Last month, I published an article in New York magazine about a secret Malaysian police report which included details of a simulated flight into the southern Indian Ocean. As Victor Iannello revealed in a comment earlier today, that information came from French journalist Florence de Changy, who had come into possession of the full police report but only shared a portion of it with me.
I have not seen the full report, but would very much like to, because I would like to form my own judgement of what they mean, and I think everyone who is interested in trying to figure out what happened to the missing plane, including the next of kin, are entitled to the same. Some people who have read the full reports have suggested that they give the impression that the recovered simulator files do not in context seem all that incriminating. Other people who have seen the full report have told me that the report contains material that makes it hard to doubt that Zaharie is the culprit. Of course, it’s impossible to rely on someone else’s say-so. We need to see the full report.
The reason I am writing this post now is that earlier today Florence published an article in Le Monde in which she describes having the full report as well as another, 65-page secret document on the same topic. Meanwhile, another French newspaper, Liberation, has also published an article indicating that they, too, have a copy of the report. And private correspondence between myself and a producer at the television network “France 2” indicates that he has as well.
Meanwhile, I know that independent investigators here in the US have the documents as well.
At this point, the secret documents are not very secret. Someone within the investigation has been leaking them like crazy, obviously with the intention that their contents reach the public. My understanding is that this source has placed no restrictions on their use. So journalists and independent investigators who have copies of these documents need to do their duty and release them — somehow, anyhow. Some people that I’ve begged and implored to do so have said that they fear legal ramifiations. Well, if it’s illegal for you to have these documents, then you’ve already broken the law. Use Wikileaks or another similar service to unburden yourself.
Free the data!
UPDATE 8/14/16: Apparently Blaine Alan Gibson has the document, too, according to a rant he post on Facebook. He reveals that the entire set of documents is 1,000 pages long.
Thanks all, my browser still doesn’t open the Telegraph story, but it’s clear that it’s a Telegraph story. What I do see is that DeDeckker and the French are both using isotopes across shell growth, but using different isotopes — this mode of analysis should be very precise for water temperature curves at the cool-to-warm part of the flaperon’s orbit. What it won’t tell us is how long the flaperon was parked in the cool water.
The discrepencies between DeDeckker and the French may be large or small — but I’d bet they are reconcilable IF so, looking at this plus 7th arc plus drift analysis [plus something other than maximum glide and ditch ending] may give us a decent guide to the New Zealand-sized patch of ocean they should have been looking at.
@JerryM
Not so suspicious that the Australian guy got a barnacle. I’m guessing that the barnacle community is pretty small [that Darwin guy died a while ago], and my presumption is that whoever the French went to sent specimens to friends before Inspector Clousoux put evidence tags on the hard evidence. Because bugs aren’t really evidence..
Telegraph story. I can see this by deleting cookies and using Google but here it is sans pictures anyway:
“What flaperon barnacles revealed about MH370 mystery
Robyn Ironside, National Aviation Writer, News Corp Australia Network
August 31, 2016 12:30am
Subscriber only
ANALYSIS of barnacles found on a flaperon from MH370 has added to the mystery surrounding the plane’s final resting place — with scientists in France and Australia reaching different conclusions.
Extensive testing by Australian National University (ANU) scientist Patrick De Deckker has revealed the onstart of growth of the barnacles occurred in warmer waters probably to the north of Perth.
The most extensive period of growth then took place in cooler water temperatures such as those in the latitude of Perth, and the more recent growth happened in the tropical waters around La Reunion island.
The French are yet to make public their findings on the barnacles but Professor Emeritus De Deckker confirmed they “differed somewhat” to his own.
Painstaking analysis … Professor Patrick De Deckker examining barnacles from MH370 debris at ANU in Canberra. Picture: Kym Smith
He stressed the process of testing barnacles could only reveal so much about where they grew, because very little was known about when barnacles started to form, and how fast the growth occurred.
“We just don’t know if the barnacles have been growing since the flaperon’s been floating, or if they started growing in the last few months,” Professor De Deckker said.
“But my findings are consistent with the current search area and the drift modelling done by the CSIRO.”
Precision science … An image of the work carried out by Professor Patrick De Deckker in the hope of determining where MH370 crashed. Picture: ANU
The same 2.5 centimetre barnacle was used by both French and Australian examiners — but different techniques applied.
“For my analysis, I used a laser to create little holes of 20 microns, over the length of the barnacles. In all we did 1500 analyses,” said Professor De Deckker.
“The French have done about 100 analyses on the same shell, but they used larger holes.”
In addition, the French looked at the oxygen isotope content of the shell — which is made from calcium carbonate, whereas Professor De Deckker examined the calcium and magnesium to determine in what water temperature it grew.
“In order to solve the difference between the French results and mine, we’d need to do more work,” he said.
“That would be quite an extensive project and (mean) possibly growing barnacles in tanks and so on — and we just don’t have the money or time.”
Looking for clues … The ANU’s Professor Patrick De Deckker examines a barnacle from MH370 debris. Picture: Kym Smith
Professor De Deckker provided his time and expertise to the Australian Transport Safety Bureau free of charge.
“It would cost up to $1500 a day (for additional analyses of the type carried out by the French team) and we’d have to book a machine well in advance,” he said.
The search for MH370 is poised to move into the area of the Southern Indian Ocean that Professor De Deckker identified as the place where the barnacles grew for an extensive period of time.
Weather permitting, the 120,000 square kilometre search zone will be fully scoured by the end of the year — and investigators remain hopeful the plane will be found in that time.
MH370 disappeared on March 8, 2014 after taking off from Kuala Lumpur to fly to Beijing with 239 people on board.”
@AM2: Thanks. Hopefully the barnacle data will help — at least in retrospect.
“The search for MH370 is poised to move into the area of the Southern Indian Ocean that Professor De Deckker identified as the place where the barnacles grew for an extensive period of time.” — not sure if this is the take-away, if it means when most growth occurred, For location, one wants to know what environment was at first colonization.. assuming this must have been very early in the flaperon’s orbit for it to reach Reunion when it did.
What strikes me about the VI/RG latest McMurdo path fitting is the statement that BFO errors are “within the 20-Hz drift window that has been observed on other flights” [referenced to DSTG’s Bayesian book]. Previously eligible paths needed to fit BFO to +/- 3hz. Is this just a case of “forcing” the data fit or have the goalposts shifted on BFO precision?
@Paul Smithson,
Inmarsat’s paper said “. . . that +/- 7 Hz is a conservative estimate of the typical accuracy BFO calculation achieves . . .” (when the flight parameters are accurately known or modeled). Who knows more about BFO errors? Inmarsat or DSTG?
Nothing has changed. The residual BFO errors should be within +/- 7 Hz.
The VI/RG route has BFO errors that are unacceptable in several ways. The peak error (11.8 Hz) is too large. The RMS error (7.4 Hz) is too large.
There also appears to be a residual systematic error due to an incorrect course. This is evident because all the residuals have the same sign.
There are autopilot routes that have errors within +/- 7 Hz. The VI/RG route does not, and for that reason it is unacceptable.
@DrBobbyUlich: The 7 hz standard deviation is the BFO “noise” only.
The DSTG considers in addition the BFO “bias” error and writes in 5.3:
“The potential variations were incorporated by modeling the BFO bias as an unknown constant with a prior mean given by the tarmac value and a standard deviation of 25 Hz.”
“The ‘in-flight only’ statistics show the combined effects of noise and bias variation without the influence of ‘on-tarmac’ outliers (potentially due to taxiing).”
Been unable to comment lately due to browser issues but thought i would share this:
The second sweep, considered more important than the primary sweep, will begin even before the latter was completed by Christmas Day this year.
A remotely-operated vehicle (ROV) will be used “to investigate sonar contacts that have been judged warrant a closer look.”
The second sweep will begin in October, weather permitting, with a ROV operated by Phoenix International, a Maryland-based company in the US. The ROV will be used by Dong Hai Jiu 101, a Chinese search vessel currently in Fremantle, Australia.
The primary search used a torpedo-like sonar scanner, a towfish, to cover 110,000 sq km of the 120,000 sq km search zone.
It appears that pressure has been building up, for quite some time, for the second sweep. This followed Fugro, the Dutch vessel, reporting last June that there may be sonar gaps in its coverage of the ocean floor.
Full story here:
The second sweep, considered more important than the primary sweep, will begin even before the latter was completed by Christmas Day this year.
A remotely-operated vehicle (ROV) will be used “to investigate sonar contacts that have been judged warrant a closer look.”
The second sweep will begin in October, weather permitting, with a ROV operated by Phoenix International, a Maryland-based company in the US. The ROV will be used by Dong Hai Jiu 101, a Chinese search vessel currently in Fremantle, Australia.
The primary search used a torpedo-like sonar scanner, a towfish, to cover 110,000 sq km of the 120,000 sq km search zone.
It appears that pressure has been building up, for quite some time, for the second sweep. This followed Fugro, the Dutch vessel, reporting last June that there may be sonar gaps in its coverage of the ocean floor.
Full story:
http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2016/08/31/aussies-plan-second-sweep-of-mh370-search-area/?google_editors_picks=true
As i speculated earlier, Fugro probably missed the plane the first time around due to equipment and inexperience
RE: Possible Flight Path of MH370 towards McMurdo Station, Antarctica (Victor Iannello and Richard Godfrey)
Just another route based on the “ghost flight” assumptions, as so many others.
To connect a great circle route between Car Nicobar and McMurdo Pegasus Airfield to the known MH370 data one has to assume that the culprit, after doing an aerobatic stunt at IGARI, entered all those waypoints in the CDU of the FMS while flying the airplane single-handed with autopilot off, doing a descent from FL350 to FL200, holding 43 minutes in a racetrack pattern at Car Nicobar, then climbing back to FL350. After all those pilot-initiated changes the pilot suddenly becomes inactive and leaves the plane cruising unattended at M.80/FL350 until fuel exhaustion. Quite an inventive construction.
To connect the great circle route to the FSX data on Z’s computer, one has to shuffle and modify the FSX parameters and replace:
– Pitch attitude by flight path angle
– Angle of attack by updraft
– Sideslip angle by crosswind
– Rates of climb by zoom climbs
– 25,000 kg of fuel by empty fuel tanks
– Heading 255° by heading 168°
Closing comments here. Please add your thoughts to the most recent post. Thank you!