Malaysian Airlines MH370 contact lost

[Blake777]

QUOTE "If there is only confidential (military) information available, its existence (or confirmed absence of contact) should have been reported even if no details were."

Pardon?

It took the Captain of BA Flight 9 (volcanic ash over Indonesia) eleven years to find out from declassified information that satellite monitoring stations in Australia and Guam were following his flight.

Capt Moody's comment? "We don't know what they're watching."

I'm not sure why you would be expecting anything different in this case if more were known from confidential sources.

[Shadoko]

US Patent #6008758 (https://www.google.com/patents/US6008758) will provide an insight into the mysterious "D1/D2".

The ADIRU also supplies data to the SBSU/SDU, and if certain parameters are exceeded, say momentary loss of the P Channel occurs, the AES may initiate an "I am here" handshake with the SAT.
In the patent link you give, we can read:
.../...However, in this situation, conventional AES terminals continue to reserve one channel for receiving P Channel signals for the sole purpose of monitoring Doppler shift. P Channel signals are conveniently used for this purpose since these signals are continuously available.
.../...
In general, customers who need only circuit-mode services are forced to order an AES terminal equipped with one more channel than the number of telephone calls the system must support. The additional channel needed is a costly, wasted resource.
.../...
One method that has been used in an attempt to address this problem is to pre-compensate the transmit frequencies based on a calculated Doppler shift rather than a measured Doppler shift. The method calculates the Doppler shift using the satellite location, the aircraft location, and data which defines flight characteristics (e.g., velocity, ground speed, heading pitch, roll, etc.). Much of the data needed to calculate the Doppler shift comes from the aircraft's Inertial Reference System (IRS). This method has been difficult to implement due to the many different types of IRS systems which are made by many manufacturers and provide inconsistent flight data. Thus, it has been difficult to produce an AES terminal which calculates Doppler shift and is compatible with different aircraft.
.../...
It would also be advantageous to provide a method for measuring Doppler shift in an AES terminal or communication system independent of P Channel inputs..../...
So, if MH370 used the "precompensation method", the wobbling of 3-F1 can't be included and thus the Doppler is not "perfectly" compensated as it could have been if the P channel was continuously monitored, the "total" Doppler measured and then used to transmit a frequency the sat will receive as the right one.
In this case, it could be useful to calculate the Doppler from the fixed points where MH370 might have been located at the times published on the Inmarsat Doppler graph. Could this may also explain why all the values on the graph are positive?

The words "This method has been difficult to implement due to the many different types of IRS systems which are made by many manufacturers and provide inconsistent flight data" could also explain why the tests made on other flights to improve the data have been made on B-777s.

[Derfred]

Do you really think they wouldn't have bothered searching for AF, or indeed MH if they had the black box data already? Try telling that to the relatives of the deceased...

You are missing the point, they would have known WHERE TO SEARCH.

On the contrary, I was proposing that instead of spending a lot of money on SAT bandwidth and onboard equipment for live FDR/CVR transmission, that money (or less) would be better spent mandating frequent ADS-C via SATCOM on all aircraft.

Then they would know WHERE TO SEARCH.

It would also improve ATC efficiency, reduce airspace congestion, improve day-to-day safety, a whole host of tangible benefits.

[Ian W]

If you read the rest of my post that you quoted you will find that is just what I suggested. ADS-C contracts of reports once every minute were suggested by BEA after AF447. if there is ever agreement on the use of ADS-C EPP there will be even more information available and as a standard 'out-of-the-box' system. Add an ACARS over SATCOM that reports exceptions which AF447 did have or health monitoring systems over SATCOM, all existing capabilities and a reasonably coherent picture of what is happening on the aircraft is continually available.

All of this could be done now - and by the generosity of INMARSAT it could be 'free' if considered tracking information.

[mm43]

@ Shadoko;
Re: patent #6008758;
The method calculates the Doppler shift using the satellite location, the aircraft location, and data which defines flight characteristics.If you are going to use the AES location and ADIRU data to cover its manouvering at any point in time, then the logical conclusion is that the AES will do the same for the SAT using a look-up table for the ephemeris data associated with the same time.

The SDU knows which satellite it is coupled with, and to my mind there is no reason for the above not to take place, i.e. the Sat is not about to do a "barrel roll" or look over the neighbors fence as it goes about its predefined orbital parameters.

[Robin Clark]

So this is the updated chart , a bit less cluttered , showing the original BFO curve in blue , and with it a brown line illustrating how the values can change when the satellite motion is removed ......
...on the first part of the chart the values are increased , and after 19:40UTC , the opposite effect , reducing the values to bring the BFO required to a much flatter curve .....
We need two data points to get the correct match...the satellite motion should be part of a sine curve although it looks like a fairly straight line in the previous chart . One obvious data point is at the satellite apogee , close to 19:40UTC ......ie , no vertical satellite motion , so the value depicted on the chart is all down to the aircraft motion........
..the second reference point I used is at 16:30UTC , thought to be when the aircraft was stationary from the cockpit transcript .............but if they were already taxying then it is possible that the satellite contribution was higher.........meaning the first part of the chart should be in turn higher values , and the second part even flatter.......


http://www.robinjclark.co.uk/MH370LessSatellite800.jpg

[David Bass]

Forgive me for interfering in the detailed analysis of the doppler and related satellite engineering parameters, but there is a comment from Robin Clark to the effect that at apogee the satellite will have no "vertical motion".

I'm not sure which vertical is being referred to here, but assume that the author means the change in satellite altitude is zero. This seems correct to me, but that does not mean that the satellite will produce a non-zero doppler shift - there are x and y components to the motion as well as z - the satellite moves in a 3-dimensional figure of eight.

Apologies if the x and y components are irrelevant to this discussion - I don't pretend to understand the detail.

[flight191]

Pardon?

It took the Captain of BA Flight 9 (volcanic ash over Indonesia) eleven years to find out from declassified information that satellite monitoring stations in Australia and Guam were following his flight.

Capt Moody's comment? "We don't know what they're watching."

I'm not sure why you would be expecting anything different in this case if more were known from confidential sources.

"It took 11 years to find out how Boeing was able to ring a ground engineer in Jakarta who got to us after about 15 to 20 minutes after landing."

Indeed, they contacted Moody within 15 minutes of landing. I wonder if remote telemetry/diagnostics of systems has been in heavy A/C since the late 70s?

[The Ancient Geek]

Forgive me for interfering in the detailed analysis of the doppler and related satellite engineering parameters, but there is a comment from Robin Clark to the effect that at apogee the satellite will have no "vertical motion".
Satellites orbit around the mass of the earth but the earth is not a sphere and does not have uniform density. This means that any movement with respect to a fixed point on the surface of the earth will result in a change of gravity and thus a change in altitude.

Radio waves are not affected by gravity [1] so a change of absolute vertical distance caused by the earth's "lumpy" gravitational field will result in a doppler shift.

Apogee is the point in the orbit of maximum altitude so at this point there will be no vertical motion.

[1] Actually radio waves are affected by gravity due to relativistic effects but the change is rather small.

[Lonewolf_50]

Someone pointed out many pages ago that MH370 will be found by a back packer. He just might be right.
That makes more sense that GIGFY's nonsense about Diego Garcia. Note from history: with a far better estimated last position, and some floating wreckage, it still took a long time to find AF 447.

OK, so you don't think it's in the IO near where they are looking.

Where do you want to go looking for it? I am sure the Malaysian Government, the Chinese Government, and the folks at Malaysia Airlines are keen to hear your better suggestion.

Lat and Long of your suggested search datum, if you please.

Fill in the blank _______________________________________ .

[mm43]

US Patent #6008758 (https://www.google.com/patents/US6008758) will provide an insight into the mysterious "D1/D2".
Following the Hyperveloce & Shadoko posts around the same time, I have come to the conclusion that the MH370 AES wasn't using the P Channel to determine and correct for the SAT / AES Doppler, but was using hardware/software operating to the principles described in the patent.

As hamster3null has pointed out, the requirement is that the AES assigned Tx frequency when corrected for the perceived Doppler shall be within 335Hz of the SAT assigned channel frequency when received at the SAT. So if the AES was using the P Channel method to create the correction, there would be close to zero BFO at the SAT, and obviously that was not the case. It would be safe to assume that the AES SDU software is using a fairly loose algorithm to correct for the SAT position and motion then compute the Doppler associated with its own (AES) position and motion. The AES Tx frequency arriving at the SAT is "offset", which seems to leave the satellite reporting the residual Doppler shift (BFO) to the GES.

[threemiles]

My understanding is that the sat itself is NOT measuring any BFO or frequency offset.
It is done by the aircraft itself, that reports its frequency correction to the ground station as parameter in the downlink packet.
The frequency correction can be either calculated or measured from P channel.
It is certainly known to the investigator which method the specific 777 sat unit onboard uses.

The 777 "test" flights that have taken place were not to calibrate a specific frequency offset vs. a geo position/ track / speed. This would have required to fly a 777 exactly the same route that is estimated to be flown by MH370. The flights were only to confirm the general logic and pattern.

[Volume]

with a far better estimated last position, and some floating wreckage, it still took a long time to find AF 447. It took exactly 5 days to find enough debris (including bodies) to answer a lot of questions. For MA370 we have found nothing and answered zero questions...

[henra]

This would have required to fly a 777 exactly the same route that is estimated to be flown by MH370. The flights were only to confirm the general logic and pattern.

Which is a pity. Compared to the cost of this Operation re-flying the route based on all the 'known' would have been a rather cheap but potentially very valuable excercise. They could have even flown different altitude pattern.
Why hasn't it been done?
That way it should have been possible to validate the accuracy of the SAT data number crunching excercise and determine a probably scope of error.
That said, it is not to late to do this. Maybe before starting the next Phase, they could try to validate the numbers.

[Heathrow Harry]

""It took 11 years to find out how Boeing was able to ring a ground engineer in Jakarta who got to us after about 15 to 20 minutes after landing.""

The British Embassy in Jakarta were called at least 45 minutes before the flight landed by Halim Air Traffic saying the plane had lost all four - I met the embassy duty officer a few years later and he said the brown stuff was all over the place well before it landed successfully, The reaction of the Ambassador was basically "oh God - not on my watch"

No doubt Uncle Boeing's man in town had been called as well..................

It probably took the engineer 30-45 minutes to drive out to the airport which was in the sticks (relatively speaking)

[Pace]

That said, it is not to late to do this. Maybe before starting the next Phase, they could try to validate the numbers.

Henra

Why would you need to fly the route in a real aircraft with different winds and conditions ?

A simulator would be far better as the winds and conditions could be loaded to match the conditions on the day!

I would also add i am sure this has already been done in a sim many times to date.

[Keef]

Sometimes I am amazed by the level of unwarranted effort going into this thread! Those folks at Inmarsat know a thing or two about how their hardware and software work, and don't need references to articles about Doppler correction.

Nor do they need to fly another aircraft by the same route: they validated their calculations using the handshakes from a number of Malaysian aircraft flying in that area. That's part of what they were doing in the days between the aircraft vanishing and their conclusions being published.

[ampclamp]

Why would you need to fly the route in a real aircraft with different winds and conditions ?

A simulator would be far better as the winds and conditions could be loaded to match the conditions on the day!

I would also add i am sure this has already been done in a sim many times to date.
Agreed. And the simulation would be better. They know the exact fuel load,where the freight was loaded in the holds, the a/c all up weight, a reasonable idea of the weather and more importantly very detailed history of that particular airframe and its engines' performance.

[GarageYears]

Why would you need to fly the route in a real aircraft with different winds and conditions ?

A simulator would be far better as the winds and conditions could be loaded to match the conditions on the day!

I would also add i am sure this has already been done in a sim many times to date. Agreed. And the simulation would be better. They know the exact fuel load,where the freight was loaded in the holds, the a/c all up weight, a reasonable idea of the weather and more importantly very detailed history of that particular airframe and its engines' performance.

Well, if the point was to validate the satellite track data then the simulator is of absolutely no use at all is it and I believe that was the point of this particular suggestion.

[James7]

Interesting article, I did not see it posted before, apologies if it has.

Why the Official Explanation of MH370?s Demise Doesn?t Hold Up - Atlantic Mobile (http://m.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/05/why-the-official-explanation-of-mh370s-demise-doesnt-hold-up/361826/)

Could go a long way to explaining why not one single scrap of the plane has been found floating in the ocean.

[susier]

In the recording at 12:26:21 in response to 'Request Level' I am almost certain that the pilot does not say as written in the transcript, 'Malaysian 370 we are ready requesting flight level...'


It sounds as though he is saying '770 we are ready...'


which makes no sense at all if that's correct. Though it is probably irrelevant.


Listen: Missing Jet MH370 Pilots Talking to Air Traffic Control - NBC News (http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/missing-jet/listen-missing-jet-mh370-pilots-talking-air-traffic-control-n94716)

[Lonewolf_50]

I think it worthwhile recalling that in the first few days, the search began in the South China Sea and the Mallaca Straights.

Whatever inquiries and coordination was done with countries for a northern search hypothesis has been either kept quiet (due to the issues and implications of the northern route on a variety of political fronts) or have been abandoned by a process of elimination.

The search efforts are not cheap. getting another government to search and having it turn into a wild goose chase can have political reprecussions of varying severity. Recall when the folks in Viet Nam packed up their kit and withdrew. Recall that India did likewise in a different area.

Yes, we the public do not know the whole story of the search effort. Do we have a need to?

James: thanks for posting that link. It adds little enlightenment, but does well explore the challenge of using the limited data set to establish a valid search datum.

[Fantome]

"using the limited data set to establish a valid search datum."



. . . . . . groping in the dark uncertain
of whether this is the right room or even the right building.

The conclusion of Ari Schulman's aforementioned
article in 'The Atlantic' -


An Inmarsat official told me that to “a high degree of certainty, the proponents of other paths are wrong. The model has been carefully mapped out using all the available data.”

The official cited Inmarsat’s participation in the investigation as preventing it from giving further detail, and did not reply to requests for comments on even basic technical questions about the analysis. Inmarsat has repeatedly claimed that it checked its model against other aircraft that were flying at the time, and peer-reviewed the model with other industry experts. But Inmarsat won’t say who reviewed it, how closely, or what level of detail they were given.

Until officials provide more information, the claim that Flight 370 went south rests not on the weight of mathematics but on faith in authority. Inmarsat officials and search authorities seem to want it both ways: They release charts, graphics, and statements that give the appearance of being backed by maths and science, while refusing to fully explain their methodologies. And over the course of this investigation, those authorities have repeatedly issued confident pronouncements about which they have later quietly given up on or tacitly refuted.

The biggest risk to the investigation now is that authorities will continue to assume they’ve finally found the area where the plane went down, while failing to explore other possibilities simply because they don’t fit with a mathematical analysis that may not even hold up. After all, searchers have not yet found any material evidence—not so much as a shred of debris—to confirm that they are looking in the right ocean.

[Porker1]

Thanks James7, interesting article indeed.

Presumably the dotted red line produced by Exner with the newly calculated satellite-to-plane shifts could be used to produce potential flight paths in the same way that Inmarsat used their assessed BFO values to produce the northern and southern ping arcs? Anyone?

The only fly in the ointment is Inmarsat's statement that their interpretation was validated by comparison with data from other flights pinging the same satellite.

[David Bass]

Sadly, The Ancient Greek's response does not answer my question, which is about the fact that the satellite is movement is in all three (geometric) axes, not just "vertically".

I agree with the point that if vertical movement is defined as changes in altitude, then at apogee the change is zero along that axis. But this is manifestly untrue for the other two axes - at apogee they are unlikely to be zero - my question is, does the motion in those axes matter at all, and if so, does it affect the assumption in Robin Clark's analysis.

[LTETristar]

Saw BBC News Channel item last night summarising MH370 disappearance, summing up what we know 2 months after the incident.
Yet again, it claimed the satellite data revealed it flew "along the southern flight corridor", with a map showing the final southern ping arc.
Would somebody please tell them?

[Ian W]

Thanks James7, interesting article indeed.

Presumably the dotted red line produced by Exner with the newly calculated satellite-to-plane shifts could be used to produce potential flight paths in the same way that Inmarsat used their assessed BFO values to produce the northern and southern ping arcs? Anyone?

The only fly in the ointment is Inmarsat's statement that their interpretation was validated by comparison with data from other flights pinging the same satellite.

Two points raised

- the reassessment is based on assumptions that appeared to be correct because of one match which could be coincidental.

- the entire discussion justifies the encoding of ULBs so that their identity is known. If the ULB signals that were received had been encoded as MH370 airframe identity this entire discussion would be moot.

[Datayq1]

Simulator flights would not generate handshake data, consequently would not yield any information about the errors associated with the observed data from the satellite.

Any observed data will have an inherent measurement errors that have to be quantified so that subsequent calculations (particularly innovative and untested calculations) will be useful.

Hopefully the Inmarsat guys have done exactly that, established the total error possible for each of their original conclusions. More specifically, what is the error and confidence that surrounds the "40 degree arc".

I'm sure that engineering folks have been frustrated by the legend given in the BFO plots provided by the AAIB. Assume that the green (triangle) plot points are controlled observations derived from actually replicating the MH370 flight through 17:07 UTC (and not as the legend states "predicted"), and the blue plot points ( diamonds) are the actual MH-370 observations.

Making those assumptions, one is left to explain the difference in BFO values at 16:49 and also at 16:55. Is that the potential for error, or is there some other explanation?

I'd agree that the investigation team (at this point) has no obligation to release error analysis, however I'd ask: Is there any reason withhold that information?

[olasek]

But Inmarsat won’t say who reviewed it, how closely, or what level of detail they were given.
And for a very good reason - by law they are prevented to release such information if they are participants in the investigation. Go then and bang your head against the wall ...:eek:

[Heathrow Harry]

One thing to take into account - Malaysia has the fourth LOWEST rate of suicide in the world

SUICIDE DEATH RATE BY COUNTRY (http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/cause-of-death/suicide/by-country/)

Only Antigua, St Kitts, Syria and Kiribati are lower.................

makes hanging the pilot (s) out to dry a little harder IMHO

[RichardC10]

The problem with this story is that the reporter has gone to Inmarsat for fact-check and got "your story is entirely wrong" yet he has still published. Inmarsat are not the bad-guys here, it was not their plane that crashed, they did not build it, they are not trying to cover themselves. Yet this story implies they are completely incompetent (or worse) and by extension also AAIB who have stood behind this analysis in its presentation to the Malaysian authorities. If the story discussed some subtle extension to the Inmarsat analysis that would be one thing, but it is completely different (I have seen the derivation). Inmarsat have tested their analysis on other flights and that would have revealed gross errors immediately.

If this story were true it would imply conspiracy and cover-up within the UK air accident authorities, and I just don't think the World is like that.

[RIGHTSEATKC135]

Please extend some leeway to this newbie posting...


Have any ARINC avionics device status data, which is capable of being transmitted as "artifact" within the ACARS and the SSR systems been listed - publicly, or even admitted to, anywhere??

Kudos to those who have taken the time-to, and put forth the effort-to advance trigonometric calculations of the proposed flight path, especially when "x" has been the most elusive of factors to determine.

Probably the only (politically safe) assumption capable of being made/stated within this, or any forum, is the fact that whatever the eventual outcome of the MH370 saga may be, it's resolution will greatly affect the future of commercial aviation, and the lives of those who supply and/or consume these services for a very long time to come.

[Propduffer]

@RichardC10

I agree. The Atlantic has taken a big hit in credibility for me.

Attacking the Inmarsat engineers' integrity is a non-sequitur IMO, and that is what all this questioning of their analysis appears to be based upon.

[Fox_JB]

And another place on the MH route network which would have made disappearing into the Southern Ocean even easier - Mauritius.

Malaysia Airlines don't fly to Mauritius. The route is a code share operated by Air Mauritius.

[hamster3null]

The problem with this story is that the reporter has gone to Inmarsat for fact-check and got "your story is entirely wrong" yet he has still published.

He got "your story is wrong but we won't tell you why it's wrong". The technical term for this is "stonewalling". If I were him, I would have published too. The conclusion - that 'until officials provide more information, the claim that Flight 370 went south rests not on the weight of mathematics but on faith in authority' - seems undisputable.

by law they are prevented to release such information if they are participants in the investigation.By whose law and in which jurisdiction?


Yet this story implies they are completely incompetent (or worse) and by extension also AAIB who have stood behind this analysis in its presentation to the Malaysian authorities.Well, that's one possible interpretation. Another is that they were given "MH370 did not enter Indian airspace" as an input and they gave a competent conclusion that was conditional on that. In this scenario, failure to produce a northbound track in late March was an understandable oversight rather than incompetence. By now they can't revise their conclusions, because Australians spent something like $43m based on their word and they'd be exposing themselves to a huge liability if their information proved false. It's a classic case of "no good deed goes unpunished". This is why big companies have lawyers checking every word of every press release and every bit of information that is released to the public. The fact that Inmarsat got voluntarily involved at all seems like a lapse of judgement on their lawyers' part.

[porterhouse]

By now they can't revise their conclusions Sure, I reckon this is your wonderful "possible interpretation" :yuk:
I often wonder how much the world is missing of the infinite wisdom coming from this forum. So much insight, so much brilliant deduction. :}

[Leightman 957]

The towed search has not found wreckage, but the search PC's seem not to have been unequivocal that wreckage is not in the primary search area, only that they had covered the area. 'None was found' was the wording at the end of each search day. But it was also stated that Bluefin was at its max depth, and that portions of the seafloor in the area remain to be mapped, the latter phrase suggestive. Other than 'sedimented', very few characterizations of the sea floor have been made. It remains possible that wreckage is within the search area, but too deep to be recognized by Bluefin, located in a chasm, or otherwise obscured by seafloor profiles. Again, there has not been enough information given to rule this out. I would be surprised if areas within the primary were not the first place searched when more capable equipment arrives.

[tdracer]

And for a very good reason - by law they are prevented to release such information if they are participants in the investigation.

Thank you olasek. This bears repeating (repeatedly). Anyone who is involved in the investigation is under an effective gag order (been there, experienced that). All public release of information must be approved and released by the responsible investigating agency, and unless the investigation uncovers a potentially urgent safety concern, there is no obligation to publicly release information related to the investigation.
Breaking the 'gag order' during an active investigation can result in serious repercussions (including loosing ones job).

In short, keeping the peanut gallery informed and entertained is not their job.

[MG23]

By now they can't revise their conclusions, because Australians spent something like $43m based on their word and they'd be exposing themselves to a huge liability if their information proved false.

Accident investigators don't just say 'hey, someone thinks it crashed over here, let's spend millions of dollars looking'. All relevant information will have been analyzed and combined with other available information to determine the most likely spot for finding the wreckage. As tdracer said, those who are involved in an investigation are expected to release information through the investigation agency, not willy-nilly to the press.

Everyone wants to spot the one piece of overlooked or misinterpreted information that would finally locate the aircraft, but the investigation isn't being run by the Keystone Kops.

[porterhouse]

If you're suggesting that Inmarsat employees are so terrified You simply don't get it. :rolleyes:
No one has to be 'terrified'.
No one has to be afraid of police action.
People do it because this is how investigations are handled, by fiat, by historical precedence, by mutual agreement, by common sense.
Investigators rather be left alone than having to reply to a line of outsiders (usually media idiots) knocking on their door asking for 'verifications' or 'explanations'.
Any press releases, etc are totally at their discretion, they are not necessary, they may chose to communicate only through official reports.

[Passenger 389]

hamster3null wrote:

By now they can't revise their conclusions, because Australians spent something like $43m based on their word and they'd be exposing themselves to a huge liability if their information proved false.

1. Best to distinguish between the words "false" and "mistaken." The former might imply that Inmarsat intentionally fabricated data or deliberately misinterpreted it. (And lawyers might call that libel.)

2. Inmarsat is not exposed to "huge liability" even if you assume some mistakes. A 777 with 239 souls was missing, and the search getting nowhere. Inmarsat apparently reported the information it had, along with various uncertainties, and then strove to refine and verify the data and the inferences from it.

It was the Australian government (and other parties) that decided how much to rely upon that data and interpretation and what resources to expend, presumably in consultation with others having some expertise.


In short, no obvious reason why Inmarsat would refrain from revising its conclusions if it thinks such revision warranted. Indeed, there already have been multiple revisions (that we know of) since the original announcement about northern and southern arcs.

[rampstriker]

Acoustic tags that transmit pings from 30 khz to 50 khz are used to track various species of large marine animals (i.e., sharks, whales, sea turtles, tuna, seals, etc). The ping interval is typically 1 second.

There's an interesting opinion piece (http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/sideviews/article/mh370-the-pings-were-not-from-the-black-box-william-meacham) in the Malaysian Insider by William Meacham, in he which claims the pings heard were not from the ULBs, but more likely from a marine acoustic tracking pinger.

The article is footnoted with his sources from reputable authorities. For example:

"Dr David Gallo, a senior scientist at Woods Hole and co-director of the successful search for the wreckage of AF447, wrote in an email to me: 'I don't know any underwater acoustic people that think the pings have anything to do with the plane.'”

Definitely worth a read.

[onetrack]

rampstriker - That's an interesting opinion piece regarding the pings. In line with that opinion, I would consider by far the most concerning angle, would have to be the inability of the TPL-25 to pick up consistent, repeated pings, once the pings had been recorded over a 2 hr period.

If the emailed opinion of the Woods Hole senior scientist, Dr David Gallo is reportedly correct, in that he says, “I don't know any underwater acoustic people that think the pings have anything to do with the plane.” - then in line with the other concern, in that not a single scrap of wreckage has been found - it does give serious concern as to the final position of MH370 being where the JACC is convinced it is.

One has to consider the fact that after 8 weeks, if the aircraft did ditch in the Indian Ocean, then at least even one small piece of wreckage would have washed up on some Indian Ocean shore.
The longer times goes on without a shred of wreckage being found on some shore, seriously increases the doubt level.

Add in the vast Ocean area combed for over 6 weeks by some pretty hi-tech aircraft, and thousands of SAR eyes, both on the water and above it, and one is left with a distinctly uncomfortable feeling that the aircraft is not where the JACC thinks it is.

[Sheep Guts]

Onetrack,

That's an interesting opinion piece regarding the pings. In line with that opinion, I would consider by far the most concerning angle, would have to be the inability of the Bluefin 21 to pick up consistent, repeated pings, once the pings had been recorded over a 2 hr period.



Just a minor correction to your post.

The Bluefin21 does not pick up 37.5 kHz acoustic pings its an Underwater Autonomous Vehicle with sonar mapping capability only. Unfortunately its operating limit 4500m depth maybe now of a concern, since nothing has been found.

The TPL-25 Towed Pinger Locator is what I think you are referring to.

[Datayq1]

one is left with a distinctly uncomfortable feeling that the aircraft is not where the JACC thinks it is.

We assume that JACC is listening to experts, but apparently none of them are within Dr Gallo's sphere of underwater acoustics "people".

[Mesoman]

The article is footnoted with his sources from reputable authorities. For example:If the article is correct, this would be a bombshell.

But... I'd like to see someone else, or Woods Hole itself, corroborate this. After all, the pings were picked up by the experts using the TPL, and their whole job is finding these pingers. Aussie acoustic experts reportedly (per Angus Houston) verified them.

Thus I find it unlikely (but not impossible) that the searchers are on the wrong track in this regard. More likely is that the article is wrong and the authorities are misquoted. I suspect we'll know one way or the other in a day or two.

Currently, the Woods Hole site, which has a FAQ on this search, doesn't mention ULB's at all.

[Pontius Navigator]

Acoustic tags that transmit pings from 30 khz to 50 khz are used to track various species of large marine animals (i.e., sharks, whales, sea turtles, tuna, seals, etc).

And these tags are mobile. If the carrier of the tag was responsible for each located ping being in a different area then it is probable that at least two pings would have been on different, Doppler-shifted, frequencies to account for the variation in locations.

Had there been such a tag set to operate at that frequency I would have expected to someone to come up and say, 'Hey guys, you are tracking my great white . . . '

[James7]

MH370 families urge govts to release raw satellite data - The Rakyat Post - The Rakyat Post (http://www.therakyatpost.com/news/2014/05/09/mh370-families-urge-govts-release-raw-satellite-data/)

Reacting to the tripartite meeting, Voice370 said given the lack of tangible evidence of what happened to MH370, Putrajaya should “share and release the raw Inmarsat satellite engine ping data for 9MMRO (every ping from Friday, March 7 midnight until the final signal), “so that it can be subject to broader analysis by relevant experts”.
Voice370 said Inmarsat’s data only indicated a probable southern flight path but that it was not a definitive conclusion.
“The Inmarsat satellite data is the only lead we have and is key to identifying MH370’s flight path,” it said.
“In view of the lack of emergency locator transmitter (ELT) activation, zero detected debris, and the lack of convincing pings, we feel that it is necessary that the data be subjected to independent third party review,” the group said.

[henra]

Henra
Why would you need to fly the route in a real aircraft with different winds and conditions ?

In order to emulate exactly the Doppler effects and Signal strength of the SAT Connection.
Winds/conditions are irrelevant for that. It would be important to get the timing right relative to the Satellite position and movement.
When replicating 1:1 it should become possible to identify deviations from the calculated/assumed course/speed combination, thereby validating the current search area.
Amplitudes and steepness of Doppler shift change should be identical.
If this cannot be replicated exactly 1:1 it may be time for a re-think.
Plus the steepness of the change of Doppler shift tells you something about the effective Speed vector of the aircraft relative to the satellite.
Steeper drop in Doppler means faster airspeed or more orthogonal course relative to the arc.
Since there is a mutual dependency of Speed, angles relative towards the arcs and timing of crossing of the different arcs, you could draw conclusions regarding where exactly to search from deviations or match of the values seen with MH370.
Edit: The more orthogonal the course relative to the arcs, the more even spaced will the Timings be between crossing the different arcs (if we assume a constant airspeed in the last stage of the flight). Thus there will be a more or less unique pattern for each combination of Speed and course, only limited by the accuracy of the data.

[aerobat77]

i somehow fail to understand all this ...


we remember the reports where the search teams received pings which


a) were on the final arc of handshakes
b) were recorded, anylysed and verified to be from an ULB.
c) started to fade out at the 30 day battery limit.


knowing the very limited range of the ULB pinger and using common sense to realise its to much concidence that a b and c together can be anything else than really mh 370 could lead to say " deepest respect you aussies - you really found the wreckage" ,just send the auv to confirm.


they did and... nothing ...


so in this mystery i see only two explanations


a) all the rumours are false, the pings were never from a blackbox ULB and they search in a more or less complete wrong position
b) the pings were from a blackbox ULB - and since no other aircraft crashed there last time for sure it can only be mh370 - but the bluefin is much more limited than released to media and simply failed to scan the wreckage even when it was in the right spot.


i do not see other explanations - normally when you hear the ULB you have found the aircraft.

[overthewing]

A site about acoustic tags on marine animals says:

The simplest electronic tags are acoustic tags. These can be surgically implanted inside the animal, or attached to a tether that has a delayed remote release mechanism. Two types of acoustic tags are used on marine animals: coded tags and continuous pingers. Coded tags regularly emit an ultrasonic signal that encodes a unique identifying number. This signal is detected and logged when the tagged animal is in close range (a few hundred metres) of a receiver stationed on the seabed or attached to a mooring. Continuous pingers are used for real-time tracking of marine animals from vessels fitted with a receiver for detecting the pinger. Some acoustic tags measure and transmit depth and temperature data when the animal is in range of the receiver. Coded acoustic tags are used to determine when animals visit particular sites, and can be used to examine long range movements between areas. Their batteries can last up to 10 years, allowing researchers to see how the behaviour of animals changes during different phases of life. Acoustic tags have been used since the late 1990s to study how white sharks occupy and move between coastal areas around Australia.

Ocean Tracks | Acoustic Tags (http://oceantracks.csiro.au/tags-acoustic.html)

I presume that the SAR investigators were able to rule out the possibility of coded tags, for lack of that unique identifying number? (And why doesn't an aviation ULB broadcast the same unique information?)

That leaves continuous pingers as a possibility. Presumably, marine researchers have records of what they've tagged and where those tags were last 'heard'? And presumably the MH370 investigators will have co-ordinated with those science agencies?

There has to be a reason for the Australian's certainty about the source of the pings. Doesn't there?

[HeavyMetallist]

I presume that the SAR investigators were able to rule out the possibility of coded tags, for lack of that unique identifying number? (And why doesn't an aviation ULB broadcast the same unique information?)
If the audio was modulated with a code then that would have been very obvious when they analysed the signals.

As for uniquely coding aviation ULBs - there's not a lot of point since, unlike with tagged animals, in any given ocean in any given 30-day period it's hardly likely that there will be more than one pair of ULBs down there!

[overthewing]

As for uniquely coding aviation ULBs - there's not a lot of point since, unlike with tagged animals, in any given ocean in any given 30-day period it's hardly likely that there will be more than one pair of ULBs down there!

But if an aviation ULB can't be distinguished from a similar device attached to an animal, you're depending on the aircraft crashing in an area where there aren't likely to be any tagged animals?

[HeavyMetallist]

But if an aviation ULB can't be distinguished from a similar device attached to an animal, you're depending on the aircraft crashing in an area where there aren't likely to be any tagged animals?
But they can be distinguished - aviation ULBs aren't coded, and transmit in bursts at 1 second intervals, not continuously. They also transmit around one frequency and will only have a doppler shift related to the velocity of the locator. If you've detected the signal over any substantial period of time I don't think it's going to be at all difficult to tell it apart from a marine animal tag.

[catch21]

Experts disagreeing with each other is nothing new, it's happening in court rooms around the world all day long.

What makes this extraordinary is that there are now two sets of experts disagreeing with each other, both over different sorts of pings, ULB pings and Satellite Pings.

Judging by the Atlantic article, it doesn't seem to me that the experts disagreeing (with the search authorities collective) on the issues of the satellite pings are Terry-Halfwit-with-a-calculator types. They would seem to have credibility, and I would hope they're now being listened to.

From the Malaysian Insider article, there would appear to be reasonable doubt cast by outside experts on the authenticity of the ULB pings as well.

I certainly wouldn't question the wisdom of the search strategy so far, (I've been involved in SAR for many years and it is always obvious afterwards), but given the lack of physical evidence I don't think it is unreasonable at this point to expect a re-think and a fresh analysis of the whole incident.

[overthewing]

But they can be distinguished - aviation ULBs aren't coded, and transmit in bursts at 1 second intervals, not continuously.

I can't find information on what 'continuous' means in terms of marine tag pinging. One site states:

Simple 'pingers' transmit regularly and continuously,
whilst transponders transmit on receipt of an external
signal.

www.asfb.org.au/pdf/1999/1999-01-05.pdf

That suggests to me that there's a pulsing behaviour involved? I don't know whether that means microseconds or something in the order of minutes or hours. Is it implausible that a marine tag could be set to pulse at 1 second intervals? Or is this disallowed, on account of confusion with aviation ULBs? The transmission frequency detected was consistent with what marine scientists use to track animals in deep ocean, because the lower frequency travels further.

[aerobat77]

"They did seem very sure that they had located a ULB though, in which case, your original point would still stand"


correct. lets forget all handshakes and inmarsat - when you receive in the middle of the indian ocean where no other aircraft crashed short range stationary pings from a device that is confirmed to be a blackbox ULB which start to fade away just 30 days after mh 370 vanished - what else can it be than a malaysian boeing 777 directly unter your feet ?


this pings either never existed or were from another source OR bluefin is not able to fully scan the bottom because otherwise MH370 must have been found .

[Recc]

I can't find information on what 'continuous' means in terms of marine tag pinging. One site states:

From the paper linked in the article:

"We developed the RATS to track the model V22P acoustic transmitter [...] which is specified to transmit a 36-kHz “ping” at 165 dB once every 700–1100 ms. The pulse duration of the ping is 10 ms"

[oldoberon]

If I have understood the whale/shark tracking posts I have one question.

Why on earth (or this case in the sea) are they allowed to use a frequency 5khz either side of 37.5Khz - madness

Isn't there a control authority like radio frequencies.

[henra]

"We developed the RATS to track the model V22P acoustic transmitter [...] which is specified to transmit a 36-kHz “ping” at 165 dB once every 700–1100 ms. The pulse duration of the ping is 10 ms"

Ouch.
This sounds worryingly close.
That might be: "back to square 1" I guess.
If true this leaves one speechless.

[HeavyMetallist]

@Recc:
We developed the RATS to track the model V22P acoustic transmitter [...] which is specified to transmit a 36-kHz “ping” at 165 dB once every 700–1100 ms. The pulse duration of the ping is 10 ms

You forgot to mention that the 700-1100ms pulse interval isn't a tolerance, it's a range; the pulse interval is varied to encode the depth of the transmitter. The chance of it being precisely, and consistently, 1s is therefore remote, and readily distinguished from an aviation ULB.

[Recc]

You forgot to mention that the 700-1100ms pulse interval isn't a tolerance, it's a range; the pulse interval is varied to encode the depth of the transmitter. The chance of it being precisely, and consistently, 1s is therefore remote, and readily distinguished from an aviation ULB.

True, but I wasn't meaning to suggest that it was this particular model; it was just an example of the kind of technology that was out there. The basic model (for example) comes with a factory set pulse interval and frequency (between 34 and 50kHz).

[thommo101]

@Rampstriker
"We developed the RATS to track the model V22P acoustic transmitter [...] which is specified to transmit a 36-kHz “ping” at 165 dB once every 700–1100 ms. The pulse duration of the ping is 10 ms"

Before people buy the hype from that article, let me remind you that these types of acoustic tracking tags are designed for SHORT TERM deployments on whales allowing for high resolution tracking with suitable distributed receivers.

For example the unit in the above paper lasted for 4 and a half hours attached to the whale.

These types of pingers are NOT deployed for long term detection.

Examples of pingers that ARE designed for long term (mentioned in @overthewing's post) are higher in frequency (62kHz), do not ping as regularly, and and rather low power (~145dB SL). These are used for shark tagging around Australia.

Now I'm not saying the signals detected by Ocean Shield are NOT from acoustic whale tags. All I am saying is it is HIGHLY IMPROBABLE that they originated from a whale tag.

[RationalKeith]

My understanding from credible comments in fora like this is that the combination of frequency and modulation method is different for various uses, aviation recorder beacons are unique.

[Ian W]

If the audio was modulated with a code then that would have been very obvious when they analysed the signals.

As for uniquely coding aviation ULBs - there's not a lot of point since, unlike with tagged animals, in any given ocean in any given 30-day period it's hardly likely that there will be more than one pair of ULBs down there!

I think that the last few weeks since the ULB signal was found have defeated your argument. As the ULB has faded and the wreckage has not been found there are large numbers of people including the satellite experts down thread, that are claiming that the aircraft is in a totally different position and the ULB pings were some kind of artifact. Compared to the expense of the search coding the ULB with something sensible would have stopped all the fruitless discussion about 'the Northern route' and doppler shifts and aircraft in the Andamans or Diego Garcia. Just a simple coded ping equating to the MH370 airframe would do. Even better a depth indication added to that would be extremely useful to SAR and recovery operations. Judging by the comments on tags for underwater animals these capabilities are off the shelf items and can have a useful life of ten (10) years!! And EASA thinks that they are pushing it to ask for 90 days? :ugh:

[overthewing]

The purpose of ULBs is to help locate the recorders once you've got within within a few kilometres of them, not to narrow down the crash site in the first place.

Perhaps this event is revealing that the original assumptions about ULBs need to be revised? Perhaps when the requirements were first specified, oceans were relatively quiet places, with very little alternative electronic noise to worry about?

[Ian W]

The fruitless blathering really doesn't matter - all that matters is what the real experts who are searching for this aircraft know, not how satisfied random individuals and self-appointed experts posting on the internet are. The purpose of ULBs is to help locate the recorders once you've got within within a few kilometres of them, not to narrow down the crash site in the first place. If you're got near enough to hear a ULB then it really doesn't matter if it's coded or not.

Well in this case the ULB was heard yet it did not allow anyone to locate the recorders then the ULB's died. So now the actual crash site is being questioned. Why not add a really simple low cost ID code to each pulse? It will cost pennies and resolve issues such as those being experienced now.

[oldoberon]

Guys 370 is either in the red yellow, green box or to the side of one of them

Imarsat data and methodolgy was peer reviewed by AAIB and others.

Whilst many impressive alternative calculations appear on the forum and other places, you can bet those responsible for the search read and check those suggestions/criticism to see if they do show there has been a miscalculation or oversight on their part, or a valuable idea to consider, they are neither daft or stubborn.

Unfortunately no "outsiders" gets the board's data so can't see the full picture that the board can. but that's the way the cookie crumbles with such investigations.

[Porker1]

@IanW

No doubt the transponders that have a potential battery life of 10 years are of a similar nature to those used on diving bells. Rather than "pinging" relentlessly from day one until exhausted, they save their power to reply to interrogative pings from searchers, allowing the SAR team the time to determine and arrive at the search area.

Having such reactive ULBs attached to the FDR & CVR seems like a good idea, but for (rare!) scenarios such as this one another transponder producing a lower frequency signal with a much greater range would also be damned useful. It wouldn't have to be associated with black boxes and could at least alert the searchers to the general location of the airframe.

[FlamantRose]

Considering that it would actually appear that nobody has the real slightest idea of the whereabouts of MS370 as all searches have shown negative results, I am hereby referring to ''SiriuslyCold's'' post # 135 dated 08 March at 09:56 on page # 7 that states :

I'm wondering why no one has remarked on FlightAware's ADS-B data further down the page, where it's picked up at 22.3598, 114.0461 by the receiver at VHSK?

Registre de suivi des vols ? MAS370 ? 07-03-2014 ? WMKK / KUL - ZBAA / PEK ? FlightAware (http://fr.flightaware.com/live/flight/MAS370/history/20140306/1635Z/WMKK/ZBAA/tracklog)

I don't recall seeing any further msg refering to that post but I may have overlooked or misread and stand therefore to be corrected.

When you look at the chart it starts off at 17:51 and the flt proceeds up to 18:12 showing acft at FL 37000 flying north east and then all lines below remain blank for the exception of, I guess, programmed flight path. It remains so until 20:49 when it re-appears at FL 39100 routing 24° until 20:51 when it disappears again for good.

Where does this information come from ? Could it belong to another acft ? If not what initiated that info ? Can someone find out by possibly enquiring Flight Aware ? There has to be something that re-activated the ADS-B Data (even if it is a bug).

[rampstriker]

As was mentioned somewhere way back lower frequency sounds require bigger speakers. A "subwoofer" pinger assembly would almost certainly not meet ULB ruggedness criteria due to the physics of scale. But a somewhat lower frequency could be within the realm of possibility.

[uqcodonn]

ABC News Australia:MH370: Ocean Shield returns to Malaysia Airlines flight search area after resupplying - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-10/ocean-shield-returns-to-waters-in-hunt-for-mh370/5443844)

Reporting that Ocean Shield is on its way back to the search area and still with Bluefin-21 (with software update).

The story cites Capt. Matthews:
"Concurrently there's a team in Canberra that includes ATSB, NTSB, Boeing and Inmarsat looking at the satellite data, just to take a fresh look, make sure they refine as much as they can the broader search area."

Captain Matthews says it is impossible to definitively say the signals detected last month were from a black box.

"It is certainly a man-made signal, but what it's from, I can't look at it and positively say 'hey that's an underwater locator beacon'," he said.

[framer]

Where does this information come from ? Could it belong to another acft ? If not what initiated that info ?
I imagine it has probably been explained earlier but I would also be interested in what generated the information. The aircraft that generated it was doing 511kts. MH370's ground speed showed 473kts at top of climb. The average of the two is 492kts. At that average ground speed it would take 2 hours 48mins between KL and VHSK, that data shows 3 hours after departure.
It would be nice if someone could explain why the data is not relevant or can be discounted for whatever reason.
Cheers.

[Squawk_ident]

About the supposedly MAS370 7th of March tracking on FA, neither the timeline or FL match the good values. The final cruising of the MAS370 was FL350 and ADS-B was lost at 17h21z. The data indicated are those of the MAS370/06MAR in local time but 07MAR UTC time. The relevant MAS370 was the one operating the day after on the 08MAR UTC/CET time.

[Sir Richard]

Please check your watch and time zones:

1721 UTC 07 March = 0121 Malaysian Time 08 March (UTC + 8)

My previous (removed) post alluded to this fact.

Please check the quoted MAS statement on page 1 of this thread

[poorjohn]

"They did seem very sure that they had located a ULB though, in which case, your original point would still stand"

correct. lets forget all handshakes and inmarsat - when you receive in the middle of the indian ocean where no other aircraft crashed short range stationary pings from a device that is confirmed to be a blackbox ULB which start to fade away just 30 days after mh 370 vanished - what else can it be than a malaysian boeing 777 directly unter your feet ?

this pings either never existed or were from another source OR bluefin is not able to fully scan the bottom because otherwise MH370 must have been found .Pardon me if this has been discussed - I gave up reading this thread midway due to so much uninformed speculation - but iirc from the AF447 threads an acoustic wave can be bent as it passes through the interface between media of different density (e.g. layers of different temperature) and thus peak detection would occur when the receiver was not directly overhead the source.

[Heathrow Harry]

any wave (light,sound, earthquake) can be refracted at any interface (assuming it is not at exactly 90 degrees to the incident surface) where the physical properties differ sufficiently

Refraction - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refraction)

[underfire]

What amazes me is how this entire search effort has been run and has fallen apart.

Some common sense, and easily determined processes have been completely ignored.

As an example, with a pinger search, reverse the thought process using simple GPS navigation concepts.
The search vessel is a satellite, and the pinger is the aircraft that wants to know its location.
For GPS navigation, if you only see one sat, what do you get...nothing. with 2 sats, what do you get...distance. It takes at least 3 sats to get your position, correct?

So, with one search vessel listening to a pinger, what do you get...nothing

If you had 2 search vessels, they could coordinate their locations with the exact time they rec'd the ping. you would get distance, but along an infinite line.

If you had 3 search vessels collaborated, you would get the horizontal location. It is really that intuative.

One vessel, one UAV, whatever...seems relatively hopeless.

too bad the exact time of all of the different signals between all of the vessels could not be compared, if they happened all at the same time.

(it should be noted that transponder batteries can last a long time, beacause it responds to a signal. There are many biologics, such as dolphins and whales that it will respond to. Especially with dolphins, they will try to have a conversation with a transponder, wearing down the batteries pretty quickly)

[MG23]

If you had 3 search vessels collaborated, you would get the horizontal location. It is really that intuative.

Yes, they just needed to magic up two more vessels equipped with towed pinger locators. Why didn't they think of that?

This search is really unprecedented. The aviation industry was never told it had to be able to find an aircraft that disappeared over the sea with six hours' fuel left and no active communication, otherwise they would have been ready to do so. We shouldn't be surprised that we're having a hard time finding it, but that there's any realistic chance of finding it.

If, for example, Inmarsat hadn't logged the time offsets in their handshakes, or hadn't realized they could be used to estimate the location, all we would know is that it flew on for six hours. That would leave us searching a circle a few thousand miles across, with pretty much no chance of ever finding the aircraft if it came down in the sea.

[underfire]

Yes, they just needed to magic up two more vessels equipped with towed pinger locators. Why didn't they think of that?

Why the attitude?

There were many, many vessels with TPL.

Just as the search pattern was noted before, 3 hours to turn rather than search a racetrack. Again, very intuative, and very common when searching.

[Pontius Navigator]

There were many, many vessels with TPL. .

OK, no attitude.

Name them.

Where are they?

[susier]

'The final cruising of the MAS370 was FL350 and ADS-B was lost at 17h21z'


The Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_370) Wiki page has MH370 reporting FL350 at 17:01 and again at 17:07.


According to the link from Flightaware, it was still climbing through 21,000 to 31,000 feet at these times.


So no, it doesn't make any sense presuming we are agreed that this is indeed data from the correct flight.


Is this just down to the more general inaccuracy of Flightaware's data? Or does it indicate inaccuracy on the part of the press releases?


ETA I think there is confusion over the correct date; FlightAware seems to use MYT for the date (8th March), and GMT for the times.


So this is the correct log:


http://uk.flightaware.com/live/flight/MAS370/history/20140307/1635Z/WMKK/ZBAA/tracklog

[JamesGV]

@susier

At 1701 (UTC 07MAR) it has reached 35,000 feet.
Which is 1801 (CET 07MAR) and 0101 (MYT 08MAR)

as per link
Flight Track Log ? MAS370 ? 08-Mar-2014 ? WMKK / KUL - ZBAA / PEK ? FlightAware (http://uk.flightaware.com/live/flight/MAS370/history/20140307/1635Z/WMKK/ZBAA/tracklog)

At 1750 (UTC 07MAR) it is still at 35,000 (and on that heading).
Which is 1850 (CET 07MAR) and 0150 (MYT 08MAR) ?

[susier]

James,


I was going to edit my post to ask about the 17:50 entry but was afraid I had got it wrong and the answer was obvious.




ETA: http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/535538-malaysian-airlines-mh370-contact-lost-8.html#post8359089


This explains it. Apparently FlightAware doesn't have sufficient coverage over the sea.

[SLFguy]

What amazes me is how this entire search effort has been run and has fallen apart.

Some common sense, and easily determined processes have been completely ignored.

As an example, with a pinger search, reverse the thought process using simple GPS navigation concepts.
The search vessel is a satellite, and the pinger is the aircraft that wants to know its location.
For GPS navigation, if you only see one sat, what do you get...nothing. with 2 sats, what do you get...distance. It takes at least 3 sats to get your position, correct?

So, with one search vessel listening to a pinger, what do you get...nothing

If you had 2 search vessels, they could coordinate their locations with the exact time they rec'd the ping. you would get distance, but along an infinite line.

If you had 3 search vessels collaborated, you would get the horizontal location. It is really that intuative.

One vessel, one UAV, whatever...seems relatively hopeless.

too bad the exact time of all of the different signals between all of the vessels could not be compared, if they happened all at the same time.

(it should be noted that transponder batteries can last a long time, beacause it responds to a signal. There are many biologics, such as dolphins and whales that it will respond to. Especially with dolphins, they will try to have a conversation with a transponder, wearing down the batteries pretty quickly)

You should get in touch asap! If only they'd had you on board..:rolleyes:

[500N]

Underfire

Angus Houston is probably one of the better heads, leaders or whatever you want to call him to lead this effort.

Apart from personal SAR experience as a pilot - and awarded a medal for one dangerous rescue, head of the ADF, well known internationally especially with the countries involved (and all the inherent issues), doesn't play politics or suffer fools gladly, cuts through any crap, has no problems telling bosses or pollies they are wrong and knows how to pull the required team together from across the world. He also would have the highest security clearance level.

And best of all, doesn't pander to the media or the medias agenda as shown from day 1.

You really think he isn't pulling everything together that he can ?

[Propduffer]

I will add that the earlier assertion that the searchers were incompetent because they made 3 hour turnarounds instead of a "racetrack" pattern was quite off base.

They were using a racetrack pattern, one that kept bringing them back to the target area where they wanted to focus the search. The way they did it gave them maximum time over target; they varied the depth of the UAV as they turned so that they could get back to the target area sooner with the UAV at the correct depth.

If they would have just kept running in a circle or oblong search pattern they would have searched a greater area, but would not have spent much time over the target area.

This whole business of armchair admirals questioning the technical expertise of the kinds of people who have designed and built vehicles such as Ocean Shield and the ULV (as well as the Inmarsat systems) seems a bit daft to me.

[PAXboy]

Reported on BBC website: 12 May 2014 Last updated at 01:49 (BST)

BBC News - Inmarsat offers free airline tracking (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-27369288)

UK satellite operator Inmarsat is to offer a free, basic tracking service to all the world's passenger airliners.My emphasis

[SummerLightning]

From the BBC story:

Inmarsat says the free service it is offering would carry definitive positional information.
It would see a plane determine its location using GPS and then transmit that data - together with a heading, speed and altitude - over Inmarsat's global network of satellites every 15 minutes.


So not that basic, and much more than we have to go on in the case of MH370.

[India Four Two]

A very good move by Inmarsat.


The satellite operator would carry the cost, anticipated to be about $3m a year.

It already does something similar in the maritime sector. All distress calls from ships are relayed over its network free of charge.

The company would hope to recoup costs as airlines moved to take up some of its premium services. "But we would keep that basic tracking service free of charge," said Mr McLaughlin.

[Porker1]

@ventus45

Kind of old news that now, given that the CVR/FDR signals can assume to have stopped and even now we're not 100% sure whether they really were picking up signals from the aircraft. Having said that, the picking up of two signals simultaneously does seem to make the stories of coincidental, similar frequency, marine beastie transponder tags seem unlikely.

As for the side scan sonar capabilities of the AUVs, that's not really a source of speculation or research in this instance. Either they find the airframe or they don't, their capabilities only limit their swath on each pass and how long it takes to cover the search area.

[James7]

.So not that basic, and much more than we have to go on in the case of MH370

MH370 had ACARS , ADS, Transponder, ELT etc.
MH370 was real time tracked.


If the equipment is turned off or not activated you get nothing.

[Porker1]

Indeed a good move by Inmarsat and hopefully a fruitful business decision. They deserve credit for having technically put their balls on the line in the case of MH370. God knows if the aircraft is finally found elsewhere they and their engineers will have serious egg on their faces......

[DaveReidUK]

MH370 was real time tracked.No.

Regardless of what was or wasn't functioning on board, it would only have been trackable while within range of SSR.

[albatross]

Why would it not be trackable by Primary Radar?
SSR requires a transponder doesn't it?

[James7]

Which it was right up to the point it was turned off.

It was also equipped with ADS and ACARS /CPDLC

It also has an ELT which can be activated any time.

Even real time tracking envisioned by all and sundry is useless when in the OFF position.

Even with the known position of AF entering the water it took 2 years to find the black box.

Resources would be better spent on the design of the Black Box locating devices.

[albatross]

I know some military equipment on ships and planes picks up radar signals to ascertain if they being tracked by a radar.
Would any Air Defence Radar Installations have similar equipment?
We fly with our WX radar on most of the time.
Therefore a target picked up on Primary Radar with no Transponder and also was not emitting a radar signal from it's Weather Radar (WX Radar) would be suspect.
Of course since no Primary search radar detection caused any alarm on the night of the disappearance no one checked if any target was emitting a WX radar signal.
As I stated I do not even know if the capability even exists at the ground radar stations concerned.
Very late in the day to ask the question but I was just wondering.

[sandos]

Of course civilian radar equipment on the ground is unable to detect someones wx radar, for several reasons, but mostly "why would they?". It takes some egineering for something that is totally useless 99,9999% of the time. Fighter aircraft have systems to detect other radars and jammers, for obvious reasons. But figher aircrafts are also very expensive!

[albatross]

I was refering to Military Air Defence Radar ground installations.
The radar detector would be a seperate piece of equipment.
I would not expect Civil SSR installations to be so equipped.
I was just curious.

[BOAC]

Regardless of what was or wasn't functioning on board, it would only have been trackable while within range of SSR. - thankfully wildly wrong, DR. Otherwise a country would have no way of detecting any enemy air activity since they are known not to squawk ATC codes for some bizarre reason.:confused:

Radar is designed to work by bouncing off a reflective surface and does NOT require SSR.

[oldoberon]

Which it was right up to the point it was turned off.

It was also equipped with ADS and ACARS /CPDLC

It also has an ELT which can be activated any time.

Even real time tracking envisioned by all and sundry is useless when in the OFF position.

Even with the known position of AF entering the water it took 2 years to find the black box.

Resources would be better spent on the design of the Black Box locating devices.

If you look at the size of the search area without inmarsat data it is approx 1/3 of the earth, so 90 days would mostly likely be inadequate.

WE need both upgrades tracking and improved ULBs (longer lasting/more powerful), and still have to cope with the one in a million cases where crew/jackers tries to disable tracking.

[DaveReidUK]

thankfully wildly wrong, DR. Otherwise a country would have no way of detecting any enemy air activity since they are known not to squawk ATC codes for some bizarre reason

Radar is designed to work by bouncing off a reflective surface and does NOT require SSR.No argument there. But read what I said:

it would only have been trackable while within range of SSRI didn't say that SSR was required to track it, but if it's out of range of SSR (say 200nm max), then it's surely beyond the range of primary radar, too. Therefore not trackable.

[Propduffer]

As far as I can see, if they were to throw out the April 8th receptions, that changes nothing. It seems to me that they have just raised the bar for the type of data they will accept as the bedrock of their search assumptions.

They still appear to be certain that they have received pings from the dying ULB. For us (with only third hand data) to be second guessing these technical experts at their own game seems nonsensical to me.

This reminds me of those who wanted to question the Inmarsat engineers' technical reasoning, which I found laughable.

I do believe there are people from Malaysia who are withholding and possibly misstating information, but I don't question the experts and engineers at their own area of expertise.

[thommo101]

@propduffer
As far as I can see, if they were to throw out the April 8th receptions, that changes nothing.

Actually, by disregarding the April 8th ping detections then it actually resolves my main concern about the acoustic detections, that is the distance between the 2 days' detections was too far for the expected detection range.

This makes it more likely that the signals are from an ULB, and if so that it is located to the north west region (near the 2hr 20m long sequence of detections). This is also the area NOT search by the AUV.

[underfire]

While this site relates to pilots, there are other websites and group discussion forums with folks that do this sort of underwater work full time. (thankfully, most are closed, and by invitation based on verifiable qualifications) This search has been a technical and logistical fiasco. :mad:

I know of many entities in the industry that have been trying to provide input into the search, but like most adventures of this type, it has been relegated to the blowhards. :eek:

Good luck.

[acomputerguy]

Has anyone attempted to reconcile Inmarsat data with initial conditions of a single turn? It seems to me that a "one turn" theory requires throwing out all the primary radar returns that evidence further pilot action, which is not an unreasonable thought experiment as long as it doesn't also throw out the Inmarsat observations. Going a step farther, one could list all the evidence, the arguments for accepting or rejecting, and a theory that ties the remaining evidence together. That could lead to a measure of distance out on a limb that each picture of the events represents. Which would for sure be fun, and might be useful.

[Pontius Navigator]

Belgique, interesting post although I submit a steam driven cockpit was equally vulnerable although unintended switch functioning may have been less. Many years ago I saw the results of an intense cockpit fire. The instrument glasses had melted, sagged, and then re-solidified. The switch panels even then were of an electro-luminescent style illuminated by pea-bulbs.

[FE Hoppy]

how does this supposed fire take out all coms voice/data/SSR immediately and yet leave the aircraft able to make deliberate turns for the next X minutes and straight flight for x hours?

[arearadar]

Albatross and Dave Reid,
Unless I misunderstand, both primary and secondary radar contact was lost.
If true, how was 370 tracked and by whom ?
Never re-identified in an ATC sense.

[Ian W]

how does this supposed fire take out all coms voice/data/SSR immediately and yet leave the aircraft able to make deliberate turns for the next X minutes and straight flight for x hours?

IFF the tracking information is correct and the aircraft made a steady turn followed by a long continuous heading, followed by a turn northward when over the Malacca straits to avoid overflight of Indonesia, and finally a turn to the South when clear of Indonesia THEN the disabled crew/cockpit hypothesis is not supportable. This weakness is common to all the 'emergency on board' ideas.

The Egyptian fire was a blowtorch effect to the right of the first officer's seat. I would expect that the first officer might well be less than impressed and egress the area rather rapidly. The captain only has to press a transmit button to give an emergency call as the crew would have switched from one box to the other not dialed up the HCM center frequency on the same box. They would be on one center's frequency or the other's. So it would be very unlikely that the pilot would not have made a transmission of some kind.

And of course - the Boeing AD would have been carried out so there should not have been a repeat of the Egyptian fire on MH370.

[Pontius Navigator]

arearadar, I thought we had established with 100% certainty that there was no 100% guarantee that a non-squawking, non-communicative, not visually identified aircraft was MH370.

Albatross, did you ever see my answers?

[Ian W]

Albatross and Dave Reid,
Unless I misunderstand, both primary and secondary radar contact was lost.
If true, how was 370 tracked and by whom ?
Never re-identified in an ATC sense.


My understanding was that the transponder stopped but that the primary contact was still being recorded. Not that anyone would be interested as you know many if not most controllers will have primary switched off and base all their work on SSR/ADS. We are not told but have to assume that a primary target was also correlated with the SSR by the air defense agencies. That primary correlation would survive the transponder stopping and remain attached to the primary track.

All this is why the first search was in the South China Sea, then the 'tapes were pulled' and the primary track was then visible. So no the aircraft was not re-identified in an 'air traffic sense' as it was only being followed from the tapes. Since then the Malaysian and Thai military have also said that their systems tracked the aircraft. They are all keeping shtum about their actual capabilities and what they have actually passed to the investigation. But it must be believable or the search in the South China sea would still be going on.

[ZOOKER]

Ian,
you say…"many if not most controllers will have primary switched off and base all their work on SSR/ADS.".
This is incorrect. Certainly in The U.K. PSR and SSR data are displayed together, over-laid on the same screen. The only time SSR only is used is when the PSR has failed or is on maintenance.
I suspect the majority of ATC units work the same way. If ATC operated as you suggest, should the SSR system on the ground fail, the ATCOs would be left with nothing but the video-maps.

[Ian W]

Welcome to the brave new world :rolleyes: The symbology in Europe gives some level of precedence to primary. That is not the case elsewhere definitely not in some areas of the USA where only SSR cover is available. NextGen will move to all ADS-B surveillance, in theory without any PSR or SSR. This lead will be followed by most of the rest of the world. All those heavy engineering turning antennae cost a lot to keep going.

I understand all the concerns as I started with a wax pencil and primary radar only. But I have watched controllers who have no primary selected on their displays to reduce the clutter successfully controlling extremely busy sectors.

Perhaps someone can say what the normal selection is for the radar 'picture' out of KL toward HCM

[BOAC]

We are not told but have to assume that a primary target was also correlated with the SSR by the air defense agencies. That primary correlation would survive the transponder stopping and remain attached to the primary track.- there's that word again..................

[Propduffer]

Ian:

Zooker may be giving us the best understanding so far of what was seen at KL; I have read that the Malaysian radar system was of recent vintage and purchased from Britain. So the British system appears to be what is in place at KL.

I echo your plea for (if that) for someone to tell us what the radar 'picture' out of KL is/was. The silence from that direction hinders our understanding of early events. There are no great military secrets to be kept regarding this subject; the capabilities of garden variety search radars are no secret.

There are people such as I posting here who would like to gain a better understanding of the early portion of the flight, and the absence of detailed radar information hinders that process. There is no reason for all the principles in this matter to provide less than full disclosure IMO.

[Pontius Navigator]

The point that arearadar was alluding to (and clarified in a PM) is that the original air defence track may well have been correlated with the civair SSR flight.

At the time SSR was lost and the only tracking was from primary return the military track was probably of MH370.

When radar contact was lost the probability confidence has to drop.

When radar contact was apparently regained the probability that the regained track was MH370 was depended on fewer values.

1. No other unidentified air track was known to fly that course.

2. No other primary radar track, uncorrelated with SSR was know in he area at that time.

etc etc.

In otherwords, the certainty provided by track conformity, SSR, communications, continuous primary tracking, was lost.

It was probably MH370 but it was not certainly MH370.

[PAXboy]

Propduffer
There is no reason for all the principles in this matter to provide less than full disclosure IMO. The country of origin and lead investigator, is a country used to saying nothing to no one. Exacerbated by the media who have whipped up the families, there is every reason for all the principles in this matter to provide less than full disclosure IMO.

Only another year or two to go.

[Scubascooby]

This is my first post on this forum, I am not a pilot (would love to learn) but I am an experienced diver and know how serious an oxygen fire could be.

An in-flight oxygen fire would be a nightmare to deal with, I don't think anyone is going to stay in a cockpit with a nearby oxygen fire, just the heat given off would drive them out.

This is an incident that happened in USA some years ago. In the fifth picture you can see the remains of one of the aluminium cylinders, burst and melted.

22-May-06 Palm Bay, Florida. Why we don't fill our own tanks! (http://www.irishmansoftware.com/fill_your_own_tanks.htm)

As someone who has spent a fair amount of time looking for ship wrecks in <50m of water I have an inkling of the scale of the search task. What worries me is the complete lack of any floating debris.

[portmanteau]

pontious, I think this is one case where a 99% probability outranks a 100% guarantee...but.... how important to establishing where the aircraft went, is this track anyway? in other words if the LKP of any sort was near igari would it have changed the inmarsat calculations ?

[Sailvi767]

I witnessed a oxygen fire on a Delta 727 in the late eighties at KSLC. It occurred in the E&E compartment and was impressive in its speed and the amount and toxicity of the smoke produced. One breath knocked the flight engineer to his knees and almost completely incapacitated him. I don't see a aircraft surviving a O2 fed fire to fly for 5 or 6 hours.

[Shadoko]

Today (May 13th) there was an interview of Rémi Jouty, chief of BEA (French equivalent of NTSB) in the very serious French newspaper L'Usine Nouvelle (business related top ranked newspaper): Vol MH370 disparu : pour le patron du BEA "il y a clairement eu une volonté de rendre l'appareil invisible" - Aéronautique - Défense (http://www.usinenouvelle.com/article/vol-mh370-disparu-pour-le-patron-du-bea-il-y-a-clairement-eu-une-volonte-de-rendre-l-appareil-invisible.N261988)
For him, it is beyond imagination that a simple mechanical incident might have lead to a disconnection of all communication means. He said there had been a clear will to make the aircraft invisible.

[Pontius Navigator]

Portmaneau, what I said was to explain why arearadar essentially kept repeating the question - certain or probable.

I agree with your definition, the various facts, and lack of facts, all add up to create the picture.

For an air traffic controller however they need to be 100%. In the absence of SSR they will ask for a position check or request an ident turn etc,

Even that has on occasion been less than 100% where another aircraft has inadvertently performed a similar manoeuvre and been mis-identified.

[WillowRun 6-3]

Government of Malaysia has received some harsh criticisms here. The PM published an op ed in Wall Street Journal - for context, and fairness and balance, it is (or should be) a "must read" relative to that nation's governmental workings to date.
Najib Razak: Malaysia's Lessons From the Vanished Airplane - WSJ.com (http://m.us.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052702303627504579559170123401220-lMyQjAxMTA0MDEwNDExNDQyWj)

[roninmission]

OS appears to be nack in the search area and actively searching. ECHO was headed in that direction and is probably there too, altho' no recent position updates from AIS

[Ian W]

Portmaneau, what I said was to explain why arearadar essentially kept repeating the question - certain or probable.

I agree with your definition, the various facts, and lack of facts, all add up to create the picture.

For an air traffic controller however they need to be 100%. In the absence of SSR they will ask for a position check or request an ident turn etc,

Even that has on occasion been less than 100% where another aircraft has inadvertently performed a similar manoeuvre and been mis-identified.

This is all correct but the case of a controller identifying an aircraft in real time and the forensic technicians gathering data from recorded tapes are significantly different.

The controller has to take on the aircraft with no appreciable delay and be (in their own mind) certain that they have identified the correct aircraft. The technicians and controllers studying the recorded tapes of radar returns have as much time as they need, can access better or amplified / cleaned data, can work out the speeds of aircraft and attempt to account for every return on a screen in order to rule out other aircraft.

I would think that the airspace over Malaysia at 1am is relatively quiet and most aircraft are the expected routine flights that anyone who works in an area for a time expects to see. I doubt very much that it is like the fabled Midland Radar overhead on a busy day. That being the case there would have been few if any primary responses that could be confused with MH370. Then the inquiry would have access to recordings from the various militaries that provided information and this information would be overlaid on the civil radar pictures. We in the peanut gallery will not be shown this.

If the inquiry team then believe that they have followed MH370 in the left turn back across the peninsula then a right up the Malacca straits followed by two left turns to go around Indonesia - then we can't disagree with them we do not have their information.

The important issue here is that if the aircraft did fly that very indirect route, it is unlikely that it was doing so after the flight deck was abandoned as some capable human inputs would be required. Then the following 6 hours of cruise flight also show that the aircraft was airworthy and not badly damaged.

[Val d'Isere]

if the aircraft did fly that very indirect route, it is unlikely that it was doing so after the flight deck was abandoned as some capable human inputs would be required.
The condition 'unlikely' is significant. Not impossible, then.

A "few" pages ago, I abandoned my attempts to investigate the possibilities thoroughly and logically and explain the conclusions in a careful sequence of posts.

[BOAC]

Surely after all these posts we should look a little at old Lady Logic?

Scenario 1) Drastic emergency on board: As said, who as time to re-programme the FMC to follow a bizarre route? Will the a/c systems then allow this to be 'flown'?

Scenario 2) Suicide/political protest: I'm going to crash this aircraft out of desperation/frustration over something. Why drag it out for 7 or more hours and then crash it? What is wrong with a political/emotional R/T message and a high-speed dive into the nearest water?


Anyone got an answer? I don't have - I have absolutely NO idea what happened or where the bits are.

[oopspff7]

If it has taken a dive into water would'nt bodies be a poppin to the surface due to decompostion by now ?

[Pontius Navigator]

oops, in shallow waters like the Dee, maybe. In deep water at just 4 degrees I imagine decomposition would be slower. Then the huge pressures would have a huge difference. Then if they were strapped in as we are encouraged to do.

Many reasons why there is no debris now.

[onetrack]

The only embarrassment here is that a 250 tonne aircraft can disappear off the face of the Earth, despite vast amounts of incredibly-potent surveillance and tracking technology, in the form of radar, satellites, submarines, and ships - by a sizeable number of nations.

We can put men on the moon multiple times, send rovers to Mars - yet we can't find an aircraft that disappears from the control of the most tightly-controlled transport system ever devised. There are a lot of people who must wonder where things are going seriously wrong.

Nations spend hundreds of billions on equipment for defence, and border control, and against aerial intrusions - yet employ so few skilled people in its actual use outside "normal working hours".
Asian nations invest billions in high-tech equipment, yet appear to have very few people capable of utilising it, to its fullest capacity.

Australia spends billions on JORN that is supposed to be able to pick up a Cessna 172 taxiing on the ground in East Timor, yet its áppears to be turned off, more often than it's turned on. It beggars belief.

[rh200]

It beggars belief.

Cost benifet analysis, no perceived threat at the moment, hence not needed. Sounds like good sense me.

[McRotor96]

Cost benifet analysis, no perceived threat at the moment, hence not needed. Sounds like good sense me.

I'm sure that is the reason. Although I'm not convinced that terrorist attacks are flagged up in advance. So perhaps calculated risk rather than anything.

[rh200]

I'm sure that is the reason. Although I'm not convinced that terrorist attacks are flagged up in advance. So perhaps calculated risk rather than anything.

Your correct about the terrorist attacks of course, but the primary purposes of those assets are generally for threats from states. Hence rely on intelligence to determine the operational status of such.

Terrorist attacks utilising aircraft are supposed to be nipped in the butt at the departure point, or sorted out in flight. Hence those facillities and their operating hours should not be of any use in most cases.

[mmurray]

Press release from JACC:

As advised yesterday, the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle, Bluefin-21, was recovered about two hours into its first mission since returning to the search area so a communications problem could be investigated.

During the recovery, Bluefin-21 was damaged but was able to be repaired expeditiously with spare parts on board the ADV Ocean Shield.

Examination of the communications problem has established that a hardware defect exists in the transponder mounted on the Ocean Shield and that a defect may also exist in the transponder mounted on the Bluefin-21. This inhibits the ability of the two devices to communicate with each other.

As a consequence, spare parts for both defects will be dispatched from the United Kingdom. The parts are expected to arrive in Western Australia on Sunday.

Ocean Shield is currently en route to Dampier, Western Australia, to receive the transponder parts. The journey is anticipated to take a number of days. At this stage, Ocean Shield is expected go alongside so engineers can make a full assessment of the transponder repairs.

The Joint Agency Coordination Centre will provide further information regarding the serviceability of Bluefin-21 and the movements of Ocean Shield as it becomes available.

Update on MH370 Search (http://www.jacc.gov.au/media/releases/2014/may/mr045.aspx)

[Ian W]

The only embarrassment here is that a 250 tonne aircraft can disappear off the face of the Earth, despite vast amounts of incredibly-potent surveillance and tracking technology, in the form of radar, satellites, submarines, and ships - by a sizeable number of nations.



This is likely to happen more often. Systems that are being developed now rely (depend) on the aircraft being able to automatically tell the ground systems whey are it is either by SATCOM link or by VHF link. If those aircraft systems fail or are turned off then the aircraft in the 'brave new space based world' will become invisible. Everyone seems to expect someone else to pick up the tab of surveillance systems to follow what are called 'non-cooperating' targets. But primary surveillance costs money especially the long range primary surveillance and it doesn't work out of line of sight of land - nobody wants to pay for it.

[aerobat77]

"Pardon me if this has been discussed - I gave up reading this thread midway due to so much uninformed speculation - but iirc from the AF447 threads an acoustic wave can be bent as it passes through the interface between media of different density (e.g. layers of different temperature) and thus peak detection would occur when the receiver was not directly overhead the source. "


thats deflection is correct, but nevertheless the range of this device is only few kilometers at all. 10 kilometers radius ( so more than the pinger range ) have been scanned by bluefin and nothing - not even some sunk debries beyond the main wreckage - was found.


that due to my understanding cannot be and one statement ( pings are from an ulb ) excludes the other . ( bluefind scanned the bottom around the ping and nothing was found )


so like said either the origin of the pings was something else or bluefin did not scanned every piece of the bottom in the 10 km radius , maybe due to depth limitation .

[mm43]

Bear in mind that Australia has never confirmed or denied that JORN was working at 0011z on 8 March 2014.

When you look at all the possible track "fits" that have been developed from the Inmarsat/AAIB Doppler handshake arcs, the skeptics would most likely ask, "How is it that a small 700km long sector of the final partial handshake arc suddenly became an area to focus on?" Furthermore, the northern end of that arc became the area of high probability.

Ignore the fact that a Chinese Coastguard vessel was deployed to the southern end of the arc, and immediately created a stir when it mysteriously heard pings while using some "makeshift" gear. Then consider that the Ocean Shield proceeded directly to the northern end of the arc and detected ULB pings on its first deployment of the Towed Ping Locator equipment.

The question of a target being detected that was traveling tangentially to the JORN arc has been raised. This would not be the case if that target was on the YPCC (Cocos Keeling Is.) to YPPH (Perth) track when you check the location of the JORN Laverton, W.A. site.

Overall, the published tracks based on guesstimates of fuel burn versus altitude and speed helped, but something else was involved for the Ocean Shield to be where it was as the ULB pings announced themselves to the world, then faded into oblivion shortly afterwards.

[YRP]

Surely after all these posts we should look a little at old Lady Logic?

Scenario 1) Drastic emergency on board: As said, who as time to re-programme the FMC to follow a bizarre route? Will the a/c systems then allow this to be 'flown'?

Scenario 2) Suicide/political protest: I'm going to crash this aircraft out of desperation/frustration over something. Why drag it out for 7 or more hours and then crash it? What is wrong with a political/emotional R/T message and a high-speed dive into the nearest water?


BOAC, I'm not making a judgement about 1 vs 2, but if it were #2 and intentional, I think disappearing the airplane had a much more powerful effect from a terrorism point of view, got much more media attention and aroused more popular curiousity than simply crashing the plane would have done.

Now if only the person had let one what it was they wanted attention for...

Part of me wonders if it wasn't someone who simply wanted to out-clever the rest of the world, to see if they could do it, i.e. disappear the plane without a trace. Problem is that that behaviour seems quite contradictory with someone depressed or otherwise distraught enough to want to end their own life.

[thommo101]

@aerobat77:
that due to my understanding cannot be and one statement ( pings are from an ulb ) excludes the other . ( bluefind scanned the bottom around the ping and nothing was found )

Yes but the area searched was centred around the 4th ping detection location to the south east. It appears that the pings detected on April 8th were intermittent and at an even lower frequency of 27kHz and have been recently disregarded as potentially coming from a ULB.

The area of the first, consistent 2h 20m long detection to the north west on April 5th has NOT been searched via Bluefin-21. Potentially because the depth there approaches 5000m, beyond the depth rating of the submersible.

[BOAC_Silver_Surfer]

Please excuse my ignorence but I have a question (I'm not a flyer)
As aircraft fly a lot over sea, why do they not have an EPIRB that operates completely seperate and independent of any other system on board ?
They are cheap, reliable and seem to save a lot of lives.

[mm43]

@thommo101The focused underwater search area is defined as a circle of 10km radius around the second Towed Pinger Locator detection which occurred on 8 April.

Source:- http://jacc.gov.au/... (http://jacc.gov.au/media/releases/2014/april/mr031.aspx)

Contrary to what JACC has said (and repeated), the Bluefin-21 search area was centered on the #2 Ping detection of 05 April, i.e. 21°04'S 104°00'E.

As you have rightly pointed out, the #1 Ping detection was outside the 10km radius and in 4600m of water.

[Lonewolf_50]

Please excuse my ignorence but I have a question (I'm not a flyer)
As aircraft fly a lot over sea, why do they not have an EPIRB that operates completely seperate and independent of any other system on board ?
They are cheap, reliable and seem to save a lot of lives.
Would you care to explain how you think an EPIRB would have saved lives in this case? The aircraft is equipped with an ELT, it has radios galore, and the life rafts also have survival gear. For locating the aircraft once it is underwater, the acoustic beacons are already fitted. What would the EPIRB do that installed equipment cannot already?

[SKS777FLYER]

Yeah, those ULB's are remarkably efficient (sarcasm) in both their range and battery endurance assisting in locating lost aircraft, assuming they survive and are exposed toward receivers.

Autonomous ELT's with self contained GPS chips, in aircraft structure could be designed to ping satellites with a simple request from a satellite to an aircraft which could be initiated by an Airline Ops center, Air Traffic Control facility or other government agency.

I know, it would cost $$$$$$$, and have to go thru regulatory circus antics, but thankfully so few $$$$ have been wasted, sorry, spent so far with just this one missing T7.:confused:

[Ian W]

You have just described ADS-C (Automatic Dependent Surveillance - Contract) part of the FANS 1/A suite of capabilities. ADS-C allows airline ops, ATC or any other agency in the ADS-C list to request GPS position and time, flight level, speed, climb rate, turn rate and often an abbreviated future trajectory from the FMC. This is done either as a one off request or as a 'contract' for reports at intervals, at waypoints, or changes in flight level or all of the above.

See section 2.2.6 in Global Operational Data Link Document (GOLD) ( http://www.icao.int/APAC/Documents/edocs/GOLD_2Edition.pdf )

Around 50% of widebodies have this fitted already and it will be mandated in the near future for oceanic flight. This is what INMARSAT is now saying it will provide 'free' as a tracking service.

[LASJayhawk]

Something to keep in mind about the beacons (pingers)

They were not designed to find a missing aircraft in the middle of nowhere. They were designed to aid in the location of the recorders in and around a known crash site.

[myekppa]

ADS-C will be great, providing the ability for crew to select ADS off or disable the SATCOM/VHF is inhibited.

No doubt it's possible, but a lot of soft and hard modifications required.

[Ian W]

Well not that many modifications. Already the recipient of the ADS-C output decides what the 'contract' will contain and when the reports will be made. The only change would be to the FANS logon software that would need to initiate and maintain a basic ADS-C logon regardless of crew selection. Of course any failure or disabling of ADS-C would then be treated as an indication of emergency or interference with the flight.

[kayej1188]

Is there any legitimate feasibility that JORN did indeed track the plane off it's coast, but Australia is reluctant to divulge the information? Or that JORN tracked the flight and this is known by all involved in investigation, but not released to the public for national security purposes? Not to throw out baseless speculation, but I have read a few comments by reputable sources that "we may have tracked 370 off our coast until it crashed using our OTH Radar Network."

[500N]

I would say Yes.

They could have tracked it if it was turned on.

And yes, if they had it they almost certainly would have shared the data with those that need to know.

Everyone - the media, public - seem to forget that they are not under any obligation to share anything
with the those outside the need to know, as much as the media and public think they have a right !

You don't expect the Gov't to share data from Pine Gap, so why JORN ?

In fact, I would go so far as to say it causes more problems when you do
share information - because of wild media speculation.

[roulishollandais]

they are not under any obligation to share anything
ANNEX 13 for immediate help ! And Law of Sea which .... was always respected before that satellites' owners refuse to help to sell their services before to help :mad:

[500N]

Care to expand on that ??


It reads like a riddle !

[sunnySA]

kayej1188
Australia is reluctant to divulge the information

I would say that India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Australia, plus any of the countries that had naval vessels in the area would be just as reluctant to publicly acknowledge what their systems saw as they would be to acknowledge what their systems didn't see. The release of such information into the public domain would not be in their national interest.

[Tas62]

I'd say that it's unlikely that JORN did track MH370.
Two reasons, firstly I suspect that if they had they'd be crowing about the capabilities of the system to enhance its effectiveness as a deterrent.
Secondly I doubt that with that knowledge, the Australian authorities would have wasted hundreds of flight/seatime hours on the search far to the SW of WA.

[kayej1188]

Re the possibility of JORN having tracked this flight--Intriguing possibility nonetheless considering the fact that the investigators do seem awfully confident of the resting spot--confidence that would seem suspect with ONLY Inmarsat's data as evidence. However I presume the black box pings have a lot to do with this confidence. On the other hand, it seems that they're reluctant to conclude that the black box pings are without a doubt from MH370.

I had another thought that I was hoping someone with technical expertise could answer. Could there be there any (technical/electrical/"____-"al) occurrences that would give off erroneous satellite pings? In other words, is there a situation in which the handshake signals to Inmarsat were completely wrong and not indicative of MH370's flight in the later hours (beyond where the track was known)?

[Ian W]

ANNEX 13 for immediate help ! And Law of Sea which .... was always respected before that satellites' owners refuse to help to sell their services before to help :mad:

They are not under any obligation to put information into the public domain. There will be a huge amount of information that has been made available to the SAR teams that they have zero obligation to release to the media.

[fred_the_red]

Unless I've missed something key (which is highly likely given we're now on page 540 and I struggle to remember if/when I've ever read so many pages), the primary search area is defined purely on the advice of 'techies' (Inmarsat?) and some unsubstantiated acoustic 'noise' including some allegedly heard over the side of Chinese inflatable with a hand held mic?
Still, not one single piece of debris fished from the ocean has been directly linked to MH370?
I guess I have two questions, which those with infinitely more wisdom than I, will no doubt answer/tear to shreds:

1. Is it even remotely conceivable that an airliner could ditch/crash in the ocean and subsequently sink to the seabed without any debris whatsoever surfacing? Surely if the initial impact didn't dislodge some debris, the forces, currents and contact with the seabed could/would cause enough damage to the airframe to allow something, anything, to escape to the surface and at some point present itself as evidence of a crash site (albeit 100's of Kms away)

2. At what point in future do people start questioning the techies analysis over logic and the absence, after such a number of weeks, of any physical evidence? Are there any similar aviation incidents in the past where not one single fragment of debris was identified so long after the disappearance?

I know it's a huge ocean (which is deep and moves), the techies are probably the best/only chance the search authorities have at locating the haystack, etc.

Essentially I guess I'm simply asking, how long do the search teams keep searching without any evidence presenting itself?

[slats11]

Agree Ian W.

There will be a huge amount of information that has been made available to the SAR teams that they have zero obligation to release to the media.


The timing always did look a bit suspicious. They managed to get the Ocean Shield in location just in time to hear the last signals from the pincers. Well away from the location of the previous aerial search area.

I suspect it is very likely some other data was made available to allow this to happen. The nature of this may never be released. It could be a satellite, or could be JORN.

We don't know much about JORN. Its capabilities are likely understated. It is publicly acknowledged this technology is less effective at night. Defence dollars are tight, and it may not have been operational overnight. If operational, its focus was most likely on maritime traffic (people smugglers) between Indonesia and Christmas Island (i.e. north of Christmas Island) - people smuggling being a key political issue at present.

But maybe it was on.

And maybe it did pick up an aircraft almost 1000km SSW of Christmas Island close to the time of impact. Which does make you wonder about the days of searching well SW of Perth.

Or maybe it picked up a signal much earlier that night on while MH370 was still somewhere west of Sumatra, and used this datum to refine the Inmarsat data. That process might take some time, and could explain the apparent "delay."

[fred_the_red]

Family of pilot of missing flight MH370 speaks out | 3AW News (http://www.3aw.com.au/blogs/breaking-news-blog/family-of-pilot-of-missing-flight-mh370-speaks-out/20140519-38ihn.html)

[portmanteau]

Ian W, I am not sure about your ANY obligation. how about a moral one? after all 239 souls have been lost. this isnt some ambiguous spying/ eavesdropping/whistleblowing event where claiming national interest is the usual default option. what could be more of a national interest than to help to find out what happened to 239 lives by declaring what you know or dont know? non-disclosure leads to distrust and conspiracy theories which may be entirely unjustified. agreed that "those who need to know" probably know by now but making the public wait for the final report which could be light years away doesnt seem a good pr move.

that said, I am not yet ready to believe that the good folks currently investigating this mystery are colluding in withholding information. as with the law of the sea, I am sure the law of the air is in full operation to find this aircraft.

[500N]

Since when did the public have any rights to know ?

If a Gov't has shared what knowledge it has to assist in the finding of the 239 people, then it has done it's job but sharing the knowledge does not include releasing all and sundry to the general public.


I am saying the above from an Australian perspective in relation to JORN etc.

[susier]

The interview with Nik Huzlan, Former Chief Pilot with MAS was well worth watching for a lay person like myself...it has answered many of the questions I still couldn't get a handle on until now.


LOST: MH370 - Four Corners (http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2014/05/15/4005244.htm)


Scroll down to the two smaller screen videos, the main video won't play any more.

[Lonewolf_50]

Susier, Nik's explanation is superb. I shall be sharing the link to that interview with everyone with whom I have discussed this missing plane event. Very understandable for the layman and pilot alike.

[DjerbaDevil]

The timing always did look a bit suspicious. They managed to get the Ocean Shield in location just in time to hear the last signals from the pincers. Well away from the location of the previous aerial search area.

I suspect it is very likely some other data was made available to allow this to happen. The nature of this may never be released. It could be a satellite, or could be JORN.

Somewhere about a few hundred pages ago, there was mention of a British? submarine with very sensitive equipment that would be able to 'hear' the pingers at some distance. This was just before Ocean Shield made its way to the search area location. The submarine was recalled at about the same time as Ocean Shield moved in. Of course for security reasons the position or positions of the submarine were never made public.

[oldoberon]

The interview with Nik Huzlan, Former Chief Pilot with MAS was well worth watching for a lay person like myself...it has answered many of the questions I still couldn't get a handle on until now.


LOST: MH370 - Four Corners (http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2014/05/15/4005244.htm)


Scroll down to the two smaller screen videos, the main video won't play any more. Thanks for link,all three interviews interesting in different ways but the piotone very interesting.

I checked you tube prog not there but lots of other 4corners are so hopefully it will be in the near future

The Malaysian minister "seemed" evasive but I think it is reasonable he is allowed to confirmprecise data, interviewer should have asked when he would give her that data. However he kept nervously looking to his left, at some one?

Is it normal for them to remove an episode off their website so early?

[yssy.ymel]

It's there on iView.

Four Corners : LOST: MH370 : ABC iview (http://iview.abc.net.au/programs/four-corners)

[billslugg]

In the interview with Nik Huzlan, Nik is clear that the failure to contact HCM within a fraction of a second of handoff from KUL was the key that whomever was flying did a deliberate action right at that point.

An alternate possibility is that a catastrophe hit right at that instant. Perhaps an oxygen bottle exploded at that moment piercing the hull. Perhaps a fragment took out a cable that fed ACARS, a small lingering fire took 90 seconds to take out the transponder.

Perhaps the Captain was only able to get as far as turning around for an emergency airfield and entering some incorrect numbers that resulted in the two turns and then a fixed magnetic compass course from then on.

The aircraft porpoised in without coming apart, sank without wreckage.

[Soursop]

Ok I don't understand why my post is being modded out, maybe it's the link I included that was the problem?
So, here's a sum-up:
Malaysian Minister of Transport says he is ok with the public release of raw data. Says to ask Inmarsat for it.
Australians say they are ok with releasing the raw data. Also point to Inmarsat.
MAS also gives the green light for the public release, also say to ask Inmarsat.

Inmarsat says they are ok with releasing the raw data. But they say they already gave it to Malaysia "at an early stage of the investigation".

The article I linked to, concluded that someone is lying or stalling here.
There has been a lot of discussion on this forum about whether or not the authorities had any obligation to release the raw data.
Now it appears they want to, but nobody can find it? What on earth is going on?

[jondc9]

quite an interesting interview with the former chief pilot.

I can imagine a fire harming the pilots enough and knocking out some avionics though.

[nigf]

Ok I don't understand why my post is being modded out, maybe it's the link I included that was the problem?
So, here's a sum-up:
Malaysian Minister of Transport says he is ok with the public release of raw data. Says to ask Inmarsat for it.
Australians say they are ok with releasing the raw data. Also point to Inmarsat.
MAS also gives the green light for the public release, also say to ask Inmarsat.

Inmarsat says they are ok with releasing the raw data. But they say they already gave it to Malaysia "at an early stage of the investigation".

The article I linked to, concluded that someone is lying or stalling here.
There has been a lot of discussion on this forum about whether or not the authorities had any obligation to release the raw data.
Now it appears they want to, but nobody can find it? What on earth is going on?

but nobody can find it? or is it, nobody wants to be the one to release it and be responsible for it? who ever releases it Im sure will be the ones who will be badgered. I doubt anyone wants that.

[imaynotbeperfect]

I'd tend to agree. The data's there but who ever releases it will be the one to whom all questions go. Inmarsat's done their bit but it has a business to run and its not looking for missing planes.

[dubbleyew eight]

heavens 10,700 odd posts into the saga and I think billslugg has made the correct analysis of events.

billslugg has made comments that all the atpl pilots I've spoken to agree with. that is what they think occurred.
:ok:

[onetrack]

The Four Corners programme was a complete disappointment. It merely followed the set-in-stone Malaysian Govt line that the pilots purposely took actions that indicate criminal activity.
There was no effort on the part of FC to speak to any aviation tech people, or to investigate the other possibilities such as contraband cargo, on-board fire or explosion.
All in all, the FC investigation was pretty poor, and merely showed up what we all already know - there's simply a lot of incompetence amongst the Malaysian leaders - in the Govt, in the military, and in the aviation arena.

[Nil Einne]

Surely after all these posts we should look a little at old Lady Logic?

Scenario 1) Drastic emergency on board: As said, who as time to re-programme the FMC to follow a bizarre route? Will the a/c systems then allow this to be 'flown'?

Scenario 2) Suicide/political protest: I'm going to crash this aircraft out of desperation/frustration over something. Why drag it out for 7 or more hours and then crash it? What is wrong with a political/emotional R/T message and a high-speed dive into the nearest water?


BOAC you're conflating two things. Suicide and a polical protest could easily have quite different motivations and end goals.

I agree a pure political protest seems unlikely in this scenario although the possibilty there were other plans which went arwy or even that the intention was to try and demonstrate incompetence by dissappearing for good can't be ruled out. (Note the time is not a factor, it's easily possible dissappearing way off course could be part of the planned protest. But under most scenarios, you would expect an attempt to let the world know at some stage. In fact dissappearing may be seen to add to the message if it's believed no one will notice until you send your message. Since it's easy to see the failure to notice will be criticised regardless of if that's fair or would be the same for most governments.)

In the case of pure suicide, if you don't want anyone to know for sure this makes a lot sense. There's still a fair chance the plane will never be found and it would be far greater were it not for INMARSAT data. It's true that the is some doubt over many previous alleged commercial plane pilot suicides but no where near the level of this.

[RetiredF4]

Just viewed the interviews.
Over the top the Malaysian Minister of transport and defence was evasive and very uncomfortable during the whole interview. He wasn't saying anything with substance.

The opposition leader was a surprise. Until now i haven't seen any interview with him and from the media I had the impression he would be a radical fanatic guy. I'm not privy to his real mind, but his answers to the competent questions were all sound and reasonable. Interesting his answers to the role of the military concerning SOPs all over the world concerning air policing and the non adherence in this case. And he did not use the interview for unnecessary political statements. I think the opposition leaders of most european countries would have been more aggressive in an opportunity like this one.

The Chief pilot gave an excellent interview, and his position was and is that it most probably was a deliberate act. Imho he will be the most informed pilot at Malaysia airlines with one of the highest level of technical and procedural understandig to normal MAS operations. He most probably had access to inside information from the beginning and could form his take on the events in an early stage untempered from the media and other discussions. He never evaded a question and all his answers were on the spot.

Bottom line is, the man with the two hats was most nervous, he was evasive, he was hiding and not telling any thing. He is the guy who has responsibility for air transport and air defence matters in Malaysia, and if some standard SOPs are established for a rouge flight than he would be the guy making the necessary calls. We must therefore assume that he was well informed in the early stage of the flight going missing, or he could not be reached and the designated deputy further down the line was not making any decisions.

Caro Meldrum-Hanna and her team did a great job in all three interviews. Until now its the best information on air from Malaysia.

[p.j.m]

Malaysian government and Inmarsat announce details on last signals sent by plane will be made public 'for transparency'

MH370 satellite data to be released | World news | theguardian.com (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/20/mh370-satellite-data-to-be-released)

will be interesting to see what the mathematicians make of it :)

[500N]

"will be interesting to see what the mathematicians make of it :)"


We will have a new round of people wanting to make a name for themselves !!!

[Blake777]

Possibly the biggest disappointment of Hishamuddin's responses to 4 Corners was his inability or unwillingness to acknowledge that in choosing not to have the military scramble an intercept to the unidentified aircraft showing on primary radar, the opportunity to gather valuable information was lost. Hishamuddin took the tack "What would have been the point? We weren't going to shoot it down - it was civilian".

The point would have been that, the military having been advised that MH 370 was missing, an intercept could have:

A) Identified the aircraft as an MAS 777
B) Possibly identified it as 9M-MRO
C) Possibly identified if a person appeared to be in control on the flight deck
D) Possibly noticed whether there was any evidence of a fire onboard
E) Possibly set a few minds at rest by noticing any sign of a small hull breach or other visible damage accounting for the off course behaviour

Obviously they had no concept of the magnitude of the mystery developing around this flight, however this should really be part of the point of having SOPS in relation to any unidentified aircraft crossing their airspace, as Anwar Ibrahim pointed out. Several key items of the mystery may have been enlightened if the Malaysians had not simply watched the aircraft go by unchallenged.

[mm43]

We will have a new round of people wanting to make a name for themselves !!!Not necessarily; they will either confirm or deny the previously promulgated official versions.

If they rebuff the original versions, they will also have to come up with an answer for the well documented recordings of the detected ULB pings.

In my mind the proof will be found in 5000m + of water to the NW of the #1 Ping detection position, when then the question will be, "How was it done?"

[RetiredF4]

Are the military able to 'escort' an aircraft in this situation, until it eventually comes down?


I can comment how it was supposed to be done in my active time, and its long time ago that I legally can do it. With newer equipment available some details will have changed, but the overall aim most probably does still apply all over the world.

In the area of responsibility crewed and armed jets are on a special alert state to be airborne within 10, 15, 30 may be 60 minutes after the order is given by the responsible control center to intercept and identify an unidentified aircraft. They normally operate in pairs. The initial direction and altitude informations lead the interceptors within the range of the onboard radar system, and with the help of that the jets will maneuver within visual range to identify the type of aircraft, its altitude speed and track. With means of communications including visual signals the crew tries to get the attention of the rouge aircraft. This is done by flying close to the cockpit of the intercepted aircraft, and yes, it can be done also during night. Positioning one fighter in front of the not responding aircraft while waggling the wings is an internationally understood sign to follow that fighter aircraft for a landing. If no reaction from the rouge aircraft is received but it is assumed that the cockpit of the intercepted aircraft is occupied and the signals have been received, the fighter might use some of their hardware to change the mind of the crew of the intercepted aircraft by firing some tracer shots in front of the rouge aircraft. If still no reaction could be observed the next most obvious course of action would be to monitor and report until fuel would necessitate to return to base.

The words from the transport / defence minister "what should we have done, shoot it down?" are ridiculous, because it neglects the primary purpose of air policing (identifying unknown flying objects) and declares the last option of air policing (using weapons when apropriate) as not practical. Even if it was known in an early state that MH370 had turned around and was identified on military primary radar, it would have been apropriate to alert air defence and raise the alert state of the designated jets ( highest state on ground would be with running engines ready for speedy takeoff). Such facts should be in the textbook of an air defence minister and his statements are loughable the least.

If i'm allowed an personal oppinion, I think that the military would have been able to respond in appropriate mannor because that's what they are there for in peace time, but was never ordered to to so or even was ordered not to follow the normally established procedures for such events. When the aircraft disappeared from the primary radars, a scramble of jets had become useless.

Could a possible plan to hijack the aircraft plan on such behaviour? I think so, and the fact that the duties of the air defence and air tranport sections are performed by one minister makes that even more plausible. How would a transport minister, responsible for the safe conduct of civil air travel order any kind of weapon employment against a civil aircraft in his duty as defence minister? Yes, knowing that and knowing the person of the minister (which I do not do) might lead to the assumption that the military would not be involved in an early state of such hijacking.

Not saying that it was one though.

[ATC Watcher]

Blake 777
Possibly the biggest disappointment of Hishamuddin's responses to 4 Corners was his inability or unwillingness to acknowledge that in choosing not to have the military scramble an intercept to the unidentified aircraft showing on primary radar, the opportunity to gather valuable information was lost. Hishamuddin took the tack "What would have been the point? We weren't going to shoot it down - it was civilian

There is a serious flaw in the Minister's reponse : How does he ( and the Malysian air force ) knew it was civilian and not hostlile ? We were told the primary target was never identified in real time. That was acknowledged by a Malaysian general in a press conference in the early days.
Otherwise if it was identified, then why leave the search going on for days in the Souh China sea?
For me the minister response in the programme is just Communications crisis management to hide the fact that their air defence did not work very well that night.
.

[Soursop]

Malaysia now says they need Inmarsat's help in order to release the data "in a presentable way", without saying how long this preparation will take.
They say "all parties" are working towards the release... how many people do they need, how long can it take to publish a simple copy of the data they have already been sharing amongst themselves?


I thought the whole point of "raw data" was that it was, well, raw, and not edited "for public consumption".

[rh200]

I thought the whole point of "raw data" was that it was, well, raw, and not edited "for public consumption".

You want a binary file with no idea of its format? We have no idea what has been given to them and who that have handed it to so they could check it out for themselves.

I would presume there's some back and forth going on about how to release what data and its formating. There could be for instant, a huge binary file with data for all pings of all aircraft for the birds field of view for x hours. Or there could be one that has only the data for that flight extracted.

Any decision they make will be criticized, and accused of a conspiracy, so they will most likely be taking the time to be extra careful with a decision that would normally be flippant.

[Propduffer]

@rh200

Yes, we'll take the raw binary file and we will parse it later as we decode its format. Once the data is in the public domain it cannot be edited and that is a significant point.

When you say "they will most likely be taking the time to be extra careful with a decision that would normally be flippant." you should keep in mind ATC watcher's post just above yours which points out that 71 days after the event, the Malaysian Minister of defense is still issuing inaccurate versions of the first days' events.

You are not the only poster here who is providing support for an obvious coverup of the events of March 9 -10 by elements of the Malaysian government. Others have made insulting posts about "amatur detectives" etc wanting information from the Malaysians (supposedly just to satisfy idle, or somehow juvenile curiosity.) The fact is that many people have a justified interest in finding out what happened to MH370; that presumably is why the search goes on.

There is much information about the early portion of that flight which is being withheld, and there have been a series of statements issued by the Malaysian Government which have been shown to be at variance with the truth. They have denied making statements they are on record as having made; and they have issued revisions to every detail issued prior to March 11th.

We still don't know the location (time, coordinates, heading, along with estimated speed and altitude) of the last radar sighting; although, the Malaysians have had that information since the evening of March 9th.

The Vietnamese, Thai, and Indonesian* radars tracked that flight, yet they haven't been forthcoming with detailed data; we can assume this to be because of diplomatic exchanges from the Malaysians requesting silence.
* The Indonesians issued a statement stating that they did not track MH370 "over their territory" - a qualifier which would hardly have been necessary if they hadn't tracked MH370 at all.

Another major failure to disclose by the Malaysians was the failure to announce to the nations searching for the wreckage in the SCS that Inmarsat had given them information that the flight had continued on for another seven hours. It took them at least three days to finally let that cat out of the bag. It is clear that in the absence of Inmarsat's release of data Malaysia would never have admitted tracking the plane into the Malacca Strait - we would still be looking in the South China Sea or the Western Pacific.

Much of the support here for the withholding of information has been based on the premise that primary radar data is some kind of a big secret. It is true that there is radar information in this world which is secret for good reason (modern over the horizon stuff such as JORN, or the defenses of a carrier group, or specific radiation patterns effected by ground clutter); but the garden variety stuff that the Malaysians bought from the British, or what Thailand or Indonesia is using is no secret at all - the range is limited by the horizon and that's that. There is no valid reason to withhold tracking information about MH370 (unless someone is trying to cover up the details of who and why MH370 went to its southern demise.) Another reason appears to be a person's political outlook - whether one sees government as a godlike entity over the people, or a creation of the people, paid for by the people and at the service of the people. I am of the latter, I assume that many others here share that view.

Yesterday someone posted here that one of the possibilities behind the disappearance of MH370 was that there may have been "another shoe to drop" or a message which was supposed to be released to the world failed to get out. I believe that is a strong possibility and I believe that the behavior of the Malaysian government supports that premise.

My point is: the disappearance of a commercial airliner with all its passengers is an event of global interest, it affects all of us.

Yet it appears that the root cause of this event is being hidden due to local politics in a small part of the world. I object to that.

[HeliBot]

"Not releasing" to the genuine populus is (a lot) different to "being hidden".

While there may be people who have a requirement to know beyond idle curiousity or some dream of being the next Encyclopedia Brown or Sherlock Holmes, I would suggest those people may be able to access such data through channels are than protesting on PPRuNe that it's not being made public.

The data not being released is different to the data not being available someone with a genuine need to know, however I put it to you that most (I suspect all) people complaining about it here aren't in a position where they would have any cause to know....

[Propduffer]

We know for certain that they withheld the Inmarsat data for three days from the nations conducting the SAR effort in the South China Sea.

[susier]

Hishammuddin's comment in the Four Corners interview, in response to almost every specific question was:


'It will come out..do you really think that Malaysia can hide this information?'


I'm curious as to when he thinks 'it' will come out and under what conditions.


I don't have a problem with his not revealing sensitive and/or complex information to the interviewer but it is hard to comprehend exactly what is being witheld, and why, and how much of an impact the witheld information would have on the public perception of the incident were it to be released.

[Tas62]

I'm trying to imagine being involved in that search during the early days. With reported sightings from around the SCS and of wreckage, oil slicks and a life raft. Even a report from Chinese scientists of a seismic event that coincided with the last known position and timing.
Then the claim from Inmarsat that the plane likely flew on for hours ending up who knows where.
Who (or what) do you believe?

[Frequent SLF]

Tas62 asks who (or what) to believe?

Well . . let's look at some possible facts. Inmarsat basic data indicates that the aircraft was still viable (flying or landed safely) for several hours after loss of ATC and ACARS comms, based on hourly logon request/renew data (engines turning/ FMS operative).

Inmarsat then went on to do an innovative analysis of doppler shifts on the received data which gave some possible routes which appeared to preclude a landing.

Inmarsat have been slow to release the full data, possibly because as a telecommunications operator they may not release full logs as that would reveal other customer activity. Thus we can expect " edited" logs when they do appear.

There may well be conspiracies at work here but to date there is no firm evidence to support that view. Let's wait and see just what comes out. None of the parties involved (other than the designated SAR authority) has any clear reason or mandate to keep the guessing public-at-large informed.

[onetrack]

Hishamuddin's statement on the Four Corners program was pretty clear on the delay relating to the release of the Immarsat information - Malaysia just wanted it verified.
However, I fail to see where it would take 3 days to verify it - particularly when there was an urgent SAR operation in progress.

[Cool Guys]

Then the claim from Inmarsat that the plane likely flew on for hours ending up who knows where.
Who (or what) do you believe?


I can also recall when the Malaysian authorities released the Inmarsat data many weeks ago it was interpreted that ACARS data had been received for another 7 hours (actual data, not just the pings). Rolls Royce and Boeing denied this – more confusion. Any cover up attempt is probably just to cover their incompetence concerning tracking the plane - nothing too sinister. Smart(normal) people will understand, these things happen, hopefully people will learn. In the end I don’t think the end result would be much different. Unfortunately the Malaysian authorities will have to consider the media and “ambulance chasing”lawyers before they release anything.

[Heathrow Harry]

Some countries take a very different view of the public's "need to know" than in the USA

Malaysia is a case in point

[Ian W]

Hishahmuddin's statement on the Four Corners program was pretty clear on the delay relating to the release of the Immarsat information - Malaysia just wanted it verified.
However, I fail to see where it would take 3 days to verify it - particularly when there was an urgent SAR operation in progress.

There speaks someone who has never had to review 'the tapes' of an international incident.

The information would need to be checked and double checked by the appropriate experts to ensure that attention was not taken away from current search by incorrect assumptions.
Then the release would need to be cleared by the company managers/directors and the wording of any documentation and information release very carefully checked.
Lawyers will have been required to check the INMARSAT liability for the use of the information by foreign SAR and the contractual and legal (data protection) terms that may limit the release of 'private' information. Given the amount of technical, legal and administrative work involved, INMARSAT getting the information out in only 3 days was startlingly efficient.

[overthewing]

Relatives of the passengers of Malaysia Airlines MH370 have been dealt a fresh blow with news that pings heard in waters off the Australian coast are thought to be unrelated to the missing plane.

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/mh370-relatives-told-pings-heard-off-australian-coast-151959876.html#GU5kTWT

[roninmission]

Something is not right here

These folks are truly experts and immensely experienced. They expressed no doubts as to the origin of the Pings, which occurred where, obviously, they expected them to occur. Now they all believe the Pings were not from 370 and that is the reason for not releasing the recordings. I'm not much into conspiracy theories but something very odd has happened here.

[Lonewolf_50]

Just a bit confused.

Are the "pings near Australia" that are being referred to the Inmarsat satellite signals, or the underwater (hopefully the FDR/CVR beacon) signals being pursued by the maritime search teams?

[overthewing]

Black box pings, apparently:

Audio recordings of the 'ping' signals believed to have come from the black box of Flight MH370 will now not be released as doubt grows over whether they are connected with the missing plane.
The Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) headed by Angus Houston told the Herald Sun that the search group's original confidence the four accoustic 'ping' signals were from the plane had waned and the recordings would not be made public.
'The recordings of the detections will not be released at this point in time,' the JACC said.
'We continue to pursue this lead to either discount or confirm the area of the detections as the final resting place of MH370.'


MH370 'pings' may NOT have been from aircraft | Mail Online (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2633295/MH370-pings-NOT-aircraft.html)

[onetrack]

It's entirely possible that the interpretation of the pings that were stated as "definitely being from an aircraft", have now been thrown into doubt, since the hardware and software faults were discovered, both on the Bluefin-21, and on the Ocean Shield equipment.

Excerpt from news article dated 15th May -

"Examination of the communications problem has established that a hardware defect exists in the transponder mounted on the Ocean Shield, and a defect may also exist in the transponder mounted on the Bluefin-21," JACC said.

"This inhibits the ability of the two devices to communicate with each other."

The faults discovered may have led to a re-assessment of the interpretation of the pings recorded, that then placed serious doubt on what was actually recorded.
If this is the case, then it's a major blow to the whole search exercise, that effectively throws the search effort back to almost square one.

[mm43]

The faults discovered may have led to a re-assessment of the interpretation of the pings recorded, that then placed serious doubt on what was actually recorded.I think you may well be confusing the ULB pings that were detected by the Towed Pinger Locator and recorded, with an entirely different operation being performed by the Bluefin-21, i.e. a side-scan sonar operation over the seabed for signs of any wreckage.

A by-product of this operation, is that the bathymetric data obtained will be far better than anything previously obtained over the Zenith Plateau.

[Tas62]

Angus Houston interviewed on ABC TV (Aus);
In summary:
Ocean Shield arrived at midnight to resume underwater search.
Chinese survey ship 872 will arrive shortly to conduct bathymetric surveys of the area. She will be supported by Hai Xun 01 which will transport data to shore on a weekly basis.
The expert review is ongoing and results will be released on completion, but so far there's been nothing to suggest that they may be searching in the wrong area or that any of the data (including ULB pings) should be discounted.

[Machinbird]

Each of the transmissions on April 8 were intermittent and at a frequency of around 27 kHz—much lower than the 37.5 kHz frequency that beacons are designed to emit, and also lower than the 33.3 kHz frequency of other transmissions on April 5. "As far as frequency goes, between 33 kHz and 27 kHz is a pretty large jump," Cmdr. Lybrand said."The degradation of supply voltage (such as when batteries become exhausted) is known to have effects on oscillation frequency of crystal oscillator circuits including oscillations in other modes.

The pingers are essentially variants of crystal oscillator circuits. Has anyone seen any data about actual pinger frequency performance as the batteries approach exhaustion? It would seem reasonable that the manufacturers would have run these tests already.

[mm43]

Prior to the current side-scan sonar search using the Bluefin-21 getting underway, the Ocean Shield spent some days towing the TPL equipment. While this was happening, HMS Echo moved into the same area when appropriate to undertake a comprehensive analysis of the water conductivity, temperature and depth using a CTD probe to measure those variables and determine the affects that would be encountered by the ULB acoustic pings on their travel to the surface.

They also used an Expendable Bathythermograph to further check the accuracy of temperature and depth recordings, while their HiPAP (High Precision Acoustic Positioning) sonar was being used outside its normal operating parameters to listen for the aircraft transponder.

I doubt that chucking another ULB into the water is going to tell them anything of relevance they don't already know. There is adequate evidence also available from the initial recordings of the ULB pings to confirm that their acoustic frequency was decreasing at a rate comparable with that of a similar battery of its age and operating time combined with the local water temperature.

A Dukane spokesperson has previously acknowledged that the 33.331kHz pings were what could be expected. The oscillator is not Xtal controlled, being a resistive/capacitive oscillator with the low Q transducer forming part of the circuit.

[Tas62]

Todays JACC update: Update on MH370 Search (http://jacc.gov.au/media/releases/2014/may/mr047.aspx)

[Machinbird]

A Dukane spokesperson has previously acknowledged that the 33.331kHz pings were what could be expected. The oscillator is not Xtal controlled, being a resistive/capacitive oscillator with the low Q transducer forming part of the circuit. Hi mm43
I suspect that the transducer will operate in a manner similar to a quartz crystal oscillator, just at much lower frequencies due to its much larger dimensions. Once internal amplifiers begin to operate non-linearly due to the low voltage, it might be possible to stimulate other oscillatory modes in the transducer. This would account for significant deviation from the base frequency. Just theorizing of course.

Detection of a pinger while it is operating in a low voltage manner would probably indicate you were almost on top of it, thus the question of what happens at very low voltage is not entirely irrelevant.

[mm43]

@Machinbird,

Your deduction is on the ball. My only consideration would be if acoustic ducting was taking place, which may have been the case as I believe that the TPL was only at 250~300m depth when the #1 Ping detection was made, and the vessel was moving very slowly over the detection period.

There is some Doppler shift associated with the ping repetition period, and I believe that it is greater than the horizontal component of the vessel's speed. The residual looks as if it is due to the frequency decay on account of the continuing lowering of the battery voltage.

In summary, the current search may not turn up anything due to water depth increasing quite rapidly to the north, and possibly beyond a modified max pressure/depth that the Bluefin-21 can confidently do.

[toaddy]

I've been reading ULB manuals and patents I'm still confused about the ducting of acoustics in the water. I understand that temperature and salinity levels, water surfaces, ocean bottoms, etc. can cause the sound to be refracted, or reflected or whatever; and I keep reading that water will attenuate the ULB pings at roughly 5 to 7 dB per km, depending on depth, salinity, temperature, etc.. I'm guessing that the ducting waterways we hear about don't consist of 'magic' water so the pings still get attenuated at the same 5 to 7 dB per km, just perhaps bounced in odd directions.

Is that about right ? If so, then the source has to be pretty close to the detection areas. Even if the sound is being bounced around in crazy directions, it's still getting attenuated at a known rate as it moves. I can see if the ULB fell into a parabolic shaped canyon and the canyon walls were acting as a focusing (antenna)transducer, maybe the range could be a little further but it still seems like it has to be in the right neighborhood. Maybe they haven't found the haystack yet but they very likely are on the correct farm.

Here's an old test the FAA did back in 1968 when they dumped a fuselage in the water off the florida keys in 200 feet of water to see if a fuselage encapsulated ULB (inside the pressure bulkhead) and another test (outside the pressure bulkhead) could be detected from the surface. http://www.fire.tc.faa.gov/pdf/na68-7.pdf They were able to detect it to about 3000 yards at the surface (where the noise is worse).

And here's a fascinating patent, that mentions that the ULB's for KAL Flight 007 that crashed in '83 in the sea of Japan were never found and it mentions..."Recovery of the KAL 007 flight recorders may have been severely hampered by intentional acoustic jamming." It's a patent by Sandia Research for ULB's that are about the same size as the current version but is lower powered, with longer range, undetectable (signal is weak and below the noise floor) unless the correct code is known (spread spectrum), and can be uniquely identifyable to a specific aircraft/torpedo/etc.. Apparently it was developed for the military to use on experimental underwater toys in case they got lost and they wanted to be able to find them first before another nationality could find it. The ULB's would require only minor changes but the ping receivers would need some extra signal processing abilities. Patent US4951263 - Spread spectrum underwater location beacon system - Google Patents (http://www.google.com/patents/US4951263)

[mm43]

I've been reading ULB manuals and patents I'm still confused about the ducting of acoustics in the water. I understand that temperature and salinity levels, water surfaces, ocean bottoms, etc. can cause the sound to be refracted, or reflected or whatever; and I keep reading that water will attenuate the ULB pings at roughly 5 to 7 dB per km, depending on depth, salinity, temperature, etc..Where that attenuation component gets dramatically reduced, is when the acoustic signal gets trapped within a temperature/salinity incline. The spherical component of its radiation is focused within this trap with a far larger component of the radiation able to continue the journey to the point of reception/detection.

[RTD1]

Something is not right here

These folks are truly experts and immensely experienced. They expressed no doubts as to the origin of the Pings, which occurred where, obviously, they expected them to occur. Now they all believe the Pings were not from 370 and that is the reason for not releasing the recordings. I'm not much into conspiracy theories but something very odd has happened here.

Pretty sure nothing in nature makes 37.5 kHz pulses lasting 10 ms on 1 second intervals. Also pretty sure no other planes had crashed there in the past month. That means someone threw a pinger into the water.

For all those people who were uncomfortable with the idea that a group of Chinese on a rubber raft with a fish finder on a pole could have found the signal, you may have your answer now.

[Left Luggage]

Can anyone point me to an official source expressing doubt over the validity of the pings recorded by Ocean Shield in early April - and I don't mean Yahoo news or the Daily Mail.

A week or so ago there were doubts being expressed here about the April 8th pings but I couldn't see a source for those doubts. Now it seems there's doubts being expressed about the April 5th pings and I still can't see an official source for these doubts.

If the Ocean Shield pings are discredited then it means we're backing looking for the haystack!

I do note however that today's JACC update that they say "Over the next week, Bluefin-21 will search the remaining areas in the vicinity of the acoustic signals detected in early April ..." Which suggests to me the offical SAR isn't completely discrediting the pings.

[Fairsky]

I’m becoming more sceptical of the reliability of the ping arcs and the one piece of information which would give me confidence is the calculated arc of the 0107L ACARS transmission compared to the known ADSB track.

My understanding is that the subsequent transmissions were handshake pings only and yet these are the only transmissions from which I’ve seen published ping arcs.
An arc from the 0107 transmission would verify the calculation method of the later arcs IF it perfectly intersected the known ADSB track at that time.

So my question is; has anybody seen that verification ?
If so, could you provide a link to a reliable source.

[Ornis]

MAS didn't subscribe to the satellite service, ACARS was VHF only.

[HeliBot]

RE: What's Tony Abbott going to be able to tell them?

"This is a problem that was caused by the previous Labour government, however we are stopping the boats. Also, this is a responsible budget that Australia had to have (what's an economist?)."

[MG23]

Isn't it about time that MAS actually admitted this, rather than negligently allowing people to assume otherwise - thus supporting erroneous implications about the "sudden loss" of ACARS over SATCOM?

I've wondered where that rumour came from, too. I thought it was specifically the RR engine monitoring ACARS messages which wouldn't go over SATCOM?

[DrPhillipa]

MG23: Wasn't it the NYT right at the beginning that was rumouring that RR had received status reports for hours after MH370 "disappeared". RR, and I think Boeing, simply denied this if I recall. Then a couple of days later the Inmarsat handshake data came out. I suspect maybe that NYT asked someone about continued SATCOM contact and assumed that MAS had subscribed to the data service available under Classic Aero H. As I understood it MAS did not want to pay the bandwidth/traffic fees for the RR/Boeing/EICAS ACARS data which for example AF447 was running.

These sort of details should have been in the provisional report as I see it.

Did anyone try to contact them on the Sat Phone that we know of? Wouldn't such a call, even if unsuccessful, have left traces in Inmarsat logs?

[WillowRun 6-3]

Kudos to Propduffer for post on 20 May (20:18) - and not only because it bears repeating that indeed, the disappearance of a commercial airliner with all its passengers is an event of global interest and one in which many posters here hold unquestionably legitimate interests (despite some posters who may not).

On the subject of what actions the Malaysian military took, and what actions it failed to take: it appears reasonably clear that their inaction was far from optimum, and could have constituted a deviation from SOP....but this leads to a question. Is there part of any of the several ICAO Annexes which speaks to what steps a signatory nation's air defense authorities are "expected"* to take under circumstances involving loss of contact? ("Expected" because - as has been noted earlier on-thread, ICAO issues standards, not quite the same as "law".). Presumably the answer is a short and simple one, akin to "no of course not - no military is subject to the regulatory system for civil aviation; they'd never accept such a subordination."

But consider: let's just assume that having a single official holding charge over both civil aviation and a nation's military is a textbook exemplar of conflict of interest. Here, the informational deficits, and deteriorating official credibility, suffice to make the point (and for any doubters, the "shoot down" scenario is inherently intractable, isn't it?). So a reform could well be to require signatories to the ICAO regulatory architecture to separate the civil aviation authority from the country's national command authority. Where would this fit in the existing ICAO architecture? Or would it be an entirely new subject matter?

[ATC Watcher]

Where would this fit in the existing ICAO architecture?
Nowhere because ICAO is purely civil, and does not, by its founding convention, extend its standards and recommeded practices to military aviation.
Each State is sovereign in his own national military procedures.
The only execption are the rules of the air to intercept civil aircraft ( how to postion yourself, and how to respond, etc..)

There are no internationally agreed "rules" on wether or not to intecept an aircraft ,each State has its own regulations.

[WillowRun 6-3]

Clearly ICAO's current architecture (both in the concrete sense of existing agreements, standards and practices, as well as in the conceptual sense) does not appear to reach air policing in a comprehensive, or even broad, way. But consider the explanations of the informational outputs one could expect from a scramble by Malaysia - as detailed by Blake777 (20 May, 4:28), and of the procedural aspects as set out by RetiredF4 (6:32). I'll forecast that the investigatory report which ultimately is produced not only will consider this topic, but also will have as a primary context for discussion of what the Malaysians failed even to try to do, the fact that gaps in air policing capabilities generally, and here exacerbated by the existence of a "two-hats" official, have arrived at the top of the agenda (for improvement and reform of worldwide civil aviation regulatory structures). If this seems overheated, or unduly speculative, request a re-reading of the quite plausible linkage between a gap in air policing, and a hijack or similar takeover, as sketched by the above-referenced post written by RetiredF4.

[portmanteau]

willow run. there is an interest but not a conflict of interest. every country has at least one official who is in charge of both civil and military aviation, he' s called the prime minister, president or similar title ie the head honcho. the fact that he/she may have heads of departments under them with similar dual roles due perhaps purely for reasons of size, is not significant. military aviation can't do just what it likes (including refusing to disclose anything) any more than any other department of government. if govt orders the military to go up and have a look at a potential intruder or search for a lost civilian aircraft, then they better jump to it or else.

[WillowRun 6-3]

Those are very valid points, Portmanteau - but at the same time they do not account for all of the subject matter in discussion in this corner of the thread. Yes obviously there is a highest-ranking authority in a given sovereign nation .... but it does not necessarily follow that military commanders will be subservient to and compliant with lawfully constituted sovereign authority. For brevity, I'll simply cite "military coup d'état". And, in some countries even without power concentrated in its military, the civil authority may be a figurehead more than a real decision-maker.
More generally, is it not the case that where a "standard" air defence rule of engagement would activate a scramble to ident, this action does not require the okay of the leader of the national government? In other words, the existence of a head of a country's national government does not either mitigate, or erase, the relevance of the larger question - how should the worldwide civil aeronautics regulatory system improve its interaction with air defence authorities (where such defences exist)? - or the more particular one - should signatories to such worldwide system be strongly encouraged not to give both the defence and civil aviation portfolios to the same minister?

[Ian W]

@ Willow Run.

It has to be emphasized that the Malaysian ATC followed the book pretty well. They were not responsible for the aircraft which had been handed off and accepted by Ho Chi Minh center. Aircraft are not 'overdue' until 30 minutes after their expected arrival time that was several hours later. So it was literally someone-else's-problem. How could they 'scramble the military' when they did not know where the aircraft was and probably suspected it was NORDO in Vietnamese airspace still proceeding toward Beijing?

The Malaysian military would have seen a comair turn back almost certainly still flagged as a Malaysian aircraft. It could be argued that the lack of secondary would have caused interest, but the military had not been contacted by civil saying they had lost an aircraft.

This is what happens when it is peacetime and no threats are apparent. But nobody broke any rules nor is there any real reason for creating any new laws or rules. Automated tracking of aircraft would be good, is feasible using existing equipage and protocols; that is where the concentration should be.

[Machinbird]

Having once upon a time been in the intercept/shoot em down business, I see this conversation about intercepts is getting into the very hypothetical unrealistic mode.

First off, most countries in peacetime do not establish alert conditions that require a prompt response from their interceptors. It is assumed that there will be intelligence received in sufficient time to increase the threat response level, We are talking days not hours of advance notice here. Then the alert level will be set based upon the perceived threat. Other than actual airborne alert status, the shortest practicable ground alert is 5 minutes with aircrew and line personnel continuously at the aircraft, but the engines not running.

If this level of alert is to be done continuously it requires either dedicated assets (bigger airforce) or surge tasking of existing interceptor units for a defined period. (expensive)

The next common level of alert would be 15 minute alert with the crews in a crew shack near the flight line. This requires almost the same level of assets, but is not so wearing on the personnel and so can be maintained longer.

Next level of alert would be several hours with designated personnel on call at home.

And finally, with no perceived threat, the intercept units would be in training mode, with all the vagaries of maintenance availability and individual levels of training affecting readiness.

It all comes down to tasking. What are the intercept units tasked to do by the leadership? Countries generally wish to keep their levels of readiness on a need to know basis.

I would personally be very surprised if any of the countries in the region had anyone in a short notice intercept role.

It is generally impractical in fuel requirements to chase down and intercept a subsonic target from the stern hemisphere beyond 50 nm range. It is also a technically challenging evolution, particularly at night, requiring a high level of training to assure success. If there was ever a desire to intercept MH370, it probably came too late to be implemented.

[gnatsp]

You can't police what you don't see and I quote from the preliminary report;

"A playback of a recording from military primary radar revealed that an aircraft with a
possibility of MH 370 had made an air-turn back onto a Westerly heading crossing
Peninsular Malaysia. The search area was then extended to the Straits of Malacca."

Despite various press reports and overwhelming conflicting information, the Malaysian government are not prepared to say that they actually saw MH370 on radar in real time. That report indicates that it was only after playing back the tapes that they took any kind of action based on radar information.

Mr 2hats on 4 corners was IMO disingenuous in answering a question with the rhetorical of asking should he have ordered it shot down. The answer he should have given was; you can't intercept what you can't see.

At this point in time I haven't seen a single reliable report of what was seen on radar and more importantly nothing released in any briefing. The altitudes perceived of between 12 & 45000 haven't been mentioned in the prelim report
and IMO the only reliable one is 5000ft based on the gap in the unidentified track which was shown to the Chinese press.

IMO the only radar data they had is that single 200nm NW track and that was discovered only after replaying tapes.

Embarassing for the Malaysian government to admit that a B777 can transit their airspace without being seen but in the interests of finding this plane it's time they specifically stated what they saw on radar.

[Porker1]

Thank you IanW and Machinbird. Two voices of reason and experience after a lot of blaah blaah.

For me the beginning of the flight, the lack of ATC/military response and the delay for announced SAR have never seemed to be a big issue, so your posts make sense. Obviously the why, the wherefore and finally the where are different questions.

The last couple of days there has been a lot of discussion about the validity of the CVR/FDR pings. I get the impression that the media have picked up and rehashed old info so that suddenly all the detections are suspect despite the lack of a statement from the JACC to this effect. Something very strange is going on if the double acoustic pings with the right duration have nothing to do with MH370, so here's hoping that the new search finally finds the aircraft.

[jondc9]

IanW, interesting that you say by the book.

But nothing about this situation is really by the book, is it?

Sometimes you have to go above and beyond the book.

[p.j.m]

Something is not right here

These folks are truly experts and immensely experienced. They expressed no doubts as to the origin of the Pings, which occurred where, obviously, they expected them to occur. Now they all believe the Pings were not from 370 and that is the reason for not releasing the recordings. I'm not much into conspiracy theories but something very odd has happened here.

What's even more odd is the "sudden discovery" of these pings just after China announced they had detected pings it believed were from the transponder, and how Angus Houston announced they would not send the Ocean Shield to investigate the Chinese discovery until they had finished investigating the ones he had found.

In fact from what I've seen Angus Houston seems to have hindered the search effort at every corner!

As far as I've seen the original location where China heard their pings has never been searched.

[Pontius Navigator]

Machinbird, thank you, that is exactly what we have been saying for weeks now until modded out each time. Even yesterday - there is no requirement for States to maintain an interceptor alert or even have the capability so to do.

[RetiredF4]

One more point to the interception option, which may be moded out though.

Remeber the first days of the missing MH370?
I remeber one statement repeated for some days until the questions got painful, then the statement was demented officially. Two month later we are used to receiving information, which is revoked few days later. Therefore make up your own mind whom you believe.

General Rodzali said interceptors were not scrambled because the unidentified plane appeared to be a civilian aircraft.


What can we read out of that information:
- There would have been interceptors available.
- There are procedures implemented under those a scramble would commence
- The plane was observed and reported in time
- With the information available the plane was declared civil no threat

I do not agree with Machinebirds analysis, that the discusssion gets unrealistic.
I know no airforce around my country with no air policing procedures in force. The end of the cold war nearly 20 years ago didn't change those procedures. The necessity for the grade of readiness is defined by the advance warning available. The costs of such a readiness is negligable. Soldiers are not paid for hours and aircraft cost not more money when they are kept in any kind of higher alert state.

It is unrealistic to assume an alert state of 5 minutes over prolonged time, and nobody did that. But having an alert state of 60 minutes or 30 minutes allows a gradual increase of the alert state when situation dictates. The persons on 60 minute alert will then raise out of bed, cloth up, aircraft are powered up and when ready to launch within the new readiness state next orders are awaited.

It is no argument that the task of interception of an unidentified target may turn out impossible due to fuel exhaustion or other factors, as those factors are only known in hindsight. A target may turn and solve the range problem, or it may turn away and create a range problem to the interceptor. Interceptor forces all over the globe can be considered useless, when the possibility of failure prevents the implementation of such force beforehand.

There might still be the option that no alert force in some readiness state was available, but why would the minister of defence not dodge those questions with something like

"i can not coment in public on the readiness state of our forces...."?

He clearly expressed that it was not necessary to launch, as he had no intention to shoot it down.

AIP Malaysia concerning interceptions.

http://aip.dca.gov.my/aip%20pdf/ENR/ENR%201/ENR%201.12/Interception%20Of%20Civil%20Aircraft.pdf

[Ornis]

"... interceptors were not scrambled because the unidentified plane appeared to be a civilian aircraft."
"... it was not necessary to launch, as he had no intention to shoot it down."

This is just talk, excuses, not reasons or explanations. You can't deduce anything from it.

[Heathrow Harry]

"I know no airforce around my country with no air policing procedures in
force."

That's in Europe with a history of possible conflict and a very visible air threat

there is no such thing in East Asia or Australia

India & pakistan are probably the nearest to a C European condition - even N Korea poses no immediate air threat

None of the countries, including Australia, have aircraft on standby ready to intercept in the way the Luftwaffe or the RAF do

[Ornis]

... resources were mobilised on the basis of the results of a system that they did not have, I mean really...?

ACARS. Data was transmitted by VHF only; it stopped. There was an active aerial for the satellite phone, which continued (handshake) pings.

[SAMPUBLIUS]

As far as I've seen the original location where China heard their pings has never been searched.

There were initial reports that some of the first video releases of the china pings found via a fishing rod and rubber raft and mike in the water also showed on one side a hand held transmitter set on freq. Later video supposedly had cropped that potion out. :O


And as I recall- some sort of surface search for debris was made in that same area by a few ships before moving to the more north ( current ) area.

[jondc9]

sampublis


I recall that HMS Echo was working in concert with the Chinese Ping ship. For a number of days.

I am sure someone can "cull" the reports to verify, or take my word.

[DjerbaDevil]

JACC Media release:

Media Release
7 April 2014—am
Up to nine military planes, three civil planes and 14 ships will assist in today's search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.
The search area is expected to be approximately 234,000 square kilometres.
Good weather is expected throughout the day with showers in the afternoon although this is not expected to affect the search.
ADV Ocean Shield is continuing investigations in its own area.
HMS Echo is en route to assist the Chinese vessel Haixun 01, which detected pulse signals in the Indian Ocean.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau continues to refine the area where the aircraft entered the water based on continuing ground-breaking and multi-disciplinary technical analysis of satellite communication and aircraft performance, passed from the international air crash investigative team comprising analysts from Malaysia, the United States, the UK, China and Australia.

[oldoberon]

from the international air crash investigative team comprising analysts from Malaysia, the United States, the UK, China and Australia.

I don't know if Malaysia has any satellite experts but have no doubt they have some very competent mathematicians & electronics ppl in their universities etc, the same applies to the other nations plus satellite experience.

Three of the nations UK China and Australia, have no direct involvement with MAH370, so there is plenty of independent experts on the board, so why all the continuing clamour for the data to be released?

[Ornis]

...there is plenty of independent experts on the board, so why all the continuing clamour for the data to be released?

For the same reason intelligent educated parents take their children to quacks when medical science fails them. We believe there is an answer to everything and for some people the "wrong" answer is better than no answer.

Not too long ago we would have blamed gods for such a mysterious disappearance.

I believe they will find the plane, whether there's anything approaching a widely-accepted explanation is another matter.

[theAP]

None of the countries, including Australia, have aircraft on standby ready to intercept in the way the Luftwaffe or the RAF do
Sorry to disagree but in India a/c take off from airbase in just seconds(not minutes) and recently couple of times it proved right.

[Ian W]

IanW, interesting that you say by the book.

But nothing about this situation is really by the book, is it?

Sometimes you have to go above and beyond the book.

What controllers do is legally constrained. When a controller hands an aircraft to another agency particularly an agency in another jurisdiction/country there is a legal document called a Memorandum of Understanding that lays down precisely what the controllers each side of the boundary do on transfer of control and what legal responsibilities each controller and service provider have and how they will be enforced. This is why controllers always follow the regulations (the book). Once MH370 had been handed to Ho Chi Minh then Subang had zero responsibility to do anything. But more than that they were required to do NOTHING as it really confuses things if everyone and their dog starts getting involved bending rules because they think that they can help. Always ONE agency is the one with responsibility and in this case the agency was Ho Chi Minh center. They would have asked Subang - 'Is MH370 still with you - he's not talking to me' (an extremely common occurrence). Subang would have made a call on their frequency to MH370 to see if the aircraft was still on their frequency and if no response would have told Ho Chi Minh - 'no he's not with me'. The assumption would have been that MH370 was NORDO and still en-route to Beijing.

Ho Chi Minh center would have then been trying everything to contact the aircraft - and this was their task and their responsibility - NOTHING to do with Subang center.

This is the way the rules are defined. That is why [donning tin foil hat] it is said that this was an ideal place to break out of the system and stop cooperating with the surveillance systems. For a flight emergency to occur at precisely that moment is possible but highly improbable.

[WillowRun 6-3]

@ Ian W (25 May 15:25) and related posts:

Certainly the "one agency" only component of the way in which air traffic control and airspace management is handled across international borders as well as over international waters is as Ian W's post has stated it. At the same time, does not this situation call for asking a broader question? Particularly: is the current structure anything like optimum? Taking all the constraints of cost, international relations, and inertia of "the way things have been done for a long time now" into account, does "the System" actually accept this state of affairs as the best that can be done? Obviously by System I mean the web of ICAO (and IATA as well, probably) standards and recommended practices, subject matter MOUs, and presumably other components.

The several well-informed posts on interceptor scramble schemes and related costs seem incontrovertibly dependent for their pertinence on the observation that someone should have recognized the loss of contact sooner. But if the lost contact - and I hate to use a botched-up cliche, but it fits - "fell through the cracks", is it not a fair and reasonable inquiry to say "hey, is this as good as the System can do?", or are we left with, when reduced to simplest terms, a shrug, and an acceptance that this apparent gap in air traffic control and airspace management will be allowed to persist?

[olasek]

and an acceptance that this apparent gap in air traffic control and airspace management will be allowed to persist? "Gaps" exist everywhere as far as human activities are concerned, specially the regulatory environment, few countries have resources to design systems that are prepared for the worst conditions or most unlikely scenarios, nobody builds levee that can withstand one-per-hundred years floods, only what you can reasonably expect short term, so to lament about "gaps" is simply like lamenting about strong earthquakes or some cataclysm. By the way, MH370 doesn't even register on a scale of importance where gaps should/could be mended.

[WillowRun 6-3]

Quote: "MH370 doesn't even register on a scale of importance where gaps should/could be mended." On the premise that the important gaps you contend can and should be mended would be off-topic, I'm asking just whether any of the gaps to which you refer - if they were fixed - would indirectly help resolve a situation such as this? Of course I'm also curious about the complete assessment you only encapsulated, but whether it would drift the thread, it's hard to know.

[Vercingetorix]

Ian W

Succinct and 100%.

[ATC Watcher]

Iam W " totally correct , it is how it is done and I would even argue how it SHOULD be done.

WillowRun 6-3 : You have to realise hat the current system works extremely well , it is based on years of global experience and cover all cases to 1 to the minus 9 .

It is indeed frustrating for everyone not to understand what happenned, but most of us believe it was most probably a deliberate act by someone who knew exactly what he ( or they) were doing.
I do not think changing ATC ,SAR or military regulations will prevent another case like this to happen again.

[vme]

The ATSB has established a sub-site for search info at
MH370 (http://www.atsb.gov.au/mh370.aspx)

[sSquares]

http://www.atsb.gov.au/media/5205507/MH370_Considerations%20on%20defining_FactSheet.pdf

The last ACARS message received contained the fuel remaining...

It will take at least another month to get the ACARS data.

[slats11]

Thanks VME. That first fact sheet is fascinating reading.

It appears Inmarsat have been looking at these techniques since AF447. Certainly the range from the satellite stuff anyway. The doppler derived estimated of course and speed may have been more recent.

They have the fuel remaining at time of last ACARS. From this they believe fuel exhaustion would have occurred close to the last handshake.

And they seem to think last handshake was logon request from aircraft, consistent with aircraft equipment powering up - possibly following fuel exhaustion. So that fits with fuel calculations.

They also believe aircraft was descending at this time.

Intriguingly, they quote that study (Russian from memory) that suggests that in loss of control accidents the aircraft is usually found within 20NM of the last known position. So is there a suggestion they believe there was loss of control at the end - as opposed to a long glide from altitude and a controlled ditching.

Lots of independent validation, which is reassuring.

[olasek]

Intriguingly, they quote that study (Russian from memory) that suggests that in loss of control accidents the aircraft is usually found within 20NM of the last known position. No, no Russian study, they talk about Air France case and some work done in that case :E
There is no clear suggestion about whether it was loss of control or not.

[Shadoko]

From Considerations on defining the search area - MH370 (http://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/2014/considerations-on-defining-the-search-area-mh370.aspx) :
Figure 4: MH370 timing (UTC) with corresponding rings arrowed
http://www.atsb.gov.au/media/4898475/Fig4_timing%20rings_500x488.jpg

The center of each ring has to be the Inmarsat 3F1 Lat and Long at the time of the ring. How could they be concentric with the sat moving north-south?

[SAMPUBLIUS]

The center of each ring has to be the Inmarsat 3F1 Lat and Long at the time of the ring. How could they be concentric with the sat moving north-south?

on the scale shown, the movement of the satellite would not be apparent:ugh:

And no doubt the other side of the rings showon would be thru area 51 !!

[MG23]

Data sheet says the position accuracy of the rings is plus-or-minus 10km. If the satellite's movement is similar, or smaller, then it's reasonable to show concentric rings.

Alternatively, projecting the circles onto a sphere may be making them look more concentric than they are.

[Shadoko]

OK.
From their path above north Sumatra coast, the 18:28 and the 21:41 rings are separated by about 1°. But, effectivly, between those times, the sat moved very few to south. For the other rings, the drawing is too small to see the difference.
Sorry for this uneducated issue.