In the weeks since MH370 debris began washing up in the Western Indian Ocean, I’ve struggled to understand the condition in which they were found. Particularly baffling were the three that washed ashore in Mozambique and South Africa, which were almost completely clean and free of marine fouling. I’ve talked to a number of marine biologists who study organisms that grow on floating debris, and they told me that given their pristine appearance these pieces couldn’t have floated for more than a few weeks.
Some observers have suggested that perhaps the objects had failed to pick up significant fouling because they drifted through waters that were too cold or low in nutrients, but further examination showed that this could not be the explanation.
One commenter on this blog suggested that the pieces were too shallow, or too small, to permit the growth of Lepas barnacles. This, too, is an unsuitable explanation, since Lepas can grow on bits of floating debris that are as small as a few centimeters across. The photograph above shows a small but vibrant community growing on a piece of pumice spewed from a volcano in Tonga; the largest Lepas (goose barnacle) in the image is 23 mm long.
In acknowledging the very obvious problem that this lack of biofouling presents, David Griffin of the Australian government’s science agency, CSIRO, has written (referring to the first Mozambique piece) that “this item is not heavily encrusted with sea life, so it has probably spent a significant length of time either weathering in the sun and/or washing back and forth in the sand at this or some other location. The time at sea is therefore possibly much less than the 716 days that have elapsed since 14 March 2014, and the path taken may have been two or more distinct segments.”
The idea then, is that these pieces washed across the Indian Ocean, were deposited on a beach, were picked over my crabs and other predators, bleached in the sun and scoured by wind and sand, the were washed back out to sea, then came ashore again within less than two weeks and were discovered.
One problem with this scenario is that while we might just about imagine a sequence of events happening to one piece, it seems incredible to imagine it happening to three pieces independently, in different locations and at different times. (To be fair to Dr Griffin, he proposed this idea at a time when only once piece had yet been found.)
Another problem with Dr Griffin’s idea is that no major storms took place in the two weeks preceding the discovery of each of the pieces in Mozambique and South Africa. Indeed, the region has been experiencing a drought.
In short, there is not plausible sequence of events by which the three pieces found in Africa could have arrived there by natural means.
What about the piece which turned up on Rodrigues Island? As I wrote in my blog post, the size of the barnacles blatantly contradict the possibility that the object was afloat for two years. And given that Rodrigues is surrounded by a reef, hundreds of miles from the nearest land, the idea that it might have washed ashore somewhere, gotten re-floated, and then came ashore again to be discovered is close to inconceivable.
Taken separately, these objects defy explanation. Taken together, however, they present a unified picture. Though discovered weeks and months apart, in locations separated by thousands of miles, they are all of a piece: they are all wrong. They do not look–at all!–like they should.
There is only one reasonable conclusion to draw from the condition of these pieces. Since natural means could not have delivered them to the locations where they were discovered, they must have been put there deliberately. They were planted.
In fact, we can go even further than that. Whoever put these pieces on the shores where they were discovered wasn’t even trying very hard. It would only have taken a little bit of imagination and a small amount of effort to put these pieces in the ocean for a few months to pick up a healthy suite of full-sized Lepas. This clearly was attempted in the case of the Rodrigues piece, but no effort at all was expended on the African pieces.
Why? Were they being lazy, or simply overconfident? Or did they know that it wouldn’t matter?
Perhaps the events of last July influenced their decision. After the flaperon was discovered on Réunion Island, it was whisked away by French authorities, given a cursory examination, and then hidden away. The public were never told what the investigators found, or didn’t find. No one seriously questioned whether the flaperon could really have come from a crash in the Southern Indian Ocean. (Well, almost no one.)
Six months later, the failure of the seabed search was looming. The Australian government had already begun saying that it might not find the plane, and preparing the public for the decision to call off the search. The narrative that the plane had nonetheless flown south to some unknown point in the southern Indian Ocean needed bolstering. Given how little inquiry had been directed at the Réunion piece, whoever planted the most recent four pieces might reasonably have assumed that the public would accept the new pieces uncritically, no matter how lackadaisical their preparation.
Maybe they were right. Past experience has shown that people have a remarkable ability to squint their eyes and avoid seeing the obvious ramifications of evidence plunked down in front of them. A good example was the seabed search that took place after acoustic pings were detected back in the spring of 2014. The frequency of pings was wrong, and the physical distribution of the pings indicated that they could not possibly have come from stationary wreckage. So it was clear from the data that the pings were not coming from black boxes. But numerous experts twisted themselves into knots explaining how the deep-sea hydroaccoustic environment was very weird, with salinity gradients and underwater valleys that channeled sound, and so on. I was on a panel on CNN one day when famed science communicator Bill Nye explained that the sound waves probably were refracted by passing through water masses of varying densities, and refraction causes frequencies to change. When you have to start changing the laws of physics to justify your interpretation of the data, it might be time to start looking for a new interpretation.
I’m not saying that people’s attempts thus far to explain the condition of the MH370 debris through non-nefarious means is misguided. Far from it–as the saying goes, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and when presented with evidence like the MH370 debris which invites such an uncomfortable (some will no doubt say outlandish) conclusion, it’s necessary to carefully rule out simpler explanations. However, once that has been done, we must not avert our eyes and say, “Well, I just can’t accept that conclusion, it’s not reasonable, there must be some explanation you’re missing,” or come up with a Nyeism that posits as explanation some phenomenon previously unknown to science.
If the MH370 investigation has taught us anything, is that restricting the discussion to “acceptable” explanations is a fatal trap. Early in the mystery, Duncan Steel hosted a discussion on his web site for people to exchange views and information. He had a rule, however: it was forbidden to discuss any scenarios which posited that the plane had been diverted intentionally, as he felt that this was disrespectful to the people on board. Of course, we now know that the plane was certainly diverted by someone on board, so effectively what Steel was outlawing was the discussion of any scenario that might possible be correct.
This mindset is alive and well. Recently on a discussion forum, one of the participants flatly stated that she was not interested in hearing about any theories that involve a hijacking. The ATSB has shown itself to be equally narrowminded. It has on multiple occasions declared that its interpretation of the Inmarsat data is unassailable. First it said that there was 100 percent chance that the plane was in the first 60,000 square km search area. When it turned out not to be, they drew a 120,000 sq km search area and declared that there was a 100 percent chance it was inside there. Come June, they will find (as we know now because of the condition of the African debris) that it is not there, either. Yet their recurring failure has not shaken their faith in their “reasonable” belief about what happened to the plane.
So maybe whoever planted the debris in Mozambique, South Africa, and Rodrigues weren’t lazy–maybe their understanding of human psychology simply allowed them to take the minimum steps necessary. Whether their calculation was accurate or not will now become apparent.
@Rossp. I guess its not possible for all components witch contain trapped air would be chrushed by the waterpressure and won’t be able to float anymore.
@Jeff Wise. Sorry missed that anwser from you on Rossp which is clear enough. The comments are going rather fast..
@Susie (more)
As I have said many many times the decision to start the underwater search based on the analytics at the time was a huge mistake. There was no compelling reason to initiate a search without any debris.
One can only wonder what would have happened if the underwater search were initiated today based on the ISAT data and debris finds. There is not a doubt in my mind that the boats would be looking far to the North of the current search area.
Rolls Royce didnt share the information with us so they saw something we didnt that led them to where they search now.
@DennnisW – if they took the time to look at the debris further, they may have noticed the issues as mentioned by Jeff, and maybe no search would have started yet.
I think we should not forget the search is not over yet.
For also plausible reasons it could still be found any day till the end of june.
And if they decide to expand the search area it could still be found after this periode.
@jeff: yes, they would resist. No, that does not deter me.
An international boycott of air travel (e.g. no flights every March 8 until the truth outs) would, I think, work wonders.
@All: a couple of items Jeff didn’t have space to mention, but which further support his thesis:
– missing data plate on flaperon: was either screwed on or chemically bonded. How did it manage to come off? A troubling coincidence, at the very least.
– Florence de Changy’s research seems to suggest the “confirmation” out of Spain wasn’t “1 of 3” serial numbers matching (why not 3 of 3?), but “1 of 12” – and the 1 that matched was a HAND-written number (which I can’t even BEGIN to fathom).
F. de Changy interview (scroll down a bit to “play” button):
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/201793735/inconsistencies-and-deception-at-the-heart-of-mh370
Dennis, I concur that were the search to be initiated as of now, using the items found and the locations thereof with the adjuvant drift modelling &c then the location would likely be farther up the arc.
Therefore I don’t really think planting stuff where it makes the current search area look less likely is something anyone trying to hide something about the location of the plane would really want to do.
Unless they wanted the search moved away from where they thought it would be found, and if that were the motive, then it kind of failed dismally because no one is doing that.
I think if they wanted to back up the current location there would have been a lot of other places to plant stuff that would have done so, and far sooner also.
After the discovery of the flapereon experts all over the world were consulted and gave their views on the barnacles on that item. Immediately after each debris find doubts have been expressed everywhere about the lack of barnacles.
There must be a motive for planting fake evidence knowing that it can be so easily dismissed as false.
@Gysbreght, The French authorities asked two marine biologists to look at the flaperon; neither was a Lepas expert. I reached out to a number of Lepas specialists around the world but was only able to refer them to photographic evidence. So unless further investigation was done that I’m not aware of, I’d say the flaperon was not very carefully looked at.
You wrote: “There must be a motive for planting fake evidence knowing that it can be so easily dismissed as false.” But will it be dismissed as false? Or will I be dismissed as being a crank for saying it is?
@Ge Rijn, You wrote, “I think we should not forget the search is not over yet. For also plausible reasons it could still be found any day till the end of june.” The point I’m making with this post is that the condition of the debris tells us that the pieces didn not originate in the southern Indian Ocean, so we can tell that the search is doomed to failure.
@Gysbreght
I have a dim view of “XXXXX” biologists, where “XXXXX” is anything you want it to be.
Also, I know it didn’t look as though the French gave the barnacles enough attention but we only know what was released to the media. This is obvious, I know, but bears remembering.
Often when I read a final report I find that a lot of things postulated by uninvolved observers turn out to have been investigated, perhaps ruled out, perhaps counted as relevant, but nonetheless, these things have almost always been considered in minute detail, far moreso than anyone might have assumed from the sparse media releases.
@Gysbreght, raising barnacles on a piece of debris isn’t difficult but somewhat time consuming. And as soon as the debris is out of the open ocean enviroment they start to deteriorate or die. Therefore it needs to be found quickly after it has been deposited at the beach. Exactly that happened with the flaperon. The open-ocean barnacles were still alive when the first pictures were taken. Therefore the flaperon must’ve arrived from it’s open-ocean drift just a couple of hours earlier. If the flaperon had hung around the waters of La Reunion longer, the open-ocean barnacles would’ve been replaced by a local species. Also, the barnacles might tell a story which contradicts the location and timing of a SIO crash. If the barnacles are warm water barnacles – as some experts suggested were found on the flaperon, or if their size isn’t really compatible with a two-year drift, then at least some experts might start to develop doubts. Maybe the strongest piece of evidence and the most carefully prepared was considered to be sufficient for establishing a 100% connection to the missing plane. Once that was acceted as genuine, the rest was considered gravy and wasn’t prepared in the same time consuming way.
I’d say: it apparently worked quite well. Most people twist themselves rather into knots and come up with complicated and far fetched scenarios before they start even to consider that something is amiss with the new debris.
Where’s Occam’s Razor when you need it? 🙂
@Brock McEwen
“1 of 12 – and the 1 that matched was a HAND-written number”
I dont know where to start. They said it was from mh370 and only 1 of 12 numbers matched? And it was a handwritten match, and the rest made by hardware printing?
This is getting more confusing. Someone please make sense of all this.
@jeffwise,
my point is that evere since the flaperon find, the focus of public attention was on the barnacle population.
@RetiredF4,
We talked in the other thread about the audio recording of the converstation between the pilots and ATC. I said, that I was a bit puzzled that it took so long to establish that Shah spoke the last words, and that I thought his voice in the recording was different with a notably stronger American accent than in his YouTube videos. You said that the professional enviroment might lead to a stronger American accent, and that many pilots might want to talk like Chuck Yeager. I answered you, but Jeff had closed the thread already. So here goes again:
I think you presented a logical explanation. Who doesn’t want to sound like Chuck Yeager – or like Sam Shepard for that matter, who played him in the movie “Ther Right Stuff”, one of my all time favorites 🙂 People can sound very different in a professional enviroment. It’s still extremely puzzling, though, that Shah’s collegues couldn’t identify his voice easily, and that they had such a hard time getting the last words right. Shah doesn’t exactly mumble them. This is one of the niggling question marks surrounding the whole investigation.
@ littlefoot
“People can sound very different in a professional enviroment. It’s still extremely puzzling, though, that Shah’s collegues couldn’t identify his voice easily, and that they had such a hard time getting the last words right. Shah doesn’t exactly mumble them.”
Me thinks we have to consider the difference between listening to spoken words and listening to a recorded transmission.
The voice you hear in such a recorded transmission was spoken in a noisy cockpit into a boom mike, sent to an receiver in an noisy ATC room, where it is thrown at the controller throug a headset or loudspeaker. Somewhere at the end it will be recorded by some cheap recording device. His friends probably never had the chance to hear Shah on such a recording.
Considering the used equipment always bear in mind, such equipment is not bought by the supplier with regards to the best quality, but from the one who offers the (minimum) required standard at the lowest possible price.
Forget whatever you once heard about Hifi, Dolby or simple Stereo sound. It more often feels like speaking into a trash can. I know a lot of pilots who buy their own Bose or Sennheiser earphone and boom mike in order to do their ears some good.
@Jeff Wise. If so then people who planted them tried to look like they were coming from the SIO. The pieces fit with the currents and more or less with time passed.
If it is a cover up it could be well the ATSB is not aware and still firmly believes they are searching in the right area based on the best (and correct) data they have, for if the satcom was spoofed (by someone on board) the data would still be correct for them.
The captain could have a political and maybe personal motives, the oppositonleader was a good friend convicted of sodomie. If he spoofed the satcom to make it appear he was flying south a only reason could have been to create a false random south lead with the only purpose not being detected by satelite on his way to Diego.
In my fantasie story about the Maldives and Diego Garcia, Diego Garcia could have been totaly suprised when this passengerplane appeared in their territory. Their only option could have been to bring it down.
Motive for cover up could be the total militaire secrecy status of Diego Garcia and the big international consequences which would follow if the bringing down came to light (especialy regarding China).
So in this scenario the three involved parties could have acted totaly independent of eachother and two of them still do.
In this fantasie-scenario Diego Garcia is the onlyone doing the cover up without any awereness of anyone else. Then later they could have been planting the debris at the right times and places in the hope everyone stays looking at the SIO and the current searchzone.
But for me this stays all fantasie and wild speculation until the current search is declared ended.
Interesting that the DC Cook did not shoot down the Russian fighter jets that buzzed as close as 75 feet of the ship. These planes were surely observed on radar before visual confirmation of IFF. If the US military didn’t shoot down these fighter jets, I doubt they would have shot down a commercial airliner.
I would like to point out the pings i was told on this forum came from fishes being studied, while on the cnn news they said it came from their own equipment.
@RetiredF4, all true what you say about voice distortion and sound equippment. But forgive me being a little pedantic here: it still doesn’t explain why the Malaysian investigators first said the copilot had spoken the last words “Good night, all right”, when instead Shah said quite clearly “Good night,Malaysia 370”. How can one get it so wrong? At the very least it attests to an extreme sloppiness in a very important investigation.
@Lauren H. The US-navy did it before. Remember the Iranian passengerplane crossing the Gulf?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655
@littlefoot
“… it still doesn’t explain why the Malaysian investigators first said the copilot had spoken the last words “Good night, all right”, when instead Shah said quite clearly “Good night,Malaysia 370”. How can one get it so wrong? At the very least it attests to an extreme sloppiness in a very important investigation.”
We are in agreement there.
Here is a statement for general consideration:
“Anyone willing and able to plant shoreline debris convincing enough to fool the media is likely to be both willing and able to plant deep sea debris convincing enough to fool the media.”
This makes the ABSENCE of deep-sea debris a bit of a hole in the “planted evidence” theory. Why set up the joke, if you’re not prepared to deliver the punch-line?
(To forestall the inevitable “well, then, NOTHING will ever convince you it’s not a charade, will it?” objection: full disclosure of all data and models used to support each key statement and decision made during the entire search operation WILL earn my trust. Yet another made-for-TV extravaganza will not.)
The only rationale for doing one and not the other is if it is in* the planters’ best interest to leave posterity with an open, rather than a falsely closed case.
(* both tangential and trivial, but 5 2-letter words in a row, each starting with “i” – unintentionally, I swear – has got to be some kind of record.)
@Jeff I guess you would have already considered this, but the wording of this post assigns to a few ideas the status of “certainty”, and it’s probably a bit too soon to say that, isn’t it? I’m sure you have your reasons, and I’m sure you realise it sounds very presumptuous.
In any case I like to think about the possibilities if the hijacking and “fake crash” scenario is true, even if I still think it seems very unlikely. It makes the world more exciting if there are people out there who have the capability of making an airliner disappear.
Some posters have been asking about a motive, but if we’re to assume that the plane has been stolen by people who are able to spoof satcom signals, then what they have is the ultimate weapon of terror. At any time, presumably, they could silently hijack another flight and fly MH370 right underneath it. They then spoof the original plane’s credentials from MH370’s comm system and fly to the destination like nothing ever happened, while hiding the original plane the same way they did with 370. If we assume they had the skills to steal MH370, we can assume they have the skills to pull that off as it’s basically the same operation.
Think about how scary that scenario is though – if that’s possible they could load a nuclear weapon on board and fly it into any city without anyone ever knowing it was coming. Even worse, there’d be no way of knowing who the perpetrator was. The obvious target would be some US city, but imagine if took out some Russian or Chinese city. They’d have to assume it was a US attack and retaliate wouldn’t they? It’s a nightmare scenario that a 3rd party could use to pit two innocent parties against each other in nuclear war. So there’s your motive.
As for how they pulled it off – with regard to your comment post about the difficulties of spoofing, consider this paper:
https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~sps32/Silicon_scan_draft.pdf
It describes how engineers are able to extract the AES key and hidden functions from an FPGA chip, which I believe might even be from the same company that makes the comms chips in the 777.
So hypothetically, I believe sophisticated hijackers could have removed the satcom chip while it was powered down and used this hardware technique to extract the AES encryption key. Once they had that I assume they could have spoofed the BFO values or perhaps they used an emulated satcom signal on a drone that they flew into the SIO while the plane turned around and went somewhere else.
Just so you know, I think it’s extremely unlikely any of this actually took place. If it did, though, I think that’s how and why it was done, but I can’t guess who might have done it. Russians? Chinese? Israelis? Maybe even US intelligence or US-allied mercenaries. If someone has that plane, though, it might be the deadliest stealth weapon ever.
Also for triple-spook points, I still can’t get over those 20 Freescale employees being on board. If the plane was stolen there has to be some connection, doesn’t there? Company is closely partnered with Microsemi who make the chips that power the comms bus and satcom on the plane, ground based radar, ground-to-plane and ground-to-satellite communications, and also owned until recently by private equity investors including conspiracy favorites Carlysle and Blackstone. Maybe they were a secondary target?
Anyway, its pointless to speculate. If something crazy did happen, either we’ll find out through some major disaster, or intelligence agencies will quietly take care of it and we’ll never know. There’s not really any in-between.
@Bloke, Fascinating insights, thank you. I hope you’ll stick around and join the conversation.
@Littlefoot, @RetiredF4,
Yes I agree the voice itself can be altered over aircraft radio, I also questioned that way back on Duncan Steel. Also in some short phrases of English spoken by a person whereby another language is their primary one, an accent could be less detectable. When they speak at length the accent becomes more apparent again. A recording device cannot in my opinion delete or annihilate an accent, but the person speaking into it can.
As far as drugging the crew? I have no idea. No report yet on the forensics of the catering company for the food prepared for that flight that I have heard.
Yes agreed that has been my pet peeve all along how did it take so long to identify Zaharie when it was first thought of to be Fariq and why the jump from “Alright, good night” to “Good night Malaysian 370?” Even CEO Yaya first thought the last words were Fariq’s. Did the “Get Shah” campaign kick in at that point? And incidentally for the newcomers, the person who spoke last is not necessarily guilty of anything other than speaking last at this point. But the FI states it was Zaharie so we are forced to go with that.
So we take away from dissecting the audio recording and seem to be in agreement on the slurs being just low arousal and just interjecting new info into the dialogue, probably not hypoxia since they begin early. And seem to agree that more troubling is the last line, the last voice, the HCM handover.
I don’t know what the “hellish moment” or the “diabolical act” as Nick Husnan called it, if only we could put our finger on it.
@Littlefoot
@RetiredF4
Re the signoff question:
I was not surprised when the Malaysians changed their story. In the beginning they assumed it was Hamid because they had naturally expected it would be him doing the menial stuff while the Captain “steered the ship”. Is it not usually the co-pilot’s job to handle the routine communications?
@ROB
I have noticed the opposite on flights when the cockpit audio was an available option. I think it goes back to the “Chuck Yeager” syndrome mentioned by retF4. It seems the captain hogs the mic for both public address announcements and ATC comms.
The funniest public address I ever heard was the captain coming on at the end of a very hard landing roll (it was really windy and he slammed it into the deck) informing us that we just got two landings for the price of one.
@Rob
“In the beginning they assumed it was Hamid because they had naturally expected it would be him doing the menial stuff while the Captain “steered the ship”. Is it not usually the co-pilot’s job to handle the routine communications?”
The duty is devided betwenn pilot flying (PF), who would steer the ship, like you called it, and the pilot not flying (PNF), whose duty is to monitor and to manage the comms. Those duties are shared by both pilots upon the decision of the captain. Reaching cruise level is not an unusual place to change those duties.
@jeff Very interesting write up.
It leads me immediately to start thinking of a potential source for these pieces. Of which there are a few core possibilities.
During your examination of the images have you come across any markings or damage to the pieces that might shed any light on how they may have been harvested ready for use in this way?
If the damage to the pieces has not been caused by manual extraction and or break up then can we make any judgements about an incident that lead to their creation as fragments?
Following this piece of work I find myself being lead to mentally explore the issue that the pieces all appear to be ‘right sided’.
@Brock McEwen: There were only two parts on the flaperon that had recordable serial numbers: the front and rear spars. Both had serial numbers that could be traced back to 9M-MRO. Even though the missing identification plate remains unexplained, I have little doubt the flaperon is from MH370.
@anyone,
A general question on the Mossel Bay debris piece, the one with the Rolls Royce logo. Under the logo they start with the word “ROY…”, why not with ROLLS? At first glance I was thinking maybe it was Royal Air or Royal something or other. What would it say if all intact, “Royce” Rolls or just “Royce?”
RetdF4 – Glad to see your comments because I got into a head to head with a “hang Shah” posse member way back over the voice recognition issue. During my years in the army I can attest that voices quite typically get lost over the radio. People you have worked with closely for years are hard to identify, impossible even. I recall instances where we did not agree on who was talking. Shah’s wife took ownership of the voice, but not right away.
Difficulty of BTO spoofing –
Perpetual hand wringing over the complications do not alter this simple fact: if state actors set out to do it they would. So the argument really is one of who would and why, and not one of, it’s implausibly hard so forget about it. Electronic/cyber warfare is a rapidly moving(top secret) frontier and some people are commenting from comfortable retirement. 1984 – that even predates the flux capacitor in Back To The Future – by a whole year.
Restating from the previous – the whole SIO narrative from a behavioural sense really belongs in a Hollywood script, so it’s irony to me that spoofing gets lumped in with wild fiction.
@Cheryl,
It would presumably have said Rolls at the top and Royce at the bottom like these RR images from Google
https://www.google.com.au/#q=rolls+royce+engine+logo&gws_rd=cr
But while we are on this subject, there appears to be hole to the left of the logo. It seems extraordinary that a smallish debris fragment has the very recognisable logo on it. If planted, could it have been a larger fragment, nailed or bolted down and sections cut or torn off all around?
@Matty
Maybe state actors could pull it off, but even determined amateurs would struggle and fail. The simplest way to implement BTO spoofing is with a stationary AES located inside the range ring closest to the satellite. Then the spoofing becomes implementing various delays. You would almost have to modify the AES. Implementing the range of delays needed at L-band is virtually impossible. In short, you are looking at quite a science project here.
@jeffwise
Bravo. Thank you so much.
@AM2,
Have a look at the “Roy”; specifically the “o”. Looks a lot like a hit from a shot gun.
Could it have been nailed to a post at some point and used for target practice?
OZ
Nice BBC interview with Blaine Gibson:
http://goo.gl/E4adcN
Back to the debris being found.
A drift model will show debris from a crash site scatters in many different directions and at different speeds due to wind, current, depth in water, size, shape, etc. Some pieces will actually end up in the same location over time but will have taken completely different routes getting there and arrived at different times. A piece of debris might circle an area for a long time before coming to ground. The debris from Japan has been arriving for a long time in many many different locations. Similar scenario to MH370. A lot of the Japanese debris is still out there. So possibly; there is debris still to be found in the ocean from MH370; possibly near the locations of the current findings. Possibly on distant shores.
To explain the debris with little sea life on it. 1) Southern route with colder water, but some sea life would be present or remains would be visible, 2) Short time in water. The short time in water could be at the end of a trip or sometime after impact, say sitting on a beach for months before being washed out to sea again. Or a short travel distance.
To explain the debris with lots of sea life on it. 1) Warm water route during last part of travel. Lots of time in the warm water. 2) The debris took a very circular route to its location. Many days floating at sea in warm water.
Debris that is clean of sea life should be checked for attach points of sea life that have eroded away. Small pieces of calcium deposits will remain after barnacles have eroded away. So bleaching by sun or erosion by wing and sand will leave evidence.
A closer impact area to the debris being found would support clean debris that drifted for a short time in the sea. It would support debris with lots of sea life attached; because of the possible circling of debris.
A far off impact location from the debris being found would only be supported if calcium deposits remain on wind and sun eroded debris.
Comments please.
Does anyone else believe these pieces may have come from mh17 or the twin sister plane of mh370? Could the 2 planes have over lapped flying each other & turned in different directions?
@Crobbie, It certainly would be a very interesting angle to explore, and some people here have offered their opinions, but I think it would be hard to make definitive progress without being able to inspect the material microscopically.
@Ken Goodwin: Apart from drift models, have you made any progress in identifying the Maldives part? I was hoping that with your Boeing background you could put this matter to rest one way or another.
@Victor
Your question raises a point that has had me astounded from the get-go. There have been virtually no leaks from any major player (“insider”) involved in this episode – Boeing, Rolls, BEA, ATSB,… the list goes on and on. It would seem that the insiders are terrified to even post anything much less speak out in public. I cannot think of any major event that parallels this event in that regard. We still do not know the identities of the SSWG. Truly bizarre.
AM2,
Thank you for the specs on the RR logo. I had never seen their logo before so that explains it.
I don’t know what that hole could be. Another puzzling oddity in a case that is shrouded in oddities and mysteries within the main mystery.
Trying to chip away at motive.
If it was about the plane…surely there is a less conspicuous way to steal a 777, why take the lives of 239?
If it was an orchestrated plan (for whatever reason), requiring months or years of planning, incorporating levels of sophistry, it would be almost impossible to contain.
The possibility of Zaharie’s culpability is so absurd to me I will leave it at that.
What about the elusive cargo?
Has the question of security or accessibility for the 9 hour duration between flights ever been answered?
It would be interesting to know the average ground time (routine maintenance between flight) of a 777. For long range planes, was 9 hours excessive? The limited research I did suggested 60-90 minutes but could be totally inaccurate.
Why not release the cargo manifest? Releasing details of the data or military radar could understandably be a possible compromise of classified information but what is the justification for withholding a full cargo manifest? Cargo details of a commercial aircraft (let’s hold the recent missile episode comments) should be innocuous compared to military and technology secrets.
Is it possible there is an investigation happening
on a most covert level and the last 24 months are the result of hasty attempts to keep the public at bay while the investigation proceeds.
Perhaps there was just enough information to indicate this was a world threat while not enough to know who and why. It would explain the success of cohesive sealed lips if the consensus is world jeopardy.
We don’t know who the bad and good guys are at this point making it paramount to keep an open mind until we do.
@Susie Crowe
“Zaharie’s culpability is so absurd to me I will leave it at that.”
Leaving it at that is your only realistic choice. Trying to expound on it would not be wise. Your view would fall apart in less than a paragraph or two.
Once more into the breach dear friends – Henry V
Please forgive this flight of fancy (pun intended). I wonder if we could consider MH370 from these 3 timeframes.
Timeframe 1 – everything up to shutting down the transponder (approx IGARI). During this time everything in the flight acted normal, except maybe the laxity in the verbal responses.
Timeframe 2 – IGARI to MEKAR. This starts to look like a negotiating scenario: shut down the transponder and other electronics, radical turn in the opposite direction, fly erratically in and out of radar tracking, fly along border to avoid interception, fly to international waters. I find it hard to believe that someone could take over the aircraft between the Good night call and the turn so I think it must have been flown by Fariq or Shah, or both. There are radars that can’t be erased so this part was not deleted in Inmarsat files and left on record.
Time 3 – MEKAR to end. If he went south, I think he went in to a holding pattern off of Indonesia while negotiating. Is there a holding pattern that matches Inmarsat data? If no holding pattern, I think he went north and the data was falsified and changed in Inmarsat’s system to give the illusion of an aircraft heading toward the SIO. The pings that did happen were deleted when the ghost pings overwrote the file. The ghost SATCOM log-on doesn’t reference a flight ID and data – 2 doesn’t come on-line. The perps didn’t have time to do a complete hack, they only had time to falsify the pings.
When I mentioned hacking earlier, I wasn’t suggesting access in real time to the aircraft, drones or ground stations. I was referring to accessing Inmarsat’s computer network after the fact and replacing their data files for MH370 with files that showed the pings after MEKAR. No one was real time tracking pings. The last ping Log-on would indicate fuel exhaustion and people would assume a crash. Which tidies the whole thing up quite nicely. I think the abnormal BFO after log-ons is an indication of the ghost data.
I think these pings were falsified and the aircraft is anywhere other than where they are looking. Once clear of MEKAR, the perpetrators (Shah, Fariq or on-board hijacker) would start making demands. Demands were most likely directed to a nation-state and these are some possibilities (not in any particular order):
China had been forcing Malaysia to return the Moslem Uighurs seeking asylum. This would be upsetting to Shah and Fariq who are both Moslems. Most of the passengers are Chinese, however China will not negotiate in such a scenario and promptly shot the plane down. China hacks Inmarsat and cleans up debris.
Malaysia had on that same day found the leader of Shah’s political party guilty and sentenced him to prison. Shah was seeking his release. Plane exhausts fuel while negotiating. Could plane holding pattern be consistent with ping readings?
As part of the war game exercises with Thailand and the US, the plane is accidentally shot down in the Straits. Mike McCoy sees this from his oil rig. In an effort not to de-stabilize the area, Thailand and US military work to clean up the debris and hack Inmarsat.
The plane flies north to Xinjiang China to protest the Uighur deportation. Before national government can respond, all occupants are detained and possibly terminated. The plane is hidden and debris planted.
The plane flies north to Kazakhstan to protest Uighur deportation and negotiate with Chinese. Chinese passengers would be traded for Uighurs in Chinese prisons. China may have shot down the plane as it flew over China or after it landed in Kazakhstan. China does not negotiate for prisoners so the plane doesn’t survive. Kazakhstan is a Moslem state, borders on China and has been a refuge for Uighur separatists.
The plane flies west to Diego Garcia although I’m not sure of motive. Possibly he feels the drone strikes in the Middle East against Moslems are something he wants to protest.
The plane flies north to Russia and Russia is somehow involved, although I am unsure of motive, unless it was a warning to Malaysian leadership, like MH17.
Whoever hacked Inmarsat wanted to send people on a wild goose chase to the middle of the South Indian Ocean. The plane and passengers are not there.
@Ken Goodwin: Apart from drift models, have you made any progress in identifying the Maldives part?
No, I don’t know the specific design of the 777 trailing edge parts. I have not gone to a similar year 777 to check the design. Would really need to talk to the design group or supplier to see part configuration.
I know design approaches for parts. Thus my previous comments.
I do agree with the idea that the interior part is part of a bulkhead that supports a crew seat. The thickness of the honeycomb would support that conclusion. Most simple partition bulkheads have much thinner core.
@OZ and @all. Re: RR debris.
“Have a look at the “Roy”; specifically the “o”. Looks a lot like a hit from a shot gun.”
Maybe, and does any of the damage look like shrapnel damage? I have no idea so won’t comment further.