[Peetwo]

Update: The plot thickens in the 'he said, she said' leaking sieve wars...
First from the ATSB's arch nemesis Byron Bailey who appears to be attempting to revive a dead horse :
 

Inquiry needed into MH370 effort
12:00am
Byron Bailey

A very experienced and competent 18,000-hour pilot such as Zaharie would not be doing this for fun.

[*]

Not sure of the Oz motive here but for whatever reason BB seems to generate a 50:50 split on detractors vs supporters in the 50 odd comments so far. The other benefit is he has taken the Oz aviation section's resident troll Mick off Binger's back...

Mick

1 day ago

Contrary to Captain Bailey's assertion that the ATSB failed to consult widely, they have worked closely with international experts in satellite communications, aircraft systems, data modelling and accident investigation, including specialists from the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (the AAIB is the UK's aircraft accident investigation authority), the National Transportation Safety Board (the NTSB is the aircraft accident investigation authority for the US), Boeing (the manufacturer of the missing B777), Inmarsat (the British satellite communications business that first revealed MH370's southern track into the Southern Indian Ocean) and Thales (the manufacturer of air-satellite-ground communications equipment).    The ATSB even consulted with Captain Simon Hardy, an experienced B777 pilot and the originator of the "rogue pilot" theory.   It appears that Captain Bailey is miffed that the ATSB hasn't consulted with him. 

That said, Captain Bailey could do with some help from those satellite communications experts he ridicules (dark matter? gravational waves?) as his understanding of the Burst Frequency Offset (BFO) data is typically misguided and wafer thin.   The BFO is the difference between frequency associated with transmission from the airplane to the satellite and from the satellite to the ground station, the Doppler-shift (they're radio-waves, Captain, so there is no "red-shift", that's astronomy and light waves).   And contrary to our misinformed Captain, the BFO data is interpreted in three planes, not two, and it is quite sensitive to movement in the vertical plane (ie  changes of altitude). 
And Crash investigators at the US National Transportation Safety Board have not said the data is insufficient to draw any conclusion!   John Cox, an aviation safety consultant who worked for the NTSB some 15 years ago, said the data is insufficient to draw any conclusion.   A good number of people who are trained in satellite communications disagree with him. 

Captain Bailey reveals yet another of his gifts in being able to tell us what Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah did not do for fun;  perhaps he could also tell us his favourite colour!   Anyone who has taken the time to actually examine the data from Captain Zaharie Shah's Microsoft Flight Simulator X (FSX) game can tell you:

(a) that the six data points are not navigational waypoints as Captain Bailey suggests, they are fragments of *.FLT files at arbitrary points during a run of the simulator.
(b) while the six data points appear to be from a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Williams Field, McMurdo Base, Antarctica there are inconsistencies in the fuel quantities that put a question mark over whether the points are all related to one simulated flight. 
© the flight terminates upon fuel exhaustion with a rapid steep descent from 37,600 ft down to 4,000 ft over a distance of just 6 kilometres - the airplane crashes, there is no pilot-controlled glide. 

And to round off, and in keeping with Captain Bailey's proclivity for just making stuff up, today we're treated to "It has been reported Zaharie put on much more fuel than was needed for the flight to Beijing."   Absolute and utter nonsense!   The Captain ordered 49,100 kg of fuel;  37,200 kg of planhed trip-fuel plus the mandatory reserves for a 46 minute diversion to his primary diversion airport, Jinan Yaoqiang International Airport, and a 1 hour 45 minutes diversion to his secondary diversion airport, Hangzhou Xiaoshan International Airport.   The actual fuel load was confirmed by the B777's Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) at the start of MH370's flight and then again some 30 minutes into the flight, when fuel burn was as anticipated.

[*]
And round..and round it goes with a very circular argument.... zzzzzzz - boring... (ps although I do agree with BB on it being time for an inquiry)
Next the Oz SE Asian correspondent Amanda has been busy in recent days, with this yesterday:

MH370 pilot eyed Oz retirement
12:00amAmanda Hodge
The pilot of missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 planned to retire to Australia with his wife, say relatives.

[*]
 Nothing really new there, although I did find this somewhat out of context comment from the Malaysian hostie's union kind of interesting:

..As the MH370 search prepares to wind down, Malaysia’s National Union of Flight Attendants has again queried why a second transponder located in the cabin crew closet outside the cockpit was not triggered — or its signal picked up — after Captain Zaharie signed off from Malaysian air space and the cockpit transponder stopped transmitting.

[*]Maybe a prelude to more to come...

[*]And finally today Amanda came out with this:

Release of MH370 files ordered
12:00amAmanda Hodge
A Malaysian court has ordered the releases of all files relating to the ­disappearance of Flight MH370.

A Malaysian court has ordered the government and Malaysia Airlines hand over all relevant documents relating to the ­disappearance of Flight MH370, in a critical ruling that families of missing passengers hope will ­provide long-awaited answers to a 2 ½-year-old mystery.


A Kuala Lumpur high court judge yesterday granted general discovery to relatives of 32 ­missing passengers who were on board the flight from Kuala ­Lumpur to Beijing which went missing in the early hours of March 8, 2014.

Some 76 plaintiffs, comprising 66 Chinese nationals, eight Indians and two US citizens, allege the airline failed to give a proper ­account of events that occurred during the flight, which relatives were later informed by text message had gone down in the southern Indian Ocean.

In a March 3 statement of claim the families also allege negligence, breach of contract, breach of statutory duty and breach of the Montreal Convention by Malaysia Airlines Systems.

Malaysia Airlines Bhd (MAB), Malaysia’s Department of Civil Aviation director general, the Royal Malaysian Air Force and the government of Malaysia are also named as defendants.

Since the plane’s disappearance families of the missing passengers and crew have consistently accused the Malaysian government of hiding information and failing to keep them informed of major developments and decisions.

Tommy Thomas, lead counsel representing the plaintiffs and one of Malaysia’s most senior lawyers, told The Australian the court’s decision to grant general discovery was more a “matter of course” than a major legal victory.

“You can’t do a trial without documents. It’s as simple as that,” he said.

Mr Thomas said of particular relevance to his clients were “all conversations relating to the plane turning back”.

“Those conversations would be critical because that was the time to save the plane,” he said.

“Nobody was asking them to shoot down the plane. Nobody shoots down their own country’s plane but how about following it to find out where it goes?”
The aircraft made its last contact with air traffic control at 1.19am (Malaysian time) before disappearing from radar screens.

According to information pieced together by investigators, over the course of the next six hours it is believed to have made several turns, deviating westward from its planned flight path to cross the Malay Peninsula, passing just south of Penang before flying across the Strait of ­Malacca, and heading south over the Indian Ocean.

Both the government and MAS have until October 20 to comply with the discovery order or appeal the plaintiffs ­application for access to 37 documents, including notes, memos, cargo manifest and all relevant investigative reports into the disappearance of MH370.

Lawyers for the Malaysian government have previously ­objected to the discovery application as a “fishing” expedition.

MAS lawyer Saranjit Singh said he understood the plaintiffs were entitled to general discovery against MAS to assist their case against the government of ­Malaysia, online Malaysian news site Malaysiakini reported.

But, he added, his client needed to read and understand the grounds of judgment to determine whether it should appeal the order.

[*]MTF...P2