Well, we’ve been saying it here for a long time, but at last the ATSB has ackowledged the inevitable truth: the failure to locate any wreckage on the seabed in the southern Indian Ocean will mean that MH370 must have been piloted until the very end.
To quote today’s story in the Independent:
“the possibility that someone was at the controls of that aircraft on the flight and gliding it becomes a more significant possibility, if we eliminate all of the current search area.” [Martin Dolan, chief commissioner of the ATSB, told The Times.] “In a few months time, if we haven’t found it, then we’ll have to be contemplating that one of the much less likely scenarios ends up being more prominent. Which is that there were control inputs into that aircraft at the end of its flight.”
To be clear, Dolan wasn’t saying that they’ve ruled out the ghost ship yet, but seems to be preparing the public for this eventuality when the search runs out of money and time this June. But the fact that he said it all suggests that he views it as quite a likely outcome.
The only “much less likely” scenario that Dolan pointed to was the idea that a suicidal pilot might have flown to seventh arc within the current search area, then held the plane in a glide after it ran out of fuel so that it wound up some distance beyond. If such was indeed the case, then the area to be searched would be too large to be economically viable. This led to some catastrophic headlines, such as Bloomberg‘s “Missing Malaysia Jet MH370 Weeks Away From Keeping Secrets Forever.” But this is a tad presumptious, in my opinion.
Though Dolan didn’t ennumerate them, there now three scenarios that could match the data we have in hand.
1) The one Dolan described, which we might call “straight and fast.”
2) Another controlled-flight-into-the-southern-ocean scenario, which I’ll call “slow and curvy.” This would result in the plane ending up further to the northeast, and would necessitate an even larger search area.
3) A “spoof” scenario, in which sophisticated hijackers tampered with the satellite communications system and hijacked the plane to the north.
While some at the ATSB (and maybe within the IG, too) might be wearing long faces over Dolan’s admission, in my estimation it marks the most hopeful turn in the case in a very long time. As David Gallo recently pointed out on Twitter, the ATSB search hasn’t failed to locate the plane; it’s succeeded in proving where the plane isn’t. The most likely scenario — the scenario that we’ve been told is the only reasonable one — the scenario that we’ve been told will imminently be proven correct — has been falsified. And that brings us one very big step closer to finding the truth.
The illusory “sure thing” is over. (The wonderful film The Big Short, which I saw over the weekend and which I think any MH370 obsessive will find very entertaining, at one point quotes Mark Twain: ‘It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.’) It may make some people uncomfortable, but we now know that whatever happened to MH370, it was weird and unprecedented.
Now we can get down to work. I hope that now that the broad community of MH370 researchers, and especially the hardworking and intelligent folks at the ATSB, can embrace a new spirit of enthusiastic skepticism and turn their attention to fully evaluating all of the possibilities.
There is some important information coming down the pike that will be very illuminating, and I am very excited about pressing this story forward in the weeks and months ahead.
@Jeff
Mark my words. Dolan knows something that has not been made public.
The early arrival of the Flaperon points to a more northerly crash site. Flying slower and or lower would accomplish this. Suggest searching to northeast rather than wider.
@Jeff
you said:
“seems to be preparing the public for this eventuality when the search runs out of money and time this June”
He is preparing for the next FI release in March. IMO.
David Gallo’s tweet read,
To verify the scanned seafloor as debris free is really the challenge.
My first time posting on here, Thanks Jeff for posting this. I’ve often wondered if the plane really went to the South Indian Ocean. I’ve read so many wild theories, that I am just not sure what to believe. The fact that they haven’t found anything except ship wrecks makes me think it is not there.
Ive been reading your site and comments for awhile and have seen so many good points made for every scenario there could be.
After reading about the Air France 447 and how it took them 2 years to find the fuselage, it doesn’t seem unreasonable that they haven’t found anything yet. Except DAvid Gallo himself has said that they only searched for a total of 8 weeks within that 2 year period and they knew roughly where it was. Now my mind has changed again.
I don’t have a particular theory, but am reading with interest all that are out there. I do hope they find the plane and answer some many nagging questions and give the families some closure. This must be so agonizing and heartbreaking to them
Keep up the good works people’s, I think it will take the likes of the good folks here and others I’ve seen on the net to solve this mystery, as it appears that the ones who are investigating, really aren’t doing much of that. Its been kind of obvious don’t ya think?
@Dennisw
”He is preparing for the next FI release in March. IMO.”
No conclusion has yet been reached about the likely position of the flaperon immediately before it separated from the aircraft. To our knowledge, Boeing have not made any statements regarding the flaperon.
https://www.atsb.gov.au/newsroom/correcting-the-record.aspx
Not really. Ulich’s area hasn’t been completely searched yet. The plane could easily be slightly to the southwest of the scanned area. Until/unless that is done, the more speculative theories are a waste of time, IMO.
Thank you for the new article, @Jeff!
As always the most reliable source of information regarding the tragic #mh370. And to give everybody their due, you guys have been saying this for many, many months now.
Thanks, @jG!
Does this mean I can slip into ATSB today and swipe the champagne without anyone noticing?
Jokes aside – I think Dolan knew a climb down was just about inevitable and got in sooner rather than later. Fair enough. But we really could benefit if a few others did the same. Some have tossed all things up for the sake of discussion, others are guarding their “rightness” to the bitter end. Time to leave the castle??
Jeff – it does represent a new burst of oxygen I guess, but if it’s a conscious pilot trying to hide a jet he could have made an air search unviable by heading a bit further out to sea? Away we go again……
@Matty, Recall that no airline pilot at the time knew anything about BTO rings; if Zaharie flew south for six hours, he’d have no idea that anyone would have any clue at all about where he’d gone, so there would be no marginal advantage in adding another 100 miles to the trip (unless he just wanted to live a little longer, but then again this was a suicide trip.)
@IR1907
Yes, but the French have no doubt finished their forensics, and most likely passed the info to the Malaysians who are in charge of the formal investigation. I don’t doubt that the Malaysians did share the info with the ATSB (until perhaps recently). Let’s see what the next FI report brings.
@Jeff
I don’t see suicide as a motive here. Could be for sure, but it would be suicide AND murder. That is a big gulf to cross.
Jeff:
Re your statement: “Well, we’ve been saying it here for a long time, but at last the ATSB has ackowledged (sic) the inevitable truth: the failure to locate any wreckage on the seabed in the southern Indian Ocean will mean that MH370 must have been piloted until the very end.”
Sorry, but this narrow minded conclusion is flat wrong.
As Victor noted in a pvt email, there are (at least) three possible explanations for the fact that MH370 has not been found so far. I agree. Possibilities include the following:
1. After the FMT, the plane descended to a much lower altitude and corresponding lower speed and crossed the 7th arc much further north. (Possible, but unlikely.)
2. The math and assumptions were correct but the plane was missed during a sonar scan pass. (Likely.)
3. The math and assumptions were correct until 00:19 but the plane glided away from the 7th arc and out of the search zone. (possible, but less likely.)
In light of what we are learning about the underwater terrain, and the probability of missing the plane due to that difficult terrain, #2 is the most likely explanation. Below follows a report from a friend who attended Kim Picard’s presentation in Canberra 2 days ago.
My report from the meeting.
• Kim P did use a taxonomy for types of seafloor topography, not recorded (no pen dammit). However, it doesn’t make much difference because all of the seafloor of interest south of Broken Ridge (ie all of the recent “Bayesian contours” area) is classified as “spreading ridge”, the basic characteristic of which is “rugged”.
• There are “about 220” volcanoes in the examined spreading ridge seafloor south of Broken Ridge, all deemed to be associated with the spreading ridge when active in the area. Given the limited width of the search area there must be many more in the surrounding areas. Interestingly there were two small relatively recent volcano structures on the north (continental) side of Broken Ridge, for which no explanation exists, and one newer volcano closer to the spreading centre (south) which has a quite different smoother profile than the other volcanos.
• Seismic activity was not mentioned, but of course the spreading ridge is still active and so earthquakes will arise from the transform fault at the southern end of the Geelvinck Fracture Zone.
• Re “will parts sink into the mud”, basically, NO. The sea floor is covered in ooze, between 100 and 300 metres thick. The deeper parts of the abyssal plain (>4500 metres) are below the “carbon compensation depth”, the effect of which is to redissolve any carbonate that makes it to that depth, leaving oozes below that depth to be reduced to just the siliceous component (diatoms and radiolarians in particular, plus dust). Either way, only the top 20cm is “soft”, with anything below that dewatered and relatively hard. Hence, anything that drifts down and is larger than 20cm will definitely reside on the surface. The French jet that crashed into the Atlantic out of Brazil was found in pieces resting on top of a mud pool at depth.
• The search proceeds in phases – the first phase is the mapping of the sea floor (done I think) and the second phase is the search for the plane. The first phase was with low resolution shipborne sonar; but only relatively low – its 300m resolution is much higher than the existing satellite scan still applying to the surrounding areas as the images on the GA site attest. The second phase (currently under way I understand) uses a towed high resolution sidescan sonar device. The sonar device is towed 10km behind the ship with it being about 100 metres above the seabed, the scan goes out sideways to 900m making a very shallow illumination at the side of the scan, allowing for large shadows in high relief (as above, the predominant topography). The beam width shown on one chart was 1deg vertical by 1deg horizontal, for a net resolution of about 10cm. The “find plane” requirements were crafted to find something the size of an aircraft engine, and to characterise it unmistakeably as such. One sonar device was lost recently when it was dragged into a mount (not a “mud volcano” as reported) but has since been found. If they can find something the size of a landing gear strut …
• The topography and time taken for high res scans means that there are currently many areas which are in shadow from the high res scan. However, KP was quite clear that the ATSB would be sending a UUV back to explore all shadowed areas such that “no stone was unturned”.
• Kim is happy to engage in more discussion with Mike about the geology and topography of the area if he’d like.
Re the BIG QUESTION: what is the possibility that the aircraft has been missed in areas already searched?
• The search is not complete so, yes, the plane remains may be in a deep/steep area, already identified in the ship sonar and shadowed in the sidescan sonar, which is yet to be visited by the UUV. Probability? Small but not trivial, reducing as the sidescan and UUV program proceeds.
• The resolution of the existing high res scanned areas, and the extensive/multi pass review of that data (that happens as it comes in, there isn’t a backlog of unseen data) means that there is VERY LITTLE chance that a field of aircraft fragments would not be spotted if they were out in the open. Check out the images of the shipwrecks that have already been found in that area – one of which is itself fragmented.
• KP was clear that the search information will be made available when the ATSB completes the search.
Two years ago, we were told there was nothing in the pilot’s past, present, or home simulator to raise so much as a whiff of suspicion. And a piloted trip to the deep SIO fits precisely ZERO possible motives – suicide, murder, or door #3.
We were also told the only way to sort out causation was to first find the FDR (which was ALWAYS an imminent event…), and work backwards from there. So we let the investigation be “search-driven”. For two frigging years.
So I’m afraid “rogue pilot” remains well down on my list of rational explanations of the evidence we see before us – and that trusting the search leaders remains near the bottom of my list of useful tactics.
Because the evidence we see before us is far more vast than the Lido Hotel image, the shady Inmarsat pdf, and a bizarrely convenient flaperon discovery. And it is the secondary evidence (generally, its absence) which a rogue pilot scenario fails to explain. Such a theory asks us to swallow whole the following:
– that radar detection during MH370’s southbound leg was either non-existent (yeah, right…) or held so tightly that, to this day, the SSWG has STILL not seen it.
– that evidence in the pilot’s sim was likewise – in contempt of justice – withheld from the SSWG.
– that evidence of flaperon buoyancy testing in Toulouse was likewise – in contempt of justice – withheld from the SSWG.
– that acute listeners off Oz’s West coast failed to record any crash noise – yet DID detect a minor tremor three times further away – was just bad luck.
– that the air search was whisked away from a very promising source of “rogue pilot” debris for reasons which fell apart upon scrutiny was just a spectacularly unfortunate coincidence
– that inept analysis would delay by two YEARS a full return to the E83 longitude originally (and clearly) indicated by the combination of signal data, original performance analysis, and immediate FMT was just hard luck.
– that the penultimate BFO value strongly indicated the sort of steep descent strongly associated with an unpiloted glide (it still does, by the way…) was just a spectacularly misleading coincidence.
– that no corroborating surface debris was found – despite two years’ worth of diligent Australian shoreline searches – was just a spectacularly unfortunate coincidence
– that nine of nine drift studies – when calibrated to best available information on buoyancy/leeway – deem a lone flaperon on Réunion to be a member of an ultra-low a priori probability event class was just yet another coincidence.
– that the many heavily-publicized yet feeble ATTEMPTS to corroborate the SIO theory (early eyewitness accounts, grainy satellite imagery, acoustic ping fiasco, planted co-pilot cell phone story, LANL acoustic “study”, inconvenient eyewitness testimony dismissal/tampering, “zero-debris” ditch hypotheses, “Class 3” debris story, Flight DQA149, etc.) were, despite resembling a coordinated misinformation campaign, were all ACCIDENTALLY bogus is yet another colossal coincidence
– that we spent two years going BACKWARDS on data precision (we used to have a sharply defined fuel limit, reliable ISAT data at all records, and tight error bars on BTO/BFO fit; 2 years later, all 3 have eroded) is just yet more rough luck, causing yet more delays in the search.
Perhaps whatever was onboard was highly toxic, killed all on board, and needed to be remote controlled out to the middle of nowhere.
Perhaps a rogue state took it, and still has it.
Perhaps it was shot down by the USS Pinckney during war games.
Perhaps it was spirited to a secret base to acquire/protect high-value intel.
Perhaps it was destroyed as a counter-terrorism protocol – either justifiably, or in error.
Perhaps negligent design, construction or maintenance rendered it unsafe to fly.
Regardless: some very important information has been denied both the general public and the families of those on board. THAT is the one thing on which we should all be able to agree.
Piloted trip to the SIO by a non-state actor? Please.
We the general public should seriously consider boycotting air travel until some ACTUAL truth starts outing. Anyone who travels by air is in grave danger until we can rule out ALL of the above possibilities – many of which would predict bogus signal data, a dysfunctional search, and tidal waves of ambiguous/false info coming at us from all directions.
Further to ALSM’s post above, I’ll reiterate that the bathmetry presents a real challenge.
Richard Cole’s vessel tracking for Equator & Discovery shows that the towed side-scan sonar ‘fish’ have been tracking swathes parallel to the 7th arc. That pattern may be effective for covering abyssal plains but Paul Kennedy’s WA-SSSI presentation in Sept, ATSB’s images of “Intrepid’s Mount” & Kim Picard’s GSA presentation confirm that this is ‘rugged’ territory. Everything south of Broken Ridge is ‘rugged’.
More than 220 sea mounts & volcanoes, plus escarpments & trenches.
Kennedy’s repeated claim that the search is, “hard, really hard” isn’t an over statement.
I’ve been gathering info on this over recent weeks & plan to collate a comprehensive update over the next few days.
One quite insignificant ASEAN country has, at every turn of this saga, sought to undermine all progress to locate this lost aircraft & the 239 people who departed on it.
Grand international conspiracies are unnecessary.
On top of what Mike and Don point out, Mark Twain didn’t say that.
https://newrepublic.com/minutes/126677/it-aint-dont-know-gets-trouble-must-big-short-opens-fake-mark-twain-quote
Don:
You are so right Don. At the time ATSB let a contract for the mapping and search, NO ONE knew what the 7th arc bottom looked like, or exactly which bottom area the refined analysis would ultimately point to. As the mapping images started coming in and path analysis matured and converged with multiple independent analysis (e.g., several IG members, Hardy, Ulick, etc.), it looked encouraging.
The fact that MH370 has not been found is no one’s fault. This is a very difficult problem to solve. The operational people are doing their best, even if some politicians in multiple states are making clumsy mistakes, and occasionally lie and withhold information the public has every right to demand. But we can’t get side tracked with the bogus political narratives and bungling. We have to stick to the facts and do the best we can to help guide ATSB.
The best thing we can offer ATSB at this late date is thoughtful consideration of the three possible reasons for MH370 not being found yet, and a robust debate by informed people. To be clear, all three theories are possible, but not all 3 theories are equally probable. So where should ATSB look in the closing months? I am firmly in the camp of those that believe MH370 went in close to the 7th arc (ghost or piloted) and it was missed by the search ships, in spite of their best efforts, or it is in one of the remaining unsearched or shadow areas between S35-S40.
Of course, people at ATSB are considering the other two scenarios too, as they should. But the press has a way of twisting what is a normal scientific questioning process into a headline grabbing claim that ATSB admits they were wrong and the plane must have been piloted after all. That is pure garbage. ATSB continues to consider all three possibilities, continues to believe MH370 is most likely inside the search area somewhere, but must continuously reconsider the other theories in light of the search information as it continues to evolve.
@Brock wow, but pls keep calm; really it seems that only option left are aliens, but – yeah, nonsense… anyway “Contact” is good movie for relax
@all
Lost in the above rhetoric is notion of motive and/or causality. No one has postulated a plausible answer to how or why the plane would have wound up on the 7th arc between 35S and 40S.
My personal ethic is to ignore these rants. We are not watching an episode of numbers here. We are looking at either an almost unimaginably complex sequence of failures or the deliberate act of a pilot. There are no other choices. No amount of analytics will provide the answer we are looking for. As everyone knows, the ISAT data does not by itself produce a constrained solution. Other assumptions must be made, and therein lies the undisclosed weakness of all ISAT based solutions. I say undisclosed because the people touting it never seem to highlight that fact.
The reality is that the plane could be anywhere on the 7th arc between 10S and 40S+.
Other readers here should not be misled into believing that the IG, SSWG or DSTG solutions are in any way meaningful. The ISAT data can be used to qualify potential solutions. It cannot be used to infer a terminus.
Sure the underwater search may have missed the plane. It may also be that the plane is not where the search is being conducted. My belief is the latter based on motive/causality, and the timing and location of the flaperon finding. There are also a number of behaviors exhibited by Malaysia starting from the very moment the plane went missing, and continuing to this day that cast serious additional doubt on primary search area.
@Brock
Good to have you back, well said as usual.
@Susie, I agree, a lucid sense of outrage is a powerful thing. It’s worth remembering what a tidal wave of BS we’ve had to keep our heads above over the last two years. (I don’t think he even got around to mentioning contrails or GeoResonance.) Every accident that doesn’t have an immediately evident explanation is liable to attract a share of crackpot theorizing, but MH370 has involved misinformation on an unprecedented scale–so much so that I suspect it should be considered a core feature of the incident.
@alsm & @don, you haven’t seen the sidescan sonar data; the ATSB have. The noises they were making last year were unequivocal: “If it’s there, we’ll find it.”
@DennisW, Brock
Always interesting the “cold shoulder”, a maybe there is another more effective approach comment receives.
@Bruce, Just because the Quote Investigator looked through Twain’s correspondence for the quote and couldn’t find it doesn’t mean that it isn’t there. Twain’s writings are famously full of deeply submerged crevasses, mud pools, and volcanoes. The most likely explanation (>99%) is that while searching for the quote they inadvertantly passed over it and just failed to see it.
@Susie
Make no mistake about it. I love and respect those guys (for many good reasons), and they know it. Does not mean we are aligned relative to what the data or lack thereof suggests.
I don’t see any probability rings around the IG pins, but that does not stop them from using likely and unlikely very liberally in there dissertations. Let’s get some meat on the bones or stop using the terms.
Jeff:
Re: earlier ATSB statements on the probability of sonar detection, you are correct. When ATSB claimed a year ago: “If it’s there, we’ll find it.”, they may have been overly confident about successfully imaging MH370 bits and pieces in very challenging deep, underwater terrain. It has certainly turned out to be more difficult than originally estimated. But there is nothing gained by criticizing ATSB for not having a better crystal ball. I think we are all still learning how difficult the job is, ATSB included. Kim Picard shed some new light on the subject this week. She reiterated ATSB’s promise that all the data will become public at some point. But we need more transparency now. ATSB would benefit from releasing more detailed search information. They could benefit from the crowd sourced analysis, just like they did when the Inmarsat data was released. It would help, not hinder ATSB’s search effort. For example, releasing detailed ship track logs would go a long way toward the transparency needed. We don’t need terabyte imagery files to estimate how much of the search area has “unexplored holes” left in it. We just need the ship track logs. They have them. They are not terabyte files. They should release all the historical track files, and start releasing new data in near real time. (Richard Cole and I have made public some tracking information obtained from commercial sources, but it is incomplete. We need the official tracks.)
Wow Brock you have just pointed out everything I’ve been thinking the same thing about. Something just doesn’t seem right, all these things that have happened or not happened, theories, misinformation and fraudulent stories are never ending.
Thanks for venting your points, made me wake up and realize there is more to this story than we have been told, way more.
The key features of the disappearance of MH370 all bear the marks of human intentionality.
1. turning off communications, disappearing from radar screen
2. diverting from original flightpath
3. signalling (intentionally, or inadvertantly) via ISAT pings the plane’s flight till the limits of its flying range
Therefore, the investigation should have begun with the premise of intentional diversion and conducted a thorough and INDEPENDANT examination into the backgrounds of the passengers and crew. Would that have cost AU$100 million?
Instead, we had to rely on the word of the police/intel agencies of the respective countries, a naive position to take.
There has been continual chastisement over the last two years of people for speaking on matters they are not properly qualified to speak on, but now core members of the IG have suddenly expanded their umbrella of expertise to critique the seabed search? From their study’s. It was obvious ages ago this(MH370) was bending people out of shape.
The incentive for Fugro to find something down there could not have been bigger.
All non buoyant wreckage lies in a gap, while all buoyant debris eluded the WA coast? Give me a break.
In the unlikely event it is ever proven the side-scan equipment was not up to the job for which it was contracted, the list of suspicious items grows longer, not shorter – because we’d now need to add to it the confident pronouncements of precisely the opposite assessment made repeatedly by MH370’s “champagne on ice” search leadership.
@ Victor – Thanks for a great map comparing the BFO, vertical speed with a horizontal speed of zero. Please correct any of the following assumptions.
It appears that an engine re-start initiated the sat log-on request at 0019
The re-start was probably caused by a flameout due to fuel exhaustion.
A flameout and generator turbine re-start would have happened as the plane slowed horizontal speed and increased from 0 fpm vertical speed.
This is the point where the last log-on request happened.
How long would it take from engine flame out to log on transmission? I can see 9 seconds in the FI but I’m not sure that accounts for the re-start.
In any case how could the plane go from flameout to 5000 fpm fall in the time of a re-start and log-on? Wouldn’t it be more likely for a log-on to happen when the vertical speed was closer to zero?
What air speed is needed for the turbines to provide power to the generator?
If the plane did pitch down, pick up speed, the generators kick in and then pull up at the time of the transmission, then a positive RoC would indicate a hard or soft landing in China, somewhere between your 0 Hz and 5 Hz points. I don’t believe it was stationary at the 0 point because there is no safe place to land and still transmit.
@Brock
I agree with all your 6 “Perhaps”… possibilities and think they should still be on the table.
Assuming that the search has established where MH370 ‘isn’t’….is an assuption in my opinion. The only thing it establishes…is that the plane has not been found ‘yet’. Neither in the search area or anywhere.
ASLM, Don,
Are you kidding me? Everybody already understood IG will keep on saying nonsense to justify their thesis, but I did not expect such silly comments from both of you. It is getting funny. Really.
I am familiar with Fugro’s works, and I can assure you, these guys will find a needle on the seabed regardless how difficult it is, but only if the aircraft is in the area assigned to them.
Is it so difficult to admit/accept that some assumption(s) must be wrong?
Dennis,
“The reality is that the plane could be anywhere on the 7th arc between 10S and 40S+”.
Unfortunately I agree with this.
Oleksandr,
Undoubtedly it’s worth reconsidering assumptions. Everything about this quest is sparse, including data on which to base assumptions. Without alternate data everything’s a guess. Answers have been requested in order to better understand the radar data described to DSTG.
Information is gradually ‘surfacing’ about progress and conditions for the deep ocean search. I’ve simply asked some pertinent questions of specialists who are experienced in side-scan sonar technology and operations. I’m not claiming expertise in the subject, rather I have collected a body of relevant information that suggests there are extreme challenges down there.
ATSB’s objective is to find debris on the ocean floor or prove that it was not missed. I think the latter is the bigger task.
Tangible reporting from ATSB on Fugro’s and, now, Phoenix International’s progress would be appreciated: they must have gridded the search area; just as they’ve classified potential targets, is there a classification for the bathymetry from which they decide to survey with towed or autonomous vehicles.
Brock,
When preparing their bids for the search, all the capable parties would answer ‘yes’ to the questions: non-compliance with the requirements doesn’t make a successful bid. From the contracting authority’s perspective there would be no benefit in specifying impossible requirements, hence, the ATSB‘s use of specialist advisors in the field.
Victor,
It is just a king of interesting development/split within IG… Not my business, but I thought IG “operates by consensus”. And I thought that the current consensus is that something must be wrong with assumptions. Or no? Based on the latest comments from ALSM and Don it is not the case. So, what is formal IG position and recommendations? Re-scan the area because the aircraft must be there, as follows from ALSM and Don’s comments?
I understand IG is going to use any possible reason to explain why the plane is not found where it was predicted to be. Aliens or whatever…
——
Leaving aside IG issues… Maybe you, Oz, or somebody else can answer the following questions.
This is in my understanding ADIRU can be initialized manually on the land by entering coordinates. Do you know if this is possible in the air? If yes, will it automatically source speed from SAARU or GPS? The other important question: if ADIRU fails, will AES read velocity from SAARU or GPS? This is in my understanding that when ADIRU is in the process of initialization, all other units requesting data from ADIRU will receive error message. Can it be that upon reboot, AES first successfully reads data from ADIRU, but then ADIRU finds itself inconsistent with GPS, so it enters re-initialization procedure, and consequently AES reads next data from SAARU/GPS?
@GuardedDon & @alsm, The question isn’t so much whether some doubt should be entertained over the efficacy of the seabed search (though the ATSB themselves is walking away from this.) The question is why you guys continue to profess such absolute confidence in your predictions despite all evidence to the contrary. It really does seem that you are determined to continue saying the same thing, regardless of the circumstances. For the life of me I cannot imagine what your motivation is. I wrote in this post that three possibilities remain after the ‘ghost ship’ scenario is taken off the table. It is incumbent on anyone with a sincere desire to find the plane to explore the advantages and disadvantages of each of them. Actually, I made this point to the IG back in January of 2015 and was kicked out of the group for it. I’m sorry to be so blunt, but your stubbornness has the effect of obstructing the search for the truth. The essence of scientific inquiry is to keep an open mind to the possibilities and respond flexibly as new data comes in. If you feel that, for instance, a spoofing scenario is untenable, you owe to us and to yourselves to make that case as lucidly as you can, instead of stubbornly insisting on an outdated dogma. [edited since originally posted]
@Matty at 12:07am,
I absolutely agree with your comment.
The champagne was in the fridge and the plane always just around the next bend. The more it eluded the searchers the more confident they grew – because it simply had to be down there somewhere, which means the probability to find it in the very near future was constantly growing as the still unsearched terrain dwindled.
What happened to the champagne bottle? I feel like opening it and take a swig because the shelving of the ghost ship theory is a long overdue step into the right direction. Of course it could be true that the scanners simply overlooked the debris down there. We can’t exclude this for sure. But touting this as the most likely explanation? Really? Considering that no floating debris was ever found isn’t it far more likely that the plane was never where they were looking for it in the first place?
@Jeffwise
” Recall that no airline pilot at the time knew anything about BTO rings; if Zaharie flew south for six hours, he’d have no idea that anyone would have any clue at all about where he’d gone, so there would be no marginal advantage in adding another 100 miles to the trip (unless he just wanted to live a little longer, but then again this was a suicide trip.)”
No one outside Inmarsat (and perhaps Air France) would have known anything about the BFO-BTO. But why again would anyone with half a brain let a communication device (well, sat phones got through) stay on if he wants to dissapear completely, that doesn’t make any sense, does it ?
This supports a ”hide and seek” scenario.
We have no idea what anybody outside of Inmarsat knew about the recording of BTO and BFO data. We can only speculate.
@JeffW – well said !!
Some of the best teachers/professors learn from their students.
@VictorI, Granted, but I think it’s safe to say that no airline pilot would have had knowledge of such things
@Oleksandr: The IG has no “formal position” on the location of the plane. There is a healthy diversity of opinion within the group. Whether it is a strength or weakness, the IG is data-driven, and @GuardedDon is doing his best to understand the limitations of what is achievable by the underwater search.
We shouldn’t reject the technical work that anybody is doing on the basis of it supporting one particular theory or another. I have said for many months (actually for over a year) that the failure of the search efforts to find the plane decreases the probability that plane is in the SIO. If Don’s work helps to quantify this, so much the better.
However, if Don’s work is used to justify that the plane is certainly in the SIO, then I would not agree. At the same time, I think it will always be hard to say that the plane is certainly NOT in the SIO, although for a number of reasons, most of which have been discussed here previously, I don’t think it is in the SIO.
We should continue to collect data, analyze, and let the facts fall where they may. If anybody here thinks that with the facts and insights now at hand that somehow we will coalesce around a particular scenario, he or she is mistaken and also naïve. If there was a persuasive case to be made for a particular theory based on the evidence at hand, there would be consensus here already.
That is why I am pushing for full disclosure of the results of the flaperon investigation and the radar data. Any nugget of information could be very helpful.
@jeffwise: No airline pilot would have knowledge of the BTO/BFO through normal training channels. We have no idea whether a pilot was briefed by somebody that had knowledge as part of a plan. It would not be hard to do.
@Jeff, just playing the advocatus diaboli here:
Even if Shah didn’t know about the pings, he would’ve been well aware of the plane’s fuel range. And since parts of the 7th arc correlate rather well with the plane’s fuel range if it just kept running at cruising speed and altitude into the SIO, he could’ve decided to fool everybody by making an efffort to glide well beyond that “fuel arc”. Or by taking a slow curvy route in to the Norteastern parts of the SIO. He would know that the ghostship scenario was on the table and he might’ve tried to obfuscate his actions. I don’t think that’s compatible with the mindset of such a perp, though. He would probably have left some kind of message in order to show everybody why he had done it and how clever he was. It’s possible of course that he left a message behind and the Malaysians confiscated it.
@GuardedDon: I appreciate your Herculean efforts to tie up the jello of this search’s credibility with the twine of logic. But the time to learn of and correct issues with Fugro’s detection probability was before hiring them. Failing that: as soon as the first images came back. And then again, as soon as the first difficult terrain was encountered. In my business, it’s known as “due diligence”.
These opportunities all presented themselves more than 15 months ago. By then, search leadership knew Fugro’s detection probability for the job at hand.
If this probability was high, then wreckage being passed over becomes yet another coincidence we’re being asked to swallow.
If it was low, then search leaders concealed this fact behind haughty pronouncements of supreme confidence – and proceeded to waste 15 months and several million dollars.
If it was intermediate – say, 75% – then we have both yet another coincidence AND yet another coverup.
Which of these scenarios are you endorsing?
Frankly, it looks to me more like you are being set up by search leaders to make this facile argument. In retrospect, it makes the timing of the “mud volcano” incident very suspicious. The vertical axis on that “volcano” graph was exaggerated by a factor of four, making gentle slopes appear as cliffs. At the time, I just assumed the idea was just CYA for wasting time and money recovering it. But I’m now seeing a possible motive: set up the argument that the terrain was way more tricky that we thought.
If so: my copy of Google Earth has a pretty decent handle on SIO macro-topography. I’m afraid that dog won’t hunt.
@jeffwise that was a good one, touche!
@Trip: To answer your questions:
“It appears that an engine re-start initiated the sat log-on request at 0019.”
It is more likely that the start of the APU power up the SATCOM and initiated the log-on request at 00:19. If the plane was flying in the SIO, it was descending. Estimates have varied for the duration of time between the last engine flameout and the log-on, but it is likely to be on the order of several minutes.
“What air speed is needed for the turbines to provide power to the generator?”
The windmilling of the engine fan would not provide electrical power to the SATCOM, nor would the Ram Air Turbine (RAT).
“I don’t believe it was stationary at the 0 point because there is no safe place to land and still transmit.”
It is generally understood that the BFO data has error from a number of sources. There are several candidate airfields in China near the 7th arc that are within the error bounds of the BFO, and paths to these airfields can be constructed using the BTO data and the BFO spoof technique that I have discussed previously.