Even as Flydubai Flight 981 took off from Dubai on March 18, the pilots knew they’d be in for a difficult flight. Bad weather lay ahead at their destination, the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don. As the plane skirted the Caspian Sea and crossed over the Balkans, the situation stayed iffy. By the time the plane approached Rostov airport, a landing looked challenging, but manageable, with rain and winds gusting to 40 mph.
Setting up for an approach from the northeast, the Boeing 737 broke through the cloud base at 1,800 feet and had the airport in sight directly ahead. But gusty conditions meant a risk of windshear—a sudden tailwind could cause the plane to drop out of the sky. Playing it safe, the flight crew did a “go-around,” increasing engine power and climbing away from the runway. For the next hour and a half the plane flew holding patterns, waiting for a break in the storm, but none came. Finally the pilots decided to bring it around for a second try. Once again they descended through the clouds, got the runway in sight, and set up to land. Once again, wild winds forced them to abort. The plane accelerated and nosed back up into the sky.
Later, security cameras on the ground would show the plane disappearing into the overcast sky—and then, mere seconds later, zooming back out of the clouds at a steep angle and impacting the runway in a fireball, instantly killing all 62 people aboard.
The reason for this tragedy, we now know, was not wind nor rain nor simple pilot error. It was an illusion.
For obvious reasons, initial speculation about what went wrong centered on the weather. Perhaps the plane had been hit by lightning or suffered particularly severe turbulence. Mechanical failure might have played a role, too. In several recent accidents, autopilot malfunction has caused planes to dive unexpectedly. And then there were potential psychological factors. Having already flown nearly two hours longer than they expected, with much of that time spent in turbulence, amid the stressful uncertainty of not knowing how and when they would get their passengers on the ground, the flight crew must have been tired. Pilot fatigue and challenging weather make a dangerous combination.
The picture became clearer this past Wednesday with the release of the official preliminary report (pdf) on the accident by Russian aviation officials. Data recovered from the plane’s black boxes ruled out mechanical failure or a violent weather event. The problem, most likely, was that the pilots fell victim to a pernicious form of disorientation called “somatogravic illusion.”
During a go-around after an aborted landing, a plane tends to be lighter than normal since it’s at the end of its flight and has burned up most of its fuel. That means its thrust-to-weight ratio is relatively high, so when the pilot pushes the throttle forward from idle to full thrust the plane accelerates with unusual alacrity. This acceleration pushes pilots back in their seats, which to the inner ear feels exactly the same as tilting upward.
In this case, the plane really is tilting upwards as it climbs away from the runway. But this weird sensation can throw off even seasoned pilots. As long as they can see the ground below them, the true orientation is clear. “When you initiate the go-around and still have some visual reference, you’re fine,” says aviation analyst Gerry Soejatman, “but once you get into the clouds, your senses start to play on you.”
Black-box data show that as the plane started to enter the cloud after the second go-around, the flight crew briefly pushed the controls forward so that its rate of climb decreased, as if the pilots were momentarily disoriented. Then the plane returned to its previous rate of climb. For a few seconds, all was normal. The flight crew members were almost certainly following their instruments, as years of experience had taught them to do. Then, as if suddenly disoriented and unable to believe their instruments were correct, the flight crew pushed the stick far forward. “It takes time for someone to go from ‘Oh, the instruments are saying this,’ to ‘No, no, no, this is all wrong!’ and start pushing,” Soejatman says.
The pilots probably believed they were preventing the plane from getting too nose-high, which could cause the plane to stall and crash. But in reality they were taking a safe situation and turning it deadly. The lurch downward would have caused them to rise up in their seats as though on a roller-coaster zooming over the top of a hill. By the time they rocketed out of the bottom of the cloud and gained a visual sense of their orientation, they were in a 50 degrees vertical dive at more than 370 mph and just a few seconds from impact. There was no time to pull out.
The violence of the resultant impact can be gauged by the by the condition of the remains recovered. From the 62 people aboard the plane, 4295 “samples of biological matter” were collected.
Somatogravic illusions don’t cause plane crashes often, but a 2013 study by the French transportation safety agency identified 16 similar incidents. One crash that happened just two and a half years prior to the FlyDubai crash was eerily similar. Coming into Kazan, Russia, Tatarstan Flight 363 aborted a landing amid low clouds and gusty winds, started to climb out, then suddenly pitched down and plunged into the ground at a steep angle and high speed. All 50 people aboard that 737 were killed.
Wednesday’s report was only a preliminary finding, meaning that investigators’ findings may change. For the time being, however, they’re recommending that pilots undergo fresh training in how to conduct go-arounds under different conditions and study how somatogravic illusions can occur.
This piece was originally published on the Popular Mechanics website.
@Cheryll
probably good for young and old guys working together, mostly in management, to prevent things like this one (ya, we have here traning companies backed by scientology, which train you exactly this aggresive stupid unidirectional style of command and control)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
@Ge Rijn
On the RR piece, there is three different kind of “pitting” marks :
1. Splatter, most likely dried sand (you see it even on the part where the carbon fibre is visible.
2. Marks where the black paint for the RR logo peeled off and the grey paint is now visible. Could be due to the barnacles having been removed. But I doubt it, as this piece seems to have been floating above the surface (no algea marks). But let’s not argue about that.
3. Dents through the grey paint and trough some of the carbon fibre. If you look in the base of the big R (left “leg”) there is such a micro hole. There is about ten or so other places with such dents. Those can’t be barnacles.
What’s your take on these?
Furthermore on the Durban piece, there is two “burn” dark greyish marks on the inside skin. Anybody knows what could have caused that?
@Sinux.
I would seriously answer your question if it was not that I again got some serious problems with the host here.
Obviously throwing subjects in the air for everyone who feels tempted to shoot at it.
I think now, it’s only about attention seeking, adulation seeking behavior.
I’m not in for delivering narcissistic supply to anyone as I feel this is the case.
It would be equel disrespectfull to the victims of this disaster and all their family and friends.
Ge Rijn,
I’ve only been here for a short while, but feel I must put in a good word for Jeff.
I don’t think he is a narcissist. A narcissist would make everything about themselves. He stands back far too much for that, and allows us to comment pretty freely.
I think the situation of closing one blog post in order to comment on another topical subject is just by virtue of the way the site is run – it would be hard to keep track of two topics at once, though as you may have noticed, comment on MH370 is pursued vigorously no matter the headline topic of the day or week.
I don’t think it is disrespectful to invite comment on oher topical issues as well as the one we all probably care the most about.
It’s a blog – a web log of things the author is interested in.
I don’t necessarily agree with Jeff’s take on the whole thing, but there are diverse views here and it’s a place to suggest something or ask a question without being, as it were, shot down, and for that I am really grateful.
I hope you will stay as I for one have found your comments and insights quite interesting.
All the best.
@Ge Rijn
You have expressed very strong opinions here and everyone has listened to what you have to say. I would hope you would extend that same courtesy to others. If you’ve followed the forum you have noticed that the same conversation continues regardless of the direction Jeff sets. Sorry Jeff.
MH370 reached FL350 at 17:01, and promptly radioed the accomplishment to ATC.
From 17:05:44 to 17:08:46, MH370 neared the coast. Heading fluctuated from 24-25 degrees, ground speed fluctuated from 468-471 kts, and climb-rates fluctuated from 0 to -128 fps. However, MH370 maintained FL350, and radioed the accomplishment to ATC.
Perhaps, as the aircraft neared the coast, and the transition from overland to oversea, fluctuating winds aloft and/or turbulence buffeted the plane? Novice would-be pilot Hamid managed to maintain FL350. And, him wanting to get credit for flying a picture perfect textbook flight, ATC was informed of the copilot’s prowess ?? Nothing sinister is implied, only an eager trainee trying to ace his final training flight ???
Over water, out to IGARI, speed accelerated gradually from 468 kts up to 474 kts. I understand that most likely reflects changing winds aloft, and is not to be construed as actual acceleration of the airplane, up to the 480 kts true air-speed specified by a “Cost Index” setting, on ECON AP mode, of 52.
Coastlines witness daily wind cycles, of “land breezes” and “sea breezes”. Turbulence at the transition is intuitively plausible.
@Ge Rijn
Jeff used to leave the comments open on older articles… It was a nightmare to follow…
Obviously there is always a fine line when reporting on disasters. But in this case I think that not talking about it would do more harm than staying silent.
I also really think that analysing the debris is of utter importance. Specially the RR and Durban debris as they are less likely to sustain secondary damage (hit by a piece detached from the plane – as can be seen on the horizontal stabiliser piece). We’re close to a break-through. Up to you if you want to help.
Oleksandr,
Please consider the following, and please make allowances for imprecise language:
BFO = baseline(time) + Actual Dopler Up – Dopler Compensation
= baseline + net uncompensated Dopler
At 18:25, the net uncompensated Dopler = BFO – baseline = +25 to +30 Hz (from Inmarsat paper), i.e. an extra blue-shift
At 00:19, BFO – baseline = -40 to -50 Hz, i.e. a red-shift compared to baseline of other factors
The anomalous BFOs occurred with anomalous BTOs due to 4-5 extra cycles of something requiring 7820 microseconds each. The anomalous BFOs are both “in the same direction above/below baseline” as the immediately preceding BFOs.
And, they are multiples of 5-6x the net uncompensated Dopler shift:
+131 Hz = 5 x 26Hz
-184 Hz = 4 x -46Hz
Is it somehow possible, that the error in the uplink from AES to satellite (about +26Hz at 18:25, about -44Hz at 00:19) is compounded, by each 7820 microsecond loop delay? Such that the anomalous BFOs actually tell us the time-varying baseline (= Dopler Down + GES + fixed bias + pilot frequency error) BFOs?
142 Hz = compensation error + baseline
273 Hz = compensation error + baseline + 5*compensation error from 5*7820us loop delay
+131 Hz = 5*compensation error
–> compensation error = +26Hz
–> baseline = 116 Hz
182 Hz = compensation error + baseline
-2 Hz = compensation error + baseline + 4*compensation error from 4*7820us delay
-184 Hz = 4*compensation error
–>compensation error = -46 Hz
–>baseline = 228 Hz
Why ?
Because humans tolerate +G better than -G ?
@Gysbreght wrote The fastener we’re talking about is not at the trailing edge. It attaches the #3 upper forward torque box panel to the front spar of the main torque box at between 25% and 30% chord of the horizontal tail.
The tolerances are part and area of the airplane specific. Tighter forward; looser aft. I would guess fastener flushness tolerances of +.000/-.003 for the forward ½ of the horizontal tail.
Note: My comments are my own, I retired from Boeing, I am using my memory. If I had the 777 Boeing Dwg for this part, or specifically the CATIA dataset, in front of me; I would not post it to this blog. Specific info from a Boeing Dwg or from a picture taken within the factory would need to go through a release process; unless it is in the public domain. I followed the rules.
Cheryl
FI describes at least 3 IDs
Flight ID “MAS370” stored in AIMS computers in EE-bay
Transponder code “A2157” assigned by ATC and programmed into the transponders on the ground
AES ID “1123581321…” or something like that stored in the SDU
I think the AES ID is like the IMEI # of your cellphone, or the product ID of your computer, being assigned by the manufacturer. FI is ambiguous regarding whether or not the AES ID was transmitted by the IFE during the 18:25 & 00:19 logons. I would guess that the SDU always knows its own hard-coded ID, which is always the same on every flight, but I’m not sure, that’s just my best, or least bad, guess 🙂
There’s going to be a webinar on corrosion protection for aluminum aerospace applications at 2PM EDT, in case anyone’s interested. Produced by compositeworld.com; going to be another one tomorrow on impact analysis.
https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/1817905410193028354
+1 Susie.
Ge Rijn – There’s lots of cool stuff on this blog. I’m glad too, because after two years of the same thing it provides a nice break. I recommend checking some of it out if you haven’t yet. There is also the option of starting your own (if you haven’t already), as others have done. I would imagine providing interesting conversation for such a long time for so many people is difficult though. Good luck if you choose to do so.
@Ken Goodwin: Well, it’s your guess against mine, I guess.
@erik nelson
This is out of my field, but I do want to point out, all data registered are true data. There are no errors. The computers registered exactly what happened.
@Ge Rijn: as a long-standing (charter?) member of the “there’s something not right about this search” club, I, too, will stand up for Jeff on this one.
1) Even if we are chest-deep in a cover-up – and even if this includes online narrative management (an almost iron-clad corollary) – my personal view is that in most cases, we are boxing our own shadow, simply because unfamiliarity breeds contempt.
It is human nature to suspect the motives of anyone you don’t know personally who disagrees. If any such person expresses themselves in a way which undermines – or merely deflects attention away from – your pet theory, suspicion is entirely understandable.
But entirely inappropriate, I am coming to believe; while I do think it likely some keyboard jockeys are indeed hard at work abetting a cover-up, my guess is that roughly 99 of every 100 are doing so unwittingly; they are contributing with best intentions, and simply calling it as they see it. Jeff himself has written very recently about the “group-think” effect that inhibits proper challenging of authority, in the context of the April, 2014 acoustic ping fiasco. So you’ve picked an odd target for your attack.
2) Looking at other crashes may well offer insight into “our” crash. It’s not like Jeff decided to investigate the price of eggs, here.
3) It is Jeff’s blog; he can post whatever he wants. He is also well within his rights to restrict the comments to whatever subjects he wishes, and block all who don’t abide. He has not done this, except under exceptional circumstances. The criteria for excommunication seem to me heavily weighted toward maintaining a respectful tone. Something to think about.
@retiredF4
It look’s like the panic of Air France 447, but in opposite way. While because of loss of altitude AF447 pilot pulled the commands until the stall warning vibrations caused them to panic, here because of climbing too steep the pilot ran the nose down trim until they, not fastened, floated in the cockpit…
I used Mathematica to calculate the contribution to BFOs, near the FMT, deriving from the aircraft-to-satellite uplink, less the onboard compensation computed by the SDU onboard the aircraft, which ignores vertical velocity (+/- climb), and assumes the satellite is at its nominal location with nominal velocity of zero.
Assuming a horizontal ground speed of 500kts, the net uncompensated Dopler-shift oscillates between +/- 40Hz (ballpark), with maximum blue-shift near due north, and maximum red-shift near due south. That’s because the satellite was located about 1.6 degrees north of the equator at the FMT time, such that a/c velocities northwards are not completely compensated by the SDU, leaving a positive residual Dopler-blue-shift, and a/c velocities southwards are over-compensated, inducing a negative red-shift.
According to, i.e. implied by the figures within, the Inmarsat journal article, the “baseline” (my term) BFO, owing to all other factors, was about +116Hz at the FMT time. So, the observed actual measured values near +143Hz or so, imply a net uncompensated blue-shift error from the a/c of about +26Hz. And, according to my sinusoidal graph, that is completely consistent with a heading of 295 degrees WNW, i.e. the last-known heading of the a/c.
Moreover, there is no mathematical way, to kick the BFOs up another +30Hz or so, up to the values near +175Hz at 18:27… without inputting a positive rate-of-climb. Even if the plane turned almost exactly due north, the BFO residual would only have increased about +15Hz to about +40Hz (from the +26Hz residual at 18:25, and again at 18:28).
Simplifying this discussion:
18:25 +26Hz 295deg 0climb
18:27 +56Hz ?? ??
18:28 +26Hz 295deg 0climb
Assuming that the a/c flew straight, on the same 295deg heading, then a positive climb rate of about 1350-1500fpm would be required, to boost the BFOs up the remaining +30Hz, to +56Hz above “baseline”, from +26Hz.
18:25 +26Hz 295deg 0climb
18:26 ????????????????????
18:27 +56Hz 295deg +1500fpm
18:28 +26Hz 295deg 0climb
+1500fpm near FL350 is, I understand, a power-climb. Also sounds like a “step climb” of one +2000′ increment.
So, the data can be explained, with one single maneuver by the aircraft, if it stayed its course off radar on heading 295, and made one step climb of +2000′ over 1-2 minutes from 18:26-18:27, whilst the a/c was approx. due north of waypoints SANOB & ANSAX & Banda Aceh.
If so, then a step-climb near Banda Aceh & Maimum Saleh airports would be challenging to reconcile with any “pilots desired & tried to land [there]” scenario.
Please note one other thing… KL to IGARI was 40 minutes with an “Initial Major Turn” (IMT) of 115 degrees… Penang to FMT was about 40 minutes with a FMT of 100-110 degrees. Visually, on a map, it appears you could largely overlap the KL->IGARI+IMT leg with the Penang->FMT leg.
@Jeff – as a lurker for 2 years (and hopefully one of reasonably balanced mind) – thank you for a fantastic blog. On the contrary to the comments of one recent person, I’ve only sensed humility and fairness, so well done on navigating the tricky role of host. You’ll never please everyone I suppose, especially those disposed to strong, ungrounded opinions. Look forward to more posts!
@Tr1ptych, Thanks for your words of support, much appreciated.
@Erik Nelson: A number of us looked at this closely about a year ago. I proposed that the aircraft did a “sidestep maneuver” to the north combined with a climb of 200 fpm before returning to the 296-deg track. This satisfies the both BFO and the BTO, which cannot be satisfied with a straight track. The BFO at 18:25:34 is 273 Hz, and either this value is not valid or there was a steep climb of 5400 fpm at this time. Most of us now choose to ignore the value of 273 Hz, although some have proposed possible anomalies of the SDU to explain why the BFO jumped to this value. As you know, Inmarsat said the first BFO value of the log-on sequence is valid, but other values might not be.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ovbbo7yx313xzb8/Lateral%20Offset.png?dl=0
I am aware that this is very bad timing, as this posting comes on the heels of the very unfair and absurd criticism of Jeff Wise above (for merely posting a new blog post), but:
from: http://jeffwise.net/2016/04/14/mh370-debris-was-planted-ineptly
@ Jeff:
With all due respect, you also forbade discussion about
– lightning strike
– radio contact between MH370 and MH88
– GeoResonance
– Diego Garcia
– Christmas/Cocos Islands (valuable contributor DennisW was threatened to be banned and left)
– and various other theories
thus also “restricting the discussion to acceptable explanations”, which you yourself concede is a “fatal trap”.
(To back up my claims I am able provide quotes, where you threatened to ban users, if they continue to discuss one of the abovementioned topics.)
Back in early 2015, I wrote a comment, which I ended up not posting (maybe I should have), thinking you would delete it anyways and ban me like others:
***
@Jeff: Watching you via sat over here in Europe. You are one of my favourite guests at CNN, always providing some thoughtful insight (as much as the often times superficial and sometimes outright stupid CNN anchor questions allow you to do that). Your spoof scenario was one of the most intriguing read of all my life, more riveting than every thriller I have seen. Its forte is, that you thought about every little detail. As unlikely as the scenario might be, it is the ONLY one I have read so far, which is capable of explaining EVERYTHING! My hat goes off to you.
One thing that disappoints me however — especially since you come across as such a nice guy on TV — is, that you are quite authoritarian in your forum moderation. Maybe you could try to be a bit more democratic and believe in freedom of speech, which is the basis of democracy. I do understand, that you feel the need to intervene in case of foul language (e.g. “shark lasers is an idiot”) and it’s arguably legitimate to do so (even though I think, that those comments disqualify all by themselves and will be either ignored or calmed by other users). But when arguments are brought forward in both a polite and factual manner, I really urge you not to delete these posts (or worse ban the users). (I am thinking in particular about your threatening to ban valued contributors, just because they dared to speak about suspected radio contact between MH370 and MH88, but that’s just one example out of many.) Please stop banning contributors just for http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoughtcrime .That’s not democratic.
The disappearance of MH370 is a truly multifaceted event that is in dire need of a heteroclite set of minds and opinions, if we aspire to solve this riddle. This line of thought has been expressed by numerous users here already.
But other than that, thank you for this excellent blog.
Erik Nelson,
Re: “The anomalous BFOs occurred with anomalous BTOs due to 4-5 extra cycles of something requiring 7820 microseconds each.”
How could extra cycles affect BFO? Why would BFO correction terms be accumulated? Also, there is a physical component, in your terms “Actual Dopler Up”, which cannot be proportional to the number of cycles.
Re: “Moreover, there is no mathematical way, to kick the BFOs up another +30Hz or so, up to the values near +175Hz at 18:27… without inputting a positive rate-of-climb.”
Absolutely wrong. There are many mathematical ways. Furthermore, ascent 18:27 would likely cause the aircraft to reappear on the radars, which makes it less likely. Actually I am leaning towards moderate descent starting 18:22, perhaps combined with the turn northward.
@Greg Long
RetiredF4: “Even fighter crews try to avoid negative g”
Why ?
Because humans tolerate +G better than -G ?
Let us check the numbers first, before explaining my point.
– The normal acceleration is +1g
– Increase it by 1, and you get +2g
– Increase it by 2, and you get +3g.
– Decrease it by 1, and you get +/-0g
– Decrease it by 2, and you get -1g
Concerning the load change we can compare the +3g accelaration to the -1g acceleration. I think everybody gets the point. While the pure number -1g looks smallish, it represents a big change to the normal loadfactor.
What is special about negative g? Human senses and the environment around us is relying on a positive g load, +1g being the normal one for any being on earth 24/7. Fighter pilots are trained to use some negative g load (up to about -3g) during evasive maneuvers in air combat environment. They are tightly strapped to the ejection seat, they make sure that no loose items are lying around in the cockpit during the whole flight and all zippers are closed. Despite that you might not find much pilots who would enjoy those negative g`s more than absolutely necessary for the accomplishment of the mission.
Back to FlyDubai. If the reported value of -1g is true, then I have no doubt that they had been ill prepared for such a negative acceleration. Everything loose would have parted its original resting place. A pilot not strapped in tight, and I mean that proverbal, would be floating in the harness or even might have been forced out of the harness, and feel detached from the seat and the aircraft controls.
The combination of the ill prepared cockpit environment and the unknown effects on the body might lead to unability to control the aircraft in an apropriate way. Reversing this negative g load to a positive g load has again effects, everything crashing down again someplace not supposed to be. If a pilot was forced out of his seat, he would not necessarily end up in his seat again.
@Marc
I do not believe that the activation of the trim for 12 seconds was intentional. It is one of the first things you learn in manual flying: You change the attitude of an aircraft by using the primary flight controls, and after that you trim away a resulting remaining force. With autopilot on you neither make manual contol inputs nor use trim. When intending to do so you disengage the autopilot first.
@RetiredF4: many thanks for your excellent explanation!
@RetF4
Good post.
But autopilot was not on.
From the interim report:
Longtime lurker here…I too enjoy reading the posts and comments.
I am no expert but am fascinated with the various permutations related to MH370.
I follow this blog daily and appreciate everyone’s hard work in attempting to solve this mystery. I just have a question or I guess a mind boggling disbelieve that the debris field which was seen and photographed by French satellites was not and doesn’t seem to be in place as a possible location. Maybe it will be now with the controlled ditch possibility? I am not sure of the validity of the link included but it had many images which peaked my interest. Any thoughts? Apologies if this has been discussed previously or the link is no Bueno.
https://thehuntformh370.info/content/possible-mh370-debris-sighting-sio
@Christine. I share your view that it is astonishing that the only thing out there that looks very much like a credible debris field has been studiously ignored since 27 March 2014. The reason is not that the sat detections are not credible – they were regarded at the time as “the best lead yet”. The trouble is that they don’t jibe with the BTO range / 7th arc. You couldn’t even get there gliding (its at least 300NM beyond the arc). So if you take BTO as gospel, you have to “ignore” this otherwise credible piece of evidence. Or, if you believe that the debris field may be for real, you need to suspend belief in the BTO…
@Victorl
“As you know, Inmarsat said the first BFO value of the log-on sequence is valid, but other values might not be”
excuse me, you repeated this statement again – but, was not this rather that first one or few after logon are invalid and subsequent then valid? I am confused now, feel free to post some link, please; or was this description reversed at some time?? tnx
BTW, OT
I am seriously in doubt what the simplex media ducks think about intents and confusions of US foreign policy, really. Illusion or reality – Obama is right with soft power, the same as others do now, together. Souls of people are much more important than any green and steel equipment, these days.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyK7YuwUWsU
@VictorI,
apologies if already discussed and closed, but I was wondering how you feel about your ‘scenario with a landing at Banda Aceh’ nowadays? (To me it was the first scenario that made any sense. )
@Victorl
really peeking again quite naively into Data Communication Logs (and the Update, scanned and OCRed with OxlO + 0xlS), it seems that in-flight pair of 0x10 logon + 0x15 ack has simply invalid values, but pre-flight pair has at least 0x15 ack good … and any standalone subsequent 0x15 acks (so called also pings) are fine too (??)
@falken: Please read Section 5.3, Refinement of BFO Samples, of the paper by Ashton et al.
http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2FNAV%2FNAV68_01%2FS037346331400068Xa.pdf&code=8ac25c0c646c136bf111c69b82140018
@falken: The second transmission during the log-on sequences at 18:25 and 00:19 have abnormal BFO and BTO values. I ignore these two BTO/BFO pairs and use all the other values of BTO and BFO.
@Carla: I proposed the Banda Aceh scenario within several months of the disappearance. It requires precise collaboration at the airport and a pilot willing to perform a suicide run into the SIO. Since that time, no whistleblowers or witnesses have surfaced, and the search in the SIO near to the associated end point has turned up empty. I don’t completely dismiss it, but it has fallen in ranking on my list of possible scenarios.
@Victorl
thanks, understood;
kindly please, let me review again this too:
as first in-flight pair 0x10 + 0x15 shows, its followed by about 90 seconds of radio silence, so after 2nd pair occured (if not caused by tech trouble/crash), there is probably the same 90 secs window to switch off comms completelly again (manually?) to be stealth for something (landing?), which can happen any time in following hour until next GES expiration ping try will be logged – but we can have log cut-off too, the same as we got it without the ground logon initially from Inmarsat?
@NYBanker, Thanks, great to hear from you!
@Peter Norton
True, but I don’t think RF4 was suggesting that the AP was on during the approach. The pilots had plenty of time to trim the aircraft prior to final, and they would not be screwing around with trim on an approach.
As an aside, I have found that commercial pilots are a bit lazy with respect to trim in any case. On intercity German flights you can see the control surfaces working pretty hard (under AP control) during cruise, and when the pilots turn off the AP for approach, the aircraft flutters around like a potato chip for a few seconds.
@Greg Long, Thanks for your kind words about this blog, and I certainly welcome your critique. I try to have as big a tent as possible, and only turf people out very rarely–I don’t think I’ve done more than one or two this year. There are quite a few theories that I think cannot be made to jibe with the data in a reasonable way (i.e. without invoking multinational conspiracies) but I haven’t banned their proponents–indeed, some of the most useful MH370 investigators back scenarios that I think are untenable. (And they feel the same way about me, btw.) I guess the long and short of it is that if you try to run a forum like this you’ll quickly find that if left unattended a handful of people will quickly suck up all the oxygen and make useful discussion impossible and you have to throw them out. One last thing: many of the people who find themselves at this blog are relatively new to the MH370 game, and if someone posts a comment that includes information that has been discredited or ruled out they will be none the wiser. So I feel that part of my job is to keep that thing from creeping in.
@paulsmithson …. Thank you for your response!!! That helps me to u see stand it a little better. But in the same regard those images are from the 26th …. The flight obviously crashed much sooner. No reverse drift models could have been used (at least guidelines) to where is actually had crashed. It clearly drifter for quite a few days. Has that been done and it was inconsistent as well?
I feel like although we have a lot of new information, data etc but maybe going back to the beginning and “removing” knows to just look at best evidence would be helpful. The NOK deserve better.
Thanks everyone
@Christine. Images were captured by 5 different satellites between 15 and 26 March 2014. There is a rather crude Chinese reverse-drift model, based on the two earliest sightings only (16th and 18th). I understand that CSIRO also reverse drifted (and forward-drifted) these objects in the early days for the search, but those drift model results were never released/authorised for release.
@Dennis
I thank myself lucky I’ve not been on any German domestic (inter-city) flights. I wouldn’t relish being flung around like a potato crisp (English) in the breeze, ad the autopilot relinquishes.
@ROB
I used to travel there a lot with an ex-Luftwaffe pilot (my country manager). He would always scold the cockpit crew on his way out. I don’t know what was said (all German), but everyone was always laughing so I guess it was all good camaraderie stuff.
@Paul Smithson – Weren’t all or at least most drifting studies completed using a float with a drogue? Those studies would show the direction and speed of the main currents but perhaps not applicable to wind and surface currents.
Could the initial impact debris have been pushed south for the first 2-3 weeks?
New results from Geomar reported (in German, Found on twitter)
http://www.kn-online.de/News/Aktuelle-Nachrichten-Schleswig-Holstein/Schleswig-Holstein/Geomar-Wissenschaftler-aus-Kiel-auf-der-Spur-von-MH370
The gist of it:
Geomar’s earlier modelling (flaperon only) apparently excludes the far south crash zone and requires a crash much further north.
They re-ran their model with the newly found Mozambique and South African pieces and claim “those finds match their model perfectly”, i.e, re-inforce “much further north”.
They have reported their findings to Australia (ATSB?) and have received initial inquiries from them.
Seems ATSB puts some weight on their findings, has some doubts creeping in.
I feel for the folks who support the “it’s further south” family of theories. I share their sense that the empty search box to date must mean something – and that the quickness with which the “deep south” air search was abandoned certainly does seem very odd.
And it sure has a loyal following out there in the MH370 zeitgeist (Bailey, Sandilands, Gunson, etc.), as well as in this forum.
However: even if those grainy images of debris at 43-45s latitude WERE the remnants of an impact, I submit the following:
1) I was told 3-4 metres was a conservative estimate of ocean swell for the day in question, even at 38s. The further south you go, the higher, in general, these swells would be. So if MH370 impacted at 43-45s latitude, a very large amount of debris should have been generated – REGARDLESS of whether or by whom it was piloted.
2) The further south you go, the more bizarre the absence of debris in Australia becomes – and the more impossible the PRESENCE of a flaperon at Réunion after only 15.7 months becomes. See, for example, the map near the bottom of the linked article, which I have confirmed actually used a starting point of 44s (i.e. the original air search epicentre):
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-33750811
Ironically, this map was used by many – including some who should have known better – to show the world how VALID the flaperon’s appearance was after 15.7 months. If you look at the graphic carefully, it is crystal clear that, even after 18 months, the distribution is still nowhere near Réunion. Even the extreme statistical outliers take fully 24 months to reach it. (Dr. Pattiaratchi later published an updated graphic summarizing a model run which had repositioned the start point up to roughly 30s latitude – which just barely brought Réunion back into the realm of feasibility within the required 15.7 month period.)
@MuOne
If I remember rightly, Geomar’s results based on the flaperon alone, gave an end point so far north, that few observers/commentators gave it much serious consideration when announced. It was completely at odds with both the DSTG Bayesian analysis and Connor’s Monte Carlo analysis of the ISAT data.
@retiredF4:
“It is one of the first things you learn in manual flying: You change the attitude of an aircraft by using the primary flight controls, and after that you trim away a resulting remaining force.”
That’s true, and that’s what I have always done, yet I have seen a pilot in a simulator in New Zealand controlling the angle of descent by only pushing switches (electric trim wheel) without applying first a force on the commands, but only for periods of time of less than 1 second. I cannot see why a pilot needs to push the trim for 12 seconds. But if this was not intentional, the pilot would have said something like “damn!” Nothing in the CVR recording?