Blaine Alan Gibson, a 58-year old lawyer who lives in Seattle, Washington, has spent much of the past year traveling around the Indian Ocean region trying to solve the mystery what happened to Malaysian Airlines Flight 370. He’s been to the Maldives to talk to villagers who say they saw a large plane fly low overhead the day after the disappearance; visited Réunion Island to interview the local who found the flaperon from MH370; and met with Australian Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss to discuss the ongoing seabed search. He has no professional background in aircraft accident investigation or journalism, and no professional accreditation. He is simply motivated by the desire to know what happened to the airliner. “I do not have a theory,” he emailed me last September. “I am just looking for evidence that may have been prematurely dismissed.”
Last week, Gibson found himself in Mozambique searching for debris on local beaches. On February 27, he says, he hired a boat captain to take him someplace where flotsam from the ocean tended to wash up. The captain chose a sandbar called Paluma a half-dozen miles from the coastal town of Vilankulos. They arrived at around 7 a.m., and after about 20 minutes on the flat, low stretch of sand the boat captain spotted something unusual and handed it to Gibson.
The next morning, Gibson emailed me a description of the object:
The debris appears to be made of a fiberglass composite and has aluminum honeycomb inside. NO STEP is written on one side. It appears to be from an aircraft wing … The piece is torn and broken into a triangular shape, 94 cm long at the base and 60 cm high. The remaining highlock pin has a 10 mm diameter head. The pin itself is about 12 mm long. The bolt holes are spaced about 30 mm apart from center to center of hole. The distance from the edge of the hole with the pin to the intact edge is about 8 mm. At the bottom of the intact edge there is a very thin (1 to 2 mm thick) strip of dried rubber remaining that runs about 30 mm along the edge before it was broken off. The intact edge is only 65 mm long. All the rest is broken.
In a video that Gibson posted to a closed-access Facebook page, the fragment looks quite light and insubstantial, easy enough for one man to pick up and wave around — unlike the flaperon found on Réunion, which required several people to lift. Gibson asked me to keep his find a secret, explaining, “It is too large and metallic to be easily taken out of the country, and needs to have its provenance documented. The procedure with other possible debris discoveries in La Réunion, Thailand, Vietnam, and Malaysia has been to report it to local authorities first. Then the responsible international investigators can come to inspect.”
On Tuesday, Gibson bundled up the piece in cardboard and flew with it to Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, to turn it over to the authorities. Wednesday morning, news articles about the discovery appeared on CNN, the BBC, NBC, and elsewhere. According to these accounts, experts believe that the piece could be part of the composite skin from the horizontal stabilizer – that is, one of the miniature “wings” on either side of the tail — of a 777. And, of course, no other 777 has been lost in the Indian Ocean except for MH370.
On Wednesday afternoon, I managed to reach Gibson by phone in Maputo. He sounded tired but elated, having just gotten off a live interview on Richard Quest’s show on CNN. “I did not expect that this would all hit this early and so fast,” he said. He told me that he and the Australian consul had met earlier that day with the head of civil aviation in Mozambique, who promised that he would do the proper paperwork and then turn the piece over to the Australian Transportation Safety Board, who are overseeing the search for MH370 in the southern Indian Ocean. “It’s in very good hands,” he said.
When he first held the piece, he told me, his immediate reaction was that it was so light and thin, that it was probably from some light aircraft or small plane — “but maybe it’s from MH370.” Only when back on dry land and able to consult with other MH370 researchers did he realize that the lettering looks identical to the “NO STEP” warnings on the wings of 777s, and the alphanumerical code on the head of a rivet indicates that it’s a fastener used in the aerospace industry.
To verify that the part could indeed have floated its way naturally to the beach, he had put it in the ocean and photographed it floating “just absolutely flat as a pancake” at the surface. He was struck by the absence of marine life. “There were a few little things that looked like a little bit of algae or calcification that may have come from something that tried to attach there,” he says. “But the top surface with NO STEP on it was very smooth, and the bottom was a little rougher but still pretty smooth.”
He knows that sounds odd: after two years in the ocean, a piece of floating debris should be encrusted with growth. But having spent the last year steeped in the oddness of the case, he’s learned to expect the unexpected. “I’m open to anything,” he says. Even the timing of the discovery was eyebrow-raising: Just a few days before the second anniversary of the MH370’s disappearance.
The yearlong plunge into the case is just the latest rabbit hole for the California-bred Gibson, who is fluent in six languages. In the past he has traveled to remote Siberia to investigate the Tunguska meteor, to Central America to figure out why the Maya disappeared, and to Ethiopia in search of the Lost Ark. So he knows not only about unraveling weird mysteries, but also the skepticism that such efforts can engender. “I can tell you this about that piece: it is absolutely authentically there,” he says. “There is no way that that was planted there by any shenanigans. I rode with those guys on the boat there, and they didn’t carry anything there. It was a completely natural find. It was just freak luck or destiny, whatever you want to call it.”
This piece originally appeared on the New York magazine web site on March 3, 2016.
Tom Kenyon might have been right with his theory in his paper “Flaperon Failure Analysis” Rev 2 on 8th December 2015, section 11 :
https://www.dropbox.com/s/zj4t8k0nly5bsct/MH370%20Flaperon%20Failure%20Analysis%20%28Rev%202.0%29.pdf?dl=0
Tom Kenyon asked on 8th December :
“Could the Flaperon have struck a tail
member ?”
The answer could be : YES !
Blaine Allan Gibson has found this little piece of wreckage, part of the “Horizontal Stabilizer” in the tail section to confirm this theory.
What an odd coincidence ! Only 2 pieces of wreckage has been found to date and both fits into a theory from Tom Kenyon ? That´s stunning.
How huge might be the chances to find 2 pieces of wreckage over 3000 and 5000 km away from the search area and both pieces have huge relevance to the End-of-Flight-Scenario ?
@Oleksandr,
The primary source of altitude is the ADIRU; secondary is the SAARU.
You need to consider there is two parts to the ADIRU; the air data part and the inertial reference part.
When the ADIRU initialises it determines its local vertical position using the direction of acceleration of gravity from the inertial part, it utilises the air data portion to determine altitude.
Although it can work out altitude, that side of the system provides a better indication of rate of altitude change than the air data portion on it’s own.
If you consider that laser gyros can (and do) fail; the good old pressure altitude and pitot is still pretty reliable.
OZ
Here is an interview on French TV of the NOK of the French passengers. It gets interesting after 2.25 (my translation below).
http://www.canalplus.fr/c-emissions/c-la-nouvelle-edition/pid6850-la-nouvelle-edition.html?vid=1362991
“I’m persuaded that from the beginning, they knew where the plane was, and they knew the passengers were no more, so yes, I believe that the passengers are no more”
“I know Malaysia is a corrupt country, but it’s not just because Malaysia is involved, and Malaysia is not the only country involved in this ‘omerta’.”
“In anycase what I know is that something new has happened, similar to 9/11, nobody would ever think of planes hitting the Twin Towers. Here, something new has happened, so I can’t eliminate all the theories, because something weird has happened here.
“It’s obvious someone has intentionally diverted the plane, but afterwards, I don’t know..”
“yes I’ve been deceived by people who exploited us with false theories, but I know that there are many people who know at least a little bit about the real story.
“we fought so hard to get an antiterrorist judge to look at this, and I asked them to look at the passengers. It took them 20 months to finally go to Malaysia. They came back with tons of documents. First thing to look at is the passengers, who are they? what did they do?
There was something bizarre. They said there were 2 Iranians flying on false passports, and 24hrs later, they say there is no problem. 24 hrs to investigate 2 who purchased tickets in Thailand, who are Iranian, and who are going to Germany? That seems a bit hasty.
Q: you met the President of France who admitted that they didn’t know anything further. You told him that you don’t believe that he is telling the truth, and today you believe that the French Secret Service is hiding something?
A: Yes, it’s obvious that they have information that they haven’t given me anyway.
Q: why are they hiding it?
A: well there are so many people who are hiding things.. If you believe the route the plane supposedly took, it was followed by Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, perhaps Australia, … all these people didn’t see anything? It’s impossible to lose a plane like this in this day. I can tell you it was followed by at least the militaries.”
I believe that this interview is quite revealing because it substantiates many things that Jeff Wise has been writing on this forum.
– the ‘omerta’, or conspiracy of silence by the governments involved has nothing to do with Malaysia or the nature of it’s politics, but is much bigger, and on an international/geo-political scale
– he draws parallels with 9/11 attacks, signifying that this was NOT your everyday highjacking, but a unique event, some thing with malicious intent, something NEW, and with geopolitical significance
– he can’t eliminate any theories, meaning that at least SOME of the theories are close to the truth as he sees it
– he know the plane was diverted, but he seems to be reluctant to speculate on what happened afterwards, possibly because he doesn’t want to reveal his information
– he wants the judges to focus on the passengers, meaning that his theory excludes accidents, sabotage, pilot suicide, and valuable cargo on board, thus leaving only passenger initiated highjacking as the main explanation
– the questions to ask of the passengers: who are they? what did they do?… this is significant because, it’s going beyond just the regular criminal background check, and questions the overall background of each passenger. He appears to be suggesting that this simple question of what did they do (for a living, presumably) could lead us to the answer of what happened to MH370.
– he mentions the story of the Iranians, NOT to draw suspicion on them, but rather to highlight the fact that the authorities hurriedly sought to stop suspicion on ANY passenger. (it worth reminding that the 2 ukrainians on board were also initially under suspicion at the same time as the Iranians).
– it’s VERY INTERESTING that his assertion that the French president is not telling the truth, and the Secret Service didn’t give him information that it possesses suggests that he was indeed given information but through some other unofficial channel which he cannot publicly acknowledge. (the dude is very smooth)
– the issue with Military Radar is something that I can’t really figure out except to say that it’s probably classified info.
– it’s also significant he didn’t mention anything about the flaperon except in passing, suggesting that the official story of it’s provenance is not in doubt, and that MH370 did indeed crash in the SIO.
If this horizontal stabilizer part is truly from MH370 and the flaperon came off due to stress fatigue from rapid descent in the air, and possibly hit the portion of the stabilizer on the tail, do we then have a vertical high speed plunge to terminus as opposed to a glide/conscious pilot again?
Strange there are no barnacles but perhaps they got “vultured” off by the predators. Let’s see what the experts say after looking at the part. It’s either a stepping stone as a next puzzle piece or just as it says, “no step” at all. It’s a nice find by Mr. Gibson, the timing of it right before the FI is due out is almost as unique as the reboot right out of radar range. Strange. But kudos to Mr. Gibson if this is something viable in the case.
Would there have been 2 of these parts on MH370 and MH17 alike on each side of their respective tails or is there only one to a tail? And would MH17’s be housed in a hanger somewhere?
Palomino “Ed” ooops I mean drew,
Do you think it would be entirely possible if (big IF there) this stabilizer part was struck by the flaperon that it got lodged inside the flaperon for part of its journey and then somehow became dislodged? Just a thought since it looks like it is small enough to fit inside of the flaperon?
If t.he piece found by Blaine is from a B777, it is a piece of wing, just like the MH17 part shown on a photo earlier. There are no “NO STEP” zones on a horizontal stabilizer. The horizontal stabilizer is a movable control surface, and nobody is supposed to step on it, it’s all “NO STEP”.
I wouldn’t attach much significance to the lettering. It is painted on with a template or stencil that is not specific for B777 or Boeing, but is used by many airplane types.
@Gysbreght
I can’t find a good picture of a B777 horizontal stabilizer. But have a look at the fourth picture from the bottom of this page :
http://www.boeingblogs.com/randy/archives/2013/05/
The caption says it’s a 787-9 horizontal stabilizer. And you can clearly see the “no step”.
Can be 777 debris only if Boeing does NOT use same font on all its planes.
787 horizontal stabilizer same shown in this tweet and it has completely different font. Look at O S and other letters.
https://twitter.com/RaischStudios/status/705130254289997824
ad MH17: “still an active review going on”
simply, what do you think about this??
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1aX0gXkaRI
@Jeff, @Cheryl something about psychology, please?
@sinux
Thanks for the picture. I stand corrected.
@Gysbreght,
“The horizontal stabilizer is a movable control surface, and nobody is supposed to step on it, it’s all “NO STEP”.”
Maintenance technicians are on it a lot. The No Step is a reminder to them not to step beyond the main torsion box, where the stabiliser or wing (as the case may be) could be damaged.
OZ
Oz,
Thanks; I expected to hear that ADIRU is the primary source. The reason I am so interested in this is simple: my CTS model showed nearly linear increase of altitude. The major problem, however, was to explain what kept the aircraft stable, if nothing was controlling altitude. So I began looking for a potential “replacement” of underlying assumptions, which could lead to similar trend in the altitude. So far I suspect two potential “candidates”:
1. A holding mode similar to EY440, but with extremely large legs. The altitude of EY440 was constant, but it can be set to constant RoC or RoD according to manuals. I have not found limitations on the length of legs; display shows 2 digits, implying 99 minutes (?).
2. ADIRU was somehow successfully but incorrectly re-aligned in the air. Because the Earth is not spherical but ellipsoidal, incorrect initial position/velocity could possibly result in ADIRU “thinking” that it was at a constant altitude, while in the reality the aircraft was gradually ascending as it moved away from the equator. ADIRU cannot derive both the altitude and latitude from a single equation to establish its real location; and there could be mismatch between the altitude derived as a result of numerical integration using data from accelerometers, and altitude derived from latitude based on gravitometry. As the priority is given to ADIRU, readings from SAARU and GPS would likely result in the display of a warning message only. In other words the “triple redundancy” would take over. Of course, in this case actual position/velocity of the aircraft would be different from what ADIRU supplied to AES. And my point is that not only latitude/longitude would be different, but also altitude.
Gysbreght,
Re “If t.he piece found by Blaine is from a B777, it is a piece of wing,…”
I have read somhere there were 3 aircrafts that went down in that region.
One more suspicious thing about “Mozambique debris”. ChannelNewsAsia has just published a report that next-of-kin are in rush to file against MAS, as according to international regulations they have to submit claims before 2-year deadline. The problem, however, is that it is not legally clear what MAS can be accused of. Prior to going to Mozambique Blaine met with the next-of-kin in Malaysia. Has he really found that debris by a chance?
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/mobile/asiapacific/mh370-families-rush-to/2572324.html
@ Jeff Wise
Just a quick question :
What happened on Monday 29th February ?
@LouVilla, maybe you will enlighten us. But in most time zones on Monday, 29th Febuary Leo Di Caprio finally won his first Oscar. It is debatable if it was well deserved or not. I’d say: Di Caprio is a worthy Oscar winner. But I wouldn’t have given him one for “The Revenant” which I found mostly boring and uninspiring, even if there were occasional flashes of brilliance.
@OZ, do any of your contacts have pictures of the top surface of a 777 horizontal stabilizer? I haven’t seen any clear close-up pictures yet. In striking contrast to all the flaperon pics and schematics that surfaced an instant after the flaperon turned up.
I find it amusing that some of the most ardent “anti-conspiracy” investigators have begun to create elaborate conspiracy theories regarding the new part that was found off of Mozambique.
I’ve learned that some of the official investigators are skeptical about the authenticity of this part due to its condition as compared to the flaperon that was recovered at La Reunion.
Certainly this new part raises many questions. Let the facts fall where they may.
When I read this purported discovery I almost fell down laughing. The timing and coincidence with the upcoming anniversary was too obvious especially with the litigation window winding down.
How many false leads, manufactured evidence, spoof theories and the like etc etc must decent folk put up with before we accept the following facts:
1. There was no turn back and across the Malay Peninsular
2. All BFOs, BTOs, UFOs , satellite data whatever are elaborate hoaxes designed to hide the real fact
3. All assumptions derived from that data are just crackpot speculations and flights of fancy of people who should have the basic human decency to know better. In fact I called out a New Zealander NASA know it all on his silly assumptions and was kicked out when he found me troublingly needlesome as some of his and his acolytes data didn’t stand rigorous scrutiny.
And many of his minions have taken residence here as well to further the disinformation. They are never gonna find the plane with hocus locus data. If anyone wants to even try they have to figure out how fast the plane took to cross the peninsular ( which it never did) and start working from there through a whole lot of probabilities and in doing so throw, compress, manipulate etc their initial assumptions which people who know real Physics reckon trying to shoehorn something out of nothing.
Now without wasting time here are the real facts:
1. Plane was approaching a military exercise zone.
2. Communication was lost spontaneously in a flash so to speak
3. Reliable eyewitness accounts from an offshore rig in Vietnam and from offshore Terengganu both provide somewhat identical accounts of a plane in flames
4. Two pieces of aircraft debris was recently found and then abruptly dismissed but something on Mozambique or Reunion hogs the limelight.
All points to the inevitable conclusion that the plane was downed by a missile strike which explains instant termination of communication. And that strike was carried out by a superpower, there are cause for both deliberate and accidental. Malaysia is beholden to that superpower than the PRC. Thailand which was staging for the military exercise of course played along. PRC were caught in a bind simply because the evidence and data provided to them were a hogwash. Probably they didn’t want to start a military incident, just yet.
My flight of fancy? Nyet. I was accused of that in the thread below. But this time I bring to the table early reports of the incident. As they say, the first 48hours of a news story is worth a trove of gold. I have kept silent to mine that stuff , so here is one for starters from reputable publications no less:
http://www.news.com.au/world/playboy-pilot-at-controls-of-mh370-had-a-track-record-of-inviting-pretty-passengers-into-his-cockpit-where-he-smoked-and-posed-for-snaps/story-fndir2ev-1226850952131
Note the Cathay Pacific pilot’s eyewitness take and also the SCMP link in there. But this is just starters folks, but I am not holding my bated breath it will silence the exerts for wouldn’t something so easily explainable render them looking like the charlatans and buffoons they are,
You have been open minded Jeff of all possibilities and I admire and respect that. That’s the reason I enjoy your takes and you are well above censorship to boot
And just for the road, the super math guys will probably struggle explaining this.
For shah or whoever or whatever was at the controls to reach the SIO end would require the craft to evade radar at
A. Christmas Island
B. RAF at Exmouth
C. Broome
D. Perth
not to mention the JORN at Jindalee equipped to pick a gnat or a UFO! So explain that folks unless you say MH370 was made of special radar evading material , errrr….kryptonite perhaps
@Wazir Roslan: Unless you believe that MH370 was carrying rocket parts in its cargo hold, the parts that were recovered and dismissed have nothing to do with MH370. The flaperon is certainly from a B777 and the new part from Mozambique probably is. That makes their association with the MH370 disappearance very likely.
This plane was shot down – most likely, accidentally – at/near the point of last verbal contact.
Most of the commentators on here have done a fabulous job analyzing the data that’s been put out. The fundamental assumption herein, is that the data was created by MH370, as opposed to “other sources”.
Peer reviews work with the data set provided, and ask the scientific question of “what now”? Not “whence from”? And that’s the fatal flaw here.
I’m never going to say it couldn’t happen the way folks suggest it played out – into the SIO. However, in my analysis of this situation, that’s an unlikely event. Less likely than the complexities involved in spoofing/colluding/covering up a horrible mistake.
One needn’t ascribe entirely sinister motives to the cover-up either. It isn’t that hard to make an argument that a mistake was made, and the admission of the mistake could lead to consequences terrible enough to warrant a cover-up.
Hence, the initial dithering, followed by a quick re-direction of the search Westward, and then Southwards – far away from the point of most likely impact.
Think about it. Don’t assume the origin of the data syncs up necessarily with the intended source.
Best Regards,
Adiyogi
Anyone knows what happens if the aircraft passes a waypoint en route? Will ACARS send a report in real time in that case?
@Oleksandr: per your request (which I’d initially missed – sorry for the delay), I attach a link to a prior posting of Jeff’s, which links you to my drift study comparison:
http://jeffwise.net/2015/12/09/mh370-debris-drift-analysis-by-brock-mcewen/
The issue with the CSIRO study (first published Aug.6/’15 – hard on the heels of the many glossy flaperon visuals Jeff cites) is its decision to add leeway effects (wind + Stokes) consistent with those of untethered drifters, which have 50% of their cross-sectional area out of water. Before asserting that the flaperon validated the current search area, they should have first established from empirical flaperon buoyancy testing that 50% leeway is a reasonable assumption.
If the flaperon and horizontal stabiliser were the only two pieces of wreckage out there, it would be a miracle to find them, so there is quite likely much more debris out there off the coast of Africa. If the latest find was planted, then surely whoever planted it would have made sure it was covered in barnacles so it looked authentic. Bravo to Blaine Gibson, I think he looks a genuine type of guy.
@VictorI
With all due respect, it seems bizarre that you seem to have doubts of Mozambique earlier but inexplicably more receptive of it being MH 370 debris in your response to me. Please take a definitive stance.
Secondly we will never know what was in that cargo hold unless Malaysia comes clean . And mind you Malaysia was once indicted for being involved in missile technology proliferation in the Pakistani nuclear scientist case. Even if it is an actual rocket part and we don’t have unambiguous verification from neutrals, what about that other part found nearby in Besut? The locations of those debris very near the last point of contact is sufficiently indicative.
I don’t make willy nilly assumption but try to relate available eyewitness accounts and other related parameters. Example the Cathay Pacific pilot, the SCMP report and early reports in the Vietnam press of the presence of debris. I would rather believe my version of events than any hocus pocus assumptions. And definitely not sudden appearances of flotsam in far off places like Reunion or even Mozambique at oddly opportune moments as that. And the sudden termination of communication is indicative of a missile strike resulting in catastrophic failure.
Be that as it may, assuming that the plane crossed the Malay peninsular, any researcher worth his or her salt would need to calculate fuel burn, airspeed, flight trajectory before commencing speculations on what transpired after that from North Sumatrra downwards. And the sheer number possibilities will put all variables out of whack with the data so much so you have the laughable propositions of one expert contradicting not only each other but also themselves trying to prove the impossible over at IG just for some ego massage guised as concern. I am an engineer and won’t claim super genius capacities but the data just doesn’t add up no matter how you model it excepting you bring in absurd assumptions to make it fit. In short, one can say all available data are clouded with so much ambiguity that it doesn’t make sense to use any of them for speculative purposes.
And even worse none can explain how 4 state of the art radars in Australia couldn’t pick out the plane. Are you guys implying that the Oz radar watchers are as sleepy headed as the Malaysians. Exmouth would have triggered the alarm even if CII missed the plane. And you lot seem to assume that the plane was some invisible phantom!
I don’t mean to sound sarcastic and apologise for doing just that but it is callously tragic to play on the emotions of the grieving when closure is so obviously available if only everyone didn’t hush up the truth and faced the reality that a sudden catastrophic failure I.e., a missile strike downed the airliner. That is the best fit narrative with all the available evidence.
There was an earlier comment dismissing my theory on the grounds that a missile strike would leave a debris field. But then again a missile need not impact a plane directly, a near explosion would be sufficient for ensuing shrapnel to bring down the plane in large chunks. There are enough literature on this to attest that fact.
The short answer is no.
If ACARS is available, and a means of communication is available to it, and the waypoint is part of the flight plan programmed in the FMS, and that flightpath is active, and the autopilot is operating in LNAV mode, ACARS will not send a report unless it had been specifically programmed to do so.
Your post has so many half-facts and inaccuracies that I won’t even try to correct you. Let me just address your first statement regarding my initial doubts about the recently found part.
Yes, based on our inability to match the recovered part to a particular component of a B777, as well as the good condition of the part, I expressed doubts about whether it was from a B777, and MH370 in particular. Since that time, based on information uncovered by @GuardedDon, we are more certain that the part came from the horizontal stabilizer of a B777. And yes, I still have concerns about the good condition of the part relative to what would be expected after a 2-year journey across the Indian Ocean.
@Adiyogi, Welcome to the forum. You will find that speculation that runs counter to the mass of evidence, and has no evidence it its favor, will not receive much favor here.
@Wazir, You write, “I would rather believe my version of events than any hocus pocus assumptions.” This kind of irrational adherence to one’s pet theory, and scorn for any evidence that doesn’t fit into it, was a very popular mode of thought in the Middle Ages but is absolutely inappropriate for scientific discussion. If continue in this vein you will be banned.
@Cheryl,
I suppose it would be possible for the stabilizer to get lodged in the flaperon (if I understand your scenario correctly), and yet… it seems a one-in-a-trillion shot for that to occur just so. But even if it did, and who knows, I still can’t get my head around ending up with a clean piece of wreckage after 2 years. Clean enough to eat your lunch off, for crying out loud 😉
Thanks for coming up with an interesting possibility nonetheless – so important to think outside all boxes for this case!
jeffwise,
I understand your point, and that’s all in good faith. If the world stopped trusting data as it was put out, and “ignoring” evidence as can be perceived in the immediacy of one’s senses, our worlds become extremely complex.
So, I get why someone like a VictorI does what he does. I would also say this – to spend that amount of time to tease out the intricacies of the flight path, in pure technical form is not just brilliant, it requires a lot of hard work and time.
Not taking anything away, and not expecting “my theory” to get any traction – after all, where’s my evidence?!
Sometimes, intuition gathered from hours of analysis, an understanding of the human mind, of state tendencies, and geopolitical constructs/influence can be powerful. That’s all I will say, and I say this as someone who is able to parse (painfully, however) the technical peels of the onion.
So, please carry on. I greatly respect the motivation, intelligence and dedication. May we just find that darn plane.
Adiyogi
@Adiyogi: For the record, I believe that a broad range of scenarios are still on the table, including those that don’t end in the SIO. In fact, at this point, the ones I favor are the ones that don’t.
VictorI,
Well, that’s because you haven’t shown any ego to cling on to a pet theory! Your approach, as I understood it, has been to observe the data as presented, attempt to harmonize it, and see what gives.
An important, and implicit variable in your equations is time, and the second order interaction of time with whether or not the debris field has been located in the area of most likely ditch/crash/Controlled Flight Into Terrain.
Math is funny…and precise. Since the plane hasn’t been found yet, our equations are that much richer now than before, aren’t they? Of course, we complicate these equations by having to account for the probability of a botched SIO search (a la towfish losses, other factors). But, that’s the scientifically rigorous method of analysis, regardless.
Therefore, it’s not entirely surprising to me that someone like you who stays close to the data without being invested in it would say what you just said.
Adiyogi
Victor,
“I find it amusing that some of the most ardent “anti-conspiracy” investigators have begun to create elaborate conspiracy theories regarding the new part that was found off of Mozambique.”
Frankly speaking, after details emerged, I began suspecting this debris was found much earlier. And that it was kept to support claims against MAS (MAB these days), deadline for which is approaching. That is probably the only solid piece of evidence, because the other one is hidden by French/Malaysian authorities. That is why no barnacles, and no sand in honeycomb. A lawyer must know that the debris he found must be carefully examined and documented before removal, but apparently he did not follow ‘procedure’. Why?
BTW, CNN and ChannelNewsAsia suggested that this piece could be a skin of stabiliser at the time, when you cited Don, who said b777 does not have such components. That means some other experts had access to the photographs one day before you and Don.
Victor,
P.S. I have realised that the reason why French and Malaysian did not release details of the flapperon could be that they intentionally postpone report till March 8 to prevent its materials from being used against MAS in claims. Ugly fighting of lawyers?
Ed,
Re “If the latest find was planted, then surely whoever planted it would have made sure it was covered in barnacles so it looked authentic.”
Not necessarily. If the latest find was discovered, cleaned and wiped, before the importance of barnacles was realised, the time could simply be insufficient. A lot of questions to Mr. Gibson about his involvement into mh370 saga.
Brock,
Thanks for the link; I need to refresh myself with your work.
At a glance, particles of both Deltares and CSIRO models could hit all the 3 locations: the towelette (Australia), the Flaperon (Reunion) and the recently found debris (Mozambique).
It would be interesting to estimate location at the 7th arc corresponding to the highest probability if we assume all the 3 pieces pertaining to mh370.
Thanks Oleksandr for replying. Presumably, the possible stabiliser was painted with the same paint as the flaperon, so it should have had barnacles too? Someone commented, that if the flaperon had knocked off the stabiliser, and if so, it could have left some paint marks from the impact. So, say the horizontal stabiliser got knocked off by flutter it would mean that the aircraft would likely have been out of control when it hit the ocean. If the flaperon had detached during a ditching, it would be less likely to hit the stabiliser, as that would possibly be in the sea or surrounded by spray/splash.
I very much have enjoyed and appreciated this thread, and the contributions of all.
I have a question that has bothered me about the most recent piece found. Some have claimed that the lack of marine life is perhaps due to a “sand blasting effect” of the part against the shore. If correct, why are “NO STEP” and other markings still so easily legible?
@RL3, that’s a very good question. IMO, the “sandblasting” argument doesn’t work for many reasons. You named one of them. Also, the paint and overall appearance would be a lot less shiny. Look at a piece of glass found at a beach. It’s normally completely matte. The whole piece of debris should’ve a more wheathered appearance. And sandblasting would probably not wipe out all traces of algae and barnacle cement.
Also, there is very little sand in the honeycombs.
@RL3:
Great question. The passage of time and action of the elements are always working to break down materials. The paint should have been faded or gone, there should have been discolouring at the very least on the rest of the piece, and it should give you some general sense of the amount of time it was at sea.
I used to take students on the West Coast Trail on Vancouver Island every spring, and was always fascinated by the chunks of plastic, wood, old rusty spikes, etc. that you would find on the beach. However, these artifacts were never sitting sunning themselves on a sandbar waiting to be found – they were always mixed with other innumerable flotsam of a thousand different origins, and becoming increasingly buried in a pile on the shore or under the sand. And as time goes on, with each passing year of more storms, waves, etc, these pieces only get buried further and encounter greater disintegration.
So to answer your question, I can’t think of any way that painted lettering should still look as though it was just stencilled on last week, if the “2 years at sea” theory is applied here. But as always, open to ideas!
@Oleksandr: two points:
1. Deltares in particular starts its drifts from north – WELL north (25-35S) – of the active search area (36.5-40.1S). And its S35 paths all fall well short of Réunion by July 29, 2015.
2. I recommend you NOT take on blind faith the following sources of “evidence”:
– the flaperon discovery
– the towelette discovery
– the Mozambique discovery
– any particular drift study on the above
– any drift study meta-analysis (including my own)
Rather, I suggest you perform primary research, and verify first-hand that the “evidence” suggested by them is in fact solid before drawing any conclusions. Because of the distinct possibility of either honest error or deliberate misdirection, NONE of the above are trustworthy on their face.
Ditto the signal and primary radar data. Suggest you ignore in particular any “proof by intimidation” of accuracy or authenticity. I can personally attest to multiple instances of having been led by such “experts” to trust research which a) was supposed to corroborate the signal data, but b) fell to dust when I so much as blew on it.
@Oleksandr, I think when Brock says “proof by indimidation,” he’s referring to the fact that people make fun of him for questioning both the radar and the Inmarsat, which happen to be the only clues we have to the last seven hours of the plane’s flight.
@ palominodrew – spoken like a man with some hands on experience….no substitute for it…so, it’s beginning to look like this tail feather “find” is getting a little too colorful…..i personally hope not….but….
@Littlefoot & @palominodrew – Thanks kindly for the replies. I sure never wanted to jump into a conversation being held by minds far greater than mine, but that question is not one I’d seen asked (anywhere for that matter) and it was driving me nuts.
Glad to hear I hadn’t missed it being asked before and there wasn’t some terribly obvious answer I’d overlooked.
Keep up the good work all. I very much like the conversation and will continue to monitor it (again, full of appreciation to all of you!).
@RL3, @palaminodrew
NO STEP appears to be a decal, not paint. See my post here : https://www.reddit.com/r/MH370/comments/48wy5a/whose_font_is_no_step/d0nfysc
Font is Glaser Stencil, designed by Milton Glaser in the late 60’s/early 70’s. It’s a common stencil typeface, though I haven’t been able to locate it in aviation use outside of MH17 debris.
I spent some time tagging and sorting the objects in the SCS satellite image and I measured some of them with QGIS. My impression is that all those objects fall in three precise categories.
Those are not waves, but possibly/probably debris and persons in the water. Dropbox folder with my work:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/0dwqeuplqvpafhu/AACM_I9NELT0Ekz-TR1N4qiRa?dl=0
Anyone here realizes that the simplest explanation (Occam razor) is a military shootdown or collision heavily covered to avoid a huge scandal?
Dots category (about 50cm – 1mt)
Well defined dots, often followed by a short, lighter trail.
Medium features category
Medium brightness, irregular contours objects with size up to 15mt.
Big features category
High brightness, clear contours objects, with size up to 30-40mt.
Byron Bailey again – from The Australian:
Two years have elapsed since the not-so-mysterious disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 in the southern Indian Ocean. The ultra-modern Boeing 777 vanished without warning from radar over the South China Sea en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, with the loss of all 239 people on board.
The ongoing search by four state-of-the-art vessels — three Dutch, one Chinese — with highly qualified crews has drawn a blank. Scientists from the Defence Department’s Defence Science and Technology Group, through awesome mathematical deductions and assumptions based on hourly satellite pings, established the so-called seventh arc, the trajectory MH370 is believed to have followed. It was this arc that provided the basis for defining the search area, which is the responsibility of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau.
So why has MH370 not been found? I believe it is because the search has been conducted too far to the north and east based on the ATSB’s theory of an unresponsive crew. Under the rogue pilot scenario, and a controlled ditching, the plane would have been farther to the south and west when it entered the water.
In November, the DSTG scientists with their PhDs and masters of mathematical science degrees released a prepublication draft report. They qualify that the draft is not about the search for MH370 but about the mathematical modelling underpinning it.
In their report, the scientists make some interesting observations, which the ATSB has ignored: “beginning of descent is not known”; “a model is required to describe how it may have descended. This is primarily the responsibility of the ATSB”; “it is possible for the aircraft to have travelled further, especially if a human was involved”.
The scientists were of the opinion that, given the expertise of the search crews and the sophistication of the equipment being used, it was highly likely that MH370 would be located if the search vessels passed over it.
Once the seventh arc was established, the ATSB should have asked Virgin Australia, which operates Boeing 777s and whose highly qualified pilots — some of whom I have flown with at Emirates — to calculate a probable controlled-ditching location. This could be based on known facts such as the amount of fuel on board at takeoff, the fuel used on the subsequent southwest turnaround over the South China Sea, the pilot-controlled turn south over the north of Sumatra in Indonesia and the final straight leg to the southern Indian Ocean.
Assuming a pilot was hijacking the aircraft, attempts to hide the aircraft in as remote a location as possible would mean calculating the final leg on long-range cruise speed and optimum altitudes. These would be about 40,000 feet before an idle-engine descent with enough fuel to carry out a controlled ditching.
A normal descent profile at engine-idle for a Boeing 777 is M.83 (83 per cent of the speed of sound), transitioning to an airspeed of 310 knots, which would cover about 130 nautical miles (240km). A pilot wishing to cover a much farther distance would engine-idle “glide” at about the optimum minimum drag speed of 220 knots and cover much greater distance.
Westerly winds generally are on the beam (cross angle) of a southerly heading. Just a difference of five degrees over 5500km in the heading from the turn north of Sumatra would result in a possible longitudinal splay of 450km. This position line based on probable fuel used by a rogue pilot hijack tied in with the seventh arc would give a much more probable location for MH370 of hundreds of kilometres farther south and west of where the search originated.
A controlled ditching under power is a Boeing flight manual procedure requiring the flap down and undercarriage up at the lowest possible speed into wind of more than 40 knots and a landing just on top of or just after the primary swell. Even in a perfect ditching, in heavy seas engines may be torn off and other significant damage — especially to protruding airframe parts — may occur, but the aircraft would be substantially intact.
The pilot would not be so foolish as to wait for engine flame-out (engine failure because of lack of fuel), which is a serious emergency situation that limits flight control through reduced hydraulic power via the ram air turbine (which generates power from the airstream) and reduced electrical power to standby instruments.
The auxiliary power unit may fire up for a limited duration but could repressurise the aircraft only at 22,000 feet on the descent.
However, no flap would be available in this one-shot attempt at a ditching in those rough seas south of latitude 40 (the Roaring Forties) and the water contact at about 300km/h is essentially a crash with resultant debris.
The ATSB consistently has stated that the evidence does not support a controlled ditching. What evidence? All we have as real evidence is the fuel on board at take-off at Kuala Lumpur and that MH370 ended up in the southern Indian Ocean. ATSB head Martin Dolan is being disingenuous to hint at a possible controlled glide by an unspecified pilot who could also have been a passenger who knew how to fly.
You have to be kidding. A passenger forces through a locked door and immediately overpowers the crew just after the flight’s captain, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, says goodnight to Kuala Lumpur air traffic control, then turns off all the communication equipment and turns the aircraft southwest. They then climb above 40,000 feet — supposedly to kill all the passengers after they depressurise the aircraft (only a pilot’s mask has the required pressure control to prevent hypoxia).
This person would then need to fly a deliberate track over northern Malaysia, swing past Penang, Zaharie’s home town, and up above the Strait of Malacca, then turn left north of Sumatra (the last military radar contact) and all the while reprogram the flight management system so the autopilots could fly the aircraft to the planned final location. This is completely at odds with what I have observed and experienced as a senior and long-time commercial pilot.
At 4am in August 1998, flying a Boeing 777 over the Indian Ocean, I had a violent forced incursion through a flight deck door that was showing the locked indicator. My tough Egyptian purser physically handled the situation. The upshot was that Boeing then modified and strengthened the B777 door and the locking mechanism. Since September 11, airline protocols require the door to be locked and for access to be controlled.
The ATSB consistently has stated that the evidence does not support a controlled ditching. Well, it is the lack of evidence that supports a controlled ditching. Where is the debris?
The ATSB defined the end-of-flight scenario by stating in the report released in December by then deputy prime minister Warren Truss that “after dual engine flame-out the aircraft turned and entered a banked turn”. The report then leaves the reader in suspense.
What utter nonsense. Without an autopilot or a pilot to keep the wings level the aircraft would roll into a spiral dive and hit the sea 90 seconds later at 1200km/h, exploding into masses of debris. Air France flight 447, an Airbus A330 that crashed in the Atlantic in June 2009, pancaked in at low speed in a stall and still had significant debris.
A huge aircraft hitting the sea with 15 times the kinetic energy would result in so much debris that some would float indefinitely — I was told this by experts at the Sydney Airport emergency ditching simulator who train pilots and cabin crew in life jacket and life raft drill and sea survival.
Surely after two years, with the wind and currents, some items would have washed up somewhere. Only the flaperon has been found, on Reunion Island, and a yet to be confirmed discovery this week on a Mozambique beach of some sheet metal, which has been flown to Australia for testing.
An initial overseas report from an unconfirmed source was that the damage indicated it was broken off at low speed in the lowered position. The ATSB said only that damage to the trailing edge was consistent with high-speed flight and did not support the theory of a controlled ditching.
The B777 in certification is flown to M.96. The drag rise at M.98 is so severe that a B777, with those blunt intakes and in a dive, could not go supersonic. I have been supersonic many times. A Sabre fighter required a full power dive to pass Mach 1.
High-speed flight would not damage a control surface (flaperon) by flutter, hydraulically locked in position by dual actuators. By the way, where is the report on the flaperon?
Why didn’t the ATSB consider the obvious rogue pilot theory? Not even after the head of Emirates — the largest B777 operator and my former boss — stated on live television that MH370 was flown under control for 7½ hours and that pilots should not be able to turn off communication and tracking equipment in flight? Why didn’t the ATSB take note of this very important statement?
I started writing about this 18 months ago, first in The Daily Telegraph and now in The Australian, pointing out some of the aerodynamically absurd and confusing information the ATSB was pushing out to the public. Other overseas experts (pilots) also started making their concerns known.
I am not some desk-bound self-appointed aviation expert, some of whom are well known and whose suspect opinions make it too often in the media.
I have been flying jet aircraft for 45 years. I have many thousands of hours flying B777, often out of Kuala Lumpur.
As a former fighter pilot I am an expert on aerodynamics. I fly a large corporate jet that has similar avionics, flight management systems and hydraulically powered flight controls and a ram air turbine like the B777.
I and my coterie of colleagues — highly experienced airline and former airline pilots from A380 Qantas, B777 British Airways, Emirates B777/A380 and others — think the ATSB dropped the ball with the nonsensical end-of-flight theory and as a result the search area is several hundred kilometres or more too far to the north and east. This is why MH370 has not yet been located. Two years wasted. The search area has now progressed south and west, getting closer to the probable correct area.
If MH370 is not found in the remaining few months and the search is suspended due to cost, which overall must now be well more than $200 million of taxpayers’ money, then MH370 will pass into legend like the ghost ship Mary Celeste. A movie will probably be made. The ATSB will not be in the credits. I wonder what the title would be? “The longest and costliest search in aviation history” or “the biggest farce in aviation history”.
Byron Bailey, a veteran commercial pilot with more than 45 years’ experience and 26,000 flying hours, is a former RAAF fighter pilot and trainer and was a senior captain with Emirates for 15 years, during which he flew the same model Boeing 777 passenger jet as Malaysia Airlines MH370.
@Gysbreght
Thanks for clarification.
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Assuming ACARS was disabled manually in the cockpit: ACARS traffic was transmitted via SATCOM during the early flight duration up to 17:07 (which is unusual within SITA coverage). We have seen that in the pre-2003 version of AIMS you can force ACARS to run on VHF and then switch VHF from data to voice transmission, which should do the job, but you can’t disable ACARS in the SATCOM mode. Would there be a logoff protocol for either event (recorded on VHF)? I assume it wouldn’t matter in that case if the SDU has been ‘unplugged’ beforehand as VHF was likely still working.