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Paul Howard on MH370 & the BITOD QON?  

MH370 The BITOD question


20/3/2016



 

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

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

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

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

The implications of BITOD.

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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







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

Paul Howard DRAFT Petition:


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Top job Paul -

MTF...P2