MH370 Suspicions of systems tampering strengthened by study
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A wider view of the key points touched on by the 'MH370' independents
Those who think that something relevant to the loss of flight MH370 occurred in the unsecured electronics and electrical bay of the Malaysia Airlines 777-200ER located behind and below its cockpit will find support for their suspicions in the latest independent review of publicly released data.
The independents are now drawing attention to data that implies that the jet, with 239 people on board, flew in a circular or complex path for 52 minutes off the northern tip of Sumatra before then flying an apparently straight course southwards for more than four hours before running out of fuel off the Indian Ocean coast of Western Australia.
That previously unrecognized period of 62 minutes of untraced flight begins with a ‘strange’ message from the ACARS computer on board MH370 to an Inmarsat satellite consistent with there having been a temporary interruption to normal electrical power on the jet.
The next, and apparently normal standby signal exchange between MH370 and the satellite 73 minutes later occurs at a point calculated by the official investigation to be only 195 miles further northwest and immediately prior to the jet turning south.
However at the speed assumed by the official inquiry, MH370 would have covered that distance in a straight line in 21 minutes leaving 52 minutes of flight time unaccounted for.
The diagram below makes this anomaly easier to grasp than a thousand words.
While the highly credentialed independents do not make any concessions to a lay readership in their reviews, a starting point for understanding the significance of their latest bulletin might be this article in Flightglobal.
The unsecured equipment bay on which some suspicion has been falling for several months is readily accessed from a floor panel immediately behind the secured cockpit doors to 777s.
Its existence had been considered off limits in most technical and industry aviation publications because of the ease with which it might be entered until suspicions concerning possible causes of the changes of course flown by MH370 fell on it as a weak point. It is now thought that it might, in some way, have been exploited in the course of diverting the jet from its intended course between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing on 8 March.
The strange electrical event that triggered the first standby communications attempt with the Inmarsat by the ACARS server on MH370 occurred about an hour after the flight suddenly lost its identifying ATC transponder over the Gulf of Thailand and was observed flying initially westwards across the Malaysia Peninsula on primary military radar.
These events would fit in with the hypothetical that control of the jet’s path was seized by persons and for purposes unknown at the point where it had signed off from Malaysia controlled airspace and was about to check in with Vietnam controlled airspace.
The data anomaly identified by the independents could, in this scenario, be the period in which there was a struggle for whatever reason to control the course of the jet, all of which suddenly ended when it turned south and flew off on autopilot to oblivion and a sea floor end point which the next phase of the marine search hopes to locate starting in the second half of August.
This is an ‘untidy’ hypothesis. But everything factually established about the disappearance of MH370 is untidy, defying easy or straightforward explanations.
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As difficult as it is to imagine what happened, it must be worth pointing out again after 4 months now there still has been no claims of responsibility and no 777’s have coughed up similar symptoms.
Baffling.
Your theory presumes Malaysia has told the truth. At first about 14 March they said MH370 flew IGARI-VAMPI-GIVAL-IGREX, then on 21 March they presented this image to relatives in Beijing which they said was a radar track of MH370 from Butterworth flying Palau Perak-VAMPI-MEKAR:
http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh212/727Kiwi/MH370/Lido_Hotel_Beijing_21March_zps2eb1b3f1.jpg
…but Butterworth is a Thales Raytheon GM400 and this is a real radar screen from a real GM400 at an air show in Marrakech:
http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh212/727Kiwi/MH370/GM400radarscreen_zpsed2a6beb.jpg
So in reality the claim MH370 flew through the Straits of Malacca is a total hoax!
Simon,
It’s not my theory. I’m just a reporter. The only opinion I have is in the last line, and that’s an observation, not a theory.
Simon, the radar at Butterworth (Western Hill, Penang Island to be accurate) is an Alenia RAT-32DL. RMAF’s Ground Master is located at Kuching, Sarawak.
RMAF do use TRS’ Sentry C2 system to provide sector level views of the radar targets but that doesn’t look like the image presented at Bejing either.
For such a vital piece of information the Mlsian authorities should come clean & openly disclose what their systems saw, their assertions of secrecy are untenable: many sites around the web describe their air defence surveillance capability.
IF
there is any credibility to these ‘missing’ 52 minutes;
It does open-up a DB Cooper hijacking possibility….
IF
the perpetrators (be they crew or passengers) took control of the aircraft,
this time may have been sufficient for them to have carried-out their on-board task,
(an assassination / a high-value theft from a passenger / a high-value theft from the cargo / *insert your own preferred act here)
before bailing-out of the aircraft whilst it is still relatively close to land.
Was there a batch of parachutes on the manifest.?
You’d imagine it’d raise suspicions at baggage-check, if a few passengers had parachutes in their hand-luggage, wouldn’t you.?
Aerodynamics experts:
Could you actually open ANY outer doors on a B777 in flight.?
Also would a B777 fly for the proposed length of time before it’s demise, on autopilot AND with one of it’s passenger or cargo doors open.?
Perhaps I should stop speculating & actually start writing that thriller……
Dan: Answer to first question is no
As for a parachute jump, you might want to look up the problems in survival let alone getting off an aircraft at that altitude (ie it is only done with Oxygen and ejection seats short of a HALO setup.
The reason DB exited the rear stairs is that is was at least feasible survivability wise (nothing to hit as you bouncy down the hull).
No such stair exists on a 777 even if you could open in flight.
Jet jumpers (C17,. C141) have blast shield and they are at both low altitude and low speeds.
And realism, nothing is worth that sort of nuttiness with 100% failure involved. Might as well blow the thing up and let the coins rain into the sea (diamond, unobtainiusm etc)
Ultimately the only motive that explains things is mass murder/suicide. Yes there are oddities in the occurrences, but you do not know what was being attempted and at what point it went from mass murder to suicide which might not have been the original goal.
If you could understand it you would be off your rocker. Parts of it, maybe most if not all of it would still be a mystery even if they got it all up intact (let alone found it)
Ben thank you for your reply. You note that the last sentence was your opinion:
This is an ‘untidy’ hypothesis. But everything factually established about the disappearance of MH370 is untidy, defying easy or straightforward explanations.
What is “untidy” and defies easy explanation about MH370 arises from the fact we have been served up a steady diet of lies by Malaysia and my disappointment is how much analysis has presumed everything Malaysia tells us is true.
For example in the (alleged) radar image of MH370 where is the track of Emirates UAE343 or SIA68 which would also be visible if it were a true radar image?
http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh212/727Kiwi/MH370/UAE343Overlay_zps49d145d2.jpg
Another issue is if MH370 flew west at 5,000ft then the True Air Speed was limited to approx 350kt TAS and therefore MH370 could not have flown back within the time constraints created by the Alleged radar image.
http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh212/727Kiwi/MH370/PalauPerak_zps6bb9d4eb.jpg
When you report about MH370 flying south around Sumatra when is some responsible journalist going to write an article questioning whether the basic assumptions are founded on misleading evidence from Malaysia?
Because if MH370 did not fly a convoluted route through the Straits but merely flew a straight path on autopilot as a depressurised aircraft, then all this speculation about hijacking or pilot suicide is just nonsense.
Simon and all,
Not only have some of the matters that concern you been raised in earlier reports, but some even more serious matters have been flagged, and I can’t keep reflagging them within the confines of this format.
That is why I have made an easy access portal (red button the right of the main page) to display all stories tagged MH370 from Day One on 8 March.
I have tried not to campaign for particular outcomes, having been a reporter long enough to learn that nothing anyone ever says about an air accident investigation corresponds with the truth in the final analysis.
There are always complicating and ‘untidy’ factors. But I do try to reverse audit the things that the authorities say, and this hasn’t reflected at all well on the Malaysia authorities, who were totally unprepared for direct media involvement on the world stage live by satellite and social media.
It has been largely, and especially in the early days, an incredibly inept performance. I do think in their latest update that the independents have touched on a raw and troubling place, which is what exactly happened in the period immediately before the aircraft turned south.
I have a reporter’s normal suspicion that some critically important information has been withheld from the public, and quite possibly from some or all of the investigators. My suspicion could be wrong. And I won’t bore readers with what I suspect, simply because there are so many things that don’t add up in what we do know.
Readers are of course free to speculate and present argued scenarios within the generally accepted rules of civil discourse.
Note that in reading the chronology of reports, some of them were clearly written without the benefit of information that subsequently came to light.
Tango,
My speculation was (very loosely) based on the idea that the aircraft might have flown at a low-enough altitude to ‘safely’ exit the plane.
Of course,
If you can’t actually get out of the thing, being low-enough to survive isn’t going to make a lot of difference, is it.?
“nothing to hit as you bouncy down the hull”
That was partly why I thought about them exiting via a cargo door.?
In fairness Ben it should perhaps be recalled that the “independents”, including some very knowledgeable ones, don’t exactly have a squeaky clean record in this matter. Consider the long pursuit of an unlikely northerly track in the face of contrary Inmarsat analysis. Maybe they’re right this time. Or not.
Simon re the Butterworth radar: I assumed that Beijing image was of post-processed data (and so may show just the unidentified target). Why do you think it’s a real time image?
Glen, in further fairness the independents were forced to work on incomplete data and made that very clear. Once the raw Inmarsat data was released, despite some rather odd edits they continue to draw attention to, they endorsed the southern conclusion.
Dan Dair there has been an instance of a hijacker leaving a jet at low altitude. Philipines Flight 812, an A330. He didnt survive but it may have been because he had a home made parachute and he landed in some mud.
@Ben because this image was displayed at the Lido hotel Beijing by officials who said it was the military radar imagery from Butterworth.
If it was just a stylised diagram then why was it designed to look like an authentic radar image with a phosphor trace etc?
The image was intended to deceive. The screen has all the waypoints, airways routes and TMAs you would expect to find on an SSR radar screen, yet we know now that the Thales Raytheon GM400 screen looks nothing like this display.
Why would you hide that fact?
Why would you set out to create a visual deception?
If is merely a post processed image why would you exclude the paths of other aircraft which were known to be present?
You are creating a number of excuses and justifications which ignore the fact it was a deception from start to finish.
In the week prior to this image being shown at beijing relatives were clamoring for Malaysia to publish radar data. This image was revealed to satisfy and silence those demands and create the false perception that radar data had finally been disclosed but it was not. there never was any raw data. There was just this artistic illusion… there is no proof MH370 ever flew west.
If you have evidence then post it to refute me.
The Inmarsat data corroborates that the aircraft flew west.
It looks like a Malaysia Airlines plane has been lost in Ukrainian airspace. Early media reports suggest MH17 travelling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur might have become a casualty of the dispute between Russia and the Ukraine. It is a terrible tragedy if true.
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