[Peetwo]

Next from Marnie (good job ), via news.com.au online:

New MH370 conspiracy: Was Mozambique debris planted?

March 4, 2016 6:59pm


Debris found in Mozambique could belong to missing MH3701:24

Officials are analyzing debris that washed up on a beach in Mozambique to determine if it's from the missing Malaysian airliner, MH370 that went missing in 2014. Julie Noce reports.

[img=0x0]http://pixel.tcog.cp1.news.com.au/track/news/content/v1/origin:video_integrator.lkd3FpMTE6v9hQ2-y9VoQJnORZngjMtH?t_product=video&t_template=../video/player[/img]

A close-up view of the metre-long plane part which investigators now believe is “highly likely” to have come from a Boeing 777, the same type of plane as missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370. Picture: Blaine Alan Gibson

Marnie O’Neill


SOMETIMES truth is stranger than fiction but the circumstances surrounding the discovery of a possible second piece of debris from MH370 are bizarre enough to worry both the rational and the conspiracy minded.

US blogger and amateur MH370 sleuth Blaine Alan Gibson found the part, which is believed to be from an aircraft’s horizontal stabiliser, on a sandbank in the Mozambique Channel at the weekend.

The Malaysia Airlines flight vanished with 239 people on board en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014.

Mr Gibson, whose globetrotting investigative ways earned him comparisons to Harrison Ford’s Indiana Jones character in the US press overnight, has been island-hopping for more than a year, interviewing witnesses about possible sightings of MH370 and combing the coastlines for evidence.

So it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that he finally got lucky and found something that came off an aircraft.

What would make it hard to swallow is if the part — which surfaced just days before the second anniversary of MH370’s disappearance — really did come from the plane.
Incredibly, that is increasingly looking like the case.

Independent investigators, who initially assessed the part as unlikely to have come from MH370, now believe the composite is, in fact, consistent with that of a Boeing 777.
Officials have described it as a “fibreglass skin aluminium honeycomb cored panel” with no identifying features other than the printed words “NO STEP” and a fastener made by LISI Aerospace, which makes Boeing 777 parts.

Unless the debris originated from one of two recently written-off Boeing 777s, the probability that it did come from 9M-MRO (MH370’s model name) is now much higher.


Blaine ‘Indiana Jones’ Gibson with the suspected MH370 debris he found at the weekend. Picture: Blaine Alan Gibson

The plane part seen from different angles. Pictures: Blaine Alan Gibson

BUT WHY IS THE PART SO CLEAN?
What is troubling, though, is the pristine condition of the part compared to the barnacle-encrusted flaperon found in La Reunion last July.

Mr Gibson’s debris is not consistent with an object that has been in the water for two years. There are no barnacles, no algae. Some have speculated the part may have been naturally “cleaned” by the sand and surf but that even in this scenario, there would be some traces of sea life left behind.

Mr Gibson told CNN that his “heart was pounding” when he first spotted the wreckage from a boat he’d chartered for a weekend trip up the coast of Mozambique.

“It never occurred to me that I would find something like this here, it’s almost like a dream,” he said of the find, which was witnessed by the boat’s owner.

“What went through my mind when I found it is that this is something that could be part of an airplane and could be part of that airplane. It seems so unlikely, too, but the thing is nature works in mysterious ways.

“Why does the ocean do what it does? I don’t know. Maybe this is part of that plane, maybe this is part of another. It’s small and it’s very light so maybe it’s just from some light aircraft. It would just be so unbelievable if it actually is from 370. That’s exactly what went through my mind.”

MORE: EIGHT MH370 QUESTIONS WE NEED ANSWERS TO

Both US and Malaysian officials have stated the part is “highly likely” to have come from a Boeing 777 and Australian authorities say the location of the debris was consistent with its drift model and the search area in the southern Indian Ocean.

MH370 Independent Group (IG) member Don Thompson said he had changed his mind about the origins of the part after conducting further analysis using photos and video of the object.

“The particular composite technology used on the part was first used on the B767 (and) carried forward to B777, which brought a whole load more carbon composite technology on-board,” Mr Thompson told news.com.au this morning.

“The aircraft maintenance documents that we have access to don’t go into detail on manufacturing specifics. (In terms of) design details, there’s a lot on the innovations brought into B777 but the technology for these particular panels is previous generation and was used on the B767. We’ve now got a catalogue of pics of similar broken ‘bits’ from B777s and we can compare them to Blaine’s part.

“It’s so bloody clean though. The flaperon wasn’t an issue, it looked like it’d been in the water for 16 months.”


A close look at the plane part, thought to be from the horizontal stabiliser of a Boeing 777 and the silver fastener. The part looks clean and shiny with no evidence of sea life. Picture: Blaine Alan Gibson

Mr Thompson’s comments echoed those of fellow IG member Victor Iannello yesterday when he posted this to a Reddit forum: “I was struck by the condition of the part. It had no barnacles, little or no algae, and no water line. The condition of the part was nothing like the flaperon that was recovered.”

Despite this, Dr Iannello said he had a feeling it did indeed come from the missing airliner but said the lack of identifying features and serial numbers would make it difficult, if not impossible, to trace it back to the actual 777 it came from.

“I do suspect that it is from MH370,” he told news.com.au. “However, I do often wonder if it crashed in the SIO.”

Right after his discovery, Mr Gibson had invited aviation journalist Jeff Wise and a handful of IG members, including Mr Thompson, Dr Iannello and Mike Exner, to privately view photos and video of the part via Facebook.

He handed over the debris to Mozambican officials on Monday and it is understood he expressed a hope for the debris to be examined in Australia.

A spokesman for the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, which is in charge of the search, told news.com.au that the plane part was still in Mozambique while arrangements to bring it to Australia were finalised.

Once it arrives, it will be analysed by specialists from Malaysia and the US as well as investigators from the ATSB, the spokesman said.

The department would not comment on the authenticity of the plane part until it had been examined, he said.

Australian authorities are due to end their search of the southern Indian Ocean in early July, although there are at least two crowd-funding campaigns underway to move it elsewhere.


The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 so far

Choc frog Marnie

MTF..P2

[Gobbledock]

I think former Captain Shrubb has been smoking too much herbal shrubbery. FFS comparing MH370 to DB Cooper, serious?
Nothing has been ruled out in the hunt for MH370, fair enough. But to propose that a 777 Captain, a man who understands engineering, forces and dynamics and risk would jump out of a plane, even with a chute, is lunacy.

As Thorny would say, 'yeah, and E.T probably did it also'.

[Peetwo]

MH370 2nd Anniversary - Update

Ben Sandilands  yesterday in PlaneTalking:

 

MH370, what did authorities know that night?

Ben Sandilands | Mar 05, 2016 1:13PM |


Two years on, the tears still flow but hopes have died

Logic, and careful consideration of the public record, suggests that the motive for the disappearance of flight MH370 almost two years was known in high places of authority in Malaysia on the night the Boeing 777-200ER with 239 people onboard took off from Kuala Lumpur for Beijing.

But it doesn’t tell us what such a motive was, nor does it provide an infallible insight into the events of 8 March 2014. Logic is fallible, and the public record can be misinterpreted.
At the outset, the theories as to what happened to the Malaysia Airlines flight fall into two broad categories.

One category is that a totally unforeseen misadventure overcame the conduct of the flight, which the pilots were unable to deal with, and which was so immediate and catastrophic and comprehensive that no provable record of an emergency call from MH370 has been established.

There are enormous difficulties with those theories, given what is known about the diversion of the flight from its intended path while it was over the Gulf of Thailand, but they persist, and however implausible, cannot be entirely ruled out.

The other category of theory holds on to a common conviction that MH370 was deliberately diverted from its path in an apparently meticulously planned and timed operation, by persons unknown, for a purpose unknown, to a destination unknown, after which it, intentionally or accidentally, switched from a northwesterly or westerly path toward India and central Asia to one that went south or southeasterly  to oblivion in the southern Indian Ocean, west or SW of Western Australia.

All that is known about the flight to what continues to have been oblivion for MH370 is that the jet flew for at least seven hours 38 minutes and that ‘pings’ from an engine maintenance data computer which had been intentionally disabled but remained on standby mode were last heard from a southern Indian Ocean place from where they passed through a communications satellite that had to be about 44 degrees (or so) above the horizon as seen from the 777.

That last ping, part of an emergency rather than standby sequence of signals, was somewhere along the so called seventh arc of possible locations. It occurred at the time the known fuel load on MH370 should have been exhausted. The block time for MH370 between pushback in KL and terminal pier arrival in Beijing was five hours 50 minutes, and an endurance of seven hours 40 minutes was consistent with en route allowances for diversions, emergencies such as cabin depressurizations, and an arrival carrying no less than minimum legal fuel reserves.

Leaving the ferocious, but alas often ignorant technical discussion of what these ‘pings’ meant, the issues as to what occurred in Kuala Lumpur before and during and immediately after the flight took place merit continued consideration.

No-one is entitled to claim they know categorically and in detail what exactly happened and how or why to MH370 and the souls on board.

On the available evidence mainly from the interim and late but otherwise ICAO compliant accident report eventually released on 1 May 2014, we learn that hardly any efforts were made to contact the crew by cockpit satellite phone after the air traffic control transponder on the jet ceased functioning 39 minutes after lift off.

There were attempted radio communications, and there is one unverified report of a mumbling response possibly from MH370, but actual ground to cockpit sat phone calls without using other jets as intermediaries are inexplicably few.

They followed that moment when the jet, briefly in the no-man’s land between the ATC zones of Malaysia and Vietnam, abruptly stops being a transponder identified flight. MH370 diverts westwards, and is picked up as an unidentified object by military radars, although that was not made clear until some days later, after an extraordinary episode of disclosures and denials, by various sources.

The seeming indifference of Malaysia Airlines and the KL authorities to the disappearance on ATC screens of an airliner with 239 people onboard is perplexing to say the least. In the words of a major airline’s emergency responders “we would have hit all the buttons until our fingertips bled.”

There is no evidence that Malaysia Airlines or anyone in authority called every ship under or near the flight path of MH370. There were no calls to kampongs, police outposts, resorts, or any centre of activity, where something like a sudden explosion or fireball in the sky might have been noticed.

That immediate casting of a wide net to gather whatever information is available about the disappearance of a jet doesn’t seem to have occurred to Malaysia Airlines. It didn’t even activate the Kuala Lumpur Aeronautical Rescue Coordination Centre until the jet was due to have pulled up to the gate in Beijing, five hours and 50 minutes after takeoff and more than five hours after it was obvious to blind Freddy that something terrible had happened.

Had there been repeated, persistent sat phone calls made even the act of their ringing out unanswered would have provided more detailed clues as to the direction and potential location of MH370 through the fraught Doppler shift analysis that was to conclude that for much of the remaining flight the 777 flew southerly, away from the trajectory it was taking when said to be last seen on military radar off the coast of southern Thailand headed toward India or central Asia.

What did Malaysia Airlines already know at that time, or was it truly indifferent and callous to the middle of the night loss of an airliner?

There is no modern era loss of an airliner comparable to that of MH370 that elicited so little reaction from an airline or the responsible authorities in the records on various air safety archives. What did KL know?

We did find out, on 1 May 2014, that it knew on 8 March that the jet had diverted across the Malaysia Peninsula. That casual revelation by the then acting minister for Aviation, Hishammuddin Hussein means that Malaysia deliberately lied to its then extensive collection of air and sea search partners about what it knew for many days, diluting resources deployed and wasting valuable time.

An incisive factual insight into the inability of KL to come clean with its early stage search partners is documented in this Wall Street Journal story on 20 March 2014.

The logical implication of the behavior of the airline, civil aviation department, and the government of Malaysia on the night of 8 March 2014 is that they knew of a reason why one of the national carrier’s flights disappeared from the air traffic control system, and lied about it.

But could other factors be in play? Accountability of authority in Malaysia is less practiced than in many other democracies. It is could be compared to being like any large corporation with an anal approach to message management, or almost any western or non western government agency, in which nothing that happens is ever confirmed or admitted until the ‘owners’ of the message pass it.

If a threat had been made of a generalized nature to the Malaysia Airlines fleet, and had been ignored, the internal motive for retention of that awful and legally profoundly damaging information would be very strong.

The secretiveness of KL in the early stages of this saga didn’t really crack until sufficient time had elapsed for large items of floating debris, like bodies, seats, suit cases and maybe even emergency slides, had largely joined the marine food chain, or sunk, and been increasingly dispersed.

The object found by an American self funded researcher Blaine Gibson on a Mozambique sandbar recently may, or may not be, the second only confirmed fragment of the airframe of MH370 yet recovered following the flaperon retrieved from La Reunion island last July.

The search for MH370 remains a long way from locating the two bright orange ‘black box’ data and voice recorders, or perhaps crucially, the phone or tablet memory chips that may provide graphic insights into what happened before their owners were consigned by fate, and evil, to depths where there is no time, and no day and no night.

 
Also latest from Lumpkin/NOAA on SIO drifter modelling via Mike Chillit:



And also:

MTF...P2

[aussie500]

Well I would be careful about making assumptions about what we know about that first turn and everything after it, considering the way the Malaysians chose to present "the facts". By saying the transponder was turned off, by the primary radar that after a lot of delay they came up with, and all the early rumors coming out of Malaysia, they gave the impression MH370 was hijacked. They had no way of knowing what happened on that plane, unless they have not told the full truth. The primary radar was never identified as being MH370 and if it flew and turned like a jet fighter, more likely that was what they were tracking. Australia was quick to disprove that bit of the primary radar, we never saw it, but still what we have seems suspicious. There are limits on the angle a B777 can turn, and a B777 cannot fly low to avoid radar, and still fly fast enough to get where she was supposedly seen by the primary radar. Where is the rest of the primary radar they should have? And if they knew early on they had been tracking an unknown passenger jet, why did the Malaysians send the initial search the other way? And kept sending the searchers the wrong way for as long as they could.

I would not even believe the location we are told ATC lost MH370, unless they could get more agreement from other near by countries on where exactly they lost her. They certainly could not at first work out when exactly they lost MH370, the Malaysians changing the time by more than an hour early on. Which no one blinked an eye at. Nor do I believe ATC was sleeping on the job, something else was going on.

Why did they need to re-record some of the cockpit conversation with ATC? Nor does it seem likely the pilots of MH370 would say twice they had reached cruising altitude. That seems to me more likely to indicate, they had used two completely different recordings to make it seem like MH370 was lost at the change over point. Or to remove something from the original recording, or maybe both?

They have no hope of finding MH370, if the information Australia has been given, is not reliable. But then, the ATSB insist on clinging to that 7th arc of doom anyway, or is that just another cover up, to get all those mathematicians wildly calculation where to pin the tail on the donkey?

They should go back and finish the search in the area AMSA was in such a hurry to leave, find out where that debris they failed to catch, was actually coming up from. Because the initial debris field was long gone, due to all delaying tactics, so where was that debris seen from the planes coming from? It would have been from MH370. I will show later whate most if not all those items seen would have been. Australia comes clean and gives us the full list of what was seen, I bet it would have been obvious, even to the ATSB.

[ventus45]

Did MH-370 ever fly west of Igari ?
Some say not.
Did MH-370 ever fly south of the equator ?
Some say not.

The official story is that it did, that it crashed in a high speed dive, on or near, the famous 7th arc, in the SIO.

If the official story is the true story, prove it !!

How ?
Simple.

If the official story is the true story, there must be heaps of debris - somewhere !

Where ?
After two years, in the famous Indian Ocean Garbage Patch.

How to ?
It should be easy enough to find the current position of the famous Indian Ocean Garbage Patch.  
Then just put a few fishing trawlers into it, put out the nets, and collect heaps of garbage.  
Have an old freighter as a mother ship, hoist the net loads on board into the holds, and when full, return to Fremantle, unload, and sort it, piece by piece, by hand.
Repeat as many times as necessary.

Nothing from MH-370 ?
Then the official story is bullshit.

The second aniversary of the loss of MH-370 is today.
It is also the second aniversary of the greatest mult-national deception of the public in history.
The second annual ICAO-Annex 13 update is due to be published by the Malaysian Government this afternoon, in a few hours from now.

It will be interesting to see how the deception is strengthened.

[Peetwo]

MH370 2nd anniversary - Interim report Mark II?? 
To hopefully complement the aussie & "V" posts (above), the following is the latest from the Duncan Steel website: 

Duncan Steel's latest.

http://www.duncansteel.com/archives/2261
http://www.duncansteel.com/archives/2251

RNZAF photographs of the sea surface in the MH370 search area in the southern Indian Ocean

Duncan Steel
2016 March 6th
(Updated March 7th)

Three pieces of aircraft debris that may be associated with MH370 have now been found: the flaperon discovered in La Réunion last July, and in the past week or so two items that appear likely to be smaller fragments of the rear stabilisers, one found in Mozambique and the other again in La Réunion. For a brief discussion of these two new discoveries, please see my preceding post.

The condition of the latter two items appears to be consistent with the aircraft having disintegrated in a high-speed impact into the ocean. The flaperon photographs have been interpreted as being consistent with failure of its attachment fittings to the wing due to violent fluttering after hydraulic power being lost following electrical power failure after fuel exhaustion.

A more rigorous understanding of what may have occurred in each of these three cases awaits: (a) Confirmation that the recently-found two pieces are indeed from MH370; and (b) Analysis by suitable experts of the physical condition of all three. In connection with that, I mention that we await a public release by the French authorities of the results of their inspection of the flaperon; the delay in this regard seems unconscionable.

What we do know is that the discovery locations of the latest two items almost two years after the disappearance of MH370 is consistent with oceanic drift from a crash location around latitude 37S on the 7th Arc. It is also conceivable that the crash may have occurred some distance from that location (say between 30S and 35S on that arc), but the discovery of those debris items at this time is not contrary to the hypothesis that the aircraft came down around 37S.

Many people have argued in different venues that the lack of any obvious floating debris field in the ocean around the priority search region (between 35S and 40S adjacent to the 7th Arc) implies one or other of the following two things: either (i) The aircraft made a controlled landing in that region and so remained largely intact; or (ii) It crashed somewhere else entirely.

It would seem that the discovery of the latest (yet to be confirmed) items from MH370 – and, presumably, there will be more to follow – comprise evidence that such a floating debris field must have existed at some stage following the crash, with later (and ongoing) dispersal. The question then arises: why was such a debris field not detected from the patrol aircraft sent out over the Indian Ocean for just this reason?
Many of the aircraft in question were RAAF (Royal Australian Air Force) P3 Orions; there were also P-8A Poseidon aircraft from the US Navy’s VP-16 ‘War Eagles’ squadron on detachment in Okinawa, and other military and civilian aircraft. For overall information about the MH370 air search, see here.

Another Orion was provided by the RNZAF (Royal New Zealand Air Force). Information of the role played by the RNZAF team was made available through various media, such as here and here. That RNZAF flew many sorties as part of the overall search effort.

On at least one of those sorties a journalist was on board, and he filed reports for several news media sites. These reports included some of the photographs of the ocean surface collected by the military personnel. A few of those photographs have already been made public (for example here, and here), but most have not.

It was stated in late March 2014 by the Commander of Joint Forces of the NZDF (New Zealand Defence Force) that various floating items were seen in the whole collection of photographs, and that these might be debris from MH370. On the same day (March 30th) it was widely understood that “All ships in the search area were being tasked to locate and identify the objects sighted by aircraft over the past two days.”

Despite the above, no announcement was made that any of the floating debris that could be associated with MH370; on the other hand, it is not clear whether the items observed from the RNZAF Orion (and, presumably, also from RAAF, and other, aircraft) were all followed up either from the air, or by surface vessels.

In order to get a better idea of what was detected in the aerial photographs – the images shown in the media tend to be derivative in that they are photographs taken of computer screens displaying zoomed-in images and so on – a member of the Independent Group resident in New Zealand made a Freedom of Information (FOI) request for all original imagery to be made available. The NZDF kindly supplied 184 JPEG images, about 1 GB in all. The images are apparently digital originals carrying metadata such as the camera type, exposure time and focal length, time of collection; and in some cases GPS coordinates including altitude.

Many of these images are repeat exposures of the same floating item of (potential) interest, whilst others show nothing obvious apart from the sea itself. I have selected 15 (updated: two added on March 7th) images that others might find of interest, in terms of understanding what was observed by the RNZAF crew. These images are available for download from here; typical image sizes are 5 or 6 MB.

Note that these images are Crown Copyright, NZDF.

It is not claimed here that any particular item in these images is a part from MH370; however, it would be heartening to know that each of these was closely inspected and demonstrated not to be part of the missing aircraft. Some appear to be such things as discarded fishing gear, and I have included these so as to give people some context in terms of the content of other images.

Whilst the RNZAF Orion flew many sorties in this collaboration with the RAAF, the number flown by the RAAF was much greater. One presumes that the RAAF Orion crews collected much imagery themselves, and of course would have followed up the debris items reported by the RNZAF. Perhaps someone resident in Australia would like to make a FOI request for all RAAF imagery from their sorties to be made available publicly, just as has occurred here. This might also be done for the other nations involved.

To which Ben Sandilands composed this blog piece:

Possible new MH370 fragments point to likely high speed impact

Ben Sandilands | Mar 07, 2016 3:47PM |



The Dropbox album of Blaine Gibson’s Mozambique find

Subject to positive identification, physicist and independent MH370 investigator Duncan Steel says the possible new fragments of the missing 777 found in Mozambique and on La Reunion are consistent with a high speed impact with the ocean.

In several posts on his website, Dr Steel also publishes, via Dropbox, a range of images of floating debris that may have come from the crashed jet as photographed by an RNZAF Orion aircraft early in the aerial search phase after the Malaysia Airlines flight vanished on 8 March 2014 with 239 people on board en route from Kuala Lumpur and Beijing.

He underlines the point that none of the new photos released under a New Zealand Freedom of Information request necessarily show objects that are from MH370, yet suggests that not everything seen by multi-national search for floating wreckage may have been properly checked out.

These latest posts, one featuring the aerial search photos, and the other  providing information and analysis of the new fragments, also include a more extensive photo album of the possible fragment of the horizontal stabiliser found by US researcher Blaine Gibson, on a sandbar in the Mozambique Channel last week.

They also link to an Australian website set up to track floating plastics in the world’s oceans but which has now found a new role in predicting how debris from MH370 may have been dispersed in the Indian Ocean over time starting from points in the priority sea floor search zone SW of Western Australia...

...In fact the few technical media or aviation reporters covering the early search, including myself, did raise concerns in print, and in electronic media interviews, with the haste with which places where potential MH370 debris was sighted were quickly, perhaps prematurely dropped for more north-easterly search areas.

That period in the search was characterised by optimism that the missing jet would soon be found, and came right at the end of period in which items such as bodies, emergency floats or slides, and items of clothing and cabin furnishings, were most likely going to become unrecoverable or very widely dispersed.

Public discussion of the loss of MH370 has succumbed to the strange amnesia apparent in social media, in which many of the loudest voices are the ones ignorant of the early sequence of events, and baffled by the technicalities that do not fit easily into video grabs or preconceptions.

The IG or Independent Group of scientists, which includes Duncan Steel, has regularly raised concerns about the assumptions or at times, lack of detail, provided by the official search and its strategic advisors, as well as trying to address some of misplaced criticism of those efforts from other quarters.

The validation, or repudiation, of the latest fragments attributed to the crashed airliner is of far reaching importance. And on remote shores, the search for more potential clues to solving the riddles of the world’s greatest aviation mystery continues.

P2 Observation??

Dolan quote (see HERE): Dolan says the ATSB’s approach has been dynamic, transparent and and informed by regular correspondence with the Independent Group. “They provide a criticism and questioning that is very valuable to us. That’s one component of the wonders of the internet.”

Less welcome is the correspondence – often “quite insistent”, he says – from those whose theories cast doubt on the operation “with no real reason”. “We will listen to anyone, but the more they insist on things that are inconsistent with the facts, the less we’re going to pay attention to them.”

I wonder if the MH370 Super Sleuth would pay the IG group the same complementary statement in hindsight if he had of reviewed the Duncan Steel blog beforehand??

Like aussie500, "V" & many others, it still deeply troubles me that after the obvious deceptions, after the fact, that we (Australia) blindly followed the Malaysian narrative on where MH370 went prior to/at/or after IGARI?? How we could define a priority search area in the SIO without a proven, factual, 'raw data' FMT is simply beyond me...

Here's hoping that today's 2nd interim report may finally put to rest the speculation on the FMT...


MTF...P2  

[ventus45]

If there was an FMT.

I am no longer confident Mh-370 went to the SIO.

I am coming around to the view that it was a hijacking - a snatch - a high stakes "Repo" of 20 FREESCALE people who knew too much and with too much high value hardware in the hold.

Conclusion. State actors are involved.

Ken's decoy idea has merit - but not a duplicate T7 or drone - a spirit for the patchy radar & a cobra for the pings - with the prize going to Yap - refuelled - then - to a secure location.

Will be interesting to see what the Malaysians come out with in a few hours.

[Peetwo]

If there was an FMT.

I am no longer confident Mh-370 went to the SIO.

I am coming around to the view that it was a hijacking - a snatch - a high stakes "Repo" of 20 FREESCALE people who knew too much and with too much high value hardware in the hold.

Conclusion.  State actors are involved.  

Ken's decoy idea has merit - but not a duplicate T7 or drone - a spirit for the patchy radar & a cobra for the pings - with the prize going to Yap - refuelled - then - to a secure location.

Will be interesting to see what the Malaysians come out with in a few hours.

Not much apparently - FFS!






MTF...P2
 

[ventus45]

It is clear now, they do not want to find it - they really do want everyone to just forget about it.
Look at "the eight".
Talk about wide of the mark.
Nothing to see - move along.
Beaker must have drafted it for them.

[ventus45]

Monotony and 'Moments of Terror' Mark Search for Flight 370
By KRISTEN GELINEAU, ASSOCIATED PRESS
SYDNEY — Mar 6, 2016, 6:23 PM ET

The shifts on board the ship are punishing: 12 hours on, 12 hours off, seven days a week, for a month straight — though pingpong and poker during the downtime help break up the monotony. But for the American man who designed a sonar device being used in the hunt for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, spending nearly six months at sea searching for the plane was something of an honor.

With that honor has come the weight of responsibility — for the families of the 239 people on board the vanished plane still desperate for answers. Now, with the search of a remote patch of ocean off Australia's west coast drawing to a close and the plane's wreckage proving stubbornly elusive, Jay Larsen is among those feeling the pressure.

"I think there is some tension building as the end of the job comes nearer," says Larsen, whose Whitefish, Montana-based company built one of the devices scanning a mountainous stretch of seabed where the plane is believed to have crashed nearly two years ago. "Everybody wants to find this thing, including us."

Larsen has been involved with the hunt from the beginning, when marine services contractor Phoenix International Holdings hired his deep-water search and survey company, Hydrospheric Solutions, to provide the sonar equipment used on board the search vessel GO Phoenix. The Malaysian-contracted vessel participated in eight months of the hunt until June last year.
Most recently, Larsen and his team flew to Singapore to load their sonar device onto a Chinese ship, the Dong Hai Jiu 101, which has just joined three other vessels scouring the southern Indian Ocean for the plane. He then traveled on board the Dong Hai to the west Australian city of Fremantle, and, after ensuring the sonar and his team were ready to go, bid them adieu last month as they set out for the search zone 1,800 kilometers (1,100 miles) to the southwest.
Larsen's company has a crew of eight people on the Chinese ship who are tasked with running the sonar system — or "flying the fish," as he puts it. That "fish" is actually a 20-foot (6-meter) long, 5-foot (1.5-meter) wide, 3.5-ton bright yellow behemoth called the SLH ProSAS-60, which is dragged slowly behind the ship by a cable.

The device hovers just above the seabed as it scans a patch of ocean floor 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) wide, sending data to computers on board that process the information into images.
The black-and-white, near-photo-quality pictures that pop up on the screen resemble the surface of the moon. The imagery, produced by synthetic aperture sonar, is higher quality than conventional sonar, Larsen says, giving him confidence that his team won't miss the debris field if they drift over it.

The job can be grueling. Larsen was on board the GO Phoenix at the start of the underwater search — from September 2014 to February 2015 — breaking only to return to shore once a month for fresh supplies, and flying home once to the U.S. for the holidays.

"It almost ruined my head, my brain, my heart, my marriage, but we got it going," he says.
On board, two teams of three people work alternating 12-hour shifts every day, a job that requires close attention and coordination. One of Larsen's employees sits at the controls flying the sonar, while a navigator sits beside him looking at upcoming terrain to warn him of obstacles. A third staffer sits in a nearby seat providing a backup set of eyes. Another team member pops in occasionally in case anyone needs a break.

The work is both monotonous and intense; there are long stretches where nothing happens, until bam — a massive mountain in the seabed suddenly appears in front of them. The sonar could be destroyed if it hits a rock wall, or it could get hopelessly stuck on something and languish forever on the ocean floor, which reaches depths of 6.5 kilometers (4 miles).
"It's that whole cliche of hours of boredom interspersed with moments of terror," Larsen says. "Some of the terrain out there is just incredible, these mountains and trenches and stuff that we're trying to get every last look into to make sure we don't miss anything. So the more daring we are, the better in terms of the imagery — but the consequences are real. ... It's a couple-million-dollar piece of equipment and we don't want to lose it."

Larsen's team must work closely with the crew to ensure the vessel is maintaining the right speed so the sonar doesn't sink to the bottom.

Those on board also must grapple with the region's notoriously brutal weather. The team can operate the sonar in up to 4-meter (13-foot) swells, but anything bigger forces them to pull up the gear so it isn't damaged. Maneuvering the massive device out of the water when the waves are big is tricky, as it can swing violently from the crane as the ship rocks. Well-planned choreography by more than a dozen people is required to prevent anyone from getting hurt.
The first month Larsen's team was on the hunt, they were in a constant state of alert, expecting the plane would quickly be found. As time passed, some of that anxiousness waned and the job became more routine. But they've never given up hope that the aircraft will be spotted, even though there's just 30 percent of the 120,000 square kilometer (46,000-square-mile) search zone left to check.

"It literally could be any minute, we could look up and see debris on that screen," he says.
When Larsen's team isn't on duty, they burn off energy at the ship's gym, watch movies, read and play poker, pingpong and somewhat contentious rounds of Monopoly. But often, they prefer to retire to their rooms for much-needed solitude. Most people share a room with one other person, but work opposing shifts so they get the space to themselves.

The Dong Hai crew is planning to stay in the search zone for 38 to 42 days at a stretch before returning to port for supplies. It's a tough assignment, but Larsen didn't have any trouble wrangling volunteers.

"Everybody wants to be on the MH370 search," he says.
The job comes with some perks, such as the novelty of being the first humans to lay eyes on much of the underwater terrain. The seabed in the search zone is so remote that it had never even been mapped before the hunt for Flight 370 began. In that sense, the search has proven thrilling, though Larsen is conscious of the larger goal.

"There are 239 families out there, so it's hard to be like, 'We're excited! This is awesome!'" he says. "But at the same time, we're really proud right now to be a part of the search because it's a huge effort and I hope to bring resolution to those families. And that's really the thing that drives us all is, 'Put a lid on this thing. Let's get this done.'"

[Peetwo]

A face to IIC (Annex 13) of MH370

Probably the bloke with the most unenviable job in Malaysia right now, courtesy of malaysiakini : 

 

MH370 The prophetic tagline, 'non-stop', seems to play a significant role in the life of Kok Soo Chon, the investigator-in-charge of the Malaysian ICAO Annex 13 Safety Investigation Team for MH370.

As a matter of fact, airline thriller 'Non-Stop' was the movie he was watching with his wife at a cinema in Petaling Jaya on March 8, 2014 - the day Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 vanished from the radar.

The jetliner's disappearance has since become one of the strangest mysteries in aviation history.

For Kok, the title of the movie has inadvertently impacted his high-profile work.

Non-stop, has since been his routine after he was roped in to helm the independent international investigation team on the disappearance of the Boeing 777-200ER aircraft.

"The name of the show... you believe it or not, is 'Non-Stop. Now, this job is non-stop," said Kok, 65, who is also former Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) director-general.
The Malaysian ICAO Annex 13 Safety Investigation Team for MH370 comprises 19 Malaysians and seven accredited representatives of the safety authorities from seven countries.

They are the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), Civil Aviation Administration of China, France's Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses, Indonesia's National Transportation Safety Committee, Singapore's Air Accident Investigation Bureau, United Kingdom's Air Accidents Investigation Branch and the National Transportation Safety Board of the United States.

Flight MH370, with 239 passengers and crew on board, disappeared from the radar while enroute to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur on March 8, 2014.

The jetliner has yet to be found although massive search operations were conducted in the southern Indian Ocean where the aircraft is believed to have ended its flight path after diverting from its original route.

Flaperon found
In July last year, a flaperon was found washed ashore on Reunion Island, off France and on Aug 6 last year, Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak confirmed it belonged to Flight MH370.

Kok said his working hours were non-stop as he was required to coordinate massive investigation from among team members from different part of the world.

He will make full use of technology such as tele-conferecing and emails to get in touch.
"We do need to communicate late at night. And the first thing I do before I go to work and before I go to bed is look at my laptop," he said.

Kok said the investigation team was committed to do its best and determine the truth behind the vanishing of Flight MH370.

"We are trying our best to find whatever truth we can find in our report so that everyone will know what happened on that fateful day," he said.

The chief investigator said team members were very committed and working relations with the experts, very encouraging and cordial in finding the truth.

The investigation team had released an interim statement and a factual information on the MH370 incident at its first anniversary last year and for this year, it issued an interim statement.

For Kok, the truth is out there.

Until the intrepid investigator-in-charge and his fellow investigators get to the bottom to unravel the mystery behind Flight MH370's disappearance, the task will continue - non-stop.
- Bernama

MTF...P2
Ps When I first saw that headline I thought - Oh no he we go again, what bollocks is Beaker coming out with now
Pps What an unfortunate name

[Gobbledock]

Oh well. I guess the score is equal - Malysia has a Kok in charge of its investigative bureau and Auatralia has a Cock in charge of its investigative bureau.
I did however notice that their is only one Cock with a beard, the other Kok is smooth.

"Unsafe names for all"

[Peetwo]

Another day, another possible piece of MH370 debris?? 


Courtesy East Coast Radio (Africa):

EXCLUSIVE: KZN family picks up possible MH370 debris

A Wartburg family that was recently on holiday in Mozambique has come across what could possibly be another piece of the MH370 puzzle.
Published: March 10, 2016, 6:30 p.m. by Khatija Nxedlana


The Malaysia Airlines flight disappeared two years ago while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, with 239 people onboard. 

18-year-old Liam Lotter has told East Coast Radio Newswatch while they were on holiday in Inhambane in December - he and his cousin came across what he describes as the "shiny object" while walking on the beach.
Listen to Liam below:

http://iono.fm/e/265256

They brought it back to KwaZulu-Natal.

Lotter says it was only after seeing news reports last week about another piece of debris found on a sandbank off Mozambique that his family saw a possible link.

Liam's mother Candace Lotter has since been in contact with South African and Australian authorities. 

The South African Civil Aviation Authority's Accident and Incident Investigations Division has confirmed to East Coast Radio Newswatch they are sending an official to Wartburg to pick up the debris, before passing it on to international investigators looking into the disappearance of the plane.

Meanwhile, the other piece of debris found in Mozambique arrived in Malaysia today for initial investigations into whether it's from the missing flight.



(Photos: Candace Lotter)

What is most interesting about this piece is that there is what appears to be a B777 recognised part number - 676EB - see HERE & HERE


MTF?- Definitely I would say...P2  

[Peetwo]

Another day, another possible piece of MH370 debris?? 


Courtesy East Coast Radio (Africa):

EXCLUSIVE: KZN family picks up possible MH370 debris

A Wartburg family that was recently on holiday in Mozambique has come across what could possibly be another piece of the MH370 puzzle.
Published: March 10, 2016, 6:30 p.m. by Khatija Nxedlana


The Malaysia Airlines flight disappeared two years ago while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, with 239 people onboard. 

18-year-old Liam Lotter has told East Coast Radio Newswatch while they were on holiday in Inhambane in December - he and his cousin came across what he describes as the "shiny object" while walking on the beach.
Listen to Liam below:

http://iono.fm/e/265256

They brought it back to KwaZulu-Natal.

Lotter says it was only after seeing news reports last week about another piece of debris found on a sandbank off Mozambique that his family saw a possible link.

Liam's mother Candace Lotter has since been in contact with South African and Australian authorities. 

The South African Civil Aviation Authority's Accident and Incident Investigations Division has confirmed to East Coast Radio Newswatch they are sending an official to Wartburg to pick up the debris, before passing it on to international investigators looking into the disappearance of the plane.

Meanwhile, the other piece of debris found in Mozambique arrived in Malaysia today for initial investigations into whether it's from the missing flight.



(Photos: Candace Lotter)

What is most interesting about this piece is that there is what appears to be a B777 recognised part number - 676EB - see HERE & HERE


MTF?- Definitely I would say...P2  

Update via Marnie @ news.com.au[/url]:

This suspected Boeing 777 wing part was found by South African teenager Liam Lotter during a family holiday in December. Picture: Candace Lotter

[url=http://twitter.com/marnieoneill7]@marnieoneill7
[img=0x0]http://pixel.tcog.cp1.news.com.au/track/component/author/86e4cdf929f450a650d886f1315cb16f?t_product=tcog&t_template=s3/ncatemp/desktop/includes/content-2/authorBlockSingle[/img]


FEARS countless pieces of wreckage from missing Flight MH370 are gathering dust on the mantelpieces of random people’s homes has gained traction overnight after a South African family came forward with an intriguing find.

The South African Civil Aviation Authority’s Accident and Incident Investigations Division has confirmed it is sending an official to the Wartburg home of teenager Liam Lotter to collect a piece of suspected debris from the missing Boeing 777.

Mr Lotter, 18, and his cousin found the “shiny object” on a sandbank way back in December while holidaying in Mozambique with his family.

“We picked it up and I turned it around and it had like a, sort of like a curve to it and you can see where it’s been like pop riveted almost, like there’s holes on the side,” the teen told East Coast Radio Newswatch last night.


“Anyway we were quite interested to see what it was so we took it up to the house and my uncle said: ‘No, you found a boat, throw it away, it’s a piece of rubbish’ and I said:
‘No, you know what? I’m going to do some research and see what I can find on the internet. And you know what? On the side it has sort of a serial number.”

Aviation experts have told News.com.au that the “676EB”, clearly seen printed on Mr Lotter’s piece in photos which emerged overnight, is not a serial number but a zone reference identifying it as it as part of the inboard support fairing for the outboard trailing edge flap of a Boeing 777.

The reference is in a font comparable to that of the “NO STEP” printed on a triangular piece of debris found by US blogger and MH370 private investigator Blaine Gibson, which turned up on a Mozambique sand bank last weekend.

Liam Lotter’s suspected wing tip part pictured above. The zone reference reads 676EB. Picture: Candace Lotter


A description of Mr Lotter’s piece appears in the Boeing 777 maintenance manual


A diagram from a Boeing manual showing where Mr Lotter’s piece would have been positioned on a Boeing 777. ‘WBL’ stands for Wing Buttock Line’


The section of a Boeing 777 wing Mr Lotter’s piece is suspected to have come from. Picture: lairdkay.tumblr

If proven genuine, it will be the fourth piece of MH370 found and the second to turn up in Mozambique. A flaperon which washed up on a beach in La Reunion last July is the only piece confirmed to have come from the missing Malaysia Airlines. The man who found the piece, Johnny Begue, came forward with another suspected piece this week.

EIGHT VITAL MH370 QUESTIONS WE NEED ANSWERS TO


Mr Lotter said he and his family only realised the piece might be linked to MH370 after Mr Gibson’s find made headlines at the weekend.

Liam’s mother Candace Lotter has since been in contact with South African and Australian authorities.

An Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) spokesman told news.com.au it was holding “discussions” with its South African counterparts to determine how and when the piece would be examined. In the interim, photographs had been supplied.


US MH370 blogger/investigator Blaine Gibson with the piece of suspected MH370 debris he found on a sandbank in the Mozambique Channel last weekend. Picture: Blaine Alan Gibson


Mr Gibson’s ‘NO STEP’ debris has a font similar to that of the zone reference printed on Mr Lotter’s piece. Picture: Blaine Alan GibsonSource:AFP

All four finds, particularly the Lotter family’s, raise the question: how many other pieces of the missing airliner are potentially sitting in people’s homes, gathering dust on the mantelpiece or in the bedroom of some curious child (or adult) who found it on the beach?

And why didn’t all the authorities involved send an army of beachcombers to the region as soon as the flaperon was found? The ATSB says the location of the debris is consistent with its drift model analysis, so why are there still no plans to arrange an official sweep of the Mozambique Channel, La Reunion and everything in between?

Meanwhile, Mr Gibson‘s debris, suspected to have come from the horizontal stabiliser of a Boeing 777, has made an unexpected stopover in Kuala Lumpur overnight.

Australian Transport Safety Bureau chief commissioner Martin Dolan told news.com.au earlier this week that Malaysian experts would transport the part from Maputo, Mozambique to Australia on Tuesday.

The part would be examined at the ATSB lab in Canberra “early next week” by experts from Malaysia, Australia, the US and Boeing. However, Mr Dolan made no mention of a Malaysian detour and it was unclear whether or not Australian authorities had been blindsided.

“The analysis will take place in Australia,” an ATSB spokesman said this morning.
But Malaysian media reports that the piece will indeed undergo testing before being sent to Australia for “further verification”.

Independent Group member Victor Iannello told news.com.au it was vital the integrity of the debris be maintained during the stopover.

“I hope that the testing performed by Malaysia does not alter the part and compromise future testing in Australia, including buoyancy tests,” he said

Top job Marnie


MTF...P2

[Kharon]

The B777 special parts delivery service swings into action.



You ring - We bring.

[Gobbledock]

When the Space Shuttle Columbia broke up over Texas there were many 'collectors' on the ground who pinched pieces of the wreckage. I understand the interest in collecting and keeping a broken component of something like the shuttle. But there were also some very dangerous and radioactive parts as well.

As for MH370, if the authorities were smart they would campaign around the islands where parts of her may, or may have already washed up, and offer locals cash rewards (maybe $20 or $50 per piece) if the piece is identified as that of MH370. It's a relatively small outlay as there won't be tens of thousands of pieces out there, but the information contained in not only those pieces but the detail on where and when they were found could be vital in plotting the area she crashed in.

Heaven forbid Australia is spending enough money already....hell, for $100 the fiscally dedicated super sleuth may even shave of his face rug!

[aussie500]

If people knew debris from MH370 could wash up near them, they would actively look for it and hand it in. Even not knowing, some have hung on to their finds anyway. The ATSB has not handled the situation that well.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/20...wrong.html

[Peetwo]

Off the IBT an update on the three suspected pieces of MH370 debris...

Flight MH370 Update: Experts To Analyze 3 Suspected Plane Debris Items, Including New Wreckage On Réunion Island


By Suman Varandani @suman09 On 03/14/16 AT 7:56 AM
[/url]

Family members of passengers on board Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, which went missing in 2014, hold messages in front of reporters during their gathering near the Malaysian Embassy on the second anniversary of the disappearance of MH370, in Beijing, China, March 8, 2016. Photo: REUTERS/Damir Sagolj

A total of three debris items have been found over the last two weeks in the southeast African nation of Mozambique and on France's Réunion Island in the Indian Ocean, Malaysia’s Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said Monday. Authorities will reportedly analyze the debris to determine its links to the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370.
Authorities will be sending the first piece of debris found two weeks ago on a sandbank in the Mozambique Channel — the ocean strait between Mozambique and Madagascar, to Australia, after the second debris item in custody of a South African family reaches Malaysia, Liow said in a statement.

Malaysian authorities confirmed that they are aware of the second fragment of debris discovered in Mozambique by the South African family, which took the piece to their hometown of KwaZulu-Natal.

“As the debris was taken back to South Africa by the family, DCA has been in contact with the South African authorities on this matter to arrange for the South African authorities to take custody of it,” Liow said, in the [url=https://twitter.com/SumishaCNA/status/709297769039536128]statement. “A Malaysian team consisting of the Malaysian ICAO Annex 13 Safety Investigation Team for MH370, DCA and MAS will be dispatched in due course to take custody of the piece from the South African Civil Aviation Authority.”

A piece of debris found by a South African family off the Mozambique coast that authorities will examine to see if it is from missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, is pictured in this handout photo released to Reuters March 11, 2016.Photo: REUTERS/Candace Lotter/Handout via Reuters

Liow said that Malaysia wants to be "transparent and accountable in our investigation as much as possible ... that is why we want (the parts) to be verified in Australia,"  according to Australia's SBS news, adding that a Malaysian team will scour the beaches in Mozambique for more possible debris.

Liow also said in the statement that a third debris was found on Réunion Island, where a flaperon belonging to a Boeing 777-200 jet, the same type as the missing Flight MH370 was found last July.

“A Malaysian team from DCA and the Malaysian ICAO Annex 13 Safety Investigation Team for MH370 has inspected the piece. The debris will be transferred to France for verification by the French authorities, with the participation of the Malaysian ICAO Annex 13 Safety Investigation Team for MH370,” Liow said in the statement.

As authorities continued to work to determine the links of the debris to the missing Flight MH370, Liow urged “the public to avoid premature and unwarranted speculation.”

Flight MH370 went missing on March 8, 2014, with 239 people on board while on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. A multimillion-dollar search operation in a remote part of the southern Indian Ocean is underway, but it has not revealed any concrete clues about the plane's whereabouts. Search vessels have so far scoured 34,749 sq. miles of the total 46,332 sq. miles of designated search area, while authorities have said the search is due to be called off in June if no wreckage is found.

“It is important to re-emphasize that at this juncture, it has not been confirmed whether any of the recovered debris came from MH370. It is therefore crucial for verification of all three pieces to be conducted by the respective teams of experts in Australia and France,” Liow said.

Liow said that Malaysia wants to be -"transparent and accountable in our investigation as much as possible ... that is why we want (the parts) to be verified in Australia," - Why start now  


MTF...P2

[Peetwo]

An Investigation of a MH370 Hybrid Flight Path
Don Thompson and Richard Godfrey
2016 March 12th
(Preliminary version: subject to revision)

http://www.duncansteel.com/archives/2321

An Investigation of a MH370 Hybrid Flight Path

Don Thompson and Richard Godfrey
2016 March 12th
(Updated March 15th)

 
Introduction

Flight path reconstructions for MH370 have typically involved an assumed route for the final (southwards) leg defined either by a single geodesic or a single loxodrome, each beginning at the Final Major Turn (FMT) near the northwest of the Malacca Strait and leading to an intersection with the 7th ping arc in the Southern Indian Ocean (SIO).
The BFO (Burst Frequency Offset) recorded at 00:11 UTC, however, deviates from the trend of the other BFOs recorded after 18:39 (as shown in Figure 1 below), and recognition of that fact has prompted the present study in which we explore a ‘hybrid’ autopilot flight navigation scenario within which a transition occurs in the path definition in the final hour of flight.
 

Figure 1: The values of the BFO plotted against the time (in seconds from the start of 2014 March 07 UTC). The final BFO value (at top right), which lies away from the trend line, has stimulated the present analysis, whereby a different type of path-following is taken to occur after an assumed final waypoint located at latitude 30 degrees south,
longitude 90 degrees east. 

Hybrid flight path model

The route reconstruction studied in the present report is based on the following linked-pair of assumptions:

(a) The B777 Flight Management System (FMS) was providing navigational instructions to the Autopilot Flight Director System (AFDS) via Lateral Navigation (LNAV) so as to fly the aircraft to a pilot-defined latitude/longitude waypoint [1] in the SIO; and
(b) The Flight Management Syetem (FMS) maintained the subsequent path (i.e. that taken after the overflight of the waypoint), in accord with the default reversion mode stipulated for a Route Discontinuity (according to the B777 Flight Crew Operations Manual, or FCOM [2]).

Briefly, when the FMS completes navigation to the final defined waypoint on any route it then enters the ‘Route Discontinuity’ state, but continues to provide guidance to the AFDS via LNAV. In Route Discontinuity mode the FMS guidance reverts to a simple magnetic (compass) vector as defined by the final heading of the previous leg (i.e. that maintained until the final defined waypoint was reached). That is, for the flight leg between the penultimate waypoint (in this case, likely near the FMT) and the final or ultimate waypoint the path flown would be a great circle (or geodesic); however, after passing the final waypoint the path flown is a loxodrome or rhumb line: a path with a constant bearing, with that bearing in this case being measured relative to Magnetic (rather than True) North.

Exploration of this ‘hybrid’ path reconstruction is an extension of the ‘constrained autopilot defined’ philosophy adopted by the Independent Group (IG), which searches for paths conforming with both BTO (Burst Timing Offset) and BFO data, and complies with the deterministic aircraft navigation characteristics rather than a purely data-led mathematical fit.

Previous IG modelling has explored how closely a geodesic/great circle path or loxodrome/rhumb line path can be fit to the BTO and BFO data from an assumed FMT positional fix through to a point on the 7th arc. The route reconstruction in the present case exploits something observed in these previous models: they tend to pass close to the point 30S090E (latitude 30 degrees south, longitude 90 degrees east). The route reconstruction here in this hybrid treatment is based an an assumption that 30S090E is the fix or waypoint for a final FMS ‘track-to-fix’ (TF) leg and, subsequently, the FMS reverts to a default of following a magnetic vector (MV), the non-deterministic FMS MV leg type, as indicated in the flight manuals [2]. In an ordinary flight, such a MV loxodrome would continue until manual intervention by the pilots.

While flying the terminal MV leg the aircraft track over Earth’s surface is subject to the prevailing magnetic variation, and also high altitude winds. Combining:

(i) The Global Data Assimilation System (GDAS) atmospheric observations the start of 2014 March 08;
(ii) The table of magnetic declinations or variations (2005*) for different geographical coordinates, consistent with the model apparently loaded into the MH370 (aircraft 9M-MRO) FMS; and (iii) The aircraft speed and heading at 30S090E
… the surface track for the final (MV) leg can be determined.

*The magnetic declination tables used for navigation in the FMS of modern aircraft are mandated to be updated every decade in the year ending with the numeral ‘5’.

Analysis

The BFO for the 00:11 R-channel log-on interrogation event deviates from the trend across the earlier BFOs (sparse as the trend is), as shown in Figure 1 above. The analysis we applied tested how a hybrid geodesic-plus-magnetic-north-referenced path might instead fit the BFO data.

• The FMS, commanding LNAV via roll commands to the AFDS, will navigate the aircraft to any chosen location; an assumption we make is that that the intended destination was in the SIO;
  
• A FMS track-to-fix (TF) leg is the most common element of a route definition;
  
• FMS reversion at a Route Discontinuity is understood to occur [2];
  
• Assuming an LNAV route, the BFO trend suggests that a Route Discontinuity occurred after 23:00 (the mean C-channel BFO is below the trend);
  
• The final fix/waypoint within the FMS-computed fuel range ensures the route will be executed in LNAV and VNAV without errors.
  
  

The goal here was to identify a path for the final MV leg, starting from S30E090 due to the fact that that true-track and geodesic solutions in earlier flight models passed close to that ’round figure’ point.

Based on Richard’s MH370 Flight Model a hybrid flight path model was developed using a great circle path from a late FMT to a pilot-defined waypoint at 30S090E, followed by a constant magnetic heading loxodrome from 30S090E to an end point at that loxodrome’s intersection with the 7th arc.

A constant Mach speed (0.817) was used, because this was found to provide the best fit to the satellite data (BTO and BFO values).

The flight path after passing by 30S090E at 23:21:20 UTC was calculated in 10-minute steps, the route calculated in this way being shown in Figure 2 below. Details of the latitude and longitude of this path at different times (i.e. in 10-minute steps) are given in Table 1 below.

Figure 2: Prior to the assumed final/target waypoint and from the FMT the modelled path of MH370 follows a great circle (or geodesic); after that waypoint the path assumed is a loxodrome or rhumb line based on a magnetic reference (i.e. Magnetic North not True North). That path intersects the 7th ping arc at a point near 37.3S, 89.5E.

 
Results

Due to the magnetic declinations/variations and the high-altitude winds, the track changes its azimuthal direction from 187.0475°T at 30S090E (the assumed final waypoint, passed at 23:21 UTC) to 177.9864°T at the time of crossing the 6th ping arc (i.e. at 00:11 UTC). The various representations of the track or heading at different junctures are given in Table 1.

The resultant hybrid flight path reached the 6th arc at a location near 36.46S, 89.44E (see Table 1 below). This fits the BTO value obtained at 00:11 UTC to within 0.8 km.

The overall RMS BTO Error is 5.9 km, and the overall RMS BFO Error is 3.2 Hz.

Excluding the 19:41 arc (subject of a previous post on the use of further waypoints closer to the FMT), the RMS BTO rrror is 3.4 km, and the RMS BFO error is 1.0 Hz.

Extrapolating the loxodrome flight path for the final leg to the 7th arc (the subject of a previous post on the aircraft’s behaviour after flame-out), the end point obtained is near 37.34S, 89.48E (see Table 1 below) .

The relevant flight path details are given in Table 1 below.

Table 1: Hybrid-model flight details. The location given in the penultimate row (time close to 00:11 UTC) corresponds to the crossing of the 6th arc; the location in the bottom row (time 00:19:29 UTC) is the place at which this flight path crosses the 7th arc. 

Conclusion

Richard’s flight path model v16, using an assumed great circle path from a late FMT, resulted in an end point (i.e. an intersection with the 7th ping arc) near 38.19S, 88.04E. The hybrid path model described in the present report leads to an end point near 37.34S, 89.48E. If the hypothesis proposed in this report is correct — that the final waypoint available to the FMS following the FMT was the ’round figure’ of 30S090E, and after passing that location a ‘Route Discontinuity’ condition resulted in the FMS flying the aircraft on a loxodrome with a magnetic reference, in apparent accord with the FCOM  — then the latter location (37.34S, 89.48E) would be our best estimate of the place that MH370 reached the 7th arc, based solely on the satellite data.

Note that the assumption of a constant Mach speed is a feature of the model described in the present report. A refinement that might be made at some stage is that the speed between the 6th and 7th arcs might be expected to be reduced slightly due to the aircraft then operating on only one engine, this being the distinction between Richard’s flight models v16.0 and v16.1: see this post. The effect of allowing for this deceleration between the 6th and 7th arcs was found in that previous post to be a shift in the end point latitude by 0.2 degrees northwards and 0.3 degrees in longitude eastwards. Those figures compare with the shifts of 0.85 degrees northwards and 1.44 degrees eastwards found above. That is, a further shift northeast on the 7th arc would result if the falling speed at the end of the flight were included in the model applied here, but that shift would be of a lesser magnitude than the effect identified herein caused by assuming that the latter part of the flight were following a magnetic loxodrome from 30S090E, rather than a continued great circle path.

[1] Boeing 777 Flight Management System Pilot’s Guide, Honeywell, October 2001; Section 10: Advanced Flight Planning.
[2] Continental Airlines B777–226 Flight Manual, and Qatar Airways B777 Flight Crew Operations Manual, Boeing Company:  “LNAV  maintains current heading when […] passing the last waypoint prior to a route discontinuity.”

MTF...P2

[Peetwo]

Paul Howard on MH370 & the BITOD QON?  

MH370 The BITOD question


20/3/2016



 

The importance of BITOD or not, must be considered as crucial in determining and verifying the complete radar track  of the missing aircraft. The information we have is sourced from Malaysia only with no corroborating report from Vietnam. My previous radar analysis here.
 
I think by now we all realize that information from Malaysia has been inadequate, confusing and misleading.

The 2015 Interim Factual was an unsatisfactory document which raised more questions than it answered.

Most of us were hoping that inconsistencies from that report would be addressed in a 2016 Interim Factual and were disappointed that only a statement was published. Legal? Certainly, ICAO Annex 13 only requires an Interim Statement on the anniversary of any accident.

What hasn’t been addressed is a common law requirement to comply with the meaning of the law. That means that whatever regulations state, the intention of those regulations should be complied with regardless of the specific wording. There is also ICAO Doc 9756 which although referring to Final Reports could be construed as referring to any Factual Report including Interims.
 
For that reason I’ve drafted a petition linked here to request clarification of the radar information provided in the 2015 Interim Factual.
 

The implications of BITOD.

 

If MH370 did reach BITOD, then a simple speed calculation shows that the speed required to subsequently make the 1730 UTC position from Kota Bharu while maintaining high level, is impossible. Nor could it have descended and climbed again to reach a height of 35,700 ft at that point as stated in the 2015 Interim factual.

Even worse, the speed would be too fast to intersect the 1825 UTC ping arc.
The image below is to illustrate the impossibility of BITOD relative to the rest of the official track.

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The images in this article are sourced from the Malaysian 2015 Interim Factual (excluding my compilation image) and the 1st below are to show the claimed point of disappearance from radar. Note the discrepancy between the times of MY and HCM mode S SSR and ADSB (remember this is not confirmed independently by HCM ) 

Right click all images for readability.
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From here I’ll refer to the sector telephones and how they relate to the later telephone transcripts and more importantly who (which type of controller ) was recorded in those transcripts. It needs to be explained that at night, full manning is not required because of reduced traffic levels. Combining sectors or “band-boxing” is a common procedure at ATCC’s. Below is an image of the KLATCC combined sectors 3 & 5 and my own annotation ( in red ) of airspace delegated from Singapore. The annotation is just a quick guide and not accurate because I couldn’t be bothered ploughing through the AIP to get it exact.
(Nor could Malaysia be bothered for an official report !)
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Now that we have an idea of the airspace of sectors 3/5, we need to understand the sector personnel.
 
1. Crew Chief, responsible for co-ordinating traffic in and out of multiple adjacent sectors manned by two or more radar controllers. At night he’s not required and his duties are performed by a radar controller.
 
2. Radar Controller, responsible for directing and communicating with aircraft within his sector and at night the duties of 1.
 
3. Planning Controller, responsible for co-ordinating traffic with external units, allocating outbound flight levels, ensuring that 2. has accurate data, supervising 4.
 
4. Data Controller (in Malaysia, assistant in other centres ) responsible for displaying data, receiving and passing estimates and anything directed by 3.

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We can see from this that between 1600 & 2200 UTC the Planning Controller was absent and his duties performed by the Data (assistant). Based on what I know to be normal night operations, Sectors3/5 were manned by a Radar Controller and a Data assistant only. While it’s normal for a Planner to take a break, 30 minutes maximum is normal NOT 6 hours. The next image is one I’ve compiled to show what I consider to be a normal sector telephone arrangement. The transcripts refer to the Planner line only and it’s this line and its connections which I’ve illustrated. I need to explain that phone line connections have a separate panel(often in the overhead) to select which lines before combining sectors.

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Now we understand the Planner telephones and that it wasn’t the KLATCC Planner but either the Data assistant or the Radar Controller using that line. We don’t know who was using the line, only who was on the Sector at the time.

It should be noted that the Radar Controller’s own console usually does not have Planner lines, Radar to Radar only.

The consoles are adjacent and a Radar Controller could use a Planner line but the Data assistant would have to pass him a handset to do so.
 
All of this is a description of KLATCC only. The line from HCM hasn’t been identified and it could either be a Planner or a Radar line. There is also no way of identifying the personnel at HCM so we don’t know who identified MH370’s last position as BITOD. The transcript excerpts below show that somebody at HCM ATCC was certain that it reached BITOD before dropping out.  







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With all the above conversations, it would be a mistake to assume that they were conducted by one individual at each end of the line. For both KLATCC & HCM it's possible that parts of the conversation were conducted by Data or Radar or in the case of HCM, a Planning Controller or any combination. It's my guess that the dialogue in better English is a Radar Controller. The statement at 1739:12 by HCM suggests it was a Radar Controller because of the possessive use of "my radar" A Data assistant could confuse position on radar, a Radar Controller would not.

Paul Howard DRAFT Petition:


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Top job Paul -

MTF...P2