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, Thank you. I’m not sure how credible that particular web site is but who’s to complain…
@Shadynuk, The ATSB has a bunch of replica flaperons on hand with telemetry built in, it seems to me that it would be a pretty straightforward matter to toss them in the ocean for a month or two and then retrieve them (after a fair bit of sailing around no doubt) and see what the growth patterns are like. If I’m right in guessing that they’d show a waterline, or at least a less-than-all-around pattern of biofouling, then that should trigger some second thoughts.
@Susie Crowe, If a lot of incoming phone calls had been made then we would have no BTO values; we would assume that the plane went south but we would not be able to narrow down the possible paths or define a final arc and so would not be able to define a search box.
@Ge Rijn
The other positive elements about ATSB suggested new search zone (32.5-S to 36.0-S) is it does contain at least one discrete crossing point to waypoint OLPUS, and of course it contains DrBobbyU’s pin (unless DrB is still back at the drawing board due to HOLD flight mode changes).
For those of us (you and me I think) with pins at 30-32S with the idea of hiding wreckage in the Broken Ridge range, it’s almost like they do not want to look there, because it would be impossible to find. But maybe if some parts drifted and we can get a hit if they at least move to 32.5-S.
@TBill
The 2 ground-to-air calls made exactly 4 1/2 hours apart, lasted exactly the same amount of time.
P.S.- To my knowledge nobody has done any OLPUS path cases. Since I believe OLPUS is close to the proposed ATSB new search zone, it might be helpful to ATSB justification to show some OLPUS ping match cases.
@TBill:
As a general frame of reference: most ethno-political minority groups will take some care not to eternally destroy their rep among the international community. A hostage situation with a predictable happy outcome would generally be their outer-limit preference. They would get their political message (free prefferably internationally recognized unlawfully imprisoned individuals or institute democratic elections etc.) through from the first minute, preferably even with preparations in the media or reps from the press in advance, so there is little doubt about their good intentions. At least ideally. If they have a goal, they will chose their actions in accordance with that, not kill indisciminately.
Killing “indisciminately” is a habit belonging to a certain field of terrorists at war with something that would encompass more or less all of that which they strike against: “Western society”, “Capitalism”, “the bourgeoisie”, “Israel”, “British occupation of Northern Ireland”. Some have territorial claims with a history, and could claim to be able to organise a society (with a little help), others are merely (anarcho-) “revolutionary” in the main. In most of these, the logic with the violence is bound up with the ambition to attract and recruit (likeminded) followers, quasi-legitimize the cause (if they resort to violence there must be something to what they say), draw mental irreducable borders between groups, and achieve mental, exploitable, radicalisation. These groups live by definition outside the reach of the law, in hiding, under cover, secretly, across the border, or where they are untouchable due to topography or something similar. They are in effect at war, and they are outlawed, and they will need financial support, but they will have a hard time getting any (good) press. They get awe. There may be more or less to their actions depending on the legitimacy of the rule and if the majority of a population would side with them. But killing indiscriminately doesn’t have the same appeal as it used to have, and that will not get them many followers. Quite the contrary. And that would be fatal to all but a very select group of terrorists.
@TBill
•correction• exactly 4:40, not 4 1/2 hours
I dont know why one would think that BAG would have planted any evidence. He searched a lot of countries before looking towards the eastern area.That would have taken a lot of pre thought to execute. just my thought on the matter.
@Ted Wintemute, One could easily assume that no planting took place, and most people have done so. I would argue that in order to solve this mystery we have to actively examine all the evidence and assume nothing.
@Johan
Oops I do not currently believe China Martyr Brigades are involved. I actually think the true perp may have sent that 9-March email to deflect blame. On Mike Chillit’s site, an apparent expert says the CMB email seems to be a forgery by a non-Chinese language person.
Rather, I was trying to say, without specifically blaming ZS, we need to think through what could be done to sabotage a plane intentionally, and then try to think if there are easy and feasible design changes to reduce the potential.
@TBill
Yes, I have also my ‘confirmation bias’ to a certain level and it’s still not proven to be wrong. On the contrary still as facts show till now.
As you know I assume the diversion at IGARI and the whole flight after was planned from the start till the end.
This means IMO also an end-point was chosen. A destination.
One possibility is the chosen end-point was meant to most effectively let vanish the plane and all the evidence that could give away the culprit.
If this was the case the culprit succeeded very well I would say till now. He then outsmarted everyone.
In such a scenario the best place to hide the plane and all evidence would be somewhere along Broken Ridge in a deep mountainous trench. Maybe even the Dordrecht Hole. This would certainly be an ideal spot by all means and would be crossing the way to McMurdo and the saved SIM-points.
As @VictorI is building up his evidence of the SIM data this non-Ghost-flight scenario becomes more and more convincing.
And with it a pre-planned human controlled flight from beginning till end-point.
Another scenario could be the chosen end-point (somewhere in the West, Diego Garcia?) was interrupted around 18:25 (interception?) forcing the SDU-reboot and forcing the pilot to abandon his primary target and fly into the SIO with the same purpose:
To effectively let vanish all evidence of a failed mission as best as he could.
Then no partiqular end point would be considered, only flying as far and remote as you can into the SIO I assume.
If though the SIM-points would give final proof they are connected from KLIA to 45S there is no doubt in my mind anymore this drama was planned by the captain from the start and he also chose a well defined end-point most probably along Broken Ridge or possibly even Dordrecht Hole.
@TBill,
The Constant True Heading route still works with a fixed IAS instead of a variable Holding speed, and the end point moves very little. Furthermore, the best-fit constant IAS is within 1 knot of the optimum Holding speed at the beginning of the FMT to ANOKO. The best-fit altitude is FL360, which matches the best-fit value over the radar track, so no climb or descent is needed. The crosswind errors are slightly increased by the constant speed using a 2D wind model. I hope to implement a 4D wind model soon. This is still the only route I have found which has correct endurance. The remaining question is how it could end far enough away from 7th Arc to be outside the previously searched swath? I think it is more likely to be inside the Arc after making a severe left turn.
A surprisingly good discussion with Honeywell people but the result is a bit more complex than Victor’s MSFS experiment:
From Honeywell: “LNAV transitions to hdg hold mode at end of route. Additionally, the current mag/true heading mode determines whether the target heading will be mag or true.”
Also this: “The ADIRU operates using ‘True’ coordinates. It computes its data internally using an Earth Centered, Earth Fixed XYZ Cartesian coordinate system with the origin at the center of the earth (not Lat/Lon coordinates). It is the same coordinate system the GPS uses. The resultant state vectors are converted to True reference Lat/Lon coordinates for the ADIRU output. The magnetic heading and track are computed by adding the declination for the computed position, obtained from a magvar lookup table internal to the ADIRU.”
@Matt Moriarty: Interesting. You found what I believe is the most knowledgeable source so far.
I wonder if the magnetic declination is updated after reaching the EOR. If it isn’t updated, essentially the path is a constant true heading.
VictorI said:
“@JS: If you can prove that the correlation of satellite declination to BTO is more than a coincidence, that would be a very important discovery. In the end, I attributed the correlation to an innocent coincidence, but I have to admit that it does trouble me because it calls into question the validity of the BTO data. The more precise the timing of the extrema of the BTO and the declination data, the less likely this is an innocent coincidence.”
If Inmarsat / the investigation team had released the pings they had recorded for all of the other aircraft flights they examined (including MH370’s previous flights) that question might be possible to answer.
Could this be a reason that data hasn’t been released?
@SusieCrowe
–“Please explain how Captain Zaharie managed to kill or incapacitate 238 people,11 of these people were crew members with substantial experience and training, all while flawlessly flying (and “expertly” for some of the time) for 7+ hours the predetermined flight path most of the guilty campers think it was.”
I would urge you to look at the Germanwings incident because you’re making that task seem way harder than it is. His only primary on-board obstacle was the FO. Okay? The only real deterrent on what whole airplane.
I personally believe he killed the FO between 17:01:17-17:07:56 and nobody outside the cockpit would have known a thing about it. (The cockpit-lockout/manual depressurization scenario is certainly possible but more problematic, imo.) The 180 degree turn after IGARI? Only someone looking for a turn would have noticed it at night over an ocean and even if they did notice it, what the hell are they going to do about it? Mollifying unhappy pax about the loss of in flight entertainment? Easily addressed with a cabin announcement.
A final minor obstacle would be the flight attendants a few hours into the flight wondering why neither pilot ate dinner or used the lavatory or drank a single cup of coffee. But what are they going to do about that, break down the door to ask why your bladder is so big? This is another reason the Beijing flight was so logical a choice for Z: long enough to allow you to end up somewhere very far away from Beijing, but not so long that you’re carrying relief pilots or depending on flight attendants to ignore you going 14 hours without a pee break.
Daylight at the end of the flight? Ya, that’s when things get tense. Lots of calls to the flight deck wondering about that. Then some banging on the door. We know exactly what that sounds like because we’ve all heard the CVR audio from Germanwings.
But honestly, what else? What else could the people behind the cockpit door do in that situation to control the behavior of the guy on the other side of the door with the dead guy sitting next to him? What substantial training and experience gave the Germanwings crew any chance at survival? And remember, Germanwings was after MH370. If anything, they had more awareness of wayward pilots than the MH370 crew.
And flawlessly flying? He’s turning a few knobs and pushing some buttons. Only at the end is he on the yoke. And that’s where it got away from him, imo, because the trailing edge stuff came off the airplane on the way down due to over-G/speed/flutter and forms the reason -everybody say it with me – “why the big debris pieces are exclusively trailing-edge and all the shrapnel-sized debris are leading edge/elsewhere.”
@MattM
On the first point, does that suggest Mag heading would be most common outcome of a discontinuity unless the pilot had switched to True for some intentional reason? That would put “True” heading option in with intentional path options, but accidental ghost flight after waypoint discontinuity would be Mag heading? That’s controversial, right?
@DrBobbyU
I think it is a good path, I will try to take a look and see if I can think of variations on the theme.
@VictorI
–“I wonder if the magnetic declination is updated after reaching the EOR. If it isn’t updated, essentially the path is a constant true heading.”
Barring any problem with the ADIRU, my understanding is that MAG is constantly figured upstream of the FMC. Based on what they told me, I have no reason to believe otherwise, do you?
Btw, this doesn’t change any of my opinions on what operationally happened with MH370. I still believe the most likely scenario is that a distant Lat/Lon was input and that the route was great circle toward that point because Broken Ridge had been the goal all along.
The second most likely scenario is that the final leg was flown by selecting TRUE reference and then dialing HDG SEL to whatever southerly heading satisfies our various fits.
Btw, my sim showed that every time the HDG REF is changed, the autopilot flips to HDG HOLD. HDG SEL must then be toggled.
@Matt Moriarty: It’s just a question of whether under the special case of an EOR or discontinuity, the mag variation is updated before the fixed heading is fed to the A/P. I don’t know the answer.
I agree that most likely scenario is the pilot choose a waypoint to fly towards in LNAV mode.
@victor, do you mean you wonder if the magvar lookup table is used after discontinuity? My reading of what Matt M has relayed from Honeywell is exactly that. If in NORM then the heading held should be mag.
@Matt M. Very interesting and thanks for sharing. Could you seek clarification on whether it is heading or track that is perpetuated?
@Victor
Routes, including EOR, happen in the FMC. Figuring MAG is a constant process which happens upstream of the FMC. In other words, the plane knows both true and mag at all times. What is displayed to the pilot is a choice made well downstream of the figuring of declination.
I thus have no reason to believe that an FMC process such as EOR would interfere with the normal and constant figuring of mag by ADIRU.
@Paul Smithson
Oh it’s heading for sure. That item was checked off about four emails prior to the statement I quoted.
@TBill
–“That would put “True” heading option in with intentional path options, but accidental ghost flight after waypoint discontinuity would be Mag heading? That’s controversial, right?”
You are absolutely right, TBill. And I have to say it’s been a pleasure to watch you acquire all this aviation knowledge over the course of all these discussions. You have a real purity to the way you pursue it and I admire that greatly.
Having said that, the notion is only controversial to those who haven’t suspected the pilot all along. (Even though he could, of course, be the victim of framing as I have said many times.)
@TBill
Sorry, I thought you were pulling my plonker for a minute iro the dial tone 🙂
The two call made by MAS must have indicated that the plane was still in one piece, but by that point in the proceedings, the plane was judged by the pilot to be beyond recall and beyond detection, so he wouldn’t have worried. And perhaps he wanted then to know the plane was still flying….flying until fuel exhaustion.
@Ge Rijn
Don’t get hung up on the debris issue. The debris could have come from 40S. The CSIRO have admitted that themselves.
Thanks @Matt M. Nice to have it from the horse’s mouth, eventually. Acknowledged that you and many others expect LNAV great circle or manually dialled true heading. But nice all the same to know what default EOR mode should be. And it certainly makes you wonder now how the search figured ghost flight should be “straight”.
Final question. How frequently are the magvar tables updated, whether WMM or IGRF?
@Matt M
“I would urge you to look at the Germanwings incident because you’re making that task seem way harder than it is. His only primary on-board obstacle was the FO. Okay? The only real deterrent on what whole airplane.”
The comparison to German wings is too simple. GW was a short trip compared to MH370. The habit of the crew during such short trip is different to a long range flight. The GW copilot opted for the immidiate fatal dive without flying for hours. Captain and crew took immidate action to enter the cockpit, but ran out of time.
“I personally believe he killed the FO between 17:01:17-17:07:56 and nobody outside the cockpit would have known a thing about it.”
As long as you do not provide a plausible scenario how an untrained older man murdered a young fit man in the confines of a cockpit without raising any outside suspicion, I consider it as an unreal assumption.
” (The cockpit-lockout/manual depressurization scenario is certainly possible but more problematic, imo.) The 180 degree turn after IGARI? Only someone looking for a turn would have noticed it at night over an ocean and even if they did notice it, what the hell are they going to do about it? Mollifying unhappy pax about the loss of in flight entertainment? Easily addressed with a cabin announcement. ”
Please tell us what you think the PF would have told the pax and the cabin crew with this anouncement without raising questions, especially with the following necessary closed cockpit scenario.
“A final minor obstacle would be the flight attendants a few hours into the flight wondering why neither pilot ate dinner or used the lavatory or drank a single cup of coffee.”
The usual time for coffee and bisquits is after level off, not hours into the flight. CC would look through the peep hole of the cockpit door to check situation, and try their emergency opening code if no answer. Sure the perp could obstruct the peep hole, but that would be questioned. And the answer would be? This flight was a standard flight, the cabin crew has probably served multiple times. Any deviation from normal habit would be questioned.
“But what are they going to do about that, break down the door….. ?”
Yes, that’s what they would try, by all means. And seek an option to comunicate their distress. Phones , ELT,…..
“Daylight at the end of the flight? Ya, that’s when things get tense. Lots of calls to the flight deck wondering about that. Then some banging on the door. We know exactly what that sounds like because we’ve all heard the CVR audio from Germanwings. What substantial training and experience gave the Germanwings crew any chance at survival?”
Again comparing a short inner-European flight with a long distance flight, and a perp with the intention to fly for hours with one who nosed the aircraft down within minutes after taking over the cockpit.
” And remember, Germanwings was after MH370. If anything, they had more awareness of wayward pilots than the MH370 crew.”
You honestly say, nobody of the cabin crew would have cared for a turnaround, for a breakdown of normal habits, for no coffee or meal fo any of the pilots, for no pee break, for no conversation at the usual time or close after and for an obstructed peep hole in the cockpit door? Just carry on for hours in blind faith that everything will be all right despite everything being different on this very flight?
Just to add an explanation why I hammer on theses points again, as I did before. Because it is a vital item in any hijacking scenario be it by Z or any other person on board.
We as a group are divided regarding the form of takeover, and I think mainly for ethical reasons or because other takeover scenarios seem not to fit Z.
There is the group who believes in a soft takeover by just performing a deviation from the routing after locking out the copilot without further action of the copilot. Cabin crew and passengers note nothing. No blood is shed initially. I picture the copilot sitting in the first class on a free seat and shedding tears for the failure of his flying career. IMHO total unrealistic.
Then the group Matt M adheres to. Z kills Copilot, but nobody in the cabin takes note of the events for hours until daylight breaks and the aircraft is over water instead over main land China. Massmurder does not fit Z? IMHO unrealistic as well.
Remains the hard takeover, the brutal hijacking. All souls are silenced as fast as possible early in the flight, therefore no sign of life from the aircraft ocupants after IGARI, with the exception of the mobile of the copilot. I question though as well that this would fit the personality of Z.. He might have been tricked to cooperate in the initial stage, to let the perps have access to the cockpit. But he was neither the murderer of a single person nor of all people on board by his own hands prior the final crash.
Count me in on that group and scratch me from the list of “Z did it on his own”
@PaulSmithson
1Hz is the standard for ADS-B and ARINC 429 maxes out at 1000Hz, so it’s something between those two numbers.
The Honeywell TALIN iru updates at 10 Hz independent of GPS, whatever that’s worth.
ROB
Thank you. Well the MAS CEO said he thought they were in the air the whole time. So that is consistent. No not pulling any chains pls excuse my lack of understanding how the sat phones work.
@MattM
Your theory about why not a EU flight was perhaps the best answer so far. @DennisW might appreciate that.
Mag Heading is controversial because it’s a curved path and we have been searching 3 years in a straight path area. So it seems like ATSB was assuming True Heading, which could indicate VictorI is correct maybe True heading still prevails after a discontinuity.
Even flight simulator we have to mess with mag table updates, so like Paul, I wonder how old they were.
@Matt Moriarty
So, if a plane is flying at normal altitude and the cockpit becomes inaccessible, all contact/communication with the outside world is gone? Never really thought of it like that, but it really is kind of a mind blower
@DrBobbyUlich
you said:
The remaining question is how it could end far enough away from 7th Arc to be outside the previously searched swath?
I think it is more likely to be inside the Arc after making a severe left turn.
I am curious.
Why do you think a “severe (left OR right) turn” was made, when, how, by whom ?
@TBill
“@MattM
Your theory about why not a EU flight was perhaps the best answer so far. @DennisW might appreciate that.”
I missed it. Please fill me in.
Johan,
I think you make some excellent points in your post about political minority groups.
To it I would add this bit from a New Scientist interview with the psychologist Ariel Merari, who has researched terrorists who engage in suicidal acts. In this case, the offenders are from the Middle East, and not lone wolfs, but but it’s interesting to note that ZS does not fit into either the personality type, education or age group of such people. Granted there is a difference between Islamic extremists and what ZS has been accused of and there is difference in a bombing on a bus and the crashing of an aircraft but there is blessedly little research on the latter to draw on. And yet in either case, unless we presume the pax were alive until impact, or at least until a bluff was called, the result is an annihilation event.
Merari On Suicide Bombers:
They seem to have certain personality characteristics that make them more likely to be recruited to or to volunteer for suicide-bombing missions. None of the 15 would-be suicide bombers we interviewed suffered from a psychosis, but they had one of two personality types. Two-thirds were dependent-avoidant: such people find it hard to say no to authority figures and are more likely to cooperate to carry out tasks against their own judgement. They are also greatly influenced by public opinion. The rest were impulsive and emotionally unstable. These types are likely to volunteer, but in many cases their enthusiasm will not last long enough for them to see it through. None were any more militant than the average Palestinian. For many, the suicide mission was their first involvement in terrorism. Ideological motivation was not what made them suicide bombers. Two-thirds hesitated somewhere along the line, though this was caused by fear of death and worry about their families.
Merari On Recruiters of Suicide Bombers:
Their psychology is very different. They are not dependent – they are manipulative. They are much more intelligent than the bombers and are also older – 27 on average in our study, compared with 19 for the bombers. Some had university education. They were not psychopathic. They were very pragmatic, they believed they were doing it for their nation and that it was the right thing to do. They did not express any moral doubts about it.
And from a more recent story in Scientific American that mentions Merari, and is interesting in that it discusses more recent questioning of much of the conventional wisdom of what we believe about murder suicide:
However, a growing number of scholars are now challenging these assumptions. Ariel Merari’s research team conducted psychological tests of preemptively arrested suicide bombers and found evidence of suicidal tendencies, depressive tendencies, and previous (non-terrorist) suicide attempts. David Lester found that many female suicide bombers seem driven, at least in part, by post-traumatic stress disorder, hopelessness, and despair. And in several recent articles, I summarize evidence of psychological similarities between suicide terrorists and people who commit nonviolent suicides, coerced suicides, and mass-murder/suicides.
Link to the SA story:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-you-don-t-understand-about-suicide-attacks/
@Matt Moriarty
Please ignore my prior question, @RetiredF4 provides an excellent synopsis
@TBill
Never mind. Susie pointed it out to me.
Lame.
@DennisW
Also the fuel load could be huge I am thinking to Amsterdam for example. One thing you notice right away in the MH370 flight sim is to start off you have to empty the fuel tanks down to about 1/3-third full to match the 108k-lbs actually loaded, but the full tank holds almost 300k-lbs (depending on 777 model used). So if the negotiation was successful, you’d have a lot of fuel to dump.
@TBill
“So if the negotiation was successful, you’d have a lot of fuel to dump.”
So, who cares?
@Ventus45 said:
“All you have to do, is “impersonate” (M-MRO’s SDU ident codes (and let’s face it, that would be easily known by a state actor)”
You wouldn’t need to be a state actor to know the code, go here and enter the aircraft number (9m-mro) and it will show you the ICAO 24-bit aircraft ID (75008F) that’s apparently used for the transponder, ACARS and the SDU:
http://www.airframes.org/
@Ge Rijn said:
“And with it a pre-planned human controlled flight from beginning till end-point.”
Why do you assume there was anyone alive on board to control the aircraft after BEDAX?
That would not be necessary.
@RetiredF4 said:
“Remains the hard takeover, the brutal hijacking. All souls are silenced as fast as possible early in the flight, therefore no sign of life from the aircraft ocupants after IGARI, with the exception of the mobile of the copilot. I question though as well that this would fit the personality of Z.. He might have been tricked to cooperate in the initial stage, to let the perps have access to the cockpit. But he was neither the murderer of a single person nor of all people on board by his own hands prior the final crash.
Count me in on that group and scratch me from the list of “Z did it on his own””
Well said.
And the question that seems to have been overlooked in the excitement after that part of the RM report was released, is why was the copilot’s phone the *only one on board* that was detected at Penang?
@ventus45,
You said: “Why do you think a “severe (left OR right) turn” was made, when, how, by whom ?”
The reason I think so is for two reasons. First, because the right engine flamed out first, the left engine was providing thrust for 5-10 minutes prior to 00:17:29. During this time, the rudder would adjust to maintain course – it would be deflected to the left side to offset the asymmetrical thrust from the left engine only. My understanding is that when the left engine failed, there would be no power available immediately and the aircraft would then yaw to the left because of the rudder offset. Perhaps someone more knowledgable than I can weigh in on what happens to the rudder when the APU kicks in after both IDGs are down, or possibly when the RAT came online. I don’t know if the rudder would be stationary thereafter or if at some point after partial power is restored the rudder would be returned to a neutral position. In any case I expect the course to veer to the left, perhaps even continuously turning for several minutes.
The second reason I think so is that the average speed between 00:11-00:19 must have been considerably lower due to main engine failures than it was up to right-engine flame-out. Estimating this speed reduction, and fitting the 00:19 BTOs right on the arcs, leads to a change in average course by 10-20 degrees to the left.
The key factor here is whether or not the rudder offset was maintained for some significant period of time after 00:17:29. If it was, then a turn to the left resulted.
Why would anyone risk overflying malaysian (or any other) mainland if he could just go to the Pacific or take the flight to Europe?!
That’s the main reason why this doesn’t add up as preplanned hiding of the plane and suicidal murder.
There is simply no way he(or anyone) could be sure he wouldn’t get intercepted over Malaysia or even around Indonesia.
Z was smart enough to know that turning the transponder off doesn’t make you invisible to primary radar.
Majority of you are deceived by early MSM reports and “expert” theories about hypoxia/suicide/whatever.
Try erasing that from your memory and start thinking from scratch.
Motivation is the clue for finding this plane, not overanalyzing ISAT data. It is what it is, it’s somewhere around 7th arc but trying to figure it out from numbers after 2 years of failures is just beating a dead horse.
@Middleton
“And the question that seems to have been overlooked in the excitement after that part of the RM report was released, is why was the copilot’s phone the *only one on board* that was detected at Penang?”
How can we be sure no other phone connected at any time during the flight? Only it wouldn’t prove anything as it is unlikely everyone switched off their phone at take off.
@StevanG
Obviously, the fact that there was no emergency phase, not even repeated attempts to call the plane, was embarassing to Malaysia. The ATC transcript sounds just strange and communication with the military has never been released or clarified. Malaysia agreed any clarification should be postponed until the wreckage is found.
@DrBobbyUlich: “The [certified B777 level 4] simulator trials showed that seconds after the second engine failure the TAC is reset to the cruise rudder trim position.”
From “The Last 15 Minutes of Flight of MH370” by Brian Anderson: http://www.duncansteel.com/archives/1461
Knowing which engine shutdown first does not in itself allow you to predict which way the aircraft turned after both engines were shutdown.
@Nederland
“Obviously, the fact that there was no emergency phase, not even repeated attempts to call the plane, was embarassing to Malaysia.”
I think the top of the Malay chain of command knew exactly what was happening to the aircraft. How else can you explain the lack of response after IGARI, and the delayed initial search phase? Even the Malays can’t be that inept.
@DennisW
Lots and lots of contradictory and misleading information that night, “plane over Cambodia” not the only one.
I don’t think this was a lone wolf suicide scenario, but the RMP report does not seem to look beyond the pilots.
His FB page indicates Z may have been acquainted with some top military officers, some of which – it seems – called for investigations/went public with concerns about military response that night.
Probably some political stuff going on in the background that we are unaware of imo.
@DennisW
“Obviously, the fact that there was no emergency phase, not even repeated attempts to call the plane, was embarassing to Malaysia.”
@Nederland
“Lots and lots of contradictory and misleading information that night, “plane over Cambodia” not the only one.”
Looks more like Keystone Cops…
Or as DennisW would say “a Cluster F–k”…
@RetiredF4
—”The comparison to German wings is too simple. … Captain and crew took immidate action to enter the cockpit, but ran out of time.”
Germanwings was a day flight where the captain was locked out of the flight deck. Plenty of reason for people to take action. In my scenario, there is nothing whatsoever that would have made the cabin crew take action until it was too late. Why can you not comprehend this?
You need to explain how exactly a passenger or flight attendant knows what’s going on behind a closed cockpit door in a plane that is otherwise behaving normally. And if you use the phrase “peep hole” with respect to a night flight, you are a clown.
—”As long as you do not provide a plausible scenario how an untrained older man murdered a young fit man in the confines of a cockpit without raising any outside suspicion, I consider it as an unreal assumption.”
It takes 5-15 seconds to blood-choke a person to unconsciousness – a person who is facing forward, doing his job, completely unsuspecting of an attack from behind and, if he was green and wanted to impress the captain with correctness of attitude, might even still be in the shoulder belts. If you can’t fill in the rest of what might have transpired over the following six minutes – which just so happen to conclude with an unusual, redundant renouncement of altitude which was clearly intended to ascertain if anything had been missed in the prior period – I’m truly sorry for your lack of imagination.
Unless there is a rather inept attempt to frame him for reasons I cannot understand, Z made three mistakes. Failing to destroy his hard drive; the two unusual altitude announcements with the 6 minute gap in between; and repowering the SDU.
— “Please tell us what you think the PF would have told the pax and the cabin crew with this anouncement without raising questions, especially with the following necessary closed cockpit scenario.”
Seriously? You can’t even think of that on your own?
How about: “Ladies and gentleman, this is the captain. I know you’re having trouble with the IFE. We’ve done everything we can up here to correct the problem and since that didn’t work, I called the company and they’ll have an agent waiting for you at the gate to make it right. Again, I apologize for the inconvenience but we will have to continue on to Beijing.”
—“The usual time for coffee and bisquits is after level off, not hours into the flight. CC would look through the peep hole of the cockpit door to check situation, and try their emergency opening code if no answer. Sure the perp could obstruct the peep hole, but that would be questioned. And the answer would be? This flight was a standard flight, the cabin crew has probably served multiple times. Any deviation from normal habit would be questioned.”
More clown show. The food and drink situation is whatever the pilots decide on that particular flight. Not because some dude makes a pronouncement on the internet.
Does it get weird a few hours later that there were no bathroom or coffee requests? Sure. I said that already. And I also told you that by that time it would be too late for anyone to do anything. Please give that at least a moment’s thought before you come back at me again.
— “Yes, that’s what they would try [to break down the door], by all means. And seek an option to comunicate their distress. Phones , ELT,…..”
You still haven’t explained what would have made them feel compelled to do that. You really need to do that.
— “You honestly say, nobody of the cabin crew would have cared for a turnaround, for a breakdown of normal habits, for no coffee or meal fo any of the pilots, for no pee break, for no conversation at the usual time or close after and for an obstructed peep hole in the cockpit door? Just carry on for hours in blind faith that everything will be all right despite everything being different on this very flight?”
I certainly do because under my scenario, there is nothing that would have made them feel the need to do that, until it got weird a few hours in, at which point they were helpless.
If they did start a ruckus, he can always play the depressurization card and maybe he did somewhere on that final leg. He could also push the nose over and smash them into the ceiling. I doesn’t matter one bit in the end. The absolute fact of the matter is that there is no record of any passenger, flight attendant or pilot on that aircraft making any attempt to contact the outside world. The FO’s cell connection was an operable phone making a routine connection to an in-range cell tower, nothing more.
— “All souls silenced as fast as possible [in a brutal hijacking]…”
237 people killed before a single one of them could take their cell phones out of airplane mode? Through depressurization? Did depressurization kill/freeze their cell phones but not the FO’s cell phone? Why were there not more cell tower logons over Malaysia? Did the masks drop? If not, why? How did the hijackers disable the masks? How did they get inside an EE Bay hatch that is directly under a flight attendant jumpsuit in the forward galley during a period of the flight when that galley is buzzing with activity? How did they get inside the cockpit? Why was there no distress call or 7500 on the XPDR? If they turned north, why were they not shot down or at least intercepted by the Indians, the Pakistanis or the Chinese? Did they have a cloaking device?
You have some explaining to do yourself.
— “We as a group are divided regarding the form of takeover, and I think mainly for ethical reasons or because other takeover scenarios seem not to fit Z.”
I could not care less who belongs to which camp. What I care about is finding the boxes and making correct assumptions will form the basis of any future search attempt. Ethically speaking, I’m not the one who repeatedly demanded a description of a cockpit murder so that’s on you, not me.
Aviation is simple and knowable and based on physics and math and procedures. The aviation details – either organically or through untoward manipulation – clearly point to the captain. The human psyche is complex and unknowable and therefore I don’t care what his profile was, especially when that profile is incomplete given the fact that evidence that pointed greatly to that very psychological profile was deliberately excluded from the FI report and only saw the light of day because of a leak.
@TBill
Depressurizing with partial valves during the climb is problematic as far as the FO is concerned. Z would have had to have been on the mask early and that’s a severe complication to an otherwise simple plan.
@Nederland said:
“How can we be sure no other phone connected at any time during the flight? Only it wouldn’t prove anything as it is unlikely everyone switched off their phone at take off.”
Exactly, it’s likely there were other phones turned on (or accidentally left on), and yet more phones would be turned on if the passengers knew there was a diversion or hijacking (or negotiation) taking place – yet the only phone mentioned as being detected at Penang in the RM report is the co-pilot’s?
@all
In the negotiation scenario (all passengers still alive at that point), why were no other phones detected at Penang?
Industrial-grade cell phone blocker in an overhead luggage bin, halfway down the aircraft (about where the two Ukranians were seated)?
Then how did the co-pilot’s phone get through?
@TBill:
I didn’t mean to pontificate. I just wanted to get through with the thought that terrorism has a logic, in most cases, and that indiscriminate killing is a long way from hunger-strike or demonstrations.