[Peetwo]

MH370 HSSS update: "Take cover, INCOMING!" 



Bailey (via the Oz) with another rock on the ATSB chook-house shed...  

Search bosses ‘in a bit of a pickle’ as MH370 mystery deepens

• Byron Bailey
  
• The Australian
  
• 12:00AM September 21, 2016
  

The head of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau’s search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, Peter Foley, said last month analysis of the recently retrieved outboard flap suggested it had not been deployed when it hit the water.

The ATSB, however, ­announced on Thursday that the item was still being examined and tested for any evidence to determine the position of the flap at the time of separation from the wing.

The ATSB bosses are in a bit of a pickle: 2½ years of searching under their guidance has not as yet produced any results and we are left with three competing theories.
Each would indicate a different area of where to search.

Theory 1. The ATSB scenario of an event that rendered the ­pilots incapacitated, and the aircraft ran out of fuel and crashed at high speed into the southern Indian Ocean.

Theory 2. A rogue pilot hijacked the aircraft three minutes after saying goodnight to Kuala Lumpur air traffic control and flew the aircraft via a pre-planned route to the southern Indian Ocean then descended. The pilot then carried out a controlled ditching under engine power with flaps extended. A 170-tonne aircraft hitting rough seas at well over 200km/h would essentially wreck it, tearing off the engines and flaps, which would be the first parts of the aircraft structure to make contact with the water.

This is the scenario favoured by many airline pilots and overseas air crash investigators of vast experience.

Theory 3. As in Theory 2 ­except that to extend the south­erly distance flown by approximately 200km, fly at cruise altitude until engines flame out because of fuel exhaustion then glide at an ­approximate glide ratio of 16:1, with limited hydraulic and electrical power from the now ­extended Ram Air Turbine and carry out a water impact with no flaps at about 300km/h. This would not be survivable but if suicide was the intent, it would not matter.

Unfortunately, we as yet do not really know what happened after MH370 turned south, ­obviously under pilot control, north of Sumatra. Deduction reasoning based on the ATSB’s subjective analysis by mathematical probabilities amounts to speculation. We need the “black boxes” — the Flight Data Recorder and Cockpit Voice Recorder — to provide the truth. That is why the search must go on.

The Norfolk Island ditching, a few years ago, by a Pel-Air Westwind medical jet involved a suspect, rapid investigation by the ATSB that, without benefit of the black boxes, produced a verdict that unfairly blamed the captain.

When it comes to MH370, the ATSB appears to have been similarly rather hasty in going with its unresponsive pilot scenario, perhaps to avoid embarrassing the Malaysian government, which is keen to douse the rogue pilot ­theory.

As more evidence came to light, it was a shame the ATSB leaders did not have the courage to consider possible pilot involvement in the end-of-flight scenario, which may have altered how they defined the search area.

Personally I think there is a few more worthy theories, including ET did it -   , but heck what would I know??

Besides the continued heckling of BB by Mick, the resident Oz Aviation section troll, there was one short comment worth regurgitating so far, courtesy Digger Ray   :

Ray 50 minutes ago

I agree with you, Byron, but we must remember that bureaucrats are never wrong, & even if they know that they are wrong, they will never, ever, admit it. That is the luxury afforded to those who have none of their own money invested in being right, and more to the point, whose well-remunerated career must be protected at all costs.

Couldn't have put it better myself Ray, choccy frog is in the mail...


MTF...P2