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.
@JeffWise
You may be correct that Russia took the plane and the SDU was spoofed.
But for the exact same BFO and BTO data, I find it interesting that Inmarsat predicted an Arc 7 crossing at 34.7S 93.0 E at 00:19 UTC and DTSG predicted the most probable spot as 38.0S 88.1E. And there is no reconciliation of the two different methods.
I have not seen anything to compare the two approaches other than a polite concession by Inmarsat that their are more sophisticated methods that were selected.
While the data could have been spoofed as you say, there is a $200 money pit that resulted from exclusive reliance on the Neal Gordon particle filter.
What happened in this working group and how were decisions made? And what happened in November to suggest looking North. The published reports are sparse. The discussions in the bar or in private meetings must have been very interesting. There’s a book here Jeff.
@Hank, It seems to me that the ATSB/DSTG/Inmarsat have been admirably open with their thinking (though perhaps less so with their raw data.) If you read all the reports you can see in some detail why they defined the areas the way they did. I wouldn’t get too bent out of shape about Neil Gordon’s particle filter. A simple way to look at it is that if the plane was flying south at 18:40 using any known autopilot mode, it would pretty much wind up in the search area. If you allow some more arcane modalities, it could got a bit further north, hence the extra 25K sq km search zone.
Some people think this is too tight a set of assumptions, but they’re reasonable ones. For instance, if you allow arbitrary turns halfway through the flight, you might wind up further north, but why would someone take an arbitrary turn in the middle of the night? And if they did take an arbitrary turn, you have to assume blind luck (like the blind luck that would make the effect of descent on BFO match that of a southward flight) that would make this turn produce a ping ring of the same geometrical ratio as a straight-ahead flight.
Also, you wrote, “what happened in November to suggest looking North?” Easy: they didn’t find the plane in the south.
@PatM
“You will probably say that you have considered the spoof theory but I think this would be analogous to swimming while holding onto the sides of a pool.”
Not only did I consider the spoof theory, I believe I was the first to propose it way back in the Duncan days. I even outlined how it could be done (several different ways).
Once the first piece of debris showed up, the spoof theory became a fairy tale unless you want to postulate the debris is bogus. You want to toss your hat in that ring?
Of course, the fact that a commercial airliner has never been hijacked for cargo or pax in the history of commercial aviation is another consideration.
Yes, my horse is high, and I set a high bar for others as well.
@Hank
“The DSTG zone (with IMO questionable assumptions) is southwest of the Inmarsat location which did not rely on modelling the flight profiles. They used a very different type of logic than the particle filter.”
The particle filter is a smoke screen plain and simple. It is no better than any other methodology including trial and error. The reality is that once you have all the data the use of Kalman filters, particle filters, or any other method is mute. You can filter the data any way you like. The problem is no longer a forecasting problem. The problem is filtering the data in a way that fits the observables. There is no magic here. Don’t be misled by fancy rhetoric.
Gordon et. al. amply displayed their ignorance trying to unravel Figure 5.4 in their book. Once I got to that point, I pretty much lost interest.
@DennisW, Your rhetorical style betrays a discomfort with logic. You seem to regard the debris as some privileged class of evidence that requires no evidence, but offer not a hint of a reason why. As I’ve explained at length, if you do bother to look at the data you will find numerous inconsistencies. Most compellingly, to me, the “entre deux eaux” distribution of barnacles. You and the IG deal with this the same way you deal with the SDU reboot: by waving your hands and murmuring, ‘well, I’m sure there must be some plausible explanation, it’s not our fault we can’t come up with one.’
It’s interesting that once a narrative becomes defined as the “normal,” acceptable one, people can cling to it very easily, even as the evidence supporting it melts away. You’re very good at sniffing at people who are trying to move the ball forward, while floating comfortably on your half-baked (or fully baked, more likely) set of presumptions about the connection between Inmarsat data and flight paths and the like.
“Debris planting? Bah!” is not a rational argument. It is a lazy appeal to prejudice. It is the kind of thinking that explains why this case still seems like a mystery to such a large number of people.
By the way, your repeated appeals to the relative frequency of different kinds of aviation events proves irrefutably that you were asleep during freshman statistics. MH370 was a singular event (singularly so!) and nothing about it was determined by casting 20-sided dice with reference to crash statistics.
@Jeff
“@DennisW, Your rhetorical style betrays a discomfort with logic. You seem to regard the debris as some privileged class of evidence that requires no evidence, but offer not a hint of a reason why”
The notion of a sovereign state planting debris has no appeal to me. I view your debris logic as a desperate attempt to salvage your spoof theory. There is not a shred of evidence to support your position except what you continually use as a crutch – the plane was not found therefore the ISAT data is wrong. No one but the people orbiting your personality believes that.
The decision to suspend the search is nothing more than a conclusion by people writing checks that the geeks have no clue where the plane terminated. I am a geek, and I agree with the decision (for a long time, BTW).
@Rob. Flaperons.
Deployment. In normal mode, no flaps, all I can find is, “The flaperon schedule has fixed limits that let the surface move
through its full authority range”.
The maximum droop (flaps down) is 31 deg. That suggests the right could have been that far down as an aileron (at low airspeed) lifting the right wing; the left of course being up.
Though not pertinent, in secondary and direct modes there is no amending statement so I take it the same limit applies.
Floating. Further about that, the left could have sunk as it became waterlogged, the time depending on the diffusion rate of water though the skin etc.
I do not see how the French would have taken that into account, and in particular whether the photographs of the right are after it had dried, ie water and moisture had diffused out and lightened it.
That had been at sea for 16 months. Floating deep at the end might explain Jeff’s conundrum with rear edge barnacles, otherwise apparently above water for much of the time.
PS A flaperon with actuators in by pass will rise to 10 deg up.
Unification is an enigma, it can provide power or hijack individual ability.
Participation here has never been particularly unified and can be excruciating, definitely not for the “faint of heart”.
Based on the sheer volume of discussion, we have almost assuredly properly determined the fate of MH370, no stones left unturned here, right? But also not much of a foundation have we built by combining them.
I am not sure why the fundamentals of this are so alluding while the helter skelter of personal theory is so intoxicating.
Unfortunately the consistency of the inconsistencies remain effectively unchallenged, as the commitment to opinion supersedes the pervasive need for compromise
@Dennis
For a no bullshit kind of guy it is surprising to me you so readily dismiss geopolitical realities as potentially impacting MH370.
Certainly you cannot dismiss the findings of the Dutch and Bellingcat in the downing of MH17. And if you do not, aren’t perceptually less aggressive but ultimately lethal events like the disappearance of MH370 possible?
Since the 2011 demonstrations in Moscow, which the Kremlin perceived to be instigated by the West, Russian leadership has come to see action with “non-military means” as a greater strategic asset than a hot war in inflicting damage on what it believes to be the enemy. This philosophy can be ascribed to Gen. Valery Gerasimov, whose writings are available in English should you like to reference them.
The deposing of the Russian puppet Viktor Yanukovych in Ukraine and suggestions of NATO membership only amplified that belief. Hence the hacking of DNC and Clinton emails, the fake news stories, the gifts to WikiLeaks from the hacker Guccifer 2.0–likely not Romanian as s/he claims but Russian.
But beyond that, there is a long history of fabricating evidence in both real and propaganda wars, from the Haversack Ruse to the inflatable tank corps in the south of England and, as I’ve mentioned, before the fake plane crash and real body of Operation Mincemeat in WWII on up to the agricultural equipment that disguised the missiles headed for Cuba to the moon landings
Kidding about the moon landings, of course! But, hell, even American police plant evidence.
And when it comes to casualties in this war of disinformation, as long as they remain asymmetrical, the Kremlin has always appeared to be okay with that too. From hostage deaths as collateral damage (Dubrovka Theater and the Belsan school siege) to journalists (literally dozens including Anna Politkovskaya and Mikhail Lesin) to other political opponents (Nemtsov and Litvinenko), what’s a body here or there to maintain the glory of bygone days.
Whether in retaliation for unknown events, as a public distraction from the taking of Crimea, as a warning (with largely non-Western consequences) of potential capabilities, or as someone else on this blog has suggested, a message against burgeoning Muslim solidarity between Malaysia and Kazakhstan (the Russians do have their issues with Islamicists), nothing seems beyond the pale for the current regime.
Oh, and keep in mind that Vladimir Putin has personally pinned a medal on the chest of Anatoly Kornukov—the man who gave the order to shoot down Korean Air 007 and who subsequently became Commander of the Russian Air Force and, as Wikipedia puts it, after his retirement “advised the Russian Federation in matters of missile defense and defense against aerial hijacker terrorist attacks.” By the way, of the 007 shoot down he has admitted to some “unpleasant feelings.”
I do not know what to believe, but given all the above, why is it beyond belief that such an action could not happen?
P.S., as a character in this play, I can see Blaine Gibson as much of an “unwitting agent” as an actual operative—doing the Kremlin’s work without even knowing it.
@all
Can anyone explain why, for the same BTO and BFO data, Inmarsat predicted a most likely location of 34.7S 93.0E and DSTG predicted 38.0S 88.1E? Inmarsat did this before DSTG even started. And the Inmarsat location is in the proposed new zone.
Jeff, I’ve read every ATSB report and the DTSG book so this is nothing new to me.
I do not understand how you could be so confident that for the data set MH370 had to be in the defined zone and therefore the failed search proves Putin spoofed this obscure data. It is far more likely that ATSB messed up.
If this was a crew suicide flight, the pilot may have had second thoughts and did a clearing turn or even entered a holding pattern for a while. The steady cruise on some autopilot mode is a big assumption and there is no data to suggest that it was even engaged other than the aircraft kept flying. Does the 777 FBW system hold wings level with no control input? Some FBW will do that without the auto flight system. The FSX folks will know if th aircraft rolls over with no heading mode engaged.
@Hank
‘…. a $200 money pit’. Nitpicking but it’s 200 million (Australian dollars).
@ScottO
‘Whether in retaliation for unknown events,….’. Well said.
@David
Thanks for reseaching the flaperon movement. It’s much appreciated. An interesting subject all round, I think you’ll agree. All I can say about the LH flaperon issue is this: if the LH flaperon was subjected to similar separation forces as the RH, then presumably, the LH outboard flap and flap fairing etc would be subjected also. But we have only a small piece from the LH outboard flap, while we have a sizable assemblage of bits from the RH wing. To me this strongly implies that the LH wing couldn’t have been subjected to the same impact forces as the RH wing. I don’t know how else to explain it.
@Rob. Happy Brexit.
@Hank, The failed search does not mean that Russians hijacked the plane, but it is a piece of evidence in that direction. What I’m lobbying for at this point is an acknowledgement by search officials and independent researchers that the vulnerability existed and could have been exploited in principle.
You asked why Inmarsat predicted a different endpoint than the DSTG; the answer is that as the work of analysis the Inmarsat data progressed, it came to be realized that the BFO data was too imprecise to add value to the calculation of an endpoint probability distribution. So it was discarded and a Bayesian analysis of BTO data alone was performed, with the BFO being used only to discriminate between a path to the north (Kazakhstan) and to the south (SIO).
@ScottO, Nicely put.
@Susie Crowe, Once again you provide a voice of reason and put the discourse into context. It may be that the chronic discord over MH370 maybe be a feature of the mystery. The Rand Corporation has an interesting report out that looks at Russia’s misinformation campaign. An excerpt of a press release about it:
I think the last point is most interesting in this context.
http://www.rand.org/blog/2016/12/beyond-the-headlines-rands-christopher-paul-discusses.html?adbsc=social_20170126_1240071&adbid=824502137107279872&adbpl=tw&adbpr=22545453
@JeffWise
“This was the impression that observers were encouraged to have by the media posting made by Igor “Strelkov” Girkin immediately after the shootdown, in which he stated that “we” had shot down an An-26. However, once the pieces had been put together by Bellingcat and later the Dutch criminal investigators, it was clear that this was not the case. MH17 was shot down by a Buk beloging to a regular Russian Army antiaircraft unit.”
they already shot down ukrainian transport plane flying the same route several days before using possibly the same BUK, their reconnaissance unit failed to properly identify the plane and/or they didn’t expect civilian plane in that area because civilian planes usually didn’t fly that route, MH17 was strayed off course by ukrainian ATC right into the conflict area and I’ll leave to your imagination to conclude why
@Nederland
“Personally, I’m not looking for a suicide scenario but for one where the original intention was to divert the plane and land it, but that didn’t work out and the plane continued as a ghost flight. I don’t think the evidence suggests a suicide scenario.”
good, so now it’s you, DennisW and me to consider similar scenario, that’s a steady 50% increase 🙂
@StevanG, Everything you just wrote about MH17 is misinformation spread by Russian intelligence.
[content deleted by JW] @StevanG, I have zero tolerance for Russian propaganda.
@ScottO: Can you please explain why Russia chose to divert a plane that was half full of Chinese citizens? Is Russia waging a war against the West and China at the same time?
@VictorI, You’re falling into the trap of trying to ascribe intention to an actor whose intent is to confuse and deceive.
Again I quote USAF general Alex Grynkewich: “In this kind of warfare, attribution and intent are challenging if not impossible for friendly forces to ascertain.”
@Victor
geopolitics – 150 chinese citizens aboard MH370
Sir, i think we all agree, that in the last 25 years the world changed from bipolarity to multipolarity, whereby many people forecast an alliance of some sort between Europe and China as opposed to an alliance between US and Russia. Thats what is happening in front of us right these very days, within hours of the inauguration of Mr. Trump. A fundamental change, whereby the BREXIT was to be expected as a sideshow.
Now the South China Sea and the Straits are one of the real geopolitical hotspots of this era. It is completely unbelievable, that any of these four superpowers have no interest in what is happening there. In real life they all do observe this hotspot 24/7.
We dont know yet, why it was MH370 of all flights, that had to disappear. But from the results of the disappearance we can tell that it served Putin most: He had the distraction from the Crimea events, he might have sent a very robust message to a leading and rich sunni muslim nation, he had a very good trial practise ground as a forebode of the electronic wars of the future (including a test case for trolling on sincere blogs like JWs), and last but not least he might have tried to subdue malaysia a bit to get some sort of geopolitical influence in the Straits.
Maybe the Kasachstan connection was working in two ways. While Malaysia was trying to forge a muslim alliance extending to the territory of the former SU, the Russians might have tried to use this connection to project influence to one of the very critical regions of the next wars.
I do admit, that the taking of a Beijing flight with 150 chinese citizens would constitute a war-like action against china, but maybe Russia wanted to send a message to China as well. And China was wise enough, to not to start the war now.
It all depends on the answer to the question, why MH370 of all flights?
@jeffwise: You present a scenario which requires falsified evidence, an omniscient bad actor, and illogic. Anybody that shows this is “falling into the trap”. You therefore present a scenario that is impossible to falsify. With your inherent assumptions, you will reject any scenario until the plane is found in the SIO, and even then, you will claim the evidence is falsified in some way because an omniscient bad actor can also find a way to falsify evidence according to their intended outcome. This makes it impossible to have a rational discussion, as you continue to promote your scenario, dismiss other scenario that rely on evidence and logic, and accuse others (like me) of bad intent.
@VictorI: “Unfalsifiable?” That’s rich! I’ve had by butt hanging out for the last two years, with the ATSB and the IG saying that they’re going to find the wreckage on the seabed any day now, for sure, for sure, trust us… $180 million later, nothing.
Honestly, I’ve been waiting around patiently hoping that once the ATSB admitted that its search had failed the IG and others would start to realize that something was up and start questioning basic assumptions. No luck so far.
@Cosmic Academy: I don’t at all agree with your geopolitical view of the world. Europe is not about to favor China over Russia. Russia needs to sell its oil and gas, and Europe is in desperate need of it. Just look at the dependence that Europe has on Russian natural gas. That’s one of the reasons Europe barely said a word when Russia took Crimea. Meanwhile, Russia is not about to alienate China by taking a Malaysian airliner. China is another customer of Russia’s oil, gas, and (at least for now) military hardware, and a partner in restraining American influence in the world. And if Putin did actually take an aircraft with Chinese citizens, it would demonstrate to the US that his alliance with China is fractured. That’s the last signal that Putin wants to send. It just makes no sense.
@jeffwise: Some of us in the IG after the first 60,000 km2 was searched said the models used to define that search area had bad assumptions. Some of us have said finding the plane in the initial search area was always a crap shoot. Some of us at the time the DSTG report was issued said it relied on assumptions that were already disproven based on the failed search in the 60,000 km2 area. Some of us have said that the ATSB’s high confidence in the search area was misplaced. Those are all facts that I can easily prove if challenged.
I agree with you the basic assumptions have to be questioned. But not the same ones as you believe. As numerous people here have said, we don’t have to throw out evidence and logic to arrive at a different terminus in the SIO.
@JW
why exactly you think the plane couldn’t be further north to the current search area?! Do you think lot of people here including Victor Dennis Nederland me etc. are all part of some russian propaganda team?
you are talking about russian scenario as a given, and it’s funny how you qualify my posts as russian propaganda while I always try to cross-check anything I stumble upon, in other words be as neutral as possible
Jeff said;
“..this forum has spent an enormous amount of time trying to identify
an innocent explanation how SDU came to be rebooted, and failed.”
From B777-Electrical.pdf , (edited for brevity);
“The ELMS provides load management and protection to ensure power is
available to critical and essential equipment.”
“If the electrical loads exceed the power available”…(the) “ELMS
automatically sheds AC loads by priority until the loads are within
the capacity of the airplane”…”The load shedding is galleys first,
then utility busses. Utility busses are followed by individual
equipment items powered by the Main AC busses. When”…”the loads
decrease, ELMS restores power to {the} shed systems.”
Hypothesis; Circumstance causes a deficit of electrical power in
the aircraft electrical system. Circumstance continues and perhaps
ameliorates, by ~18:25 UTC the ELMS is able to re-power the SDU which
(along with several other concomitant SATCOM components) are mounted
on the E11 equipment rack, which is located above the ceiling in the
passenger cabin, between the Left & Right #3 doors.
(Less ‘innocent’ explanations, involving loss of function of the Left
AIMS unit/other electrical units & connections, are also conceivable.)
___________________
And now… – a non-related segue, to information of such minor
interest that for once, I am not going to cite supporting references;
The ‘Appendix (1).pdf’ has a notation in its appendix K-2, next to
Pulau Perak (Malaysia), of “eyewitness”, presumably referring to
an alleged sighting of MH370.
After an unfavourable International Court of Justice ruling in 2008
regarding status of an unrelated island, the Malaysian polity became
more careful about certain other (apparently uninhabited) islands over
which Malaysia claimed sovereignty – Pulau Perak being one such island.
Malaysia apparently maintains a small military garrison on Pulau Perak,
to discourage any perception that the island is ‘terra nullis’. It is
likely that the military personnel are tasked to observe the waters
surrounding the island (visits by Indonesian fishing vessels close to
the island are findable on youtube).
A military helicopter on a re-supply mission crashed there in Dec 2013.
Two military personnel died after falling into the sea from the (steep
sloped) island in Oct 2016.
Besides the helipad, structures which appear to be dwellings are visible
in Google Earth. The lighthouse (which may not be inhabited) has various
antenna and electronic gear topping it. No radar is evident, and I doubt
there would be any need for a radar installation on the island.
It is unclear if electronic visual recordings are made of the surrounding
sea, although I admit this as a possibility. To me, it is more likely
that garrision personnel maintain a 24 hour eyeball visual watch.
Given the nature of garrison duty, personnel on Pulau Perak would become
aware and be used to seeing the lights at night of aircraft travelling
along busy air corridor N571 (away to the southwest) and perhaps Y337
(away to the northeast) although dwelling(s) on the island are located
on the southeast slope, below the island crest.
Pulau Perak is located inbetween N571 and Y337, more than 50km ground
distance from either of them. No other air corridors pass near the island.
I very much doubt that any garrison personnel record the movement of
aircraft seen from the island – however, it is reasonable to consider
that at night, the lights of a jet flying almost directly above and over
the island (an unusual occurence) would be noticed – to the extent that,
if at a later date, questions were asked in regard to if any sightings
of aircraft at that time that could have been MH370 were experienced,
the personnel watching at that time may remember an overflying aircraft.
Here is an approximate location of Pulau Perak,and a representation of
the path from MH370 circa Penang to VAMPI;
https://skyvector.com/?ll=5.372480961583528,97.67407226944309&chart=304&zoom=5&fpl=0537N09856E%200512N10009E%20VAMPI
@StevenG, I am not accusing you of being a Russian agent, but you have been repeating misinformation generated by Russia, whether you are aware of it or not.
We are currently in the midst of a war of which the spread of information and misinformation is a primary battlefield, into which I as a journalist have been drafted into willy-nilly as a frontline soldier. Just so you know where I’m coming from.
Correction to my above post;
“dwelling(s) on the island are located on the southwest slope,
below the island crest.”
Cheers
@Nederland
Your proposed “Indonesian radar avoidance” path seems to have good potential, with some mistakes on my part.
I did not realize your custom waypoints were excluded by my flight planner, so I ended up with a simplified flight plan:
MEKAR NILAM SAMAK TOPIN ISBIX BEBIM
So I was initially upset when aircraft turned south prematurely at SAMAK, but the turn south came right at 18:40 when the telcon BFO predicts a turn south and/or descent.
The next good finding was a direct hit on Arc2 at 19:41 about 25 nM before ISBIX on the line from TOPIN. However, this violates Brian Andersons rule that MH370 is believed to have hit Arc2 from the East and not from the West. I do not understand the logic of that rule, but adding back your custom waypoints after TOPIN might give compliance with Brians rule.
Heading to BEBIM after ISBIX hit Arc3 too early. Not sure where your path heads after ISBIX, but I am thinking not to COCOS via BEBIM.
@all
Diversity is both healthy and entertaining. I certainly have no quarrel with Jeff’s (or anyone else’s) questioning of the “evidence” either. The fact that I don’t agree with what someone says does not mean I don’t respect their views.
Over the course of the last almost three years I have had a chance to look at a lot of people’s work – Inmarsat, ATSB (SSWG), IG, DSTG, and many other independent analysts. It is almost universally very good. Which only serves to illustrate the ambiguities latent in the data we have.
I think if I could point to one thing that ultimately lead to the failure to find the aircraft, it was starting the search too early. The situation was far beyond an S&R exercise. Time was not of the essence. There was no compelling reason to initiate the underwater search before debris was found (and not found). I honestly believe if the search was postponed to beyond the flaperon finding, that it would have pulled the likely area further North, and the plane would have been found.
Now we have nothing, and we are not likely to get any closure soon, if ever. The enthusiasm for spending additional money has waned, and the confidence of a positive search result has diminished greatly.
I think the likelihood of a serious search effort being resumed by any government or collection of private enterprises is extremely small. I was very disappointed in the Malay reward withdrawal. It is easy to show that ~75M USD is the appropriate amount, and that would be enough to motivate some innovative thinking and development.
@Jeff Wise
Just as my alternative ‘shot-at by Malaysian military around 18:22’ scenario cann’t be proven for there is no evidence at all to support it, your ‘hijack-spoof and Kazachstan’ scenario is still not supported by any evidence.
On the contrary I would say.
For my ‘shot-at’ fantasy scenario (and other scenarios) won’t contradict all existing evidence but your scenario does in almost every way.
This makes it a very hard, if not impossible scenario to find any support for IMO (with respect to your commitment).
You not only have to find proof the plane was hijacked by the Russians on board and they spoofed the SDU to camouflage they flew to Kazachstan undetected by any primary radar on the way or by any eyewitness.
You also have to prove the Inmarsat-data were wrong and manipulated and all the debris was planted. Give just one example of proof. Not an inconsistancy, for with those you are spot-on and that’s not where the debat is about I think. Everyone agrees on those. Just one example of ‘EVIDENCE’.
I would suggest; please look at this all with an objective eye. Not influenced by Putin and politics.
I can tell you in Holland and I suppose many other European (and other) countries people view the new American president and politics as a far more greater threat to peace than Putin or someone else.
A president who openly supports torture as a mean to interogate people. Who disgraces women, other believes, cultures, climate problems and so on. In fact a true psychopath and facist you’ve got on your hands in America. Putin is peanuts compared to him and the power of your country.
I won’t say Putin is any better but at least he is a lot smarter than your president.
In a way it seems to me you as an American are traditionaly influenced by anti-Russian propaganda spanning decades of American history and indoctrination after WW2.
I think, reading your oppinions again lately, your objective view suffers by this influence regarding MH370.
I know reading your blog and intend now for over two years you are as dedicated as many to solve this mystery with heart.
And I hope you know I keep respecting you for your effort.
We all need reality checks and facts.
Thats what your blog is about in the end as far as I’m concerned.
I’m also concerned about your deleting of @StefanG’s comment in this regard.
When your blog is becoming a political platform instead of a more or less scientific/logical endavour to add in finding the plane and its ‘why and how’, it becomes another issue in which I cann’t relate. Politics should not interfere dominantly in logical matters and persuits.
Jeff, come with real evidence on your assumptions. Positive or negative.
Otherwise my ‘shot-at by Malasian-military jets’ scenario is just as good or even better than your ‘hijacked by Russians and spoofed SDU to Kazachstan’ scenario.
Keep up the work!
Off topic reminder of the elusive nature of the sea.
I thought of the “Flor de Mar” years ago when the bathymetry began and considered the possibility it’s location estimates may actually be located elsewhere. I ran across this article last week and it reminded me of this. Would have made a nice “windfall”.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/01/08/the-2-6-billion-treasure-still-lost-at-the-bottom-of-the-sea.html
@DennisW
Prematurity of search
I am fully with you in this respect, but i do remember the first half year after the disappearance very well. People were in SAR mood in a very agitated way until octobre, and when someone tried to call for reason and suggest to delay the response, you got very harsh answers and were downvoted into oblivion on reddit.
It always seemed to me like a coordinated effort of someone behind the scenes.
Those were the days when Inmarsat themselves were the first ones to raise the topic of spoofing. Naturally, they didnt get into details in public, but i really wonder what they might have told their friend ALSM, about how a spoof would be possible. from ALSM contributions we know, that he considered a spoof as not too difficult.
So please dont toss Jeff Wise under the bus, because he prefers to believe, what Inmarsat considers a possibility in the real world.
For my taste we are too much in the world of desinformation and counter-desinformation here. But think of what some guys might have achieved :
They might have taken a 777, made the impression of a ghost flight into the SIO, managed to agitate many reasonable people into a fruitless search at the station of nowhere, and now get away with it, because the public interest is gone after the failure.
What genius was necessary to realize such a plan?
@all
ATSB/DSTG assumed that the autopilot was engaged in one of five lateral navigation modes. They assumed this because airliners normally fly this way. But they never discuss how the mode would have been engaged and setup. They also never considered that the autopilot did not need to be engaged at all.
The 777 primary flight control automatically maintains the bank angle when the pilot is not commanding a roll rate through the yoke. If the aircraft has wings level and there is no input by the pilot, it keeps the wings level. As wind shear or turbulence happens an upsets bank angle, the heading will change until the system levels the wings. This is done without the autopilot modes being engaged.
If a fire in the avionics bay caused the transponders and ACARS to fail, and the pilots responded by disengaging the AP and turning toward Penang and then the pilots became unconscious, the FBW system would have kept the wings level. The entire flight from the initial diversion to the last radar fix until 00:19 UTC may have been done with the FBW system and no autopilot.
The Inmarsat method did not assume any autopilot mode and would have accommodated the random course with wings level flight path.
The DSTG method required only long straight paths.
The First Principles Review recognized that the CMH, CTH, and CMT AP modes would favor a more northern location than the CTT and LNAV modes. But no discussion was ever made for just the wing leveler with the aircraft being steered by turbulence.
What does this forum think about how the autopilot was programmed and engaged in a specific lateral mode? And what about only the FBW system just keeping the wings level?
@Hank: The ten Boeing simulations illustrate the behaviour of the airplane without autopilot or human control, and the flight control system in secondary mode. The flight control laws in secondary mode are said to be similar to normal mode, but lack envelope protections. These protections would have prevented only the more extreme bank angles exhibited in some of the simulations. The airplane can be flown without autopilot, but then requires constant monitoring and regular corrections by the pilot. That is probably how it was operated between IGARI and Pulau Perak.
Why would Putin’s pilots not engage the autopilot?
@Gysbreght
Putins pilots
They fly at random along FIR boundaries all over Europe and bet, if they do that with AP engaged?
They are really all over the place, e.g. using FIR boundaries GER/Austria/CH to show up at the largest non american NATO Hub in Lagerlechfeld at Landsberg/Bavaria. We often watch em there.
@Gysbreght said, “The airplane can be flown without autopilot, but then requires constant monitoring and regular corrections by the pilot. That is probably how it was operated between IGARI and Pulau Perak.”
Between IGARI and Penang, it looks to me as though the plane was on autopilot, using HDG SEL roll mode. Between VAMPI and MEKAR in the Malacca Strait, the BTO and BFO pattern looks like it was following aiwway N571 in LNAV mode, with a lateral offset just after 18:25. All at FL340 and M0.84.
You said, “The flight control laws in secondary mode are said to be similar to normal mode, but lack envelope protections.”
Secondary Mode and Direct Mode are very similar except that in Direct Mode, the PFCs are bypassed. Both modes control the control surface position without FBW augmentation.
However, Normal mode and Secondary mode have some important differences. In Normal mode, a yoke turn is interpreted as a roll speed command, neutral position being interpreted as constant (but not necessarily zero) bank angle. During a commanded turn in Normal mode, the plane would automatically increase pitch to maintain altitude. During a turn in Secondary mode, the increase in pitch for a level turn would have to be manually input. Also, there is yaw damping in Normal mode, but not Secondary mode. And, as you say, there is no envelope protection in Secondary mode.
All said, without FBW augmentation, it is much harder to fly in Secondary mode than Normal mode.
Hank –
Isn’t one of the problems with the FBW theory that after the initial diversion, the plane seemed to be following waypoints? If the plane was flying with no autopilot and with no pilot input, why would it be following waypoints up until the last radar contact?
@Victor
First I do not KNOW that the Russians are involved.
But I can see it as a possibility. Particularly in regard to the Kremlin’s stated interest in waging an asymmetrical non-hot war, and because I know that not all that happens on the geopolitical stage comes with transparency.
We also know that the Kremlin has no qualms, in fact has a well documented history, of killing innocents (along with under-matched enemies) in order to achieve its goals. To the Kremlin, they are collateral damage.
For example, in Syria, which, is purely a propaganda play for Putin’s constituents, Russia has had no qualms about killing more civilians than members of the Islamic State—and, in fact, more civilians than the Islamic State itself has killed there. This according the the UN sanctioned Syrian Network for Human Rights.
For example, Russia (then the Soviet Union) had no qualms about downing Korean Air 007, clearly a civilian airliner, clearly after it had LEFT then-Soviet airspace, all the while having lied about it the engagement, and then further lying that they could find no wreckage when in fact they had found wreckage including the black boxes. They did this, while keeping other recovery teams from other nations at bay.
For example, thousands of innocents were killed in the Chechen wars, and they ended with hundreds more surrendering soldiers assassinated thanks to an “safe passage” corridor that was salted with landmines and set up as a shooting gallery. And though the war is long over, thousands of Chechen men have been disappeared in the years since. Such was Russian-caused collateral damage in Chechnya that Grozny was declared by the UN in 2003 the most destroyed city on earth.
In all of these cases noncombatants were killed as a matter of course in proving some larger political point.
For me, it comes down to plausible deniability. The Russians have no reason to kill Chinese. No obvious motive. Nor are they in a decades-long battle of face and global influence with the Chinese. And so less suspicion would fall on them for doing so.
On the other hand, if the Russians caused a plane full of Americans to disappear while the Russians were trying to make a point to the American government, the information war the Russians have been waging, could very quickly become a war of a very different kind.
People on this blog have often found it curious that the United States and Boeing have said so very little about this disappearance and I believe ICAO rules would suggest greater American involvement given the location of the plane’s manufacture. Perhaps this is a reason why.
BTW, Victor, in articulating the above I don’t mean to dismiss the enormous contribution you’ve made to shedding light on this tragedy. In fact, I appreciate your question, as simply the impulse to ask it suggests an open-mindedness other contributors to this blog seem to locked in or uncomfortable to have.
“..this forum has spent an enormous amount of time trying to identify an innocent explanation how SDU came to be rebooted, and failed.”
Perhaps not exactly innocent, but the reason to ‘unplug’ the SDU could have been to go dark while flying within Malaysian territory, the reason to turn it on again was perhaps because of the subsequent sat phone call. Either the PIC was expecting such a phone call at that time or he thought he could get some information on what is going on based on the frequency of sat phone calls (if an alarm was raised, you’d expect more than the one phone call).
@buyerninety
The Pulau Perak eyewitness repors are based on early media reporst (the report says so), apparently two reports by fishermen in the area:
http://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2014/03/11/kelantan-duo-report-seeing-lights-falling-at-high-speed/
@TBill
Many thanks for checking it out.
“However, this violates Brian Andersons rule that MH370 is believed to have hit Arc2 from the East and not from the West. I do not understand the logic of that rule, but adding back your custom waypoints after TOPIN might give compliance with Brians rule.”
I’ve checked the BFO value for the 19:41 ring in the calculator I assume everyone is using, and a heading of pretty much 180 degree gives a very good match with the BFO value, so I guess that should be ok. Technically, it is still crossing the arc form outside to inside, however, at an extremely steep angle.
“Heading to BEBIM after ISBIX hit Arc3 too early. Not sure where your path heads after ISBIX, but I am thinking not to COCOS via BEBIM.”
The alternative could be that MH370 was flying on some heading first. I get a very good match on a heading of 181.3 for the leg between the 19:41 and 20:41 ring (at some point MH370 could have continued to BEBIM, but obviously not to COCOS). Alternatively, MH370 could have been on an 180 degree heading for some time after crossing the 19:41 ring and then contined to BEBIM before crossing the 20:41 ring. I shall have another look into this.
@Ge Rijn,
“I can tell you in Holland and I suppose many other European (and other) countries people view the new American president and politics as a far more greater threat to peace than Putin or someone else.
A president who openly supports torture as a mean to interogate people. Who disgraces women, other believes, cultures, climate problems and so on. In fact a true psychopath and facist you’ve got on your hands in America. Putin is peanuts compared to him and the power of your country.
I won’t say Putin is any better but at least he is a lot smarter than your president.”
I think you’ll find the majority of Americans would agree with you that we have our hands full–even more today than the majority who voted for his opponent two months ago. And Putin’s savvy, I think, is one of the very reasons a Russian connection is plausible in re MH370
@VictorI: Yes, I stand corrected on pitch control. But for roll control, the FCOM states:
@Gysbreght: I guess it comes down to what the definition of “similar” is. Also, I have seen different statements about whether or not yaw damping is lost going from Normal to Secondary mode. If you have found a definitive reference, I would be interested.
@VictorI: You wrote: “Between IGARI and Penang, it looks to me as though the plane was on autopilot, using HDG SEL roll mode. ”
I forgot to ask earlier: Have you considered the groundspeed variations shown in the DSTG report? What pitch mode and AP mode do you suggest?
Sorry, for AP mode read AT mode.
@Gysbreght: At this point, without seeing the raw data, I am inclined to ignore the groundspeed variations, including after passing IGARI. I think the raw data is spotty, and whatever procedure they used to re-sample the data, combined with the Kalman filter applied by the DSTG, has distorted the speed and track data that were graphically reported in the DSTG report.
I suspect the A/P and A/T modes were HDG SEL, ALT HOLD=FL340, and SPD=M.84.
@VictorI
Have you tried your suggested IGARI-MEKAR flight with Left Bus off, assuming PMDG model can do that?
Got this link from Canada:
Subject: Fwd: The Netherlands welcomes Trump in his own words
https://youtu.be/ELD2AwFN9Nc
@TBill: Isolating the left bus has no effect on navigation, if that’s what you’re asking.
@JeffWise
–“Honestly, I’ve been waiting around patiently hoping that once the ATSB admitted that its search had failed the IG and others would start to realize that something was up and start questioning basic assumptions. No luck so far.”
I’m not waiting around patiently before I declare that the search was destined to fail and that the underlying assumptions were faulty. I’ve had more than one deepwater recovery expert tell me that the ATSB search is “what you do if you’re trying NOT to find an airplane.”
You and I just differ on why the search failed. You think it’s because the plane turned north. I think it’s because the search was, from the beginning, Stevie Wonder teaching Ray Charles how to drive a car.
From what I can tell, there is almost universal agreement among everyone that the underlying assumptions should be questioned.