A few things have happened recently in MH370 world that are worth taking note of.
No FMT. The seabed search in the southern Indian Ocean is all over but the shouting, and as a result I see that a consensus is forming that there could have been no “final major turn” into the southern Indian Ocean. Rather, if the plane went south, it must have loitered somewhere beyond the Malacca Strait until after 18.40 before finally flying a straight southerly path from 19:40 onward. This loiter, following a high-speed dash across the Malay Peninsula and up the strait, is quite bizarre, given that no attempt was made by anyone on board the plane to contact the ground, either to ask for help or to negotiate a hostage situation. So the presumption of a loiter doesn’t really shed light on motivation, it does effectively put yet another nail in the coffin of accident/malfunction scenarios.
More of the secret Royal Malaysian Police report released. Mick Rooney, aka @airinvestigate, has released a portion labelled “Folder 6: Audio and Other Records.” The new section contains an expert report analyzing the cockpit/ATC audio up to 17:21, which concludes (with less than 100% confidence) that it was probably Zaharie who uttered the final words “Good night, Malaysia 370.” It also includes ACARS data and the Inmarsat logs which had already been released back in 2014. In perusing the document I was not able to identify anything that would alter our collective understanding of the case, but I hope that others will offer their own assessments. And I applaud Mick for being the only one with the moral backbone to release this information. I am sure that more will follow. UPDATE: The next batch is here: “Folder 5: Aircraft Record and DCA Radar Data.”
Debris trail goes cold. I’ve plotted, above, the number of pieces of debris that have been found each month since MH370 disappeared. After the first piece of debris was found in July, 2015, a smattering of further pieces was found until April, May, and June of this year, when the number spiked and then dropped off again before ceasing altogether. This is a puzzling distribution, since drift models show that the gyres of the southern Indian Ocean act as a great randomizer, taking things around and around and spitting them out after widely varying periods of time. Would expect, therefore, to see the number of pieces found to gradually swell and then fall off again.
There is a complicating factor to this assumption, of course. Even if the pieces do arrive in a certain pattern, overlaid on top of this is the effect of an independent variable: the degree to which people are actively searching for them. It must be noted that a considerable amount of the June spike is attributable to Blaine Alan Gibson’s astonishing haul on the beaches of Madagascar that month. Indeed, Gibson by himself remains responsible for more than half of the 22 pieces of debris found thus far.
Earlier this week, several frustrated family members announced that they would be organizing their own beachcombing expedition, to take place next month. If their efforts prove less fruitful than Blaine Alan Gibson’s, it may raise questions as to what exactly was the secret to Gibson’s success.
@JeffWise
More good policing! You’re the Wyatt Earp of mods. Thx man.
@David
I think pilots ask themselves “If I was going to pull a stunt like that, how would I do it.” Sadly, the answer seems to be “Just like that guy did it.”
Regarding rule changes in the future…In another time, I’d say aviation would get a lot less fun if we’re right about Z and regulators then react (or overreact, as they sometimes do). But nowadays, especially in terms of the regulatory climate we’re told to expect over the next four years, I actually don’t think anything will happen.
Maybe you’ll get higher-frequency ACARS reporting (which the airlines will fight) and isolation of the ACARS power supply from the flight deck (which pilots will fight). But I think the cockpit door issue is a binary case of which threat is greater and, statistically, the threat from outside the door is still much greater so you won’t get much change on that.
I just don’t sense the ability of any coalition anywhere to coalesce around anything in any area whatsoever for many years to come. But hey maybe that’s just me!
@EVERYBODY
Here’s a challenge! While the av-geeks do our spreadsheets and fuel calculations and simulator trials, do any of you geeks-of-other-stuff have a piece – or the inclination to compile one – that addresses the legal settlement ramifications for MAS in the event of pilot suicide as opposed to “mysterious disappearance” and prove – once and for all – whether or not MAS/Malay Govt had a financial/political interest in either implicating or exonerating the captain?
I’ve seen it argued both ways but I’ve never seen it definitively written down anywhere to choke on. Anyone got the goods already?
@ Matt Moriarty- good find re: flt files. I initially had issues in the way they were recovered due to inconsistency of how they were created in the shadow volume in the first place. It’s the OS deciding when to take a shadow snap copy not msfx which makes the data inconsistent to the applications normal mode of operations. It could be just random value for analysis.
@Jeff
“The fact that BTO values were probably correct allows us to derive a flight path to the north. Intriguingly, it skirts areas of India and China that are subject to intensive primary radar surveillance.”
At the moment the exact time and location of the FMT to south is in question. If the FMT to north is delayed, the track could go through the midle of Myanmar, an ally to China, well clear of other states and their air defense systems. That would replace Russia with China.
A northern flight path scenario necessitates planted debris. The Chinese would have had more chance (information and assets in place) to perform such planting than other suspects.
@Gysbreght
RE: Dynamic pressure anomaly in Z’s HDD data files.
In your pdf, the calculate value for point 5 is exactly the recorded value for point 4 – 115.4.
Coincidence?
@All
Regarding partial flt files.
Please have a look at the following :
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc785914(v=ws.10).aspx
Interesting quote :
“The advantage of the copy-on-write method is that it creates shadow copies very rapidly because it is only writing the changes to disk. The disadvantage is that in order to fully restore the data, the original data must still be available. Without the original data, the shadow copy is incomplete and cannot be used.”
Now the question would be :
Did the first part of the flt files really not change?
@RetiredF4, Indeed, Victor Iannello spent quite some time looking at routes to China, though he was looking at curving ones rather than loiter-delayed ones.
@Matt Moriarty:
A cockpit question — perhaps a longshot. But shooting a challenge “right back at you”.
You spoke of that pilots would fight an outside cockpit acars button. I guess the arguments would fall half under their security and half under their authority. Then there’s the third pilot and CVR discussions. The latter having a button in cockpit if I am not mistaken.
I wondered if there is a pilot-in-flight integrity discussion and what that looks like. Perhaps you don’t know if you don’t work with professional tights and obligations. I see a (weird but safety orientated) logic in being able to turn off the CVR if there is an intrusion by a hijacker. Theoretically (but under (admittedly very) special circumstances) a hijacker (who is mentally unstable, as they are supposed to be) might consider sparing or not sparing the lives of one or two of the pilots (and thus passengers, if in the air) depending on whether he is on tape or not.
One might imagine a situation where a senior pilot decides to give his FO a good scolding for something that was overcome or is not immediately related to the remains of the flight, and explicitly turns off the CVR first not to give the FO the idea that his career is ruined and prison or immediate leave awaits on the ground. Giving the FO weird ideas. Perhaps the existence of the CVR even might give the rest of the crew some ideas from time to time to exert some pressure on the pilots or vice versa.
Is there an explicit protocol surrounding the switching off of that button? It is bound to be, right? Or how is it used would you say? Is it merely used as a “pause button” to allow for private conversation (and cockpit photo-ops), or has it more to do with pilot liability, security, as a way to keep things off-the-record that should be off the record and that might even endanger the flight if they weren’t (if security thinking has that take on it).
Forgive me if I am stretching things but it bothers me some that there is such a button, and although the chain of events in mh370’s case points in other directions, there is to me still the possibility of a kind of professional conflict between the pilots. I guess we know through acars that CVR wasn’t turned off prior to blackout, but we don’t know what was said and done in CP or who came and went.
And about the insurance issue: my hunch is that MAS won’t suffer economically more on either outcome, generally speaking, in terms of strict compensation, but that the issue is more one of goodwill, stock value, delay times, and general relation to the main insurer. The big issue would probably always anyway be that in a worst-case scenario for the insurer/s the compensation per pax could be astronomous, and take decades to reach. And that is not what anyone would wish for, except for the NoK perhaps, who otherwise get “peanuts”. MAS probably got money for a new hull first thing Monday morning — that’s what their insurance is about. Stay in business. Deliver what’s promised. Rise and shine. First in the ski-tracks. The “blood vessel” has no time for grief, that is to be expected.
@Matt Moriarity
You said:
I think pilots ask themselves “If I was going to pull a stunt like that, how would I do it.” Sadly, the answer seems to be “Just like that guy did it.”
Actually no. One of the most over looked and under discussed aspects of this diversion is the question of “why that particular flight?”. Being smarter than the average bear, and certainly smarter than the average pilot, I would have picked a flight to Europe or the Middle East. If we believe the diversion path to the West is correct, and I do believe we have good reason to believe a Westward diversion from IGARI, then I say it makes much more sense to divert a Westward flight and completely avoid the issue of detection flying back over the Malay peninsula.
Shah was, by all indications a smart guy and a careful planner. There was something about that particular flight that precipitated the diversion. It is staring us in face, but we cannot see it. Was it the significance of the date?, perhaps some cargo or PAX?,…damned if I know.
That simple question “why that flight?” is a major flaw relative to any planned diversion in the known direction of the diversion be it for suicide or for negotiation or to fly to Russia or China. It makes absolutely no sense at all.
@Dennis
“That simple question “why that flight?” is a major flaw relative to any planned diversion in the known direction of the diversion be it for suicide or for negotiation or to fly to Russia or China. It makes absolutely no sense at all.”
You touch one core item of the Mh370 mystery. If it had to be this flight, then the routing was preplanned and had to have a reason too. If it was some sudden death wish of Shah, then neither the routing nor the sim points make sense.
The routing to the northwest in connection with the ISAT data and its FMT brought us to the SIO and mounted in an yet unsuccessfull multi million dollar search. If MH 370 is not in the SIO, than the plot with this routing was very successfull and has already outlived its expected usefullness.
@Matt Moriarity
You said:
I think pilots ask themselves “If I was going to pull a stunt like that, how would I do it.” Sadly, the answer seems to be “Just like that guy did it.”
Evidently none of the individuals contacted in the opinion poll seems to have had a serious look at the radar data in the DSTG report.
@Johan
As far as aircraft design, it is ridiculous that a rouge pilot can simply lock the cockpit door and secretly go silent. Not only does the rouge pilot have the opportunity, the design (blockade door + ability to go silent) gives temptation to try that. It is crazy that ACARS is not reporting flight integrity data, such as cabin pressure, cabin temp, ELT activation, flight data recorder status, etc. It is beyond belief that a pilot can simply turn off the Transponder(s) without first sending an electronic emergency signal and electronic signal showing manual shut off of the equipment. All of this could be done as part of the electronic design.
Reportedly after GermanWings (but MH370 should have been the wake up call) many airlines now going with 2 in the cockpit rule now. Reportedly Boeing saw the need to put the Flight Data Recorder breaker in the EEBay instead of the cockpit on 777’s.
We probably cannot totally prevent cockpit takeover’s but MH370 design was like an invitation to try something. We don’t know for sure, but looks like somebody accepted the invitation. This is the central issue of this accident.
@TBill:
I shouldn’t perhaps call it “invitation” but I see what you mean. Very few would consider it an invitation, but the wrong person at the wrong moment (as Z could be argued to be) could start unwinding the room of manouverability from the wrong end, with the opposite intentions. It is an irony of history that what took place looks like the inversion of 9/11, and that measures (likely) taken since then seems to have been expoited against the system itself. One can sense that post-9/11 security measures and pilot authority interests (industry- and unionwise) contributed in leading to a set of solutions that the culprit in this case used to his advantage. Almost everything we see is very pilot and cockpit oriented too, and points in that direction.
One will probably need to give the industry some leash for trying to do what best, and that regimentation (?) of rules for a worldwide fleet of aircraft with great differences in age and level of technology and maintenance costs will create lag effects that industrywise will be difficult to address. Nevertheless, mh370 is a “living proof” of total system failure judged from where we are in terms of expectations on a long-distance bus with wings, 30-year fail safe technological endurance, and x tons of flammable liquid onboard. Mh370 is virtually 9/11 “back to front” — and with the Asian Twin towers avoided but within reach.
@Matt Moriarty,
Thanks for reviewing my fuel calculations. I have a few comments.
1. For the average ISA+11C temperature of the MH370 flight, the impact of the temperature effect is to increase fuel flow and reduce endurance by 3.7%. This is a reduction of about 16 minutes in powered flying time.
2. Similarly, the temperature effect on TAS is an increase in speed of 2.4%.
3. Similarly, the net temperature effect on fuel economy and range is a reduction of ~1.3% or ~45 NM for a straight and fast route (you are right that my posted estimate of ~100 NM range reduction was incorrect).
4. My conclusion regarding the fact that there was insufficient fuel for used engines to reach the ATSB search area still stands.
You also said: ”I guess my one remaining question is why you ascribe a fuel penalty for temp but an apparent credit for PDA?”
Higher temperatures increase engine fuel flow and reduce endurance for a given engine PDA (PDA = relative fuel INEFFICIENCY). A less fuel-efficient engine (such as a used engine) has a positive PDA of several percent (i.e., it has a higher INEFFICIENCY). For a fixed endurance, such as we are considering for the MH370 flight, higher in-flight fuel consumption must be compensation by REDUCING the PDA (i.e., by assuming a more efficient engine, which means it is also less inefficient = smaller PDA). In simple terms, to fly for the known endurance of MH370 powered flight, one must have a more efficient engine on a hot night than one would need for a flight at ISA temperature with the same endurance.
@Johan
Yes it looks to me like 9/11 cockpit security measures must be re-thought.
@all
Going back to 2014 news, I see three MH370 HiJack claims:
1. China Martyr Brigades email, which could be dismissed if it did not already say on March 9, that this plane will never be found.
2. Al Quaeda shoe bombmaker said there was a plot in Malaysia, and that he had given an explosive shoe to the team, reportedly to blast open the cockpit door. The goal was said to be to hit the twin towers in Kuala Lampur.
3. Email to Daily Mail claiming MY political plot to free the jailed opposition leader, with circling in the air for negotiations (so this is Dennis’ maybe Freddie’s scenario).
@TBill
The problem with #3 is that any concession made that can easily be rescinded after recovering the aircraft safely seems poorly conceived. While I still favor a negotiation scenario, I do not believe it involved Ibrahim.
@Gysbreght (I somewhat agree..)
My opinion on airline pilots is they can be trusted to competently fly
their aircraft. In no other field can they be described as ‘experts’.
This was brought home to me when two U.K. pilots appeared on the BBC and
confidently opined that because MH370 flew along the Thai/Malay FIRs,
it must have been trying to avoid notice because ‘air traffic controllers
in both those countries would assume that the aircraft was in the other
country’s jurisdiction and not pay it any attention’.
Had they bothered to do the most basic checking of facts, such as reading
the eAIP for Malaysia, they would have learned that that section of MH370s
flightpath is the responsibility of Malaysian ATCs, (and most of that
flightpath paralleled air corridor B219, which crosses over the FIRs four
times, but which is again only the responsibility of Malaysian ATCs).
Therefore these ‘experts’ premise, of uncertain ATC management responsi-
bility for MH370, is not true.
@Sinux
You may find this information interesting;
https://forensic4cast.com/2010/04/into-the-shadows/
Cheers
@DennisW, A flight west may have been easier in many respects.But someone who knows the area by the back of his hand, may not have viewed an Igari turn as very challenging or more difficult. The time of the flight, i.e. night time, may have been sufficient for what a pilot had in mind. Also, someone intent on 1. a blackmail negotiation or 2. outright suicide would have contemplated any and all downsides. Even if military fighterjets scrambled to intercept, what would someone who is intent on such a mission, have cared? Very little, IMO. Once someone has decided his own fate, in whatever scenario, you take the consequences when things don’t go as planned. Someones “trigger” can be so difficult to see in many cases, let alone understand what actually set them off. We try and look for behaviour and signs after the fact but reality is, often there are none that anyone saw or recognized. Some people are simply very good at keeping it secret and inside themselves. Your comment the other day, about lack of any psychiatric profile on ZS was spot on. We have read everything left, right and center and noone has even ventured down the psychological avenue. And we know there are enough nuts out there to have tried.
@TBill, I generally like to think most pilots are responsible and if they had any suicidal inclinations would find a personal way to just end their lives rather than crash an aircraft and take innocent victims with them. But I am very picky about what airlines I fly. Countries that attach no value to life in general or treat their own people like crap, well I do not get on any of those carriers nomatter how cheap the tickets are. EVER. Not that I would assume anything a pilot would do perse, but more about the standards of quality, training and maintenance would leave too much to be desired. But then recently a New Zealand captain locked the FO out because he was angry. 2 weeks suspension is what they got. That surprised me. So yes, perhaps the cockpit doors need rethinking but IMO many pilots are overworked, suffer from long work hours for less pay and end up being just like any other normal person and lose it sometimes. It’s tough to cover all the bases for that 1 person that may go bersek, pilot or passenger.
@DennisW
Thank you for the clarification on #3
@all @Kefferje
I should have mentioned re: the #2 Al Qaeda hijack scenario above reportedly had a MAS pilot on the team on the twin tower target. So this potentially takes on some greater significance with the sim data files discoveries of twin tower directory.
Taken as a whole these 3 hijack claims do have some common threads with what actually may have happened, with reference to a plane that will not be found and possibly an MAS sympathizer in cooperation. Conceivably hijack claim #1 was an attempt to deflect blame, so it could have been fabricated as part of the #3 conspiracy.
Correction: I know it’s really spelled @Keffertje …sorry K
I hesitate to mention I noticed yesterday that the Iannello co-authored McMurdo papers seem to be removed from Duncan Steel’s site, and I do not have a copy. I must say the font and appearance of reports on Duncan’s site are beautiful. Godfrey’s paper is on there.
@Keffertje
“@DennisW, A flight west may have been easier in many respects.But someone who knows the area by the back of his hand, may not have viewed an Igari turn as very challenging or more difficult. The time of the flight, i.e. night time, may have been sufficient for what a pilot had in mind.”
Perhaps, but there are flights West that are also red-eyes (KL to Amsterdam) with similar departure times as the Beijing route. Such a flight would have enabled the plane to be headed South before anyone knew it was missing. As it happened more than an hour elapsed between the turn at IGARI and the FMT to the South.
That makes me believe that it was part of the plan to make authorities aware of a diversion as early as possible (less than 30 minutes into the flight), and not try to conceal intent for an additional 90 minutes). An Amsterdam flight would also have had more fuel at takeoff.
You are correct that even if MH370 had been intercepted there were really no good options available to the authorities, but the chances of tracking the plane to a terminus would have been greatly enhanced if the authorities responded aggressively.
An email collaborator recommending reading “Goodnight Malaysian 370” which I one clicked from AMZN a day or so ago. While there was no entirely new information, the book made it clear how appallingly lethargic the response of civilian ATC and military primary radar observers truly was. That, IMO, is the primary reason why there has been no success in locating the aircraft. It would have been a non-issue on a diverted flight to the West.
I really do believe there is a significant underlying reason why the Beijing flight was selected or perhaps the random mechanical failure devotees have been right all along.
@DennisW, Yes, given the availability of the Marianas Trench (if the hijacker just wanted to disappear) and of MAS flights to Europe (if the goal was specifically to disappear in the SIO) then I suspect that the reason the plane flew through Malaysian primary radar coverage is that it wanted to be seen.
Likewise, I think that the reason that the SDU re-logged on is that the goal was for the signals to be recorded and interpreted.
@DennisW
Any flight before 12:41 AM MYT (MH370 take off) had a Moon in the sky. Any flight after 8-March had a Moon in the sky even at 12:41 AM in Kuala Lampur…in case it matters.
perhaps the fly through Malaysia primary radar coverage and the SDU re-log-on were meant as false breadcrumbs, to throw off the investigating teams.
@DennisW
I think your question
why MH370 of all flights?
is the most crucial and important summary of the investigation i noticed until to date. I would consider it very wise, to break down the whole issue in this simple way. It seems truly the mother of all questions.
You mentioned the date as a possible cause: i would suggest, that the date and the SIM-data work not very well together, because, when he produced the SIM data (if he did it himself), he could not know the date of the Anwar trial nor could he know that he was chosen for a flight to Beijing on short notice. Actually he did not know that he was chosen for a flight on that date at all.
@Jeff
I am also torturing my mind about the question, whether the message, Putin sent with MH17, was the reaction to MH370, or , if both incidents were of the same message to Malaysia? The second incident just confirming the first and forcing some action.
I think its obvious that Some big player in Rusia and some big players in Malaysia had issues …
@Keffertje, @ROB: on the lighter side.
For the flip-side track I am thinking about a version with new-written lyrics to the old “Kokomo”, perhaps with Godfrey’s recent article at Duncan’s as a kind of libretto. It could perhaps be renamed “Cocos Doe”. As cover teaser I suggest “When played backwards this record contains a secret hint of where the plane will be found.” Album title? “How crazy are we…?”
Keff, how practible with a voice like that. You don’t need to be shy, everyone’s allowed to contribute and everyone will have their specific and limited super force, complementing each other.
A triviality of note: the plane disappeared 1000 days ago today
@Jeff:
I believe we are beginning to see eye to eye.
Also, going dark and disappearing at night (over crowded areas closer to the place of departure) and covering one’s final, eternal distant resting place in daylight/twilight (in a deserted area) has a certain logic to it.
If intentional, it is as if there is a measure there, isn’t it? Would a fully fueled Amsterdam flight have taken him too far? (suggesting a pre-decided approx. resting point and an early demise (i.e. the culprit choose not to sit through till the end)?). (Jettison would then be among the forbidden things as it would at some point give him away as the culprit.)
@Cosmic
” he could not know the date of the Anwar trial nor could he know that he was chosen for a flight to Beijing on short notice. Actually he did not know that he was chosen for a flight on that date at all.”
True. On the other hand a flight to Beijing was not what was simulated. What was simulated is a flight departing to the West.
@Johan
Yes an Amsterdam flight would have over twice the fuel loading. He would have had to dump a lot of fuel or fly forever. In FS2004, the 777-300 could take almost 300,000-lbs of fuel but MH370 only had about 110,000-lbs (49 Kg) loaded.
The way I see it, MH370 had almost enough fuel to get to Perth. I am thinking the “loiter” after 18:25 was to fake a flight to the north, but also to burn up an hours worth of fuel so he would run out of fuel on a Flight Path well west of Perth.
@all
I should write a book…
…on why the search for MH370 has failed. It is a remarkable case of a great many people with advanced degrees not understanding the basic principles of ergodicity and stationarity. Every one falls asleep when those constraints are lectured about. We are conditioned to believe that given a bunch of data points that we can compute a mean and a standard deviation that are meaningful. Not true.
Recent papers by Gell-Mann and Peters highlight this misconception. The misconception being that an ensemble of experiments will yield the same average result as the time average of a single experiment. Simply not true. A random walk is a great counter example.
So it goes with trolling the SIO primary search area. An exercise in futility.
@Sajid UK @DennisW
I would assume that Z. being someone close to the Anwar political-party and also to his family he would have known of the March 7 trial date quite some time before he deleted this SIM-files.
Trial dates are set generaly a long time before the actual trial.
The outcome of this trial could have been one of the motives for him to decide whether he would execute a previous set up plan or not.
In other words; if Anwar was not going to be convincted he would not carry out his plan.
Then why this MH370 flight?
If the SIM-points actualy represent a ‘rehersal-flight’ this could well mean this was his preferred option.
A flight to Amsterdam/Europe or the Middle East which is a lot less risky and a lot less complicated indeed.
But when he had to wait for the outcome of the trial he also had to wait for a flight which gave him the opportunity. And it had to be a flight on which he was sheduled (not a requested flight which would show suspicious afterwards).
Other criteria possibly could have been; a night-flight starting around midnight, a moonless night, sufficient fuel, a co-pilot he did not know personnaly and preferable not too expirienced and a season-window of opportunity concerning expected weather along the way and into the SIO.
In the SIO it was the end of the summer nearing with storms and high waves expected when taking a flight (weeks) later.
MH370 answered all this criteria except the less risky and less complicated direct departure from KLIA to the West.
Sorry, instead of naming also @Sajid UK above previous post I meant to name @Cosmic Academy.
@TBill, @Jeff:
Yes, it seems to me the way from Aceh to FMT with any loiter is about flying “to Australia” without getting there. It makes perfect sense. Burn fuel to be on any safe side and aim for a tangent to the Continental shelf and use the back or Westerly current around Batavia Seamount.
The northwesterly outskirt is in a flightwise sense about not getting to Perth.
@Ge Rijn:
The date of the Courts of Appeals decision was certainly known among the whole party and its followers, the question is how early. Since you already from the choice of date (Keffertje) could make an estimate of how the verdict would fall. Z knew Ibrahim would be sentenced. Is my guess.
@Johan, TBill, I’m afraid I don’t follow you at all. Are you saying that he loitered so that he’d run out of fuel? Why would he need to run out of fuel? If he wanted to crash or ditch on any particular spot he could do so with fuel in his tanks. And if for some reason he did want to run out of fuel he could jettison some. I’m basically really confused about what you’re proposing.
@Ge Rijn, Likewise, I don’t understand what your criteria are useful for. You’re saying that this particular route on this particular route allowed him to have an inexperienced co-pilot and good weather. I don’t think either of these is rare by any stretch, or what either is useful for. You don’t need to be inexperienced to get locked out of a cockpit, as Germanwings showed.
@Johan @Jeff Wise
It’s speculating. Z. would probably have expected Anwar would be sentenced but to execute a lethal plan like this he had to be absolutely sure.
Mentally/emotionally it would be less hard to lock a co-pilot out he did not know personally is my assumption. And a less experienced one would be easier to manipulate I guess.
If Z. planned to let the plane vanish in the SIO with the least possible amount of debris (which would mean a ditch-attempt imo) in a most suitable deep area, the expected weather and ocean surface conditions in the SIO would be quite important.
With winter coming the conditions in the SIO would soon be expected to become a lot worse.
It’s just some brainstorming on IF flight MH370 was specifically chosen, WHY it could have been specifically chosen by Z. (or someone else).
@Jeff:
I am suggesting, thinking out loud if you will, that there could be a logic way of seeeing it that the execution of this stage of the plan is structured by the ambition not to reach Perth, or if you prefer, to send off the plane in that direction and be certain it hits the water well before getting there, or, more likely, in a certain area at the edge of the shelf of Australia, but still well away from people, and most likely in an area where debris is still most probably going to drift away from Australian shores. In the eventuality that the plane one day be found, it should, thinks the perp, not be possible to ascertain that the plane dumped fuel or hit the water before flameout to end up at that exact spot (which would indicate an obvious intention). And the pilot may or may not have been alive for the full journey (perhaps he had not decided when setting the destination). It is still about the idea of deniable intent. Maybe he figured the plane could be spotted close to the end and that ships could be there in notime.
Two questions:
How certain can the pilot be that he knows exactly how much fuel is in the tanks and for how long that will keep him in the air?
Are there ways in which the plane may have flown that would reconcile the state of debris with an unpiloted flight (i.e. a dead pilot who instructed the plane before swallowing a pill or removing the oxygen mask)?; could the plane have descended slowly and evenly over the last leg, instructed by the pilot (I believe no has been deemed before)? Could the pilot, despite everything, have manipulated any aspect of the flight (through the EE bay or otherwise) to set us off in any overseen regard (flying from FMT on very low altitude, etc.).
I get the feeling the plane headed for the “threshold of Australia”, and rests as near as possible to the shelf but still where currents normally carry debris away from the actual coast.
@Ge Rijn:
If Z saw the choice of date as a provocation (which it probably was to a great extent), then he had a lot of time to work up an animosity. Not knowing for sure is part of the provocation. From the perspective of ideal democracy the provocation might seem like an unforgivable outrage. But I am with you in the sense that noone takes his life for this sake alone — something had already doomed him — he must have already considered himself “dead” in a significant respect, to be able to choose to become a tool for this. A guess would be that by the same logic as he would cover intent to save the future of his children, he may have perceived himself already before as bereaved of his quality of role-model for his children, and thus doing them a favour also by disappearing.
Sorry guys, I’m with Jeff on this one. You are contriving a complicated scenario(s) to crack a simple situation. I cannot see any evidence of a loiter, or any reason why he should have needed one.
@Matt Moriarty
On your question;
‘whether or not MAS/Malay Govt had a financial/political interest in either implicating or exonerating the captain?’
It’s no proof but could give an indication imo:
“The airline has unlimited liability unless it can prove it is free from fault,” said Steven Marks, a partner at aviation litigation firm Podhurst Orseck.”
It’s from this article on the Germanwings co-pilot suicide crash:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/liability-for-crash-may-still-rest-with-airline-insurer-1427642915
I would conclude from above, MAS being a state-owned airline the Malaysian Government at least has a financial interest in exonerating the captain.
If a captain suicide also could be linked to the Anwar-proces there would also be a political interest to exonerate him imo.
For it would reveale the disaster as a result of their political actions against the opposisition in their country and make them responsible in a way too.
Which would also show and probably increase the political instability in their country.
@ROB:
I can’t pass judgement on loiter or not. I am solely suggesting that he may have preferred the plane to be found (if found) without evidence of pilot input after FMT. I.e. no jettison, no obvious ditch. I.e. ghost flight from FMT or even prior to that (if we take into consideration that he may have had hopes for that the FMT was never discovered). But he had to make sure the plane ran out of fuel before coming to close to Australia.
@Johan, There would be no evidence, among scattered floating debris, to indicate whether or not fuel jettison took place.
I don’t want to discourage your attempts to come up with a scenario, but I do think that proposed scenarios should be given a rigorous going-over to see whether they should be retained or discarded. In this case, an initially plausible idea turns out to have some major holes. For what it’s worth, the part about flying towards Australia doesn’t make much sense, either. If you were to come close enough to have some hope of rescue, you would be close enough for debris to wash ashore there. But I don’t think any of this applies to any part of the seventh arc.
@Ge Rijn, @Matt Moriarty, Any question about the financial impact of the investigators’ ruling would likely be complicated by the fact that in the wake of the MH370 disappearance, and in no small part because of it, MAS went through a specially legislated restructuring to absolve it of many of its obligations.
@Johan
Correction to my statement about Amsterdam flight needing twice as much fuel…it would be a lot more fuel but maybe not twice as much. My sim model 777 is much less fuel efficient that MH370 for some reason. However, by slowing down below 500 kts I can stretch the fuel out.
@JeffW
I agree fuel dumping is a possible option. Z personally commented on YouTube that he liked the fuel dump feature in the PSS 777-200 sim model.
My hypothesis is the goal was hiding plane in SIO and maintaining appearance of normal flight path.
Following this logic, any fuel dump is done at night to hide the plume. Flame-out of engines would probably be done in daylight. Running out of fuel before crash prevents visible fire. Any flight path to the middle of nowhere is “out” as it looks like intentional suicide.
My suggested flight path between 18:40 and approx. 19:40 is like Victors except instead of holding pattern I would have MH370 following flight path to Europe and then 180 turn to get back to APASI (near Car Nicobar) south to COCOS to POLUM then taking flight path L894 to 7th arc. This is just the Iannello/Godfrey McMurdo path with a tweak ending at about 23S 102E on L894.
There could be other flight paths following similar logic, including Godfreys recent paper Long Search for Diversion Airport, which also ends at 23/102, or a different flight corridor other than L894 might have been chosen.
@Jeff Wise
‘Any question about the financial impact of the investigators’ ruling would likely be complicated by the fact that in the wake of the MH370 disappearance, and in no small part because of it, MAS went through a specially legislated restructuring to absolve it of many of its obligations.’
Questions:
If the Malaysian Government was so sure about no involvement of the captain (or maybe the co-pilot) why then undertake a drastic mesure like specially restructuring legislation to absolve it of many of its obligations?
Wouldn’t this be an indication they KNEW Zaharie or another MAS-employe was involved?
What if Russia changed its legislation shortly after the downing of MH17?
In favor of possible financial or political consequenses to them?
Would this not be suspisious?
@TBill, Remember that Zaharie would have no expectation that the plane would be tracked in any way once it left primary radar. So long as he put it out into the middle of the SIO, thousands of miles from land, it would matter very little if there was a fire. Nor would he have any expectation that Inmarsat data could be used to create a flight path that would look normal or not normal. So the benefits (from the hijacker’s perspective) that would derive from your scenario would really not be advantages at all.
@Ge Rijn, You wrote, “What if Russia changed its legislation shortly after the downing of MH17? In favor of possible financial or political consequenses to them? Would this not be suspisious?”
They did, and it was.
As for the Malaysian Government protecting itself via the legislation, by the time they did so the airline had been hemorrhaging money for years, and at a faster rate since the loss of both MH17 and MH370, so they had a lot more to protect themselves from than just claims that might arise from Zaharie’s culpability.
@all
Reasons for Beijing flight could include giving radar ops time to log off for night shift as well as giving Moon time to set. Fuel load to Beijing is about right for expected duration. Timing works out better to Beijing as an Amsterdam flight at midnite could be at target SIO by 4 hours, so lots of fuel to dump and loiter to wait for break of day.
@TBill
Regarding the debris finds (planted or not), the latest drift-analyzis and the current search results, imo the most probable crash area is between ~33S and ~28S within ~max. 100 miles of the 7th arc (in case of a controlled glide).
23S statistically does not fit the drifting time-frames. Not impossible at all according to the currents and debris finds, but the time-frames are statistically far too short.