Yesterday, officials responsible for locating missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 announced that their two-year, $150 million search has come to an end. Having searched an area the size of Pennsylvania and three miles deep, they’ve found no trace of the plane.
The effort’s dismal conclusion stands in marked contrast to the optimism that officials displayed throughout earlier phases of the search. In August, 2015, Australia’s deputy prime minister Warren Truss declared, “The experts are telling us that there is a 97% possibility that it is in [the designated search] area.”
So why did the search come up empty? Did investigators get unlucky, and the plane happened to wind up in the unsearched 3 percent? Or did something more nefarious occur?
To sort it all out, we need to go back to why officials thought they knew where the plane went.
Early on the morning of March 8, 2014, MH370 took off from Kuala Lumpur en route to Beijing. Forty minutes passed the last navigational waypoint in Malaysian airspace. Six seconds after that it went electronically dark. In the brief gap between air-control zones, when no one was officially keeping an eye on it, the plane pulled a U-turn, crossed back through Malaysian airspace, and then vanished from military radar screens.
At that point the plane was completely invisible. Its hijackers could have flown it anywhere in the world without fear of discovery. But lo and behold, three minutes later a piece of equipment called the Satellite Data Unit, or SDU, rebooted and initiated a log-on with an Inmarsat communications satellite orbiting high overhead. An SDU reboot is not something that can happen accidentally, or that airline captains generally know how to do, or that indeed there would be any logical reason for anyone to carry out. Yet somehow it happened. Over the course of the next six hours, the SDU sent seven automated signals before going silent for good. Later, Inmarsat scientists poring over the data made a remarkable discovery: due to an unusual combination of peculiarities, a signal could be teased from this data that indicated where the plane went.
With much hard work, search officials were able to wring from the data quite a detailed picture of what must have happened. Soon after the SDU reboot, the plane turned south, flew fast and straight until in ran out of fuel, then dived into the sea. Using this information, officials were able to generate a probabilistic “heat map” of where the plane most likely ended up. The subsequent seabed search began under unprecedented circumstances. Never before had a plane been declared lost, and its location subsequently deduced, on the basis of mathematics alone.
Now, obviously, we know that that effort was doomed. The plane is not where the models said it would most likely be. Indeed, I would go further than that. Based on the signal data, aircraft performance parameters, and the available autopilot modes, there is a finite range of places where the plane could plausibly have fetched up. Search vessels have now scanned all of them. If the data is good, and the analysis is good, the plane should have been found.
I am convinced that the analysis is good. And the data? It seems to me that the scientists who defined the search area overlooked a step that even the greenest rookie of a criminal investigator would not have missed. They failed to ascertain whether the data could have been tampered with.
I’ve asked both Inmarsat scientists and the Australian mathematicians who defined the search area how they knew that the satellite communications system hadn’t been tampered with. Both teams told me that they worked with the data they were given. Neither viewed it as their job to question the soundness of their evidence.
This strikes me as a major oversight, since the very same peculiar set of coincidences that made it possible to tease a signal from the Inmarsat data also make it possible that a sophisticated hijacker could have entered the plane’s electronics bay (which lies beneath an unsecured hatch at the front of the business class cabin) and altered the data fed to the Satellite Data Unit.
A vulnerability existed.
The only question is: Was it exploited? If it was, then the plane did not fly south over the ocean, but north toward land. For search officials, this possibility was erased when a piece of aircraft debris washed ashore on Réunion Island in July of 2015. Subsequently, more pieces turned up elsewhere in the western Indian Ocean.
However, as with the satellite data, officials have failed to explore the provenance of the debris. If they did, they would have noticed some striking inconsistencies. Most notably, the Réunion debris was coated completely in goose barnacles, a species that grows only immersed in the water. When officials tested the debris in a flotation tank, they noted that it floated half out of the water. There’s no way barnacles could grow on the exposed areas—a conundrum officials have been unable to reconcile. The only conclusion I can reach is that the piece did not arrive on Réunion by natural means, a suspicion reinforced by a chemical analysis of one of the barnacles by Australian scientist Patrick DeDeckker, who found that the barnacle grew in water temperatures that no naturally drifting piece of debris would have encountered.
If the plane didn’t go south, then where did it go? Not all the Inmarsat data, it turns out, was susceptible to spoofing. From the portion that wasn’t, it’s able to generate a narrow band of possible flight paths; they all terminate in Kazakhstan, a close ally of Russia. Intriguingly, three ethnic Russians were aboard MH370, including one who was sitting mere feet from the electronics bay hatch. Four and a half months later, a mobile launcher from a Russian anti-aircraft unit shot down another Malaysia Airlines 777-200ER, MH17. A year after that, the majority of pieces of debris wind up being discovered by a man who had spent the last three decades intimately involved with Russia.
Whether or not the Russians are responsible for MH370, the failure of the seabed search and the inconsistencies in the aircraft debris should undermine complacency about the official narrative. When MH370 disappeared, it possessed an obscure vulnerability that left its Inmarsat data open to tampering. Having spent $150 million and two years on a fruitless investigation, search officials have an obligation to investigate whether or not that vulnerability was exploited.
@VictorI
I agree there is not much apparently wrong re: jet fuel. Just something I know about (my orig interest years ago was TWA800). I am just saying I would have expected FI to give density and other basic jet fuel qualities. There is some info in the released Police report, but I think it is mostly Kg loaded, Kg already on plane.
A BA B777 flight#38 did have some fuel icing issues and hard landed on the grass at LHR. got fuel in China it seems… RR engines.
@VictorI @DrBobbyU
Finally found a Flight Radar 24 screen shot at 18:22, shows flight UAE343 at FL340 right on MH370’s tail about 30-40 nM behind at MEKAR at about 490 kts. Presumably this explains the lateral offset at NILAM? DrBobby it seems that could potentially be too close for comfort if MH370 crossed back at IGOGU? At least one other flight coming up the VAMPI path further back maybe 120 nM behind the UAE343.
@TBill,
“Finally found a Flight Radar 24 screen shot at 18:22, shows flight UAE343 at FL340 right on MH370’s tail about 30-40 nM behind at MEKAR at about 490 kts. Presumably this explains the lateral offset at NILAM? DrBobby it seems that could potentially be too close for comfort if MH370 crossed back at IGOGU?”
Just a reminder that MH370’s TCAS was OFF, so the assumption is that the UAE343 position had been determined by monitoring Lumpur Control on VHF. Though the chances of a midair would be low, a level change to +/-500ft of a standard level would increase the odds against a midair collision considerably.
@TBill: I looked at this back in May 2015 using FlightAware data for EK343 and extrapolating forward in time. (The FR24 data you found is probably more complete.) I came to the conclusion that EK343 was about 23 nm back from MH370 at the time of the lateral offset manoeuver, which is substantial separation. Whether the pilot of MH370 was aware of EK343, and whether it was close to enough to concern the pilot, we don’t know.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/0d8hdi9t2cz92qd/Near%20Miss%20MH370%20%26%20EK343.png?dl=0
@VictorI
Your quote:
@TBill: I am not sure I understand your concerns about bad fuel. The behavior of the plane cannot be explained by an engine flameout at IGARI.
Did you consider an engine flameout just before 18:25? Just after the sudden disapperancy from Malaysian primary radar? Caused by a steep emergency dive maybe?
Continuing low altitude till- or after Car Nicobar then making the turn South climbing at one engine to max ~25Kft altitude.
This would take a lot of time depending how far the plane flew past Car Nicobar.
And with slightly lower speed and endurance it would end up North the current (better past..) search area
IMO an engine flame out could explain a descend after 18:25, the SDU re-log and a crash area North of the failed search area.
What are your thoughts on this?
@Barry Carlson
Thank you for the VHF radio idea
@VictorI
OK but UAE343 looks a whole lot closer than 25 min per below. Does Flight Aware give you position or just take-off? I am using Flight Aware on another UAE flight coming up ARC7 from Perth at around 2400.
FlightRadar24 Screen Shot 18:22
http://i.imgur.com/APHqKTz.jpg
@Ge Rijn
My concern on jet fuel is more procedural. Jet fuel is rarely the cause of crashes, but often is the first thing checked (to prevent other crashes). So by 6AM 8-March they should have been checking fuel quality. There is no apparent discussion of that step in the FI.
So one of the following-
> MAS did check fuel (results not in FI)
> MAS perhaps skipped that step
> MAS knew MH370 was still flying (no prob with fuel)
If I recall, we concluded here, a few threads back, that the un-answered satcom telcom calls would have at least told MAS that MH370 seemed to still be in he air. Clearly the CEO said they had assumed that the flight was still in the air.
@VictorI
Correction- I now see you said UAE343 was 23 nM not min. wow that is close if closing off the lateral offset at IGOGU to go south at 1840.
@Ge Rijn: A single engine flameout is possible, although that in itself would not explain the log-on of the AES at 18:25. After the engine flamed out, the tie breaker for the left bus would automatically close, and the left bus would be supplied by the right bus.
@TBill: The FR24 data you used ends at a later time than the FlightAware data I used, and is therefore better. But as you say, a lateral offset to the right to avoid a plane is not consistent with a later turn to the left.
TBill & VictorI- A while back, someone posted the Lido image on top of a skyvector map. I haven’t used dropbox before but if I did this right you can use the following link to see this image.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/rvhhsim6a52tns3/Lido%20Radar%20image%20overlayed%20with%20skyvector.jpg?dl=0
@Lauren H: Your image and others like it clearly show MH370 joining airway N571 at VAMPI. Why this information was not shared with the ATSB is bizarre.
@lauren h
Flightaware only shows actual flight path of EK343 until 02:07 after that it is a predicted path. Until near Amandon islands. Unless FR24 shows anything different. On a brief look of other flights back in 2014 there possibly is a predicted only region in the SOM. Just something I noticed on some flights back then. I Never followed it up. It might have changed or improved since then. Someone who knows better about this may follow it up.
@lauren h
I think FR24 position (actual or predicted) as shown at 02:22 @tbill image is more accurate if EK343 stayed directly on the N571 towards MEKAR. Must the remember 12 seconds, which is approx 3km travelled from 02:22 to 02:2212.
@Kenyon. Flaperon separation cause. I fling you some discoveries new to me and added thoughts just in case they might affect finalisation of your Revision; and for the interest of others following this.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/76hov1dj82f7s14/Flaperon%20separation.docx?dl=0
@Lauren H
The following link you provided https://www.dropbox.com/s/rvhhsim6a52tns3/Lido%20Radar%20image%20overlayed%20with%20skyvector.jpg?dl=0 describes EK343 on the B466 which is different to the FR24 Image provided by @TBil which shows EK343 on the N571
Somewhat off topic but for those interested in ADS-B developments here and there:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/5myzo8s37jn8j11/ADS-B.docx?dl=0
@Lauren H @Joseph C @VictorI
Nice plots thanks for the comments
@Matt M.
“DennisW
You’re back?
WTF?
You do realize you’ve reduced yourself to an internet pathology, right? Proclaiming your exile from this place (for the umpteenth time, like a petulant little child – thus your kinship with Dear Leader Trump), only to resurface shortly thereafter? Again?
Can’t you actually stay gone? Like a man is supposed to do when he says he’s going to do something…
Seriously, dude. Go find an alt-right page and talk about your guns or something.”
You are right. I have nothing to contribute here.
Joseph Coleman said;
“The following link you provided https://www.dropbox.com/s/rvhhsim6a52tns3/Lido%20Radar%20image%20overlayed%20with%20skyvector.jpg?dl=0 describes EK343 on the B466”
No sir, if you look more carefully you will see that that specific EK343 flight
(as represented in the Lido graphic) actually moves (south) off N571 and then
proceeds to fly directly to at-or-near MEKAR, where it rejoins N571. (It does not
move along B466.)
We may theorize that that specific EK343 flight received permission to move off
N571 so as to avoid travelling the (slightly longer) bend via VAMPI – effectively,
a fuel/time saving manoeuvre. (That specific EK343 flight would have skirted close
to or slightly over the (Indonesian) Jakarta FIC.)
It is interesting to me that that specific EK343 flight is also representated as
moving slightly to the right of N571 as it passed MEKAR – which suggests to me
that the representation of that specific EK343 flight may be accurate, as it seems
that that specific EK343 flight is represented as commencing to operate Strategic
Lateral Offset Procedure (SLOP), as it might in preparation for transiting along
N571 oceanic airspace.
Joseph Coleman said;
“which is different to the FR24 Image provided by @TBil which shows EK343 on”..N571.
The FlightRadar24 Screen Shot 18:22 that TBill provided may be a different EK343
flight. (His screen shot does not show any date in 2014. Also, SIA68 is not seen.)
{EDIT to above}…Also, SIA68 is not seen.) ;
http://keithledgerwood.com/post/80332471937/actual-sia68sq68-flight-path-sourced-from-ads-b
@Joseph Coleman said;
“On a brief look of other flights back in 2014 there possibly is a predicted only
region in the”..{Straits of Malacca}. Just something I noticed on some flights back
then. I Never followed it up. It might have changed or improved since then.”
Perceptive of you.
Yes, I also observed that that ‘predicted only’ gap in FLIGHTAWARE coverage was
still occuring in and at least up until September 2016;
http://jeffwise.net/2016/10/25/towfish-scan-of-mh370-search-zone-completed/comment-page-7/#comment-192631
http://jeffwise.net/2016/10/25/towfish-scan-of-mh370-search-zone-completed/comment-page-7/#comment-192642
(Note, I observed FLIGHTAWARE coverage (meaning,coverage in regard to
actual position and height/speed data) of aircraft on N571 actually ceased roughly
directly ‘due north of WITN’ – not in the Amandon Andaman islands.)
@Buyerninety
Here is my source link to the FR24 screen shot:
http://forum.flightradar24.com/threads/7146-Malaysia-Airlines-Flight-Goes-Missing-En-Route-to-China-Flight-MH370/page107
Sure looks like the EK343 is on N571 on that FR24 plot. The SIA68 could have been just off the screen at that point. Anyone know what that yellow flight is behind EK343 just north of GUNIP?
@sk999,
Thanks for the GDAS weather data files. However, I am unable to match them to either the NOAA GDAS online data viewer or to another file Mike Exner sent me for 0000 hours, which does seem to agree with the NOAA viewer. The wind speeds in your files are considerably off. Perhaps there is a problem with the date or the pressure level. Could you check this out, please? I now have full 4-D weather data interpolation code running, but the input data don’t seem to be correct.
Does anyone else have the weather data downloaded using the Unidata Integrated Data Viewer?
@TBill said;
” The SIA68 could have been just off the screen at that point.”
Fair point, SIA68 was apparently flying onward to Barcelona.
“Anyone know what that yellow flight is behind EK343 just north of GUNIP?”
The FI has EK343 informing Lumpur Ground of a tentative ready for departure
time of 17:10. Unfortunately, EK343 takeoff time comms with Lumpur Tower is
not stated.
___________________
You should probably regard the screenshot you cited as ‘unproven’ – the
original poster ‘Beggarman’ sounds intelligent,and conceivably
might/I> have retrieved a flight plot of EK343 in the 7 days after
MH370 went missing – but you should understand that the free ‘Basic’
Flightradar service only retrieves backwards for 7 days, and that that
Basic service has advertisements (which we see one of in the bottom
right of the screenshot). Therefore this screenshot was made using the
Basic service, not the ‘ad removed’, money-payable services that allow
retrieval greater than 7 days back. This screenshot was posted on
Flightradar forum on 22 Mar 14 … so, you can understand if the
screenshot is regarded with some scepticism…
https://web.archive.org/web/20140516212034/https://www.flightradar24.com/premium/
@TBill
@StevanG
A northern hook route (in whatever way) seems to work best if it is not only followed by a leg from ISBIX to BEBIM but also by another leg from BEBIM to McMurdo (NZWD).
Like in this skyvector route:
WMKK IGARI WMKP VAMPI NILAM 083925N0932932E AKINO TOPIN 031408N0934057E ISBIX BEBIM 775040S1665808E
It has a close resemblance to the first Inmarsat proposal (the red one, but with additional loiter around Sumatra and therefore at a speed higher than indicated):
https://theaviationist.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/MH370-tracks.jpg
I’m working further on speeds, BFOs etc. and hope to have a first paper draft at some point.
@Nederland
I like it a lot. I was also thinking about a path that would resume the original simulator path from 10/90 (approx DOTEN). Here is how close it is (put this in the path). Perhaps the flight turned onto NZPG just before BEBIM to hold that FS9 path.
IGARI WMKP VAMPI NILAM 083925N0932932E AKINO TOPIN 031408N0934057E ISBIX BEBIM 775040S1665808E 1090E
Bobby Ulich,
Sorry you weren’t able to extract what you need. I am quite sure the data are correct. Here is a cross-check I just did. Take UT=0h March 8 (which I encode as UT=24). 250 mbar pressure altitude (what I call fl 18, because that is the index numer used by ARL). I find the following parameters for -30 lat, 90 long.:
Line 996273: UWND 23.8 (m/s)
Line 1003044: VWND 0.7 (m/s)
Line 989502: TEMP 226.7 K
Line 982731: HGTS 10840.5 (m – geopotential height)
Barry Martin has the same data on his website, but in grib2 format (not sure where it came from, but it could be NCEP):
http://www.aqqa.org/MH370/models/NCEP/GDAS_FNL/gdas2014030800f00.txt
Beware the .txt extension – the file is actually binary. I renamed it to gdas.grib2
I run the “degrib” program (compiled from source code – don’t remember where I found it).
First, get a listing of the contents:
degrib -in gdas.grib2 -I
Next, extract data for the above point:
degrib -in gdas.grib2 -P -pnt -30,90
I get the following numbers (messages 57-62):
HGT, [gpm], 201403080000, 201403080000, 10840.840
TMP, [F], 201403080000, 201403080000, -51.610
RH, [%], 201403080000, 201403080000, 55.000
VVEL, [Pa/s], 201403080000, 201403080000, 0.094
UGRD, [m/s], 201403080000, 201403080000, 23.700
VGRD, [m/s], 201403080000, 201403080000, 0.700
Same values (aside from rounding and converting temp from F to K).
@MH
Just to note that BA 777 are fitted with the GE engine. BA in their wisdom (under Lord King) chose American engines in preference to RR. Obviously GE were able to under cut RR on price. Flight 38 flew across Siberia, where the fuel temp got very low.
@TBill
The simpler, the better I’d say.
I have started to calculate BFOs and speed for the leg from BEBIM to NZWD on a 171 heading (as indicated by skyvector) and get great results.
The distance measured between the rings amounts to a ground speed of around 425 kts from BEBIM onwards.
I get the following geolocations:
21:41 -12.436936, 94.112453
22:41 -19.4085804, 95.263700
0:11 -29.98690406, 97.177467
0:19 30°53’5.33″S 97°21’43.60″E
This is very slightly trimmed to get exact BTOs for each ring on the YFF calculator.
My BFOs are as follows:
21:41 ring: 170 (actual 168)
22:41 Ring: 202 (actual 204)
0:11 Ring: 248 (actual 252)
Note that this not only within the 5 Hz margin of error, but the first two rings average out the error of 2 Hz.
The 0:11 BFO could be slightly distorted due to some unknown RoC following engine flame out (a slightly positive RoC yields better results), but is at any rate still within one standard deviance margin of error.
Work on the northern bit in progress. It seems to require a higher ground speed at around 470 kts.
@TBill
Interesting comment to me. The 10/90 SIM-path around DOTEN. A IGARI-turn instead of a direct fly-out of KL could have been ajusted to a somewhat earlier FMT before DOTEN.
This would make things more simple.
A descend after 18:22 flying another ~350 miles past last radar contact and beyond Car Nicobar. Then turning South and meeting the 19:41 arc ~300 miles later on a straight heading ending around ~31S above Broken Ridge. Simple and straight. No complicated flight paths along way points after this FMT. Just one set of end-coördinates entered with a straight path following.
Avoiding Indonesian airspace and radar in between deliberately or by coincidence.
A similar great-circle flight path was proposed by @VictorI ending around 27S long time ago.
It makes sence to me. Only the pilot would have to adjust the FMT (to the SIM-route) for he had no direct flight out of KL. So he had to make the FMT some time earlier in this view.
Stepping into the mind of a pilot/hijacker who did this all deliberately in those circumstances I think it’s wise to consider he would not like to make things more complicated than necessary.
Another point now slightly ignored is the latest debris find.
I believe it’s defenitely a MH370 front part outboard flap fairing.
There is an abundance of barnacles and other biofauling proving it has been in the ocean a long time.
It contradicts again Jeff’s planted-scenario and Northern route.
On the other hand it again indicates the latest drifter-based drift analyzis are correct.
And it also again indicates even more (for it’s a front part flap fairing possibly left wing) there was a relatively low speed level horizontal impact with the water.
No flutter seperation of any part as @David has explained previously with detailed arguments.
The flaperon was not free floating for then it would have been 10 degrees up and not crushed into the outboard flap on the point where it did.
Very important information IMO.
@TBill
I’ve now calculated the rest of the route. I think that at a ground speed of around 470 kts via ISBIX up to BEBIM the plane would meet all rings from 19:41 to 21:41 at the times needed on a straight route between waypoints. The BFO value for the 20:41 ring is 141 (same as actual). The plane would have to cross the 19:41 ring at around 3.1N, heading towards ISBIX. The correspondent BFO of 104 is just outside the margin of error (actual 111), but it is logical to assume that when the plane was going down at 18:40, it must have been going up, too, at the time it was approaching the 200nm distance from Sabang. So, a RoC of 300 ft/min satisfies the BFO at 19:41 as far as I can see.
@Nederland
It is fairly shallow there 8500-ft but I do not know if the Broken Ridge is considered difficult to search due to crevices/rocks in that area with the up-slope.
@Nederland
“Note that this not only within the 5 Hz margin of error, but the first two rings average out the error of 2 Hz.”
Where are you getting the 5Hz margin of error?
Also, I think it is inappropriate to attribute a mean and/or variance to the BFO data.
@ROB. Apparently the engines were RR
/quote:
G-YMMM Boeing 777-236(ER) British Airways F14C48Y158 2x RR Trent 895 31. May 2001
Crashed 17. Jan 2008 at LHR landed short of runway whilst operating flight BA038 after the engines failed to respond to an increase in thrust demand
Broken up Apr 2009 at LHR
/end-quote
@DennisW
I probably should be the last one expected to say this. But keep on going in the whacko-galary you’re definitely part off around here. And you know it I’m sure.
Your non-whacko comments are much appreciated you know. If fact you’ve become a laugh to me when you turn whacko.
You become just human 😉
Science is based on expirence and experience is based on wondering emotions, intuition and intelligence.
But intelligence can be like the dwarf who sits on the shoulders of a blind emotion driven giant trying to stear the giant the right way.
The dwarf lacks the giant’s emotional driven force (and his legs).
@MH
Gosh thanks, so you’re right. RR Trent engines. If this proves anything, it proves that forums and Jack Daniels don’t mix. Some of the BA 777 fleet did have GE engines, though, I swear.
@MH
Thank you for correcting me. Evidently, BA operate B777 200s with two engine types.
New article entitled:
Why We Need Data Withheld by Malaysia
http://mh370.radiantphysics.com/2017/02/04/why-we-need-data-withheld-by-malaysia
@VictorI
Thank you for creating the webpage.
Can you elaborate briefly on your comments (above on this blog) about ATSB not getting the radar data all the way out to 1822? Believe the FI says MH370 went to MEKAR+10 so ATSB would have known that much? Are we saying ATSB/IG knew generally about it from the Lido presentation but were not given the raw data which might be important?
@sk999,
The weather data files I was checking were text files that had been segregated both by time and pressure level. They have names like : “UWND-2014-03-08-00-18”. They do not match the NOAA online data viewer.
The example you gave matches the NOAA online data viewer fairly closely, but not exactly. I suspect the NOAA data viewer does some interpolation and/or truncation/rounding, so an exact match may not be necessary.
Perhaps you did not create those segregated weather data files. If not, I’m sorry for the confusion. I have lost track of their origin.
Do you have text files segregated by time and altitude? If not could you convert the combined files for each time to a text file so I can read them with Excel? A link to them would be much appreciated. Thanks.
Bobby Ulich,
No, I did not create any of the segregated files that you have been trying to use. Further, I will not create them now. The file I posted is in the form that I use. (A smaller version in a different format comes with the source code that I posted a couple of weeks ago.)
To be honest, while I am amazed at the heroic efforts people make to implement sophisticated models of the flight path in Excel, I think it is the wrong tool for the job. I write code. I ingest that file each time it is needed. I figured that other people here could do the same. Perhaps nothing as complex as running a flight path, but something like splitting apart a “big” data file into smaller ones should not be hard. Apparently I was wrong.
Regarding the flawed files, you wrote “I have lost track of their origin.” That is an important point, often overlooked – what is the provenance of the data and code (even if in Excel) that we use? I learned how to read ARL and grib2 format files so I could create my own copy of weather data and not rely on others. All my code is under version code in a repository, and I run over 170 tests to make sure it generates reproducible (if not correct) results. What do other people do?
Sorry for rambling on.
@Nederland
For what it’s worth, BEBIM is not an available waypoint in PSS777 or MSFS. Some flight plan tools do have it. I used 1294S and 72S31 to simulate BEBIX to NZPG.
I was hoping to deduce a deep sea target, but Arc6 was close to Gulden Draak Seamount (4000-ft deep) and Arc7 was a bit deeper 8000-9000-ft. The extended path assuming more fuel went about 100 nM west of Dordrecht (and Dordrecht was about 250 nM from the Arc7 crossing) so I could not easily argue that Dordrecht was the real target with more fuel.
@sk999
“To be honest, while I am amazed at the heroic efforts people make to implement sophisticated models of the flight path in Excel, I think it is the wrong tool for the job. I write code.”
A sign of the times. I do think in some cases it is a good faith attempt by people to produce something that is universally usable. I even have Excel on my Mac (although it does gag and crash frequently).
Seriously, how many people are going to install and use a C, Python, Perl, Octave/Matlab,… implementation on their computer?
@TBill
@Ge Rijn
Personally, I’m not looking for a deep crash site/suicide scenario. The plane was flown in a very sophisticated way up to the time it left Malaysian radar. I found it unlikely from the start the pilot would do all this just to then enter a heading and continue on that heading for hours on end. If that was the case, the plane should probably be found now. My path ends where the drift patterns say it should end, and where no one has searched anything yet, even though it was a likely area from the start. The path also seems to be the only one that works and follows waypoints all along. And if the pilot entered McMurdo as route end point, I don’t think he primarily wanted to kill himself. If it was Z., then he would otherwise look stupid to try and bury the plane in that way but to leave a message on his PC, indicating just this and where he wanted to go.
The path does require a final change of speed at or shortly before BEBIM, but that could be because of fuel considerations. After that it works as a ghost flight. From BEBIM, there are connections to Cocos, Christmas, Learmonth and Java. It is always a good idea to enter some destination, and if something goes wrong, you don’t want to show up in, say, Learmonth. So the pilot may have passed out due to hypoxia, or may have been killed, or changed his plans after he did not receive a phone call, and some external demands were not met.
On the other hand, if I would want to bury a plane, I think I would go for Broken Ridge:
https://www.atsb.gov.au/media/5155208/3d_model_seafloor3_26sept2014.jpg
@DennisW
I get the 5 Hz from the first ATSB report in June/August 2014, p. 23 “observed tolerance of the data of ±5 Hz”.
http://www.atsb.gov.au/media/5771773/ae-2014-054_debris-update_2nov2016.pdf
p. 9 gives one BFO standard deviation as 4.3 Hz, but the ATSB allows up to 20 Hz (more than three standard deviations).
“A statistical analysis of the BFO error from all the 20 previous flights of 9M-MRO identified that the distribution was approximately Gaussian (see DST Group book – link above) with a standard deviation of 4.3 Hz. ±3 standard deviations (12.9 Hz) is a conservative choice for the error. … The maximum variation in the BFO differences based solely on change in direction is approximately 20 Hz.”
This can also be observed in the published Inmarsat data, e.g. for the 18:40 phone call.
Of course, you can not balance out BFO errors, but I get greater confidence in a presumed path that deviates slightly on both ends rather than just one.
@Nederland
I would assume use of a McMurdo waypoint or deep SIO waypoint is a suicide motive, so that’s one argument against those waypoints. Last time I checked (and I would need to recheck) there is not a big difference between NZPG waypoint and/or magnetic heading 170 from BEBIM (or COCOS I used) or True heading 170 from there.
I was going to use that as a demonstration of the differences in pathway curves (NZPG waypoint vs. True vs. Magnetic), but did not see much difference. Of course wind comes in, and that could put BEBIM to NZPG right into Dordrecht if the (with extra fuel) in MAG heading.
@All
@GuardedDon and @ASLM came to the same conclusions on the Transkei-piece as me a week ago. Nice sequence of photos added in @ALSM twitter message:
https://twitter.com/Airlandseaman/status/827322886419525632
I think this could be another key-piece regarding the attitude and speed MH370 entered the water.
@Nederland
Thanks.
My reason for asking is that there seems to be a wide range of opinion on the BFO statistics, both in terms of how the errors might be distributed and the magnitude. I had no quarrel with your 5 Hz, I just was curious where it originated.
DennisW: “Seriously, how many people are going to install and use a C, Python, Perl, Octave/Matlab,… implementation on their computer?”
I would expect anyone who is serious about modeling flight paths to have something installed with knowledge of how to use it already. Suppose you wanted to make a global comparison of GDAS against the ECMWF weather model? What are the rms differences in predicted wind velocities and what are the correlation lengths of those errors in longitude and latitude? I did that analysis about a year ago. Took less than 300 lines of code.
@DrBobbyUlich
Oleksandr asked me to forward this message to you.
Oleksandr says that ASCII GDAS files you are trying to use are likely from his dataset. He ran the same test as Sk999 suggested in his post above for cross-check and came to similar figures (u = 24.3 m/s; v = 0.4 m/s; T=226.7K). If you wish him to help, you may ask his e-mail address from JW.