MH370 and military primary radar.
 

Please excuse a non military type on your forum, but I have a question to ask, and the thread is just too insane over there on Rumours&News.

If MH370 did in fact turn back and overfly the Malaysian peninsular into the Indian Ocean, transponder off, is it conceivable they were not seen by the Malaysian Air Force, or other military radar?

I realise air defence is a sensitive matter, but what is the opinion here?

Appropriate user name for the circumstances I must say.

A 777 is a big lump of tin, any civil or miltary radar would have seen it. All the transponder does is identify the blip. As usual with cases of this sort for people with an aviation background listening to the idiots on the news is painful.

Having a great number of years in the business I know a 777 can be detected.

I am more interested if it is possible that it wasn't.

Radar is radar at the end of the day, doesn't matter whether it's mil or civvy, same as dynamite, both versions go bang. I'm not sure what you're driving at when you say 'is it possible that it wasn't detected?' If it was in radar range then yes it would be detected unless it had some Klingon cloaking device. But if you are in the business then you already know that surely.

Quote:

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Radar is radar at the end of the day

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It does apprear that the civilians depend much more on transponder information than the military. The military might want to make their own decisions about what type of a/c a target is, rather than depend on what the target tells you it is.

But I stopped being a Radar Fitter in 1965 and things might have changed since then :)

The most useful info appears to be in this Reuters article.

Exclusive: Radar data suggests missing Malaysia plane deliberately flown way off course - sources | Reuters

This Time of India report is also relevant

Radar suggests missing Malaysian jet changed its course more than once - The Times of India

The relevant Malaysian military radar sites appear to be at Kota Bharu and Butterworth.

MH 370 is reported now to have been routing between named waypoints. Your most likely options are:
1) it was detected on military radar, but not deemed a threat due to its routing, and therefore not investigated.
2) it was detected, deemed a threat but not identified.
3) it was not detected, or not detected often enough to generate a reliable track

All of the reasons for the above would make the Malaysian authorities look bad. Questions might include:
What was the system serviceability and effective coverage?
Was this an operator or command cock-up?
Do they co-ordinate with the civilians, including flight plans?
Do their systems include transponder codes?
Do they have an effective Quick Reaction Alert?

I suspect the details are coming out now because they are reviewing the radar recordings but only now realise what they need to look for.

My best guess is that they routinely ignore civilian traffic routing between named waypoints. They will absolutely not wish to admit this, especially if it is known that they do so, as whoever was flying the jet may have planned for this.

Well, it's a long time since I have been in an ATC or military radar room, that's why I'm asking. I thought primary radar returns are not displayed on current civilian ATC radars, at least not in normal operations. So civilian radar may not have noticed.

Military air defence radars however.... That is what I am getting at.

Is it possible the Air-force sometimes is asleep, or have lost the tapes? Was the only radar switched off and they were all down the local brothel? I have no idea as to the extent of Malaysia's air defence capabilities. I thought someone here might know.

Possibly true, but the OP question was 'Was it possible for it not to be detected?' The simple answer is if it was in radar range then yes, it was. Let's not get into atmospheric aberration, whether there was an N in the month and all of the other good stuff.

I agree with Fox, there's some serious backpedalling going on.

Edit: Sorry LL, just caught your post. ATC do show non transponding traffic, although I can only speak for certain about the UK and Western Europe. Why would they not want to show non transponding traffic? If anything they are going to be the bigger proximity threat precisely because you don't know their height, where they are heading etc. Go flying any time in the UK and you will have ATC warning you about 'Unidentified traffic, no height information.'

Just found this: David Learmount at FlightGlobal reckons it was a cock-up by the Malaysian military also:
MH370: Malaysia's military failed in their duty says expert | Plane Talking

Worth noting that, at that time of night, there is no Swiss QRA (they start at 6am I believe - easy life:ok:)

Many air traffic systems around the world, including some in the UK, do not show non-squawking aircraft to the controller. This is particularly true for civilian controllers monitoring the upper air, who may only be presented with symbology derived from secondary surveillance systems, not even 'raw' secondary returns.

Sun.

Thanks for that, I learn again from Pprune. Why would you not want to see non transponding aircraft? Would it just overload the controller?

Can't say I've ever flown in an area where only transponding traffic was shown otherwise I wouldn't get non transponding traffic as conflicts! However, I rarely venture into the oxygen starved areas of the airspace.

Wrong question.

Would it have been tracked from shortly after take-off until it left radar cover - yes. It would have been identified as a friendly based on it's SSR squawk and associated flight plan and had a friendly track label associated with it which would have stayed with it based on primary radar when the SSR was turned off.

Would the fact that the SSR was turned off and the aircraft then turned back have caused an alert? Perhaps. It was already identified as friendly and the turn back could have been assumed to be related to an aircraft electrical problem; however a prolonged deviation from the flight plan route should have triggered at least a conversation with the local ATC centre as to the problem and intentions.

Once over land it probably entered a no-track area (spurious plots associated with ground clutter and local movements are a nuisance) and the track label would have been automatically dropped. From that point it would have just been another assumed friendly overland track.

When I was controlling (military) in the UK Upoer Airpace (above FL245) it was a mandatory control environment. So everyone there was being controlled by someone. Ergo, anything below 245 was just screen clutter, and thus on the T-82 radar we could operate in "Beam 6" and thus filter out all the medium and lower level stuff.

Drop below 245, and we would operate in "All Beams" to ensure we saw any possible conflicts. Then, if needed, we would use the height finder to determine the height if the conflict ... 5.000 FT vertical separation being required.

Any SSR data was a bonus, allowing coordination with the relevant controlling agency (if showing).

Yup, I agree, civvies tend to use SSR-only to declutter their picture. :ok:

I would hope the civil commercial aviation world takes a long hard look at itself after this. I would hope they ask the following:

1. Why is there an over reliance on SSR and not primary RADAR?
2. Why isn't there a procedure for contacting the aircraft when they don't check in on frequency?
3. When there is no contact then why didn't the air traffic service start to look with primary? The average airliner does around 8 miles a minute - so no contact after 5 minutes then start looking out by 50 miles!
4. Is it ETOPS safe or should we have more crew and engines on a single aircraft?
5. Is the use of an aircraft slide really sufficient as a life-raft following ditching?

LJ

I know it is fashionable on this forum to rubbish David Learmount and anything he says, but I have to say I pretty well agree with what he is saying about this. Everything points to a huge cock-up on the part of the RMAF radar, which their authorities have been covering up because of this inevitable "face" thing. If I were a Malaysian taxpayer I'd be asking what the heck is the use of operating highly expensive Su 30s, Mig 29s and F18s if unidentified aircraft can fly unchallenged across the country's airspace?

So if a civ airliner looses it's transponder for whatever reason then it just disappears? Even though there must be a primary return somewhere in the system even if it's being blocked out? I find that incredible.

ORAC, Am I correct in thinking that you believe it is possible that it was not tracked, - or rather, it is possible that it would not have raised any military interest?

And I presume the radar data is recorded and preserved, so would it not have been reviewed within hours?

And what would be the military interest when the now unidentified return appears from the overland clutter when the aircraft coasts out into the Indian Ocean?

As a generality I would say that reliance on SSR data since the 70s, by ATC certainly, has diminished the ability to work with minimal data. Think Word Processor VS. Pen, email VS. Letter.

I've had numerous situations when handing over aircraft to another Mil ATCO to hear bleats such as "I don't have a flight plan for him" or "I can't see his squawk". All one actually needs is a primary return, in the right location on tne right heading, for identification from another controller. Then just "Take 5" or coordinate - it's not that difficult.

Sadly, automation now seems to require innumerable additional bells and whistles to achieve a safe, orderly and expeditious flow of air traffic.

[/rant] :p

I read elsewhere that the Indian Navy had turned off their primary radar, which is why they had no trace. Apparently too expensive to run their radar permanently at times when there is no threat. Possibly also the RMAF had their primary radar switched off.

Interesting stuff Trim Stab -and your location is apposite - 'Heart of Darkness' now seemingly including 'in a jet with the SSR turned off anywhere in SE Asia' ;)

I'm not aware of the current state of things in Europe or elsewhere, but for the last couple of decades I have been seeing reports and stories (many confirmed by local control sectors and even by the FAA itself) that there are few actual high-level radars (the ones that bounce a radio wave off the aircraft skin rather than querying its transponder) left in the US ATC network!

The only place where actual radars are left in numbers in civilian service is in the lower altitudes that are relatively near airports with sufficient traffic to justify the expense.


Everything else in the ATCT network relies completely on transponders to both locate and identify aircraft.

I'm saying it was practically certain it was originally detected, tracked, and identified as friendly as an outbound track. The track block would have given the track ID and, only perhaps, the height. When the SSR was turned off it might not even have been noticed. (I had occasions when I was controlling myself when someone had to point out my aircraft wasn't squawking).

As a friendly it would not of been a high priority, they would have been watching other unknown tracks and trying to identify them.

The question then arises as to whether the turn back would have raised an alert. Unless it was a sophisticated system with flight plan tracks being continuously monitored for adherence (which I am almost certain was not the case,) then the system would not have generated an alert unless it squawked radio fail, hijack or radio fail. Would the operator have seen it as suspicious? Bored airman keeping tracks on blips, unlikely.

The remaining possibility would have been if ATC called to say they'd lost contact, but they'd sent him over to HCM control and thought he'd gone. HCM didn't query his non-arrival on frequency (lack of comms between ATC centres?) so that didn't happen either.

When the track went overland/primary went below cover the track would have automatically timed out and been dropped and it would not have been seen as of interest.

When a non-squawking outbound track appeared off the west coast it would either have been made friendly or unknown based on track behaviour (coming from friendly territory) and again dropped when it left radar cover.

In short, the whole turn and transit until it left cover is highly unlikely to have raised an eyebrow until questions were asked and the tapes pulled. At which point embarassed execs would have started waffling rather than admitting that's how the system works.

ORAC,

Thanks for such a detailed explanation.

Any thoughts on why, after reviewing the tapes, it would take more than a week to find? Is this a difficult exercise?

Going back to the OP's question, the practices current in civilian ATC with regard to transponders are a red herring. What is being asked is if it is conceivable that the military radar operated by the RMAF missed the contact.

Obviously it is conceivable - they were asleep, they were u/s, they were shut down for a day's holiday - who knows? The fact remains that a military radar does not rely on IFF - an incoming aggressor is not going to conveniently squawk for you. An effective military radar should not only have picked this aircraft up as a possible threat, but should certainly have launched aircraft to intercept and identify. Otherwise what's the point of having a massively expensive air defence system?

Tankertrashnav ... not disputing anything you said, but is it not conceivable that different "Alert States" might be employed?

I accept that the region 'enjoys' a degree of tension, but in the absence of any 'indicators' is it not possible that the Malaysian AD world was in a relaxed state? Or do they have to monitor incursions constantly the way we did/do in respect of Soviet/Russian VLR aircraft?

Just surmising, nothing more.

MPN 11
 

ORAC has summed it up nicely and I think he also talked about areas in which tracks are not initiated (primarily for system/de-cluttering reasons) in an earlier post. To answer your specific question I do not believe that post 9/11, any credible ADGE system (even in its most basic form) would change the way it does business based on some type of "alert" system. Let me qualify that, they may become more "active" - depending on INT, but I believe that there is a level below which they would not go. I base this rather sweeping statement on my 34 years of ADGE experience - at all levels, from ab-initio to inter-facing with the 'political level'. However, in saying this I do not discount the "human factor" - some poor airman on a 12 or 15 hour shift missing something, and the supervisory chain also failing to pick it up etc etc.

Why has another thread on Pprune about the missing aircraft, gone missing ?!?

Theres a reasonably priced black Proton Wira just pulled up outside.

gr4techie - considering that the one in Rumours and News is taking between 3 and 6 mods pretty much all day to keep in some (not very good) semblance of order, we don't need masses of other threads about it proliferating on PPRuNe. The site policy is to have only one thread on this topic.

Three or four threads have been deleted from other forums, but I have decided to let this one run because we usually have some common sense around in here. So far so good eh?

Rest assured though, that if it degenerates into anything like the R & N thread it will also be culled.

Am I allowed to ask the experts nicely the following:

given that there appears to be a "last known" position west of malaysia, what is the logic to searching two arcs only. Are they reciprocals plotted on a great circle? Nobody in the media seems to be asking "why there?"
I apologise if I have missed something [that would be easy!]

Wholi
 

Which corner are you looking in? :)

MPN11 - You may well be right about relaxed states of alert and obviously I dont know what systems they have. However I'd have thought that post 9/11, a country which is home to one of the tallest buildings in the world would always be nervous about an incoming unidentified target.

Ive been out of things for a very long time now, but I am sure in recent years I have read of Typhoons being scrambled to intercept unidentified civilian traffic approaching the UK which turned out to be entirely innocent.

@ TTN and CB ... No disagreement with anything you said. As I noted, just an observation. As a Mil Area ATCO, we only ever looked at the tube if we were controlling someone ;)

A civil radar looks for a squak code and won't do much if it can't find one. A military allocates track number to any target so that it can be tracked and any follow up taken. I have no experience of land based radars but on a ship I could see a complete air picture out to 250 miles. which is why I don't believe just about anything I hear on this subject.

TTN
 

Exactly my point old man!

Wholigan, that's a top call letting it run on here...bags of military interest from all angles and the main thread is just going to be too wackadoodle for must of us mil or ex mil types.

To quote a fictional character, if one eliminates the impossible, the whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

At the moment, there are a great many improbable scenarios (hence the whole mystery thing) there are not that many impossible scenarios. A "straightforward" aircraft accident is possible (the quotes because no accident is ever that straightforward); a terrorism event is possible; a non terrorist criminal act is possible and so is a suicidal type of thing. At the same time all these things look improbable because we are dealing with something we are not used...a modern day Bermuda Triangle. What makes it more explainable is the possibility that a number of rare event have lined up in a statistical outlier. For example, a criminal act that then turned into an accident, or a whole sequence of events, that make the mundane, look extraordinary.

Every poker player knows that sooner or later your four kings will run into four aces. As unlikely as it seems at the time (instantly arousing suspicions of cheating) that fact is that not only is it likely (if you play enough) it is a statistical certainty. In a similar way, with millions and millions of flights, sooner or later something totally freaky in every which way is going to happen.

For my part, I keep an open mind, but I won't surprised if the eventual truth is revealed as some tragic, simple human or mechanical failure (which kind reveals what two explanations I favour).

Thoughts are with the families..it must be hell on earth.

but it wasn't an unidentified track. It was an identified Friendly track which turned round - and if the operator didn't know it's flight plan why would he assume it wasn't planned to?

To mangle a quote frm the FI war - they watched it all the way out and they watched all the way back in again.

LangleyBastion - I understand that the only useful data from the engine satellite 'pinger' is the angle the satellite received the signal from. Since the satellite is in a fixed position in space relative to the Earth (Geostationary orbit), the last angle received gives a circle - rather a large one - on the Earth. The arc of this circle extends out over central Asia and down to the South Indian Ocean. It would be useful to have all the ping angles and timing,but this hasn't been released yet to my knowledge. With 30 min pings, the aircraft could be in a band +/- 300nm (approx, i.e. 29 mins flying range) of this arc.

I like that, ORAC :ok: