Originally Posted by
Robin Clark
Further to my #10413 .......did some trig. and found that the satellite should have been on a bearing of 73.17 degrees to port as MH370 was on climbout ........so in fact they were flying partly toward the sat. so it looks increasingly likely that Inmarsat got it wrong and their chart is actually indicating the opposite sense......ie .up is towards the satellite , increasing any doppler shift .....and vice versa......
The INMARSAT satellite geolocation is over the equator on the Africa side of the center of the Indian Ocean. MH370 was climbing out of Kuala Lumpur towards Vietnam heading North East - away from the satellite. It was in the fringes of the cover of the Pacific INMARSAT satellite but had set up a connection with the Indian Ocean INMARSAT satellite. They only started flying toward the Indian Ocean satellite after breaking radio contact and turning back.