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.
@Keffertje: “noone is able to present a viable hijaccking theory that also fits the data. Including you.”
That’s right.
@ROB: do you understand “Such as …”?
@Gysbreght,
Hijack don’t fit data because data after 1:22 are real but come from other 777 than MH370.IMO, he never flight over peninsula. Can you explain how to flight a 777 with 58 minutes with electrical problem.? To much confusion on different radar station. At this time, some are operational but many don’t.
@DennisW
Dennis, that list of names is getting pretty long (smile)!
@ROB:, @Gysbreght:
I am reflecting over the situation from the point of view of the “non-ideal” moment of sign-off and disappearance. That’s a first. The second is reflecting over which person onboard is the likely perp. from the point of view of a deliberate abduction. So that is all in the preconditions, and I disregard the problem of the passengers here also.
Trying to answer your queries I would say that a guy with 18.000 flight hours probably planned more or less exactly what we are sitting up to our butts in. There is a casual side to it — he didn’t want to overplan it and end up with new problems he couldn’t forsee (taking undue risks with low flying). He knew, and this is important, that whatever he did must stand pretty well against the scrutiny of many decades, perhaps for the lifetime of his children. Whether spotted on primary radar or not is not the issue, I think, but getting away without being found right away or in a considerable time. He must remain possibly innocent for posterity (avoiding primary radar would give him away, as would any obvious or hermeneutically straightforward manouver or choice between options that would unambiguosly point to an intent or rationality. He can’t risk having the recorders or cellphones found with anything on them, but he doesn’t mind debris showing up very late after the fact since leaving no trace at all is not necessarily what he wished for. Wherever he went, debris/parts of hull would eventually turn up and sketch something of a scenario and path. If not could be seen as suspect in itself, as if the disappearance was planned rather than accidental. So anything that would point to a single series of events that would explain what happened must be avoided — that is what is important, not being discovered on primary radar effectively after he has passed and passed the next corner.
So, in this light, it is the seeming unintentionality that is suspect. And for me it is the first time I think I can see a more clear intentionality suggested in the choice of the non-ideal point of disappearance (apart from that the “signature” of the whole event speaks of an intentional act made by a qualified individual). The point of disappearance is chosen deliberately to avoid remaining undiscovered when he passes back over the peninsula, with the estimation that a primary/military radar identification of an unknown aircraft well before he had been discovered to be missing at the other end could get him in trouble, and inversely that an unknown aircraft turning up after or at about the same time he is discovered to be missing above SCS would make everyone (but conspirationists) believe and take for granted that this is “our guy” returning in an emergency and make them stand back and wait to see what will happen. And that is exactly the window of time he will need to pass over and slip away (apparently). So he did not want the 20-30 min. window over SCS to disappear completely — after a handover, either to return as an unknown shadow on radars or, at the other end, to go completely lost among radars and territories and military installations that would be foreign, unknown to him or that might dig him up too or even embarrassingly quickly and hang him out to dry. He preferred to disappear in the open, on home turf, in front of his own nationals, who had watched over him every night, and their superiors. He went for what he could predict and foresee and manipulate without giving himself away.
(Written while the painkillers are setting in)
@anyone interested:
off-topic (ish)…
Plane registered to ‘Cobham Flight Inspection’ doing crazy loops over London during the middle of the night:
https://www.flightradar24.com/CLB171/b5f47c6
While this second plane – ‘Flight Calibration Services’ – doing similar loops over the Midlands and the Peak District at the same time…
https://www.flightradar24.com/CLB171/b5f47c6
Kinda interesting that ‘special mission flight operations’ for the military are part of Cobham’s remit…
@Gybreght. In your observations about the pre-reboot stages, you have pointed out the anomalies in a perpetrator choosing to turn off the transponder, turning before signing into Vietnamese airspace and this then being followed by apparent manual flying.
To this we can add the selection of a flight to Peking, where one starting up the Malacca Strait would have required no apparent attempt at concealment nor risks with Malaysian ATC, MAS, Vietnam ATC; or the Malaysian or Thai military.
One could look again at materiel failure but that remains inconsistent with the aircraft heading up the Strait, no sign of a descent, if not more.
Before coming to some explanation which could join the dots with some coherence, I did raise a week or so ago the point about why a perpetrator would not just turn around, contact ATC and say that he was returning for some minor reason, making an onboard announcement to that effect, then extend his return by heading up the Strait as happened. If planned it would be an anomaly that he would seemingly risk alerting the military, Rob’s sanguinity about that notwithstanding.
So to the denouement.
That was what he was trying to do and why he chose that flight. He was attempting to be engaged by the military at least, heading silent and darkened towards a premier military base instead of KL. He might have welcomed being shot down or perhaps welcomed an opportunity to demonstrate his flying skills in resisting.
He would have remained in manual in expectation and chosen night to conceal that he was a MAS airliner.
When there was no reaction he weaved his way up the Strait expecting to be pursued, keeping an eye a best he could on what was behind…
It may well be that to spare the crew and passengers the ordeal he depressurised on the return across the Peninsula by opening the outlet valves, remaining at altitude, retaining some warmth by leaving bleed air on and maybe even the air conditioning packs.
On finding himself alone with no return without disgrace possible he settled at that point on suicide, restored the autopilot with the electrical supplies needed and turned south.
I do not expect such a theory, entailing a return by him to some form of fantasy, not to have flaws, one being why he would not have flown locally until a military reaction was forthcoming. Nevertheless it might be a beginning and at least offers some sort of motive.
@Johan. Develops your intentionality.
@Johan
Interesting thoughts. Indeed going dark after a handover to HCM ATC would have brought him (the hijacker/pilot) in trouble soon with the Vietnamese. They at least reacted within 20 minutes even without the hand-over. IMO this would have been much sooner if MH370 turned black after a confirmed hand-over to HCM ATC.
Turning back into Malaysian air(FIR)space as an unidentifiable aircraft would have brought him in trouble more soon also. HCM-ATC would have alerted KL ATC immediately IMO. It would have been clear immediately it was MH370 also to the military very soon IMO.
Then indeed descending to low altitudes of ~15kft crossing the peninsula would have given him away as obviously performing a deliberate act to avoid dectection by primary radar.
If he had done that there would be no need to doubt this and discuss it right now. Everyone would have understood it was a deliberate act right away.
Suggesting an emergency by the black-out and sharp turn at IGARI making a direct approach to Kota Bharu and after that a straight approach to Penang as if he was looking for an airport to emergency-land the plane would have left the military (and ATC) in confusion how to act. If it was tracked real-time by the military (which I believe it was) it must given them the obvious impression of a plane in distress on his way to a suitable airport.
That’s why they decided to not scramble jets. The military declared they did not regard the plane as a national threath (which statements give away they tracked MH370 real time).
If all planned with the goal to get away not scrambled by the military this was probably the only way that stood a chance.
Very clever.
Big question to me is why the Malaysian military let MH370 go after Penang when it was clear there was no intention to land the aircraft.
They just let it fly out of their radar range and dissapear without even alerting Indonesia or any other country (at least that’s what they say).
I still find this very hard to believe and IMO this very fact needs deep investigation.
@David
A very original approach but when he wanted to attrackt attention from the military he did a bad job don’t you think?
Staying at altitude and heading straight to airports first Kota Bharu and then Penang would on the contrary minimize great concern of the military (which they declared afterwards as stated before).
And declaring a failure and a return to KL ATC then going dark would have alerted all airports on route and all primary radars to keep track of him.
He could not have escaped/disappeared the way it turned out.
@Ge Rijn. Thanks.
“…..when he wanted to attract attention from the military he did a bad job don’t you think?”
Yes, as it turns out though that is in retrospect.
“Staying at altitude and heading straight to airports first Kota Bharu and then Penang would on the contrary minimize great concern of the military (which they declared afterwards as stated before).”
Heading towards Penang really should have MAXIMISED concern from the military, though again it didn’t as you say.
“And declaring a failure and a return to KL ATC then going dark would have alerted all airports on route and all primary radars to keep track of him.”
Yes, what I meant a week ago was that if he wanted an unalerted passage across the Peninsula it would have been more sensible for him to return on a communicated pretext and not going dark.
However under this fantasy theory, which I well understand for many will require at least a double Scotch to help it down, he would go dark without any communication (as happened) with the intention of attracting widespread attention, the military’s in particular, that being reinforced by concern from ATC after their view was sought.
@Ge Rijn. One could argue that a broadcast of a terrorist type intention would have been more effective in attracting attention but his voice would have given away who was behind it all and well might he wish to conceal that. Then again, if he hit a “terrorists have got this plane” button that would have done the trick..
And so it goes, as do I for now.
Enough for me. Brock is missing.
May MH370 be found some day.
Good luck everybody and thanks for the writing I enjoyed over long, long time.
@David
A transponder-off, not communicating, roque-passenger plane should have maximized concern from the military from the moment it was detected of course. They declared it didn’t. I question their statements about this.
I understand now what you meant with ‘declaring a failure’.
Indeed that would be the normal thing to do.
That then leaves only two options in your logic IMO:
-Or it was a sudden mechanical/electric failure that disabled/isolated the left main bus and with it the VHF-radios, ACARS, the transponders and the SATCOM all at once.
-Or it was a deliberate act by a hijacker/pilot who perhaps isolated the left main bus with the same conseqenses.
@All
I think it important to remember that MAS ops knew who the PIC was that evening. Judge their behavior accordingly.
Namely, that KL ATC was kept purposely ‘in the dark’ (pardon the pun), and that the military was actively tracking Zaharie while Hishammuddin was orchestrating. Hishammuddin is telling us the truth when he claims that they knew it was ‘friendly’, ‘not hostile, ‘commercial, and ‘from their airspace’. They did know this.
It is clear, IMO, that someone quite high up in the Malay political apparatus was calling the shots. This is evidenced by, if nothing else, the inaction of the MAS operations room staff (setting aside the Cambodian FIR fiction). It is quite the labor to justify why MAS ops would only try to call their missing 777 only 2 times over the duration of the event. In fact, Inexplicable.
Nice to see that quite a few here are beginning to feel the ‘homespun’ aspects and look more closely at Zaharie and his intention/motive.
He carried quite a bit of self-righteous indignation, and wanted to destroy BN/UMNO by asking them to explain to the world how it was that they managed to lose a triple seven with 239 souls on board, when it flew right back over the whole of the country.
When another sim experiment confirms that following a route discontinuity the autopilot modes remain in LNAV/VNAV, and thus is effectively maintaining the Heading in degrees True passing Banda Aceh at VNAV descent speed, and the aircraft ends up at the ATSB hotspot, then maybe Mr Wise could do an article on the accident scenario (oxygen bottle rupture).
He could cover items such as;
oxygen bottle in MEC (EE bay) topped up prior to flight,
at cruise altitude cabin pressure is less,
during turn at Igari G-loading increases, bottle ruptures (similar to QF30),
bottle mounted on left side of nosegear wheelwell,
rupture destroys Left AIMS cabinet (the left electronic brain which interacts with 100 LRUs, switches and sensors),
air data to Left transponder (from Left AIMS),
flight ID to SDU (only via Left AIMS),
Left arinc 629 (no comms, AMU only on left 629, all radios depend on single AMU),
Left HGA,
Left IDG (voltage regulation wiring from P100, primary source of power to Left Main Ac bus),
Backup Converter (wiring to P100),
Satcom powered by Left Main AC bus,
Hydim cards,
center TRUs,
Capt Flight Instrument Bus (no EICAS, only 2/6 DUs), etc.
Leads to gradual decompression,
flight control issues,
electrical issues,
navigation issues,
hydraulic issues,
communication issues, etc.
The transponder ceases transmitting Mode S, but radar coasts (predicts aircraft position) symbol until 1720:36 before dropping it from the screen (note the Mode S replies from the transponder did not fail at 1720:36, it failed some time before this depending on coast duration),
transponder restarts following brief power interruption and transmits Mode A during 37 sec test then fails test,
radar continues to coast this symbol until 1721:13 (note that these radar returns cannot be replicated by someone simply turning off the transponder in the cockpit, this is the major flaw in any hijack/pilot commandeering scenario),
right IDG supplying power to all main and transfer busses,
right AIMS still functional,
load shedding by ELMS,
crew overwhelmed by failures divert to Kendi (southern approach point to Penang),
aircraft remains at high altitude,
it does not avoid primary radar (note this is a flaw in the hijack /pilot commandeering scenario),
crew then suffering mild hypoxia program diversion to Banda Aceh before passing out,
no emergency oxygen available for crew (bottles ruptured),
load restoration by ELMS,
at topd aircraft slows to VNAV descent speed,
aircraft turns at Nilam exposing serviceable right HGA causing 1825 log-on,
no integrity monitoring of satcom data, additional unknown errors in satcom data, cabin temperature falling to minus 40 degrees,
aircraft turns at Sanob around 1828,
passes over Banda Aceh,
ends in SIO near ATSB hotspot,
however right engine failure causes log on following APU autostart (Left IDG and Backup Converter inoperable),
Left engine still operating at seventh arc, load shedding of IFE,
flight envelope protection enabled prevents overspeed/stall/overbank,
TAC enabled,
autothrottle still armed,
speed window defaults to 200 knots,
Left engine fails,
flaperon damaged during dive (PCUs in bypass mode due electrical and hydraulic problems, thus flaperon is free to flutter violently, note this is a flaw in the hijack/pilot commandeering scenario),
aircraft ends up to 100 nm from arc (this area has never been searched).
And he could cover all the information not available;
playback of Malaysian ATC radar when MH370 at Igari (no mention of coasting in FI report),
Vietnamese ATC transcript (omitted from FI report),
interview with MH88,
FOs phone connection logs with Penang and Banda Aceh,
fuel endurance report (estimated fuel load at Igari too low),
Indonesian Primary Radars (if these were made available the aircraft would probably have been found by now),
10 sec primary radar positions with lat/long/altitude,
flaperon analysis,
serial number of oxygen bottles (were they the old bottles prone to rupture as in Airworthiness Directive 2009-21-10 R1), etc
Looking forward to December. An article on the oxygen bottle rupture scenario would answer a lot of questions.
@OXY
Interesting overview of information.
It’s not by your nickname that you come to this scenario? 😉
To add to my previous post:
Isolation of the left main bus or/and the the right main bus is quite easy to do from the captains chair pushing some buttons overhead:
http://www.777project.com/images/photos_diagrams/OH_-_Electrical_Control_Panel.gif
http://www.777project.com/images/photos_diagrams/OH_-_Overhead_Panel.jpg
@Johan, @Ge Rijn, @David
Johan, I’m agreeing with much of what you say, and remaining sanguine (whatever that means in this context) BTW, sorry to hear about the need for painkillers. Not too serious, I hope.
As for manual flying, I don’t think there was any, except possibly during the turn back manoeuvre itself. The apparently erratic flight path following the turn back, is an artifact of the radar tracking, IMO.
The whole thing had to be carefully preplanned in advance. Once you commit yourself to something as awful as this, you see it through to the end, with single minded determination, hyperfocus, if you like. I cannot see how there was much room for alternative plans/options or developments, once that big decision was taken at the signoff.
The Malaysian military saying they thought the plane was not a threat, was just them covering their backsides, IMHO. What else could they say? The pilot knew they would probably be caught out. He would have known just how unprepared they would be for what he was planning that night. But even so, it must have taken some nerve – I for one, wouldn’t want to be chased by a SU30 in the middle of the night, or at any other time, come to that. But the threat of SU30s on QRA was a chance he was prepared to take, but remember, we’re talking about the Malaysian Air Force, not the RAF.
@Jeff Wise
In the mode of “What if Zaharie didn’t do it?”,
Has anyone read this article: https://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking/2016/10/20/61262/
and the associated download: https://www.dropbox.com/s/n5k3s43xu4qzfyx/MH370%20Research%20V3.2.pdf?dl=0
Thank you for posting that Milhouse.
Very interesting that this article says a mayday call is not on the Smoke, Fire and Fumes checklist.
@Matt Morratti can you confirm this is true?
If so it calls into question the dismissal of mechanical failure due to lack of mayday call.
@ROB:
Short reply: I don’t think any airforce would shoot down a non-hostile, non-communicating airliner (of their own national brand) with more apparent distress than hostile direction and with no signigficant national threat level. You have to have a kid doing it, and a old fellow and his staff deciding it, and they and everyone else would have to live with it. What if the black boxes said “electrical fire”? It is peculiar they didn’t get jets up there, but I suspect the opportunity ran away from them. And as for the Indonesians, it could very well be that they were informed but stayed on the ground. (Nightly emergency missions with fighter jets looking for a dark plane at high altitude is maybe a both dangerous and costly business btw.)
But as a conclusion, they didn’t regard it as hostile and the abductor could count on that. Why would they? Everything was indicating an emergency turn-back, until it overflew Penang (was it?) but didn’t come back again. I am not the expert, but if a crew shut off all communication they have an electrical fire, smoke, mayhem in the cockpit and are making preparations to land, don’t you say? And everyone is very very concerned about the souls on board, waiting to have them down any minute, either as heap of metal and fire or safely somewhere on a track no one is certain of. All efforts will first go in the direction of an accident emergency and all thoughts will be on those onboard. What do we do, what will happen, where are they, where are they going, what will become of them, what of all the crew and their families, what will we have to do in terms of alerting assistance, calling in whonot and making preps for this and that etc.? I hope and assume and fear that they had their hands full.
Thanks for your concern. I was trying to explain why I was texting in the middle of the night. Yes and no (a paragliding accident of sorts).
@Johan
I agree with your assessment.
But paragliding and painkillers… That’s a bit spooky, considering what we read about Z’s medical history in FI. Paragliding is obviously not for wimps! I think I’ll stick to free climbing.
@Milhouse
Very interesting paper from this Micheal Gilbert.
Besides the hypothesis of a windshield-fire which is well build up, the factual information about other details of the flight and systems is quite informative and makes a good overview.
For anyone usefull to spend time on reading it IMO.
Among others I think @Oleksandr would be partiqularly interested to read this..
@Rob:
Paraglider was a euphemism for the eerhmmtrampolineeerrhmm. But the psychology behind it would be about the same.
Ref Mick Gilbert’s paper suggesting windshield fire. Does anyone knowledgable about aircraft electrical systems care to comment about the “thermo-magnetic breaker” as a possible reason for power-down of multiple systems? Does the same breaker allow re-connection once the heat source is removed?
Ge Rijn,
“Among others I think @Oleksandr would be partiqularly interested to read this..”
Give Jeff Wise a moment of peace!
Yes, I read the paper. The issue is that there many speculations about what could have happened. My current machanical failure ‘filters’ are:
1. ADIRU must have been impacted, so that it either failed, or started to produce rubbish and it had to be shut down.
2. No communication.
3. No apparent attempts to land.
Anything that satisfies these 3 conditions does work for me: whether it is the tire bolt, oxygen tanks or electrical fire.
The condition #1 provides opportunity of the “ghost” flight in a downgraded AP mode, terminating north of the current search area, which is in a good agreement with the drift studies.
@Oleksandr
I just wanted to alert your attention but of course you read it allready. Nothing pushing meant.
I agree with you and I know your opinion on this that every cause you name could suite a scenario like this.
And the coördinates he mentions could fit.
I also suggested a flame-out of the right engine triggering the log-on on the 7th arc before with the left engine running after this for a ~100miles.
With his windshield-blown-out-drag hypothesis (or other drag) this could be a possibility.
I did not mean to be offensive in any way to you or anyone.
I meant it inviting your opinion.
@Paul Smithson
As I understand it those thermal magnetic breakers work with a bi-metal.
I guess you know what that means. It’s like your electric water boiler.
When above 100 Celsius they switch the power off. When cooling under 100 they switch on again pure mechanically due to reaction of the both different metals used in the bi-metal.
But perhaps in an airplane those breakers have to be pushed back in first to power up a circuit again.
https://www.e-t-a.com/products/circuit_protection_devices/thermal_magnetic_overcurrent_circuit_breakers/
@ROB et al:
I would like to add and emphasise that my speculations are against the background of the very narrow window of disappearance right after sign-off. And instrumental to finding an event logic. I am not digging a foxhole and would like arguments against it. And I don’t want to appear heartless in the face of the possible disaster that (the expectaions of which) a/the pilot would then have had to be exploiting for his personal (or his families) gain.
As to what concerns the reaction on the ground during the event as it unfolded I assume it could be measured afterwards to see whether it lives up to the expectations of a live event, or if it were more half-hearted, from a organisation that new beforehand what was about to develop (as some posters above suggest).
@Ge Rijn. No, I’m not so familiar with the detailed specs of circuit breakers, hence the question. How sure are you that these things re-connect / un-trip themselves when overcurrent condition ceases?
@Johan
Considering human behavior in general it could well be many overestimate the capacities of individuals when it comes to crisis-situations. Especially some who are in power in factualy not-democratic states (as Malaysia).
It’s my impression those autorities in command where overwhelmed by the situation and could not adequately deal with the situation other than to cover up their asses in the first place as their primary concern.
@Paul Smithson
The article states (and it’s about B777 breakers used) bi-metal switches are involved.
They re-connect themselves automatically when temperature drops under the switching-temperature-level.
The one thing I don’t know is if they pop out they need to be pushed in again after a failure in an aircraft to re-connect a circuit. I guess so. Seems logic.
The ones you have in your electrical house-system you need to push back again also to establish power to your equipement.
I assume this is the same in an aircraft.
I’m not a pilot so it’s a pilot’s question to make sure I guess.
Hope some pilot gives the conclusive answer.
@OXY
I have worked with 1000’s of gas cylinders for a life time, and never saw one fail, except of course minor fitting leaks. So that case is interesting but very rare, and the root cause (damage?) is unfort. not known as the cylinder blew itself clean out of the airplane. Presumably these cylinders are pressure tested to extreme high pressures, so slightly lower pressure in the cabin is no big deal. I can assure you pilot suicide and HiJackers have caused many more commercial airline deaths than failed O2 cylinders, which stand at zero death rate despite this interesting 747 incident.
@Milhouse
I am under the impression window heater failure may be cause of recent MS804 accident, but not MH370.
I have very mixed emotions about writings like above as well as Christine Negroni’s new book. MH370 likely cause is intentional diversion as stated by Prime Minster Razak on 15-March 2014.
Of course the experts need to consider possible mechanical failure, but they did, and nobody is taking Boeing to court because MH370 does not appear to be an aircraft issue. This was my criticism of CNN coverage back in 2014, all the bloggers/press want to discount foul play and hype up fire and other theories.
@Milhouse
I would like to add in those terrible circumstances of a blown out windshield under those temperatures and 500 knots winds blowing in the cockpit it would be very difficult to set as a last resort a precize 180 on the MCP. Could be but any heading close around 180 would be fine in such a case IMO. Difficult point.
@Ge Rijn:
There ought to be a protocol for the rescue dimension both on local and national level. It is not like Malaysia has never been to war or are unfamiliar with catastrophe. Additionally there is a democracy by constitution and although that may faulter due to structural unequality I believe those in charge of rescue operations and air traffic should be wary of their employments, as others might take care of them in their stead. Those who are on the upper side of structural inequality (save the military perhaps) won’t take easy on neglect in that area (as a rule), and the jobs does not demand high education. But it may depend of course, and is a question of involved level of command etc. and possible boondocks’ (thank you Kefferetje) or “parade authoritarian” parts of the overall organisation. If Malaysia would want to continue having the world community’s trust regarding civil aviation they may have to step up. But I have no idea how it works today (or two years ago). It is hard to believe it really was a military/secret service operation behind it all, and, sure, many may have made similar mistakes during an event like that, not least if intended to in a way by a perp., but it would probably be easy to see for anyone looking if, and what, was working or not that night. And many would be able to have a hunch.
But if not, then the single perp. theory is back on track.
@Rob, Obviously I agree that, as you write, “the whole thing had to be carefully preplanned in advance.” One of the puzzles surrounding that aspect of the case is why it was planned to go down in the way that it did. If Zahari was the culprit, and his aim was to disappear the plane, which didn’t he just fly out into the Pacific? If third-party hijackers were to blame, and wanted to take the plane to Kazakhstan, why didn’t they jack a plane that was heading from KUL to Europe? They would have had an equally suitable window to effect their vanishing while transitioning from Malaysian to Indian airspace over the Andaman Sea. (Even more so, as it’s further out to sea.)
(Trigger warning: if you don’t have any time for spoof theories, there’s no need to read the next paragraph.)
One possible answer is that, if highjackers took the plane, their intent was not primarily to escape detection, but rather to create a maximally diverting media sensation, and they anticipated that the story would unfold gradually, in parts: first, plane goes missing over the South China Sea; then, that it was seen on primary radar; then, that Inmarsat data was able to determine that it flew on out over the remote ocean. If this is the case, then the turnaround and flight through Malaysian radar coverage wasn’t a necessary compromise to achieving mission objectives, but an essential component of a dance of veils.
@Oleksandr
You fail to appreciate the “timing” of your mechanical failure scenario. So it happened at the precise moment of an ATC handoff? Then the aircraft continued to fly until fuel exhaustion. The probabilities argue strongly against it.
probability of hull loss due to mechanical issue – 20%
probability of occurrence at precise ATC handoff < 10%
probability of plane continuing to fuel exhaustion < 10%
Additional negatives of no communication or ELT deployment should also be considered, but I will leave them out. Likewise the deliberate FMT clearly indicating pilot involvement. Too many loose ends to tidy up.
Combined probability < 0.2%, or about 1 in 500.
Not worthy of consideration, IMO.
@Jeff
I enjoy your spoof theories, at least you provide a motive with them.
@ Dennis
I like your thought process about the cumulative effect of what we know points away from an accident; however I think you need to lower your overall probability by a couple of decimal places.
w.r.t. “It is clear, IMO, that someone quite high up in the Malay political apparatus was calling the shots. This is evidenced by, if nothing else, the inaction of the MAS operations room staff (setting aside the Cambodian FIR fiction).”
I remember someone sharing on another message board some Instant Messaging discussion from a MAS ops manager to workers who became worried the moment MH370 disappeared. He instructed all to stop discussing the disappearance due to “National Security” being as risk.
@JeffWise,
Why it is so hard to considere this is a near perfect hijack? Maybe some under-estimated the hijackers.
Yet, they choose: best time, best plane, best place, best pilot in a dark night with more than 150 chinese to negociated with gov.
@Dennis, I appreciate the logic of your comment, but I’m afraid that I can’t congratulate you for writing it. You see, there are 7 billion people on this earth, so the chance that that comment was written by you is far less than 1 in a billion.
@Jeff
IMHO Zaharie’s aim was not at all “to just disappear the plane”. I think it’s fairly obvious that he purposely flew back over the mainland and up the straight for a specific purpose. That purpose was, in a nutshell, to embarrass the regime.
He knew that Malaysia would be forced to answer all manner of difficult questions…either they would be laughed at and ridiculed for never seeing MH370 at all (this would not be a tenable position as we have seen), or they would be forced into a posture of needing to demonstrate some transparency (which is what we have seen).
And although I believe he isolated the left bus at IGARI to achieve multiple objectives, the timing of SDU reboot is a curious thing. Maybe he did have knowledge of the INMARSAT capability? This is an insurance policy, and a good one at that.
I believe he spent at least two years planning this out. And I find it difficult to believe that he would not have been meticulous enough to know about the BTO/BFO. This is who Zaharie was…and the Air France crash made this information readily available to someone with strong perfectionist tendencies like Z.
Heck, the Israelis, Russians and Americans were already well versed in spoofing the units…according to some Indonesian INMARSAT guys. Z would be able to get some access, somehow. Just saying.
@Jeff
Yes, probabilities can be scary. I worry about the finite probability that all the oxygen molecules in the room will migrate to the side of the room I am not on, and that I will suffocate. So far, thankfully, that has not happened to me.
So it goes with mechanical failure scenarios.
I love the way you guys are all-so-sure that the plane was diverted on purpose and then go on to concoct the most “wonderful” scenarios on why he did what he did. Just saying.
Dennis,
Re: “You fail to appreciate the “timing” of your mechanical failure scenario.”
No, not at all. When you are discussing probabilities, you need to take into consideration both the events:
1. The turn after ATC handoff.
2. The SDU reboot within 1-2 minutes after the disappearance from radars.
I haven’t seen a theory, which would explain both the coincidences. You and Jeff prefer stressing on #1 and ignoring #2. So why do you think the opposite, i.e. stressing on #2 and ignoring #1, is a worse choice? As a matter of fact, the timing of #1 can be correlated with many other things, while #2 is unique.
Re: “Additional negatives of no communication or ELT deployment should also be considered, but I will leave them out.”
The ELT issue affects all the scenarios, does not it? The mechanical failure is probably the least affected, as panic followed by incapacitation are sufficiently good explanations. I do not see activation of the ELT in the check lists related to electrical fire, but the IFE is there.
@Oleksandr, I think the mere existence of the SDU reboot, let alone the timing of it, accords much better with a hijack scenario than with an accidental malfunction. (In fact I think indeed it rules out any accident scenario.)
I’ve proposed that the SDU was rebooted after the plane left primary radar so that the BFO values couldn’t be correlated with observed location and track, but soon after so that afterward investigators would be left with what looked like a continuous chain of evidence of where the plane was be going.
@Paul S.
Well it certainly beats:
1> Ignoring the ISAT data.
2> Ignoring the radar information.
3> Ignoring the FO phone connect near Penang.
Number 3> above for sure happened by the way.
You have to ignore just about everything except the departure from KL for your scenario to work. Just saying.
@Jeff,
I think this is a very possible theory. Could you elaborate more?
Thanks
@Oleksandr
The SDU reboot question affects all scenarios equally. It is probability neutral.
@PatM, Basically, I’m talking about the spoof scenario, which I outline in the book pictured at right. The idea is that the hijackers did not commit suicide but changed a parameter in the SDU so that it sent signals that made it look like the plane flew south, when in fact it flew north. This would require of course that the debris discovered so far be planted. We’re awaiting data on that.
@DennisW, I don’t see how you can say that the SDU reboot is probability neutral. It is something that basically never happens on its own and so is strongly counterindicative of an accidental cause.
Jeff,
The SDU reboot itself can be well explained be hijack, no doubts. But not the ‘coincidental’ disapperence from radars.
1. The timing is way too accurate given the time it takes SDU to reach the log-on stage. Why not wait extra 5 minutes to make sure they left the radar coverage?
2. There is no real need to “send” BFO signals to confuse investigators. What does this give? On contrary, possible incoming calls resulting in BFO records could potentially reveal more information than intended.
3. What you suggest requires detailed knowledge of the characteristics of Malaysian, Thai, Indonesian and Indian radar systems, including prediction of the no-operation and signal strength. Sabang Satrang in particular was supposed to track MH370 even at very low altitudes, but it did not. There would be no way to escape undetected if all the radars were operating. Not an easy task, certainly beyond the capabilities of a single person.
4. I don’t really understand what is the benefit of SDU reboot immediately after the escaping radar coverage? Why not earlier or not later? Why SDU shut down was needed at all in such a case, while switching the ACARS and IFE off would have nearly the same effect?