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.
@Gysbreght
Blah, blah, blah,…
Do you have any idea how pathetic you sound?
@Oleksandr, So you get all these cables cut, accidentally, just right, and the left AC bus — and then how does the AC come back on again, all by itself? And despite everything working again, the crew makes no attempt to communicate?
If you put all the pieces of a cuckoo clock into a bag and shake it, it is physically possible that they will assemble themselves into a working cuckoo clock. But not very likely. Your scenario requires about as many astonishing coincidences.
@Gysbreght, @DennisW, My source for all that was Victor himself, who as he has said here publicly by now, has seen all the secret Malaysian police documents. Perhaps he will jump in and clarify.
@Boris Tabaksplatt, You wrote, “I’d bet my shirt that anything moving in that area would be tracked and recorded at any time day or night.” Many people initially made that assumption, but on further investigation it turned out not to be the case. Reuters reported early on that India’s radar station in the Andaman Islands was not operational, and upon some investigation of my own it seemed clear that Indonesia had turned its own military radar off at midnight. If you search for “India Radar” on this site you can find the relevant posts and discussion.
It’s true that there are tensions in the region, but air traffic surveillance is expensive and countries focus their attentions on the regions where issues exist: for India, the Pakistan border and Kashmir; for China, Taiwan, the Spratlys, etc.
@DennisW, Please.
@Boris
So why do these people make ambiguous statements like they have not seen the plane? That is about the weakest form denial anyone can create.
If you want to challenge me find a statement to the affect that the radars were operational. Don’t give me your interpretation of international relations. I have no patience for it.
@Matt Moriarty: I interpreted Johan’s comment to you about “being dead is a good start” the same way you did. Yikes, was all I could think. I get being passionate and having a heated, passionate intellectual debate, but getting that offended to wish death upon someone is over the top. I am following the discussion here with interest but it’s antics like that, the offhand ad hominem attacks, and the creepy spoofing of my earlier account (that Jeff had to disable) that make me stay mostly silent. Anyways I hope there is a better interpretation of Johan’s comment to you, too.
@Julie@Matt
Keep in mind that English is a second language for Johan. A statement with the intent you are placing on it is out of character with his other posts. I would give him the opportunity to explain himself.
@DennisW @Jeff Wise
First to come back on the questions I asked you 2 days ago and now I ask Jeff Wise too.
I’ll make it one question that covers essentialy both:
Would you reject a detailed sonar-seabed scanning of the IGARI area just for the purpose of thoroughly investigating the area where things started to go wrong?
For the sake of another deducing effort: Proving absence of (debris)evidence here has it’s own deducing value as has the current search area and all the areas no debris was found till now IMO.
I think now it still cannot be ruled out completely a sudden mishap occured just before the transponders stopped transmitting.
The ACARS stopped transmitting between 17:07 and 17:37 but as far as I know it’s not exactly known at what time between those times. Then I think it could have happened simultaneously with the transponders and SATCOM possibly by an explosion of some kind. Triggering an emergency where making contact was no priority anymore (as in MS804 f.i.).
Like it or not; these questions and doubts will keep rising.
Carrying out a detailed sonar-scan of the IGARI area could at least be usefull to further eliminate this possibility.
I think it’s strange this was not done in the first place.
As I said; every ‘crime-scene’ or ‘accident-scene’ (where the crime or accident started) gets investigated in every smallest detail.
In this case only the surface was searched.
It’s like searching the whole house but not the basement.
@Ge Rijn, I think that this is a terrible idea for reasons I’ve already elaborated. Probably over-elaborated. By now we know what everyone’s opinions on this subject are. I doubt that anyone is going to volunteer to switch teams.
@Gysbreght
“Do you know when these files were created?”
Exactly. At a time when his sim didn’t work.
And there where at least two cases of fuel exhaustion in the SIO found on his simulator? There should be only one.
@DennisW – noted, thanks for the info and esp. about it being out of character with previous posts. BTW did I read correctly that you are an EMT? I would have thought based on your posts, EE / firmware engineer / circuit or chip designer. Maybe in a previous career. 🙂
This is a good starter to what’s going on in the area where MH370 was lost…
http://www.cfr.org/asia-and-pacific/armed-clash-south-china-sea/p27883
@Ge Rijn
It is a matter of time and expense. You will certainly not find the aircraft at that location, so why allocate resources to searching there? Are you thinking some piece of the aircraft might be found that will shed some light on this mystery? I just have no idea what you might be hoping to find.
The fact the the aircraft continued flying at altitudes and speeds consistent with normal operation suggests that if anything did fall off of the plane, it was not vital to the operation of the aircraft.
My conclusion is simply that it would be a waste of time and extremely unlikely to produce any result.
@Julie L
Yes. I am retired, and doing it in a volunteer capacity. I was a geek as you suspected.
Jeff,
“then how does the AC come back on again, all by itself?”
My explanation would be that the crew (perhaps with the help of passengers) managed to restore power to the left bus at around 18:20. Perhaps this caused some disastrous effect: short circuit, smoke, fire, etc.
“Your scenario requires about as many astonishing coincidences.”
What else would you expect? This is very low-probability event in either case.
Jeff, you said you want to clear smog. Can we agree, perhaps with the help of experts, on the existence of the ATT roll mode, in which the AP simply maintains wings level?
@Boris
Here is a good starter for you as well. Please do not give me a history lesson. Give me some evidence that the radar was operations at the time of MH370’s disappearance. If you cannot do that we are at an impasse.
The Indian government as well as Indonesia has been very oblique in the statements they have made.
http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2014/03/19/indian-sends-mixed-signals-on-radar/
@DennisW says: “…So why do these people make ambiguous statements like they have not seen the plane?…”
They says that so if future information comes to they are not caught in a lie. Identification of planes using military radar would no go beyond knowing it was a large plane. They are obviously being very careful about what they say and obviously don’t want to rock any boats. There is too much at stake to risk making a slip.
@Boris
In case you are not skilled at “reading between the lines” of what people say, the article I just linked to you says –
“OUR RADAR WAS NOT ON AT THE TIME”.
Now stop sending me your interpretation of what happened, and send me direct evidence the radar was operational or a statement to that effect by someone in a position to know.
The MH370 did not show up on any military radars except for Malaysian. Indonesia had its operating, India and Australia not.
@Dennis:
G = Ghost Flight = swift FMT, straight & fast to 35-40°S, unpiloted spiral to impact within PSZ
E = Erratic Flight = who-knows-what, but faithfully recorded in the Inmarsat pdf, & ending NE of PSZ
C = Cover-Up = Inmarsat pdf presented as jangling car keys to hide MH370’s true fate from general public
n the summer of 2014 – before collecting any physical evidence – we had a nested Bayesian problem:
1. There was at least some small chance – call it X – the ISAT data was faked. If so, then C; if not, then either G or E
2. There was at least some small chance – call it Y – the ISAT data was misinterpreted. If so, then E; if not, then G.
Both X & Y were deemed small by the high and mighty, so the search was based on G.
@Dennis, I don’t need convincing that the search – if as effective as Fugro claimed – counter-indicates G. Emphatically. I wrote a paper in April, 2015 which suggested G had even then already been effectively falsified. Not sure how much of the $180m was spent on G after that date, but if Mr. Exner’s sim results were accurate – and my model wasn’t flawed (I BEGGED this forum for robust peer review) – then it was wasted. The “Roy” piece (if beached by Dec, 2015) seems to further support our shared view, by strongly counter-indicating 35-40°S.
But where you seem to be arguing: “ergo, the experts who concluded G were idiots, and the only remaining possibility is E”, I look to the intrinsic logic of G, perceive its intrinsic strength, and believe this should still matter.
For instance, I don’t fault proponents of G for questioning Fugro’s search efficiency. I did, too – before concluding, as you have, that the naysaying all seemed to be coming from either jilted competitors or folks who were “pot-committed” to G.
If G is now ruled out, the Bayesian probability of Y (ergo “Erratic”) rises geometrically, as you correctly point out. But so does X (ergo “Coverup”).
I don’t expect you – a long-standing advocate for Y – to start cheerleading for X. Any more than you’d expect me – a long-standing advocate for X – to start cheerleading for Y. But cold logic tells us they must both rise geometrically as G fades.
I haven’t ruled out E. In my assssment, its likelihood has never been higher. While I wouldn’t fault you for keeping it to yourself, I suspect that, deep down, you feel the same way about C: low, but higher than ever.
The debris record to me suggests C over both the others (especially G), and the argument that a nuclear power was not watching its radar screens is, to me, not at all persuasive. Tack on the rest of the baffling non-detections, non-disclosures, & zealous censorship of legitimate discussions of potentially conflicting evidence, and the case for C becomes, as far as I’m concerned, too strong to ignore.
@Oleksandr
“Again, the issue could be not in the power, but in cables. The left bus knocks down SDU and one VHF radio. HF radio may not work for known reasons. What is left: 2 VHFs and 1 ELT. If respective cables are placed in the proximity to each other in the area behind the cockpit, they could be cut simultaneously by debris. Can you demonstrate that this is impossible? Given the diagrams and photos shared by Don, in conjunction with the “minimum distance” concept, I would think these cables are placed in the proximity to each other.
Finally, how do you know that no attempt was made?”
Your basic misunderstanding is, how multiple redundancy works in modern air transport aircraft. Your assumptions there are so wrong that its not worth starting to correct it. Your technical failure scenario is full of assumptions and void of countable facts. It is funny that we would expect mobiles to lock on to mobile towers from 10.000 freet, but you discount a portable ELT to be able to transmit a signal from the same hight from within the same aircraft. Multiple radios on different frequencies not working, ELT’s not working, Sat phone working but not used, IFF systems not working……..what a bad day it was. I suggest you get real on that matter. Your work like a slower and curved path , which I honor, is not necessarily dependent on such a technical failure scenario, and I do not understand why you hold on to it like a mother to her only child.
If I am not mistaken Thai military confirmed they tracked the plane on their radars. If we assume that the famous Lido image was based on the data from Malaysian military only, what did Thai really saw on their RTADS-III Phuket? This might be a key to the question whether descent took place after 18:25.
@DennisW
The same article states:
“One official noted that if one radar system is shut off for maintenance or another reason, the skies that it scans are always being scanned by other overlapping systems so there is never a gap in the radar coverage.”
And about answering my question; I agree it would be highly unlikely something usefull would be found. I just see it as belonging to a thorough investigation that you also thoroughly investigate the area where things happened to go wrong.
RetiredF4,
Firstly, I do not use these assumptions for the ultimate outcome, which is the location of the terminus. Secondly, in contrast to many others, I do not state that it is the only possible scenario. Thirdly, yes “bad day”. Fourthly, I would still like to hear your answer to my question: what would you do in such a hypothetical situation?
@Brock
We are much closer than you might imagine. Based on your work and others, it is reasonably clear that Southern latitudes (I would argue beyond 30S) are very unlikely terminal locations.
There is no doubt that C is going on. The sim data expose’ is proof enough of that.
Erratic is a bit vague. I do not believe the flight path has to look like the escape path from a maze. Just some gentle tweaks are needed. I think the recent path by Victor and Richard terminating at 27S is a good example of a plausible path with no tweaks. In the past (prior to the DSTG) report, I would have tweaked it a bit to get the BFO residuals down to the neighborhood of 5Hz. Since DSTG we know residuals of 20Hz have occurred for flights able to quantify that data. 20Hz gives you a lot of wiggle room.
I think DrB, if I read him correctly, believes +/- 7Hz is a better number based on data published by Inmarsat. I too was using that number as an error bound. The DSTG number was measured and compared against an accurate BFO estimate using actual speed and heading known from aircraft sensors. The DSTG could have screwed up the BFO calculation, but I think that is very unlikely.
Dennis,
So what should BFO error treshold be: 5, 7, 20 Hz? Why not 25 Hz? At 40 Hz even northern routes become possible.
@Oleksandr
20Hz would be my threshold based on the data in the DSTG book. There are errors shown there of that magnitude. It would be great to get the data from a bunch of flights so we could attempt to characterize it better than that, but I see no sign of that happening.
Not sure what 40Hz would allow, but I have no reason to doubt you without looking at it which I have not.
@JulieL @Matt
I agree with DennisW on this point and although at first reading found Johan’s comment a little strange and uncharacteristic, did not read it the way you did. “I could tell you some about what it takes to be admirable…..” For example, take the worlds of art and music; generally those creative folks are not fully recognised for their achievements in their lifetimes.
@all
but back to the MH370 subject matter… still sitting on the fence after all this time but the long, long chain of search announcements, debris finds, official theories, leaked documents, backflips etc., many of these seemingly as reactions to public demands, does tend to sway me even more toward mistrusting the ISAT data and the possibility of planted debris (or as Brock suggests, escapees from a non-SIO crash site). I hope I am wrong.
@AM2, thanks for your 2 cents and interpretation, it’s good to know and makes me feel a bit safer to post!
@DennisW, “I was a geek as you suspected”: I suspected it because I was one too – I guess it takes one to know one. 🙂
@DennisW:
You’re too kind. But I do blame some on the phone, in several respects. It gets to you.
I can order a beer in a few languages, I admit. But that could be a question of location. And you, you know English already, so what would you learn and why? French? I assume you are American. In Europe the problem is the other way around: there are too many languages to choose from. So go for Italian. They have everything you need.
@Boris:
I wondered when you would bring that up.
@Brock McEwen,
There is a fourth category you did not list which in my view is higher probability than E (Erratic Flight) or C (Cover-up).
Call it “APC” for auto-piloted curved routes that end outside the PSZ. There are a very few (but at least 2) curved and slower auto-pilot routes that are consistent with the satellite data (including very small BFO errors) and which terminate to the NE of the PSZ in an area near 33-34S. It is entirely possible the ATSB is presently unaware of their existence. These APC routes are flown by True Heading (after a Route Discontinuity) or by Magnetic Track (by TRK HLD using the MCP) after the FMT. This area near 34S appears to have been lightly searched somewhere between 0-25% of the width used in the PSZ.
To me it seems sensible to complete searching all the (non-erratic) auto-piloted routes consistent with the satellite data before proceeding to categories E or C. Besides, if all auto-piloted routes were (eventually) to be ruled out, to my knowledge there is no other foreseen basis that would produce a new and sufficiently specific search location that would meet the current criteria for extending the search activities.
An argument could also be made for adding “long-glide” routes, but to me this possibility is already included in Erratic Flight.
@DrBobby,
“Magnetic Track (by TRK HLD using the MCP)
Really? Do you have a definitive reference confirming that such a mode is even possible? The only references I have discovered all infer that TRK hold is possible only if the end point is known.
@Brock,
“C = Cover-Up = Inmarsat pdf”
When was it discovered [and by whom] that the coordinates for Perth were incorrectly imbedded in the hardware performing the EAFC at the Perth earth station? Knowledge of that would, I think, be necessary before the data could be manipulated in any sensible way. I think the data was in the public domain before that was uncovered, and hence the data could not have been tampered with.
Jeff Wise said;
“Oleksandr, So you get all these cables cut, accidentally, just right, and the left AC bus — and then how does the AC come back on again, all by itself?”
I believe Oleksandr mentioned coaxial cables some pages back, but it
just as well could have included power cables – have you ever seen the
rats nest of bare metal wires left after, say, a fire?
As to how power is removed or re-established, I’m already on record –
the aircraft has an ELMS whose function covers this (automatically,
no human input). It’s not just balancing power loads (if a bus is
lost), it’s discarding powered items if the power being generated
can’t adequately power all loads, and if a fault condition such as
a short circuit (i.e. an extreme ‘sensed’load, which could occur
intermittantly) occurs/stops, then it’s removing/re-adding power
load items.
Jeff & many others eschew this possiblity, I embrace it fully.
That’s the current situation.
@Ge Rijn
Your suggestion is not unreasonable to bring up as a talking point
– however the wheelgear of heavy jets aren’t particularly known for
falling off in flight. Pieces of fuelsage from a burning plane could
fall off – the problem is there’s so much discarded junk in those
seas (& seabeds) that identifying junk froms fallen pieces of MH370
from all the other junk there would be nigh impossible.
The Crying Indian isn’t a concept in Asians thought processes…
(I’ve been away from the forum for a while, but it wasn’t wasted time
– I found time to sent a suggestion to Tom Mahood re his current
search.)
@Brock McEwen. You said, “@Dennis, I don’t need convincing that the search – if as effective as Fugro claimed – counter-indicates G.” ie the wreckage being in the current search area.
Unclear really what Fugro is claiming? “Fugro works on a “confidence level” of 95 percent, a statistical measurement used, in Fugro’s case, to indicate how certain the plane debris was not in the area they have already combed, a seabed peppered with steep cliffs and underwater volcanoes.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-malaysia-airlines-mh-idUSKCN1010A4
If indeed a Fugro statement, one in twenty of it having been missed in the area searched to date and a little way still to go.
Also, there are the twenty places of interest still to be rechecked.
I would expect that completion of the current search will remain the priority but would hope that the prime DrBobbyUlich and the Victorl alternatives, being specific and contained, are put forward so that they get a look-into now, at the least for search renewal.
Awaiting the outcome of further drift research for example to me most likely will lose impetus and one hopes that this is not the aim.
What would increase confidence is a what-if way-forward overall plan for the investigation. There is one surely? For example, if the wreckage is not found in the current search area will that prompt a final report or could we expect a further FI?
@Oleksandr
“I would still like to hear your answer to my question: what would you do in such a hypothetical situation?”
I answered that question before already. I would not meander clueless over the sky. Either continue on the planned routing, or establish a holding at some navigation fix. IGARI would have been good enough. Start to sort things out. When knowledge arises that you are in deep sh*t and no possibility to communicate exists, fly triangles.
http://worldaerodata.com/fih.pdf
That signals ATC or any vigilant radar controler that you have lost all comms and navigation and need help. This procedure is no longer used in all countries, but pilots and ATC are familiar with it. And even if the local ATC was not, they would have had 5 hours to figure it out. When time for a landing comes up, I would fly to an appropriate runway, preferrable one with which I’m familiar with and with VFR weather donditions. Approach for a landing, pass over the field at low altitude to raise the attention of ATC and emergency sevices and circle back for landing.
Shah was no dumbass, he would have done something like that.
@Brock McEwen. I take it from the context of “confidence level” above that it means probability. I cannot imagine on what they would base that or what confidence in it they would have, but without that being high the 95% would be up for grabs and that might be worth a thought too.
Trond says: “The MH370 did not show up on any military radars except for Malaysian. Indonesia had its operating, India and Australia not.”
I agree with you about Australia ground-based radar stations. However, they have a share in the Onyx III synthetic aperture radar satellite constellation so would know whatever was going on. They only maintain their ground based radar as a back-up in case the Onyx system is compromised by high energy space weather events or enemy action. I would be astounded if the other countries in the area around the SIO and the SCS are not watching continuously, despite the misdirections on this issue dished up by the news-media.
@Oleksandr:
I think you might appreciate this one:
https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/pictures-onlookers-stunned-by-debris-exiting-aero-engine-on-malaysian-boeing-777-200er-over-210474/
Make sure to see the high-res photo by the flight-spotter.
I don’t know if the debris compromised the hull.
Stay up there!
@Boris Tabaksplatt
There has been an honost approach about who saw and who didn’t. It is as MH370 could cherrypick who would be allowed to see her.
@Boris or others knowledgeable about Onyx/Titan. Please elaborate on the Onyx/Titan SAR system utility with regards to routine scanning. My understanding is that this is a classified defence-oriented system. As such, I would expect it to be gathering imagery of specifically-tasked target areas on an ad-hoc basis. Although in principle the system has “global view” capability, the areas that a spacecraft can view at any time depend upon its orbit. Even if multiple orbits overlap in order to allow rapid acquisition of any particular spot, the very high resolution is such that the target area must be specified. So unlike terrestrial primary radar, it cannot be “scanning everything in range” – non?
@Johan
The pictures are broken.
@Jeff Wise
To reflect. You seem to reject all ‘accident-scenarios’.
I was thinking a better term maybe would be ‘catastrophic technical event-scenarios’.
IMO you (or others) can not ignore the possibility a catastrophic technical event (not to call it an accident) took place somewhere on the route which rendered the pilots and probably all passengers unconsious.
This is where the ‘ghost flight’ scenario and the search are based on.
So IMO it’s a legitimate matter to keep questioning and investigating the possibilities of where and how this catastrophic technical event took place.
The general opinion is it must have happened before or just after FMT.
Then IMO there are two options;
-or there was a catastrophical technical event -accidental or not- somewhere before FMT or just after FMT.
-or the pilot was killed by someone or killed himself after FMT.
So that leaves one option before FMT:
There must have been a catastrophical technical event -accidental or not- somewhere between IGARI and FMT.
If the pilot was not killed or did not kill himself just after FMT and there was also no catastrophical technical event then there was no ghost flight.
IMO the question should be:
Where took this catastrophical technical event place.
If IGARI is impossible it must have been somewhere else before or just after FMT.
RetiredF4,
Excellent, thanks. You have confirmed what I have proposed. Page A3. “Fly two patterns, resume course,…” That is what fits BFOs 18:25 to 18:41, except the abnormal 273 Hz. In my understanding fix point is not available when ADIRU fails. Thus either manual, or constant bank angle.
As to about why they flew up to the middle of the Malacca, I proposed my speculations; you are welcome to propose yours.
Of course you, Jeff and others may prefer believing in at least two astronomically-low probability events (namely (1) coincidental disappearance from the radars followed by SDU reboot 3 minutes later, and (2) coincidental call 18:40 during executing FMT or illogical S-turns), but in my opinion failure of multiple-redundant hardware is more likely.
@Brock McEwen
Regarding “C = Cover-Up = Inmarsat pdf” what American assets in the area are you suggesting 9M-MRO may have been used against. Marina Bay Sands? (Just speculating on my part).
@Oleksandr, You wrote, “you, Jeff and others may prefer believing in at least two astronomically-low probability events (namely (1) coincidental disappearance from the radars followed by SDU reboot 3 minutes later, and (2) coincidental call 18:40 during executing FMT or illogical S-turns).” I’m not sure what beliefs you’re ascribing to me. In your scenario the disappearance from radar and the SDU reboot would presumably also coincidental, so I’m not sure what your point is. Also, I don’t understand why you think I think an FMT occurred at 18:40. It’s no longer clear there even was an FMT.
@Ge Rijn, You seem to believe that MH370 wound up as a “ghost flight.” Dr Bobby is now working to ascertain whether there are any autopilot configurations that could deliver the plane to a point outside the currrent search area. Pending the success or failure of his efforts, it looks very unlikely that the last few hours of the flight were unpiloted.
@David
> “Fugro works on a “confidence level” of 95 percent, a statistical measurement …”
My read of this number is just that, assuming the model and the data errors are correct, then they have excluded the tracks to the 7th arc that make up the least likely 5% when the possible statistical fluctuations in the data are considered. The DSTG method did not address the path after the 7th arc, the search area width came from ATSB’s analysis.
>… would hope that the prime DrBobbyUlich and the Victorl alternatives, … are put forward so that they get a look-into now, at the least for search renewal.
It has been mentioned before here, but any proposed solution that requires a low error in the BFO will struggle when figure 5.4 of the DSTG report is quoted. The errors there are much, much larger and also one-sided. This is nothing to do with the way the DSTG have treated the data, it is a straight read-off of the difference between the measured BFO and the BFO value calculated from the recorded Mumbai validation flight data.
Inmarsat used a dataset from an ‘Amsterdam’ flight (fig 15 of their paper) which gave a much better error (standard deviation of around 2.5Hz by measuring off the graph) but relying on MH370 to have a BFO error similar to the best validation flight would be hard to defend. The fact that the class of data optimisation model solutions were pursued until the end of 2015 indicates (to me) an extended discussion within the search organisation of the BFO errors.
@Johan @Oleksandr
Interesting article. It shows identifiable pieces seperated during a technical mishap during flight that were later recovered (there is another example; the 777 wheel door that seperated above China).
If something like this happened to MH370 somewhere between IGARI and FMT I suggest identifyable pieces also can be found and recovered from the seabed.
I see two well known locations where a catastrophic technical event could have taken place:
Just after IGARI or just before, after or at, out of radar range between 18:22 and 18:25.
As @Oleksandr mentions the coincidence of the SDU re-boot 3 minutes after suddenly disappearing from radar at 18:22 is almost too unlikely not to be related to eachother.
Back in my mind comes the ‘shot at and damaged-scenario’.
~18:22 could have been the time something like this happened. And it could explain a cover up by the Malaysian military and government to use the captain as a scape goat afterwards.
Probably debris would have seperated and fallen to the sea and sink to the seabed.
So IMO also sonar-scanning this area could be usefull.
It might be another terrible idea but it’s a relatively small area and it won’t do any harm to the investigation.
@Jeff Wise
That’s what I think also.
But what I try to say is to reduce as much possibilities as possible you have to try to eliminate those possibilities by investigating them as good as possible.
A catastrophic (technical) event -accidental or deliberate from inside or outside the plane- between IGARI and FMT resulting in a ghost flight for now is the assumption the search is based on.
IMO they did not yet used all means possible to prove this assumption.
IMO a sonar-scan of those possible areas where accidental debris could have seperated should (have) be(en) carried out.