Australian officials have concluded that the $180 million search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 has failed. In a report timed to coincide with the wind-down of the two-year-long inspection of the southern Indian Ocean, a panel of experts convened by the Australian Transport Safety Board opined that the plane most likely lies somewhere in a zone of open ocean about the size of New Hampshire to the northeast of the current search area.
This new zone probably won’t be examined. The three countries responsible for the search — Australia, Malaysia, and China — have already stated that no further attempts to find the plane will be undertaken, unless compelling new evidence emerges.
In short, the biggest mystery in the history of modern aviation doesn’t look like it will be solved anytime soon. So it’s a good moment to take stock about what we know and what to expect in the future as we try to make sense of frustrating and tragic irresolution:
The investigators now say they have a pretty good handle on how the plane went down.
Ironically, while admitting failure, the Australian report reflects the experts’ increased confidence that they understand more or less what happened the night of the vanishing.
Based on automatic signals — “pings” — exchanged between the plane and a navigation satellite during the final six hours MH370 was in the air, investigators believe that after the airliner vanished from radar screens over the Malacca Strait it must have taken a final turn to the left and flown south on a magnetic compass heading (one of several possible navigational modes a plane can use). It then flew straight until it ran out of fuel and dived into the ocean at high speed, smashing apart into small fragments.
The scenario would be consistent with pilot suicide, but the report does not mention the secret Malaysian police report leaked earlier this year that revealed that captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah had saved a set of points on his home flight simulator in which he flew with zero fuel in the remote southern Indian Ocean. The simulator data could reasonably be interpreted as evidence he planned a suicide flight, or it could be a freak coincidence. The ATSB has long maintained silence regarding the possible identity of the perpetrator, saying that its job is to figure where MH370 went, not why it went there.
The plane is almost certainly not in the huge patch of ocean investigators spent two years searching.
The investigators long believed that the plane’s impact point lay within a nearly 50,000-square-mile rectangle calculated by Australia’s Defense Science Technology Group. But this high-probability zone has now been searched out using towed side-scan sonar arrays and autonomous underwater vehicles. Apparently, the plane isn’t there.
Some observers have speculated that the wreckage might have been missed by the sonar scan, perhaps falling into the shadow of a seamount or the depths of a ravine. The report, however, throws cold water on this idea, explaining that the technology is capable of searching all but the most rugged 1.2 percent of the search area, and therefore, “There is a high degree of confidence that the previously identified underwater area searched to date does not contain the missing aircraft.”
The new proposed search area probably won’t be examined.
If the plane isn’t in the priority search area, then it must be somewhere else. But the range of possibilities is limited. If it crashed any farther north, the debris field would have been spotted during the massive aerial search conducted just after the disappearance. If it crashed south of the current search area, debris would have been swept to the coast of Australia and likely been discovered by beachcombers. By a process of elimination, then, the endpoint could only be in a fairly tightly constrained area, about one eighth the size of the current search zone and adjacent to its northeastern edge.
“The participants of the First Principles Review were in agreement on the need to search [this] additional area,” the report states. But this extra area is large — about 10,000 square miles — and it would take months and tens of millions of dollars to scan. In its previous agreement with China and Malaysia, Australia stipulated that the search would only continue if “credible new evidence leading to the identification of a specific location of the aircraft” were found. This new analysis will not likely fit that bill.
What if the new area is searched and the plane still isn’t found?
That, the report states, “would exhaust all prospective areas for the presence of MH370.” That is to say, if the plane isn’t there, then the searchers weren’t just unlucky, their analysis was altogether wrong, and something else entirely must have happened to the plane.
But what? One possibility is that they misinterpreted one of the satellite pings. For instance, the ATSB has long puzzled over the value of the final ping but recently became convinced it must indicate that the plane was plummeting in a steep, fatal dive. If this conclusion is wrong, and the plane was instead being held in a long Sullenberger-esque glide by a suicidal pilot, then the plane’s endpoint could lie anywhere in a much larger swath of ocean.
Another possibility is that the ATSB misinterpreted all the satellite data. After MH370 disappeared from radar over the Malacca Strait, it was electronically invisible, flying over empty ocean in the dark of a moonless night. It could have gone anywhere in the world and no one would have been the wiser. Then, mysteriously, just three minutes later, its satellite communication system switched back on. This is not something that happens accidentally, or that most pilots know how to do. And yet, it is this baffling event that provided everything investigators know about the plane’s final hours. Could this strange satcom behavior have been the result of tampering by sophisticated hijackers, in order to feed investigators misleading clues? Twice I’ve asked teams within the investigation whether the satcom data could have been altered; both times they told me that they assumed that it was good.
Now that the ATSB has thrown in the towel, such questions will remain in limbo. The search will not be officially ended, only suspended. This means that according to international aviation treaties search officials will not have to issue a comprehensive final report. And so potentially vital clues about the fate of the airplane will remain hidden away indefinitely.
The mystery will endure.
(This article originally ran on December 21, 2016, in New York magazine.)
@TBill: Yes, there is little doubt that the simulated flight was using McMurdo Station as a waypoint. Whether that same waypoint was used by the captain when flying MH370 is debatable. A terminus of 26.9S aligns very well with the new drift models. It does suggest that the surface debris was missed in the airborne search. It looks as this location if it was on the border of areas that were searched.
I am not a big fan of constant magnetic heading paths for several reasons. The path I suggested at 180M had a slow rate of descent at an airspeed that I don’t think would match the required endurance. Also, I don’t think a pilot would choose this mode for long distance navigation–wind and magnetic variation would make it hard to choose a magnetic heading and be assured to pass near any specific point. My bet is on LNAV with a distant waypoint beyond the point of fuel exhaustion, as was programmed on the simulator by the captain.
Long ago (July 2014) I discovered that the BEDAX-SouthPole (180T) path matches the satellite data well. BEDAX is a SID for Banda Aceh. (This path is both an LNAV and constant true track.) It does require a loiter north of Sumatra. The terminus of 34.2S is close to where the ATSB is now recommending to extend the search. The problem is that this area was already searched to 12 nm from the arc without success, and drift models seem to suggest a more northerly terminus.
The nice thing about a path defined by combining the final waypoint with the satellite data is that the crossing of the 7th arc can be determined precisely. McMurdo and SouthPole yield 26.7S and 34.2S, respectively. Perhaps there are other waypoints that suggest other discrete crossings.
The one thing that the ATSB does not explicitly say is that the underlying assumptions used by the DSTG to define the search area were wrong. At the time the DSTG report was issued, some of us pointed out the underlying assumptions that were buried in the heavy math. The failure of the underwater search would indicate that a descent at 18:40 might have occurred, and/or there might have been multiple manoeuvers after 18:02. I think a more reasonable assumption might now be that there were no manoeuvers after 19:41.
@all, A question for general consideration: As I write in this post, the ATSB’s latest report says that the plane must have ended up at around 33 degrees south. This necessarily implies a flying speed lower than that required to reach, say, 38 degrees, and hence a lower fuel burn. Under these conditions, is it plausible that the plane would have run out of fuel before 0:19?
@Jeff, Fantastic article and it sums it up perfectly! I have said it before and will say it again: you are nice to a fault 🙂 Your wife must smile a lot and encourage all your ideas! and look to the heavens every once in a while.
@Keffertje, Thank you, you are too kind.
@DennisW, I cannot say “2 great minds think alike” because yours is one I would bid for on e-bay. But just this morning, when I was driving to work, listening to Johann Pachelbel, I was thinking about how a flaperon would be made to look like it came off going down in a death dive. No easy feat. So yes, that is a huge hurdle. 🙂 Happy Holidays to you and Ami.
@VictorI
I agree with you about LNAV and a waypoint beyond fuel exhaustion being, on balance, the most likely navigation method used.
@Jeff, I have enjoyed reading your blog for a long time, but to this point have not contributed.My question might have been asked before, but here goes, is there any satellite photograph archive that exists for the SIO for the day(s) after MH370 that went missing?If so, perhaps a re-examination would reveal evidence of wreckage and identify the crash location?
@JeffWise
Jeff, you said “A question for general consideration: As I write in this post, the ATSB’s latest report says that the plane must have ended up at around 33 degrees south.”
I know this might seem crass, but I read the ATSB report slightly differently to you. I think they are actually saying (reading between the lines) “to cover ourselves, and make it look as if we gave it our very best shot, we will say we should never have been persuaded to cut short the search of the original Data Error Optimization Zone. Lets face it, the Autopilot Modes Zone centered on the Bayesian hotspot, was the obvious place to look, but heck, the dam thing aint there*. Now you ocean drift experts around the table, can you come up with something to justify us fingering the 25,000sq km we missed out on earlier? I know, they said, why not say there must have been a debris field there, and the MR planes happened to miss it. Great idea. Now we’re all agreed aren’t we. It must be somewhere in the outer reaches of the Data Error Optimization Zone. What we mustn’t ever say is that perhaps the pilot glided south of the Bayesian hotspot. We have to stick firmly to our “no pilot control at flameout” scenario, otherwise the Malaysians will have us strung up by the you know whats.
* there is still a chance the wreckage is in the primary search zone, waiting for Equator to chance upon it.
@VictorI
Thank you for the analysis…you meant possible maneuvers after 18:22 (not 18:02) right?
@JeffW
Do you have FMT time/location guidelines as far as the fuel burn question? Perhaps ATSB is also inherently accepting a more complex FMT (with a maneuver) to meet 33 south.
@JeffWise
Exactly, just why would he have flown so slowly? I never did go with the Data Error Optimization Zone, neither did some of the SSWG member, I sure of that. It just doesn’t make sense. And Victor supports the LNAV/waypoint beyond fuel exhaustion scenario, after studying the SIM data, a scenario I have been banging on about since day one. Now the only reason he would have flown this way was because he had a preferred end point in mind. It is the most precise navigation option, after all. Why would he have then chosen to fly slowly and inefficiently? Especially as for the first hour of the takeover, he flew as fast as practically possible?
@TBill: Take your pick of either what the DSTG says is the last radar position known with precision (18:02) or the last radar position (18:22).
@Jeff. Will your excellent blog continue?
@all
If we are being purely logical as to the reason for the re-boot, does it make more sense;
– that someone hijacking the plane intentionally turned it back on but failed to utilize any of it?
– the individual flying the plane had no idea how it re-booted and knowing nothing of the pings found it irrelevant and ignored it’s resurgence?
– the SDU was technically seized and the re-boot specifically timed for that precise moment, leaving a yellow brick road of pings and allowing the plane to disappear to oblivion?
If I remember correctly it was less than 35 seconds from leaving primary radar, that the re-boot initiated, allowing time for signal exchange to the SDU.
Obviously if Captain Shah was hijacking the plane the re-boot can only make sense if it was accidental and he was ignorant of any Inmarsat tracking capability, two very sketchy assumptions.
Considering the precise time correlation of the re-boot to the exit of primary radar, it seems to make far more sense that this integral moment was sinister rather than unintentional, as it served no purpose other than tracking the plane to a search area that has found nothing.
If Captain Shah’s agenda was flying the plane to the middle of the SIO and then crashing it so it was never found, why would he have allowed the SDU power again?
@Chris Baggaley, Welcome! I do know that satellite assets were used in attempt to locate the debris after the plane went missing. And of course there was the famous Tomnod attempt to crowd-source the examination of satellite images.
@ed, Thanks! The ATSB might be throwing in the towel, but I’m not.
@Susie
Yes, the SDU reboot is annoying, especially relative to when it occurred. Hard to brush it off as a coincidence. I am always very suspicious of coincidences. It truly is a major blemish on an otherwise reasonable chain of events.
@Jeff. Oh great, your blog, and of course all the contributors, give me a reason to get out of bed in the morning! Special thanks also to Dennis, Rob, Ge Rin, and Sajid, whose comments are always interesting.
I hope I don’t sound cruel, but this case is the ultimate whodunit. All respect to the families, who have been dignified throughout,and who want some answers. All the best, Ed.
@Dennis
Doesn’t the SDU ‘re-boot’ (power up) upon restoration of the left AC bus? Or am I misunderstanding this?
If so, it makes perfect sense. This is precisely the moment when I would want to revert back to an all systems on aircraft.
Of course, you believe the pax to still be alive at this juncture, which I couldn’t disagree with more strongly, but that’s neither here nor there.
@matt
I cannot think of any reason why someone would want to remove power from either bus. Why should that be necessary? What purpose would it serve?
@Susie Crowe:
The only idea I’ve come up with for your last question is that whoever did it would expect ground to be able to see the plane head off in a northwesterly direction, and since it was still in the air, search efforts and alarms would be sounded in that direction first, thus delaying search efforts elsewhere. In a similar way as at Igari and the non-Kuala Lumpur (Twin Towers) return, the pilot exploits the expectations of the ground, but goes elsewhere instead. If that is the case, he, as I have argued before, shows he is conscious of both the real-time and after-the-fact investigative capabilities of the ground. Some of his actions are aimed at (or could be suspected to be) those who follow him in real-time or nearly so (ATC, military radar), others at those who will investigate him long after. The rationality in the first case seems to be the poet’s: surprise, play on expectations, dodge; the rationality for the latter could be expected to be the lawyer’s: disclose no intent. The former option seems to be playing (occasionaly) on the possibility of what is not allowed to surface at the latter end, if you get my point: A northwesterly course would (again) ring the alarm bells (Diego Garcia, India), so everyone throws themselves at that sandy knoll, but in the meantime, in reality, he has made a hidden (I would assume) turn and leaves the board in an at least schematically diametrically opposed direction. So he expects ground to be able to see him head off northwesterly, and to establish that he is still in the air, then and later.
Staying in the air for as long as possible, until fuel runs out, is logical in a number of ways, already touched upon: put the wreck at the farthest possible location away from immediate search efforts but still without giving anything away if found. Let them buggers be preoccupied by looking everywhere for it and knowing it is in the air (and let them have to tell people that the plane is still in the air somewhere, we are waiting for it to fall down somewhere; that must be something of an ultimate disgrace for an airline.). Being in the air, rather than going down in an instant, he gives his family and children two inches of hope and breathing space, and enough room to one day reflect over the possibility that he was “master of his own fate”, or something like that. In any event something a crumb less devastating than most accidents, and (logically) accompanied by a guilt that is impossible to ascertain (by the shear fact of all things working together to make that impossible (as it seems right now)).
Something like that.
The remaining question for me regarding this is if he wanted people to know eventually / believed it possible to establish, that he actually had gone south, when no indications were found that he actually had continued north west. He would have realised that debris would turn up sooner or later, which would put him in SIO. He would have realised he would be a suspect and his computer / sim analysed. It is not wholly unlikely that he is playing us there, too. So, if so, how would a guy like that think in regard to the final resting “place” of the plane (not obliterable sinking parts)?
Two days before Christmas.
@Johan, I think you’re overlooking a crucial aspect of the case, which is that it is extremely unlikely that Zaharie would have known that the SDU would transmit signals that could be used to track the airplane in the absence of it being used by ACARS or satellite telephony. And it is even less likely that he would guess that these clues about a plane’s location could be extracted from these signals, as this had never been done before.
@Susie C
As a layman, but have read a lot of MH370 theories, my perception:
(1) Pilot(s) may not have realized the bread crumbs they were leaving. INMARSAT themselves did not even think of checking on ping history until the next day they said, according to the TV documentary.
(2) I can think of many (unsubstantiated) reasons for turning off and then turning on.
The reason why this case is so intriguing is the secrecy. Malaysia is holding back much info, but so are the USA and Boeing. We do not have a Boeing expert on the blog saying exactly how things are wired up, because that is a secret for competitive, legal reasons, and just plain “loose lips sink ships”.
@TBill, If you have reasons for rebooting the SDU, you should share them. We spent a lot of time discussing this topic and the only idea that seemed compelling to me was the idea of isolating the left AC bus in order to depower the Cockpit Voice Recorder. But that wouldn’t make any sense if the intention all along was to fly into the remote ocean, since the CVR gets wiped every two hours anyway.
Reasons for rebooting the SDU: Making coffee, or using the toilet.
Depowering the CVR makes sense if the intent was to preserve a recording.
@TBill: If the captain was concerned about interception while in Malaysian territory, he might have disabled the CVR to minimize the evidence left on the CVR after the diversion, such as banging on the cockpit door. The evidence on the CVR before the diversion was much less incriminating. After he left Malaysian airspace and was more certain of no interception, he might have re-enabled the CVR to eliminate all evidence using the 2-hour limit of the recording.
@all
And what are the reasons that the bus depowered or was depowered?
@Jeff
Thank’s for powering on regardless.
@JeffW
Let me read the other thread again otherwise I will give disproven reasons. My personal understanding is CVR breaker may be in 777 cockpit but Boeing may have moved the DFDR breaker to the EEBay on 777s. Generally turning back on/logging back on for services lost by the turning off, and turning off to facilitate a getaway flight with many serious alarms and automated actions, maybe DFDR unless that was turned off before the flight. Feith had said early on at least we should know what was on the DFDR up to turn off even it was turned off. But he said prospects of finding it were slim to none.
DSTO particle filter assumed infinite fuel. They did not appreciate that duration of flight does not depend on route of flight or winds aloft. 43,800 kg of fuel consumed between 1:07 MYT and 8:19 MYT (duration of 7:12). This constraint is as important as BTO and BFO data.
I sent BSTO a note 11/15/2016 but never got reply. Forwarded it to Inmarsat 11/28/2016 who replyed and forwarded in to BSTO. I suspect they do not like comments on the assumptions of their model.
France BEA has never commented on flaperon damage assessment or returned it. Is there disagreement on whether this is a glide entry or vertical dive.
@Victor
Our posts crossed in space.
I do not buy your explanation for the following reasons.
The CVR could be a post mortem problem, but only when the aircraft wreckage would be found. But as the CVR could only record the last two hours it would contain nothing more incriminating than the wreckage could give away by itself.
If the aircraft would be intercepted and forced to land, then the pilot could erase the CVR from the cockpit after setting the parking brake.
If you are saying that the concern was a shoot down by interceptors, then the perp judged this risk on a very high scale, because disabling the left bus has other unwanted effects as well.
Some info on the CVR thanks to PPRUNE
http://www.pprune.org/tech-log/542785-boeing-777-fdrs-cvrs-informational.html
@Dennis
You said;
“I am always very suspicious of coincidences.”
As long as you mentioned it and given it has not been addressed for awhile and some latecomers may have missed it, would you classify Fairbairn’s death as a coincidence? I still find the relation stunning.
• On March 17, Stuart James Fairbairn,“a key member of the operations team, one of the satellite controllers”¹ at Inmarsat, died from an alleged heart attack.
He was allegedly in his 30’s
The day he died, March 17³, the search was moved to the SIO⁴
Could pilot have switched off aircraft power buses after diversion to darken all cabin and exterior lights as aircraft is depressurized. Makes it more difficult to move around in cabin. For mechanical cause, this might be used by crew to combat an electrical fire?
CVR controls in the cockpit:
Overhead Maintenance Panel
Cockpit Voice Recorder ERASE Switch
Push and hold for three seconds – erases voice recorder if on the ground, AC power on, and parking brake set.
Overhead panel
VOICE RECORDER Switch
AUTO – The cockpit voice recorder runs from first engine start until 5 minutes after last engine shutdown (spring–loaded).
ON – The cockpit voice recorder runs until first engine start, then spring–loaded to AUTO.
@TBill
The important aspect is not necessarily the ability, or what could have meant to be accomplished from re-booting the SDU, the fact being, it wasn’t. There was neglect (whether intentional or not) of all services the
re-boot enabled except for the Inmarsat data. Also, in my opinion it is foolish to even consider the timing as anything other than correspondence to primary radar departure.
@RetiredF4: Yes, I was referring to minimizing the incriminating evidence in the event there was an intercept and shoot down.
@Susie
Frankly, I have never given much thought to that. Likewise the death of some relevant person (forget the details) in a car accident in Malaysia. Not sure how to weight those events.
My own version of the SDU reboot is that the FO and the flight engineer got into the EE bay attempting to disrupt Shah. I have nothing better.
@DennisW
Re your comments on “serial numbers” in the last thread.
The ATSB’s “determination” that the damage to both the outboard face of the flaperon and the inboard face of the outer flap match, and thus supposedly confirm that they were both in the up or faired position, raises a big red flag to me. .
When 9M-MRO had the wing tip damage, it is likely that the wing flexed a bit in the impact, perhaps enough to caused the faired flap to “nudge” the flaperon, and possibly to have twisted the flap (spanwise) a bit along it’s length as well, such that the inner track guide (solidly attached to the rear wing spar) mave have caused the internal damage seen. In which case, both the flaperon and the flap would have needed to have been replaced as part of the wing tip repair.
In that case, both items would have been retuned to MAS maintenance spares department for repair or disposal.
There is every reason to “need” to remove all data plates if you are going to “plant” debris.
The last thing a “planter” would want is “positive serial number ID”, because there are “other records” that might give the game away, such as, how many spare flaperons did MAS have, when were they bought, what were their serial numbers, when were they installed on which aircraft and what happened to the original ones removed ? A detailed forensic “tracking” of all MAS flaperons would reveal a “discrepancy”, if there was one. In such circumstances, it is vital that the item is never “evidencially positively identified”.
The same goes for the flap.
What is needed is a thorugh trace of every right flaperon and every right outer flap that MAS ever had, both fitted to aircraft, and spares.
@VictorI, If he valued the erasure that highly he could have gone into the E/E bay any time before IGARI and pulled the circuit breakers, then just left them that way. The pilot in SilkAir is believed to have pulled the CVR circuit breakers outside the cockpit in this way.
@Ventus
I understand what you are saying, but why would the other details which were used to positively identify the flaperon and wing flap debris serve the same purpose? Ultimately, the ID plate was not needed to identify that particular flaperon.
Whether that particular flaperon was actually on 9M-MRO when it went missing is another question. Am I missing something here?
@jeffwise: Opening the hatch and climbing down into the E/E bay before IGARI would have certainly aroused concern among passengers and crew.
@VictorI, When the guy does it in that famous Varig video, no one seems too bothered about it. Why would anyone care if a captain goes down a hatch?
@Jeff:
Yes I recall you keep smashing my fingers for that.
First, you are right of course. Second, I am trying to think outside the box and follow my line of thought until end. It does fit well, and it is truly another of those extraordinary things with this flight. It might be coinvidental of course, but there is on the other hand room for something that is only timely or simultaneous but not coincidental in any real sense (I am referring to what has been mentioned here now).
We have the call/s from ATC too, I forgot about that.
Well, then the thing that comes to mind then is that the reboot is supposed to look like an attempt to get communications in order, since whoever made the FMT must logically have been still alive at some point and handled / programmed the plane to make it fly into the SIO. To uphold the appearance of an emergency “unto death”, the fake landing attempts, the FO’s mast connection etc., there must also be an attempt at mending this, to show that someone is alive up until FMT and trying to do something about it. If the plane was ever to be found. That is contraindictive evidence of ill intent. That would likely work to his benefit ( in more normal cases). If he believed that was recorded by any machine that didn’t (self-)destruct.
That’s exactly what has kept us busy, isn’t it? All those indications of what might have played out up there. How does that sound?
With that kind of thoroughness, one would almost think the plane wouldn’t be that well hidden after all. He must have calculated with that it would be found (perhaps right away if coming down near a ship).
I should perhaps have written “as an attempt to get communications or whatever in order,” to make some room for alternatives. I suppose then that a reboot is good for something, and a possible way to fix something that wasn’t working, although I realise it might not belong to pilot training.
@all
profiling Shah
now after nearly three years i would finally ask the ATSB and any other scientist who is worth his 10 cent, after they are still and even more convinced themselves of a extremely bizarre pilot suicide
a) which professional scientific psychological councils did they employ to do the obligatory corroboration of their data ?
b) which professional profilers were employed to understand what was suspected in the pilot ?
c) exactly which mental disease was found to be responsible for the suspects action? Exactly which mental disease can possibly cause a sincere family man with very good income , awaiting prosperous retirement, to switch into the criminal mastermind he is now supposed to be?
d) and may those scientists please explain how he exactly planned his supposed 239 fold murder spree, what the situations was like, how long the victims had to suffer, how the pilots nerves survived that slaughter? Remember, a person who never saw combat!
e) If the engineers, mathmaticians and data experts at ATSB and on this blog can not produce this corroboration , it would be unforgivable and miserable abuse of all scientific standards.
The only offial publication in the FI did clear Zaharie by all means. So now , because tzhey didnt find the answer in the SIO, some engineers and mathmaticians make themselves scientific psychologist? Or think they have the right to overrule the judgement of the psycholigical experts in charge here? There is heavy presumptuous atitude among these guys, who think, because they love to shift some numbers, they know anything. I
I do understand, that the possible perpetrators want to ultimately lay the MH370 issue to rest. I think, the engineers and technicians toks a bait and now still unconciously dance to the tune of someone elses interests.
Beware. Give me facts before you smear a human being, that might have been the first victim in a capture.
@jeffwise: At the time the Varig video was recorded, it would have been clear to anybody on that plane that the pilot was making an instructional video. He was being recorded by another person and he narrated what is being recorded.
On the other hand, if a pilot mid-flight goes down into the E/E bay for procedural reasons, it would certainly raise questions about whether there was a malfunction on the aircraft. In fact, I don’t know a reason why a B777 pilot would need to enter the E/E bay during a flight.
@all
the terror of the mind
In decision making, many people think its an asset, to let the mind make the decisions. But a good example is the current US election: The winner of this election is not known as someone who uses his mind very much, but he obiously made the right decisions, while the underdog, Hillary is known for her quite extensive use of her mind for decision making. Which did not help her at all. She always looks terrorized, and its her mind that makes the terror.
The same happens in the search for MH370. People made the decision for a 180 million dlrs waste based on some data of questionable provenenace. They obiously failed as you only can fail. Its a disaster. But they still sing the same tune, now we really know where the plane is …
This is the terror of the mind. The mind says , i hav3e those data here and these data there, and you must follo me … Thats mindfucking, thats terrorism.
I love the contributions of DennisW for one reason, he gets never sucked up by his mind, he will be the one who can have success, like Donald Trump, if i may compare that.
@Dennis
I do not remember hearing about a car accident fatality of someone relevant to the investigation.
However, the random act of a car accident is a feeble comparison to the rare occurrence of a healthy man in his 30’s dropping dead of a heart attack.
Also this guy Fairbairn, a satellite controller, was hand picked and as quoted earlier, was a “key member of the operations team” that was responsible for giving the data to the international investigation team to try and narrow the search area.
Being a anti-conspiratorial thinker, I still have difficulty considering a connection without feeling foolish, yet I remain uncomfortable by the coincidence.
I think it was @Boris who guided us to the “London Polo Bar” story, it was an eye opener. We are not privy to the stories of human casualties that stem from the agencies of countries jockeying for power. Unsuccessful covert activities are rare and they are the only ones we hear of.
@Susie
Heart disease is the number one killer these days – even worse than medical malpractice. 🙂
I did try Googling the car accident, but lost patience with it. Actually, my recollection was that it was relatively suspicious. Here you go…
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/nri/other-news/Malaysias-top-ethnic-Indian-lawyer-dies-in-car-accident/articleshow/33860365.cms
Singh defended Anwar at both of his sodomy trials.
@Jeff et al
re..”This necessarily implies a flying speed lower . .
That depends on where and at what time you assume for the FMT.
My original speed deduction still applies for [almost] any path construct. i.e a ground speed of perhaps 480 knots between 19:41 and 20:41. After that point there is no knowing if the aircraft changed speed or reduced altitude. All [we think] we know is that the aircraft ran out of fuel at about 00:19.
A little logic on paths and destinations. If a pilot wanted to be sure of flying to a particular destination then the most sensible and obvious thing to do would be to fly to a waypoint constructed for that destination, or fly a great circle to a further waypoint [nothwithstanding the fact that if it was beyond the current fuel duration the pilot would receive an error message when trying to enter that waypoint]. I suggest that trying to fly to a destination some 3 – 4 hours away using a magnetic heading set at the beginning of the track is almost impossible. I can’t think of any reason why an experienced pilot [or any pilot . . ] would even try to do that. Hence a deduction . . . if indeed it is determined that the likely path results from a magnetic heading, then there was no one in control at the point the track commenced, nor subsequently.
@Brian Anderson
You say; entering a waypoint beyond the fuel duration will result in an error message when trying to enter that waypoint.
But will the FMC/autopilot still except that waypoint and fly the plane towards it?
Isn’t there a safety build in to avoid such a possible disasterous mistake?