The fact that the 23:14 phone call reset the 1 hr timer is tragic, since it has effectively denied us a 23:41 handshake set of BTO/BFO.
The interval 22:41 to 00:11 is ninety minutes.
If we assume straight flight up to 23:40/41, we can calculate an "assumed 23:40/41 ring".
I think we should do that, because anything that happened after 23:40 depends on a "start position" on a 23:40/41 ring.
Personally, I beleive it was a deliberate act, and that 23:40 was his TOD, at the first "glow of the sun in the eastern sky" for a ditching. As the earth rotates, the sun rises, so he has to commence descent at 23:40 to remain "below the sun". It takes 20 minutes to descend to say 2,000 feet over the ocean, so that at 00:00 he is level in twilight, only a few minutes before local dawn, ready for daylight, to ditch.
We can therefore plot a likely descent profile, i.e. the track miles for the descent, assuming he maintained heading, which then allows us to calculate an "assumed 00:00 ring".
The speed and heading inferred from the 00:11 data suggests to me, that he must have turned slightly south east as "his sun" rose, sometime between 00:00 and 00:11, such that at 00:11 he was "low and slow in the first rays of daylight" preparing to ditch, at that time heading almost due east.
Very soon after 00:11, he turned north/north-west, for three critical reasons.
One, to have the sun on his starboard side, to ensure glare free vision ahead and to port (ie, to the left).
Two, to be able to align his aircraft with the advancing wave crests (basically nnw-sse) and with a slight left crosswind, to ensure he "alighted" on the "top-back" of the wave he selected, just below, i.e. to the left of the crest.
Three, so that the shadow of the aircraft was on his left side, so that it would provide a visual "rate of closure" cue, in the final seconds for the "flare and cut".
In my view, the 00:19 BTO/BFO's have been totally misinterpreted by the atsb.
As he ditched, the main engines stopped abruptly, and the APU did start.
The aircraft floated, essentially complete, similar to Cactus 1549, for some time.
Unlike 1549, the water was not flat, it was rolling seas.
As the floating aircraft yawed and rolled in the waves, it almost certainly gradually rolled left wing down, thus the APU inlet remained above water for some minutes.
The sdu logged on, but with no nav info from the AIMS, it had to do a "cold boot" and in the process, with waves and spray washing over the gradually sinking, but still floating, rear fuselage, the antennas were intermittently denied sight to 3F-1, thus producing multiple attempts to "log on" producing the very long bto that the atsb "corrected", and the anomalous bfo's from multi-pathing "in the spray".
Eventually, the APU stopped abruptly, either from running out of fuel in the feed line, or ingesting water. It doesn't matter either way.
Obviously therefore, the ditching was "inside the 6th arc", probably by about 20 nautical miles, not 50-60-70 nautical miles "outside" it.
Consequently, I think the atsb's 7th arc is totally wrong, and that the entire search on that arc, is therefore obviously wrong.
The explanation of the "correction" to the bto, as applied by the atsb, based on the KL log-in, never sat well with me.
The interval 22:41 to 00:11 is ninety minutes.
If we assume straight flight up to 23:40/41, we can calculate an "assumed 23:40/41 ring".
I think we should do that, because anything that happened after 23:40 depends on a "start position" on a 23:40/41 ring.
Personally, I beleive it was a deliberate act, and that 23:40 was his TOD, at the first "glow of the sun in the eastern sky" for a ditching. As the earth rotates, the sun rises, so he has to commence descent at 23:40 to remain "below the sun". It takes 20 minutes to descend to say 2,000 feet over the ocean, so that at 00:00 he is level in twilight, only a few minutes before local dawn, ready for daylight, to ditch.
We can therefore plot a likely descent profile, i.e. the track miles for the descent, assuming he maintained heading, which then allows us to calculate an "assumed 00:00 ring".
The speed and heading inferred from the 00:11 data suggests to me, that he must have turned slightly south east as "his sun" rose, sometime between 00:00 and 00:11, such that at 00:11 he was "low and slow in the first rays of daylight" preparing to ditch, at that time heading almost due east.
Very soon after 00:11, he turned north/north-west, for three critical reasons.
One, to have the sun on his starboard side, to ensure glare free vision ahead and to port (ie, to the left).
Two, to be able to align his aircraft with the advancing wave crests (basically nnw-sse) and with a slight left crosswind, to ensure he "alighted" on the "top-back" of the wave he selected, just below, i.e. to the left of the crest.
Three, so that the shadow of the aircraft was on his left side, so that it would provide a visual "rate of closure" cue, in the final seconds for the "flare and cut".
In my view, the 00:19 BTO/BFO's have been totally misinterpreted by the atsb.
As he ditched, the main engines stopped abruptly, and the APU did start.
The aircraft floated, essentially complete, similar to Cactus 1549, for some time.
Unlike 1549, the water was not flat, it was rolling seas.
As the floating aircraft yawed and rolled in the waves, it almost certainly gradually rolled left wing down, thus the APU inlet remained above water for some minutes.
The sdu logged on, but with no nav info from the AIMS, it had to do a "cold boot" and in the process, with waves and spray washing over the gradually sinking, but still floating, rear fuselage, the antennas were intermittently denied sight to 3F-1, thus producing multiple attempts to "log on" producing the very long bto that the atsb "corrected", and the anomalous bfo's from multi-pathing "in the spray".
Eventually, the APU stopped abruptly, either from running out of fuel in the feed line, or ingesting water. It doesn't matter either way.
Obviously therefore, the ditching was "inside the 6th arc", probably by about 20 nautical miles, not 50-60-70 nautical miles "outside" it.
Consequently, I think the atsb's 7th arc is totally wrong, and that the entire search on that arc, is therefore obviously wrong.
The explanation of the "correction" to the bto, as applied by the atsb, based on the KL log-in, never sat well with me.