attn journalists
 

At the next press conference, please ask:

Do you have data relating to all satellite pings from MH370? Do you intend to release that data? Have you extrapolated a logical flight path using that data? Does that flight path indicate further course alterations?

Finally, please can you tell me where I can obtain 4 tons of mangosteens at this time of year?

- 1:07 - ACARS last transmission (thru VHF) which apparently includes notation of a WP change having been entered into system since last scheduled report at 12:37
- 1:11 - INMARSAT ping would have been received, as apparently Boeing's AHM report attempted to automatically transmit (thru Satellite?)
- 1:19 - 'Alright, Good Night' at handover (supposedly by co-pilot)
- 1:22 - Transponder goes off

Above (DS) for reference:
Erin Burnett on CNN just said twice in last 5 minutes that "we know now the left turn was programmed into the FMS "at least" 12 minutes before Good Night"
First I have heard something so "definite" - although coming from the appropriate Malaysian official at a news conference he can be questioned would be immensely better.

But (Erin's statement) obviously suggests that this "pre-programmed turn" was shown as some sort of data link report on the 1:07 ACARS transmission. (and so happened before 1:07, with obvious conclusions).

It would be great to have better sourcing, but Mike Schmidt, NY Times reporter interviewed an hour ago, suggested something very similar to Erin, from "his sources".

OTOH CNN then went to demonstrate this on their in-studio T7 FSim. The under-dressed pilot entered the course change and the AC started to turn, ie; Look how ez folks! Of course, it's moot, as the pre-programmed turn pre-1:07 "happened" at 1:22 or after. Let's see him program that in 2 keystrokes!

Note: On DS timeline, showing ACARS last transmission at 1:07, stopped some time before 1:37. Well, wouldn't the 1:22 transponder-off be sent to ground at 1:22 if ACARS was not disabled? If yes, then we can say ACARS was OFF at 1:22. ( 1:07 <-> 1:22)

P.S. Apologies to BARREL. The 40 degree turn from FR24, no longer discussed much but an obvious fly in the ointment, I can't stomach bringing up right now; esp. when FR24 has some accuracy issues.

I think martynemh is right. The most important thing is the information regarding the other pings from 2:11 to 7:11. It's incredible that journalists don't seem to be doing their job on this subject.

Mmmmm............ Because the US is always transparent! :yuk:

"Be transparent" could mean anything up to "we know exactly what happened to the airplane and we know that you know. And we are giving you a chance to announce it first." Just saying.

I'm aware of a c130 crash that was detected by seismological equipment that was positioned some 1000km from the crash. They did get the timing for the crash that way.

In the sea, possible the trippled or more distance though: Seems like a big task to find crash that way...

Yes, I am aware of the transcript, and that all evidence indicates pilot suicide. I didn't say that the US weren't correct in that instance.

One of my points is that the Malaysians may not want to lose control of the 'investigation', for several reasons. Ceding control to the US bodies while apparent leaks are still occurring? Not very attractive.

There were very good reasons not to announce early in this investigation that pings were being picked up.

I can think of similar reasons not to release more details even now.

That is a valid position to take, as it is their airline, and the flight originated in their capital. A number of nations will doubtless be happy to assist. The UK and US are obliged to since Engines and Aircraft were built in those two nations.

Therefore, UK and US will be none too interested in a cover up. What they'll want is an actual investigation. My experience with morals and ethics in the third world advises me that this requires some effort to elicit, and pressure at time not to fall into the "same old same old" corruption and graft that a certain airline captain was so vocally against.

EDIT: @multicpl.
It's only been posted about fifty times. Not sure how many the mods have binned.

earlier pings
 

Rampstriker (and others) said:
For what it's worth, in Sunday's press conference the DCA Director specifically said that Inmarsat had provided data for six handshakes. He also said they had times and coordinates - although he obviously didn't actually mean "coordinates".

I wonder whose idea it was to look for those pings in the first place? Inmarsat? Boeing? RR? The CIA?

With the Malaysians apparently not asking for much help, there must have been a bit of initiative and effort on the part of one of those organisations.

2 obvious but simple questions
 

1. To everyone who has links to an airport within 6000 miles of KL, have you looked lately to make sure 9M-MRO isn't sitting on your tarmac, over in the cargo or maintenance area somewhere ?

2. Has anyone (I know the are a bit unpopular at the moment) asked the Russians - I seem to remember they gave the hint to the French where to look for AF447 ?

There is an inference that it is known now that the FMS route was changed. This can only be known by the ACARS transmission at 07.

If this is the case:

Everyone on the flight deck at that time would know the route had been changed.

Whoever made the radio call at 19 was aware the route had been changed.

The last Ping
 

Please correct me if I am wrong. I make the 40 degree LOP arc a 2622 nm ground length (curved or great circle) radius on the earth’s surface, centred on the INMARSAT IOR satellite ‘pole’ at 0.0N 64.5E. i.e. 40 degrees latitude on an earth axis from earth’s centre to the satellite. I assume the satellite is over the equator because they claim equal coverage, North and South.

Approx 1680nm of the Northern LOP arc, most of it, is inside China.

I don’t want to play ‘Pin the tail on the Donkey’ with the rest of the guessing here. But on statistical (and political?) probability MH370 is in China. By the way, it’s been posted here before, are the Chinese investigating the cell operator logs about reports that pax telephones rang when relatives called them after the A/C was overdue?

Don’t hold your breath waiting for news reports.

Deriving the course from the Inmarsat pings
 

I have done some simulations of whether the route of the flight could be determined if the arcs from the interim Inmarsat pings were available. So far we only have the final arcs (the north and south 'corridors').

I used the final published arc as the set of possible ‘destinations’ of the flight. One example destination on this arc was chosen, this determines the speed and heading from the last recorded radar position to achieve that final position, and hence where the hourly pings would be emitted over the 7 hours of the flight (and thus the distance from the Inmarsat sub-satellite point, which is what Inmarsat measures). A constant speed and heading was used as a first approximation.

The results of this example can be compared with the same calculation for each point along the published final arc, each of which requires a different heading and speed from the last recorded radar position and generates a different set of predicted ping arcs (distances from the sub-satellite point). An overall error can be calculated for each point along the published final arc.

The result is that there is only one constant heading course from the last recorded radar position that matches the example set of ping arcs, that is the destination is uniquely defined by the interim and final ping arcs (if interim arcs exist). There is a (rough) mirror course in the southern hemisphere which may be hard to distinguish as the last recorded radar position was close to the equator.

I also added a random error (noise) to the ping signals derived from course to the example destination, with the magnitude of the error being 50km on the ground (Gaussian, one sigma). This increases the error in deriving the final course giving an uncertainty of around plus/minus 100km in recovering the final destination – but it does not invalidate the technique.

I haven’t yet tried putting in a course with a change of heading along the route, but the method seems quite sensitive so I suspect such a course change could be recovered from the data. Many headings or speed changes would increase the final error, obviously.

So if the interim pings are available (to someone), and hence their arcs, it is very likely that the destination (or at least one in each hemisphere) could be derived with reasonable errors, at least up to the final ping.

Notes:
1. This is a rough piece of work done quickly to see whether the concept works. I have made a few assumptions that seem reasonable.
2. in this first try I have used simple Cartesian geometry (flat plane) rather than spherical geometry. The differences are relatively small as the area covered is reasonably close to the equator. A full spherical interpretation will not change the conclusion that the set of arcs define a single destination (or rather one in each hemisphere) but obviously would be needed to interpret the actual interim ping arcs.

Deriving the course from the Inmarsat pings
 

And......?
So what heading/ speed did you use and was was the results?

FE Hoppy
 

I think the route change had only been set up and selected at the time of the last transmission. Not activated until a short time later.

Heli-Phile
 

Then how do they know the waypoint was inserted?

Well no, actually. If the spacing between arcs 1 and 2 is less than the distance that the aircraft is likely to have flown in the hour, that tells us that the average track angle was somewhere between radial and tangential. If the spacing is the same between arcs 2 and 3 then there are at least two average track angles that would result in the same flight distance (more if we allow for possible differences in groundspeed, but let's discount that).

Why north or south in particular, rather than any other possible direction?

Geostationary orbit - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The satellites are over the equator because they are Geostationary. They are stationary relative to the surface of the earth.

EDIT: This is significent because it determines the arc(s). If there were multiple pings and if the satellites were moving relative to the surface of earth we might know exactly where the plane is.