One of the most misunderstood insights into the riddle of MH370 is how the plane’s final path can be derived from Inmarsat BTO data alone.
Recall that the data, which was generated after someone on board caused the Satellite Data Unit (SDU) to re-logon to the Inmarsat Satellite 3F-1 over the Indian Ocean at 18:25, comes in two flavors. The first, the Burst Timing Offset (BTO) data, reveals how far the plane is from the satellite at a given time. This can be mathematically converted into a set of “ping rings” along which the plane must have been at a given time. The BTO data is very well understood and fairly precise, providing an accuracy of within 10 km.
The second, the Burst Frequency Offset (BFO) data, is more more complicated and much fuzzier than the BTO data; its inherent uncertainties are equivalent to a position error of hundreds of miles. It doesn’t have a single physical correlate but is related to how fast a plane is going, what direction it is headed, and where it is located.
For a time after MH370 disappeared, searchers hoped that they could combine these two data sets to identify the area where the plane issued its final ping. After months of work, however, they determined that this would be impossible. The BFO data is just too vague. However, along with the bad news came some good: it turned out that by the clever use of statistics they could figure out where the plane went using the BTO data alone. The methodology developed by Australia’s Defense Science and Technology Group (DSTG) and explained in an ATSB report entitled “MH370 – Definition of Underwater Search Areas” released last December.
Many independent researchers do not understand the technique and believe that it is invalid. For instance, reader DennisW recently opined that “The ISAT data cannot, by itself, be used to determine a flight path. One has to invoke additional constraints to derive a terminus.” But I believe that the DSTG position is correct, and that one does not need to invoke arbitrary additional assumptions in order to calculate the plane’s track. I’ll explain why.
First, some basics. Imagine that you have two ping rings, one created an hour after the other. For the sake of simplicity, let’s say the rings are concentric, with the later ring’s radius 300 nautical miles bigger than the earlier one’s. Let’s further assume that the plane crossed some arbitrary point on the innermost ring. If that’s all we know, then the plane could have taken any of an infinite number of routes from the first to the second. It could have travelled radially directly outward at 300 knots. Or, if traveling straight at 400 knots, it could have turned left or right at an angle. Or, it could have traveled faster than 300 knots on any number of meandering paths. So, the fact of the matter is that this simple understanding of the plane’s situation indicates that it could have traveled by wide number of paths and speeds to a wide range of points on the second arc.
However, there are some pecularities of commercial aviation that narrow the possibilities considerably. The most important is that planes can only travel in straight lines. They can turn, but in between turns they will fly straight. Knowing this vastly reduces the number of paths that MH370 could have taken between 19:41 and 0:11. It could not of simply meandered around the sky; it must have followed a path of one, two, three, four, or more straight segments.
Through the marvels of modern computing, researchers can generate a huge number of random routes and test them to see which fit the observed data. It turns out that if the plane flew straight in a single segment, the only routes that match the data are those that are fast, around the speed that commercial jets normally fly, and end up over the current search area. If you assume that the flight involved two straight segments, it turns out the ones that fit best are those in which the two segments are nearly in a straight line and are also fast and wind up over the current search area.
If you suppose that the flight after 19:41 involved a larger number of segments, your computer’s random generation process will be able to come up with valid routes that are neither straight nor fast, and do not end up in the current search area. But to come up with such routes, the computer will have to generate many, many others that do not fit. So it is extremely unlikely that by random chance the plane would have happened to travel a slow, curving route that just happened to “look like” a straight, fast route.
“Well,” you might object, “presumably whoever was in control didn’t fly randomly, they had a plan, so modeling by random paths isn’t appropriate.” But a plan of unknown characteristics is equivalent for our purposes to a random one. After all, there is no imaginable reason for someone to fly a plane over empty ocean in the dark at a slower-than-usual rate, making slight turns every hour or so. (Before you say that they might have done it to throw searchers off their trail after the fact, bear in mind that whoever took the plane would have had no way to know that Inmarsat had started logging BTO values a few months before, let alone imagine that they would be able to conduct this kind of analysis.)
When DSTG ran the math, they came up with a probability distribution along the arc that looks like the image at top.
Worth noting that the peak of the curve, and the lion’s share of the area under it, lie in the southern half of the search box, but it also has tails that extend past the box in either direction.
When the search of the seabed began, many expected that the plane would be found in short order. When it wasn’t, the burning question then became: how far out from the 7th arc should we search? A one-dimensional question had now become a two-dimensional one. Based on past loss-of-control accidents and flight simulations, the ATSB decided that an out-of-fuel 777 with no pilot would enter a spiral dive and impact the surface within 20 nautical miles. Mapping the two probability distributions (i.e., where the plane crossed the 7th arc, and where/how far it flew after that) yielded the following probability distribution:
I believe that we have to take the image above with a grain of salt, as I don’t think it is really possible for a plane to fly more than 40 km by itself. It’s generally agreed that the only way the plane could have plausbily gone further than that is if the pilot was conscious and actively holding the plane steady in a glide, in which case it might have gone as far as 100 nm.
A few months before the ATSB publlshed this analysis, a further set of information about the impact point of MH370 became availalble: the plane’s right-hand flaperon washed up on Réunion Island. Reverse-drift analysis was performed by several independent groups to determine where the flaperon might have started its journey. The German institute GEOMAR came up with the following results:
As you can see, the probability distribution hardly overlaps at all with the probability distribution derived from the BTO data; it only touches at the northeastern corner of the search box. Drift analysis performed by other groups reached a similar conclusion. Using a branch of mathematics called Bayesian analysis, it’s possible to take two probability distributions and merge them into a single one. I’m not a mathematician myself, but intuitively one would surmise that given both the BTO and the drift-model data sets, the new peak probability are should lie somewhere between the northern end of the current search box and Broken Ridge.
The ATSB report disagreed, arguing that the drift analysis
… made no meaningful changes to the ATSB search area due to the relative weighting of the significance of the drift analysis in comparison with the analysis based on the satellite data. While this debris find is consistent with the current search area it does not provide sufficient information to refine it.
What this means is that the ATSB considers the BTO data and its analysis “hard” and the reverse-drift analysis “soft,” because the random motion of ocean currents introduces a large amount of uncertainty. However, the reported also noted that “if additional debris is identified it will be included in the analysis to provide further information on the location of source areas.” Indeed, after the report came out other pieces of debris were found, and drift modeling of these pieces be used to refine the search area. Indeed, after I published last week’s guest post by MPat, reader Ge Rijn pointed out:
Over those 20 years in MPat’s model only 7 out of 177 buoys landed in Australia. Those 7 all passed the search box under 36S… [this] points clearly to the trend the more south you go under ~36S the more likely it becomes buoys (debris) will land on Australia and the more north you go above 36S the less likely it becomes buoys~(debris) will land on Australia. This is also because the more south you go under ~36 the currents tend to go further east and the more north you go around 36S the currents tend to bend stronger to the north avoiding Australia. And this is exacly what the facts about found debris shows us till now.
Note that 36 degrees south is just shy of the northern end of the current search area; as Ge Rijn observes, historical drift data suggests that if the plane had crashed south of this latitude, debris should have been found in Australia, which it obviously hasn’t.
The size and species mix of barnacles growing on ocean debris could provide clues as to which waters it floated through; oxygen isotope analysis can provide information about the temperature of the waters that it floated through. As far as I know, no such analyses have been conducted. For a long while now, the ATSB’s weekly update reports have included the phrase “In the absence of credible new information that leads to the identification of a specific location of the aircraft, Governments have agreed that there will be no further expansion of the search area.” The fact is, though, that further information is available, and it could be used to determine which of the two possible explanations is more likely: that the plane passed over the current search area and was held in a glide, or crossed the seventh arc further (but not too much further) to the northeast.
@Bugsy
That is a good question. To date I know of no other B777 that has ever crashed on water before, so no one really knows how it’s airframe would breeak apart and how it’s parts would remain buoyant for so long in a water crash.
Perhaps, one thing we could do is crash test another B777 in the Ocean and see how it floats?
@KenS- even if most of the airframe smashed and sunk this would allow for passenger related items to float on surface. There should have been a fairly large debris field either way.
@MH
Yes, this is true, however in satellite photos most small debris is not visible because the image resolution was only 50cm sq/pixel. So only large debris pieces are visible in these images. Humans and small pieces of debris are simply not visible at this resolution
Only if they would release early satellite photos of any debris clusters. But as usual in this mystery nothing makes sense.
@David
Actualy I think that actuator on that leading edge (inboard side) is riped out without damaging the leading edge there. That hole in the leading edge there is prefabricated. It’s where that actuator is going in the leading edge and is connected there.
That actuator attachment is a weaker connection than the much stronger and bigger hinge on the other side. So that actuator gave way first IMO.
While the trailing edge on the inboard side is not broken off it’s hard to imagine the piece broke off due to flutter IMO. Otherwise this part of the trailing edge shoud have broken off too (even first IMO).
I assume the piece broke off by water force pushing it upwards. Breaking first the actuator connection in that leading edge. Then the piece was forced upwards by the water, breaking away parts of the trailing edge and finally breaking that outboard section on that hinge connection point together with the hinge by torsion force.
I made a series of screen shots of the piece and attached some other photos in this dropbox series:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/qy7hi939gwa4xhd/outboardfl.jpg?dl=0
@Victor: “Whopper”, to me, is a generic adjective connoting bigness. In the context I used it, it modified “assumption”, i.e a “whopper of an assumption”. If deceit is inextricably buried in the meaning of this word – as you suggest – then Burger King has made a whopper of a marketing error.
The whopperishness (whopperity?) of the assumption that the ISAT data is trustworthy should be self-evident to everyone who has been paying attention. But if you say you need a recap:
1. lack of speed & completeness in ISAT data’s release
2. lack of transparency and accountability in SSWG’s search decisions
3. UAV paths consistent with pre-proprietary deep-sea resource prospecting
4. Lack of wreckage found at its indicated terminus*
5. Strength of physical evidence which counter-indicates the ISAT data
6. Dubiety of physical evidence held out as corroborating the ISAT data
* weakest argument, I admit – faked ISAT data strongly predicts faked wreckage, eventually – but with the actual search now covering 9x the area @ALSM considered the “high probability” search box which trumped all “conspiracy theories”, the failure of the search to date does shift Bayesian probabilities at least slightly toward faked ISAT data: if authentic, failure requires an increasingly hard to explain gaffe somewhere along the data/analysis/search chain; if faked, failure is increasingly consistent with a plan to delay/prevent wreckage discovery.
In my mind, the two leading theory families should be
A) something happened that cannot be admitted, requiring a cover-up which ensures wreckage is NEVER found, and
B) something happened that cannot be admitted, requiring a cover-up which ensures wreckage is NOT YET found
No other theory sets connect nearly as many dots.
Note that I make no assertion regarding any link between architects of DISAPPEARANCE and COVER-UP. These may be the same entity, allies, independent agencies, or even enemies. While my hatred for unsubstantiated accusations against anyone unable to defend themselves remains white-hot, you’ll note my list doesn’t even exclude the pilot, provided his actions were sufficient to trigger a multinational cover-up – which I have a hard time believing.
The reason I make no assertion is simple: I haven’t a sweet clue as to why the search smells as bad as it does. All my studies – and Florence’s, and those of many others – reveal is that it DOES smell.
Really, REALLY bad.
@David
And IMO there is something else important to see in those pictures.
The leading edge and upperside (and underside) are not damaged (apart from that one hole and cut on the outboard side)).
Now when the outboard flap is retracted its leading edge and upperside are covered by the spoilers for ~1/3.
When the outboard flap is extracted the spoilers are up.
Then when this outboard section seperated while retracked that leading edge and upperside should have been damaged for that part would have hit the also retracted spoilers and their actuators.
This would not happen when the outboard flap was extracted with the spoilers up. Then it could break free without damage by hitting the spoilers and its actuators.
Implications offcourse would be great if this could be proven.
For then the plane must have made an attempt to ditch.
@Brock
I have a simpler set of assumptions/explanations:
1> The ISAT data is valid.
2> The propeller heads doing the analytics all succumbed to the allure of a “straight” path solution (some AP constrained flight mode).
3> No one wanted to think about motive or causality under the guise of “being pure”. After all, a clean “solution” was in hand, why sully the situation by speculating. Of course, speculating about the flight dynamics was deemed to be OK. Hmmm…???
There are places on the 7th arc that will satisfy the ISAT data, and also can be linked to a very plausible motive. Places that have not been searched. They do suffer from some issues, but they are not at odds with either the debris finds or the ISAT data.
I think many people here have gone over the edge prematurely.
@Brock McEwen
“…I haven’t a sweet clue as to why the search smells as bad as it does. All my studies – and Florence’s, and those of many others – reveal is that it DOES smell…”
Totally agree. Not just the Inmarsat data, but the whole event. Day 1 after the news that MH370 had been lost my bullshit detector started twitching – it is now going so hard it’s off the end of the scale.
I’ve been visiting Jeff’s excellent web resource for some time looking for facts, but finding few. With the SIO search coming to an end, I’m starting to worry that unless we have a positive result the truth will never be found.
There are many theories as to what happened, but none of them fully convince me. I find motive for any foul play to be particularly problematical and difficult to confirm. One that I have not seen discussed hear, although I could easily have missed it, is that the MH320 operation was devised so that a military, asset previously lost somewhere in the 26,000sq miles search area, could be searched for in the full gaze of the world without attracting the attention of a hostile state.
So far haven’t been able to find a hint of a suitable prior event. I suspect it could be an Australian asset, or that of another 5+1EYYES nation. Any ideas where else to look?
@Brock
I still think it’s just ineptitude and stubbornness of search officials. Although I wouldn’t fully exclude foul play either, especially on malaysian side.
Regarding the Chillit graphic showing ships in the area of the 7th arc, it is an interesting idea, but he surely overstates the ability of a ship to detect an aircraft. He assumes a “visibility” radius of 300 km (162 nm), but a plane at cruising altitude would be only 2 degrees above the horizon at that distance and would be 1000 times fainter than if it were overhead. As for radar, remember that ATC radar has a range of only 60 nm, and a ship’s radar will not perform as well. Ships are interested in watching out for other ships, which might be 1000 times the weight of a B-777.
More interesting is that these ships are potential sources of debris that masquerade as a missing aircraft.
@All
Attention all Propeller heads! Richard Godfrey has a new paper on the Duncan Steel site.
@All
Re the “convoy of ships” discussion.
I checked with Mike Chillit.
The chart is NOT showing lots of ships.
The chart is showing only a few ships, as they traversed the area (ships are SLOW remember !), broadcasting their positions every “now and then”.
See here.
https://twitter.com/Ventus_45/status/754836454639927296
@All
Re the “ship radar” discussion.
Short and sweet, normally operated marine navigation radars, ie, ship radars, will NOT see an aircraft AT ALTITUDE.
You need an air search radar for that.
That is why Navy Frigates and larger ships have those huge antennas on top. Freighters do not.
If the aircraft crashed or ditched within about 20 miles, perhaps a ship radar would get a blip or two, over a couple of antenna rotations. It would not be noticed even if a human eye was on the display at that instant, and even if it was, it would be dismissed.
You guys are clutching at virtual straws here. Forget it.
@sk999
Yes, totally agree. The crew of these ships were not lounging about sitting in deck chairs. Those not on duty were below getting what rest they could given the sea state. Those on duty were concentrating on keeping the ship on track. No one was star gazing or looking for passing aircraft to wave at.
My guess is that unless MH370 came down almost on top of them it would not be noticed.
As far as the new Godfrey paper is concerned I came up with a slightly lower mid-flight speed than Godfrey is quoting – a minimum ground speed of 408knots using a method much different than Brian Anderson’s. A method which takes advantage of the fact that at 19:40 the satellite was virtually standing still at the extreme range of dither, and all of the residual Doppler could be attributed to aircraft motion.
Methodology shown here:
http://tmex1.blogspot.com/2015/09/mid-flight-speed-mh370-mid-flight-speed.html
No matter. I am not inviting an argument here. Just pointing out a small inconsistency.
@all
Relative to the recent Godfey paper, I am advocating a very late FMT consistent with loitering, and an anticipated landing at Banda Aceh. When that did not work out a flight path roughly paralleling the coast of Java/Sumatra was undertaken (IMHO). Perhaps even including a way point toward the Cocos.
In the meantime the usual suspects are clinging ferociously to prior assumptions, and grudgingly moving North.
@Gysbrecht. Yes ‘carriage’ applies better to a roller track but that is what a Boeing diagram calls it in this assembly.
@Ventus45. Many thanks. 6 pics. The RAR extension is proving awkward to date though.
@Ge Rijn. Yes like you I have assume the auxiliary support roller track at the inboard end would contribute little resistance. There could well be tell-tale damage to a component inside though.
In a powered ditching (flaps down) I suppose there would be some local spoiler operation though not deployment. Unpowered and with no APU the RAT would not actuate those.
With flaps down contact with the actuating assembly is of course less likely.
Either way an explanation is needed to explain what caused the damage, this disclosing the circumstances. The DSTG used to have the skills and I hope still does. However with the end-of-search area currently settled they may not be tasked. The meeting of the ministers is due tomorrow from memory.
Other thoughts:
– the MH17 outer flap outer section which was ejected in a high speed crash with no gross damage to the top or leading edge apparent. No spoilers operating there or flaps down. It had an auxiliary support too, at the outer end. http://joostniemoller.nl/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/P1460386.jpg
– the MH370 inner section trailing edge could have been ripped off by the rest of the flap in separation (unlike the MH17 section): water impact loading looks inconsistent with its shape. However that leaves the flaperon t.e. separation open. It might have been down somewhat in an unpowered ditching; in the unlikely event of that.
– the flaperon had compression damage to the outboard leading corner which needs explanation. I think it likely it would separate from the wing at the same time though there is no sign it and the outer flpa section collided.
– the skin would take the stresses since no spars attached to the exposed rib (at the break) are evident. One would expect more fibre exposure in the broken skin and I suppose this was abraded off afterwards.
– Your, “The leading edge and upperside (and underside) are not damaged (apart from that one hole and cut on the outboard side)).” Some confusion here. There are the two leading edge damaged areas at the outboard end as shown in your photo (just the one downloads btw)
https://s31.postimg.org/svott1iff/French_Satellites_Geomar_Reverse_Drift_Skipp.png
Dr. Duncan Steel’s interpretation of numerous drift analyses favors a crash site near (34S,94E).
Dr. Steel also identified several French satellite radar returns clustered near (34.5S,92E) detected on 23 March 2014, which would have drifted to there from near (34.5S,93.5E) on the 7th arc on 8 March 2014. And, the swath of 7th arc from ~37S to 34.5S was never searched by air. And, items initially floating at 34S might have drifted westwards out of the air search area before aircraft actually arrived a week or more afterwards.
Inmarsat’s published path terminates at (34.7S, 93E).
Geomar’s reverse-drift study including the Stoke’s effect has a high-probability starting zone extending from (31-34S,93-97E). It intersects the 7th ping-ring at (34S,94E) and extends from there NE.
French satellite detections, Geomar reverse-drift and some other similar studies, and Inmarsat’s published path, all vaguely coincide near (34.5S,93.5E) plus or minus a half degree either way or so.
If Mike Chillit’s ships-tracks chart identifies the successive locations of single ships along their track over 7-8 March 2014, then on the morning of the 8th, the ships would have been near the middle of those tracks. If so, then no ships were near the 7th arc north of 37S. And, even if they were, the yellow circles representing the ships have a scaled radius of ~10mi, which might be a reasonable estimate of the maximum direct visual sighting distance, from any ship, to the water spray & plume at the actual impact site. Sound of the impact would require most of a minute to travel that distance, and so would plausibly be very muffled, especially aboard a large noisy maritime transport vessel.
@all
As discussed on another board, perhaps hypothetical hijackers bribed KLIA ground crews to load extra fuel aboard the plane?
One website stated, that Zaharie’s flight-sim had IO airports at Sri Lanka, India, Maldives, & Diego Garcia. If Zaharie used those as waypoints, for a radar-confusing, radar-evading “low-and-slow” route, looping around and eventually heading towards DG from the north, then, especially with extra fuel, he could have almost reached DG around 10-11 local time.
That would generally coincide, in time and space, with the Curtin Boom event.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CnnjouiXgAAvyrL.jpg
PS: Please acknowledge, that IF MH370 –> DG, THEN the satellite data was faked…
and IF the satellite data was faked, THEN so too could ACARS data have been faked…
And so then, throwing all data out into the solar wind, MH370 could have lifted off from KLIA with tons of extra fuel aboard.
Reaching DG at high noon, and (perhaps) being intercepted and destroyed about an hour earlier en route and north of the target, requires spectacularly sophisticated hijackers, who utilize advanced means, to fail in a broad-daylight attack, on a presumably well-defended installation.
A scheduled domestic flight, known to have arrived at and landed in the Maldives at 6:33am, may be a much more likely explanation of the islanders’ observations:
http://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1830548/could-plane-spotted-maldivian-islanders-really-be-mh370
@Jeff: re: “I’m not a mathematician myself, but intuitively one would surmise that given both the BTO and the drift-model data sets, the new peak probability are should lie somewhere between the northern end of the current search box and Broken Ridge.”
I AM a mathematician myself. And yet I beg to differ.
I am that rare breed of propeller-head who uses math, stats, and computer models to extract insight out of real-life data, to inform actual business decisions. It is my decades of experience in business – not my academic training – which allow me to offer the following observations:
1) Garbage in, garbage out: the importance of verifying data simply cannot be overstated. The first thing a pure mathematician does when handed a pile of data – the “givens” at the top of the page – is to assume this data is perfect, plug it into the indicated formula, and produce an answer. The first thing a strong performer in my industry does is to QUESTION the data. Test it every which way for reasonability. Assess the veracity of its source. Validate it, by benchmarking to other sources. Reconcile it to upstream versions of it. In a word, we “scrub” the data. Often until it bleeds.
2) The importance of verifying RESULTS likewise cannot be overstated. The first thing a pure statistician does when handed two disparate sets of result distributions is to create a weighted average of the two, and call it a better result than either A or B. The first thing a strong performer in my industry does is put the brakes on any further work until the disparity is fully explained. Has one of the models been fed bad data? Is one of the models weak, or being stretched beyond the limits of the purpose for which it was designed? We figure out WHY they say two very different things; if we don’t – and base key business decisions on a simple average of the two – we’ll soon find ourselves in deep trouble. If my doctor is handed two reports – one recommending removal of my left kidney, the other my right – am I ok with the doctor removing both? Should she just start cutting somewhere near the geographical average of the two…?
As applied to MH370: the probability distributions in your images above actually understate the true disparity: the GEOMAR graph is based on a Stokes effect assumption GEOMAR’s Dr. Jonathan Durgadoo describes as an upper bound, not a best estimate. This is a highly sensitive assumption, whose value should be set to reflect an unbiased best view of the actual physical effect, not to “get close” to the ISAT data’s indications. The latter tactic is “group-think” at its worst.
Given the large GAP between the two distributions, it is far more valuable, in my view, to question the fundamental assumptions driving each model – including their data inputs – than it is to search the space in between, which NEITHER model can support without the aid of considerable finagling.
Has the following been looked at —
The weight of the unknown cargo/mangosteens be actually extra fuel to extend the flight range beyond when is currently being used as a limit ?
@all
I came across this link and I think it’s worth read. Like most articles on the net, you have to extract the,best and leave the rest.
What I found of interest is the Honeywell SDU specs and the upgrade on the in flight entertainment. More so the full connectivity to Satcom which could via sub or a phone. Not only from the crew but passengers as well. Once it raises the question of the DAY log on request after Mh370 went dark.
The speculation at the end of this article of sophisticated hijacking does raise some questions in my mind. Not convinced about the freescale connection though. Maybe this was a sophisticated hijacking gone wrong?
http://www.abeldanger.net/2014/07/churchills-red-switch-grandsons-and_4080.html?m=1
I’m curious which ‘Boeing diagram’ you’re referring to. Can you provide it?
I have plotted Richard Godfrey’s recently proposed search area against the current search status. Effectively it is a 200km extension to the area Go Phoenix worked.
I estimate a further 9000sq.km. would need to be covered with side-scan sonar to cover this additional area. It is not clear how much extra AUV work would also be needed.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/xyykdr8s105z63e/Godfrey-search-area.jpg?dl=0
@David
Thank you for MH17 outboard flap section photo. You are probably right this part seperated during disintegrated in high speed flight and not by impact on the ground.
I assume you think the piece then seperated due to flutter?
In that case it’s telling IMO the trailing edge is not damaged at all also, as are the trailing edges of the found flaperon and outboard flap section.
This speaks IMO against the opinion those trailing edges broke off due to flutter (in a high speeds dive).
Besides, next to it is lying a fixed wing piece with the jettison tube (?) thats situated right next to this outboard flap section. Also with an undamaged trailing edge.
Then I have to mention above this outboard section are three panels and only the inboard part is covered by a part of a spoiler. This piece will therefore not have hit spoiler actuators. I give you a picture which shows this:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/8nvt000rpdl89a8/outboardflapout.jpg?dl=0
And you are right about non or hardly any spoiler deployment on landing (or ditching under power) as I assumed before.
Still IMO the leading edge and upperside had got damaged if the found outboard flap section was retracted when seperating.
While that outer outboard flap section of MH17 could remain undamaged retracted for there are only panels and no actuators above it.
-the flaperon has some compression damage on its leading edge that needs explanation indeed. Consider the flaperon is right behind the engine. If this engine also seperated parts of it could easily have hit the flaperon and its leading edge while this seperated too. Maybe that could be an explanation.
-the damage on the leading edge of the outboard flap section has this hole and cut on the upperside but indeed also some damage on its leading edge outboard side under the hinge. Maybe there parts of the hinge actuating structure that remained on the wing damaged the leading edge there.
I put another dropbox picture in. I thought I linked the whole serie of 10 but that did not work out obviously. Try to fix that.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/cmslv7up1nzfo2d/outflap5.jpg?dl=0
Sure, the BFO at !9:40 gives a groundspeed of 408 knots on heading 180 degrees. But you usually dismiss BFO on the basis of oscillator drift, and Godfrey explicitly ignores it.
Brian Anderson’s method relies on two assumptions:
– constant speed and heading between the 2nd and 3rd arcs (one hour), and
– an arbitrary curve fit to the BTO’s to define the ‘tangent’ point between those arcs.
A small shift of that tangent point produces large changes in the groundspeed.
According to my calculation the minimum groundspeed between the 6th and 7th arcs is 291 knots.
I also read the latest Richard Godfrey paper and I found it very interesting.
He is only working with the BTO data and estimated speeds from radar data. In a way the same as Jeff Wise suggested in this topic by using only the BTO data.
In a way he also works the other way around as I suggested in my ‘thought experiment’ few days ago in which I suggested to leave all the Inmarsat data out and only use the debris and drift data and see what comes out.
He does the opposit by leaving all the debris and drift data out (and the BFO data).
I find it very interesting that both ways of approuching lead to similar outcomes.
At least they are not conflicting but supporting eachother.
One point in his conclusions though I think could be problematic (if I understand him well..).
He limits the defined area at 10Nm from the 7th arc. With this I assume he still excludes the possibility of a controlled glide up to 100Nm.
IMO this could turn out to be a missed change if a seach through the area he defines was carried out.
@Richard Cole
continuing search anywhere near the current search area is beating a dead horse
we need an official with enough courage who will come out and say it’s time to move the search up the arc
not that I foresee that happening though, unfortunately
@Aaron
Thanks for posting that link, the research paper shows us that this BUAP technology is real and has been in development for at least 10 years. I don’t know if MH370 was equipped with such a system, officially it wasn’t, but how are we to know this?
Here’s a link to historical weather patterns for indian ocean the day mh370 went missing.http://www.weathergraphics.com/malaysia/iozooms.shtml
@Aaron
Thanks for posting the Weather Graphics link, very interesting. The animated GIF demonstrates how the sunrise line (terminator) passed across the region (the South West chart) between 00:00UTC and 01:00UTC. Shows there was a good deal of cloud around at the time, as well
@KenS
Your welcome.
I’m pretty that article n @KenS the claim that 9MRO was fitted with the latest Honeywell upgrade. Which would allow for remote auto pilot.
It certainly adds the question could have been a sophisticated hijacking?
Like others, I find the SDU log on request very puzzling. As if it was the Captain who hijacked his own plane. Why would he turn on the SDU again. Unless he needed other flight instruments turned back on and was unaware of turning back the SDU. I HAVE very little knowledge of how circuit breakers link up in the overall avionics. Maybe someone here can shred some light on that?
@Rob
Your welcome.
You might find this of interest. MH370 contrail Indian ocean. I forgot to save the link. Just Google it..
@Aaron
Here is a satellite photo that was taken on March 8th, 2014 over the SIO you can see just how much cloud cover there was that day.. Interestingly in this sat pic there appears to be 2 possible contrails or distrails in the image.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/g7h7j8ayug6l3jt/SIO_SAT_IMAGE_MARCH%208th_low_res_v2.JPG?dl=0
@Aaron
Yes, I have always found that very strange, why would the Captain want to reboot the SDU? Perhaps you are right he needed to turn back on systems to get other instruments to work but if his intent was to fly the plane undected out to the SIO he should have been aware of this problem and disconnected the power cable on the SDU before turning power back on the bus.
Of course it’s possible this may have been a simple oversight on his part and he was not aware that this would happen.
@Ken S
Did you see the scale of that satellite picture?
It’s about the whole surface of the Australian continent.
Those ‘contrails or distrails’ that you seem to see must then be at least ~100km wide..
And if you take those for ‘contrails’ there are quite a few better ones to spot in this image too.
To me this is pure looking in clouds and finding patterns in it. If you insist in seeing those patterns you’ll find them.
And for you are seeing two of those ‘contrails’ there must have been two planes?
Ge Rijn
Yes this is possible, but long linear features like these are usually not natural. My belief is that these are not contrails but rather distrails, which are created when an airplane flies through a super-cooled cloud and leaves an imprint of it’s flight path in the cloud.
I have yet to see a contrail from satellite imagery that works for me. I wish I could get behind one of these images, it sure would make the search easier. And the concept makes logical sense too – everything sounds great right up until I see the images themselves. But so far everything I’ve seen since March 2014 is just like Ge Rijn described – you can pretty much see what you want to see.
Ge Rijn
Another possibility that has been suggested to me is that these are contrails shadows in which the contrail is above the cloud and we are seeing the shadow of it on top of the cloud. Depending on how high the contrail is above the cloud the wider it’s shadow would be.
I am no expert on this but I do find these linear features rather odd but it is possible it could be just something natural as well.
@Ken, @Rijn
Watching your exchange I am reminded of the 80’s TV show X-Files: Agent Mulder to agent Scully “But I want to believe!”
@George Tilton
lol..Someone on twitter once suggested to me that I may be suffering from some form of “face pareidolia”. The ability to see Jesus on toast. I did not even know that such a condition existed.
http://time.com/90810/its-perfectly-normal-to-see-jesus-in-toast-study-says/
@Jeff: Thank you for re-explaining the BTO/BFO issue to all of us.
BTW, I think I have spotted 2 errors:
* “… because the random motion of ocean currents introduces a large amount of certainty.” (I think you mean uncertainty.)
* “Based on past loss-of-control accidents and flight simulations of how, the ATSB decided that an out-of-fuel 777 would fly with no pilot would enter a spiral dive and impact the surface within 20 nautical miles.”
Thanks, Julie!
@Jeff- this is the real Julie. It looks like I’ve been spoofed as that last comment was not by me. Presumably your security measures need to be extended to my account too? Thanks in advance.
@Julie, Wow, that was subtle — yes, it must have been “Greg Long” out of Austria. Well, they were good catches anyway. Thanks for giving me the heads up.
@Dennis,
When comparing your speed calculation with mine there are some differences in the assumptions that ought to be understood.
Your calculation results in an assessment of the speed at a point in time, i.e. 19:41. Actually, at that time the satellite had already reached it’s northernmost point [at 19:36] and had begun moving southward again. Also, at that time the aircraft was not flying exactly tangential to the satellite, but rather it was still getting closer to the satellite. I think the result of your assumptions means that the aircraft speed at 19:41 is actually greater than you calculate.
I made assumptions too. I assume that the track is more or less straight between 19:41 and 20:41, and that the speed is relatively constant. I did test the sensitivity of the precise time for the point of tangency because the precision in estimating this time does influence the result of the calculation. An interesting observation though. If the tangent point were to occur at 19:41, [an assumption comparable to yours], then my speed calculation comes out at about 398 knots. That is a deal closer to your calculated speed.
There are some other more esoteric assumptions that have a lesser effect, but I won’t pursue them here. [ . . and I wouldn’t call the curve fit “arbitrary”, and to be pedantic, nor was it curve fitting the BTOs.]
@Jeff- Yes, very subtle. No use of the word dictator, and correct spelling and grammar! It wouldn’t have been hard for anyone to spoof me as all one would need to do is guess the email address I used, which is pretty easy. If you could change the email to something more secure that would put my mind at ease – a reputation is hard to recover if the spoofer starts getting nasty. Or you could disable this account and next time I post I’ll re-sign in as “Julie Reformed” or something such, with a less obvious email address. Ha ha! Thanks!
@Julie, I don’t want to discuss methods but now that I’m alerted I have ways to tell whether it’s from you or not, and I’ll keep an eye out.
@Brian Anderson
Hi Brian. I just want to say how valuable your report “Deducing the Mid Flight Speed of MH370” has been. I’m referring specifically to the link to the wind/temperature data map of the SIO, useful for determining headwind values.
Regards, Rob
@DennisW
Regarding the timing of the FMT: wasn’t it established that the BFO data obtained from the first telephone call, at about 18:40, was showing the aircraft to be moving south at the time?
I don’t particularly enjoy playing the role of “spectre at the feast”, but I thought the BFO data pretty much tied down the FMT to be no later that about 18:37, ie, at IGOGU.