[Peetwo]

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

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

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

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

So how do I prove it ?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2016/08/15 Duncan

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

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

15th August 2016 

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

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

 

Table 1. Parameters Derived from the Raw Simulator Data

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


R.I.P lost aviators and loved ones.

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

My reply to the Independent Group Preliminary Assessment

Here; http://www.duncansteel.com/

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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