One of the most misunderstood insights into the riddle of MH370 is how the plane’s final path can be derived from Inmarsat BTO data alone.
Recall that the data, which was generated after someone on board caused the Satellite Data Unit (SDU) to re-logon to the Inmarsat Satellite 3F-1 over the Indian Ocean at 18:25, comes in two flavors. The first, the Burst Timing Offset (BTO) data, reveals how far the plane is from the satellite at a given time. This can be mathematically converted into a set of “ping rings” along which the plane must have been at a given time. The BTO data is very well understood and fairly precise, providing an accuracy of within 10 km.
The second, the Burst Frequency Offset (BFO) data, is more more complicated and much fuzzier than the BTO data; its inherent uncertainties are equivalent to a position error of hundreds of miles. It doesn’t have a single physical correlate but is related to how fast a plane is going, what direction it is headed, and where it is located.
For a time after MH370 disappeared, searchers hoped that they could combine these two data sets to identify the area where the plane issued its final ping. After months of work, however, they determined that this would be impossible. The BFO data is just too vague. However, along with the bad news came some good: it turned out that by the clever use of statistics they could figure out where the plane went using the BTO data alone. The methodology developed by Australia’s Defense Science and Technology Group (DSTG) and explained in an ATSB report entitled “MH370 – Definition of Underwater Search Areas” released last December.
Many independent researchers do not understand the technique and believe that it is invalid. For instance, reader DennisW recently opined that “The ISAT data cannot, by itself, be used to determine a flight path. One has to invoke additional constraints to derive a terminus.” But I believe that the DSTG position is correct, and that one does not need to invoke arbitrary additional assumptions in order to calculate the plane’s track. I’ll explain why.
First, some basics. Imagine that you have two ping rings, one created an hour after the other. For the sake of simplicity, let’s say the rings are concentric, with the later ring’s radius 300 nautical miles bigger than the earlier one’s. Let’s further assume that the plane crossed some arbitrary point on the innermost ring. If that’s all we know, then the plane could have taken any of an infinite number of routes from the first to the second. It could have travelled radially directly outward at 300 knots. Or, if traveling straight at 400 knots, it could have turned left or right at an angle. Or, it could have traveled faster than 300 knots on any number of meandering paths. So, the fact of the matter is that this simple understanding of the plane’s situation indicates that it could have traveled by wide number of paths and speeds to a wide range of points on the second arc.
However, there are some pecularities of commercial aviation that narrow the possibilities considerably. The most important is that planes can only travel in straight lines. They can turn, but in between turns they will fly straight. Knowing this vastly reduces the number of paths that MH370 could have taken between 19:41 and 0:11. It could not of simply meandered around the sky; it must have followed a path of one, two, three, four, or more straight segments.
Through the marvels of modern computing, researchers can generate a huge number of random routes and test them to see which fit the observed data. It turns out that if the plane flew straight in a single segment, the only routes that match the data are those that are fast, around the speed that commercial jets normally fly, and end up over the current search area. If you assume that the flight involved two straight segments, it turns out the ones that fit best are those in which the two segments are nearly in a straight line and are also fast and wind up over the current search area.
If you suppose that the flight after 19:41 involved a larger number of segments, your computer’s random generation process will be able to come up with valid routes that are neither straight nor fast, and do not end up in the current search area. But to come up with such routes, the computer will have to generate many, many others that do not fit. So it is extremely unlikely that by random chance the plane would have happened to travel a slow, curving route that just happened to “look like” a straight, fast route.
“Well,” you might object, “presumably whoever was in control didn’t fly randomly, they had a plan, so modeling by random paths isn’t appropriate.” But a plan of unknown characteristics is equivalent for our purposes to a random one. After all, there is no imaginable reason for someone to fly a plane over empty ocean in the dark at a slower-than-usual rate, making slight turns every hour or so. (Before you say that they might have done it to throw searchers off their trail after the fact, bear in mind that whoever took the plane would have had no way to know that Inmarsat had started logging BTO values a few months before, let alone imagine that they would be able to conduct this kind of analysis.)
When DSTG ran the math, they came up with a probability distribution along the arc that looks like the image at top.
Worth noting that the peak of the curve, and the lion’s share of the area under it, lie in the southern half of the search box, but it also has tails that extend past the box in either direction.
When the search of the seabed began, many expected that the plane would be found in short order. When it wasn’t, the burning question then became: how far out from the 7th arc should we search? A one-dimensional question had now become a two-dimensional one. Based on past loss-of-control accidents and flight simulations, the ATSB decided that an out-of-fuel 777 with no pilot would enter a spiral dive and impact the surface within 20 nautical miles. Mapping the two probability distributions (i.e., where the plane crossed the 7th arc, and where/how far it flew after that) yielded the following probability distribution:
I believe that we have to take the image above with a grain of salt, as I don’t think it is really possible for a plane to fly more than 40 km by itself. It’s generally agreed that the only way the plane could have plausbily gone further than that is if the pilot was conscious and actively holding the plane steady in a glide, in which case it might have gone as far as 100 nm.
A few months before the ATSB publlshed this analysis, a further set of information about the impact point of MH370 became availalble: the plane’s right-hand flaperon washed up on Réunion Island. Reverse-drift analysis was performed by several independent groups to determine where the flaperon might have started its journey. The German institute GEOMAR came up with the following results:
As you can see, the probability distribution hardly overlaps at all with the probability distribution derived from the BTO data; it only touches at the northeastern corner of the search box. Drift analysis performed by other groups reached a similar conclusion. Using a branch of mathematics called Bayesian analysis, it’s possible to take two probability distributions and merge them into a single one. I’m not a mathematician myself, but intuitively one would surmise that given both the BTO and the drift-model data sets, the new peak probability are should lie somewhere between the northern end of the current search box and Broken Ridge.
The ATSB report disagreed, arguing that the drift analysis
… made no meaningful changes to the ATSB search area due to the relative weighting of the significance of the drift analysis in comparison with the analysis based on the satellite data. While this debris find is consistent with the current search area it does not provide sufficient information to refine it.
What this means is that the ATSB considers the BTO data and its analysis “hard” and the reverse-drift analysis “soft,” because the random motion of ocean currents introduces a large amount of uncertainty. However, the reported also noted that “if additional debris is identified it will be included in the analysis to provide further information on the location of source areas.” Indeed, after the report came out other pieces of debris were found, and drift modeling of these pieces be used to refine the search area. Indeed, after I published last week’s guest post by MPat, reader Ge Rijn pointed out:
Over those 20 years in MPat’s model only 7 out of 177 buoys landed in Australia. Those 7 all passed the search box under 36S… [this] points clearly to the trend the more south you go under ~36S the more likely it becomes buoys (debris) will land on Australia and the more north you go above 36S the less likely it becomes buoys~(debris) will land on Australia. This is also because the more south you go under ~36 the currents tend to go further east and the more north you go around 36S the currents tend to bend stronger to the north avoiding Australia. And this is exacly what the facts about found debris shows us till now.
Note that 36 degrees south is just shy of the northern end of the current search area; as Ge Rijn observes, historical drift data suggests that if the plane had crashed south of this latitude, debris should have been found in Australia, which it obviously hasn’t.
The size and species mix of barnacles growing on ocean debris could provide clues as to which waters it floated through; oxygen isotope analysis can provide information about the temperature of the waters that it floated through. As far as I know, no such analyses have been conducted. For a long while now, the ATSB’s weekly update reports have included the phrase “In the absence of credible new information that leads to the identification of a specific location of the aircraft, Governments have agreed that there will be no further expansion of the search area.” The fact is, though, that further information is available, and it could be used to determine which of the two possible explanations is more likely: that the plane passed over the current search area and was held in a glide, or crossed the seventh arc further (but not too much further) to the northeast.
@DennisW
I look at the ISAT data as being created from 2 differeant aircrafts, this is my “secret sauce”…lol
@DennisW, The simplest way to divert a Malaysian Airlines 777 and make it look it went in a different direction is to change a single parameter in the Honeywell-Thales Satellite Data Unit and fly it under the footprint of an Inmarsat satellite that is low on fuel.
@JS
One possibility would be an older, out of service B777-200ER retrofitted with a BUAP so it could be flown by satellite remote control like a UAV. ideally this would be an B777 aircraft that is already scheduled to be dismantled. However it maybe some other type of Military UAV model that I am not aware of at this time.
@Jeff
The advantage in using a decoy UAV to spoof the ISAT data is that you can also use it to create a false radar track and distract the ATC controllers attention while you are hijacking the plane.
@Jeff
Yes, I read Victor’s writeup on that. Very clever.
@Jeff
In essence the decoy becomes a dual distraction (radar,Isat data) and creates the magical illusion that MH370 flew out to the SIO and crashed. Brilliant!
I now remember that Malaysian airlines did want to reduce its B777 fleet. So if they had an out of service B777 it could have been used
@Ken
“Brilliant” is stretching it. Decoys have been in use for centuries. If someone wanted to create that illusion, two planes is the most obvious (and low tech) way to do it.
@DennisW
Then I have a feeling we may have all fallen for the oldest trick in the book, again.
Cheers
@Ken S
No motive is a non-starter for me Ken.
@Ken S – ok, so which 777? There’s how many missing right now?
@JS
Google ” N105GT MH370″ for one possible candidate
@Ken S – 9M-MRI has been seen since March 8, 2014.
@JS
9M-MRI was the old registrartion number of N105GT this plane was in storage and is now listed as dismantled.
If you have any links to the contary can you please post them?
Thx
My point was that 9M-MRI was intact and accounted for when MH370 disappeared. If I remember correctly it was still at Tel Aviv.
Are you suggesting it was destroyed on March 8? Or are you suggesting it was involved and survived intact?
If a 777 was used, there’s no particular reason it had to be 9M-MRI as opposed to any other 777.
But to Dennis’s point, what is the motive? What possible motive involves using 2 777’s or some drone that arguably doesn’t exist yet? If you come up with a theory not otherwise based on any evidence, you at least need a motive. (I’ll accept incompetence in lieu of a motive, but that doesn’t seem to fit here.)
@JS
Ken is the victim of too many Tom Clancy novels and Hollywood. The combined talent of the CIA, NSA, and FBI was unable to extract the data on an iPhone. To my earlier point, these people and their subcontractors do not attract the best and the brightest. An elaborate spoof is not on the menu of things they would be able to pull off. Not being disrespectful of our intelligence agencies. Just telling it like it is.
Now tax evasion and insider trading are different. That is a serious issue, and the staffing and hardware resources in those domains are excellent. A tax evader or inside trader can expect worse treatment than a captured Arab terrorist. I would not even think about something like that.
What is the dispersal time of a debris field?
Is it probable or even possible that a single cargo hold pallet or undamaged (??) right flapperon would have drifted into isolation within 20 days, so as to be sighted all by itself, on the 28th of March?
Or would there be any reason to favor the triple sighting of the French a week earlier as discussed by Dr. Duncan Steel?
Or could a single initial debris field disperse that far apart, most of 300nm in as many weeks? Perhaps different kinds of objects drifted in different directions under the influence of different combinations of air and water forces? Any means of quantifying a “coherence time scale ” of the initial population of objects? How quickly is one likely to observe isolated individual ones?
@Dennis – I have to agree wholeheartedly with you. For once at least. Usually I don’t agree with you but I like your cranky attitude. This time, though, you’re dead on. Technology has passed our government’s finest. Not for lack of effort on their part, but you’re exactly right – the government simply does not attract the best when it comes to high tech. Second best works fine in accounting but it fails miserably in hacking.
@KenS said- 9M-MRI was the old registration number of N105GT this plane was in storage and is now listed as dismantled.
So I have to ask this question and not sure if anyone can answer it….so this old 777 that used to be MRI…now re=registered as N105GT only to be put in storage? why would someone re=register a plane only to put in storage and then dismantle it? Why would you go through the hassle of re=registering it (cost involved too) with another number if you weren’t planning on using it? Just curious. This has been bugging me for quite some time and no one has answered this question to my knowledge so am asking it again???
@Wasir – I’m also interested in your theory…you see I’m so (also) stuck at IGARI-BITOD with this plane and nothing makes a lick of sense past this point. I would be interested in hearing yours (off the blog of course).
@JS
Even in the accounting domain things are very well automated, and the record keeping is meticulous. If I bought $500k worth of stock in a company that subsequently was acquired at a significant premium or experienced a windfall, I would be dragged to a basement somewhere in San Francisco and water boarded to explain why I woke up that day and decided to make such a purchase. A purchase that was out of context with previous market activity I engaged in.
These people simply do not screw around.
Totally unlike the MH370 episode where inept civil servants rule the day. Every time Dolan or the Malays make a public statement I find myself shaking my head as to how someone so obviously incompetent could attain that position.
@JS
Of course it was noted that a number of airfields are near the Ping Ring 00 10 48 in the state of Israel , Ramat David AFB near Harmagedon , Herzliya , and Tel Aviv. Make what ever you want of that fact but the push to go south was very strong . Always look for miss direction in any crime.
@Jeff: you and I agree on the BTO/BFO science; I just lament the wording of your title.
We do not “know where MH370 went” merely because we have in hand a) a pdf file held out to us as MH370’s ISAT data log, and b) a really spiffy set of models which fit this data to a fight path.
The pdf file has precisely zero value unless we make two additional assumptions:
1) That it is MH370’s true ISAT data log from that night; i.e. it wasn’t altered by anyone, ever, for any reason
2) That the ISAT data, even if unaltered, is accurate
Assumption #1 alone is a whopper – and it’s vastly more than just my research which calls it into question. Florence de Changy examined this file in great detail; her two main conclusions: a) “something happened that cannot be admitted”, and b) Malaysia was being used as, in her words, a “useful idiot” – a scapegoat on which to blame all gaps in the official story, and all failures of the official search. Faked ISAT data is plausible. Period.
Dennis, et al make good points about additional assumptions re: flight (modes/turns/altitudes) also being required to get to a pinpoint, but I now consider such debates distractions from what should be our primary goal: to hold search leadership accountable for all decisions to date.
Because something smells very bad.
We are again back at discussing very complex operations, for yet unknown reasons and motive. Reasons aside, the more complex an operation gets the more people have to be involved, the more risk of a leak is present and the more failure prone such operations get.
As a person in charge of such an operation you would seek nothing from the above, you would stick to the “KISS” principle. Simple plan, few tools and gadgets, the minimum amount of commandos on scene and contained and compartmented knowlege to only few people.
That until now nothing of such an operation surfaced either indicates that there was no such operation or that it was a very sleek operation with only few people involved.
Excluding technical failure I believe in some kind of operation, but AWACS, drones, duplicate aircraft, jamming, and spoofing are not on my list. I’m not sure about ISAT data, but if they had been altered, then not from the bad guys.
Looking for such an operation we should follow Okhams razor and favour simple posibilities instead of the complex ones. Again reasons aside most hijackings have been done by only few people with simple means, 911 is a good example me thinks.
And again I like to remind all, that each professional plan as simple as it might be has a backup plan. We might be looking at both, the primary plan being followed in the time prior FMT, and after that we look at the execution of the backup plan which would be getting rid of the evidence after a failed or partially failed mission. For such a case a more or less straight ghost path south until fuel exhaustion would make sense.
The confidence of the search party to find the aircraft in the south and the neglect to look at the motive and culprit angle at all in planning and executing that search could be an indicator that those are already known and the aircraft only needs to be found to present it as evidence.
But sure, I’m just speculating.
+1
“I actually know what actually happened”.
@ Jeff and others. This is a bit off topic but what is your opinion on the Egypt aircrash which both data and flight recorders point to a fire on board which was close to avionics bay. I bring this up as some have put forward that Mh370 might have suffered the same fate. If the fire on Egypt air brought that down so suddenly. I find it hard to believe now how Mh370 could have flown on for so long if a fire did break out. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/17/word-fire-heard-on-cockpit-voice-recorder-from-crashed-egyptair-804
@RetiredF4
I think this post of yours makes a lot of sence.
It’s also an ongoing criminal investigation. And like any ungoing criminal investigation they (Malaysia) won’t give any substantial details untill this investigation is closed and maybe then they even keep it secret forever.
That’s why the the French still also haven’t disclosed any info on the flaperon yet IMO.
I think know a lot more allready.
My hopes are mostly on the ATSB (plus their allied investigators NTSB, Boeing etc.) and there final report while they are not doing a criminal investigation but a technical one in finding the plane and the cause of the crashing of MH370.
@Ge Rijn. Your Youtube video, with the URLs below as reminders allow some preliminary speculation as to the separation mode of the part flap.
While the part has been handed nominally to Malaysia the Hippy Girl tweet you posted earlier was relayed from John Feakes of the Australian High Commission in Kenya, who seems to have been there so maybe he is seeing to its despatch.
The forensics from this could be at least as useful as those (withheld) of the flaperon in helping determine end-of-flight. However it may be some time before these are available.
I make just one observation for now.
The damage to the part-flap leading edge corner at the actuator end could be from collision with the flap actuating mechanism, which projects under its outer edge when housed – likewise the adjacent hole in the leading edge. The rent in the underside towards the leading edge could be the same though the reach there is further.
To me, this and the leading edge being undamaged otherwise indicates that section of flap might well have gone downwards (upwards with the wing upside down). The broken stub of the pivot link, still attached to the corroded carriage, is a third or a quarter of its unbroken length. The other section would have been retained by the actuating mechanism and could have contributed to the damage.
I think that a combination of bending and torsion as this section of the flap rotated and broke away would have been a major factor in the breakage of both the pivot arm and the other pivot attached to the front of the carriage. The rotation could have been on all three axes, the contact with the actuating mechanism being the outcome.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/tdhuew608q57x5s/bawa25.jpg?dl=0
http://www.jamiiforums.com/threads/bawa-kubwa-la-ndege-laokotwa-kisiwani-pemba.1070044/
@Ventus45, the Dropbox diagram of the operating mechanism that you posted June 27th 2:03PM is no longer available. Are you able to renew this please?
(Incidentally I remember Ventus45’s diagram had a different name for carriage.)
B777 flaps are supported by a 4-bar mechanism, rather than a carriage running on a flap track.
@Brock McEwen
“her two main conclusions: a) “something happened that cannot be admitted””
That is what I have been saying the whole time on this blog. Something above human capabilities occurred just before Igari.
@Aaron
“Egypt aircrash which both data and flight recorders point to a fire on board”
Really? Earlier they said they could not extract any data. There was no proper aircrash debris. Have they actually found the plane and the (dead) people?
https://s32.postimg.org/x5jx5h3dh/French_Satellite_initial_location_21_March_png.jpg
Per Dr. Duncan Steel’s recently cited post, the object first observed by “French satellites” on 21 March 2014 appears to be reference a population of numerous objects re-detected two days later on 23 March 2014, slightly farther northward, and labelled by Dr. Duncan Steel as “F4” in his article. The initial observation appears to have been near (35.5S,90E).
Prima facie, if the southern location is regarded as the “tail” of a population, and the three northern locations as the “head” of the same, then the four pairs of coordinates displayed onscreen at the Lido Hotel on 28 March 2014 are plausibly the most prominent of the total population of “122 objects” the French reported detecting, at & near & possibly in between those four locations.
Most of the French detections clustered near 35S, consistent with Inmarsat’s best-fit candidate flight-path to 34.7S.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/french-satellite-sees-objects-missing-malaysia-airlines-flight-article-1.1731001
PERTH, Australia — France on Sunday provided Malaysia with satellite images of objects that could be from [MH370]…
A Malaysian official involved in the search mission said the French image was captured Friday and was about 575 miles north from where the Chinese and Australian objects were seen.
The official, who declined to be named because he isn’t authorized to speak to the media, said one of the objects was estimated to be about the same size as an object captured Tuesday by the Chinese satellite that appeared to be 72 feet by 43 feet. However, the official said the French satellite image was fuzzy and very unclear, making it difficult to determine the exact dimensions.
http://www.ctvnews.ca/world/french-satellite-images-show-possible-debris-from-missing-malaysia-jet-1.1741938
Details on the French data were not immediately released. The statement from Malaysia called the information “new satellite images,” while a statement from France’s Foreign Ministry said “radar echoes taken by a satellite” had located floating debris but made no mention of imagery…
a Malaysian official involved in the search mission said the French data consisted of radar echoes captured Friday and converted into fuzzy images that located objects about 930 kilometres (575 miles) north of the spots where the objects in the images released by Australia and China were located.
One of the objects located was estimated to be about the same size as an object captured Tuesday by the Chinese satellite that appeared to be 22 metres (72 feet) by 13 metres (43 feet), said the official, who declined to be identified because he isn’t authorized to speak to the media. It was not possible to determine precise dimensions from the French data, the official said.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-26705073
…clarified that the French authorities had passed on data in the form of “satellite-generated radar echoes” rather than images. Radar works by sending out radio waves or microwaves and listening for echoes that bounce back.
@trend
Yes they found main wreckage some weeks ago and extracted both black boxes which were damaged. But have since Been repaired. Here’s another which data and front suggest a fire did break out. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/17/flight-recorder-on-egyptair-ms804-indicates-fire-before-crash/
@trond
Yes they found main wreckage some weeks ago and extracted both black boxes which were damaged. But have since Been repaired. Here’s another which data and front suggest a fire did break out. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/17/flight-recorder-on-egyptair-ms804-indicates-fire-before-crash/
@Brock McEwen said, “Assumption #1 alone is a whopper.”
Whopper: A big lie; a gross untruth.
Please present the case for why you believe the satellite data set is a big lie. Who is perpetrating this lie? Why are they lying? How have they conspired?
The BTO @ 18:25 matches the last-known radar location.
IF b/c of some bizarre computer glitch, BTOs “should” have been decreasing afterwards, but instead increased in a “reversed mirror like manner”, such that the BTO at 00:19 was really actually 12520 – (18400-12520) = 6640 microsec…
Then the aircraft could have been over the Maldives an hour later at 01:15 = 6:15am local time, as witnesses reported.
If BFOs could hypothetically be reverse-spoofed, then perhaps BTOs could also be reverse-spoofed ?? Sophisticated hijackers vs. Diego Garcia, in revenge against perceived Globalist influence in the pilot’s home country ? Radar-evading wave-skimming 250kts, west ??
https://twitter.com/MikeChillit/status/586602927856422912/photo/1
Shipping lanes full of merchant vessels in convoys (?), many crossing the 7th arc on 7-8 March 2014. Constrains search areas ?? MH370 was trying to ram a ship ???
It seems there was a significant amount of sea going traffic at the time and area where MH370 supposed crashed in the SIO that should have seen its debris.
@erik
The sighting from from maldives @ 6.15 has been disproven for the fact that the plane would ran out of fuel an hour before..
Good work by Mike Chillit. Unless everyone was asleep MH370 wasn’t and isn’t there.
@JS – I do not remember my source for the speed but when I searched again I found the same 260 kts top speed you found but also found a range of 1151 nm with a maximum endurance of 30 hours.
@David
Been having some “dropbox issues”.
Re-uploaded the B777 flap info archive.
6 images in it.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/15zdu05i6kkqxsb/B777%20Flap%20Info.rar?dl=0
@Erik Nelson
No, he was making sure he avoided them (the ships), hence the choice of terminal area arrived at shortly after sunrise
Just seen this on another forum:
“There are no stupid questions, only stupid answers” !
@ Ron and @Bugsy
Will give those requests their due deep thought. Meanwhile thanks for the support to an obvious outlier in the scheme of things.
@brock
Yet again you hit the nail spot on 😀 Yes provenance of data being affirmed first before other stuff kicks into gear. And probably too the idiot you mentioned got caught playing double agent if you get the drift. Maybe the ramifications of what Florence is saying, runs along these lines:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/1999/oct/17/balkans
But I am descending into my deluded Clancyesque mode again…..hahaha
@ken S
Interesting premise of using UAVs as spoof “generators” but assuming 370 was hijacked, what happened to the hapless passengers is a harrowing thought to say the least. I would rather think a less complicated way would have been more plausible.
@ all
Strange that now convoys of merchant ships don’t spot a stray plane flying inexplicably in their midst at an unearthly time. Well, RAAF Exmouth and JORN didn’t either, so what else is new? ; P
@All
One arguement that has been made agiainst the Maldives sightings, time and time again, is the question of fuel. If MH370 had flown completely at low altitudes towards the Maldives it would never have been able to make it to Kudvadhoo at 1:15UTC.. This fact is true, it’s fuel burn rate at low altitudes would not have allowed it fly such a distance.
However it is my belief that MH370 did not fly this entire distance at low altitudes. I believe that it flew only at low altitudes when it was in range of radar sites near Banda Aceh, Malaysia, and Male in Maldives. This would have been nescessary to evade radar detetsction. I believe that when MH370 was flying over the open Ocean , where there are no radar sites, it ascended to much higher altitudes (FL200) maintaining slower airspeed of 235Kts in order to reduce it’s rate of fuel burn and to reduce visibilty from boats while flying over the Ocean.
If this was done then it is theoritical possible it could of flown upto 1:30UTC – 6:30 AM averaging about 2530 Kgs/Eng fuel burn rate.
After Maldives the plane they saw cannot be accounted for. It didnt land on any airstrip.
@Erik
Would ship’s radar pick up mh370 as it approached sea level? Are there any radar warning systems if something new drops into radar range? Lack of radar and visual sighting may be more indications to look elsewhere.
@all
Possibly the only scenario that accommodates all gaps of plausibility would have the cargo as catalyst. As I mentioned before, it is surprising there have not been or we have not found discussion from any eye witnesses that night. Cleaning crew (the plane was on the ground 8-9 hours before flight), gate attendants, baggage handlers, ground controllers….We have read numerous “eye witness” reports from individuals whom are not affiliated with Malaysia Airlines but I have read nothing from anyone whose job required them to have an experience with MH370 somewhere before take-off that night. Someone out there has basic knowledge of cargo handling. In general terms, how much in advance is cargo booked, or does it have to be. What is the process of cargo tracking and inventory with the manifest. Perhaps there was a time frame where knowledge was shared of cargo to be loaded
on MH370 and the significance of that cargo could dictate and justify sacrificing the plane and all aboard. Maybe something in the cargo hold of that plane had to be destroyed on fairly short notice as the knowledge or time frame was not possible earlier. It seems feasible that a plane sitting on the ground for that length of time could be vulnerable, we have never received an answer, how security of a plane in this situation is handled or how difficult it would be for someone to sneak on. If the plane was accessed before take-off, then opportunity exists to breach the cockpit, if entry is gained to the cockpit, opportunity exists for the pilot to be disabled or forced to fly the plane anywhere.
@Trip, with the many ships passing thru the area with RADAR which lacked any reported sightings does indicate to look elsewhere… it seems the search team lazily came up with this SIO endpoint without considering these factors.
@Trond – re MikeChillit’s graphic, that does strike me as odd though all those ships and nobody saw it at all?? Don’t ships have radar too? Just seems strange after seeing that graphic. Not to mention no radars off Australia either…hmmm
@Wasir -The reason I was stuck at IGARI was because of many reasons. Until the debris turned up in Africa, Reunion, mozambique etc I couldn’t quite comprehend a turnback, now am not sure. Still not convinced 100% and until they find actual resting place of wreckage I won’t be. If as in 804 a fire in e/e bay happened, there is NO way the plane could fly on, just no way.
@KenS – another question or observation should I say. When the IMST data pointed to the SIO as the direction the plane went, there were satellite images of debris fields on March 21st and 24th that were kind of just discarded and ignored. My problem with this, is that large debris fields couldn’t have possibly still been floating 2 weeks after the fact. As in QZ8501, AF447 and MS804, there was not much debris floating a few days after the crash. So how would a large debris field still be possible down in that rough water area 2 weeks later? Can’t see it unless the only plausible explanation is that the plane was stolen and then ditched there on or close to March 21st for the all that debris to still be floating there IMO
Bugsy
@Aaron: I am not a big fan of the Maldives theory for many reasons, but insufficient fuel is not one. As @Ken S states, a flight at FL200 and at a holding speed of 287 KTAS would provide sufficient endurance and range. I explained this in a post in June 2015. I don’t believe I was the first to do this calculation.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/zvua6t7cio38ljf/Fuel%20to%20Maldives.jpg?dl=0