MH370

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barkingmad
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Re: MH370

#141 Post by barkingmad » Sun Mar 10, 2019 3:17 pm

Higgins has a future in fiction writing but zero prospects in aircraft accident investigation. What a load of tosh!
Alas the poor relatives of the missing are subjected to this type of arrant nonsense.
I will stay with the oxy-box fire in the flight deck and the avionics bay fire theory, both of which have actual ground incident precedents.

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Re: MH370

#142 Post by Fox3WheresMyBanana » Sun Mar 10, 2019 3:28 pm

I nominate Barkingmad for the weekly Best Use of the Phrase "Arrant Nonsense" on Ops Normal Prize
And, let's face it, there's some pretty stiff competition. Much of the World could be described that way these days.

Capetonian

Re: MH370

#143 Post by Capetonian » Wed May 29, 2019 5:54 pm

The New Evidence

Tonight C5 :
Flight MH370:The Mystery Continues
Wednesday 1900Z
Length 1 hour

Documentary about the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which vanished. Five years on, how close are we to discovering its location and the truth of what happened?
I think this might be a repeat of the one in March.

Capetonian

Re: MH370

#144 Post by Capetonian » Sun Jul 28, 2019 10:54 am

MH370: Inside the investigation into the mysterious plane disappearance

David Chazan, Paris Nicola Smith, Asia Correspondent

28 July 2019 • 8:00am

The last hope for families who have endured years of anguish and uncertainty since Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 disappeared with 239 people on board may lie with a team of French investigators. France is the only country still conducting an official inquiry into one of aviation's most enduring and fascinating mysteries: why did the Boeing 777 disappear en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing and where did it end up? Theories abound about what happened, but there is still no definitive answer. The most extensive — and expensive — search in aviation history failed to recover the aircraft or its black boxes.

About 30 pieces of suspected plane debris have been found washed up on beaches thousands of miles apart in the Indian Ocean. Some have been confirmed as having come from MH370.

There has been speculation that the airliner was hijacked. A more plausible theory, according to investigators in the aviation and intelligence communities, is that the captain decided to carry out a murder-suicide by changing course to fly south until the plane ran out of fuel and crashed into the Indian Ocean. According to this mass murder and suicide theory, Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, an experienced pilot, who was heading north made a U-turn to fly back over Malaysia heading towards the Indian Ocean. To stop fellow crew members or passengers putting up resistance, it is thought he probably starved them of oxygen, causing them to die swiftly.

The flight was last heard from when Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah answered a radio call from an air controller in Kuala Lumpur as the plane crossed into Vietnamese airspace. 40 minutes after take off. The plane then disappeared from radar. Neither Zaharie nor his co-pilot responded to subsequent attempts to contact them. An extensive underwater search by the Australian authorities ended without finding the plane after more than three years and a cost of $160 million.

Malaysian investigators carried out background checks on everyone on the plane, but reportedly held back from divulging all that was known about Zaharie, one of Malaysia Airlines’ most senior captains. The Malaysian police profile and Zaharie’s family depicted him as beyond reproach, a happy, stable and healthy family man. But a different, more disturbing picture has subsequently emerged. He may have been clinically depressed, according to an account by aviation specialist William Langewiesche.

The man who took the controls of MH370 on March 8th 2014, was reportedly a lonely figure. His wife had left him and he was living in a second house owned by the family. He had allegedly had affairs with flight attendants. Friends said he had then become obsessed with two young models he had seen on the internet and he “spent a lot of time pacing empty rooms”.

A fellow pilot told Mr Langewiesche: “Zaharie’s marriage was bad. In the past he slept with some of the flight attendants… We all do. You’re flying all over the world with those beautiful girls in the back.”

In his leisure hours, Zaharie liked to play with a flight simulator, an unusual and expensive piece of kit for a pilot to have at home. Forensic examinations by the FBI revealed that he experimented with a flight profile roughly matching that of MH370, ending in fuel exhaustion over the Indian Ocean.

It is thought that Malaysian investigators were leaned on not to explore avenues that could reflect badly on Malaysia Airlines or the government. Najib Razak, the prime minister at the time, was embroiled in allegations of corruption and local media were censored. He is now on trial.

International specialists who came to assist the Malaysian accident investigation said it was chaotic. Observers said the Malaysians were mainly concerned with turning the page on MH370 and were afraid of finding out anything that could embarrass the country.

A long-awaited report issued by the Malaysian investigators last year said the plane’s controls were probably deliberately manipulated to take it off course, but they were unable to determine who was to blame. Its failure to provide any concrete conclusions about what happened dashed the hopes of families who had been hoping to learn the truth at last. However, the report did say the wreckage was likely to lie somewhere in the southern Indian Ocean.

French authorities are investigating because four French citizens were among the 227 passengers, many of whom were Chinese. The plane was also carrying 10 Malaysian flight attendants in addition to the pilot and co-pilot. The judicial inquiry, led by two investigating judges, is officially secret under France’s strict confidentiality laws. Much of the information that has emerged about their investigation has been made public through leaks to the media.

Some information has been provided by Ghyslain Wattrelos, a 54-year-old French executive who lost his wife and two of his children. As a civil plaintiff in the case, he is allowed access to the investigation and has often acted as an intermediary between the investigators and the media. One of the latest revelations to come from Mr Wattrelos’s access to the investigators has been interpreted by some as pointing to a possible hijack. Mr Wattrelos said information given to the French investigators by Boeing in Seattle revealed that a mysterious 89 kg load was added to the flight list before take-off. Michael Exner, a prominent member of the Independent Group of volunteer engineers and scientists who assisted the Australian investigation, thinks it is a red herring, the latest of many. “The 89 kg load is also a diversion from the truth,” he says.

Ean Higgins, an Australian journalist who wrote a book about the search, “The Hunt for MH370”, agrees, saying it is more likely to have been a mistake “than a grand conspiracy.”

Earlier reports based on Mr Wattrelos’s disclosures said investigators suspect the pilot remained in control of the plane until the end. Newspaper reports quoted Mr Wattrelos as saying that the French investigators had finally been given access to vital flight data at Boeing’s offices in Seattle, which pointed to this scenario. However, it is at odds with the official theory of the Malaysian and Australian investigators that MH370 was a “ghost flight” at the end, with the pilot probably dead after depressurising the cockpit at some point before the plane ran out of fuel and plunged into the sea.

The French investigators themselves have not commented directly, but a judicial source confirmed that “the two investigating judges and a magistrate from the Paris prosecutors’ office travelled to Seattle with specialised engineers to gather technical data from Boeing in May.”

Mr Exner challenged the version leaked through Mr Wattrelos. He said the argument that the autopilot could not have made the tight turns which satellite data indicates were performed by MH370 before it hit the sea was flawed. “There is no evidence that the pilot was alive at the time of fuel exhaustion. It is possible, but the plane’s very rapid spiral descent, indicated by the Inmarsat [satellite] data, is consistent with Boeing’s simulation of what would have happened if the plane ran out of fuel with no one in control.”

The French reports appeared to lend weight to the mass murder-suicide theory, which Mr Exner believes is the most likely, but he says no one can be sure whether the pilot was alive or dead at the end.

Mr Higgins believes the theory that the plane was unpiloted at the end may be politically motivated. He says Australian investigators, possibly influenced by the Australian government which wanted to maintain good relations with Malaysia, “didn't want to get into a position where they had to say a Malaysian national, a Malaysian pilot, had taken 238 people to their deaths.”
Could it have been an accident, or a hijacking?

Mr Exner, an electrical engineer, said radar data indicated that the plane climbed as it made its U-turn, heading south-west after its transponder was turned off and passing near the Malaysian city of Kota Bharu, close to the Thai border. “We all concluded that this is 100 per cent inconsistent with any scenario of an accident or engine failure. We know it was deliberate.” Mr Exner believes the plane passed Kota Bharu at an altitude of 40,000 feet, close to its limit. Circumstances suggest that whoever was at the controls may have deliberately depressurised the cabin to kill its occupants by starving them of oxygen so they could not put up any resistance. Passengers would have seen the drop-down oxygen masks appear, and cabin crew may have tried to use portable masks, but they are designed for no more than 15 minutes of use during emergency descents to below 13,000 feet. They would have been useless at 40,000 feet. Cabin occupants would have become incapacitated within a couple of minutes, lost consciousness and died without choking or gasping for air. One reason for climbing to 40,000 feet may have been to accelerate the effects of depressurising the cabin.

In this scenario, Zaharie would have had to deal with his cockpit companion, First Officer Fariq Hamid. He may have asked him to check something in the passenger cabin. After he left the cockpit, Zaharie may have depressurised the rest of the plane.There are parallels with the deliberate crash of a Germanwings Airbus in the French Alps a year later. The investigation revealed that the co-pilot, Andreas Lubitz, waited for the pilot to use the bathroom and then locked him out of the cockpit. Investigations found that Lubitz, who had a history of depression, had studied MH370’s disappearance. A chilling recording was found of the Germanwings pilot frantically trying to get back into the cockpit, using an axe to try to break down the door.
Continued ...............

Capetonian

Re: MH370

#145 Post by Capetonian » Sun Jul 28, 2019 10:54 am

Around the time that MH370 turned off-course, whoever was at the controls shut down much or all of the electrical system. The reason is not known but it had the effect of temporarily cutting the satellite link.

The Malaysian investigators found no evidence that the aircraft was flown by anyone other than the pilots, but did not rule out “unlawful interference by a third party”. However, Mr Exner and Mr Higgins both argue that nothing points to the conclusion that a hijacker seized control. Air controllers lost track of the plane when its transponder was turned off, which happened only 66 seconds after the pilot’s final radio transmission. “Given that it was Zaharie’s voice on the final transmission, it is likely he was at the controls,” Mr Exner said. “That pretty much precludes any third party interfering in the cockpit in such a short time.”

Mr Wattrelos, still trying to come to terms with the loss of his wife and children, however, rejects the murder-suicide theory. “This theory is an Anglo-Saxon manipulation. You can rule out both that and an accident. There has been a cover-up. This is an affair of state. The pilot was a stable guy and the idea that he did it is the most unlikely theory that has been advanced.”

A former vice-president of the Lafarge building materials manufacturer, a multi-billion-pound company, Mr Wattrelos is a trained engineer. “People call me a conspiracy theorist,” the 54-year-old says wearily. “But there are many anomalies, inconsistencies and gaps in what we know. The aircraft could have been hit by a missile or it could have been downed by a fighter plane. There could have been someone aboard who wasn’t supposed to reach Beijing, or it might have been shot down because it was about to carry out a 9-11 style attack.”

Mr Wattrelos claims that the French investigators agree with his reasoning. If they do, they have yet to say so and French aviation sources are sceptical. “Mr Wattrelos is a very intelligent man who has suffered an appalling tragedy, but he may be searching for an explanation that does not stand up,” one said.

Mr Wattrelos is impressed by the “meticulous” work of the French investigators, but said they are hampered by a lack of access to documents and evidence. “It took five years before they went to see Boeing in the US. Most of the data is in the US, with Boeing, and the Inmarsat satellite data in the UK, and then there’s data in Australia. All these countries are part of the Five Eyes [the anglophone international intelligence network] and they’re complicit in the cover-up.”

But Mr Exner criticises the French investigators for failing to cooperate fully with others involved, such as the Independent Group volunteers. He says some of the French conclusions are questionable. A torn piece of airfoil about six feet long was found on the French Indian Ocean island of Réunion on July 29, 2015 and determined to be a control surface called a flaperon that is attached to the trailing edge of a Boeing 777’s wings. Serial numbers showed it came from MH370 and the French investigators concluded that it was damaged when it hit the water, when other investigations showed that it may have separated before impact due to high speed flutter.

A number of people unconnected to MH370 have advanced all sorts of conspiracy theories, ignoring satellite data and any known facts. Jeff Wise, a New York-based writer, has claimed that the Russians may have stolen the plane to create a distraction from their annexation of Crimea. He says the debris found in the Indian Ocean was planted there. He contends that the aircraft’s electrical systems were reprogrammed to transmit false data indicating a turn south into the Indian Ocean when in fact it went north to Kazakhstan. Mr Wise has developed this theory in an ebook published this year.

Others have tried to link MH370 with Area 51, a classified United States Air Force facility where experimental aircraft and weapons are believed to have been tested. Conspiracy theorists have surmised that captured aliens or UFOs are held there.

A British woman who blogs under the name of Saucy Sailoress says she was on a boat in the Andaman Sea on the night MH370 vanished. She claims to have seen what looked like a cruise missile coming towards her. It then morphed into a plane with a well-lit cockpit that flew past trailing smoke. She concluded that it was on a suicide mission against Chinese navy ships farther out to sea. When she learned about MH370’s disappearance, she made a connection between the two.

It has also been claimed that the plane has been found in the Cambodian jungle or has been spotted on Google Earth in shallow waters and intact. One scenario has the plane trying to attack the US military base on Diego Garcia.

Ghyslain Wattrelos, who has one surviving son, said it was difficult to get closure or even grieve properly without bodies and without knowing what happened. “For four years I worked on this night and day, trying to find out. I did nothing else. Now, I consider that I must start a second life. I was happy in my first life but you have to move on. It’s hard to live with the idea that you may never know the full truth.”

KS Narendran, from Chennai, lost his wife Chandrika Sharma, who was on her way to a UN conference in Mongolia. He wrote a book about coping with his loss. He says that with the exception of Mr Wattrelos, the French investigators have left families of the victims in the dark. “There has been nothing that we’ve heard from the French investigation formally… We have no access to what it is that they have laid their hands on, who is involved in the investigation in terms of the technical experts… All of what we have heard is secondhand.” On his and others’ grief, he says: “It’s not been an easy ride. I think a number of families that I am personally familiar with have had fairly rough periods.”

Like Mr Wattrelos, Mr Narendran has come to accept that the truth may never be uncovered. “It’s highly possible that we will never know. I’ve come at least to the point where I have very seriously considered the prospect that we will never know.”

Grace Subathirai Nathan, a Malaysian lawyer who lost her mother, Anne Daisy, on the flight, feels that the still ongoing French investigation has shed little light so far. “There are still no answers, we’re still not much closer to knowing where the plane is so it feels like just another day in our lives for the past five years where there are more questions than answers.” She points to the fact that there was a large consignment of lithium batteries on the plane and wonders whether they could have exploded. She notes that lithium batteries are now banned from check-in luggage and says that even if it has not been publicly stated, the measure is clearly because of MH370.

What are the chances of finding the remaining wreckage?

Mr Langewiesche believes the plane hit the water so fast that it broke up “into a million pieces,” but Mr Exner’s group still think it is worth resuming the search in the Indian Ocean, looking particularly at an area just outside the one already covered. The group reasons that while much of the plane would have disintegrated into small pieces, the landing gear and engine cores, made of high-density steel that could survive the impact, are large enough to be spotted by sonars.

Mr Exner adds that the searchers may have been looking in the right area but missed the wreckage the first time. An Argentine naval submarine was found in 2018 a year after it vanished in the South Atlantic. It was located by Ocean Infinity, a Texas-based seabed exploration company that also took part in the MH370 search and now wants to resume the hunt.

“The submarine was found in an area that had previously been searched,” Mr Exner says. “That could happen again. It’s worth having another look.”

Ms Nathan finds it difficult to talk about her mother as dead or refer to her in the past tense. “There hasn’t been any proper closure.” She wants Malaysia to be more transparent and release more information, including military radar data withheld on national security grounds.

Like many relatives, she would like the search to be resumed.

Slasher

Re: MH370

#146 Post by Slasher » Sun Jul 28, 2019 3:27 pm

After some serious digging around Cape I've concluded the capt did it. I'll send you an email and a few others since it involves some names.

Capetonian

Re: MH370

#147 Post by Capetonian » Sun Jul 28, 2019 3:35 pm

Thanks Slash, I look forward to that. I have to say that is the conclusion to which I am being drawn, but I am open to other possibilities.

Slasher

Re: MH370

#148 Post by Slasher » Sun Jul 28, 2019 3:43 pm

I'm late with my "update" email and consequently the MH explanation Cape as I'm full up with my new cadets and been hit with a few LOFTs as well. Barely got time to sleep lately.

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Re: MH370

#149 Post by Rwy in Sight » Sun Jul 28, 2019 3:53 pm

Slasher, when you have a moment here or at an email kindly answer me a question regarding human intervention at MH370:
Please bear with me for a human intervention to be meaningful it needs to bring the aircraft down AND be accompanied by a statement like why the attack was done. I am aware that the flight Captain was involved with some anti-government groups but no such statement was issued.

So what is the point about doing something and not claiming responsibility about it - and obviously even some prosecutions took place they were not announced?

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Re: MH370

#150 Post by Ex-Ascot » Mon Jul 29, 2019 6:29 am

From quite early on in the investigations I was sure that it was the captain. His simulator programme is very strong evidence. The Malaysian government and airline say he was mentally stable. This was political. His colleagues say he was not. There is no doubt in my mind. The more evidence that come to light all point towards the captain. The conspiracy theories are of course a joke.
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Re: MH370

#151 Post by Capetonian » Mon Jul 29, 2019 7:12 am

Elvis Presley used this as a cover to elope to a remote undiscovered island in the S Atlantic with Princess Diana.

That is what my sister's hairdresser's friend told her and she knows somebody who drives a fuel truck at Manchester airport, so he knows everything to do with aviation.

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Re: MH370

#152 Post by barkingmad » Mon Jul 29, 2019 8:20 am

IIRC when the original theory of hijacker(s) and/or flightcrew being able to disable all the avionics as perceived by ground agencies was postulated, it was stated that this was virtually impossible.

It would have required someone with knowledge and capability to go into the cabin, open the access hatch and move around the e/e bay switching off all the functions which showed aircraft "life" to the ground and presumably return to the flight deck to go exploring the Indian Ocean in covert mode.

Another Clive Cussler thriller in the drafting??

I will stay with the oxy-box fire in the flight deck and the avionics bay fire theory, both of which have actual ground incident precedents.

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Re: MH370

#153 Post by Rwy in Sight » Mon Jul 29, 2019 8:47 am

barkingmad wrote:
Mon Jul 29, 2019 8:20 am
IIRC when the original theory of hijacker(s) and/or flightcrew being able to disable all the avionics as perceived by ground agencies was postulated, it was stated that this was virtually impossible.

It would have required someone with knowledge and capability to go into the cabin, open the access hatch and move around the e/e bay switching off all the functions which showed aircraft "life" to the ground and presumably return to the flight deck to go exploring the Indian Ocean in covert mode.

Another Clive Cussler thriller in the drafting??

I will stay with the oxy-box fire in the flight deck and the avionics bay fire theory, both of which have actual ground incident precedents.

Ever since theories started appearing, I held the view that each one had a hole and did not make sense. For instance I don't know any accident that an aircraft fire could remain airborne for so long

Ex-A thanks for the additional comments regarding the Captain. Maybe I put too much faith on Malay government and their openness.

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Re: MH370

#154 Post by ian16th » Mon Jul 29, 2019 10:25 am

Rwy in Sight wrote:
Mon Jul 29, 2019 8:47 am
. Maybe I put too much faith on Malay government and their openness.
They are Asian's!

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Re: MH370

#155 Post by barkingmad » Mon Jul 29, 2019 12:21 pm

"For instance I don't know any accident that an aircraft fire could remain airborne for so long."

I understood after the UPS 747 disaster in UAE that deliberate depressurisation was one of the recommended options for the unfortunate crews experiencing in-fuselage (cargo) fires to attempt survival.

So presumably the loss of ambient oxygen still permits the aircraft to continue for some time airborne and under control.

In Alt lock or Path mode then heading selected by approx 180 degrees to return to departure airfield with an in-flight fire then why not carry on with incapacitated flightcrew and pax until the fuel is exhausted?

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Re: MH370

#156 Post by boing » Mon Jul 29, 2019 7:40 pm

Rule out in-flight emergencies. The aircraft made several altitude and heading changes after it initially departed from its planned track, someone who knew how to fly the aircraft was in charge. The final turn from a basically westerly heading to a southerly heading could not have been made by accident, even on autoflight with the crew disabled the aircraft would not have made that heading change because it would have required use of an autoflight system entry or a manual heading selection.

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Re: MH370

#157 Post by Capetonian » Thu Aug 22, 2019 8:49 pm

The Mystery of MH370: Draining the Ocean

Science documentary that creates 3D models of the ocean floor. Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared with 239 people on board, sparking the longest, costliest search in aviation history. Key personnel in sea-floor searches reveal the challenges of locating aircraft that go missing in the deep ocean.

5SELECT
Today 22/08 // 2100Z

Shared with Cisana TV+ UK
Download it now for free: https://am2ge.app.goo.gl/u9DC

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Re: MH370

#158 Post by FD2 » Wed Sep 18, 2019 9:28 pm

Learmount trotted out yet again to say what most people believe anyway, but in an unusually exciting way (for him). Yawn.

Daily Express article well up to the 'standards' of modern journalism. Not being an expert but the children who put these stock photos into articles need to have them labelled - I don't think any are actually of a 777 - 737 and 787 I think?

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/11 ... fic-CAPTIO

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Re: MH370

#159 Post by Boac » Tue Feb 04, 2020 8:33 pm


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Re: MH370

#160 Post by boing » Tue Feb 04, 2020 9:25 pm

Interestingly they used the same logic as I did originally in guessing a crash position. I simply figured out what I would do if I wanted to lose an aircraft over the Indian Ocean, I would head clear of land, set the FMC for the south pole and then take a pill or something. On longitude my guess was pretty much the same on longitude as the article in post 159 but I guessed the impact at 620 miles further north.

What did not make sense, and still does not, is that if the pilot wanted to lose the aircraft why didn't he simply head out over the South Pacific instead of going across Malaysia.
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