Here’s a link to the report broadcast today on Australian 60 Minutes about the search for MH370. Part 1:
Part 2:
Discussion after the jump…
The main thrust of the piece is that an independent air-crash expert, Larry Vance, has looked at photographs of the Réunion flaperon and decided that their relatively intact state, and the lack of debris from inside the aircraft, means that the plane must not have impacted the water at high speed, as would be expected if the plane ran out of fuel as a “ghost ship” and spiralled into the water. He interprets the jagged trailing edge of the flaperon as evidence that it was deployed at the moment of impact and was worn away when it struck the water.
I find it discomfiting when people say that the mystery of MH370 is not mystery at all–that they are absolutely confident they know the answer. Vance undercuts his credibility, I feel, by taking this stance. There is indeed a strong argument to be made that the plane must have been under conscious control to the very end; to me the most compelling is simply that the plane has not been found in the current seabed search zone. However it is less clear that someone attempted a ditching. What the show does not mention is that debris from inside the aircraft has indeed been found, suggesting that the fuselage could not have survived the impact and sunk to the bottom of the ocean intact. Indeed, the program doesn’t mention the other debris at all, with the exception of the Pemba flap, which is the other relatively intact large piece. The fact that most of the debris found so far is rather small is to me indicative of a higher-energy impact. But I have no strong opinion one way or the other; I feel that proper experts must look at the debris close up to determine what forces caused it to come apart.
The program cites the recently revealed flight-sim data from Zaharie’s computer as further evidence that the plane was deliberately piloted to fuel exhaustion and beyond. For the first time, the program showed on screen pages from the confidential Malaysian report. The producers of the show reached out to me as they were putting the program together, and asked me to comment on some of the data they had accumulated. Here are the pages of the document that they showed on-screen:
It’s worth noting that these pages offer a summary of the recovered flight-sim data which are described in greater detail and accuracy elsewhere in the confidential Malaysian documents. Here is a table showing a subset of what the documents contain:
Note that the numbering systems for the two data tables do not match. (Please do not ask me to explain this.) I suggest that for the purposes of discussion, the point saved at Kuala Lumpur International Airport be called point 1; the three points recorded as the flight-sim moved up the Malacca Strait to the Andaman Islands be called 2, 3, and 4; and the points over the southern Indian Ocean with fuel at zero be called points 5 and 6.
In order to understand the fuel load numbers in the second table, I made some calculations based on the fuel loads in a real 777-200ER. I don’t know how closely these match those in the flight simulator Zaharie was using. If anyone can shed light I’d be happy to hear it.
Worth noting, I think, is that the fuel difference between point 4 and point 5 is enough for more than 10 hours of flight under normal cruise conditions. The difference between these points is 3,400 nautical miles, for an average groundspeed of less than 340 knots. This is peculiar. Perhaps the flight-sim fuel burn rate is very inaccurate; perhaps the simulated route between the points was not a great circle, as shown in the second page of the report above, but indirect; perhaps Zaharie was fascinated by the idea of flying slowly; or perhaps points 5 & 6 come from a different simulated flight than 1 through 4. Readers’ thoughts welcome.
Also note that neither the locations nor the headings of points 1-4 lie exactly on a straight line from 1 to 4, which suggest perhaps that the route was hand-flown.
@DennisW
I can understand the IG and SSWG based on the data then known, concluded a straight heading and constant speed fitted the ISAT-data best.
And based on this data came up with the current search area. It was all they had.
They didn’t have any debris till the flaperon and they had no drift studies based on the flaperon and the latest finds.
I never understood however on what grounds they concluded the flight was suddenly unpiloted after FMT.
IMO opinion there is absolutly no reason or fact to support this conclusion. On the contrary. The only reason I can come up with is that it was maybe more conveniant or it was pressure from Malaysian authorities to avoid possible responsability from their pilots (and with that possibly themselfs).
After this unproven, unlogical conclusion that the piloted flight went into a ghost flight after FMT many just took it for granted and went into a kind of denial IMO.
And many still are regarding the far more obvious and logical assumption and conclusion the flight was piloted from beginning till end.
I agree with Larry Vance that when the flaperon was found and it became clear a glide and a controlled flight and ditching could no longer be excluded and also allready then drift studies soon showed the crash area must have been further north, they had to reconsider their options.
Maybe temporarily suspend the search effort while considering a extention of the search area to 32S (which was the first plan) or waiting for new debris and better drift data to arrive.
They never did. Even now they stick to 35S well knowing by now it won’t be found there (most probably).
The assumption and conclusion back then the flight went into a ghost flight after FMT based on no prove or logic at all has seriously limited other IMO more logic possibilities to better define the possible crash area. The rejection of those possibilities till now has been a waste of time, money and opportunities starting since the flaperon find IMO.
I hope they come out of their denial now (it seems they are) and take a new approuch with all the new findings and data.
@lkr
Some info on Vance.
A lead investigator of the crash of Swissair Flight 111 near Peggys Cove, N.S., is rejecting the theory that an incendiary device might have been the cause of the fatal fire on board.
Larry Vance told The Canadian Press that if there was such a device, there would have been much more damage in the area in the cockpit where the fire started.
“Not only does that prove that we knew where the fire started — it was proof positive that there could not have been an incendiary device involved,” he said from Ottawa on Friday.
“It would be like aiming a blow-torch at your head and burning only one hair.”
Vance, who spent years with the Transportation Safety Board investigating the crash, said that he and his colleagues dismissed the possibility of an incendiary device after finding a single wire they concluded was the source of the fire.
In a Fifth Estate documentary, former Swissair investigator Tom Juby alleges there were sufficient grounds to suspect the crash may not have been an accident but that he was prevented by senior RCMP and aviation safety officials from pursuing his theory that an incendiary device might have been the cause of the fatal fire on board.
The flight from New York to Geneva crashed into the Atlantic Ocean on Sept. 2, 1998, killing 229 passengers and crew.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/swissair-lead-investigator-rejects-crash-theory-1.1106376
@Ge Rijn
You completely missed my point, but no matter. I should have expected that.
@Ge Rijn: I am on record, now, as being persuaded by the evidence toward theories under which the Inmarsat data is actually obscuring – not revealing – MH370’s true fate, given that such scenarios tick off many more boxes than do trips to the middle of the SIO (whether piloted or not). So my response to you is for the sheer sake of attempting to understand your position:
What is so bizarre about inferring…
1) …from (what search leadership claims was) an hour-long, very fast westbound leg a desire NOT to die?
2) …from 1) a desire NOT to fly to fuel exhaustion in the middle of the SIO?
I don’t want to stop you or anyone else from coming up with ways to square that circle – I’m sure they abound. I just don’t understand how anyone who (wrongly, IMO) trusted both the radar and satellite data could be faulted for deeming an unresponsive pilot to be at least the WORKING hypothesis for (what search leadership claims was) the southbound leg.
@Brock McEwen
Answer…lack of critical thinking skills… 😉
@Brock
I agree that a flight to the current SIO search area is not (nor has it ever been) something you can reconcile with any plausible motive or causality. However, the situation is not binary. There are many places consistent with the radar data and the ISAT data that check all the same boxes to which you are referring. The current search area does not happen to be one of them.
Firstly, welcome back to Matty-Perth and littlefoot.
Jeff said “As long as unknown persons are leaking certain data, and withholding other day, it is not unreasonable to suspect that one is being spun. I am thinking in particular of the flight-sim data. It is quite possible that if and when the full data set is made public, it will lead us to a very different (perhaps opposite) perspective.”
Indeed, there is a lot of spin… Now that the search is likely to fail we are being fed another possible scenario (to the SIO) but without enough evidence or credibility to perform a new search and without enough certainty to impact on Malaysia’s insurance. Also, yet another little reaction to the public’s demands, JACC is now trying to assure us that possible debris will be taken seriously and examined appropriately. https://www.atsb.gov.au/mh370-pages/updates/operational-update/
Hmmm…
@AM2
hmmm…+++
from you link:
“Some items that have shown evidence of marine life have had further analysis undertaken by Australian experts from Geoscience Australia, the Australian National University and other institutions in the hope that additional information relevant to the search can be gleaned.”
We have yet to hear any feedback whatever relative to the analysis of marine life on recovered debris.
The JACC is a joke as evidenced by both their behavior and the 60 minute interview. What information they have, for example the sim data, they are withholding unless they are compelled to acknowledge its existence. Why would any reasonable person believe they will disclose anything in good faith. Frankly, I have lost all confidence in the integrity of anyone associated with the official search, including the French.
@Trond: Re knowing he was over the deepest place, someone planning would have the coordinates with them. Plus, the Hole has a north-south opening of ~30 miles, so there would be some margin for error.
While perhaps not the highest probability scenario, not impossible, either.
KUALA LUMPUR: The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) has clarified in an email that it has never stated that missing Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 was under the control (final moments) of an individual.
“Mr Peter Foley (ATSB Program Director) has certainly never identified any specific individual as being responsible for the disappearance of the aircraft,” wrote Daniel J. T. O’Malley, the ATSB’s Communications Officer for The Operational Search for MH370.
He was commenting on a website article quoted by FMT on Thursday.The article (FMT) also has Foley disclosing that severe erosion along the trailing edge of two wing parts, which have since washed ashore, indicate a controlled landing, noted O’Malley.
This is not a correct description of Foley’s or the ATSB’s position, he added.
“The examination of those pieces is still underway,” said O’Malley. “Until the release of formal investigation reports, we are not providing comment.”
http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2016/08/04/aussies-clarify-position-on-missing-flight-mh370/
Thinking further about this, the coincidence of this flight path being found in the simulator (albeit deleted) and the suspected flight path is really something. The sim route isn’t one that someone would normally experiment with. Assuming the purported sim data and Inmarsat data are authentic and not tampered with, the combination of data is pretty damning evidence against Zaharie.
Has anyone yet demonstrated how a piloted glide could possibly generate both Arcs 6 and 7 if engine flameouts were as per the December, 2015 revised estimates?
Even before the revisions, Exner/Anderson had written a paper suggesting a gradual arc toward Arc 7 – of the variety both they and the ATSB felt was consistent with an unpiloted spiral. After the revisions, the expected speed and altitude at the point of Arc 6 intersection are further reduced, leaving Arc 7 even harder to attain. In fact, I have yet to see a demonstration of plausibility.
If the pilot maintains course – or worse, turns in the direction of a particular wind/wave pattern or intended destination – the a priori chance of covering the large distance in the direction perpendicular to the arcs approaches zero.
@all I’ve just been informed that the supposed flight path found on Zaharie simulator was fabricated or a hoax.
My source told me that Zaharie actually used X plane ten sim. And X planes software does not permit asymmetric combinations of latitude and longitude 10- 11 digit co-ordinates are invalid entries in x plane.
Can anyone here shred some more light on this?
While the data found on Zahari’s compute is from various layers of questionable addons that may not represent a true path as the data save state could be unstable with the known frequent crashes and the numerous uninstalling reinstalling of the mFSX game.
@brock
Thanks for the informed inputs. Any link to the Exner/Anderson paper. Thanks in advance
@Ny banker,
With the info I’ve been about flight sim. I have to dismiss it. In my opinion flight sim data may have been tampered with. So it’s inconclusive.
Once I’m brought back too something doesn’t add up here.
@Middleton. You were curious about shutting down of the cabin oxygen system.
Oxygen generation is activated by pulling on masks but the mask overhead release relies on 115VAC from the standby bus, that solenoid selected by 28VDC from the Captain’s Flight Instrument bus. The cabin oxygen can be selected on from the flight deck but not off, either in prevention or while generating.
Incidentally and immaterially the generators reach above 450 deg F. They generate for at least 12 mins.
(Off topic, I must be dumb since I cannot reconcile the 12 mins for the cabin and 2-3 hours for crew (the cabin bottles have a dual medical use and dual-rate regulators). My only surmise is that if passengers pass out before cabin pressure is restored (or internal smoke from a fire is overcome) it might be presumed that they will recover well enough later. It may be an extension of the use of pressure feed for the flight crew in case the aircraft is at extremely high altitude, the aim being for them to get the aircraft down before unconscious passengers suffer irreversible injury).
The way to turn off flight deck oxygen is at the bottles, down a deck, or rupture them.
@Gysbreght. APU fuel. “…the fuel in the tank would have moved forward where was not available to the APU. Probably the only fuel available was that contained in the fuel line, which would have allowed the APU to run a few minutes only.”
The APU needs but two minutes, one to start and one for the SDU to boot. The ATSB obviously assumes that nose down pitch will leave at least two minutes residual tank fuel available since they make no mention of fuel in the line.
I have suggested earlier that there would be no residual fuel at all for the APU, that available having been diverted earlier by the APU fuel pump to the left engine; but without attracting interest.
Perhaps they have conducted trials which they join with the nose-down extent from fuel exhaustion simulator trials.
I am dubious of the fuel in the line to the APU being available, even if sufficient, having mentioned in this forum that it would have to draw it against gravity, exacerbated by pitch, and in low ambient pressures. My suspicion is that trials have indicated that that doesn’t work or they would have mentioned the availability of that fuel. It is not as thought the subject has not arisen.
@ Rob. I agree that a pilot at the end would not have known how long the APU would run for after fuel exhaustion, if at all, since we still do not.
@Aaron, could you elaborate?
@Brock McEwen
I did not and do not fault anyone for trusting the radar and Inmarsat data and for constructing a working hypothesis with an unpiloted flight after FMT.
I thought I stated that clearly enough.
I think with the data on hand back then it was probably the best they could come up with and a truly remarkable effort.
I also don’t and didn’t state anything conclusive on suicide from a pilot or any other scenario or motive. IMO there are still scenarios and motives possible that could be more plausible.
What I only try to say is that the assumption and conclusion the plane was unpiloted after FMT was not logic and not based on any facts or obvious indications.
They made that choice back then for reasons I don’t understand and IMO this was ‘wrong’.
After they found the almost intact flaperon and drift studies started to appear (not the least from yourself) which all indicated the search area was too far south they could have at least concidered this new information.
They did probably but kept rejecting a possible all piloted flight and another possible more northern search area.
Only now with the search coming to an end we start hearing some official and serious doubts about their assumptions and conclusions.
I’m not entitled to judge offcourse but entitled to have my opinion.
IMO they kept holding on to assumptions and conclusions too long after it allready became clear enough those assumptions and conclusions couldn’t be right.
For whatever reason they chose to do this I don’t know but from then on IMO it was a waste of time, money and opportunities to go on the way they did.
I just hope it’s not too late. And it’s not a time to realy blame someone but to learn from wrong assumptions and new information and move on with the search effort.
@David
Just a thought on the APU fuel.
Considering a descent with accelerating speed wouldn’t the fuel be pushed back in the tank and the fual lines?
Like being pushed back in your car seat when accelerating?
@Ge Rijn, Littlefoot, Jeff Wise.
About alternative, unintended 00:19 logs-on, there was Oxy’s observation, or an extension of it, that if left engine generated AC had been disconnected/isolated and the right engine’s fuel tank ran out of fuel and stopped, the APU would autostart, there would be a log-on using left tank fuel. The aircraft could continue on the left engine, APU running, until its tank too ran dry. Mind you this would leave the 18:25 log-on cause swinging still.
@David: The point is that a fuel quantity determined “in a standard flight attitude (1° pitch)” is irrelevant after left engine fuel exhaustion. By using that information to calculate that “the APU had a maximum operating time of approximately 13 minutes and 45 seconds”, the ATSB demonstrate their lack of understanding flight dynamics. (Like Ge Rijn does in his latest post).
While the ATSB might have made a some wrong assumptions, and ignored some info, there was no way to prove they were wrong till they finished their search of that part of the 7th arc. That much of it is done now, it is becoming obvious they looked in the wrong place, just like they stuffed up finding the black boxes and spent months chasing the wrong pings. I blame the ATSB for not going back and looking at the information they had from the surface search, the aerial photo’s and the satellite images. That the RAAF is being deliberately obstructive and refusing to release the images of the objects seen on the 24th March 2014, just makes me think the whole 7th arc thing has been the search you have when you want to make sure you do not find the wreckage you are meant to be looking for. It was the ATSB who moved the search area in the first place. And there is as far as I am concerned only one reason they would not want us checking out what was seen on the 24th March, not that their photo’s are that brilliant. That was the best look they got at anything down south, maybe they thought someone might have been able to recognize the stuff as coming from a B777?
@David
Thank you. This would mean the first engine shut down was ~2 minutes before the 7th arc and the plane flew on with its left engine running for another possible ~15 minutes.
If this (could have) happened it could have flown for another ~150 miles under power beyond the 7th arc.
@David
Thinking further than maybe this scenario took place:
-Someone disconnected the left generated AC at IGARI, for the purpose of going dark.
-connected it again for some reason at 18:25
(maybe needing some functions to perform the FMT?) triggering the log-on.
-disconnected the left AC again after this was done for those functions weren’t needed anymore and for the purpose of going dark again (switching off the IFE too now).
-then the right engine ran out of fuel triggering the 0:19 log-on
-the plane flew on under power of its left engine for another ~15 minutes beyound the 7th arc.
@Ge Rijn, what you suggest cannot have happened for the simple reason that the chain of events: power interruption and kick in of the APU – the two events which supposedly triggered the log-on request – are only set into motion when both engines died down. As far as I know the power isn’t interrupted as long as one engine is still running, and therefore the APU only kicks in after both engines have died.
It can’t be excluded that another chain of events has triggered the last set of sat data, but what you propose isn’t possible IMO.
@Ge Rijn. After a think, the pull forwards or to the rear of things in the aircraft (supposing no engine thrust) depends on their tendency to accelerate along the aircraft axis more or less than the aircraft. The difference between the two (the thing and the aircraft) will be the aircraft’s drag/divided by its weight (for small descent angles the inverse of lift/drag) multiplied by g. This will be positive nose down and vice versa, that is masses in the aircraft will fall downhill, (to the nose) in a dive and vice versa. Unless thrust exceeds drag.
Gysbreght might disagree
@Gysbreght. The point is that a fuel quantity determined “in a standard flight attitude (1° pitch)” is irrelevant after left engine fuel exhaustion.” Yes I think you are thinking of during the phugoid as distinct from constant pitch flight.
@Littlefoot
What David says now is something different from what was discussed before.
We discussed if a left engine shut down would trigger a log-on. This was not the case as you say for there would be no power interuption between the taking over power supply of the right engine.
But in this case there is a right engine shut down and a disconnected left engine generated AC.
So the left engine could not take over powering the SDU and other components. Triggering the APU to start and triggering a log-on.
This sounds quite plausible to me.
Does this change your opinion?
I gladly hear the arguments then.
@Ge Rijn. “This would mean the first engine shut down was ~2 minutes before the 7th arc and the plane flew on with its left engine running for another possible ~15 minutes.
An operative word is ‘it’. Unpiloted its autopilot would be disconnected though TAC might operate once the APU started. Piloted and flying straight I think 150 miles might be a bit far. One engine. Also, “it” would need more fuel than otherwise though manned he could have saved some in step climbs.
@David
I came to this gravity thing on fuel by remembering something about a Zero G parabolic flight.
After the period of weightlessness the plane dives down submitting everything inside to ~2G of force needing everyone and everything to be strapped tight.
I probably misunderstood something?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduced-gravity_aircraft
@David
Forgive me. I’m dutch. Doing my best on the english..
Actually, mr. Newton would disagree. The “things in the aircraft” are subject to the same acceleration as the aircraft itself, i.e. “aircraft’s drag/divided by its weight (for small descent angles the inverse of lift/drag) multiplied by g”.
In the following diagram the red “thingy” represents a pendulum, suspended at is top end, and free to swing forwards and backwards.
In A the lorry travels on a level road at constant speed. Between A and B the driver has switched the engine off, so in B the lorry is decelerating, still on a level road, and the pendulum swings forward due to its inertia.
In C the lorry is going downhill on a slope where it maintains its speed, still with its engine switched off. The lorry is not decelerating or accelerating, so the pendulum only experiences gravity and is hanging vertically, but its orientation relative to the vehicle is the same as in B.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/zrf71n5y4y25ytd/Pendulum.JPG?dl=0
@Ge Rijn. A couple of points. “Disconnect” disconnects the generator drive – only reversible on the ground. So isolate would be a one better term.
@Littlefoot. About whether the APU will start with an engine running but aircraft AC off, I believe so. The book says it autostarts, “when both transfer buses are unpowered”.
@Brock
>If the pilot maintains course – or worse, turns in the direction of a particular wind/wave pattern or intended destination – the a priori chance of covering the large distance in the direction perpendicular to the arcs approaches zero.
Even if the southerly course is maintained in this situation the average speed between the two arcs is no slower than 363kt (90% confidence with respect to the BTO data errors). If the aircraft is piloted then this speed does not seem impossible and of course a pilot could have turned left at any time, which makes the speed required to the 7th arc lower. Having the possibility of pilot inputs allows a lot more variables.
@ Gysbreght. Lets take it to extremes. In a left falling freely at terminal speed, its drag equals its weight. I am inside. I experience a force in the direction of motion equal to my own weight. I am not weightless. The lift has drag, I do not.
The same applies to the truck. If it is going downhill at constant speed its resistance equals the sine of its angle of descent multiplied by its weight. Someone inside feels an accelerating force, resisted by the truck of sine the descent angle by its weight.
Newton would wet himself.
@Gysbreght. Should be “lift”.
@ Ge Rijn. You now talk about curved flight where, as to restraint, centripetal force comes in. Your question was about acceleration in a straight line. My answer was about steady state or linear acceleration. If there is engine thrust this will affect the aircraft acceleration but will not affect that of the thing (say person) inside unless the acceleration is imparted to him by the aircraft, that is he needs restraint.
In Gysrecht’s case of a truck going downhill, the pendulum, hanging vertically, is being restrained in the direction of motion by the truck ie if let loose it would fall towards the front of it.
Much the same applies in curved flight.
That’s it from me for now.
Your English is no problem at all.
@David: ” Someone inside feels an accelerating force, resisted by the truck of sine the descent angle by its weight.”
Exactly. The point is that the subject feels exactly the same force when the truck is decelerating on a level road, as he feels when the truck is descending at constant speed. That force depends only on the drag-to-weight ratio, and does not change whether the truck is on a level road, is going uphill or downhill.
@David
Just to set something straight; my question was about a plane accelerating in a descent.
IMO the plane would accelerate by gravity till the drag equals the gravity force.
The truck in Gysbrecht’s example also won’t keep a constant speed downhill IMO but will accelerate by gravity going faster and faster.
But I think I understand now everything inside the plane or the truck would undergo the same acceleration so nothing would move inside as long the acceleration goes on progressively.
@David: Einstein realised that gravity and acceleration are really the same thing and that gravity was not a force. It was this hypothesis which provided him with the central insight of general relativity. We don’t feel the force of gravity direct, only the changes due to varying acceleration. At constant velocity no forces are felt.
Nice illustrating video for a break 😉
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ieR8hIXUIg
@David: “@Gysbreght. Should be “lift”.”
Now you are getting confused even more. By definition, drag is the force in the direction of movement, along the path. Lift is the force perpendicular to the path.
Earlier you wrote: “In a left falling freely at terminal speed, its drag equals its weight. I am inside. I experience a force in the direction of motion equal to my own weight.” That is correct. The sinus of the angle of descent is still equal to the drag-to-weight ratio of the airplane, equal to 1 in that situation.
“In Gysrecht’s case of a truck going downhill, the pendulum, hanging vertically, is being restrained in the direction of motion by the truck ie if let loose it would fall towards the front of it.”
Not quite correct. The pendulum is restrained only at its top end. If let loose it falls in the direction it is pointing, slightly forward of straight downwards.
“slightly forward of straight downwards.” should be straight downwards relative to earth, slightly forward relative to the truck.
To be precise: The released pendulum will hit the floor of the truck on the extended red line.
@Ge Rijn
Zero G is Good 🙂 and also my apologies for too “creative” english sometimes; ppl here are nice
@Gysbreght
I think there should be a truck ‘D’ in your graphic. Not in constant speed downhill like ‘C’ but accelerating progressively by gravity (like would happen with a truck downhill free running without engine).
I think the pendulum will start moving to the position it has in truck ‘A’.