New York has obtained a confidential document from the Malaysian police investigation into the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 that shows that the plane’s captain, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, conducted a simulated flight deep into the remote southern Indian Ocean less than a month before the plane vanished under uncannily similar circumstances. The revelation, which Malaysia withheld from a lengthy public report on the investigation, is the strongest evidence yet that Zaharie made off with the plane in a premeditated act of mass murder-suicide.
The document presents the findings of the Malaysian police’s investigation into Zaharie. It reveals that after the plane disappeared in March of 2014, Malaysia turned over to the FBI hard drives that Zaharie used to record sessions on an elaborate home-built flight simulator. The FBI was able to recover six deleted data points that had been stored by Microsoft Flight Simulator X program in the weeks before MH370 disappeared, according to the document. Each point records the airplane’s altitude, speed, direction of flight, and other key parameters at a given moment. The document reads, in part:
Based on the Forensics Analysis conducted on the 5 HDDs obtained from the Flight Simulator from MH370 Pilot’s house, we found a flight path, that lead to the Southern Indian Ocean, among the numerous other flight paths charted on the Flight Simulator, that could be of interest, as contained in Table 2.
Taken together, these points show a flight that departs Kuala Lumpur, heads northwest over the Malacca Strait, then turns left and heads south over the Indian Ocean, continuing until fuel exhaustion over an empty stretch of sea.
Search officials believe MH370 followed a similar route, based on signals the plane transmitted to a satellite after ceasing communications and turning off course. The actual and the simulated flights were not identical, though, with the stimulated endpoint some 900 miles from the remote patch of southern ocean area where officials believe the plane went down. Based on the data in the document, here’s a map of the simulated fight compared to the route searchers believe the lost airliner followed (see above).
Rumors have long circulated that the FBI had discovered such evidence, but Malaysian officials made no mention of the find in the otherwise detailed report into the investigation, “Factual Information,” that was released on the first anniversary of the disappearance.
The credibility of the rumors was further undermined by the fact that many media accountsmentioned “a small runway on an unnamed island in the far southern Indian Ocean,” of which there are none.
From the beginning, Zaharie has been a primary suspect, but until now no hard evidence implicating him has emerged. The “Factual Information” report states, “The Captain’s ability to handle stress at work and home was good. There was no known history of apathy, anxiety, or irritability. There were no significant changes in his life style, interpersonal conflict or family stresses.” After his disappearance, friends and family members came forward to described Zaharie as an affable, helpful family man who enjoyed making instructional YouTube videos for home DIY projects — hardly the typical profile of a mass murderer.
The newly unveiled documents, however, suggest Malaysian officials have suppressed at least one key piece of incriminating information. This is not entirely surprising: There is a history in aircraft investigations of national safety boards refusing to believe that their pilots could have intentionally crashed an aircraft full of passengers. After EgyptAir 990 went down near Martha’s Vineyard in 1999, for example, Egyptian officials angrily rejected the U.S. National Transport Safety Board finding that the pilot had deliberately steered the plane into the sea. Indonesian officials likewise rejected the NTSB finding that the 1997 crash of SilkAir 185 was an act of pilot suicide.
Previous press accounts suggest that Australian and U.S. officials involved in the MH370 investigation have long been more suspicious of Zaharie than their Malaysian counterparts. In January, Byron Bailey wrote in The Australian: “Several months after the MH370 disappearance I was told by a government source that the FBI had recovered from Zaharie’s home computer deleted information showing flight plan waypoints … my source … left me with the impression that the FBI were of the opinion that Zaharie was responsible for the crash.”
However, it’s not entirely clear that the recovered flight-simulator data is conclusive. The differences between the simulated and actual flights are significant, most notably in the final direction in which they were heading. It’s possible that their overall similarities are coincidental — that Zaharie didn’t intend his simulator flight as a practice run but had merely decided to fly someplace unusual.
Today, ministers from Malaysia, China, and Australia announced that once the current seabed search for MH370’s wreckage is completed, they will suspend further efforts to find the plane. The search was originally expected to wrap up this month, but stormy weather has pushed back the anticipated completion date to this fall. So far, 42,000 square miles have been covered at a cost of more than $130 million, with another 4,000 square miles to go.
“I must emphasise that this does not mean we are giving up on the search for MH370,” Malaysian Transport minister Liow Tiong Lai said. Officials have previously stated that if they received “credible new information that leads to the identification of a specific location of the aircraft,” the search could be expanded.
But some, including relatives of the missing passengers, believe that that evidentiary threshold has already been past. Recent months have seen the discovery of more than a dozen pieces of suspected aircraft debris, which analyzed collectively could narrow down where the plane went down. (The surprising absence of such wreckage for more than a year left me exploring alternative explanations that ultimately proved unnecessary.) The fact that Zaharie apparently practiced flying until he ran out of fuel over the remote southern Indian Ocean suggests the current search is on the right track — and that another year of hunting might be a worthwhile investment.
UPDATE 7/23/16: Here is some data on some of the points recovered from Zaharie’s flight simulator. Note that one of the points is missing. There are also additional fields that I am not yet at liberty to disclose. Watch this space…
Jeff,
Can you give more details? We have had enough of the secrecy and lies the past 2 years.
For those questioning whether this is a hoax, I will add that I have seen the document that Jeff refers to in the article, which was not supplied to me by Jeff, and it is 100% authentic.
@Victorl @Jeff Wise
Thank you. Still it’s almost impossible to put this information in a context without knowing any hard data here.
It’s like throwing some fish bait in the water and see which fish come after it.
But I tend to trust Jeff has good reasons for not releasing those data for the moment as you probably have also.
To me there’s not much use in discussing this without at least some essential data.
OK, the FBI and Malaysian officials have known about this for over 2 years and we’re only finding about this now?
@Eric B., reports have circulated for more than two years, but not until now has an actual official document leaked out showing the coordinates found on Zaharie’s computer
Thanks Jeff, I wonder if this report was why the Malaysian Police Chief told the Indonesian Police Chief “I know what happened”?
@Jeff, @Victor: this is the same argument you used to “confirm” additional serial number matches on the flaperon than Florence de Changy reported. “Trust us; we’ve seen the super-secret evidence”.
How many more times are you planning to go to this well?
Also: what credentials qualify you to act as clearinghouse for the wider world re: verification of evidence? The rest of us can help; the rest of us WANT to help. Please let us help.
I’ve very much enjoyed working with you both these past 2 years. For my part, I’ve always appreciated your intelligence and (usually) fair-minded discourse, and have trusted that we are all on the same side: the side that is trying its very best to get to the actual truth. But neither of you deserve to see this data as much as do, for example, the next of kin. And frankly, when an event as unprecedented and catastrophic as the disappearance of MH370 occurs, one expects geopolitical intrigue. However unwittingly, you both may well be helping serve a disinformation campaign, by allowing potentially key evidence to become “sexed up”, by
a) adding the artificial weight of the “super-secret evidence” tag, and
b) pumping incendiary “suicide route” language as red meat into the 24-hour news cycle without full support/context
If these things “take time”, then fine: please release only the flaperon imagery. But releasing the detailed report – and the additional context it might offer – shouldn’t take MUCH time: what parts of it could possibly be MORE sensitive than the detailed coordinates – inferrable from the graph – you’ve already now described to the whole world as a “suicide route”?
JW tells us that he negotiated with his source over how much to reveal. This means the source understood, at least partially, the consequences.
One such consequence would be that Malaysian Airlines would lose all the insurance money.
From the interview of Australian Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss by Blaine Alan Gibson:
“He added that the insurance policy is void if the crash is the result of a deliberate intervention by a Malaysia Airlines employee.”
It seems that JW source is willing to cause Malaysia a huge financial loss in order to frame the captain. I wonder what are his motives.
@Jeff Wise @Victorl
Can you confirm the red route in the graphic is fairly accurate, based on the coördinates given in the report?
The red route is crossing the 7th arc at ~31S ~98E.
I suspect both routes can be a mix. A ‘first choice’ route on the simulator and the ‘second choice’ route that actualy was flown but then with the more north west FMT from the simulator route (as @Victorl suggested in his model lately) after passing the Chennai FIR boundary at INOGO or ANOKO.
Please then give at least the confirmation the red route in the graphic is accurately based on those coördinates in the report.
http://www.cellmapper.net/map?MCC=502&MNC=16
https://s32.postimg.org/pffur1rol/Penang_path_part_cell_call.jpg
Co-pilot’s cellphone probably utilized the “Maxis” carrier’s network, which has good 3G coverage along highway AH2 along the west-coast of Malaysia, across from Penang island. MH370 flew over & across the highway, such that the A/C would have been in range of numerous towers. If AH2 is a highway, then there may still have been some light traffic in the 1:50am darkness, any drivers report a low-flying jumbojet ?? The highway tower call would have occurred c.17:50 in one of the radar coverage gaps, not entirely inconsistent with low altitude.
Also possible is the “DiGi” network, with better coverage of Penang island, but those towers would have been much farther away from the flight path than those along the highway. Moreover, ’twas the CO-pilot’s cell-phone, and only “Maxis” carrier’s network has coverage in Kota Bharu. However, perhaps the banking turn around Penang island would have dipped the right wing and allowed cell signal to leak out of the starboard windows towards the Penang towers? “Maxis” has some coverage, of Georgetown in the NE corner of the island, as well as along E36 Jambatan Pulau Pinang bridge to the island.
Cell-phone’s ramp up signal strength when trying to find towers to connect with the network. Might mean something, that the co-pilot’s phone was awakened & reactivated, when mobile devices are prohibited during flight, b/c of their capacity to interfere with onboard electronics — flight crew using cell-phones to somehow test & diagnose A/C circuits ?? Or unambiguously a communications attempt (if story’s accurate) ?
“interference with aircraft is a potential problem, especially with mobile phones that boost their power output when searching for service, the FCC’s concern is that a mobile phone roaming at 35,000 feet will contact multiple towers at the same time, causing disruptions for ground-based users.”
http://www.airspacemag.com/how-things-work/turn-off-that-phone-5577574/
@JW Graphic supplied to you or constructed by you on basis of said co-ordinates?
Jeff can you just say if those paths included going around Indonesia and flying towards Australia or not?!
I can’t see any valid reason why he’d turn towards Australia after getting around Sumatra if he wanted to do a suicide/hide the plane.
@JW thanks for the update
The search isn’t over so far. Just 110,000 out of 120,000 square km have been searched yet. Maybe they will find it in the remaining 10,000 square km. But if not, there are only two possible answers to this problem. And both should be considered well.
Answer 1: The plane went down outside the search area. This is what this, and several other, article deal with. They are well reasoned.
Answer 2: The plane went down inside the search area, but the search team has overseen it. This is my current favorite. I see four indications for this theory:
First: If the cockpit was unmanned and the plane crashed into the see, falling down from cruising altitude, the forces of the crash into the water might be similar to an almost vertical crash into concrete or rock. This might lead to very small parts of debris only. See pictures from Germanwings-Flug 9525 and Flydubai 981 for comparison. You almost can’t identify the crash site as a plane crash site without knowing.
Second: The MH 370 debris that washed ashore so far, has one in common: It is very small, compared to the total hull and plane size. Even the Reunion flaperon is only a few meters in length.
Third: If the plane turned from one piece into thousands or millions of small parts when touching the ocean surface in one small “point”, all these parts might have sunken in diverse velocity due to different float ability (buoyancy), weight, remaining and leaving air, leaving fluids and so on. While sinking, these parts were effected by the different currents on the several levels of an ocean, 6000 m in depth. Consider the sinking of RMS Titanic in 1912 after breaking in two parts. Although at a time-lag of only two minutes the both parts of the ship lay landed on different sites on the ocean bed, 600 meters in distance (around 3800 m below ocean surface).
Sub-theory: Maybe the planes main parts, such as hull, wings, engines, even broke up and separated in the air through the forces of the uncontrolled descent. This would already result in touching the sea surface in different “points” instead of the “one to millions pieces in one small point” assumption, made under “Third”.
Four: Remember the sonar image of the ship wreck, found in December 2015, shown to the public. From this image I would hypothesis, that the resolution might not be high enough to find small debris, that widely spread among the ocean. The resolution was fair enough to discover a wreckage or bigger parts, but maybe not unconnected parts in one-digit meter size. How to discern them from the sea bed around.
Additional: Smaller parts would be even more likely to sink into a sandy sea bed, to that theire full size might even be partly covered. Remember, the systematical underwater search did not start before half a year after the crash. A lot of sand could have migrated onto the parts.
Further evidence for the “Overseen Theory” gives an interview to the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), where Fugro Equator crew members call a “false negative” their main fear and also name a minimum resolution of 2m x 2m. A hull would spark like a star, the said. They expect the debris field to be an oval 600 m long shape. See:
http://www.faz.net/aktuell/gesellschaft/ungluecke/suche-nach-mh370-detektivarbeit-in-der-tiefsee-14109087-p2.html?printPagedArticle=true
But if there are only parts lower then 2m x 2m in average? Or bigger, but partially covered by sand? And/or if these parts are much more widley spread then 600 m, due to my considerations made above?
@David R wrote: This is the content of an email I sent to CNN on March 21, 2014.
“Here’s my theory of Malaysian Flight 370…
“The captain was wild enough about flying that he put a professional flight simulator in his home. What else would he do with a personal flight simulator (at least eventually) other than test the limits of his ability? He’s in the age group of people for which the movie “Firefox” (1982) was formative in setting the bar for imaginative flying possibilities (he was 21 years old; also close to when he became a pilot). Now we learn that the plane may have flown for 7+ hours after “lost.” So… he wanted to land the plane on an ice floe in the southern Indian Ocean or someplace similar enough to prove that he could accomplish his Clint Eastwood fantasy. Why try with his employer’s jumbo jet full of innocent passengers? He’d have no other access to an aircraft capable of flying the distance or with the technology required to even attempt landing on an ice floe. My guess is that he did not successfully land the plane because, if successful, and with no motivation or reason to harm the crew or passengers, he would have activated the equipment necessary for the plane to be located for a rescue operation. The airplane is very far south in the Indian Ocean. Farfetched? Maybe. But possible for someone bored-out-of-his-mind by his job; who realizes that his window of opportunity is closing soon because of mandatory retirement age; and improving technology that at some point soon likely would make it impossible to fly such an aircraft so far with nearly complete stealth? Sure. If he fails, no repercussions of any consequence to him. If he succeeds, he ends his career with the ultimate adventure, pleads insanity and stays out of jail, and goes down in history. Maybe our captain is just another middle-aged guy struggling with meaning-of-life issues who happened to have a $270 million advanced long-range aircraft at his disposal that he happened to fly with great skill.”
I really think David R. is on to something here. This theory really goes out of the box to get inside the mind of an aging Pilot with no clear reason to commit an act of suicide/murder. David’s theory touches on the pilot’s age and his possible early inspiration for flying. Zaharie’s obsession is so overwhelming he installs a flight simulator in his home. I used to work in IT and a lot of young guys would spend 25 hours a day playing video games. I saw their personalities change..often in very dark and destructive ways. No, they didn’t become murderers but their lives took a very sharp downward trend and I wouldn’t put ANYTHING past them. That’s the key phrase “I wouldn’t put ANYTHING past them”. These guys spend endless hours playing their fantasy games/simulators and their mind gets altered. Their fantasy gets out of control and before you know it their on CNN and everybody’s going “what happened, why did he do that?”. It makes no sense, no rhyme or reason..except to Zaharie. He got lost in his own fantasy land known as bizarro world.
@Jeff Wise
Another matter. If you state; ‘MH370 pilot flew a suicide route on his home simulator’ with such confidence for all the world to know and you also name the pilot, you must be quite confident.
I assume you have very good reasons for such a far reaching statement.
With this statement offcourse you declare he flew a suicide route in reality. For it’s impossible to commit suicide on a virtual reality route in a simulator..
Implications of such a statement are offcourse huge. In the first place for the NoK. But offcourse also for the search effort.
It would imply the flight was planned from beginning till end and most probably under control from beginning till end by Zaharie as you suggest.
I can understand your responsibility to deal with this information carefully.
But now you allready threw your clear conclusions in public and on this blog of yours, not only here but everyone will demand in short time the evidence of your statements.
I’m sure you are well aware of this and I trust you will deal with this in the most proper way very soon.
The cover-up always needed a culprit and the practical solution was shifting all blame on the dead pilots. Unfortunately the captain is politically an easier target than the co-pilot.
The captain would have been falsely accused long ago but:
* western public wouldn’t accept it without evidence and faking it is risky
* Malaysian Airlines will lose all the insurance money if a pilot did it
* Malaysia public image will suffer if its pilots endangered passengers
Because of this conflict we had persistent anti-Shah rumors, e.g. the New York Times pre-programmed turn back story (denied by Malaysia) but no definite accusation.
It seems this status quo had now broken, the need to maintain the cover-up won over the interests of Malaysia and justice. This is a dangerous situation because it’ll force the truth about MH370 to come out and the consequences will be grave.
All this is of course just my personal opinion and not that of any organization or official entity.
@Jeff Wise
Also thanks for the update!
@Victor @Jeff
Can you please share the ”evidence” ?
Enough of the secrecy. We need to see evidence.
So by now its obvious that Jeff has a source and is the same said source that Miles OBrien has (FBI). So IF and I said IF this is true, why the hell did the FBI sit on this information??? For 2 bloody years, and allow all that taxpayer money to be wasted searching an area where they knew the plane wasn’t. It beggars belief that a govt would allow this to happen. Not to mention dragging the families through the ringer, unbelievably cruel.
That Jeff got the scoop doesn’t seem like a coincidence to me either, his blog is well known for discussions on MH370, so Jeff has known this for awhile, which is why his spoof story is gone and why he has been banning people who talk about anything besides the data and SIO which has now been proven to be the wrong area. My question is all this talk about fuel…..how on earth did the plane go that much further with not enough fuel????????????????
But reports from the FBI early on said that they had found nothing on Shahs flight sim. HUH??
The US got mighty friendly with Malaysia after this plane disappeared. They needed to keep them as an ally in the south china sea, they were after all using one of their airbases for their P8s. No sense denying it, I have a friend at the US Military who told me this is true. US Pres Obama went to Malaysia shortly after this plane disappeared, first time a US pres had been to that country in 48 years!!!!! Then shortly after that H20 was seen in Hawaii meeting with Dept of Defense Chuck Hagel (on the news) and the next thing you see is Obama playing golf with Najib in Hawaii. All of a sudden these guys are buddy- buddy, hmmm interesting.
So it was the US who brought out the Inmarsat data when Malaysia denied it, why? All the number crunchers from the IG group worked hard and spent a lot of time and money with these numbers and for what??? A whopper lie? This is just outrageous to me that the US government would sit on this information and let a wild goose chase happen, what could be the reasons? There is no justification for this except possibly a cover up, but why? They were covering up for Malaysia, but now they aren’t, what happened and why??
Now if TRUE then Malaysia will loose their insurance money for the loss of the plane. Now that the US is going to seize assets in the 1MDB scandal, they have decided that they are not going to back a corrupt Malaysia anymore. Still the very fact that they sat on this information is very disturbing to me.
The red line indicates a much further south impact, so HOW did the debris wind up north eastern African coast? I agree with Brock here, something does smell awful fishy to me. The French are staying silent because they know something is not right here.
Bugsy
It almost seems like there was an agreement, if the search is to be suspended, to publicly confirm the most likely explanation for the loss.
By March 15, 2014 Prime Minister Najib Razak ended much of the flight’s “mystery” by clearly stating the flight was deliberately flown via either a northern or southern route. By March 24, 2014 Prime Minister Razak said the plane was lost in the Indian Ocean to the south. By that point, it was becoming fairly obvious (from press articles etc) that pilot suicide was a possible if not probable explanation.
Around that same time, CNN basically said they would refuse to cover the pilot suicide explanation, and so the on-air “mystery” continued. Although I am a CNN news junkie, I personally felt CNN was going down the wrong path at that point. It was still good news coverage by CNN, but there was much less mystery in my mind.
That’s how I see it.
@Jeff Wise
The ‘near Andoman and Nicobar islands’ latitudes and longitudes of 10.59S and 90.13E could well be a key IMO.
I think this could well be the point chosen for FMT on forehand.
The Australian latitudes are of less importance IMO for they don’t match with the found debris and the 7th arc.
If this is all true I believe the simulator route was a route of ‘first choice’.
The two routes have to be combined.
A pdf on the FIR boundarys there:
http://www.icao.int/APAC/Meetings/2015%20SEACG22/GENERAL%20INFORMATION%20South%20Asia%20FIR.pdf
Good luck with this huge responsibility!
If one were paranoid, one might think Malaysia has seriously pi••ed off someone with significant power in this world. And one may wonder how, why and who, became angry.
For quite some time, Malaysia has been Southeast Asia’s parapet for it’s wealth and stability. Also, for quite some time, Malaysia and the US have remained good friends. Both appear to be changing.
When MH370 put Malaysia front and center, it also dragged with it, a corrupt government, including it’s participation of pilfering hundreds of millions of dollars.
The 1MDB house of cards was destined to eventually tumble having grown to a proportional imbalance and becoming harder to bury, but the spotlight on Malaysia certainly hastened it.
This set a process in motion with ramifications which could potentially destroy Malaysia’s position in the world and also end it’s long standing relationship with the U.S.
Because THAT old friend” has “leaked” an FBI report, one that exposes Malaysia in a myriad of deceit. If that was not enough, that same “old friend” has taken the lead role in seizing assets and offering maximum exposure of 1MDB.
And to think how copacetic it all was between the U.S. and Malaysia, until it wasn’t…and how quickly that occurred and how it seems to overlap MH370.
@ Jeff Wise: Thanks for the super interesting article and good job on the scoop!
One thing you can tell already is that there was no attempt at gliding in the simulation: the last two points are only separated by about 18,000 feet (5 km) laterally, but with a 33,000 altitude difference….
I sense some misdirected frustration toward the messenger.
I for one am grateful for the (presumably dogged) legwork involved. Cheers for the ongoing persistence Jeff and Victor.
@All
Until I see an official statement released directly by the FBI about this data on the Captain’s flight simulator I am going to take this story with a grain of salt. Here’s why.
The only official public statements by the FBI on the Captains hard drive came in April 2014 when they said they found “Nothing Sinister” on the Captain’s hard drive.
If this was a premature statement by the FBI then someone at the FBI didn’t do their job right. It is very uncharacteristic of the FBI to make incorrect public statements about an investigation without first throughly investigating the evidence first. I doubt very much they would have made such a statement without throughly investigating these 5 hard drives in advamce.
I find this story, which started in July 2014 as rumours, is highly suspicious because I have not seen any official public statement directly from the FBI on this. You would think that if the FBI did find such incriminating evidence on the Captain’s flight simulator they would have held another press conference, just like they did in April 2014, to correct the public record and announce this astonishing new developement in the case, but that didn’t happened.
i believe this is a planted story by someone in the US Gov, speaking unofficially for the FBI, that was leaked to Malaysian officials this data to frame the pilot and make him look like the culprit.
Until the FBI makes an official public statement on this hard drive data, this story should be treated as speculation and suspicious. Especially with the timing of this story coinciding with the asset seizures in the US of the 1MDB fund and the annoucement of the suspension of the search.
It seems some very powerful people want us to believe the Captain did this and they just want the MH370 story to go away.
@Warren Platts
It could have been he was only testing his maximum endurance on that simulation on a ‘first choice’ route like that.
Just to be sure he could reach his destination and to calculated how much fuel he would have left (to dump) reaching it.
It doesn’t say something about a plan not to glide the plane to a certain destination.
Anyway those Australian latitudes are much too far south to fit the debris finds and the Inmarsat data.
If this is all what it seems to tell the objective must have been to hide plane in the best spot available in a region that fits the Inmarsat data, the debris finds, the drift data and a ~100miles glide.
There’s only one region that fits all those criteria.
It’s the deepest area the red (simulation) route is crossing at ~33S ~101E.
And this is the more than 7000m deep Dordrecht Hole.
Unreachable, undetactable. Perfect for hiding a plane and all evidence that would proof he did it.
” why the hell did the FBI sit on this information??? For 2 bloody years, and allow all that taxpayer money to be wasted searching an area where they knew the plane wasn’t.”
You do realize that Z didn’t fly exactly to that place shown on the map, right?
It should be noted that the new evidence is very very focused and narrow.
The red route contradicts:
* Inmarsat BTO data
* MH370 performance analysis
* debris drift studies
It couldn’t be used to aid MH370 search in any way. It can serve only one purpose: ascribe evil intentions to captain Shah.
The next item, the co-pilot phone registration similarly have no practical value. It can only serve to support the MH370 turn back dogma.
We have here two items bolstering the weak points of the cover-up with minimal implications otherwise. This is the professional fingerprint of intelligence agencies required to avoid lying to the public as much as possible.
@Ron
IMO the red route could be a pre programmed practising route of first choice. This route is much less complicated and with much less risks than the other route. But he possible didn’t get the opportunity to take a flight like this (to Europe perhaps) to execute this first plan..
This route was never flown that’s why it contradicts all other ‘evidence’.
Only the stretch between Penang and 18.22 are the same as the yellow route but with the FMT occuring on the FMT point of the red route I assume for now.
@Jeffwise
“•••Convention on International Civil Aviation prevents the release findings from an investigation without the consent from the state conducting the investigation.•••”
Will you please clarify?
I remain dense of the differences for information release whether civil or criminal. What dictates which country can release what information? Is France the only country that has criminal pursuit?
Was the FBI “evidence” restricted by ICAO guidelines? If not, why did they hide it? If they were (are), how could it be disclosed now?
@Ron
Finally have to hand it to you. Your unbridled, opinion sharing intelligence from months ago, has morphed into a very disciplined one. Your comments provide a unique significant insight, one that is extremely valuable. Thank you for your contribution.
If this information was provided to the DSTG modelling team, I think their response would have been that the model could deal with this type of path (as from the simulator). Their data driven solutions would not be affected.
Particularly, the late FMT shown in the simulator points was not consistent with the BFO data at the phone call so that particular ‘exact’ path could be ruled out.
@Ron: it could also be that this “leak” is about sexing up innocent sim paths to look damning – but strictly for show.
For example: if (I’m just saying IF; please do not infer that I actually endorse this scenario) someone’s military downed the plane by accident, then they may have owned up behind closed doors – allowing MAS to collect the insurance – but then waged a massive PR campaign, to save face in the eyes of the world – of which this report is the latest* chapter.
* but not last; any such PR campaign would be expected to culminate in planted deep sea wreckage being milked for all it’s worth (“take THAT, ye doubters of official narratives!”)
The fact that the investigative side of the disappearance has been almost non-existent has been frequently and loudly attributed to “those evil Malaysians”. But under the above scenario, a simpler, more rational explanation emerges: they knew there was nothing to investigate.
Which is why we need a rigorous public enquiry, to get to the bottom of the matter, and rule such things out. With information flow this sporadic and shady, we have no hope of finding closure – whether seabed wreckage is found or not. With a public enquiry into search leadership, at least we have a decent chance of squeezing out an admission.
@Richard Cole said, “Particularly, the late FMT shown in the simulator points was not consistent with the BFO data at the phone call so that particular ‘exact’ path could be ruled out.”
Yes, and the assumption of level flight at 18:40 could have been one of the flaws of the DSTG analysis. With the simulator coordinates in hand, it would have been appropriate to include paths with a descent at 18:40 and a later FMT. Of course, the search area would have been much larger if there were not other constraints.
@ Ge Rijn: The last two points coming so close together indicating a crash (in the sim) is consistent with Zaharie starting the sim, walking away, perhaps to do some home repairs in the basement, and then forgetting about it. So the crash at the end is consistent with a perfectly innocent explanation.
However, the hook around Indonesia would seem to be pretty damning. Why not cross directly over Indonesia if this were not a dry run for a kidnapping & suicide mission?
Question for Jeff and Victor: What about the reports that Zaharie was practicing landing at remote airstrips in the SIO? Does the new information confirm that as well? And if so, what airstrips was he looking at?
@Ron
You would think that these ” intelligence agencies” who dreamt up this flight path would have at least done the BTO math correctly to get a match and make the story more convincing.
The red path doesn’t depart from a flight to Bejing. It departs from a flight in the direction of Europe, which would explain more fuel carried onboard. The point of diversion from a flight towards Europe isn’t necessary applicable to MH370, because the times from takeoff and top-of-climb would be different.
@Ken S
As someone stated above. The route was never actually flown.
Likewise without seeing the other routes on the simulator there is the suspicion that this route was “cherry picked” to support the ATSB actions.
@Warren Platts
‘Why not cross directly over Indonesia’.
Then he had to cross the FIR boundary to Indonesia there and report to ATC Indonesia where he was going for he was unexpected.
What should he say?
He stayed save in the narrow Malaysian airspace between the FIR boundaries of Thailand and Indonesia till out of reach of Butterworth radar passing the FIR boundary of Chennai/India after that turning south.
(remind please it’s all still only speculating for me asif taking this information as ‘facts’)
@Gysbreght
Very good point. The first three data points are consistent with that notion. It would then be a practice diversion from such a flight, not from a flight to Beijing.
And the band played Believe It If You Like.
(It’s not even April 1st)
@Gysbreght
Nice you repeat this Europe and more fuel suggestion (I said the same on the previous page).
If this all is what it suggests, it could well be a ‘first choice of flight option’ that was practised on his home simulator but was not carried out like this for he had not the opportunity to take a flight to Europe.
@Ge Rijn
Yes, you did make that suggestion. My apologies. I sometimes have a difficult timing parsing your English. Not your problem. My problem. Your English is a lot better than anything I could express in any language besides English.
In any case that notion (practice diversion from a flight to Europe) feels pretty good to me right now.
Some facts in the above narrative stands corrected
1. Indonesia is not the beneficial owner of Silkair. Singapore via SIA was and still is.
2. The NTSB report on Silkair 1997 was also not the final summation on the matter. A civil litigation in Los Angeles against rudder manufacturer Parker Hannifin, reached a mechanical verdict. See incidents and accidents in link below:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SilkAir
3. Disclosure or non disclosure of pilot suicide is immaterial to airline’s financial performance. In the case of SilkAir it continues flying and has continously reaped a healthy profit since ground zero 1997. As for parent company SIA, the yearly financial results are well known making it a darling stock in aviation circles.
4. Additionally, the Germanwings crash of March 2015 had no financial impact on either GW or parent company, Lufthansa as indicated in the FY report in this link:
http://investor-relations.lufthansagroup.com/fileadmin/downloads/en/financial-reports/annual-reports/LH-AR-2015-e.pdf
The underlying message being disclosure of suicide has little or no ramifications to a carriers reputation or its national aviation sector.
Moving on, one finds nob disclosure perplexing. One is also puzzled as to why the blog owner didn’t posit this scenario in a dedicated blog post for discussion as he did with barnacle-less debris and other similar theories including the infamous spoof. That would have clarified a lot of issues and assisted immensely in search resolution if indeed suicide had been a major factor all along.
The timing of this disclosure in relation to other unfolding events plus cryptically tied to the sudden appearance of @dah ah in another post is intriguing. One is also left perplexed as to why the remaining 4000 sq miles of the current search area needs to be searched given this “new” evidence. Finally, one is mystified as to why a suicidal perp didn’t trash his HDDs before embarking on his death wish and why was his supposed flyby not intercepted or even picked up by other sovereigns’ radar.
Given all the above misgivings plus others not mentioned here, one has no recourse but to call for full disclosure regarding the provenance of all data collated thus far failing which, one can conclude that only one of the myriad possibilities that best befits logic is the true one and,on paper, at least @ron has plenty going for his as much as @rob ,@ Ge Rijn @brock or @ Alsm et alhave for theirs.
We are left with such hunches cos the flawed datasets seemingly speaks contradictory tales. Hence the recourse to speculation and conjecture when disclosure and by default, clarity would have afforded a definitive and clearer pix.
The resolution of this “mystery should not be about scoring points but rather helping the NOK to come to terms with reality, attain closure and move on. Thus failure in that regard has rendered us IMHO callous participants out on a feeding frenzy. One hopes that was and is never the goal . But if true, it would be a sad reflection of ourselves.
@Brock Your 10 AM post, I think you have said it very well. This whole thing stinks even more now – we are all manipulated. My instinct tells me that someone is making money from this.
Thanks for that comment. It adds some weight to a press article, which could have been written with the legitimate objective of provoking comments from the competent authorities..
Was the document specifically about the FBI findings or did it cover also other aspects of the Malaysian police investigation?
It all boils down to this; was the BFO data recorded at 00:19, interpreted by the ATSB and their expert advisers as indicating a high descent rate, actually an artifact of the SDU’s electronic circuitry instead of an indication of the aircraft state at that point? The latter interpretation holds sway in the corridors of the ATSB, and the Malaysian authorities follow the ATSB line.
@Susie Crowe: “Was the FBI “evidence” restricted by ICAO guidelines?”
While you are waiting for Jeff’s reply, you could familiarize yourself with ICAO Annex 13. It is available on the web, but I forgot where.
@Gysbreght: I am not at liberty to same more. I only commented on what Jeff disclosed because it is now in the public domain. I do expect the source to be releasing more information soon, especially after Jeff’s disclosure.