In last month’s New York magazine article about Zaharie Ahmad Shah’s flight simulator, I cautioned against treating the recovered data as a smoking gun:
…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.
What I failed to question was the report’s assumption that the six points all belonged to a single flight path. On closer examination that assumption seems ill supported. Rather, it seems more likely that the six points were recorded in the course of two or possibly three separate flights. They were interpreted as comprising a single flight only because together they resembled what investigators were hoping to find.
The first four points do appear to show a snapshots from a continuous flight, one that takes off from Kuala Lumpur and climbing as it heads to the northwest. Between each point the fuel remaining decreases by a plausible amount. Each point is separated from the next by a distance of 70 to 360 nautical miles. At the fourth point, the plane is at cruise speed and altitude, heading southwest in a turn to the left. Its direction of flight is toward southern India.
The fifth and sixth points do not fit into the pattern of the first four. For one thing, they are located more than 3,000 miles away to the southeast. This is six or seven hours’ flying time. Curiously, at both points the fuel tanks are empty. Based on its fuel load during the first four points, the plane could have flown for 10 hours or more from the fourth point before running out of fuel.
The fifth and sixth points are close together—just 3.6 nautical miles apart—but so radically different in altitude that it is questionable whether they were generated by the same flight. To go directly from one to the other would require a dive so steep that it would risk tearing the aircraft apart.
The picture becomes even more curious when we examine the plane’s vertical speed at these two points: in each case, it is climbing, despite having no engine power.
The ATSB has speculated that in real life MH370 ran out of fuel shortly before 0:19 on March 8, and thereafter entered into a series of uncontrolled porpoising dives-and-climbs called phugoids. In essence, a plane that is not held steady by a pilot or autopilot, its nose might dip, causing it to speed up. The added speed willl cause the nose to rise, and the plane to climb, which will bleed off speed; as the plane slows, its nose will fall, and the cycle will continue.
Could a phugoid cause a plane to climb—663 feet per minute at point 5, and 2029 feet per minute at point 6? The answer seems to be yes for the fifth point and no for the sixth. Reader Gysbreght conducted an analysis of 777 flight-simulator data published by Mike Exner, in which an airliner was allowed to descend out of control from cruise altitude in the manner that the ATSB believes MH370 did.
A diagram produced by Gysbreght is shown at top. The pink line shows the plane’s altitude, starting at 35,000 feet; the blue line shows its rate of climb. Worth noting is the fact that the phugoid oscillation does indeed cause the plane to exhibit a small positive rate of climb soon at first. But by the time the plane reaches 4000 feet — the altitude of the sixth point — the oscillation has effectively ceased and the plane is in a very steep dive.
Gysbreght concludes:
As expected for a phugoid, the average rate of descent is about 2500 fpm, and it oscillates around that value by +/- 2500 fpm initially. The phugoid is apparently dampened and the amplitude reduces rapidly. I was slightly surprised that it reaches positive climb values at all. Therefore I think that 2000 fpm climb is not the result of phugoid motion.
Not only is the plane climbing briskly at the sixth point, but it is doing so at a very low airspeed—just above stall speed, in fact. If the pilot were flying level at this speed without engine power and pulled back on the controls, he would not climb at 2000 feet per minute; he would stall and plummet. In order to generate these values, the plane must have been put into a dive to gain speed, then pulled up into a vigorous “zoom climb.” Within seconds after point six, the simulated flight’s speed would have bled off to below stall speed and entered into an uncontrollable plunge.
Perhaps this is why Zaharie chose to record this particular point: it would have been an interesting challenge to try to recover from such a plunge at low altitude.
What he was doing at points 5 and 6, evidently, was testing the 777 flight envelope. This might seem like a reckless practice, but I think the opposite is the case. From time to time, airline pilots do find themselves in unexpected and dangerous conditions. For instance, as Gysbreght has noted, “On 7 october 2008 VH-QPA, an A330-303, operating flight QF72 from Singapore to Perth, experienced an In-flight Upset west of Learmonth, West Australia. The upset was caused by a freak combination of an instrumentation failure and an error in the flight control software, which resulted in an uncommanded pitch-down. The vertical acceleration changed in 1.8 seconds from +1 g to -0.8 g.” It would be better to experience a situation like this for the first time in a flight simulator in one’s basement, rather than in midair with a load of passengers and crew.
What Zaharie clearly was not trying to do was to fly to McMurdo Station in Antarctica, as some have speculated.
For one thing, while a 777 is fully capable of flying from Kuala Lumpur to Antarctica, it was not carrying enough at point 1 to make the trip. And if one were trying to reach a distant location, one would not do so by running one’s tanks dry and then performing unpowered zoom climbs.
The misinterpretation of the flight simulator data offers a couple of cautionary lessons. The first is that we have to be careful not to let a favored theory color our interpretation of the data. The investigators believed that MH370 flew up the Malacca Strait and wound up in the southern Indian Ocean, and they believed that Zaharie was most likely the culprit; therefore, when they found data points on his hard drive that could be lumped together to form such a route, that’s what they perceived.
A second lesson is that we cannot uncritically accept the analysis made by officials or by self-described experts. Science operates on openness. If someone offers an analysis, but refuses to share the underlying data, we should instinctively view their claims with suspicion.
@Gloria:
I am with you as far as murder/suicide, plain and simple, not being very likely with Z as the culprit. On the other hand, “ratio” is of little use here since “plain and simple” may not adhere and Z might not be the one stealing bread and sleeping under the bridges of Paris. And loyalty to your religion has an exit point, that is, in a sense, the backbone of it. There will have to be a motive. That is what it is about. And a motive is a narrative. A story. That is how I see it. But we need to let go of scapegoating.
Speaking of which: I think you are right about Jeff, so don’t expect this post to pull through. But the Russian article, wasn’t that one under “psychology”?
No, Jeff might be secret, but not a secret agent. He is a gatherer, I assume, but it is probably not information.
@dennisW – again the data points don’t make a path to the SIO especially 5th and 6th… That is what we were talking about rather than your personal investment in some gps equipment stock …
@Gloria There is no evidence to support either suicide or mass murder as the primary cause, there’s certainly nothing of suspicious known about the private life of anyone onboard.
The only other explanation if it turns out to be one of the the pilots, then the cause had to do with aviation. The simplest and most obvious reason is just what it turned out to be; to create the worlds greater aviation mystery.
It would take someone enormous knowledge and aptitude to conceive and execute such a plan. Without pointing fingers in the absence of proof, I would like to know if the simulator is the worlds most sophisticated home set up? It must come close.
It would also at some stage, possibly going back years, require something to trigger the plan.
I am very doubtful it was anything other than intentional by someone on board, which could only be the pilots or one or more hijackers. All we have now is are possible suspects, none of whom can be ruled out.
One question about the simulator, what file type was used to save the data? If save as part of the simulator I’m assuming it was a flight plan .pln which requires a number of points to be linked. Was it one such plan or up to three.
@Vector:
If the intention was to create a mistery then there is only one suspect, the obvious one, and hence not a real mistery. And if it was someone else, he would need to be known, otherwise he will never get credit for it. And I don’t think he could die with that.
And creating a mistery is still murder-suicide, in the eyes of the law, religion and society and family, and thus not very likely coming from Z. There has to be motive. There are not that many around that would “explain” extended suicide so there is some hope in that respect. Creating a mistery isn’t one of them. Negotiating for a pay-raise is not either.
@Vector:
I wouldn’t completely rule out, though, that Z had gotten a fix idea, and nurtured an either-or (they can’t, but if they do… ) logic in relation to that — under influence from struggles with his spine pains and what may follow from that in terms of poor judgement and social hardship. And then snapped, knowing that whatever surfaces would be very hard to finally pin on him.
Bobby,
“No turns, circles, spirals, or any other maneuver than a climb (which increases the BFO) can more closely match the BFO data then.”
Your statement is incorrect and groundless: you could see it is wrong from the table I included in the plot. What other evidence do you need? Set up your own model and you will see that a spiral descent can match all the BFOs 18:25-18:41 (except 273 Hz) with the errors of order 3 Hz (especially for 3 loops between 18:27 and 18:41).
The issue is that you applied standard LRC settings to your model. I applied settings corresponding to the emergency descent procedure, which particularly dictates setting the maximum speed, subject to structural integrity, and descent to 10,000 ft level.
You wrote “The maximum BFO at 18:27 with no climb is very close to 166 Hz”. I guess you implied LRC speed, while even Vmo/Mmo limits can be temporarily exceeded based on FCOM if a pilot wishes.
Sorry, but S-turn with ascent has no logical explanation and contradicts to the radar data. Victor’s lateral offset stands, but holding pattern with/without descent makes more sense in my opinion.
@JeffWise
#1) I didn’t read Ianello’s recent piece as a suggestion that the sim data shows a flight “to” McMurdo. Merely a flight “toward” McMurdo and I’m not really sure why you’re barking at him.
He discusses the destination in terms of whatever might have been available as an SIO destination in the FMC database subscribed to by MAS and he extends the sim path to an airport – any airport at the end of any great circle route on that initial MS Flightsim heading. In my mind, he’s just using that path as a springboard for consideration of a new search where the sim path intersects the 7th arc – where McMurdo was just a convenient FMC waypoint and not a destination anyone intended to reach.
#2) I think everyone’s putting too much emphasis on the fuel numbers for FSX. It’s not a flight “model” sim like X-Plane. It’s a series of lookup tables which is notoriously wacky when it comes to range in heavy jets. I should know, I flight modeled almost the entire Boeing fleet for X-Plane 5 a decade ago and MSFS was nowhere near where we were on performance accuracy.
#3) No ATP would ever do “flight envelope testing” on MSFS. If for some nefarious reason you couldn’t ask for it during your normal Level D simtime and you were going to pretend to do it at your desk at home, you’d just zap yourself up over your default field quickly and have at it. Not fly all the way to the roaring forties to do it. What would he have been worried about? Crashing a sim plane into a sim Petronas tower? It’s just ones and zeros on a graphics card, Jeff. The notion that you’d choose the middle of the SIO to practice a maneuver is just nuts to me.
By the way, if you’re going to retract your own scoop, it’s more than a little disingenuous to open it with “I cautioned against using [your own article] as a smoking gun.” I mean, geez, your headline was “PILOT FLEW A SUICIDE ROUTE ON HIS HOME SIM.” And now you want us to remind us that you were “cautioning?” Come now.
If you’re going to retract, you should write “my misinterpretation” instead of “the misinterpretation” and headline today’s piece “My Flight Simulator Claim Unravels” instead of just “Flight Simulator Claim Unravels?” It’s everybody else’s fault you ran a juicy piece in NYMag and now you’re having doubts?
That said, I really do think you’re bailing on your own story prematurely.
“Phugoids?”
Why are you back to talking about phugoids when you published an article titled “PILOT FLEW SUICIDE ROUTE?” You’re back to the ATSB’s incapacitated pilots assumption when you yourself are the architect of a reinvigorated (and 100% correct, in my opinion) emphasis on the captain. Why?
I can easily dump an engineless 777 from FL370 to 4000′ (and then also be in a +2500FPM climb with a near-zero turn rate) and put it on a spot only 3.6nm from wherever I was when nosed over. It’s called “a series of left hand turns.” (There’s a 20 degree change in heading, btw, so it clearly wasn’t just simply nosed over.)
Furthermore, these are single snapshots of an instant in time. How and why and when these certain outputs were captured I have no idea. But I can tell you from experience that a “data dump” comprising exactly 1/60th of a second ends up confusing people as often as it helps because an airplane is in a constant state of flux. I can make a 182 show a 2500fpm climb for 1/60th of a second for Pete’s sake.
The real question, which you very rightly pointed to in your original piece about this sim, is: Why did a pilot who’s plane clearly ended up in the SIO – where nobody ever flies for any reason whatsoever – have breadcrumbs on his computer — WHICH HAD BEEN INTENTIONALLY DELETED — from that exact area of the world?
And you’re also worried about the plane breaking apart from getting down in just 3.6nm? Well, that happens to have been my theory on the Reunion flaperon from the beginning: that it detached because of mach flutter during an overspeed dive. It is, in my mind, absolutely no coincidence that the two attributable pieces of wreckage found to date are CONTROL SURFACES, because those are exactly the things that fly off an airplane during flutter. Surfaces lost to flutter also tend to have trailing edges that are thoroughly mangled but leading edges that are…hmmm…strangely pristine because they were protected by the entire chord of the wing before they got ripped off by flutter. (Last I checked, this was Exner’s theory on the flaperon, too.)
Today’s post is a non-retraction-retraction of your own scoop for reasons that don’t really justify the retraction in the first place. Why the cold feet in the face of such weak contrary evidence? Is there something else you’re not telling us?
It’s. just. Really. Weird.
@Matt M
Great post.
@Gloria
Then there’s the real world. Theoretically, its a sin to take a life (yours or someone else’s) in just about any religion. This guy was motivated by a grotesquely distorted and obscene perspective on things, just like the guys who flew into the Twin Towers, and countless others will continue to behave in the future.
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and sounds like a duck, it probably is a duck. Z was prime suspect from day one. He pinned the rose on himself.
I don’t think you know what you are talking about. The Sim data are obviously out side your comfort zone. You can’t see that they are faulty, rubbish, and certainly do not belong to the same flight. Let’s just look at one aspect that you may be able to understand, the vertical speed. The table gives the altitudes and vertical speeds from Victor’s EXCEL table, and below those the vertical speeds that the airplane may realistically be able to achieve. The latter are taken fom MH370’s ACARS Position Report, extrapolated to the B777 service ceiling per FCOM (RR Trent). See also https://www.dropbox.com/s/v9ucikmkxt6w7jb/RoC_compared.png?dl=0
Point No. ________ 1 ______ 2 ______ 3 ______ 4 ______ 5
Altitude (ft)___ 23247 __ 32246 ___ 40003 __ 37651 __ 4000
RoC FSX (fpm) ___ 3507 ____ 1456 ___ 3570 ___ 663 ___ 2029
RoC MH370 (fpm) _ 1700 ____ 1150 ___ 350 ____ 600 ___ 2095
The Rates-of-Climb for points 1 and 3 are obviously faulty.
The RoC for points 4 and 5 are approximately correct for normal climb at maximum climb thrust. That means that those values were obtained just before fuel exhaustion, and that event was probably the reason for dumping those data in a file. It also means that those points were from different flights, not connected at all to points 1, 2 and 3.
@ROB:
There are lies, damn lies, and the duck-pun.
But Hey, I’ll give you that it the whole thing has the signature of a duck. There are traces all over. And who would it be, who would do just that, but the one who stands out from not standing out?
And it is handy for those who prefer the cash & carry. (I assume the pun has it that you should pull the trigger of your shotgun. )
Then again, managing all that in a day makes you wonder. What speaks for that he was all alone on that? What speaks for him sacrifizing everything? There is not enough of substance in the motive. There has to be more. Or he was not the one faulting in the first place. Not the one to blame, but took the consequences.
You can always say that there are not any evidence for this and that (and in most cases there is no reason to object), but as long as there is no credible motive, speculations will linger. And weird tech issues is hardly uncommon. I doubt you will be reading about this event on Wikipedia or any other encyclopeadic work that Z did it. So it takes some humility.
But Hey.
@gysbreght
I suggest you read carefully Matt Moriarity’s excellent post. I don’t care about the details of the sim data or whether they are accurate or not. Stop blowing smoke in the air, and making viewed insults. All I care about are the coordinates on simulator. How and why did they get there. Can you understand a simple question like that?
Dennis,
Wake up, take rest, or ask Jeff what medicine he took. You were one of the most reasonable contributors to Jeff’s blog, and I hope you will come back to your normal state. I was surprised how naively you were affected by the propaganda, and how you bought that garbage stuff about the simulator. Ask yourself who benefits from throwing this info concerning the simulator specifically at this time. Read excellent response of Blaine Gibson to Jeff’s article. I am glad that Jeff start showing some signs of recovery from this paranoia. I hope you will recover too.
@DennisW: “All I care about are the coordinates on simulator.”
Yes, that is obvious.
I have found a plausible MH370 True Heading route that is described at:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzOIIFNlx2aUQTVUOVl4YmtxNWs/view?usp=sharing
@Oleksandr
I suggest you read carefully Matt Moriarty’s excellent post above.
@Gysbreght
My guess is that you have no idea how the coordinates were created, but would rather draw attention to complete minutia. That is your style.
@Oleksandr,
Your BFO model must be incorrect based on your table of numbers (numbers in a table is not proof of anything). If you want to demonstrate your BFO model is accurate, then compute the ATSB table of conditions, compare with Inmarsat’s results, and show us the results.
Slowing down makes the shortfall in BFO at 18:27 slightly worse. In fact, the BFO then is fairly insensitive to speed.
Descending at 18:27 makes the BFO shortfall much worse.
Doing both simultaneously drives the BFO far below the ~175 Hz data.
The turns required to perform a lateral offset to the right are a double turn – first to the right and then to the left. That is what an S-turn is. There is no contradiction with radar data because it starts at 18:25:30, after the radar track ended. You are truly clueless. For the second, and final time, I am done. You are all noise and no signal.
@DrB
Hang in there. These have been a couple of crazy days. This site is unraveling completely.
@DennisW: “My guess is that you have no idea how the coordinates were created, …”
You would never ask yourself how half-a-dozen points were hand-picked from thousands of others, and why they were presented to create the illusion of a path, because doing so might conflict with your conviction.
@Gysbreght
I am not interested in thousands of points. In fact, even that is hearsay. Have you seen the thousands of other points? No, you have not. You are just blowing your usual smoke around.
Your interest should be how those particular points got there and why. Not whether they connect to any previous points. Who cares? I care about points in the SIO which are consistent with the direction the aircraft was diverted. Instead of raising rhetorical questions, like who benefits? Why don’t you tell me who benefits. That is also a rhetorical question because I know you do not have a clue.
Crazy days indeed, but the ATSB injected a dash of much needed sanity yesterday.
I quote “the finding of debris on islands in the Indian Ocean and south coasts if Africa is consistent with drift modeling performed by Australia’s CSIRO, and affirms the focus of search efforts in the Southern Indian Ocean”.
Which means the other drift modelling efforts, predicting a variety of start points, depending on how the modelers got out of bed that day, are a load of old bunny. What a surprise!
@Matt Moriarty
Your comment from 9/1/14:32
I have to chime in here. Great comment and impeccably argued!
I think it’s a waste of time trying to spin the simulator data into something like the harmless exercises of a passionate pilot.They might not be enough for convicting Shah in a trial because the data don’t tie Shah causally to the abduction of the plane and they don’t tell us what exactly went down on March 8, 2014. But IMO it’s ludicrous to argue that they might be totally harmless. This has nothing to do btw with the necessity that the rest of the data from the police report needs to get published eventually. I think we are all in the same boat here. But that shouldn’t stop us from analysing in a rational way what we have so far. And what we have throws a very bad light on Shah if he created them himself on his own free will and without having been prompted by a third party. And if he isn’t responsible for the data on his simulator – well, then it’s still a criminal case.
What creates a lingering feeling of uneasiness is of course our lack of trust in certain investigating factions – especially the Malaysians. But declaring that the sim data might well be created by Shah but still be harmless is a cop out. IMO the data are either very incriminating or fake.
Bobby,
“Your BFO model must be incorrect based on your table of numbers (numbers in a table is not proof of anything).”
Two years ago I extensively compared my BFO model against Yap’s calculator, and the difference was within 1 Hz or so. Could you be more specific what is incorrect? I agree that numbers in the table is not proof of anything except that your previous statements are false.
Please try to modify and run your model with the indicated settings, and if you find significantly different BFOs, we should discuss it and find the source of discrepancy.
“There is no contradiction with radar data because it starts at 18:25:30”.
Apparently you are suffering from amnesia: there are 3 major radars, at least two of which were supposed to track the aircraft after 18:25.
If you stuck in your LRC model, there is nothing to discuss. I am done.
I also agree with Matt, that Victor has never tried to argue Shah might’ve had the intention to simulate a complete flight to McMurdo. McMurdo might’ve simply been a convenient coordinate which was entered in order to take the plane into the general direction of the SIO and see where it might end up on such a route.
@littelfoot
“I also agree with Matt, that Victor has never tried to argue Shah might’ve had the intention to simulate a complete flight to McMurdo. McMurdo might’ve simply been a convenient coordinate which was entered in order to take the plane into the general direction of the SIO and see where it might end up on such a route.”
Yes. Victor never pointed a finger at anyone. His arguments were exactly as you stated. Your interpretation is exactly the same as mine, both with respect to Victor’s intent as well as with respect to the implications of the data points. BTW, Gysbreght ignores the fact, or is not aware of the fact, or does not care about the fact that the SIO coordinates published were the only deleted coordinates found on that drive. I find that rather suspicious as well as I think most normal people would.
we need the context to what caused those files to be deleted, i.e.: system clean up of temp working files, maybe he uninstalled of mFSX on that drive , maybe there were there other files deleted at the same time. but to cherry pick certain files over others based on content does not make it suspicious until the context of why and what was deleted is fully understood.
@DrBobbyUlich
I have one question about your impressive paper.
You mention you also looked at;
-one engine inoperative LRC
-one engine inoperative Holding
But you don’t come back on these modes later in the paper.
Has this a special reason? Did you also calculate the data for these modes?
I would be curious how those modes worked out regarding fuel consumption and the restricted lower altitudes possible.
Can modes like this fit the Inmarsat-data?
@Matt Moriarty, In your long comment you never get around to dealing with the core assertion of my post: that there is nothing linking points 1-4 with 5 and 6.
And, to all of those who criticize me for walking back or retracting: I am a proud walk-backer and retracter. My goal is to constantly be gathering and contemplating new information and reassessing old information. To those of you who say: “I’ve had this belief since the beginning and I still insist I’m right!” — you’re doing it wrong.
@JW
The reason that Matt M never got around to your linking of points assertion is that it is irrelevant to anyone but you or Gysbreght. Your last writeup was lame, and you know it. Someone got to you.
To suggest Shah went to the SIO to practice is really the frosting on that cake.
@DennisW, You are free to disagree with me but I will caution you on keeping a civil tone.
the one benefit of JeffW’s NY Times article it exposed some cracks publicly of the main player’s “quorum of silence”. It was especially telling of Malaysia’s public response; re-read that for more information.
One of the main objectives is to refine the search area, because the expensive search can only continue if we have a better idea of where to search.
McMurdo waypoint plays a possible role in refining the search area, but now they say maybe they do see some over-looked evidence in the current search area. My understanding is that they left some gaps in the coverage. So McMurdo is “out” if the original advanced computer analysis was correct in the first place.
@DennisW:
Denis, why do you take the flight sim data as gospel? It would be easy for someone (5+1 Eyyes or Malasian SB – both had access) to plant the data on Shah’s hard drive, so as to reinforce the story that MH370 ended up crashing in the SIO. Even if the data is genuine, it still does not prove pilot suicide/mass murder. They don’t seem too bothered about framing Shah at the moment, only that people think the plane crashed in or near the search area, but it would make a nice and convenient end to the mystery.
I expect there will be more evidence discovered / planted should the cover story fails to convince. Well have to see.
@MH:
“we need the context to what caused those files to be deleted… “.
Completely agree. That’s what it comes down to, isn’t it?
And after that, circumstances in Z’s personal life.
In that sense I have no trouble recognizing that Jeff probably (! ; most likely?, partially?, “technically”?) outwitted me long ago.
Jeff is doing his thing. There is absolutely no point in trying to undermine that.
¡Release the data! ¡Release (selected parts of) the investigation!
¡Geronimo!
@Boris, BTW an aspect I didn’t get into in my post was the fact that these flight-sim data points, however you want to read them, are apparently the only potentially incriminating evidence in a 1000-page investigation report. How about that??
Now, to be sure, a lot of people say, “He could have been mad that his political hero had been jailed,” “he might have been trying to send secret signals through his home-repair videos.” Could have, might have. A lot of conjecture and supposition but not a shred of actual, inciminating evidence.
Sometimes absence of evidence is itself evidence.
@Boris
The sim data does not reinforce the current search area. As Victor and Richard showed, a reasonable analysis of the sim data would infer a terminus much farther North. People keep forgetting to mention that the points “revealed” are the only data points deleted from the drive. A conclusion that the points are not related under that additional circumstance should be very difficult for anyone to digest.
I have been curious why the authorities have not pointed a stronger finger at Shah. Everyone is careful to dance around that issue. My guess is that has to do with insurance/liability issues.
Planting of the flight sim data is about as likely as the planting of debris. No reasonable person would seriously embrace either notion.
@DennisW: You are making a simple but important mistake. It is not true that these six data points were the only ones deleted. There were thousands of deleted data points; these were cherry picked from them.
This kind of confusion is exactly why the full police report must be released.
Also, reasonable people can and should consider every possibility relating to the fate of MH370. Your belief that the case is simple and that you know the answer is a flaw, not a virtue.
Apparently still a step behind.
@JW
You are misinformed about thousands of deleted points. Those six were that only ones deleted from that shadow volume.
As Matt M. artfully noted, to conclude that the SIO points were the result of a practice session is preposterous. The presence of those points on the simulator begs for an explanation other than that they were among thousands of points deleted (even if that were true).
@Boris, I don’t think that anybody here takes the sim data as gospel. There would be a number of problems with that. They could indeed have been planted in order to frame Shah. They could’ve been altered or even Shah himself could’ve left them as a red herring and then flew the plane on a very different path into the SIO. Or he simply changed his mind and improvised a different path. The simulator tracks don’t take the turnaround at IGARI into account after all. But I think a lot of people – including me – have problems with Jeff’s idea that Shah might indeed have generated the sim data all by himself, but that they can be explained away as harmless exercises of a diligent pilot and simulator fan who wanted to test his plane. That idea is ludicrous IMO. Matt Moriarty explained very well why. I don’t need to repeat it. Whoever is convinced that Shah is innocent should therefore have the guts to acknowledge that in such a scenario the sim data are probably fake.
Victor only looked at the internal consistency of the sim data and analyzed them thoroughly. The idea that the plane might’ve ended up where the route to McMurdo crosses the 7th arc is just one hypothesis under the premise that the sim data are genuine and not a red herring.
@johan – there has been much discussion and speculation on ZS’s personal life. Nothing sticks for a path towards guilt. I would suspect the wife would have spilt the beans on him if they were on the verge of divorce (in a spiteful revenge thing to do)
@Dennis, our comments crossed. I agree with you: the idea that the SIO points were just a result of a practice session doesn’t hold water.
@DennisW
If the SIO plots were part of a singel excersise, done only once, then he was a damn good pilot.
Shah never flew that path. No one did that on his simulator. It was planted.
@MH
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2592436/He-wasnt-father-I-knew-He-lost-disturbed-Daughter-MH370-pilot-raises-alarming-new-questions-state-mind-weeks-planes-disappearance.html
@Trond, or when they were trying to reassemble that disk volume and recover the data, was the whole mFSX state put back in proper order to see the context of what was going on. Perhaps reviewing the mFSX log files and the system log files would be in order for proper confirmation which data points belong to with flight path/etc.
@DennisW
You said:
“You are misinformed about thousands of deleted points. Those six were that only ones deleted from that shadow volume.”
Can you elaborate about the undoubtfull origin of this statement? Have you seen the 1.000 pages report or the vital part of it? I´m only familiar with different second hand statements from various press releases. Jeff makes a clear statement, and he had afaik access to part of the original data.
@DennisW: You are making a simple but important mistake. It is not true that these six data points were the only ones deleted. There were thousands of deleted data points; these were cherry picked from them.
What´s true, whaat´s assumption, what´s wishthinking, what´s fiction?
@ all:
Free the data, but please do so with the honesty this blog and the people on this blog deserve.
@littlefoot, I presented the idea that Zaharie was practicing a zoom climb followed by a sharp stall at the sixth point just as a proposal — a hypothesis. A way of explaining what otherwise looks to be a baffling data point.
You have every right not to accept it, but what alternative do you find more reasonable?
@DennisW – isn’t that link to a generally well known sensationalist gossip rag?
@RF4
I have asked my source to weigh in on the issue. That is all I can do at the moment.