[Peetwo]

Captain's Log 17.01.17: ATSB search all over bar the shouting -

Here is the official version courtesy of DDDD_MNFI Chester's miniscule webpage..  :

MH370 Tripartite Joint Communiqué

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Media Release
DC013/2017
17 January 2017
Joint release with:
The Hon Dato' Sri Liow Tiong Lai
Malaysian Minister of Transport
The Hon Mr Li Xiaopeng
People's Republic of China Minister of Transport

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Today the last search vessel has left the underwater search area. Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has not been located in the 120,000 square-kilometre underwater search area in the southern Indian Ocean.

Despite every effort using the best science available, cutting edge technology, as well as modelling and advice from highly skilled professionals who are the best in their field, unfortunately, the search has not been able to locate the aircraft.

Accordingly, the underwater search for MH370 has been suspended.

The decision to suspend the underwater search has not been taken lightly nor without sadness. It is consistent with decisions made by our three countries in the July 2016 Ministerial Tripartite meeting in Putrajaya Malaysia.

Whilst combined scientific studies have continued to refine areas of probability, to date no new information has been discovered to determine the specific location of the aircraft.
We have been overwhelmed by the commitment and dedication shown by the hundreds of people involved in the search, which has been an unprecedented challenge. Their tireless work has continued to improve our knowledge of the search area and has been critical in our efforts to locate the aircraft. We would like to reiterate our utmost appreciation to the many nations that have provided expertise and assistance since the early days of this unfortunate tragedy.

Today's announcement is significant for our three countries, but more importantly for the family and friends of those on board the aircraft. We again take this opportunity to honour the memory of those who have lost their lives and acknowledge the enormous loss felt by their loved ones.

We remain hopeful that new information will come to light and that at some point in the future the aircraft will be located.

And a media report courtesy of the ABC:

MH370: Search for missing Malaysia Airlines plane suspended
By political reporter Henry Belot
Tue 17 Jan 2017, 6:00pm


Photo: The Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777, carrying 239 people, disappeared in March 2014. (Wikimedia: Ercan Karakas, file photo)

The search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has been suspended, with authorities unable to locate the aircraft in the Indian Ocean.

The passenger plane carrying 239 passengers and crew, including six Australians, disappeared on March 8, 2014 while travelling between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing.
Its disappearance is one of the greatest mysteries in aviation history, with authorities unsuccessfully searching 120,000 square kilometres of the ocean floor.

In a joint statement, the Australian, Malaysian and Chinese governments said the decision to abandon the search was not taken lightly, or without sadness.

"Despite every effort using the best science available, cutting-edge technology, as well as modelling and advice from highly skilled professionals who are the best in their field, unfortunately, the search has not been able to locate the aircraft," the statement said.

"Whilst combined scientific studies have continued to refine areas of probability, to date no new information has been discovered to determine the specific location of the aircraft."

In July last year authorities warned the hunt would be suspended if the latest search did not yield any results.

The three Government representatives said they had been overwhelmed by the commitment and dedication of those involved in the search.

"Their tireless work has continued to improve our knowledge of the search area and has been critical in our efforts to locate the aircraft," the statement said.


Photo: Search crews have been trawling the Indian Ocean for the missing Boeing 777. (Supplied: ATSB, photo by Mel Proudlock)

"We would like to reiterate our utmost appreciation to the many nations that have provided expertise and assistance since the early days of this unfortunate tragedy."
Earlier this month, Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai rejected calls for relatives of passengers on board the MH370 to extend the search.

Australian authorities also rejected calls to extend the search, claiming there was a lack of credible evidence.

A total of 33 pieces of wreckage suspected to be from the plane have been found, including parts of wings and a tail, on the shores of Mauritius, the French Indian Ocean island of Reunion, Mozambique, Tanzania and South Africa.

The three representatives, including Australian Transport Minister Darren Chester, said the announcement was an important development for the families of passengers and crew.

"We again take this opportunity to honour the memory of those who have lost their lives and acknowledge the enormous loss felt by their loved ones," they said.

"We remain hopeful that new information will come to light and that at some point in the future the aircraft will be located."

In December, an Australian Government report found authorities had likely been looking in the wrong section of ocean.

"There is a high degree of confidence that the previously identified underwater area searched to date does not contain the missing aircraft," the Australian Transport Safety Bureau report said.

At the time, Mr Chester said he was still hopeful authorities would find the plane in the search area.

A report released by the ATSB a month earlier found it was unlikely the Boeing 777 was in a controlled descent when it crashed into the ocean.

Sad day for NOK, the extended families and former friends of the 239 lost souls of MH370, our thoughts are with you...P2  

Update:

MH370 Families Appeal to JACC to Reconsider their Decision to Suspend Search


♠ Posted by Mick Rooney in Malaysia Airlines,MH370,Voice370 at Tuesday, January 17, 2017

In a joint communique statement issued today by the JACC, officials confirmed that the ongoing search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 had been completed and would be suspended following side sonar scanning and AUV operations covering a 120,000 sq km zone of the southern Indian Ocean. This search has lasted almost three years and has failed to identify any wreckage of the aircraft on the seabed.

Communique:

Today the last search vessel has left the underwater search area. Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has not been located in the 120,000 square-kilometre underwater search area in the southern Indian Ocean. 
Despite every effort using the best science available, cutting edge technology, as well as modelling and advice from highly skilled professionals who are the best in their field, unfortunately, the search has not been able to locate the aircraft. 
Accordingly, the underwater search for MH370 has been suspended.
The decision to suspend the underwater search has not been taken lightly nor without sadness. It is consistent with decisions made by our three countries in the July 2016 Ministerial Tripartite meeting in Putrajaya Malaysia.
Whilst combined scientific studies have continued to refine areas of probability, to date no new information has been discovered to determine the specific location of the aircraft.
We have been overwhelmed by the commitment and dedication shown by the hundreds of people involved in the search, which has been an unprecedented challenge. Their tireless work has continued to improve our knowledge of the search area and has been critical in our efforts to locate the aircraft. We would like to reiterate our utmost appreciation to the many nations that have provided expertise and assistance since the early days of this unfortunate tragedy.
Today’s announcement is significant for our three countries, but more importantly for the family and friends of those on board the aircraft. We again take this opportunity to honour the memory of those who have lost their lives and acknowledge the enormous loss felt by their loved ones.
We remain hopeful that new information will come to light and that at some point in the future the aircraft will be located. 


Voice370, the MH370 Family Support Group, shortly afterwards issued their own statement and an appeal to the JACC to reconsider their decision to suspend the search.
 

[Peetwo]

Captain's Log 17.01.17: ATSB search all over bar the shouting -

Here is the official version courtesy of DDDD_MNFI Chester's miniscule webpage..  :

MH370 Tripartite Joint Communiqué

---

Update:

MH370 Families Appeal to JACC to Reconsider their Decision to Suspend Search


♠ Posted by Mick Rooney in Malaysia Airlines,MH370,Voice370 at Tuesday, January 17, 2017

 

Further update 18/01/17: Turnbull, Chester spin etc..  

Via the Oz:

MH370 search: Why the search has been called off

A file photo of a graphic of the area being searched for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. Picture: AAP

Rachel Baxendale
The Australian
12:01PM January 18, 2017


Malcolm Turnbull has expressed his condolences to the families of those missing from Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, saying it is appropriate for the “unprecedented” search to be suspended.

Australia, China and Malaysia released a joint statement yesterday saying they had called off the two-and-a-half year mission, after a search of a 120,000 square kilometre high priority area 2500 kilometres off the West Australian coast was completed without success.

MH370 vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in March 2014 with 239 people on board, including six Australians.

Mr Turnbull said he grieved with the families of the victims and shared their deep disappointment that the plane hasn’t been found.

“There has been a massive search,” he said.

“It has been conducted with the best advice over the areas that were identified as the most likely to find the location of the aeroplane.

“There has been an agreement between the three countries involved, that at the conclusion of this program, the search will be suspended.”

Mr Turnbull said that if new evidence emerged that pointed to another locations, the three nations would consider searching there.

The Prime Minister had been asked to respond to comments from his predecessor Tony Abbott, who said he was disappointed the search was called off.

“Disappointed that the search for MH370 has been called off. Especially if some experts think there are better places to look,” Mr Abbott, who was in power at the time the flight went missing, wrote on Twitter.

Why call off search now?

Transport Minister Darren Chester says the question of whether to call of the search for missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 was difficult, and there was no perfect answer.
Australia, China and Malaysia released a joint statement yesterday saying they had called off the two-and-a-half year mission, after a search of the 120,000 square kilometre high priority search area 2500 kilometres off the West Australian coast was completed without success.

MH370 vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in March 2014 with 239 people on board, including six Australians.

Mr Chester said the decision had been made jointly with the other two countries involved.

He said that in July last year the Malaysian, Chinese and Australian governments had met in Malaysia and discussed the future of the search, deciding that if there was “no credible new information leading to a specific location of the aircraft” following the completion of the 120,000km search, the mission would be suspended.

However, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau last month identified a 25,000km search area north of the 120,000km zone, raising the hopes of loved ones by saying the new area had the highest probability of containing the wreckage.

Mr Chester said identification of the 25,000km search area did not represent the kind of new, credible information which was likely to lead to a specific location.

“What we’re saying is we don’t have a specific location, even though the analysis would suggest that would be the next place you’d go to given we haven’t found it in that first 125,000 kilometres,” he told ABC radio.

From left to right: Peter Foley, Project Director for the Operational Search for MH370, Greg Hood, Chief Commissioner of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau and Federal Infrastructure and Transport Minister Darren Chester. Picture: AAP

Transcript—Press Conference, Melbourne

Interview
DCI015/2017
18 January 2017
Subjects: Underwater search for MH370 suspended, cabinet reshuffle

Darren Chester: I would like to begin by firstly acknowledging this is a frustrating day and a day of great sadness for the families and friends of all those on board MH370—the 239 passengers and crew who disappeared almost three years ago. I want to acknowledge also today the Australian Transport Safety Bureau officials here with me, Greg Hood and Peter Foley, the Lead Investigator, who have pulled together an extraordinary effort in terms of coordinating Australia's commitment to the underwater search in quite extraordinary circumstances. I would like to remind everyone that the search for MH370 has in many ways been at the very cutting edge of science and technology, and certainly tested the limits of human endeavour in this very inhospitable part of the world.

The search has occurred almost 2,500 kilometres off the coast of Western Australia in some of the most inhospitable waters in the world. There are times the rescue, or the search vessels had been working in conditions with sea states of between 15 and 20 metre waves. The underwater search was being carried out in the section of the ocean where the depths reached up to six kilometres, so by any stretch of the imagination it has been an extraordinarily difficult search.

So I would like to commend the ATSB and everyone involved in the search effort, our partners from around the world and also those who have been at sea over these past two and a half years.

Can I also acknowledge that in July of last year, the People's Republic of China, Malaysian Government, and the Australian Government met and discussed the future of the search for MH370. At that time it was decided that once we completed the 120,000 square kilometre highest probability search area, once that was completed, in the absence of any credible new evidence leading to a specific location of the aircraft, the search would be suspended at that time. Tragically, it is a sad fact we have reached that time.

The Fugro Equator, the search vessel which has been working on the final passes in the southern Indian Ocean has completed its search effort and is now returning to Western Australia. So it is with some level of sadness, certainly with a great deal of frustration and disappointment that I stand here and acknowledge that the search, the underwater search area effort has been suspended.

But I would like to again express on behalf of the Government our support and empathy for the families and friends of all those on board, express our thanks to the ATSB and the entire search team, but also acknowledge the incredible work and the partnership that has been developed between my own department and the governments of Malaysia and the People's Republic of China as we have worked together in this search which has been of historic proportions. It has been the largest search in aviation history. It hasn't been successful at this stage, but that doesn't mean that there hasn't been every effort made by the search teams and by everyone involved.

So with those few words, can I welcome Greg Hood to make some comments on behalf of the ATSB.

Greg Hood: Thanks, Minister. As the ATSB's Chief Commissioner, I wish to reiterate my heartfelt condolences to the families and loved ones of the 239 people on board Malaysia Airlines flight 370. Having met with several family members personally, I have witnessed firsthand their profound and sustained grief. With yesterday's departure from the search area the vessel Fugro Equator, this unprecedented underwater search is now complete, having covered over 120,000 square kilometres of the southern Indian Ocean, almost 2,500 kilometres south-west of Perth, over an area twice the size of Tasmania in depths, as the Minister mentioned, of water between 3,500 metres and 6,000 metres deep.

This has been the largest and most challenging underwater search operation in history, and we have a high degree of confidence now that the aircraft is not in the area in which we have searched. I would like to express my gratitude to all those involved in the search to date, including the crew of the Fugro Equator, who are now heading home, and the crews and client representatives of all vessels involved in the search—Fugro Discovery, Zhu Kezhen, Haixun 01, Dong Hai Jiu 101, Fugro Supporter, Havila Harmony and GO Phoenix.

The Fugro crews in particular have been searching non-stop for more than two and a half years in what are some of the most extreme ocean conditions anywhere in the world. They have endured both summer tropical cyclones and heavy winter seas with wave heights at times of more than 20 metres. They have also had to contend with medical emergencies and technical difficulties with sophisticated equipment whilst five days steaming from the nearest land. They have done all this while maintaining extraordinary professionalism and dedication to finding the aircraft. The crews on the search vessels have spent significant time, including two Christmas-New Year periods away from their own families.

I would also like to personally express my gratitude to all of those people involved in the most difficult of tasks—defining the underwater search area with very limited data, including the team of experts from the search strategy working group—that's Inmarsat, Thales, Boeing, Defence Science and Technology group, and our investigation colleagues from the Air Accident Investigation Branch of the United Kingdom and the National Transportation Safety Board of the United States. Together with the experts from CSIRO, Geoscience Australia, and universities from around Australia, they have come together in an attempt to apply the best possible science to find the aircraft and bring closure to the families of the 239 souls on board.

As the Minister stated, although the underwater search is suspended, some residual search-related activity is continuing, including debris drift analysis and further detailed analysis of satellite imagery. This activity is anticipated to conclude by the end of February 2017. The ATSB will continue to support any further requests by Malaysia, including the examination of any further debris that may come ashore in months to come. It would also be remiss of me not to pay tribute to my own team at the ATSB.

They have lived and breathed nothing but professionalism, dedication, compassion, and optimism that we would locate the aircraft and those on board. The suspension of the search after more than two and a half years will be felt very deeply by all of us.
With the Minister's concurrence, we will take questions for either the Minister, myself or Peter Foley, the program director.

Question: May I ask you about the information that was released last month regarding another search area, a 25,000 square kilometre section with a high degree of probability that MH370 would be there, north of where the current search area is?

Darren Chester: Just for complete clarity, the 120,000 square kilometre highest probability search area was defined on the limited data that was available and has been reference checked, if you like. I will get Greg to comment more fully on that.

With the drift analysis from the debris that has been found, and our equipment at the time, through the tripartite agreement through Malaysia and China and Australia was to complete the 120,000 square kilometre search area and to suspend the search in the absence of any credible new evidence leading to a specific location of MH370.

Now the information put forward last month is in the order of another potential search area; if you were going to search somewhere else, that was regarded as the place you would start next if you were to extend the search and provide more resources to an area of 25,000 square kilometres.

No one is coming to me as the Minister and saying we know where MH370 is. The new information, if you like, or the position put forward by the experts has been that if you were going to extend the search into a new area, this is where you would target next.

Question: If more credible information comes forward, will the search resume?

Darren Chester: I don't rule out a future underwater search by any stretch. It is a question of if you have credible new information which leads to a specific location. It would be a matter for the Malaysian Government primarily, but certainly given the close relationship we have had with Malaysia during this process, I would expect some further conversations would occur between Australia, Malaysia and China at the time. So we don't rule out a future underwater search. What I'm simply saying is today, the commitment to the 120,000 square kilometre search area has been completed. Fugro Equator is returning to port and the search will be suspended in terms of the underwater effort. As the ATSB Chief has just pointed out, there is other work going on, on land in relation to more detailed analysis of drift patterns, and further if more debris comes to light in the weeks and months ahead, again, it will be a question of working with Malaysia, working with our experts on any further analysis.

Question: How much would the cost of another search, launching another search be? Does the cost factor into any decision?

Darren Chester: That's a fair question. The cost hasn't been the deciding factor in the decision by the tripartite group to suspend the search. There is no question this has been a very costly exercise—in the order of $200 million Australian dollars has been spent on the underwater search effort, of which $60 million has been provided by the Australian Government. Malaysia has contributed more than anyone else in that regard. So it is a costly exercise, but it hasn't been the factor which has led to the decision to suspend the search. We are in a position where we don't want to be providing false hope to the families and friends. We need to have credible new evidence leading to a specific location before we would be reasonably considering future search efforts.

Question: Minister, does the fact we didn't find the plane mean that the experts who drew the search area got it wrong?

Darren Chester: No. No, we need to understand the very limited amount of actual data our experts were dealing with. The fact that we haven't located the aircraft in the 120,000 square kilometre highest probability search area would indicate that the aircraft is not in that area, quite obviously. We have got very high confidence with the technology that has been used and very high confidence the aircraft is not located in that search area, but they had very limited data to work with and they have done an extraordinary job.

As I said in my opening comments, it has been at the edge of science and technological endeavour in terms of pursuing this search effort. It has also been an extraordinary and sometimes heroic human effort as well. I have nothing but praise for the researchers, the experts from the ATSB, the international team that was pulled together to help them in their work but also, equally, the people who have been at sea undertaking the search.

Question: I want to hear about the reaction of some of those people who have been out at sea—who have undertaken that search—to the fact it's suspended?

Darren Chester: Well I can't speak for all of the families obviously I can only speak for the members of families I have spoken to in the last 24 hours. They were very understanding of the decision that had been reached by the three governments. They were aware that we were approaching the completion of the priority search area. They were very thankful to the ATSB and the experts and the searchers for the work they have done. They were appreciative of the Australian Government's effort and understood the decision. So I can only speak for the people I have had conversations with. It is an emotional time for them. It is impossible for any of us to imagine what it would be like to still be searching for your loved ones almost three years after they went missing, and so I don't pretend to understand how they feel, but certainly the conversations I had with them were very positive and understanding and respectful of what is an extraordinarily difficult circumstance for everyone involved.

Question: Minister, Tony Abbott has already tweeted his disappointment about this decision especially he says if experts think there are better places to look. What do you make of those sentiments?

Darren Chester: Well, former Prime Minister Abbott was directly involved in the initial search and so he has a deep and personal interest in the issue as well. I understand that he has been affected by that too. I mean, this has been difficult for everyone involved. Obviously the families have felt that the most, but the experts who have been working on this project, this has consumed their life for the best part of three years. This is a disappointing and a frustrating day for them as well, and I understand that former Prime Minister Abbott has some concerns as well. He is entitled to express those opinions, but it is not a decision that was reached lightly by the three governments in July last year, and we remain open to further analysis of whatever data becomes available into the future.

Question: What about those people who have taken part in the search? Those people who have been on the ships at sea, put in all those hours? I'm wondering about some of their reactions to the end of this?

Darren Chester: Well I will have the opportunity next Monday to welcome the Fugro Equator back to shore. I will be travelling to Perth to meet with the crew on behalf of the Australian Government to express my thanks and gratitude on behalf, not just our government and our people, but the aviation world more generally. I did have the opportunity, I think it was earlier last year, to meet with one of the crews in Fremantle, and again at that time expressed my thanks for the work they are doing. I think they will be disappointed as well. I think they will be disappointed they haven't been successful at this stage. This is a matter of professional pride. They have been out there doing everything they possibly can, experiencing some pretty horrendous conditions at times, and they were determined to find the aircraft and at this stage we haven't found the aircraft.

That doesn't rule out the fact that in the future, through better analysis of data, if new technology becomes available or through improved equipment or something of that nature, that we may have a breakthrough in the future. We need to recognise that during this search effort we have actually found two shipwrecks of more than 100 years old. So we have solved a couple of mysteries from the late 1890s and early 1900s, but unfortunately we haven't solved the mystery of MH370 at this stage, but it doesn't mean that people are not still passionately trying to pull together the best information they can.

Question: Do you think it will ever be found?

Darren Chester: Well, it is an extraordinary aviation mystery as it stands today. I am hopeful that we will have a breakthrough in the future. We need to prepare ourselves for the sad and tragic reality that in this foreseeable future we may not find MH370, but that doesn't rule out future endeavours or future breakthroughs in terms of data or technology that helps us solve this extraordinary puzzle.

Question: Is that what you mean when you say credible evidence?

Darren Chester: Well that is the critical question. When we talk about credible evidence, what does that mean? Well I don't want to be dismissive of your question in that regard, it means we will know it when we see it. When we get some information or data or a breakthrough that leads us to a specific location, we will know it when we see it, the experts will know it when they see it. And then it will be a question, I presume, of talking with Malaysia, working with our tripartite partners on what happens next. So it is not a closed book by any stretch. The work from the ATSB, as Greg Hood's indicated, will continue in the coming months. It is reasonable to expect that there may be more debris uncovered in the weeks and months and possibly even years ahead which may lead to further information to solving this puzzle.

Question: On another issue, Greg Hunt looks likely to be the next Health Minister. Do you think the Prime Minister wanted that portfolio in the House of Reps?

Darren Chester: Well, you won't be surprised to hear that I'm not going to pre-empt an announcement by the Prime Minister which I understand may be made today. The Prime Minister picks his team; he has got an array of very talented Members of Parliament to choose from. We have a strong Cabinet already, and I think it will continue to deliver everything we promised to the Australian people at the last election. I will leave it to the Prime Minister to make announcements in relation to his executive.

Question: Arthur Sinodinos has also faced ICAC investigations , although he was ultimately cleared, do you think it is a clean slate to have him back in?

Darren Chester: Well the point you make, he was ultimately cleared. Arthur Sinodinos has a long and distinguished career of public service, whether it be as a senior staff member in the former Howard Government, or now as a Senator and as a senior member of the executive in the Turnbull Government, he has made a great contribution to Australian life and I expect him to continue to do that in the future.

Question: Would you support a federal ICAC?

Darren Chester: No, I think the point that the Prime Minister made last week in announcing the need for an independent authority to look at MPs workplace expenses and making sure the public has more confidence in the clarity and transparency of those rules and arrangements in relation to workplace expenses I think that announcement last week has been a very significant one and one that is a major step in the right direction. I think that will achieve the level of confidence the public is looking for.

“This isn’t a criticism of anyone or implying they’ve got it wrong by any stretch.

“They had very little information to begin with, in terms of data to actually work out their modelling from. There’s been pieces of debris wash up subsequent to the original search area, been identified, which would suggest we’re in the general vicinity, in the right area if you like, but it is a vast ocean.”

Mr Chester said search crews had battled ocean depths in excess of four kilometres and swells of 15m.

“It has been a heroic undertaking in terms of the search effort and while it has not been successful at this stage, and that’s disappointing and frustrating for everyone involved, particularly the families but also the people who’ve been involved from the ATSB and out on the search vessels,” he said.

“That doesn’t mean it hasn’t been an important undertaking or a very extraordinary effort by the nations involved in working together to try to solve this extraordinary aviation mystery.”

Mr Chester said the nations involved were “damned if they did and damned if they didn’t” continue the search.

“If you continue the search area you would quite rightly be asking me questions, ‘well why are you spending another $20, $30, $40 or $50 million of taxpayers’ money on a search which has already cost the governments in the order of $200 million?’, but by not continuing the search you’re quite rightly asking, ‘well, why not?’,” he said.

“It is a difficult question, there is no perfect answer to it.”

Mr Chester said international experts would continue to analyse data despite the search being called off.

“International experts have been brought together as part of the ATSB’s work to better analyse the limited data we had available to us, to work through the drift modelling of the debris that has been found, and in the future there’ll be more analysis of the debris, there’ll be more analysis of the drift patterns, there’s more detailed analysis of satellite imagery going on as well, so while the activity at sea may have been suspended there is still more working going on land in Australia, and we’re still very keen to work with international experts in that regard,” he said.

Brisbane man David Lawton, who lost his 57-year-old brother Robert, said he never thought the search would go on this long.

“It’s been hard, because, you know, you lose someone that you love in your family, he’s my only brother, and now there’s no hope that he’s ever going to be found so we can never have a proper funeral or anything like that,” he told ABC radio.

“We’ve been expecting it for a fair while now because the search has been going on for a long time and they hadn’t come up with nothing, so it can’t go on forever.”

Victims group Voices 370 has condemned the suspension, saying the countries were shirking an “inescapable duty” to extend the search to the new 25,000km area.
In a statement the group described Mr Chester’s position as “unfortunate, unilateral, premature” and tending to pre-empt any dialogue.

ATSB Chief Commissioner Greg Hood said that after searching the 120,000km zone in the southern Indian Ocean, over an area twice the size of Tasmania, the ATSB had a high degree of confidence the aircraft was not in the search area.

MTF...P2


Ps P2 comment - If looks could kill? Can't seem to track down the presser video footage but the body language between Foley and 4D was very interesting, I gather there is no love lost between the two. Other than in the opening statement Chester seemed loathe to even acknowledge Peter Foley - hmm..fascinating??    

[Kharon]

Coffin lids and the nailing down thereof.

There have been a couple of ‘strange coincidences’ which occurred during the MH 370 search on which I privately made some notes and calculations – with nothing more in mind than using the possible ‘scenarios’ as outside, long odds runners, reserves, in the 370 race. Bit of fun and whimsy, to fill up the race card more than serious contenders. Nonetheless, I kept them in play, without any expectation of ever needing to use them. Seriously, whoda thunkit; Donald Trump, used as the final nail in the MH370 coffin.

It all started when the ‘extension’ of the search was announced and the political rhetoric began beating out the Jan 20 deadline; lots of folk thought the ‘extension’ was the prelude to a revised search, perhaps in a redefined area, based on new data. Not to be, the words ‘suspended’ and ‘credible data’ began to creep into the spotlight, the death knell being sounded by the ‘first principals’ meetings and the triumvirate axis. In short; there was no intention of continuing, the powers that be clearly indicating an imminent full stop.  

One small problem for the axis just would not go away – public interest and pressure; powerful pressure points for any politician. These just had to be diluted if not eradicated; but how to do it? Without being seen as a soulless, mindless part of an international scandal; a distraction was needed. Enter D. Trump Esq and the US Presidential election.

Trump was always going to be a big story, stuff of legend, no matter which horse won that race, the controversy would be solid gold to the axis crew. But the timing was off – so a short extension was arranged, the end of the MH370 search timed to coincide with Trump signing on the dotted line. Public interest in 370  was waning, the story of little hope in the search area dampening enthusiasm, with the story already fading from ‘public’  (voter) memory.

So a date was set for the end of search, the messages carefully released. Then one day, the last search vessel leaves the area – heading for home; suddenly, reality followed by public acceptance that the search is, indeed, over. With indecent haste to bury the corpse the politico’s race to as many radio and TV interviews as possible, to reinforce two messages; ‘we’ did our very best and spent a fortune in an unprecedented search effort (ain’t we grand) this followed by agonised looks and some gentile hand wringing, to emphasise the point that if there was any hope ‘we’ would be there - with bells on. So far so good; but there will be pockets of resistance which need to viewed as an isolated minority group; like those who search for signs of ET; or, talk to ‘the spirits’: or, read the tea leaves.

And so, with impeccable timing the Trump inauguration lands atop the dwindling interest in the 370 story. Give it a quarter year – then ask anyone in the supermarket or bar what happened Jan 20, 2016.

But it is in the ‘passing strange’ department. Nowhere near as queer as not knowing how that aircraft ‘vanished’.  What I find most peculiar is that finding the answer to the technical or human reasons for the loss can just be abandoned, without a solitary, credible explanation. There are many solid operational and security considerations which demand that answers be found.  

Aye well, only a twiddle to get it off of my chest. There’s the tennis to watch and the Trump show to distract; life does indeed go on.

Toot toot.

[ventus45]

But it is in the ‘passing strange’ department. Nowhere near as queer as not knowing how that aircraft ‘vanished’.  What I find most peculiar is that finding the answer to the technical or human reasons for the loss can just be abandoned, without a solitary, credible explanation. There are many solid operational and security considerations which demand that answers be found.  

There is no need to "find" an answer if you already "know" the answer.

It was very obvious very early on that MY "knew" what had happened, and all else was just window "dressing".
The 4 Corners interview with H2 proved that.

The "real" question is, why did Australia "play along" with the farce ?  
We need a "SOLID, CREDIBLE" answer for that, but clearly, we will never get one, not even after 30 years.

The Americans will tell us first.
They declassify everything after 25 years, per Presidential Executive Order 13526.

[Gobbledock]

Seventh Day AdVentus;

The "real" question is, why did Australia "play along" with the farce ?  

Easy. America is ruled by a shadow government that actually pulls the strings and owns the western worlds governments, military industrial complex, media and 99% of the worlds wealth. Not bad for just 8 people. Australia is a small player who makes up part of the 'portfolio' owned and manipulated by the shadow government.
Australia is owned, and always will be. America say jump and our Government says 'how high' while it dribbles and drools while crouching at its masters feet. The reasons behind the coverup of MH370 may never be known, but I guarantee you that money is the motivating factor, somehow and in someway. It's a game that us little people will never be invited to play in.

It is no coincidence that a limp wristed soft ex Goldman Sachs parasite is Prime Minister. He will obey his masters and by the time he gets booted out of office even richer he will have loaded up Australia with the greatest debt level ever seen in history. Exactly what his masters in shadow government want him to do. $50b in Submarines? Now isn't that a gift to the military industrial complex! Arms, Defense and war is where the money is. Turnbull is a puppet who is happy to serve his puppet masters.

Too many people still remain on life support inside the matrix. They are part of a crooked system and do not even know it. Sheeple willing to give over their lives and freedom by trusting in Governments who are well versed in the skill of sucking the lifeblood and money out of mankind.

Tick Tock

[ventus45]

Sadly, you are probably "bang on the money" gobbles.

Since 9M-MRO will never be found, in our lifetimes at least, as a final gesture, for posterity, and the "annoyance" of the "experts", I have made a few minor changes to my "Escape to the Southern FMT"

[P7_TOM]

Well GD is probably right, up to a point. But the question is, would the ‘shadow government’ even break wind in concern for an insignificant airline which lost an aircraft and a couple of hundred folks? To me it seems that unless it was either a ‘shoot down’ due to an imminent threat; or, a sophisticated ‘electronic’ hijack; or something of that magnitude, then the ‘major league’ players would stay out of the light – such as it was.

I’d prefer a more mundane ‘conspiracy’. For starters, I’d like to know why the discredited, on the political nose, Dolan was pushed front and centre. Of all the world’s incompetent, obliging Muppets, why pick Dolan as front man? Why even bother using the ATSB? It was only a matter of time before the world and it’s wife realised that ATSB was a clueless, rudderless, lost wreck of an operation. Even though the stalwart Foley did his utmost and did it well, until the handcuffs were fitted and the gag firmly in place. A good man wasted – IMO.

The machinations of the MY government have always been both simple and complex, as are the relationships between Australia and that region. Too deep for me to fathom. Besides; it is as it is and sweet sod all I can do about that.

This whole episode, from day one, has been ‘murky’; too damn thick to drink and too bloody thin to plough. I can agree with ‘the lad’ on a couple of points though; the indecent speed with which our politicians raced to the burial – even before the search ship was home; no sad political faces at the dockside, lamenting the empty handed return. Then the well rehearsed ‘lines’ and the verbal, almost acrobatic agility displayed in spinning and back-flip answers leads even the most pragmatic, sanguine mind to wonder; just WTD have these governments been playing at.

It stinks, all of it, to the high heavens; every last little bit.

[Gobbledock]

Tom;

"But the question is, would the ‘shadow government’ even break wind in concern for an insignificant airline which lost an aircraft and a couple of hundred folks"?

A reasonable question. The answer, I believe, would have something to do with the intrinsic value of some very special cargo on board. Physical cargo? A person and a patent? Businessmen or academics, inventors or scientists with obscene insurance policies over the technical data, design or information they were carrying? Military secrets?
Tom, I believe that somehow, somewhere, somebody had a lot to gain financially by that aircraft crashing......just sayin.

[Peetwo]

Captain's Log 21.01.17: HSSS archive entry 170121

In what is obviously going to be a slow news weekend here in Oz, Byron Bailey and 'that man' Higgins, teamed up with SE Asian correspondent Amanda Hodge, feature 3 times on the MH370 end of search wrap up in the Weekend Oz... :

‘Locate MH370, get reward’

12:00amEAN HIGGINS, AMANDA HODGE

The Malaysian gov­ernment has unexpectedly offered a possible reward if the MH370 aircraft is found.

---

Search over, farce carries on

12:00amBYRON BAILEY

The Malaysian authorities must be pleased: the mysteries remain buried deep in an area no one searched.

---

Riddle remains, anger deepens

12:00amEan Higgins

Private experts are unlikely to give up the quest to find missing Flight MH370.

---

Six months ago, the man hired to lead the $200 million underwater hunt for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, Paul Kennedy, blurted out he thought maybe he wouldn’t find it, because the Australian bureaucrats who hired him were working on the wrong theory.

When he made the remarks in July, Kennedy, the project director of the Dutch-based Fugro marine survey group, had spent the better part of two years meticulously guiding the search for the Boeing 777 in a band of very deep water in the southern Indian Ocean, often in very rough seas.

The 120,000sq km target zone had been chosen on the basis of complex analysis led by the Australian Transport Safety ­Bureau of satellite tracking data, other calculations and one big assumption.

That assumption was that by the end of the flight, no one was flying the plane, the pilots having become “unresponsive”, perhaps losing consciousness through lack of oxygen due to decompression of the aircraft at high altitude.

The ATSB’s “ghost flight” theory was that the plane had flown on autopilot from, perhaps, its last turn south, then plunged down suddenly in a “death dive” after running out of fuel.

In that unguarded chat in July with the Reuters news agency, Kennedy unwisely said what he really thought: since the aircraft had not been found in the target zone, maybe MH370 captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah had hijacked it and flown it to the end, gliding it after fuel exhaustion to take it out of the ATSB’s defined search area.

“If it’s not there, it means it’s somewhere else,” he said. “If it was manned it could glide for a long way. You could glide it for further than our search area is, so I believe the logical conclusion will be, well, maybe that is the other scenario.”

On Tuesday, Fugro Equator hauled up its torpedo-like autonomous underwater vehicle — an unmanned miniature submarine with sonar imaging equipment that can zip around on its own — for the last time. And that was the end of the search for MH370.
Kennedy’s words were prophetic: “It’s somewhere else.”

That conclusion comes nearly three years after MH370 disappeared. It deviated on a scheduled flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014, flying back over Malaysia to the Andaman Sea and then south, with its radar transponder turned off and no radio communications.

Kennedy might have wondered if the search should instead have looked farther south and west, where commercial airline ­pilots estimate it would be had, as they believe, Zaharie flown the aircraft to the end and taken it farther and possibly off the main track south to thwart its discovery.

Or maybe Kennedy thought the search should be switched to an area farther north that some aerospace engineers, satellite experts and other professionals calling themselves the Independent Group, who analysed the data of their own accord, thought was a promising alternative.

Separately, scientists at the Euro-Mediterranean Centre on Climate Change in Italy did a drift modelling study matching where debris from MH370 had washed up on the coast of Africa against ocean currents to try to work out where the aircraft came down. Those scientists also found that the area to the north of where Kennedy was searching was a promising place to look.

Just last month, the ATSB held a confab in Canberra bringing together a panel of international experts in data processing, satellite communications, accident investigation, aircraft performance, flight operations, sonar data, acoustic data and oceanography.

They reanalysed the satellite tracking and other data, and also had a new drift modelling study courtesy of the CSIRO. The group came to same conclusion the Independent Group and the Euro-Mediterranean people had reached many months earlier: the next place to look was north, and the experts identified a new 25,000sq km target zone.

But the political will to continue the hunt is gone. “We need to have credible new evidence leading to a specific location before we would be reasonably considering future search efforts,” Transport Minister Darren Chester said on Wednesday, defending the decision by the governments funding the search — Malaysia, China and Australia — to “suspend” it. “MH370 may remain as one of aviation’s greatest mysteries.”

Those in the ATSB leading the search privately told victims’ relatives they are keen to continue the quest. But the Malaysian government, which under international law has prime responsibility for the investigation, is thought to be quite happy to call it quits.
Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said this month, “The aspiration to locate MH370 has not been abandoned.”

But cynics suggest Malaysia would be happy for the mystery of MH370 to not be unravelled, because it would look bad if it turned out a Muslim Malaysian pilot had flown 238 people of various nationalities to their deaths.

This is especially so given one avenue of speculation is that Zaharie might have meant it as a ­political protest against the government’s alleged persecution of opposition figure Anwar Ibrahim, a distant relative of whom Zaharie was a supporter.

Critics of the search remain vocal in their belief the ATSB chose the “ghost flight” and “death dive” scenario over the “rogue pilot to the end” theory to avoid embarrassing Malaysia.

The ATSB insists the decision was based on the best analysis of the information available. No control inputs were detected in the flight route on the long last leg south, and the ATSB claims satellite tracking data shows MH370 was in rapid descent. A study of a flap from the aircraft that washed up determined it was probably in the retracted position, suggesting it was not lowered, as a pilot would do if ditching under power.

Pilots and air crash investigators take issue with each ATSB premise. Commercial airline pilots point out that aircraft are normally flown on autopilot except for takeoff and landing; had Zaharie been alive throughout the flight, he would likely have kept it on autopilot until he took it to the ocean at the end.

Inmarsat, whose satellite track­ed the aircraft, has quietly let it be known the data cannot measure altitude, only relative changes. And former US airline pilot and senior air crash investigator John Cox has told Inquirer: “I do not believe there is sufficient data in the Inmarsat data to draw any conclusion on the rate of descent.”

Another top international air crash investigator, Canadian Larry Vance, remains convinced the pattern of damage on the trailing edge of the flap shows it was deployed in a controlled ditching.

But even if it was retracted, Vance says, that’s where it would be if Zaharie had glided the aircraft after fuel exhaustion, because without the engines running there is not enough hydraulic power to lower the flaps.

He also says had the aircraft come down in a fast dive, the two bigger pieces of debris, the flap and a flaperon, would not have been mostly intact, as they were found, but smashed into pieces.

“They conducted a very professional search, but unfortunately they started with incorrect assumptions,” Vance says of the ATSB approach. “There is solid evidence that the aircraft was intentionally ditched, but they went with a high-speed dive scenario.”

Chester this week said any decision to resume the search would primarily be up to Malaysia. That gives the families of the victims, whose international support and lobby group is called Voice 370, very little hope.

“Malaysia from the very beginning seemed a reluctant, unwilling participant in the search,” says KS Narendran, a Voice 370 spokesman and Chennai-based business consultant whose wife Chandrika Sharma was on MH370.

In a statement following the suspension of the search, Voice 370 made a critical point: if you don’t want to hunt for something unless you know precisely where it is in advance, it means you’re not going to hunt: “Expecting to determine the ‘precise location of the aircraft’ before continuing the search was at best an erroneous expectation and at worst a clever formulation to bury the search.”

Not everyone is sure MH370 will never be found, though.

John Goglia is a legend among air crash investigators. The American started as an aircraft mechanic, was a union delegate in accident investigation teams for more than 20 years, ran his own aircraft service company, and was the first and only licensed aircraft mechanic to be appointed by the US president to the National Transportation Safety Board.

Goglia was one of the key investigators of mysterious crashes of Boeing 737s in the US in the 1990s, where they just fell out of the sky with the rudders stuck all the way to one side, or “hard over”, as it is known.

After two years of experiments and theories, investigators reached a dead end, and the investigation was all but abandoned. But here and there, sometimes informally and in their own time, experts continued to analyse the possibilities, and another two years later an explanation was found, related to a rare combination of low temperature and tiny particles in the rudder hydraulic system. Design changes were made, and the problem fixed.

Like the 737 rudder hard over mystery, work behind the scenes on solving the MH370 puzzle will continue, Goglia says: “The work on the investigation will not stop because the government of Malaysia has given up.

“There are other people who have a vested interest in what happened to that aircraft, the most prominent of which is Boeing.”

Goglia doesn’t think Boeing is going to hire a ship to continue the underwater search, but expects the company’s experts will continue to analyse the available data.

A Boeing spokesman says the company “provides experts who assist on site as well as many more within the company who … are called upon to contribute.”

The fascination, sometimes to the point of addiction, with the MH370 riddle will stay with those directly involved, but also the informal army of professionals. “It’s the human element that brings it all together,” Goglia says.

“Every single one of the investigators around the world … are part of a community. They take it personally when they can’t figure out what happened.”

Also from Newscorp yesterday Marnie O'Neill  revisits the nearly 3yr disconnection between what was the official Malaysian narrative, the Lido Hotel supposed radar screen  depiction, the 2015 Annex 13 JIT 'Interim Factual Report' and the now leaked RMP criminal investigation files.

Marnie via the NZHerald version :

Malaysia, military agencies deliberately withholding radar data that could help find MH370

By Marnie O'Neill
6:01 AM Saturday Jan 21, 2017

The shadow of a Royal New Zealand Air Force P3 Orion is seen on low level cloud while the aircraft searches for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370. Photo / AP

Key members of the Independent Group of international aviation and data experts who advised Australian authorities in the hunt for MH370 say crucial data that could help find the plane is being withheld.

The underwater search for the Malaysia Airlines jet officially ended on Tuesday without finding any trace of the Boeing 777 in the designated area - a 120,000sq km section of previously uncharted sea bed in the southern Indian Ocean off Perth known as the "seventh arc".

But if you assumed those tasked with finding this needle in a haystack had been given every piece of information available to solve what is now regarded as the greatest aviation mystery in history, you would be wrong.

News.com.au reports that Malaysia withheld, and continues to withhold, from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) and consulting experts, vital radar data containing possible clues to the location of the Boeing 777 - or what is left of it.

It can also be revealed shocking examples of negligence and obfuscation displayed by Malaysian authorities in the hours after the plane vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur to Malaysia on March 8, 2014, with 239 passengers and crew on board.

At least 20 pieces of wreckage, including at least one cabin fragment - confirmed as having come from the plane - have washed up on islands in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Africa over the past two years.

One promising piece was found by relatives of MH370 passengers who were so frustrated at the lack of progress that they flew to Madagascar and sifted through the sand banks with their own hands.

However, the black box believed to hold the secrets of MH370's final hours has never been found.

On Wednesday, Australian Transport Minister Darren Chester revealed the paradoxical criteria that needed to be met before the government would consider resuming the underwater search.

"We need to have credible new evidence leading to a specific location before we would be reasonably considering future search efforts," he said.

In other words, the government needs to know exactly where the plane is before it will resume the search for it.

DEFENCE SURVEILLANCE DATA FROM FOUR NATIONS MISSING

HMAS Success scans the southern Indian Ocean. Photo / AP

News.com.au approached MH370 investigators Victor Iannello (US) and Don Thompson (UK), who have been members of the Independent Group since its inception, to ask if they believed they had been denied access to data that could more accurately pinpoint the plane's location.

The answer was yes and plenty of it.

Their shocking revelations about the volume of information withheld by Malaysia and military agencies will have you asking yourself whether the biggest, most expensive search in history was effectively sabotaged.

Thompson told news.com.au his main concern was that crucial radar captured by eight military sites across four nations was never shared.

"My own 'hot button' is that military long-range air defence surveillance data from assets operated at seven, possibly even eight, sites across four nations is absent from the data set available to ATSB," Thompson told news.com.au.

Those satellites, all within range of the flight path MH370 is believed to have taken, are located at Lhokseumawe, Sabang/Pulau We and Sibolga in Indonesia; Car Nicobar and Port Blair in the Indian Andaman Islands; Khok Muang and Phuket in Thailand; and Western Hill, Penang, Malaysia.

Any one of them, or all collectively, could provide the vital clues to the plane's whereabouts.

After forking out about $60 million of an estimated $200 million spent looking for MH370, the Australian public - and certainly relatives of those on board - surely have the right to demand the release of information that could help pinpoint the plane's location and reignite the search.

BIZARRE DISCREPANCIES IN RADAR CAPTURES

Australian Transport Safety Bureau staff examine a piece of aircraft debris at their laboratory. Photo / AP

One of the most troubling inconsistencies is some evidence relating to the flight path - shown to victims' families just two weeks after the plane disappeared - was never made available to official investigators.

On March 21, 2014 - when global concern about the missing plane was at its peak - Malaysian air operations chief Lt Gen Ackbal bin Haji Abdul Samad shared specific radar data relating to the purported flight path with victims' relatives in Beijing, Dr Iannello said.

Relatives were shown radar captures placing MH370 in the Malacca Strait between 2.02am and 2.22am Malaysian local time, according to Dr Iannello.

Yet for whatever reason, these captures were never shared with the ATSB, he said.
In another discrepancy, evidence of radar coverage placing MH370 in the Andaman Sea at 3.12am - which was later acknowledged to be from Singapore radar - was included in the ATSB report released in June 2014.

Yet this vitally important data was omitted from Malaysia's Factual Information report released in March 2015.

TELEPHONE RECORDS AND CAPTAIN'S FLIGHT SIMULATOR DATA

A waiter walks past a mural of flight MH370 in Shah Alam outside Kuala Lumpur. Photo / AP

A full copy of the MH370 data communications log has never been made public. The version released has been heavily edited by authorities.

The existence of telephone records indicating First Officer Fariq Abdul Hamid's mobile phone connected to a tower on Penang Island were initially denied by Malaysia.

Authorities later agreed the event had occurred and included details in a secret Royal Malaysia Police (RMP)* report completed in May 2014. Yet this seemingly crucial part of the MH370 timeline was omitted from the Factual Information report released on March 2015.

Details of this midair call have never been made public.

Similarly, WeChat activity detected on Captain Zaharie Shah's mobile phone while MH370 was lined up on the runway just one minute before takeoff, was included without further explanation in the RMP report. There is no mention of it at all in the Factual Information report released a year later.

Another sticking point for Dr Iannello is the confusion over data recovered from Captain Zaharie Shah's home flight simulator.

He said flight paths with points in the Andaman Sea and the Southern Indian Ocean were found on the simulator. Those details, included in the 2014 RMP report, were inexplicably left out of the Factual Information report published a year later.

Dr Iannello said details about how the data was extracted and analysed was never explained by Malaysian authorities.

MALAYSIA'S LACKLUSTRE RESPONSE

A new 25,000sq km area north of the designated search area on the 'seventh arc' has been identified as likely to contain MH370 but will not be explored in the absence of 'credible evidence'. Photo / Supplied

Malaysia's behaviour over the past three years has been questionable, from its response in the immediate aftermath of the plane's disappearance to the way it has dragged its feet over the collection of suspected debris found off Africa.

Aspects of the nation's response that continue to bother investigators include:

• After MH370 fell off the radar, Malaysia made only two attempts to reach it using SATCOM Voice - a form of long-range communication used by air traffic controllers. These were logged at 2.40am and 7.14am Malaysian local time.
• MH370 was detected by military radar in real time as it turned back and flew across the Malaysian peninsula, yet there was no reported military intercept.
• Malaysian authorities waited four hours after MH370 vanished from radar before initiating search and rescue efforts.

*A secret Royal Malaysia Police (RMP) report related to the investigation of the disappearance of MH370 was completed May 2014. Various French media obtained the complete report in 2016, and major portions of the report are now publicly available.
- news.com.au

{P2 comment - I may just be an ignorant knuckle-dragger but it always troubled me that the 'powers to be' would embark on such an expensive search & recovery mission based on such a dodgy/assumed FMT into the SIO - i.e. how is it possible to find the final "X" marks the spot if you don't actually know, with any reasonable accuracy, where the beginning is?}
MTF...P2

[Peetwo]

Captain's Log 23.01.17: 4D, Hoody & Liow in Perth.

Courtesy the AAP via the Oz:

MH370 searchers wanted to go on

3:30pm

Australian Transport Safety Bureau staff would have liked to keep searching, saying the plane was “highly likely” in defined area.

Searchers for MH370 maintain the missing Malaysia Airlines flight is probably to the north of where they’d been looking in the southern Indian Ocean. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau said last month the Boeing 777 could be within a 25,000 square kilometre area to the north of the 120,000 sq km official search zone.

But the underwater search was still called off and the last vessel, the Fugro Equator, returned to port in Western Australia overnight.

“It’s highly likely the area now defined by the experts contains the aircraft but that’s not absolutely for certain,” Australian Transport Safety Bureau chief commissioner Greg Hood told reporters in Perth on Monday.

Mr Hood said the ATSB would have liked to continue searching to solve the mystery and bring closure to the families of those on board, but the decision to suspend the underwater hunt was made by the Malaysian, Australian and Chinese governments.

“Everybody wants to do the right thing — everybody’s got hopes,” Mr Hood said.

“Having met a number of family members personally, they continue to have protracted and prolonged grief.

“I’m profoundly sorry for these people.” Australian transport minister Darren Chester said it was understandable relatives were disappointed to have no answers almost three years after their loved ones vanished.

“They’re appreciative of the work that’s been done but understandably, they’re disappointed and saddened by the fact we haven’t been able to find MH370,” Mr Chester said.

“The professional staff involved, the ATSB, the crew on board the Fugro Equator here today, they’re disappointed.

“It’s a disappointment I share with them.” Malaysian transport minister Dato Sri Liow Tiong said he would meet with a representative of the relatives in Perth later on Monday.

“I hope we can have a good discussion,” Mr Liow said.

He said it was expected more debris would wash ashore after about 25 pieces were collected from Africa’s east coast and it was hoped drift modelling would help narrow down the plane’s location.

The ATSB’s opinion regarding the new zone was not enough to go on, he said. “We need more,” Mr Liow said.

Three pieces have been confirmed as definitely being from MH370, another five are considered “most certainly” from the plane and the rest are still being evaluated.

“We’ll continue to work on the debris and work with all the countries concerned,” Mr Liow said.

“So we’re committed to continue with the search for the debris and from then on, we hope we can get more credible evidence for the undersea search.” Mr Hood said drift modelling became less accurate as time went on but authorities were also re-examining satellite imagery from around the time of the crash to look for clues.

AAP

 

MTF...P2

[Peetwo]

Captain's Log 23.01.17: 4D, Hoody & Liow in Perth.

Courtesy the AAP via the Oz:

MH370 searchers wanted to go on

3:30pm

Australian Transport Safety Bureau staff would have liked to keep searching, saying the plane was “highly likely” in defined area.

Searchers for MH370 maintain the missing Malaysia Airlines flight is probably to the north of where they’d been looking in the southern Indian Ocean. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau said last month the Boeing 777 could be within a 25,000 square kilometre area to the north of the 120,000 sq km official search zone.

But the underwater search was still called off and the last vessel, the Fugro Equator, returned to port in Western Australia overnight.

“It’s highly likely the area now defined by the experts contains the aircraft but that’s not absolutely for certain,” Australian Transport Safety Bureau chief commissioner Greg Hood told reporters in Perth on Monday.

Mr Hood said the ATSB would have liked to continue searching to solve the mystery and bring closure to the families of those on board, but the decision to suspend the underwater hunt was made by the Malaysian, Australian and Chinese governments.

“Everybody wants to do the right thing — everybody’s got hopes,” Mr Hood said.

“Having met a number of family members personally, they continue to have protracted and prolonged grief.

“I’m profoundly sorry for these people.” Australian transport minister Darren Chester said it was understandable relatives were disappointed to have no answers almost three years after their loved ones vanished.

“They’re appreciative of the work that’s been done but understandably, they’re disappointed and saddened by the fact we haven’t been able to find MH370,” Mr Chester said.

“The professional staff involved, the ATSB, the crew on board the Fugro Equator here today, they’re disappointed.

“It’s a disappointment I share with them.” Malaysian transport minister Dato Sri Liow Tiong said he would meet with a representative of the relatives in Perth later on Monday.

“I hope we can have a good discussion,” Mr Liow said.

He said it was expected more debris would wash ashore after about 25 pieces were collected from Africa’s east coast and it was hoped drift modelling would help narrow down the plane’s location.

The ATSB’s opinion regarding the new zone was not enough to go on, he said. “We need more,” Mr Liow said.

Three pieces have been confirmed as definitely being from MH370, another five are considered “most certainly” from the plane and the rest are still being evaluated.

“We’ll continue to work on the debris and work with all the countries concerned,” Mr Liow said.

“So we’re committed to continue with the search for the debris and from then on, we hope we can get more credible evidence for the undersea search.” Mr Hood said drift modelling became less accurate as time went on but authorities were also re-examining satellite imagery from around the time of the crash to look for clues.

AAP

 

Update 24/01/17: Liow retracts reward

Had suspected that Liow's Deputy Dog was talking out of school, now apparently that has been confirmed by Liow himself...

"The Government has not made any decision ... it was the Deputy Minister's personal view, not the Government's, we are not having any of the such decision," he said. - Reference ABC: MH370 reward offer withdrawn by Malaysian Government as search ends.

Also a bit more on Hoody's statement that the ATSB is highly confident that the aircraft is in the new 25,000 square kilometre priority zone but (stiff shit) we're are not going to look for it...  

Via the Oz today:

Malaysia scotches MH370 reward

12:00amVICTORIA LAURIE

The Malaysian government has backtracked on its offer of a reward to private search teams looking for MH370.

The Malaysian government ­yesterday backtracked on its offer of a reward of hundreds of ­thousands of dollars to private search teams seeking to solve the mystery of MH370, as the lead Australian agency revealed it wanted to keep looking for the doomed flight.

MH370 and its 239 passengers went missing en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8 nearly three years ago, and ­yesterday the last vessel searching a 120,000sq km ocean grid ­returned to Perth.

Last week the Malaysian ­government, the People’s Republic of China and the Australian government brought the $200 million underwater search to an end, leaving unsolved the world’s largest aviation mystery.

Yesterday Malaysia’s Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai ­contradicted his deputy’s promise of a reward for private searchers. Mr Liow was in Perth to thank the crew of the search vessel Fugro Equator, which returned overnight from its final few days in the search area 2600km off Western Australia’s coast.

On a visit to Henderson industrial maritime base with Australia’s Transport Minister Darren Chester, Mr Liow said Malaysia would not consider offering a reward to credible private companies searching for the aeroplane.

Last week, Malaysia’s Deputy Transport Minister Abdul Aziz Kaprawi was reported as saying that the government was open to offering “millions” of Malaysian ringgit as a reward (one million ringgit is nearly $300,000 ­dollars).

“There will be cash rewards in the millions (of ringgit) for those who are able to find substantial information or evidence like the fuselage,” he said.

But Mr Liow told reporters: “It was the deputy minister’s personal view, not the government’s, we are not having any such decision.”

Instead, Mr Liow said Malaysia’s aviation authority would continue to investigate data and plane debris, “and from then on, we hope we can get more credible evidence for the undersea search.”

He said out of 25 pieces of ­debris, three pieces had been ­confirmed as being from MH370, another five were considered likely, while other pieces are still being evaluated. “We’ll continue to work on the debris and work with all the countries concerned,” Mr Liow said.

Australia’s lead agency, the Australian Transport Safety ­Bureau, was asked yesterday why a 25,000sq km area identified last month by aviation experts as a likely area for the missing Boeing 777 was not being searched. The area lies to the north of the official search zone in the southern ­Indian Ocean.

ATSB chief commissioner Greg Hood said: “It’s highly likely the area now defined by the experts contains the aircraft but that’s not absolutely for certain.”

Asked why the ATSB wouldn’t expand the search area further north, he said “That’s a question for the governments.”

Mr Hood later said ATSB would have liked to continue searching to bring closure to the families.

“Everybody wants to do the right thing — everybody’s got hopes,” Mr Hood said. “Having met a number of family members personally, they continue to have protracted and prolonged grief. I’m profoundly sorry for these people.”

Mr Hood was asked whether it was time to revisit theories that one of MH370’s pilots had deliberately sabotaged the plane, piloting it to the end.

He said analysis of the wing flap suggested a rapid rate of ­descent “which is suggestive of the aircraft not being in control at the end of the flight.”

Mr Liow said his government needed “more empirical evidence before we move to the next search area”, adding: “We are thinking that there’ll be more debris washing up in a short time to come.”

 
UDB...

Hoody, Liow, Chester, Najib & Malcolm.....





MTF...P2

[Peetwo]

Captain's Log 28.01.17: More embarrassment for Tri-parties...

Via the Oz today:

Search ‘likely’ MH370 zone
12:00amEAN HIGGINS, VICTORIA LAURIE
The leader of the underwater hunt for Flight MH370, Paul Kennedy, believes the aircraft can and will be found.

The leader of the just-ended underwater hunt for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, Paul Kennedy, believes the aircraft can and will be found, saying he could quickly assemble a fresh operation to scour a new area deemed “highly likely” to contain the Boeing 777.
The comments come as pressure mounts on the Australian, Malaysian and Chinese governments to renew the search, and amid calls on US-based Boeing to shell out from its just-announced record annual profit to fund it.

Mr Kennedy, the project director of the $200 million survey of 120,000sq km of deep seabed in the southern Indian Ocean conducted by the Dutch Fugro marine survey group, said “we all feel sad” about the failure to find the plane.

“We hoped to find the debris on the first day, and just four days ago when we were in the search area we were still anticipating we would still find it,” Mr Kennedy told The Weekend Australian in Perth, where he is based.

The effort had involved 300 rotating staff members on Fugro ships and 1.5 million man hours.

MH370 disappeared on March 8, 2014, on a scheduled flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, with 239 people on board. Its radar transponder was turned off and radio communications cut about 40 minutes into the flight when, primary radar and automatic satellite tracking shows, it doubled back over Malaysia to the Andaman Sea and then turned south.

While Malaysia has responsibility for the investigation into the lost aircraft because it was registered in that country, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau led the underwater search with the cost shared among the three governments.

On Monday, ATSB chief commissioner Greg Hood said it was “highly likely” the wreckage of the missing aircraft is in a new 25,000sq km area identified last month by a panel of international experts, but said any decision on whether to search it was “a question for governments”.

 
At the same press conference in Perth, Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said “we need more credible evidence before we move to the next search area”.

Mr Kennedy said should Fugro get a new commission to look for MH370, “it wouldn’t take us long at all” to marshal resources since the company had 350 staff in Perth and equipment stationed there including a $10m torpedo-like autonomous sonar imaging vehicle.

“She’ll be found, for sure,” Mr Kennedy said of MH370.

The ATSB has not costed a new search, but based on the cost per square kilometre of the search just ended, to cover the proposed 25,000sq km area to the north would have a price tag of $42m.

Boeing this week announced its 2016 annual results, reporting revenue of $US96.4 billion ($127bn), and record operating cashflow of $US10.5bn.

Danica Weeks, who lost her husband Paul on MH370 and now lives as a single mum in Queensland, called on Boeing to “come to the plate” to fund a new search, observing “it’s a Boeing plane”.

Last week Malaysian Deputy Transport Minister Abdul Aziz Kaprawi said “there’s been no funding from Boeing”.

Boeing has consistently refused to say whether it would consider sponsoring a renewed underwater search, but has observed the company provides expertise to agencies conducting air crash investigations.

Professionals in the aviation industry said it was essential the ­proposed 25,000sq km hunting ground be covered.

MTF...P2

[Peetwo]

Update: DOI archive entry 170129/31 

Reference post:  

Captain's Log 29.01.17: DOI archive entry 170129 

From a South African aviation blog apparently there may have been more MH370 debris discovered. Via Avcom...

Aircraft parts wash up on local beach - Transkei

Post by Steve » Fri Jan 27, 2017 10:20 am
This morning, a local person found some items that washed up on a beach on the Transkei coast near East London that looked like they could be from an aircraft. They sent the cell phone pics taken of these parts to one of our local aviators and the pics have been sent to our local ATC who will circulate them and notify the relevant authorities.

Can anyone identify perhaps what type of aircraft they are from?

  
It also sounds like the possible debris may end up in the right hands of senior (Malaysian AAIB) AAI investigator Aslam Khan:

Post by  AslamKhan » Sat Jan 28, 2017 3:29 am
Good morning
Thank you for including me in the forum.
My name is Aslam Khan from AAIB Malaysia. I am involved in the missing MH370 investigation.

The photos posted of the debris indicate that it is an Aircraft component. The profile looks like a wing to body fairing or flap track fairing. (As identified in subsequent postings)

PLEASE inform the person who found it to contact the South African CAA. Possible contact point could be the local airport and they could contact the duty officer at the CAA SA.

Appreciate if the DEBRIS can be placed in a plastic bag ( big garbage bag will work ) and then into a cardboard / carton box. We would like to examine it in detail to identify if it is from a B777 n possible link to MH370.

Thank you for your kind assistance and God Bless.

Aslam Khan
Mobile : +60123005540
Email :aslam@mot.gov.my

While on Aslam Khan I note that he also appeared in the recent France24 program on MH370... :

Have brought the above post across to AA&MH370 thread because combined with the following MC 7th Arc article, we again pose many awkward questions on the veracity and legitimacy of the now completed ATSB led SIO 7th Arc (AU$200 million/120,000 sqkm) MH370 search...

NOAA Agrees: Axes 7th Arc
Posted on January 30, 2017 by Mike Chillit

NOAA has just single-handedly NUKED the Seventh Arc that underpinned Australia’s search for nearly three years. But NOAA didn’t come out and actually say it abandoned the 7th Arc. Instead, the agency put an “X-marks-the-spot” on the second of two rather ambiguous charts in a way that makes it harder to figure out what they did. The first of those charts was published here on December 14, 2016:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/...ines-crash

Following in ATSB’s footsteps, the “keep it a secret” theory apparently is, “don’t say it and they won’t realize you didn’t get the transparency memo”.

Here is the latest chart NOAA is pushing:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1...16.1248149


NOAA drift chart for MH370 debris analysis published in revised form under original date.
Anyone can take a stab at trying to figure out where the fat red squiggle intersects the “final Arc” west of Exmouth. But I’ll use a firing-range tool in the hope of being a bit more precise: crosshairs. Doing it that way, we will ALSO see NOAA is no longer on the 7th Arc.



NOAA drift chart for MH370 debris analysis published in revised form under original date. Crosshairs added to identify GPS estimate.

From the above, we know NOAA is now on the 6th Arc, not the 7th. Sorry, can’t overlay the 6th Arc on it; please take my word for it for now.

Why the Green-Frame Selection Box?

While I personally have many reasons for hoping NOAA’s latest “crash location” is close to the mark, it is nevertheless important to consider a few of the reasons it is likely to change, at least a little.

Researchers design studies in all kinds of ways. Some are constructive and lead to useful information. Some are not well considered and need to be refined. Some are designed so poorly there is no hope of “fixing” them. This NOAA study needs to be refined, and it can be refined. It wouldn’t hurt to also eliminate a lot of faux intellectual / academic gobbledygook at the same time.

1. NOAA likes “selection boxes” like those shown above in green and magenta; but when overlaid on active substrates like ocean surfaces, selection boxes can be misleading at best because they attempt to still-frame what is in reality a moving / changing sub-population of NOAA drifters. (I have no problem with the magenta selection box. It marks the end-point and needs to be static.)
   
2. There was a good reason for using selection boxes when NOAA first began using them in the 1900s: USDA did it first and arguably best. USDA is where Fisher Statistics were developed (normal distributions). But NOAA tried to implement the concept without adapting it to a fluid environment. So selection boxes, known as “plots” in USDA parlance, became common US inter-agency government tools for decades. But the plot concept doesn’t always translate well from a static environment like a garden or field, to a fluid environment like an ocean surface. NOAA appears to have failed to take that into consideration when designing many of its studies right up to the present time. 
   
3. The result is a longstanding practice that is less than robust.
   
4. For example, a NOAA drifter buoy that bobs into the green box on the east side, does not have the same probability of doing anything the same way a NOAA drifter buoy will if it enters from the southwest corner or the west side of the selection box. What is the research goal? Is it to be able to comment on buoys that crossed the final arc AND ended up near Reunion Island? If it is, select only drifter buoys that actually cross the final arc, anywhere along that 4,000 km arc (or explain why you are taking a different approach).
   
5. Perhaps the biggest problem with NOAA’s construct is that the green selection box does NOT encompass all “at risk” Final Arc buoys. To do that, it has to begin at Java and extend all the way down to -40°S. Looking at the large group not currently selected (southwest of Java), it is certain that those drifters will move NOAA’s endpoint northeast if they are ever included in central tendency metrics.
   
6. No drift study of MH370 debris can be thorough / robust if it ignores the impact Cyclone Gillian had on that debris field in late March 2014. Other Indian Ocean storms appear to have had a negligible impact. Gillian’s impact was profound.
   

What Is The Point?
Exactly. What is the point of selecting only a partial sample of drifters crossing the final arc? It needs to be explained. Otherwise, it appears to be a poorly considered model no one in the peer review chain caught. Or was it even peer reviewed?

Important to remember how CSIRO’s David Griffin used a selection box in his initial drifter study. He put a much smaller selection box way down at the southern tip of what was then the Seventh Arc search area. Doing it that way biased his whole study by ensuring that his findings would point to the now fully discredited original search area. (I have argued that Griffin intended to bias the study. I still believe that is what he intended to do. Alternatively, Griffin has no idea how to design a useful empirical inquiry.) 

This latest NOAA study is a little better; but still doesn’t include the entire final arc sub-population of drifters. In essence, this study is suggesting there is no chance the plane crashed north of about -15°S. That is patently false. While my own work suggests the Batavia to Zenith area is generally correct, it is not helpful to try to support my own work with findings based on questionable methodologies. That is precisely what kept us south of Broken Ridge for three years, and it is precisely why we have nothing to show for all of that time and effort.

In summary, NOAA needs to refine its methodology, give equal weight to all drifters that cross the final arc (the 6th Arc is right but it has to be a calibrated 6th Arc). The raw 6th Arc published by Inmarsat in 2014 is NOT correct. Does not matter that it is a relatively minor error. It will greatly influence the seafloor that is or is not scanned.

MTF...P2  

[Peetwo]

Captain's Log 16.02.17: ATSB/DSTG finally ask for comment - WTF?

I don't know if it is just me??- but as an ATP (Australian Taxpayer) I find the flippant & sheer arrogant attitude of the bureaucratic boffin featured in the following article, courtesy of MIT Tech review, simply mind boggling and totally disrespectful of the MH370 NOK..  :

The Forensic Mathematics Behind the Desperate Search for the Malaysia Airlines Plane

The search for MH370 has been based on just a few tiny scraps of data. Now anyone can study the analysis to see if anything has been overlooked.

by Emerging Technology from the arXiv

February 15, 2017

On January 17, the governments of Malaysia, China, and Australia agreed to suspend the search for Malaysia Airlines MH-370, a Boeing 777-200ER aircraft that vanished in mysterious circumstances in March 2014.

The aircraft was on a scheduled flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing when it disappeared from air traffic controllers’ radar screens. Military radar continued to track the aircraft, which deviated from its planned route and eventually flew south, finally traveling beyond radar range. The aircraft was never seen or heard from again and the 242 people on board are assumed dead.

The aircraft has never been found because nobody knows where it landed or crashed. The best guess is that it flew south for seven hours and then ditched in the Indian Ocean, some 1,800 kilometers southwest of Perth, Australia. But an extensive search of the sea surface and seafloor in that area has found nothing.


All that raises an important question: have the authorities been looking in the right place?

Today, Ian Holland of the Australian Defence Science and Technology Group publishes some of the reasoning that has defined the search area. Holland has been an important member of the team that has analyzed the data relating to the flight. In particular, he has focused on the last known signals sent from the aircraft to an orbiting Inmarsat communications satellite. In the absence of any other information from the plane, investigators have used these signals to determine the search area—but is there any more that can be gleaned from this data?

First some background. MH370 was fitted with a satellite data unit capable of relaying voice conversations and routine data transmissions. It sent its information via an Inmarsat satellite that is geostationary over the Indian Ocean. Although the aircraft transmitted no voice communication, the satellite data unit continued to operate, acknowledging two telephone calls from the ground that went unanswered and making several routine broadcasts such as electronic handshakes and the like.

At first glance, it’s hard to imagine how these brief data transmissions can provide any information about the aircraft’s location. But Holland and his colleagues have used them to gather a remarkable amount of information.

The communications protocol requires a ground station to make contact with the aircraft’s satellite data unit at a specific time and frequency, regardless of where the plane is on the planet. However, the signal takes time to travel from the ground to the aircraft and back again. This time, known as the burst time offset, is determined by the distance the signal has to travel.

This distance is straightforward to calculate. It defines a circle centered on the position on the ground directly below the satellite. However, the calculation does not suggest where on this circle the plane might be, and investigators have had to use other clues to narrow down this position.

In total, MH370 sent seven signals from its satellite data unit, each defining a slightly different circle. It sent its final signal at 0019 UTC on March 8, 2014, having initiated a log on request just eight seconds earlier.

That’s an important clue. Log on requests only occur when the satellite data unit restarts after some kind of shutdown. Investigators have assumed this shutdown occurred when the plane ran out of fuel and the SDU restarted using power from a device called a ram air turbine, which is deployed in an emergency to generate power.

If that is correct, the last transmission must have been near the end of the flight. But how near? Could MH370 have glided many tens or hundreds of kilometers before it hit the ocean? If so, this significantly increases the potential search area.

Holland says he and colleagues are able to narrow down this area using another line of mathematical investigation. The satellite data unit broadcasts at a specific frequency, but the aircraft’s velocity toward or away from the satellite introduces a Doppler shift that changes this frequency. This is known as the burst frequency offset.

So in theory it’s possible that this shift in frequency can indicate the direction of flight at that instant. In practice, this calculation is hard to do and is much tougher than calculating the distance. Holland’s paper today is largely about this calculation. “The Burst Frequency Offset is a more complex measurement which is generally less well understood,” he says.

The calculation is tough because of the number of variables that can influence the frequency. The aircraft’s motion is just one of them. The motion of the satellite plays a role, creating a Doppler shift associated with the uplink and downlink between the satellite and ground station.

The ground station also attempts to compensate for any Doppler shift by changing the frequency. And the oscillators in the satellite and aircraft transmitters are not perfect. They vary, producing changes in broadcast frequency.

Holland and co attempted to understand all these sources of frequency change by analyzing the broadcasts from MH370 during 20 previous flights in the week before it was lost.

Holland goes on to show that if the plane was flying level when a call was made to the plane from the ground soon after contact was lost, then the burst frequency offsets suggest it must have been flying south. That’s important.

He also shows that Doppler shifts on the final two broadcasts from the plane’s satellite data unit, suggest that it was descending rapidly. “The downwards acceleration over the 8 second interval between these two messages was found to be approximately 0.68g,” says Holland. This is consistent with the plane being out of control and out of fuel.

That has important implications for the search area. If the plane was in an uncontrolled descent, it cannot have flown far after the last broadcast of the satellite data unit. And that means the plane must lie somewhere near the arc calculated from the burst timing offset data. “This suggests that 9M-MRO should lie relatively close to the 7th BTO arc,” concludes Holland. But exactly where on this arc isn’t clear.

That’s interesting work which Holland is now opening up to outside scrutiny. He clearly sets out many of the assumptions he and his colleagues have had to make in coming to their conclusion. An important question for the community is whether these assumptions are all justified and whether Holland and his team have overlooked anything.

In the meantime, the families of the victims are conducting their own search for wreckage associated with the plane. And until new evidence emerges, the search for MH370 will remain suspended.

Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1702.02432: The Use of Burst Frequency Offsets in the Search for MH370

   
Still trying to get my head around this and maybe I am missing something...  

This numbnut, totally out of touch with reality bureaucratic boffin, is just now offering up his theorising on the final resting place of MH370, which has subsequently proven to be 100% incorrect, for public scrutiny after we've just wasted nearly $200 million Aussie dollars looking in the wrong fucking place- UFB!



 http://auntypru.com/irony-is-wasted-on-the-stupid/

http://auntypru.com/forum/-Accidents-Ove...88#pid2988

May GOD have mercy on our epidemic AIOS inflicted country...   


MTF...P2

[Gobbledock]

Disgraceful....

Sorry P2, diplomacy just isn't my strongpoint. I will probably earn in 10 minutes in the sin bin, however;

Dear Mr Holland,

You sir, are a parasite. You gutless government footstool, coming out now with your 'hypothesis'. Go suck on a hand grenade you f#ckwit.

Best regards
Gobbles

[Peetwo]

Captain's Log 16.02.17: ATSB/DSTG finally ask for comment - WTF?

I don't know if it is just me??- but as an ATP (Australian Taxpayer) I find the flippant & sheer arrogant attitude of the bureaucratic boffin featured in the following article, courtesy of MIT Tech review, simply mind boggling and totally disrespectful of the MH370 NOK..  :

The Forensic Mathematics Behind the Desperate Search for the Malaysia Airlines Plane

The search for MH370 has been based on just a few tiny scraps of data. Now anyone can study the analysis to see if anything has been overlooked.

by Emerging Technology from the arXiv

February 15, 2017

On January 17, the governments of Malaysia, China, and Australia agreed to suspend the search for Malaysia Airlines MH-370, a Boeing 777-200ER aircraft that vanished in mysterious circumstances in March 2014.

The aircraft was on a scheduled flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing when it disappeared from air traffic controllers’ radar screens. Military radar continued to track the aircraft, which deviated from its planned route and eventually flew south, finally traveling beyond radar range. The aircraft was never seen or heard from again and the 242 people on board are assumed dead.

The aircraft has never been found because nobody knows where it landed or crashed. The best guess is that it flew south for seven hours and then ditched in the Indian Ocean, some 1,800 kilometers southwest of Perth, Australia. But an extensive search of the sea surface and seafloor in that area has found nothing.


All that raises an important question: have the authorities been looking in the right place?

Today, Ian Holland of the Australian Defence Science and Technology Group publishes some of the reasoning that has defined the search area. Holland has been an important member of the team that has analyzed the data relating to the flight. In particular, he has focused on the last known signals sent from the aircraft to an orbiting Inmarsat communications satellite. In the absence of any other information from the plane, investigators have used these signals to determine the search area—but is there any more that can be gleaned from this data?

First some background. MH370 was fitted with a satellite data unit capable of relaying voice conversations and routine data transmissions. It sent its information via an Inmarsat satellite that is geostationary over the Indian Ocean. Although the aircraft transmitted no voice communication, the satellite data unit continued to operate, acknowledging two telephone calls from the ground that went unanswered and making several routine broadcasts such as electronic handshakes and the like.

At first glance, it’s hard to imagine how these brief data transmissions can provide any information about the aircraft’s location. But Holland and his colleagues have used them to gather a remarkable amount of information.

The communications protocol requires a ground station to make contact with the aircraft’s satellite data unit at a specific time and frequency, regardless of where the plane is on the planet. However, the signal takes time to travel from the ground to the aircraft and back again. This time, known as the burst time offset, is determined by the distance the signal has to travel.

This distance is straightforward to calculate. It defines a circle centered on the position on the ground directly below the satellite. However, the calculation does not suggest where on this circle the plane might be, and investigators have had to use other clues to narrow down this position.

In total, MH370 sent seven signals from its satellite data unit, each defining a slightly different circle. It sent its final signal at 0019 UTC on March 8, 2014, having initiated a log on request just eight seconds earlier.

That’s an important clue. Log on requests only occur when the satellite data unit restarts after some kind of shutdown. Investigators have assumed this shutdown occurred when the plane ran out of fuel and the SDU restarted using power from a device called a ram air turbine, which is deployed in an emergency to generate power.

If that is correct, the last transmission must have been near the end of the flight. But how near? Could MH370 have glided many tens or hundreds of kilometers before it hit the ocean? If so, this significantly increases the potential search area.

Holland says he and colleagues are able to narrow down this area using another line of mathematical investigation. The satellite data unit broadcasts at a specific frequency, but the aircraft’s velocity toward or away from the satellite introduces a Doppler shift that changes this frequency. This is known as the burst frequency offset.

So in theory it’s possible that this shift in frequency can indicate the direction of flight at that instant. In practice, this calculation is hard to do and is much tougher than calculating the distance. Holland’s paper today is largely about this calculation. “The Burst Frequency Offset is a more complex measurement which is generally less well understood,” he says.

The calculation is tough because of the number of variables that can influence the frequency. The aircraft’s motion is just one of them. The motion of the satellite plays a role, creating a Doppler shift associated with the uplink and downlink between the satellite and ground station.

The ground station also attempts to compensate for any Doppler shift by changing the frequency. And the oscillators in the satellite and aircraft transmitters are not perfect. They vary, producing changes in broadcast frequency.

Holland and co attempted to understand all these sources of frequency change by analyzing the broadcasts from MH370 during 20 previous flights in the week before it was lost.

Holland goes on to show that if the plane was flying level when a call was made to the plane from the ground soon after contact was lost, then the burst frequency offsets suggest it must have been flying south. That’s important.

He also shows that Doppler shifts on the final two broadcasts from the plane’s satellite data unit, suggest that it was descending rapidly. “The downwards acceleration over the 8 second interval between these two messages was found to be approximately 0.68g,” says Holland. This is consistent with the plane being out of control and out of fuel.

That has important implications for the search area. If the plane was in an uncontrolled descent, it cannot have flown far after the last broadcast of the satellite data unit. And that means the plane must lie somewhere near the arc calculated from the burst timing offset data. “This suggests that 9M-MRO should lie relatively close to the 7th BTO arc,” concludes Holland. But exactly where on this arc isn’t clear.

That’s interesting work which Holland is now opening up to outside scrutiny. He clearly sets out many of the assumptions he and his colleagues have had to make in coming to their conclusion. An important question for the community is whether these assumptions are all justified and whether Holland and his team have overlooked anything.

In the meantime, the families of the victims are conducting their own search for wreckage associated with the plane. And until new evidence emerges, the search for MH370 will remain suspended.

Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1702.02432: The Use of Burst Frequency Offsets in the Search for MH370

   
Still trying to get my head around this and maybe I am missing something...  

This numbnut, totally out of touch with reality bureaucratic boffin, is just now offering up his theorising on the final resting place of MH370, which has subsequently proven to be 100% incorrect, for public scrutiny after we've just wasted nearly $200 million Aussie dollars looking in the wrong fucking place- UFB!



 http://auntypru.com/irony-is-wasted-on-the-stupid/

http://auntypru.com/forum/-Accidents-Ove...88#pid2988

May GOD have mercy on our epidemic AIOS inflicted country...   


MTF...P2

Disgraceful....

Sorry P2, diplomacy just isn't my strongpoint. I will probably earn in 10 minutes in the sin bin, however;

Dear Mr Holland,

You sir, are a parasite. You gutless government footstool, coming out now with your 'hypothesis'. Go suck on a hand grenade you f#ckwit.

Best regards
Gobbles

[Peetwo]

Captain's Log 04.03.17: Weekend Oz expose on MH370 3rd anniversary.

Via the Weekend Oz... :

Experts point to MH370 pilot

12:00amSTEFANIE BALOGH

Two globally respected aviation experts continue to point the finger at the captain of ­Flight MH370.


MH370 site a crime scene

12:00amMike Keane

On Wednesday it’s three years since the flight disappeared so it’s timely to review the search. Was it unlucky or wrong?

..On Wednesday it will be three years since the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 and the deaths of 239 passengers and crew, but the aircraft is yet to be found.

The three-year mark is a good point to review whether the search strategy drawn up by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau was soundly based but unlucky, or whether it was established on the wrong premise and doomed from the start to fail.

The ATSB, which took on responsibility for the search at the request of Malaysia, has taken the stance, at least in public, that both pilots were “unresponsive” at the end of the flight, possibly because they passed out from hypoxia (lack of oxygen) due to decompression of the aircraft.

In the ATSB scenario, the Boeing 777 became a “ghost flight” that ended in an unpiloted “death dive” of a rapid crash into the southern Indian Ocean after the fuel ran out.

GRAPHIC: End of the search for MH370?
The search strategy team based its definition of the 120,000sq km target zone on this premise.

• More: ATSB search a great farce
  

However, there is compelling circumstantial evidence that this is improbable, and that in fact the captain flew the aircraft to the very end and outside the ATSB’s defined search area.

The following explanation provides a coherent argument that the MH370 pilot in command, ­Zaharie Ahmad Shah, may have carefully planned and executed the destruction of the aircraft, resulting in the deaths of all on board.

It is on record that some days before the flight Captain Zaharie plotted on his computer a route similar to the one that MH370 flew on its final flight on March 8, 2014, when it deviated from its scheduled route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
What is remarkable is that his planned end point was in the southern part of the Indian Ocean in the area that approximates to the target zone in which the unsuccessful search was completed in January.

Another clue is that Zaharie took on extra fuel.

When pilots report for duty they review, among other things, the weather and the computer flight plan. The latter contains a very accurate prediction of the fuel required for the flight, and as the expense of carrying extra fuel is a significant factor in operating costs, a captain will adhere to the calculated figure unless there are mitigating factors such as marginal weather at the destination.

However, on this flight the weather was not an issue and Zaharie elected to upload a significant amount of additional fuel. Why? Was it to take the aircraft even further into very remote and deep waters?

The log of air traffic control radio contacts shows the captain was at the start flying the aircraft, with the co-pilot doing the non- flying duties such as carrying out radio communications. The co-pilot made a call — “Maintaining flight level 350” — early into the flight, as would be expected.

However, it was Captain Zaharie who made the last transmission — “Good night, Malaysian Three Seven Zero” — about 20 minutes later.

The non-flying pilot would normally make this call. Does this indicate that the co-pilot was no longer on the flight deck?

If Zaharie chose to hijack his own aircraft, then he would wish to isolate the co-pilot.

It would be easy, under some pretext, to ask the co-pilot to obtain something from the cabin and then lock the flight deck door after he had exited.

The pilot could then depressurise the aeroplane without any ­interference. The emergency oxygen supply to the passengers would be activated, providing them with 22 minutes of oxygen. However, unless the aircraft commenced an immediate descent, they would become hypoxic and lose consciousness.

The aircraft was cruising at 35,000 feet and shortly after the loss of secondary radar contact it climbed to 35,700 feet. At these heights the “partial pressure” in the lungs is too low to transfer sufficient oxygen into the blood stream to sustain consciousness.

The pilots, on the other hand, have a different oxygen system that allows a modicum of “pressure breathing”, which increases the partial pressure in the lungs. This would probably be enough to allow a degree of consciousness for a short period and an ability to survive, in contrast to the passengers’ fate.

Once assured that the remaining crew and passengers had died, he would repressurise the aircraft.

The evidence suggests Zaharie depressurised the aircraft at the start of the hijack, soon after entering Vietnamese airspace.

It is significant that no mobile telephone calls were made from the aircraft throughout the whole flight, which would indicate there was no sign of life among the passengers and cabin crew.

If an aircraft is to be hijacked an ideal time would be at a radio frequency change associated with a flight information region boundary. The FIR boundaries define the borders where responsibility for air traffic control shifts from one country to another.

About 40 minutes into the flight, the radar transponder on MH370 was switched off, and the ACARS automatic digital reporting system, which transmits flight data between the aircraft and ground stations, was disabled.

This creates an element of uncertainty and confusion for air traffic controllers. It is noteworthy, therefore, that this scenario fits neatly with the events around MH370’s transit from Malaysian to Vietnamese airspace and the subsequent confusion, and mis­information, which resulted in a chaotic aftermath that hampered the initial search for the aircraft.

After a very short appearance in Vietnamese airspace the aircraft did a turnback and took up a direct track to Penang.

After flying over Penang MH370 joined one of the thousands of official airways defined in international aviation, in this case one known as N571.

It then tracked to what pilots and air traffic controllers know as official waypoints on such airways, in this case VAMPI and MEKAR in the Malacca Strait.

To make the necessary changes, the flight management computer, or autopilot, would have to be reprogrammed and the required intervention could only be achieved by a person who had the necessary knowledge. These actions could only be executed by an active pilot on the flight deck.

Even at this point it is difficult to understand the ATSB’s official version of a “non-responsive” flight crew. The disabling of the transponder and ACARS requires cockpit familiarity and is clearly deliberate.

The proposition that the aircraft may have had a major emergency does not stand up. There was no distress call, and the aircraft overflew suitable airfields where it could have made an emergency landing, and flew its reprogrammed route to the Indian Ocean.

Another noteworthy event was MH370’s Penang “fly by”. This routing via Penang was intentional and provides circumstantial evidence that a crew member was “responsive” at this point well after the aircraft initially went off course, which is once again contrary to the “unresponsive pilot” scenario on which the ATSB based its search. Penang also happens to be where Zaharie was born and grew up.

After flying past Penang, MH370 flew direct to VAMPI, a waypoint on N571, and proceeded to climb to a higher altitude. It was last seen by Malaysian military radar 10 nautical miles after MEKAR, which is the next waypoint after VAMPI.

At some point not long after MEKAR the aircraft took a southerly track into the Indian Ocean. Once again it is difficult to ignore the probability that a responsive pilot was controlling the aircraft.

In the long flight south an assessment of MH370’s track has been gained from interpreting automatic hourly communication signals sent between the aircraft and ground stations via satellite. This information, combined with fuel calculations and a few assumptions, provides a reasonable guide to the aircraft’s location.

The technology used for these calculations is novel and would not be known, at this point, to the pilot fraternity.

Three years on, there is still one very basic question that arises about MH370’s fate: Why did it end up in the southern Indian Ocean instead of arriving safely at Beijing?
If the intention was to make the aircraft disappear, what better place than an area that is remote, which would make detection and recovery very difficult? Furthermore, there are pockets of very deep water of up to 8000m in that part of the ocean.

The official “unresponsive pilot” scenario being postulated by the ATSB is an assumption, and the flight profile and the manner in which MH370 was flown cast doubt on this theory. The circumstantial evidence points to a pilot hijack and the most likely suspect is the captain.

Media reports suggest senior ATSB officials such as its chief commissioner Greg Hood, and the head of the search, Peter Foley, have privately told select journalists they believe Zaharie did hijack his own plane, but allowed himself to die from hypoxia somewhere on the long last leg of the flight — which would still be consistent with their “ghost flight” and “death dive” ­theory. But this narrative, disseminated through so-called “background briefings”, does not fit internal logic.

As outlined, the known facts indicate a high probability that this was a well-thought-out and executed plan to destroy the aircraft and make sure it would be difficult to find. If that is the case it would be reasonable to assume that Zaharie would have stayed with the aircraft to the very end, to ensure that something unexpected didn’t thwart his plan.

The assumptions used by the ATSB to justify its account of what happened to MH370 are just assumptions. There is no factual evidence to support its interpretation of events. Therefore, credence should be given to other views, but this is not happening.

If it is accepted that this is a well-thought-out pilot hijack, then it could be assumed that the plan would include the desire to minimise debris and also ensure any detection and recovery would be a challenge for investigators. Therefore, it would be a reasonable assumption that the pilot would deliberately run the aircraft out of fuel in order to minimise fuel slick.

It would also be a reasonable assumption that he made some kind of controlled descent and ditched the aircraft. The rationale would be to minimise debris — and the fact that the search aircraft failed to spot anything and little has been washed up could support this theory.

Moreover, by being in control to the end Zaharie could be sure of placing the aircraft in one of the deep water spots that are common in that area.

If Zaharie was indeed responsible for the destruction of the aircraft, it is not only an aircraft “accident”: it is also a crime scene. It cannot be ignored, or forgotten, that there were 239 people on board MH370. It is highly probable that 238 passengers and crew lost their lives needlessly.

Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak has said we must “not only learn the lessons of MH370 but implement them”.

Several weeks ago, the Malaysian government, which under international law is in charge of the investigation into what happened to MH370, called a halt to the search.

So where is the resolve to find the truth?

To those who query the $200 million cost of the search, there are very good reasons to spend the time and money in solving the cause of this “accident”.

Lessons are learned from all aircraft accidents and these findings are passed on to the industry to enhance safety.

Furthermore, relatives and friends have a right to know what happened to their loved ones — and if any party is found to have been at fault, they have a right to seek compensation.

Finally, it places closure on conspiracy theories that always abound after an unsolved accident. These theories are often distressing for families and friends.
Malaysia is not a poor country and should be making “best endeavours” to find the aircraft so the cause of the loss of MH370 is found, otherwise there will remain the perception of a cover-up.

Captain Mike Keane has spent 45 years in aviation. He spent six years as a navigator in the RNZAF and 14 years as a fighter pilot in the RAF. He then spent 25 years as an airline pilot of which half was in management, including as chief pilot of Britain’s largest airline, EasyJet. Over the course of his career, Keane has accumulated 25,000 flying hours.

MTF...P2

[Peetwo]

X-thread adjustment...

Reference posts off the 'criminal act' thread:

Captain's Log 06.03.17: Battle of the MH370 theorists continues...  

From the AP - AA&MH370 thread:

Captain's Log 04.03.17: Weekend Oz expose on MH370 3rd anniversary.

Via the Weekend Oz... :

Experts point to MH370 pilot

12:00amSTEFANIE BALOGH

Two globally respected aviation experts continue to point the finger at the captain of ­Flight MH370.


MH370 site a crime scene

12:00amMike Keane

On Wednesday it’s three years since the flight disappeared so it’s timely to review the search. Was it unlucky or wrong?

...If Zaharie was indeed responsible for the destruction of the aircraft, it is not only an aircraft “accident”: it is also a crime scene. It cannot be ignored, or forgotten, that there were 239 people on board MH370. It is highly probable that 238 passengers and crew lost their lives needlessly.

Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak has said we must “not only learn the lessons of MH370 but implement them”.

Several weeks ago, the Malaysian government, which under international law is in charge of the investigation into what happened to MH370, called a halt to the search.

So where is the resolve to find the truth?

To those who query the $200 million cost of the search, there are very good reasons to spend the time and money in solving the cause of this “accident”.

Lessons are learned from all aircraft accidents and these findings are passed on to the industry to enhance safety.

Furthermore, relatives and friends have a right to know what happened to their loved ones — and if any party is found to have been at fault, they have a right to seek compensation.

Finally, it places closure on conspiracy theories that always abound after an unsolved accident. These theories are often distressing for families and friends.
Malaysia is not a poor country and should be making “best endeavours” to find the aircraft so the cause of the loss of MH370 is found, otherwise there will remain the perception of a cover-up...

The Mike Keane article has attracted much of 'the Australian's' usual MH370 followers and critics like Byron Bailey's resident troll 'Mick':

Mick

8 hours ago

@Nicholas That's a terrific idea, Nicholas.  You would think that with nearly a century of flying experience between them Captains Bailey and Keane might be able to make some form of constructive contribution to the debate. 

Captain Bailey's only prognostication to date was on 14 May last year when he stated that the ATSB should focus their search "... at least 400 kilometres south and west ..."  of the current search area.  

That presumably considered "expert" forecast makes absolutely no sense.   The ATSB search area was centred longitudinally along the 7th arc.   Even with World Gliding Champion Jan Rothhardt at the controls, the airplane could not have travelled 400 kilometres south away from the 7th arc (a point some two minutes after fuel exhaustion);  under ideal conditions it might have made a little over half that distance. 

As for 400 kilometres west, well the further west you go, two things happen;  the final leg of the flight gets longer and the track flown by the airplane gets further west of south.   The longer leg means that the airplane must fly faster to cover the extra distance in the same time (the 7th arc is based on the time of 00:19 UTC).   For the airplane to be 400 kilometres west of the current search area would require an average ground speed of around 505 knots over the final leg; not impossible under ideal conditions.   However, the fact that the airplane would have had to have flown a track of around 195° with 40-80 knot westerlies to contend with means that conditions were far from ideal.   The combination of those two factors yields a required a true airspeed of more than 510 knots.  510 knots is the maximum speed of the airplane.  Even if a Yeargeresque pilot had have managed to sustain that sort of airspeed the airplane would have run out of fuel long before 00:19 UTC.

Hmm...them's fighting words...

One thing you notice with Mick's posts is that when it comes to the limited facts and hearsay evidence associated with the information vacuum surrounding MH370, the guy is a verifiable encyclopaedia. Basically put this Bailey troll has done his homework.

However it was the following post that gave me (I think ) a light bulb moment:

Mick

To the extent that there is a crime scene associated with MH370 it is this story and your butchering of the facts. 

Here's the first clue; MH370 was not carrying more than the required fuel load.  The airplane was carrying 49,100 kg of fuel when it left Kuala Lumpur;  37,200 kg of planned trip-fuel plus the mandatory reserves.  The reserves were to cover a 46 minute diversion to the primary diversion airport, Jinan Yaoqiang International Airport, and, because the weather forecast Jinan Yaoqiang was marginal, a further 1 hour 45 minutes worth for the secondary diversion airport, Hangzhou Xiaoshan International Airport.  I don't know how you can say "the weather was not an issue", it was.  Have you bothered reading the TAFs for ZSJN and ZBTJ for the relevant period?!   Visibility reducing in light snow and rain!
Regarding radio calls, take the time to look at the Factual Information Report (FIR) - it should be mandatory reading for anyone offering expert opinion on this flight.  Page 1, right up front, makes it clear that Captain Zaharie was conducting line training for First Officer Fariq on that flight.  Page 21, Air-to-ground communications makes it clear that the Captain handled the radio for every call after take-off, including the "Maintaining flight level 350" call that you incorrectly attribute to the First Officer.   Why was the Captain handling the radio?  Because the First Officer was flying as the Pilot in Command as would be expected on a training flight. 

With regards to the timing of the diversion, as you would know the handover from one ATC to another is one of the few times when a radio call is expected;  it is perhaps the worst time to try to "disappear" unnoticed. Malaysian air traffic controllers had coordinated the hand over of MH370 to their counterparts in Vietnam some 40 minutes before MH370 approached the boundary.  The failure to make contact was what triggered efforts to locate the flight.  Someone attempting to "disappear" MH370 would have simply made contact with Vietnamese ATC as expected and then diverted the flight; that would have delayed efforts to locate it by 20-30 minutes.

As to this breath taking climb to 35,700 feet, at the time it turned back MH370 was established at 35,000 feet.  Exactly what difference to the performance of emergency oxygen equipment would a climb of 700 feet make?  And you omitted the fact that less than 7 minutes after it "climbed to 35,700 feet" radar tracked it descending to 31,100 feet (FIR, page 3).   It should be noted that all of these altitudes were derived from primary radar which is notoriously inaccurate when trying to simultaneously resolve altitude, speed, vertical speed and bearing over short captures.  When the radar data for the turn back and transit across the Malay Peninsula have been reviewed and resolved to a complete and coherent track it becomes obvious that MH370 did not climb at all.  In fact, it was most probably on a very shallow descent. 

MH370's track back to Penang was entirely consistent with a diversion to what was at that time the nearest operational airport.  The airplane was tracking direct to waypoint KENDI (11 nautical miles south-west of Penang) which is the intermediate fix for an instrument approach to land on Penang’s Runway 04.   Moreover, the deliberate diversion to Penang is not contrary to the  ATSB's “unresponsive pilot” scenario at all.  The ATSB has repeatedly stated that their "... suggested end-of-flight scenario only applies to the final segment of MH370’s flight when it was heading in a southerly direction into the Indian Ocean."  Are you not aware of that ir did you just ignore it? 

As for MH370’s flight up the Malacca Strait, if you'd kept abreast of ongoing analysis of the radar and satellite data you'd know that it is now almost certain that the airplane did not track along airway N571 and while it may have tracked over or near waypoint VAMPI, it most assuredly did not track through MEKAR.  As for your contention that the airplane then "... proceeded to climb to a higher altitude", there is not one scintilla of evidence to even suggest leave alone support that. If anything, the satellite data suggests that the airplane may have initiated a short descent of around 2,600 fpm at that point. 

If you're going to be offering what I'm assuming is meant to be "expert" opinion on MH370 might it be possible that you properly acquaint yourself with the actual factual evidence first?    Surely that's not too much to ask?

Okay now compare that to PlaneTalking's resident (favourite) MH370 theorist 'Mick Gilbert':

Mick Gilbert
February 23, 2017 at 10:19 pm
Dan,
These recent papers don’t call into question everything. In fact they simply reframe two or three of the myriad assumptions that previous work has been based on.
Starting wide and narrowing things down; the airplane crashed in the Southern Indian Ocean; the debris finds support that. Drift analysis places it between 27°-ish – 37°-ish South and between 90° – 110° East. The satellite data cuts us a swathe through that zone. We’ve conducted a reasonable underwater search of the south-western end of the satellite swathe.
If you take Victor’s latest paper and read it in conjunction with the paper by Ian Holland (DSTO) on resolving the 18:25 UTC BFO data together with Richard Godfrey’s most recent paper on drift analysis/possible final major turn you get a relatively coherent story. Most importantly, none of them dispute that MH370 flew up the Malacca Strait – no evidence has ever been put forward to seriously challenge that assumption and there’s plenty that still supports it.
What we are seeing now is the general acceptance that:
a. MH370 was not navigating along airway N571,
b. there was a change in MH370’s direction of flight around the time of the first log-on at 18:25 UTC, and
c. that the final major turn must have occurred much later than previously modelled.
As they are three elements of my hypothesis, I’m just fine and beaut with that, chuffed in fact.
Victor has assumed that the change of direction that was occurring at 18:25 UTC was a one off and that the airplane then continued on a north-west track; his best fit to BTO/BFO is that after heading away from Penang on 290° it then turned slightly north onto 297°. Richard has assumed that the airplane flew on to around 8.5219°N 92.9501°E (which is much further north west than previously considered by others) where it made its final turn south(-ish) at 19:36 UTC. You’ll note that both Victor’s and Richard’s papers still place the airplane in the Malacca Strait.

---

Mick Gilbert
February 24, 2017 at 5:25 pm
Dan,
No problemo. The search for MH370 is most assuredly an exercise in incrementalism; we’re chiselling away at the unknown by tap, tap, tapping on the sliver of what we know with a variety of different hammers called assumptions. And let’s be clear, even much of what we “know” has the fuzzy edges of uncertainty – some people talk about arcs and radar data as though they have laser-like precision; they don’t, the BTO arcs at any altitude are a good 20 nm wide.
Perhaps chief among the assumptions is the time and place of the final major turn; it is almost literally pivotal to our calculation of an impact site. Most modelling to date has assumed an “early” turn south, sometime between 18:28 UTC – 18:40 UTC. The earlier you turn south, the further you get to fly south before you run out of gas. Consequently, the ATSB modelling threw up a crash site that is very close to the south-western extreme of possibilities; an early FMT at 18:28 UTC, navigation by constant true track, autothrottle engaged and FMC in economy cruise mode – you could have only wrangled a bit more distance out of the airplane by progressively step-climbing as you burned fuel. It has always been a source of amusement to me that despite the ATSB pretty much using the same flight parameters that a “rogue pilot” would use to fly as far into the Southern Indian Ocean as possible, the “rogue pilot” theorists have been the ATSB’s most vocal critics. To me, that has underlined the general paucity of scholarship associated with their thinking.
Frankly, we are now at the point where we’ve well and truly rung as much out of the available data as possible so, quite logically, there’s a general re-evaluation of the myriad assumptions, much along the lines you’ve suggested.
(P2 comment - Also see MG's latest here: https://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking...ment-81373 )

To my untrained, ignorant knuckle-dragger mind, the similarities in writing style and bias criticisms of the other 'pilot did it' crowd are quite remarkable - just saying...

Personally I am more in the Botsy (Botswanna Hooligan) crowd when it comes to MH370 and theorising... :

Botswana O'Hooligan



@Andrew That is about how I see it for the norm on the ground is for the F/O to do the radio work and the captain to have his left hand on the tiller and right hand on the thrust levers and the left hand stays on the tiller until 80 knots when the hand over/take over to the F/O is carried out if he is flying the sector. The captain has his hand on the thrust levers until V1 for it is his decision and his alone to either abort or continue with the take off and on landing he does the take over again below 80 knots, resumes direction control via the tiller, and power via the thrust levers, and the F/O does the communication. In between those events on climb and in the cruise the captain takes on the role of the pilot not flying and does the housekeeping as in communication, keeping the log, asking stupid questions, and overseeing etc.

My opinion on 777 systems is worthless because I am not (actually wasn't now, but Boeing Jets have the wonderful option of being able to extend the gear at Mach 0.82) endorsed on 777's but if they are as sophisticated as corporate jets then their systems would be similar and basically fool proof and it would take someone au fait with the aeroplane to reprogram the flight management systems.

The norm, and please bear with me when I say "the norm" is that the flight plans in the flight management systems are inviolate and cannot be tampered with (think Air NZ and Mt Erebus) unless on pain of death via the flight captain of the aeroplane type so I very much doubt if MAS had a flight plan in the system of their 777 fleet to enable one to take a jaunt into the southern Indian Ocean, so someone reprogrammed that flight management system and it certainly wasn't blind Freddie.

And especially this in reply to Mick, for my QOTM nomination... :

Botswana O'Hooligan

@Mick Probably all true but the definitive answers are in the FDR and CVR so the trick is to recover them.

MTF...P2

An excellent observation and brilliant detective work! I think it's safe to assume that 'Mick' is indeed Mick Gilbert.
It also seems that the more time that elapses, the greater each camp's certainly in their respective beliefs. I fail to see how 3 years of mulling over the same scant evidence can lead to anything other than doubt.
Bailey, Gilbert, and all the other 'experts' are increasingly more convinced in the validity of their own scenario and scathing in their criticism of 'the opposition'.

None of them have a 'theory', at least not by definition. A theory is a tested, well-substantiated explanation for a set of verified, proven factors. A theory is always backed by evidence.
In contrast, a hypothesis is a supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence, as a starting point for further investigation.

So really.. no matter what any of the 'experts' believe, they can't accurately claim to even have a theory, and therefore cannot dismiss their opponent's hypothesis either.

I am certain of one thing: I have NO clear idea as to what happened in the very early hours of March 8, 2014. Initially I subscribed to 'the Captain must have done it' idea, and I still think it's a leading contender. I also know that I'm no expert in this field... (that's actually TWO things i'm certain of, so I clearly cannot add up effectively either!)

Malaysia's handling of this tragedy irks me more than all the 'experts' put together.
Prime Minister Najib Razak's proclamation that 'we must not only learn the lessons of MH370, but implement them' is a fine sentiment.. but the actions taken couldn't be further removed from there. As with Hishammuddin's 'we will never stop searching'..
I know the search can't continue indefinitely, but Malaysia seems intent on 'forgetting all about it' and consigning MH370 to the annals of history's greatest mysteries.

I don't care which expert is proven right and who is wrong. As wiser people than me have said: The definitive answers are in the FDR and CVR, and in the wreckage itself.
It's unforgivable that every effort isn't being made to ensure this mystery is finally solved.

“K” edit - That, M’lady Pix is a TimTam quality post; spot on.

[Peetwo]

Captain's Log 12.03.17: MH370 & endless cycle of hypotheses.

Not really wanting to get into the (HSSS) debate or rein in the MH370 amateur, armchair hypotheses (not theories - thank you Pix ); but personally I am not big on the Captain did it. Nor am I professionally convinced that there was some catastrophic failure with a rapid decompression ending with a 'ghost flight' into the SIO.  

However in reference to the above post and the following from the Oz via the MH370 'Less Noise' thread...

MH370 mystery goes to court

12:00amEAN HIGGINS

The debate over the biggest aviation mystery this century will be fought out in a US courtroom.

The debate over the biggest aviation mystery this century will be fought out in a US courtroom where aircraft manufacturer Boeing may argue that a rogue pilot brought down Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 rather than any ­inherent mechanical defect in the Boeing 777.

The civil action, launched by aviation lawyer Mary Schiavo from US firm Motley Rice on behalf of the relatives of 44 of the 239 people who perished, could also apply more pressure on Boeing to contribute to a fund established by the families aimed at renewing the search for the aircraft.

Ms Schiavo, a former US ­Department of Transportation ­inspector-general and a regular commentator on CNN, lodged the suit against Boeing in a South Carolina court at the weekend on ­behalf of Gregory Keith, a special administrator for the relatives of three US citizens or permanent residents lost on MH370 and 41 Chinese victims.

The suit, publicly revealed yesterday on the third anniversary of MH370’s disappearance, alleges the crash of MH370 “was caused or partially caused by defects in the design, manufacture and/or ­assembly of the aircraft”.

The suit states the failure to ­locate the plane caused a “lack of finality and an enduring mystery that has caused unprecedented levels of economic and non-economic losses, emotional and physical pain, distress and mental pain and suffering to those lost on the plane and to their families”.

MH370 vanished on a scheduled flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014, with its radar transponder turned off and radio communications cut 40 minutes into the flight, after which, primary radar and automatic satellite tracking shows, the aircraft doubled back over Malaysia and flew up the Malacca Strait until turning on a long track to the southern Indian Ocean.

The plaintiffs’ case focuses on an alleged complex series of failures and adverse events starting with an electrical fault and fire ­disabling communications on MH370 and leading to decompression of the aircraft, with the ­pilots unable to fully regain control, ultimately leaving the plane flying on autopilot at high altitude until it ran out of fuel and crashed.

The scenario is similar to a theory developed by former RAAF supply officer, retired Ansett logistics manager, private pilot and amateur aviation investigator Mick Gilbert. In Mr Gilbert’s narrative, a windshield fire caused by an electrical fault becomes a conflagration when one of the pilots’ oxygen hoses comes loose, damaging the radio and controls, and leading to rapid decompression, with the pilots, possible seriously injured or with one dead, only able to make limited manoeuvres before they run out of oxygen. Mr Gilbert’s work was described as well-researched by respected US former airline pilot and air crash investigator John Cox, who has placed equal weight on the probability of a series of adverse mechanical events, and pilot hijack.

Most airline pilots and air crash investigators, however, believe Mr Gilbert’s scenario involves too many highly improbable events happening in a particular ­sequence, and think it unlikely the pilots would have flown the aircraft for an extended period of time during the emergency without issuing a distress call.

The majority of professional aviation opinion holds that Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah ­hijacked his own plane, killed the passengers and remaining crew by depressurising the aircraft while he remained on a long oxygen supply, and flew the aircraft to the end.

(P2 comment - Mick Gilbert a former RAAF/Ansett baggage chucker...   Now why does that sound so familiar... - )

...& in the interest of standing up for the integrity, skills and professionalism of my fellow airline pilot fraternity (deceased, retired, active or on sabbatical.. ); I must object to some of the slanderous and Cleary ignorant assertions made by - the former RAAF supply officer, retired Ansett logistics manager, private pilot and amateur aviation investigator - Mick Gilbert. Especially when this dude (the Oz Mick & 'Mick Gilbert') is making comments like this:

Mick Gilbert
March 4, 2017 at 9:41 pm

Ben, thank you for facilitating a fair and open-minded discourse on MH370. It is in sharp contrast to the very one eyed approach adopted by the “hang ’em high” boys and girls on Holt Street. Today their readers were treated to two error-riddled “expert” opinion pieces, both told from the same narrow-minded perspective and both rewarming the same tired old left-overs that they try to pass off as arguments. And then, just for something completely different, there was a third in-house authored piece promoting the their two “experts” as being in agreement with one another!...

Right so it is okay for MG to attack the two 'error riddled' hypotheses under his other 'Mick' Oz identity commentary essays...sorry zzzip - I was diverging...   

To begin, referring to MG's hypothesis I noted the following repeated assertions under No 4) page 10 of the paper:

...The initial deviation from the flight plan just past IGARI was consistent
with the response to an inflight emergency..

...MH370's change of direction back towards Penang on a heading of about 240° from just past IGARI was entirely consistent with a response to an inflight emergency...

Let's refer to the following 'Smart Cockpit' Boeing 737 NG 'Ludo's Brief', which I am told can be accepted as close to SOP across most modern (glass) technology Boeing types, like the B777: http://www.smartcockpit.com/docs/B737-Em...ent_rev_05

Reference Pg 2:

ACTION BY PILOT IN-COMMAND:

1. When an aircraft operated as a controlled flight experiences sudden
decompression or a (similar) malfunction requiring an emergency descent, the
aircraft shall, if able:

a. Initiate a turn away from the assigned route or track before commencing
the emergency descent;
b. Advise the appropriate air traffic control unit as soon as possible of
the emergency descent;
c. Set transponder Code to 7700 and select to Emergency Mode on the
Automatic on the automatic dependent surveillance/controller-pilot data
link communications (ADS/CPDLC) system if applicable;
d. Turn on exterior lights;
e. Watch for conflicting traffic both visually and by reference to ACAS (if
equipped) and
f. Coordinate its further intentions with the appropriate ATC unit.

2. The aircraft shall not descend below the lowest published minimum altitude
which will provide a minimum vertical clearance of 300 meters (1000 feet) or
in designated mountainous terrain 600 meters (2000 feet) above all obstacles
located in the area specified.

 
The 1a. turn away is largely an accepted procedure for explosive decompression and where immediate clearance from ATC is not possible. (Note this a turn away from the airway not a 180 degree turn).

The following Flight.org video depicts a B777 rapid descent with the scenario being a reasonably sedate depressurisation event inside of ATC active control and contact (therefore not requiring a turn away from the airway):

My point is that these are real accepted Boeing type rated SOPs 'consistent' with the professional inflight management of a rapid emergency descent or an inflight emergency requiring an emergency descent.

There is also this from Cap'n Aux...

You’re The Captain: Explosive Decompression at 40,000 Feet
More articles by Eric Auxier »
By: Eric Auxier



The mysterious disappearance of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 has brought with it much speculation. Instantaneous inflight breakup, terrorist bombing, missile, even a tragedy similar to Air France Flight 447. As of this writing, the plane has still not been found. However, short of an instantaneous and catastrophic event, what could the team of pilots up front do to save a broken ship?

You’re the Captain of Fantastic Airlines Flight, 123. You’re an hour into your flight from Paris to Tokyo, cruising over the Baltic Sea at 40,000 feet. You’ve assigned PF (Pilot Flying) duties to your trusty FO (First Officer) Mark, who is flying the plane on autopilot. As PNF (Pilot Not Flying) on this leg, you work the radios and run support. In the two cockpit jumpseats behind you sit your IROs (International Relief Officers,) who are just about to take over for the middle part of the 11-hour flight while you and Mark go to the back and rest up for landing. You reach for the Flight Attendant call button. But suddenly . . .

BOOM! Explosive decompression!

For the next ten seconds, the cockpit becomes a hurricane, with papers and small loose objects flying. The windows frost over. Suddenly, the temperature plummets to minus a jillion. You, Mark and the two IROs all frantically snatch and don your full face oxygen masks. No time for checklists; at 40,000 feet, you have a mere 15-20 seconds of useful consciousness.

With a hiss, the mask sucks snugly around your head. Fumbling in the blind (the oxygen mask is also fogged over) you select 100%, forced flow. You peel away the thin plastic anti-fog lining and suddenly you can see again. “I have the aircraft!” you shout. “You have the aircraft!” your FO, previously the pilot flying, acknowledges. You reach to kick off the autopilot—and realize it has already disengaged itself. You grab the yoke.

Simultaneously, you ease the nose over into a high dive, simultaneously cutting the engine power to idle. You need to get down ASAP, but you dare not increase speed: the aircraft has no doubt suffered structural damage. She’s still alive and flying, and you want to keep her that way.

She’s sluggish, her right wing shuddering and trying to drop, the tail yawing hard to the right. You kick in left rudder and hold left aileron just to keep her going straight. The hurricane is gone, but there’s still a cacophony of sound assaulting your ears. DING! DING! DING! goes the Master Caution, flashing red and competing with a dozen amber emergency procedures suddenly popping up on your ECAM (Electronic Centralised Aircraft Monitor), all clamoring for your attention.


Image courtesy David Monniaux via Wikimedia Commons

The FO silences the Master Caution. “Mayday, mayday,” he yells out on the radio, his shouts muffled by the microphone in his O2 mask. “Fantastic Flight 123, declaring an emergency. Explosive decompression, executing a rapid descent. Turning off course to heading 360.” In back, you hear screams and someone making a PA announcement. You can’t make out the words, but you know it’s a flight attendant bleating out instructions and imploring everyone to stay calm, while shouting in a frantic, panicked voice herself. Then the screams and PA suddenly go silent. They’ve either donned their own masks, automatically deployed by the pressure loss—or they’ve all passed out. There is one more noise though: that of rushing air. Somewhere back there, you have a gaping hole in your machine. But you already knew that.

The altimeter blazes through 32,000’, spinning backwards like a madman’s time travel clock. Your vertical speed, normally 1-2,000 feet per minute up or down, is now passing through 8,000 fpm. You’re over water for the moment, so you’re aiming for an altitude of 10,000’. “Call the back,” you order. “We need to know what’s going on.” “Already did, Cap’n,” your trusty FO replies. “No response.” Not surprising. They’re probably all out cold. Just in case, you toggle the PA switch. “This is the Captain,” you say, in the most calm, commanding voice you can muster. “Remain seated. The situation is under control.” That’s all you have time to say. Right now, you’re a tad busy working on that little bit about, “the situation is under control.”

“Explosive decompression Checklist,” you order. It’s a backup for what you’ve already done, but you need Mark to read it, just in case you’ve missed something. And in the “fog of war,” even the best-trained pilot can easily miss something. Again, Mark has already anticipated your next command, and has the QRH (Quick Reference Handbook) out and ready to read. You’ve got your hands full flying the plane, so he reads and does it aloud.

“‘O2 Masks—Deploy’ he quotes. Deployed. ‘Cabin masks—Deploy’ Deployed . . . Turn off the airway and descend to MEA (Minimum Enroute Altitude) as soon as possible. Do not exceed speed at time of failure. Assess damage and adjust flight path and controls accordingly. Land at nearest suitable airport.’ Explosive Decompression Checklist complete!”

“Roger that,” you reply. “MEA’s below 10,000, so that’s where we’re headed for now.” The airspeed begins to increase. You gingerly pitch up to bleed it off. A glance at the altimeter: 25,000 feet. You’re low enough now to ease in some speed brakes. Instantly, the plane begins to shudder violently. No good. You ease the brakes back off. It’s then you notice: the right engine’s out—and on fire.

“ECAM actions,” you bark. Mark reads the top checklist that’s popped up on your screen. “Engine Number Two, failure and fire, Skipper.” “Understood,” you reply. Mark begins reading and doing the on-screen emergency checklists. “‘Engine two thrust lever—idle’ idle. Engine two master switch—off,’ confirm?” he asks. His hand is poised to pull the number two kill switch, but again in the fog of war, the last thing you want to do is shut down the wrong engine. With your right hand you cover the working engine master switch. “Confirm,” you reply. “Off! ‘Engine Two Fire Bottle—Discharge’” There is a brief pause, before Mark announces, “The fire’s out, Captain,” with an obvious sound of relief in his voice. “Roger that, continue with ECAM actions.”

You glance behind at the IROs. Strapped in and masks on, they look back at you. You have an idea. While Mark has his hands full securing the plane with oodles of checklists, you’ve got two fully qualified pilots at your disposal sitting right there. “Kathy,” you call to the first relief pilot, “I need you to get back there and see what’s going on. Don the PBE (Portable Breathing Equipment) and take the crash axe. If they’re all out, put masks on our gals up front and try to revive them. And if you see any structural damage, get back here and report it ASAP!” “Aye aye, Cap’n!” comes her smart response. “Charlie,” you call out to the second pilot, “get up here and find us the nearest suitable pavement.” “Yes, sir!” Charlie springs out of the jumpseat, kneels by the pedestal, and punches data into your flight computer.

“Captain,” the FO chimes in. “Yeah, Mark?” you reply. “ATC advises Stockholm’s 170 miles ahead, about 10° right of course. Denmark’s behind us 250 miles.” Damn. You missed that radio call. The fog of war again. You contemplate the situation. Denmark’s behind you, and nearly twice as far, while requiring twice as much maneuvering. And you still don’t know what’s going on with the plane. “Stockholm sound good to you, Mark?” “Affirm, Captain,” he replies. “Charlie?” comes your next query. “Agreed, sir.” “OK, looks like we’ll be partying with the Swedish Bikini Team tonight,” you say, hoping the joke will relieve a little of the tension. “Tell ATC that we want vectors for Stockholm Arlanda.”

As Pilot in Command of an emergency aircraft, the world is at your beck and call. You don’t ask, you tell. You read the altimeter. Blasting through 16,000 feet. You ease back on the stick, coaxing the plane out of its earthly plummet, aiming for 10,000 feet level off. You pull the mask off. “Captain,” Kathy chimes in, back from the cabin. “Everyone’s knocked out back there. No injuries that I can see. Flight attendants are groggy but coming to.” “Damage report?” you ask. Kathy takes a big breath. “The second, aircraft-right, overwing exit is gone. It looks like it ripped into the upper right wing and took out a few spoilers in the process. Thank God the overwing slides didn’t deploy. Yet.” “Roger that,” you reply. “Fire?” “No flames from number two engine, just smoke now. It’s just out there windmilling, so it looks like you gents got ‘er shut down properly.” “OK good. You two to get back there and help the flight attendants check all passengers out. They should be coming to soon. Double check for any injuries and all seat belts locked tight. If anyone is freaking out over the missing door nearby, try to reseat them.” “Aye aye,” they reply.

The next half hour goes by in a blur. The checklists have all been run, and the cabin has been secured for an emergency landing. On touchdown, you’ll have only one thrust reverser. However the landing gear has mercifully deployed, with all brake systems reporting green. You have elected to land on Stockholm Arlanda’s Runway 01L. At nearly 11,000 feet, it’s the airport’s longest. You’ve also chosen not to deploy the flaps due to the structural damage, so you’ll be coming in mighty hot.

As the air gets thicker, you notice that the aircraft is becoming difficult to control. Your left leg is throbbing from fighting the rudder all the way down. Through gentle yoke movements and a lot of hard rudder, you’re finally lined up on final approach. The runway looms ever closer in the windshield. At 500 feet above the ground, you toggle the PA. “This is the Captain. Brace for impact.”

“Over the fence, on target, sink 800,” Mark announces. You pull the yoke up slightly and the airplane flares. The plane slams onto the runway, but you knew it would. There is no time for finesse under the circumstances. At least she’s on the ground in one piece. Well, two pieces. You left a door somewhere back there in the Baltic Sea.

You press the toe brakes and throw number one into full reverse, fighting the sudden left yaw. The plane shudders and screams. And then, finally, it stops. You set the parking brake and toggle the PA one last time. “This is the Captain. Remain seated. The situation is under control.” The cabin erupts in cheers. You take a deep breath, your heart pounding. Suddenly you notice about 200 TV trucks and cameras behind the airport fence, broadcasting you on a live feed to around the world. Book deals, endless talk shows and somewhat unwanted fame is in your near future. But for now, you’re just thankful to be alive. Everyone wants to hail you as a hero. Even your own flight crew now wants to pat you on the back. You shrug, and say something you’ll be repeating on TV talk shows for years to come:

“I was only doing what I was trained to do.”

Just saying...


MTF...P2

[Peetwo]

Captain's Log 23.03.17: Chester answer to MH370 QIW...  

Of somewhat trivial interest - on 7 February 2017 Labor MP Michelle Rowland submitted to miniscule Chester a question in writing on the ATSB MH370 fruitless SIO search. Yesterday the miniscule's answer was tabled into Hansard: Flight MH370 (Question No. 642)

Flight MH370
(Question No. 642)

Rowland, Michelle asked the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, in writing, on 7 February 2017:

Has he been following the search being undertaken by the Australia Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) for the missing MH370 aircraft; if so, does he have confidence in the ATSB's search methodology.

Mr Chester - The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:

I have been following the search for MH370 from the beginning when the aircraft disappeared on 8 March 2014, and of course more closely in my capacity as Minister for Transport and Infrastructure with the ATSB in my portfolio.

As I mentioned in a media statement on 20 July 2016 Attachment A, the search has been unprecedented in both size and scale, conducted in some of the world's most isolated waters and at times in extremely challenging weather.

I have absolute confidence in the methodologies that the ATSB have brought to bear in the search. The investigators and other personnel who have contributed to the search from the ATSB possess significant knowledge and expertise and they have also drawn on the advice and expertise of other Australian and international partners; highly skilled professionals who are the best in their fields. These skills and expertise were brought to bear on this complex and difficult challenge, including the examination of satellite data, end-of-flight simulations, comprehensive evaluations of recovered items of debris, and debris drift modelling conducted by the CSIRO Attachment B...

6D Chester dichotomy... : "..I have absolute confidence in the methodologies that the ATSB have brought to bear in the search..." - Obviously the miniscule's blind faith in the ATSB doesn't stretch to continuing the search in what those combined, highly skilled professionals now believe to be the highest probability for the final resting place of MH370 (i.e. further North on the 7th Arc)...

MTF...P2

Ps Perhaps 6D Chester (or his minions) would do well to reconsider having such 'blind faith' in his aviation safety related agencies, in particular the ATSB. For a QRT (quick reference thread) see here: Defence contract probity & the PelAir connection. &/or the AP blog: Memo: from the department of funny coincidence.