Zaharie Shah’s Secret Psych Evaluation

571 thoughts on “Zaharie Shah’s Secret Psych Evaluation”

1. @T-Bill
   “The reason I keep asking about TCAS is Keith Legerwood said so in 2014:
   ………….
   Anyways folks here seem to say that he is incorrect about the TCAS.”

   And IMHO those folks are right. The following link is an exhaustive description of how TCAS works. The vital part starts at page 17

   https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Advisory_Circular/TCAS%20II%20V7.1%20Intro%20booklet.pdf

   further you said:
   “Even if TCAS on MH370 wasn’t working for some reason, an in-expensive portable ADS-B receiver paired with an iPad and Foreflight app would allow a pilot to receive the ADS-B output being transmitted by SQ68 at that time”

   I comented on that before already.
   Here is the link again.

   http://ipadpilotnews.com/2016/01/ads-b-traffic-101-2/

   Most aircraft will not be ADSB-out equipped, as the respective regulation mandates ADSB-out not before 1. January 2020.

2. @Jeff Wise. Thanks. I started with a post three times as long! Yes a pilot could have dived initially, happening to produce the BFOs. That would have shortened subsequent diving distance if he pulled out; and bring him in close to the 7th arc if not, altering the odds as you say.

   Another simplification is that reducing the search area to 40% of that needed if piloted does not bring the odds down proportionately.

   On the other side, what I did not include was that there was just the husk left to search in the new search area, the most likely portions having been searched already and that would have a marked effect on probabilities.

   However my message was in its thrust, not detail. I think the funders, next of kin and the public were misled, probably inadvertently, into believing there was a much higher chance of wreckage find than was warranted and I was trying to paint broadly how that happened.

   The same factors have, or should have, a direct consequence on confidence in a new search. I do not think that refinements in drift analysis will alter the residual probability much.

3. I put together some slides to illustrate how MH370 might have been flown while captured by radar. After the turn back at IGARI, I think the plane did not follow waypoints until tracking towards VAMPI in the Malacca Strait. With a little effort, I can get the simulated path very close to the captured path.

   https://www.dropbox.com/s/i079ymdvrmg1mk2/2017-01-11%20FSX%20Sim%20of%20MH370%20%20Radar%20Path.pdf?dl=0

4. @Matt Moriarty said, “I should also add I heard back again from Honeywell and the verdict is that whatever mach was commanded by TMF under ECON will be maintained as a mach (or probably KIAS if FMC control had been written in KIAS) after EOR.”

   I told Matt in a private message that I don’t think this is correct. I agree that the speed is maintained as it passes through the EOR, but if the plane was flying at ECON speed, then VNAV was controlling the speed and pitch. I see no reason why this wouldn’t continue after the EOR unless VNAV was disengaged by entering a different mode. And if VNAV is not disengaged, then I believe it will continue to fly at the ECON speed after the EOR, adjusting the target speed as weight changes.

   I hope Honeywell can further clarify.

5. @VictorI, Very cool.

6. @Jeff Wise. I should add that as I raised earlier the accuracy and veracity of the BFOs remain conjectural I believe, so there remains a prospect that the piloted aircraft did not have to dive at all.

7. @Johan

   ” His prime concern would in any event have been to avoid being (decidedly) incriminated at all costs, and likley planning for the most remote and/or most inconspicuos place in SIO, which wouldn’t be obviously revealing in and of itself — or the route going there — if the wreck was to be found and analysed.”

   the 7th arc (at least north of current search area where the plane most probably is) doesn’t fit that narrative

   if he wanted to ditch the plane and hamper the search he would fly low and wait for a calm patch of sea(to reduce debris( and he would go away from Australia not closer to it

   simply put the flying path around Indonesia and towards Australia can’t be connected to suicide

8. @Jeff Wise. Sorry. Late final extra. At the time of the original search decision the final BFOs had no standing so a pilot dive would not have been required to satisfy them.Thus a good prospect of a 100 mile glide should have been envisaged.

9. @DennisW said:

   ” … with a tall helping of my secret bloody mary preceded by a bowl of Mendo Gold”

   http://medicalmarijuanaconnoisseur.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/mendo-gold-hybrid-sativa-indica.html

   Que?? 🙂

10. @VictorI
    Very nice.
    Do you see anything special about the Kota Bharu to Penang route? (avoid radar etc) Someone here showed other commercial flights seem to take take a similar path.

    Could there be a similar radar circle around Indonesia that could guide the pilot around that? I notice the Flight Sim case from 10/90 stays outside the Indonesian airspace boundary (except a tad), but if MH370 starts from VOCX to NZPG, you are closer to Indonesia.

    Do you now think NZPG is in the MAS data base, or could lat/long be subbed? I could see COCOS, POLUM, or NOBEY as being along the general pathway to McMurdo from VOCX.

11. RMP report folder 4 Communicationsmand Social media out at scribd.

    https://www.scribd.com/mobile/document/336312879/MH370-RMP-Folder-4-SKMM-Analysis-Communications-and-Multi-Media-238-pages

12. @TBill: Between Kota Bharu and Penang, the plane was not following airway B219, which runs between those two airports. Also, the path avoids flying over either airport. Either the plane was manually flown without the autopilot, or HDG/TRK SEL was used to “steer” the plane near but around these airports, or the plane was in LNAV mode and following multiple custom fixes. I simulated the case of using the HDG/TRK SEL knob to steer, but that really is not a good method for navigating. The map shown in the MFD is small, and the clicks of the knob are in increments of 1 deg, so you need to make small adjustments along the way to hit the targeted fix. I’m not sure we can really know how the plane was flown, nor does it really matter.

    I don’t see any evidence of radar avoidance, nor do I see how that is possible considering that the plane flew so close to Butterworth (more accurately, the military radar installation on Western Hill, Penang, if he was aware of it). More likely, staying close to the Thai-Malaysian border lessened the probability of a response because the plane was less likely to be classified as aggressive.

    I don’t know if the final waypoint was NZPG, NOBEY, or something else.

13. @RetiredF4
    Thank you re: TCAS/ADSB!

14. buyerninety said: “Your theory is obviously not held by many on this forum.”

    That’s fine, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. If they think the “Captain did it” by leaving the cockpit and going down into the E&E Bay to disable the Mode S portion of the transponder, then returned to hijack the aircraft and fly until fuel exhaustion, well good for them.
    But how do you think the Captain’s NOK feels, considering the Oxygen Bottle Rupture theory end location will never be searched and the multitude of withheld data will never be released?

    buyerninety said: “It does not address several of VictorIs (& DennisW, earlier) points
    regarding the ‘why’ of the flight path.”

    Sorry, I’m not familiar with the earlier points made regarding the ‘why’.

    The flight path from Igari to Kendi (the approach point south of Penang) is all consistent with a crew conducting a diversion to a suitable airport following an accident.

    The flight path via airway routes to Banda Aceh is also consistent of a diversion.
    Why did they divert again to Banda Aceh? Because the decision making skills of the crew were degraded, due to extreme hypoxia following the gradual decompression of the aircraft.

    http://videosift.com/video/What-a-Pilot-Sounds-Like-With-Extreme-Hypoxia

15. @Oxy
    Would you please elaborate your statement?
    “That’s fine, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. If they think the “Captain did it” by leaving the cockpit and going down into the E&E Bay to disable the Mode S portion of the transponder, then returned to hijack the aircraft and fly until fuel exhaustion, well good for them.”

    From factual information
    This system can be deactivated (turned OFF) by pulling the circuit breakers located at the P11 overhead circuit breaker panel or by selecting Transponder Mode Selector (Transponder Panel) to “STBY” position.

16. @OXY. Kalitta 66. Interesting because all opinion I have heard is that at the MH370 altitude anyway, you are on oxygen or you quickly pass out on depressurisation.

    Ostensibly the Learjet cause is explained here, at #16 http://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=577099

    That makes it sound as though they had no pressurisation at all or masks on.

    According to the below, at #6, they got to 32,000 to 36,000ft.
    http://www.expressjetpilots.com/the-pipe/showthread.php?33999-Hypoxic-Kalitta-

    The co-pilot passed out and the pilot got the plane down, alarm in the background, initally to 26,000 then (some transcript missing) to 11,000 where they were both fully recovered.

    Apparently there is no record at the NTSB.

    What is missing is the timescale, but it makes it sound as though there would be some time exposed to hypoxia in both climb and descent.

    Since you imply that there can be long duration hypoxia without both pilots becoming fully incapacitated do you know how long and at what altitude the Learjet two were exposed?

    Might have been rather cool too.

17. @StevanG:
    Thanks. It is interesting you bring that up. I got a bit carried away with my principled view. I can see that there are points in the route that probably would demand a more nuanced formulation. It is to be expected that there will be negotiations between the most rational or ideal path according to a theory and what can be said to be factual. And whether what at first seems inconsistent actually could be the higher rationality, to Z. Or random or accidental.

    My hypothesis would be that Z would want to avoid being definitely nailed as the culprit, and as a subrationalty to that take the plane to an inconspicuos and remote place, in a way that is not definitely suggesting he did it. But there might be concerns and constrains and circumstances and fix ideas or mistakes which could affect the outcome.

    As long as he flew northwest I don’t think he was too concerned with at least radar he was leaving behind him. Going south, I don’t think JORN bothered him much.

    But there will be collisions between the ideal and the factual that are unnegotionable. And perhaps he estimated the plane would be found within a week or a month, but he could take that, if there was little that would point to him definitely. I don’t think he necessarily wanted to disappear forever.

18. @David

    I think there was another factor at work, influencing the ATSB’s decision to tacitly ignore the piloted glide after flameout. The Malaysians in particular, have from day one, always played down or refuted evidence of it being a deliberate act by one of the crew (for pretty obvious political reasons). The ATSB have always emphasised that they are responsible for the search, only and that the Malaysians are responsible for the investigation of the disappearance. So here is the dilemma: how could the ATSB publically entertain a piloted glide? Their hands were tied, on this crucial issue. The flaperon caused big problems when it turned up, because it appeared to some commentators to indicate a controlled ditching.

    The politics have always hampered an effective search operation, not to mention investigation

19. @Rob, The Malaysians have stated that they viewed the disappearance as a criminal act, not as an accident–in other words, that someone took the plane. They haven’t come down publicly on whether this was more likely Zaharie or someone else. The issue here is whether that person remained conscious until the end, and again the Malaysians have not stated a position, nor have the Australians.
    As far as I can tell there are two reasons that the Australians have set aside the ditching scenario, which they entertained when defining the 120,000 sq km search area: a) the last BFO value b) the condition of the debris (esp. the flaperon/flap interface) which implies high speed impact without flaps deployed.
    I know some people here would interpret b) differently, I’m just saying that that’s how the Australians have explained their logic.

20. @Johan

    “My hypothesis would be that Z would want to avoid being definitely nailed as the culprit,”

    he chose the flight that overflies Malaysia, he’d want to be known as a culprit…and he’d want to see the consequences of what he’s done which negates suicide

    the problem is it’s very hard to find the wreckage in the middle of SIO even if you don’t want to hide its resting place, people get married to “hiding” theory without realising that

21. @ROB:
    I can see before me a Z in the plane immediately over the peaks of the waves realizing it has all been for nothing since the flaperons would give him away. It could be. But maybe he understood that much earlier and adapted to it.

    Perhaps he could glide but still make sure the wingparts were retracted/normal at the end, and still crash? But could a long glide per se give him away too? If he couldn’t know about the arcs and pings, gliding after flameout does seem a bit unnecessary, if he didn’t want to go somewhere in particular or pass by a ship etc. (if he could know where they were without being suspisciously low at impact). And if the flameout is considered to be evidenced where it is in time, no need to discuss whether he had economized with the fuel or hoarded in the washer fluid containers.

    So it is all about direction or spoof?

22. @Rob, Jeff Wise. I do not think the ATSB set aside the glide for other than practical reasons, ie a manageable search area. What I find remiss is that in doing that they overlooked what a glide, put aside for these search area purposes, would have on search success probability if indeed it had occurred. At the time there was no acceptance of the BFOs and at December 2015 there was not much info on wreckage. Even now the wreckage could be explained by a last minute dive or high speed ditching and the BFO information does not rule out a pilot glide beyond 40 miles, even if accepted as valid.

23. @StevanG:
    It is easy to get married to a lot of things. And most things that happen in Vegas won’t stay in Vegas.

    I have as one of the corner assumptions in my view that he planned to take his life in any event.

    The rest is “having he cookie and eating it”.

    This should not be allowed to happen again.

24. @David said, “Even now the wreckage could be explained by a last minute dive or high speed ditching and the BFO information does not rule out a pilot glide beyond 40 miles, even if accepted as valid.”

    The question is not how far the plane glided after fuel exhaustion. The question is how far the plane traveled after the last valid BTO value at 00:19, which defines the 7th arc. The BFO values at 00:19 indicate a progressively steep descent. Therefore, if the BFO values are valid, the plane should be found close to the 7th arc, regardless of how long the glide after fuel exhaustion.

25. @ROB: addendum, flameout.
    Or rather as VictorI just stated it, I am sure.

26. @VictorI: “if the BFO values are valid, the plane should be found close to the 7th arc, regardless of how long the glide after fuel exhaustion.”

    I honestly don’t understand that statement. If the last two BFO values are valid, the airplane accelerated downwards from about 4000 fpm to 13,600 fpm in 8 seconds. Unless someone can explain that to happen without pilot inputs, it requires a nose-down input on the controls. An active pilot at 00:19:37 could still have glided the airplane more than 40 NM beyond the 7th arc.

27. Let’s just knock this off. If you assume 2 things:
    – He wanted to commit suicide / hijack / destroy
    – He was cold and calculating; i.e., he didn’t just gin this up last minute
    – He understands radar tracking and coverage

    …then, under what reasonable / logical set of circumstances would he choose this flight to execute his plan? Why wouldn’t he wait until he commandeered a Melbourne flight? So much easier to disappear in SIO, and so much easier to execute successfully.

    Of course, one can always thread the needle and come up with some answer; but are we really at the point of chasing low-single digit probability events that aren’t not far removed from alien abductions, or daring landings in Kazakhstan?

    Adiyogi

28. @Gysbreght: I think you are proposing the pilot first deliberately put the plane into a steep dive and then pulled out of it and glided another 40 nm. While possible, I don’t view that as likely.

29. @All, The link RF4 posted contains a lot of data but little information. The items that stick out are the 45 minute call with an MAS engineer on 2/2/2014, the SMS message via e-mail from a Pak Sudarsono in Indonesia with immediate reply on 2 March 2014, ZS WeChat at 12.40am just before take off and 17 calls from/8 to the National Defense University of Malaysia in February and March 2014. ZS had a lot of e-mail accounts, the activity was most prominent on March 7th but that could be normal. He liked an insane amount of pretty teenage girls via facebook. Overal, little information and pretty boring stuff it seems.

30. @VictorI: The scenario I have in mind is that the person at the controls was taken by surprise by the fuel exhaustion and flame-out, initially maintained altirtude at the expense of airspeed, until he ran into stickshaker or stalled, then recovered airspeed by pushing the nose down. I understand that you view that as unlikely as you are fixated on “Z did it”.

31. Dear Mr. Adiyogi, if you are referring to me, I think I will chose the option not to thread that needle, again. Thank you.

32. @KarenK:
    “17 calls from/to the National Defense University of Malaysia”.

    That sound pretty intriguing. Could be harmless (probably) but still telling about his net of contacts, perhaps?

33. @Gysbreght: I suppose it is possible that the pilot progressively applied up elevator as the airspeed lowered until stall and the plane started to descend while still pitched up. If the pilot was slow to get the nose down, it is possible that high descent rates could have occurred before the pilot recovered into a stable glide. Physically possible, yes. But it would imply first very poor piloting skills and then quite good piloting skills.

34. @Adiyogi
    ZS only went to Melbourne once, apparently to visit his daughter. More often he went to Sydney. Most would suggest Jeddah or Europe as alternates for SIO ditch. The home flight simulator case looks like a KLIA to Jeddah flight, which had just added new night flight.

    Some of the attributes of the Beijing flight are night time, short enough for 2 man crew, and some feel possibly a political statement motive accounts for Malaysia flyover.

35. Still I consider a flame out of both engines and the APU on high altitude could be a reason to make a very fast/steep descend to a lower safe altitude.
    The flame out of the second engine and loss of the APU could have been the sign for the pilot to make this steep descend (with a turn maybe) which could explain the latest BFO’s?
    Leveling out on ~15.000ft could have left him a glide of ~50 miles with flaps retracted till the end and control from the RAT?

36. I’m (Dutch) thinking in kilometers.. lets make it a 60 kilometers glide..

37. @VictorI: If the person had had good piloting skills he would not have crashed.

38. Victor,

    Has there ever been any information released about Z’s life insurance situation? It always seemed plausible to me that if he had a policy that prohibited payout after suicide, perhaps the elaborate route to the SIO was a simple case of Z trying to ensure that his wife and children were provided for.

    Z surely had the wherewithal to know that the Flight Recorders, if recovered in the South China Sea, would prove that he deliberately crashed MH370. But he likely believed that with ACARS off, he was flying in anonymity (I seriously doubt he knew anything about Inmarsat pings).

    So I’m just curious if there has ever been any information leaked or released in regards to his life insurance, any potential changes or inquiries over the last year of his life, and whether or not his family ultimately received payment of benefits.

39. @VictorI: “it is possible that high descent rates could have occurred before the pilot recovered into a stable glide.”

    It would be sufficient to release the controls and preventing excessive bank angles, as you yourself have demonstrated in MSFS. That doesn’t require good piloting skills.

40. @Ge Rijn
    I believe Byron Bailey has suggested something like a dive at the end could be designed to get the RAT powered up to the max, in preparation for other maneuvers at the end.

    One thing I would say from flight sim, the phugoids don’t look like fun, I think if I were alive I’d be trying a more continuous slope down without phugoids.

41. TBill, all fair points. The broader point I’m trying to get across is that he would not have chosen a north / northeast flying flight to execute a ditch/CFIT/crash into the SIO.

    Anything is possible, but trying to fit explanations to data doesn’t work when one starts with an all-pervading assumption – he’s evil.

    This is highly unlikely, and therefore, I’m not sure that an analytically rigorous group such as this one needs to expend it’s collective effort along that vector.

    However, who am I to reorient this group. Please analyze away.

    Adiyogi

42. @VictorI: If you try to maintain altitude with both engines flamed out, FCS in secondary mode, the airplane decelerates and progressively more nose-up nelevator must be applied. First you get the stickshaker, then pre-stall buffet, then the airplane stalls and starts to descend still nose-up. At any point prior to stall the ‘pilot’ could have pushed the nose down, and if he pushed hard enough and long enough would get a high rate of descent. Once the stick shaker stopped, or the speed was back to near 200 kt IAS, he could have released the controls and the airplane would be in the same condition as you demonstrated in a video.

43. @TBill

    Yes, I would think so too. And let’s not forget Z. was also a skilled paraglider. He probably could do things with a plane no other pilot lacking those skills could. Like the pilot of the ‘Gimly-glider’ which no pilot afterwards could repeat his save, fuel exhaustion only on RAT, landing in the SIM.
    He was also a skilled glider-pilot.

44. @Adiyogi

    I struggle as much with “reorient” as I do with “reiterate”. Both seem contrived to me.

    I do agree with your point on flight selection, and have been hammering on it here for some time.

45. @TBill

    Speculating further with a Gimli-glider comparison Z. could also have used a ‘forward slip’ in the end to reduce speed just before ‘landing’. If not leveled out horizontally just in time after the slip this could explain one wing hitting the water full first resulting in the mainly right wing related control surfaces and parts that are found to date.

46. @Gysbreght: Again, you are creating a situation where first the pilot flies in a bad way, leading to a high rate of descent, then recovers and glides 40 nm, but then manages to descend at high speed into the ocean. Physically possible, but in my opinion, very unlikely.

    I did a quick experiment in FSX. I simulated a double flameout. The A/P remains engaged for minutes after the flameout. As the speed decreases, the stabilizer trim increases until reaches its limit. Once the A/P disengages, the stabilizer trim is constant, and the speed and descent rate stabilize based on this value of trim. The control law remains in “normal”, so there are still certain flight protections that are enabled. Even with no hands on the stick, the plane does not reach a high rate of descent. You would have to be a poor pilot to achieve a descent of 14,000 fpm.

    I’ll try to make a video of the double flameout. The sequence of events is a bit different than I would have predicted.

47. @Gysbreght: As a reminder, you should not use the FS9/PSS 777 as an example of how the real plane flies. The flight dynamics are not accurate, nor are the flight control laws. I only use that model to recreate the simulation that ZS did on his computer. I trust the FSX/PMDG 777 model much more as it is currently supported by PMDG and Steam and is in a constant state of improvement.

48. I was offline in November and it’s taken me until now to catch up.

    @TBill – Like many of us I used Skyvector to look for a destination/waypoint in the SIO but couldn’ see any promising targets. I’m not sure why OLPUS is not included on ShyVector’s standard page view. (VictorI’s idea of going all the way to McMurdo was brilliant.) Then someone else posted that OLPUS could have been a suitable destination and if you type OLPUS into Skyvector it does show up. The problem IMO is there isn’t enough fuel to reach the 7th Arc on a track from the FMT to OLPUS. (BTW, I’m a he. My name was from my Parisian mother’s attempt to Americanize my name by dropping the “t” from the French boys name of Laurent. It wasn’t fun having a “girl’s name in grade school.)

    @Dr. Ulich – My 2642 Ground NM after 18:22 hits the 7th Arc around 34°S. This compares well with your 2675.5 Ground NM to 34.75°S (if I added your numbers properly.)
    The problem with my route is if the a/c was heading South before 18:40, my path misses the 19:41 Arc. In order to hit that Arc and travel 2642NM, there needs to have been at least two turns rather than a single FMT and the path also needs to be curved. (FWIW, I used a 1.0 MT penalty for the increased temperature in calculating 2642NM.)

49. @Lauren
    My apologies I believe we have a Lauren in the family but I had better check the spelling. As far as OLPUS, it sure is a handy shortcut to the SIO to use in SkyVector once you pointed out it is (silently) in there. I assume OLPUS may not be the MAS data base, but 37S/95N is almost just as easy. I tried some flight sim Flight Planners from Johannesburg to Perth to see if they would pick OLPUS, and they did not, opting for 38S/95E type waypoints. I don’t think fuel gets the plane to OLPUS it is similar to NZPG idea as a directional.

    I was mainly trying make up a ATSB-supportive arguments for proposed 33-36S area.

50. @VictorI: I assume you had not read my post of 12:33 PM when you posted yours at 1:33 PM and 1:47 PM. If you had you would understand that your comments are not relevant.

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