Two weeks ago, I wrote a couple of posts about the strange reboot of MH370’s satcom system that occurred shortly after the plane disappeared from primary radar, and asked if anyone could come up with a reasonable explanation. I drew attention in particular to the left AC bus, which the satcom equipment is connected to. This bus can be electrically isolated using controls located in the cockpit, and this appears to be the only way to recycle the satcom without leaving the flight deck. I suggested that there might be some other piece of equipment that the perpetrator wanted to turn off and on again by using the left AC bus, thereby causing the satcom to be recycled as an unintended side effect.
The readers rose to the occasion. Gysbreght pointed out that paragraph 1.11.2 of Factual Information states that “The SSCVR [Solid State Cockpit Voice Recorder] operates any time power is available on the Left AC transfer bus. This bus is not powered from batteries or the Ram Air Turbine (RAT).”
This is an incredibly interesting observation. Reader Oz fleshed out Gysbreght’s insight, writing to me via email:
We could isolate the Left Main AC by selecting the generator control switch to OFF and the Bus Tie switches to OFF; SATCOM is now dead. What else happens……….the Backup generator kicks in automatically to supply the Left Transfer bus. Here’s what’s so spine chilling; if you now simply reach up and select the Backup Generator switch to OFF………..you now lose Left transfer as well. The CVR is gone! I couldn’t believe how easy the CVR was to isolate!
To recap;
Left Gen Control to OFF
Bus Ties to OFF (Isolate)
Left Backup Gen to OFF.
I now firmly believe your mystery reboot was Left AC power being switched back ON……….. after something that had occurred that the perp or perps didn’t want any possible evidence of on the CVR……whatever was being hidden was done by around 1822; AC back to normal.
Gysbreght notes that the Factual Information also identifies the location of the CVR as Electronic Equipment Rack, E7, in the aft cabin above the ceiling, and suggests: “Later [the perp] could have opened Electronic Equipment Rack E7, physically pulled the SSCVR power supply plug from its socket, and then gone back to the MEC to restore power to the Left AC bus.”
Oz has his own theory: “If you are thinking why the hell you would turn Left AC/Left transfer back on? Flight deck temperature control comes from these…”
There’s a precedent for a suicidal airline pilot depowering the black boxes before flying a plane into the ocean: the pilot of Silkair Flight 185 appears to have done just that before pointing the nose down and crashing in December, 1997. It’s easy to imagine Zaharie reading the accident reports and realizing he should also figure out a way to disable the CVR before implementing his suicide plan. When the moment came, near IGARI, one can imagine the veteran 777 pilot suddenly flipping various switches while the baffled newbie, Fariq, looked on.
It’s certainly an intriguing scenario, but it is not without its flaws. As Gysbreght notes, “I would expect the Captain to know that the CVR only retains the last two hours and overwrites older recordings.” So if Zaharie planned to commit suicide by flying the plane for hours into the remotest reaches of the southern ocean, he wouldn’t have needed to turn the CVR off: the portion between 17:07 and 18:25 would have been erased anyway. This is not in insurmountable problem, however. Maybe he orginally intended to crash right away, a la Silkair, but then lost his nerve.
I’m not quite ready to declare, as Gysbreght has, “Case closed,” but I have to admit that the CVR idea is fascinating. Great work, Gysbreght and Oz!
Something must have happened in that cockpit prior to IGARI to explain the double reporting of “FL350” and the incorrect/incomplete handover from KL to HCM ATC. Something so serious that the Captain wanted to preserve the recording on the CVR for later use. Having been a Type Rating Instructor (TRI) and Type Rating Examiner (TRE) since November 2007, the Captain may well have been in a similar situation before and then he would know exactly what needed to be done to prevent overwriting the recording. Therefore initially he cut the power to the CVR by isolating the Left AC bus. Then he left the cockpit to isolate the CVR more permanently by either pulling the circuit breaker in the EE bay, or by pulling the power plug on the unit in the EE rack E7. Then he returned to the cockpit but found the door locked.
General Sutarman knows what “actually” happened. IMHO it was not a multi-national government conspiracy, spoofing or data corruption scenario and cover-up.
@spencer
“In the 4corners interview, H clearly states that they tracked 370 in real time. He also clearly says that ‘we knew it was FROM our airspace’.”
They didn’t, if they tracked it in real time they would at least try to contact it via radio, if the plane was unresponsive they would send the fighters.
It’s standard procedure and I can’t believe they could get away with such a poor “excuse”.
From paragraph 1.5.6 of FI:
@Jay
completelly agree that Z videos confirm only one thing – that he was good and smart ordinary guy helping others all the time; he used his FB to spread some ideas at least to his circle, but nothing dangerous or violent at all; even my notes about newspapers aligned in video was in fact sarcasm, although carefull analysis of all news and interviews published about MH370 is something important, as all this are the DATA we have to mine some information, together with logs and official reports – and I personally feel some sarcasm here too (as always, it may be wrong, though):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCsnvVNgTwI
BTW, just clicking on CNN youtube, their title video blows mind again; good to take break, cu
https://www.youtube.com/user/CNN
@StevanG
You and Hishammuddin are at odds. I, for one, am choosing to believe his very coached and startlingly unpolished version of events.
Which is what he says: They tracked an ‘unidentified’ aircraft in REAL TIME. Only it was anything but ‘unidentified’.
Your assertion that they would have attempted to contact MH370 by radio is IMO terribly mistaken.
This would have been the case had they NOT known it was Z and MH370, but it is clear that someone (Hishammuddin…nb his refusal to say exactly when it was he was first told of MH370 being missing, only that it was well before the plane had been scheduled to land) was orchestrating events from the earliest moments (thus the Cambodia fiction, for example).
And do you really believe MAS only attempting 2 calls was just sheer ineptitude?
We see this differently, very differently.
Cheers
@Gysbrecht
What is the point you are trying to make with the I would argue quite normal financial disclosure of the FO?
And the idea that Zaharie on a whim isolated the left bus in the middle of some ’emergency’ in an effort to preserve the recording for posterity I find just somewhat implausible.
I would think his concerns would lie elsewhere in such a scenario.
Are you seriously suggesting this as a reason for the isolation of the bus?
@All
Hi, a last one here from my side. I’ve compiled a short report from recent findings which can be downloaded from science4u.org, see summary section.
Questions and remarks are welcomed through email.
I’m taking a short break now.
For several reasons I have decided I will not come back to the forum.
Of course feel free to communicate with me through email.
A big thank you to all of you who contribute with open mind and in constructive manner.
Take care,
Niels.
@All:
I’ve studied the Window Seal video, too. And I came to the conclusion that there is no way that the headlines were placed randomly like they are. And what looks like consecutive pages aren’t always consecutive if you look closely. That fact alone means it can’t have been random.
HOWEVER, since the video is from 2013, I would absolutely exclude that it has anything to do with mh370. And without confirmation bias you can interpret all headlines as making funny and provocatice stabs at the government. For example: the headline “The End Is Near” in combination with the picture of three vampires could simply be interpreted this way: “the end is near for these vampires who form our government”. Zaharie simply used his videos for digs at the government. That’s not an unusual way if you live in a country witth some censorship.
So, whatever Zaharie had in mind with his videos, it looks more like an intelligent and harmless prank at the expense of the ruling party.
The time between posting and the vanishing of mh370 is just too long and it’s not likely that there are any hidden messages concerning March 8, 2014.
I should add that some years ago in connection with a project I’ve done extensive research concerning the art of riddle construction in the Renaissance age. Sounds very ivory tower and it is. I would’ve never thought that I could use my knowledge in connection with the mh370 conundrum. Anyway, the way Zaharie arranged those newspapers display all the signs of a riddle or a hidden message. But again: if you look at it without confirmation bias, then you can interpret it as what it is: nothing very complicated. He just wanted to display some headlines which were important to him, and in case of the vampires he also made a funny dig; much like his t-shirt with the message : “Democracy Is Dead”.
Some of you guys have read way too much into Zaharie’s arrangements. But kudos to those who have spotted that there are messages.
Let me get this straight: Jeff said that Zaharie deplugged and then replugged the left bus in order to erase the recordings. Now some of you argued that he wanted to preserve them. Now, what is it? Those two motivations are totally at odds with each other, and I would agree with Spencer: it’s highly unlikely that he would think of those things just 35 seconds after he went out of radar reach. That I don’t buy.
Now that several posters are making up stories out of the headlines in a pile of old newspapers found in the house of the captain’s son, I’m interested in any detail that can give a clue about the FO’s character.
@littlefoot: I would think what ever occurred near IGARI was not for preserving nor erasing the CVR. He was attempting to save the aircraft from crashing in the GoT/SCS.
@all
My ONLY point as to the video was that the newspapers were not simply some random assortment that just ‘happened’ to be placed there willy nilly.
Some posters have attempted to suggest this is the case. The notion that these newspapers were not perfectly staged for viewer consumption is…curious to say the least.
Whether or not it is directly related to Mh370, who knows.
Indirectly (politically)? Without a doubt the motive here was a political one.
The ‘window seal’ video also coincided with a period of time in which Zaharie was engaged in posting many hundreds (yes hundreds) of fb posts (almost all of which were political) during the run-up to the May elections. Coincidence? I think not.
@Gysebrecht
Are you intimating that the video just ‘happened’ to inexplicably have all the bold headlines purposely positioned optimally for line of sight? That this was just happenstance?
@Myron, that’s not ny question. I simply want to know if he erased or preserved the recordings with his actions.
@Gysbreght, I don’t think that Zaharie just displayed a pile of old newspapers in such a meticulous way. But I agree with you that many have overinterpoverinterpreted a few headlines. Zaharie was probably just having some fun in an intelligent way.
I also would like to have more information about the copilot. We’ve neglected him as a potential perp.
@littlefoot, Perhaps I should have been clearer about the possible motivation behind isolating the left AC bus to turn off the CVR. (I emphasize that this is not something I believe was done; but I acknowledge that it could have been done.) Doing this would have both 1) preserved whatever audio had been recorded over the previous two hours, preventing it from being overwritten, and 2) prevented what subsequently happened from being recorded. My imagination tends to run to the latter. I can imagine Zaharie, the experienced pro, waiting until after he’s said “Good Night Malaysia 370” and then declaring that something was wrong and quickly flipping a bunch of switches, which Fariq would have been too inexperienced to understand the significance of. Then Zaharie clocks Fariq over the head, or orders him aft, or whatever…
@Spencer, you’re right. There is no way that the headlines show up randomly. I renovated my kitchen a couple of weeks ago and protected the radiators with old newspapers. And that looked VERY different. For example: the video shows no upside- down headlines at all. And to arrange them and aligne them so carefully takes almost more time than simply cleaning the object afterwards. There is also hardly any overlap of the adjacent newspapers – very impractical if you want to protect something.
There are more indications that this wasn’t random.
But really, this can’t have anything to do with mh370. No way. Far too much time elapsed between the posting and March 8, 2014. It’s far more likely that he was engaging in subtle pranks – which were just a little less obvious than the writing on his t-shirt.
@spencer:
The newspapers in the window seal video have been taped to the window sill to protect it from tar stains and nothing else. The newspaper contents reflect the actuality of the season. Meticulous? Yes, that is the way he would have approached any task, for example examining the performance of a trainee pilot.
@Gysbreght, just no! There’s no way this was just random. Some pages aren’t even consecutive- although it looks like they are.But they’re pasted together. That along excludes randomness. There are other tell tale signs. Is it so hard to accept that Zaharie might’ve used his videos for getting across some political messages of a very simple nature. That’s very much compatible with his known character.
But I agree with you: I totally exclude that this has anything to do with mh370.
@Jeff, thanks for clearing that up. Maybe I was just too dense.
But let me ask: if Zaharie wanted to prevent the recording of what was to follow, couldn’t he simply have switched off the voice recorder instead of taking out everything which feeds from the left bus?? What might have been so valuable in the previous recordings that he went to such impractical length to preserve it?
Jeff, I think, I stick to your spoof 😉
@littlefoot:
“Some pages aren’t even consecutive- ” They seldom are in the newspapers I dump in the recycle bin after reading them. Are you suggesting he bought virgin newspapers for the sealing job?
Or is the whole point of this, that the voice recorder has no off-switch? If so, I have to ask if you’re sure. Quoting BBC’s Sherlock: “everything has an off-switch”. I think I even read about case where pilots got into some trouble because they had switched off the voice recorder without having a valid reason.
@Gysbreght, I’m really not all that interested to continue this discussion because IMO it doesn’t add valuable ideas to the case of mh370 and to Jeff’s current post. But I conceed that I brought it up or continued the discussion which maybe I should not have done.
And you misunderstood me. I said there are pages that look like double pages from one newspaper but in reality they were made to look like that but they are not double pages. That can’t be random. There are many other tell tale signs that this isn’t random. If you don’t want to see it, fine. You don’t have to, because it probably is of no importance for the mh370 conundrum. All it shows is, that Zaharie thought not very highly of the current government at the time the video was posted. But we knew that before.
@Spencer
“Which is what he says: They tracked an ‘unidentified’ aircraft in REAL TIME. Only it was anything but ‘unidentified’.”
but you don’t track unidentified aircraft without trying to identify it, that’s not how it works in any military in the world
he is simply lying but if you want to believe him that’s fine, falken believes all politicians for that matter 🙂
“This would have been the case had they NOT known it was Z and MH370, but it is clear that someone (Hishammuddin…nb his refusal to say exactly when it was he was first told of MH370 being missing, only that it was well before the plane had been scheduled to land) was orchestrating events from the earliest moments (thus the Cambodia fiction, for example).”
if they had any doubts they would suspend him from flying at least until they further checked the situation, but they simply didn’t know anything in advance as he probably didn’t tell anyone of his intention to divert/hijack the aircraft
@all
videos just support the theory that he was very anti-government but don’t tell anything about what his goal was IMO
@StevanG – I am in agreement with your points; especially that the videos don’t seem to tell anything related to MH370 disappearance.
@Stevan, I agree with you here. I highly doubt that the videos have any connection with mh370. I could imagine that something like this happened:
He needed a bunch of old newspapers for his video, took a look at some headlines and thought: ” hmm, I have an idea…some more people should see this…” and then he started to arrange them and it became more elaborate. That scenario isn’t hard to picture; and all it tells is that Zaharie was passionate about politics, clever and resourceful. And he really, really disliked the current government. But the video doesn’t tell us if Zaharie was involved in the abduction of his plane or not.
@StevanG
I agree there are no clues specifically relative to the MH370 event, but the theme of the videos consistently support the notion of being politically active perhaps even being to the point of passionate about it.
@OZ,
So a depressurized cockpit is cool, possibly cold, but not bitterly so. Clears that up – thanks.
@All,
FWIW, I’m not sure disabling the CVR discriminates for or against any particular scenario. It seems to me that regardless, the perp(s) might have an incentive to preserve the “normal flight” sections of the recording, and make sure that “the diversion” was not captured on tape. Plausible deniability, in case they get caught (sophisticated hackers) or the black boxes are found (suicidal pilot).
@Niels, I understand the sentiment but will be sorry to see you go nonetheless. Hopefully some stupendous developments will bring clarity to this long quest, and we’ll hear more from you then.
Jeff
@All,
How confident are we that 18:22 is truly the edge of radar coverage? There seems to be a consensus that most militaries would NEVER disclose the true limits of their radar coverage to another nation (let alone to a bunch of NOK, to whom they owe nothing, and can expect nothing in return).
I guess I’m wondering if the Thais essentially said, “we’ll show you what we’ve got up to 18:22. There’s more, of course, but nothing of interest.” (That is, no turns.) Conversely, the Malaysians may have said, “we know the radar’s sensitive. But we have pings after 18:25, so we really only need what you’ve got up to then.”
Questioning causality then. We’re assuming that the pings started because the radar coverage ended. Maybe we have the radar data because of the pings.
@littlefoot, I’d hate to contradict Sherlock Holmes, but not everything has an off switch! Some things require you to pull the plug or flip the circuit breaker. In the case of the CVR, you can turn it off/erase it on the ground, at rest, but not while moving through the air (without pulling a circuit breaker or isolating the left AC bus). I do recall that the pilot of Silkair 185 had been disciplined for pulling the CVR circuit breakers once before the fatal crash. In retrospect they should have read more into that suspicious behavior…
I suspect this reboot is a mechanism associated with introducing
outside data to make it look like MH370 flew longer to the SIO(or elsewhere).
@Jeff, thanks for showing that even Sherlock isn’t always right 😉
So, I accept that this was the only way to prevent further recordings. But I’m still not ready to trade in my spoof stock for the missing off-switch of the voice recorder.
@Hudson
The radar is a commercial off-the-shelf piece of equipment. You can find the specs for it on-line. That is one of the reasons I am so annoyed with the Malaysians for not publishing the data.
@littlefoot :
“But the video doesn’t tell us if Zaharie was involved in the abduction of his plane or not.”
Exactly, and that might be the reason why he gave us his intentions (what,how,why) in an encrypted form via youtube.
An encrypted message tells us nothing when we have no access to the decryption key. “Z” knew that, he was a genius.
In my opinion his videos might be evidence we shouldn´t ignore.
@LouVilla, please don’t take it the wrong way, but that’s just not credible at all. He posted the video more than a year before the abduction of the plane! Even if there is a deeper encryption in there, I highly doubt that it has anything to do with mh370.
If you find a similar video which he posted – let’s say, two months before the plane vanished, then we can talk about messages. But not with this video. That one just tells us a bit more about his personality.
The simplest answer to “why was the first ping missing” is, the plane landed, possibly in Kota Bharu, and powered off engines. Then,
Please note, the 18:28 ping, was the PLANE’S request to log on to inmarsat.
That is something that happens, when a plane powers on and takes off. Then,
The peak in the BFO graph of extremely moving away from the satellite, is a takeoff, in an easterly direction, towards the South China Sea, east of Malaysia, BUT,
This airspace is restricted, so,
Once above the sea, it would make a U-turn, to join the normal track and curve to the north towards IGARI. At that point of turning north, there were the fishermen who testified about a plane flying low towards the international water.
But what I said is just a speculation, so any other, as complicated as it may be in that short time, is welcomed.
Jovi Jovison
@LouVilla
I agree with littlefoot in his response to you. You sound ridiculous. Posting encrypted messages in a series of do-it-yourself home-made youtube videos posted over a year before the incident sounds utterly unreasonable and irrational. Even the headline “The end is near for Twilight.” This is such a meaningless headline–it’s ostensibly about a TV show ending. How you could construe that to mean anything else is just trying way too hard to stretch nothing into something.
@Jay, now I have to say, don’t flush the baby with the bathtub water 😉
It’s fairly obvious that the newspaper headlines aren’t placed randomly. When I first saw it I was taken in, too. But when I saw the date of the video I realized that it couldn’t possibly have anything to do with mh370. And I understood that he had just used his video to make some underhand digs at the current government. LouVilla’s interpretations are way over the top IMO.
But even still–how are those headlines even digs at the government? You’d have to really really stretch it to construe those as having anything to do with the government. If he wanted to take digs at the government, don’t you think he would show headlines that are at least a bit relevant to the government? I’m sure they can’t be too hard to find. Instead, you think he will show headlines that actually have nothing to do with the government, but instead have vague cryptic messages that you can interpret almost any way you’d like to.
“The end is near for Twilight.” Like I said, this is about an american TV show about vampires. “Bond visits Afghanistan.” This is about Pierce Brosnan visiting the troops in Afghanistan. “HBSC aims to sell Ping An stake.” This is about a Thai company selling stocks of a chinese insurance group.
What does ANY of this have to do with the Malaysian government??
What’s more is that the content of these videos are completely and utterly on the topic of the thing he is fixing. It is obvious that do-it-yourself jobs was a hobby of Shah, and so he made videos of his fixing household appliances. He obviously had a unique skill and knowledge of these fix-it jobs, and it seems like a very cathartic way for him to spend his down time. How one could see anything malicious about this is beyond me. Furthermore, if he wanted to take digs at the government, this seems like a very strange forum to do it. What type of audience could he possible hope to see these videos which are in english and extremely low budget?
@Jay, I don’t think, some of those headlines you quoted are even relevant – probably the Bond thing might be there randomly. But there are others in Malaysian about nepotism and other crooked dealings. Would be interesting to translate them. The Twilight headline is really interesting because it’s an eye catcher. I would interpret it as: ” the end is near … for the bunch of vampires who form our government”. Because the other headlines are about potentially crooked businesses and nepotism. That all this can be interpreted in a totally innocent way is part of the game. Otherwise he could have directly put up a script with the headline “Our government is a bunch of vampires’. I think he had these newspapers around and realized that he could have some fun with them.
That’s the simplest explanation for an otherwise totally weird arrangement and alignment of the papers. I highly doubt anyone would arrange a bunch of old newspapers this way just for projection against tar dropping. As I said, I painted my kitchen recently and used newspapers that way. It didn’t look in any way similar to what Zaharie has done here. It’s not even practical for many reasons.
So I really think the truth is somewhat in the middle. Zaharie wanted to express something but it most likely had nothing to do with mh370.
I also won’t totally exclude that there is a more precise message in his video – I have seen only the window seal video. So I can’t say anything about the others. If Zaharie was working the political underground, then YouTube videos are an excellent platform for spreading news.
But maybe we should all agree to disagree on this. Until someone finds a video which was posted much closer to March 8, 2014, there’s no reason to connect them to mh370.
Suppose I was living in Malaysia, and wanted to produce a remake of the Window Seal video. How difficult would it be for me to find local newspapers without headlines that can be construed as containing encrypted messages?
@Gysbreght
Exactly. Good point.
@Gysbreght, I’m sure there weren’t any encrypted messages in the headlines themselves 🙂
And who said it was difficult to find headlines which Zaharie might’ve wanted to share?
But I can tell you this: you will have to take a bit of time to arrange them as Zaharie did. Some arrangements which look like double pages from one newspaper aren’t double pages st all. It just is made to look this way. That’s the biggest headscratcher and convinced me – besides another detail – that there’s a bit more to the papers than it seems.
Ok, that will be my last comment on this little conundrum. Until someone comes up with a crystal clear interpretation or a much newer video there’s not much more I can say about this.
@Littlefoot
The encrypted messages reminds me of the John Nash movie – “A Beautiful Mind”. Funny stuff.
@DennisW
ya, crazy enough ;-), here at 27:07…
“deck been dealt, we are here to play”
(worth to watch carefully start to finish… in ANY case, if it is or isnt related here; better together simply…)
Not to mention Z also contributes to climate change fight with his DIY projects too.
this is it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkznxGuINyk&feature=youtu.be&t=1620
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/11754089/Hacker-remotely-crashes-Jeep-from-10-miles-away.html