Earlier this month France announced that it will reopen its investigation into the disappearance of MH370:
French newspaper Le Parisien reports that investigators are keen to verify data from Inmarsat — the British operator of a global satellite network — which tracked the aircraft’s pings to the southern Indian Ocean off Western Australia, where it is believed to have crashed.
I was happy to hear that, because for the last four years I’ve been making the case that there is one known way by which the Inmarsat data could have been falsified as it was being transmitted from the plane. This falsification would make the plane look like it was heading south when it was really heading north, and would explain why an exhaustive quarter-billion-dollar search of the southern seabed found no trace of the plane.
Of course, there are other reasons to suspect that the plane went north. One of the less probative but more elegant is the simple fact that when it was last spotted, that’s where the plane was turning. The above image comes from page 4 of Appendix 1.6E of the latest Malaysian report, entitled “Aircraft Performance Analysis,” prepared by Boeing. I think this appendix is one of the most important sections of the whole report, as the authority of the source is unimpeachable and its assertions are laid out with such clarity. In this image we see a summary view of what is known about the first two hours of the plane’s flight, based on a combination of secondary and primary radar as well as the first ping from the Inmarsat data. It shows, as I and others have pointed out, that after an aggressive turnback at IGARI, and a high-speed flight over peninsular Malaysia and up the Malacca Strait, the plane disappeared from primary radar and then turned to the north.
Some have proposed that this is best explained by the assumption that whoever was in charge of the plane wanted to avoid conflicting traffic on the airway, but that is absurd–there was no conflicting traffic, and anyway it would be very simple to avoid any such hypothetical traffic by flying at a nonstandard altitude. A simpler explanation is that they turned to the north because they were heading north.
The report has another similiarly compelling illustration that combines fuel-burn data with ping-ring distances to illustrate the various routes the plane might have flown, assuming a constant altitude and turns only at ping arcs:
This picture neatly illustrates a point that the DSTG arrived at more conclusively through the heavily application of mathematics: namely, the only straight-ish flight paths that wind up at the 7th arc at the correct time and distance for fuel exhaustion are ones that fly around 450 to 475 knots, and at relatively high altitude. This is where the Australians originally looked for the plane, and really it was always the only rational place to look.
The absence of the plane in this area could have told the authorities two years ago that something was up–and that would have been the right time to start being suspicious about the Inmarsat data.
Love it. I’ve always wondered… If the “pilot” of the plane actually wanted to end up in the southern Indian Ocean as suggested by the media, why would he take such a long and secretive route route to get there? Why would he care how he gets to his final destination if it’s just going to result in a crash in the middle of nowhere?
Do you know of a way the plane could have dodged primary radar by travelling in a more southerly direction rather than back over Malaysia and to the NW?
@Jeff Gerber, If the motive had been to make the plane disappear in a remote area of the ocean without being detected, a much better and more obvious plan would have been to take a slight right-hand turn at IGARI and head out to the Marianas Trench in the Pacific. They would have slipped away from primary radar quite quickly.
@Jeff Wise, Exactly.
Now the really fun question. You accuse the Russians of pulling this off, and it’s been confirmed that the Russians downed MH17. Do they have a thing against Malaysia then or what’s the deal? Or is it possible that MH17 really was the MH370 plane as some theories have suggested?
If it was at high altitude and 500 mph, how far could it have glided over the 7th arc? 60 miles? (assuming 7th arc was fuel starvation) Then it is much more south. Combine that with the 2 acoustic hydrophone registrations that day of the possible impact which also indicate a position much further south. I think the French will find it.
Just saw this on the BBC News website:
Mystery Russian satellite’s behaviour raises alarm in US
(Main snippets from the article):
A mysterious Russian satellite displaying “very abnormal behaviour” has raised alarm in the US, according to a State Department official.
“We don’t know for certain what it is and there is no way to verify it,” said assistant secretary Yleem Poblete at a conference in Switzerland on 14 August.
She voiced fears that it was impossible to say if the object may be a weapon.
The satellite in question was launched in October last year.
“[The satellite’s] behaviour on-orbit was inconsistent with anything seen before from on-orbit inspection or space situational awareness capabilities, including other Russian inspection satellite activities,” Ms Poblete told the conference on disarmament in Switzerland.
Ms Poblete said that the US had “serious concerns” that Russia was developing anti-satellite weapons.
Space weapons may be designed to cause damage in more subtle ways than traditional weapons like guns, which could cause a lot of debris in orbit, explained Alexandra Stickings, a research analyst at the Royal United Services Institute.
“[Such weapons may include] lasers or microwave frequencies that could just stop [a satellite] working for a time, either disable it permanently without destroying it or disrupt it via jamming,” she said.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-45194333
But the findings of parts proven to be from the airliner were washed up in the southern hemisphere. Perhaps they floated all the way down but the currents would seem to suggested this would be impossible. Nice idea but….
@David, Obviously, the implication would be that this debris was planted. I don’t know why this eventuality strikes so many people as inconceivable. In the case of MH17 we see the great lengths the Russians will go to in order to undermine the factual narrative. Examination of the debris reveals numerous inconsistencies, and the person who found most of the pieces is an individual with deep ties to Russia.
It likely returned to the airport and the passengers went on to China on another plane..
@Mark Pallister, If that had happened, don’t you think people would have noticed?
@JeffW
Jean-Luc (MH370-Captio.net) gave a good explanation on VI’s site that the France effort:
“…is the result of an initiative of the French Department of Justice. You might know that Ghislain Wattrelos (husband and father of victims) sue the State of France. This is the reason also why the flaperon is kept within the same Department of Justice as an evidence for this sue case.”
So I assume this NoK individual is questioning the Inmarsat data. That is a valid idea, but:
(1) I suspect the Court will, upon review, accept the Inmarsat daat as shown, and
(2) we probably should not infer that France as a country is questioning the integrity of the Inmarsat data. Rather France is reacting to a legal complaint by MH370 NoK.
@David, BTW, as there’s already an “@David” posting on this site, I wonder if you could change your user name to David + the first letter of your last name or something. Much appreciated!
Jeff— thank you for your persistently curious blog. wondered when the new edition of your book will be out?
@TBill
“we probably should not infer that France as a country is questioning the integrity of the Inmarsat data. Rather France is reacting to a legal complaint by MH370 NoK.”
France’s Gendarmerie of Air Transport is continuing its judicial investigation.
The Ministry of Justice handles the judicial process and is controlled by the French Minister of Justice, which is a top level cabinet position within the French Government.
The GTA, a division of the French gendarmerie “dedicated to protecting civil aviation against acts of unlawful interference”, opened the investigation of MH370’s disappearance because four of the victims on the plane were French.
“Our investigation continues; we did not reopen it because we never closed it,” said an official of the Gendarmerie des Transports Aériens (GTA).
@Susie, It sounds like what you’re saying is the the basic premise of the linked piece — that France is reopening its judicial investigation — is false. Do you have a link to the story with that quote?
I wonder if the other key takeaway–that the French are concerned about the reliability of the Inmarsat data–is also false?
@Brian, Thanks for asking. I’ve been working on a new version with Amazon that keeps getting pushed back, and is now scheduled for November. That started out to be an update to “The Plane That Wasn’t There” but gradually morphed into quite a different project, so what I’d like to do is update “The Plane That Wasn’t There” so that it reflects the current state of knowledge, hopefully within a month.
@Jeff Wise
Jeff,
As with all potential “news” now, it generally needs to come from a myriad of articles, quotes etc. to be even close to reality. The gist of it came from this link
https://aviation-news/air-transport/2018-08-10/france-continues-judicial-probe-mh370-disappearance
Additional clarification
“I can confirm that, via the UK authorities, we have been approached by the French investigation team,” said a spokesperson for Inmarsat. “We will be supporting their enquiry and are on standby to answer any questions that the French investigation team may have. It is important to stress that the accuracy and analysis of the data conducted by the international investigation team is not being questioned as part of the French investigation.”
https://aeronauticsonline.com/french-investigators-reopen-mh370-investigation-over-alleged-malaysian-coverup/
@all
A great thing about Jeff’s forum is that it lets you absorb different theories and opinions and craft whole new ones out of the melee. This is the sort of hit and miss that may or may not inch us closer to the truth.
One scenario I’ve mentioned before was the hijacking/disappearance of MH370 being ordered and executed solely by someone in Kazakhstan. I based this around Jeff’s comment a little time back which ran along the lines of (I paraphrase): “People tend to overcomplicate things. Sometimes the truth is very simple.” At the time, however,I didn’t know what motive anyone in Kazakhstan would have to do this.
A few months on and many more theories later, I think I may have a clearer idea…
So, in this scenario, the disappearance of MH370 was entirely a Kazakhstani affair, planned and implemented by senior members of the ruling Nazarbayev clan itself or close relatives or even by its enemies. The scenario begins with the engagement in 2011 of the Kazakh president’s son to the daughter of Najib, ex-PM of Malaysia. This was some 3 years after the founding of the Malaysian wealth fund, 1mdb, which would eventually be valued at $12bn.
These closer interpersonal ties between the Malaysian and Kazakh elite would’ve pushed many shady characters to the fore, corrupt chancers from Central Asia desperate for a share of the 1mdb pie. Nonetheless, whoever it was clearly thought that a direct approach to the Malaysians wouldn’t work; or rather, seeking funds for questionable ventures within Kazakhstan or elsewhere in Central Asia just wouldn’t wash. Then again, maybe a direct approach was made only to be met with a rebuff.
So a plan was crafted to initiate an extremely technologically-sophisticated blackmail. A third-party terrorist outfit would be used as a cover to hijack a Malaysian airliner taking off from KL. The plane would disappear off the map only for it to appear 8 hours later in Kazakhstan – whether at Astana International Airport or a remoter runway like Yubileny; the watching world gripped by the unfolding drama…
The terrorist outfit – disguised as Uighurs, possibly – would threaten to blow up the plane on the tarmac if China didn’t meet a list of demands for greater autonomy for Xinjiang. This would, however, just be smoke and mirrors, the real intention being to pave the way for the blackmail to begin. The hijackers would then, through a back channel, make a daring ransom demand from the Malaysians – requesting an incredibly massive stake in the Malaysian wealth fund, 1mdb.
They would in no uncertain terms tell the Malaysians that not only would they blow up the plane, but they’d do so only after exposing, to the Malaysian nation and the watching world, the full extent of 1mdb fraud. Names would be exposed, figures and sums disclosed; the Malaysian PM would be utterly humiliated, along with accomplices, and to rub salt into his wounds a Malaysian airliner would then be blown up not creating a national tragedy for Malaysia, China, and the whole world, but also damaging the airline and the nation’s reputation in the process.
The enemies of the Nazarbayev regime, or maybe even corrupt elements within it, would plan all this with the help of loyal elements both military and civilian. The purpose of making the plane disappear would be twofold: first, maximise the dramatic effect for the World’s watching media and second, confuse the Malaysians into looking in the wrong place thus buying time. Then lights, camera, action! The plane illuminated on the tarmac in Kazakhstan and the stage is set!
Remember, the watching world would just assume this was a bunch of Uighur activists wanting greater autonomy – upset at both China and Malaysia – and out to attack them both. Interestingly, the ‘Chinese Martyr’s Brigade’ letter did exactly this, taking aim at both nations.
In reality, the protagonists may only have gotten so far as spoofing the BTO/BFO data and as a result managing to hoodwink everyone to look in the wrong direction. But the grander plan may all have gone to pot, the Malaysians getting wind of it early on. The plane may never gotten as far as Kazakhstan, instead crashing in the ocean or even somewhere on land, scattering a small debris field or one that was later planted by the Malaysians.
This scenario perfectly explains Malaysian obfuscation and need to hide the truth. It also explains why a second 777 – with Najib’s grandmother on board – may have been downed: a parting shot from frustrated hijackers who were soon to disappear into oblivion having failed to meet any of their objectives.
“The terrorist outfit – disguised as Uighurs, possibly . . .”
If the plane did fly north, why rule out the Uighurs?
Very compelling analysis, as always, Jeff. I think your writings make a very convincing case as to why the plane is not in the southern Indian Ocean. Could you just clarify in your thesis how the hijackers knew to take the plane at the precise point when it was between Malaysian and Vietnamese airspace? How would that have been known to someone not in the cockpit, presumably in the passenger section near the front, as you suggest in a previous piece? Again, I have come to agree with your theory overall, but this is just the one thing that nags at me…
@Rodney Small
I’m not ruling them out per se, I just meant for the scenario which I discussed above. Actual Uighur activists wouldn’t bother going all the way to Kazakhstan when a landing in China would draw far more attention to their cause.
A related point is that, even if we assume it was actual Uighur activists, MH370 still has all the hallmarks of a state actor pulling the strings behind the scenes. This implies an anti-Chinese state actor – which automatically rules out Kazakhstan or Russia.
@Sajid UK, maybe state actors pro China helped China out with the disappearance.
If the plane did fly north and the debris was planted, it had to be a highly sophisticated operation. However, I would not totally rule out that Uighur activists could have pulled it off, although the question would then be: “What was the point of secretly hijacking MH370?”
Likely The Uyghurs are being used as a scapegoat for MH370
Do we know what France is actually going to do? Jeff do you plan to speak with anyone who might know?
@Jeff Wise
Love all of your articles! I have always been wondering about this crash investigation in specific for years now and I just find that everything does not add up. I mean i find it ridiculous that with all the latest technology that the world has, are they telling us that they are not able to find a huge plane on the seabed? but are able to see everything in the deepest part of the ocean which is the “Marianas trench”? It is close to impossible for me to believe that. And yes i have always had this theory in my head for the past 4 years , even before reading your articles that they are all looking at the wrong location. It can just be a diversion created by someone to only hide the truth or have that time-gap to hide everything else.
I’m waiting for more information on this, and I am so glad they reopened this investigation. I wish I could be part of it to be honest.
@Rodney Small @MH
The only reason I say Uighur activists couldn’t have pulled this off on their own is that afaik Chinese Uighurs aren’t typically a ‘nation’ of scientists, military men, or avionics engineers as such. More likely to be involved in farming, textiles, and related fields.
That’s not to say there are no Uighur scientists at all, but its likely very rare.
Aside from the ‘Kazakhstan theory,’ there are only two other candidates I can think of that would’ve used Uighurs as the fall-guys in this way: the United States or North Korea.
With the latter it would be highly out of character under Obama’s watch – a president that was all for diplomacy than war.
The former is a possibility; there was a little bit of friction developing between the North Koreans and the Chinese at the time (if I remember correctly). And the North Koreans have done it before – using Vietnamese and Indonesian women as patsies to kill someone at Kuala Lumpur International Airport of all places!
I can see why the Chinese would want to cover that up, 150 odd Chinese killed by Pyongyang would result in all manner of unpredictability for the government in Beijing. The North Koreans would have the technical expertise to pull it off.
But if idea was to take the plane to Kazakhstan that only leaves the Kazakhstanis and the Russians – Occam’s Razor would point to someone within Kazakhstan.
I remember during MH17 there was some mention of a Kazakh brigade (?) Is Kazakh/Cossack the same word in Russian (?) And also that odd video of a fighter from Kazakhstan fighting in the Donbass claiming he couldn’t risk returning to Kazakhstan anymore (?) I never fully understood that.
(Apologies for any errors – writing this off the bat)
@Truman, The French are playing their cards close to the chest.
Just to recap on a few things very early on in the mystery. Not trying to dig up old stuff, just putting it out there in case its new to anyone (but feel free to ignore):
* Someone from the Malaysian embassy in China arrived in Beijing Airport to tell relatives that MH370 had landed safely at Nanning (???)
* A Malaysian investigator, when questioned, said that the two ‘suspects’ on stolen passports didn’t look ‘Southeast Asian.’ When pushed, the inspector replied ‘they look like Balotelli,’ the black Italian footballer. Now this was either an honest mistake, or he was talking about an entirely different set of people to the two Iranians who were eventually identified (?!!)
* Those same two Iranians had the lower halves of their legs photoshopped – what was that about (???)
* Personally I wasn’t satisfied with how all the ringing phones were explained away. Its making an assumption that none of the relatives knew how their network provider behaved when the receiver’s phone was switched off / battery had dead / phone was damaged etc
You make a very compelling case, Jeff. Your excellent analysis has convinced me, over time, that the plane is not in the southern Indian Ocean.
Two questions nag at me. I wondered what your (highly informed) speculation on them would be.
1. How did the hijackers know to take the plane at precisely the moment of the handover between Malaysian and Vietnamese airspace?
2. If the Immarsat data is spoofed, is it partially spoofed (done in such a way to inaccurately suggest a southerly route, but still basically accurate on the ring distance) or totally spoofed (the rings themselves may be false; all we know is that the acars unit was on)?
it maybe suspicious along with the landing in Nanning and cover up and the so called harbouring of JLo(by china) who is involved with the 1MBD … there maybe some clues in how thing are evolving since he is under arrest warrant for corruption.
@MichaelR, Thanks very much! To answer your questions:
1. If they were in the E/E bay, with access to the electronic brains of the aircraft, they would presumably have access to communications and navigation data.
2. If the Inmarsat data was spoofed, my suspicion is that only the BFO data was tampered with. So, as you point out, the ring distances would remain accurate, and the routes derived from them would continue to be correct.
As the issue of Uighur separatist has popped up again, I want to add that I found it quite striking over the last few years how the PRC has cracked down in Xinjiang despite no new attacks that the wider world knows about for many years, since I believe 2009. If MH370 had been linked to Uighur terrorists, that would certainly explain the current crackdown.
Thanks for the reply, Jeff! I appreciate it. So they would have gotten into the E/E bay while Zaharie was still in control of the aircraft?
Also, just out of curiosity, what do you make of the report (I know this is very old news) about the pilot from another plane trying to reach MH370 and just hearing mumbling? It may not be especially relevant, but I was just curious on your take about that.
Frankly I think that a possible China connection is not being looked into enough. All this talk about Russia, Kazakhstan, etc – let’s come back to the basic facts. The victims were overwhelmingly Chinese citizens. The plane was on the way to Beijing. China is the elephant in the room. If you want to discuss countries that might be involved in some way, neither Russia nor Kazakhstan, and frankly neither Malaysia, is the first obvious choice. Maybe, simply for “rogue factor” and the fact that it’s kinda on the way given the original flight plan, North Korea might be of interest. No one is (or has been to a relevant degree) exploring this.
@Havelock Hammond
The CMB “China Martyrs Brigades” email has an uncanny structure of explanation.
“To Malaysian Government……This is not a terror threat, but a description for the future. I have to say Malaysia will have to face all kinds of incidents in the future. Of course it does not have to be plane crash.”
Finding the motive for MH370 requires unearthing new information and resurrecting pertinent information that may have been discounted prematurely.
If anyone reading this happens to have any sourced data about the following conditions or events on the night of March 7, 2014 – or happens to know someone who might – I would be so grateful if you could please post the data & source (or name) to this forum, with header = “for database”:
1) range &/or status of fixed military radar installations
A) Australia: eg JORN, Christmas Island, Cocos Island
B) Indonesia: eg Sabang, Sibolga, etc
C) India: eg Baaz aka Campbell Bay, CarNic, etc
D) “northern route”: Thailand, India (Hindon, eg), Pakistan, Nepal, China, Afghanistan (Bagram, eg), Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, etc
2) range &/or location of deployed mobile military radar
A) AEGIS-equipped destroyers, etc (eg USS Pinckney)
B) aerostat radar systems (tethered balloons), etc
C) radar-quipped fighter jets, etc
3) actual paths (records indicating time, latitude, and longitude for entire duration) of flights which have been “in the news” re: MH370:
A) passenger saw debris (MH361, SV2058, etc.)
B) used to cloak (SIA68, etc.)
C) pilot tried to radio (Narita-bound: MH88, JAL750, NH932, VN902, etc; Shanghai-bound: MH386)
D) what witnesses “truly” saw (DQA149, etc.)
4) Fuel models or tables that set firm range boundaries for MH370, given known fuel on board at last ACARS data submission
None of the above categories, subcategories or examples are meant to be exhaustive – just trying to prime the pump with a few examples of what we’re trying to compile, here.
Not spinning theories. Quite the opposite, in fact: trying to set up a database of independently verifiable facts we can all use to assess – and quash once and for all, in most cases – various theories.
(Key words: “first-hand” and “sourced data”. Responses which include neither first-hand sourced data nor a reference thereto will be cheerfully ignored.)
Moving in the direction of resuscitating information.
The fact air traffic control called the cockpit of MH370 only twice, waiting more than 4 1/2 HOURS from the first call, before calling the plane again.
When the nok asked the investigators to explain why only 2 calls were made to the cockpit of the missing plane,
“the investigators were not able to give the families an adequate response as to why more phone calls were not made.”
This is a vital question requiring a justification of action.
To what extent are air traffic controllers responsible for their decisions regarding the safety of passengers?
Amendment: the Vietnamese Airlines Narita-bound flight, upon second application of my shabby site-surfing skills, may have been VN950 instead of (or in addition to) VN902. Apologies for the error (or omission).
The Uyghur connection seems tenuous to me for many reasons.
First is the previous pattern of attacks by Uyghurs against Chinese: largely local, largely with hand held weapons such as knives and axes and, less often, smaller bombs.
When an aircraft has been a target, which has happened perhaps twice, the attacks have been an attempted brute force hijacking, as in the case of Tianjin Airlines, or, in another, a thwarted suicide bombing of China Southern Airlines.
In the former, we’d know after the fact that Uyghurs were aboard the airliner via passenger records. In the case of the latter, there would be the million pieces of debris we now associate with the bombing of a jumbo jet. Beyond that, in each of these cases, the target has been a Chinese plane, not a foreign aircraft carrying Chinese. Likewise, no Uyghur terrorist act has shown the kind of operational ability needed for taking an international flight from a foreign base.
Second, the Turkistan Islamic Party seems to be the major organizer of the Uyghur fight for independence, and has not an insignificant history. The Chinese Martyr’s Brigade had no history before the flight and has had no history since. It is also oddly named—for its victims and not its participants or it birthplace or its goals—like, say, the al-Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade. (Side note: there is a group called the Chinese Martyrs—Christians murdered in China around the time of the Boxer Rebellion. They worshiped under the auspices overseen by the Russian Orthodox Church.)
Third, oddly terrorists rarely claim responsibility for their attacks. In fact, according to the Global Terrorism Database, fewer than 14 percent of attacks came with claim of responsibility, and even fewer within a day of the act.
And finally there is the text of the note itself, which doesn’t sound like the language a separatist group would use. That is, it warns the Malaysians, not the Chinese. And yet it was distributed via the Hushmail encrypted email service to Chinese journalists not Malaysian ones.
An interesting note regarding Hushmail: it is not impossible to trace. In fact, the company has been criticized for turning email information over to authorities. Surely a missing airliner with no known whereabouts would have been reason enough to compel them to do the same here. Given those circumstances, it’s hard to imagine Western intelligence agencies (Hushmail is Canadian, I believe…) don’t know the source of that email.
This is a translation with a link to the Le Parisien
newspaper which is the source of the report about the French reopening/continuing the investigation.
I notice they are basing it on unnamed “sources” who have been the origin of so much rumours and misinformation in the past.
http://m.leparisien.fr/faits-divers/la-france-relance-l-enquete-sur-le-mh-370-05-08-2018-7844253.php
France relaunches investigation into MH370
All the countries involved in the disappearance of the Malaysian aircraft in 2014 with 239 people aboard have given up. In France, the gendarmerie of air transport continues its investigations.
At present, France remains the only country to still trying to understand how the Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 was able to disappear on March 8, 2014. There were four Frenchmen aboard: Laurence Wattrelos, her 14-year-old daughter Amber, his 17-year-old son Hadrien, and Yan the French-Chinese girlfriend of the latter. They were coming back from spring break in Malaysia. The presence of French victims allows our country to conduct its own investigations. All other countries investigations have now concluded.
Today, it is the research section of the Gendarmerie Air Transport (SR-GTA) that continues the investigation at the request of justice ministry. And from a perspective that is intended to reveal everything, according to our information.
The aircraft, a Boeing 777, flying from Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) to Beijing (China) with 239 people on board was never found. And investigations of all kinds from the many countries involved in the tragedy, often incomplete or fragmented, have not revealed anything so far, fuelling all kinds of conspiracy theories without any certified evidence.
Verifications of the technical data transmitted.
Malaysia has recently issued a 449-page report dismissing, without any evidence, the “impairment ” or “act of madness” of the captain. This very imprecise and ambiguous report also says “do not exclude the intervention of a third party”, without specifying its real nature. Because there is nothing that says the captain did not control this flight in a very sophisticated suicidal operation. This had already been one of the assumptions of the first US FBI investigation.
The gendarmerie of air transport (GTA) intends to verify the veracity and especially the authenticity of all the technical data transmitted. Notably the data provided by the British company Inmarsat, which has received the positions transmitted by the 777. Is this data are reliable? Certified? The gendarmes require the source of this data to understand the trajectory of the aircraft. It is not excluded that an international commission authorised to examine witnesses or ascertain facts and authorised to recover the raw data transmitted will be established at the beginning of the year.
One certainty in the case of the MH370: the first turn made by the aircraft was deliberate, while it was off the coast of Malaysia and Vietnam, between two air traffic controls areas. A left turn which deflected the aircraft towards the sensitive border between Thailand and Malaysia.
The aircraft then passed to the right of Kota Bahru International Airport where it could have landed in the event of damage. Then it flew to the Indian Ocean and also passed over Penang Island International Airport. Here again MH 370 did not land.
Undetected depressurization?
The 777 seems to have suffered a major power failure that generated in the jargon “a log off” preventing electronic transmissions for forty minutes. There is some doubt over whether a fault occurred with smoke on board. The ventilation system had been activated, but an incident may have damaged the pressurization system. “A typical symptom of a slow depressurization of the aircraft may have gone unnoticed or undetected by the pilots as it may be a secondary problem,” said Xavier Tytelman, a former Army veteran. air and reputed aeronautical consultant.
The slow depressurization leads to the loss of oxygen in the cabin and crew and passengers sink into a coma as the plane continues to fly towards a fatal crash site. Such an incident occurred in Greece on August 14, 2005. Following an undetected depressurization of the cockpit, the pilots had fainted and the plane ran out of fuel, killing all 121 people.
READ ALSO> Disappearance of Flight MH 370: “This investigation hides things from us”
Regarding possible activities in the MEC (Main Equipment Center) important new evidence has emerged. Or rather, old evidence is receiving renewed attention. The evidence consists of the ADS-B messages received by flight-tracking websites, in particular Flightradar24. They state on their MH370 page:
“Our last contact with MH370 occurred at 1:21 local (17:21 UTC) …”
That means the the airplane’s transponder was sending ADS-B messages until that time. Below that statement is a table of “Raw MH370 ADS-B data received by Flightradar24”. That table shows that Flightradar 24 did not receive complete ADS-B messages between !7:17:04 and 17:19:17. Now guess what: MH370 reported at 17:07:56 for the second time “maintaining FL350”, after first reporting it at 17:01:17, more than six minutes earlier.
One more: a source suggests to me KAL672 is yet another addition to the above list of Narita-bound jets flying roughly a half hour ahead of MH370. (Though it was an A330, calling him/herself a “777 pilot” would be a good way to protect his/her identity. And better to cast the net too wide than too narrow.)
@Gysbreght
Going thru old press reports, I see there was intially quite a strong conclusion, later apparently revised to de-empahsize the point, that the 2nd call came after ACARS was off-ed. This would be fairly strong evidence of hijacking of some kind.
But my impression is today we would say we do not know when ACARS was off-ed, just sometime before next report at 30-minutes after 17:07.
@TBill & @Gysbreght
if the ACARS/ADS-B was off-ed at ~17:07 could have it landed somewhere? if we assume for a moment the turn back did not happen were about would this landing occur?
The ATSB has released some data about the End-of-Flight simulations that Boeing were asked to do in 2016 at conditions selected by the ATSB. I was particularly interested in the one that exceeded the final BFO’s in an unstable phugoid when the autopilot was lost after the second engine flamed out due to fuel exhaustion. The chart shows the time histories of groundspeed and vertical speed in that simulation:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/al5fm0ww2zcv8j9/EoF_case5_phugoid.pdf?dl=0
Notable features of the simulation are that the second engine failure occurred about 12 minutes after the first, and that the rate of descent of 14000 feet per minute was first exceeded near the end of the simulation, 16 minutes after the second flame-out.
@TBill and @MH:
ACARS uses Satcom for communication. It doesn’t use the radar transponder. I don’t see the connection between ACARS and transponder.
@TBill: We only know that ACARS was off when the SDU rebooted at 18:25.
At the tme the next ACARS report was due we only know that SATCOM was off because it did respond to an attempt to transmit an ACARS message sent from MAS OCC to the aircraft.
This chart shows the End-of-Flight simulation Case 06, where the aircraft was in an abnormal electrical configuration resulting in loss of the autopilot at the first engine flameout.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/rsboh74vp2rivbt/EoF_Case06.pdf?dl=0
The first engine flameout occurred at about 120 seconds, and the second about three minutes later. It is apparent that in the simulation after the first engine failure the autopilot increased the thrust of the remaining engine to maximum rated thrust.
ACARS could have been switched to transmit on a VHF or HF band so that might be the reason we don’t see it win the Inmarsat logs.
@Scott O.
The email could have attributed itself to any bogus group, my reference was the content, which showed more animosity toward Malaysia than China.
The email may have substance regardless of the organization claiming it.
The email could have attributed itself to any bogus group, my reference was the content, which showed more animosity toward Malaysia than China.
The email may have substance regardless of the organization claiming it.
Don’t necessarily “throw the baby out with the bathwater”.