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:
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.
@Dennis
I gathered that somehow, but didn’t quite know how to say it without being obtuse. The lack of any kind of distress message does kind of put the kibosh on the maximum survivability scenario.
@Gysbreght
Yes some is reading, posting and planting ; p . Remember my earlier comment on another post about the Fat Controller ( wink wink).
Seriously, this is just another bits and pieces of marine organism free flotsam being touted as some sort of Holy Grail. And interestingly ATSB makes repeated claims evincing unabashed confidence that the a/c wreckage would be located by June when thus far not even a piece of debris has been located in the search zone. So can I speculate that the wreckage is already in their hands and all these suspicious flotsam are just ” dress rehearsals” for the revelation in June ….if you folks get my drift when the scripted narrative of a SIO crash site is cranked into motion.
The fat controller must be enjoying himself, who wouldn’t if one gets free sun, sea and beach in return for depositing stuff on remote exotic places and getting heftily paid for it in the bargain.
And just for the road, a couple of observations:
1. Almost all reports concur that the military were actively tracking the plane from the moment their radar picked it up. Isn’t it absurd that they let an unidentified intruder traverse the Malay peninsular from one end to another without lifting a finger much less scrambling their interceptors?
2. Switch on Flight Aware or Flight Tracker at 1.25am (17.25 GMT) and you will observe that South East Asian skies teeming with civilian aircraft heading to their respective destinations. It’s bizarre that a suicidal pilot chooses to run the gauntlet through this crowd and hope to go unnoticed in the bargain, ditto a burning plane belching smoke. Even more, it is absurd that the military choose to do nothing but twiddle their thumbs while an unidentified rogue plane attempts to slalom through that maze. I mean wouldn’t RMAF be aware of mid air collision possibilities, I would yet they choose to do nothing…..strange folk, aren’t they?
ROB wrote:minimum debris means high enough speed on impact to damage the fuselage badly enough to promote rapid sinking. … A maximum survivability ditching would be made as slowly as possible, to avoid damaging the hull, consequently negligible debris.
@ROB: you are overthinking. Read up on the picture-perfect UA1549 ditching in the Hudson River. The hull was still perforated. Water was up to the seats in the back within just a few minutes. This was in a well-protected harbor in fine weather. It doesn’t get any better than that. It only gets worse.
And in any case, if you want to sink an aircraft that’s been perfectly ditched, the answer is to simply go back and open a couple of hatches…
PS IMO there should be damage control training for aircraft crews on how to stem inflows of water upon ditching similar to what is taught to US Navy sailors. The rate of taking on water on UA1549 could have been drastically slowed down if seat cushion or whatever were stuffed into breaches immediately after the ditching.
@Wazir Roslan
“1. Almost all reports concur that the military were actively tracking the plane from the moment their radar picked it up. Isn’t it absurd that they let an unidentified intruder traverse the Malay peninsular from one end to another without lifting a finger much less scrambling their interceptors?”
The military was informed by ATC about missing MH370, when MH370 had already flown past Penang and was heading northwest in the straits. That they observed MH370 before that moment “life” seems to be an unfounded assumption.
You have other information?
A minute into the flight, ATC instructed the pilot to cancel the SID, erase the preloaded flight plan from the computer, and input a direct track to IGARI and BITOD. Given the infinite list of arcane acronyms, I would guess that the pilot types into a console with some sort of smart-search feature, like word-completion on touch-screen devices.
What if the captain accidentally’ chose the wrong waypoint, say IGEBO & BEDAX stead of BITOD & IGARI ??
Very arguably, the flight ‘should’ have gone from IGARI & BITOD on LRC to BEIJING… instead, it U-turned… and wound up flying through IGEBO & BEDAX on LRC to (Amsterdam & St.Paul?) the SIO in nearly the opposite direction. The inflight erasure of the flight plan, and on-the-fly editing of the same, involves all of the right a/c components, at about the right time, to explain the flight deviation afterwards
@Lauren: yes, beware the wrath of the “double greater/less-than signs”!
My issue is that a high energy impact has been the influence-weighted consensus hypothesis from the very beginning. Experts told us – confidently – that fuel exhaustion circa 00:16 is embedded in the BTO, and that a -15,000 ft/min descent rate at 00:19 is embedded in the BFO.
As a result, a high-energy impact hypothesis DROVE the initial search strategy: start bang on the 7th Arc first, and emanate outward from there. If that is where you are searching, you are EXPECTING a very sharp descent rate.
So from the get-go (Oct/’14), they were looking for such pieces as would survive a high-energy impact. This in turn makes the idea that the smallness of this new debris somehow INVALIDATES the way the search has been conducted for 18 months a little hard to accept.
@Eric Nelson
“Very arguably, the flight ‘should’ have gone from IGARI & BITOD on LRC to BEIJING… instead, it U-turned… and wound up flying through IGEBO & BEDAX on LRC to (Amsterdam & St.Paul?) the SIO in nearly the opposite direction. The inflight erasure of the flight plan, and on-the-fly editing of the same, involves all of the right a/c components, at about the right time, to explain the flight deviation afterwards”
And the pilots were asleep at that moment and didn’t notice the deviation?
@retired f4
My pleasure:
http://m.huffpost.com/uk/entry/5212664
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/03/15/world/asia/malaysia-military-radar.html?referer=&_r=0
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/missing-flight-mh370-malaysian-pm-3456443
You can also refer to this one about Thailand’s air defense though it states Malaysia’s only spotted it at 2.18am:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2583553/Thai-military-says-missing-flight-MH370-followed-twisting-path-Strait-Malacca.html
@Erik Nelson;
“A minute into the flight, ATC instructed the pilot to cancel the SID, erase the preloaded flight plan from the computer, and input a direct track to IGARI and BITOD.”
The ATC instruction did not call for erasing the preloaded flight plan. The Flight Management Computer has a “DIRECT TO” instruction where the pilot can select IGARI – a waypoint of the active flight plan, and the FMC will then command the Autopilot to steer the airplane onto the track direct to IGARI. The radar data show that the airplane actually did that. Normally the FMC would then have initiated a turn before reaching IGARI to capture the track towards the next waypoint BITOD. Instead the airplane overflew IGARI and then started to turn right to capture the programmed path IGARI-BITOD.
And just for the road, in addition to the above, CNN had this take approximately a year later:
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/03/09/asia/mh370-report-search-delays/
RetiredF4,
Re “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?”
I came to this conclusion more than a year ago based on same or similar considerations. But in contrast to Dennis, I am looking for “primitive” flight modes that conform BTO and BFO.
@Jeff
An earlier comment in response to @retired f4 citing sources for my “active military radar tracking” is missing. Must be the gremlins 😀
Wazir,
“Isn’t it absurd that they let an unidentified intruder traverse the Malay peninsular from one end to another without lifting a finger much less scrambling their interceptors?”
Who: Malay, Thai or Indonesians? Or perhaps all of them had to launch interceptors?
@DL
the poem means freely translated lyrics from our musical fairytale, as the important sideband forces here were so called kingdoms special services; simply coincidence reminded the sitaution as I see it for many months; may be inapropriate too, but, what else do now? I dont know if we are searching what happened or in fact creating most crazy scenario based upon digital traces only; hope @Gysbreght trusts me too; no fun
I have been following with great interest all the expert thoughts on both MH losses. What I still can not escape from is the fact that Richard Quest of CNN interviewed the Co-Pilot of MH370 just weeks before hand. What are odds of that ? I have never seen him do any thing like this before. Coupled with the fact that CNN invested huge air time in the story makes me wonder did they know the script in advance? I am sure one of your group can do the math ! Many thanks to everyone for their hard work in investigating these sad losses. PS was once a passenger on a MH flight from China to KL and loved their service.
Warren – looking at the size of the bits we have I had already begun to feel – by rule of thumb – that 3000 pieces was conservative. 10,000 bits means some little understood process kept it all away from the Australian coast or it went in further north. Good point by you – If the flaperon separated in flight it was one of many pieces to do so. Larger bits even?
Niels – agreed, we can’t rule out some sort of glide/crash presently. Some people are seizing the moment to reinstate position A. Zero debris here speaks loudly in my view but some will gloss right over it. But if you can gloss over zero search result as well you are unstoppable really.
@Wazir Roslan
You might check this link, which was posted by Netherlands in the former thread.
http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBREA3A0NS20140411
“The initial assumption was that the aircraft could have diverted due to mechanical issues or, in the worst case scenario, crashed,” said a senior Malaysian civilian source. “That is what we were working on.”
“Officials at Malaysia’s Department of Civil Aviation, which oversees air traffic controllers, the Defence Ministry and the air force directed requests for comment to the prime minister’s office, which did not respond.
One senior military official said air traffic control had informed the military at around 2:00 a.m. that a plane was missing. The standard operating procedure was to do so within 15 minutes, he said. Another military source said the notification was slow in coming, but did not give a time.”
The media and the links you cite, do not talk about “life” tracking, sometime even word “recorded” is used. And that is what it was. When ATC informed them about the missing airplane at anout 2:00, MH 370 had passe dPenang already and they started checking recordings. And anything else would really surprise me in a country in peacetime after midnight.
@Gysbreght
Re. overflew IGARI and then began a turn toward BITOD, instead of beginning the turn before reaching IGARI.
Is that what the radar trace shows? I agree that an LNAV turn would begin before reaching IGARI, so the obvious question is why didn’t it?
@RetiredF4, the sources are very contradictory on that subject. Hishamuddin’s now famous statement that the plane was deemed “friendly” and wasn’t perceived as a threat lends itself to the interpretation that the plane was followed live. I think we will never know what really happened. All cited sources operate on hearsay. How do we know that they have been told the truth anyway? The airforce is in a bad position no matter, what. If they haven’t observed the plane live they get criticized for not noticing a potential intruder; if they noticed the plane they get criticized for not scrambling fighter jets. In this situation we can’t expect to hear anything reliable from them.
@ROB,
I can’t answer the question “why didn’t it?”. A possibility is that the PF changed the AFDS roll mode from LNAV to HDG and selected the heading to IGARI by reference to the ND using the heading select control on the MCP, and changed the roll mode back to LNAV when passing IGARI.
@littlefoot
“All cited sources operate on hearsay. How do we know that they have been told the truth anyway?”
I disagree on that.
The chief of Malaysian airforce himself said (live on television) that the aircraft was deemed friendly/non-military and it was therefore not in their responsibility to scramble jets. This surely is an official statement, what more could one expect?
@Niels
“My guess is that the French know more by now, I hope their conclusions will be shared at some point.”
I agree and presume that they are not allowed to share their information as Malaysia is officially in charge of the investigation according to the Chicago convention.
However, some information has been released to the press, indicating that the French rule out the flaperon did break up as a result of high speed impact.
“”Selon Jean-Paul Troadec, ancien président du Bureau d’enquêtes et d’analyses (BEA), l’état du flaperon, même s’il n’est pas intact, indique qu’il n’y a pas eu d’impact violent avec la surface de l’océan. «Si cela avait été le cas avec le MH370, on aurait pu s’attendre à des débris bien plus petits que ce flaperon», a commenté l’expert.”
A rough tranlation is:
“Acccording to Jean-Paul Troadec, retired president of the BEA, the state of the flaperon, although not intact, indicates that there was no violent impact with the ocean surface. ‘If that was the case with MH370, one would expect debris far smaller than that flaperon’, the expert commented on this.”
@Nederland
Thanks.
I harbor the same thought. If the flaperon was on the plane when it hit the water, the damage is consistent with a shallow angle ditch. Still, ALSM’s theory about flutter damage and pre-impact separation is worth serious consideration until the BEA says otherwise.
BEA input right now would Beverly helpful.
@Nederland, if the chief of the Royal Malaysian Airforce said (live on tv!) that the plane was followed live and was perceived as friendly, then this is indeed an official statement and not hearsay – but that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily true. What else was he supposed to say? “Sorry, but we were all asleep or playing cards”? My trust in this kind of official statements is very limited. We will probably never know what the Malaysian airforce did or didn’t do that night.
Beverly = be very
Spell checkers are the ABS of word processing – useful if you are an idiot. Intrusive if you know what you are doing.
Folks, I would like to draw attention to the heading ” Radar Data” in this CNN report a year after the event:
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/03/09/asia/mh370-report-search-delays/
Taken together with my earlier links, the irrefutable conclusion was that 370 was live tracked by military radar. Reasons being:
1. The above CNN report which quotes the Malaysian Interim Report explicitly mentions that the plane was tracked by MR of at least four different countries ( I add at least for who knows military satellites of superpowers may have been easily doing the same)
2. Hishamuddin’s assertion of it being suspected to be a friendly aircraft
3. As mentioned above by @nederland and corroborated elsewhere, the statement by no less than the military chief himself.
Given the above, it is clear that assumptions that MR used recorded data etcetera and by extension, RMAF was operating according to “peacetime” procedures etc are effectively negated. Militaries the world over with the odd exception are vigilant in one guise or another, ask Jindalee/JORN of Australia or Singapore and the answer would be the same. And Malaysia wouldn’t be the odd exception being close as it is to the Spratly flashpoint in which it is embroiled as an interested party.
But my contention is, given the assertions of a fabled turn back underpinnef as it is by MR life tracking, how do we logically explain the questions I have raised above and those in the earlier thread. For any deductions to be drawn from the purported data ( and I stress purported) we need to first to explain the glaring anomalies, nay, absurdities that any real or imagined turn back brings in its wake.
My humble contention is that that data is fabricated for reasons I have outlined earlier. I would even venture to conjecture that the slight turn to the west at changeover time at IGARI is consistent with an evasive action or manoeuvre being effected by an aircraft that is attempting to avoid a projectile . After that radar loses track of it, consistent with a hit and which explains Vietnam ATC 15 minute delay as stated in the CNN report above. Subsequently, visual observations from a witness from an oil rig and fishermen at sea complete the picture regarding the final throes of the stricken airliner.
Simplistic it may sound but accounting for the sudden and simultaneous loss of communication and radar trace. I gladly stand corrected, for after all there are no million dollars awaiting anyone unraveling this “mystery”. We all want closure for NOK and move on.and I am amenable to which ever way that pans out lest I be accused of being trenchantly pushing the envelope.
@jeff
Thanks for finding my earlier missing comment which flew under radar, I suppose 😀 . As usual, great job manning a great blog.
@Niels: Yes, if you go NE of, say, 27 degrees south latitude, the drift studies I’ve seen do start to miss Oz. For those who care: even from as far north a start point as 28-29 degrees south, the UWA (Pattiaratchi) data I received still shows landfall hits concentrated in the SOUTHERN third of the western coast, so I’d still expect a strong discovery rate. And he erred on the side of LOW windage; the IPRC data has Oz landfall probabilities more than doubling when you move windage from 0% to 1%.
Meanwhile: the further you go north of 35 degrees south, the more you run into the issues around whose mulberry bush we’ve run many times: the bizarre coincidence of the perfectly offsetting slow speed and gradual curvature required to satisfy the BTO’s, deteriorating BFO fit, lack of surface debris spotted in April, 2014, ATSB-indicated fuel infeasibility).
So I just don’t see a “market” at any latitude. 29 degrees south, for example, seems too far NE to fit a reasonably straight path (under a swift FMT) – and too far SW to explain the lack of WA debris.
If MH370 circled, landed, or juked NW near Sumatra, a thin market MIGHT exist. But this search has spent over a YEAR searching a place only accessible via a swift FMT; if someone decided to keep path circuity a state secret, that person, legacy-wise, is going to give Hitler a run for his money.
I’m afraid I ran out of patience months ago, Niels – search officials have lost the benefit of my doubt. Several of us have been given the runaround by multiple agencies of a dozen countries, now, when all we ever wanted was to help the families get the closure they deserve.
The reason I add my loud voice (and slow brain) to this effort is because I realize this could have been MY family on board. If just one or two people on the inside could stop for just one damn minute, and truly see the world through the eyes of the loved ones of those on board, we could “solve” this mystery in a heartbeat.
Thank you
@Jeff
@All Maybe there’s all sorts of debris already washed up and out there… We just haven’t known where to look.
@George Conelly,
“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”
1 degree of latitude equals 60 nautical miles irrespective of latitude.
Its the distance between degrees of longitude which changes from equator to higher latitudes.
@jG, Yes, if this stuff drifted naturally then presumably there is, which is why I imagine the Malaysians want to start an organized search effort.
@Brock
Yes. my own conclusions from studying your source data and others is that the terminus is well north of 30S.
@Brock
Maybe there is some value in joining a group such as the IG. it would seem to lend more weight to your arguments. But then again, maybe not.
Duncans’s website has become a one way conduit of information. No feedback allowed. How lame is that?
@Brock
i mean what a crock of shit – a preamble by Dr. Steel telling us what we should believe followed by some technical information which cannot be challenged.
Does anyone even go there anymore unless someone posts a link to it?
The IG has become an embarrassment to its members.
Forgive me for not knowing if this has been discussed previously here, but someone on Twitter linked to this page:
http://postimg.org/image/bcsc9ca4d/
which seems to indicate another piece of an aircraft was found in the Maldives in 2015, burned, and then elements retrieved and passed on to the ATSB.
Not sure what to make of it. It does look similar to my untrained eye. I don’t know whom the web page belongs to.
Brock, you wrote:
“If MH370 circled, landed, or juked NW near Sumatra, a thin market MIGHT exist. But this search has spent over a YEAR searching a place only accessible via a swift FMT; if someone decided to keep path circuity a state secret, that person, legacy-wise, is going to give Hitler a run for his money.”
Seeing your comment I recalled a portion of the July 19, 2014 interim statement from the Independent Group:
“Analysis A (p. 25) of the ATSB report begins the path computation at the 19:41, which is approximately the point of closest approach of the aircraft to the satellite. However, a complete solution of the flight path needs to account for the path of the aircraft between the last primary radar location at 18:22 and the start of the computation at 19:41. To better understand the ATSB results, we have computed a similar path starting at 19:41 that approximately satisfies the BTO and BFO data and terminates in the “priority” search area from the report. This leads to a location at 19:41 which is only about 195 miles from the location at 18:28, indicating a direct path speed of only 160 mph. Possible explanations are the aircraft path was a circling pattern or some other more complex path or scenario. Can the ATSB please provide further clarification of the possible flight paths during this critical time interval?”
http://www.duncansteel.com/archives/899
@DennisW – Agreed, a terminus well north of 30S
What ever resulted from the Curtin University acoustic findings that placed the crash site well north and west of the current search area?
Here is a link for the Curtin research.
http://news.curtin.edu.au/media-releases/curtin-researchers-search-acoustic-evidence-mh370/
I wonder what the seventh arc would look like superimposed onto the Curtin map. Is anyone able to do this? I wish I had the technical ability myself but am sadly a bit useless with graphics.
This is the thing – if we’re assuming a high energy impact, it must have showed up on one of these sensors, yes? Or no? Perhaps they don’t have complete coverage. But I imagine it’s fairly comprehensive.
If it did show up, then this seems to be the only relevant blip in the right time period.
That makes me think it is pretty likely to be from the plane impacting the water, just by default.
Jeff – So they will have an organized search for debris in Africa and not here? Now why is that?
Susie – I beat this drum a fair bit and it depends who you talk too. yes it’s absolutely realistic to get a detection or they wouldn’t have spent months on it. But it(the detection) didn’t support the data so Curtin did a quick tap dance routine and left the stage sideways. A former submariner I know of said if it hit the water at that moment and in the IO then that’s your crash right there. Either that or there just happened to be timely tremor south of India to explain it – at the point of fuel exhaustion. As always it comes back to the reboot. You trust it or you don’t.
Would a crash in the center of the acoustic zone proposed by Curtin result in the locations of the debris discoveries?
PatM,
The Curtin signal at RCS and HA01 is consistent with the seabed impact at around 28.5S, 100E. I have discussed this with Dr Duncan and some other specialists in marine acoustic – all of them think the detection of seabed impact could be very possible.
I think the use of Scott Reef station for triangulation is ambiguous:
– The signal strength at Scott Reef is 7 or 8 times higher than at RCS and HA01. This makes me thinking that Scott Reef event is irrelevant to HA01 and RCS events.
– The Scott Reef station was not recording data at the time of expected signal arrival, should the source be at around 30S. Thus nobody knows if there were more later spikes at Scott Reef or no.
– My triangulation based on RCS, HA01 and Scott Reef indicates solution at Omani-Yemeni coast. I did not use bearing data at HA01, which might be a reason for this discrepancy.
– HA08 did not show spikes as per Dr Duncan’s first note, while being the closest to the “NW” solution.
I have made 2 attempts to discuss these issues with Dr Duncan, but he stopped responding to me.
PatM,
“Would a crash in the center of the acoustic zone proposed by Curtin result in the locations of the debris discoveries?”
Which location do you mean: SE or NW? What do mean under “center”?
Based on flow patterns and the second Dr Duncan’s paper (link below), I think no for NW solution, but yes for SE solution.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/8jdqvgt0ymp2g5a/Scott%20Reef%20IMOS%20logger%20data%20analysis%20for%202014_03_08_Release.pdf?dl=0
so not only does the flaperon condradict a crash but also shows different species of barnacles which shouldnt be possible?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_965
Entering wrong navigational beacon resulted in unnoticed turn and flight into terrain.
Susie,
“I wonder what the seventh arc would look like superimposed onto the Curtin map. Is anyone able to do this?”
I did this a long time ago for the SE location. You can find a summary plot in my CTS note:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/8vrt72o783262he/TN-CTS-Rev1.1.pdf?dl=0
However, the result of my triangulation using Scott Reef sensor are inconsistent with Dr Duncan’s results. The solution is very sensitive to methodology and input data, which might be a reason.
@Brock
IMO the sad reality is we are looking at a case where geopolitical interests prevail over basic humane behavior.
So I’m convinced there is relevant info with certain parties not being shared.
In this light: extensive circling/delay over the Andaman sea before final turn to the south remains a possibility.
One of the news reports on the Rodrigues fragment. Have a good look at the map.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35953295
It would seem that the coast of Madagascar would be a good place to start looking. As in Mozambique, the local population may not have been very aware of MH 370.
Folks, I would like to draw attention to the heading ” Radar Data” in this CNN report a year after the event:
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/03/09/asia/mh370-report-search-delays/
Taken together with my earlier links, the irrefutable conclusion was that 370 was live tracked by military radar. Reasons being:
@Wazir Roslan, you said
“1. The above CNN report which quotes the Malaysian Interim Report explicitly mentions that the plane was tracked by MR of at least four different countries ( I add at least for who knows military satellites of superpowers may have been easily doing the same)
Having to be able to do something and actually doing it are two different things. Concerning the radar data you see what you must see in the links you cite, as your shoot down scenario would not work otherwise. But nothing in the links conclusively points to “life” tracking except maybe the last radar contact.
The most unbiased timeline is the following one
http://www.icao.int/APAC/Meetings/2015%20APSARTF3/Flimsy%201%20MH370%20Timeline.pdf
Two times I like to bring to your attention.
At 1800 INCERFA was declared by HCM ATC and forwarded to all relevant organizations
At 1822 last primary military radar fix in the Andaman seawith the note, that this was not divulged to civil ATC for another 20 hrs.
Why do they accuse the delay in not communicating the last radar fix for 20 hours, but say nothing at all about a possible earlier tracking like you see for certain?
If the would observe an unknown target, they first would challenge ATC wether they have any knowledge about it. Or do you think they would scramble cost intensive jets immidiately after an unknown aircraft posing no threat to a special object of high interest like the capital city?
People not familiar with military operations tend to overestimate the abilities of the military in peace time. Reality is, the military in peace time is training orientated with a small part of it being in some kind of readiness state. What you and journalist expect, a 24/7 operational readiness, is not realistic. There is not enough personell available to man each radar station with manpower and keep it on a life operational status.
This is also true for a possible attacker, who would have to prepare an attack in advance by mobilizing his forces to a higher readiness state, which intel would give away.
Being realistic you can expect some of the air defence radars working unmanned in autonomous mode with a radar operator in a crew rest area and an higher ranking officer somewhere doing the same in a command center. Once alerted by another agency like civil ATC, they would scramble to their work place within preset time frames. Expecting a man sitting on the radar display 24 hours is wish thinking. With backup for leave, sickness and outside training demands and considering different stages of training status and necessary rest hours each scope would have to be manned with at least 8 fully qualified radar operators for a peace time 24/7 shift.
You yourself name Jorn as an exemple. What was its status during the time of the possible intrusion into their area of responsibility? We have to assume that it was completely switched off for that area, otherwise the Australians would have seen MH370 and would know where to search for it and all the ISAT computations would be nothing more than a nice little exercise. Or they could confirm that it was not flying in that area and the search would be useless and only chewing away money.
The reality is, the military works like any other business in peace time, regardless what journalists and hobby investigators think it would be.
It is like in your home. You turn the heating up when it gets cold and switch the light on when it gets dark. The reason is it costs your money and usage wears down the equipment. And if you neglect maintenance and modification you will someday sit in a cold dark room.
In the end you or others might believe what suits their own theory, but that does not make it more real.