Malaysian Airlines MH370 contact lost

[korrol]

Whilst logic might not be the strongest suit of air pirates, or rogue crew, or terrorists, neverthless it seems to defy all reason for a conscious crew or even a conscious hijacker to fly on for hours if all they're going to do at the end of it is crash the plane.

Surely the most logical explanation is that the plane has been flown to a specific destination .Clearly that destination isn't an airport - otherwise we'd all know about it by now and wouldn't be having this conversation.

But the destination could be a kind of "Dawson's Field" landing strip somewhere - similar to that used by terrorists in the 1970 triple hijacking. Dawson's Field was , I think, in Jordan - an unmanned desert field. All that's needed is a flat salt-pan somewhere - and given the huge number of possible landing grounds within the now-extended search area it'll take a while to locate - even from satellites.

One other thought - they wanted to crash onto a specific city or target - but ran out of fuel en route. Perhaps maths wasn't their strong point either.

[Unixman]

Anybody know what the US has on Diego Garcia radar-wise?

[letsjet]

I can't imagine why someone would follow the southern possibility, it leads no-where within fuel range. Surely it must have gone North?I'm not sure why you think this. Perhaps you can explain your thought process.

With the supplied information, I think the southern route is still plausible. You can't discount it until there is data to support removing the possibility.

1. You have data supporting the poss. of this route.

2. You have an AC that potentially flew to fuel exhaustion. This adds another element to consider. The last data point when the AC could have potentially run out of fuel, is telling. If fuel exhaustion could be ruled out, it would be one less variable.

3. You have no SAR team or anyone anywhere spotting anything from the AC.

4. No pings from any transmitter (ELT, FDR, etc.)

5. You have very deep water.

[jmeagher]

“All right, roger that”

I never heard such a phrase. Where did he get "All right" from? Bizarre.

Agreed, I have been unhappy with the phrases used since they were first reported. Are MAS procedures such that sloppy phraseology would be used? Certainly not with the Big Airline I flew for.
If not, was it the crew trying to indicate a HJ? Or HJacker using the R/T?


I wonder what the full context of all the transmissions is? Is there a recording or transcript that includes all comms up until that point with a sense of time between tx?

I live in San Francisco Bay Area and I've heard, just as a for-instance, from the lips of Very Big Airlines pilots, the following or similar, after tower issues a new frequency change instruction to a departing flight: "Aloha, switching," with the tower replying, "Aloha."

No freq read-backs, but apparently the planes continue on to Hawaii without incident, dozens of times each day.

The nonstandard in the above example was preceded by a bunch of tx that were more standard, all contributing to help everyone build a mental picture of what's going on, with the signoff being casual. All frequencies are well-known to all parties. And that's a tame example. I've heard way more nonstandard stuff that would baffle a foreign pilot, like instructions to helis to hold over the 'stick (Candlestick park, a sports stadium north of the airport). You could argue these practices threaten flight safety, but frankly SFO does ok safety-wise given flight volume.

As others have pointed out if the route is frequent and both pilot and tower are local, this happens even more. It's human nature.

Think about the shorthand you develop with your loved ones. Other people outside your family may not always understand 100%, but it doesn't mean you do it with evil intent. It's human nature. Technically I should have written, "It is human nature," because given the international nature of this forum, some people may have a harder time parsing contractions. In this case I'm gonna risk it and figure 99% of readers will have little difficulty understanding contractions and the odd nonstandard word. I like to live on the edge.

Point is, in order to make the judgement that this transmission was anything other than normal, we would need the full transcript, PLUS enough other transcripts to judge how this particular pilot tended to phrase things.

This could be completely normal for him, or not. Bit I'm uncomfortable plucking one phrase out of what is a conversation, and coming to specific conclusions.

Happy to revise my opinion if it is shown this was really out-character.

jm

[Airbubba]

I can also remember some report of an Airline Captain on his last flight before retirement loosing the plot and barrel rolling an Airline full of PAX.

This is a new one on me, could you provide a reference? Are you thinking of Tex Johnston's barrel roll of the 707 prototype over Lake Washington near SEA in 1955? Or Harvey 'Hoot' Gibson's TWA B-727 upset with pax onboard in 1979?

Looking at the MH 370 captain's purported Facebook page, it appears he is a techie and a foodie (is it mee goreng and mee siam in the pictures?). It looks like he has pulled the control panel out of his refrigerator to replace or repair it. He also builds his own computers, I agree with his choice of an Asus motherboard and an oversize power supply. The parts seem to have been purchased from a U.S. vendor (Newegg?) judging from the domestic Priority Mail box. I can't quite make out the mailing address in the picture, perhaps it is a layover hotel or a friend in the States.

Facebook posts

Even more.... seems he hates Barisan National.... and is backing Anwar.... who just got indicted for Sodomy again.........


As far as his political rant supporting a candidate accused of sodomy, he seems to be advocating change at the ballot box. And, in the U.S. these days, if a candidate said anything negative about sodomy they would be roundly denounced as a homophobe by the mainstream media. Not that there is anything wrong with that as Seinfeld would say.

Nothing conclusive from what I see but it does indicate that he would perhaps have in-depth knowledge and understanding of avionics and aircraft systems. I can also build computers and have recently changed the microprocessor board on my home air conditioning system. But I couldn't tell you what the power supply is for VHF ACARS, SATCOM, ADS-B or HFDL or where the circuit breakers are located unless mentioned in a QRH checklist. Of course, I could find out, assuming the company aircraft manuals weren't too dumbed down as is the current trend. It would be interesting to know if Captain Shah had 777 maintenance manuals and wiring diagrams at home.

I get real fascinated by aircraft systems about once a year when I have training.

None of these comments are meant to be an indictment of the crew but, as a long haul Boeing pilot myself, I now think these areas of crew background should be closely investigated.

[ana1936]

I have put an explanation, description and detailed maps of the ``corridors" up at the following URL

MH370 (http://www.csse.uwa.edu.au/~mark/personal/MH370/mh370.html)

And the maps from that page

http://www.csse.uwa.edu.au/~mark/personal/MH370/northArc.png

http://www.csse.uwa.edu.au/~mark/personal/MH370/southArc.png

[jeanlyon]

Hi, yes I did know that about Malaysia. Even so, it's a particularly English expression, not often used these days. OK being more normal. I too was surprised that there was no mention of the new frequency, but then I did stop flying a few years ago, although I was married to a pilot and he also finds it strange.

[volcanicash]

In the first 2 hours of the flight MH370 was in range of two satellites (POR/IOR)

Not quite:

http://s8.postimg.org/ye87yekz9/isat.jpg

[oldoberon]

looking at the arcs in #4019 by "Return to stand).

Would I be correct in assuming at the point in time the aircraft disappeared off Penang the previous or next ping would show the northern arc in a more southerly location cutting through that point and the southern arc would be correspondingly further south and out of range for hrs flown.

Now it is reasonable to think the next ping placed them in the Andam /bay of Bengal area as resources were sent to both ends of that arc.

At this point in time the southern arc would also have moved northwards but still be out of range for hrs flown,

To me this suggests the aircraft CANNOT BE IN THE SOUTHERN ARC.

I am assuming the two arcs would always be the same distance apart as the satellite is geostationary is this correct.

Would be nice if someone was able to post a graphic with these two arcs and jindalee in the south and primary radars in the north.

[Sorry Dog]

For those that mentioned possible SLF cell phone contacts....

That is unlikely.

Cell tower antennae are usually tuned to have optimal performance in 120 degree arc by 60 degree or less elevation. Depending on the frequency and a ton of other factors, practical range is 2 or 3 miles at best (that goes for SMS as well). On an airplane that means something like 10k feet since slant range will be approaching 3 miles, but usually much less because of being outside of antenna cone and an aluminum airframe does a wonderful job of attenuating signals.

Best you can hope for is a stray tower got a stray ping, which would give you a circle of a few miles. Now LTE relies on GPS for timing, but not sure if location data is a part of the ping data packets, and I'm not even sure if that data is saved. I don't administer towers... I just build/upgrade/fix them and leave.

[Return 2 Stand]

I have put an explanation, description and detailed maps of the ``corridors" up at the following URL

MH370 (http://www.csse.uwa.edu.au/~mark/personal/MH370/mh370.html)

Thanks.

OK so only the "last" ping is on that arc, am I correct? So what about earlier pings? Would they not help?

[Speed of Sound]

What pilot would fly for hours after a problem, seriously ?

An incapacitated one?

And can we stop all this talk of the 'precise flight path' flown from 'waypoint to waypoint' carefully 'avoiding various areas of radar cover'.

The track is just a guess, based on a handful of satellite pings and some primary radar returns. In the absence of any more accurate information, it could just as easily be the track flown by an unconscious crew on autopilot without a heading selection, until fuel exhaustion. :(

[bsg]

Snowfalcon2 #3849 and rh200 #3809 comment on poor accuracy of using signal strength for location. Agreed, and uncertainty in the aircraft's antenna gain degrades it even more.

Exactly. I doubt its a perfect omni-directional antenna. Heading/pitch/roll will affect the radiated power hitting the satellite, as the direction of the antenna on the aircraft changes.

That can be modelled however. I suspect there are some very clever people and alot of CPU cycles being burn trying to model possible flightpaths based on the data available.

[ensco]

I know something about mental health and suicide. Anyone who wonders why someone would go to such lengths to mask a suicide, doesn't have that much familiarity with suicide.

It is actually reasonably common that someone commits suicide, but tries to disappear rather than be remembered for the act of the suicide.

Also the willingness to murder innocents in the process is not quite so rare as people are making it out to be. Ask any policeman about what they think really happened in many head-on collisions that are classified as accidents.

If that is what happened here ... big if .... the elaborate nature of the plan may be mindblowing, but the essence of what is going on isn't very mindblowing.

[Cameronian]

I must say that I've been waiting for someone to say those two words from the very beginning, Unixman in 4043. It was a reported quote at the very beginning from Iran claiming that the Americans had kidnapped the aircraft that just made the island jump into my head with no reason that I could rationally justify to anyone. Since then the suggested increase in flying time and mention of the southern Indian Ocean brought it back to mind. They must have some pretty hot radar there too, no?

[techgeek]

I've researched the underlying comm protocols a bit. Can anyone here clarify whether the "ping" refers to the AMSS R channel protocol transmission from AES to GES?

[jcubpilot]

I am disappointed at those in the industry who believe we hold trade secrets that will effectively stop future 9/11 type events. As an airline pilot who sees continual lapses in judgement among flight and cabin crew in security protocol, I can see we are in a bad place. Never Forget: That was the adage we subscribed to a decade ago, yet now it seems we have replaced it with "history repeats itself", which of course it does...

Someone took the time to highlight a massive security threat with regards to the 777 E&E. Given that this information will find its way to anyone who wants it, the only remaining group left out is the general public and they're the ones who can demand change. There is only one reason this threat still exists - it's a financial burden to fix it.

[ana1936]

Yes, only the last ping was somewhere on those arcs

it would be helpful for amateur sleuths to have have information about the earlier pings.

However, I am sure the real SAR team is making good use of them.

[SpannerInTheWerks]

This will probably be deleted, but I thought straight away it was an odd thing to say The expression "all right" is so English, not the sort of thing said by a Malaysian. If he had said OK, I might not have noticed.

No, I thought it was the 'roger that' expression.

Okay for the movies, but not to be seen in CAP413.

Maybe the Captain trying to discreetly raise the alarm or the 'alternative crew' already in command?

[Speed of Sound]

For those that mentioned possible SLF cell phone contacts....

That is unlikely.

Cell tower antennae are usually tuned to have optimal performance in 120 degree arc by 60 degree or less elevation. Depending on the frequency and a ton of other factors, practical range is 2 or 3 miles at best (that goes for SMS as well). On an airplane that means something like 10k feet since slant range will be approaching 3 miles, but usually much less because of being outside of antenna cone and an aluminum airframe does a wonderful job of attenuating signals.

Agreed, but I wasn't talking about attempts to connect at 10,000 feet, I was talking about practically every passenger in the last minutes and seconds of the flight desperately trying to speak to or text their loved ones.

If this was over land and anywhere near a mobile network then there is a strong possibility that at least one cell somewhere would have responded.

[b00bsmith]

has anyone mentioned on here yet that the tip of the northern sat arc (or "corridor") happens to be really close to kunming, where fundamentalist separatists/extremists attacked a railway station recently?

[JanetFlight]

Well, if the choosen option was indeed the Northern Arc, we could have here a big obstacle, "greater" if it was flying lower, no radar and under the cover of night simply called "HIMALAYAS", just my 2 cents...your opinions?

[overthewing]

@OldObern

I'm afraid I'm struggling a bit to understand what you mean - can you clarify? When you say that next ping would show the northern arc in a more southerly location cutting through that point do you mean that the plane's position would have been on the 50-degree arc rather than the 40-degree?

[fireflybob]

Much mention about one of the pilots hijacking the a/c but what about any member of the crew? Who were the staff passengers - any aircrew amongst them?

[JRBarrett]

Utter nonsense. Have you ever tried to use a satellite phone inside of a vehicle ? I have, and you can hardly establish a viable network connection, let alone make a phone call unless you have an external antenna connection, which, lets face it, they are very very very unlikely to have had on a 777 !

IF this incident was a carefully planned and executed hijacking, and IF the hijackers aboard the aircraft were coordinating with accomplices at some destination as yet unknown, there is no reason why they would have to use Inmarsat or Iridium or any other type of satellite network to communicate with their confederates.

The 777 is equipped with at least two powerful HF radio tranceivers, capable of operating on any frequency between 2 and 30 MHz. HF employs simple point-to-point communication directly from transmitter to receiver, and does not require any external network whatsoever. There is no digital data encoded in the signal that could identify the source of the transmission - it is simple single sideband amplitude modulation - a technology that has been in use for decades.

Though an airliner's HF radios are normally used to communicate with ATC facilities on specific frequencies in assigned band segments used for aeronautical communications, there is absolutely nothing to prevent the HF from being tuned to a discrete pre-arranged frequency somewhere else in the 2-30 MHz spectrum - such transmissions are unlikely to be monitored or intercepted in real time, and even if they were, localizing the exact position of the transmissions is quite difficult, due to the nature of ionospheric radio propagation that makes long-distance communication possible at HF frequencies.

Assuming it was indeed a coordinated hijacking, with the aircraft destined for a secret landing at some unknown location, the people awaiting the arrival on the ground would need nothing more than a battery-powered HF transceiver, and a simple long-wire antenna to communicate directly with the aircraft, even if it was still hundreds or thousands of miles away.

As a licensed amateur radio operator, I have done this many times while backpacking in remote areas - communicating with other amateurs around the world, using extremely simple and portable equipment.

[Communicator]

For reference - JORN in Australia publicly admits to 1,000 - 3,000 km for their OTHR system. Range would tend to be longer during the night and around dawn, but HF propagation is hard to predict.


Australia's Jindalee Operational Radar Network (JORN) comprises three Over-The-Horizon Radar (OTHR) systems and forms part of a layered surveillance network providing coverage of Australia's northern approaches.

JORN provides wide area surveillance of Australia's northern approaches at ranges of 1000 to 3000 km from the radar sites, and is used to conduct air and maritime surveillance in support of Australia's national surveillance effort.

JORN (https://www.airforce.gov.au/Technology/Surveillance44-Command-and-Control/Jindalee-Operational-Radar-Network/?RAAF-dq9yQKwX6WliV2hNVcj38sG4oMWiAMtQ)

[BWV 988]

@ETOPS

SIA68 intersects with the last Northern radar ping at UTC 00:11 around Ashgabat. Probably others have had the same thought...

[jeanlyon]

You are right, as many years ago when I was first flying, I used to very occasionally ask the flight deck if I could use the HF radio to call my husband, as he was a ham. Highly illegal from an Amateur Radio point of view. I recall I was over the South Atlantic at the time heading for Rio. We had a specified time for the call :-)

[SpannerInTheWerks]

I hate to break this to you Spanner, but the whole world does not run around with CAP413 in their flight bags, white gloves on, saying tootle pip, off we go

No they don't use those phrases either! :)

Not quite the point of my Post.

In the whole of my flying career I've never heard 'roger that' being used by a line pilot. Maybe things have changed in the past few years, but not in my experience?! I think the airline training Captains might have a wry smile and then correct the phraseology used.

[ZOOKER]

With reference to the unusual RTF phraseology,
Presumably the authorities have listened to all the messages/acknowledgements from that night's MH370, therefore it should not be hard to determine whether the final transmissions were made by either of the two men who were rostered to fly the a/c.
ATC tapes are kept for a few weeks before being overwritten, so it would not be hard to find other recordings of flights where either of the crew were doing the RTF and, if necessary, subject those tapes to voice-spectral analysis..

[Cameronian]

If there were anywhere in the world where OTHR would be justifiable it might be on Diego Garcia. The radar, though, was primarily raised by Unixman. My first interest was in the context of the Iranian "kidnapped" story. The dots seemed to join up once more when the flavour of the discussions here and in the press was of the possible hijacking by the Iranians on board with the stolen passports because the suggested itinerary of at least one of them was to AMS - I doubt the passports would have made the grade there so perhaps his true intentions were different, I wondered. Perhaps Diego Garcia was a target as it has surely played its part in the tensions surrounding Iran and its neighbours over recent years. Building castles in the sky isn't my normal activity though, so interest was not regenerated until reading about the reports of the USS Kidd whose orders seemed to come from a different hymn sheet.

Then where once the FO was suspected now it's the Captain's turn. I wonder who controls the smoke and mirrors. Perhaps we'll never know for sure.

[MountainBear]

The term "ping" doesn't refer to a particular mode of transmission but a particular type of transmission. That is, a ping refers to the content of the data packet. A ping is either some version of an ACK or a "keep alive" message.

Typically one node broadcasts a message to another node. The node receiving node either returns an ACK (acknowledgement) or a keep alive. Which it returns depends on design specifications. It is something said that when this roundtrip has been successfully completed it is called a "handshake". However, a handshake contains more data than ping because a handshake contains data regarding the network protocol


STEP A: PING

Node A: Are you there?
Nobe B: Yes, I'm here.

STEP B: HANDSHAKE

Node A: Communicate using protocol X?
Nobe B: Yes, let's do that.

STEP C: Normal data transmission

Thus a ping exists only to determine whether there is a physical connection between Node A and Node B. A handshake determines whether there is an acceptable software connection between the two. Pinging a device on a network is the most rudimentary form of communication between two devices.

[dmba]

tip of northern arc = kunming
has anyone mentioned on here yet that the tip of the northern sat arc (or "corridor") happens to be really close to kunming, where fundamentalist separatists/extremists attacked a railway station recently?

The idea that it landed there was rumoured at the very start but quickly dismissed by Malaysian authorities.

[toffeez]

The Malaysian authorities will have red stuff on their hands if it turns out one of the pilots was being hounded by the judiciary.

I have no inside information, but it's not easy for a Malay to be honest about his religious beliefs or lack of them. Nor is it easy to be an 'anti-corruption campaigner'. Can upset some people.

This to be taken with a large pinch of salt and it's not my opinion, only based on what I see on the web.

[techgeek]

It has been reported that last sat contact was 8:11AM MYT (00:11 UTC) and loss of SSR occurred at ~01:21AM MYT (17:21 UTC). That is an elapsed time of just under 7 hours. If there was an hourly data link connection request (ISO-8208 CALL REQUEST) aka "ping" sent from AES (aircraft) to GES (ground) via satellite there should be a minimum of 6 maps like the one we have seen, each showing the a/c position at a different angle from the satellite (unless it was flying along the arc which is highly unlikely). By comparing the arc of probability of each hourly sat comm one should be able to determine if the a/c was moving NW or SW.

With respect to a fix from 2 sats there is reason to think the a/c flew W from the point of LOC so it could have flown out of range of the POR satellite before the next hourly ping. This may be reading too much into the little info about the sat coms but if the data link requests are truly timed hourly then one can reason backward from last sat contact at +11 to the last sat contact prior to LOC occurring at 17:11 UTC. That gives the a/c 50 minutes to fly westward and out of POR range.

Please disprove this line of reasoning...

[Pontius Navigator]

No, I thought it was the 'roger that' expression.

Okay for the movies, but not to be seen in CAP413.

Sorry SITW, if it started in movies it escaped into real life about 20 years ago. My daughter was operating with US Troops who used that phrase and said how it creased her up.

[aviator1970]

possible to assume that comn/pings could be because of data being sent to ECMS(eng condition monitoring system)?.... incase the VHF sets are turned off... default setting would be to transmit data on satcom... no permissions are sought.... any thoughts? this would happen irrespective whether Malaysian had contracted for ECMS or not.... food for thought...

[jugofpropwash]

How sure are they that the aircraft was actually in the air when that last ping was received? Could it have landed sometime earlier and just been sitting on the ground somewhere idling? If whoever was flying knew about the pinging, could they have intentionally used it to "trick" searchers into thinking the plane had flown further than it actually had?

[Emma Voberry]

A thread has opened for non-professionals to discuss flight MH370:Spectators Balcony (Spotters Corner) - PPRuNe Forums (http://www.pprune.org/spectators-balcony-spotters-corner-52/)

[xcitation]

A lot of weight is indeed being put on the sat pings. I hope the engineers have thoroughly checked for latency issues or time stamp errors to ensure everything is as it seems. There are a lot of protocol levels in that system.
I am no satellite expert however I know that GPS satellite engineers adjust for the effects of the warping of space and time due to earths gravitational field. So looking at the contents of the satellite ping packet for a time stamp would be trivial for professional satellite engineers.

[Lanikai]

Following thread closely since first 50 pages, but haven't seen mention of what exactly the Malaysian military did when they were tracking this a/c on their radar, now we know they were tracking it?

I remember v early on an official during a presser said they don't scramble jets normally to civilian a/c because they are not normally deemed a threat. This was said, however, before they released the information that they had been tracking the a/c by military radar. Obviously people may be overstating the "on call" capabilities of Malay airforce in the middle of the night. But surely, 4 hours after lost contact, unidentified a/c spotted on military radar- they must have done something?

And how did they know from the radar that it was MH370, in the first place?

[Lorimer]

JR Barrett's point (post 4068) on selective use of the HF Radio for communication is very helpful if we're running with the theory of the biggest heist ever (cargo of gold?) or some form of sinister hijack for future purposes (post 4075).

We need to remember that no one had any idea of the concept of 9/11 before it happened. Truth can sometimes be more astonishing than fiction.

[SaturnV]

ANA1936, thanks very much for the circles.

Based on it being on a point somewhere along the northern arc,

up through Bangladesh, then
Sikkim, then
Tibet, then
into the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region
descending over Taklamakan Desert
landing, crashing near Kalpin County
before the Kyrgyzstan border

[D.S.]

I'm not sure if has been mentioned somewhere (I have read a lot of posts, but not them all) but with regards to the conversation about where the plane might have gone/might be

It most likely went South, not North

Reasoning:

The plane made what is seemingly extremely calculated moves to avoid radar (cutting communication at handover, flying under radar over land, picking path between radar, etc)

The plane was still in the air (0811) when the search was already underway. Everyone in the surrounding area would have been alerted at that time

There is no possible way the US hasn't requested the data for any unidentified planes being picked up on the surrounding countries radar systems

There are enough satellite pings to determine likely locations where the plane would have been pinged but stayed off radar the entire time it was in flight.

The US has to know that the likelihood is it is South, where this 'non-radar contact, but pinged' flight is much more possible than it would have been over land with everyone searching. That doesn't mean it couldn't have, but likelihood...

[porterhouse]

It most likely went South,
I agree. Plus the search along the northern route (land) will be much easier to check and rule out.

[Sober Lark]

Planned and unplanned attempts but is turning the aircraft round and flying in the opposite direction for many hours until it ran out of fuel typical suicidal planning behaviour? I don't think it is.

[gorgecaye]

Could it be Uyghur related terrorism against China?

They've tried it in the past (actually 2 years ago) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tianjin_Airlines_Flight_7554

And the recent 29 stabbing deaths at a Chinese train station was Uyghur related.

This would make sense if the large Chinese population onboard and the plane's destination were a factor. Or it could be a smokescreen by someone for some other purpose.

The uptick in Uyghur terrorism in the past few years should raise some questions though, in relation to this incident.

You heard it here first!

:confused:

[cribbagepeg]

As most birds are "bent pipes" and generally connect the incoming RF signal to an onboard transmitter on a coresponding downlink frequency, any doppler shift present in the uplink one should be present in the downlink one. Now the trigonometry suggests a tiny or even undetectable doppler shift, but this would be larger at the extremes of a beam's footprint. Any thoughts?

[aviator1970]

Whats the big deal about the non standard R/T terminology? seriously? routine usage of nonstandard words in locally acceptable language is a norm.... Namaste is used in Indian airspace by all airlines... as is bye or Khuda Hafiz in other areas.... whats the big deal?

[rog747]

is this right - in simple terms for many

Satcom are maybe providing enough satellite fixes to establish where this aircraft went - BUT you need 3 satellite fixes on each ping given off for an accurate fix - seems they only have 2 on many of them - The ACARS was switched off to SEND data but the system stays on and still searches for satellites and thus gives off its location to satellites

Satellites picked up a signal from the B777 at 08.11 local time some 7 hours after the transponder was switched off but could not get an accurate 3 point SAT fix -
That is why now there are 2 corridor areas of search because the satellites only got partial position without the 3 fixes -
so they are looking up towards the Bay of Bengal and Kazakhstan and south west down towards the Indian ocean -
at this point 7 hours on in daylight, the fuel remaining would be very low.

(unless more fuel had been loaded on deliberately at KUL)

rog747

[Return 2 Stand]

If it had been flying 7 hours between loss of contact and the ping on the arc, the southern arc would seem too close wouldn't it? Assuming it had been flying in a straight line it could easily have gone as far as Perth?? The far end of the Northern Arc makes more sense time wise?

[overthewing]

There is no possible way the US hasn't requested the data for any unidentified planes being picked up on the surrounding countries radar systems

I'm sure that's true, but it depends on there actually being data to supply, I would think? Given what we've learned from all this, there seems to be patchy alertness and coverage in that part of the world. Anecdotal evidence is that Myanmar can be overflown without challenge.

[rampstriker]

However, it is really sloppy software to generate superfluous pings. If there is not data to transmit, then there is no reason to waste battery power and bandwith to see which server could take your call if you had a payload to send, like a sign on request.

Not if you look at it from the standpoint of the vendor who is selling a subscription service to monitor engine data during cruise. They would want the connection to be robust and available without the customer having to configure anything if they did purchase the package. A check ping every 30 mins is not overkill in this case. The ping also includes the aircraft's digital unique identifier (like a MAC address), so the vendor could activate the service instantly from their server side.

But it sounds like very few folks were aware of the pinging--it was kinda hidden away in the software.

Edit: The pings originate from the Inmarsat satellite system ACARS server, not from the ACARS software on the plane and are sent hourly to check the Satcom connection.

[DuneMile]

Yes, commercial line pilots use "Roger that". All the time. ATC and commercial pilots say it regularly.


AirDisaster.Com: Air Traffic Control Transcript: American 587 (http://www.airdisaster.com/cvr/aa587.shtml)
Aviation Safety Network > Accident investigation > CVR / FDR > Transcripts > ATC transcript Thai Airways Flight 261 - (http://aviation-safety.net/investigation/cvr/transcripts/atc_th261.php)
Aviation Safety Network > Accident investigation > CVR / FDR > Transcripts > ATC transcript Swissair Flight 111 - 02 SEP 1998 (http://aviation-safety.net/investigation/cvr/transcripts/atc_sr111.php)
Comms Transcript (http://www.canairradio.com/ttt.html)
TWA Flight 800: AUDIO DATA TRANSCRIPT (http://whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/CRASH/TWA/ATC_TRANSCRIPT.html)
Aviation Safety Network > Accident investigation > CVR / FDR > Transcripts > Singapore Airlines Flight 006 - 31 OCT 2000 (http://aviation-safety.net/investigation/cvr/transcripts/cvr_sq006.php)
http://www.aaib.gov.uk/cms_resources.cfm?file=/1-1992%20G-BJRT%20Append.pdf

[FE Hoppy]

The range for the first ping after last radar contact can show which direction is most likely. The range of that arc will put the aircraft either closer or further away from the radar that had previously tracked them.

[Rerun 57]

Which airfields, capable of taking a 777 are there in Turkmenistan etc?
Suppose the hijackers just want the aircraft?
How likely is it that the aircraft could make it to a former Russian Republic airfield and land without comment from locals? Where would it have been dark at points near maximum endurance?

[Ramjet555]

It appears that most of the worlds journalists and managers of the search have failed to do any "air of reality"checks with this story. The searchers have failed to think logically with the exception of the Chinese Government and the Vietnamese Government who have done an incredible job and who both deserve an honourable mention for their accurate reporting.

The Transponder and Flight Data STOPPED indicating a catastrophic explosion. The WRECKAGE DEBRIS was repeatedly observed, photographed and provided to searchers. Boats arriving could not find it. Those Photographs did not LIE, they were not fabricated. They are REAL EVIDENCE.

Oil Rig Worker Michael McKay was the First and Only Eye Witness to the explosion and his "Bearing confirms that it was along the flight path near where the Transponder Stopped.

The Satelite "PINGING" by Imarasat shows it ENDED in the same area as where the Transponder Stopped.

The problem is, Imarsat information has got the TIME wrong, it was NOT AFTER the accident time but AT the accident time the last reported "PING" was heard.

There appears to be a miscalculation of time or , the FL MH370 flew in circles in the same area for 7.5 hours and then crashed in the same area.

Imarsat is not showing an accurate map. The map shown is misleading and fails to allow for known errors that if allowed for place the last signal in the same area.

The Primary radar is dubious, and does not show clear evidence to support any flight away from the last known position.

There is NO evidence to support a highjacking.

Any search manager should take a close look at that Imarsat informatio, demand to see video or stills of that primary radar BEFORE assuming the "Highjack" theory and or wasting many millions of dollars searching in any area OTHER THAN

an Underwater search in the Immediate area after the transponder stopped.

At around 500 Knots, the debris will have travelled about 5 miles forward of the last known position along the Planned Flight Path and it is there that the heavy wreckage will be found.

The floating Debris has moved at about 50 miles a day and some maritime science needs to be used to determine from wind and currents since the crash time as to where that debris might be now.

The world owes an apology to the Governments of China and Vietnam for their incredible work to date and for the arrogance of the west to ignore their vital evidence.

Dito for Michael McKay who is the Sole Witness to this mid-air explosion.

The US navy needs to take its own appraisal of the above information and start an

underwater search centered on 5 nm ahead of the last known Transponder position on the Flight Path Track.

Image of debris (ttp://avherald.com/img/malaysia_b772_9m-mro_gulf_of_thailand_140308_sat_1800.jpg)

http://avherald.com/img/malaysia_b772_9m-mro_gulf_of_thailand_140308_sat_1800.jpg

Imarsat image of range of error (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/15/world/asia/malaysia-military-radar.html?action=click&contentCollection=Asia%20Pacific&region=Footer&module=TopNews&pgtype=article)

[LadyL2013]

'why has no one come forward if it is terrorism'

Because look how much people are taking about it, speculating, how focused the world is on it. Terrorists love publicity and this is giving to them in bucket loads even if the actual people haven't announced themselves.

That is of course assume it is an act of terror. Personally I'm subscribing to the idea of 'we don't know and won't know until we have more evidence' side.

[overthewing]

Planned and unplanned attempts but is turning the aircraft round and flying in the opposite direction for many hours until it ran out of fuel typical suicidal planning behaviour? I don't think it is.

I'm not sure there is such a thing as 'typical suicide planning behaviour'. From my own exposure to the subject, suicides can get themselves 'into position' and then take a long time to commit themselves to the final act. And I can imagine that letting the place run out of fuel and crash, in some ways might make it into an accident rather than suicide in a distorted mind.

[Aireps]

The pilot of that Japanese plane is quoted as saying

“We managed to establish contact with MH370 just after 1:30 a.m. and asked them if they have transferred into Vietnamese airspace,” the pilot reportedly told New Straits Times. “The voice on the other side could have been either Captain Zaharie (Ahmad Shah, 53,) or Fariq (Abdul Hamid, 27), but I was sure it was the co-pilot."
The "Japanese plane" you're mentioning, may in fact have been MH88: Post 3875 (http://www.pprune.org/8377615-post3875.html)

Chances are that the MH88 pilot knew the MH370 (co-)pilot he was talking to.

[Ramjet555]

It's nonsense.
The circle shows a line basically right through the last known position within a range of acceptable error.

According to Imarsat, it must have remained in the same area and ran out of fuel in same area, as the last transponder signal.

What we have is an incredible error in assume the TIME of the last "ping" to be 7.5 hours AFTER the transponder stopped.

No, that last ping from my read occurred about the same time as the last transponder report.

[OleOle]

Techgeek – Re:17:11 out of range of POR

Point taken. But if at that time MH370 was too far west to be seen by POR, that fact in itself would proof that MH370 was going west as indicated by primary radar.

[rigbyrigz]

OK, maybe the mod will allow a question for one of the experts to comment on or answer, on a point that seems important but so far overlooked (at least here).

We have transponder/comms cut off, with some doubt as to whether that was "deliberate" or the result of some electro-mechanical failure/s.

We have a somewhat suspect "alright good nite" hand-over AFTER that.

So MAYBE that is telling. But what about: ATC Vietnam hears hand-over transmission.

Does he also see or note that this a/c handing-over is from a FL he does not see because the transponder is off... would he note that and question that??
(as being alarming to get the hand-over in such circumstances)

[MG23]

The problem is, Imarsat information has got the TIME wrong, it was NOT AFTER the accident time but AT the accident time the last reported "PING" was heard.

I'm sure one of the first questions Inmarsat asked was 'is there any way these times could be incorrect?' (e.g. something in the system accidentally resending old messages).

[techgeek]

Warning - the following is a bit off topic for an aviation forum but it is relevant to this thread.

"The term "ping" doesn't refer to a particular mode of transmission but a particular type of transmission. That is, a ping refers to the content of the data packet. A ping is either some version of an ACK or a "keep alive" message.

Typically one node broadcasts a message to another node. The node receiving node either returns an ACK (acknowledgement) or a keep alive. Which it returns depends on design specifications. It is something said that when this roundtrip has been successfully completed it is called a "handshake". However, a handshake contains more data than ping because a handshake contains data regarding the network protocol"

A reasonable generalization but not really accurate. Protocols use very explicit language to define their operation (e.g. ISO 8208 CALL REQUEST, ISO 10747 KEEPALIVE). In this case the protocols are pre-determined and there are quite a few of them (AMSS, ISO 8208, IDRP, X.25, X.121)! These protocols are layered with one depending on another for proper operation.

It is important to understand the concept of layers in networking. Microsoft has a good link here (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/103884)if you want to learn more about network layers in general.

This pdf published by Boeing (slide 12) (http://www.boeing.com/commercial/caft/reference/meetings/98_03_12/Vaughn.pdf) shows an architectural diagram of ACARS. Blocks denote "layers" stacked upon one another. There are 3 stacks depicted ("Communications Management Unit", "Datalink Service Processor" and "User Ground System"). You can think of data flowing up and down each stack and horizontally between them. Note the dashed line connecting "Satellite Data Unit" (in the airplane) and "AMSS GES" (satellite ground station). The satellite itself is not shown but you could think of it as represented by the dashed line. This is where the "ping" is occurring.

[luoto]

Swedish media picking up reports from other media that some pax might have had flight training in Sweden. Might be picking at straws etc but Missing Malaysia Airlines jet: Investigation paying 'special attention' to Chinese Uighur passenger (http://www.smh.com.au/world/missing-malaysia-airlines-jet-investigation-paying-special-attention-to-chinese-uighur-passenger-20140313-hvifh.html)

[Whiskey Mike Romeo]

I have followed this thread from the beginning and have read all posts that have not been deleted before I got to them.

About an hour ago, while reading yet another post about illicit communication with ground accomplices via satellite phones or cellphones, I starting shouting at my screen "Has nobody heard of HF?".

Then I came across Mike Banahan at 1119z and then J R Barrett at 1756z and realised that I was not alone in my thoughts.

As pointed out, HF aeronautical radios and their associated antenna tuners have wide band capabilities and used discreetly may go unnoticed.

Why would hijackers or rogue pilots need to risk drawing attention to themselves by taking hand held VHF on board when there are already decent powerful VHF COM sets on board connected to external antennae? Why risk using a pipsqueak radio whose batteries might die at the crucial moment? All that is needed is to pre arrange a selection of VHF channels which have been researched as not being in use wherever the hijacker intended to travel.

What has not been mentioned by the previous posters suggesting HF is that nowadays huge chunks of HF spectrum can be recorded using SDR and played back at leisure, with particular attention to transmissions sticking out as unusual. Likewise VHF, if anyone is recording it in that way.

Just a thought on "Roger that". Might not a pilot being leaned on by a third party break with convention in order to draw attention from ATC but not from a hijacker? In this instance could that have been too subtle?

[oldoberon]

@OldObern

I'm afraid I'm struggling a bit to understand what you mean - can you clarify? When you say that do you mean that the plane's position would have been on the 50-degree arc rather than the 40-degree?

I was trying to understand / envisage where the arc would be based on an earlier ping.

I now see all they can tell is the range based on the "elevation ring" , believe there are two arcs because they know it wasn't in that middle area, and the ends of the arc are based on fuel/range.

So when the aircraft was on one of the other rings , say for argument 50deg the arcs would be continuous, infact it may be the entire circle and anywhere inside or outside of it based on fuel.

Obviously a phone satellite is only concerned with range (angle of elevation) not where on the circle you are so each aerial ring is a 360 deg coverage

[Airbubba]

In the whole of my flying career I've never heard 'roger that' being used by a line pilot. Maybe things have changed in the past few years, but not in my experience?! I think the airline training Captains might have a wry smile and then correct the phraseology used.

"Roger that" mmm very American military or too many videos/games.
Personally don't think a civilian pilot would use the phrase but hey Ho who knows these days, but if I was investigating I'd look into it.

Anyone have the original source of that reported phrase, was it one of the press conferences in K.L. or a media release?

We Americans are indeed pretty bad on the radio overseas.

"Delta one six six line up and wait runway zero two center."
"One sixty-six on the hold."

I saw one report that the "roger that" phrase was from a briefing given by the Malaysian ambassador to Chinese families, presumably in English. Is there another source or transcript?

And can we stop all this talk of the 'precise flight path' flown from 'waypoint to waypoint' carefully 'avoiding various areas of radar cover'.


Don't know if this one has really been debunked, it is from a Reuters report yesterday:

...The fact that the aircraft - if it was MH370 - had lost contact with air traffic control and was invisible to civilian radar suggested someone on board had turned off its communication systems, the first two sources said.

They also gave new details on the direction in which the unidentified aircraft was heading - following aviation corridors identified on maps used by pilots as N571 and P628. These routes are taken by commercial planes flying from Southeast Asia to the Middle East or Europe and can be found in public documents issued by regional aviation authorities.

In a far more detailed description of the military radar plotting than has been publicly revealed, the first two sources said the last confirmed position of MH370 was at 35,000 feet about 90 miles off the east coast of Malaysia, heading towards Vietnam, near a navigational waypoint called "Igari". The time was 1:21 a.m..

The military track suggests it then turned sharply westwards, heading towards a waypoint called "Vampi", northeast of Indonesia's Aceh province and a navigational point used for planes following route N571 to the Middle East.

From there, the plot indicates the plane flew towards a waypoint called "Gival", south of the Thai island of Phuket, and was last plotted heading northwest towards another waypoint called "Igrex", on route P628 that would take it over the Andaman Islands and which carriers use to fly towards Europe.


Exclusive: Radar data suggests missing Malaysia plane deliberately flown way off course - sources | Reuters (http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/14/us-malaysia-airlines-radar-exclusive-idUSBREA2D0DG20140314)

What has not been mentioned by the previous posters suggesting HF is that nowadays huge chunks of HF spectrum can be recorded using SDR and played back at leisure, with particular attention to transmissions sticking out as unusual. Likewise VHF, if anyone is recording it in that way.


This wideband recording has been done for decades, well prior to SDR, by the military and other 'agencies'. Don't ask us how we know.

[misd-agin]

"Roger that" is not an uncommon acknowledgement in U.S. aviation talk. I believe it comes from the military and has crossed over, in small doses, to general U.S. conversational English, typically from former military personnel. It's used to acknowledge (ie WILCO) or as a general agreement(I wish we could get going. "Roger that")

[APLFLIGHT]

HawkEye Media Boeing 777 Avionics Compartment VR Panoramic Photography (http://hawkeyemedia.com/panos/777_Avionics.asp)

[jonathan3141]

Just adding to Ensco's post which said "I know something about mental health and suicide. Anyone who wonders why someone would go to such lengths to mask a suicide, doesn't have that much familiarity with suicide.

It is actually reasonably common that someone commits suicide, but tries to disappear rather than be remembered for the act of the suicide.

Also the willingness to murder innocents in the process is not quite so rare as people are making it out to be. Ask any policeman about what they think really happened in many head-on collisions that are classified as accidents."

I'm in a different industry, but one where unfortunately we have suicides take place. And it is not unusual for someone to take several hours on the top of a building before jumping. So the continuation of the flight (rather than an immediate dive) might not have been planned or deliberate but the person starts the process with a flight diversion and removing the comms, and then takes time before finally committing the act.

[Tourist]

I'm a pilot.

I have said "roger that" and "goodnight" many times.

I have never said them due to duress.:rolleyes:

[Mesoman]

I've been reading the thread, and have a few comments based on my radio/RF Engineering/software/comms background (my aviation is only P-3 aircrew, private pilot, and CAP SAR):

"Ping" - we don't know if this is being used as a technical term or simply a shorthand way to describe a transmission used just for link establishment/maintenance. It might actually refer to an ICMP "ping" message, but I doubt it. The safest assumption is the most general - it's just a received, short transmission.

Regarding the search arcs - they appear to be at constant range (and elevation) from one satellite. This implies that they were established either by signal strength measurements or timing. Triangulation, and measurements with two satellites don't match this.

Without knowing deep details, we cannot be sure of which. I would guess they are using just signal strength. The satellite probably logs each message with a bit of RF data - frequency/channel, strength, antenna used. In either case, unless remarkably tight timing information is being kept, the arc position will not be very accurate. If signal strength, they probably used one or more pings when the position of the plane was known to establish a baseline.

I hope someone with deep knowledge of INMARSAT appears and comments.

A non-technical note: the arcs appear to correspond to just one ping - probably the last. We have not heard where the other pings were located - unless they, by some chance, just happened to also be on the arc (i.e. had the same signal strength). A question to be answered.

Another non-technical: I doubt the aircraft had to be flying to generate the pings - it just had to not have been destroyed or completely powered off.

Regarding cell phones at altitude. Radio signals at those frequencies (low noise) can travel a surprising distance. A ~1/2 watt cell phone can easily reach 100 miles, unless TDMA timing protocols rule it out (depends on the specific modulation scheme). Likewise, doppler from a moving aircraft is from the component of motion along the line to the tower. Thus, if the phone is talking to something at 90 degrees to the line of flight, there is zero doppler, with it increasing as the angle approaches 0/180. I recently had an email appear while I was riding at >FL300 and had forgotten to set the phone to airplane mode.

The same observation on radio signals at high frequencies means that hand-held walkie talkies could be used at quite a distance for communications from an aircraft. Even an FRS radio (cheap HT's sold at many stores) could be used.

[Return 2 Stand]

Where, when and how are prone to "anything is possible" see the hundreds of posts on those topics already. Why and Who tend to improve focus. The flight crew is being discussed as the Who in many posts here and elsewhere but I have yet to see a Why that makes sense for either of them.

Complete conspiracy theory here…. But you hear of "sleeper" agents in the spy world. Maybe in the terrorist world, they could be doing the same with pilots. Guys training, getting flying jobs, seeming completely normal for years, arousing no suspicion, until the day they are "needed".

[buttrick]

Why would the perpatrators need to be anonymous?

Let us throw another spanner in the works.

I posit that there was a large quantity of gold bullion, or other very high value cargo in the hold of MH370. One or both of the flight crew conspired with a criminal gang to hi-jack the aircraft and fly it to a location where the criminal gang could recover the cargo.

Pure speculation of course, but it would certainly explain the lack of a crash site, lack of attribution to terrorist groups and the desire to remain anonymous. The destination would not necessarily require a runway if the aircrew were prepared to ditch or crash land the aircraft, or even abandon the aircraft, for it to crash at a known location.

Will Malaysian reveal a cargo list? If not, it may just lend credence to my posit.

Any body any thoughts on this?

[Lonewolf_50]

"Roger that" is not an uncommon acknowledgement in U.S. aviation talk.
Sadly true in too many cases.
I was one of those pedants who used to bust peoples' chops about that. It's bad radio discipline. Roger, Over, Out, WILCO ... a lot of terms have precise meanings if one bothers to learn what one has been trained to do. :mad:

A lot of our ship based air controllers got in the habit of using "roger that" but I am ten years out of date. I would hope that someone would have tried to clean up the airwaves, though maybe enough pedants are not around to have enough impact.

[1001001]

I suppose that pro pilots in service for many years or in familiar airspace might develop verbal shortcuts or personal touches. For me, as I get farther away from my normal flying areas and familiar-sounding controllers' voices, I get more standard in my speech.

I'm only a private pilot, but my instructor taught me to use concise, correct phraseology by commenting mercilessly about others' goofy phraseology overheard on the air. He tolerated a bit of personal modification to the official wordings, but was careful to instill in his students a respect for the benefits of consistent language.

Many of the students at the school where I learned to fly continue on to pro aviation careers (especially in ATC) and so there's a good emphasis on phraseology there. Usually there was a bit of good natured ribbing over strange phrases they had heard fellow students utter on the air.

[scroggins]

This would certainly be the simplest - and arguably most logical - explanation (see Ramjet555's post at 4097):

It appears that most of the worlds journalists and managers of the search have failed to do any "air of reality"checks with this story. The searchers have failed to think logically with the exception of the Chinese Government and the Vietnamese Government who have done an incredible job and who both deserve an honourable mention for their accurate reporting.

The Transponder and Flight Data STOPPED indicating a catastrophic explosion. The WRECKAGE DEBRIS was repeatedly observed, photographed and provided to searchers. Boats arriving could not find it. Those Photographs did not LIE, they were not fabricated. They are REAL EVIDENCE.

Oil Rig Worker Michael McKay was the First and Only Eye Witness to the explosion and his "Bearing confirms that it was along the flight path near where the Transponder Stopped.

The Satelite "PINGING" by Imarasat shows it ENDED in the same area as where the Transponder Stopped.

The problem is, Imarsat information has got the TIME wrong, it was NOT AFTER the accident time but AT the accident time the last reported "PING" was heard.

There appears to be a miscalculation of time or , the FL MH370 flew in circles in the same area for 7.5 hours and then crashed in the same area.

Imarsat is not showing an accurate map. The map shown is misleading and fails to allow for known errors that if allowed for place the last signal in the same area.

The Primary radar is dubious, and does not show clear evidence to support any flight away from the last known position.

There is NO evidence to support a highjacking.

Any search manager should take a close look at that Imarsat informatio, demand to see video or stills of that primary radar BEFORE assuming the "Highjack" theory and or wasting many millions of dollars searching in any area OTHER THAN

an Underwater search in the Immediate area after the transponder stopped.

At around 500 Knots, the debris will have travelled about 5 miles forward of the last known position along the Planned Flight Path and it is there that the heavy wreckage will be found.

The floating Debris has moved at about 50 miles a day and some maritime science needs to be used to determine from wind and currents since the crash time as to where that debris might be now.

The world owes an apology to the Governments of China and Vietnam for their incredible work to date and for the arrogance of the west to ignore their vital evidence.

Dito for Michael McKay who is the Sole Witness to this mid-air explosion.

The US navy needs to take its own appraisal of the above information and start an

underwater search centered on 5 nm ahead of the last known Transponder position on the Flight Path Track.

On a related note, does anyone know what this "debris" turned out to be?

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/assets/uploads/resizer/suspected_debris_mh370_south_china_morning_post_090314_360_2 23_100.jpg

[AirWon]

I have to concur with Tourist. I'm a humble heli pilot and I use " roger that" all the time. I am very surprised to see it even being discussed in the context of this thread.

[mixture]

then, those involved would be sophisticated enough to know, or learn through monitoring the world, including PPRuNe discussions, and make the necessary modifications IF (again) that is technically possible on the a/c systems.

I suspect Boeing, Airbus and the rest are already one step ahead. I don't think anyone wants to see this repeated. You'll probably find the US will mandate some sort of enhanced monitoring under the auspices of the TSA and National Security....other nations will no doubt eventually follow suit.

And quite honestly I feel sorry if anyone is trying to monitor the PPRuNe discussions for useful tidbits...unless its a Hollywood script writer looking for a few pointers to help with their writer's block ! :cool:

[ThadBeier]

If Inmarsat can establish that the 777 was on a particular arc during the last ping (these are the arcs we have seen recently) they can surely determine the arcs of the previous pings as well. Given that the groundspeed of the plane is probably known to with 10% at worst, a reasonable track of the plane's position should be possible. If it was pinging every half-hour, and we are absolutely certain of its position when the transponder was disconnected, then the range of possible flight paths based on a series of arcs and a estimated speed would be quite small.

I can't imagine why nobody is bringing this up. It's completely obvious.

[bille1319]

What has not been mentioned by the previous posters suggesting HF is that nowadays huge chunks of HF spectrum can be recorded using SDR and played back at leisure, with particular attention to transmissions sticking out as unusual. Likewise VHF, if anyone is recording it in that way.


This is interesting because intelligence networks like GCHQ do something along these lines and as the aircraft was equipped with something like Rockwell Collins HF 400W transceivers which can work any frequency between 2 and 30Mhz then it is possible those on the cockpit had capability of communicating on preassigned frequencies with a range of 1000s of miles.

[DWS]

About 15 years ago, as a tourist I passed thru Alice Springs- flew in- bussed out south via the ' gun barrel " hiway.
Was traveling with a random group- e.g. non affiliated.

And being generally aware of the OTH radar facility there - and later discussing it with some more knowledgeable people on the subject…

Its pretty sure the detection range publicly listed is much less than actual

As in being able to track military aircraft flying around during desert storm . .

My point is even if the Aussies went back to records and found some indication by matching times, possible tracks, etc it would probably be a while before they released it.

And I'm still quite sure the U S Navy is working on more than a ' hunch '-

But it will take spotting of a debris field and backtracking wind and waves to find if possible a ping . . . .

Even so it is a very big and DEEP ocean on the south leg of the arc

[Ian W]

Scroggins and Ramjet555's post at 4097

While I realize that you don't think that INMARSAT technicians can tell the time; one thing that they are reasonably good at is which satellite the signals are being received by. The position of handoff between Malaysia and Vietnam where you would have the explosion - is outside the footprint of the geostationary satellite that was receiving the pings for several HOURS. Mathematical lateration calculations put the last ping North West of Thailand received by a satellite whose footprint does not extend as far East as Thailand.

[techgeek]

The U.S. officials said the communication was four “pings” over a period of hours after the last ground contact with the plane, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which disappeared on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board.

citation for above quote (http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/missing-jet/u-s-officials-say-missing-malaysian-jet-pinged-satellites-n53166)

It seems you left this fact out of your theory!

Further to the point, it is based on this evidence that the US Navy has moved its assets west into the Indian Ocean.

[techgeek]

Precisely! I'd like to see a map showing each ping and it's arcs. I suspect the USN has this information.

[gulfairs]

Ramjet555s responce is the only one out of 'undreds of replies of rubbish that I have read in the past week.
Unless RR has improved its powerplants exponentially the references to 45000,(FL450) is unavailable because at the weights that the 777 was at it would only get to FL390 near the end of its scheduled flight.
It used to be a very light 747 that got over FL370, untill there was only about 4hrs fuel left on board.
For my money the aircraft had a technical problem(breakup) or sever control problem at less than 5 hours out of KL.

[Seat 22B]

I may be totally off here and I will welcome any correction but:

The 40 deg arc is being shown on maps as the supposed northerly option of the flight path.
There is no way that the aircraft flew along the arc as if it was some huge DME arc. The flight path would have cut through various arcs, the 40 deg one being just one, with the hourly ping being on a different one each time.

I must be missing something here...anyone?


I agree with you goose, not only that, but we must assume that the arc, is really a sector of a sphere, as the Ping only tells them the distance from the satellite at a certain time, and this diagram is only 2 dimensional. And this particular arc or section of sphere is all the possible locations as of the LAST ping.

They would have the data of all the other hourly pings (7?) and by starting out with the last known actual position, where it was lost off the actual radar, assuming a reasonable airspeed, they could intersect the plane's assumed trajectory with the Ping arc and have an idea of possible locations.

The assumptions they are making are airspeed and direction - they can't tell that by the pings. . Lots of assumptions. Many possibilities.

[jugofpropwash]

What would be the chances of the flight crew knowing what cargo was going to be on their flight, far enough ahead of schedule to plan something like that?

In my days in Ops, I would get the cargo manifest a few hours before departure to do the planning. Often it would get bumped to another flight if we had weight and balance (and space) issues. The cargo manifest went to the Cabin Crew. I would only notify the Flight Crew of what cargo was on board if there was a NOTOC involved. Even if we had something unusual, i.e. a car, that we knew about in advance, the crew wouldn't know until they saw it on the ramp.

I've given this some thought, and there are some possibilities.

First - one thing we know. There were approximately 50 less seats sold for the flight than max capacity. That might signify a heavy cargo. I would think that someone would have to plan that out ahead of time, otherwise the seats would be sold. If someone knew that regular shipments of something heavy (gold?) were being made, tracking available seats would point to which flight.

Also - this was a high-hour pilot with seniority. Presumably the red eye would not be a particularly desirable flight. It could be that if there was an important cargo or person on board, the airline assigned a senior pilot. If that was SOP, it could have been another indication of cargo.

[DWS]

Search teams have been withdrawn from the South China Sea, the area from which the plane's transponder, which relays identification signals to ground radar, sent its last signal. "Clearly, the search for MH370 has entered a new phase," he said.

"As of Saturday, 43 ships and 58 aircraft from 14 countries are involved in the search, the prime minister said.

The latest revelations indicate that the search areas will be significantly expanded, while Vietnam announced it would cease search operations following the prime minister's statement.

On Saturday, the U.S. Navy's Seventh Fleet confirmed that it had spent the day searching the Bay of Bengal far to the northwest of Malaysia. However, it now appears unlikely that Flight 370 could have flown there, given the bay's distance from both corridors highlighted by the prime minister.

A spokesman for the Seventh Fleet said patrol schedules were planned only one day in advance and the U.S. Navy "will not fly to the south" of the Bay of Bengal on Sunday, despite Mr. Najib's statement. "

THIS FOLLOWING THE COMMENT

" Based on the new data, aviation authorities of Malaysia and counterparts in other countries have determined that the plane's last satellite communication came from one of two corridors, Mr. Najib said: a northern one stretching approximately from the Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan border to northern Thailand or a southern one stretching approximately from Indonesia to the southern Indian Ocean.

If Flight 370 traveled north, it might have been above Thailand, China, Myanmar, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan or Turkmenistan at 8.11 a.m., according to the satellite data released by Kuala Lumpur. However, it would have needed to fly through the airspace of several countries to have reached that point, and it is unlikely that it could have done so undetected, especially if it passed close to China or India, both of which have air-defense systems.
"


AND THE PLANE WAS FUELED FOR ABOUT 8 HOURS FLIGHT
"The routine messages sent by the aircraft show that Flight 370 was still airborne nearly six hours after it disappeared from Malaysian military radar. The Boeing BA +1.00% 777-200 plane with 239 people on board was carrying enough fuel to fly for eight hours, Malaysia Airlines confirmed on Saturday"

[num1]

The 40 deg arc is being shown on maps as the supposed northerly option of the flight path. NO. the 40 degree arc is the possible position of the aircraft at the time of the "ping" to the satelite. The Aircraft could have been anywhere on that arc(In the red marked areas).


The flight path would have cut through various arcs, the 40 deg one being just one, with the hourly ping being on a different one each time.Right. But the degree of the three other pings has not been shared(yet).

[Golf-Mike-Mike]

I'm a humble heli pilot and I use " roger that" all the time. I am very surprised to see it even being discussed in the context of this thread.

I'm a pilot too and pretty sure I've used this phrase on occasions but what I haven't seen is what he was responding to. If it was a frequency change to the Vietnamese controller then strictly speaking it is one of those items, like a runway clearance, heading, speed or altitude change where a readback is required and he didn't.

While it doesn't prove anything, other than rather casual phraseology late at night, it might have prompted the Malaysian controller to quickly ask for a readback before MH370 changed frequency to be sure of a clean handover.

[Communicator]

Reading the Malaysian PM's statement as a whole, the thing that stands out is that it is carefully crafted to address an obvious question about the Malaysian government's handling of the matter:

Why did Malaysia fail to take advantage of civilian and military primary radar data that were readily available from the beginning?

The implied answer asserted by the PM could be paraphrased as follow:


Malaysian government did (ultimately) notice that an aircraft had flown across peninsular Malaysia,
The primary radar track was not connected with MH370 at first due to the absence of transponder data.
The primary radar track was only connected with MH370 when the relevance of Satcom ping information was appreciated some days later.

Current attempts to pinpoint the location of the aircraft based on extrapolation from Inmarsat ping communications should be seen against this background, and be taken with a large pinch of salt.

It is tempting to overestimate the degree to which Inmarsat data can be relied on, all the more tempting as we have nothing else in the public domain. However, as pointed out by earlier contributors, estimating location from radio signal strength cannot give more than a very rough indication of range. It may be worth the effort and cost to conduct a full-fledged trial to confirm assumptions about signal strength etc. given the actual type of aircraft, antenna, flight attitude, etc.

More sophisticated techniques based on signal transit times etc. are more promising in theory, but the Inmarsat protocols are not primarily designed for this purpose. Transponders on the satellite may not have measured/collected/downlinked timing data except as necessary for link establishment and maintenance. TDMA related data may be most promising to the extent it remains extant.

As another contributor has noted, it is possible that ACARS also sent out pings on VHF which might have been received while MH370 was (again) in the vicinity of land (Malaysia or Indonesia). Space-based SIGINT may also be of assistance, but we will not hear about such efforts.

Obviously, contemporaneous visual satellite imagery would be the the easiest way to spot an aircraft in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

[overthewing]

@bbg

Unless RR has improved its powerplants exponentially the references to 45000,(FL450) is unavailable because at the weights that the 777 was at it would only get to FL390 near the end of its scheduled flight.

I believe that BA38, the 777 that crashed at LHR, had spent a lot of its flight at 40,000ft? That was thought to have contributed to the icing problem.

[opsmarco]

What would be the chances of the flight crew knowing what cargo was going to be on their flight, far enough ahead of schedule to plan something like that?

In my days in Ops, I would get the cargo manifest a few hours before departure to do the planning. Often it would get bumped to another flight if we had weight and balance (and space) issues. The cargo manifest went to the Cabin Crew. I would only notify the Flight Crew of what cargo was on board if there was a NOTOC involved. Even if we had something unusual, i.e. a car, that we knew about in advance, the crew wouldn't know until they saw it on the ramp.

I have no idea what load-control system you used to work with, but from my days doing weight & balance (4 years ago), I used to work with several different systems, all of them creating a NOTOC and an indication in the loadsheet (in the LDM section) when valuables where onboard (VAL/xxx/hold). It's something pretty usual in Switzerland, to have valuables onboard, so I'm used to print NOTOCs and loadsheets with that code...

[GCharlie]

Post #4077, Techgeek said "Please disprove this line of reasoning..."

You based your conclusion on hourly data updates. Revisit using updates that are twice as frequent.

Andy Pasztor, WSJ, broke the story about the data transmissions on Thursday. His report indicated that the data was in 30 minute increments. Pasztor initially reported that the plane could have flown up to four hours after the last official reported contact of 01:41. In an interview with NPR, he also said that it was possible that it (the aircraft) had landed.

Behind his report is the implication that data points are missing from a regular 30 minute interval pattern.

[Return 2 Stand]

I have no idea what load-control system you used to work with, but from my days doing weight & balance (4 years ago), I used to work with several different systems, all of them creating a NOTOC and an indication in the loadsheet (in the LDM section) when valuables where onboard (VAL/xxx/hold). It's something pretty usual in Switzerland, to have valuables onboard, so I'm used to print NOTOCs and loadsheets with that code...

Yes. But you'd give the NOTOC to the crew with the load sheet wouldn't you? They wouldn't be informed weeks ahead, in order to plan a heist.

[opsmarco]

Yes. But you'd give the NOTOC to the crew with the load sheet wouldn't you? They wouldn't be informed weeks ahead, in order to plan a heist.

I agree, I was just stating that valuables are considered special load, and for that, pilots get a NOTOC, since it wasn't clear from previous statement.

[D.S.]

Ramjet555 (http://www.pprune.org/members/253796-ramjet555)said:

The Transponder and Flight Data STOPPED indicating a catastrophic explosion. The "alright, good night" AND contact with Japan Bound flight came AFTER it was switched off.

The WRECKAGE DEBRIS was repeatedly observed, photographed and provided to searchers. Boats arriving could not find it. Those Photographs did not LIE, they were not fabricated. They are REAL EVIDENCE.Vietnam found plenty of that "evidence" and none of it was from the plane:
http://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/malaysianairlinemystery2014/vietnam-says-cannot-find-object-from-missing-malaysian-airlines-jet/article1-1193007.aspx

Oil Rig Worker Michael McKay was the First and Only Eye Witness to the explosion and his "Bearing confirms that it was along the flight path near where the Transponder Stopped. There is no physical way he could have. Distance and circumference of Earth do not cease to exist just because you want him to have seen what he thought maybe he saw

The Satelite "PINGING" by Imarasat shows it ENDED in the same area as where the Transponder Stopped.So the plane just hovered there for 7+ hours? And during this 7+ hours, no one was able to spot it while the search was underway?

The problem is, Imarsat information has got the TIME wrong, it was NOT AFTER the accident time but AT the accident time the last reported "PING" was heard. There are a bunch of the pings, not one

There appears to be a miscalculation of time or , the FL MH370 flew in circles in the same area for 7.5 hours and then crashed in the same area. ...so it did hover then? And since the search started roughly 6 hours after the plane went missing, about 1.5 hours of the Hovering took place in the middle of the SAR team?

Good thing there wasnt a midair collision between SAR and the hovering MH370 with all that trafic - we must have dodged a major bullet there!

The Primary radar is dubious, and does not show clear evidence to support any flight away from the last known position.Ghost plane? Something big was picked up, and followed that path. Not only that, but there are at minimum 11 eye witness reports at the Malaysia/Thailand border putting a plane flying from the Gulf of Thailand towards the Straits between 1:30-1:45 (must be coincidence though as this is the same time the plane is hovering, right?)

There is NO evidence to support a highjacking.Except for the evidence you don't want to hear

Any search manager should take a close look at that Imarsat informatio, demand to see video or stills of that primary radar BEFORE assuming the "Highjack" theory and or wasting many millions of dollars searching in any area OTHER THAN So all real evidence that all the Governments seem to be agreeing on now is just wrong, and those Governments are wrong, and because of that what all the real evidence indicates is also wrong - therefore, the plane has to be where it absolutely cant be after having a catastrophic event it couldn't have had? Makes sense...

an Underwater search in the Immediate area after the transponder stopped.the area is 30-75 Meters deep! if you stood the plane on its nose in the area it went down, odds are its tail would be sticking out above the surface! If 14 countries cant find the black box in that depth...

At around 500 Knots, the debris will have travelled about 5 miles forward of the last known position along the Planned Flight Path and it is there that the heavy wreckage will be found. Do you not know how A) Small the body of water is there B) how many planes, ships and satellites have been combing thh area?

The floating Debris has moved at about 50 miles a day and some maritime science needs to be used to determine from wind and currents since the crash time as to where that debris might be now. They were there watching everything within 6 hours. The debris would have had to have been seen THEN, and it wouldn't matter where it could have gone much, much, much later

The world owes an apology to the Governments of China and Vietnam for their incredible work to date and for the arrogance of the west to ignore their vital evidence.no - Malaysia owes them an apology for lying to everyone for a week before telling them looking in that area was absolutely pointless. What we know
Planes tracking Disabled - THEN pilots talk to ATC and Japan Bound Plane - THEN Eyewitnesses put it over Malaysia/Thailand - THEN radar picks it up ... and they knew all that within hours of the event! That is why one of the first statements Malaysia made included "last contact at 2:40", "indication it turned around" and "eyewitness reports"

Also, there is no "evidence" what so ever, no matter how hard people try to twist things. Nothing AT ALL is there

Dito for Michael McKay who is the Sole Witness to this mid-air explosion.Again, physically impossible

The US navy needs to take its own appraisal of the above information and start an underwater search centered on 5 nm ahead of the last known Transponder position on the Flight Path Track.Get a scuba tank and do it yourself - it is THAT SHALLOW of water!

meanwhile, no one else should be wasting their time in the Gulf Of Thailand, there has never been a shred of evidence it was there and only a thought of "well, it last contacted us from here so it must be here"

And I would just like to point out, in your entire post, you did not even provide one fact other than the nod to Vietnam doing a good job - which they did do a great job trying to look for the needle miles away from anything resembling a haystack. China did a horrific job here though - releasing nonsense like the satellite image (which they later said basically 'oops, we shouldn't have released that, its not the plane', something which should have been pretty obvious since the so-called debris was said to be 3x the size of the plane) and then made the asinine claim of "seismic activity where there never is any" (despite it being IN the Ring Of Fire, at the exact time a 2.7 Earth Quake was taking place not far away) ... China had to have known they were talking straight nonsense, yet still put it out there giving people false hope the plane could have ever been in the Gulf of Thailand when it was known by Malaysia (and I imagine suspected by everyone) that it wasn't there

[Harry O]

Nothing much happens they said, so the radar is switched off :ouch:

Yahoo News UK & Ireland - Latest World News & UK News Headlines (http://uk.news.yahoo.com/malaysian-plane-saga-highlights-air-defence-gaps-201917710--sector.html#r7XQfS)

[lakedude]

I'd like to help y'all understand the arcs because I think there is a misunderstanding of what they represent. IMHO they are not possible flight paths.

The arcs line up exactly with the range information from one single satellite, not two. This indicates that they are primarily getting their information from only one satellite (the only one in range).

Funny thing about these satellites (assuming the pic a few pages back is correct) is that they are all in a line so even if three or more were in range no "triangulation" would be possible because the satellites are not arranged in a triangle. GPS satellites are not arranged in a straight line for this exact reason.

All the arcs indicate is that at a few specific times the plane was roughly at a few points (or possibly only one point) along the arc, not that the plane flew exactly along the arc.

One satellite is going to give you a circle (in 2 dimensions, really a sphere but we can safely assume the plane is not in space or anywhere out of flight range to the west). Two satellites would give you duplicate points of intersection north and south. It would take a 3rd satellite that was not in line with the first 2 to triangulate and determine which of the north or south points was the correct one.

Since we are being shown arcs of a circle the information is only coming from one satellite.

[ChrisJ800]

Id like to know answers to OBD's 2 questions on fuel quantity at push back and cargo manifest.

In addition if a pilot is wearing a flight deck oxygen mask would that make his RT voice sound mumbled or muffled? And what is the approx duration of the flight deck 02 supply? Are we talking a few minutes or longer?

[D.S.]

Communicator said

The primary radar track was only connected with MH370 when the relevance of Satcom ping information was appreciated some days later.

That is not correct. The Malaysia Government instantly recognized it as the plane, hence "last contact was 2:40" and "evidence to suggest the plane turned around" being relayed to the media on day 1 (remember, the initial thought by absolutely everyone everywhere was the plane was lost after 2 hours, not 1)

Only later, for God only knows what reason, did they start saying there must have been a catastrophic event taking place between 1:20-1:30 at the last known location - that despite their knowing the plane made verbal communication twice in that time frame, their hard evidence said it took a turn and eye witness accounts said it took a turn

[mm43]

@Communicator,It may be worth the to conduct a full-fledged trial to confirm assumptions about signal strength etc. given the actual type of aircraft, antenna, flight attitude, etc.The Inmarsat aperture angles have been determined by reference to the node establishment 'pings' tx/rx timings, meaning that the accuracy of the arcs shown is reasonable, though could be subject to some small errors associated with the internal pass-through time of the aircraft SatCom equipment.

EDIT: I made the following comment in Post #3819 (http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/535538-malaysian-airlines-mh370-contact-lost-191.html#post8377351) over 12 hours ago;That timing will produce a position line (in this case a curved one) and the originating signal will be somewhere along that line.

[dsc810]

Well, I would imagine that there is no way that information on the fuel and the cargo is going to be released to the public.
So while many would like it - they ain't going to get it.

[Speed of Sound]

Can we stop all these nonsense theories about cargo theft?

If anyone had enough advance knowledge of the cargo and the flight it was carried on to plan to hijack the plane, they would have saved themselves a hell of a lot of money, risk and trouble by hijacking the truck that took it to or from the airport.

The only part the cargo has to play in the solving of this mystery is if it was in some way responsible for causing an explosion, fire or other incident in flight.

Oh and on the subject of the 'roger that' reply, do we know that the pilot making that comment was speaking English? If he was talking to Malaysian ATC he may have been speaking Malay and the above may simply be a poor translation into English.

[MikeBanahan]

What has not been mentioned by the previous posters suggesting HF is that nowadays huge chunks of HF spectrum can be recorded using SDR and played back at leisure, with particular attention to transmissions sticking out as unusual. Likewise VHF, if anyone is recording it in that way.

This is interesting because intelligence networks like GCHQ do something along these lines and as the aircraft was equipped with something like Rockwell Collins HF 400W transceivers which can work any frequency between 2 and 30Mhz then it is possible those on the cockpit had capability of communicating on preassigned frequencies with a range of 1000s of miles.The key things here are 'if it stands out' and 'if it was heard'. Short HF transmissions in the middle of an Amateur Radio or Maritime frequency block are, I suggest, highly unlikely to draw attention to themselves unless there is something spectacularly unusual about them, even assuming that the signal is received loud and clear at a monitoring station. And even if someone spotted them immediately and identified the transmissions as unusual, unless the messages contained clear intent and identifiable place names, there is going to be very little that can be done about it. Something like "Alfa this is Bravo, all according to plan, ETA position Charlie four hours" isn't going to give much away unless you can recognise the speaker's voice or instantly triangulate it (good luck with that) to a location of high interest.

The radio bands are cluttered with all manner of transmissions from any number of sources, most of which are going to be unidentifiable unless they choose to identify themselves. Ships, aircraft, expeditions, taxis, radio hams, smugglers, take your pick ...

[RifRaf3]

Full face Oxy masks usually are clear but a bit hollow and nasal in tone, not muffled. In a hijack situation the interloper is listening in and that should involve a non standard speaker or mic set up that could muffle things somewhat.

I agree with D.S.'s critique of the Ramjet555 theory.

The pilots are reasonable suspects, no matter how harsh, just as when someone is murdered in a home the spouse is normally on the suspect list.

[luoto]

The end of this article intimates that India's radar might not a always be switched on (!) and thus the aircraft might have been missed. Hunt for MH370 nears Indian coast | The Indian Express (http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/hunt-for-mh370-nears-indian-coast/)

[JanetFlight]

Based on the new "~8 hours fuel time" quote by Malaysia auth, and following that supposed Southern Arc, it was within the "range" to reach outskirts of Antarctica, just asking?
Ok, i assume the most proper answer would be "C'mon, why the Hell this frozen Land???", but just asking...

[justawanab]

If anyone had enough advance knowledge of the cargo and the flight it was carried on to plan to hijack the plane, they would have saved themselves a hell of a lot of money, risk and trouble by hijacking the truck that took it to or from the airport.

Anyone who was capable of organising the heist of a 777 in order to run off with its cargo would probably be able to make darned sure they had the right contacts in place to ensure it went on the right aircraft at the right time.

The problem with hijacking the truck on the way to the airport is that you would then still have to get it out of the country. That problem is eliminated if it's already 'flown', as it were.

[techgeek]

Thanks for clarifying. If there are more frequent "pings" then a/c location should be more precisely fixed than being publicly stated.

Also, as lakedude pointed out earlier, I think many are misinterpreting the arcs shown on a map as a flight path (like flying a DME arc). These are plots of possible positions of the a/c at a given point in time. The aircraft can be at one and only one point along the arc. The arc defines the possible points at a given time that a "ping" was received.

[JPK]

I have been lurking here, but have not been able to read everything. just some points:

1. Pilot playing pilot at home: It was said on various web sites posting information on the pilot that he was involved in simulator training with his company. It would therefore make sense to have such equipment at home. This does not have to have a sinister background.

2. As to the WHY: If this was a suicide by a crew member, it would be most logical to hide the flight trail and divert the plane to the South corridor. Previous suicides were concluded as such because the plane was found. Ditching it where the ocean is very deep and hiding its trail would therefore be a very logical, rational thing to do. Plus, waiting for it to fall out of the sky would ensure that nothing unusual is recorded should the black boxes ever be found and readable.

3. IF it was not a "simple" suicide mission, it would have to be a very organized hijacking. The last terror attack by Uyghurs was a very messy knife attack. Nothing like MH370, which to me looks very cold and methodical. Even al Qaida is currently focusing on more simple, bloody attacks. To me, this looks more like special ops. It would appear to me there are not many countries with reason (still unknown to me) and capability and even fewer freelancers. But then, I am only a scientist trained to be very rational and logical.

I also have some points that I find confusing.

Were the reports that there was radio contact with MH370 by another airliner not disputed later? It seems this is now taken as a given.

Why is the WH involved in press conferences? I missed the initial reports on that. I cannot remember they got into the game during the Air France incident. By contrast, China is comparably quiet given that most passengers are theirs.

Would voluntary decompression of the plane generate a noise that could be heard by witnesses on the ground?

If the plane indeed changed flight levels dramatically in the beginning of th editor, would RR not have gotten the data? It seems they did get routine reports by the plane on the way up. Should a rapid climb up not generate a report?

Sorry, if what I raised is trivial. I have no flight experience other than as an occasional passenger.

[bono]

Mark Dodd, a spokesman for the Australian Defense Ministry, said he hadn’t heard of any trace of the aircraft being picked up by his nation. Australia’s network includes a long-range radar system capable of detecting air targets as small as the BAE Systems Hawk, a single-engine, two-seater jet.
A base station in Laverton, Western Australia state, has a range of about 3,000 kilometers covering most of the ocean south of Java and west from Perth, he said.
Ocean Off Perth Called Diverted Malaysian Plane's Most Likely Last Position - Bloomberg (http://goo.gl/bXFlK3)

Where now? Looks like it headed off further west between Australia and Madagascar well outside the range of Australian radar. Looks like someone was really really trying to get lost.


http://i61.tinypic.com/2czsym8.jpg

[xyze]

Speed of sound, you may be right about it being easier to rob the truck but if it was 4300kg of gold you were trying to pinch (see earlier posts for derivation of this figure) how would you move it? As bizarre as it seems, taking the plane is logistically easier, and, as may have been proven, more likely to succeed.

Not saying this is what has happened, but until the cargo manifest is released this option is on the table.

[KKN_]

There is one extremely important aspect that is never mentioned on really anyones timeline. That is

0107 - ACARS disconnected
0121 - Transponder switched off
0122 - "Alright, Good night"
shortly after 0130 - Japan Flight makes radio contact with plane
Between 0130-0145 - multiple eyewitness reports from Malaysia/Thailand border areas (Businessman, Bus Driver, 'Villagers', etc)Well, it is rarely mentioned because it likely never happened that way. It comes from one early claim by the New Strait Time (http://www.nst.com.my/nation/general/font-color-red-missing-mh370-font-pilot-i-established-contact-with-plane-1.503464?cache=03%2F7.212150%3Fpage%3D0%3Fpage%3D0%2F7.24706 6%2F7.490557%2F7.502513%2F7.576388)s that has been picked up in the usual rash by other outlets (XYZ have learned) who later did not find it interesting anymore.

A pilot is quoted to have speaken anonymously, fine. But then that writing goes on to say the source was on a T7 (how pertinent), captain, bound for Narita, 30' ahead, and knew the MH370 crew by first name (and voice) ... Not very smart for an 'anonymous' pilot, or a real journalist, for that matter. The text just screams 'I'm credible'.

Guess the anonymity lies in the non-existence of this source.

[ExSp33db1rd]

..........the CVR will be useless as it only records two hours.

Why useless, it should give a clue as to what happened at the start of the drama, which will be something at least ?

[Richard W]

All the arcs indicate is that at a few specific times the plane was roughly at a few points along the arc, not that the plane flew exactly along the arc.
Not even that. The arcs represents the possible positions of the aircraft at the time of the last ping. This seems to be mostly based on the measured distance of the plane from the satellite and the limits on the altitude of the aircraft. This ought to yield a full circle. Consideration of satellite coverage eliminates parts of the circle, and other parts have been eliminated by consideration of the range and possible speed of the aircraft.

[raindog308]

..........the CVR will be useless as it only records two hours.

Why useless, it should give a clue as to what happened at the start of the drama, which will be something at least ?


It's a loop - you always have the last two hours.

[KKN_]

If the pinging is hourly, how can reports of a) four more pings, but b) data up to ca. 7h after LOC be reconciled?

Transmission capability degraded? Or weaker signals (4th+) only found between reports, after re-examination / with more shade-loving sources ...

[awblain]

Well, let's say it's the heist of the century…. where's the plane?

The hypothetical gold might be expensive, but not really when compared with over 200 lives, or the price of a replacement for the aircraft. How much would it cost to arrange the level of complexity in a plot to steal the gold while airborne, have it land somewhere safe for you to offload, and then safely disappear with it.

The lack of people on their delayed way to Beijing would seem to argue against a robbery.

[SLFplatine]

Diego Garcia: I think it would be very safe to assume that if a large unidentifiable plane flew anywhere remotely close to Diego Garcia it would have been noticed.
I also think it would be reasonable to assume that if a long haul jet capable of mach 0.8 airspeed went missing with possibly 7 hours of fuel aboard, every military asset within a radius of 6,000 kilomètre would have been put on alert.
I would also note, courtesy of Stratfor from open source info (i.e. public, non classified) that there is an American CSG (Carrier Strike Group) in the Arabian Sea.
It is possible that this plane will never be found because it is not in anyone's interest to have it found. This is pure speculation of course, but I would argue it is one of a number of possible outcomes.

[hercit]

Ramjet555 makes a good point. The authorities have to follow up on every possibility regardless. The US Navy does not send ships and aircraft out on whims their confidence in the data must be fairly high.
That said nearly every SAR I have ever been involved in had primary radar tracks involved that turned out to be garbage. I find it hard to believe that more discussion has not revolved around what was actually in the cargo hold. Not what was manifested but what did the ground crew load.
As long as we have people speculating. What about a pallet of lithium batteries? Assume it was damaged and X amount of time later there was a thermal runaway. There are two hull losses associated with lithium batteries. UPS in Dubai and Asiana out of Inchon. No there should not have been a pallet of lithium batteries on a pax carrier. But there should not have been a oxygen generator on Value Jet either. We need to know exactly what was loaded on that aircraft.
Those of you that know the T7 can speculate on how that type of fire would propagate. I will leave that to the experts if this is not dismissed outright. I can envision a scenario that fits with what we know and leaves the crew incapacitated and riding a roman candle into the sea right where the Kiwi said he saw it. Seeing a fire trail in the sky from 150-200 nm away is not impossible or improbable.
Far fetched? Perhaps....

[Raptor Systems TT]

Maybe an international heist,fly it to your destination of choice,why limit nowadays sophisticated criminals to a truck robbery,do you know that Swiss or Swedish thieves used a helicopter for a major robbery?

I'm not saying this happened,but I'm saying do not underestimate nowadays criminals,sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction,and a lot of 'fiction' has elements of truth.

[SashaM]

>I would be highly sceptical to find out, that they missed target huge as 777, even if it was coming from not so exposed direction.

Alternatively, they didn't miss it. Maybe even expecting it?

[jugofpropwash]

The lack of people on their delayed way to Beijing would seem to argue against a robbery.

If the airplane did indeed spend any length of time at or around 40,000ft, then there's a good chance it was done to assure a lack of resistance from the passengers and cabin crew. After that, the person flying most likely had the aircraft to himself.

[pauljager]

Dear members of the press, (I know you are reading this)
Please could you do your own credibility a huge favour and understand the following rough guidelines when referring to flight crew:
A large passenger jet is always flown by at least 2 pilots.
The man in charge is called the captain, or commander. Sits on the left.
The other pilot is called the First Officer. Sits on the right.
Sometimes there is a 3rd pilot who can be called 2nd Officer or cruise- or relief-pilot.
There are other combinations but I want to keep it at this.

It really is that simple. So just to be sure:
The captain is not NOT the chief pilot (BBC news Asia) NOT the first officer (Piers Morgan) and don't ever, ever, EVER refer to 'the pilot of the plane' because there are ALWAYS TWO. At least.

Now consider yourself told and go about your business.

[RifRaf3]

Of course we would like to know the cargo and on past experience the manifest may not represent the facts. We would also like to know the fuel load. Both are highly relevant, however we are not going to get that information and the reasons it's being withheld can be perfectly good security reasons, not automatically sinister ones.

[ExSp33db1rd]

.........the CVR will be useless as it only records two hours.

Why useless, it should give a clue as to what happened at the start of the drama, which will be something at least ?

I assume the CVR only holds the last two hours or whatever period it's designed to record?

Correct, apologies ! Not thinking straight, but even that would be better than nothing - which is all we have at the moment !

[A310bcal]

@xyze :

Totally agree with your last post ; IF there was indeed a gold shipment on that flight, I have no doubt that it would not be too difficult for any Senior Captain to find out in advance when the shipment was going to "travel".

As you have said, flying your stolen gold to a place of your own choosing will ensure that you have the requisite time to offload and dispose/distribute the gold to some safe haven.

The one thing that has struck me is the amount of planning that has gone into this "disappearance" ( obviously assuming all the facts as we see them presented now to be correct ) Timing of the ACARS and Txpndr switch off, the final call and then into that period of uncertainness when loss of comms first realised. The supposed ziz-zag flight path before heading off N West. From that moment on, the clock started ticking and it is now nearly 8 days since the aircraft disappeared !! So many red herrings in the plot , some unintentional, but others rather more suspicious. The Chinese satellite pictures, then a report of a seismic event? Just when everyone was starting to look West?

I wonder what pensions are for a long serving Captain in Malaysia, or what the career prospects are for a S/F/O ?
I wonder if the home simulator is good for practicing night formation flying in a big jet?

I also wonder why, when so many people are asking, no-one is prepared to state what the cargo was as it ended up limiting pax load due to ZFW limitations.

I think that one has to assume the pax are hapless victims in all this. Perhaps accomplices amongst them, but I really wonder if we'll discover the truth as time is passing quickly with relatively little concrete information.

Very finally , I wonder if the "mods" have someone looking over their shoulders as this thread travels on. For sure, there is an awful lot of stuff in these 205 pages which could prove useful in the wrong hands and I'm surprised that some of it has actually been passed as "fit for consumption by one and all"

[ZeBedie]

If undetected suicide & mass murder was the aim of one of the pilots, wouldn't it have been easier to do it on a flight which took him out across a deep ocean as part of the route? 30 West and spear it in?

[ackfoo]

Quoting lakedude:

Funny thing about these satellites (assuming the pic a few pages back is correct) is that they are all in a line so even if three or more were in range no "triangulation" would be possible because the satellites are not arranged in a triangle. GPS satellites are not arranged in a straight line for this exact reason.


Triangulation doesn't require the points of measurement to be in a triangle, or even for there to be three of them, as you would have learned had you attended a middle school mathematics class--two will do just fine. The triangle in triangulation is created by the lines of the sightings from two separate points to the target and the line between the two points. Given that, you might wish to try to imagine how two points can ever form anything but a line, although I suppose that is probably beyond your current skill level as well.

It is probably tilting at windmills, but you may also be interested to find out that Inmarsat satellites are in geosynchronous orbit, and therefore only appear in a straight line (over the equator) when drawn on a two-dimensional map--but this is solely an illusion created by the projection of three-dimensional space on a flat surface.

GPS satellites are in low-Earth orbit, with the result that they do not maintain a constant arrangement with respect to one another at all--a consequence of their orbital mechanics.

Also, the Earth is round. Actually, it is a geoid, which is an irregular shape something like an oblate spheroid, but 'round' should get you going in the right direction.

[SashaM]

>I find the Northern route more credible with Myanmar the hole in the radar fence. They've then got very high ground to cover any intended Westward movement from the Indian radars. The altitude excursions probably indicate non pro pilots as VNAV is the more complicated mode, whist HDG SEL is adequate for LNAV using just a mobile or tablet FMC app. No need for a/c systems nav at all. I've got doubts that they made it unless the authorities in some country en-route were also in on it.


Well that's the elephant in the room, isn't it?

Can any of the pros in here tell me if the northern route ping data is compatible with the T7 flying north through Myanmar and staying over or on the Tinetan side of the himalayas?

Is there any stealth type advantage to flighing close to or above a mountain range?

I'm assuming the cargo in the hold has been dumped for extra range (if you can do that while in flight) and any cargo of interest to hijackers is carried as hand luggage.

[PerAnd]

The information still lacking is Inmarsats ability to identify MH370.
Theoretically it should be able to identify the ac, but we don´t know from evidence that it really did. It is just hearsaying. What we need is transcript from every ping. Maybe the pings comes from similar planes.

[Leightman 957]

Trying again--several post attempts since p150 have not appeared and I don't know why. Too many posts are mired in willful ignorance (didn’t read preceding posts) or in details. There are not many either/ors for this flight. The plane took off. There are a few pieces of information after that but not many. Governments are withholding information. There are active efforts to mislead (either east or west). The plane crashed within a short time after the last CONFIRMED position, or landed under control anytime after that before its fuel was exhausted. The pilot acted alone or with help. The pilot may or may not have been a willing or unwilling (coerced) participant. There was a plan or there wasn’t. The plan was a failure or a success. The pilot died or is alive. The flight’s goal may have been happenstance, a hole in the ocean, or a rendezvous.

Suppositions couched in accurate detail are still only suppositions. Suppositions do assist in exploring each possible outcome. Passengers, who have been getting most of the attention, may have been mere pawns and their well being perhaps not important. There are many possibilities where the value of passenger lives may have been irrelevant to some “greater good”.

Everyone wants to believe pilots eternally will act in passengers best interests. Excluding suicide, which appears unlikely unless there was last minute indecision, it took 150 pages on this forum for the idea of intention to get out. Intention beyond suicide may well be behind this. The plan may have been a success. Even if debris were now found floating somewhere, a plan may already have been a success to someone. We don’t want to think this, and have trouble imagining a good greater than 239 lives, but there are astonishing numbers of people who for the correct greater good in their own eyes would see the lives of 238 or 239 passengers to be a small and economical price to pay for something they want.

More attention needs to be paid to what or who might have been on that flight.

[alex76]

Would also like to know more about those 'noshows' who were replaced.

- Why were they no shows and has anyone spoken to them?
- who replaced them?
- when was this done?

[techgeek]

Based on my review of the underlying protocols there are a couple of candidates for "pings". There are requests to establish a comm link between the a/c and ground station via satellite that involve underlying requests to use a particular communication channel with an exchange of packets negotiating that connection (AMSS). Then there are keepalive packets (IDRP) exchanged once a connection is established that occur periodically. I suspect that there were 4 connection requests with more numerous keepalive packets exchanged in between. Of course this is conjecture. I have no way of knowing but someone does!

In the end, I suspect that BOTH are true - 4 pings of one kind and numerous pings of another kind.

[OleOle]

Another thought on SATCOM derived lines of position:

Depending on how long the backlogs of inmarsat are, it should be possible to find data of previous flights of the a/c in the logs. Whatever data is logged there (signal strength, round trip delay, dopplershift, ???), it should be possible to calibrate specifics of MH370 transceiver against data from previous flights. For those flights the exact position, height and speed vector should be known for the points in time when the pings where exchanged.

Probably a bunch of RF engineers is doing extra shifts right now. Im pretty confident, in the end it will boil down to the question, where did MH370 go to after 8:11 MYT.

[zidane16]

The pings that have been tracked, do they stop when an aircraft is powered down at an airport or do they continue under battery?

(not a pilot or journalist but a fascinated observer)

[GarageYears]

I think, overthewing, he was assuming that the CVR had been disabled at the same time as the transponder etc, and so had indeed recorded Act 1 of the drama.
However, the CVR can be erased (by anybody on the flight deck) by the mere push of a button.
Whereas the FDR...........

I think the CVR can only be erased with the aircraft on the ground (WOW) and the engines shutdown?

[Speed of Sound]

Speed of sound, you may be right about it being easier to rob the truck but if it was 4300kg of gold you were trying to pinch (see earlier posts for derivation of this figure) how would you move it?

Four and a half tonnes of gold? I'd move it in a 7.5 tonne truck!

And does anyone seriously believe that £120 million worth of gold would be carried on a scheduled passenger flight?

[F.Nose]

We would also like to know the fuel load. Both are highly relevant, however we are not going to get that information and the reasons it's being withheld can be perfectly good security reasons, not automatically sinister ones.

Really? The plane and 200 or so people have been missing now for 9 days. Releasing cargo and fuel information is hardly going to make it less secure!

[underfire]

The US Navy 5th fleet always has a carrier group covering the Persian Gulf, Red Sea, Arabian Sea, and parts of the Indian Ocean.

[porterhouse]

Looks like it headed off further west between Australia and MadagascarThis more westerly route is incompatible with this map (or Australian defence simply missed the object regardless what they say). Or they took the northerly route.

http://static01.nyt.com/images/2014/03/16/world/asia/16flight-map/16flight-map-articleLarge.jpg

[AIprogrammer]

speaking as a software design and AI guy, it seems entirely sensible and do-able that, in specific cases, total control of a plane could be taken away from the cockpit and handed to a combination of autopilot systems and external commands (via satellite), in other words, turn the plane into a drone.

so far, the scenario is compatible with unknown problem detected one hour into flight, external diversion of plane to miliitarily secure airport via low-detection routing and releasing, for the time being, misinformation to a) mislead "enemy" and b) try and keep this capabilty secret.

does anybody know if external-takeover technology is possible/implemented/out of the question?

[lakedude]

Not even that. The arcs represents the possible positions of the aircraft at the time of the last ping. This seems to be mostly based on the measured distance of the plane from the satellite and the limits on the altitude of the aircraft. This ought to yield a full circle. Consideration of satellite coverage eliminates parts of the circle, and other parts have been eliminated by consideration of the range and possible speed of the aircraft. Yes I think you might be correct. You must have copied my post when it was still a draft before I edited it.

I thought that they had multiple pings but your suggestion that they only mapped the final ping actually fits better. What are the odds that multiple pings would have exactly the same strength as shown in the arc (unless the aircraft was stationary by that point)?

EDIT (3-16-2014): The arcs are possible locations of the last ping from one satellite. This fact is being reported very well by some broadcasters (so well you would wonder why there was ever a question) but still being called a "flight path" by other broadcasters. The "flight path" broadcasters are doing it wrong. Obviously I got my original information from the "flight path" sources, hence my confusion.

[Rev1.5]

I think the CVR can only be erased with the aircraft on the ground (WOW) and the engines shutdown?

Aircraft on the ground with parking brake set.

[JonnyH]

The sad thing is we would of knew 99.9% of this information 2/3 days ago if the Malaysians were being transparent and honest.

Could a plane really land without being noticed? There clearly has been some sort of pre-planned situation, by the person who had control of the aircraft, to at least go somewhere (this is surely proved by the evidence that the plane flew for over 7 hours after).

Would it have to be the pilots that done this or would it have to be an "inside job"? Everybody seems to forget that there were 2 people on board travelling on stolen passports? This cargo story is surely clutching at straws.

No doubt some more contradictory, delayed information will be released by the Malaysian government in the coming days. They know tonnes more than they're letting on.

[xcitation]

Diego Garcia: I think it would be very safe to assume that if a large unidentifiable plane flew anywhere remotely close to Diego Garcia it would have been noticed.
Agreed, I would expect the base(s) in the region to be on some escalated level of alert as soon as the plane went missing in "9-11" style transponders off. Like a disturbed wasps nest some interceptors would be up and anchored navy ships put to sea. Based on past events if it showed up on defense radar they would have at least 2 interceptors.
Without doubt this appears to be a hijack given the prevailing data points. The alleged route appears to be have been very well planned.
I totally understand any intentional obfuscation by the Malaysian authorities. It is not in the best interest of authorities to immediately share all information with the public during an ongoing hijack/terrorist incident. It would potentially give too much feedback to perpetrators and enable them to stay one step ahead of the authorities.

[abab]

#4191 map can be derived as follows.

You may infer from the strength of the last ping, how far away the plane was during the last ping. The "center" of the arc is eliminated, because this area is covered by some form of radar or other satellite, which did not see the aircraft. Based on the timing of the ping and the maximum speed of the aircraft, it would not be possible for the aircraft to make it to the left side of the circle.

[lakedude]

Alright this post spells it out perfectly:

http://www.pprune.org/8379267-post4191.html

The arc is in fact from the last ping.

That being the case there must be other arcs from the other earlier pings we are not being shown. If the plane was just a bit farther north (or south really) when they lost contact these other arc might be such that one of the N/S duplicates would be impossible. They must have pings from when they actually knew where the plane was. It is an unfortunate coincidence that the plane was so close in the N/S direction to the satellite when they lost track of it...

[JanetFlight]

Sorry, but it wont be easier to simply "hijack" the truck or trucks with that supposed Money or Gold when driving towards Kuala Int Airport?
Ok, supposing an abandoned cold war era field along Kirgyz/China border was used....it was night period...no fullmoon light at all, poor Navaids or even some ATC, lots of High Terrain in prox, after landed some sort of heavy handling material with some (lets say) dozens of persons for staff that operation was requested, and another miriad of other questions too???
What doing with the PAX after that?
At least some runway working illumination, me thinks...after that where to hide it? Even nowadays sitting normally on our rooms we still surf the earth with Google Maps and Earth,,,its not impossible, but would say, too much Hollywood for almost failing 99%.
And too many people involved without one of them simply breaking the silence pact!???

[foxtrotoscarrightoff]

should westerly read southerly?

[Tartufo]

Thought I would post a couple of interesting new pieces from the Telegraph.
Sorry if you've already read them:

This link talks about recent terror info regarding Malaysia and a shoe bomb, well worth a read...

Malaysia Airline MH370: 9/11-style terror allegations resurface in case of lost plane - Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/malaysia/10700652/Malaysia-Airline-MH370-911-style-terror-allegations-resurface-in-case-of-lost-plane.html)


.... at the end of this link:

MH370: profile of missing Malaysian Airline plane's pilots starts to emerge - Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/malaysia/10700273/MH370-profile-of-missing-Malaysian-Airline-planes-pilots-starts-to-emerge.html)


It says:

American officials suggested on Saturday that three different pieces of signalling equipment had been disabled and that one of them was located outside the cockpit. The implication is that at least two people had collaborated to change the course of flight MH370 and make it and its crew and passengers disappear.
If the captain and co-pilot had been involved they will have given a new meaning to the term 'clean skins'.

[abab]

Not necessarily. The distance from the satellite shown may be inferred from a single ping, based on the strength of the signal. This places it on the arc.

The center portion of the arc is removed by local radar or other source.

The left portion of the arc is ruled out because the plane at max speed couldn't possibly get from its last radar location to that far away.

Therefore, the red arc was its set of potential locations during the last ping. It should be noted that the path the aircraft took need not follow that arc the whole time. Only it means that the aircraft intersected the red portion at the time of that ping.

[lasitter]

Since a new 777-200LR is about $300 million, it's a lot cheaper to steal one for purposes of a terror attack than to go and buy one.

Depending on how much fuel you have to load to reach your target, these things have an enormous lift capacity. On 9/11, it was not the impact of the aircraft, but rather the tens of thousands of gallons of fuel that did the most damage.

If you remove all the freight and reload with with explosives and just enough fuel to reach your destination, it occurs to me that you would have one heck of a flying bomb.

With careful maintenance, aircraft can be flown repeatedly at the maximum payload limits. But what if you didn't care about being able to fly the aircraft tomorrow?

If you could find a long enough strip with a headwind and no nearby obstructions, other factors being equal, how much could a plane like this lift off and eventually climb with?

I would never have asked this question immediately after the disappearance, but given what we know now, it doesn't seem so crazy.

[BizJetJockey]

Everyone is hungry for information but the amount of speculation about this is unbelievable!! It says something about human nature!!!! Listening to the likes of Sky News, BBC and every crappy paper under the sun beggars belief!! After over 200 pages, this forum sounds like the worst of them!

[Squawk_ident]

The indicated track indicated by the Malaysian authorities puzzle me. If this information is well correct of course.
At 1721UTC/07 - 0121/08 Malaysian time - MAS370 is at, or by IGARI, and on a 25° heading. A right turn is then initiated towards BITOD, about 37NM away. Mag heading from IGARI to BITOD is 59°. Last recorded heading is 40°. Because the FR24 history playback is accelerated at a x12 speed, I believe that MAS370 was established on course to BITOD, because the recorded position is not precise enough. From there the military PSR is the only source of information, seemingly. We learn that, afterwards, the aircraft performed a right or left turn towards VAMPI. IGARI-VAMPI direct route is a 263° heading for about a 45 minutes flight time (361 NM-470 kts). At VAMPI, MAS370 initates a 125° right turn to the heading 28°and less than 7 minutes after, a 80°left turn to IGREX 268 NM away. I do believe this. But...
Professionnals pilots in command IMHO, not possible. Something else happened. My opinion is that someone tried to enter a routeing inside the FMS and could not because not familiar with the how to and/or having the wrong WPT entered. It would explain such erratics and incredible heading changes. Or the crew was under threat and tried to gain time...
I had thought that someone was trying to enter GIVAG instead of GIVAL to go back to KUL but for what reason, and why VAMPI then.
This flight was only less than 45 minutes on its way when the squawk was switched off. I do not know what sort of services MAS provides to its passengers on this route, but I believe that it was the dinner time or the aperitif just before. Learning what already happened with the F/O on a previous flight, may be that some nice looking person(s)ask to have a little visit to the flight deck and it was accepted... Or someone irrupted in the cockpit while one of the crew member was going in/out.

Roger that? Acknowledging a frequency change this way seems strange to me.

[olasek]

The arc is in fact from the last ping
Correct, and it is the most important ping.
At that time they were close to fuel exhaustion so whatever remained of this aircraft must be close to the location of this ping.

[nupogodi]

Quoting lakedude:
Triangulation doesn't require the points of measurement to be in a triangle, or even for there to be three of them

You might want to look up trilateration. Indeed in 3-space, with 3 origins, if the origins of the spheres lie in a straight line with one another then you are not able to narrow your search down to two possible positions, which in the case with space-based geolocation is really only one since the other will be in space.

Trilateration is not what they were doing with these SATCOM pings. Knowing the difference between tx/rx time and the height of the satellite above ground at that exact point in time, it is possible to calculate a rough angle down to the surface of the earth. This creates a circle. By rejecting points on this circle that lie outside of the a/c's possible range, in combination with PSR data collected, allow you to narrow down the position to a point on an arc.

This will be *approximate* since millisecond differences can result in hundreds of kilometres of error when the receiver is in geostationary orbit.

Insulting the other poster by suggesting he take an elementary school math class is rude and asinine. None of this is grade school mathematics. This is advanced stuff (although perhaps not advanced in theory). I should know, I studied Mathematics.

[swiss_cheese77]

Alright this post spells it out perfectly:

http://www.pprune.org/8379267-post4191.html

The arc is in fact from the last ping.

That being the case there must be other arcs from the other earlier pings we are not being shown. If the plane was just a bit farther north (or south really) when they lost contact these other arc might be such that one of the N/S duplicates would be impossible. They must have pings from when they actually knew where the plane was. It is an unfortunate coincidence that the plane was so close in the N/S direction to the satellite when they lost track of it...

To add; why would the red lines on the arc at 40 degrees EXCLUDE the area between Vietnam-Indonesia, where the last verified contact with MH370 was made? Primary radar plots from that point on were of an "unidentified object".
The red lines an the north/south extremities of the 40 degree arc are based on maximum range and fuel loadings, but is it possible that the plane ditched in the sea at approx LKP, intact enough for SATCOM to keep pinging?
Not suggesting this is likely, however interested to know why that part of the 40 degree arc has been excluded.

[funfly]

I am sure that the thing that puzzles many of us is the idea that one could arrange a suicide and not do it fairly quickly after the point of no return.

Would you really stand on a parapet and think "I will jump off in 7 hours time and in the meanwhile I will sit on this ledge so no-one can see me."?

This type of behaviour must be well outside of that expected by a person committed to suicide.

[belmeloro]

Since that diagram showing Inmarsat's ping arc is a bit low-res, I made an accurate version for Google Earth:

http://www.ogleearth.com/mh370.kmz

Article with context and method:

Flight MH370 ? search data in Google Earth | Ogle Earth (http://ogleearth.com/2014/03/flight-mh370-search-data-in-google-earth/)

[P212121]

Geometric problem resulting from Inmarsat pings has North-South symmetry. Any pattern of pings consistent with northern route, has equivalent, North-South, mirror image. North-South symmetry of the pattern would only be perturbed by asymmetry in jet streams. For the moment both hypotheses need to be considered

[JonnyH]

Could it be that the Malaysian authorities know exactly where the aircraft is, which is why they're unwilling to give full information, as it's actually a hostage situation? There is theories all over so thought I may stick my ore in.

[olasek]

This type of behaviour must be well outside of that expected by a person committed to suicide. People committing suicide are not exactly in their most lucid frame of mind, why would you then exclude certain behaviours? I am sure if you dug into hundreds of jumps from the Golden Gate Bridge you would find amazing examples of inconsistencies. I see nothing hard to grasp when a suicidal pilot wants to do a final mischief and decides to bury himself in real deep waters. specially if it was within his reach.

[overthewing]

I am sure that the thing that puzzles many of us is the idea that one could arrange a suicide and not do it fairly quickly after the point of no return.

Would you really stand on a parapet and think "I will jump off in 7 hours time and in the meanwhile I will sit on this ledge so no-one can see me."?

This type of behaviour must be well outside of that expected by a person committed to suicide.

I refer you to my post #4095 and Jonathan3141's post #4108. Suicide is a complex issue, and a long delay is not unusual.

[NYJ]

<The sad thing is we would of knew 99.9% of this information 2/3 days ago if the Malaysians were being transparent and honest.>

Authorities DID know, they just didn't release info to the public. As far as the press conferences, Malaysia in over their heads especially when it came it international media scrutiny. Doesn't make them bad, just inexperienced in high profile matters.

<Could a plane really land without being noticed? >

Absolutely, especially if it was expected by certain parties.

[SLFplatine]

"Agreed, I would expect the base(s) in the region to be on some escalated level of alert as soon as the plane went missing in "9-11" style transponders off. Like a disturbed wasps nest some interceptors would be up and anchored navy ships put to sea. Based on past events if it showed up on defense radar they would have at least 2 interceptors."

Agree and all relevant data would be sent to threat assessment. First piece TSPX ceases to respond between goodnight KL and hello HCM -TA personnel do not believe in coincidence, threat level goes up, available spook sats are tasked to locate a commair traveling sans ident. If they learn the bird turned left to 263, threat level is up another notch and if they pick up on the second turn (and especially if they pick up even a suspicion of an attempt to shadow another plane) the code red alarm bell goes off -need we draw pictures as to where they would go from here...

[Golf-Mike-Mike]

... Or someone irrupted in the cockpit while one of the crew member was going in/out.

I would hope and presume that by now the authorities have a clear picture of which passengers were sitting where - and who up front near the cockpit in particular - and their backgrounds are being checked too ?

[DocRohan]

My sincere apologies for posting as I am neither a pilot nor a communications expert...Hence, the feelings of guilt!
I have been reading this forum since the day of the incident and have found it more useful than the news :)
I have but one point (that was mentioned a few 1000 posts back!) and I hope smarter people than me may have some insights:
How and could the fires on the Melbourne to Abu Dhabi flight in Feb relate to MH370??
Could fires such as what happened be used to create a diversion, allowing a hijack take-over??.
I guess the one thing against that would be that I would have thought that someone would have notified ATC about any fire.....
It just seems suspicious to me that multiple fires occur on a 777 and a month later a 777 goes missing....Both were night flights...

[4468]

I agree with Passenger 389

Most likely scenario so far is that a disgruntled pilot with a psychological imbalance has tragically decided to exit with an enormous splash.

The fact that the final ping is recorded extremely close to the temporal fuel endurance of the aircraft might strongly suggest the aircraft was flown until the fuel ran out. It is also easy to speculate methods in which the only person on board who was alive for the 6-7 hours was the 'hijacker'! That being the case it is not a huge leap to speculate that the intention has always been to make the wreckage of this aircraft as difficult to find as it is possible to imagine. That also explains the erratic flight path. I am so sorry to say this, but perhaps this aircraft will never be found.

Truly terrifying 'terrorism' indeed! Cruel. Evil.

So if you wanted to 'hide' the end, would you take MH370 over land, or over thousands of miles of remote, deep ocean? (7400m in places!) Where surface debris has already had a week to drift unnoticed.

Of course, the intention could have just been to show up the talking head idiots, for precisely what they are! And my goodness haven't we had plenty on this one!!!

Finally. If this is just a one off, it's bad enough. It also makes a total mockery of security checks for pilots, since they are the only ones on board who don't NEED a 'weapon' (read nail file!!) to take over the controls! Better to give pilots more psychological checks. Perhaps akin to the screening received in Israel before every flight.

However if this isn't a 'standalone', another hijack, using a related method could have a similarly devastating effect on aviation as Sep 11th!

Worrying times for all.

Sincere condolences to all concerned.

[p.j.m]

The idea that it landed there was rumoured at the very start but quickly dismissed by Malaysian authorities.

Also China has denied the aircraft ever entered its airspace. Given the tensions with Russia/Japan/North Korea/Tibet (and even grumblings from the US and Australia about politics) etc, I'm betting China's radar/operations WOULD have picked up any anomalies and been straight onto them.

[Weary]

BARKINGMAD

Xcitation: please read the account of how Uncle Sams military and allegedly his ATC organisation behaved on Sept 11th and then say you are confident that the scramble scenario would occur "TopGun" style in this corner of the world as you believe it should have.

It's nearly 13 years since that event, and it is probable that until this week most military setups are not really on alert like a coiled spring as the public would like to imagine.

Within weeks of 9/11 a small turboprop aircraft was discovered straying in the London TMA without a single F3 Tornado launched in response, not exactly trumpeted by the authorities at the time.


Yes - and a LOT has changed since then. I can personally recall hearing two air intercept events whilst flying in European airspace, and shared a rather somber beer with the captain of one of those aircraft, who had missed the fact that he had flown out of French CTA and into somebody else's with his VHF 1 inadvertently flipped to a previous frequency!
Bearing in mind they were following their flight planned routes and transponding appropriately, what do you think would have happened if they suddenly went OFF flight plan, disabling TX and ID kit, and dropped low level?
This is the very raison d'être of aviation security bodies and airforce fighter/interceptor "assets".

[Edmund Spencer]

Not unusual to tanker fuel up to the mainland Chinese ports. Ideally, sufficient fuel to get there and back but limited by landing weight etc.
ES

[awblain]

The most likely reason for the extra fuel is trading at the destination airport.

Malaysia is an major oil producer. The national carrier can almost certainly negotiate a discount on its fuel prices at home. If it then needs to buy less fuel in Beijing, then it makes more money on the round trip.

[Capt Kremin]

Here is the Fact Sheet (https://www.airforce.gov.au/docs/JORN_Fact_Sheet.pdf) for Jindalee.

The Laverton site could have picked up MH370 if it went south. JORN may not have been switched on however.

What is JORN?

• The Australian Defence Force (ADF) currently operates three OTHR systems as part of the
Jindalee Operational Radar Network (JORN). These radars are dispersed across Australia — at
Longreach in Queensland, Laverton in Western Australia and Alice Springs in the Northern
Territory — to provide surveillance coverage of Australia’s northern approaches.

• Radar data from these sensors is conveyed to the JORN Coordination Centre (JCC) within the Air
Force’s No 1 Radar Surveillance Unit (1RSU) at RAAF Base Edinburgh in South Australia. 1RSU
is tasked by higher headquarters to operate the JORN capability on a daily basis.

• JORN does not operate on a 24 hour basis except during military contingencies. Defence’s
peacetime use of JORN focuses on those objects that the system has been designed to detect,
thus ensuring efficient use of resources.

• The JORN radars have an operating range of 1000–3000km, as measured from the radar array.
Figure 2 depicts the locations of the three OTHR systems and the JCC, and highlights the
coverage of each radar. Of note, the Alice Springs and Longreach radars cover an arc of 90
degrees each, whereas the Laverton OTHR coverage area extends through 180 degrees

[Andu]

Obviously, I have not read every post. But could someone tell what evidence has come to light that has so many pointing the finger at one of the pilots? I've seen nothing that leads me to believe one of the pilots (to descend into the vernacular) 'went rogue'. In fact, the erratic altitude readouts not long after the diversion would appear to give some credence to either a struggle for control or someone at the controls having difficulty flying the aircraft.

Anyone who has flown as a line pilot or cabin crew for any length of time would not find it difficult to believe that, despite locked doors and security procedures in place since 2001, (and particularly given the position of the toilets on the 777), intruders could gain access to the cockpit with relative ease.

Neither should anyone be surprised that there might be someone out here with the engineering (and perhaps flying) expertise apparently displayed here whose skills could not either be bought - or just as likely, made available willingly by a committed believer of a cause.

[EPPO]

Agreed, I would expect the base(s) in the region to be on some escalated level of alert as soon as the plane went missing in "9-11" style transponders off.

I also find quite strange that after having lost a plane, ATC didn't actively attempt to contact it.

[Andu]

Re the "mysterious" extra fuel: what was the designated (filed) alternate for Beijing? Depending upon how far away that alternate was would dictate how much extra fuel was carried.

[Capt Kremin]

I also find quite strange that after having lost a plane, ATC didn't actively attempt to contact it.

They did. A post from a pilot on frequency at the time (see 32656 posts ago) said that Ho Chi Minh ATC Quote "was going nuts on 121.5" trying to contact it.

[Lemain]

Friend of mine has actually said..."plane hijacked, landed and hidden so PAX organs can be harvested and sold on the black market." Seems reasonable.:confused:The key point is that the hostages have an intrinsic value as hostages. If one of my loved ones were on this flight today's news would have given me optimism. I don't think that the sale of organs makes much sense. Easier to kidnap low-value 'invisible' folk from the bottom tier of society, not somewhere near the top.

It could be that having landed intact (albeit perhaps not in an airworthy condition) the hostages may be on their way to some safe secluded place where their life needs are met with no means of escape or communication. Meanwhile, the hijackers make their way to some other place and make whatever demands they wish. They will promise to give the location of the hostages when their demands are met.

Provided the demands are of a political nature, they could get away with it.

[Golf-Mike-Mike]

BBC News have just interviewed another "expert" (worked on the 777, now runs a Flight Safety company). Some of what he said lines up more with where I've got to on this if you give the crew the benefit of some doubt:

- as they coast out ACARS fails for whatever reason but unknown to crew
- catastrophic event at IGARI, takes out most other comms / electronics including transponders
- perhaps an explosive decompression
- maybe flying controls degraded too so are using differential power perhaps explaining altitude changes and jinks in heading, either way they now have their hands full
- aircraft barely flyable so they try their best to get back to base, explains left turn if primary radar signal really is MH370
- then in trying to fly / navigate and with no comms it just all gets too much (with / without oxygen) and they're left heading out to sea on whatever heading and altitude they'd managed to get it to but their efforts are all in vain and it goes down, somewhere deep, west of Malaysia.

Something like this still seems plausible to me, more than suicide / heists / bullion / terrorism.

[LegallyBlonde]

Given that the Malay PM has now put it on record that transponder and ACARS on MH 370 were disabled deliberately the disappearance of this aircraft and passengers now becomes a crime.
When police investigate crimes they may put some info out to the public and appeal for help but they never put all the cards on the table. ('keep the powder dry')
Of course there will be info about MH370 that authorities know which we don't (yet).
It is like trying to complete a jigsaw without all the pieces.
Thanks to posters here who are trying to make sense of the pieces we have.

Edit:

On 11 March it emerged that the Boeing 777's diagnostic maintenance data messaging system (http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25201), the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS), had sent two bursts of data at both take off and during the plane's climb to cruise altitude. While this was the first sign that investigators had at least some forensic flight data to go on, no further ACARS reports were transmitted.
Now the investigation team thinks they know why.
"Based on new satellite information, we can say with a high degree of certainty that ACARS was disabled just before the aircraft reached the East coast of peninsular Malaysia. Shortly afterwards, near the border between Malaysian and Vietnamese air traffic control, the aircraft's transponder was switched off," Razak says.
In other words somebody who knew what they were doing - or who may have been forcing a pilot to do it - was trying to obscure the plane's position.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25232-data-transmission-system-on-mh370-deliberately-disabled.html

[snow5man]

Precisely! I'd like to see a map showing each ping and it's arcs. I suspect the USN has this information.

It would be interesting, for example, to see if the arcs of the prior pings were evenly spaced apart, indicating some steady speed and heading.

There was a suggestion in some of the material being leaked from Washington that there was perhaps data indicating a re-fuelling stop before the final ping.

[p.j.m]

The Laverton site could have picked up MH370 if it went south. JORN may not have been switched on however.

Is it turned off at night? Wouldn't make any sense, even if there is no-one physically there watching blank screens, it should be running on "auto" and recording 24x7 for subsequent evaluation.

[Ogre]

The one thing that strikes me odd about all the talk of hijack (either to destroy the plane in flight or take it intact) is that no-one has claimed responsibility. If you were a terrorist mastermind and wanted to gain from having pulled off this undertaking, would you not be phoning the local media and making it known by now?

With the way the internet is used on a daily basis to broadcast everyones opinion, not one reference has appears in any news broadcast regarding "we did it"!

[Sheep Guts]

They must continue searching the South China Sea they don't have enough evidence to not stop. They need to get the CVR and the FDR. I'm afraid if the stop searching near the point of Transponder SSR loss we will never find it and maybe something will wash up on a shoreline in Kuching or Vung Tau or like wise years from now. But it will be too late for any valuable data.
They need to run a test flight with B777 on their suspected turn back scenario with all ground stations radar etc checking their data, to eliminate or confirm their assumptions. Because at the moment they are assumptions only.
I hope the Chinese and Vietnamese keep searching the South China Sea we should support them as much as possible.

[mixture]

It could be that having landed intact (albeit perhaps not in an airworthy condition) the hostages may be on their way to some safe secluded place where their life needs are met with no means of escape or communication.

riiight.....

So, not only have they managed to land and hide 300 tons of aircraft from the worlds eyes from over a week, but they've also managed to discreetly transport 300 people to a different location which is basically (by your description) a fully equipped, self-sufficient prison building they've also taken over, and have been catering to their every need for a week without communication or being spotted.

:rolleyes:

[rh200]

As soon as you think you've heard all possible theories, another one more whacky than the last crops up !

One things almost for sure, the law of large numbers will dictate that one of, or a convolution of the theories on this thread will be the correct one.

[Kinetixx]

@Capt Kremin: Even if JORN was operational, it would not necessarily have detected the aircraft. The factsheet says

OTHR systems operate on the Doppler principle, where an object will
only be detected if its motion toward or away from the radar is different from the movement of
its surroundings. Objects travelling tangentially to an OTHR are therefore unlikely to be
detected by that radar.

And also:

OTHRs do not continually ‘sweep’ an area like conventional radars but rather ‘dwell’ by focusing
the radar’s energy on a particular area – referred to as a ‘tile’ – within the total area of coverage

[geo75]

It would be interesting, for example, to see if the arcs of the prior pings were evenly spaced apart, indicating some steady speed and heading.

A steady heading and speed wouldn't give evenly spaced arcs.

[Bearcat F8F]

Is it feasible that this 777 may have avoided radar detection by staying low to the ground?

For an a/c at 1000ft AGL, a radar at sea level has a theoretical range of under 40nm. In reality this would be even worse assuming there is a direct line of sight.

OK, I know the 1st thing someone will point out - it was night time, so how could it do any low level VFR?

Assuming this thing followed a predetermined track, isn't it possible that (in theory) whoever planned this out had a means of knowing the MSA for each part of the new route and kept the aircraft fairly low to the ground thereby evading radar detection for the last few hours? Even a set of night-vision goggles could be enough for manual low level flying.

I know this sounds very Hollywood-esque and in true pprune style, but we already know that whoever flew this plane after it disappeared tried pretty hard to make it disappear for a reason no one can explain so far.

Feel free to poke holes in my theory. I'm just speculating like everyone else and trying to give a plausible solution to the dilemma of the a/c not being detected by radar if it flew North after it vanished.

[LiveryMan]

You think any eyebrows will lift if Iran Air turns up on a scheduled arrival in Europe some place with a freshly painted 777 in a few weeks time?

Or will we shortly be seeing news reports from Iran, where the state aircraft manufacturer is proudly rolling out it's new invention: A plane that looks remarkably similar to a 777-200ER?

[Weary]

Bearcat F8F

I suggest you read up on EGPWS.

[AndyJS]

A UK newspaper is reporting that the captain attended the high-profile trial of the opposition leader of Malaysia just a few hours before the flight, which doesn't seem like the most calming thing to do before piloting an international commercial flight:

Doomed airliner pilot was political fanatic: Hours before taking control of flight MH370 he attended trial of jailed opposition leader as FBI reveal passengers could be at a secret location | Mail Online (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2581817/Doomed-airliner-pilot-political-fanatic-Hours-taking-control-flight-MH370-attended-trial-jailed-opposition-leader-sodomite.html)

[xcitation]

@BARKINGMAD

Xcitation: please read the account of how Uncle Sams military and allegedly his ATC organisation behaved on Sept 11th and then say you are confident that the scramble scenario would occur "TopGun" style in this corner of the world as you believe it should have.

It's nearly 13 years since that event, and it is probable that until this week most military setups are not really on alert like a coiled spring as the public would like to imagine.

Within weeks of 9/11 a small turboprop aircraft was discovered straying in the London TMA without a single F3 Tornado launched in response, not exactly trumpeted by the authorities at the time.

Do you really think that US/UK ATC would not respond to transport who turn off transponder and comms then change heading to a large military base? I can assure you that things have changed in the US since 9-11. There have been many incidents of F-16s surprising a/c that failed to respond. It saddens me that the RAF has been cut back so much since the cold war.

However to your point I am surprised that certain parts of the world apparently turn off all air defenses at 5pm so they can all go home for the evening.:ugh:

[JohanB]

"Hadi told The Jakarta Post that the Indonesian Air Force’s radar unit in Lhokseumawe, Aceh, did not detect the missing MH370 in the area where the Malaysian military suggested as being the plane’s last detected position around Penang waters.

“Our radar information has been shared with our Malaysian counterparts,” he said.

When asked if Lhokseumawe radar’s coverage had reached Penang, he only said that the radar had the capability to detect flying objects for up to 240 nautical miles, or about 445 kilometers.

A rough calculation using Google Earth shows that Lhokseumawe’s distance to Penang is about 300 kilometers, meaning that the radar could cover up to the Malaysian Peninsula."

RI radar 'did not detect MH370 in Malacca Strait': Air Force | The Jakarta Post (http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/03/14/ri-radar-did-not-detect-mh370-malacca-strait-air-force.html)

[fireflybob]

Would be interesting to set up a survey for posters to vote on what they think is the highest probability cause for the disappearance from the main theories.

In his book "The Wisdom of Crowds" James Surowiecki argues that if you want to make a correct decision or solve a problem, large groups of people are smarter than a few experts.

[flash8]

I don't think of one minute any state actors were involved deliberately, the stakes would be too high, and for what?

Would still argue a catastrophic failure of some kind disabling some buses, could be that disabled the crew (hypoxic or otherwise), and some poor (clueless) bugger attempting to fly the a/c via the MCP, but ending up in the middle of nowhere.

As for all this leaked information, I suggest it is treated with some discrimination, a lot of it may simply be found later to be 'incorrect'.

I'm very much still with the theory this was accidental.

[Bearcat F8F]

Yeah, YEAH! I remember 777s taking part in SEAD (Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses) missions alongside some F-15s from the 48th Fighter Wing a few years ago, flying real low n' stuff
There is no reason why a skilful aviator shouldn't be able to fly an airliner fairly close to the ground.

Here's a KC-135 flying very low. And I am not suggesting this 777 was doing this. But even at 1000ft, chances of radar detection are significantly reduced.

KC-135 Crazy Low Level Flyby - YouTube

[D.S.]

Orge said,

The one thing that strikes me odd about all the talk of hijack (either to destroy the plane in flight or take it intact) is that no-one has claimed responsibility. If you were a terrorist mastermind and wanted to gain from having pulled off this undertaking, would you not be phoning the local media and making it known by now?

With the way the internet is used on a daily basis to broadcast everyones opinion, not one reference has appears in any news broadcast regarding "we did it"! I think you are looking at it all wrong - what is more terrifying than day 9 and we are still not even sure it was a terrorist attack, let alone who is responsible and what their ultimate goal is?

If this was a terrorist attack, they were unbelievably successful regardless if they had another goal they never achieved. After all, the #1 goal of Terrorism is Terror!

Also, taking responsibility actually happens less than we think, and sometimes it happens much later in time. Plus, someone we don't know did take responsibility. That leaves 3 possibilities - they did and we don't believe them, they will eventually after we start figuring out who might have done it anyway, or they have no intention to.

The no intention to is especially valid if this was a dry run, and not the actual eventual goal. THAT is the really scary aspect in my mind.

[md80fanatic]

I think the time is long past to lock this thread, until such a time that either the airplane is found, or evidence of an irrefutable nature is discovered. Some of this is bordering on libel. Certainly some of what is being said here and in other places may be putting the families of these airmen in danger.

[D.S.]

I do hate to add fuel to what I already don't believe is the case myself, but...

olasek (http://www.pprune.org/members/297746-olasek) says

People committing suicide are not exactly in their most lucid frame of mind, why would you then exclude certain behaviours?In all honesty, you might be under an extremely lucid frame if ones intentions were to...

a) ditch the plane where it is unlikely to find and completely figure out what exactly happened

...allowing for...

b) insurance claim for your family (as the Malaysian Government has mentioned multiple times, oddly enough)

Suicide is likely not covered under the claim, but dying at the hands of terrorists will allow for both the insurance claim and a big lawsuit.

I repeat, I don't think that is what happened, but would make sense

[D.S.]

Speed of Sound (http://www.pprune.org/members/55017-speed-of-sound) says

And does anyone seriously believe that £120 million worth of gold would be carried on a scheduled passenger flight? ...not without heavily armed guards escorting it

And one would think such escorts would be able to do at least something in a hijack, honestly.

[slats11]

Am I correct in saying ACARS turned off 10 (?) or so minutes before transponder? If so, why? What would ACARS transmit that you didn't want known while still appearing ops normal to ATC?

This has been carefully planned by someone. This detail may be significant.

Would ACARS transmit decompression?

If you were going to decompress the cabin, the ideal time to do it would be near or soon after TOC. You would want rapid incapacitation, so not from departure (plus you presumably need time to somehow exclude 2nd pilot). But you would also want some time when alarm would not be raised and so pax wouldn't try to interfere. At or near TOC when pax used to cabin climbing seems logical.

Then after this was accomplished, turn of transponder and disappear.

This scenario would also avoid any calls from alarmed pax when crossing land.

[LiveryMan]

And one would think such escorts would be able to do at least something in a hijack, honestly.

Unless of course, they did not know they were hijacked? Or perhaps, as has been postulated a few times here, the PAX air was turned off or cabin allowed to depressurise

[rigbyrigz]

Just facts. You follow with any logic:

Long standing political drama exists in Malaysia centered around very controversial opposition leader Anwar_Ibrahim - trumped up sodomy charges, reversal, etc. On day of flight March 7 his acquital was overturned, to great consternation of his many vocal supporters, who hate current govt.

According to UK paper, Captain Zaharie was a huge supporter of Ibrahim and his opposition party.

Only Zaharie would have senior skills to perpetrate the hiding of MH370, the long trip, announcements to calm the PAX, tactics to throw off the authorities as long as possible.

To embarass the current Malaysian govt with hours and hours of drawn out suicide creating what we say today, would be a possible motive and make more sense than anything else associated with this tragedy.

Is the eccentric flight-simulated divorced pissed-off Captain Zaharie capable of such an evil adventure? You be the judge!

[brika]

The UK Daily Mail (Sunday edition) is reporting that the capt had attended the court hearing of a former deputy PM of Malaysia the same day that he took control of MH370. He apparently has been a staunch and vociferous supporter of the accused (of sodomy in a long standing political battle).

Next, MH370 had made a quick climb to outer space practically (to knock crew out and probably FO sent out of cabin (can captain survive on non-pressurized O2 alone?). Following that, a turn was made with a descent to escape radar. All this at a point of ATC handoever (the black window). Further (?deliberate) turns at Nav points, pings upto 7 hours flying time.

The theory here is that the captain was incensed that his friend was awarded a 5 year jail sentence. It follows that the capt is looking for revenge. He is apparently divorced although wife lives in the same house.

I shall leave it to the imagination as to what the captain's intention is (or probably was), in this scenario.

Loud bang reported by ground witnesses on beach near Kota Bharu and oil rig worker observing a "fire" - these may be accounted for by the high altitude where the air density is decreased and may cause a change in the engines to backfire - any engineers care to comment?

[Capt Kremin]

Interesting theory Slats. Yes, why turn the ACARS off first? It would transmit maintenance messages regarding depressurisation.

[galaxy flyer]

fireflybob

That's how the USN found the sub Scorpion in the late '60s. Admittedly, the group used were experts in various fields pertinent to sub construction and operations. See Blind Man's Bluff book.

The total tonnage of bizarre and uninformed ideas expressed by members who have fewer than 10 posts and join dates later than Feb 2014 is mind boggling and rather a waste of PPRUNE's bandwidth. OTOH, posts by experts in arcane fields of SATCOM, Electronics and cellphones is much needed and always welcome when these things happen.

FYI for the newcomers: you can't jettison cargo in civil planes; transponders, like many others pieces of kit, have OFF switches for good reasons, the US MIL is not as all-seeing and all-knowing as you'd like and hate.; militaries of the world can't intercept unknown "targets" as they mostly are 8-midnight operations, at best. The US Mil were caught on 9/11 and so would most others militaries. The Russians had their Mathias Rust, remember.

GF

[D.S.]

Sheep Guts (http://www.pprune.org/members/21885-sheep-guts) says

They must continue searching the South China Sea they don't have enough evidence to not stop.

What evidence is there of it being there?

The absolutely only thing that says it is possibly at the location of its last call is that it was once at that location - that is it, absolutely nothing else indicates it is there.

The evidence that it isn't there is extreme though - including the fact that they have had 14 countries with Ships, Planes and Satellites searching this very tiny and unbelievably shallow area for 8 days without finding even a single seat cushion.

That alone should scream "uhm, it probably isn't here guys" without even having to go into all the physical and witness reports indicating it turned West.

[Speed of Sound]

Someone said that they would move 4.5 t of gold in a 7.5 t truck.

The max load of a 7.5t truck is 3t.

I seriously doubt that anyone who has just stolen £120 million worth of gold would worry about weight restrictions. :O

[OleOle]

One of the last ACARS Messages transmitted by AF447 concerned cabin pressure, IIRC external altitude becoming lower than cabin altitude.

It makes me sick thinking about it:

- Turn off ACARS
- Then depressurize
- Wait 12 minutes until cabin emergency O2 is used up
- Turn off transponder
- Zoom climb to what is possible, on topping out there will be less than 1g so it can be somewhat higher than what is in the spec
- now return, over land no cell phone calls will be made

[LegallyBlonde]

Slats and Captain Kremen -
Yes, re ACARS, that is what MSM has been reporting.

Data transmission system on MH370 deliberately disabled - tech - 15 March 2014 - New Scientist (http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25232-data-transmission-system-on-mh370-deliberately-disabled.html)


On 11 March it emerged that the Boeing 777's diagnostic maintenance data messaging system (http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25201), the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS), had sent two bursts of data at both take off and during the plane's climb to cruise altitude. While this was the first sign that investigators had at least some forensic flight data to go on, no further ACARS reports were transmitted.

Now the investigation team thinks they know why.
"Based on new satellite information, we can say with a high degree of certainty that ACARS was disabled just before the aircraft reached the East coast of peninsular Malaysia. Shortly afterwards, near the border between Malaysian and Vietnamese air traffic control, the aircraft's transponder was switched off," Razak says.

[greenhornet]

Battery fire, taking out essential busses first, crew incapacitated by insidious fumes and confusion (thousands of hours and nothing has ever gone wrong for them), jet randomly deadsticks until crashes in remote location in Indian ocean? Cabin crew don't enter cockpit because of muslim culture and knowledge that pilots are 'playboys' and may be 'busy'? Crash locator fails to function. Third world air forces (Malaysian, Thai) culturally incapable of responding to or taking seriously radar returns of unknown aircraft.

[dmba]

The UK Daily Mail (Sunday edition) is reporting that the capt had attended the court hearing of a former deputy PM of Malaysia the same day that he took control of MH370. He apparently has been a staunch and vociferous supporter of the accused (of sodomy in a long standing political battle).

Next, MH370 had made a quick climb to outer space practically (to knock crew out and probably FO sent out of cabin (can captain survive on non-pressurized O2 alone?). Following that, a turn was made with a descent to escape radar. All this at a point of ATC handoever (the black window). Further (?deliberate) turns at Nav points, pings upto 7 hours flying time.

The theory here is that the captain was incensed that his friend was awarded a 5 year jail sentence. It follows that the capt is looking for revenge. He is apparently divorced although wife lives in the same house.

I shall leave it to the imagination as to what the captain's intention is (or probably was), in this scenario.

I have mentioned before a weird feeling about the 'Captain's friend', who opened his conversation in two interviews with the same prepared line about how he knows the pilot. ("because of our common interest in social and politic activism")

He talks way too much about the flight simulator.

He is the only person who has come forward desperate to talk and I will say it now...I think he is going to become a spokesman on behalf of the Captain...we'll see.

[EEngr]

The one thing that strikes me odd about all the talk of hijack (either to destroy the plane in flight or take it intact) is that no-one has claimed responsibility. If you were a terrorist mastermind and wanted to gain from having pulled off this undertaking, would you not be phoning the local media and making it known by now?If it was a terrorist suicide mission, then I agree. Associates of the guilty parties would have made a statement by now. A suicide of an individual might not be revealed until the personnal effects of the crew and passengers have been searched.

If it was an attempt to take the PAX alive for ransom, it might be some time before they can be moved to secured locations. And if it was intended to take the aircraft, the perps will want to keep things quiet until they use it for some unknown Phase 2 of their plan.

[dmba]

Pilot's friend: He had a flight simulator in his home - YouTube

vs

BBC News - Malaysia Airlines MH370: Pilot 'not behind' disappearance (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-26597168)

Someone tell me why he has prepared his speech?

Sorry but this I think is seriously relevant...he makes exactly the same comment:

"On the flight simulator...you can create situations."

[chrisms86]

Officials are leaning towards the captain: Flight 370: Officials lean toward 'those in the cockpit' theory - CNN.com (http://edition.cnn.com/2014/03/15/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-plane/index.html)

Knowing Malaysian culture, and in comparison to the denial re: Egypt Air, I would say this is significant.

U.S. intelligence officials are leaning toward the theory that "those in the cockpit" -- the pilots of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 -- were deliberately responsible for the mysterious disappearance of the commercial jetliner, a U.S. official with direct knowledge of the latest thinking told CNN on Saturday.

The revelation followed news that Malaysian authorities searched the home of the lead pilot, a move that came the same day that Prime Minister Najib Razak told reporters the plane veered off course due to apparent deliberate action taken by somebody on board.


The Malaysian government had been looking for a reason to search the home of the pilot and the co-pilot for several days. But it was only in the last 24 to 36 hours when radar and satellite data came to light that authorities believed they had sufficient reason to go through the residences, according to the U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.


"The Malaysians don't do this lightly," the official said. It's not clear whether the Malaysian government believes one or both the men could have been responsible for whatever happened to the plane when the Boeing 777-200 ER disappeared March 8 en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

[harrogate]

Couldn't the apparent deliberate turning off of the ACARS and transponder be the actions of a pilot under duress trying to give an indication to anyone watching that something's wrong?

Turning off the ability to communicate could itself be an act of trying to communicate something.

The problem is that noone was watching closely enough in the right areas at the right time.

Maybe.

[rigbyrigz]

UK papers reporting Captain Zaharies laptop was taken last week, then his house guarded. The raid today was for show, based upon new public stance about "deliberate actions".

Now here is a question. If the laptop or other note greatly attacks or criticizes the current government, and i mean harshly, how quick would the current government be to reveal the contents, or even the existence?

[4engines4longhaul]

The elephant in the room is the usually the one people can't bring themselves to talk about.

Given what is in the public domain as of now, is the probability that the one or both of the flight crew were somehow involved or complicit is the most realistic explanation. I assume MAS has the same locked door policy as most carriers but given newspaper headlines this week I have to wonder

I hope this is not the case

[D.S.]

harrogate (http://www.pprune.org/members/126969-harrogate) says

Couldn't the apparent deliberate turning off of the ACARS and transponder be the actions of a pilot under duress trying to give an indication to anyone watching that something's wrong?

Why not just tell them when you talk to them after doing those things?

[IcePack]

I'm surprised more hasn't been made of an in flight fire. Interesting toxins are released by flammable components used in aircraft. Seems a more realistic scenario. Lots of permutations of how a fire may behave & consequences. In the last few years their have been a few that may give food for thought.

[MrDK]

Please provide just one good reason that communication (transponders, ACARS, etc.) should have an "off" or "st-by" mode?
Even if there is a good scenario, why not encrypted data that only the company can interpret.

[The Ancient Geek]

This is really getting silly.

Even the Indonesian prime minister is spouting silly theories with no credible evidence. There is no evidence that the transponder or ACARS were switched off. It is far more likely that they were simply out of VHF range or damaged.

"I cant find my plane so someone must have stolen it"
Yea right, try looking in the right place.

[Fungula]

If bad dudes have done this then the no contact from them is very disturbing. Two possibilities are ;


they are taking time to spread the hostages far and wide to stop any chance of rescue , or
they want the aircraft and hostages intact for a secondary purpose eg A B777 cargo hold would any type of mass weapon you could imagine. If the aircraft turned up somewhere and announced we have the hostages we are going to XYZ. It would take a very brave leader to say no, and splash it before it reached the intended target.

Far fetched??? maybe.....but bad dudes have a record for creative thinking in a very twisted way.

[Blue Amber]

Given the erractic nature of the flight of MH370 as now stated, after turning West, would this be indicative of a Training Captain flying a fully functional aircraft?

[LegallyBlonde]

This article as originally posted a few pages back by Andy and discussed by others, IMHO, nails the current situation.

Doomed airliner pilot was political fanatic: Hours before taking control of flight MH370 he attended trial of jailed opposition leader as FBI reveal passengers could be at a secret location | Mail Online (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2581817/Doomed-airliner-pilot-political-fanatic-Hours-taking-control-flight-MH370-attended-trial-jailed-opposition-leader-sodomite.html)

ETA: Blue Amber, re rapid climb and descent - maybe the actions of an FO trying to restore control? JMO

[p.j.m]

There is no evidence that the transponder or ACARS were switched off. It is far more likely that they were simply out of VHF range or damaged.

You understand VHF from an altitude of ~38,000 feet has a "range" of 300nm or more don't you?

Also you understand there is uninterrupted VHF coverage across the entire region in question (Gulf of Thailand/Malaysia etc) and every other aircraft except this one managed to be "in range" and tracked.

[rigbyrigz]

quote "Given the erractic nature of the flight of MH370 as now stated, after turning West, would this be indicative of a Training Captain flying a fully functional aircraft?"

No, the erratic nature of the flight, zig-zag and long extended trip to a watery demise in a desolate deep spot 7 hours later, is indicative of a sneaky skilled person with an agenda that includes confusing the world and embarassing a government he resents.

[oldbilbo]

I'd raise an eyebrow at the JORN capability 'dezinformaciya' repeated without question in post #4062 and #4125, thus:

"I can well understand the Australians being very cagy about releasing any data analysis which might give clues and cues regarding the extent and limits of their OTHR system, but I am wholly confident it now exceeds by some margin what is widely reported in the public domain.

Viz:

"The Jindalee Operational Radar Network (JORN) is an over-the-horizon radar (http://apicdn.viglink.com/api/click?format=go&key=1e857e7500cdd32403f752206c297a3d&loc=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pprune.org%2Fspectators-balcony-spotters-corner%2F536056-mh370-chat-speculation-5.html&out=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FOver-the-horizon_radar&ref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pprune.org%2Fspectators-balcony-spotters-corner%2F536056-mh370-chat-speculation-6.html) network that can monitor air and sea movements across 37,000 km2. It has an official range of 3,000 km.

....the JORN delivered in 2003 was designed to a specification developed in the early 1990s. During this period the Alice Springs radar had evolved significantly under the guidance of the Defence Science and Technology Organisation (http://apicdn.viglink.com/api/click?format=go&key=1e857e7500cdd32403f752206c297a3d&loc=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pprune.org%2Fspectators-balcony-spotters-corner%2F536056-mh370-chat-speculation-5.html&out=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FDefence_Science_ and_Technology_Organisation&ref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pprune.org%2Fspectators-balcony-spotters-corner%2F536056-mh370-chat-speculation-6.html) (DSTO). In February 2004 a fifth phase of the JORN project was approved. This phase aimed to upgrade the Laverton and Longreach radars to reflect over a decade of OTHR research and development. Phase five was scheduled to run until approximately the year 2011.

......other sources put the range at 4000 km from the Australian coastline,, as far away as Singapore (http://apicdn.viglink.com/api/click?format=go&key=1e857e7500cdd32403f752206c297a3d&loc=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pprune.org%2Fspectators-balcony-spotters-corner%2F536056-mh370-chat-speculation-5.html&out=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FSingapore&ref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pprune.org%2Fspectators-balcony-spotters-corner%2F536056-mh370-chat-speculation-6.html) The JORN is so sensitive it is able to track planes as small as a Cessna 172 (http://apicdn.viglink.com/api/click?format=go&key=1e857e7500cdd32403f752206c297a3d&loc=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pprune.org%2Fspectators-balcony-spotters-corner%2F536056-mh370-chat-speculation-5.html&out=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FCessna_172&ref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pprune.org%2Fspectators-balcony-spotters-corner%2F536056-mh370-chat-speculation-6.html) taking off and landing in East Timor 2600 km away. Current research is anticipated to increase its sensitivity (http://apicdn.viglink.com/api/click?format=go&key=1e857e7500cdd32403f752206c297a3d&loc=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pprune.org%2Fspectators-balcony-spotters-corner%2F536056-mh370-chat-speculation-5.html&out=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FSensitivity_%252 8electronics%2529&ref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pprune.org%2Fspectators-balcony-spotters-corner%2F536056-mh370-chat-speculation-6.html) by a factor of ten beyond this level.

....JORN is designed to detect air targets equivalent in size to a military BAE Hawk-127 jet-trainer aircraft or larger…….enhancements planned beyond Phase 5 are unlikely to markedly improve the system’s ability to detect a vessel smaller than an ACPB patrol boat" ( my emphasis )

A meeting in recent years of the Qinetiq/RAF Boscombe Down branch of the RIN had a presentation on developmenst in OTHR in general and Jindalee in particular. Most of the attendees were Very Senior Development Electronics Engineers and some of the questions and answers were particularly probing and frank. It was clear that operating range 'on a good day' was very considerably more than 3000km and there was brief comment about tracking North Korean missile launches.....

It makes little sense to have a world-class threat tracking system, costing A$billions, and not have it running almost all the time. Does anyone really believe that the published FAQs of this VIP defense capability reflect its full operational range? Bolleaux!

I'm aware of the 'Inverse Square law'. Nevertheless, I suspect the 'Strines will have something to add to the discussion, albeit behind closed doors, and most likely 'shared' with their US allies.

[Bill Janson]

I am a regular reader of PPrune but have nothing to do with the airline world. Just an intersted observer. Ever since MH 370 disappeared I have read very confusing reports, today I saw some diagrams in the paper showing the vertical movements of between 45000' and 30000'. If the investigators are so sure of thevertical movement why can't they tell us where the pplane was at that moment. This realy baffles me.

[Heli-phile]

There is no evidence that the transponder or ACARS were switched off. It is far more likely that they were simply out of VHF range or damaged.

Do you really think the Malaysian president would state such things, -things that are corroborated by the AAIB,NTSB and Boeing for him If there were no evidence!!!

It is far more likely that they were simply out of VHF range or damaged.
Here you just give away the truth, you have absolutely no idea how these systems operate or the frequencies they operate on. VHF RANGE LOL

[Passagiata]

Labelling the pilot a political "fanatic" for "obsessively" following the highly political and anti-democratic trial of Anwar Ibrahim, kept out of even official opposition illegitimately for more than a decade, is just ridiculous. Anyone pro democracy and with a conscience would be doing just that, bravely, in the face of an oppressive regime. It's quite important to distinguish between valid activism on behalf of basic democracy, and any form of extremism.

[DCrefugee]

There's a lot of talk about how MAS370 could have evaded several countries' civilian ATC radar (and by implication their military search radar). Has anyone considered maybe it didn't?

Admittedly, all my experience is in North America, but couldn't a flight plan be filed and picked up by the errant flight, and its transponder re-engaged (or another one brought online), allowing it to proceed on its merry way? It could even masquerade as some country's military flight.

No better place to hide something than in plain sight...

[AndyPandy068]

Why are so many still dribbling about ACARS, satcom, or transponders. There was no fire or loss of consciousness blah blah blah, some bad boys out thought security and nicked the jet. Why and how we will find out, eventually. The best we can hope for is the passengers and crew are still alive.


All those whinging about security being for public consumption, can say, well we told you so.

[acad_l]

The prime minister of Malaysia merely said that the known facts were "consistent with" foul play.

He said the ACARS were disconnected. Basically they failed to send further data. How can one distinguish between intentional vs. result of some failure?

[ana1936]

I have prepared a more accurate map of the various constraints governing the possible southern destination.

http://www.csse.uwa.edu.au/~mark/personal/MH370/australia.png

The red circle shows points that see the INMARSAT IOR at 40 degrees altitude. The plane was on this circle at 8:11am. (It may have been on the northern arc of the red circle not shown but I am just considering the southern possibility here.)

The pink circle shows the limit of INMARSAT POR over the pacific. The plane was not east of the pink circle. Otherwise POR would have detected a ping at 8:11am as well.

The green circle to the far west is the limit of INMARSAT AOR-E over the Atlantic. The plane was not west of that line.

The light blue circle is roughly the limit of distance that the plane would have been able to reach by 8:11am given its last sighting NW of Penang at 2:15am. So the plane did not have time to get south of the blue circle.
(Assumes 5400km from Phuket)

The white circle is the limit of Australia's JORN radar. If the radar was switched on at 8:11am (WST=MYT) then the plane may have been spotted if it was within the white circle. (Assume 3000km from Laverton).

[ManaAdaSystem]

The number of first time posters flooding this thread with questions and theories that have been raised 100 times before is just....

-Cargo? Yes!
-Decompression? Yes!
-Fire? Yes!
-45000 ft? Yes!
-0 feet? Yes!
-FR24? Yes!
-Shadowing SQ? Yes!
-Captain had a flightsim at home? Yes!
-First officer invited girls into cockpit? Yes!
-False passports? Yes!
-The Chinese said something? Yes!
-Picture of village disguising as a fallen apart aircraft? Yes!
-Aussies have a radar? Yes!
-PM said it was hijacked? Yes!
-And on and on it goes!

I think the butler did it!

Yes mods, I know. Thank you for flushing 90% of this %#{]%{*{ down the edrain.

[Mr.Buzzy]

Seriously people.
Single failure!
Crew fixed oxygen cylinder. (Ie. the one connected to the pilot's oxygen masks) ruptures and takes out some avionics and holes the fuselage.
Think of the implications of that single failure. Think of the crew reaction/action. Think of the available time.
Please let's not eat our own young! These were good pilots, good citizens. Innocent until PROVEN otherwise.

[overthewing]

I saw some diagrams in the paper showing the vertical movements of between 45000' and 30000'. If the investigators are so sure of thevertical movement why can't they tell us where the pplane was at that moment.

They know exactly where it was when those movements were detected - above the Gulf of Thailand not long after the transponder went dead, ie at the very start of the disappearance. They know this from radar coverage. An hour or so later, the jet left the last radar area, west of Malaysia, and would only have been detectable via the equipment that had been turned off. The 'pings' are from that phase of the flight, and can only tell us the angle the plane made to the satellite that picked those signals up. Does that help?

[harrogate]

@DS

Because of that bit about being under duress.

[The Ancient Geek]

Exactly.
Thre is no evidence that anything was SWITCHED OFF.
Signals stopped arriving - that does not in anyway imply or support human intervention. There are plenty of more credible explanations.

For example, depressurisation caused by failure of an upper skin panel is highly likely to damage the antenna cables.

[macilree]

The RAAF FAQ available at http://www.airforce.gov.au/docs/JORN_Fact_Sheet.pdf states that the Jindalee system does not operate 24/7 for fiscal and staffing reasons. Aviation Week could not get an answer as to whether JORN had provided any useful data to help in the search.

[flash8]

There is no evidence that anything was SWITCHED OFF.

Absolutely. And that is the one of the few facts we can rely on.

[Heli-phile]

Thre is no evidence that anything was SWITCHED OFF.

There are ways to determine if these systems were deselected or abruptly lost I.E. cb tripped or failed somehow. Quit piping up, follow the thread, if suddenly something is discussed which you actually do have knowledge of by all means share your wisdom, but until that magic moment.........

[rigbyrigz]

ABC NEWS (today): " Someone-in-the-aircraft (#MH370) *pre-programmed the plane to make a left turn off course. "

The above statement is surely one of the main reasons why the experts now suggest the mishap was "deliberate" not some electro-mechanical accident.