[Gobbledock]

Aussie, just a thought out loud;

- What are the serious chances of a piece of wreckage being found that contains human skeleton(s)? For a land crash at stall speed, perhaps yes. But a 777 into the ocean, especially if at high speed, surely not?

- As above, the impact forces would have ejected the bodies and most would be fragmented. None would be strapped in to seats still, no chance.

- Then again if the aircraft stalled and it was a flat spin into the ocean then perhaps some bodies would remain intact and be strapped into their seats or found inside some broken fueselage, but still it is unlikely as the forces would still be immense and those seatbelts would've all snapped instantly on impact with many passengers ejected.

- Now if MH370 did an Ethiopian FL961 then maybe passengers would be found strapped to their seats still, true. But even if MH370 just ran out of fuel and tried a water ditching I just don't see this happenning in the dark, dead of night, where sea meets horizon. With the amount of alarms going off, the criticality of the situation, loss of situational awareness and instruments spitting out all sorts of spurious and frightening data I do not believe that in the dark this aircraft made a 'sea landing'.

With regards to the latest finding my money is on the remains belonging to a different air crash, one that has crashed on land not into the sea. But hell, what would I know, surely the font of investigative capability, Martin 'Beaker' Dolan would have this covered?

[aussie500]

I do not see how the wreckage in the Philippines could be anything to do with MH370. It could not drift that far, if it had crashed near there debris would have turned up sooner. The QZ8501 co-pilot was still strapped in as far as I remember. A lot of the passengers were still strapped in their seats, although the seats were no longer attached to the plane (just like MH17). The cockpit of QZ8501 was not recovered although they said they found it, I do not think they recovered the captains body. I find it hard to believe a bit of the cockpit could have drifted that far though. And they made a big thing out of the Captain not being in his seat at the time of the crash.

We never found out what happened to Flying Tiger 739, but two identical planes went down on the same day, departing from the same airport, so maybe like MH17, it just fell from the sky in bits. And a military plane is more likely to have a flag on board.

Edit
This report might make more sense
http://english.astroawani.com/malaysia-n...tion-76095

I would think it was old wreckage, any plane crashes on an island that small they should have noticed.

Either way it is not an ATSB responsibility, it is not in our area, so nothing to do with Martin Dolan unless he chooses to go take a look and make sure for himself. I could think of a better place he could look for MH370.

I would not give any credibility to the bit about the Malaysian flag supposedly being on the side of the wreckage, the media seems to have added that.

[P7_TOM]

It would be ‘nice’ (if that’s the right word) to find Tiger 739; there cannot be too many large passenger aircraft unaccounted for.  Just how many can there be 'tethered in the Philippines ?

Thing catches my interest is why within hours of the ‘report’ surfacing was there not an aerial search despatched and boots on the ground shortly thereafter; surely, even if to discount or confirm the ‘report’, there would be a very rapid, even if a modest, low budget response.  Couple of fishermen and a camera would do.

[aussie500]

Aerial search after all this time would see nothing, island is covered by jungle, I doubt someone flying over would see anything. Asking the locals about a plane crashing on the island is not likely to lead to anything either. They would have all noticed a B777 or anything else crashing on their tiny island and reported it long before now. The report was made in Malaysia, the island is in the Philippines, they cannot just rush over and inspect inspect it, have to go through channels.

It could be a military plane lost during the war, or hopefully Tiger 739. If it proves to be real, at least someone, some where is finally going to know what happened to their loved ones, and it will be one more lost plane found. But we could do without the media assuming every bit of plane wreckage seen is MH370.

[aussie500]

Here are some other planes that have apparently been lost around that way.
https://www.reddit.com/r/MH370/comments/...ilippines/

[Peetwo]

Recent update first from news.com.au:

Claims plane wreckage found in the Philippines could be MH370

October 13, 20153:17pm

REPORTS that a Malaysia Airlines plane wreckage had been found in the heart of the Filipino jungle have been unfounded.

Malaysia’s Police Chief General Khalid Abu Bakar said Philippine authorities had investigated the claims made over the weekend that a plane with a Malaysian flag and human remains inside had been found on the island of Sugbay in the Tawi Tawi province were untrue.

“The Philippines has confirmed there is no plane wreckage,” the state-run Bernama news agency quoted General Khalid as saying in a text message.

On Saturday, a man reported in Sandakan police station in the Malaysian part of Borneo that his nephew found aircraft wreckage, which could be part of the missing flight MH370.

Jamil Omar, a local audiovisual technician, told old Malaysian TV channel Astro Awani that his newphew and a few of his friends were out hunting for birds when they stumbled on the plane in early September.

They reportedly found skeletons in the pilot’s chair and cabin as well as a piece of cloth said to be a Malaysian flag.

Mr Omar, who doesn’t live on the island, said his aunt, who had been visiting him in Sabah, told him about the find.

“The residents on the island hunt birds for food and build their houses on the water. They don’t watch television and as such they have no knowledge of the outside world,” Mr Omar told Astro Awani.

“She (Siti Kayam, his aunt) was shocked to learn that the item, that was removed from the aircraft wreckage as claimed by the teenager, was the Malaysian flag.”

Mr Omar said the piece of cloth was still intact but had already been washed and added that several police officers had come to his home to record his aunt’s statement and took the piece of cloth with them.

Despite the location of the wreckage being far from the current official search area as well as Reunion Island, where the flaperon of the missing airliner washed ashore, the Malaysian government took the claims seriously and directed it’s Civil Aviation department and the Ministry’s Air Accident Investigation Division to look into the matter, Channel News Asia reported.

Malaysia’s police also said it would investigate the claims.

“There was no photograph to support the claim so we are relying on our counterpart to check,” Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar, told reporters on Sunday, adding that it could take one or two days before anything could be verified, The International Business Times reported.

Filipino police were also said to be baffled by the claims saying they have not had any reports of a plane crashing on any of their island, which ws confirmed today.

“We will check it out but if there is any aircraft that has gone down in our area there would have been alerts from civil aviation authorities.


“To date, there has been none,” Maguindanao-based Regional Chief Directorial Staff Senior Superintedent Rodoleo Jocson told The Star online.

“There have been no reports to our provincial police in Tawi Tawi of any aircraft wreckage being found as well.

Last month, French authorities confirmed a flaperon found on the shore of Reunion Island belonged to MH370.

The piece of the missing airliner was found by locals on the island on July 29.
A spokesman for the Australian Transport Safety Bureau told news.com.au the report of aircraft debris being found in the Philippines was being investigated.

“All the evidence to date, including the flaperon found on La Reunion which has been confirmed to be from MH370, points towards the aircraft being in the southern Indian Ocean,” he said.

 
And next from PT:

MH370 wreckage ‘find’ might ‘just’ be missing Flying Tiger Connie

Ben Sandilands | Oct 13, 2015 12:57PM |


Another Flying Tiger Super Connie at London Gatwick in 1964

Until MH370 vanished last year the largest missing passenger airliner was the Flying Tiger Line Lockheed Super Constellation that was carrying 107 people on a US military charter when it vanished in the western Pacific on 16 March, 1962.

It is just possible, remotely possible, that it has been found on a Philippine island near the NW tip of Sabah, a part of Malaysia, and mistaken for the lost Malaysia Airlines 777-200 that disappeared on 8 March 2014 with 239 people on board.

However the reports of wreckage including ‘many’ skeletons being found in jungle on Sugbay Island are unconfirmed, and burdened with confusion, contradiction and at this stage a seriously puzzling lack of real evidence.

One of the current reports about this find can be read here. Those who have been watching the story unfold have seen the discovery of plane wreckage and skeletons being variously credited to small boys looking for birds eggs, or to their grandmother, with the recovery of an apparently little damaged Malaysia flag as a souvenir.

A pilot is said to be seated upright in the cockpit, wearing communications gear on his head.

This is a frustrating story at this stage, putting aside the location of the wreckage, far from MH370′s claimed location somewhere in the southern Indian Ocean, even though it isn’t geographically far from where the Malaysia Airlines jet was last observed as a transponder identified object over the Gulf of Thailand, at the point where the crew had signed out of Malaysia controlled airspace and were presumed to be about to sign on with Vietnam’s ATC system as they followed their flight plan to Beijing.

There are three obvious possibilities at this stage.

The first is that the story is a hoax. The second is that it is MH370, and the third is that it an older lost airliner.

It is not impossible that Tiger Airways 739 came down on Sugbay Island, although it is further west than sightings of fireballs widely believed to have been caused by an explosion on the Super Constellation before it crashed into the ocean. It is also somewhat to the west of the intended track of a DC-3 freighter with only four people on board that vanished on an internal flight in the Philippines in 1982, which would not fit with ‘many’ skeletons.

There is a factual account of Tiger Airways 739 on the Wikipedia site.

There is supposed to be some resolution of the truth or otherwise of the wreckage find on Sugbay island in the Tawi-Tawi archipelago within a day.  This should have been possible in a much shorter interval, given that a television crew has already interviewed the grandmother, and an island location that was claimed to be accessible to youngsters bird nesting could not have been too far away.

Therefore, this story may have a disappointing ending, but there might still be alive, friends and family of  those who died on Flying Tiger 739 all those years ago, who might find comfort from knowing where their loved ones came to rest, as would those who grieve for the victims of MH370.

MTF..P2

[Gobbledock]

Even if it is the Connie the wreck would be extremely overgrown after half a century in the jungle, those kids would have had a rude shock as they climbed through the undergrowth and tree branches looking for eggs and found skeletons instead, but it's certainly plausible.

Too early to call, but the sun gods have an interesting way of identifying themselves. Maybe the positive out of the MH370 negative disappearance will be the discovery of an additional lost aircraft, bringing closure to the relatives/descendants of those missing since 1962? If this is the case, then all I can say is welcome home lost travellers, you may now R.I.P.

Gobbles

[Kharon]

Clive Irving – Daily Beast - with a down to earth proposition from Boeing and the FAA.  Even if this did not cause the MH 370 event, it’s got to worth more than a passing thought.

The Daily Beast asked Boeing specific questions about these three critical points—about the effectiveness of the 777’s fire suppression system in the event of a battery-initiated fire, about whether consignments of batteries should ever be shipped on trans-oceanic flights and whether there was empirical evidence that placing such consignments in particular locations in the cargo bays represented a greater danger than placing them in other locations.

A Boeing spokesman, Doug Alder, responded: “We aren’t going to provide specifics.”

FWIW - 

[Kharon]

Brock Mc and Paris match attempt to shed light, reason and logic.  Sunday reading:-

HERE and THERE

Much more on twitter – but it’s a specialist job (hint)….

[aussie500]

The current myth doing the rounds is that because the ATSB have not found MH370 yet, they must be getting close to finding it.
http://www.ibtimes.com/flight-mh370-sear...is-2173013

If it was not so serious, that would be a joke.

[Peetwo]

The current myth doing the rounds is that because the ATSB have not found MH370 yet, they must be getting close to finding it.

Flight MH370 Search Update: Amid Indian Ocean Floor Scan, Bad Weather, Appendicitis Complicate Efforts, But 'They Must Be Getting Close'

By Julia Glum @superjulia j.glum@ibtimes.com on November 06 2015 10:28 AM EST



French investigators look at a map indicating actions in the search for wreckage from the missing MH370 airliner on Réunion Island, Aug. 14, 2015. Getty Images

The search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, nicknamed MH370, has officially swept 70,000 of the 120,000 square kilometers of the Indian Ocean floor it intends to check for evidence. According to an operational search update from the Australian Joint Agency Coordination Centre posted this week, investigators have been struggling with "unfavorable" conditions that have complicated their efforts to find the mysterious aircraft. But they could soon move past them.

"Weather continues to impact ... search operations, but conditions are expected to be improved over the coming months," the update read. "The safety of the search crews, as always, remains a priority, and the vessels and equipment utilized will vary to reflect operational needs."

MH370 vanished March 8, 2014, en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. The 239 people on board are presumed dead, and the plane -- a Boeing 777 -- is presumed to have crashed, but little debris has turned up to support that theory. The only discovery came this past July, when a flaperon wing fragment was found on Réunion Island.

Two survey vessels, the Fugro Discovery and Fugro Equator, were scanning the ocean floor for debris. The Equator was scheduled to return to the Australian port city of Fremantle to resupply while the Discovery used a towed sonar system to search, but the Discovery hit a snag Thursday. A crew member was diagnosed with likely appendicitis, forcing the ship also to return to Fremantle, according to the agency.

Meanwhile, aviation expert David Learmount wrote on his blog that he expected the next phase of the search to get "interesting" because "logic says they must be getting close," based on the large area swept without results. Also, Boeing 777 captain Simon Hardy calculated where he thought the flight went down, and "the search sector that Fugro Discovery has just begun to trawl encompasses Hardy’s predicted position for MH370," Learmount wrote. He added: "By 3 December Fugro Discovery expects to have completed the search of the area containing, according to Hardy’s calculations, the wreck of MH370 and the remains of those who went down with it."

If the plane is found, Australia will work with Malaysia and China to recover it.

If it was not so serious, that would be a joke.

Thanks for that aussie, was close to updating this thread with the Learmount blog piece but the irony of the above article IMO is all in that long winded headline - if you can call it that..

Anyway here is the Learmount blog with a recent update:

Latest phase of MH370 search gets interesting

05/11/201506/11/2015 David Learmount

On 3 November the Australian Transport Safety Bureau resumed the deep sea search for the lost Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.

Refuelled, replenished and ready to go, the ATSB’s survey ship Fugro Discovery has arrived on station once more in the southern Indian Ocean.

For those seeking a reason to be optimistic following a discouraging 20 months of searching the ocean without a result, there is definite cause for renewed hope this time.
Since it began the search the ATSB has been scrupulously methodical, scanning the ocean floor within a long, slender curved rectangle that encompassed what became known as the “7th arc”. This is a long line on the earth’s surface established by vestigial radio responses from the fatal aircraft to Inmarsat satellites just as it was running out of fuel.

Theoretically the Boeing 777 could have come down anywhere close to it, but working with the aircraft’s last radar position the ATSB identified the arc sector where the aircraft could realistically have come down, and has searched almost all of the identified curve and its close vicinity.

Since it has now trawled almost all the 7th arc’s viable sector and not found the wreckage of MH370, there is not much more to search. Logic says they must be getting close.
But not only logic.

For those who doubted MH370 came down in the sea at all, the fact it did so was established in July when one of its flaperons was washed up on a beach on the Indian Ocean island of La Reunion. This fact was forensically confirmed more recently by the French air accident investigation agency BEA.

But there’s another reason for optimism: on 22 December last year Flightglobal published a mathematical/geometric calculation by Boeing 777 captain Simon Hardy, also a mathematician, which indicates precisely where, according to his calculations, MH370 came down.

The search sector that Fugro Discovery has just begun to trawl encompasses Hardy’s predicted position for MH370. His recent refinements to the aircraft’s final descent profile put it at S39 22′ 46″ E087 06′ 20″.

This could be said to be the last chance for the search under present estimated criteria, because 777 performance dictates that the aircraft could not have flown further than this extreme southern end of the 7th-arc-defined potential ditching area.

Anyone who has published material on the web knows that it may receive praise, but it will certainly receive criticism. The impressive fact about Hardy’s mathematics is that, despite hundreds of thousands of hits on the article containing his calculations, nobody has been able to blow a hole in them.

By 3 December Fugro Discovery expects to have completed the search of the area containing, according to Hardy’s calculations, the wreck of MH370 and the remains of those who went down with it.

Hardy says he says he is excited about the next month’s search, having invested more than a year of mental and emotional energy into working out where MH370 flew, and why. He wants it found.

He’s not alone.

Watch this space for more on MH370.

LATE NEWS: On 5 November Fugro Discovery had to suspend the search and return to Fremantle, Western Australia, according to Australia’s Joint Agency Coordination Centre, because one of the crew developed suspected appendicitis. The journey to Fremantle takes six days.

From latest reports Fugro Discovery is back in Port Fremantle, hopefully all is well with the crew member...


MTF..P2   

[ventus45]

aussie500 Wrote:
The current myth doing the rounds is that because the ATSB have not found MH370 yet, they must be getting close to finding it.

"Must be" ? ? ?

Big stretch .............. m'lud

Getting back to - um - rational "analysis"

Reference:
The Search for MH370 - Chris Ashton, Alan Shuster Bruce, Gary Colledge and Mark Dickinson
THE JOURNAL OF NAVIGATION (2015), 68, 1–22. © The Royal Institute of Navigation 2014
http://atsb.gov.au/mh370-pages/resources...heets.aspx
http://journals.cambridge.org/download.p...c60a9e146d

In Paragraph 5.4. of the reference, titled "Validation of BFO Equation", it says that the BFO modelling of MH-21 (which was in flight at the same time as MH-370) produced a good match (Figure 15 on page 17) withinn plus or minus 7hz between 17:00 to 21:20 UTC on 07Mar2014 (4 hrs 20 min). It used this to justify their (Inmarsat's / Ashton) BFO modelling of MH-370.

No data of the flight was presented in the referenced paper.

Question:
Does anyone have the FR-24 data for MH-21 for Friday 07th March 2014 ?

[Gobbledock]

"According to an operational search update from the Australian Joint Agency Coordination Centre posted this week, investigators have been struggling with "unfavorable" conditions".

Perhaps it should have read;

"According to an operational search update from the Australian Joint Agency Coordination Centre posted this week, investigator Martin Dolan has been struggling with 'unfavourable beard growing' conditions. Dolan has had to halt the addition of facial hair due to extreme and unpredictable weather conditions. Dolan, a known connoisseur of the beard has on numerous occasions had to either delay or cancel 'beard growth operations' due to the unpredictable environment. However on occasion he has been known to remove those famous whiskers purposely when engaging with international organisations, the media, his beloved Minister, or when prancing around Thai beaches in his mankini". Dolan often uses the beard on/beard off trick to fool paparazzi whom he believes are constantly stalking him. He has also been known to check in on flight under the alias Marting Fugro (Fugro being Latin for 'he who mumbles through hair'. To be con't

[aussie500]

My only gripe with the BFO is that they think it meant MH370 dropped on that 7th arc. They go do a comparison of a B777 in the roaring 40's, and then see what the BFO looks like before making assumptions.

And although I say MH370 is not on that 7th arc, but further south, where AMSA deserted the real search for MH370, you cannot really fault the ATSB for searching that 7th arc just to be sure. Problem is they are determined they are not going to search any where else. They are going to have to admit it soon, they searched in the wrong place. They can look in the nooks and cranny's all they like, they are not going to be finding MH370 in their current search area. They should have literally gone back to the start, and done an underwater search in the area debris was actually seen. Before everyone was in such a hurry to recalculate things.

[P7_TOM]

Be funny – peculiar – if they found the wretched thing just as the last dollar ran through the meter.

[Kharon]

FWIW – Beaker on NZ radio talks about MH 370, listen if you will – it’s your life.  However, for those who can tolerate it:-

Beaker Speaks.  HERE

[Gobbledock]

And here is Beaker at his later media engagement - fanning the MH370 fire!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FnblmZdTbYs

[Peetwo]

Latest paper from Bobby Ulich, made public 16 November 2015, titled - Identification of MH370 Route, By Analysis of Final Major Turns (Addendum #5 ):

1 Introduction


This paper presents the most recent results of my MH370 flight route modeling. The goals of this work are as follows:

1. to build and exercise an integrating-path "Final Major Turns" (FMT) Model with 1-second time resolution,

2. to compensate the measured satellite Burst Frequency Offset (BFO) data for channel-dependent frequency biases, and obtain a "calibrated" BFO (CBFO) data set for direct comparison with FMT model predictions,

3. to use this new FMT Model and this calibrated BFO data set to explain, if possible, the unexpected CBFO values in the "Log-on / Log-off Acknowledge" messages,

4. to evaluate what constraints are placed on the FMT path by the satellite Burst Timing Offset (BTO) and calibrated BFO data, including the "Log-on / Log-off Acknowledge" CBFO at 18:25:34 UTC,

5. to determine, if possible, how many turns and altitude changes were made between 18:22 and 19:41 UTC,

6. to determine the True Air Speed (TAS) and Mach number and, if possible, what speed control mode was in use,

7. to build a 1-minute time resolution speed control model from the moment of the initial diversion from the planned route until fuel exhaustion, integrating air temperature and wind data to achieve high accuracy,

8. to use this speed control model to estimate time-variable fuel on board, aircraft weight, Mach number, TAS, air miles traveled, endurance, and range (in terms of Equivalent Still Air Distance, or ESAD),

9. to integrate the high-time-resolution FMT model and the speed control model with my existing Route Optimizer so that an optimum candidate route could be fit simultaneously using all three models,

10. to exercise this multi-component "MH370 Model" so that it generates a route consistent with all calibrated BFO and BTO data and with the Boeing B777-200ER fuel consumption tables, using assumed air speed and lateral navigation (LNAV) auto-pilot modes,

11. to identify, If possible, one or more FMT routes that are consistent with all the satellite data, including the "Log-on / Log-off Acknowledge" CBFO,

12. to determine the most likely southbound route, including its intersections at the 6th and 7th handshake arcs that can establish a new search area, if one is needed,

13. to interpret, if possible, the final two CBFO measurements at 00:19 UTC with respect to turn and descent rates, and

14. to establish, if possible, a justification for establishing a meaningful search width limit at the 7th arc.

 
&...conclusions/findings?

2 Major Findings

Here is a summary of my major findings:

1. A single route has been found that is consistent with all the satellite data, including the previously unexplained CBFOs from the "Log-on / Log-off Acknowledge" messages at 18:25:34 and 00:19:37.

2. The speed control mode was Long Range Cruise (or ECON speed mode with a Cost Index mimicking LRC).

3. Waypoints were used to establish the FMT course changes.

4. Turns were made at 1.59 degrees per second (at a bank angle of 35 degrees).

5. Climbs were made at 2,000 fpm.


6. Shortly after the initial diversion near IGARI, a climb was made from FL350 to FL360 for the initial return to Malaysia.

7. There were three turns and a second climb during the FMT period from 18:22 to 18:48.

8. Turn #1 was a turn-around to the left for a planned (second) return to Malaysia.

9. During Turn #1, a second climb was begun to FL410.

10. At the completion of Turn #1, a second turn-around (Turn #2) was initiated in order to reach SANOB.

11. At SANOB, Turn #3 was made to the left for WITN (Maimun Saleh Airport).

12. No descent was made for a landing attempt.

13. After WITN was passed, the LNAV continued the course in True Track Hold mode at 191.9 degrees.

14. No further turns or climbs were made.

15. The 18:40 unanswered satellite phone call occurred about four minutes after the WITN flyover.

16. The air speed was extremely steady, varying from the nominal Long Range Cruise profile by < 1 knot RMS from 17:22 to 00:11.

17. The endurance and range calculations are fully consistent with this route. There was sufficient fuel to fly it.

18. The satellite BTO and CBFO data are fully consistent with this route.

19. The identified route intersects the 7th handshake arc at 39.61 S, 85.10 E.

20. The current ATSB search area does not include the location I have identified.

21. The current search area was apparently defined by the ATSB using two assumptions about the "final turn" that now appear to be incorrect.

22. More southerly points along the 7th arc are proved to be feasible from a maximum range perspective because the “final turn” occurred from a location farther South and the altitude was higher than was assumed.

In 'summary' page 40:

In summary, Figure 19 shows my predicted location overlaid on the ATSB Figure 5. Clearly it lies within the ATSB’s “constrained autopilot dynamics” probability distribution, although it is outside their “MRC Boundary.” As I explained previously, I believe the true range limit is significantly farther south and includes my predicted location.

Figure 20 shows my predicted location relative to the most recent ATSB “Indicative Search Area.” It is interesting to note that the ATSB has already extended their search area to the southwest along the 7th arc several times, just not far enough (yet) to reach my predicted location. A modest further extension to about 84.6 E would include a sufficient region around my predicted location to insure success if my calculations are correct.

Reserving comment - MTF P2

[Peetwo]

MH370 & the D-Day - Desperate, disparate, diverging times indeed?? 

Don't believe in coincidences Left field - one day we get the Chinese pitching in with a $20 million dollar shout - Li announces funds for MH370 search, urges implementation of China-Australia FTA.  


The next day we get Malcolm in the middle talking up MH370 search with Najib..

MITM/NAJIB JS "..We discussed in the course of our meeting the tragic loss of MH370 and of course followed by the shocking shooting down of MH17. And we are working together to find out, find the location of MH370. Both Malaysia and Australia are cooperating in that endeavour. It’s a very large ocean of course and the search is taking time and we were both very pleased to see a contribution of a ship plus $20 million from the Chinese government yesterday – Premier Li Keqiang made that commitment. That was very helpful.."

And now today from (err... ) 'that man again'?? - courtesy the Oz:

Pilot says new tack in search will find MH370 ‘within weeks’  

• by: EAN HIGGINS, JAMES GILLESPIE
  
• From: The Australian
  
• November 23, 2015 12:00AM
  

New suspected location. Source: TheAustralian

After 20 months of fruitless search, the hunt for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 has switched to an area identified by a British pilot who developed a different theory about what happened to the doomed passenger jet.  

Simon Hardy, who has made the prediction based on the ­assumption that the Malaysian jet’s captain made a controlled ditch into the sea, said he ­expected MH370 would be found within the several weeks allocated for the search of the area.

The revelation came as Chin­ese media reports said that, at a meeting in Kuala Lumpur with Malcolm Turnbull at the weekend, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang had offered to commit $20 million to continue the search for the Boeing 777 that vanished in March last year with 239 passengers and crew.

However, a spokesman for Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss, whose portfolio covers the search effort for MH370, said “details of the funding contrib­ution have yet to be settled”.

When Captain Hardy, a senior Boeing 777 captain with a commercial airline, revealed his analysis in The Sunday Times in March, the Australian search operat­ion was more than 100 nautical miles from the crash point he identified.

Since producing that analysis, based on his knowledge of the aircraft and a mathematical technique to calculate the plane’s route, Captain Hardy has recreated the final moments of the flight on a simulator.

“I am fairly confident that wreckage will be found within the next four to eight weeks,” he said.

A spokeswoman for the Joint Agency Co-ordination Centre, Annette Clark, confirmed that two vessels — Discovery and Equator — had arrived in the area of Captain Hardy’s proposed ­location last week.

“The vessels will be searching in the area of Captain Hardy’s prediction during the November-December period,” Ms Clark said.

The new location was within the overall greater search area, which “takes into account all the credible theories and analyses, ­including the work of Captain Hardy. He has talked with the team … we are now reaching the area he has nominated”, Ms Clark told The Australian yesterday.

The Boeing 777 left Kuala Lumpur for Beijing in the early hours of March 8 last year. The last voice heard from the plane was that of the captain, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, not long into the flight, although earlier commun­i­c­ations had been handled by the first officer, Fariq Abdul Hamid.

The transponder was turned off and the aircraft turned and flew back along the border between Malaysia and Thailand before ­executing a fly-past of Penang ­Island, the pilot’s home town.

Captain Hardy believes the plane came down in a controlled landing on water, which means the fuselage remained intact and could have drifted some way from the ditching point.

“But there will be some wreckage at that point,” said Captain Hardy.

“There are many movable aerodynamic surfaces on the Boeing 777, some of which will be torn from the aircraft during ditching, in a similar fashion to the flaperon, a wing control surface found at Reunion Island (in the Indian Ocean).”

Additional reporting: The Sunday Times

MH370 search looking in the ‘right place at last’ say Boeing 777 pilots

THE search for MH370 is finally looking in the right place, according to two experienced Boeing 777 pilots.


The deep ocean search co-ordinated by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) has moved to an area 100 nautical miles west of the seventh arc, identified by a British commercial airline captain as the most likely final resting place of MH370.
Simon Hardy reached his conclusion based on mathematical calculations and his knowledge of Boeing 777s.


Pinpointed ... MH370’s final resting place according to Captain Simon Hardy. Picture: SuppliedSource:Supplied

His theory that the Malaysia Airlines’ pilot made a deliberate, controlled ditching in the southern Indian Ocean after flying for seven hours, is shared by former Emirates’ pilot Byron Bailey.

Mr Bailey said Capt Hardy’s explanation was the only logical conclusion for the aircraft’s disappearance on March 8, 2014.

“Otherwise the aircraft would have flown itself to destination Beijing,” said Mr Bailey.
“(The pilot) reprogrammed the Flight Management System computers after getting the co-pilot to leave the flight deck and locking the door, which is easy enough to do.”

The ATSB confirmed search vessels would be searching in the area of Captain Hardy's prediction during the November/December period.


Tough job ... The weather has not been kind to the MH370 search vessels. Picture: ATSBSource:Supplied

But a spokesman said they were not there because of him.

“The priority search area was determined on the basis of the work of the search strategy working group co-ordinated by the ATSB,” said the spokesman.

“Part of this search area coincides with the area suggested by Captain Hardy.”
He said all “credible theories and analyses including the world of Captain Hardy” were considered by the search strategy working group.

“Captain Hardy has visited the ATSB facilities in Canberra to discuss his work with the MH370 team,” the spokesman said.

“We remain cautiously optimistic (MH370 will be found in this area).”

The area had not been searched before, largely due to poor conditions, the spokesman said.

“Improving weather conditions in the southern portion of the search area means we can now direct our attention to that area.”


Still missing ... A Malaysia Airlines aircraft, similar to the missing MH370. Picture: Getty Images/Greg WoodSource:Getty Images

US-based historian and statistician Mike Chillit who has followed the search very closely since the start, said it appeared to him the ATSB was “humouring Hardy” because they were out of ideas.

“I can’t see any harm in checking the area where Hardy wants them to look,” said Mr Chillit.

“It will slow things down a bit but may give everyone a sense of peace that at least they looked.”

He said he did not subscribe to the theory MH370’s disappearance was the pilot’s doing.

“It is a horrible disservice to his family and everyone else. That kind of speculation has no place in responsible investigations without much more compelling evidence,” Mr Chillit said.

Only one vessel is currently in the search area after Fugro Discovery was forced to head back to Fremantle on Saturday when a crew member experienced severe pain.
It is the second time this month the ship has been forced to return to shore for medical reasons.

 There was also the following from Ben Sandilands (Planetalking), with a far more pragmatic report on the latest MH370 SIO events :

Two, maybe three things may now help MH370 search

Ben Sandilands | Nov 23, 2015 7:20AM


The typical sea state of the South Indian Ocean in the search area

There are a number of reasons to think the search for missing Malaysia Airlines jet MH370 may be taking a turn for the better.

The JACC or Joint Agency Coordination Centre has confirmation that the sea bed search is now in the area predicted for the point of impact, if not controlled ditching, by a British pilot Captain Simon Hardy almost a year ago.

China has also agreed, at last, to put a reported $20 million and an extra ship into the search, after it seems watching askance at the Malaysia directed Australia performed effort, which until now has been jointly funded by Kuala Lumpur and Canberra.

And it seems highly likely, but not yet confirmed, that better sonar scanning equipment will soon be deployed to look more closely at suspicious objects seen but not resolved in close detail by current equipment on the ocean floor.

The report of China agreeing to become materially involved came out of the East Asia Summit in Kuala Lumpur. More detail, and perhaps a degree of urgency, would be welcome.

If Captain Hardy is correct, and he has certainly been methodical, logical and persuasive except when it came to getting through to the searchers, then the heavy sunk wreckage of the missing Boeing 777-200ER and the flight recorders and the remains and telephone and tablet chips belong to the 239 people on board flight MH370 should be located before Christmas.

MH370 was operating the Kuala Lumpur-Beijing route on 8 March 2014 when it vanished as a transponder identified flight on air traffic control screen while over the Gulf of Thailand.

Success isn’t a certainty. The wreckage may have come to rest just outside the area calculated by Captain Hardy, or the assumptions he has made might in one or more critical elements, be wrong.

There could be a big ‘gotcha’ factor in this perplexing disappearance, something not known to the searchers, that might change the big picture. However nothing seems likely to change the broad satellite signal analysis that says MH370 flew for seven hours 39 minutes (or so) after takeoff, and was only heard by a communications satellite parked over the west Indian Ocean which at the time of the flight’s impact, had to be around 44 degrees elevation above its horizon.

MTF...P2

[Peetwo]

Latest JACC MH370 SIO search update - Additional Fugro vessel.

Joint Agency Coordination Centre MH370 Operational Search Update

25 November 2015

This operational report has been developed to provide regular updates on the progress of the search effort for MH370. Our work will continue to be thorough and methodical, so sometimes weekly progress may seem slow. Please be assured that work is continuing and is aimed at finding MH370 as quickly as possible.

Key developments this week

• Fugro Discovery is en route to Fremantle, evacuating an unwell crew member. The vessel is expected to arrive in port on Friday 27 November and conduct resupply before returning to the search area.
  
• Fugro Equator continues to conduct bathymetry and underwater search operations in the search area.
  
• A third search vessel, Havila Harmony is currently being mobilised with the Hugin 4500 Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) search system at the Australian Marine Complex at Henderson, south of Fremantle.  
  
  

Medical evacuation
A crew member on the search vessel Fugro Discovery has fallen ill, suffering from severe pain. The vessel halted search operations on Saturday 21 November, recovering the towfish and commencing transit back to Fremantle. The full-time doctor on Fugro Discovery is attending to the crew member in consultation with onshore medical support.

The remoteness of the search area has been an ongoing challenge in the search for MH370. At the time the crew member became unwell, Fugro Discovery was approximately 2,800 kilometres from Fremantle – well beyond the range of any land-based helicopter.

The only viable option was to return to port.

This incident is a reminder of the difficult conditions in which crew members work. The vessels spend 42 days at sea between port calls in weather conditions which can be physically arduous and fatiguing for the crew. Some of the work performed can be hazardous, particularly handling the heavy deep tow search system on a ships’s wet deck moving in a seaway.

The risk of a serious illness or injury on board a search vessel is a real possibility and for this reason the vessels have a doctor on board with appropriate medical equipment and supplies. The risk of a medical emergency is partly mitigated with regular health checks for the crew and a comprehensive system of safe working procedures, however incidents can and will occur.

Underwater search operations
The search area has been expanded beyond an original 60,000 square kilometre search area to enable up to 120,000 square kilometres to be searched if required.

Weather continues to impact on search operations but conditions are expected to be improved over the coming months. The safety of the search crews, as always, remains a priority, and the vessels and equipment utilised will vary to reflect operational needs.
More than 70,000 square kilometres of the seafloor have been searched so far.

Havila Harmony is a Fugro vessel and will have the Hugin 4500 autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) on board. After calibration trials off the coast of Fremantle, the vessel is expected to depart for the search area on Saturday for an expected arrival date in the the search area of 3 December.  The AUV will again be used to survey the most difficult portions of the search area that cannot be searched as effectively by the deep tow search systems on the other search vessels.

The Search Strategy Working Group continues to review evidence associated with MH370, which may result in further refinement of, or prioritisation within, the search area.

In the event the aircraft is found and accessible, Australia, Malaysia and the People’s Republic of China have agreed to plans for recovery activities, including securing all the evidence necessary for the accident investigation.

Click map to enlarge

[i]Click map to enlarge[/i]
 
Weather
Weather is forecast to be favourable for the coming week.
 
 
 

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Previous versions:

• MH370 Operational Search Updates
  

Related: MH370

A little bit more intel from PT on the additional Fugro vessel 'Havila Harmony' shortly to be dispatched from Freo with the AUV onboard:

Sharpest deep sea eyes about to open again on MH370 search zones

Ben Sandilands | Nov 25, 2015 4:30PM |

The giant crane on the new ship will handle a powerful autonomous submersible search device

The sharpest seeing autonomous underwater vehicle available is out of storage and being fitted to a newly chartered ship at a marine centre south of Fremantle as better summer sea states set in over the Southern Indian Ocean search area for MH370.

The AUV is a Hugin 4500 which was briefly used before the onset of the southern winter  made its deployment and recovery too risky. The extra Fugro vessel, the Havila Harmony has the most capable active heave compensated crane yet used in the Malaysia directed Australia managed sea bed search for the sunk wreckage of the Malaysia Airlines 777-200ER missing since 8 March 2014 with 239 people on board.

After calibration trials off the coast of Fremantle, the vessel is expected to sail for the search area this Saturday 28 November arriving 3 December.

The Joint Agency Coordination Centre says the AUV will again be used to survey the most difficult portions of the search area that cannot be searched as effectively by the deep tow search systems on the other search vessels.

The weekly search update issued today which includes maps, video links, explanatory graphics and an extensive gallery, can be read here.

The search, down to one ship temporarily because of an injury that caused the other to return to port, is in the general area predicted to hold MH370’s remains by Captain Simon Hardy.

Some objects previously logged as being of potential interest haven’t been sonar scanned with enough definition to determine if they are from MH370, which was on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing when it went dark to air traffic control systems and flew for about seven hours 39 minutes over the southern Indian Ocean to a point where it was last heard pinging a communications satellite that had to be about 44 degrees above the horizon.

The search management has been criticised, rightly or wrongly, for being too quick to dismiss several of these indeterminate objects as not being from MH370. It is hoped that a definitive examination of those objects will be made by the AUV, unless of course Captain Hardy is found to have been correct beforehand.

MTF...P2