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.
@Retired F4:
“…If Shah was the guy you assume, he would have just taken whatever he got, knowing that the odds would not change considerably and that his fate was to die anyway.”
I agree with your comments. It is ridiculous that anyone would think that they could succeed in a ‘stealth suicide’ mission. The skies in the part of the world where contact was lost with MH370 are under constant military surveillance, due to local disputes and the global geopolitical situation between the East/West super-powers. The only way to tackle this enterprise would be for the pilot to literally fly by the seat of his pants, whilst knowing the chance of success would be vanishingly small.
The other thing that raises my suspicions is that we have information overload about Zaharie Shah and family and the info about him from the police investigation report. but we know bugger all about the other pilot present, Fariq Hamid – I wonder why?
I think the Jeff wise is on the right track with his theory as it explains the large number of discrepancies in the official cover story and why the plane has not been found in the SIO search area.
@JeffW
Jeff- not too many of us have commented yet on the new 9M-MRO flight schedule data info and O2 system info that you posted. In fact, even on Reddit it has seemingly gone unnoticed.
I did comment on it here, so the other reader might want to see my comments if he did not see. I did notice a few weeks ago that MH370 was about 10 minutes early out of the gate compared to the MAS airport schedule for that period (which I had linked to). I did not make much of it, since I do not know typical. But I was a little surprised the FI did not clearly state scheduled vs. actual gate times.
@RetiredF4 @all
Obviously we do not know why MH370 went of course, but there are two general theories- last minute path of the situation vs. pre-planned flight path.
The Inmarsat data has given the feeling that mathematics could be employed to define the SIO path, but the other approach, human approach, is to try to imagine, if it was pre-planned, what might have been a rouge planners plan or strategies. Your insights as a pilot are very important to that. But by definition it is conjecture on our part.
The Moon (or lack of) is my personal focus mainly, and I do not get much positive feedback on. Although you fed me a reluctant tidbit when you said you did not want to hear moonless helps to see other planes. Does it?
@RetF4
There is no ditching in my scenario so the WX you’re so concerned with only relates insofar as he would have wanted a few thousand feet of ceiling to make the final high-speed dive. Making it untraceable is as easy as swinging by an Internet cafe. Or maybe it was traced to some DUATS-like terminal in a MAS office somewhere and yet – like the recovered sim data – and then conveniently not included in the interim report?
Regarding the FO? From day one I have maintained that he was eliminated during the 6 minute gap between unusual altitude announcements. I have never given a hoot about the cockpit door, the pax, depressurization, a distress email sent from the cabin – all of which are fraught with difficulty from the perspective of the perpetrator. I’ve said all this before to you personally, if I’m not mistaken.
And now you and I find ourselves at the same impasse, wherein I don’t think the pax knew ANYTHING except that the captain promised them a credit for the loss of IFE, and you disagree.
So let’s give the real experts a shot at an all new search and we can all stop this mishegas, ya?
@JeffW
“I don’t understand why someone who would want to void Indonesian airspace would choose B466; N571 would make more sense.”
I do not want to speak for Victor, but fyi B466 waypoints are in FS2009, while N571/waypoints are not in there (as far as I can see). What this means is most people (probably Z) import a flight plan into FS2004 (eg; side program called FS Navigator). I have not done that yet so I use B466 as a close path to N571 as an expediency.
@TBill: Can you introduce wind in your simulations?
I mean wind as air moving relative to earth.
@TBill, Thanks, great insight. That still leaves the problem that the heading is wrong.
@Gysbreght
I don’t know I can check, definitely I selected clear skies because I wanted to see everything, whereas there are other weather options.
@jeffwise: It is true that if the plane had joined N571 sooner, it would have remained further from the Indonesian FIR. However, I suspect the simulated flight represented a diversion from a standard flight plan. The flight plan generated within FS9 for KL to Jeddah would follow the waypoints WMKK-AGOSA-GUNIP-TASEK and would have about the right amount of fuel. A diversion to VAMPI before TASEK would avoid crossing the FIR limit.
I am not sure I understand your concern about the heading. For point 5N, the heading is 314.8 deg and the (calculated) track is 317.1 deg. The track from point 5N to VAMPI is also 317.1 deg. The plane was clearly on a direct track between 5N and VAMPI. It was no longer aligned with B466 because it had already left B466 and was tracking to VAMPI.
Regarding the transient behavior at 45S2, imagine that when the simulation stops, a magic hand manually takes the plane and pushes it along a flight path that aligns with the pitch. So if the plane was pitched up 5.86 deg and flying level, after the hand pushes the plane, it is now flying at an angle up relative to the horizon of 5.86 deg, and therefore climbing. But since the angle of attack is now zero, and it was requiring an angle of attack of 5.86 deg, it can’t maintain this flight path because there is not enough lift. When the simulation continues, the nose will start to drop and it will eventually move towards a new quasi-steady state condition. The values in the recovered files represent the state of the plane after the hand pushes the plane but before the simulation resumes and the nose drops.
@Gysbreght: As I said earlier, the magnitude of the velocity vectors are the same in the world and body coordinate systems as the transformations are due to Euler rotations which won’t change the magnitude. It doesn’t matter whether or not there are winds.
Here is case I just ran with “Fair Skies” weather, which means light winds. In the MFD, it says GS = 491 kt and TAS = 478 kt, corresponding to a tailwind of 13 kt. The vertical speed is near zero.
Here are the values of speed from the flight file. The magnitude of the velocity is 828.2 ft/s in both coordinates systems, corresponding to the 491 kt shown in the MFD.
XVelBodyAxis=36.850222970082314
YVelBodyAxis=-24.512210646244281
ZVelBodyAxis=827.04396053982907
XVelWorld=427.35936318945193
YVelWorld=1.6699015395122863
ZVelWorld=709.45165600886435
@Gysbreght:
Likely, wind is the reason that Yves’ proposed value of 280 KIAS on the climb didn’t match your calculation. You neglected wind. That also means it is likely the plane was flying both LNAV and VNAV.
(I’m still interested to hear what Yves will say.)
This is not looking good for NOK seeking information for their compensation case…
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/court-battle-malaysia-airlines-fights-to-prevent-release-of-mh370-documents/news-story/79d4cfabc4540210850db1b9b7152976
“…In an extraordinary move, Malaysia Airlines will go to court in Sydney on Friday to fight a “Notice to Produce” seeking information such as the insurance contract for MH370, training records for crew members, flight deck security procedures, and the contract with the engine manufacturer….” See also the comments on this article in the Courier Mail.
Maybe someone here with legal expertise could comment.
re @ AM2
@All
From behind some paywalls-Telegraph piece.
MALAYSIA Airlines is holding relatives of MH370 victims to ransom and refusing access to information that could help them win compensation for the heartbreaking loss of their loved ones on board the missing plane.
In an extraordinary move, Malaysia Airlines will go to court in Sydney on Friday to fight a “Notice to Produce” seeking information such as the insurance contract for MH370, training records for crew members, flight deck security procedures, and the contract with the engine manufacturer.
Lodged by Carneys Lawyers on behalf of relatives of passengers Rod and Mary Burrows and Bob and Cathy Lawton, the Notice required Malaysia Airlines to deliver the information by October 25.
But instead the carrier made an interlocutory application seeking to “strike out” the Notice to Produce claiming it was “defective and amounted to an attempt to seek discovery”.
“The documents sought are not relevant to any issues arising on the pleadings,” said the application, filed in the New South Wales Registry of the Federal Court of Australia.
In a further blow to next of kin, Malaysia Airlines is also insisting they cover the cost of Friday’s hearing.
The adult children of the Burrows and Lawtons have been repeatedly frustrated by what they believe are deliberate stalling tactics by Malaysia Airlines’ lawyers to drag the compensation case out for as long as possible.
In addition to compensation payable under the first tier of the Montreal Convention equivalent to about $220,000, the next of kin are seeking damages for psychological harm including nervous shock and subsequent economic loss.
Their claim argues Malaysia Airlines “failed to take any adequate precautions for the safety of passengers and exposed the passengers to a risk of injury which could have been avoided by reasonable care”.
The carrier also “failed to prevent the flight from being operated in a manner that caused it to crash”, the claim said.
Malaysia Airlines’ defence denies any liability for nervous shock.
Flight MH370 disappeared on March 8, 2014, soon after leaving Kuala Lumpur to fly to Beijing.
All communication was lost with the aircraft and investigators have had to rely on a few satellite handshakes with the Boeing 777 to try to plot its final course.
Malaysia Airlines insists fair compensation has always been its priority and a spokeswoman said “to date a significant number of next of kin had reached agreement and received full compensation”.
But she refused to say how many next of kin had received compensation.
It is understood that no Australians with claims against the airline arising from the loss of MH370 or the later disaster of MH17 have received compensation.
“Malaysia Airlines and its appointed lawyers will continue to engage the next of kin through their appointed lawyers in good faith for payment of fair and equitable compensation guided by the applicable conventions and laws,” the spokeswoman said.
Cheer Tom L
@RetiredF4
@Rob
Regarding your convesation the last few days / pages concerning the solar terminator, sunrise, twilight, the moon, flight path criteria, spotting of ships at sea, risks of “being spotted”, landing (ditching), with the sun at your back, etc, etc, this has all been covered before on AuntyPru, a year ago, beginning here:
http://auntypru.com/forum/-MH370-time-to-think-of-it-as-a-criminal-act?pid=2590#pid2590. (post 72)
Followed by: Posts: 79, 83, 84, 88, and particularly posts 89, and 139, 142, and 144, which are germain to the main points of your discussion.
As for the actual descent from cruise altitude, see post 148 for all the sun calculations.
@RetiredF4
@Rob
Regarding your conversation the last few days / pages concerning the solar terminator, sunrise, twilight, the moon, flight path criteria, spotting of ships at sea, risks of “being spotted”, landing (ditching), with the sun at your back, etc, etc, this has all been covered before on AuntyPru, a year ago, beginning here:
http://auntypru.com/forum/-MH370-time-to-think-of-it-as-a-criminal-act?pid=2590#pid2590. (post 72)
Followed by: Posts: 79, 83, 84, 88, and particularly posts 89, and 139, 142, and 144, which are germane to the main points of your discussion.
As for the actual descent from cruise altitude, see post 148 for all the sun calculations.
@Matt M
“There is no ditching in my scenario so the WX you’re so concerned with only relates insofar as he would have wanted a few thousand feet of ceiling to make the final high-speed dive. Making it untraceable is as easy as swinging by an Internet cafe. Or maybe it was traced to some DUATS-like terminal in a MAS office somewhere and yet – like the recovered sim data – and then conveniently not included in the interim report?”
There is no ditching in my thinking either, and that’s why I objected the arguments of Rob and Johan, and you felt to have to oppose these valid arguments for whatever reason. Now I should let you off the hook concerning your proposed ability to find the required weather information for such a discussed ditching which you said would be your daughters work of few minutes.
You are not willing to tell the audience in which way Z eliminated F without anybody taking notice for the next hours. It was you who sold the story to us that the turnaroundand and the following flight went unnoticed by crew and pax, which started our private discussion and you ended it in disagreement.
I and others as well like to know how that “elimination” could have been accomplished by Z without being noticed by the cabin crew. No toilet break, no coffe and no meal request from the pilots for several hours with the dad man in the copilots seat while flying in the wrong direction, and the cabin crew will note nothing, will take no action?
@VictorI: Thanks for your reply.
That is really weird. Is there any way to find out what the windspeed and direction is when weather is defined as:
[Weather]
WeatherType=0
ThemeName=weather\themes\fair.WTB
ThemeTime=0
?
I think there is an easy way to find out for anyone running the MSFS software:
– Fly the airplane at 180 kt IAS, save a *.FLT file
– Change a parameter other than IAS on the MAP page that causes the angles of attack and sideslip to be set to zero
– Save another *.FLT file.
@RetiredF4:
For the record, I was trying to be a bit inviting. “There is no ditching in my thinking” either. Which I propagated for a while ago, then mostly on the grounds of it being a bit too sick for my impression of Z an unnecessary. But I wouldn’t negate evidence in that direction. Now I am more leaning towards that he will have avoided that for obviously pointing him out if/when the plane was found. But I can see the conflict with a wish to avoid debris altogether. But deniability will be more important. But he must have studied more than the weather, he must have studied ocean currents for one (or looked it up thoroughly).
Has anyone checked out his library card? Or his Encyclopaedia?
RE my post at 3:17 AM. Better still –
– Fly the airplane at 37,000 ft, 180 kt IAS, max CLB thrust, and save a *.FLT file
– Change the fuel quantity to zero, and the altitude on the MAP page to 4000 ft to cause the angles of attack and sideslip to be set to zero, leave IAS at 180 kt
– Save another *.FLT file.
– Compare the two *.FLT files.
Are you saying that between 3N and 5N the wind changed from a tailwind component of 11 kt to a headwind component of 19 kt?
@Gysbreght: You said, “That is really weird.”
No it’s not. Rotating a vector in space does not change its magnitude.
I don’t have time to run more cases for you and answer your endless stream of questions. We already prepared a paper that details much of this. I’m working on other things. You should install FS9 and be able to answer the questions for yourself. I suggested this before.
@ventus45:
Thanks. I will have to look it up one day.
Does it say anything there about indian ocean currents, esp. the Western Australian current?
@ROB, @TBill:
While “recording”, I have not sealed the window on possible significance of sun and moon position — an aspect there being that startling circumstances would strengthen the case against accident and chance. Already going more or less south for five hours is a bit too good to be chance. But the significance of the moon might still need some (I haven’t followed that too much); and it includes time of year and opportunity, doesn’t it? And I somewhat skeptic should it border to mysticism. To me at least, Z is as sane as they (pilots, terrorists) come in any religio-cultural-social way, and his priorities would have been others. I feel.
I am aware of that stroking both you cats at once may necessarily mean some stroking against the hairs. No need to comment on that specifically.
@TBill:
If I was Z I would have used all sorts of vessel-tracking systems to prognostizise oncoming etc traffic in SIO. RetiredF4 emphasised a doubt I had myself a while back, that Z’s online traffic would have left traces (at the vendors). Question is if he could get around that (with Moriarty’s suggestions or other) or if he knew by profession that SIO would be empty. I am thinking about e.g. historical traffic/weather/currents on disc or downloadable and then executable, but the RMP would be onto that hopefully. With 18.000 h one cpuld perhaps expect him to have much of the hemisphere in the palm of his hand, allowing him to rely on experience rather than looking things up. On the other hand, he was both curious and apparently willing to share knowledge so I doubt he would have been able to stay off the net. (Btw, nicely put about the human v/s the math factor).
@VictorI. I note you head off. Many issues raised in my review of your paper have been addressed one way or another. You may have comment on three which have not been; the purpose of the altitude change from high to 4000 ft at co-ordinate 5(45S2); the place of co-ordinate 7 in the shadow file, which is apparently after a landing (‘g’ and flaps) and also apparently not (engine rpm, position); and him flying around without strobe lights.
@VictorI: It is weird that the VelBodyAxis components do not change with wind, i.e. reflect groundspeed but not airspeed. That is weird because airspeed in body axis components is needed for calculation of lift, drag, sideforce and moments.
But of course one has to keep in mind that MSFS was conceived by an electrical engineer.
It is weird tht Yves Guillaume’s paper never considers wind. The only place where the word appears is in “wind tunnel” on page 5.
It is also weird that Yves describes the MSFS axis system as a “mixed approach between body axes and wind axes”, but doesn’t properly define the three axes. The XBodyAxis is the lateral axis, so it is difficult to understand the meaning of the second sentence:
@David: I would imagine the purpose of the altitude change was to change altitude rather than glide the plane down, which takes more time. The g and flap values for a plane sitting on a runway could have been from a previous flight. The location of the files in the shadow volume and the choice of labeling by investigators is unknown. In my mind, whether or not he created a simulation with strobe lights and pitot heating are irrelevant.
You are getting hung up on the minutia.
My objective for the simulator analysis has always been to determine if additional information could be extracted to help find the plane. To this end, Richard Godfrey and I published a paper which used the simulator data as well as the radar and satellite data to reconstruct a possible flight path of the plane. The hypothesis was that MH370 was flying in LNAV mode towards McMurdo Station. The flight path of the reconstructed flight crossed the 7th arc at 26.9S latitude.
With the failed search in the current search area, the crossing at 26.9S latitude remains my best estimate of the terminus of the flight. I believe the findings presented in the recent paper by Yves and me reinforce this.
@Victor
“With the failed search in the current search area, the crossing at 26.9S latitude remains my best estimate of the terminus of the flight. I believe the findings presented in the recent paper by Yves and me reinforce this.”
I also feel good about that general area. The recent drift information published by Chillit is very supportive as well.
@VictorI
Can we get a copy of the McMurdo paper somewhere as it is apparently no longer available at the Duncan Steel site? It’s good to know you still feel that is your best guess. I was wanting to see your flight speed down the path.
@TBill
I have a working link in the essay below which uses Cocos as a waypoint to get s similar result. It also contains some of the Chillit info.
http://tmex1.blogspot.com/2016/11/path-to-cocos.html
@RetF4
If you’re trying to bait me into showing a Zapruder film of the cockpit event that I believe transpired between 01:01:17 and 01:07:56, I’ll pass.
But thx for the macabre prurience!
@Matt M
“If you’re trying to bait me into showing a Zapruder film of the cockpit event that I believe transpired between 01:01:17 and 01:07:56, I’ll pass.
But thx for the macabre prurience!”
Thank you, that’s what I expected.
If the only way you could explain your term “eliminated” ends in macabre prurience, then I accept your chickening out move.
Does the same apply for the easy going no sweat easy chickensh*t weather forecast in your ditching area?
@TBill:
Here are three most recent papers I believe to be relevant to our discussions:
1. “Captain Zaharie Shah’s Recovered Flight Simulator Information: Preliminary Assessment from the MH370 Independent Group”, Aug 14, 2016. https://www.dropbox.com/s/07kwlf9znxmjn6x/2016-08-14%20Prelim%20Assessment%20of%20IG%20on%20Simulator%20Data.pdf?dl=0
2. Iannello and Godfrey, “Possible Flight Path of MH370 towards McMurdo Station, Antarctica”, Aug 25, 2016. https://www.dropbox.com/s/u20xs8e977d9ogy/2016-08-25%20MH370%20Path%20Towards%20McMurdo%20Station.pdf?dl=0
3. Iannello and Guillaume, “Further Analysis of Simulator Data Related to MH370”, Nov 29, 2016. https://www.dropbox.com/s/lvcz1fsxvphxob4/2016-11-29%20Further%20Analysis%20of%20Simulator%20Data.pdf?dl=0
@DennisW: Yes, I agree that several drift studies suggest that the search area should be moved further north on the 7th arc.
However, I think there will be political resistance to moving as far north at 26.9S latitude for the following reasons:
1. This would not be an incremental extension of the current search area,and it would mean the DSTG analysis was fundamentally flawed.
2. It will be difficult to use the recovered simulator data to justify moving the search area as Malaysia would object. As Malaysia is providing a substantial amount of the search money, if not the majority, Australia cannot make this decision without the consent of Malaysia, even if China agrees. Australia has also demonstrated no political will to confront Malaysia. My guess is that the simulator data is never officially discussed among three countries.
3. It will be difficult to assign any level of certainty to successfully finding the plane.
The closer the new search area is to the current search area, the more politically palatable it will be.
Of course, the most politically palatable option might be to end the search, or at least suspend it indefinitely pending new credible evidence. That seems to be the direction they are current leaning.
I claim no special knowledge on these matters.
“2. It will be difficult to use the recovered simulator data to justify moving the search area as Malaysia would object. ”
And rightly so, because it is meaningless for defining a search area. Each coördinate set has been manipulated:
@VictorI @DennisW
Thank you for the links!
To a novice like me the Car Nicobar path looks a bit too close to Indonesia radar for my comfort zone, but I defer to the experts. I would suppose part of the reason for any loiter might be to disguise the FMT if someone had a beam on it.
@VictorI
Yes, the political nuances are certainly there.
On top of that the difficulty of walking away from sunk cost, both monetary and intellectual, is enormous. I think we have all seen that in various aspects of our own lives.
My sense is that come February we will have little or nothing more to talk about.
@VictorI, As usual, your work is ingenious. But I don’t agree with your conclusion that the flight-sim data suggests a possible termination point for MH370.
— If you draw a great circle in any direction from any point, you will eventually hit an airfield. If this airfield is not within fuel range of the aircraft in question, then I don’t think it’s reasonable to assume that any pilot could be intending it as a destination, or even as a navigational waypoint.
— As you suggest in your report, the out-of-fuel sim points at 45S were reached not by flying, but by (most likely) dragging. You hypothesize that the user dragged the icon along a predetermined flight-path, but this is supposition only. The points could be entirely arbitrary.
— Any termination outside the current search area must contend with the problem of the 18:40 BFO value, which suggests that a loiter did not take place.
@Jeff
“Any termination outside the current search area must contend with the problem of the 18:40 BFO value, which suggests that a loiter did not take place.”
The 18:40 BFO is not squeaky clean even if the aircraft were heading straight South at that point (error ~15Hz). It is easily fixable with an altitude change. I am not much troubled by it, frankly.
The fact that the aircraft has not been located suggests a likelihood that a loiter did take place, and the FMT was farther North than originally postulated.
Note the correct use of farther above (when physical distance is involved) and not further (as in further your education). My SO always gets me on that, as well as the use of less and fewer.
@JeffW
APASI to POLUM or APASI to COCOS approximates CarNic to McMurdo, if it helps.
@VictorI
I assume it goes without saying that MY did not answer your question in the paper about availability of McMurdo region waypoints on MH370 nav system.
@jeffwise: You said, “If you draw a great circle in any direction from any point, you will eventually hit an airfield. If this airfield is not within fuel range of the aircraft in question, then I don’t think it’s reasonable to assume that any pilot could be intending it as a destination, or even as a navigational waypoint.”
Do you realize that the hypothetical flight path was over the Indian Ocean and Antarctica, where there are few airfields of any size? We’re not talking about North America.
But don’t take my word. Do the exercise yourself. Go to Google Earth and draw a great circle path between point 10N, 45S1, and Pegasus Airfield (NZPG) in McMurdo Station. Report back how many airfields you cross along the way. By your logic, you should cross many over that long distance. Then consider how few airfields there are in Antarctica, and that this particular airfield serves the largest station in Antarctica, and you begin to understand how small the probability would be of this being random.
And who ever said it was an intended destination? I don’t know why you say things like that. In the simulation, the captain deliberately defueled the plane in the SIO. As for using McMurdo as a navigational waypoint, if he was trying to simulate a plane flying in real life to fuel exhaustion, choosing a distant waypoint beyond the point of fuel exhaustion is exactly what you would do. That way you could fly in LNAV mode under fuel runs out.
Think about how long we have discussed what happens when a route discontinuity is reached. No pilot would deliberately create a route to allow this to occur.
You said, “You hypothesize that the user dragged the icon along a predetermined flight-path, but this is supposition only. The points could be entirely arbitrary.”
First, see my first response about the points aligning with McMurdo and not being random. And yes, it is a hypothesis. I haven’t heard a better one in a long time. It is totally based on available data. And I said that it would be difficult to assign any level of certainty of finding the plane. That’s for the people funding the search to decide whether chance of success exceeds the cost.
Do you think it is more probable that the plane flew north, the BFO was spoofed, the debris was planted, the plane was hidden in the sands of Kazakhstan, and Putin masterminded the whole thing? Not to mention that Baikonur doesn’t fall on the 7th arc and there was not enough fuel to reach it. If you have a more likely scenario, I would love to hear it.
You said, “Any termination outside the current search area must contend with the problem of the 18:40 BFO value, which suggests that a loiter did not take place.”
Wrong, and you know better. It suggests that there was a descent at 18:40 while flying north. And the failure of the underwater search suggests that the plane turned to the south later than 18:40. That is, unless you buy into the Kazakhstan path, which has orders of magnitude more problems with it.
DennisW said, “The fact that the aircraft has not been located suggests a likelihood that a loiter did take place, and the FMT was farther North than originally postulated.”
Exactly. A loiter or some other maneuver other than a straight path. We need to accept the obvious. The drift models are saying the same thing.
@RetF4
I’m very sorry you’re so lacking in imagination that you need the gory details. Out of respect for Fariq’s family, I’m just simply not going into them on a public forum.
If that’s unsatisfying for you I really don’t care. But if you want to meet on a playground somewhere you’ve got my email.
@Johan
Don’t worry, you’re not rubbing me up the wrong way. I glad you are managing to keep an open mind, unlike some on this forum. As of now, I have nothing new to bring to the discussion, having set out my stall. As Martin Luthur once said – “here I stand, I can do no more” (apologies for the pretension) I am now clinging to the hope that Equator might chance on the wreck site before they call “time”.
The whole construction is based on the pre-conceived idea that Captain Zaharie Shah abducted the plane and its occupants, flew it to destruction without apparent motive, and used his Microsoft video game called “Flight Simulator” to prepare for that hideous act.
Ridiculous!
@Gysbreght
The Shah fan club days are hopefully coming to an end. Lord knows, it has been an ordeal on the order of the “flat-earthers” and the anti-vaxxers (still ongoing).
Did he play the game just for fun and entertainment, or did he get anything useful out if it? If so, then what?
Another point that’s been bothering me:
A “Volume Shadow” contains a snapshot of the contents of an entire partition of a hard drive. We do not know when that snapshot was taken, and what event caused it to be taken.
The contents of the “Volume Shadow” tell us that at the time of the snapshot certain files had been deleted and had been partially over-written cluster-by-cluster by later uses of the computer. The fact that nothing of the recovered fragments could be found on the HDD partition of origin indicates that considerable computer activity must have taken place after taking the snapshot of the partition that is retained in the “Volume Shadow”.
So how old can those fragments be?
For those curious, in Google Earth, when I draw a great circle path connecting 10N and Pegasus Airfield, McMurdo Station, the distance from 45S1 to the great circle path is only 2.5 nm. Remember, at 45S1 the plane was already flying with no fuel, autopilot off, and banked to the right at 11 deg. We also don’t know how well FS9 represents a great circle path on the earth ellipsoid. In light of this, the 2.5 nm distance is very small.
There are no other airfields between 10N and McMurdo. The chances that 10N, 45S1, and McMurdo just coincidently align is astonishingly small.
But don’t take my word. Try it yourself and report back whether you think the alignment is random. Here are the coordinates:
10N: 10.1831, 90.2245
45S1: -45.0852, 104.1455
NZPG: -77.965333, 166.523167
@Matt M
you said:
“I’m very sorry you’re so lacking in imagination that you need the gory details. Out of respect for Fariq’s family, I’m just simply not going into them on a public forum.”
I did not request details and it’s not a question of imagination. It is a question of ability and probability. You make claims and when challenged you walk away empty handed.
you further said:
“If that’s unsatisfying for you I really don’t care. But if you want to meet on a playground somewhere you’ve got my email.”
Why should it be unsatiisfying? You met all my expectations about your claims.
And that settles it for me, case closed.
@Jeff
Thank you for your patience with us.