Last week we discussed what we know about the first hour of MH370’s disappearance, based on primary radar data and the first Inmarsat BTO value. Today I’d like to talk about the BFO data and what it can tell us about MH370’s fate.
As longtime readers of this blog well know, the Burst Frequency Offset (BFO) is a type of metadata that measures how different the frequency of an Inmarsat signal is from its expected value. It is an important value to a communications satellite operator like Inmarsat because if the value gets too large, the system will be operating outside its approved frequency limit. One cause of such a change would be if a satellite begins wandering in its orbit, which indeed was the case with MH370. The fact that the Satellite Data Unit (SDU) aboard MH370 did not properly compensate for drift in the Inmarsat satellite overhead is the reason the BFO data contains a signal indicating what the plane was doing.
While each of the BTO values recording during the seven “pings” tells us fairly precisely how far the plane was from the satellite at that time, the BFO data points taken individually do not tell us much about the plane was doing. Taken together, however, they indicate three things:
- After the SDU logged back on with Inmarsat at 18:25, the plane took a generally southern course. If we didn’t have the BFO data, we wouldn’t know, from the BTO data alone, whether the plane followed a path to the north or to the south (see above.)
- The plane had turned south by 18:40. The BFO value at the time of the first incoming sat phone call at 18:40 indicates that the plane was traveling south.
- At 0:19:37 the plane was in a rapid and accelerating decent.
However, as I’ve previously described, if all of these things were true, then the plane would have been found by now. So at least one of them must be false. In the course of my interview with him, Neil Gordon said that the ATSB is firmly convinced that #3 is true, and that as a result he suspects that #2 is not. Specifically, he points out that if the plane were in a descent at 18:40, it could produce the BFO values observed. Thus it is possible that the plane did not perform a “final major turn” prior to 18:40 but instead loitered in the vicinity of the Andaman Islands or western Sumatra before turning and flying into the southern ocean. If this were the case, it would result in the plane turning up to the northeast of the current search area. An example of such a route has been described by Victor Iannello at the Duncan Steel website.
It is worth nothing that such a scenario was explicitly rejected as unlikely by the Australian government when they decided to spend approximately $150 million to search 120,000 square kilometers of seabed. The reason is that it was deemed unlikely that the plane would just happen, by chance to be descending at the right time and at the right rate to look like a southward flight. For my part, I also find it hard to imagine why whoever took the plane would fly it at high speed through Malaysian airspace, then linger for perhaps as much as an hour without contacting anybody at the airline, at ATC, or in the Malysian government (because, indeed, none of these were contacted) and then continuing on once more at high speed in a flight to oblivion.
Well, is there any other alternative? Yes, and it is one that, though historically unpopular, is becoming imore urgent as the plane’s absence from the search area becomes increasingly clear: the BFO data is unreliable. That is to say, someone deliberately altered it.
There are various ways that we can imagine this happening, but the only one that stands up to scrutiny is that someone on board the plane altered a variable in the Satellite Data Unit or tampered with the navigation information fed back to the SDU from the E/E bay. Indeed, we know that the SDU was tampered with: it was turned off, then logged back on with Inmarsat, something that does not happen in the course of normal aircraft operation. It has been speculated that this depowering and repowering occurred as the result of action to disable and re-enable some other piece of equipment, but no one has every come up with a very compelling story as to what that piece of equipment might be. Given the evident problems with the BFO data in our possession, I feel we must consider the possibility that the intended object of the action was the SDU itself.
When I say BFO tampering has been “historically unpopular,” what I mean is that almost everyone who considers themselves a serious MH370 researcher has from the beginning assumed that the BFO data was generated by a normally functioning, untampered-with SDU, and this has limited the scenarios that have been considered acceptable. For a long time I imagined that search officials might know of a reason why tampering could not have occurred, but I no longer believe this is the case. When I questioned Inmarsat whether it was possible that the BFO data could have been spoofed, one of their team said “all Inmarsat can do is work with the data and information and the various testings that we’ve been doing.” And when I raised the issue with Neil Gordon, he said, “All I’ve done is process the data as given to me to produce this distribution.” So it seems that the possibility of BFO spoofing has not been seriously contemplated by search officials.
If we allow ourselves to grapple with the possibility that the BFO data was deliberately tampered with, we quickly find ourselves confronting a radically different set of assumptions about the fate of the plane and the motives of those who took it. These assumptions eliminate some of the problems that we have previously faced in trying to make sense of the MH370 mystery, but introduce new ones, as I’ll explore in upcoming posts.
@StevanG,
You are suggesting that this is a coincidence by claiming the odds are one in a billion.
You fail to consider possibilities that would make the chances as high as 100%. Maybe they turned the heat up once they reached a stable altitude. Maybe the radio shorted out. Who knows.
Saying it’s one in a billion is like saying, “what are the chances an aircraft would crash only a few seconds before landing?”
@Oleksandr
Like all things in life there is no one main driver. It is the aggregate of information (“preponderance of evidence” if you prefer) we have that points me in that direction. One can find alternative explanations for just about anything if you try hard enough. It is truly amazing that people are found guilty of anything in a court of law.
The only bearing Shah’s involvement has on actually finding the plane is the dichotomy of flight paths one could postulate based on a piloted aircraft versus a zombie flight. We have just about reached the limit of the zombie flight possibilities.
StevanG,
“Plane flying exactly along thai border and turning around Indonesia in almost perfect way to evade their national airspace?!”
This is all your imagination to blame: it did not flew perfectly along Thai border. Also, where did you get it that they tried to avoid Indonesian airspace? Dennis says that radar data deserve garbage bin, Jeff thinks Indonesian radars were off, IG insists MH370 continued along N571 for a little while, Ge Rijn suggested an attack of interceptors, I believe it possibly entered holding pattern with descent. Everyone has his/her own imagination.
@Oleksandr
It would have been hard for Indonesian radar to miss the plane if the radar were operational. I too think the Indonesian radar was sleeping that night.
Dennis,
“We have just about reached the limit of the zombie flight possibilities.”
The limit is reached by those, who have flat thinking, i.e. those, who assume constant flight level.
Dennis,
I don’t think Lhoseumawe radar missed it. If a spiral descent really occurred around 18:22 as I am suggesting, Lhokseumawe would lose it soon. It makes no sense for Indonesian military to release nearly the same information as Malay/Thai military already did.
@DennisW @Oleksandr
“Indonesian radar was sleeping that night”
“Indonesian radars were off”
How likely was it that ALL the radar (Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Cocos, JORN, etc) would miss it? How could anyone know in advance that they could fly the route undetected and unchallenged? How many things could have gone wrong? How likely was it to succeed?
If the satellite data was spoofed, the plane could have gone anywhere after IGARI.
@DennisW
@Oleksandr
Guys, if the Indonesian military radar had been switched on that night, the risk of which Z had evaluated and considered insignificant, then they might have seen an aircraft flying along a recognized civil air route, at cruising altitude, and not approaching the Indonesian coast, given a yawn and gone back to playing patience.
@Oleksandr
Odds against a piece of debris inducing the ADIRU to begin spewing out garbage, 10 billion to one against.
And talking of spewing out garbage…., oh, forget it.
ROB,
“Odds against a piece of debris inducing the ADIRU to begin spewing out garbage, 10 billion to one against.”
How did you assess the probability? Does your number account for
sabotage, e.g. bomb? My point was what happens if ADIRU loses its original orientation with respect to the airframe.
ROB,
What are chances, btw, that debris hit an engine or fuel tanks? You know what I mean, right?
@Paul Smithson said;
“What else “might” have been happening at the time?” (circum-IGARI space).
You should have this on your list:
‘A change of frequency to 120.9 MHZ (per FI), possibly using the non-usual
radio TUNING PANEL, and a bank of the aircraft to the right as it changed
heading by about 30+ degrees as it did a fly-by of the IGARI waypoint.’
A change of frequency involves retuning a radio transmitter, of course.
Possibility therefore, for RF induced currents to cause a spark discharge.
Possibility for the bank to cause wiring or tubing to move and contact/
rub against other parts.
Some possibility (not previously explored) that a VHF radio TUNING PANEL
(was tuned) which would not usually be used to tune by either the pilot or
the co-pilot in the usual course of events.
The co-pilot undergoing ongoing instruction (777 ‘operational checkout’)
during the flight by the pilot, therefore whoever in the normal course of
a flight would usually tune their radio panel and make the ATC changeover
radio call, may not have done so but rather the other person may have
made this call and may have tuned to frequency using a radio TUNING PANEL
that is not-usually-used in the usual course of a flight, to do this.
@Oleksandr
“Does this sound like a possible explanation?”
I’d like to see some precedent where the problem was great enough to eliminate all communication and the pilots not trying to get to the ground within an hour, fly a holding pattern at some diversion airport etc.
Lack of known motive is not a strong counter-argument imo. There were 239 people on board, anything could have happened. It doesn’t make much sense to boil the question down to whether it was pilot suicide or technical malfunction.
@Nederland, I would like to see a precedent as well. Even if all communication was down, 239 people had cell phones. If the aircraft decended to a lower altitude basically anyone could have used their cell phone after Igari, including both pilots.
@PaulC, “How could anyone know in advance that they could fly the route, undetected and unchallenged”, ….Somone who knows the area like the back of his hand, someone who has a huge amount of flying experience and knows which radars are up and which go down after midnight.
@keffertje
How about someone who did an unnoticed dry run before using a different craft to compile data for the real deal.
@DennisW
how about Indonesian radar seeing it and pretending otherwise since its none of their business
@all
Strange that Malay and Thai radar stay on after midnight but indon and Australian stay off.
@Wazir, Indeed :). Malaysia and Indonesia are 2 hands on one belly. On the one hand it’s feasible ID radar was off, on the other hand it’s just as feasible MY talked them into keeping their mouths shut. ID radar detected MH370 on it’s way to Igari (which was after midnight) then claim they didn’t see it again because radars shut down at midnight. Seems odd right?
Wouldn’t MAS ops know it best as their flights go through the area as per
/quote:
Somone who knows the area like the back of his hand, someone who has a huge amount of flying experience and knows which radars are up and which go down after midnight.
/end-quote
Nederland: “the problem was great enough to eliminate all communication and the pilots not trying to get to the ground”
What if there was one switch that could explain it all? Isolate the left main electrical bus, taking the radios, SDU, and transponder with it? Deprive the flight deck of breathable air? The left engine fire extinguishing bottle switch does these things.
What if there was some onboard emergency that required a shutdown of the left engine, either due to actual or perceived left engine fire? What if there was no fire but, instead, the only way to descend was to shut down the left engine (due to control line damage)?
A later attempt to restart the engine would re-energize the left main electrical bus, bringing the SDU back to life.
Nederland,
“I’d like to see some precedent where the problem was great enough to eliminate all communication and the pilots not trying to get to the ground within an hour, fly a holding pattern at some diversion airport etc.”
Should similar combination of problems occurred in the past, respective modifications would be made and procedures would be put in place to prevent such incidents in the future.
With regard to communications, as I mentioned, Swiss Air 111 is an example. ACARS was down for 40 minutes before the crash; no communications via either of 3 available VHF radios.
Holding patterns are very common. For example, MH-192 on April 20, 2014. It was flying a holding pattern for several hours at KLIA to burn fuel as the aircraft was not equipped with jettison facilities. Tire burst was the cause of this incident.
Re: “It doesn’t make much sense to boil the question down to whether it was pilot suicide or technical malfunction.”
I can only partially agree. The issue is that to find out a reason, the crash site has to be found first. And to find it, one needs to make a set of consistent assumptions to complement the data:
1. Spoofing scenarios make it impossible to predicts where the aircrafts ended up. It can be anywhere within its huge fuel endurance area.
2. An assumption of the piloted flight makes it impossible to state anything except that it ended up at the 7th arc.
3. An assumption of a mechanical failure, particularly malfunctioning ADIRU. This leaves possibility of non-standard, but predictable flight modes and trajectories, all ending east of the current search zone, consistent with drift studies and many other observations.
4. Assumption of the simplest standard TRK/HDG hold modes, in combination with the ridiculous FMT and constant flight level. The aircraft is not found in the respective area, as I predicted 2 years ago. This area also contradicts to the drift studies and barnacle lab analysis.
Thus an assumption whether it was a suicide mission or technical failure is extremely important if the intent is to use it as a working hypothesis. But if it being presented as a conclusive statement, then it is only silly blah. I mean those, who make a lot of noise without evidence: “Z. did it”, “Mechanical failure can be ruled out”, etc.
@Oleksandr:
You wrote about “upon assessment of the situation they could realize that landing with >30 tons of kerosene, without communication means and without …”
Do you have any idea if an external fire to the plane would stop them from jettisoning fuel? It sounds likely.
@buyerninety
Regarding VHF frequency selection.
Common systems only require a switch selection.
Eg VHF would have the 1 already selected then a rotary switch
for each successive digits. 121.5.
Older systems used Xtals for each frequency , modern systems use frequency synthesisers to get any number of channels. Same with UHF start at 400 as 432.5
I would think there even would be a newer approach than this now available re comp. etc
The main thing is no actual ‘Tuning’ per say would be available from the cockpit. Hope this helps.
Like you Im always trying to think what we have missed.
BTW The customers receiver in China was to be
JHJ International Transportation Co., Ltd.
MD ahmad asayeshpour
Managing Director at JHJ International Transportation Co., Ltd.
Iran Logistics and Supply Chain
Cheers Tom L
Bruce,
Just read Swiss Air 111 crash investigation report: it explains why all the 3 VHFs and ACARS were down.
Also the intentional depowering buses as a measure to combat onboard fire is the most trivial explanation I heard up to date. Of course, re-powering could be attempted for many reasons, such as: aircon, jettison, communication. Possible panic and smog, as well as pilot’s instructions to the cabin crew prevented them from activating mobile ELT – something they must be trained for.
Johan,
I am not sure what you mean under “external” fire. Any severe “external” fire that cannot be extinguished would destroy the aircraft quickly.
@George Tilton. No I wasn’t, but thanks for drawing my attention to it. MH370 flight doesn’t fit the “long cold high” risk factor for ice formation whose detachment blocked the Fuel/Oil Heat Exchanger when additional thrust was commanded in last stages of BA38’s approach. Moreover, an aside in the AAIB (relating to fuel system certification for ice risk) includes the information that 10 degrees centigrade per hour is expected cooling rate of fuel in tanks during flight, and 9M-MRO had been in flight for just 40 mins. Out of interest, what was 9M-MRO’s immediately previous flight and how long had it been on the ground at WMKK?
Nederland,
P.S. I think it is important to keep in mind that mulfunctioning or disabled ADIRU leaves possibilities for “ghost flight” trajectories terminating outside of the current search zone. In this case SAARU and GPS provide navigational data, but most of the high-level autopilot functions become unavailable.
@Bruce Robertson
Quite an interesting point IMO.
Indeed when the left engine fire switch is pulled it will completely isolate that engine.
It normally can not be pulled accidentally or on purpose if there is no engine fire (warning).
But a fire override switch allows to surpass this prevention.
This indeed seems to be one simple action to shut down all those related systems at the same time. On purpose or resulting form a real left engine fire warning.
Hope to read more information on this.
For those interested I put a detailed link on:
http://okigihan.blogspot.nl/p/boeing-777-aircraft-fire-detection-and.html
@Oleksandr:
Is “exterior” easier? I mean fire, not in the cabins or cargo area, inside the hull, but externally, on exterior parts as landing gear, engines. I thought mainly about this being a hinder to dropping fuel (the risk that the jettisoned kerosene would be ignited?), but you are probably right that landing or extiguishing, respectively, would be first concerns — the former esp. if the there is fire where it can’t be treated. Still there is your argument that they wouldn’t land with their tanks full.
To summarize: could a fire (anywhere) be an argument against jettisoning fuel? It seemingly leaves them in a Catch 22, but that is perhaps illusory. There would be protocols with prioritized actions for many, but perhaps not any, chain of events. Judging from how they behaved, they either had an exterior fire they thought they could treat in the air, or an interior fire that needed immediate attention where they were — or both.
@Keffertje
“Someone who knows … which go down after midnight”
Oh, so someone planning the next 9/11 just has to wait until everyone is asleep and they will not be noticed?
To be frank, there are pages of discussion on this blog about evading both military and civilian radar. It always boils down to: indolence on the part of the radar operators; and, cunning tactics and superior knowledge of the pilot.
If he “knew it like the back of his hand” and estimated that he had a 90% chance, in each country, of getting away with it as he passed radar stations in: Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Cocos and JORN – his cumulative odds of success were 53%! Not to mention any spy satellites in the skies above, which he also had to avoid – how did he know about them?
That was the ‘master plan’? It is all nonsense!
If you look at the whole, rather than one small section of the flight, it is clear that nobody could have known what would happen – how could he possibly have known JORN would be switched off? The Australians have only recently told us that.
One more thought for you: if you were sitting in KL and really wanted to steal a plane and fly it to oblivion in the SIO, would you chose a plane flying East? Would this not massively complicate your plan, because of all the radar stations you would have to avoid? Does it make any difference which plane, or which day of the week, you do the deed? If not, why not just bide your time for a day or two, until you are flying to Africa or the Middle East? Take off, fly out over the IO, then switch off everything and make an unscheduled turn to the left! Much easier and far better chance of success!
If all these radar/ATC operators are so dumb, it cannot possibly be safe to fly anywhere in SE Asia.
@Oleksandr
The Swissair 111 accident has often been mentioned in comparison in the early days of the disappearance.
According to the accident report
http://www.sust.admin.ch/pdfs/AV-berichte//1762_en.pdf
ACARS was lost temporarily because the pilots switched from data to voice mode to comunicate temporary radio failure, but this is clearly evidenced in the Inmarsat logs (p. 183). The reason for this were tuning errors. Transponder worked correctly.
The crew was later able to communicate their situation constantly and immediately tried an emergency landing.
A holding pattern would make sense as opposed to trying to get away as soon as possible.
A combination scenario (e.g. abduction/hijacking followed by technical malfunctions) seems possible imo, however.
@PaulC
you said:
“if you were sitting in KL and really wanted to steal a plane and fly it to oblivion in the SIO, would you chose a plane flying East? Would this not massively complicate your plan, because of all the radar stations you would have to avoid? Does it make any difference which plane, or which day of the week, you do the deed? If not, why not just bide your time for a day or two, until you are flying to Africa or the Middle East? Take off, fly out over the IO, then switch off everything and make an unscheduled turn to the left! Much easier and far better chance of success!”
Exactly. That is absolutely key, and that is the main reason why all suicide theories are suspect IMO. Suicide is not time critical or even location critical. There is some reason that 9M-MRO disappeared on that particular flight. The only possibilities I can think of:
1> Mechanical failure of some sort.
2> Cargo – something special on that particular flight. But then, why fly into the SIO at all? Unless, as Susie Crowe postulates, the intention was to destroy the cargo.
3> External event driven.
!> Requires no further explanation. It was simply a random event unrelated to human choice. Improbable – yes. Impossible – no. Cannot be ruled out.
2> Certainly this possibility has been discussed at length here. No one has been able to nail it down, however. I know of no way to rule it out.
3> I cannot come up with an event that would initiate or require such urgent action, and I have looked pretty hard. Again, it cannot be ruled out.
Again, the question of “why that flight?” should dominate our thinking. Just my opinion.
@DennisW
We are ad idem on that – it had to be THAT flight. So, “why that flight?”
As I said yesterday, I am of the ‘cargo’ fraternity and the answer to: “why fly into the SIO at all”, in my view, is that it did not.
I believe that there is ample evidence that there is an on-going cover-up of something to do with the cargo (not mangosteens or walkie talkies – something not disclosed) but the explicit implication of ‘extra cargo’ is that the range of the flight was less than assumed. The extra weight would reduce endurance. It could not reach the SIO.
@PaulC
IMO if it was a planned dissapearance it must have been planned in detail on forehand.
This IMO would also have included a specific departure time and arrival time and a specific time-window concerning the time of year.
Considering flying in the dark, duration of the flight and sunrise times at the arrival area.
Also the expected weather in the SIO at that time could have been considered. It was still summer there with relatively calm wether.
To meet this criteria limited options of flights would be usable. More limiting if he was not sheduled to take a flight meeting his criteria in that periode.
His first choice would have been a straight flight to Europe or the Middle East but when this option became not available in time he could have chosen to take this MH370 flight as a last option.
I understand Z. voluteered for this flight and stept in for another pilot.
Maybe he took his change, for a possible better later option would not meet the named criteria anymore.
It was a flight with a lot more risk of detection and interception but as it turned out it would be a risk he possibly knew he could take flying the plane the way he did.
I think then the general planned scenario would have stayed the same going straight to the north-west from KL or first going east and then turn.
Both would have included going dark at a FIR-boundery.
In case of going straight to the nort-west this would have been the Chennai FIR boundery.
Speculative ofcourse. But if this was all planned by the captain he also must have considered departure and arrival times and time of the year/weather expectations IMO.
@PaulC, So you are basically saying the ISAT data is all wrong?
@PaulC, If you are in the cargo camp: what could be THAT valuable that the transporter would use a commercial flight to take it to Beijing? If the cargo was that special anyone with a brain would have used private transportation, security people included.
@Ge Rijn
You are assuming that it was planned and are then suggesting facts, or identifying uncertainties, that might have been part of a very complicated ‘plan’.
TBH it is all far too hard and far too uncertain. If there ever was a plan, one of the key items for success was that numerous others (radar/ATC/etc) were going to do nothing. In my view that was so unlikely, I would have binned the plan as fanciful.
The basic rule is “keep it simple”.
If Z had stolen a plane heading to Europe or the ME, why did the time of day matter? He was straight out over the IO after take-off. He could have just picked a spot along the route and ‘poof’ – gone! Day or night just does not matter.
You said: “I understand Z. voluteered for this flight” – do you have a source for that please?
@Keffertje
“So you are basically saying the ISAT data is all wrong?” – yes it was spoofed and I suggested in my posts yesterday who might have done it.
“If the cargo was that special anyone with a brain would have used private transportation, security people included.” – disagree. If I wanted to slip something through, I would not draw attention to it by organising a one-off private transport. I would guard the cargo n the ground and pick a random flight with the minimum of notice.
@PaulC, “..I would not draw attention to it by organising a one-off private transport. I would guard the cargo on the ground and pick a rondom flight with the minimum of notice.”…….So if you had to transport priceless cargo, you would not use an armored car but resort to using a random car that is not noticed? For real? And would you have insurance for this priceless cargo that you are transporting? No insurance claims have been reported.
@Keffertje
You are assuming that the cargo was ‘priceless’ – I simply think it was important to the Chinese and they wanted it to arrive in Beijing with the minimum of fuss and the absolute minimum of attention. A short-notice or ‘surprise’, transport was their best option.
Whatever it was, I am 100% sure it would not have been ‘insured’ – it was not that sort of item.
I also believe the cargo was heavy, which is why the plane was weight restricted and had 55 empty seats. The 4 standby passengers were said at the time to ‘replace’ 4 no-shows. Two questions: why any ‘standby’ passengers if the plane had empty seats; and, why ‘replace’ which has the connotation of ‘bringing back to full complement’ – i.e. were seats blocked?
Then you have the complete misdirection on page 30 of the FI – why do they name alternate airports (much further away from Beijing – but which justify a heavy fuel load) than the real alternates listed on page 9 of the same report?
That is was something China wanted, also explains the unprecedented high level involvement of China in the early days of the search – they wanted to get their cargo back.
@Keffertje
I just reread my last post and realise I should have said: “…rumoured to have been weight restricted…” – sorry for that.
@PaulC
I only assumed that IF the vanishing/disapearance was planned by the captain the named reasons could have been criteria to have chosen/voluteered this particular flight IMO.
His only worry would be the Malaysian radar and military IMO.
After Penang the plane followed a common flight route and stayed in Malaysian FIR-territory.
It would not have raised special attention of Indonesian, Thai or any other radar. Just another passenger plane on its way.
IMO an expirienced pilot would have known that.
I agree it’s complicated but it was about looking for possible reasons why the captain chose this particular flight.
Reference to Zaharie stepping in on this flight from a Reddit-article:
“According to this Astro Awani article , a lady who is supposedly the wife of one of MAS’s pilots, Anas Mazlin, wrote the following on her Facebook page right after the news of the disappearance of the flight came out :
“My dearest hubby..Anas Mazlin..suppose to fly that flight to Beijing last night..but his name was removed at the last minute..Ya Allah I am so grateful..God has destined us to live together longer..eventhough that flight has been scheduled since last month..I really am grateful.”
Screenshot of the Facebook status : http://i.imgur.com/U5KCw7N.png
MAS confirmed that they have a pilot by the name of Anas Mazlin, but denies the change in pilots, as it says it was done according to the existing roster.
Also in Malaysian online forums, rumours has been circulating that the pilot was actually on leave during that period of time. According to this snapshot from one of the forums :
1- Many people don’t know that Captain Zaharie was already on leave for a couple of days, but he was urgently called to fly that plane by higher ups. Who are this higher ups?
2- This has been confirmed by a close friend of him in MAS who was shocked as why he was called on short notice to fly the plane, and he himself learnt that during the press conference by MAS at 1000hrs on the 8th of March.”
@PaulC:
About spy satellites and choice of flight: you don’t happen to have data on where the major powers’ satellites were at the time of both mh370 and mh17?
It could perhaps tell us something if there is some kind of connection there.
@Ge Rijn
Thank you for that.
You said: “…it was about looking for possible reasons why the captain chose this particular flight” – that was really my point too, I don’t believe he did plan it, or indeed that he was responsible for whatever happened.
You said: “…he was urgently called to fly that plane by higher ups” – WOW!
That rather debunks any idea that he planned it (or that he volunteered) but if true, it says that this was a very important flight and ‘higher ups’ wanted one of their most experienced and trusted pilots to fly it. There was something very special about that flight before it left the ground.
@PaulC:
It is perhaps always good to know the movement of the heavenly bodies…
@Johan
“data on where the major powers’ satellites were…”
Sadly I only have guesses, no hard data.
I have a suspicion that with MH370, at least one major power knew what was going to happen and would very likely have repositioned a satellite to keep an eye on things. In fact there may have been 3 satellites following it very closely!
With MH17 – it was a war zone and I am 100% sure that at least 2 major powers would have had the whole area under constant satellite surveillance.
@PaulC:
How many satellites would you need to keep an area as big as Ukraine’s (even the eastern half) under constant surveillance?
One side of it being that the blind times are of special interest.
My bad — geostationary.
Was there geostationary satellites?
@PaulC:
Ge Rijn and us might have to rely on other sources than Malaysian discussion forums when making chains of evidence.
@Johan
Goes are not used for surveillance. Too far away, and those slots are all allocated for comms.
@Ge Rijn, Interesting but basically all here say, rumours and gossip. If Zahari was called in at “the last minute” his wife would have voiced that from day 1 (which she did not). Especially in light of Z being the number 1 suspect.
@PaulC, Noone can produce any example products as it relates to the cargo. You are saying its really heavy but not insured (I don’t know how you would know if it was/wasn’t) because it was not priceless (also here: how would you know that?). Only the Chinese wanted it (how would you know that?). Yet the plane ended up in the SIO, cargo and all. It makes zero sense. The cargo on Mh370 was as straightforward as can be. There is nothing there.