Earlier this morning a South African radio station posted a story about a local family that found a piece of aircraft debris while on vacation in Mozambique in December.
18-year-old Liam Lotter has told East Coast Radio Newswatch while they were on holiday in Inhambane in December – he and his cousin came across what he describes as the “shiny object” while walking on the beach. They brought it back to KwaZulu-Natal. Lotter says it was only after seeing news reports last week about another piece of debris found on a sandbank off Mozambique that his family saw a possible link. Liam’s mother Candace Lotter has since been in contact with South African and Australian authorities.
The story included a couple of pictures:
UPDATE: On Friday, March 11 Reuters published more photos:
Here’s an image that provides a sense of scale:
The code “676EB” in the top photograph refers to an access panel hatch in the right-hand outboard flap of a 777. The images below show the equivalent structures on the left-hand side.
Given that no other 777 has gone missing at sea, and that the Réunion flaperon has been conclusively identified as coming from the missing flight, then it’s very hard to imagine that this part didn’t come MH370.
Given that after nearly two years only a single piece of debris had heretofore been found, it’s extraordinary that in the span of less than two weeks three pieces of possible MH370 debris have come to light.
First, of course, was the piece found by Blaine Alan Gibson on a Mozambique sand bar in late February:
Followed a few days later by reports that Johnny Begue, who found the flaperon later linked to MH370 in July of 2015, had found what might be another part of the plane:
One striking feature of these three latest finds, that many people have commented on, is the striking absence of barnacles, algae, or other forms of sea life. That’s in striking contrast to the flaperon:
Some have suggested that the pieces might have been grazed clean by crabs after making landfall, or scoured clean by the action of waves and sand. According to IB Times, one Mozambique official believes that Blaine’s piece probably did not come from MH370 for this reason:
Abreu was also quoted Friday by state news agency AIM, saying that any claim that the debris belonged to the missing Flight MH370 was “premature” and “speculative,” according to All Africa. He also expressed doubts that the debris may not be from the missing Boeing 777 as the object was too clean to have been in the ocean for the past two years. However, he reportedly said that “no aircraft which has overflown Mozambican airspace has reported losing a panel of this nature,” First Post reported, citing AIM.
Hopefully a thorough investigation by the authorities will clarify the issue.
Worth noting that the second Mozambique piece was found 125 miles south of the first one, while both of the Réunion pieces were found on the same beach.
For anyone interested in looking for contrails, I made up a couple of figures showing the relative humidity along a canonical flight path. You need 100% humidity to get contrails. The best possibility is around longitude 93, latitude -10 at 22:00 UT. The map varies somewhat with altitude and UT, but the basic pattern stays the same.
Here’s the index to most of my stuff:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/14hleZyx1pUPL44yaeHKt6jnSQ3DbgRq2zibbKkFLq2c/edit?usp=sharing
The relevant figures are at the link at the top.
@Warren Platts. Yes he would not have been able to get his flaps down (to 15 deg from memory) without starting the APU I think. MH370 the same.The Hudson accident report says an engine came off. No cartwheeling, presumably because he landed with high pitch and the drag back there kept him straight.
ROB,
Why not then go straight on a diagonal from IGARI, SCS to the SIO, if it was suicide no need to take the looping, scenic route up the Straits and around Indonesia? There’s got to be a reason why they went in that area whether it be airports or they were headed north or not. And how about something that took out or burned out comms but left hydraulics and flight controls whether that be human perps or whatever? I’m still thinking the yes “deliberate” diversion was a life saving measure. Although in this thing appearances are deceiving and it could be something else as well. And I am aware that the B777 has a multitude of triple redundancies, but what if something failed that feeds something else and caused a bizarre series of jams or misreadings or glitches?
@Guys
Thank you for your comments and critiques. Feedback is much appreciated.
I found something very interesting when I looked at the orientation of my proposed. geodesic (great circle) flight path with reference to the sunrise terminator line – they are practically parallel. The azimuth of the terminator varies over the course of a year. Spring and Autumn equinoxes are the only times it runs due north-south. On March 8th, the flight path ran parallel to the approaching sunrise terminator. This made it easier for the pilot to synchronise the estimated time of fuel exhaustion with the desired Sun elevation, which at 00:19 UTC was approx 6 deg. Very clever arrangement, because if the takeoff had been delayed say 15 minutes, he could have speeded up the cruise from the nominal M0.81 to M0.84, and made up the time. He wouldn’t have travelled quite as far,M0.84 is less fuel efficient, but that wouldn’t matter. The important thing would be synchronizing burn out with Sun angle, without having to work out a tricky course change.
This is how closely tuned the flight path was to Sunrise: if for some reason, he had been 30 minutes early, the terminal area would still have been in darkness. If 30 minutes late, the final hour of the flight would have been in sunlight, and thus more vulnerable.
The more you look at it the more you realize how much planning must have been involved.
@ROB
Planning for what purpose?
@Everyone
The apparent non-operation of the ELT has always been a mystery. As I understand it, the ELT is a self contained unit in the rear fuselage crown, with its own battery, and cannot be switched off from the cockpit. The pilot would have wanted to make sure it wasn’t activated when he ditched. I think he got round the problem by ditching at high speed, but at a very shallow angle of descent- ie low descent rate, to minimize the overall deceleration rate, and avoid setting of the transmitter. He hit the water right hand down. He had come in nose-up, with the flaps down (so he had to trim the all-moving tailplane nose-up to compensate for the flaps down, and this might explain how Gibson’s NO STEP fragment got broken away from the tail) Does this make any sense?
@DennisW
I assume that’s intended to be a serious question, so I will give you a concise answer. Simply put, the planning was to achieve the goal of making the plane disappear without trace. Why this was done, is not for me or you to go into, much better to concentrate on how it was done. And the plan worked very well, except he didn’t reckon on Inmarsat (and others) being able to work out where he went.
As to your earlier question iro the suicide issue; people do commit suicide without any prior warning, this happens to be a sad fact.
@Cheryl
The intention was to make the plane disappear. It follows that suicide is an inevitable consequence, unless he was able to arrange for a boat to pick him up James Bond style, and whisk him off to a new life in South America.
As discussed previously, the plan was to avoid detection, which would not have been helped if he flew the course you suggest!
@ROB
Not for me or you to decide? Funny shit. So you conclude that a great deal of planning went into this, but you don’t have a clue what the planning was for.
The plan was to avoid detection? Now I get it.
@ROB. About the ELT, it is hard to imagine any ditching without decelleration enough to set it off. One presumes that slithering across a flat field would do it. I gather there is not just decell that comes into it either but duration also. It used to be that one had to wait for a satellite pass to pick up a distress beacon. Is that instant now?
@Paul Sladen
I read your earlier interpretation of Inmarsat’s unredacted logs, and that was very impressive. I do have one question though. Do you know why there were two C channels used during the first satellite call (IOR-3730-21000 and IOR-373E-21000), while only one C channel used during the second call (IOR-3737-21000)?
Thank you.
Regarding the ELT . . I have raised this issue many months ago. The TSO specification requires the ELT to trigger with a “velocity” change of 2.3 +/- 0.3 G.
There is no duration element specified. However, the 406 Mhz signal is not broadcast by the ELT until 50 seconds after triggering, and then it continues to transmit the 520mS message every 50 seconds, for the first 24 hours.
If the ditched aircraft was under water within 50 seconds no ELT signal would have been transmitted.
He Brian, do you know if the ELT on AWE 1549 was triggered when Sully landed in the Hudson River?
@Brian Anderson. Thanks Brian. The web tells me there are now geostationary satellites to provide quick messaging.
My source about duration is a 777 captain:”The g-force required to activate the (777) ELT isn’t a fixed number; it varies according to the length of time the force is applied. Under the relevant standard, the minimum force is 2.6g for at least 0.05 seconds. Higher forces will activate the ELT in less time, eg 5.0g for at least 0.025 seconds, 12.0g for at least 0.01 seconds.” Possibly the ELT he has referenced is not the same as that in the Malaysian aircraft.
Another commentator notes that if it is a Honeywell 406A, “The EPIRB only needs 5 seconds to send out the first test message which may or may not contain position data.” So there may be a mix of ELTs but if MH370’s got off a test message in five seconds the aircraft’s demise would have been quick for this not to be evident ie if a ditching, a violent one.
@Brian Anderson. My last. For 406A, read 406AFN, which has an “RTCA DO204 spec g switch installed”.
Susie:
Thanks for posting the Weathergraphics High Res images of the six regions. I went immediately to the west grid you posted, and looked for Dr. Bobby Ulich and Kirill Prostyakov’s dissipation trails, as they might have appeared in pure form before being circled in red in the “Addendum 4” paper
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzOIIFNlx2aUWEtvSjBVS2JWX0E/view
I did not see the dissipation trails, even though the clouds look the same. In Dr. Ulich’s paper, the dissipation trails (called contrails in the paper) spanned from 32.44S 87.00E to 34.11S 86.37E, which is in your West grid.
Any explanation for the differences in the images?
Sk999,
More than a year ago I already posted humidity (and temperature) plots from GDAS. The problem is that if location is assumed, particularly altitude, then this knowledge does not help.
ROB,
“I found something very interesting when I looked at the orientation of my proposed. geodesic (great circle) flight path with reference to the sunrise terminator line – they are practically parallel.”
If I am not mistaken, it was found by Peter Norton more than a year ago. You can search Jeff’s blog, when it was discussed in detail.
@Lauren H,
I agree that the motive for flying into the SIO could have been to avoid crashing into a land mass and causing ground casualties.
Suppose you have lost comms and have a flight deck full of smoke. There is no decompression, but you are on O2 anyway because of the smoke and fumes. You shut off power to nonessential equipment in an attempt to quell the smoke. You can see the instruments well enough to aviator and navigate, but visibility out the windows is too poor to attempt a night landing at Penang, especially with no comms. You don’t descend since you can’t land, and the smoldering fire producing the fumes and smoke could get worse at lower altitude. You head out the Strait of Malacca and avoid land (and possible ground casualties) while you try to reduce the smoke and restore comms. Near 18:25 you restore power in an attempt to restore comms, but most of the comms gear (not including the SDU) is still not working. Your flight deck O2 supply is running out (possibly compromised in the MEC). There isn’t enough time or visibility to attempt a descent and landing at Banda Aceh. You decide to avoid possible land casualties and set a course far out to sea. This could have been done by setting a TrueTrack bearing on the MCP or by selecting a far south waypoint using the FMC. . Then the O2 supply runs out before the phone call at 18:40.
Selection of a nearby final waypoint at the end of the FMTs is ruled out by the satellite data if the default LNAV mode after a route discontinuity is NORM/HEADING as suggested by Don Thompson. I have evaluated all five LNAV modes for post-FMT routes assuming only one mode was used and the waypoint (if needed) was nearby. All magnetic and all heading modes are inconsistent with auto-piloted flight until fuel exhaustion. Only True Track or Great Circle routes are allowed. It is also possible that a far-south waypoint was used that was reached in the last 1-2 hours before fuel exhaustion (as discussed by Thompson and Godfrey).
The turn to the SSW at FMT must have been deliberate and not an unintended consequence of a route discontinuity occurring in an incomplete approach for a landing attempt. The only LNAV modes that fit the satellite data with FMS speed control after the FMTs are TRUE TRACK set using the MCP or a far-south waypoint set using the FMC (either a Lat/Lon position or perhaps RUNUT).
If ELT didn’t go off as it should have maybe mh370 hit land rather in the SIO. strange all these right side wing parts show up which were original mh370 parts replaced after the significant wing tip collision … Waiting for left side parts to float ashore
@ Warren : There was no mention of the ELT in the official report on AWE 1549. It wasn’t particularly relevant because the aircraft was not lost, but it would have been interesting to see if it triggered. Even on the smooth Hudson the deceleration was quite rapid and I would be surprised if it didn’t.
@ David: No. The TSO spec is perfectly clear. As far as I am aware all ELTs are built to meet the same spec.
The self test feature will generate a test message within 5 secs, but if that is transmitted it is ignored by the receiving system. The first genuine 406 Mhz emergency message is generated after about 50 secs.
121.5/243 Mhz signals will be broadcast immediately but these are primarily “homing” signals and few receiving facilities exist for them today.
@jeffwise,
In your 3/15 post at 8:11 am, you said :
“You remind me of an oft-overlooked but interesting fact: that even Thales, which built the SDU, is unable to make sense of the BFO values at 18:25. This is a clear indication that something unorthodox was taking place.”
I think your term “unorthodox” is quite accurate. I have proposed an explanation of what may have occurred that leads to realistic and and revealing flight parameters. I have also requested Inmarsat and ATSB to investigate my theory. So far I have gotten no indication of a result from Inmarsat, and ATSB says to submit a FOIA request.
It is possible that there is an unintended “bug” in the SDU code that creates the odd behavior of the Log-on/ Log-off Acknowledge message. In normal operation, log-ons occur at the gate and the BFO is unaffected, so it may never have been noticed before. It only comes into play when an in-flight log-on occurs in a turn.
Are you sure Thales wrote the SDU code, or was it Honeywell? Do you have a contact st Thales?
@Brian Anderson. Assuming the test signal was at 406 Mhz and received, would you assume the COSPASS/SARSAT log has been checked for whether there was a test signal, discarded?
@DrBobbyUlich – it was proven that there was enough time to communicate by way of the Hudson landing example. And if so it was really hard too see why fly to Penang under duress to determine to fly all the way to SIO with instrumentation / nav aides out then smoke filled cockpit reducing visibility while avoiding heavy air traffic. If they were flying under this I am sure a mid air collision would have been more likely.
Bobby,
It seems you are struggling to understand that the problem with your scenario is a batch of nuances shortly after 18:25. For instance, ACARS is automatically “on” after power up, all the 3 channels (hf, vhf and satcom). Who switched them off? Same about APU if they experienced a major electrical system failure. Or, alternatively, if a major failure of electronics took place, it is silly to assume that HDG HOLD or TRK HOLD were working. Dual FMC failure, for example, or ADIRS failure make these modes not available.
Finally, in case of oxygen-related problem, they would descent, while you stubbornly insist on ascent only to explain weird BFOs. Combined with actively aviated aircraft (I mean the 3 turns you suggested), your theory makes no sense. Too many inconsistencies you failed to explain.
@Oleksandr, I’m aware of the evolution of this discussion from Duncan’s site but posted the link for convenience as I don’t know how many of you (still) have it bookmarked, and I wanted to save people the hassle of looking it up.
@Niels, thank you for your comments, and yes, I realise it’s quite a large ‘anomaly’ due to the scale of the image, but contrails do spread out and in correspondence with the owner of the site I believe he stated it ^could^ be a contrail, though he doubted it was due to other factors. (I’ve lost all my emails from last year so unfortunately can’t check, and could be mistaken)
I suppose it just struck me how close it was to the co-ordinates Duncan discusses in his latest post. But as I said, it’s likely to be nothing.
@sk999 – fascinating, thank you very much for the link. I look forward to reading your thoughts.
@Michael, I have to get the kids to school but will take a look when I get back.
@Dr.Bonby Ulrich
You sid:
Suppose you have lost comms and have a flight deck full of smoke. There is no decompression, but you are on O2 anyway because of the smoke and fumes. You shut off power to nonessential equipment in an attempt to quell the smoke. You can see the instruments well enough to aviator and navigate, but visibility out the windows is too poor to attempt a night landing at Penang, especially with no comms. You don’t descend since you can’t land, and the smoldering fire producing the fumes and smoke could get worse at lower altitude. You head out the Strait of Malacca and avoid land (and possible ground casualties) while you try to reduce the smoke and restore comms. Near 18:25 you restore power in an attempt to restore comms, but most of the comms gear (not including the SDU) is still not working. Your flight deck O2 supply is running out (possibly compromised in the MEC). There isn’t enough time or visibility to attempt a descent and landing at Banda Aceh. You decide to avoid possible land casualties and set a course far out to sea.
I beg your pardon, but that is not how a professsional pilot would act in short term and over the prolonged period like you describe. A pilot like Zaharie Shah would have been prepared for such an emergency, would have
acted according to the established checklist procedures while at the same time using his expierience to head to the nearest suitable airfield for an expeditious landing.
Whether a landing could be done due to the outside visibility hindered by smoke or not would be a decision made on short final, not at FL300. And as no crew can know when a n existing fire would eat through the hull and severe more vital systems to delay the descent would be no good idea either.
@Michael,
I can clearly see the trail Bobby Ulich discusses in the 0200 image – I think the contrast is just lower in the WG images. The patterns visible on Bobby’s site are darker in relation to the pale cloud. If I could post a screen grab here I would. But it’s definitely there.
3 brilliant statements here of late regarding the AES/SDU and 18:25 reboot activity:
jeffwise: “a clear indication that something unorthodox was taking place”
Oleksandr: “potentially dangerous thing is a complex interaction of various systems”
DrBobbyUlich: “An unintended bug in the SDU code………..that only comes into play when an in-flight log-on occurs in a turn”
I’m now wondering if the IGARI diversion and the FMT were both intended to be life saving measures, with the former there was still hope to land, but so sadly by the latter all hope was lost and it was either a choice of them perishing in the ocean or them perishing with more lives on land. To me this had to be bigger than Zaharie, something he could not overcome (perps/spoofing/mechanical/fire) or figure out and I don’t think if they had had a third pilot in there, an instructor for Fariq, it would have helped matters much.
As far as the question a few articles back here Suicide or Spoof, I don’t think we are there quite yet to narrow it down to that, in light of what DrBobbyUlich and Oleksandr are delving into I think the fire or cascading mechanical failures can still be on the table, but how that reconciles with a semi-conscious pilot or conscious pilot to terminus I don’t know.
“You can see the instruments well enough to aviator and navigate, but visibility out the windows is too poor”
Aircrafts flying forward, not backward. How can smog affect outside visibility without affecting inside visibility? There is only weather radar in front of the cockpit, separated by protection shield. Also, pilots are trained to perform landing by instruments only. If HDG/TRK HOLD works, available instruments are sufficient to land without visual reference outside.
@DrBobbyUlich
Sorry that I misspelled your name.
@Brian Anderson;
“Even on the smooth Hudson the deceleration was quite rapid and I would be surprised if it didn’t.”
The airplane touched down at 126 kt groundspeed and came to a stop in 691 feet, i.e. the average deceleration was just over 1 g.
OT? meanwhiile, inside hot week aniversary, yet another hellfire passengers with proper paperwork flying Lebanon-Portland, while russians flying home, while ESA/Roskosmos ExoMars mission flying an other curious journey to drill 2 meters into Mars in future; but where is the damn plane?
Meanwhile the Graun says Australia says Johny Begue’s second find is unlikely to come from the missing plane. I think that’s the little blue and white piece that turned up a couple of weeks ago.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/16/mh370-debris-found-on-reunion-unlikely-to-be-from-missing-plane
No news on likelihood of other recent finds being pertinent.
Matty, once again thanks for the link. So I am not the only one to rope it down there. But I beat them by 22 years 🙂 Just to show I’m not full of it: Purple shirt, half way down in a shadow. You have to look hard to see me. Rope tied off around the rear axle of the commodore wagon on top…Young and stupid, like I said.
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/ae147/sharkcaver/Nullabor%2092/Abseilthebight.jpg
I don’t believe I said there will be no human contact down there, just that its a long shot and rare. If I did claim that, I correct myself. Certainly not the human activity in the area like you painted.
I think the show has run on Nullabor wreckage. Its such a minuscule element of this whole saga, it doesn’t warrant tying up forum resources IMO. We have both had our views presented. I mean that with respect.
@Rob.
2 things to comment on:
1. Daylight or darkness ditch. Wont matter a pinch of salt. The area isn’t frequented by regular shipping nor aircraft. I also highly doubt sat resources target this desert of the oceans. So it wouldn’t make bugger all difference. No one would see them in daylight.
2. ELT’s. I mentioned in another of Jeff’s posts some time ago that it has been mentioned elsewhere that A/C ELT’s have an approximate 80% auto activation failure rate in reported accident incidents. Sort of makes one wonder why they are mandated in the first place. Surely real time tracking in this day and age is a better methodology. They still have a place though: for example coms failure and the need to raise a mayday by manual activation.
Automation is not the only method for activation. Cabin crew can manually activate cabin located ELT’s and the boys at the pointy end can do so from the cockpit.
@DennisW
“Funny Shit”- Very apt choice of words Dennis. A nice little earner for you would be with the Malaysian Ministry of Propaganda and Mind Control. They are in urgent need of someone with an eloquent command of the English vernacular to contest the pilot in control scenario, now the recently discovered Flap Track Fairing has put the final nail in the coffin of the nobody in control theory.
@Sharkcarver
I have to disagree with you on the daylight/ darkness question. I figure it would be safer to ditch in daylight when you can get a visual of the surface and be able to judge distances, and also look around to make sure you’re not coming down next to a bulk carrier. This guy carefully planned the whole procedure. essential to his plan was to ditch the aircraft in such a way as to avoid leaving debris but get it under the water as soon as possible. the only way he could do that is to make a controlled ditching, and in my opinion that requires daylight.
I take your point on the ELT. I also read about their high failure rate. But could he take the chance on that? As for the cabin crew-operated ones above the doors – I don’t think there was anyone alive in the passenger cabin at this stage of the proceedings who could activate one, although I admit this aspect of things could do with further discussion.
It always surprises me to see military equipment shipped on passenger flights. In this case, some Hellfire missiles, which allegedly did not have a live warhead, yet were detected by bomb-sniffing dogs. It seems to me that independent of live warheads, the solid-fuel rocket motors would not be something I’d want in the cargo hold of my flight.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-serbia-missiles-idUSKCN0WG14N
Malaysia Airlines has a history of shipping military material on passenger flights, including chemical weapons on a flight from Beijing to Kuala Lumpur that were bound for Iran.
***
The crashes of Flight 370 and Flight 17 are not Malaysia Airlines’ first unusual insurance claims, however. The airline had an unusual claim in 2000 for the total loss of an Airbus A330 traveling in the opposite direction on the same route as Flight 370.
In that case, a canister of a mysterious Chinese shipment destined for Iran broke open near the end of a trip from Beijing to Kuala Lumpur and began leaking, producing a smell that prompted the captain to conduct an emergency evacuation upon landing of all 266 people aboard. A subsequent investigation found that the hold was contaminated beyond cleaning with mercury and other chemicals that may have been precursors for the manufacture of nerve gas.
The Malaysian government ended up digging a large hole in the ground near the airport tarmac and burying the entire plane. Insurers paid a full settlement of $90 million.
***
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/22/business/air-insurers-worry-after-malaysia-airlines-latest-crash.html?_r=0
Following on from my earlier observations;
If you can indeed accept the evidence that he pre-planned the whole thing with the aim of losing the aircraft without trace, then the idea of a controlled ditching shortly after sunrise is plausible. Its useful if you can establish this, because you can then take it further and eliminate the constant track scenario. If you’re pre-planning the job, you will probably decide that the best way of ensuring that you arrive in the right place, is to use waypoints fly the FMC. that way you can adjust for delays and still run to plan. For example, if the flight was delayed an hour, he could have replaced ISXIX with KETIV, to push the flight path westwards and in doing so, get back 37 minutes of the delay. He could have flown the cruise at M0.84 rather than M0.81 and get back another 15 minutes put himself back on schedule. He would then arrive with the right lighting conditions at fuel exhaustion. And flying with the FMC has additional advantages – you can get a prediction of remaining range, plus best altitude and speed, helpful if you want to arrive at a particular place at a particular time. All this helps to pin down where the aircraft most likely ended up, which may not be of much use to the ATSB, but will obviously be useful to anyone who comes after.
@ROB: As some have questioned before, why would a pilot “with the aim of losing the aircraft without trace” chose to fly back over the Malay peninsula where radar detection was inevitable and there was the possibility of a military interception?
@Rob
http://auntypru.com/forum/-MH370-time-to-think-of-it-as-a-criminal-act
Another issue to be reconciled with the “obvious disappear to the deep” plan:
MH370 transited a busy route (N571); directly ahead of Emirates Flight EK343, at a range of about 30-40 nm. If Victor is correct and there was a lateral offset manoeuvre explaining the BFOs at 18:25 UTC, MH370 would have passed broadside in front of EK343 at around 18:40 UTC at a range of about 20 nm.
This does not seem consistent with someone trying to hide. It would make far more sense to simply slip in behind EK343, without any risk of being seen.
I would further note this proximity also presents a problem for theories suggesting a plane on fire, glowing or otherwise merely billowing smoke. In any of these cases, the crew of EK343 would have made visual contact; we’re only talking 20 nm range directly in front at cruising speed of 500 knots on a clear night.
* I would note that given the recent questions regarding accuracy of the radar data towards the west end of the Lido plot, as well as margin of error in BTO/BFO calculations that there is still a finite probability that MH370 could have actually been *behind* EK343.
Victor, thanks for the link to the article about Malaysian Airlines’s $2.25 billion all risk aviation insurance policy, which “is mysteriously missing a standard phrase that usually limits insurers’ payments for search-and-rescue costs.”
I have wondered why Australia has continued to fund this increasingly quixotic search so generously. I infer from the article that they will bill or have billed Malaysian Airlines for it, which in turn will be reimbursed from this insurance.
@Bruce Lamon: It is not clear whether or not Australia will foot the bill for the search. They have made public statements that they are not expecting to be reimbursed, but we really don’t know what discussions are going on behind the scenes.
@Bruce
Australia has certainly not but much “intellectual capital” into the search. I would characterize the ATSB effort as incompetent at best.
When does the “Search and Rescue” phase end?
@VICTORI
Victor, basically it’s because he had no choice. I think he took a calculated gamble and guessed that both the Thai and Malaysian military would be too slow off the mark to respond properly. He hoped that switching off the transponders, flying along the FIR boundary, at above normal commercial cruising speed to confuse radar operators, would be enough. He was careful to make the FMT outside of primary radar range (as far as we know, anyway) and if he was then able to reach the SIO without being tracked, hw would have achieved his aim.
We know how slow the Malaysian ATC were at reacting to his disappearance, he guessed that the military would be the same.
But there is another possible dimension to this issue. Could it be he thought that even if he were picked up on military radar, the authorities would be too embarrassed to disclose it? It wouldn’t have looked good on them. I think he guessed they would hush it up. But if I remember rightly, it was the US military who first suggested searching the Andeman Sea, they must have also tracked him on their surveillance radar, and they inadvertently gave the game away. The Malaysians then had to own up and admit they had tracked him on their radar.
Bottom line is he took the path of least resistance, as he saw it.
@VictorI
Full and verified knowledge of the cargo could be key in understanding what happened.
Another link about Malaysia and (illegal) shipments
http://www.smh.com.au/world/malaysia-linked-to-iran-arms-trade-20090914-fnxs.html
Just to answer my own question, according to ICAO Annex 12: