Experts from all over the world have converged in Perth, Australia, to meet Seabed Constructor, the exploration vessel tasked with finding the wreckage of MH370, after its first stint in the search area. Technical experts and government officials are having meetings and dinners, touring the ship, and doing photo ops. Everything glitters and spirits are high.
Lost in this excited hubub is the fact that the latest search effort has already invalidated the expert analysis that got it launched in the first place.
In a 2016 document entitled “MH370–First Principles Review,” the ATSB explained that, given the absence of wreckage in the orginal 120,000 sq km search, MH370 most likely wound up somewhere near the 7th arc between 33 degrees and 36 degrees south. A subsequent document by the CSIRO entitled “The search for MH370 and ocean surface drift–Part III” narrowed the target area considerably. “We think it is possible to identify a most-likely location of the aircraft, with unprecedented precision and certainty,” it stated. “This location is 35.6°S, 92.8°E. Other nearby (within about 50km essentially parallel to the 7th arc) locations east of the 7th arc are also certainly possible, as are (with lower likelihood) a range of locations on the western side of the 7th arc, near 34.7°S 92.6°E and 35.3°S 91.8°E.”
The wording is important, because as the original search area was winding down, Australia, China and Malaysia said that it would only be extended if “credible new information” came to light. The CSIRO’s language sounded like an attempt to make the case that this condition had been met. And indeed, the three specified points were all included the “Primary Search Area” that Seabed Constructor recently focused its efforts on.
However, that area has now been searched. And once again, the plane was not where it was supposed to be. The CSIRO’s “unprecedented precision and certainty” was a mirage.
How is that, time and time again, officials heading up the search for MH370 exude great confidence and then come up empty handed? How can we account for four years of relentless failure?
The answer, it seems to me, is quite simple. Investigators have resolutely failed to grapple with the single most salient clue: The fact that the Satellite Data Unit (SDU) was rebooted. This electronic component is the part of the 777’s sat com system that generated the Inmarsat data that has been the basis of the entire search. There is no known way that it could accidentally turn off and back on again.
If one has no idea how the SDU turned on, then one can have no confidence in the integrity of the data that it generated.
The ATSB has never publicly expressed a theory about what could have caused the reboot, except to say that most likely the power had been turned off and back on again. There was always the possibility that, behind the scenes, they had figured out a way that this could plausibly happen other than being deliberately tampered with.
Just today, however, I received confirmation that the ATSB is in fact befuddled. Mike Exner is a stalwart of the Independent Group who is currently visiting Perth, where he has had dinner with employees of Ocean Infinity and Fugro, as well as members of the ATSB and the DSTG. In response to my assertion that investigators “had never stopped to ask how on earth the SDU… came to be turned back on,” Exner tweeted that “Everyone is well aware of the question. We have all asked ourselves and others how it happened.” However, Mike writes, “no one has the answer.”
One might forgive the expenditure of vast wealth and manpower based on data of dubious provenance if there was other evidence that independently supported it. But the contrary is the case: debris collected in the western Indian Ocean shows no signs of having drifted from the search zone, as I wrote in my previous post. It is increasingly clear that the plane did not go where the Inmarsat data suggests it did. The fishiness of the Inmarsat data, and the fishiness of the SDU reboot that created it, are all of a piece.
Soon, Seabed Constructor will return to the search area; some weeks or months after that, it will leave again, empty handed. When it does, people all over the world will ask: How could they have failed yet again?
The answer will be simple. It is this: Investigators never established the provenance of the evidence that they based their search on.
@ Scott O
The JORN topic has been discussed quite extensively before. Tl;dr It may have been public knowledge that the machine isn’t at full capacity all the time, we can’t say for certain whether Shah or others can have known about JORN in the first place or its real-world operating schedule, if perps knew about it, they may have taken their chances that it wasn’t at full capacity, or known that it wasn’t. Basically, we don’t know.
I know that my temperature-at-depressurisation-shtick has started to be an annoyance, but one last idea: Basically, we all agree that if depressurisation occurred, it got friggin cold (like, real cold) for maybe 15 minutes. If a perp had planned to depressurise at altitude, wouldn’t it make sense for them to try to bring protective gear onto the plane? (Even if we believe that 15 minutes at minus 60 Fahrenheit is no biggie.) Maybe that could be a new avenue for investigation – can we find out whether anyone brought such gear onto the plane? Maybe the Ukrainians that JW is so fond of?
(Btw, someone mentioned that “so many stowaways had survived trips no problemo”, that’s not quite true: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wheel-well_stowaway_flights. According to the FAA, 76% of attempted stowaways died, among them cursorily quite a bunch of the recent ones. Frankly, I would assume that even surviving it doesn’t mean their health is super duper right after hopping off. I still don’t find it plausible that a perp who was planning on a complex getaway procedure spanning many hours would just try and see how it feels being at minus 60 Fahrenheit for a quarter of an hour.)
@Havelock, Nikolai Brodsky, who was sitting 15 feet from the E/E bay hatch, was a recreational diver specializing in mixed-gas equipment that allowed him to go to extreme depth. This kind of activity is normally used for industrial (e.g. oil platform) or military purposes but he apparently did it for fun under the frozen surface of Lake Baikal, and was even a club instructor. As he was coming back from a dive trip to Bali, he likely had specialist gear with him. I know less about the Ukrainians, but one of them posted a picture of himself in the water in scuba gear.
@Havelock
First of all I do not agree with -60F for 15-minutes, I am thinking more like 45-50F for a while, which could be very uncomfortable but not the worst part of the problem.
But in general I’d be highly interested to know what supplemental “gear” might have been used (laptops etc). Nighttime temp today in Beijing is below freezing, and it is 5-March.
@Havelock, agreed that we ultimately can’t know about JORN’s operational status that night, but point I was trying to make was
a) neither could “pilot,” unless state level spying was going on
b) assumptions of it’s operational range are widely variable; and in fact could be great enough to have watched MH370 take off
c) what better time to make it operation than when an aircraft is missing; thought i don’t know how responsive such a system could be–active mode vs ready mode vs offline, etc.
As for temperatures inside the fuselage, presuming TBill’s estimates are wrong for argument’s sake, from what I’ve read on the topic, conditioning can play a HUGE role in tolerance. “Gear” (aside from supplemental oxygen) could be quite lightweight, relatively speaking, especially if you’re used to under-ice diving, as Jeff suggests.
Stowaways: I’ve read the expectation for the kid in Hawaii linked to upthread was that he’d likely have had long term cognitive impairment from his trip. Of course he had no breathing apparatus at all.
Rein said:
“⁃ Cargo manifest: The fact that mangosteens are off season in March, so how can they ship pallets of it to China?”
@all:
The mangosteen season might be a red herring for conspiracists, if indeed it is any kind of fish at all. Mangosteens can grow on past the end of the main season if the micro-climate is right. As the owner of the company who shipped them said when interviewed by the local media, if customers have the money, he can continue to source them when most places have run out. He claimed to be obtaining them from Indonesia. He also admitted when asked that he had another business he didn’t want to discuss. That may be benign.
More interesting are the other facts: … the shipment was about 4 tons, so plenty of space and weight to hide things, and mangosteens were a regular cash-crop shipment through MAS to China. Shipments had been made through MAS several times in the preceding days/weeks by this shipper.
So no one in MAS would pay much attention to the contents of a regular high-value (and high income from shipping rates) crop being shipped. And as the FI said, the shipment was ‘inspected but not x-rayed’. Could be seen as more suspicious still, perhaps, if the shipper had been allowed to fill the shipping containers before delivery to MAS, so MAS didn’t pack them from pallets.
The problem with any diversion to obtain or dispose of someone/something on the aircraft is that it implies that trying to do the same thing on the ground would be harder still. It’s not easy to think of a situation where that would apply, apart from a situation where something was being held under a ‘diplomatic’ protection – for a parallel, perhaps think of Julian Assange’s refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London – the US would love to get their hands on him, but how – when he flies?. Anyone or anything else of interest could likely be whisked away to a side room at the airport before boarding/loading.
And there would be huge risks of timing and access involved – what if the cockpit couldn’t be breached and the two Ukrainians (or whoever) were overpowered by passengers and crew and arrested at Beijing? There would have to be certainty of access, or a high probability at least.
That might imply proper weapons and perhaps even explosives (for the cockpit door) to smuggle through airport security. Maybe possible, but not easy to do at an individual or terrorist level. Or – perhaps a much easier way – someone requesting cockpit entry with an official-looking ID card with the story of ‘terrorists’ being on board?
David said:
“Rather than not being considered, that has long been assumed.”
But in a different context, and for a different reason. And as you say, not for end of flight. And not containing a mention of a possible exit en-route.
“I leave aside an interpretation that that could have been an elephant.”
Very wise – wouldn’t fit through the bulk cargo door unless very small, and even then might need its parents for encouragement. Would need a very big chute and even bigger water wings. Finding a mask to fit also problematic. Not the best choice overall.
“Missing would be the rationale for the first log-on and the practicability (get on board a parachute, integral oxygen supply (if from high altitude), liferaft (if over the sea); know current and projected position and match launch time and trajectory to arrive at a non in-the middle-of-nowhere random destination, slow and de-pressurise before opening a door, if possible, (the MEC hatch too small?)). ”
All covered before on here, years ago. Aim for the lit area of sea that Katie saw at BEDAX. Victor even plotted a viable route that fitted the data.
“Arrange somehow for the aircraft to resume speed/altitude?”
Good ol’ autopilot … flight plan … heading … waypoint(s)? It’s done all over the world every day.
“Even if somehow feasible, what motive could there have been? If that is ‘not apparent’ why assume a hijacker would go to such pre-planning and pains…”
In this scenario (if it happened, maybe it didn’t): to dispose of the aircraft and its contents. Not really something you’d want anyone to find sitting in your hangar.
“… and not just be a suicide/murderer who would stay on?”
That is the easy (lazy) way out for the mind to take. It takes no effort of thought to blame a crew member, however irrational the accusation. And why would anyone want to delay their own, certain, death for several hours: just to savour the moment?
“Even pluralising the hijacker would not overcome all that.”
Nothing would be needed to be overcome. Only one would be needed at that stage; more earlier on but they would be long gone.
“For my part, there is insufficient information to find cause without the wreckage.”
It would seem insufficient information has purposefully been made plentifully available. You can have as much as you want.
“Find the wreckage.”
We may be no wiser even then. The tight control of the flow of information and its analysis might continue, as it has over the last 4 years. For example, even if not pronounced ‘unreadable’, the contents of the FDR might be read solely by the MYG and ‘adjusted’ to fit the story, or even ‘classified’ completely.
That’s not pessimism, that’s realism based on the MYG’s (and others) track records so far. The MYG have to produce a final report, but is there anything to make them produce the raw data to back it up/support what they say? They didn’t in their earlier report with the radar data or ATC transcripts, did they?
Jeff Wise said:
“PS Malaysia is now saying that the “90 days” term in the search contract refers specifically to days spent actively searching, not the duration of the search period.”
Yes, a very odd (yet also a very nifty) side-stepping redefinition. And agreed, no need to have a duration in the first place. It may be that OI were threatening that they were going to search anyway if no contract was agreed, and finally called MYG’s bluff (because of the rapidly diminishing search time due to the approaching bad weather season) by setting sail from Durban when MY were delaying those 8 months or so.
MYG in that case could be trying to keep control of the areas searched by offering a reward only for the areas they want searched. OI could presumably search anywhere anyway (international waters?). And, it seems from their behaviour, MYG desperately wants to be onboard to take possession of the FDR should it be found. Again, this looks like wanting to keep control of any information released that might contradict their story, otherwise why not request observers from the (UK not Aus) ATSB instead to guarantee transparency and provenance?
Perhaps the MYG has never been in total control of this story’s evolvement from the start, and that’s what bothers it most. Well, that and what might be allowed to become public knowledge as a result of 1MDB, of course.
Jeff Wise said:
” I know less about the Ukrainians, but one of them posted a picture of himself in the water in scuba gear.”
Jeff – just a thought about your hijacking scenario: You had the Ukrainians purposely sitting near the SDU for access to it. But they were also sitting just around the corner from the lower crew rest area entrance door.
It’s not easy to see what physical interference they could have (surreptitiously) caused to the SDU situated in an overhead bay in an open cabin that couldn’t be achieved more easily later from the cockpit with a switch setting (and they wouldn’t have needed the SDU off unless they gained cockpit access anyway), but meeting companions who emerge from down below with weapons might be more of a reason for that choice of seats. If that’s what happened, of course.
JORN is not a conventional radar. It does not “sweep” like normal radars. It operates by looking at “patches” that are selected by the operators. What patches can be viewed at any given time depend on the ionosphere. Thus there is no reason to assume it was even looking at the right place at the right time, ie the right patch. The next point is that it is normally looking at and tracking slow surface targets ie shipping. Although it can both detect and track fast moving targets ie aircraft, it would require real time operator action to track such a target which means the operator would have needed a reason to do so. Being a normal night with no alert status and with numerous airborne targets entering and leaving whatever “surface patch” JORN was focused on at the time there would have been no interest and no need to further track any of them. The bottom line is (a) there is no evidence JORN was even operating on the night and AU’s Gov specifically denied it was (b) even if it was, we would have a limited number of “patches” through which MH370 could have flown given our understanding of the range of possible flight paths, (c) the probability of any one of those patches being in use at the time interval 370 could have flown through it is low, and (d) even if it did, it would not have been of interest at the time. All that said, the data is logged. Would “post processing” show it if it had been seen ? Yes it would. But again, refer to (a) above. So, getting back to Z’s “planning”, choosing a flight path south remaining west of a line from 95E at the equator to 88E at 40S would keep him out of the JORN coverage anyway, and also, you will note, aligns well with the 00 UTC terminator on the day (8th March). When I developed my scenario (the via Medan route) both factors, ie, JORN and the 00 terminator were the major planning constraints (along with the third ie fuel, for range and endurance).
@ventus45, The point is that, not knowing the status of JORN, someone whose first and only goal was to vanish without a trace would stay well clear. Remember, this is someone who went all the way around Sumatra in order (presumably) to avoid overflying Indonesian land (though not airspace).
Actually, come to think of it, none of this makes any sense. Why overflying the Malay Peninsula, but not Sumatra, if you’re intending to fly south? If Butterworth isn’t going to intercept you, Indonesia sure as hell isn’t. So: why go northwest if you really want to go south?
@PS9: I don’t know what significance the seating position of the Ukrainians had, if any. If your goal is to tamper with the SDU, you might as well be sitting under it, particularly if you don’t want to move through a cabin filled with people connected to oxygen masks and probably in a state of panic. Another reason to sit in row 29 might be that it was near the cabin crew portable oxygen gear. Or maybe they wanted to barricade themselves in the rest area.
Here we go again
https://twitter.com/JeffreyCook/status/970806879965401088?s=19
We should know better by now when it appears only as sourced by Malaysia
buyerninety – that diatribe directed at me was largely irrelevant but for your benefit: anyone connected to Anwar would be within easy reach of the Muslim Brotherhood because he has long established associations there. I did post images of Anwar sitting side by side with the spiritual head of the MBH so I won’t bother doing it again. When MH370 disappeared Anwar was in a formal political alliance with the PAS which seeks to turn Malaysia into a pan-Islamic state. The trend to conservative Islam in SE Asia has been written up extensively – only last week – in the Australian, and it follows the global trend. In Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Afghanistan, women danced to the Beatles, wore high fashion and went uncovered to Uni as recently as the 70’s. If you choose not to acknowledge the obvious reality on the ground in Malaysia – where unprecedented numbers are now covering the head – that is your prerogative, but I raise these points solely because Shah was in fact easily accessible to whole range of people so I don’t just accept so readily the idea he was just a squeaky little nerd. Malaysia’s dance with conservative political Islam will be disastrous for them as it has been elsewhere. There was no such thing as religious police in Malaysia, not very long ago. Your post looks like a snow job.
PS: my foray into politics was as a stand in with two weeks notice. I didn’t lift a finger or spend a cent. That election was really a training run for a fledgling party that never got off the ground.
@ all
The OI ‘no find, no fee’ proposal will have a cap on costs that is something less than the finders fee, otherwise it would not be viable. Before you make any assumptions about an end date, you need some more information, to know when they will reach that cap.
@ Graham Leishman
The “end date” was not the point. In the early months Malaysia propagated an abundance of incorrect information. This may be a prudent reminder of taking these statements at face value.
@Susie Crowe
Hey I have the exact same gray Nationals baseball cap as Jeffrey Cook is wearing. Isn’t he a little confused though? OI is moving very fast so they could finish the first 25000-km2 relatively soon. But there is a much larger plan, right?
OI is in the thick of Broken Ridge right now, much sooner than I expected, and then they just have to swing down the eastern side to finish the first 25000-km2. Note there would still be more Broken Ridge work, but where they are now is a high priority for me.
@TBill
Now Im confused. Was it Jeffrey Cook who created the 90 day timeline for OI, then in the last 2 days was quoted as saying the search would extend until June? I thought Jeffrey Cook was the guy trying to set the record straight by confirming OI will finish in April as planned.
I am a big fan of the hat!
@PS9. Thanks.
Returning to the original topic and my, “….and not just be a suicide/murderer who would stay on?”
Your, “That is the easy (lazy) way out for the mind to take. It takes no effort of thought to blame a crew member…..”
I do not think a non-professional hijacker flying the aircraft at the end can be ruled out though that too requires motive/circumstances or some supporting rationale.
Fortunately it is unlikely that would affect search width.
@Jeff Wise. “Why overflying the Malay Peninsula, but not Sumatra, if you’re intending to fly south? ”
Yes, we haven’t got far with motive/intentions
If Captain Shah was the bad guy, which I doubt, there is so much risk in his elaborated plan that this experienced pilot had definetly chosen another way to perform his crime. Risk of radars, therefore fighters to intercept, risk of debris to be found after ditching or final nose down crash. His flight sim data would be found and restored. Are we sure he didn’t know about the pings? What about air marshalls on board?
@ JW
You write, “Nikolai Brodsky […] was a recreational diver specializing in mixed-gas equipment that allowed him to go to extreme depth. […] I know less about the Ukrainians, but one of them posted a picture of himself in the water in scuba gear.”
Frankly, taking into account how the disappearance likely took place in practice, those guys fit our “bill” quite a lot better than ZS.
@ T Bill
You write, “First of all I do not agree with -60F for 15-minutes, I am thinking more like 45-50F for a while, which could be very uncomfortable but not the worst part of the problem.
But in general I’d be highly interested to know what supplemental “gear” might have been used (laptops etc). Nighttime temp today in Beijing is below freezing, and it is 5-March.”
With supplemental gear I was referring to equipment to better cope with extreme cold, f.ex. a deep sea diver’s suit or similar. I guess there is little point discussing this further, but how do you see temps in the decompressed plane at 40k ft with outside air coming in being at +50F? The thermal energy of the warm plane fuselage? Or a heater heating outside air from minus 50 to plus 50? I don’t buy it but I admit I’m no expert. Also, I find the idea that coping with minus 50F is a matter of “conditioning” hard to understand. It’s so cold that your limbs freeze off and your brain gets damaged, physically, in a short time. It’s not “oh, it really is chilly today”.
Regarding JORN, JW posted “@ventus45, The point is that, not knowing the status of JORN, someone whose first and only goal was to vanish without a trace would stay well clear. […]”
Ditto. I also agree with Scott O etc. Not much is known publicly about JORN (duh), and so ZS or others couldn’t very well have known exactly whether it’s on, where it’s looking, how long it would take it to be switched on, etc. Meaning, if he did fly into JORN area, he would have been taking a (maybe calculated) risk, or he might not have known about it in the first place (which seems unlikely if he really did preplan a route that purposefully tried to avoid radars). I also second JW’s next sentences, “actually, come to think of it, none of this makes any sense. Why overflying the Malay Peninsula, but not Sumatra, if you’re intending to fly south? If Butterworth isn’t going to intercept you, Indonesia sure as hell isn’t. So: why go northwest if you really want to go south?” In order to explain these things, you have to resort to theories like “he wanted to wave goodbye at Penang”. Possible, but not very strongly and obviously convincing.
One possible explanation:
To avoid being tracked by radar flying in the direction of the SIO.
Instead he followed the Strait of Malacca, possibly in an effort to misguide SAR operations, and only when he thought to have left radar range, did he turn south.
Let’s remember: Without the Inmarsat data (which the pilot might not have been aware of), he would have had to assume that SAR crews would look for the plane in the Strait of Malacca, Andaman Sea and Bay of Bengal (all of which at first they did¹) and then – continuing on the last recorded track – even India.
Not in the SIO. This would accomplish his goal.
—
¹ “search efforts were subsequently increased in the Andaman Sea and Bay of Bengal”
see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_370
and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MH370_initial_search_Southeast_Asia.svg
@JeffWise
I’m a mixed gas (trimix) rebreather diver and spend most of my time diving the less than warm waters around Britain as far north as Shetland with the occasional Norway trip.
Personally, on a dive trip to Bali I wouldn’t be carrying much in the way of cold water diving gear. I would have a 3mm wetsuit suitable for water above 22C rather than my drysuit which would be suitable for sea water
down to 0C.
If I had planned to do some deep (>90m) stuff then I might use a thicker wetsuit and if I was planning some long, deep dives I might consider my drysuit depending on the temperature at depth.
@ Peter Norton
You argue that the perp overflew the Malay peninsula in order to avoid being tracked by radar flying in the direction of the SIO.
Possible, but the question mark remains. Effectively, it would mean that the perp took the calculated risk of not being intercepted by Malaysia AND not being seen physically (f.ex. by ships over the ocean etc) in order not to be seen turning south. Frankly, it seems like quite a trade off. Also, even if he was seen turning south, what would it really have mattered? The SIO is a big place, after crossing Sumatra he would have had fuel for many hours of flying. Your (Peter Norton) theory implies that the perp was unaware of the Inmarsat data. Without that, even if it had been known that the plane had turned in the direction of SIO, there would be zero chance of it being found if not for some weird and unlikely coincidence like a ship being near the eventual landing area by pure chance, which the perp could reduce to practically zero by choosing a place far away from commercial and recreational routes. The SIO is really big, basically.
@ PSother
You write, “@JeffWise
I’m a mixed gas (trimix) rebreather diver and spend most of my time diving the less than warm waters around Britain as far north as Shetland with the occasional Norway trip.
Personally, on a dive trip to Bali I wouldn’t be carrying much in the way of cold water diving gear. I would have a 3mm wetsuit suitable for water above 22C rather than my drysuit which would be suitable for sea water
down to 0C.
If I had planned to do some deep (>90m) stuff then I might use a thicker wetsuit and if I was planning some long, deep dives I might consider my drysuit depending on the temperature at depth.”
The point is less what they would have been carrying for Bali, but the fact that they had experience with conditions that resemble those at 40k ft without pressurisation and the necessary equipment to cope with these.
@Havelock, @Peter Norton, If he wanted to mislead investigators as to which way he was flying, and believed that Indonesian radar was operational, then it makes no sense for him to have turned south just past the northwestern tip of Sumatra, where there are major radar installations.
Also, worth noting that it appears that MH370 turned northward between 18:22 and 18:25. The IG has called this a lateral side-step manoever of the sort that planes sometimes do to avoid traffic on busy routes, but that doesn’t make any sense given that the plane wasn’t flying under ATC control.
@Gerry
“…air marshalls on board?”
Not in Malaysia in 2014 apparently. One of the lessons of this tragedy is that airlines and Countries need to comprehend that an airline can be “secretly” hijacked. I say “secretly” because this (Transponder turn off) is what happened on 9/11, yet Boeing claims there is no merit to changing aircraft design to disallow pilots from turning off transponder without warning message or any control on it.
I know Boeing always feels there is more than one way to solve a problem (procedures vs. design changes), so you can probably safely assume USA has taken steps (possibly secret steps) to address this issue of what a rouge pilot can do. One step is to require 2 in the cockpit all at times, for which MH370 was unfortunately ignored as a warning sign, but implemented by airlines one year later when Germanwings was taken down by a rouge pilot. But obviously, Malaysia had not yet come to grips with thinking through cockpit safety. I would imagine (but not sure) US airlines already had 2 in cockpit rule before Germanwings and before MH370.
@Havelock
I am saying weather was cold in Beijing so having a jacket for cold would probably not be suspicious. But I think the inside of the cabin is not immediately cooling down to outside air temp.
Ships don’t monitor aircraft flying several km above at cruise altitude. Why would they? They often don’t even monitor *other ships* although they should be and even in highly frequented water ways (see news reports of collisions in recent months).
You even admit below that that scenario of MH370 being spotted (AND actively identified!) by a ship has “practically zero chance”. You can’t have it both ways.
Almost nobody was aware of that data outside Inmarsat.
And even Inmarsat took a few weeks to figure out that their data was helpful for the case.
The debris field swimming on the ocean could have been spotted from the air if SAR crews were looking in the SIO. Yes, it’s a big place, but with a few planes/helicopters you can cover an extensive area – much faster than AUVs. So of course there is a big benefit for him if the airborne search is looking in the wrong area during the first few weeks.
@Ventus45, regarding your post on March 5, 6:29 pm:
I’m familiar with the way over the horizon radar works-or is supposed to work based on publically available information.
Your description, however, makes it seem as if that working is all but useless as an early warning system, let alone one that is a multinational effort costing two billion dollars.
Yes, the state of the ionosphere can impair the signal, but doesn’t necessarily render it useless. And my understanding is that ionospheric issues are generally associated with sunrise, sunset and solar disturbances. That wouldn’t likely be an issue in the middle of the night.
But more than that, there was a great deal of conflicting information from military sources around JORN in the days after the disappearance. Was it on, was it off, it was maybe at last off or maybe not. Take your pick.
But I go back to it being an early warning system-one BTW, reputed to be capable of identifying a meter-square object from thousands of miles away. We know JORN is part of an integrated system, including other remote devices. That seems logical. It also makes sense that Australia and its allies have all manner of eyes and ears from ship and airborne radars to satellite imaging to land based sensors all around the Pacific.
Out on a limb here, but why wouldn’t those local systems influence if not directly interface with JORN so it wasn’t scanning just random patches but ones of interest? And what could be more interesting than a huge aircraft, potentially weaponized, on a South Pacific joy ride?
Regarding 95 e being outside of JORN coverage, depending on latitude, I think that’s a matter of debate, as I’ve read in various places that its coverage might extend 4000 miles.
Now, i don’t know what any of it really means, but I think it allows any given scenario to exist in a wold of great doubt.
It doesmake sense.
FACT: He was tracked thought the Malacca Strait by radar
FACT: He was NOT tracked by radar turning south.
So without the Inmarsat data and judging by radar alone, MH370 would have disappeared in the Andaman Sea / Bay of Bengal – and that’s exactly where SAR crews were searching for MH370 (see above). That’s the whole point.
I don’t know why the pilot knew Sumatra radar was inactive at night.
(And frankly, it doesn’t matter. He was right! It doesn’t really matter WHY he was right.)
Maybe he had good sources of information.
Or he had a handheld device onboard, as was often discussed here previously.
The fact that the SDU was re-enabled 2 minutes after leaving radar range points to the latter.
correction: through the Strait of Malacca
@Peter Norton, You are making my brain hurt.
Look, if he knew that Sumatra radar wasn’t operational, why didn’t he just cut right over Sumatra? And anyway, why would he care what direction he was last seen heading? Without the BTO data, there would be absolutely no basis for a search anywhere apart from near the last observed position, which would be somewhere around Sumatra. They never, ever, ever would have gone anywhere near the 7th arc, because there wouldn’t have been a seventh arc.
@ Peter Norton: I considered and decided against spending time on replying to your posts.
@ TBill
You write: “I am saying weather was cold in Beijing so having a jacket for cold would probably not be suspicious. But I think the inside of the cabin is not immediately cooling down to outside air temp.”
That’s actually not the case. Upon depressurisation, temperature will drop to very low levels immediately. If depressurisation happens “explosively”, temperature will drop to about minus 70F. After that, people have hypothesised that temperature could go up again due to the fuselage still being warm and heaters. How much that gains you is basically up to anybody’s guess, but it doesn’t seem like this will really do a lot when you start from minus 70F. The outside air at 40k ft altitude is about minus 50F. That’s the temps you’re going to have to deal with.
@ Scott O
Thanks for your insights into JORN, it’s great that we have someone here who is knowledgeable about it. You write, “It also makes sense that Australia and its allies have all manner of eyes and ears from ship and airborne radars to satellite imaging to land based sensors all around the Pacific.” Absolutely. I want to add that the Strait of Malacca is supposed to be one of the most heavily trafficked shipping lanes and has crucial importance in trade as basically all the oil from Arabia goes through there to East Asia. It has also been the focus of heavy modern piracy a few years ago, which led to concerted policing. It’s only logical that Australia et al would make sure to keep a bit of an eye to that area. For a perp to fly knowingly within range of JORN definitely sounds like taking a risk if there’s a huge ocean in range to the west.
@Havelock. That is what I’m thinking about for 4 years. The Strait is an important waterway and an important flight route. Going there without transponder and TCAS if we suppose the left bus was gone is a high risk of getting tracked and intercepted. But obviously it worked out if the plane is finally found in the SIO.
• If your question is, why he didn’t cut right over Sumatra instead of flying NW through the Malacca Strait:
because he wanted to be tracked through the Malacca Strait (to misguide SAR crews).
• If your question is, why he didn’t cut over the NW tip of Sumatra:
2 minutes after leaving radar range, pilot action lead to the SDU re-logon.
Quite possibly the pilot action also included a turn to the south.
How much earlier than 2 minutes do you want him to react ?
I consider that quite a quick response.
I already answered that part. If the pilot hadn’t changed course at Penang, radar would have last seen him heading into the SIO, so that’s where the aerial search would have begun – instead of the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal, where the aerial search looked in completely the wrong place (as already mentioned above). And even though the SIO is big and “there wouldn’t have been a 7th arc”, there was a chance that a large debris field could have been spotted from the air (especially if the pilot stayed on course and SAR planes followed this course last seen on radar). Let’s remember that SAR planes covered huge swaths of the Indian Ocean. If they had gone there right from the start instead of spending days in the SCS and then in the Andaman Sea / Bay of Bengal, they obviously would have had a better chance of finding the debris field before it got too dispersed and too many pieces started sinking.
Look, I am not saying I know that’s what happened.
I am just saying if that’s what happened, it makes a whole lot of sense to me.
What this theory has going for it, is that IF it happened that way, it worked !
SAR crews were looking in the wrong place (to which the pilot had successfully lured them).
And the debris field in the SIO was NOT found during the aerial search (probably in part because SAR crews arrived 10 days too late).
It was important that the surface search ended empty-handed (because the SIO is too big for an underwater search without a place to start). So the pilot had to find a way to have SAR crews looking in the wrong place for as long as possible. Assuming that’s indeed what happened, the pilot very obviously succeeded in that objective. And if it weren’t for the Inmarsat data (which the pilot couldn’t have foreseen), the aerial search in the Bay of Bengal (or even over land in Asia) would have taken weeks longer, instead of shifting to the SIO. So from the pilot’s perspective and given the state of knowledge of that time, it was the most promising choice if the intention was never to be found and to throw off any pursuers. Turns out it worked.
Sorry Mr. Norton, but this is not true. The SAR in the SCS was intended by Malaysian authorities which imho deliberately focused the SAR teams there although they had strong evidence by their own primary military radar that MH370 did a turn after IGARI and flew back over Malaysia. This is only one point in the beginning which makes Malaysia’s role very scary.
It probably has more to do with way points. Interesting enough SA295 that crashed in the SIO down near Madagascar? Or wherever it was threaded up through the Malacca Strait before turning South West towards Reunion. Maybe that has something to do with it. Which IMHO rules out the suicidal pilot motive.
Gerry, I was offering an explanation for the pilot’s actions – not for Malaysia’s actions.
So your point may well be valid, but doesn’t in any way contradict what I’m saying.
Let’s agree that absent any radar data, any well-intentioned country would have looked at the LKP (last known position).
Given the chaos, confusion and incompetence on display, it is possible that Malaysia didn’t immediately have the radar data and even once they had it, they were confused and it took them a while to be certain of what happened. I think the Malaysian government even said in a TV ITV that for a while they searched BOTH in the SCS and in the Andaman Sea, because they admitted they were unsure and confused as to what happened. And to a certain degree I can understand that, given that this incident was completely unprecedented and extremely bizarre.
Another possibility is, that Malaysia was deliberately misleading as you say. And I don’t discount that possibility. But if it was a cunning plan by Malaysia, then why did they deliberately display such a level of incompetence? That doesn’t really fit together.
But either way, none of that was my point in my postings above.
I was offering a rationale for the pilot’s actions, not Malaysia’s.
@Jeff, with respect to the Russian trolling and Islamic discussion my comment ignited involving @Matty and @buyerninety, I just want to emphasize that I am not a Russian troll in the slightest. In fact, I used to live right around the corner from you and have never set foot in Russia. My grandfather, like many other Jews in Minsk, fled Cossack oppression and came here in the early 20th century, so if anything I agree with you that Putin is quite capable of, and very well might be responsible for, masterminding this baffling crime. I hope you check IP addresses and emails and see for yourself, and I’d be thrilled to further verify it offline.
As far as my bringing @Matty back into the discussion via the Islamist angle, my comment was a genuine expression of appreciation that this board has fostered such robust discussion for so many years. I think it’s perfectly reasonable to continue the discussion of Islamist involvement, and applaud @Matty for doing so. I would remind everyone that to this day, the only known fraudulent passports to board 9MMRO were carried by 2 young Iranian men. While most of us (including myself) have fully cleared them from suspicion, it’s a fact worth remembering and periodically re-addressing. Also, as @Matty notes, it is very important to continue to include Anwar and his influence in the conversation.
As for my rhetoric that we all know the plane won’t be found during our lifetimes, I concede that that was unnecessarily hyperbolic. That happens to remain my belief just due to the vastness of the ocean and the power of the MY government to continue to obfuscate and conceal.
I doubt Malaysia was deliberately misleading, they are just incredibly incompetent which is nothing unusual for a corrupted 3rd world country.
@StevanG, incompetence and obfuscation are not mutually exclusive. They are indeed incompetent too, but if one examines all of their public statements in totality, an undeniable pattern of deception is clear. In fact, it’s so overwhelming and apparent that if I had to absolutely come up with one best guess for what happened to 9MMRO, it would be something closely resembling DennisW’s theory of negotiation-gone-catastrophic, because there’s just no other way to explain MY’s vigorous pattern of concealment.
@Sunken Deal, I apologize for being curt. I was a bit triggered by your assertion that the plane will never be found. My frustration is based on the fact that we don’t lack for clues, but the authorities (and their self-appointed boosters among independent investigators) have consistently refused to acknowledge any evidence that doesn’t fit their narrative.
Meanwhile… you wrote: “if I had to absolutely come up with one best guess for what happened to 9MMRO, it would be something closely resembling DennisW’s theory…” Dennis doesn’t have a theory. A theory is an articulated explanation which fits the evidence and which can be used to make predictions. Dennis has an idea–worse, a “motive-first” idea, which in combination with a dollar will get you a cup of coffee at Dunkin Donuts.
@Jeff, I certainly don’t want to speak for Dennis. But regardless of what we call his notion – a hypothesis, supposition, guess, doctrine, or proffer – it always seemed to me to be no more or less coherent or feasible than any other prediction I’ve read here, including yours. I think so many are drawn to this case and your blog precisely because anything is still THEORETICALLY possible. So much of the evidence we have is, as you have put it in the past with specific reference to the flaperon biofouling, of “dubious provenance” that any claim of where the plane is remains possible. The sanctity of the Inmarsat data is questionable, so any conclusion based on that is, reasonably, rejectable if one wants to question the underlying assumption. I really have yet to encounter a claim which we can rule out, other than that the plane arrived safely in Beijing.
That brings me to a point I’ve been meaning to raise with you for quite some time. Many of your assertions, while I believe are nevertheless valid based on my framework above, leave me with the reaction “yeah ok Jeff, but absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” For example, you have ruled out certain 7th arc resting spots based upon prior search results, or lack thereof. While I still often find myself nodding in agreement with your arguments, I just wish you would occasionally acknowledge that an SIO resting spot — even on latitudes intersecting with 7th arc search locations — is still possible, given the vastness of the ocean and fallibility of the search vessel output.
@Jeff
You said:
“The point is that, not knowing the status of JORN, someone whose first and only goal was to vanish without a trace would stay well clear. Remember, this is someone who went all the way around Sumatra in order (presumably) to avoid overflying Indonesian land (though not airspace). Actually, come to think of it, none of this makes any sense. Why overflying the Malay Peninsula, but not Sumatra, if you’re intending to fly south? If Butterworth isn’t going to intercept you, Indonesia sure as hell isn’t. So: why go northwest if you really want to go south ?”
I said:
“So, getting back to Z’s “planning”, choosing a flight path south remaining west of a line from 95E at the equator to 88E at 40S would keep him out of the JORN coverage anyway, and also, you will note, aligns well with the 00 UTC terminator on the day (8th March). When I developed my scenario (the via Medan route) both factors, ie, JORN and the 00 terminator were the major planning constraints (along with the third ie fuel, for range and endurance).”
Well at least we basically agree on that, except that he did not go around Ache.
As all of you well know, I have long held the view that the Lido slide is false, and that he did actually overfly Sumartra, via Medan, (or perhaps a little north of there, only a few miles) because it gives him “an escape route” that is direct (minimum time and track miles), as detailed at (http://ventus45.blogspot.com.au/2016/11/) towards UPROB, with the real FMT just before reaching UPROB.
What is more, this route closely matches both the BTO and BFO criteria, flying normally in cruise flight, “direct”, without the need for all sorts of holding patterns, “side steps” etc, that the proponents of the Malacca Strait route have come up with to “fit” the BTO’s and BFO’s in the 18:25 – 19:41 time slot.
A “deliberate act” pilot is not “holding” for anything, he is “getting out of Dodge” pronto.
Since Medan Radar is off after the airport closes at midnight, it is also a viable “safe” route through a miltary radar hole in Sumartra (between PSR TNI-AU Satuan Radar 233 Sabang Ache (http://ventus45.blogspot.com.au/2017/07/psr-tni-au-satuan-radar-233-sabang-ache.html) and Sibolga on the west coast.
Note, that once clear of the west coast of Sumartra, (the last radar that exists that possibly could have got a brief paint on him is Sibolga, and he was out of range anyway by 18:25) he is then free to turn in any direction he chooses between 180 and 300, without being seen, ever again. As the ISAT data tells us, he went south.
@Scott O.
I was not implying JORN is useless, far from it. What I was saying is that it is a precise tool when “focused” on an area of interest, to the operators at the time, but is not a “broad sweep of everything” that people tend to think of when they think of radar, as in, the clasic circular scope with the rotating beam. As far as “data fusion” with other sensors is concerned, we may speculate forever, but I very much doubt any information in that realm will ever come to light. As for JORN’s range, there are wildly different reports and statements out there, some very far fetched. I settled on a realistic coverage out from Laverton West Australia that is pretty much bordered by the line I specified above.
In any case, I am happy to see people finally starting to seriously consider an overflight of Sumartra, as opposed to the Malacca Strait story.
David said:
“I do not think a non-professional hijacker flying the aircraft at the end can be ruled out though that too requires motive/circumstances or some supporting rationale. ”
No, cannot be ruled out, but, as you say, it would need a (huge) justification for motive. A suicidal hijacker?
@Havelock, Thank you but I can’t claim any deep knowledge of JORN—just a duffer with an interest.
@Ventus45, I’m sorry if you’ve already written, but your belief in the Lido image being a fabrication—why do you imagine the government would do that? The reason I ask is because it seems that if this flight had anything to do with Anwar or any other political opposition, it would not be in the government’s interest to obfuscate that fact. One way to cut the legs out of any underdog
movement would be to show that movements disregard for innocents.
Other than that, I certainly agree with your “get out of Dodge” statement. I’ve never, for example, bought the fly-by good-bye argument. I can’t recall and haven’t found any other example of an active criminal taking such risks for sentiment, outside, I should say, the movies and incidents of domestic violence.
Sunken Deal said:
“… if I had to absolutely come up with one best guess for what happened to 9MMRO, it would be something closely resembling DennisW’s theory of negotiation-gone-catastrophic, because there’s just no other way to explain MY’s vigorous pattern of concealment.”
Then you would be limiting yourself to one viewpoint and all of the problems of confirmation bias that comes with it. There are other explanations perhaps. To begin with, consider for a few moments that the MYG are not covering up what ‘they’ have done (their part is perhaps very small and limited to obscuring/concealing the truth, albeit in their own incompetent, corrupt and bumbling way) but more that they are concealing and distracting from what others have done. That they are an unwilling participant in another(s) scheme, and perhaps are often finding themselves behind the curve of what’s going to happen next and whatever the story for that will be. Which would explain why they will not backup their ‘facts’ with statements of certainty (such as the turn back, the radar data, the flight up the Straits) but are instead rather always vague and non-committal. Those ‘facts’ are maybe someone else’s.
Negotiation theories have been discussed extensively in the past. They have many holes that don’t stand up to reason and common sense.
Once again consider,
either the pilot was extremely lucky or ATC communication and radar participation was manipulated, because what happened should not have happened.
Radar discretion is understandable only if it does not undermine the investigation. The virtual non-existence of all radar in the area is an apocryphal explanation.
Najib Razak reeks of depravity. Tainted money from illicit transactions fill his pockets while his self indulgent abuse of power destroys lives. Where is the justification, in peddling information from this crook and his cronies, as true?
Back to the pilot. Is it more believable that Captain Zaharie fomulated this elaborate plan as a means of suicide, or, the plane was marked by destruction or retribution, for reasons not privy to public consumption.
Is it more believable that Captain Zaharie single handedly, disabled comms, got rid of the co-pilot, killed all the passengers, flew expertly through FIR, escaped ATC by their freakish ineptitude, slipped through all military radar, except supposedly Malaysia, flew isolated in his cockpit all through the night, waited for sunrise, no fuel and THEN committed suicide? Or is it more believable, this was conceived for reasons we are not meant to understand and efficiently executed by trained professionals.
‘Gerry’ said:
“The Strait is an important waterway and an important flight route. Going there without transponder and TCAS if we suppose the left bus was gone is a high risk of getting tracked and intercepted. But obviously it worked out if the plane is finally found in the SIO.”
So … if your aircraft is damaged and heading for the SIO and you can’t stop it or tell anyone, fly up the Straits first … people will then notice and track you and your aircraft will be eventually found, even though you’re all long dead?
Perhaps you should take a back seat and read up on the subject for a few years before you make any more inane comments like that.
‘Peter Norton’ said:
“… because he wanted to be tracked through the Malacca Strait (to misguide SAR crews).”
Perhaps you should too, your reasoning is not much better.
The Trolls are out …
Here’s an interesting excerpt from Franceinfo (https://www.francetvinfo.fr/monde/asie/boeing-disparu/grand-format-cherche-mh370-desesperement-quatre-ans-d-errances-entre-ciel-et-terre-pour-retrouver-l-avion-de-malaysia-airlines_2602756.html)
My translation: