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.
Reading all interseting latest comments and contemplating about them I found this instruction-video about landing an Airbus when both pilots are incapacitated.
Not quite on topic but I though it might be educating and entertaining at the same time.
Just for a brake if allowed by Jeff Wise:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iI0Sw4eS1TE
ATSB operational update with new pictures of the Pemba-piece:
http://www.atsb.gov.au/mh370-pages/updates/operational-update.aspx
@Ge Rijn
Re the ATSB pictures of the outboard flap section: to me the photos look overly posed, to an embarrassing degree – here we are at the ATSB, with our Malaysian colleagues, pretending we are actually interested in finding clues to the demise of MH370.
Sorry, but after reading Ventus45’s recent post, my emotions have a cynical turn.
@Gysbreght
Again – if captain Zaharie was alone in the cockpit, carrying out a pre-meditated plan, why “the high acceleration manoeuvre performed by the aircraft”,
Because he wanted to change course as expeditious as possible. A search would initially be in the general direction of the initial track, therefore no reason to change direction with the passenger friendly 15° AoB?
“why the erratic variations in speed and track after the turn-back until well past Penang?”
To throw off possible followers? If it was Zahire, he would have known that there was no way of crossing the mainland without being painted by primary radar.
@RetiredF4:
“Because he wanted to change course as expeditious as possible.” The result of what he did was no more ‘expeditious’ than a standard turn at 25° bank would have been.
“To throw off possible followers? ” That comment makes no sense to me.
@RetiredF4
You are right on there!
Well said, indeed.
A wrinkle that might hint at some of the lack of transparency in this whole affair:
“The US prepares to seize over $1 billion worth of assets linked to 1MDB. The civil lawsuits are part of an ongoing federal probe into the Malaysian government investment fund and those linked to it, and could be one of the largest asset seizures in US history”
http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-readies-push-to-seize-assets-tied-to-malaysian-fund-1mdb-1468987220
@Gysbreght
I think you are being slightly picky, there.
It was a tight left turn by anybody’s standards, considering it was a B777, wings loaded with fuel) Makes perfect sense that Z would want to create as much of a discontinuity as possible at the point of turn-back toward the Malay peninsula, to confuse primary radar.
@ROB: In the following graph the red circle represents a normal 25° bank turn. The timing is such that it connects the pre-IGARI track to the radar data in Factual Information. Why would anything else “confuse primary radar”?
Besides, according to Zaharie’s supposed flight plan to the SIO, seven hours to go to fuel exhaustion, why would a few seconds gained in the turn matter?
https://www.dropbox.com/s/l9sdn0cx1ipkvnd/IGARItracks.jpg?dl=0
@Richard Cole
I suggest if you take MPat’s model as a basis of analysing other boxes than you have a fairly accurate/workable amount of fragments (in this case tracked undroged buoys) of 177 of which 31 land in Africa over 18 months.
This might well be close to reality with 12 pieces found so far and maybe ~20 still lying around somewhere unfound yet.
Then you can take a predicted estimate of landing fragments at 30 starting with 170 in each box starting from the 7th arc.
The box that covers the whole range of found debris from Mosselbay to Pemba island or includes the most of them, will be the box where the crash area will most likely be.
Then you can repeat the same procedure in that box by cutting it in half and see which half is making the best comparison with all the found pieces and so on.
I think doing a study like this will also able you to set a most northernly possible borderline after which a crash area is highly unlikely.
Just as the MPat-model(and Griffin/SCIRO-model) show a crash area south of 36S is highly unlikely for no debris landed or is found in Australia.
On a certain northern latitude drifters (and debris) will start landing in areas nothing is found too (Sumatra/Java f.i.).
On the same grounds those latitudes can then be excluded too just like the latitudes south of 36S.
I like to make an anology..
Take a big white wall and draw a ~5 meter horizontal line on it resembling the coast of Africa. Then draw 12 crosses on it resembling the found pieces from Mosselbay to Pemba.
Then take a wide focus flashlight, dimm the light in the room, shine on the wall and walk back till the bean of light covers all the crosses.
There you’ll have your hotspot on the ‘7th arc’.
From that point draw a circel-curve on the floor to the left and the right.
Now walk along that curve line with the flashlight shining on the wall at the same angle all the time. When you walk to the right you will see crosses disappearing on the right side of the wall. When you walk to the left you’ll se the opposite happening.
Obviously on the point where all the crosses are visible there is the hotspot.
I hope you get what I mean..
@Brock McEwen: When I produced my report on the radar data back in August 2015, I used the time and position of the start of the IGARI turn and the last radar point at 18:22 to estimate that the plane flew at a constant FL340 and M0.84 over that interval. However, I noted that that the timestamps of the radar segments along the path were not consistent with a constant Mach number. At the time, I guessed that there was a time offset introduced by non-synchronized clocks. For instance, look at Figure 2 in my report where I graphically show this offset and the accompanying text on the top of Page 5.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/zh9rfqa6rxy582m/2015-08-18%20Radar%20Data%20for%20MH370.pdf?dl=0
After the DSTG report was published in December 2015, the filtered (smoothed) ground speed curves that were graphically presented showed large variations. That led me to believe that the anomalies I attributed to timestamp problems could actually be attributed to speed variation. For this reason, I have (unsuccessfully) sought the (unfiltered) radar data to better understand the nature of the speed changes and perhaps the associated changes in altitude.
And yes, these manoeuvers might have consumed more fuel than LRC assumptions, which would have an ultimate impact on range.
And a drop in altitude as the aircraft passed south of Penang would have increased the probability of a brief network connection between Fariq Hamid’s cell phone and a tower.
If we believe the leaks attributed to US officials are true, the evidence points to Zaharie Shah as the culprit. So either the US is deliberately misleading us, or the pilot is responsible. Clearly you and I are reaching different conclusions as I don’t believe the US is misleading us. Ultimately, I think these are the only two scenarios that will remain standing.
Blaine seems to have found four more pieces on Madagascar. I’ve seen this mentioned on twitter and surprised not to see it reported here already – I know Jeff will be aware of it as the person who posted it there copied him in. So just a heads up to all.
https://twitter.com/Bookofresearch
@Susie
Hello! Nice to hear from you again.
I opened that link but cann’t find about those 4 other pieces.
Are there pictures?
The WSJ is reporting today that the “U.S. Set to Seize $1 Billion in Assets Tied to Malaysian Fund 1MDB”. The entire article is excellent, but behind a paywall.
Here are some excerpts:
***
Federal prosecutors are poised to launch one of the largest asset seizures in U.S. history as they step up their investigation into billions of dollars siphoned away from a Malaysian government investment fund, according to people familiar with the matter.
The expected asset seizures would be the U.S. government’s first action tied to the 1MDB investigation. It is unknown what assets will be seized, but the action is expected to surpass civil suits filed since 2015 seeking to seize $850 million in assets involving three telecom companies in an unrelated case, according to people familiar with the matter. The people say the investigation is continuing.
The expected actions by U.S. authorities also threaten to upend the country’s relationship with Malaysia, a moderate Muslim nation that has long been an important U.S. ally in Southeast Asia. Malaysia has deep ties to the Middle East and has been seen as a bulwark against China, which has increasingly asserted its power across Asia. President Barack Obama cultivated a relationship with Mr. Najib, including playing golf together in Hawaii over the Christmas holidays in 2014.
***
As the US has decided that the Malaysian corruption is too deep to ignore despite the strategic value of protecting Najib, I think we will see more evidence officially surface which incriminates the pilot.
@Gysbreght
Much has been discussed on this site about why the pilot risked being picked up on primary radar. My opinion was that he had no alternative but to risk it. It was a calculated risk which he was obviously prepared to take. You see, he couldn’t be sure which primary radars would be on at the time, or being attentively monitored. Any discontinuity at turn-back would improve his chances, hence the 25deg turn. I would not call a 25deg turn at cruising speed, a normal turn. You may want to argue otherwise. Similarly, his decision to fly at above normal B777 cruising speed until he was out of radar range, was a further attempt to thwart military radar tracking, ineffective as it turns out. Perhaps he really was worried about having his plans ruined by the Malay or Thai air force.
As to the LRC question, and the idea of attaining maximum range into the SIO, I think that is a red herring. I believe he just wanted to synchronize fuel exhaustion with Sun elevation, a necessary requirement for ditching. He had 7.5 hours worth of fuel to play with. Once the FMT had been made at IGOGU, all he had to do was throttle back to a constant Mach 0.81, at 35,000ft, and the job would be done. He had worked all this out in advance.
Please note these are my opinions only, my interpretation of the data. I am not forcing anything on anybody.
Perhaps the acting pilot was flying the a/c manually, by hand, from IGARI-BITOD all the way to Penang ? Evidence of
(A) maximum airframe speed >>500kts
(B) large & erratic speed variations
could be construed as consistent, with manual non-AP inputs. Maximum possible speed occurs at ~31,000′ pressure altitude, 320kts IAS, at the “knee” in the B-777 flight envelope.
According to SmartCockpit:
==========================
The APs can also be disengaged by…overriding with the control column, control wheel, or rudder pedals [with] LAND 2 or LAND 3 annunciated.
An automatic AP disconnect occurs for some failures detected by the AP… Depending upon the system failure, it may be possible to re-engage an autopilot by pushing the AP engage switch.
=============
I gather that the AT rarely auto disconnects, although pilots can of course physically manually override.
If the acting pilot was “pushing the envelope” of the aircraft, unstable flight performance would be risked. This simple suggestion could account for both the high speed and large erratic variations of the same, as well as the marginal evidence of slight descent from FL350 to 31-32K feet.
As shown on the user-recently-posted “Bayesian radar speeds” graph, the variations in speed quickly “settle down” and “quiet out” after Penang & Pulau Perak, precisely as the aircraft started tracking towards well-known waypoints VAMPI-MEKAR-NILAM.
So, there are numerous lines of evidence supporting the conjecture, that the a/c was flown manually by hand from diversion to Penang / Pulau Perak…
at which point the APs were re-engaged on LNAV mode (??) with a newly defined flightplan consisting of waypoints VAMPI-MEKAR-NILAM(?)…
Please note, that the co-pilot’s supposed cell-phone call c.17:51, as the a/c banked gracefully around Penang island visible out all starboard windows and began to track steadily towards N571, coincides with the alleged ADSB data-point time-stamped “17:50” but appearing to represent data actually collected near IGARI a half-hour earlier. Any conceivably construable connection ??
=====
PS: I suspect strongly that they don’t line up, but what if the a/c sank into Broken Ridge… and triggered an undersea landslide down the slopes of the same… so emanating the “Curtin Boom”… and burying all of the a/c debris under meters of benthic silt & sediment ??? Any known evidence of recent landslides in the search zones ??
@Victor
Several outlets have now picked up on the asset seizure story. It looks like the house of cards is coming down. It remains to be seen how or if any of this ties into MH370. I believe it does, as you know. I have felt all along that the MH370 diversion was motivated by some form of negotiation with the Malay government that simply did not end well.
@ Ge Rijn,
sorry – I’ve been immersed in politics for a few weeks and let my standards slip!
The tweet I was referring to appears not to be there any more. I’m not sure what’s going on – I’m afraid I didn’t save any of the pictures.
For what it’s worth three of the pieces looked fairly similar to the smaller sections found by Blaine previously, and there was also a hexagon shaped item whose likelihood of having come from an aircraft I cannot estimate.
I will keep looking – but Jeff ought to have a copy of the tweet in his email inbox at least, as should ALSM who was also CCd in the tweet.
Not sure what is going on. I’ll let you know if I find out.
@DennisW: I am uncertain about whether the MH370 diversion is related to a negotiation. I am more certain that important pieces of the criminal investigation have not been officially disclosed out of deference to the Najib regime. Hopefully, this changes, as there seems to be less political will to protect Najib.
It occurs to me, perhaps Blaine did not want these images shared at present – doesn’t seem like his normal ethos but still, I hope by posting about it here I haven’t caused him or anyone else any problems.
I’m not a member of facebook or the group he belongs to on FB so unfortunately not in a position to find out more – I have asked the tweeter though (who is I think Dutch – if you wanted to contact them yourself through Twitter)
@ROB
IMO what you say could make sence. He knew (if he was on the controls) he was going to be spotted by the military. And took the risk of getting away with it.
Simulating a fast as possible emergency flight and descent to Penang as if he intended to land there.
When he would get scrambled in between he would have the change to take that option to land or to crash the plane where ever he wanted it or just got him shot down.
The plane didn’t got scrambled (if we believe the Malaysians) so he got away with it. Climbing to cruise altitude again after Penang and flying out of radar range.
Still I think it’s strange the military let the plane go. They tracked the plane from IGARU till out of Butterworth radar range without taking any action. To me this is hard to get.
After it became clear to them the plane was not going to land at Penang they should have know something was very wrong.
At that time they should have had time enough to scramble jets from Penang to go after it.
What they actualy did or did not will remain a secret I’m afraid.
@Susie, I haven’t seen anything about this. In the past Blaine has sometimes been cagey about his finds though.
@Gysbreght
“Because he wanted to change course as expeditious as possible.” The result of what he did was no more ‘expeditious’ than a standard turn at 25° bank would have been.
“To throw off possible followers? ” That comment makes no sense to me.”
I can see why. I’m looking at the turn and the maneuvering done in a tactical sense. Zahire had flown combat jets and had air defensive training. You look at it from a math point of view like at the turnback at IGARI. Your graph is nice, but it is probably unintentional biased in what you like to show. You should start the 25° bank turn at the same position where the hook turn started, and the turn would have carried MH370 deeper into Vietnamese airspace. Furthermore a break turn has not necessarily to be continued until the roll out to the new desired heading, rhe initial turn rate is the important factor. If you compare the initial 90° heading change with a normal turn (which would be about 15° level bank turn at that altitude) the difference is more obvious.
On the other hand we do not know if the hook turn is real like you plotted it or wether it is some kind of plotting error from primary radar due to the high acelleration turn. I also did not comment on the effectiveness of such a turn and wether it was Zahire or any other pilot doing the turn. But answering your question why Zahire (let me add or another rouge pliot) would behave like that it just is “for tactical reasons to deceive and confuse ATC and air defence”.
Here is the new debris discovered by Mr. Blaine Gibson:
https://twitter.com/h1ppyg1rl/status/755763226793668613
@Susie
I sure can imagine you’ve been immersed in politics on that big island of yours lately 😉
To me what happened in England is the best thing what could have happened to the EU in the long run.
It’s a great wake up call to the power and arrogance Brussels has accumulated over time ignoring so much resistance and objections of so many people.
But that’s a totaly different matter.
Hope you stay alert here too.
Your input has been very valuable to me and others I’m sure.
And your soothing attitude is much appreciated.
@ROB:
” I would not call a 25deg turn at cruising speed, a normal turn. You may want to argue otherwise.”
I don’t need to argue about turn rate. 25° is the default bank angle for turns. Unless the pilot select another maximum value, all turns, whether commanded by the FMC or by heading changes selected on the MCP, are flown at that angle. It results in a loadfactor of 1.1 g at all speeds. At normal cruising speeds the heading changes at the rate of 1°/sec.
“Similarly, his decision to fly at above normal B777 cruising speed until he was out of radar range, was a further attempt to thwart military radar tracking, ineffective as it turns out.” After the turn-back the airplane did not “fly at above normal B777 cruising speed”, which is M.84. Before IGARI the airplane flew at M.82, an abnormally low speed that is even slightly below Max Range Speed. I fail to see what the speed has got to do with primary radar detection or evasion. The radar will track anything within range at any speed, but the attention of a radar observer may be drawn by abnormal behaviour of a target.
@Victorl
Thank you for the pics. There are clearly some other honeycomb and carbon layered pieces shown.
The rubber piece though with the 6 holes around that big hole to me has a clear resemblance with a flexible intermediate between two cardan axles of a car or truck.
Anyway I can imagine the ATSB has now their focus on the Pemba-piece kind of ignoring these and other pieces.
I expect -and maybe they too- the Pemba-piece can realy make a differance that those other pieces can not.
@Gysbreght
You said before IGARI, the plane flew at M0.82. Excuse me but I wasn’t talking about before IGARI, before the turn-back.
After the turn-back, he flew average M0.86!
Someone here is rather fond of red herrings.
And thank you but I did know that M0.84 is economic cruising speed for the B777.
@Susie
Welcome back.
Blaine Gibson is on a roll! Does this Paulstra Straflex flange coupling seal match Blaine Gibson’s latest find?
http://www.directindustry.com/prod/paulstra/product-7438-1697875.html
Slide 8 (hexagonal debris piece):
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/5svgj56ctztqf7i/AADqiUojzTgbB3FVzuSl5Ssfa?dl=0&preview=Slide8.JPG
@Ge Rijn: It is doubtful that the rubber coupling is from MH370.
@ Rob, thank you – nice to see you too.
@ Ge Rijn – you’re too generous, but many thanks for the welcome. Someone on Twitter said a few days ago that they are exploring the theory that the late David Bowie was in fact holding reality together. That sums up UK politics rather well I feel…: )
It looks as though the twitterers were awaiting or confirming permission to post the images. Got to respect that.
Thank you, Victor, for finding them in their new and improved format (I’d only seen four pictures).
Best regards to all.
Paulstra product – may be this type
http://www.paulstra-industry.com/straflex-with-separate-hub-p88-en.html
@RetiredF4
“Zahire had flown combat jets and had air defensive training.” Where did you get that?
“Your graph is nice, but it is probably unintentional biased in what you like to show. You should start the 25° bank turn at the same position where the hook turn started, …”. If you do that there is no way you could arrive in time at the civilian primary radar data published in Factual Information. (VictorI has highlighted that).
“Furthermore a break turn has not necessarily to be continued until the roll out …”. Please explain what constitutes a “break turn”.
“… wether it was Zahire or any other pilot doing the turn”. I’m not discussing what “any other pilot” could have done. My issue is specifically the unfounded notion expressed by some readers that “Zaharie did it”, based on rumours spread by ‘sources’ quoting unnamed U.S. officials reporting that FBI examination of the harddisk of Zaharie’s computer had found SIO waypoints on that harddisk.
Piece 9 is an interior panel. See slide 27.
@Susie
Thats what I mean. Spot on again. Paulstra product, drive shaft coupling.
Wonderfull 😉
@DennisW posted “One could even argue that near the cell tower “horizon” is about the only place A phone in a plane could be “seen” by the cell tower. Cell sites are designed with antenna “panels” that radiate in the tangent plane of the cell site. If an aircraft were directly over the cell site there would be no chance that the antenna pattern could “see’ the phone.
The horizon is the only option really.”
Thanks for your insight on this. Do you know what the approximate distance between where the aircraft would have been at 17:55 UTC and the cell tower in Pennang?
A typical cellphone has enough power to reach a cell tower up to 45 miles away. Depending on the technology of the cellphone network, the maximum distance may be as low as 22 miles because the signal otherwise takes too long for the highly accurate timing of the cellphone protocol to work reliably.
If we know the approximate distance we would be able to determine if this possibilty is feasible or not.
http://smallbusiness.chron.com/far-can-cell-tower-cellphone-pick-up-signal-32124.html
@Susie
You might be right. There seems to be a decorative pattern on the laminate.
But quite different as the Rodrigues panel.
@Erik Nelson
He was a good pilot, but he wasn’t that good, no mortal is. As for the moral use of the word he was a kind person. He doesn’t fit in with what happened.
@DennisW
Source? If they blame anything on the pilots then I will know they are lying.
@Ge Rijn
Or maybe that is the terrifying part where they could not physicly find MH370 and thus cannot share this with the public.
From ABC News:
“Watching the progress of this I am, in one respect, not surprised that they have not found the airplane, because they were searching in a box that was predicated on the airplane running out of gas with no live pilot,” ABC News aviation consultant John Nance said.
“But what we’re finding in parts is more commiserate with the airplane having been ditched by a live pilot, and that would’ve been probably outside that box someplace. That airplane, if so, is largely intact on the bottom, somewhere.
He added: “Basically, if I were to see debris of any sort, any substantial numbers, from inside the cabin or inside the baggage compartment, then the ditching theory kind of goes away. But so far it’s really on the table.”
@ikr
Thanks for sharing that with us. John Nance is a clued up guy, obviously.
@ROB: “After the turn-back, he flew average M0.86!”
You are misinformed. if I remember correctly, VictorI equated the true air speed derived from the radar data to M.84 at FL340, and the ATSB to M.82 at FL320. The latter makes more sense, because when the autopilot disconnected the autothrottles probably remained engaged at the M.82 that was selected before IGARI according to the ACARS position report.
@Gysbreght
Unfortunately, you are very much misinformed about the speed after the turn-back.
Taking the air temperature and wind speeds into account, the average speed works out about M0.86.
@Rob: My calculations do take into account temperature and wind. What do you believe is the TAS and altitude, assuming the altitude and M remained constant at 0.86?
@Ken S
It might be worthwhile to get the coordinates of the cell site to form another estimate of where the plane was at ~7:55 UTC i.e. see where a 50 mile radius to the cell site intersects the radar track.
@ Ge Rijn,
So sorry – I missed your prior post linking to the coupling. I must start reading more carefully.
You definitely got there first! : )
Do you think the pattern is different, or larger, than the interior panel from Rodriguez?
@DennisW – Richard Godfrey’s July 10 paper analyzes the change of speed based on the radar returns between Pulau Perak at 18:02 and last contact at 18:22. You also spoke of “holes” in the radar track. Page 17 of the DTSG report:
“ The radar data contains regular estimates of latitude, longitude and altitude at 10 second intervals from 16:42:27 to 18:01:49. A single additional latitude and longitude position was reported at 18:22:12.” It does not include the word “altitude.” If there were just the 18:02 and 18:22 returns, wouldn’t mean the “Lido Hotel” picture was filled in to add extra returns during that leg.
(I’ll try moonrise viewing through my legs and report how it looked.)
@VictorI – I agree that the BFO at 18:40 indicates a flight to the south or a northern track with a concurrent descent. Perhaps I missed it but Richard Godfrey’s paper says the BFO data was excluded from his analysis but then how he was able to choose a southern flight?
&ROB & @Gysbreght – I suggest that whatever the TAS from Pulau Perak to 10nm past MEKAR is,that speed will have been continued after the FMT. Perhaps to flameout of the right engine.
I’m sorry, again – it was Ginne who linked to the Paulstra site. I guess I didn’t see they had already done so because their post contains two links, so was perhaps held in the moderation queue.
Anyway – looks as though we have reached a consensus about that piece, at least!
@ROB
I rarely watch ABC News, so wasn’t familiar with John Nance. But he certainly has some credibility: Veteran USAF and commercial pilot, law degree, specialization in air safety, particularly human factors.
And I’m sure he said “commensurate”, not “commiserate”!
And speaking of street cred — I’m certainly willing to defer to RetiredF4 on what a pilot would try to do in a tactical situation!
@DennisW: The number I have seen for the cell tower range is 32 km. Certainly, MH370 passed close enough to Penang Island so that many towers were in that range at 17:52 UTC.