Implications of the JIT’s MH17 report

buk-telar

Last week, the Joint Investigation Team conducting a criminal investigation into the downing of idH17 issued their preliminary findings. Here’s what I think are the main takeaways.

— The findings strongly endorse the work of “open source intelligence” pioneer Eliot Higgins and his group, Bellingcat. In the immediate aftermath of the shoot-down, it was accepted by nearly every pundit and journalist that the missile had been fired accidentally by poorly trained militiamen who had somehow gotten their hands on an SA-11 Buk launcher and had a acquired a target without bothering to first identify it. But by painstaking work and great resourcefulness, the Bellingcat team was able to piece together an extremely convincing timeline, by which the launcher was brought across the border from a specific Russian military unit, was transported under the direction of the GRU (Russian military intelligence), shot down MH17, and was sent back across the border that night. As I’ve written previously, the timeline described by Bellingcat does not fit with the hapless-militiaman scenario very well. As the New York Times reported, “It is unlikely that anyone not connected with the Russian military would have been able to deploy an SA-11 missile launcher from Russia into a neighboring country.”

— While still admiting the possibility that the Buk crew acted on its own, the report shifts the emphasis to the once-unthinkable: that the missile launch was ordered by higher-ups:

…an investigation is conducted into the chain of command. Who gave the order to bring the BUK-TELAR into Ukraine and who gave the order to shoot down flight MH17? Did the crew decide for themselves or did they execute a command from their superiors? This is important when determining the offences committed by the alleged perpetrators.

As the New York Times put it, the JIT has signaled that it intends “to build an open-and-shut case against individual suspects and to diagram the chain of command behind the order to deploy and launch.”

One can just about imagine a wet-behind-the-ears lieutenant, newly trained and sitting nervously in the cab of his Buk TELAR, messing up and accidentally firing a missile at an unidentified target. But it is harder to imagine an experienced senior officer mistakenly giving the order. Indeed, the higher one goes up the chain of command, the less likely that the decision was made without explicit or implicit endorsement by an immediate superior. The implication, then, is that the order to shoot down MH17, if it did come from anywhere, came from the very top.

— One new piece of information that was revealed in last week’s presentation was that on the day before MH17 was shot down, a rebel commander was recorded making an emotional telephone call to a superior in the regular Russian military, complaining that his troops were vulnerable to Ukrainian air attacks—specifically, by Su-25 ground-attack jets—and that they needed Buks to protect them.

This could be interpreted as evidence that the delivery of the Buk that shot down MH17 was initiated by the militia. Alternatively, it could be a coincidence that a militia commander happened to ask for a missile system the Russian military had already decided to deploy. I think the latter is more likely, for the simple reason that the Buk missile system was not the most appropriate weapon for defending against Su-25s or the other low-altitude planes then in service against the separatists.

The Su-25 is more or less the Russian counterpart of the American A-10: it is designed for low-altitude strafing attacks, with a maximum altitude of 23,000 feet. Another plane used by the Ukrainian military at the time was the An-26 transport, with a maximum altitude of 25,000 feet. A potent defence against these planes would be the Pantsir anti-aircraft system, a mobile rocket launcher that also incorporates self-aiming quad machine guns to automatically blast low-flying attackers out of the sky. Compared to the Buk, which can reach targets above 80,000 feet high, the Pantsir can reach no higher than 26,000 feet. But unlike the Buk it can handle jets flying low under the radar, as the Su-25 can do.

It is known that Pantsirs were present and active in eastern Ukraine at the time of the shootdown. On July 14, an An-26 military transport plane was flying at about 20,000 feet when it was shot down. Ukrainian military assumed that it was downed either by a Pantsir or by an air-to-air missile fired from a Russian fighter jet flying on the other side of the Russian-Ukrainian border. On July 16, a Su-25 flying at nearly the same altitude was also shot down, again either by a Pantsir or an air-to-air missile. The blog Putin@War found satellite imagery of Pantsir units near the Ukraine-Russian border in August of 2016.

The limited reach of the Pantsir is one of the reasons that officials believed that airliners would be perfectly safe traveling higher than 32,000 feet, and so kept the airspace open to airline traffic. Buks were not known to be in the theater—and, indeed, up until the day of the shoot-down, it seems that they weren’t.

As a general principle, you do not want to send equipment into a poorly regulated battlespace that is any more powerful than it needs to be. The potential danger is too great. Retired U.S. military intelligence officer Peter Akins told me that, having had experience with many brushfire wars on its perimeter, the Russians know better than to carelessly hand out strategically powerful weapons like the Buk. “My guess is that they’re pretty carefully controlled,” he says. “We ran into real problems in Afghanistan with giving mujahadeen all those Stingers (MANPADS) that they used to take out Russian helicopters. Stingers have a relatively long shelf life. So once the mujahadeen became Taliban, if they could get to the top of a mountain in Afghanistan they could increase the operational envelope of the missile so that they could target US aircraft. So that’s one of the lessons that we learned, which is don’t give out MANPADS. I don’t know where the idea for ‘Let’s give an SA-11 to a separatist movement in the Donetsk National Sovereignty Front’ would have come from. That’s not the actions of a responsible government.”

— The weight of the JIT’s authority has, I think, severely undermined the army of Kremlin trolls who have been promoting a fog of pro-Russian conspiracy theories almost from day one. As Finnish defense writer Robin Häggblom put it, “the amount of evidence found in both open and non-open source has reached such levels that the question of whether a Russian supplied Buk shot down MH17 can now be considered a litmus test for whether you are under the influence of Russian propaganda or not.”

— The slow, grinding, meticulous building of the case against Russia feels unstoppable—and it could lead to a huge and potentially dangerous political crisis. In the wake of the JIT’s presentation, Moscow responded with such fury that the Dutch foreign minister summoned the Russian ambassador. In response, the Russian foreign minister summoned the Dutch ambassador in Moscow. Meanwhile, Australia’s foreign minister said that whoever was responsible for the shoot-down could face an international tribunal like the one who found Libyan agents guilty for the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie Scotland. Russia has already used its security council powers to block a UN investigation.

As I’ve been saying for a long time now, if it is determined that the Russian leadership deliberately ordered the shoot-down of MH17, the implications for MH370 are obvious—one of the difficulties in trying to understand MH370 is that, though it was clearly a deliberate act, there was no plausible motive. MH17 provides, if not understanding of what the motive was, clear evidence that a motive existed, in mid-2014, for a great power to take down a Malaysia Airlines 777. If an international Lockerbie-style commission is ultimately set up to assign criminal blame for Ukraine tragedy, then it is not too far out to imagine a similar body being established to do the same for MH370.

UPDATE: The Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab has published a nice overview of the anti-aircraft weapons systems that Russia has deployed in Eastern Ukraine. It seems that the Buk TELAR deployed from July 16 to 18, 2014, was the only one that threatened civil air traffic over the region.

534 thoughts on “Implications of the JIT’s MH17 report”

  1. @DrBobbyUlich

    –“You seem to forget that the FMC defaults to a heading mode when a route discontinuity occurs (when the last entered waypoint is reached). It appears likely that that the FMC then maintains a constant magnetic heading, but the magnetic declination is not updated. Effectively the result is a constant true heading route thereafter. If the last entered waypoint was BEDAX (or another nearby waypoint), essentially all of the post-FMT route would be flown at a constant true heading.”

    Overflying the final waypoint, the FMC ceases to command the autopilot completely and the MCP will snap to the existing MAGNETIC (not true) HDG, ALT & mach hold. True would have had to be re-selected after the MCP took over.

    If the last input was BEDAX, the HDG held after overflying it would be whatever HDG was flown INTO BEDAX. If it is your assumption that BEDAX was reached via a 180 HDG, then you are correct that a 180 HDG would be maintained thereafter.

    If it is your assumption that because the HDG knob had been dialed to 180 prior to BEDAX, an aircraft approaching BEDAX via LNAV from the East would then TURN to 180, you are mistaken.

  2. @Matt Moriarty,

    No, I have never supposed that, at a route discontinuity, the heading would revert to whatever number was last entered into the MCP. Instead, the current heading would be maintained, and since the magnetic declination would not be updated, the true heading at the time of the discontinuity would be maintained thereafter.

    You say that the current speed mode would change to hold whatever Mach was current in the MCP. Can you provide a reference for this conclusion? My assumption was that whatever speed mode was being used in the FMC would be continued since there is no reason to change it. For ECON and HOLDING this is not a constant Mach. Of course, there would be no perceptible change in speed at the time of the discontinuity in either case, but they would eventually be different as the outside air temperature changed.

    @Gysbreght,

    None, of course. Only 180 MT, 180 TH, and 180 MH are different.

  3. Matt Moriarty,

    You say that after overflying the last waypoint, the current magnetic (not true) heading will be maintained, and true would need to be reselected. That information conflicts with what was written in the DSTG book (p. 41):

    “Expert advice indicates that if the autopilot system is operating in lateral navigation mode and it reaches the final programmed waypoint, then it reverts to the previously selected heading hold mode, i.e., Constant Magnetic Heading or Constant True Heading.”

    Can you help resolve?

    Bobby Ulich,

    You say that, after passing the last waypoint, “the magnetic declination would not be updated”. I had never heard that before (nor seen it written) – can you provide a source?

  4. @LaurenH
    Good…but I am left hanging with FO alive in the EE Bay with O2 bottle and 2 big O2 cylinders, but OK, it’s probably not easy to hack into the O2 cylinders with the tools at hand.

    PAX O2 masks: My understanding they will drop automatically (no “OFF” button). Possibly there is an advanced way to pull a circuit breaker for the cabin pressure sensor which controls the alarm sequence for low cabin pressure.

    re: FO phone connection, that is still undisclosed info but JeffW now suspects it may be true. If true, my understanding is it could simply mean the phone was on, not that a call was actually being made.

    You are basically saying modified pilot suicide scenario similar to pilots Ewan Wilson (book Goodnight Malaysian 370) and Ed Baker (blog) which I adopt as the most likely explanation (from the known facts).

    Most feel there is great deal of undisclosed info, so we are stuck in June_2014 for facts.

  5. @Johan
    Yes, agreed, the statement by Z’s sister seems very genuine. I’m not in any particular camp re: who did this but agree with Jeff that it was very, very likely a deliberate action, not a chain of mechanical/electrical/etc. failures.

  6. @DrBobbyUlich

    1) All FMC routes are mag routes by definition because airways, runways and all RNAV procedures are mag. True can be displayed in the ND at anytime even when flying FMC mag routes, but the FMC speaks only the mag language.

    2) My reference is my own knowledge of the Honeywell setup I gained doing flight models for X-Plane in the early 2000’s, my own experience in many hours of level D sims in B763 & MD11 as well as in the GFC700 autopilot I use in my real flying, backed up by B777 captain buddy who has been my fact checker since Mar 2014 to prevent me from talking out my ass on a matter that concerns the deaths of many innocent people. I just reconfirmed with him and here are his texts, verbatim:

    “Yes the autopilot reverts 2 Heading Alt and Speed Hold if u don’t touch anything. No FMC Guidance since u r past the waypoint it says damn I’ll just continue what I’ve been doing”

    “The FMC has the route programmed in mag courses but the Navigation Display has a switch with a capability of moving from MAG to TRU mode
    The TRU mode is usually not used below [meaning south of] Latitude 70N but will correct the Nav Display for Variation and show the TRU Course when in that mode even though the FMC was programmed in MAG Courses for the route”

    “When LNAV is engaged the airplane will fly the programmed route. It was initially programmed in MAG but the ND can be switched to TRU and if LNAV is engaged it will fly that displayed TRU Course. Does that make sense
    HDG SPD & ALT Commands on MCP have nothing to do with programmed FMC Course”

  7. @ Matty,
    As I read it, does the last paragraph “effectively” mean:
    In effect, with LNAV engaged, it will continue to fly MAG regardless of whether or not the the switch is set to MAG or TRU.
    If set on MAG, the displayed magnetic heading will remain constant, but if the switch is set to TRU, the displayed TRU heading will gradually change as the flight continues into areas of changing declination.

    Correct or not ?

  8. @all

    More funny shit:

    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/aviation/atsb-bulletin-jumped-gun-on-mh370-death-dive-consensus/news-story/cf7d9e9249536d4c787652f4925267fa

    Is there any respect left for any of the parties associated with the “official search”?

    There has been obfuscation, deliberate withholding of information that is not classified (previous tracks of of 9M-MRO) and radar data, and outright lies – the cellphone connect at Penang. I used to think the Aussies were pretty straight up. No mas. They are just as bad as the Malays.

  9. @DrBobbyUlich
    Thank you for the Egyptair B772 O2 mask fire reminder. The one interesting detail was approx. 800 psig O2 supply vs. pre-flight adjustment from 1750 to 1800 psig prior to MH370.

    For a system failure crash cause scenario, I agree that is a very good hypothesis. Many others of course (exploded tire, etc).

  10. @ventus45

    Close and yet not. In LNAV on a great circle leg of a distance long enough to experience a change in declination, the magnetic TRACK will change greatly over the course of the flight, especially on east-west great circle routes that plot as a curve on a Mercator map. So will the MAG HDG change, but some of that will be wind correction because you’re in LNAV which follows the magenta line religiously, even in a 100 knot crosswind.

    In HDG/SEL (either MAG or true) the HDG will not change unless you twist the knob. In MAG HDG/SEL, the track over the ground when plotted on a Mercator map will curve according to both variation & wind. In MAG TRK/SEL, the ground track will curve only with variation because wind correction is applied by the AP.

    A TRK/ SEL in True will plot as a straight line on both a Mercator and a Lambert map, but only on a Lambert map will this track be a great circle route. HDG/SEL in true is the same, except the track will be affected by wind.

  11. @DrBobbyUlich

    To be clear, MCP will snap to whatever flight state was prior to overflying the last FMC input. Not any previous MCP settings. In case I was unclear about that.

  12. @DennisW, Either the Australians are incompetent or in cohorts with the Malays. It begs the question why there is such lack of transparency, from both sides. It’s a joke, at the expense of the PAX and NOK, 1st and foremost. The ATSB and MY can’t wait to bury this one, fast.

  13. @Keffertje

    There is no longer any semblance of “good faith” in the search. It is now a check box exercise.

    The Aussies really puked on themselves in this whole endeavor IMO. The Malays behaved in a manner that was consistent with the image I had of them – a bunch of scumbags. Not so the Aussies.

  14. @DennisW

    Sadly, all jokes aside, I have to say (as a deeply (pun) embarrassed Aussie), that the ATSB were “way out of their depth” from the beginning.
    They could not even manage to retrieve the CVR and FDR from VH-NGA (The Westwind that ditched off Norfolk Island in 2009) from a mere 48 metres down, until “forced” to do so by the Senate.
    The “seven year investigation / re-investigation” is “still” running.
    See https://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/investigation_reports/2009/aair/ao-2009-072.aspx
    If you have plenty of bandwidth, view the 4 Corners Program on it at: http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2012/08/30/3579404.htm
    There is also a heap of information on AuntyPru if you have the time.
    Very competent, very credible agency is “Dolan’s (now retired)” ATSB.

  15. Briefly getting back to the theme of Jeff’s latest post.

    Viktor Bout was a former Soviet military officer who became a weapons smuggler to sanctioned foreign governments and groups.
    He was finally arrested in Thailand 2008 and later extradited to the US despite much protestation from the Russian govt.

    Although he is portrayed as an independant operator in the media, many informed writers suggest he was actually protected by the Russian govt. and was working with them rather than against them, and that he was merely a pawn in the large scale arms smuggling operations orchestrated by the Russ. secret services.

    http://www.newsweek.com/viktor-bouts-secrets-frighten-kremlin-72249

    One such writer for the NYT in this revealing article from 2003 makes mention of Odessa in post-Soviet Ukraine as the center of arms smuggling operations in the world.
    http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/17/magazine/arms-and-the-man.html

    It was in the chaos and poverty of the post-Soviet era that as a young man, Viktor Bout became established, first as an air-transport operator, then morphed into an arms smuggler.

    I find it interesting that two of the men on MH370 are both from Odessa and are of similar age as Viktor Bout and probably shared the same experiences, yet little to nothing is known about their background except that they worked for a shady online furniture retailer that started operations in 2013.

  16. The MH370 ‘loiter’ theory near the Andaman & Nicobar Islands makes even more sense when one considers the geography and topography of these islands.
    ABN??? suggested that anyone landing in these islands will be met by the Indian military.
    But if the highjackers successfully parachuted into one of the ‘hundreds’ of un-inhabited islands, there would be ample spots to hide and wait for a pickup from a sub or a boat. Plus the Indian govt. actively discourages contact between non-locals and the indigenous tribes that inhabit these islands in order to preserve these tribes.

    According to the Indian Govt. the immediate threat facing these islands are ‘non-conventional threats like poaching, illegal settlements, gunrunning and use of A&N’s uninhabited islands as hideaways by terrorist groups and smugglers’.

    http://www.idsa.in/event/SecuringAndamanandNicobarislands

    One thing to keep in mind is that if the surface vessel which picked up the highjackers did cross through the Malacca Strait, they would have to self-identify themselves with the 3-nation monitoring system for the Malacca Strait known as STRAITREP.

    http://www.mpa.gov.sg/web/portal/home/port-of-singapore/port-operations/vessel-traffic-information-system-vtis/straitrep

  17. @Ventus45, I think Australia let themselves be harnassed in front of MY chariot from the get go. Investigation (MY) and search (AU) cannot be separated IMO. As a result the ATSB got blindsided, developed tunnel vision and then couldn’t pull their heals out of the mud. Australia was just way to nice to the Malays if you ask me.

  18. If the hijackers jumped out of mh370 what would they have gained at nicobars or were able to takeaway? Not sure if anything of high value but light enough for parachuting existed in cargo.

  19. @DennisW:
    It is apparently time to pick up the “unresponsive investigator scenario” once again. To me they are boiling the same nail pretending it is a soup. I dare not speak much more but it is not the plane they are looking for. Is the impresssion one gets. But they are at least pretty easy to see through. And not dogmatic about it — at least not when it is time to change perception. I can’t see this coming from MAY, really, more from, well, someone else (not a state).

  20. @Gysbreght

    It only shows you didn’t actually read my post :(.

    I said the use of an along-track waypoint avoids the need to enter a latitude and longitude. I am quite aware that a along-track waypoint procedure cannot be used to enter a latitude/longitude waypoint. I will try to keep the following explanation as simple as possible for you:

    The rogue pilot stays in LNAV. He turns the corner at IGOGU, and the FMC aligns the plane onto the IGOGU/ISBIX geodesic. Before he gets to ISBIX, he inserts a manual, along-track waypoint with positive offset from ISBIX, the amount of offset estimated to site the new waypoint beyond the estimated point of fuel exhaustion (a basic estimate only, reqd). The new waypoint replaces ISBIX, in the FMC flight plan, and the plane continues on the same geodesic until fuel exhaustion.

    PS. the pilot had previously worked out that an IGOGU/ISBIX geodesic, when extended to fuel exhaustion, would put the plane where he wanted it at fuel exhaustion. If I could do this using the online Vincenty Calculator, and the NOAA Sunrise Calculator, I’m sure our pilot could have!

    It just happened that ISBIX was the most suitable waypoint on this particular flight. There are are a good number of waypoints to choose from, in the region. As soon as he turns the corner, he sets up the along-track waypoint to replace ISBIX. This would ensue that the aircraft would end up where he wanted, even if he were rendered unconscious (for whatever reason) before fuel exhaustion. As you know, if he had left it to the computer, he would have dropped out of LNAV when it reached the discontinuity at ISBIX, and the autopilot would have reverted to Heading Hold (true or magnetic, depending on the MCP switch setting)

    An elegant solution, n’est pas?

  21. Even though I don’t agree with the ATSB’s interpretation of the BFO’s, the article in The Australian is inflating a mosquito to an elephant.

  22. @Matt Moriarty

    As (obviously) not being a pilot I try to figure out which most normal AP-mode a pilot would have chosen to perform the FMT and to fly those ~3000 miles into the SIO.

    Your professional information on this is tempting me to make more sence out of this.
    So if you don’t mind I try to make an interpretation of your information and ask you to comment on it (keeping in mind I’m not a pilot whatsoever..).

    As I understand it a pilot would not choose a MAG/HDG/SEL mode for it will not compensate for mag.variation and wind.
    In MAG/TRK/SEL it will compensate for wind but not for mag.variation unless ‘true’ is selected.

    Now what (I wondered) if the pilot entered specific lat/long coördinates just before FMT in the FMC and selected MAG/TRK/SEL in the ‘true’ mode.
    Would the plane make the turn and just fly straight to those entered coördinates?
    Would this be a logical thing to do for a pilot?

  23. @ROB: “I said the use of an along-track waypoint avoids the need to enter a latitude and longitude.”

    Yes, and that is wrong, if you read the FCOM. The along-track waypoint must be on a track between waypoints, the FMC doesn’t extrapolate a track beyond the last waypoint.

  24. @Matt Moriarty,

    You said: “To be clear, MCP will snap to whatever flight state was prior to overflying the last FMC input. Not any previous MCP settings. In case I was unclear about that.”

    Just to be 100% clear, am I correct in understanding that you think the following will happen at a route discontinuity: (1) the altitude will not change, (2) the speed mode will not change (ECON, Holding, LRC, etc.), and (3) the heading at which the aircraft is currently flying will not change?

    With respect to the heading, I think it will stay effectively constant as a true heading because the MCP holds the current magnetic heading constant but does not update the magnetic declination (also called variation) as the aircraft position changes. Here I am talking about the path the aircraft actually flies (and not necessarily the MCP or FMC displays). The nuance for heading control boils down to this: If, as you say, the FMC switches to the MCP for roll control immediately upon a route discontinuity, and the MCP holds the magnetic heading constant, does the MCP update the magnetic declination over time thereafter? If it does, the aircraft track will actually follow a constant magnetic heading. If it does not update the magnetic declination, the aircraft track will have a constant true heading. Of course, the true heading and the magnetic heading will not be the same number of degrees. They will differ by the magnetic declination at the location of the route discontinuity.

    (For sk999:) Based on what Brian Anderson reported on this blog some weeks ago from a contact at Honeywell, it seems the magnetic declination is not updated after the route discontinuity, so over long distances the aircraft track will effectively be a constant true heading, although it is actually the magnetic heading that is being controlled but without any updates to the magnetic declination. In addition, the actual aircraft track would therefore not depend on the setting of the NORM/TRUE switch at the time of the discontinuity. [The DSTG quote on this subject provided by sk999 does not make sense to me.]

    Matt, you said: “All FMC routes are mag routes by definition because airways, runways and all RNAV procedures are mag. True can be displayed in the ND at anytime even when flying FMC mag routes, but the FMC speaks only the mag language.”

    Isn’t it true that airways are great circle segments between fixed waypoints? If so, a FMC navigation display may show a magnetic bearing when flying along an airway, but I believe the actual track legs the aircraft follows are great circles between fixed lat/lon positions. Thus both the displayed magnetic bearing and the true bearing will change with time along the great circle legs. In general, neither one would be constant. I don’t think airways are “defined” by magnetic bearings.

  25. My interpretation (which may be wrong as there is some room for ambiguity) of what @Matt’s correspondent has said is:-

    1. At route discontinuity it continues on magnetic heading (or track?) of value pertaining at time of discontinuity.

    2. Altitude remains unchanged

    3. Speed reverts to fixed M at value pertaining at route discontinuity.

    I do think that point [1] above is a very important one to put properly and definitively to rest. If route discontinuity is followed by M path then all of the true heading / true track path models (which is nearly all of them) could not have arisen from a “route discontinuity” scenario but must have been deliberately selected.

    I think that it is also worth noting that right from the start the “data modelled” paths (as opposed to the AP constrained paths) all exhibit a tendency to bend to the left, suggestive of magnetic path.

  26. DrBobbyUlich posted October 13, 2016 at 7:29 PM: “My assumption was that whatever speed mode was being used in the FMC would be continued since there is no reason to change it. For ECON and HOLDING this is not a constant Mach.”

    Can you please clarify which CDU inputs would cause the FMC to command HOLDING speed during cruise?

  27. Bobby Ulich,

    Thanks for your response r.e. information regarding magnetic declination. It is almost certainly wrong. Neither the MCP (which is really just a panel with buttons, knobs, switches, and displays) nor the AFDS (of which the MCP is a part) knows anything about magnetic declination because neither has magvar tables. Magnetic declination offsets are applied by the ADIRU (which does have those tables) before delivering magnetic heading to the AFDS. (The FMC has its own copy of the magvar tables.)

  28. Dennis,

    I can’t access the Australian paper you linked as it is for subscribers only.

    Re: “To me the sim points are a slam dunk, and they were certainly not cherry-picked. The were among the only deleted points. How this cherry-picking impression got started I have no idea.”

    You have mentioned this several times, but up to now I have seen no evidence supportive of your claims. On contrary, comments made by Malaysian police, initial ‘clearance’ by FBI in 2014, Blaine’s claim in response to Jeff’s disastrous article, the very special timing when this info was thrown to the public – all indicate that these points were “cherry picked” for the purpose to hang Z. and justify the termination of the search operation.

    Re: “The radar data is only interesting. First of all people keep calling it data when we really don’t have any data. Secondly is has proved to be totally useless for any purpose other than to make Gysbreght conclude Shah was not flying the aircraft.”

    Besides Gysbreght’s conclusions, it is useful in many ways. Firstly, we know the approximate location on the 18:25 ring. Without it the range could be from 4 to 11 deg N if my memory is correct. Secondly, we know heading at this time. Thirdly, the strength of signal and dispersion of ‘blips’ are indicative of some other radar supplying data, not Butterworth, most likely Thai RTADS-III or Lhokseumawe (though Indonesians deny the latter). Consequently, the abrupt disapperence 18:22 most likely is indicative of descent. Fourthly, the coincidental disapperence from radars and reboot of SDU is one of the key elements – Jeff Wise and many other contributors to this blog fail to grasp this.

    Re: “Now the whacko list is growing exponentially – throw out the BTO and BFO, forget about the radar data completely, and on and on… I am thinking it is time to move on, and will likely do just that.”

    Agree, the level of this forum is rapidly deteriorating. Not comparable with the level a year ago. I miss “round table” discussions with a number of regular contributors in the past: Victor, Mike, Don, Niels, Brock, Nihonmama.

    Re: “There is no longer any semblance of “good faith” in the search. It is now a check box exercise.”

    Agree. Actually it became a brainless “check box excercise” a while ago. The only hope is that some enthusiast such as Blaine Gibson can achieve something.

  29. In my post of October 12, 2016 at 8:32 AM I asked Jeff:

    Can you substantiate in any way that it is reasonable to assume that the following varations are just errors of measurement:

    Groundspeed variation 50 kt
    Heading variation 15 degrees
    Error in target location 8.5 NM ?

    I would like to add: How do you explain that the average groundspeed from primary radar between the turnback and the last return at 18:22 was consistently some 25 kts higher than would correspond to the speed commanded prior to IGARI: M.82, FL350, ISA+10.5 = 484 kt TAS ?

  30. TBill,

    Re “Mike Chillit is thinking MH370 is where ATSB originally started searching possibly Batavia Seamount off Exmouth at about -26/100.3 which is quite close to where the Iannello/Godfrey suggested McMurdo path intersects the 7th arc (their yellow line).”

    One of the ultimate goals is to find the crash site. My ATT (attitude hold) models also terminate ‘around’ 100E, subject to how wind impact is accounted, selected SPD mode, etc. Regardless whose theory is right, I think the area 25 to 30S is the most promising, at least because there are several models, which predict terminus there, and it is “compatible” with drift studies.

    Btw, ‘Haixun-01’ and ‘Curtin’ areas are relatively small, so it would take less than 1% of Fugro’s budget to scan them. But I think those areas do not have associated check boxes in ATSB’s list.

  31. Jeff,

    I am also hoping to get your answers, though you will probably ignore them as you did before.

  32. @Gysbreght

    Then you have mis-read FCOM. For your information, you can extend the geodesic beyond the next waypoint. I would suggest you read it again.

  33. @ROB:

    How do you interpret that for a positive offset (for points after the waypoint), “The distance offset must be less than the distance between the originating waypoint and next (…) waypoint”?

  34. Re: “Now the whacko list is growing exponentially – throw out the BTO and BFO, forget about the radar data completely, and on and on… I am thinking it is time to move on, and will likely do just that.”

    This is what should have done when these assortment of data was made public to question and verify their validity in the real world sense. It’s taken this long to come to this realization when funds are drying up.

  35. @MH

    How would you propose to verify the ISAT data and the radar graphics? How would you propose to verify the Penang phone call or the points found on Shah’s simulator. Knee jerk comments like your “verify comment” are simply not helpful when there is no way to implement the suggestion.

  36. @Oleksandr
    Interesting about ATT mode.

    Don’t answer this, but how did we get so far south? Looks like IG put a pin down there first and then ATSB adopted it by favoring “straight” paths. Then IG pointed out DSTG analysis essentially ignored “curved” paths.

    @Rob
    Why not a “curve” as that is what seems to fit observations best now, and easy to pick a waypoint to maintain the flight line like you are thinking. There is NOBEY and BYRRD and NZPG you can pick a flight path that hits 7th arc at 23 to 27S. You are struggling pretty hard to stay on that straight 180 line with waypoints.

  37. @Oleksandr

    Sorry, I did not realize the paywall issue. What works for me is:

    1> clear your browser history

    2> Google “ATSB bulletin jumped gun on MH370 death dive”

    3> Click on the first link that comes up.

    As far as your simulator data points question is concerned, I will try to provide an answer. Stay tuned.

  38. @dennisW. I challenged another high profile investigator to do the same. I suspect the radar graphic was too distracting and that analysis got side tracked as they didn’t verify the radar graphic validity. So with all your skill and background you probably can tackle this if you try.

  39. @Oleksandr

    Won’t you think the best way of proving it could not have been an actively piloted flight after FMT is to look at/investigate all the possibilities of an actively piloted flight also during and after FMT?
    By looking at all the possible/probable AP-modes in such a case that could fit the data and the drift-models?

    I think this hasn’t been done thoroughly before for almost everyone adopted the DSTG/ATSB doctrine it was a ghost-flight after FMT into the SIO (without evidence or credible reason we know of IMO).

    Your ATT-mode ends up around ~25S ~30S.
    VictorI had his mag.track/heading 100ft/min set descent starting after FMT ending up around ~31S.
    DrBobbyUlich also finds mag.headings/tracks ending up in those areas.
    DennisW also came up with (far) more northern locations but shifted to more south lattitudes too.

    Consensus is building on a more northern location IMO, also forced by the debris finds and drifter based drift models that all point to a crash area between ~35S ~25S IMO.

    IMO holding on to ghost-flight scenarios is very usefull but only if it proves or is proven an all active piloted flight is impossible.

    If you (and others) are not open for this possibility anymore you (and others) act like the Catholic Church condemning Copernicus for declaring the Earth is not the center of the solar-system IMO.

    People can call people brainless or ‘whacko’ but this won’t solve the matter.
    And as intelligent comments you give, you must know this could be true.

  40. @Oleksandr

    Relative to simulator data points check item 5> in the link below.

    http://www.duncansteel.com/archives/2798

    I know it does not jump out at you, but the only points recovered from the shadow drive that were mentioned in the report are the six or so points related to the SIO coordinates.

    The “thousands of points” language is simply another smoke screen put out there by the Malays and Aussies. Sure there were thousands of points on the drive, but what is of interest are the deleted and recovered points.

  41. @MH

    The radar graphic, Lido Hotel, is just plain wrong. I don’t know how to fix it except by shifting it around to match known routes in Sky Vector or a similar data base. Others have done this, but is that really correct? Why don’t the Malays simply fix it?

  42. @DennisW – I am very sure the Malay govt doesn’t want to “fix it” with correct information given how the players are acting.

  43. @DennisW: “what is of interest are the deleted and recovered points”

    Your selective interest is sufficiently known. A blinkered view.

  44. @Gysbreght

    Yes, I should probably open my data horizon and include all coordinates on the WEB as well, going back to the period between 2012 or so and March 2014. There are probably millions of them.

    Silly to restrict my interest to deleted points found on the drive belonging to Captain Shah.

    Also, as you stated earlier, the simulator was clearly broken and those points in the SIO could have been created at random or by a cleaning lady or a burglar.

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