Almost immediately upon Blaine Alan Gibson’s discovery of the “No Step” debris fragment in Mozambique, questions were raised about the relative scarcity of marine life growing on it. These questions were redoubled after two more finds came to light, one from South Africa and the other from Mozambique, which both looked surprisingly pristine for objects that had been in the water for two years. I explored the issue in a post on this site entitled “Bioforensic Analysis of Suspected MH370 Debris.”
This weekend IG member Richard Godfrey addressed the question in a post on Duncan Steel’s website. “One possible explanation for this obvious difference between the flaperon and the other items,” he wrote, “might be linked to the differing routes taken by the floating debris.”
As a point of reference, I’ve reproduced the current chart from that post (above). Though in reality the currents are not nearly as deterministic as depicted–there is a randomness to the motion of floating objects that causes them to spread out, like a drop of ink in a bucket of water–it does accurately portray the overall movement of things. The black bar represents the area where Godfrey thinks the plane most likely impacted the water, northeast of the current seabed search zone. He points out that to get to the locations where they were found on the coast of Africa, the pieces would have to have either passed around the northern end or the southern end of Madagascar.
In the image below I’ve sketched out what these paths might look like, more or less. The pink oval represents the central gyre seen in the current map above. The yellow line is a hypothetical path proposed by Godfrey that the flaperon might have taken on route to Réunion. The orange line is a hypothetical path that the capsized boat which washed up on Mayotte may have taken during its eight-month drift from northwestern Australia in 2013-2014. I suggest this is a plausible example of a “north route.” The purple line is an even more hypothetical proposal for a “south route” that I just sketched out freehand after watching some drift simulations.
In the first part of his post, Godfrey tackles the question of whether the African debris might have traveled through water too cold to allow the growth of Lepas anatifera, the species of goose barnacle found on the Réunion flaperon:
If floating debris took a path passing slightly further south of Madagascar then it could remain in colder waters (especially between July and October) below 30S, under which circumstance barnacle attachment and growth is contra-indicated. Thus it might be that the three items found on the coast of Africa reached their destinations via such more-southerly routes… The Paindane item (‘676EB’) discovered at around 24S may well show some evidence of marine life, even though it most probably arrived via the southern route past Madagascar, mainly occupying cooler waters… The Mossel Bay find (‘Rolls Royce’) might not be expected to show evidence of marine life because it was discovered at around 34S and may well have spent most of its ocean transport time in the cooler waters below 30S.
To evaluate this idea, I consulted the newly published paper “Endorsing Darwin – Global biogeography of the epipelagic goose barnacles Lepas spp. (Cirripedia, Lepadomorpha) proves cryptic speciation” by Philipp H. Schiffer and Hans-Georg Herbig of Cologne University in Germany (preprint available here). According to this source, Lepas anatifera can be found in waters where the temperature is greater than 15 degrees Celsius. South of this line a sister species, Lepas australis, is found:
To get a sense of where this transition zone occurs, I traced it out on Google Earth and superimposed a surface-temperature chart lifted from Godfrey’s post along with the previously described drift routes.
The southern boundary of anatifera’s range is the red line that passes through the seabed search rectangle:
As is quite readily apparent, all the routes lie entirely within anatifera’s range. Note also that the southern boundary lies well south of the gyre, meaning that anything that drifts beyond it is going to be swept eastward. It’s entirely possible that a piece of debris might have neared Africa and then been swept south into cold water that killed the anatifera, but after that the piece would have been carried back towards Australia. In order to move back west it would have to have first drifted north back into anatifera habitat, where it would have had approximately a year to get re-colonized. Remember, Lepas reach sexual maturity in 60 days and achieve full size in six months to one year. So these pieces should have been carrying a load of biofouling similar to the Réunion flaperons even if their initial population was killed off by the cold.
Godfrey also raises another possibility: that the African pieces are clean because they passed through ocean regions too low in nutrients to permit the growth of marine organisms. To check this idea, I consulted with a NASA website that archives world-wide chlorophyll concentrations, which can be read as a proxy for ecosystem nutrient level. Here I’ve overlayed the same set of drift routes over a nutrient map for March 2014, when the water is near its warmest:
And here are the nutrient levels in September, when the water is near its coldest:
Broadly speaking, there is an area of relatively low nutrient levels in the middle of the SIO that grows and shrinks with the seasons, being biggest when the water is warmer. In the warmer latitudes transient high-nutrient patches can be found, but they are transient in time and space. The southern end of anatifera’s range experiences consistently higher levels of nutrients, as does the ocean between Madagascar and the African mainland.
Godfrey writes:
Although it appears likely that the floating debris from MH370 was carried westwards towards Africa by the Indian Ocean South Equatorial Current through warm waters (i.e. where barnacle attachment and growth is feasible), these waters have relatively low concentrations of chlorophyll in the maps above, and therefore limited amounts of phytoplankton, and this militates against substantial barnacle growth.
The problem with this analysis is that the piece of debris which spent the greatest amount of time in the center of the Indian Ocean, with its low nutrient levels, is the flaperon, which has the greatest accumulation of Lepas, including some which have reached full size. The clean pieces, by contrast, have spent considerable time in the nutrient-rich waters near Madagascar.
Finally, I’d like to address an addendum to Godfrey’s piece by Don Thompson, who writes:
An alternative reason for the Réunion and Rodrigues items being barnacle-encrusted but not the other three might be as follows. The lepas (goose barnacle) colonisation may be a feature of proximity to coastlines inhabited by lepas colonies. Therefore, debris ‘dropped’ into a mid-ocean region (i.e. the crash site) might be expected to be ‘clean’ of lepas barnacles until free-swimming barnacle nauplii, released from reproducing coastal colonies, are encountered.
Again, Thompson has the situation reversed. Lepas are pelagic creatures which are adapted to rafting on the open ocean. Buoys placed far out to sea become heavily settled by them.
UPDATE 4-7-16: There seems to be some confusion about the lifestyle of the Lepas. Unlike some other genera of goose barnacle which can be found living in intertidal zones of the seashore (such as Pollicipes, a delicacy in Spain), those of the genus Lepas are obligate rafters, highly adapted to life floating free in the open ocean. Here’s an excerpt from Barnacles: Structure, function, development and evolution:
If the Rodrigues-part gets confirmed and is the part aussi@500 identified as belonging to the rightside front toiletwall behind the businissclass, than it would be the fifht part found from the rightside of the plane (if all confirmed MH370).
The parts found so far imo can not easily be explained by a highspeed impact. Especialy the flaperon and the Rodrigues-part. They look to have come off too clean for such an event. Who knows, maybe the Rodrigues part drifted out of een open door. A brake up of the plane in flight or highspeed dive could be a possibility maybe but then there should be a tremendous lot of debris floating around which seems till now not to be the case.
I think it could be interesting that the parts found so far are all (except Rodrigues) from the right wing(s) (including h.stabiliser). A (extended) flaperon, the cowling and the pylon are typicaly parts that will break loose in a lower speed ditching. If you look at pictures of the ditched Hudson-Airbus you can see this clearly. The left engine broke off, the right engine lost parts of its cowling and a lot of flaps came loose. If so the plane must have glided. And if so it hardly can be not controled. And if so it could have glided for a 100 miles. And if so it could be lying miles outside the current searchzone.
If I try to look in the mind of a pilot who thoroughly plans to make himself and his plane dissapear I would opt for a gliding scenario and ditch above the deepest trench in the South Indian ocean I could reach.
@Gysbreght:
“Barometric altitude constraints must be below the cruise altitude to be valid (FCOM 11.31.18).”
Which (airline?) version of the FCOM are you using?
The version I have is the Contenental one and it ends at section 6.1, so I can’t follow your reference.
@Paul: According to adrift.org.au (which some members of the IG are endorsing as useful):
NZ/Tasmania/S.Oz/W.Oz, after 8-10 months: saturated.
Africa/Reunion/Rodriquez, after 26 months: nowhere within a thousand miles.
But please don’t take my word for this – I’m told folks like me are keen NOT to solve the mystery. So please verify this model result yourself, by typing the following string into your browser:
http://adrift.org.au/map?lat=-45&lng=89¢er=89&startmon=Mar
@jeff,
‘@Niels, I think there’s a general consensus ….to those who would prefer that the mystery not be solved’
I really don’t understand where this is coming from.
How crazy am I to think there are more possibilities than the current search area and a spoof to the north? Or that a piece of debris is worth taking another look at in light of recent finds?
By the way, if we have to rule out options in which they crashed and died too, thenI guess only the spoof to the north is left to discuss.
No offence.
@Jeff, All
“I think it’s appealing, frankly, to those who would prefer that the mystery not be solved”:
Looking who are most actively investigating the Maldives leads I find it also a disrespectful remark.
Besides that:
It is not about BTO spoofing, and Maldives as possible crash location as such; (I also don’t think it is likely that the villagers saw MH370)
In terms of integrity, and respect for those who think out of the box, I find developments in recent days here on the blog quite revealing and worrying.
Of course, this is an open crowd-sourcing effort with all (our human) limitations, mistakes,
and difficulties and challenges for the host;
but come on!
@Olexandr, just put of general interest. The spoofing method you mentioned. If that is just a simulation program running on a laptop, how could this work with incoming sat phone calls, like those two to 9M-MRO? Aren’t there intricacies in the sat data which probably could not be introduced with a simulation program?
Re:
“NZ/Tasmania/S.Oz/W.Oz, after 8-10 months: saturated.
Africa/Reunion/Rodriquez, after 26 months: nowhere within a thousand miles.”
Two important notes always forgotten by Brock:
1. Timing depends on the location of the origin on the 7th arc.
2. ADRIFT takes time-averaged forcing instead of actual forcing.
@Middleton: “Which (airline?) version of the FCOM are you using?”
The page number I gave is for the Lauda Air FCOM that ALSM was so kind to provide a link to on the MH370 thread on PPRuNe.
Somewhat later a link to the B777 (all versions) FCOM was provided on Jeff Wise’s blog. In that version the page is 11.31.17 but on a cursory look the text is the same.
The LA version is for GE engines but allows copy and print, the ‘family’ version provides the performance data for the RR engine but is protected against copying and printing.
I have downloaded those two versions but didn’t retain the links. I don’t have the Continental version.
@Neils, @Brock, @Carla, Okay, I spoke rashly, I offended people I didn’t mean to. I wasn’t trying to say that everyone who supports a flight over the Maldives secretly doesn’t want to solve the case–indeed, I am sure that everyone who is taking part in this discussion earnestly wants to solve it–rather what I meant was that people who are actively hindering progress in the case–and yes, here I will go big and explicitly name Nihonmama–favor the Maldives (among other unsupported hypotheses) because, as I explained, it is a dead end. If I am wrong, and anyone feels that they can build a case for a Maldives detour that fits into a plausible explanation of what happened to MH370, then I would be delighted to hear it. Otherwise, let’s just let it go and move on.
If I come across as a little impatient, it’s because I firmly believe that we have all the necessary evidence before us; we are very, very close to solving this case, and I am keen to cross that line without being led astray by distractions.
Littlefoot,
“If that is just a simulation program running on a laptop, how could this work with incoming sat phone calls, like those two to 9M-MRO?”
If USB to AES interface is bi-directional, why not? Real-time evaluation of the Doppler correction terms to get ‘required’ BFOs solves the problem.
Another story is who would pick the calls even if software is able to connect it with earphones/microphone. Real-time voice simulation is a way more difficult.
Littlefoot,
In addition to the previous: do you think AES software is tested and debugged in labs first or onboard of aircrafts?
@Olexandr, thanks for the explanations.
Brock – guaranteeing data – I started putting it across ages ago to see if anyone would. No takers but if I recall correctly Victor was the only one who commented to say – “there are no guarantees with the data”. Apologies Victor if I have you confused. Inmarsat in the beginning thought there might be some kind of spoof occurring when they pulled the logs and said as much. Then they took the view it was in the air for that time frame.
All talk about spoofing, what about malfunction/corruption/interference of some kind? To rule out a western path you need to rule out any chance that the BFO’s got effected by anything. No one will do that….
Oleksandr – nothing, not even a vertical stabilizer….sigh.
Hopefully not to add to more confusion, impatients or old stories but I like to add some links to my previous post.
The Diamantina trench is quite near the current searchzone. It reaches more than 7km deep https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamantina_Fracture_Zone.
The area was already in view very early on http://www.cbsnews.com/news/search-area-for-malaysia-airlines-flight-370-moved-almost-700-miles-after-credible-new-lead/
M Pat – Fanatic look to be a wave board producer and they tend to be a lot thicker than a surfboard for obvious reasons. The fact that it was 26 six years ago would suggest it didn’t take on as happens in most of these cases. Not cost effective. ALSM is adamant that it’s aluminium debris in the Maldives and not nomex.
A ghost flight west makes a more sense than one south?
@jeffwise
Maldives theory is garbage, indeed. But isn’t your Kazakhstan/Russian story worse ?
Honestly, Maldives is closer to the reality than your theory.
Oleksandr:
We have already covered this in detail a long time ago.
It is not possible to fake BTO values with only a laptop and an AES. I designed a complete system (on paper) to do this over a year ago for the purpose of assessing how difficult it would be. It requires some fairly complex microwave hardware, an AES, a 429 to USB adapter and a laptop w/ complex custom software. BTO’s cannot be simulated in software (but BFO values can be). I won’t go into the microwave hardware requirements, but it is not simple or cheap. The “spoofing software” would take OTOO 2-3 man years to design, build and test. Then a separate, more complex, custom hardware-in-the-loop simulator would be required to test and debug the completed spoof system. In addition, there are limitations on where the system can be physically located. It can’t be just anywhere in view of the spacecraft. It has to be relatively close to the sub-satellite point.
@ir1907, Worse, how?
Steve,
Yes agreed the repetition FL350 line to me is “glaring.” The lines are about 6 minutes apart as well. It could be several things, the effects of hypoxia perhaps, not realizing they said it once? It’s been suggested they wanted to be at FL390 and were prompting ATC for that level? Who knows what was happening in those 6 minutes and if it was even the same person? Were the instruments giving them a false reading of the FL? If something unique to MAS procedure, I have no idea? And to me I hear a nuance of urgency in the second repeated line as well, it seems more intense to me.
I am a linguist and have scrutinized the audio recording fine tooth combing it some 25 times or more already. I do hear them repeating most everything back to ATC other than the HCM frequency. Also they misname the flight number (370) or slur over it 4 times in the recording, on the second repeated FL350 line, there is one of those slurs. Perhaps it is as you say, ATC recognized the voice of the seasoned pilot (sans accent) and assumed he knew the HCM frequency, but why wouldn’t ATC check and make sure he got it?
Interestingly enough, according to the FI, Fariq Hamid’s voice is the first 3 parts. Zaharie Shah is the last part. There exists the slur of the flight with both voices, early part and last part. Tired, red eye to Beijing? Hypoxic? So the FI has us to believe that the voice with the heavier accent is Fariq, and the one with less of an accent is Zaharie. Funny, I hear it the other way around comparing Zaharie’s voice extensively to his Youtube home improvement tapes. Voice different over aircraft radio than on Youtube? Accoustic drummer Steve Barber determined the same findings as I did. What it all means I don’t know.
I will go back later and pinpoint the minutes in the audio recording where I hear the office noises for you.
Also Steve, the recording has been so obviously edited, what would they edit that the public could not hear? The voices in segments pop on and off unnaturally as well, a result of cutting and splicing or however it is edited? I understand what you are saying that in a general context it seems like just standard radio chatter, but to me linguistically there are oddities. Hard to say or put a finger on what it is if anything or if they were under any kind of duress.
For me it is more or less settled. ” more or less” cos I am just awaiting an official and contrite admission to the scenario I outlined. But I won’t push my opinion as fact despite many facets of it being corroborated by both the data to IGARI and ground observations therein.
I empathise with you @jeff but I just wish that for all assumptions to hold regarding the scenario post IGARI, folks here would revisit and answer some, if not all, of the questions I raised earlier.
For IMHO, the data and the assumptions are symbiotically entwined, unravel one assumption and data goes outta the window. In fact one can unpick many of those assumptions even without trying but who but God knows what happened there one night over the SCS off Terengganu.
@all, just a passing thought if the SIO terminus holds, perhaps the pilot was not on a suicide or political statement mission at all, perhaps he was obsessed with the idea of creating the greatest aviation mystery of all, suicide, murder et al merely being the collateral outcomes – sort of a package deal??
Has there been any mention of human DNA found on any of the pieces found to date? Especially the inside piece? If they don’t, then this has been one big scam!
@all Is there anything to the observation that is one flies the distance from KUL to PEK, but on a reciprocal heading, you would end up almost exactly on the 7 Arc in the SIO – I believe near the initial search area.
@Shadynuk
Probably 9M-MRO would not have run out of fuel as it arrived in Beijing. The reciprocity fails on fuel exhaustion.
@jeff
…”I am sure that everyone who is taking part in this discussion earnestly wants to solve it–rather what I meant was that people who are actively hindering progress in the case–and yes, here I will go big and explicitly name Nihonmama–favor the Maldives (among other unsupported hypotheses) because, as I explained, it is a dead end.”
While I personally agree with you on the Maldives, I would point out that if there is something amiss with the data (as in your own scenario), any destination within fuel range is technically possible, and given the variety of witness claims and debris claims (setting aside their validity for a moment), one can at least see how theories involving the Maldives persist.
The point of this post isn’t to defend the Maldives, however; it is to defend Nihonmama. I have had several private conversations with her, and I don’t believe that she is set on any particular theory, in actuality. I have found her to be quite thoughtful and respectful, on a personal level. While she may come across strong (certainly not a rarity here, I would note), I view it mostly a function of her legal background, where she approaches all evidence with equal vigour, regardless of it’s provenance. Regardless, it is a mischaracterization to suggest she is intentionally hindering progress; willing to entertain some pretty fringe ideas, sure, but then, isn’t that a fair description of most people here?
It would be in everyone’s best interest to refrain from ad hominem attacks and just stick to the content, in my opinion.
@Oleksandr. Tks. For forward drift modelling do you trust Adrift? If not, alternative tools for forward modelling?
@ALSM, @Jeff,
Since it is so complex and sophisticated and would take years to develop the spoofing systems and equipment, notwithstanding proximity to aircraft/AES during spoof, do you think then it is entirely possible that at 18:25 power restored itself somehow and/or a bus was reconnected, and Sy Gunson is right in that the previous electrical failures themselves are the spoofing “culprits” compromising the AES and causing the data to be how it is?
@Shadynuk – to me a recipical mh370 flight to the south would actually end up in WA. Depending on which arc is really meant as The arc nearest Beijing cuts thru central Australia (kinda missing main Indonesia to the east ). Any other arc violate Indonesia’s stance that MH370 never flew thru its airspace.
@jeffwise
“I firmly believe that we have all the necessary evidence before us; we are very, very close to solving this case”
I may have only been here a few weeks, but I dont see the forum coming to consensus. Please share your optimism.
@Boston,MA
“Has there been any mention of human DNA found on any of the pieces found to date? Especially the inside piece? If they don’t, then this has been one big scam!”
DNA would have been washed away? Fingerprints on the internal find perhabs?
@Cheryl
I find the audio unusual as well. Could you fit in any theory that this is were it all began, hypoxia, hijackers, etc?
@Cheryl
“And to me I hear a nuance of urgency in the second repeated line as well, it seems more intense to me.”
Not only there, but also at the ‘goodnight malaysian 3-7-0’. And this wasnt the last thing we heard from them. An American military base heard not long after the co-pilot saying the cabin was disintegrating. That has been classified.
Trond,
It’s hard to say or pinpoint any one theory to the recording. It could be hypoxia, it could be duress from an unknown source/perps, or normal up to the signoff. Whatever reared its head may have done it after 17:19 or was already happening before. We don’t know. But there has to be some kind of clue in the repetitious line I would think. Would be nice if MAS would lend their thoughts on that.
Trond,
Isn’t that item about the cabin “disintegrating” put on our back shelf as there is no documented proof of it? Co-pilot mumbling (MH88), co-pilot making cabin comment, and co-pilot’s cell phone connecting to a tower near Penang, all shelved until proven and clarified.
Back to the last line spoken as you say I do hear the urgency there too or some kind of abruptness, whether that is simply yeah I know this HCM frequency like the back of my hand kind of thing or something else I don’t know.
“Cabin disintegrating” and continuing to fly for 6 hours seems incongruent.
@Cheryl
“Yes agreed the repetition FL350 line to me is “glaring.” The lines are about 6 minutes apart as well. It could be several things, the effects of hypoxia perhaps, not realizing they said it once? It’s been suggested they wanted to be at FL390 and were prompting ATC for that level?”
Just from a pilots perspective repeating the present FL is a common used method to remember the controller that another FL was filed, expected or desired. The controller adressed with such an repetition is not required to acknowledge the call, as it is an informative one, but will be reminded of the flight and may come back with instructions for a new flight level or a time estimate for the new FL. Absent from a linguistic POV I consider that call as normal.
” Who knows what was happening in those 6 minutes and if it was even the same person?”
Under normal operations the pilot not flying is making the radio calls. A changeover of duties after reaching cruising altitude is not uncommon. It is also the point where flight crews tend to follow the call of nature. Coming back into the cockpit after hitting the rest room and taking over duties such a call to ATC may have been a simple radio equipment check and confirmation that ATC has not forgotten their intended FL.
“And to me I hear a nuance of urgency in the second repeated line as well, it seems more intense to me.”
Could that be due to a higher pulse rate from the move to the rest room and taking the seat again in the tight environment of a cockpit?
” I do hear them repeating most everything back to ATC other than the HCM frequency. Also they misname the flight number (370) or slur over it 4 times in the recording, on the second repeated FL350 line, there is one of those slurs. Perhaps it is as you say, ATC recognized the voice of the seasoned pilot (sans accent) and assumed he knew the HCM frequency, but why wouldn’t ATC check and make sure he got it?”
Not repeating the HCM frequency is not according to SOP, but this is probably the routine frequency and known in advance, preset in the radio. Being sloppy in the radio calls is a typical behaviour in routine duties. This often happens, when the variable duties, which need more attention are finished and the boring standard duties present in cruise flight prevail. Another phenomen I like to bring to attention, which I can observe on a daily basis. While females are good in multitasking especially talking while doing completely different things the typical man is bad with it. I cannot make conversation while writing. Either one slows down considerably. The PNF making the calls may have been doing other things when he had to answer the calls.
In view of the following events though there should other reasons be considered. My first one on the list would be outside forcefull influence on the crew. In that case we may consider that the noted non standard and sloppy radio prodedures were intentional to raise the suspicion of ATC.
@GeRijn
I agree with you entirely. My previous post addressed to Brock did not elicit any comments which is a tad disappointing. Even a negative comment would have been welcome.
The gist of it was how unusual it was to have the internal partition fragment adj. to door 2R and nothing else from the interior. I say this because if the a/c had cartwheeled when the RH wingtip dug into the swell, then the fuselage would have fractured, and we would have a lot more interior stuff to sift through than this small piece of partitioning.
The video of Eithiopian Airlines ditching off the Comoros demonstrates what would happen if the aircraft had pivoted about the RH wingtip (reef or no reef)
Could it be that the pilot unlocked the door shortly before the ditching (a/c on autopilot attitude hold, while he did this, APU having been fired up before engine flameout, to prevent the autopilot from dropping out)
As he ditched, he rolled right and dug the nose in to burst in the door and make the a/c sink quickly.
You see, a theory is required to explain why we have the Rodrigues panel, and nothing else as yet from inside the plane. If anyone has a better idea, I would like to hear it.
Steve,
Audio Recording
Part 2. – Ground Control…..
Starting circa minute 2:07 ongoing to about 3:25 banging and office type noises
Also there is a lot of garbling. Is this normal in aircraft radio communications? Or could something electrical been going on?
RetiredF4,
Thanks for your take on it. So we have a pilot’s perspective that the repetition is normal and an ATC’s opinion, Steve, that it is not. Hmmmmm.
Exactly, the “sloppy” radio communication doesn’t fit with “methodical” Zaharie. Good point the sloppiness could have been deliberate to alert ATC, however if so it indeed went right over ATC’s heads.
I hear the two repeated lines with two different voices. So not so sure about an increased pulse rate getting back to the cockpit seat after a restroom break, it could have been 2 people. But I agree on the possible “outside forecful influence on the crew.” Impaired by hypoxia or under duress by perps, or……neither?
@RetiredF4, you said that the repeated slurs when both pilots name the flight number could be a hint that something was amiss and they tried to raise attention in an inconspicuous way. I have also listened to the audio repeatedly and I had the same idea. I don’t believe the slurs can be a sign of early hypoxia onset. They don’t slur anything else but they both slur the flight number consistently. That sticks out as unusual to me. Early hypoxia symptoms wouldn’t lead to this kind of coordination. Also the later events and the ongoing maneuvers show that early hypoxia is very unlikely. My question: do pilots receive any kind of training or instructions how to behave in case of a hostile takeover of the cockpit?
Again: it sticks out as very unusual to me, that both pilots consistently slur the flightnumber but none of the other words. If they were just tired or otherwise compromised I wouldn’t expect this kind of coordination. I have to look and listen to the audio again in order to find out when they started with that slur.
Littlefoot,
Yes, agreed. I noted where they were and times on Duncan Steel. There are 4 of them.
a Malaysian 377 request taxi
a Malaysian 0
a Malaysian 1, err
and a Malaysian H,8,or A unclear
I think RetiredF4 isn’t referring to the repeated slurs, he is referring to the repeated FL350 lines. It just so happens in the second of those lines exists one of the slurs of the flight number, the H,8, or A.
Yes interesting, if pilots are under duress and they cannot enter the hijack code into the FMS or what have you, how are they supposed to act would be good to know here.
@ROB – since you insist:
“Could it be that the pilot unlocked the door shortly before the ditching (…)
As he ditched, he rolled right and dug the nose in to burst in the door and make the a/c sink quickly.”
Would he then have unlocked door 1L or 1R, and wouldn’t he have to swim to the rear of the cabin to retrieve the piece and throw it out?
I also maintain that door #2R is only one of the locations in the cabin where the Rodigues piece could have come from.
Littlefoot,
Wouldn’t early signs of hypoxia include mood swings? I hear those as well in the recording. It starts out with a very, tired sounding, almost belabored “good morning Malaysian 3 – 7 – 0,” very elongated. Then parts are almost giddy sounding in “your are unreadable” and the final quick intonation upswing of 370 at the ending. Perhaps they were just napping prior to the flight and woke up during it? But do you know what other early signs of hypoxia would be? They seem to be adeptly maneuvering across and to the Straits though.
@Gysbreght
What is the “if you insist” supposed to convey?
Why so dismissive? The panel came from door 2R.
If you have a better theory, you are going to have to account for the debris as recovered, and I would respectfully suggest that this theory at least does that.
If I’m becoming tiresome then I humbly apologise, apologise for attempting to arrive at a theory that best fits with all the evidence, Yes all the evidence, rather than indulge ego massaging or navel gazing.
@Cheryl, @RetiredF4,
Regarding the repeatance of the flight level :
Where I work, most pilots who wish to change flight level (e.g. higher FL for lower fuel consumption) would actively ask the ATC on the frequency multiple times until it is granted/taken into serious consideration by the ATC.
Our system (in France) doesn’t allow us to precisely know the requested flight levels or each and every flight. Plus it is subject to change from one day to another due to weather, weight, wind, etc. Our only 100% sure means of knowing the cruising level is the radio frequency, maybe in other parts of the world ATC have better systems with better information than we have.
It sometimes happens, most likely with a less experienced pilot, and/or a non-commercial flight, that the pilot would say something like the MH370, “reaching flight level XXX” or “steady at flight level XXX”. There I guess most ATC would inquire about this message. Why doesn’t the ATC inquire here ? I don’t know. Lazyness ? Night time ?
Not to defend the ATC there, but I guess I would personally sometimes react like that. “If you want to climb higher, just ask for it, don’t expect me to do your job !”
Not repeating the frequency doesn’t wave a red flag IMO. ATC work is real-time, sometimes at the end of one message you are preparing the next one, and it’s possible that the pilot reads back so fast that when you catch the fact the he didn’t say the frequency, a few seconds have passed, and you think “he didn’t say the frequency, well, it’s too late to try to get him back now, if he got it wrong he will be back on my frequency in a few moments to inquire”. This would however most likely imply a phone call to the next sector : “did flight X call you ? He didn’t read back your frequency”.
About the “urgency” or “abruptness” felt by some people in the last message : I don’t really feel anything abnormal. Sometimes we bother pilots with frequency changes while they are busy doing something else (chatting with female cabin crew, eating, …) so they would make partial readbacks every now and then.
Or, as was mentionned, the next frequency is already preset and the pilot simply fails to readback a known frequency that he is currently looking at on his flight instrument.
I’m not familiar with hypoxia so I don’t know how it would affect radio communication.
@RetiredF4 “In view of the following events though there should other reasons be considered. My first one on the list would be outside forcefull influence on the crew. In that case we may consider that the noted non standard and sloppy radio prodedures were intentional to raise the suspicion of ATC.”
Possible. Playing ball with the “outside force” while keeping up with ATC communication. I guess if that’s the case, they could have done a better job at hinting the ATC that something is very wrong, but then again, I’m no pilot, and I’ve never flown a 777 with a gun on my head…
@Gysbreght
I have just replied to your constructive comments, but my post appears to gave disappeared into the ether. The censor at work again, and there was nothing particularly provocative in it either
@Gyesbreght
That one was received, so here goes once more.
I detect a dismissive flavour in your reply. Sorry if I’m becoming tiresome with my efforts. I thought the idea was to arrive at a theory that best fits the evidence, rather than waste my time in navel gazing
@Rob. I read your post with interest and given the ‘facts’ till now my speculations are more in your line.
But I know it cann’t be more than speculations/possibilities. In the first place the Rodrigues-part is not yet confirmed anyway. So still nothing definite can be concluded on this part. Same still goes for the cowling-part. The flaperon is 100% confirmed. The pylon-part and H-stabiliser- part almost 100%. Imo they look more to be broken loose in a lower speed ditching. It could be just coincidence that by now only rightside parts are found. There could be still hunderds or thousands other parts floating around some were.
I think it’s not likely. But for instance in a Comoros-scenario this would certainly be the case imo. I’m thinking more in a Hudson-scenario but also this remains speculation by now.
If the Rodrigues-part gets confirmed MH370 I think it could be a breakthrough on understanding what happened to the plane in the end. I wait for this confirmation and conclusions to interfere with all possible options. Imo all thoughtfull speculations, reasearch and searching can potentionaly add the solving of this mystery.
Like to add a interesting youtube-series on the building of a B777. A lot of interesting pictures and information. For instance that the flaps also can be lowered bij compressed air if all other systems fail. Did not knew that one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oyWZjdXxlw&nohtml5=False
@RetiredF4
“Just from a pilots perspective repeating the present FL is a common used method to remember the controller that another FL was filed, expected or desired.”
I believe that their filed flightplan requested FL330 initially with a step climb to FL370 later in the flight. Did they request different FL’s later?
@Cheryl, so they got the flight number wrong already when they were still on the ground? That is definitely at odds with the idea that they tried to raise attention. I have to listen to the audio again in order to test RetiredF4’s and my idea.
Again: I think hypoxia is very unlikely, considering all the maneuvering the plane did later on. Victor even detected a side step maneuver which might’ve been executed deliberately shortly after the plane was out of radar reach. I see only one possibility to interpret the alleged oddities of the audio as early hypoxia or otherwise compromised: a different crew of pilots took over and repressurised the plane. These hijackers then executed the turnaround and all following maneuvers.
@Gysbreght
The door in question will turn out to be 2R, so no need to swim to the rear of the aircraft on this occasion.
Right hand side of the aircraft is also the windward side.
The problem with the idea that a different crew took over after the pilots were knocked out by whatever compromised then is this: how did the hijackerd induce hypoxia or another compromising condition in the first place and how did they manage to stay clear in their heads? But the idea that simetinh was amiss in the cockpit even before the last famous lines were spoken needs to be explored more fully. I just don’t think the idea of accidental hypoxia is viable if we consider all the alleged maneuvering that happened after the last words were spoken.
Sorry for the spelling mistakes. My phone has odd ideas of it’s own right now 😉
@ROB, Sometimes I have to manually approve comments. In this case, you seem to have entered a different username in the content form, and WordPress thought you were a first-time commenter. Meanwhile, I have to say I’m not convinced about the value of the speculation that you’re currently engaging in. In recent months four pieces have washed up, all of roughly the same size; clearly something happened that caused the plane to go from one piece to many pieces. Without access to these pieces for microscopic examination, it is fruitless to speculate as to how exactly each piece came apart from the rest. You wrote, “I apologise for attempting to arrive at a theory that best fits with all the evidence,” but the fact is that you have neither evidence nor a theory: your idea that the plane impacted in a certain way is not a theory but a notion, an idea grounded in nothing more than your desire to believe it. Hence its cool reception here. Let’s move on.
@Cheryl, One of the key concepts in the study of humans under stress is something called the Yerkes-Dodson curve, which is simply the idea that performance tends to be rather poor at low level of arousal, then becomes better as the adrenaline starts to flow, then degrades again once a person becomes excessively aroused and verges into panic. Based on what @Steve and @RetiredF4 are saying, it sounds like the mumbled numbers are a result not of excessive arousal, but very low arousal. It seems to me that the audio data best fit with a scenario in which two experienced aviators are setting off on a very routine flight and going about the paces in a calm, indeed under-aroused, state. I would add that, as a pilot, when communicating with air traffic control you’re using very stereotyped language into which novel information is inserted. So the pro-forma part rolls effortlessly off the tongue, and the new part–in this case, “MH370”–has to be retrieved with some effort from working memory. Essentially, the pilot is rattling off a standard expression, then has to stop for a few milliseconds to figure out, “Hey, what’s the number of this darned flight, again?”