In a posting to a section of its website called “Correcting the record,” the Australian Transport Safety Board today confirmed that the FBI found data on MH370 captain Zaharie Shah’s flight simulator hard drives indicating that Zaharie had practiced a one-way flight into the southern Indian Ocean, as I wrote in a story for New York magazine on Friday. Entitled “False and inaccurate media report on the search for MH370,” the post concerns several claims by Australian pilot Byron Bailey in The Australian, including Bailey’s interpretation of the flight-sim data:
Mr Bailey also claims that FBI data from MH370 captain’s home simulator shows that the captain plotted a course to the southern Indian Ocean and that it was a deliberate planned murder/suicide. There is no evidence to support this claim. As Infrastructure and Transport Minister Darren Chester said in a statement, the simulator information shows only the possibility of planning. It does not reveal what happened on the night of its disappearance nor where the aircraft is located. While the FBI data provides a piece of information, the best available evidence of the aircraft’s location is based on what we know from the last satellite communications with the aircraft. This is indeed the consensus of international satellite and aircraft specialists.
While ostensibly rebutting Bailey’s claims, the ATSB tacitly acknowledges the fact that the flight-sim data was in fact found by the FBI.
@Jeffwise
Jeff,
you said, “OK, what do you like better?”
Here is where it gets confusing for me? All along, it seems the modus operandi for determining Zaharie’s culpability has been, what else have you got? So we “tar and feather” him by process of elimination.
Maybe other countries have a system of justice that works this way but I certainly never thought the US justice doctrine amounted to the “lesser of evils.”
The FBI has remained a very active part of this investigation so if this is some new brand of justice, guilt by elimination, perhaps someone needs to make that clear.
Until then we should continue to assume that facts, about actions and behavior are what dictate guilt or innocence. Where are the FACTS of Z’s actions and behavior that determine his guilt of a crime so heinous it is almost unimaginable.
Hangover from Jeff’s previous post.
1.Rate of descent, according to the ATSB.
@ Gysbreght. On P1 you imply that the phugoids will prevent a high speed descent that Jeff had postulated. Even if they did reduce the probability of these descents, in the analysis I quoted the ATSB says that phugoids “may” occur; and in simulations, “In many cases, but not all, a phugoid oscillation in pitch was observed”, leaving such descents in the picture.
You assert that the ATSB has stated, “that bank angles observed were low”. In their report they say that in simulations the aircraft simply, “remained in a banked turn” and, “The turn analysis provided some indicative paths of an aircraft entering a banked (often increasing) turn until impacting the ocean”
As to the outcome, speed of descent, in simulations they indicate, “the aircraft may have exceeded its design envelope when it was descending and experiencing phugoid oscillations”.
You assert, “If the second flame-out occurred at FL200, and the airplane descended at 2000 fpm on average, it would enter the ocean in about 10 minutes.”
The flame out occurred at high altitude than that and the aircraft was descending during the 7th arc log-on request 2 mins later. By a little over 1 ½ minutes after that (see report P11) the aircraft had crashed. You could say that the aircraft came down from say 30,000 ft in three and a half minutes or from a lesser unknown altitude – possibly not much less if initial low bank had continued for two minutes – in 1 ½ minutes. In the first case it AVERAGED 8,500 ft/min, including the lag at the top, in the second probably more than twice that.
Not that slow. The Minister’s statement that it did does not need to rely on BFO.
For my part, with bank and gravity no longer being on the Z axis I believe a phugoid (with which I am familiar) will be dominated by other flight dynamics including possible high speed pitch-up moment. In a circumstance of nose down and rapid roll on a small turn radius this could lead to break up.
2. Search width.
In my previous post I was concerned about the (apparently arbitrary) doubling of the search width to allow for some unknowns; and also the lack of a probability and confidence assessment in the outcome.
The first still stands but I note that in the Bayesian analysis figures 10.9 and 10.10 the probability aspect has been addressed, supposing the assumption to be sound. The outcome was a 90% probability the aircraft was within the search area. Even accepting that the assumption was sound these probabilities (eg 95% of wreckage, if there, being found) multiply.
For whatever its worth:
http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2016/07/27/mh370-captain-scapegoat-from-the-beginning-says-sister/
KUALA LUMPUR: Sakinab Shah, the sister of MH370 Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, says that her brother has been a “scapegoat” from the beginning. The Malaysian airliner went missing with 239 passengers and crew on a routine flight on 8 March 2014 between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing.
The simulator that Zaharie had at home, she said for starters, had not been working for at least a year before MH370. She was quoting Zaharie’s wife, Faiza Khanum, and their children.
Sakinab was speaking with CNN at her home in Kuala Lumpur after New York Magazine (NYM), citing new evidence, reported that pilot suicide caused the plane’s disappearance. She calls the “evidence” a fabrication considering that her brother was not in any form of distress before MH370. The Malaysian police cleared her brother.
The NYM report stressed on a southern Indian Ocean route recovered from deleted files by the FBI from Zaharie’s computer.
“I still think of him first thing in the morning and cry for him the last thing at night,” said Sakinab. “The latest accusation? Oh, my God. Heaven forbid!”
She assured that she knew Zaharie like the back of her hand. There was a 17-year age gap between them, she being the senior. She looked at her younger sibling as if he was her own child, her own son.
“Whatever problems he encountered, I would be the first person he would come to,” said Sakinab. “Even after he became a grandfather, I still looked at him as before.”
She can still remember the day MH370 went missing and Zaharie’s photo appeared on the TV. “I was screaming. I was all alone in the house. I was screaming, ‘no, no, Ari, Ari’. He had been flying for over 30 years, he was so senior, he knew what he was doing.”
Initially, the family avoided the press but when speculation about the pilots grew, Sakinab decided that she had to defend her brother. The family posted three brief videos about him on YouTube.
“There was so much talk, so many accusations,” she recalled. “I thought that we should tell the world what he was like.”
“We wanted to show that he was no crackpot. He was a normal family man, normal father, grandfather, pilot, and instructor.”
Sakinab dismissed claims that Faiza and Zaharie had severe marital problems and may have been in the process of going separate ways. “They were married 30 years and had three children and were still together.”
She conceded the couple had problems, “off and on”, “but not to the point that would cause him to commit this crime.”
Jailed former parliamentary Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim’s name came up during the CNN interview and was dismissed as a “momentary fancy”. “He was a supporter of Anwar’s party but this was a ‘momentary fancy’,” claimed Sakinab.
The sister doesn’t know what happened to the brother who has 18,000 flying hours behind him.
Zaharie, the second-youngest of nine children, obtained a pilot’s licence from the Philippines and joined Malaysian Airlines System (MAS) in 1981.
Sakinab and her family have said their goodbyes to Zaharie, accepting the plane has crashed. “But he’s always here. I speak about him in the present tense. It’s so surreal that he’s gone. And so hard,” she said in struggling with her emotions.
The last time that the sister saw the brother was at a family luncheon two weeks before MH370. He was his normal self, teasing his nieces, offering his opinions. “Among us he was the most opinionated person,” said Sakinab. “If you met him, you would like him. He was very boisterous, a very fun-loving guy.”
My above post. In place of…..the aircraft had crashed ……the aircraft most probably had crashed.
And just as contrast to the “passing fancy” thingy in the above:
In his interview with The Nation, Anwar also attacked Putrajaya for attempting to link Flight MH370 pilot Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah to him.
“All Umno blogs and Malaysian media made reference that Zaharie was a fanatical supporter of Anwar,” said the Pakatan Rakyat (PR) and PKR de facto leader.
Anwar acknowledged that seven hours after the Court of Appeal convicted him of sodomy, Zaharie, who is an active PKR member and is related to his daughter-in-law, took off with the flight.
“He was known to have expressed his views against frauds in the elections and corruption in this country and supporting reforms. He supports democratic transition, free elections, which means he is against any form of extremist, fanatical or terrorist activities,” Anwar pointed out.
British tabloid the Daily Mail reported last March that Zaharie was an “obsessive” supporter of Anwar and quoted police sources as saying that they feared the Court of Appeal’s five-year jail sentence against the opposition leader had left the pilot “profoundly upset”.
– See more at: http://m.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/anwar-even-sleeping-airmen-would-have-heard-mh370-radar-beeps#sthash.tddkgpQe.dpuf
@Susie Crowe,
re: Posted July 26, 2016 at 10:42 PM
I had to read your post a few times, it was so good. It is rare to see such eloquent, succinct writing as what you posted. I don’t have a definite / strong leaning on this whole mystery (including an opinion about Z’s role) but I just wanted to say your post certainly sets a refreshingly higher-level perspective from a logical standpoint and in consideration of general human behaviour. Kudos!
from: 27th July Operational Update, https://www.atsb.gov.au/mh370-pages/updates/operational-update/
About the FBI report, “The Malaysian ICAO Annex 13 Safety Investigation Team has considered the information and it will be dealt with in its final report.”
Also: “The last satellite communication with the aircraft showed it was most likely in a high rate of descent in the area of what is known as the 7th arc. This is indeed the consensus of the Search Strategy Working Group.”
Let me first state that I’m still outside the “Shah did it camp”.
@ventus45
“If “the red route” is real, it was “originally planned” for a long flight, from a European Departure, with PLENTY of fuel.
The plan was to rapidly drop off radar, to make it look like the aircraft crashed in the Malacca Strait, and then proceed to the FMT “at low level”,
or whatever the intended destination was?
” perhaps even as low as FL100.”
or lower?
“Now, for whatever reason, he did it on this particular day, off a short flight to Beijing, with a lot less fuel.
He could not stay “low” for long.
He had to climb back up to fuel efficient cruise altitude fairly soon, and he had to “shorten his track miles to the FMT and the Equator”.
I do not follow this line of thinking. For the motive we discuss here there was no necessity to execute the plan at a given day and jopardize the complete plan. Why not wait for the apropriate flight on another day? This change of plan does not suit a meticulous planner like Shah is told to have been.
The only conclusion is, that fuel didn’t play a roll at all. That in turn would mean, that the mission was either fullfilled at the FMT or failed.
@Trond
Thank you for your clarification
@ventus45
After the steep and long drop the “plane” never changed altitude in the malacca strait, not even when it turned stealthed. How does Shah manage this? He doesn’t. Something else did all this, it was non-human interference.
@Wazir Roslan
“The simulator that Zaharie had at home, she said for starters, had not been working for at least a year before MH370”
Can the investigators confirm this?
@David
“The last satellite communication with the aircraft showed it was most likely in a high rate of descent in the area of what is known as the 7th arc.”
High rate upside down. I’m so pleased that they were able to do a thorough search on the 7th arc. It proves 100% that we have all been fooled — by whatever that did this.
@Jeff Wise
The science of psychology is among the oldest we have and the patterns of suicide in the Zaharie person are not supported by any scientific clues. ‘In other words: If anybody wants to speak of a pilot suicide here, he must prove that the science of psychology has a very big bug, that was not known until today. I dont see neither you nor anybody else here, who explained sufficiently, why the science of psychology must be so wrong.
Your article mainly says, the FBI Analysis might be prove, that Z practised flights on a simulator, that are similar to the Inmarsat data track. If i give you the benefit of the doubt and admit that the Inmarsat data are not spoofed and also the FBI data are not spoofed, it would indeed be evidence for some involvement of the pilot in the deviation of the plane.The similarity of the two data trails is just too much of a coincidence. He had the opportunity and was capable to do it. But the conclusion, that he must have gone nuts is not very satisfying.
There is one possibility that was mentioned couple of days after the disapearance. In a deeply corrupt society like Malaysia the home brand of mafia usually forces people to do their way, by threatening to kill the family. Organized crime could have forced Z to take the plane. Although i
@Susie.
Great points.
On P1 I responded to a comment by Jeff Wise: “This would still degenerate into an ever-steeper, ever-faster dive and likely result in a very high speed impact.” Such degeneration is not a feature of a typical phugoid. However, banking the airplane introduces the lateral/directional stability characteristics, and that complicates matters considerably. It is possible that
phugoid pitch motions combined with increasing bang angles could deteriorate into a steeply descending spiral.
The ATSB wrote in its 8 October 2014 Update:
You then quote the ATSB as stating: “the aircraft may have exceeded its design envelope when it was descending and experiencing phugoid oscillations”. That is a somewhat incomprehensive statement. The relevant envelope is that for which the aerodynamic characteristics of the simulator have been validated by flight tests. For a Boeing Engineering Flight Simulator that envelope may well have been greater than the ‘design envelope’. In a particular simulation the validated envelope was either exceeded or it was not exceeded. If it was exceeded then whatever was observed after that is invalid.
Then you write:
Your phantasy seems to be running ahead of you. Nobody knows the altitude MH370 was cruising at. If that altitude was FL350 or higher, the airplane would not have been able to maintain it with one engine out, which could have been 15 minutes before the second flame-out.
As to ATSB’s Update statement of 27th July that “The last satellite communication with the aircraft showed it was most likely in a high rate of descent in the area of what is known as the 7th arc. ” — it is not clear whether that refers to the BFO of 182 Hz at 00:19:29, or the BFO of -2 Hz at 00:19:37. While the former BFO value is compatible with either phugoid motion or a recovery from a low-speed condition, the latter is not and is unexplained as yet.
@Susie Crowe, @Ron,
Thanks for the warm welcome back.
@Ventus45,
Interesting you should say “enough fuel for Amsterdam.” And we know who was going there supposedly after Beijing, the ones with the stolen passports. This has got to be more sophisticated than them though and more than anger over Anwar’s trial outcome which should have been expected anyway.
In general, so Sekinab Shah is also confirming the simulator was broken for a year, 2 family members confirming that now. Does the FBI acknowledge that it was broken for a year prior to MH370’s disappearance? Anyone know what Miles O’Brien says on the FBI sim findings? Wasn’t he working on that aspect?
@Oleksandr,
Are you still here? Have you gotten anywhere with engine related stuff at IGARI or at the AES/SDU reboot at 18:25 yet? What exactly was the so called “power interruption” circa 17:21???
Not the same as what?
@CosmicAcademy
It is nice seeing a comment from you, it would be great if you would start contributing again.
@Ron
My comment July 26 @ 11:31AM was fully directed to Cheryl, I see now that it does not read that way. Please excuse me for making it seem otherwise.
Today’s Operational Update from the ATSB essentially confirms that the flight sim data is real, but cautions that 1) it does not necessarily mean that Zaharie planned a suicide flight into the SIO, and 2) does not provide material insight into where the plane actually went. I think these are both points well taken. Here’s the link: http://www.atsb.gov.au/mh370-pages/updates/operational-update.aspx
Meanwhile, here’s the full text of the recent story from The Australian, which is behind a paywall:
Australian officials warned families of MH370 data leak from FBI
New York magazine cited a leaked FBI report which supported the idea of pilot suicide on flight MH370.
AMANDA HODGE
The Australian
12:00AM July 27, 2016
The FBI has refused to reveal details of a report purportedly showing that the pilot of missing Malaysia Airlines plane MH370 tracked a similar path on a home flight simulator to that taken by the ill-fated aircraft less than a month later, and has referred all questions to Malaysian authorities.
However a spokeswoman for families of MH370 victims has told The Australian the group was warned by Australian officials from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau and the Joint Action Co-ordinating Committee last week that FBI data potentially furthering the theory of pilot suicide was to be published by New York magazine last weekend.
An FBI spokeswoman told The Australian: “The FBI did not publicly release information on the flight, therefore we cannot comment on it. I refer you to the Malaysian authorities for specific questions about the case.”
She had been asked if the FBI had passed on to the Australian Federal Police or other Australian agencies the information it extracted from Malaysia Airlines captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah’s home flight simulator.
Grace Nathan, from next-of-kin group Voice 370, said she and other families met officials from the ATSB and JACC before and after last Friday’s meeting of Australian, Malaysian and Chinese transport ministers that agreed to soon suspend the search.
“We were already told that the article was coming out by JACC and ATSB, who were here for a meeting last Friday,” said Ms Nathan, who lost her mother on the March 2014 flight, which disappeared with 239 people aboard.
“They told us that an independent group had been given the (Zaharie simulator) data by the FBI, so most of us were not surprised when the news came out.”
The New York article cited a leaked FBI report showing Zaharie had used a simulator less than a month before the aircraft’s disappearance to practise a flight across the southern Indian Ocean closely matching MH370’s route.
Ms Nathan said: “I was told by the JACC that the information was provided by the FBI. They work closely with independent groups and said FBI provided information to independent groups who decided they wanted to publish it in New York magazine.”
New York, however, says the FBI findings from the home simulator were returned to Malaysia and someone from Malaysian Police leaked them.
The ATSB in a statement this week acknowledged the FBI data but said it showed “only the possibility of planning. It does not reveal what happened on the night of its disappearance, nor where the aircraft is landed”.
New Zealand-based physicist Duncan Steel, from the so-called Independent Group of investigators into MH370’s disappearance which argues the search has been in the wrong area, denied any of his members had received FBI data or leaked it onwards.
He told The Australian in an email exchange that the Independent Group had no input into the story, nor had it seen the leaked information. “So far as I am aware, the information was given to the writer of the story in NY magazine by a third party in absolute confidence. I am not at liberty to identify the third party (not a Malaysian, nor anybody living in Malaysia or the USA) who originally obtained the leaked information,” Mr Steel wrote.
In a later email, he said information from Captain Zaharie’s home simulator was “quite likely irrelevant and cannot be taken to be evidence of any actual intent to fly such a path” given the route positions were consistent with one terminating at an airfield in Antarctica’s McMurdo Sound.
“It is easy to imagine that an experienced airline captain, bored with flying to the same old places, might like to consider more exotic destinations,” he wrote.
Ms Nathan said she too was sceptical about the theory of pilot suicide. “I keep my mind open and still think anything is possible and if there is merit to (the theory) and it is supported by evidence we need to be open to that.
“Right now it is just another conspiracy theory in a long line of them. But it still throws you for a loop. An accident is one thing but to find out it might have been a homicide or suicide is another.”
Did anybody else have access to Captain Zaharie’s flight Simulator while he was flying and his wife was away from home?
@Klaus,
Interesting idea. If captain Shah had left suspended a flight to Europe and some child entered and played with his simulator it would explain this strange route…
In a later email, [Duncan Steel] said information from Captain Zaharie’s home simulator was “quite likely irrelevant and cannot be taken to be evidence of any actual intent to fly such a path” given the route positions were consistent with one terminating at an airfield in Antarctica’s McMurdo Sound. “It is easy to imagine that an experienced airline captain, bored with flying to the same old places, might like to consider more exotic destinations,” he wrote.
That’s actually intriguing. A GC drawn from point #3 to the airstrip labeled McMurdo in Google Earth does line up quite nicely with point #4; a GC line from #3 to nearby, aptly named waypoint BYRD lines up somewhat better (to within about 5 nm of point #4).
Total distance from KUL would be ~7500: that exceeds the maximum range of a B777-200ER by a few hundred nm (although other models like the B777-200LR could make it easily).
This is intriguing IMO, as there are a few research stations on the east coast of Antarctica (Mawson, Zhongshan, Progress, Davis) that line up with possible “high & fast” RUNUT paths. I’m not aware of any flight waypoints down there, although the convenient and perhaps symbolic hand entered -69,69 lines up especially well….
As to Steel’s contention that this was likely an innocent, virtual excursion to an “exotic destination”, that’s belied by the fact that the sim didn’t evidently take on a maximum fuel supply, and the fact that the last two saved restore points–saved at evident fuel exhaustion–was the real destination of interest.
Some interesting trivia. I have always wondered whether ISAT was eavesdropped upon and guess found my answer by accident:
1.”The researchers said electronic signals collected at Pine Gap from the three Orion satellites include missile telemetry, radar and other military emissions, radio communications, microwave transmissions, satellite and mobile phone transmissions.”
“The satellites of Pine Gap make that base a party to US military planning and operations in Africa, the Middle East, Russia, Central Asia, and East Asia,” its report reveals.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/rare-glimpse-at-the-secrets-of-pine-gap-spy-base-20160226-gn51oa.html
2. Considered a prime piece of real estate by the US, the satellites controlled by Pine Gap “make possible the collection of a wide range of signals across more than half the surface of the planet”.
http://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/inventions/pine-gap-nautilus-institute-explores-alice-springs-joint-defence-facility/news-story/4cb8906c915e2df71b61c0c24babc1c9
And I was like wow! Literally awed. No wonder they are numero uno superpower in the world. And despite @dennisW’s sometimes depreciating comments 😀 , their technological sophistication and expertise is simply mind blowing to put it mildly. Awesomely so if I may add. Bet they were not switched off on March 8 two years back;D
In any case, tip my Stetson off to them, Yanks….ah bet @jeff is grinning like a Cheshire Cat reading this with coffee in hand 😀
” If captain Shah had left suspended a flight to Europe and some child entered and played with his simulator it would explain this strange route…”
Yep. And the child would fly to the SIO for real! a few weeks later.
Please allow me to make some comments on the piece that came out in The Australian.
The material in question was provided to me in confidence by a journalist that was asking me for technical assistance for an upcoming story. There was no contact with the FBI. That is why I was able to say that Jeff’s story was no hoax. Since that time, the journalist has also contacted Duncan Steel and asked for technical assistance.
It is not clear whether the recovered coordinates can help refine the search area to help find the plane. At this point, anything else is conjecture, although I think it is important to use all the data we have.
While trying to understand the significance of the coordinates, I used FSX to create a path consistent with the coordinates. Within FSX, I created a flight plan, and searched for a destination that lined up with the final coordinates. There are few destinations in Antarctica, and I found that the NZPG Pegasus Airfield servicing McMurdo Station provided a good match with the last three coordinates. (There are two other airfields in close proximity, also servicing McMurdo Station, that are also possible.) I passed this information to the ATSB and also to the IG, which provided additional comments.
From today’s article in The Australian:
That narrows down the list of ‘leaky’ suspects considerably. Is it someone in the U.K. or in Australia?
Or perhaps Florence de Changy?
@VictorI
Antarctica will remain a fiction.
@Wazir
You are very impressionable. “US intelligence” is an oxymoron. Just look at all the weapons of mass destruction we found in Iraq when we invaded that country.
You have to ask yourself why any person with above average intelligence would go to work for the US government or one of their subcontractors – below average pay, no stock based compensation, and a complete lack of a meritocracy. You may as well go get a frontal lobotomy. Government employment does provide a useful safety net for oceanographers, climate scientists, biologists, and similar disciplines that would probably not exist without tax payer funding.
The US spends far more time investigating its own citizens than collecting intelligence from around the world. I personally view this as a good thing. Tax evasion and insider trading are far more serious threats to our values and way of life than terrorist activity.
@Warren Platts,
On March 2014 the only Boeing 777 model available from PMDG was 777-200LR/F:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precision_Manuals_Development_Group#Aircraft
I guess the old Phoenix Simulation Software (PSS) Boeing 777 addon for Microsoft FS9 (Flight Simulator 2004: A Century of Flight) is generic and not specifically 777-200ER but this should be researched.
The possibility that captain Shah used some fancy AutoSave software should be checked. FSX is problematic and many people use such software. In this case the FBI points may have been saved automatically without human intervention.
@DennisW
+1
The FBI gave up looking for D. B. Cooper after 45 years…”profiling” is about as useful as phrenology…
@George
The San Bernardino iPhone is another good example. The FBI cried like a bunch of little girls when Apple refused to help them. They finally had to pay a third party to get access.
It was not an “insignificant cost” according to FBI Director James Comey who said the fee exceeded his remaining salary if he stayed in the job until his retirement (some seven years hence). Since Comey makes around $180k a year that puts the cost at over $1.3M. You can’t hire a director of engineering in Silicon Valley for $180k a year. You might be able to get an experienced coder for that.
@DennisW
Whoa..there. Me impressionable? Far from it 😀 and I think that your generalisation of the US system is a bit “extreme” and unfair.
There are many intelligent Americans I have come across who happen to be public officials to boot so I dont think the US public service is staffed by lobotomised morons or “mediocrerites”. You will get that riff raff in the private sector too.
Far from , I think the problems lie more with your political class, who in pursuit of phantom enemies, ironically generate that very technological sophistication I mentioned above. Funny but true.They overestimate North Korea’s nuclear potential but that fear spawns the sophisticated THAAD. And remember they did get Osama in the end, didnt they?
I am not Yank worshipping here but i think the bad vibes are not due to public service incompetence but rather more to do with political class shenanigans
Take this case in point. Intelligence was spot on by WMD but who called the shots:
“Senator Carl Levin, who heads the committee, said the assessments produced by Mr Feith were of “dubious reliability” and created to bolster the case for war. “They arrived at an alternative interpretation of the Iraq/al-Qaida relationship that was much stronger than that assessed by the intelligence community and more in accord with the policy views of senior officials in the administration,” Mr Levin told the committee. “I can’t think of a more devastating commentary.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/feb/10/usa.iraq
Cheer up….it is not an American problem per se for I guess the name Tony Blair rings a bell to the British as would a Tony Abott or Kevin Rudd to the Australians not to mention a whole cabal of nincompoops to Malaysians.
The essential commonality being infantile politics trumps mature intelligence wherever one turns and I am afraid I dont see much hope in Trump (with his simplistic wall) or Clinton (with here email fiasco) changing that dynamic anytime soon.
But all that in my opinion, should not in any way detract from the yeoman toil put in by public servants everywhere nor should it dismiss the fact that the US does have a very sophisticated technology driven framework to underpin its superpower status and I bet if the career generals and public servants had had their way, you wouldn’t have kinks like Vietnam or Iraq to blot that copybook.
@Wasir Rozlan
Dead right Wasir. Those “ingenious Yankees” can run rings around the rest of us, any time they like.
I bet the CIA know what happened to MH370.
@Wazir
Points well taken. The “system” itself is a very big component of the problem.
Back on point. I would regard it as pure serendipity if the ISAT signals were intercepted by US intelligence. Even if such an interception were made, I would not expect the result to change anything. My own conviction is that Inmarsat has provided what data there is in good faith, and without tampering.
@George
Those things happen….but we have a classic case here with MH370.
I have a gut feeling the US knows what happened to the plane for they “never take their eyes off the ball” so to speak but prefer to be reticent about it for strategic or other reasons best known and kept to themselves.
Having said that it does not say much for the intelligent minds elsewhere ex-US does it in that many are still trying to figure out something cogent after more than two years from ground zero?
Sometimes I imagine the plane strayed into uncharted territory and “justifiably” got shot down in this alternative scenario of mine (somewhere far from the SCS that I initially conjectured). And tales of radar switched off are just handy afterthoughts…who knows but then again impossible IGARI turn, Kiwi on oil rig etc etc swim back into view. Either way, KAL 1983 is always in the background.
BTW the position for waypoint BYRD is -77.5°, 165°.
@ Ron: from what other commenters who’ve fooled around with the microsoft FS, they seem to be saying that you’ve got to manually tell the sim to save the restore points. But it would make sense to have a feature that might save a data point, say, every time there is a course change.
That’s an important point to settle because if the last two points were automatically saved, then it could have been the case that Zaharie started a sim and then walked away and forgot about it. If he manually entered those last two, then that would indicate a special interest, and probably multiple practice runs…
@JW
“The Zaharie-mass-murder-suicide narrative isn’t very appealing for a lot of reasons, but there are no alternatives that are significantly better.”
why do you suppose that any narrative had to be successful when in fact success rate in scenarios like this is maybe 50% or even lower?! Especially with all the data available for me it’s quite easy to conclude it was a hijack/divert failure and nothing else.
The problem is that whole story has been “romanticized” from the beginning by media, making everyone believe that main goal was to hide the plane as if that made any sense.
Thanks @Rob
But @all, this is why I personally believe in what I believe either SCS or in the Java sea:
Slowly — word by word — he learned a terrible truth: The plane wasn’t destroyed in the air.
Missile fragments “hit the back of the plane, destroying three of its four hydraulic systems, severing some cables” and punching holes in the aircraft’s walls, said Ephraimson-Apt, citing a Boeing report to the International Civil Aviation Organization. “No perceptible cabin pressure was lost, and all four engines continued to operate.”
The damaged plane continued flying for 12 minutes, spiraling toward the ocean below, until it “crashed into the sea, with most passengers smashed into pieces or drowning,” Ephraimson-Apt said.
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/08/31/us/kal-fight-007-anniversary/
So wherever MH was ‘hit’, it flew on hence a) garbled coordinates by witnesses b) signs of ditching c) shrapnel marks on debris as once mentioned by @Ge Rijn
Painful thought to entertain for NOK though and I truly empathise with their plight.
@StevanG
You said;
“The problem is that the whole story has been “romanticized” from the beginning by media, making everyone believe that the main goal was to hide the plane as if that makes any sense”
IMO, that is the most spot on remark of this whole episode. I don’t know and I don’t care when the philosophy of hiding the plane so it disappears forever first began, but once again it would seem a ridiculous, unmerited assumption appears from lack of anything better.
@Wazir Roslan
@Ge Rijn
What do you make of the circular holes in the flap attachment web ?
http://auntypru.com/forum/-Australia-ATSB-and-MH-370?pid=4737#pid4737
New study published suggesting that the current search area should be focused more to the north, also suggested by the latest article on the duncan steele website by Richard Godfrey (on different grounds)
http://www.egu.eu/news/251/new-study-reveals-where-mh370-debris-more-likely-to-be-found/
Bullet holes?
@ventus45
Actualy that whole hinge is full of circel-like pieces missing.
Look f.i. on the vertical ribs and also on the top side.
It looks like a sort of corrosion to me.
I assume the piece was full of (big) barnacles for a long time. They attache I believe with calcium circular structures on their surface. Maybe a chemical reaction between those materials and the salt water ate this metal away over time.
Just a guess. A marine-biologist could tell more maybe.
It cann’t be ‘shrapnel’ damage IMO for the whole surface of the flap is virtualy undamaged without holes. Shrapnel isn’t that selective..
I’m still waiting on confrirmation of the piece by the ATSB. They must know by now.
E. Jansen, G. Coppini, and N. Pinardi published a paper in 2016 titled, “Drift simulation of MH370 debris using superensemble techniques” in the journal Natural Hazards and Earth Systems Sciences, volume 16.
Pre-print of the article available here:
http://static2.egu.eu/media/filer_public/fc/f8/fcf82f27-bb4e-428d-8ee4-c8be10f6340e/pre-print_version_of_the_nhess-2016-88_paper_by_jansen_et_al_embargoed_until_27_july_2pm_cest.pdf
@Erik Nelson
You shouldn’t rest too much weight on the extent of the mobile
cell coverage representation map – the outer boundaries (for
instance, out into the Strait) that it shows are in fact merely
the State boundary of the State of Penang.
_
Re mobile phone (cell) base stations; Eventually the information
will come out as to which base station it was that Hamid’s phone
registered on. Until then, it is of interest to us to theorize
its location.
I assumed that it would have been located on one of the several
mountains of circa 2000 feet on Penang Island – but ‘Penang’
also includes (State of) Penang ‘mainland peninsular’ territory,
so your location theory for the cell station is not excluded.
If we assume the aircraft after IGARI turnback was waypointing
to WMKP (possibly via WMKC then along airway B219 which is Allway Low 14000 or lower feet towards WMKP) then its arrival in near
WMKP airspace sets it at about lower limit of around 4000 feet
for several of the approach procedures, & in the case of one
particular procedure, as low as 3500 to 3100 feet for 16NM mostly
over Penang State to a low of 2500 feet roughly South West of
the southern end of Penang airport runway, at waypoint KENDI.
http://aip.dca.gov.my/aip/AIP2016/graphics/17509.pdf
_
I have never seen it determined, in any discussion of MH370, as to
what model of phone it is that Hamid is holding here;
https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/444413091866898432/DxKPh1Yn.jpeg
Cheers
@ Susie, StevenG, Cosmic, etc.
The assumption–and that’s what it is, admittedly–that the goal was to disappear is of a piece with the demonstrated avoidance behavior before the FMT: the cutting off of radio communications, refusal to answer the satellite phone, flying along FIR boundaries, major change of course to avoid overlying Indonesia.
As for whether Zaharie was capable of such an act, yes, it is hard for you to imagine anyone would be capable of such an act, but that’s because you are normal. For every psychologist you can point to that says there were no signs, I can point to another one that says there were signs. No need to rehash everything, but the “rebel in everyone of us” slogan, the “DEMOCRACY IS DEAD” t-shirt, the photo holding the ground beef with the knife, even the DIY youtube vids where the newspapers he hung up all seemed to show politically charged headlines–and last but not least IMO, the fact that he stopped posting to fb months before the incident is suggestive.
It’s nothing conclusive, but it’s the best working hypothesis we’ve got so far. The alternative is analysis paralysis. It means assuming there were no control inputs at the end. Well, that hypothesis has been tested, and proved to be false. Either that, or the Inmarsat data is screwed up.
@Robert Bruce
Thanks a lot for this paper with it’s extensive drift study.
Glad to see they conducted a study in a way me and @Victorl suggested some time ago.
It also predicts the ~same latitudes I suggested before; between 28S and 35S (I suggested between 36S and 25S).
A ‘must read’ IMO.
Especialy for @DennisW and @Brock Mc Ewen 😉
In a later email, [Duncan Steel] said information from Captain Zaharie’s home simulator was “quite likely irrelevant and cannot be taken to be evidence of any actual intent to fly such a path” given the route positions were consistent with one terminating at an airfield in Antarctica’s McMurdo Sound. “It is easy to imagine that an experienced airline captain, bored with flying to the same old places, might like to consider more exotic destinations,” he wrote.
It sounds plausible the captain might have been tired of the same old places, but why fly such a complicated route towards Antarctica? If it were just for fun, why going north first and avoiding Indonesian radar? If just looking for something new, why not just go from Sydney to Antarctica? No need to go from KL and practice 7 hours of ocean.
@Ge Rijn
I read the Italian study before the link was posted here. I am a very early riser. Why do you think it is a “must read”?
@Klaus
Exactly. If the red route is as innocuous, and irrelevant to MH370, as some suggest, how come it flies clear of Sumatra before turning south? How do the naysayers explain away the disquieting similarity of the sim route to the real one?