One minute after MH370’s flight crew said “Good Night” to Malaysia air traffic controls, and five seconds after the plane passed waypoint IGARI at 1720:31 UTC, the plane’s Mode S signal disappeared from air traffic control screens. As it reached the border of the Ho Chi Minh Flight Information Region (FIR) approximately 50 seconds after that, the plane made an abrupt 180 degree turn. The radius of this turn was so small, and the ground speed so low, that it appears to have been effected via a semi-aerobatic maneuver called a “chandelle.” Similar to a “box canyon turn,” this involves climbing under power while also banking steeply. The maneuver offered WWI pilots a way to reverse their direction of flight quickly in a dogfight.
Chandelles are not a normal part of commercial 777 operation. They would not be used by pilots responding to in-flight fire.
The fact that such an aggressive maneuver was flown suggests that whoever was at the controls was highly motivated to change their direction of flight. Specifically, instead of going east, they wanted to go west.
At the completion of the left-hand U-turn the plane found itself back in Malaysia-controlled airspace close to the Thai border. It flew at high speed (likely having increased engine thrust and dived from the top of its chandelle climb) toward Kota Bharu and then along the zig-zaggy border between peninsular Malaysia and Thailand (briefly passing through the outer fringe of Thai airspace) before making a right-hand turn south of Penang. We know this “based mostly on the analysis of primary radar recordings from the civilian ATC radars at the Kuala Lumpur (KUL) Area Control Centre (ACC) and at Kota Bahru on the east coast of Malaysia; plus (apparently) the air defense radars operated by the RMAF south of Kota Bahru at Jerteh, and on Penang Island off the west coast,” according to AIN Online.
At 18:02, while over the small island of Pulau Perak, the plane disappeared from primary radar, presumable because it had exceeded the range of the radar at Penang, which at that point lay 83 nautical miles directly behind the plane. Then, at 18:22:12, another blip was recorded, 160 miles to the northwest.
The most-asked question about the 18:22 blip is: why did the plane disappear then? But a more pressing question is: why did it reappear? If the plane was already too faint to be discerned by Penang when it was at Pulau Perak, then how on earth could it have been detected when it was three times further away?
One possibility is that it was picked up not by Malaysian radar, but by the Thai radar installation at Phuket. An AFP report from March 2014 quoted Thailand’s Air Marshal Monthon Suchookorn as saying that Thai radar detected the plane “swinging north and disappearing over the Andaman Sea,” although “the signal was sporadic.”
At 18:22, the plane was approximately 150 miles from Phuket. This is well beyond the range at which Penang had ceased being able to detect the plane. What’s more, when the plane had passed VAMPI it had been only about 120 miles from Phuket. If it hadn’t seen the plane when it was at VAMPI, how was it able to detect it when it was 30 miles further? And why just for a momentary blip?
I don’t believe that, as some have suggested, the plane climbed, was detected, and then dived again. As Victor Iannello has earlier pointed out, the plane was flying at around 500 knots, which is very fast, and suggests a high level of motivation to be somewhere else, not bleeding off speed through needless altitude changes.
I propose that what happened at 18:22 was that the plane was turning. Entering into a right bank, the plane would turn its wings temporarily toward the Phuket radar station, temporarily presenting a larger cross section. Then, when the plane leveled its wings to straighten out, the cross section would shrink, potentially causing the plane to disappear.
Why a right bank? The diagram at top is an annotated version of one presented in the DSTG’s “Bayesian Methods” book. The vertical white line is the 18:25:27 ping arc. The orange line represents the path from the 18:22:12 radar detection to the first ping arc. It is 13 miles long. To travel 13 miles in 3.25 minutes requires a ground speed of 240 knots. Prior to final radar return, MH370 was traveling at approximately 490 knots. A plane can’t slow down that quickly without a radical climbing maneuver, which can be dangerous at cruise altitude (cf Air France 447.)
If it had continued at its previous pace, the plane would have traveled 26.5 miles in that time — enough to carry it to the unlabeled yellow thumbtack. Or, to turn to the right and take the path shown in green.
I don’t mean this path to seem so precise and deterministic; there are errors associated with both the position of the ping arc and the radar return. The ping arc, for instance, is generally understood to have an error bar of about 10 km. If the ping arc radius is 10 km larger, and the radar hit location stays the same, then the heading will be be 336 degrees instead of 326 degrees; if the ping radius is 10 km smaller, the angle will be 310 degrees, representing just a 20 degree right turn from a straight-ahead path.
It does not, however, seem possible that the combined radar and ping-arc errors will allow a scenario in which the plane continued on its VAMPI-to-MEKAR heading and speed. As the “Bayesian Methods” book puts it, “the filtered speed at the output of the Kalman filter is not consistent with the 18.25 measurement, and predictions based purely on primary radar data on this will have a likelihood very close to zero.” Neil Gordon confirmed to me in our conversation that something must have changed.
Dr Bobby Ulich, in his recent work examing different flight-path scenarios, has also concluded that the plane turned north at this time. He looked at a southern turn, too, but observed that “the left-hand turn… needs a turning rate higher than the auto-pilot bank limit allows.”
Looking at the over picture of MH370’s first hour post-abduction, we note that:
- The timing of the silencing of the electronics was coordinated to within several seconds to the optimum time to evade detection.
- The 180-degree turnaround maneuver was highly aggressive.
- The plane’s course allowed it to remain in Malaysian airspace. After Penang it stayed closer to the Indonesian FIR (lower black line) than the Thai FIR (upper black line).
- Post diversion, the plane was traveling at high speed, faster than normal cruise flight. This suggests that whoever was flying it was motivated to escape primary radar surveillance–they wanted to get away.
- When last observed, MH370 was likely making a turn to the northwest, in the general direction of Port Blair in the Andaman islands. This is consistent with Air Marshal Monthon Suchookorn’s assertion that Thai radar detected the plane “swinging north and disappearing over the Andaman Sea.”
The overall shape of the flight path from IGARI to 18:25 is U-shaped, curving around Thai airspace. In the Malacca Strait it remained closer to the Indonesian side than the the Thai side. It is possible that the turn at 18:22 resulted from a compromise between two goals: to stay beyond the detection range of the radar station at Phuket, and to travel in a northwesterly direction.
It is widely believed that, since the plane presumable ended up in the southern Indian Ocean, the flight up the Malacca Strait was undertaken in order to avoid penetrating Indonesian airspace en route to the southern ocean. If this were goal, and the person flying the plane should have turned to the left at 18:22, onto a westerly or west-southwesterly heading.
The fact that they did not suggests that, whatever ultimately transpired aboard the plane, the goal prior to the “final major turn” was a destination to the northwest, and that the reason the plane flew southwest from IGARI before turning northwest was to avoid Thai airspace and radar surveillance.
@ROB
I wouldn’t exclude anything, but the doged suicide scenario requires a constant shift between the two positions, of deliberately giving out hints to authorship, while taking every possible effort to hide the plane (allegedly in order save the family’s reputation), and the more I think about that, the more difficult I find it to reconcile the two.
If he wanted it to look like an altitude fuse bombing, then why did he reiterate that he had already reached crusing altitude long before he eventually signed off?
@ RetiredF4 – Door on the floor of E/E bay of 777
Here’s a video of a 777 pilot showing the E/E bay
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2S-Cggs1jOo
Questions:
1. @3:00 The pilot mentions 3 access points to the E/E bay including one below his feet, a door that opens directly outside.
– is this a ‘plug door’?
– how easy is it to open this door at cruising altitude, and at 15000 ft?
– could highjackers have jumped out of this door with parachutes?
2. @6:00 pilot points to the 2 oxygen tanks that supply the cockpit in case of emergency. How easy is it to disconnect these?
@Nederland
Well, it wasn’t all that long before the sign-off, was it. The bomb on Pan Am 103, detonated 38 minutes after takeoff.
I never thought it was to save the family reputation. That’s a new one on me. As I see it, the act of making off with the plane was primarily intended to hurt the Government and MAS. A mystery that couldn’t be cleared up. An audacious act. An act of revenge. But he would inevitably be prime suspect. So saving the family reputation? Surely that’s not a serious suggestion. How could he have any regard for his family, doing what he did?
@Rob And how do you believe that the “Government and MAS” have been hurt?? It is just “a mystery that couldn’t be cleared up”? Was Zaharie really that naive??
@All
Popped up on the news feed this morning.
For anyone interested in radar systems around this corner
of the globe.A US installation in Alice Springs (Central Australia).
http://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/pine-gap-spy-base-alice-springs-what-you-never-knew-about-topsecret-facility/news-story/b684b7e9ea355860379e50498f236486
Cheers Tom L
@ROB
How exactly would hiding the plane in a very remote part of the ocean, and thereby obfuscating understanding of what happened, contribute to hurting either the Malaysian government or MAS in your theory? Wouldn’t just crashing it and/or leaving a note do the job? So what’s the point in doing it the way he allegedly did?
@Laureen H
RetiredF4 – Would fissionable material meet your definition of valuable cargo? This would be very difficult to obtain anywhere including the black market, and not very much (weight wise) would be a concern.
IMHO there is enough on the market in former SU states, but without the technology it is useless. And it is not easy to handle. It would be way low on my list.
@Nederland
Posted September 24, 2016 at 11:54 AM
If the plan was to depressurise the aircraft after the diversion, then why descend to around 30.000 ft?
Flying at altitudes above 25.000′ for prolonged time causes severe decompression sickness, regardless wether one has oxygen available or not. 48% encounter severe symptoms within 1’hour, because the solved gases in the body fluids gas out and cummulate in bloddstream, joints and organs. It is very painful and may cause later death. The problem can be mitigated to prebreath 100% oxygen for at least one hour prior the decompression event, rhat way solved nitrogen is exhaled. 100% oxygen after the decompresion will not prevent decompression sicknes.
CliffG Questions:
1. @3:00 The pilot mentions 3 access points to the E/E bay including one below his feet, a door that opens directly outside.
There are 4 doors to the EEbay. One from the cabin, one forward and one aft of the nosewheel from the outside, and one door from the eebay to the forward cargo hold.
– is this (the door to the outside) a ‘plug door’?
It opens to the inside, the lock handle can be operated from inside and outside.
– how easy is it to open this door at cruising altitude, and at 15000 ft?
A maintenance guy told me, with a depressurized aircraft it could be done without problem
– could highjackers have jumped out of this door with parachutes?
Depends on he highjackers and their gear, but iI think so. The jumping chutes are quite small these days. There is nothing big protruding along the bottom of the aircraft.
2. @6:00 pilot points to the 2 oxygen tanks that supply the cockpit in case of emergency. How easy is it to disconnect these?
I can only guess. whatever is connected, can be disconnected.
But lets be clear, what we discuss at the moment would require that the culprits had entered the ee-bay already on the ground in KL.
@RetiredF4
“Flying at altitudes above 25.000′ for prolonged time causes severe decompression sickness, regardless wether one has oxygen available or not. 48% encounter severe symptoms within 1’hour, because the solved gases in the body fluids gas out and cummulate in bloddstream, joints and organs. It is very painful and may cause later death. The problem can be mitigated to prebreath 100% oxygen for at least one hour prior the decompression event, rhat way solved nitrogen is exhaled. 100% oxygen after the decompresion will not prevent decompression sicknes.”
So, that means the person(s) in the cockpit have the same chance of suffering from severe decommpression sickness that those in the cabin on oxygen bottles, unless they had previously inhaled 100% oxygen for an hour? Or, to put it differently, if there was a single person in the cockpit, they would have an 48% chance of suffering this, but 10 persons on oxygen bottles in the cabin are very unlikely to ALL experience that problem? (one half would, the other not, on average)
An interesting aside to this tragic episode is the military radar component. There have been assertions that MR radar operates on a minimised schedule and shuts down after midnight
Apparently that was not the case with Malaysian military radar for they tracked the plane in real time, by default, operating beyond the speculated midnight time limit. Real time tracking was also acknowledged by Thai military and I suspect by extension Indonesian and Australian military.
So why the latter two didn’t acknowledge that they saw the plane. Perplexing. But one probable reason is that they knew about it but didn’t activate their air defenses for interception purposes. By stating that MR was not operational then, they skirt any potential security minefield as to why they didn’t sent interceptors up there. The Malays had an awkward way of explaining. I doubt the Indons and Australian military wanted to answer any such inquiry. Cue, either radar off as in JOEN or “we didn’t see any plane” version of the Indons.
Doesn’t the notion of a chandelle turn (if there was one, and I’m not convinced there was, for several reasons) eliminate the need for any more discussion of anything involving the EE bay?
In order to command such a turn from the EE bay, the diagrams I’m looking at suggest that one would have to:
A) fail all three PFCs to initiate Direct Law and eliminate envelope protection in all axes, including airspeed
B) build some kind of custom joystick and makeshift attitude and airspeed indicators
and…
C) Insert this gadget into FOUR separate points in the flight control system downstream of the ARINC 629 and just upstream of the ACE (actuator controller) or between the yoke transducers and the ACE yet with its own custom connection to one or more of the three DC power supplies.
There are four ACEs and they each control roughly 1/4 of the control surfaces and I highly doubt that any pilot would attempt a chandelle knowing he had less than full authority over the control surfaces.
Failing the entire system would result in only the most rudimentary cable control of just two spoilers (4 & 11) and trim-style control of the horizontal stab and would require physical access to the yoke. Not something you’d have from way down in the EE bay.
Now, if we want to chalk up the alleged chandelle to slant-range error (or to the fact that it came from the inept/corrupt/choose-your-own-adjective Malaysians) or to any other vagary of the “fog of war” and go back to the notion of an autopilot turn (which coincidentally happens to line the plane up quite well with both the end and the resumption of the civilian radar tracks published in the Factual Information), then the EE bay theory stays alive and everyone can go to town on it.
@Wazir Roslan
Indonesia wouldn’t scramble jets if the plane wasn’t spotted in their airspace.
From the FI, I take it three primary radars were operational in Malaysia after midnight:
– civilian primary approach radar, Kota Bharu airport
– military primary radar in Gong Kedak
– military primary radar in Penang
JORN was turned off that night, Cocos island probably as well.
@DennisW said:
“Susie has ignored the same question I now put to you. Where was the intended “other end”? There is no suitable place South of the equator, and the plane definitely went South.”
Dennis, what if the flight south took place *after* the landing? Then the ‘ball’ was kicked into the long grass on a very simple 180M heading under autopilot?
In relation to the last two points of the supposed Sim data that you seem to accept as circumstantial proof of guilt, it’s not possible to take that data at all seriously until the dates/times of those last two points are made available and verified to be consistent with the dates/times of the earlier points. Without knowing the dates/times of all those points, no conclusion can logically be drawn.
@all:
If the aircraft was intentionally diverted, then it could be that there was something or someone valuable/important on board that China was expecting but another party intercepted and removed.
Something/someone that was not easily (or at all) obtained whilst on the ground, perhaps due to state security and/or diplomatic immunity.
That might account for why a senior captain was called in to perform a red-eye flight (valuable cargo / important person(s) on board), and for the ‘zero day’ hack of the MAS/MYG computer network the next day targeting senior members, possibly to discover any evidence relating to what had happened and who was responsible.
It might also explain the reluctance to disclose the full cargo list, and – initially – the full passenger list, and later to ‘classify’ the airport security videos, the radar data and the full ATC (and other) recordings. Very strange behaviour.
We may never know what that cargo was (or if there were person(s) of importance) but it is a possibility that should be considered along with all others, especially in the light of the MYG’s behaviour and classification of that data.
@Nederland said:
“That seems to be the fatal flaw of the whole construction as it would haven taken two hours at the very least to render unconscious everyone in the cabin (expected duration per oxygen bottle at around FL300 just under two hours, but there were more bottles than cabin crew members).”
At or above 37,500 feet cabin altitude the cabin crew O2 bottles would be as useless as the cabin ones – they are not pressurised. Even at 35,000 feet it’s borderline, apparently, depending on age, health and fitness.
You’d only need around 30 secs depressurised above 37,500 to put everyone unconscious, and if there wasn’t any warning then no one would suspect, just collapse / fall asleep, and die
In the Helios incident, there was a warning when the cabin altitude reached 14,000ft (and the aircraft was at 18,000ft) – the O2 masks fell – at this time the surviving cabin attendant would have started using O2 also presumably, and for the remainder of the flight.
And in that incident the outflow valves were not completely open – the accident report states that when the aircraft had reached 34,000ft cruise the cabin altitude was estimated to have reached (only) 24,000ft. – hence why the cabin attendant was able to survive on cabin O2. So it is not a comparable situation to a cabin altitude of 35,000ft (or greater) in the case of MH370 if full depressurisation had occurred.
“I’d say there is no way not to prevent hypothermia in either cockpit or cabin during that time.”
If intentional, a good set or two of thick full-length thermal underwear plus some thick mountaineer-type thermal gloves/socks in your carry-on bag would help. So not impossible.
“Another question is why the hijacker(s) wanted to depressurise the cabin if all they could have achieved is to alert the cabin crew of their intention to kill everyone on board, while still giving them enough time to come up with a plan to stop the hijacker(s).”
Depressurise slowly and prevent the O2 masks falling in the cabin by removing power to the cabin altitude controller/sensor … no one would suspect a thing, just collapse / fall asleep.
As @RetiredF4 has said, altitude sickness can (will) occur – even if breathing 100% O2 – over 25,000ft, so the perp would want to depressurise completely and as quickly as possible without anyone noticing and using O2. Leave it a while to make sure, then re-pressurise as soon as possible. If the body cannot receive any O2, then brain death will occur quite quickly.
@Middleton
Per FI and ATSB, MH370 was on FL350 at IGARI and afterwards gradually descended to around FL300. So there is no evidence for it being around FL375 or even FL350 during the critical time period.
I am not aware there is a way to prevent oxygen masks from droppping down. The FI says that they drop down automatically when cabin pressure equals 13.500 ft and does not mention a magic button to prevent this occurring. That would have alerted cabin crew. Depressurisation would take some time, so it would not have occurred at FL350.
I doubt an extra set of underwear is good enough for temperature, say, at around -55 C (and there was an estimated layer of 240 blankets at disposal in the cabin), but it would be good to have better figures on that, so we know what we are talking about.
@nederland
You are misunderstanding my point. I am saying they ( Indonesia and Australia) probably saw the plane but put it out they didn’t to avoid the awkward scrutiny as to why they didn’t intercept it if they did.
The Malays gave a bizarre exlplanation for that as evidenced from this transcript:
https://www.journeyman.tv/film_documents/6141/transcript/
Of course the Indonesians and Australians would dare venture our with similarly absurd rationale. Australian air defense Q n A document is bizarre. It talks about air defense surveillance parameters in general without divulging operational times but bizarrely makes a pointed exception for MH370. I posted about that here before.
Not that any of the above matters anymore.
sorry….wouldn’t dare venture out……
@Middleton
” If the body cannot receive any O2, then brain death will occur quite quickly.”
True, but there is some oxygen available at that altitude. Once the aircraft is pressurised again, expectations are most or some will recover. It happened on other flights that passengers or crew fell unconscious but were fine after the plane was on low altitude.
@Nederland
This will be useful in understanding Australian reactions on the issue:
https://www.airforce.gov.au/docs/JORN_FAQS.pdf
Note the pointed exception being made for MH370.
@ RetiredF4
Prebreathing oxygen prior to boarding
Florence de Changy in her book ‘Le Vol MH370 n’a pas disparu’ describes the 2 possible highjackers as arriving at the last few minutes of boarding ‘clearly more energetic than the rest of the passengers’
Q: could PRE-BREATHING oxygen make one more energetic?
Black form fitting T-shirts
Florence’s describes the 2 suspects as wearing form fitting (identical?) black t-shirts.
Q: could these be thermal underwear shirts?
Compact parachute rigs with non-metallic parts
Florence’s book also mentions that they carried 2 large cabin bags. These could easily accomodate compact parachute rigs, especially those used by BASE jumpers. BASE jumpers also use non-metalic parts in their rigs to avoid triggering metal detectors in the lobbies of tall buildings from which they jump un-authorized. These specially built rigs are also known as smugglers rigs, because drug smugglers used them too.
Comments?
@All, Why would MY use a commercial flight to transport anything/anyone of high value? No doubt they have their own aircraft available to do that unnoticed. I do agree that their non disclosure stance on a lot of data, stinks.
@RetiredF4, The ATC transcript shows that either Z/F confirmed maintaining level350 twice. At 1.01 and 1.07. Pilots claim this is odd since most dont bother doing it once, let alone twice. Is this true? The 1.01 was confirmed 50 miles from Igari, the 1.07 confirmation, 6 minutes out. There seem to be irregularities on who was flying and who was talking to ATC, i.e. it was switching between ZS and F. Have these tapes been analyzed independently that you know of?
@Knowledgable pilots and/or physicists,
Out of curiosity, is there a configuration of the plane that would allow someone to exit it at atitude uninjured? Such a “vomit comet” arc?
And are any such configurations recoverable by the plane in the absence of the pilot?
I know it’s a bit silly. I’m asking because I don’t see someone exiting a plane doing 200 knots. But what happens in something like a stall? Are the forces benign enough to permit opening doors in a depressurized aircraft?
It’s been over 40 years since the so-called DB Cooper, and his successful copycat, left a plane like this. That’s a long time to work out the details, if such a feat is possible.
Thanks in advance.
@Middleton
you said:
“In relation to the last two points of the supposed Sim data that you seem to accept as circumstantial proof of guilt, it’s not possible to take that data at all seriously until the dates/times of those last two points are made available and verified to be consistent with the dates/times of the earlier points. Without knowing the dates/times of all those points, no conclusion can logically be drawn.”
The dates, times, and whether the SIO points are connected to anything are totally irrelevant. The relevancy of those points resides purely in their existence. Do you think that somehow those coordinates were created on the drive by random fluctuations in the earth’s magnetic field? I cannot speak to your logic, but I do not regard it highly. Think about what you are saying.
Do I need time stamps on the kiddie porn found on my computer to be found guilty? Can I excuse it by citing thousands of other files containing spreadsheets, word documents, programs, and the like? Of course not. It did not get there by accident. Anyone who believes otherwise is an idiot.
@DennisW, I knew you were out there with your brew……
All the data points must have the same date /time stamp as they could be connected to some other flight path originating from Perth or South Africa as examples.
@Dennis
The relevancy of those points resides purely in their existence. ……….Anyone who believes otherwise is an idiot.
It is not that easy. The existence of these two points has some relevance, agreed. The interpretation of this relevance though is in question.
When we did flightplanning with a pencil, a ruler and a map I used to check on a big scale map the range I could go ( we always carried a full fuel load, only differing from external tank configuration) until all fuel was gone. We had a big map on our wall with a string attached to our home field and with range marks on it. I didn’t necessarily made a mark on the map, but visualized in my brain the range circle and the possible destinations / alternates which could be used with the fuel available.
I can imagine that on a flight sim you could generate such points as well, except they are now stored in the data base, if you do not erase them. The question I would ask with the SIO points is, wether there were other distant points stored to different directions from Kl, which would represent also fuel exhaustion for a given fuel load to other regions like US, Pacific, Europe, to the north……… Those points displayed on a big scale map would visualize a range circle for a given fuel load and a guy like Zahire might have used this visualizatiin to store it away in his brain as an overview for the day, when the bits and bytes of his aircraft would not be able to give him the relevant information, or for just a random sim flight plannjng for him or another guy practising flying a 777 on his home sim.
He might have tested the sim figures for fuel exhaustion against the figures in the FCOM, thus generating those two points randomly, to name another possibility.
If I look at these points as incriminating evidence like you do, than I have the yet unanswered question what use they would have had in his planning. Either his intention was to reach one of those two points, then I’d expect an answer what is so special about those points other from the zillions other possible points in this vast water world. What is special about the direction to these two points? It is just water there, lots of water, why plan to fly exactly to one of these two points? What was his interest to know at what geographical point over water he would run out of fuel, if he intended to die in this event. It would make no difference if it would be 500NM either direction from these points, right? There is no relevance in the actual distance MH370 could fly and the location of those two points, they were not reachable with the available fuel. Fuel load changes on every flight, depending on destination, alternates and extra fuel. Why didn’t he load more extra fuel on this day to reach those points? Because they had no relevance to his assumed act, it was not necessary that he got there. But that raises the question why he then created those two points at all in preparation of such a flight.
That is the relevance I miss. Such a plannjng isn’t even in any context with your CI scenario or any other one you have had, so I do not understand why you give it that much weight like you do, except it points the spot light on Z. inyour view.
@CliffG
“Florence de Changy in her book ‘Le Vol MH370 n’a pas disparu’ describes the 2 possible highjackers as arriving at the last few minutes of boarding ‘clearly more energetic than the rest of the passengers’
Q: could PRE-BREATHING oxygen make one more energetic?
Prebreathing is only usefull if you are nearly continuously on 100% Oxygen prior the decompression. Otherwise in the meantime you would inhale again nitrogen with the ambient air, which would dissolve into the blood stream and the tissues and later cause again decompression sickness.
What florence describes could reflect intent, training, physical condition and influence of drugs.
“Black form fitting T-shirts
Florence’s describes the 2 suspects as wearing form fitting (identical?) black t-shirts.
Q: could these be thermal underwear shirts?”
Such underwear comes in all colours, but normally is only usefull if you wear something over them. I do not see the temperature problem for possible highjackers, as the cockpit would be heated from the electronic gadgets and the eebay underneath.
“Compact parachute rigs with non-metallic parts
Florence’s book also mentions that they carried 2 large cabin bags. These could easily accomodate compact parachute rigs, especially those used by BASE jumpers. BASE jumpers also use non-metalic parts in their rigs to avoid triggering metal detectors in the lobbies of tall buildings from which they jump un-authorized. These specially built rigs are also known as smugglers rigs, because drug smugglers used them too.”
I’m not familiar that there exists a regulation, which prohibits parachutes in the cabin luggage. The two passengers Florence describes could well have been parachutists instead of highjackers, young, fit, energetic and their toy in the cabin would make sense.
@Nederland
“So, that means the person(s) in the cockpit have the same chance of suffering from severe decommpression sickness that those in the cabin on oxygen bottles, unless they had previously inhaled 100% oxygen for an hour?”
Yes
“Or, to put it differently, if there was a single person in the cockpit, they would have an 48% chance of suffering this, but 10 persons on oxygen bottles in the cabin are very unlikely to ALL experience that problem? (one half would, the other not, on average)”
The 48% figure goes with the altitude and the time. The higher the altitude and the longer the exposure, the higher goes the percentage of affected people. That is also the reason that divers have to use a compression chamber on the way up from deep sea diving. It is the same sickness with the same results going from high pressure to lower oressure.
@Keffertje
You wrote: “@RetiredF4, The ATC transcript shows that either Z/F confirmed maintaining level350 twice. At 1.01 and 1.07. Pilots claim this is odd since most dont bother doing it once, let alone twice. Is this true?”
Unless the Malaysians have completely fabricated the recordings/transcripts (and there have been assertions about this from audio experts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-SofI70ea4 ) it is absolutely true. It is also very abnormal and it is, in my opinion, the closest that Z came to screwing up.
There is no requirement to “report reaching” an altitude unless you’re put into a hold or specifically requested to by ATC in an environment with evolving crossing restrictions.
Doing it once it unnecessary. Doing it twice is both unnecessary and redundant. Doing it twice with a 6-1/2 minute gap between the two instances on an aircraft that in the next few minutes turned off its XPDR and SAT systems and made an unannounced 180 degree turn with no distress call whatsoever and then disappeared forever…well, that’s just positively noteworthy.
From the beginning, I have felt that 6-1/2 minutes was the period during which one pilot eliminated the other and then got back on the radio with something innocuous (like a silly re-announcement of his altitude) to see if he’d missed a handoff or some other ATC instruction.
About the last thing you’d say if you’d just choked out your partner is: “Hey, I’ve been busy for the last few minutes, did I miss anything?”
@Matt Moriarty:
The “high acceleration” manoeuvre at IGARI indicates a life-or-death struggle between a pilot at the controls and another person. During that struggle erratic inputs to the controls were made, that put the airplane in an unusual attitude. After pulling the pilot from his seat, the other pilot took his place and recovered normal flight. The control inputs disconnected the autopilot, which was left disengaged afterwards, while the autothrust remained engaged.
The other person may have been hiding in the EE-bay. Perhaps he isolated the Left AC bus from there to gain access to the cockpit.
@Gysbreght
I gather you’re telling me the flight deck door lock is on the Left AC bus and that depowering it unlocks the flight deck door?
CORRECTION: For “the other pilot took his place” read “the other person took his place”
@Matt Moriarty:
Yes, my understanding is that the electronic protection of the cockpit door is powered by the left main AC bus. The door can then be mechanically bolted.
@Matt Moriarty
“Doesn’t the notion of a chandelle turn (if there was one, and I’m not convinced there was, for several reasons) eliminate the need for any more discussion of anything involving the EE bay?”
The Electronic equipment bay was an easy access to the aircraft on ground prior flight. Attackers could have hidden themselves and all necessary equipment with access to the forward cargo hold. The only entitiy between failure and succcess of such a plan would be airport perimeter security. Once on the apron, what would hold them? They could have prebreathed oxygen and used the access to the nerve center of the aircraft to prepare the takeover. At the apropriate time, when the captain or co stepped out of the cockpit for visiting the toilet they could exited the eebay like the verbal jack in the box and entered the cockpi. Task completed. The door was not safety locked at that time.
James bond stuff? Yes.
Possible? Yes
Probable? Maybe
The reversal maneuver (Chandelle type or similar) would then be performed not by the normal pilots, but by the highjackers from the normal controls. No need to do it from the eebay.
@keffertje
“@RetiredF4, The ATC transcript shows that either Z/F confirmed maintaining level350 twice. At 1.01 and 1.07. Pilots claim this is odd since most dont bother doing it once, let alone twice. Is this true? The 1.01 was confirmed 50 miles from Igari, the 1.07 confirmation, 6 minutes out. There seem to be irregularities on who was flying and who was talking to ATC, i.e. it was switching between ZS and F. Have these tapes been analyzed independently that you know of?”
I do not know of such an analysis or the detailed result of it, but I am sure it happened.
The repetition of the FL350 call could be indicative of several things:
-Expecting higher FL prior handover and a try to give the controler an informal hint like “hi, what’s about our altitude change?”
– Some action in the cockpit and thinking, that some call might have been missed
– Doeing a mike and radio check after switching seat positions
– Switching off mode C ( the altitude readout of the transponder, changing altitude and pretending by the call to still maintain 350
The last one should be in the report, so I assume it did not happen that way.
@JS
“@Knowledgable pilots and/or physicists,
Out of curiosity, is there a configuration of the plane that would allow someone to exit it at atitude uninjured? Such a “vomit comet” arc?
And are any such configurations recoverable by the plane in the absence of the pilot?”
I think it is a question of the exit door, equipment, altitude and of the true airspeed. The rearr cargo doors would be suitable, but afaik not accessable from the cabin. The forward cargo door would be accessable, but not suitable due to the collision risk with the wings. That leaves us with the aft EEbay door. It is a tight fit, but should be managable at speeds below 200kts for a fit and trained jumper.
Concerning configuration I think some flaps would be possible. Program a flight plan in advance and activate it with the autopilot on. Go to the EEBay and jump. The flaps would blow up due to load relief schedule during acceleration.
The aircraft would be unpressurized for the rest of the flight due to the open door of the EEbay. It would be cold inside the whole aircraft, which might raise the influence on the accuracy ISAT data.
@Gysbreght
Is the source of your assumption about the door lock our very own Jeff Wise (http://jeffwise.net/2016/05/16/the-sdu-re-logon-a-small-detail-that-tells-us-so-much-about-the-fate-of-mh370/comment-page-1/ )? He mentions the “left bus” but then, just prior to his grocery list of lost items, he refers only to the “main bus.” Typo? Omission? Misdirect in service of a spoof theory that just won’t go away?
He gives no link in support of left bus and I can’t seem to find one on my own. Do you have one?
@RetiredF4
Are you absolutely certain that if the hatch between the cabin floor and the EE bay is latched from the cabin side that it is openable from inside the EEbay? The pilot giving the tour in the famous youtube video leaves it open while he’s down there and on the interior of the door, there seems to be only the bolt mechanism, not a handle. The latch he grabs to open it from the cabin is flush-fit. And there is carpet velcroed over the top of it.
Not exactly conducive to a jack-in-the-box Hollywood star entrance. More like the guys in Spinal Tap trying to find the stage door.
@ all the sophisticated hijacker theorists
What about the cabin crew / pax? There were dozens of texts and cell calls made by both crew and pax alike on 9/11. You can hear them in the official recordings. One of the FA’s on AAL11 had the wits to call Boston FSS directly and that was the first time NORAD knew the hijackers were in the cockpit.
If a team of men had popped up out of the floor (adjacent to the galley which is a high-traffic area right after the level-off), wouldn’t the flight attendants have been aware of a cockpit intrusion?
When the crew and passengers were subjected to chandelle with a mach 0.84 entry, wouldn’t they have connected the dots to the guys who just stormed the cockpit? And wouldn’t crew and pax have spent the rest of their lives making cell attempts? Text attempts? Any possible chance at contacting the outside world?
If the F.O’s cell phone briefly hooked up with a tower over Penang, what about all the other pax and cabin crew? They had a good 30 minutes of feet-dry flying over Malaysia. Not one connection in God-knows-how-many desperate attempts?
And which terrorist group claimed responsibility? None that I know of.
Was it the CIA hijacking its own drone command center back (cleverly disguised as 2400kg of “electronic accessories” on the MH370 manifest) from the Chinese who stole it out from under the two ex-navy SEALS who somehow died of simultaneous heroin overdoses on the Maersk Alabama while docked in Seychelles?
How far down the rabbit hole are you guys willing to go? It sure is entertaining!
@All
Blaine’s latest gift to the cause:
http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/amateur-sleuth-blaine-gibson-is-getting-on-with-the-job-of-finding-mh370/news-story/a88198a7c0fede3ea62cbb5bad7faa9b
Cheers Tom L
@ Jeff
I’m sorry that I use that much bandwith at the moment, I’m just trying to reply to adresed questions.
@Matt Moriarty
“Are you absolutely certain that if the hatch between the cabin floor and the EE bay is latched from the cabin side that it is openable from inside the EEbay? The pilot giving the tour in the famous youtube video leaves it open while he’s down there and on the interior of the door, there seems to be only the bolt mechanism, not a handle. The latch he grabs to open it from the cabin is flush-fit. And there is carpet velcroed over the top of it.”
Yes I’m sure, I looked at it already two years ago and have some HD pictures stowed on my HD. The system was changed after Mh370 though and can now only be unlocked from the cabin side.
“@ all the sophisticated hijacker theorists
What about the cabin crew / pax? There were dozens of texts and cell calls made by both crew and pax alike on 9/11. You can hear them in the official recordings. One of the FA’s on AAL11 had the wits to call Boston FSS directly and that was the first time NORAD knew the hijackers were in the cockpit.”
There are no cell towers at IGARI.
“If a team of men had popped up out of the floor (adjacent to the galley which is a high-traffic area right after the level-off), wouldn’t the flight attendants have been aware of a cockpit intrusion?”
Yes, and what would they have done looking at a loaded gun? It would be a nice plan to show up in the middle of those, who you want to gain control over. Best moment would be when the cockpit door was opened for one of the crew members. As the eebay is below the dockpit area, the moving of the crew seat, and the opening of the door could be probably observed.
“When the crew and passengers were subjected to chandelle with a mach 0.84 entry, wouldn’t they have connected the dots to the guys who just stormed the cockpit? And wouldn’t crew and pax have spent the rest of their lives making cell attempts? Text attempts? Any possible chance at contacting the outside world?”
Again, no cells in that area. We discussed depressurization and consequences already. Only possible communication would have been the ELT, located in the forward cabin, exactly close to the EEbay door. Themhighjackers would have thought about that and it would explain, why it never was used over the whole flight.
“If the F.O’s cell phone briefly hooked up with a tower over Penang, what about all the other pax and cabin crew? They had a good 30 minutes of feet-dry flying over Malaysia. Not one connection in God-knows-how-many desperate attempts?”
In a highjacking scenario I would not waste any thought, that the passengers were able to use their phone at that point. They might habe bin unconscious for the before discussed reasons. There would have been enough time to collect the phones or place a jamming device in the cabin. Maybe the FO had his phone in his flight bag and it was overlooked.
“And which terrorist group claimed responsibility? None that I know of.”
That could tell us, that it was no terrorist group at all, but a well planned act by some group from a three letter agency of yet unknown nationality.
“Was it the CIA hijacking its own drone command center back (cleverly disguised as 2400kg of “electronic accessories” on the MH370 manifest) from the Chinese who stole it out from under the two ex-navy SEALS who somehow died of simultaneous heroin overdoses on the Maersk Alabama while docked in Seychelles?”
Haven’t heard about that one. I for myselve have none, not any more. There is not enough informationut there. But this again should tell us something.
“How far down the rabbit hole are you guys willing to go? It sure is entertaining!”
It seems about time to discuss scenarios other than unexplainable technical faults, suicide death wishes, unexplained political statements and the like, which we did for two years now without a result. Nothing wrong with it. Let’s concentrate to tear those highjacking scenarios apart with valid arguments, instead putting those posters into the nutcase box.
@Nederland
The point of doing it the way he did was so that the matter couldn’t be conveniently dealt with, and cleared away by the Authorities. If he had deliberately crashed the plane somewhere in the vicinity, a place where the wreckage was likely to be discovered in the following days and weeks, the Malaysian government propaganda machine (the capabilities and tendencies of which, he would have been all too familiar) would have spun a convenient story. It would then just have been another regrettable, but unforseeable pilot suicide case, and they would be able to avoid blame.
To prevent that outcome, he had to plan something, that while he would be expected of being responsible for whatever reason, the focus of people’s anger would remain squarely on them. Rumour, would feed on rumour. How could they ever function properly with such an albatross hanging around their necks?
For this plan to work as he wanted, he had to disappear without trace. Completely without trace. Lots of people plan the perfect murder, often they come unstuck on just one little detail.
Get the gist?
@Rob
“Get the gist?”
Although not adressed at me….
No, I dont get it. If the Malays liked to blame Z, they would have long done so. To add some credibility to your statement you should explain, why Malaysia is avoiding everything pointing to Z, and why they would have done different, when he would have crashed on another place.
They could blame him for suicide any day and any hour, as long as no other evidence shows up. To make a political he would have to leave something surfacing to the public in order to avoid random blame by the Malayans, as you expect.
Have you ever tried to prove, that you were at some place by avoiding with all means to be traced there, seen by somebody there and relieving no evidence that you ever have been at that place?
I think there are still two problems connected with any deliberate depressurisation scenario. Ok, there are probably some ways to heat the cockpit separately (but how exactly?), but no one seems to know for sure how much of a problem drop in temperature would really be and that would put the whole plan at risk, especially since the persons in the cabin can move around freely (if on portable oxygen bottles) to combat hypothermia, take advantage of blankets or hand luggage.
Then, the risk of altitude sickness. If, as has been assumed, Zaharie was in the cockpit, then he was fifty something/on pain medication/apparently a smoker. Flight attendants on the other hand are generally young/healthy/BMI around 20/hit the gym 4+ times a week/have free membership for airport gyms worldwide via employer/don’t smoke. Doesn’t sound like an even match. And how can anyone predict if one or more flight attendants use 2 or more bottles in a row and eventually unused passenger masks (22 minutes each), what the chances are they would recover after passing out once the aircraft is repressurised and so on. It could be another explanation for the ghost flight scenario, but my point is that there are so many unknowns involved, that it seems unlikely a suicidal pilot would take all these ‘risks’ rather than crashing the plane asap as is known from a few other occasions.
It has also been reported that passengers’ mobile phones made a connection at some point during the flight, but they could not be located:
http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/535538-malaysian-airlines-mh370-contact-lost-398.html#post8399478
Lauren H.,
You wrote (September 22, 8:00 pm): “From FCOM PI.21.3, GW180, FL250 fuel burn per engine is 2853kg/hr or 5706 total. Engine INOP table PI.23.8, GW180, FL250, total fuel burn is 5475kg/hr or roughly the same as 5706kg/hr. If you apply an Engine INOP burn time of, let’s say 4 minutes, the difference is just 15kg.”
Firstly, my version of FCOM says 2881 kg/h at FL250, and 2583 kg/h at FL270 per engine. Secondly and more importantly, these numbers are corresponding to the LRC regime, which is 0.667M or 278 KIAS at FL250. Bearing in mind that max IAS can reach roughly 355 KIAS (330 VMO + 25 knott), this gives the estimation of the engines load at ~60% of the maximum thrust they can provide at FL250 in the LRC mode. Respectively the fuel flow would be somewhat 60% of the maximum.
Now, compare with PI.23.8: my version of FCOM also says 5475 kg/h, at 0.642M or 267 KIAS. Should both the engines be operating at 267 KIAS, they would consume ~(267/278)^2×60% = 55% of the maximum fuel flow at FL250 (note 267KIAS is slightly lower than the LRC IAS for the two engines operating).
In other words, you compared a case when two engines operate at approximately half of the maximum load, with the case when a single engine operates at approximately full load. No wonder that one engine consumes nearly the same fuel as the two engines.
Now back to MH370:
>1. We don’t know in which mode the engines were operating.
>2. According to Mike’s simulations, the aircraft would attempt to maintain its altitude, but not airspeed after the flameout. The thrust of the remaining would be increased to the maximum.
>3. We don’t know the altitude at the flameout. My understanding of LRC Engine INOP table is that the maximum altitude is constrained, e.g. FL270 for GW180, FL150 for GW300, etc., which is reasonable due the fact that a single engine would not be able to provide required thrust.
Your conclusion “the two burn rates are close to being the same, specially if you add the APU fuel burn to the Engine INOP rate” is not justifiable by the arguments you provided. Hence, my question stands: where does it come from that after the flameout of the first engine, the second engine would double its fuel consumption rate?
@RetiredF4
Although not addresses to you, I welcome your question. I am always happy to deal with an intelligent question.
Yes you have a point. Why haven’t they just gone ahead and blamed Z? It’s complicated. Look at it this way: if he had crashed in the vicinity, he could be blamed for an act of sabotage, political or otherwise, or an act of suicide. Either way, clearly it would be seen as an impulsive act done in frustration, by someone who was probably mentally imbalanced. End of story. But I a planeload of people disappear without trace, it turns into a totally different matter. If they can find no evidence to show this was probably the act of someone with an imbalanced mind, an impulsive act, but instead have to explain an event that was apparently carefully, and extremely cleverly pre-planned, for which there wad no immediately apparent motive, they are presented with a fait accompli. It wouldn’t be enough to just come out and say “Z must have done it” and hope people will accept it. No, people will say “how can you be so certain? What makes you think he must have commited such a cunning, fiendish act? Something never before seen in the annals of civil aviation? “Explain why it must have been him”. Had you any inkling he might do something like this? and if you had, why didn’t you stop him?”
Can you see the problem? The issue would always remain unresolved, even if they did publicly blame Z. It wouldn’t let them off the hook, but it would rumble on indefinitely. The only course of action was to brazen it out and maintain that it would only be resolved when the black boxes are played back, and maintain it is pointless to speculate, or blame anyone before proof is secured. In other words, the soft option, the less politically hazardous option. Pretend you are interested in finding the black boxes, but pray they are never found. It explains the Malaysians’ attitude to the disappearance.
“The repetition of the FL350 call could be indicative of several things:”
Possibly a radio-check just after donning an O2 mask?
Dennis,
Re: “Do you ever hear of a defense attorney arguing that the fingerprints of his client on a murder weapon are irrelevant since his client’s fingerprints are on tens of thousands of other items?”
You have compared the flight simulator with a murder weapon because of the two points (fingerprints). On the other hand you interpreted these points as the proof of guilty just because they are found on the murder weapon (simulator). This time your logic has an obvious glitch.
You also wrote (September 22, 2016 at 10:38 PM): “Why should Boeing care? There was no problem with the airplane.”
Let me bounce back your earlier post: do you believe it was a plane manufactured by Boeing?
And yes, there were many problems with this particular and other B777. I guess you have forgotten. I can remind several problems: damaged wing (this), not properly working IFE (this), insecure access to the EE-Bay (this), failed ADIRU (9M-MRG – other MAS B777), oxygen tanks just next to the electronics – cheaply designed (all), no fire extinguishers or even smoke detectors in the nose landing gear compartment (all). This particular flight was not operated properly and ended up in the SIO: why? Was it a faulty mechanical/electrical design, or faulty security system, which allowed a person or several persons to gain full control? Keep in mind sharply increased number of accidents involving B777 during the past 2-3 years.
So why should Boeing really care? I think the answer is obvious. As well as it is obvious why they don’t.
@Nederland, Regarding the depressurization discussion, it’s interesting to note that passenger Nikolai Brodsky, who was sitting about 12 feet from the E/E bay hatch, was a recreational deep-water diver, who for fun would dive to great depths under the frozen surface of Lake Baikal using exotic mixtures of gases. A high-stress and potentially dangerous undertaking, and not at all a common hobby, especially in the former Soviet Union, where, at the time that Brodsky joined his local dive club, virtually all scuba divers had been trained in the military.
@RetiredF4, Thanks for your insights. Very interesting.
The Malaysian reticent on blaming it squarely on Z is probably attributable to both spiritual and cultural sensitivities.
The religious angle comes from the fact that Islam expressly forbids suicide. So any allocation of blame would have to address the fallout of such attribution especially in a conservative Muslim majority country.
Secondly the cultural connotations are equally damning if not more so. In Malaysia as in the rest of Asia, face is important and any assignment of blame would have to take into account the negative ramifications for his NOK unless the authorities are ok at being tagged as insensitive brutes.
The political angle for a suicide murder falls by the wayside simply because if proven indeed to be the case, that would be enough for a government to brand the opposition as merciless opportunists who will do anything including probably murder to attain their goals. Z would have been well aware as would be his handlers if any.
Given all that, a straightforward suicide remain the most probable outcome.
Gremlins?
@RetiredF4
“The relevancy of those points resides purely in their existence. ……….Anyone who believes otherwise is an idiot.”
Connecting different parts of my post clearly written to illustrate entirely different points? I don’t appreciate that, and I won’t bother to respond to you any further.