Three years, six months, and 26 days ago, a sophisticated hijacker (or hijackers) made of with a Malaysia Airlines 777 with 239 people aboard. In the course of doing so he, she or they expended considerable effort to befuddle pursuers. Today, that effort has officially been crowned with success. The Australian agency charged with the conducting the pursuit, the Australian Transport Safety Board, has thrown in the towel. In a final report issued today, The Operational Search for MH370, it stated that “we share your profound and prolonged grief, and deeply regret that we have not been able to locate the aircraft.”
There’s a good deal of material here–the whole report is 440 pages long–and I’d like to boil down the key takeaways.
Major omission
As I’ve said many times before, the key clue in the disappearance of MH370 is the fact that the Satellite Data Unit–the piece of equipment which generated the all-important Inmarsat data–was turned off and then back on again at 18:25. This process cannot happen accidentally, and is beyond the ken even of most experienced airline captains, and thus provides powerful evidence that the disappearance was the work of sophisticated operators. This document does not even mention the SDU reboot. Only by ignoring it can the ATSB can maintain a state of indeterminacy as to “whether or not the loss of MH370 was the result of deliberate action by one or more individuals, or the result of a series of unforeseen events or technical failures.”
Budget
Various figures have been thrown around for the total cost, but on page 7 we actually get an official tabulation: $198 million Australian, or US$155 million.
Radar
One of the most significant revelations in the new report comes in this paragraph on page 10:
Radar data shows the aircraft then headed to the northwest, eventually aligning with published air route N571 from IFR waypoint VAMPI. The validity of this section of the radar data was verified using the track of a commercial flight that followed N571 about 33 NM behind MH370. The aircraft continued to the northwest until a final radar position for the aircraft was recorded approximately 10 NM beyond IFR waypoint MEKAR at 1822:12
This seems to be a validation of the “Lido Hotel” image, showing near-continuous radar coverage of the plane as it flew up the Malacca Strait, and is a direction contradiction of the description provided by the DSTG in their “Bayesian Method” report, which unequivocally stated that
The radar data contains regular estimates of latitude, longitude and altitude at 10 s intervals from 16:42:27 to 18:01:49. A single additional latitude and longitude position was reported at 18:22:12.
This description now seems like a deliberate misrepresentation. To what end? It seems to me that the DSTG’s characterization makes it easier to discard the radar data after 18:01:49. By doing so, they were able to avoid concluding that the plane was turning rightward, to the northwest, between the final radar return and the first ping. This, in turn, would alter the calculated probability distribution such that routes to the north would be more prevalent vis a vis those to the south.
Flight Simulator
On page 98, the report describes the data recovered from Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah’s flight simulator, without reaching any firm conclusions about the implications for the investigation. It states that the simulated flight was conducted on February 2, 2014, but doesn’t state the reason for believing this. Curiously, the report then almost immediately describes this date as “six weeks before the accident flight,” when of course February 2 is less than five weeks before March 8. Also, the report mischaracterizes the simulation data points as showing a continuous flight up the Malacca Strait and then down into the southern Indian Ocean. In fact the data points show a series of iteratively spawned flights with altitude, location, and fuel loads changed between flight segments.
The report comes to no conclusion as to whether the existence of this data points to Zaharie’s culpability.
Debris
The report spends considerable time weighing the possibility that the pilot carried out a long controlled dive followed by a ditch in the ocean, but ultimately concludes that the plane hit with considerable velocity, as stated on page 101: “While no firm conclusions could be drawn given the limited amount of debris, the type, size and origin on the aircraft of these items generally indicated that there was a significant amount of energy at the time the aircraft impacted the water, not consistent with a successful controlled ditching.” This would tend to put the plane’s final resting place close to the 7th arc.
Barnacle temperature analysis
There was not, unsurprisingly, any mention of the distribution of the barnacles around the entire surface of the flaperon, nor was there any attempt to grapple with the fact that his distribution is not commensurate with the flotation test results which show that the piece rode high in the water. As with the SDU reboot, the default setting of the ATSB appears to be ignore whatever evidence counterindicates its narrative.
One of the surprises for me was the revelation that the Réunion barnacle shell sent to Australian scientist Paul De Deckker was among the largest found on the flaperon (page 107). This shell had previously been described as 25 mm in length, whereas one of the leaked French reports described the largest barnacle as 39 mm. The former is much closer to the measurement I came up with through my own informal image analysis back in 2015 (23mm), and revives my questions about the age of the barnacles. Indeed, De Deckker writes on page 14 of his attached report (Appendix F) that “It could be assumed the specimens analysed here were quite young, perhaps less than one month.”
I hope to return to the topic of De Deckker’s temperature analysis in the near future.
Appendix G
The ATSB had long signaled that it would ultimately release the results of a biological examination of aircraft debris, and that came in the form of the attached report “Summary of Analyses Undertaken on Debris Recovered During the Search for Flight MH370.”
One aspect of the examination dealt with sediment found within the pieces, to see if they had come ashore and then been washed back out to sea before coming to shore once more. I imagine that if this had been found to have been the case, then it would explain the relative absence of marine life on some of the pieces. But in the event, no evidence was found than any of the pieces had come to shore more than once.
Another aspect was to try to gauge the age of marine organisms found on the pieces, in order to judge how long they had been in the water. Obviously, the presumption was that they had been in the water since the crash, about two years previous. But between the Liam Lotter’s flap track fairing (item 2) and Blaine Gibson’s “No Step” (item 3) only a single specimen, of the species Petaloconchus renisectus, appeared to be more than two months old. This individual was judged to be 8-12 months old. Likewise, the barnacles found on Item 5, the door stowage closet, had been growing “likely between 45 to 50 days.” What happened to the sealife that we would expect to have colonized the objects during their first year in the water? Either it vanished without a trace or it was never there in the first place, for some reason.
A third aspect of the examination was to determine what part of the ocean the pieces had traveled through, based on the types of species they contained. Only tropical species were found, with no trace of colonization in the cooler waters where the plane is presumed to have impacted.
Remarkably:
About two-thirds of the molluscs recovered from Items 2 and 3 must have been lodged onto the aircraft part(s) by waves when /they drifted ashore or were cast up on the beach(es) or by accidental human contamination [as in dragging the wreckage across the beach during its recovery]. Any handful of sediment, even a small one, from a tropical locality in the Indian Ocean would contain a very high diversity [hundreds] of dead shells of such species.. The natural habitat of the recovered molluscs is shallow water, on clean coral sand or in seagrass meadows. None of them could or would ever attach to drifting debris.
In other words, none of the sealife on these objects indicated that they had floated large distances across the open ocean. So much of it was indigenous to near-shore habitats that the scientists examining it assumed that it must be due to contamination.
Acknowledgements
However one might feel about the perpetrators of MH370, one has to admit a grudging admiration for the audacity of their feat. They managed to make a massive airplane disappear into thin air, and to defeat the best efforts of the world’s leading aviation experts to figure out what they had done. I would call it the greatest magic trick of all time. Needless to say, achievements of this scale cannot be accomplished without some skilled help. The latest report takes time on page 120 to offer special recognition to some familiar names, including Mike Exner, Victor Iannello, Don Thompson, Richard Godfrey, and of course Blaine Alan Gibson. Their determination to keep all eyes focused on the official narrative helped prevent the ATSB, the press, and the general public from asking the hard questions that might have prevented the current outcome.
Hi Jeff,
Thanks for this, very interesting. I’m just wondering if you are planning on gathering further opinion from experts on the results of the barnacle/marine life investigations – I’d love to get a gauge on how unusual or unexpected these results are.
@tr1ptych, I feel like I’ve talked to enough marine biologists who study this kind of thing to get the sense that the condition of these pieces is not generally what one would expect them to be in–they just don’t look like they’ve been in the water that long. The problem is that that general sense just doesn’t feel very probative to a lot of people. However, I think you’re getting at a really important point here. The Australians have had these biofouling results for a long time, so why are they only releasing them now? I think because they simply don’t support the narrative. You may recall that when the flaperon first turned up, we heard noises to the effect that the barnacles were 15 months old, which is how long the piece was supposed to have been in the water. Well, now we’re hearing that they’re about two months (which is what I said at the time). This is not impossible–pieces can get grazed more or less clean by sea turtles and the like, and then another generation has to grow. But you’d think that there’d be at least one older specimen somewhere on at least one of these pieces…
reading bits and pieces of that report.
I had not fully understood the dangers to the humans doing the search. Sounds miserable and dangerous. Also probably under-appreciated. I would not want to do it. 20 m waves, no thanks. maybe that is common or whatever for those guys but I think it would still suck.
Thank you to those folks out there that signed up and worked on this at sea.
[post redacted] @Ge Rijn, You were given a warning. From now on your posts will need to be manually approved by me before they can appear.
Quote: (Three years, six months, and 26 days ago, a sophisticated hijacker (or hijackers) made of with a Malaysia Airlines 777 with 239 people aboard. In the course of doing so he, she or they expended considerable effort to befuddle pursuers)
Jeff, you are presenting this ‘claim’ as if it is a ‘fact’. To my knowledge, there has been NO Evidence to back such a claim either way. To me, without presenting your evidence of this claim, I see it as only ONE-of the many unsubstantiated conspiracy theories.
Why did you do this???? I usually find your posts more credible.
@Robert, It’s trivial if you know anything about the SDU, the timing of the turn at IGARI, and how the plane was flown back over the Malay peninsula. Anyone who says otherwise is blowing smoke up your ass. (Note: the perp could have been the captain, but whoever did it, the intend to evade and confuse is implicit in how the flight was conducted.)
@Jeff
“This document does not even mention the SDU reboot. Only by ignoring it can the ATSB can maintain a state of indeterminacy as to “whether or not the loss of MH370 was the result of deliberate action by one or more individuals, or the result of a series of unforeseen events or technical failures.”
The SDU reboot is mentioned on page 3 of Appendix B. Highlighting is mine.
Apart from a period between the last ACARS message at 17:07 hrs and the handshake at 18:25 hrs on the 7 March 14, the SATCOM link was available during the flight. This interruption of the SATCOM link occurred after ACARS had stopped transmitting messages and may have occurred for a number of reasons such as cycling of the electrical power, the aircraft’s antenna losing sight with the satellite or the resetting of the aircraft’s Satellite Display Unit (SDU). There is no record in the satellite Earth Station log of the link having been logged-off from the cockpit through the Control Display Unit (CDU); such an activity would have been automatically captured in the Earth Station log. The reason for the loss of the SATCOM link is currently being investigated by the aircraft and equipment manufacturers.
The bold reflects my annoyance of how an investigation can still be going on after 3.5+ years.
@DennisW, Good catch, I did miss that. Although I think my point remains valid, in that though they mention the issue they hardle grapple with it this document. Later in the search the ATSB seem to have arrived at the conclusion that the reboot was due to the SDU being power-cycled, but how or why was never addressed.
@Jeff
I agree. The SDU reboot has not been analyzed (or tested using similar hardware) in sufficient detail by the manufacturer.
Hi Jeff and Dennis – can you help me understand the significance of this part of the content DennisW posted:
“There is no record in the satellite Earth Station log of the link having been logged-off from the cockpit through the Control Display Unit (CDU); such an activity would have been automatically captured in the Earth Station log. ”
I’m not sure what it means, but I think they are saying something outside the cockpit caused the logoff. is that correct, and if so, what are the implications of it? is that important?
thanks 🙂
@Billy
The PIC can apparently elect to terminate aircraft data sent to the Inmarsat satellite. My understanding is that this “log-off” would be recorded by the Inmarsat system. That did not happen.
Removing power from the SDU is the only way to disrupt the period system “handshakes”(not actual data, more like hello are you there? and yes I am here.) Speculation is that is why (power removed) no handshakes were recorded from about 17:xx to 18:25. At 18:25 it is speculated that power was restored to the SDU, and a system logon was made.
After one quick read through, there seems to me, to be some inconsistency with the way some “lines of enquiry” are handled. Some are very thorough, very detailed, whilst others, much less so, almost perfunctory. I am beginning to think that the report, as originally drafted in ATSB, may have been bigger, more detailed in some areas, but that some of it has been “redacted” by Malaysia. Consider the uproar, not long ago, about “investigation insiders” not being happy, and the Chief Commissioner’s response. Food for thought.
I find it very concerning, that there is next to no NEW detail provided on the inboard section of the starboard outer flap.
(1) I can find no mention of any examination of the biofouling know (in photographs) to have been attached to the flap, in the vicinity of the flap track bracket attachment bolts, when it was recovered.
(2) I can find no mention of any axamination of the flap track bracket itself, let alone examination of it’s failure mode or it’s metalurgy.
(3) I can find no mention of any examination of the failure mode of the flap material itself, at the outboard end, or the trailing edge.
(4) I can find no mention of any refinement of the drift studies that supports the flap beaching at Pemba.
(5) Although David Griffin of the CSIRO eventually obtained a real used flaperon to cut down to resemble the item recoverred on Reunion, and tested it, with significant new insights being derived from that testing, I find it strange, even staggering, that in light of those findings, that there was apparently no attempt by ATSB or CSIRO to obtain a real used outboard flap, and do a similar study.
The fact remains, that the flaperon and the flap debris are the two largest samples yet found.
As such, their “floating” charateristics significantly affect projected area above the water, (unlike any of the other smaller debris) which significantly affects their windage, which significantly affects their leeway.
Consequently, their drift characteristics are totally different to the buoy data, as David Griffin has said. It is all very well to adjust the leeway factors in the models as they exist, but how confident can they be that they are correct ? You need solid “ground truth” drift data to verify or validate those factors in the model. That has been done with some extent by the flaperon trials, but not for the flap.
I think BOTH should have been, and still should be, exhaustively tested.
I therefore propose, that the ATSB and CSIRO be prevailed upon, by whatever means, to:-
(1) Obtain at least twenty more flaperons and twenty more flaps, from the airliner graveyards of America.
(2) That all forty be cut down to resemble the recovered items as closely as possible.
(3) That all forty be fully instrumented with GPS tracking devices.
(4) That all forty be “deployed” i.e. “seeded” on 8th March 2018, on the 7th Arc (by the navy, the RAN), in pairs, (one flaperon and one flap at each seed point) at twenty latitudes on the 7th Arc, i.e. latitudes: 25 South to 45 South, and watch them, by satellite, for the next couple of years.
@ Dennis
Cool, thanks man. That helps me understand it a lot better.
so I suppose the question is why was there no power.
could somebody have accidentally done this in a panic while trying to go through a checklist from memory, or from that avionics bay outside the cockpit and done this accidentally? the co-pilot was inexperienced, right?
might it also be a problem on the receiving end of the transmission? what if the SDU was transmitting fine but there was a problem on the Earth Station Log?
These are probably obvious ‘no ways’. I’m way out of my comfort zone here so I’m just trying to understand it better, thanks.
@Billy
I don’t know any more about it, really. I would be speculating.
@ventus45, I hear you. Another super-obvious line of inquiry would be to take a comprehensive look at the overall debris breakage patterns and try to figure out how they came apart. This was done in some detail with the flap/flaperon connection, why was not every piece examined in a similar manner? Was it because, as I speculated in my post on the subject, that it winds up not making any sense?
DennisW said and quoted by PS9 again:
“I think what Jeff is promoting is that the planted debris is from 9M-MRO – taken from the aircraft after it landed somewhere. I don’t think this can be done in a way to fool competent forensic experts.”
I would agree with this but for some reasons no one has access to the “competent forensic expert” report from the French authorities and the malaysian authorities did not conduct an expert review on the debris in hands. This is to me the biggest mistery. The latest ATSB report also avoid the debris expert report smartly deferring it back to the French and Malaysian authorities.
@Ventus: i agree the debris analysis could have informed the search. I presume it should have been within ATSB remit to do that as well. The training edge damage on the flaperon and the flap trailing edge damage in particular merits an explanation.
My whole impression of this report is that a scenario was developed based on interpretation of the Satcom data and all other compelling evidence (debris failure, hydroacoustic study, barnacles study, witness accounts) potentially contradicting the scenario were downplayed as opposed to be discussed and analysed independently.
@Jeff
On the budget, any rationale you are aware for China contribution to 10% despite most passengers being Chinese? I am surpised by the disproportion between China and Australia. One would have expected main contributor to be Malaysia, then China then Australia.
@HB
I don’t think the Chinese actually contributed much hard cash, they just offered services IN-KIND which amounted to about AU$20 million, or about 10% of total cost. (see p.16 footnote 6,7 of the report).
“In November 2015 the People’s Republic of China offered $20 million as a resource contribution to the search. This
contribution included the search vessel Dong Hai Jiu 101.”
This same ship was the source of controversy because some Aussies claimed it was there more to spy than to search.
The Australian: “Chinese MH370 search vessel ‘not looking but spying’”
@HB
Despite the loss of so many innocent Chinese civilians, the behaviour of the Chinese govt. in the search for MH370 is very suspicious.
In addition to the above mentioned story, take a look a one of the papers on VI’s blog titled China’s Pattern of Deception about MH370
http://mh370.radiantphysics.com/papers/
(hope Jeff doesn’t mind!)
Also, there was a bizarre story in the immediate aftermath of the disappearance of MH370 about the 2 men whose stolen passports were used by the Iranian illegal migrants. Apparently these 2 europeans had been hired in 2013 by a Chinese company to be dancers in Northern China for the early part of 2014. This story is fishy on many levels. But the Chinese govt. just hushed it up.
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1452721/businessman-hired-dancers-names-matching-flight-370-passports
To the spirit of aviation……
As a day one’er, I’ve eventually trained myself to stay out of the punch-up, but as it boils down – and as it surely must with time, I just thought this might touch a chord with anyone who has an iron in this fire still.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnKyjnwfpVU
@Matty — Perth, Thanks, that’s lovely.
@CliffG, I know that Victor has been on a crusade for quite a while now to pin the blame on the Chinese. In my estimation his case is so thin that I question whether he is arguing in good faith.
@HB, I agree with you that the Chinese have been less than enthusiastic about paying for this adventure, but I’d put that down to a combination of stinginess, not really caring, and possibly already understanding that the whole thing was a dog-and-pony show.
As to the question of whether debris planting “can be done in a way to fool competent forensic experts,” I would simply point out that the most recent ATSB report shows that there is no evidence than any of the debris discovered was in the water in 2014, and only a single individual marine specimen appears to be more than two months old. Meanwhile, the barnacle distribution pattern on the flaperon is impossible, and the fracture analysis shows a pattern of breakage that is very difficult to reconcile with an actual plane crash. So I don’t see evidence that an competent forensic experts have even been involved with this project.
@Jeff
@HB, I agree with you that the Chinese have been less than enthusiastic about paying for this adventure, but I’d put that down to a combination of stinginess, not really caring, and possibly already understanding that the whole thing was a dog-and-pony show.
Yes, a different culture for sure. Having been to Beijing a number of times I can attest to the fact that I had more rebar in my suburban driveway than the Chinese used in a three story building. Totally different priorities.
Jeff said:
“… but I’d put that down to a combination of stinginess, not really caring, and possibly already understanding that the whole thing was a dog-and-pony show.”
But why would the Chinese accept such a dog-and-pony show when they had most of the passengers on the aircraft and thus a legitimate reason to kick up a fuss and demand answers, as they did at the start? (And remember the zero-day attack)
As a thought experiment, what if we assume for a moment that all governments involved know what really happened, including the Chinese.
Let’s say Australia, the US and Britain already knew from the start – the FPDA control centre and radar in MY playing a major role. Malaysia finding out as the events took place and being told what to say and do, although belatedly. Russia knowing (or finding out) but in a different way – not part of the ‘circle’ of the informed. China having been told shortly after the event when it became obvious that they had to be let in on the truth or they might cause waves by demanding disclosure of information or providing its own (conflicting sat images etc), hence China’s sudden change in attitude from demands and belligerence to quiet acceptance, cooperation and apparent non-interest.
France being told when it analysed the flaperon and noticed the singularities (flotation attitude/barnacles etc) that didn’t fit the ‘story’ being disseminated via the media. All governments and agencies involved therefore contriving to keeping tight control of all information and analysis and putting out a vaguely believable yet unprovable story as a cover, but not really wanting the aircraft found or the disappearance explained, at least not publicly, because with it would have to come the ‘truth’ in the form of the data and voice recorders – and given all of the attempts at obfuscation in these events, it would be less than believable they were ‘lost’ or ‘unreadable’, so let’s not get into that situation.
[Proviso: if China’s initial anger and demands had been because they had ‘lost’ something as a result of the disappearance, let’s assume that acceptable ‘compensation’ in some form had also been agreed with them]
What possible (actual, true) scenario could satisfy so many governments that it was necessary (and in all of their interests, in some way) to keep quiet about and cover up what really happened? Especially, why is China cooperating?
It would have to be something a lot bigger (more global) than a terrorist hijacking, or even a suicide/mass murder by a crew member, wouldn’t it?
What about something ‘big’ like Malaysia’s lax security (eg. the mangosteins were a regular crop shipment and were only ‘inspected’ and not x-rayed) allowing a dirty nuke or bio weapon to be loaded and head for Beijing? The plot being discovered after takeoff but the aircraft deemed too dangerous to descend to land (barometric fuse set for an air burst?) so diverted over deep open ocean and shot down?
Any other scenarios?
@Jeff Wise, Ventus45. My attempt at entering my questions for David Griffin on their ECOS site stumbled but he has responded to them and a couple of others directly. While nothing new, this may be of general interest and to those on the VI site so I will post it there too.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/xwjvkz2b4jcea65/Questions%20to%20Dr%20David%20Griffin%20rev.docx?dl=0
Late extra Dr Griffin Q and A.
Q.Are you doing more drift modelling studies?
A.Our drift modelling system is used for many applications other than MH370, so we are continually improving and testing it. The 3rd dot point of the Conclusion section of report IV alludes to work that is ongoing. It may one day bear fruit for the MH370 investigation but we presently rate the chance of this as low, and have not advised anyone to wait for revised drift models of MH370, from us.
@David.
Thanks for posting your exchange with David Griffin.
@PS9
Interesting suggestion that all relevant governments knew from the start what happened to 9M-MRO. Problem is, as mentioned by @DennisW why burn through US$150 million plus put all those personnel at risk looking for it?
@Jeff Wise
Debris from uncontained engine failure on Air France AF066 has now been found in Greenland.
https://www.lesechos.fr/industrie-services/air-defense/030664809243-af66-les-debris-du-moteur-de-la380-dair-france-ont-ete-reperes-au-groenland-2119776.php
@PS9:
“…As a thought experiment, what if we assume for a moment that all governments involved know what really happened, including the Chinese…”
Can’t see the disparate nations involved sharing too much genuine information. Rather I think they all have decided individually to hide the real reason MH370 was disappeared for their own benefit, be that political, financial or military. It is obvious the spooks have had complete control over the investigation and have simply buried the truth.
@CliffG, Cool find, thanks for that.
@David, This is very great. I’ve wondered for the longest time what CSIRO would say if you asked them about the barnacle distribution, and you’ve got it right here: “No comment from me. Not my field.” This is essentially the same response that Neil Gordon of the DSTG when I asked him whether they’d contemplated the possibility of BFO spoofing.
@All, On the subject of whether the govts of China, the US, Malaysia, or wherever might have known what really happened to the plane: I’ve been steeping in this material for so long that it’s come to me to seem fairly obvious what happened. But once in a while I have to go explain what I think to someone who hasn’t been keeping up, and I’m reminded of how absolutely bonkers it seems on first hearing. So I would find it not at all hard to believe that all the governments around the world (apart from the perps) have been flummoxed.
How would your scenario unfold, once the crew is locked in?
As I’m watching the continuing (horrifying) coverage of the Vegas Shooter I notice that the opinion so far is that he lived a double life, that no one else knew about this other side to him. His plan has taken years, and he hid it from everyone. Even the people closest to him have said he was normal and had no mental problems, seemed psychologically stable, and had no affiliations to terrorists.
I bring this up because one of the strongest arguments against Z pulling this off is that he showed no signs of mental problems or affiliations with terrorism, or anything either. Just like the vegas shooter.
So now we have a current example that demonstrates, yes, it is possible for a person to just do something unimaginable and murder so many people without giving off any previous signals.
Should this lack of mental problems now be a discredited counter-argument against the Zaharie did it theory? I think probably so. Curious what you all think.
@Billy, Already we’re learning some unsavory things about the Vegas Shooter, like he was abusive toward his girlfriend and had large gambling debts. Even the fact that he had amassed a large collection would itself, I think, set him apart from the crowd of mild-manered people to which Zaharie seemed to belong. But it’s still too early to form a well-rounded view of what this guy was like, let’s wait and see what emerges.
agreed Jeff. my comments may be a little premature based on the early reporting. nevertheless, if he is ‘normal on the outside’, I would like to come back to this conversation though.
A very intriguing idea indeed.
Could this not only explain the re-logon at 18:25 but also the Lido radar gap ?
This scenario has the benefit not to require someone to meticulously prepare dozens of pieces, plant them all over the world and hope for them to be found by chance as well as reported.
Do you mean this ?
http://jeffwise.net/2015/05/17/guest-post-northern-routes-and-burst-frequency-offset-for-mh370/
@Dennis:
Jeff said it’s conceivable if at each ping MH370 ascended/descended at a particular rate …
… which is EXACTLY what MH370 would have had to do in a radar-evasive flight to the north, see below:
@Jeff:
So you say that it’s conceivable, but very improbable.
And the reason you cite for this improbability is that “the plane would have to be ascending or descending at each ping”.
Yet this very behaviour (manoeuvres + variations in heading and v/h speed) is perfectly compatible – in fact even absolutely required – for a radar-evasive, manually-piloted flight to the north.
Accordingly, this runs counter to your argument.
I don’t understand why you – as a proponent of a northern path – refuse this argument FOR a northern path by saying that the plane would have to do radar-evasive manoeuvres, which is exactly what’s required FOR a northern path. How does this make sense to you?
@Peter Norton, let’s say my wife wants to know where I am at all times, so she fits me with a radio collar. To save battery life, it only transmits my GPS location once per minute. So I leave home, walking at my typical walking speed of 1 block per minute. After 1 minute, I show up at 1 block east of the house. After two minutes, I’m two blocks east. After three minutes, I’m three blocks east. Etc. I go ten blocks out, turn around, and come ten blocks back.
Now let me me present you with two scenarios. In one scenario, I was walking one block per minute out and back. In another scenario, I was zooming around the city randomly on my scooter, and it just so happened that at the exact moment my collar sent out its ping, I was at the right spot on the intersection.
It’s not a perfect metaphor–the idea that the plane was ascending or descending at just the right speed is about 10,000 times less likely. Also, ascending burns up terrific amounts of fuel so a plane will not to it randomly. Also, ascending and descending will not help you avoid radar.
I hope that we can lay this topic to rest.
@Jeff Wise: ok, good explanation
@Peter
Your link to Victor’s work is correct.
@Jeff: Something else: If you remember our discussion about the sonar image resolution and how many pixels an engine on the sea floor would occupy, there is an interesting section in the report on p.60-62
I am wondering if the test objects in figure 43 would be equally easily detectable on a more rocky sea floor.
It’s a pity figure 43 shows the cubes and crosses, but not the cylinder. I would have liked to see the latter, as it is obviously more similar in shape to a jet engine than cubes and crosses with their sharp edges and very distinct outline compared to the natural sea floor objects.
Billy asks;
QUOTE “I think probably so. Curious what you all think.” UNQUOTE.
What I think is that you’re the same piece of nastiness that vomits your
psychobabble on VI’s forum under a different name, that you’re pretty soon going
to descend into ‘Shah as psychotic’ posts with nothing qualatively to distinguish
them except their Ad Nauseam quantity, and that when you’ve spun that broken
record so many times that people begin to ignore your posts – that you’ll give
birth to a muppet so you can play some ‘verbal back and forth’ with yourself.
What I think is that you’ll pick any ridiculously peripheral occurrence from the
headlines (as you’ve done above) to ‘push’ your anti-Shah agenda, and that you’ll
start to attack anyone who doesn’t conform to your anti-Shah POV, although
hopefully you’ll receive less tolerance on this blog, unlike on VI’s forum where
Victor allows your attacks to proceed, either without comment or instead by
lashing you with a feather, because your views dovetail with his.
What I think is that your monotonous posts have continuously failed to prove any
mental fault with Shah, but rather demonstrate an unpleasant mental defect in
yourself, such that I think you should really be inside a cage with Brad Pitt on
the outside, advising you accurately “just how crazy” you really are (and, yes,
I’ve generously given you the shorter, more polite version of that).
What I think is that you’ll purr that you’re a different person, but we’re
curious to see if you can change those mental spots of yours… I think not.
Question asked, and answered.
Ok, this is answered later on (p.87):
2% doesn’t seem much at first thought.
But only if MH370’s final resting place is random.
Because if the perpetrator deliberately chose an area of complex seafloor topography, the detection probability is not as good as the overall ~2% imply:
For example, if the perpetrator deliberately chose an end point within the orange area in figure 73, he has an ~8% chance of not being detected.
If able to target a location within the lower confidence coverage, he stands a ~30% chance of non-detection.
And the terrain with the most complex topography terrain has no data at all. This terrain amounts to 0,5% of the total surveyed terrain. If the perpetrator was able to pinpoint any location within that 0,5% area without data, he is 100% sure not to be detected.
The bottom line for me is that if MH370 impacted the ocean at a random location, the underwater search is 98% sure to detect it. But if the perpetrator was able to deliberately target a location based on seafloor topography, he has a good chance of not being detected. At least that’s my take.
(On a sidenote: I don’t understand why on p.88 the report reads “Areas designated as LPD were typically not resurveyed” and then later on the same page: “Approximately 48% of LPD areas have been searched at least twice” ?)
@Jeff Wise. Dr Griffin, “No comment from me. Not my field.” So back to the barnacle experts. I notice the Geoscience Australia report at Appendix G, p55, says “Lepas anatifa anatifera …..is a neustonic species (living on top of the water or right below the surface (Jones,
2016)”. It goes on to a quote about growth rates
You may have views on what “on top of the water” means in the flaperon context being closely acquainted with the topic.
@Peter Norton, You wrote, “If the perpetrator was able to pinpoint any location within that 0,5% area without data, he is 100% sure not to be detected.” Important to remember that before the bathymetry was carried out in late 2104, no one knew where such areas were located.
The point you make in your last paragraph is well taken, though. Not sure what to make of that.
@David, The point about Lepas being neustonic has to do with the fact that we have a lot of data about surface water temperatures, because they are measured directly by satellite. To measure deeper waters you need drifters, buoys, or what have you. In theory it would be possible, if you had an old enough barnacle and a reliable calibration between temperature and Mg/Ca growth rates, to radically narrow down the range of possible drift paths. Unfortunately DeDeckker had neither (his judged the flaperon barnacles to be about two months old — which, concidentally, is what I estimated back in 2015 based on my own rough-and ready image analysis).
@buyerninety
Sorry dude! I have time for just one blog full of super smart people. I am a JW fan!
(ps thanks for your opinion)
@Peter Norton
The ATSB should be expecting to receive queries about the report shortly after
its release. If anyone has any queries, there is this webpage form that can be
used to send such a query;
https://www.atsb.gov.au/utilities/feedback/
Simply select your comment type, e.g. “Request for additional information”,
fill in,
Web page URL: https://www.atsb.gov.au/newsroom/news-items/2017/chapter-closes-on-mh370/
Report number: AE-2014-054
and your Contact details if you want a reply, and then be very specific
in the comment box about what the query is.
I’ll leave you to word your own specific query, but here is an example of a
‘Complaint’ that was specified recently;
“This complaint relates to ATSB report ae-2014-054, specifically regarding
‘Figure 2: Measured pilot frequency error in Perth’, on Page 3 of Appendix C
in that report.
‘Figure 2: Measured pilot frequency error in Perth’ is a graph which has
marked graduations on its ‘x’ & ‘y’ axes with either numeral or worded
markings next to those graduations.
Figure 2 fails to be legible due to the graph being of such a large size that
the shrunken representation of that graph, as it appears in the report,
reduces the numeral or worded markings to too small a size to be readable.
Figure 2 also fails to be legible when it is saved as an image from the PDF
file into an application such as Microsoft Paint for viewing.
This failure could be rectified by“… etc., etc., you get the point.
Cheers
@PS9, thanks a lot, you pointed out very loud the big elephant in the room.
No effort is being made to find a convincing motive.
As far as i am concerned, this is independent of whether the plane is found or not.