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.
Keffertje,
Re: “The SDU re-logon remains a mystery.”
It is not the SDU re-logon itself, but “coincidental” disappearance from the radars, which make it a great mystery. So far I have found no other explanation besides that both the events were unrelated concequences of the same action or plan, such as re-powering of the left bus followed by an immediate maneuver. Side-effects in other words.
I am not sure if mobile private satcom phones would work (due to Doppler) – probably Dennis can comment on this. Such private sattelite phones would likely use the same Inmarsat network, and most likely all the records were already checked.
@Oleksandr
IMO it’s impossible those burn-marks are still gassing-out after more 2 1/2 years to a level you could smell it. They state the whole item had this burned odeur so it must have been quite strong. The source of this odeur was located coming only from those three spots.
IMO those very local burn-marks must be recent and with that rasing serious questions on about how and why they recently occured.
@Ge Rijn. “The burn-marks look to me like someone put a small flame on those spots for a certain time like a sigaret-lighter or something like that.”
I think that is what they imply. Maybe someone experimenting recently.
@Ge Rijn, @Oleksandr:
In theory, not least given the fact that the pieces might have been out flying, inside the now-famous portfolio, some person might have applied his gas stove-lighter to burnmarks that were already there, 1) for fun, or 2) to make it look like a cover-up operation, make it look like a human-intervention crash, or just a fake attempt at presenting evidence (due to the persisting odeur). Tampering in any event. Not likely but that is not the question. The question is whether it can be allowed as evidence. And that is for the forensic / accident investigation to say.
So, from that particular angle, we will need to let them do their job of course. But discussing a general or interrim likelihood is good, and thus what we are doing, IMO. My own take is, yeah, when hell freezes over.
Resin layers more likely to be found on a boat.
@Oleksandr @Johan
It was earlier discussed and concluded that if the left main bus/IDG was disconnected in some way the right main bus/IDG would take over powering the SDU without interruption.
I understood that disconnecting both main busses/IDG’s would be necessary to depower the SDU for backup-generators or batteries would not power the SDU due to load-shedding.
In this case the APU would start up automaticcaly triggering a re-logon-on unless it was not selected ‘off’ in the cockpit.
I then imagine the plane was flying only on a backup-generator after IGARI till just before 18:25. To power the SDU again and trigger the log-on at that time it was only needed to bring one of the main-busses back on line or to start the APU.
Maybe it was a side effect maybe not.
Maybe the hijacker/pilot needed instruments the backup-generator did not supply power too? Re-compressing the cabin again maybe?
The coincidence this log-on sequence happened just after 18:22 when the plane suddenly vanished from primaray radar is no coincidence I think.
It was at the limit of Penang radar range at that time.
Maybe the plane made a steep descent with a bank diving almost abruptly under the radar horizon after the hijacker/pilot decided to reconnect one of the main busses again or start up the APU?
@Johan
As they say in the report it will be hard to prove the piece even came from a 777. Indeed that’s there job we cann’t possibly do.
But to observe the piece was recently burned at places sheds another light on this piece which is important IMO.
@Ge Rijn:
Yes it does.
A few interesting points have come up in this blog;
(1) The 180 degree turn by 9M-MRO at IGARI has been described as ‘aggressive’, as used in a WWI ‘dogfight’, a ‘chandelle’ and not part of a normal commercial operation for a 777. If true this may shed new light on what happened to the plane. We have ‘suspect’ SIO co-ordinates on Captain Zaharie’s simulator, is there any evidence that he performed this maneuver as well. Or his flight simulator software doesn’t have this facility.
(2) The SDU logon at 18:25:27 after finally disappearing from primary radar at 18:22 remains an enigma. @Oleksandr suggests that while related they are in a sense ‘side effects’. @Ge Rijn infers it was deliberate (I agree with you here). The suggestion has been made earlier in this blog rebooting would help to know if you are being tracked but someone else said flight radar should do this. My only question is if the plane was hijacked would powering up the SDU be something you would want to do if you intend to land the plane in the not too distant future? The SDU reboot, as previously mentioned is proof 9M-MRO was still airborne, however the subsequent BTO/BFO signals only suggest but do not prove the plane was in the air.
(3) @Jeffwise made the very interesting point that no one knew at the time 9M-MRO vanished that the ISAT data was stored, except INMARSAT. Knowing this @DennisW made what I thought was an intelligent comment that this precluded the idea of spoofing the BTO/BFO dataset. However great effort has been made to make 9M-MRO vanish and would a hijacker/s be motivated to spoof a BTO/BFO dataset to make it even more difficult, or mislead a search for the plane just on the night of the search. I am assuming BTO/BFO signals are common knowledge in the commercial aviation world.
It’s quite late here and I won’t read any subsequent entries till morning (Australia)
Ge Rijn,
I think you confuse buses with the IDGs and APU. In case the left IDG goes down, it is true that the right IDG will cross-feed the left bus, and so on. But if the left bus is manually or automatically isolated, then everything powered by it will be off, except the essential equipment, which use independent back-up sources. SDU is not in the list of the essential equipment.
With regard to the burnt marks, I think it should be easy task for FBI to find out the cause by spectral analysis. It is useless to speculate by discussing pictures. The only question is whether the media will continue to press or not.
@SteveBarrat, Some of these points have been discussed at length here over the last year or two.
— It seems that the only way to reboot the SDU is either by pulling three circuit breakers in the E/E bay,or by isolating the entire left AC bus, which can be done from the cockpit. It has been hypothesized that someone might have isolated the left AC bus in order to turn something off without going to the E/E bay to pull the circuit breaker — one possible example being the Cockpit Voice Recorder. (Per your question, the fuel jettison pump is also on the circuit and could be useful in effecting an emergency landing.) One of the problems with isolating the left AC bus is that Boeing makes it very hard to know just what equipment is on the circuit, so you are likely to get unintended consequences. I am told that isolating the left AC bus is not something that an airline captain would normally consider doing. Hence I personally find it more plausible that the SDU was powered off and back on again deliberately.
— You slightly misread the point I was making about the Inmarsat data. It was not widely know that Inmarsat was loggign the BTO data; however, it is standard industry practice to log BFO data. Therefore, if you wanted to make the plane look like it was going someplace that it wasn’t, you might consider spoofing the BFO data, and reasonably expect that it would provide only a very imprecise (but unambiguous) indication that the plane had headed somewhere to the south. It was only because the BTO was logged that searchers were able to pinpoint its likely end location.
Ge Rijn,
P.S. You wrote “The coincidence this log-on sequence happened just after 18:22 when the plane suddenly vanished from primaray radar is no coincidence I think.”
You need to keep in mind that after power becomes available it takes approximately 2 min and 40 seconds for the SDU to reach the logon stage as per ATSB 2014. This means that SDU was re-powered (if it was) at 18:22:47, just 35 seconds after the last radar blip.
In their December 2015 report, the ATSB has corrected the time for the SDU reboot to around 60 seconds. (p. 8-9, note 6)
Nederland,
Thanks for the correction.
@Steve Barrett
I’m not sure but I read @Oleksandrs comment as he ment also deliberate power-up but SDU log-on as only a possible side-effect.
I guess he will clear this up.
I suggest it could have been deliberate just to look at the possibility of such a scenario.
I earlier suggested the plane could have been shot at at ~18:22 taking the left engine out triggering an APU start and the log-on and forcing a sudden steep descent. This seemed impossible when discussed some months ago for the right main bus/IDG would take over power supply without interruption also to the SDU.
The only way such an APU re-start could have happened in such a case is when the left main bus/IDG was already disconnected and the right engine was taken out. Which creates a paradox for when the right main bus/IDG was not disconnected before already power supply to the SDU would have been uninterrupted.
So I conclude the ‘shot-at scenario’ is highly unlikely afterall unless such an event also damaged the right main bus/IDG power supply triggering an APU-start-up consequently triggering the log-on.
One of the solutions then IMO is both main bus/IDG’s where disconnected at IGARI and the plane was flying on backup-generator till ~18:22 and the APU was selected ‘off’ also at IGARI.
Connecting one of the main busses again or start up the APU at or after 18:22 could have other reasons as I suggested.
The SDU log-on could have been just a side-effect as @Oleksandr mentioned.
But it could have served an opportunity to get an idea of what was going on on the ground. What did they know?
If someone called the hijacker/pilot would have known he was not detected or followed IMO.
The plane’s weather radar would only scan in front of the plane not able to see following jets or other planes.
@RetiredF4 might correct me on this. I hope so, cause I’m not quite sure in this regard.
Good night in hot Australia.. I remember Coral Bay with 49C at night.. I loved it (for a while at least..)
@Oleksandr
That’s what I meant with ‘just after 18:22’ also.
These are two almost simultaniously events.
Cann’t be coincidence IMO.
@Oleksandr
I’m not discussing pictures but the ATSB report on this piece.
I disagree it’s useless to mention things just because we have to wait for answers from officials. Then we could have stopped discussing already two years ago as well.
The main busses related to the IDG’s and the log-on was discussed in lenght. I only mention the conclusions/consensus on this issue by various ‘experts’ on this blog which I trust more then myself in this regard.
If what you state is true those conclusions are invalid. Then you say the right engine IDG will not take over powering the SDU without interruption. Interesting.
For then a ‘shot-at-scenario’ is also still open.
@Ge Rijn, @Oleksandr:
How or who could know for sure he had just left the reach of the radar, and why would that affect waiting with the power-on?
Would there be any possibilites to scan for radar? That sounds unlikely.
There might be a little logic in the hijacker waiting to switch on until he thought he was outside radar in case there would be an immediate call caused by him being spotted or folliwed on radar (if he was thought someone could coordinate as much and had managed to keep track of him).
@Ge Rijn, @Oleksandr – I am not technical by any means so please bear with me:). If all AC sources are switched off, so a complete power down, with engines running the L+R hydraulic systems should continue to have hydraulic pressure to the EDPs? as a fail safe to pressurize the cabin. The only electrical component in the EDP system is depressurisation valve so deselecting it would de-pressurize the cabin? If someone wanted to that, he would not want the back-ups switching between each other, i,e electrically driven pumps versus hydraulic pumps. Does that make any sense?
@Johan, Perhaps worth noting that the 18:22 radar return — caused, I’m proposing, by a turn to the northwest — occurred almost exactly 250 nm from Penang airport. One could perhaps imagine a scenario in which a fleeing pilot waited until he was this distance from the navigational waypoint, and presumably safetly clear of the nearby radar’s range, before deciding himself “clear” and proceeding to turn and reboot the SDU.
@Ge Rijn, I would consider a “shot-at-scenario” science fiction. One can’t simply shoot down a civilian airliner without any word of it leaking out.
@Oleksandr’s description of how the left AC bus can be isolated is correct.
Ge Rijn,
“If what you state is true those conclusions are invalid.”
I am not sure what experts and what conclusions you are referring to. What I wrote is essentially the same as Jeff wrote to SteveBarrat: “It seems that the only way to reboot the SDU is either by pulling three circuit breakers in the E/E bay,or by isolating the entire left AC bus, which can be done from the cockpit.” You seem to disagree with both us. Also Jeff forgot to mention one more possibility: improperly oriented satellite dishes, as suggested by Don, but this is another story.
Re: “I disagree it’s useless to mention things just because we have to wait for answers from officials.”
I did not mean it is useless to mention, but useless to attempt to derive conclusions.
And yes, you understood me correctly: I meant “deliberate power-up but SDU log-on as only a possible side-effect.” In other words: to power up some equipment, perhaps the entire left bus, and then immediately proceed with descent or some other maneuver.
@Ge Rijn, @Oleksandr – Apologies, I was hooking into Ge Rijns comment about re-pressurization and the SDU relogon. 🙂
@Ge Rijn
I have tried to think of other reasons why the LH main AC bus may have been isolated, other than to deactivate the SATCOM, without much success.
My assumption to start with is that the LH main AC bus was deliberately isolated when the aircraft was diverted, and reconnected at 18:24:30. To me this is a justifiable assumption to make (others may not agree) simply because there is no independent evidence suggesting the a/c suffered any serious electrical or mechanical failures, and the redundancy built into the electrical supply and distribution system is such that, for practical purposes, the only way the LH AC bus could be isolated, would be by the pilot deliberately opening breakers, from the cockpit.
Other equipment supplied by the LH AC bus include TCAS, RH HF radio, IFE/video security cameras, some cabin/galley lighting, and the cockpit door lock, cockpit voice recorder. Doubtless, someone will draw notice to any items I’ve missed.
The TCAS cannot be a candidate, because it is rendered inoperative when the transponders are switched off, and we know transponders were switched off when the plane diverted. Most of the other items listed above, incl IFE, can be simply switched off from the overhead panel. It leaves the CVR and door lock as possible candidates. The CVR can safely be discounted as it records only the last two hours, and anyway, the pilot wasn’t counting on the CVR ever being played back. This leaves only the door lock. Why would he want to electrically isolate the door lock until 18:24? Apparently the door lock can be locked mechanically, if the electrical supply fails. Can it only be locked mechanically IF the electrical supply fails, and did he want to lock it manually to make sure the lock could be overriden in anyway from the cabin side. I don’t know if it could have been overriden, but I would suggest that if door security was the reason he isolated the AC bus for the first hour, then he must have been absolutely confident that there would have been no one left in a fit state to override the electronic lock after 18:24. Personally speaking, I don’t think he would have taken such a gamble.
So in my opinion, it leaves only the SATCOM. He could switch off the IFE from the overhead panel, after reconnecting the LH AC bus (interestingly though, he appears to have left it on long enough for the SDU to issue an IFE logon request at 18:28,presumably it was switched off soon after) Were there any hard wired satellite phones on the galley/crew areas that he wanted to deactivate? Again, the fact that the SATCOM was switched back on at 18:24 and kept on for the duration, would tend to discount it.
The SATCOM was switched back on, minutes after flying out of radar range. There must be a connection there, to my mind. I don’t believe it was a coincidence. For some reason he wanted the SATCOM off while he was technically within primary radar range.
And you can forget satellite antenna lock broken due to manoeuvring. Not an easy thing to accomplish, as ALSM will confirm, and not one lasting an hour.
@Rob, It then also begs the question: why would someone want the SDU back on? For what purpose?
@Johan @Keffertje
It seems unlikely to me also the hijacker/pilot would have know exactly when he was out of Penang radar range especialy just on the border of it. But an experienced pilot who knew Penang and its primary radar limits would have known by estimate I assume.
The decision to put a source of main power back on line after out of radar reach could have served different objectives IMO. More control over various systems that would not be available on backup-genarator only. Cockpit sat-phone, re-pressuritation, jettison-ability to name a few possibilities.
A hijacker/pilot would only decide to electronically show himself again if he felt save enough IMO. Which means out of radar range in the FIR territory he was flying in (Malaysia).
@Keffertje
To my understanding when disconnecting both main busses/IDG’s the plane falls back on one of the backup-generators which provide all necessary power to AP and hydraulics. Load-shedding will cut power to non-essential systems like the SDU but the plane could be flown fully under control (I’m not a pilot so pilots shoot me if I’m wrong..)
Ge Rijn,
Re: “To my understanding when disconnecting both main busses/IDG’s the plane falls back on one of the backup-generators which provide all necessary power to AP and hydraulics.”
No.
Re: “Which means out of radar range in the FIR territory he was flying in (Malaysia).”
I still cannot grasp why exiting the Batterworth radar range was so important to re-power whatever equipment. What difference does it make? Should it be switched on 10 minutes earlier, what could Malaysians do? In terms of tracking, there are at least 3 radars, which could track it further: Lhokseumawe, Satrang Sabang, RTADS-III Phuket, possibly Port Blair.
Thanks to ATSB for giving prompt feedback on the burnt parts. We need to juxtapose prelim findings against Blaine’s discovery video, he implies burning is definite, 777 source near definite, and location in the aircraft is probably EE bay, thus suggesting cause of accident was fire. So Blaine prematurely shifted into interpretation mode. He is still extraordinary person helping but we just need to be careful.
@Jeff Wise
I also putted the ‘shot-at-scenario’ in the ‘impossible-scenarios-box’ but @Oleksandr shifted possibilities in this regard again IMO. I still regard it as very unlikely but..
The Malaysian military and government are not up to disclose specific data as you know.
It seemes a closed system. If something like this happened it could be very embarrasing to admitt and more so that they failed to bring the plane down and not aleted anyone afterwards.
It might be sience fiction but as long the possibility of a log-on due to a left engine failure (taken out by a missile) is possible you can not exclude it IMO.
@Jeff:
Ops. Sorry, Jeff, I had already forgotten your approach. So that does make sense.
Could the sdu re-login be part of a process to attempt to connect to another satellite comms provider ?
Johan,
“How or who could know for sure he had just left the reach of the radar, and why would that affect waiting with the power-on?”
That is what I was asking for nearly two years. And that is why I came to the alternative idea that re-powering was followed by some maneuver, which caused disappearance from radars. Both the re-powering and maneuver were intended to achieve some goal. This in contrast to the popular idea that exiting radar range was a trigger event for SDU reboot.
@Keffertje
Yes, it begs the question. As yet there is no obvious answer. Further discussions required.
@TBill, It sure made Blaines finds more sexy! I admire the guy for his diligence and showing compassion but it also raises my eyebrows…..
TBill
One needs to be cautious with anyone who dares to wear a hat like that in public.
As for coming from the EE bay? Pure wishful thinking on his part. More likely from the RH wing trailing edge, like most of the other parts
@Oleksandr Do you believe a single person could have managed both a repowering and sudden manoevre at the same time?
There should be some kind of law about providing radar data and disclosing such. I just cannot conceive Indonesia was asleep at the steering wheel during all that time. It’s crazy.
@Ge Rijn,
Re: “To my understanding when disconnecting both main busses/IDG’s the plane falls back on one of the backup-generators which provide all necessary power to AP and hydraulics.”
Oleksandr;No.
buyerninety;’The back-up generators’ (one on each engine) are back-up for the
IDG’s (one on each engine). SO Left IDG fails=Left Backup takes L IDG place.
Likewise, Right IDG fails=Right Backup takes R IDG place.
Reference (Google): B777 REFRESHER GE RR.pdf , diagram page 9.3
____
ROB Post, September 22, 2016 at 10:22 AM
“I have tried to think of other reasons why the LH main AC bus may have been
isolated”
B777 REFRESHER GE RR.pdf , Page 9.1
“The Electrical Load Management System (ELMS) controls the distribution of
electrical power to the airplane.”
@ROB, I’m not surprised that Blaine engaged in wishful thinking, but I was a bit appalled that Geoffrey Thomas jumped right in, too.
@MH, We know that the plane didn’t connect to any other satellite.
@Ge Rijn, Taking out the left engine will not isolate the left AC bus. In fact I will go further and aver that nothing you’re talking about makes any sense.
@Oleksandr
Explain please why the plane won’t fall back on backup generators. That’s what there for.
Following known flight-paths as MH370 seemed to do there was no reason at all for other military radar stations to get alerted. Just another airliner going to the west. And while it did not cross their FIR-bounderies or air-space there was no need at all to be suspisious too and alert anyone.
I see specific reasons why to re-power main busses or APU at that moment when the hijacker/pilot knew he was out of Malaysian radar range for reasons I mentioned.
I agree it’s very unlikely he could have known exactly when he was out of radar-range. But he knew he would show himself again after 18:22.
With this action he was coming from the dark vanishing into the dark.
With this action he kept the cards on his table. Keeping the ones on the ground calling and guessing where he was without an answer.
Perfect unless he was scramled from Penang and shot at. Leaving a crippled plane with one left engine burning that Kate Tee saw heading to the south and after the fire went out flew on with one engine lower altitude and slightly slower to end up north/east of the current search area.
Science-fiction maybe but I’ve seen no conclusive arguments jet to debunk a scenario like this.
Like many others though. It’s still about turning every stone..
@MH Post September 22, 2016 at 11:21 AM
“Could the sdu re-login be part of a process to attempt to connect to
another satellite comms provider?”
Inmmarsat has the contract to provide satellite comms to MAS airline.
Inmarsat-3F1 satellite is the satellite providing that comms in Indian
Ocean area.
MH370 satellite communication equipment uses frequencies & modulation
methods for Inmmarsat satellites, not designed for communication other
satellite providers.
@Jeff Wise
“@MH, We know that the plane didn’t connect to any other satellite.”
Technically you are right after take-off…but according to Factual Information pg. 54 at 15:55 it logged-on to the POR satellite then did a logon-handover at 15:59 to the IOR satellite…
@Jeff
“@Ge Rijn, I would consider a “shot-at-scenario” science fiction. One can’t simply shoot down a civilian airliner without any word of it leaking out.”
I would not totally exclude that possibility. In the first hours after it was clear that MH370 could fly in MAL airspace unhampered until last known position, the Defense Minister H. was cornered why it was not engaged and not shot down by fighters. His reaction was unexpected and weired.
His forces would have looked bad if he confessed, that he launched fighters and
– they couldn’t find the target
– they found the target but were unsuccessful in forcing it to land
– they engaged with weapons but were unable to down the target.
If we assume that fighters (the two alert aircraft) were launched, everybody in the chain of events failed badly. If the asian culture of saving face exists, then it is understandable that the military people involved in the operation were all to willing to keep their knowledge secret.
Only a shoot down with found wreckage would be noted as a military success and would have been comunicated after the wreckage was found.
If we are not fond of such an option it would be better to exclude it by proving, that no single engine or partial power BFO/BTO track can be constructed.
@JeffWise; Wouldn’t you “pull” circuit breakers to disable the SDU, not reboot it? It is also not clear to me if the LH bus was isolated in the cockpit, could the SDU be re-powered from the E/E Bay?
The perp could have shut down the SDU and the “good guys” tried to re-power it at 18:22 to start communications, or the perp turned it back on because it was getting cold and he wanted heat in the flight deck or maybe just wanted to catch a movie before becoming a martyr. Either way, the last radar at 18:22 and the 18:25 reboot could be a coincidence.
@Ge Rijn – Before you offer any scenario where the a/c is running on one engine, you must ask yourself can it still meet the 5h55m fuel endurance along with the BTO’s and BFO’s.
@Oleksandr – If I google a map of Paris I could get a lot of points in my computer but none of them will include corresponding Throttle Position, Bank Angle, Engine RPM, etc. The fact that there were two SIO fuel exhaustion points on ZS’s computer makes it probable that ZS was involved.
@DennisW – If the words you posted from ZS’s Facebook page were indeed written by ZS, the probability that he did it increases, IMO.
@Ge Rijn Post (above)
“Leaving a crippled plane with one left engine burning that
Kate Tee saw heading to the south”…
_
http://jeffwise.net/2016/05/02/french-judiciary-report-raises-fresh-doubts-about-mh370-debris/comment-page-5/#comment-163138
NOTE: After above reference post, was seen below further information;
Paul Smithson Post June 30, 2016 at 2:00 AM;
“Let’s agree that the “NW extremity” implies a Singapore radar
asset with a NW arc extremity coinciding with this point,
implying asset position somewhere to the E (or NE or SE) of
this point.”
ALSO, NOTE;
VictorI Post June 19, 2016 at 10:44 AM;
(Quotes Agus mentioning a ‘another military radar suggestion’)”…
(for MH370 detection)…
VictorI said;
“I believe the military radar referred to was a Singapore AWACS
based on a comment from the ATSB to @Niels about MH370’s
clearance from Singapore radar in that vicinity.”
@All
In the above post, I am suggesting the aircraft Kate Tees saw was
a Singaporean military Boeing KC-135R aerial refueling aircraft.
Further, although we do not know if a Singapore AWACs Gulfstream
G550 or any Singapoe military ships were in the area, we do have
my suggestion, (based on Kate Tees aircraft sighting), that the
Singapore radar source in the area at that time which supposedly
detected MH370, could INSTEAD have been a Singaporean military
Boeing KC-135R aerial refueling aircraft.
Talking about social network activities, these two entries are perhaps a bit strange to be posted/shared publicly (if this is an authentic account).
https://www.facebook.com/zaharie.shah.3/posts/430698367004306
https://www.facebook.com/zaharie.shah.3/posts/337653149690433
Both seem to be related to a story purported at that time, when MAS was allegedly ordered to fly in foreign voters.
But then again, it doesn’t seem too uncommon to post exhilarated political comments in Malaysia and that was also around a year before the incident. So, it probably means nothing and certainly does not reveal suicidal tendencies imo.
Addendum to my above post;
MH370;
https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRcWzbu-8QEtzrmNx6CyifyJeMb52-dotFeOQWytPywNf9ajXk3
Singapore KC-135R;
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/KC135family.jpg
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a2/KC135s_Afghanistan.jpg/320px-KC135s_Afghanistan.jpg
Food for thought.
@Jeffwise
Yes, I too was taken aback by Geoffrey Thomas’ apparent naiveté. He is supposedly, a highly respected aviation commentator in Australia.
Ge Rijn,
“Explain please why the plane won’t fall back on backup generators. That’s what there for.”
See buyerninety’s post September 22, 2016 at 12:12 PM and Jeff’s post September 22, 2016 at 12:14 PM. Don’t mix-up generators with power buses: the former generate electrical power, the latter transfer it to various user systems.
If the IDG fails, quick automatic switching to cross-IDG or APU helps to keep bus powered all the time. The interruption is so short, that it does not affect equipment. But if circuit breakers are pulled, the bus would stay depowered. In this case the plane cannot fall on backup generators because those are also disconnected: power can be generated, but not transferred. Does this clarify?