Two weeks ago, I wrote a couple of posts about the strange reboot of MH370’s satcom system that occurred shortly after the plane disappeared from primary radar, and asked if anyone could come up with a reasonable explanation. I drew attention in particular to the left AC bus, which the satcom equipment is connected to. This bus can be electrically isolated using controls located in the cockpit, and this appears to be the only way to recycle the satcom without leaving the flight deck. I suggested that there might be some other piece of equipment that the perpetrator wanted to turn off and on again by using the left AC bus, thereby causing the satcom to be recycled as an unintended side effect.
The readers rose to the occasion. Gysbreght pointed out that paragraph 1.11.2 of Factual Information states that “The SSCVR [Solid State Cockpit Voice Recorder] operates any time power is available on the Left AC transfer bus. This bus is not powered from batteries or the Ram Air Turbine (RAT).”
This is an incredibly interesting observation. Reader Oz fleshed out Gysbreght’s insight, writing to me via email:
We could isolate the Left Main AC by selecting the generator control switch to OFF and the Bus Tie switches to OFF; SATCOM is now dead. What else happens……….the Backup generator kicks in automatically to supply the Left Transfer bus. Here’s what’s so spine chilling; if you now simply reach up and select the Backup Generator switch to OFF………..you now lose Left transfer as well. The CVR is gone! I couldn’t believe how easy the CVR was to isolate!
To recap;
Left Gen Control to OFF
Bus Ties to OFF (Isolate)
Left Backup Gen to OFF.
I now firmly believe your mystery reboot was Left AC power being switched back ON……….. after something that had occurred that the perp or perps didn’t want any possible evidence of on the CVR……whatever was being hidden was done by around 1822; AC back to normal.
Gysbreght notes that the Factual Information also identifies the location of the CVR as Electronic Equipment Rack, E7, in the aft cabin above the ceiling, and suggests: “Later [the perp] could have opened Electronic Equipment Rack E7, physically pulled the SSCVR power supply plug from its socket, and then gone back to the MEC to restore power to the Left AC bus.”
Oz has his own theory: “If you are thinking why the hell you would turn Left AC/Left transfer back on? Flight deck temperature control comes from these…”
There’s a precedent for a suicidal airline pilot depowering the black boxes before flying a plane into the ocean: the pilot of Silkair Flight 185 appears to have done just that before pointing the nose down and crashing in December, 1997. It’s easy to imagine Zaharie reading the accident reports and realizing he should also figure out a way to disable the CVR before implementing his suicide plan. When the moment came, near IGARI, one can imagine the veteran 777 pilot suddenly flipping various switches while the baffled newbie, Fariq, looked on.
It’s certainly an intriguing scenario, but it is not without its flaws. As Gysbreght notes, “I would expect the Captain to know that the CVR only retains the last two hours and overwrites older recordings.” So if Zaharie planned to commit suicide by flying the plane for hours into the remotest reaches of the southern ocean, he wouldn’t have needed to turn the CVR off: the portion between 17:07 and 18:25 would have been erased anyway. This is not in insurmountable problem, however. Maybe he orginally intended to crash right away, a la Silkair, but then lost his nerve.
I’m not quite ready to declare, as Gysbreght has, “Case closed,” but I have to admit that the CVR idea is fascinating. Great work, Gysbreght and Oz!
I believe the situation onboard after the FMT is more important than the SATCOM mystery.
Lets focus on that.
plane is at 97’15’14, search there….
@UR1907, I think the satcom mystery can’t be separeted from the situation after the final major turn. If we solve that mystery we might know what the situation was like.
Jeff, when I still fully believed un the SIO scenario, I also entertained the idea that Zaharie might have had something very different in mind than crashing the plane into the SIO. For example blackmailing Malaysian authorities into dropping charges against Anwar Ibrahim or Najib resigning – or else he would crash the plane into the Petrona Towers. There can be many variations of this scenario. Or he just wanted to crash it without preliminaries. And then he lost his nerve – Maybe because someone talked hin out of it or because he didn’t want to kill so many more people after all. And he came up with a plan to hide his crimes because he also couldn’t face to give himself up and go to jail. For me that would’ve been more logical than a planned political demonstration by going directly to the SIO.
Arguments angainst this fairly plausible scenario: there’s still the uncanny timing of the reboot right after the plane was out of radar coverage. It could be explained, though with him being glad that he escaped from being monitored by radar and he restored the power as an afterthought. This theory also can’t explain the missing debris – it’s highly unlikely that Zaharie managed to ditch the plane without any damage. But it’s possible of course that the wreckage escaped detection somehow.
Another thought: If Zaharie really started to negotiate with the Malaysian authorities shortly after he had turned around it would explain why MAS didn’t start calling the plane earlier than 18:40. There might’ve been communication going on already after all. At 18:40 Zaharie might’ve stopped communicating, so MAS made a call – but no one answered anymore.
The reason for hidung his crime might’ve been that suicide is highly stigmatized in the Islamic faith and also he might’ve wanted to spare his family shame and grief. Andreas Lubitz’s family went into hiding and shit their house down because they couldn’t cope with being stigmatized as being the family of a mass murderer. Zaharie might’ve wanted to prevent this by making the case almost unsolvable.
I don’t necessarily believe in that scenario, but thanks, Jeff for opening up the discussion with your three articles concerning the reboot.
Also Gysbreght’s alternative explanation why the SDU night have made a come back underlines that Jeff is completely right to emphasize the importance of this fact. When we manage to find out why it came back we might get hints at what really happened.
I am now – and hereafter – highly skeptical of any theory that fails to explain fully 500 days without a WHIFF of physical evidence that the plane ever hit the SIO.
@Brock, you are right to point at the missing debris again. It’s the biggest hole in any theory which ends in an ocean crash.
In my long post above I rehashed an old idea I had in the early days, when missing debris was of little concern. Also, the implications of the SDU’s comeback hasn’t been fully understood.
Since then a lot has happened which caused me to drop my ideas about a suicidal pilot. The idea that the voice recorder should get erased and the functions which were supported by the left bus needed to be restored is the first alternative explanation of why the SDU rebooted which makes some sense. But we should check the timing carefully.
@littlefoot
Bradley West was right in alerting folks to the fact, that the movements of the plane during reboot and the activities to reboot dont correlate with the actions of one person alone. He says it needed at least two.
The other problem with this scenario is, even it Spencer will repeat it once and again, there is not the least likelihood of a suicidal event, and if you dont invent the science of psychology as a breathtaking new Spencer-Science, you will never come near to any “Zaharie did it”.
Third, there is another fact, that nobody can deny: Since everybody agrees, that we deal with something nefarious, the misleading MAS HQ info to HCM ATC clearly needs to be scrutinized as a possible outside support of the deviation. Since this action, that led to a considerable delay of declaration of state of emergency, took place while the plane was still flying it cannot have been the cover-up of a suicide. People tend to neglect this one of otherwise very few facts .
@littlefoot
”I think the satcom mystery can’t be separeted from the situation after the final major turn. If we solve that mystery we might know what the situation was like.”
And why should the satcom mystery be linked with the FMT ? They are two seperate events and there is a chance that they may be totally unrelated.
The truth is that the FMT and the events after that are somewhat ignored both by the official investigation and IG. I have not read one single indepth analysis of how a FMT could occur like that and the most likeliest scenario following it.Too much focus has been set on -IGARI, radar range, malacca straits etc while ignoring the MOST important event of the whole flight -the turn towards a unexplored world.
“LG” Posted July 20, 2015 at 11:13 AM
Hello All ~
So that there is absolutely no confusion, the above referenced post is NOT mine. I always use my Twitter handle, @LGHamiltonUSA, as my name on this website (and others), and I always sign my posts as I shall do so below.
Thanks:-)
~LG~
@all
guys, I am mostly with @RWR questions and please, if it wasnt already solved, for me both unanswered CALLS are still big mystery too – in highly speculative scenario, reading finally some parts of FI doc, its weird how MAS AOC(?) questioned ATCs (both KL+HCM) if they have some info about MH370, then mentioned Cambodian airspace, then mentioned east of Vietnam – both by predicted position on something consumer-grade(?) after plane disappeared (1 hour at least of wasted time, instead of alarming military and fighters to locate LOST 777 immediatelly as possible terrorist weapon – it is common??); at 18:39 there was call (in fact logged also using GES ID 301 which is EIK in Norway – how is this possible??) – being crazy, somebody on ground might “command” after chcecking plane is really reliably lost for everybody with some “proceed” notification by ringing call itself (question is, what if they ringed using the Q15 emergency priority, which IS possible to select by calling party, IMHO or really NOT??). Even the restart/logon may be some air2ground notification/question, this all happened around FMT which is our main mystery + then there was second pair of unanswered call and restart/logon at “end of misson”(?) too, but here GES ID was always 305=Perth (not understood why 301 Eik/Norway occured during 1st call). At least, when plane is missing and nobody knows where it is, satvoice is more reliable and they didnt tried to call the plane many times in early phase over Malaysia/FMT, but then tried it near fuel tanks empty, once again only, even if it was ringing?? Who exactly did such calls? Is it somewhere mentioned??
@falken :
“in fact logged also using GES ID 301 which is EIK in Norway – how is this possible??”
When i remember correctly the explanation was that MH370 was still in the northern hemisphere as the first call @18:39 UTC was initiated by MAS. So GES 301 was responsible for the connection.
@23:15 UTC, MH370 flew in the southern hemisphere, so GES 305 was responsible for the connection.
@CA
“The other problem with this scenario is, even it Spencer will repeat it once and again, there is not the least likelihood of a suicidal event, and if you dont invent the science of psychology as a breathtaking new Spencer-Science, you will never come near to any “Zaharie did it”.”
Then who else and why? There is a plausible motive for Z and he certainly had the experience to pull something like this, while we can’t be 100% sure I would be very surprised if it wasn’t him.
@LouVilla
ok, but GES is Ground station, so bound more to the party on ground(??), while plane is bound to available satellite and preffered GES to logon (always Perth, OK). This is where I dont know how it works, and if somebody can explain why Norway GES 301 occured during 1st call, then good to know, because otherwise it looks like somebody was calling near Norway? With country code 60? only NSA/GCHQ can do this probably 😉
@Cosmic, you raise some interesting points. I’ll try to address them one by one. And remember, this isn’t my championed scenario anyway, the reason being some of the issues you raised.
Let’s start with the last one. I agree with you fully that Zaharie didn’t exhibit openly suicidal tendencies comparable with Andreas Lubitz’s symptoms. But Zaharie’s social pages definitely show a man in a deep crisis ready to make a profound change in his life. In the scenario above he wouldn’t have started with the plan to commit suicide and kill everyone on the plane. He might’ve harbored the illusion that he could blackmail the Malaysian authorities into agreing with whatever he may have demanded. He might’ve neglecded to make a plan B in case of the Malaysians not reacting as he had planned. Maybe someone talked him out of his endeavor. And when that happened he was simply not ready to crash the plane into a prominent object in Kuala Lumpur. But he also couldn’t bring himself to give up, land somewhere and go to jail while having achieved exactly nothing. That’s when the suicidal thoughts might’ve crept up on him. He was in
a precarious state of mind after all.
This scenario might explain your other other concern as well: if Zaharie communicated with Malaysian authorities he might’ve ask to stand down the airforce and SAR in order to prolong the negotiations, which is a typical behavior of someone holding hostages. It would also explain that only two satphone calling attempts were made. Are there any hints that Zaharie tried indeed to make contact with the authorities? Maybe, a loitering period could be explained this way. And there is the claim of a Taiwanese member of the opposition who claims that he has it from an unassailable Malaysian source – a government member – that Zaharie did indeed make a long phone call and contacted the authorities as soon as he had turned around. The problem with this pretty damming claim is that this Taiwanese politician is a known skanderer and troublemaker, although in this case it’s not quite obvious what he had to gain from this claim.
As to your third point – that Zaharie couldn’t have done it alone: that’s interesting and Cheryl has made some remarks along this line, too. Maybe, he had an accomplice in the crew or more likely from the passengers.
Again, I’m playing devil’s advocate here. It’s not my favourite scenario anymore, but it manages to answers a few questions fairly well.
“Then who else and why? There is a plausible motive for Z and he certainly had the experience to pull something like this, while we can’t be 100% sure I would be very surprised if it wasn’t him.”
The left bus can be isolated easily here….
http://mutleyshangar.com/reviews/kh/cs777/img/777-overhead-night.jpg
…directly from the Cpt´s seat. Yes, it is not really surprising when “Z” did it. The FO had no access to such a panel from his seat.
Shah is a very smart guy. He certainly knew that the CVR would be over-written every two hours. The only reason he would have for turning it off would be to preserve a record of events (perhaps a cockpit entry by a person or person(s) intent on hijacking the aircraft.
A subsequent turn-on might have been forced on him by the unavailability of other functions on the left bus that were noticed to be absent.
@Dennis, I knew, too, long before mh370 that the voice recorder gets overwritten every two hours. It’s inconceivable that Zaharie didn’t know this. But if he originally planned to end his flight earlier than two hours after the turnaround then it makes sense that he erased it. When he finally decided to end it all in the SIO it didn’t matter anymore and he restored the power because he needed certain functions.
This explanation for the miraculous reboot of the SDU isn’t as stringent as the argument that the reboot was needed in order to start the spoof, but it’s not bad either. For the timing is still the greatest problem. Would Zaharie really start to replug just 35 seconds after he wad out of radar reach? Doesn’t sound very convincing to me. But who knows…
Fugro Discovery was last spotted at 40.13s, 85.50e (thanks, Richard Cole), which increases by several dozen MORE nautical miles the gap between where the ATSB is searching and what they themselves have indicated to be MH370’s performance limit.
Even if a pilot tried to maximize glide range, it is physically impossible to be out of fuel for 3.5min by [arc7 intersection], intersect arc7 sufficiently east to comply with the ATSB-imposed fuel limit, yet still glide – UPWIND – some 200 nautical miles out to where the Fugro ships are BOTH currently searching.
@Littlefoot
Yes, that works too.
@Brock I’m not sure the current search strategy is optimal anyway, maybe it would be better that they search more areas but cover less in each one. I think that plane is in at least several pieces if it’s really there so it would increase chances of finding it IMO.
For precision:
SW intersection of fuel limit and arc7: 38.3s, 87.9e, per ATSB
Distance ATSB/IG theorizes MH370 had already been gliding by arc7: 26 nmi (interpolated between 21 to arc7(FL0) and arc7(FL350), per Anderson paper)
Fugro Equator last position: 40.13s, 85.50e, per Cole
Distance from arc7 intersection to current search: 157 nmi, per Google Earth
Total required glide distance: 26 + 157 = 183 nmi (or more, to extent required turns were not abrupt) – primarily UPwind
Compare to IG-published maximum glide distance from 00:19 UTC: 117 (Mode 1; add 26 nmi for pre arc7 glide = 143 nmi)…CROSSwind
Gap: 183 – 143 = 40 nmi (plus significant effect of wind, plus added nmi for [arc-length in excess of crow’s flight])
“Optimal v. sub-optimal” is one thing – I’m talking about “possible v. impossible”, here.
ye I get you, just adding to that
Hi Jeff,
Zaharie would have known that the VCR only lasted 2 hours; but you must also consider that he was probably expecting some Malaysian fighters to intercept him. Maybe he was expecting to be shot down and the scramble never happened………..what do I do now?? Zaharie has a Homer Simpson moment!
OZ
He couldn’t be sure of interception or non-interception for that matter
Cutting off the power to the CVR preserves the recording of the last two hours. The only way to erase it is to let it run for the next two hours.
Could whoever had done this but power to the CVR specifically because he wanted his message to be heard by those who finally discover the black box? Interesting theory.
IIRC I saw a screen shot of the SATCOM page of the FMC / CDU a while back. Haven’t been able to re-find it yet.
IIRC, there was an ‘auto’ option, and also a pre-loaded list of SATID’s on the left-hand side that could be selected manually (presumably all would be INMARSAT) and the option of entering a new SATID / frequency on the right-hand side.
So … the SATCOM could (presumably) have been re-tuned to another (out of range) satellite or even to a non-existant SATID / frequency as a way of taking it offline with the IO satellite, without disabling the left bus.
Question is, would doing that have resulted in a ‘log-off’ message to the existing satellite (but there isn’t one in the INMARSAT log)?
If you could re-tune the SATCOM to prevent anyone making SAT calls or sending texts and emails, then why disable the bus? What else did they need to disable that couldn’t be disabled any other way other than going into the EE bay? Could it have been the passenger oxygen mask drop power feed, and/or the cabin lighting?
On the question of the left bus and CVR, doesn’t the CVR overwrite itself after 2 hours anyway?
@jeffwise, another great post – keep it up.
@all, if you believe (as some have suggested, regardless of their favored perp) that the pax were snuffed out at altitude; and if you believe that the perp(s) may have been primarily interested in re-heating the cockpit to more comfortable conditions at 18:22, it begs the question I have not seen much discussed. How did the perp(s) manage to function at -50 to -65 degrees (both Fahrenheit and Celsius)? A temperature at which frostbite occurs in ~5 minutes? Did Shah have a space suit stuffed into that tiny little carry-on?
Wait a minute…….if one wanted to preserve something on the CVR then they would have done the “3 switch” thing (left gen. off, bus tie off, b/u gen. off) around 17:21 or circa IGARI or thereafter, thus preserving whatever was on the CVR up to that point without intention of enabling it again IF the intention was to preserve what was said and not something else altogether. That action sounds more like pilot related than perp related at that juncture. So perps then turned everything else off before IGARI in the EEbay? But…………you have the reboot of the AES at 18:25, as a “consequence” now of re-enabling the CVR to erase or run out what was said and reconnect to IOR and start handshaking as another consequence? If it was pilot and the intent was the SIO from the get go no need to worry about the CVR as nothing would be on it at end of flight.
The way I get it these are possible AES reboot reasons: Anyone add to or correct me please.
1. Pilot or perps wanting to get rid of whatever was on CVR and erase it
2. Perps knowing of tracking implications and re-connecting to satellite to throw hounds off the scent, i.e. spoof
3. System glitch
4. Novice fiddling around as last resort
5. Pilot knowingly reconnects knowing of tracking implications as all is lost
6. 2 factions are involved with AES off and on, pilot off, perps back on?
Maybe it was a struggle between pilot and perps between IGARI and FMT with either perps winning out and a spoof executed, or no one winning out and an unfortunate SIO ending? Something to me is still missing with the AES (satcom) off and the AES (satcom) reboot.
As far as the inefficiencies mentioned during the first half hour or hour the plane went missing with KLATC, why didn’t MAS initiate a call then instead of looking at a projected flight path “not suitable for tracking” as soon as they heard on of their fleet did not check in to HCM as expected?
Something related to the CVR sounds like one of the first plausible reasons for AES shut-off/re-boot. It’s certainly not fully fleshed out, but is promising without a doubt.
I’d also like to explore the scenario dealing with cockpit temperature. Does anybody have any further information on this as it relates to shutting off the Left Bus
Add #7 then to above, did pilot or perps reboot in order to regulate cockpit temperature?
And was MAS the dog that did not bark at the right time it should have, or if they did bark why did RMAF let an unidentifiable, (assuming that is non-squawk identifiable), “non-hostile” aircraft traverse their airspace? And if they (MAS/RMAF) knew it was Captain Zaharie up to something then it was indeed very “hostile” at that point.
LouVilla,
I watched the “icemakercomplet” video again after you described it. It does indeed pause and then glasses are on the table with the lenses kind of facing all the parts on the table.
I don’t know what to make of these videos. Either they are just innocent and a good rendition of “This Old House – Malaysian-Style” or something else altogether? They do have some eery symbolism in them or are we just reading that into them?
@Cheryl, LouVilla, and anybody else who is analyzing these Shah youtube videos where he fixing various things:
COME ON! I’ve watched all of these videos. They are completely and 100% harmless, innocent videos of Shah fixing various appliances–many times in his sons house. It is outrageous that anybody could actually believe that he has hidden little tidbits of symbolism in these videos. It’s truly a case study in confirmation bias–where if you look for something with a preconceived notion, you WILL find what you’re looking for.
You could play for me a random episode of Seinfeld, and I could put together a convincing list of things regarding hidden symbolism relating to MH370.
The lines between fantasy fiction/ crime noir and real life have truly begun to blur for many people over MH370.
@Cheryl
One thing is very clear. MAS/RMAF understood full well that MH370 had diverted and gone dark.
Hishammuddin says UNEQUIVOCALLY that they knew it was both FROM THEIR AIRSPACE )this is critical) and ‘friendly’.
That MAS only attempted to call MH370 twice over a 6 hour a period can only be construed as confirmation that they were ORDERED to cease all contact attempts.
There is simply no way the ops headquarters would only attempt two calls under these circumstances. It just is inconceivable, no matter how asleep or incompetent.
And the Cambodia ploy was to buy critical time in order to assume an appropriate posture and formulate a response, IMO.
IMO, I believe they knew it was Z from the get-go. I mean, seriously, how could they not?
@Jay
In light of what has happened with the airplane that Mr. Zaharie just happened to be the Captain of, these videos are more than troubling.
The ‘window seal’ video (did you actually watch it..the headlines are placed PERFECTLY for the viewers consumption) is disturbing. There is NO WAY this is not purposely staged.
Sorry, but this is NOT confirmation bias when viewed and taken in context. A plane has vanished and it’s more than probable that he is responsible. I suppose you need be reminded of this tiny matter?
Spencer – leaving coded info in the videos takes it right out of the political realm and well into the evil genius realm.
All – commendable sleuthing as usual but why is it left to us? Or why is it not public info by now? The 9/11 investigation was far more open than this one. And why isn’t it even leaking? Never looked right to me and getting worse.
There’s really no value in me grounding my statements in rationality because you’ve proven to every person here that you are an irrational person (being 100% sure in something you cannot possibly know).
However, this is my rebuttal. Like I previously mentioned, you are construing the headlines of those newspaper articles to mean what you want them to mean. To me, and I mean this sincerely, I can see absolutely zero connection. They are: “HSBC aims to sell Pin An stake,” “The end is near for ‘Twilight’,”Bond drops by Afghanistan,” “Shadow banking threat rising,” and a couple others in Malay. This is truly about as random of a sample of headlines as I could imagine.
The video was published Feb 11th of 2013. The news clippings were taken from consecutive pages, and the reason why they are laid out with the headlines across the top is purely so he could get the most coverage with the least amount of pages. The entire time he is solely discussing the ins and outs of window pane, and this is being done at his son’s house.
The fact that you’re going on about this really makes me think that you are on the wrong forum. If I were Jeff, you would have been banned long ago.
@Hudson,
” How did the perp(s) manage to function at -50 to -65 degrees (both Fahrenheit and Celsius)?”
The perp/s don’t need to function at this temperature; more like 20+C. The air-conditioning can remain on, therefore supplying temperature. Pressurization to manual and open; the aircraft will depressurize, it doesn’t have sufficient flow. Case in point is the Helios accident.
OZ
@Jay
If confirmation bias is the issue, you should be concerned. Your agenda (as is clear by your persistent attacks on ONLY me, the rabid Zaharie accuser) is plain as day. Sigh. t couldn’t be more obvious.
If you bother to go through his FB postings, it is beyond clear that these were not just random selections, nor (obviously) haphazardly placed. Sigh.
I was only expressing an opinion on the matter that was counter to yours, but apparently that is reason for being banned…and your attacks continue unabated.
@Matty
If you don’t believe that Z deliberately put those specific headlines directly in eyesight and filmed them many times over, we are not watching the same video.
Jay,
I’ve been in Captain Zaharie’s camp from day one until something is proven against him. But since he is an official suspect I have been willing to take a step back and look at everything about him and trying to keep an open mind. I’m not convinced of anything at this point, and not convinced of hidden entendres yet either in the videos. Lou may have uncovered something deep that none of us caught, or not, we don’t know.
There may be nothing in those videos at all but strange coincidences but everything needs to be scrutinized. MH370 seems to have gone off like clockwork and was not a fly-by-night undertaking, it seems it was well planned by someone. Understandably that planning would had to have taken time, a perp or perps would have to understand the inner workings of the avionics in a B777 and satcom system.
I think Nik Huzan (the retired MAS pilot) said it best in general, he believes Zaharie would not do such a thing but if there are rumors or things then everything needs to be investigated. He is on Youtube saying as much. He was the pilot/colleague in the 4 Corners piece.
Cheryl, as we now know, Nik Huzlan, and Norudin, were both trotted out by Najib’s well-paid disinformation crew to comment on Zaharie in the media after 3/8. Neither of them had seen Zaharie for years. Through Jet Premier One, Norudin certainly is on the BN payroll, both above the table, and below. I would take with a generous pinch of salt anything coming out of that crooked media crew.
Spencer – You have indulged in ridicule and parody whenever it came to some theory that got away from your script but your video analysis is an expansive fiction. We have all said some dumb things at some point(all) but you are on a tangent now. And the irony is that exonerating Shah does not in any way alter the search strategy. In other words it’s a distraction. And your obsession.
@Matty
Funny, as even admitted Z ‘supporters’, or those looking for unimpeachable evidence against him before accusing see the videos as at the VERY LEAST curious.
Yet you see nothing but my ‘expansive fiction’.
How much are Najib and Hishammuddin paying you to spin falsehoods and constantly steer the narrative away from Zaharie?
Sigh.
Lucy,
I must have missed something. Where is there evidence that Nik Huzlan was paid by the regime, can you link it? I thought he was spot on in the 4 Corners thing as well as on Youtube. He takes a middle of the road, objective stance about it as far as I can tell. Thanks.
I am not very good of giving my opinion just in case I misunderstood or read something wrong. I really believe in my heart that Captain Zaharie is innocent. I also strongly believe all passengers are innocent as well. We hope MH370 will be found soon hope I had a dream recently and have a gut feeling they still alive lets hope miracle happens. But it’s too strange that MH370 vanished without a trace it’s nearly 18 months. Something is still not right how can a plane vanished. Where is MH370? Who switch off the transponder systems.
Spencer,
I hear what you are saying about the traversing and I suppose that is all possible but could it also be the “deemed non-hostile” was a CYA move as they did not catch it in “real time?” Or perhaps they did not want to divulge their radar capabilities or it was too embarrassing to admit they missed it in real time, so they had no recourse but to say they saw it and deemed it friendly at that point? Has it ever been clarified if they (RMAF) saw it in real time or on some time delay?
Cheryl,
In the 4corners interview, H clearly states that they tracked 370 in real time. He also clearly says that ‘we knew it was FROM our airspace’.
He stresses (somewhat unnecessarily emphatically IMO) that the a/c was ‘unidentified’ as it was being tracked. Huh? Yet you also KNOW it was ‘friendly’ and from ‘our airspace’, AND that MH370 was missing during this period??
No way. Just doesn’t add up, in any sense.
My point is that they either knew it was 370 in real time (not something unidentified) or, as you correctly note, are doing a big CYA job.
Of course, one must cherry pick what to believe and not believe when it comes from the mouth of Hishammuddin, but given the facts at hand and H’s own comments, it suggests to me that they were tracking 370 in real time all along.
Btw, that interview is surreal.
Cheers…and I’ll get hell for this, but I appreciate your willingness to look in unpleasant places, and your objectivity.
Edit:
H clearly states that they tracked an ‘unidentified’ aircraft in REAL TIME…which I believe wasn’t unidentified at all.
Has anyone done a 3D model of the radar coverage across the relevant Malaysian/Vietnamese/Thai/Indonesian airspace? Please point me to it if it is available.
It would be interesting to plot the probable/potential flight paths, elevations and timings through the model.
@Hudson,
Just to clarify previuos remarks. Assuming Left Main and Left Transfer buses off and aircon on; then flight deck temp can be anywhere between 5 and 20 C (uncontrollable).
OZ