The above graph is taken from the DSTG book “Bayesian Methods in the Search for MH370, ” page 90. It shows the probability distribution of MH370’s endpoint in the southern Indian Ocean based on analysis of the different autopilot modes available to whoever was in charge of the plane during its final six hours. It was published earlier this year and so represents contemporary understanding of these issues. As you can see, the DSTG estimated that the probability that the plane hit the 7th arc north of 34 degrees south longitude is effectively zero.
I interviewed Neil Gordon, lead author of the paper, on August 11. At that time, he told me that experts within the official search had already determined that the BFO values at 0:19 indicated that the plane was in a steep descent, on the order of 15,000 feet per minute.
Such a rate of descent would necessarily indicate that the plane could not have hit the ocean very far from the 7th arc. Nevertheless, Fugro Equator, which was still conducting its broad towfish scan of the search area at the time, spent most of its time searching the area on the inside edge of the search zone in the main area, between 37.5 and 35 degrees south latitude, about 25 nautical miles inside the 7th arc. At no point between the time of our interview and the end of the towfish scan in October did Equator scan anywhere north of 34 degrees south.
Shortly thereafter, the ATSB hosted a meeting of the experts it had consulted in the course of the investigation, and the result of their discussion was published on December 20 of this year as “MH370 – First Principles Review.” This document confirms what Gordon told me, that the group believed that the BFO data meant that the plane had to have been in a steep dive at the time of the final ping. What’s more, the report specified that this implied that the plane could not have flown more than 25 nautical miles from the 7th arc, and indeed most likely impacted the sea within 15 nautical miles.
By the analysis presented above, a conclusion is fairly obvious: the plane must have come to rest somewhere south of 34 degrees south, within 25 nautical miles of the seventh arc. Since this area has already been thoroughly scanned, then the implication is that the plane did not come to rest on the Indian Ocean seabed where the Inmarsat signals indicate it should have.
I would suggest that at this point the search should have been considered completed.
Nevertheless, the “First Principles Review” states on page 15 that the experts’ renewed analysis of the 777 autopilot dynamics indicates that the plane could have crossed the 7th arc “up to 33°S in latitude along the 7th arc.”
Then in the Conclusions section on page 23 the authors describe “a remaining area of high probability between latitudes 32.5°S and 36°S along the 7th arc,” while the accompanying illustration depicts a northern limit at 32.25 degrees south.
In other words, without any explanation, the northern limit of the aircraft’s possible impact point has moved from 34 degrees south in the Bayesian Methods paper in early 2016 to 33 degrees south on page 15 in the “First Principles Review” released at the end of the year. Then eight pages later within the same report the northern limit has moved, again without explanation, a half a degree further north. And half a page later it has moved a quarter of a degree further still.
Is the ATSB sincere in moving the northern limit in this way? If so, I wonder why they did not further search out this area when they had the chance, instead of continuing to scan an area that they apparently had already concluded the plane could not plausibly have reached.
I should point out at this point that the area between 34 south and 35.5 south has been scanned to a total widtch of 37 nautical miles, and the area between 32.5 and 34 has been searched to a total width 23 nautical miles. Thus even if the ATSB’s new northern limits are correct, they still should have found the plane.
As a result of the above I would suggest that:
a) Even though most recent report describes “the need to search an additional area representing approximately 25,000 km²,” the conduct of the ATSB’s search does not suggest that they earnestly believe that the plane could lie in this area. If they did, they could have searched out the highest-probability portions of this area with the time and resources at their disposal. Indeed, they could be searching it right now, as I write this. Obviously they are not.
b) The ATSB knew, in issuing the report, that Malaysia and China would not agree to search the newly suggested area, because it fails to meet the agreed-upon criteria for an extension (“credible new information… that can be used to identify the specific location of the aircraft”). Thus mooting this area would allow them to claim that there remained areas of significant probability that they had been forced to leave unsearched. This, in effect, would allow them to claim that their analysis had been correct but that they had fallen victim to bad luck.
c) The ATSB’s sophisticated mathematical analysis of the Inmarsat data, combined with debris drift analysis and other factors, allowed them to define an area of the southern Indian Ocean in which the plane could plausibly have come to rest. A long, exhaustive and expensive search has determined that it is not there.
d) The ATSB did not fall victim to bad luck. On the contrary, they have demonstrated with great robustness that the Inmarsat data is not compatible with the physical facts of the case.
e) Something is wrong with the Inmarsat data.
@Johan, Whether negotiations, or straight forward suicide, it makes the person a mass murderer, a cold blooded ruthless killer of innocent women, children and men including fellow MAS employees who had dedicated many years of loyal service to the airline. I have great difficulty (based on what we know today for fact) that ZS would fit this profile. I know it is a viable theory and as such I am not brushing it away but people don’t just commit mass murder of innocents. It takes a very disturbed person, in every respect, to execute such an atrocious act.
VictorI (January 2, 2017 at 6:09 PM): “I’ve stated what I believe are the facts”
I mistook you for a scientist.
@VictorI: The facts are demonstrably not what you believe.
The facts are that the airplane was released in level flight, and about 45 seconds later the rate of climb reached a minimum of -2000 fpm. Both conditions are symmetrically opposite to the stable steady state of 1000 fpm rate of descent of the airplane at the trim speed with power off.
A 1-minute experiment would show you that if you release the airplane with 1500 fpm rate of climb, it will descend at roughly 3500 fpm within about 45 seconds.
@KarenK: “Once a payment goes through and hits the receivers account, reversal is very difficult. Many banks will not cooperate with a reversal unless the recipient agreed to it (even if the money was obtained by committing a crime).”
What action could the MY government take to block the beneficiaries access to the funds transferred?
@Gysbreght: After the change and re-start, the AoA is forced to zero, albeit for a short time, because it’s not a quasi-steady condition. But continue if you want saying things that are both wrong and irrelevant. Those few seconds after the re-start have little to do with the rest of the simulation.
@Gijsbrecht, The MY government could try and work with the recipients bank to reverse the payment. It has been done in cases where bank employees committed fraud and transferred funds to an overseas bank account. But if funds are transferred to a bank in e.g. Panama, Caymans or South America, cooperation for reversal is difficult, if not impossible. But in the case of the My government, if they used a swiss account to move funds to e.g. Panama they could still cancel the payment before Panamenian banks open for business.If however, the Swiss bank transferred the funds to another swiss bank, the funds would hit the receivers account much faster. If the receiver bank does not wish to cooperate, one would have to litigate (get the account frozen) to retrieve the wire transfer made.
@KarenK, Thanks for sharing your expertise on these matters. I have to say, I’m astonished that this idea is getting so much play. It’s almost like the minute that new evidence emerges that promise to move our understanding of the case forward, people decide to suddenly promote a theory that fits none of the data and distracts from actual forward movement. It’s exasperating and, frankly, a little suspicious.
To recap, some of the reasons that a “loiter and negotiate” scenario has so little to recommend it:
1) The RMP report, a confidential document not intended for public consumption, goes into great detail about the one suspicious piece of evidence about Zaharie (the flight sim files) so isn’t a whitewash of the captain, but it doesn’t mention anything about any hostage standoff, which presumably would be a pretty big deal.
2) In order for a loiter to have occurred, the plane, while loitering, would have to have descended at just the right rate, at just the right moment, to coincidentally have produced the same BFO value as a flight to the south
3) The negotiations presumably having failed, and Zaharie deciding to commit mass murder (despite having no psychological predilections), the plane would either have wound up in the SIO search zone (which it did not) or the area further to the north, where its debris would have been spotted by aerial searchers (but was not.)
This is not a scenario. It is a rearguard action, an attempt to distract from the facts in hand.
@VictorI: IF “those few seconds after the re-start have little to do with the rest of the simulation”, what defines the initial condition for “the rest of the simulation”, both after 45S1 and 45S2?
@VictorI: “After the change and re-start, the AoA is forced to zero, …”.
That may well be the case in the second simulation, and would be consistent with the initial loadfactor of 0.4 Gs indicated in the text. However, the inital rate of climb is zero.
In the first simulation the loadfactor is initially 0.9 Gs, the rate of climb is negative.
@DennisW: In your negotiation scenario, why do you believe the hijackers chose to remain silent during and after the failed attempt? Wouldn’t publicity have helped their cause?
@VictorI: Perhaps in the first simulation the video started a few seconds after starting the simulation, and the initial descent was the result of your control inputs?
@TBill
“…can you elaborate on your thoughts? Do you think Indonesia could be the place to land, as per Freddie”
Nah, in that case primary target would be Cocos or Christmas Island (which is relatively close to 7th arc). Z was fervent fan of democracy and he would like to land on australian territory. It would also increase his chances of surviving.
The whole “fly unnoticed along thai border and get around Indonesia” route just screams of the intention to reach Australia.
@DennisW
“I find it difficult to digest that you could drop out of the sky unannounced at a foreign airport in a diverted 777, and expect someone to listen to your story. Could be a generational disconnect going on here relative to StevanG and I.”
Well they’d have to ask him why he came there and I can’t see why authorities wouldn’t share it with journalists.
Would that change things in Malaysia, I really doubt but I can see why it could look like a good idea in his head, especially on that day.
@KarenK:
I agree. As you know, I used to argue against oversimplification regarding the likelihood that Z was the perp. I hold him in a general sense as a very unlikely mass murderer and certainly in the sense of a political activist acting in accordance with a political agenda with a terrorist orientation. A camouflaged suicide, with a twist, for whatever reason/s, is the only alternative I can see.
Should we involve another component around his person / the cockpit / the aircraft I can only see things getting very complicated without getting us much further. Either the BTO/BFO data are correct (and interpreted correctly) and then whatever happened up to FMT is less likely to change where we should search, or the data is not, and then everything is possible. I can imagine one or two or three things that would be interesting to investigate principally, but with the facts we have been dealt, they would be dead ends, or at least likely fruitless at this point (we can imagine that the plane was hijacked by a Malay citizen who reacted to the Court of Appeals’ decision in the same way we have reasoned that Z could have reacted, perhaps someone Z even knew or who knew Z, perhaps someone related to the father of the children of the woman Z was seeing — but surely RMP have looked into all those angles?), but it wouldn’t change much regarding the search. And to me, the aircraft is reasonably in the Indian Ocean, and with all my wits, I can only fathom one or two reasons why the plane ended up there at all — all things considered.
@KarenK: money transfer etc.
Who could make use of that money? A democratic party in a purported democracy? Hardly. Political parties are state funded, one of the pillars of democracy. I’d guess MY would subtract the sum of the ransom from Ibrahim’s party’s future government grants. Or invent a fee they would need to pay. Most democracies aren’t working anywhere near something that could accomodate that — non-democracies even less so. If the holders of power won’t hear of you, you are toast, wether democracy or not. Going rogue is not a way forward. You may perhaps have a party leader sittting in exile and getting good press from somewhere, but something tells me MY is not that far out on a branch of a society, and Ibrahim’s voters not all that desperate, or forgiving. And Z is not a freedom fighter with a (single) bad day.
@jeffW, Thank you and glad to be able to share some of my expertise. The different theories is like swiss cheese, there are holes in all of them 🙂 Though the negotiation scenario could be viable, there are also hurdles to overcome. The money transfer is not as easy at it seems. And keeping it under wraps (depending on how many were involved) would be tough too. I do think through MH17 and the connection to MH370 but have so far come up empty. Where I am 300pct aligned with you is: Putin is a very very dangerous man, capable of anything. He is reposnsible for shooting down MH17. One does not drive a BUK missile accross borders, park it on farmland occupied by pro-russians, wait a day and night and then shoot down an airliner. Then to 1st blame the Ukraine for it and 2nd say its an accident. He lies. So, would he be capable of making M9-MRO dissapear? Absolutely. But a motive is more difficult to stir up. But then there is much we do not know. The planting of debris is also much more difficult to pull off, also replicating damage that would pass muster. But in today’s world, anything is possible IMO.
@Johan, There are very few (if any) mass murderers that have not been diagnosed with a whole range of psychological disorders after the fact. The pool of candidates to observe and interview are very few because most commit suicide after such an event. I am not qualified to make psychiatric observations or determinations, but there are plenty out there that could have profiled ZS and none have. This is telling IMO. In the case of MH370, ZS would have to knowingly, without remorse or emotion, murder 238 innocent people. This is very difficult to reconcile with what we know of him and about him today. But agreed, it cannot be discarded off hand either but a hard nut to crack nevertheless.
@KarenK, Not to beat a dead horse, but there is nothing supporting the negotiation scenario and many things against it.
Another point: This has been much debated, but the absence of perceived motive is no reason to absolve someone, especially if they have been known to carry out an eerily similar act within a short period of time. What was the motive behind MH17? Again, at the time, many many people said, “He wouldn’t do this, it’s not in his interest.” Yet the evidence is overwhelming. The context is that Russia is engaged in a broad-front war against the West, and one of its main weapons is confusion and distraction. We should expect to be baffled. (Fantastic article on the conflict here, btw: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/01/putins-real-long-game-214589)
You write, “The planting of debris would be hard to pull off.” I don’t understand why you think so. It’s easy to fool people if they want to be fooled. I’ve pointed out many inconsistencies and hardly anyone cares. What, actually, is technically hard about putting something on the sand somewhere?
@Johan, Assuming a wire transfer went through to an account in ZS name in some country, MY government would start the process of getting it back, whether ZS was alive or not. The success of a retrieval depends on the banks/countries involved. Many banks in certain countries would not return the funds as they are not obligated to reverse a payment that looked ligitimate in every sense. As for there other possible actions? You know my thoughts on the MY government (I shall not rant again on it) and the scumbags that they are.
@all
…fyi Mike Chillit is contesting the statement that Boeing will extend search, and he says Boeing has clarified the recent quote in Popular Mechanics. But I have not been able to confirm.
@VictorI said;
…”the sim data was definitely from FS9, not FSX.”
It would only be correct to say that the sim data was originally from
FS9, as PSS runs on FS9. It would NOT be correct to say that the sim data
wasn’t run on FSX at a later time, as the URL webpage I cited in a previous
post proved that PSS can be run in FSX (however poorly), and disproved your
claim that the PSS 777 model “only runs on FS9″.
VictorI said;
“Table 7 describes unsuccessful attempts by investigators to run FSX
using the deleted files. The fact that there is a reference to FSX and
that MK25 was found disconnected from the computer at the time it was
found lead me to believe that Table 7 refers to the FSX installation
on MK26, not the FS9 installation on MK25.”
(Very well, your interpretation is that the Table 7 files are not the
simulation data files on MK25, therefore Table 7 files dates are
not relevant for you in regard to the simulation data.)
Unfortunately, you do not appear to understand that the simulation
data files on MK25 are NOT from inside the FS9 installation on MK25.
The simulation data files on MK25 are from inside a VOLUME SHADOW Copy,
that Volume Shadow Copy dated 3rd February 2014, being on Drive ‘D’.
Therefore the date of 3rd February 2014 is the latest date that the
simulation data files could have been created. Note that each simulation
data file itself is not specifically dated, therefore it is possible the
actual dates of these simulation data files could be months prior to
3rd February 2014.
Further, as the Volume Shadow Copy service can be configured to make a
copy of all attached Drives, it is uncertain which files on which attached
Drive these simulation files originally came from. Therefore, it is not
possible to state that the simulation files came from the FS9 installation
on MK25. As Jeff said on 1st September, the files were from amongst any of
“thousands of others elsewhere on the hard drive, and on other hard drives.”
@DennisW said; …”the notion of people beating the simulator data”…
“What is the point with that?”
The point is that the simulation data is now being used as a springboard
to make unsubstantiated claims, such as that other theories are Wrong
(e.g. “There are no other options”) and e.g. “it is logical to conclude
that the simulation files were created in the weeks prior to the
disappearance”, even though the evidence does not substantiate such a claim.
@TBill, This is once instance where I would have to say that Mike Chillit is probably right. The ATSB drew up a probability heat map, searched it, and came up with nothing. There’s no point in extending the search further, even if the plane is somehow somewhere in the SIO it’s all low-probability, long-tail stuff.
Plus, can you imagine if Boeing let it be known that they’d step in and foot the bill anytime a country got tired of footing the bill for a difficult air crash investigation? What a precedent.
@KarenK
Thank you for your insights regrading funds transfers. It agrees with what I was able to learn as an outsider looking in.
@VictorI
“@DennisW: In your negotiation scenario, why do you believe the hijackers chose to remain silent during and after the failed attempt? Wouldn’t publicity have helped their cause?”
Publicity was not an option during the negotiation period. The time of day in MY, and the time interval that governed negotiations would have made that impractical.
After the failure and threatened result occurred everyone involved simply went underground. Publicity at that point would have been very bad for parties on both sides of the table.
@Jeff
“This is not a scenario. It is a rearguard action, an attempt to distract from the facts in hand.”
So says the man who has no trouble tossing the ISAT data, the debris finds, and the simulator info into the toilet.
@buyerninety: I will repeat it again. The sim data is from FS9, not FSX. To be more specific, FSX does not store velocity and acceleration data in the world coordinate system. FS9 does. In the recovered flight files, the data in the world coordinate system corresponds to the data in the body coordinate system, so they are definitely from the same simulation. There is no evidence that the PSS 777 was ever run under FSX.
Your theory regarding the PSS 777 model running under FSX is getting further and further from reality.
As for recovered file fragments in the Shadow Volume, the data were last accessed or modified on Feb 3, 2014. You can draw your own conclusions. Obviously, you already have.
@DennisW, Absolutely not. I am the only one here who is trying to make sense of the ISAT data, by explaining why the observed values don’t match the absence of wreckage in the SIO.
Likewise, I am not “tossing the debris,” but offering a credible explanation how it came to be in the condition in which it was found.
And unlike you, I’ve been trying to understand just what the simulator data actually show, rather than just having a knee-jerk reaction. (And please bear in mind that, having seen the sim data in the context of the full RMP investigation, the police concluded that there was no evidence that Zaharie planned to abscond with the plane; VictorI has presented us with the most damning part of the report but is withholding the exculpating part. Why?)
I feel that those who continue to expound SIO-crash theories are igoring the data. Why was the SDU rebooted? “We don’t know, it just was.” Why wasn’t the plane found in the area that one Australian official described as encompassing 97 percent of the heat map? “Bad luck, I guess.” How did barnacles grow on a high-and-dry piece of flaperon? “I think waves can splash over it.” Are you expecting me to believe that it’s mere coincidence that the guy who’s finding all this (astonishingly clean) stuff has long and deep entanglements in Russia? “Uh, er, no comment.”
I admit that I am outnumbered, but at least I have a coherent story, with a worked-out technical description of how it happened, who the perps were, the historical context of the struggle in which it took part, a flight path, a follow-up event, and even the job history of the guy who’s running around “finding” the debris.
We even have with MH370 uncanny echoes of the MH17 case, in that both have been enveloped in a fog of half-assed alternative theories that didn’t make any sense but serve to distract the media and the public from focusing on what really happened. Fortunately, in the case of MH17, Bellingcat (and later Dutch criminal prosecutors) hung on doggedly so the truth came out.
DennisW, I think you are a smart man, which is why it makes me suspicious that you have so consistently promoted such a meritless theory.
@Jeff
Last time you referenced my theory it was “asinine”. I feel like you have elevated it with the “meritless” descriptor.
We have discussed the ISAT data ad nauseam. Few people are having difficulty “making sense” of it besides you. The fact that the aircraft has not been found has nothing whatever to do with the ISAT data being flawed or spoofed.
A number of forensic experts have had an opportunity to examine the debris. All you have seen are photographs, and you are not credentialed in crash forensics. Why you find it strange I would side with the former is difficult for me to understand. Your comments relative to the debris are baseless and self-serving.
The simulator data is nothing more than circumstantial – like fingerprints on a murder weapon. Draw your own conclusions as to the significance.
I am not evangelizing any theory at the moment. You might recall that I was “drawn out” by responding to Freddies’ post not by a motivation to promote a theory. I might write something up in a formal way, but I have a bunch of chain saws chains that I need to sharpen today. They have taken a beating over the last couple of weeks.
@VIctorI
Re Malaysian Allies:
Honest question: do you really think an FBI investigation of financial corruption among essentially untouchable officials of another nation is really enough to swing a decades long foreign policy position? I’m not sure how that happens, beyond fear of a public shaming.
No argument from me on the importance of Malaysia as a useful ally in re Muslim extremists.
@CliffG
Thank you.
@Johan
Here is one link that explains the rationale behind the disclaimer. Other stories are available via Google. Despite the link’s unfortunate name, lawnewz, it is quite legitimate—run by ABC television’s chief legal analyst Dan Abrams, son of famed Constitutional expert and First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams, brother of Federal judge Ronnie Abrams. Which is to say, not the rhetoric of an anonymous blogger.
http://lawnewz.com/high-profile/we-dig-into-why-there-is-mysterious-disclaimer-on-top-of-dhsfbi-big-russia-hacking-report/
@Karen, @Jeff
Re the planting of debris:
Without committing to whether I believe MH370 debris has been planted, I would reiterate something mentioned earlier: such deception has happened before, most famously with Operation Mincemeat in WWII, which coincidently included disinformation on an airplane crash that never happened.
In this case, in order to gain an advantage over the Axis in the invasion of Sicily, British spies used a submarine to offloaded “doctored” debris near the coast of Spain. That debris—made to look it came from the airplane crash—was a corpse, decorated in an officer’s uniform, tagged with personal papers and photos, even a receipt for a diamond ring for a fictional engagement, as well as falsified invasion plans. In other words, a lot of effort went into creating the ruse.
From Wikipedia:
“With the approval of the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill and the overall military commander in the Mediterranean, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the plan began with transporting the body to the southern coast of Spain by submarine, and releasing it close to shore. It was picked up the following morning by a Spanish fisherman. The nominally neutral Spanish government shared copies of the documents [planted on the corpse] with the Abwehr, the German military intelligence organization, before returning the originals to the British. Forensic examination showed they had been read, and decrypts of German messages showed the Germans fell for the ruse. Reinforcements were shifted to Greece and Sardinia both before and during the invasion of Sicily; Sicily received none.”
I recommend Ben Macintyre’s book on the subject. Anyway, that leads me to this: if a prior pilot suicides is enough to surface the possibility that Zaharie followed such a course, isn’t prior debris planting enough to bolster the theory of a broader debris planting deception in this case?
And finally: very often in criminal investigations the theory of a crime is set upon early, based on experience, intuition, an understanding of human behavior, and it is refined as evidence is collected to support or dismiss it. It seems to me very much the opposite happened n the case of MH370. The evidence, such as it is, came first and a theory was crated to fit it, with no real regard to experience or human behavior. Just a thought for those wondering how they might arrive at a reset of sorts.
@JeffW:
I am not siding in your fist-fight, I think you know that. But there is one thing that comes up: wouldn’t you have the opportunity to ask around about BAG, to see if he’s kosher. Surely you know a few prople. At least after writing that piece. There might be three or four or five good reasons to go to the USSR, without necessarily ending up as a spy — (they probably said that about LHO, too, and I’d be surprised if that isn’t still the hottest lead for at least a handful of people) — and without anyone realizing it in thirty–forty years, and in the middle of one of the most spectacular and interest-receiving investigations since the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. You can’t put that in a book or a documentary anyway. Without fully researching it. I think.
@ScottO
“The evidence, such as it is, came first and a theory was crated to fit it, with no real regard to experience or human behavior. Just a thought for those wondering how they might arrive at a reset of sorts.”
My sense is that you are a bit of a newbie (no bashing intended at all with that observation).
Back in the very beginning, when Jeff was still a member of the IG, the Duncan Steel blog was THE PLACE to go for MH370 dialog. Duncan was adamant that discussions be limited to discussion the data. Any mention of motive or human behavior aspects was strictly taboo. I was asked to leave on more than one occasion. Likewise, there are strong reasons to believe that the SSWG has been instructed to limit their work to using the hard data at hand.
In both cases (IG and SSWG) this approach had its merits. Unfortunately the available data was not able to constrain terminal locations without making assumptions relative to flight dynamics. Most of my colleagues refused to even get involved in the analytics for that very reason. So here we are. You can reset all you want, but there is nothing to reset to that will get us anywhere but where we are.
@ScottO: The FBI investigation in 1MDB corruption has a lot of teeth. The Justice Department is already threatening to seize a billion dollars in assets in the US, despite a Malaysian investigation that unsuccessfully tried to whitewash Najib’s corruption. About $7 billion is unaccounted for.
Malaysia’s response has been a hard crackdown on free speech.
Here’s a recent WSJ article that details the latest in this mess:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/malaysian-leader-promised-openness-now-stifles-dissent-1483093803
Here’s another recent WSJ article that details Goldman Sachs’ deep involvement in the mess.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/goldman-sachs-ties-to-scandal-plagued-1mdb-run-deep-1482362362
I don’t know how this will play out. Trump has demonstrated that it won’t be business as usual. At the same time, he has appointed Gary Cohn as the director of the National Economic Council. Cohn was President of Goldman Sachs when it amassed a fortune in fees from 1MDB transactions. So maybe it will be business as usual.
I apologize if you can’t easily access the articles because of a paywall. I could provide some excerpts here, but that really wouldn’t do justice to the articles.
@JeffW
Re: SDU Reboot
Nobody can explain why putting MH370 back in normal flying mode might be advantageous? For starters I like Lauren’s prior thinking which was to activate proximity warning system.
@TBill: There have been two incidents in which a suicidal pilot tampered with the CVR. (On the B777, the CVR is fed by the left AC transfer bus, so the CVR would be disabled along with the SATCOM.) In the Silk Air Flight 185 crash, an Indonesian captain is believed to have opened the circuit breaker to the CVR before lowering those nose and crashing. Some excerpts from the Wiki article:
“On 14 December 2000, after three years of investigation, the Indonesian NTSC issued its final report, in which it stated that the evidence was inconclusive and that the cause of the accident could not be determined.”
“The US NTSB, which also participated in the investigation, concluded that the evidence was consistent with a deliberate manipulation of the flight controls, most likely by the captain.”
“Geoffrey Thomas of The Sydney Morning Herald said that ‘a secret report confirmed that the Indonesian authorities would not issue a public verdict because they feared it would make their own people too frightened to fly.’ Santoso Sayogo, an NTSC investigator who worked on the SilkAir 185 case, said that the NTSB opinion was shared by some Indonesian investigators, who were over-ruled by their boss.”
The next quote is very interesting for obvious reasons:
“An official investigation by the Singapore Police Force into evidence of criminal offence leading to the crash found ‘no evidence that the pilot, copilot or any crew member had suicidal tendencies or a motive to deliberately cause the crash of [the aircraft].'”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SilkAir_Flight_185
The other case was Federal Express Flight 705, where a pilot flying as a passenger tried to disable the CVR before the flight. The configuration of the CVR was noticed before the flight by the crew, and the CVR was turned on. During the flight, the passenger-pilot entered the cockpit and attacked the crew with a hammer. The passenger-pilot was restrained and the plane was able to land, although the crew sustained serious injuries.
@ScottO:
I have exactly the same impression as DennisW. The police and the press may have started with Z as the culprit early (one can see a logic in that), but at Duncan’s the agenda was one of hard data. Everything had to be learned from scratch so there was little time or ground for speculation on motives or profiling. At an early stage there I believe the whole package seemed suspect to most contributors, not Z alone but the whole flight, and that either MAS or the manufacturer would have had something to hide. It is only through the hard labour of Jeff and people hear that we today can say that it instead must have been either Z or the wolf (that was partly a joke). But I am not really the person to say. I am not a household name.
I read /about/ Abrams. Thanks.
@Jeff,
If you insist that the BFO was spoofed, by a highly capable state actor, why then are you so sure that the BTO (or radar even) could not also be manipulated?
Even assuming arguendo that BTO could not be spoofed from the plane, why couldn’t it be altered on the ground via a hack? If we’re really talking Russia as the actor, how is that not at least a remote possibility? How do you know that they were unaware of BTO tracking?
Your spoof theory does not necessarily seem impossible, but I don’t understand why it must be so narrow.
Victor-
Thank you I assumed management of CVR was a possible motive for SDU from your perspective, both for turning off, and then maybe turning on again if the perp felt he had 2 hours to erase (maybe he only needed 45 minutes to erase up to IGARI)?
I am thinking Jeff is asking two questions: (1) why turn SDU/left bus off (at IGARI), and then (2) why turn SDU/left bus on back on (at 18:25). I appreciate your past input on CVR as possible reason for Item#1. But in the above text, Jeff is asking why turn SDU back on?
The Silk Air case is a very important case I agree. Shades of MH370, depending on what actually happened in MH370. Very interesting case, indeed. I believe I read it may have lead Boeing to some changes in Digital Data Recorder accessibility in the 777 (EE Bay now).
@VictorI: “Indonesian authorities would not issue a public verdict because they feared it would make their own people too frightened to fly.’”
Does “their own people” denote pilots, Indonesians in general or only state employed (the authorities), do you think?
What about the rest of us?
@Johan: I suspect they were referring to Indonesians in general. I can’t answer your last question.
@TBill: I suspect that ZS believed that after he disabled ACARS, there would be no incriminating data associated with the SATCOM. He turned off the CVR around IGARI to prevent further recording. He turned it on again around NILAM to erase the residual content and to put the electrical system in a more normal configuration.
@TBill, @Jeff:
While having it fresh (I realize you’ve been over it, but then the better): Which functions on the plane would or could be affected by the SDU reboot? Is it only communications-systems by way of satellite or are there more things (the FDR would be, to me). Could it depend / be related to what the pilot switched off in the cockpit? I recall a discussion vaguely.
@KarenK
possible motive of russian leadership
Malaysia as one of the countries with the most muslim population aligned itself to Kazakhstan by marriage within leadership families and by pursuing common economic interests, so that Najib was chairman of the board of the malaysian state fund and the Kazakhstan state fund at the same time.
Since Putin is trying to re-establish the glory of the former soviet union, he will do anything (like with crimea) to stop a muslim spearhead within the limits of the former soviet provinces. He will never tolerate that a muslim former republic like Kazakhstand aligns itself with one of the most important muslim countries in the world. He will and he can never tolerate that without losing his standing with the russian oligarkhs.
@ Jeff From JS: “If you insist that the BFO was spoofed, by a highly capable state actor, why then are you so sure that the BTO (or radar even) could not also be manipulated?”
You have been asked this question by more than one person now.
BTW, I do not agree with you that it takes ‘nations’ to spoof this data – especially if done as a hack into the post flight files. Probably it could be done by one person with the correct knowledge. Indeed, if too many people would be involved the chances of a leak would be great.
@Dennis, @ Johan
Not exactly a newbie—a reader of Jeff’s blog from before, and certainly since, MH370’s disappearance, and for better or worse, now with a little more time on my hands with which to mouth off. In any case, no offense taken.
I admit ignorance of the specifics of the constraints placed on the IG and the ATSB’s SSWG in those early days. But given the lack of fruit from that particular banana patch, I don’t know why people wouldn’t be anxious to bring the same rigor to new (or old but under-examined) theories. First principles, but really first. How else are cold cases solved?
More importantly, perhaps, once you get those chains sharpened (and certainly if you use one while dull!) may I quite seriously suggest Kevlar chaps, if you don’t already own a pair? Having seen them in action I can attest that they will save your leg, even your life…
@Victor,
Thanks for the links; I have a subscription, but somehow missed these pieces. I look forward to reading them.
I’m familiar with the threat of asset seizure, and while a billion dollars is quite a bit to my portfolio, it’s– what?–less than 15 percent of the seven billion Najib and his cronies have likely moved beyond the reach of the DOJ. What’s more, is a billion-dollar “fine” actually that much compared to the stability and face lost with alienating your largest trading partner, a tentative partner in South China Sea exploitation, a security partner and likely largest foreign aid donor–particularly with the TPP a lost dream? (Forgive the lack of citations and the potential that some of the above has changed more recently; suffice it to say all has been true of the China Malaysia relationship at some point within the last few years).
I don’t know; It’s a calculus that is beyond me.
One thing I think all of this does disclose (not to mention Cohen, who is just the tip of the Goldman/Trump iceberg), however, is how tangled alliances and relationships are—and how motives, actions and reactions on the geopolitical chessboard might not always be what they seem nor that easy to tease out.
And now, speaking of changes I happened upon this story from The New York Times for a couple of months ago that makes all that speculation pointless and shows just how well Najib has played the U.S. and China off each other. As a famous half-deaf lady on weekend U.S. television once said, “Never mind.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/01/world/asia/malaysia-china.html?_r=0
@ScottO said, “I don’t know; It’s a calculus that is beyond me.”
Me, too. But I assure you that somebody is doing that calculus.
@ScottO
“More importantly, perhaps, once you get those chains sharpened (and certainly if you use one while dull!) may I quite seriously suggest Kevlar chaps, if you don’t already own a pair? Having seen them in action I can attest that they will save your leg, even your life…”
Way off topic, but interesting (below).
When a major wildfire was heading toward my ranch CalFire showed up with three pumpers and about a dozen youngin’s. They needed to take down a tree branch in order to get the pumpers between the fire and my barn. I watched as they donned ear protection, eye protection, and chaps tick, tick, tick… Then their chain saw would not start. I went to the garage, grabbed one of my Stihl saws, climbed up on the pumper, and the limb was on the ground in about 15 seconds.
BTW, I do have some military grade tourniquets in my kit, so I am prepared for a kickback. When I tried to buy safety chain (anti-kickback chain) at our local hardware store no no had ever heard of it. Things are different in the boonies.
@Shadynuk, @JS, Sure, I imagine it’s physically possible to spoof the BTO. The reason I think it’s less likely is:
— No one outside Inmarsat knew it was being recorded
— It’s the BFO, not the BTO, that tells you the plane went south. In a spoof scenario, that’s the important part. The only relevance that BTO has to a spoofer is whether or not it becomes even remotely concievable that you could define a search area, which opens the possibility that it could be searched unsuccessfully and your subterfuge exposed. History has shown that the authorities did complete the search with no success and still didn’t detect the subterfuge.
— The BTO data all makes sense, and looks like you’d expect it to. There’s something wrong with the BFO data–no explanation for the first BFO value, plus either the 18:40 data which show that a turn to the south has already happened or the 0:19 data which shows a steep dive has to be wrong, or else the plane would have been found.
Sure, you could hack into Inmarsat later, theoretically. That’s pure speculation though as we don’t know anything about Inmarsat’s security. Worth noting that a youngish Inmarsat employee did die suddenly and unexpectedly just around the time the data was handed over.
@Jeff,
“The BTO data all makes sense, and looks like you’d expect it to.”
And:
“There’s something wrong with the BFO data[.]”
I think you could reverse BTO and BFO in most of the paragraph and it’d come out the same. The BFO spoof gives you a north/south misdirection, but a spoof of only BTO would give you a near/far misdirection. Both are effective.
But I would also argue that the plane could have been shot down by ______ at 2:25 and both sets of values spoofed so that nobody went near the site. In effect, the spoof could have been intended only to mask the length of the flight, rather than the position. Convincing the world that the plane flew for 6 hours exonerates any shoot down. Imagine if KAL was reported to be in the air for a few more hours – we’d never hear of the shoot down and eventually assume it was in the Pacific somewhere.
Keep in mind that if signals after 2:25 are imposters and BFO was spoofed. The corresponding BTOs recorded, while not spoofed, are meaningless.
It would take no more effort to spoof using a second SDU than by using the actual SDU.
My point is that I think you are unnecessarily constraining your theory to the point of excluding other possible bad acts, particularly those that aren’t inconsistent with either KAL007 or MH17.
@Jeff
The SDU reboot at 18:xx is the strongest argument, IMO, that you have to support a Northern path. Beyond a BFO spoof, which I think is more difficult than BTO, is the possibility of a “copycat/impersonator” flight South either near the reboot area or on a mirror image (East/West of the sub-satellite point) path over Africa.
While Victors’s method is extremely clever, I think it is less likely. Perhaps not.