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.
@Gysbreght
Very interesting. Sorry, I wasn’t expecting you to give me an explanation. The “why didn’t it” was meant as an open question, one to myself even. I found it interesting because if correct, it indicates he was altering NAV setup before IGARI was reached. Not that I’m suggesting I have an explanation why. So much going on in such a short space of time! But he must have been altering the NAV setting after the FO had been locked out in my view (controversial I know)
One possibility: He inserted waypoint ABTOK behind IGARI, just before reaching IGARI and at the same time, deleted the Beijing flight plan. But would this make the LNAV begin to turn right before turning left? I can’t pretend I have the answer to it.
Thank you very much Oleksandr and Matty.
28.5S and 100E is reasonably close to my favourite imaginary contrail…that’s more like 32S though.
http://www.weathergraphics.com/malaysia/ioee-0000.gif
I don’t expect this to be relevant; I’m just thinking out loud. I’ve already asked about it here and it was dismissed as, well, imaginary, so I’m happy with that : )
@ROB & Geysbreght
I think that someone used the AFDS’ MCP to change the flight speed setting from ECON (CI=52) to LRC (CI=180), as described by Dr. Ulich. For the 20 minutes of straight track to IGARI, the a/c was slowly accelerating from 468-474 kts… At FL350-360, an ECON speed setting of CI=52 supposedly tops out at 480 kts, but evidently only after most of an hour of cruising.
But, according to the military radar track, after the IGARI deviation, average speed increased to over 488 kts… that is almost exactly 3% faster than ~470 kts, the exact percentage of speed increase expected for LRC over ECON. The 777 is optimized for LRC at Mach=0.84 at FL350-360 (or ECON at Mach=0.81), and the a/c very arguably maintained that flight-level, more-than-less.
I understand that LNAV (which does not rely on any altitude information) minimizes linear horizontal displacement from a waypoint, and the turn at IGARI perhaps utilized that setting:
http://kontrolaletenja.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/MAS-IGARI.jpg
If the acting pilot was modifying speed settings, then they very arguably changed the turn settings, too
@Erik Nelson,
The difference between normal turn at a waypoint and the overfly turn was discussed here not so long ago. At the time I posted this chart:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/l9sdn0cx1ipkvnd/IGARItracks.jpg?dl=0
The blue line on that chart is the primary radar track shown in various ATSB reports.
In its “Correcting the record” reply to a newspaper article the ATSB suggested that the airplane may have flown at FL300 after the turn-back at IGARI. That would be consistent with maintaining M.82, the speed flown before IGARI. Another reason for selecting FL300 may have been to avoid collision with other traffic. Long range flights usually prefer FL350 or higher.
“If the acting pilot was modifying speed settings, then they very arguably changed the turn settings, too”
I would turn that around. LNAV stands for Lateral navigation. It is an autopilot mode that gives control of turns to the FMC (Flight Management Computer) according to the active flight plan. Any deviation from that flight plan implies changing the turn settings.
VNAV stands for vertical navigation. It is an autopilot mode that gives the FMC control over speed and altitude. In cruise the FMC commands the autopilot to maintain the selected altitude, and the autothrottle to maintain a speed calculated in the FMC, which could be either LRC or the ECON speed corresponding to the selected cost index. The observed change of airspeed inplies that the vertical navigation mode was changed also.
A friend of mine has SUGGESTED that “MH370 did not divert from IGARI but was shot down during a Thai-America military excercise. During his first visit to Malaysia, Barack Obama addressed this tragedy and conceded to Najib about the accident in a closed door meeting. 5 hours lapse is enough time for the American navy to collect all the debris/bodies scattered over the gulf of Thailand and hide it. Therefore, Najib knew about what really happened on that fateful night but remain silent about it. Malaysian government and ATSB are all just pretending to be looking for the plane. The reason they picked the Southern Indian Ocean for the search is so that they will have excuse for their failure to find the plane simply because the ocean is too vast. So yes, the whole MH370 saga IS very much a conspiracy of carelessness and negligence.” Well, that’s pretty much what my friend said.
@Susie
Very interesting find about the Maldives debris.I think the honeycomb structure is a telling sign .
How would the Maldives find match the drift patterns I wonder?
obviously, one can identify two opposing processes onboard MH370:
(1) de-activate everything (except AFDS?) at IGARI, at beginning of perhaps-piloted maneuvers, with no communications
(2) re-activate many things near NILAM, at end of maneuvers, and beginning of AFDS maneuver-less flight, with some (very circumscribed) communications
Two opposing processes, aboard an a/c very arguably hijacked? Perhaps they reflect opposing sides in a scuffle for control of the flight-deck and a/c?
Is there any way to claim, cogently & concisely, that “one team” tried to de-energize the aircraft at IGARI and remained silent…
and that “the other team”, including co-pilot Hamid, somehow used an independent emergency radio to talk with JAL750 at 1:30, and to radio distress at 1:43… and then, further, to use a cell-phone at 1:52, at Penang (about the time ATC informed the Malaysian military)… and, then, finally, to re-engage the left main electrical bus in the E/E-bay about 2:23am ?
If the passengers fought back, and were about to barge into the cockpit, then perhaps the active pilot depressurized the plane to take everybody out with them ?? If “the other team” entered the E/E-bay, then they could have cut off the pilot’s O2 supply.
Against this, the reboot at 2:23am happened almost precisely 60:00 after the diversion at IGARI, which in turn happened almost exactly 40:00 after take-off… 20:00 after that, the a/c had completed the FMT (“with a few minutes to spare” ??), and was railed onto its autopiloted course into mystery & history… that all sounds more like some sort of schedule, as if someone’s time piece was reading “1:18:53” (or “0:01:17”) at the FMT and “the job was finished”…
trying to unsnarl all of the various threads of the storyline…
If the co-pilot located a handheld emergency radio, and radioed a distress call at 1:43am (almost exactly 60:00 into the flight?), perhaps it was as muffled & distorted as the 1:30am JAL750 contact… Maybe he said “the cabin is DEPRESSURIZING”, not “disintegrating” ?? If the E/E-bay had 27 man-hours of O2, then maybe hypothermia was more of a factor than hypoxia ??
One more thing, Dr. Duncan Steel wrote that, in emergencies, pilots usually engage the AFDS to fly the a/c whilst they help passengers and “fight fires”, figuratively and otherwise… Perhaps the pilot & co-pilot were holed up in the E/E-bay, digging out manuals and trying to make sense of smoldering circuits, and they were so focused that the lost awareness of the situation surrounding them… They reset the left main bus at 2:25, hi-five each other, pop the hatch, and climb up into an antarctic ice-world… they barely make it to the cockpit to turn towards Banda Aceh or Maimun Saleh, before they succumb to the -40degree temperatures ??
I want to come back to a question raised earlier.
As @Gysbreght explained in response to my earlier question, it seems to be necessary to switch ACARS from SATCOM to VHF mode and then VHF mode from data to voice, if ACARS was manually disabled in the cockpit.
I have now done a bit more research on this and came across the Swissair 111 accident report.
http://www.tsb.gc.ca/eng/rapports-reports/aviation/1998/a98h0003/a98h0003.pdf
As explained on p. 182-3, an event such as logging off/onto the VHF network would be registered by the network provider (in that case SITA). The FI is reasonably clear that there was no logoff protocol registered by Inmarsat. A possible explanation is that there was a power loss to the SDU (whether or not induced manually) before ACARS was disabled. But there is no indication whatsoever of any information related to the SITA protocol.
However, early announcements (both officially and by unnamed American investigators) indicated that ACARS was switched off already at 17:07 UTC. This record was later “clarified”: neither the tower nor MAS have downloaded any logoff protocol. But how about the SITA network? Could it not expected that there would be some traces of ACARS manually being disabled if that was indeed the case? Will we hear about this in the final report?
@Geysbreght
That is a very helpful picture…
Is that right-angled turn past IGARI physically possible ? I thought only UFOs could turn like that.
Visually, the overshooting turn at IGARI looks a lot like the turn at PENANG, requiring a corrective turn to port of a few degrees to get back on the straight waypoint-to-waypoint course
PS: The meaningful part of your picture is about 450 pixels squared representing 1x1deg = 60x60nm… and the almost 90degree turn is at most 5 pixels around… At 470kts, turning tightly with a radius of ~0.3nm, is a 10G turn… Only a fighter-pilot with a G-suit could survive that maneuver… What really happened ?
@Erik Nelson,
RE (1): Any pilot input on the control yoke, column or rudder pedals automatically disconnects the autopilot and therefore the FMC. The available documentation does not say how such action affects the autothrottle. A reasonable guess would be that the autothrottle continues to maintain the speed (Mach above FL300) last commanded by the FMC. If the autopilot was re-engaged after the turn-back, it would probably be controlled with inputs from the MCP.
@Geysbreght
http://s27.postimg.org/7misereeb/MH370_IGARI_turn_1_G.png
1G turn circle (50 pixels across) overlaid… intriguingly, it lies nicely on the last wiggly curvaceous part of the IGARI turn track, and the first wiggly curvaceous part of the deviant track… slightly smaller (40-45 pixels across) might connect those wiggly parts, into one smooth curve, a bit better
it may imply, that the published track has become “angularized” by stretching out the actual turn track, by fixing part of it onto the air-route flight-line from IGARI to BITOD…
if my circle is accurate (ballpark, maybe not precise) then the a/c never actually made it back to the IGARI-BITOD route line… about when the starboard wing light was just touching the line, the plane suddenly banked hard to port at maximum-Gs (1-1.1Gs or so)…
I think that would have had the effect of “whiplashing” the passengers, on a nice gradual turn to starboard, just leveling off, and then the slight correction a few degrees to port suddenly kicks into a coffee-and-juice spilling, food-flying, cart-tipping U-turn.
Could you command a one or one-and-a-quarter G turn, from the E/E avionics bay? It’s designed for maintenance, not flight control, you’d have to have a harness or something ?? Requires acting pilot input from the flight deck only ???
I’m sure everyone knows, that according to SkyVector, there are no navigation waypoints in the SIO… so the a/c flying out there requires some sort of track-maintaining flight-mode… unless some new artificial waypoint of coordinates were somehow entered into the FMC (?)
@Lehmin, Your friend had no idea what he was talking about.
@Lehmin nonsense
@Nederland,
Firstly, the Swissair 111 accident was a MD-11, MH370 was a B777-200ER.
Secondly, I think you are confusing ACARS and SATCOM service providers. When ACARS is selected to VHF only and the assigned VHF unit is set to VOICE, ACARS has no means of communication and hence cannot initiate a log-off sequence with the ACARS service provider.
@Erik Nelson,
The physical impossibility of the right-angle turn has been discussed at length more than once on this blog. Without new information there is no point in discussing it again.
Erik,
“I’m sure everyone knows, that according to SkyVector, there are no navigation waypoints in the SIO… ”
Your SkyVector has a glitch. There are many waypoints in SIO. You may take a look at ATSB June 2014 report, or overlap digital waypoint database on a map. Anyway, what is the difference? Lon/lat could be entered instead.
@Gysbreght
ACARS was in SATCOM mode on the accident flight, but there is no log off sequence registered with the SATCOM provider (INMARSAT).
Regarding VHF: We have seen earlier that one would have to switch ACARS first to VHF and then VHF from data to voice (in that sequence). Depending how long it would take to navigate through the different menus, I would expect some trace of this registered, i.e. if ACARS is switched to VHF, you would logically expect a log on sequence and then a protocol that indicates the change from data to voice imo.
Susie,
Where do you see contrail in your gif? Do you mean its location is approximately in the center? Also, how do you estimate coordinates without apparent georeferencing marks?
@Oleksandr & Geysbreght
If the Malaysian military radar is accurate to within +/-1nm, then, as your picture makes plain, the flight path after IGARI is, still, actually, much more variable than the track up to IGARI…
we might adjust a few pixels here and there, but the flight trajectory after the IGARI event weaves from side-to-side much more than the very smooth, regular, usual track up to the event.
If that is not an artifact, if we can trust the radar to be generally accurate, if not perfectly precise…
then is that indicative of a scuffle at the controls, for the first few minutes after the event ? The initial track was very straight, for most of a minute or so, on a heading NW towards some place like Bangkok. Or perhaps the a/c was unsteady or difficult to control ?? Would that imply a pilot fighting the autopilot, or some such ???
@Erik Nelson
@Nederland
To stop ACARS transmissions, all you have to do is deselect all three transmission modes, ie Satcom, VHF and LW, on the MFD SATCOM Manager (Smartcockpit, communications).
However this does not stop ACARS from being able to receive transmissions from the ground, however.
SATCOM can be deactivated by either deenergising LH main AC Bus, or if this isn’t convenient, it can be deactivated by switching out the IG generators while keeping the APU offline. This will force a backup generator to supply the load, ELMS load shedding will then disconnect power to SATCOM.
Re the question about waypoints in the SIO ( or lack thereof) I think that following the FMT at IGOGU, once the plane was aligned onto ISBIX, he could have entered an along-track waypoint with positive offset, and calculated to keep the plane on the same geodesic path until fuel exhaustion.
@Nederland,
At 18:03 there was no response from the aircraft to a Ground-to-Air DATA-2 ACARS Data message. The INMARSAT log data says: Link lost at sometime between 17:07:48 and 18:03:41. The probable explanation of the SATCOM logon request sent from the aircraft terminal at 18:25 is a power interruption to the SDU. There was no ACARS message sent after 18:25, so ACARS must have been disabled by a separate action.
Regarding VHF: Selecting VHF on the ACARS Manager page on the CMU immediately brings up the VHF Manager page where a single click changes VHF3 (the default VHF for ACARS) from DATA to VOICE.
Erik,
My opinion is that MH370 was flown manually from IGARI to Penang. This section of the trajectory is slightly curved, and I don’t think Malay/Thai radars have systematic errors to explain the curvature. The curvature is also inconsistent with magnetic heading, but of the same sign. You can estimate errors in radar position based on Lido image, and it is higher than 1 nm.
Re waypoints. I forgot to mention that you can download digital database from opennav.com.
@Oleksandr
Can you tell me why the Lido radar trace has a hole coinciding roughly with the position of VAMPI?. Probably been explained somewhere, but I must have missed it.
One issue getting little coverage is the current loss of the Chinese “more sophisticated” underwater search technology. If the latest debris is from inside the plane then the structure may have been shattered into small pieces, perhaps entirely. I have been hoping they were searching for a large fuselage that was largely intact but if it is a widely dispersed debris field of smaller bits then they need the best technology they can get, and I believe the remaining search area is particularly difficult underwater terrain. Does anyone know if the Fugro technology is up to the task?
@RetiredF4
Your response was bemusing to say the least. I won’t belabour the point save to leave the rest to make their conclusions based on the links I have provided. Suffice to say that your arguments against life tracking runs smack against the words emanating from not one but three horses’ mouths namely the PM’s, Hishamuddin’s and the military chief’s .
Ironically you also answered a poser about Jindalee which I raised in a previous post. Obviously by your argument no aircraft went anywhere near Australia and as such all the kerfuffle over SIO is unnecessary.
By the way your description of militaries in peace time may be subject to revision and how ironical that it should be Indonesia given all the talk of MH 370 lingering over Banda Aceh etc. You see, the Indonesian Air Force doesn’t take kindly to airspace intrusions as this news report proofs with its citations of numerous past cases:
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2016/01/04/air-force-claims-current-regulations-leave-ri-airspace-unprotected.html
I guess MH 370 must have been a unique exception given that it was given free rein to take its time to meander through Indonesian unidentified and unmolested on its fabled sojourn to the SIO. Sounds odd if you and the rest get my drift.
And just to touch upon valuable assets influencing military decisions during peacetime, guess the Super Bowl ranks high in the stakes:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/a19202/heres-how-f-15s-practice-intercept-procedures-for-the-super-bowl/
@Lehmin
You might be interested in this
http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2014/07/20/protecting-airliners-from-missiles.html
http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,395514,00.html
@Wazir, All the Indonesian intercepts were presumably of civilian aircraft flying with their transponders turned on, so not directly relevant to the MH370. The article implies that even with transponders turned on Indonesia fails to intercept many intruders into its airspace.
ROB,
Re: “Can you tell me why the Lido radar trace has a hole coinciding roughly with the position of VAMPI”.
I lean to think that the gap is an artifact of merging of at least two radar datasets. I have noticed that alignment of the sections “before” and “after” are slightly different in Lido image, FI and ATSB June 2014 report, as it could be expected in case of using different projections and different software to merge data. Don have also pointed out that signal strength varies and inconsistent with a single radar system providing data. These are the two indications that data in Lido image was sourced from two radar systems. Don has suggested RTADS-III Khok Muang and RTADS-III Phuket as potential candidates. I suspect that it could also be Lhokseumawe for the part “after”.
@ROB
We had a discussion on this earlier in the JW forum.
The basis for this is the following document:
http://www.smartcockpit.com/download.php?path=docs/&file=B777-Communications.pdf
p. 74-5.
It seems MH370 had the older AIMS version and what you describe applies only to the more recent one.
In that case, one would expect that the ACARS text message sent by MAS would have reached the aircraft.
@Gysbreght
I agree with that. A possible explanation is that someone “unplugged” the SDU (by isolating the left AC bus), then disabled ACARS in the way that you describe it at some point between 17:07 and 17:37 (when the next ACARS message was expected).
However, I would still think that this switching to VHF along with further switching from data to voice mode would leave some trace in the SITA network. And that it is, therefore, surprising that the FI (or any other report) does not mention any SITA protocol one way or the other.
I may be wrong, but perhaps someone else has an opinion on that, too?
@Oleksandr @DennisW
Thanks for taking it all in good humour! As a few of the experts on this forum, I guessed that you guys wouldn’t be all too bothered by some light banter
@Oleksandr @DennisW
Oops that ‘square’ at the end was meant to come out as a smiley not some mysterious coded message (ha!) Thanks again guys!
@Wazir Roslan
“the words emanating from not one but three horses’ mouths namely the PM’s, Hishamuddin’s and the military chief’s ”
I remember quite clearly a press conference in those early days where your horses’mouth Mr Hishamuddin Hussein declared that the unidentified target was not observed in real time but was discovered the next morning when the recorded radar data were replayed.
@Trond, The species on the flaperon has been identified as Lepas anatifera striata, which is common throughout the waters of the Indian Ocean including the suspected crash zone.
@Geysbreght
“The ATC instruction did not call for erasing the preloaded flight plan. The Flight Management Computer [FMC] 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.”
Could the pilot have somehow accidentally inserted IGARI into the flight-plan, again, so that the modified plan listed IGARI twice (2x), something like
KL – IGARI – IGARI – …
Against this, the plane obviously turned towards BITOD, as if it “knew” the next waypoint.
At 470 kts, a 2-3deg/sec turn would complete the 115-degrees in about 1min and still appear very sharp on the map…
Inexpertly, looks to me like the a/c was controlled manually, i.e. utilizing the 777’s very limited backup mechanical control, from IGARI to PENANG. An utterly dark a/c having absolutely no power would account for loss of all communications channels. Mechanical control would surely require the expertise of the primary pilot, Zaharie.
Again, arguing from visuals, the flight-path after Penang looks a lot like the original track out of KL, very smooth… logically implying that the AFDS was re-activated… Dubious FAW reported transponder broadcast from the a/c at 1:52am near Penang would not be inconsistent with a partial power-up at Penang (IGARI + 30:00), perhaps freeing the pilots to descend into the E/E-bay, to restore more systems +30:00 subsequently ?
“[OB] Spoiler panel 4 and 11 and the alternate stabilizer pitch trim system are controlled mechanically, rather than electrically”
http://www.davi.ws/avionics/TheAvionicsHandbook_Cap_11.pdf
@Oleksandr
Yes, that makes the most obviously logical sense, manual mechanical flight from IGARI @ 1:22am to PENANG @ 1:52am. If the a/c had utterly no power, then perhaps the acting pilots aimed for the bright lights of Kota Bharu (well-known to the co-pilot) and then to those of Penang (well-known to the pilot) ?
Would I be correct to understand, that LANDING a 777 on a pair of OB spoilers and a tediously-trimmable stabilizer, would be quite challenging ?
@Wazir Roslan,
I have to accept that you obviously know more about miltary operation than I do. It is funny how many military experts surface when military matters are discussed. On a closer look most of them had not even served active time and not in the discussed branch. Reading journalistic works does not help. To calm you down, I have no intention to bemuse you further.
@ Gysbreght
Could it be that it was in the four corners interview, where Hishammudin made that statement?
Oleksandr,
apologies – see here:
http://www.weathergraphics.com/malaysia/iozooms.shtml
The above link is 00:00 hrs in the East sector. If you note the lines of lat/long it’s around 32S, 100E. It’s doubtful it’s an actual contrail though – it would have to have gotten huge and spread out a lot to even show up.
I guess you never can be entirely sure, though.
@Oleksandr
Re the radar data gap: Thank you, that answers it for me.
@jeff
I was thinking more in terms of the level of vigilance, response of the Indonesians in relation to the military context. And military radar are capable of tracking craft with transponders off, as we all know.
Indonesia was cited as one of the four countries to have tracked MH 370 sans its transponder turned on as per a Malaysian link:
http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2015/03/08/mh370-last-tracked-off-sumatra-but-not-sighted-by-medan-radar/
But the report does cite that the Medan radar referred to was a civilian one and then goes on to say it should have been spotted by Indonesian MR. But perplexingly Indonesian Air Force insist they never did see anything:
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/03/14/ri-radar-did-not-detect-mh370-malacca-strait-air-force.html
What these conflicting statements imply is one of these possibilities:
A. MH 370 never went anywhere near Indonesia . Implication : an crucial leg to the fabled SIO sojourn is effectively amputated
B. Indonesian military radar was switched off which would oddly be at variance with their professed vigilance as my link in my earlier comment.
C . Indonesian MR cannot detect crafts with transponders off rendering the whole Indonesian archipelago susceptible to phantom intruders.
I know which I will pick from the above. By the way, this maybe dated and known about Lido Hotel but interesting nevertheless :
https://www.metabunk.org/mh370-radar-sighting-in-straits-of-malacca-debunked.t4034/
Another load of bunkum???
@Wazir, We had a long discussion about this some months ago and the consensus view was that on the night in question Indonesia ceased primary radar surveillance at or around midnight.
@ Jeff
Thanks for that update. Really appreciate it though the consensus view may not be the actual scenario but I will leave it that.
@ those concerned
Just for the record, I reckon I better clarify that one of the horses did put down his verbal salvo on the track back in writing and that missive explicitly declares tracking commenced at the turn at IGARI and right across the peninsular with the craft designated as non threatening by the observer
https://m.facebook.com/HishammuddinH2O/posts/10152221398419355
The purported recorded track back was therefore,in reality ,a replay of the live event the next day . Need I say more?
@Wazir, Beware: that Metabunk link in your previous comment links to Simon Gunson, the most tirelessly unscrupulous troll in MH370-dom.
Regarding radar: I find it interesting that despite the representations of the military radar data represented in the slide displayed at the Lido Hotel, Figure 2 of the ATSB report from June 2014, and the DSTG report from November 2015, the Factual Information of March 2015 depicted only the civil and no military PSR data. I suspect information supplied under ICAO protocol is held to higher standard and a higher level of scrutiny, so what is included is more carefully selected, and therefore more likely to be truthful. However, there is much that was omitted from the FI of March 2015, and that is a lot of what we are debating relative to the radar data. Unfortunately, Malaysia chose to release no more radar data in its report (really a statement) on March 2016 despite telling me they would. I suspect nothing else will be released in the Final Report.
There is obviously intense secrecy surrounding the military radar data that has not been adequately explained. What has surfaced publicly is riddled with inconsistencies.
@RetiredF4,
“Could it be that it was in the four corners interview, where Hishammudin made that statement?”
No, I recall it as a pressconference, much earlier than the 4corners interview. Rumours about the PSR had surfaced, HH was questioned about it, he stressed that the the target had not been identified, and he wanted the data to be “corroborated” by FAA and NTSB before release to the public.
@ mu One – ooops ..I stand corrected…simply change my wording of lat. and lon. but 10 degrees of lon. is still 600nm (same as 1 degree is 60nm ) at the equator. the main point i was trying to make was the possible influence of the map projection/distortion/warping from flat charts to actual “globe/sphere” readings….very significant when used in navigation. G.
With a possible interior fragment found, perhaps this is a good time to re-visit the comments of Malaysia Airlines director Hugh Dunleavy back in June 2014:
“My first thought was that the pilot had fallen asleep, or something had gone wrong with the communication system,” he says. “We had five other aircraft in the sky nearby, so our senior pilots started contacting them, asking if they’d seen MH370, getting them to ping it. But we got no response.”
Three months since that plane and its 239 passengers and crew went missing, there’s still no trace. “Something untoward happened to that plane. I think it made a turn to come back, then a sequence of events overtook it, and it was unable to return to base. I believe it’s somewhere in the south Indian Ocean. But when [a plane] hits the ocean it’s like hitting concrete. The wreckage could be spread over a big area. And there are mountains and canyons in that ocean. I think it could take a really long time to find. We’re talking decades.”
http://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/london-life/the-plane-truth-malaysia-airlines-boss-hugh-dunleavy-on-what-really-happened-the-night-flight-mh370-9556444.html
There are several other interesting comments in that interview about the early hours responding to MH370’s disappearance.
@Wazir
I think it may not be necessary to think that Indonesia turned off all their military (primary) radar at midnight that night.
The FI clearly says that the Medan military radar in Sumatra tracked MH370 up to its disappearance at IGARI.
West Indonesia (Sumatra) time zone is UTC + 7, so clearly this was after midnight (0:21 am local).
The FI goes on to say that:
“The Medan ATC Radar has a range of 240 Nm, but for unknown reasons, did not pick up
any radar return bearing SSR transponder code A2157 of MH370. The Military however
admitted that they picked up MH370 earlier as it was heading towards waypoint IGARI.
No other information was made available.” (p. 4)
Taken at face value, this means they didn’t spot MH370’s transponder signal after the transponder was switched off (how could they anyway?)
However, the military only said that their Sabang radar (off Banda Aceh) “did not detect an airplane flying over Indonesian territory.”
http://www.antaranews.com/en/news/93270/indonesian-military-radar-did-not-detect-missing-airplane
IMO this does not necessarily contradict MH370’s presumed flight route as it probably skirted Indonesian territory, but was within range of Sabang military radar.
Indonesia also rubbished reports that their military radar was switched off at that time:
“When asked about the possibility some of the military radars could have been inactive at the time MH370 flew over Indonesia, Agus said, ‘don’t trust rumors so easily.'”
http://bit.ly/1qoEN3m
Note also, “yet the question of whether the plane flew through Indonesian airspace remains unanswered.”
@Wazir
I think it may not be necessary to think that Indonesia turned off all their military (primary) radar at midnight that night.
The FI clearly says that the Medan military radar in Sumatra tracked MH370 up to its disappearance at IGARI.
West Indonesia (Sumatra) time zone is UTC + 7, so clearly this was after midnight (0:21 am local).
The FI goes on to say that:
“The Medan ATC Radar has a range of 240 Nm, but for unknown reasons, did not pick up
any radar return bearing SSR transponder code A2157 of MH370. The Military however
admitted that they picked up MH370 earlier as it was heading towards waypoint IGARI.
No other information was made available.” (p. 4)
Taken at face value, this means they didn’t spot MH370’s transponder signal after the transponder was switched off (how could they anyway?)
However, the military only said that their Sabang radar (off Banda Aceh) “did not detect an airplane flying over Indonesian territory.” (according to Antara News)
IMO this does not necessarily contradict MH370’s presumed flight route as it probably skirted Indonesian territory, but was within range of Sabang military radar.
Indonesia also rubbished reports that their military radar was switched off at that time:
“When asked about the possibility some of the military radars could have been inactive at the time MH370 flew over Indonesia, Agus said, ‘don’t trust rumors so easily.'”
http://bit.ly/1qoEN3m
Note also, “yet the question of whether the plane flew through Indonesian airspace remains unanswered.”
@Gysbreght, @Nederland, @all
This is the video of the press conference with the defence minister, 2 bigheads from military, one from ATC and one from MAS. It is from 12.03.2014
youtu.be/hY3Ldq6_kS4
Complete the link in the front or enter it in asearch engine.
You should look at the complete 30 minutes. when you are only interested on the part about the recordings, you may start at about 20 minutes.
I think there is one real good explanation for all this new flotsam debris washing up recently and I think it’s tied to a recent storm. It’s common to go treasure hunting on the beaches in Florida after a storm because storms cause treasure to wash ashore. The plane could have fallen off an underwater ledge and broke open. That would explain the difference in barnacle growth. I found what appears to be a bunch of flotsam off the south east coast of the ile of Manoel. I thinking checking into recent indian ocean storm history can help pinpoint a few possible areas to look at more closely. I believe there was one near the coco’s keeling recently, which is near the 7th arch.
@Warren – Please accept my apologies regarding the Gooseneck Barnacles. Looks like I put my foot in my mouth, again.
I noticed that the peduncle of the flaperon barnacles are very short or non-existent whereas photos of other Gooseneck Barnacles show peduncle lengths exceeding 30cm. Is this a different species or might the peduncle length be some kind of automatic buoyancy regulator?
@ROB & @Oleksandr – repeating my 3/17/2016 post:
from page 17 of the DTSG report:
“ The radar data contains regular estimates of latitude, longitude and altitude at 10 second intervals from 16:42:27 to 18:01:49. A single additional latitude and longitude position was reported at 18:22:12.”
Doesn’t that mean that not only was there no data within the “white circle,” there was no radar data from around Pulau Perak to the single last detection point? And wouldn’t that mean most of the “Lido” information was estimated?
@DennisW – The above metabunk link has a graphic showing UAE 343 SIA 68 relative to MH370 from 17:59 to 18:24.