After a Boeing 737 operating as Flydubai Flight 981 crashed in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don Saturday, preliminary accounts suggested that the plane had clipped a wing or struck the ground with its tail while attempting to land in stormy weather. Indeed, in a story published later that day, RT.com quoted Rostov region governor Vasily Golubev as saying, “The plane was descending and then suddenly dived down. Experts say this was an air pocket that dragged the plane to the left of the runway center. And the plane debris were scattered to the left as well.” Obviously, there is no such thing as an “air pocket.” But it makes intuitive sense that a plane attempting to land in high, gusty winds might succumb to shear at low altitude and low airspeed as it nears touchdown. But this, it appears, is not what happened at all. Frequent contributor Victor Iannello has created a graphic based on ADS-B data transmitted by the plane during its final moments. What it shows is that the plane had descended to land, then aborted the landing and climbed, accelerating as it went. It had already gained 3000 feet altitude and reached a speed of 200 knots when it suddenly plummeted from the sky. Here’s the data in graph form:
This security-camera footage offers a visual sense of what happened:
Mar19 #Rostov, #footage of FZ981 crash, view from Aleksandrovka micro-ds @Eisenhoden pic.twitter.com/TqIdvOmMys
— English Lugansk (@loogunda) March 21, 2016
What happened? Authorities on the scene have found the black boxes and hopefully will have answers soon. For the time being, some have speculated that the plane encountered severe windshear or a microburst, causing it to stall and plummet. But the plane’s descent was nose-down at high speed, so the pilot should have been able to at least attempt to pull up. Personally, I’m reminded of AA587, which crashed in 2001 on takeoff from Long Island after the pilot flying applied to much rudder after encountering wake turbulence from the plane ahead of him on climbout, causing the vertical stabilizer to rip off; the plane dived nearly vertically into the ground. If something similar happened here, parts of the tail should be found at some distance from the main wreckage. Another case that may offer parallels was Kenya Airways Flight 507, which crashed in 2007 while on climbout in bad weather. The pilot lost situational awareness while the autopilot was only partially engaged, the plane entered into an increasingly steep bank, and plunged into the ground. What’s different in the present case is that the plane impacted right on the runway it had been trying to climb away from, implying that it stayed on the same heading the whole time. (That is to say, it hadn’t gone into a roll.) Another unusual aspect of the case was the fact that the pilots had been holding for two hours before making a second landing attempt. I asked Phil Derner, an aircraft dispatcher and aviation expert, for his take. He replied:
For me, as a dispatcher, 1 hour is my max to let an aircraft of mine hold. It’s just a waste of gas; might as well divert and wait for conditions to improve. Shit, even fitting an additional 2 hours of holding fuel to a flight is tough as it is, and then to burn it away in a hold? Also, I only let my flights sit in a holding pattern if I think they WILL get it. If conditions don’t look to be improving right away, I won’t even have them hold…I divert and would rather have them wait it out on the ground. It saves gas, and is safer on the ground. But then again, I don’t know all of the conditions they were facing, what conditions were at their alternate airports, etc. There are so many variables and we just don’t have a lot of info, so it’s tough to determine or judge. But 2 hours….damn.
Meanwhile, on an unrelated topic, I might as well put up a picture of the latest piece of aircraft debris, this one found on a beach in South Africa. Not many details forthcoming yet, but it’s worth noting that MH370 was equipped with two Rolls-Royce Trent 800 engines. 
A quick glance at there not-very-high-res images suggests that the piece is roughly similar in appearance to the two pieces recently found in Mozambique, though perhaps somewhat more discolored/weathered. Apparently the piece is on its way to Malaysia.
UPDATE: Here’s another picture that @Susie provided a link to in the comments section:
@Paul Smithson
But for this to happen within seconds of the sign-off? Sorry Paul, I’m not buying that one, even if the ATSB did.
ROB,
Not to make you dissapointed, but who would buy your pet theory? It is not getting more convincing if your annoyingly repeat it 30 times instead of 3.
There are 50/50 of chances of a technical failure vs a deliberate act.
@Oleksandr
Then you are definitely away with the fairies.
All you’re doing is playing into the hands of the Malaysians.
@ROB. Maybe not a coincidence, but not necessariliy in the manner you assert….
Alternative: the systems / circuits that kick in for a turn (IGARI turn commence at ~17:20:15) were the ones that triggered the electrical fault runaway… Pure speculation, I know – but so is yours 😉
@Paul Smithson
@Oleksandr
Paul, with all due respect, there is nothing speculative about my theory. On the contrary, it is the one that best explains the facts, both the observed ones and the circumstantial ones. And I am not the only proponent of this theory – I am in good company.
Oleksander I apologise for being rude to you just then. Please forgive me. It’s only through healthy debate that a consensus can emerge, and that means listening to the others’ opinions, and behaving like grown ups. I will try to bear this in mind, going forward.
@Oleksandr
“There are 50/50 of chances of a technical failure vs a deliberate act.”
As I do not think that you can provide any reference for this, figure, I have to guess that this is your personal estimate of available possibilities. I would not subscribe to this numbers and would add pilot error to the list, ending up with 30/30/30 or alike.
The probability ( not possibility) that this failure happened at that time and at that ATC handover point in the way it is documented, is imho well below 10%. Taking into consideration the following known events, the routing trough the Malacca street to Mekar and for further six hours to an yet not found final location decreases the probability of a technical fault as single cause down to 0.1% (again my estimate).
The question remains, wheter there could have been two different events, like deliberate act, followed by another event after MEKAR. As an exemple, a deliberate act for whatever motive and reason, followed by a technical failure or another outside intervention after Mekar leading to the zombie-flight-crash-into the -SIO. This could resolve the inconsistency of those two completely differnt parts of the disappearance. Not that I personally favour this idea though.
The other order of events, first technical fault and then deliberate act does imho make no sense.
cnn talked about divine intervention. i dont see motives and something normal action-reaction happening during the time mh370 was in the air. i think something beyond any normal thought occured that humanity today are not capable of reasoning from a to b with todays science and technology.
i hope my english isnt too bad. and i know you all stick to down-to-earth thinking, but there are no coherents, because everything couldnt have happened. therefor the only thing left is out-of-this-world cause and effect, divine intervention.
RetiredF4,
Under 50/50 I meant there is always a double explanation of the same observation/fact.
For example, you said: “The probability ( not possibility) that this failure happened at that time and at that ATC handover point in the way it is documented, is imho well below 10%.”
The flight path was pretty straight and ascending prior to IGARI (except near KLIA). It is the stage of flight, when rupture-related accidents typically occur. A minor turn at IGARI towards BITOD could be a trigger.
All of the above arguments are actually completely entirely CON-sistent with each other
Events can have “proximate” & “ultimate” causes
Proximate = widespread electrical fire in E/E-bay affecting comm circuits and requiring the pilots to de-power the plane for an hour whilst wires cooled, say
Ultimate = hypothetical ulterior actors somehow triggered the “accident” at precisely that most conspicuous time, e.g. with a timed device or even timed computer virus, say, i.e. a hi-tek version of Air Itavia 870 in 1980, whereon someone may have placed a timed explosive device in a rear lavatory set to detonate in Sicily, except the flight was delayed 2-3 hours so it exploded in mid-air, sayeth some investigators
At any rate, “everybody’s right” is completely possible, perhaps even plausible if not probable
Pressure sensitive device with timer set for 20:00 from FL350 ??
@ROB SIO isn’t Hudson; my 2c
http://abcnews.go.com/US/passed-pilot-asked-descend-lower-altitude/story?id=25267369
pilot hypoxia
“The analysis has concluded the debris is almost certainly from MH370,” Mr Chester said.
(quoted from press release 24 March http://minister.infrastructure.gov.au/chester/releases/2016/March/dc029_2016.aspx)
Hopefully the ATSB will provide us with a detailed analysis report of any biological material (macrofauna etc) found on those 2 pieces of debris in the weekly update tomorrow along with analysis of the materials, corrosion and other damage. If these pieces do not show evidence of being in seawater for ~2 years and they are proven to be from 9M-MRO (as the Minister suggests) then this will surely be a major turning point for the investigation! While Boeing can no doubt be definite on whether they came from a 777 and perhaps even from a MAS plane, it would be surprising to me if such small sections had serial numbers etc to prove which plane they were from – does anyone know this sort of detail?
ROB,
You are not rude; no worries. But I am waiting when you start defending your theory rather than postulating it.
First of all you need to realise that what you suggest is a well planned murder, not suicide. What would be a goal of this murder? Why would ‘he’ wait for fuel exhaustion if ‘he’ prepared for gliding? Why not to forever dissappear at the Brocken Ridge, where water depth can reach 7 km? Why would ‘he’ risk flying over Malaysia and Thailand at all? Why not towards the Pacific? Why not nose-down-dive? Finally your explanation of SDU reboot does not hold water as it would not make sense to switch it on again within the frame of your theory (who knew Inmarsat was recording BTO?).
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/09/05/us/norad-air-threat/index.html
strikingly high profile pilots
@Oleksandr
“The flight path was pretty straight and ascending prior to IGARI (except near KLIA). It is the stage of flight, when rupture-related accidents typically occur. A minor turn at IGARI towards BITOD could be a trigger.”
Again, l’m not informed about occuring rupture related accidents, you can point me to those and especially those typical for this stage off the flight, meaning level off and ATC handover?
Thousands of flights do level offs and turns each day at any hour, the aircraft are built to this purpose with double and tripple redundancy for thousands and thousands of hours of individual flight time. There is not one which encountered this typical complete com failure without being able to comunicate somehow later on despite continuing to navigate and fly for another six hours.
I suggest it is time to rethink your position instead of throwing around with percentages you can’t prove and typical failure modes of aircraft which are not existent.
http://www.1001crash.com/index-page-statistique-lg-2-numpage-3.html
@Lauren H and VictorI,
Certainly Boeing can predict the fuel consumption accurately, but it is not clear what range of assumptions they made regarding airspeed and altitude. Did they pick these or did ATSB? What were they? To my knowledge they have never been divulged in detail. “Performance Limits” were calculated in 5,000 ft altitude steps, but the speed control settings were never stated.
I think it is possible that their assumed speed/altitude profiles may not contain the true values used in MH370. In my opinion it is useful for independent investigators to explore the full range of speed/altitude profiles that match the BTO/BFO data and then compute the fuel consumption to see if the predicted range and endurance match the satellite data. Only then can one assess the feasibility of a particular route solution. Perhaps there is a solution that is outside the range of Boeing assumptions and possibly even outside the ATSB’s search area.
@Trond I dont belive in God nor anything spiritual or transcendent nor astrology and extraterrestrials involved. This case is mostly about science (but again, not scientology, which is scam); but when someone joins brain and heart together, then something little bit transcendent can occur… and this is what I believe in.
“If these pieces do not show evidence of being in seawater for ~2 years and they are proven to be from 9M-MRO ”
finally some breaking news, if they dare. it has been proven from the experts jeffwise has contacted that the debris doesnt show 2 years of marine life.
@falken
i dont think you thought it through what you wrote. it is easy to _contradict_ oneself.
as for the manmade god neither do i have a such a belief system, but that is not what i was referring to either.
@sk999 – They were reportedly equipped with a battery-powered, hand-held radio. To me, that just about eliminates any possibility of any equipment failure being the cause of the loss of communication.
Perhaps seeing another a/c around 18:20 prompted them to power on the TCAS (Traffic Collision Avoidance System). They didn’t even know that would, in turn, turn the AES back on.
There has been a lot of recent news about the 1MDB fund and its connections to high government officials. If these “officials” are gaining huge amounts of money, doesn’t that mean someone else is losing huge amounts of money? Perhaps these unhappy losers have threatened to make one MAS B777 disappear every 4 months until they get paid back?
@DrBobbyUlich,
” “Performance Limits” were calculated in 5,000 ft altitude steps, but the speed control settings were never stated. ”
Yes it was. In every ATSB report that contained range limits the speeds were clearly defined. From the December 3, 2015 report:
“maximum range cruise (MRC) cost index (0) was used.”
That is a specific speed for each weight and altude. Do you expect the ATSB to publish those speeds and the associated EPR and fuel consumption data? That would be the first time an accident investigation authority did something of the kind.
@Gysbreght and @DrBobbyUlich: Yes, MRC was clearly stated. And if Boeing did not include the effect of temperatures greater than ISA and headwinds, the MRC results are optimistic.
During the departure, there were four handoffs between different controllers. The last one, from Approach Radar to Lumpur Radar, was handled by Zaharie. The frequency 132.6 was given and was repeated by Zaharie. Signoff was at 16:46:42, and signon with Lumpur Radar was at 16:46:55, a delay of 13 seconds.
@AM2 said, “If these pieces do not show evidence of being in seawater for ~2 years and they are proven to be from 9M-MRO (as the Minister suggests) then this will surely be a major turning point for the investigation!”
My prediction is the ATSB will claim that the debris is consistent with the drift models (already done), the parts are from 9M-MRO (essentially done), and the difference in barnacle population between the recent finds (no barnacles) and the flaperon (moderately populated) is due to differences in the exact drift path and natural events that might have occurred after the parts were beached. Therefore, I believe that the ATSB will conclude that the new evidence is consistent with the current search area, and this conclusion will be generally accepted. I really don’t expect the ATSB to say anything surprising.
@Victor
My take exactly. Probably a more Southern drift trajectory will be postulated (drift below Madagascar) where the water temperature is much lower than a Northern drift path, and colonization (especially by barnacles) is much less likely.
Folks, lets suspend reality for a moment and help me clarify the following question that arises if a turn back did occur as claimed, nay, vouchsafed by Malaysian DCA:
A. Why did the pilot, whoever it was, turn back to an airspace straddling three countries and over one of the busiest straits in the world, knowing that it would be teeming with radar and by default potential interceptors? And why especially if he/she was suicidal?
B. If it was an emergency onboard, why didn’t the pilot head for KT Airport, an airport capable of handling a triple 7
C. If the plane was afire while traversing the northern Malay peninsular, why didn’t at least one other jet spot it and communicate the event?
D. Let’s say MAS knew its plane was hijacked and knew there was a turn back courtesy of being alerted to the fact by DCA and RMAF, why didn’t it demand the plane be intercepted? I mean do I watch in silence when my property is being stolen and my reputation being shredded before my very eyes. And I think it would be far fetched to say RMAF and/or DCA not informing MAS of the theft!!
Look forward to your responses to these simple questions. Thank you
RetiredF4,
“Again, l’m not informed about occuring rupture related accidents, you can point me to those”.
Here you are:
– Aloha Airlines Flight 243; 23 min in flight;
– Japan Airlines Flight 123; 12 min in flight;
– Southwest Airlines Flight 812; 18 min in flight;
– Qantas Flight 30; 17 min in flight;
– China Airlines Flight 611; 20 min in flight.
Of course, you may note that most of them occurred at ~20 min in flight, not 40. But B777 is more advanced and better designed aircraft.
Re: “I suggest it is time to rethink your position instead of throwing around with percentages you can’t prove and typical failure modes of aircraft which are not existent.”
My assessment 50/50 is based on the information we have. Statistics does not work in this “unorthodox” case in my opinion. It never happened before that 230 souls disappeared like this; the maximum was about 100 people to my knowledge.
@Oleksandr
Your list of 5 accidents and incidents over the period of 31 years is duly noted.
Only one of them, China airlines flight 611, was not able to communicate, but crashed iummidiately and did not continue to fly for hours.
Concerning your 50/50 assesmentm the following example may show you that it is worthless in this discussion. On any day during the year it is possible that it rains or that it does not rain. The chances are 50/50. But when I look at the weather report and out of my window the probability of rain today is close to zero. Would I base the decision to take an umbrella for a walk on the possibility or probability of rainfall?
And some additional simple questions:
A. If memory serves me right, about eight hours after mh370 went missing, MAS was peddling info that it probably landed in southern China. This is in addition to a now established fact that Vietnam ATC was informed that the plane had diverted to Cambodia? Mind bogglingly true.
B. Why is Boeing strangely reticent about this case?Do they know something we all don’t and accepted it as fait accompli?
C. Why did the turn back claim start making its rounds approximately 48 to 72 hours after plane went missing? Why wasn’t it publicised earlier? Nincoompoops at work, a comedy of errors or stylised choreographing of the truth?
If I were a suicidal pilot on a death wish flight of fancy wouldn’t my mind be cluttered enough already to worry about fuel consumption, air speed, altitude, potentiality of being intercepted etc etc etc.
I dunno but this seems like a single minded steel willed individual at the controls determined to fulfill a morbid thought if the pilot suicide narrative holds.
Finally , in turning back, was the pilot relying on some local Conventional Wisdom that the RMAF would not dare intercept him and thus let him off scotfree or was he banking on insider help? Or is it possible he was not native to those parts and thus was bold enough to wager his/her luck and chance his/her arm. If the latter is the case, then Zaharie is certainly out of the equation, isn’t he? And that would throw a spanner in a whole lot of theories wouldn’t it especially those that relate to the expert (pilot) like manoeuvres executed from IGARI onwards.
Interesting article on simulator fidelity for extreme conditions:
http://aviationweek.com/awin/upset-recovery-sims
there is no assurance that a simulator’s motion replicates that of the actual airplane once it is outside of the established envelope. The mathematical equations at the edges of the flight performance envelope, particularly when high angles of attack (AOA) and yawing are involved, are difficult to analyze and solve…. “Whenever extrapolations from real measurements are used, the simulator’s aerodynamic model may become questionable.” “Accurate modeling in regions of the flight envelope characterized by high wind angles, high angular rates and separated flow, is a formidable challenge”
Also, here’s an interesting thread on what happens to a B777 after a flameout:
http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/tech_ops/read.main/368400/
@ Wazir Roslan – Good questions, particularly about the lack of reaction by the ground based military radar(s). However, looking at the path back across Malaysia, it largely travelled on the border between Malaysia and Thailand and then travelled up the middle of the straits of Malacca, again on the border between countries. No one knows motive but this looks like a calculated route, not an accident. Why it turned and went straight South, once out of Indonesian radar range, I think we may never know.
@Wazir debris of similar questions and responses, mostly confirming the absurdities, is probably spread on the two years area of this blog… some ppl with better facts database can provide detailed summary; may be usefull to post regulary something like at least monthly facts news in bullets?
@Oleksandr
Thank you Oleksandr, you’re too kind and forgiving.
Ta the risk of repeating my theory for the 31st time, I will go over the points you raise
The goal was to commit an act of political sabotage/terrorism. To best achieve his goal, his plan was to hijack the plane at the sign off, and fly it as far as possible into as remote an area as possible on the fuel available, to hide it without trace, making sure nobody could retrace his path. This meant flying in darkness except for the last 30 minutes or so, then performing a controlled ditching that would sink the plane without trace. If he had flown into the Pacific for example, he would have soon been in daylight and would have been spotted by someone. South of Broken Ridge is a very remote area of deep water, ideal for the purpose. But to get there, he had to risk being detected by primary radar. It was over 4 hours before Malaysian ATC reported him missing. They were asleep on the job. He probably guessed that would be the case. To mitigate the risk, he flew along FIR boundaries wherever he could, threw them a dummy above Banda Aceh, and made for the SIO. He didn’t bank on the ISAT guys being able to point the way he went. The second logon at 00:19:30 was another dummy, just in case he was being tracked going south. Signal you have run out of fuel, then glide another 100 miles before ditching.
His flight path was carefully chosen so that he could adjust the speed en route if necessary,to make up for any lost time(delayed takeoff for example) and still have the right lighting conditions (Sun nominally 6 deg above horizon) at fuel exhaustion. He flew the southerly leg at Mach 0.81 intervention speed, at 35,000ft but he could have flown at Mach 0.84 if required.
@DennisW & @VictorI, A southerly drift route might explain a relative lack of marine fouling, but I hope if it gets floated it will be met with skepticism. The fact is that every drift model shows debris on the 7th arc getting carried north and then west through tropical or subtropical waters; the cold stuff is all south of 30 deg S latitude, where the current runs west to east.
Perhaps one might defy the odds by taking a circuitous route of back-eddies, but all three?
What’s more, I think as a rule of thumb cold waters are generally more productive than warm ones, as cold water can carry more oxygen in solution. For instance, the tsunami debris that washed ashore in Alaska is more fouled than tsunami debris that washed up in Hawaii, though this may have more to do with the relative abundance of nutrients in the shallow seas over the continental shelf south of the Aleutians.
@Jeff
Skepticism would be appropriate, IMO.
My concern is that we have heard the last of any comments at all. Shameful given the amount of WEB and journalistic concern.
@Jeffwise and @DennisW: Yes, all claims have to be challenged scientifically, as we have tried to do with all the data in hand.
@ ROB – the general direction of your ideas are agreeable, at least from my camp, but i do take issue with the idea “to hide it without trace”….i have this really out to lunch feeling he had a symbolic “terminus” agenda in mind …remember this we are not dealing with an out of control guy, maybe a classy, congenial, genuine nice guy….maybe…just a thought in his general favor…meaning i dont think he simply drove this truck off the cliff…his intent was to leave “something” behind…in my most humble, and stubborn, opinion. not very scientifically put, but its the best i got….G
@Rob @George Connelly
The scenario you both agree does have one of the pilots as culprit?. There was no reaction from the cabin, although a portable ELT was available which could have been switched on. If the passengers have lived through the flight and ditching, then somebody would have opened the doors after ditching, the slides would have deployed and the ELT’s in the slides would have automatically activated upon contact with the water. There was no ELT recorded by SARSAT. One might fail, but not all.
Do you really see the planning mass killer in one of the pilots just to make a political statement? As an European I cannot mind read an asian national, but I never heard that disappearing from earth without a trace, without announcing it, without an important political person to take with it, could count as a political statement. It goes more in the category of magician or alien work.
@George Connelly
@RetiredF4
Thank you for your thoughts on this
We do not know what was going on in the cabin after the takeover, we can only try to piece together what might have happened. The re boot at 18:25 suggests to me that he depressurised the cabin at takeover, then repressurised an hour later. But its impossible to be sure of this. Can the above-door ELT,s be activated with the doors closed? I don’t know. Perhaps someone can help on this. But I you are dealing with a cabin depress, with panicking passengers would you think of activating an ELT? Has an ELT ever been set off in flight, during a hijacking? I have never heard of one.
There may have been people still alive, in addition to the pilot, when it ditched, but what their condition might have been, I wouldn’t want to guess.
@RetiredF4 – you begin the third sentence of your 1st paragraph with that “if” word….if indeed, there was life on board…? ?…I’ve thrown up the flagpole, before, that he just might want to leave something behind…a “forgiving” legacy ( if you will )….wouldn’t you….take a couple deep breaths, sit back, and imagine you in his place, i mean really imagine you in his place….i think you might want this plane found ( and oh what you would leave on that CVR )…but…finding it just might not be that simple….. intended…..( i guess it renders down to bread crumbs )
RetiredF4,
Let’s leave discussion about probabilities for now, as anyhow it is useless (I would take umbrella if chance of rain is 50% – no need to check forecast each time).
Re ELT.
You wrote: “the slides would have deployed and the ELT’s in the slides would have automatically activated upon contact with the water. There was no ELT recorded by SARSAT. One might fail, but not all.”
My understanding of FI is that these ELTs do not operate via satellite. Only the two cabin ELTs, one fixed and one portable, can operate via satellite.
What is frequency treshold, for which signal from ELT can be picked up by satellites? I am asking about this because ELT signal would also be affected by Doppler shift if activated in flight.
the first thing i learned from the news was the hijacking was already taking place before the transponder was switched off. so there was more than 1 involved.
@Wazir.
Thank you for those pertinent questions. I am in full agreement with your implicit position (that there are no satisfactory answers to them). I am very surprised that others have not arrived at a similar view given the weight of evidence (or lack of).
If the “mainstream” theory of zig-zag up to MEKAR and FMT south were true, the following predictions necessarily follow:-
1. Return to Kota Bharu seen by both Malaysian and Thai radar
2. Flight across Peninsular seen by multiple civilian and miltary Thai and Malaysian radar
3. Turn at Penang seen by multiple civilian and miltary (Malaysian) radar
4. Flight north up the strait seen by Malaysian military and Thai military radar.
5. Turn south past Sumatra seen by Indonesian radar.
Plus a whole bunch of anomalies, not least of which is total absence of motive (and that is even before we get to the so-called FMT).
Two questions:
a) how many of the above predictions were “borne out”, including the parts critical to conclusive link between MH370 and the radar traces?
b) if “Malaysian military radar” saw what they said they had, why were specifics never provided in spite of the fact that these are critical to corroboration to the *ahem* narrative?
Somebody tell me how many null results we are supposed to go along with before the initial assumptions becomes untenable?
@Rob @George
I intended to point to something different.
As a pilot like Shah Zahaire the yearl long task was to bring the passengers safely from point A to point B, regardless how difficult and how dangerous this task might have been in those few and rare moments when the s**t hit the fan. He great ped those passengers with repect, they greated him and they rwarded him with trusting their live to hissincerity, to hisknowledge and expierience. You have to be a pilot yourself to feel this bond.
Then from one day to the other such a man hates his government and turns over the edge, becomes a mass murder on the people who endorsed and trusted him. Their only problem was, that they happen to step into his aircraft he intended to disappear with at that day. They were no bystanders, no unknown people to him. Passengers and cabin crew were his family, people and friends he cared for. He was not a young unhappy man, disillusioned by his job, had no problems to master his life. If only 1 of a million of political frustrated people would turn to become an unorganized mass murder, we would hear every weak about such crime with that magnitude of victims. We had suicides from pilots in aircraft, comercial and private ones, none of them was reported as political statement.
To further make my case, the political statement failed badly, nothing changed in Malaysia although the plan went along like you laid it down. What a bad plan it was.
I’m no shrink, but this is just absolutely unbelievable for me. I did not know this man, but he was a senior pilot who cared for his passengers and his crew, he would not have turned against them by his own free will. That I’m sure of.
@ Oleksandr,
All ELTs operate by “satellite”. Today the ELTs transmit data bursts on 406 Mhz. They also transmit modulated carrier signals on 121.5 and 243 Mhz.
ROB,
Re: “The goal was to commit an act of political sabotage/terrorism.”
This idea would be more compatible with wrecking into the twin towers. Why 230, why not 2300? An act of political sabotage does not make sense without leaving a loud statement, declaration or demand, or at least some note.
Re: “and fly it as far as possible into as remote an area as possible on the fuel available, to hide it without trace”
Why would ‘he’ need to fly as far as possible? As far as possible from what? The terminus you proposed in not the furthest possible. If ‘he’ didn’t make a hook, he could fly much further.
Re: “making sure nobody could retrace his path.”
Then why did he switch on SDU? He would need to take care of ACARS and IFS to prevent accidental transmission of data. For what?
Re: “This meant flying in darkness”
What is difference, in darkness or not? There are only fish, sharks and barnacles.
Re “then performing a controlled ditching that would sink the plane without trace.”
APU would give ‘him’ much better control: why to wait for fuel exhaustion in favour of extra 50 km or so? Why not opting for a deepest location as opposite to the furthest? Why not a calmer location (in terms of waves), where chances of successful ditching would be higher?
Re: “If he had flown into the Pacific for example, he would have soon been in daylight and would have been spotted by someone.”
Even if spotted, then what? If a fishermen sees an aircraft at FL350, would he pay attention to it? Would he recall later about it?
Re: “It was over 4 hours before Malaysian ATC reported him missing. They were asleep on the job. He probably guessed that would be the case. To mitigate the risk, he flew along FIR boundaries wherever he could, threw them a dummy above Banda Aceh, and made for the SIO.”
What dummy did he throw to ATC? Who were asleep: ATC or military? Asleep or reluctant to respond? Risk was way too high given a plenty of other locations.
Re “The second logon at 00:19:30 was another dummy, just in case he was being tracked going south.”
What does this give to ‘him’? This contradicts to your main idea.
Re: “His flight path was carefully chosen so that he could adjust the speed en route if necessary,to make up for any lost time(delayed takeoff for example) and still have the right lighting conditions (Sun nominally 6 deg above horizon) at fuel exhaustion”
And for what? Do lighting conditions matter for this goal? A sort of perfect death?
@RetiredF4
You are of course entitled to your opinion. I cannot identify with any of your views on this. I just want to point out that it’s precisely the same sense of denial that a professional pilot could be capable of such an act, that has led them to the unfortunate and acutely embarrassing position they now find themselves in.
I see it differently. I see a person approaching the end of his career who was prepared to sacrifice his life and the lives of a planefull of people, all strangers to him, for a grossly distorted cause. Airline captains are no different from any of the rest of us. They are, when it comes down to it, just doing a job.
@RF4
You makes good points, IMO. If the pilot did not intend to harm the PAX, you would think some attempt to communicate a terminus would have been made. Probably the VHF radios would be out of range, but you still have HF, Satcom, and the ELT.
My initial CI scenario assumed that fuel exhaustion occurred at an unanticipated moment, and the pilot was completely occupied by the emergency situation at hand. Sure, he knew he was low, but did not expect to run out at that very moment. Don’s revelation concerning the accuracy of the fuel remaining instrumentation makes that hypothesis difficult to defend.
It would seem that the only viable options are a pilot who did not care about the PAX or an unconscious pilot. I don’t have Shah calibrated as not caring.