A few things have happened recently in MH370 world that are worth taking note of.
No FMT. The seabed search in the southern Indian Ocean is all over but the shouting, and as a result I see that a consensus is forming that there could have been no “final major turn” into the southern Indian Ocean. Rather, if the plane went south, it must have loitered somewhere beyond the Malacca Strait until after 18.40 before finally flying a straight southerly path from 19:40 onward. This loiter, following a high-speed dash across the Malay Peninsula and up the strait, is quite bizarre, given that no attempt was made by anyone on board the plane to contact the ground, either to ask for help or to negotiate a hostage situation. So the presumption of a loiter doesn’t really shed light on motivation, it does effectively put yet another nail in the coffin of accident/malfunction scenarios.
More of the secret Royal Malaysian Police report released. Mick Rooney, aka @airinvestigate, has released a portion labelled “Folder 6: Audio and Other Records.” The new section contains an expert report analyzing the cockpit/ATC audio up to 17:21, which concludes (with less than 100% confidence) that it was probably Zaharie who uttered the final words “Good night, Malaysia 370.” It also includes ACARS data and the Inmarsat logs which had already been released back in 2014. In perusing the document I was not able to identify anything that would alter our collective understanding of the case, but I hope that others will offer their own assessments. And I applaud Mick for being the only one with the moral backbone to release this information. I am sure that more will follow. UPDATE: The next batch is here: “Folder 5: Aircraft Record and DCA Radar Data.”
Debris trail goes cold. I’ve plotted, above, the number of pieces of debris that have been found each month since MH370 disappeared. After the first piece of debris was found in July, 2015, a smattering of further pieces was found until April, May, and June of this year, when the number spiked and then dropped off again before ceasing altogether. This is a puzzling distribution, since drift models show that the gyres of the southern Indian Ocean act as a great randomizer, taking things around and around and spitting them out after widely varying periods of time. Would expect, therefore, to see the number of pieces found to gradually swell and then fall off again.
There is a complicating factor to this assumption, of course. Even if the pieces do arrive in a certain pattern, overlaid on top of this is the effect of an independent variable: the degree to which people are actively searching for them. It must be noted that a considerable amount of the June spike is attributable to Blaine Alan Gibson’s astonishing haul on the beaches of Madagascar that month. Indeed, Gibson by himself remains responsible for more than half of the 22 pieces of debris found thus far.
Earlier this week, several frustrated family members announced that they would be organizing their own beachcombing expedition, to take place next month. If their efforts prove less fruitful than Blaine Alan Gibson’s, it may raise questions as to what exactly was the secret to Gibson’s success.
It is quite odd that the no further debris has turned up since Aug..and most debris at one time then nothing. Ive seen the online chatter that the two FL35 calls to ATC from the cockpit are not the same voice…certainly the second FL35 audio call sounds much different…more noise different audio nuances. Why on Earth has Australia not organised beach searches is beyond me…given the clues that each piece found can give…instead of looking solely at the ocean floor…we could have found more evidence from debris of where to adjust the seafloor search. Its damning to both Australia and Malaysia that the relatives of those souls lost are having to pay and search for clues by themselves.
Jinow, they are being paid Millions of dollars to search the seabed. Why would they even care about looking somewhere else. They are not being paid on the condition of ‘finding’ anything. If they find it…their paychecks stop. This arrangement has bothered be for a long time. They have been given incentive to ‘prolong’ the search, not to actually produce a plane and conclude it.
@Flitzer
Yes on Chillit’s analytics. Very fuzzy to say the least. Agree that his drifter revelations are very interesting. My guess is that he just penciled in a flight path to the Batavia location.
@JeffW
You had me scared for a minute there on “No FMT”…guess we could call it a “complex” FMT with “loiter”. To me a loiter could be consistent with disguising and timing the ultimate SIO flight path. It is only thanks to INMARSAT that we know the final leg was to the South.
@Sajid UK
Sorry I can’t confirm the Z YouTube accounts, maybe @matt can help. I copied the PBY Catalina YouTube post from a recent Reddit thread just because other posters here were talking about it.
@Jinow
I agree with you that there seems to be limited interest in gathering debris evidence for this case. We will have to nominate Blaine Gibson for a humanitarian award if any of the pieces he found helps to solve the case. Believe his efforts also encouraged other to look more closely. Johnny Begue probably also gets special credit for the initial flapperon find.
@ROB
you said:
“@Susie Crowe
It’s not simply a case of being willing to accept Shah as a mass murderer.
It’s more a case of simply assessing the available factual evidence. This evidence points to Shah as the perpetrator of a preplanned act of mass murder. I also have a well developed intuition. My intuition tells me that Shah is the guilty party.”
Thank you. The bleeding hearts around here are truly pathetic. We are trying to solve a crime not play nicey nice at some cocktail party. Good grief. Pointing a finger at someone can only be done one way – point the stinking finger. If it bothers some folks around here who cares? I certainly don’t.
@DennisW
“Yes on Chillit’s analytics. Very fuzzy to say the least. Agree that his drifter revelations are very interesting. My guess is that he just penciled in a flight path to the Batavia location.”
I agree with you Chillit’s end point seems to be as good as any, but not sure how he got there. His end point is close to Iannello/Godfrey cases, as well as your recent case. My personal hypothesis (without math proof) is MH370 may have been on the most westerly standard flight path L894 headed toward waypoint MERIB, which trajectory would look somewhat like Chillit’s. Believe Godfrey’s recent paper pretty much ends right on L894.
@All, “Maria Chin Abdullah, a civil rights leader, was arrested under an anti extremism law” in Malaysia. This because of a mass rally of Bersih, fighting for clean and fair elections and demanding Najib’s resignation. This again proves that MY is not a deomocracy but a dictatorship. Najib does not tolerate any criticism or push back of the people. He is a corrupt man, in a corrupt government, the same that fed us the data on MH370 investigation. IMO, once this man is removed from government and hopefully gets thrown in jail, a lot of pertinent informtion on MH370 will surface.
@Jeff
you said:
“The seabed search in the southern Indian Ocean is all over but the shouting, and as a result I see that a consensus is forming that there could have been no “final major turn” into the southern Indian Ocean.”
Yes, exactly. It is the same consensus I referred to earlier. The only way to generate sensible Northern routes is to postulate a late FMT. I totally agree with the Chillit general location, not for Chillit’s reasons, but because routes using the sim data points can be used to infer that terminus. The Chillit drifter revelations, if true, are startling.
@keffertje
Yes, Najib truly is a tyrant and a scumbag. My thesis is that Shah wanted to be a folk hero not a murderer. His and his co-conspirator’s plan was dripping with risk and the risk overcame the good intentions.
@DennisW
The examples Mike Chillit uses in fact contradict his own hypothesis.
The NOAA drifter in his graphics that follows the purple path ends much too far to the north compared with the flaperon. If this path is projected with its end point on Reunion its starting point would be in or very close to the current search area.
The NOAA drifter that follows the green path fits the time frame but also ends up too far north.
If this green path is projected with it’s and point on Reunion its starting point would be near 30S.
So, in fact good examples he uses to prove his crash area can not be right based on his own drifter examples.
@Jeff Wise
In an earlier thread, you mentioned also the “Convenience” of the debris finds in correlation to public discussion and discussion on this blog.
When we reached near consensus about a spoof scenario, exactly right afterwards there werre the first debris finds, and when , triggered by the french scepsis, many of us thought there was a planted flaperon, we got the full load of Blaine Gibsons finds, which were remarkably convenient for the Z did it faction.
It leaves the impression, that most or many features of the MH370 drama are still written by spin doctors, who were in place from the first day …
@Suzie
I would consider Trolls and troling as a kind of new natural force, like rain or drought. You cannot fight the wind … In my opinion any discussion with ROB is obsolete because of that.
@Ge Rijn, I’ve been playing with NOAA drifter data a fair bit lately, and I think that Mike Chillit has cherry-picked his drifter data in a way that creates an erroneous impression. There is a very large “random walk” component in drifter paths, so that two pieces that start out side by side can wander off in very different directions. The currents are not nearly so deterministic as one might assume looking at those pictures of counterclockwise arrows in diagrams of ocean currents. So the idea that any piece that starts out near the Batavia Seamount in March 2014 is going to wind up north of Reunion in July 2015 is really not accurate. There are some kml files that people have put together that allow you to drop historical drifter data into Google Earth, they’re really great for getting an intuitive grasp of how things drift.
@Cosmic Academy, It does seem a bit odd, doesn’t it?
@Jeff Wise
Then at least Mike Chillit didn’t cherry-picked his two examples well to defend his case with.
They in fact better serve the ~33S ~28S assumptions based on a lot more historical drifters used by CSIRO and Adrift.
Statistically drifters drift in general to the same (wide) region when starting from a same area (with some exceptions) like the CSIRO studies and Adrift show (although most drifters get stuck in the gyres and never reach land).
But like no CSIRO (or Adrift) drifters reached Australia North of ~36S no drifters passing through Mike chillit’s area will reach Mozambique or South Africa IMO.
None of his (few) drifters even reached near Reunion.
My conclusion: his crash area is (much) too far North based on the current drift-data.
@cosmic Academy
you said:
“When we reached near consensus about a spoof scenario, exactly right afterwards there werre the first debris finds…”
There was never anything resembling a “near consensus” on a spoof scenario. It has been and is an outlier that flies in the face of virtually all the hard evidence we have.
@Ge Rijn / Jeff
Yes, the drift trajectories are a random walk. What the Chillit data shows is that real drifters placed at the same time as the crash in a location that has a tie in to the sim data points propagated to an area consistent with the debris finds. Cherry picked or not I find this observation both useful and compelling.
I am glad I reserved the right to evangelize my latest path. I exercise that right now for the Iannello and Godfrey path and for my path terminating near 27S. I believe this is the best confluence of theory and observation we have had in the last 12 months.
@DennisW, Trying to think though a blackmail scenario, I get stuck tbh. First, ZS accomplice on the ground would need to know when the aircraft goes dark and the threats can commence. Flightracker is not reliable because we know it showed MH370 over Cambodia. ZS could have had technical issues at the gate or something else causing a delay. How would the accomplice(s) know? Perhaps someone at MAS was involved or ATC? Second how do you get your threat taken seriously? Natural instict of people not expecting it is to think whoever is calling is a playing a joke. So how do they get people’s attention at that hour? This takes time, a lot of time. Meanwhile PAX and crew are alive and could use the ELT. SDU comes back on at 18.25 and IFE as well, for 3 minutes (I read this somewhere). Noone however, sent e-mails or used the ELT. So ZS loiters between 18.28 and 19.40, waiting for Njib to transfer a couple. But how does he get word from his accomplice(s)? You don’t really want to kill 238 people if Najib agreed to a transfer. So how? Someone on a boat? Flare or no flare as a signal? So somehow ZS gets a signal and knows Najib wouldn’t budge and he goes ahead with his deed. But how many people on MAS/MY side now know about this blackmail? Thats a lot of mouths to zip. Lastly, I can see MY not wanting to tell the world they could have saved a lot of people, on the other hand they could have flattened the opposition untill eternity. Tough one this.
@DennisW
Yes , I agree in this regard his drift-data are surely usefull and compelling.
To find/add data which indicate where the crash location is more probably not, helps narrowing the area where the crash location more probably is.
@keffertje
In no particular order:
The fact the MH370 was not transmitting does not imply it was not able to receive. There were several radios on board, both UHF and VHF, that could have been used to message the aircraft.
Loss of contact near Igari was legit and verifiable. It was relatively easy for government officials to verify that the plane was diverted. Exact timing is not important. Ground accomplices could have started their actions the minute the wheels went up at KL. Who could stop whatever was going to happen at that point?
The ELT has always been a red herring. As I stated earlier, if I was on a diverted aircraft it would never occur to me, and I think to most everyone else, that the location of the plane was unknown. In this modern area the idea that a 777 could disappear is not credible, and in fact the plane was tracked by radar from IGARI to 18:22. So the location of the aircraft was known. The ELT would add nothing if the ground observations were conducted and coordinated in a professional manner.
Hard to say who knows anything on the MY side. It is not hard to say that the MY response in the period immediately following the diversion was stifled by actions “from the top”, and the initial S&R activity was coordinated by people far above the normal pay grade of S&R staff trained for the purpose.
The fact that MY has not pointed a finger at ZS is, IMO, direct evidence that they do not want to open a can of worms. If they point at ZS, the next logical question is why. The Malays don’t want that question to be asked. What they want is for the search to play out, and the whole incident swept under a rug and forgotten.
Don’t forget also the great significance of the March 8 date pointed out by a poster here some time ago. Also don’t forget the points on Shah’s simulator. They did not get there by accident or as some people would have you believe are simply part of an ensemble of thousands of such points. It would be like a defense attorney claiming has client’s fingerprints are on thousands of objects all over the world so the fact that they were found on the murder weapon is irrelevant. Fingerprints are circumstantial evidence, BTW.
I agree with other posters here that Shah does not seem to fit the profile of a mass murderer (I have no qualifications to make that assertion, BTW). What he “seems’ like to me is a person who deeply cares about his fellow citizens and his country. His intent was to make things better by avenging previous nefarious activities.
@DennisW, I find it truly weird that you are so quick to ridicule others whose opinions you disagree with, and then trot out the most outlandish, unsupported, and indeed asinine theory. Need I point out to you that the RMP produced a confidential 1,000-page report, for their own internal use, which found no evidence (apart, arguable, from two strange simulator data points) of Zaharie’s involvement? That to me amounts to very clear, hard evidence that no negotiations took place post 17:21. Indeed to suggest otherwise is pure conspiracy mongering.
I shudder to think what you reaction would be if your idea had been presented by someone else, rather than yourself!
@Jeff
I never ridicule anyone. I question their scenarios. If it comes across as ridicule, I can assure you that is not my intention.
I have been hard on posters of scenarios that involve mechanical failure on the basis of probability. They are absurd.
I have not been hard on spoof theories generally, but the thought of agents of a foreign government scurrying around the edge of the Indian Ocean planting debris is huge leap for any reasonable person. The spoof theory was a dead horse the minute debris starting showing up.
You don’t have the 1000 page report, and neither do I which is why I don’t use what it might contain to reinforce my opinions. I do use the information that has been leaked.
I stand by my scenario, and its blemishes which you have not touched upon, but which I have mentioned several times in the interest of full disclosure.
Your consistent theme is basically – “the plane has not been found, therefore the ISAT data is wrong”. I have patiently pointed out (over and over again) why this notion is incorrect. I and others have generated viable flight paths to terminal locations far from the current search area.
As far as reactions to my theory are concerned, I welcome them in all flavors. That is how progress is made. If some people have thin skins and get their panties wadded up that is too bad. I don’t have the time or inclination to play nice (but I will definitely not insult people as you seem to imply).
@DennisW
I am thinking consensus does not necessarily have to involve more than 2 people.
Although I try to defend Captain Shah’s character as I see it, I do not give him nearly the “brass balls” that you do. Trying to wrap my head around the suicide theory seems almost easier than crediting Z with the intellect, covert operational skills and level of sophistry needed for your scenario.
@Susie
I have no issues with your support or anyone else’s support of Shah’s character. I view him as a very good man concerned about the political situation in Malaysia, and attempting to do something about it however misguided his attempt turned out to be.
What I do have an issue with are people who portray “the Shah did it crowd” as some sort of insensitive moral degenerates.
”to what exactly was the secret to Gibson’s success.”
There is no ”secret”. There is no conspiracy going on, there are no aliens involved. Even a 6 year old child will understand this.
@all
With FS2004, managed to do a autopilot waypoint flight KLIA to Perth via IGARI, Penang, Car Nicobar. I was simulating 9-March to show the Moon would now be up and it was until the FMT, although my timing is off compared to MH370. Sun came up over SIO. This using FS2004’s simple 777 model at 16x simulation (fast flight). Downloaded a new 777 plug-in from Black Box for discount price of 9 pounds UK ($11) PSS 777 Professional – Z’s fav – which is more like a real 777 (probably won’t be getting that in the air anytime soon without serious training). This on older XP machine.
Also ordered for $16 MS FSX Steampunk which they say is marginally OK for Win10. Steampunk is a company that markets FSX for online use. Z of course would have used the retail box CD install version of FSX.
Sad to learn MS ditched their successful Flight Sim series in 2009. So these older programs are orig intended for XP machines, not sure what Z had.
@DennisW
Your comment, “I agree with other posters here that Shah does not seem to fit the profile of a mass murderer (I have no qualifications to make that assertion, BTW).”
Thank you. It seems important to acknowledge that.
”I view him as a very good man ”
He kidnapped and murdered 238 people. Is that a ”very good man” ?
“In my opinion there is enough circumstantial evidence to say that captain planned, and executed, the destruction of the aircraft,” Mike Keane, a former RAF fighter pilot and retired chief pilot of Britain’s biggest airline, EasyJet, told The Weekend Australian. “If this is the case, it is a crime scene as well as an aircraft accident.”
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/pilot-hijacked-mh370-aviation-expert-panel-agrees/news-story/b881371fc1237c2cff7087c1ccc934dd
@ir1907
I was just about to post your latest link myself.
I agree, that the result of Shah’s activity was unfortunate and horrendous. I do not believe that was ever his intention. I know, hair splitting here, but I do think the distinction has some importance relative to unraveling what happened.
@Robert Mac “…they are being paid Millions of dollars to search the seabed.” Yes, you make a seldom-acknowledged point, that plus the fact that the Aussies are collecting a good lot of valuable sea bottom data. Why would they spend time scouring the beaches? “Follow the money.”
On a side note, I am surprised that most people seem to reject the possibility that a search vessel could drive over the wreckage and simply miss it. The topography of the sea bottom is extreme in places and with the variable sea conditions, probably they have been operating at near the limits of the equipment capability at times.
@TBill: Could you perhaps save a *.FLT file while the airplane is in a turn. If you make a note which side it was banked to, that would settle the issue of sign convention for bank angle. If you do that at relatively low speed, it would also clear the issue about pitch and FPA. It would be nice if you could make the complete *.FLT file available either on this blog or per email to me..
I was wondering..
If we knew for certain Zaharie was responsible.
Let’s say tomorrow they find absolute proof he planned and executed it but he left no further details about his plan.
We would only have the SIM ‘FMT’ and far SIO-points which we know don’t fit the data and range of flight MH370.
Would this information realy help to find the plane?
I doubt it.
IMO it’s better to waste time and energy here to add in trying to find the plane than wasting time and energy in solving a possible crime.
It was a crime-scene from the start.
Early on MY pointed to Zaharie as a prime suspect.
I suggest let the crime-experts do their work.
Like the ATSB stated from the start they try to find the plane and the causes of an aircraft accident not who is responsible.
I agree with that.
And IMO this should stay the main goal too of blogs like this one.
@Ge Rijn
“Like the ATSB stated from the start they try to find the plane and the causes of an aircraft accident not who is responsible.”
I might add that the ATSB has tossed $200M in the toilet following the above logic. It is axiomatic in any problem solving scenario to use ALL the information available to arrive at the most robust solution. Discarding possible causality has deep roots in minds of many analysts who I won’t enumerate. Let’s just say that approach has not worked, and that there are many pins in maps without an aircraft underneath them.
@Gysbreght
Happy to try that next session…
@Dennisw
I’m sure they looked at it but from their perspective; ‘Can it help us finding the plane and causes?’
One thing I still don’t understand is on what basis/information they decided the flight must have turned into a ghost-flight after FMT. Against all normal odds.
This is a mystery to me.
To decide something like this and spent 200M on one must assume they had very strong information that pointed in this direction.
Which information??
I’m sure they used ALL information to arrive on this conclusion.
Information that is not known to us or anyone yet.
@ir907
I would be pleased if we could openly say Captain hijack is the leading theory, and then alternate theories can be postulated but with that proviso. Currently the Press cannot seem to avoid hyping up 1-in-10000 chance alternate theories as highly likely. This is my biggest issue. Admittedly Captain hijack is not proven either.
@Ge Rijn
you said:
“To decide something like this and spent 200M on one must assume they had very strong information that pointed in this direction.
Which information??
I’m sure they used ALL information to arrive on this conclusion.
Information that is not known to us or anyone yet.”
There are at least two facets to answering your question.
First the flight path:
1> Pilots like to fly on AP.
2> What is the chance that a straight essential constant speed path could fit the ISAT data and be wrong?
The first item was popularized early on by the IG. In fact anyone advocating alternative possibilities was invited to go elsewhere. The second item has held sway with a lot of people including our host here. Suffice to say, that neither item has the slightest merit.
Secondly we have the end of flight scenario.
The BFO values at 00:19:XX have been and still are used by the ATSB and others as evidence that the aircraft was in a very steep descent at the end of the flight. That conclusion is correct if those values are valid. The fact that the BTO value is bogus at 00:19:39 does not seem to trouble anyone relative to assuming the companion BFO value is valid.
So, that is the narrative. That is all there was until the sim data points were revealed. I doubt there is anything else, but maybe you are right and some new piece of info will emerge. I am not holding my breath on that happening.
@DennisW
you say that
“a spoof scenario is an outlier that flies in the face of virtually all the hard evidence we have.”
Can you please explain about that “hard evidence”?
If you want to use the Inmarsat data trail as evidence, please dont try that in court, just for your own well being. Data are always part of the virtual reality domain, they are never evidence unless coroborated by hard evidence. Thats easy to understand, or what?
We tried 120 million dlrs to corroborate that data by finding the wreckage. We failed. What then?
The Corroboration of those data is just not there. The data might repesent a pure fantasy, whatever.
We do have corroborated evidence that a key member of the Inmarsat team, that did the calculations of that data, did decease in a very unexpected and unforeseen way shortly after Inmarsat published the data march 2014. This is hard evidence. It is a detail that all world knows and can prove.
Also we have the fact, that the declaration of emergency was deliberately delayed by plain false information from MAS Headquarter to HCM ATC after IGARI and BITOD. This is a well known fact.
Also its a well known fact, that a SAT-unit will not logon inflight. It never happens. And in this most mytery disappearance of hundreds of humans this of all events should have happened?
How come that in an event which is the outstanding singularity in the history of airplanes, another extremely improbable event like the logon should have happened? Look: it was a Beijing bound plane that was searched for ten thousand kilometres away in the oposite direction?
Dont say that you talk about hard evidence when you permanently miss to address these very important details.
By the way, here is not the place to advertise jokes about waterboarding and Glocks, and it is sure not the place to smear your own daughter because she is a respected IT professor, like you did in former threads.
@TBill
I copied the PBY Catalina YouTube post from a recent Reddit thread just because other posters here were talking about it.
Yeah – good find! Will definitely be interesting to hear Matt’s opinions whenever he comes round to replying. I always assumed Z had one YouTube account – the one he posted the DIY vids in. Wonder what would’ve made him create a second one! Anyways, thanks again.
@Cosmic Academy
I am very proud of my daughter and my jests with her have a long history in both the public and private domains. BTW, she is a Professor of CS, not IT, and I am also very fond of my Glocks.
I regard both the ISAT data and the debris findings as hard evidence as would most people. The ISAT system was never designed to be a position tracking system. To use it in this way is akin to turning a sow’s ear into a silk purse. However, we have to work with the hand we are dealt, and address anomalies as best we can.
Apparently you regard it as perfectly OK to toss the ISAT aside and postulate debris planting by some cloudy third party without any hint of what the motive for such an activity might be.
You are skating on far thinner ice than I am, and your feigned indignation is not fooling anyone.
@DennisW
They way I understand you..
1 pilots like to fly on AP
This is no reason to conclude the flight must have turned into a ghost flight after FMT. On the contrary this is the normal thing pilots do.
2 What is the chance that a straight essential constant speed path could fit the ISAT data and be wrong?
No chance IMO. But still no reason to conclude the flight turned into a ghost flight. It only limits the options if you assume/decide it turned into a ghost flight.
You know if actively piloted there are a lot more options that could fit the ISAT data.
The end-of-flight scenario also does not prove there was no active pilot at the controls. The 00:19 data are conflicting/confusing as are the 18:25 and 18:40 data.
It’s still not sure what happened at those times.
At 18:25 and 18:40 we know the plane was still actively piloted. Same kind of strange BTO/BFO values occured.
I assume the most logical; the plane was actively piloted till the end.
By who or under the control of who and why becomes only important if there is absolute proof Zaharie was the one.
For then the SIM-points cannot be ignored anymore and may indicate at least a more possible flight path and destination/crash area.
But even then without a FMT that would fit the data this won’t be of much help to find the plane IMO.
But maybe new info will emerge indeed.
At the rate it’s coming lately we may dare to be hopefull 😉
@Sajid UK
Here is the link to the account.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcfqUsM2juKJ3_NF1FQU0mw/videos
If nothin else, an odd and curious selection of videos from Zaharie (not confirmed). Uh, confirmed (imo). Draw your own conclusions.
@Jeff
Malaysia has every incentive one can dream up to exonerate Zaharie and let sleeping dogs sleep. To use the RMP criminal ‘investigation’ as confirmation of Z’s non-involvement is outright foolhardiness.
Your adherence to the ‘contrarian’ position is difficult to understand without ascribing to you a most disingenuous agenda. I truly feel strongly about this. I mean spoofing and planting? Get real. It’s just flat out preposterous in regard to MH370. I don’t see how, with good conscience, you can continue to float such a ridiculous scenario.
Having said that, I thank you for this forum and the varied discussion you allow for.
@Ge Rijn
you said:
“2 What is the chance that a straight essential constant speed path could fit the ISAT data and be wrong?
No chance IMO.”
There is some history here Re Jijn that you may not be aware of. In the early days analysts were fitting routes to the BFO data with Hz and sub-Hz accuracy. Many heated arguments took place on this very forum about whether the BFO data could even approach that degree of accuracy. My opinion then was that the BFO data was being “over fitted”. Those discussions played out without ever achieving consensus.
Then along comes the DSTG report, in particular figure 5.4 which shows very large BFO departures from the logged ACARS data. In effect this report reset the constraints on BFO, and opened the door to a much broader interpretation of route acceptability. The reality is that there are many AP paths which can now be fit to the data. The notion of an “anointed path” has evaporated.
Another persistent notion has been, and may still be, that routes which show a constant BFO error with respect to the sign of the error are somehow biased and should be discarded. Figure 5.4 also dispels that notion. The errors are not and should be expected to obey some Gaussian distribution about a mean value. The “statistics” of oscillator frequency deviations do not behave that way.
@ DennisW
which glock are you talking about? The sig 229 for example is superior in many many respects, no question. But I trust you have your reasons.
@CosmicAcademy
Do not throe sand into the working of the government. This disappearance is brilliant. Plane is in SIO stop questioning. There is hard evidence galore. More than 100 Million American, in fact of it. Hart currency. How much evidence you need to understand.
@JW
Also, I heard this site is under surveillance. Know how deep you should dig. You look too deep into the darkness, the darkness will look into you. This internet chatter is weakness of west.
@matt
Thanks for the reply!
It seems Z created 2 separate accounts: the one you posted containing the ‘phantom plane video’ (this account is named “ahmed shah”):
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcfqUsM2juKJ3_NF1FQU0mw/videos
And a second account which contains the diy videos (this is named “zaharie shah”):
https://www.youtube.com/user/catalinapby1
around half of aircraft hijackings are unsuccessful, what bothers me is why are people certain the perpetrator fulfilled his plan, mass media hysteria sure helped
how could common sense approach yield anything but “somebody tried something and failed” is beyond me
@matt
Just to add the last comment, this is the brief chronology of video posting in the two different accounts – zaharie shah and ahmad shah:
10 Jan 2013: zaharie shah: how to tune aircon
11 Feb 2013: zaharie shah: window seal
4 Mar 2013: ahmad shah: Call Girls
5 Mar 2013: ahmad shah: School kiss
2 Apr 2013: ahmad shah:
19 videos uploaded in a single day including “horrible night” “guy saves life” “747 phantom plane” and “PBY Catalina vs Fishermen”
9 Jul 2013: zaharie shah: aircon service
26 Sep 2013: zaharie shah: icemaker
Interestingly, the zaharie shah account contains lots of comments from random people but there are none in ahmad shah. Looks like most people don’t even realise this is another one of his accounts!
Google is your friend. Wikipedia:
Ahmad Shah was from the Kuz Kunar District of Nangarhar Province. His full name was “Ahmad Shah Dara-I-Nur” meaning “Ahmad Shah of the Valley of the Enlightened Ones”. He died in 2008.
@StevenG
>how could common sense approach yield anything but “somebody tried something and failed” is beyond me
You just don’t get it. Almost 3 years now and you still believe Z’s intent was to negotiate when ALL evidence heretofore points to a purposeful flight into the SIO, with the intention to disappear forever.
Your idea/scenario that Z meant for a CI landing or some mid-air negotiation fails on so many levels, the least of which being the evidence to date.Show me to one thing that supports this other than it being ‘common sense’ and then a discussion may ensue. Otherwise, perhaps look at the totality of the picture and evidence to date with your eyes wide open (friendly suggestion).
@Sajid
I did not know he had this account until the ‘pby catalina’ password thing was revealed in the RMP report (i believe)!
What continues to amaze (and disturb me greatly) is the general disinterest in this guys background and social media.
People want to be taken seriously vis a vis their interest in solving this ‘mystery’ and yet have not even bothered to examine this guy and turn over every stone possible. I mean, he at least deserves this amount of scrutiny by everyone GENUINELY concerned with understanding what happened that morning/evening.
And yet 3 years later and most here haven’t even bothered with his videos?
Which he obviously didn’t make for his children or downtrodden Malays to save them some expense. That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard yet.
Anyways, why this account and why those particular videos?
Zaharie is the gift that keeps on giving for those so inclined to stare down the truth.
Thanks for the timeline.
Here’s another from the same source: Ahmad Shah Massoud “Lion of Panjshir” was posthumously named “National Hero” by the order of President Hamid Karzai after the Taliban were ousted from power. The date of Massoud’s death, September 9, is observed as a national holiday known as “Massoud Day”.
Refer to Wikipedia for many more historical figures named Ahmad Shah.
Google Gysbreght if you’re interested in the origins of my screenname.
@matt
DennisW propagates in-flight negotiation, I beg to differ here(one of the rare things we don’t agree about) and I think his goal was to land somewhere(not necessarily CI although it is most likely location IMO judging by relatively short distance from the 7th arc) to grab media attention and then spit in camera everything he had about malaysian government(it’s questionable if he’d be allowed but he likely did this on a whim and obviously didn’t plan well heh).
There is no evidence at all for him being suicidal, the path towards east after entering SIO is a nonsense if he wanted to do a suicide, flight until fuel ran out also. Just think about this, he successfully evaded malaysian air defence which is a big accomplishment by itself, he’d feel quite happy and content about it and would like to see the aftermath, not kill himself and 200 people.
Suicide simply doesn’t add up whatever way you look at it. Ask any qualified psychologist.
About the CV Catalina PBY: I too was fascinated by it and have seen it flying many times when it was still operated by the Marine Luchtvaart Dienst (MLD), the aviation branch of the Royal Dutch Navy, as it was taking off from Valkenburg Air Base, now closed.
So it’s entirely natural that an aviation enthousiast with the time and means would build an RC model and enjoy flying it.
Just to shake off my irritation about the never ending senseless utterings of the lynch mob.