Yesterday, officials responsible for locating missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 announced that their two-year, $150 million search has come to an end. Having searched an area the size of Pennsylvania and three miles deep, they’ve found no trace of the plane.
The effort’s dismal conclusion stands in marked contrast to the optimism that officials displayed throughout earlier phases of the search. In August, 2015, Australia’s deputy prime minister Warren Truss declared, “The experts are telling us that there is a 97% possibility that it is in [the designated search] area.”
So why did the search come up empty? Did investigators get unlucky, and the plane happened to wind up in the unsearched 3 percent? Or did something more nefarious occur?
To sort it all out, we need to go back to why officials thought they knew where the plane went.
Early on the morning of March 8, 2014, MH370 took off from Kuala Lumpur en route to Beijing. Forty minutes passed the last navigational waypoint in Malaysian airspace. Six seconds after that it went electronically dark. In the brief gap between air-control zones, when no one was officially keeping an eye on it, the plane pulled a U-turn, crossed back through Malaysian airspace, and then vanished from military radar screens.
At that point the plane was completely invisible. Its hijackers could have flown it anywhere in the world without fear of discovery. But lo and behold, three minutes later a piece of equipment called the Satellite Data Unit, or SDU, rebooted and initiated a log-on with an Inmarsat communications satellite orbiting high overhead. An SDU reboot is not something that can happen accidentally, or that airline captains generally know how to do, or that indeed there would be any logical reason for anyone to carry out. Yet somehow it happened. Over the course of the next six hours, the SDU sent seven automated signals before going silent for good. Later, Inmarsat scientists poring over the data made a remarkable discovery: due to an unusual combination of peculiarities, a signal could be teased from this data that indicated where the plane went.
With much hard work, search officials were able to wring from the data quite a detailed picture of what must have happened. Soon after the SDU reboot, the plane turned south, flew fast and straight until in ran out of fuel, then dived into the sea. Using this information, officials were able to generate a probabilistic “heat map” of where the plane most likely ended up. The subsequent seabed search began under unprecedented circumstances. Never before had a plane been declared lost, and its location subsequently deduced, on the basis of mathematics alone.
Now, obviously, we know that that effort was doomed. The plane is not where the models said it would most likely be. Indeed, I would go further than that. Based on the signal data, aircraft performance parameters, and the available autopilot modes, there is a finite range of places where the plane could plausibly have fetched up. Search vessels have now scanned all of them. If the data is good, and the analysis is good, the plane should have been found.
I am convinced that the analysis is good. And the data? It seems to me that the scientists who defined the search area overlooked a step that even the greenest rookie of a criminal investigator would not have missed. They failed to ascertain whether the data could have been tampered with.
I’ve asked both Inmarsat scientists and the Australian mathematicians who defined the search area how they knew that the satellite communications system hadn’t been tampered with. Both teams told me that they worked with the data they were given. Neither viewed it as their job to question the soundness of their evidence.
This strikes me as a major oversight, since the very same peculiar set of coincidences that made it possible to tease a signal from the Inmarsat data also make it possible that a sophisticated hijacker could have entered the plane’s electronics bay (which lies beneath an unsecured hatch at the front of the business class cabin) and altered the data fed to the Satellite Data Unit.
A vulnerability existed.
The only question is: Was it exploited? If it was, then the plane did not fly south over the ocean, but north toward land. For search officials, this possibility was erased when a piece of aircraft debris washed ashore on Réunion Island in July of 2015. Subsequently, more pieces turned up elsewhere in the western Indian Ocean.
However, as with the satellite data, officials have failed to explore the provenance of the debris. If they did, they would have noticed some striking inconsistencies. Most notably, the Réunion debris was coated completely in goose barnacles, a species that grows only immersed in the water. When officials tested the debris in a flotation tank, they noted that it floated half out of the water. There’s no way barnacles could grow on the exposed areas—a conundrum officials have been unable to reconcile. The only conclusion I can reach is that the piece did not arrive on Réunion by natural means, a suspicion reinforced by a chemical analysis of one of the barnacles by Australian scientist Patrick DeDeckker, who found that the barnacle grew in water temperatures that no naturally drifting piece of debris would have encountered.
If the plane didn’t go south, then where did it go? Not all the Inmarsat data, it turns out, was susceptible to spoofing. From the portion that wasn’t, it’s able to generate a narrow band of possible flight paths; they all terminate in Kazakhstan, a close ally of Russia. Intriguingly, three ethnic Russians were aboard MH370, including one who was sitting mere feet from the electronics bay hatch. Four and a half months later, a mobile launcher from a Russian anti-aircraft unit shot down another Malaysia Airlines 777-200ER, MH17. A year after that, the majority of pieces of debris wind up being discovered by a man who had spent the last three decades intimately involved with Russia.
Whether or not the Russians are responsible for MH370, the failure of the seabed search and the inconsistencies in the aircraft debris should undermine complacency about the official narrative. When MH370 disappeared, it possessed an obscure vulnerability that left its Inmarsat data open to tampering. Having spent $150 million and two years on a fruitless investigation, search officials have an obligation to investigate whether or not that vulnerability was exploited.
@VictorI: I still don’t understand parts of your reply. According to Mike’s spreadsheet, which supposedly gives the instrument readings, the trim setting was 1 degree right, before and after the TAC changed it by 3 degrees to the left.
APU air drives the engine starter motor. How can it produce thrust without fuel and relight?
@VictorI: Since the simulator is not bent, 1 degree of trim is one degree out-of-trim.
@Gysbreght: I don’t know what spreadsheet you are referring to. I have watched the videos and I am sure that after the second flameout, TAC is removed and the manually set rudder trim remains. You have a misunderstanding somewhere.
I do have a spreadsheet from Mike entitled Exner_SimDat2. It says that at the time of the first engine flameout, “TAC moves from 1 degree rt to 2 degrees left.” Then after the second flameout, it says “TAC indicating 1 deg right”.
I have watched this video, and what Mike says is true, although his nomenclature is a bit off. What he refers to in the spreadsheet as TAC is really rudder trim. There is no direct indication of TAC that I am aware of. The TAC adds to the rudder trim that is manually set, so you if look at the rudder trim indicator to determine TAC, you have to subtract out the manual trim. So in this case, the TAC added 3 units to the left, which on top of the 1 unit to the right that was manually set produces an indicated reading of 2 units to the left.
As for thrust during the restart, there could have been a short relight, producing net thrust. I have tried to watch the EGT display, but it is not easy.
@Gysbreght said, “Since the simulator is not bent, 1 degree of trim is one degree out-of-trim.”
Yes, that’s what I said. It represents one unit of under-trimming or over-trimming of a real plane.
@VictorI: So you relight an engine that doesn’t get any fuel? What are you burning?
On the subject of fuel and relights, from ATSB’s report of Nov.2, 2016:
Speaking of the real aircraft, I’m rather ceptical of the sentence I italicised, based on the analogy of the lorry. Does the ATSB understand what they are talking about?
Sorry for the typo in “sceptical”.
@Gysbreght: I’m telling you what I saw in the simulator video. The bank rate increased during the restart. Perhaps the simulator models tank and fuel line dynamics to the extent that changing conditions allow a temporary light.
You asked, “Does the ATSB understand what they are talking about?”
Certainly Boeing does. And certainly the work that the ATSB has performed in this arena is in collaboration with Boeing.
I don’t know your lorry analogy, but I do know that if the plane’s velocity is constant, i.e., there is no acceleration, the surface of the fuel in the tank remains horizontal, and pitch of the plane could change whether fuel is available or unavailable.
@VictorI: “Certainly Boeing does.”
Certainly some people within Boeing would know. Have they vetted the ATSB report prior to publication?
“I don’t know your lorry analogy, but I do know that if the plane’s velocity is constant, i.e., there is no acceleration, the surface of the fuel in the tank remains horizontal, and pitch of the plane could change whether fuel is available or unavailable.”
The point of the lorry analogy I posted here is that if you change the pitch attitude you also change the longitudinal acceleration, so the surface of the fuel in the tank does not remain horizontal, but changes with the attitude, so that the fuel in the tank doesn’t move forward or rearward.
Similarly, in a properly coordinated turn, roll attitude changes do not cause lateral displacement of unusable fuel in the tank.
@Gysbreght: The plane must accelerate to change its velocity vector, but once the velocity is again established and steady, the surface of the fuel surface is again horizontal, and the free surface of the liquid will be horizontal and the hydrostatic pressure can be modeled as if the plane is pitched but not moving. A descent at a constant IAS would be close to a constant velocity vector, as the changes of true airspeed with altitude will be slow.
@VictorI: Think about it a bit longer.
@VictorI: Here is the lorry again: https://www.dropbox.com/s/9id04sjds96slhs/Scan003.jpg?dl=0
In A the lorry is moving at constant speed on a level road. In B the driver has cut the ignition, the lorry is decelerating on a level road. In C the lorry is going downhill at constant speed, with the ignition still cut.
@Gysbreght: I have no idea what you are arguing about. I said that if the vehicle is not accelerating (independent of whether the vehicle is moving horizontally or along an inclined path), the free surface of the water is horizontal. That is exactly what is shown in A and C. For case B, the vehicle is decelerating, i.e., accelerating backwards. That causes a horizontal pressure gradient equal to density times the acceleration, opposite to the direction of the acceleration. The free surface therefore rises towards the front of the lorry.
Going back to the ATSB statement: “However, in a real aircraft, various aircraft attitudes may result in unusable fuel (usually below engine/APU inlets) becoming available to the fuel inlets for the APU/engines.”
That seems quite reasonable to me. If the plane is in a state of constant velocity, i.e., no acceleration, the horizontal free surface of the fuel in the tank can rise or fall relative to the tank outlets, depending on the pitch (and bank) of the plane.
Malaysia to take another look at personal effects.
About 2/3 way down.
http://minister.infrastructure.gov.au/chester/interviews/2017/dci018_2017.aspx
@Hank
You summed it up pretty well. There are more powerful people with reasons to leave the mystery unsolved than there are those who need closure.
Hi Jeff,
After the recent termination of the search, I think you mentioned you had written a summary article. When are you going to post that article on the blog? And since it seems to be the end of the line, are you now going to close down the thread? Thanks very much for all your incredible efforts to help solve the mystery and get some closure for the NOK.
@VictorI. Thank you. Some catching up.
“In the PMDG 777 model, when the hydraulic power is only supplied by the RAT, the right elevator, which has no hydraulic pressure, moves down, which raises the right wing and lowers the left, and the plane banks towards the left. I don’t know if this is accurately replicated.” I do not think it is. The aileron should be ‘blocked’ ie in hydraulic lock. The left should be operative by its inboard actuator, like the left elevator, the left stabiliser jack and the right flaperon.
http://www.davi.ws/avionics/TheAvionicsHandbook_Cap_11.pdf
The combination of spoilers etc might minimise secondary effects.
One other thing worth bearing in mind is that being “stick free” the controls can wander about under their own inertia, amplifying or damping turbulence or induced out of balance forces, depending on their mass and springing. Conceivably this could affect the Exner outcome -though a simulator would have to simulate inertia forces, which may not be within its scope.
Other topics:
• Later, “In the Level D simulations, there were clearly automatic restarts attempted using APU bleed air for which thrust was produced, and this caused the bank angle to increase. The restarts failed, and the APU stopped soon after”. Previously I have taken it that these were windmilled relight attempts, not APU air. Can you confirm? I appreciate that there is evidence of the attempted engine autostart(s) from EGT. I presume the aircraft was above windmilling speed, measured by inertial or GPS (ie other than the pitots) I suppose. Altitude above 22,000 ft (I think) is beyond what the APU can supply starting air.
The Rolls Royce engine anyway is different as to its reaction to relight failure and contrary to GE and P&W, shuts down I remember.
• “Perhaps the simulator models tank and fuel line dynamics to the extent that changing conditions allow a temporary light.” There have been simulations when there have been multiple APU auto-starts quite close together. This I believe to be unrealistic given starting times, inlet opening and closing and possibly cooling times and battery capacity and indeed whether autostart could be repeated at all. I have neither seen or read of a sump for the APU and the diagrams suggest the inlet is flush. The APU fuel inlet is forward of the left main tank’s rear and there is a main tank outlet not far away. While not doubting there is residual fuel, which is available in some circumstances, it seems chancy to rely on that when the aircraft flight state is both uncertain and changing. The impression I have from the ATSB descriptions of it is that the fuel quantity and availability with aircraft movement have been uncovered since MH370. I would not expect simulators to have had this modelling and doubt anyway that it has been done.
The fall back of some (not the ATSB) is that there was fuel enough in the APU line; which prompted a vigorous discussion with Gysbreght over his bloody lorry (see next). Whether that line fuel would be available or not to the APU it would not be to the left engine, which would rely purely on tank residual fuel pumped by the APU pump.
In summary, I do not understand why Boeing and the ATSB have confidence in the availability of residual fuel for anything. Even they do not rely on simulation for their residual fuel assertions and I think neither should we take much notice of what the simulators suggest there..
• Next. Your, “if the plane’s velocity is constant, i.e., there is no acceleration, the surface of the fuel in the tank remains horizontal…,” and Gysbreght’s, “….the surface of the fuel in the tank does not remain horizontal, but changes with the attitude, so that the fuel in the tank doesn’t move forward or rearward.” I chance my arm and possibly my neck as arbitrator. To take this to extremes, say an aircraft reaches its ultimate, constant, speed vertically, weight equalling drag. The fuel surface will be horizontal and the fuel will have moved forward in the aircraft under gravity, as fuel will tend to in the fuel line to the APU. The difference between you is that you have the aircraft in a steady state while Gysbreght has it accelerating at the same rate as the fuel, I think.
Right flaperon outer actuator, not inner.
@VictorI: What you are missing is that between B and C the attitude of the vehicle changes, but the orientation of the fluid level relative to the vehicle does not change. That orientation is not only a function of the attitude relative to gravity, but of the combination of gravity and acceleration. The vector sum of gravity and longitudinal acceleration is determined by the thrust-drag balance. When the engines quit the fuel moves forward, whether the airplane pitches up or down.
For example, in a phugoid descent with engines off the attitude of the airplane is changing continuously, but the fuel in the tank does not move.
@VictorI. One other point on ailerons is that they are locked at height-dependent speeds. At 30,000 ft this is about 226 knots CAS.
I notice that the Fig 11.4 schematic representation in my reference is difficult to read. Those looking for a better will find the non-cable elements in the Continental Flight Manual, at Sec 6.9 page 4.
Another example: I guess if you did a looping at constant power setting and were able to observe the fuel level in the tank, you wouldn’t see any change.
@Gysbreght. The aircraft in the Exner turn, “….entering a turn that was tighter than any of the 10 Boeing simulations …….”
Your earlier analysis of the Exner spiral indicated that at the ‘g’ it represented at sea level, about 6, the wing would most likely have broken or overstressed parts came off..
On looking at the photographs and description at p21 et seq of: https://www.atsb.gov.au/media/5771939/ae-2014-054_mh370-search-and-debris-update_2nov-2016_v2.pdf , my thought was that the flaperon had separated, inboard end first, rotating around its outer actuator, that being in hydraulic lock, and crushing its leading outer end against the wing. Simultaneously its rear end would have struck the outer flap travelling upwards, forcing the flap up at its inboard end.
Overstress of the flaperon attachments came to mind but that as a probability now has receded, the Exner spiral being atypical, according to Boeing’s results.
@David
Exactly which control surfaces are operable on RAT power only? It’s interesting that the RH flaperon was recovered, (the LH flaperon stayed on the plane) and the LH flaperon is unpowered under RAT power. There is also uncertainty in my mind as to how the LH flaperon behaves in this situation – I assume it returns to it’s null position?
Thanks, Rob
@David
Nice you bring this up again. Your description of the flaperon separating sounds credible IMO.
Same order of separation would work for the outboard flap section which also has its weakest attachment point on the inboard side breaking there first and also rotating upwards then breaking just behind the hinge.
It all speaks against a separation by flutter though.
In case of flutter-separation the trailing edge of the flaperon (and probably the outbaoard flap too) would have moved violently up and down breaking from the flaperon (and outboard flap) first. Hardly possible this trailing edge then could have impacted the inside of the outboard flap exactly there where it would be in neutral position opposite of the outboard flap (in retracted postion). Consequently both flaps must have been stabil/not moving in neutral/retracted position just before impact.
The order of events then also suggest (like you say) the flaperon separated first before the outboard flap.
IMO clear indications of separation on impact with the water in a fairly horizontal/level attitude. Not by flutter.
I also have the left wing outboard flap trailing edge part in mind with this all.
I hope one day soon the French will give their full detailed report on the flaperon.
I’m almost sure they know how the flaperon separated and that it wasn’t by flutter.
Maybe this even is the information they won’t give yet for its possible far reaching consequences.
Can I just say how lucky we are to have a guy this obsessed with finding a truthful explanation as to what happened to MH370. Dear @Jeff I’ve been reading your blog ever since the vanishing. I’m just a dad & musician. But even I can tell you there’s something strange about MH370.
@Gysbreght: You can provide special cases like a phugoid, in which the angle of attack is nearly constant, to make your point. But there are many other cases in which the orientation of the free surface changes relative to the plane. For instance, if the altitude is constant, i.e., no vertical acceleration, and the plane is slowly decelerated to a slower speed, the angle of attack increases, the pitch increases, but the free surface of a liquid remains horizontal. This is exactly what happens after an engine flameout.
@David: We don’t know what is in Boeing’s simulator model, we don’t know exactly the configuration of the real plane, and we don’t know exactly what transient behavior occurred at the first and second flameout. Add that up and I’d say it is hard to say anything definitive.
Relative to the APU start, if windmilling is insufficient for the IDGs to supply electrical power, then the log-on of the AES at 00:19 is probably due to an APU start. If the IDG can supply power due to windmilling, then I think it is open for debate, and I’d say it is likely that the APU never started. Boeing knows the answer.
Looking at the simulations that Mike witnessed, it is hard to be certain, but it looks like there is no electrical power from the IDGs or backup generators after the second flameout. It appears that flight controls and displays are using battery power until the RAT kicks in. The main AC busses come up after the APU starts. After the APU shuts down, the RAT again is solely supplying power.
David said;
” “In the PMDG 777 model, when the hydraulic power is only supplied by the
RAT, the right elevator, which has no hydraulic pressure, moves down, which
raises the right wing and lowers the left, and the plane banks towards the
left. I don’t know if this is accurately replicated.” I do not think it is.
The aileron should be ‘blocked’ ie in hydraulic lock. The left should be
operative by its inboard actuator, like the left elevator, the left
stabiliser jack and the right flaperon. ”
This reference from 2013 suggests that while the sim PMDG 777 attempts to
replicate the flight dynamics which result from movement of the (cockpit)
flight controls, the representation of the movement of the flight control
surfaces (i.e. on the wing and perhaps tail) is known to be not always
accurate (e.g. when.. ‘stop all the hydraulics pumps‘);
http://www.avsim.com/topic/486088-pmdg-777-fbw-and-weird-flight-controls-behaviour/
Like the gentleman says, in the 4th post of the above webpage;
“My guess would be that this is an FS limitation”…”PMDG are good, but at
the end of the day they still have to work within the limitations of FSX
and I would imagine that the priority was to ensure that the functionality
of the systems is correct, even if the indicated positions of the control
surfaces are not always precisely as they would be in the real aircraft.”
(Incidently, page 4 of the above webpage topic, gives a reference to a pdf
that those persons discussing this matter, may find of interest in regard
to 777 Flight Control Systems/Modes :
http://webhost.laas.fr/TSF/IFIPWG/Top3/08-Yeh.pdf
)
(P.S. We hope users of the PMDG 777, FSX or P3D variants, are applying any
applicable updates that may have been issued for those softwares.)
@VictorI: I concede that case, but you bring in angle of attack. The ATSB talks about attitude, as if that were the only or the most important parameter to consider. That indicates to me a poor grasping of the subject matter, as manifested in earlier publications. Shall we leave it at that?
@VictorI: To be precise, if the airplane decelerates in level flight with two engines out, the free surface of a liquid does not remain horizontal but is inclined about 3 degrees nose-up, which is of the same order as the increase of AoA at minimum maneuvering speed.
@JG, Thanks for your kind words!
@DrR, The seabed search is officially over, but it’s been effectively over for a long time now; by its own analytics Australia should have thrown in the towel after the first 60,000 sq km. As it happens, several other productive avenues of inquiry remain open — I’m pursuing one in particular now, and once I’ve had a chance to write that up I’ll put together an overall summary of the case.
@Gysbreght: With a single flameout, the deceleration would be much less, and the free surface would remain nearly horizontal as the pitch changed. Less so for a dual flameout because the deceleration is greater. But in general, the relative orientation of the free surface changes as flight conditions change, and only for special cases does it remain constant. For this reason, I take no issue with the ATSB’s statement.
@Jeff Wise
Reading your comment reminds me of coming back on your answer about possible evidence of a Northern Route and spoof.
The points you mentioned there were actualy yet unexplained issues IMO. Not evidence.
Evidence is still lacking about any other route than a route to the SIO. Hope you can agree on this regardless of how doubtfull this evidence may be.
All the existing ‘evidence’ still points to the SIO.
The only other route I can imagine including a hijack and a spoof on the plane would be a Western route over the ocean towards a target (Diego Garcia?). Such a route would counter a minimum of primary radar stations and suspision (next to the SIO route).
But then why a spoof? What would be the need of a spoof?
If the mission succeeded the whole World would know where the plane had ended.
If it would not succeed why would the hijacker(s) bother to create a false trail on forehand to the SIO?
@all
Here is a proposed MH370 waypoint path:
VOCX MEMAK PILEK POLUM UXORA. The path ends on Arc7 300 nM off POLUM at S22.5/E103.3. Requires slow down and probably descent starting at POLUM. Optional final “minor” turn due East after engine flame-out, if needed to hit the middle of the deep basin at Arc7.
This path assumes the idea was to hide the crash debris in the 20,000+ ft deep “northeast trough” below Wallaby Plateau; visualizing that deep trench as the landing runway. The trench turns out to be on a direct line between POLUM and UXORA waypoints. POLUM could be a logical exit point from Victor’s NZPG flight path.
Seems to pass Chillit’s shipping lane avoidance test. FWIW this “northeast trough” is on the northern end of Chillit’s zone of interest.
https://twitter.com/MikeChillit?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
Here is a better LINK to MChillit’s search zone and shipping lanes:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C24JMTnW8AAMR6w.jpg
@TBill
I have also come up with a new path that bypasses Sabang radar, taking into account BFO calculations for the 19:41 ping ring:
https://www.allmystery.de/static/upics/579f9becbd_earth9.png
Turning short off waypoints VOKX, NIXUL and UPROB but passing through AKINO and TOPIN (I take quite literally the statement that Sabang radar did not detect MH370 within Indonesian airspace). I wouldn’t know what other route could satisfy distance and interesction of the 19:41 ring on the given heading.
Following up, it is possible that MH370 continued to fly very close to, or through, ISBIX (alternatively on a 180 heading) and then on to waypoint BEBIM:
https://www.allmystery.de/static/upics/5563ea9f79_earth12.png
That waypoint is en route to Cocos Islands and Learmonth (presumably still within endurance limits)
The distance between each ring segment is around 450 nm and the course fits very well with the BFO values measured for each ring, with a slight change in heading from 180 to 175 towards the 22:41 ring.
Thoughts?
@Nederland
I will take a look when I get a chance. I now know how to put the FS9 flight simulator on Google Earth maps so I can just fly the course.
I wish we could ask ATSB why they think the flight path went close to Indonesia. Maybe they got a wink and a nod from someone. Seems to me Indonesia is the entity who knows if the plane was heading south at 18:40, or alternatively they know they were not watching.
@TBill
Great, thanks! I’d be curious to know if the change in course could be explained with magnetic heading after passing the last waypoint.
Decimal geolocation for the 19:41 ring is 2; 93,766 heading 180 (the route passes a few km off ISBIX, that could be within margin of error for the BTO value), for 20:41 -5,536867; 93,581622, heading 181,5, for 21:41 -13,0442; 93,8555, heading 177,9, for 22:41 -20,546492; 94,532, heading 175.
This is also a very interesting article on the Indonesian radar:
‘“They (Indonesia) confirmed they had no sighting of the plane,” [Hishammuddin] said at the conference broadcast live on Astro Awani.’
http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/untrue-that-mh370-avoided-indonesian-radar-hishammuddin-says
My impression was the ATSB worked on this assumption until autumn 2014, when public pressure caused them to revise their assumption towards an early southern turn. I don’t think that had to do with Indonesia updating their record that late in time.
@Nederland
Interesting but they are apparently just saying MH370 went down Malacca Straights instead of flying over Indonesia directly. Hish says MH370 was definitely NOT avoiding Indonesian radar. That means exactly what? Indonesian radar did see MH370? With Hish, we never know.
@Tbill
It means it is “untrue” that Indonesian radar detected MH370 skirting Indonesian radar, apparently because it would have detected MH370 had it not skirted the radar.
So, it’s basically a deduction that MH370 skirted Indonesian radar because Indonesian radar never detected it (overflying Indonesian airspace). Hishammuddin is just saying it is “untrue” that MH370 was detected while skirting radar, but he confirms the deduction.
In a way, all these statements are consistent imo.
@TBill
The only way to state for sure it defenitily NOT avoided Indonesian radar is when you know it was detected by Indonesian radar.
Is someone working on impact break points on this fuselage design. I am trying to tie partial flutter damage. If considering first main reinforcing spar, substantial mass may have contributed to to flaperon been submerged for some time. This would explain Jeff’s barnacle debacle. I must stress the maintenance checks. I am now more convinced of an emergency situation. I am also worried about the confusion of comms protocol and hardware, protocol adds a signature, if an engine can negotiate an ID(address) then why does it need other comms systems especially protocol?
@Victori @Gysbreght
It seems like you are in agreement now. I think it is agreed that for unaccelerated flight, the surface of the fuel would be be horizontal to the earths surface. In a steady descent the level in a rectangular tank would be higher in the front than the back – the surface is level, but the fuel line varies with aircraft pitch attitude. Angle of attack is not directly relevant.
If the aircraft and its tank are in a sustained steady, straight ahead, deceleration, the fuel surface will align with the combined gravity and deceleration vector. The pitch attitude determines the level of fuel at the front and back.
But with changing longitudinal acceleration and turns, the fuel dynamics could be very complex in a tank, particularly at low fuel levels. Predicting fuel starvation for different fuel intakes in a maneuvering aircraft near fuel starvation would be sporty.
This would most likely require a very sophisticated simulation to model the fuel tank dynamics.
@Victori $Gysbreght
Sorry. I assumed in my first paragraph that pitch attitude would be below horizontal. It is clearly possible to descend with nose above the horizon. But the fuel is level with the earths surface.
@Ge Rijn, The evidence pointing to an SIO terminus is the Inmarsat data and the debris.
The evidence pointing to a spoof is the failure of the seabed search, the fact that some Inmarsat data cannot be explained, the fact of the reboot, the timing of the reboot, the fact that a vulnerability existed, the absence of psychological red flags for Zaharie, the implied BTO flight path, the presence of shadowy ethnic Russians on board, the Mg/Ca data of the barnacles, and the barnacle distribution. There are some other points that I won’t get into now but will bring up soon.
You can call these “issues” or “evidence” if you wish, they all get heaped up on the balance trays IMO.
You wrote “What would be the need of a spoof?” As I’ve said many times before, but we have an answer to this question in the shoot-down of MH17, which was made to look like an accidental act by rogue militiamen but was actually an operation carried out by the GRU using regular Russian Army assets. Why? So that we would chase our tail, as we are still doing.
I like this quote from U.S. Air Force Brigadier General Alex Grynkewich, describing hybrid warfare:
“In this kind of warfare, attribution and intent are challenging if not impossible for friendly forces to ascertain.”
https://warontherocks.com/2017/01/the-future-of-air-superiority-part-i-the-imperative/
He’s speaking specifically about the fog of uncertainty prevaling in eastern Ukraine (particularly, I think, regarding MH17) but the sentiment applies to MH370 as well.
Russia lost billions because of sanctions enforced after MH17. I doubt it was their goal.
Everyone closely following conflict in Ukraine would easily conclude it was the mistake of untrained (or badly trained) rebels. Even Russians know about it and aren’t afraid to talk about it (in private at least).
failure of the seabed search is not the evidence pointing to a spoof, just the evidence of officials being too stubborn to search only the area compatible with their pet theory
Is it correct to say that a ghost flight into the deep SIO is unlikely now the area has been searched?
What are the alternatives?
Would a pilot intent on committing suicide put in a waypoint or two such as the Cocos Islands after turning South then sit there for hours waiting for the end?
Why commit suicide after all that time just sitting there?
It does not compute and yet this seems to be what a lot of folk on Jeff’s blog seem to be concentrating on with all their calculations.
Jeff, we are looking forward to your suggestion in the hope it gives us the answer.
@TimR, You wrote, “Is it correct to say that a ghost flight into the deep SIO is unlikely now the area has been searched?” I would say yes. I would add that certain unnatural aspects of the debris reinforce this impression.
I agree that a lot of discussion on the web site recently involves trying to figure out routes that have no plausible basis.
@StevanG, You wrote, “Everyone closely following conflict in Ukraine would easily conclude it was the mistake of untrained (or badly trained) rebels.” This was the impression that observers were encouraged to have by the media posting made by Igor “Strelkov” Girkin immediately after the shootdown, in which he stated that “we” had shot down an An-26. However, once the pieces had been put together by Bellingcat and later the Dutch criminal investigators, it was clear that this was not the case. MH17 was shot down by a Buk beloging to a regular Russian Army antiaircraft unit.
“Everyone closely following the conflict” had been fooled. I would argue that something similar has happened with MH370.