In the wake of last week’s reports by the Australian Transport Safety Board, several mainstream journalists have published articles urging officials to resume searching the seabed in order to find the plane’s wreckage and thereby solve the mystery. The unanimity of the swelling chorus gives the impression that all reasonable people agree.
However, MH370 is a highly technical mystery, and a proper understanding of what may and may not have happened to it is impossible without a grasp of the science behind the evidence in hand. Simply put, the data that we have now gathere collectively weighs heavily against the idea that the plane flew into the southern Indian Ocean. The Australian authorities apparently understand this evidence better than the journalists, which is why they are declining to press forward.
Since I have covered this material in depth elsewhere in this blog, here I will just present a bullet-point list of why MH370 does not now appear to have flown into the southern Indian Ocean.
1– The absence of wreckage in the ATSB search zone. Using Inmarsat data and detailed knowledge of 777 aeronautics and avionics, Australia’s Defense Science and Technology Group were able to generate a robust statistical model of where the plane might have flown, assuming that it turned south after disappearing from Malaysian primary radar. A measure of their confidence in this model is the fact that the Malaysian, Chinese and Australian governments then spent some $150 million searching this vast, deep abyss. Yet no sign of the plane was there. Remarkably, many commentators shrug off this absence of no big deal. It is a big deal. If the plane had turned south, it should have been there. Indeed, in order to come up with a scenario in which the plane turned south but then arrived outside the search area one must presumed a series of bizarre and statistically improbable turns and descents. I liken this to opening a lock without knowing the combination: physically possible, but statistically equivalent to impossible. I wrote more about this topic in the post “Further Clarity on MH370 Flight Modeling.“
2– The reboot of the SDU. During the first hour or so of flight MH370, a piece of equipment called the Satellite Data Unit, or SDU, was turned off. Then, at 18:25, it came back on and reconnected with an Inmarsat satellite. It was only because of this re-logon that investigators were able to obtain the seven “pings” that told them everything they know about the last six hours of the flight. As I wrote in my post The SDU Re-logon: A Small Detail That Tells Us So Much About the Fate of MH370, the SDU essentially cannot come back on either accidentally or as a result of some other plausible course of action by the pilot. The fact that it was turned off, then on suggests that whoever took the plane had a sophisticated knowledge of the aircraft’s electrical systems and tampered with the system that generated the signal that ultimately led investigators to assume that the plane went south. Obviously, then, this assumption needs to be interrogated.
3– Final observed turn was to the north. At 18:22, MH370 appeared for the last time as a blip on a military radar screen. Three minutes later, it transmitted a ping that allowed investigators to place it on an arc. By integrating these two pieces of information, it is possible to determine that during that interval MH370 turned to the northwest. I discuss this in more detail here: How MH370 Got Away. The fact that the plane was turning to the north fits better with a northern than a southern route.
4– Debris inconsistencies. On July 31, 2015, the first piece of MH370 debris was discovered on the French island of La Réunion. For many, this erased any doubt that the plane had ended up in the southern Indian Ocean. When French officials examined it, however, they encountered an inexplicable anomaly. The fact that every surface had been populated by barnacles indicated that the piece had drifted somehow wholly submerged. Yet when they tested it in a flotation tank, it floated quite high in the water (as seen above; this image is of an actual 777 flaperon cut to the same size). No one has suggested a natural means by which this could have happened; as I wrote in How the MH370 Flaperon Floated, the obvious explanation is that it spent months artificially tethered under the water. Later, other anomalies emerged. Chemical tests conducted on a barnacle shell from the flaperon found that it grew most of its life in water cooler than that experienced by real objects floating to Réunion. And many of the other pieces that turned up were so devoid of marine biofouling that experts said they couldn’t have been afloat for more than a few weeks.
5– Drift studies inconsistent with any single crash point. As I discussed in “Nowhere to Look for MH370″ and “Update on MH370 Drift Modeling Enigma,” an arm of the Australian government called the CSIRO has done considerable work trying to figure out how debris might have drifted from somewhere in the southern Indian Ocean to the shores of Africa and the islands of the western Indian Ocean. To make a long story short, there is no point from which debris would be expected to arrive at the spots where it was found in the correct time interval.
6– No consistent end-of-flight scenario. Frequency data from the 7th and final Inmarsat ping indicate that MH370 was in a steep an accelerating dive. Yet the only way the plane’s wreckage could have escaped detection until now is if it glided beyond the area already searched by sonar. This inconsistency has long been known, and was reiterated in the most recent CSIRO paper. It was compounded by a report issued by the Malaysian government earlier this year called the “Debris Examination Report,” as I discussed in “Reading the Secrets of MH370’s Debris.” There is also puzzlement over how the flaperon could have become physically separated from the plane.
7– Doubts about the provenance of the debris. As I’ve explained in previous posts, there are some glaring red flags in the way that most of the pieces of MH370 were collected.
These seven reasons are all predicated on evidence that has to do with MH370 itself. There is, however, an eighth reason that has to do with a separate event four and a half months later. On July 17, 2014, a missile launcher from Russia’s 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade shot down Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, one of only 14 sister ships to MH370. At first many assumed that the shootdown was an accident perpetrated by confused militiamen, but we now know that the operation was coordinated by the GRU (Russian military intelligence), and was subsequently the subject of an intense disinformation campaign by the GRU. As for the motive, we have no idea. Nor do we have any idea why the Russians would want to hijack MH370. But statistically, 100% of Malaysia Airlines 777-200ERs that come to grief in flight and whose cause is known have fallen victim to Russian military intelligence. If we are to let reason be our guide, that should be the first place to look in trying to solve the MH370 mystery, not the last.
Would there not though, in your opinion, be an argument for searching the new proposed areas – especially given the ‘no win, no fee’ premise of the search being offered – if for no other reason to further exclude these areas?
@Will, I agree, I’d be more than happy for them to search it out. I disagree with journalists who say that Australian officials are cowardly or irresponsible for not re-starting the search, though.
Also, it seems to me that if they do search this area and found nothing, those who assume the southern scenario is correct still wouldn’t find reason to question their assumptions.
Hi Jeff – been awhile since I posted anything. anyways – nice sum up of your argument, as always, well written so it makes sense to all types of folks, including simple ones like me. I kinda gave up reading for awhile when they quit searching. anyways…
What I see lacking however is motive (which you also pointed out). I think in order for me to be more convinced, I would need motive included in this narrative.
Are you confident enough to guess on what that might be? And I would think your guess as to the reasoning would also have to include why it require it to go on for years now.
@Billy, Thanks, glad to see you back here. I’ve thrown out some possible motives for the Russians to have taken MH370, but I think best way to answer might be to turn it around: What do you think their motive was for MH17?
Could be that MH370 was/is instrumental in the new weapon that the russians seem to have, the one that is jamming/fouling GPS signal and caused the recent 4 US Navy incidents?
@Radu, The “zero day back” that the Russians would have used to take MH370 is different from the spoofing technique that they have been apparently experimenting with involving GPS, but both would appear to be part of a larger strategy to muddle and confuse the West through a variety of means.
@Jeff
Do you believe the coordinates on Shah’s simulator were planted?
I agree that the 18:25 reboot is very suspicious. A solid reason (for depowering the SDU) is still missing.
Your “crazy” theory seems to be coming true, Jeff. Its not just coincidental that ships keep ramming into each other. Whatever was on that plane is now in the hands of whoever is toying with the Navy. I guess Ive caught the crazy bug as well.
@Tex, Welcome to the club!
@DennisW, You’re right to raise the issue of the flight simulator, as it appears to be a powerful piece of evidence pointing to a Zaharie suicide run into the SIO. But I feel that the case is not so cut-and-dried as Victor I and some others would have it; for one thing, the data points appear not represent a continuous flight but rather a series of simulations run from a common save point. And the idea that the plane was heading for a point in Antarctica beyond its fuel range is one that I find speculative at best, rather than an established finding, as some seem to be treating it. Long and short, when weighed against all the other evidence, I think the likelihood is that the flight sim data amounts a remarkable coincidence.
Thank you very much for this comprehensive abstract of an otherwise highly technical subject
For me this comes down to stress the more and more developping magnitude of an unseen criminal political case.
If we see the effort that was necessary to undertake such a sophisticated operation, there are few mercenary organisations (no state agency would ever dare to take part in such a crime), who fit the criteria in personnel and professional training.
There seems to be an abundance of this kind of organizations in just the disputed territory of Crimea, eastern Ukraine which is a smuggling hub like the straits of malakka and Kuala Lumpur.
The search for a possible motive should start here and could maybe lead to a state sponsor, who will of course deny its involvement.
Since the Flight was going to Beijing, which is a hub for freight to north korea, and since north korea is dependent on delivery of parts and technical hardware and software for the construction of their rockets (built in ukraine) and their progress towards miniaturization of nuclear bombs by smuggling ONLY, i would suggest that this flight might have been taken because it was a transport of smuggling contraband to north korea.
Its just a tentative draft, to think in the above direction, but i just want to outline the magnitude of this case
@CosmicAcademy said:
“i would suggest that this flight might have been taken because it was a transport of smuggling contraband to north korea.”
If the flight was diverted to prevent its cargo reaching its destination, it would need to be a one-off cargo that couldn’t be repeated.
Otherwise the sender could simply re-send a new delivery at a later time.
There is nothing to indicate the search will not proceed or that the Australians are not pressing forward other than a leach of credible information pointing to a specific location. In which case a no-find, no-fee is one of a number of possibilities for an officially sanctioned search of the SIO.
You could well be right and there will be no further search in the SIO, I think there will be. I’m content to wait and see who is wrong.
There is more than enough evidence that contradicts all of your seven points and even several items within each.
1. There are photographs of seventy debris items in the search area. These have been published with the last week by the ATSB.
The Malaysian and Australians have made clear that they believe the aircraft came down in the wider Search Area. The search you refer to has been their, first, Priority, second, Bayesian/Extended, third, Remaining, best guesses. They have never stated they believe it is not out with the wider area.
2. The SDU can be manually switched on manually if it had been turned off earlier. It happens at the start of every flight by every aircraft in the world, otherwise my Flightradar24 screen would be almost permanently blank.
3. The debris discovered so far indicated it flew south after it left the north of Sumatra. There is nothing tangible to indicate it flew north. Using speculation any number of route can be suggested, finding supporting evidence is the hard bit.
4. It’s just not true that no one has suggested a natural means this could happen. I have.
5. There are several drift studies that show it originated in the wider SIO search area, specifically CSIRO, Adrift, UWA and two more whose name escape me,
6. If the aircraft came down as little as 1.0km outside the searched area it would not have been found by now. Nobody responsible has ever said the search area was accurate to the nearest kilometre.
7. There is no evidence to dispute or doubt the provenance of the debris discovered so far, other than speculation in which case are an infinite number of reasons to do so.
Using speculation alone is the only 100% sure way to link MH17 and MH370.
An interesting article from last year that I haven’t seen before … the families of the two Ukrainians and the Russian are claiming compensation in the Malaysian court:
“KUALA LUMPUR – March 4, 2016 : With three days to go before the deadline for the filing of civil suits against Malaysian Airline System Bhd (MAS) under the Montreal Convention is due, 12 families, including four from overseas, have initiated legal proceedings against the company over the disappearance of Flight MH370.
The families filed their suits at the High Court civil registry here yesterday.
With the latest addition, this means 16 suits relating to the ill-fated flight en route from here to Beijing on March 8, 2014, have so far been filed, with one of them settled out of court last June.
Among the plaintiffs yesterday were two Ukrainian families.
The first concerned Tetiana Yevhenivna Chustrak, the widow of Oleg Volodymyrovych Chustrak, and their sons – Yevhen, Denys and Roman Olegovych Chustrak.
The second were Natalia Viktorivna Bragina-Deineka, the widow of Sergii Grygorovych Deineka, their daughter Yelyzaveta Sergiivna Deineka, her mother-in-law Olena Vasylivna Deineka and father-in-law Grygoriy Nikandrovych Deineka.
Their lawyer Yeoh Cho Kheong told reporters that Chustrak and Deineka, both 44, were business partners who were said to be each earning an annual income of about US$2mil.
Another lawyer, Sangeet Kaur Deo, said 10 families also filed similar civil suits against MAS and four others – Malaysia Airlines Bhd, the Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) director-general, air force chief and the Government.
Sangeet said her clients comprised eight Malaysians, a Russian and a Chinese national who preferred to withhold their identities.
They are claiming for the following passengers: Malaysians Tan Teik Hin, Guan Hua Jin, Anne Catherine Daisy, Wan Hock Khoon, Yap Chee Meng, Muzi Yusop, Suhaili Mustafa, Sim Keng Wei, Chinse national Ju Kun and Russian Nikolai Brodskii. ”
So were all three legit after all?
It seems odd they left the matter of quantum for the court to decide though.
@Jeff Wise:
I was wondering: IIUC the IG interprets the final BFO values as a steep descent (plunge) into the SIO.
What would be the equivalent of the southern route’s final plunge for your northern route to Kazakhstan?
I mean, how would your northern route satisfy the BFO values ?
Would there be a final plunge the northern route as well, juste like for the southern route ?
last line should read:
Would there also be a final plunge in the northern route, just like for the southern route ?
@Tex/@all
The GPS system is not a collision avoidance system. It is a navigation system. In addition to GPS virtually all US Navy combat and support ships have inertial navigation systems and radar. It is simply implausible to attribute the recent spate of collisions to GPS spoofing. It is human error plain and simple – not paying attention and/or not following proper protocols.
In an of itself, GPS spoofing is very difficult to implement. I know of no instance when it has been successfully implemented over a wide area. Jamming yes. Spoofing no.
@DennisW- From npr….”The $1.8 billion Fitzgerald is one of the most modern and technologically advanced warships afloat, capable of using its powerful sensors to look up into space, if necessary, and reach up to hit targets there with its battery of missiles.” Are we to believe a ship this ship has no collision avoidance systems in place?
@Tex
I am sure it does have such systems. GPS is not one of them.
@Tex
BTW, most (if not all) of the GPS spoofing dialog is coming from journalistic sources. You want to believe that, be my guest.
@DennisW, @Tex, It’s not entirely clear if the issue here is GPS or some other vulnerability. This McClatchy story (http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/national-security/article168470432.html) has an interesting quote from a person who seems to have reputable credentials:
@Peter Norton, The northern route hypothesizes that the BFO values were generated artificially in order to create the appearance of a flight to the south, so would presumably have no real-world meaning. Inexplicable values such as those at 18:25 could have resulted from a mistake or inaccuracy in the spoofing algorithm.
@PS9, Yes, I saw this and found it extremely interesting that these guys were being billed as making $2 million a year. That’s sounds like a lot of money for two employees of an internet-only furniture company in Odessa that has no address or land line. I’m trying to reach out to the lawyer to find out more but have been unsuccessful so far.
I do agree with DennisW on the aspect of spoofing military navigation. It would probably be almost impossible. But these merchant ships do use civilian GPS and seem to be making wild maneuvers, and ram these guided missile destroyers. Wether it be accident or deliberate, its very strange.
Thank you for your reply, Jeff. I’m not sure I understand, though.
How can the BFO data simultaneously have meaning (because it simulates a flight to the south) and “have no real-world meaning” ?
And does the “plunging” BFO data (which suggests a steep dive at the end of the southern route) also suggest a steep dive at the end of the northern route ?
Peter Norton: Assume someone developed and planted the seed of the southern route by planting the data that led people to believe the southern route (so the data is artificial). Then when you look at that artificial data and also look at other data that has been developed in the course of the investigation and find that the two separate sets of data are inconsistent with each other (if one happened, the other is unlikely or impossible). Then that fact itself is interesting right? It suggests that something you think you know is true, really is not. In this thought process, somebody generated a way to make people think the plane went South and nose dived, but then real world investigation discovers that is seems unlikely it really did nose dive. If it really didn’t nose dive, but data from ONE source says it did…THAT tells you something is fishy with the data (either you interpreted it wrong, or you were mislead with fake data). Think of it like planting evidence that The Butler did it, but then finding out he couldn’t possibly have done it because he was verifiably out of town. The misleading clue is itself a clue.
@Drake, Very well put.
@PS9
(re: your prior thread comment)
I agree Victor’s 180S CMH path with constant -100 fps descent is interesting. My feeling is that the Arc2 to Arc5 BTO’s seem to clearly show the impact of the prevailing winds, so that would be CMH or CMT (constant Heading mode which the aircraft moves laterally based on the wind. So I like the 180S cases and there are options how it might have been done.
In general I like to assume the flight from about 20:00 until 22:41 was straight and level, but I am open to more complexity (eg; -100 fps) if it helps.
Just viewed again a “Complément d’Enquete” documentary on French television about MH370.. They state a very simple question which is maybe relevant wrt this discussion: how sure are we in the first place that the airplane actually turned west when the transponder was turned off? Seems that the evidence of the primary radar tracks is rather thin. Is this of any relevance to the debate or would this not change anything wrt the interpretation of Inmarsat data?
@Mph, The radar data seems pretty sound, and matches well both with the 18:25 ping arc and with the Penang cell phone record. So I think the French doc got this wrong.
@TBill, If Victor’s path is correct, then MH370 took a sequence of turns and descents that just happened, by a one-in-a-million sequence, to produce BFO values that match a much simpler straight route at level altitude. Therefore this seems quite unlikely.
@ Drake: Thank you for the explanation.
@ Jeff Wise:
Ok, I understand your point now.
My question is still on the table, however:
Do the last BFO data points, which – in the context of a southern route – suggest a steep dive, also suggest a steep dive when interpreted as part of a northern route ?
I know you think the BFO data is artificial and thus meaningless, but still: let’s just say, we take the BFO data at face value – do they suggest a steep dive at the end of the northern route, just like in the south *OR* do they suggest something entirely different for the north (no steep dive, but for example gradual descent, or manoeuvring, or something else entirely …) ?
@Peter Norton, I see, you’re asking if one imagines that the spoofing algorithm were turned off prior to the 7th ping, and the BFO value produced were a result of normal errors in the system, what would it suggest about the plane’s movement? It’s an interesting question, but one I haven’t tackled.
@Jeff Wise
If you have any data/proof after 18.25 that is better than the data/proof that has been gathered so far after 3 1/2 years than come up with it.
Anything that by comparison can stand a test on equal terms.
Where is the data that show a flight to the north-west took place?
Where is the data that proves any country passed on a north-west flight saying they did not detect MH370 were lying?
Where is the plane or the debris if it flew to the north-west without leaving a trace after 3 1/2 years? Without any withnesses?
It has shown that it has been impossible to find any evidence on your Kazachstan/Russian scenario after 3 1/2 years.
On the contrary all strong available evidence points to a crash-site in the SIO.
No evidence at all points to a crash-site somewhere on a north-west route or let alone mainland Russia or China or whatever.
Imo you have to provide same strong evidence to make your case.
No offence meant, I always respect your independent point of view against all odds if you believe you have to do so.
@Ge Rijn, I think you misunderstand my theory. I am not suggesting that it crashed in the north; I’m suggesting that it was hijacked and flew safely to the north. I believe that quite a bit of evidence has accumulated in the course of the last 3 1/2 years, and the purpose of this article is to outline it. If you would like to examine each point more closely you can click through the links.
@Jeff Wise
I read all those links over the years and on many of them I commented quite often you probably should know I guess but maybe with all those different commentors your memory is failing you now and then. Never mind.
The point is you can propose seven reasons why MH370 isn’t in the SIO.
Anyone can propose multiple reasons why MH370 did not crash in the SIO.
But no one till now could come up with sufficient proof/evidence it did not crash in the SIO.
Mentioning why it would not have crashed in the SIO is a lot easier than to prove why it did not, against all other evidence conflicting this theory.
So, to stir the pot, any number of motives could be behind a hijacking. My theories all involve the Freescale employees
1) FOR THE TECH: Foreign power quest for technology and/or knowledge of one or all of the Freescale employees on board the plane. Freescale was heavily involved in telecom/network tech, the key systems for spy work. This particular group went around inspecting production at every facility (quality). At least that’s what I have heard. What better cover is there to insure the hardware is produced with a back door for use by some nation (like China or the USA). After news of listening to Germany’s leaders cell calls, it seems possible there is/was such a back door. We’ve heard more recently about other NSA hardware access to cameras, laptops, TV’s, etc.. Nations would seriously kill for such access. But how to do so without making it apparent, especially if you don’t know which of the 20 can help you. Get them all and make it look like a strange accident. Leading Candidate: Russia
2.) FOR THE MONEY: Freescale was in battle with a number of others with cutting edge tech and sometime with arguments over patent issues. The company had large investors and was involved in merger/takeover talks. In fact, one year later billions changed hands in a merger/sale. What impact did this loss have on any of those situations? There is at least one major foreign power with a leader with gobs of money to invest….Russia.
So, has anyone investigated Russian money ties to any of these companies.
Has anyone investigated the qualifications of those 20 Freescale employees and what they may have been doing either officially or unofficially with their capabilities in the company? We may never know, but we certainly could find out their talent set and what they officially were capable of. That could be a clue. What access they had at each plant could be another. The reason we may get no answers on this is that neither side in this equation would want to acknowledge any association with such abilities.
Russia has declared itself to be engaged heavily in electronic warfare capability. Who doesn’t remember the United States using a GPS guided bomb used to destroy Russia’s GPS jamming system during the Gulf War? Since that fiasco I am sure Russia has been all in to up their game. More recently they claimed they disabled a US Navy warship with electronics. So why wouldn’t they be willing to use tech to steal more tech access?….and money is the oldest play in the game of evil empires.
It could well have been an accident or suicide, but to me the facts point somewhere else. There are plenty of motives. As to the motive for MH17. In my opinion it could be as simple as access to parts to fake debris in the SIO. Why not just use the plane they hijacked (MH370)? Simple, they needed to simulate realistic crash damage. Damage they could not reproduce in a lab with the airframe they had. Alternatively, they already destroyed or concealed the MH370 airframe and couldn’t get to it to gather parts for this mission. Second possible motive, they realized a possible flaw in something they did and needed parts from a nearly identical plane see if it was a real concern or to fix something they already set in motion. Third, they just wanted parts of a nearly identical plane, gathered by their military and stored on their base(s) so that in years to come stories of MH370 parts witnessed in Russia could be explained away as confusion with MH17. As hideous an act as it was, the downing of MH17 over a war zone is something they obviously can get away with. An actual hijacking of a plane by Russia would most certainly come with a much higher penalty….in particular think of the reaction of China to this act if it was discovered Russia did this. The world would crush Russian leadership if this was verified. I think even the Russian people would cringe and revolt if such a story was found to be true.
To me, when you look at Russia’s actions everywhere this seems like something he is capable of doing. The key is knowing if it was worth it to them (for tech or for money).
@Drake, Thanks for reminding me about the deza campaign about the Russian airplane supposedly electronically disabling the US warship. An interesting footnote.
@Ge Rijn, You wrote, “Anyone can propose multiple reasons why MH370 did not crash in the SIO.” We are discussing evidence, not imaginary ideas. There is hard evidence that MH370 did not go into the SIO. The the fact that every plausible area of the SIO has already been searched out would rank as perhaps number one. Another would be that the SDU was deliberately tampered with. I could go on, but I’d just be repeating the points I’ve already made in the piece.
@Jeff Wise: We are still talking at cross purposes but are getting closer. If I understand your spoofing scenario correctly, in your theory the BFO data is faked. The faked BFO data suggests a path to the south, because they are not a good fit for a northern route.
My question is different, however. Just for argument’s sake, let’s assume the BFO data has not been tampered with at all (that’s what I meant above when saying “let’s just say, we take the BFO data at face value”) – I thought a northern path seems rather unlikely assuming the BFO data is correct, but, if I recall correctly, is not 100% impossible, meaning that you can construct northern paths that fit the BFO data (they would of course not be straight paths, but include turns and variations in speed and altitude, e.g. gradual descents).
My question then is: How do these northern paths (which I just described in the previous paragraph) look like? Especially at the end, in the final minutes, during which the plane would have entered a steep descent if it had followed a southern path? Do the final BFO values, which suggest a steep descent for a southern route, suggest the same for a northern route … or something entirely different?
@Peter Norton, You can’t really get meaningful paths to the north with untampered BFO values. I mean, it’s conceivable in the sense that at each ping the plane could be ascending or descending at a particular rate, but the probability is like buying a lottery ticket.
I noticed on an Inmarsat sheet long ago (that I can’t find now), that the Perth GES looks at both the IOR and POR sats. Has anyone done an analysis of what the BTO’s and BFO’s would predict if the GES log was wrong, and the actual sat the AES logged on to was the POR ?
… even if you not only allow – as you do in your posting – variations in vertical speed (RoC), but:
• variations in vertical speed (RoC)
• variations in horizontal speed (groundspeed)
• variations in heading (course)
• manoeuvres
?
Simply put: a manually piloted flight ?
Or even more plausible: a radar-evasive manually piloted flight (which would be required for a northern path) ?
I am not sure if the lottery ticket analogy is right.
Just think of it this way:
Jeff Wise goes to Paris and …
… takes subway lines n°1 and n°17 to go to the Eiffel Tower, then
… takes subway lines n°10 and n°11 to go to the Louvre, then
… takes subway lines n°15 and n°1 to go to the Champs Elysées, then
[…] and so on and so forth […], and then finally
… takes subway line n°7 (I’m just making up the numbers) to go to the airport.
The probability would be like winning the lottery, yes, but with everything you do, every day …
What are the odds, that today you chose a blue-and-white striped tie, made exactly 12 phone calls, watched CNN and History Channel, paid exactly $58.52 at Wallmart, drank exactly 0.1317 gallons of milk, … I could go on and on.
Bottom line:
For argument’s sake, let’s assume MH370 flew to the north in a radar-evasive manually piloted flight, leaving an untampered BFO data trace. How would you then distinguish THIS (real) BFO data from the BFO data currently in our hands ?
@Peter Norton, The road you’re going down is the same one that the DSTG covered in its “Bayesian Methods” e-book. The upshot is that scenarios like the one you’re presenting get ruled out on probabilistic grounds. A great many people have a hard time getting their heads around this.
Probability grounds? Before it happened, even what we know for a fact was not probable. It makes sense to pursue the most probable explanations first, but at some point you pursue every possibility.
Dis-info/ roads leading to nowhere follow the money??The reaction and handling of this Aviation Tragic Event says more than anything about it ;Like the Mafia hiding disposing of the body after the hit,No we dont know what happened but it seems to us that undoubtedly the facts and events of the disappearance of MH370 is so complex and so bizarre that things dont add up without deliberate human involvement and as long as we dont know what happened it can happen again and that is the most diabolic concerning thing that will linger as will those lost souls and their families looking for closure
@ JW thanks for welcoming me back. I have renewed enthusiasm lately dude.
your question: “What do you think their motive was for MH17?”
I’m not qualified enough to answer that.
but truthfully, I don’t think I need to be. Because even though MH17 is suspicious for sure, I just can’t see some plot being so valuable that it would require two civilian flight plots to do it.
It just seems like way too grand of a scheme with way too high of cost, risk, and consequences. If they needed a 777 or something it just seems like there would be a way better way to acquire one over the last three years or use another plane or something.
So I don’t think they are related.
btw I’m not attacking your Northern route theory. I just don’t think they would involve another airplane to do it.
Hi Drake –
I don’t want just sit around and shoot holes in your theory. so maybe help me understand better.
1. if you need to kidnap those 20 people it seems pretty unlikely to me that you’d want to depend they’d all make that flight.
this whole MH 370 is like a pretty huge operation with all of the things that have been involved, it would take a ton of planning. you’d need to know a super long time in advance those people would be on that flight.
and then you’d need to have someone relay the message that all the people you needed actually got on it somehow. I business travel a lot. I have never, ever been in a situation where in a flight like that 20 people all got on from my company and came home at the same time when they were supposed to. they usually never book the flights at the same time, and most people wait until the last minute because of busy business schedules. so you’d have to put this plan together somehow assuming in advance you know the people you need would be there. seems far-fetched.
and even if they would have booked together on the same flight, it is not very predictable to me from a planning perspective. people stay for vacation, they get drunk and sleep in, they get stuck in traffic, they get bumped by the airline. lots of reasons why they might not be there.
so putting an enormous operation like this together and depending it upon people being on a flight together seems like risky planning to me. idk – maybe you don’t feel the same way.
2. and to the idea that they destroyed MH17 for the parts. that seems really unpredictable to me too. the plane was shot out of the air into a war zone. if I were planning that, I’d want to know that I was actually able to a) make sure parts would be leftover that I could actually use for this coverup thingy and b) be able to recover them from enemy territory .
both of those seem unlikely to me, but I’m all ears for a rebuttal.
Would you mind explaining why ?
I was hoping for a reply to the content of my posting. I am unsure as to why it doesn’t qualify.
Agreed. I don’t have an opinion on what happened, but I think we can all agree that whatever happened, must be something very out of the ordinary. In fact, with all the conflicting details out there, I don’t see how once the final story will emerge, it will be anything other than outlandish.
@Donald
I once proposed a very speculative possibility the plane was shot at by the Malaysian Airforce just before the final radar-blip at 18:22.
Which damaged the plane and one way or another (one engine and hull damaged) caused the log-on at 18:25.
Maybe a primary flight-plan/destination was abandoned by the pilot soon after (18:40?) and he decided to steer the plane straight into the SIO which could have been a Plan-B in case his primary mission would fail. In an attempt to let the plane and evidence of malicious intend vanish.
In such a case I can imagine a pilot could commit suicide somewhere after FMT for the primary mission had failed or he perished when he ran out of oxigen some time after the plane got decompressed when the hull was damaged by a Malaysian Airforce attack just before 18:22.
Far fetched and highly unlikely but while you asked for ghost-flight scenarios after FMT I liked to mention to you this one again.
@Peter Norton, I guess what I’m saying is that I don’t feel I can explain the contents of a long and technical ebook better than the ebook itself.
@Jeff Wise
Thank you for a very interesting article. There is palpable reluctance to continue the search in the SIO at a very high level suggesting also it may not be there.
Not discussed is the chandelle turn at IGARI plus switching the transponders off….sorry they ceased to be operational. Transponders apparently ‘stopped working’ on AA11, UA175, AA77 & UA93 in a ‘similar manner’.
This does not preclude an SIO terminus but suggests malicious intent and goes hand in hand with a spoofing of the ISAT data. I accept there is not a direct logical connection here, only an inference.
If the ISAT data is honest then 9M-MRO should be on the 7th arc ~37 degrees south in the SIO. This primary search zone has failed with a false negative <0.1%. I accept its not zero (@Vector-1). However I agree with you this failure is telling (point 1). Or 9M-MRO could be is Kazakhstan (purely speculative).
If the ISAT data has been spoofed which seems increasingly likely then 9M-MRO could be anywhere. A kind of inverse logic described brilliantly by @Drake applies. If we've been made to think its in the SIO then that's where it isn't.
A possible motive for MH17 could be Russia acting in 'self defense' if they had reasonable grounds to believe that 9M-MRO was to be Russia's 9/11 moment.