[Kharon]

You can almost see the sealed instructions: “We request and require that you proceed to XX˚S  XX˚E then, from point A on your map (attached) proceed through the alphabet locations until you find our submarine at point X; which marks the spot – do not ask ‘Y’.

Well, it’s no more far fetched than some of the theory floating about – is it?

... ... ... ...

Toot toot.

[Peetwo]

MH370 SIO search update - 03/12/15

Following on from this...

This AM courtesy of PlaneTalking.. :

MH370: Live notes from special update

Ben Sandilands | Dec 03, 2015 10:14AM |



Malaysia Airlines 777-200ER 9M-MRO, which flew the ill fated MH370 service

An update on the search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 is being held at around 1030 eastern Australian daylight time in Canberra. The key points will be logged here, followed as necessary by a considered review of the new information.
The media alert makes no reference to the finding of MH370.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development Warren Truss and Assistant Minister for Defence Darren Chester will hold a press conference this morning on updated analysis of the search for missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH 370.
 
Defence Science and Technology Group has provided further analysis to inform the Australian Transport Safety Bureau’s latest report: MH 370 – Definition of Underwater Search Area Update, which reaffirms the highest probability of the resting place of the aircraft in the current 120,000 sq km search zone.
 
The report will be released today.
 
Following the Ministers’ press conference [at 1230] the ATSB will conduct a separate technical briefing on the report for interested media.

MH370 with 239 people on board was en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on 8 March 2014 when it disappeared as a transponder identified flight on air traffic control consoles while at 35,000 feet over the Gulf of Thailand.

Notes: Australia commissioned its own review of previous advice on the likely path taken by MH370 to ‘inform’ the new ATSB report on the definition of the underwater search area, and has released it today.

The deputy PM Warren Truss described the new report as ‘fairly heavy technical reading’.
He said the key points made by the new Defence Science and Technology Group confirmed the broad conclusions made by the strategic search panel that the jet turned south and flew to a point along the so-called seventh arc of possible locations of its point of impact with the water over the southern Indian Ocean.

At this point live television coverage in Australia switched back to the mass shooting tragedy in San Bernardino, and it would be fair to say, any aviation reporters living in SE Australia felt relieved that they hadn’t jumped in their cars in an attempt to reach Canberra in time to receive these new insights.

However, the new report hasn’t yet been studied in detail, and there is an ATSB press conference to come in less than two hours time.

Oh no BBB is back??

With beard 'a splendid' it would seem you can't keep our MH370 Super Sleuth Muppet out of the limelight indefinitely, here he is mi-mi-mi-ing around with the mi-mi-mi-miniscule...

   
Hmm...notice how the other dude - Assistant Minister for Defence Darren Chester - tries in vane to make himself scarce...   Can't say I blame him, I think I'd rather chew my arm off rather than be handcuffed to either of those two buffoons..

...to this, again from Ben Sandilands:

MH370: Data review doesn’t support a controlled ditching

Ben Sandilands | Dec 03, 2015 12:52PM |

A new best estimate of the most likely locations of MH370
A comprehensive review by the Australia managed search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 says data received from the Boeing 777 shortly before it crashed into the southern Indian Ocean is inconsistent with the jet having made a controlled ditching.

The review (in full here) has also narrowed the width of the primary search strips located along the so called seventh arc of possible impact points in the ocean, but also defined new search zones within the priority search areas.

It says that MH370 could have flown on a single engine for the last 15 minutes of powered flight before it fell to its impact point.

The Australian Defence Science and Technology (DST) Group said its analysis (which significantly replaces some earlier analysis on which the search was relying ) used models of the Inmarsat satellite communications (SATCOM) data and a model of aircraft dynamics as well as including met data.

One of the notable features of the new report is its ‘calibrating’ the satellite communications data from MH370 against the data from other 777 flights using the same satellite system including archived data from flights made by the same 777 that vanished on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on 8 March 2014.

(Some reports that use 7 March are set against universal time. However by the time MH370 ran out of fuel over the south Indian Ocean it was 8 March locally and in Greenwich.)

The DST and Boeing independently analysed achievable ranges, with time intervals, for different cruise altitudes for the 777, with results that were in general agreement.

Much of the DST review concerns an electrical event early in the flight that briefly cut off power to the Satellite Data Unit or SDU. It notes that the causes of this interruption could originated in controls located in an overhead panel in the cockpit, or in the [insecure] electronics and equipment bay which could be reached through a floor hatch immediately behind the cockpit, or through other equipment failures.

That event is discussed in relation to the final incomplete exchange of data between MH370 and the ground via an Inmarsat communications satellite seven hours and 38 minutes after takeoff, which is believed to have ended either because of impact, or an ‘unusual attitude’ in the falling jet prior to impact which would have interrupted the line of signal between the 777 and the satellite.

This final event also saw a sequence of events begin that are associated with power to the SDU being again cut off and then restored consistent with the right hand engine of the jet failing some 15 minutes before the remaining left hand engine ran out of fuel.

The evidence indicates that a combination of battery power and electricity generated by a ram air turbine, pre-programed to pop out of a hatch and into the slipstream in such an emergency, then took over prior to the jet inverting or hitting the sea.

For those who have closely followed the technical discussions about how MH370 came to its end, this is part of a graphical summary in the new ‘search area definition’ review.


If the sea states permit, the ocean floor search should be back in full swing in the priority area of most interest in the next few days, supported by a powerful automated underwater vehicle that could clear up any uncertainty that might arise from sonar side scanning images of possible debris from MH370.

 
MTF...P2

[Peetwo]

Latest from Clive Irving, courtesy the Beast.. :

Mohd Rasgan/AFP/Getty

[/url]
[url=http://www.thedailybeast.com/contributors/clive-irving.html]Clive Irving

12.08.158:00 PM ET

Exclusive: MH370 Was Crippled by Sudden Electrical Failure

New data reveals a runaway power outage doomed the 777, supporting the theory a fire in the cargo hold turned the jet into a flying zombie.

The pilots of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 were suddenly confronted by a cascading loss of electrical power in which many of the airplane’s vital systems shut down, placing an urgent demand on the crew to understand and deal with the failures.

Before this loss of power occurred the crew had been able to make regular contact with air traffic controllers and the airplane was able automatically to transmit its position.

After it, no word was ever heard again from the pilots. Its two automatic reporting systems, the transponder continually sending the airplane’s position and a separate system reporting the condition of its critical systems at half-hourly intervals both stopped working.

This new revelation of a serious technical problem and its immediate affects is buried in the arcane detail of a lengthy report issued last week by the Australian Transport Bureau who are directing the search for the Boeing 777. It is the first official acknowledgement of what had previously been only speculation – that there was a sudden loss of electrical power capable of disabling vital systems.

As well as portraying a sudden crisis of control in the cockpit, the report greatly undercuts theories that the pilots themselves went rogue—far from harming the airplane it is much more likely that they were struggling to save it in a situation that most pilots would find hard to master.

The purpose of the report was to reinforce confidence that the undersea search for the airplane is being carried out in the right part of the Indian Ocean and has a high chance of success.

Flight 370 took off from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, at 12:42 a.m. (Malaysia time) of March 8, 2014, bound for Beijing. Normally that flight would take around five and a half hours. In fact, it ended seven hours and 38 minutes later somewhere over the southern Indian Ocean, creating the greatest mystery in the history of modern aviation.

The last voice contact with the flight came 37 minutes after takeoff, with the captain signing off with the air traffic controllers in Kuala Lumpur, saying “Good night. Malaysian three seven zero.” The airplane was then on course heading out over the South China Sea.

Two minutes later the blip indicating the airplane’s position on the Kuala Lumpur controllers’ radar screens disappeared – indicating that the transponder was no longer working. At around the same time (as revealed later by military radar that had picked up the flight) the airplane made a sharp left turn, taking it back over Malaysia toward the Strait of Malacca.

The new report is not precise about when the airplane suffered its loss of electrical power: it places the blackout inside a 56-minute window between the final scheduled transmission from the system monitoring the airplane’s critical functions, the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System, ACARS, and an unsuccessful attempt by the airline’s dispatchers to contact the crew.

But that window can actually be narrowed: the power loss must have occurred in the time between the attempt from the ground to contact the airplane and the last normal contact between the controllers and the captain, some 44 minutes, and very likely it happened very rapidly after the captain signed off — when the transponder failed.

However, whatever the extent of the power loss, the report makes clear that, remarkably, at least one system was able on its own to recover power and continue functioning.

The total search area is as long as the distance between New York City and Charleston, North Carolina, and about as wide as the I-95 corridor.

Twenty-one minutes after the airline’s dispatchers tried to contact the flight the airplane was able to transmit a scheduled electronic “handshake” to a satellite.

Tracking the flight path of the Malaysian jet has always rested on one slender thread of data that was detected by the London-based satellite operator Inmarsat.

An Inmarsat ground station in Australia recorded seven electronic “handshakes” transmitted automatically from the 777 beginning with one before takeoff. From those brief and impersonal pulses and after many hours of calculations the searchers were directed to an area deep in the southern Indian Ocean, called the seventh arc, between latitudes 40 and 50 and more than 1,500 miles from the nearest land mass, southwestern Australia.

The handshakes, more commonly called pings, were sent at hourly intervals.


Amazingly, though, the system used to transmit the hourly pings, the Satellite Data Unit, SDU, was able to reboot itself within 60 seconds of the power failure and was able to send the subsequent hourly pings for the rest of the flight, while the ACARS remained silent, as did the transponder.

What caused the power loss?

The Australian report gives four possible causes:

One, a sudden failure that caused the airplane’s Auxiliary Power Unit, APU, to kick-in to restore emergency power.

Two, an action carried out in the cockpit using overhead switches.

Three, someone accessing the Main Equipment Center below the flight deck, pulling out circuit breakers and, later, resetting them.

Four, intermittent technical failures.

Clearly, these possibilities suggest a choice between actions that required deliberate human intervention (using the overhead switches in the cockpit or someone gaining access to the Main Equipment Center, pulling out the circuit breakers and then later resetting them) or the sudden onset of technical failures that the airplane’s backup systems were able to restore, at least in part.


In making this range of possibilities clear the report demonstrates that there is no data that could make a persuasive argument for either scenario. That can only be settled when – or if – the remains of the airplane are found and recovered.

However this new information seriously undermines [email=http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/03/18/malaysia-s-sinister-timeline-for-flight-370-unravels.html]one of the most persistent conspiracy theories: that the pilots did it.[/email]

First, the theory widely advanced in the early days of the disaster that as a first step to make the airplane “vanish” the pilots switched off the transponder. Nobody switched off anything at that moment – it now appears that a power interruption or failure could have disabled the transponder. (A transponder only works for ground tracking within radar range, otherwise its signals can be picked up only by other airplanes that are nearby.)

Second, that one of the pilots left his seat, opened a hatch in the floor, went down into the Main Equipment Center, pulled out the circuit breakers and later reset them.

I asked an expert on the 777 and its systems to comment.

He said that the idea that a pilot went below to pull one or more circuit breakers was extremely unlikely, even bordering on the absurd. He added: “Few airline pilots would even know how to get down to the lower deck while in flight.

“And even if they tried, few would be familiar with the locations of avionics components, or be able to find the relevant circuit breakers to pull. That kind of information is not even contained in the typical pilot training or operating manuals.”

He also explained that the pilots would most likely need to be following “non-normal” procedures to use the overhead switches that control electrical power generation as part of coping with failure messages flashing on their instrument displays.

Indeed, rather than this being an attempt to harm the airplane, the expert said, the pilots could very well have been implementing “a well-defined non-normal procedure” to respond what was a “very complex failure” – and that those actions were exactly what the pilots should have done.

However, he added, if it was a failure that went beyond anything anticipated in their training – “like a severe uncontained fire” – the crew may not have fully understood the severity of what was happening. “They would simply have no way of knowing.”

Simultaneously, he said, “they would have been trying to decide whether to divert and get on the ground as fast as possible.”

The captain, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, was very experienced, with more than 18,000 hours flying time and 8,659 flying 777s. Fariqu Abdul Hamid, the co=pilot, had only 2,800 flying time experience and – this could well have been significant in a crisis, only 39 hours on the 777, no more than a few flights.

Most of the power to run all the 777’s systems and avionics comes from generators attached to each of the two engines. It is distributed throughout the airplane through multiple connections, many with backup systems and controlled by computers. The main concentration of computers, including those controlling the airplane’s communications systems, is in the Main Equipment Center.

In a Daily Beast [email=http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/10/15/the-deadly-cargo-inside-mh370-how-exploding-batteries-explain-the-mystery.html]special report[/email], I examined a scenario in which a fire in the forward cargo hold of the 777, originating in a consignment of lithium-ion batteries that were being shipped on the airplane, could have breached a wall and reached the Main Equipment Center, seriously degrading the airplane’s avionics and leading to the incapacitation of the crew and passengers.

However, the avionics for the Satellite Data Unit, sending the pings, was located not in the Main Equipment Center but well clear of it, in the roof of the cabin behind the wings, because that is where the antenna to access the satellite is best positioned.

The picture in the Australian report of an airplane stricken by a sudden and extensive loss of electrical power, while in no way definitive, is entirely consistent with this scenario.
Indeed, the report gives dramatic new clarity to the [email=http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/26/the-flight-370-zombie-theory-rises-from-the-dead.html]“zombie flight” version of events[/email] in which the airplane, by then fatally crippled, makes one final change of course and then flies into the vast emptiness of the southern Indian Ocean without any sign of human direction or control. There is also much more detail about the airplane’s final moments in the air.

The report’s account draws on a scenario followed by Boeing in an engineering simulator (first reported by The Daily Beast) that shows Flight 370 cruising at a constant altitude of 35,000 feet for more than 5 hours at which point the airplane begins to run out of fuel.
The assumption is made that once Flight 370 made a left turn over the Straits of Malacca it was then being flown on autopilot. (The new report cautions: “The specific settings input into the autopilot are unknown. Furthermore, it is also unknown what changes (if any) were made to those settings throughout the accident flight.”)

Considering how little is known of what happened to turn the airplane “dark” the reconstruction of the flight and its conclusion is surprisingly graphic. As the 777 runs out of fuel the right engine flames out first, followed by the left engine 15 minutes later. The airplane then descends in a circling glide, covering as many as 100 nautical miles, hitting the water “uncontrolled but stable.”

As luck would have it, the final – seventh -- ping sent from the airplane and intercepted by the Inmarsat satellite ground station was sent about 10 minutes before the airplane hit the water. Within those 10 minutes the SDU had lost power from the engines, the APU had automatically started (taking about a minute to restore power) and the SDU, because power had been interrupted, began automatically to log on again with the Inmarsat satellite and completed that process within seconds of the airplane crashing – thereby providing the Inmarsat analysts with one more essential clue to the final position of the airplane.

There can be no precise picture of how the airplane broke up on hitting the water. The only physical remnant from the crash appeared four months ago, washed up on the island of La Réunion near Madagascar in the western Indian Ocean.

That piece of wreckage was a flaperon, a part of the airplane’s flight controls. There is one flaperon on the rear of each wing close to the fuselage. Although it is relatively small, the flaperon is very busy throughout the whole flight. It is part flap, the control surface that is lowered in a series of phases to increase lift for takeoffs and landings, and part aileron, a separate surface that moves up or down to control “roll” – to keep the wings laterally level at all speeds and altitudes or to control the degree of banking in a turn.

Because of its hyperactive role in the airplane’s flight controls the value of the flaperon to investigators is far greater than its size would suggest. Given the final minutes of the flight as simulated by Boeing, its actions would have been essential to maintaining stability in the glide. For that reason its discovery could add some better understanding of how the airplane hit the water.

The flaperon was in remarkably good condition, given that it had spent nearly 17 months in the water. In photographs the only visible sign of damage is that its thinnest part, the trailing edge, is badly shredded. The forward part, where it is hinged to the wing, [email=http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/07/30/debris-shows-mh370-didn-t-nose-dive.html]appears to have made a clean break[/email].

Estimating the forces that produced that break would be an important part of what investigators would do in order to try assess what role the flaperon was performing right up to the moment of impact. And, by looking at that, the investigators could get clues to how violent – or otherwise – the final seconds of the flight were.

The flaperon was taken from La Réunion to France, where it remains in the hands of the Bureau d’Enquetes et d’Analyses, BEA, having been examined there by experts who confirmed that it came from the Malaysian Boeing 777. (The BEA did not respond to a request from The Daily Beast for information on the examination of the flaperon.)

Meanwhile, in Australia the investigators seized on the discovery of the flaperon as a chance to confirm that their search was being conducted in the right place. Was landfall on the island consistent with the path that any floating wreckage would have taken if it originated in the area being searched?

A team at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, CSIRO, including oceanographers and weather experts, had been working for 16 months using a technology called drift modeling, to predict where, if any floating wreckage survived, it would wash up. Now they reverse-engineered the flaperon’s path from La Réunion back to the search area at the other end of the Indian Ocean, based on the elapsed time, distance and oceanic conditions from July 2015 back to March 8, 1014, the day that the airplane disappeared.

The result, was however, rather less than assured. Indeed, in describing the findings the CSIRO team leader, Dr. David Griffin, was careful to hedge the bets: the arrival of the piece of wreckage on La Reunion Island “does not cast doubt on the validity of the present MH370 search area” he said, but then added, “it is impossible to use the La Réunion finding to refine or shift the search area.”

It was wise of the scientists to be as careful as this because they had made an embarrassing error in a previous drift model. They originally predicted that the first wreckage would wash up on the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, by July 2014 – some 4,000 miles northeast of La Réunion.

When this didn’t happen they went back to the numbers and discovered that the data had been corrupted by a significant miscalculation of the effects of wind on the ocean.
It’s fair to say, then, that drift modeling, no matter how conscientiously conducted, is as yet far from being an exact science.

However, the absence of any further floating wreckage since the flaperon was discovered in July lends credence to the idea that perhaps major parts of the 777 did remain intact after impact and then sank, possibly through wave action forcing water into the engines and empty fuel tanks.

I discussed this possibility with the expert on the 777.

He advised caution on reaching any firm conclusions on the basis of a single piece of physical evidence – particularly when the flaperon is visible only in photographs and not by way of a physical inspection.

Nonetheless, he told me, “Even a pilotless jet could possibly get lucky and enter the water at a shallow angle and minimum sink rate that minimizes the impact.

“Most of the structure could have remained intact, or at least separated into only a few big pieces. Not a lot of extraneous debris may have exited the fuselage, particularly if there was no attempt at opening doors or deploying rafts in the water evacuation.”
That would be encouraging for the undersea search because the larger the pieces of wreckage the more likely they are to be detected.

Last week, when the new report was released, the Australian Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss said that he was “hopeful, indeed optimistic, that we will still locate the aircraft.”

The area being searched totals more than 46,000 square miles of which around 29,000 square miles have so far been covered. As a result of the new analysis of the flight path, priority has been given to the southern sector – the total search area is as long as the distance between New York City and Charleston, North Carolina, and about as wide as the I-95 corridor, little more than 60 miles. Using the new calculations, the length may be shortened as the width is expanded.

And, as the area remaining to cover diminishes -- according to the math -- the chances of finding the Boeing 777 should increase exponentially.

“We are anticipating that the search will take to around mid-2016 to be completed”, the official spokesman for the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, Dan O’Malley, told The Daily Beast.

The search has continued, operating 24 hours a day, during the southern hemisphere winter, even though the conditions were often appalling.

“There have been times when the vessels were obliged to break off searching because of rough weather,” said O’Malley. “The highest waves were 50 feet in a tropical cyclone.

When the weather is really poor work becomes very difficult and obtaining adequate rest is difficult too, so it’s also very fatiguing.”

On two occasions crewmembers fell ill and their ships had to break off and return to their home port of Fremantle, 1,700 miles away. 

“There is no helicopter with the range to fly out and recover a patient, and it’s too risky to winch a person from a ship in rough conditions. It’s at least 10 days sail for the round trip, so this delays progress on the search” said O’Malley.

Before the flight disappeared this was one of the most remote stretches of ocean in the world and its floor had never been mapped. Some of the ocean is as much as 20,000 feet deep, with extremes of terrain. Now, after a bathymetric survey using state-of-the-art equipment, the Australians believe that they have an accurate and detailed map of every piece of the seabed.

These extreme depths and challenging terrain call for the most advanced search equipment, an autonomous underwater vehicle, UAV. Since last May rough weather made it impossible to use this system.

This week, with the financial help of the Chinese (153 of the passengers were Chinese), a third ship equipped with an UAV, will join the search.

For months the search had been limited to two ships deploying torpedo-like towfish that scan the ocean bed with sonar. “The deep tow equipment is the most efficient method to search large swathes where the seafloor is relatively flat” explained O’Malley. “However some of the seafloor features have very steep gradients and maneuvering the towfish over them can leave ‘terrain avoidance’ gaps in the data. These are the areas we will search with the AUV.”

One thing is for sure among many that are not: should the searchers find the remains of an airplane that took 239 people to their deaths in such baffling circumstances it will be an unmatched achievement in the history of air crash investigations, and the only thing that can finally explain what really did happen

MTF..P2

[Peetwo]

Courtesy Inquisitr & National Geographic Channel:

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370: Search Still In Wrong Place, New Official Report Incorrect, Analyst Says

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 has been missing for more than 20 months, and now new questions are being raised about whether the official search team, run by the Australia Transport Safety Bureau, is looking for the wreckage of the vanished Boeing 777-200 — with 239 people on board — is the right place.


[Watch a National Geographic documentary about the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 in the video above, on this page.]

The questions, from an independent analysis of ocean current patterns after the first and so far only piece of debris from the Flight MH370 was discovered in July on French-owned Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean, come just days after the ATSB issued its own official report designed to reassure the public that the Malaysia Airlines plane, or what’s left of it, does indeed lie on the ocean floor within the current search area.

The new ATSB report indicates, however, that the searchers have expanded the area in which they believe Flight MH370 went down, though the search remains centered on the “Seventh Arc,” the region of the Indian Ocean, about 1,200 miles off the coast of Perth, Australia.



But in July of this year, a “flaperon,” or a section of wing from a Boeing 777-200, washed up on a beach on Reunion Island, about 3,000 miles northwest of the search area. A subsequent investigation by French authorities came up with what the investigators said was conclusive evidence that the flaperon was part of the Malaysia Airlines plane. And in any case, no other Boeing 777-200 has ever crashed anywhere in the Indian Ocean.


In fact, the Boeing 777-200 has been involved in only seven accidents in its history, with just three of those resulting in fatalities. Other than the disappearance and apparent crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, the only other time a Boeing 777-200 has been destroyed, with a complete loss of all life on board, also came in 2014 with the shootdown of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine.

(Photo By Lucas Marie/Associated Press)

Investigators have been puzzled as to how the flaperon somehow floated, escaping detection, for at least 3,000 miles over almost 17 months until reaching Reunion Island. Now independent researcher and statistician Brock McEwen says that after months of research into ocean drift patterns and variable weather conditions, he has come up with an answer.

And the answer is — it couldn’t happen.

Or at least, the possibility appears extremely unlikely, according to McEwen’s analysis, based on the work of nine separate experts in ocean drift patterns.

---

RELATED STORIES:
Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370: Exact Location Of Crash Found By Pilot's Math, Aviation Site Claims
Flight MH370 Debris Image On Ocean Floor Missed By Searchers, U.S. Experts Say
Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370: Witness Gives Grisly Details Of Corpse-Filled Wreckage — Report Denied
Malaysia Airlines Plane 'Landed' On Water, Didn't Crash, Investigators Suggest

---

While the latest official report, issued on December 3, from the ATSB can be accessed by clicking on this link, the McEwen paper, “MH370 Debris Drift Studies — A Comparative Analysis,” may be downloaded by clicking on this link.

Author and aviation expert Jeff Wise, a frequent critic of the official Flight MH370 investigation, offered his own summary of McEwen’s findings, on his blog.

“Without implausibly strong wind effects debris could not have reached Reunion Island from the current search area,” Wise wrote last week. “Before debris could have reached Reunion Island, other pieces should have washed up in Western Australia and on other shorelines in the Indian Ocean.”

Wise expressed hope the ATSB would take McEwen’s findings into consideration because “the evidence has long been mounting that the authorities are looking for the plane in the wrong place,” he said.

“These points undermine the claim put forward in the most recent ATSB report that ‘the location of the recovered debris is consistent with drift modeling predictions of objects starting in the areas identified as possibly containing MH370,'” he wrote.

The ATSB report made headlines last week not for its widening of the Seventh Arc search zone, but for one passage in the report which appeared to state that Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 had suffered a massive power outage which caused “many of the airplane’s vital systems (to) shut down, placing an urgent demand on the crew to understand and deal with the failures,” according to aviation expert Clive Irving, writing in the Daily Beast.

Irving has long advocated for the theory that the Malaysia Airlines plane was felled by a fire on board, a fire that would cause the type of power outage supposedly described in the ATSB report. But the ATSB issued a clarification after the publication of Irving’s latest Flight MH370 article, stating that the power outage affected only a single Satellite Data Unit, which later switched back on, somehow.

Read more at http://www.inquisitr.com/2638849/malaysi...1Au9MdL.99

MTF...P2

[Peetwo]

A number of MSM news outlets are carrying the following story, courtesy of Bloomberg:
 

Malaysia Air Sued by Brother of Man Who Vanished With MH370


January 14, 2016 — 9:01 AM AEDT Updated on January 14, 2016 — 6:24 PM AEDT



Malaysian Airline aircrafts sit on the tarmac at Kuala Lumpur International Airport.

Photographer: Charles Pertwee/Bloomberg

• Jet disappeared in 2014 on flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing
  
• Lawsuit filed under Montreal Convention at Washington court
  

The brother of an American man who was a passenger on Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 when it disappeared while en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur in March 2014 sued the carrier in a U.S. court.

Phillip Talmadge Wood was on temporary assignment in Malaysia for International Business Machines Corp. when he boarded the flight to the Chinese capital, according to the complaint filed in Washington on Jan. 12 by Thomas Wood of Fort Worth, Texas.

Thomas Wood, who is managing the affairs of Philip Wood’s estate, is seeking as much as the $155,937 maximum automatically allowed under the terms of the 1999 Montreal Convention, and more unless Malaysia Airlines can prove his brother’s death was caused by something other than the negligence of the carrier or those in its employ.

Philip Wood was survived by his sons Nicholas and Christopher, according to the court filing.

"It would be inappropriate to comment on litigation matters that are ongoing,” Malaysia Air said in a statement.

Malaysia’s Department of Civil Aviation last year declared the incident, which claimed the lives of 239 passengers and crew on the Boeing Inc. 777, an accident.

Investigators concluded that someone on board intentionally disabled the aircraft’s tracking devices, and the jet turned south before plunging into the Indian Ocean off Australia’s western coast.

More than 80,000 square kilometers (31,000 square miles) of seabed have been scoured, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau said Wednesday in its weekly update. The search of the full 120,000 square-kilometer area will be completed in the middle of the year, the bureau said. The only solid evidence so far from the missing Boeing Co. 777 is a wing component that washed up in July on Reunion Island, some 3,800 kilometers (2,360 miles) from the search zone.

The multinational team hunting for the plane has said it won’t expand the southern Indian Ocean search zone without new clues about the wreck’s exact location.

The case is Wood v. Malaysian Airlines Berhad, 16-cv-53, U.S. District Court, District of Columbia (Washington).

And from 'that man' there was this again courtesy the Oz:

MH370: first suit filed as airline, insurer blasted as ‘irresponsible’

• Ean Higgins
  
• The Australian
  
• January 15, 2016 12:00AM
  

A US law expert in air crash compensation has filed the first legal suit involving a victim of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, claiming that the airline and its insurers have stonewalled against fair ­settlements.

The move comes despite some novel legal complexities, with the wreckage of the aircraft yet to be found, the cause of its disappearance unknown, and increasing opinion in aviation circles that the captain hijacked his own aircraft.

If the “rogue pilot” theory is substantiated, it could block the capacity of victims’ families to sue US aircraft manufacturer Boeing if a design flaw were found.

The managing partner of US lawyers Podhurst Orseck, Steven Marks, has filed a suit in the US District Court of Washington DC on behalf of the family of Phillip Wood, a Texan working for IBM in Asia who was one of the 239 people who died on MH370 on March 8, 2014.

Both Malaysia and China are parties to the Montreal Convention, which sets rules and proced­ures on how those affected by mishaps in aviation are to be ­compensated.

Mr Marks said Malaysia Airlines and its insurer Allianz were resisting the normal process of resolving such claims, forcing him to mount the initial lawsuit before the two-year statute of limit­ations expires in March.

“I have never seen an insurance company or an airline act so irresponsibly, so insensitively,” he told The Australian.

Under the convention, Mr Marks said, the case of Mr Wood can be tried in US courts because he was regularly domiciled in the US and his ticket was purchased through a US booking agency.

Mr Marks is also representing families of Chinese, Malaysi­an and Indian MH370 victims.

Because what such families are likely to receive in compensation can vary immensely if they are forced to pursue claims through the courts in their respectiv­e countries, airlines and their insurers will usually agree to an average compensation for all.

In this case, Mr Marks said, after nearly two years of negotiations, the airline and Allianz had “not even made any offers to the foreign families, and they have made completely inadequate offers to the US families”.

Mr Marks speculated that one reason Allianz might be resisting payouts is that it has had a trifecta of major air accidents for which it was the insurer. On top of MH370, which would have cost Allianz $US250 million to recompense Malaysia Airlines for its Boeing 777, he said it had had to fork out a similar amount for the loss of the Malaysia Airlines aircraft of the same make that was shot down in Ukraine in 2014.

Allianz was also the insurer for the Germanwings Airbus A320 flight that went down in the French Alps last March when the co-pilot locked the captain out of the cockpit and deliberately crashed the aircraft.

Mr Marks said theories that MH370 captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah hijacked his aircraft were lacking in evidence and ­“irresponsible”.

There is no suggestion that the specific Boeing 777 of Flight MH370, or that model generally, had a design flaw. But if one were to be revealed, it would be in the interests of the Malaysian government, which is the majority owner of Malaysia Airlines, for the “rogue pilot” theor­y to be disproved so plaintiffs could concentrate their lawsuits on Boeing rather than the airline.

A Malaysia Airlines spokeswoman said the airline and its insurers had “consistently endeavoured to negotiate fair and reasonable compensation in good faith with a number of claims now having been settled and many more being the subject of ­advanced discussions with a significant number of further settlements anticipated”.

Allianz did not respond to requests for comment yesterday.

And so it begins where all the directly interested parties jockey to lessen their direct liability.

Not my thing but I do wonder how much extra would be added to the MAL compensation bill if it was ever proven that their was a rogue pilot or hijack? Or on the other side of the coin if a aircraft design flaw was directly attributable to the accident, what would be the extra cost to Boeing? Certainly food for thought when it comes to ulterior motives for DIPs trying to control the narrative of the tragic disappearance of MH370.

MTF...P2

[Peetwo]

From Ben Sandilands a reminder of the dangers of cruel misinformation & spoofing in online social media while the tragic disappearance of MH370 remains suspended in an information vacuum, courtesy Planetalking.. :

MH370 beach hoax claim vanishes like the jet

Ben Sandilands | Jan 17, 2016 7:39PM |

Earlier today there was excitement, in some quarters, at the finding of a part of MH370 on a beach in Sarawak slightly SE of the last ATC transponder visible position of the Malaysia Airlines jet over the Gulf of Thailand nearly two years ago.

The photos showed the fragment, to a critical eye, seemingly floating in air above a somewhat trashed looking tide line.

They were posted by the Traveling Madison Twitter account, and seized upon, prematurely, as evidence that the jet went down geographically close to where the jet was when it abruptly diverted from its flight plan between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing on 8 March 2014 with 239 people onboard.

One of the claimed photos is shown below.

One of Traveling Madison’s images

An airline pilot, on the Twitter account of Edward Baker, smelled a rat, and began to study the image, noting the a portion of it showed exactly the same pattern of blemishes as seen on a much photographed piece of wreckage at the site of the MH17 crash in Ukraine.

As shown below.

Edward Baker’s comparative images
This is the original tweet by Traveling Madison.

There is a discussion on Twitter as to whether a legitimate account has been hacked, and who the owner of the account is, and author of this tweet might be, if in fact they are different people.

This episode is unfortunately typical of the delusional, and occasionally malicious fakes that are spread on social media. If there is anything to salvage from this example it is that people like Edward Baker are increasingly sceptical and knowledgeable as to the capabilities of image manipulating software, that can alter geometry and perspectives while cloning hues, and as it turned out in this case, retaining tell tale blemishes.

So little is known about so much of this tragic mystery that weaker, or at times, nastier minds, seek to fill in the gaps, even to the extent of misrepresenting or forgetting key parts of the saga and the claims made by the various parties.

It can hurt good people too. It has the potential to hurt the next of kin, and faked evidence can mislead those whose intentions are good.

For those of us still associated in some way with the diminished state of the media, the struggle to stop fantasies from replacing facts is lost. The shortage of proven factual information in the case of MH370 makes this particularly painful.

 
MTF..P2

[Peetwo]

Hot from the miniscule's office:

Chinese vessel joining search for MH 370

Media Release

WT031/2016

29 January 2016

As the search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH 370 continues, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development Warren Truss today announced that a Chinese ship, Dong Hai Jiu 101, will be deployed to join search operations.

“The Australian Government welcomes the Dong Hai Jiu 101 to the search effort and thanks the Government of the People's Republic of China for its generous contribution,” Mr Truss said.

“The ship, offered to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull by Premier Li Keqiang of the People's Republic of China in November 2015, will undertake search operations in the southern Indian Ocean.

“The total value of the contribution by the People's Republic of China, including the ship, is around $20 million.

“The ship has recently been refitted and will be equipped with the ProSAS-60—a 6,000 metre depth-rated synthetic aperture sonar (SAS) towed system to be used in search operations.

“The ProSAS-60 will be operated by Phoenix International Holdings and Hydrospheric Solutions; both companies have experience in the search for MH 370 having previously operated on the search vessel GO Phoenix.

“The ship is currently in Singapore for mobilisation and is expected to depart for Australia on Sunday (31 January). It will commence operations in the search area towards the end of February.

“The presence of Dong Hai Jiu 101 will supplement the work of Fugro Discovery, Fugro Equator and Havila Harmony, and returns to four the number of vessels actively searching for MH 370 in the 120,000 square kilometre search area.”

[Gobbledock]

Strange that the Chinese have gotten involved. Perhaps their birds in the sky can't quite see what the searchers are up to under the water and they are getting a bit titchy? What better way to get in the middle of things and keep an eye on things up close!

Oh well, I imagine the Miniscue is happy to accept the new Dong, he's been waiting for one for a while now!

[Peetwo]

The following is a link for the DPWG (MH370) presentation by CSIRO's David Griffin - Operational Drift Forecast Modelling in Support of the AMSA Search for Malaysia Airlines MH370 - at the Forum for Operational Oceanography held at Fremantle in July 2015.

{P2 comment: I find it passing strange that David Griffin & his associates in the heading for this presentation call it the "AMSA Search for..." , I guess it is because the SLDMB & global drifter collated information is only listed from 30 March till 14 April 2014. Why so limited for a presentation made over a year later?}  

Being a layman on such things but having a keen interest to understand the Science, theoretical or otherwise, behind the huge endeavour to crack the tragic disappearance of MH370, I found the presentation easy to follow and informative, especially in regards to the SLDMB model verification (pg 16-21).

[b]Pg16 - SLDMB model verification[/b]

• Used to ground truth the known complex oceanic currents
  
  
• SLDMBs – to assist in determination of best data set
  
  
• Deploy in advance of proposed move of search area
  
  
• 33 x SLDMB’s successfully deployed to validate drift modelling
  
  
• Comparisons run against all three oceanic current data sets to provide information as to the highest performing data set
   
   
  Pg 21- Summary
  
  
• [b]Complex environment, very complex scenario
  [/b]
  
• [b]Best practice combined and consensus forecasting was applied to consider more variability than any one single model could represent
  [/b]
  
• [b]Consensus forecasting was used to present numerous different outcomes and determine where these coincided
  [/b]
  
• [b]Model performance was evaluated throughout the incident, using SLDMB drifters
  [/b]
  
• [b]Comparisons using SLDMB drifters allow for a model skill assessment to be built up over time
  [/b]
  
• [b]Skill assessment may allow for potential weighting of the consensus forecast to improve results [/b]
  

Over on the PT blog - http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking/.../#comments - & in between Gunson & Fred sniping at each other I again asked the question on why it was more of these SLDMBs were not strategically deployed:

22
PAIN_P2
Posted February 6, 2016 at 8:19 am | Permalink

“..SLDMB drift buoys were tracked by CSIRO and the results have been published..”

Yes but there was only 33: Ref pg 16-21 here – http://www.foo.org.au/fileadmin/user_upl...ressed.pdf

My point is that the whole of the 7th arc should have been saturated with them, both drogue & submerged versions.

Also all of the best guess-timates for location on the arc or elsewhere should have automatically had SLDMBs deployed, small price to pay out of a pretty big bucket.

23
Dan Dair
Posted February 6, 2016 at 10:34 am | Permalink

PAIN_P2,
I agree completely.

It would have been really nice if anyone had mentioned it at the time…..
at least, anyone of influence.!

Maybe it was because of the 'global' drifters providing supplemental information but I still feel an opportunity was missed and is still missed anytime further refinement is made by the JACC SSWG & independent experts of the theorised priority search areas - just saying


MTF...P2  

[aussie500]

It is a presentation for the drift modelling done in the original more southern area that would have been more useful. But back then they were so sure their wild goose chase was in the right place.

The CSIRO did do drift modelling for other areas of the 7th arc as well.
http://www.marine.csiro.au/~griffin/MH37...index.html
I am not interested in their 7th arc though, only anything they did for the supposed debris sightings the sat people gave them, or preferably the aerial sightings further east. Would be interesting to see where a drift model for that lot ended up.

They tied everything to that 7th arc, with no real proof MH370 actually dropped any where near it.

[Peetwo]

Aussie I should have perhaps been more clear, I believe the Slam Dams should have been used on most (if not all) theoretical formulised/calculated splashdown points for MH370, including those not on the 7th arc - why not? After all it is obvious that cost was originally of no objective..

Going back to the BB last on MH370, the discussion continues with more input from Mick in reply to David's... :

David

2 days ago

Mr Bailey repeats his contention that the aircraft descended with fuel for a controlled ditching. Again he does not expound on how this can be compatible with the final satellite communication data, which is consistent with fuel exhaustion.The only possible explanation I have encountered as to how a powered ditching might be consistent likewise  was raised in comments on a 30th January article in the Australian, "Warren Truss concedes....."  I have raised this possibility with the ATSB, which may well have had grounds for dismissing it hitherto. 

What also would need to be addressed under his theory is whether a pilot could plan on the southern Indian Ocean being calm enough for a ditching without aircraft breakup, which would negate its purpose.

A powered ditching would place the aircraft within the search area anyway, though satellite communications with the aircraft at the ditching site would shift the location of the aircraft compared to that at altitude. 

Mick

2 days ago

@David David, the only piece of physical evidence recovered from MH370, the starboard flaperon, does not support Captain Bailey's controlled ditching theory.

Preliminary independent analysis of the damage to the flaperon concludes that "R
epetitive lateral or torsion forces appear most likely at this stage of the analysis. This conclusion, combined with the lack of strong secondary evidence of a trailing edge strike, infers that the disengagement occurred while MH370 was in flight."  

Further independent analysis supports that conclusion and goes on to contend that the flaperon separated from MH370 at altitude and at high speed and that,  "An indication of this comes from: (a)  The ragged trailing edge of the flaperon (with 40 per cent of its total surface area being missing), this being consistent with rapid ‘fluttering’ as would likely occur if the aircraft lost all control surface power whilst travelling at high speed, as would occur when the fuel was exhausted from the two engines ...  and (b) The lugs holding the flaperon to the main wing structure appear to have been torn off in a manner that may be consistent with such violent fluttering (at 10-20 Hz) at high aircraft speed."

Mick

1 day ago

@David David, having just read the Comments from the 30 January article you refer to there are 2 problems with an APU auto-start after a successful controlled ditching:

1.  If the ditching was conducted per training and the ditching check list, the APU switch is turned to OFF, that action closes the both the APU fuel valve and air inlet door.
2.  If the APU was for some reason not set to OFF, after a successful controlled ditching the APU air inlet would almost certainly be at or below the waterline. 

David

1 day ago

@Mick @David Yes the investigators seem to have had good access to the flaperon.  I remain puzzled that there has been no confirmation of these preliminary investigations though and there remains no published outcome of the French investigation. I would like to see a Boeing imprimatur on the general assessment, the manufacturer being aware of flutter and overstress vulnerabilities outside the flight envelope. They might be able to talk to failure sequence. Possibly a lot or research is being done into this.

In the meantime it may be that the ATSB has other reasons to discount the powered ditching possibility. B777 characteristics might well be among them. The APU air inlet beneath the waterline surely would rule it out.

David
1 day ago



@Mick I seem to remember Andrew saying that closing the APU air inlet door was to prevent flooding, reinforcing what you say Mick. Presume this is fuel state independent.

Mick 5ptsFeatured

1 day ago



@David   David, just checking the B777 flight manual and it states:

APU Automatic Start

In flight, if both AC transfer busses lose power, the APU automatically starts, regardless of APU selector position. 

I am pretty sure that the airplane's "in flight" status is determined by the landing gear being retracted and locked or, when the landing gear is lowered, the absence of "weight on wheels".   I seem to recall that the APU auto-start function can be ground tested by jacking the airplane up to take weight off wheels. 

Any old how, it is possible that the APU auto-start might initiate after a successful controlled ditching.   However, the starter will not engage until the APU air inlet door reaches the full open position.  Once the starter has run the APU up to the proper speed, ignition and fuel are provided. When the APU reaches approximately 50 percent, the starter disengages and ignition is turned off.  If the start fails, the APU shuts down automatically and there is no subsequent auto-start. 

Given the location of the APU air inlet, the requirement for the inlet door to reach the fully open position before the starter engages and the delay before fuel and ignition are provided I think the likelihood of the APU actually starting and running long enough to reboot the SDU is extremely remote. 

Mick

1 day ago

@David   I know long shots sometimes get up (Prince of Penzance in last year's Melbourne Cup, for instance) but I think you could pretty well rule a line through an on-water APU start up as the explanation for the seventh handshake.   Contrary to the good Captain's claims of "overwhelming evidence" for a controlled powered ditching, all the real evidence points to an uncontrolled high-speed impact subsequent to fuel exhaustion.   As the Zen Master was fond of saying, "We'll see." 

Andrew

1 day ago

@Mick @David Nope, it wasn't me that said "closing the APU air inlet door was to prevent flooding".
 
The Ditching checklist reads:

"After impact:
FUEL CONTROL switches (both) ..... CUTOFF
APU fire switch ....... Override and pull"

There is no checklist item to select the APU switch OFF before a ditching, and doing so would not prevent an APU auto-start.   The post-impact action of pulling the APU fire switch would certainly kill any autostart attempt, but I doubt that a pilot intent on suicide would bother to complete the checklist.  

Mick is correct in that an APU auto-start is theoretically possible following a ditching, provided the APU fire switch isn't pulled.  That said, the chances of the aircraft ditching intact seem very slim, given the typical sea state in the Southern Indian Ocean.  A broken fuselage would certainly prevent the APU auto-starting, as would an APU inlet full of water!

Mick

@Andrew   Andrew, I'm looking at a Boeing 777 flight manual, albeit not the most current, that has the following check list:

DITCHING
• Send Distress Signal
• Advise Crew and Passengers
• Jettison Fuel As Required
• Accomplish IN RANGE CHECKLIST.
    DEFERRED ITEMS 
==> APPROACH CHECKLIST
- - - - - WHEN BELOW 5000 FEET - - - - -
(OMIT LANDING CHECKLIST)
Ground Proximity Gear Override Switch........................................OVRD
Ground Proximity Terrain Override Switch ...................................OVRD
Pack Switches ..............................................................................OFF
Ensures aircraft is depressurized for opening passenger entry doors.
Outflow Valve Switches................................................................MAN
Outflow Valve Manual Switches................................................. CLOSE
Position outflow valves fully closed.
Prevents water from entering aircraft through the valves.
Seat Belts Selector .........................................................................ON
APU Selector..................................................................................OFF
Closes the fuel valve and air inlet door.

I've skipped over the rest of the Approach check list items, which brings us to:

- - - - - ON THE WATER - - - - -
Fuel Control Switches............................................................ CUTOFF
APU Fire Switch.................................................. OVERRIDE AND PULL
Removes electrical power which ensures passenger entry door flight locks are
unlocked.

Given the importance of ensuring all ingress points for flooding are sealed prior to ditching I'm pretty certain that 
APU Selector..................................................................................OFF
Closes the fuel valve and air inlet door.
should appear on your ditching check list. 

I agree with you, the chance of a successful controlled ditching into the Southern Indian Ocean are slim at best. 


David

22 hours ago

@Mick @Andrew  Andrew, I recall now the remark was about outlet valves, as above, and doubtless not from you.

Can either of you tell me where the APU air inlet is? One informal 777 diag I have shows it top of the fuselage, starboard, just forward of the tail cone. Is that so? I presume it exhausts through the tail cone?

I question whether the pilot would go through either checklist, especially by himself, possibly with subsequent suicide in mind.

Likewise I qualify an earlier post I made about him taking care about sea states. I think he would take his chances as others forced to ditch do. I doubt that authoritative guidance would have been prepared on what sea state is acceptable, for any volunteers, .

The nub of all this though stems from an earlier statement by Mr Bailey that a ditching would entail the aircraft flying further hence his assertion that the search was in the wrong place. This was the important part. Whether or not there was a ditching is of lesser importance to this unsupported assertion, which I believe to be wrong. If the focus of the search was on a ditching, as I see it the locus of the highest probability point for finding the wreckage would shift by a few miles, in my estimate (45deg satellite elevation), five.

Brendan

22 hours ago

Just one point, about the range of flight, it seemed that the distance flown to a controlled ditching with very little remaining fuel would be similar to the distance flown to fuel exhaustion at cruising altitude. But maybe for a long powered glide (which airliners do every day) very little fuel is used in the glide phase.

David

20 hours ago

@Brendan Agree Brendan. Powered descent would need to yield fuel compared to staying at altitude, to fly for two minutes more, have fuel for any loiter to pick ditching direction and have fuel left over. His average speed of advance would be less than that at altitude under power. To me modelling would most likely lead to a spread of solutions, the end point being position and time with some fuel. Fuel consumption needs to be compatible with the estimate, a tolerance being implied.

Andrew

22 hours ago

@David @Mick @Andrew The APU air inlet is located in the top forward right-hand-side of the tail cone.  The exhaust is located in the aft left-hand-side of the tail cone.

David
20 hours ago

@Mick @Andrew If the tail sits high or anyway well above awash and the aircraft remains intact it seems the APU intake and exhaust present no real impediment to the APU running therefore, for a couple of minutes. 

Mick
19 hours ago

@David  Have a look at the pictures from the most successful controlled ditching of a jet airplane in recent times, US Airways Flight 1549.  I know that it's an entirely different type of airplane but after pulling off a text book ditching in still water note how quickly the tail sinks. As I said earlier, I think the likelihood of the APU actually starting and running long enough to reboot the SDU is extremely remote. 

For a controlled powered ditching or powered descent there's still the pesky matter of the seventh handshake.   Under either of those two scenarios the SDU reboot happens when?   Shortly after the airplane has been successfully "soft landed"?   In that case the wreckage should be proximal to the seventh arc. 

Under the ATSB uncontrolled unpowered descent following fuel exhaustion, the wreckage should be within 50 kilometres of the seventh arc. 

Either or, it falls within the current search area. 

David
18 hours ago

@Mick @David Agree Mick that there are various serious impediments opposing the  ditching theory, sea state being one for ditching, APU starting and running and hogging and sagging forces on the fuselage. However my intent here has been directed at the possible, not probable and I would like to know how the 777 floats and in particular what Boeing thinks as to sea states the aircraft might endure in landing and subsequently.
 
I think the unpowered descent could take the aircraft beyond fifty kilometers. But yes in a powered descent it will be close..

Mick
17 hours ago

@David   David, I think I get where you're coming from regarding considering possibilities but the possible should account for the known.  For a controlled ditching to account for the seventh handshake we're assuming APU auto-start after ditching as the cause of the SDU reboot.   That means the airplane was effectively stationary and that is not consistent with the Burst Frequency Offset (the Doppler shift in the transmission frequency) for that transmission (burst).

The BFO for the seventh handshake is anomalous;  it shows that the airplane was moving but not in a manner consistent with the other measured BFOs.   All the other BFOs are consistent with an airplane speed of about Mach 0.84 (560-odd knots) which just happens to be the cruising speed for a B777-200ER.   The last BFO shows a significantly higher airplane speed and because it's point in time it can't be properly correlated as the speed can be in both the horizonta plane (over the ground) and the vertical plane (toward the ground).
 
It is possible that the anomalous BFO for the last handshake was caused by the airplane changing heading, descending and at an increasing speed - what you'd expect from say the start of uncontrolled spiral dive.   It is not possible that the anomalous BFO was generated by an airplane pretty much at rest.

David
16 hours ago

@Mick @David OK Mick I was conscious that the BFO in the last exchange was anomolous and disregarded though the possible connection with a spiral dive is new. And if it rules out a static aircraft that is the end of the ditching possibility.. 

Will take another look at the BFO description and analysis and maybe you could direct me?

Mick
15 hours ago

@David  David,  I can't recall exactly where I read that; it's either in the ATSB Bayesian analysis paper or in one of Michael Exner's papers, probably Comments and Questions re ATSB Report on MH370 released 3 December 2015 or in one of Duncan Steel's papers, possibly Background Information on the Pinging of MH370 by Inmarsat-3F1. 

When I get a chance I'll go back over the various papers and see if I can pinpoint it. 
I hasten to add that "It is possible that the anomalous BFO for the last handshake was caused by the airplane changing heading, descending and at an increasing speed" is my interpretation not one I've read elsewhere. 


David
1 hour ago

@Mick Hello Mick. In the Definition of Search Area and Bayesian Methods Reports I cannot find any statement that the last handshake's BFO "shows a significantly higher airplane speed". Nor can I find where an aircraft being stationary "is not consistent with the BFO."  

What I can find is what I have earlier understood to be the case. The Bayesian Report (p7) says that the BFOs at the time in question (and one other) are "deemed unreliable at these times and cannot be used." The cause is that the messages concerned "occurred during transient phases of SATCOM equipment so cannot be used".

That Report (p26) describes how aircraft software compensates for Doppler shift, the residual Doppler data stemming from the aircraft assuming that the satellite is fixed relative to earth, which it isn't.
 
However the Report does add that the aircraft does not compensate for any vertical component of aircraft velocity. So if you reject the above explanation as to why these BFO data cannot be used, you could conjecture a spiral descent might be the source of corruption, though that would account for just one of the two BFO anomalies. Even if you did this would not cover why a stationary aircraft would cause a problem.. 

Maybe I have missed something in which case I hope you will put me right; but if not I do not agree that the final BFO rules out a powered ditching leading to a stationary aircraft. Quite probably something does, but as currently it stands, not that.

MTF...P2

[Peetwo]

Mick
15 hours ago

@David  David,  I can't recall exactly where I read that; it's either in the ATSB Bayesian analysis paper or in one of Michael Exner's papers, probably Comments and Questions re ATSB Report on MH370 released 3 December 2015 or in one of Duncan Steel's papers, possibly Background Information on the Pinging of MH370 by Inmarsat-3F1. 

When I get a chance I'll go back over the various papers and see if I can pinpoint it. 
I hasten to add that "It is possible that the anomalous BFO for the last handshake was caused by the airplane changing heading, descending and at an increasing speed" is my interpretation not one I've read elsewhere. 


David
1 hour ago

@Mick Hello Mick. In the Definition of Search Area and Bayesian Methods Reports I cannot find any statement that the last handshake's BFO "shows a significantly higher airplane speed". Nor can I find where an aircraft being stationary "is not consistent with the BFO."  

What I can find is what I have earlier understood to be the case. The Bayesian Report (p7) says that the BFOs at the time in question (and one other) are "deemed unreliable at these times and cannot be used." The cause is that the messages concerned "occurred during transient phases of SATCOM equipment so cannot be used".

That Report (p26) describes how aircraft software compensates for Doppler shift, the residual Doppler data stemming from the aircraft assuming that the satellite is fixed relative to earth, which it isn't.
 
However the Report does add that the aircraft does not compensate for any vertical component of aircraft velocity. So if you reject the above explanation as to why these BFO data cannot be used, you could conjecture a spiral descent might be the source of corruption, though that would account for just one of the two BFO anomalies. Even if you did this would not cover why a stationary aircraft would cause a problem.. 

Maybe I have missed something in which case I hope you will put me right; but if not I do not agree that the final BFO rules out a powered ditching leading to a stationary aircraft. Quite probably something does, but as currently it stands, not that.

Cont/-

David

18 hours ago



@Mick All I have found is a statement from Exner of 5th December (Duncan Steel archives 2069), "Why dismiss the potentially important 00:19:29 and 00:19:37 BFO data as unreliable, given that it is consistent with all the other observations and conclusions related to the end-of-flight analysis? These observations are consistent with the probable aircraft status, simulator results and historical accident data in particular. So why not include these observations in the overall end-of-flight analysis?"


Clearly he thinks that the final BFO data can be related to end of flight data but does not say how where this has been done. 


Para 3 of my post badly worded, though of little consequence.

David continued today...

David
3 hours ago



@Mick Mick, Andrew and Brendan if still there. This unlikely hypothetical of a powered ditching to me remains possible so far, unless the combination of sea state, aircraft strength and APU inlet clearance would have put it outside reason. But the sea state if known is unpublished as is aircraft resilience on ditching and shortly after; and also the pilot's ditching skill.
 

What I surmised before was that the aircraft, ditched under power, would be in the search area. But really all that seems sure is that it would have been on the 7th arc, adjusted a few miles to the NW for the altitude difference.


Where it was on the adjusted seventh arc depends on what happened after the last "fix", the sixth arc, for which there is BFO information. Supposing after that it continued until a pilot elected descent, it then would depend on his descent speed and 'average' track combination as to where on the arc the aircraft would have ditched. If in descent the pilot maintained the previous course, the overall track to ditching still would include course alteration of unknown length for ditching. There could be a spread of possibilities of courses and speeds, compatible with ditching on the arc (and at 00:17:30), possibly constrained by the fuel saving in descent being enough.


However, adding to the above, as you know the sixth arc handshake was only 6 1/2 minutes before 00:17:30 and surely the descent would take longer than that. So if the sixth arc BFO is incompatible with what could be expected from an aircraft already in descent (horizontal speed, vertical speed) that sensibly would rule out a powered ditching.


I hope you will bear with me in what might appear to be a pedantic exercise. With a powered ditching not as yet bowled out, by such as the 6th handshake data, I feel obliged to bring to the ATSB's attention that modelling could show a ditched aircraft might be further away than a few miles from where they have supposed.

Any comments please?  



Brendan
45 minutes ago



@David @Mick  David, if the 6th point has to be the same as now assumed i.e. cruising at altitude, then it puts limits on what could happen in 6 minutes. But if the aircraft can be already well into a descent by then, it could open up more possibilities. Probably would start by seeing what situations the BFO data would be compatible with. If that allows flexibility It might still be possible to come up with a useful prediction given that the flight must end somewhere on the 7th arc which might rule out any diversions. Also bearing in mind that the allowance for a spiral would not apply; the final point would be right on the arc (the plane wasn't going anywhere). But maybe getting too far ahead....

MTF...P2

[Peetwo]

An update on the MH370 NOK compensation claims, from new kid on the block Mitchell - 'Binger' - Bingemann in the Oz yesterday:

MH370 lawyer close to lodging families’ claim

• Mitchell Bingemann
  
• The Australian
  
• February 12, 2016 12:00AM
  

Reporter
Sydney


MH370 search ship, Fugro Equator, returns to Australia after six months at sea.

A lawyer representing four families with missing passengers on Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 says he is just weeks away from settling a claim against the airline.

Families of the 239 passengers aboard the missing Boeing 777 have until March 8 — the two-year anniversary of MH370’s disappearance — to bring compensation claims against ­Malaysia Airlines.

“There is a lot of frantic waiting going on and anxiety going on for the families because we are nearing the limitation period for claims against Malaysia Airlines,” aviation law expert Joseph Wheeler told The Australian.

“Compensation claims against the airline must be done within two years of the date of the disappearance of the aircraft. So they need to be wrapped up or a case must be filed in court for negotiations to continue after the 8th of March.”

Mr Wheeler represents four Malaysian families of missing passengers from flight MH370 but is not bringing a case against the airline.

“If we don’t reach a settlement by March 8 we will have to file, but that’s just to protect our clients’ right to pursue compensation. But we are extremely close to settling: a couple of weeks away at most,” he said. “Strategically there is very little use in filing a case in court against Malaysia Airlines. There’s nothing to be gained by using the adversarial process and that’s been shown in Malaysia where courts have directed claimants to settle.”

The disappearance of MH370 falls under the Montreal Convention, which governs many air disaster claims and imposes strict liability on air carriers for injury and death caused by accidents.

The convention prohibits punitive or exemplary damages, and the calculation of damages in any particular case proceeds under the law of the country where a family has chosen to bring their claim.

Air carriers cannot defend claims assessed to be under $190,000 but can fight higher claims if they can prove they weren’t the cause of the accident, or that the accident was caused solely by some other party.

The disappearance of MH370, however, has made it impossible for the airline or authorities to determine the cause of the aircraft’s demise.

The search for MH370 is being carried out by the Dutch Fugro survey group using three vessels: the Fugro Discovery, the Fugro Equator and Havila Harmony. The search has been hampered by recent damage to two of the vessels.

Australia, Malaysia and China have committed to searching 120,000sq km for the missing aircraft.

More than 85,000sq km of the sea floor have been searched so far.

It is anticipated that the search of the agreed area will be completed around the middle of the year.

Should no credible new information that leads to finding the aircraft be uncovered, the governments have agreed to not expand the search area.

The clock is certainly ticking, wonder if there is any possibility of a 'stay' on proceedings if the aircraft is actually found between now & the 2nd anniversary of this tragedy; or even after for that matter?

MTF..P2

[Peetwo]

For the interest of @oceankoto

Not directly related to MH370 but more to do with the Najib government and their strong connections to organised crime, in this case illegal betting & match fixing, also the apparent influence the Malaysians have over the US...

Watched a replay last Monday night's Four Corners program - Bad Sport - & near the end of the program there was this about billionaire bookie Paul Phua:

LINTON BESSER: Paul Phua slipped out of the country and flew to Las Vegas on board his corporate jet.


But just three weeks later he would find himself under arrest again. This time, he was a target of the FBI.

Phua didn't realise that another of his mobile setups at Caesar's Palace was under FBI surveillance.

CHRIS EATON: What Paul Phua was operating in the Las Vegas Caesar's Palace was in fact an old-fashioned wire room. He was taking, though, massive whale bets and mass- massive whale gamblers: these sorts of guys who are dealing in the millions of dollars, not the thousands.

MARTIN PURBRICK: What the FBI found was a series of large-screen TVs watching games on the World Cup, large banks of computers and monitors, laptops, mobile phones, notes regarding bets on the World Cup: ah, basically a communications centre.

LINTON BESSER: The FBI charged him and his associates with operating an illegal gambling business and they seized his files.

MARK READ: Oh, the Americans are always saying this about everyone. If I went to America, I'd be worried going to America because they'd be saying that, "Mark, well, you're a bookmaker. And if you're a bookmaker, by definition you're a racketeer and you must be a money launderer."

This is a... y-you know, you're talking about America. This is "Waspsville." (Laughs) I've been hearing this sort of stuff all my life, you know? Anyone who emerges in the marketplace and has the audacity to threaten the status quo, the establishment here: st- the catch cry straight away is: the whistleblowers, out they come. Or the dog whistle, dog whistle: "Out we come: organised crime, gangsters, racketeers." I hear it all the time.

NEIL PATERSON: Listen, um, Paul Phua is a major player. We know that he has links into some of the unregulated betting markets that operate in the Philippines.

Um, the FBI operation was able to, ah, bring out into the open some of the information that now is known around, ah, around him. And it gives us great concern: the sheer volume of money that passes hands in this area, of the organised crime links in that space as well.

LINTON BESSER: Paul Phua's son Darren and five of their associates pleaded guilty to a criminal charge of transmitting betting information.

But Paul Phua still had aces up his sleeve.

Even while Paul Phua was under house arrest and awaiting trial in Las Vegas, he called on high-powered friends for help, including Malaysia's home affairs minister, Zahid Hamidi.


From his office here, Hamidi wrote a confidential letter to the FBI saying he was keen to see Paul Phua returned to Malaysia. Incredibly, he also claimed that Phua had routinely assisted his government on matters of national security.

Paul Phua also hired two of the best lawyers money could buy and they persuaded the court that the FBI's search warrant was unconstitutional.

    
Very interesting, & where is one of Paul Phua's favourite places to gamble? - Melbourne's Crown Casino...
MTF..P2   

[Peetwo]

Binger on MH370 this arvo -

Probably the first of many in the upcoming fortnight, courtesy the Oz:

MH370 passenger’s widow sues Malaysia Airlines

• Mitchell Bingemann
  
• The Australian
  

February 24, 2016 5:14PM
A Victorian widow of a man who disappeared on missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 has filed a claim in the Victorian Supreme Court against the airline alleging it was responsible for the death of her husband.

Shine Lawyers filed the writ on February 19 on behalf of Yen Li Chong and the sons of the missing man Chong Ling Tan who was a business class passenger on MH370 when it disappeared somewhere over the Indian Ocean on March 8, 2014.

In the writ, Shine lawyers allege Malaysia Airlines was negligent in its failure to ensure the safe passage of those on the flight and to monitor and track the aircraft at all times.
Families of the 239 passengers aboard the missing Boeing 777 have until March 8 - the two-year anniversary of MH370’s disappearance - to bring compensation claims against Malaysia Airlines.

The claim follows a recent admission by Australian Transport Safety Bureau chief commissioner Martin Dolan – which continues to lead the search for the missing aircraft - that a “rogue pilot” theory previously rejected may need to be re-evaluated in the months ahead.

The writ submitted by Shine addresses the possibility of a rogue pilot being responsible for the disappearance of MH370 saying: “The defendant is vicariously liable for the actions of the defendant’s crew, servants and agents on the flight who tortiously failed to ensure the aircraft safely reached its destination and/or who deliberately altered the course of the aircraft resulting in its loss at sea.”

The Boeing 777 disappeared on a scheduled flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing after radio communication was cut, the aircraft’s radar transponder was turned off, and it flew a course back over the border between Malaysian and Thai airspace.

The writ says Malaysia Airlines was also negligent in failing to ensure crew followed all proper procedures and did not commit any wrongful acts for which the defendant would be vicariously liable.

Compensation claims against the airline must be completed within two years of the date of the disappearance of the aircraft.

If settlements are not reached with Malaysia Airlines by March 8, claims will need to be filed on behalf of victims’ families to protect their rights to pursue compensation.
The disappearance of MH370 falls under the Montreal Convention, which governs many air disaster claims and imposes strict liability on air carriers for injury and death caused by accidents.

The convention prohibits punitive or exemplary damages, and the calculation of damages in any particular case proceeds under the law of the country where a family has chosen to bring their claim.

Air carriers cannot defend claims assessed to be under $190,000 but can fight higher claims if they can prove they weren’t the cause of the accident, or that the accident was caused solely by some other party.

The disappearance of MH370, however, has made it impossible for the airline or authorities to determine the cause of the aircraft’s demise.

The search for MH370 is being carried out by the Dutch Fugro survey group using three vessels: the Fugro Discovery, the Fugro Equator and Havila Harmony. A Chinese vessel has also recently joined the search.

Australia, Malaysia and China have committed to searching 120,000sq km for the missing aircraft.

More than 85,000sq km of the sea floor have been searched so far. It is anticipated that the search of the agreed area will be completed around the middle of the year. Should no credible new information that leads to finding the aircraft be uncovered, the governments have agreed to not expand the search area.

MTF...P2  

[Peetwo]

Binger on MH370 this arvo -

Probably the first of many in the upcoming fortnight, courtesy the Oz:

MH370 passenger’s widow sues Malaysia Airlines

• Mitchell Bingemann
  
• The Australian
  

February 24, 2016 5:14PM
A Victorian widow of a man who disappeared on missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 has filed a claim in the Victorian Supreme Court against the airline alleging it was responsible for the death of her husband.

Update 25 Feb 2016:

MH370: Wife sues for truth behind lost plane

• Mitchell Bingemann
  
• The Australian
  
• February 25, 2016 12:00AM
  

The Victorian widow of a man who disappeared with missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 has filed a damages claim against the airline, alleging it was responsible for his death.



The writ was filed with the Victorian Supreme Court last Friday by Shine Lawyers on behalf of Jennife­r Chong, 48, and her sons Justin and Javier, who lost their ­father, Chong Ling Tan, on the ill-fated flight on March 8, 2014.

Chong was 48 and the chief executive of a Malaysian mining company he had founded when he boarded the flight to Beijing as a business-class passenger.

It disappeared over the Indian­ Ocean.

The claim comes a year after Ms Chong’s Melbourne home was burgled of treasured possessions — including a luxury watch collection belonging to her husband, his jade collection and the couple’s wedding rings.

Ms Chong, with others who created the support group Voice370 for victims of the missing flight, has tirelessly lobbied ­Malaysian authorities and the airline for answers.

But despite millions of dollars spent on searching for the flight, the hunt continues with no clues as to its whereabouts.

“Half of me is gone and the other half is just struggling to survive,” Ms Chong said last year.

“I know that if it were me on the plane, he will do the same, he will never give up on me.

“I want to know the truth. More than anything. And I will not stop till I find my husband.”

In the writ, Shine lawyers allege Malaysia Airlines was negligent in its failure to ensure the safe passage of those on the flight and to monitor and track the aircraft at all times.

It addresses the possibility of a rogue pilot being responsible for the plane’s disappearance, saying: “The defendant is vicariously ­liable for the actions of the defendant’s crew, servants and agents on the flight who tortiously failed to ensure the aircraft safely reached its destination and/or who deliberately altered the course of the aircraft resulting in its loss at sea.’’

The writ says Malaysia Airlines was also negligent in failing to ensur­e crew followed all proper procedures and did not commit wrongful acts for which the defend­ant would be vicariously ­liable.

Shine Lawyers solicitor ­Thomas Janson said the claim was filed to protect Ms Chong and her sons’ rights against Malaysia Airlines, and to help them recover compensation in the wake of the loss of their husband and father.

Families of the 239 passengers aboard the missing Boeing 777 have until March 8 to bring compensation claims against Malaysia Airlines.

The claim follows a recent ­admission by Martin Dolan, the chief commissioner of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, which continues to lead the search for the missing aircraft, that a “rogue pilot” theory previously rejected­ may need to be re-evaluated in the months ahead.

The Boeing 777 disappeared on a scheduled flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing after radio communication was cut, the aircraft’s radar transponder was turned off, and it flew a course back over the border between Malaysian and Thai airspace.

The search for the plane is being carried out by the Dutch Fugro survey group using three vessels. A Chinese vessel has also recently joined the search.

Australia, Malaysia and China have committed to searching an area of 120,000sq km.

MTF...P2

[Peetwo]

One week out from the 2nd anniversary of the tragic disappearance of MH370 & the MSM coverage is beginning to ramp up.

For example there is several regurgitations of this pick of the bunch article by Murray Hunter, courtesy the Asian Correspondent :

2 years on, flight MH370 disappearance remains history’s most baffling aviation mystery

by Murray Hunter | 29th February 2016 |


 


A waiter walks past a mural of flight MH370 in Shah Alam outside Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Pic: AP.

IN early March 2014, the world was captivated in a way never seen before by the news of a missing Malaysian Airlines flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, MH370. The last voice contact with the flight crew was early morning March 8 somewhere over the South China Sea, just over an hour after take-off. Soon after the plane disappeared from Malaysian Air traffic Control radars, but was tracked shortly after flying over the Malay Peninsula, and tracking across the Andaman Sea.

MH370 was a Boeing 777-200ER, which had 227 passengers and 15 crew members aboard that night. This disappearance of the aircraft has led to one of the largest and longest searches in history for the aircraft, which is still going on today in the Southern Indian Ocean, the most probable place authorities believe that plane went down.

MH370 is not the only aviation mystery. There have been a long line of aviation mysteries, many which still have not been solved today. Yet time has allowed other cases to be solved when someone stumbles across wreckage or other artefacts from lost flights. Such a case included a South American Airways Star Dust aircraft that disappeared in 1947. It took 50 years to solve this mystery when glacial ice in the Andes melted, exposing the aircraft wreckage. More recently, the remains of Air France Flight 447, were only found two years after it disappeared.

However the search area for the ill-fated MH370 is hundreds of times more expansive than flight 447.

As the events of March 2014 panned out, several things became clear.

The first thing exposed by the MH370 tragedy was the haphazardness of the Malaysian Government. The early responses of the government were heavily criticized for uncoordinated and sometimes contradictory approach to the disaster. The chief spokesman for the Malaysian Government Defence Minister and acting transport minister was criticized for his smugness, evasiveness, sometimes condescending attitude, and delay in providing information to the families of MH370 passengers and public.

Hishamuddin Hussein, Malaysia’s acting transport minister at the time of MH370’s disappearance. Pic: AP.

It took Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak a week before he appeared on television after the plane vanished. This delay made Malaysia appear very unprofessional to people who were not familiar with the political culture of Malaysia.

The families and relatives of the missing were particularly critical of the search operation. Critical time was lost searching for flight MH370 in the South China Sea. Voice370, representing the families of the passengers, accused the Malaysian government of a cover-up. The families and relatives of the passengers, mainly Chinese nationals, were angered by the coarseness of an English language text announcement that said, “we have to assume beyond all reasonable doubt that MH370 has been lost and all those on board haven’t survived”. This led to Chinese protests outside the Malaysian Embassy in Beijing.

Almost two years since the disappearance of flight MH370, criticism still persists about Malaysia Airlines safety issues. Malaysia Airlines has performed very poorly financially since the disappearance of MH370, the shooting down of MH17, and boycotts by Chinese that brought a reported 50 percent drop in passengers compared to the previous year.
The Malaysian government’s poor response to the MH370 disappearance showed up both the lack of transparency and the dismal state of the Malaysian media, which has been shackled for years. Ministers and public officials were not used to the scrutiny the international media put them under.

The second issue was the poor coordination between civil and military authorities. This is not unique to Malaysia, the same problem purportedly occurred during the 911 terrorist attacks in the United States in 2001. Although flight MH370 was detected by Malaysian military radar crossing the Malay Peninsula soon after the final voice communication to Kuala Lumpur Air Traffic Control, it took civil authorities a number of days before they moved the search from the South China Sea to the Andaman Sea and Indian Ocean. Vietnam also expressed concerns that Malaysia was not forthcoming with new information.

This leads onto the third issue of international defence capabilities and cooperation. MH370 must have come up as a radar signature across Vietnam, Thailand, and Indonesia. According to reports, it was only after MH370 had disappeared for nine days that the Thais informed the Malaysians that they had picked up an unidentified flight crossing the Malay Peninsula. According to Indonesian authorities no unidentified flight was ever picked up on radar, which hints that either the system wasn’t being used or MH370 very skilfully flew along the boundaries of the radar detection area of Indonesia.

This raises questions about ASEAN military surveillance capabilities.

Given that military authorities may be hesitant to disclose the extent of their respective early warning radar systems, The Mail suggests that air defences may not be what they are supposed to be.

The delay in sharing vital information with Malaysia shows the poor state of defence cooperation within the region.

The fact that a large modern airliner could just disappear has been met with much disbelief, leading to a number of conspiracy theories.

Some claim that the aircraft was hijacked by North Korea for the new technologies that Boeing 777 has incorporated within the plane. U.S. science writer Jeff Wise, who regularly appears on CNN, postulated that the aircraft flew north rather than south into the Indian Ocean and landed in Kazakhstan. Another theory is that the United States shot down the plane to ensure a drone shot down by the Taliban over Afghanistan with secret technology in the cargo bay didn’t get into the hands of the Chinese. A variation on this theory is that the aircraft was forcibly taken to a U.S. base on the Indian Ocean Island of Diego Garcia, where the crew and passengers are captives.

Conspiracy theorists put weight on the fact that 20 employees of a semi-conductor company Freescale Semiconductor, which develops components for hi-tech military weapons and navigation systems, were on board MH370. Their disappearance, according to some, could have been the result of stealth technology this group had been working on. Others have proposed that the disappearance of these engineers allowed a member of the Rothschild family to secure sole ownership of an important patent.

Still more theories speculate the plane’s disappearance was about a life insurance scam; the plane was captured and exchanged for MH17 which was shot down over the Ukraine, later in August 2014; the plane was cyber-jacked electronically; and the plane was abducted by aliens.

Even though fragments of MH370 found on Reunion Island and have been confirmed as parts of MH370, there are some who claim that the pieces are fake.

The Malaysian government has said debris found on the island of Reunion last year is from flight MH370. Image via Twitter.

Debris found washed up on a beach along the East Coast of Thailand last month was suspected of being parts of MH370, until this was discounted by aviation authorities in Bangkok.

The initial suspicion on the disappearance of MH370 was related to two passengers using false passports. This indicated a possible hijacking. The turn flight MH370 made over the South China Sea and around Indonesian territory appeared to support this deliberate act. News that the co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid had allowed passengers into the cockpit during a previous flight also made this theory appear plausible.

The phone call Fariq was reported to have tried to make over Penang even adds more weight to the MH370 disappearance being a deliberate act. However, upon investigation of all the passengers and crew, no links to terrorism was ever made with anybody on the flight. This only exposed a lapse in security as the two passports of the passengers involved where actually on the Interpol database, but not checked by Malaysian Immigration.

This doesn’t count out a disturbed member of the crew having a ‘death-wish’ and using the flight to commit suicide. The captain could have locked the co-pilot out of the cockpit.

This scenario happened on a Silk Air flight some years ago where the captain lost his savings on the stock-market and committed suicide, and with Egypt Air flight 990 where the co-pilot committed suicide by diving the plane straight into the sea.

The latest explanation by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATAC) suggests a power failure, which probably disabled avionic systems where the plane would have flown on auto-pilot until fuel was exhausted, where it would turn into a spiral nose dive going straight into the Southern Indian Ocean. The rebooting of the ACARS system which transmits engine data to the ground suggests a power failure. The lithium batteries in the cargo hold could have been a source of that fire which disabled electronic systems, vital to control and manage a sophisticated aircraft like a Boeing 777. Lithium batteries have caused fires on aircraft before. This is what happened to a South African Airways flight in 1987.

The crew and passengers may have been disabled through hypoxia, where the plane flew on autopilot. This could have been a similar scenario to the Helios Airlines Flight 522 crash in 2005, where two jets were scrambled and the pilots saw all the passengers incapacitated, with the flight eventually crashing after it ran out of fuel.

However this explanation doesn’t explain the apparent deliberate flight around Aceh, where MH370 avoided Indonesian radar. This would have to be a carefully planned part of the flight. This scenario points to a purposeful act, and MH370 could have been a hijacking gone wrong, something like Ethiopia Airways Flight 961, where the plane ran out of fuel and crashed into the sea in 1996.

Although it was confirmed pieces of wreckage washed up on Reunion Island where part of MH370, what happened and the whereabouts of the fuselage and remains of the passengers and crew still remain a mystery. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau’s Chief Commissioner Martin Dolan said that the search effort will now have to retrace some previously searched locations due to the complexity of the ocean surface and possibility the wreckage may have been missed. The search has been extremely hazardous, resulting in a loss of the deep water sonar which hit an underwater volcano and sank to the bottom of the ocean a few weeks ago.

Pic: AP.

A French team is currently developing another theory of what happened to flight MH370 based upon the piece of wreckage washed up on Reunion Island, which was found in an unexpected location in relation to the targeted search area. Another report expected to be released by the Malaysian Government on the second anniversary of the plane’s disappearance may incorporate this theory in the report.

The truth about MH370 is that we don’t really know what happened on that night of March 8, 2014, how the flight ended, and what became of the passengers and aircraft. Everything the authorities have said is pure speculation. The black box data recorder holds all the secrets to the doomed flight. This needs to be recovered before the truth can be known with certainty.

Even with all the technology we have today, the Earth is larger than we think. Satellite photography, the U.S. ability to identify any missile launch on the face of the Earth, aviation procedures and protocols, and defence surveillance around the globe failed to notice and find a rogue aircraft, even post 911.

Ideas are needed and resources allocated to help prevent this scenario ever happening again. However almost two years after the disappearance of MH370, nothing has been put in place to enable the tracking of rogue aircraft, should they deviate from flight plans and procedures.

Solutions exist and are in practice. Over the vast region of Hudson Bay, radar blind spots are covered by approximations using flight plans, GPS, and broadcasts under an Automatic Dependent Surveillance – Broadcast (ADSB) system. Such systems are not operating over Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean. The MH370 tragedy indicates that the skies over the region are not being watched closely at all. This lack of diligent surveillance has made the search for MH370 the most costly in history.

With the present search only planned to continue until June this year, relatives and loved ones of the people on MH370 may not get closure for two or three generations to come.
Authorities are now beginning to return to some of the original hypothesized theories to explore the MH370 disappearance further, such as a flame out or rogue pilot scenario similar to the Andreas Lubitz case where he deliberately crashed a Germanwings Airbus A320-211 into the French Alps. The questions about whether the pilot deliberately turned off the transponder over the South China Sea will probably be open to debate once again.

The mystery of MH370 may only be finally put to rest in the later part of this century, and this may only happen by accident.

Expect many MTF...P2

[Peetwo]

Today in the MSM and the Aviation press, there is a developing story on another suspected B777 piece of debris discovered on the coast of Mozambique.

First courtesy AvWeb:

Possible MH370 Part Found 

By AVweb staff | March 2, 2016

Related Articles

• NTSB: Chain Of Choices Behind Alaska Crash
  
• Drunks On A Plane
  
• Pilot Left Hanging After Crash
  
• Turboprop Crashes In Nepal; Two Pilots Killed
  

image: NBC News

An object that could be a piece of a Boeing 777 has been found on a sandbank in the Mozambique Channel, between Africa and Madagascar, and is being examined by investigators searching for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, sources told NBC News today. "The object has the words "NO STEP" on it and could be from the plane's horizontal stabilizer — the wing-like parts attached to the tail, sources say," according to NBC News.

The object was discovered by an American who has been blogging about the search for MH370, which disappeared nearly two years ago. The find has not yet been confirmed or verified by authorities, but investigators have seen photographs of the latest object and sources told NBC there is a good chance it comes from a Boeing 777.

And from Ben Sandilands, courtesy of PT on Crikey this am:

Remote chance that MH370 part has been found in Mozambique

Ben Sandilands | Mar 03, 2016 3:42AM |

The Mozambique Channel as shown by the NBC

Updated  The possibility that another part of missing flight MH370 has been found on a sandbank in the Mozambique Channel is under scrutiny, but positive identification is yet to be made.


The NBC News report about the potential discovery doesn’t name the private investigator who found what superficially looks like part of the horizontal stabiliser of the Malayasia Airlines Boeing 777-200ER .

His identity is known to Plane Talking but he had requested through other parties that it not be given out pending further investigation of the find.

However since then an online article on the Society site in French revealed his identity as Blaine Gibson and published photos of his find. Gibson is recognised as a serious and methodical researcher into the disappearance of MH370 on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on 8 March 2014 with 239 people onboard.

The immediate unresolved issues with the object recovered is that it shows no signs of having been immersed in the sea for any length of time and displays a honeycombed aluminium and composite structure that needs to be confirmed as having been used in that part of the Boeing 777 model in question.

However it does have the words NO STEP on part of the structure, which is consistent with sensitive control surfaces on airliners in general. As shown in the linked NBC report, the horizontal stabilisers on a low wing jet like the 777 are the short or stubby fin like wings at the base of the vertical stabiliser or tail of the jet.

The photos of the piece of debris have been shown to the ATSB and Malaysian authorities and Boeing, none of whom have made any official comment at this stage.

The only other confirmed MH370 debris is that of a flaperon from the main wing of the missing 777 which was recovered from the shores of La Reunion island in July last year.
The relationship between La Reunion and south eastern Africa is shown on the diagram (top of page) that the NBC broadcast in its report.

This part of the Indian Ocean has been identified in some studies as a possible destination for debris from MH370 which is generally believed to have come down in the southern Indian Ocean, SW of Perth after it ran out of fuel about seven and a half hours after takeoff.

The last satellite relayed ping from a maintenance and engine performance computer on MH370 occurred some seven hours 38 minutes after takeoff, and implied according to search strategists advising the ATSB managed sea floor search, that the jet was out of control and possibly inverted before impact.

At the end of the French article Mr Gibson says, in colloquial terms “I’m not affirming any view. I don’t believe in any conspiracy theories. I think, as we have to, that the plane will be found one day. Until then I say we have to seek the evidence.”

MTF..P2

[Peetwo]

Today in the MSM and the Aviation press, there is a developing story on another suspected B777 piece of debris discovered on the coast of Mozambique.

First courtesy AvWeb:

Possible MH370 Part Found 

By AVweb staff | March 2, 2016

Related Articles

• NTSB: Chain Of Choices Behind Alaska Crash
  
• Drunks On A Plane
  
• Pilot Left Hanging After Crash
  
• Turboprop Crashes In Nepal; Two Pilots Killed
  

image: NBC News

An object that could be a piece of a Boeing 777 has been found on a sandbank in the Mozambique Channel, between Africa and Madagascar, and is being examined by investigators searching for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, sources told NBC News today. "The object has the words "NO STEP" on it and could be from the plane's horizontal stabilizer — the wing-like parts attached to the tail, sources say," according to NBC News.

The object was discovered by an American who has been blogging about the search for MH370, which disappeared nearly two years ago. The find has not yet been confirmed or verified by authorities, but investigators have seen photographs of the latest object and sources told NBC there is a good chance it comes from a Boeing 777.

And from Ben Sandilands, courtesy of PT on Crikey this am:

Remote chance that MH370 part has been found in Mozambique

Ben Sandilands | Mar 03, 2016 3:42AM |

The Mozambique Channel as shown by the NBC

Updated  The possibility that another part of missing flight MH370 has been found on a sandbank in the Mozambique Channel is under scrutiny, but positive identification is yet to be made.


The NBC News report about the potential discovery doesn’t name the private investigator who found what superficially looks like part of the horizontal stabiliser of the Malayasia Airlines Boeing 777-200ER .

His identity is known to Plane Talking but he had requested through other parties that it not be given out pending further investigation of the find.

However since then an online article on the Society site in French revealed his identity as Blaine Gibson and published photos of his find. Gibson is recognised as a serious and methodical researcher into the disappearance of MH370 on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on 8 March 2014 with 239 people onboard.

The immediate unresolved issues with the object recovered is that it shows no signs of having been immersed in the sea for any length of time and displays a honeycombed aluminium and composite structure that needs to be confirmed as having been used in that part of the Boeing 777 model in question.

However it does have the words NO STEP on part of the structure, which is consistent with sensitive control surfaces on airliners in general. As shown in the linked NBC report, the horizontal stabilisers on a low wing jet like the 777 are the short or stubby fin like wings at the base of the vertical stabiliser or tail of the jet.

The photos of the piece of debris have been shown to the ATSB and Malaysian authorities and Boeing, none of whom have made any official comment at this stage.

The only other confirmed MH370 debris is that of a flaperon from the main wing of the missing 777 which was recovered from the shores of La Reunion island in July last year.
The relationship between La Reunion and south eastern Africa is shown on the diagram (top of page) that the NBC broadcast in its report.

This part of the Indian Ocean has been identified in some studies as a possible destination for debris from MH370 which is generally believed to have come down in the southern Indian Ocean, SW of Perth after it ran out of fuel about seven and a half hours after takeoff.

The last satellite relayed ping from a maintenance and engine performance computer on MH370 occurred some seven hours 38 minutes after takeoff, and implied according to search strategists advising the ATSB managed sea floor search, that the jet was out of control and possibly inverted before impact.

At the end of the French article Mr Gibson says, in colloquial terms “I’m not affirming any view. I don’t believe in any conspiracy theories. I think, as we have to, that the plane will be found one day. Until then I say we have to seek the evidence.”

Update: Today the new Minister Darren Chester, responsible for aviation & MH370, made a statement in Parliament:

Statement to mark the second anniversary of the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370

Media Release
DC005/2016
03 March 2016

Mr Speaker—Tuesday 8th of March 2016 marks two years since the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. Members will recall that the scheduled flight between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing disappeared with 239 people on board, including seven people who called Australia home, six of them Australian citizens.

It is fitting that today we take time to remember the people on board the aircraft and those who grieve for them.

For the families and friends of those on board, the last two years has been nothing short of harrowing; intensified by the protracted uncertainty around the circumstances in which the aircraft disappeared. We share the burden of this sorrow.

The Australian Government is working systematically and intensively to locate the aircraft, together with our search partners, Malaysia and China.

We have utilised the skills of international experts to identify the most likely resting place of the aircraft and are using cutting edge technology to scour the ocean floor. Around 90,000 square kilometres of the seafloor have been searched so far—of a total search area of 120,000 square kilometres.

Through our collective efforts, we hope to locate the aircraft and give some comfort to the family and friends of those on board and help us understand what happened to flight MH370.  Regrettably the aircraft may never be found and we may never know what happened.

Members of the House may be aware that a piece of debris, approximately one metre in length, has been found on a beach in Mozambique- a location consistent with drift modelling commissioned by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau. This piece of debris will be transferred to Australia for assessment. It is too early to speculate on the origin of the debris at this stage.

I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the work of the crew on the search vessels. These men and women work around the clock to keep the ship moving while highly skilled technicians on board analyse a constant stream of sonar data. They work in often treacherous conditions for weeks at a time, away from their homes and loved ones, to carry out this important mission.  I know they have been deeply affected by the tragedy of MH370 and that they are keenly aware of the hope many have invested in them. I thank all those involved for their sustained efforts.

As we search the remaining area, I remain hopeful the aircraft will be found. I assure the family and friends of those on board that their loved ones have not been forgotten and remain in our thoughts.

 

MTF...P2

[Peetwo]

MH370 2nd Anniversary -  'That Man' kicks off the Weekend Oz expose on the, soon to be terminated, search effort for the tragically still missing flight MH370:

Rogue or romantic, Malaysian flight MH370 pilot stays in picture

• Ean Higgins
  
• The Australian
  
• March 5, 2016 12:00AM
  

Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak, centre, briefs the media on Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.
Elements of an extraordinary hijack plan have been carried out before, most notably this Northwest Airlines 727 flight that was hijacked in 1971 by DB Cooper.

Two years on from the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, some have it that its captain, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, is happily ensconced with his new lover somewhere, living under a new identity, having engaged in an elaborate scheme to fake his own death.

“I surmised that the aircraft descended to a lower altitude and circled over Penang as the captain’s lover, or his rescuer, lived there,” Qantas’s former manager of flight training, veteran airline pilot David Shrubb, says in corres­pondence with The Weekend Australian.

“He then set the auto flight system to take the aircraft to a destination where he hoped the world would never find it,” says Shrubb, a former president of the Australian Federation of Air Pilots as well as a former board member of Air­services Australia.

“He then reduced speed and with his parachute, which he had put on board, opened an over-wing exit and jumped out. He had arranged to fall into the water and that he would be picked up.”

As Shrubb correctly points out, elements of such an extraordinary plan have been carried out before.

On November 24, 1971, on a Northwest Orient Airlines flight from Portland, Oregon, to Seattle, Washington, an unassuming man in a business suit called over a flight attendant and showed her what was in his briefcase: a collection of wires, switches, and other objects.

He threatened to blow up the aircraft if he did not get four parachutes and a $US200,000 ransom.

When the plane landed in Seattle, the man, since known as DB Cooper, let the passengers and two of the flight attendants off the plane, and officials handed over the money in $US20 bills plus the parachutes.

Once the aircraft took off again, Cooper told the pilots to “fly to Mexico” — real slow and real low.

At some point soon thereafter Cooper bailed out of the lowered rear stairway of the Boeing 727, having left behind in the cabin his clip-on tie.

He remains missing, despite an extensive manhunt and an ongoing investigation.

Like other MH370 theories, this one includes a motive for why Zaharie would have attempted such a feat. “He wanted to leave his wife — quite a big deal for a Muslim,” Shrubb says.

He also posits a motive for why the aircraft was directed to one of the most remote and deepest corners of the seven seas, the southern Indian Ocean.

“If ever found there, it would show no captain on board and a door open.”

Some might find Shrubb’s explanation for the disappearance of MH370 farfetched.

For K -"But it can’t be ruled out any more than the other, more popular, theories out there."

Pretty much everyone agrees that whatever happened on MH370, it involved deliberate human intervention, so any ­credible explanation has to include some bizarre motives and behaviour.

The scenarios all have elements of precedent and are consistent with the known facts, which, in brief review, are as follows.

On March 8, 2014, on a scheduled flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, the last radio communication from the Boeing 777 came from Zaharie an hour into the night flight as Malaysian air traffic control handed over to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam:
“Good night. Malaysian three seven zero.”

After that the radar transponder was turned off, the aircraft turned back and flew over the Malaysia-Thai border as picked up by military radar, passed over Zaharie’s home island of Penang, and then turned south on a long final leg.

Automatic hourly electronic “handshakes” with a satellite tracked its movements to the southern Indian Ocean for seven hours, the last producing a notional flight path along what’s known as the “seventh arc”.

A flaperon, or controllable part of the trailing edge of the wing, washed up on the French Indian Ocean island of Reunion in July last year and has been identified as part of MH370.

And just this week, it emerged that a 1m-long piece of material, thought by some aviation observers to be consistent with being part of the tail of MH370, was found on a beach in Mozambique. It is being transferred to Australia for examination.

Transport Minister Darren Chester issued a release saying “the location of the debris is consistent with drift modelling commissioned by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau and reaffirms the search area for MH370 in the southern Indian Ocean”.

The established facts are enough for a range of propositions to be possible, but insufficient to rule any of them out, creating the ideal circumstances for informed speculation in the aviation community.

The most popular theory among airline pilots and aviation experts is that Zaharie hijacked his own aircraft and flew it right to the end, possibly as an act of protest against what is widely seen as the politically inspired prosecution of his relative and idol, Malaysian opposition figure Anwar Ibrahim.

At least a half dozen such pilot suicides on airliners have occurred over the past 30 years or so, the scenario usually involving the pilot or co-pilot locking the other out of the cockpit.

One proponent of the “rogue pilot” theory, Australian airline captain Byron Bailey, argues the discovery of the flaperon and the new debris, if it does turn out to be part of MH370’s tail, supports the controlled ditch theory because they could have been the pieces that broke off and remained afloat before the otherwise intact aircraft sank, leaving little debris.

Bailey has fought a running battle with the ATSB, which has described the rogue pilot theory as “very unlikely”. Critics say this is a ploy designed to avoid embarrassing the Malaysian government.

The ATSB has based its search strategy on a “ghost flight” model of the pilots being unconscious.

A related suggestion is that after the last turn south, Zaharie depressurised the aircraft and sent himself and the 238 other people on board to what in some respects is a relatively painless, even pleasant, death through hypoxia, or lack of oxygen.

There are cases of aircraft slowly losing cabin pressure at high altitude, sending the passengers and crew to sleep, with the aircraft flying on via autopilot — but not involving big airliners, which have cabin pressure alarms.

And there’s a YouTube video of a Royal Air Force depressurisation simulation in which the subject officer becomes light-headed, then drunk-like, with a silly smile on his face and unable to perform simple tasks like putting pegs into holes.

After the exercise, the video shows the officer saying he felt it was all quite fun and amusing as he started to drift towards unconsciousness.

Deliberate depressurisation also fits into Shrubb’s theory, but in a different way.

He suggests Zaharie locked the co-pilot out of the cabin, put on his oxygen mask, depressurised the aircraft, and allowed the passengers to run out of their limited oxygen and pass out while he enjoyed the longer supply available to ­pilots, and then bailed out from a safe over-wing exit.

Another construct, put forward by the ATSB recently in what critics say is a way of working on the “rogue pilot” theory without having to say so publicly, is that a ­hijacker among the passengers, who knew how to fly, took over the aircraft and glided it to the end after fuel ran out.

Again, there’s a well-established precedent for part of it: the al-Qa’ida terrorists in the 9/11 hijacks had learned to fly, and flew the planes after taking them over.

The pattern in the past has been that air crash investigators continue their search for lost aircraft — and eventually find them, as in the case of Air France flight 447, whose black boxes took two years to retrieve after it crashed into the Atlantic on a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris in 2009.

But two years on, MH370 remains a mystery.

As former US airline captain John Cox, who now runs an international air safety consultancy and has participated in several major air crash investigations, tells The Weekend Australian, this is almost unheard of in the modern age.

“I do not know of any case of a jet airliner with fare-paying passengers on board that has been lost and not found,” Cox says.

“We, as a society, have made an effort to find and solve aviation accidents. In some cases it has taken years and millions of dollars, but we have done it.”

The fact the riddle of MH370 remains unsolved renders it an engrossing subject for media, the aviation community, and the general public — the ultimate barbecue stopper.
It also means that for those close to the victims, there is no closure.

“For the families and friends of those on board, the last two years have been nothing short of harrowing, intensified by the protracted uncertainty around the circumstances in which the aircraft disappeared,” Chester said in a statement this week ahead of Tuesday’s anniversary.

Jeanette Maguire, who lost her sister, Queenslander Cathy Lawton, on MH370, is one Australian still going through the anguish of not knowing.

“You have a lot of faith in the search program (but) the realisation is that you have this thought in the back of your head: What happens if they don’t find it?” Maguire tells The Weekend Australian. She has resisted falling in behind any particular theory.

“In our own mind, we have to stay completely neutral,” she says.
“You could end up with a lot of trouble mentally.”

In the next few months Chester is going to have to lead a discussion with China and Malaysia — and Australian taxpayers — on an excruciating decision.

The underwater search, being conducted primarily by three vessels of the Dutch Fugro marine survey group, commissioned by the three countries in an operation expected to cost $180 million, is due to end in June once the target search zone of 120,000sq km has been covered.

This week an international group of relatives and friends of victims, under the banner Voice370, issued an anguished plea to the governments to keep going.

“We believe that they should not throw in the towel, close this case and simply chalk it up as an unsolvable mystery,” the statement says.

Maguire says she would, of course, prefer the hunt to keep going. “I would totally love them to be able to do that, to continue on the search,” she says.

But she also gives an indication that in her heart, she’s bracing for Chester to say he cannot in good conscience commit more Australian taxpayer dollars to the project, and that China and Malaysia also think it’s time to call it quits.

“It does have a limit to the resources,” Maguire says.

“You have to be realistic: who is going to fund this?”

 
MTF...P2  

Ps Good to see Higgins put some effort into that one, with comments across a wide spectrum of MH370 DIPs & NOKs - good effort 'that man'...