSTRAINTS & CHALLENGES
• Sensitive Information from the military. Release of this information requires proper protocol and approval
• Radar Information from neighbouring countries is hard to come by due to sensitive nature of such information”
To me this suggests there may yet be crucial radar information obtained by Thailand or Indonesia that could shed light on events around the time of the presumed FMT, but that has not been figured into the current official analysis. Obviously if true this would be stunning and game-changing so I would put an emphasis on the word “may”
Perhaps the statement refers to the “white circle” of missing returns shown on the Lido Hotel radar? Or have they revised their information to say that after 18:01 the only radar return was the one at 18:22?
@Oleksandr
Let me offer a somewhat different explanation, not saying yours is wrong though.
“– From 16:42:27 to 17:21 they have military radar data with regular time intervals. This data is supplemented with SSR data.
– From 17:21 to 18:01:49 they have military radar data with regular time intervals.”
Starting with your and my oppinion, that the radar datas origin is from an overall air defence situation with multiple inputs the datas would only have been plotted in a regular time interval, but more datas could have been available in different time intercals.
“– From 18:01:49 to 18:22:12 they have radar data from some other sources, possibly Thai or Indonesian radars (although the latter do not admit this) with gaps.”
Only intermittent datas had been available (from whatever station was left) and only few could be correlated to MH370. The reason might be limited operationability of radar systems in the straight, MH370 operating at the edge of the radar coverage concerning range and /or altitude. I could think of MH 370 descending after passing Penang below the radar horizon resulting in the no show area and climbing back to higher altitude (to early) prior 1822, thus showing on radar again for a short moment
Generally I’m just not happy with the idea, that the regular interval between the plots has anything to do with the real antenna sweep. Imho it is just a selected interval for generating a plot for public use.
susie always provides directly appropriate feedback.
While there is a lull in proceedings, can anyone out there give me their thoughts on what we might find out when the flaperon analysis is revealed in the 22 year report in March. I would have thought that the breakage on the trailing edge would easy to analise, by an expert, whether it was damaged by flutter [wind] or contact with the sea. If it is flutter it suggests a ‘zombie flight,’ and if it is water damage, it probably suggest a controlled sea landing, as the flaps were probably lowered. If the flaps were extended, it means that the aircraft was being flown until the last minutes.
Should be 2 year report. Got some sticky numbers on my keyboard.
@Ed, The Flaperon failure analysis would not be difficult in the hands of experts. They would have very strong conceptual professional opinions of the failure mode within hours of hands on observation and conclusive results within a matter of weeks of proving out the concepts. Here’s an analysis of the public photos to ponder until we wait for the real answers.
http://www.duncansteel.com/archives/2209
IMHO the delay for French analysis will also need an explanation that passes the sniff test. (Assuming the public ever sees an analysis, in the next 2 to 22 years.)
Any constructive criticism or valued feedback on the report is welcomed.
@Kenyon. Thanks a lot for your thoughts. What it says in this analysis, is that if it had hit the ocean, it would have been bent and deformed, as well as the trailing edge damaged. The only disagreement I can have with this, is that if the flaperon was not extended, it would not have come free in the first place?
Flaperon delay – maybe politics?? From the Australian:
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak is facing a new front in a multi-billion-dollar corruption scandal bedevilling his administration, with French investigators probing whether he received bribes as defence minister in a $1.2 billion submarine contract.
The investigation centres on Thales International Asia’s 2002 contract to deliver two submarines to the Malaysian government and whether the company’s former president, Bernard Baiocco, indirectly paid kickbacks to Mr Najib to secure the deal.
Mr Baiocco was indicted last December for allegedly paying commissions to Abdul Razak Baginda, a political analyst purportedly close friend of Mr Najib.
But Britain’s Financial Times cited sources close to the investigation — including Mr Baiocco’s lawyer Jean-Yves Le Borgne — confirming that judicial documents also named Mr Najib as a suspected recipient.
All three men have denied any wrongdoing, with Mr Baginda telling the Financial Times he received $US47 million in legitimate consulting fees for his role in securing the Scorpene submarine deal but paid no bribes.
A Malaysian government spokesman dismissed the allegations as “baseless smears for political gain”, saying Mr Najib had received no correspondence from French prosecutors.
The Paris probe come less than a fortnight after Malaysian Attorney-General Mohamad Apandi Ali cleared Mr Najib over a $US681m transfer into his bank account from accounts connected with the 1MDB state investment fund.
Mr Apandi found the money was a personal gift from the Saudi royal family to help fund Mr Najib’s 2013 election campaign and to counter the influence of Islamic extremism in Malaysia — an explanation Riyadh has refused to confirm or deny.
However, the Sarawak Report, an online journalism site which has led coverage of 1MDB scandal, offered an alternative narrative. It alleged the single Saudi source cited in some reports to have confirmed the gift was Nawaf Obaid, a spin doctor employed on occasions and at some cost by the Malaysian government to bolster its image.
The former spin doctor, who previously held a post in the Saudi regime, is also connected with PetroSaudi, a Middle East oil company implicated in the alleged misappropriation of as much as $US4 billion from 1MDB, through his brother Tarek Obaid who was its former director, the report claimed.
PetroSaudi is now under investigation by Swiss, Singaporean and US agencies on suspicion of having helped siphon hundreds of millions from 1MDB.
The Sarawak Report claims to have traced the money trail from PetroSaudi’s own emails, thanks to former PetroSaudi employee turned whistleblower Xavier Justo, who is in a Thai jail for blackmailing his former employer.
It also questions suggestions the donation to Mr Najib may have come in part from the late Saudi king Abdullah’s seventh son Prince Turki, a 50 per cent shareholder in PetroSaudi, citing JPMorgan confirmation statements showing $US77m actually flowed out of 1MDB into Prince Turki’s accounts.
While Mr Najib has urged Malaysians to accept his exoneration and move on from the issue, the Paris probe means the Prime Minister is facing another front in his battle to remain in power.
He has already removed officials who have questioned his involvement in the 1MDB affair, and this week forced the resignation of Mukhriz Mahathir, chief minister of Kedah State and son of former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad.
Both men have played key roles in a so-far unsuccessful campaign within the ruling UMNO party to unseat Mr Najib.
The Scorpene submarine deal now under French investigation is notorious in Malaysia because of its link to the murder of a young Mongolian woman, Altantuya Shaaribu. Shaaribu had been in a relationship with Mr Baginda and acted as a translator during the deal but later accused him of failing to pay her $500,000 fee.
Sirul Azhar Umar, one of two police officers from a government close protection unit convicted of her murder but freed on bail pending an appeal, fled to Australia where he is being held in Sydney’s Villawood detention centre.
Rumours that both Mr Baginda and the Prime Minister himself were linked to her murder have dogged Mr Najib, though both were cleared of involvement during a 2008 trial.
I am slow these days. Just figured out something that has nagged for nearly a year.
Factual Information, page 3, describes the “DCA Civilian Radar Data from Kota Bharu”. It is noted that the Kota Bahru primary radar captured a target from 17:30:37 to 17:44:52. Sure enough, Figure 1.1E shows two post-diversion traces for that time span. However, Figure 1.1F shows four traces, including two from after 17:44:52. Were the last two also from Kota Bahru? The text seems to imply so, but also describes them simply as having “appeared on the KL ATCC radar display”. Furthermore, the last two are beyond the 60 mile range of KB primary radar. They are also beyond the range of primary radar at Langkawi. Who recorded them?
My guess is that they were recorded by the 50 nm terminal approach primary radar at Butterworth. The DCA document Enr 1.6 – “Radar Services and Procedures” lists all radar used by ATC, and it includes three sites located on RMAF bases, including Butterworth. Military radar. Butterworth is the only ATC radar within range of the last two traces. The radar coverage map (FI, Figure 1.1C) omits it. So I guess you can see the data, since they show up on ATC screens in KL, but you can’t know where they came from.
Maybe someone else figured this out earlier, but I don’t recall. As usual, I could be wrong.
http://aip.dca.gov.my/aip%20pdf/ENR/ENR%201/ENR%201.6/Enr1_6.pdf
@jG
I think Susie was wanting more to defend the forum rather than wishing to offend you personally. Nowhere comes close to this place for MH370 discussion, and credit for that goes to Jeff and all the posters, including you.
@ all
As for ‘what you gonna do about it?’ jG has a point. If this whole disappearance was meticulously planned, you can rest assured that the hijackers wouldn’t have left any clues. Though I suppose the same goes for an ‘official’ cover-up.
Even when things go quiet and news is thin, the story never loses its fascination. Jeff rightly says that this is the greatest aviation mystery of all time. But I’d go further. As time passes, this has the potential of becoming one of the greatest conspiracies of all time!
A side note – unfortunately the majority of us on here who don’t speak Chinese or Malay (and dare I say it, Maldivian) may be missing out on vital tidbits that could reveal interesting clues. One such example: Renren or Chinese Facebook. In-flight status updates, messages, conversations, and so forth. Did any occur? What? When? What were the contents?
All that info is as good as non-existent for us, and that’s a great shame.
@Ed, as you may know Boeing’s Flaperon’s have several modes of operation. They ‘droop’ when the flaps ‘extend’, but the Flaperons don’t ‘extend’ in the manner that the flaps operate. (This is often misunderstood on many blogs, quite understandable since we’ve all seen the flaps extend way down when landing.) Also the Flaperon PCU is either in normal (energized) or bypass (de-energized). The PCU is a hydraulic system that requires a pump and electricity to be energized.
This is a good video to watch to observe the difference between Boeing’s Flap operation and Flaperon operation upon landing (WITH power and hydraulic systems operational).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-hCHARD6D4
If someone wants to imagine a water landing (with and without power) try to imagine what surface of the Flaperon receives enough water (or engine) ‘gripping’ area to instantly rip the entire unit off ‘horizontally’ backwards. The missing trailing edge? Hmmm, I’d need to see that calculation, I suspect Flaperons would be consistently falling from the sky.
Look at the massive blow that the Asiana 214 left Flaperon experienced on hard tarmac/ground and yet all of the primary Flaperon connections held. Perhaps someone envisions water spaying up into the Flaperon due to the extended flaps, but that means the Flaperon gets instantly & violently rotated upwards, past the structural stops, and tears off all connections in a ‘vertical’ fashion, where’s the resulting deformation on the MH370 right Flaperon?
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Oleksandr,
Still on the AES….. what satellite would MH370 have communicated with if they actually had gone to Beijing, IOR or a SCS Region Inmarsat satellite I am assuming? Do we yet know if on flights to China MAS switches AES modes (like circa IGARI)? Ok let’s assume the AES was constantly on and no one fiddled with a left AC bus, but it is not communicating with any satellite for an hour. GES in Perth prompts the reboot (18:25 reboot) by contacting that identifier number asking theoretically “are you there?” That somehow catapoults AES into communicating with IOR now, the non-intended satellite? Could the GES itself have actually caused the 18:25 reboot if the AES was never turned off? If the AES was turned off then we are back to bus fiddling or EEbay invasion to get it back on.
Oleksandr,
I forgot to add in the above that the possibility exists that the 18:25 reboot could be engine related as well, not ruled out yet. I think you were investigating that, anything yet?