I would say Yes.

They could have tracked it if it was turned on.

And yes, if they had it they almost certainly would have shared the data with those that need to know.

Everyone - the media, public - seem to forget that they are not under any obligation to share anything
with the those outside the need to know, as much as the media and public think they have a right !

You don't expect the Gov't to share data from Pine Gap, so why JORN ?

In fact, I would go so far as to say it causes more problems when you do
share information - because of wild media speculation.

ANNEX 13 for immediate help ! And Law of Sea which .... was always respected before that satellites' owners refuse to help to sell their services before to help :mad:

Care to expand on that ??


It reads like a riddle !

kayej1188
I would say that India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Australia, plus any of the countries that had naval vessels in the area would be just as reluctant to publicly acknowledge what their systems saw as they would be to acknowledge what their systems didn't see. The release of such information into the public domain would not be in their national interest.

JORN OTH Radar detected MH370?
 

I'd say that it's unlikely that JORN did track MH370.
Two reasons, firstly I suspect that if they had they'd be crowing about the capabilities of the system to enhance its effectiveness as a deterrent.
Secondly I doubt that with that knowledge, the Australian authorities would have wasted hundreds of flight/seatime hours on the search far to the SW of WA.

Re the possibility of JORN having tracked this flight--Intriguing possibility nonetheless considering the fact that the investigators do seem awfully confident of the resting spot--confidence that would seem suspect with ONLY Inmarsat's data as evidence. However I presume the black box pings have a lot to do with this confidence. On the other hand, it seems that they're reluctant to conclude that the black box pings are without a doubt from MH370.

I had another thought that I was hoping someone with technical expertise could answer. Could there be there any (technical/electrical/"____-"al) occurrences that would give off erroneous satellite pings? In other words, is there a situation in which the handshake signals to Inmarsat were completely wrong and not indicative of MH370's flight in the later hours (beyond where the track was known)?

They are not under any obligation to put information into the public domain. There will be a huge amount of information that has been made available to the SAR teams that they have zero obligation to release to the media.

Debris v Technology
 

Unless I've missed something key (which is highly likely given we're now on page 540 and I struggle to remember if/when I've ever read so many pages), the primary search area is defined purely on the advice of 'techies' (Inmarsat?) and some unsubstantiated acoustic 'noise' including some allegedly heard over the side of Chinese inflatable with a hand held mic?
Still, not one single piece of debris fished from the ocean has been directly linked to MH370?
I guess I have two questions, which those with infinitely more wisdom than I, will no doubt answer/tear to shreds:

1. Is it even remotely conceivable that an airliner could ditch/crash in the ocean and subsequently sink to the seabed without any debris whatsoever surfacing? Surely if the initial impact didn't dislodge some debris, the forces, currents and contact with the seabed could/would cause enough damage to the airframe to allow something, anything, to escape to the surface and at some point present itself as evidence of a crash site (albeit 100's of Kms away)

2. At what point in future do people start questioning the techies analysis over logic and the absence, after such a number of weeks, of any physical evidence? Are there any similar aviation incidents in the past where not one single fragment of debris was identified so long after the disappearance?

I know it's a huge ocean (which is deep and moves), the techies are probably the best/only chance the search authorities have at locating the haystack, etc.

Essentially I guess I'm simply asking, how long do the search teams keep searching without any evidence presenting itself?

Agree Ian W.

The timing always did look a bit suspicious. They managed to get the Ocean Shield in location just in time to hear the last signals from the pincers. Well away from the location of the previous aerial search area.

I suspect it is very likely some other data was made available to allow this to happen. The nature of this may never be released. It could be a satellite, or could be JORN.

We don't know much about JORN. Its capabilities are likely understated. It is publicly acknowledged this technology is less effective at night. Defence dollars are tight, and it may not have been operational overnight. If operational, its focus was most likely on maritime traffic (people smugglers) between Indonesia and Christmas Island (i.e. north of Christmas Island) - people smuggling being a key political issue at present.

But maybe it was on.

And maybe it did pick up an aircraft almost 1000km SSW of Christmas Island close to the time of impact. Which does make you wonder about the days of searching well SW of Perth.

Or maybe it picked up a signal much earlier that night on while MH370 was still somewhere west of Sumatra, and used this datum to refine the Inmarsat data. That process might take some time, and could explain the apparent "delay."

"Family of pilot of missing flight MH370 speaks out"
 

Ian W, I am not sure about your ANY obligation. how about a moral one? after all 239 souls have been lost. this isnt some ambiguous spying/ eavesdropping/whistleblowing event where claiming national interest is the usual default option. what could be more of a national interest than to help to find out what happened to 239 lives by declaring what you know or dont know? non-disclosure leads to distrust and conspiracy theories which may be entirely unjustified. agreed that "those who need to know" probably know by now but making the public wait for the final report which could be light years away doesnt seem a good pr move.

that said, I am not yet ready to believe that the good folks currently investigating this mystery are colluding in withholding information. as with the law of the sea, I am sure the law of the air is in full operation to find this aircraft.

Since when did the public have any rights to know ?

If a Gov't has shared what knowledge it has to assist in the finding of the 239 people, then it has done it's job but sharing the knowledge does not include releasing all and sundry to the general public.


I am saying the above from an Australian perspective in relation to JORN etc.

The interview with Nik Huzlan, Former Chief Pilot with MAS was well worth watching for a lay person like myself...it has answered many of the questions I still couldn't get a handle on until now.


LOST: MH370 - Four Corners


Scroll down to the two smaller screen videos, the main video won't play any more.

Susier, Nik's explanation is superb. I shall be sharing the link to that interview with everyone with whom I have discussed this missing plane event. Very understandable for the layman and pilot alike.

Somewhere about a few hundred pages ago, there was mention of a British? submarine with very sensitive equipment that would be able to 'hear' the pingers at some distance. This was just before Ocean Shield made its way to the search area location. The submarine was recalled at about the same time as Ocean Shield moved in. Of course for security reasons the position or positions of the submarine were never made public.

Thanks for link,all three interviews interesting in different ways but the piotone very interesting.

I checked you tube prog not there but lots of other 4corners are so hopefully it will be in the near future

The Malaysian minister "seemed" evasive but I think it is reasonable he is allowed to confirmprecise data, interviewer should have asked when he would give her that data. However he kept nervously looking to his left, at some one?

Is it normal for them to remove an episode off their website so early?

Four Corners 19/05
 

It's there on iView.

Four Corners : LOST: MH370 : ABC iview

In the interview with Nik Huzlan, Nik is clear that the failure to contact HCM within a fraction of a second of handoff from KUL was the key that whomever was flying did a deliberate action right at that point.

An alternate possibility is that a catastrophe hit right at that instant. Perhaps an oxygen bottle exploded at that moment piercing the hull. Perhaps a fragment took out a cable that fed ACARS, a small lingering fire took 90 seconds to take out the transponder.

Perhaps the Captain was only able to get as far as turning around for an emergency airfield and entering some incorrect numbers that resulted in the two turns and then a fixed magnetic compass course from then on.

The aircraft porpoised in without coming apart, sank without wreckage.

Third and final attempt
 

Ok I don't understand why my post is being modded out, maybe it's the link I included that was the problem?
So, here's a sum-up:
Malaysian Minister of Transport says he is ok with the public release of raw data. Says to ask Inmarsat for it.
Australians say they are ok with releasing the raw data. Also point to Inmarsat.
MAS also gives the green light for the public release, also say to ask Inmarsat.

Inmarsat says they are ok with releasing the raw data. But they say they already gave it to Malaysia "at an early stage of the investigation".

The article I linked to, concluded that someone is lying or stalling here.
There has been a lot of discussion on this forum about whether or not the authorities had any obligation to release the raw data.
Now it appears they want to, but nobody can find it? What on earth is going on?

quite an interesting interview with the former chief pilot.

I can imagine a fire harming the pilots enough and knocking out some avionics though.