I'll reply again using different wording

there mathematically must be a theoretical best for north, but validation tests against other flights indicated with great certainty it was south.

The determination of the southern arc was made because of a doppler rate change that occurred when the satellite made a u-turn in the sky. The Inmarsat drifts north of and south of the equator in a 24 hour cycle. It forms a figure 8 against the sky. When it made one of those turns the doppler shift of MH370 changed in such a way as to determine which track it was on.

If the satellite was drifting south and MH370 was flying south, and then the satellite made a u-turn and headed north, it would be expected that MH-370 would be seen as moving away even faster.

Had MH370 been on the northern arc, it would have been seen to move more slowly away from the satellite when the satellite made the northern turn.

Pontius can't be very far eastwards otherwise will come up on two satellites.

I think this link has been put up before but it is relevant to the current discussion.
Considerations on defining the search area - MH370

A satphone transmits the GPS position only when an outgoing voice or SMS call is made, and a dead person isn't going to be doing either.

Thuraya and Immarsat satphones might reveal their position to within a few hundred nm via the spot beam used, but not Iridium which is probably the most popular network.

HWT Sunday
 

An article titled "Where in the world is MH-470"
Sunday
Sums up the 9000 opinion here with 10 scenarios.
And in as few words unlike here.

Can any of the experts here tell us (UTC) when the satellite reached the reversal point of its Lissajous figure and how the BFO data shows this?

If you read back a few dozen pages, you'll find that Inmarsat used the signals from a number of aircraft crossing the region to "calibrate" their model. More effective, and simpler because no need to borrow a 777 to do it.

Inmarsat Satellite Position and Velocity
 

@BOAC at 1st Jun 2014, 23:54 :

I calculate that Inmarsat 3-F1 reached its furthest North latitude at about 19:33 UTC on 7 March.

This site has a table of satellite positions at the "ping" times, and shows the maximum North latitude at 19:41 :

Aqqa on MH370

The site also has large files of satellite position and velocity in Excel or CSV formats. I downloaded one of the Excel files, and previously computed very close to the same velocity (about -82 m/s, i.e., South, at the last "ping").

That would give a maximum Doppler of 400 Hz for an aircraft due North or South of the satellite, but less than 40 Hz at the presumed last position, since that position is almost orthogonal to the satellite groundtrack then.

Here's one explanation of how the satellite data could have been processed:

https://www.siam.org/news/news.php?id=2151

It links to this 31 MB set of slides:

http://www.utdallas.edu/~zweck/MH370_UNM.pdf

Slide 47 shows the ground track of the satellite. It's a teardrop shape rather than a figure 8, due to the very slight eccentricity of the orbit. It also links to the aqqa.org site, so all 3 of these sources are probably by the same person (John Zweck).

For any STK users, here's the AGI page on MH370:

AGI Blog

The teardrop shape comes from a longitude scale ~30 times larger than the latitude one.
The 8 shape is visible from a "lateral" view (exchanging longitude coordinates for altitude ones).

Oooh Boy
 

I think those guys at Curtin decided their stuff wasn't related

MH370: Curtin University team checks undersea recorders for sounds of plane crash - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Perhaps she was the only person (so far) to see it heading South.
If only I could get my head around what time setting is on her screenshots.:ugh:

I can't help thinking something's a bit fishy about that post (beyond the question of why she waited until the 31st of May !).

She says she's cruising at night, in her own words she says " I wouldn't know." when answering a journalist's question "How far away did the object appear?"... and yet at the same time she says "I could see the outline of the plane with a tail of black smoke coming from behind it".

Really? You can see the outline of a plane in the pitch black in the middle of the sea ? So its close enough for all that detail but too far away for you to be able to give a distance ?

And of course, as with the oil right worker... no other witnesses.

Maybe she needs more benefit of the doubt, who knows ? But things like waiting so long doesn't help her cause. She also says the weather was not its best "we were at the tail end of a very, very harsh passage into the weather which was had been mountainous, having been flooded badly from the anchor locker and swamped ".

Parts of the story are possibly plausible, but then the detail seems to be causing a few eyebrows to be raised.

094:30E 06:20N?

I followed BOAC`s lead and looked at the enroute charts for crossings of the Indian Ocean. All SW bound routes converge at Plaisance. A327 and B344 may offer suitable routing, particularly if already present in the FMC.

Curtin University's underwater microphone arrays
 

Reports starting to appear in AUS and other press about Curtin University's analysis of data received by underwater microphone arrays off the coast of Western Australia.

MH370: Indian Ocean crash may have been heard by underwater microphones | World news | theguardian.com

Curtin underwater sound
 

Actually, a little further information today from the ABC.

Curtin university researchers investigate possible MH370 signal recorded off Perth - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

This is getting silly

I have to say that when I signed up I thought this was a forum for Professional Pilots. I wonder where they have gone?

How come all this talk about someone who may, or may not, have seen something although the day/night on which she saw it is uncertain and who knows what it was she thinks she saw? Surely the recent statements of Emirates Chairman, Tim Clark are far more deserving of consideration, after all, he operates one of the largest fleets of B777 and is likely as familiar and likely more familiar with the aircraft than most posting here. His questions and concerns are certainly worthy of consideration and comment and although dismissed here the question "where were the fighters?" has never been properly answered. He is also quoted as saying "I need to know how anybody could interdict our systems,” as well as “this aircraft was disabled in three primary systems. To be able to disable those requires a knowledge of the system which even our pilots don’t know how to do. Somebody got on board and knew exactly what they were up to.”

Seems to me we should be paying attention to what matters!