Last month Robyn Ironside, the National Aviation Writer at the News Corp Australia Network, published what struck me as an extremely important article in the Daily Telegraph about the work of scientist Patrick De Deckker, who had obtained a sample of a Lepas anatifera barnacle from the French judicial authorities and conducted an analysis to determine the temperature of the water in which the barnacle grew. A snippet:
The same 2.5 centimetre barnacle was used by both French and Australian examiners — but different techniques applied. “For my analysis, I used a laser to create little holes of 20 microns, over the length of the barnacles. In all we did 1500 analyses,” said Professor De Deckker.
Intrigued, I reached out to Ironside, asking if she could tell me more about De Deckker’s work. She very graciously did just that, and shared this extremely interesting nugget, a verbatim quote from De Deckker:
The start of the growth was around 24 degrees (Celsius) and then for quite some time, it ranged between 20 and 18 degrees (Celsius). And then it went up again to around 25 degrees.
This is surprising. The graphic above shows the water temperature in July 2005, which I take to be a rough proxy for the water temperature in March 2014. (I would be extremely grateful if someone could extract granular sea-surface temperature maps for March 2014 to July 2015 from NASA or NOAA databases available online.) It shows that the waters in the seabed search area are about 12-14 degrees Celsius. To find 24 degree water would mean trekking 1000 miles north, above the Tropic of Capricorn.
It has long been known that Lepas anatifera do not grow in waters below about 18 degrees Celsius, and that in order to begin colonizing the flaperon (if it began its journey in the search zone) would have had to first drift northwards and wait for warmer months and warmer latitudes. What’s peculiar is that this particular Lepas would have to have waited a good while beyond that, until the flaperon arrived in water six degrees above its minimum. As I’ve written before, Lepas naupali are common in the open sea and in general are eager colonizers of whatever they can glue their heads to.
Peculiarity number two is that after this period of initial growth the flaperon then found its way into significantly colder water, where most of its total growth took place. What’s weird is that every drift model I’ve ever seen shows currents going through warm water before arriving at Réunion. Where the heck could it have gone to find 18-20 degree water? And how did it then get back to the 25 degree waters of Réunion Island, where it finished its growth?
I’m frankly baffled, and am appealing to readers to ponder historical surface temperature data and drift models to help figure out what kind of journey this plucky Lepas might have found itself on.
@AM2
Yes I sure agree there are probably a lot of other possibilities.
I took a shot at probably the least complex one that could fit the data IMO (including Isat- and drift-data).
It would be helpfull to know exactly what the French finds on this are.
If they have realy conflicting temperature outcomes it can create a reliability problem of both studies I think.
Couple of questions regarding debris finds by Blaine Gibson.
Is Blaine Gibson writing a book soon? A book publisher recently tweeted about Blaine being her client, but the tweet was quickly deleted. Why?
Guardeddon recently tweeted to Mike Exner the following — ‘Didn’t BG describe to us he found local person using smthg like this to fan fire, is this that item?’ Is this a piece of debris which has been used to fan fire? Did Blaine see this? If true then he has got his answer right there. Burn marks are marks caused by how it was being used.
@RetiredF4, @Brian
thanks for detailed review about ELT; sad that fixed ones arent releaseable by some explosive/spring prior the impact
@ventus45 exactly, it smells since day one
More likely the plane parts have been torn of MH370, held as many still believe in DG which would make it very convenient to throw those part into the Indian Ocean currents.
Here is a sample of boneyards and stock check if you like:
http://www.airplaneboneyards.com/commercial-aviation-airplane-boneyards-storage.htm
@RetiredF4, I read your ELT explanations with much interest, thank you for posting. Once everything is shut off, I assume those phones no longer work and people cannot ascertain change of direction? Also, the fact that the cabin ELT wasn’t used, does this imply everyone was already incapacitated?
@Gloria,
I don’t think the Mojave story works too well. Those aircraft boneyards are relatively secure, from what I understand, because many of the planes are expected to come back into service at some point. This is especially true of a relatively modern B777, even an early model. I don’t think there are enough of them retired, nor have enough been sent on to secondary markets, to allow parts to be scavenged willy nilly.
I was thinking more in terms of 9M-MRD – MH17. It’s quite possible those parts are unaccounted for. Most of them would be indistinguishable.
As for the helicopter bit, these parts never needed to be dropped at all. The finder merely needs to get them to the beach unnoticed.
I’m not suggesting the parts were planted. But the situation is ripe for a hoax, so it can’t be ruled out either.
@Gloria
May I ask; do you believe the Inmarsat-data are part of the conspiracy too?
@jeff wise
Jeff could you contact Hans Georg Herbig about the recent information with regard to the barnacles? Surely he can shed some light on the topic.
it’s a sign of total lack of intelligence or not wanting to solve the disappearance of MH370, that no-one from the officials in charge has organized a beach search.
Madagascar was the obvious place to go look for parts after the first 3 pieces were found. Yet no effort was made, although there was about a 1.000.0000 times bigger chance of finding evidence than the seabed search?
Very strange that 1 man (Blaine) finds all these pieces just waiting for him on the beach. And a lawyer also?
@Keffertje
I liked the things you told about your time and experiences in those eastern countries.
Not losing face (or mask if you like) seems sometimes more important than telling the truth or that you just don’t know.
And maybe this cultural defined urge to always keep smiling and refusal to displease someone with a (perceived) negative anwser.
Traveling (several times) on motorbike through India for example taught me soon that when I lost my way and had to ask people I had to ask at least 5 or 6 different people.
They all pointed me in a direction with a smile and great confidence but the directions where often completely the opposite.
I soon figured out to ask at least 5 or 6 people and decided on the majority of anwsers which direction to choose.
A small example but what you say I can surely imagine can be a big factor in the communication.
Not motivated by ill-will per-sè but cultural based behavior.
@Carla, Thanks for the suggestion, I’ve reached out to Dr Herbig.
@airlandseaman, It is important to undermine the sense of certitude concerning things that are not certain. As I have often said, either Zaharie is the culprit and the debris is genuine, or Zaharie is not the culprit, the plane was the victim of a sophisticated hijack, and the debris was planted. At this point I feel that there is not enough evidence to rule out either option. Others disagree, favoring one option or the other.
@Ge Rijn:), Yes indeed. It is the asian way often. I know this too well from experience:). As do you.! Saying “no” or “i don’t know” is not in their vocabulary. Best to avoid and even “deceive”. Which brings me to oxygen masks. I fly a lot, as a passenger and on 3 different occassions (once before departure) oxygen masks came down from the overheads. You would think people pannick but the opposite is actually true. People are more “baffled” than anything else. Once the captain/co-pilot with their smooth voices announce there is nothing wrong, it;s just a glitch, ignore said masks, and we will divert to nearest airport- everyone is calm as ever and obvious;y ignore the masks and crew don’t bother with their oxygen back-up either. It got me thinking, could something similar have been executed on Mh370? Could this explain why people were incapcitated very fast? I sure as heck never put the mask on once I was assured there was nothing wrong. Just a thought:)……
If only one person is searching for the debris and there are certain beaches/shores where the debris tend to wash up, then if there is debris there, one person might find it. When he publicized the One Step finding (Mozambique) he had local guides to assist him and may have had prior knowledge, no one knows except him. The ATSB says it most likely is from MH370 but certainly there always is a possibility it is planted.
Almost all of his “personal” finds have been in Madagascar in 2 or 3 hot spots, perhaps with the assistance of a number of locals who aren’t given any credit for the finds.
I never have met him, but there have been enough other debris finds on remote islands and the Africa mainland, by people not associated with him, to make me wonder why people are questioning him. After his publicity efforts he immediately turns the debris over to the authorities and lately at his own expense, since there apparently are still five potential debris pieces in Madagascar waiting for Malaysia to pick them up.
@Keffertje
Nice to read also:) It does not suprise me.
5 years ago I was on a Malysian flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur on a 747.
I happened to have a seat just above the left wing which I don’t like but anyway..
Being a mechanic for the KLM in the ’80’s I cann’t help noticing everything that might be off from normal.
During flight I soon noticed what seems to be a crack in the upper skin just above the first left engine. Didn’t make much of it.
But when descending approuching KL and wings began flexing I saw this crack increasing and decreasing.
I took some pictures of it and alerted a flight attendent very quitely to not cause distress among passengers around me.
He looked out the window too and after that asked me to take my camera to the pilots.
Few minutes later the co-pilot came to me and had a look through the window too.
People around me started looking too but never asked what was the matter then or afterwards. No distress at all.
The co-pilot just said ‘it’s okey’.
I knew it wasn’t all okey but no one else seemed to worry the slightest bit.
I was glad the plane landed safely and I’m sure this crack got a thorough inspection.
But I’m also almost sure no one ever reported this small incident.
Those flaperons the investigators are releasing in the SIO are they being dropped on different places? It could also be to test the barnacle planted theory.
Well, the chicken are slowly coming home to roost, aren’t they? The funny thing about the truth is that it is true, and therefore will always be found out. It is just a matter of time – well, geology and physics, really.
I have articulated this here in the past – the great quality of this blog, and it’s owner (Jeff), is his ability to discard vectors that don’t match up with his observations. Also, he keeps searching.
Not going to re-articulate my alternative theories here – I do not (yet) have access to the smoking gun trail that would provide the level of sophistication, and the consistency needed to clear the bar for this audience. However, that’s a good thing (the bar).
Regards,
Adiyogi
@carla @jeff
when I see lot of copyrights and (registered) trademarks pushed by lawyers, I feel some scientologists or simply very weird and dangerous guys; no proofs, of course
@DrBobbyUlich asked;
“…would be the usual practice to start the APU whenever an
electrical problem occurs, such as loss of the left IDG/bus?”
This 777 Quick Reference Handbook (QRH) appears to contain genuine
777-200LR (GE90-115BL engined) ‘non-normal’ checklists (for QATAR Airways);
http://www.737ng.co.uk/B777 QRH Quick reference Handbook.pdf
Examples therein of (non-normal) CHECKLISTS where APU may be started are;
(_I’ll note some interesting sub-heading instructions for some checklists)
ELEC AC BUS L, R
_4 Bus Tie Switch … OFF, then AUTO
ELEC GEN DRIVE L, R
ELEC GEN OFF APU
ELEC GEN OFF L, R
ENG LIM/SURGE/STALL L, R
ENG SVR DAMAGE/SEPARATION L, R
ENG FAIL L, R
SMOKE, FIRE, FUMES
_4 IFE/Passenger Seats Switch … OFF
{_18 note, here the PACK switches, Left & Right, are variously turned off,
so one PACK off concurrent with the other being on… how are these PACKS
powered, from which AC Buses? seems possible pilots could checklist OFF a
e.g. Left PACK say, without realising that maybe a e.g. Right PACK were
depowered (if say, a certain side AC Bus was absent that normally powered
a e.g. Right PACK..) …PACKS pressurize an aircraft, don’t they? so is
it possible to accidently turn off aircraft pressurization, by following
this checklist and turning off the (actually only working) e.g Left PACK?
The checklist commands a ‘two minute wait’ between the switching of the
L/R PACKs. Of course, a depressurization alarm should go off.. amongst
all the OTHER alarms that would be already going off.. Food for Thought.}
SMOKE, FUMES REMOVAL
_3 Close Flight Deck Door
_4 Equipment Cooling Switch … OFF
(I’ve had rather an {im}perfect storm of matters
that have kept me from posting for a week.)
@Keffertje
Posted September 12, 2016 at 6:36 AM
“@RetiredF4, I read your ELT explanations with much interest, thank you for posting. Once everything is shut off, I assume those phones no longer work and people cannot ascertain change of direction? Also, the fact that the cabin ELT wasn’t used, does this imply everyone was already incapacitated?”
The Compasss and the Gps function are just apps, not dependent on a connection to I-Net by mobile data or WLAN. For the GPS you normally need a window seet and have to hold the built in GPS antenna close to the window. On my last flight it showed accurate to 30 meters.
The fact, that no signal of the portable ELT was received by any station about that long time could mean different things.
1. The ELT was used
– but nobody heard the signal
– but it was not functioning.
2. The ELT was not used because
– eberybody forgot about it
– nobody saw the reason to use it
– somebody prevented its use
– nobdy was concious/ alive to use it
The last two are my favorites.
You should find a synonym for favorites.
Jeff Wise said;
Blaine… “found his first piece within 15 minutes of starting to look on the coast of Mozambique”
A somewhat unfairly abriged characterization of the event. Reportedly;
‘on the last day of a trip to the Mozambican coastal town of Vilankulo’
he spent time identifying who would know likely places where wreckage
would accumulate, chartered a boat to get that ‘who’ to take him to that
‘place’ (Paluma sandbank, offshore), then spent time looking amongst all
the crap there & THEN found the (composite material) 777 piece.
@Ge Rijn
Inmarsat, follow the money trail
http://www.londonstockexchange.com/exchange/searchengine/search.html?q=ISAT
http://www.inmarsat.com/about-us/investor-relations/
https://www.telenor.com/media/press-releases/2000/telenor-largest-shareholder-in-inmarsat/
The data or interpretation is wrong.
@JS
There are global boneyards
In Asia Pacific:
http://www.apas.com.au
“Our decommissioning services will deliver the complete disposal of all residual aircraft components including managing environmental and waste issues.”
Global boneyards
http://www.airplaneboneyards.com/airplane-boneyards-outside-usa.htm
MH370 was 12 years at time of incident that series now 14
years.
Check out the spare parts industry:
“Here is the punchline: Boeing’s list price for a new 777-200ER is $277.3 million, meaning Delta is buying a used 777 at a price 97.2% lower than the value of a new 777.”
Check out this http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-12-27/and-another-bubble-used-boeing-777-sells-97-list-price
http://aviationweek.com/awin/surplus-part-s-starring-role
“As a result, part-out specialists could focus on their core competency—ripping planes apart—and earn an extra buck or two selling usable parts to brokers with their own end-user customer base.”
“When the company evaluated the prospects of a recently purchased 12-year-old 737-300 (MSN 30723) and a 1999-vintage 777-200ER (MSN 28418), it saw more value in parting them out to support the existing fleet than keeping them in the fleet. Put simply, the present value of the part-out’s revenue potential over, say three years, was greater than the potential lease returns plus the residual value.”
“We could’ve put them back in service,” Moabery says. “But economically, it makes more sense for us to part out the aircraft and put those parts into the aftermarket today.”
ROB said;
“I don’t see burn marks. I see surface coatings of different
colours ie white and buff, over a black, possibly carbon substrate.”
I’ll have to check if my water has turned into wine – I’m in
tentative agreement with ROB. Blaine Gibson could perhaps say
if it is only the colours that make him think it is scorched,
or can he smell a burnt (plasticy) aroma coming from the piece?
Because the exposed colour coats could alternatively be explained
by that piece simply having been glancingly crushed within the
wreackage of the aircraft impact.
A sidenote however; I see in the middle of that piece, what looks
to be an indentation or a tiny projection, surrounded by a halo
or what appears to be scorching – it puts me in mind of the hot
sparks you see in stick welding, where those ‘hot sparks’ are
actually molten metal, which stick & melt onto whatever they
fall onto, creating a tiny projection just like we see there.
@buyerninety, I would point out another curious aspect of the debris recovered thus far — it always seems to respond to the discussions that are going on around it. After the flaperon turned up and the barnacles proved to be highly problematic (more on this soon), all the subsequent pieces turned out to be barnacle-free (except for one, whose barnacles were also problematic.) And then Klein Roy, with its amazing photographic back story. And now, just as we’re trying to put to rest the idea that a fire or other accident could have caused the incident to unfold, lo and behold here comes a scorched piece!
None of this is proof of skullduggery, of course, but it just goes to show, once again, that with MH370 you have to expect the unexpected.
@buyerninety
Hope the wine is top of the range stuff. We don’t want any plonk around here. Most and Chandon 86, perhaps.
Regards
Rob
Recent article in the Australian behind a paywall suggesting Captain Z was in control of 9M-MRO until the end (controlled glide hypothesis);
The Australian: MH370 data unreliable on ‘dive’
http://google.com/newsstand/s/CBIw0eLi-y0
A couple of issues, Fugro is pushing this line of thinking and there may be a conflict of interest as the search area in the PSZ would need to be increased yet again. It also assumes the last ISAT transmissions were ‘unreliable’.
@Johan (from an earlier posting)
I don’t want to be seen as championing the planting hypothesis but the flaperon is in possession of the French Judiciary as part of a criminal terrorist investigation. Hence the silence. I have a lot of respect for the French, they have seen and done a lot over the ages.
Though I completely accept your point of fixating on a hypothesis and deleting data that doesn’t fit your own beliefs. Rather change your hypothesis to fit the data and re test. The problem is if the French are right and 9M-MRO is terrorism then what part of the data set is honest and what part represents deception to alter our thinking.
I don’t buy in to any of the recent finds and here is why.
We see family in the media, but out of a possible 200+ next of kins we see the same handful of faces. Most of the press releases have been arranged by Blaine himself. Recent photographs show Blaine with a couple of the relatives in Australia. Blaine now attends most of these meetings, but where are the other missing 200+ relatives? Are they informed of what is going on?
Recent articles suggested the Captain could be the culprit. Then along comes a story about the mystery woman with connections to the captain. Why has Fatima waited over 2 years to speak up? Is that because discussions between herself and Zaharie have been noted in the police reports and Fatima is speaking up for herself before those reports are leaked further? Many questions about Zaharie, but then along comes a piece of scorched debris which implies the Captain is innocent and it was some type of fire onboard.
Each and every time the media report something, along comes another piece of supposed debris.
What is with the Indiana Jones outfit? Some of the NOK’s raised funds for a whistleblower to come forward. Ethan Hunt was involved. A character out of mission impossible. Then comes Indiana Jones.
To All:
There has been much speculation pertaining to routes which satisfy the BTO/BFO data that may exist East of the current search area. The answer is yes they do exist and do satisfy the BTO/BFO data better than any routes to the current search area. There are at least two routes, which I have identified as the East and West Routes, which have zero BTO error and with average BFO errors of minus 0.11 Hz and minus 0.23 Hz respectively. The basic corridors for these routes were first presented to the ATSB in August 2014. The updated routes were presented to the ATSB in March 2015. The refined routes were presented to the ATSB in March 2016 with all the route timing points, BTO and BFO calculations using two different computation techniques, an Excel spreadsheet showing fuel use minute by minute, an Excel spreadsheet correlating Indicated Airspeed (KIAS); Calibrated Airspeed (KCAS); True Airspeed (KTAS); and Mach Number for zero to 41000 feet altitude with standard and non-standard true-air-temperatures, along with the images of the route segments drawn in Google Earth from takeoff to the Virtual Waypoint locations.
I can only present a very abbreviated impression of the two routes since the full data package has about 60 documents involving computations, tabular data, images and explanatory discussions. The two proposed routes are common from the 17:07:19 position (5.413N, 102.867E) through to the ISBIX waypoint at 0.366N, 93.671E. The West Route crossing time at the ISBIX position is approximately 20:11:00 while the East Route crossing time is approximately 20:12:00. The East Route uses two airspeeds of Mach 0.84/484 KTAS and Mach 0.80/461 KTAS. The West Route uses two airspeeds also, however, they are Mach 0.84/484 KTAS and Mach 0.81/467 KTAS. The two proposed routes follow their individual great circle routes after crossing ISBIX and diverge from each other about 37 nautical miles at the 7th Arc. Google Earth detailed images effectively display the interesting circuitous route that the aircraft was most likely directed to fly between the 18:25 position and the 19:41 BTO/BFO position south of BEDAX. These routes have probably been discounted by the ATSB because they require seven inputs into the flight management system/autopilot thereby negating any “Ghost Flight” scenario.
In early August Richard Godfrey presented a document on the Duncan Steel website entitled ‘Hydrophone Data and MH370’ (See Duncan Steel website at /archives/date/2016/08/08). The sound data identified as Signal Group A had been captured over a 21 second period at the Cape Leeuwin Hydrophone array located at 34.892°S, 114.153°E and described in Richard Godfrey’s presentation.
It was an independent data source which needed to be integrated with potential MH370 route data. Correlating the data sets was quite interesting since the East and West Route impact points correlated in both position and timing with Richard Godfrey’s discussion impact items #3 and #1 respectively. My analysis and correlation results were presented to the ATSB in early August 2016.
The potential East Route Impact at 00:21:07 UTC at -31.47S, 96.93E correlated with the impact data #3 at 1649km/278.5º from the Cape Leeuwin hydrophone array as addressed in the Discussion portion of Richard Geoffrey’s presentation.
The potential West Route Impact at 00:20:50 UTC at -31.96S, 96.47E correlated with impact data #1 at 1674km/276.25º from the Cape Leeuwin hydrophone array as addressed in the Discussion portion of Richard Godfrey’s presentation. According to Richard from the time delays between the sound arriving at each element of the array (3 elements) it is possible to roughly determine the direction of arrival of the signal to within about 0.75°. The West Route impact data at 276.25º is within the 1.5º nominal cone of reception for impact data #1 observed at the hydrophone array while the East Route impact data at 278.5º is 2.25º outside the cone of reception. This may give extra weight to the West Route impact area if the precision of the cone of reception is held to 1.5º.
The East Route is on a great circle route from the ISBIX Waypoint to Virtual Waypoint S50, E100 or to a secondary Virtual Waypoint S32, E097. These two great circle routes do not deviate more than 1500 feet from each other. The S50, E100 waypoint would most likely have been the waypoint entered in the Flight Management System if the East Route was flown. They are identified as Virtual Waypoints because they are not reachable with the onboard fuel.
The West Route is on a great circle route from the ISBIX Waypoint to Virtual Waypoint S50, E099 or to a secondary Virtual Waypoint S37, E097. These two great circle routes do not deviate more than 3 nautical miles from each other at their furthest excursion. The S50, E099 waypoint would most likely have been the waypoint entered in the Flight Management System if the West Route was flown.
Only one set or neither set of the hydrophone data may be valid. Also, only one or neither of the two routes were flown even though each route fits the given data very well. However, since these are the only two sources of independent data that we have to correlate, consequently, we need to accept the data as being valid, until proven otherwise.
There is another interesting aspect to this potential solution. In March 2016 Duncan Steel presented on his website two related articles entitled ‘Some Comments on the Missing (or Missed) Floating Debris Field from MH370’ (See Duncan Steel website at /archives/date/2016/03/15) and ‘RNZAF photographs of the sea surface in the MH370 search area in the southern Indian Ocean’ (See Duncan Steel website at /archives/2261).
A series of photos depicting debris had been taken from RNZAF aircrafts on 28 and 29 march 2014. These photos were taken in the area of -32.5S and 97.8E which happens to be about 140 kilometers southeast of the two proposed impact points on the East and West Routes. This is another aspect of attempting to integrate two types of independent data to establish potential timing and spatial correlations for the two events. Hopefully, someone has the wind and current data for the 8 March to 29 March 2014 time period to verify if these may be valid event correlations and associations.
This discussion may motivate other investigators to search for new data integration/fusion opportunities. It should provide a new dimension to be considered in the drift analysis and newly acquired barnacle enigma. Extensive analyses during the past two years have lead me to the conclusion that the Inmarsat data is of the best quality that could be collected and provided. We need to use it well.
PostScript: There is no way that MH370 could have flown either of these routes if there had been any kind of fire on board.
I found this interesting article on air marshals (also known as Sky Marshals OR In-flight Safety Officers) I’ve excerpted a passages here.
They’re Everywhere … An Interview With an Air Marshal
https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2016/04/an-interview-with-an-air-marshal.html
BY MAGGIE PARKER
Like most travelers, I’ve never been able to figure out what exactly is going on with air marshals. Why so mysterious? Where are they? Who are they? Can they get rid of this stinky guy sitting to my right? But as with anything else, if you want to learn about a job—and ease the suspense—you have to go straight to the source. The problem: Anyone employed by the Federal Air Marshal Service, or FAMS, will decline your request as the information is “too sensitive.”
The solution: Former Navy SEAL Clay Biles served as an air marshal from 2008-2013. He’s written a book about his experiences, Unsecured Skies, and has another one in the works. He sat down with Paste Travel to help take the mystery out of being an air marshal for all of us civilians.
Paste Travel: Was does the job entail?
Clay Biles: The mission was to detect and defeat hostile acts on board commercial aircrafts, and in airports as well. It’s really pretty involved but it’s mostly learning detection techniques for airports and aircrafts that will help us spot behavioral patterns that are characteristic of terrorists, based on past incidents. Whether it’s a hijacker or bombing, terrorists have employed certain tactics over decades so we’re basically looking to spot those kinds of indicators. We’re not supposed to racially profile, but it happens.
PT: What’s the training like?
CB: First you go to the basic federal law enforcement academy so you learn sort of what a street cop in your local city would learn. When you get to phase two, you go to a Federal Aviation Administration property in New Jersey and you learn more of the aviation and aircraft specific type stuff. It’s like four months of training, not that long.
PT: Are there air marshals on every flight?
CB: No. They kind of use a threat matrix, which more or less bases it off how much fuel an aircraft has, whether or not it’s a transcontinental flight. It’s the 9/11 type of mentality. Where is the aircraft going? Is there something on that specific flight path that could be used to fly into? You’re looking at flight path, you’re looking at what it’s flying over—like a nuclear facility. It’s risk-based.
…
PT: How many marshals are on a flight?
CB: For international, four. Those are big aircrafts, so you want two people covering the cabin and two people covering the flight deck. Others have sometimes just two.
PT: Would you always get involved with drunken passengers?
CB: Usually you wouldn’t want to. That’s when things can go wrong because that can be a ruse, like, I’m gonna act like a drunk guy so I can see where the security people are, what their reaction is, draw people away from a certain area so I can hijack the aircraft or setup a bomb. So you don’t want to get involved. The majority of guys will probably get involved, though, it’s a boring job. You kind of want to get involved.
PT: How do you remain undercover?
CB: We have a cover story. I said I was a medical researcher. I flew with this one woman twice, and my whole story held up. I said my wife works at an embassy, that kind of thing.
PT: Why so much mystery?
CB: You never really can be sure who you’re talking to or who’s overhearing your conversation. You don’t want anyone knowing you have a gun on an aircraft. If somebody gets ahold of a gun on an aircraft, and they know what to do with it, they can control the aircraft pretty easily. That’s the main reason. The flight crew knows we’re on board. But we act more or less like any other passenger. You don’t want to draw attention to yourself, you just want to look like a regular passenger. What we look for and what terrorists look for on an aircraft is contrast. So you don’t want to set yourself apart from other people on the aircraft.
…
PT: What are some of the behaviors you look for?
CB: Mostly it’s just stress type stuff. People start getting nervous twitches or habits, putting hands in and out of pockets, looking all around, and not wanting to get close to a law enforcement officer. Flustered activity. If someone’s wearing a big thick coat and it’s hot on the plane and he’s sweating; or if someone starts chanting Allahu Akbar, and he’s super clean-shaven and he’s got cologne on, these are things that terrorists have been known to do.
…
PT: Could you spot an air marshal?
CB: Oh yeah, if I was on a U.S. aircraft. Easily. ,Air marshals basically operate like terrorists do; the easiest way to spot deceptive behavior is to be a deceptive person. But I know where they sit, I know their behavioral patterns, I know what they wear. A lot of them look the same, there isn’t a lot of diversity. It would be better if there was more diversity.
PT: What’s the second book you’re working on?
CB: Undercover Passenger. It’s basically an inflight guide to stopping a hijacking or bombing, and how to survive one. I want people to be informed, I might as well give them that knowledge.
…
Maggie Parker is Paste Magazine’s assistant travel editor.
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It’s interesting that this former air marshal wrote the following at the beginning of his book in the Author’s Note.
Author’s Note
Many people believe that attacks against aircraft are over, but the evidence suggest they are not. The mystery surrounding Malaysian Airlines flight 370, which had many of the hallmarks of a highjacking, underscores this point.
Unsecure Skies Kindle Edition
by Clay Biles
https://www.amazon.com/Unsecure-Skies-Clay-Biles-ebook/dp/B00LUSK62I
@all
anyone have any clue as to what’s going on here ???
https://www.flightradar24.com/GEUYC/afb69c0
This ‘flight,’ which appears as an British Airways Airbus A320, has been doing these odd maneuvers for 1 hour+ now, creating ‘tracks’ well outside the airport boundaries (Heathrow), and ‘over’ the surrounding roads and lanes.
Bizarrely at 0 ground speed and 0 altitude at 2am in the morning, and only the ‘track’ keeps changing!
Is this a FR24 error or something else?
Thanks!
I spent some hours a week+ ago watching FlightRadar report the track of
aircraft along N571. Occaisionally, you’ll see a single obviously wrong
track segment, such as a NW proceeding aircraft suddenly be represented
as making an ‘immediate’ ~140° turn (similar to the ‘spiky’ nature of
the track segments you are referring to). This can occur where the signal
from the aircraft is right on the boundary of possible reception
i.e immediately before FlightRadar loses the aircraft signal. Sometimes,
the ‘obviously wrong’ track segment is displayed for a short while, then
disappears, and thereafter the represented height & speed data is
replaced by the word ‘Estimated’, meaning the aircraft track shown
thereafter is unknown but is apparently displayed based on an estimation
of the line continuation of the previous track. {?Maybe also on historical
data held by FlightRadar regarding the usual track of flights of that
‘designation’ e.g. BA487, MAS186, etc.?}.
What I theorize is happening is that for that short period just before
going out of signal range, the signal is so marginal that the particular
FlightRadar receiver that is receving the aircraft signal, then receives
‘slightly garbled data’, spurious data readings that it represents as
an obviously wrong track. However, what I usually see is that the
FlightRadar software is usually ‘smart’ enough to discard spurious data,
after a short period anyway, and the track line changes to a continuation
of the previously seen track line.
What you are seeing in regard to that Heathrow flight is an extreme case
of that ‘spurious data occurence’ – what I believe happened is the jet
landed, the FlightRadar receiver lost the aircraft signal, and instead
of closing the flight track, the receiver continued to listen on that
frequency and is now merely receiving ‘garbled data’ and is now displaying
an obviously wrong track based on that ‘garbled data’. The source of the
‘garbled data’ could be some unrelated radio frequency source, that is
transmitting on that frequency in the Heathrow locality.
Cheers
EDIT to above;
‘..the receiver continued to listen on that
frequency and is now merely receiving ‘garbled data’ and FLIGHTRADAR is
now displaying an obviously wrong track based on that ‘garbled data’’.
There could be other more complicated reasons for what you are
seeing as well;
http://forum.flightradar24.com/threads/9843-Non-ADS-B-Mode-S-only-aircraft?p=74556&viewfull=1#post74556
Things go missing all of the time, correct? The organization desire of the human mind is find the sequhence of events or reconstruction, thereby uncovering the missing item. While imagination is equally important as knowledge, facts and truth remain paramount. This is a child’s endeavour, fitting theory to imagined facts. Take the pieces for what they are. There is no theory to be proved here, only facts that remain unfound. This discussion borders the intersection of absurd and fiction. As the over imaginative often do.
@buyerninety
Thanks for the feedback. Yeah, the ‘garbled data’ suggestion makes sense. Just seemed odd to me as I’ve never come across anything like this before; uppermost in my mind was someone maybe spoofing the signal as a prank, but not sure how easy that would be.
Thankfully FR24 haven’t deleted the entry. It still comes up in the flight history. Those still curious about what I’m referring to can take a look here:
https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/g-euyc/#afb69c0
@CliffG
Another fascinating post from you!
Its still alarming to read (though it shouldn’t be much of a surprise at all) that air marshals are allowed to carry guns on board.
For MH370, that opens up a whole Pandora’s Box of opportunity.
My immediate knee-jerk reaction after reading the article was ‘Bingo… Air Marshals!’
Does anyone know how air marshals are supplied to various airlines? Through private companies? Law enforcement? The airports? Or will it be different for each airline?
I appreciate this may have all been discussed before – I apologize if I’m regurgitating old stuff!
The point is @Ian Licert that the pieces actually mean nothing without scientific interpretation.
I assume you have a theory in mind that meets the scientific criteria of the evidence and involves no ‘over imagination’.
@Sajid UK
Malaysia Airlines employ sky marshals? Seems highly unlikely to me.
@Ge Rijn
Lower left corner of the mostly brown side of the latest Blaine find…appears to be 2 rows of evenly spaced holes…could it be another hinge mounting like the earlier interior cabin panel?
@Ian Licert
Nice reply. But maybe you are a bit too sceptic.
It borders the intersection of absurd and fiction often, that’s true. But still there’s also some ‘scientific reality’ involved.
And sure imagination is equaly important as knowlegde. IMO imagination is even more important but without knowlegde it remains childish I agree.
Remember only imagination (with knowledge) caused the real break-throughs in hystory.
Tesla looked at the sun one day and imagined his alternating current that led to all electronics we have today.
Einstein imagined someone in an elevator to find his relative-time equations.
Imagination is therefore IMO the most powerfull source in solving complicated problems. But some knowledge ofcourse is necessary.
As @Crobbie suggests you probably have a theory of your own.
Hope you share it here.
@Rob
That’s a good question!
The article posted by CliffG implies US air marshals are posted on different national/international flights, but it doesn’t make clear who can give the order to deploy them (whether the airline itself or law enforcement/national security).
I suppose individual airlines could employ their own air marshals, but as you say, that’s an an added overhead and many probably don’t bother.
However the question still remains whether or not law enforcement of a third country can/does make such requests?
The ex-air marshal in the article states that a risk assessment is made around “…where the aircraft [is] going. Is there something on that specific flight path that could be used to fly into? You’re looking at flight path, you’re looking at what it’s flying over — like a nuclear facility.”
So, on a flight like MH370 for example, would the Chinese or Americans or Aussies (or any other third party) have been given permission to deploy air marshals after a risk assessment?
(If yes, this also leaves open the possibility of using deception to get 4 operatives on board).
@Gloria,
Interesting information. However, there’s a difference between an early 777 and an old DC9 or 737-100. At some point, the security and accounting falls apart for the really old planes doing local routes. I can’t imagine that happening for a large plane like a 777.
A while ago there was a gentleman named Bill Harms who maintained an inventory of every B747 ever built. Once a month, he would email an updated list showing exactly where each one was. At that time, circa 2005 or so, all but maybe one or two were accounted for, and that went all the way back to the first B747-100s from 1970, including the scrapped and written off hulls.
If a piece of a 747 had washed ashore, you MIGHT have been able to trace it back.
The 777 is an entirely different story. It started in 1993. It is too big to be of interest to local airlines in small countries. Only a few have been written off, and as you point out, the parts are very valuable. They are not sitting around being picked clean by thieves.
That really only leaves a few planes that could source such a plant, with the leading candidate being MH17, which is likely the least accounted for after MH370.
So while it’s possible there are a few unguarded 777s in boneyards, it is necessarily a small number and we can probably even identify them as civilians.
@all,
One other possibility, concerning a plant, is that Blaine is being led to the finds. Somebody touched on this – that the locals are making the finds and getting no credit. But it’s possible that Blaine is being manipulated by other powers who may have some interest in proving that the plane went down.
I don’t want to speculate, but at a minimum, I’d think somewhere in the liability or insurance battles there’s an economic gain for one side or the other if the plane is known to be in pieces rather than simply missing.
As far as I am aware US air marshalls only fly US carriers. Never seen them on any other flights but US carriers.
@George Tilton
I assume this is this piece you are referrering to?:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/bj5zu08lxvm8eyf/mh370burntpiece3.jpg?dl=0
I don’t see holes or signs of a hinge. Do you have another picture?
IMO it’s clearly burnt and melted/burnt away paint. A quite high temperature event caused this. No weaving above a camp-fire but direct contact with very high temperatures for a relatively short while.
Maybe it lay in a camp-fire for a while with one side. Who knows.
Or it was subjected to an oxigen flash fire in the EE-bay. Imagination..
@Ge Rijn – from what I see of that piece isscratching or rubbing effect that might generate significant heat and wearing of the paint. Maybe from a belly hard landing if the landing gear collapsed.
Looking at Blaine’s burned find-
We have 3 apparent zones:
1. Paint-Unburned
2. Paint-Partially Burned/Blackened
3. Brown base – Presumably paint burned off with aid of sand erosion
Sort of hard to imagine how such a mottled appearance could be produced
@Ge Rijn & all
There were five pieces of debris handed over to the ATSB, more pictures:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/qkgo8fil0730fbc/September%202016%20further%20potential%20MH370%20debris%20from%20Madagascar.ppt?dl=0
From a very handy site:
https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1Kghrk3iwRInii5qBTG8hfQZ0WmE
I copy-pass this with thanks to HippyGirl and Blaine Gibson:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vi1glw0o70umplp/Five%20additional%20probable%20MH370%20debris%20found%20in%20Madagascar.docx?dl=0
Significant indeed are none of the edges of the piece have burn-marks.
Suggesting as Blaine Gibson mentions the burning happend before the crash.
But also the back-side looks severly (even more) burned which raises other questions IMO.
@Ge Rijn
Backside of the picture you showed me.
It is slides 9 & 11 at the dropbox link @PHS posted at 2:47 PM. There appear to be 2 rows of evenly spaced holes or rivets in the lower left corner…or my eyes are creating dots where there are none 😉
@Brock McEwen,
I have not forgotten the helpful suggestion you made regarding the effects of wind data errors on recreated routes, and I am in the process of modifying my route fitting program to quantify these effects. It is fairly obvious that tailwind errors cause air speed residuals in route fits. In addition, crosswind errors cause heading residuals. If the air speed mode uses Mach numbers to set the speed rather than IAS, then temperature data errors will also affect the air speed residuals.
Originally my route fitter allowed small residuals in heading and air speed to accommodate the imperfections in the weather data. Recently I have made changes so the program iteratively solves for an additive wind error vector for each leg of the route in order to force the air speed residual and the heading residual both to zero for that leg. Thus the route is made a “perfect” fit (to the air speed model and the lateral navigation model) by allowing and determining tailwind and crosswind errors. The “goodness” of the route fit in this case depends on the relative magnitude of the wind error statistic to its expected value (in exactly the same way I do this for BTO and BFO residuals). However, right now I only have a rough guess of the accuracy of the wind data. Perhaps this can be refined with some research into GDAS accuracy. In addition, fitting the (2-D) wind error vectors adds 10 variables for the period from FMT to 00:11! That is a large additional burden on the fitting program, and it substantially increases the processing time for convergence. However, I am hopeful this method can be made effective. It has the benefit of explicitly quantifying tailwind and crosswind errors.
I have also refined my calculation of the average wind data over a route leg. Initially, I simply used the average of the winds at the start and at the end locations. For short legs this is good enough when the wind variations are small and fairly linear. However, during the longest leg from 22:41 to 00:11, the wind variations are noticeably nonlinear. I have modified my program to do a Simpson’s Rule numerical integration using six evenly spaced points along each leg. As expected, the largest change in computed wind occurs for the 22:41 to 00:11 leg, and it produces a rather large wind error for the True Heading route I have been investigating. Next I will fit a True Heading route using the modified program to assess the overall impact of these refinements and the feasibility of such a route.
@Ge Rijn, others
The new Gibson material clearly raises more questions than it answers. [Aside from all the evidence-planting hypotheses] It certainly makes it clear that the crash was violent enough to create a large number, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of very small fragments.
So, contra Jeff’s observation that many of these would fit in Blaine’s suitcase, the fact is that no one would associate the laptop- and iPhone- sized bits with an aircraft, or even bother to examine them, if they were not specifically looking for this debris. I think it’s also likely that we have a decreasing likelihood of finding big mechanically-informative chunks like the flaperon. The fact is that Gibson is demonstrating there is a constellation of fragments, including fragments from the cabin, just lying on the western beaches, all the while being degraded or buried or washing out to sea until they lose flotation.
Perhaps the possibility of fire damage on the interior piece[s] may encourage a real effort to gather and study the debris. This flotsam may be the only physical evidence we will have for MH370 — perhaps for a generation, perhaps forever.