New details about MH370 search come to light
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Just a tiny part of the seventh arc search zone
New insights into the search for missing flight MH370, and what happens the moment the jet is found, were explained at a briefing for members of the Surveying and Spatial Sciences Institute in Perth recently.
Paul Kennedy, MH370 Search Project Director, Fugro Survey, took the audience through the same induction video shown to recruits before they joined the three vessels that are sonar scanning the priority zones in the southern Indian Ocean that are believed most likely to contain the sunk wreckage of the jet.
This YouTube of his presentation gives but a distant low resolution view of Mr Kennedy’s graphics, but it is what he says that is of interest.
At the outset he reminds the audience that the so called seventh arc along which the priority zones are located is different from the earlier arcs which represented places MH370 could have been when it send automated pings to an engine performance monitoring site at Rolls-Royce in Derby via an Inmarsat satellite and ground stations.
This last and unexpected transmission from the jet was initiated by the failure of its engine generated electrical supply and the automated deployment of a ram air turbine that popped out of the fuselage to generate emergency power as the jet fell toward the sea.
With the help of audience members Mr Kennedy unrolled a large scroll of the seabed in the seventh arc priority zone that stretched across the room and out one door which had mapped its features and their depths with sufficient accuracy to prevent deep sea ‘tow fish’ or sonar scanning platforms being towed into the side of underwater obstacles like volcanic craters while surveying the terrain from a height of around 100 metres.
On that map MH370 would only have been a small dot, and it is of course covered in dots, and often convoluted terrain, with deep fissures and troughs and sea mounts and cliffs.
Mr Kennedy said the Boeing 777 would only have subtended half a millimeter in size on the waist high scroll unfolded across the room.
He explained that the raw data was not just being recorded on the search vessels in real time, but being uploaded to ‘cloud’ computers via specially targeted reception beams directed to them from satellites to provide a high bandwidth tunnel.
That data was being simultaneously but separately reviewed “by multiple sets of eyes in Australia and the US”. (He made no reference to Malaysia in relation to the uploads.)
This was occurring in sea states in which peak waves had been recorded as 16.5 metres at their highest, but more commonly of around 11 metres , and often around 6-8 metres.
(There is a great deal of information in the presentation on the working environment, and the health and safety precautions taken on ‘swings’ that included around 13 days total sailing time from Fremantle to reach and return from the priority zones).
Mr Kennedy said there had been prolonged periods when the search vessels had to maintain a heading into winds of around 150 kmh, unable to turn to either side in the sea states that prevailed. He said the crews working shifts covering continuous operations were holding onto the sides of their bunks while trying to sleep, causing considerable fatigue toward the end of periods of duty.
He said the seabed search includes ‘nightmare’ zones when towering complex cliffs and pot holes within volcanic craters may hide the wreckage of the Malaysia Airlines 777-200ER .
The Norwegian Hugin autonomous underwater vehicle or AUV was being used to explore the otherwise impossible to scan wrinkles which could contain parts of MH370. This had included descending deep into features inside volcanic cones, and continued to look into a 200 kilometres long 70 degrees slope that was around 1000 metres in height above the adjacent sea floor.
This slope contained ledges and fissures that the regular tow fish could not look into.
By coincidence on the first anniversary of the disappearance of MH370, a towfish had come across an unnatural set of objects which looked as though they could have come from the missing flight.
However when it was studied in closer detail by the AUV it was found to be an unchartered, and so far, untraced shipwreck.
Mr Kennedy said that some maritime detective work had established that the anchor was probably made around 1820. The actual wooden ship had disappeared over time, and all that was left was the anchor, the ship’s bell, a spread of metal nails and fixtures, and a large sea chest.
What happens when MH370 is found?
Once it is clear that MH370 has been found the satellite data links to the vessel will be shut down and immediate steps made to notify the next of kin of the 239 people on board the jet.
Mr Kennedy’s brief comments about this made it clear that the search intends, commendably, to ensure that those who lost their loved ones on MH370 will be first to learn that the jet and thus their final resting places, have been found.
They will not learn of it through the media. (However it is highly probable that once next of kin have learned of a discovery, word will reach the media, possibly before but most likely only shortly before, an official media briefing is called. These are this reporter’s observations, not Mr Kennedy’s).
Other revelations in the briefing include a sea floor duration of up to 32 hours for the AUV and a very important checking process that validates the performance of the equipment being used in the priority search area. The AUV doesn’t upload in real time, but sends tracking information to the surface, and on recovery after a dive then downloads its data.
Boeing has set up a test and calibration field on the sea floor that each vessel passes through on its way out of and into Fremantle with each tour of duty.
This field includes objects that would correspond to parts of the sunk wreckage of MH370, such as the engines and other heavy components, and replicates their expected resolution to sonar scanning tow fish.
The scientist who made this YouTube record of the presentation said,
“This is incredibly important as when you do surveying you must have confidence that all the work you have done is verified.
“If upon returning to port and doing a closing check on the way back, the items in the test field were unable to be sighted in the detail they had expected this would not only detect a fault with the equipment, but almost certainly void ALL of the past several weeks of deep ocean scanning carried out.
“You wouldn’t know if your equipment stopped working at 100 percent two weeks or 2 hours ago!
“So doing a return scan over the items off the coast of WA would be a great relief to all of the crew on board that all their work is valid.”
MH370 vanished early on a flight between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing on 8 March 2014, when the jet was over the Gulf of Thailand and about to enter air space under Vietnamese control.
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Nobody is critical of the tenacity, or resolve of those braving high seas to locate MH370 on the seabed.
The criticism is on the methodology and flawed assumptions adopted with almost religious fervor to define the search location. A fervor that has seen the flagrant dismissal of clues before they could be credibly considered.
What is needed to find MH370 is not a rehash of old assumptions, but a ruthless questioning of assumptions and even the truthfulness of Malaysian authorities.
For example no radar evidence has ever been presented, claims yes but no original raw radar. We are asked to trust & believe in those who originally told us MH370 climbed to 45,000ft before diving beneath radar. For a year Malaysia made no mention of or claims that MH370 was seen on radar between IGARI & Pelau Perak.
Then they trotted out a specious claim that it was tracked from Kota Bharu around Penang but again no proof. Let us not forget that these were the same people who first told us radar tracked MH370 flying IGARI-VAMPI-GIVAL-IGREX.
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370-last-detected-strait-malacca-1439821
This was quoted on 11 March 2014:
“An unnamed military official told Reuters that the plane “changed course after Kota Bharu and took a lower altitude. It made into the Malacca Strait”.
Another official, Malaysia air force chief Rodzali Daud, told a local newspaper that the plane was detected for the last time by military radar at 2:40am on Saturday near the small island of Pulau Perak.”
Given the assertions in March 2015’s “FI” report of radar sightings between Kota Bharu, the contradictions are plainly obvious. How could MH370 fly between Kota Bharu at high airspeed and not be seen on Thai radar from Hat Yai and why did they say in 2014 that it flew low unobserved?
Those imbued with this fanatical religious fervor to defend the alleged Malacca Straits detour will excuse & justify the contradictions until hell freezes over, but they will never find MH370 because they lack the objectivity to properly reappraise the facts.
Somewhat off topic, but to get a feel for deep sea exploration have a look at the Nautilus Live* website:
http://www.nautiluslive.org/
* They’re in port, and the next voyage may not be until April based on the 2015 calendar. The edited highlights videos are great, but don’t show the countless hours of logistics involved just to get the ROVs down to the interesting bits (in far milder conditions than the southern Indian ocean.)
Simon,
As I’ve mentioned previously many times, much of your concern about claimed radar data is based on believing unsubstantiated media echo chamber fabrications. It doesn’t reflect well on my profession, and I am deeply embarrassed by that, but certain high profile reporters invented sh*t which you keep putting in your sandwiches.
Put alongside the clumsy, and perhaps wilfully misleading variations in the official and amazingly variable narratives from KL you, I and everyone is entitled to be thoroughly annoyed.
But none of this helps us explain in detail your fire and decompression theory, and how it relates to a sequence of electrical events, some of which may be coincidental and thus unrelated which may tell us important things about the conduct of the flight.
This matrix of events and possibilities is the main reason why I have no coherent theory as to what happened to MH370 that I’d be prepared to defend.
There are too many uncertainties, and too high a risk of unknown factors, including some which may have been suppressed by the authorities, who didn’t seem to give a damn on the night the flight disappeared. (There is something really weird about the unresponsiveness of the airline and the authorities to the disappearance of a 777 FFS!)
I am disappointed but ought not be surprised by the current broader discussion (way wider than it is here) where basically it has became a slanging match between the supporters of various theories, all backed up by incomplete or totally missing data as the case may be.
Ben
The whole point being, massive electrical failure PLUS terminal hypoxic flight tends to discredit a detour through the Straits of Malacca.
Both can’t be right. If they find MH370 in the next few weeks then I have to eat humble pie, but I don’t see that happening.
The debate has reached a point where if a $180m search fails to corroborate the theory supporting the 7th Arc seabed search then serious questions need to be asked about both the evidence and assumptions that wasted so much effort?
I am not so extreme as to toss all the INMARSAT data down the toilet, but at some point we must ask why it is not where they predicted?
Simon’s question should really be reformulated as “Why has the sunken MH370 wreckage not been found where they predicted?”
I think there are likely to be two answers to that reformulated question.
The first is that the Inmarsat-based prediction is necessarily imprecise. The second is that the task of searching the predicted site is so difficult that the searchers may not have been able to find the sunken wreckage even if it is at a place where they have been looking.
The effect of these two problems should not be underestimated. Searchers didn’t find the sunken wreckage of AF447 until nearly two years after the AF447 crash, even though they had a always pretty good idea of where it was.
In the 21st century, we are accustomed to the idea that experts can always achieve what they set out to achieve, and do it really fast, but neither of these outcomes is necessarily so.
It has been claimed in quarters that massive electrical failure would ipso facto incapacitate the autopilot and thus render a 6 hour flight impossible too. That is wrong.
During electrical failure of one or both AC transfer bus relays they are designed to separate to provide three independent power sources to three separate autopilots.
Loss of the Left AC transfer relay to the SDU does not imply the Right AC bus is dead. It merely implies the Left tie breaker cannot connect power supply from an alternate bus to systems on the left AC relay.
The back-up AC Electrical system automatically powers one or both transfer buses when either:
1) only one main AC generator is available
2) power to one or both AC main bus relays is lost
3)Approach mode is selected for autoland
The Boeing 777 was designed this way to ensure that a major power failure could not prevent the autopilot from working.
The left IDG powers the left AC transfer bus, the main DC bus including ACARS the transponder plus the SDU satellite antennae and the Captain’s control panel. It was the left relay bus which failed.
The right IDG powers the battery bus and the AC standby bus through the main battery charger. Quite conceivably the Right AC standby bus kept working.
The back up system powers the right AC transfer bus, the right DC relay and the co-pilot’s instruments. It was the bus relay tie breaker which failed to connect with the left AC transfer bus until 18:25.
We know the tie breaker worked again because the left AC bus controls the Transponder, ACARS, SDU and CMU. Of these it is the Transponder but more importantly, the CMU which did not come back to life at 18:25. That is a vital clue where the fire started and why ACARS could not reply with data. ACARS or rather the #3 VHF radio worked perfectly after 18:25.
It is as simple as piecing back together a jig saw puzzle.
Simon: I’m a new reader, and very interested in the MH370 details. I’m an engineer. Please provide a link to the details about the power busses and devices, timelines, etc., for the MH370 that you referred to in your Dec 19 post. (Specifically, your paragraph, “We know that the tie breaker worked again … #3 VHF radio worked perfectly after 18:25.”)
MH 370 WILL NEVER BE FOUND BECAUSE IT WAS JACKED TO THE 25TH DIMENSION BY BEINGS FROM THERE WHO COLLECT PEOPLE & STUFF FROM ALL OVER THE UNIVERSE & ALL TIME!!! NOW SSSHHHAAADDDUUUPPP, SSSHHHAAADDDUUUPPP SSSHHHAAADDDUUUPPP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
TED SMITH, UPSTATE NEW YORK, USA
Thanks Ben for another comprehensive and comprehendible (for the layman) report.
I am impressed that the searchers’ intend to inform the families first of any confirmation of major wreckage.
Hi Jeff
An Astrophysicist friend in the States and myself have been hashing an idea to model the electrical system of a Boeing 777 and test the INMARSAT data against various models, for effects of fire & decompression to get a control to check the effect against BTO & BFO values. We even considered either chartering or borrowing an executive aircraft to fly the ALLEGED route and compare satellite data.
The next hurdle for us will be to create a fundraising project but we could do with some interested engineers.
Here is a schematic from the Boeing Flight Crew Manual to help you:
http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh212/727Kiwi/MH370/B777%20relay%20automatic%20management_zps2vrvnvwx.jpg
In terms of timeline the timeline is set out by reference to the INMARSAT satellite handshake data, however my interpretation is divergent from that of ATSB and the IG group. Some conspiracy theorists dismiss the INMARSAT data entirely, but they have no alternative to offer. I think the real issue lays with interpreting the data.
Some facts are well known (Times in UTC)
16:42 Take off (r channel BTO 14920m/s)
17:07 Last ACARS data (r channel BTO 15600m/s)
17:19 Last voice contact
17:21 Crossing waypoint IGARI last transponder
What happened afterward is in dispute. HCM Control (Vietnam) say they saw MH370 disappear off their Ca Mau SSR at waypoint BITOD. This is north of IGARI and implies MH370 continued north until at least 17:27.
18:03 scheduled ACARS handshake missed
The official interpretation is that MH370 turned at IGARI, overflew Kota Bharu to reach 6nm south of Penang @17:52 before flying NW towards Pelau Perak at 18:02, reaching waypoint MEKAR at 18:22 before turning south above western Sumatra.
18:25 ACARS log on signal (r channel BTO 51700m/s)
18:28 ACARS handshake (r channel BTO 7540m/s)
During events 18:25 – 18:28 BTO radius from satellite determined by signal path delay in microseconds diminished from 51,700m/s to 7,540m/s in just 3 minutes attended by irregularities in BFO Doppler values. The approach of INMARSAT & search authorities is to gloss over this and smooth the data to conform to an alleged radar sighting of MH370 at MEKAR at 18:22.
The electrical outage before 18:25 however and double engine flame out at 00:11 UTC (characteristic of fuel starvation from hypoxic flight) suggest radar sightings were fabricated by the Malaysian Air Force.
Logically hypoxic flight could not cause intricate turns through the Straits of Malacca so both can’t be correct.
My aim is to investigate the veracity of INMARSAT data between 18:25 and 19:42. To investigate whether electrical failure on MH370 spoofed the data.
For example in calculating the 7th (handshake) Arc signal transmission delay bias had to be subtracted from the total signal path time. The BTO bias was variable & unknown. For the purpose of calculating MH370’s route an average BTO bias was assumed, but electrical failure could have disrupted & changed that BTO bias, offsetting the 7th Arc’s actual radius from the satellite.
Simon Gunson,
Whilst I’m not entirely convinced by your electrical failure & decompression theory,
(not that I’ve got a better one to put forward, though.!)
I completely agree that all the supposed flying-around Malaysia & its neighbours before heading-off South is all ‘boules’. (as the French never say)
If we discount the time supposedly spent in touring Malaysian airspace & transfer it to time spent flying South,
How much further South should the search area be.?
It’s reasonable to assume that the ‘seventh arc’ analysis is correct.
The key questions are;
How much (if any) does your theory actually affect the Inmarsat calculations.?
& consequently;
How far along that arc should the search actually be.?
If your theory is correct then the terminal calculations themselves are flawed & then compounded by an incorrect assumption about how long the aircraft had been heading South,
based upon lies & falsehoods generated, sustained & still maintained by the Malaysian authorities.?
My worry is that those paying the bills will run out of money & interest before they reconsider their basic assumptions.?
Dan Dair
Thanks for kind words. If one agrees that Malacca Straits detour is “all boules” then isn’t logical place to start all those debris spotted by satellite about 425nm further south (from southernmost part of seabed search)?
China did just that. They reverse calculated drift patterns for two large objects 24m & 22.5m + 122 objects spotted by French satellites and came up with impact along an axis between 45.30S, 85.30E and 43.40S, 88.30E
Personally I think it is close to 45.30S, 85.30E
Remember Jeff Wise asked long time ago was the satellite data spoofed?
Yes it was by the electrical failure, fire and even intense cold from decompression can scramble and alter the signal values. For example a difference of just a few percent in the BTO signal path delay can shift the 7th arc hundreds of miles.
Cooling the avionics below -40degC will shift the arc closer to the satellite. At IGARI at 35,000ft the ambient temperature was -44degC that night and only got colder as MH370 flew south. ATSB rejected this suggestion very early but they need to eat some humble pie now that the seabed search has failed.
My own estimate is that the 7th Arc is offset 315nm closer to the satellite and MH370 flew further south sans detour.
Simon: you said:
“My own estimate is that the 7th Arc is offset 315nm closer to the satellite and MH370 flew further south sans detour.”
Please explain your reasoning for shortening the 7th arc radius (with the maths if possible).
Ventus45
Sorry my explanation was not very clear.
I am saying I believe the PERCEIVED 7th Arc is presently 315nm nearer to satellite than it actually is. In fact I am saying all Arcs were displaced nearer to satellite by BTO transmission bias errors.
As you probably understand BTO transmission delay is the unknown variable. The doubt was resolved by averaging BTO bias from samples pre take off.
If MH370 suffered electrical failure before 18:03 UTC then they cannot assume the BTO transmission bias before take off was same after problems.
In particular if electrical fire caused a fire to melt fuselage skin then decompression would subject avionics to chilling below -40degC which is minimum operating temp for most avionics associated with ACARS.
Chilling avionics reduces electrical resistance in metal, thereby shortens the signal path delay. This gives a pseudo impression that the BTO Arcs were closer to the satellite.
Methodology was quite crude simply generating an arc for satellite at 00:11 UTC passing thru impact co-ordinates calculated by China by reverse drift analysis (45.30S, 85.30E)= 315nm further out from current 7th Arc.
Remember if MH370 was hypoxic flight south after electrical fire then all fuel endurance assumptions are wrong too and MH370 could have flown further south.
My belief is that MH370 reached BITOD and turned back for Kuala Lumpur, then suffered fire in MEC and whilst trying to resolve this MH370 suffered decompression whilst pilots were distracted.
If there was failure to R & L Main AC transfer buses, then all AIMS shut down.
Autopilots kept working off Standby Transfer bus but post decompression Autopilots could only follow last magnetic heading they had. From this I extrapolate they flew a Rhumb line south.
Rhumb line would have curved east due to distortion of Earth’s magnetic field in SIO. The BFO data will be correct but to understand the BFO track mathematically you either have to have a plausible start point or work back from a finish point.
Simon.
OK, I follow your line of reasoning now.
The BTO bias of minus 495679 micro sec calculated at Gate C1 at normal temps is basic to all of the ping ring calculations.
It has been taken almost as an “article of faith” by ATSB and the IG to be both stable and correct. If that is a wrong assumption, all arcs after 17:07utc could be off.
The problem of where MH-370 actually “went” comes back to the radar, the Penang turn, and in particular, the last radar hit at 02:22 local (18:22utc).
If “that” position can be “solidly” established, then the calculations for the next ping, only 5 minutes later, at 18:27utc could be verified from performance analysis.
But, unfortunately, the Malaysian Government refuses to release the raw radar data, supposedly for “security reasons”.
Without a “precision position for 18:22utc” we can not do a “sanity check” on the BTO Bias “in flight”. We are therefore left with the calculated Bias at Gate C1, and are left guessing as to whether or not it is “stable”.
Ventus45
Whether one believes in decompression or not, ponder this:
For the SDU to out of action from at least 18:03 (expected ACARS handshake) to 18:25 (AES log on) means both L&R Main AC transfer buses were unable to power the SDU.
This means the autopilot was working solely from the Standby Transfer Bus.
This bus will power the autopilot but not higher brain functions of the AIMS.
Without AIMS, MH370 could not have navigated turns through the Straits of Malacca. It is not an article of faith whether you believe in Decompression. No AIMS = no detour.
Simon,
Your theory of a fire within the aircraft’s Main Equipment Centre (MEC) and subsequent decompression is certainly worth exploring and may ultimately prove to be correct if the aircraft is ever found and useful data is recovered. The power interruption to the Satellite Data Unit (SDU) that occurred early in the flight does seem to be an indication that something was amiss. Finding out what caused that power interruption may well be the key to the sequence of events that followed. That said, I think it’s a little early to be making categorical conclusions based on the paltry evidence we have to date. As Ben said, “there are too many uncertainties and too high a risk of unknown factors”.
Some of your technical information is incorrect. First, the Airplane Information Management System (AIMS) is essentially the ‘brains’ of the B777. The system consolidates the processing for a number of aircraft systems and is essential to the operation of the aircraft. For redundancy purposes there are two identical AIMS cabinets within the MEC. Each AIMS cabinet has several separate DC power sources, for which there are several layers of backup in the event of a power failure. If all else fails, the AIMS cabinets will continue to be powered directly from the aircraft battery. AIMS will not shut down if AC power is lost to the Main AC buses.
Second, the B777 does not have a Honeywell Mark III Communications Management Unit (CMU), which you identified (on other websites) as the root cause of MH370’s disappearance. The equivalent function is performed by the Data Communications Management System (DCMS) within AIMS. The DCMS is incorporated within a Core Processor Module (CPM) within each AIMS cabinet. That does not rule out a fire originating within the CPM or elsewhere within one of the AIMS cabinets, but in the event of such a fire the DCMS functions should be taken over by the other AIMS cabinet.
I tend to think that a fire within the MEC would be more likely to occur within one of the Electrical Load Management System (ELMS) panels, also located within the MEC. The ELMS panels that service the left buses are on the left hand side of the MEC, close to the fuselage wall and adjacent to the crew oxygen bottles. If a fire did erupt in that area and subsequently compromised the oxygen system, the results would be catastrophic to say the least.
Finally, Penang was the nearest suitable airport that was available at the time the aircraft is believed to have turned back towards the Malaysian peninsular (Kota Bharu is closed at that time of night). It is not, therefore, unreasonable to assume that in a serious emergency the crew would have initiated a turn back towards Penang rather than Kuala Lumpur. They might well have programmed the Flight Management Computer (FMC) accordingly before becoming incapacitated. The aircraft’s final track would ultimately depend on what was entered into the FMC.
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