Many thanks to reader @David who provided the link to the following statement issued today, October 19, 2017, by Australia’s Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Darren Chester:
I acknowledge the announcement that the Malaysian Government is entering into an agreement with Ocean Infinity, to search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.
The Malaysian Government has accepted an offer from Ocean Infinity to search for the missing plane, entering into a ‘no find no fee’ arrangement.
Malaysia’s decision to proceed with the search shows the commitment to find MH370.
While I am hopeful of a successful search, I’m conscious of not raising hopes for the loved ones of those on board.
Ocean Infinity will focus on searching the seafloor in an area that has previously been identified by experts as the next most likely location to find MH370.
Australia, at Malaysia’s request, will provide technical assistance to the Malaysian Government and Ocean Infinity.No new information has been discovered to determine the specific location of the aircraft, however data collected during the previous search will be provided.
As always our thoughts are with the families and friends. I hope that this new search will bring answers, both for the next of kin and for the rest of the world.
From the language it seems that Australia is at an arm’s length from this deal. It sounds like, despite having been put in charge of the original seabed search, they are not party to this deal. What’s more, in being “conscious of not raising hopes for the loved ones of those on board” he sounds rather skeptical of the odds of success. I find this a little surprising given the tone of recent Australian pronouncements, such as the statement in the CSIRO’s “The search for MH370 and ocean surface drift – Part II” report that “we are now even more confident that the aircraft is within the new search area identified and recommended in the MH370 First Principles Review.”
Worth noting that Malaysia has not finalized a deal. Several news outlets are reporting that “the Malaysian Government has confirmed it has chosen a company [Ocean Infinity] to begin a new search for MH370 and is now negotiating the terms of the deal.”
So what, you ask, is Ocean Infinity? The Houston-based company seems to have sprung into existence recently; the oldest article I could find about the company was from last October. It owns a fleet of AUVs but leases its support ship from Swire Seabed, a subsidiary of the Hong Kong conglomerate. According to one source,
Swire Seabed already has a six-year contract in place for its new vessel with UK-based mapping company Ocean Infinity, the owner of the AUVs and USVs. The vessel will serve as the host for the multiple AUV operations in a combined venture between Ocean Infinity, with Swire Seabed providing survey processing and project management, and SeaTrepid DeepSea of Louisiana conducting operations of the AUVs.
Looks like somebody’s looking to gamble a lot of money on long odds. But whose money, exactly, is at stake?
UPDATE 10/21/17: I just received an email from Ocean Infinity’s media relations rep, Mark Antelme of Celicourt Communications. He says:
Thanks for getting in touch with the team. At this stage, all we can really say (as a company spokesperson) is:
“Ocean Infinity are not yet able to confirm the final award of a contract to help in the search for MH370, but good progress has been made. We remain optimistic that we will be able to try and help provide some answers to those who have been affected by this tragedy.”
There is a fair amount of info on the company here: https://oceaninfinity.com/
Otherwise, we hope to be able to update people on the contract award over the coming days and we will make sure you receive any communication from us.
I wonder what the sticking points are.
@PS9
The Chinese were only victims in this sorry saga, all 169 of them. As @Jeff Wise stated this flight was selected as it was a soft target, a red eye to Beijing.
@DennisW
Yes I would want to be paid a fair amount to state publicly 9M-MRO was in the SCS when it was known from day one it had crossed back over the Malaysian peninsula.
@PS9:
Boris said:
“The SeaWorker USVs are built at SeaTrepid’s Porchester facility near Portsmouth UK. ”
PS9 said:
“No, apparently not.
The USVs are built by a company called ASV Global at their manufacturing plant near Portsmouth in the UK. SeaTrepid are buying them, not making them…”
Thanks for that, just shows how bad the reporting is in many areas of the MSM!
Regarding Advances Marine Systems Ltd, the purpose of finding the connections between this outfit and Ocean Infinity was to see if Ocean Infinity was connected to the illegal survey of the WWII wreck in Icelandic waters by Swire Seabed Constructor. Which it looks like it could be.
I’m interested in the individuals involved as they provide the links in the chain forming part of the web of intrigue surrounding the loss of MH370.
Thanks for the leads above and the interesting info on the ‘Stichting Ocean Infinity Foundation’. This could have possibly been set up to avoid taxation, if the cost of running Seabed Constructor offset?
Going back to Z’s simulator for a moment.
As I remember it, there were two MAS flights per day from Kuala Lumpur to Jeddah back in February / March 2014, one in the afternoon, and one later in the evening.
The sim session was 02 March 2014.
Z Captained MH150 on 04 March 2014.
I think it departed around 3pm local time, and I think it was about a 9.5 hour flight.
Does anyone have the flight radar or other tracking data for that afternoon flight, and / or the evening flight, it’s flight number and/or departure time ?
@Ventus45
Good investigative question. I am not a FlightAware user but recently someone provided UAE343 tracking data for 8-March. The problem with UAE343 is the radar only goes part way to VAMPI, so after that the Flight Aware path is “estimated” and apparently not accurate. Apparently there are 2 sets of UAE343 data floating around, the raw Flight Aware path (which is an estimated path) and a corrected path where the estimated/reported data is adjusted to flight path N571, where it apparently really was (per ATSB report).
I’d like to know if MH150 went thru DUBTA, but I do not think that would be public data.
Another bizarre coincidence (for me at least)… just noticed the other day when looking Google Maps that there’s a place on Penang called Bayan Lepas..! Hahaha!
@HB, Boris Tabaksplatt, Mick Rooney, Michael John, MH, Steve Barratt, DennisW et al…
The way you guys are tearing away with at all the potential leads, you’ll soon have any hijackers legging it to the wilds of Siberia hahaha 😀
But seriously, some great investigative work!
@Sajid UK:
“…with at all the potential leads…”
Yes, lots of leads. However, the same thing could be said for the whole MH370 affair, and look where that got us. Somehow I think their is a link to 1MDB, but right from the start nothing made sense with the official fraud story and who were the likely perps. Have a read at the link below to the Guardian article and note how many unlikely events led to the fraud being spotted. It beggars belief!
Link to Guardian article – 1MDB: The inside story of the world’s biggest financial scandal
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/28/1mdb-inside-story-worlds-biggest-financial-scandal-malaysia
I previously asked if anyone had the details of the two MAS flights per day from Kuala Lumpur to Jeddah in February and March 2014.
The reason for the request is based on the following.
It makes no sense whatsoever for Z to have simulated a flight to the SIO without an “intent”.
He had to have had a “reason” for doing it.
What was that reason, on the 2nd February 2014 ?
It has been speculated that the “end point” of that simulator session (near 45S 104E) may be a vital
clue, since he was scheduled to fly (and did fly) MH150 from Kuala Lumpur to Jeddah only 2 days later on the 4th February 2014.
MH150 is a scheduled flight from Kuala Lumpur to Jeddah, of about 9.5 hours duration.
With mandatory fuel reserves for diversion and/or holding, equivalent to say an additional 90 minutes, the flight would have around 11 hours of endurance at normal cruise speeds and altitudes.
The usual departure time is 3pm = 15:00 local time, which is (UTC+8) 07:00 UTC.
With an endurance of 11 hours, fuel would be exhausted around 2am local time, or 18:00 UTC.
So the end point for the simulator flight would still have been in the dark.
There is no scenario that anyone has worked out (so far as I am aware) that makes sense of that.
However, there was another MAS flight from Kuala Lumpur to Jeddah, that left later in the afternoon /
evening. I don’t know what the flight number was, or the time that flight actually departed, (does
anyone) but if it was around 7pm local time, it opens up an interesting possibility.
It is intereting to ponder whether Z (as a very senior Captain) may have intended to call in to MAS
operqations, and “bump himself” from MH150 to the later flight.
If we assume this to be the case, his new flight would have been:
Departure time, say: 7pm = 19:00 local time, which is (UTC+8) 11:00 UTC.
With an endurance of 11 hours, fuel would be exhausted around 6am local time, or 22:00 UTC.
This makes for a much more interesting simulator session.
For 4th February 2014, using UTC+8 (Malaysian Time), sunrise at 45s 104 was:
At 11,000 metres 05:41am (21:41 UTC on the 3rd)
and At Sea Level 06:04am (22:04 UTC on the 3rd)
The implication is obvious, fuel exhaustion at dawn.
If Z’s initial plan was to ditch at dawn, off the 4th February 2014 Jeddah “evening flight”, then it
would be reasonable to assume that for MH370, the “intent” remained the same, but since “the mission
flight” turned out to be MH370, he had to adjust the flight path so that “a new end point” had to be
determined, so that the “intent” of meeting sunrise with the fuel he had could be acheived.
As it turned out, for MH370, he would have been easily able to calculate his fuel exhaustion would be
around 00:00 UTC.
So, in simple terms, assuming he was still trying to get as far south as possible, the use of 45 South is
a good yardstick for back of envelope calculations.
All he has to do is work out the longitude for sunrise at 45 South for 00:00 UTC.
There are any number of tools he could use to do this, the FMC, even phone apps, so only the answer is
needed.
The answer, for latitude 45S is 86.4E at sea level, or 81.1E at 11,000 metres
So, simplistically, he could just manually input 45S 81.1E or 45S 86.4E and simply let the aircraft fly
itself there.
But, nothing is that simple.
The next question is what range does he actually have with the fuel remaining after the 18:40 FMT, noting
that he also has to remain flying for another 5 hours 20 minutes (320 minutes) until 00:00 UTC.
He has to be cautious, since he can not be sure what the winds are down in the SIO, so although his endurance calcualtion is solid, his range calculation is a not so solid. He is flying south, so most of the winds he knows are westerlies, and there are jet streames as well. He would have to know that these would cause his ground speed to reduce a bit on average as the aircraft would have to head into wind to track towards the correct end point. The result being, that he would likely come up “a bit short of 45S”.
This would not matter, because anything south of 35S would suit his plan to vanish.
The obvious strategy therefore, is to plot the 00:00 UTC Terminator, and get on it at a convienient
location, and then simply follow it until it is time to commence descent to be ready to ditch around 00:00 UTC.
The question then is, which terminator, the cruise altitude FL360 11,000 metre terminator, or the sea
level terminator, does he use ?
Let’s plot both, and have a look see.
Choose a few latitudes, say 00S, 05S, 10S, 15S, 20S, 25S, 30S, 35S, and 40S.
On the Morning of the 8th March 2014, the longitudes for sunrise at 11,000 metres at 00:00 UTC for these
latitudes are approximately:
Lat Lon
00S 88.1E (True Course 185.7 degrees)
05S 87.6E (True Course 185.7 degrees)
10S 87.1E (True Course 185.6 degrees)
15S 86.6E (True Course 186.4 degrees)
20S 86.0E (True Course 187.3 degrees)
25S 85.3E
30S 84.5E
35S 83.5E
40S 82.4E
45S 81.1E
Similarly, on the Morning of the 8th March 2014, the longitudes for sunrise at Sea Level at 00:00 UTC for
these latitudes are approximately:
Lat Lon
00S 91.8E (True course 185.4 degrees)
05S 91.4E
10S 90.9E
15S 90.4E
20S 89.9E
25S 89.4E
30S 88.8E
35S 88.1E
40S 87.3E
45S 86.4E
The first thing to notice, is that the distance between these two terminators is about 225 Nautical Miles. A standard descent profile for an airliner from FL360 would normally (using the three miles per thousand feet rule) be about 120 Nautical Miles, and take around 20 minutes.
This has important implications for the “timeing” of the “descent” phase, and testing it, may have been
one of the hidden reason for the sim sessions. Depending on the descent strategy he had.
Strategy ONE, following the sea level terminator, maintaining heading to the ditch, would have forced TOD
at 23:40 UTC. He simply “descends under the rising sun” all the way down, maintaining true track 186/187 degrees.
Strategy TWO, following the 11,000 metre terminator, he would be too far west, about 100 nautical miles (very safely in the dark), so he would have to turn east (to 097 True) around 12 to 15 minutes before a normal TOD, to be able meet the advancing sea level terminator at sea level. TOD would still be at 23:40 UTC, but now the descent track would be 097 true.
So, it may be worth doing a detailed study of the MAS KLIA to Jeddah flights, with Z’s simulator end
point (45S 104E) and time (22:04 UTC) in mind, to see if it “fits” the “intent” to ditch at dawn.
If it does, we have a solid insight into his probable paln.
If it does not, we have not lost anything.
Therefore, we need the details of the two daily MAS flights from Kuala Lumpur to Jeddah, to test this scenario. Has anyone got those details ?
@Boris Tabaksplatt
Thanks, interesting link! Will read it properly when I get time, its already quarter to one here haha!
A few other interesting leads that may link into 1MDB:
Marriage in 2015 of Malaysian PM’s daughter to the Kazakh president’s son:
http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2015/04/22/kazakhstan-wedding-reception-for-pms-daughter/
Saudi gift $681 personal gift to Malaysian PM… “There was no reason given as to why the donation was made to PM Najib, that is between him and the Saudi family,” the Malaysian attorney general said…
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/malaysia-pm-given-681m-personal-gift-saudi-royals-officials-n504326
And just for fun, I typed in Saudi+Kazakhstan in Google and what did I get??
Charki Dadri mid-air collision over India between a Saudi 747 and a Kazakh Il-76 with 349 deaths…!?!
How very odd that from all the possible permutations its a deadly commercial plane crash that links these two nations in recent history…
I am kinda interested in if some govt or crime unit got ripped off by the 1mdb so they made MH370 disappear as the first warning. So who got ripped off by 1mdb and or Rajib ?
From the Australian today:
The US underwater survey company given the green light to renew the hunt for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 could start scouring the seabed early next year, using advanced technology to cover a much reduced target area in a fraction of the time spent by the unsuccessful Australian-led teams.
But a leading international air crash investigator has warned that a new effort could be undermined if it relies on the same assumptions the Australian Transport Safety Bureau used in its $200 million failed search.
MH370 disappeared on a scheduled flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014, with 239 people on board. After some days in which the Malaysian government played down reports it was about to announce a “no find, no fee” agreement with Houston-based marine survey group Ocean Infinity, Transport Minister Darren Chester issued a statement last week declaring a done deal, and Australia would provide technical assistance.
Canadian Larry Vance, who has worked on some of the biggest airliner accidents around the world over the past three decades, told The Australian the US searchers should abandon the ATSB’s theory that the pilots were dead in the latter part of the flight, and that the Boeing 777 crashed down rapidly after it ran out of fuel.
“To establish their previous search areas, they used the incorrect assumption of a ‘ghost aeroplane’, and a high-speed dive into the ocean,” Mr Vance said. “Anyone conducting a search should be aware of the actual scenario, which is a controlled ditching.”
Mr Vance and many other air crash investigators and senior international airline pilots believe the known facts — particularly a control surface section of MH370’s wing area found washed up mostly intact — indicates Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah hijacked the aircraft and flew it to the end. Such a scenario would dictate a different search area from that employed by the ATSB.
“I am in the final stages of writing a book about this, and it will provide solid evidence of a controlled ditching,” Mr Vance said.
Ocean Infinity had put a proposal to the Malaysian government some months ago, in which it would take all the financial risk of restarting the search and only charge an agreed fee if it found the plane. Sources said that if a contract were signed soon, Ocean Infinity could get a vessel searching the southern Indian Ocean within a few months, but rather than using one sonar imaging device, it would use several advanced ones.
When its two-year survey of 120,000sq km ended in January, the ATSB said it had identified a new search area just to the north of that already scoured, which had a high probability of being where MH370 came down. Mr Chester said the renewed search by Ocean Infinity would focus on the new target area identified by the ATSB, which is 25,000sq km.
The ships involved in the last search each deployed a single sonar scanning “tow fish”, or alternatively an untethered torpedo-like autonomous underwater vehicle which can be programmed to roam around on its own.
A recent press release from Ocean Infinity said the company had purchased two new AUVs, raising its total to eight.
“The fleet of AUV’s will be operated simultaneously, each AUV programmed with an independent mission plan,” the statement says. “Independence allows the systems to cover huge swaths of seabed quickly and accurately.”
@Jeff Wise
Read your excellent article on MH370 in the HP Enterprise online.
You sir, have great writing skills.
I’m glad you share your blog with us.
Please keep up the good work.
@Ventus45
“Malaysia Airlines from 28JAN14 to 29MAR14 is adding 2nd daily Kuala Lumpur – Jeddah service, on board Boeing 777-200ER aircraft. Reservation for the new MH168/169 service is now open.
MH150 KUL1145 – 1600JED 772 D
MH168 KUL2230 – 0245+1JED 772 D
MH169 JED0500 – 1835KUL 772 D
MH151 JED1730 – 0705+1KUL 772 D
MH169 begins from 29JAN14 until 30MAR14.
From 30MAR14, MH will operate 1 daily flight as MH168/169, which means the oneWorld member shifting operational schedule to night-time departure from KUL.”
For anyone interested in learning more about how the AUVs and USVs will be operated, here’s a good Offshore Engineer article from 01 January 2017 – “Herding AUVs”…
http://www.oedigital.com/subsea/item/14338-herding-auvs
ventus45said;
“I previously asked if anyone had the details of the two MAS flights per day from Kuala Lumpur to Jeddah in February and March 2014.”
What gave you to believe there were two MAS flights per day from Kuala Lumpur to Jeddah in February and March 2014?
@CliffG, You’re too kind!
@Boris, Very interesting article, thanks. I think what often gets overlooked when planning ambitious projects is that while new technological capabilities can be impressive, they’re useless without a sufficiently sophisticated operational capability. It’s one thing to say, “We can run 6 AUVs and 6 autonomous boats simultaneously,” but I bet once you try to do it, you’ll find more than a few kinks to be worked out. What if a storm kicks up, and you can’t recover anything for two days, and you’ve got four AUVs with no more battery power and maybe another with a mechanical glitch? Also, I haven’t done the math, but I recall that the AUVs in the initial search area covered significantly less ground than the towed sonar, they were really for filling in the gaps. As it was, if you read the final report, Fugro spent a lot of time figuring out how to handle that massive amount of data and make sure it didn’t have any gaps. And they’re a big company with tons of experience! Long and short, I think this brand-new startup is going to face quite a steep learning curve.
Just come across this article…
“Edmond de Rothschild fined for alleged involvement in 1MDB scandal”
This is interesting as I have seen some speculation that the Rothschild Family Inc own a controlling interest in the Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM), and have done since it was created in 1959, two years after independence from Britain. There are no state banks in Malaysia and BNM functions and is governed in a similar way to the Bank of England.
@Jeff Wise:
Yes, I agree. THere are many new bits of kit which all have to function together perfectly in a very hostile environment. I also think the linked communication systems will have difficulties, as well as the software used to glue the Herd together.
The time taken to get down to and back up from operational depth will also reduce battery life and reduce endurance. Anyway, perhaps we’re jumping the gun as they still need to agree terms with the Malayan Government.
Just come across this info about Swire Subsea, which provides a link to the illegal attempt to salvage silver in the Southern part of Icelandic territorial waters…
“Swire Seabed has conducted one of the deepest salvage actions of precious metal ever undertaken: In 2012 and 2013 they recovered over 110 tons of silver from the SS Gairsoppa located at 4,700 meters deep off the coast of Ireland.”
Link here…
http://www.swireseabed.com/media1/press-release/swire-seabed-looks-ahead
@all
Sep 30th AF 066 A380 Paris to Los Angeles blew out an engine over Greenland and was diverted to Newfoundland.
Oct 26th DL 070 A333 Atlanta to Amsterdam blew out an engine south of Greenland and was diverted to Newfoundland.
2 very rare occurrence happening in quick succession.
The same as USS Fitzgerald & USS John S McCain in Asia.
Are these just coincidences?
@Jeff Wise
Ocean Infinity claim some progress on using multiple AUVs here:
https://oceaninfinity.com/ocean-infinity-reaches-5000-meters-with-six-hugin-auvs-operating-simultaneously/
Currently, Seabed Constructor is operating several hundred kilometres to the west of the Azores, where the ocean depth is recorded as greater than 5000m, as would be required for the test being performed (two maps of mine below, second covering the period of the OI news item).
https://www.dropbox.com/s/mryc7k0fwg4hqph/27-10-17-map3.jpg?dl=0
Fugro only used their AUV for covering large areas of sea floor (rather than filling in gaps) at the very end of their programme, when they returned to David Griffin’s proposed search area at 35.5S. The AUV speed then was the same as that used by the boats using towed sonar arrays, so the coverage rate would similar, per deployed hour. Of course, there was down time of several hours per day to recover the AUV from depth, change batteries and redeploy. On a guess of 75% efficiency for a single AUV against a single towed array (so 6 hours AUV down-time per daily cycle), one ship with 6 AUV would still cover 4 times the ground of one towed array. I don’t disagree that making that happen and the response to AUV equipment failure still have to be proven by OI.
@CliffG:
Very curious, but just a coincidence I think – shit happens.
So flying on a Scarebus is just as dangerous as going on a Boeing! However, as random events always seem go in three’s, I thought I’d have a look for a previous Goose Bay emergency diversion…
And BINGO – On 22 November 2016 – Virgin Atlantic B787 diverted to Goose Bay Airport after an engine failure.
If anything the USS Fitzgerald & USS John S McCain events in Asia are more suspicious, but I still favour human error.
@Boris
Can’t help with the 1MDB thing but I have found something of potential interest. I was looking at Company House records in the UK. Now I don’t whether this is connected to the OI we are interested in but there is an Ocean Infinity LTD based in Bristol in the UK (Founded in 2013). As I say I can’t currently find a direct connection apart from the name…. But…. The company doesn’t according to Google exist & yet the company is still active. The Director is it would seem a penniless old man & is inexperienced at running a company. The company is barely making money & indeed appears to be making a loss. The Company secretary is a firm called Jordan Cosec. Which I understand is a firm called Jordan that supplies Company Secretaries. This company is worth millions. So far nothing of real interest.
I downloaded the company accounts. The biggest shareholder in the company & the sole shareholder is Millport International Corp, I can’t find anything on these either apart from them being registered in the BVI. What does stand out about them is that they are implicated in the Panama Papers & are allegedly under criminal investigation.
So why would Millport International invest money into a barely functioning company called Ocean Infinity Ltd based in the UK that apparently trades in seafood?
I would mention, it is probably just typo but Ocean Infinity in Texas according to its Facebook page info is a seafood restaurant.
Director Details
Full Name
Mr Pedro Vannelli
Date Of Birth
Jun 1942
Nationality
Uruguayan
Director ID
917688323
Director Details
Full Name
Pedro Domingo Vannelli Alessandrini
Date Of Birth
Jun 1942
Nationality
Unknown
Director ID
700111845
Same guy. He was director of a company called International Granite Traders Ltd in 1993. The company was dissolved. He disappears before popping up as the Director of Ocean Infinity Ltd (Bristol)
That all sounds like a setup for money laundering especially since the seafood division is barely afloat.
@Michael John:
Some good stuff there Michael, thanks. Another bit of info is that Ocean Infinity Ltd, Bristol has two named people with significant control, both at same address and both posted 16 April 2016. Maybe a coincidence, but first info about Ocean Infinity, the potential MH370 searchers, was April 2016.
The named shareholders are…
Mr Gaston Domecq Chantry
Ruta 8. Km 17.500, @2 Of 402, Montevideo, Uruguay, 91600
Mr Carlos Rocca
Ruta 8. Km 17.500, @2 Of 402, Montevideo, Uruguay, 91600
I’ve no idea why Uruguay is involved in this chain of possible shell companies, both on and off-shore?
Here is one possibility for ‘why Uruguay?’…
Report from US State Dept ‘International Narcotics Control Strategy Report’. Managed to get an image of relevant page, which can be read here…
http://oi64.tinypic.com/ofd5j.jpg
Over the last couple of years we have been taught the meme Drugs -> Money Laundering = Terrorism. However, there are many other reasons/motives for money laundering, with avoiding taxation being one of the biggest. Uruguay’s privacy culture/laws could explain why it is a useful entrepôt for various off-shore shenanigans.
@Michael John:
The Millport International Corp connection seems to be a dead-end, but a US company, the Millport Corp, seems to exist in Connecticut, US. The link to their website (millport.com) takes you to Tempest Harding, a company involved in providing secure IT systems based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. They seem big in defence contracting…
“…Tempest Harding surveys, engineers, furnishes, installs, secures, tests and can operate the systems for The Pentagon, Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and National Geospatial Intelligence Agency…”
Link here…
http://www.millport.com/defense/
@Michael John:
Bit more info on Tempest Harding Inc.
Addresses (2):
425 N Andrews Ave, Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33301
322 MAIN STREET, WILLIMANTIC, CT 06226
Directors:
Thomas Binau-hansen
Michael Nelson
This snippet from Matthew Ayo, a contractor who they hired…
Tempest Harding Inc
Dates Employed Oct 2005 – Mar 2006 Employment Duration 6 mos
Location Fort Huachuca, AZ
“I3MP Project, Department of Defense contractor with active secret clearance, brought in to augment and execute a 10gb hybrid mesh ring fiber network build-out to exact specifications, implementing encrypted IEEE 802.1Q frame tagging, effectively replacing the existing infrastructure.”
Sometimes you gotta wonder whether it will take a similar mysterious message in a bottle to solve (… or deepen?) the mystery…
https://twitter.com/ThamesBeach/status/924738941940576262
apologies, not directly related to mh370 etc but couldn’t resist…
Surprised Jeff hasn’t coined a new book on the search efforts….. Fugro to Infinity & the Ocean Between….
On a serious note. Has anybody actually documented the search efforts in any depth to date. Interviews with the ships creed ETC ETC. I for 1 would like to know what the experts that study the data, dive the depths really think.
@Michael John:
Love the book title, but I doubt the searchers would have little or no use information to give. I strongly suspect the Malaysian government would have secured the information flow with binding non-disclosure agreements with all parties involved.
My hope is that someone involved will leak some pertinent information at sometime in the future – this does occasionally happen.
In regards to the Inmarsat Data how can they be sure on it’s accuracy?
I’m curious because after the Satcom rebooted that means the system had to be recalibrated. If the calibration was not perfect then the data wouldn’t be either?
Or is the calibration something of a failsafe thing that will always happen correctly?
Michael,
The satellite data and the curious reboot have, I’m afraid to say, like pretty much every detail of this affair, been exhaustively discussed. No, no one can be sure of the accuracy of the data (with or without the reboot, but especially given the reboot). The possibility of a hacking, and/or other attempts of intentionally falsifying the data have also been discussed. No, apparently it is not a “failsafe thing” of one kind of another (I assume you mean, “something that happens normally”); no conclusively satisfying explanation has so far been proffered (this, I feel like I have to add, is obviously my private opinion, I hope this doesn’t trigger angry responses).
I hope my reply doesn’t (re)open that can of worms of diverging opinions as to what the significance of this might be. I could imagine that one reason why no one has answered you before me is exactly for this reason, whoever answers might set of another fruitless debate where people will only agree that it is a pointless to discuss. I think it is safe to say that we don’t exactly know what that reboot was.
In sorry: it could be innocent as a result of an power outage. It could be the result of someone intentionally switching off and on again the unit, possibly in innocent intent (after catastrophic power outage with the intent of making it work again). It could also be that someone somehow tried, possibly successful, to tamper with the data sent out. In this case, the plane could be anywhere. To everyone else, please correct if wrong.
[humorous, slightly off topic]
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/great-pyramid-egypt-giza-room-inside-void-plane-sized-mystery-scientists-chamber-a8033336.html
“The Great Pyramid has a huge “plane-sized” void at its middle, according to scientists.
What lies in the middle of the structure has been debated for years, with researchers unable to actually see inside. But the new discovery just deepens that mystery: they now appear to have discovered that it contains a huge room with an unknown purpose.
The discovery is the first of its kind to be made since the 19th century and comes as part of the “ScanPyramids” project, being run by an international team of researchers. That sees them use particle physics to try and scan deep into the pyramid and find out what’s contained within, without disturbing its outside.”
Well – how does Egypt fit with the ping rings? 🙂
@ Will
The Great Pyramid is just 7 miles from the outer ping ring according to my Google Earth ! LOL
@Will, @Owen, This is definitely my favorite MH370 scenario so far.
@Will:
Since day one I’ve always thought that the disappearance of MH370 was some sort of scam. Now I know it was probably just a small part of a much bigger pyramid scheme:-)
@boris – True!! But is it an upside down pyramid ?
@Boris…
https://gph.is/29dMbc0 – nice 😉
My first instinct was “I don’t care who performs the search I just want someone to keep looking”. But upon further reflection, they (and we) only get one shot at this. That is, if a company (or a government) searches an area and they don’t find anything, it will likely be the last time anyone looks in that area. Nobody is going to pay to have the previous search areas re-searched. Accordingly, if they “miss it” or somehow botch the search and the plane was actually located within that search area… then it will never be found (at least not in the near future). I would go with the most experienced crew. Although it’s easy for me to talk when it’s not my money.
Just food for thought, I was reading a few articles on deep sea salvage blogs in which the authors concluded that if MH370 is within a designated search area, any halfway decent deep sea salvage operation has a good chance of finding it. They opined that the remoteness of most of the designated search areas is actually a benefit. Apparently, in highly traveled ocean routes, the sea bed is littered with tens of thousands of “anomalies”… boats, planes, fishing gear, etc. which makes searching more difficult.
However, the authors did say the underwater geography of some of the designated search areas is problematic. I didn’t know this, but apparently there are several deep sea trenches and mountain ranges in the search areas and if the plane broke up and fell on or near these trenches/mountains, it will be extremely challenging to find.
@Blake, You raise an excellent point: If Ocean Infinity conducts a search of the 25,000 sq km area, but does so in a way that seemed sloppy or opaque, then their results will be regarded as having a massive asterisk next to it. In a sense it would be worse that not searching the area at all.
Amusing interpretation of Nostradamus quatrain V-23 supporting Jeff’s theory.
https://zeitgeist77.wordpress.com/2014/04/12/nostradamus-and-the-missing-malaysian-airliner/
curious about that 25,000 search area too. it seems so small, it’s like the size of vermont which is super small.
considering that debris has already been known to have floated far away, then why narrow yourself to such small search area? debris should be spread out in a big area I would think. so seems like it would be better to have non-contiguous search pattern or something like that to get more coverage.
idk though maybe it’s a dumb idea or not possible or some other reason.
anyways if they do start searching I wonder if they will make it public their search pattern and methodology. I would be interested to see how they model it. It will help me too the next time I lose something in my lawn, then I’ll know the best pattern to walk around and look for it.
@Blake
“However, the authors did say the underwater geography of some of the designated search areas is problematic. I didn’t know this, but apparently there are several deep sea trenches and mountain ranges in the search areas and if the plane broke up and fell on or near these trenches/mountains, it will be extremely challenging to find.”
It has long been a hypothesis by some that the alleged intent of the ditching may have been to put the aircraft down in a hard to search, undersea mountainous area. But the most obvious deep sea targets (Dordretch Hole area) are outside of Arc7. If there are secondary undersea targets, nobody has yet identified what they could be.
The implication for me is that OI (or others) should not exclude the hard-to-search areas, to the extent is it practical to at least partially search there.
@Billy, It may seem like a small area, but in several recent papers the ATSB has detailed its reasons for believing it can’t be anywhere else. In fact, the area where it could plausibly be is even smaller than 25,000 sq km, and even there the probability is bad, IMHO.
The other day I was talking to a journalist who has good sources within the ATSB, and he says that within the ranks there is now a great deal of skepticism about the Inmarsat data. The plane simply isn’t where the DSTG’s analysis says it should have been. This presumably is why Australia has kept its distance from the Malaysia/Ocean Infinity discussions.
@Jeff how does this skepticism manifest itself? Is it in support of your Northern Route, or is it in a general sense?
Is it a case that they think the plane could be “anywhere”?