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:
1. add a zero to each FL in the list – apologies
2. the chart suggest that, at FL300, you need to be roughly the same distance from the tower horizontally as vertically, i.e. within 5 or 6 miles, in order to get two flitting moments of a single bar. A very close, very quick buzz. Yet the article suggests the tower picked up these cell phone emissions from a horizontal distance of 250 miles, lasting over 30 minutes? There are signal data experts on this thread: is this claim not patently ridiculous?
(This claim IS consistent with Victor’s landing scenario, I would guess – but Victor’s scenario is not consistent with the underwater search location to which they’re about to send Fugro Equator.)
@Rand:
You bring up an interesting point:
neither the White House briefing (http://goo.gl/lGBbnr)
nor the ABCNews article Sandilands ultimately links to (http://goo.gl/fJwMBC) mentions Perth or a specific distance from Perth.
But Sandilands wrote:
“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.” (CAPS mine)
If the specifics Sandilands mentioned are not in the WH brief (Jay Carney), or the ABCNews article quoting Carney, why did Sandilands used the word “quoted”? That is very specific and implies that SOMEONE SAID this. Who?
@Rand:
Just posted a response to yours, which once again, does not appear. If it fails to materialize soon, I’ll have to write again.
@Brock: You said “(…- but Victor’s scenario is not consistent with the underwater search location to which they’re about to send Fugro Equator.)”
I am not sure what you mean. In my scenario, MH370 takes off from Banda Aceh and flies to waypoint BEDAX and then dead south, ending at latitude 34S. This is the area where the most recent survey was conducted by Fugro Equator, and also seems to be the general direction of where it is now headed.
@Brock, while I agree in general with your assessment that cellphones can’t connect with the tower when the plane is at cruising altitude, you misread the cnn article. It doesn’t claim the phone tried from a distance of 250 miles to connect for 30 min. It says that the cellphone tried to connect 30 min. after the plane turned around, which must’ve been 250 miles away from the last transponder signal. A very different assessment, no? And certainly possible if the plane was low enough. I’m not saying it happened or it didn’t, but I don’t put too much stock into the ATSB’s contention that the plane constantly maintained the same altitude. How would they be able to know that for certain?
@Richard Cole (richardc10), Rand
“so it flew to the South to a destination SW of Perth.”
And the point of my previous post: How did the US know that BEFORE Inmarsat?
Rand, per your last, I have tweeted at Ben Sandilands:
https://twitter.com/nihonmama/status/514137857519534080
https://twitter.com/nihonmama/status/514139623665057794
@littlefoot; ahh, my bad – thanks – suspected I was off somewhere. My main point (about altitude) is unaffected, though – glad you agree with it.
@Victor; wait another week, and you’ll see what I mean. I maintain my prediction of two weeks ago: that the search epicentre is headed closer to s38.
While on the subject, Victor: I recall you claiming that, because extra time on the ground sufficiently offset the extra fuel required for the 2nd takeoff your scenario needs, MH370 would still have enough fuel to reach s34. Have you published the key performance data you use to determine that? I’d be interested, and grateful.
@Brock: Yes, the further south that the plane is found, the lower the probability that the plane stopped at Banda Aceh. The IG predicts an end around 37.5S with no stop at Banda Aceh. My scenario with a stop at Banda Aceh ends at 34S. Either could be correct, as the paths were derived with different assumptions. We won’t know which assumptions are correct until the plane is found. Certainly, adding a stop adds “complication” to the scenario, and for that reason the IG path is favored by many.
By the way…I think you would agree that the search area does not in itself validate a scenario. It just provides some insight into the current thinking of the ATSB. Finding the plane is the only way to validate a scenario.
Of course, in the absence of finding the plane, the radar data could help determine which path is correct…
@Victor: believe me; when it comes to the distinction between [where they are searching] and [locations I deem feasible], you, sir, are preaching to the choir.
Which is why I only said “is not consistent with”; when the ATSB starts searching at s38, at least one of [your Banda Aceh scenario] or [the ATSB] will be wrong.
John – The withholding of underwater pings? Pretty normal if it’s an open case here I’m afraid. In 1978 the infamous case of Frederick Valentich, where his plane disappears forever over Bass Strait after he radioed being followed/buzzed by strange lights, is an example. That transcript is available and you can search it, but the recording is still held because it’s an open case. Australia is a place of so many regulations. One angle though – is it Australian or Malaysian law that applies here?
Tdm – as far as I know Angus Houston’s role was to coordinate the foreign agencies/defence forces involved, and that it ended when they all went home?
Nihonmama – If there was a Jindalee leak out there it wouldn’t get anywhere near Sandilands. Crikey is seen as a bit of a lefty thing here. Greg Sheridan – The Australian – is one journo with good contacts.
Hours later, a post still missing. Amazing.
@Matty-Perth:
“Nihonmama – If there was a Jindalee leak out there it wouldn’t get anywhere near Sandilands. Crikey is seen as a bit of a lefty thing here. Greg Sheridan – The Australian – is one journo with good contacts.”
Thanks Matty, although (‘lefty’) Sandilands has mentioned in his posts, not infrequently, the work of the IG, as well as picked up on bits that other high-profile have missed (or not reported).
So when Sandilands uses the very specific word “quoted”, do you think he’s fabricating?
And BTW, I’ve put the question to him directly on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/nihonmama/status/514137857519534080
https://twitter.com/nihonmama/status/514139623665057794
No answer – yet.
Rand, Matty,
Rand, I posted a reply to your comment addressed to me, I think the reply appeared on the blog for awhile, then disappeared. Same thing happened when I posted a reply last week to Matty’s question addressed to me about the ELTs. So please do not think I did not accord you guys the courtesy of a reply.
Back to the topic of the pings. I have previously quoted from the New York Times March 22nd article about how Inmarsat said to the effect that the pings were not on the logs when the logs were first pulled and forwarded to SITA, the service provider to Malaysia Airlines, as well as from the March 30th article from The Washington Post corroborating the NYT article.
Below is an extract from the transcript of the interview by Amanpour of Chris McLaughlin of Inmarsat on CNN on March 24th (NYT) after the Malaysian Prime Minister had broken the news in a press conference in Malaysia that the plane had ended in the South Indian Ocean:
” AMANPOUR: Dramatic announcement by the Malaysian Prime Minister, was the news that everybody was dreading, particularly the families. Could you walk us through how your company, your devices, your technology picked up this definitive signal?
MCLAUGHLIN: Well, it’s twofold. The initial thought was that the only data available on — that sat in the plane was lost, was already reported on. Our engineers then looked at whether there had been any additional traffic on the network that we hadn’t seen before. That led us to discover the six or seven pings, which are just an hourly hello from the network between a live unit and the network, just like a mobile phone connects up with a mobile phone network. So the issue was if it was live, if it was still going, the aircraft must have been powered. Then our engineers looked at whether or not the amount of time taken for the signals to go from the satellite to the aircraft was increasing. And we found that it was. That meant that, therefore, the aircraft was moving away from the fixed point, which was the satellite…”
Alex: thanks. Maybe Jeff removed your reply re SCS specifics! 😉 can you repost, including only your references to WHY the creation of the SIO scenario and the covering up an SCS crash; and the general view of educated people in Malaysia?
Nihonmama: Sandilands wrote of the reference to Perth and Mar 14 on March 30. I don’t believe there is a ‘who’ other than Sandilands being the source of the US referencing Perth on Mar 14.
Sandilands either fabricated the quote intentionally, in hopes that US intel would later be shown to have been in the know (i.e., a scoop, hook: prescient); or he became too excited and got sloppy. I believe it was the latter.
Namely, Sandilands conflated the official references to Perth on Mar 30 with Carney’s press briefing and the ABC info that had previously emerged Mar 14. This sort press error happens all the time, even more so in this day and age of the free internet press, where outlets often don’t have budgets for large editorial or fact checking staff.
Traditional outlets are no less prone to such nonsense, to include outright falsification. A good story: in 1989 I returned from covering violence in Lhasa, Tibet to Hong Kong and found a Reuters spread in whichever leading newspaper, featuring the recent events in Tibet. I knew the Reuters correspondent quite well, having previously met him in Lhasa in 1987. I knew that he had not made it to Lhasa on this second occasion of terrible nastiness, as I had been there, while he had never made a showing. His piece included a Lhasa byline – the whole shebang. The photo accompanying the piece was the best part, however: it was captioned ‘Lhasa’, while in actuality it depicted Tibetans in a market in Chengdu in neighboring Sichuan Province; I had recognized the market where the photo had been taken. Chengdu, you see, was the stop-off for travel to Tibet back in those days, and it was here where the Reuters Correspondent had been interdicted and prevented from traveling to Tibet (I, on the other hand, had been privy to prescient US intel and had already been in Lhasa for three weeks prior to the shit going down ;-)). It was a criminal act – yet, he has gotten away with his fabrication to this day.
Like a college boy on a hot date, Sandilands, with the best of intentions, simply got too excited, moved a bit too fast and then made a bit of a mess of things. No harm done, really. The take away is that one needs to cross reference every bit of dope that one reads in our new, flat information structure. LGHamilton, it seems, re-Googles every quote that she caches; I am going to adopt the same practice.
@Rand:
Great comment, thanks.
In the 5+ years I’ve been on Twitter, have never seen as much misinfo, disinfo and information published (and then disappear) as I have with MH370. From all quarters. It’s telling. The only other than comes remotely close is the coverage of Syria. Starting to archive more frequently – the quote (or entire story) may be gone tomorrow.
I’ve queried Sandilands on this point and tagged him in a separate post. He may (or may not) answer.
Hi Brock, I saved this info many months ago about how to judge the possibility of a co-pilot cell-phone connection. http://www.reddit.com/r/MH370/comments/232noi/if_the_copilots_cell_phone_connected_with_a_cell/cgt8o0o I can’t actually understand it, but maybe you guys can!
Matty, regarding Khorasan, Muhsin al-Fadhli was part of an inner AQ 9/11 circle that included Malaysian Yazid Sufaat, a bio-terrorism expert, currently awaiting trial after re-arrest in Malaysia for recruiting fighters for Syria, IS,K,AQ or all, he seems to dabble. After being suddenly released by Malaysia in late ’08, much to the horror of the US, Sufaat, AQ’s top Anthrax expert, was allowed to run a canteen in a Malaysian courthouse. Seriously! His recent re-arrest in 2013 was by direct order of HH, the first arrest made under the Sosma act, whereby suspects can be detained without charge. His co-conspirator, a religious teacher called Halimah Hussein, escaped, and is still at large despite frantic efforts to find her.
What if the item of value was on the ground–perhaps the hijacking took place to force a release of a high value prisoner, with Z being forced to pilot under gunpoint, or being blackmailed by the hijackers a week in advance? (And Z was no angel, and had plenty of political dalliances to hold against him) Or they could simply have threatened to kill his family if he did not comply with a hijacking, which would end safely, with Z a hero, and the government embarrassed due to their crap security and lax attitude to terrorism.
If the hijack failed due to HH bungling and inability to orchestrate a prisoner release within a tight time frame, I doubt that any macho terrorist group would want to claim a screw-up, and lose valuable followers.(the recent Pakistan AQ attempt was very so embarrassing,and IS is looking very enticing to AQ splinter groups–the money,the selfies,the Toyota’s,the matching black jammies…swoon!) And with his political aspirations, HH would not want to admit any screw up of course.
The sophisticated flight pattern, if the Frankenstein monster of a radar track is correct, suggests no fear of Malaysian radar, or of the RMAF. It displays, to me, a well-planned route, and a priority to stay within the Malaysian FIR in order to communicate with HH via CPDLC.
I am taking a break from “noodling the SDU” (love Rand’s expression there) before I go down (and here’s Jeff’s expression I love too) the “Wackadoodle path” from overnoodling it!
I am still on the Tim Pardi subject brought up. I found the photo she used to overshadow her Facebook page is the very photo from Zaharie Shah’s own Facebook page. It is from an outing it looks like in some outside cafe it appears in a city, he is wearing the exact same zippered fleece type sweatshirt underneath a dark jacket. It is the exact same photo so she could have used it from there. There are people in the background but no one beside him and anyone could have taken the photo. I find it strange, unless she is a relative, that a muslim woman would have a photo of someone else’s husband overpowering her Facebook page. She seems to be devout, as she references Ramadan, the holy fasting month amongst other religious things. There is also a photo of her with her baby, born in 2010 and another child on a plane. There is a cabin window at their side it seems. There are no photos of her with a man at all or what would appear to be a husband. There is a photo of one of her children who apparently underwent a horrific experience and is swathed in head-to-toe bandages and placed upright in what looks like a contraption, and apparently underwent some type of surgery. The text is in their language so I cannot understand it all. I hope that child is fine today, what it was some type of burns I don’t know but my heart went out to that child and I hope she is ok. It’s not exactly a choice of photos I would have around for posterity on Facebook, since it could be traumatizing to the child now who may have been young enough then to not have many recollections of the event. There is also a drawing of MH370 from her that says we love you and please come home on it.
Alex, since you are there can you shed any light on this? It is hard to say whether she is his wife, relative, wife of a relative, or political friend, Facebook acquaintance, or none of the above? I don’t see anything nefarious on her part, it’s just understanding who she is may shed more light on his life.
Also on the photo of him on her page it says “boycottCNN” and “boycott FoxNews.” CNN has been pretty fair and non-committal in their reporting so I don’t quite understand what was so upsetting in that regard.
One thing I read and sorry I don’t have the link to what article it came from, but the distant relationship between Anwar Ibrahim and Zaharie Shah was that Zaharie Shah is/was his son’s wife’s mother’s father’s brother’s son, if I got that straight.
Rand,
Perhaps it is best if I just refer you to my comments over on the TMF blog on this issue, see for eg comments on August 23rd and 27th.
The nationality of any of us is of no relevance as we can only speak for ourselves. Regarding the court decision on Anwar Ibrahim delivered several hours earlier that evening of March 8th, if for every adverse court ruling a pilot who happens to be a supporter of the opposition would be driven to crash a plane, there would not be many planes left in Malaysia, given the number of charges Anwar has had to face, since 1998 after he fell out with his former boss, Dr Mahathir.
In response to Alex’s excerpt post quoting Inmarsat…
I find it just slightly odd that they sought to find if the signal times were increasing at such an early stage, as this account suggests.
Why increasing? Why not decreasing, or fluctuating? And why look to see if they are increasing, prior to calibrating the values?
If it were me, the comment would read: “We have log entries of communications with the plane, and from the signal times we may be able to narrow the possible locations.”
I could be over thinking a spokesman’s unscientific comments, but the apparent interest in whether the BTOs were increasing suggests some prior hypothesis or knowledge.
The timing of the “increasing” question would be relevant. The only route that would be expected to yield an increasing BTO set, in the very early days, would be the original Beijing route, since a due east route would have left the satellite coverage and an Indian Ocean or Central Asian route would have first approached the satellite.
Once radar put the plane over the Strait, “increasing” meant either the familiar north or south routes. But at that time, if the plane’s last known heading was towards the satellite, why would anyone check to see if the signal times were increasing?
It almost sounds like either
1) Inmarsat was asked to confirm that the plane went towards Beijing prior to radar info from the Strait,
2) Inmarsat was in disbelief of the radar sightings over the Strait,
3) Inmarsat had some better intel, and expected to confirm that the 19:40 position would be the plane’s closest position to the satellite and the timings would increase from that point on,
4) Inmarsat had intel suggesting the plane was well on its way to the south and sought to confirm that it continued to travel away from the satellite.
5) same as 4, but going north.
Item 3 could result from either Andaman or the Chenai coast press comments. Item 4 would implicate Indonesian radar, while a lack of Indonesian radar may have briefly led to item 5.
Nihonmama – It certainly seemed that Sandilands took an interest in MH370 and good on him, but….it would be a pretty major turn up if that site did break a biggie of that kind – in my mind at least.
Lucy – Very interesting stuff. I have read that Malaysia has become something of a hub for the Islamists. Whether it is moving people or stuff. Makes sense too given the location, and an asset like MAS – or former asset.
I set forth below the relevant portion of each of the New York Times article (March 22), the CNN interview (March 24) and the Washington Post article (March 30):
NYT: “…Chris McLaughlin…said technicians pulled the logs of all transmissions from the plane within four hours of its disappearance. Then, after a day without sign of the plane, they began scouring the company’s databases for any trace of Flight MH370. ‘We decided to have another look at our network to see if there was any data that we missed,’ Mr McLaughlin said. It turned out there was. Inmarsat technicians identified what appeared to be a series of fleeting ‘pings’ between Flight Mh370, a satellite over the Indian Ocean and a ground station in Perth, Australia. The signals – seven of them transmitted at one-hour intervals – were an important clue, because they could come only from an antenna receiving power from the plane itself…”.
Amanpour’s interview: “Amanpour: Can you walk us through how your company, your devices, your technology picked up this definitive signal? McLaughlin: Well, it’s twofold. The initial thought was that the only data available on – that sat in the plane was lost, was already reported on. Our engineers then looked at whether there had been any additional traffic on the network that we hadn’t seen before. That led us to discover the six or seven pings……”.
Washington Post: “…That Sunday…. John Mackey started to realize the enormousness of the unfolding mystery. He runs network operations for Inmarsat and shuttles between its offices in London and Washington. As the 47 year old engineer drank his coffee and ate a bagel, he scrolled through the e-mails on his smartphone. One was from the company’s ground satellite station in Australia. A technician had captured some data from a Malaysian flight….”.
@Lucy, thanks for your interesting comment. Could someone with expert knowledge chip in re: copilot’s cellphone call and the reddit comment? That a higher flying altitude might be better for a connection certainly can’t be true for cruising altitudes, so that assertion can only be true within certain limits, no? I still think, this point is very important, since it might clear up a few points concerning the early stages after the turnaround – and if it turns out not to be true, that would be telling in it’s own right, , especially if we take the ‘unofficial’ confirmation via CNN into account.
@nihonmama, I agree, I simply can’t remember a story where so many ‘facts’ were floated, which later turned out to be false or were contradicted without further explanation, or were simply dropped as if they had never been mentioned. As far as the Malaysian authorities are concerned I would cut them some slack for some (but mind you not all) blunders. I talked to an old friend, who works regularly in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore for a big German company, and he described the typical work ethics and mind sets to me – some of it sounds eerily similar to what we are looking at here concerning the official investigation. Especially the phenomenon of early statements which get simply dropped and replaced by new ones, some of them being quite contradictory, without any explanation, as if they had never been mentioned in the first place,seems to be all too common and a regular head scratcher for everybody not intimately familiar with the concept of face saving. Acknowledging earlier mistakes means losing face. So, it’s simply better to start something faulty all over and pretend the mistake never happened. I will come up with a more exact translation of my friend’s experiences.
Inmarsat was just the satellite datalink provider. When McLaughlin said Inmarsat’s technicians pulled the ‘logs of all transmissions from the plane’, it must mean all transmissions from the plane transmitted using SATCOM. SITA was Malaysia Airlines’ service provider.
In Swissair Flight 111 which crashed following a fire, Inmarsat was the satellite datalink provider and ARINC was the VHF link provider. From the ACARS report for that flight:
“….ARINC and INMARSAT audit logs for 2 to 3 September for HB-1WF were requested and provided by SITA via Swissair. According to ARINC and INMARSAT, their monitoring systems were functioning normally during the referenced time period, with no problems reported by other users. Furthermore INMARSAT records show that the satellite telephone service was not used…”.
I would like to pose this critical question to the Independent Group: What could be the reason the pings did not show up in the data logs when those logs were first pulled.
@JS, I wouldn’t put too much stock into Chris McLaughlin’s early comments re: pings. He is by his own admission not an expert, and it was early days of reporting. Who knows if the journos were getting everything down correctly? And we all had to get familiar with the concept of the pings. Telling that the plane first got closer to the satellite while increasing the distance later would have complicated matters. Also, I have the suspicion that Inmarsat and the investigating authorities were not prepared for the cyber geeks who started to question and analyze all available info. I think the idea was, that the general public would trust the authority of the experts. 😉
I live in Southern Tasmania, and have noticed a lot of air traffic heading to and from the South. The airport is West of me, and if don’t usually see any air traffic usually the planes are low however, twice this week I have seen what I presume is very high flying airplane, ie I thought it was a moving star at first, no sound flying South to North..I guess I’m wondering if there is any chance of a link with the missing mh370. There is nothing South except Antarctica. This has been ongoing for a few months now, I don’t mind if my comment is discarded , but I just have a gut feeling..
@Alex: Although I am a member, I do not speak for the IG, so others should feel free to chime in. @GuardedDon has particular expertise in this area.
We have already run through this. The original query against the database might have been looking for ACARS messages, in which case lower level handshakes were not returned in the query. That is probably the nature of a typical query regarding a plane because the ACARS messages would typically have most of the useful information. Later, a more thorough query was submitted filtered by the ID of the SDU, which would include the lower level communications, and the handshakes were found. It is similar to network sniffing software that IT folks use that can filter based on IP, TCP, UDP, MAC, port, etc. What we are calling data logs are really the results of a data query to a large database. That handshake information was always in the large database. There is no mystery.
Dear Cheryl, I am not wedded to any theory, I take an interest in everything, even mechanical. Except Aliens!
This link is to a Z theory I am thinking about, which actually posts him in a more sympathetic light. http://www.reddit.com/r/MH370/comments/2h74kh/two_rough_ideas_id_appreciate_some_input_on/
TP, I hesitate to name her in case we are way off base, but it is very, very strange to me that the purported phonecall shortly before take-off from a female has never been explained, TP has never been interviewed by the media, and at this point that is incriminating to me for the reasons I have discussed in the link. They were obviously close friends or more, and facebooked each other constantly.https://www.facebook.com/aidid.alfian/media_set?set=a.561162233923169.1073741831.100000881915856&type=3
I agree with your thoughts about the family, and I agree with the points made on this forum that this could have been a workplace dispute essentially
Ilucy have tried to tiptoe softly around the subject, but at this point maybe it’s time to push for some clarity. I’d be interested in input.
Alex: I read your posts over at TMF re your speculation as to why there would be a cover-up of a lightning strike and a crash in the SCS. Thanks.
I understand the logic of the case presented (i.e., composite aircraft manufacturers would be exposed to expensive recalls, the entire system of commercial air travel could suffer, etc.), but I really wonder whether this constituency could engineer such a cover-up. And without a cover-up, the evidence for a crash in the SCS becomes moot and all is more easily chalked up to the Malaysians actually having no idea what happened in the first 48 hours following the disappearance of the aircraft.
And apologies: I was not referring to your nationality per se, but really rather wondering what the present word is on the street and in the halls of the universities in Malaysia regarding MH370. Cheryl has also been poking around a bit and making interesting discoveries; are Malaysians likewise somewhat focused on developing a profile of Zaharie?
Lol, not enough aircraft. I would agree with you: Anwar’s trial in and of itself does not provide justification for Zaharie to lunge suddenly left into Extremistan.
Victor,
Inmarsat was just the datalink provider. They would have no reason to be doing any ‘sorting out’ of SATCOM transmissions by level or otherwise. Inmarsat was just providing the ‘transport’ for the messages transmitted by way of the SATCOM system on board. Just like ARINC or SITA was providing the datalink for messages transmitted by way of VHF. It is not for the datalink providers to differentiate between different levels of messages. See for eg the ACARS report for Swissair flight 111 where Inmarsat provided the logs for all SATCOM transmissions and ARINC provided the logs for all RGS (radio ground station) transmissions..
Also, that is not what Inmarsat said in the New York Times or the Washington Post or the interview on CNN in terms of why the pings did not show up in the logs in the first place. They did not say what u think might have happened. They said an entire different story, that those pings did not turn up when the logs for ALL transmissions were pulled. The picture they painted was that traces of the pings were detected at the ground station level when they went to look for them specifically but that these traces did not make it to the logs unlike normal transmissions.
The plane disappeared from radar at 1.30am. Malaysia Airlines announced at 7.24am that the plane was missing. Inmarsat said within 4 hours they provided the logs to SITA. At that time, the question on everyone’s mind would be did the plane crash soon after 1.30am or had it continued flying and Inmarsat would be extracting the logs for ALL the transmissions to see how far these transmissions extended. And this is exactly what they said they did; they pulled the logs of all transmissions.
You are right about Don having expertise in this area. And we all know Don keeps an eye on all the blogs on MH370 whether it is the TMF blog, Duncan’s blog or this blog. When someone on this blog incorrectly said that the satphone on MH370 rang when the 2 calls came in, Don quickly corrected the person. And Don is right, those calls were never ‘completed’.
But Don has not come forward to correct me on this point about the pings, that the reason the pings did not register on the logs is because they were transmitted on battery power resulting in comparatively much lower signal strength. Which means the power did not come from the plane’s engines which in turn can only mean the engines were no longer running, with the ultimate conclusion that the plane was no longer flying during the 6 hour period of the pings.
@Victor: can you please refer me to the best person(s) on the IG to explain the flaw in the following argument:
1. if MH370 turns south quickly (NW tip of Sumatra), the performance limit (PL) shifts clockwise along the “7th arc”: SW cross-point of s39.
2. if it turns south 50 minutes later (my interpretation of the ATSB’s wording: “hits the 19:40 arc 50 minutes’ flying time further north”), the PL rotates roughly 5 degrees of latitude counterclockwise around the “7th arc”: NE cross-point of s21
3. The most recent PL the ATSB published – which the IG used to judge whether their scenarios were feasible – stretched from s39 all the way to s21 – because they hadn’t yet ruled out a later turn south, and thus wanted their feasibility zone to encompass BOTH extremes.
4. The ATSB has since abandoned the later turn south. Accordingly, they have likewise abandoned the counter-clockwise extention of the PL (its most northernmost 5 degrees latitude).
5. The IG’s “decompression scenario” models an early turn south. The correct PL to apply is thus the “clockwise” version.
6. Adjudicated against the clockwise PL, the IG’s “decompression scenario” is infeasible.
7. The IG’s “decompression scenario” is infeasible. I.e. physically impossible. I.e. zero probability.
Thanks.
@Alex: Who said that Inmarsat was sorting out what got passed along to their clients? I was referring to filtering of the data that was stored in Inmarsat’s database that was accessed after the fact. That should have been evident.
You are making technical conclusions based on your interpretation of words of a spokesperson. I will not be able to persuade you otherwise. I am done.
Draft 2 of my open letter. I am working on it today. Last chance to add/amend items.
Given Google’s curious treatment of page 4 of this thread (where draft 1 resides), recommend interested parties make lots of copies of draft 2. You may even want to read it carefully, on the extremely remote chance you spot anything whose distribution G00gle might have been asked to restrict.
@Victor: I need to restrict this request to items the ATSB/JACC/JIT have publicly acknowledged to be in their possession. My fear is that, if I include an item on this list which they don’t have, they may use that to label the whole request as unreasonable, and give us nothing. As soon as this letter is published, let’s tackle the relevant governments in turn, using the same tactics.
PS: my tweets to the #MH370 feed are not being published. Probably just another coincidence. If anyone wishes to help launch this letter into Twitter properly tomorrow, I’d be extremely grateful.
Open Letter: Request for Public Disclosure on MH370 Investigation
September 24, 2014
Dear MH370 Search Team Leadership (c/o Martin Dolan, Commissioner, Australian Transport Safety Bureau),
Hundreds of experts – both inside and outside the formal investigation – have been working for 200 days, now, in an effort to determine MH370’s fate. The collective failure even to search properly, let alone find anything, has sparked suspicion and in-fighting, as a baffling lack of consensus on basic data has pitted stakeholders against each other. Families of MH370’s passengers and crew – stretched taut on the rack between hope and grief – deserve better than this.
A more fulsome disclosure of your team’s working assumptions – in support of performance and radar-tracked path analysis in particular – would not only “clear the air”, and dispel growing suspicions concerning the veracity of this search, but is quite likely to expedite search zone refinement: “crowd-sourced” insights stemming from the eventual partial publication of Inmarsat data have already demonstrated clearly the value of such disclosure.
Accordingly, we ask the Search Team Leadership to disclose the following elements of its basic internal working assumptions. For each assumption, please publicly disclose initial (i.e. mid-March), all interim, and current (i.e. mid-September) working best estimate(s), as well as date ranges over which each was effective:
PART A: DATA (all items have already been referenced in public statements, and are thus, we trust, readily available)
1. Full set of Inmarsat ping ring radii (in nmi), and associated satellite position (latitude/longitude in degrees/minutes)
2. Amount by which radar-indicated speeds were judged to reduce post-radar range, as percent of initial post-radar range
2a. for each version of the above: minimum and maximum speeds (in KTAS) outside of which fuel exhaustion was assumed to occur prior to 00:19 UTC (i.e. feasibility limits, expressed in KTAS)
3. Point at which MH370 turned south around/near Sumatra, expressed as a specific coordinate (latitude/longitude in degrees/minutes); where a range was contemplated, please supply the range – but indicate clearly the single coordinate which drove the “highest priority/probability” search location. If a slow turn was modeled, please indicate its north-western extreme.
4. Feasibility ranges derived from the above, expressed as a coordinate pair along the 7th Inmarsat arc (where a range of turn south points informs the feasibility coordinates, please also disclose what these coordinates would be if the “later turn south” assumption were abandoned (i.e. “early turn south only”).
PART B: RECONCILIATION: In addition, please reconcile each of the above to each of the following:
a) Original search zone, based (presumably) on neither “heavier fuel burn” nor “later turn south”
b) Mar.28 ATSB Media Release #2 announcing 600nmi shift NE, expressing confidence in “heavier fuel burn”
c) Apr.1 JIT advice to ATSB causing a further 750nmi shift NE, expressing confidence in “later turn south”
d) May 1 release of maps accompanying MH370 Preliminary Report (especially the “highest probability” path)
e) June shift back SW, (in Jun.24 Malaysia Chronicle interview) retracting confidence in “heavier fuel burn”
f) Jun.26 “MH370 – Definition of Underwater Search Areas” Report: all performance limits and search zones
g) August shift further SW, (in Aug.28 statement by Warren Truss) retracting confidence in “later turn south”
Thank you in advance for your attention. Please be advised that failure to supply PART A by Day 210 (Oct 4) and PART B by Day 225 (Oct 19) will trigger an online petition designed to gauge international public opinion on this matter.
Should evidence of MH370’s fate surface in the interim, the need for this disclosure will remain. If the jet is located, the above documentation will be required to dispel growing suspicions of evidence tampering, and will prove vital to what we trust is surely our shared goal: getting to the truth, to offer closure for passengers’ families and friends.
Sincerely,
Brock McEwen, on behalf of xxx
Formatted (pdf) version: http://bit.ly/1ogw78z
(If folks wouldn’t mind confirming to this thread their ability to access this file, I’d be so grateful.)
@Lucy – Glad to see you here and posting! 😉
@Littlefoot:
“I have the suspicion that Inmarsat and the investigating authorities were not prepared for the cyber geeks who started to question and analyze all available info. I think the idea was, that the general public would trust the authority of the experts. ;)”
Nailed it 😉
@Matty-Perth:
Not a peep from Sandilands. Not a good look.
I keep going back to the beginning march 8 ,2014 . it took 17 *minutes to recognize mh 370 was. Gone from primary radar .ithen another 4 hours to launch ” search and rescue” …I also recall the first public disclosure of suspects with involvement were the ” Iranians” with fake passports and identical pants which was deemed a photocopy error ..honestly there’s many bright minds here on Jeff’s blog what happened during this four hours would likely solve the investigation but no ” investigator” is interviewing najib or his cohorts now are they ?If you can possibly explain this time lapse please do!
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-01/malaysia-airlines-mh370-preliminary-report-released/5424888
@ brock mcewen
Link is hot ( working).
@nihonmama, personally I’m inclined not to be too hard on Sandilands. So far I really liked crikey’s coverage of mh 370. Often they were right on the money and they continued to be a thorn in the side of the authorities, normally a knowledgeable thorn. So he might’ve been just a little sloppy with his claim the US predicted a crash site near Perth.
Well, here’s a “mea culpa” which, despite the gravity of the event we’re discussing, may offer a bit of comic relief.
Re: Google’s suppression of p.4 of this thread: I am now inclined to blame it LESS on a monumental conspiracy having now roped in the world’s largest data distributor…
…and MORE on how our family computer’s “safe search” settings would have viewed the placeholder I typed in after “on behalf of”.
So, after issuing a public apology to Google for letting my paranoia get the better of me, and to Jeff, for potentially besmirching his site’s (presumably) squeaky-clean image, I will retire to the kitchen…where my humble pie awaits.
(On the bright side: within a certain class of internet clientele, our letter will be getting LOTS of, um, exposure…)
What if the reboot wasn’t even performed in the air, but rather on the ground (presumably at Banda Aceh) as part of a takeoff checklist? Then we don’t have the issues of unconscious folks turning it on, or it turning itself on, or even any motive.
@Victor – would the timing fit the model, or is the reboot too early?
@JS If the plane did land at Banda Aceh, the reboot occurred before the landing. The reboot occurred at 18:25, the unanswered call at 18:40, the landing at about 18:46, and the takeoff at about 19:06.
Alex,
Wow! You’ve really crossed a line there: to assert that by failing to counter your position on the satcom matters relating to 9M-MRO I implicitly agree is something quite incredible. I don’t know whether to view that as arrogance, naivety or just plain stupidity.
That I have not recently engaged with you concerning 9M-MRO is simply because the view you hold is so at odds with reality, but certainly expressed with conviction, that I see no point to enter any discussion in the matter. The following isn’t an attempt at discussion, rather simple statements of fact.
Any contention that the AES on 9M-MRO could continue to operate on ‘battery power’ is completely unfounded. The design intent for the B777 electrical system is comprehensive redundancy in generating capacity: the aircraft has 3 motive sources capable of driving 5 generator units, such significant generating redundancy that battery requirements are limited to provide a reserve only for the absolutely essential flight control systems and for APU start. Further, all power distribution except for those essential flight control systems, is 115V AC/400Hz. Given the electrical power demands of modern aircraft such as the B777, DC generator technology simply could not meet the requirement. The satcom system is not supplied with low voltage DC power nor is a secondary backup supply circuit available to keep it operational should loss of ‘main’ supply occur.
To understand the integrity and reliability of the Signalling Unit exchanges one must first consider that signal strength in satcom technology is intrinsically low given the distances involved: 35,800km up and 35,800km down. As a consequence, the techniques for encoding and decoding data prior to transmission across the satcom channels include extensive error check and correction algorithms, implying more redundancy in the data transmitted, to enable error detection and recovery. Should an unrecoverable error actually occur (perhaps, even, due to low signal level) or an SU be missed altogether it will be evidenced by re-transmission of the unrecoverable SU or SU block. There is no evidence in 9M-MRO’s SU log of any SU re-transmission due to unrecoverable errors. The modulation technology is somewhat more involved than ubiquitous AM radio (amplitude modulation radio where the variation in signal amplitiude is continously apparent in the demodulated signal quality).
However, the signal propagation delay and frequency are not subject to such incidental variation, hence, the BTO (measured propagation delay) and BFO (measured variation in received frequency) reveal much more accurate information. An accurate, very accurate, understanding of the satellite’s contribution to the BTO and BFO measurements, together with the static biases inherent in the system, enables their removal mathematically leaving the residual contribution from the aircraft path. If one disputes that then one might just as well dispute GPS, cellular communications and anything that can be achieved with contemporary digital signal processing.
I’m sure no-one disagrees that a full, un-redacted, Signalling Log from the Malaysian Investigation Team would be a further step in transparency and contribute more useful data but we can only deal with what is in our hands today.
In earlier dialogue I suggested that you seek verifiable sources for your assertions, for example, verification of a pilot’s reported sighting of lightning over the South China Sea would have shown that his route (via MOXON, overflying VVTS and VDPP) places him approximately 300nm from BITOD at any point along his route. It’s your choice to contrive a scenario for ‘what happened’, an outcome, but please do not draw me into any justification for your conjecture.
:Don
@Victor – I presume that minimum 21 minute gap can’t be closed without breaking the model? An earlier landing is out of the question?
Assuming Banda Aceh doesn’t fit, would the model otherwise still allow a landing before 18:25 if there was an appropriate runway? I realize this would conflict with the last radar sighting.
Re missed pings in first pulled log
It was stated here that ISAT pulled the data 4h after the plane went missing. If missing means 17:22 or thereabouts, then about half the pings hadn’t happened yet at the time of pulling data.
Cheers
Will
@JS: If the radar data is ignored, there are many possibilities for the flight path starting at IGARI. Others have in the past pursued those possibilities. I have not.
Brock: great letter, good work. I would suggest that you take another shot at the preamble and conclusion in the interest of engaging the reader and encouraging them to fulfill your request. You may want to consider dropping all references to suspicion, frustration, in-fighting etc. and focus more on cheering on the ATSB and reinforcing the value of the crowd-sourced support that has been offered to them. Wheedle it a bit more, break out your inner sociopath and charm the data and information out of them.
And be sure to include a broad spectrum of the Malaysian authorities, as it is indeed Malaysia that is filtering all, and it may only take the advocacy of one sponsor on the inside to get them to open the kimono. In truth, I doubt this is possible, given that we are dealing with low-rent sticks and rocks types in Hisammudin and Najib who don’t want to share, don’t believe they need to, and who would just assume see virtually everyone in jail or dead, but it’s worth a shot.
Khorosan???? From todays paper –
“THE US decision to strike the Khorasan Group to stop a possible terror attack represents a significant expansion of the largely secret war against core al-Qa’ida, a group President Barack Obama has proclaimed was “a shadow of its former self”.
Administration officials say they have been watching the Khorasan Group, an al-Qa’ida cell in Syria, for years. But Mr Obama had resisted taking military action in Syria to avoid inadvertently helping President Bashar Assad, a leader the US would like to see gone.
That changed, officials said, because intelligence showed that the Khorasan Group was in the final stages of plotting attacks against the US and Europe, most likely an attempt to blow up an aeroplane in flight.”
So the new kid on the block has been monitored for years and is said to be concentrating on aircraft plots? Very little mention of Khorosan before now.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/barack-obama-opens-new-front-against-alqaida-in-syria/story-e6frg6so-1227068656641
We’ve been wondering why everything was so quiet – could MH370 be caught in the same net as Khorosan?