Oliver Plunkett, CEO of Ocean Infinity
I had the opportunity to converse with Oliver Plunkett, who is the CEO of Ocean Infinity (OI). My goal was to learn more about OI’s offer to search for MH370 in the Southern Indian Ocean (SIO). Although Mr Plunkett would not disclose the details of the confidential negotiations with Malaysia, he did provide information that is helpful to understanding the general terms of OI’s proposal.
First, OI’s offer is structured such that OI assumes 100% of the economic risk for the search. OI will NOT receive any payment if the wreckage is not found. So it would appear that if the success fee that OI is proposing is less than what Malaysia would have spent in conducting the search using conventional techniques, this is an extremely attractive offer.
I learned a bit more about the recent sea trials that Ocean Infinity recently conducted in the North Atlantic. The tests demonstrated that the underwater autonomous vehicles (AUVs) could be successfully launched and recovered. Each AUV also demonstrated that it could independently scan the seabed. Mr Plunkett said he was pleased with the results so far. Further work is planned at deeper depths and over a wider range of conditions. Mr Plunkett also explained that although the unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) could not be used in the roughest of sea states, the search for MH370 could nonetheless occur over a wide range of conditions. This is because the mission is to scan the seabed and identify the wreckage rather than to generate precise maps.
I inquired about the window of opportunity for completing the negotiations with Malaysia and starting the search. (We know from previous underwater search efforts that the search season in the SIO runs approximately from December to March.) Mr Plunkett is optimistic that Malaysia and OI will reach an agreement in a time frame that allows for adequate time to prepare for a search that begins this season.
Finally, I asked whether OI had already determined the specific area to search. Mr Plunkett explained that OI intends to complement its internal resources with input from other organizations and other outside experts to help define the search area. OI has already had some interaction with the ATSB, which he believes is completely committed to finding the wreckage. I don’t expect that OI’s search area will be very different than what we have been discussing here.
Over the course of our discussion, it became apparent that Mr Plunkett was aware of the many posts and discussions that appear on this blog.
With such a favorable offer on the table from an innovative and qualified firm, I remain optimistic that the seabed search will re-start. However, for the search to begin this season, the window of opportunity to complete the negotiations is narrowing. It is imperative that Malaysia not miss this opportunity.
Update on Aug 16, 2017
In a story appearing the New Straits Times, Malaysia’s Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) reveals that the OI proposal to restart the subsea search is one of several proposals that are under review. The proposals will be brought to the attention of Australia and China for their views.
Update on Aug 17, 2017
Voice370, representing the MH370 families, released this statement today which questions the delay in re-starting the search in light of the confidence expressed by CSIRO in identifying a probable impact site.
Excellent post as always! Many thanks Victor. Ocean Infinity is the best hope yet on continuing the search for MH370.
Curious how often the OI AUVs will need to surface and ‘refuel’. The MBARI [Monterey Institute] fleet have 17H rating for the fully instrumented sea-floor mapping AUVs that include side-scan sonar, but much longer, up to 10 days or so for less instrument-heavy and power-hungry ‘fish’.
I’d gather that the OI is much closer to the former, ao servicing a ‘school’ of AUVs [and keeping them in sync with cycling to depth and back] must be a real logistic challenge.
I have been following Ocean Infinity’s progress with Seabed Constructor over recent weeks.
After repositioning from Bergen to Portsmouth, UK, and collecting the final two ASV Global autonomous surface vessels to fulfil its complement of six, it undertook trials in the Celtic Sea south of the Scilly Isles. The update via social media was that five AUVs were successfully operated concurrently.
The ship then repositioned to Pembroke Dock, Wales, before embarking last Saturday for an area off the Dingle peninsula, Ireland. It’s been working about 45nm west of Fenit, over the Irish Shelf. It’s currently warning other traffic, via AIS, to maintain 5nm closest point of approach (CPA). The seabed in that vicinity hasn’t been surveyed as part of the long ongoing Marine Institute/Geological Survey of Ireland INFOMAR work but an area just to the south has been imaged at 10m resolution, it’s ‘interesting’ looking geology.
Unfortunately, the ASVs use Class B AIS transponders with insufficient transmit power to be picked up at this range from the coast.
Another thought — If OI are making an economically-rational plan [and not simply making it easier for some successor], our conversation here might suggest that scenarios resulting in highly fragmented, whether dispersed in midair break-ups or single impact are very likely to be very close to 7th arc. Impact at any great distance from 7th arc seems to require piloted glide after flame-out and pull-out from an initial dive — at which point you may bet either that the PIC was continuing on his chosen heading, and if tacking off-axis, as likely as not to end in a GeRijn-style ditch with a largely intact wreck rather than widely dispersed debris field.
So the best bet would seem to be getting fine detail, perhaps re-scanning ‘bright’ spots, but not necessarily 100% overlap on sweeps near the arc, and going hot and fast [eg lower scan power,perhaps extending sortie duration by killing side-scan or not so close to the bottom], but with 100% coverage on outer areas [you are now betting on metal object[s] that are 10s of meters in extent].
Failure in this mode might mean the next guy has to check your work. But if it’s OIs dime, that should be a secondary consideration.
Comentariat: What would you do?
@lkr
Various posts state 72hrs endurance for the Kongsberg Hugin AUVs acquired by Ocean Infinity. That figure isn’t qualified by the type of sensor being operated during the AUV mission, e.g. MBES only vs side-scan imaging.
The ASVs endurance is quoted as 6 days.
@Richard: Thanks for the comment. I remain optimistic about OI and negotiations with the Malaysians.
@Don: I thought it was an interesting comment that because they are searching and not mapping, the USVs could operate in more severe sea states.
@lkr: I have the impression that OI has not completed its assessment of EOF scenarios and search widths.
@Andrew,
“Maintaining a high altitude is not necessarily the fastest way to reach a suitable landing place. The highest TAS is achieved at about FL300, where MMO=VMO.”
Excellent point. Given that the average speed was notably higher during the time interval 17:30 to 18:00, this makes constant FL350 assumption even less likely.
Re: “In any case, the normal descent point for Penang would have been reached about the time the aircraft crossed the coast near Kota Bharu.”
Agree.
Re: “Why would the crew even consider a radar alerting manoeuvre at the top end of the Malacca straight?”
In my plots posted in the previous thread I assumed the maneuver began at around 18:25 (near NILAM). It fits BTO and BFO data 18:25 to 19:41; it is possible to construct a number of trajectories. Up to date I was experimenting with CCW triangular patterns (corresponding to navigation failure), but CW patterns (radio failures) would also fit.
There are several potential explanation I am thinking about:
1. The radar alerting maneuver could begin earlier. The first triangular pattern could be performed where we see the gap in Lido image. Someone estimated that the gap was around 6 minutes – this is consistent with a triangular pattern with 1 minute legs.
2. The crew attempted to perform a radar alerting maneuver near Penang, but faced some unexpected problem, which took them 20-25 minutes to resolve, and resulted in a side effect – SDU reboot.
Re: “Who were they supposed to be alerting?”
Military radars. The Captain was likely aware of several radar installations in that area, e.g. Butterworth, Phuket, Lhokseumawe. Do remember that we have a story of Narita bound connection attempt? If true, the crew could be trying to attract attention by any other means.
Re: “The aircraft might have landed with a considerable amount of fuel remaining, but the tanks were nowhere near ‘full’.”
By bad: I used wrong word again. I meant they had around 30 tons of kerosene.
Re: “Landing with a damaged nose landing gear is not as bad as landing with a damaged main landing gear. ”
Recall Emirates Flight 521 crash in Dubai last year. Also B777. Collapsed nose landing gear. Perhaps around 5 tons of fuel remained onboard on the moment of crash. Now compare with 30 tons carried by MH370. Still not convinced?
Re: “What do you think imposes the greater risk, landing with a damaged nose landing gear, or continuing flight with smoke filling the cabin?”
I think this depends on circumstances, source of smog, location, etc. If isolation of power bus helps to clear smog, then flying would be a safer option than landing immediately with damaged landing gear and 30 tons of kerosene.
Re: “In any case, how would the crew know the nose landing gear was damaged until they tried to extend the gear for landing?”
The crew (I would suggest Z.) went down to the EE-Bay and found gaps in the well walls.
@Victor
“I thought it was an interesting comment that because they are searching and not mapping, the USVs could operate in more severe sea states.”
I can only speculate that mapping, at an 10m to 30m resolution, requires good position holding from the ASVs, relative to both Seabed Constructor and its AUV. Difficult if the 7m ASV is bobbing around in a high swell. Traditionally, the surface end of an USBL link is a DP2 capable ship, not a 7m boat.
@Don Thompson: Wouldn’t the accuracy of the position be determined by both the accuracy of the USBL and the inertial navigation system? The USBL can correct for drift of the gyros, but the short-term position accuracy should be independent of the surface conditions.
@Victor,
“The DSTG speed plot shows the best estimate speed to be around 524 kn at this time.”
I’ve accurately checked Fig 4.2 of DSTG report. The slowest speed during 17:45-18:00 ‘phase’ was 496 knots, with 3 sigma confidence interval from 480 to 514 knots. At 18:00 the speed was in the range 495 to 532 knots, with the best estimate of 512 knots. Where did you get 524 knots?
Re: “These speeds are not consistent with “comparatively low altitude” and “preparation for landing” at Penang.”
These speeds are not consistent with the preparation for immediate landing. But not inconsistent with lower altitudes. Perhaps last Andrew’s comments can convince you? I mean his comment with regard to FL300.
Re: “However, the lateral offset manoeuver, or other paths to the right of the N571, removes the need for this slow down, as I showed in my first blog post.”
The problem with the lateral offset is the same as with the single FMT: it has no logical explanation. This is in contrast to holding pattern, triangular patterns, etc., which have logical explanation, but all of them related to some emergency onboard.
Re: “I never claimed hypoxia occurs in a “fraction of a second”, and you know it. However, I do believe that behavior attributed to hypoxia is very unlikely to occur over a period of an hour. The probability of tag-team hypoxia is ridiculously low.”
In case of rapid depressurization, the effect of hypoxia appears in 2-3 minutes. What does happen in the case of slow depressurization? Assume that the pilot was not aware of the failed emergency oxygen supply system; the cabin crew had portable oxygen bottles lasting for 1 to 4 hours; the pax had oxygen for 22 minutes, but the pressure had to fall first to the equivalent of FL100 if I am not mistaken. Rather than considering team hypoxia, I think it would be more appropriate to consider individual impacts of hypoxia. Anyhow, Helios flight accident clearly demonstrates this.
Citation from DSTG (copy/paste):
“In addition, the ground speed observed by the radar prior to 18:02 is relatively high and implies that the aircraft would have been at low altitude. This is likely to result in poor fuel efficiency…”
What do they mean?
@Oleksandr
RE: æThe Captain was likely aware of several radar installations in that area, e.g. Butterworth, Phuket, Lhokseumawe. Do remember that we have a story of Narita bound connection attempt? If true, the crew could be trying to attract attention by any other means.”
So you think the crew would resort to an archaic military manoeuvre, unfamiliar to most commercial pilots. at a position that was at the limit of the detection range of most radars in the region? Seriously? What would be the purpose of such a manoeuvre at 2.30am, when military radar operators are likely to be sleepy, if not asleep? Wouldn’t it make more sense just to go and land somewhere, as recommended by ICAO loss of communication procedures? As someone on another forum said, “An FAA inspector pilot flew this triangle [in both directions] for several hours as a test…in the 1960/1970 period. As far as I know, he is still awaiting an intercept and a follow me aircraft”.
RE: “Recall Emirates Flight 521 crash in Dubai last year. Also B777. Collapsed nose landing gear.”
The Emirates accident was a very different scenario to what you have suggested. In that accident ALL the landing gear were in the process of being retracted following what appears to be a mis-handled go-around from the runway. The final report is yet to be released, but it seems the aircraft stalled after becoming airborne again and crashed back onto the runway. That’s hardly the same as landing with a damaged nose landing gear.
RE: “The crew (I would suggest Z.) went down to the EE-Bay and found gaps in the well walls.”
It is highly unlikely that a crew member would contemplate going down to the MEC, especially if there had been some sort of conflagration that resulted in extensive damage. There is very little room in the MEC, no supplemental oxygen, and if a crew member became trapped or incapacitated they could not be rescued.
@Oleksandr asked, “Where did you get 524 knots?”
I identified the time in my comment as 17:52. At this time, the plane was south of Penang and past the airport. Doing a low level extraction of the data in Fig 4.2 of the DSTG report produces a value of 524.2 kn at 17:52. Alternatively, @sk999, by digitizing the same figure, arrived at a speed of 523.52 kn at 17:52:04. In the RMP report, in the image showing the path near Penang, there are 4 radar captures to the south of Penang between times 17:51:59 and 17:52:59 with speeds explicitly labeled between 520 kn and 528 kn. Based on all this, I am quite certain the military radar is showing a speed near 524 kn at this time.
I never said that the plane could not have been at FL300. I said the plane was not preparing to land, as you claimed it was. I maintain that there is zero evidence that the pilot attempted to land at Penang.
There is a logical explanation for a lateral offset, and this has been discussed often there. An offset of 15 NM from an airway is standard procedure if a pilot does not have ATC clearance.
Terrific post, Victor, and very good news. Did you manage to get a sense as to how advanced they are in their trials of the technology, particularly proving up sustained operations at the sort of depths required for the SIO? Like Don, I’ve been following the Seabed Constructor’s movements over the past couple of weeks; none of its work so far has been particularly far from shore or in particularly deep waters.
With regards to the search area, you can’t see them starting anywhere but the First Principles Review 25,000 km² recommendation, can you? I think that it’s a matter of where to from there if they don’t find it in that search zone.
@Mick: OI is testing their technology under a wider range of conditions with the expectation that they will be ready to start the search by December.
I don’t know where they would start the search. Perhaps we’ll know more before December. I just read that the ATSB is releasing a report that combines the CSIRO data with French satellite data and pinpoints a location of 35.6S, 92.8E, which puts it about 24 NM from the 35K 7th arc.
http://www.airlineratings.com/featured/unprecedented-mh370-findings-boost-pressure-resume-search/
Important new info from ATSB
https://goo.gl/61sbP6
Reports about new developments:
https://goo.gl/Cj1E1W
https://goo.gl/8EJsXd
@Ge Rijn
“And with doing this offer I think they have a clear view on where to search already. They probably have information we don’t have yet and they are quite sure of it.
You nailed it there Ge Rijn. Also fairly close to DrB’s pin. They really need to tone down the expectations, unless they really do indeed have a fix on it.
@Victor
The best thing you said is that the CEO Plunkett is optimistic for a search agreement. That is hopeful. Typo 92.8E in your last post.
It is worth noting that Inmarsat predicted -34.7, 93.0 in October 2014 JON publication. Maybe it is worth reconsidering their unique approach to the path analysis.
@all
For your info
http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/incidents/explosive-new-report-virtually-pinpoints-location-of-missing-flight-mh370/news-story/182daac1538bc01c7955e1a5b431c98b
Cheers Tom L
@all,
I spent 20 years collecting, processing, and analyzing imagery of the sea surface. False alarms are the norm, especially when you have a significant sea state and cloud cover. These images are affected by both.
Based on a quick review, I would say that most of the detected features are not objects. There are a few that may be, such as PHR_2-12 and PHR_3-7.
It is telling that the automated detection software was useless, presumably because of the very high false alarm rate. They did a good job, I think, of manually identifying candidates, but, as they pointed out, manual interpretation is also required and that is highly subjective. Without some ground truth, the results are highly uncertain.
I wonder why the region between these separated images was not made available for analysis?
“false alarms are the norm, especially when you have a significant sea state and cloud cover.”
Why does cloud cover contribute to false alarms ?
@DennisW
(Ignoring the “news of the day” for the present.)
(Re yours from the previous thread)
You said at August 13, 2017 at 8:57 pm – to Mick
(1) The points found on Shah’s simulator have no explanation other than a rehearsal of some sort for the intended diversion.
(2) The most logical place to search given the inherent imprecision of the satellite and drift data is in the area near where the simulated flight path crosses the 7th arc.
(3) It so happens that this location can be reconciled with the drift data and the satellite data (interpreted with reasonable error models).
Re (1) = Correct
Re (2) = Wrong
Re (3) = Perhaps, but irrrelevant none the less.
Re (1)
Your “Intentional Diversion” is a “PLANNED Diversion”.
It is “all about the SUN”, specifically, sunrise, and not just any sunrise.
It is all about a very specific sunrise, the ZERO-ZERO-UTC sunrise, at those southern latitudes.
The last two simulator positions are easily explained, by the simple FACT, that they are EAST – way too far east – for those latitudes, with no logical explanation – EXCEPT ONE.
Those simulations were flown (allegedly) when ? Some time in january or february ?
Those positions represent the most compelling clue we have.
They are in the region of THE MOST EASTERLY position of the ZERO-ZERO-UTC-TERMINATOR on the longest day(s) of the year in the Southern Hemisphere.
The longest day (with the most easterly zero-zero-termiator) is the Summer Solstice, the 22nd December.
After that date, over christmas, new year, into january, etc, the zero-zero-terminator retreats westard, day by day, slowly at first, but speeding up, as we get into late february, reaching a maximum daily rate at the EQUINOX (22 March).
At the EQUINOX, the ZERO-ZERO-UTC terminator is essentially (simplistically) straight up and down 90 east.
Mission day was the 8th of March.
Why “ZERO-ZERO-UTC” you may well ask.
First – FUEL. He planned on being able to remain airborne until ZERO-ZERO at least, and did.
Second – from a planning viewpoint, simplicity of calculations etc. See The Air Almanac 2014, page 133 for day 067 (of the year) 8th March.
Third – it meets the requirements of “going dark, and staying dark”.
Fourth – there was no moon (on mission day).
Re (2)
He was not, DEFINATELY NOT, flying to the southern simulator points at all.
He did in the sim, as a test, but not in the aircraft.
His objective was to vanish the aircraft, and for it to remain “vanished”.
Once leaving Indonesian PSR coverage, he was sure as hell not going to be stupid enough to have himself flying into JORN’s coverage, which he was well aware of.
He was NOT going anywhere near JORN’s coverage, period.
That is one of the two reasons why “Mission Day” had to be MARCH.
He had to have the Zero-Zero-sunrise around 90 East so that he would “skirt” JORN coverage on the way south.
Thus he never crossed the 7th arc up north, which WOULD have put him well within JORN’s coverage.
His objective was to be as far south at ZERO-ERO as he could possibly get, COINCIDENT WITH sunrise, to ditch, on “Mission Day”.
And just as a “by the way”, this “need” to be “as far south as possible – IN THE DARK” also put a “late time limit” on him as well, because of the fuel / range / endurance equation.
Effectively, when I planned the mission, I got a “time window” of only a couple of weeks, the middle two weeks of March.
AFTER that, ie, AFTER the Equinox, the zero-zero-terminator soon gets “out of range”, ie, he would be in daylight towards the end of the flight, which he definately did not want under any circumstances.
Thus, his flight south post FMT was essentially parrallel to the approaching zero-zero-terminator, so that it would intersect him at about zero-zero.
In my frank opinion, to put it quite bluntly, wasting time and resources, searching “ANYWHERE EAST OF 90” at any latitude, is, has been, and will remain, nothing but an exercise in total futility, justifiable only by a total denial of his obvious objective, his meticulous planning, and his tactical pilotage skills. He has magnificently “out foxed all the experts”.
Re (3)
My view of the drift studies is that they are fascinating for sure, but unfortunately, there seems to be so much variability between the models, that taken together, they are inconclusive, at best. Moreover, when I asked David Griffin by e-mail to extend his modelling down to my area to the west and south west of the ATSB/DSTG searched area, he declined, stating that he “had to draw the line soomewhere”. It seems to me that bounding the start points of drift studies to positions very close to the arc effectively excludes any insights that may be gained from “off arc” positions. This is a clear failure of method in my view, because the oceans are not very well understood, and they are not well ordered systems, and they are without very close time and positon repeatability year to year with respect to the currents, let alone the effects of variable weather / winds on top of that affecting leeway. Indeed, the very fact that David is now pushing his previously unknown and even un-hypothesised rouge north west narrow tongue current crossing the arc is in my view, proof of that.
(Now – to the “news of the day”).
A quick first pass read of the two latest morsels offered up by the ATSB from CSIRO and Geoscience Australia raise more questions than answers.
The four images (the north east one especially), iff (if and only if) from MH-370, do seem to corroborate the refined CSIRO drift work, (which is version 3) and not the other way around. The problem is, there is nothing about them, that convincingly suggests, that they “could be” MH-370 debris, let alone that “they likely are” MH-370 debris. Besides, we have to ask, why have these four images languished in an ATSB drawer somewhere, for precisely 3 years (to the day) before they were released by the ATSB, and given to Geosciences Australia to examine ? Four images out of literally hundreds ? And where are the other images that make up the full “box” defined by those four images as the corners ? Give me a break. It just does not pass the pub test. One might be forgiven for thinking (as Mike Chillet has inferred on twitter) that they are “convenient” in that they do help the case to continue the search, more or less where they left off at the north east end of the searched zone, into CSIRO’s latest zone. It looks persuasive, but as Mike wonders, is it just “smoke and mirrors”, a means to an end ?
Also of interest is the “CLASSIFIED” in Red. Quite comical actually, almost up to Lido standard. There are only 4 classification levels in the Australian Government security classification system and that is none of them. The “CLASSIFIED” is quite obviously a “PR stunt, a blatant attempt to try and impress on the average punter (media and civilian viewers) that they are getting “something new”, when clearly, they are not “new”. Of course, there is no mention of imagery of anything anywhere else. I am still waiting for the imagery from the P-3 Rescue-104 to be released and explained, low altitude imagery, at much higher resolution than half metre pixels from orbit.
> “false alarms are the norm, especially when
> you have a significant sea state and cloud cover.”
>
> Why does cloud cover contribute to false alarms ?
Because small clouds are mistaken for objects ?
@Peter Norton
RE: “Why does cloud cover contribute to false alarms ?”
My guess is the cloud cover causes shadows on the sea surface that can be mistaken for object just under the surface.
You can review imagery – date, coverage, cloud cover, resolution, elevation angle for various satellite vehicles on this link. http://www.intelligence-airbusds.com/en/4871-browse-and-order
The catalogue gives you a clue on availability of imagery that might be of any use (cloud cover, resolution, elevation angle).
For optical imagery cloud cover is obviously a constraint because you can’t see through it. For optical and synthetic aperture radar imagery, sea state is a constraint because of false-positives generated by breaking waves. The guys who monitor ice using remote sensing are experts on this and false positives increase sharply with anything over Beaufort 4. Thankfully we can check on ocean swell and wind speed at surface for historic dates at any location using https://earth.nullschool.net/
As well as edge-detection there are automated methods under refinement for filtering out false positives attributable to sea state, see here http://elib.dlr.de/94197/1/2016%20FROST—Final-Version-with-Figures–upload-DLR-ELIB.pdf
@ Andrew: thank you
@ Paul Smithson: white caps can obviously be confused with objects, but why would clouds be? aren’t they too big?
apologies for the “echo” in second sentence – incomplete edit prior to post.
“Malaysia’s deputy transport minister Aziz Kaprawi declined to comment on the agency’s report, saying that he was awaiting further information from Australian authorities.
But he said Malaysia has not given up on the search and it had called for a meeting with Australian and Chinese authorities to discuss an offer from a private seabed exploration firm, Ocean Infinity, to resume the search.
“No decision has been made but we are definitely considering a new search. We will seek input from our counterparts,” he told Reuters.”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/reuters/article-4794824/Australian-agency-believes-locate-MH370-unprecedented-precision.html?ITO=1490&ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490
@Andrew,
Re: “So you think the crew would resort to an archaic military manoeuvre, unfamiliar to most commercial pilots.”
Why not if nothing else worked? In addition, if it is specified in 2006 US and 2009 Canadian guidelines, it is probably not as archaic as you suggested.
Re: “at a position that was at the limit of the detection range of most radars in the region?”
Not limit at all. That area is surrounded by radars. At least 4 radars were supposed to track such a radar alerting maneuver, or its parts:
1. RTADS-III Phuket (Thailand).
2. Lhokseumawe TRS2215R (Indonesia).
3. Satrad 233 Sabang TRS2215D (Indonesia).
4. Butterworth (Malaysia): if the maneuver began between VAMPI and MECAR.
Re: “What would be the purpose of such a manoeuvre at 2.30am, when military radar operators are likely to be sleepy, if not asleep?”
The military were not supposed to be sleeping, right? Say, if you need to call paramedics at 2 am, would you call them or not, just because you assume that doctors are sleepy at this time?
Re: “Wouldn’t it make more sense just to go and land somewhere, as recommended by ICAO loss of communication procedures?”
With damaged landing gear? My mechanical scenario is based on the assumption of an explosive event at the left side of the EE-Bay. For example, rupture of the L/H nose landing gear tire rim due to micro crack (“the bolt” theory). The ADIRU, the emergency oxygen supply line to the cockpit, central and left VHF, TCAS, Intercom, and left transponder would go down at a time. The nose landing gear would also be damaged. I think the crew would attempt to jettison or burn fuel first, before attempting to land.
Re: “As someone on another forum said, “An FAA inspector pilot flew this triangle [in both directions] for several hours as a test…in the 1960/1970 period. As far as I know, he is still awaiting an intercept and a follow me aircraft”.”.
It could be a reason why Malaysia and Indonesian military are not willing to share data. They have missed the airplane. Imagine if they missed some significant maneuver captured by a radar. Would they release this data to the public? Finally, if you believe that the pilot was hiding from radar detection, tried to avoid Indonesian airspace, etc., then it would be inconsistent with your comment that military radar operators were sleepy.
Re: “The Emirates accident was a very different scenario to what you have suggested. … That’s hardly the same as landing with a damaged nose landing gear.”
Why would you expect different outcome?
Re: “It is highly unlikely that a crew member would contemplate going down to the MEC, especially if there had been some sort of conflagration that resulted in extensive damage.”
Unlikely, agree. But not impossible. In addition, if the crew detected smog coming out from the EE-Bay, would not it be logical to isolate the main AC buses first, and then go down to the EE-Bay to extinguish fire, disconnect damaged equipment/wiring? As a side effect, this explains the SDU reboot 18:22, does not it?
@Victor,
Re: “I never said that the plane could not have been at FL300.”
That is not what you were saying. You wrote “If you think that speeds in excess of 500 kn near Penang are consistent with low altitudes and preparing to land, you are mistaken” when I was arguing that the speeds do not conflict with the descent to FL250 or even lower.
Re: “I said the plane was not preparing to land, as you claimed it was.”
I did not claim that the plane was preparing to land. I was claiming that the likely descent might be indicating of preparation for landing. That is a different thing. The crew needed to assess damage, prepare cabin crew and passengers; dump fuel; keep on attempting to establish contact with the ATC wile descending.
Re: “I maintain that there is zero evidence that the pilot attempted to land at Penang.”
Agree. Do not confuse it with the attempt to prepare for landing, which was deferred for some reason.
Re: “There is a logical explanation for a lateral offset, and this has been discussed often there. An offset of 15 NM from an airway is standard procedure if a pilot does not have ATC clearance.”
Why would a pilot, who is going to commit suicide, and who possibly killed 200+ people 20 minutes earlier, care about a lateral offset of 15 NM just to turn southward in 10 minutes? Why would he fly N571 at all in such a case? Sorry, your argument does not make sense to me.
@Oleksandr: If all communications failed, it makes no sense to fly past Penang, into the Malacca Strait, and start flying triangles with a hope to draw attention. This has been said many times in many ways. In an emergency, common sense says you would stay close to Penang, burning fuel if deemed prudent, and where you have the option to land, navigate visually, and be seen both visually and on approach radar.
You’ve had a chance to present your case. Unless you have new facts or new insights, it’s time to end this discussion. Andrew has explained that your understanding of how a B777 pilot would behave in an emergency is wrong. Perhaps you can find a B777 pilot that supports your theory.
@Oleksandr: Again, you’ve had ample opportunity to make your case. I’m not going to argue the distinctions you are making between the phrases “preparing to land” and “preparation for landing”. As for the lateral offset of 15 NM, that is independent of the theory of pilot suicide. It is predicated on the belief that the a pilot does not want to crash with another plane. That is an ICAO recommended procedure for flying along an airway without ATC clearance. And that is not just MY theory. It has been discussed here many times by multiple people, if you bother to check.
Again, it’s time to end this discussion as it’s marginal value is quite low at this point.
@ALSM
I agree the Inmarsat JON path tends to communicate generally where the BTO/BFO say the aircraft may have gone. I think I’ve heard there may be some shortcomings with that early path (wind, etc). But to me it is illustrative of a good starting point for a base case path. I wish they could have asked Inmarsat to develop maybe 5 sample paths; one with loiter etc.
@Victor,
Re: “It is predicated on the belief that the a pilot does not want to crash with another plane. That is an ICAO recommended procedure for flying along an airway without ATC clearance. ”
I am lost. The plane was unlawfully diverted from its original route; it crossed borders of several countries without authorization, etc. Why would a pilot care about crash with another plane? Why would he joined N571 if he did care? Why would he care about compliance with ICAO procedures at all if his intent was to bring the plane to the SIO?
Re: “And that is not just MY theory. It has been discussed here many times by multiple people, if you bother to check.”
I read. But I did not find any logical explanation. Your mistake is that you ignore the whole picture, so that explanation of its particular element is inconsistent with the whole picture. In my opinion, the studies should focus on various holding patterns, which have logical sense. In addition, a wrong exit from such a pattern could result in the heading into the SIO.
Ok, let’s end this discussion.
@Andrew,
If I understood you correctly, the SDU may (in theory) receive pitch and roll data via INS bus even if the ADIRU fails (lon/lat data would be unavailable on INS bus).
What does SDU do in this case?
@Ventus
Sure. Lots of theories out there. With respect to your numbering, i.e. 3>, I think it still makes a great deal of sense to rely heavily on the Inmarsat data. It really is the best thing we have in our basket of observables.
BTW, I do trust the drift data to the extent that terminal locations in your proposed area are not compatible with the absence of debris in WA.
I think the most important is OI gets the green light and can start searching in december ’17. Once they get started I think there will be no option for failure if their contract will be on a ‘no cure, no pay’ basis.
They’ll do the utmost to find the plane also if it’s not found around the ~35.5S/~92.5E area.
Anyway it’s a good place to start searching there where the previous search ended searching the whole width they did south of ~35S.
From there they can work their way to the north.
Still I think a crash site around 32.5S is more likely.
The many WA drifters from 35.5S landing on northern WA shores and even the well populated/visited southern WA shores are not explained well and still contradict 35.5S strongly imo. As well as the early arrival of the Roy-piece and the other two near Mosselbay recovered pieces early this year (figures 14-nov-2014 and 16-dec-2015 page 19 and 20 of the ATSB-report).
I rather like to see OI start searching the trenches area around ~32S/96E and work their way to the south with a good margin of a possible glide after a steep descent included. But most important is they can start searching at any possible area between 32S and 36S imo.
Here is what the AP is reporting about negotiations between OI and Malaysia:
Aziz said Wednesday that the offer was still being negotiated. He said there were some other “monetary terms” set by the firm that were unacceptable to the government.
“There are three categories of findings in the offer. The terms are a bit ambiguous,” Aziz said. “The government wants the terms to be transparent and clear.” He declined to give details.
I see that the release of the French satellite pix has generated coverage in world and regional media [Aussie, English-language malay] that we haven’t seen since the original flaperon find. May be enough of a kick for acceptance of an OI offer the govs can’t refuse.
Still wonder if US, Russian, Chinese sats didn’t get more, and better, pix of the possible debris. Like Indonesian radar, we’ll probably never know.
@Victor
“There are three categories of findings in the offer. The terms are a bit ambiguous,” Aziz said. “The government wants the terms to be transparent and clear.” He declined to give details.
Yes, once you get attorneys involved even simple things get bogged down. It was always maddening to me. My guess is there are provisions for:
1> Money to be placed in an escrow account, and for how long. Obviously no one in their right mind would trust the Malays to actually pay up. Choice of escrow agent?
2> Arbitration of “discovery” relevance. Is the debris find from MH370, and what constitutes verification?
3> Choice of law – US/Malay/… When the shit hits the fan, and it will, what jurisdiction will the parties be subject to for judgement.
It goes on and on.
Per “3> Choice of law – US/Malay/… ”
Wouldn’t the search be conducted in Australian territorial waters and as such they need to be involved ?
@MH: The impact site in the SIO is in international waters. Independent of that, two parties can mutually agree to resolve disputes using the laws and legal system of any jurisdiction.
@Paul Smithson,
@Andrew,
The cloud cover has multiple effects, all of which tend to reduce the probability of detection in overhead imagery and also raise the false alarm rate:
1. The variable cloud density occasionally produces some condensed “knot-like” features that are brighter than the upwelling radiance from the sea, and these may be mistaken as (large) objects.
2. The variable cloud density causes variable illumination of the sea, spatially modulating the upwelling radiance and the apparent brightness of near-surface objects.
3. The variable cloud density creates some opaque regions where the sea surface is not imaged at all. This effect is highly correlated with #1.
Cloud “knots” that might be mistaken as near-surface reflections are usually large and fuzzy around the edges, so a good indicator of a near-surface reflector is a “sharp” edge, but semi-submerged objects won’t always have sharp edges. Another good indicator of a man-made object is angularity. Sharp corners, especially at 90 degrees, don’t occur very often in nature near the sea surface.
The biggest obstacles to reliable object detection are breaking waves (whitecaps) creating sea foam, and sunglint. When the sea state is above 2 you get breaking waves creating patches of foam. Depending on the water temperature, these foam patches can last a surprisingly long time (more than a minute). They also tend to condense horizontally into a fairly reflective patch that can have sharp edges in the brightness image, and these can also be as reflective (in a Lambertian sense) as painted aircraft parts. The upwelling radiance of the sea is generally very dark (at ~2% effective reflectance, it is even blacker than the blackest paint you can buy at the hardware store). So painted objects near the surface usually have a high contrast and are easy to detect (i.e., the problem is false alarms, not detection). Look at the “Representative Spectra” plots, and you will see the clouds being 7-10X brighter than the sea. The clouds are probably only about 20% reflectance (i.e., they are actually a fairly dark gray). A white or light gray paint above the sea surface should have a greater signal than the clouds (i.e., it should appear VERY bright in these images, even brighter than the clouds).
One key here is to note the alignment of the bright feature (if it appears elongated) with the general wave direction (either parallel or even perpendicular to it). However, elongated objects can also align with the waves. Also look for similar shapes and alignments nearby that can be an indication of the areal density of whitecaps. If you see similar, but perhaps less obvious features, they all may be whitecaps/foam. For instance, Figure 91 shows a bright central spot in a long linear feature that is aligned parallel to the general wave direction. That candidate is more likely to be caused by waves than by an object.
One problem with this report is that it does not present any comparison with other regions or at other times. We know that there are man-made objects floating nearly everywhere in the SIO, both flotsam and jetsam. Remember the aircraft search identified numerous floating objects, none of which were ever relocated by ship. So to see a few floating objects is totally unremarkable. This new report does not make the case that there was a higher density of objects in this particular area at this particular time. Perhaps satellite imagery exists that would allow that case to be made. What has been presented so far does not demonstrate a higher-than-normal man-made object areal density. Without that demonstration, any conclusions concerning MH370 flotsam are highly speculative.
@Peter Norton,
Apologies. My last post was meant for you.
@DennisW
If OI is really doing their offer on a full ‘no cure, no pay’ basis I think the negotiations are only about the payments in case 9M-MRO gets found and the results this will bring.
A criterium could be the black boxes have to be recovered to name one important issue.
Then the parties will also have to set a limit to the ‘pay’ part within OI gets (and sets) their financial ‘room’ to find the plane.
I guess OI will have a maximum affordable loss taken into account on the project in case of a failure.
Malaysia and the other involved countries will take a maximum affordable money-invest and commitment in case of a succes of OI into account.
They wonn’t let OI search forever..
Either way a new search will be restricted by the money available and willing to spent on both sides.
@Ge Rijn
I doubt OI would sign up for a payment contingent on the recovery of the black boxes. They have no control over that operation.
The biggest stumbling block for me personally is using decision theory, or more specifically expected value theory, to estimate what Malaysia would sign up for. A likely result is that the VCR will be blank, and the FDR will show that the aircraft was flown to where it was found. Certainly the FDR will shed light on the activities between 17:XX and 19:xx, but it is hard to assign a value to that.
If I were a Malay official involved in the search decision process, I would probably be on the negative side of funding a reward based contract. But hey, that is just common business sense totally decoupled from NOK feelings or obtaining closure. The reality is that finding the wreckage may not yield much value. The plane was diverted and subsequently crashed into the ocean. We already know that (at least most of us).
@DennisW,
Why do you assume the voice recorder to be blank ? Who knows what it contains. Maybe some sort of a final message ”well well, finally you found me”. Ok im kidding about this part but who the h.. knows whats on the recorders.
That is why it is so essential to recover them and know why he did it and how!
@IR1907
Yes, even if there is no human activity recorded on the CVR in the final two hours this would tell us a lot.
@ir1907
I obviously have no idea what is on either recorder. The question in a decision theory sense is how much would you be willing to pay a clairvoyant (a person with perfect information) to know where the aircraft wreckage is? It is easy from an armchair perspective to say Malaysia should go for it with a great deal of price elasticity. The reality is that it is not your money or money you are responsible for spending. I would prefer spend the money on fixing potholes in the street or creating a park for my fellow citizens to enjoy. My opinion is that both recorders will tell us very little of real value, and cost more than $30M to obtain.
@Ge Rijn
My apologies to you, Victor, et. al. for even taking the discussion in this direction. It is not meaningful on this site which is dedicated to finding the aircraft, not the logic (or meta-logic) associated with the activity.
@DennisW
You would spend the money on fixing potholes or creating parks for the living. But
i also care about those who were less fortunate and ended up in a freaky murder-suicide scenario. I don’t put any price on recovering the deceased from the SIO back to their loved ones. No amount of money is worth a single human. The deceased did not want to end up there like that..their families are troubled.We need to have definitive closure and we as fellow human beings must help them.
@DennisW
Btw, i follow your posts since the beginning. I appreciate your presence and you certainly belong to the most genuine contributors.
@ventus45
Re: “Also of interest is the “CLASSIFIED” in Red. Quite comical actually, almost up to Lido standard.”
Actually, it’s not comical at all, it’s probably accurate and appropriate. “Classified” used to be the lowest security grading under the Australian Government security classification system; it was replaced by “Protected” in November 2014. Given the date when the satellite imagery was created and first handed over to (I’m assuming) AMSA, a grading of “Classified” sounds about right.
@Oleksandr
RE: “If I understood you correctly, the SDU may (in theory) receive pitch and roll data via INS bus even if the ADIRU fails (lon/lat data would be unavailable on INS bus).”
If the ADIRU fails then it’s unlikely that pitch & roll data would be available on the IRS bus.
Several people have tried to explain why various aspects of your theory are either nonsensical or wrong, but you refuse to listen. There’s a limit to people’s patience and I think that limit has been reached. It’s time to end this discussion too.
@DennisW: Discussion, including speculation, about OI’s offer and the ensuing negotiation, is relevant. No apologies are necessary.
@DrB: I am most grateful for your in-depth explanation.
@Oleksandr,
@Victor Iannello: I don’t have an opinion on what happened, but I think we can all agree that whatever happened, must be something very out of the ordinary. For this very reason, I don’t think it’s right to shut the door on any theory on the grounds that it is outlandish. In fact, with all the conflicting details out there, I can’t see how the final story – once it will emerge – will be anything other than outlandish. I for one deem Oleksandr’s ideas (although afflicted by plot holes – like any other theory out there) to have their merits and I think it’s counterproductive to dry them up and not to investigate in every direction. Just wanted to offer my view.
@DrB
“any conclusions concerning MH370 flotsam are highly speculative.”
We are certainly on the same page relative to this latest messaging.
I am, frankly, disturbed by the “packaging” of the information. The ATSB and their collaborators certainly show a lack of marketing and communication skills in the release of the latest reports, and how they relate to previous assumptions and interpretations relative to the very same data. Delivering it as some sort of eureka experience seems totally inappropriate to me.
Update on Aug 16, 2017
In a story appearing the New Straits Times, Malaysia’s Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) reveals that the OI proposal to restart the subsea search is one of several proposals that are under review. The proposals will be brought to the attention of Australia and China for their views.
@Peter Norton: When I judge a discussion to no longer be productive, I suggest that it ends. I’ve used a very light hand in moderating discussions here, but if I didn’t moderate at all, the site would be quickly overrun with diatribes and trolling, as I’ve seen on other sites and in social media. Oleksandr had ample opportunity to make his case. If you want to continue the discussion with Oleksandr offline, I can provide you with his email address, with his permission. Maybe the two of you together can produce something new.
@all: presumably, had the JIT found any wreckage themselves, its duty to recover, analyze, draw conclusions from, and report on as much physical evidence as possible would have been abundantly clear.
Is the JIT’s duty just as binding if a private firm finds the wreckage?
Asking only for links to published documents expressing or implying specific legal obligations of specific governments, under either or both of the above hypotheticals. Views drawn from left ears will be read politely, but not pursued.
Thanks in advance.
@DennisW: The possibility that the French satellite images captured debris from MH370 was presented to the NOK in Beijing on March 28, 2014. I don’t know why those images were dismissed and only now considered to possibly be from MH370.
@DennisW
Likelihood that we ever will learn the actual MH370 flight path depends on:
(1) Successful finding of aircraft
(2) Successful retrieval of black boxes
(3) Black box data is still readable
(4) PIC did not turn off FDR by circuit breaker
(5) MY elects to divulge FDR flight path data
I will be shocked if we ever learn actual flight path flown.
@Victor et al
I have no idea as to the how the initial assessment of the French satellite imagery was conducted but if you try to put yourself in the shoes of an analyst at that time, what have you got?
4 images, 70 identifiable “objects” of which less than 20% are probably manmade.
None of the probably manmade objects look like airplane wreckage.
You’ve also got another four sets of satellite imagery of identifiable “objects” clustered some 600 nm south.
You’ve also got NTSB and Inmarsat estimates of flight paths being thrown into the mix.
You’ve got a limited number of search assets and depending on whether you assign a P3 or a P8 it will take somewhere between 3-5 hours of flying tomorrow at the earliest just to get where the “objects” were yesterday.
And someone is trying to distill all of that down to a search plan.
These images only “make sense” now because they are potentially a complementary part of a bigger picture that simply wasn’t available at the time.
Any old how, and possibly of more value than Monday quarterbacking some 3 year old work, since there’s now some focus on 35.6S, 92.8E, can anything be reasonably inferred from that terminus with regards to a BTO/BFO compliant flight path?
@TBill
I tend to agree, but I am hopeful we will get the info. I am not so worried about 3>. I am pretty confident we have some years left.
@Victor. Returning briefly to reasons for a pilot diving initially, intending to follow with a glide, Gysbreght mentioned stall recovery. I add full hydraulics’ restoration through windmilling (APU autostart being unforeseen after fuel exhaustion). Possibly also, if intending a glide, reducing the likelihood of pitot freezing by increasing TAT/decreasing altitude quickly.
Drawing the pilot possibility together with the satellite imagery, the aircraft location identified now by the CSIRO, “..with unprecedented precision and certainty” would rule out a long glide. However this rests on the CSIRO’s own postulation, “that at least some of them are pieces of 9M-MRO”. In turn that depends on the validity of the Geoscience finding that some of the satellite spotted objects are, “probably” man made.
That is questioned by Dr Bobby Ulich. Also I note the average area for the PHR4 ‘probably man made’ 9 items is 43sqm which seems large. Some might be aggregates but that would suppose there was linking with wire or tubing though none like that has been recovered neither I think is that common.
The ATSB’s posture is cautious.
To me the CSIRO leap in overall confidence in the location of the aircraft, based on analysis of the satellite images, is tenuous.
If the CSIRO is right any piloted EOF would be a dive. Moreover if evidence of flutter emerged, that makes it probable (Silk Air) that the aircraft had been not just in a dive but piloted.
Right or wrong, a piloted glide, while unlikely, affects search probabilities still.
Partly for this reason, what would be wise is a clause which precludes litigation in the event a contractor claims it was misled as to the probability of success of this or that area.
On the current contract likelihood, in The Australian today, 17th August, Emily Ritchie reports, “The Australian and Malaysian governments said last night the images did not constitute evidence that would prompt resumption of the search”, though she quotes no specific source for that.
@Mick
It is easy to construct a BTO/BFO compliant flight path to just about anywhere on the 7th arc (25S and beyond).
With respect to your other comments, I know you are an Aussie and I have a lot of respect for the work the ATSB has done. It is easy to second guess at the keyboard. Not so easy when you are in the trenches actually doing the work and making decisions.
@DennisW
I’m not uncritical of the ATSB or AMSA or the CSIRO or the DSTG; they’ve all managed to make mistakes of varying magnitudes along the way. In this case, however, you’ve got someone from GeoScience who is trying to determine if the 1 or 2 objects in every 10 they’re looking at is airplane debris liaising with someone at AMSA who has to make a call on whether they’re going to task one tenth of their asset pool to check it out. Individual pieces of a jigsaw puzzle always tend to be more readily identifiable when you’ve got the picture on box top in front of you; these blokes didn’t have the luxury of the box top.
I’m most assuredly not an expert in the field of flight path analysis but I would have thought that having a terminus might have been useful in setting up some bounds on airspeed, track and earliest and latest times for the FMT.
@Victor
Duncan did a post on his website back in March 2016 as regards some of these co-ordinates shown on the slide at Lido which your on about.
http://www.duncansteel.com/archives/2403 Which has since been deleted.
@Mick Gilbert: I don’t disagree with anything you said. As much as we all want to re-start the search, we have to also make sure we are honestly assessing the evidence we have. This is the third time since Dec 2016 that CSIRO has promoted an impact site around 35S. Each time, they increase both the precision of the prediction and increase their confidence level. The recent connection of the drift analysis to the satellite images is confirmation bias, as the images back in 2014 were available. It is certainly possible that the images show MH370 debris and CSIRO has correctly predicted the impact site. I’m simply less confident that CSIRO for a number of reasons.
@Joseph Coleman: As others have privately told me, the coordinates of the debris in the image I provided are different than the coordinates that are now being provided. Either the debris is different from what was presented in March 2014, or the original coordinates were wrong.
@Victor
I couldn’t agree more, Victor. Taking the findings from the drift modelling and pairing it with some very iffy satellite imagery to come up with “we think it is possible to identify a most-likely location of the aircraft, with unprecedented precision and certainty.” is either grossly irresponsible or highly semantical (viz. this could be unprecedented albeit poor precision on the basis that everything that has gone before it was worse than poor).
That said, hopefully it will be good enough to get the search started
again. Messrs Griffin and Oke might want to dial their rhetoric back a few notches.
@David: In many ways, the OI offer (and others that are being considered) is more interesting to me than the latest claims about certainty of the impact site. That’s why I’ve chosen to post articles here about some of the technology developments (OI, VT) that might allow us to search larger areas more economically. MH370 history has taught us that it is better to be less certain and more willing to consider a range of possibilities. Any attempt to define a precise area to search requires making assumptions, and investigators seem unwilling or unable to properly identify and assign probabilities to those assumptions. The result ultimately is disappointment.
Update on Aug 17, 2017.
Voice370, representing the MH370 families, released a statement today which questions the delay in re-starting the search in light of the confidence expressed by CSIRO in identifying a probable impact site. The full statement can be found in the article above.
@Victor, I take your point about the assumptions that went into the DSTG’s modelling. That is fair comment. However, the point I was making was that a straight flight path following FMT, flown at an economical cruising speed and altitude crosses the 7th arc at about S38, and to get to this particular crossing point, the initial (great circle) path has to be 186deg. Now with the whole of the SIO to choose from, and with the known fuel reserves and known aircraft cruise performance, why didn’t it fly at 180deg heading, for example, or 175deg? It’s uncanny that only 186deg gets the aircraft to a spot where the lighting conditions are just right for a controlled impact. Figure 5.7 of Bayesian Methods defines the 19:41 arc crossing point with a degree of precision – S1.0, E93.6. ISBIX is at N0.367, E93.675, from IGOGU to ISBIX it’s 186deg heading.
To be continued
@DennisW,
@Mick Gilbert,
DennisW said: “It is easy to construct a BTO/BFO compliant flight path to just about anywhere on the 7th arc (25S and beyond).”
This is only “easy” to do if one allows the airspeed to vary between arcs.
If one assumes the airspeed follows a predictable schedule (such as ECON with Cost Index, or LRC, or Holding, or a fixed Mach, or a fixed KCAS, such that the airspeed is predictable depending on the aircraft weight, altitude, and temperature), then there are only a very few BFO/BTO solutions.
We can discount those “candidate routes” ending south of 36S (including Great Circle and Constant True Track) for three reasons:
(a) the underwater search did not find debris within 40 NM of the 7th Arc,
(b) the BFO errors are slightly excessive, and
(c) a proper fuel model predicts those locations are beyond the maximum possible range of 9M-MRO.
North of 36S, there are only a very few candidate routes fitting the BFOs/BTOs and following an available airspeed schedule.
Without an extended loiter, these include a Constant True Heading (CTH) ending near 35S, and a constant Magnetic Track (CMT) ending at 33-34S.
By assuming an extended loiter, you can get a Great Circle solution using multiple waypoints and ending near 20S (Victor’s proposal).
As far as I know, these three cases are the only possibilities (identified so far) that:
1. match the BFOs and BTOs,
2. follow an available speed schedule, and
3. are reachable with the available fuel after 18:28.
Recall that Andrew demonstrated the default navigation method after an End of Route Error or a Route Discontinuity Error is Constant Magnetic Heading (CMH). My conclusion is that this type of event did not occur, since I have been unable to find any CMH solutions meeting the 3 conditions listed above. Therefore, a different navigation method must have been used.
The CTH candidate route appears to be unlikely simply because there seems to be no rational reason for the PIC to use it. It would require the PIC to set a constant heading after setting the NORM/TRUE switch to TRUE. Selecting TRUE is the part that defies logic. There doesn’t seem to be any rational reason for doing this. Perhaps a hypoxic pilot might do it, so I cannot say it definitely did not happen. Still, it seems quite unlikely to me.
The Constant Magnetic Track (CMT) candidate route is intriguing. My first solution was marginal in matching the BFOs/BTOs, but that was with a magnetic declination database (I assumed 2014) that was a different epoch than the one used in 9M-MRO, which appears to be 2005 based on this Boeing article:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzOIIFNlx2aUd25WQ0JXSFlXd3c/view?usp=sharing
At the moment, I am in the final throes of refining my fuel model, since there is another condition that can be added to the three listed above: 4. Main engines fuel exhaustion (MEFE) should occur at 00:17:30 with an average PDA of 2% (from the Flight Plan).
One should also add #5: Winds aloft required to match the other conditions are within 5.7 kts RMS of the NOAA database values (which vary in 4-D with location, altitude, and time).
The winds are important because the tailwind affects the ground speed, and therefore the BFO and BTO, for all navigation modes. The crosswind affects the track only when a constant heading mode is used.
When I have a very accurate fuel model, verified by the available fuel consumption data (including the FPPM tables, the MH370 Flight Plan, and the MH371 ACARS data), I will be able to check predicted endurance as a function of altitude for each available airspeed schedule and find the combinations which provide the correct endurance. Then I can try the few remaining navigation modes (at those identified airspeed/altitude combinations which give the correct endurance) to see if any of these are consistent with all five conditions.
I suspect that there may be only two remaining candidates: the CMT and Victor’s waypoint route. I now have the 2005 magnetic variation database, but I have not yet tried it to see if the marginal fit of the CMT route to the BFOs/BTOs (when using the wrong date for the magnetic variation) is improved by using the same date as loaded in 9M-MRO’s FMC. That will be interesting.
@DrB
We have long had different opinions relative to what constitutes a BFO fit. The purpose of this post is not to rekindle those discussions. In my view there are routes parallel to the Iannello/Godfrey “McMurdo” route that work just as well i.e. a route using a Cocos waypoint subsequently overflown at CMH. No matter. At this moment I am not sure there is anything left to wring out of the Inmarsat data.
Continued refinement of the drift analytics, and more efficient search technology are where my current interest lies. I remain somewhat skeptical of modeling done by the group here relative to the performance of the aircraft or the equipment suite on board the aircraft. The manufacturers of all that equipment have been part of the SSWG from the beginning, and should be in a much better position to advise on the various constraints associated with those areas.
@Victor
Continued from above: If the pilot wanted to target an area that had sun 5deg above the horizon at flameout, and wanted to achieve the maximum range into the SIO, and wanted to fly most of the route in darkness, he would have to fly great circle in LNAV, ie between waypoints to get the required precision. Nothing else would come near. The 186deg initial flight path, the “known” proximity of the flight path to ISBIX suggest IGOGU, ISBIX, manually input along-track waypoint at or beyond estimated flameout. I am not as pessimistic as DrB about the ability of the aircraft to actually reach the arc at S37.7 on the night, because I noticed that the actual flameout time 00:17, could be considered as about 15 minutes later than the pilot had previously estimated. at 00:17, the sun elevation was about 5deg. A sun elevation of about 2deg would have occurred 15minutes earlier – sun elevation 2deg would have been preferable to 5deg if you wanted to keep the “in-daylight” time to a practical minimum. DrB’s initial calculations suggested LRC would expire about 15 minutes before the observed flameout time of 00:17, so it appears that on the night, the aircraft actually performed better that either the FMC or DrB had predicted.
I agree whole heartedly with your recent comment about CSIRO falling foul of confirmation bias! They have been employing confirmation bias as the main driver for their so called improved drift studies, ever since the ATSB drew a blank at S38. Drift studies are about as scientific as examining the entrails of a sacrificed animal. They can be manipulated to prove any pre-conceived notion, including refocusing attention on S35, just to save the ATSB from complete ridicule. I don’t think they will succeed in this endeavour.
I have said my piece.
@DennisW, @DrB: I think when DrB refers to my waypoint route, he is referring to BEDAX-SouthPole, not Car Nicobar-McMurdo.
@Victor
Thx. I think both are reasonable.
@Andrew,
I did not expect such a termination of our conversation, so I don’t really know how to respond. Perhaps just thank you for your patience and time taken to answer my questions.
@DrB
@DennisW
Thank you DrB for expanding on Dennis’s earlier response. You’ve addressed what I was wondering, whether by having a nominated terminus and adopting a reasonable speed configuration it is possible to settle on a route and having settled on a candidate route whether it is then possible to determine the time and location of the FMT. I’ll standby to standby for your latest work.
Rob said: DrB’s initial calculations suggested LRC would expire about 15 minutes before the observed flameout time of 00:17, so it appears that on the night, the aircraft actually performed better that either the FMC or DrB had predicted.
Or the plane flew slower than LRC for part or all of the flight after 18:28.
Extract from an article in The Australian, 18th August by John Ross and Sam Buckingham-Jones,
“David Griffin, principal research scientist with CSIRO’s Oceans and Atmosphere division, said the pinpointed strip was 100km long at most and possibly as little as 10km wide. He was confident that if searchers looked there they would find something, and such an undertaking would be a minor investment compared with efforts so far. “You can never be sure, but we used about seven lines of evidence to come to that conclusion,” he said.
The finding hinges on assumptions that up to nine objects captured in one of the images, classified in a Geoscience Australia report as “probably man-made”, are from the aircraft. “To completely reject the possibility that any of these objects are pieces of (MH370) is difficult to defend,” CSIRO’s report says.
However, the GA researchers left open the possibility that the objects were “wave glint” or some other natural phenomenon. They said the best way to be sure would be to analyse other images taken by the same instrument on the same satellite and in a “similar sea-state”, but where “unnatural” debris was unexpected.
“For this reason, examination of further images is likely to be of value,” the GA report says.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau, which has responsibility for obtaining the extra images, was asked whether, when and how the bureau would acquire them. A spokesman said it was “considering future actions”.
It would focus particular attention on an area 3000sq km at most — a far cry from the 120,000sq km region already scoured with deep-sea sonar. Dr Griffin said scientists owed their new-found confidence to the fact the images had been taken 15 days after the flight went down. Previous modelling had hinged on wreckage that washed up 500 days later on Reunion, about 4000km away.
“We’re only having to backtrack for two weeks in this case,” he said.
The estimates made use of an ocean current model the agency has been refining for 15 years as part of its efforts to build Australia’s forecasting capability.
“I can throw in particles in any random place in the world, and track them forwards or backwards for a week, a year, 10 years,” he said.”
@David, from the article: The Australian Transport Safety Bureau, which has responsibility for obtaining the extra images, was asked whether, when and how the bureau would acquire them. A spokesman said it was “considering future actions”.
If you look at the slide that was presented to the NOK, you see that the other satellite images that were deemed relevant are near 44S-45S latitude, and not close to the 7th arc. That makes the images near 34S-35S latitude special, and deserving closer scrutiny. I imagine requests have made to French authorities for other images in the vicinity for comparison and to investigate other detections.
Perhaps the fact that these images were not pursued earlier is a demonstration of the faith that the ATSB placed in the DSTG path reconstructions. Perhaps the fact that they are being pursued now is a demonstration of the faith the ATSB places in CSIRO’s drift analysis.
@Victor
RE: “Or the plane flew slower than LRC for part or all of the flight after 18:28.”
To be honest, I think there has been an excessive focus on the use of LRC. In practice, LRC is very rarely (if ever) used by pilots. If a pilot wanted to achieve maximum range, he or she would use CI0. The other most likely cruise schedule would be the airline’s standard CI52, or perhaps a fixed Mach cruise less than LRC. All of those speeds would be slower than LRC.
It was probably before my time here, but was CI52 dismissed for any reason?
@Victor. Yes more work needs to be done on this.
Whereas the article quotes David Griffin as saying the aircraft is in a strip 100kmX10, in the below at about 2:40 he says 100X20X2.
https://audioboom.com/posts/6212205-new-clues-in-search-for-wreckage-of-mh370
@Andrew: In MH370 circles, LRC developed special consideration because we were able to obtain the LRC fuel flow table to use in our calculations. We still don’t know precisely the speeds and fuel flows for ECON mode, although people like @DrB and @sk999 are pretty close at this point.
@David: If they are going to scan more seabed, they would be unwise, in my opinion, to not plan for a more comprehensive mission than 1000-4000 sq km. Those numbers might define a hot spot.
@Victor
Thank you – I do remember that discussion now that you mention it!
@Victor
“If they are going to scan more seabed, they would be unwise, in my opinion, to not plan for a more comprehensive mission than 1000-4000 sq km. Those numbers might define a hot spot.”
As confidence grows in the location of the terminus, the less likely it is for the tripartite group to engage OI (or anyone else for that matter) for a fixed fee (reward) based search. It would make much more sense, assuming they are right (and they might well think they are) to re-engage Fugro on a “pay as you go” basis. OI or anyone else would need a much larger fee to take on the search at a fixed price than Fugro would cost on “pay as you go” to search what could be a much more limited area.
@DennisW: Good point. And it could be done sequentially. Fugro could be contracted to scan 5,000 sq km (either for a fixed price or on a time and materials basis), and if that fails, OI could be engaged next with their no-risk terms, if the OI offer is still valid.
@Victor
That is my feeling relative how the search strategy is most likely to evolve.
@All
David Grifin’s web page now has more detailed information, in his Update of 16th August 2017, including some animations. Follow the links therein. He has also posted a full suite of KMZ files here.
@All
One could even argue that the latest news essentially scuttles the OI offer. A government cannot take the chance of signing up for what was otherwise a reasonable fee proposal without the risk of a windfall by OI which would be perceived as a really imprudent decision by the general population. The events of the last week or so have made the search decision tree more complex instead of easier – an unintended consequence of CSIRO’s and Geoscience’s work.
The governments of Malaysia and to a lesser extent Australia are in a bit of a pickle.
@Andrew,
At the end of the radar track, CI=52 is slightly slower than LRC, but by the time the weight is under about 195 tonnes, the CI=52 speed crosses over the LRC speed and is actually faster than LRC. We know exactly where this occurs for the B777-300ER because we have CI=50 speed and fuel flow tables for it in addition to those for LRC. For the 200ER we don’t have any tables for any values of Cost Index.
I am about 90% done with my -200ER generalized fuel model. So far it is looking like it will be able to predict fuel flow versus speed at any given altitude and weight. Thus one can in principle (and with much calculation) find the curves of speed and fuel flow for any given value of Cost Index, weight, and altitude. First, the model must be verified to match the LRC and Holding tables, as well as Aero Figure 1. Then it can be tested against the MH370 Flight Plan and the MH371 ACARS data.
I understand regarding the likelihood that ECON was used rather than LRC, even during the radar track. I initially considered LRC to be a better fit to the high observed speed during the military radar track, but that conclusion was based on an incorrect assumption – that LRC was always close to Cost Index = 180. That is only true for the heaviest equivalent weights. As the aircraft lightens, the equivalent Cost Index of LRC drops down to about 40.
So initially LRC was faster than CI52, but eventually CI52 became faster than LRC during the last 3-4 hours of MH370’s flight.
@DrB
Thanks, that makes sense. I was thinking of the higher weights when I made my earlier comment and failed to consider the crossover that occurs as the weight reduces.
1. About a new search, an extract from the immediately below is, “Transport Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai said it was too early to decide on such a move, based on the latest report by Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (Csiro).
“We need to wait for more details from the experts as we do not want to jump to conclusions,” he told reporters……”
The Transport Minister made no mention of the OI-plus-others offers.
http://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2017/08/18/verification-on-mh370-report-sought/
2. However the day before, there is mention of OI by the Deputy Transport Minister, “Aziz also said an offer from U.S. firm Ocean Infinity to launch a private search for the plane was still being negotiated”.
The omitted second URL:
http://www.wndu.com/content/news/Malaysia-says-it-will-evaluate-new-MH370-data-440876453.html
@All
For what it could be worth I notice that the overall wave-pattern in almost all images show a north-east to south-west direction particularry in PHR 4.
Suggesting the wind was blowing in that direction during that time.
Which could indicate the debris in that image (IF it is debris) could have come from the east or north east by windage and stoke-drift leeway and maybe also some diverged surface current (by the wind) instead of coming from the south-east.
Page 19 to 23:
https://www.atsb.gov.au/media/5773373/mh370_satellite-imagery-geoscienceaust-report.pdf
@DrB
“The CTH candidate route appears to be unlikely simply because there seems to be no rational reason for the PIC to use it. It would require the PIC to set a constant heading after setting the NORM/TRUE switch to TRUE. Selecting TRUE is the part that defies logic.”
When you say “defies logic” you are assuming accidental ghost flight though. Right now my favored hypothesis is intentional CTH True Heading 180S from ISBIX. Selecting True makes perfect sense as a choice if the PIC is heading for SIO around 93-94E, and trying to avoid a curve easterly. I assumed 180S CTH True Heading, Victor’s old favorite path assumed a BEDAX to South Pole waypoint which is more like 180S CTT True Track.
> Ge Rijn:
> I notice that the overall wave-pattern […] show a north-east to
> south-west direction, […] suggesting the wind was blowing in that
> direction.
Wind direction is not the same as and does not necessarily match wave/swell direction.
> Which could indicate the debris […] could have come from E/NE
> by windage […] and maybe also some diverged surface current (by the wind)
This also neglects (non-wind-induced) ocean currents.
And “the total surface drift current is about 3.1% wind velocity at
very long fetches”.¹ What was the wind velocity ?
—
¹ https://journals.tdl.org/icce/article/viewFile/3758/3441
Another source: “Wind drift current is about 2% of the wind
speed, or a little less, in deep water where the wind has been blowing steadily for at least 12 hours.”
http://msi.nga.mil/MSISiteContent/StaticFiles/NAV_PUBS/APN/Chapt-32.pdf
@Peter Norton
Thanks for the article.
It mentions the wind induced surface drift current as a seperate component to the overall deeper water current as I meant it to say with; ‘diverged surface current by the wind’. Both can have a different direction.
The Stokes-drift component is also mentioned as a factor that will influance the direction of floating objects according to the waves-direction.
So both the wave direction plus the wind induced surface drift current are mentioned as factors that can change by a margin the direction of floating objects compared to the overall deeper water current.
Then when you add ‘windage’ (wind working on the objects) you have another factor adding to a possible change in direction compared to the overall (deeper water) current
You say; ‘Wind direction is not the same as and does not necessarily match wave/swell direction.’
I don’t quite agree.
In general waves will rather soon take the direction according the wind direction if this wind is steady coming from one direction in general.
I don’t know what the wind velocity was at the time but looking at those images and the wave-pattern the swell looks rather high considering the resolution of the images.
I just noticed the consistent wave-pattern in those images and I thought it could be worth mentioning.
@Peter Norton
Just read your second article. Thanks again.
@Peter Norton
On your comment; ‘Another source: “Wind drift current is about 2% of the wind
speed, or a little less, in deep water where the wind has been blowing steadily for at least 12 hours.”
I would say ~2% of the wind speed can be quite a lot over a great distance. Adding Stokes-drift and ‘windage’ would increase this percentage.
It would indeed be helpfull to know the windspeed and direction at the time (23-3-2014).
Considering the consistent wave-pattern, swell and direction of the waves the images show, this suggests a steady wind with rather high velocity coming from the north-east blowing to the south-west for a considerable lenght of time already at the moment of image-capture.
@TBill,
Referring to my comment on the improbability of a PIC using Constant True Heading mode, you said:
“When you say “defies logic” you are assuming accidental ghost flight though. Right now my favored hypothesis is intentional CTH True Heading 180S from ISBIX. Selecting True makes perfect sense as a choice if the PIC is heading for SIO around 93-94E, and trying to avoid a curve easterly. I assumed 180S CTH True Heading, Victor’s old favorite path assumed a BEDAX to South Pole waypoint which is more like 180S CTT True Track.”
No, I was not assuming a ghost flight. Selecting CTH doesn’t make sense to me when there is a destination in mind, because it is not a direct path. Thanks to Andrew, we now know that CTH is not the expected default mode after an EOR/RD Error (instead it is CMH which does not fit the BTOs).
CTH also does not “avoid a curve easterly”. The strong westerly winds at this time in the SIO curve a CTH route to the east approximately the same as a constant magnetic track. Remember this plot:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzOIIFNlx2aUV2J5c3pRYUZFYlE/view?usp=sharing
There are 3 plots in this document. The first plot on the left side shows the FL350 wind vectors along a southerly route, producing a net shift to the east.
The middle plot compares CTT, CTH, and CMT routes. You can see that the CTH and CMT routes are very similar up to the 6th Arc. Then the CMT curves more easterly.
The third plot compares the Inmarsat route with a CTH route. The only significant difference is between the 6th and 7th Arcs, The comparison also holds for Inmarsat versus CMT, with the only real difference being between the 6th and the 7th Arcs. The reason Inmarsat’s route does not curve more at the end is that they were attempting to hold a constant airspeed. That’s why their solution does not fit any lateral navigation mode automated by the FMS. It would require a pilot manually adjusting speed along the route. I think this is very unlikely. The typical FMS speed modes all tend to drop Mach nearing fuel exhaustion, and this fits the BTOs better with a CTH/CMT route. Inmarsat’s route is unflyable with the FMS preset before 19:41, but the CTH and CMT routes are possible.
A constant magnetic heading would curve about twice as much as a CTH. That’s why CMH does not come close to fitting the BTO arcs.
If a PIC wanted to head in a general direction, I suspect he might use magnetic track, simply because that is the (historically) normal procedure around airports under ATC control. I still think a 180.0 degree magnetic track is more likely to be used if a PIC simply wanted to fly south.
@DrB
On your remark: ‘CTH also does not “avoid a curve easterly”. The strong westerly winds at this time in the SIO curve a CTH route to the east approximately the same as a constant magnetic track.’
In responce I like to mention the Pleiades -images don’t show strong westerly winds in the Southern part of the SIO but strong north-east to south-west winds.
I think it could well be the PIC entered specific coördinates and put the switch to TRUE to avoid the great magnetic curve that could be expected around that more souhtern latitudes.
@DrB
Btw, do you have any data about the wind direction and velocity in the area 34S/91E around 23-3-2014?
@DrB
To add further I like to mention the magnetic South-Pole is far more north-east from the TRUE South-Pole than its North-Pole counterpart.
The difference is a thousand of miles at least.
> Ge Rijn says:
> You say; ‘Wind direction is not the same as and does not necessarily
> match wave/swell direction.’
>
> I don’t quite agree.
> In general waves will rather soon take the direction according the
> wind direction if this wind is steady coming from one direction in
> general.
You just confirmed what I said. It takes time for swell direction and wind direction to align (which means that until such time they don’t necessarily match, as I said above).
And I speak from experience when I say that when you have heavy swell, it can take several days until it is aligned with wind from another direction.
.
> Considering the consistent wave-pattern, swell and direction of the
> waves the images show, this suggests a steady wind with rather high
> velocity coming from the north-east blowing to the south-west for a
> considerable lenght of time already at the moment of image-capture.
What you normally see in satellite images is the swell not the wind-waves (for which you would need ultra-high res sat images and some knowledge to interpret them). Although there is a good chance that swell and wind directions more or less align, it is still possible that the wind direction has changed say 12 hours ago. Massive swell with heights of several meters is not affected so quickly.
@Ge Rijn
Re: “In responce I like to mention the Pleiades -images don’t show strong westerly winds in the Southern part of the SIO but strong north-east to south-west winds.”
… at sea level, 15 days after the flight.
@all
Link from a Don Thompson tweet:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/inquirer/csiros-narrow-search-area-gives-hope-to-grieving-mh370-families/news-story/b1098b60df85aa85a77d096b4d60ab86
What I think is really going on:
http://tmex1.blogspot.com/2017/08/reward-risks-and-arm-waving.html
@Ge Rijn: To be clear, if the navigational mode is LNAV and the plane is flying between waypoints, it does not matter what the position of the NORM/TRUE switch is.
Also, if the South Pole is entered as the waypoint (or if 90S,XX is chosen…or if a true track of 180° is chosen), the plane would fly due south along a track of constant longitude towards the true South Pole, not the magnetic pole.
@DrB
I have flown the route many times on FS9, not that that tells me what really happened (yet). I know there was a mighty easterly wind below about 22S, and I can insert that wind into FS9. I personally see no problem with CTH starting around ISBIX. Looks good match to me until at least Arc5. I assume an alive might have made some changes after Arc5, as twilight occurs at 22:50 and maybe yes, the aircraft would have hit a mighty easterly wind at around 22S…that could dictate a slight heading adjustment. Another suggestion by someone here is the 23:14 satcon call might have been reacted to with a course change. The only problem I have with CTH is that I do not how to get a fuel supply forecast from the A/P. Possibly a waypoint like 3393S could have been used in the end.
@DrB
@TBill
If you go to school on the Captain’s sim data then I think you should be having a serious look at a CMT of 180°; that is the simplest solution for 10N to 45S1.
@Mick Gilbert
On your comment to mine: ‘Re: “In responce I like to mention the Pleiades -images don’t show strong westerly winds in the Southern part of the SIO but strong north-east to south-west winds.”
… at sea level, 15 days after the flight.’
Yes, at high altitudes the wind direction could be quite different if that’s what you meant but regarding floating debris the wind and wave direction and velocity at sea level and the wind induced surface drift current is what matters.
I ofcourse also assume CSIRO has taken all this into account.
But you never know.
Not mentioning it here only for assuming they must have done this, makes me feel uncomfortable.
I argue; better mention something possibly helpfull that turns out to be nonsens then not mentioning it at all.
@Peter Norton
On your remark: ‘Although there is a good chance that swell and wind directions more or less align, it is still possible that the wind direction has changed say 12 hours ago. Massive swell with heights of several meters is not affected so quickly.’
I won’t argue on this. In the images at the time they were taken the wind direction could have changed ~12 hours or even some days before. I take your opinion on this.
But then with your logic the wave-pattern/swell and steady wind direction the images suggest, must have been going on for quite some time (weeks?) before the images were taken to produce such a consistent wave-pattern and high swell from north-east to south -west.
So, even when the wind turned say ~12 hours before the images were taken (while there is no obvious reason to assume this happened unless verified) the effect on floating debris in the days/weeks before would have been considerable if the wind and wave direction was like the images show at any considerable timeframe after 8-3-2014 till 23-3-2014.
@Mick
I did look at CMT from 1090E a few months ago, and reported here. I looked at three different magnetic corrections: 2017/2005/FS9 orig (1990s). One of those settings (I am thinking 2005) was very close but not exact match to the 45S1.
@VictorI
On your comment; ‘@Ge Rijn: To be clear, if the navigational mode is LNAV and the plane is flying between waypoints, it does not matter what the position of the NORM/TRUE switch is.’
Oke, clear. But if only a ~180 heading was dialed/selected on the control panel just before or after FMT the TRUE/MAG switch could make a big difference. Is this correct?
@VictorI
Sorry, I correct; NORM/TRUE switch instead of TRUE/MAG switch..
@all
Interesting Bailygram below. It is probably paywalled, but you should all know how to defeat that. Be sure to read the comments section. I believe our very “Mick” had some interesting things to say there.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/mh370-more-searching-questions-for-atsb-over-fiasco/news-story/f8ab104eba8959b7938459ae3df1cabd
All this talk about Magnetic headings is interesting. I have long thought that one of the features of any final configuration of the flight controls left by someone who was very keen to avoid detection, would be some mode likely to minimise contact between the aircraft systems and satellites. Thus, some navigation mode relying on gyros, a compass and internal databases would be preferred over something likely to be chattering away to GPS. A magnetic track might well fulfil those requirements better than other options.
The other thing to consider is the behaviour of the navigation systems after the last entered waypoint is passed. A long time ago I considered some scenarios where a course was flown between waypoints up to a certain point and once the last entered waypoint was passed, the flight systems entered some default state depending on the settings which continued a course under automatic control for the remainder of the flight. A Magnetic track seemed to me to be the most logical choice for a person desiring stealth.
There are many assumptions one might make about the identity of the last entered waypoint but my musings centred around BEDAX as being a probable choice. If the course at that point was 180 and the systems reverted to following a magnetic track after that, what would happen? The course would be towards the Magnetic pole as a default rather than a deliberate choice. At that point, there would be no chance that the aircraft would make landfall and so the terminal point is not of any real interest to a perpetrator if the previous attempts to evade detection have been successful.
I obtained a spreadsheet for calculating a magnetic course and applied it to a magnetic 180 heading starting from several different points just to see where the tracks crossed the 7th arc.
The results were interesting.
https://s11.postimg.org/wyxy7rtg3/MH370_Terminal_Points.jpg
I don’t claim that any of these ideas are correct or that the assumptions I made at the time (2015) are still valid however, they do seem relevant to the current conversation.
@ulric
A magnetic track towards the magnetic pole in those far south SIO regions would be an indication of a ghost-flight somewhere after FMT imo.
A plane drifting on the prevaling winds and magnetic variations along its way to the south.
I think all evidence till now refutes a scenario like this.
The plane had to be controlled by a pilot to end up north of 36S.
@Ge Rijn
“The plane had to be controlled by a pilot to end up north of 36S.”
I know that the scenario is a “ghost flight” assumption however, I don’t think that a flight without pilot control constrains the endpoint below 36S. An assumption that the heading through the last waypoint was 180 (respecting the FIR boundary perhaps?) and some reversion to default settings after passing the last programmed waypoint does seem to be able to produce endpoints well north of 36S. I accept that other evidence may have invalidated my assumptions.
@Ge Rijn
I agree that the scenario assumes a ghost flight but I also don’t know that an un-piloted flight constrains the endpoint below 36S.
Maybe I have missed something?
@Dennis @Victor
The most interesting new ideas from BBaily is (1) the phone call before take-off and (2) the journalist working on the story. A journalistic expose’ could be interesting.
Is the suggested phone call a new idea (vs. the WeChat logon)?
@TBill
I always thought it was a WeChat logon.
@Tbill
>Is the suggested phone call a new idea (vs. the WeChat logon)?
I think Bailey is perhaps carelessly conflating the two. I would be VERY surprised if a reporter is able to produce evidence of any sort proving Z had direct contact with the PM’s office prior to take-off.
Bailey should clarify his (mis)statement, as it leaves readers with the impression that this evidence in fact exists.
I’ll bet the farm it does not, because it most assuredly did not occur.
@TBill
Re: 180 CMT from 10N, I recall that you did reference that here some time back. Wasn’t the “fit” to 45S1 was at least as good as, if not better than, the McMurdo track?
@ulric
“… I obtained a spreadsheet for calculating a magnetic course …”
Have you still got that spreadsheet, or a link to it, and can you post it ?
> ulric says:
> some navigation mode relying on gyros, a compass and internal databases
> would be preferred over something likely to be chattering away to GPS
“GPS devices don’t actually contact satellites and transmit information to them. They only receive data from satellites – data that’s being always-transmitted.”
http://archive.is/T6dD6#selection-349.0-349.158
Bobby: The use of GPS could not be detected by anyone on the ground. It is a receive only sensor.
@Mick
I get back later.
It was probably 180S CMH with a steady wind that got close.
I did not compare to McMurdo path (I thought 45S1 was the McMurdo path).
There was not much interest so I moved on.
> Ge Rijn says:
> @Peter Norton
> But then with your logic the wave-pattern/swell and steady wind
> direction the images suggest, must have been going on for quite some
> time (weeks?) before the images were taken to produce such a
> consistent wave-pattern and high swell from north-east to south -west.
No that’s not what I said, and it’s not “my logic” but simply the way it is. Of course it’s okay to doubt what I’m saying, but as I can only repeat myself at this point, it’s probably better for you to have this discussion with someone else here.
All I wanted to do is point out the fact that wind direction and swell direction do not necessarily have to match (they can, but are under no obligation to do so), thus your conclusion “I notice that the overall wave-pattern show a NE to SW direction, suggesting the wind was blowing in that direction” might happen to be true, but can also be false, thus it is invalid.
Swell may originate far away and travel for thousands of miles, meaning that you can locally have dead calm or even wind from the opposite direction.
« Swell is an ocean wave system not raised by the local wind blowing at the time of observation, but raised at some distance away due to winds blowing there. Swell waves travel out of a stormy or windy area that have travelled from their fetch and continue on in the direction of the winds that originally formed them as sea waves. The swell may travel for thousands of miles before dying away. As the swell wave advances, its crest becomes flattened and rounded and its surface smooth. Swell waves are characterized by a relatively long and regular period.
Swell waves normally come from a direction different from the direction of the prevailing wind and sea waves at the time of observation. However, sea and swell waves may occasionally be seen coming from essentially the same direction, thus making it more difficult to distinguish the two systems, especially if the sea waves are high.
Sea waves and one or more systems of swell waves are frequently present at the same time, forming “cross seas”. Again, sea waves may be absent (as would occur under conditions of very light winds), but one or more systems of swell waves may still be present. »
http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/reports/wxfacts/Swell.htm
@ventus45
I searched for the spreadsheet yesterday but have been unable to find it. It is possible that it is on another computer so I will conduct a further search today.
I’m sure others here noticed the announcement that Paul Allen’s private research vessel has bagged its largest prey to date, the USS Indianapolis.
If current searches fall through, it seems likely that a future Paul Allen/James Cameron will solve the mystery..
@ventus 45
I can’t find the original version I used but I obtained it here
https://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/geomag/WMM/thirdpartycontributions.shtml
It looks like it has been updated since to use the 2015 model.
@Ikr. Thanks. CNN says, “The Navy news release issued Saturday said a key to finding the Indianapolis came in 2016 when Richard Hulver, a historian with the Naval History and Heritage Command, determined a new search area. Hulver’s research identified a naval landing craft that had recorded a sighting of the Indianapolis the day before it sank. The research team developed a new search area, although it was still 600 square miles of open ocean.”
CBS not CNN
@TBill
Re: I thought 45S1 was the McMurdo path.
By my reckoning 45S1 is about 3 nm west of the 10N – Pegasus Field (NZPG) track and about 10nm west of the 10N – Williams Field (NZWD) track.
@Tbill@Mick
I continue to hold the opinion that the ISAT data is a filter. That is it can be used to rule out the Indian Ocean, the Maldives, Kazakstan,… Its usefulness as a predictor has been demonstrated to be quite marginal. I like Mick’s puzzle box picture analogy. If you have a terminal location in mind, you might be able to “massage” the ISAT data to reinforce it over a rather broad range of 7th arc possibilities. Certainly 35S falls into that range.
Likewise the fuel range. Not knowing the manner in which the aircraft was flown creates another range of possibilities – another filter.
I am done playing those games.
@Peter Norton
On your remark; ‘ it’s probably better for you to have this discussion with someone else here.’
First I just postulated something on the blog here and you reacted. I did not invited you to start a discussion. You reacted. Don’t fool me cause you cann’t.
Back on topic. I agree it’s not quite clear if the ‘wave-pattern’ in the images is only a long time swell or mainly surface-waves caused by a steady wind blowing from the north-east to the south-west.
But considering all the ‘white caps’ in the pictures (at 0.5 meters resolution) I think it was the latter. A strong north-east to south-west wind was blowing at the time and probably also the weeks before.
I just like to find the wind data at that time and area but did not succeed yet. Do you have any?
@alsm,
I think you have @ulric confused with me.
> Ge Rijn says:
> I agree it’s not quite clear if the ‘wave-pattern’ in the images is
> only a long time swell or mainly surface-waves caused by a steady wind
> blowing from NE to SW. But considering all the ‘white caps’ in the
> pictures (at 0.5 meters resolution) I think it was the latter.
> A strong NE to SW wind was blowing at the time and probably also the
> weeks before.
I think the image resolution is not good enough to make this claim, given that “The image resolution is not high enough to be certain whether the objects originated from MH370 or are other objects that might be found floating in oceans around the world.”¹
And expertise is required to interpret the images.
Maybe a sat image expert (DrB ?) can weigh in ?
—
¹ http://www.atsb.gov.au/newsroom/news-items/2017/mh370-satellite-imagery/
(assuming you are referring to the thumbnail pictures in http://www.atsb.gov.au/media/5773373/mh370_satellite-imagery-geoscienceaust-report.pdf )
> Ge Rijn says:
> On your remark; ‘it’s probably better for you to have this discussion
> with someone else here.’
>
> First I just postulated something on the blog here and you reacted.
> I did not invited you to start a discussion. You reacted.
> Don’t fool me cause you cann’t.
Just to clear this up: You misunderstand my comment. Look closely, I did not make any claims about who started the discussion (which is neither relevant nor my point). I was merely saying that if you want to continue this discussion, it would be better (since you doubt my statements anyway, and I can only repeat them which lacks any added value) for you to continue the discussion with someone else here. This was a completely neutral and impersonal suggestion, so please don’t take it personally – nobody here (certainly not me) is trying to quote “fool you”.
Please understand that I will ignore further comments like this, because I want to stay clear from personal tit for tat (which is a distraction) and deal in facts only.
.
> I just like to find the wind data at that time and area but did not
> succeed yet. Do you have any?
No, I don’t have the data you want, but I believe it was previously discussed here (or @JW). Did you bother searching on the net? Among the first 5 results for “MH370 wind speed direction”:
« Wind speed and direction for a potential southern track over this segment [19:41-20:41 if I understand correctly] is about 21 knots from 65 degrees True. »¹
« wind speed and direction can be determined, as shown in the following table: [dropbox link] »²
Bearing in mind that if it flew to the Southern Indian Ocean, MH370 crossed half an ocean (with varying meteorological conditions), the following picture makes clear why your question cannot be answered by a simple “wind from X degrees with Y knots”:
http://earth.nullschool.net/#2014/03/07/2100Z/wind/isobaric/250hPa/orthographic=-260.33,-18.71,791/grid=on
—
¹ http://www.duncansteel.com/archives/1330
² http://www.archive.is/F7fpV#selection-517.92-517.172
@Ge Rijn,
“I just like to find the wind data at that time and area but did not succeed yet. Do you have any?”
The interpretation of sea wave / swell wave directions from satellite images is fraught with problems. In the case of the normally dominate feature, i.e. swell; without knowing something about the prevailing weather conditions at and prior to the time in question, the direction of motion of the swell wave will be a 50/50 guess.
During the southern hemisphere summer the predominate wind direction between Lat 10S – 30S and from 90E to the Australian coast is from the SE quarter. This will over a period of time and distance (fetch) create a localized swell, but there will always be evidence of a long period swell with an originating direction from S – SW generated by the continuous stream of Southern Ocean low pressure systems passing well to the south.
A good reference for the surface winds you are seeking is:-
https://earth.nullschool.net
Here is an URL for 2014/03/23/0600Z for 35.4S 90.2E, i.e. noon LMT in the area covered by the Pleiades satellite images.
http://tinyurl.com/mh370-35S90E
Click in the address bar to see the full url – you will work out how to change the date, time, location etc.. The 1000 factor relates to the zoom factor.
> Barry Carlson says:
>
> @Ge Rijn,
> The interpretation of sea wave / swell wave directions from satellite
> images is fraught with problems. In the case of the normally dominate
> feature, i.e. swell […] the direction of motion of the swell wave will
> be a 50/50 guess.
Ge Rijn believes the sat images do not show swell but “mainly surface-waves caused by a steady wind”:
> Ge Rijn says,
> […] the ‘wave-pattern’ in the images is only a long time swell or
> mainly surface-waves caused by a steady wind blowing from NE to SW.
> Considering all the ‘white caps’ in the pictures (at 0.5m resolution)
> I think it was the latter.
> A strong NE to SW wind was blowing at the time
> and probably also the weeks before.
For USAians with an extended cable service: Science Channel is promoting a program, “The Hunt for Flight MH370” to be premiered next Saturday [26 August] at 10pm EdT/7pm PDT. Unlikely to air anything unfamiliar to readers of this board, but might be interesting to see how it’s presented.
I don’t think this is just a rework of the MH370 treatment shown on Smithsonian network, now a couple of years out of date.
Science Channel programs tend to be of reasonable quality, at least in comparison to the dreck and pseudoscience presented on Discovery and History channels.
@ulric
Thanks for the link. Got the spreadsheet.
@Peter Norton,
“Ge Rijn believes the sat images do not show swell but ‘mainly surface-waves caused by a steady wind’ ”
We need to let Ge Rijn decide exactly how the wind data that has been provided relates to the Pleiades images.
@TBill, Quick question for you :). Has anyone ever made a precise overview of vessels in the SIO at the time of fuel exhaustion ? In an earlier comment you mentioned sightings. Would there have been any way the PIC could have tracked vessel positioning at altitude? Apologies if these questions have been asked and answered before.
@Irthe — Sightings from a cargo ship? Could happen, but about as likely as a texting jaywalker noticing an oncoming car. Yachters like Kate Tee do look around. The big boys watch gauges or play cards.
@Victor. I wonder if Paul Allen has put in a ‘bid’ for a search, or will? His technology can explore to 6000m and may well offer a timely start to the SIO search season. If he offered to bear all costs, as seems to have been his practice, he might well be welcomed; that is if investigators could accept the risk of loss of face. Indeed, being in international waters he may need no blessing unless constrained by the search not so far having been abandoned. Still, a deterrent to an offer like this would be opprobrium from searchers whose business this is.
He might at least provide a backstop.
Returning again to explanations of the final BFOs, piloted, I think the strongest evidence that there was or was not a pilot now lies not with the final BFOs, mid-flight separations or hypotheses on the collision with the sea but rather the explanation for the sequence leading to the final log-on at fuel exhaustion. I have yet to find a really plausible piloted alternative as to why a pilot, obviously by chance, might replicate this.
Also fuel exhaustion rules out a pilot planning an end point, which some see as being an intent. That would have included fuel allowances for wind and weather vagaries at the least, so fuel exhaustion would be a planning failure for any experienced pilot with a terminus in mind. One might conjecture he dumped or shut the engines down but then his fuel consumption would not match that calculated.
Besides since fuel load was set in part by the specific reserve requirements dictated by the anticipated arrival weather for a specific Peking flight, that makes it even less likely that fuel exhaustion would coincide with a planned terminus.
As to an aim to get as far as he could on the fuel he had, surely a pilot would have step-climbed (no evidence of that in the BFOs) and might have extended even farther by switching off inessentials (electrics? bleed air?) whereas there is no evidence of fuel consumption being less than that unmanned.
@Peter Norton @Barry Carlson
Oke, excusse me for that slight of irritation when I misunderstood you about your line about continuing this discussion somewhere else.
I did bother to find that wind data but could not find it specific to this Pleiades-images area.
The ‘earth.nullschool.net’ is new to me and showing what I looked for. Thank you @Barry Carlson.
It shows a steady wind coming all the way from the WA-mainland blowing due east and turning to the south-east in the Pleiades-area.
Almost exactly what the wave/swell-pattern in the Pleiades-images show.
I know I’m not an expert on interpreting this. I just wanted to share something I noticed with my own thoughts that could be worth looking at more close imo.
Regarding possible “sightings” and / or “other secret data”.
Firstly, as indicated above, commercial ships at sea run with very few bridge watchkeepers these days. Mostly, the ships run on autopilot. The likelyhood of anyone sighting anything out in the SIO in the dark is next to zero. However, ships have maritime navigation radars, generally of limited range, wich are programmed to set off alarms, if a target is detected that may represent a potential collision risk, or enter a warning zone. It is possible, that an aircraft at very low level, or one coming straight down in a dive, might have been picked up by a ship radar momentarily on one or two sweeps, but the odds are millions to one, and even if it did, by the time the alarm went off and an operator looked at it, there would be nothing there, ie, the alarm would be dismissed as a false one. In any case, so far as we know, no crew from any commercial ship has reported any such alarm, either at the time, or since.
However, there is another, intriguing possibility.
In this reference it is stated that at Page 221 of his book, former French President Nicolas Sarkozy suggests that he knows exactly where the wreck of the Boeing 777, flight MH370 of the Malaysia Airlines is, but that he can say nothing until the French have re-elected him.
I have often thought, or wondered, whether or not that could possibly be really true, and if so, it might help explain why the French have been so uncooperative with regards to the flaperon.
Take a little ride on the “lateral thinking highway”.
The French have a scientific station on Ansterdam Island, The Martin-de-Viviès research station, with civilian “scientific staff”, but the base “technical staff” are French Military. They have satellite communications and a whole heap of other electronic equipment, weather sensors etc. Looking at the island in Google Earth, it is possible that
there may even be a Weather Radar in a dome at 37.798587°South 77.570060°East.
Moreover, the French research ship Marion Defeis is also the supply ship which regularly visits the base, and it is quite an interesting design, with a flight deck and hangar for a helicopter, complete with what appears (from studying photographs of the ship) to be a very extensive elecronics suite, comms, radars, elint etc.
In particular, the verteran French Navy offshore patrol vessel Albatros (P681) may have been in the vercinity. The ship was finally retired to France after patrolling the Indian Ocean for a staggering 31 years, only in 3rd Quarter 2015. It’s elecronic equipment is listed at “Equipements électroniques” 2 radars de navigation DRBN-38 (2 radars Decca 1226 avant 2002) 1 détecteur de radar ARBR-16 (1 ARUR-10B avant 2002) Inmarsat. Note that the ARBR 16 [DR 2000S] is a specialist miitary radar detector that dates from the late 1970’s. It is an ESM sensor specifically for ELINT operations, and has been virtually a “standard fit” on most other French Naval Ships. The specifications indicate a range of 500 Nautical Miles, a direction finding accuracy of 6 degrees. A very full write up of this system and it’s later variants is here.
If we assume that Mh370 got anywhere within about 250 nautical miles (and possibly a lot further) of Amsterdam (presumably to the east or north-east), at cruise altitude, it is possible that it’s weather radar may have been on and transmitting. It may have still been on in a ghost flight scenario post FMT, but even more interestingly, if a conscious pilot was scanning ahead at night, he would have used it to look for a good weather hole to descend into to ditch, and / or to check that there were no ships nearby. One should remember that a radar is a radar. It may be optimised as an airborne weather radar, but if tilted down, they are certainly very capable of picking out ground features, particulaly isolated islands, like Ansterdam and Saint Paul, and large ships at least, tankers, cargo or container ships, car transport ships etc, anything with a large RCS.
Now, stretching the logic a bit, a radar transmitting in the air might “interfere” with a radar on the ground, or on a ship, at least up to 250 nautical miles away, perhaps even further under some conditions (ducting etc). The crew of a commercial ship probably would not think much of it, and discount it, but a military trained radar operator at a land base definately would not, he would log it, and investigate it as best he could, and would report it up the chain of command. But on a ship with ELINT Equipment, (the two above), there would be no question that an operator would sure as hell notice that, and it would be automatically logged anyway.
So, we have Amsterdam Island with Military Technical Support Staff with a pssibility that one or more of their systems may have picked up something. We also have the possibility that the Marion Defeis may have been in the area at the time, and may have picked up something. And we have yet another possibility, that a French Navy Patrol Vessel Albatros (P681) may have been in the area as well.
When you look at the fact, that regardless of the actual platform or “sensor” that may have picked up something, all of them were operated by very well trained military technical staff, who would report it, and keep it quiet, as military people naturally do. Given the fact that no one knew for a week or so that MH370 may have gone down that way, it is plausible, indeed, perfectly understandable, that the French may have connected the dots very early on, perhaps very soon after, by week three perhaps, but said nothing, because they were not sure, and they knew that they would have looked pretty stupid if they said something, but could not prove it. Then, the flaperon washing up on Reunion months later would have changed all that at a single stroke. Moreover, the French would have had a very dim view of both Malaysia and Australia by that time, and it is perhaps understandable, that they have “closed the doors” since.
@ ventus45
“In this reference it is stated that at Page 221 of his book, former French President Nicolas Sarkozy suggests that he knows exactly where the wreck of the Boeing 777, flight MH370 of the Malaysia Airlines is, but that he can say nothing until the French have re-elected him.”
I do think these “news” are like “The Onions” ones… On the same page, you have a link to this one(!!!):
https://www.radiocockpit.fr/2014/08/02/air-france-propose-le-nouveau-service-dimprimer-ses-bagages-avec-une-imprimante-3d/
Translate in “Air France suggests to print your luggages with a 3D-Printer” (because Air France is well known to have a high rate loosing luggages and doing nothing to retrieve them…)
😉
PL
Imo there is also another interesting feature in the earth.nullschool.net wind-pattern around 35.40S/90.2E:
https://earth.nullschool.net/#2014/03/23/0600Z/wind/surface/level/orthographic=90.60,-33.21,1000/loc=90.200,-35.400
North of 35S/90E around 34S/90E there is a devide in the wind direction were the wind starts to bend increasingly towards the north-east direction while south of ~34S/90E the wind direction is increasing towards the south-east-south direction.
I think this could be interesting for debris south of ~34S/90E would have had the tendency to be blown towards the south-east-south and north of ~34S/90E towards the north-east. Especially debris with high windage like the flaperon would be effected (wind force was Beaufort 4).
A speculation on the search pattern Pleiades 1A was performing on 23rd March 2014 when the four published images were acquired.
There was only one pass over the search area during daylight, at 0400UT. The track was well to the west of Griffin’s restricted search area. Based on the Pleiades capabilities in their user manual I have generated a possible pattern of images they could have programmed.
We don’t know what the operators were asked to do but in mid-March the search in the SIO was very immature. The June 2014 ATSB report states they were searching in the areas they designated S1 and S2 between 85-95E, plus drift adjustment which was to the north. On that basis the Pleiades 1A search could have been symmetric with its track, that is, there was no reason to look more to the east or west. I show a pattern of 22 images using the lat/long pitch indicated by the four published images, centred roughly on the spacecraft track and up to 230km inside the 7th arc. From the user manual I think the system could have acquired the 22 images in the time available, but it may be a few too many. The system has fast slewing capability (and look ahead/behind capability) to acquire multiple images over a small area.
I don’t know what the weather was like on the 23rd and hence how many images would have been cloud-free, but there should have been a lot more images than the four potentially available. We can presume that only those four had targets identified by the French analysts.
The next pass over the search area by Pleiades 1A was two days later and four degrees to the east, so the pass on 23rd March was the best match to the search area active at that time (85-95E, as above), if only one day’s operation was made available by the spacecraft operators. Pleiades 1B is on the same orbit as 1A and has the same capaibilities, but there is no indication it was also used on the MH370 search.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/b3ji7ayjf1fhvsu/Pleiades-23-3-14.jpg?dl=0
@Richard Cole
Terrific work on the Pleiades images, thanks Richard. That is easily the best explanation I have read for the “four corners”.
Correcting to the devide in the wind directions the earth.nullschool.net animation shows. They are bending towards the north-WEST, north of ~34S/90E and to the south-WEST, south of ~34S/90E.
Mistakenly switched east and west..
@Richard Cole
Interesting. If your explanation is truely valid and only in those published four north-east pictures potential debris was detected, thus nothing in your other presumed 18 pictures, this would strenghten the possibility the objects shown in the four Pleiades-pictures could actualy be MH370.
I personally think the bright large rectangular object in PHR 3 and the objects in PHR 4 are the more convincing by their shapes and brightness/contrast in the surrounding ocean features.
It would be helpfull if all captured images at the time by Pleiades A1 would be published.
Air Search Day 25 – https://www.dropbox.com/s/a8xpi6s72h9l6fp/Air%20Search%20Day%2025%201st%20April%202014.gif?dl=0
@ventus45
Not suprising nothing was spotted in that more northern air search areas if the Pleiades images really represent some MH370 debris.
They then already had floated/drifted out of this areas by 25-3-2014.
> Barry Carlson says:
> We need to let Ge Rijn decide exactly how the wind data that has been
> provided relates to the Pleiades images.
> Ge Rijn says:
> earth.nullschool.net
> shows a steady wind coming all the way from the WA-mainland blowing due E
> and turning to the SE in the Pleiades-area.
> Almost exactly what the wave/swell-pattern in the Pleiades-images show.
@Barry Carlson:
Is this how you see the situation and what you intended to say in your quoted comment ?
> Ge Rijn says:
> your line about continuing this discussion somewhere else
I never said that.
> earth.nullschool.net is new to me and showing what I looked for.
> Thank you @Barry Carlson.
I hope you saw my earlier posting, where I pointed you to this same site.
@Peter Norton
I told you I misunderstood that line and I’m sorry. You indeed did not wrote it the way I read it.
To clear up something else; in my lines of comment you repeat to @Barry Carlson I meant to say the winds are coming from the East WA-mainland but blowing due West and turning to the South-West in the Pleiades-area.
I’m curious also about @Barry Carlson’s view on this so I’m glad you asked him.
@Peter Norton,
I haven’t as yet had time to examine what Ge Rijn described as his interpretation of the sat images. His original description did suffer in what I would call a translation issue, i.e. not sticking to the English convention of describing wind (and current) as “from” a “direction”, and the resulting effects such as leeway (and drift) as “to” a “direction”.
@Ge Rijn,
” I meant to say the winds are coming from the East WA-mainland but blowing due West and turning to the South-West in the Pleiades-area.”
On the day the sat images were taken, the description of the surface wind at 0600Z (1200 LMT) in a “nominal” position of 35.3°S 091.3°E was:-
085°T @ 21Km/H, 5.8 m/sec or 11 knots.
The wind had been “backing” (anti-clockwise) slowly from the South toward East over the previous 2 days. The fetch
… continuing, the fetch was actually quite small, and in all likelihood there were swells arriving at the location from more than one direction. The wind wasn’t strong enough to create a distinct wind driven crest on the waves, but may have resulted in the odd white-cap when peaks of converging swells and local sea state converged.
The “nominal” position I mentioned earlier was the geometric center of the 3 brown squares notating the CSIRO positions on Richard Coles schematic.
Using this nominal position I have recovered the 3 hourly surface winds for the previous 16 days, and average for the period is:-
210.3°T @ 14.8 Km/H,
which gives, when using a 1.5% factor, a leeway of 030°T over 73.7 Km in that period.
So in respect of the comments in my original post, in this instance they have not been borne out when put to the test.
@Barry Carlson
Thank you. I tried to sort it out also. Over those 16 days the wind direction changed many times in the specific region. Some days due north and some days the opposite due south even one day due east.
The final 5 days the direction was mainly to the south-south-east.
But I see the many variations in wind direction during that periode probably indicate a random effect on the total leeway that can be ignored.
I do it again..: ‘The final 5 days the direction was mainly to the south-south-east’ should be to the south-south-west..
@Barry Carlson
It’s indeed a ‘translation-issue’. In Dutch we can turn this ‘to’ and ‘from’ around in translation but meaning the same as in proper English.
@Richard. If you want to see precisely what Pleiades and other Airbus portal imagery is available for the geographic area and time of interest, why not look it up on the catalogue (per my earlier post)?
Specify box boundaries, dates, imagery type, any other filters you are interested in and away you go
http://www.intelligence-airbusds.com/en/4871-browse-and-order
@David
You said “Returning again to explanations of the final BFOs, piloted, I think the strongest evidence that there was or was not a pilot now lies not with the final BFOs, mid-flight separations or hypotheses on the collision with the sea but rather the explanation for the sequence leading to the final log-on at fuel exhaustion. I have yet to find a really plausible piloted alternative as to why a pilot, obviously by chance, might replicate this.”
This is my take on the issue – I hasten to add that these are my personal opinions only. To me the 18:25 logon, coming as it did just minutes after he flew beyond reach of Malaysian military radar, is a clear indication the pilot was using it (the SATCOM logon) to signal he was still airborne, without giving away his precise location. Although the signal would not be received in real time, it would still suit the intended purpose. The second logon signal, the one at 00:19, was equally important to him. He wanted the ground to know the plane airborne until fuel exhaustion. I think he would have been aware that the APU would start up and come on line a minute after the second flameout, and would cause the SDU to reboot. All he had to do was to sit there and wait for fuel exhaustion. He could deploy the RAT in advance in order to maintain sufficient hydraulic pressure until the APU started up. To wait until fuel exhaustion was desirable for these reasons: 1) it would add to the uncertainty as to what had occurred and would make it more difficult for Malaysian authorities to invoke mechanical/electrical malfunction as a possible get-out explanation for the “accident”. 2) Flameout would be timed to occur at a specific lighting condition, ie Sun just above horizon, and it would get him deep into the SIO, making it less likely he would ever be found. 3) Empty tanks on impact would reduce/eliminate the possibility of an infra red pulse or visual flash being picked up by a satellite, and would minimize a fuel slick.
You said “Also fuel exhaustion rules out a pilot planning an end point, which some see as being an intent. That would have included fuel allowances for wind and weather vagaries at the least, so fuel exhaustion would be a planning failure for any experienced pilot with a terminus in mind. One might conjecture he dumped or shut the engines down but then his fuel consumption would not match that calculated.”
I don’t believe he planned an end point so much as an end time. A constant Mach 0.81 after the FMT would, so he estimated, would get him to fuel exhaustion at about 00:02 when the Sun would be about 2deg above the horizon. On the night, the fuel lasted about 15 minutes longer than estimated at FMT.
You said “Besides since fuel load was set in part by the specific reserve requirements dictated by the anticipated arrival weather for a specific Peking flight, that makes it even less likely that fuel exhaustion would coincide with a planned terminus.”
It’s the Captain’s decision how much fuel is in the tanks when the plane takes off. He had a good inkling in advance what fuel he would have on board, and worked out the flight path in advance.
You said “As to an aim to get as far as he could on the fuel he had, surely a pilot would have step-climbed (no evidence of that in the BFOs) and might have extended even farther by switching off inessentials (electrics? bleed air?) whereas there is no evidence of fuel consumption being less than that unmanned.”
I think he chose a constant Mach 0.81 at 35,000ft following FMT (possibly after requesting endurance calcs from the FMC) in order to synchronize flameout with his preferred Sun elevation.
@David
Further to the above, I should just point out that the IGOGU/ISBIX great circle path, extended by means of a manually inserted Along-Track Waypoint, and thus crossing the 7th arc at S37.7, E89.1 is the best path for synchronizing fuel exhaustion with desired sun elevation. This is because this path and only this path ran parallel to the advancing morning terminator.
All other paths into the SIO fall short of this essential requirement. A constant magnetic track would curve eastwards. Any eastward curving path would be undesirable, from the pilot’s point of view. To my mind, the only scenario permitting an eastward curving path is one in which the pilot was somehow incapacitated shortly after FMT, and the flight south became a ghost flight. I don’t think that happened, despite the siren call from Mr Griffin etal, encouraging people to search at S35.
@Barry Carlson: thank you. I am looking forward to more postings from you, as they are always a good read.
@Paul Smithson
Thanks for the information. I couldn’t see the published four images in the catalogue – have you been able to access them?
@richard. that is very strange if they are pleiades because they ought to be there? i’ll also have a look when i get a decent internet connection.
Paul, Richard!
I returned to the catalog of Pléiades imagery & it listed nothing earlier than 28th Mar. CNES describes Level 1 products as available to military users, the GeoScience Aus authors were very emphatic in attributing their images to French Military Intelligence. Could it be the case that images gathered as a consequence of military tasking are not published for general distribution? CNES’ description of the Level 1 products states that this category of imagery lacks post-processing such as ortho-correction, but doesn’t necessarily exhibit higher resolution than generally available products (70cm).
@Irthe Turner
Regarding the question of other vessels/aircraft, it depends on crash location. In the 32-40S area, I am not aware of any discussion of other ships or aircraft. But if that is the crash area, I still envision a possible pilot strategy to manage cloud cover and altitude to minimize a visually glaring aircraft in the bright morning Sun. Any random vessel in this case would be unexpected, but could be there.
If the crash location is more north like 22S, then that is an area along L896 airway that did have some air traffic around crash time, and my understanding is that area is also near some shipping lanes. I believe Mike Chillit has given some info about ships in the Batavia seamount region on 8-March.
@Don – quite possible. I had hoped that the catalogue would place the images in broader context, inclusive of imagery that could be used as a “control group” to assess frequency of false-positives.
Now that I have had an opportunity to read the geoscience report in full it seems to me that the “findings” are being over-hyped well beyond what is supported by the assessment of the authors.
I’m no expert in the remote sensing analysis but none of the images look at all convincing. Reflectivity/colour identical to glint; highly irregular shapes; more often than not diffuse patches or clusters rather than solid.
I wasn’t able to get sea significant wave height for that time & area from earth.nullschool. However, for indicative position 35.2S 90.5E the wind strength & direction was (going backwards in steps of 12 hours from 0000Z on 23 March 2014:
26kmh 085 deg
30kmh 085 deg
25kmh 140 deg
33kmh 145 deg
26kmh 170 deg
This suggests to me that a) we had at least 48 hours of winds strong enough to generate widespread whitecaps, including around the time of the image b) a 90 degree shift in wind direction that will produce a cross-swell and inevitable interference between two wave patterns.
To my untrained eye, I think all of the so-called objects are most likely nothing more than waves.
@Rob. “The second logon signal, the one at 00:19, was equally important to him. He wanted the ground to know the plane airborne until fuel exhaustion. I think he would have been aware that the APU would start up and come on line a minute after the second flameout, and would cause the SDU to reboot.”
From earlier discussion it is unlikely that an MH370 pilot would be aware that repowering the SDU would generate a log-on, an unusual event airborne, and even if so that there would be a record of that. If he were, it is reasonable to presume his knowledge would extend to the periodic responses to ground pings. These would render a log-on as unnecessary to indicate the SDU was responsive. Likewise in planning your scenario he would be aware of the likelihood of ground calls and the indications of responsiveness to them also. He would have anticipated surely that the calls would continue. Thus he would have no strong reason to plan log-on for the reason you describe. A final log-on would extend the message that the aircraft/SDU remained powered by just the time gap since the last ping responses or phone call.
Clearly an MH370 pilot would be unaware of the part played by BTOs and BFOs since that has been uncovered since. So please bear in mind also that any log-on he decided on or other indication that the aircraft is powered does not mean that the aircraft necessarily is, “airborne until fuel exhaustion”, since the aircraft could have landed and logged on well after that.
Similarly I see no reason why a pilot would have assumed the APU would auto-start when the aircraft nominally ran out of fuel. Some simulators do indicate this would happen and that engine relight attempts also are possible. However even if this was encountered in training simulations of fuel exhaustion (is there any?), I doubt that pilots would treat it as a reliable predictor: there is no aircraft manual information I am aware of that would lead them to count on that or indeed the duration. The APU fuel pump’s designed function is to deliver left tank fuel to the APU and engines when there is no AC, not at nominal tank fuel exhaustion.
Also, the SDU needs APU power for a minute at least. I have raised doubts as to whether there would be sufficient residual fuel for that in a dive, in part because of the engine restart consumption. It is only in tests/trials since the MH370 loss and confirmed quite recently, that it has proven that the APU will access enough residual fuel for its own start plus the minute’s run. How would an MH370 pilot have known that and counted on it?
Furthermore, these trials would have been hands off, ie unmanned, for that has been an ATSB/SSWG underpinning of simulations. Hence the trial results would not apply necessarily were there a pilot who say bunted the aircraft nose down at fuel exhaustion for example, or prompted any manoeuvre beyond those of the trials.
The above might be food for thought.
About the sunrise terminus, as I understand you this was for light for a ditching rather than religious/personal reasons? I think you have discarded the powered ditching possibility already. Why would he elect unpowered?
You said, “It’s the Captain’s decision how much fuel is in the tanks when the plane takes off. He had a good inkling in advance what fuel he would have on board, and worked out the flight path in advance”. There has been detailed review (including by me) about the reasonableness of the reserve fuel he required for the Peking flight plan. That proved to accord with the diversion distances that he could expect due to inclemency, these being longer than common and also those in the flight plan. As such it was not a pre-planned amount but instead was consistent with by the conditions expected near Peking for that particular flight.
Don, Paul,
I expect that the published image processing refers to the commercial/science products, not the military process, so they separate after level 1?
It would make sense that the images from the military process are not going to be published on any archive (even if they could be of some civil use) – wouldn’t want the Russians to know what pictures of their hardware had been acquired?
Paul, Richard,
I do expect that results from military taskings would not be generally available, so as not to reveal areas of interest in that context. Of course, it has to be remembered that the reason these EO/sat imagery users stepped up for MH370 was China’s invocation of the Disasters Charter.
The GSA authors describe objects presenting visible areas, categorised as ‘probably man-made’, in the range 22m² to 73m². That’s much, much, larger than objects recovered on shorelines to date.
A Pleiades search campaign in the MH370 area is shown on their archive, executed between 28th March and 2nd April 2014. Presumably this was arranged in the normal way, rather than performed by the French military. All the images were clouded out, so perhaps it was decided that such searches were not a useful way of progressing. The search was at the southern tip of area S3, an area of interest at the end of March 2014, as I indicate in the map.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/tfr2072vbn5wa2q/Pleiades_maps.jpg?dl=0
The June 2014 report states:
“On 27 March (D20), the JIT advised they now had more confidence in the increased speeds provided by primary radar near Malaysia. This increased the aircraft fuel burn and the most probable track moved north to the S3 area. The JIT additionally had more confidence that a 7th arc was a fuel exhaustion point. Two new search areas designated S4 and S5 were defined. The most probable impact location was moved to the bottom of the S4 area on the 7th arc within the S3 area. On 28 March (D21) a surface search of a drifted S3/S4 area (Shape A in Figure 6) was commenced.”
However, Shape A in fig 6 is much further north than the Pleiades images taken at the end of March.
@Don – thanks for yours, I concur that makes sense
@Richard – way back I created and posted on reddit date-ordered kmz of shapes indicating total satellite search coverage by digital globe, pleiades, terra SAR-x (from public catalogues). If you are interested I’ll see if I can dig them out again. Each tile includes metadata for that image (date/time, vehicle, resolution, elevation, cloud coverage etc etc)
The reason for doing that was that it might indicate the evolution of thinking on where the wreckage was most likely to be detected. In my view, that history tells quite an interesting story. I have subsequently learned through correspondence that the tasking was not all commissioned by the same entity. for example, Terra SAR-X imagery was commissioned by interested individuals within German remote sensing agency who thought they might make themselves useful.
@David “From earlier discussion it is unlikely that an MH370 pilot would be aware that repowering the SDU would generate a log-on, an unusual event airborne, and even if so that there would be a record of that. If he were, it is reasonable to presume his knowledge would extend to the periodic responses to ground pings. These would render a log-on as unnecessary to indicate the SDU was responsive. Likewise in planning your scenario he would be aware of the likelihood of ground calls and the indications of responsiveness to them also. He would have anticipated surely that the calls would continue. Thus he would have no strong reason to plan log-on for the reason you describe. A final log-on would extend the message that the aircraft/SDU remained powered by just the time gap since the last ping responses or phone call”.
David, I disagree with just about everything there. I think he would be aware that a power interruption would cause the SDU to reboot and issue a logon request. But it is not reasonable to presume that his knowledge would also extend to the hourly handshake pings. The hourly handshake pings are generated when the AES logs on but then fails to send back regular ACARS messages. That the regular handshake pings will occur only in the specific conditions outlined above, is not common knowledge among airline crews, and they are not displayed in the cockpit. However, I do agree with you about him expecting phone calls from MAS. This in my opinion is one of the reasons he disabled the SATCOM for the first hour; the purpose being to give the impression the plane had crashed so when MAS found the line dead they would be less likely to request the military to search with their primary radar. I know that is going to sound contrary to my other assertion about him wanting MAS to think the plane has run until fuel exhaustion. He only wanted to go completely black for the first hour. This was to discourage him from being tracked in real time by military radar. Once out of radar range, he put the AES back on line in order to show he was in fact still airborne. This was clearly (to my mind) a taunt to the authorities. If he had any inkling that switching the AES back on at 18:24 might allow the subsequent tracing of his journey into the SIO, I am sure he would have been forced to keep the AES unpowered until the end of the flight.
I am in the camp which, like the ATSB, says the APU would have had enough fuel for several minutes of operation, following left hand engine flameout.
You said “about the sunrise terminus, as I understand you this was for light for a ditching rather than religious/personal reasons? I think you have discarded the powered ditching possibility already. Why would he elect unpowered?”.
The purpose of the sunrise terminus was to have conditions that enabled him to get a visual of the ocean surface, to be able to make sure he wasn’t going to impact close to any shipping, and to be better able to control the final attitude and descent at the point of impact. I don’t think he would want to rely totally on instruments in the final moments. He wanted to control the impact in such a way that the aircraft sank swiftly with the minimum of surface debris. This did not require the deployment of flaps. If the APU flamed out on the way down, the RAT would provide enough control to complete the task.
You said “there has been detailed review (including by me) about the reasonableness of the reserve fuel he required for the Peking flight plan. That proved to accord with the diversion distances that he could expect due to inclemency, these being longer than common and also those in the flight plan. As such it was not a pre-planned amount but instead was consistent with by the conditions expected near Peking for that particular flight.”
I don’t disagree with you. But you must also agree that he would have, from experience, a reasonable idea of how much fuel would be in the tanks at takeoff. He was prepared to burn fuel at a high rate for the first hour, when he was clocked at Mach 0.87. After that, all he had to do was enquire of the FMC, the optimal Mach number and altitude that would exhaust the fuel at 00:02 (could it have actually been 00:00 dead?) when the Sun would be just above the horizon in the terminal area. This in my opinion turned out to be Mach 0.81 at 35,000ft. However, as said earlier, the plane appears to have flown for a further 15 minutes before the left hand tank was exhausted.
@Barry Carlson @Peter Norton @Don Thompson
Like to say it seems by your arguments and data-links the wind induced surface drift and leeway is canceled out as a possible very important factor in the area in the time period between 8-3 and 23-3-2014 regarding the Pleiades images assumed debris.
The wind direction shifts were just too different on an almost day to day basis going from due north to due south, west and east in those ~2 weeks.
Although the wind direction was strongly north-north-west at 8-3 (earth.nullschool.net) and the 3 days after.
This would have added extra speed to debris floating to the north-north-west on the main ocean current. Maybe even doubling the latter speed especially with pieces who had a high windage like the flaperon and possibly the outboard flap section. Wich would drift at higher speeds anyway compared to flat floeting debris.
More convinsing to me after all are the arguments @Don Thompson mentioned.
I also counted the pixels in the Pleiades images and found the objects (if they were objects) were very large compared to the pieces found to date.
The object in PHR 3 could be an almost complete outboard flap but still then it seems to be far too large in the image.
I now seriously doubt the Pleiades images/assumed debris have any connection to real MH370 debris. Too big features and at the wrong place according earth.nullschool.net.
@GeRijn: My sense also that there’s low probability that the large features have anything to do with MH370. Though it would be good for your ‘ditching’ hypothesis if they were. The largest features could only be major sections of the wings [certainly not fuselage?] — aluminum structures that might float for a short time before flooding, but hardly long enough to reach western shores of the IO.
Even without connection to MH370, if these ARE debris fields [“man-made structures”], the lack of detection in the aerial search ought to reduce confidence that S&R would have detected MH370 debris, eg, in the area north of 35S.
@Peter Norton,
I would have responded to your request sooner, but I was busy with a trip from my summer home in Eugene, Oregon to view the total solar eclipse at Painted Hills State Park near Mitchell Oregon, on the centerline of maximum totality. I posted a time-lapse movie on Twitter for those who are interested. By the way, it turns out that my winter home in Texas is very near the centerline for the next USA total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024. That one will be 4+ minutes.
The bright features in the Pleiades images are caused by two effects. One is backscattering of sunlight from breaking sea waves and foam. The direction of motion of these features over time tells you the general direction of the surface waves driven by the local surface wind. The other source of bright features is sunglint. It typically indicates the swell direction. Telling them apart is much easier if one has several looks over a period of some seconds. With a single image it is more difficult. I would say it is likely that the small-diameter bright specks are mostly sunglint, and the larger (several meters) features are either objects or whitecaps. In my opinion, quite a few of those candidates are most likely whitecaps. It appears to me that that the images are consistent with my expectations if the sea waves and the swell are both generally aligned to be perpendicular to and moving parallel to a NE-SW line.
@Ikr
Yes, could be. A ~8ft by ~30ft outboard flap section I can imagine and also some big landing flap sections aggregated with other pieces but not a ~73m2 piece and the many other large ~20m2 pieces that were never detected before or after or have beached later.
And indeed it remains questionable why the aerial search (or something/one else) never spotted this large items before, or after 23-3-2014 again.
@GeRijn: As I implied above, I’m less concerned that pieces of >10m could have floated for a while but never beached — major wing sections in this size range could float for a while but would certainly flood and sink within days or weeks, and fuselage certainly would sink in hours. So we have samples of composite control structures and fairings, and heavily biased toward the larger, more recognizable, I think. From recoveries on a very limited amount of coastline, we know there were a lot of the smaller ‘Blaine Gibson cloud’ particles.. Of course, these even in aggregations would have been undetectable in satellite images.
@Ge Rijn,
Re: “And indeed it remains questionable why the aerial search (or something/one else) never spotted this large items before, or after 23-3-2014 again.”
My understanding is that CSIRO heavily relies on the efficacy of the aerial search to justify 35S area. If the crash site was between approximately 35 and 38S, any size debris would have been undetected.
@DrB
We are just back from outside Carbondale IL for the eclipse. I will certainly take a look at your video (assuming I can find it). We had partial success with a pesky small cloud coming overhead at just exactly the wrong time, but we saw the start and the end of totality with decent clarity. Hard to think of Pleiades images not being a star cluster in the sky.
@TBill
Illinois is in the US, right?
@Rob. In my original post I said I had found no explanation for why a pilot inadvertently would replicate the ATSB’s unpiloted second log-on sequence. You responded to the effect that in your scenario a pilot deliberately went to fuel exhaustion to generate that, for, “He wanted the ground to know the plane airborne until fuel exhaustion”.
In response to my pointing out that largely was unnecessary since an operative SDU would indicate the aircraft had not crashed, evidently you agreed, viz, “Once out of radar range, he put the AES back on line in order to show he was in fact still airborne”. Hence as I understand you there was no need for the second log–on for the reason you had advanced.
So no longer can you explain why he went to fuel exhaustion; or any other replication by him of the pilotless second log-on sequence?
Also, I pointed out that the pilot would not have had it in mind that a responsive SDU would indicate MH370 was airborne since to him it could as well be on the ground, BTO/BFO interpretation being subsequent to that flight. Evidently you do not accept that for you continue with, “he put the AES back on line in order to show he was in fact still airborne”. Do you have a reason why you still think that?
Finally you say about the sunrise terminus, a flapless election was, “to be better able to control the final attitude and descent at the point of impact” and, “He wanted to control the impact in such a way that the aircraft sank swiftly with the minimum of surface debris”. You then say, “This did not require the deployment of flaps”.
I do not think you will find many pilots will agree, even leaving Boeing’s advice aside and Sullenbergers actions. Unless you can offer a better reason why at least he would elect flapless your scenario might be worth a review.
DennisW asks: “Illinois is in the US, right?”
I have no clue – presumably you have a map and can look it up.
Having said that, I was ~13 miles North of Carbondale on a virtually empty backroad with a great view of the sky and saw these innocuous clouds popping up to the South, wondering whether they would bother anyone. We now know that TBill was there. Sorry about that.
@sk999
I am pretty sure I have flown over it (Illinois) a quite a few times.
@David
Perhaps you can offer up a scenario in which MH370 is a deliberate act perpetrated by the pilot (which is all but a given, imho), but turns into a deceased pilot/ghost flight post FMT?
The idea that he would take his own life via hypoxia or other means before fuel exhaustion is quite foolhardy, respectfully.
The pathology of the crime and the pathology of the mind behind the crime is evidence enough to conclude with the highest confidence a living pilot until impact.
I’ve asked for weeks now that a credible and plausible ghost flight scenario be attempted, but have had zero takers to date?
@Rob
@David
The B777 FCTM is pretty clear on the importance of both retaining engine power and using flaps for a ditching. From Non-Normal Operations, Ditching;
“Fuel Burn-Off
Consider burning off fuel prior to ditching, if the situation permits. This provides greater buoyancy and a lower approach speed. However, do not reduce fuel to a critical amount, as ditching with engine thrust available improves ability to properly control touchdown.
…
Ditching Final
… Select flaps 30 or landing flaps appropriate for the existing conditions.
…
Maintain airspeed at VREF. Maintain 200 to 300 fpm rate of descent. Plan to touchdown on the windward side and parallel to the waves or swells, if possible. To accomplish the flare and touchdown, rotate smoothly to touchdown attitude of 10° to 12°. Maintain airspeed and rate of descent with thrust.”
Why would someone intent on wanting “to control the impact in such a way that the aircraft sank swiftly with the minimum of surface debris”.” risk doing so under the completely unnecessary handicap of removing two forms of control – power and flaps – such that they were unable to adjust and manage the descent rate, touchdown point and touchdown speed?
@Don Thomson. You noted, “The GSA authors describe objects presenting visible areas, categorised as ‘probably man-made’, in the range 22m² to 73m². That’s much, much, larger than objects recovered on shorelines to date”.
Yes, on 16th August I posted, “ Also I note the average area for the PHR4 ‘probably man made’ 9 items is 43sqm which seems large. Some might be aggregates but that would suppose there was linking with wire or tubing though none like that has been recovered neither I think is that common”.
What I do not understand is CSIROs latest report at 2.1 where the authors write, “These images (referred to here as PHR1-4) show 70 objects of interest, ranging from 2m to 12m”.
From the GSA data the gross object area is 4144sqm. In frequent usage ‘length’ exceeds ‘width’. However with a maximum length of 12 m and 5 objects over 144 sqm, there are these 5 at least whose width exceeds length. Shape irregularity will increase this further. Maybe I am missing something here; or it is pedantry.
I note also that PHR_4 items, despite being the most numerous, do not contain these large objects.
Perhaps it is the disparities between PHR_4 and the other three which lead the CSIRO to be so optimistic it indicates a likely crash site.
@Donald. Conviction there was a pilot there at the end either need to be consistent with the evidence or offer plausible reasons for its rejection. A plausible explanation for the final log-on has been advanced, unpiloted. If you believe that there to be an equally plausible sequence which led to a pilot causing that log-on, bearing in mind his knowledge did not include what has been discovered since about BTOs and BFOs and pings, would you tell me what it is?
I have nothing I could offer as to how a pilot, active earlier, might come to be inactive at the end, except speculation, such as he was done in by someone or despite your conviction, did himself in. I suppose it is possible he just watched, though again that is contrary to your thesis.
@Donald
I once proposed a very speculative possibility the plane was shot at by the Malaysian Airforce just before the final radar-blip at 18:22.
Which damaged the plane and one way or another (one engine and hull damaged) caused the log-on at 18:25.
Maybe a primary flight-plan/destination was abandoned by the pilot soon after (18:40?) and he decided to steer the plane straight into the SIO which could have been a Plan-B in case his primary mission would fail. In an attempt to let the plane and evidence of malicious intend vanish.
In such a case I can imagine a pilot could commit suicide somewhere after FMT for the primary mission had failed or he perished when he ran out of oxigen some time after the plane got decompressed when the hull was damaged by a Malaysian Airforce attack just before 18:22.
Far fetched and highly unlikely but while you asked for ghost-flight scenarios after FMT I liked to mention to you this one again.
@TBill, Thank you for the response. I have seen the maps made by Mike Chillit. It appears there were a number of vessels in the SIO including the 32-40S range. The information that is missing (I did not find it) are exact times, so it could well be that no vessels were present. Pilot strategy would indeed be to manage cloud cover and a visually glaring aircraft. But how would he have managed the force with which a 777 crashes into the ocean going unnoticed if there were vessels nearby? It is a risk if you are not sure of what’s actually below you.
@Donald, Re: Ghost flight
Why would someone go through such a complicated plot and not be alive (and thus not in full control) at the end? IMHO, a big part of said plan was to vanish and not be found, ever. Otherwise he could have simply crashed anywhere and reveal to all and sundry what he has done. That does not seem to be the purpose and intent here, but rather: to be in full control and make sure his vanishing act was not jeopardized by events he could still control and influence.
None the less, (you are the expert) is it possible he could not deal with his vile deeds and took matters into his own hands sooner?
@Irthe Turner
“…if there were vessels nearby”
Not sure but it’s possible the pilot flew in the clouds low enough to make a visual verification of clear seas. Also possible electronic/online monitoring (e.g. as per Chillit). Ultimately there is an unavoidable small risk that a stray fishing vessel, aircraft, or satellite could make a visual.
@TBill
Anyway no sightings from any vessel around a possible crash area have been reported. One thing you can assume from this feat is MH370 did not crash near one of those vessels within sighting range.
I think one should also consider the sound of a high speed impact (if this occured) which would have caused a very loud bang and would be heared from many miles away.
Did any vessel around there heared a loud bang at the time?
@Donald
“I’ve asked for weeks now that a credible and plausible ghost flight scenario be attempted, but have had zero takers to date?”
DrB has previously given detailed annotated scenario that Andrew and Victor have helped with flight simulator cases. DrB suggests ANOKO landing approach to Banda Aceh when the flight crew becomes incapacitated. This leaves the aircraft at reduced speed and pointing about 181T south ending around 35S. It is not a perfect story (why True heading?) but then again, no other story is perfect either.
@Ge Rijn
“Anyway no sightings from any vessel around a possible crash area have been reported. One thing you can assume from this feat is MH370 did not crash near one of those vessels within sighting range.”
Unless it was a US Navy ship. They would not have noticed anything unless the aircraft landed on them.
@DennisW
Haha! You are ‘une enfant terrible’;) Lol. Thanks
@David
@Mick Gilbert
David, your posts are becoming less and less easy to follow, and you are now resorting to misrepresenting what I said. I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt and trust/hope this misrepresentation was not deliberate.
You said in reply to my last post: “Finally you say about the sunrise terminus, a flapless election was, “to be better able to control the final attitude and descent at the point of impact” and, “He wanted to control the impact in such a way that the aircraft sank swiftly with the minimum of surface debris”. You then say, “This did not require the deployment of flaps”. Really?
This is what I actually said: “The purpose of the sunrise terminus was to have conditions that enabled him to get a visual of the ocean surface, to be able to make sure he wasn’t going to impact close to any shipping, and to be better able to control the final attitude and descent at the point of impact. I don’t think he would want to rely totally on instruments in the final moments. He wanted to control the impact in such a way that the aircraft sank swiftly with the minimum of surface debris. This did not require the deployment of flaps. If the APU flamed out on the way down, the RAT would provide enough control to complete the task.”
As you see, I clearly did NOT say that a “flapless election was to be better able to control the final attitude and descent at the point of impact”.
So let me say it again because this is what I’m trying to get across: He wanted to be able to see the surface in order to control the impact conditions, ie. the forward, speed, the descent rate and the final attitude, without having to rely solely on instruments. To control the impact conditions in these circumstances, you would not need flaps deployed. Flaps are deployed to increase lift at low approach speeds, to better control the touchdown speed and descent rate, to optimize the chances of arriving on the ground or the water in one piece. I think Sully would agree with me on this. On the other hand, Shah had absolutely no intention of surviving the impact or arriving in the water with all his passengers alive and well. Flaps would actually have been a hindrance in Shah’s case. and when they ripped off on touchdown, they would add to the debris field. (I’m referring in particular to the large area inboard flaps, in case you were wondering)
You only need engine power for a controlled ditching, to optimize the chances of arriving in the water in one piece, with all souls saved. This was not Shah’s intention. His intention was to hit the water in an essentially flat attitude, with a relatively high descent rate, but a relatively low forward velocity, in a manner resembling a stall. Purpose being to ensure the fuselage is ruptured sufficiently enough to facilitate a rapid sinking in essentially one piece, leaving the minimum of surface debris. And Mick please take note, you do not need flaps deployed or engine power for that.
David, you also said also said to me “I pointed out that the pilot would not have had it in mind that a responsive SDU would indicate MH370 was airborne since to him it could as well be on the ground, BTO/BFO interpretation being subsequent to that flight. Evidently you do not accept that for you continue with, “he put the AES back on line in order to show he was in fact still airborne”. Do you have a reason why you still think that?”
David, surely we deserve better than this? I didn’t bother to reply for obvious reasons. Suffice it to say that Shah would on this occasion have guessed that the outside world would sooner or later (probably sooner than later) cotton on to the fact that the aircraft did not come down anywhere on land. ISAT did not relay logon requests back to MAS in real time, Shah knew this.
Please note this is in no way a personal attack on you David. I hope we will continue these conversations amicably.
@Rob @David
I would agree it’s not completely essential to control (landing) speed, descent rate, AoA etc. only by flaps and engine power.
There are different ways. The Gimli-glider used an extreme sideslip to lose speed before landing without engine power or flaps.
Air Transat Flight 236 performed several 360 turns to lose speed and altitude before landing after a ~100 miles glide without flaps deployed or engine power.
A skilled glider-pilot (whish Shah was also) could do the trick.
@dennisw – ha-ha maybe that is why the USS Pinckney needed to go to Singapore for repairs…
@Rob
If your hypothetical malicious perpetrator’s intent was “… to ensure the fuselage is ruptured sufficiently enough to facilitate a rapid sinking in essentially one piece, leaving the minimum of surface debris.” then you are talking about a controlled impact. It is antithetical to achieving the desired outcome to deliberately allow for a variety of sources of control to be removed. If you want to go with pilot control at end-of-flight you are better off adopting a high speed near-vertical dive; it is more broadly consistent with the BFO and physical evidence and the terminal sequence of previous pilot suicides.
@Ge Rijn
Air Transat 236 executed one 360 and a number of S turns to dissipate altitude (the latter being preferred to the former on the basis that it doesn’t interrupt visual contact with your destination). Neither form of turn allows much by way of control over airspeed or rate of descent; they simply allow for a rudimentary adjustment to the glide path to the destination. While the A330 loses flap control when powered by the RAT it does retain the ability to extend the slats when Flap 1 is selected and that’s what the crew of Air Transat 236 used for the landing.
Captain Pearson on Air Canada 143 (aka “the Gimli Glider”) didn’t use side slip to decrease air speed; he used forward slip to increase the rate of descent while maintaining air speed.
In any event, the crews of Air Transat 236 and Air Canada 143 had no choice but to use alternative rudimentary techniques to manage their descent; neither crew deliberately allowed for the option of utilising flaps (or power) to be removed and I’d hazard a guess that they both would have gladly welcomed the ability to utilise flap during their approach.
@Mick Gilbert
@Rob
RE:“If your hypothetical malicious perpetrator’s intent was “… to ensure the fuselage is ruptured sufficiently enough to facilitate a rapid sinking in essentially one piece, leaving the minimum of surface debris.” then you are talking about a controlled impact. It is antithetical to achieving the desired outcome to deliberately allow for a variety of sources of control to be removed. If you want to go with pilot control at end-of-flight you are better off adopting a high speed near-vertical dive; it is more broadly consistent with the BFO and physical evidence and the terminal sequence of previous pilot suicides.”
I agree. The descent rates suggested by the final BFOs are not consistent with a controlled descent where the pilot’s intent was to ditch ‘in essentially one piece, leaving the minimum of surface debris’. Assuming the calculated descent rates are correct, then I believe there are only two plausible scenarios; either the aircraft was uncontrolled and entered a steep spiral dive (as suggested by the ATSB), or the aircraft was controlled and deliberately flown into the sea at very high speed.
@Rob. Thanks for your further explanation of why he would have elected a flapless ditching. We will just have to disagree on whether that is the way to plan to sink the aircraft swiftly “with a minimum of surface debris”, in a SIO seaway. The Sullenberger aircraft had its right inner flap crunched during recovery and probably more. It may be that there was no flap separation during the actual landing. However we know that MH370 lost at least some high-lift surfaces as debris though we do not know the extent but if that was in the ditching you envisage it was not a great success.
Likewise we have a disagreement on whether the pilot could anticipate and count on a 2 minute APU run. You averred to his awaiting fuel exhaustion, that inducing a log-on. However to me more likely the log-on would be incidental, not deliberate.
It for now we assume the second log-on was incidental, this would amount to an explanation of the piloted final log-on, though that would hinge also of course on a pilot’s selection of a flapless landing to fit the circumstances. The circumstances would include the saving of life not being an issue. My doubt about that remains but have you encountered any supportive opinions?
An important issue of course is the chance of the aircraft being beyond planned search widths and I think you have said earlier that the pilot would elect a long glide, that is after a BFO-compliant plummet and recovery. However I think most likely the plummet if manned would be to get full hydraulics, more associated with the high speed steep descent.
As to the ambiguity of whether a live SDU would indicate an aircraft was airborne, which you repeated, it seems now that you would have him rely on the world later cottoning onto, “the fact that the aircraft did not come down anywhere on land”. How would he imagine this cottoning on would happen when he would assume his flight could not be traced beyond radar range? Absence of evidence? His mindset was prior to the BFO interpretation. Do you remember Kasakhstan et al at that time and even continuing now? What of the Middle East?
This is important only because of your original assertion that, “He wanted the ground to know the plane airborne until fuel exhaustion”. If so, why would he leave it to the world to deduce that later, if ever?
Also, would you explain please what he would have gained from remaining all that time “airborne”?
@Mick. I agree the steep descent remains the choice and is more likely, manned
@Ge Rijn. I agree with Mick that being constrained by compulsion is not the same as deliberately opting for constraints which can impair meeting the objective, including limited hydraulics.
@David
Yes I agree too those are quite different. I only wanted to show with the examples it can be done without flaps and engine power.
Deliberately opting for this could also be a necessary/inivetable consequence to meet a more important objective; fly till fuel exhaust to minimize risk of fire and explosion during impact, thus detection.
Like choosing between two bads.
@Ge Rijn
Re: “… fly till fuel exhaust to minimize risk of fire and explosion during impact … ”
I am more than happy to be corrected if I’m wrong but I don’t think that there has ever been a fire, leave alone an explosion, caused by a ditching, ever.
@Mick Gilbert
I think that’s also because most of those ditches were done after fuel exhaust.
p.s. including the fuel exhaust glide-landings
@Ge Rijn
Re: “I think that’s also because most of those ditches were done after fuel exhaust.”
Given the fire/explosion hazard associated with largely empty fuel tanks and the number of ditchings without subsequent fires or explosions involving airplanes with fuel still on board (eg Garuda Indonesia Flight 421, US Airways Flight 1549) I don’t think that’s the case.
Ge Rijn spreading distracting disinfo/noise:
• Ge Rijn: “fire and explosion during [water] impact”
Reality: “There has never been a fire, leave alone an explosion, caused by a ditching, ever.”
• Ge Rijn: “fly till fuel exhaust to minimize risk of fire and explosion during impact”
Reality: increased fire/explosion hazard with largely empty fuel tanks
• Ge Rijn: “The Gimli-glider used an extreme sideslip to lose speed before landing without engine power or flaps.”
Reality: “The Gimli Glider didn’t use side slip to decrease air speed; he used forward slip to increase the rate of descent while maintaining air speed.”
• Ge Rijn: “Air Transat Flight 236 performed several 360 turns to lose speed and altitude.”
Reality: “Air Transat 236 executed one 360 and a number of S turns to dissipate altitude. Neither form of turn allows much by way of control over airspeed or rate of descent.”
• Ge Rijn: “I notice that the overall wave-pattern show a north-east to south-west direction, suggesting the wind was blowing in that direction during that time.”
Reality: Wind and swell directions don’t have to match.
• Ge Rijn: “A strong north-east to south-west wind was blowing at the time and probably also the weeks before.”
Reality: (Ge Rijn later recognizes): “The wind direction shifts were just too different on an almost day to day basis going from due north to due south, west and east in those ~2 weeks.”
• Ge Rijn: “Considering the consistent wave-pattern, swell and direction of the waves the images show, this suggests a steady wind with rather high velocity coming from the north-east blowing to the south-west for a considerable lenght of time already at the moment of image-capture.”
Reality: “Swell waves normally come from a direction different from the direction of the prevailing wind and sea waves at the time of observation. Swell is an ocean wave system not raised by the local wind blowing at the time of observation, but raised at some distance away due to winds blowing there. Swell may originate far away and travel for thousands of miles, meaning that you can locally have dead calm or even wind from the opposite direction.”
(Ge Rijn later recognizes): “Over those 16 days the wind direction changed many times in the specific region. Some days due north and some days the opposite due south even one day due east. The final 5 days the direction was mainly to the south-south-west.”
• Ge Rijn: “It’s not quite clear if the wave-pattern in the images is only a long time swell or mainly surface-waves caused by a steady wind blowing from the north-east to the south-west. I think it was the latter.”
Reality: It was the former.
.
And that’s just from this thread alone …
@Ge Rijn
This is brainstorming, but the lack of compression damage on some of the debris could indicate one of three things:
1. Came off due to high speed dive stresses
2. Fuel Explosion (of fuel tank)
3. Tail-first hitting water blowing out the skin pieces with air pressure
Not sure about B777s, but I understand the center fuel tank in some aircraft is “N2” blanketed presumably by slip stream of exhaust from the jet engines.
Also don’t forget my very speculative theory that the pilot perhaps found a way to hit the water with the aircraft under negative pressure. This would either require tampering with the relief valves or hitting the water hard from a not-so-high altitude.
@Perfect Storm
I’m trying to contribute to the discussion with my personal views based on the info at (my) hand. It’s a discussion. I’m not pretending to know all for I know I certainly don’t.
Imo when views (from anyone) lead to conclusions that they are incorrect there can be something gained also.
You disputing several lines/statements from me I see as part of this proces. Although I think you put those lines/statements out of the context in which I tried to bring them forward for discussion, only with the intend to smear me with your accusation I’m spreading distracting disinfo/noise.
If @VictorI agrees I’ll take this serious but not from you.
@David
Re “This is important only because of your original assertion that, “He wanted the ground to know the plane airborne until fuel exhaustion”. If so, why would he leave it to the world to deduce that later, if ever?”
And “Also, would you explain please what he would have gained from remaining all that time “airborne”?”
As I see it, this malicious act was aimed principally at the Malaysian government. The pilot’s plan was to hijack the plane at the ATC/FIR boundary then fly it undetected, of which more in a minute, into a remote region of the SIO and as best as possible, sink it without trace. This act was designed to do the maximum amount of damage to the Malaysian authorities. The pilot evidently (in my view at any rate) decided that maximum damage would be inflicted if he made the plane disappear without trace while at the same time, making it known that the plane had remained airborne until fuel exhaustion – suggesting malicious intent but at the same time making this virtually impossible to either prove or disprove. This suspicious disappearance would then be an “albatross” forever hanging around the necks of Najib and Co, and might even precipitate the government’s downfall in due course. This I believe was his intention.
So to ensure the plane was never found, he would fly deep into the SIO. This is why he flew until fuel exhaustion.
@Rob
I believe the diversion was based on a negotiation with the Malay government. When that negotiation did not end with an acceptable outcome, the plan reverted to the SIO dunking. That is the reason for the loiter after Penang as well as the WeChat call prior to takeoff.
Activating the SDU after Penang was to allow Shah to receive the status of the negotiations. The Malay response to the diversion was objectively pathetic, but that is explained by the fact that they were aware of the diversion and fully expected Shah to land safely somewhere. No other theory adequately addresses:
1> The flight path and loiter
2> The preflight WeChat communication
3> The SDU logon at 18:25
4> The lack of an energetic Malay response
The absence of debris found in WA and the strong evidence of a loiter do not support a deep SIO terminus. You are fixated on an obviously incorrect scenario.
@David
To effect his plan of making the plane disappear, the pilot had to run the gauntlet of the Malaysian and Thai military radars. I think he realized the primary radars could potentially ruin his whole day. I think he decided that Indonesian military radars would not pose any potential threat, as long as he stayed out of Indonesian controlled airspace. He wanted to make sure the Malaysian and/or Thai primary radars did not identify and track him in real time. To do this, in addition to switching of the transponders, he needed to disable the AES for one hour until he was out of radar range, to give MAS the impression that his plane had either exploded in mid air, or come down in the South China Sea. If MAS tried to phone him shortly after he disappeared from the ATC radar screen, they would be met with a dead line. His worry was that if it was realized that the plane could still be airborne, MAS might request that the military try and identify him while he was still within range and could conceivably be intercepted by fighters. I don’t know what the Malaysian rules of engagement were when intercepting a hijacked aircraft, probably they wouldn’t shoot it down, but he might be forced to ditch. Anyway, his cover would be blown – making it impossible to make a FMT undetected.
Once he was out of radar range, he could signal back that he was in fact still airborne, seemingly safe in the knowledge that he was untrackable from that point onwards.
@DennisW
Sorry Dennis, it’s you fixation on a thwarted negotiation scenario that is so sadly wrong.
The drift studies by CSIRO have been deliberately contrived to vindicate the ATSB’s untenable, politically constrained, unpiloted end of flight scenario. It’s because the ATSB were unable to entertain a piloted glide end of flight scenario in the southern end of the 7th arc, that they were unable to find the aircraft. Pure and simple.
@Rob
Everyone’s drift studies predict debris in WA from a deep SIO terminus. It is consensus science at this point. CSIRO could not be orthogonal to the world’s oceanographic community and get away with it.
@Andrew
If the plane entered the water in a high speed nose dive, we would be seeing an entirely different suite of debris items from the suite we actually have. We would not be seeing the debris dominated by parts from a localized area of the RH wing trailing edge, ie. the RH outboard flap and adjacent flaperon. We would not have items 9 and 15, each in a closely similar condition, without also items from the nose and wing leading edge areas. I admit we do have part of a nosewheel door, but in my view this by itself is insufficient evidence of a high speed nose-first impact.
@DennisW
Then all I can say is that time will tell. I have absolutely no faith in S35, or any point north of that. The plane was piloted until the end, that what the wreckage supports. No way would he have deliberately flown a curving course back toward the east and into daylight.
@Rob
35S is way to far South. My bet is the vicinity of 30S. The debris finds and the debris “not found” completely rule out your terminus.
@TBill
It’s mostly brainstorming we are doing. I’m completely comfortable with that.
On your points:
1. Came off due to high speed dive stresses
Is discussed in lenght lately. If unpiloted/unpowered at the end MH370 never could have reached ‘flutter-speeds’ or other high speed drive stresses causing the majority of found pieces to seperate. And even deliberate and under power those pieces did not seperate.
The cases known where this happened show only (with some minor exceptions of small other pieces) tail sections seperated.
2. Fuel Explosion (of fuel tank)
This would be a midair explosion or on impact. Which would leave a great diversity of debris coming from all over the plane. Mostly (~90%) trailing edge, surface control, wing related pieces have been found.
IMO very difficult to relate to a fuel tank explosion.
3. Tail-first hitting water blowing out the skin pieces with air pressure:
A bit the same. No skin pieces or other fuselage pieces have been recovered as only 3 pieces of cabin interior pieces have (confirmed).
Regarding negative cabin pressure I’m thinking of a kind of implosion after high speed impact (wrong interpretattion?).
IMO also this creates the same problems.
Any high speed dive impact scenario has to explain the selective kind of pieces recovered and their almost total lack of compression damage in another way.
@Rob: In fact we have a pretty good sampling of external composite parts [tho only one recognizable piece of the tailplane]. The airframe and most of the skin are metal-alloy, and not configured to remain afloat for months.
The recoverable and recognizable debris are not a representative sample of an original debris field.
@Ikr
Excusse me but if ~90% of the recovered specific kind of pieces and their specific damage patterns can not be representive of an original debris field then tell me what kind of debris field they are possibly representing.
By lack of other (confirmed or likely debris) they can only represent very limited options regarding an original debris field.
And imo (nothing new I know) only a ditch-like impact.
Still the relatively very few items found after 3 1/2 years, the kind of items and their damage indicate this and nothing else till very convincing other debris or evidence is presented that conclusively prove different.
Today, we learned that a high level Malaysian diplomat, Zahid Raza, was murdered in Madagascar.
http://www.linfo.re/ocean-indien/madagascar/725040-%E2%80%8Ble-consul-de-malaisie-assassine-a-madagascar
By coincidence, Mr Raza was helping Blaine Gibson transfer MH370 debris from Madagascar to Malaysia. A photo of Blaine with Mr Raza was included in the following Reuters story.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-malaysia-airlines-mh370-idUSKBN13U1SS
We should closely follow any developments in this story.
@DennisW said:
“No other theory adequately addresses:
…
3> The SDU logon at 18:25”
But in such a negotiation scenario, why would the SDU be disabled before 18.25? What reason might there be for that?
The aircraft was ACARS and Tx dark and being tracked by radar, a few routine SDU housekeeping messages wouldn’t have mattered one bit.
@Rob
RE: “If the plane entered the water in a high speed nose dive, we would be seeing an entirely different suite of debris items from the suite we actually have. We would not be seeing the debris dominated by parts from a localized area of the RH wing trailing edge, ie. the RH outboard flap and adjacent flaperon. We would not have items 9 and 15, each in a closely similar condition, without also items from the nose and wing leading edge areas. I admit we do have part of a nosewheel door, but in my view this by itself is insufficient evidence of a high speed nose-first impact.”
Whatever happened, the debris that has been recovered strongly suggests the aircraft came to a violent end. Anything beyond that is somewhat speculative, based on the debris alone.
How do you explain the extremely high rate of descent suggested by the final BFOs?
@Andrew says:
How do you explain the extremely high rate of descent suggested by the final BFOs ?
I think the final BFO’s can be explained by them occuring during the ditching event itself, that is, during the extremely rapid horizontal decelleration that occurs during the actual ditching, whilst heading north-west-ish.
@Dennis,
Re: “No other theory adequately addresses:
1> The flight path and loiter
2> The preflight WeChat communication
3> The SDU logon at 18:25
4> The lack of an energetic Malay response
”
Does your “negotiation theory” really explain any of these points?
@Victor,
Re: “By coincidence, Mr Raza was helping Blaine Gibson transfer MH370 debris from Madagascar to Malaysia.”
The Curse of the Pharaohs?
ventus45: “I think the final BFO’s can be explained by them occuring during the ditching event itself, that is, during the extremely rapid horizontal decelleration that occurs during the actual ditching, whilst heading north-west-ish.”
Heading NW-ish has the opposite effect -it increases the BFO. If the plane were heading due south at 448 knots in the vicinity of 35S at 00:19, the BFO would be 256 hz (JON Table 9 value.) My calculations also give that value. If the plane were heading due north, the BFO would be 277 hz. Intermediate headings would give intermediate BFO values.
The only way to get a lower value of BFO is to descend. Fast.
@Rob
When you say, “If the plane entered the water in a high speed nose dive, we would be seeing an entirely different suite of debris items from the suite we actually have.” what high speed near-vertical impacts with water are you using for comparison? Why would you be expecting to see nose and wing leading edge wreckage from a high speed near-vertical impact?
@PS9
I completely agree with you. I cannot postulate why the PIC would disable the SDU especially with a tactic such as removing bus power. It is a mystery to me. I actually think the missing pings are due to some other issue than a deliberate depowering for that purpose.
@Oleksandr
All but 3>.
@Victor
The Malaysian “government” knew what was happening early on.
Political demands were made by persons on the ground and a response was awaited.
While negotiations were taking place it would not have been necessary to alert SAR.
There was no need at that stage to take any action other than to allow the world to think MH370 was on it way to its destination.
On reaching cruise altitude Captain Zaharie signed off from Malaysian ATC, turned off some of the equipment, turned back over Malaysia and proceeded up the Strait of Malacca out of Malaysian radar contact then turned the power back on to receive confirmation the demands had been agreed to.
Having proceeded out into the Andaman Sea for some distance he turned back towards Banda Aceh for a landing.
In the event confirmation was not received by that point the intention was to come back to port in the form of a low speed holding pattern off the southern coast of Sumatra towards the Cocos Islands then up past Christmas Island for a landing on Java all the time waiting for confirmation of successful negotiations.
My understanding is that at no stage was any communication made by the negotiators in Malaysia with the plane and there was radio silence from the plane.
Captain Zaharie intended to land the plane in Indonesia regardless, release all the passengers and put himself at the mercy of the Indonesians.
@Rob. You persist that the pilot evidently was, “making it known that the plane had remained airborne until fuel exhaustion…” when he wasn’t. Your belief has stout defences.
That said, you said to Andrew, “If the plane entered the water in a high speed nose dive….We would not be seeing the debris dominated by parts from a localized area of the RH wing trailing edge, ie. the RH outboard flap and adjacent flaperon”.
As I have posted, IMO separation of the flaperon and outboard flap part on the wing hitting the sea at high speed would be instantaneous, as distinct from the flap internal sequential damage (ie taking time) actually sustained, that is after being struck by the flaperon. The internal damage could result from either a flaps-up ditching or shock from a wing break. The likelihood (to me) the aircraft was not glided suggests no ditching. As I posted, a wing break could occur mid-air, from overstress.
On reflection, it could happen also on the aircraft hitting the sea. This seems likely to have been the case when the main part of MH17 hit the ground, looking at wreckage distribution. There, an outer part of an outer flap was recovered, displaying little damage, including to the leading edge.
Probably coincidental, the large objects in the recent Geoscience Australia report could be the main parts of wing(s), which would sink as fuel tanks filled, that hastened by the weight of any main undercarriage attached.
@Mick. The RAAF 707 which speared in some time back, presumably fuelled. Any large parts please? Any explosions or fire on impact?
@David
I was in RAAF back in October 1991 when B707 A20-103 was lost off East Sale and knew a couple of the people killed in that crash. There’s a 4 page summary of the investigation but only scant details on the wreckage, floating or otherwise, recovered. The airplane was definitely fuelled at the time; it was on its way back to RAAF Base Richmond outside of Sydney so it would have had at least an hours worth of fuel on board, probably more. There was definitely no fire or explosion although there was some talk about one or more of the engines separating from the wing during the attempted recovery.
Agree with @Rob. Known debris precludes either option mentioned by @Andrew (and ATSB). Only one confirmed debris item shows damage possibly consistent with high speed dive. (To be fair, some items can be excluded on theory they detached prior (flutter?).) Throughout, we must keep in mind the strength of physical evidence. Either BFO is wrong or we are not understanding it somehow. It all shows how little certainty there is.
Further to this, surprising the amount of certainty a lot of very, very smart people here and on the other site have about what happened.
@Victor that is a crazy story again about this Malaysian Raza. The more of this stuff we see, the less tinfoil hats are needed to start seeing (conspiratorial) shadiness re MH370. I still don’t blame Russia :-), but you gotta admit this is really an awful lot of smoke!
@ErikN
Re: “Only one confirmed debris item shows damage possibly consistent with high speed dive.”
I’ll ask you the same question that I put to Rob, what high speed impacts with water are you using for comparison?
@ErikN
RE: “Known debris precludes either option mentioned by @Andrew (and ATSB). Only one confirmed debris item shows damage possibly consistent with high speed dive.”
Would you care to explain your reasoning?
@Mick. The RAAF 707. Thanks. From your information all I can locate in the way of an accident report is the Summary you mentioned.
There is a Youtube news video of the scene showing a large fuel slick, a couple of km offshore and as you say no report of fire (there were witnesses to the descent) except on adjacent land, which looks to be unrelated. The wreckage, all at sea, is described as covering a wide area but unlikely there was an explosion without fire. Liferafts and what may be some largish items can be seen.
From Trove there are Canberra Times articles which describe copious wreckage recovered (filled “half the deck of an oil supply ship”, “8 truck loads”). It sounds as though it was not very high speed. Stalled or control lost at 5000ft when asymmetric thrust was being demonstrated at too low a speed, where the then simulator did not go.
Apparently the sunken fuselage was broken into 3 pieces. There were witness reports of pieces coming off in flight.
@Eril kN. About your post about Raza, “but you gotta admit this is really an awful lot of smoke!”, I back Oleksandr’s judgement above, “Curse of the Pharaohs”.
BTW Raza was not Malaysian but a local businessman, representing Malaysia.
Sorry, ErikN.
@TimR: You’ve made those claims before. Until you are willing to provide more details, or better yet, evidence of your claims, they get placed in the bin of unsubstantiated rumors, of which there are many. If your sources are sincere and truly want to expose what occurred, they will find a way to substantiate their claims.
@ErikN: It would be foolish to ignore a possible link to MH370, just as it would be foolish to claim at this time that there is one.
There also seems to be confusion about details surrounding Zahid Raza. In some reports, he is the former consul. In other reports, he held the position of honorary consul until his death. There are also conflicting reports about his links to Pakistan and his links to a kidnapping organization. Either his background is a mystery, or there is an active disinformation campaign underway. We would be wise to follow this closely.
@Rob
I agree with you, also other kind of debris/damage should have been found by now in case of a high speed dive impact. And most of all pieces found in such a case should show considerable compression damage (in case of a nose dive impact).
None of the found pieces show this kind of damage (some only slightly).
Even the ‘Rodrigues-piece’ closet panel shows sound honeycomb structure (as do the other cabin pieces) and that it was ripped out form the back to the front by something (heavy) behind the panel (a suitcase in the closet?). It does not show ‘front to back’ impact (compression) damage at all as would be the case in a nose dive impact.
I don’t agree with your RH-wing comment though.
By now the found wing pieces are almost equaly in number and position regarding left and right wing.
To name them:
Right wing: flaperon, outboard flap section, flaperon closing panel, flap fairing piece, aileron piece.
Left wing: flaperon closing panel, outboard flap trailing edge piece, No.2 flap fairing piece.
The two engine cowling pieces could be from both wings.
Both found tail section pieces are leading edge pieces (‘No Step’ and V.St. leading edge piece).
This IMO all indicates a ditch-like impact, low AoA, tail first (text book) hitting the surface, relatively low speed and ~wings level impact onto the water surface.
IMO it’s the most less complicated, logic way to explain all the debris found to date.
Looking for (far) more complicated causes ofcourse has its use in its own right. This has to be done I totally agree.
But to consequently ignore or trying to refute the more obvious can be hindering progress.
I’m aware this counts for me also. But I keep an open eye to any convincing argument or evidence that will change my opinion.
I’m not convinced at all yet on any other cause.
Hopefully the ‘Final Report’ will bring new conclusive information.
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