Today, January 27, 2018, Sky News has published an article under the headline “Revealed: City tycoon funds ‘final’ search for doomed MH370.” It begins:
A London-based hedge fund millionaire is helping to finance the “final” search for the missing Malaysia Airlines aircraft which disappeared nearly four years ago, in a bid to solve one of modern aviation’s greatest mysteries. Sky News has learnt that Anthony Clake, an executive at Marshall Wace Asset Management, is the key figure behind Ocean Infinity, the subsea exploration company which won the contract to hunt for the whereabouts of Flight MH370. Mr Clake, who oversees billions of pounds of clients’ money at Marshall Wace, is understood to have invested in Ocean Infinity after being impressed by its advanced technology.
The piece goes on:
Mr Clake’s involvement in the hunt for MH370 is restricted to a financing role at Ocean Infinity, and he has no day-to-day role in the operation. “Anthony Clake has made a private investment in Ocean Infinity and is one of a number of shareholders in the company,” the spokesman said.
Color me suspicious. Clake works for Marshall Wace, which was founded by Paul Marshall, who is also the owner of two companies which each of a sole other board member apart from him: the two listed directors of Ocean Infinity. Clake is described as a millionaire; Marshall is the tenth richest hedge fund manager in Britain. This story doesn’t say that Clake isn’t the sold investor, but one of several. It seems increasingly inconceivable to me that Paul Marshall isn’t another, and probably main, one–notwithstanding the denial given to me by his publicist. As to why he’s being so secretive, I can’t begin to guess.
UPDATE 1/28/18 12:10 EST: The remarkable @oceankoto has uncovered this gem from the Telegraph circa 2012:
Hedge fund managers Anthony Clake and Paul Marshall, a Liberal Democrat donor, told The Times they had invested in several shipwreck salvage companies, including some Robert Fraser firms, and in total had found 11 wrecks and a haul of silver.
@Michael John
Winds were high south of 22S so calm seas would not be expected, if that was crash location.
@StevanG
Assuming intentional diversion, we do not know what the strategy/plan was, or even if the intended plan was followed or thwarted for some reason. Re: drift studies, various independent authors claiming drift studies show the crash location was anywhere from S10 to S36 depending on who one would rather believe. Re: BTO/BFO part of the problem with CI is that a 180S straight, level path seems to me exact match to Arc3 to Arc5, so the data gives the strong impression of a long flight south.
It is of course possible that a more complex piloted path to CI just happens to artificially appear like a straight flight south in the BTO/BFO data, but that idea currently lacks enough support.
@PS9
Jeff provided the answer as to what is powered by the left AC bus:
http://jeffwise.net/2016/05/16/the-sdu-re-logon-a-small-detail-that-tells-us-so-much-about-the-fate-of-mh370/comment-page-1/
From Jeff’s May 16, 2016 post:
The purpose of cutting power to the CVR could have been the preservation of the recording of whatever was said and done at that point.
@Gysbreght, Well, once the left AC bus was reconnected the CVR would have come back on and whatever was preserved would have been overwritten.
@Jeff Wise: Not if the CVR had been disconnected in the mean time of about one hour.
Perhaps you remember the scenario I offered many moons ago on your blog? As I remember it, you praised the psychology but didn’t quite buy it.
@Gysbreght,
your piece of work is impressive. Maybe you could tell us what is the maximum lift force you onbtain in this simulation on the wings and the maximum g (positive and negative). (Not the vertical acceleration)
@HB:
The ‘g’ is the blue line nz = Lift/Weight in the first chart. Apart from cosine effects, the vertical acceleration is approximately equal to (1-nz).
Closing comments here, please add your thoughts to the most recent post. Thank you.
Cui bono and lack of debris are still my hang ups:
1) in the days, weeks and months after the disappearance I fully expected the plane to be reliveried, weaponized and flown into an iconic target. This didn’t happen nor did any major terrorist groups claim responsibility (that I’m aware of.) Hanging onto this asset for four years to accomplish this scenario seems impracticable at best.
2) Big object, lots of parts but insufficient remains leads me to wonder if there are, in fact, remains to be found. (Thanks to this forum for fascinating and detailed drift studies and sea life analysis on the few pieces found.) Hence I’m thrown back on an early days’ surmise of theft for reuse/resale ie the plane remained intact. But this seems an unnecessarily complex (and messy) way of getting a cheap 777 for one of the ‘Stans. 3) The accidental-or-deliberate-shoot down-massive-international-coverup occupied me for a minute, perhaps an effort for an international coalition to privately deal with a terrorist group/rogue nation/client nation ‘oops’ without setting off declared theater-level war among major powers, but I’m still left with the debris issue and difficulty of hiding any retaliatory response, not to mention the difficulty of maintaining complete secrecy.
Occam and Murphy keep leading me back to ‘it’s one plane in a big ocean’ and ‘it’s a highly complex man made machine hence prone to fail.’ Even if it’s an almost unimaginable one-off.