Were MH370 Searchers Unlucky, or Duped?

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.

636 thoughts on “Were MH370 Searchers Unlucky, or Duped?”

  1. @David Opperman said, “I doubt the windmill effect supplying power. without startup procedures, there would be no exciter field power so no magnetic field, so no induced current”

    I suspect that the generator, really a brushless alternator, includes a shaft-mounted exciter with rotating armature, stationary PMs, and a rotating (bridge) rectifier that feeds the rotating field coils of the generator. In this configuration, the generator would be self-excited.

    Do you have specific knowledge that this configuration is not used?

  2. @Rob said, “The IG got together to disprove the pilot suicide theory (they couldn’t deal with the notion a professional pilot could do such a thing).”

    Absolutely false.

  3. @DennisW:
    Your redneck marksmen fits well together with the squirrels that WP reported about yesterday. There are many types of rodents, and in the end it appears no regression analysis will ever be able to fully account for them all, and keep the gadget afloat. But it is not only you who find it interesting.

  4. Does anyone know the windmilling rpm of the high pressure spool (N3) that drives the accessory gearbox?

  5. Hi Jeff
    Just came on after a long hiatus to say congratulations on the inaugration of your new President, Donald Trump, and all the best to your country.

    Hope too the search is continued but not holding my breath…..as to the outcome.

  6. @Wazir Roslan

    Sad to have to tell you, but the Fat Controller has been offered a new job as a spin doctor with Vladimir Putin. He’s packed his bags. Couldn’t wait. He plans to sell on ebay, the other pieces he never got round to planting.

  7. @VictorI asks:
    “why are Malaysia and China not interested in finding plane?”

    Answer: They either know what happened, or they can safely assume whatever happened is not in their best interest to disclose.

  8. @Gysbreght: Yes, that is one of the questions that needs to be asked.

    In the QRH for a B777 with RR engines, it advises to set the (indicated) airspeed to above 250 knots for engine restart after a dual engine flameout. However, we don’t know how the windmilling speed for a restart compares to the windmilling speed for the operation of the IDG and backup generators.

  9. ATSB 2 November 2016: “In April 2016, the ATSB defined a range of additional scenarios for the manufacturer to simulate in their engineering simulator. Reasonable values were selected for the aircraft’s speed, fuel, electrical configuration and altitude, along with the turbulence level. ”

    They clearly avoid telling us what those additional scenarios were. Only one of the ten trajectories shown in Figure 6 came anywhere near Exner’s simulation. What “reasonable values” were selected for that simulation?

    The whole thing appears to be heavily biased to support a particular narrative.

  10. @Gysbrecht @VictorI

    Maybe this is of some help. The gearbox results in a constant speed for the altenator(s) independent from the spool-speed.
    I assume as long as the spool-speed is on or above idle they will provide sufficient current.
    After a flame-out though there would be the need of current to the igniters and to actuate the altenators electro-magnetic stator.
    This current has to come from outside the IDG’s. From batteries or the APU.
    The backup-generators also have no independent magnetic stator so they also won’t provide power under windmilling if those stators are not provided with current from somewhere else.

    Though incorporated in the backup-generators are also generators with a permanent magnet.
    Those will provide power as long as the engine is rotating (windmilling) independent of any power source outside them (battery, APU, RAT).
    The text tells those are designed to provide independent supply to the electronic flight control systems.

    If they also power the ignitors, IDG or backup-generator stators in case of both engine flame-out the text doesn’t tell but at least the electronis flight control systems will be powered under sufficient windmilling it seems:

    http://www.angelfire.com/ct3/ctenning/electrical_essays/777elecpwr/777_design.html

  11. I notice that Obama leaves the Front Yard of Capitol hill in the Green Chopper. Like every other president of course. Why can’t they take a cab or the tram downtown like anyone else? Lots of taxpayer money to save. It is not like the chopper carries their furniture, is it?

    I am in a joking mode, who wouldn’t be. Ha ha.

    God bless in any event.

  12. Great Inauguration. Very moving. When that young lady sang “The Star Spangled Banner”, the tears rolled down my cheeks, and I’m not an American.

  13. @ Johan: I think that’s the same chopper they use in Celebrity Apprentice to take away the recently terminated….

  14. @Jeff

    Wish you bucket loads of luck 😀 i dont know how it will all pan out eventually but i just witnessed it and then came off here : https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/opinion/presidential-inauguration-2017/americas-break-with-the-past

    Maybe the NYT is not a barometer of populism being the elitist rag in Trump speak but I get the feeling that weightier and probably dire outcomes are afoot. I would dearly love to be proven wrong.

    Trump is not an ignorant badass as his many critics like to claim. He is a master strategist at wielding unpredictability. My take is that he will definitely go after Iran first and to do that he would need Russian acquiescence, hence his tango with Putin. In simple speak, he is trying to decouple the Russia-China-Iran axis and in the process pick off the isolated ones at his whim and fancy. Iran first and China next..

    .He wouldn’t want to tangle with the Russian bear and in any case would need not to if they are batting on the same side.

    So I guess there will be lots of fireworks in the Middle East and the Korean Peninsular for he would love to make North Korea an existential example for China. Where the Europeans fit into this is murky but I guess before the year is out populists will rule the roost there as well so the Euro is a dead duck hatching in troubled waters.

    @Rob

    Selling on eBay…….hahahaha……that’s a good one!! But seriously the FC has a germ of truth about him given Jeff’s latest post barnacles and all

  15. @Jeff Wise. “@Wazir, Wish us luck”. He has I see.

    We have heard what the Russians did but not the Chinese. Did they secretly influence the election by proclaiming the purported curse, ‘may you live in interesting times’?

    They will deny it but anyway good luck with those interestings.

  16. @Rob said, “The IG got together to disprove the pilot suicide theory (they couldn’t deal with the notion a professional pilot could do such a thing).”

    Rob, your statement above is outrageously incorrect.

    Regarding flutter, or other possible modes of failure, please post what data, or analysis you have uncovered, that would be convincing enough to warrant updating the following report. (Thanks to whoever is making the analysis available to public)

    MH370 Flaperon Failure Analysis (Rev 2.0)

    For what it’s worth, several people who participate in Jeff’s blog (including a few that participate as if they are self-appointed editor in chief over all blog posts), expressed that this analysis was a waste of time and effort since the French would in short time publish the official findings. I would ask those folks to kindly post a link to the official French Flaperon Failure Analysis and Forensic Study Results. For that matter a link to ANY such analysis from ANY official sources would be greatly appreciated.

    Analysis by aviation professionals who have access to the Right Flaperon is a relatively simple exercise. Why has such basic analysis not been made available to the public or to the suffering NOK?

  17. @Kenyon, You wrote, “this analysis was a waste of time and effort since the French would in short time publish the official findings.”

    No, this effort was a waste of time because you can’t draw conclusions from pictures, and the lamentable failure of the French to do that doesn’t change anything. In point of fact, the ATSB did release an analysis of mechanical damage; it concluded that the flap was not deployed when it and the adjacent flaperon came off the plane. No mention was made of flutter damage, which presumably there would have been had any been evident. Finally, there is no historical precedent for a flaperon being ripped off by an overspeed condition.

    In short, while some have vehemently defended the idea that the flaperon was ripped off by flutter, there is no credible evidence to that effect.

    I would add that while the IG has proven itself admirably adept at getting the general media to listen to its pronouncements, none of its predictions have been borne out.

  18. @VictorI
    Not 100% sure. The 28V generator is a permanent magnet type, this is for the instruments. The 400 hz generators has a constant speed drive, used to be 6000 rpm and later 24000 rpm, these require a very decent torque and rpm. I doubt they will produce any power without the engine running

  19. @Kenyon

    I am delighted to have outraged you. The IG clinging to, and jumping through hoops to defend their unpiloted scenario, is one of the contributing factors to the failure of a very costly and protracted search. The IG unwittingly gave support to the ATSB by promoting the ghost flight scenario. If the ATSB had taken the piloted scenario slightly more seriously, instead of resisting it at every turn, possibly they would have had a better chance of finding the aircraft. It’s a sad story, but going forward, if the elephant (pilot in control the whole journey) is not humanely put down now, there will be little chance of anyone finding the plane.

  20. @Dave Opperman: I understand your thoughts, but I prefer we know the facts. Yes, I understand the main generators need excitation, but it is possible they are self-excited, or excitation is provided by battery or RAT power.

    In the FSX PMDG 777 model, the IDGs are able to again supply the AC busses after the speed gets to about 300 KIAS, at which time N1=16% and N2=54%, in round numbers. This is for a two-spool GE 90 engine. If there is similar behavior for the Trent engines, then it is possible the SATCOM restart occurred due to the windmilling of the high pressure spool of the Trent engines, and that could give us clues about the end-of-flight of MH370. Since the generators (IDGs and backups) must work all the way down to idle rotational speeds, I think it is very likely that the windmilling provides sufficient torque for the generators to operate.

  21. @David Opperman: I said, “but it is possible they are self-excited, or excitation is provided by battery or RAT power.” I should also include the possibility that the backup generators supply excitation via the transfer busses.

  22. @Rob

    “there will be little chance of anyone finding the plane.”

    I don’t disagree with you, but I would add two qualifiers.

    1> There never was, and there is not now, a significant probability of finding the plane. My own “back of the envelop” calculations put search success at around 20% based on area committed to be searched versus total area possible.

    2> There will be little chance of anyone even continuing to look, much less anyone finding the plane.

    The disconnect in this whole search endeavor is that the people writing checks never had a proper appreciation for the uncertainty attached to the terminal analytics.

    I am anxiously awaiting the announcement of the “reward” magnitude the Malays claim they will announce soon, and the terms of that reward.

    1> The money would have to be put in a third party escrow account before anyone would even consider it. No one in their right mind would trust the Malays.

    2> Since ~$200M has already been spent. It would seem that number represents at least a benchmark on the value of finding the plane. A reward of less than $200M would seem disingenuous and nothing more than the usual Malay smoke screen.

    3> The reward in escrow would need to be in USD or an equivalent stable currency. Not in ringgits or Argentine pesos.

    It will be interesting. My guess is we are looking at double digit millions of ringgits, and no escrow. Basically of no interest to anyone other than perhaps a whistle blower.

  23. @DennisW

    Dennis, I am not quite as pessimistic as you on the chances of finding the plane, although I fully accept it won’t be an easy one. Firstly, the Malays will need to cooperate fully (I know but don’t laugh, please) The Malays will need to come clean and help the would-be searchers furnish them with all the information they have on the circumstances of the disappearance. If the Malays have any information at all on what happened on the flight deck, the will have to divulge it to about the searchers. I simply cannot imagine would-be searchers undertaking this without full and frank cooperation from the owners. To be honest, as things stand, I can’t see it happening. Then there will need to be a whole different approach to the recovered debris. A forensic approach involving expert, experienced, and above all, impartial aviation investigators, with the aim of arriving at the most likely end-of-flight scenario. The clues are there, no one has really bothered to identify them. It’s scandalous. Look at the recent Egyptair crash: a high descent rate, uncontrolled impact. Look at the Indonesian A320 crash in the Java Sea, another high speed, apparently uncontrolled descent. What kind of debris was left floating on the surface? Certainly not primarily the RH (or LH) wing trailing edge components. Are you getting the gist of what I’m trying to get across, here? The debris is accident specific. At the very least, it does not in any way point to a high speed, high descent rate, uncontrolled impact.

    Once it’s established that a pilot was most likely at the controls, managing the way in which the aircraft hit the water, then a number of scenarios can be discounted. In addition, Boeing need to be fully involved in the process: did the plane have enough fuel to reach the DSTG’s Bayesian hotspot, or didn’t it? Such questions have to be answered before any search is resumed.

    It will be a difficult, but not impossible task.

  24. I did a fairly accurate mapping of N1 and N2 versus IAS for the PMDG 777 under windmilling conditions. The IDGs and backup generators cycle on and off only as a function of N2. Under quasi-steady conditions, IDGs on at 13.9/45/269, IDGs off at around 12.4/40/253, backup generators on/off at 7.4/24/195, where the values are N1/N2/KIAS. For the three-spool Trent engines on 9M-MRO, the values of N1 and N3 might not exactly correspond to N1 and N2 for the GE engines. However, I would be surprised if the values of KIAS did not roughly match.

    I am leaning more and more into believing that airspeeds higher than 270 KIAS allowed the main generators to supply the power to the left AC bus, thereby powering the SATCOM, as opposed to the APU coming to life in the descent.

  25. @ROB

    So what? My issue is why anyone would even bother.

    Intelligent people are not living inside a Norman Rockwell painting. People need a motive to spend money (and it will take a lot of it) to conduct a search.

  26. @VictorI: Perhaps you can ask @ALSM for the GoPro files of his simulations in a Level-D simulator. What were his engines?

    Did you get a HEAT PITOT L+C+R message and did it disappear when the IDGs came back on-line?

  27. @VictorI
    NB I am not a scientist, and I do not post unless I believe it may provoke thought. I have a high respect for knowledgeable folk here. At what altitude was the occurrence, the density of atmosphere and velocity of aircraft can determine work output on engine/s shaft. This may deliver further info for you to work with. Respectfully yours Dave

  28. @Gysbreght:

    I do have the GoPro files from Mike. I am trying to reconcile everything before I make comments about those simulations, but they differ significantly from what I observe.

    As for pitot heat, it is supplied by the transfer busses, which is in turn supplied by the backup generators when the IDGs are not operating. When N2 is less than 24%, the backup generators drop out. If modeled correctly, the flight controls should fall into secondary mode due to the loss of pitot heat and not return to normal law until the right transfer bus receives power and the PFCs are cycled. In fact, when the right transfer bus powers up again, the flight controls return to normal mode. (The left pitot heat message remains because only the right transfer bus comes up. I think only one transfer bus at a time can be fed to the inverter.) In this case, I manually fault the flight controls to secondary mode.

  29. @VictorI
    Seems posts are not posted immediately. So excuse if repeat. I am not a scientist! I respectfully admire the knowledgeable peoples work. I will however post anything that may provoke thought, without wasting time. My experience in avionics suggest TO ME that engine start and stabilise enables online power enable. Thankyou for all your hard work!!

  30. @ROB

    quote from Jeff’s article above:

    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.”

    end quote//

    Just to be clear my estimate of a 20% probability is 100% possible.

  31. @VictorI @Gysbrecht

    I see the IDG on the Trent 800 is driven from the shaft that drives the main-fan by the LP-turbine. It’s around this shaft behind the LP-turbine.
    Therefore it seems unlogical to me the backup-generator is driven by the HP-spool as @Gysbreght stated. At least I cann’t find confirmation on this.
    Maybe @Gysbrecht can provide this information.

    I assume an engine designer would want to design an engine that is totally independent on external sources (batteries, APU, RAT) of current/power to provide at least the energy to allow a re-start.

    A permanent magnet generator would provide electric power as long as the engine is rotating (windmilling).
    In the B777 this permanent magnet backup-generetor provides current to essential flight control functions.
    But does it also provide current to IDG stators and combustion chamber ignitors in case of a complete flame-out when batteries and/or APU fail?

    I still cann’t find the answer. Maybe someone else knows?

  32. @VictorI
    We would also need the code, for dead start up status and circuit status of all independent circuits. The enabled circuits will give you more info

  33. @Victor

    You are involved in an interesting line of research. If with engines windmilling, the IDGs could maintain/restart the SDU at speeds of KIAS270 or above, then possibly it could rule out a longer distance (higher speed cruise) flight post FMT, because then, LH AC bus might never have lost power? If cruising speed was 270 or above, electrical power would have been maintained on flameout, if I’m figuring it right? However, with Dr Bobby’s KIAS257 cruise, the AC bus would have lost power on flameout, and when descent speed exceeded 270, the SDU would start its power-up process. Then if that is right, the fact that the SDU lost power and subsequently logged on at 00:19, it might rule out a cruising speed of KIAS270 or above.

  34. @Rob asked, “If cruising speed was 270 or above, electrical power would have been maintained on flameout, if I’m figuring it right?”

    I don’t think you are right. After a single or dual flameout, the A/T and A/P remain engaged until the speed reduces less than required for the backup generators. Let’s call it 195 KIAS. So, flight controls are trying to maintain a constant altitude, and speed is bleeding off. The speed will eventually fall below the N2=40%/253 KIAS for the IDGs to remain operative, and the left bus will lose power, even though the second flameout occurred at a higher speed.

  35. @Kenyon said, “Analysis by aviation professionals who have access to the Right Flaperon is a relatively simple exercise. Why has such basic analysis not been made available to the public or to the suffering NOK?”

    Possibly because it may confirm the unspeakable that the debris has been planted (@Jeff Wise’s hypothesis). Anyway the Malaysians want it back and the French, to their credit, won’t give it back. Possibly because its needed for a subsequent criminal investigation.

    Anyway I agree 100% with @DennisW – there no value gained in continuing to spend public money looking for 9M-MRO in the SIO.

    Maybe @POTUS (Trump) has been briefed on what went on?

  36. @SteveBarratt, Thank you for a productive and coherent response to my proposed question. Evidence of a plant certainly could be the results of the French analysis. So could separation from violent impact on water, or flutter, or aircraft component failure, or signs of weapon damage or etc.

    My assertion is the forensic analysis of the right Flaperon is not complicated and would indeed produce definitive results within months (not years). I do not think forensic analysis incompetence or inability to draw conclusions is at play.

    So why the total lack of transparency related to such a human tragedy, that’s my core question. It could simply be that the “reason” for the secrecy leads directly to how and why MH370 was lost. In other words which Flaperon Failure mode provides enough financial or notational security motivation to warrant an attempt to hold as a secret from the world population at large?

  37. @all – completely “off-the-wall” post here

    So the ATSB has suspended the search for MH370, and the Malay government has said it will offer a reward for finding the hull. They have not said how much the reward will be. So lets say the search cost has been about 200M Australian Dollars or 150M USD. Based on expected value theory an ensemble of such searches should find the aircraft after 50% of the probable area has been searched. The reward, using utility theory, should be at least 75M USD. Of course, this gives the rewarder the benefit of the search area being 100% likely to contain the aircraft. So be it, we are “roughing it in right now”. We all know that is not true. and that the reward should be bigger.

    So, if the Malays were to post a very reasonable 75M USD to an escrow account, what could be done to snag that reward, and make a profit doing it? My idea is as follows.

    The side scan sonar equipment used to date was not designed to economically look at large areas at high resolution. What if one were to rethink the problem statement, and design a synthetic aperture side scan sonar system optimized for finding the location of this aircraft? A purpose designed one off system.

    Such a system would use very slow tow speeds using a very stable platform (high end 3-axis inertial system) which would allow a very large aperture in the along track direction. Long chirped pulses would be used to achieve the needed range resolution. Slow speed is needed to achieve the long range (low pulse repetition frequency compatible with at least a 25km slant range at 15km water depth). Tow depth would be at 1000km or so to avoid surface noise.

    In other words for enough money, and I think 75M USD would be more than enough, one could rethink the search sonar from the ground up, and synthesize the right solution for the task at hand. Using the “off-the-shelf” hardware that has been used to date is simply too inefficient to make searching feasible at reasonable cost. I am talking about a system that can cover 10 degrees of 7th arc latitude in a two or three slow passes for an operating cost of far less than 10M USD. That leaves a big pile of money to design and construct the sled, and a substantial residual to stick in your pocket.

    Just thinking out loud here. I don’t need the money. I just think it would be a really interesting science project which at the end of day is what life is all about (to me).

  38. I mentioned a few weeks ago I thought the next step might be a reward based incentive would be next, not that that means anything extraordinary, pretty obvious that would be the next thing to do.

    it might take someone like James Cameron to do this and turn it into a documentary so that they can recover costs or something.

    @Rob – you mentioned Boeing would have to get involved. Totally agree dude. It brings up again what is puzzling me and it sucks that I can’t reconcile it in my little brain. Why isn’t Boeing more involved? I just don’t get it.

    I would think Boeing would be the most interested in finding it for the safety of their fleet. Of all the parties involved, it should concern them more than anyone.

    If I worked at Boeing and thought that something I was responsible for may be even remotely the cause, I’d be fighting tooth and nail to get to that plane to know what happened. The lives of people on other 777 depend on it. So the fact that they aren’t doing more, especially when it would be relatively cheap for them to do so, tells me they already know what happened and feel it doesn’t concern them. Which means pilot suicide I guess.

    Maybe I have over-valued this puzzle to me .

  39. @DennisW – I don’t understand how your brain works, it’s too complicated for me. but I know it has entertained me greatly for a long time now.

    $75 million is probably a good guess at what it will actually be, but I agree it should be higher.

  40. The offer of a reward seems just a smoke-screen, an attempt to manage the public’s expectations; a message from MY that “we really care” and “we genuinely don’t know where that plane is”. The fact that not all existing sat/radar data and debris analyses etc. have been made available even to the ATSB, let alone to other experts who were willing and capable of assisting the definition of the search area speaks volumes. There may be a good reason for this but IMO we are unlikely to find out for decades. Beyond sad.

  41. @David

    Yes, the Malays have been ambiguous about the reward. That is why I don’t think anything will happen. As far as Boeing tossing any money or effort into the ring, I think that is a ridiculous assumption. Boeing is not stupid. The loss had nothing whatever to do with the aircraft. The only people who believe that are whackos who generally do not buy plane tickets.

  42. Were MH370 Searchers Unlucky, or Duped ?

    Interesting question, but is it the correct question ?

    I accept DenisW’s contention, that the probability of success was so low to being with, that logically, the underwater search should never have taken place at all. They were on “a hiding to nothing” from day one.

    The fact that the search ultimately came up empty was entirely logical, predictable, and it was predicted, long ago.

    Indeed, it would have been incredibly lucky for them to have found the aircraft. They have not been “unlucky” in not finding it.

    Therefore, the question of being “lucky” or “unlucky” does not arise.

    Which brings us to the question of:
    “Why were all the so-called “search authorities” so “effusively certain” that they would find it ?

    There is no logical, plausible or credible answer in statistics, probabilities, mathematics or engineering for that.

    The only logical answer lies in politics.
    The “searchers” were not duped at all.

    The “searchers” deliberately duped the world.

    Why ?

    You would need an “above top secret” clearance to ever get an answer to that.

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