Most recent Mick Gilbert paper on H370 scenario

[Mark in CA]

https://www.dropbox.com/s/lf0f61mzkt...ch%20V3.11.pdf

Following up on another thread previously posted in this forum, Michael Gilbert has greatly expanded his paper on an alternate theory for MH370. I am posting it here for reference in case anyone may still be interested in entertaining alternate scenarios.

He expands on his theory of a windshield fire getting out of control, wreaking havoc in the cockpit, and the doomed aircraft ultimately being set to avoid populated areas.

Some who are knowledgeable in this field say this paper has caused them to step back from their previous certainty over a deliberate crash. I make no claims of competence to judge these matters, and so leave that up to the experts here. At the very least, it appears this fellow has put a lot of time and effort into this paper.

[Mark in CA]

I queried Gilbert about how his work is being received by the authorities and others. Here is his reply:

A couple of fairly senior and well respected figures in aviation safety and air crash investigation have taken an interest in my work and have been very supportive in both helping me develop and refine my thinking and promote my work. The ATSB has been courteously receptive but at this stage it's too speculative to be useful in guiding the search effort. I am not too far off releasing V3.12 in which I hope to be able to demonstrate that a turn onto 180° at or around 19:25 UTC (which is much later than what anybody else has modelled) at or near 7.050°N 94.360°E (this is about 10 nautical miles west of my estimate in V3.11; I had stuffed up my drift calculations in that paper) at a speed of M0.83 with no autothrottle (ie a fixed thrust setting) provides a good to very good match to the measured BTO and BFO satellite data. If that scenario models the way I think it does then that will add some meaningful weight to my hypothesis.

[onetrack]

Gilbert fails in his extensively-detailed theories by relying too much on the EgyptAir cabin oxygen bottle hose failure - and by not recognising that of the 39 windshield fires, not one of them caused a crash.
All of the 39 windshield fire emergencies led to satisfactory emergency landing results. For a windshield fire to combine with an oxygen hose failure, and for that to create a flash cabin fire, that then creates a total comms failure, is stretching the likely chances of the three combining all at once, to the one-in-a-billion chance of a meteorite strike causing the loss of the aircraft.
I do believe he is possibly correct with his estimation of the crash position, and he does outline a lot of interesting aircraft manoeuvres.

[MickG0105]

The history of aviation safety is replete with examples of multiple occurrences with benign outcomes preceding a similar occurrence with an adverse or detrimental outcome.
The Concorde had suffered about 70 tyre- or wheel-related incidents, seven of which caused damage to the aircraft including serious fuel tank leaks, before Air France AF4590. Heaven knows how many early model Boeing B747s flew with empty centre tanks before TWA flight 800. Airbuses generally and A330s specifically had encountered numerous pitot icing situations leading to reversion from normal to alternate law before Air France AF447. Both Space Shuttle disasters were preceded by similar occurrences to the cause of those accidents but with benign outcomes.
High altitude flight necessitates the use of 100% pressurized oxygen in emergency situations - that has been a given for so long that it has become axiomatic that donning masks is the instinctive reaction to most inflight emergencies involving smoke, fire or fumes. Fires on the flight deck, however, give rise to the situation where the first response by the crew is to introduce a source of pressurised oxygen in close proximity to the fire. The only thing separating 100% oxygen at 70 psi from the fire is the hose and its fittings.
If the Bird/Heinrich Safety Triangle is instructive in any regard it teaches us that multiple occurrences with benign outcomes that are simply accepted as such actually make an adverse outcome more likely not less likely.

[HPSOV L]

I think your theory is quite plausible Mick. Most aviation accidents are a combination of unlikely events and sometimes incredibly unlucky timing.

I once spoke to someone involved in the Egypt incident. The notable thing was the intensity of the fire and the very short time for the flight deck to become uninhabitable. The incident report doesn't quite convey the ferocity of it.

Have you considered the possibility of oxygen bottle explosion? It's location adjacent to the avionics rack could account for selective avionics loss.

[MickG0105]

I think your theory is quite plausible Mick. Most aviation accidents are a combination of unlikely events and sometimes incredibly unlucky timing.

Thanks. When stepping through what is most assuredly an entirely speculative hypothesis people often throw up Occam's Razor; my usual reply is that Occam was not a air crash investigator. From AF447, with a simple cause but entirely unanticipated crew response, to AF4590, with its utterly improbable and seemingly unrelated chain of events (a month before the accident another airplane has a counterfeit part fitted in an unauthorised manner ...), airplane crashes often have an extraordinarily complicated chain of events leading up to a disaster.

I once spoke to someone involved in the Egypt incident. The notable thing was the intensity of the fire and the very short time for the flight deck to become uninhabitable. The incident report doesn't quite convey the ferocity of it.

I went over every piece of information I could get my hands on regarding MS667. One of the more instructive items was the interior picture of the damaged flight deck; you can see that the inner pane of the FO's windshield has melted away from the frame - that's a quarter inch thick pane of Herculite chemically strengthened glass, you need around 2600°F (1400°C) to achieve that result.

I would love to know if anybody at Boeing ever asked, "Could something like this ever happen in flight?" or "Under what circumstances could something like this happen in flight?" If you had that mindset and looked at the UA027 windshield heater fire (NTSB Identification: ENG10IA029) where the Captain had his oxygen mask torn off twice, you may have asked, "What would have happened if instead of the mask coming off, the hose had have disconnected?"

Have you considered the possibility of oxygen bottle explosion? It's location adjacent to the avionics rack could account for selective avionics loss.

Yes, I have; it's an intriguing possibility and it's a one-stop shop, so to speak. When I've looked at what sits on the E1 and E3 racks in the notional "firing line" and back-blast areas respectively, I can't see them losing all of the cockpit display units or all their comms from either of the bottles rupturing in similar fashion to QF30. Accordingly I can't reconcile that cause with a failure to descend at some point and the lack of a distress call but I'm speculating about a hypothesis so who knows.