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.
@DennisW — “six from that shadow volume.” And thousands of others elsewhere on the hard drive, and on other hard drives.
I will ask you what I asked littlefoot–what explanation of the 2000 fpm climb made at stall speed do you find preferable to my suggestion?
As we’ve seen time and time again with MH370, it’s not enough to state that a hypothesis is outrageous; one must state an alternative that is less outrageous. Because as we should all well know by now, all of the available alternatives are bizarre.
@Dennis
“I have asked my source to weigh in on the issue. That is all I can do at the moment.”
You have the choice to say more about your source or to stop making calls on pure trust. You might deserve trust like your source might, but for the case of MH370, where obfuscation and deception seems to be daily business, its better to rely not on second hand information and not at all at unreferenced second hand one.
@RF4
I never give up a source without permission. That is just the way I am wired. Take it or leave it.
MailOnline, 29 March 2014:
“Last week, Faizah and Aishah, along with other family members, were interviewed in detail by police in Kuala Lumpur. The lengthy interviews, described in detail to The Mail on Sunday by a source close to the pilot’s family, revealed …
@RF4
Copy paste below of a post VictorI made to Sk999 on this very blog.
begin copy-paste//
@sk999: The report says that there were 348 FLT files that were saved on the MK25 drive. Additionally, there were fragments of eight deleted FLT files recovered from the Shadow Volume dated Feb 3, 2014, all for a B777-200ER. Six of those deleted FLT files appear to be related to a simulated flight to the SIO. Two are for an aircraft parked at KLIA. There is no mention of any other FLT files recovered from the Shadow Volume.
end copy-paste//
@MH:
Not necessarily, or perhaps not even likely so. As even the “gossip rag” suggest. The article is remarkable in a sense. But I am not necessarily buying in to what might be ” wishful journalism” or an attempt to influence or hurry up or put some pressure on the family and its vicinity. But it has been refuted if I remember correctly.
@DennisW, Right, so now we can agree on the facts of the case. There were thousands of flt files, hundreds on this hard drive alone, and eight in this particular shadow volume. Of those eight points, four described a route to the NW, two were on the ground in KL, and two were to one another zero-fuel-climb scenarios in the southern Indian Ocean. Notably, the fuel levels of the last two points are not consistent with the fuel levels recorded for the northwestern path.
Not consistent. Let that sink in, DennisW: not consistent.
So the fact that these unrelated flight segments, of all the thousands of flight segments stored by Zaharie, happened to exist in the same folder constitutes the only — the only! — suspicious-looking things about Zaharie.
That’s truly remarkable.
@JeffWise
Jeff wrote me: “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.”
So let’s address that:
The burden of concerning one’s self with the lack of a link between the various points is not on Matt Moriarty in September of 2016. That burden was on Jeff Wise and his editor at NYMag back in July, before they published a piece with under a headline containing the phrase “PILOT FLEW SUICIDE ROUTE.”
I mean, what you wrote to me is, semantically speaking, identical to this: “You fail to agree with me on how bad I failed back in July (even though I currently refuse to take ownership of that failure and chalk it up to my unique writing style of pointing out all possibilities, unlike some people who stick with one hypothesis through thick and thin) therefore you’re not arguing your point properly.”
Pilot. Flew. Suicide. Route.
Your words, splayed across the media in every nation on Earth.
Not my words.
So, if you were a “proud retractor” you would have written an honest retraction that doesn’t make it seem like the screwup is everybody else’s fault for taking a noted aviation writer (you) seriously. The phrase “[Those points] were interpreted as comprising a single flight only because together they resembled what investigators were hoping to find,” is just about the most intellectually dishonest thing I can imagine a “proud retractor” writing.
Aren’t you one of those “investigatiors hoping to find” something or have I completely lost my mind? And, of all the other “investigators” you may possibly be referring to, did any of them publish a piece with the phrase “PILOT FLEW SUICIDE ROUTE” in the headine?
If you’re going to write articles with routine disclaimers along the lines of “Of course, none of this might be true because nobody really knows the truth” then please, Jeff, learn to title every one of your future articles: “NOT MUCH REASON TO READ THIS ARTICLE.”
Not “PILOT FLEW SUICIDE ROUTE ON HIS SIM.”
One is intellectually honest and will attract a readership of a size commensurate with its journalistic value. The other is really…I dunno. You tell me what it is, Jeff.
What troubles me most is that it’s coming from a guy who got a lot of attention with a prior sensational headline “HOW CRAZY AM I…?”
The pattern now troubles me. A lot.
Sorry, man.
@Jeff
What is truly remarkable is that you omitted this little piece of information in your latest writeup – that the only 8 points deleted from the volume in question were the six relevant points, and two points on the ground in KL.
As a person familiar with the simulator program in question posted earlier, the fuel levels are garbage in the program.
It is imperative to ask how and why those SIO points got on the simulator drive, and why they were among the rare group of points that were deleted.
You stepped in it. There is little doubt about that. I think Matt’s characterization fits extremely well.
@Matt Moriarty, Once again you have failed to address the simple point, and instead engaged in an ad hominem. So let’s say I agree with you that I am a generally bad person. Stipulated. Now: How do you reconcile the inconsistencies in the supposed route?
BTW if you’re so indignant that I ran that New York magazine piece, recall that if I hadn’t we wouldn’t even be having this discussion, because none of the other journalists who knew about the flight sim data had the cojones to run it. Even though I’ve been ambivalent about Zaharie as the prime suspect I felt that the public deserved to know what investigators had found–and I still do. Yes, the headline was unfortunate; I didn’t write it, but I didn’t object, either, so that’s on me.
@DennisW, The part that you consistently have been unable to get, after all these years, is that “stepping in it” is not something to be afraid of. Have the humility to accept that human beings make mistakes, and that it’s okay to change your mind. No one is going to get a prize for having been right all along.
As for the simulator being “garbage,” let’s clarify. The point they were making is that the simulator fuel-burn model is not a realistic representation of the real plane. That may or may not be true. What’s important is that the fuel levels are not going to be consistent within the flight simulator program itself.
@JeffWise
There’s nothing remotely ad hominem about what I’m saying. My approach comes from an absolute, totally genuine incredulity, at what you’re asking me to do: to help you prove that your article was based on a (possibly) faulty assumption.
I mean, I’m still playing catch-up here so, honestly my answer about the points is I really have no idea. Is it possible they’re from completely different flights on different days? Sure? I guess? I don’t know. You tell me. I’m not the guy the data got leaked to and I have no idea what the context was and how it was unearthed and what sort of larger pool of data the points were plucked from (and what are they anyway? Are they FMC coordinates that were plugged in as waypoints once?). Like I said, I just don’t have a good answer to the (possible) problem with YOUR article and I’m really sorry about that. I wish I could help.
What is interesting to me is anyone on the planet simming a low-altitude flight over the SIO (where the sim scenery could not be more boring) then deleting from their hard drive, then subsequently being the captain of a plane that just happened to go down in the SIO.
That, yes, I find that very interesting and I flatter myself that I would find it interesting whether I was in the Zaharie-did-it-camp or not.
So, again, you’re using the data points as a deflection from the genuine issue at hand here, which is: you either post a retraction or your don’t.
@JW
Of course it is OK to change your mind. When I could not reconcile certain facts with my CI theory, I stepped back from it. You know that. I am not all afraid to change course. That is a risk associated with doing anything – the risk of being wrong. However, in this case I think you are attempting to discredit data that is extremely relevant and on point.
I personally feel that the work of Victor and Richard deserves careful consideration in planning future search activities if any.
@JeffWise
You edited your most recent response to me after the fact to include the passage about indignation.
I appreciate you saying that the headline is “on you.”
That would be an appropriate sentiment to include in the actual piece. Not buried in the middle of the 3rd page of hundreds of comments.
Does that make sense?
(And, sorry, I’m headed to work now and won’t be able to keep up but I want everyone to understand I’m not writing any of this for any reason other than I’m very old school when it comes to journalism and I just want certain standards upheld. It’s nothing personal against Jeff.)
@DennisW, I thought your change of heart on the CI theory was one of the most encouraging things to happen on this blog. That flexibility of perspective, combined with your sharp mind and extensive knowledge, have made you one of the most valuable contributors here.
@Matt Moriarty, What I reported in the piece was that the Malaysian police had found such a route–as I quoted from the original document: “Based on the Forensics Analysis conducted on the 5 HDDs obtained from the Flight Simulator from MH370 Pilot’s house, we found a flight path, that lead to the Southern Indian Ocean, among the numerous other flight paths charted on the Flight Simulator, that could be of interest, as contained in Table 2.” It was and remains true that the Malaysian police found what they believed to be a route to the SIO. That is a fact.
My latest post does not report on a factual development; it reflects the change in my own interpretation of the data. As such it is not a news story (as the first one was) but an essay or editorial. If I were to write a retraction, it would have to be something along the lines of, “I previously reported that a secret Malaysian Police document described a flight-simulator route to the southern Indian Ocean. I no longer believe that the police’s characterization of that route is correct.” That’s just not how retractions work.
I really don’t get what you’re mad about. Are you indignant that I leaked the police finding in the first place, or that I later exposed its weakness? Or that I had the temerity to keep thinking about the topic and respond to input by Gysbreght and others?
If the smoke of the gunfire has cleared, I think we can now agree that there is no connection between the four points on a route to the NW, and the two points on two separate zero-fuel-climb scenarios in the southern Indian Ocean.
@Gysbreght: I am in agreement on:
” I think we can now agree that there is no connection between the four points on a route to the NW, and the two points on two separate zero-fuel-climb scenarios in the southern Indian Ocean.”
@MH, @Gysbreght, Thanks, guys, you can count me in too, obvs.
@Gysbreght
The connection is that the two points in the SIO are part of an ensemble of eight points that were the only points deleted from the shadow drive.
That is a connection. An important connection.
Beyond establishing a connection. I am also interested to know how and why the two points in the SIO got there in the first place.
@Jeff Wise. @MH, @Gysbreght,@ all holders of the discussed police report
I can agree, that some people here have information and discuss information, which they like not to share in total, but only those bits and pieces which serve their own purpose, their own agenda. That way neither myself nor others in the unknown camp can make up our mind.
I have a lot of understanding for secrecy and source protection, and the best thing to do is not using the leaked material at all. I`m not going to make up my mind on the ground of just snippets and hear sayings.
How was the last blog title?
FREE THE DATA…..FREE THE DATA….FREE THE DATA…..FREE THE DATA….FREE THE DATA…..FREE THE DATA….FREE THE DATA…..FREE THE DATA….FREE THE DATA…..FREE THE DATA….FREE THE DATA…..FREE THE DATA….FREE THE DATA…..FREE THE DATA….
@DennisW – the shadow drive is used for data recovery not deletion… Shadow drives store snapshots of data at a given time when ever data changes on source so you can roll back the change. but there will be no connection between each of these data files as stored on disks unless we recover the full state of mFSX at that moment of file save/deletion.
@DennisW:
“The connection is that the two points in the SIO are part of an ensemble of eight points that were the only points deleted from the shadow drive.”
Sorry, I don’t read that in the information posted here.
“I am also interested to know how and why the two points in the SIO got there in the first place.”
Sure, that is interesting. But, unlike you, I don’t pretend to be able to read Z’s mind.
Off to bed, for now.
@RetiredF4 1000%
@JeffWise
Actually, that’s exactly how retractions work.
When you no longer stand by your original report – one which was sold to readers under the headline “SUICIDE ROUTE” with your name in the byline – you put it in print and own up to it. “I misinterpreted. I failed. I screwed up.”
Not the Malaysian police. Not the guys on your comments threat. Not “investigators.” Not “this” assumption. Your assumption.
“I, Jeff Wise, printed something I shouldn’t have and I’m sorry.”
What causes me to keep at this issue is your annoying desire to have it both ways. Either you screwed the pooch or you didn’t. I find it hard to believe your handlers at NYMag don’t have the same position I do. I’m sure they’ll be getting ample opportunity to stake a position in this matter soon.
Either way, about the last thing you’re showing right now are cajones.
@Gysbreght
Are you issuing a challenge to create a flight state where a gliding 777 can show 2000fpm climb and yet be near stall speed if sim data is dumped as a 1/60th of a second (or less, depending on the CPU and graphics card Zaharie had) snapshot?
If so, I gladly accept your challenge.
Will post a screenshot when I have time and if I can’t make time, I’ll see if my friend Austin Meyer (inventor of X-Plane) can do it or find someone to do it.
A lot can happen in a second in an airplane. And you guys are getting confused about the exact stuff I warned you not to get confused about.
@Matt:
It is not my fight but stick with what you are good at. I have not been around for two years like many here but you are at least making me blush. You are out of line. Keep it to the issue at hand or go follow a thread with the journalists you admire. I could tell you some about what it takes to be admirable. Being dead is a good start, for one.
Maybe this gives a snapshot of shah.
mmmm…avid aviationist,lover of Dawkins, hater of terrorism……
Does not sound like a man in a hurry to get to the flip side of life….but who knows except God above…i reckon
http://scroll.in/article/658667/seven-things-malaysian-pilot-zaharie-shahs-internet-footprint-tells-us-about-him
@Matt Moriarty, This conversation is over.
BY KATHERINE WEBER, CHRISTIAN POST REPORTER
March 21, 2014|8:39 am
Questions regarding Capt. Zaharie Ahmad Shah, the pilot of the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, continue to arise as the search for the missing plane enters its 14th day on Friday. Journalists scouring through the pilot’s social media activity have found he “liked” atheist-themed videos on YouTube.
As investigators searched Shah’s home just outside of Malaysia’s capital, Kuala Lumpur, they discovered that he “liked” and subscribed to multiple atheist channels on YouTube. According to The New York Times, out of the dozens of videos Shah “liked” on the platform, four consisted of well-known atheists explaining why they didn’t believe in religion. The pilot also subscribed to the official YouTube channel of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science, and the channel for Eddie Izzard, a British comedian also known to be atheist.
As The Huffington Post points out, although some media outlets have depicted Shah as possibly a Muslim extremist who intentionally crashed MH370 in a suicide mission, the fact that he frequented atheist YouTube channels paints him more as a moderate secularist.
Shah was also reportedly a supporter of opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, who lost the May 2013 election and was recently jailed for five years on sodomy charges. Although some journalists have suggested Shah’s support of Ibrahim is suspicious, others have argued that the Malaysian politician was pro-democracy and has been imprisoned on sodomy charges in a highly-political case.
Malaysian authorities, with the help of the FBI, are now looking through deleted files from Shah’s home flight simulator to search for possible clues as to what happened to the mysterious missing MH370 flight. Files containing flight simulation records were reportedly deleted from Shah’s flight simulator on Feb. 3.
Malaysia’s acting transport minister, Hishammuddin Hussein, said at a press conference recently that Shah is innocent until proven guilty, and his family is cooperating with the investigation. “I would like to take this opportunity to state that the passengers, the pilots and the crew remain innocent until proven otherwise,” Hussein told reporters from a hotel in Sepang on Wednesday.
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The Australian government announced this week that images taken from a commercial satellite found a possible field of debris floating in a very remote part of the southern Indian Ocean, 1,500 miles off the southwest coast of Australia. Just before midnight on Thursday, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority announced that four planes from the U.S., Australia and New Zealand had covered 14,291 miles in the area and would resume their search Friday morning.
Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 departed Kuala Lumpur National Airport just after midnight on Saturday, March 8, heading for Beijing, and lost all contact with air traffic controls somewhere over the Gulf of Thailand. The mysterious disappearance of the flight has fueled questions of intentional sabotage by the pilots, hijacking, mechanical failure, and even meteors.
A recent Google+ post by a former pilot suggests that the plane’s cockpit might have filled with smoke, perhaps due to a burning tire, thus causing the pilot to turn the plane left to the nearest airport and turn off all transponders and communication in an attempt to isolate what was causing the fire. The former pilot conjectured the pilots and most likely the passengers and crew passed out or died from smoke inhalation
Read more at http://www.christianpost.com/news/malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370-pilot-followed-richard-dawkins-youtube-channel-116500/#ZGHKRFFSBx61g6Ip.99
@DennisW:
Thanks for the link to the Daily Mail article Dennis.
This throwaway line towards the end of the piece caught my eye…
“…The softly-softly approach frustrated FBI officials working alongside Malaysian federal police. British intelligence agents are also helping in the investigation…”
I knew about USA and Australia, but this is the first time I’ve heard about Britain being involved. If true, they would probably be working out of their SIGINT/COMINT unit in Singapore. It would be interesting if Three out 5+1 Eyyes involved in the MH370 investigation.
Any one else got corroboration that Brits are directly involved, apart of course, from the suspect Inmarsat data?
Just a word about the Daily Mail. It’s a tabloid known for printing controversial and suspect stories. I never read the rag unless I want to see pictures, as their photo coverage of events is usually excellent.
@JeffWise
Ok. Fair enough. You got Austin’s emails. You can fwd to Gys.
@Boris
Yes, there are certainly a lot of rags out there. I have no way of qualifying them other than the format. The “Daily Mail” format did give me pause, BTW.
All we can do is “weight” the available information in our flawed and biased brains, and try to make sense of it.
@JW
you said:
“@MH, @Gysbreght, Thanks, guys, you can count me in too, obvs.”
Sometimes you hitch your wagon to the wrong ponies, but this is hard to comprehend. What the hell were you thinking, JW? It will take you a long time to recover.
[trollish comment removed by JW]
@buyerninety, It’s still set for 5
@DennisW
“Beyond establishing a connection. I am also interested to know how and why the two points in the SIO got there in the first place.”
How about flying backwards ?
If the assumption is that the southbound flight was holding 180 magnetic, why not fly backwards 000 Magnetic from these two points, and see where the flight south apparently originated ?
@Matt Moriarty
@JeffW
please send me a copy of the Austin flight sim results. I would like to review or see an analysis of these results.
@Ge Rijn,
Thank you for the questions on my modeling paper. The reason I did not mention specific results for INOP speed modes was that I found they were too slow to reach the 7th Arc at the latitudes where the BFO was acceptable. Fuel is adequate. Range is not.
In a future, expanded version of my paper I will include similar information on all the modes just for completeness. This first concise version was just to present a new finding – the first True Heading route that seems to match all the known, reliable data. BTW, I was not initially focused on this mode. I was primarily looking for a Magnetic Heading route (which does not seem to exist). I was actually a bit surprised to find the True Heading route.
It is also instructive to compare my route with Inmarsat’s. They had the right idea, but apparently not the inclination or ability to compute True Heading routes. As an example, in their paper they said:
“It is possible to join the early and late flight paths of the previous two sections to generate a hypothetical route that is consistent with the measured data, by assuming that MH370 flew from the last primary radar fix to the IGOGU air waypoint from where it turned south towards the ISBIX waypoint (N00 22, E093 40·5) and then continued in a southerly direction with its true track drifting from the initial 186° (IGOGU to ISBIX) to 180° by the end of the flight.”
My route also passes through IGOGU, then through BEDAX, and finally comes close to ISBIX. If my proposed route turns out to be correct, Inmarsat got two out of three waypoints correct. That’s pretty good for 2014. Inmarsat also figured out the post-FMT route shifted about 6 degrees counter-clockwise. My route changes 7 degrees through 00:11. The difference is that mine starts as 182 and ends at 175, whereas Inmarsat’s started at 186 and then shifted to 180. So the routes are not the same, but there are interesting similarities. Clearly they had a pretty good understanding of what the BTO/BFO data implied. There are other differences, too, because they used a constant ground speed (450 knots). My route (Holding LRC) is neither constant in Mach nor in TAS (which varies from 455 to 425 knots). It’s just what the FMC happens to fly when that speed mode is selected, but the average speeds of the two routes are fairly close to one another.
I minor point I did not mention in my paper is that my turn rate is now calculated based on the true air speed at that time and a maximum 25 degree bank angle (a software limit in the FMC). Thus the turn rate varies slightly from the first turns (at LRC) to the last (at Holding LRC).
@Jeff
“I am a proud walk-backer and retracter.”
My support to this your wise POV, absolutelly.
@Jeff: if you’d be so kind as to e-mail me my comment – verbatim, and ideally with any “trollishness” highlighted – I’d be most grateful.
I’m keen never to repeat any such offense.
@Johan there is no proof the captain was responsible and without the wreckage it is certainly as far from being solved just now as it is possible to be.
The truth can possibly only be confirmed when the wreckage is found and the black boxes are deciphered, so talk of suicide and mass murder will remain speculative until then.
However if the primary motive really was that neither the wreckage nor the reason ever be discovered, which presently looks likely, one consequence is there will be no incriminating evidence found on the black boxes as they would have been be tampered with.
At the moment we have no final location and or known cause and it remains a topic for discussion and likely to remain so indefinitely without it ever being possible to reach a conclusion.
All the evidence in the Factual Report supports the above motive and the scenario that it was deliberately flown into the SIO and there is none which contradicts it. Unless I have overlooked something?
@DrBobbyUlich
Thanks for your detailed reply.
Though I’m sure not an expert in this matter so I’m not able to comment on specific details being right or wrong.
I try to see the bigger picture and the methodology used by you and the other experts in this matter.
In an earlier post I questione/critizised the Inmarsat-data for their seemingly almost endless possibilities of fitting them to different flight paths and possible crash areas.
IMO in this regard it could be usefull to focus more on what is impossible.
Reducing by deducing so to say.
And with that limiting the possibilities as far as possible to possible flight paths and crash areas.
I understand from your paper you take this approuch (if I understand it well enough..)
Your conclusions on the one-engine-inoperative modes do this f.i.
If they are impossible to match with the data we must assume they did not occure.
One thing though I sence as a contradiction but that will sure be my lack of knowledge on this specialized matter. Still I ask if you don’t mind.
You say on one-engine-modes; ‘fuel is adequate. Range is not’.
You found that speeds were to slow to match acceptable BFO’s on the 7th arc.
Then I understand; fuel is adequate and range is adequate but the BFO’s don’t fit the points on the 7th arc where those modes lead to.
Is this a correct interpretation of your statements on this?
No, don’t bother. You are not the first who suggested that. VictorI did that before you, along with other far-fetched ‘explanations’ for the discrepancies in the FSX data.
Of course it is quite possible to momentarily achieve 2000 fpm climb near stall speed at 4000 ft altitude. It is equally possible to achieve 2000 fpm climb near stall speed at 37651 ft altitude. It is just a curious coincidence that in both cases the rate of climb is equal to the steady rate of climb with both engines operating at climb thrust.
It is also possible to achieve 3507 fpm at 23247 ft altitude, and 3570 fpm at 40003 ft altitude. However, it is ridiculous to suggest that Captain Zaharie did all those funny things in a single flight simulation, conducted as the rehearsal for the last flight in his life.
Something else crossed my mind lately that might be interesting.
If it was proposed/discussed before then it’s overdone but I mention it anyway to be sure it’s put on the table.
Many times it was suggested (and still is not rendered impossible) a sudden technical/accidental mishap occured just after ‘Goodnight Malaysia 370’.
Maybe a mishap where debris seperated from the plane.
F.i. a frontwheel tyre blow-up or something else that could have caused debris falling of the plane.
Was it ever suggested to do a detailed sonar scan on the seabed around IGARI?
It wouldn’t be such a big area to search through for the planes positions are exactly known there.
I think this could be usefull.
If nothing gets found at least this possibility will become more unlikely.
If something gets found the whole story would change instantly.
@Ge Rijn, The idea that the turnaround at IGARI might have been caused by an accident was looked at a very long time ago and discarded.
@MH, Austin sent us a couple of screenshots, but he cautioned that his engine works differently from that of Microsoft Flight Simulator and he didn’t trust the results as being necessarily accurate to what would happen in real life. The point of the exercise simply being to demonstrate what @Gysbreght points out–namely, that it is fairly straightforward to get a large rate of climb and low airspeed at the same time with no engine power by zoom-climbing. You can try this for yourself in any airplane in any flight simulator by putting engine power to idle, nose down until airspeed is close to max, then pitch up to 45 degrees or somesuch. Airspeed will bleed away faster than ROC, so that by the time you’re at zero rate of climb your airspeed will be below stall speed and your nose will drop sharply. Pilots learning to fly do a version of this very early in their training.
@Brock, Stick to discussing the facts of the case and you’ll be fine.
Jeff
Re “The idea that the turnaround at IGARI might have been caused by an accident was looked at a very long time ago and discarded.”
Maybe by you, but not everyone has discarded this possibility. It is still on the table until cause for the disappearance is known for sure.
Jeff:
“The idea that the turnaround at IGARI might have been caused by an accident was looked at a very long time ago and discarded.”
Discarded by whom? This is very subjective opinion. While Matt Moriarty’s critique is too harsh, I think you are wise enough to learn lessons. One has to realize that the probability of a technical failure mainly depends on the design of cable routing just behind the cockpit. Has Boeing made any comments on it?
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Ge Rijn,
Re: “Was it ever suggested to do a detailed sonar scan on the seabed around IGARI?”
It was discussed. The problem is that if there is some debris, it would be small. In addition it could float. This is in contrast to heavy engines resting somewhere in the SIO. So such a search in the Gulf of Thailand or SCS would be rather challenging.
@ROB “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.”
@ROB you have a blanket (Pavlovian) view of Muslim’s. I’ve spent the past decade in Malaysia from 3-10 months a year and have experienced first hand a society that promotes One Malaysia. The citizens are of four religions, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu and Christian. There is a high level of modern secularized day to day lifestyle in a country that enjoys comfort and affluence, despite not being fully developed. Malay citizens have education and political advantage as sons of the soil. Having mixing with the educated, worldly folk similar to Zaharie, they intermingle in an amiable way with everyone, practice their religion in a quiet way, are calm and polite people. The profile being ascribed to him does not fit Malaysian professionals living in Kuala Lumpur.
The authorized version of events, pin the rose on Z is reliant on the fact that most people have little knowledge of Malaysia and its people and have been schooled, prior to but in particular since 911, to fear Muslims.
As we know the people involved in 911 were security insiders wanting to conduct a version of operation Northwoods, substitute the Communists with Muslim in this plot, and terrorism is orchestrated in-house, then blamed on someone else in order to leverage public opinion to war. This scenario has been played out multiple times. See the work of Swiss Professor Daniele Ganser (several of his lectures on Ytube).
Who benefits?
Whom does it serve to close the books on the MH370 disappearance scenario?
What else might have happened to the plane. I have thought all along that everyone on the plane was dead, early in the flight, including the pilots.
Any other scenario, over that time frame of several hours does not fit, there would have been some attempt to take control of the plane. Passengers and crew would have been aware of changes in altitude and direction. I’ve taken KL to China flights with MAS, numerous time, you are aware of altitude and direction changes, even on a red eye since lots of people are awake all night reading, watching movies. At the time of the major changes in altitude and direction, the crew would have been flogging duty free regardless of the time of night, it is part of their protocol.
@Oleksandr, @airlandseaman, You can believe that such a possibility might exist in the abstract, but no one has ever mooted a such an actual scenario which fits the data. The turning off of communications began six seconds after the plane passed IGARI; the fact that the SDU was turned off (or otherwise tampered with) and rebooted; the plane’s complicated high-speed zig-zag path on primary radar; the fact that the sat phone was working but not used; the absence of wreckage from the current search zone which rules out a “ghost plane” flight; etc. In short, there is a great deal of evidence that the plane was deliberately taken and flown under active control all the way to fuel exhaustion. You cannot come up with an accident scenario that fits the observed data.
If you can’t discard the accident scenario then you can’t discard anything. And if you can’t discard anything, you’ll never get anywhere–you’ll be forever stuck in an endless fog of vaporous possibilities.
@JW
Yes, there are many sensible reasons to discard a mechanical failure scenario.
1> Hull loss statistics are 80/20.
2> No communication.
3> Erratic flight path. Obviously piloted.
4> Closest “safe harbor” was 180 degrees from IGARI.
5> Plane continued until fuel exhaustion.
6> SIO coordinates on sim drive.
Come on people. Lets bury this one once and for all, and stop being silly.
Jeff,
Left bus + ADIRU + a few coaxial cables… That is what needed to explain all the observations you listed. Though we discussed this many times, let’s try once again, point by point:
– “The turning off of communications began six seconds after the plane passed IGARI”.
Similar thing happened to Egypt air. Possibly coincidence in both the cases.
– “the fact that the SDU was turned off (or otherwise tampered with) and rebooted”
How do you know it was turned off? Depowered left bus explains this. Re-powering explains reboot. Once power became available, the crew initiated some maneuver, in result of which the plane disappeared from the radar screens.
-“the plane’s complicated high-speed zig-zag path on primary radar”.
When ADIRU fails, high-level AP functions, including HDG/TRK HOLD do not work. The plane could be flown manually, hence zig-zag.
– “the fact that the sat phone was working but not used”.
It is very possible that the pilots were busy during 18:25-(>18:41), and they were unable to make or answer call. It was not the top priority at that moment. By 23:15 the crew was incapacitated, hence the second call was unanswered.
-“The absence of wreckage from the current search zone which rules out a “ghost plane” flight”.
No. This is your misunderstanding. It rules out a ghost plane in HDG/TRK HOLD constant flight level mode. In combination with the assumed FMT, btw. Nothing else.