Some new information about suspected MH370 debris found in Africa:
1) Last month I wrote about a photograph taken of the “Rolls Royce” fragment three months before it was discovered by Neels Kruger and turned over to the authorities. This double discovery struck me as such a remarkable coincidence that I reached out to the man who took the photograph, Schalk Lückhoff, a 73-year-old retired doctor who lives about an hour away from the discovery site. I was fortunate enough to catch Dr Lückhoff just before he left on a monthlong photo safari to Kruger National Park. At the start of the interview I was under the impression that Neels Kruger found the piece the second time at Mossel Bay, 10 km from the Klein Brak River, but as Dr Lückhoff makes clear, this is not the case; Kruger also found the piece at at the mouth of Klein Brak river, about 250 m from where Lückhoff had photographed it. (Klein Brak is within the Mossel Bay municipality, hence the confusion.) Below is an edited transcript of our conversation.
SL: I belong to a local photographic club… and I was on my way to photograph fast-flowing water as the lagoon was emptying into the sea, and this was early morning, in fact I saw on my picture the exact time I took it was twenty minutes past seven on the 23rd of December. And I was the first one on the beach and I walked toward the river, and there was this clean piece of beach where no one had walked and I saw this object lying in the middle of it, and I just thought, well, it was probably just an old notice board or something, so I just took a picture in passing and I went on because I was in a hurry to get to the river, you see. And then when I came back later in the day it was gone, but by then there has been a high tide as well and I now, in retrospect I thought that this high tide pushed it into the river, the lagoon, or there’s also lots of holidaymakers that time of year, somebody might have picked it up and carried it into the lagoon, I don’t know… And then what happend was I never paid attention to this because I didn’t recognize it for what it was, as I say I was more interested in the pictures I was going to take, and the result was that about three months later there was a news thingy with the piece that Neels Kruger picked up [specifically, an article by Eugene Gunning in the Afrikaans-language Netwerk 24], and looking at this I thought, ‘This looks very familiar,’ and I went through, went back and looked through my pictures, and I found it there full of barnacles. And that’s the story.
JW: So then you reached out to Eugene Gunning?
SL: Yes, in fact I didn’t know who to contact because I immediately realized this might be important puzzle, or a piece in the puzzle, you see, so I contacted Eugene and he put me on to Neels, and very interesting chat about it, and he put me onto the Australian, what’s it, Transport Safety…
JW: ATSB.
SL: And I contacted them and sent them one of my pictures and they took it from there. They said to me that this was rather important, because it actually puts the date of actually three months earlier, because Neels only found it three months after I did. And what puzzled them was why there were no any marine life on this one, and of course I could explain that, because there’s a whole host of seabirds that nests on the banks of that river every night, I’m sure they must have picked it clean.
JW: Interesting!
SL: What’s your interest in this?
JW: I’ve been covering this for two years now, and of course for a long time we wondered why aren’t there any pieces of this mysterious plane, and then they started to turn up, and like the Australians I wondered, how come it’s so clean? Because there was one that washed up on Reunion Island that had all kinds of barnacles on it. Some people had speculated that some kind of creature might have picked it clean, but when your photograph came out, that was just very powerful evidence that that must have been exactly what happened.
SL: Yes.
JW: How do you think it wound up — you found it at this place, Klein Brak, and then it wound up in I guess, Mossel Bay is 15 km way or something?
SL: Yes, Mossel bay is about 10 km further on. You know, originally I said to Joe in Australia, I said to him that I was, when I walked past there the next day, this thing wasn’t there anymore, and I just gathered that it went back into the sea. And then when Neels picked this thing up, I said, “But it’s highly impossible that anything like that washing back into the sea, with the wind and all the sea currents and stuff around that area, would wash up in exactly the same spot three months later. What are the chances of that? It’s literally zero.” So my deduction was that this thing was washed up in the lagoon and the sandbanks in this lagoon changes all the time, and so does the dunes around there, from the prevailing southeasterly wind in summer, which blows everything up the river, you know, if it floats it will obviously move up into the lagoon, and that’s what I thought. It’s the most logical thing that it could have been in the same area three months later.
JW: So how do you reconcile the seemingly impossible thing? You would expect that the wind would blow it up into the lagoon, but instead it somehow seems to have washed back out into the sea, and gotten—I don’t know, how does it wind up where Neels found it?
SL: In retrospect I doubt whether it washed back into the sea. It was just my original impression, because it wasn’t there after the next high tide. I didn’t go up along, I had no reason to walk up the riverside at the time, and this thing was lying right at the river’s mouth, on the east of the side of the river, just at the mouth where the sea washed it up. During the course of the day, it was midsummer, it was our holiday season and that whole area there are hundreds of holidaymakers bathing in the sun and sitting there, kids playing in the river and the lagoon and so on, so it’s not impossible that anyone might have picked it up and even carried it up higher into the river, I don’t know. I can only speculate. But all I can say is, I think the chances that it washed out to sea and then came back three months later is impossible. So the only chance is that this thing somehow, either by human hand or by wind and water and what have you, ended up in the deeper part of the lagoon, and probably floated around there until it beached where Neels eventually found it. But who knows, you can only speculate on it.
JW: I quickly glanced at a map the other day. Where Neels found it wasn’t near the lagoon was it?
SL: It was on the bank, in fact it was exactly, we had to pinpoint it on Google and we measured it, it’s about 250 meters north of where I saw it the first time. And it was actually lying next to some washed up logs there on the edge of the sand. But now if you look at your Google Maps, it looks different from what it looks like now, or what it looked like in December, because that river, as the tide goes in and out, the sandbanks alters all the time. So you can’t—I’ve got a picture of exactly what things were like at that time in December. All I know is that there were lots of holidaymakers in that area every day. This thing might have drifted up in the river with the next high tide, and perhaps helped by the wind which blows upriver, and it might have beached somewhere and got covered in sand by kids playing or whatever and when the beach changed again, we’ve recently had a fair amount of rain in January and February, and often that river comes down and brings lots of logs and all sorts of stuff down. It might have washed open again. As I say, one can only speculate.
JW: I misunderstood, I thought he found it 10 km away.
SL: No, no, no, no! Actually, he gave me the spot on Google Maps and also the, he told me where to look, there’s a big log that’s lying there on the riverbank which has been lying there for more than a year now, since the last big flood we had, and he picked it up just next to that. I actually walked the distance the other day to go and pinpoint the area.
JW: So people were saying Mossel Bay but they really meant Klein Brak.
SL: Yes, it’s all in Klein Brak, in fact where he found it is about 250 meters from where I saw it.
JW: Did you only take the one picture at the time?
SL: You know what happened is, at the time I actually took two pictures, and some time in January my picture library became so big that I started removing some duplicates, and in fact I now realize that the other one was removed at that time. But what I did was, I had two and I just left the better one. You couldn’t really choose between them because they were taken at the same time and with the same camera.
JW: Same angle and everything?
SL: So this was the better picture… It’s such a coincidence, if I didn’t pick up that newspaper article, I wouldn’t even have known that I had the picture.
2) It occurred to me that the Lückhoff photograph would provide an important data-point for reverse-drift models, so I reached out to the GEOMAR institute in Germany, whose work I’ve described previously. I asked “Is your team looking at updating its findings in light of this new data, which provide a much narrower time window for the arrival of this debris?” I received the reply, “Such an endeavour will require a significant amount of time and effort in terms of the coordination and analysis. Given the lack of response from the Australian search authorities, and the still large uncertainty concerning the beaching of the debris, we do not intend on refining our analysis further at this stage.”
3) In another amazing coincidence, it turns out that Hong Kong-based aviation journalist Florence de Changy, who has made many important contributions toward solving the mystery of MH370, has a son who went to university in Canada with a young man whose brother found the most recent piece of debris in Mozambique. He wrote to Florence:
The piece was found right by a lodge called Cristina’s Lodge located on the Macaneta Peninsula on Sunday, 22nd of May, 2016. The piece was roughly 1 x 1.5 meters and about 15 cm thick. It did not have any metal on it and had the honeycomb inside. Hence, it was not very heavy and could be easily carried by one person. It did not look necessarily old and seemed as though it had only been on the beach for less than a week. The first time we found it (22/05/2016) it was at the high water line and it was fully exposed. It was found when it was low tide. We initially left the piece there but when we came back on the 28th of May, it was pushed a little higher up the beach by the ocean. It was not very noticeable and my mother found it when she was looking for drift wood along the beach. I got into contact with BBC on Thursday, 26nd of May, and they put me into contact with the Australian Transport Safety Board. I gave the piece to Eng. Jeremias Fr. Chito, a Technical Administrator at the Civil Aviation Center in Maputo, Mozambique.
Based on the photos’ metadata, they were taken at location S25 51 48.51, E32 44 38.25 (-25.863475, 32.743958) on 5/28,2016 at around 1:07 pm. Here’s one photo; the full set of 13 in high resolution can be found in this Dropbox folder.
Hi Jeff, I was involved with a project to harness energy from the Agulhas current which flows down the eastern coast of Africa and we found it to be constant at 4,5km per hour for most of the year. The dispute of left and right depends if your point of view is from the image or from the viewer, coriolis effect makes our water spiral opposite direction down the drain to the northern hemisphere, left is left and right is right, right?
@MuOne:
You are right on an insignificant detail, but wrong on the main argument.
A windvane always points in the direction of the wind, right? If you look closely, it doesn’t. A sudden change in the wind direction will exert a force on the windvane, to make it turn. The winvane has a certain moment of inertia, so it will not turn instantaneously but will take a certain time to accelerate to the required rotational velocity. Having aquired that rotational velocity, it will swing past the position where it is aligned with the wind to the other side, and back again. A windvane is constructed with a low moment of inertia, there is some friction in its mechanism as well as aerodynamic damping, and changes in wind direction can be rapid but are never instantaneous, so most of the time the lag between wind direction and vane position can be ignored for practical purposes.
An airplane also has a moment of inertia, so its yawing motion will show a certain time lag in response to a change in wind direction. During that time lag the airplane will not be aligned with the airspeed so transiently there will be a certain amount of sideslip and resultant lateral force, which will affect the airplane’s direction of movement, the track.
The models of Oleksandr and sk999 do not involve a sudden large change of windspeed or direction, but are addressing subtle changes extented over hours. Therefore in those models the dynamic effects described above are insignificant. The main argument stands: for practical purposes, the airplane never sideslips in cruise flight. To change the direction of the track requires a horizontal force perpendicular to the track, and that requires the airplane to be banked.
Gysbreght,
Re “A sudden change in the wind direction will exert a force on the windvane, to make it turn. The winvane has a certain moment of inertia, so it will not turn instantaneously but will take a certain time to accelerate to the required rotational velocity.”
Do you know the difference between force and moment of force? I have feeling you confuse these things.
Re: “The models of Oleksandr and sk999 do not involve a sudden large change of windspeed or direction, but are addressing subtle changes extented over hours.”
(a/b)×b=a. Do you agree? Hint: b is the time interval.
Re: “To change the direction of the track requires a horizontal force perpendicular to the track, and that requires the airplane to be banked.”
The first part is correct. The second part is wrong. Here you again mix up aerodynamic with controlled turn. Banking induces horizontal force because the lift force vector is not parallel to g. But this has nothing to do with the lateral drag, the existence of which is denied by you.
Hi Jeff,do drift models include stable currents such as the Agulhas flows at 4,5kmh south along SA’s eastern coast, I know we were going to harness its hydro energy. Maybe left is the perspective as if you were in the pic. coriolis effect makes our drain water spiral in the opposite direction to the northern hemisphere. left is left right is right, right?
@Gysbreght,
“You are right on an insignificant detail, but wrong on the main argument.”
Your supporting evidence of me being wrong on the main argument, to me, sounds like pretty much supporting the opposite, i.e. my main argument.
Re swing past and back again, I was sort of expecting that retort. I left it out of my idealized gedanken experiment argument so as not to over complicate it.
You would agree, that whether it does or does not overshoot is dependent on the magnitude of dampening in the system. In the case of the wind vane (and probably the aircraft as well), yes I’d agree, it does overshoot, oscillate around the new equilibrium heading with reducing heading deviation amplitude, until dampening removes the oscillation all together and the system settles in the new no-side-slip, new heading, state.
What is important here is, that, having this time delay, will introduce a deviation from the ideal (of following the same track without cross track error).
Even though these deviations maybe instantaneously negligible for any one small change in the environmental conditions, they would accumulate over the duration of the hours long flight. The total effect may well not be negligible in terms of terminal location.
While I have no idea about the actual magnitude of this effect (I haven’t done the maths and refer to Oleksandr), my argument stands, that a model considering these effects would have to be superior to one that doesn’t. We need to look at the model outputs, with and without that effect, to make a distinction about whether or not it has any practical effect.
So my hope is that you can rather accept the existence of this effect and pick holes (peer-review) Oleksandr’s papers on the basis of other potential errors, rather than on the basis of terminology, perceived negligibility, or something else of that nature.
@Oleksandr,
One way of clearing this dispute may be to produce a set of comparative paths that show the effects of inclusion or not of this effect. (Apologies, if you already have done this)
Gysbreght,
I suggest you to read the textbook I cited earlier:
Mohammad Sadraey. Aircraft Design: A Systems Engineering Approach. Wiley Publications, 2012, 792p.
Specifically see Chapter 12: Rudder Design.
The figure I used in my report is modified Fig 12.5: Forces and angles in crosswind crabbed landing. I deleted denotations, which were not required for my purpose – hence “modified”. I understand you mind calling it “crabbed landing” as during crabbed landing the rudder must be in neutral position according to you.
The lateral force and moment generated by the crosswind, the existence of which you deny, is given by (12.113), and schematically shown in Fig 12.6.
Do you agree or disagree that an aircraft is subjected to the same aerodynamic forces during cruise flight in varying wind conditions as during crosswind landing?
If disagree, then how do you explain that lateral air flow does not generate any force? Or how do you explain moment of force without force? If you suggest bank to compensate lateral drag, then it is already about aircraft’s feedback response.
Note, underlying assumption in my ATT model is that AP maintains zero bank, which appears to be consistent with what FCOM says. Non-zero bank would be required to maintain heading or track in HDG or TRK HOLD modes to compensate for the side force until heading is adjusted to new wind conditions, in contrast to the ATT mode.
@David Opperman, I was only joking.
@Oleksandr:
Trying to explain something that goes against your erroneous preconceptions is obviously a waste of time. Perhaps some day you will see the light, but I doubt it.
@MuOne: The point of mentioning the overswing and oscillations of a windvane is that by focusing on microscopic details of a problem you are losing sight of the forest because of the trees.
For practical purposes an airplane does not sideslip in cruise. Any sideslip existing in response to rapid and large changes of environmental conditions is transient and its effect does not “accumulate over the duration of the hours long flight. “
@Brock, My understanding is that Dr Lückhoff recognized the piece not as a result of the initial coverage but because of a follow-up piece about officials declaring that the fragment most likely came from MH370, in mid-May: http://www.netwerk24.com/Nuus/Algemeen/wrakstukke-in-sa-waarskynlik-van-vlug-mh370-20160512
Indeed, Kruger’s find no doubt went viral in March, but Lückhoff is in his 70s and describes himself as being not that technologically savvy so presumably isn’t fully up to date with all the latest memes and viralities.
Make of it what you will.
Gysbreght,
As you put it: “are you in trolling mode”?
I don’t know how to help you. I suggested you reading textbook – you refused. I asked you to explain arrow and bullet cases within the frame of your theory – you didn’t. I asked you to explain the “hot baloon” example proposed by RetiredF4, also within the frame of your theory, – you refrained. I asked you to explain why EY440 trajectory loops do not overlap exactly – you were unable.
Based on your comments I see that you are confusing a number of things:
1. Force and force moment;
2. Static and dynamic models;
3. Aerodynamic and aeronautics.
@Oleksandr:
If you want my opinion on your favorite textbook you can ask Jeff for my email address and send me the pages you want me to read. Please make sure that what you send me is sufficiently complete in terms of nomenclature, definitions and equations referred to that are stated elsewhere in the book and context as necessary.
MuOne,
I agree with what you said. Yes, there is “accumulative” effect as you put it.
Long time ago I compared trajectories of models with/without wind, but I agree it would be interesting exercise to check relative contribution of the wind and Coriolis in the latest CTS and ATT models. I will look at this when I have time.
I am particularly interested in the ATT+V/S because it is also autopilot-constrained model. Earlier Jeff mentioned that he has never seen an autopilot-constrained model not in the HDG/TRK/LNAV roll mode, which would conform BTO and BFO, so here it is.
Let’s consider that Mr. Blaine Gibson was able to quickly find a part in Mozambique based on the suggestion of a local boat owner, and another part was found in South Africa twice, months apart, at essentially the same location. This would suggest that there are some very localized beach spots offer an astonishing capability to attract and wash ashore debris. The fact that Johny Begue found two aircraft parts at the same beach on La Reunion, months apart, (even if one was not from MH370) also supports the notion that some locations have an incredibly high disposition towards attracting and beaching floating debris.
It would be an interesting experiment to take some debris (not necessarily aviation related) that was found washed ashore at these three locations and drop it in the ocean some distance offshore and see if the parts return to the same location.
@Victorl
Yes that’s an interesting tought. It seems also that certain locations are more prone to accumulate debris. The spot Blain Gibson found his piece also was known by locals always a lot of debris could be found there.
Now mr. Luckhoff tells the same about the place that piece was found twice. Maybe it’s also a good idea to sort out those kind of places and put special attention to them.
Maybe just ask the lokal fisherman at those certain places.
@VictorI, FWIW when I was talking to tsunami-debris experts a fellow in Alaska told me that in his experience, there are indeed certain spots along a coast where one is more likely to find washed-up debris. Objects, for one thing, are more likely to be left behind on a gently sloping beach, whereas if they make landfall on a steep rocky coast they are apt to just bounce off and float away. Also, a promontory that sticks out into a prevailing current and hook debris getting swept along the coast. If you look at the spots where debris turned up in Mozambique, they are all in such hooklike structures. A happy coincidence, perhaps, that people like to vacation on the same kinds of coasts that are best suited to collecting debris.
@jeffwise: No doubt there are some places that more likely than others for collecting debris. But to explain the coincidences that I mentioned for the three spots, there has to be more than just a higher likelihood. There would have to be a large spike in probability at a particular spot compared to other spots across a fairly long stretch of beach.
@Rob @David @Jeff Wise
Did you find anything new about that piece yet?
I only found that I cann’t find any other part of the plane could fit this piece as well as this panel.
The spoilers above the inboard flaps also have that black seal strip but are quite different otherwise. The outboard flap only has those 5 spoilers with a black seal but are also quite different.
The ailerons leave far to less space for such a large piece.
The elevator idem dito.
I mean it also comes to deducing.
The estimates Jeff mentioned cann’t be right imo.
Jeff, do you have a second thought on this?
@Ge Rijn
@David
@Jeff
I cannot speak for Jeff or David, but I never had any second thoughts about.
All we need to do now is find out what it’s called.
@Victor
I absolutely know that certain beaches are “attractors” for debris. I see examples of this phenomena on the stretch of beach where I have a residence. I see the same thing on large lakes such as Clear Lake in Lake County, CA. It must have something to do with the prevailing wind, current, and topography of the bottom. Kamilo Beach on the island of Hawaii is a classic example.
“Locals” all know this from experience without really questioning the underlying physics.
@Victorl @Jeff Wise
I see only now you mentioned those locals (regarding Blain Gibson) allready..
I was thinking now regarding your comments, it could be rewarding to visit those locations where pieces were found on a more regular basis for at least they seem to be hotspots of accumulating debris which are in the path followed by MH370 debris.
For I assume this debris located first in one very small area will not drift apart a few 100 miles but will generaly stay relatively close together in the same currants and circumstances.
@DennisW: Know doubt there are hot spots for finding debris. But I also know that debris tends to be strewn in lower density across much longer stretches of beach. It is hard to imagine that the cumulative probability for these long stretches is less than the probability for the hot spot, but that is what the data seems to say, if the data is valid.
This is a recent blog by Edward Baker, airline pilot.
I’ve been following the events swirling around MH370 from day one. I was leaving on a trip to Constanta, Romania, when the news flash came across. I arrived in the hotel room after an 11 hour flight, and had TV on during my stay, following the unhappy story.
Of course I later found my voice in the Twitterverse, and love me or hate me, I have always tried to be a voice of calm and reason—all the while trying to be polite to my detractors (I do have a few). I bring years of Boeing experience into the discussion, and have spent many years in the professional airline world, as I continue to do.
With that as a backdrop, there’s always been something nagging at me about the little we do know about MH370, the timeline, and her pilots. Something I could not put a finger on…something just seemed…so…so out of place.
I needed to dig deeper.
Pilots generally have the same quirks and voice mannerisms. We will often have the same “uhs” or inflections. We also rarely switch roles when it comes to radio work. The FO (there are exceptions, but that does not apply here) picks up the ATC clearance, and in the vernacular “works the radio” on the ground. Once airborne, whoever is not flying works the radio while the other pilot flies.
That in mind, when MH370 gets the clearance, it is the FO who speaks first (all times are UTC, and from the Factual Information report):
16:25:52 Fariq Hamid picks up his clearance to Beijing. He does not have an “uuuh” between Malaysian and 370. He somewhat stretches the “zerooo” but not too distinctly.
16:27:31 Farouk once again is on the radio, and with his distinctive lack of an “uuuh” requests a clearance for push back and start. It’s virtually always the FO’s job. Tonight is no different.
16:40:40 We hear Fariq accept the takeoff clearance. That’s a little non-standard for my Western sensibilities. Much of the time the pilot who is not flying takes this radio call, but not always. In the industry, this role is called the “pilot monitoring”. The other role, inventively, is the “pilot flying.”
16:42:50 For the first time, we hear Captain Zaharie Shah talk. He has a distinctive “Malaysian…aaah…three seven zero” cadence. It’s different. It’s not Fariq. In fact, in the FI report, the transcription dutifully adds the “aaa” which was missing from the earlier transcripts with Fariq.
What this means to me is that Zaharie is now taking the role of pilot monitoring, and Fariq is the pilot flying. I would expect to hear mostly Z talking from here on out.
16:46:42 As custom dictates, Zaharie takes the handoff to Lumpur Radar. The flight is on the way, and the captain is not flying the airplane.
16:50:08 ATC clears MH370 to climb and maintain flight level 350. Zaharie accepts this clearance.
17:01:17 Zaharie checks in at level 350. This is standard stuff. He’s verifying that the previously issued clearance has been reached. I often don’t bother with this report myself, unless specifically asked. It’s not wrong to report it either. Let’s call it a discretionary report.
NOTE: The FI report has the transcription slightly wrong. The transcript has it as “Malaysian aaa three seven zero maintaining flight level three five zero.” What he actually says is “[…] maintaining level three five zero” (he does not use the word “flight”).
17:07:48 the Aircraft Communications and Addressing System (ACARS) makes its last transmission and goes silent.
17:07:56 Z inexplicably reports his altitude again. Or was it Z? The voice pattern has changed. I swear it actually could be Fariq’s voice. I can’t pick up on the “aaa” It seems different. It’s also odd because the previous report was given six minutes earlier, and there was no change in altitude, nor an apparent request to report the altitude. Something’s different.
17:19:30 We hear the well-known “Good night, Malaysian aaa three seven zero” I noticed that the transcript does not record the “aaa” as it has been, but it’s there.
Z’s was the last voice we hear. Of that, there’s no doubt.
17:21:13 Less than two minutes after Z’s last transmission, the transponder stops reporting MH370’s unique ATC-assigned code, and information drops from ATC radar screens. Military radar shows a hard left turn occurring at this time.
I had to resolve who the hell was talking 12 minutes before the final sign-off. Was it Z or Fariq?
I have some professional audio software that I ran the clip through. I concentrated on the “three seven zero maintaining level three five zero” which was clearly common between the call at 1707:56 and 17:19:30. The cadence is perfect. The time to say the phrase matches perfectly. I listened to it over and over.
It was Z.
So there’s no doubt in my mind that Zaharie made the last call. He also made an oddly placed call just before the ACARs went off line. That places him in the cockpit right before MH370 disappeared. But was he alone? We can’t know based on ATC transmissions.
But here’s the thing. WHY was he even talking on the radio? He actually should have been flying if normal protocols are being followed. At least, that’s the way it should have been.
A little backdrop.
Fariq Hamid was being checked out as a B777 first officer. Captain Zaharie Shah was assigned as a check airman who would be assessing Fariq on his final training flight. Fariq was to receive his final evaluation on his next scheduled flight (Source: Factual Information, pg 14).
I confess to having no knowledge how MAS culture works with training flights, but if they follow Western-style culture, the training flights alternate flying duties and monitoring duties. In general terms, the check airman assigned to train a pilot will take the first leg of the journey. They often also like to fly the legs that are not involving landing on home turf…in other words, flying back to your home base is boring.
There’s another reason check airmen normally fly the first leg. They want to show the newbie who’s boss. It’s an Alpha-male (or Alpha-female) thing where the check airman says, in effect, I fly better than you…I’m going to prove it by setting the standard on our first leg…I’ll set the gold standard for you to follow.
They also want to get a chance to see how the new pilot performs and works in the cockpit. It’s a rare check airman who lets the newbie fly first. It’s just the way it is. At least in Western cockpits. I suspect that’s probably true in Pacific Rim airlines.
So why the hell is Z even on the radios? He made it a choice not to fly that leg. Why?
***Conjecture alert. I’m just guessing here***
I think it comes down to a bit of compassion. IF Z was behind all this, he basically took some professional pity on Fariq, and at least let him fly for a bit. Even if Fariq did not know this was his final flight, Z knew.
How did Z wind up in the cockpit by himself? Simple. He would only have to order Fariq out under the guise of some instruction—get me some tea, for example.
With the sudden and inexplicable change in the flight path, there’s no way that Fariq would have been docile and subservient. Fariq certainly was not flying. Fariq was new to the airplane, and was in the presence of a check airman. This was not a young pilot who was going to go rogue at that time. The ACARS shenanigans happened while Z was in the cockpit. The transponder went off line in less than 2 minutes while Z was demonstrably in the cockpit.
All of this happened precisely in the middle of a handoff between two countries. It could not have been more precisely timed. It was planned and well-executed by someone who was in the cockpit, by someone who was intimately knowledgable about the B777.
My additional guess is that the oddly placed altitude report concurrent with the ACARS going off line was about when Fariq was ordered out of the cockpit. He had to have been ordered out of the cockpit at some point. Perhaps Z was a bit rattled by his own actions, and for some reason reaffirmed his altitude unnecessarily. Pure conjecture, obviously—but if Z did indeed fly the aircraft into oblivion, Fariq would have been ordered out of the cockpit sometime after level off, and well before the transponder was disabled.
My nagging sense of something being out of place turns out to be that Z was not flying to begin with. It was also the odd second altitude report call. I’m satisfied with my research that it was indeed Zaharie making the last radio calls, placing him in the cockpit before MH370 disappeared.
The military radar did, however, capture the radar signature of MH370 passing near Penang…the boyhood home of Captain Zaharie Shah.
excuse me guys, I must; yesterday I posted something about new MC-21 plane and today was rollout, surprisingly; inside our little internet and media bubble we have threats and guns and warfares rising, but I am afraid, on this plane, I didnt found any rockets or machine guns; it was built also with some kind of “working together” approach too; the truth is out there… ))
https://www.rt.com/news/345823-mc-21-aircraft-presentation-irkut/
(shutting up again for a while, I hope)
@Victor
I am not so sure about your assertion relative to lower density in other stretches. There is a place on Clear Lake known as Paradise Cove. It is where the wealthy people build their lakefront estates. Nothing ever washes ashore there. No algae in the water to add a stink to the air at that location either.
The place on the beach where I have a residence is known as the “banana belt” because it is largely free of a marine layer. In this case the coastal range forms a block inland from the “banana belt” so that lower barometric pressure inland is unable to suck the marine layer over the shoreline as it does in other unblocked locations.
Another example close to my beach residence is Salal Beach which is a favorite place for people to take their dogs and toss a ball in the water for them to fetch. The ball always returns to the beach whether or not the dog fetches it. Do that at other locations and you can “kiss the ball goodbye”.
My personal opinion is that hot spots for debris (a.k.a. dispersion beaches) overwhelm other locations relative to the likelihood of finding debris.
Just because something is hard to imagine does not mean it is not true.
@Jeff, @Victor: the upshot of all this is that humans and ocean debris are drawn to the same topographical meeting point: gently sloping shorelines that disproportionately collect deposits.
In a word: beaches.
Makes the zero taken by Oz shores all the more bizarre. Chari’s distributions pepper Oz shores (= beaches…?) for all impact points up to 25 degrees south.
@Oleksandr, @Gysbreght, @MuOne – Reading your disagreements has me very confused about your issue of wind direction to ground speed. Perhaps you could answer the questions in the following example and/or correct my suspected answer (note for this simple example over short distances, let’s say lines of longitude are parallel):
A plane is traveling due south at 100 kts, no wind, after an hour it will arrive at an airport 100 nm due south of the starting point and lands without adjustment on a North-South runway. Correct? Now let’s introduce a 100kt east-west crosswind and make no adjustments of the controls. The plane is still pointing due south, but it arrives at a location 141.44 nm southwest of the starting point but the airspeed remains 100kts. Correct? (Perhaps Gysbreght is saying that when the wind is introduced it takes a while beffore the plane’s westerly groundspeed reaches 100kts?) The plane is still points to the south to land on the N-S runway but it’s tricky because it’s also heading southwest.
Now let’s say you want to arrive at the airport that’s 100nm south of the starting point but you still have the 100kts crosswind. What direction will you point the plane? 45° into the wind? If you want to arrive in one hour do you increase the airspeed to 141.44kts.? What else is done to counteract the crosswind? Banking? When you arrive at the airport you must re-align the plane to land on the N-S runway. How?
@Ed
I hope everyone reads your detailed post well. You underline a planned flight into oblivian by Z. imo with strong arguments.
It’s long about time the ATSB and every one else takes this possibility very seriously and stop wasting more time on ‘ghost flight scenarios’.
@DennisW and @Brock McEwen: I didn’t mean to imply that the “hot spot for debris” was not valid. In fact, the three data points that I presented suggested that is exactly what occurs. I am surprised that the cumulative probability for other locations is not greater than that for the hot spot, but I am more willing now than ever to accept the validity of the data, and what the data suggests.
@ Ed – probably one of the most interesting posts i’ve read on this site….I think I join the vast majority of readers that admit to a slight chill running down my spine upon finishing the “article”….G.
@Brock McEwen
Otherwise known as the earth-ocean interface.
@Ed
I personally believe that the majority of the evidence points towards Zaharie’s culpability.
I have been fairly well acquainted with 5 people who have committed suicide, and the general population has no idea as to the mindset of such persons.
The common argument types are “she did not kill herself…she had just bought fresh milk and wouldn’t waste it”, and “no way the Egyptian pilot killed himself…he was bringing home new tires for his daughter” (these are actual arguments). People tend to reach the point of suicide very slowly until they reach a point of no return. They still buy milk…but they really aren’t thinking about the waste in that last moment.
Why fly to the middle of nowhere to commit suicide with a plane full of passengers? Because, for lack of a better term…it’s a dramatic exit with a puzzling flair. In the past, as a mental exercise, my friends and I have jokingly concocted suicides which leave behind a great mystery. For instance, tying a weather balloon to a pistol so it floats away after the fatal shot, leaving no suicide weapon to be found. Why? Why not?
One question I have…did Zaharie purposely leave an explanation…on his person or via the CVR by turning it off after recording his message or by recording his message just before the crash?
I say the chances are 50/50 on that one. I personally think I would leave a message as a reward to those who would find the plane.
The last loop around the home town is definitely a kicker.
Interesting parallel to the crash of Air Force pilot Craig Button in 1997.
Button broke formation during a training exercise and zig-zagged hundreds of miles to crash into a peak in Colorado…nearly reaching a peak bearing his own name except for probable fuel exhaustion.
The arguments for and against suicide in that case are interestingly similar. The family believed Button was incapacitated and the plane flew itself. The Air Force concluded that someone guided the plane into the mountain. Button reportedly did have some personal issues.
People do weird things.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_D._Button
@Lauren H: Yes, you are very confused!
I’d listen to the residents on the Maldives Islands. Either they saw MH370 the night the plane disappeared landing/refueling on the airstrip on Mali or they saw MH370 passing overhead before it crashed or they saw another as yet unidentified jet. But they saw something.
I’m continuing to assume MH370 is hijacked and being prepped for another terrorist attack disguised as a legitimate flight to NYC or Washington D.C. Terrorists love airplanes, NYC and D.C.,and AQ#2 spoke about a second and larger attack after 9/11.
I will stop worrying about a MH370 attack on America only when the fuselage is found and two black boxes retrieved and interrogated.
@LaurenH,
“Now let’s introduce a 100kt east-west crosswind and make no adjustments of the controls. The plane is still pointing due south, but it arrives at a location 141.44 nm southwest of the starting point but the airspeed remains 100kts. Correct?”
Yes.
“The plane is still points to the south to land on the N-S runway but it’s tricky because it’s also heading southwest.”
In order to line up with the runway, the pilot will have to crab, that is, to turn somewhat into the wind. This will result in a reduction in groundspeed. Before touching down, he will have to use the rudder to sideslip the plane, that is to say, put the nose so that it’s facing down the runway even though the plane is moving at an angle. It is aerodynamically ineffecient to “fly sideways” like this but you’re about to touch down and are looking to bleed off airspeed anyway.
“Now let’s say you want to arrive at the airport that’s 100nm south of the starting point but you still have the 100kts crosswind. What direction will you point the plane? 45° into the wind?”
Yes.
“If you want to arrive in one hour do you increase the airspeed to 141.44kts.?”
Yes.
“What else is done to counteract the crosswind? Banking?”
No, you will be flying straight and level.
“When you arrive at the airport you must re-align the plane to land on the N-S runway. How?”
By slipping, as described above.
@Brock McEwen
The northern shores of WA have very long stretches of cliff coast from the Kalbari up to Exmouth.
I found most of that shores especialy above Geraldton were very desolated, hardly accessable, or not accessable at all at those cliff shores further north.
If something has washed up, up there the change of finding it by someone is very low imo. For at first almost no one goes there. If you go there (I’ve been there) you are not tempted to make a long walk along a beach there; too hot, too isolated, too much flys, too much everything and no one else around if something might happen to go wrong.
The cliff coasts are not accessable at all by mediate western people (like me) at least.
The one place I could think of is Coral Bay at Ningaloo reefe which is fairly well visited by tourists but not crowded.
Shark Bay with tourist attraction Monkey Mia could also be a spot. But nothing is found still.
Those shores or nothing like those much more densely populated and visited shores of Africa, Indonesia and so on. The whole continent of Australia has a population of ~24 million. Thats only ~7 million more than our small country Holland. It’s mainly one big dessert.
By the way. What do you think about the latest drift study on Duncan Steel’s site?
@RGL
There are many easier ways to obtain a 777 or the equivalent than by hijacking a commercial airliner. You might be interested to know that an airliner has not been hijacked for the purposes of obtaining the aircraft or anything or anyone on it in the history of commercial aviation.
I am not the least bit concerned about 9M-MRO coming back as an instrument of terror.
@Ed
Edward Baker is an airline captain. Excellent analysis of the situation prior to Z taking over the plane and flying it as far as he could into the SIO.
Methinks, stuck in groundhog day again.
I guess this proves that while Oceanographers can offer their insight into the overview and big picture of ocean currents/drift patterns, it is the local people such as fishermen and other boat users or beach users who truly know the tides work in their location to pinpoint potential debris locations. It is also worth remembering that while there are those who read absolutely everything about MH370, to the vast general public it is ‘old news’ that a plane went missing however much they may wish it to be found etc, they simply don’t keep up with the news stories in the way those following this mystery do, especially if they don’t use the internet as a news source.
I believe it will the random discoveries of local people and those who ask their advice that will be the ones to help crack this.
That kind of personal attack is completely uncalled for.
Lauren came up with a very good conceptual model to end the discussion’s stalemate.
If you are looking for a passenger, please count me out.
Since your airspeed is only 100 kts, you will have to turn 90° into the wind and your groundspeed will be zero, so you’ll never make it to the runway.
@Ge Rijn
Oops, sorry, I just keep forgetting.
I must write out 500 times “I must not spread false information”
It’s ok Ed. Just a little “in joke” of mine, I love to tease the others with.
Lauren H,
It is better to watch 1 time than listen 100 explanations. There are many videos of crosswind landing in youtube; see for example here:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=7P9OAng32F0
You can also notice dramatic difference between static and dynamic situations, which is a particular subject of my arguing with Gysbreght. In case of constant wind you just need to add relative aircraft velocity vector with respect to the air to wind vector to get velocity of the aircraft with respect to the ground. That is simple. But what happens when wind is rapidly changing or aircraft’s heading is changing is a way more difficult to describe by equations.
I think you understand very well that your quote is precisely what I’m not saying. For the benefit of those less clever than you, let me illustrate what I said with an example, choosing more realistic speeds than the trap you set up for Jeff:
Let’s suppose the airplane is flying due south in still air at 500 kts, when it suddenly encounters a 50 kts crosswind from due west. That crosswind will place the airplane at a sideslip angle of 5.7°. The directional stability (weathercock tendency) then produces a yawing moment that, without opposing control inputs, turns the airplane into wind until the sideslip angle and the yawing moment are again zero.
Now, to satisfy MuOne, the airplane will not yaw through 5.7 right precisely, but somewhat less, depending on how long it takes to change heading. During the few seconds that the sideslip angle reduces from the initial 5.7° to zero, the sideslip will not only produce a yawing moment but also a lateral force. That lateral force will change the direction in which the airplane is moving. Therefore the track angle will end up slightly to the east of due south, and the airplane on a heading slightly less than 185.7°, crabbing slightly less than 5.7° to the left, wings level, ailerons and rudder neutral as before encountering the crosswind.
@Ed, just to speculate a bit about the “odd second altitude report call” might have been a signal to “others” involved in the disappearance who may have been monitoring for the moment it started. They may have hoped it would have been overlooked as just an unnecessary communications.
Gysbreght,
http://faculty.dwc.edu/sadraey/Rudder%20Design.pdf
@DennisW – you may be right, that nobody has ever hijacked for the purpose of obtaining an airplane. But N844AA remains unexplained, and it sure looks like a theft or repo.
Also, in 2001, nobody believed anyone would hijack a plane for the purpose of a suicide attack.
Without more information, it’s too early to say that nobody wanted to steal 9M-MRO. There are better explanations for its disappearance, for now, but we just don’t know yet.
@Debris followers – a relevant statistic might be how much NON-MH370 debris is found on the same beach.
For example, was debris found in an area that is usually empty? Or in an area covered with debris? At the extremes, it is suspicious. On an empty beach, the probability of a beaching is low. On a full beach, the probability of discovery is low amidst all the other debris.
@Ed – any chance the second altitude comment was a recording of the first one?
Gysbreght,
Re: “the sideslip will not only produce a yawing moment but also a lateral force. That lateral force will change the direction in which the airplane is moving.”
Finally some progress. You are one step closer to understanding of my CTS and ATT models.
Interesting that Richard Godfrey’s latest drift model analysis is now pointing us to 30S, 99E. If I’m not mistaken, this general vicinity (northeast of Broken Ridge) is right in line with the best guess of several of the commenters here as well.
Brings me back to this:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2591526/BREAKING-NEWS-Objects-spotted-search-plane-new-southern-Indian-Ocean-search-area.html
I knew those coordinates sounded familiar…Crazy to think that the fuselage of MH370 could have been right under their noses as far back as March 28, 2014!
Couple of questions that I’m hoping one of you might be able to answer:
1) Do we know what the “credible evidence” was that led the search team to believe the plane flew at a slower speed, which in turn caused the March 28, 2014 shift north (see link)?
2) Has there been any discussion of doing a final sweep of the area between 29-30S and 98-99E, prior to wrapping up the official underwater search?