Suspected MH370 Interior Fragment Found

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A piece of what appears to be a piece from inside MH370’s cabin has been found on Rodgriques Island in Mauritius. It was found by two residents of Réunion. The picture above was posted to Facebook by Marouk Ebony Hotel. Don Thompson has pointed out that a pattern on the skin of the piece matches Malaysia Airlines cabin material.

At first glance, the piece shares similarities with the two pieces of debris found in Mozambique, which the ATSB has declared as almost certainly having come from MH370, and what appears to be a part of a Rolls-Royce engine cowling found in South Africa: all are roughly the same scale, and bear relatively small quantities of marine fouling. However, a closer look at the new piece shows that it is actually dotted all over with small goose barnacles:

Rodrigues piece closeup

It’s hard to tell from this somewhat out-of-focus photograph, but the barnacles look relatively fresh, suggesting that the piece had not been on the beach very long before it was discovered. (Here’s a hi-res version.) If marine biologists are able to examine the barnacles quickly, they could learn quite a bit about the species makeup and age of the animals; testing the shells for barium and oxygen isotope levels could yield clues about where the piece drifted.

PS Here’s an interesting shot of the Flydubai wreckage. This is what happens to a fuselage after it impacts at several hundred miles per hour. Bears comparison to the Germanwings wreckage, which met a similarly ungentle fate. MH17 debris, which came apart at altitude so that pieces fluttered down, consisted of substantially larger parts. Based on the comments I’ve seen so far, it seems that many people feel that the fact that the interior of the cabin was shredded like this means that the plane could not have ditched. Perhaps even a botched ditching such as Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961 should be considered unlikely.

An interesting observation from Duncan Steel:

Richard’s analysis of the oceanic drift of floating debris from MH370, based on the model available on the Adrift website (to which another tip of the hat is due), has a wide variety of outcomes in terms of general understandings. An important one is this: the probabilities derived for arriving at the various locations in the western Indian Ocean where MH370 debris has been found may be inverted so as to derive an estimate of how many individual fragments were left floating on the ocean after the crash. The answer is: upwards of 10,000. In itself that number indicates that the final demise of MH370 was a highly-energetic crash.

It seems to me that that number might be even greater, if one considers that all the pieces discovered so far (except, perhaps, Blaine’s) were found by tourists who stumbled upon them by accident; presumably only a small subset of the total coast in this region is subject to this kind of serendipity. By way of comparison, 650 pieces of debris were recovered in the course of a fairly exhaustive air and sea-based search for Air France 447.

209 thoughts on “Suspected MH370 Interior Fragment Found”

  1. “Looks like someone is reading this blog and planting this “debris.” ”

    Not only reading but posting as well. Guess who is making fun of us …

  2. The Rodrigues find is further evidence of a very high energy impact. Indeed, it is arguably the best evidence to date that the plane is very close to the 7th arc, and thus the debris is most likely in one of the areas along the 7th arc that were not searched by air in 2014. Richard’s latest analysis and Duncan’s thoughtful comments are compelling.
    http://goo.gl/eOKF0n
    It would be nice to see at least some here finally come together and agree that there was no “water landing”, successful or botched.

  3. Looks like someone is reading this blog and planting this “debris.”

    Keep it real.

  4. @airlandseaman:

    Either recent finds were planted or MH370 crashed in the SIO. If it crashed it could have done that anywhere within 120 NM of the 7th arc.

  5. @ALSM

    I am still digesting it, but heading your way for sure relative to the nature of the impact. What are your thoughts about the latitude at this time?

    @Sajid

    No “bubbly” here in rural NorCal. I am 60 miles from the nearest town and Starbucks. Transport logistics favor liquids with higher alcohol concentration.

  6. Dennis: Re latitude…I think Richard and Duncan best summarize it in the post here:

    http://goo.gl/eOKF0n

    The drift analysis does not (cannot) tell us exactly where to look along the 7th arc, but the fact that we know the impact was very close to the arc means it must have come down in the areas along and slightly north of the arc that were not well searched by air back in Mar-Apr 2016.

  7. Dennis: A quote from Duncan’s piece this morning:

    (1) There must have been a vast field of floating debris from the crash, which dispersed over following weeks: if it was not seen from the surface-search aircraft then it seems very likely that the crash must have been in a location not covered by those aircraft; the obvious implication of this is: the ocean bottom search should be directed towards areas close to the 7th arc that were not covered by the airborne search (so, see this post and this post).
    http://www.duncansteel.com/archives/2403

  8. Clarification: In my post at Posted April 2, 2016 at 8:45 AM, I meant to say that the plane came down close to the arc, but the debris should have been seen in areas to the north of the arc after a few days of drift time.

  9. Sajid,

    Thanks for mentioning me first in your list… Yes, I am cornered around 100E. More to come.

  10. Jeff, Littlefoot,

    If this fragment is from MH370, was it also planted in your opinion?

    See my previous post and compare with phytoplankton concentration at Duncan’s site. Phytoplankton growths only when nutrients are available. Low concentration of phytoplankton clearly indicates low concentrations of nutrients.

  11. ASLM said, “It would be nice to see at least some here finally come together and agree that there was no “water landing”, successful or botched.”

    The evidence points to a massive breakup from a high speed crash. The possibility of a gentle ditch that only tore away control surfaces on wings is now very unlikely.

  12. airlandseaman,

    What is so exciting about this discovery? I am sure there many more fragments.

  13. Oleksandr: Re: “What is so exciting about this discovery?”

    It is the first piece of debris from the aircraft interior. That is clear evidence the impact was a high energy event. That in turn provides the first physical evidence to support all the other evidence of a high speed spiral descent and impact near the 7th arc scenario.

  14. That piece of a cabin divider looks very similar to cabin debris (pantry cabinet, toilet door, etc.) floating on the surface after the AF447 crash, which had a groundspeed of a few knots above 100 kts.

  15. @ALSM

    This apparent interior piece could indeed be indicative for a high speed impact. However, IMO it is quite dangerous to conclude that the impact should have happened close to the 7th arc. With somebody at the controls it is hard to know when the nose went down. The interpretation of 00:19:37 BFO is not straightforward at all, see also:

    http://www.science4u.org/end-of-flight-scenarios.html

  16. @ALSM

    I agree that the high speed event scenario is supported by the bulkhead find. I think another “weak” form of support is provided by the lack of a position report of some kind. A pilot making a controlled ditch is an action consistent with trying to maximize survivability. One would expect a position report in that circumstance.

    The fuel remaining instrumentation accuracy, lack of a position report, and now this bulkhead find all weigh very heavily against a controlled ditch near an intended landing zone i.e. a CI type scenario. Of course, causality and/or motive are still huge stumbling blocks for me relative to a spiral dive between 30S and 38S. I seem to be one of the few people hung up on this issue so maybe it is just “my” problem.

  17. @Olexandr, if the piece turns out to be most likely from 9M-MRO, I wouldn’t say categorically, that it has been planted. Maybe, it hasn’t. But I would ask myself: could it have been planted? And I honestly don’t see, why not? Tell me a single technical reason which would exclude this. I said in the previous thread, that there are whole handbooks out there which give recipes of how to treat artifacts in order to pass them as antique collectibles or use them for salting archeological sites. Or how to reckognize them. It’s not rocket science.The knowledge is out there. Give me a portable plane piece, a fishing boat and a two-months vacation at Mauritius and I will do it. This piece looks just a little more convincing than the previous debris. Maybe, because some time has passed since Liam Lötter found his piece in December. Interestingly it also contradicts the often cited notion that barnacles wouldn’t attach themselves to such small pieces. Apparently they do – even if they are a bit on the small side. Maybe, they are coastal rather than open ocen barnacles. If the analysis is done properly this could be known fairly soon.
    The question isn’t: has it been planted for sure? The questions are: could it have been planted and would it make sense in certain scenarios?

  18. One aspect that is often neglected is that the interrupted log-on at 00:19 is precisely consistent with fuel exhaustion for a B777 at cruise altitude and cruise speed. To me, this indicates that likely the plane flew to the SIO, or the last log-on was deliberately made to look that way, which have been the main two possibilities I have pursued.

  19. Niels: I’ve read your paper. I agree that the BFO data, taken alone, is not enough to conclude there was a high speed descent. But we have several pieces of information consistent with that scenario, not one, and now one more. Rodrigues is the first hard, physical evidence of a high energy event. IMO, there is no question remaining about the glide scenario. It did not happen.

    Re “With somebody at the controls it is hard to know when the nose went down.”…Actually, it is not hard at all. From the standpoint of establishing where the POI was, it does not make any significant difference whether someone flew it into the water at high speed, more or less straight in, or the plane descended in an uncontrolled spiral descent as observed in numerous simulations by ATSB/Boeing (and my own simulations Nov 2, 2014). Either way, the POI is close to the 7th arc.

  20. @Victor, I absolutely agree. Either the plane did fly into the SIO and crashed there because of fuel exhaustion. Or someone took considerable trouble to create the illusion of such a scenario. Therefore I would exclude slow and curving paths to the more Northern areas of the 7th arc, like the CI scenario. It would be an incredible coincidence if such a path would just by chance mimic a path at cruising speed which led to fuel exhaustion.
    My argument for the second scenario: if someone has really taken the trouble to create the illusion of a SIO crash after fuel exhaustion (either by spoofing the BFOs or by creating the sat data from scratch) then I can see a strong motivation for planting a few pieces of debris in order to make this illusion of a SIO crash more convincing.

  21. Will someone please explain to me what high speed spiral descent implies? I have followed this avidly since the disappearance took place. Why has nothing been found until recently, I still wonder? Thank you. L. Ray

  22. @All

    Great news Chaps and Chapesses!

    I’ve been out all day, now playing catch-up. Lets hope it is from a B777 and not a B767. If verified, then which bulkhead, front or rear?

    I can see why Mike is so happy, in fact he’s jubilant, but I’m not giving the controlled ditching scenario anytime yet. I’ve been telling the ATSB for many months now that it must have been a high speed controlled ditching, to breach the fuselage and make the plane sink quickly.

    The flaperon and flap track fairing still point to a controlled ditching with flaps extended IMHO.

    I would love for the plane to be found, whatever the final scenario, for the sake of the relatives, and I am sure that must go for everybody else here. If I turn out to be wrong, then hopefully I’ll be wrong for the right reasons.

  23. airlandseaman,

    “It is the first piece of debris from the aircraft interior.”

    I am not so sure if it is the first piece or not.

    “That is clear evidence the impact was a high energy event.”

    Not really. Imagine a sieve and a bag with clay, sand and gravel. What can you tell about original content of the bag when you have only the clay which passed through the sieve?

    The ocean is like a giant sieve. Only if we knew that all the debris were of this size, we could certainly conclude that it was high-energy impact. Otherwise these findings do not prove anything except that the impact speed was sufficient to break up the fuselage. The latter was already clear from a number of other considerations.

  24. @ALSM

    To give an example: it could have glided from say 10km altitude to say 3 km altitude, and then dived the final km’s. (How) can you exclude it?

  25. @airlandseaman, VictorI, DS et al.:

    Not so fast. I see that Duncan Steel has doubled-down on the size of the debris field: on March 15th, it was an unspecified size, but by the 17th, the “few” objects found by then “surely” indicated a debris field of “thousands”. It later became more quantified to 3,000; today it’s 10,000.

    But the bigger the field, the more of a problem you have: according to M Pat’s study of actual drifting buoys (as opposed to a priori numerical simulations) some 20% of all objects should have washed ashore somewhere by now, including ~5% going ashore in Australia. Out of 10,000 initial objects, 2,000 objects should have washed ashore somewhere, including roughly 500 objects washing ashore in Australia. It is inconceivable that the reporting rate of objects washing ashore is 1/4%.

    Even if 90% of the initial debris field subsequently sank, you still have a problem: a 2.5% reporting rate is still way to low, especially when considering populations are sensitized to the presence debris, as are the people in Australia and the Mascarene islands.

    The finding of an object on Rodrigues is not a special, surprising prediction from IG-produced numerical simulations. I myself predicted that Rodrigues would be a good place to look for debris 2 years ago. All I did, or anybody could do, is look at the Wikipedia current chart that Richard Godfrey reproduces. The Mascarenes are like natural nets placed in the middle of the South Equatorial Current. Apparently, Blaine Gibson came to the same conclusion. That more objects have not been found there is not for lack of looking. The dearth of found objects represents a real dearth of original source objects IMHO.

    As for the flutter hypothesis regarding the flaperon: one must be very cautious in drawing conclusions from simulators that are pushed well past the normal operating envelope–they cannot be considered to be reliable, even if they are all there is.

    The flaperon is not just a flimsy flap: it is also an aileron in its own right. It is the main flight control surface that is used during high speed flight: hence it’s location behind the beefiest part of the wing. The flaperon should be the last part to fall off due to flutter. There should be big sections from the vertical and horizontal stabilizers first IMO YMMV.

    As for the controlled flight input theory, I am not married to it, and hope it is false for the sake of the NOK. But the main goal is to find the a/c at this point.,The Rodriguez find does not falsify the controlled flight input hypothesis: Estimates for the chances of a “successful” ditching in the roaring 40’s has never been rated high at best.

    It is likely that the right side would have hit first due to the direction of travel and direction of swells, explaining the flaperon and EB676 objects. Then, like ET961, the a/c would roll to the right, causing the right horizontal stabilizer to strike the water, thus explaining the “NO STEP” object. Then, like ET961, a violent cartwheel motion could be expected.

    Granted, there are no reefs to strike along the southern 7th arc. But 200 knots squared times the mass of a 777 is still a lot of kinetic energy; probably enough to cause the fuselage to separate; even the picture perfect Hudson River ditching pierced the fuselage. If the fuselage separated where a bulkhead happened to be located, that could easily explain the Rodrigues object.

    Again, whilst a 200 knot, low-angle crash involves a lot of energy, it is still about an order of magnitude less energy than would be involved in a high-angle crash at 600 knots. Thus, even in a “botched” ditching attempt, we could expect a lot less debris than from an uncontrolled dive from high altitude. Thus, overall, IMO, the totality of the evidence–including the lack of more debris evidence–still favors the controlled input theory. Yes, there are the anomalous BFO values at the end, but the error bars on the BFOs are so wide, you can’t tell me that they absolutely rule out controlled flight inputs.

    IMHO YMMV

  26. @Niels,

    How about the flaperon?

    There seems to be general agreement that it is preserved in such a state as to weaken the likelihood it break up as a result of a high speed impact. It therefore broke up either (a) in flight or (b) during a ditching.

    If (b) can be ruled out, then my understanding is that there must also be a reasonabe way to explain the in flight break up, which is an uncontrolled spiral dive scenario rather than a controlled glide followed by intentional dive. The latter scenario would not explain the flutter energy required for in flight break up.

  27. @Sajid & Matty

    Yet I does seem very strange the way things have developed, iro the debris finds. I’ll let you into a little secret. Late in 2014 I was getting very despondent about no debris being found, not even a sniff. How could a plane this size disappear without a trace. The conspiracy/spoof theory boys were having a field day! I am not a religious person, in fact if I were pressed on the subject I would have to say I’m independent Zen Buddhist by inclination, but I am certainly not a devout one. But I was so desperate I actually prayed for a piece of wreckage to turn up. When the flaperon turned up the following July, I was ecstatic, as you might emagine. Surely it couldn’t be long before they find the plane now, I thought. Nearly 9 months later, still no plane!

    In case you were wondering, be assured I am definitely NOT a member of the tinfoil hat brigade, well not when I last looked, anyway.

    Lastly, if I have offended anyone here with my references iro religion, I apologise unreservedly now. I did not mean to cause offence.

  28. @ROB, you may not have anyone offended with your religious views – at least not me. But you might’ve offended all esteemed members of the tin foil head brigade 😉
    Not, that one needs to be a member of that brigade in order to be highly doubtful of that new debris. IMO there are quite a few good and rational reasons for being skeptical. I’m sure Brock, our statistician in residence, will soon supply a few numerical arguments.

  29. @Cheryl & RF4

    According to primary radar, the acting pilot made no use of missing altitude data from 17:20-21. If they had wanted to do a “fake out” maneuver, feint right, then wheel around to port, then why be so gradual about it? But, maybe they were testing the waters, ironically enough ?

    May I observe, that the currently accepted search area, near 39S,85E…

    is almost exactly the SAME DISTANCE from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, but in the 180deg OPPOSITE DIRECTION ? That’s pure coincidence ? Something put the plane up near the super-high long-range cruising altitude, and shipped out way out into the SIO… on a vector diametrically opposite to the original flight path to Beijing ?

    It’s like the computers got all turned around

    http://www.strategic-risk-global.com/exclusive-lessons-from-malaysia-airlines-mh370-and-mh17/1417686.article
    great article, looks like we know the impetus behind both of the Satellite calls:

    2:40am because the Malaysia Airlines Post Accident Office, Fuad Sharuji, got involved (from 2:30am)

    7:15am b/c the a/c was already 45min overdue, and CNN and major media outlets were already on all the lines inquiring about the missing flight

  30. @Nederland
    Concerning flaperon: I find it hard to conclude anything solid based on the photographs. My guess is that the French know more by now, I hope their conclusions will be shared at some point. I would not be surprised if there is a possibility “c”. I maintain that there are a lot of possibilities “between” a uncontrolled spiral dive and a controlled ditch.

  31. @DennisW

    A controlled ditching could be consistent with trying to maximize survivability, or consistent with trying to minimize tell-tale surface debris, depending on how you view things. A difficult question.

    Perhaps a way out of the problem would be to ask which of these possibilities best fits with all the other data?

  32. @Nederland and @Niels,

    The Flaperon Failure Analysis published on Duncan Steel’s website http://www.duncansteel.com/archives/2209
    still stands without need of significant updating.

    However, the ‘Questions & Issues Generated from Analysis’ section on pgs 28-29 need resolving.

    Also the analysis with Flaperon in hand is relatively easy and would not take long to execute, why are the French officials still silent? They could even chose to announce an excuse for delay. Perhaps with the recent finds they may find more confidence to publish their findings.

  33. ROB

    My initial assumption was survivability, but lack of messaging of any sort undermines that scenario substantially IMO.

  34. @ROB: Not a difficult question: it’s a useless question. A controlled ditching designed to minimize debris or maximize survivability will leave the same debris footprint.

  35. @Warren: well said. Where is the Oz debris?

    Or, to be more precise: where WAS it? Landfall probabilities are concentrated in the first 12 months – or earlier, if the latest theory is now that impact was east enough to have evaded all searches to date. Way back in 2014, the airwaves should have been thick with images like this picked up by Australian beachcombers.

    @airlandseaman is leaving out the part where five separate analyses by members of the Independent Group – all of which carefully considered all available aspects of the signal data and constrained autopilot dynamics – ALL fell well within a 20 x 200 nmi box centred on -37.71, 88.75. The ATSB, we’re told, ultimately landed on the same spot. This area – and a surrounding “curved box” and order of MAGNITUDE larger – has been searched out already.

    Areas to the SW – we USED to be told confidently – exceed the performance limit of the aircraft, whilst areas NE – we USED to be told confidently – would have left MH370 with fuel still in the tank as it crossed Arc 7 – inconsistent with the fact that it is a log-on request, which strongly indicates fuel exhaustion minutes earlier.

    The new mantra is that the terrain is so horrendous, wreckage was missed. This compares to the statement by Fugro’s Paul Kennedy in October, 2014 – AFTER he had plenty of time to review the results of extensive bathy surveying – that for “the areas we search we know 100 percent that if we run over an airplane we’ll know for sure.”

    airlandseaman may believe either the IG/ATSB or Fugro are complete idiots, who just wasted 15 months and several million dollars searching either a bad zone, or a good zone badly. I don’t.

    So that means we have TWO huge gaps in the official story: no Oz debris, and no deep sea wreckage consistent with this sudden deluge of flotsam.

    It would not surprise me to see deep sea wreckage “discovered” soon, as such an eventuality is predicted by both the skeptical AND the trusting crowd. But the mystery will only be solved when these gaping logical chasms are properly addressed.

  36. @ Erik Nelson – Last summer i was playing around with that reverse heading and distance factors – KL to Bejeing 2340nm on 023* heading….and reverse to 2340nm at 203* plotted on my chart, puts that coordinate 37S and 87E ( these are aprox. numbers going by memory )…the relevence would be mild curiosity, on up the ladder….important to note the influence of either Mercator projection, or one of the other map projection “distortion” of my figures, but on a flat chart, it looks like its maybe inside the 6th arc some where….remember the map projection could move that point significantly….FYI: at the equator 10 degrees of lat. is aprox. 600nm…down around the 40S ( or N ) if i remember correctly its in the neighborhood of 475nm ( every 10 degrees of lat.) just wondering if all of these “locations” need that factored in, or silly me, its already been done, out of hand…

  37. Rodgriques Island is somewhat 500 km east of Reunion. Options:

    – This piece beached long time ago (say June-July 2015);

    – It was trapped in vortices as NOC UK predicted half a year back, and beached only recently;

    – Planting-supporters can grab this opportunity to advance their idea.

    Did I miss anything else?

  38. Re: Oz debris: don’t be surprised if one or two pieces turn up soon. The thing about the Rodrigues object is that it “should” have washed up before all the other fragments, as it sits furthest east in the Southern Equatorial current.

    We know the Rodrigues object wasn’t sitting there for long because it still had live gooseneck barnacles on it. That tells me to expect more debris everywhere in the Indian Ocean basin. M Pat’s floater study shows that the majority of still-floatable debris objects should still be floating in circles around the SIO gyre, and so will continue to be split off here and there for an indefinite near future measured in at least a few years.

    As for barnacles, allow me to remind people of the difference between gooseneck versus the common acorn barnacles that most people are familiar with: acorn barnacles are the virtually indestructible, armored ones we see growing on piers and old boats anchored in harbors. Gooseneck barnacles are connected to their floating substrate by an unarmored peduncle (the “gooseneck”) that are easily destroyed by predators; in fact the “gooseneck” is considered a delicacy by groups of humans from around the world. When a gooseneck barnacle washes up on shore, it’s not going to last long, and there will be no shelly presence leftover to indicate its former residency. All that will be left will be at most a thin, nondescript, calcareous encrustation.

  39. @Brock, Warren
    “Where is the Oz debris”
    I agree that with crash latitudes around S30 – S40 one should ask this question.
    However for more northely locations one would not expect a lot of “Oz debris”. Possibly there are other debris issues then, including the timing of WIO landfall..

  40. @Warren

    I stand corrected. I phrased it wrongly didn’t I. I should have said a minimum debris ditching would be liable to leave more debris than a maximum survivability ditching.

  41. Huh? If a maximum survivability ditching leaves the least amount of debris, then the minimum debris ditching should follow the same procedure.

  42. @Brock – You said, <>
    Maybe they need to be looking for little pieces of an airplane? They found the ship, but it looked like a ship. Either they missed the debris or it’s just outside the box.

    @Warren – Last July, Jeff sought out experts on Gooseneck Barnacles and found that there are many different varieties of Gooseneck Barnacles. They are the subject of at least two threads on jeffwise.net. For an example of the differences: the Wikipedia article is about Lepas Anatifera. Those on the flaperon had been identified as Lepas Anserifera Striata but new experts say there were a combination of different Gooseneck Barnacles on the flaperon.

  43. http://s17.postimg.org/fharo5ycv/MH370_BFO_model.png

    Using Mathematica to analyze the model of Inmarsat engineers Chris Ashton, Alan Shuster Bruce, Gary Colledge and Mark Dickinson, I calculated the combined effects of all factors affecting BFOs, except for actual Dopler-shift minus a/c Dopler compensation. Net uncompensated a/c Dopler-shift is the difference between the a/c BFO values (thin line) and combination of other factors (thick line).

    At the FMT near NILAM-IGEBO-SANOB, that residual is +25Hz at 2:25am, rising to +55Hz at 2:27am, before falling back to +25Hz at 2:28am. At NILAM, on a heading of about 290 degrees @ ~500kts, no maneuver is required… a/c onboard compensation is already ~25Hz too low. But, when BFOs spike up to +55Hz above baseline, at 2:27am near SANOB, a rate-of-climb of (2000-3000)fpm is required, along with a protracted turn, slewing the nose around to port (southwards) at the rate of 1 deg/sec, onto a new heading near 195deg. Then, the climb stops, after about 100sec, and a gain of +5000′ of altitude.

    http://s18.postimg.org/5wvyoxmdl/MH370_FMT_Ro_C.png

    This corroborates the analysis of Dr. Ulich, who found that:

    The speed control mode was Long Range Cruise…
    Waypoints were used to establish the FMT course changes…
    Turns were made at 1.59 degrees per second (at a bank angle of 35 degrees)…
    Climbs were made at 2,000 fpm…
    Shortly after the initial diversion near IGARI, a climb was made from FL350 to FL360 for the initial return to Malaysia…
    There were…turns and a second climb during the FMT period from 18:22 to 18:28…
    Turn #1 was a turn-around to the left [and]During Turn #1, a second climb was begun to FL410…
    At SANOB, Turn #3 was made to the left…
    No descent was made for a landing attempt…
    After WITN [airport] was passed, the LNAV continued the course in True Track Hold mode at 191.9 degrees…
    No further turns or climbs were made…
    The 18:40 unanswered satellite phone call occurred about four minutes after the [FMT]
    The air speed was extremely steady, varying from the nominal Long Range Cruise profile by < 1 knot RMS from 17:22 to 00:11

    I have convinced myself that the above expert authors are correct, in their respective claims. I understand the BTO data to show that the a/c was moving quickly westwards, from 2:25am (BTO=12600microsec) to 2:28am (BTO=12480microsec). And, the BFO data, imply a turn and climb… until the a/c settled on a generally southwards route. That caused the uncompensated Dopler-shift to become negative, explaining with the actual BFO values fall below baseline after the FMT.

    CONCLUSION
    ———-
    The a/c wheeled around Indonesia at high-speed, and climbed from high-altitude (FL360) to the stratosphere (FL410), i.e. to LRC altitude, with the AP set to LRC…

    for a location "anti-podal" to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur…

    AS IF the plane had been set to a fictitious waypoint of Beijing's "Atlantean twin sister city".

    The inferred trajectory of the aircraft in no way resembles any kind of landing attempt. Instead, the a/c whizzed around the western tip of Indonesia, pulled up into the stratosphere, and jetted off on a LRC… almost like it would have done en route to its original destination, except in almost exactly the opposite (magnetic?) direction.

    If the a/c was navigating by WayPoints, then what was the last WP after IGEBO ?? An iceberg ?

  44. Sorry Brock, inside the two arrows above was the following:
    The new mantra is that the terrain is so horrendous, wreckage was missed. This compares to the statement by Fugro’s Paul Kennedy in October, 2014 – AFTER he had plenty of time to review the results of extensive bathy surveying – that for “the areas we search we know 100 percent that if we run over an airplane we’ll know for sure.”

    I think it got deleted because it included some html instructions.

  45. @ Lauren: I have been following jeffwise.net for longer than your realize. I did read Jeff’s very informative and well-written articles on gooseneck barnacles. I appreciate the subtleties involved in taxonomy, as I used to be a student of the late Robert J. Behnke who was the world’s foremost authority on salmonid fishes. I’ve spent my share of hours over the microscope, eyes watering due to the formaldehyde, counting scales, fin rays, gill rakers, and pyloric caeca (look it up).

    While I am certainly no expert on Lepas sp. barnacles, they are cosmopolitan species with similar life histories. The morphological differences between nominal species are subtle, but of little practical importance for our purposes. Ideally, one would hope to find L. australis–the species whose home range is the southern Indian Ocean–but if other species are found it doesn’t prove anything.

    But bottom line: Lepas sp. are pelagic species for a reason. They avoid littoral environments not because they can (they can’t). But because they are vulnerable to the predators found in littoral environments. They are a completely different animal compared to the acorn barnacles you have seen. Most humans, even if they live on the coast, haven’t seen a gooseneck barnacle. It is a mistake to base one’s impressions on barnacles as a whole because of one’s personal experience with acorn barnacles. Gooseneck barnacles are different–they are not armored against predators in the same way, and soon disappear when exposed to life in the coastal ‘hood.

  46. @Warren

    I’m not splitting hairs, really, just trying to be smart, and not quite succeeding.

    To me, a minimum debris means high enough speed on impact to damage the fuselage badly enough to promote rapid sinking. This would inevitably generate some debris in the process, such as flaperons, flap fairings, etc, as an unavoidable consequence.

    A maximum survivability ditching would be made as slowly as possible, to avoid damaging the hull, consequently negligible debris.

    That was the point I was trying to make.

  47. Some thaughts I like to share.

    1. The more pieces from a Boeing 777 are found the more the probability increases, that this debris is from MH370.
    2. The size of the debris points to a complete destruction of the aircraft.
    3. The probability, that this destruction happened in a crash like event is very high.
    4. That this crash after both engines flamed out happened intentionally under the control of a pilot is possible, but imho not much probable.
    5 . The presently assumed crash area had been searched for surface debris in the days after the crash and until now by subsurface search, but nothing was found, nothing on the neighbouring beaches or in the abyss of the search area.
    6. The definition of the search was based besides the BFO data on assumptions.

    We seem to have relative good information about the end of the aircraft, only the location is still in question. We also have relative good data about the first part of the flight.

    7. The first part of the flight, the turn around at Igari, the tracking back across the mainland and to the northwest through the straits have all symptoms of a conscious and intentional action by some person / party.
    8. After MEKAR the ISAT data and the found debris point to a crash area in the SIO
    9. After MEKAR the assumptions were mainly constant altitude, constant speed, constant track/heading, long range cruise profile to get as much to the south as possible.

    Obviously somewhere a failure happened in this analysis. I pointed that out before, the part before MEKAR does not fit the part after MEKAR. The first part was driven by routing and was not orientated to fly in the most fuel efficient way as much south as possible. We do not know exactly what happened after MEKAR, which caused the flight profile to change from this active navigating to the northwest to the path to the south.

    10. The change of flight profile points to a change from Human controlled flight path to uncontrolled or autopilot controled flight path
    10. The key for the failure in the wrong area is imho caused by choosing the wrong assumptions for the events after MEKAR
    11. The fuel remaining prior final turn south may have been lees then assumed, as the part until MEKAR was not necessarily observing fuel efficient flying.
    12. The speed for flight south was less fuel efficient then assumed, it may have been slower, at lower altitude.
    13. This would move the possible impact area along the arc to the nort.
    14. Dennis flight in the region of CI comes to mind, although for a different reason.
    15. The flight south might have happened by chance (not intended, something gone wrong) or intentional, to dispose the aircraft. In both cases it might have been unpiloted.

    Wouldn’t it be a good chance to step back from all present assumptions and scenarios and start all over again at MEKAR with a profile, that would fullfill the ISAT data and end considerable more to the north, but disregards this fuel efficient flying as far to the south as possible?

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