Yesterday the “Independent Group” (IG) of technical experts looking into the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight 370 (of which I am a part) released a new report which made the case that the official search area now being scoured by undersea robots is not where the plane most likely crashed. The reason, the group explained, is that the Australian Transport and Safety Board has relied on a statistical model in which hundreds of possible paths were generated, then winnowed down to include only those that fit the timing and frequency data from the seven handshake pings; this resulted in a distribution whose greatest density coincides with the current search area. The Independent Group, in contrast, began by asking what possible routes most closely match the flight speeds and altitudes that a pilot would most likely choose:
The ATSB analysis used two basic analysis techniques referred to as “Data Driven” and “Flight path/mode driven”… While we agree that these statistical methods are reasonable techniques, both tend to overlook or minimize likely human factors in favor of pure mathematical statistics. This ATSB approach appears to have resulted in a conclusion that the most likely average speed was approximately 400 kts (Appendix A). However, 400 kts is not consistent with standard operating procedure (typically 35,000 feet and 470-480 kts), nor is it consistent with the likely speed a pilot would choose in a decompression scenario (10,000 feet and 250-300 kts). A speed of 400 kts may minimize the BTO and BFO errors for a given set of assumptions, but the errors can also be shown to be very small for other speeds. Given all the tolerances and uncertainties, we believe it is important to consider human factors with more weight… B777 pilots consistently tell us that under normal conditions, the preferred cruise attitude would be 35,000 feet and the TAS would be approximately 470-480 kts. We believe this is the most likely case for MH370, and note that the last ADS-B data available indicated that MH370 was at 35,000 feet and 471 kts at that time.
As can be seen in the chart above, the differing approaches result in search areas that are some 500 miles apart. The full report can be found online here.
UPDATE 9/12/14: Richard Godfrey has pointed out that a recent report from the ATSB shows that the seabed-mapping effort has recently been extended some 200 nautical miles toward the IG search area:
Interesting article, even if it is one month old and from a tabloid:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/inside-flight-mh370-bunker-detectives-4075988
So, apparently the criminal investigation is alive.
Interestingly the mysterious phone call (or rather connection attempt) from the copilot’s cellphone through Penang Tower is mentioned again. I don’t understand why this incredibly important detail hasn’t been covered more. The ATSB should as well be very interested in a positive or negative confirmation, since this detail – if it really happened- would prove 2 things:
the plane must’ve definitely turned around and flown to the Strait (and we could safely fkrget about all scenarios of a crash in the South China Sea plus cover up of that fact or a direct turn from the South China Sea to the SIO.
Secondly we would know that the height of the plane must’ve been low enough to enable the phone to connect with the tower. That would be valuable info for the ATSB as well. Why is it so hard in this case to confirm or deny such seemingly clear cut facts?
… though it’s confounding how vague and inaccurate those journo pieces can be: it is said the phone call can’t have been made more than two hours before the plane took off. But the phone tried to connect while the plane was flying near Penang, right?
@Brock:
“Whoever the secret-keeper is behind the scenes, I hope (and bet) the Aussies are by now sick to death of covering for them. My letter is meant not to paint the Aussies into a corner; rather, to offer release from the corner into which they’ve been painted.”
This and other you’ve written I agree with wholeheartedly.
Do not be discouraged by the (seeming) lack of interest in your petition from people on this board. It may not be what you think — people are busy, distracted, whatever.It doesn’t mean that your effort is without merit. There’s an entire world out there full of people who are interested in pushing for more transparency with respect to MH370.
Use of an online petition (perhaps one with high visibility in AUS) would be advised, which you could also push on Twitter – THE platform for activism. @cryfortruth the Association for families of the Passengers and Crew on board of MH370), @sjhbajc (Sarah Bajc) and others with a vested interest are on Twitter as well. Make them aware of what your doing. If you do get on Twitter, let me know – I’d be happy to tweet the petition for you.
>> Malaysia has consistently put out
>> information that was either late,
>> misleading, or false. Some are willing
>> to chalk this up to incompetence. I
>> believe there is something deeper there.
Probably the most striking instance was the way the double back to Malaysia was suppressed after an early leak from a military official, disappearing completely from the narrative for several days and then gradually making its way back, only becoming fully “official” months later. This had huge consequences both for the early SAR efforts and for perceptions on the cause for the diversion. The impact on the latter is still felt today. The column inches devoted to discussing the pings and the final resting place of the plane far exceeds that devoted to the much more interesting questions raised by the return. The “Goodnight” book pulls together this history quite well, without really running with the implications either of the fact of the return or the fact that it was buried.
@littlefoot: I agree with you re: importance of verifying/ruling out the co-pilot’s call. Why do we still wonder? My thoughts:
1) It is generally much harder to prove something DIDN’T happen than that it DID. If a fact this critical remains ambiguous this long, “DIDN’T” becomes more likely, by Bayesian logic alone.
2) If I knew something DIDN’T happen – but wanted to convince the general public that it DID – I’d plant misleading stories on sites with maximum readership, and minimum rigour.
@nihonmama, agree with you re : Brock’s open letter. We aren’t disinterested at all, but we might all feelca little apathetic and disillusioned by now.
As to my dive into the hackers’s world, that has been quite fruitful. I have to find out a bit more, but I can say that we might’ve thought about it the wrong way. Hackers attack the weakest link in a system and if something is too difficult to enter or a set of data can’t possibly be forged, then something else might be attacked which produces in the end the same desired result. I’m not saying that happened for sure, but we don’t have a hackers’s creativity and mindset. That’s why we can’t say for sure what’s possible or not in this case.
I will come up with more precise info.
@littlefoot
>> Interestingly the mysterious phone call (or rather connection attempt)
>> from the copilot’s cellphone through Penang Tower is mentioned again. I
>> don’t understand why this incredibly important detail hasn’t been covered more.
I think you’ve answered your own question. The cell tower contact definitively corroborates the return, otherwise supported only by the military radar data and some eye witness testimony. It takes it out of the realm of that which can be ignored, suppressed or discounted. Fairly obviously, somebody high up wanted to postpone that disambiguation as long as possible. They weren’t in a hurry to clear things up.
@Brock, I have to confess, those thoughts entered my mind, too.
Considering the utmost importance of that call it’s surprising and suspicious that this simple fact couldn’t get unequivocally confirmed or denied by now.
Lol, Luigi and Brock, interesting how both of you came up with absolutely opposite explanations re: the alleged phone call and the lack of official confirmation.
@Luigi: I agree that the Malaysians have been less than honest. Malaysia conducted a false SAR in the South China Sea even when it had military radar data to the contrary. This has been well-documented. It also steadfastly denied that there was satellite data indicating the plane flew on for hours despite the claims of US investigators with access to the satellite data (via Inmarsat).
The narrative that Malaysia wanted in the early days was the plane went down in the South China Sea. Only after information surfaced from other sources did the Malaysians reluctantly shift their story.
See, for instance:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/13/malaysian-officials-deny-flight-mh370-missing-plane-flew-hours
@littlefoot
After a leak from the investigation reporting the cell tower contact was reported in the Asian press, Hishammuddin issued a weasel-worded non-denial denial. Shortly after that, a US official cut him off at the knees and confirmed the story.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/14/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-plane/
@Luigi, I know about that CNN article and I was about to point out to Brock that not only tabloids covered this. But the CNN article is still no official confirmation, and the official investigation has all but ignored the implications, since they continued to claim the plane never changed it’s height. Which obviously can’t be true if the cellphone story is correct.
@Victor, as I said before, I also have a hard time to believe in mere incompetence, when MAS claimed in the early stages of the disappearance that the plane was ‘safely’ over Cambodia and there was nothing to worry about. This contention is simply ludicrous. I spoke to an air controller here in my home town and he only snorted. He said it was almost insulting to believe Malaysian air controllers are really that incompetent.
@littlefoot
Per “Goodnight,” Malaysian ATC and military radar are in the same building. It is conceivable that incompetence could explain the failure to connect the appearance of a large, unidentified aircraft coming in from the direction of the lost airliner with the disappearance of said airliner for several hours. Slackness could conceivably explain why no jets were sent out to investigate the non-responsive plane, regardless of making a connection to the missing airliner. Credulity is stretched to the breaking point when we are asked to believe that the connection was still not made days into the SAR operation.
@Nihonmama – thanks much for the encouragement, and the info – great stuff.
Before officially launching the campaign, I’d hoped first to shape the wording through this forum – as well as collecting input from groups like Sarah’s and Jeff’s. (I am saddened that the IG – however unintentionally – is serving to undermine my efforts by pretending that their decompression scenario is ATSB-certified feasible. Oh, well.)
If you think Twitter will work, I’m game. Had been toying with Day 200 (Sept. 24) for a launch date, and #BS370 for a hashtag, but welcome all ideas. I have a twitter account, but wasn’t going to pin this campaign to it until we had consensus on the letter’s wording. (I’m realizing people are too busy to read my dense list of data demands – I may have been a tad presumptuous, there.)
But I wasn’t kidding when I said I was a newbie at online petitions – it’s hard enough for me just to work the internets, so I defer to you all on the social medias.
@all: If any of these “hacker friends” being referenced happen to have any suggestions for flying an online campaign into the headwinds of, say, the US government, I’d be particularly appreciative.
Thanks again.
@Brock, I don’t have any hacker friends yet, and before mh 370 my hacking interests were limited to jailbreak my kindle in order to install nicer screensavers or install an illicit flash player on my android tablet in order to stream videos and movies. But maybe you should try to interest the Chinese government in your project. I just read that they hacked themselves into the Malaysian computers two days after the plane vanished because they did not trust the investigation skills of the Malaysian authorities and doubted their honesty. 6 month later we know of course that this regrettable distrustfulness was completely unfounded 😉
@Luigi: did CNN independently verify the claims of this unnamed US official before publishing them? It’s journalism 101, but I’d bet a lot of money they didn’t.
If “US shoot-down & cover-up” is what you are attempting to disprove, I have to say I do not find the uncorroberated claims of the SUSPECT to carry much evidenciary value.
I also have to say this fits the pattern of US sources popping up to weigh in on key evidence, e.g. to tell us how authentic the acoustic pings are (or, months later, aren’t…).
I also found the way top US politicians humiliated CNN for maintaining MH370 coverage to be particularly chilling.
If you trust the US government, I’m sure none of this will resonate. I don’t trust ANY government to disclose damaging truths; perhaps you and will have to agree to disagree on this point.
@littlefoot: don’t you find implausible the notion that hackers are sophisticated enough to phish key data from key computers via a simple pdf-like e-mail attachment, yet dumb enough to leave a trail leading straight back to them?
Even if this story is true, I suspect spoofed IP addresses – or data-routing through foreign territory – are items in the toolbox of state-sponsored hackers.
But I am hoping to interest as many nations as possible in this quest for accountability – you’re definitely on the right track, there.
@Littlefoot – I share your interest in a confirmation or denial of the cell phone story. The confirmation would change nothing in terms of the currently speculated route of the plane. That’s why the lack of that confirmation is so disturbing. My guess is that either the cell phone story never happened, or they really don’t know, which would be surprising but nonetheless possible.
I would caution, though – the mere connection between the cell phone and the tower cannot prove altitude. It certainly makes a lower altitude more likely, but I don’t believe it can exclude any higher altitude (within the plane’s abilities, at least.)
My experience tells me that connections are briefly possible at 10,000 feet, but that’s entirely based on me looking at the phone. The tower may record connection attempts that the phone never displays on its screen.
@JS: I’m no expert, but would bet a BUCKET of money that, at the FL350 the ATSB current models MH370 throughout its post-IGARI unplanned track, the chances of getting bars is zero to at least a dozen decimal points – and that this blackout is symmetric (i.e. tower and phone fail to detect EACH OTHER).
Accordingly: the only way this “Penang cell phone tower” and the “official flight path” are compatible is if the co-pilot was calling from his parachute.
If there is a desire to mount a campaign to get more data, I suggest that efforts be directed first towards pressuring Malaysia to release all the radar data. We need to know what specific radar sites collected the data and how the data was assimilated from multiple sources. A careful analysis of this data by independent researchers would help determine the validity of the “official” path up until the plane disappeared from primary radar at 18:22.
Pressure also needs to be directed towards Indonesia, which claims that MH370 was never detected by its radar, which contradicts the radar data provided by Malaysia. If Indonesian radar was operational, the radar data would confirm the plane’s path in the Malacca Strait and also reveal it’s path as it passed near Sumatra. This would not only help understand the factors leading to the disappearance of the plane, but also help narrow the search area in the SIO.
The ATSB has communicated to the IG that the only radar data provided by Malaysia was included in its report. I do not think that placing pressure on the ATSB to release more radar data will be productive.
@Victor: I appreciate your perspective – and am as keen as you to get ALL military radar up on to the table – but I’m even keener to follow through on the thread in the fabric I’ve already successfully unraveled: the ATSB radically moving the search – wrongly, as it turns out – and giving false reasons for so doing.
We are far more likely, IMHO, to get disclosure from an entity PLEDGED to transparency – yet caught in the act of opacity – than getting governments known for their secrecy to publish their military intel.
And I’d have trouble believing that the investigative scheming I’ve documented and the radar data suppression you suspect could possibly be unrelated. If Malaysia and/or Indonesia are the root cause of search dysfunctionality, my plan gets us there.
Littlefoot – the article suggests what I thought all along: the passenger profiling could take forever, and still come to nothing.
Victor – right about the radar, but all you are likely to get from them is T shirt, a great Nasi Goreng, a cold Bintang and a crook gut.
Victor,
I am afraid you have got the whole thing backwards.
All the evidence points to a crash not in the South Indian Ocean. Since our host has indicated in no uncertain terms that this topic is now closed I can only refer you to my previous comments in this thread and in the preceding thread on this blog. For those who wish even more details, they can find them in my comments on the TMF blog.
You will note from Duncan’s last post on his blog on MH370, the one on the radar coverage, that there were several military radars that MH370 would necessarily have traversed if indeed it had turned back and crossed over Peninsular Malaysia on its way to the Andaman Seas, including the military radar at Ca Mau peninsula for Vietnam, the military radars at Gong Kedak and Butterworth for Malaysia, the military radars at Hat Yai and Phuket for Thailand and the 2 military radars at Aceh, north Sumatra for Indonesia. Then there were the primary terminal approach radars or TRACON of the various airports along the route including the 60 nm range TRACON at the airport at Kota Baru and the 50 nm range TRACON radar at Penang airport.
The ATCs in each of the 4 countries mentioned above, would have the returns from all radars in their country, both civilian and military. None of the ATCs reported seeing anything that could have been MH370 or even the slightest indication that there was something up there in the sky that night that was not accounted for. So strike one.
None of the military of any of the countries have come forward to say they positively or probably saw MH370 on their military radar system. Malaysia only said they saw a blip on the Butterworth radar coming from the opposite direction heading to KL some time after MH370 disappeared and that this blip was merely ‘possibly’ MH370 on a turn back. Thailand military also said pretty much the same thing 10 days after the fact, that they saw a blip going in the opposite direction heading to KL at 1.28am or 1728 UTC but that they did not know if the blip was MH370. That blip could not have been MH370 which was still going towards BITOD up till 1.30am or 1730 UTC but CES 539, a flight heading to KL from Shanghai and which was only 100 nm to the east of MH370 when MH370 disappeared from secondary radar. Strike two.
Then the indisputable fact is that no one has produced a recording of any radar track that purportedly could have been MH370. Not Malaysia, not Thailand, not any other country. Since the official story is that the plane had turned back and crossed over, such a recording would be corroborative of the official narrative so the fact no such recording has been produced can only mean one thing: there is no such radar track. Strike three.
We have already run out of strikes but for completeness sake one should mention that the purported track in Figure 2 of the ATSB Report showing a diversion to Penang at 1725 UTC or 1.25 am with an end point at MEKAR at 2.22am or 1822 UTC is completely unsubstantiated AND contradicted by (a) the claims of the Malaysian military and the Thailand military that the blip sighted was heading in the opposite direction to KL, and (b) the evidence of the 2 ATCs tracking the plane that night, Ho Chi Minh City ATC and KL ATC, to the effect that MH370 was still heading northeast from IGARI to BITOD from 1.21am to 1.30 am.
Indonesia says MH370 did not show up on its radars. To insist on Indonesia producing its radar data is tantamount to requiring a party to prove a negative.
The plane would have traversed the radars of Thailand and Malaysia before reaching Indonesia. If either one of these countries maintain they have data to show MH370 did turn back and cross over, the onus is on them to produce evidence in the form of a recording of the purported track, to back up their claim. If these countries cannot produce any such evidence, and so far they have not, why then bother to insist Indonesia prove they did not see MH370 when Indonesia would be the last leg of such purported track.
@Alex: We have some fundamental differences on how to interpret the BTO and BFO data that I do not think we can resolve here, despite your pronouncement that I “have the whole thing backwards”. Instead, let’s agree that the release of ALL the radar data is crucial for verifying the path. You may disagree with me regarding what the radar data will reveal, but I think we can agree that the data should be released so it can be independently analyzed.
@Victor: I should also have clarified that my letter makes no demands on the search leadership for any radar data – nor any data, for that matter, that hasn’t been implied by their own publications to be in the ATSB/JIT’s possession already.
Did the Malaysian government plant a leak that MH370 doubled back to the mainland immediately after the plane’s loss, then deny it, then gradually acknowledge the possibility, then finally fully acknowledge it as fact in an official report to the international community months later as part of a secret plot to create a false narrative covering up what really happened to the plane? Was this all a clever reverse-psychology trick to produce the false impression that their bureaucracy is incompetent, their air defenses pathetic, their equipment rubbish, their political leadership untrustworthy, and to put about the bogus notion that whoever snatched the jetliner had unfinished business to conduct in Malaysia?
Similarly, did they plant a false rumor in the press that the co-pilot’s phone reconnected with a Malaysian cell tower, then have their Defense Minister deny it, then pass it on to the US to re-affirm as part of the same nefarious propaganda offensive?
Or is there, perhaps, a more logical explanation? To wit, that the plane doubled back to Malaysia, that it was tracked by military radar but was for some reason deemed “not hostile,” and was not reconnoitered by interceptors — and this set of circumstances is not something Malaysia’s leaders are really keen for us all to focus on.
Victor,
I agree wholeheartedly with you that all radar data should be released.
All indications are that the various countries will not oblige and even if they do, the radar data or the lack thereof at best would only show that the plane did not turn back and cross over.
The complete Inmarsat data, in my humble view, would show where and when the plane crashed. I was wondering whether the IG has any plans afoot to get the Inmarsat data that has yet to be released.
About the co-pilot’s purported cell phone.
This claim was officially refuted by the authorities. Hishamuddin, the minister in charge, himself came forward to deny the claim and his denial was reported in Bernama, the Malaysian governmental news agency.
Of course that by itself does not mean that it is not true. However, logic would dictate the story is a fabrication on the part of those who were keen to promote the idea the plane was lost due to human intervention and thus absolving Boeing, among others.
There were 239 people on board MH370. If indeed the plane had flown back across Peninsular Malaysia over Penang at an altitude low enough to be within coverage of a cell tower there, it is inconceivable that only the co-pilot’s cell phone was switched on then.
Early on, the question was raised whether the cell phone records of those on board showed any activity, given the reports of phones of passengers still ringing upon being called, and the authorities answered in the negative.
It is now more than 6 months after the plane disappeared and if there is any evidence to support the official narrative that the plane had turned back, in the form of cell phone records, such evidence would have been produced already.
OK, time to come clean: I have been intentionally fishing about, asking inane questions (e.g. …if the public report of the data set has been redacted) and generally walking into dead ends for a purpose. Namely, I am wary of ossified thinking on our part (including in own noodle), and I believe that we would be better served by shaking things up a bit and bringing some fresh thinking to the matter. There is no point in any of us being overly wedded to any particular theory, it is only vanity and the outside chance that we may be proved correct that keeps us locked in an embrace with whatever particular construct. It is a struggle not to make any of this our own, to avoid ego usurping the search for the truth (and the aircraft), but struggle we must. Our Ego will not serve us here; only a higher, ‘aperspectival’ Witness can serve us. “Beginners Mind” as Suzuki Roshi was fond of calling it is the key to unraveling the mystery. Scientific training is required in efforts to locate the aircraft, as it is indeed located in a purely scientific, objective domain. Meanwhile, the who, what and how involves both objective science and more subjective domains (where the validity testing is different), as humans are involved in the mix. Humans are prone to becoming hypnotized to standing waves or vibrations of ‘solidity’, as we are generally timid creatures and fear ambiguity. Meanwhile, another understanding is that the full nature of reality is inherently ambiguous, and that we are ‘here’ precisely to engage in nothing more than to make consciousness manifest by ‘seeing’ consciousness, and so realize it. This mystery, then, can only be looked upon with eyes that perceive reality in a non-dual fashion, as “both this and that and neither this nor that.”
Apologies for the metaphysical thing. It is perhaps a bad habit, but it helps to bring depth to the bugaboo of the ossification of our noodles or standing waves usurping our awareness. On to more concrete points…
I think it is now clear that we agree that all information has not been shared, whether we are referring to the data or the investigation. We don’t know the motives for this behavior, but perhaps we can further discuss the responsible parties.
I seriously doubt whether the Americans are responsible. As Victor has pointed out and I have sustained, there are international conventions that clearly describe who is responsible for what in these cases. Let’s take the second phase of the SAR effort, where India was on point: they did not volunteer their participation (and expense), they were compelled to do so by international treaty. They would have been in breach had they not complied with Malaysia’s request. Likewise, the Americans are limited in their actions by international convention. Meanwhile, their unwillingness to squander political capital and force Malaysia to cough up more dope could be indicative of (take your pick and proceed from there): a. there is a larger threat that needs to be pursued and terminated before all is brought to light; or b. there is no larger threat, and the US could really give a rat’s ass from a geopolitical standpoint, there is no compelling reason to squander political capital by flaunting power and coloring outside the lines.
Alex: the ATSB is not wholly informed. The Malaysians are sitting on the redacted information, while the Indonesians may have shared their radar data with the Malaysians. Either way, it is clear that people in position of power at the very least are concerned with their own hides. Politics IS a game of avoiding ‘assassination’ by people seeking your power and privilege. Anything can snowball into your ouster in the right hands, and thus generally always the best thing to do is to keep your mouth shut and share nothing. The President of Korea was compelled to resign over the ferry disaster – the same could happen in Malaysia. As Luigi has pointed out, the mere overflight of Malaysia could have been enough to get Hisammudin sacked, and he has only been saved, really, by the lack of an empowered opposition. His projection that he is as much a victim and a simple guy on his motorcycle and the aircraft is lost and “poor me” etc. is but a projection. We don’t really know what his true view is, but I did take note of seething rage and indignation when being interviewed on several occasions. He is clearly not familiar with his authority being questioned, and his repeated references along the lines of “what, are you telling me that we shot it down?” inform me that he is lesser-developed in the morality and empathy department, that his view is that of many world leaders, that only the strong and those willing to kill are entitled to rule, and that the rest of us are too stupid to realize this. The tweets of thanks for those understanding his “stress”, all are the product of a sociopath who has no interest in pursuing sharing the truth, as then he would lose his advantage.
And so, Alex, I ask you, as a Malaysian, to please move beyond your theory as to what happened, as we are all by now quite acquainted with it. Rather, if you could share your views as to WHY whomever is going through such great effort to put the aircraft in the SIO when it is elsewhere, I am sure that we would all love to hear it. And again, what is the view of the educated Malaysian public in all this? I have noted only a profound and even arresting sense of distrust for anything coming out of the mouths of the leadership, and perhaps a bit of embarrassment. I have noted the same body language before, in the 1990’s: in Burma, when discussing politics with members of the university community.
So, why the cover up of the aircraft actually having gone down in the South China Sea?
Thanks.
Posted this like 12 hours ago. Vaporized. Trying again.
Victor:
As you point out, the Malaysians, who are theoretically (and legally) the ‘lead’ in this investigation, appear to have redacted the satellite logs. But let’s consider that the lack of transparency (and/or deafening silence) in what clearly seems to be a cover-up of some sort could not be happening if Malaysia were the ONLY one involved.
First of all, it defies credulity to believe that intelligence services (the US being one) do not have SAT or other data that sheds light on what happened to MH370:
https://twitter.com/nihonmama/status/446207783763836928
Furthermore, as Ben Sandilands rightly noted, the US appeared to have early and ‘prescient’ information about the whereabouts of MH370:
“By 14 March US intelligence sources and the White House publicly were saying that the 777 was believed to have crashed west of Perth, and even quoted a distance of between 1600-1800 kms west for the site of the disaster.
Those American reports seem prescient given subsequent events, even though the official line in Malaysia was that the plane could be almost anywhere within around eight hours total flying time from Kuala Lumpur.”
https://twitter.com/PlaneTalking/status/450006159705899008
Two different story lines. Based on what information did the US come up with its ‘take’ — and so early?
The question is rhetorical.
It’s either disinfo, misinfo or more likely, the truth (going to leave aside for the moment my view that IF there’s an a/c in the SIO, it may not be 370). I’m going with the latter – the US is not in the dark here. And IF that’s the case, why all of the obfuscation? Why isn’t the US sharing what it knows? Because God knows, the Malaysians are all over the place, incompetent, and can’t be trusted.
Could it be that it’s also in the interests of the US (and other ‘Five Eyes’ members), that the SAT log data and other be withheld – because they do KNOW what happened to this plane, but don’t want it known? And is that perhaps tied to a criminal (read: terrorism) investigation that may occurring well beyond Malaysia? If so, then Malaysia’s incompetence and authoritarian streak also make it the perfect ‘cover’.
Or perhaps, MH370 is really ALL about Malaysia and everybody’s just helping to keep things murky because they get something in return.
Like this:
Malaysia offers US the use one of its bases for a detachment of new maritime surveillance planes https://t.co/dh2ILbN3SK
What interesting timing.
Nihonmama – Re US having info about a SIO crash. By the 14th March we had the rings in place?? So if it’s a stark north/south delineation and there is no radar data pointing north jumping out, there may be a preparedness to declare the SIO as the resting place? That was seen as by far the most likely at the time. In other words, was that statement a display of confidence that it never went north.
Matty — Yes, I think the benign interpretation would be that the lack of radar returns in South & Central Asia led to default conclusion that, between north and south, south was the most likely.
This a worry?? “Khorasan” by the way pertains to an ancient region covering what is now Northern Iran and parts of Syria and Turkey – it’s from here that the great attack sparking the Islamic end times will occur.
A NEW terrorist group linked to al-Qa’ida and headed by a member of Osama bin Laden’s inner circle could be a greater threat to the West than Islamic State, US officials have warned.
Like Islamic State, Khorasan, a shadowy cell, has grown in strength over the past year thanks to the conflict in Syria. While its more high-profile rivals are focused on building a caliphate, Khorasan is said to favour attacks on the West.
At the heart of its strategy, say US officials, is a far more familiar method: devising plots to blow up airliners and other targets. The group is recruiting fighters with Western passports who are more able to travel freely.
It was the threat of Khorasan and its links to bomb makers from al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula that led Washington to ban uncharged mobile phones and laptops from flights to the US from Europe and the Middle East this year, officials revealed.
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper admitted last week that “in terms of threat to the homeland, Khorasan may pose as much of a danger as Islamic State”. His comments were the first public acknowledgment by a US official of the group’s existence.
While the Obama administration has emphasised the threat posed by Islamic State, officials have been less forthcoming on Khorasan, whose operatives are al-Qa’ida fighters from Afghanistan and Pakistan who travelled to Syria to work with the Nusra Front, the network’s affiliate there and a rival to Islamic State, also known as ISIS. Khorasan jihadists dispatched by Ayman al-Zawahiri, the al-Qa’ida leader, are trying to lure Europeans and Americans fighting in the country.
Leading the group is Muhsin al-Fadhli, 33, a senior al-Qa’ida operative who was so close to Bin Laden that he was one of the few who knew about the 9/11 attacks in advance, said The New York Times. “What you have is a growing body of extremists … who are taking advantage of the ungoverned areas and creating informal ad hoc groups that are not directly aligned with ISIS or Nusra,” a former senior law enforcement official told the newspaper.
Al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula has been at the forefront of attempts to create bombs that can be slipped past airport security undetected. It has placed three bombs on airliners bound for the US, although none succeeded in downing an aircraft.
The emergence of Khorosan raises concerns that Washington risks overlooking the more traditional threat still posed by al-Qa’ida as officials focus their efforts on tackling Islamic State. The Obama administration admits the crisis in Syria has given rise to fresh concerns about al-Qa’ida’s ability to rebuild in new offshoots.
@Nihonmama: I do believe the US knows more than has become public, and in fact, there is a history of the US making statements that contradict the Malaysian statements in a way that has guided the investigation in the right direction. I do believe MH370 ended in the SIO, as suggested by the US, because that is what the satellite data suggests. I also believe there are other aspects of the criminal investigation that the US has kept secret in order to protect its methods and sources. My landing at Banda Aceh scenario is consistent with this.
http://jeffwise.net/mh370-scenario-with-a-landing-at-banda-aceh-by-victor-iannello-august-23-2014/
Independent of what the US might know, it is the Malaysians that have publicly proposed a specific path that MH370 flew after it went dark, and it is Malaysia that “owns’ the data, as the ATSB has stated. I am requesting that Malaysia release the raw data that would allow independent investigators to verify this path. I also request that Malaysia release the entire satellite data logs, including the missing rows and fields that were provided by Inmarsat but deleted by Malaysia. These are requests for specific information to a specific party that we know has the information and has chosen to not make it public in entirety.
@VictorI& All
Initially, I thought most parties to the investigation of MH370 (other than the Malaysians) would be as open and forthright as possible. Now I must say, I really doubt that is the case.
I have been informed by the JACC that the recordings of the underwater acoustic “pings” will not be released because:
“The acoustic information recorded in April was obtained under the provisions of the Transport Safety Investigation Act 2003 and is classified as restricted information as defined in Part 1 Section 3 of the Act. Unfortunately this information is therefore not releasable to the public at this time.”
My initial inquiry regarding this was directed to the ATSB, which directed me to the ADF, which directed me to JACC.
Apparently the ATSB is unaware of the regulations which govern its own agency, if this statement from JACC is to be believed.
Just WHO is making these decisions??
Has the JACC usurped the authority of the ATSB?
Angus Houston, head of the JACC said some time ago, he saw no problem with releasing the recordings. Then, when it became questionable whether the “pings” were from the plane, he said the recordings needed “further analysis.”
After is was determined the “pings” most likely weren’t from the plane, there was still no release of the recordings. That was months ago.
Now they hide behind the vagaries of “the provisions of the Transport Safety Investigation Act 2003.”
Didn’t Houston know about the 2003 Act when he said he saw no problem with releasing the recordings?
Even if he didn’t, we all know a decision CAN be made to release them…….if “they” wanted to.
Now, the only question that remains is….”Who exactly are “they?”
@Victor: very eloquently argued.
I had always believed the “what happened, and why” and “where to look, and what we found” shadiness HAD to be driven by a single cause, and thus by a single player. But perhaps you and I are BOTH right – to borrow a phrase from the signal data analysis, perhaps the cover-up is actually a “tale of two halves”. Perhaps Malaysia is responsible for the former, and the Aussies/Americans – independently – are responsible for the latter. Scenario:
Plane’s fate: [something that embarrassed Malaysia, not the US]
Search manipulation: “we’ll recover your plane, Malaysia, but we’re not going to send jets THAT far out to sea. We’re going to move it to places easier to search, and to where bathymetric surveying has spin-off benefits. And neither of us will spill the beans on the other.”
To borrow Jeff’s word, I view the quote above as the “benign” interpretation of “hey, let’s move the search 1,350nmi NE, pretend some acoustic pings are authentic, and slink back several months later, when we’re paying a much smaller percentage of a dramatically scaled-back search”.
(There are other possible interpretations available, including facilitation of evidence tampering, which I hope you’d concede on principle. Just as I assume you concede it is POSSIBLE Malaysia was telling the truth in the first couple of days, with the “west, then south” data embroidered in later by “helpful” Americans trying to cover up something of their OWN. But I digress.)
Even under this benign interpretation, BOTH entities have, in my opinion, treated passengers’ families with grotesque disregard, and deserved to have their machinations thrown open for the world to see. Agreed?
I will amend my letter in the direction you suggest, Victor (add stuff Malaysia is known to be withholding). Expect a revised draft to this site by tomorrow.
@Victor:
I look forward to seeing the outcome of your efforts with respect to getting Malaysia to disclose the raw data.
@John: ”Who exactly are “they?”
Exactement. The WHO question here is not just about the (assumed) hijackers.
@Brock – see the following. Regardless of whether the site itself is a trustworthy source, it contain a number of good sources, most of which confirm my position on high altitude phone use. It is not close to zero. There may only be a 10% chance of a connection being made, but that is enough to completely eliminate the use of the phone (if even true) to estimate maximum altitude:
http://www.911myths.com/html/mobiles_at_altitude.html
And another set:
http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/read.main/2295696/
@John – though I share your frustration over the acoustic ping flip-flop, I can see good intentions in classifying the recordings.
First, there may have been higher value submarine assets in the neighborhood, which may not have been the source of the pings, but may be on the recording.
Second, the weakness that caused the ping misidentification may extend beyond civilian equipment, and the classification is designed to prevent someone from reverse engineering an exploit of this weakness.
Third, the pings may be considered intentional efforts to distract or frustrate the search. It would be inappropriate to provide “feedback” to the responsible party on how the spoofed acoustic ping sounded from the boat.
Fourth, of course, is incompetence in any form. Perhaps the pings were never recorded, but merely noticed, much like our radar problem.
Just a few possible explanations, playing devil’s advocate.
As far as any potential US government role in a cover-up is concerned, I seriously doubt it. That’s not because because I think they are incapable of such a thing, but because I don’t see any evidence for it.
My guess is that US intel has probably understood the general character of the incident and the denouement from early on — as is suggested by the Pentagon official’s allusion to the plane going into the water, long before other scenarios could be discounted.
It would surely have been a top priority for US intel to understand the causation asap, given the possibility that international terrorism was involved. The US most likely has SIGINT relating to the aircraft and/or responders and decision-makers on the ground that would have been clarifying as to causation. They also have access to raw data from the criminal probe shared by the Malaysians, and no doubt developed their own intel on potential suspects, political context, etc.
I doubt their information on the final resting place of the plane is any better than what we have. The plane was off the radar and invisible except via the Immarsat pings for several hours before it went down. We’re talking about finding a hundred tons of metal in a quadrillion tons of water — equivalent to finding a needle in a million haystacks.
If, as seems likely, the causation involved a workplace incident rooted in Malaysia’s internal political conflicts with no wider implications, the US would have no motivation to enter the fray and many reasons not to. It simply isn’t done, and it’s not going to bring the passengers back. It does look like US officials have nudged things in the direction of accuracy and transparency in a few instances where the Malaysians have gone overboard on delay, denial and misdirection. That’s probably because of humanitarian considerations involving the relatives (i.e., human decency), although minimizing their exposure if it ever comes out that US intel knew more than they told might also be a factor.
@ matty in perth
What was the official reason angus Houston lost his spot on mh 370?I know he was “transferred ” to the other mh17 “shootdown” but this makes little to no sense .lets release the guy with the most hours and knowledge into the search effort !what did he say that did not tow the official. Narrative of mh 370 disappearance ?
A closer investigation of Indonesia’s General Sutarman and his spectacular claim, that he knows what happened to mh 370, reveils it as being probably a lot of hot air.
What he actually said was this:
“I spoke to the Malaysian police chief Tun Mohammed Hanif Omar. I actually know what had actually happened with mh 370.”
Some of us got really excited about something coming out of Indonesia, which had behaved so far like the proverbial three monkeys. But General Sutarman didn’t say at all that he had inside knowledge from and Indonesian source or perspective. I would interpret his words more like :” After I spoke to the Malaysian police chief I’m now privy to the secret of what happened to mh 370.” Note: He doesn’t say, that he told the police chief what happened.
The other problem is that Tum Mohammed Hanif Omar isn’t the present police chief. He’s 76 years old and hasn’t been chief of police since 1994. The present chief of police is Khalid Abu Bakar.
So, after a close look the whole story shrinks to the size of a chummy chat between two guys. One of them says:”Do you want to hear a secret? I’m 76 years old but I’m still sharp upstairs, you know…?” This might not be more reliable than ex-Premier Mahatir’s claim that the US are most certainly the villains here. Even if the ex-chief is still privy of some inside knowledge there’s no reason to believe that any of this is connected to Indonesia.
Too bad, I had really entertained some small sliver of hope that a whistle blower might finally come forward 🙁
angus spoke of the AJAAC analyzation of undersea pings .now compare to the atsb report regarding the “black box pings” .i guess the AJAAC lost all credibility!
http://www.jacc.gov.au/media/interviews/2014/april/tr009.aspx
Question: [Indistinct] Are you telling us that you believe the battery in the data recorder is now flat? And can you give us an idea—the Bluefin is a long shot, isn’t it?
Angus Houston: Well, I would say that day 38, if you remember when we had a briefing, it seems like a long time ago now, but we said 30 days shelf-life and possibly out to 40 days and then the batteries will almost certainly be totally expired. We haven’t had a single detection in six days. So I guess it’s time to go underwater. Our concept always was that if we did get an area that we can identify from an acoustic search, that eventually we would go underwater. That’s why the Ocean Shield is carrying the Towed Pinger, that was to get the initial detections, and then to use the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle to go down and investigate what might have happened. Now,—or where the transmissions might be coming from.
Now, you might recall that one of those transmissions that was analysed by AJAAC, the Australian Joint Acoustic Analysis Centre, a naval agency that works with our submarines all the time, a lot of expertise, they have analysed and reanalysed and, indeed, all of the stuff that we’ve been analysing has been analysed again and again. And on the latest advice from them, the original assessment that the signal that was received essentially had the characteristics of a man-made signal that was very similar to what you might expect from a black box recorder.
So I think this is something that must be investigated. It’s the best lead we’ve got after 38 days of searching and I guess it’s as it is and I would not term it a long-shot, I’d term it, as somebody who’s been in search and rescue operations a lot over the years, I would determine it as a promising lead that needs to be prosecuted until we can either confirm or discount and then if we confirm, great. If we discount, we then decide where we’re going to go next. And that’s the way it’s done. Believe me, that’s the business of search and recovery, search and rescue.
http://www.jacc.gov.au/media/interviews/2014/april/tr009.aspx
Pg 16 – 18 discusses acoustic detection and analyzation with zero mention of the highly regarded AJAAC.
————–
http://www.atsb.gov.au/media/5243942/ae-2014-054_mh370_-_definition_of_underwater_search_areas_18aug2014.pdf
@Luigi: re: “no evidence” of US involvement; my response:
The lack of debris – and the failure even to SEARCH properly, let alone find anything – are thorns in the side of every theory that rules out the presence of major state secrets. The next question is: if a state, WHICH state?
It is ironic to me that we ALL seem to use the gap between Malaysian and US accounts in those critical early days to incriminate one, and exonerate the other. Hopefully, if we all take a deep breath, exhale, and summon our diplomacy, we can agreee that
a) this is a “he said, she said” situation,
b) published evidence is insufficient to determine guilt, and
c) evidence, not prejudice, must inform our judgment.
What draws me to the American state is the behaviour of Australian search leaders, which all observers must by now concede has been strange.
To me, the upcoming move right back to the s38 location they were at for the first ten days of the search is fairly incriminating. Since April (on Metabunk at first, inexplicably – ever since they moved the search that first 650nmi, I smelled a rat), I’ve been pulling out my hair, trying to show that the search was being moved for reasons other than those given; I was told it was too early to accuse (“maybe they have credible but unpublishable intel”). Now that they are returning to Point A, all such claims must be abandoned. Is it now too LATE to hold the search leadership accountable for the glaring holes in their logic (March 28 move, April 1 JIT-directed move, acoustic ping authenticity)? When was the RIGHT time?
And where in the heck would Malaysia get the leverage to dance the Aussies around like this? To me, this smacks of a much more powerful puppeteer. Indirect evidence, I admit. But still, to me, compelling.
I’d also like to firmly establish the Inmarsat data’s chain of custody: I’d thought “top US officials” were involved in early stages, but stand to be corrected.
@Matty-Perth, Victor
“In other words, was that statement a display of confidence that it never went north.”
I think that’s one way to look at it, but IMHO, it would also be an understatement.
The US seemed to arrive at a conclusion as to the specific whereabouts of MH370 BEFORE Inmarsat.
As a well-informed friend said to me some time ago (and emphatically, I might add), between nuclear subs and dark stars (read: intel satellites), believe that the US knows where MH370 is.
So, did the White House make the statement, as Victor stated, to guide the investigation in the right direction, which, by the way, would also put pressure on Malaysia without causing it lose too much ‘face’? Not an unreasonable conjecture at all.
The problem here though, is not just what the US is doing (or not), it’s also, as Brock and John point out, what the Aussies are doing. And what are they doing? Moonwalking.
There’s beginning to be an Alice in Wonderland feel to it all. Is that because the Aussies are incompetent too? I don’t buy that for a nanosecond. AUS and the US are INTELLIGENCE partners. So, if (we can safely assume yes) the US has proprietary or classified data related to MH370, isn’t it reasonable to think that it would have been SHARED with the Aussies too? Because the goal is to find the plane, right? Or is it?
Let’s go back to the March 19th SMH article.
Malaysia believes (I’d submit, correctly) that “data from US spy satellites monitored in Australia could help find missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 but the information is being withheld.”
If the US wants to guide this investigation in the right direction, why isn’t it sharing what it knows with Malaysia? Surely, there’s a way to convey the data that the Malaysians say they need without compromising US (or AUS) sources and methods.
Has Malaysia not released all of the SAT data for its own reasons or because it’s being asked not to? As of today, is it still the case that the US is withholding its SAT data from Malaysia? Or, has the US shared its info but asked Malaysia not to release the data they “own”?
I’ll just re-up this comment from Ben Sandilands.
“It has been suggested to me that JORN was only looking at things in Indonesia. I suspect that had there been a timely signal that an airliner was heading south into the Indian Ocean contrary to filed flight plan, some very interesting things might have happened.” http://goo.gl/h9En6S
Was this “suggestion” someone’s casual opinion — or a wee leak?
Nihonmama: re the US having advance information re Mar 14, I believe Ben Sandilands has slid the facts around a bit to suit his ‘hook’. Jay Carney’s White House Press Briefing of 13 Mar 2014 indicates the Indian Ocean, but not the southern Indian Ocean, and there certainly wasn’t any mention of Perth. I had developed a timeline way back when that included DoD briefings and press reports, and there was absolutely nothing to indicate the US has intel on what happened. All channels repeatedly stated that the Malaysians had authority over the search and would only contradict Malaysians statements when to do otherwise would entail covering for Malaysia (with nothing to be gained but grief). Nope, nada – nothing there.
There are no indications that the US is maintaining proprietary, secret information regrading the location of the flight. Meanwhile, as Victor has pointed out, there are all sorts of indications that the Malaysians have indeed withheld information directly associated with the search effort.
The apparent secrecy (and general science) associated with the investigation is a wholly different matter.
Whoops, the link to Press Secretary Jay Carney’s 13 Mar Press Briefing (14 Mar contained nothing substantive):
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/03/13/press-briefing-press-secretary-jay-carney-3132014
>The US seemed to arrive at a conclusion as to the specific whereabouts of MH370 BEFORE Inmarsat.
With the BTO data and a start point close to NW Indonesia there is only one constant speed, great circle course to the South that fits the BTO data (a simple calculation), and one to the North. Are there reports of an unidentified airliner being detected/crashing in the North? No, so it flew to the South to a destination SW of Perth.
That would be the intelligence appreciation of the situation in mid-March. It’s not proof, the Inmarsat BFO analysis was needed for that (though still doubted by some) but enough for an intelligence-based conclusion.
@JS: I respectfully disagree – strenuously – with your suggestion there was a material probability the co-pilot’s cell had service at FL350.
Again: I am no expert, but I’ve learned today that a cell phone tower’s primary lobe is aligned horizontally, to deliver maximum coverage to the ground, so any feasibility study that even REFERS to horizontal coverage in estimating vertical coverage (as does your primary reference) is highly dubious.
While coverage does reach – sporadically – up into the air, it seems to tail off as altitude increases. In the link I attach below, even the “idealized” range seems to suggest zero coverage by FL320:
5 bars: impossible above FL2
4 bars: impossible above FL4
3 bars: impossible above FL8
2 bars: impossible above FL16
1 bar: impossible above FL32 (looks fractal to me, so extrapolate by doubling)
The closer one approaches the maximum, the more sporadic the coverage: the “1-bar” zone, for example, is shaped like the top of a giant invisible cereal bowl, which, if travelling at, say, FL300, you’d only fly through twice (once “into the bowl”, and once out, for very brief periods each time.
Finally: the chart from which I picked off these maximums comes with the following caveat: “Caution! The “bars” information in this diagram may be too generous.” So FL320 is likely something lower still.
When the US official (from our upthread discussion) gave his/her quote to CNN, the official theory embraced significant altitude fluctuations, so the claim was believable. Now that officials have rejected the radar-indicated altitude changes, in favour of FL350 throughout, we must likewise, per the above, reject as false this US official’s claim.
And wonder why he/she made it.
http://www.datasync.com/~rsf1/cell-air.htm