There have been a number of interesting developments in MH370 land:
NEW MH370 PATH ANALYSIS by frequent commenter sk999 has impressed a lot of the old hands. Using somewhat different statistical techniques than the ATSB and IG before him, sk999 analyzes the Inmarsat data to assess where the plane would wind up under various autopilot modes. His results generally jibe with his predecessors’ work and add more weight to the idea that if the ATSB really believes that the plane was flying on autopilot-only, they would be better served by searching further to the north along the arc, beyond the limits of the current search box (though not north of Broken Ridge), rather than further away from the 7th arc as currently planned. What’s also notable, in my opinion, is sk999’s very clear elucidation of the problems with the routes that he assesses; for instance, he points out that all of the routes have problems accounting for speed inconsistencies in the 90 minutes between the fifth and sixth ping. These discrepencies are too large to be easily explained away as being due to inaccuracies in the winds-aloft data. Sk999’s frankness about these issues is refreshing; in the past, there has often been a tendency by those describing possible routes to adopt a position of, “Hey, here’s a route I came up with, it works really well, take my word for it.” (I’m probably as guilty of this as anyone.)
NAJIB IS IN TROUBLE and at last it looks like he may have to go. Is it possible that his ouster will lead to disclosures about what really happened in the aftermath of MH370’s disappearance? In a report last year, ICAO offered an uncharasterically harsh assessment of Malaysian government interference in the search process. Among their most glaring sins: allowing the search to proceed in the South China Sea for a week even though the military had spotted the plane turning toward the Andaman Sea the night of the disappearance; refusing to pass along crucial Inmarsat data to Australian officials who were tasked with searching the ocean for the plane; and lying about the determination that the flaperon had come from MH370 (it did, but that hadn’t yet been determined at that point). What the heck??
THE ATSB zinged airline pilot Byron Bailey, who wrote an error-filled article in the newspaper The Australian arguing that the only possible explanation for the disappearance of MH370 was pilot suicide. The ATSB had never before gone after an article in such detail before; they didn’t even touch Clive Irving’s piece in the Daily Beast, which was much worse (but which, on the other hand, was friendlier to the ghost-ship scenario that the ATSB still favors.) Personally I think it’s great to see the ATSB engage with the media coverage in this way; there’s too much nonsense about MH370 being peddled in the general media. Bailey responded to the ATSB critique with a second piece in The Australian.
THE ATSB ALSO perked up my ears with their response to an inquiry from reader Susie Crowe, who asked ATSB spokesman Dan O’Malley whether the Australians had received information from the French regarding their investigation into the Réunion Island flaperon. O’Malley replied, “The ATSB looks forward to receiving the report on the flaperon from the French judicial authorities, once it is completed.” In other words, Australia is spending over $100 million in taxpayer money to dispatch search crews to one of the most difficult and dangerous stretches of ocean in the world, and the French have not even shared with them information about the flaperon that might indicate whether or not they are looking in the right place! To which I might add: !!!!!!
@Jeff
Yes, things are happening, if at a somewhat glacial pace.
I agree that SK999’s work is very good. In fact, the best I have seen published thus far.
I still have a very difficult time understanding why the ATSB decided to begin an expensive acoustic search at all.
The analytics supporting the SIO terminus were far from compelling, and well below a bar that would normally be set by any corporate entity relative to triggering the expenditure of funds. It would seem to be one of or a combination of the following:
1> Decision makers were misled or misled themselves relative to the certainty of the analytics.
2> The Aussies wanted to be perceived as good world citizens, and felt like they had to do something.
3> The decision makers thought this was an excellent opportunity to map a largely unknown area for commercial purposes without having to go through a legislative approval process.
Relative to Bailey, I think he makes some very good points. The points were good enough to elicit a response from the ATSB. My own opinion is that the outcome of that debate is close. In fact, I would be inclined to give a slight nod to Bailey despite some obvious errors (which I put in the forgivable category).
@DennisW, Yes, I think that Bailey’s conclusion is one of the only two possible correct ones, so I won’t be too critical.
@Jeff
ad Najib, may be interesting to scan his FB too (najibrazak) and also formers ministry of transport, today – defense (HishammuddinH2O) – at least, they are all firmly against Daesh and any religious violence; be sure that very ugly opposition (religion-free) media war against current gov is almost the same here… wording of the article you linked is interesting, ya
The French connection. I meant to include it in my first reply, but the coffee had not kicked in yet.
While I do not have a pleasant history of interaction with the French, I can say that they do take their formal commitments seriously. Providing information about the flaperon to the Malaysians is one such commitment according to agreements they have signed. I truly believe the French have provided forensic information to the Malaysians, and that it is possible if not probable that it will appear in the next report scheduled for March of this year.
Why the information has not been made public would be speculative. Certainly the French are not the ones who are either obligated or authorized to make a public release. That decision falls squarely in the hands of the Malaysians.
Since I have never retreated from speculation, I will do so now. I think the forensic information will suggest damage produced by contact with the water while in a lowered position i.e a controlled ditch scenario. That is the worst possible conclusion for the Malays. It would be much better if the whole MH370 affair was dismissed as an unsolved accident, and not the result of a protest or some political intrigue gone wrong.
@DennisW
Understood Malaysia retains authority of the overall investigation, but it is difficult to believe the French would share results of the flaperon forensics with them and not also with the ATSB leading the search to locate the plane. That’s a tough one to justify
@Susie
Es la ley. The French are meticulous about that. To disclose that information to anyone else would be an ethical breach.
@DennisW, I don’t know what the law says, but French prosecutors were very quick to reveal a great deal of information about Andreas Lubitz within days of the Germanwings crash, essentially nipping all speculation in the bud. They have also already revealed a small amount of information about the flaperon. It is easy to imagine they would have the discretion to do more if they wished.
@Jeff
The French and Germans love each other (not). Also the Germanwings plane crashed in France. The present circumstances are quite different. I expect to hear nothing more directly from the French other than what might pertain to the ongoing criminal investigation, and it is unlikely they would release that information.
@Jeff,
There were a number of articles similar to below which are quite critical of the French investigative process:
http://www.phillyvoice.com/mh370-debris-exposes-divisions-over-air-crash-inve/
@DennisW,
I don’t think the French have released any info on the Flaperon to anyone (including Malaysia).
OZ
@DennisW
yupp, it was french manufactured plane and it happened in France, they wanted to lay the blame on german pilot as quick as possible (although I agree with their findings)
@DennisW
Because the flaperon was found in French territory and they have an active French judicial investigation ongoing, the French judiciary took responsibility for analyzing the flaperon. I’m not understanding the legal application regarding this to the Malaysian authorities
DennisW
Beating that horse here
It would seem in this case if the forensic analysis could assist the ATSB search they would release that information to them if they were not legally bound. Again, tough justification there.
@Susie
The Malaysians are formally in charge of the investigation since the actual terminus is unclear. The Aussies are invited participants. All information regarding the investigation of the disappearance of MH370 should pass through the country in which the aircraft was registered (Malaysia), and which country is formally in charge of the investigation.
In the case of the Germanwings crash the debris field was in French territory.
Although I believe we’ll never know what happened, I’m happy to be proven wrong. If it was pilot suicide, why the 7 hour detour? What was he doing all that time with an airplane full of dead people. If the spoof theory is really what occurred on mh370, I think I find that even MORE disturbing than the former. Anyways, cheers for reading, take it easy.
@Jeff
How about a poll on what went wrong? That would be interesting. I personally have a lot to say on that subject.
I am tempted to blog on it personally, but it would be a lot more fun to discuss it here.
@DennisW: What went wrong with the airplane, or what went wrong with the search? I don’t think we can really tackle either substantively til we find the damn thing.
6+ hrs in an aircraft with so much go wrong at once does say something about B777’s
However from the get go everything went wrong with the search.
@Jeff
Nothing went wrong with the airplane. A lot went wrong with the analytics or the search as you put it.
I think there are substantial problems with the latter that need to be discussed and exposed.
@Brian Anderson: you asked me a couple of threads ago for my assessment of the likelihood the Orion photo was of the Réunion flaperon in particular, or MH370 debris in general. Here it is:
Very, very unlikely. My basis for this conclusion is:
– this was big news March 28 – HUGE news. It obliterated every other discussion. For instance: questions as to why the ATSB was moving to this area from 1,100km SW (where they’re searching NOW), for reasons bizarre enough to draw me into this saga to begin with. The rectangular image was all over websites the world over, and an Australian plane was dispatched to go confirm or rule out authenticity forthwith. The next bizarre move 1,400km FURTHER NE wasn’t for another week, so if anyone thought there was reason to investigate this, they would have.
– as a flutter-mangled flaperon, the image’s dimensions appear off by a fair bit. The Réunion flaperon was roughly 9′ by 3′ (per Clive Irving), having lost what one analyst estimated to be 40% of its width. To my eye, this seems a titch narrow – and with one edge so ragged, it has an indeterminate width – but I’ll give it 3.5 feet in average width. I’m neither qualified nor interested in debating how much of this loss was flutter vs ocean vs rocks – your colleague was pretty emphatic about this being explainable by flutter, so the dimensions are off. The image is nowhere near 9′ by 3.5′.
– Most importantly: if CSIRO is accurate, then its modeled scenarios closest to this photo’s location all head WEST between March 8 and March 27 (see linked image). Recall CSIRO starts drifters from the ATSB’s fuel limit of record, not the 7th Arc, so its paths start 85nmi OUTside the arc on March 8, and by March 27 have travelled 100nmi INside the arc – precisely the converse of what would be required for your scenario:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-r3yuaF2p72Mk9vT3Z1WkpSejg/view?usp=sharing
– If CSIRO is INaccurate – i.e. it is overvaluing wind effects – then the flaperon could never have reached Réunion to begin with.
So either your images could not have been MH370 debris, or the flaperon was planted.
Or – and I lean toward this, frankly – both.
But I’d dearly love to be put in contact with your source for the images. Jeff has my permission to give you my e-mail address, if you wish to connect.
Parting shot: if EXIF data verifies authenticity, then the plane landed at Diego Garcia, correct? (Not accusing, of course; just hoping we can hold ourselves to the same standards to which we hold others.)
Dennis,
Nothing went wrong with the search; I am a strong supporter of ATSB actions, and I would do exactly the same. ATSB is under public pressure, and obviously cannot address all gut feelings. In addition, their actions are bounded by bureaucracy.
I also do not undestand those who critique Malaysian Government. Messy – yes. But politics is their internal affairs, which has nothing to do with MH370. In comparison with:
– French, who are hiding the Flaperon;
– UK Inmarsat, who is hiding full logs;
– US Boeing and other hardware manufacturers, who refuse to provide essential technical details to the public;
– Australian Curtin University, who is hiding details of their possibly essential study, making it impossible to verify their conclusion or discuss alternative.
I think Malaysians are quite unprecedented and open in the level of details they released to the public.
The Flaperon may have been planted and could be from the MH17 wreckage. I suspect it was released from the Arabian Sea. Was done to distract or make a case for extra funding possibly.
To MH what makes you think that the Flaperon was released from the Arabian Sea?
@Oleksandr
“Nothing went wrong with the search; I am a strong supporter of ATSB actions, and I would do exactly the same. ATSB is under public pressure, and obviously cannot address all gut feelings.”
Why is straight flight to nowhere less gut feeling than failing to approach the airport in what was likely very hard situation for whoever was the PIC at the time?!
“In addition, their actions are bounded by bureaucracy.”
Yupp, that’s also big part of the problem.
@MH
This is not the forum for conspiracy theories, especially not for repeating those without any reasonable explanation.
@Oleksandr
Fair enough. I understand your point of view. I would have done things MUCH differently.
My criteria for success is results driven as would be the case with anyone coming from industry versus academia. To say nothing went wrong with the search blatantly ignores the fact that it has produced zero results. You don’t get points for trying when you have a board of directors to report to. You either get results or you are job hunting.
@StevenG – even a failed landing that ended up nearby CI would have produced debris or an aircraft body staying afloat “indefinitely” as the impact would not have been that substantial to disintegrate the airframe.
@Joseph C- its the shortest path which would have just enough barnacle growth for about 1 or 2 months. anywhere else there would have to be much more barnacle growth if the flatiron was floating free in those gyres.
@DennisW, The search isn’t over yet; and assuming they do reach the limits of the current search box without having found anything, they won’t have failed at all, in my estimation: they will have successfully demonstrated that the most likely scenario, which has been accepted almost universally by the general media, was in fact incorrect. This hopefully will at last open the door to the examination of scenarios that were heretofore judged less likely but in my opinion are much more interesting!
Columbus failed to find India…
@Jeff
You are a smart guy. Think about the events surrounding this disappearance. Even allowing for cultural differences the initial response of the Malaysian authorities was bizarre. As soon as the aircraft went missing, all sorts of alarm bells should have been going off. The Malaysian response was anything but that. Why? The obvious reason is that they knew damn well the aircraft had been diverted. They may not have known where it was diverted to, but there is little doubt based on their response that they knew something was going on.
The Aussies should have had several “come to Jesus” meetings with the Malaysians to fully understand the Malaysian behavior in the hours after Igari. I see no evidence that it ever happened. Instead they took took the spreadsheets of a bunch of math geeks and tossed $100M in the toilet. Where is the accountability here? The Australian government is accountable to the citizens of Australia just as I was accountable to the stockholders of a pubic traded company. You don’t do stuff like that. It is a breach of your responsibility to not completely understand what it is you are getting into.
Most likely scenario? Please. I have been hearing that for almost two years. There is absolutely nothing likely about a South turn into the middle of nowhere. There is no credible causality and there is no credible motive. How anyone can say that scenario is most likely defies logic. It might be the most likely if one puts blinders on and looks only at the Inmarsat data. Even then, I would dispute and have disputed the conclusion that it is the most likely scenario. It is simply one of many possible scenarios.
As I have blogged elsewhere, the search for MH370 is a clusterfuck plain and simple, and I put the blame solely on the ATSB or JACC or whoever is writing checks in Australia. The IG and other outside investigators are simply blameless Good Samaritans – blameless and clueless. Their efforts supporting the current search area may have helped diffuse public outrage since the ATSB can point to their conclusions as the support of outside experts who have no dog in the fight.
@DennisW – if the funds did run dry, maybe it would have been easier to expose the embarrassing truths for each of the players(aka clusterfuck members).
@DennisW
Incredibly well stated, it’s about time someone called it the way it is with conviction.
IMO, the main atrocity in this has been the namby pamby way in which the investigational debacle has been described.
This IS an unprecedented event and all cards are off the table, those trying to defend the various authorities following protocol need to realize there IS no protocol here.
C’mon people, almost 2 years ago a plane full of people took off never to be seen again, there is nothing remotely close to compare
@DennisW:
You too are obviously a smart guy. Therefore it is disappointing to see you now entangled in hindsight bias.
On 23 March 2014 Inmarsat presented its “Differential Doppler study” to the UK AAIB, which in turn presented it to the Malaysian authorities. That study produced convincing evidence that the airplane had turned south, into an area of the world where Australia is responsible for the Search Rescue efforts after aviation or shipping disasters.
What reason could Australia possibly have had in March 2014 to doubt the authenticity of data that Inmarsat had found in its communication logs? It is the authenticity of those data that you are now putting into doubt, not their interpretation by all those interested ‘geeks’ in the world.
@Gysbreght
I have never doubted the Inmarsat data. I raised the possibility early on in Duncan’s blog that it may have been spoofed, but I regard that as extremely unlikely. If you have been following my posts here you would know that I have always strongly supported the ISAT data.
I have also stated many times that the ISAT data does not adequately constrain the flight path. If it did the “most likely” scenario would not be changing about as often as I change my underwear.
‘This IS an unprecedented event and all cards are off the table, those trying to defend the various authorities following protocol need to realize there IS no protocol here.
C’mon people, almost 2 years ago a plane full of people took off never to be seen again, there is nothing remotely close to compare’ – @susiecrowe brilliantly said! I cannot stand the mainstream reporting of this incident (atrocity?) Hence why I’m here. I wish I didn’t care. But I do.
@jeffwise
“which has been accepted almost universally by the general media”
general media tends to accept whatever authorities will tell them often without any questioning and regardless if they are right or not (human-induced gullible warming or iraqi WMD for example)
@DennisW:
Apologies for misreading your post. So if you don’t doubt the Inmarsat data, you don’t doubt the turn south, “Nothing went wrong with the airplane”, and the plan was to land “somewhere”, then what did go wrong after the turn south?
Dennis,
Re: “The obvious reason is that they [Malaysians] knew damn well the aircraft had been diverted.”
Where does this come from? Who specifically?
What happened initially was confusion, mess and absence of coordination. Malaysia is certainly not as good organised as some western countries, but what is their real fault, not your speculative aqussations?
@Gysbreght
I have no idea. The data certainly supports the notion that the aircraft continued to fly until fuel exhaustion.
Perhaps in March we will learn if it was ditched in a controlled fashion or plunged into the sea. I also believe that information has been known for some time, likewise the pedigree of the barnacles. Lack of prompt and honest disclosure continues to be a major source of aggravation.
Gysbreght,
Re: “So if you don’t doubt the Inmarsat data, you don’t doubt the turn south…”
Here is a tricky part of CI scenario I fail to understand. Dennis needs BFO data to justify the turn, but then argues that BFO is not reliable or not accurate. StevanG does not need BFO data at all because the turn towards Australia is “obvious”, while subsequent discrepancies in BFOs can be explained by vertical movements.
Perhaps they can explain once again?
@Oleksandr
You continue to nit pick. We are on the same side here. I am on your side. Just because I let some air out of your balloon is no reason to get quarrelsome. If you want to see data relative to BFO accuracy take a look at Figure 5.4 of “Bayesian Methods…”.
The turn South does not need BFO accuracy for support. Even if the BFO and BTO were perfectly accurate they cannot constrain a flight path. You know, I know, and anyone with a brain knows that assumptions need to be made relative to the flight dynamics in order to stick a pin in map.
Jeff,
Here is animation of EY440 flight path. I am a bit struggling to balance between a good quality picture and small file size (file size 20 Mb):
https://www.dropbox.com/s/08xh0ma1pw8wn4i/ey440.avi?dl=0
7z does a lot better job in this case, and the same file can be downloaded from dropbox.com/s/gd5nsf9xbjpqkg8/ey440.7z?dl=0 (download, unpack and play). Anyway in Media Player it looks a lot better.
Note there are gaps in the original data resulting in “jumps” as I did not apply resampling.
I have to say that I was wrong: EY440 made 5.5 loops in the Malacca, but not 3 as I initially wrote.
Question: what mode could be used to cycle over the Malacca? AP does not allow for curved trajectories in my understanding. Manually piloted at FL360 for an hour? Also unlikely. What else?
@Gysbreght
““Nothing went wrong with the airplane”, and the plan was to land “somewhere”, then what did go wrong after the turn south?”
many things could go wrong, especially if Captain was without any help for conducting his plan
there was a second pilot on board who might have got scared after getting to the SIO although he accepted to cooperate until FMT, there was an electronic engineer on board who might have known about E/E bay and tried to persuade the Captain to open the door etc. etc.
many unknowns and we could just speculate which I don’t like to do
@Oleksandr
“What happened initially was confusion, mess and absence of coordination.”
I think they reviewed radar logs quickly after losing the plane and it shouldn’t be hard for them to recognize it was MH370 that got rogue along thai border…so I suspect they knew but maybe they weren’t so sure.
I agree with you they were very confused.
“Here is a tricky part of CI scenario I fail to understand. Dennis needs BFO data to justify the turn, but then argues that BFO is not reliable or not accurate. StevanG does not need BFO data at all because the turn towards Australia is “obvious”, while subsequent discrepancies in BFOs can be explained by vertical movements.”
ghost flight towards Australia is ATSB idea(that I agree with) not mine, there is a little chance it went S or slightly SW but how much is that in numbers, 0,001%?!
yeah I suspect there might have been slight vertical movements, in a situation where there are so many unknowns you can’t assume the stable autopilot flight is the only thing that could have happened
“Question: what mode could be used to cycle over the Malacca?”
Not an expert on this, but my guess would be:
A/T >> SPD
Roll >> ATT (15 deg bank set up by the pilot)
Pitch >> ALT
@all
I will try a rather common sense approach. I mentioned earlier how many answerable questions remain answered, why is that?? Initially I assumed it was because corrupt Najib wasn’t playing nice, neither were certain militaries and gosh darn it, some were actually lying about information.
So what were we to do? It’s not like we in the U.S. have vast resources, reporters stationed all over the globe, 24-hour news stations that will track just about anything worldwide and call it “news”
Reporters who will put it all on the line either by the unrest of the country they are in or by the danger of the story itself, have shown no interest in searching for answers to one of the greatest mysteries of all time. Why?
Why were there not a slew of reporters getting answers to the answerable questions of which there are so many?
The Inmarsat data clearly succeeded in one area. Because roughly (purely a guess) 99% of the people were unable to understand the data, it intimidated those who didn’t into a posture of acquiescence.
Intelligent common sense thinking was hung out to dry as the brilliance poured out to configure data which formed a magnificent conglomerate of intellect that has been and continues to be a key player.
But what of the other 99% who had equal or more passion, commitment, some coupled with experience. I imagine many of the self stifled would have joined in, if not for the (yawn), endless, superior, data reviews.
Please do not mistake my words as a lack of respect or admiration for the intellectuals, on the contrary, I hold them in the highest regard. Only that the basics could have, should have, also been pushed and I worry that we have lost our sense of what is appropriately expected.
@jG (james)
People caring is what makes it work, glad you do.
I have no dog in this hunt, my reasons are simple, I advocate for the nok whom are unable themselves
@Susie
I have been on both ends of this type of issue doing product forensics with knowledgeable customers. The more data you provide, the more time you spend answering questions, and the people who can answer the questions with accuracy are needed to work the problem internally. It truly is a double edged sword. At times you just want to say leave us alone so we can focus on problem, and not spend a ton of time answering your questions. I feel some empathy for the players on the other end as well.
Gysbreght,
Thanks. Why 15 deg? Note speed was slighly varying during cycling.
If bank angle was set to zero or close to zero, we would have another mh370. Am I right?
I would be interested in knowing IG position with regard to the above issue. Some IG members were previously arguing that AP is the only possible stable mode of a flight. So, what hardware/software does keep stability in this case?
Also, I would be interested to hear Dennis’ and StevanG’s comments with regard to motive. Any idea?
Jeff, LouVilla,
Any luck with contacting Xaver? As time passes, he will not be able to recall details, and potentially valuable information will be lost forever.
Do you think Anwar’s conviction the morning before the flight was just a coincidence?!
StevanG,
I am asking about EY440. Any idea why it barely escaped the fate of MH370, or if this bizarre route was planned, what could be a reason? Also 7th (but Jan) also midnight, also Malacca.
With Regard to Anwar, I think these two events are simply irrelevant. Coincidence if you wish. Just imagine, someone got in a traffic accident on the same date. Would you also call it coincidence and suspect some relevance between these two events?