After a day in port in Fremantle, Australia, to refuel and resupply, Armada 7806 is headed back to the MH370 search area. Based on an average speed of around 10 knots, it should reach there around 02:30 UTC on March 11.
There is a sign that this phase of the search will be shorter than expected: Armada 7806 is self-reporting through Automatic Identification System (AIS) marine tracking that its destination is Cape Town, South Africa. As this is considerably further from the search area than Fremantle, it would make no sense to travel to Cape Town and then return to the search area. A leg to Cape Town would also limit the time that Armada 7806 could spend in the search area, as the port-to-port time is typically less than four weeks.
So why might Armada 7806 be returning to Cape Town after visiting the search area. I offer three possibilities:
- During the last phase, something resembling a debris field was detected. If so, Armada 7806 might travel to this spot, launch one or more AUVs, and get better data, including possibly images. After a short time gathering this data, it might travel to Cape Town before it is reassigned a new mission. Another vessel with ROV capability would then be assigned to better document the debris field and perhaps recover some wreckage.
- There are ongoing contractual issues between OI and Malaysia and the search will be cut short even if no debris field is detected.
- The AIS destination is not correct, either due to an error or due to misdirection.
With the recent announcement by Malaysia saying that the search contract with Ocean Infinity is approved and the signing is imminent, it reduces the probability of (2). Once the contract is signed, we can almost completely eliminate this possibility.
If (3) is correct, we would expect that Armada 7806 would remain in the area for a number of weeks to collect more data and then return to Fremantle. If (1) is correct, the time in the search area will be short. So the length of time that Armada 7806 remains in the search area will tell us a lot.
It is difficult to assign relative probabilities to these three scenarios. Perhaps it is confirmation bias that I believe that (1) is most probable. In any event, we’ll know more in the coming days.
Steep Slope
We can zoom into where Armada 7806 is headed to see why this area might be interesting. Presently (and this could change), Armada 7806’s course is towards a steep slope that was searched with AUVs during the last phase of this search. This steep slope also lies within the areas scanned previously by GO Phoenix using a towfish during the ATSB-managed part of the previous search effort. Parts of this slope were also previously scanned by Ocean Infinity with the vessel Seabed Constructor and its team of seven AUVs. A return to this area once again highlights the difficulty in scanning terrain with steep slopes and other uneven topography, even with AUVs.
The part of the steep slope that seems to be the target is part of the same slope that we designated the High Priority Search Area (HPSA), but further south along that slope. At the time we identified the HPSA, we were not aware that so much more of the slope was not adequately scanned during OI’s last search. If the debris field is truly along this slope, our recommendation to fill-in the low quality data near the 7th arc before extending outwards from the arc was accurate. We said:
As the a) final BFO values, b) the lack of IFE log-on, and c) the end-of-flight simulations all suggest an impact close to the 7th arc, a high priority should be to scan the areas closest to the 7th arc that were either never scanned or have low quality data before searching new areas further from the 7th arc. However, with pilot inputs, it is possible that MH370 glided after fuel exhaustion beyond the areas that were previously scanned. Therefore, searching wider along the 7th arc should also be part of the search plan if areas closer to the 7th arc are unsuccessful in locating the debris field...A steep slope to the south of where UGIB predicts MH370 crossed the 7th arc happens to lie along the extended path of the reconstructed route, and much of this slope remains unscanned. For this reason, the unscanned area surrounding S34.52 E93.84 should be designated a High Priority Search Area.
Although we are speculating about what might take place next based on very limited information, the next several days could prove to be very interesting.
Tags: AUV, debris field, MH370, Ocean Infinity, sonar, subsea
In any case, the data on the arrival of Armada78 06 in Cape Town on March 24 cannot correspond to reality. And considering that Jakarta was originally chosen on March 6, it seems that this is really not true. I am sure that the AIS data is essentially misleading, but I cannot understand the reason for such a step on the part of the OI, because everyone is watching their actual route, and not the destination from AIS, it would be more logical then to simply disable AIS.
Besides, isn’t OI hoping to recoup financial losses and investments partly through wreckage and black box recovery services? Given that there are problems with the search contract, Malaysia will not be able to pay for the recovery of the wreckage if successful.
I wanted to say Malaysia will pay for lifting services anyway, not “not be able to pay”, it was a typo.
@Mick Gilbert
@sk999
As I recall, Martyn Smith only said that he saw an aircraft crossing the path of EK407. I don’t think he said it was flying North-South, as assumed by some. Given EK407 was tracking North-West, the other aircraft could have been tracking South-West or thereabouts. If that were the case and the encounter occurred somewhere around MUTMI, the other aircraft could have been US military heading to Diego Garcia. The notion that it was a P-8 Poseidon retracing the route of MH370 seems more than a little far-fetched.
@Victor. Supposing the Cape Town destination and arrival on 24th or thereabouts are indeed the intention, it looks likely that this stop would be very short.
That would suggest high confidence in a find. the intention not being for further searching but just confirmation by camera.
The total time for that could be very brief depending on how long it took Southampton processing to confirm the ID.
While speculative I put this as currently the best fit.
@David. In this case, what would be the scenario if the find is not confirmed? Will they give up the search and still go to Cape Town across the Indian Ocean? Or will they change their destination back to Fremantle in this case?
@Edward. I would imagine the latter.
Noticed Armada 7806 has course change of 10° to port on new heading of 250°. Now seem to be targeting SE corner of Blelly-Marchand #MH370 search zone ~200 NM to go @ 11 kts ~18 hrs with ETA ~0400Z on 11 March 2025.
https://www.mh370-caption.net/index.php/armada-tracking/
@Ben John: I agree there has been a definite change in course towards the southwestern tip of the proposed search area to the southeast of the 7th arc. This is in the vicinity of the Blely-Marchand hotspot.
I don’t see the logic of searching new areas for a short period of time and returning to Cape Town. There has been no change in AIS destination.
Perhaps Armada 7806 is truly heading towards Cape Town with no stops in the search area. That might indicate that (1) the debris field was already found and follow-up work is expected with a ship with an ROV, or (2) the contractual issues could not be overcome and the search is over before the debris field has been identified. Of course, it’s also possible that the AIS destination is meaningless and the plan is to continue working the new areas.
@all,
Thanks @Victor
GPS Visualiser calculates ‘great circle’ course to Cape Town from current location has initial heading of ~245° for 6660 NM so Armada 7806 could still have a short stopover soon in MH370 search area.
https://gpsvisualizer.com/calculators
@all, correction ~245° for ~3660 NM (not 6660 NM) to Cape Town
@Mick
I want to say I have a hard time believing US military would fly thru active flight path without TCAS, but OK that just happened here. On 8-March EK407 was on-time, so it was daily normal air traffic.
As an aside, we just had an incident at DCA where numerous aircraft landing one morning got TA or RA alerts on TCAS. No announced cause so far, according to one YouTuber, could be drones, birds, but unknown right now.
@victor of course we hope (1) is true but (2) seems more likely. They already clearly did some work before the contract was signed, there is a limit to how much free stuff a commercial company will do. Of course if one wanted to put pressure on Malaysia to actually sign the contract then announcing your destination as Cape Town while swinging just South of the search zone might be the best tool you have left in the locker.
@vodkaferret: That’s a reasonable assessment.
@Ben John: One complication about a great circle path towards Cape Town is it might take you into the “roaring 40s”. Traveling west towards the search area before turning towards Cape Town avoids some of those rough waters, even if adds some distance.
@Victor
Yes, didn’t think of that as roaring 40s are worth avoiding. They would need to be even more careful with their fuel usage if on longer northerly route to Cape Town.
If indeed OI found something on the last search, wouldn’t the imaging be downloaded already and wouldn’t we know? In other words, it certainly seems plausible that they hit on something from the last search, but it would seem to me that the world would know if that happened already; is that incorrect and if so why?
Separately, has the IG or Victor offered possible reasons for the SDU logon at 18:25? As I understand it, this would not have taken place merely to use autopilot. So I’m curious what the purpose would be to do this given that the same person had previously flipped it off to avoid detection. If this has been discussed elsewhere and people can link I would appreciate that.
Personal opinion of someone who has been sailing in these latitudes. 40S isn’t a sharp cut-off and wind/sea-state is really weather system dependent. I don’t think they would be worried about passage-making a little south of 40 degrees as long as it didn’t take them into the track of a deep low. Judging from their course, I concur that they are most likely headed to Blely-Marchand zone. But if a contract is not signed by then, who knows? Maybe all bets would be off.
Did they change course even further south and miss the search area? Wasn’t it my imagination? If it didn’t seem like it, then I have one question left, “What was that?”
@BRC No, right now the OI only has processed data from the AUV, but no visual evidence. Therefore, even they themselves cannot be sure that they have found it now. That’s why I’m talking about the meaninglessness of Cape Town. Because they just checked one place and right now they can skip the next search zone, which is very close, although they can stop and search in at least one more of this zone. I keep saying that this is very strange and I don’t see any logical explanation for what we know.
@All,
Update: “Armada 78 06” at 10T1958Z 35°34.7’S 94°38.1’E Hdg 250.6°T Spd 10.3KTS.
CMG From 10T0710Z 34°48.5’S 93°13.2’E = 250.3°T Dist 135NM.
At this time – 10T2031Z, the AIS destination of Cape Town seems to be the current intention.
@Barry C. Really? https://www.mh370-caption.net/index.php/armada-tracking/
With search likely resuming in a few hours, they have obviously eliminated much more seabed! Even if the Aircraft crashed at high speed there will be large pieces of machined parts that likely survived relatively intact,such as Undercarriage/Gear parts,engine cores,Stabiliser jacks ,flap jacks and powered control servos. Plus many more heavy items. I would say the engines and undercarriages if found will be close to one another.
@paul smithson,
Okay Paul, I should’ve kept my comments to myself. Agreed, 36°S 93°E is probably the ‘ace’ card.
@Andrew
@TBill
Andrew, yes, I agree. On the basis that we are dealing with an obviously poorly recollected event with somewhat imprecise details, the “crossing” traffic could have been tracking anywhere from say 145° – 270°. That introduces a wide range of non-MH370 options, everything from commercial traffic out of south-east Asia to either western Australia or southern Africa, to military traffic to Diego Garcia.
But of course, one particular source seems to employ a snap-to-MH370 default function when it comes to this sort of thing.
Bill, when Captain Smith states,
“I don’t remember if there was a TCAS display, there was certainly no Traffic Alert (TA) or Resolution Advisory (RA) given.“,
that should not be taken as meaning that the crossing traffic did not have an active transponder/TCAS.
Andrew can probably expand on this (or correct me if I have it wrong), but TCAS will only provide a Traffic Alert under quite specific conditions, one of which being a forecast breach of vertical separation margins between the two aircraft. If the vertical separation was more than 850 feet, and there was no vertical closure, depending on the range closure rate, the two aircraft can pass relatively close to one another without a TA being triggered.
Just because Captain Smith doesn’t recall a TA does not mean that the crossing traffic did not have an active transponder.
@Mick Gilbert, @Andrew: One airline captain told me that on that part of the flight, the lights on the flight deck were probably not dimmed, in which case it would be difficult to make visual contact with traffic without first seeing the traffic on the MAP display.
@David: Yes, if the search resumes in areas not yet searched, it means the areas searched during the previous phase did not yield a debris field. However, if the search does not resume and Armada 7806 continues on to Cape Town, the results from the last phase would be in question, i.e., we would have to ask, “Did the search not resume due to contractual issues, or because the debris field was already detected?”
@Victor
In the introduction of this discussion thread, on X-twitter also, etc., the 78-06 ship’s path with its location pins are clearly based on GoogleEarth formatted data created by CAPTION for the tracking. There is a one-to-one correspondence between your image and our data (cf https://www.mh370-caption.net/wp-content/uploads/Overlay-VI-78-06-path-from-CAPTION-data-with-CAPTION-area.jpg).
Usually, the scientific tradition is to cite the source.
Thank you for adding a tag « www.MH370-CAPTION.net » on each image you produce with our data like in the image above.
In addition, in the introduction of this discussion thread, our Blelly/Marchand area is illustrated as a tiny spot only. In our report, we recommend a zone which should be fully depicted on the foreground of your images to respect the genesis of our recommendation which seeded in your mind the possibility of a piloted flight till the end with a final glide.
The UGIB report, which includes a non-piloted aircraft and a spiral dive, mentions a flight level of FL195 at Arc 7. Tables from Boeing indicate 50 to 60 Nm for the glide. At Arc 6 the report mentions FL390 which would lead to 125 Nm if the glide started there. On our side, we have estimated in our report that in our trajectory the glide would be about 70 Nm max. Obviously, you chose 70 Nm for including our area. Consequently, I invite you to clearly indicate our recommended area in its full extent like illustrated in the link above.
Thank you in advance. Have a good day 🙂
The extrapolation of 78-06’s path is now at 50 Nm from our recommended area… will they scan? or simply cross?… http://www.mh370-caption.net/index.php/armada-tracking/
@TBill,
Do acquaint yourself with the concepts of ‘Operation of State Aircraft’ and conducting flight with ‘Due Regard’.
USN P-8A Poseidons are well known for rarely operating with functioning Mode-S or ADS-B. The P-8A avionics equippage includes what is most easily described as an airborne Mode-S interrogator as part of its ISR capability. This will also provide its flight crew with awareness of other proximate aircraft. US DoD has issued mandates that aircraft should not use ADS-B Out so as to not be tracked via the likes of Flightradar24, etc.
@Victor. To clarify, more than one David posting here.
@Mick Gilbert
@TBill
I agree Mick, the absence of a TA or RA does not automatically mean the intruder had no TCAS. TCAS will only issue an advisory or warning if both the vertical separation AND range closure rate thresholds are breached. The relative altitude threshold for a TA is 850 ft (as you mentioned), at all altitudes up to 42,000 ft. The range closure rate is expressed as time-to-go to closest point of approach, otherwise known as the range tau. At the altitudes in question, the range tau for a TA is 48 seconds. If, for example, the two aircraft were crossing at 90 degrees and closing at 490 knots, a TA would not be issued unless they were within about 6.5 NM and 850 ft.
@Victor
RE: “One airline captain told me that on that part of the flight, the lights on the flight deck were probably not dimmed, in which case it would be difficult to make visual contact with traffic without first seeing the traffic on the MAP display.”
Yes, very true.
@Jean-Luc Marchand: You are correct that the data I plotted was from the CAPTION site. If you want me to provide the source of the data in images, please provide the marine tracking data that was YOUR source so the citation is correct. I didn’t see the source on your page or I would have included it.
As for the claim that our 70 NM glide path was based on the Blelly-Marchand hotspot, that is complete rubbish. Your colleague made the same claim last year. This was discussed in an email to you last year on March 21, 2024. I wrote:
***
Jean-Luc,
I hope all is well.
It has come to my attention that Patrick Blelly is accusing the IG of changing its predictions of the POI for MH370 based on his work predicting a glide after fuel exhaustion. This is a crazy accusation. Even before we published the UGIB 2020 analysis with search recommendations, we defined an area that included a possibility of a glide. For instance, this figure is from a blog article from February 2020 Search Recommendation for MH370’s Debris Field « MH370 and Other Investigations (radiantphysics.com)
From that blog article: To define the search area near the LEP, three cases were considered, each with an associated search area. The highest priority search area, A1, of 6,719 NM2 (23,050 km2), assumes there were no pilot inputs after fuel exhaustion. The search area of next highest priority, A2, encompasses 6,300 NM2 (22,000 km2), and assumes there was a glide towards the south after fuel exhaustion. The lowest priority, A3, is the controlled glide in an arbitrary direction with an area of around 48,400 NM2 (166,000 km2).
Our recommendation has been to first complete the search close to the 7th arc in areas that were missed due to equipment issues or challenging terrain. If the debris field is not found, search wide of the arc, first starting on an area south of our predicted crossing at S34.2342° E93.7875°, but expanding that to include the possibility of a longer glide.
If somebody asks me to define a small area for a search, I point them to this article, which includes about 30.5 km2 of seabed surrounding S34.53° E93.84° that was never scanned. But this is a recommendation, not a prediction. Anybody that believes that they can predict the location of the POI with high certainty is fooling themselves and fooling others. That’s why any search prediction has to include uncertainty analyses and broader areas to search.
A High Priority Area to Search for MH370 « MH370 and Other Investigations (radiantphysics.com)
As you might imagine, I don’t like being accused of something that is false. I assure you that any of our recommendations were made independent of any work by either you, Patrick Blelly, CAPTIO, CAPTION, or any related person or entity.
Regards,
Victor
***
After you received my email, Patrick Blelly sent me an email in which he said he apologized. I won’t include the entire email without his permission, but he did say:
First, please accept my apologies if I have ever offended you. I’m sorry for this, which is far from being my intention!
…
So I hope this clarifies my position, which was not at all any accusation of any kind, and I wish you all the best for your work.
***
What I found quite ironic is that for years you and your colleagues were emphatic about searching a site close to Christmas Island while UGIB was promoting crossing the arc between 34S and 35S. If anybody has copied anybody, it is YOU that has benefited from OUR work, simply based on the chronological order of reports and the 3000+ km shift to an area closer to UGIB 2020.
@David: Yes. I’m sorry about the confusion. Would you mind going by “David F”?
@Andrew
As I understand it, it was a moonless night, and apparently clear of clouds at those altitudes in that area at that time.
So, presumably the stars were clearly visible in the visual hemisphere around the aircraft.
6.5nm is less than 40,000 feet.
I live in Sydney, and regularly observe the strobes of Emirates and Qatar and MAS and on occasions other airline aircraft overflying YSSY at FL330 and above, going to New Zealand, late at night, through my windows, with the room lights on inside.
Are you seriously suggesting that the pilots of an aircraft would not notice the strobes of an aircraft crossing in front of them, for many seconds, with those strobes moving in relation to the background stars, which are, for all intents and purposes, stationary in their field of view in that timeframe, even with the cockpit lights on ?
If that were truly the case, there would be no point in having strobes in the first place.
@Jean-Luc Marchand: Relative to sharing data, as you understand, this blog has been where MANY data sets have been released to the public, including civilian radar data, ADS-B tracking data, the unredacted Inmarsat logs, the unredacted ACARS Message Logs, the Boeing end-of-flight simulation data, the pilot’s simulator data, and the CSIRO particle drift trajectories. I made those data sets available so other investigators could use the data for their own analyses, which they have done. I’ve never asked for attribution because I didn’t generate those data sets.
If you want to restrict the use of data that you didn’t generate but are making available to the public, you should say so.
@ventus45
It’s one thing to “notice the strobes” of another aircraft at night, quite another to determine if that aircraft is at or close to your own level or likely to become proximate traffic.
@Andrew: That was the other point the airline pilot made to me. He said that it’s very difficult to determine if the lights from an aircraft are at the same level. Rather, at some point, you have to “trust the system”.
@Victor
Absolutely. It’s notoriously difficult to determine range and relative altitude from a set of flashing lights at night.
Andrew writes: “It’s notoriously difficult to determine range and relative altitude from a set of flashing lights at night.”
True, unless you have the right equipment. Here’s a strobe that I detected at night and was able to determine range and altitude with no problem. I even derived the track angle and speed:
http://das.sdss.org/sdssmosaic/run-5381/mosaic-115-124/5381/3/g_0120.gif
The “lens” of the camera had a focal length of 12500 mm, so the image of the aircraft light was horribly out of focus. That (plus the pixels size of the camera) gets us the range. I also knew the elevation of the pointing of the camera, so that gets us the elevation. There is a slight gap in the trails at the bottom of the image – that gives the ground speed (too complicated to explain here.)
Admittedly, as far as I know,such equipment is not standard on an Airbus A380.
@sk999
Perhaps I should have qualified that statement with: “…using the human sense of sight alone.”
@Victor. Thanks. No problem.
Following my 10th Mar 2:39am and 3:59am, drawn from your first possibility, given now the course change perhaps announcement of a successful ID has been deferred to Malaysia’s pleasure, the trip to Fremantle proving to be in preparation for the for the voyage west.
However no sign of a replacement with or without ROV.
Contractual delays would be the second-to-worst prompting of a direct trip since cranking up a restart would cost another part of this search season, as OI will of course know. The worst would be abandonment of the search.
However given Oliver Plunkett’s determination to search-to-success and Malaysia’s appointment of NTSB and ATSB reps, neither of these worst cases seem likely, to me.
Quite a tease.
@Barry Carlson,
Cape Town ?
Armada 78 06 has arrived about 70nm south of the previous search area. The vessel slowed down over the past few hours as it approached. That may mean they are stopping, or perhaps they are just playing with the minds of observers. There’s plenty of energy being expended in this blog and elsewhere speculating on Ocean Infinity thingies.
I still think there was something significant about Armada’s rush to Fremantle, following what seems an inordinately short inicial search period. Although there was a weather system involved early on, Armada continued apace even after it rounded Rottnest Island and continued south along the Perth coastline. Those 2 extra knots involve a significant fuel penalty.
@Victor
Likewise, we are eager to help and provide information to all.
All credits are there… they had been placed at the bottom right of the image. Please recheck, you can find “VesselFinder” just below the same corner.
The creation of the image and kml file is Mr Trise’s effort, credits to him 🙂
Armada 78-06 passed in the South of the zone proposed by OI in 2024. The ship does not appear to slow down … instead she speeded up heading at 252°!
https://www.mh370-caption.net/index.php/armada-tracking/
@Jean-Luc Marchand – CAPTION So the OI has canceled the search for this season? There is no other way to interpret it.
@All,
Update: “Armada 78 06” at 11T0748Z 36°14.4’S 92°19.2’E Hdg 255.8°T Spd 10.4KTS. Wind 190°T/15KTS Sea 3.1m.
CMG From 10T1958Z 35°34.7’S 94°38.1’E = 250.6°T. Dist 120NM.
At this time – 11T0851Z, the AIS destination of Cape Town seems to be the current intention.
@all, Big News!
Not sure if this important news report translated from Malay will change Armada 7806’s current destination & heading to Cape Town? (posted on Twitter/X by Kaye Russell (@elizanow1) – https://t.co/bbqD35hQAl
Contract for company to carry out MH370 search operation being finalized
By Hafeezzur Muzamir – Malaysia – March 11, 2025 12:28 PM
WANGSA MAJU, March 11: The government is finalising contracts with teams or companies involved in the third search operation for Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight MH370.
Transport Minister Anthony Loke reiterated that the government remains committed to searching for the airliner that disappeared en route to Beijing almost 11 years ago.
“We will inform you of the progress after the contract is signed. It’s not that it’s not happening, it’s just that we are finalizing the contract,” he said.
He said this at a press conference after conducting a working visit to the Wangsa Maju branch of PUSPAKOM, here, today.
Previously, MOT announced that the government had agreed to accept a proposal from a company from the United Kingdom (UK), Ocean Infinity, to restart search operations in a new area of approximately 15,000 square kilometres (km) in the southern Indian Ocean.
According to MOT, the decision is in line with the Cabinet decision on December 13 last year.
MOT explained that the operation will be carried out based on the principle of “no find, no fee,” which means that no payment will be made unless the aircraft wreckage is found. – TVS.
https://t.co/bbqD35hQAl
Nothing new in Loke’s comments.
‘Commenting on the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, he [Loke] said the government is in the final stages of concluding a search contract with Ocean Infinity (United Kingdom).
“When we sign (the search contract), we will make an announcement,“ he said.‘
@Jean-Luc Marchand said: The creation of the image and kml file is Mr Trise’s effort, credits to him.
After your statement wanting credit for releasing marine tracking data to the public and your insane accusation that Bobby and I copied your work, I won’t ever use any data set from your group again. I won’t even READ anything you publish. However, if you release a data set, you should explicitly state what the conditions for use are.
Again, I have no conditions for the many data sets I have released, and many investigators have made good use of them, which is what I wanted.
Concerning ‘Cape Town’
First, an assumption for vessel endurance, fuel/crew rotations/stores: 28 days.
Therefore, absent any other constraints Armada 78 06 must reach port, somewhere, by 2025-04-03.
Voyage times, present position to:
Cape Town – 16 days, 3700NM,
Durban – 14 days, 3200NM,
Port Loius – 10 days, 2200NM,
AMC/Henderson – 5 days.
Latest possible departure from search site to a port can be counted back from 3rd April.
The latest vessel position/progress report at 2025-03-11T0931Z shows there is still work to be done revisiting previous towfish tracklines and areas where data is deemed to be of inadequate quality.
Given the current speed of 78 06 it appears the lurch is recommencing at 2025-03-11 10:00Z -36.257, 92.198 1.2kts, 207°
Thanks @Don, that’s very useful to know. Is the “28 days” a firm maximum?
It looks like Armada 7806 is filling in data from the last OI search that was missing or of poor quality.
@Victor Iannello Yes, we can say that they listened to you and now, in the absence of a contract, they are checking the last possible locations of MH370 inside the 7th arc.
@Edward: I’m not sure what the strategy is and what’s going on behind the scenes, including the reason for the change in course.
@Jean-Luc Marchand – CAPTION,
As the primary author of the drift paper by Ulich and Iannello (2023) and the satellite data analysis paper by Ulich, Godfrey, Iannello, and Banks (2020), I can attest that nothing in those papers was driven by or taken from your publications. This includes the 70 NM glide distance I used in defining Search Area 2 in UI (2023). This radius was selected by me based on being ½ of our estimated maximum glide range of 140 NM, which is listed in Section 8.6 of UGIB (2020) and repeated in Section 17.1 in UI (2023).
I’m going to ask this admittedly tangentially-related question once more in hopes someone can direct me: has anyone discussed what the purpose(s) might have been for the 18:25 reboot? And if so, does anyone have a link to share? Thanks all.
@BRS
There could be many reasons for SATCOM reboot. As you may or may not know, there is no ON/OFF switch for the SATCOM in the the cockpit. Therefore you have to take down at least one whole electronic circuit (LEFT BUS) to depower the SATCOM. Some observers (eg; Jean Luc et al) postulate all aircraft power was cut for the diversion phase to 18:22. Flying more than an hour without key systems powered is problematic.
Jeff Wise is the main advocate who makes an issue of this. We are asked to believe that Jeff Wise is smart enough to know what ZS strategy would have been, and then we asked to accept that power-up of aircraft systems is not what ZS would have dome, therefore Russia is to blame.
@BRS,
Circa 18:24 UTC, one hour after the PF diverted MH370 and about 3 minutes (or 25 NM) past the maximum military radar range from Penang, two events occurred nearly simultaneously. The SDU was re-powered and a right lateral offset was initiated off airway N571. In my opinion that SDU start-up signaled the restoration of power to the Left Main AC bus, returning the aircraft to its normal power configuration and thereby providing maximum redundancy in case of a future equipment malfunction. As I recall, this topic was extensively discussed on this blog some years ago. Others may be able to provide specific links.
@TBill @DrB thank you both. @DrB, are you positing that the person in control essentially figured “I don’t need to be in stealth mode anymore so I’m going to resume flying the a/c the way I know how best?” If so, I suppose that makes sense. It does seem a bit odd that someone flying to their death would care about this, but I suppose this has logic to it. I just have always been troubled as to WHY the left ac bus would’ve been turned back on given my understanding that the CVR could’ve been repowered (and therefore overwritten) in other ways without needing to reboot and that overwriting the CVR would be the only noteworthy function gained by rebooting. Am I understanding this correctly? I have experience with air and mass disaster litigation but do not remotely have the science chops of others here, so I appreciate the responses and everyone’s patience.
From the current position of ‘Armada 78 06’, stopped near -36.3S, 92.15S for the past 3 hours, and previously moving nearby at AUV speeds; it appears that OI have carefully examined all scan results from previous searches.
Whether they found evidence of missed information or just mysterious nadiars that may reveal something, they must have a good reason for being there.
At this time – 11T2051Z, the vessel is again moving at AUV tracking speeds.
@BRS
The CVR requires a different circuit (LEFT XFER BUS) so, in the minimum case of LEFT BUS off only, the SATCOM can be turned off/on without impact on CVR. However you could be on the right track, that CVR and DFDR management might have been part of a plan, that could have impacted power management choices. There are many other possible reasons such as monitoring SATphone calls. Yes I personally think it is possible that “SATCOM stealth” was not the goal for this portion of the flight.
In my last post, the position (-36.3S,92.15S) should’ve been -36.3, 92.15.
@BRS,
As someone who supports the accident scenario, I think the 18:25z SDU power up was just an electrical automatic reshuffle. The initial failure of the SDU may have been ELMS automatically load shedding loads off the L MAIN, after an hour things changed, perhaps due to the main battery going flat, the battery power source to ELMS failed and hence the initial loadshed was removed.
@PaulS
I did write ‘First, an assumption for vessel endurance, fuel/crew rotations/stores: 28 days.‘
Various factors feed into my reasoning: smaller vessel, smaller crew, less facilities onboard, crew contracting arrangements.
While not immediately relevant, A78-08 (you may remember the one claimed by certain commentators to be the designated search vessel) has just today turned around in Las Palmas, Canary Islands, within 12hrs of arrival from Cape Town to departure on its onward leg to Southampton.
@BRS,
Applying power to the Left Main AC bus does not get one out of a “stealth mode”, at least in any way known to the PF. What the PF did not know was that, when re-powered, the SDU would log onto the Inmarsat satellite communications network and then send additional log-on requests hourly in the absence of phone calls, which resulted in BTOs and BFOs being recorded by Inmarsat.
There were additional steps taken by the PF in the hour after 18:25 to minimize the possibility of radar or visual sightings that had nothing to do with power, so the “stealthy” actions continued until about 19:20.
It is clear to me that the PF wanted to disappear the aircraft. A key element of that strategy is to fly on an undisclosed course until fuel exhaustion occurs in the middle of a very large ocean. In my opinion, that strategy is fully enabled by restoring maximum redundancy of the aircraft propulsion and flight control systems. Indeed, when that is done, even a pilot is not needed after circa 19:20.
@DrB
G’day Bobby,
Regards, “… when re-powered, the SDU would log onto the Inmarsat satellite communications network and then send additional log-on requests hourly …”
The SDU didn’t send log-on requests hourly, rather the hourly time-out Log-on Interrogations that the AES responded to were sent by ground network. I’m only addressing this as it has caused lengthy discussion and some confusion in other forums.
@DrB,
Being naturally lazy, I’m not going to research this now, but I seem to remember a suggested probable reason for a pilot resuming some power may have been so that TCAS (as a receiver only) would then be available so the pilot had warning of any aircraft “close by”. ?
@BRS
RE: “I just have always been troubled as to WHY the left ac bus would’ve been turned back on given my understanding that the CVR could’ve been repowered (and therefore overwritten) in other ways without needing to reboot and that overwriting the CVR would be the only noteworthy function gained by rebooting.”
The CVR is powered by the left transfer bus, which is normally powered by the left main AC bus. If the main bus is un-powered for some reason, the transfer bus is powered by the backup generator system. Both the left main AC bus and the backup generator system must be de-powered to remove power from the transfer bus.
There are two ways CVR operation can be restored:
1. Allow the backup generator system to power the left transfer bus.
2. Restore power to the left main AC bus and allow that bus to power the left transfer bus.
I think it would make sense to restore the left main AC bus, which would also restore power to the SDU.
That said, we do not know if the interruption of power to the left main AC bus was related to the CVR.
@George G
Nearby traffic is not displayed on the pilots’ NDs unless the transponder panel is selected to TA ONLY or TA/RA. The TCAS cannot be operated as a ‘receiver only’.
@Andrew,
“The TCAS cannot be operated as a ‘receiver only’.”
Ta.
@All
To me the combined search pattern for Armada 78 06 looks like a systematic Bayesian search: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian_search_theory
All speculations about a quick ending are premature.
I find that excellent news. We just have to be patient.
@Andrew: There is another way to “only receive” traffic. You could fairly inexpensively buy an ADSB receiver (i.e., a Sentry) and link it to software (i.e., Foreflight). But that seems like a lot of work for somebody that is about to put the plane into the abyss.
@All
Tuesday the NTSB released a preliminary report on the American Airlines flight 5342 crash at DCA in January. You can read and download it via this link: https://tinyurl.com/ypcx3pht
@Mick Gilbert.
Thank you for clarifying the instigator of the hourly satcom log-on interrogations.
@George G
The very first Captio scenario report, some years ago, suggested several reasons for reboot, one possibility stated was to enable TCAS, if I recall correctly. Recently Capt Blelly suggested to me that he does not agree with that anymore. This issue came up due to EK407 and wondering if Xponder was off.
I’ve spent the last 11 years clashing with the IG over BFO & now I finally know why. The IG sees the BFO as an altitude bias whereas I see it as length. To put it into context I use Triangulation for BTO.I use a fixed point on Earth in the Indian Ocean (64E-1.5N) & the satellite as side “A” the Timing point between Satellite & Mh370 as “B” & the distance between Mh370 (at ground level) & 64E-1.5N as “C”. Thus meaning that “B” is equal to “C” with “A” being the only constant, this creates the Arcs. The altitude of Mh370 is an unknown variable so gives a error of 7 miles at 38000 feet either side of the Arc. In terms of BFO it’s slightly different. I believe the IG looks at it as a altitude bias. Therefore meaning that for example at take off Mh370 climbs rapidly over a short distance of time, thus shortening the distance between Mh370 & the satellite meaning a rapid increase in frequency. The opposite is true for descent. Naturally the bigger the drop or climb of Hz (frequency) over a given time indicates the sharper the rise or fall of the aircraft. My focus has been more on the movement of the aircraft in a sense of direction at a fixed altitude, this will also increase or decrease depending on whether the plane moves towards or away from the satellite. If we think of it as triangulation in terms of direction, again “C which represents East to West” remains fixed (because Inmarsat has a North/ South bias only), “B” is the BFO frequency & “A” is the North/ South movement. So if Mh370 flies North at a fixed altitude “A” this increases the length of “B”. If it flies South “A” decreases & so does “B”. Many people have asked why Mh370 on the Tarmac at KLA doesn’t record a BFO of zero. The simple answer is because Mh370 isn’t at 1.5N. If it was then the BFO would be zero. The final comment I will make is that before dismissing what I say, people should study the data. When Mh370 moved North the BFO did increase. When it moved South the BFO also decreased. The difference being was when it passed 1.5N moving South. Then effectively South became an Increase & North would have been a decrease.
@Michael John: We are using the BTO and BFO in the way that Inmarsat has defined those parameters, which was verified by both Inmarsat and the DSTG using historical data from many flights. Inmarsat designed the system. I assure you that if you are interpreting the BTO and/or BFO in a different way, your interpretation is wrong. There isn’t much else to say.
Michael John:
I read your statement 3 times. I was trying to find some part of it that made sense. Unfortunately, none of it makes any sense. Statements like this:
“Many people have asked why Mh370 on the Tarmac at KLA doesn’t record a BFO of zero. The simple answer is because Mh370 isn’t at 1.5N. If it was then the BFO would be zero.”
…indicate you don’t understand what you are talking about. That is not how it works. The absolute BFO value can be any number (within a small range) at any location. It is a bias (offset from nominal carrier center frequency) that must be calibrated for use here. It is relative changes in the BFO value that provide information, not the absolute value.
I wonder when someone will call it? I think OI has found something…
@Michael John
The only way I know to calculate BTO/BFO is to use an Excel calculation app such as DrB’s. That app takes a few input numbers: location, date/time, trajectory and provides BTO/BFO results. I’ve wondered about a more accessible tool that does not require owning Excel, but coding that would be over my personal skill set.
@John Matheson
To me it looks like they had trouble collecting one or two of their drones, but I am not sure. The sea out there is pretty unpleasant and dangerous.
@TBill
I built one myself using a different approach (described in my publications and references therein). Unfortunately it is not user friendly, so I can only recommend it for people with significant mathematical and coding experience. It also needs a FORTRAN compiler.
However, it has other advantages, such as ability to find tricky and unusual solutions and optimise them automatically.
@Viking said: It also needs a FORTRAN compiler.
Wow! I haven’t programmed in FORTRAN since the early 80s.
Modern languages like C, C++, and C# are sooo much better. Most of the embedded systems I developed had software written in C and I developed the dynamic models in MATLAB. These days, I rarely use anything but python, which has an absolutely amazing choice of modules (libraries) to choose from, all absolutely free.
Is the current (March 12-14) search activity “bathymetric” or regular AUV search for the actual MH370 wreckage? It has even been claimed that the entire 2025 search so far has been “bathymetric”, and I’m just wondering if there are clear reasons to think that’s incorrect (based on 7806 movements etc.)?
@eukaryote: Look at the image below. You can see that Armada 7806 is operating in areas in which there is already bathymetric data. That combined with the stop/start patterns suggests the UAVs are launched and recovered to scan the seabed.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GmAffDDWAAAkH7n?format=jpg&name=medium
They might be working to improve their ability to scan steep slopes in anticipation of searching the higher probability areas.
@Viking
Yes I thought same maybe they were looking for drone lost in 2018. I assumed they found it then at that time, but I am not sure.
@Victor
There does appear from that image of yours to be a huge area without any decent bathymetry data.
Perhaps that is what they are doing is actual survey work, so that they can better program the AUV’s later, when they begin the actual search.
They would not want to run undue risk of losing another AUV like they did in 2018.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/10u6Sl61C_wotdF2lC-C_DbZ34zOjPizv/view?usp=sharing
@Eukaryote asks ‘Is the current (March 12-14) search activity “bathymetric” or regular AUV search for the actual MH370 wreckage?
Regular AUV operations (with side scan sonar). An AUV may released to navigate autonomously according to a pre-programmed plan or it may be continuously aided via acoustic comms and positioning from the surface vessel. The continuously aided technique is typically used when the seafloor bathymetry presents challenging conditions to an AUV’s navigation.
I have also heard of claims that asserting that only bathymetry surveys have been conducted to date. Many claims concerning the preparation and conduct of the search have originated in the same quarter, none of which have proven to be based in fact or reality.
The weather, at present, doesn’t appear to present difficult sea conditions: A78-06 is at the centre of a high pressure area, light winds, and wave height is reported as 2.1m.
@ventus45: They are launching and recovering AUVs where they already have bathymetry, and not in the areas where there is no bathymetry. It does not appear to be survey work.
@All
Off topic.
The Interim Report has recently been published regarding the Jeju B737 crash in South Korea (December 2024).
Once again, Mentour Pilot has produced an excellent, fact based video looking at the evidence so far and explaining in great detail the systems of that aircraft.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GbmGUk8Y0M
@all,
Wondering why Armada 7806 seems to have been recently searching a much smaller concentrated area so far from 11-15 Mar 2025 compared to the large area they searched during first phase of current MH370 search from 23-28 Feb 2025?
@ventus45
During the 2018 campaign conducted from Seabed Constructor, AUVs were often operated over seafloor where no prior MBES survey had been undertaken, predominantly to the north-west side of the 7th arc areas (noting that the AUV loss occurred on the SE side, over previously surveyed seafloor). Seabed Constructor was, at that time, not equipped with a deep ocean MBES. The ‘A’ in ‘AUV’ implies that the vehicle can make decisions to follow bathymetry and avoiding seafloor obstacles: of course, the vehicle’s adherence to the pre-planned track and data acquisition may be impaired by frequent terrain following and/or avoidance.
The AUVs being operated have no significant bathymetry survey capability, they are not the HiSAS equipped variants that can produce wide swath bathymetry data. However, they are equipped with short range MBES to produce ‘nadir fill’ imagery from directly under the vehicle.
Hence, ths speculation about survey rather than search, ie seafloor imaging‘, operations are being carried out seems quite unfounded.
In addition to @Don Thompson’s comments above.
It may appear that ‘Armada 78 06’ is operating outside the generally accepted search areas that have published MBES survey data. However, examination of data held by Geoscience Australia confirms that the vessel’s current operating area was captured using Multibeam Sensor EM302 (30 kHz) by ‘Fugro Equator’ while enroute from or to Fremantle.
As far as we know, there is still no signed contract. Malaysia will have a lot of questions to answer if this opportunity to search for MH370 is lost.
@victor I don’t understand this entirely. In other words, I guess I am not fully understanding what it is (or isn’t) that Armada is doing in the search zone (and by “search zone” I mean anywhere out near the arc) at present. Has it just been doing more bathymetry? If so, how likely or unlikely would it be for what it has been doing over the past month to reveal the wreckage? Along those lines, would they know already whether the portion of search that ended last week had yielded anything? Or not necessarily?
@Victor
If I understand, China, with the most NoK, even welcomed the search, which is a bit surprising support.
@BRS: The AUVs collect sonar data from the SSS and MBES sensors while gliding tens of meters above the seabed. This would provide data of sufficient resolution to detect a debris field, so essentially the AUVs are in “search” mode. There is no need to first collect low resolution “bathymetry data” for terrain avoidance and follow this up with a search as you would do for a towfish vehicle.
Neither in the previous phase nor in the current phase has Armada 7806 been searching within the 15,000 sq km boxes that OI proposed in March 2024 to search. The first phase was to search areas “between” the two boxes that had challenging terrain with missing or low-quality data from previous searches. In the current phase, the search is to the southwest of the proposed search area, but in areas that had bathymetry data that were not searched previously. My guess is that OI will not search within the 15,000 sq km boxed areas until a contract is signed.
Did the previous or current phase of the search yield a debris field? We don’t know, as OI is understandably tight-lipped. The most optimistic scenario is that a debris field was detected in the first phase and testing is underway to improve AUV scanning of steep terrain in anticipation of returning to the debris field when a contract is signed. That said, I will again repeat that we don’t know.
@TBill. Even with almost two thirds of those lost being Chinese, little, if any, criticism of the search contract delay has been evident from there.
Indeed it is surprising that this apparent lack of interest has likewise elicited little, if any, western media comment.
Perhaps the Chinese government has raised this discretely, though that would risk inviting Malaysia seeking its financial or practical support for the search, were that not a Chinese priority.
Then again, loose speculation, maybe Malaysia has.
@David: During the ATSB-led search, China was a reluctant participant and only contributed a small amount compared to Malaysia and Australia. Its vessel Dong Hai Jiu (DHJ) 101 spent more time anchored near Perth than in the SIO, which led some to believe it spied more than it searched. I don’t think China would be putting pressure on Malaysia to sign the contract. Nor do I think Malaysia would pressure China to contribute to this search.
If the contract is not signed and Armada 7806 departs the search area to Cape Town, not only does it mean that OI is unlikely to return this search season, it also would suggest that OI would be unlikely to enter into negotiations with Malaysia on future search missions.
I’m no sure I agree that OI wouldn’t return. What I don’t understand is why they went out there in advance of a signed agreement. To me this shows that OI wants to find the wreckage more than it wants to get paid. What am I missing? Also @Victor I don’t understand what you mean above when you discuss what you called the “most optimistic scenario”. Why would OI find a debris field and then go elsewhere around the 7th arc? (I’m guessing I’m just misunderstanding you here … but I definitely am not understanding.)
@BRS: If Armada 7806 intended to return to the search, they would refuel and resupply in Fremantle, not Cape Town, because it is much closer. As to why they would continue to search if they already found the debris field, it’s a matter of not tipping their hand while negotiations are underway. The owner of OI became wealthy by hedging his money, and we really don’t know what is happening behind the scenes.
@All,
At 18T0900MYT, 0100Z Armada 7806 turned on to a course of 015°T at 10kts and current indications are the vessel is heading for 35°S 93°E.
Hopefully, the search phase is about to begin.
Well, I over guessed the outcome in my last post!
Still looking at the map, I see that the OI seems to have expanded the zone proposed in 2024. Because it looks like they’ve started exploring the area directly adjacent to the one previously described in the first search 2014-2017 (you can see the equality in width between the first search, which is more southerly, and the proposed OI just to the north). There was a gap between them, which OI is now filling. And they are focused only on the eastern part, because if the plane is not inside the 7th arc, then it is extremely unlikely that someone turned it back. If there was a landing on the water, it occurred clearly east of the 7th arc within the planning of the Boeing 777.
@all,
I’ve read that most pilots would normally try to turn their aircraft into prevailing wind & waves before an emergency ditching. Has this been considered for MH370 if a controlled glide after fuel starvation was possible? Note – Blelly & Marchand (2023) analysis pg 74 “1.5. The wind decreased from 251°/33kt towards 220°/20kt at sea level”? So not sure if this would deflect impact point by much distance overall off calculated path? Apologies if this has been covered previously.
@David
The only reason I mentioned China support for search, I thought there had been a recent statement perhaps posted perhaps on a FB MH370 page. If I get a chance I will try to find.
@Ben John said: I’ve read that most pilots would normally try to turn their aircraft into prevailing wind & waves before an emergency ditching.
The problem is when the wind is not parallel to the swells. Ideally, I think a pilot would land parallel to the swells in the direction with the greatest headwind and accept the crosswind. I don’t know that we know the direction of the swells at the time and place of impact,
That said, I think it would be quite extraordinary if the pilot chose a slow death from a successful ditching rather than a quick, painless death from a dive.
@Victor I
You wrote ” I think it would be quite extraordinary if the pilot chose a slow death from a successful ditching rather than a quick, painless death from a dive.”
… this would be true IF it was indeed THE pilot at the controls till the end. But that assertion has been challenged many times, not least by the Malaysians themselves.
It would be much more sensible to speculate that there were at least 2 persons involved in this hijacking, neither of whom was inclined to commit suicide but had every intention of surviving the ditching.
Having said that, I do have some questions about the pilot:
Questions:
– going through the flight logs of ZS for the 2 yrs prior to the event, I noticed that he flew to Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Paris, Sydney, Melbourne, Auckland, and other “western” cities, but didn’t fly to the UK, the US or Johannesburg, South Africa.
Any idea why? Is it because he didn’t want to fly long routes?
Has this observation been made before?
– he flew often to Amsterdam and Paris. What’s the attraction there that’s not in London, or LA?
Victor’s last line above is exactly why I’ve found it intriguing that the Captain would prioritize to ”lose” the plane and choose a slow imminent demise, over a quicker end at the first available opportunity. Fascinating indeed are the annals of the human mind.
I generally understand how the crumbs of evidence lead us to the broad area that will (hopefully) be searched soon, and how finding the plane there quickly would be the start of an appropriate closure for families as well as for the aviation community. I also wonder if enough people with the appropriate scientific and technical dispositions have asked this question: under what circumstances (however improbable) could MH370 have been a true accident (coupled with potential subsequent piloting errors?) What combination of factors (again, highly improbable considering the data available and the analysis done independently) could result in an “true” accident? In other words, take all the data we have, and adjust one variable artificially: “Intentional Action?” = “No.”
I would love to see such combinations so we can stare at them and convincingly say – yeah, not possible at 6 sigma. I understand why such an exercise is not exciting, but the tiny fractional probabilities of a) identifying possibly unexplored failure combinations, and b) if true, an innocent man gets absolved, are likely worth it.
But then, a successful recovery and readout of the black-boxes may obviate such painstaking scenario analysis. Hope those last few contractual obstacles get resolved quick.
Best,
Adi
@Adi @All,
As someone who still believes an accident scenario is possible, and that Zaharie should not be blamed until this following scenario is ruled out. Those that have previously discounted an accident, please pick holes in this, and list why this is not a possible sequence of events…..
1/ Rupture of crew oxygen bottles in the left side of the avionics bay causes electrical issues, including the failure of L XPNDR, Satcom, Comms.
2/ multiple Pitot/Static system damage causes loss of autopilot and flight control mode degrading to ‘secondary’.
3/ Hull damage causes a decompression, not necessarily initially noticeable to the crew.
4/ loss Flight instruments and/or EICAS warnings.
5/ pilots turn the aircraft around and fly manually towards Penang, but become hypoxic within minutes even having donned their masks.
6/ the aircraft, previously trimmed for cruise, meanders on, with fixed throttle position flying phugoids and making random turns out into the SIO.
7/ the 18:25 Satcom power up, just an automatic power change, possibly initiated by the main battery going flat and ELMS becoming unpowered.
8/ the aircraft flies on to fuel exhaustion. On first engine flame out the aircraft enters a tight spiral descent, crashing close to the 7th arc.
This of course all assumes that it never flew any accurate flight route on airways in the Straits. I contend without any radar traces, we have no evidence of the track after 18:01.
This also assumes that a 777 is stable enough to fly to fuel exhaustion without anyone in control, or with any functioning autopilot.
@Tim But in this scenario, a serious question is why, after Penang, the plane continued to fly in such a way as to avoid observation on military radars and flew clearly to the route points after the pilots lost consciousness? Why was the plane flying to Penang, and not to the coast of Vietnam or Malaysia (the nearest airport)? Penang is on the opposite side of Malaysia.
Third, without serious knowledge in this part, the theory from the video “MH370 What Netflix go wrong” seemed convincing to me, which talked about the importance of the transponder transmitting location data with an altitude of zero. This is clear evidence in favor of manual operation of the transponder, rather than a one-time failure.
I will be glad for corrections or clarifications.
@Ben John,
earth.nullschool provides an animated projection of the surface winds at the Last Estimated Position. The swell direction and height is not provided, but the prescence of a deep Southern Ocean Low near 55°S 100°E would have provided a long period swell – 15 to 20 seconds from the South. The swell height would have been about 4.5m with an additional 0.5m of wind driven sea cresting it.
In addition to the comment made by @VictorI, the sun was rising and in all probability a pilot would elect to attempt a ditching heading to the West.
@Edward
If the pilots had multiple serious failures, a turn back towards Penang would have been what most pilots would do. Penang was the closest open alternate and very familiar to the crew. After Penang(18:01) we really don’t know where it went with any accuracy.
The transponder allegedly being turned off is complete speculation. There has been no trial to determine the shut down sequence. In fact, the way it shut down might be more of a sign of a system malfunction. Proper trials should be done on this, but this has not happened.
@CanisMagnusRufus
There were obvious reasons for him to fly to some of these destinations. As far as I know his daughter lived in Melbourne, so Australia was attractive for him.
However, I find it strange that he flew frequently to Amsterdam (long flight, around 40 minutes by train to the city, relatively cold climate for someone from Malaysia) unless he knew someone nearby or had special interests. This also means that he probably flew MH17 some times. Many people think they were linked.
Do you remember the last time he was in Amsterdam before MH370?
@CanisMagnusRufus
@Viking
You seem to believe that pilots are able to fly wherever they choose. Sadly, that’s not the case. Most airline rostering systems allow pilots to express a preference for certain routes and even dates, but they are ultimately at the mercy of the scheduling people. In my experience, requests are more often than not refused due to “operational requirements”. As a training/check captain, Zaharie’s roster would have been further constrained by training and checking requirements, which always take priority over routine requests.
@CanisMagnusRufus
Further to what Andrew has stated, you might want to check the MAS route schedules and aircraft taskings for the period in question. My understanding is that they used their A380s for LHR flights, and that they ceased flying to Johannesburg altogether in 2012.
@Mick Gilbert
What do the MAS route schedules say about which aircraft were use on the Johannesburg run?
@ventus45
The 2013 MAS route map I’m looking at doesn’t show a Jo’berg service, consistent with what I’ve read elsewhere about MAS dropping that route in 2012.
@Mick Gilbert
Thanks, but it would still be good to know what aircraft MAS used prior to 2012, and when each type(s) (if multiple) were used, and whether or not the flights were WMKK–FAOR direct or via a layover somewhere.
@ventus45
Malaysian stopped operating to Johannesburg and Cape Town in early 2012, when a number of routes were dropped as part of a major restructuring (one of several). I believe they previously operated both the B747-400 and the B777-200ER on the route.
@Andrew
In the blink of an eye !
Thank you for the B777-200ER info, which supports what I had suspected, which was that it is likely that Zahari had most probably done the South African run at some point in the past years, perhaps regularly. He no doubt also did the WMKK–YPPH run too.
My recollection is we had a fairly long list of ZS flight history and also a long list of 9MMRO flight history. I do not have those immediately available. I do have several of the MAS flight directories covering MH370 date period and maybe MH17 date period.
@CanisMagnusRufus
@Viking
@Mick Gilbert
Adding to Mick’s earlier comment, Malaysian’s B777-200ER service to Los Angeles (LAX) had a stopover in Taipei (TPE). That stopover was changed to Tokyo Narita (NRT) in 2012. In both cases, a crew change would have been needed at the stopover. A crew operating the full service from KUL to LAX and back would have been away from home several days longer than a crew operating a non-stop service to Amsterdam or Paris. A long pattern like that is not an efficient use of a check & training pilot’s time.
I suspect that Malaysian did most of its long haul check and training on non-stop routes. That would get the C&T pilots home earlier, where they could be rostered for further C&T duties, improving their productivity. I don’t think it’s unusual that Zaharie didn’t fly to LAX on a regular basis.
Does anyone have any insight as to the current status of the search? It looks to my untrained eye as if they’ve started a search pattern of sorts, but the ship tracking is a bit of a jumble to my untrained eye.
Also, nominally, how long is the search meant to last?
@All
Roughly 20 minutes ago Malaysia and Ocean Infinity reached contract agreement (according to Reuters news agency):
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/malaysia-says-has-agreed-ocean-infinitys-terms-search-mh370-wreckage-2025-03-19/
The statement is here:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GmZkck-a8AIssDo?format=jpg&name=large
Now let’s see if Armada 7806 continues in its present search pattern. If so, the debris field was not detected in the last phase. If there is movement towards a previously searched area, that would be very telling.
The statement reads:
‘This paves the way… to locate the wreckage of flight MH370 in a new area estimated at 15,000 square kilometres…’.
If this is the area that was described in the presentation made last year, then my understanding is that it will only cover the previously searched area 33S to 36S but wider from the 7th arc and will not cover the WSPR area.
Am I wrong?
@Godfrey Jack There is still no reliable information about the terms of the contract. As Richard Godfrey reported, this area is the most likely to be needed in the opinion of the OI, but they want to look further before the search is successful. I am sure that the OI would not have agreed to a contract limiting the search area, I have the impression.
Per Aerotime:
“The Cabinet of Malaysia has approved the terms and conditions of a new agreement to resume the search for the wreckage of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, which disappeared more than 10 years ago.
During a local press briefing on March 19, 2025, Malaysia’s Transport Minister Anthony Loke announced that Malaysia has finalized an agreement with Ocean Infinity, a private marine robotics company, to continue the search efforts.
Following the Cabinet’s approval, Malaysia’s Ministry of Transport will sign the agreement with Ocean Infinity, the country’s national broadcaster Jabatan Penyiaran Malaysia (RTM) reported.”
So, the contract is not yet signed.
@DrB: They might want to do a “public signing” where Malaysia gets to pat themselves on the back for doing in four months what should have taken one week. Effectively, it’s signed.
@Godfrey Jack, @Edward: Despite what some parties claim, the new search was never based on the WSPR hotspot. If the plane is not found in the 15,000 square kilometers proposed by OI, it is their discretion whether they will continue. That decision will be made by one person, i.e., OI’s owner. I doubt even the search planners know at this time whether they will continue.
I’ll note that Simon Maskell has said many months ago that he would conduct an analysis to determine if WSPR tracking of MH370 has merit. I am not aware that he has completed that work, as I’ve never seen a report. I am sure this is not lost on OI.
In the meantime, some of us, notably Steve Kent, Nils Schiffhaeur, and I have shown both theoretically and experimentally that WSPR signals are too weak by many orders of magnitude to cause a change in the SNR and Frequency Shift values recorded in the WSPR database. It would require some new phenomenon in which weak HF signals scattering off distant aircraft would somehow be more detectable than strong signals off of nearby aircraft.
I have recommended to the WSPR tracking proponents that they conduct proper experiments with amateur radio equipment to measure the HF scatter off of aircraft as Nils and I have done. Even though they don’t believe the analytical results, if they conducted the experiments, they would immediately see how weak the scattered signal is. In fact, only under the best of circumstances of a very strong broadcast signal (hundreds of kilowatts), very low band noise, and nearby aircraft (tens of kilometers) could I detect the scatter, and even then, it was because I could use Doppler discrimination to separate the direct (broadcast) signal from the scattered signal. What they claim they are doing is impossible.
I’ve considered another blog post that included the experimental results, but the informed already understand the absolute futility of WSPR tracking of MH370, the WSPR proponents are already too dug in to change their view, and the uninformed won’t understand the blog article.
@Victor Your statement, “the informed already understand ___ , the ___ proponents are already too dug in to change their view, and the uninformed won’t understand” is pretty much applicable to any subject! I continue to follow your blog (many thanks) and hold out hope that these guys will find the wreckage.
@Tim: I don’t doubt that you can find a magical, coincidental combination of failures that would cause both transponders to go dead exactly abeam IGARI, the loss of all radio communication, the loss of all active tracking, and the re-power of the left bus at around 18:23z but resulted in no loss of thrust and allowed the plane to continue efficiently flying at cruise altitude and speed.
I’ll propose two other reasons why I believe your accident scenario is flawed:
1. There was never a descent from cruise altitude. If there was an intention to land at Penang, that descent should have started by the time the plane turned back and reached the shores of the Malaysian peninsula, at a time when the pilots were not yet hypoxic.
2. Under SECONDARY control mode, it is very doubtful that the plane would make a shallow turn around Penang Island, flight straight up the Malacca Strait, and then turn left towards the SIO north of Sumatra for hours of flight. Any asymmetry of the airframe, fuel unbalance, thrust asymmetry, or lateral disturbance would exceed the dihedral stability and cause a bank that would eventually degrade into a spiraling descent, especially if the plane was flying phugoids, as you propose. Mike Exner demonstrated this in one of the Level D simulations he recorded where both engines failed simultaneously with no rudder trim. A steep turn none-the-less developed.
Do you have any evidence that an airliner could fly for hours with no autopilot, no control enhancements (e.g., yaw damper, wings leveler, pitch control), and no pilot inputs?
@Shadynuk: A wise person once told me to not try to persuade somebody that doesn’t want to be persuaded. As you say, that applies to people that have strong feelings on any subject.
One wonders why Canada has just purchased an Australian JORN for AU$6.5billion when they could have a claimed far greater capability for free using the open source WSPR program and data base. The Jindalee Operation Radar Network works over the horizon using HF frequencies and ionospheric bounces like WSPR, and can also track marine vessels done to the size of fishing boats.
JORN transmits around 500+ kilowatts of HF through a massive array of antennae to steer the radio beam to get enough signal onto the target area in order to receive reflections that are still buried in the theoretical noise limits of processing electronics and need some very clever processing to extract. I would think the noise to signal ratio of WSPR is many, many orders of magnitude worse than JORN.
@John Matheson,
It’s a wonderment that some people aren’t able to comprehend. A well stated comparison on your part.
Perhaps Australia is resorting to classified space based platform intelligence.
@John Matheson,
Even more interesting . . according to a reliable source who worked on JORN . . it is not particularly useful for tracking aircraft. Primarily it is used for tracking marine vessels. And JORN is not switched on continuously.
@John Matheson. While I do not mean this to be a defence of WSPR, I think we need to beware of confirmatory enthusiasm against it.
JORN relies on the greatly attenuated reflection levels directly back, unfocussed, WSPR on distortions received directly downstream.
As I understand it the questions then with WSPR are signal strength and focus of any particular distortion there, plus confidence in disambiguation of both any distortion and in the interpretation of that.
In January of this year Godfrey et al. put out a report examining how reliably they could track a set of 48 Boeing 777 flights at various locations around the globe by using WSPR. For a couple of their flights I was able to download ADS-B data for all aircraft in the sky at the appropriate time and decided to see if I could reproduce their results. For each flight I picked one WSPR link and, sure enough, I found that their target aircraft did, indeed, cross the path of the link at that time. In one case I found that, curiously, there were two other B-777s, a B-747, a B-787, an A330, and 8 other narrow-body aircraft (primarily B-373s and A320s) that crossed at the same same. For another flight, I found a link for which 46 aircraft all crossed at the same time. Such efficiency! Tracking 46 aircraft with a single WSPR observation.
The only benefit of using WSPR is that it is rather ubiquitous – a huge number of stations broadcasting and receiving, and the data are reliably archived. Otherwise, WSPR is a terrible protocol for tracking aircraft. What you really want is a stable carrier frequency that you can isolate in a narrow bandpass. WSPR does not use a carrier (only upper sideband) with a bandwidth of 6 Hz. There do exist other beacon protocols that would work much better, but they lack the mindshare that WSPR has achieved.
@David
Thank you for the reminder re expectation bias. I haven’t downloaded or played with WSPR data. I don’t doubt WSPR disturbances occur and can be detected, though I haven’t heard a coherent explanation of how the system can identify specific sources of disturbance to WSPR signals. That seems to me to be something taken on faith, which may be due to my own ignorance.
@Brian
A colleague of mine also worked on JORN receivers and we discussed the difficulties of pulling a signal out of noise many magnitudes higher in signal strength even after pre-processing and filtering. Extraordinary stuff.
sk999
I thought that the whole point of Richard Godfrey’s initial WSPR idea, from day one, was that he wanted to see, if it was possible to detect one aircraft in what he knew to be a pretty empty sky, in this case, MH370.
He knew from the Inmarsat ping rings roughly where MH370 had gone, and he knew from archived flight records that there were very few other aircraft anywhere near where MH370 had apparently gone.
So, Godfrey was essentially only looking for a lone aircraft, in what was essentially vacant airspace, over the Indian Ocean, in the middle of that one particular night.
I doubt that Godfrey ever intending to create a poor man’s JORN, or his own global air defense network, and I doubt that he initially intended it to be used in dense heavily trafficked airspace either.
Over the years, many ‘experts’ rubbished his work, and demanded test cases. Many also ran their own tests. It seemed like there was a war on amongst the experts and Godfrey. So people like me, had no choice but to just sit on the sidelines, wondering where it all might lead.
Over time, it seemed to me that Godfrey got progressively goaded into trying to prove that he could refute the criticisms, by extending his work into congested airspace, which I see as fundamentally defeating the whole purpose of the initial exercise.
Which brings me to now.
Steve, you say that you did get returns, and you say that you did identify the actual aircraft in Godfrey’s list, which, on the face of it, to me, tends to prove that WSPR can work, even in a congested environment.
Then you very heavily imply that since there were dozens of proximate aircraft in that test case, that their mere presence invalidates the test to identify Godfrey’s aircraft in that list, which you said you did actually identify. That has confused me greatly.
Therefore, I am left wondering.
What exactly, were you trying to prove by running that test ?
More to the point, what exactly did your test actually prove ?
Bottom line, what is ‘the take-away’ for those of us on the side lines ?
@sk999,
Steve, forgive me for interrupting.
@Ventus45,
Ventus, You wrote: “Steve, you say that you did get returns”.
I may have misread sk999’s comment but I read him as stating that for two example WSPR “links” he found a multitude of aircraft (13 in his first example, and 46 for the second example) crossing the WSPR “link” at the same time.
The question remains, for each of these two “links”, at their individual respective times, how could anyone discriminate between the respective multitude of crossing aircraft.
@George
You have missed MY point.
I am not interested in “discriminating between MULTIPLE crossing aircraft” in a given patch of congested sky at a given time.
The issue I want resolved is:
“Can WSPR reliably detect ONE isolated aircraft in a vacant Indian Ocean sky”?
(which is what MH370 was and is what we are looking for).
That is what Godfrey set out to try and achieve.
I think that all these arguments about discriminating between dozens of aircraft in congested airspace are spurious, tending towards disingenuous.
ventus45
You have completely lost the plot. I never said that I “did get returns” nor that I “did identify the actual aircraft.” All I said was that the target aircraft (selected by Godfrey but based 100% on ADS-B data that I had sourced) did, indeed, cross the WSPR link (identified by and based 100% on civilian geolocation data provided by Godfrey). I never made any use of WSPR data, nor did I make any claim that I had identified the actual aircraft. Those “dozens of proximate aircraft” were never recognized nor discussed by Godfrey, which begs the question, why not? You are completely correct that “their mere presence invalidates the test to identify Godfrey’s aircraft in that list …”
I care not a fig about any “… war on amongst the experts and Godfrey.” I only care that any search effort not be derailed by charlatans.
@ventus45
The issue with the GDTAAA methodology is that it claims the extraordinarily rare coupling of extreme sensitivity and absolute specificity, AT NO COST. It is meant to be able to discern infinitesimal perturbations of any already highly perturbed weak signal at transglobal ranges while somehow definitely excluding all other causes of said infinitesimal perturbations using an existing dataset and ridiculously basic statistical analysis.
To pinch a couple of lines from Blackadder, a detection system that provides both extreme sensitivity and absolute specificity is like a dog who speaks: very rare. A detection system that provides both extreme sensitivity and absolute specificity and no cost is like a dog who speaks Norwegian: even rarer!
Because of the scarcity of short path WSPR connections crossing the Southern Indian Ocean region, one of the first conjurings the author of GDTAAA had to invoke was that every WSPR connection has a long path. This has never been proven.
Another conjuring is that on the long path, the target aircraft just happens to be at a skip point where the refracted signal reaches the Earth’s surface and is bounced back toward the ionosphere. This has never been tested.
The coincidental skip-point conjuring means that routinely there must be more than one skip point on the relevant long path . In some cases there are up to 9-10 skips invoked in trying to connect the transmitting station, the receiving station, and the target aircraft. That means that there must be at least x – 1 skip-points (where x is the total number of skips on the long path) that need to be positively cleared of other traffic in order to have any confidence in the claimed specificity. That positive clearance of other possible targets is never performed.
In short, a couple of fundamental problems.
On top of those, there are the appalling delinquencies of scholarship evidenced in their many and various self-published “papers”.
You need look no further than their August 2023 “paper” that established their latest proposed search area. Of the three purported detections of MH370 that underpin the position fix that they address in the offered worked example, two are demonstrably gravely flawed. Those two errors render their fix worthless.
You do have to ask how, with two PhDs assisting the author, they still manage to completely and comprehensively balls-up two of the three detections they offer as their worked example, noting that the worked example is meant to be the gold-standard, unassailable proof of the methodology.
Then beyond those pesky issues, we have the manifest absence of independent corroboration.
The first “papers” on the topic were self-published around four years ago. The first purported application of the methodology to tracking MH370 was over three years ago.
If there was any substance whatsoever to applying historical WSPR records to detecting and tracking aircraft at trans-global distances, a couple of competent physics or engineering graduates would have been able to conclusively demonstrate the bona fides of that within a week, perhaps even over a weekend.
And here it is worth noting that the University of Liverpool, through the offices of Professor Simon Maskell, has purportedly been working with the key proponent(s) of WSPR detection and tracking for some two years now. Two years, and not one independent paper from that university (or any other, for that matter) attesting to the bona fides of the methodology. Read into that what you will.
More broadly, the complete absence of ANY independent proof, over the period of four years, surely speaks volumes.
I understand that followers are routinely promised independent papers and peer-reviewed journal articles are “coming soon”. Apparently though, much like the eponymous character from Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, you’re left waiting.
I am writing this because I have concerns about the way that the property of WSPR frame their position. There is a lot of implied expert endorsement for WSPR, for example the ATSB thanking their submission of a technical paper on WSPR.
However ASTB’s response is far from an endorsement of WSPR but rather a referral to Geoscience Australia to investigate whether the WSPR predicted end of flight location has been adequately searched previously. Geoscience Australia’s response is that it is extremely unlikely that another search of the area would find new evidence.
In my opinion the links below demonstrate that significant difference between what WSPR proponents imply is endorsement of their hypothesis and what seems to be at best an arm’s length noncommittal response. We’ll have to wait and see if Ocean Infinity ventures into the WSPR depths.
Statement on Mr Richard Godfrey’s Analysis of the location for missing aircraft MH370:
https://www.atsb.gov.au/media/news-items/2022/statement-on-mr-richard-godfrey-s-analysis-of-the-location-for-missing-aircraft-mh370?fbclid=IwAR0ak68MD7cqd3cmDVrHARveudVnfMC0UlFRkw8TysBMXgeuvPbpjGrH7jg
MH370 data review joint statement from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau and Geoscience Australia:
https://www.atsb.gov.au/media/news-items/2022/mh370-data-review
@all,
Wondering why there is a large gap in Armada 7806’s AUV launch & recovery lines shown on AIS tracking? I’ve measured the regular spacing between these at ~16km & big gap is ~32km. Maybe OI tested AUVs scanning transects twice the previous distance?
For me, it comes down to demonstrating the physical principles that would allow WSPR tracking of aircraft using analyses and experiments that would provide insights beyond SNR and Frequency Shift data from a database. I have no doubt that Maskell can run biased statistical tests that show a weak correlation between aircraft position and recorded values in a table and then claim victory. The exercise is then to determine how bias is introduced. For instance, Godfrey declares that deviations of 0.75 sigma are “anomalous”, which produces an extraordinary number of WSPR paths to select from to “confirm” whatever path he wishes to prove. It’s absolute silliness that somehow fools more people than it should.
The way to scientifically confirm that WSPR tracking is possible to demonstrate that HF scatter off of aircraft is detectable at the powers and distances that WSPR proponents claim. I can very confidently say it is not possible based on a very simplified analysis with the most generous of assumptions and based on measurements of very high power broadcast signals scattered of aircraft near my home. That scatter was barely detectable above the noise level and had no effect on the direct, unscattered signal.
Why have the WSPR proponents never performed these basic, unambiguous experiments?
@Ben John,
All that we see from AIS tracking is implied tracking of the surface vessel.
It would seem to me that this is likely representative of a systematic area coverage by the underwater craft, the UAVs.
@Don Thompson.
Perhaps you have a slightly different interpretation ?
@ventus45: Since you seem to believe that WSPR detection of MH370 is possible, please present to us even a single “anomalous” link in the SIO that you believe might have been caused by the passing of MH370 between a WSPR transmitter and receiver so we can talk specifics. For that link, include the SNR and frequency shift data for +/- 3 hours.
@Victor
I am a WSPR-skeptic, but WSPR is popular for some who believe in it including Mentour Pilot and many others. For me now, unfortunately, WSPR is not the only popular search area that probably has serious bias/flaws.
So I see the purpose of the search to rule-out the popular search areas, that NoK/others have been told by “MH370 researchers” are promising leads. Though probably unsuccessful finding the crash site, such a search provides an element of closure that as much effort was made as possible within what us humans are willing to accept may have happened.
@TBill: Mentour Pilot acknowledged to me that he doesn’t have the scientific background nor the knowledge to state whether WSPR was actually useful or not.
People put too much importance on videos that are meant to entertain and produce clicks.
If OI wishes to search various areas due to popular demand, that’s their choice. However, I think they are wiser than that.
For ANYBODY here that wishes to make the case that WSPR data can even possibly be used to track MH370, please present the specific data that supports your case and we’ll collectively analyze it.
When I came across the WSPR tech some time ago, it sounded creative, and therefore exciting, given the possibilities. However, I’m personally now out of touch with the necessary technical rigor needed to directly evaluate it’s merit. Based on what I’m hearing from (two informed and respected sources), the analysis as it stands isn’t being taken seriously. The reason isn’t that people in the decision making seats have examined it and ruled it out. It’s simply that the work hasn’t been pressure tested on a peer-reviewed basis. At least that’s what I’m told.
Best,
Adi
@Adi: Liverpool Professor Simon Maskell is often cited to legitimize the validity of WSPR tracking, as he is a co-author on some of the recent papers and he has vowed to independently study whether WSPR data could be used to track MH370.
I had private communications with Simon in November 2022. (Simon reads the comments on this blog. Feel free to respond, Simon!) His argument against my WSPR analysis is that the (1/R^2) attenuation of the scattered signal implicitly assumed isotropic radiation, which he believes is not true. I explained to him that my analysis assumes there is gain in the forward scatter direction, i.e., anisotropy, but the attenuation will still go as (1/R^2). He replied that he is keeping an open mind about whether the scattered signal strength will really fall off as (1/R^2). So, basically, he was doubting established science. I explained to him that my (and Nils Schiffhauer’s) experimental data of scattered signals off of aircraft was consistent with the known theory predicting very weak scattered signals relative to the direct (unscattered) signal. I also strongly encouraged him and Godfrey to collect data of HF scatter off aircraft using I-Q recording receivers with fine temporal and frequency resolution so they could see for themselves how off-base their claims were. (I even offered to help them run the experiments.) To this day, they have not reported results of even the most basic experimental measurements of HF scatter off aircraft.
Two years ago, I predicted that Simon “will be studying this for the rest of his career. He is taking years to study what should take a day.” That was two years ago, and we’re still waiting for a paper.
And just like that, as soon as they signed the contract, the tracking on https://www.mh370-caption.net/index.php/armada-tracking/ is gone.
@limpe: That’s not necessarily a bad thing. If the debris field was previously discovered, they might not want to disclose where it is.
Well, I’m sure we would all eagerly await the arxiv preprint from Prof. Maskell’s team when (and if) it becomes available.
The interesting thing here is that if you logically extrapolate what this analysis claims it’ll be able to achieve with publicly available data, you have basically invented eminently patentable new technology with potential applications far beyond MH370. If this works as (widely) advertised, my source argues: “Mr. Godfrey should be attempting to throw a moat around his analysis, package / patent his methodology, and get funded.”
In other words, there doesn’t appear to be much behind the colorful kimono. To be clear, this isn’t intended as a critique of Mr. Godfrey or Prof. Maskell, both of who seem quite accomplished in their own rights. I personally commend them on their endeavors and wish them every success. However, the reticence to go through established scientific channels and get rigorous independent opinions is why such attempts will never be taken seriously.
Supportive media stories, occasional breathtaking Russian hijack stories (I know you are also reading this, JW) and news reports are all fun and great, but Mr. Geoffrey Thomas, or Netflix are ultimately irrelevant. I would argue Mr. Thomas’s repeated articles on this topic are probably only interesting to the “Look, Science!!” crowd with limited attention spans, and not anyone who is even knee deep on these topics. Mathematics and physics follow rules, which can’t be bent. Similarly, the standards of academic acceptance are there for a reason. People like Mr. Thomas are journalists, and should be taken at only that relative level of importance 🙂
Best,
Adi
My basic appraisal of the WSPR detection method is as follows:-
There are physical aspects of the WSPR proponents aircraft detection proposals that conveniently have not been taken into account.
1. The following radio frequency transmissions made omni-directionally are able to be received anywhere on the planet within its ionisphere, subject to:-
(a) Radiated power,
(b) On frequences, generally between 3MHz and 30MHz, that are subject to reflection by ionized layers within the ionisphere – variable to about 600km,
(c) Time of day and sunspot cycle.
2. This effectively means that a signal received by a distant station will only arrive from one direction on a great circle path, i.e. the reverse direction will not have the same layer ionisation – due to the time of day effect.
(a) On some lower frequencies, i.e. 3MHz – 6MHz, near the day/night line, multi-path reception may exist,
(b) Multi-path reception results in phase distortion – often severe.
3. Multi-hop signals on all frequencies, ionisphere – earth – ionisphere etc., are also subject to phasing.
4. An aircraft’s physical size (irrespective of aspect ratio) is miniscule compared to the reflective ionisphere layers (D, E and F) and the earth’s surface. Any reflected signal from it will be scattered, i.e. in multiple directions.
5. Signal to Noise ratio, in all but very close proximity – transmitter, aircraft and receiver; will be extremely low. Making the detection of an aircraft using WSPR methods virtually impossible.
Ventus45,
You asked, “Can WSPR reliably detect ONE isolated aircraft in a vacant Indian Ocean sky”? If only it were that simple. The vast majority of WSPR stations are located in either North America or Europe, and Godfrey, out of necessity, includes these stations in his WSPR analysis. North America and Europe also have the most congested airways, so even if a target aircraft is in the vacant Indian Ocean sky, the vast majority of WSPR links utilized by Godfrey must first pass through that congested airspace first.
Victor,
About 4 years ago I wrote an article on the physics of WSPR and aircraft scatter, and in case it is useful, here is that link again:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qO5ECvaJEjC-tyS85BBS67EfTsB7N8vU/view
One thing I did was to demonstrate that WSPR data (specifically, SNR) do follow, at least approximately, a 1/R^2 law. I also constructed a demonstration of how to create a collimated beam of radio waves that, at least initially, maintained constant intensity with distance, but then eventually transitioned to a 1/R^2 law anyway. Ultimately it is reallly nothing more than high school physics, which begs the question of how well Simon fared in that subject.
@TBill One of the oddities of this entire situation is that there are so many people with deep expertise in certain areas straying waaaaaay out of their lanes. Mentour Pilot is clearly a smart guy and has made highly entertaining youtube videos …
Victor Iannello went to this little vocational school in Cambridge Mass … 🙂 …. which is fairly well-reputed in the physics dept. So I am inclined to lean on his views on physics over a random pilot (which I feel slightly bad to say because I think his video, but for the WSPR crap, is outstanding.)
I should reemphasize something I said on my first post here, which is that I do not–at all–pretend to be a science expert myself. But I have read as much as possible from WSPR proponents and critics, and the criticisms (a) sound far more logical to me than the support for it and (b) come from people whose scientific pedigrees are quite impressive.
@sk999
So, if I understand you correctly, you are essentially saying that the only part of the WSPR database that should be used, (to avoid traffic congestion contamination) would be between stations located in countries bordering the Indian Ocean itself. If that is correct, there are probably not many suitable stations in those countries, so there would be little data in the WSPR database that could be useable for analysis for tracking MH370.
I wanted to ask a question based on a video I just watched. (Godfrey’s latest video from today; and yes, ironic, I know, after my wspr comments.) Godfrey made the statement that the drift modelling would only support locations between 29 and 32S??? I thought 36 degrees s was really the sweet spot. Am I wrong?
@ventus45
The paucity of trans-Indian Ocean WSPR short path links is exactly why the author of GDTAAA conjured the “every short path connection has a long path” nonsense; it allowed him to smother the target area with imaginary lines.
But also bear in mind that there is no evidence that you can discern aircraft movements at any meaningful range from either the transmitter or the receiver from the limited amount of data captured in the historical database.
ventus45,
Yes, you are essentially correct on all issues.
@sk999 Thanks for the link to your WSPR paper and the time and effort you spent putting it together with illustrations and references. It is great to see some real numbers based on physics and observed effects, and heartening that gut feelings of many including myself are ostensibly correct.
@limpe,
As far as I can tell, there are no reports that the search contract has been signed, and the vessel location reports are still coming in.
The International Maritime Organisation requires that all vessels of 300 Gross Registered Tonnes or more, shall be fitted with an AIS installation. The AIS must be operating at all times during which the vessel is underway in a port or any waterway, including when stopped or at anchor.
Government vessels are exempt, but normally would operate the AIS when in congested traffic situations, as a safety measure.
The Master of a vessel may determine that a situation that could put their vessel at risk, e.g. pirates in the Red Sea, are justified in turning the AIS off.
@BRS
Regarding “Godfrey made the statement that the drift modelling would only support locations between 29 and 32S???” that narrow range excludes UWA’s Professor Pattiaratchi’s hot spot at 32.5°S 96.5°E, the CSIRO’s 32.5°S – 36°S range, and his own 30 November 2021 end point of 33.177°S 95.300°E. You can essentially bundle it up with all the other misinformation and disinformation spruiked from that quarter.
Back of the envelope timing estimates. On the basis of max coverage rate and 3 AUVs, it looks as if it would take 18 days on-site to cover the whole of the box on this side of the arc up to latitude 34.1S. Ship movements suggest they are progressing a bit more slowly than that. I hope they will be able to finish this side before they need to head back for reprovisioning.
If null result, what do you think is the likelihood they will search the full strip on the other (NW) side of the arc?
Byron Bailey on Sky News Au yesterday says he “is confident” that MH370 will be found in the Blelly/Marchand zone at 36 South. Not sure if he is betting his house on that one instead of 39S.
@BRS
Since you are new in this forum, I recommend reading a report published today (may also be interesting for others):
https://theconversation.com/the-search-for-missing-plane-mh370-is-back-on-an-underwater-robotics-expert-explains-whats-involved-252732
It gives a nice, easy to read overview of the new search and the technology behind it.
@BRS,
@Mick Gilbert,
Just to confuse you even more, you may wish to refer to Godfrey’s own Drift analysis: “MH370 Floating Debris – Drift Analysis, by Richard Godfrey, 1st January 2021 (updated 12th January 2021)”.
Here the then convenient result is summed up in the Executive Summary by: “The best fit is a crash latitude of 34.13°S ± 1.06° near the 7th Arc.”
@Victor,
Replying to your rebuttal of the accident scenario.
If the left side of the avionics bay is damaged, equipment in this area is likely to fail. The L transponder, L VHF and AMU are all in this damage zone. After failure of the L transponder it would take manual intervention to switch over to the R transponder. But the crew would have been overwhelmed by what had just happened and switching transponder would not be high on that list. Sadly, as the right side of the electrical system was probably still working, if they had just switched over to the right transponder we would not be still wondering what may have happened.
The decompression, leading to hypoxia and incapacitation may have happened within 5 minutes, just after the IGARI turn. The crew did not have time to troubleshoot. With possible failed displays and no EICAS messages they passed out before initiating any crucial descent.
The 18:25 SDU power up could just have been an automatic electrical reconfigure when the main battery depleted and ELMS reversed the loadshed off the L main.
And the question of whether a 777 can fly on to fuel exhaustion with no pilot or no autopilot in ‘secondary’ mode is not easy to answer unless you test a real aircraft.
But I believe, with its large stabilising wing dihedral it just might.
@Tim: It is impossible to “prove” that the particular series of failures and hypoxia that resulted in the observations we have did not occur. It comes down to which scenario is judged to be most likely. I think the scenario in which the pilot deliberately diverts the plane is by far the most likely. And based on the Level D simulator results that Mike Exner facilitated and recorded, I don’t think a B777 in secondary flight control mode could fly long distances with no pilot inputs.
If it’s any consolation, I don’t think there is enough evidence to convict the captain in a US court. In my opinion, there’s probable cause, but there is still some reasonable doubt.
@Victor You’re underselling it, in my view. This is actually an area where I can contribute from an informed place. I would suggest that there is absolutely sufficient circumstantial evidence of the following, which taken in the aggregate would actually certainly exceed the legal threshold for necessary support of a finding of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt: (1) the proximity in time between ZAS’s goodnight malaysia and the extremely steep turn (that had to be manually performed); (2) the proximity in time between “1” and the SDU poweroff; (3) the SDU reboot; (4) the drift evidence / debris which suggesting the plane went south and (although the least compelling) that this is at least consistent with a possible controlled ditching; and (5) the flight simulator data.
People often confuse the existence of metaphysical doubt with a lack of reasonable doubt. Not so. In this instance, at least as I understand the available evidence, you have a long series of things that are either overwhelmingly easiest explained through the pilot suicide scenario without much if any proof that something different occurred. Could the flight sim be coincidence? Absolutely. Does it seem reasonable to view it that way in light of everything else? Not really. Could someone have been holding a gun to Zaharie’s head when he said goodnight malaysia and made the turn? Perhaps, but absolutely nothing exists to affirmatively suggest this. In other words, there really isn’t any reasonable competing hypothesis that has factual support. The other scenarios require a series of very low probability events all taking place, which definitionally means those things would be like 1% likely … ergo which would NOT constitute reasonable doubt.
@BRS
1) France – the judicial investigation is still open, but the French NoK are clear that pilot is not to blamed
2) Malaysia- the final report all but exonerated the pilot
3) USA – FBI is still working on the investigation
4) China – they have a 99% conviction rate, nuff said
@CanisMagnusRufus
Did you have time to look for his last flight to Amsterdam before MH370?
@CanisMangusRufus
Neither the subjective beliefs of NOK nor the mere status of judicial / criminal investigations as “open” negate the facts I just laid out. This is particularly true when it comes to the investigations having open status (although I’m not sure that’s right); anyone who would’ve been criminally charged is very likely dead and in a circumstance like that, there is just no need to race to close an investigation particularly when there’s a missing a/c. I am not sure what supports Malaysia “all but exonerat[ing]” the pilot. Malaysia’s report contained all of the facts I cited, I think. To the best of what I recall being told, I didn’t think the FBI ever did a full-scale investigation. I have always believed that someone could do an updated FOIA for records and I think they’d likely get responses; I don’t think it’s correct that the FBI is still doing anything.
Add to all of this Tony Abbott’s comments that he was told by Malaysia they believed it was pilot suicide.
My response concerned whether the available objective evidence we have and any supportable inferences from it could sustain a criminal conviction. My answer is a “hell yes” based on what I said and that doesn’t change based on what you just laid out.
@ Andrew, Mick Gilbert… thank you for the excellent clarifications re: LHR, LAX & Jo’burg.
@ Viking
These are the dates for AMS-KUL (MH17) flown by ZS as per the RMP report titled ‘Pilot’, found on SCRIBD.
21/01/2014, 06/12/2013, 12/11/2013,10/09/2013, 14/07/2013, 29/03/2013, 18/01/2013, 29/12/2012, 08/11/2012, 15/10/2012, 20/09/2012
17/08/2012 is mislabelled either MH195 (BOM-KUL) or AMS-KUL (MH17)
@BRS
The FBI was probably hampered in their investigations by the DNC/White House. I could bring a whole set of other facts that support an “illegal interference by a third party” as the final report stated.
BTW, When a politician like Tony Abbott prefaces his comments by saying “Let me be crystal clear…”, you know he’s trying to obfuscate.
@DrB
Yes, the tracking is back. It wasn’t available when I posted my previous post, and I thought it was deliberate.
I chose the wrong wording for the contract’s signing. You are right. No contract has been signed yet.
@CanisMagnusRufus
Many thanks for your update.
@Tim
RE: “the 18:25 Satcom power up, just an automatic power change, possibly initiated by the main battery going flat and ELMS becoming unpowered.”
The ELMS load shed function does not work in the manner described in your scenario.
First, the load shed function is controlled by the ELMS electronic units (EEU) in the left (P110) and right (P210) power management panels. Each power management panel has two redundant power supply units (PSU), powered by both the left and right 28V DC buses. The PSUs are not powered by the main battery.
Second, if all loads on a main bus need to be shed, the associated generator control unit (GCU) opens the associated bus tie breaker (BTB) and generator control breaker (GCB), removing power from the entire bus. The GCUs have three redundant power sources: opposite side 28V DC bus, 28V DC battery bus #2, and a permanent magnet generator within the associated IDG. The GCUs are powered any time the associated engine is running, even if the other power sources are lost.
Finally, if the aircraft is operating on battery power, then all other power sources are presumably inoperative and the aircraft is operating on standby power. There is no load shed control in that configuration. The main battery going flat will not bring inoperative power sources back to life and reconnect them to the electrical system.
Here is an unpopular counterpoint on theories of a malicious mastermind pilot.
I believe that most of the speculation about motives (even at the highest levels) comes from SATCOM evidence that the plane flew incommunicado for hours, plus an assumption that there were no turns shortly after leaving RADAR, leading to further assumption of a flight to oblivion.
Any investigation should be based on forensic evidence – a scientific approach toward finding the truth. Instead, we are inundated with unscientific attempts at providing often dramatized answers, and that has widely become accepted as evidence.
I’m confident in new acoustic evidence for a 7th Arc crash site near Java. I’ve also shown photo evidence that the flaperon barnacles are seen growing atop abrasions from beaching. An earlier flaperon arrival not only shifts the timeline requiring faster drift from a cold water site, but local Reunion sea temps at arrival match the barnacle growth evidence for most of the debris never leaving tropical waters.
So, rather than blaming the crew, let’s propose instead that there was a major electrical outage at waypoint IGARI that took out comms, SATCOM, transponder, ADS-B, and more, all at once. A pilot manually disabling circuits and switching the transponder to alt-off requires many complex steps, and requires previously preventing all human interference, which all takes time to implement and is extremely risky. We know that the plane was clearly flyable at high altitude, since the expert pilot did turn back directly toward the nearest diversion airport.
To land in the dark, the crew would also need navigation and ILS, the ability to dump fuel, plus deploy flaps and landing gear. We don’t know what other functions were lost. Let’s suppose that the crew, instead of having killed each other off, would instead cooperate and attempt to follow checklists, circumvent failures, and safely land the plane. That would take much more time. Long enough to fly past diversion airports without descending, and even right past Butterworth Air Force Base, which is not something a pilot would do if they were trying to be invisible.
About an hour after the electrical outage, SATCOM partially came back online. That could have been accomplished by a copilot restoring breakers in the machine bay, but not all comms came back online. At that point, the crew may have realized that their best option with the plane still flying would be to buy time for more repairs, heading south along the Indonesian coast towards two island airports and eventually daylight. They would likely have slowed to holding speed for maximum flight endurance as dawn approached, which would require dropping to a lower altitude, possibly even oxygen altitude if that was an issue.
There is seismic infrasound evidence for a jet flyby of the Cocos Island airport, which was dark, and Christmas Island airport post-dawn which appears to have been clouded in. Given the relatively precise acoustic epicenter right on the 7th Arc, which does not depend on whether the plane was ditched or gliding, MH370 apparently went into the sea just 60 miles short of B777-capable airport Cijulang on the coast of Java (further avoiding populated areas).
This suggested scenario is based on new forensic evidence, and little speculation beyond how a competent crew might handle such an emergency.
There are no signs that Zahari had any passion for puzzles. Investigation of his computers should have turned up some indication in his past browsing history that would support research needed by even a mastermind to thwart all future investigators by leaving few clues. Instead he spent his online time following cutesy social media stars and showing others how he fixed his own air conditioner.
He seems more likely to be a dedicated pilot who might have had Foreflight on his personal tablet that allowed navigation via GPS despite the nonfunctional avionics.
This of course isn’t the only scenario that fits all the factual evidence. The Java candidate site is viable regardless of any evil intent on the plane. Still, the simple fact that the plane did turn back past several diversion airports fits with a diligent crew, as a suicidal pilot would more easily head east from IGARI to avoid all complications like RADAR, disappearing to crash the plane into the deep South China Sea or past the Philippines into the wider Pacific Ocean.
It’s tiring to see so many claims that no alternate scenario fits the evidence, or that an unsuccessful search leaves only one conclusion.
Thankfully Victor’s forum is tolerant of diverse viewpoints, and doesn’t sport downvotes, or this different perspective would also be lost to oblivion.
Here’s hoping for a signed contract soon, and that this time the plane will be found.
Thank you, @370Location. This above post is a great example of what I was looking for in my own post. Our collective understanding of probabilities is quite rudimentary, in my view. An extremely unlikely event has already occurred – regardless of whether it was pilot driven or not. Given that this has happened, it is absolutely scientific to investigate and explore equipment failure coincidences. If the captain was at fault, I’m not that interested in finding out “how” he managed to get the aircraft to its current resting position. He may as well as dived straight at IGARI. It is absolutely imperative to exhaust accident scenarios – at least for those of us who are invested in aviation.
@Andrew,
Thanks for putting much thought into the electrical system, and highlighting that my scenario doesn’t quite fit. Perhaps, it was the GCU that failed when battery power was lost at 18:25, the other power sources to it having previously been severed.
It’s all to easy to blame someone pressing buttons in the flight deck.
@Tim
The L GCU would need to send a “close” command to the L GCB to reconnect the L IDG to the L Main AC Bus. The GCU can’t do that if it’s not powered/failed.
@370Location
RE: “Let’s suppose that the crew, instead of having killed each other off, would instead cooperate and attempt to follow checklists, circumvent failures, and safely land the plane. That would take much more time. Long enough to fly past diversion airports without descending, and even right past Butterworth Air Force Base…”.
In a serious emergency such as a major electrical outage, no sensible pilot would fly past perfectly useable major airports with which they were very familiar (eg KUL, PEN), and continue flying all the way to Cocos, Christmas Island or Cijulang. Perhaps I’m looking at the wrong airport, but Cijulang has a single 1,400m runway, typically serviced by Susi Air using Cessna Caravans. It is not the kind of place a pilot would contemplate taking a B777 on a good day, let alone in an emergency.
@Don Thompson,
@Barry Carlson,
Don Thompson on March 11, 2025 at 6:51 am
Discussed ‘Cape Town’
It is now clear than Armada 78 06 will not reach the previously scheduled arrival in Cape Town.
For this once, may we speculate. (Just for ‘fun’).
Might it be reasonable to consider it possible that Armada 86 01 now on the way to Cape Town might digress and take over from Armada 78 06 in the Southern Indian Ocean, enabling 78 06 to return to Fremantle to transfer data, restock, refuel, recrew, and then return back to where it is now ?
@PaulS
Yes funny about Byron Bailey’s betting his house.
@Adi
“It is absolutely imperative to exhaust accident scenarios – at least for those of us who are invested in aviation.” In my view, that has been the general philosophy for the reason you state (and I do not think that strategy finds a missing aircraft). However, at some point, say 2019 with Tony Abbott’s comments and William Langewiesche’s article, there became more consensus that data is strong to suggest deliberate at least up to to Arc2. The other issue is a straight LNAV flight path infers an end point like South Pole was pre-set (that became consensus around 2017 that a B777 ghost overflight would not be “straight”).
Hi All, I do have to wonder about arguments around failure recovery of aircraft systems as they usually implicitly assume a limited or localized failure where the intended redundant paths remain available for recovery. It becomes harder to predict what would happen if the avionics and harnessing were to have sustained extensive damage simultaneously touching multiple redundant paths in the system.
@Tim, the oxygen bottle scenario is usually theorized to do direct damage through shrapnel, but I think it more likely that another failure mechanism could occur: structural failure of the cockpit floor due to the transient over-pressure from below. By physically displacing cockpit floor beams upward, this might sever all the harnesses connecting the center pedestal systems through the floor down to the electronics bay. What then?
I can already anticipate the categorical dismissals, but hold the thought in your mind for just a moment, what if the throttle quadrant were to become physically disconnected from the engines?
@370location
Why would an aircraft in distress, with multiple failures, and a knowledgeable crew, fly past familiar airports and on into the Indian Ocean, towards Cocos or wherever?
A sensible approach would be to orbit within reasonable range of a familiar airport, one able to accomodate a 777, while trying to resolve some of the issues, and with some chance of attracting support on the ground.
There is even some evidence that something like this may have occurred. perhaps a little later than desirable and further NW along the Malacca Straight, as that can help account for later timing. A possibility perhaps, but in the event, unsuccesful.
@George G,
Re: “It is now clear than Armada 78 06 will not reach the previously scheduled arrival in Cape Town.”
Currently, A7806’s AIS is reporting – ‘(Destination) TO BE CONFIRMED
ETA: Apr 08, 18:00 (in 16 days)’.
I don’t wish to speculate on Ocean Infinity’s options/plans, as what they may do is likely subject to the terms of any contract they have of may enter into with the government of Malaysia. Outside of that, OI are free to search for and/or recover anything they wish in International waters.
@Andrew,
Thanks for your input again.
What do you think would happen to the L BTB if the GCU failed?
@Tim
The L BTB would remain OPEN and the L Main AC Bus would remain isolated from the right hand side. The BTB needs to be commanded closed, which the GCU can’t do if it’s failed.
It wouldn’t matter if the BTB did close in your scenario. If the aircraft is running on battery power, then all other power sources are inoperative or disconnected from the system. A flat battery won’t change that.
@Brian Anderson, @Andrew:
“A sensible approach would be to orbit within reasonable range of a familiar airport…”
Without comms, TCAS, or possibly an FMS in a crowded airspace over populated areas, a holding pattern might be riskier than initially staying at high altitude to preserve glide distance in case of the next failure, like an engine.
We don’t know what happened in the cockpit or in the minds of the crew. We can’t know exactly what emergency the crew was dealing with. I don’t believe that deviating from an assumed or expected behavior is enough to accuse the crew of murder/suicide. Assuming a nefarious pilot has misled to UGIB proposing evasive 90 degree turns to follow FIR boundaries.
@All:
I don’t see that speculation about the intent of the crew has helped to narrow the search area. It has only created doubts and dismissal of the factual evidence we do have. Anyone who claims to have the only possible explanation for what happened to MH370 isn’t following forensic methods.
Rather than the senseless murder of 238 people by a respected pilot (and DIY repair buff), I prefer to imagine that crew attempts to repair the damage failed, then after exhausting the last safe landing option in daylight and low on fuel, they headed for the nearest coastal airport, perhaps even intending to ditch in shallow water. It’s probably not what happened, but it fits with new evidence.
Meanwhile, Jeff Wise is currently vidsplaining with scientists and Bayes formula that when a hypothesis (searched areas) fails, one must reassess prior assumptions and be open to new evidence. I fully agree with that. However he then completely corrupts the science with his own confirmation bias. He focuses on Victor’s good credentials and an old paper as support for discarding any BFO validity, hoping that Victor will change his mind and validate the Russian hijack conspiracy.
And even more bizarre is Vincent Lyne, a retired CSIRO scientist and prolific publisher making news with repeated claims that MH370 has been fully solved by science. However, his most recent paper points to a single pixel in low rez bathymetry as conclusive evidence for his candidate site. Unfortunately, the bathymetry didn’t come from the Five Deeps expedition as claimed, but a 2004 survey along the Diamantina Fracture Zone. Lyne’s basis for his site comes from forcing all hydrophone detections to arrive from a single event, but using impossible physics. He claims the plane went into a deep hole, which sent out seismic waves to vibrate Batavia Seamount 500 miles away, and the Seychelles 3000 miles away. Seismometers detected no such event. He dismissed real evidence for the 7th Arc Java event as dynamite fishing. That’s incorrect for the same reason the impact was not detected – surface events over deep water don’t propagate into the SOFAR channel.
Sorry for the TLDR; but like WSPR and 4orbs, there is a lot of bad science getting bandied about that is in need of counterpoint, so it doesn’t disrupt the search.
In the early days of the disappearance I spent a good deal of time looking at a range of safety and maintenance data relevant to B777s in general, and 9M-MRO in particular, that may have been germane. That allowed me to develop an evolving inflight emergency scenario that might have explained the manner in which the aircraft was flown in the tracked phase between 1720 UTC and 1822 UTC.
It was an interesting exercise that, apart from anything else, connected me with a variety of technical experts with whom I still routinely correspond. Regrettably, the experience exposed me to a handful of malicious and utterly toxic characters also. Yin-yang. Thankfully, the former significantly outnumber the latter by a good order of magnitude.
A couple of observations.
First, as to the of repeated refrain that a trained and experienced crew would do A, or would not do B, I would observe that the majority of aviation accidents occur mainly because trained and experienced crews do not do what their experience suggests or their training dictates they should do. Thus, I am not sure what contribution the “trained and experienced crew” test makes other than circularising the argument against an accidental cause.
A further, more general observation, and in keeping with Ed’s comment, is that theorising about what may have caused the disappearance rarely makes any significant contribution toward determining where the aircraft came down in the Southern Indian Ocean.
Leaving aside the handful of amateurs who, with no relevant training, and access only to scant personal details and second- and third-hand accounts, claim to be able to do what highly trained mental health professionals with access to detailed patient records, test results, and first-hand engagement with the patients themselves, cannot do with regards to making definitive predictions as to behaviour, causal theories tend to be entirely useless in terms of defining a specific search area.
Accordingly, these days I generally counsel against arguing about the cause of the disappearance. Apart from correcting mistakes of fact or misconceptions, I tend to refrain from discussing theories on cause.
The cause of the disappearance cannot be known with certainty until the crash site is located and key pieces of evidence are recovered and analysed. I’d argue that unless you have an interest in cerebral self-pleasuring, it tends to be entirely unhelpful arguing about a matter that is essentially unprovable at this juncture. Such arguments are essentially a fool’s errand; they tend to generate a lot of heat but very, very little light.
Locating the crash site is an exercise that is largely independent of determining the cause, but determining the cause, in any conclusive fashion, is highly dependent on locating the crash site. I would argue that it is manifestly clear which activity should be focused upon.
@370Location
RE: “Without comms, TCAS, or possibly an FMS in a crowded airspace over populated areas, a holding pattern might be riskier than initially staying at high altitude to preserve glide distance in case of the next failure, like an engine.”
I agree with @Brian Anderson’s comment that “a sensible approach would be to orbit within reasonable range of a familiar airport, one able to accomodate a 777, while trying to resolve some of the issues…”. Such an approach does not require descent to a lower altitude as you seem to assume. If an immediate landing was not required, the crew could remain at high level, attempt to deal with the issues and assess their options. If high level traffic is deemed to be an issue, they could fly at a level with 500 ft separation from the standard levels (eg FL355) and remain ‘safe’.
I also agree that we don’t know what happened in the minds of the crew. However, the scenario you proposed does not make sense to this experienced airline pilot. If I were faced with a serious emergency, I would not be heading off towards remote, unfamiliar airfields in the Indian Ocean with unknown conditions, limited facilities and no emergency services.
Yes, we must reassess prior assumptions and be open to new evidence, but let’s be realistic too.
@370Location
I should have said that “such an approach does not necessarily require descent to a lower altitude…”. It would depend entirely on the nature of the emergency. That said, if a descent was required, it would make even more sense to remain close to a suitable diversion airfield.