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Malaysian Airlines MH370 contact lost

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Old 22nd Jun 2014, 13:59
  #11121 (permalink)  
 
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Malaysian police reportedly named Shah (Captain of MH370) a prime suspect after discovering that the 53-year-old father-of-three had made no social plans or work commitments for the future – unlike the rest of his crew.
If you look elsewhere such as CNN (here), you will find that ....

Malaysian police spokeswoman Asmawati Ahmad told CNN.
"We did not make any statement to say that Capt. Zaharie was the prime suspect," she said, refuting an article in London's The Sunday Times that says Zaharie is now the sole focus of the investigation.
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Old 22nd Jun 2014, 15:37
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Are not all aviation time-dependent systems for ATC etc. systems synchronised to a single unit time source, e.g. the Rugby Atomic Clock or similar?
Most timing signals for this sort of equipment are driven from GPS. In fact by far the biggest use of GPS is not navigation, but rather an accurate time signal.
Any source for the claim that most aviation timing signals are driven from GPS? I'm not so sure GPS time is used much on the aircraft side of things.

I'm a pilot, not a mechanic or avionics technician, but various clocks on the airliners I've flown are usually manually set and can often disagree, especially when the aircraft battery has been recently disconnected for maintenance.

ACARS has a clock display but I'm under the impression that it is updated by a VHF, HFDL or SATCOM signal, I don't think it even sees GPS information.

The FMS's get GPS position information but I've seen the clocks disagree from the actual time when the captain's instrument panel clock is not set correctly. It's a real mess with CPDLC, this may be a legacy issue corrected on newer aircraft designs. However the B-777 was designed and spec'ed years ago.

We still have the old HF time hack in the overwater preflight procedures, probably a carryover from a Pan Am manual many decades ago.
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Old 22nd Jun 2014, 17:23
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What research group came out publicly about the acoustic pings? There was one news report suggesting that the false ping source might have been the bar fridge on the ship. I have not seen this stated as fact however. I've not seen facts asserted on this matter, other than a claim purported to be fact, that the ping detections were in error. If they don't know what caused the false pings by now, then might there be serious concern about their ability to apply rigorous scientific analysis?

They have a ship "Ocean Shield" towing a TPL-25 that has a limited detection range. They detect pings. Therefore it seems likely that no other ship would be close enough to be producing those black box pings. Hence the common hypothesis out there, that it's either the ship itself or the TPL-25 causing the false pings. If that's the case, then they should be able to repeat the test and reproduce the fault. But have they? They must surely reproduce the fault, as part of an exhaustive process of elimination of conclusive error. They are spending big dollars on this, so surely it warrants more than a wild goose chase.

Even if the false ping source was not from their own equipment, they need to repeat the ping detection tests to be confident of that. But have they ? If this is an open investigation, surely it would have been publicly stated that they are repeating their ping tests to ascertain the source of the supposed false pings.

Yet apparently the US Navy says this theory about false pings being produced by the ship is speculative.

Last edited by HeyIts007; 22nd Jun 2014 at 17:59.
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Old 22nd Jun 2014, 17:34
  #11124 (permalink)  
 
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theres been at least one research group that has come out publicly.
Who are they, where are they?
Anybody better than tabloid media mentioned it?
You really have nothing at this point.
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Old 22nd Jun 2014, 17:45
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If the allegations were anything other than preposterous, can someone from the Malaysian authorities explain why a 777, flown by an experienced Capt, would have either failed to find the island, or failed to land there . . .simples then, the Boeing is parked on the island, case solved
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Old 22nd Jun 2014, 20:32
  #11126 (permalink)  
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Originally Posted by 4G
Have still not found much, if any ,detail on the Rolls Royce engine monitoring data.
- we undersand Malaysian did not subscribe
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Old 23rd Jun 2014, 01:16
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The claim the pilot is 100% responsible is just more Malaysian BS.
They do not have a shred of evidence that would withstand legal examination that the pilot was responsible for the loss - but he was a supporter of the Opposition Leader, so he can become a very convenient scapegoat.

This is standard practice in a corrupt country, where to eliminate the Opposition Leader, you trump up some "indecency" charges, and jail him for 5 yrs to get him out of the way.

The Malaysian police claim the pilot is the "prime suspect" because he made no "social or professional future plans".

If that single observation makes one a "prime suspect" in an aircraft hijacking/loss - then 10,000 other pilots around the world, are also "prime suspects" for future hijackings/aircraft losses.
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Old 23rd Jun 2014, 05:42
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fuel rate

http://www.deltava.org/library/B777%20Manual.pdf










MH370 Malaysia Airlines B772 Missing Enroute KUL-PEK Part 38 — Civil Aviation Forum | Airliners.net

Post 6.

Extract: "The latest bloomberg article has the following: "The Boeing 777 was carrying 49.1 metric tons (54.1 tons) of fuel when it departed Kuala Lumpur, for a total takeoff weight of 223.5 tons, according to Subang Jaya-based Malaysian Air."
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Old 23rd Jun 2014, 08:48
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The Malaysian police claim the pilot is the "prime suspect" because he made no "social or professional future plans".

If that single observation makes one a "prime suspect" in an aircraft hijacking/loss - then 10,000 other pilots around the world, are also "prime suspects" for future hijackings/aircraft losses.
In the very unlikely scenario that your aircraft crashes AND you have a completely clean diary from that date forward, then yes I'm afraid you almost certainly will become a posthumous suspect.

I quite understand that on a professional pilots' forum, there is going to be considerable opposition to the idea that an apparently distinguished professional pilot might choose to down his plane. And I note this forum is deeply distrustful of journalism, which can be sensationalist and inaccurate in its reporting of civil aviation.

Yet pilot suicide has happened before (Egyptair 990) so it is not surprising that it is a major avenue of inquiry for MH370. In this case, it is 'the butler did it' scenario. So the moderators who deleted all the posts following yesterday's Sunday Times article are, it seems to me, in the same state of denial as the Egyptians who continue to blame a CIA conspiracy or mechanical failure for the demise of Egyptair 990.

The aftermath of air crashes is frequently highly emotional and politicised so there are some, like Egyptair 990 or Itavia 870, where for these reasons the truth is never accepted by the airline's home country. This is wrong but perfectly understandable. It's just a shame that Pprune moderators seem to be guided by exactly the same emotions.
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Old 23rd Jun 2014, 17:51
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Bravo J-Class

As someone whose professional life is all about researching cognitive bias, I find few phenomena as disconcerting as pilots turning a blind eye.
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Old 23rd Jun 2014, 19:35
  #11131 (permalink)  
 
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Airbubba

Any source for the claim that most aviation timing signals are driven from GPS? I'm not so sure GPS time is used much on the aircraft side of things.
I'm not an engineer either but certainly on the 777 GPS timing is used by the airplane information management system (AIMS). Even the flight deck clocks/chronos are effectively "slaved" to the GPS timing signal via AIMS.

( Source is the 777 FCOM 2)
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Old 23rd Jun 2014, 23:16
  #11132 (permalink)  
 
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I could not let his reply pass, because what he wrote in post #73 is absolute rubbish.
Just to keep this pot boiling, some comments to try and back the position as stated in post #73! I will assume that the main issue is whether an exact match of a model to the data is good or bad.



I can only speak from my experience and training in analysing physical data. All data is noisy and dealing with the errors is a big part of the data interpretation. There is always the risk of developing a complex physical model with lots of variables that the analyst is trying to get out of the data, e.g. in the case of a plasma, the temperature (sometimes several), density and chemical composition. If there are only a few data points, the model can be so complex that almost any data, including the noise, can be fitted by changing the variables to some set of values. If this happens, then the model is too complex and very little can be extracted from the result. So if any model can exactly match the data values as measured (assuming there is more than one data value), the analyst should be suspicious. One of the major reason for having a model is to be able to recognise the errors in the data and deal with them.


So the predictions of the model, when compared to the data, must still show a disparity/difference that is consistent with the known errors in the data.


In my experience it is usual to keep the comparison of the data and the model in the frame of the data where the errors are well understood. If others wish to do it another way, that’s fine, but the errors have to be transferred in some fashion because they have not gone away.
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Old 23rd Jun 2014, 23:21
  #11133 (permalink)  
 
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I am curious about the 1st legs (till 18:29) hypothetized by the independant MH370 study group (see Duncan Steel website) since their 470 kts south trajectory seems to avoid the Indonesian airspace and I assume that their trajectory is compatible with the BTO/BFO logged data.
That group will have to speak about the BTO/BFO comparison themselves. It doesn’t match the model I have proposed (it’s miles off the BFO model), otherwise it would have appeared in my paper as a potential solution consistent with the data.

The radar tracks

Someone asked a while ago about the consistency of what I have been proposing with the radar track along the Straits of Malacca. I have investigated this by fixing the latitude of the 18:29UT ping to be North of Sumatra. The two speeds in the track model set are then the speed of the second leg from 18:29UT to 19:41UT, and then the speed of the subsequent legs (all the same). Again, I compare the BFO predictions of each track with the data. Statistically, the solutions are the same as those in my original paper. However, in this case the required speeds of the second leg to be consistent with the data are an output of the modelling. I have plotted the speed on the second leg against latitude of the final point at 00:19UT, i.e. position along the 00:19UT ping ring, for the statistically acceptable solutions. The result is shown in the graph below.

final_search_areas_zps2591eb0d.jpg Photo by RichardC10 | Photobucket

This is a complex graph, so some notes:

a. All of this is constrained by the need to be consistent with the radar data.

b. The blue points are solutions to the 3 ping fit (20:41 to 22:41UT) in the paper. With the reported search areas shift to the South these are less important.

c. the brown points are solutions to the 4 ping fit (19:41 to 22:41UT). This corresponds to section 7.7 of my report.

d. the green points are solutions to the both the 3 and 4 ping fits.

e. the red line I have drawn in shows the minimum 2nd leg speed to get to a particular latitude. The aim is to show just how fast the aircraft has to travel on the 18:29UT to 19:41UT leg to get it South enough for the rest of the BFO values to match.

f. the aircraft has to be at the speed for the later legs by 19:41UT, that is whatever the average speed between 18:29 and 19:41UT, the aircraft has to have slowed to the later leg speed by 19:41UT. If it is still at the higher speed the fit at 19:41UT is very bad.

g. If the aircraft flew North of Sumatra, the minimum 2nd leg speed to get to the Northern red-zone search area at ~21degS is 410kt, so lower than the speed at loss of contact, so not a constraint.

h. However, to get to the Southern areas now being mooted (say 28S), the minimum average speed on the 2nd leg is 540kt (given that the speed of the aircraft has to be at much lower value of <330kt by 19:41UT, the maximum has to be greater than 540kt). The minimum average speed on the 2nd leg to get to the Southern edge of the ICAO green zone is 500kt. This speed may be a limit set by the aircraft analysis

If the constraint to be consistent with the radar data is dropped, the course can be much more Southerly, as indicated in the maps of the original report. Using the 4-point BFO fit, the goodness of fit of the possible tracks is shown in the graph below. A speed limit of 500kt on the first leg is used (the figure used above). The 90% confidence limits give a range of 23S and 30S along the 00:19UT ping arc for the final destination.

confidence_limits_zpsa555d4ad.jpg Photo by RichardC10 | Photobucket

So here is a risky prediction, based on a model I have not been able to validate. So what can go wrong?

1. The Southern edge of the ICAO green-zone was set by a maximum 2nd leg speed of 500kt, with the possible tracks set by the need to be consistent with the radar data.

2. when the new search area is declared, it will be between 23S and 30S, which corresponds to the 4-point ping fit.

To be clear, this comes with a big health warning as I think I am making the model too complex for the available data.

Also, again to be clear, the model proposed in the paper is a hypothesis of what the Inmarsat analysis process might have been. Apart from the published MH370 data log, I have no other data to validate the model, so cannot claim it is verified and hence that any prediction from it is correct.
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Old 24th Jun 2014, 01:12
  #11134 (permalink)  
 
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Three more questions...

- is it known how the BTO data published ("raw data" PDF) were measured? It is evident that the digits are not the whole go and back signal time. Regardless what is substracted to the whole trip of the signal, it have to be at least two different very accurate time stamps: the first when the signal is sent by the GES, the second when it comes back. So, how could be computed the BTO at, for example, 18:25:27,421 (value is 17120 usec)? It is "the end of the link lost period that began at sometime between 17:07:48 and 18:03:41". It is a RX from the aircraft, without any TX from the GES before which could have initiated the RX (and timestamped). 1.431 second later, the GES answers (Log-on confirm), followed by a sequence of 4 TX. When was measured the "17120 usecs"? And between which times?

- is there any possibility that the "activity" of the satellite unit (when it logs on or when it answers a "ping" from the GES) could be "viewed" from the cockpit, even on a sub sub screen of a normally never used display?

- has it been published something accepted or "credible" about the reason of the "re"log at 18:25?

There is a post on the DuncanSteel blog where some infos are written about the communication link, particularly this:
Originally Posted by http://www.duncansteel.com/archives/826#comment-6702
If the “Data Link System Reset” function is selected:
- ATC connection is reset and not re-established.
- Review messages (history) are deleted.
- VHF C is selected as default radio and set to data mode (if plane is on the ground) or voice mode (if plane is in the air)
- HF R is selected as default and set to voice.
- ACARS is set to Auto.
- ADS Emergency is reset to OFF
The Data Communications System is automatically reset after each flight, or 10 minutes after engine shutdown, and when any passenger door is open. Source: B777 Communications Manual.
Is this seems correct? Could it be applied to a passenger door blown (or opened) in flight?

That is five questions, actually...
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Old 24th Jun 2014, 05:29
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My question is why didn't they send long range drones to inspect the floating debris sites more closely? Or did they? It seems to me that this whole search seems full of loose ends and lacks thorough investigation. eg. RQ-4A Global Hawk with 3,000 mile range. Apparently it can survey as much as 40,000 square miles (100,000 km2) of terrain a day.

The false pings still don't appear to be clear as to their cause. Yet have they repeated the tests to verify the source of the false pings? i.e. ships bar fridge, other part of ship or the TPL-25 itself?

Could there be a public checklist reporting web site that site that highlights every key piece of evidence and states whether the evidence has been ruled in or out and provide the reasoning as to why. Seems the data needs to be open to public scrutiny.

Seems to me that exhaustive and complete verification is required, if they are to eliminate the noise and really focus on the most probable likelihoods. Their current approach seems quite spurious.
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Old 24th Jun 2014, 07:16
  #11136 (permalink)  
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Hey, discussed, explained, and dismissed months ago.

Cloudless, ground stations, analysis, etc.

Why should there be a public website? I am sure the coordination centre has it all recorded on as dag packet. It is for the official report to cross I's and dot t's.
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Old 24th Jun 2014, 07:43
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Well the latest is they are now saying the hunt could take decades. source:Telegraph.co.uk

The mind boggles that they could not find any surface debris or clues in the initial period after the plane was reported missing. Now they say decades? Seems to me that maximum effort would have been best spent early and not over decades.
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Old 24th Jun 2014, 08:53
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[HeyIts007] ... maximum effort would have been best spent early and not over decades
Initially no one had any idea it had flown for hours to nowhere; it's pretty difficult to see how anyone could have done more sooner.

Admittedly too much time was wasted in the wrong area because the Malaysians didn't believe it hadn't just crashed on route to China.

It's clearly a slow process now to map the sea floor and look systematically in areas thought promising. They might get lucky, they might not.

You seem to be criticising the search because the outcome wasn't to your liking. That doesn't mean it was wrong.
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Old 24th Jun 2014, 09:00
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I don't believe the ship borne false ping scenario... This would have been spotted at a very early stage as they were lowering the detector into the water....


Just dropped it in to the water, Pings strength 9++.
Lower the cable, Pings strength 5.
Even lower still, Pings strength 2.


Someone must have spotted that.
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Old 24th Jun 2014, 10:18
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Officials say MH370 was in controlled flight

New York Times article, June 23rd.“MH 370 Was in Controlled Flight After Contact Was Lost, Officials Suspect”
Link > http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/24/wo...=29625191&_r=0
SOME HIGHLIGHTS;
“Was probably not seriously damaged in the air and remained in controlled flight for hours after contact with it was lost, until it ran out of fuel over the southern Indian Ocean.”
“Their conclusion, reached in the past few weeks, helped prompt the decision to move the focus of the search hundreds of miles to the southwest.”
“ main evidence for the conclusion lies in a re-examination of Malaysian military radar data and in a more detailed analysis of electronic “handshakes,” or pings, that the aircraft exchanged with an Inmarsat satellite over the Equator, senior officials involved in the investigation said.”
“The altitude readings from the radar now appear to have been inaccurate, officials said.”
“Malaysian radar equipment had not been calibrated with enough precision to draw any conclusions about the aircraft’s true altitude. “The primary radar data pertaining to altitude is regarded as unreliable,” said Angus Houston.”
“Other officials involved in the crash investigation have suggested that either of the plane’s pilots might have commandeered the aircraft in order to commit suicide, or that a smoke from a fire in the fuselage might have overcome the pilots and passengers but left the engines and autopilot working normally.”
Data Guy Notes; Boeing service letter cautions to fuselage fires may be seen as Appendix 1 (Chinese) Aviation Safety Council Final Report, fire on EVA Airways, 2/23/08, Flight BR67. Report # ASC-AOR-11-02-001.Link > http://www.asc.gov.tw/downfile/ASC-A...1(English).pdf
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