I havent noticed those pictures. Do you have any link for them?

@SteinarN - I don't believe the Japanese sat pics have been publically released. They were handed over to the Malaysians, who then handed them on to AMSA, as they proved quite credible.

On the human factors side, the MH 370 flight deck crew is portrayed in a Wall Street Journal article as having that low profile that so many of us in the business crave:

Portraits of the Lives of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370's Pilots - WSJ.com

This is becoming rediculous. Now the search area has moved 1000Km based on a re-evalued piece of information that was taken as 'fact' - the speed, position and timing of the flight while it was under radar observation. It calls every 'fact' we've been given into question IMO.

As for satellite photography, not only have none of the 100+ significant objects been identified as from MH370, none have been eliminated either - as AFIK, none have actually been found/seen from air or sea to be eliminated.

The position of these 'objects' when photoed must have been 'exact' and the sea currents and winds in the area must have been under unparallelled monitoring. Yet they are not found. Photo interpretation must be called into question.

If MH370 changed direction after leaving Malasian radar, it could change speed too. Therefore the 'search area' must remain totally undefined. We seem no nearer finding MH370 than 3 weeks ago.

with all the technology having been put on this aircraft...radio vhf/hf, locator beacons, satcom, gps, transponder...even satellite in space dont give much info... all of these designed to locate an aircraft in flight ...not a single one of these technology is able to help pinpoint the exact location of the final resting place of this aircraft on the ground :(

this tragic event has only proven one thing....aircraft technology haven't really improved much in terms of locating a lost aircraft

Locator Beacon (Pinger) batteries
 

Just a word on CVR (and FDR) locator pinger batteries. They do not have a fixed life as such and they do not shut down after 30 days. They are designed to provide optimum performance for 30 days (90 days in the case of newer style batteries which I understand this aircraft may not have had). During this time the batteries will slowly discharge and the voltage will reduce but the pinger is designed to operate normally on a reduced voltage so is initially not affected, hence the "guideline" figure of 30 (90) days. When the battery has reduced to this voltage level, where the pinger works at optimum performance, the pinger performance will start to reduce and this could take days or weeks before it dies completely. Another factor is the age of the pinger and battery, which should be replaced at regular scheduled intervals (cannot recall what it is now).
The bottom line is that when the towed array finally arrives on site they may still have several weeks rather than days to listen for it. Chance of picking it up will reduce with time but it will not just suddenly switch off at 30 days. Just like the average torch it will slowly get dimmer and dimmer until it fades to nothing.
PS: I worked on CVRs until 25 years ago and continued to sign them off until about 10 years ago. Pingers (as we called them) were not repaired but replaced with new items, complete with battery, as I recall.

We probably can't make sense of the ping derived solutions as the complete data set has not been made available. Even the full data set produces multiple possible solutions (or if you prefer, wide confidence intervals around the average solution).

You have to admit this incident was well planned. Lots of things we do know about were too well timed to be coincidence eg the plan started at FIR boundary, late at night when military unlikely to respond in time, no moon ....

No reason to expect the bits we don't know we're not also well planned.

What sort of solution do you get if you make the flowing assumptions
1. High speed lowish level until across peninsula and out of primary radar. This is the highest risk part, so speed and low level make sense. You would not loiter while within primary radar coverage.
2. Ditch or crash at fuel exhaustion (minimal slick).
3. Assume flight ended close to TIME of last complete ping, and final incomplete ping was related to crash itself.
4. Crash WHERE it was dark or perhaps first light at time of final ping. Need some light if plan to ditch (minimal debris??), although this constraint isn't relevant for a high speed crash.
5. Close to 40 degree arc - although I don't think we don't know the rounding error associated with 40.

Does this produce any sort of coherent solution?

Data Guy:

I note that you share my opinion that an MEC fire is possible and might explain what happened. Boeing recommended fitment of upgraded insulation in the MEC after the ground incidents but also suggested better procedures for keeping them free of contaminants such as oil, hydraulic or deicer fluids, which degrade the protection level of the fabric. One wonders how diligently Malaysian were doing this and also if they incorporated the recommended improvements to the MEC cooling for hot region operation.

Olasek. Flash8. Porterhouse.Ian W.:

I am simply suggesting that if the crew were faced with a dual fmc failure it might explain the rather perplexing routeings after contact was lost. Since some of you seem to have no idea how alternate nav works:
A dual fmc failure followed by a 90 degree left turn to start a diversion would leave a completely black ND with no nav aids tuned or nav aids/station data etc available to display. Since nothing would be coming from the FMCs all new waypoints would have to be loaded by lat/long. Until that was done there would be NOTHING to navigate by and situational awareness could be rapidly lost. So, yes, they would have been punching in lats & longs IF there was a dual fmc failure. The quickest way to find a lat/long is to look at the chart and pick a waypoint near where you want to go, AGARI for instance. Then add a few more followed by lat/long of Penang. You are then back in LNAV with a track displayed. My supposition is that the lat/long of Penang might have been entered incorrectly as a South latitude and that after a crew incapacitation the aircraft simply navigated south to that point.
A possible flaw in this argument was that the longitude of Penang is too far east of where the search was being conducted, but the news that they are now switching the search 1000km further east tends to support my theory.

Search location change ...
 

I mentioned the Breguet range equation in an earlier post but it got deleted .
If the flight path is known ( pings etc ) and the fuel load is known and all the other factors ( ie a/c TOW ) it could be useful . I also cannot understand satellite images of 100 , 200 , 300 objects yet no SAR aircraft or ship sightings/confirmation ?

Malaysian Air Force has a bunch of Su-30's with top speed of Mach 1.9 and range of 1600 NM. They could have been scrambled at the last possible moment (with MH370 going out of range of their radars), and they still would catch up and be able to follow it for at least half an hour before returning to base. Though they are not technically interceptors, the distinction in this case is completely academical.

Satelites spot hundreds but Surface craft find nothing?
 

I cannot believe the surface craft have not found any of the flotsam spotted by satellite. What must be happening is objects are found but are just the usual crap bobbing around in the roaring 40's. If satellite imagery actually spotted a logo or such on objects (I.E. a vertical stabiliser) would they actually tell us? or wait until it were recovered?

olasek
 

olasek: To make such a strong statement about a theory from a current T7 driver I would assume you have experience with a multiple instrument failure, possibly including fire/smoke, at night, at altitude. Please provide your story in that case. Re return to KL, some T7 drivers have previously suggested that they might not want to return to KL due to terrain. In the meantime I find the plausibility of 777fly's theory way above average in this thread.

Yes, it makes it even less likely pilots would try to program things into FMC in such circumstances. Why rely on equipment which is failing around you, makes little sense.

@hamster3null

SU-30's DON'T have Supercruise, therefore they have to switch on their burners to go Mach 1+......range of a SU-30 with burners on would be well under 600nm and would decrease substantially proportional to how fast over Mach 1 it was going.

Supercruise - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

777fly
 

"My supposition is that the lat/long of Penang might have been entered incorrectly as a South latitude and that after a crew incapacitation the aircraft simply navigated south to that point."

How does this fit with the military primary radar data showing MH370 heading steadily WNW 200nm from Penang at FL295? They were long past Penang by the time the turn south was made.

(I cannot read #8541 to #8560, or p428, so if this has been covered already, pls delete...)

The new search zone is closer to Malaysia. BBC and others report that this is because the a/c flew 'faster' than previously thought, and therefore ran out of fuel earlier.

But are we to ignore the Inmarsat 'pings'? The last one was at 0011UTC (or 0019..) You don't stay in the air for that same length of time by flying at a faster speed.

I have to say, I trust the Inmarsat evidence (for what it is) best.

Until we see a verified radar plot (if such a thing exists) I still think it more likely that the crew hit trouble near the FIR boundary, turned for home, and initiated an emergency descent to a safe level on autopilot. Overcome later, the a/c boodled along on that heading, unnoticed by any radar units, and ran out of fuel sometime after midnight UTC. Windmilling Trents kept the gennies going for a few more minutes, last chattering gasp of 240v ac at about 0019.

Marty
 

It's difficult to work out exactly the reasoning for the vast change to the search area. However, they have publicly stated it is because of new analysis of the radar data between the South China Sea and the limits of where it was tracked to.

I've only seen a portion of that data - obviously there's more, and whilst other nations have confirmed or denied that their radars also did or did not pick up MH370, we can only surmise that possibly they have been able to define more precisely some creative flying in terms of altitude excursions and turns, and possibly speed, which has resulted in less fuel available for the flight south.

A previous contributor commented that perhaps the initial phases of the deviation were more rapid but later the aircraft slowed a little to extend range. It had seemed that Inmarsat were inferring a regular flight level for the southward journey - perhaps that may have been revised also which may have affected the ultimate range.

I think if the final position is ever determined, there will be food for thought for months on this one!

Here's proof that I have too much time on my hands:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...iNWZrNVE#gid=0

I don't have a clear explanation for the mismatch in scales, and I don't know how to reproduce "their" point at ~17:07 (there is no apparent reason why Doppler shift would have decreased from 16:55 to 17:07). And I can't be sure that I didn't make some basic mistake in the formulas. But other than that, I think the results look pretty good. You can make your own copy if you have a Google account, type in any numbers in green fields and try to match the lines in the plot.

It's not difficult, it is impossible. We haven't been given the data.
That said, my understanding is that the analysis of the satellite pings requires an assumption of constant speed and heading. This does not give unique solution, because you need to know where the start point is (i.e. the point at which the a/c started flying south). If the a/c speed west over the Malay peninsula was higher than assumed up until now then the start point of the southerly track was farther westwards and the mathematical solutions to the satellite ping data have the a/c flying more easterly, ending up closer to Western Australia.

Modelling the new route
 

I have looked at the potential ping modelling techniques in previous posts, and also the recently released INMARSAT Doppler data/model which I think I have understood.

The new AMSA map shows the aircraft speed to the new search area as 400kt, down from 472kt (average). A couples of points follow:

1. The new search area is directly on the published last ping arc so it is being assumed that the aircraft crashed directly after the last ping, the new range being only just enough to get to the arc.

2. If (if) the interim ping signals had been used, this constrains the heading and speed quite closely, if a Great Circle route is assumed. Capt Kremin proposed the constant magnetic heading idea some days ago which causes the aircraft to turn to the East late in the track. As I stated at the time, this would remain consistent with the ping data for a GC route, but reduces the modelled speed. The diagram I generated at the time is below, the yellow line is the constant magnetic heading, the red line the last ping arc. The penultimate point on the grey GC route (on the final ping arc) was chosen to roughly match the original search area – of course the interim ping signals/arcs have not been released.

3. Changing the assumed speed would cause problems for the Doppler model that INMARSAT used. This is very sensitive to the aircraft speed which has to be removed to reveal the spacecraft Doppler signal used to decide it was on the Southern route.

If (if) the interim ping arcs are being used and are still constraining the choice of route and hence search area, I would guess that the constant magnetic heading option is now being used, which allows a shorter required range.

I don’t know what the INMARSAT Doppler model will have to do to match the new modelled speed.

http://i60.tinypic.com/2lwobo3.jpg

Yellow line is the constant magnetic heading, grey line the GC route with matching modelled ping arcs, the red line the published last ping arc.