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.
@Nederland:
Your last line is very important.
@Johan
“Will there be a drug that enhances the bloods capacity to absorb oxygen?”
Check out ‘blood doping’ – i.e. increasing red blood cell count. Athletes are known to have done it – not sure whether pilots would though…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_doping
@PaulC:
Thanks. That did pop up in my mind. I am bit confused and skeptical about a scenario where an abductor wouldn’t make the odds clearly weigh over in his favour. So the question remains how a perp, if any, could control and/or pacify all the souls onboard.
@Jeff
“But I thought that the system had been designed such that you couldn’t simply turn it off and turn it on again?”
Is that safe? What if the unit shorted or otherwise malfunctioned – would it not be necessary to be able to isolate it and cut off power? You would certainly not want it to sit there sparking and smoldering.
@Johan
Absolutely agree. I am not a buyer of the depressurisation theory – too much uncertainty and risk.
Regarding pacifying/controlling – that takes us straight into the realms of speculation and/or fiction. If I am to stick a toe in the water in that direction and ask how I might have done it, so that the odds were clearly in my favour, the answer is simple: I would not have tried it on my own. I would improve the odds by working with someone else.
Depending on what the actual motive for the whole affair was, it would be a very simple matter to get an accomplice or two on the plane as passengers.
@PaulC
But then it wouldn’t be suicide out of personal motives or revenge, would it?
I mean, how do you approach the subject if you are keen to win accomplices. Invite prospective candidates over for Penang chicken and discuss life in general and blood doping in particular?
@Matt, I am sure you are knowledgeable and if you think me a twat, by all means. You are claiming A (not spilling a drop) always means B (that passengers don’t notice). I am disputing that. Passengers do notice turns, whether you believe that or not. An extreme turn, most definitely.
@all
A few months ago, while scouring the Internet for MH370 stories, I stumbled across an interesting 2-year old thread in a Malaysian English forum. The thread author (‘Se7en’) goes into great detail about the possible fate of MH370.
He offers some interesting angles while making an inadvertent ‘almost-prediction’ in the process. He postulates, as Jeff does, the plane going north but with a possible end point in Afghanistan.
I wish to summarize the points discussed, though I appreciate that some angles may have been disproved or discarded here already. Others, however, may be new to some readers.
(I do not wish to link the forum on here; I keep getting a ‘display driver error’ at one particular section that forces a shutdown of my laptop for some odd reason. By design or not, you decide…)
So to summarize:
* The hijacking of flight MH370 was premeditated, planned and executed “to the dot” by a group of highly trained individuals, each with a differing set of skills, with MH370 was carefully ‘chosen’ based on a number of calculated variables
* The hijackers would’ve taken turns to fly this particular route (a daily flight to Beijing) a number of times to study crew movements etc
*. There may have been a number of aborted attempts to takeover the plane if certain variables weren’t met (bad weather etc)
* Up to 4 people may have boarded the plane with someone on the ground to co-ordinate
*The waypoints were calculated by the hijackers to ensure that there would be minimal air traffic on the route
*The change of direction towards Gival (or alternatively the ‘loiter’) is a BIG BIG clue – it was undertaken to buy time…
* …cue flight KLM836, a Boeing 777-206ER en-route from Singapore to Amsterdam flying towards waypoint Igrex at 30,000 feet. KLM836 is a daily flight from Singapore to Amsterdam scheduled to depart at 1.25am. Critically, on the morning of the 8th, it was delayed, taking off at 1.42am
*This change in time is what caused flight MH370 to switch waypoints (or ‘loiter’ – whichever you believe) while waiting for KLM836 to arrive. This was unforeseen, but the hijackers were prepared for it
So that raises the obvious question, why would MH370 need to hide behind KLM836? Two reasons:
* Although flying into Malaysian, Indonesian and Thai Airspace might’ve been relatively easy to pull off, Indian military radar would’ve been extremely difficult to evade
* Secondly, without TCAS it becomes very hard for an aircraft to navigate without the risk of colliding into other planes. Following KLM836 provides a solution to both problems with MH370 appearing as a single blip (KLM836) on radar
The author ‘Se7en’ concludes:
1. Following KLM836 was part of the the plan all along.
2. KLM836 provides the opportunity for misdirection: everybody would look for a MAS plane going east and no-one for a KLM flight going west. And this is what happened.
3. Following KLM836 gives the hijackers the ability to land MH370 somewhere near KLM836’s flightpath without detection
‘Se7en’ also suggests that MH370 might be repainted with KLM livery and used to as a bomb to target an upcoming Nuclear Summit in Amsterdam on 24-25th March 2014. This he gets wrong, but quite remarkably, his post of March 2014 speculates… “one of these days… (the hijackers could) shoot down the real KLM836 and replace it with the repainted MH370…”
‘Se7en’ suggests the possibility of the plane landing in Afghanistan and notes a couple of unusual events close to the time of the disappearance:
* An hour before flight MH370 leaves Kuala Lumpur, a Bombadier Global 6000/Raytheon Sentinel appears over Afghan airspace (call sign GLEX), circling a place called Qara Bagh for 8 hours. (This type of aircraft is used for refuelling fighter jets in the air). Se7en states “…the top of this circular flight path (over Qara Bagh) crosses a very busy flightpath of commercial airlines over Afghanistan…”
* The day after MH370 disappears, another Bombardier Global 6000/Raytheon Sentinel is seen tracking KLM836 on its daily trip from Singapore to Amsterdam. The aircraft “continued on the path of the KLM flight and then followed another aircraft – Singapore Airlines A380 – after crossing over India.”
@Nederland
I view the suicide theory as yet more speculation – I have not seen a really convincing reason for the “why?” part of that. This would be the most complicated suicide there ever was! If you want to be sure of killing yourself, then keep it simple – like the GermanWings pilot did. If you want revenge, surely part of that is letting everyone know that was why you did it?
Have you stopped to count the number of people who had to ‘not notice’ something or if they did notice, not to do anything about it? Starting with the Vietnamese and Malaysian ATCs who did not see the blip disappear from their screens and the military radar operators who failed to investigate a ‘mystery blip’ flying across their screens in Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. And then, having escaped on a route to the SIO, flying over the whole of the Wharton Basin (unchartered and very very deep) but pressing on not knowing whether you would be spotted at Cacos or finally JORN – and all of that, just so you can kill yourself?
I believe there is much more to this than meets the eye – it is just too complicated if suicide was the only objective. Why not just fly across the Phils and aim for Challenger Deep if all you want to do is find some deep water. The plane was only a couple of hours away from the Pacific at IGARI and far fewer radars en route. If it is suicide, you keep it simple as there is less to go wrong.
If this was one man on a suicide mission, he really had an unbelievably lucky day. Everything went exactly as planned – that rarely happens in my experience.
So what really happened? I have not got any idea – I just don’t like the current story.
@Jeff 🙂 Thank you for your reply! I was thinking more along the lines of: no BFO data would have made the search a monumental task for the entire SIO is then your search field. Spoofing it would still provide a certain direction? OT, Interesting debate last night :). Always fun to watch politicians get into a mud fight! Exciting times for you there, that’s for sure. Bill, no doubt, is already selecting the interns:).
@Gloria, No rosetta stone was needed to decypher your post:). And fully agree, those flights are the worst. Note to self: it is important not to spill a single drop of your drink:), also when the aircraft turns:)
@Keffertje, Presuming that the hijackers didn’t know that the BTO was being recorded (because Inmarsat had only started doing so a few months before, and didn’t tell anybody) then they would reasonably expect that investigators would interpret the BFO as indicating a southern endpoint, but with no parsable clues as to where specifically it went. There would have been no seabed search; the mystery would have been presumed to be unsolvable.
@SajidUK, Interesting idea but it does fall short on a number of counts. For one thing, MH370 didn’t tail KLM836 — the KLM flight doesn’t match the ping rings.
@Johan, You wrote, “if anyone of the pilots, crew or main possible hijackers among passengers recently visited a laboratory or clinic to check out his lungs, or started scuba-diving or showed an interest in high mountaineering, we could have a suspect.” This is precisely why I’ve taken such an interest in Nikolai Brodsky, who was sitting 12 feet from the E/E bay hatch and who was an accomplished technical diver and in fact was just returned from a dive trip. May well have had deep-water full-face dive gear with him.
@PaulC
Re the Helios 522 flight: the pressure altitude in the cabin never dropped below an estimated 19,000 to 26,000ft, according the accident report. The outflow valve was only partially open (12% if I remember correctly) and the AC pack valves would have remained open. The Helios accident is not a good guide of what might have happened on MH370, if the pilot deliberately depressurized for a period of time.
I know this might sound frivolous, but I’m going to say it nonetheless. Z looked slightly bulked when he went through security. After the cursory body search, he dropped his arms down in a slightly unnatural way imo,as if he was self conscious about something. He could have been wearing thermals. No don’t laugh.
@Oleksandr, You wrote, “Can you obtain more detailed information from Patrick De Deckker, in particular how long it stayed in 18-20 deg water, or better a plot showing how the estimated ambient temperature varied with the time?”
De Deckker gets back from a long trip tomorrow, I’ll be continuing my efforts to liaise with him. In the meantime, I would encourage you to look at the SST data here:
http://polar.ncep.noaa.gov/sst/rtg_high_res/archive/
I found it quite easy to use. By copy and pasting onto Google Earth I was able to see quite easily where the temperature bands were in relation to various drifter paths. I’d love to hear your impressions. My own is that if the 18-20 degree temperature finding holds it’s going to be very hard to reconcile with historical sea-surface temperatures and overall drift patterns.
@ROB
Wow! Thermals in the heat and humidity of KL? That could be the first major flaw in his plan – I think I would have been sweating profusely and probably passed out! Why not just put them on when safely on the plane? A rather inauspicious start to the most complicated suicide since Gareth Williams!
@Jeff:
I say. 🙂 Well, there we are. I wonder when he booked that ticket and that seat, do you know? If he wasn’t the culprit he may have had time to regret checking in his luggage.
@PaulC
I think you could be right. I think a suicidal pilot could not have foreseen that everyone thought MH370 was in Cambodia (where it wasn’t supposed to be) and later in Vietnam (where it was supposed to be) when really the military apparently saw it off Penang. That no one was to raise an alarm in five hours or call the aircraft more than once. But without all those circumstances, and apparent misinformation, the mystery would not be complete imo.
After 2 and a half years a loiter around the northern tip of Indonesia seems much, much more realistic.
Why?
(attempting) negotiating with the Malaysian government. The 9M-MRO aircraft and the passengers were the cards used by Zaharie Shah.
Anyone not realizing this now is blind as a bat.
@ir1907, The problem is that no negotiations took place. I find it just about inconceivable that the Malaysian police would produce a secret internal report in which they spend 1,000 pages assessing every aspect of his life, and not mention the small detail that he’d called up the government after stealing the plane and taken part in a hostage release negotiation.
@Matt Moriarty
I stop arguing with you, as you either have a lot mor pilot in command time than me, have been trained in high altitude chambers, expierienced the effects of hypoxia and rapid decompression in a training environment yourself every three years of your flying carreer and are an expert on aerodynamic forces and their effects during turns.
The only reference you provided is a fun movie of a Boeing 707 doing a 1 g barrel roll and assuming, that with closed eyes nobody would notice it.
You asked for pictures of the eebay access and I asked for your email to send them to you. Nothing. You seem to be interested in your own thinking and not in information.
It is time to reduce the chatter here, so I’m out of the discussion with you.
IR1907, Hypothetically, if you were a gambling man wanting to place a bet with a bookie on the MY government giving in to blackmail, how much would you have bet?
@Nederland
There are so many oddities and unlikely loose ends – I think we will add to the mystery rather than resolve it! I just think that a suicide mission is one of the least likely options.
What about the role of the Chinese? In the early days and weeks they were all over it: planes scouring the South China Sea, ships down in the SIO – they were the ones who thought they heard a ping from the FDR. Then, as soon as they realise it is a wild goose chase they pack their bags and go home.
Now, call me a cynic but the level of involvement was completely out of character for the Chinese government and I simply do not believe it was because of the Chinese people on-board the plane. There was a bigger reason behind it, that we do not know.
It would seem the problem was much larger than ZS’s (and maybe a few of his associates’) involvement … it would need advanced military like skills and support.
@MH
I believe that the skill set required precludes the possibility that one individual was responsible for everything. I also doubt that, given the level of complexity, it all went exactly to plan; so whoever was responsible also had the ability to cover their tracks where mistakes were made. This ability was a necessary part of the plan to lose the plane – which rather rules out Z, as he is dead.
@PaulC
I really have no strong opinion on who did it and why.
I think it could have been a hijacking and something catastrophic happened after the FMT or it was a terrorist suicide attack.
So why has no one claimed responsibility? Could it be a new form of terrorism? In very general terms, IS claimed responsibility for the Metrojet accident, but in a somewhat unprecedented way:
“We are the ones who downed it by the grace of Allah, and we are not compelled to announce the method that brought it down. Look at the plane’s wreckage and investigate! Bring your black box and analyze! Publish your findings based on your great experience and prove that we did not down it and show us how it crashed.”
Could the whole point have been to create a mystery rather than to claim responsibility, and thus to create prolonged media attention, and some as yet unclear wider political ramifications? There have been recent reports that explosive traces have been found on the other dubious plane crash (MS804), but no claims of responsibility yet.
As to your question, there was a terror warning involving China Airlines and Beijing airport days before the accident flight:
http://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1445314/warning-possible-terrorist-attack-china-received-taiwan-days-malaysia
MH370 had a code sharing with China Southern Airlines and was scheduled to fly to Beijng. Perhaps intelligence got it slightly wrong? I have no idea if there is a connection, but there are lots and lots of possibilities imo.
@Oleksandr
Thank you for the cloud contrails summary
@Sajik UK
Your explanation for the loiter also possibly works for the southern path, to buy time, to escape view of the KLM, or other timing factors such as sunrise etc. I like theories like this because it may help explain other scenarios too. I am baffled how Z got assigned to a red-eye on a moonless night with sunrise in the AM in the south. By the next day 9-March we had a moon in the sky.
@all
SIMON HARDY VIDEO- Here is the 20-Sept recent YouTube video entitled Simon Hardy Technique Video. Believe it is a nicely done explanation video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjC59H6QLdA
@Sajid UK
Sorry should say Sajid above
@Oleksandr
Yes, I recall Gysbreght’s observation of the Schuler period in the Figure 5.4 graphic. I got pretty excited about it, and ran some numbers. I could not get the magnitude of the Schuler errors to work out (errors were too small to account for the variations). I suggested that someone else should give it a go, but no one ever replied (to my knowledge).
While oscillator frequency drift itself is not a random walk process, plots of the drift that I have looked at over the years look very much like a random walk. They are typically “one-sided” over a single trial run, and do not display a Gaussian like error distribution. I put a couple of random walk graphics in the link below to illustrate random walk behavior. An ensemble of trials does produce Gaussian statistics with the exception of a variance that grow with time.
http://tmex1.blogspot.com
It would be very informative to get ISAT plus ACARS data for a bunch of flights to characterize how the AES typically behaves. While summary data is provided in Table 5.1 of the DSTG book, it does not characterize the behavior on individual flights. My take is that it represents the ensemble of data from multiple flights. While useful, the bias error signature for individual flights is lost. My guess is that a typical flight resembles Figure 5.4, but with a smaller mean deviation from zero error.
Your comment regarding some sort of integrated error is definitely the right type of thing to be considering. After all, that is the very essence of a random walk – integrated white noise.
@Nederland
“I really have no strong opinion on who did it and why” – entirely agree! If we knew ‘why’ then I suspect ‘who’ would be a fairly short list.
Looking at it now, more than 2 years after the event, the only thing we can say with confidence is that somebody wanted the plane to completely disappear. I don’t see that as an attractive idea for a terrorist attack.
Catastrophic failure – unlikely as the plane was clearly under control until well after IGARI.
Hijack – possibly but I rather think in that case we would have found the wreckage by now and for what possible gain would a hijacker ‘disappear’ a plane?
Your other suggestion was to ‘create a mystery’ – using the “well that’s what happened” test, it does seem to be the most logical place to start.
@PaulC – the question is how it was “disappeared” and by “who”? Could have MAS wanted this particular aircraft go missing as they want their B777 fleet reduced?
@PaulC
Again, I think the other possibility is that the plan was to do an old-school hijacking (but more sophisticated), to land it somewhere and come up with demands and/or attract world media attention of the day, but something catastrophic happened and the plane turned into a ghost flight and crashed. In that case, it will remain entirely unclear what the wider aims and purposes were.
@Nederland – but if all went wrong and crash couldn’t they just say that and be done…. something bigger is lurking i think.
@all
Re: SIMON HARDY
Here is a critique of the Simon Hardy southern flight path. However, I still like the YouTube video because it is very instructive for some of us.
https://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking/2016/09/26/missing-factor-claim-mh370-search-stopping-just-short-predicted-location/
Of course, I do not “like” the Hardy flight path either, as I am favoring a Broken Ridge end point for the sake of argument.
If the search could only go a tad more south AND a tad more north it could perhaps address these possibilities.
@MH
The answer to ‘how’ is: by means of a highly sophisticated operation that required access to secret information (if it was to work). For example, Australia has only recently (May 2016) confirmed that JORN was switched off but if MH370 did go to the SIO, it would have been pointless to go to all that trouble earlier in the flight, only to fly into an operative radar network and be tracked at the end of the flight. So who knew it was ‘safe’ to disappear in the SIO? There are many similar questions.
The ‘who’ part is trickier – ‘who’is the party with the motive and the means to pull it off. Could it have been MAS, maybe but I think that is unlikely as the damage to their reputation (and the value of the company) was significant – there were cheaper ways to reduce the fleet.
@Nederland
‘Old-school’ hijack – possible but they would have needed a friendly country to land in and the hijacker was taking a huge risk flying straight back over the country of origin. And having flown back across Malaysia, where would they plan to land – Myanmar? Starting at IGARI it would not be my first choice of destination – I think I would have organised something with Moro rebels in Mindanao and gone there instead.
@Nederland
You are right. Hijack with a bad end.
Hijack start at 1:00 first action was enter the cockpit with the coffeman at 1:05 and so on. The bad end is a gunshot in the cockpit at 2:37 over Thai gulf. Mayday at 2:43 U-Tapao US base. Seismic event catch also around this time.
The reason is : hijack to Bangkok and claim to China gov for Uighurs.
Remember the claim from Pakistan.
How can you beleive someone when you are a liar?
All this is simply total confusion from the first day.
Why we reject all witness along Kota Barhu?
Because human can lie!!
They are true because human have a heart and suffering .
baddhu.wordpress.com
@PaulC
“The ‘who’ part is trickier – ‘who’is the party with the motive and the means to pull it off.”
Yes, means, motive, AND opportunity. The back to basics of the traditional investigative process. Not a lot of candidates are there?
The vision of heroic flight deck activities to save a mortally wounded aircraft has dimmed some time ago.
@PaulC:
Following your line of thought the most obvious idea to my mind is that someone either wanted MAS out of business (or MAS’ aircrafts) and/or to change the (relations of) ownership within the company. That is what has happened on a level that counts for real.
@DennisW
There are indeed not many candidates but we are at a disadvantage because we do not have all the facts. Amongst other things, why are we still not being told the full details of the cargo? Whatever it was, it is presumably lost too, so why the continuing need for secrecy? Why has the information from the various radar installations that were involved not been fully disclosed?
It seems that somewhere there is someone who does not want the plane to be found and is coordinating a blockage on the release of information by any party. Whoever that is and wherever he/she is, they are part of the ‘who’ and are still busy at work.
@DennisW:
I am starting to lean towards an onboard showdown between secret-service people from some five-six countries who had all heard rumours of something going down. I read a lot of Alistair MacLean novels as a teenager, inbetween the Eastwood movies.
@Johan
A brief synopsis of Mr. Brodskii
Nikolai Brodskii- 43, Russia.
Brodskii was an elite scuba diving instructor according to Andrei Dimitrevich who is the director of the club, he was one of the oldest members of the Sval Diving Club (which specializes in cold water and ice diving) in Irkutsk, Siberia (located in the shores of Lake Baikal). Brodskii had been a member for over 10 years and also worked there as an instructor. He was a Jewish Russian national from who was returning from a vacation in Bali with 9 other divers from his club. According to Rabbi Aharon Wagner, head of Irkutsk’s Jewish community, Brodskii “was close to Judaism”.
The Times of Israel
cited by Vitaly Markov (first secretary of the Russian Embassy in Malaysia)
@Johan
Interesting idea and I would apply the ‘what actually happened test’ to it.
MAS (or Malaysia Airlines as it is now known) is still in business and the minority shareholders were bought out. It is now a state owned business. 2013 was not a profitable year and the situation has worsened since. As of April 2016, MA had 76 active aircraft in its fleet with a further 20 in storage.
In the wake of MH17, some flights were reported to be largely empty and the airline slashed prices well below competitors on several important routes. More than 6,000 employees have been made redundant and last year the CEO announced that the airline was technically bankrupt.
So if the motive was to force MAS/MA out of business, it did not succeed. All things considered it was never likely that such a scheme could work.
@PaulC
Yes, there has been a lot of talk about the cargo. Someone should go through the details of that. It may well be in the category of a tempest in a teapot. The FI dated in March of 2015 indicates a gross cargo weight of 10806 kg on page 102. On the following page (page 103) certain cargo is identified (Table 1.18A) and the sum of the net weight of that identified cargo is 9953 kg.
The difference between gross weight and net weight is the weight of the container. Net weight is weight of the contents, and gross weight in contents plus container weight. The container weight is referred to as tare weight. Looking at various containers and their tare weights, it would appear that most if not all the cargo is accounted for in Table 1.18A. Meaning that the calculated tare weight of 853 kg is in the ballpark.
People screaming about unidentified cargo really do not have a basis for that claim that I am aware of.
Does anyone know something for sure about identified cargo or are people just blowing smoke around as usual?
@Susie Crowe:
Much obliged. Well, Jews within Russian secret service (as we knew it at least) will be few, won’t they? And openly Jewish Israeli sleeper agents named Brodsky in Irkutsk with missions in SE Asia can be counted on the fingers of one hand, no doubt. Perhaps more likely he had developed a psychotic urge to seek out Antarctic waters (but didn’t quite make it) after apparently having swum in warmer ones in Malaysia.
I bet he is innocent. Peace be with his soul.
@Susie Crowe, That information is correct except the part about Brodsky being active in the Jewish community; like many Russian Jews he did not practice and was effectively secular. I have a whole chapter about him and the other Russians aboard in “The Plane That Wasn’t There.” (Hmm, really should plug that book…)
@PaulC:
Thanks for whipping me with the reality stick. I admit to blowing some smoke around. I read somewhere that the “state owned” label perhaps wasn’t as clearcut and simple as one would be inclined to believe, but I am not capable of sorting that out. And you are right of course that they remain in business. And compared to the more straightforward MH17 the first blow seems unnecessarily complicated. So if anything it seems more likely that Malaysia did the first one to themselves (figuratively).
the issue about cargo was not missing “weight”, but items that were labeled as Mangosteens and miscellaneous electronics (or something like that; just from what I remember)as to the amount of of these in their corresponding weight had people questioning what was the “True” cargo for that such weigh.
@Johan
Never could get into Maclean myself. The absence of sex in his novels might explain that. He considered it to be a distraction.
Like the themes here, Maclean plots were notorious for being overly complex. Simple is good. Shah took the plane for a political motive, and something went wrong. A strong wind is developing at my back on that scenario.
@DennisW
As an example of the problems with the cargo manifest, we have such items as this from the Malaysia Chronicle:
A new mystery has emerged in Flight MH370’s disappearance with the Malaysia Airlines saying the lithium ion batteries carried in the plane weighed over 200 kg, even as the cargo manifest released recently listed the “consolidated” consignment at 2.453 tonnes.
“About two tonnes, equivalent to 2,453 kg of cargo was declared as consolidated under one master airway bill. This master AWB actually comprised five house AWB. Of these five AWB, two contained lithium ion batteries amounting to a total tonnage volume of 221 kg. The balance three house AWB, amounting to 2,232 kg, were declared as radio accessories and chargers,” the Malaysia Airlines (MAS) said in a statement last night.
But this has not been disclosed before and is not stated in the cargo manifest, the Star reported.
According to Malaysian company NNR Global Logistics the batteries formed only a small part of a “consolidated” shipment weighing 2.453 tonnes.
Even though the MAS said the batteries weighed 221 kg, a company spokesman said they weighed less than 200kg. He, however, did not say what the remaining 2.253 tonnes of cargo was.
“I cannot reveal more because of the ongoing investigations. We have been told by our legal advisers not to talk about it,” he was quoted as saying by the daily.
Then you have the 4 tonnes of ‘unseasonal’ mangosteens, where numerous reasonable requests for clarification have been ignored. http://anilnetto.com/governance/accountability/mystery-mangosteen-cargo/
So if smoke is being blown, it is probably just to try to see what lies beneath – trust was lost a long time ago.