Early this morning, local time, the Seabed Constructor recovered the last of eight sea drones it had sent to scour a remote patch of the southern Indian Ocean. Then, with little fanfare, the ship set off on a course for Dampier, Australia. Thus came the end of the hunt for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, an epic feat of undersea exploration that lasted nearly four years, covered a total of some 85,000 square miles (an area larger than Great Britain), and cost on the order of a quarter-billion dollars.
The search found not a single trace of the plane. How could such an epic undertaking have come up empty?
Here’s one idea: the experts were wrong all along about which direction the airliner flew—it went north, not south toward the deep Indian Ocean. If that sounds like crazy second-guessing, then consider it’s the point of view of someone who helped solve one of the biggest missing plane cases of the 21st century.
Here’s a quick catch-up on how we got here: Based on a series of seven signals automatically transmitted from the plane to an Inmarsat communications satellite shortly after MH370 disappeared from radar, investigators came to believe that the plane flew on autopilot for six hours and then ran out of fuel shortly after midnight, universal time, on March 8, 2014. The airliner then sent a final burst of data as it plummeted earthward.
This data came in two ways. The first, the so-called “burst timing offset” (BTO) data, was a measure of how far the plane was from the satellite at the time of transmission. The set of all possible places from which the plane might have made it formed a ring, or arc, on the earth’s surface. The second type of data, the so-called “burst frequency offset” (BFO) data, could provide a rough sense of whether the plane was flying to the north or to the south. After spending weeks developing the mathematics necessary to interpret it, investigators decided that the BFO values meant the plane must have gone south.
The subsequent search for the plane’s wreckage was defined by two factors: where exactly on the final arc the plane was when it sent its last transmission, and how far it could have traveled afterward. After further mathematical analysis, investigators became convinced that the final BFO values meant that the plane was in a steep dive at the end. The condition of debris recovered in the western Indian Ocean in the years after the crash further convinced investigators that the plane hit hard and fast. Taken together, those factors would imply the plane’s final resting place lies close to the arc.
Applying a technique called Bayesian analysis to the BTO data, researchers at Australia’s Defense Science & Technology Group were able to identify a 500-mile-long segment of the arc along which is likely where the transmission occurred. According to their calculations, there was virtually a zero chance that the plane could have wound up south of 40 degrees south latitude or north of 33 degrees south latitude. It had to be between those lines.
Or so they thought.
With the completion of Seabed Constructor‘s work, investigators have now searched that entire length of that 500-mile stretch—and 650 miles beyond it—up to a distance of 25 miles in either direction. With zero to show for four years of effort, the authorities are stumped. They don’t believe the plane ended up somewhere else on the arc, nor are they willing to accept it could have glided more than 25 miles past the line. They’re also confident that the plane isn’t sitting in the already-searched area and they just missed it. It’s just gone.
The country ultimately responsible for finding the plane, Malaysia, seems resigned to an unsolved mystery. Anticipating that Seabed Constructor would not find any wreckage in its final days of work, the country’s minister of transport, Anthony Loke, issued a statement on May 30 announcing the search’s end, explaining: “Whilst combined scientific studies have continuously used (sic) to refine areas of probability, to date however, no new information has been encountered to determine the exact location of the aircraft.”
However, many observers outside the investigation are unsatisfied with this declaration of surrender. Plenty of online conspiracy theorists and armchair investigators have their own ideas about the fate of MH370, but one person you should actually listen to is David Gallo. He’s the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute researcher who co-led the search that found Air France 447.
Writing on Twitter on May 25, Gallo suggested that the search’s heavy reliance on Inmarsat signals might have been a mistake. “I never accepted the satellite data from day one,” he wrote, adding: “I never thought I’d say this….I think there is a good chance that MH370 never came south at all. Let’s put it this way, I don’t accept the evidence that the plane came south.”
When I reached him on the phone, Gallo told me he was flummoxed by the authorities’ insistence that the Inmarsat data and its interpretation had to be correct. “This is where I got so frustrated,” he said. “The plane’s not there, so what the hell? What’s going on?”
Gallo doesn’t claim to know how the satellite data could have been misinterpreted, but one possibility is that a sophisticated hijacker might have deliberately tampered with it in order to throw searchers off the trail. Search officials have never come up with an explanation for how the satcom system came to be turned back on an hour after all its other electronics went dark. Victor Iannello, a member of the influential Independent Group of amateur researchers, has pointed out that by changing a single parameter inside a satcom computer, a hijacker could have tweaked the BFO data to make it look like the plane was winging south when it was really heading north.
That’s a controversial idea to say the least, flying in the face of years of official near-certainty about a southern terminus. But given search officials’ quarter-billion-dollar failure, the truth must lie among one of the possibilities they haven’t yet deemed worthy of consideration.
Gallo argues that a fresh approach is in order. “My advice to the Malaysian govt is to STOP and think,” he wrote. “Turn over controls to a small independent group and let them work out the way forward.”
Note: This article originally ran in Popular Mechanics.
David Gallo makes a lot sense. Good article, Jeff.
An old story from 1978. Just to show that a 707 could survive a hit from a Soviet air to air missile of that period and fly a few hundred km. Of course, armanents have become more deadly since then.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Lines_Flight_902
If the plane flew north instead of south, why was debris, especially pieces thought to be quite authentic, found ashore in areas consistently with a southerly flight path?
If you have more info, would you please say more about the feasibility of a hijacker (versus a hacker) altering “a single parameter inside a satcom computer“ to indicate a southerly route when a plane is actually going north?
Have you looked at how easy or difficult it would be to learn how to do this? For example. Are these computers the same on all airplanes ? Wouldn’t it be quite difficult to do this?
Thank you for your reply,
Steve
Jeff, if you believe in your theory, then you have to believe the aircraft was hijacked. Whether it went north or south, it was not under the control of its pilots, and most (all) of its passengers and crew were dead. No amount of debate about fine details will alter the fact that either one (both) of the pilots committed the most bizarre suicide in aviation history, or we had a perfectly normal hijack, that went spectacularly wrong.
@Jeff Wise- So although the main point of the Popular Mechanics article is the possibility of altering the BFO’s and the plane going North, they fail to mention to name the spoofing theory’s biggest proponent. So how does it feel to still not receiving credit for your investigative work all these years?
Personally, the SDU reboot has always been the reason for me to assign “spoofing” a significant probability in the MH370 mystery.
I’m still very interested to know if you have actively pursued any old or new leads on a North route?
Good to hear that some other prominent investigators seem to be lending your “spoofing” theory more credit now, albeit years too late…
@Damon, No, I think you miss my point; what I’m suggesting is that we have a case of a spectacularly sophisticated hijacking that went right.
@Stephen, You’re right, the pieces of debris that have been collected would validate a flight to the south. However, a close examination of the debris reveals numerous inconsistencies, as I’ve documented here extensively. For instance, the first piece of debris was recovered 15 months after the plane disappeared, and should have been covered in barnacles that were roughly that age, but was instead covered in barnacles that were “quite young, perhaps less than one month,” according to an Australian marine biologist who examined some of them.
Here’s a link to the guest post in which Victor Iannello laid out his theory about the single parameter switch:
http://jeffwise.net/2015/05/17/guest-post-northern-routes-and-burst-frequency-offset-for-mh370/
@HD: Thank you!
Jeff
lot of problem there
1. we only focus on the flight supplier data , the official did not proposed weather report, flight captain history
2. those wreckage found in Africa and no Flow test proposed. No examine and reorganize proposed
3. Also, some of the Family member said that they call missing member after crash happen. No one chase the call and wave.
4. we did not chase any Satellite photo on those days
To sum up , not enough in the inspection
Well done Mr. Wise
from the very beginning there was a big scientific white elephant in the room, that can be described in scientific logic by the term
A NOT B
Its easy to understand that you wont look for a Beijing bound plane missing in the opposite direction of its flight path 10.000 kilometres away in the South Indian Ocean.
This approach was 100% guaranty for failure.
Also this was a SAR mission, whereby it was obvious, that nothing could be resued if there was a flight into the SIO.
The approach was driven by a more and more maddening “scientific” crowd, who were never questioning the source and quality of the few available data, they used to terrorize the internet with their narrow-minded speculative theories.
Please mind everyone, in our times are abundant means of corrupting data. Its a trademark of our times. So its very important for scientists, to make sure of the validity of the datapoints sugested. In an unbiased science environment, the data of Inmarasat were not available for use, because it was nearly 100% safe to say, that they were corrupted one way or the other after the reboot.
Then after falling in the amateur trap these so-called scientists developped thoeries in subjects that are ultimately far from their specific education, like Victor Ianello who is a true asset in mathematics but a gnome in the science of psychology. All the “brilliant” minds hijacked the psychological science to establish their crude speculations about the unfolding events despite having no idea what is the psycholgial science is about.The result were sub-trash-level reality tv ideas.
There were strong signs, that an army of trolls invented kind of a degraded trash science to further the de obvious debacle of the ill -designed search.
I am truly amazed that now after 4 years, finally the scientific capacities of Dr. Gallo and others speak out.
@Cosmic Academy, Thank you! On the topic of “scientific” speculation, I just took a stroll over to Victor’s blog to see what was cooking and read his latest theory about Cocos Island. It’s pretty wild how far you have to go these days to make a theory that fits the Inmarsat data.
@CosmicAcademy:
“…The approach was driven by a more and more maddening “scientific” crowd, who were never questioning the source and quality of the few available data, they used to terrorize the internet with their narrow-minded speculative theories.
Please mind everyone, in our times are abundant means of corrupting data. Its a trademark of our times. So its very important for scientists, to make sure of the validity of the datapoints sugested. In an unbiased science environment, the data of Inmarasat were not available for use, because it was nearly 100% safe to say, that they were corrupted one way or the other after the reboot…”
With you on this. Lots of events, including MH370, seem to happen as if they were following some bad ‘B’ movie script. Many of the ‘sub-plots’ make no logical sense and hero’s and villains pop into existence at convenient times to ensure the media (and public opinion) are continuing to follow the official storyline.
I have few doubts that this epic saga was a planned event, staged for financial and geopolitical gain. If this is the case, who would benefit the most and who would be the loser?
The problem is that these smart people were convinced that the aircraft flew to fuel exhaustion at cruise speed and altitude. That was heavily influenced by those who believed in the pilot suicide theory.
In a decompression scenario where one of the pilots managed to turn the aircraft around and bring it down to 12,000 feet for an emergency landing the velocity would be much slower, probably averaging around 320kts. In that scenario the aircraft would have splashed around 22-23 degrees south. I believe that the Malaysian defense forces were caught sleeping that night and fabricated much of the radar track they presented which led to the cruise altitude/velocity mistaken belief.
@William Serrahn, Actually, that kind of scenario has been considered in depth but does not fit the data.
@Jeff Wise:
The IG seem to base almost everything on the INMARSAT data, which I have never trusted. It’s obvious if the only tool you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail.
Confirmation bias and taking the consensus of ‘experts’ on trust are two of the biggest failings of 21st Century science. The IG are now floundering deeper and deeper into the mire and it will be very difficult now for them to be able to drag themselves out.
Hi Jeff,
You observe:
“For instance, the first piece of debris was recovered 15 months after the plane disappeared, and should have been covered in barnacles that were roughly that age, but was instead covered in barnacles that were “quite young, perhaps less than one month,”
While the piece was recovered 15 months after mh370
went AWOL, it could have washed ashore, for example, 10 days after mh370 crashed into the water. And simply been waiting to be found. This would explain young barnacles on its surface—since it wasn’t in water for that long before washing ashore
Most (?all) of the pieces recovered were recovered on dry land/beaches, not plucked out of water.
Any given piece could have been sitting on the beach for months/years before being found, having spent only a modest amount of time in the water, accounting for pediatric barnacles on its surface.
One interesting question is this:
barnacles are living organisms, from the same family as shrimp or lobster. Do barnacles change over time once out of water because the object they cling to has washed ashore? As such, the “shape the barnacle is in” could act as a clock allowing one to determine when the piece washed ashore. But what if the piece is lying on the beach and periodically bathed in water as tides shift etc.
Finally, a northerly route would’ve presumably taken mh370 over land (no way a part could get to the Indian Ocean from the land) or into northern water where there are no currents that could take a part to a site, far to the south, where the part was found.
The existence of just one found authentic mh370 part that is, beyond doubt, from mh370, and found at a southerly location would disprove a northerly route. Since a crash part originating on northerly land cannot, by definition, walk to the beach, jump into the water , and start swimming to the south.
And if the crash part originated after a crash into northern water and there is no current to float it south to where the part was found, then the discovery of just one piece of debris found on a southern beach that is, without question, a piece of mh370, rules out a northern route.
My understanding is that there is more than piece, that is incontrovertibly from mh370, that has been found on a southern beach. Just one such piece rules out a northern flight path.
@Stephen, Couple of things: a) It takes time for things to move through the water. According to drift modeling, there was just barely enough time for the flaperon to reach Réunion from the 7th arc. There is no place that the flaperon could have reached after 10 days. There simply wasn’t enough time for the flaperon to float ashore, dry out, get swept back out to sea, get recolonized, and then come ashore again.
b) The barnacles on the flaperon were fresh, indicating that the flaperon had just come ashore (it was discovered at the edge of the surf) and was certainly ashore less than 24 hours.
@All
My thanks to Jeff for creating and maintaining this search blog forum, and the free flow of search information about MH370. Congratulations for the great article in POPULAR MECHANICS yesterday.
I tip my hat to all of the independent contributors, who have labored tirelessly the past four years, but were definitely hindered by the limited amount of data and information to work with. I commend you all for generously sharing your analytical expertise.
Everyone wanted closure for this long search, and hoped for OI’s success. But since most of the priority areas along the 7th arc have been searched, the question on everyone’s mind seems to be:
“Are there any viable locations for a future search effort?”
I believe the answer to that question is “YES”, and I hope this research information can be of some assistance a future search effort.
I want to thank several contributors on this blog, and other sources, who unknowingly provided key pieces of information for a flight path I have been working on the past 4 years. Some of the information was vitally important, which helped me construct a plausible flight path, and fit together several missing pieces of this complex puzzle.
The 2 PART – Comprehensive Report about MH370 was recently finished, but until OI’s search was complete, I was hesitant about posting the details, since some of the basic assumptions are different from those used for plotting previous flight paths.
PART 1 is posted below and PART 2 will be posted here in a couple of days.
The title for PART 1 is:
“WHY THEY HAVE NOT FOUND MH370”
and is divided into three Dropbox files:
#1: “PRIMARY RADAR”
#2: “FLIGHT PATH & AIR SPEED”
#3: “DEBRIS DRIFTING and SEARCH SUMMARY”
#1: “PRIMARY RADAR”
https://www.dropbox.com/s/6gmv0ekwpn0btpi/%231MH370%20–%20Primary%20Radar%20-%20Pgs%201-4.pdf?dl=0
PART 1:
“WHY THEY HAVE NOT FOUND MH370”
#2: “FLIGHT PATH & AIR SPEED”
https://www.dropbox.com/s/hodhaablvncpcgi/%232MH370%20–%20Flight%20Path%20%26%20AirSpeed%20-%20Pgs%205-10.pdf?dl=0
#3: “DEBRIS DRIFTING and SEARCH SUMMARY”
https://www.dropbox.com/s/4crq8pvhsk7l40b/%233MH370%20–%20Debris%20Drift%20%26%20Summary%20Facts%20-%20Pgs%2011-16.pdf?dl=0
PART 1: “WHY THEY HAVE NOT FOUND MH370”
URL links which do not properly open in the DropBox documents:
Page 2:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-malaysia-airlines-radar-exclusive/exclusive-radar-data-suggests-missing-malaysia-plane-deliberately-flown-way-off-course-sources-idUSBREA2D0DG20140314
Page 11:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclone_Hudhud
Page 12:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/6g82uw9b24r7qf4/The%20probable%20End%20Point%20of%20MH370.pdf?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/clks6522vquagwb/Drift%20Model%20Results%20using%20an%20Independent%20Drift%20Model%20-%20Richard%20Godfrey.pdf?dl=0
@Stephen:
I think Jeff is spot-on with his reading of the barnacles means the flaperon find is suspicious. I’ve got another few things which I consider to be red flags regarding the provenance of the piece…
The find came at a very convenient moment in time for the official SIO narrative, just as there were the beginnings of public clamour that the plane was not in the SIO and the search should look elsewhere.
People on Reunion said at the time that there had been other possible bits of MH370 seen, but none were ever recovered.
The ID plate, which would have unequivocally identified the part as belonging to MH370, was unluckily missing.
The French still hold the flaperon and have not yet publicly released a detailed report of their investigation.
Too many question-marks for me to have any confidence in this supposed evidence.
@William Serrahn
Many technically inclined folks do not like the suicide theory and are working as hard as they can to try to show a hypoxia scenario, such as yours. We could argue about which theory is getting the most technical support.
The satellite data are suggestive of a high altitude, high speed flight to the south. One thing you could be partially correct about, some people have said there might be a “low and slow” solution. One example of this idea is MH370-captio.net with active hijackers. No one has yet showed a passive ghost flight “low and slow” solution, but now is the time to show that as we need to know if searching above 25S is warranted.
Hi @all,
I’m not sure if this has been covered before, and probably has no relevance whatsoever but is there any factual information regarding passengers last social media posts and/or emails?
Let’s say that 30ish passengers were emailing or using social media whilst on route to Beijing. How do the timestamps work (time sent or time received?)
Im curious because it may indicate when Mh370 was low enough to send the messages, or when the last contact with passengers were received.
@Laura, the only transmission detected from a portable device after the turnaround at IGARI was a connection between the co-pilot’s mobile phone and a cell tower on the island of Penang.
@Laura
Adding to what Jeff said, MH370 had a fairly basic IFE (In Flight Entertainment) system that did not give internet connections. The business class might have had optional SMS email message capability from the seat back video screen.
@TBill
Long time ago I suggested this very unlikely but not quite impossible scenario the plane was intercepted and shot at around 18:22.
Something like this could have caused a rapid decompression, one engine INOP, the re-log-on and a decision of the pilot to program the plane to a heading towards the SIO. Maybe even an engine fire Kate Tee saw that night.
This would result in a ‘low and slow’ flight after ~18:40 whether the pilot was stiil consious or not.
Big problem though with any scenario north of 25S (even north of ~29S) are the forward drift-studies.
Timeframes between expected arrival of debris and finding-dates become unexceptable large as does the coverage of all debris-finds at locations fitting to those northern latitudes. They just don’t fit all.
This all has well been studied as are the best-fit BTO/BFO latitudes.
It’s just too easy (and suspicious) the IG are now trying to move the goalposts after their complete failure by hanging-on and fiercely defending their ‘close to the arc’ and ‘high speed nose-down’ impact theory.
I’m glad to read @Andrew and @Gysbrecht really stand up with very good arguments to @ALSM’s attemtps to close the discussion on the final BFO’s, the APU and the simulations regarding a high speed descent.
Also this much too early steep descent represented in the final BFO’s compared to the simulations I mentioned long time ago. And @Andrews simulation gave a quite different result than those results proclamed by @ALSM. Good work!
Problem here is another distraction from the IG to avoid the real problem while still trying to save their failed assumptions of a close to the arc high speed nose-down impact.
People should not be tempted to discuss this northern ‘possibilities’ first and avoid the real questions.
Why did the search at the IG/ATSB most probable latitudes fail? The latitudes the IG and the ATSB defended so fiercely till the end against their own odds?
Wasn’t it clear allready after the failed CSIRO-hotspots the width was the real problem?
Why wasn’t the search-width adjusted accordingly but even narrowed after ~33S?
Why is it the IG and ATSB still cling to their failed assumptions?
Without any excusse or explanation to contributors or the NoK?
These are the important questions now. Not the discussing on further distraction-tactics to send everyone into the woods by discussing ‘possibilities’ forever on failed assumptions.
@Ge Rijn
This is a review period to answer the question: go wide? or go long? or both? maybe neither if nobody has a clue that can be supported by technical consensus, or if OI has no budget.
Our best chance to justify a search is if some decent idea or justification of a location.
@jeffwise
If it was a hijacking that went ‘spectacularly right’, then the plane should still be intact, and it isn’t.
Jeff Wise said:
” … and b) one cannot say that in a ditching scenario the flaperon would be sticking down into and be ripped of by the rushing water. Indeed, looking at images of 777s touching down, it seems that the engine would hit before the flaperons, while the inboard flap sticks so far down that it probably would hit before the engine.”
Absolutely. Very big engines that stick down a lot below the wing, much more so than the flaperon (or flaps?) even with (say) 15° pitch-up.
The engine might (?) still have the edge over the inboard flap though – see this 777 at landing flare (0.24) and after landing from behind, 0.39:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuEDedCqMTY
Jeff Wise said:
” … and b) one cannot say that in a ditching scenario the flaperon would be sticking down into and be ripped of by the rushing water. Indeed, looking at images of 777s touching down, it seems that the engine would hit before the flaperons, while the inboard flap sticks so far down that it probably would hit before the engine.”
Absolutely. Very big engines that stick down a lot below the wing, much more so than the flaperon (or flaps?) even with (say) 15° pitch-up.
The engine might (?) still have the edge over the inboard flap though – see this 777 at landing flare (0.24) and after landing from behind, 0.39:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuEDedCqMTY
(Jeff: you need to get yourself an SSL certificate. Firefox is giving ‘non-secure- warnings when posting)
Annette Gartland said:
“Andrew, perhaps you might consider the fact that Captain Zaharie is being accused of mass murder on the basis of no evidence whatsoever.”
Absolutely. Blaming the Captain would be an easy way out for the mass (lazy) mind. ‘Solves’ the ‘mystery’. It would also be an easy way out for the MYG and everyone else involved in the search – blame it on the Captain and close the case, no evidence needed. Then they don’t have to find the aircraft to ‘prove’ what happened: – perhaps finding the aircraft might open a different can of worms and could go wrong badly in ways not foreseen – like the barnacles on the flaperon.
It seems no one in the MYG or officialdom wants to find the aircraft anyway. The MYG don’t even want to take possession of or examine the wreckage in a lot of cases.
If they did want to find it, one might have expected the MYG to insist OI started earlier and search 125 miles past the 7th arc to rule out a glide while they were at it. But that would really have put the cat amongst the pigeons: what would then be left for people to say as a reason why no wreckage had been found? Already we’re seeing tentative suggestions being tabled that ‘maybe’ the aircraft was up at Car Nicobar (as the MYG initially stated) before turning south. Perhaps they’re being forced to go closer to the truth by the demonstrated failure of their other conclusions.
As for the Vance, Hardy et al, and the ‘Situation Room’ ’60 minutes’ programme claims, perhaps we are seeing several (separate but coordinated?) attempts at persuading the masses to view what took place in a certain way.
Repeat the same story enough times (especially on TV) and they’ll believe it?
Then bring out the ‘Official Report’ saying something vaguely similar, but without naming anyone?
@Ge Rijn. I remember your part in identifying which engine the vortex generator came from.
In case you missed it, Madagascar apparently is now ready to release this from their criminal investigation, or maybe that has been concluded.
It will be very interesting to what damage assessment is included in the final report, if not made public before.
https://www.airlineratings.com/news/malaysia-finally-collect-crtical-mh370-debris/
@David
@Ge Rijn
Re: Flaperon edge
When I look at the flaperon, knowing it sits over the engine, is there a chance what we are looking at is the flaperon somehow got exposed to the engine exhaust?
@Ge Rijn, Hear, hear.
@PS9, Nice video, thanks. I think a case could be made that rushing water could rip off the inboard flap; flaperon, not so much. I’ll look into getting an SSL certificate, that’s a good suggestion, thanks.
@Damon, All but one of the pieces that have been collected failed under tension rather than compression. To my non-expert ear that sounds more like the pieces were pulled off an airframe, rather than orginating from an airframe that smashed to smithereens on the ocean surface.
Why would the Malaysian Government need to ‘classify’ these items under their Official Secrets Act?
1. The transcript of communications between MH370 and the Department of Civil Aviation (DCA)
2. The letter of agreement between Singapore, Thailand, and Indonesia about search and rescue operations
3. Government minutes of meetings with relevant agencies
4. Internal memos
5. A search and rescue report
And for those who wonder how a hijacking team might have been able to board the aircraft and/or make changes undetected, there is this new little factoid – written by Annette Gartland (same author as the post on this blog above?) and attributed to Mick Rooney:
“The aircraft was reportedly moved from the arrival gate and taken to a holding area at the airport about half a kilometre away, then was taken back to a departure gate in the evening.”
https://changingtimes.media/2018/06/09/mh370-ocean-infinity-search-ends-amid-calls-for-new-disclosures-and-further-investigation/
Annette: do you have any more information about this move?
Is there a primary source? Is it verified?
@TBill. Flaperon trailing edge erosion from the exhaust. It is above the main exhaust stream I think. It has no hydraulics (PCUs in by-pass) applied for the first part of take-offs. It starts off down (“drooped”) under its own weight then ‘floats’ up to the neutral position as airspeed increases. At about 100 knots the flaps go down again to the take-off drooped position.
The point being that high thrust exhaust then apparently does not fuss them.
In ground runs they can flutter, described as, “a usual condition” in the Maintenance Manual. This would be buffeting by exhaust-entrained air I would think.
Incidentally about their landing position, discussed here briefly, there is a Landing Attitude Modification which decreases droop in an overspeed approach, as you might have gathered elsewhere. Full droop removal occurs when airspeed is 20 knots or more above flight manual landing speed.
@David
Yes I read about the vortex generator. It’s a pity (and strange) it’s only released now the search has ended. It cann’t help the previous search anymore.
But ofcourse it will be interesting what a detailed damage assessment will tell afterwards.
It allready highly suggests at least the right engine seperated from the wing possibly hitting (and damaging) the flaperon trailing-edge and knocking the flaperon from its hinges seperating it from the wing.
@David @TBill
And the above about the flaperon at take-off is exactly as you discribed. Drooped and no problems with max. thrust of the exhaust.
Starting at 1:28:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a80ark8Rpsk
@Ge Rijn:
“…Problem here is another distraction from the IG to avoid the real problem while still trying to save their failed assumptions of a close to the arc high speed nose-down impact…”
Well the IG independently came to the same conclusions as the ASTB and all the other actors involved in planning the searches. However, I don’t think the group is independent, rather they were formed solely to give credibility to the official cover-story.
This would explain their otherwise inexplicable stubbornness in clinging on to the old failed paradigm. The situation rather reminds me the strange poem by William Mearns…
As I was going up the stair
I met a man who wasn’t there!
He wasn’t there again today,
Oh how I wish he’d go away!
However, I don’t believe the MH370 epic has had its last curtain call and we are set for many re-runs over the coming years.
@Ge Rijn. Flaperon at take off. Nice thanks
@Boris Tabaksplatt
I think there is more objective reasons starting to show the IG’s ‘independence’ is quite questionable. At least regarding one of their members:
@ALSM (Mike Exner) lately states on VictorI’s blog: ‘I met with Foley 3 times in the last 6 months. We have discussed the EOF scenarios in some detail. I won’t try to recall specific quotes..’.
How ‘independent’ can you be if you are enmeshed at this high level with a leading party in the investigation?
IMO ‘independent’ credibility is lost her.
@David
Also interesting to see in the clip at ~1:36 is the flaperon when drooped is nicely in-line with the deployed outboard-flap regarding their surfaces and trailing-edges.
Being those ‘out-of-line’ when deployed was one of the main arguments the ATSB concluded the outboard flap was most likely retrackted.
This now seems obviously not the case for it has been established now both on take-off and on landing the flaperons are drooped also and in-line with the outboard-flaps.
The flaperons only go up on touch-down when the spoilers get deployed.
@Ge Rijn:
“…@ALSM (Mike Exner) lately states on VictorI’s blog: ‘I met with Foley 3 times in the last 6 months. We have discussed the EOF scenarios in some detail. I won’t try to recall specific quotes.’…”
Good catch, and gives us indisputable proof of how enmeshed the supposedly Independent Group were with the official search team.
Using the simple rules of applied epistemology we can now say that the IG was set-up as part of the propaganda project designed to protect the official narrative. However, I don’t believe all IG members were privy to the real purpose of the IG, just a small select group who steered the consensus in the required direction.
@Jeff Wise, be interested to hear your views on this.
@Boris Tabaksplatt @others
To allude further on this ‘independence’. Months before the OI search started and during the search it’s clear @ALSM/Mike Exner from his own statements, allready discussed/adviced EOF-scenarios on the highest level with the ATSB.
They adviced OI on where to search and not to search.
Knowing @ALSM/Mike Exner’s and ATSB’s views all too well we can obviously guess what they adviced to OI.
ALSM/Mike Exner being a representative of the IG clearly refutes the ‘independence’ of the IG during the whole OI search and even before with these statements.
I don’t want to suggest he had ill intend acting like this but ‘independent’ ofcourse is- and was obviously not the case at all.
@Ge Rijn, @Boris Tabaksplatt, At the very beginning, the IG seemed like just a bunch of people who found one another on the internet and began corresponding. All of us seemed to view the authorities as remote figures who probably were paying no attention to what we had to say. I remember there was a lot of indignation that the authorities had data that they weren’t sharing with the public (this being the raw Inmarsat data in particular, also primary radar data etc). When the ATSB switched the designated search area to what the IG was calling for, there was jubilation. So my sense, being a member at the time, was that the IG was not just a front for the authorities.
By 2016, at which point I had long since been kicked out, it was clear that some members of the IG had access to official information that they were not going to release to the public unless it served their agenda. Later there was talk of Blaine Alan Gibson jetting around to meet with IG members, and IG members and Blaine traveling to Durban and Perth to meet with Ocean Infinity and search officials. The final Australian report on MH370 went out of its way to thank Blaine and the IG for their help.
Worth noting also is that Geoffrey Thomas has essentially become a mouthpiece for Blaine Gibson. You may have noticed that when everyone else was talking about the end of the search, and I published a piece about how David Gallo was questioning whether the plane went south at all, Geoffrey Thomas published a piece about how Malaysia was (supposedly) finally going to collect some of Blaine’s Madagascar debris finds. Thomas earlier amplified Blaine’s claim that he’d found a piece of debris from the E/E bay that had been scorched by fire, a claim the ATSB refuted. And he never writes about Blaine without repeating the unsubstantiated claim that Blaine has been ridiculed and his life has been threatened, as though these two things are somehow connected. Basically I think that he is trying to insinuate that my skepticism about Blaine’s finds is tantamount to threatening his life.
This is another commonality that Blaine shares with the IG–if you express skepticism about their work, you are polluting the discourse with nefarious insinuation. And probably hurting the NOK’s feelings in the process.
@PS9:
“Why would the Malaysian Government need to ‘classify’ these items under their Official Secrets Act?…”
The Annette Gartland article, which summarises a few of the many anomalies surrounding the MH370 disappearance. The official secret act is often used by states to protect themselves and their operatives from public scrutiny/accountability. I also would expect that anyone known to have seen or heard anything that does not comply with the official story would be coerced into signing the act to prevent the majority of information leaks.
I’m particularly intrigued by this snippet of info from the article, if the event happened…
“…Rooney says that the government also needs to make available all of the airport security video that was captured just prior to, and during, the boarding of flight MH370 along with transport documentation about the movements of the 9M-MRO Boeing 777 aircraft when and after it reached the arrival gate in KL International Airport on the morning of March 7.
The aircraft was reportedly moved from the arrival gate and taken to a holding area at the airport about half a kilometre away, then was taken back to a departure gate in the evening…”
It supports my long-standing but ignored theory that the MH370 was always a complete ghost flight and the plane never even left KIA, let alone ended up in the SIO. This would be the only method 100% guaranteed that the plane could never be found, and this would allow the multiple geopolitical and other objectives set for the operation to be achieved – many of these results we we have all already seen.
I’ll have a bit of a dig around on this one and see if the whys and wherefores of the movements of MH370 can be confirmed or otherwise.
@Jeff Wise:
Thanks for taking the time to give your views on the IG. I found this snippet very telling, as I suspect that this is how the small number of people in the IG ‘steering group’ pushed duff information onto the table while at the same time bolstered their ‘leadership’ position. Following the failure of the search in the SIO, I wonder if the IG will collapse, or perhaps BG will come to their rescue again with more spectacularly lucky finds? It’s never over until the fat lady sings.
“…By 2016, at which point I had long since been kicked out, it was clear that some members of the IG had access to official information that they were not going to release to the public unless it served their agenda. Later there was talk of Blaine Alan Gibson jetting around to meet with IG members, and IG members and Blaine travelling to Durban and Perth to meet with Ocean Infinity and search officials…”
@Boris Tabaksplatt
For a complete ghost flight theory what about the missing crew and NOK?
@Damon
9M-MRO could still be a spectacularly successful hijacking. Assuming the intent was to land then weaponize the plane and subsequently use against an appropriate target to avenge the loss of Osama bin Laden.
The plan failed when intent was revealed or suspected and plan B initiated. Bits of the plane were placed on on the IO rim to make look like an accident. However there are so many questions about the provenance of the debris it could fill a book.
This would answer @Ge Rijn concerns “What could be so damaging that it can’t be disclosed?”
Also note the fuselage has not been found.
Were there ever any further investigations of the seismic noise ?
http://news.curtin.edu.au/media-releases/curtin-researchers-search-acoustic-evidence-mh370/
@SteveBarratt:
“…For a complete ghost flight theory what about the missing crew and NOK?…”
This would be done for this operation in exactly the way it is always done…
The passengers/crew would be made up of the following groupings (all players having to sign the official secrets act, of course)…
– A large percentage of non-existing ‘digital’ people.
– Those who want to disappear for personal reasons.
– People convicted of criminal offences who would rather have a new life with a ‘pension’ rather than be executed and sit in prison.
– Paid crisis actors who, after a few months paid holiday, return to their family as a long-lost twin sibling etc and more or less continue their life where they left off, but a lot richer.
– The main characters in these events are always intel operatives and quite often this sort of event is used to provide them with a safe way to retire anonymously at the end of their career.
I’m sure they use other ploys, such as one real person playing multiple roles. An event of this scale would be planned many, many years in advance. Getting a credible, but bogus, crew and passenger list together is a simple but time consuming part of the operation. As ever, the devil is in the detail and maintaining deniability is always a priority should things not go exactly to plan.
God bless Gallo.
He has more or less echoed my own thoughts. What’s more he has reached that conclusion independently.
Time to look again at the possibility those Sat Images I have could have been Mh370 & thus giving an alternative specific end point of where Mh370 entered the Indian Ocean. (Off the coast of Northern Sumatra).
@Ge Rijn
@David
Re: flaperon
Nice video….but of course I am not proposing the flaperon gets damaged in normal flight mode. I am wondering if there is an abnormal or crash mode where the flaperon gets into the exhaust stream….if there is melted aluminum maybe that would tell us something (is it aluminum?). If one looks at the flaperon damage it is a semi-circle cut-out (with some imagination).
Alls I am asking if this question has been asked?
@PSOther
Somebody correct me if wrong, but the 26.9-S “McMurdo” path had the “Curtin boom” as a remotely possible supporting evidence. Of course that area was just searched +-22nm.
It is a little confusing to me because I believe @GlobusMax is saying there is another seismic event that may remotely confirm the 38-S location.