Last week we discussed what we know about the first hour of MH370’s disappearance, based on primary radar data and the first Inmarsat BTO value. Today I’d like to talk about the BFO data and what it can tell us about MH370’s fate.
As longtime readers of this blog well know, the Burst Frequency Offset (BFO) is a type of metadata that measures how different the frequency of an Inmarsat signal is from its expected value. It is an important value to a communications satellite operator like Inmarsat because if the value gets too large, the system will be operating outside its approved frequency limit. One cause of such a change would be if a satellite begins wandering in its orbit, which indeed was the case with MH370. The fact that the Satellite Data Unit (SDU) aboard MH370 did not properly compensate for drift in the Inmarsat satellite overhead is the reason the BFO data contains a signal indicating what the plane was doing.
While each of the BTO values recording during the seven “pings” tells us fairly precisely how far the plane was from the satellite at that time, the BFO data points taken individually do not tell us much about the plane was doing. Taken together, however, they indicate three things:
- After the SDU logged back on with Inmarsat at 18:25, the plane took a generally southern course. If we didn’t have the BFO data, we wouldn’t know, from the BTO data alone, whether the plane followed a path to the north or to the south (see above.)
- The plane had turned south by 18:40. The BFO value at the time of the first incoming sat phone call at 18:40 indicates that the plane was traveling south.
- At 0:19:37 the plane was in a rapid and accelerating decent.
However, as I’ve previously described, if all of these things were true, then the plane would have been found by now. So at least one of them must be false. In the course of my interview with him, Neil Gordon said that the ATSB is firmly convinced that #3 is true, and that as a result he suspects that #2 is not. Specifically, he points out that if the plane were in a descent at 18:40, it could produce the BFO values observed. Thus it is possible that the plane did not perform a “final major turn” prior to 18:40 but instead loitered in the vicinity of the Andaman Islands or western Sumatra before turning and flying into the southern ocean. If this were the case, it would result in the plane turning up to the northeast of the current search area. An example of such a route has been described by Victor Iannello at the Duncan Steel website.
It is worth nothing that such a scenario was explicitly rejected as unlikely by the Australian government when they decided to spend approximately $150 million to search 120,000 square kilometers of seabed. The reason is that it was deemed unlikely that the plane would just happen, by chance to be descending at the right time and at the right rate to look like a southward flight. For my part, I also find it hard to imagine why whoever took the plane would fly it at high speed through Malaysian airspace, then linger for perhaps as much as an hour without contacting anybody at the airline, at ATC, or in the Malysian government (because, indeed, none of these were contacted) and then continuing on once more at high speed in a flight to oblivion.
Well, is there any other alternative? Yes, and it is one that, though historically unpopular, is becoming imore urgent as the plane’s absence from the search area becomes increasingly clear: the BFO data is unreliable. That is to say, someone deliberately altered it.
There are various ways that we can imagine this happening, but the only one that stands up to scrutiny is that someone on board the plane altered a variable in the Satellite Data Unit or tampered with the navigation information fed back to the SDU from the E/E bay. Indeed, we know that the SDU was tampered with: it was turned off, then logged back on with Inmarsat, something that does not happen in the course of normal aircraft operation. It has been speculated that this depowering and repowering occurred as the result of action to disable and re-enable some other piece of equipment, but no one has every come up with a very compelling story as to what that piece of equipment might be. Given the evident problems with the BFO data in our possession, I feel we must consider the possibility that the intended object of the action was the SDU itself.
When I say BFO tampering has been “historically unpopular,” what I mean is that almost everyone who considers themselves a serious MH370 researcher has from the beginning assumed that the BFO data was generated by a normally functioning, untampered-with SDU, and this has limited the scenarios that have been considered acceptable. For a long time I imagined that search officials might know of a reason why tampering could not have occurred, but I no longer believe this is the case. When I questioned Inmarsat whether it was possible that the BFO data could have been spoofed, one of their team said “all Inmarsat can do is work with the data and information and the various testings that we’ve been doing.” And when I raised the issue with Neil Gordon, he said, “All I’ve done is process the data as given to me to produce this distribution.” So it seems that the possibility of BFO spoofing has not been seriously contemplated by search officials.
If we allow ourselves to grapple with the possibility that the BFO data was deliberately tampered with, we quickly find ourselves confronting a radically different set of assumptions about the fate of the plane and the motives of those who took it. These assumptions eliminate some of the problems that we have previously faced in trying to make sense of the MH370 mystery, but introduce new ones, as I’ll explore in upcoming posts.
@Jeff
eyes rolling
Here comes Kazakstan.
The BFO data is perfectly valid. It rules out a Northern flight path. It does not rule out a large ensemble of Southern flight paths.
@RetiredF4
“Yes I’m sure, I looked at it already two years ago and have some HD pictures stowed on my HD. The system was changed after Mh370 though and can now only be unlocked from the cabin side.”
Would love to see those pics. Are they posted anywhere? Also, there have been 36 airworthiness directives issued for the B777 since 08Mar14. I see lots of them pertaining to O2 system but I can’t find one requiring the removal of the inside handle of the hatch. Can you?
“If the Malays like to blame Z, they’d have done it long ago.”
MAS is a state run airline. If they had implicated their own pilot as the official reason for the crash, they’d be on the hook for orders of magnitude more money in settlements than they are with a “mystery disappearance.” I don’t think it’s any coincidence that the flight sim data began finding its way into the hands of journalists all over the world right around the time the statute of limitations on wrongful death lawsuits happened to expire.
I never understood it either, until someone explained the statute of limitations angle and then it occurred to me that the Malaysians had a serious financial motivation to obfuscate if they knew from the start that it was their pilot who’d done the deed. Without that admission, the Montreal Convention caps per-victim compensation at $175,000. ( http://fortune.com/2014/05/01/the-big-money-surprise-about-malaysia-airlines-flight-370/ )
“No cell towers at IGARI”
I wasn’t referring to cell calls over the S China Sea. I was referring to cell towers over Malaysia/Thailand.
With every challenge, the sophisticated hijacker scenario gets more and more complicated. It involves breaching the belly hatch of the EE bay on the ground in KUL. Firearms. Bursting up through a hatch that has either a flight attending sitting directly above it or carpet velcroed over top of it or both.
Now, when confronted with questions on what the pax did, the scenario evolves to include rendering them all unconscious in the few minutes between the turn back and reaching the Malaysian/Thai coast. I mean, Jeff’s even adding background about some guy in 12D being a Russian scuba diver. Where does it end?
One theory is extremely straightforward from an aviation perspective and complex from a human perspective.
The other theory is total Hollywood from an aviation perspective and simple from a human perspective.
I happen to think aviation is really simple and is based on the laws of physics and math and procedures and statistics. Humans, on the other hand, are complex and unknowable and, therefore, I don’t really give a fraction of a crap as to the psychology of Zaharie Shah. There have been many suicidal pilots before him and there will be many after him and I just don’t care about that aspect of the story, except to say it’s hideous and awful, etc.
I just know what the simple explanation is when you look at the aviation details and that’s why I post in aviation forums. If I wanted to psychoanalyze someone, I’d be posting at Psychology Today.
Two of Jeff’s articles ago, I suggested the data was incorrect, much to the dismissal of the self appointed “serious researchers” who argue around said date. I call either a spoof or compete fabrication, that data was intended to be a decoy.
Australian Government/officialdom naively takes Big Bother’s intelligence as valid, without question and goes fishing in the wrong location.
Noted: is a fair bit of shill-diggery on these threads.
@Jeff
See what you have done with your recent nonsense post? You have Gloria a chance to come up for air, and for Matt M. to generate what amounts to a rant. What were you thinking?
This thread is not going to end well. I can only imagine the idiots who will come out of the woodwork.
@DennisW
A rant? I answered 3 quotes from F4 and gave an opinion on the ridiculousness of the EEbay hijack scenario.
That’s a rant?
@Matt Moriarty
Yes pilots are put through a selection process to make sure they are of a more suicidal prone personality type.
@Jokes aside,
It makes more sense to expedite the cause of plane crashes, to blame a dead pilot. One person, deceased, is responsible. The scenario has been invoked too many time for it to be considered valid, called for what it is.
Modern airline events and accidents are more likely systems errors as seen with airbus, problematic fly by wire too many times or covert military actions.
BTW, I was the one who posted the information and links about Montreal Convention, statute of limitations and limited damages value.
If MAS and Malaysian Government have been threatened to silence (aka MH17) then any threat might contain the sweetener of time-lapse to include the MC limits. Does not apply if the families filed earlier, may not apply under the circumstances.
@DennisW – You were the first out of the rabbit hole with a -‘ve comment… time to listen to “White Rabbit” to clear that up. Its truly time to evaluate all BFO directions.
@Matt M
Yes. Your post came at the wrong time. It was unfair of me to characterize the way I did. My apologies.
@Gloria
Get real. Pilot error (including weather mistakes) accounted for 60% of fatalities in the 2000s.
Mechanical and sabotage combined are 27%.
http://planecrashinfo.com/cause.htm
@ketterfje
Posted September 24, 2016 at 12:33 AM
@Susie, “IF ZS is the non rogue person you claim and that pointing the finger at him is baseless, you would also be able to fill in the blanks on what he or Fariq would have done in case of a hijacking.Or the passengers for that matter.”
I do not feel “pointing the finger” at Z is baseless, it is some of the reasoning that seems baseless. Regardless of my thoughts or feelings, I will always be on the side of the story that incorporates all facts and information to form the most rational scenario. As for how the co-pilot or passengers would have responded, that is a question that should be applicable to any compilation. Unless you are suggesting that if Z was the solo perp, it would not have been an issue because they would have all stayed docile while he flew 8 hours to the SIO.
@all
Addressing certain issues by discussion here, can be a way to capitalize on lack of information elsewhere. For me it has been difficult to mention topics that include what may have happened to the passengers. If family members read this, it felt hurtful to suggest plausible means off neutralizing passengers. It also felt wrong to openly consider various ways the cockpit could be breached, compromising information that does not necessarily need broadcasting. Sadly, this was all necessitated by the ineptness of authorities assigned the responsibility of process. This blog stemmed from compassion to assist with that process, and determination grew as that authoritative process began to fail. That is why I am offended by the “conspiracy theory” moniker. This is not about elaborate anti-authoritative story concocting, it is hopefully a culmination of passion and intellect, sharing the common goal of finding resolution.
Having said that, perhaps it is time to try and satisfy other possibilities of disabling the passengers whomever the culprit. The “loiter” could very well have been key to this, until they were all incapacitated.
@JeffWise
My off topic apology for sending this before I even your latest thread. I hope you celebrated last night, very concise well done documentary!
@JeffWise
“if all of these things were true, then the plane would have been found by now.”
Not necessarily.
Neither the world’s preeminent Bayesian search expert, Dr. Lawrence Stone (who found AF447 when no one else could) nor his trusted hardware guy, Rob McCallum (whose sonar found AF447), have been involved in the search for MH370.
Dr. Gordon is a smart guy, but nowhere near as experienced as Stone. And Fugro? What was their deepwater recovery resume prior to getting the bid? Nothing close to McCallum’s.
And this is the team looking for a pair of toasters in 12,000′ of water?
This aspect deserves as much scrutiny as the BFO data if you ask me.
@JeffWise
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-statisticians-could-help-find-flight-370/
One of my top 10 MH370 questions: Why were Stone/Metron/McCallum kept out of the search?
Jeff don’t we need to prioritize brainstorming to help define search area in SIO?
Personally for now I am adopting someone else’s hypothesis that Z wanted to crash into the ocean above the undersea mountains.
More generally, we need to discard the ghost flight concept, and start to get into the pilot’s mind (and simulator cases) to see if we can put an X on the map for the limited future searches.
My X is currently where the 7th arc hits the BR range, assuming we did not look there yet, and assuming the 7th arc is the correct end spot. I foresee possible flight-end maneuvers to hit a certain x,y coordinate, but I am not smart enough to say exactly what, or if that makes the BFO wrong as currently interpreted.
@TBill, Broken Ridge is achievable as a destination only if there is a loiter before the turn south. This is problematic for the reasons cited in the post.
@Matt Moriarty, I’m sure Stone and McCallum are good, but I think Gordon & Co. are doing solid work as well.
@Susie Crowe, Thanks once more for your kind words. MH370 is a knotty problem but at least I’ve never worried that someone was about to kill me.
@DennisW, You wrote, “The BFO data is perfectly valid.” But why do you say that? Because you feel it? If the passion of one convictions were our only gauge of truth we would still be making sacrifices to appease the gods. If on the other hand you can demonstrate that the deliberate alteration of BFO values is impossible, please do it.
And I emphasize “impossible,” not “improbable.” I think everyone understands that such a scenario is improbable. But improbable scenarios are all we have left.
@Jeff
Early on a retired Malaysian businessman discussed with me the political situation in Malaysia, explaining that Shah had been caught up in it and that he was aware of meetings Shah had in the days before the flight.
I have no reason to doubt his integrity and what he told me.
In the last 2½ years nothing that has come to light including BFO data appears at odds with what I understand had been planned.
@JeffW
Well I can explain the loiter philosophically as need to achieve certain goals such as sun rise at the end or using up spare fuel to have empty fuel supply end the flight at the BR. But I am not sure if he needed empty fuel at the end.
You are prioritizing the numbers and trying make the flight fit the math. I am prioritizing the flight targets and asking if you can make the math fit it. I think you said yes with a loiter.
@Freddie, Okay, so what did you understand had been planned? Who is the businessman, what was your connection to him, and what was his connection to this plot? The more detail you can provide, the more value your information will have.
Bear in mind that a lot of rumors get started because someone says they “know” something when they really just think it.
@MM
The ‘bickering’ over search contract has been well discussed. However the Kongsberg HUGIN 4500 AUV as used by Fugro Supporter has been described as the world’s best AUV;
https://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking/2015/05/06/crucial-deep-sea-search-vehicle-suspended-from-mh370-search/
Perhaps it’s the brains behind it.
Anyway it seems by December this year 120,000 square kilometers of the PSZ will have been searched and critical areas rescanned without a result. It would seem the the chance of a false negative is close enough to zero.
Surely the ghost flight hypothesis becomes less likely.
shortly after the disappearance happened a professor from China using satellite imagery from the area near his calculations seemed to find a potential endpoint for MH370. It was in the mountains south of Almaty, KZ where the imagery showed what might looking a smoke residue on snow. Just wondering how the BFO.BTO data fits as calculated by other contributors and if there is anything supporting this.
@MH, Could you dig up the link to that story?
Original contents:
http://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-612468-777530.html
http://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-612468-777816.html
http://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-612468-778365.html
But apparently Duncan Steel also had it on his site
http://www.duncansteel.com/archives/621
@Matt Moriarty,
Er, wrong again.
According to Federal Aviation Administration data they have attributed, 24 American pilots killed themselves while flying their planes in the last two decades.
And that is just American pilots.
Internationally, another 8 crashes attributed crashes.
Not taking into account the faked 9 1 1 suicides.
Either a psychological issue for pilots, an easy out for investigations. The business of flying (making/selling planes and airline seats) will not want accidents attributed to systems errors but individual human errors, no mechanical, electronic maintenance failure to see here folks.
Individual suicide is significantly more than mass suicide and yet this high number of mass murdering suicidal pilots.
@MH, Thank you. Yes, the Beshtash Valley. I remember it now.
@ Freddie,
@Jeff
“Early on a retired Malaysian businessman discussed with me the political situation in Malaysia, explaining that Shah had been caught up in it and that he was aware of meetings Shah had in the days before the flight.
I have no reason to doubt his integrity and what he told me.
In the last 2½ years nothing that has come to light including BFO data appears at odds with what I understand had been planned.”
Early on an Israeli businessman told me something was being tested, it worked and the plane would never be found…
I have no reason to doubt his integrity as he was retired military.
@Gloria
Sorry, not wrong at all. Look it up.
Besides that, I cannot for the life of me decipher what you’re trying to say to me.
You’re misplacing punctuation marks, using nonsensical phrases like “another 8 crashes attributed crashes.” And this: “Individual suicide is significantly more than mass suicide…”
Significantly more “what?” More prevalent? More rare? More significant?
And the faked 9/11 suicides? Huh?
Can anybody help me understand her?
@Steve Barratt
“the chance of a false negative is close enough to zero.”
That is exactly what the French and British were saying about about AF447 after two full years of searching. Then, as reasonable nations do, they called Stone and his company Metron and within 6 days of implementing his methods, they found it.
Here we are, two + years after the disappearance of MH370, and yet nobody’s calling Stone and McCallum to save the day like the French did in 2011.
Why not?
($5 US to anyone who can prove that’s not a reasonable question.)
I think the biggest argument at the time against the Beshtash Valley endpoint was the “BFO” was “purported” to be “South”-bound even to convince DS. So hopefully those who can revisit Dr Yaoqiu Kuang’s math for verification.
@RetiredF4, Under the Montreal convention MAS is liable for SDR 113.400 (approx USD 175k) without proof of fault.Under Article 21(2) of the convention MAS is also liable for all of the plaintiffs damages unless it can prove it was completely without fault and ther accident was caused solely by a third party. Under the MC airlines have to prove they are completely without fault. It is doubtful MAS will be able to mount a defense under Article 21(2) as they have to prove they could not in way prevent the abduction and a crime/terrorist act from being committed.
@Keffertje
Thanks for that! At least someone understands me when I explain how MAS has a financial interest in not pinning it on Z.
@JeffW 🙂 Thank you for posting. Do you have any thoughts on who would have the expertise to alter BFO data? I thought ISAT/BFO was unknown territory at the time of MH370 dissapearance?
@ Matt Moriarty,
English is my second language.
I researched, pin the rose on the pilot, often before proper investigation, at the time suicide was touted as the cause of Germanwings crash, after MH370, well two suicidal pilots. They are not just suicidal but mass murderers and yet the psychological profiles of suicidal people usually site a desire to kill themselves not mass murder hundreds of men, woman and children.
…24 suicidal American pilots, According to Federal Aviation Administration data, another 8 international crashes attributed to suicidal pilots.
A pattern of (business) convenient “suicidal pilots” rather than systems errors. Who benefits if it is the pilot? Liability falls on the airline not the manufacturer.
Although MH370 was not Airbus, the latter have regular fly-by-wire systems errors and a spate of major and minor accidents.
@Matt Moriarty
“Posted September 25, 2016 at 10:56 PM
@Keffertje
Thanks for that! At least someone understands me when I explain how MAS has a financial interest in not pinning it on Z.”
Boeing and Airbus have financial interest to pin airline accidents on the pilot.
@SusieC, Thank you for replying. Under any scenario IMO passengers would have fought for their lives, provided they were aware of what was happening and were physically capable of doing so. For this reason I believe (purely my personal opinion) that passengers were incapacitated quickly and rapidly.
@Matt, Not all countries have signed the convention but Malaysia has. However, MAS is in a restructuring phase (similar to Chapter 11 in the USA) which means that NOK might not be able to pluck feathers off bald chickens. Bottom line though, they are liable for all damages unless they can proove otherwise. The latter will be very tough.
@how Boeing limits liability after airline accidents
http://www.iasa.com.au/folders/Safety_Issues/FAA_Inaction/BoeingLimitsLiability.html
@Jeff As I understand things, this is the first time anyone has used BFO data to recover a flight path. So the ‘perpetrators’ not only know how to modify the SDU but they also anticipated (apparently with some certainty) that these values would be used in this manner. How many people could have made such a prediction? Surely that must begin to characterize the perpetrators..
@Gloria
1) You are clearly in the cockpit fire / catastrophic failure / Boeing-coverup-theory camp. Please explain how a catastrophic failure would incapacitate the pilots but then allow for four or more turns after the failure event plus 6-1/2 hours total flying thereafter. Also, please explain how the plane could fly toward Inmarsat 3F1 until 19:40Z and then away from it thereafter without a turn. And how would an incapacitated pilot have commanded that turn?
2) If you are attempting to say that Germanwings was something other than a mass murder / suicide, then I just can’t imagine what we would have to talk about in the future.
@Keffertje
But the statute of limitations has passed. You do agree that if factual information had pinned it on Zaharie, the aggregate amount of the lawsuits would be exponentially higher than it is now?
@SteveBarratt
The search area map you showed is interesting, shows approaching right up to Broken Ridge.
The reference below shows some interesting recent Furgo topography scans of the Broken Ridge area where the 7th arc goes through.
http://www.earth-of-fire.com/new-seamounts-discovered-on-broken-ridge.html
Think I am landing my plane in the deep blue trench on the side of the mountain…looks like a runway in the sea to me.
@Matt, As I understand it the statute was 2 years to submit claims. The biggest issue is, you cannot submit a claim to MAS for a rogue pilot act if later it is determined to be B777 flaw and then sue Boeing. Cannot have it both ways. NOK had to sit out the 2 years because nothing is known about what really happened. This is an exceptional case. The statute however forced their hands as otherwise there would be no recourse.
@All, The SDU log-off and subsequent re-logon remains a mystery. To the insanely smart Mathematicians, Physicists, and Engineers – could a sudden de-pressurisation event (and sudden drop in temperature) change the data in any way? Could passengers have tried to meddle with the SDU, to try and make contact somehow and influenced data in the process? There was an Aviation Engineer (on his way to Beijing to work on private aircraft) on board who may have had knowledge to that effect.
@ Matt Moriarty
You have no idea what camp I am in but it is neither the system/failure/fire/ ghost plane scenario or the suicidal pilot scenario.
As far as Germanwings that has been addressed by Pilots for 9 1 1 truth, calling out the speed with which that rose was pinned on the co-pilot but that is a topic for an entirely different forum, on their website.
The problem with ghost plane or the suicidal pilot, factoring in the amount of twilight/daylight sunrise on the wrong side of the plane draws attention to how unlikely the suicidal pilot, unless everyone else is dead.
Straight after the event the most popular scenario with the Occam’s Razor, readers of mainstream media crowd was ghost plane/ fire/systems failure.
I’d say this latest redirection from ghost plane scenario to suicidal pilot is a good example of corporate strength. The influence of Boeing to redirect possible insurance claims away from them, to MAS.
“Several families have sought separate compensation or information from Boeing Co., the aircraft manufacturer, as well as Malaysia’s Department of Civil Aviation and the Royal Malaysian Air Force for alleged negligence. Many of these cases aren’t subject to the two-year deadline. The case against the government entities in Malaysia contends that they failed in their duty to track the plane and put in place systems that could have prevented the disappearance.”
http://www.wsj.com/articles/families-of-malaysia-airlines-flight-370-victims-rush-to-file-claims-1457357995
@Jeff, @MH:
I remember Besh-Tash valley, too.
@matt.m
Not directed at you at all. But are we watching a rerun of “one flew over the cuckoo’s nest’ here….wink wink
That aside, your tongue in cheek assertion of about Paycholgy Today is spot on and your take on Fugro – a bullseye hit. I think I linked a news item regarding Fugro’s limitations here before. The statute of limitations thingy is significant as it clearly answers a key Q in one fell swoop.
All in all, this is appearing more to be suicide thing than anything else.
@Matt Moriarty
Would love to see those pics. Are they posted anywhere?
Yes they are, but I saved the pics, not the links. Adress Jeff to send me your mail and you will get them.
“Also, there have been 36 airworthiness directives issued for the B777 since 08Mar14. I see lots of them pertaining to O2 system but I can’t find one requiring the removal of the inside handle of the hatch. Can you?”
No, and I’m not going to search for them. The Info is from a friend at LH technic
“MAS is a state run airline. If they had implicated their own pilot as the official reason for the crash, they’d be on the hook for orders of magnitude more money in settlements than they are with a “mystery disappearance.”
They do not need to care about money claims, they are insured for that as any normal operating airline is.
“I don’t think it’s any coincidence that the flight sim data began finding its way into the hands of journalists all over the world right around the time the statute of limitations on wrongful death lawsuits happened to expire.”
Then they are bad in using the chance, the journalists offered to them. My iformation concerning the leak are different from yours obviously.
“I never understood it either, until someone explained the statute of limitations angle and then it occurred to me that the Malaysians had a serious financial motivation to obfuscate if they knew from the start that it was their pilot who’d done the deed. Without that admission, the Montreal Convention caps per-victim compensation at $175,000. ( http://fortune.com/2014/05/01/the-big-money-surprise-about-malaysia-airlines-flight-370/ )”
It does not matter, the insurance covers that. You did not provide anything, despite my asking, that the insurance would not cover those claims. It is pure rumor that insurance will not pay.
“I wasn’t referring to cell calls over the S China Sea. I was referring to cell towers over Malaysia/Thailand.”
Then you disregard the implication, that a highjacking would have been completed at IGARI prior the turn back and that highjackers would have used means to hinder passengers to become active. This applies obviously for all scenarios, as there was no contact at all from the passengers and the cabin crew, despite cell towers, mobiles, possible sat phones and a portable ELT. I do not understand your argument there.
“With every challenge, the sophisticated hijacker scenario gets more and more complicated. It involves breaching the belly hatch of the EE bay on the ground in KUL.”
Why breaching? it is just locked with a mechanical operated handle, which everybody can operate after he used some ladder or a truck to reach the door about 3 meters from ground. It involves accessing the apron where the aircraft was parked though.
“Firearms. Bursting up through a hatch that has either a flight attending sitting directly above it or carpet velcroed over top of it or both.”
Next time you fly I suggest you look at the condition of the velcro, used multiple times before. It will not hold up some strong guy to push the door open. No stewardess is sitting above the door, maybe close to the door. And we did not talk about one of the perps sitting in the cabin.
“Now, when confronted with questions on what the pax did, the scenario evolves to include rendering them all unconscious in the few minutes between the turn back and reaching the Malaysian/Thai coast.”
I think it is close to a fact, that they were unconscious or dead by that time, in any scenario, technical, suicide, political, you name it. We have no activity from the cabin what so ever. Explain why?
“I happen to think aviation is really simple and is based on the laws of physics and math and procedures and statistics. Humans, on the other hand, are complex and unknowable and, therefore, I don’t really give a fraction of a crap as to the psychology of Zaharie Shah.”
There is asaying, which might apply to MH370 too. Flying is hours, weeks and even years of boredom, interspersed by seconds and minutes of pure horror.
We are not looking at a mathematical problem or a flying problem, but at a technical or criminal problem. Neither one of those two can be categorized as simple. I do not grasp how you think that analyzing an accident or a crime can be seen as simple. It is the opposite, it is complex, time consuming, prone to err and complex in the end report.
@all
“Law360, Chicago (March 3, 2016, 9:22 PM EST) — The Boeing Co. on Wednesday was hit with at least 26 separate lawsuits brought in the names of passengers of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 ”
“…….contend that defects in the Boeing 777 jetliner led to its demise, arguing there’s no evidence of any other plausible explanations for its disappearance.”
““The available evidence, both direct and circumstantial, forecloses other reasonable secondary causes — that is, reasonable secondary causes other than defects in the design and/or manufacture of the Boeing airplane — for the disappearance and crash of Flight MH370,” one complaint says.”
“…including the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, which in December 2015 issued a report that concluded the most likely cause of the loss of Flight MH370 was “a massive and cascading sequence of electrical failures” onboard the plane, according to the complaints.”
http://www.law360.com/articles/767118/boeing-slapped-with-26-suits-over-mh370-demise
Further to depressurisation/temperature, I have discussed this and it seems that it is possible to set cabin pressure controllers to manual and outflow valves to open (partially or completely), while leaving packs on auto. That should keep airconditioning working, although temperature will drop but not dramatically. It would take several minutes (or even half an hour) for cabin pressure to reach a critical stage. The difference to the Helios flight is that packs were on manual setting.
Nevertheless, as @RetiredF4 has suggested, altitude sickness likely is a serious problem for anyone on the plane after prolonged exposure. This article shows there is a 20% chance of suffering this already at FL250 and exposure of 45 minutes, with figures skyrocketing for anything above those limits.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/11034697_Decompression_sickness_latency_as_a_function_of_altitude_to_25000_feet
So, perhaps a deliberate decompression scenario in conjunction with a suicide scenario can nearly be ruled out because of that?
@Jeff you said “if the BFO values are correct then the plane should have been found in the current search area”
1-my knowledge the ATSB still has about 15000 skm to go? So still possible MH370 might be somewhere in that area.
2- Search vessel Furgo said there was some gaps in the under water sonar scans as that was being pushed to its absolute limit..
3- can still not rule out MH370 crash site being north of the search area near broken ridge as drift modelling supports that location.
4- regards to the SDU the oscillator heater to the SDU may have become chilled due to electrical fault distorting the BFO values.
@Nederland, What I understand is: At 35000Ft TUC is 30 seconds at best. Often less. Pressure breathing is required to stay alive. Passengers (by the time they realize whats happening) would already be unconscious. The dixie cups are pretty useless unless the aircraft descends rapidly. Without pressure breathing apparatus and intake of 100pct oxygen it is over within minutes.
@Keffertje
It will take several minutes for cabin pressure to equal FL350 or FL300 – the cabin was pressurised during the early stages of the flight. With outflow valves 100% open cabin pressure would rise by 2000 ft/min. That means it takes approximately three minutes until masks drop down (at 13.500 ft altitude per FI). Altogether 11 minutes to reach 30.000 ft cabin altitude, then a TuC of 1 to 3 minutes (MH370 was nearing that altitude after IGARI). So I’d say a minimum of 10 minutes to get a hold of an oxygen bottle (which takes some seconds). But this is quite an extreme scenario, and it may take far longer than that. As far as I am aware, pressure breathing is necessary at altitudes above FL350 and MH370 presumably wasn’t there for an hour at least – if it was ever flying on that altitude (a current working assumption is it was further descending at 18:40). Recommended setting is 3 litre/hour at FL300, that gives a duration of at least 104 minutes per bottle, twice that long if two bottles are used and so on, plus recovery time. Bottom line is you can’t predict how individual bodies will react to exposure of altitudes between 30.000 and 35.000 ft, some may cope well, others not. But that goes for a potential hijacker in the cockpit as well, and if they were alone, that would mean chances are massively stacked up against them imo and their oxygen supply is in the avionics bay and therefore vulnerable to tampering.
@Aaron, It’s true that the ATSB-defined search area has still not been completed, but bear in mind that the boundaries of that area are somewhat arbitrary. The parts yet to be searched are quite far from the 7th arc–too far, in my mind, for the plane to have reached if plummeting at 15,000 fpm. Likewise, the plane could be north of Broken Ridge but for it to have gotten there, it would have had to have loitered before the final turn south.
@Keffertje, Victor and Gerry Soejatman looked into the question of who might have had the technical chops to spoof BFO data, and came up with a short list that included the US, Israel and Russia. Note that four months after MH370 another Malaysia Airlines 777-200ER was downed in an operation run by Russia’s GRU (military intelligence).