When Australia called off the surface search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 on April 28, Prime Minister Tony Abbot explained that “It is highly unlikely at this stage that we will find any aircraft debris on the ocean surface. By this stage, 52 days into the search, most material would have become waterlogged and sunk.”
But would the debris really have sunk? Modern aircraft are made of metal, composites, and plastic, materials that do not get waterlogged. If, as the Australian Transport Safety Board (ATSB) believes is most likely, MH370 ran out of fuel and then crashed, it would have been moving at hundreds of miles per hour when it hit the sea. Much of the resulting debris would have settled down through the water column, but innumerable pieces would have remained afloat. After Air France Flight 447 went down in the middle of the Atlantic in 2009, searchers found some 3,000 pieces of debris scattered across the surface.
With the passage of time, the absence of MH370 debris becomes increasingly puzzling. Recently Emirates Airlines CEO Tim Clarke expressed frustration over the ATSB analysis of the plane’s fate, saying: ”Our experience tells us that in water incidents, where the aircraft has gone down, there is always something.” This is true. As far as I know, there have been no cases where a commercial airliner has crashed into the sea and no parts were recovered, even if the crash occured in an unknown location far out in the middle of the ocean, as MH370’s presumably did.
Consider the fate of the Boeing 377 Stratocruiser “Clipper Romance of the Skies,” which disappeared on the first leg of a planned round-the-world flight somewhere between San Francisco and Hawaii in 1957. An aircraft carrier was dispatched and found floating debris six days later, halfway between its origin and destination and 90 miles from its planned track, some 1,000 miles from the nearest land.
The area where MH370 is now believed most likely to have gone down is a bit further out to sea, some 1,500 miles southwest of Perth. But far more assets were been deployed in the search, including satellite, ships, and land-based aircraft. Indeed, the area was one of the first to be searched for surface wreckage back in March.
Still, it’s easy to imagine that even pieces of debris might have been overlooked in the vastness of the sea, especially given the uncertainty surrounding the plane’s crash site. That’s why many have long thought that the first hard proof of the plane’s fate might well take the form of flotsam washing up on a beach somewhere.
Despite Tony Abbott’s assertion, the ATSB remains open to this possibility, stating on its website:
“The ATSB continues to receive messages from members of the public who have found material washed up on the Australian coastline and think it may be wreckage or debris from MH370. The ATSB reviews all of this correspondence carefully, but drift modelling undertaken by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority [AMSA] has suggested that if there were any floating debris, it is far more likely to have travelled west, away from the coastline of Australia. It is possible that some materials may have drifted to the coastline of Indonesia, and an alert has been issued in that country, requesting that the authorities be alerted to any possible debris from the aircraft.”
It’s not clear why the AMSA believes that the debris’ main landfall would be to the north of the presumed impact area. Pioneering ocean-current researcher Curtis Ebbesmeyer, a retired professor of oceanography at the University of Washington, says that the South Indian Current should have been carrying MH370’s wreckage eastward, at a rate of five to ten miles per day. That implies an arrival window on the beaches of Western Australia of between mid-June and late September.
Computer models of drift patterns suggest a similar conclusion. I created the animated gif below from the website Adrift.org.au. Another website that yields similar results is Ocean Motion (my thanks to Brock McEwen for turning me onto that one).
Ebbesmeyer says that if we assume that the impact generated a million fragments, and that one-tenth of one percent of the fragments reach the coast, “that would give 1000 objects on the shore, or one per mile of Australian coastline. Not too bad odds.” Especially considering that beachcombers have been especially vigilant about collecting the world’s most famous pieces of flotsam. Back in April, a hunk of aluminum that washed up on an Australian beach generated headlines for days, before experts from the ATSB determined that it had not come from an aircraft (the ATSB has yet to reveal what it actually came from).
As I write this, warm weather is coming to Western Australia, and with every passing weekend more and more people are going to the beach. Earlier this month, on October 11 and 12, a nonprofit organization called the Tangaroa Blue foundation held its annual Western Australia Beach Cleanup. Some 1500 volunteers combed 130 beaches up and down the western coast collecting plastic rubbish and other debris. The goal of the event is to keep the coastline litter-free clean, but this year volunteers were well aware that they might well stumble upon evidence that could help solve history’s most puzzling aviation mystery. “When [MH370] first happened, and they said where they thought it went down, I said to myself, ‘Oh crap,” because I knew this is where it would come,” says event organizer Renee Mouritz. With those drift patterns in mind, the organization set up an informal protocol to pass along reports of any suspected MH370 debris to the AMSA. But so far, Mouritz says, “nobody has fed anything back to us.”
There’s an old saw that’s oft quoted in discussions of MH370: “The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” But from a Bayesian perspective, the absence of data is itself data. If the plane crashed into the Indian Ocean, it should have created many pieces of debris, and some of those pieces should have wound up on a shore by now. The more time passes without that happening, the greater the possibility that the plane did not go into the ocean.
This idea makes some people extremely uncomfortable. Indeed, some people insist that we know that the plane is in the southern ocean because Inmarsat’s frequency data tells us that it must be. They argue that there are any number of reasons why the debris cannot be found. One is that the plane might have ditched gently enough to have remained intact, a sort of deepwater Miracle on the Hudson, though this obviously could not be the case if the ATSB’s default flew-south-on-autopilot-until-it-ran-out-of-gas scenario is correct.
Tim Clarke, for his part, appears less than completely convinced by the frequency data. As he puts it, “We have not seen a single thing that suggests categorically that this aircraft is where they say it is.” As time goes by without debris turning up, we can expect sentiments like Clarke’s to become increasingly common.
UPDATE: My assertion that no commercial plane crash at sea prompted Twitter use @fxnighttrader to alert me to the case of the Varig Boeing 707-323C freighter which disappeared off the coast of Japan in 1979. The plane had taken off from Narita and was 30 minutes into a planned flight to Rio de Janeiro when it ceased radio contact and was never heard from again. Intriguingly, among the cargo were 153 paintings by contemporary artist Manabu Mabe, which were valued at $1.24 million, or about $4 million in today’s money. @fxnighttrader writes, “This plane went into the ocean less than 200 miles from Japan and no piece was ever found,” but I think it would be more accurate to say that the plane vanished and no one ever figured out why.
UPDATE 2: Brock McEwan reports, “The ATSB seems to have just removed from their site all reference to the AMSA drift analysis.”
@Luigi:
FYI and on the subject of eyewitnesses (don’t know if you saw this), @idannyb greatly assisted the convo on Twitter by creating a graphic of sightings/hearings re MH370. This is his last update —
https://twitter.com/idannyb/status/506978985167704064
— which does not include (for reasons of space) the report of a ‘loud explosion’ by villagers in Terengganu:
New Straits Times
12 March 2014| last updated at 06:41PM
MISSING MH370: Terengganu police receive report on explosion in Marang
KUALA TERENGGANU: The Terengganu police today confirmed having received a report on a loud explosion heard by local villagers in Marang last Saturday morning, the day the Beijing-bound Malaysia Airlines (MAS) MH370 went missing.
Terengganu police chief Datuk Jamshah Mustapa said the report had been forwarded to the Bukit Aman police yesterday for further action.
He said from the report that was lodged, the eight men only heard the explosion, but did not see any object.
“So far, we only received one report at the Marang district police station yesterday morning,” he told reporters after the commissioning of student leaders here today.
Yesterday, the eight men, who are residents at Kampung Pantai Seberang Marang, lodged a report on a mysterious sound they heard north-east of Pulau Kapas, believing it was linked to the disappearance of the MAS aircraft on that day.
They were seated on a bench about 400 metres from the Marang beach at 1.20 am when they heard the noise, which sounded like the fan of a jet engine.
MAS Flight MH370, carrying 227 passengers, including two infants, and 12 crew, went missing en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing about an hour after taking off from the KL International Airport at 12.41am Saturday.
It should have landed in Beijing at 6.30am the same day.
The aircraft was carrying passengers of 14 nationalities, with most of them from China and Malaysia.–BERNAMA
@Luigi: The maximum operating speed of the B777-200ER is the minimum of IAS=330 knots and M=0.87. At 12,000 ft, the standard temperature is 264K, the speed of sound is 633.6 knots, and IAS=330 knots corresponds to TAS=409 knots, or M=0.65. So, at this low altitude, it is the IAS that limits the speed.
Neglecting fuel burn, which would be considerable, in order to determine the maximum possible speed, it is necessary to know by how much the maximum operating speed (Vmo) can be exceeded and for how long. I have not found a definitive answer to this. Limiting factors would be mechanical stresses and engine thrust.
So, if MH370 was operating within its defined operating limits, a descent to 12,000 ft would not have been possible while maintaining its estimated speed of between 480 and 500 knots. However, it is not clear whether those speeds could have been attained by operating the plane beyond its operating envelope.
@Victori
Thanks for starting to address my question. The NTSB put the speed of Flight 175 (a 767, not a 777) at 513 knots when it collided with the WTC (altitude ~1,000 ft). It was in a power dive, mind you, but the wings didn’t rip off. I think we can safely discount fuel burn as a limiting factor here — there’s no reason to suppose fuel economy was on the pilot’s mind, regardless of what was going on in the cockpit. Just for interest, here’s a report on a pilot who got fired for flying a 777 at 322 mph (280 knots) at an altitude of 28 ft:
http://gizmodo.com/360301/pilot-gets-fired-after-extremely-low-flyby-in-brand-new-boeing-777
@Luigi: Fuel economy may or may not have been on the pilot’s mind. Independent of this, fuel burn is an important consideration because it limits how far the plane could have traveled before the engines flamed out. Any time spent low and fast will definitely reduce the range, not to mention the extra fuel required to descend/ascend.
@Luigi: I’m sorry, but you cannot kick the IG’s analysis down with “not FL350”; you have to come to the table with a specific set of alternative altitudes, and solid performance analysis which accommodates them.
Remember: if you believe Inmarsat, then you need enough fuel to reach the 7th arc. If you think MH370 had enough fuel to be able to shed (and later regain) significant altitude in the Malacca Strait – and fly at 500 KGS through much denser air for over an hour in the meantime – then you cheerfully disregard not only the IG (and ATSB) assessment of ALTITUDE, but also the IG (and ATSB) assessment of FUEL, which both suggested that, even at a constant (high-efficiency) FL350 from IGARI, MH370 had barely enough fuel to stay aloft until 00:19 at LRC.
(As always, I stress the “if you believe Inmarsat” qualifier. I wouldn’t want to risk losing so “grand” a reputation.)
What I am wondering is if there is any Inmarsat data from aircraft takeoff to the location of loss of comms either on primary or secondary channels. If so, did this data show flight back towards Malaysia ?
@Luigi
Your uncertainty about altitude inspired me.
If a steep climb (and earlier descent?) at some time during the flight are still on the table, flying objects inside the plane could be expected, whether in the cockpit, cabin or avionics bay.
Such flying objects, or possibly pilots bracing themselves, could hit switches and turn on/off systems.
After having this inspiration, I did some googling and found the following:
http://www.smartcockpit.com/download.php?path=docs/&file=B777-Electrical.pdf
Which shows the overhead electrical control panel, including generator controls in the cockpit.
If I now tie in the acrobatics I employed to explain the sharp corner in the radar track around the turn back at 17:2x, whether accidental, forced or deliberate, it could be possible that such flying objects or the pilots bracing hands, accidentally knocked out both IDGs on the overhead panel.
The linked doc states that after disconnection, reconnection requires ground maintenance and that during backup power SATCOM is not available. This could explain the going dark.
Another statement is that the centre tank fuel becomes unusable and so do the jettison pumps. This could explain a lack of early landing attempts, since the plane is still full of fuel: heavy, dangerous, etc.
Question is, what kind of “ground maintenance” is required to reconnect the IDGs to re-enable the jettison pumps for a pre emergency landing fuel dump? Is that maintenance possible in flight? If so, is that, what the flight crew were doing, did they succeed causing the re-boot of the SDU?
If all the above is nonsense and we are looking at a deliberate shut down of SATCOM, there is a possibility that Luigi’s steep climb again created flying objects. Is there a switch, which could be hit by such objects, that would turn the SATCOM back on unbeknownst to the perpetrators that shut it down on purpose?
Cheers
Will
@MuOne
Those ‘DRIVE DISC’ push switches on the Electrical Panel are shuttered to prevent accidental operation & need to be held to action the disconnect.
:Don
>> Any time spent low and fast will definitely reduce the range
Shifting the likely position on the final arc, which might relate to why we haven’t found the plane.
@Luigi: The current search zone is consistent with the BTO and BFO measured data sets and the range calculations assuming no large changes in altitude. Shorter paths ending at other locations on the 7th arc that are outside of the search area would not match the BFO data.
I tend to believe Immarsat when they say that that many possible paths are consistent with the BFO/BTO data. As yet, there is no evidence to support the hypothesis that the constraints and simplifying assumptions favored by various IG members or by the ATSB are useful — if anything, the failure to find debris or the plane offers some evidence against that line of speculation.
Furthermore, if one really believes that ALL this aircraft did was divert at IGARI, loiter at altitude (FL350) somewhere in the vicinity of Sumatra and continue on a bee line south until fuel exhaustion, without any appreciable fluctuations in altitude, one lacks a clear understanding of the dynamic at work (an angry pilot on his final flight).
Also, the simulated ‘ghost’ flight on AP that the ATSB choose to use for illustrative purposes gives ample latitude for further control inputs. It is clear that they don’t fully believe in some of these assumptions (and they are clearly JUST assumptions).
@Victor
If you believe your statement above to be true (and accurate), how do you explain your possible landing scenario that you posited for some time? Perhaps I am not understanding something, in which case I apologize.
@Luigi: the latest ATSB report (Oct.8) has the MAXIMUM endurance path (FL200 / FL250)only exceeding the 7th arc by about 60nmi (see Figs. 2 or 3). This is only about 2.5% of this path’s post-radar distance.
If the plane flew low – at top speed – through dense air – for an HOUR – then climbed back up to cruise altitude – are you SURE it wouldn’t burn at least 3% of its remaining endurance?
If it did, the 7th arc becomes unattainable at ANY speed.
@Brock
The maximum endurance path is going to give less range than the maximum range path. Still, it’s interesting that the maximum endurance path you cite is a low-altitude path. Indeed FL200/FL250 fits pretty well with the NYT’s reported descent to FL230 on the way back to Malaysia, with an ensuing drop as low as FL120 (per CNN) for the 16-minute overflight from the airports at Kota Baru to the airport at Penang (sites of the eyewitness reports of a low-flying jetliner headed west and the cell tower reconnect, respectively), and a rapid 5000+ ft climb concomitant with the satcom reboot before the southward turn. Just sayin’. Also seems perfectly believable that the pilot dialed in maximum range on the southward leg of the flight since prima facie it looks like he was out to bury it. The ATSB might be onto something, there — just needs a bit more tweakin’.
I’ll also mention that, perusing Dr. Ulich’s map, the time from the end of the turnaround to Kota Bharu is only 12 minutes, and the total time to Penang is 28 minutes. From 35,000 ft to 12,000 ft is 23000 ft, so the plane would have descended at an average 800-2000 fpm, fairly typical descent rates. As I understand it, descents are typically performed with the engines at flight idle, gravity doing much of the work (granted, normally with a decreasing speed). So it’s not clear that the fuel burn rate would have been that great — a detailed analysis would be required to figure it out. Also, the putative high speed climb suggested by the 18:25-18:28 BFO data might indicate the use of aerodynamic forces to rapidly regain altitude — an airshow stunt not practical in a normal climb starting from low speed and respecting the sensibilities of the passengers. So, getting back to a more fuel-efficient cruise altitude for the final leg might not have burned that much fuel either.
(Modified repost – earlier reply evaporated).
Don, I hear you, but in an unexpected near vertical dive, an unrestrained pilot or someone else in the cockpit may end up falling onto the panel, bracing himself against it, break the shutter and keep the button pressed.
I know its all highly speculative, but still possible.
Cheers
Will
Will, I think Don answered your question succinctly, let’s move on.
Jeff
Nihonmama: if the IADS component of the FPDA facilitates radar data feeds of coverage of peninsular Malaysia to the Australians, then any questions regarding JORN would be rendered moot, would they not? In other words, the implications that others beyond the Malaysians may have had immediate access to the radar data is quite interesting. As for JORN, Duncan did indeed cover this issue quite thoroughly; it is reasonable to assume that JORN did not detect MH370.
While the general public fiddles around with projected images of the radar data, there is the possibility that the raw data has long been in the hands of the Australian authorities. If true, this reveals the actual level of command-control the Malaysians retain under international convention when it comes to the air accident investigation: nobody else is permitted to reveal even that which has already been ‘shared’ between sovereigns.
It seems that even the DCA has been cut off from receiving or promulgating information regarding the search, as there is nothing but inconsequential tweets and no recent press releases provided. The focus is clearly on locating the remains of the aircraft in Flatland as opposed to pursuing any rigorous investigation into what actually transpired aboard the aircraft. The implication, then, is that there were indeed serious lapses in the functioning of Malaysian civil aviation and military air defense systems that some do not want revealed. Thus does general incompetence give way to deliberate malfeasance on the part of the Malaysian authorities – this is the story.
@Luigi: I’m afraid your logic grows more tortured with each post.
The thrust required to maintain 500ktas at low altitude is enormous: not only is the air denser, but the plane’s natural camber lift makes the plane “want” to go higher (once you specify weight and speed, you essentially force altitude to within a relatively narrow band within which the aircraft can fly fuel-efficiently; that’s why you’re having trouble finding published tables for 500ktas at very low altitudes). You’re now burning more fuel not only to plough through the denser air, but also to fight the extra drag of having to employ flaps in order to push the plane DOWN.
In my last post, I was quoting Figs 2/3 from memory, and think I got the altitudes wrong: max endurance is achieved somewhere between the two intermediate of the four listed altitudes. Regardless, you should know by now that each of those paths has an associated speed which varies directy with altitude. You can’t use the efficiency of FL250 at an APPROPRIATE speed to argue efficiency of FL250 at an INAPPROPRIATE speed.
Once you specify a specific low altitude for your theory, I’m sure an avgeek will be willing to compute fuel burn (including drop and rise) for you. Suggest you commission and review that work as your next step. I’m afraid you’re in for a big disappointment.
@Brock
>> You can’t use the efficiency of FL250 at
>> an APPROPRIATE speed to argue efficiency
>> of FL250 at an INAPPROPRIATE speed.
[REDACTED — conversation closed]
Hey Rand:
“As for JORN, Duncan did indeed cover this issue quite thoroughly; it is reasonable to assume that JORN did not detect MH370.”
DS rendered an opinion based on his (inside) experience related to JORN, which as I understand, did not become FULLY operational until May 2014. But Duncan Steel’s opinion is not, by any means, dispositive of whether JORN was TURNED ON the day MH370 disappeared.
But FWIW, and since we’re talking about Duncan’s knowledge of JORN, he also said that it could see the coast of East Africa:
https://twitter.com/nihonmama/status/455066924229984256
As La Franchi notes (who, because of his background, also qualifies as an ‘expert’ with unique insights into Australia’s defense – or aspects of it):
“the only way for the radar not to have detected something like MH370 is for it to be switched off at the time, which raises its own questions.”
So we have two credible people saying that JORN can (at least) *see* to east Africa and to most of India. But it couldn’t see MH370 near (or over) peninsular Malaysia, north of Indonesia or anytime after as it traveled in the direction of Australia and presumably, crashed west of Perth? It seems pretty clear that the real issue with respect to JORN is not its capability (read: range), but whether it was ON so as to be able to detect MH370.
Consequently, the matter of JORN – and what it *saw* – or didn’t see — is neither completely covered nor is it settled – per Duncan Steel or other. But it is definitely fertile ground for further exploration.
2. “Thus does general incompetence give way to deliberate malfeasance on the part of the Malaysian authorities – this is the story.”
The Malaysian ‘hand’ in this (whether it’s malfeasance, misfeasance or both) is absolutely and clearly part of the story. But it’s not all of the story. Not by a mile. And since FPDA not only exists, but is relevant to (and plays a significant role in) MALAYSIA’S AIR DEFENSE, there’s also a not-completely-told chain-of-command story in here, which would suggest that responsibility, accountability and the need for transparency ALSO falls squarely at the doorstep of IADS HQ. Most likely why Des Ross (an Australian, BTW) not only raised questions about Malaysia’s role in what (clearly) seems to be a cover up, but Australia’s as well.
Let’s just note that we’ve got Reuters and other media looking at Malaysia’s Air Force chief Rodzali Daud’s role in an eyes-wide-shut situation (notice, I didn’t use the term ‘cock up’) as a ginormous commercial airliner flew dark (and was left alone) over peninsular Malaysia, but not drilling into the larger, regional command structure related to Malaysia’s defense, or that the IADS Commander at the time MH370 disappeared was an Australian, not a Malaysian.
@Nihonmama: I do think it is possible that Australia has access to the raw radar data and has chosen to remain silent in order to protect the Malaysian government, and in fact there is precedent for this. There is recent history of a scandal involving the bribing of high-level officials in Malaysia, Indonesia, and Vietnam by a subsidiary of the Reserve Bank of Australia that was selling counterfeit-resistant polymer notes. The judge in the case issued a gag order. “According to WikiLeaks, Canberra invoked grounds of ‘national security’ in order to secure the so-called super-injunction, claiming that censoring reports on the matter would ‘prevent damage to Australia’s international relations.'”
http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/australia-muzzles-press-on-bribery-case-involving-malaysian-regional-leader
It is possible that Australia, the UK, and the US are playing a dangerous game in which certain embarrassing actions of Malaysia are overlooked and kept hidden in exchange for access to military bases and intelligence data as part of a broader geopolitical strategy to contain China and fight terrorism in that region.
@Victor: YES.
On geopolitics. Thanks @dizzyoz1
Missing Malaysia Airlines plane: US satellite the unspoken source that sparked search for MH370
The Sydney Morning Herald
March 21, 2014
Peter Hartcher
“When the Australian official took to the podium to explain to reporters the discovery of satellite images that might show pieces of MH370, he carefully omitted to tell them the source.
The images were from a US satellite. The Australian Maritime Safety Authority’s John Young did not mention this to the media.
When asked, he avoided the question.
And when reporters phoned Australian defence officials to ask the same question, they were given a firm ‘no comment’ or ‘we can’t discuss'”.
https://twitter.com/nihonmama/status/529366755677048832
VictorI – I also excluded wind and changes in temperature in my analysis. Those made it too complicated for me (but Dr. Ulich’s paper shows only about a 10kts difference between TAS and Ground Speed for a major portion of the flight.)
I guess I’m having problems trying to explain my very general analysis of the fuel burn rates that I copied from the PPRuNE website along with statements of various pilots. However, I guess it doesn’t matter much as Dr. Ulich responded that he did evaluate changes in air speed and found pretty much the same end point. As you put it last summer, “the sequence of events” that led to this mystery is crucial to predicting the final location and my hunch is it is more likely that the AP was set to MRC than it was to constant altitude and speed.
The point I was trying to make is for a single turn followed by a straight track, the 6.13mt/hr (or 3,063kg/hr per engine) burn rate seems high for the proposed routes. If you use the 2868kg/hr average burn rate from the manual you used (notwithstanding the GE engines versus RR), what does the higher average MH370 burn rate of 3063kg/hr per engine indicate? Nobody knows for sure. I am not saying that you can interpolate for different weights and elevations, but as a guide, it suggests that if the a/c maintained FL350 after 17:07, it flew faster than the 481ktas listed in that manual or flew at a lower elevation for a portion of the flight.
Luigi – The only reason I see to use a constant 35,000ft in any analysis is to reduce the number of possible combinations of speed versus flight level. I agree with your position as, with the data we have, I do not see a way to confirm any specific flight level during the return over the Malay Peninsula. As shown below, the a/c could compensate for any additional fuel wasted at a lower altitude by flying at a higher altitude later.
Brock – The burn rate does not vary significantly over a wide range of altitudes and speeds. For example, the tests show at FL100 the burn rate was 6.3mt/hr at 326kts or 5.4mt/hr at 463kts at FL400. If you use these values for MH370’s 7h9m burn time at 6.13mt/hr starting at 17:07 it could have flown 423nm over 1h20m at FL100 and then 2708nm over 5h51m at FL400. (I did not check if these durations and distances meet the BTO’s but I suspect that other altitudes and/or speeds would support one altitude from 17:07 to around 18:25 to 18:40 and a higher level for the duration.)
I think, at this point, it seems reasonably safe to conclude that this search is covering up either…
…guilty knowledge, or
…embarrassing ignorance.
Let’s dig deeeper, and find out which, whose, and of what.
@Lauren H
“as, with the data we have, I do not see a way to confirm any specific flight level during the return over the Malay Peninsula”
[REDACTED — subject is ridiculous and has been banned and people who keep flogging this dead horse will be banned too.]
Cheers
Will
And again –
Australia-bound plane stopped in Indonesia
AAP NOVEMBER 04, 2014 8:24AM
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A PRIVATE jet en route to Australia has reportedly been intercepted after violating Indonesia’s airspace.
THE ABC says two fighter planes forced the Gulfstream jet to land in Indonesia on Monday.
It was carrying seven passengers and six crew, who are now being questioned by Indonesian authorities, according to an air force spokesman.
The aircraft is believed to have been travelling from Saudi Arabia to Darwin, and had made a refuelling stop in Singapore before taking off again and entering Indonesian airspace without clearance.
The incident comes two weeks after an Australian light plane flew into Indonesian airspace without the correct documentation.
During that incident, fighter jet weapons were “locked on” the plane when it declined to land for several hours.
Comment is being sought from Indonesian and Australian authorities.
@Brock: I think you have to be careful to make a distinction between the search in the SIO and the investigation of the disappearance. I believe the investigation run by the Malaysians is a travesty, with disinformation and the withholding of useful information by the Malaysians and possibly others. However, I believe that Inmarsat, the ATSB, the NTSB, and others are making an honest attempt at finding MH370. I did not mean to imply that the efforts in the SIO were not genuine.
Victor
@#$%?!: I have just lost not one but two long-form posts to my incompetence. And, no, I don’t want to hear about the virtues of composing offline. I’ll make Matty happy and try it his virtuous way: short and sweet.
Nihonmana: you can pursue JORN if you want. Duncan has a highly informed perspective here, and in any case, if JORN has informed the Inmarsat analysis while this has not been made public as a result of overly paranoid security concerns, so be it, if it serves the search, I will let it slide.
My point is that probable malfeasance on the part of the Malaysian Ministries of Transportation and Defense IS the story, as the cover-up of the incompetence is the story du jour and a great place to start in terms of any journalistic effort to investigate the who and the how as opposed to the where. Meanwhile, I think that you may be on to something: the IADS structure of the FPDA framework could provide a work-around to the obfuscation, as it provides an ‘in.’
The Malaysians do have authority over the investigation as per international convention; this serves their needs and is congruent with the general frame of politics of ‘power is not accountable to anyone’ in Malaysia. This is indeed how things work in Malaysia.
The Americans will not help with the who and the how, as they have a large and quite active counter-terrorism presence in Malaysia, with the quid pro quo being that the Americans keep their mouths shut and are allowed to do their business, while the Malaysian authorities are provided with an internal counter-Islamic extremist mechanism free-of-charge without having to alienate the more Wahibist-inclined amongst their Islamic Malay voter base. Unless MH370 is in the process of being weaponized at this very moment (highly unlikely) and the Americans have thrown a blanket over their operation in the interest of ferreting out the perps of a large and dangerous terrorist conspiracy, then it is likely that the loss of MH370 is wholly intrinsic to Malaysia. I would even say that the US intelligence community would appear rather satisfied that Islamic terrorism is not involved. Therefore, it is safe to assume that you will not receive any answers from the US regarding the who and the what, regardless of what is known to them, for they will not risk their carefully built counter-terrorism operation in Malaysia. This is the very nature of the ‘deal’ between Malaysia and the US, with the latter specifically proscribed from further involvement in matters deemed wholly internal to Malaysia.
The IADS and the FPDA: what about those quiet Kiwis? I would begin asking around with a couple of them. More specifically, I would want to know the identity of their senior Malaysian counterpart in the IADS. It would, of course, also be great to have a gander at their radar and other data feeds.
The Watergate saga that resulted in the resignation of President Nixon began with a piece of duct tape that was found to have been applied to a stairwell door to prevent it from locking (a useful party trick, try it at home!). The ‘story’ at the time of the discovery of that little piece of tape was the break-in to the Democratic Party Headquarters in the Watergate Hotel; from here, it took patience and persistence to go from that stairwell to the White House. The story of the who and the what of MH370 does indeed begin with Hishammuddin’s efforts to obfuscate that portion of the flight that took part over Malaysia, as such efforts could amount to criminal malfeasance on the part of persons in the ministries of Transportation and Defense. Meanwhile, that Hishammuddin did not throw a couple of subordinates under the bus is indeed interesting, as this seeming inaction could lead to yet even broader implications.
“Let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start.”
– Rodgers and Hammerstein
@VictorI: I don’t know whether I’ve ever properly expressed my appreciation to you personally: thank you for all you and your group have done – and continue to do – to shed light on the search in particular, and the mystery in general.
Well said. I’ve been so zoned in to the perspective of passengers’ families (who could care less about the politics – they just want the TRUTH), I’ve failed to appreciate that to accuse even the JIT overlords of a cover-up is to risk leaving rank-and-file searchers feeling like their efforts are counter-productive, and/or underappreciated. Nothing could be further from the truth: whether wet and cold on a ship’s deck, or going blind staring at numbers on a screen, these people are heroes. Your post has reminded me that, no matter how suspicious the conduct of those at the top, I should be more careful not to undermine everyone else’s dedicated efforts.
Depending on what you meant, I may disagree with the line you’ve drawn between ‘search’ and ‘investigation’. “Drifted west” is only the latest in a very long list of highly dubious statements issued / decisions taken by the SEARCH leadership – not the investigation. It makes far more sense to me to draw the likely line of culpability between those ISSUING vs. those FOLLOWING orders. (To the extent investigators are directing the search, our views overlap.) While AMSA’s junior analyst surely has no knowledge of a cover-up, the head overlord of the JIT (whoever THAT is) surely does. Where is the “magic line”? That’s exactly what I want to find out.
How? By asking the junior analyst: “so, what’s the deal with ‘drifted west’?” If they point to their boss, that’s who we ask next. And so on, until we get to the truth.
My hunch is that there are many players in the upper-middle ranks who are ITCHING to talk.
@Rand:
“Let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start.”
– Rodgers and Hammerstein
😉
http://swingoutsister.com/albums/filth-and-dreams
Select #9: “World Out of Control”
The entire track is also on the YouTube you can’t view from China.
I have a VPN for rent.
@Lauren H
At the risk of being “REDACTED” again…
[EDITOR’S NOTE: Luigi is banned.]
https://twitter.com/nihonmama/status/529475091550064641
#followthemoney
Bon voyage, Luigi. I am truly sorry to see you go, my old pal. Perhaps you could petition the barkeep to let you back in once you have sobered up a bit? IT would be worth a try, perhaps he was just a bit cranky this evening.
Regardless, Luigi’s departure now removes the last remaining close-to-the bone counter argument to my statement that the aircraft was intentionally diverted by whomever at IGARI while the SIO was never the intended destination at any point in the flight. The plan for the diversion, whatever it was, would then had to have been foiled and the flight deck perhaps rendered pilotless. Pilot suicide? Perhaps, but then you would still need to reconcile this element with the diversion at IGARI where it was suicide does not present as the motive for the diversion. An intentional ditching of the aircraft in the remote wilderness of the SIO as a response to the plot being foiled or as the intended destination for a suicidal pilot I would suggest is no more than a logical band-aid, a fix for a seemingly non-sensical diversion with the SIO as an intended destination; whether such was decided at IGARI or post 18:22 makes no difference. The point, then, is that it is more probable that the SIO was not at any point in the flight the intended destination of anyone on the flight deck based simply on the fact that in virtually every scenario, the SIO as an intended destination is – wait for it – nonsensical.
Jeff: please consider Luigi’s petition for reinstatement. There is no precedent here, so you could do so with little fallout. After all, the medical disease model of addiction would show that it was not wholly Luigi’s fault that he began smoking that BFO tweaker crack in conjunction with the debris martinis that you have been serving him.
Indons go nuts –
Indonesia releases detained Saudi officials after airspace incursion
THE AUSTRALIAN NOVEMBER 04, 2014 4:14PM
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Peter Alford
Correspondent
Jakarta
••
AN aircraft carrying Saudi Arabian officials bound for Brisbane which was forced to land yesterday by Indonesian air force jets has been allowed to continue its journey.
Air force spokesman Hadi Tjahjanto said the Gulfstream IV aircraft, carrying seven passengers and six crew, was allowed to leave Kupang, West Timor, last night about 9pm Jakarta time for Darwin, en route to Brisbane.
Air Marshall Hadi would not confirm that a fine was paid for unauthorised entry of Indonesian air space to secure the swift release, but local media reports said the Saudi embassy in Jakarta paid Rp60 million (about $A5690) before the aircraft and crew departed.
Two Australians who were forced by air force jets to land at Manado, northern Sulawesi, in similar circumstances last month were released after several days to continue their journey to Cebu, central Philippines, having paid a similar fine.
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MORESaudi Prince’s G20 jet detained
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Air Marshall Hadi indicated the Saudis were released once it was realised the aircraft was carrying state officials to Brisbane on diplomatic business, apparently to organise for a visit to Australia by a Saudi prince ahead of next week’s G20 meetings.
“The plane was on an unscheduled flight but it can be characterised as a state plane because it was being used to carry staff who wanted to prepare for a state visit of (a member of) the Saudi royal family.”
The Gulfstream aircraft was traversing from Singapore, where it refueled, to Darwin when it was detected in Indonesian air space with clearance over South Kalimantan about midday yesterday. “When we found it did not have a permit we forced it down,” said Air Marshall Hadi.
Two Sukhoi jet fighters from the squadron’s air base in Makassar, southern Sulawesi, escorted the aircraft to land in Kupang, but unlike the incident with the Australians, the Saudi crew complied quickly with an instruction to land.
Air Marshall Hadi said he could not comment on whether two such incidents involving jet fighters within a month indicated a toughening of Indonesian responses to unauthorised entries of Indonesian air space.
The country’s new President Joko Widodo has signalled he will take a tougher land than his predecessor on defending the sovereignty of Indonesia’s borders.
Additional reporting: Telly Nathalia
Victor – regarding the wikileaks story about some “super injunction” imposed by the Aust govt to suppress damaging stuff about the Malaysians in return for access to military bases. The guy quoted in the story – Julian Assange (Wikileaks)- is not just a dedicated radical left winger, he is actually holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London trying to avoid trial in Sweden on sex charges and has been there for a couple of years. He has waged a war via the media on the Aust govt that has been generally deluded, and insists that the chatges he is avoiding are brought on out of some Aust/USA conspiracy. He is simply not believable.
airlandseaman posted October 30, 2014 at 7:42 AM:
“phugoid? We will see. On Sunday…finally…headed for the B777 simulator. Not talking toys here. 4 hours booked in the right seat with Sr B777 Captain in the left seat and instructor onboard. Will report results on Monday. Hope to record video.”
Eagerly awaiting your report …
@Matty: I do not espouse the actions of Julian Assange, who has indiscriminately released many sensitive documents and certainly has a political agenda. However, many of the WikiLeaks have caused a commotion because of their accuracy, including the release of unredacted diplomatic cables sent to the US State Department. I have no way to confirm the accuracy of the gag order regarding the Reserve Bank of Australia; however, I think it would be unwise to outright dismiss the accuracy of this WikiLeak because of the political leanings (and perhaps personal transgressions) of its founder.
Rand,
I appreciate your empathy but: no. There’s important work to be done here, and I’m happy to let anyone and everyone participate, but not if they are going to drive others to distraction by raising questions and then failing to listen/understand when these matters have been resolved. If I did not drop the hammer in such cases the conversation would become cluttered with issues that are not really issues. Even then, I give people a warning and ban people only if they persist.
Jeff
Victor – point taken, but atm………Assange is in desperate self preservation and getting more and more desperate. Even his media barrackers here have stopped listening. He’s become unhinged. Now it’s all about Julian.
Hi Matty:
Assange has many issues, not the least of which is that he’s extremely manipulative – and is a walking example of narcissistic personality disorder – with an agenda. But you strike me as wise enough to know that we can also separate the man, his character deficiencies and alleged crimes, from the information that Wikileaks the organization has provided. Wikileaks’s agenda is to pull back the curtain on illegal or questionable activity by governments and/or their agents. Some of their tactics (and wholesale dumps) are subject to debate. But for investigative journalists around the world (especially those in the US doing important reporting on national security-related abuses by government agencies), those leaked diplomatic cables and other have been an absolute godsend.
I’ll surmise that many people (and not just in Australia) were very surprised to learn of Australia’s suppression order in a major corruption case involving Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam.
https://wikileaks.org/aus-suppression-order/
Again geopolitics and who knows what quid pro quos in that story (might) have relevance to our current inquiry. I for one hope that we learn more.
I am new to this blog , so I don’t know if this has been asked or addressed before . Is it possible to recover video data from the passengers’ electronic devices after months or years submerged in the ocean ? If so , would this material be releasable by law to the public ? Anyone out there know ? Thanks , Don .
The ATSB seems to have just removed from their site all reference to the AMSA drift analysis.
Brock:
Are you kidding?
No, of course you’re not.
#getaseatbelt
@Myron – didn’t see anyone respond to you. I’m far from expert, but believe the answers to your questions are:
Yes, Inmarsat data exists all the way back to taxi & take-off, and was released. Check out Jeff’s “What We Know Now” post, under the heading, “Inmarsat Data…”.
While it does not directly show a turn west at IGARI – the log has a 56 minute gap between 1707 (approx. 14min before purported turn-back) and 1803 (42min after) – it was still deemed to indirectly validate the turned-west theory, because it seemed to reacquire MH370’s trail at a location, time, and bearing consistent with the turn-back depicted in the published primary radar track.
While a few fields and records have clearly been redacted from this log (and have been requested by the IG, to assist their analysis), I believe the known redactions concern an INITIAL log on sequence, not the gap during turn-back.
Thank you for your reply @brock
What I am next trying to understand is the engine comms was it through the regular channel out of the aircraft’s antenna or was all the Inmersat collected data from the engine’s antenna? I am trying to clarify in my mind when and what channels were detected by Inmarsat in relation to comms shutdown.
Progress in search for missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370
Read more at http://www.9news.com.au/national/2014/11/05/17/18/some-progress-in-search-for-mh370#uuk67CZpuW0dxT1F.99
Poor weather is affecting the search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight 370, but conditions are expected to improve over summer, as vessels continue to scour the ocean floor.
More than 3000sqkm has been searched so far, and more than 160,000sqkm has been mapped.
If needed, further bathymetric survey operations could start again later, the Joint Agency Co-ordination Centre said in its latest update.
The vessel GO Phoenix resupplied in Fremantle and began its underwater search yesterday.
Fugro Discovery was searching the area last week, but had to suspend operations on Friday due to severe weather.
The deep tow vehicle was recovered to a safe depth and its operations resumed on Monday when conditions improved.
Fugro Equator returned to Fremantle last Friday and will depart next week after being reconfigured to accommodate a deep tow vehicle identical to the one on Fugro Discovery.
Poor weather, including gales in parts of the search area, are likely to affect operations in the coming week, but conditions are expected to improve in summer, JACC said.
MH370 disappeared with 239 people on board during its March 8 flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
© AAP 2014
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Read more at http://www.9news.com.au/national/2014/11/05/17/18/some-progress-in-search-for-mh370#uuk67CZpuW0dxT1F.99
Nihonmama – in the past the Indon Malaysian govts have gotten the shits with Australia because our media would plaster stuff around that would be suppressed over there. There were many diplomatic issues over that, so it would be a bit odd that Australia would suddenly play ball, but the Indonesian anti terror police unit is funded by Australia and cooperation on terror has taken a lot of massaging? I wouldn’t tie it to defence bases as they all feel the Chinese belligerence these days and don’t want to make serious waves.
Debris – This set up where a Japanese soccer ball ends up in Alaska while a section of peer shows up in California says a bit. A lightweight floatie caught a decent amount of wind and took a totally different track to a submerged floatie? Apply it to the search area?
Myron,
Engines don’t have antennae. Engine data would have to be transmitted via the plane’s Satellite Data Unit (SDU), which was disabled.
Jeff