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Flaperon washes up on Reunion Island

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Flaperon washes up on Reunion Island

Old 6th Sep 2015, 10:38
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Quote from oldoberon:
"...let us hope they find cvr & fdr and can throw some light on the why and kill the remaining conspiracy theories."

Amen to that! If I may be permitted a brief aside, however, the case of MH370 has resulted in a rather unusual situation in respect of conspiracy theory. Conspiracists abound on PPRuNe, and are generally vilified or ignored by most of us. Think of AF447, for example... Yet the current, conventional explanation for this disappearance - as summarised by Ian W a few days ago - involves actions that look very like a conspiracy.

But a conspiracy requires more than one person to conspire, and we've been led to believe that only one person was involved, so perhaps it should be referred to simply as a plot. We are also told that the perpetrator was in all probability the aircraft's commander, who happens to be a political dissident in his own country.

Written as a work of fiction, the long, incredible scenario currently accepted by right-thinking people would be regarded by most of them as improbable sensationalism. Yet anyone who challenges all or part of it risks being dismissed - or even censored - as a conspiracist. Suggestions such as an exploding flight-crew oxygen bottle (for example) are just ignored.
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Old 6th Sep 2015, 12:44
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Originally Posted by DJ77
*** mm43 and Hyperveloce ***

No need to switch off IFE when the only electrical power source is the APU. Automatic load shedding takes cares of that. IFE and galleys are on top of the priority list for load shed.

Note that from 1825 on no flight ID and no data-2 ACARS traffic were transmitted during the various handshakes and phone calls from ground. Conspirationists will of course deduce that some bad guy found a way to prevent it. Non-conspirationists may think that the link between the data source in the a/c (AIMS or whatever it is) and the satcom equipment was somehow crippled.
Ok, so even if the IFE is switched off in cabin from the cockpit (or via a power management plan or anything else), we still would have routine ground connections set over SATCOM by the IFE when this link is operational again ? (at 18:25, for the SMS e-mail and BITE applications).
For the flight ID, it could have been the equipment generating it that was switched off too ? I still not have a clear idea on why the SATCOM was first switched off, and later switched back on, and not from the cockpit (the Perth GES would have logged that and it did not).
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Old 6th Sep 2015, 14:53
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Hyperveloce:
For the flight ID, it could have been the equipment generating it that was switched off too ? I still not have a clear idea on why the SATCOM was first switched off, and later switched back on
Nobody knows if things were switched off or on during the hour or so prior to the 18:25 logon (the period when the satcom kept completely silent). Could have been a problem with antenna steering, for example.
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Old 6th Sep 2015, 19:54
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Originally Posted by DJ77
Hyperveloce:


Nobody knows if things were switched off or on during the hour or so prior to the 18:25 logon (the period when the satcom kept completely silent). Could have been a problem with antenna steering, for example.
If I remember correctly, the most probable cause for the large BFO excursions at each sat link logon (18:25 and 00:19) would be that the OXCO was no longer thermally regulated (SATCOM switched off for at least several minutes).
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Old 6th Sep 2015, 21:25
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the most probable cause for the large BFO excursions ...
Probable, so let's just say it's possible.
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Old 6th Sep 2015, 23:04
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Originally Posted by Hyperveloce
If I remember correctly, the most probable cause for the large BFO excursions at each sat link logon (18:25 and 00:19) would be that the OXCO was no longer thermally regulated (SATCOM switched off for at least several minutes).
From memory, the SATCOM unit is designed not to go "on line" until the OCXO (Oven Controlled X'tal Oscillator) has reached and stabilized at its designed operating temperature and therefore complies with the INMARSAT specifications.

The more probable explanation for the BFO excursions is that the aircraft was either turning, descending or climbing at those specific times.
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Old 7th Sep 2015, 00:30
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Angel Underwater search

Onetrack: Your idea makes intuitive sense however I wonder if search authorities have already considered and discarded this idea because there may be many shipping containers that have washed off of container ships that are already on the seabed in the search area.

Other potential limiters may be the great depth of the water and perhaps the need for such a detector to be quite close to be useful. The US Air Force has spent many years looking for a hydrogen bomb that was lost off of South Carolina with no tangible results to date.

I do not know the relative frequency of container loss events in the search zone but surely it must have happened before.

Last edited by averow; 7th Sep 2015 at 00:33. Reason: Spelling
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Old 7th Sep 2015, 01:10
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Chris Scott: "If I may be permitted a brief aside, however, the case of MH370 has resulted in a rather unusual situation in respect of conspiracy theory."

Yes, but that has been driven by revelations as the investigation progressed. Initially, there was a massive search where MH370 disappeared from radar. Very reasonable. Then it was revealed that actually primary radar showed a turn back. People theorized a fire or other emergency and an attempt to land at the nearest airport. Very reasonable. Then we find out that MH370 made a series of left and right turns toward waypoints, and continued flying for many hours heading south toward the middle of nowhere, with communications disabled.

I don't believe it was a conspiracy, as all that only requires one person, albeit one who knows a great deal about flying a B-777. What was accomplished was an aviation mystery to rival the disappearance of Amelia Earhardt. Khufu had the Great Pyramid, this is the aviation equivalent.
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Old 7th Sep 2015, 01:27
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Magnetic detection

I used to be crew member on an ASW aircraft (P-3) which was equipped with magnetic anomaly detection - MAD, and I used to maintain the MAD equipment. The device was made as sensitive as possible. It could detect trucks going by on a highway near our runway - when we were within 100 meters or so, or it could detect a shallow sub directly under the aircraft. This short range was useful to us as it indicated when we were directly over a submarine. The MAD operator would yell "MADMAN" when he got a hit. They are still used for ASW.

A submarine has a very large amount of ferromagnetic material compared to a 777, and to be detected, a submarine had to be relatively shallow compared to the S Indian Ocean depths.

Given its limited range, I doubt that MAD technology would be of much use in this search. We didn't use it for searching, after all, only for precise locating, and we were hunting much larger prey. I'm sure the folks involved have thought about all this, and probably consulted specialists.
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Old 7th Sep 2015, 01:32
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averow - Yes, there are substantial numbers of seatainers lost from shipping in the Southern part of the Indian Ocean, due to regular heavy seas and regular stormy conditions.
Quite a numbers of these seatainers have already shown up in Fugro sonar scans, lying on the seabed.
And yes, gaining sufficient proximity to the metallic article being searched for, could possibly be a major problem, particularly where the sea bed is exceptionally rugged and consists of deep canyons and ravines.
There are numerous marine magnetometers available, but many manufacturers and sites are coy (for obvious reasons) about advertising the limitations of their capabilities.
This smaller variety of MM discussed in the link below, advertises "deep water capabilities", plus an interesting range of actual search results - but examination of the specs shows a practical limit of 2750M operating depth.
As the MH370 search zone contains regions of water ranging between 5000M and 6000M, it is obvious that despite the manufacturers claims, it still has serious limitations.

Model G882 Marine Magnetometer

Quite possibly, the greatest limitation in the use of a marine magnetometer is in its coverage width, as compared to the apparently sizeable coverage width of Side-Scan Sonar.

High frequency sonar (e.g., 500kHz) apparently provides high-resolution images, but with a relatively small coverage width (50-100M) of the seabed. Lower frequency systems (e.g. 100kHz) apparently provide larger width coverage (e.g. 500M) of the seabed, but with lower resolution.

I'm presuming Fugro is using LF techniques to try and cover the vast search area required to be covered, within a modest and acceptable time frame - and as a result have to accept lower resolution imaging results, as a trade-off.
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Old 7th Sep 2015, 02:37
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onetrack,

Excellent summary of the problem.

The amplitude of a magnetic anomaly created by discrete ferrous mass (the steel in an engine for example) varies as the reciprocal of the cube of the distance (1/R^3), so you need to be very close to the object to detect it.

Here's a table of typical detection distances from the Geometrics website posted by onetrack:

Typical Detection Range For Common Objects

Ship 1000 tons: 0.5 to 1 nT at 800 ft (244 m)
Anchor 20 tons: 0.8 to 1.25 nT at 400 ft (120 m)
Automobile: 1 to 2 nT at 100 ft (30 m)
Light Aircraft: 0.5 to 2 nT at 40 ft (12 m)
Pipeline (12 inch): 1 to 2 nT at 200 ft (60 m)
Pipeline (6 inch): 1 to 2 nT at 100 ft (30 m )
100 kg of iron: 1 to 2 nT at 50 ft (15 m)
100 lbs of iron: 0.5 to 1 nT at 30 ft (9 m)
10 lbs of iron: 0.5 to 1 nT at 20 ft (6 m)
1 lb of iron: 0.5 to 1 nT at 10 ft (3 m)
Screwdriver 5 inch: 0.5 to 2 nT at 12 ft (4 m)
1000 lb bomb: 1 to 5 nT at 100 ft (30 m)
500 lb bomb: 0.5 to 5 nT at 50 ft (16 m )
Grenade: 0.5 to 2 nT at 10 ft (3 m )
20 mm shell: 0.5 to 2 nT at 5 ft (1.8 m)
Note that you have to be within 30 m to detect an automobile. Even if you could find a magnetometer to operate at depths in excess of 5000 m, these detection distances are incompatible with the track spacing of the sonar survey that is currently underway.
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Old 7th Sep 2015, 04:56
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Originally Posted by Chris Scott
Written as a work of fiction, the long, incredible scenario currently accepted by right-thinking people would be regarded by most of them as improbable sensationalism. Yet anyone who challenges all or part of it risks being dismissed - or even censored - as a conspiracist.

To quote another famous line "once you eliminate all that is impossible, what remains, no matter how improbable, must then be the truth".

So far there is only ONE scenario that fits all the facts as we know them, even though is indeed a very improbable one. You may only dismiss it if you can provide an alternate explanation that fits the facts, not ignores them. It is that simple.

The problem with conspiracists is that usually they don't bother their elevated minds with logic and facts.
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Old 7th Sep 2015, 05:49
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Originally Posted by andrasz
The problem with conspiracists is ...
Well said.
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Old 7th Sep 2015, 07:20
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Originally Posted by andrasz
To quote another famous line "once you eliminate all that is impossible, what remains, no matter how improbable, must then be the truth".

So far there is only ONE scenario that fits all the facts as we know them, even though is indeed a very improbable one. You may only dismiss it if you can provide an alternate explanation that fits the facts, not ignores them. It is that simple.
What we have is something that might be called "the scenario of least resistance". To arrive at this scenario, we accept each fact given to us without questioning it, and, whenever we find a gap in facts, we insert the most straightforward supposition.

It is not by any means a unique scenario. It is not even the most internally consistent scenario, because we construct it by mechanistically applying Occam's razor at each stage until we have a story answering the question "what happened" and we completely ignore the "why it happened" and "why it happened this way but not some other way". So, we can't explain why either pilot would have done this (both pilots' lives were supposedly went over with a fine toothed comb by Malaysian investigators), or why it had to be ditched in the South Indian Ocean rather than, say, the Philippine Sea, or why it had to be flown by waypoints around the tip of Indonesia rather than heading straight for the ditch point, or why the SATCOM unit was so conveniently powered back on at 18:30 after being shut down for an hour, minutes after MH370 was lost by ground radars.

What it means is that we can improve internal consistency by abandoning some of the assumptions, and that gives us a whole spectrum of valid alternative theories that fit the facts.
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Old 7th Sep 2015, 11:51
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Conan-Doyle logic

Quote from andrasz:
"To quote another famous line "once you eliminate all that is impossible, what remains, no matter how improbable, must then be the truth."

Yes, and I've always subscribed to that assertion by Conan Doyle. What makes me uneasy in this case is, as I thought I had explained in my post, any tendency to close down debate on alternative theories; more importantly, a reaction against those who are trying to test or challenge specific points in the complex, but generally-accepted scenario summarised by Ian W.

When experts are working long and hard on the minute detail of such a hypothesis, I would respectfully suggest that it is difficult for them to "look outside the box". In fact, I'd argue that it is quite unnecessary for those same experts to do so; provided others are able and willing to risk unpopularity by doing it.

To cite one example: for me the biggest stretch of the imagination required in the popular hypothesis is the fact that, in whatever manner the aircraft came to rest, only one piece of debris has so far been recovered. I have argued that - regardless of whether the a/c approached contact with the inevitably rough surface of the southern Indian Ocean in a well-controlled ditching configuration and speed, or perhaps in an uncontrolled descent at high speed - large portions of floatable material are likely to have been torn off before the rest of the a/c sank. I've also argued that, accordingly, more debris is likely to be washed ashore on Madagascar and the African mainland (including Zanzibar). Any argument that this flaperon floated alone to make a landfall on a relatively tiny speck in the Indian Ocean must be challenged, IMO.

That does not mean I'm either a pre-event or post-event conspiracist (i.e., conspiracy theorist, as opposed to conspirator). It does not mean that I think the flight was abducted by aliens, or hijacked to a remote island and hidden there for some malign purpose. Interestingly, the current hypothesis itself is predicated on a pre-event plot or conspiracy, as I've pointed out previously. In the absence of overwhelming evidence for that, I'm trying to keep an open mind.

Others may be interested in different weaknesses in the hypothesis from mine. In my case, the recovery of other debris attributable to MH370 would in all probability satisfy the doubt.

Quote:
"So far there is only ONE scenario that fits all the facts as we know them, even though is indeed a very improbable one. You may only dismiss it if you can provide an alternate explanation that fits the facts, not ignores them. It is that simple."

The burden of proof rests with the theorists, not those who challenge aspects of their theory. A scientist should welcome any challenge to his/her theory as an incentive for improving it. Only when all reasonable stones have been upturned (maybe literally, in this case!) can the Sherlock Holmes logic be applied.
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Old 7th Sep 2015, 14:12
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MAD Capability

The Magnetic Anomaly Detection (MAD) capability in the P-3 was approximately 1,000 feet on a full-sized submarine. Flying at a typical 300 feet, a P-3 could expect to detect a sub down to 700 feet if it flew directly overhead. They did not bother to install MAD in the P-8. There are better ways to detect a sub.
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Old 9th Sep 2015, 17:19
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CSIRO Drift Analysis

MH370 drift

"Analysis of the trajectories of satellite-tracked drifting buoys deployed in the Indian Ocean over the last 30 years confirms our earlier conclusion based on computer modelling that the MH370 flaperon found on La Reunion in July 2015 is consistent with MH370 having crashed near the 39°S-32°S segment of the 7th arc on 8 March 2014."

Much more detailed discussion follows, including buoyancy, wind effects, barnacle growth, etc.

Linked from ATSB weekly operational update.

Operational Update
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Old 10th Sep 2015, 18:18
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@ Chris Scott

Fair enough, my comment was general and not pointing to your concerns in particular. I agree there are many gaps and conjectures.

When I was referring to ONE scenario, I meant that it appears to be an established fact that the aircraft ended up in the SIO, and that only deliberate human input could have placed it there. Of course we do not know who took that deliberate action (we may speculate that a member of the crew was in the best position to do it, but we don't know), we do not know how the flight ended, etc. But this does rule out pretty much all of the exploding oxygen bottles and other nonsense that circulated here, which was the main point of my post.
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Old 10th Sep 2015, 18:27
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it appears to be an established fact that the aircraft ended up in the SIO, and that only deliberate human input could have placed it there.
established by whom ?

The likelihood is that it ended up in the SIO, the reason it might have ended up there is far from established

We are still in the realms of speculation in absence of tangible fact.
Until that changes "established fact" is nothing of the sort.
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Old 10th Sep 2015, 21:20
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auto pilot off and the frame navigates up the malacca straits and doesn't turn south until it is clear of the Indonesian defence fields in the area, wow what a clever non autopilot /coincidence.

It is in the SIO and was navigated there to at least the turn south after that who knows whether it was under command or on auto or what ever.
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