OK.
From their path above north Sumatra coast, the 18:28 and the 21:41 rings are separated by about 1°. But, effectivly, between those times, the sat moved very few to south. For the other rings, the drawing is too small to see the difference.
Sorry for this uneducated issue.

Good that there is a factsheet out now.

But I am still surprised about some "facts".
E.g. the Last SSR position is followed by a right turn and then a left turn in the colors of a SSR track (or what do the colors mean?).

The yellow primary track starts after a gap in coverage more westerly.
We know from Flightradar24 ADS-B data, that the airplane made a right turn along the airway, indeed. But we did not know about the left turn, because ADS-B data ended before it started.

It MAY be Vietnam SSR data that helped here, but why is it not indicated as such?

Even if such details may not be too relevant to the public there are so many educated spectators of this event out here, that the investigators should treat any release of facts with utmost care and let outstanding people check it before its release.

Otherwise they may heat conspiracy theories, certainly unwanted.

http://i60.tinypic.com/28bbdao.jpg

It will happen regardless. Release of the data will do nothing to stop such theories, most likely they will only intensify.

ATSB - Shape of Search Area
 

The above differs somewhat from the findings of MAK/IAC, i.e.

• The distance of the impact point from the initial point of upset depends mostly on the type of upset and, sometimes (in dives and unclosed spirals), from the duration of coming down. In spins and closed spirals the impact point location has significantly lower correlation with the duration of coming down. In any case the distance is hardly possible to be more than 12 NM.
  
• The average time interval of loss of 1 km of altitude is shortest for dives and longest for spins, but in any case it seems hardly possible to be more than 14-16 seconds. It means that for AF447 flight, with cruise altitude of about 10700 meters, the duration of coming down was less than 3 minutes.

I would trust much more the study done by French/Metron, etc in the wake AF447 since they looked at actual historical data. Also, not every upset is the same (even a definition what "upset' is can be far from razor sharp), there could be different degrees of upsets and this could impact how steep or shallow the descent is.

The ATSB fact sheet along with some other recently discovered information has given me a clearer picture of the route taken by MH370 just after the turnaround.

The Thais' have said that they tracked (MH370) but that they didn't track it in Thai airspace, so in my earlier plots I had the flight skirting the Thai border; but when I tried to plot estimated groundspeed, the timing got a little tight. The plane would have had to maintain a cruse FL in order to have reached the vicinity of MEKAR at 18:22 UTC.

The ATSB plot shows the flight over Thai airspace, that more direct route west would fit other known facts better but is this a contradiction of the statement by the government of Thailand? Not at all, they did say that their track of the target was intermittent - so the ATSB plot is correct, they just didn't see the flight when it was over their territory.

The location of the Thai radar antenna that tracked MH370 is located at 6°50'38.02"N 100°25'11.64"E (you can see the antenna in Google Earth.) The slice of territory MH370 flew over in Thai airspace is blanketed by the high ground around Ban Panang Bo Ngo (a ridgeline at least 250 meters high at and near 6° 7'0.44"N 101°48'1.29"E.)

The person flying the plane knew about this "dead spot" in Thai radar coverage and crossed Thai airspace at much reduced altitude from cruise. This has been indicated in both early Malaysian radar reports as well as by the civilian sightings of the aircraft near Kota Bharu.

IMO this solidifies one part of a reconstructed flight path for MH370.

@Shadoko on 26th May 2014, 11:16

The satellite moved slightly over 1 degree in latitude over 6 hours, and far less in longitude.

Farthest North at the 19:41 ping (1.63 N), and then South to 0.58 N at the last ping.

The longitude change was around 0.06 deg over the same time span.

So as others, including you, have noted, not noticeable at the scale of the ATSB Fig. 4.

RAW Inmarsat data to be released today.

Raw data tracking last moments of missing flight MH370 that was used to calculate search area to be released tomorrow | Mail Online

Also having the relative speed to the satellite will help considerably.

Assumptions have to be made on TAS and cruise altitude and how they may change over time with fuel burn.

There are several scenarios, each of which may produce a different search area.

Likely the last several hours were on a constant course. Back driving the various scenarios to a turnpoint NW of Sumatra and LKP from primary may produce a number of solutions consistent with fuel, aircraft performance and Inmarsat data.

I am not in accord with the proposition that MH370 necessarily went into a steep descent after running out of fuel. It may just as well have proceeded on course while descending. The lack of debris is indicative of a ditching under control.

Satellite position / velocity data?
 

I agree, but I can't tell if they have released the necessary data on the satellite position and velocity. If they have, anyone can reproduce the Doppler analysis, which would be reassuring.
In general I accept the concern over crackpot theories, and also understand that Inmarsat has the right to protect its intellectual property, but the more eyeballs looking at the most data possible can only lead to either new interpretations or more confidence in the analysis already done -- either is desirable.

Edt: No satellite position or velocity information in the pdf from Malaysian DCA website. The information can be used to confirm the reasonableness of the analysis, but not confirm it as far as I can tell. It may end up that somebody is needed with knowledge of how "Inmarsat Classic Aero mobile terminals are designed to correct for aircraft Doppler effects on their transmit signals. The terminal type used on
MH370 assumes a stationary satellite at a fixed orbital position."

Pontius
 

The BFO analysis chart would indicate that the turn south probably happened within a few minutes of passing MEKAR.

The ATSB fact sheet mentions timing of last primary radar as 0222. The BFO chart indicates probable turn a few minutes before 0230.

On another issue: does anyone have any comments on the fact that Vietnamese military radar detected the turn back and advised Malaysia in real time? I am unsure from press releases "who" was officially advised. I am asking from the point of view of recent discussions over ATC protocol and whose job it was to attempt to find the missing aircraft. Were there grounds for the aircraft's possible movements to be placed back under either Subang's attention, or Malaysian military attention, in view of the above?

I find it somewhat curious that, whilst in other circumstances an unidentified aircraft on military radar might not attract much attention, in this case knowing that the aircraft had lost all communications, and that Vietnam advised of a turn back, no-one thought it worth connecting the dots.

I doubt there's anything particularly confidential about the satellite position, since anyone with a suitable antenna could track the pilot signal. But that wouldn't give the position as accurately as Inmarsat could measure it.

Edit: BTW, here's the link to the logs on the DCA site, for those who haven't found it yet:

http://www.dca.gov.my/mainpage/MH370...ion%20Logs.pdf

Pontius :There is no " airway" anymore at this altitude , there are only tracks with no width.

Blake 777 : What the Vietnamese military saw in real time we do not know. . Afterwards , looking at the tapes maybe. For Vietnam civil ATC , the last positive ID/position stopped when the transponder stopped. The left turn shown on the map was probably not seen ( or detected ) by them in real time .

Maps shown 2 months after the event can be very precise when dozen of people have been sudying for hours tons of tape recordings from various sources , but what controllers saw in real time , and were expecting is not what we see on those maps.
So saying they should have done this or that based on those maps is irrelevant and futile.. .

The density of sweater changes little with depth (about 1024 at surface to 1050 kg/m3 at 5000m). With pressure increasing at 1 atmosphere every 10m of depth, all air -pockets will be squeezed out or imploded as wreckage sinks. The aeroplane construction materials are pretty well all denser than seawater at any depth, so when filled with water, the entire wreckage will sink (excepting perhaps a few lighter items such as spongy seatbacks, personal effects, garbage etc which might escape prior to sinking).

They are looking at the right depth, but it appears in the wrong place....

I too would like to see the detailed calculations done by Inmarsat. If they had been released much earlier, just maybe the search would not have wasted time in the far southern Indian Ocean; just maybe there would have been a much greater opportunity to locate the FDR pinger.........

Malaysia releases raw satellite data on missing Malaysia Airlines flight
 

MH370: Malaysia releases raw satellite data on missing Malaysia Airlines flight - Australia Network News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

http://www.dca.gov.my/mainpage/MH370...ion%20Logs.pdf

The duration of coming down for the wreakage of the midair over lake constance was a little over 2 minutes, so that would be the number for a total desintegration. Stalled/spinning would be a little more, a dive a little less. so we are talking about 1-3 Minutes from cruise to impact.

Why wasn't this piece of information, that indicates the plane flew on for hours, released earlier? It is a significant (fact?) that next of kin should have been made aware of…..

@mickjoebill: the last ACARS transmission, with the fuel remaining, was sent over VHF very early in the flight. The INMARSAT satellite handshakes are unrelated to ACARS (on MAS aircraft) and carried no ACARS data. This isn't new information.

Do we know when the military primary radar BEGAN picking up MH370?

I'm curious how the v-shaped route from the time of last secondary contact to the time of last primary contact was drawn. Is there actual evidence to support it or is it just based on the Thais saying "we didn't pick it up so it couldn't have flown over Thai airspace"?

Raw data PDF
 

Is there anybody who understands why the same line of data is repeated? For example, on page 10, there are 26 lines of data, 23 of them identical. Has this a meaning?

Another question: it seems that all the BTO times last digit are 0 and the penultimate are even. Could we state the time is filed with a 20 µs step?