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.
@RetiredF4
I think that was the day when Inmarsat contacted Malaysia re the satellite data, hence the involvement of the NTSB and AAIB.
It was also basically the day when the search started to include the Strait of Malacca. Very few assets were deployed west of Malaysia before that day.
The military commander seems to be quite emotional on that question. It seems some military commanders were trying to push the search and rescue to the Strait of Malacca from early on.
He says ‘we’ didn’t track MH370 in real time, but doesn’t seem to be very sure about that because he feels in trouble to answer the question of why no jets were scrambled.
Here is the earlier statement by another commander, who says that the radar operator classified the aircraft as commercial, implying he did notice it in real time:
youtu.be/71VJWs4_YTs
min. 2:30
This confirms the Reuters article.
I would go with Hishammuddin’s official statement that it was tracked in real time.
The FI doesn’t contradict any of this, it’s just silent on this question.
@ Nederland – As I remember it, one of the Malayasian officials said they did not scramble jets because they had determined that the plane seen on radar was “non-hostile.” When reporters asked how this could be determined, the officials were silent.
@Nederland
What other statement from Hishammuddin? He was standing right besides his officer. He would have corrected his officer like he did before.
We have to decide wether we want to believe what was said in the first hours by the people directly involved and in the presence of their defence minister, or wether we believe later by press reported information. I for one stick by the first one.
This radar discussion has a long history on this blog and on other Mh370 sites, and the longer it goes on the more it gets clear, that people tend to believe what fits in their theorie.
@Lauren H
I earlier linked a Reuters article, indicating that the ATC has informed the military that this was a commercial aircraft probably experiencing mechanical issues and therefore “non-hostile”.
This is where it gets very weird because according to the FI the ATC supervisor was working on the assumption MH370 was flying en route, although in Cambodian airspace.
As to the “Bayesian Methods”, another possible interpretation is that these were the data reported to Australia (but not necessarily all data on record.) The Lido hotel image clearly shows radar blips alongside time stamps for the period between 18:02 and 18:22.
i have a feeling that jets were scrambled and they couldnt find mh370.
@RetiredF4
The one linked earlier by Wazir from 1 May 2014:
https://m.facebook.com/HishammuddinH2O/posts/10152221398419355
” 2. The military’s tracking of MH370
As stated previously, Malaysian military radar did track an aircraft making a turn-back, in a westerly direction, across peninsular Malaysia on the morning of 8 March. The aircraft was categorised as friendly by the radar operator and therefore no further action was taken at the time.”
Maybe he didn’t know in the first few days of the search either.
@Nederland
You are kidding me. You are believing a facebook post, which with high probability was not written by Hishammuddin himself but by some public relations office, but question the video recording of a press conference, where he and his officers were talking live?
I think at that point it does not make sense anymore to invest more of my time.
The Truth: 9M-MRO was part of a military operation that day. Testing modern warfare incl. radar cloaking and SAR operation were big topics of this huge agenda. The Truth……
@RetiredF4
The “facebook post” is an official press release that was published variously, for example, in several newspapers. You can google it.
Regardless of who did the wording, it is signed by Hishammuddin, and he must therefore have agreed with its contents.
He personally said the same to 4 Corners.
The statements by the military in the first days of the search were contradictory, some implied it was tracked in real time.
It is best to go with the most recent official update and personal statements imo.
Lauren,
No, it does not. It means somebody is lying: either Malaysian or Thai or Indonesian military, or ATSB, or DTSG, or all of them, which is the most likely.
Note the statement from the document below pointed earlier by Susie and Jeff:
“CONSTRAINTS & CHALLENGES
• Sensitive Information from the military. Release of this information requires proper protocol and approval
• Radar Information from neighbouring countries is hard to come by due to sensitive nature of such information”
http://www.icao.int/APAC/Meetings/2015%20AIG%20Workshop/02%20MAL%20-%20MH370%20INVESTIGATION%20TEAMS%20PRESENTATION.PDF
Interestingly, “countries”, not just Thailand.
Do you remember my and Victor’s discussion about the figure in ATSB 2014 report, which showed the straight line from Penang to 18:22 position? Victor suggested it was a sketch. Now I think that it was because ATSB was provided only with a single 18:22 point. But it was in 2014. Why does ATSB keep on saying that they know nothing about Lido image?
Obviously the statement that only a single 18:22 blip was recorded would be absurdity. So DTSG opted for a safe and fuzzy formulation: “reported”. Reported by whom? Why only one point?
@Oleksandr
My “impression” from the DSTG book when taken in context was that the radar point was simply an “anchor” for the beginning of their simulation. I don’t think they intended the statement to imply that there was only one radar point. Could be wrong, of course, and there has never been a clarification of the issue to my knowledge.
@Susie, Carla
http://maldivesindependent.com/society/most-of-debris-from-maldives-not-from-mh370-says-malaysia-116416
We haven’t heared any conclusions on this from Malaysia, which surprises me.
Following adrift.org.au: Debris originating from 7th arc could have reached Maldives if the crash location is far north, say S10 – S20.
Susie – RE Curtin boom – had the SDU not fired back up and provided the handshakes then that finding would be confidently touted as the crash area. It would be regarded as an audio recording of the plane’s demise and the search focus would be far removed from where it is. As it stands the handshakes have overridden the acoustic evidence but what if we had of gotten the Curtin evidence first, and the handshakes a few months later(a reversal)? What if the acoustic evidence was bedded down with wide acceptance well before Inmarsat popped up? The hydraphones are tamper proof, what happened on the plane we have no idea, apart from strong evidence that someone was messing with things that should have been left alone. The ISAT data also has some pretty confusing aspects. Anomalous values discarded from analysis etc. Limited technical visibility etc. There are no questions marks with the acoustic data. You know it’s real. For the umpteenth time from me – no one will guarantee the handshakes and the FMT as prescribed by the handshakes is the biggest head scratcher of the whole lot. A western track would at least gel with the radar supported chunks of the flight.
Oleksandr – we know that debris won’t cross the equator travelling south to north. What about the other way round?
@Matty. Please excuse me for butting in on your conversation with Susie. From memory, the Curtin researchers only looked at about an hour’s worth of signals around the time given for the “crash” by the ISAT data. The Scott reef analysis was from data only every 15 mins in that period. (Can’t find these references now – can someone supply?). So we are relying on the ISAT data to know the plane flew for 7 hrs or so. It would be very interesting if Curtin researchers were able and willing to look for acoustic evidence much earlier. (No doubt a huge amount of work). For the crash to have occurred at the Curtin boom location we would have to ignore the ISAT data … although many would disagree strongly I think that is still a possibility to be considered.
@all
I honestly didn’t mean to create a ruckus over what @Jeff stated is a settled issue.
I dont want to give the impression that I am a troll looking for some kicks for that is the furthest thing on my mind on an issue that involves the lives of loved ones.
But I need confirmation that the data holds up and that is sorely lacking. Let me explain.
When I first commented on the “mystery” in the Daily Telegraph three weeks after ground zero day under a different nick, I opined the following (in brief):
1. The plane was deliberately flown off course by a suicidal pilot.
Reasons: the first turn,the extensive manouverings from way point to way point, the different speeds and altitudes the plane attained etc.
2. the waypoints were deliberately selected to tally with ground locations of nostalgic significance to a pilot on a death wish (Penang: hometown. Australia: location of beloved daughter)
3. Traversing the peninsular through skies teeming with traffic would require “active” flying and of course reliance on previous knowledge (if a suicidal pilot was at the controls, he would be pretty confident of not alerting anyone, evading radar etc for he would have had a dress rehearsal earlier in real life and achieved the desired objectives)
So given all that and more, I plumbed for pilot suicide and by default active piloting. And by taking into cognizance, estimated fuel burn for that dash across Malaysia, I calculated that he had only sufficient fuel to reach the following coordinates ( apologies for not divulging the calcs as that is a shared task) roughly around 16*- 19*S, 112*-115*E give or take some nautical miles. That explained the silence of JORN/Jindalee and radars at Exmouth/Learmouth etc away.
But then the questions set in for the above was based on my own assumptions that to me sounded absurd. Here are a list of questions that popped up as I reviewed my own absurd assumptions:
1.Why would a suicidal pilot take the risk of traversing across an airspace teeming with other flights, where he would have been spotted visually.
2. If he had done a dress rehearsal before surely he would have been hauled up as MR would have tracked his antics.
The alternative of political statement was even less appealing:
a. If he was aiming for a big political statement, the biggest would have been crashing it into the twin towers( for instance) from get go rather than flying all the way to IGARI and doings the things he did
b. He would have been well aware that in Malaysia, a political statement like that would have had negative repercussions for those he was allied to. They would be forever tarred as murderers with no moral compunctions restraining them from committing evil just to grasp power, a no-no to the local polity.
So suicidal pilot and political statement got tossed out of the window.And so was an emergency as the pilot surprisingly avoided Kuala Terengganu and Kuantan airports for Penang (further away)??!! plus any emergency would have been visually spotted by aircrafts in his line of flight or he himself would have used his vast experience to make visual contact with other pilots flying in the pathway he took.
So I began reviewing the official narrative primarily to account for the abrupt and simultaneous loss of ACARS and comms, and slowly the missile theory crystallised based on both the in-flight dynamics and ground observations.
There are other possibilities particularly Jeff’s flight north theory that explains the missing Indonesian radar but that would also mean activating radars of other nations. Maldives sounds plausible too given the debris now being discovered along Eastern Africa (an apt beaching area, if so) is not planted.
So here I am and I can safely conjecture now that given the vehemence exemplified by both the Indonesian president and their military in the links below, the trackback didn’t occur for the following reasons:
a. the president or the military would not have known either way if their MR was switched off.
b. Switching off and covering for it is plausible, but under both Susilo and now Joko, sovereignty and its protection is top most, evinced by not only the links I provided above but also by their recent tiff with China on the seas off Natuna and their seizure of Malaysian, Thai, Vietnamese and Chinese fishing boats throughout their archipelago. So a nation adamant on territorial security on all fronts would not have switched off all their radars on that fateful night.
What I suspect is that the Indonesians are being diplomatic i.e being frank and adamant of their vigilance while playing along with the Malaysian version without commenting on it.Maybe I am wrong but that is the impression I derived whilst parsing through their statements:
1.http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/03/14/ri-radar-did-not-detect-mh370-malacca-strait-air-force.html
2.http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/03/26/govt-insists-mh370-did-not-fly-indonesian-airspace.html
I would dearly loved to be proven wrong on all counts for in the end this is not about me but the NOK who are desperately seeking closure and moving on. I am sure the rest are on same wavelength.
I sincerely hope the plane is found but I have this nagging feeling that it will be never the case, and closure will only come about when all data are declassified two decades or so from now if ever.
@Jeff
Thanks for the alert. Will be careful of not linking Gunson in future
@All
The recent report that the North Koreans had jammed GPS for flights in their vicinity got me thinking. North Korea learns much of its technology from China, so if North Korea has a capability, we can assume that China has a much better version.
The US and Thailand were conducting joint military exercises at the time. We know China was in the neighborhood watching.
It has been reported that nobody received phone or text messages from any of the passengers after they were on the plane. The girlfriend of the IBM exec said this was unusual because he would always text last thing before takeoff.
Maybe the plane was being flown up the Malacca Straits not so much to limit radar hits, but to limit passenger cell phone contact while the plane was being routed outside of cell phone coverage.
I have spent the last 7 years flying around China, India and southeast Asia and you always see passengers disobeying rules. I’ve seen people open overhead storage bins on final approach and using cell phones after takeoff. I would find it hard to believe that in the case of a traumatic event that someone wouldn’t try to call or text if they were able. Much of this activity happened within cell tower range.
A typical cellphone has enough power to reach a cell tower up to 45 miles away. Depending on the technology of the cellphone network, the maximum distance may be as low as 22 miles because the signal otherwise takes too long for the highly accurate timing of the cellphone protocol to work reliably. http://smallbusiness.chron.com/far-can-cell-tower-cellphone-pick-up-signal-32124.html
@atsbinfo rejected as unlikely http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2016/03/16/latest-found-object-unlikely-mh370
Since I’ve been awaiting a key correspondence with IPRC (just ensuring they have no objections to how I have used their data in my shoreline probability analysis) for a couple of weeks, I decided to use the time to look at the recent debris finds from a different perspective:
One interesting corollary of the “high-energy” conclusion experts seem to be drawing from the small size of this latest debris is that it all but eliminates the possibility the Curtin event was of a fuselage hitting the ocean bottom – if MH370 at all, the “Curtin Boom” would have been from a SURFACE impact.
Preface: please do NOT get your hopes up that I (or anyone else) has “solved” the mystery of MH370. I offer this paper merely to demonstrate how easy it is to get the data to say whatever we WANT it so say. I hope readers come away from it with a deeper understanding of just how wide OPEN the mystery remains – and that confident pronouncements about ANY theory are what they USUALLY are – hot air.
With that said: here is a link to a pdf of a slide deck which explores implications of the recent debris discoveries – up to and including the Rodrigues piece – for the Curtin acoustic anomaly first reported in June, 2014:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-r3yuaF2p72MXJNMXFWeThZaVE
@Trip
GPS is very easy to jam. A CW transmitter at 1575MHz is all you need. The problem is getting your jammer inside the GPS antenna pattern. On an aircraft the antenna is typically an upward facing patch sitting on top of the aircraft. Easy to jam from above, but difficult to jam from below.
The South Korean debacle has to do with the popularity of CMDA in that country. All CDMA base stations use a GPS receiver for both timing and a frequency reference. They can live without GPS for about 24 hours (high quality double oven oscillator will flywheel for that long – spec requirement), but after that things start to fall apart. LTE technology does not use GPS in base stations.
The 24 hour requirement came about to allow a tech time to get out and make a repair. GPS is very reliable, but in initial testing in the Southern US vandals were shooting the GPS antennas off their pole mounts. Made an inviting target for rednecks with a scoped rifle.
(Apologies: please use this link instead. Key transparency was lost during final conversion to pdf):
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-r3yuaF2p72ZExUM2J6azkxZE0/view?usp=sharing
@Matty-Perth
@AM2
Re Curtin.
I completely agree, the sound data is real and getting previous recordings would be extremely helpful.
Thank you, Niels, Matty and all. This is really interesting.
Brock, regarding the Maldives items found – if you google Maldives debris, and search images, there is a surprising amount of material which I’ve personally never seen reported widely. There are images of what look like wing components, a seatbelt bracket, various items which are certainly not ‘usual’ in terms of beach finds.
See http://maldivesindependent.com/society/maldives-continues-to-report-plane-debris-117565
The number of apparent findings in the Maldives seems quite concerning to me, particularly as most look to have been dismissed out of hand by Malaysia, going by local reports.
I’m not suggesting something odd is going on but it just surprised me how many bits had been found and just never really hit the mainstream press, compared to the relatively few items discovered elsewhere which have been very widely discussed in the media.
I’m probably missing something.
@Brock McEwen
Thanks for that summary and analysis. That was fantastic!
One quick point though – the front and reverse images of the Mourouk find appear not to match up. Has anyone figured this out?
I can’t get my head around the outlines of the piece seen from different sides. It’s probably very obvious to others, please forgive my confusion.
See
https://twitter.com/AirInvestigate
@DennisW
The DSTG paper says clearly:
“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.”
Later they say that the model was anchored on the data at 18:01:49, but the 18:22:12 data point was inside the errors.
So no other radar data between 18:02 and 18:22.
@Richard
Good follow-up. I did not go back and read the DSTG report again, but recalled their anchoring comment.
In any case, there was the acknowledgement that the radar data did not consist of a single point which is the issue I was trying to address.
@RetiredF4
Hishammuddin in no uncertain terms categorically states that the military tracked MH370 in real time. Please see the 4 corners interview.
He says it was an ‘unidentified’ aircraft, yet simultaneously states that it was KNOWN to be non-hostile, commercial, and from Malaysian airspace.
Respectfully, you are seemingly willfully naive to the chronology of events that transpired that morning. Odd. As for MAS ops only attempting to calls to the aircraft? I suppose they were just asleep at the wheel as well, for hours upon hours.
Jindalee(Jorn) performance at the time has been raised.
“Did the Jindalee Operational Radar Network (JORN) detect flight MH370?
…………Based on the time of day that MH370 disappeared, and in the context of peacetime tasking, JORN was not operational at the time of the aircraft’s disappearance. Given range from individual OTHRs, the ionospheric conditions and a lack of information on MH370’s possible flight path towards Australia, it is unlikely that MH370 would have
been detected if the system had been operational.”
(https://www.airforce.gov.au/docs/JORN_FAQS.pdf)
Edit: MAS ops only attempting 2 calls.
And does anyone know how many contact attempts were made by KLATCC? Surely this is recorded in the FI. I’ll go and have a looksee.
@ Matt
Regarding efforts to contact MH370 in the early morning hours of its disappearance, see the Evening Standard’s 2014 interview with Hugh Dunleavy that I mentioned in my previous post here several hours ago.
@Susie,
The component in the link you provided appears to be a trim tab of some description. If it’s off an aircraft it will no doubt be a lot smaller aircraft than a 777. The 777 does not have trim tabs. I understand there was a twin turbo prop aircraft that crashed in the region; that might be where it’s from.
OZ
Thanks Oz, it wasn’t that part I was most interested in but the copy in the accompanying article.
If you look on google images at Maldives debris, there are some more convincing pieces.
But mainly it seems as though the people in the Maldives have been actively looking for debris, unlike folk in many other places, and have found many items, almost none of which have been widely reported.
Hope that makes sense.
This part for example
http://cdn.images.dailystar.co.uk/dynamic/1/photos/408000/620x/273408.jpg
and this looks really significant, to me:
http://www.haveeru.com.mv/news/61538
http://www.haveeru.com.mv/news/61538
This for example
Could well be from a light aircraft though – that would make sense.
@Trip
@All
I was was led to believe that a cellphone would only work on a plane if it was relatively close to a network tower, much closer than, appreciably closer than the 22 to 45km range that Trip quotes.
So just what I the maximum range? I for one would like to know, because it has a bearing on the depressurization question.
I think the plane was depressurized during the first hour, at least to neutralise the passengers, and make sure they couldn’t use mobile phones as they flew over the Malay peninsula. Then there is the report (rumour) that the co-pilot’s phone made a brief connection as they flew past Penang, but they were too high up for it to be properly established.
It’s my opinion that the plane was above FL30 at this time, probably closer to FL35.
@Phil
Thanks. I really have little idea as to what the take away is from that. The interview was 3+ months post incident. Mr. Dunleavy (sp.?) largely describes a morning of confusion and chaos, but has nothing concrete to offer. IMO he has/had been hoodwinked/played by the MOT/MOD Hishammuddin. But then again, I have no idea as to what he truly believes.
You see, if Zaharie in fact did perpetrate the pijacking (and i believe this without the slightest bit of doubt), then it begets belief that the ‘narrative’, and all it’s detail and lack thereof, being doled out by the Malays, is not tailored precisely to whatever storyline best comports with their (BN/UMNO) interest. Including playing the ‘incompetence’ and ‘asleep’ cards. These, though embarrassing, are far less damaging then the alternative: That they knew in the wee hours that Zahrie had snatched the plane and was on a mission.
Brock – I’m pretty sure a surface impact was what they had in mind when they dived into that data(Curtin).
AM2 – Sort of ironic that where Curtin heard nothing they went looking for a plane and found nothing. Where they heard something no one ever went. I’m sure they would have investigated that noise if the ISAT data hadn’t been presented so early, or wasn’t considered untouchable – for some reason? I thought Dr Duncan was very careful not to court controversy, but they had complete technical control of the hydrophones. Can’t say the same about the SDU.
@ROB
Cell phone antenna are design to minimise emiited power above the horizontal, hence very poor coveage on aircraft at altitude. I have tried to get connection at cruise altitude above south-east England with zero success rate. Intermittent contact is said to be possible and there are reported cases of texts being received during high altitude flights.
There is an intesting discussion below in the context of the phonecalls from the hijacked aircraft during 9/11 and the changes in cellphone technology which have rendered that much less likely now.
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3t61gq/eli5_why_were_the_passengers_on_911_hijacked/
@matt, When you write, “i believe this without the slightest bit of doubt,” I sense that you don’t understand that this is a bad thing. The fact is, none of us knows what happened to MH370, and if all we do on this forum is talk and not listen, then we are wasting our time, and there are far more pleasant ways to waste one’s time.
As to the issue of when the Malaysian military informed civil ATC about the turnback at IGARI, @oceankoto points out that this has been clarified in an ICAO report:
“n) 14:30 UTC (IGARI plus 21 hours, 8 minutes): Kuala Lumpur ARCC was informed by the Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) of a possible turn back by MH370, and that the area towards the west of Peninsular Malaysia was the last known position observed on the military radar (at this stage, the KL ARCC was unable to determine whether MH370 did indeed make an air turn back, as it required further verification).”
http://www.icao.int/APAC/Meetings/2015%20APSARTF3/Flimsy%201%20MH370%20Timeline.pdf
@Susie, Thanks for bringing up the issue of the apparent mismatch between the two sides of the Rodrigues piece, it’s truly confusing to me. I’m sure there must be a reasonable explanation but I can’t think what it is. Mike Exner has tweeted that he’s making inquiries so we’ll see what he says.
Meanwhile, @aussie500 has made a convincing case for where in the cabin the piece came from: https://twitter.com/aussie500/status/716881907594604544
https://www.dropbox.com/s/go38gfqfhaq2qvp/Jumpseat%20and%20table%20examples.jpg?dl=0
@RetiredF4
also following his FB for many months; he isnt bad guy at all, IMHO
https://www.facebook.com/HishammuddinH2O/photos/a.119305404354.101696.72613804354/10153730443329355/?type=3&source=48
@RichardCole
Thanks Richard, you confirm what I was led to believe about mobile phones on planes.
@Wazir Roslan
“So suicidal pilot and political statement got tossed out of the window.”
You may be right. If this was a political statement flight with the aim of exposing, say, corruption and inability, suicide is way to extreme and there were no jihadists on board it seems.
“Why would a suicidal pilot take the risk of traversing across an airspace teeming with other flights, where he would have been spotted visually.”
Perhaps the initial flight route was part of the political statement? To expose the inabilitity of military and civil controllers to handle the situation? Take revenge for the Butterworth “indelible ink” affair, for example? The question of whether or not there was some kind of collaboration on the ground has been raised from early on by both politicians and journalists, but is yet to be investigated.
From early on, officials said that the search for MH370 is above politics. Perhaps its disappearance was all about this, but it was not to be taken onto the agenda at an early (or any) stage?
“So a nation adamant on territorial security on all fronts would not have switched off all their radars on that fateful night.”
Especially since there was a Thai military exercise scheduled to take place a few days later.
“What I suspect is that the Indonesians are being diplomatic i.e being frank and adamant of their vigilance while playing along with the Malaysian version without commenting on it.”
One could think of reasons for this and why the possible plan to divert and land MH370 may have failed. Interception by foreign jets? Passenger/crew insurrection/fight on board? Different possibilities could have resulted in the ghost flight scenario at some point after MH370 left Butterworth military radar.
“I sincerely hope the plane is found but I have this nagging feeling that it will be never the case, and closure will only come about when all data are declassified two decades or so from now if ever.”
There has always been that feeling that the search did not immediatly move to the right area. The ICAO, for example, noted “political involvement at the highest levels in the search direction” and that “there was probably not enough … urgency in responding.”
Unless misguided, the ICAO’s assessment makes one think whether or not there were reasons involved other than suicide out of personal issues or mechanical problems.
@falken, You do get that H2O is the cousin of Najib, who has been caught red-handed swindling BILLIONS of dollars, right? And that he is in charge of the organization that has consistently lied and obfuscated about MH370? Let’s not paint a smiley face on everything.
BTW the release of the Panama Papers has pulled away just a corner of the curtain concealing the massive missappropriation of wealth by Putin and his cronies–again, billions of dollars. These are not nice people.
@Matty and others:
A surface impact was NOT what Dr. Duncan had in mind. If I recall correctly he said that the sound was consistent with a larger body of fuselage hitting the sea floor and suffering some kind of implosion. In this case the time of actual impact must’ve been earlier. And apart from the sat data which need to be thrown out altogether this causes problems with the timing of the Maldive sighting, which was around 06:15am local time. The Maldive sighting is also not consistent with a ghost flight runaway plane, since it was reported by many that it flew deliberate maneuvers and turned southwards.
The problem with the Maldive sighting is that all eye witnesses reported a plane which was definitely flying deliberate maneuvers.
I’m not implying anything here. Just want to hint at the inconvenient fact that unfortunately this theory also requires a consistent cherry picking of data in order to mold it into a consistent scenario. Brock himself pointed that out and on that point this theory isn’t better or worse than many other scenarios.
@all Re Curtin. This article seems to be suggesting that Curtin were doubting their own suggestion of a link to MH370. Am I missing something?
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/flight-mh370-has-only-gotten-more-missing
Littlefoot,
“A surface impact was NOT what Dr. Duncan had in mind. If I recall correctly he said that the sound was consistent with a larger body of fuselage hitting the sea floor and suffering some kind of implosion. In this case the time of actual impact must’ve been earlier.”
Exactly: the seabed impact time is consistent with the flameout time (roughly 1 hour and 10 minutes later). ATSBs statement that timing is inconsistent is totally wrong. I began to suspect that they ‘instructed’ Curtin University what to tell to the public to avoid doubts about their current search area.
Croobie,
Yes, you are missing a lot.
The second Dr Duncan’s paper is flawed in contrast to the first one.
Matty,
“we know that debris won’t cross the equator travelling south to north. What about the other way round?”
Both ways are generally possible, but very unlikely in our case. Also this would take longer time.