Two men, strangers to one another, go into the cockpit of an airplane and lock the door behind them. They take off and fly into the night. One radios to ATC, “Good night, Malaysia 370.” One minute later, someone puts the plane into a turn. It reverses direction and disappears.
Question: Did one of the men take the plane?
For many, it’s inconceivable that there could be any other answer than “of course.” Moreover, that since the details of the incident suggest a sophisticated knowledge of the aircraft, the perpetrator could obviously only be the man with the vastly greater experience — the captain. As reader @Keffertje has written: “Though I try to keep an open mind to all other scenarios, the circumstantial evidence against ZS simply cannot be ignored.”
For others, blaming the captain without concrete proof is immoral. There are MH370 forums where the suggestion that Zaharie might be considered guilty is considered offensive and hurtful to the feelings of surviving family members. Even if one disregards such niceties, it is a fact that an exhaustive police investigation found that Zaharie had neither psychological problems, family stress, money problems, or any other suggestion that he might be suicidal. (Having broken the story of Zaharie’s flight-simulator save points in the southern Indian Ocean, I no longer think they suggest he practiced a suicide flight, for reasons I explain here.) And far from being an Islamic radical, he enjoyed the writings of noted atheist Richard Dawkins and decried terror violence. And he was looking forward to retiring to Australia. If he was trying to make the Malaysian government look bad, he failed, because in the absence of an explanation there is no blame to allocate. And if he was trying to pull off the greatest disappearing act of all time, he failed at that, too, since the captain would necessarily be the prime suspect.
So did Zaharie do it, or not?
This, in a nutshell, is the paradox of MH370. Zaharie could not have hijacked the plane; only Zaharie could have hijacked the plane.
I’d like to suggest that another way of looking at the conundrum is this: if Zaharie didn’t take the plane, then who did? As has been discussed in this forum at length, the turn around at IGARI was clearly initiated by someone who was familiar with both aircraft operation and air traffic control protocols. The reboot of the SDU tells that whoever was in charge at 18:22 had sophisticated knowledge of 777 electronics. And the fact that the plane’s wreckage was not found where autopilot flight would have terminated tells us that someone was actively flying the plane until the end. But who? And why?
If Zaharie did not do it, then one of the passengers and crew either got through the locked cockpit door in the minute between “Good night, Malaysia 370” and IGARI, or got into the E/E bay and took control of the plane from there.
If we accept that this is what happened, then it is extremely difficult to understand why someone who has gone to such lengths would then fly themselves to a certain demise in the southern Indian Ocean. (Remember, they had the ability to communicate and were apparently in active control of the aircraft; they could have flown somewhere else and called for help if they desired.)
Recall, however, that the BFO values have many problems. We get around the paradox of the suicide destination if we assume that the hijackers were not only sophisticated, but sophisticated enough to conceive of and execute a spoof of the Inmarsat data.
Granted, we are still left with the issue of the MH370 debris that has been collected from the shores of the western Indian Ocean. Many people instinctively recoil from the idea that this debris could have been planted, as a spoof of the BFO data would require. Fortunately, we don’t have to argue the subject from first principles. Detailed physical and biological analysis of the debris is underway, and should be released to the public after the official search is called off in December. As I’ve written previously, several aspects of the Réunion flaperon are problematic; if further analysis bears this out, then we’ll have an answer to our conundrum.
”For others, blaming the captain without concrete proof is immoral.”
Those others should be locked up for hampering the investigation.
The whole search is based on political correctness. Such a disrespect to all those who were kidnapped to the SIO.
Question – how many planes have been hijacked in the air in the middle of the night? I have found one – Ethiopian 702 – and it was done by the copilot. Any others?
@All, Not really on topic but I thought some might be interested in the story which ran in the Australian last week — it was behind a paywall so some may not have seen it. I’m copying and pasting from the VeritasMH370 website, where it was posted by Ken St. Aubin.
ATSB bulletin jumped gun on MH370 death dive ‘consensus’
Ean Higgins
Reporter
Sydney
@EanHiggins
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau issued a bulletin falsely claiming it had “consensus” from a team of international experts for its “death dive” theory that Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 went down fast in a pilotless crash, before two overseas agencies had a chance to express a view.
The ATSB made the claim as its chief commissioner Greg Hood joined the Malaysian government and Malaysia Airlines in a media campaign to hose down an alternative “rogue pilot” theory that Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah hijacked his aircraft and flew it to the end outside the search area chosen by the ATSB.
Internal ATSB documents obtained by The Australian show that while a senior investigator drew the incorrect “consensus” statement to the attention of colleagues only minutes after the bulletin was released, the organisation never issued a correction and instead secretly deleted the claim from its website the next day, after it had been widely reported internationally.
The ATSB repeatedly refused to say why it had deleted the “consensus” claim, and falsely denied doing so in a subsequent post.
Internal ATSB emails obtained under Freedom of Information statutes by The Australian reveal the truth behind the organisation’s media manoeuvres.
The revelations come amid doubts expressed by independent experts about the reliability of the Inmarsat satellite data the ATSB uses for its rapid descent assumption, and claims the agency has, to avoid embarrassing Malaysia, steered away from the “rogue pilot” theory.
MH370 vanished on a scheduled flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014, with 239 people on board. Its radar transponder was turned off and radio contact was broken.
Radar and automatic satellite tracking data indicate the Boeing 777 reversed course early in the flight, and flew along the Malaysia-Thailand border and out over the Andaman Sea before making a sharp turn south to end up in the southern Indian Ocean.
The ATSB designed the search zone based on its “ghost flight” theory that the pilots were incapacitated, and that after flying on autopilot, the aircraft came down quickly after running out of fuel.
In July, two developments led to international debate about the ATSB’s strategy.
Reuters reported the project director of the underwater search, Paul Kennedy of Dutch survey group Fugro, said the rogue pilot theory might be right after all.
“You could glide it for further than our search area is, so I believe the logical conclusion will be, well, maybe, that is the other scenario,” Mr Kennedy told Reuters.
The same weekend, New York magazine revealed a Malaysian police report indicated the FBI had determined Zaharie had charted a similar route on his home flight simulator.
Days later, the ATSB issued a bulletin in the name of the federal government’s Joint Agency Co-ordination Centre for the MH370 search, downplaying the rogue pilot theory. The ATSB claimed in its July 27 bulletin the satellite data showed MH370 came down “most likely in a high rate of descent”. As originally released, the bulletin said: “This is indeed the consensus of the Search Strategy Working Group,” referring to experts including from the US and British air crash investigation.
The documents obtained under FOI show that just a few minutes after the bulletin was issued, an ATSB senior investigator warned colleagues by email this was an “error” and that the sentence should be taken down.
“It is certainly not yet the consensus position of the SSWG … 2 parties are yet to make a formal response on the subject,” the investigator said.
The email chain shows another ATSB senior investigator agreed and gave instructions for the sentence with the “consensus” line to be removed from the ATSB’s and the JACC’s websites.
But the ATSB did not retract the sentence until the next day, by which time it had been reported internationally, including in Malaysian and Chinese publications.
As earlier revealed by The Australian, the deletion of the “consensus” line was discovered by British aerospace engineer Richard Godfrey, a member of the independent group of aviation experts who on their own initiative have been reviewing the MH370 scientific data.
When, at the time, The Australian rang the ATSB spokesman who had issued the July 27 bulletin to ask why the deletion had been made, the spokesman hung up and JACC director Annette Clark declined to respond.
Subsequently, ATSB MH370 spokesman Daniel O’Malley and JACC chief co-ordinator Judith Zielke would also not say why the “consensus” line had been secretly disappeared.
When The Australian reported the deletion of the sentence, the ATSB issued a denial on its website, saying the report “falsely accuses the ATSB of ‘secretly retracting’ information”.
In a statement after it had been made aware of the FOI material, the JACC said: “The information was retracted when it was learned not all working group members had, at that stage, provided formal responses. Subsequently a consensus view was reached.”
@jeffW, Nice written article! We have a saying in the Netherlands, “still waters run deep” :). I read other posts carefully, and really do try and keep my mind open. My struggle if you will, with a hijacking is: why did Zaharie or Fariq not see it coming with the camera’s they have in the cockpit? Any upset in the cabin would have been noticed by them or maybe cabin crew even has a way to alert the pilots in case of an onboard issue, like pushing a button? Idk. The double entendre of confirming FL350, which is odd, may have been a way to alert ATC of something going on? These are questions that I spin around :).
Talking about co-pilots..
What do we actualy know of the co-pilot?
I mentioned before he was the other certified B777 pilot on the plane.
And while Zaharie was doing the radio till ‘Goodnight Malaysia 370’ it must have been the co-pilot flying the plane till IGARI and maybe made the turn.
Or would Zaharie have taken over in that one minute after ‘Goodnight Malaysia 370’?
What if the co-pilot locked Zaharie out and Zaharie was the one who went into the E/E bay trying to manipulate the plane and bringing the SDU back on line with all his knowledge?
Not able to communicate anyway because the IFE was switch off in the cockpit?
To me it’s a bit strange from the beginning the co-pilot is almost completely ignored in the whole story.
Maybe his skills are fastly underestimated.
He was afterall an expirienced pilot with a lot of hours under his belt and certified for the B777.
@Keffertje, Thank you. I agree, there is much about the hijacking scenario that makes it seem outlandish. BTW, I was meaning to respond to your earlier comment on Negroni’s book–your assessment hits the nail on the head, I think.
@Jeffwise
Good view, one more answer. The crew open the cokpit door for serving coffe but the hijacker hide in toilet, come and push the crew in the cokpit and lock the door.
You have understand well the first step of this event starting at 1:00.
You say:
If Zaharie did not do it, then one of the passengers and crew either got through the locked cockpit door in the minute between “Good night, Malaysia 370” and IGARI,
Hope, next step was someone found the front door before end of december.
With all my respect and compassion for the NOK.
The important question: is it foul play or mechanical issue. Who did it is secondary.
When we start to look for causes for MH370, we immediately find the airline industry allows the pilots/hiJackers to shut off all tracking devices, communications, emergency locator beacons, black boxes, etc.
We further find pilot suicide/foul play is a major and difficult issue, that the industry has maintained a head-in-sand approach.
We further find smaller Governments cannot accept the truth of rouge domestic pilots, and will fight “tooth and nail” against that, and may never accept it. Smaller Governments have the right to run their countries as they see fit, but truth can be a necessary victim.
If we’d had known all this from Day-1, including the fact MY was not tracking the apparently “rouge” plane, there would not be so much mystery about this case.
Instead we all developed fire or other brilliant theories (mine was fuel tank explosion) until it became clear, by 15-March Prime Minister Razak basically said foul play was apparent.
If you want to say Z is innocent because there is no way to prove it (given industry allowed pilots to have the tools necessary to destroy the evidence)…then OK. You are absolutely correct.
@JeffWise:
Thank you for another interesting article that attempts to focus the discussion on a particular aspect of MH370’s diappearance. I hope you don’t mind if I disagree with some your remarks.
My rejection of ‘blaming the captain’ is simply that it is not justified. The indices that simple minds consider to be “circumstantial evidence” are too vague, too weak, too controversial to support that judgment, and ignore more substantial evidence that goes against it.
If the radar evidence tells us anything at all, it is that the turn around at IGARI was done very clumsily by someone not familiar with the aircraft. Far too much has been made of the fact that the diversion from the flight plan took place in the middle of the transfer protocol. Just minutes earlier, the transfer had been coordinated between KL ATC and HCM ATC. HCM was expecting the airplane to check in prior to passing IGARI and saw the airplane passing IGARI and turning towards BITOD. Normally they should have begun making enquiries within five minutes of ETA. If the airplane had checked in as expected, no calls would have been expected from the airplane for perhaps the next hour or so.
We know far too little about the reboot to make that judgment.
Consider this: The airplane had reached the assigned cruise altitude. The F/O excused himself and left the cockpit. When he was about to return to the cockpit that was the opportunity the highjacker had been waiting for. The Captain was busy and, expecting the F/O, opened the cockpit door without looking. When he had said “Good night, Malaysia 370” and looked up to discover that the person standing behind his seat was not the F/O, it was too late.
A person entering the E/E can cause a lot of havoc in the electronic systems, but I don’t think he can take control of the plane from there.
If Zaharie did do it, he must have gone nuts. Than can happen to anybody.
I am not a technical expert like a lot of you guys so I may say stupid things for which I apologise but if we think about “what if scenarios” I wonder whether we can not exclude the “take control through the e/e bay” scenario.
Indeed, although it has been mentionned often on this forum that it is technically possible to influence the route of the plane through the e/e bay, surely the crew would have noticed that and I imagine that there is some vhf equipment innthe cockpit with which the crew would have been able to signal this? I imagine that this system is redundant and cannot be controlled from the e/e bay?
Would this reasoning be correct? Would the absence of radio contact by the crew therefore mean that the only viable explanation is that someting happened in the cockpit, originated by the crew or an incursion?
@ir1907
re: Sim data points
Not to worry. I was being facetiuous. It is hard to recocile a person lurking in the bathroom with those data points. How anyone can ignore a smoking gun like that defies credulity. I have come to completely ignore posters who are in the camp of the Shah evidence being inconcluisve. It is a reminder to me why (as Winston Churchill implied) “democracy does not work”.
i used to think many posters just wanted to keep options open. The scary reality is that many of the “Shah did not do it” people actaully seem to believe what they are saying.
@Gysbreght
The one that did the radio was Zaharie. The one that flew the plane till ‘Goodnight Malaysia 370’ was the F/O I assume.
Who would leave the cockpit in the minute after? The co-pilot? I don’t think so.
If someone left in this minute it must have been Zaharie.
Maybe he was overtaken by a hijacker who forced himself in the cockpit the moment he left, then dictating all the instructions necessary to the F/O in that short time to initiate that turn and disabling all communication.
I think this is very unlikely. The time is too short. Fear and confusion would have been too great to act so coördinated and so fast by any pilot IMO.
Or -as you seem to suggest- some ameture-pilot took complete control flying the plane manualy after IGARI till at least 18:22 in such a skilled way.
This just doesn’t fit. A clumsy pilot is out of order in this case period IMO.
It must have been one of the pilots or another expirenced B777 pilot who was on the plane in case of a hijack.
Remember the first statement of MAS there where 13 crew members on the plane instead of 12? Was there another pilot?
It was rectified shortly after but still it’s strange such a miscalculation on such an important issue.
Anyway IMO a clumsy pilot overtaking the cockpit is out of order.
It must have been one of the two pilots flying the plane.
Acting on a sudden emergency or on a terrorist/suicide mission.
Outside assistance to perpetrators
Every analysis of the rogue pilot scenario should IMO start with the question, whether there were any signs of a somewhat coordinated effort to support a GETAWAY from outside the plane, because evidence of this would kill any rogue pilot theory immediately.
When it comes to evidence of outside assistance during the deviation, we talk about means of electronic warfare and well trained commando action.
There are several widely known hard facts, that might be prove of outside assistance, if one is prepared to assess them as more important, than they are being discussed (or not discussed) right now.
– we know for sure, that MAS HQ gave wrong information about position and communication with the lost plane to ATC HCM, which made it nearly impossible for the RMAF Butterworth to have enough time to start intercepting fighter craft. This transmission of wrong information seems to me a singular event that happens once in a lifetime
– there was the fact, that indeed no jets were scrambled. A very rare singularity.
– there was the fact of a until to date not understood inflight SAT login. A singularity of heavy importance. In this flight it even happened twice, which might be a sign of advanced electronic warfare.
– there is the fact, that this re login happened like coordinated at the end of a questionable radar trace.
– there was the fact that a key member of the involved team of the sat provider died surprisingly within days of the event.
– there was the convenient fire at KL to blow off all maintenance files for 9M MRO
– there is a widespread effort to control and manipulate the discussion about MH370 through trolls.
I am sure, more facts will come up that hint to a coordinated effort.
Only if we are sure, that none of these facts are relevant to the analysis, we could start to discuss the freak theory of a rogue pilot.
Just to be very plain: if Zaharie did it, nobody will ever since fly safe again, because when a role model of a good pilot goes rogue suddenly in a perverse and insane way like some people here suggest, then we have no way anymore to judge the mental health of 70% of the worlds population not to speak of the mass of pilots. Imagine , a family man, belonging to the privileged people of his country, with no troubles decides without perceivable motive to kill 239 people by drowning them in the sea after 7 hours of flight?
This scenario is outfreaking from any rational approach. It makes no sense to even think about it
@Ge Rijn: “The time is too short.”
You are uncritically buying Jeff’s supposition that anything irregular must have taken place in the 70 seconds between “Good Night” and the loss of the Mode-S return on the ATC screens. You ignore at least two earlier facts that were not quite normal.
Zaharie reporting twice “maintaining FL350”. Some commentators more familiar with ATC procedures argue that no report was required at all, unless specifically requested by ATC. The report is unnecessary because the transponder reports the airplane’s altitude frequently and the ATC’s radar screen shows it next to the airplane position symbol.
Then the airplane overflew IGARI before commencing the turn towards BITOD. Normally the turn sould have started before reaching the waypoint to smoothly join the track IGARI-BITOD.
Besides the mfsx two data points recovered, has there been any other documents recovered from his computer that show a premeditated planning of disappearing an aircraft? Any handwritten notes scribbled on paper? How many times was this flight into the SIO was flown? If there was any internet searches on the deepest location research compiling waypoints etc then maybe this puts me on other side.
@CosmicAcademy
Interesting comment in many ways.
But to rule out Zaharie like you do is a step too far IMO.
It sure makes sence to think about it.
He might have been the most nice family man and outstanding pilot but that’s no guaranty at all. How many examples do you need to prove this?
Less likely I agree but to say it makes no sence even to think about it makes no sence.
@Gysbreght
I’m not buying anything uncritically from no one.
What I was saying is Zaharie was the one on the radio, the F/O was flying the plane. Reporting twice could have been odd but till then nothing was seemingly wrong and till then the F/O was flying the plane. Everything functioned normal.
Maybe the F/O didn’t perform that turn to BITOD as smoothly as Zaharie would do.
No big deal.
@Ge Rijn: “… the F/O was flying the plane.”
Normally he should have been, but was he? What was normal in this flight?
Eddie Rickenbacker said, “The obviously inexperienced pilot is the game the scientific air-fighter goes after, and the majority of victories are won that way. But, on the other hand, it is the novice usually who gets the famous ace by doing at some moment the unexpected thing.”
Dear Mr. Wise,
Notwithstanding my previous
promise to not participate in
your respective on line
exploratory discussion of
the matter of MH370…
I would like to commend
you for addressing the merits
of Captain Shah as primary
suspect in said matter.
Of note, there are various
forensic examiners from the
audio evidence community who
have isolated multiple acts
of premeditated deception
and or out right fabrication
of the final audio recording
claimed to have been exchanged
between the cock pit of MH370
and the KL ATC.
Right there it is glaringly
obvious that to attach merit
to said exchange and or in
sequential order of the time
line associated with said
exchange and the documentation
thereafter MH370 went dark is
beyond logical for any level
headed individual.
The final audio recording must
therefore not be factored into
said matter other then the fact
that it is more then likely
that said final exchange was
of a very different nature
then the innocent “good night”
that has been deemed as
unfit for release.
To assist one of your
anonymous posters earlier
questions in regards to the
number of hijacks that have
occurred at night, I must
apologize that other then
there being well over 100
hijacking incidents in the
era of commercial jet
aircraft transport it may
assist said anonymous poster
to start with the Wikipedia
database on hijack incidents
and then conduct searches on
an individual basis to get
the answer said anonymous
poster is seeking.
Thank you kindly,
Andre Milne
Unicorn Aerospace
Military Technology Development
unicornaerospace.com
@aeromilitarytec
ASOVE
Volunteer Investigator
asove.net
What was the F/O doing while the Captain completed the dispatch activites, obtaine the weather forecast, checked and approved the loadsheet, flight plan, cargo and pax manifests, ordered the fuel to be loaded, etc., while the F/O was on a check flight?
@All
Monday newsfeed.
http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/incidents/how-a-bathroom-break-could-have-doomed-malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370/news-story/1d238621cd85e07aa9f3ded025a3cee4
Cheers Tom L
@Ge Rijn,
I believe the ADIRU provides both true and magnetic heading outputs, so both are available to the AFDS for control purposes.
@Oleksandr,
I am not suggestioning any “computational error.”
@Gysbreght,
I don’t know the exact keystroke entries, but they would be the same as the pilot would use anytime Holding speed were desired in order to maximize endurance. The display may show “Best Holding” speed.
My calculations show an air speed at IGARI consistent with CI=52 at FL350.
@sk999,
Perhaps the (somewhat cryptic) information Brian Anderson received is incorrect or has been misinterpreted. For the true heading interpretation to be correct, one possibility is that the AFDS holds the true heading even if the NORM/TRUE switch were in NORM. I don’t know how the AFDS could do this. Another possibility is that the FMC does not disengage and hand over lateral navigation to the AFDS, although Matt Moriarty says this is what happens. If I understood him correctly, Gysbreght says the FCOM does not list this particular scenario as one that leads to FMC disengagement.
Jeff,
You wrote: “As has been discussed in this forum at length, the turn around at IGARI was clearly initiated by someone who was familiar with both aircraft operation and air traffic control protocols. The reboot of the SDU tells that whoever was in charge at 18:22 had sophisticated knowledge of 777 electronics. And the fact that the plane’s wreckage was not found where autopilot flight would have terminated tells us that someone was actively flying the plane until the end.”
You sound like a broken record… Especially given that you have failed to explain a number of facts inconsistent with your conclusions.
A few points about issues raised in the feature and comments.
The last known manual input was at the final major turn which was around 18:40 after which the aircraft could have flown by autopilot for the remaining remaining nearly five hours.
The voice analysis indicates it was the captain on the radio at final hand over, however there is no reason to believe the co-pilot contributed anything or was even present after it reached cruising altitude just before 17:01 which leaves nearly twenty minutes where he may not have even been in the cockpit.
There is a motive which has little to do with his private or professional life.
As an aviation enthusiast from childhood he had built what I still understand to be the worlds most sophisticated Boeing 777 home simulator. He would like most people here be aware of the immediate mystery surrounding all air disasters and with a totally fulfilled home life and successful career it is possible somewhere along the way he conceived the idea of creating the world’s greatest unsolved aviation mystery. Why this plan would be ever be put into action is beyond me.
In addition to creating the mystery it was also necessary to ensure his family could never be tarnished by his guilt so in the unlikely event the black boxes are found it would be necessary is is more than conceivable he would to use his avionics expertise to ensure no evidence will be found once they are decoded.
Ge Rijn,
From the previous thread:
Re: “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.”
You definitely confused me with someone else. Earlier I made my position clear: it is not possible to conclude about what has happened until the crash site is found. However, to find it, one needs a working hypothesis, which has to satisfy the following:
1. Inmarsat data.
2. Radar data and/or its absence.
3. Aircraft performance limits.
4. Basic physical laws.
5. Aircraft controls.
6. Be consistent with drift/barnacle studies.
7. Be logical.
It is obvious that multiple solutions may exist, and respective terminal locations have to be screened one by one. I’ve never denied any other theories, except those, which do not satisfy the list of requirements above.
I hope now it is clear to you, who is the “Catholic Church” eager to burn Giordano Bruno… Or any other suitable candidate.
@DrBobbyUlich: “My calculations show an air speed at IGARI consistent with CI=52 at FL350.”
The ACARS position report transmitted from the airplane at 1707:29 shows flight progress data from the airplane’s own instrumentation at 5 minute intervals. At 1701:43 it reports M.819 at 34,998 ft and at 1706:43 it reports M.821 at 35,004 ft altitude.
You need to check your calculations.
@Dennis
Since you reference the deleted sim data points as essentially being incontrovertible evidence (along with beyond compelling circumstantial evidence) pointing to Zaharie’s guilt (of which I agree 100%), do those same deleted sim data points not also illuminate for you his intention? Hint: It was a one-way trip.
@Jeff
The FI report vis a vis Zaharie is a complete joke. What IS telling is how little we in fact do know about this man…Why this is still so after 30+ months is unconscionable.
And just how is the ‘ongoing’ criminal investigation undertaken by the Malaysians proceeding?
Surely they must be making great headway? What an absolute joke.
@Jeff:
Many thanks for the article. It feels I could have written that one myself :-). Stimulatng comment also. I’ll get on a few of them tomorrow.
@DennisW: That was more or less what Z had written on his T-shirt. Who would have guessed he was quoting Winston?
@Johan, Thank you!
@matt, The FI report may be a joke, but that’s only a preliminary report intended for public consumption. What I’m far more interested in is the 1,000-page confidential report prepared by the Royal Malaysian Police, which I assume to be the end product of an exhaustive and more-or-less competently conducted investigation. Note that it has been leaked numerous times, including to the Independent Group, but all of those who’ve received it so far have decided to bury it.
No one hijacked MH370, they headed for home, hardly the place you would go if hijacking a plane. Nor would you hyjack a plane and then fly that close to RMAF Butterworth and Penang if indeed they ever went that way. And a 1000pg criminal investigation into the grieving family, friends and co-workers of those lost is not likely to reveal anything but a lot of confidential private information about those people. The police would not have investigated what their own military was up to that night, or what their own government was covering up, so that 1000pg report is likely to be useful for nothing but toilet paper, or trolling the media and certain conspiracy theorists with pointless gaming info.
@Gysbreght,
The flight plan speed at FL350 near IGARI is M0.831. That is only about 5 kts faster than the last ACARS report at 17:07. The exact time of nearest passage to IGARI is unknown, but a reasonable estimate matches the expected speed.
To my knowledge no error bars have been provided in the FI for the altitude estimates from the military radar data. I would be very surprised if they were accurate to better than 1,000 feet, and they could easily be much larger.
@Annette, good morning, I politely disagree with your comment about the probable ack of value in the police criminal investigation.
I used to be an Intel Analyst for the crime department of a police force. Before anyone gets too excited, it was for less than two years in a very specific role. The point is that the Intel produced here should be compelling. Let’s have a two second think – call charge records (that’s phone communication records back in the day), good place to start. And – my goodness – The detectives in our squad would work the sim data points very hard to put them in perspective – whatever that is. There are so many avenues of inquiry. There are databases even in my country that would very likely have info available on ZS, his family, his travel, calls, who he may have met with on stopovers, what money he brought into the country (buying a house?), it’s massive…
So I’m saying that a police investigation of this magnitude should draw up a comprehensive personal profile of dozens of individuals, their associates and contacts and the organisations they are connected with. So this report will be extremely valuable. To argue that the privacy of people takes precedence above the fact that people have lost their lives – take a good look at yourselves.
@Lauren H… Your post from October 13, 2016 at 3:41 PM (in the prior post) lays out one of the more plausible series of events.
@Dr B, @Matt M
It is interesting that different interpretations of the flight mode following a route discontinuity are continuing to be debated. I can’t help wondering if this is because people are trying to place their own interpretation on the words used in manuals, rather than thinking about the issue from the point of view of an operational pilot, and a manual created to inform an operational pilot.
I think the answer to the question I posed to a Honeywell support representative is actually quite precise and informative. I repeat it here:
“If LNAV is engaged and the aircraft encounters a route discontinuity (either within the route or at the end of the route), the operation is . . . LNAV will remain engaged and take a snapshot of the current magnetic heading and maintain that heading until another roll mode is selected or the discontinuity is resolved. This is referred in the design as the Heading Hold Control mode. There is no “Track Hold” method associated with this type of scenario.”
Consider what is expected at a route discontinuity. The aircraft has come to the end of a set of instructions it was following. It is expecting the crew to take some action to tell it what to do next, and to resolve the route discontinuity. If it receives no further instruction from the crew what is it to do? It does the only sensible thing . . continue on the same heading, and in this situation that also means continue on the same track, at least temporarily. The expectation, in an operational sense, is that some new instruction will follow relative quickly.
Some manuals when describing this situation say that the aircraft continues on the same heading. Correct. That is precisely what the Honeywell response says. [And for a reasonably short time it actually doesn’t matter whether the heading is referenced to Mag or True.] Another manual says that the aircraft will continue on the same track. Also correct! At least for the moment, if the heading is held [and at that instant the wind is being compensated for], the track will remain the same.
However, the heading at the point of the discontinuity is not necessarily the same as the track azimuth at that precise point because any crosswind component is being compensated for. Hence if the wind vector following the discontinuity changes, then the track will also change.
The Honeywell response eliminates the possibility of Track Hold following a discontinuity. Interestingly, it does not say that control reverts to the previous setting of the MCP.
So, why the confusion?
@Brian Anderson,
Thanks for your post, which I now interpret to mean that the FMC maintains control of LNAV upon the route discontinuity and thereafter maintains a constant magnetic heading at the same value it had when the discontinuity began. If so, then the ensuing route is not a constant true heading, but a constant magnetic heading. And the AFDS is not controlling lateral navigation in this case. Is this correct?
@Gysbreght,
Could the repeated notifications to ATC of FL350 have been a (subtle) reminder that a higher altitude had been requested but not yet authorized?
@Tom ‘re-the latest headline theory circulating Captain Shah toilet break.. Personally I think it’s very disgraceful that a person is advertising this theory just to sell a book..
@Andre Miline I agree with you that we have to disguard the ATC recordings as there is clear evidence that certain parts have been removed and over dubbed.
I put this theory out sometime time ago. That the ATC controller was asleep at the time and what if there was evidence of a hijacking and because ATC didn’t react straight away they cover it up..Hence the dubbed ATC recording.
@Gysbreght,
Regarding the apparently large speed variations derived from the radar data and presented in the FI, I suspect the speed estimates come from the spatial separation of radar fixes some minutes apart. An uncertainty of 1 NM in each of a pair of radar fixes 10 minutes apart results in a ground speed error of about 9 knots, and for fixes 5 minutes apart the error is about 17 knots. As far as I know, the FI provides no estimated error on the radar-derived speeds, but it is likely to be fairly large over short (< 10 minute) time intervals. It is risky to infer a great deal of precision in the reported speed estimates unless one has specific information on the capabilities of the radar sets used.
The Loiter and the stolen passports
Considering the fact that the ‘highjack and loiter’ theory is gaining some traction, it’s worth taking a look at some passengers who were being investigated at the beginning. This may have already been covered in previous posts by others.
FOUR PASSENGERS UNDER SUSPICION
“the identities of four people on board, including two using stolen passports, were being investigated. The four under suspicion had all bought their flight tickets through China Southern Airlines, said a security official.”
“Malaysia’s Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said authorities were looking at four possible cases of suspect identities.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/malaysia/10685413/Malaysia-Airlines-crash-terror-fears-over-stolen-passports-used-on-missing-plane-MH370.html
Malaysian investigators, assisted by the FBI, are focusing efforts on the identities of four passengers in particular – two travellers using the stolen Austrian and Italian passports, and two passengers using European passports, possibly Ukrainian.
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370-cctv-footage-clue-to-mystery-pair-who-boarded-missing-airliner-with-stolen-passports-30077662.html
The 2 Iranians and the 2 Ukrainians were being investigated by the Malaysians and the FBI. Later all mention of the Ukrainians suddenly disappeared, and focus turned to the 2 Iranians alone.
Here are some interesting facts about the Iranians.
– they both arrived on Feb 28 2014 in KL (not thailand) on their own Iranian passports. They both used passports stolen from Europeans in Phuket, West coast of Thailand, a popular destination for budget tourists including Russians
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/12/world/asia/malaysia-flight.html?_r=0
– Maraldi’s (italian) passport was stolen by a Russian in Phuket
http://phuketwan.com/tourism/phuket-motorcycle-renter-tells-gave-italian-mans-passport-russian-19878/
– Their MH370 tickets were booked in Thailand, but they were each first booked on different flights (Qatar Air & Etihad) out of KL on the Mar 1, but these were cancelled, and then rebooked on Mar 8 on flight MH370
– Mr.Ali in Iran who booked the flights was not the one who paid for the tickets in Cash. Mr.Ali was put on an arrest warrent.
The issue of stolen passports might be a ‘red herring’ according to one expert.
On any given day, many people travel using stolen or fake passports for reasons that have nothing to do with terrorism, aviation security expert Richard Bloom told CNN.
They might be trying to immigrate illegally to another country, or they might be smuggling stolen goods, people, drugs or weapons or trying to import otherwise legal goods without paying taxes, said Bloom, director of terrorism, intelligence and security studies at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
“For all of those reasons, the very notion that passports might be important in this particular situation might be a red herring.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/10/travel/malaysia-airlines-stolen-passports/
Some points to consider
– the most plausible reason for why 4 passengers were suspected is because all 4 passports don’t have entry visas to Malaysia, but are exiting the country
– it’s possible that the 2 iranians were booked at the same time as the 2 ukrainians thru China southern airlines
– one of the stolen passports was provided by the russian mafia
– phuket is on the west coast of thailand, close to the zone of ‘loiter’ of MH370
– highjackers may have already scouted for hideouts in the Andaman & Nicobar islands from Phuket, Thailand, then crossed into Malaysia without going thru immigration with the Ukrainian passports.
@JeffWise
“What I’m far more interested in is the 1,000-page confidential report prepared by the Royal Malaysian Police, which I assume to be the end product of an exhaustive and more-or-less competently conducted investigation. Note that it has been leaked numerous times, including to the Independent Group, but all of those who’ve received it so far have decided to bury it.”
Fully agree.
The leaked report came obviously with some kind of instruction or ristriction how to use it. In retrospect leaking only parts of the report may have served to create distraction by framing Z. This is even more obvious when we consider, that the overall result of the police investigation is known, namely the result of the investigation did not frame Z. The arguments for this conclusion must be in the report as well.
The leak and the way of selective release of information of this report was fishy from the beginning.
One may also wonder about the official reaction on the leak of the report. They neither see a reason to defend the official position (Z is clear) nor to comment at all on the leak itself.
@DrBobbyUlich: “The exact time of nearest passage to IGARI is unknown, ”
Factual Information:
That gives a groundspeed of 474 kts between the last ACARS position report and IGARI.
“Could the repeated notifications to ATC of FL350 have been a (subtle) reminder that a higher altitude had been requested but not yet authorized?” The filed flight plan asked for FL350. There is no record of a higher altitude having been requested. If the pilot had wanted a higher altitude he would have asked for it.
“Regarding the apparently large speed variations derived from the radar data and presented in the FI, I suspect the speed estimates come from the spatial separation of radar fixes some minutes apart. An uncertainty of 1 NM in each of a pair of radar fixes 10 minutes apart results in a ground speed error of about 9 knots, and for fixes 5 minutes apart the error is about 17 knots. As far as I know, the FI provides no estimated error on the radar-derived speeds, but it is likely to be fairly large over short (< 10 minute) time intervals. It is risky to infer a great deal of precision in the reported speed estimates unless one has specific information on the capabilities of the radar sets used.”
The DSTG filtered the raw radar data to eliminate the measurement noise you describe. The resulting graph 4.2 in their report shows larger speed variations than those between the few values mentioned in Factual Information.
From the point of view of us who do not have access to the thousand pages report, it might well be that the FO has been understudied as the culprit. If we play down much of what has been fed to us about Z (divorce etc.), the general psychological profile of (psychotic) suicidal airliner pilots that we have got (German Wings and Ethiopian Air(?); more?), would really be a better fit on our FO – in terms of age and professional and social vulnerability. As far as I know, he came family-wise from higher strata of society than Z, but that is no guarantee, and having children and family is to my mind much more of a cushion against suicidal tendencies (generally) than social origins as such. (Also, to my twisted mind, the family of Z would not have the same means to influence press and other initiatives regarding the possible guilt of the other pilot… .) And he did not take the machine down in quite the same way as his fellow comparees. As Gysbrecht put it, anyone can go nuts (from the distance we are looking at at least), so why not Hamid? If this is a criminal investigation of a lone perpetrator, we might naturally take some confidence in the RMP to have looked under every stone also in Hamid’s case. So the likelihood is probably not overwhelming in that regard (since very little has been heard about him), but Z has on the other hand not been completely overproven despite 2.5 years of hard labour (excuse me Dennis, I haven’t forgot about the simulator).
There were several interesting comments (to me) here above, apart from the fact that I appreciated Jeff’s angle in his piece. I might not be able to pay my due to all.
@Gysbrecht: it is the first time for me someone has called attention to the circumstance that the point of going silent might not have been as ideal as previously suggested. That is a bit spectacular to me. Why not go silent after the handover if you want to be sure no one will start looking for you? But it points back to the pilot/s anyway, doesn’t it?
I can only see this as pointing to an estimation (if deliberate) of what you know and what you don’t in the sense that the perp knew what he could expect from KLIA ATC (after speaking to them), but was less certain about the performance awaiting from the Vietnamese side (having not heard them yet). Could there be small-talk that would unambiguously give his voice away? Would there be someone very alert who would notice if he disappeared from the screen? In addition, the fake “emergency” situation contributed to the confusion in this case, didn’t it, although in a way that seems hard to fully predict by anyone. What I mean is that a silent plane showing up on radar over Malaysia wihtout anyone missing a plane already, was obviously not the situation the perp sought for. And in light of this, the superfluous FL call, is not that the perp trying to provoke ATC to react, to see if they are busy or sleeping or alert, and calming them in the sense that they will have less reason to listen in again or start a conversation later on? Is not the perp forestalling, and in that sense trying to direct ATC’s communication with him (point in time, character, lentgh of comm), so as to avoid chit-chat at the wrong moment?
The peculiar thing is that, to me, this points to the dimension of the spectacle: a plain suicide would best have been executed there and then, right down into the waves. So the perp (the pilot, since, as Jeff says behind a veil), the (nearly) only one who could be suspected of something, is also the one who needs to (and can) put up a show to cover his own tracks. The intent of covering over gives him away. And the covering over is about saving his own family from disgrace and the brute force of condemnation (that could be true for Hamid, too, certainly).
Last and least, à propos the Iranian passengers mentioned above: I a not giving this much “hope”, but it struck me that if something actually happened at Igari that necessitated a return to KLIA , which the pilots announced through the speaker system, then at least those two would have been less than amused about the view of landing back in KLIA again, wouldn’t they? Maybe there were more pax that couldn’t on the luck and bribe money(?) to get them through passports and security again? I am planting that one for anyone to shake down as they please.
@Johan
What do DNA, fingerprints, and sim data points have in common? They are all circumstancial evidence.
Have you ever heard of a defense attorney claiming that his client’s DNA and fingerprints are on thosuands of items all over the world, and the fact that they happen to be present at the crime scene should be ignored? I never have heard of such a defense, yet there are mnay people on this blog using it despite the absurdity.
@Johan, Any new detail of the CI that would be released could change everything. MY has lied and deceived from the get go., doctored ATC tapes and probably lots more. It would not surprise me one bit if they threatened people to keep their mouths shut. Growing up in Asia I can assure you many are wonderful people but I was shocked at the behaviour of the MY government from day 1. They stink. Their smell permeates the air. It’s disgusting. A putin smell. 239 people lost their lives and they do not give a shit, thats the bottom line. This is why I hope they find the fuselage and that we may all get answers to many questions we have been throwing around for so long. My 2 cents on ZS is, there was a lot more going on than meets the eye. He was a troubled and lonely man, IMO. You can see it in his eyes, no matter what picture you look at. His grey mouse friend was a means to fill a void if you ask me. Emptyness. Suicide is not about sadness, it’s about not seeing a reason to live. This is Malaysia, a culture that is different from ours.
On a prior flight, the FO had the issue of allowing strangers into the cockpit, and I am wondering if this suggests a certain lack of discipline (maybe he left his phone on?).
@Matt Moriarty – I am unsure of your statement regarding speeds. Obviously a conscious pilot could adjust the speed as often as he desired. However, in the case of a ghost flight many here have used ECON 52, LRC, MRC and Holding as a speed profile that would be held from the FMT until fuel exhaustion. Are you saying that is not possible and a constant Mach would be held regardless of the changing conditions?
Ge Rijn said:
“What I was saying is Zaharie was the one on the radio, the F/O was flying the plane. ”
Was he though?
Have another listen to those calls.
There is an edited BBC version with just the relevant calls here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TURvs1g4S04
The final ‘Goodnight’ seems to be a much smoother, and a more (naturally) American-tinged accent, without the stacatto delivery and ‘Ah…’s that Zaharie demonstrates in the earlier calls and in his Youtube videos.
I would say Zaharie made the two ‘Maintaining flight level three five zero’ calls, but the other calls from the aircraft in the above clip, including the final call, are not him.
Do we know if Z knew the crew or if they were strangers to him as well? I can see a logic that would say if he knew the crew that would make suicide less likely as hed be killing known individuals as well as himself.