[Peetwo]

One for the DOI archives - Courtesy Mike Chillit's 7th Arc blog (Tim Tam quality.. ) 

MH370 Debris Drift Issues
Posted on August 11, 2016 by Mike Chillit — 2 Comments ↓

Overview

Are you interested in the likelihood MH370 debris DRIFTED FROM a particular location – north or south of where it was found? No problem. Plenty of opinions and drift studies to choose from. But do you also want reasonably credible analyses? Analyses prepared by people with the objectivity to do the work without losing their job or being reassigned to an outback salt-mine? If you do, that’s more difficult.

For reasonably objective studies, start by ignoring every single drift analysis that has come out of Australia. There are several from organizations like CSIRO, ATSB, and one or more small Australian colleges. It isn’t that those institutions don’t have the expertise to do good research. They do. But in this particular instance, they are not and probably cannot be objective. The loss of MH370 has become highly politicized in Australia, largely because the search was mismanaged on a massive scale by Australia’s in-house ATSB. As a result, Australia has become something of a Tasmanian devil and is to be avoided by everyone who wants to find the plane.

This sort of in-house loss of objectivity happens in organizations from time to time. It isn’t as uncommon as it should be. Most of the time leadership recognizes that the way out is to have the issue examined by an impartial third-party. In fact, Australia had to do that recently in another massive aircraft investigation fiasco known as Pel-Air. It is still not resolved, but fellow Commonwealth nation Canada was eventually asked to step in and pull Oz’s chestnuts from a firestorm.

For the most part, all drift analyses conducted by Australian entities conclude that MH370 debris found in the Mascarene Island area since July 2015 came from a narrow 100 km by 1,000 km search area SW of Perth where not one single piece of debris of any description has been found. They do that largely because Australia has already spent upwards of $100 million of its own money on the search, and has exactly nothing to show for it. Call it what you will, but it is not a stretch to conclude that well-intended Australian “researchers” are mostly determined to minimize the nation’s chagrin. But giving a Prime Minister the option to declare the plane “vaporized” or was the victim of an “alien abduction”, is not a very good solution. Better to come right out and declare, “We muffed it badly, and need help to complete the task.”

There are several non-Australian drift analyses worth considering. Two of them were conducted by Germany’s Geomar. They are both plausible and helpful. Yet another was prepared by France after it examined the flaperon found on Reunion Island in late July 2015. It is credible, although France itself is apparently not so sure of that.

NOAA has prepared several cursory drift examinations of the area. The results were not definitive and were not intended to be definitive. Yet another was conducted by Dr. Brock McEwen of Canada. It has not been formally published, but is a big improvement over Australian studies, and McEwen is credible. Finally, a few informal examinations have been published on Twitter by Moi using specially requested NOAA drifter “no-drogue” data. (I served as the New Jersey Judiciary’s Chief of Statistics for 7 years, and held similar positions elsewhere). This article will highlight the findings of yet another inquiry based on the same no-drogue dataset maintained by NOAA.

General Findings

Almost without exception, studies conducted by non-Australian entities have concluded that Mascarene Island debris likely originated somewhere WEST or NORTH of Western Australia. The target areas identified generally range from the Zenith Plateau area west of Exmouth to Java Island. Perth Basin a little farther south has also been found to be plausible in some instances.

This Analysis

The most recent analysis requested ALL no-drogue drifters from NOAA that were deployed between 1979 and the present in the following two geographic areas:

• from -7° S to -20° S latitude; and from 100° E to 114° E longitude; to be labeled the Wharton Basin group of no-drogue drifters; and,
  
• from -30° S to -40° S latitude; and from 80° E to 120° E longitude; to be labeled the Perth Area group of no-drogue drifters.
  

Here is a visual of each group location:


The two no-drogue drifter group deployment points.

Caution: it is not possible to state that groups of no-drogue drifters will behave exactly as aircraft debris will behave as it is pushed along by wind, wave, and currents. It is assumed that they drift sufficiently similar to be comparable, but there are no known studies that examine the issue in any detail. Indeed, such studies probably could not be designed to be relevant and applicable to every aircraft crash situation to be definitive.

It is enough to be sure there are no glaring issues that completely invalidate no-drogue drifters. None are known, so this review is believed to be useful and relevant until shown to be otherwise.

Drifters Selected by NOAA

Requesting drifter buoy data from NOAA is simple. In this instance, I defined the boundaries of the buoys I wanted (shown above) and NOAA electronically sent me date and other information on deployment and termination about an hour later. No buoys had to be excluded. I did a little formatting to handle the data with the software I prefer. NOAA sent me data on 73 buoys in the Wharton Basin group; 66 buoys in the Perth group.

For the Wharton Basin group, the average drift period was 329 days (11 months). Three buoys were in the water more than 1,000 days, and the longest was in the water for 1,252 days (3.4 years).

For the Perth group, average drift period was 441 days (15 months). Five buoys were in the water for more than 1,000 days, and the longest was in the water for 2,187 days (6 years).
It is also possible to obtain detailed track information from NOAA on each of these buoys, but that was not done in this instance. As a rule, it is too much information. What we want to know is where it ended up, not the travails it endured to get there.

Findings

In general, no-drogue drifter buoys dropped west of Perth were not only in the water 4 months longer, on average, than Wharton Basin drifters, Perth area drifters did not head for the Mascarene Islands. A high percentage stayed in the Perth area or washed ashore elsewhere on Western Australia or Australia’s great southern exposure before or after the Great Bight where there was no chance they would be found. Drifters that were deployed in the Perth area that eventually reached the Mascarene Island area tended to begin their journeys well west of the actual search area around 80° E longitude. Visuals for these findings follow, beginning with Wharton Basin area endpoint spray chart and path diagrams.


Wharton Basin area drifter endpoint spray chart.
 

Wharton Basin area drifter path summary.

Perth area spray chart and path summary.


Perth area drifter endpoint spray chart.


Perth area drifter path summary.

Bottom Line: Even if you searched the Mascarene Island area for debris from the greater Perth Basin area, you would be unlikely to find anything. Debris from that part of the southern Indian Ocean simply goes to other places. Debris that actually makes it, starts north and west of the MH370 search area.

Conclusion
The primary conclusion, shared by all studies NOT CONDUCTED by Australian interests, is that the search for MH370 must move north. Most of these studies also include or reference what is known as the 7th Arc as the most likely north – south intersection. But this latest study, above, has begun putting distance between all Inmarsat data and what can be gleaned from the debris. The 7th Arc probably should not be tossed quite yet, but it is wearing thin. Inmarsat does not have a credible reputation with data in this effort, and it has done little to help its own cause.

• Mike Chillit
  

You may download the files I received from NOAA as well as the Excel spreadsheets I used to work with them at this link. Enjoy. drifter-downloads

2 thoughts on “MH370 Debris Drift Issues”


Carol S. on August 11, 2016 at 11:33 pm said:

Remarkable analysis for the drift. More detail than I’ve seen on any other drift analysis and easier to figure out. BTW could not find any spelling or grammar errors.

I agree, the Oz experts would have to come up with something that matched what ATSB wanted to hear. They should have been, or should be, allowing the evidence to lead them. Since it seems unlikely that large pieces will be found in our lifetimes, more importance should be placed on what they know/have. I think I’ve said this before.
Great drift analysis that even I can understand.



Mike Chillit on August 11, 2016 at 11:56 pm said:

Thanks, Carol. High praise!

I’ll be interested to see if other non-Australian types confirm it. In most of my exchanges with CSIRO, the main event has tended to be an Old Soft Shoe on the head of a pin. Think they are all terrified of anyone finding it somewhere else. Don’t believe Australia would tell anyone if they found it somewhere else off their western coast.

[FelineNut]

Today I saw a byline in the Huntington Post dealing with the Olympics pool issue. It says...

"Olympic officials close, then reopen diving pool that "smells like a fart"...."But, Um, the water is still green"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/rio-...c36e4e6147

My point is, "Less chaff is more wheat" --memtas. This information is much like the Olympic pool problem, although the pool is open, it smells much like a fart and the entire pool is still green.

Added Note and reminder:

Somewhere in the Merchant of Venice, one of Shakespeare's characters is made to say:

"his reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff, you may seek all day ere you find them and when you have them they are not worth the search".

With the caseload we carry, and for other reasons more important to the litigant, we need nothing in the record or the briefs but the wheat, the chaff should be let go. The overburden imposed by excesses in either is not the worst vice. The litigant's right may be so embedded or hidden in the chaff that no amount of argument or reading may reveal it to the Court. When that is the case, the litigant is disappointed and very justly loses confidence in our system of administering justice. It becomes rather a system for handing out injustice, not because of any fault in the system, but on account of lack of skill and industry on the part of those who administer it. Less chaff in the wheat will be a great boon to litigants.

Cheers! Take care PeeTwo. Btw, I didn't know flatulence was this rosy and green too. My Gosh!

[Peetwo]

Taking apart that (bollocks) simulator report?

Not sure on the distribution rights just yet but this drop box link was forwarded on Twitter via Hippy Girl with permission from Blaine Gibson... : Setting the record straight.doc

While on the subject of that (IMO) irrelevant simulator report, on his blog Paul Howard systematically takes apart and puts to rest the bollocks that the RMP report proves that Capt Z methodically planned the last flight of MH370 on his home flight simulator:

Proof that Capt. Z. Shah did NOT plan turn into SIO
9/8/2016

 
The report in NYC magazine widely publicised as a reason to blame Capt. Shah is based on a completely false analysis and assumption by the RMP.
 
Since the home simulator information was made public I’ve been analysing it myself and discovered that RMP was completely wrong for the most ridiculous reason.
 
Below is the image from the RMP report showing a line between point 3 and 4 of the sim co-ordinates. 

How did they make that assumption ? The next image from the RMP report is the specific data and I must stress the need to analyse this CAREFULLY and with an understanding of how flight simulator data is presented.

Apart from the obviously anomalous altitude/AGL data at point 5,
what’s most important is understanding the heading information for all points.
The headings are NOT expressed in normal aviation format and are expressed as plus or minus relative to North (360).
That minus symbol in front of the headings is MOST important !
So how do I prove it ?
The image below is point 6 at Kuala Lumpur runway end.
The heading given is -33.85, subtract that from 360 and the real heading is
326.15.
Plot that and the image below is the result, straight down the runway

Now that we know how the headings are expressed, we can apply them to the other 5 points.
All my heading plots are in red and it doesn’t take much imagination to see how wrong they would be if I’d read the heading data literally without that very important minus symbol. Points 1 and 2 below.

Point 3 is the important difference from the RMP report. The heading of that is
255 and NOT 104 which would actually take it back towards Malaysia

It’s now easy to see from the image above that the heading points towards Colombo and
NOT towards the SIO.
My own interpretation of that point (if linked to the others) is that ATC software misdirected the flight to DOTEN and the pilot decided to cut the corner and fly direct.
 
I’m still analysing the data and my interpretation is that the two positions between Australia and Antarctica are unrelated to the first four points.
The heading of 193 from point 5 does not appear to take it to Mc Murdo but I’ve yet to apply magnetic variation which in those latitudes is complex because of the proximity to the South Magnetic Pole. A rough estimate without accurate plotting appears to put the track in the middle of nowhere !

Another important point to note is magnetic variation with regard to flight simulators. Around the magnetic poles the variation changes can be significant and unless a specific attempt is made to update that information in a home simulator, any attempt to use the sim for real navigation is doomed to failure. I know this and I’m sure an 18,000 hour pilot would also know it.
 
To summarize, my analysis of the data is ongoing and I’m sure much more will emerge to prove that mainstream media are completely wrong to draw the inferences that they have.
It’s also worth noting that a tiny error such as missing a minus symbol, can have huge implications on the conclusion and that also applies to the massive amount of data which actually is relevant to the investigation.
A further image unnecessary for me but perhaps useful for others to determine where the simulation was going from point 3

 
Well done Blaine & PH! 
MTF...P2

[FelineNut]

Excellent Quote and fitting to the circumstances:


“I admit that you can’t convince someone of the truth when they are intent on believing a lie.”

--Chris Cuomo, CNN via Twitter

[Gobbledock]

A lesson from history and could a + or - really make such a big difference?

Sorry, a Sunday ramble inspired by history and possible similarities but under different circumstances.

The ANZ Erebus accident comes to mind when reading the previous few well thought out posts. I won't go into too much depth here , but those familiar with all the details of the accident will recall this;

Incorrect flight coordinates entered into the flights Nav system caused the disaster.
Nineteen days earlier the pilots had attended a briefing session where they were shown the printouts of a flight plan used by previous flights to the Antarctic. The plan gave co-ordinates for the trip to Antarctica and across McMurdo Sound. With these co-ordinates entered into the flight Nav  system, the plane could fly automatically to its destination. Not too dissimilar to what  MH370 should have done.

On the morning of 28 November 1977 Capt Collins and F/O Cassin entered the series of latitude and longitude co-ordinates into the aircraft computer. However, they did not know that two of the co-ordinates had been changed earlier that morning. When these incorrect co-ordinates were entered into the computer, they changed the flight path of the aircraft 45 kilometres to the east. The rest as they say is sad history, and the outcome nearly broke the airline, a government and a country.

Do I think incorrect coordinates brought down MH370? Not particularly. But mistakes and failures on multiple levels can occur, bringing about catastrophic results.

Erebus was also a good example of how far an airline and a government will go to cover up the truth. This was 40 years ago next year. Has corruption and deceit and a lack of ethics improved in this world? Hardly.
The stench emanating from the MH370 investigation, government actions, the inconsistencies and the refusal to yield is highly suspicious, and the similarities to Erebus in the way that the truth/root cause was covered up is uncanny.

My fear is that just like with Erebus, the truth will never see light of day and the mystery, speculation, accusations, innuendo, and facts will still be sought in 40 years from now.


R.I.P lost aviators and loved ones.

[Peetwo]

Proof that Capt. Z. Shah did NOT plan turn into SIO
9/8/2016

 
The report in NYC magazine widely publicised as a reason to blame Capt. Shah is based on a completely false analysis and assumption by the RMP.
 
Since the home simulator information was made public I’ve been analysing it myself and discovered that RMP was completely wrong for the most ridiculous reason.
 
Below is the image from the RMP report showing a line between point 3 and 4 of the sim co-ordinates. 

How did they make that assumption ? The next image from the RMP report is the specific data and I must stress the need to analyse this CAREFULLY and with an understanding of how flight simulator data is presented.

Apart from the obviously anomalous altitude/AGL data at point 5,
what’s most important is understanding the heading information for all points.
The headings are NOT expressed in normal aviation format and are expressed as plus or minus relative to North (360).
That minus symbol in front of the headings is MOST important !

So how do I prove it ?

The image below is point 6 at Kuala Lumpur runway end.

The heading given is -33.85, subtract that from 360 and the real heading is
326.15.

Plot that and the image below is the result, straight down the runway

Now that we know how the headings are expressed, we can apply them to the other 5 points.

All my heading plots are in red and it doesn’t take much imagination to see how wrong they would be if I’d read the heading data literally without that very important minus symbol. Points 1 and 2 below.

Point 3 is the important difference from the RMP report. The heading of that is 255 and NOT 104 which would actually take it back towards Malaysia.

It’s now easy to see from the image above that the heading points towards Colombo and NOT towards the SIO.

My own interpretation of that point (if linked to the others) is that ATC software misdirected the flight to DOTEN and the pilot decided to cut the corner and fly direct.
 
I’m still analysing the data and my interpretation is that the two positions between Australia and Antarctica are unrelated to the first four points.
The heading of 193 from point 5 does not appear to take it to Mc Murdo but I’ve yet to apply magnetic variation which in those latitudes is complex because of the proximity to the South Magnetic Pole. A rough estimate without accurate plotting appears to put the track in the middle of nowhere !

Another important point to note is magnetic variation with regard to flight simulators. Around the magnetic poles the variation changes can be significant and unless a specific attempt is made to update that information in a home simulator, any attempt to use the sim for real navigation is doomed to failure. I know this and I’m sure an 18,000 hour pilot would also know it.
 
To summarize, my analysis of the data is ongoing and I’m sure much more will emerge to prove that mainstream media are completely wrong to draw the inferences that they have.

It’s also worth noting that a tiny error such as missing a minus symbol, can have huge implications on the conclusion and that also applies to the massive amount of data which actually is relevant to the investigation.

A further image unnecessary for me but perhaps useful for others to determine where the simulation was going from point 3

Will the real MH370 (disinformation) mole please stand up?

In recent days on social media there has been a bit of a ding dong going on between the IG & other MH370 followers, in regards to the revelations in this Duncan Steel blog:

2016/08/15 Duncan

Captain Zaharie Shah’s Recovered Flight Simulator Information: Preliminary Assessment from the MH370 Independent Group 

Victor Iannello, Don Thompson, Michael Exner,
Richard Godfrey, Brian Anderson, Yap Fooh Fah,
Barry Carlson, Thomas Kenyon, Henrik Rydberg,
Sid Bennett, Geoff Hyman and Duncan Steel

15th August 2016 

 
Information related to the disappearance of MH370 was recently shared with the Independent Group (IG) by an individual who is not affiliated with any government entity in any country. The information appears to be part of a report compiled for and by the Royal Malaysia Police (RMP) and includes contributions from other Malaysian agencies. In this report, it is stated that data related to a flight simulator game were found on Captain Zaharie Shah’s home computer. The IG makes the following preliminary assessment, which is based on the content of the RMP report:

1. Simulator data from the Microsoft Flight Simulator X (FSX) game were found on a solid state drive that was not electrically connected to the computer motherboard at the time it was recovered. The FSX game was uninstalled from that drive on 20th February 2014. The report did not provide any information on why the computer was in this state.
   
2. The data of interest are fragments of *.FLT files, this being the format used by FSX to store parameters, including position coordinates at arbitrary points during a run of the simulator. The data were saved in a Shadow Copy Set, and were last modified on 3rd February 2014.
   
3. The coordinates, if all from one simulation run, suggest the departure of a B777-200LR aircraft from Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA), a flight up the Malacca Strait, a turn to the south, and a termination in the Southern Indian Ocean near 45S 104E. This path is shown as a black line in Figure 1.
   
4. A path connecting the turn and the final coordinates, when extrapolated further as a great circle, aligns with airfields servicing the McMurdo Station in Antarctica, which may have been chosen as the destination in the simulation. This extrapolation is also indicated in Figure 1.
   
5. Within the Shadow Copy Set, there were two additional coordinates that were recovered for an aircraft parked at KLIA. No other coordinates recovered from the Shadow Copy Set, if there were any, were included in the RMP report.
   
6. Although we cannot determine that the six points (see Table 1) are all from a single flight simulation run, the alignments of the points and the progressive depletion in fuel level, leading to an unpowered descent from an altitude of 37,600 feet down to 4,000 feet over a short distance, suggest the coordinates may well be related to the same flight simulation.
   
7. A preliminary analysis of the flight data, derived by the IG from the data found on the solid state drive, is summarized in Table 1.
   
8. We have no comment on whether these data link Captain Zaharie Shah to a crime.
   
9. Work continues within the IG to better understand and validate the data, and to determine whether the data can be used to refine the search area for the aircraft.
   

 

Table 1. Parameters Derived from the Raw Simulator Data

 

Figure 1: Flight paths into the southern Indian Ocean. In black: the simulated flight path obtained by connecting the coordinates found on Captain Zaharie Shah’s home computer. The grey line is an extrapolation of that path; point 5 in Table 1 is within a few kilometres of the great circle connecting point 4 and the airfield NZPG at McMurdo. In yellow, a representative flight path ending near the 7th arc and 37S from among those modelled by the Defence Science and Technology Group (DSTG) in Australia, and used by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) in defining the priority underwater search area (as shown by the green box).

It has also been revealed that this information had also been leaked to other sources which include French publications Le Monde & Liberation.

This 'leaking' bollocks would appear to have no clear objective other than to severely muddy the waters. Which for mine makes the Gobbles post well worth re-reading to hopefully get various interested parties to stop with the BS and realign their moral compasses... :

A lesson from history and could a + or - really make such a big difference?

Sorry, a Sunday ramble inspired by history and possible similarities but under different circumstances.

The ANZ Erebus accident comes to mind when reading the previous few well thought out posts. I won't go into too much depth here , but those familiar with all the details of the accident will recall this;

Incorrect flight coordinates entered into the flights Nav system caused the disaster.
Nineteen days earlier the pilots had attended a briefing session where they were shown the printouts of a flight plan used by previous flights to the Antarctic. The plan gave co-ordinates for the trip to Antarctica and across McMurdo Sound. With these co-ordinates entered into the flight Nav  system, the plane could fly automatically to its destination. Not too dissimilar to what  MH370 should have done.

On the morning of 28 November 1977 Capt Collins and F/O Cassin entered the series of latitude and longitude co-ordinates into the aircraft computer. However, they did not know that two of the co-ordinates had been changed earlier that morning. When these incorrect co-ordinates were entered into the computer, they changed the flight path of the aircraft 45 kilometres to the east. The rest as they say is sad history, and the outcome nearly broke the airline, a government and a country.

Do I think incorrect coordinates brought down MH370? Not particularly. But mistakes and failures on multiple levels can occur, bringing about catastrophic results.

Erebus was also a good example of how far an airline and a government will go to cover up the truth. This was 40 years ago next year. Has corruption and deceit and a lack of ethics improved in this world? Hardly.

The stench emanating from the MH370 investigation, government actions, the inconsistencies and the refusal to yield is highly suspicious, and the similarities to Erebus in the way that the truth/root cause was covered up is uncanny.

My fear is that just like with Erebus, the truth will never see light of day and the mystery, speculation, accusations, innuendo, and facts will still be sought in 40 years from now.


R.I.P lost aviators and loved ones.

Paul Howard feeling incensed by all this obfuscation, leaking & disinformation, nearly pulled the pin on social media, thankfully he didn't and has made this addition to his previous blog in reply to the IG piece... :

My reply to the Independent Group Preliminary Assessment

Here; http://www.duncansteel.com/

This article has been edited from my larger work which has a startling conclusion to be revealed at a later date. 

Two members of the Independent Group were involved with the selective leak of the data and one allegedly former member was responsible for the leak to New York Magazine and authored the article. The involvement of the two silent members extends at very least to confirming that the data was genuine and that they had seen it.

The question which needs to be asked is how long had the IG known about the data and how did it influence their assumptions?

 Now to the data itself and I’ll present it in reverse order for a good reason. We can safely assume that two members of the IG have known about the data for some time but their analysis of it was only released 15th August. They had plenty of time to conduct an analysis but didn’t do so until well after New York Magazine published(22nd July) and Jeff Wise had selectively used it to incriminate the captain. 

Para 3 and associated Fig 1 “The coordinates, if all from one simulation run, suggest the departure of a B777-   200LR aircraft   from Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA), a flight up the Malacca Strait, a turn to the south, and a  termination in the Southern Indian Ocean near 45S 104E. This path is shown as a black line in Figure 1.”

This from Le Monde 12th August, who claim to have seen the full report and a further 65 page secret report;

“The report's authors say they are not able to establish that these coordinates belong to a single flight.”

So what have the IG done? Without a single piece of linking information they’ve drawn a path in exactly the same way a child joins the dots, only they’ve made it black so it doesn’t stand out quite so much as Jeff Wise’s blatant incrimination but the insinuation is there.
Let me be clear, there is no path, only a list of 6 random data points. 

Para 4. “A path connecting the turn and the final coordinates, when extrapolated further as a great circle, aligns with airfields servicing the McMurdo Station in Antarctica, which may have been chosen as the destination in the simulation. This extrapolation is also indicated in Figure 1”

What the IG have failed to mention is that McMurdo is nestled against the base of Mt Erebus.
Why did they not mention that ? Could it be because they’re suggesting that an FS simulation must land somewhere? It hasn’t occurred to them that Mt Erebus is a scenic opportunity for a flyby nor have they mentioned a scenery add-on called Orbx. The 1st thing any sim user does after adding scenery, is a flyby to see how good it is and that doesn’t require a flight. Slewing is much quicker. It's NOT a real aircraft, it does not need to land, a quick scenic flight can end by pressing Esc key !

Para 5. “Within the Shadow Copy Set, there were two additional coordinates that were recovered for an aircraft parked at KLIA. No other coordinates recovered from the Shadow Copy Set, if there were any, were included in the RMP report.”

A comparative indication of the lack of depth of the IG “Preliminary Assessment” from my own analysis(below) published 9th August contained this detail of the only KLIA co-ordinate given at the time (including heading), and for the benefit of the IG, as we are talking aviation, is WMKK .

Para 6. “Although we cannot determine that the six points (see Table 1) are all from a single flight simulation run, the alignments of the points and the progressive depletion in fuel level, leading to an unpowered descent from an altitude of 37,600 feet down to 4,000 feet over a short distance, suggest the coordinates may well be related to the same flight simulation.”

Total nonsense with a complete disregard for the facts and an over-eager agenda to subtly influence people either unable or unwilling to examine the data in detail. If any of that is true, where are the specific figures to prove it ? Why haven't they shown correlation between RMP data & their micky mouse   table? This is the position (below) of point 3 from the RMP report. The numbering of my position 3 hasn’t been altered from the original RMP report and relates directly to their numbering system not the “translated” and massaged table from the IG. My addition of airway overlays is to give an indication of the relationship to the surrounding airspace and not to arbitrarily draw a meaningless line into the SIO. The heading and altitude information I’ve included, the extra data from the report I haven’t because it’s impossible to do it accurately without specific knowledge of the aircraft model add-on. Another inaccurate assumption is that these points were from a B777. We don’t know what model aircraft created these points and the model can affect the data to a huge extent, even to the point of reversing the values. Microsoft FSX is a base platform and the data conventions can be and are changed by 3rd party developers. We know that a Posky PSS B777 was used and that model can only be used in the previous version of MSFS, FS9. Again there has been an assumption that FSX was the platform but it could have been FS9 and that would change the data presentation.

You can see from the original RMP report (below) that at point 3 there is a bank value. I omitted it from my analysis because it's an unknown. The only information which appeared in my own analysis were headings, lat/longs and altitudes/AGL because the other information is yet to be determined. Depending on 3rd party add-on software there is a distinct possibility that the bank is right not left as IG have guessed and number value doesn't necessarily equate to a 20 degree bank in a normal aircraft. It refers to variation from the data set related to a specific aircraft model which is unknown.

Below (left) is the table from the original RMP document. The IG badly tampered and “translated” table (right)

I've double checked & IG numbered columns directly compare from left to right beginning with 1 instead of 6
(Why did they renumber the columns if not to confuse & obfuscate ? )                                              

1. Latitude/longitude. Why did IG change from deg/min/sec to decimal ? Are they unable to plot from a standard format? Is there an error possibility in the translation ? Yes. There is no need to change any of the original data except to confuse  and make it difficult for anyone to check their work. They've given no worksheet to show how their information was derived.
2. Altitude/AGL. The IG omission of AGL is a major attempt to mislead from the original report and to try to force- fit satellite data. Even RMP highlighted with ??? and every point except 5 has a max difference from alt of only 3'. IG have effectively lied to suit an agenda. I'm sure they'll make the excuse of a mistake which only leaves incompetence.
3. Pitch. Absent without leave.
4. Bank. Also AWOL
5. Heading.  They don't even know what mag variation is loaded in the sim, bet they used 2014 but hey guess what? MS FSX might not have updated from FS9 which was 2004 ! That's apart from a heading NOT being a TRACK so extending it to anywhere is another piece of IG fiction.
6. Ground speed. All RMP speeds are quoted feet per sec,There's no RMP figure I can divide by 60 for fpm & again for fph & divide again by 6080 to give knots that looks anything like the IG figures.
7. Vertical speed. There's no RMP figure I can divide by 60 to give an IG fpm result.
8. Turn rate. Expressed how? RMP give specific units, IG just give a number and that's fictional without specific aircraft model.
9. Fuel. MSFS is not a real aircraft it can refuel at any time by use of shift+ F keys. But as the IG haven't a clue about MSFS, I'll also explain that shift + F can be remapped to any key combination.


The only purpose of the IG "Preliminary Assessment" is as a PR exercise to provide an illusory perception of analysis and despite their disclaimer,to infer that the home simulator data is related to the published assumed track of MH370

MTF? - Odds are on that there might be...P2  

[Peetwo]

Brock's search for search probity -

Fresh off (sshh don't tell "K") JW blog watch, I came across yet more excellent posts from self-appointed search auditor Brock McEwen, that IMO nails much of the latest search narrative bollocks... :

Brock McEwen

Posted August 21, 2016 at 2:06 PM

@CTP7622: i support – in general, and on principle – your search for truth. That it takes you outside the Inmarsat data’s straight jacket is something to be applauded, not derided. Please keep asking hard questions.

The irony is that two-plus years of phrenetic analysis of Inmarsat data-based path hypotheses are themselves predicated on the “gut feeling” that the signal data has earned our trust. By any objective measure, it has not earned our trust. It is eminently reasonable to decide not to trust it.

The scientific approach to any investigation requires that our first step be to establish the veracity of data we’re to treat as inputs. This is what I have tried my best to do: “if”, my research postulates, “the Inmarsat data is authentic, then here are some things we should expect to see. Do we see them?”. These studies – and others like them – generally suggest not consistency, but contradictions:

#1: A high-energy impact predicts a detectable sound. By far the two most promising sound recordings came from nowhere near Arc 7.
#2: A high-energy impact anywhere along the portion of Arc 7 bounded by expert fuel and BFO analysis predicts floating debris on Australian shores by the end of 2014. Nothing was found.
#3: Authentic signal data predicts an authentic search, and authentic reasons why other evidence should be dismissed. Neither have been observed.

#4: A high-energy, unpiloted impact anywhere along the portion of Arc 7 bounded by expert fuel and BFO analysis predicts deep sea wreckage within a scant handful of nautical miles of Arc 7. None was found.

The new idea that the plane was actively piloted well beyond the search area and THEN taken into a high energy dive gets past #4, but not #1-3. And it creates new difficulties regarding motive – as well as with the BFO data, which still at least nominally indicates steep descent at the moment of crossing Arc 7. Were there 2 steep dives, then: 1 in the middle of the search zone, to create the signal data, and another several minutes later – beyond the search zone – to create the piece of interior debris?

Recent arguments that the search bounds set by BFO/fuel experts failed to consider all possibilities – and that the actual impact was JUST north of the established northern search boundary – are hard to swallow. Not only do they leave #1 and #2 unaddressed, they make #3 doubly troubling: the ~30°s zone now touted could have been fully searched instead of leaving ships idle while winter storms rolled through the roaring 40’s.

Or instead of widening the 40°s zone to widths emphatically counter-indicated by their own theory. Or heck, while search ships were on their way to and from the 40°s zone. If the latest ~30°s impact zone theory is correct, the search effort has been either persistently and spectacularly incompetent, or not in good faith. The former is not rational, and the latter is not consistent.

Belief in a LOW-energy impact runs aground on the cold, hard science of the piece of interior debris in particular. While this debris could certainly have been planted to make a low-energy impact appear to be high-energy, we now seem to require more elaborate scheming to defend the signal data’s authenticity than to discard it.

A word of caution, CTP7622: if MH370’s fate is inconsistent with the Inmarsat data – as you believe – then we are smack dab in the middle of a cover-up. A strong prediction under such a scenario would be the eventual “finding” of “wreckage” on the deep SIO seabed. Why create an elaborate cover-up theory pointing to a place not supported by any other internal logic, unless end game was to “vindicate” our faith in it, via planted wreckage made to look authentic?

This is why I am trying – with spotty support from this forum’s survivors, it must be said – to unite people from across the wide spectrum of “gut feelings” behind a campaign to force search leadership to throw their models and communications wide open to public scrutiny, so that we can verify beyond all reasonable doubt that this search has been conducted in good faith. It is the only thing which might help us determine MH370’s true fate.

---

&..

Brock McEwen

Posted August 21, 2016 at 6:06 PM
@all

People, if everything that has transpired since March 8, 2014 has passed your own personal sniff test with flying colours, then please be my guest, and trust the Inmarsat data to your heart’s content.

If, on the other hand, you’re like me – and think it’s POSSIBLE something happened that cannot be admitted – and tire of patronizing “don’t worry, be happy” arguments which, upon actual inspection, have yet to slay any tiger not constructed of tissue paper – then please join me in demanding a stiff audit of search leadership.

It’s not (just) that nothing has been found. My earlier post – I’d thought, and hoped – had made that abundantly clear.

It’s the many gaping chasms in the official story itself, and the abject darkness in which the investigation seems (not) to progress.

Some of these gaps are instances in which search leaders have claimed not to know information they ought reasonably to have known. For example: GEMS told me they had notified AMSA/ATSB by late 2014 that their “to Sumatra” model results were fatally flawed – well over half a year before the ATSB admitted this publicly (mere hours after the flaperon’s authenticity was asserted, and only hours before new drift analysis was released which washed the whole story away…). In the meantime, we’re told, Réunion Island debris was being used to kindle bonfires.

Other gaps are instances in which evidence held out to us as definitive is, in fact, highly dubious. For example, claims that Maldivian Airlines Flight DQA149 was what Kudahuvadhoo islanders actually saw, upon actual scrutiny, do not appear credible.
This how a good faith search for truth is run, is it?

And if the entire search is not in good faith, why on earth should we trust the Inmarsat data? All it would take is the alteration of a couple of records and fields before printing to PDF – and a stern hand hovering over any who might blab – and voila! A long trip to the deep SIO.

I’m not endorsing this theory. Indeed, I truly believe I am pursuing the only path that could possibly rule such a theory OUT. A stiff audit of all data which ever drove search strategy would surely reveal the Inmarsat data to be authentic, and shut the conspiracy theorists up once and for all.

Finding seabed wreckage surely won’t rule it out: planting evidence on a seabed is even easier than planting evidence in a PDF.

However it would appear the owner of the blog site is not so enamoured with Brock's search for search probity and bizarrely comes out swinging in support of the ATSB - err what drugs is he on??

Jeff Wise

Posted August 21, 2016 at 9:58 PM

@Brock, I think it’s really pretty crappy of you to pester the ATSB as relentlessly as you have, running them ragged with requests for arcane information, and then turn around and imply that there is something nefarious about their failure to find the plane. The fact is that the ATSB has been incredibly forthcoming and open about their data and their methodology. They clearly believe that the Inmarsat data must be authentic and untampered with, and given that, they have conducted the search in an entirely reasonable (I daresay heroic) way.

Yes, there is a contradiction between the high-speed descent implications of the 00:19 value and the fact that the plane hasn’t been found in the current search box. It’s a condundrum, one that the ATSB has yet to fully grapple with yet. It’s one that the IG has yet to grapple with, too.

BTW It’s pretty hilarious that you would criticize the ATSB for staging a cover-up when our own independent investigation colleagues are covering up data too. It seems like it’s awfully easy to get righteous and indignant when someone else is withholding data, but as soon as you have data to withhold, all of a sudden there are very serious and weighty reasons why it can’t be shared with the public.

Not a word of complaint from gadfly @Brock, though.

Err...'puke' ...no comment - I'll leave that to Brock...

Brock McEwen

Posted August 22, 2016 at 3:26 AM

@Jeff: good grief – for which data’s release am I not complaining loudly enough? I join you in calling for all data to be placed on the table, for the obvious reasons you articulate in the article heading these comments.

That includes this alleged police report (is that what you mean? I honestly don’t know) – though I hope I can be forgiven for putting it a bit lower down on the priority list – again, for reasons you yourself articulate. You’ve said that highly educated and keenly interested observers who’ve read it in full have already come to radically different conclusions regarding whether it is or isn’t damning. I’m going to go out on a limb, here, and guess that a priori opinions and a posteriori opinions were fairly highly correlated. Call it a hunch.

If these experts haven’t had their own needles moved by this report, I don’t expect it to matter a whole lot to us mere “gadflies”. I’m far more interested in data which could actually help us distinguish between “pilot practiced” and “pilot is being set up to appear to have practiced” such an utterly nonsensical path – I don’t expect those thousand pages to help us much, there.

Re: ATSB: thanks for the opportunity to clarify: as I’ve said many times before, the rank and file members of Fugro – and of the alphabet soup of agencies with jurisdiction over this mess – are indeed true heroes: doing difficult and thankless work in a constantly charged, often hostile, and sometimes dangerous environment. It is indeed hard to look at a detailed map of the search zone and not be humbled by the achievement. I thank them all profusely and publicly for their outstanding service. I would do the same for ANY soldiers ordered into a war – whether I thought those doing the ordering were clean or dirty.

But where this feeling of admiration apparently compels you to keep your reservations about signal data authenticity to yourself, it compels me to shout mine from the mountain tops: those heroes deserve to know beyond any doubt that their mission is worthy of their noble efforts.

If MH370’s true fate IS being covered up, then;

1) the deception would almost certainly be known only to a very few at the very top, and
2) we will never root it out unless and until we hold this alphabet soup accountable – I mean straight up, honest to God accountable – for the execution of its mission.

You can call this “pestering”, or any pejorative you please; it will not drain this task of a gram of value, nor drain my own attempt to help carry it out of a gram of determination.

If anyone thinks I’m in any way personally responsible for growing suspicions of official misconduct, I’ve got news for them: the general public was suspicious long before I started asking hard questions, and – absent full disclosure – will remain suspicious long after I’ve stopped. I very much doubt the general public has ever needed my help to smell a rat.

It is possible you know personally some of the officials involved, and perceive they are frustrated by my audits. (It is hard to imagine any other reason why your attacks seem to be increasingly personal.) If so, please pass on to them my gratitude for their efforts, my assurances that my suspicions concentrate well above their pay grade, and my apologies for any confusion on either point.

It’s just time to tell the truth. That’s all.

....well said that man


MTF...P2

[aussie500]

I thought the drift study work done by David Griffin of the CSIRO useful and very thorough, even if it was still tied to that 7th arc. That is what they were commissioned to look at. The CSIRO looked at many different points and chose a nice WIDE area at each location, so covered a lot more than just the ATSB's useless 7th arc. I saw no sign of any loss of objectivity. Yes the first report the ATSB commissioned from another group was rubbish, I suspect deliberately, certainly all the overseas ones seem to be suffering a similar problem, whether France, Germany or some one else. Do not believe any of them trying to move things north. If the debris had started north it would not be as spread out and would have been found a lot faster. This stuff spread out before it entered the gyre, and I am still not convinced it all even went that way to start with. You can see some of the other CSIRO graphics at this link. http://www.marine.csiro.au/~griffin/MH37...index.html

And as is the nature of drift studies, they all assumed the debris was near the surface or on the surface. We do not have any drift data for things below the surface, because it is not meant to drift if it gets down that far. And things naturally buoyant are not meant to travel submerged. So do not blame our drift specialists for not being able to solve the problem, I doubt they are ever going to back track this stuff with drift studies.

Now they manage to get a similar reaction to any of their fake flaperons next year, we can all watch them try and explain it, with these fancy mathematical models or the old fashioned drifters, they will fail. They deliberately filter out any actual drifters that behave strangely, by moving too fast. So things not behaving as expected is nothing new. We have just never lost an entire plane before, and been so determined to find out where all the pieces went.

Personally I doubt the surface search was the failure they want us to believe. The whole investigation has smelled more than a bit fishy to me, it is not just Malaysia involved in the coverup.

[Peetwo]

Proof that Capt. Z. Shah did NOT plan turn into SIO
9/8/2016

2016/08/15 Duncan

Captain Zaharie Shah’s Recovered Flight Simulator Information: Preliminary Assessment from the MH370 Independent Group 

Victor Iannello, Don Thompson, Michael Exner,
Richard Godfrey, Brian Anderson, Yap Fooh Fah,
Barry Carlson, Thomas Kenyon, Henrik Rydberg,
Sid Bennett, Geoff Hyman and Duncan Steel

15th August 2016 

 
Information related to the disappearance of MH370 was recently shared with the Independent Group (IG) by an individual who is not affiliated with any government entity in any country. The information appears to be part of a report compiled for and by the Royal Malaysia Police (RMP) and includes contributions from other Malaysian agencies. In this report, it is stated that data related to a flight simulator game were found on Captain Zaharie Shah’s home computer. The IG makes the following preliminary assessment, which is based on the content of the RMP report:

1. Simulator data from the Microsoft Flight Simulator X (FSX) game were found on a solid state drive that was not electrically connected to the computer motherboard at the time it was recovered. The FSX game was uninstalled from that drive on 20th February 2014. The report did not provide any information on why the computer was in this state.
   
2. The data of interest are fragments of *.FLT files, this being the format used by FSX to store parameters, including position coordinates at arbitrary points during a run of the simulator. The data were saved in a Shadow Copy Set, and were last modified on 3rd February 2014.
   
3. The coordinates, if all from one simulation run, suggest the departure of a B777-200LR aircraft from Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA), a flight up the Malacca Strait, a turn to the south, and a termination in the Southern Indian Ocean near 45S 104E. This path is shown as a black line in Figure 1.
   
4. A path connecting the turn and the final coordinates, when extrapolated further as a great circle, aligns with airfields servicing the McMurdo Station in Antarctica, which may have been chosen as the destination in the simulation. This extrapolation is also indicated in Figure 1.
   
5. Within the Shadow Copy Set, there were two additional coordinates that were recovered for an aircraft parked at KLIA. No other coordinates recovered from the Shadow Copy Set, if there were any, were included in the RMP report.
   
6. Although we cannot determine that the six points (see Table 1) are all from a single flight simulation run, the alignments of the points and the progressive depletion in fuel level, leading to an unpowered descent from an altitude of 37,600 feet down to 4,000 feet over a short distance, suggest the coordinates may well be related to the same flight simulation.
   
7. A preliminary analysis of the flight data, derived by the IG from the data found on the solid state drive, is summarized in Table 1.
   
8. We have no comment on whether these data link Captain Zaharie Shah to a crime.
   
9. Work continues within the IG to better understand and validate the data, and to determine whether the data can be used to refine the search area for the aircraft.
   

 

Table 1. Parameters Derived from the Raw Simulator Data

 

Figure 1: Flight paths into the southern Indian Ocean. In black: the simulated flight path obtained by connecting the coordinates found on Captain Zaharie Shah’s home computer. The grey line is an extrapolation of that path; point 5 in Table 1 is within a few kilometres of the great circle connecting point 4 and the airfield NZPG at McMurdo. In yellow, a representative flight path ending near the 7th arc and 37S from among those modelled by the Defence Science and Technology Group (DSTG) in Australia, and used by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) in defining the priority underwater search area (as shown by the green box).

It has also been revealed that this information had also been leaked to other sources which include French publications Le Monde & Liberation.

This 'leaking' bollocks would appear to have no clear objective other than to severely muddy the waters. Which for mine makes the Gobbles post well worth re-reading to hopefully get various interested parties to stop with the BS and realign their moral compasses... :

A lesson from history and could a + or - really make such a big difference?

Sorry, a Sunday ramble inspired by history and possible similarities but under different circumstances.

The ANZ Erebus accident comes to mind when reading the previous few well thought out posts. I won't go into too much depth here , but those familiar with all the details of the accident will recall this;

Incorrect flight coordinates entered into the flights Nav system caused the disaster.
Nineteen days earlier the pilots had attended a briefing session where they were shown the printouts of a flight plan used by previous flights to the Antarctic. The plan gave co-ordinates for the trip to Antarctica and across McMurdo Sound. With these co-ordinates entered into the flight Nav  system, the plane could fly automatically to its destination. Not too dissimilar to what  MH370 should have done.

On the morning of 28 November 1977 Capt Collins and F/O Cassin entered the series of latitude and longitude co-ordinates into the aircraft computer. However, they did not know that two of the co-ordinates had been changed earlier that morning. When these incorrect co-ordinates were entered into the computer, they changed the flight path of the aircraft 45 kilometres to the east. The rest as they say is sad history, and the outcome nearly broke the airline, a government and a country.

Do I think incorrect coordinates brought down MH370? Not particularly. But mistakes and failures on multiple levels can occur, bringing about catastrophic results.

Erebus was also a good example of how far an airline and a government will go to cover up the truth. This was 40 years ago next year. Has corruption and deceit and a lack of ethics improved in this world? Hardly.

The stench emanating from the MH370 investigation, government actions, the inconsistencies and the refusal to yield is highly suspicious, and the similarities to Erebus in the way that the truth/root cause was covered up is uncanny.

My fear is that just like with Erebus, the truth will never see light of day and the mystery, speculation, accusations, innuendo, and facts will still be sought in 40 years from now.


R.I.P lost aviators and loved ones.

Paul Howard feeling incensed by all this obfuscation, leaking & disinformation, nearly pulled the pin on social media, thankfully he didn't and has made this addition to his previous blog in reply to the IG piece... :

My reply to the Independent Group Preliminary Assessment

Here; http://www.duncansteel.com/

Update: Latest from Paul Howard    - The search for MH370 WIAGW.pdf

Now for some quotes:

Before having a good look at the home simulator data however, the dynamic and context of information relating to the search should be re-visited. What statements have ATSB made about the simulator data ?

From ATSB “Correcting the record”;


“the simulator information shows only the possibility of planning. It does not reveal what happened on the night of its disappearance nor where the aircraft is located.”

“Possibility of planning” At this stage it doesn’t matter what you or I believe about the home simulator data, it only matters what ATSB believed and from that we can be certain that they believed there was a possibility of planning.

Planning for what ? What else but a suicide mission up the Straits of Malacca with a sharp turn into the SIO ?

Let’s further examine the situational dynamic. From the very early days there were rumours that the captain's flight simulator had data which planned a suicide mission into the SIO but we hadn’t seen anything to confirm that. Malaysia made statements that there was nothing sinister in the data and repeated that in Interim Factual. However ATSB have never made a statement of denial, they've left it to Malaysia.

ATSB have always denied an investigative role and claim they were only responsible for the search and yet they are investigating the flap section recovered from Pemba Island. If the simulator wasn’t related to the search, why have they stated that it shows a possibility of planning? Why didn't they just refer any questions regarding the sim data back to Malaysia ? Apart from Malaysia, JIT and ATSB, who else was involved in investigating MH370?

The Independent Group. The question which needs to be asked is just how independent are they? They've admitted sharing information with ATSB, all that need be established is mutuality.

Two members of the Independent Group were involved with the selective leak of the data and one alleged former member was responsible for the leak to New York Magazine and authored the article. The involvement of the two silent members extends at very least to confirming that the data was genuine and that they had seen it.

How long had the IG known about the data and how did it influence their assumptions? Draw your own conclusion from this statement by Jeff Wise (from his blog)



My 1st (*lonely) analysis of the home simulator data was published in my blog 9th August 2016 and six days ahead of the IG Preliminary Analysis published 15th August, despite *twelve names credited and the extra time they had to work with (pre-leak).

http://www.paulhowardplays.com/blog/proo...n-into-sio

---

PDF page 9:

The two errors in my work have been pointed out to me in no uncertain terms by the Independent Group. I haven't edited them out of this article because I'm not trying to hide anything. My point about the IG Preliminary Assessment has actually been vindicated by my own errors. They provided no worksheet and expected us to figure what they'd done and take their word that they were 100% correct as they repeatedly assert but where is the proof.

I admit I did rush my reply and the reason I did so was because of the assertions they made in their descriptive paragraphs. Inferences come at the end of data presentations, not before and I maintain my assertion that because they described a path before proving that it existed, they were deliberately attempting to infer a planned path with it's obvious connotation. Let's not forget that the 1st analysis of simulator data was mine and the only argument the IG could make against it, was bank at point 3(RMP). Notice that in their preliminary assessment, bank is absent so they had no argument against my 1st analysis whatsoever ! Another point to note, because IG have renumbered, in subsequent discussion who is to know what point is being discussed?

An interesting quote about the home simulator data:

- Dr Dr. Amirudin Abdul Wahab is the CEO of CyberSecurity Malaysia

- by email - he confirmed (PRESUMABLY to ABC - PM) that:

- it was his organisation that examined the captain's computer

- at the request of Malaysia Police

- denied US-FBI did analysis

- His VERDICT =

- thousands of co-ordinates are "default positions" in the sim program

- hundreds of routes are also defaults in the sim program

- analysis of data provided "no conclusive evidence" that captain flew a "suicide mission".

Credit @Ventus_45 via http://auntypru.com/forum/-MH370-time-to...82#pid4982

And finally to Paul's conclusion:

Conclusion.

I think I've shown that the IG have produced a preliminary assessment of the home simulator data which is misleading at the very least, particularly as they've displayed a path with no data to indicate there is one. Not only is there nothing sinister in the home simulator data, there's nothing that even resembles the scenario of MH370. But this shows that both ATSB & the IG thought there was “possibility of planning” and used it to fill the data gaps and base their assumptions and calculations on information from what is effectively a toy which they didn't understand. It explains the double talk from ATSB and the IG because neither can say outright that they blame the pilot. To do so would be a public relations disaster with questions too embarrassing to answer, so rather than say it outright, they prefer inference and innuendo and hope that the idea of pilot suicide will percolate sufficiently as an excuse for a failed search.

It'll be fiction, it won't be what happened but it's what the press will tell the public and they will tell their children and another myth will be born.

What is so startlingly amazing is that somebody at Royal Malaysian Police drew a line between two unrelated points and a $100M + search has been based on it ever since. Not surface debris, not real calculation but a series of guesses which were added to a line drawn by a Malaysian cop. Will they admit it ?

Is my conclusion helpful? Will it help find the aircraft or is it just a criticism of the authorities and the Independent Group ? I'm firmly convinced that the only way this aircraft can be found, is by continuing revision and analysis of the existing data. That includes Inmarsat. Appendix 1 and 2 (below) show the complexity of the system and the potential for error. Only by acknowledging where errors and false assumptions have occurred is there any possibility of progression. It must be understood that from the outset there was so little data, that to embark on a submarine search was a brave and possibly foolhardy mission. Historically, there is a very fine line between the two.

Personally I wouldn't have done it. Once the ULB batteries had expired and there was no chance of receiving any transmission from the aircraft, I would have continued air and surface search but would not have embarked on a submarine search. I was confounded by expressions of confidence by the authorities because from my own understanding, I thought the chances of success were slim.

Of course there are further questions but I won't be asking them, my work on this missing aircraft is now complete.

Top job there Paul, a definite sorting out of the 'wheat from the chaff' and the key for the Tim Tam cupboard is in the mail -


MTF...P2

[Kharon]

The link to Paul Howard’s analysis is – HERE – There are eleven pages, each worth the time taken to read.  But, it is not for the skim reader or the quick grab headline seeker; it is a serious work and requires some thought and effort from the reader.

Underpinning the press hysteria; the snake oil salesmen; visionaries, governmental spin doctored clap-trap and the ATSB latest embarrassment, there has been a quiet, persistent, compelling drum beat of logic and genuine quest for a solution to the mystery.  Folk like Chillit, Howard, McEwan and several others have, without fanfare or much external assistance just got on with it.  Testing, questioning, eliminating the dross and pony-pooh, sorting the sheep from the goats.  The thing that impresses most is the modest, quiet, determined persistence and the unselfish, unsupported investment of time, effort and intelligence.

This is no mean feat; the smoke, mirrors, shredded information, disinformation, distractions and half baked theory make developing, testing and proving a logical line of reasoning to conclusion almost impossible; one needs to stay strong.  Each false trail needs to be walked before being discarded and even then, a small element of doubt must be held – just in case there was a vital clue along the way.

It is reassuring to know that after the dust settles and the crowd vanishes to live vicariously through the next event, that there are those quiet people who are prepared to test a rational theory to breaking point; have the integrity to admit doubt, prepared to discuss the work and the confidence to admit that they may be wrong.  

For me; Paul Howard sums up the situation very well.

"I'm firmly convinced that the only way this aircraft can be found, is by continuing revision and analysis of the existing data. That includes Inmarsat. Appendix 1 and 2 (below) show the complexity of the system and the potential for error. Only by acknowledging where errors and false assumptions have occurred is there any possibility of progression. It must be understood that from the outset there was so little data, that to embark on a submarine search was a brave and possibly foolhardy mission. Historically, there is a very fine line between the two."

How else are we to discover what happened to the 239 people and a large, serviceable aircraft that night?

Selah.

[Peetwo]

Latest instalment to the DOI archives -

Courtesy Mike Chillit, who you will see has been very busy...   

The Drift Buoy Clock
Posted on August 25, 2016 by Mike Chillit — Leave a reply

I have endeavored to identify drifters that behaved in a manner similar to the debris we now have in the hope of harnessing that information to more precisely determine where the debris may have originated.

I have identified 17 drifters out of a total of 194 that washed up on land somewhere in the south Indian Ocean basin. That is about all we know about MH370 debris at this point: it went in the water on March 7, 2014 and washed up thousands of kilometers to the west about 15 months later. None of those dates are very precise because neither Malaysia nor Australia has made any effort at all to locate debris on beaches across the south Indian Ocean. We are fortunate; families are fortunate, that people like Blaine Gibson took it upon themselves to search a few beaches within their private means, and found important parts of the aircraft.

So, we know when that debris went into the water, but we don’t know exactly where it washed up on various islands or shores that have so far been scoured (a small percentage of those that need to be examined).

The flaperon that washed up on Reunion Island is probably the best estimate of the time required to get there from wherever it originated. We know the flaperon was physically retrieved and taken into custody on July 29, 2015. There were suggestions at the time that it had been tossing in the surf as far back as late May, but we have no confirmation of that. The rocky, steep shores of Reunion Island certainly make it credible to believe the flaperon predated the July 29 date, but by how much we can only guess. I typically place it there a month before it was taken into custody, June 2015. We are not doing precision work, we are trying to come up with reasonable estimates to enhance our search for the plane.

Using June 2015 means I believe it took the flaperon about 15 months to make the journey from wherever it started (March 2014 to June 2015). And we have both anecdotal and hard evidence of a small pleasure boat being blown from the Exmouth area to the Comoros Island area in 13 months shortly before that. A possible difference is that the boat may have had more exposure to wind than the flaperon. We just don’t know.

France concluded the flaperon drifted partially above the water line due to peculiarities with its specific gravity and buoyancy. Given that information, it is entirely plausible that the flaperon may have indeed been in the surf up to 3 months longer, but I will still use 15 months for my estimate to begin examining the issue.

So the next question that comes up, since we have drifter data that allows us to be fairly specific about drift times during the same time period is: just how long does it take to drift from various places in the east Indian Ocean to reach Reunion Island?

This answer is not as difficult as it may seem. I started with 1,903 NOAA drifters deployed all over the south Indian Ocean between 1979 and this past March. There were well over half a million time, date, and location records associated with those drifters, allowing me to get a robust estimate of drift time.

There is more than one way to estimate drift time, by the way. NOAA’s interpolated data sets include an estimate of drift calculated in centimeters per second, cm/s. That is a useful metric, but also misleading if not used carefully. For example, using that NOAA drift metric results in a drift estimate of 32 km per day, or more, on average. That would be fine if that was what we were interested in knowing. But that isn’t what we need. That metric includes a lot of meandering travel that does not in any way help us solve something like the flaperon drift problem. We want to know the time it takes to get from point A to point B.

A better metric for this particular inquiry is, How far did the buoy drift per day relative to its final destination? When we approach it that way, we need the starting and ending GPS for each drifter, and the number of days in the interval. That turns out to be 12 km per day for this batch of 1,903 buoys. However, within the mix is a range of between less than one km per day to more than 122 km per day. So, I elected to use the median value, which is 8 km per day, 240 km per month. Hand grenades and horseshoes perhaps, but a start.

With that information, I created range rings around Reunion Island. Each ring was 720 km from the next, which is the distance it appears drift will move toward its final destination every 3 months. The following chart shows how that looks.



Drifter #60658110 traveled 4,906 km. If it had ended up at Reunion Island instead, it would have traveled a straight-line distance of 4,451 km. It is important to know that the flaperon appears to have been an “outlier”. That is, only one of the drifters NOAA has released since early 2014 have even come close to Reunion Island, and it was clearly an outlier (drifter #133652). Storms and passing vessels can make strange things happen.
Referring to the chart above again, the fifth ring out approaches Cocos Islands, but still ~4 months away. The difference for that drifter was Cyclone Jack right out of the gate.

We don’t have to focus on the Cocos Island area to use the chart. The same 5th ring intersects the Seventh Arc in the heart of the search area. But what I have to do to the chart yet is add a variable scale. Nothing drifts to Reunion Island from the search area. But some of it drifts north toward Java Island and then west. It takes a long longer.

While I have been unable to find anything relevant to MH370 that drifts from the Perth Australia area to the Mascarene Island area (much less 20+ drifters or pieces of aircraft debris), this is hardly an exact science. It is a crude tool to be sure, and we have to try to use it within its limitations.

I will continue to work on this, but it helps confirm my suspicions that a far more likely place to refocus the search is a bit northeast of Cocos Islands. It isn’t just the debris we have now found that tells us that. It is also the debris that has never appeared anywhere else. Had it come down east of Cocos Island, parts of it would have certainly washed up on that Island, and probably on northwestern Australian beaches, long before now.

Next from over on the AA&MH370 thread we have Ventus putting some serious QON for Senator NX & Co to put to Hoody & Foley at next Estimates...

A few thoughts, from an old head, for Nick-Z and associates.

The Drifteron Project obviously did not just magically "pop-up" the other day.

It had to have been conceived, reviewed, approved, and funded.
All of which takes time, lots of time.
It must have had a significant "gestation period", many months, perhaps well more than twelve of them.

The initial concept proposal was germinated in someone's head.
Whose I wonder, where and when ?
Was he or she in the ATSB, DSTG, CSIRO, ANU, Geo Sciences Aus, or elsewhere ?

Who reviewed the proposal for technical merit and / or feasibility ?

Who approved the project, where and when ?

Who funded the project ?   Defence, ATSB, AMSA, CSIRO, other ?
Which "vote" did it come out of, under Finance Reg (forty something - it has been so long, was it 42) ?

Then the drifterons had to be actually designed and constructed.

Who actually designed them, where and when ?
What were the design requirements and performance parameters ?
What were the acceptance standards ?
Who determined them ?

Who actually built them, where and when ?
Who inspected, tested, and accepted them ?

When were they actually delivered to ATSB Stores, and by whom ?

What is the intended deployment time frame, location(s) and ongoing operational concept ?

How will they be deployed, by ship or by air-drop ? (Presumably by ship)

Who will deploy the Drifterons and mated GDB's ?  
Defence ?  Navy or RAAF ?
CSIRO ?  Their own vessel, or by a "dedicated contractor", or by multiple "vessels of opportunity" ?
ATSB ? (as per CSIRO).
Other ?

Who will track, and recover, and redeploy, both the GDB's and Drifterons ?

Who will get the tracking data, and what will they do with it ?
Will the data be made public in real time ?
Will it be "free to cyberspace" ?

I "really" do want to know.

MTF...P2

[Kharon]

From tiny acorns:

“K” - "And, talking of ‘making’; there is absolutely no truth in the scurrilous rumour that the lonesome five were conceived, designed, discussed, approved, funded, ordered, built, tested and stored before ‘the discovery’; none whatsoever."

Cheers “V” – and a CF. I was going to save that notion for a Sunday ramble, but you have done a fine job and saved me the work.  Those questions really do need answering.  It’s a strange situation – had there not been so much pony-pooh spread about the place; or, had Beaker not been thrust into the picture, I doubt it would have ever occurred to us to even question the things.   But once the ‘aberrations’ for which Beaker is justly infamous start, the curiosity curse kicks in; everything is suspect. It’s a hellish situation, lost lives, aircraft disappeared, millions spent and half the world screaming Bollocks.  

We should, really, be able to simply trust our own ATSB – but I struggle to do that these days.  How Hoody is ever going to sort out the credibility gap left in the Dolan wake is beyond my poor understanding.  No matter, the right questions, asked in the right place, by the right people may go some way toward a cure; but I ain’t holding my breath; no Sir.

Toot - toot.

P.S. Perhaps stuffing a GPS in the Dolan fundamental orifice, strapping him to one of his 'flip-flop-flaps' and dropping him off the back of a boat on the seventh arc, then tracking him, may provide some amusement, if not answers. Finally, he was of use to the search. What an epitaph.

[Peetwo]

Ventus nails it - More on the fabulous, five-flip-flop-flap, flaperons but first a quote off AA&MH370  "V" post#436 (Ps especially note the part in bold):

..So, I think that what they need to do, starting as soon as possible (do not wait until March 2017), is this:-


1. Since we only have 5 drifterons (note to ATSB - you really do need a couple of dozen at least) seed them as 5 sets of "mated pairs", i.e. (a drifteron and a Global Drifter Buoy) together, as stated above, on the arc, at intervals of 5 degrees of latitude, ie, at 20, 25, 30, 35 and 40 degrees south, and track them for a month.
2. During the month, the drifteron will obviously diverge from it's "spouse" GDB.
3. At the end of 30 days, "Let the drifteron drift", and go and grab it's spouse GDB, and bring it back to it's mated drifteron, and drop it in beside it again.
4. Repeat the process every month.
5. Over "x" months, we will get an actual drift track for each of the drifterons themselves, plus, hopefully, they will also be able to build up a reasonable idea of how to calibrate the existing database of GDB's.

That will give us (assuming they start in October 2016), 5 months of data to work with up to March 2017.

By that stage, the drift models of GDB's should have been calibrated well enough to have a pretty good idea of where the "actual flaperon" entered the water.

Therefore, in March 2017, drop all 5 pairs in a 5 star pattern centered on that point, with a radius of 60 nautical miles, and "observe".

Okay now read the following courtesy of the Oz yesterday and again especially the part in bold... :

Replicas of debris to track MH370


Replicas of the MH370 flaperon that was found at Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean.

• Brendan Nicholson
  
• The Australian
  
• 12:00AM August 26, 2016
  

Defence Editor
Canberra

[img=0x0]http://pixel.tcog.cp1.news.com.au/track/component/author/9e8d7209e1c2ac7ea9fc05a8a39849e0/?esi=true&t_product=the-australian&t_template=s3/austemp-article_common/vertical/author/widget&td_bio=false[/img]
The team searching for MH370, has constructed replicas of a critical piece of wreckage from the Malaysia Airlines passenger jet to help scientists test ocean drift patterns which carried the flaperon to Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean.

MH370 disappeared with its 239 passengers and crew while on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014.

The flaperon, a control surface from the jet’s right wing, was found on a beach on the French island on July 29 last year after floating on ocean currents for more than a year.
Another part of the wing, a flap which would have been positioned next to the flaperon on the wing, was found some time later on the coast of the east ­African nation of Tanzania.

It is likely the wing was torn apart as the jet’s two giant ­engines hit the ocean surface at great speed.

Scientists from the CSIRO, working with the search co-ordinators from the Air Transport Safety Bureau, believe wreckage from the jet which remained afloat would have been carried by currents from the search area, off Western Australia, across the Indian Ocean towards Africa.

It is also possible some wreckage could have been swept across to the southern coast of Western Australia or towards Tasmania.

The CSIRO scientists have calculated likely drift patterns from 30 years of data collected by US counterparts who placed drift buoys throughout the oceans, including the search area waters.

To find a more precise starting point for the long drift of wreckage, scientists now need to compare the rate of movement and the general behaviour of the flaperon in the water with that of the American buoys.

The search team has constructed several replica flaperons, fitted with transmitters, which will be set adrift alongside free-floating buoys. Scientists will plot courses and speed of both.

The first of these tests will be carried out off Tasmania. CSIRO scientists will then add to the new information to known drift patterns of the buoys.

They believe that will give a better idea of where the real ­flaperon began its journey in the seconds after MH370 hit the water.

To help build on the tiny fragments of evidence about the resting place of MH370, scientists have also examined marine life scraped from the recovered ­flaperon to calculate the latitude at which barnacles began growing as it floated.

Analysis by the Defence ­Science and Technology group of several sets of signals transmitted automatically by the jet indicates MH370 fell rapidly into the ocean after running out of fuel. That scenario is supported by all members of an international advisory group who examined the data and the Australian scientists’ conclusions

Hmm... "V" is there something your not telling us mate??

So my reading is that between the time CSIRO's David Griffin acknowledged Graeme Harrison's conceptual idea of drifterons in the CSIRO blog the boffins at the CSIRO & ATSB have been working on and refining the concept which has now metamorphosed into their 'drifteron project'.

I would also hypothesise that this was largely done in secret, due to the obvious conflict of interest with the Beaker (read Malaysian) backed, narrowly scoped MH370 SIO priority search area, on the 7th Arc. And now with Beaker gone and a more proactive, open-minded Greg Hood at the helm, the white-hat boffins now feel emboldened to take their 'drifteron project' to the next stage...

If my hypothesise is remotely true and having an obviously captured Muppet in charge caused a bureaucratic delay in process, then this will be the cause of shame and possible trigger for a future Senate inquiry. Unsurprisingly Greg Hood (in this FMT article: Aussie Minister pledges full report on MH370 is quite comfortable facing a Senate Inquiry into MH370 if one is called:

ATSB Chief Commissioner Greg Hood has meanwhile stressed that he was prepared to face a Senate Inquiry, should one be held, on the search for MH370.

“We have nothing to hide,” said Hood. “We have kept the families completely informed about every development, every step of the way.”

Coming so late into the MH370 search means that Hoody has very little skin in the game and therefore not much to lose, on the other hand it would be a slightly different story for miniscule..err what's-his-name??       

MTF...P2  

Ps Oh and by the way it looks like they may have found another likely piece of MH370 debris in Mozambique (see attachment).

[ventus45]

My pleasure. Clean it up a bit, for Nick-X.
Use it as you like in your Sunday Ramble anyway, I love reading them.

[Peetwo]

Ventus nails it -

..So, I think that what they need to do, starting as soon as possible (do not wait until March 2017), is this:-


1. Since we only have 5 drifterons (note to ATSB - you really do need a couple of dozen at least) seed them as 5 sets of "mated pairs", i.e. (a drifteron and a Global Drifter Buoy) together, as stated above, on the arc, at intervals of 5 degrees of latitude, ie, at 20, 25, 30, 35 and 40 degrees south, and track them for a month.
2. During the month, the drifteron will obviously diverge from it's "spouse" GDB.
3. At the end of 30 days, "Let the drifteron drift", and go and grab it's spouse GDB, and bring it back to it's mated drifteron, and drop it in beside it again.
4. Repeat the process every month.
5. Over "x" months, we will get an actual drift track for each of the drifterons themselves, plus, hopefully, they will also be able to build up a reasonable idea of how to calibrate the existing database of GDB's.

That will give us (assuming they start in October 2016), 5 months of data to work with up to March 2017.

By that stage, the drift models of GDB's should have been calibrated well enough to have a pretty good idea of where the "actual flaperon" entered the water.

Therefore, in March 2017, drop all 5 pairs in a 5 star pattern centered on that point, with a radius of 60 nautical miles, and "observe".

Okay now read the following courtesy of the Oz yesterday and again especially the part in bold... :

Replicas of debris to track MH370


Replicas of the MH370 flaperon that was found at Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean.

• ..The search team has constructed several replica flaperons, fitted with transmitters, which will be set adrift alongside free-floating buoys. Scientists will plot courses and speed of both.The first of these tests will be carried out off Tasmania. CSIRO scientists will then add to the new information to known drift patterns of the buoys.They believe that will give a better idea of where the real ­flaperon began its journey in the seconds after MH370 hit the water...

Latest additions to the DOI -

First from Ken Staubin who has painstakingly compiled a reverse drift model for each individual piece of - suspected &/or confirmed - MH370 debris found so far: The Location of MH370 - A Reverse Drift Study Based On Debris Found

How the study works.


Each piece of debris has a fixed known location and a discovery date.  By using the geographical coordinates of each debris piece and estimating the drift time of each piece based on its discovery date we can create a reverse drift model for each individual piece.  The drift times are determined in even number of months because the adrift web tool works in increments of 2 months only.  So if an object was discovered say 25 months after March, 8th, 2014 ( date of MH370 disappearance) then the drift time would be rounded off to the nearest even month prior to discovery (i.e. 24 months). Since we have no way of knowing the exact drift times of these objects this is the best we can do for estimating these drift times at Sea. I realize that this uncertainty in drift times may introduce some errors to some models but I do not think it will drastically affect the overall results of this study because it is very likely most of these pieces were discovered within 2 months after they washed ashore in most cases.

In each reverse drift model each possible origin point is assigned a weight by the adrift software between 0 and 1, with 1 being the highest probability. To visualize this in the models I use a bubble chart to show all possible origin points and their locations on the chart. The larger the bubble size is the higher probability it has.  Once all reverse drift models have been created for each debris piece the data from all models are then loaded into one composite reverse drift model which will shows us all the possible origin points for all debris pieces and which areas are common to all models and have the highest concentration of high probability origin points.  This area will be the area that most likely is the origin of all the debris found and where the wreckage of MH370 most likely is.

The advantage of using reverse drift modelling as opposed to forward drift modelling is that we do not have to predict a starting point of origin for each model. All forward drift models need to predict a starting point of where they suspect the plane may have crashed, usually somewhere along the 7th arc.  These studies have an inherent bias and assume that the Inmarsat data is valid.  In this reverse drift study we let the software try to determine as accurately as possible where this point of origin is without making any assumptions as to where this location of the plane is, therefore this reverse study in my opinion is far more objective and unbiased...

 
Next from Mike Chillit with his monumental effort to interpolate & collate some"cleaned and edited 2.3 million NOAA drifter records since 1979" , has led him to write this excellent thoughtful & insightful blog analysis on his findings so far :

Where SIO Drift REALLY Goes

Posted on August 28, 2016 by Mike Chillit — Leave a reply

So, we’ve all seen countless drift analyses of the south Indian Ocean. Each has been conducted in the hope of shedding light on where 20+ pieces of MH370 might have come from after washing ashore in the greater Mascarene Island area.

The drift studies I have preferred so far were conducted by Geomar of Germany, an unknown contractor for French investigators after the flaperon recovery, and some of my own studies (no surprise I like them). These studies are not unanimous, but point to areas much farther north along the 7th Arc than the search has been centered for going on 3 years.

There have also been a handful of drift studies out of Australia’s CSIRO, ATSB, and one of its minor colleges in the Perth Area. I consider each of the Australian studies shameful examples of in-house bias. They all insist the current search is in the “right” place. Not one of them is credible. They were undertaken for the sole purpose of justifying Australia’s bull-headed determination to search a part of the ocean the plane could not possibly be. No one is going to feel sorry for Australia’s insistence on going it alone. It should be incredibly embarrassed and never allowed to forget the damage it has done to genuine interests in finding the plane in a timely manner.

While drift studies and reverse drift studies help shed light on where the search might best refocus, the Geomar and French drift studies appear to be based on the animation of particles under conditions intended to replicate actual conditions. There is currently a lot of interest in JavaScript models that do that with wind, wave, water, and precipitation.

I’ve not looked into the modeling used by Geomar or the French to any depth, so cannot comment on how accurate they might be. What I like most about them is that they move the focus to the Zenith Plateau area west of Exmouth, AU where some early efforts detected pings that might have been from the aircraft’s ULB.

But even my own drift analyses have been hampered by the spaghetti factor: drifters roam all over the place as they travel hither and yon, and we have an inclination to put it to charts, where it instantly loses all usefulness. It looks exactly like a plate of spaghetti and is not at all helpful. A world of important information is locked into our little works of art. Attractive, yes. Instructive, no.

In an effort to be less creative and more informative, I eventually decided that the most important piece of information we need to move forward has to do with the latitude a piece of debris, or a drifter, starts from, and where it then ends up. I wondered if I could find trends in an inquiry like that that would be cohesive enough to be useful. Sometimes, these things are conceptually appealing, but the underlying data fails to provide us with much useful information.

To test the notion, I cleaned and edited 2.3 million NOAA drifter records since 1979. I ended up with about 600,000 good position records for all of those years. They gave me the GPS location the drifter was deployed from, the date of deployment, the GPS location the drifter terminated at, the date of termination, and the reason for termination (e.g., ran aground, stopped transmitting, etc.).

Perhaps I should explain that NOAA provides two types of records for these drifters. The easiest to work with are called meta records: they are just a single entry for each drifter and include the same date of deployment and termination data outlined above. But that is NOT the record I used. It contains no information at all about the drifter’s actual travels, a bit of information crucial to my inquiry.

The other record type NOAA can provide is called a interpolation record. It includes information about the drifter’s position four times each day. That is the record source I used. It is not as easy to work with as meta data, but important for my interests. That is how one ends up with 2.3 million records for 600,000 drifter events.

With emphasis on LATITUDE, I paired first and last record information for each drifter and asked a simple question: What is a drifter’s end latitude in relation to its start latitude? I assumed, but was not certain, that each drifter’s end latitude was influenced in some way by how far north or south it was deployed. That turned out to be correct, but I had no way of knowing if it was a reliable pattern. For all I knew, every drifter released from, say, -20 S west of Exmouth, would go in a completely random direction. There is considerable evidence, in fact, that that is exactly what happens near the equator. Drifters released near 0 degrees latitude are just as likely to drift north as south, east as west.

But to my pleasant surprise, that is not what happens from about -5 degrees S all the way down to -40 S where my inquiry ended. Here is a visual on what actually happens.
[url=http://www.seventharc.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/2016-08-28-112731.png][/url]


Lines are NOAA drifter movement patterns beginning at about 110° E longitude and moving west to about 40° E longitude. Drifters starting between -7° S and -15° S tend to end up a few degrees farther south than they began. Similarly, drifters starting between -30° S and -40° S tend to end up a few degrees farther north than they began. There is no support at all for drifters starting around the Java area and going in all directions; nor is there support for drifters starting in the now thoroughly debunked search area (green) and ending up in the Mascarene Islands. None.

I call this “The Funnel Effect”. Not sure why it happens, but it also appears to call the SIO “gyre” into question. There has long been evidence the SIO gyre reverses direction twice a year. In a body of water as massive as the SIO, that suggests it is a very weak gyre at best. And this suggests it isn’t a gyre at all in the same sense it is in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

It should be easy to see how this chart can be useful. Which line intersects Reunion Island where the right flaperon was found? Trace it to the right (east) and it probably came from the Zenith Plateau / Exmouth area. Similarly the other drift items from Nosy Boraha and elsewhere also trace back to the same Zenith and Wharton Basin areas. A lot of us have been focusing on those areas for some time. So, this is another, and one of the most important, pieces of information that helps give the Zenith Plateau area new focus.

I believe this analysis can help others examine the source data in their own respective ways and come to their own conclusions. We still can’t identify an exact spot. May never be able to do that, but this is a big step forward I hope.

Simply staggering the amount of time and effort, with very little back up support or resources, that independent & intelligent individuals like Ken, Mike, Brock, Paul & Blaine are prepared to give in the search for MH370...

Meanwhile in our little patch? - Chillit perfectly sums up the current embarrassing status quo..

"..There have also been a handful of drift studies out of Australia’s CSIRO, ATSB, and one of its minor colleges in the Perth Area. I consider each of the Australian studies shameful examples of in-house bias. They all insist the current search is in the “right” place. Not one of them is credible. They were undertaken for the sole purpose of justifying Australia’s bull-headed determination to search a part of the ocean the plane could not possibly be. No one is going to feel sorry for Australia’s insistence on going it alone. It should be incredibly embarrassed and never allowed to forget the damage it has done to genuine interests in finding the plane in a timely manner..."

   
Isn't it amazing how much one bald headed, beard on/beard off Muppet has tarnished our international standing as a fellow signatory state to ICAO...


MTF...P2

[Peetwo]

The link to Paul Howard’s analysis is – HERE – There are eleven pages, each worth the time taken to read.  But, it is not for the skim reader or the quick grab headline seeker; it is a serious work and requires some thought and effort from the reader.

Underpinning the press hysteria; the snake oil salesmen; visionaries, governmental spin doctored clap-trap and the ATSB latest embarrassment, there has been a quiet, persistent, compelling drum beat of logic and genuine quest for a solution to the mystery.  Folk like Chillit, Howard, McEwan and several others have, without fanfare or much external assistance just got on with it.  Testing, questioning, eliminating the dross and pony-pooh, sorting the sheep from the goats.  The thing that impresses most is the modest, quiet, determined persistence and the unselfish, unsupported investment of time, effort and intelligence.

This is no mean feat; the smoke, mirrors, shredded information, disinformation, distractions and half baked theory make developing, testing and proving a logical line of reasoning to conclusion almost impossible; one needs to stay strong.  Each false trail needs to be walked before being discarded and even then, a small element of doubt must be held – just in case there was a vital clue along the way.

It is reassuring to know that after the dust settles and the crowd vanishes to live vicariously through the next event, that there are those quiet people who are prepared to test a rational theory to breaking point; have the integrity to admit doubt, prepared to discuss the work and the confidence to admit that they may be wrong.  

For me; Paul Howard sums up the situation very well.

"I'm firmly convinced that the only way this aircraft can be found, is by continuing revision and analysis of the existing data. That includes Inmarsat. Appendix 1 and 2 (below) show the complexity of the system and the potential for error. Only by acknowledging where errors and false assumptions have occurred is there any possibility of progression. It must be understood that from the outset there was so little data, that to embark on a submarine search was a brave and possibly foolhardy mission. Historically, there is a very fine line between the two."

How else are we to discover what happened to the 239 people and a large, serviceable aircraft that night?

Selah.

MH370: The facts & only the facts -  

Update to the MH370 "she said..he said" ego wars, which IMO was inevitable once there was a further smokescreen of disinformation (RMP 'leaked' sim report) passed around as "facts", when in reality it is just another layer of presumptions based on hearsay evidence on top of hearsay evidence..etc..etc.

A couple of days ago there was a perfect example of an IG member 'playing the man' rather than the ball.



This attack on the credibility of Paul Howard's analysis on the 'assumptions' being made, from the (now infamous & leaked  )1000 page RMP report of the electronic records captured on Captain Z's flight simulator, caused the Ferryman to get up a head of steam in this quoted post...

Steam on GD - All of it – Now.

I tried another adventure into ‘Twitter-land’ this evening.  P2 reckons I have to keep up with the times; I’ll own, it sometimes puzzles me; and MIF sets in very quickly – Heigh Ho.

But tonight I read a ‘tweet’ from this Mike Eczema plonker, who seems to fancy that every one of his mouthing’s comes directly from the gods and;  no matter what anyone else may believe, it is rubbish.  Who are this ducking ‘Independent Group”, the almighty IG? Who gives a toss what they say – or do not say.  They hold ‘an opinion’; that’s all. They are not admitted to the rarefied atmosphere of those who actually do have the information and know.  Yet they stand as ‘the opinion’ and anyone who dares disagree is branded FOOL.

Well, duck that for a game of cowboys and Indians.  Our very own Paul H has put in an enormous effort to try and decipher the data from the Captains’ simulator.  It is logical, it is reasoned and it has credibility.  No one; least of all Paul claims it as true, or even proven. It is simply one mans effort to separate the sheep from the Wise goats.

I can applaud the effort, read the data and retain an open mind.  Not Mr. Excema; Paul is called a fool, on Twitter,  for even daring to consider something external to the IG (I'm God?) unaligned, un credited, un funded IG crowd disagree with. They offer no logical contradiction or even explain where the alleged ‘errors’ are in the PH work.  Worse, there is no attempt to ‘edumacate’ the great unwashed herd; or. tell us why PH is 'a fool'.  

I call that Ego Troll action.  IG and his big mouth must now put up their analysis of where the ‘errors’ lay, refute it; or, apologise then STFU.  The Excema actions today are pure troll and not the response of ‘gentlemen’.  

Bollocks - Colour me disgusted and cranky.  Ayup, steam off now, thanks mate, just leave us enough for a

Toot toot.

Why it is that people with excellent academic credentials cannot see the wood for the trees and realise that they are being played because to divide & conquer is to invite disunity (a rabble). Ultimately this will suit the 'powers to be' when the time comes to call the end to the MH370 SIO 7th Arc search effort...

Right then back to the update...

Rather than be detracted from his cause by the Exner criticism, Paul Howard has gone on drilling down into the facts as 'WE' (the public 'WE') have been presented. Here is a further addition to the PH original blog piece...

 

Edit 2/9/16 
Question; what would a flight simmer be doing with those two isolated southern points ?
                     
I couldn't think of an answer until I realized I'd answered it myself with reference to the complexity of magnetic variation in that part of the world. I just had to check and begorrah! There's the answer.  

Assuming the Sim 5 heading of 193 is magnetic, the true heading(white) is to the South Magnetic Pole.
This was a NAVIGATION exercise ! 

If the heading was to be extended past the Pole,my guesstimate is that the gentle curve would become tighter and swing towards Erebus but I'm off the overlay at that point. Most would approach Erebus from New Zealand but an approach from Sim 5 over the Pole based on a magnetic heading, would be the most challenging piece of navigation. 

Hmm...a South Polar NAVEX then??- Yep makes sense to me but then again I'm only a knuckledragger...


MTF...P2

[Kharon]

Why indeed.

P2 – “Why it is that people with excellent academic credentials cannot see the wood for the trees and realise that they are being played because to divide & conquer is to invite disunity (a rabble). Ultimately this will suit the 'powers to be' when the time comes to call the end to the MH370 SIO 7th Arc search effort...”

The combined sins of intellectual arrogance and believing in ones own opinion of personal superiority.  You see a lot of it; a bloke who could not work out how to put an IKEA flat pack together but with a degree in ‘fine art’ totally convinced that ‘he’ despite all evidence to the contrary, is, indeed, a superior being.  It is a total bollocks; I knew a colliery blacksmith, self educated, who could do the Times crossword in record time – every time.  I once met a real rocket scientist who could barely tie his boot laces without written instruction.  The difference between ‘intelligence’ and ‘education’ is a Gordian knot which the academics struggle to undo.

When we look at any of the ‘academic’ circles, particularly the sciences, we see whole world, in a nut shell.  “The earth is round” says Master Galileo; “Bollocks” says the holy church, “and if you keep it up, we’ll chop your fool head off” (paraphrased slightly).  Matters have progressed slightly beyond that impasse.  These days, Master G would publish his theory and, those interested would read it.  Those for would try to prove the math; those agin would try to disavow Master G of his fancy. But, either side must provide ‘proof’ to support their theory. Thus experiment, calculation and examination begin.  With a bit of luck – Master G could be informed that he was wrong; the lads discovered that the Earth was not ‘round’ but an oblate spheroid.  QED.  Win –win for all (bar the flat earth crowd).  The arguments and discussions supported by fact; but not even the holy church called Master G a fool – heretic, absolutely, but then they had an agenda.  

The point I’m labouring is that there are some theories which may be discussed, sensibly, openly and with good manners, without the need to insult the protagonist.

For example:-

PH – “I couldn't think of an answer until I realized I'd answered it myself with reference to the complexity of magnetic variation in that part of the world. I just had to check and Begorrah! There's the answer.”

It is one answer; and I would not gainsay it, but I would not call it ‘the’ answer.  It may be that the ‘scenario’ was partially programmed to revisit the Erebus disaster; which as a training exercise in CFIT is a classic. Maybe the ‘box’ needed a couple of waypoints to allow the sim to ‘jump’ to a near position and avoid a long flight, beyond the programmable fuel limitations.  It could be an exercise in ‘Grid navigation’.  Back in the day of written examinations for senior licences ‘Grid’ was a featured torment to the less mathematically gifted and a pleasure for those with a love of ‘navigation’ as an art form.  Either way – Polar navigation is a complex affair – for the computer or the navigator -  and to a dedicated ‘purist’ or student a thing which is now ‘nice to know’ rather than a must have.  Then there is a whimsical explanation – it would be (IMO) a fine thing to be able to say that you had indeed been to the very ends of the planet – flown over both the NP and SP and even landed on the ice runways, even if only in the sim.  Couple of pints, bit of imagination, a discussion on the latest ‘adventure’ in the SP, fire up the sim and, Bingo, there you are.  

Without empirical evidence to support any theory, they remain exactly that; theory.  Sensible theory is worth discussion.  Gods the ‘discussions’ I’ve sat through and been party to on matters aeronautical; some heated, some hilarious; some down to brass tacks and (surprisingly) agreement reached. But in peer group discussion I don’t believe I’ve ever heard a man called Fool for holding a point of view and expounding a logical argument. Disagreement – by the cart load – often fiercely defended by both sides; I’ve even seen mates fall out over their differing ‘opinion’ ; but that borders on the ‘Shrinks’ department and questions the meaning of ‘true friendship’.    

Aye - Old Voltaire had the right of it;

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"

Academic. It is an exceedingly pleasant morning; perhaps a second coffee the a stroll on the beach, see if the dogs theory of relativity (bones by the fire v sticks in the surf) proves out  Puts drum away for the sake of peace and harmony. Gods help those that disturb it.

Toot toot.

[Peetwo]

MH370 NOK: From the heart -

Via the Oz today:

Don’t abandon search for our loved ones: MH370 families

MH370 victim Anne Daisy with daughter Grace Nathan.

• Amanda Hodge
  
• The Australian
  
• 12:00AM September 5, 2016
  

South East Asia correspondent
Jakarta
@hodgeamanda
[img=0x0]http://pixel.tcog.cp1.news.com.au/track/component/author/e77dda0d0cda6499108d6323ac86ff18/?esi=true&t_product=the-australian&t_template=s3/austemp-article_common/vertical/author/widget&td_bio=false[/img]
Relatives of the missing Flight MH370 Malaysia Airlines passengers will appeal to search and rescue teams not to end their search, and to Australian authorities to take over control of the investigation from Malaysia, when they arrive in Australia tomorrow.

Family members from Malaysia, China and Australia, frustrated at the lack of progress during the 2½-year search for answers into the plane’s disappearance, will meet officials from the Joint Agency Co-ordination Centre and the Australian Transport Safety Board as well as the crew of the Dutch Fugro ship conducting the search in the remote southern Indian Ocean, during a self-funded trip to Canberra and Perth.

Grace Nathan, whose mother, Anne Daisy, was one of 239 people on board the March 7, 2014, Kuala Lumpur to Beijing flight that disappeared about 45 minutes after takeoff, told The Australian the group hoped to clarify whether recent discoveries of debris on the African coast were new leads in a search otherwise destined to be suspended at year’s end.

They were also keen to discuss ways the most expensive search in aviation history, costing about $170 million, could be continued more cheaply.

“Malaysia is not as gung-ho as Australia (about finding the aircraft). We want to know if Malaysia does relinquish control of the investi­gation, if there is another (nation) willing to agree to take over,” Ms Nathan said. “The Australians have all these plans about a replica wing flap … they’re going to drop into the ocean to refine their drift models. They’re making an effort to keep searching.

“We are hoping that by meeting Fugro and the ATSB, it might help us to understand what comes next and what we can do, as the next of kin group, to help push for the search to go on.”

The relatives will also meet University of Western Australia professor of coastal oceanography Charitha Pattiaratchi and Alec Duncan, an expert in underwater acoustics, at Perth’s Curtin ­University.

On July 22, transport ministers from Malaysia, China and Australia announced that if the aircraft could not be located in the present 120,000sq km search area, the search would be suspended pending “credible new evidence leading to the identification of a specific location of the aircraft”.

Ms Nathan said while Australian investigators had met relatives after that meeting and told them they were keen to continue the search, it was clear the Malaysian government wanted to put the matter behind it.

“I know for a fact, because I’ve become friends with several Mal­ay­sian reporters, that state-owned news outlets are not supposed to report on it,” Ms Nathan, a British-educated lawyer, told The Australian. “They still come to our press conferences but they don’t report on them because they have been told to steer away from there because they (the government) want people to move on from the issue.”

A few months ago, a billboard on Kuala Lumpur’s national highway dedicated to the passengers and crew of MH370 was quietly removed.

Another memorial at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport has also disappeared.

“Malaysian authorities don’t talk to us at all. Australian authorities have made the time to meet and talk to us,” Ms Nathan said.

“When we spoke to them (ATSB and JACC officials) in July, they told us they were hoping to continue the search.

“They were hoping, even if the contract with Fugro was not renewed, that someone else would take over … they wanted the search to continue.”

Malaysian authorities, however, had gone out of their way to avoid dealing with grieving next of kin, once even cancelling a press conference because families of the victims showed up, Ms Nathan said.

Next of kin had been followed by police, and in late July they were moved by security from the venue of the MH370 Ministerial Tripartite Meeting to an empty building, she added.

For the families of the 239 ­people lost with the plane, however, lives are frozen in time, their houses now museums to one terrible moment.

In Ms Nathan’s home, her mother’s reading glasses remain on the side table where she left them before going to the airport.

In other homes, razors sit on bathroom sinks, clothes hang in wardrobes, phone messages ­remain undeleted on answer ­machines. Without answers or evidence, there is little chance of moving on.

“When people say things like ‘Oh, you have lost your Mum’, it hurts me because it’s not something I accept,” Ms Nathan said.

“There is this gap in your reality, between your conscious and your psychological minds.

“We need to know who, what, where and why — they throw this term ‘credible evidence’ around: we need to know what that means.

“We want to know what (investigators) are doing to look for this credible information or if they are just going to wait for it to fall out of the sky?

“For example, there’s been a sudden increase in debris signs and we are wondering if that constitutes new leads. The only way to find something out is to go to the Australians.”

So far, one piece of debris has been confirmed as being from the missing passenger jet and four more pieces are considered ­“almost certainly” to be from MH370.

In late July, Infrastructure and Transport Minister Darren Chester said it was “highly likely” a piece of aircraft wing found in Tanzania and now being analysed by the ATSB was from MH370.

In recent weeks, more debris has been discovered along the ­African coastline. One large piece found in Mozambique is said to have red markings similar to the Malaysia Airlines livery and a Boeing identification, leading to speculation it could be debris from the tail of MH370.

A JACC spokesman has confirmed that family members of MH370 passengers would meet JACC and ATSB officials, but would not comment on suggestions family members hoped to see Australia take control of the investigation.

“I would like to clarify that at the request of the Malaysian government, Australia is leading the underwater search for the missing aircraft. The investigation into the disappearance of the MH370 is, however, in accordance with Annex 13 of the International Civil Aviation Convention, the responsibility of Malaysia,” he said.

Hmmm...after PelAir and various other high profile incident/accident investigations since, I'd seriously think twice about Australia taking over any accident investigation. Besides it is probably much better to have a nation with very little skin in the game, perhaps the Canucks TSBC or the British AAIB would be better options..
MTF...P2  

[Gobbledock]

Problem is;

A) The ATsB are useless,
B) The Australian and Malaysian governments are 'in bed together', for reasons not fully understood at this time,
C) None of the political, procedural, investigative, bureaucratic or business interests actually give a rats arse because it doesn't affect them personally. None of their loved ones are dead and not accounted for.

The pain that the families and friends of the deceased are going through is unimaginable. My heart truly goes out to them and I can only wish that at some stage they in the near future, rather than the far future, receive some sort of closure that allows them to finalise their grieving processes and move on as best that they can.

In sympathy, Gobbles


R.I.P

[Peetwo]

MH370 NOK: From the heart -

Via the Oz today:

Don’t abandon search for our loved ones: MH370 families

MH370 victim Anne Daisy with daughter Grace Nathan.

• Amanda Hodge
  
• The Australian
  
• 12:00AM September 5, 2016
  

South East Asia correspondent
Jakarta
@hodgeamanda
[img=0x0]http://pixel.tcog.cp1.news.com.au/track/component/author/e77dda0d0cda6499108d6323ac86ff18/?esi=true&t_product=the-australian&t_template=s3/austemp-article_common/vertical/author/widget&td_bio=false[/img]
Relatives of the missing Flight MH370 Malaysia Airlines passengers will appeal to search and rescue teams not to end their search, and to Australian authorities to take over control of the investigation from Malaysia, when they arrive in Australia tomorrow.

Family members from Malaysia, China and Australia, frustrated at the lack of progress during the 2½-year search for answers into the plane’s disappearance, will meet officials from the Joint Agency Co-ordination Centre and the Australian Transport Safety Board as well as the crew of the Dutch Fugro ship conducting the search in the remote southern Indian Ocean, during a self-funded trip to Canberra and Perth.

Grace Nathan, whose mother, Anne Daisy, was one of 239 people on board the March 7, 2014, Kuala Lumpur to Beijing flight that disappeared about 45 minutes after takeoff, told The Australian the group hoped to clarify whether recent discoveries of debris on the African coast were new leads in a search otherwise destined to be suspended at year’s end.

They were also keen to discuss ways the most expensive search in aviation history, costing about $170 million, could be continued more cheaply.

“Malaysia is not as gung-ho as Australia (about finding the aircraft). We want to know if Malaysia does relinquish control of the investi­gation, if there is another (nation) willing to agree to take over,” Ms Nathan said. “The Australians have all these plans about a replica wing flap … they’re going to drop into the ocean to refine their drift models. They’re making an effort to keep searching.

“We are hoping that by meeting Fugro and the ATSB, it might help us to understand what comes next and what we can do, as the next of kin group, to help push for the search to go on.”

The relatives will also meet University of Western Australia professor of coastal oceanography Charitha Pattiaratchi and Alec Duncan, an expert in underwater acoustics, at Perth’s Curtin ­University.

On July 22, transport ministers from Malaysia, China and Australia announced that if the aircraft could not be located in the present 120,000sq km search area, the search would be suspended pending “credible new evidence leading to the identification of a specific location of the aircraft”.

Ms Nathan said while Australian investigators had met relatives after that meeting and told them they were keen to continue the search, it was clear the Malaysian government wanted to put the matter behind it.

“I know for a fact, because I’ve become friends with several Mal­ay­sian reporters, that state-owned news outlets are not supposed to report on it,” Ms Nathan, a British-educated lawyer, told The Australian. “They still come to our press conferences but they don’t report on them because they have been told to steer away from there because they (the government) want people to move on from the issue.”

A few months ago, a billboard on Kuala Lumpur’s national highway dedicated to the passengers and crew of MH370 was quietly removed.

Another memorial at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport has also disappeared.

“Malaysian authorities don’t talk to us at all. Australian authorities have made the time to meet and talk to us,” Ms Nathan said.

“When we spoke to them (ATSB and JACC officials) in July, they told us they were hoping to continue the search.

“They were hoping, even if the contract with Fugro was not renewed, that someone else would take over … they wanted the search to continue.”

Malaysian authorities, however, had gone out of their way to avoid dealing with grieving next of kin, once even cancelling a press conference because families of the victims showed up, Ms Nathan said.

Next of kin had been followed by police, and in late July they were moved by security from the venue of the MH370 Ministerial Tripartite Meeting to an empty building, she added.

For the families of the 239 ­people lost with the plane, however, lives are frozen in time, their houses now museums to one terrible moment.

In Ms Nathan’s home, her mother’s reading glasses remain on the side table where she left them before going to the airport.

In other homes, razors sit on bathroom sinks, clothes hang in wardrobes, phone messages ­remain undeleted on answer ­machines. Without answers or evidence, there is little chance of moving on.

“When people say things like ‘Oh, you have lost your Mum’, it hurts me because it’s not something I accept,” Ms Nathan said.

“There is this gap in your reality, between your conscious and your psychological minds.

“We need to know who, what, where and why — they throw this term ‘credible evidence’ around: we need to know what that means.

“We want to know what (investigators) are doing to look for this credible information or if they are just going to wait for it to fall out of the sky?

“For example, there’s been a sudden increase in debris signs and we are wondering if that constitutes new leads. The only way to find something out is to go to the Australians.”

So far, one piece of debris has been confirmed as being from the missing passenger jet and four more pieces are considered ­“almost certainly” to be from MH370.

In late July, Infrastructure and Transport Minister Darren Chester said it was “highly likely” a piece of aircraft wing found in Tanzania and now being analysed by the ATSB was from MH370.

In recent weeks, more debris has been discovered along the ­African coastline. One large piece found in Mozambique is said to have red markings similar to the Malaysia Airlines livery and a Boeing identification, leading to speculation it could be debris from the tail of MH370.

A JACC spokesman has confirmed that family members of MH370 passengers would meet JACC and ATSB officials, but would not comment on suggestions family members hoped to see Australia take control of the investigation.

“I would like to clarify that at the request of the Malaysian government, Australia is leading the underwater search for the missing aircraft. The investigation into the disappearance of the MH370 is, however, in accordance with Annex 13 of the International Civil Aviation Convention, the responsibility of Malaysia,” he said.

Hmmm...after PelAir and various other high profile incident/accident investigations since, I'd seriously think twice about Australia taking over any accident investigation. Besides it is probably much better to have a nation with very little skin in the game, perhaps the Canucks TSBC or the British AAIB would be better options..
MTF...P2  

Problem is;

A) The ATsB are useless,
B) The Australian and Malaysian governments are 'in bed together', for reasons not fully understood at this time,
C) None of the political, procedural, investigative, bureaucratic or business interests actually give a rats arse because it doesn't affect them personally. None of their loved ones are dead and not accounted for.

The pain that the families and friends of the deceased are going through is unimaginable. My heart truly goes out to them and I can only wish that at some stage they in the near future, rather than the far future, receive some sort of closure that allows them to finalise their grieving processes and move on as best that they can.

In sympathy, Gobbles


R.I.P

Update: courtesy ABC PM

MH370 next of kin turn to Australia for support to keep search alive
Peter Lloyd reported this story on Monday, September 5, 2016 18:30:00
About JW Player 6.11.4923 (Ads edition)       

| MP3 download
Australia is stepping onto a diplomatic tight rope in its relationship with Malaysia.

High level officials involved in the Australian-led search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight 370 are hosting a group of next of kin.

The Malaysian families coming here are in open revolt at what they say is their own government's unvarnished indifference to the fate of the plane, passengers and crew.

Relatives believe there is now 'credible new evidence' to justify more searching.

But they say no Malaysian official will meet them, so they're turning to Canberra for allies.

In a confronting first, they'll come face to face with physical evidence of what happened to the plane.

FEATURED:

Sarah Nathan - Australian Transport Safety Bureau

[*]

[*]


MTF...P2