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.
@Dennis,
Neither is an angle technically correct. The angle also varies with the shape of the earth and the altitude of the plane.
@JS, Nor have I ever seen “eleveation angle” referred to when dealing with BTO values in any other context. Here’s one theory: Inmarsat had never used BTO data to locate a plane before (though they’d obviously had the idea that it might be useful), and they were wondering if the elevation angle might explain why the plane had logged off and then logged back onto the IOR satellite. So they calculated it, and plotted the various elevation angles, to see where on the map the plane might have logged on or off due to elevation angle. Of course it quickly turned out to be a dead end…
Again, just an idea off the top of my head.
@Jeff,
I’d go along with that as a possible explanation.
I’m also wondering if there are different antennas pointed at different angles and somehow this was factored in. There was that honeycomb diagram of the region that is seen on photos of their control room, though I thought that was for the higher-speed service. However, if there are indeed different antennas, I’d ask f there were different circuits and if all of them had the same bias.
The lack of transparency continues…
@JS
Neither is an angle technically correct. The angle also varies with the shape of the earth and the altitude of the plane.
Sure. I should have been more careful. Azimuth and elevation are very conventional celestial navigation concepts. From the standpoint of a celestial navigator the elevation angle to the satellite is constant from a given ring.
The notion of defining the rings in terms of a radius from a sub-satellite point is simply not common vernacular. I think you are reading too much into it.
@DennisW, What you are saying does not make any sense.
@DennisW
With respect, I wonder if you could put your great understanding of these things to work, and sort this out for me, correct my thinking if I have got it wrong, and explain it to us all please, in nice simple language, once and for all.
The p channel thing still bothers me.
As I understand it, the p channel is the network timing signal for the ENTIRE Inmarsat network.
It is sent from the network control station in Bruam.
It goes up to all the satellies(s) in the network, (C band from Bruam) and is retransmitted down on BOTH c band (to the other GES’s in the network) AND is converted to L band in the satellite transponder, and transmitted down to all the AES’s under each satellite.
The way many seem to be interpreting things however, is that the P channel master from Braum is transmuitted up to the satellite in C band, and then down to the GES’s (also in C band), WITHOUT any retransmiiting in L band to the AES’s. Apparently, each GES then RETRANSMITS it own p chanell up to the satelite(s) on the circuits it is operating, for AES’s to log into.
What we have been told (if I have understood it correctly), is that the AES’s that have logged in to any particular GES (in this case Perth) then uses that GES’s own p channel signal to synchronise to, and NOT the original Bruam signal. Thus, they are (or seem to be) effectively saying that the p channel signal that the AES in 9M-MRO received was a p channel signal sent from Perth, NOT a p channel signal sent from Bruam. Thus, they are saying that the entire BTO baseline is established by the Perth GES timing protocols, and that Bruam has noything to do with 9M-MRO directly, only indirectly, via Perth GES.
I can not get my head around that, it is illogical.
To my mind, the P channel is the MASTER timing signal for the ENTIRE network (ALL GES’s and ALL AES’s).
I would expect that the p channel signal that the AES’s receive SHOULD BE the same Braum p channel signal that the GES’s receive by C band, but transponded to L band in the satellite. This would make a BIG difference to how the BTO’s should be calculated.
Consider a baseline case.
Let us assume that the distance Bruam to the satellite is fixed (ie, Bruam being a ground station is fixed), and we will assume for the sake of the argument that the satellite is perfectly stationary in the ECEF frame.
Next, the distance from the satellite down to Perth GES is fixed (ie, Perth being a ground station is also fixed).
So we have two fixed, but different distances.
Now we need an AES.
Let’s assume that 9M-MRO is on the ground somewhere, at some mythical airport, that just happens to be precisely the same distance from the satelite as the Perth GES.
We now have our third distance.
We have two the same, (sat to GES and Sat to AES) and one (Bruam to sat) which is slightly different.
Now, the p channel signal goes up from Bruam to the satellite. One way trip – no drama.
It is then retransmiited by the satellite in C band to GES Perth, and in L band to 9M-MRO.
Therefore, since both the GES Perth, and the AES in 9M-MRO are at precisely the same distance from the sat, they both receive the p channel signal at PRECISELY the same time. Therfore, you can calculate the true BTO on the coms channel timing protocols from GES Perth because the AES is responding to the SAME p channel frames that Perth GES is basing it’s timing on.
BUT, if the AES is NOT at the same distance from the satellite as Perth, then there will be a timing differenc. This is the normal case of course, and it is the fundamental reason why the much mentioned, but never explained “VIRTUAL TERMINAL” exists at all.
A virtual terminal is needed to enable the system to work.
There has to be a timining spead to allow any AES to be at any feasible distance from the satelite.
If the AES was directly under the satelite, (elevation angle 90 degrees) the distance AES to satellite would be its most minimal possible. If the AES was down in Antartica, (elevation angle about 2 degrees) the distance AES to satellite would be its maximum possible.
Therefore, the time for a signal to travel AES to satellite (or reverse) would be least at the equator, and the most at Antarctica.
Moreover, the baseline INMARSAT timing system must allow for ANY AES to communicate at the “shortest time” interval under ANY particular satellite at the equator. Now, there are numerous satellites in the Inmarsat system, in different orbital slots around the equator. For any given satellite, it’s distance from Bruam will be fixed. (Not all satellites are controlled from Bruam, those in the Pacific are controlled from Hawai). But the point is, that the Inmarsat satellies over the Atlantic are much closer to Bruam than I-3-F1 is over the Indian Ocean. So the Atlantic satellites set the “minimum time” boundary conditions for “the entire network”.
Now, extrapollating this requirement to I-3F-1, means that the minimum timing boundary, or the “virtual terminal” as it has been called, for I-3F-1, becomes a point directly under I-3F-1, but much higher up than any AES would ever be able to reach. I seem to remember back long ago, that someone (I can not remember who) calculated it to be in the order of 600 kilometres altitude (if memory serves).
Thus, this “virtual terminal”, or “minimum system time offset” from BRUAM has to be the baseline from which the BTO’s are calculated, and NOT from GES Perth, otherwise the system would not work.
The crucial point here, is that, going back to the beginning, when we had the AES and Perth being the SAME distance from the satellite, the BTO (as recorded at Perth) would be a correct and direct measure, but ONLY when the distances are the same. When the AES is in a different position, the BTO (as recorded by Perth) has to be offset by the DIFFERENCE in the distances between Pert to Sat and AES to Sat AT THAT INSTANT. Obviously therefore, that DIFFERENCE distance will change as the AES physically moves (and as the sat moves).
Therefore, we have been barking up the wrong tree all this time.
We have been calculating the positions of the BTO arcs based off a false timing baseline, ie, the Perth GES clock, not the Bruam clock.
We therefore need to recalculate the real BTO’s from the Perth recorded BTO’s, by adjusting them to the “virtual terminal” from the Bruam clock.
Fortunately, we can do that, because we have the BTO’s recorded from Gate C1.
We have the two distances we need to calculate the difference in the time of the p channel from Braum to C1 and to Perth at that time (actually there were multiple BTO’s recorded on the ground, over some time, during which the satellite moved, but the aircraft did not, it was stationary at the gate).
Thus, these time differences (of the one way p channel from sat to C1, and from sat to GES Perth, should give us the true time offset for correcting the recorded BTO’s (recorded at Perth GES) to the TRUE BTO’s from the “virtual terminal” (which is in fact NOT a point directly under the satellite itself at all, but rather, it is a point on the surface of a sphere around I-3F-1, with a radius about 600 km shorter than the height of the satellite above the equator. This will make the calculations difficult, but doable.
I hope that explanation is understandable to people, and makes sense.
Your thoughts Dennis ?
@Jeff
Your guest post.
http://jeffwise.net/2014/05/18/guest-post-mh370-what-we-know-and-what-we-would-like-to-know/
@Ventus
Sorry, responding to your post is outside my “comfort” zone. Don T. or ALSM will need to weigh in.
couldn’t agree more, Susie!
@Dennis,
“From the standpoint of a celestial navigator the elevation angle to the satellite is constant from a given ring.”
No, this is wrong. We are interested in the LoS distance. That distance forms a sphere, submerged directly below the satellite, and rising at the edges. The radius, and angle, at where the sphere rises from the surface is dependent on the shape of the earth at each location, and radius and elevation angle are equally ill-suited in terms of accuracy.
Elevation angle is worse, though, in terms of usability because it requires knowledge of the satellite position when the angle was calculated. That is why it has always bothered me, although Jeff’s theory that it was a half-built attempt to analyze antenna angle is at least plausible.
@ventus45,
Your post roughly represents my concern all along. In a nutshell, the BTO is the most fundamental part of any model, and yet it is the least critically discussed. The difference in offsets between KLIA and Perth would change everything. Likewise, a poor understanding of whether the log was based on a time boundary or a pre-programmed constant (both of which may be very near 500,000) would change everything.
If I recall, the slot boundaries did move slightly over the length of the flight. I have to find that data.
@JS
The radius, and angle, at where the sphere rises from the surface is dependent on the shape of the earth at each location, and radius and elevation angle are equally ill-suited in terms of accuracy.
I am agreeing with you!! The true ring path on the surface of the earth needs to be calculated by iteration (I have found no other way to do it). I did conclude that the radius and sub-sat method gets very close.
I am merely suggesting that the elevation angle description was used because it is so familiar to most people. I don’t see anything weird about it or that it is part of an attempt to obscure anything.
@JS
The concern over BTO also occurred to me, but for a different reason. The method described using the very precise locations of Perth, the satellite, and the stationary position of the aircraft in KL felt OK to me. My question is whether you would get the same answer every time the AES was booted. My assumption is that you would or Inmarsat, DSTG, and sk999 (who has looked at the Beijing flight) would have said something about it. Enough qualified people have looked at the process that it is not high on my list of concerns.
@Dennis – I misread, although we disagree on whether it’s weird or not.
As for the reboot and its effect on the data, that’s a really good point.
One would certainly hope everyone has looked at it. But here we are, so nothing is really settled. The fact that some of the thinner-skinned folks get really defensive and emotional suggests that maybe not every angle was run down.
And I’d say that so far, the only thing qualified people have done is put the plane in the air, and the fact that it didn’t get back to the ground suggests it wasn’t quite enough. I know that’s a bleak way of looking at things, but every accident is both the success of the “qualified people” and the failure as well.
@JS
Yes, I have been “harder” on the analytical community than most (myself included). We have made major fumbles, but they have been in good faith.
Not going to win analyst of the year but did anyone actually notice that the part of the Flaperon that has worn away is the part that isn’t flush with the wing when in full deployment? Does this mean then that the Flaperon was fully deployed when the damaged to the trailing edge was caused & that the mechanism was probably forced into the neutral position this causing flutter. I noted a gap at the top of the Flaperon whilst in full deployment. Could ingress of water into that gap alongside flutter cause the Flaperon to separate?
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1a6a-mXjoQ8TDh7qHeQ15iMmCIr8XKiww/view?usp=drivesdk
@Michael John, We had a long discussion about this. Some people feel strongly that the way the flaperon broke indicates that it hit the water while deployed, or that it ripped off due to flutter. I don’t thing a very strong case was made for either. Someone made the case that the fact that the hinge supports (using the wrong term here) snapped off at the point of their attachment to the flaperon proper indicates a side-to-side motion in relation to the wing, which it seems to me would be hard to explain in terms of any normal impact.
The French must have conducted an analysis; it’s frustrating that we haven’t seen it.
@Michael John
I asked a somewhat similar question about the Flaperon yesterday over on VI’s blog. Somewhat interesting responses.
JS Posted February 26, 2018 at 11:04 AM:
“Further, the fact that the initial distance rings were presented as elevation angles instead of distances also continues to bother me. What was the purpose of the elevation angle rings?”
Are you referring to this chart: https://ogleearth.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/inmarsatarc.jpg ?
Similar charts exist for each satellite in the Inmarsat system:
http://www.stratosglobal.com/~/media/Documents/skyWave/Public/skywave_coverage_map.pdf
I think it is plausible they just used a chart that was available at the time. As Jeff suggests, they had not at that time produced a chart that showed BTO-rings.
@TBill
Yes, VictorI’s suggestion could hold water. With or without pilot-input; the flaperon, right outboard flap section, left wing outboard flap piece, right wing elevator piece, right and left wing flaperon closing panels, nose gear door piece, right and left wing flap fairings, could all have seperated in this view compared with SilkAir or ChinaAir006.
But in none of those accidents one of the parts mentioned seperated during their very high speed descents (and recovery of ChinaAir006).
SilkAir lost its elevators in the dive and ChinaAir lost parts of it during its pull-out.
But no trailing edge wing control-surfaces like flaps or fairings and the like or engine cowlings.
And no nose gear door too.
The comparison with those flights is not acceptable imo. The found debris of MH370 shows a different story.
@Michael John:
I think that ATSB report “MH370 – Search and debris examination update” of 2 November 2016, Figures 20, 21 and 22 show that the flaperon was aligned with the retracted flap at impact – not deflected upward or downwards.
@Gysbreght
This was only the ATSB’s final ‘most probable’ assumption. They never made a conclusive statement on this subject.
@Ge Rijn: Well, you can agree or disagree with the ATSB’s final ‘most probable’ assumption.
@Brian Anderson:
@DennisW:
@DennisW said:
“I have no idea how someone looking at just the Inmarsat data could determine if it is perfectly valid and unaltered.”
From its knowledge of how its own systems work and are programmed, and from comparison with other data on its servers (from MH370 and from other flights), presumably Inmarsat would, at least, be able to determine:
– If the data was in a ‘normal’ and expected format: ie. no oddities added, and nothing missing that should be there.
– Whether there were any irregularities in the values of anything that couldn’t be (properly) explained/accounted for – ie. all values in the expected range – no overly larger or smaller values; no negative instead of positive, no missing values etc.
– Whether there were any unauthorised or unexpected accesses to the server prior/during to the data reception date/time.
– Whether there were any reception/transmitting errors or anomalies recorded in the logs before or during the data being received.
At the very least it might be expected someone would have asked Inmarsat the questions:
‘You publicly stated many times your concerns that the data might have been spoofed. What gave you those concerns?’
‘Do you still have those concerns (now – in 2018) or have you explained them away? What was the explanation?’
Another set of questions would be:
‘Exactly what changes/redactions did you make to the raw (ie. as received) data before releasing it? Why did you make those changes? Can we, as data analysts, have the complete raw data please? Why not?’
Those questions would seem to be an essential first step in determining the reliability of the data before accepting it as anywhere near ‘valid’.
Has anyone asked those questions, or have the people who have assumed the role of the analysts of the data meekly accepted whatever they were given, potential errors/additions/omissions/changes included?
@PS9
My original thought relative to spoofing is that I could not make sense of any reason to fly into the SIO, and I never considered a mechanical issue to be likely. Also the Inmarsat system is relatively easy to spoof.
Since then I was able to find a workable CI scenario which I adopted for awhile.
Then along came the simulator data which pretty much eliminates a spoofing, IMO.
I currently believe ~30S on the 7th arc to be the best candidate terminus.
DennisW said:
“Then along came the simulator data which pretty much eliminates a spoofing, IMO.”
Yes, in the opinion you currently hold.
Whatever might / might not have happened on Z’s simulator, and by whom it was done, doesn’t change the fact (fact) that Inmarsat was repeatedly saying they suspected the data might have been spoofed.
You are simply ignoring that fact as no longer being relevant due to your viewpoint that you have already found and hung the culprit. But it is still relevant to both the location of the aircraft and the motive, irrespective of that.
The question remains: has anyone in the IG asked Inmarsat why they suspected spoofing, and what was their answer?
Has anyone in the IG asked Inmarsat for the raw data? Did they get it? Why not?
In terms of the validity of the ISAT data, simulator data is a distraction from what is important.
ventus45,
Regarding your post r.e. pilot signals, you seem to be completely confused. First, the station in the Netherlands is “Burum”, not “Bruam”. Second, what Burum broadcasts are pilot signals (two, actually, although only one is of interest to us) that go to Perth via 3-F1. These signals are used for frequency control only (BFOs). They are not used for timing (BTOs). The one pilot signal that is of interest to us is broadcast as an L-band signal, as if it came from an AES, and is up-converted on the satellite to C-band before being sent to Perth.
No pilot signal from Burum is received by an AES. All timing signals orignate from Perth.
Timing for AES signals to and from Perth is controlled exclusively by Perth.
@Gysbreght. “That someone was unlikely to be a professional and qualified pilot, because a professional pilot would have wanted to retain full control and would not have allowed the airplane to run out of fuel.”
Yes best to include someone other than a professional pilot. Still, if so, the probability of a recovery and long glide outside the search, even with IFE non-connection permitting, look remote.
Putting the stall aside though, with a professional pilot I reckon there is a reasonable argument that the only point in flying all that way was to get to a particular destination. I agree that would entail having reserves on arrival. Nowhere have I seen any analysis of the effect of shortening of the effective fuel available at terminus.
I will raise this on the VI blog where first I did and where@Andrew and @Dr Bobby Ulich operate.
@PS9
https://runwaygirlnetwork.com/2014/05/27/inmarsat-confident-mh370-data-correct-assuming-it-hasnt-been-spoofed/
@David
I agree that the only point of a live pilot flying all the way down into the SIO was to reach a particular destination, and I believe that destination was Broken Ridge for reasons outlined earlier.
Given the flight time to that particular location, chances are that the Pilot did have fuel remaining upon arrival. Maybe this remaining fuel was dumped prior to a final high speed suicide dive in order to minimize any potentially visible fireball / smoke plume, or maybe Pilot just shut down the engines manually & didn’t worry about anyone spotting a fiery crash out in the middle of a big ocean. Either way, I figure he probably wanted a few moments of relative silence in the cockpit with the engines off before his final plunge into oblivion.
As the search team proceeds north, I’m actually hoping they find the wreckage right at Broken Ridge. I believe it to be one of the few spots in the SIO where the specific impact location itself would be a significant clue as to the cause of this tragedy. If MH370 wreckage is found precisely at Broken Ridge, then I believe it was crashed there intentionally by a live nefarious Pilot in order to hinder its discovery, and did not simply end up there by mere coincidence.
joe –
your comment brings up something I’ve wanted to see discussed and I’m sure it has been but probably missed it over the last many years and thousands of comments.
it goes to what the captain may have thought he could have achieved at the outset of the flight, vs what he was actually able to achieve. Like he thought he could have arrived to Broken Ridge (Dordrecht Hole?) based on the weather or other info he had before or right at the time he left. Over many hours in flight the conditions may have changed, something unexpected caused his route to be have changed or whatever, but since he was already committed to it, he just kept going anyway. if he was aiming for something like Broken Ridge or Dordrecht Hole he might have almost made it.
I generally liked your comment.
Broken Ridge makes no sense(if you think his goal was to “hide” the plane), the sea there in March is always so rough there is no way he could land it without huge debris field
the northern you go the more chance there is to land it without (huge) debris
@all
Possibly off topic but more recent news on the 1MDB probe.
Irrelevant if you think Zaharie hijacked 9M-MRO of course.
But there is the contrary view that 9M-MRO and 1MDB story could be on the same page;
http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2018/02/28/indonesian-police-seize-luxury-yacht-linked-to-1mdb-probe/
Just out of curiosity. For those who don’t trust the Inmarsat Data where do you think Mh370 came down? We all know where Jeff thinks it is & most people know my own opinion but what is yours?
@StevanG
I NEVER said the Pilot would try to land the plane in the sea fully intact to avoid a floating debris field. I think that particular theory is ridiculous.
I believe he piloted the plane into a final high speed vertical dive to impact in order to completely obliterate the aircraft to the fullest extent possible.
I assume he figured most of the wreckage would immediately sink and any tiny bits of aircraft confetti left afloat after the crash would quickly disperse via winds and currents across a wide area of remote open ocean where no one should rightly even suspect to look for this plane.
Even given knowledge of the 7th Arc, locating MH370 wreckage on the SIO seafloor is a monumentally difficult task. But if not for the obscure Inmarsat ping data, of which the nefarious Pilot was most likely completely unaware, locating the crash site otherwise would truly have been utterly hopeless.
@Joe Nemo, A couple of problems with your scenario.
1) You’re presuming that a suicidal pilot decides to make his plane go electronically dark, then fly for six hours at cruise speed out into the middle of the remotest, four-mile deep ocean. Why would it ever occur to him that anyone would ever have the slightest clue where to look for it? That being the case, how could it possibly matter whether the seabed in this area was smooth or rugged?
2) The CSIRO calculates that if the plane had gone down over Broken Ridge, there is a 90-100 percent chance that the debris would have been spotted during the surface searches undertaken in 2014. (see “The Operational Search for MH370,” page 35)
1 thing I don’t understand is how did the perpetrators know that the plane wouldn’t be detected on radar? Why not fly it East across the Phillipines & dump the aircraft into the North Pacific Ocean? Looks to me that the NPO is as good as SIO. Seems highly risky if it’s a suicide mission to fly it back across land & then up the Malacca Strait.
@Jeff Wise
Also, the longer the plane flew, the greater the odds of being seen.
@Joe Nemo you wrote:
“I assume he figured most of the wreckage would immediately sink and any tiny bits of aircraft confetti left afloat after the crash would quickly disperse via winds and currents across a wide area of remote open ocean where no one should rightly even suspect to look for this plane.”
Not an entirely implausible idea, but if we give Shah the credit of having studied enough to seamlessly divert a full plane from its scheduled path, navigate the borders of FIRs, dart through military radar coverage somehow knowing he wouldn’t be pursued, deke and turn to the left and arriving as some end point he potentially plotted on his flight sim–well, that’s a lot of planning that went into that.
And so it makes me wonder if he would not have also learned from reports on AF447 and how much large scale debris from it remained afloat and how easy it was to ultimately identify and recover pieces of the aircraft including the CVR and FDRs.
I get that there’s a difference between a powered dive and an aircraft in essential free fall. And I can also understand he may have thought he was delaying a search by the actions and route he’s presumed to have taken. But would he really have command of all the things to do to get that far, and yet not wonder about factors outside of his control that could lead to his discovery–a stray sighting by aircraft or ship? Satellite imaging and machine processing? Acoustic devices and so on…?
@Joe Nemo
We are still in agreement
@Michael John @JeffW
At the moment, I am thinking MH370 turned south at 0894E, which is approx. the same area that MH370-Captio.net proposed the first turn. This means MH370 could have been spotted by Sabang Indonesia military radar if it was operating. Arc2 is within Sabang radar coverage, so it is difficult (but perhaps not impossible) to fly around Sabang radar coverage.
I am thinking MH370 might have been planning or pretending to appear to be going south to BULVA and for a turn easterly onto airway M300 back to KLIA over Sumatra. In reality it seems MH370 missed that turn and kept going South.
At that point, if MH370 had been caught on radar, the 180S trajectory could possibly be known. So as @Gysbreght mentioned, I envision a southeastly jog along Broken Ridge such that we will not be finding MH370 at exactly 180S (where the OI search is right now).
All I can think is MH370 knew Sabang radar was probably off but as a contingency the pilot could say he was heading back thru Samatra.
@Jeff Wise @ScottO
“Why would it ever occur to him that anyone would ever have the slightest clue where to look for it? That being the case, how could it possibly matter whether the seabed in this area was smooth or rugged?”
Even given the Pilot’s considerable efforts to reach a remote open ocean location undetected, he still had to accept the possibility that the plane might be spotted en route to SIO by an eye witness on passing ship, or on a satellite image some time later during the inevitable investigation.
Hence the specific target location of Broken Ridge whose extreme depths and mountainous bathymetry would most hinder the detection of the underwater debris field by currently available sonar scanning technology & thereby prevent recovery of the incriminating CVR / FDR.
Due to the nefarious Pilot’s semi-effective strategy, the search for MH370 did not shift focus to the SIO for quite some time after the actual incident. This delay was plenty time enough for wind, currents, and passing storms to disperse a tightly localized and easily recognizable floating debris field into many tiny hard to spot items spread across a wide area of very rough & remote open ocean already strewn with tons of unrelated flotsam & jetsam.
@PS9
“In the Air Italia fiasco in 1980, NATO had intelligence that Gadaffi was flying through that area at that time (he was the target). When they messed up and shot down the civilian aircraft by mistake, the Governments, security services and military of several NATO countries took part in the cover-up, according to the investigating Judge.”
[With my conspiracy hat on]
After the Air Italia incident I would expect the countries involved to have devised a plan for dealing with a deliberate or accidental shooting down of a civillian aircraft. They have contingency plans for everything.
@Joe Nemo
I would say part of the reason I delayed naming Broken Ridge as a target, was because I could no obvious place to hide wreckage at around 32.5S.
With the hindsight of the new bathymetry images, I would pick a craggy mountain-side versus the flat bottom. I do note Google Earth says there seems to be a small deep pocket to 17,300-ft almost exactly on Arc7 at around 32.5S and 95.75E.
@TBill
As I argued for a long time I see the Broken Ridge trenches and holes between ~95/~97E and ~32.2/~33S as most probably targets. Indications are getting stronger +/- 25Nm should be enough to search along this region. But I see no conclusive evidence yet this is enough.
My concern is the search width will be to small here.
But we’ll see. If nothing gets found there we’ll know and hopefully OI has time to come back later when nothing gets found more north either.
I would preferre they scan the width mentioned there as they arrive and the weather still permits it but I realise that’s only based on my own analyses and assumptions. I trust they know what they are doing too.
@TBill
I agree that a steep craggy underwater mountainside near 32.48S / 95.77E is the perfect hiding spot for MH370 wreckage since sheer depth alone is no real obstacle for modern sonar platforms besides spreading the debris field over a wider area of the seafloor.
The Grand Canyon-esque bathymetry of Broken Ridge is virtually impossible to scan effectively with any kind of towed sonar array for fear of cable / vehicle collision with the steep cliff faces, and even Seabed Constructor’s high tech AUV operations will be unusually slow & treacherous in that region. Steep slopes are a constant navigational challenge for the AUVs since they generally need to maintain a constant height above the seafloor in order to maximize their sonar scan resolution.
It is certainly the combination of extreme depth & sonar hostile bathymetry which make Broken Ridge a truly exceptional hiding place for underwater wreckage, a fact the Pilot was very likely aware of given his apparent interest in submarines.
@Joe Nemo @Ge Rijn
Apparently they were testing difficult terrain in prior work, so that gives me some hope that they will give BR a go. Start on Arc7 for sure.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DT0sX7nWsAIo69T.jpg
@Joe Nemo,
Regarding the delay in search, yes, there’s something to that, but not as much as you’d imagine Shah hoping. The search effort for MH370, as I recall, was moved to the SIO one week after its disappearance. Not much longer it seems than the 5 days it took the Brazilian Navy to find the first debris from AF447. So if he knew that, how much could he have expected debris to disburse?
And maybe someone can provide a more concrete answer here, but I wonder how much anyone would know of the deep sea geology 2500 miles south of Kuala Lumpur in 2014. Quickly looking, I see that none of the early news reports mention the state of the seabed suggestion its landscape wasn’t common knowledge. And Broken Ridge’s Wikipedia entry wasn’t created until 2015. It seems one would need to source very specific journals to get a real feel for the terrain and location of specific elements of it. Would Shah have done this? And would he have done this rather than fly on without the turnback to the the Mariana Trench–just as treacherous and certainly more commonly known when it comes to inscrutable undersea landmarks?
@Joe Nemo
I go along with your pilot controlled crash hypothesis at Broken Ridge. I would add Dordrecht Hole and Diamantina Fracture Zone to a future search area (east of the 7th arc). The deepest ruggedest remotest ocean bottom terrain would be a prime targeted crash site with the hope the plane would never be found. I am not in an office pool guessing when MH370 will be found. I am only picking an area on the map where it might be found.
Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah is my primary suspect but it could have been somebody else. By all means Captain Shah is innocent until proven guilty. I have read enough PPRuNe rebuttal comments to not fall into that trap.
I spent a year in the Aleutian Islands in 1972-73 while in the USAF. The weather at the end of August and beginning of September was the best we had all year. The warmest temperatures and lowest wind speeds occurred then. The Southern hemisphere equivalent of that is right now (end of February and beginning of March). Beware the Ids of March! Swells will rise with increasing winds in the SIO.
@TBill
I am satisfied with the NTSB investigation of the TWA800 mid-air explosion and break up. The NTSB’s Jim Hall provided a concise detailed report of the Board’s conclusion. I remember Mr. Hall’s name because there was a Jimmie Hall who played for the Minnesota Twins and California Angels in the 1960’s. I have the first three volumes of Macarthur Job’s “Air Disaster” series in my library and have read most of the articles. TWA800 is not included in them.
My 15 year old cousin died in an L.A. Airways helicopter crash in August 1968. His death is what I remember most about high school. We attended the same school. I have paid attention to air crash stories ever since.
Perhaps the perpetrator was a subscriber to the National Geographic? From the National Geographic website:
1967 Indian Ocean Floor Map
This distinctive physical map of the Indian Ocean floor appeared in the October 1967 issue of National Geographic. The detail of such submarine terrain as continental shelves, basins, fracture zones and the mighty Mid-Oceanic Ridge is stunning. A true work of art, and a wonderful companion to the ocean floor maps of the Atlantic (1968), Pacific (1969), and Arctic (1971).
Buy Now!
$19.99
@ScottO
Clearly the Pilot’s deceptive tactics were sufficient to be effective. As a result of the search delay, no floating debris field was ever positively identified in the SIO.
Broken Ridge may not have been as famous as the Marianas Trench or the Mid-Atlantic Ridge at the time, but in terms of interesting seafloor anomalies, it was certainly in the same ballpark and was a clearly obvious feature on Google Earth or any global bathymetric maps of that period.
https://twitter.com/JoeNemo3/status/479662357568692224
As far as the Pilot targeting the Marianas Trench instead, this would likely have required overflight of the Philippines & a close approach to US Naval / Air bases on Guam, which probably seemed unwise.
@Joe Nemo, You’re really going off the deep end here. There is no way that a pilot flying for hour after hour into the southern Indian Ocean in the middle of the night would have any reason to think that anyone would ever find his plane’s final resting place. To imagine that he was worried about the nature of the seabed is madness.
Here’s the thing. We’ve spent four years getting used to the idea of the SIO search, so it’s come to seem normal to us. Try to put your minds back to March of 2014, before we had any idea about Inmarsat pings. None of this was even remotely conceivable.
What’s more, to fly between Luzon and Taiwan would mean overflying some scattered islets, not anything significant. And there is plenty of deep water near the Marianas that isn’t anywhere close to Guam.