Pontius Navigator

I understand that the grey line in Richards map represents the great circle. In the Mercator projection lines of constant heading are are straight lines. This case is special because we are getting close to the magnetic south pole where magnetic deviation rises to >30W. That is why the constant magnetic heading line (yellow in Richards map) turns to the east. Without deviation it would be a straight line in this projection.

OleOle
The differences between a great circle and rhumb line are small for a track that is largely South and at these latitudes, and are hard to see at this scale. I looked at great circle, rhumb line and the constant magnetic bearing courses.

As you say, the final turning point to the Southly heading is not known and it might come out from analysis of the early ping data. Wind drift would be significant but would be the same for all tracks in roughly the same area so would not be a differentiator between the options, I think. Winds would be different on the possible North and South routes and could be one of the things that was used to rule out the Northly route.

cockpitvisit
 

Thanks for the insight there. Couldn't work out how the doppler effect would help - but of course the satellite is also moving. Makes perfect sense now!

Kudos to Inmarsat and AAIB
 

If it hadn't been for Inmarsat, we'd still be looking from Somalia to Siberia.

And a very well done to the partnership with AAIB for resolving the ambiguity between arcs. There was some seriously caffeinated data crunching going on:ok:

Hopefully GPS location will be added to the ping ID. It won't stop suicides, but will give pause to those who thinking they can sneak off. With GPS data, any diverters will not be able to hide.

While in too many cases survivors will be unlikely, at least families will not be left in limbo -- to say nothing of the massive expenditures in search effort.

Because INMARSAT have also reviewed the pings from other Malaysian 777s that flew northerly routes and their doppler signature was different to that received from MH370. As that rules out a northerly track it places the missing aircraft in the southern Indian Ocean, without a landing site anywhere near, and hence the need to tell the families that there is now no hope of survival.

[ edit to add this, from BBC - Engineers spent all weekend looking back at previous Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 flights, going back several weeks.
They compared the satellite data from those flights with flight MH370 and were able to work out it went south.
This is cutting-edge modelling, never tried before. It uses the Doppler effect - which is what makes a police siren sound different from different points.
They had it reviewed by other scientists before handing it over.
As far as they can tell, the plane was flying at cruising height, above 30,000ft. They found no evidence of fluctuating heights being reported.
This is it now - they cannot pinpoint the position any further. They handed this data over on Sunday morning. ]

The latest estimates seem to indicate that the plane may have flown over Indonesian airspace. But they didn't notice?

Not too sure about this I'm afraid. This accident has ensured any future plan will involve isolating the Satcom units themselves as well, not just the protocols that use it.

Excellent work by the AAIB. So we now know the aircraft flew at steady speed and altitude until the fuel ran out in the Southern Indian Ocean. That should at least put paid to all the posts relating to Lithium battery fires, flying under the radar and deliberate attempts to kill everyone by hypoxia/anoxia. The most obvious conclusion is that someone was in control of the plane until it crashed. Clearly the anti hijack door functioned exactly as advertised and prevented anyone from entering the cockpit once the course to the Southern Indian Ocean had been set. A tribute to the cockpit security system installed on this aircraft.

G0ULI
 

I'm sorry but how do you KNOW that? Would be interested to know your factual evidence for that!

From memory, the southern 'arc' started to the south of the last known position of the aircraft. Is it not possible the aircraft didn't turn left over malaysia at all and just went South from its last known position? Could the primary RADAR contact be completely different aircraft? How certain are we it turned left and went over straits of malacca?

BBC reported said (1830) that he asked the spokesman if there was any more information on the cause and the reply was that they had some additional information but were not ready to announce it.

Wow...
 

The sheer ingenuity required for this level of work has amazed me beyond belief.

Fantastic work by Inmarsat and the AAIB.

Dumbo Jet
I know that the INMARSAT and AAIB boffins have the technical and mathematical skills to carry out the signal analysis to determine the details published. That being the case, the obvious conclusion is that the aircraft was deliberately flown until the fuel was exhausted. If it had been possible for someone to enter the flight deck, then surely some attempt at communication would have been made and the aircraft would not have crashed into the sea.

Just because it doesn't make sense doesn't mean it didn't happen. How many times have we seen unusual things happen in accidents as a result of the situation?

Surely AFR447 shows this? !

INMARSAT stated on the BBC news that remote monitoring was already mandatory on seagoing vessels and was totally practical for aircraft, he claimed it could be introduced for 1$ per flying hour.

Well, while all the guesswork goes on amongst PPRuners, in Beijing, victims' relatives are quite clear who is to blame for this set of events... 'executioners', if you will. Statement as follows:

"At 10pm on March 25, the Malaysian prime minister sent a statement to the families of MH370 passengers without any direct evidence that MH370 crashed in the south Indian ocean and no people survived.
"From March 8 when they announced that MH370 lost contact to today, 18 days have passed during which the Malaysian government and military constantly tried to delay, deceive the passengers' families and cheat the whole world.
"This shameless behaviour not only fooled and hurt the families of the 154 passengers but also misguided and delayed rescue actions, wasting a large quantity of human resources and materials and lost valuable time for the rescue effort.
"If the 154 passengers did lose their lives, Malaysia Airlines, the Malaysian government and military are the real executioners who killed them. We the families of those on board submit our strongest protest against them.
"We will take every possible means to pursue the unforgivable crimes and responsibility of all three."

If (and at this stage it still is a big IF) the plan was to crash the plane in the most remote part of the world could a flight east towards the Pacific have been possibly even more appropriate ?

Yes that may be one obvious conclusion but hopefully the NTSB / AAIB / Malaysian / French investigators retain open minds; for example that all comms and pilots could have been wiped out by an event as yet unknown and it flew itself to its final resting point.

If that turn was inconsistent with the earliy satellite data, someone would have pointed it out by now. Obviously, merely being consistent doesn't mean it did make that turn, but tends to support that theory.

Nightingale said: Maybe some of us are doing the captain an injustice. The cargo information is hazy. (Latest reports say the Malaysians are declining to provide the manifest to the Australians without a formal written request.) Let us not forget the plane was flying to Beijing. Maybe there was something "sensitive" on board for the Chinese government and the Malaysians need to clear this with China before releasing the information. Maybe one or more passengers had got wind of this cargo and tried to hijack the plane to make demands against release of the cargo. The captain and FO were forced to turn off the signals but managed to turn south before they were killed. Then there was no-one left to fly the plane so it continued on auto pilot until it crashed into the Indian Ocean. Well it is no crazier than any of the other theories being put forward here"

I think you are spot-on ..... in response to a catastrophic fire caused by e.g. the Li-Ion batteries being carried as cargo. If these were in the forward cargo they could have affected electrical busses in close proximity resulting in loss of ACARS and transponder as well as radios.
It would be perfectly normal under such circumstances to don O2 masks and select heading back towards the nearest suitable airport (KUL or Phuket?) then FLCH to descend the aircraft to FL120 while trying to communicate (unsuccessfully) and avoid breathing acrid fumes. Oxygen bottles could have overheated from a fire and blown out so no O2 supply for the crew.
The aircraft turns onto the selected heading and descends to FL120 at the selected speed. It levels off and continues flying on the same heading at FL120 and maintaining e.g 280 knots until it runs out of fuel and glides at 280 knots into the ocean.
Do the maths using the FPM at FL120 and 280 knots or thereabouts but I wish these so-called "experts" would leave the crew and their poor families out of it unless they have any concrete evidence otherwise.
(Remember LI-Ion batteries carried as cargo brought down a brand new 747-400 in Dubai in 2010. The crew were completely incapacitated and unable to fly the aircraft in daylight and in contact with ATC)