MH370

[probes]

Words of wisdom:

“If it’s not there, it means it’s somewhere else,” Fugro project director Paul Kennedy told Reuters.

http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/incidents/mh370-search-dutch-company-says-they-may-have-been-looking-in-the-wrong-place-for-the-plane/news-story/641ecc4025d6aacce4b1adb8ad0ee42c

Doubts that the search teams are looking in the right place will likely fuel calls for all data to be made publicly available so that academics and rival companies can pursue an “open source” solution — a collaborative public answer to the airline industry’s greatest mystery.
Fugro’s controlled glide hypothesis is also the first time officials have leant some support to contested theories that someone was in control during the flight’s final moments.

[probes]

New York has obtained a confidential document from the Malaysian police investigation into the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 that shows that the plane’s captain, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, conducted a simulated flight deep into the remote southern Indian Ocean less than a month before the plane vanished under uncannily similar circumstances. The revelation, which Malaysia withheld from a lengthy public report on the investigation, is the strongest evidence yet that Zaharie made off with the plane in a premeditated act of mass murder-suicide.

MH370's presumed flight path is in yellow. Zaharie's simulated suicide flight is in red.

However, it’s not entirely clear that the recovered flight-simulator data is conclusive. The differences between the simulated and actual flights are significant, most notably in the final direction in which they were heading. It’s possible that their overall similarities are coincidental — that Zaharie didn't intend his simulator flight as a practice run but had merely decided to fly someplace unusual.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/07/mh370-pilot-flew-suicide-route-on-home-simulator.html

[probes]

Are these confirmed findings?



And, with the 'new confirmations' from the flight sim - does one need to plan such a thing (ditching in the ocean, not the initial zigzags) in a simulator?

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

As a former sim instructor, one couldn't practice ditching to any useful purpose, and if the intention was suicide then I doubt he would have bothered with the ditching drills.
The most reasonable reason for doing it would be to see how far the aircraft would get in the sim, and compare that with the theoretical calcs. It's possible he used the sim trip to mentally rehearse his decision. I believe the Germanwings suicide pilot also did a run through, of some aspects, in the real aircraft on the trip before the crash flight.

Anecdotally(inevitably), suicide rehearsals are common:
http://www.currentpsychiatry.com/the-pu ... e5e5f.html

Clinical characteristics of suicide rehearsals
Behavioral enactment of a suicide method
Suicide attempt often within hours or days
Rehearsal usually covert
Rehearsal event or multiple events

The psychology behind suicide rehearsals
Rehearsing suicidal behavior can lower the barrier to a suicide plan, thereby increasing a patient’s resolve and risk. Joiner notes that engaging in behavioral or mental suicide rehearsals increases the risk of suicide. Moreover, rehearsals diminish the prohibition against suicidal behavior and the fear of pain and dying. Examples of rehearsal psychology include:
overcoming ambivalence about dying
desensitizing anxiety about performing the suicide act
testing or “perfecting” the method of a planned suicide
firming one’s resolve to complete suicide.

[Mrs Ex-Ascot]

Not sure why the Daily Smail thinks that this chunk of metal could prove it was an explosion that caused the demise of MH370. But it will be interesting to see what the experts make of it.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... d-air.html

[Boac]

I think it would be highly unlikely that an 'explosion' would have occurred near the end of the flight such that pieces arrived in Moz.

[Pinky the pilot]

Just a thought, but does anyone else think as I do, that there may be some 'authorities' (for want of a better word) who do not want the aircraft to be found?

[500N]

Yes, that had crossed my mind, but I haven't stretched my brain to look at who.

[Mrs Ex-Ascot]

Now it's a fire on board.

http://news.sky.com/story/suspected-deb ... e-10575242

[ian16th]

Mr Gibson, a lawyer from Seattle, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation the pieces may prove to be a "real game changer" if they were found to belong to MH370.

"It's veryimpressivethat one private individual citizen, Blaine Allen Gibson has managed to find up to 15 pieces of aircraft debris and we hope that these three nations do more than just hope that by fluke people find more debris,"

Am I the only one to mentally replace 'impressive' with 'suspicious'?

[500N]

I do wonder about his motive but on the other hand, he seems to have created quite a network
of locals to help walk the beach and look for debris that has washed up.

I also wonder why Malayasia hasn't done likewise, not withstanding the fact they don't want it found.

[Boac]

Well, I remain overtly sceptical. Whatever a fire may have done it did not affect the satellite comms department on board. Then you should ask - when is it thought the fire started? When the a/c turned back over the sea, and then flew past dozens of airfields before it ditched? If later, why did it 'go silent' and turn back in the first place?

Peanut butter and tinfoil time, I reckon.

[ian16th]

It has been confirmed that the section of flap found off Tanzania came from MH370.

Tanzania

[Mrs Ex-Ascot]

The search will continue until January /February next year due to delays caused by bad winter weather.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-n ... earch-team

[probes]

Additional analysis of the burst frequency offsets associated with the final satellite communications
to and from the aircraft is consistent with the aircraft being in a high and increasing rate of descent
at that time. Additionally, the wing flap debris analysis reduced the likelihood of end-of-flight
scenarios involving flap deployment.

The report: Final Investigation MH370 – Search and debris examination update

[Boac]

Game for a laugh? It is being suggested that the search area is too far to the south. Didn't a ?Chinese? boat pick up a ping to the north?

[500N]

I always wondered if they were a bit quick to decide where to search.

[probes]

So, that's it.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/17/malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370-search-called-off

What now? What are the chances someone accidentally 'tripping over' it?

[Mrs Ex-Ascot]

Whilst I feel for the relatives of those on the aeroplane, it really is not unreasonable to call off the search at this point. Surely it isn't expected to continue ad infinitum? Even if someone finds the wreckage, or bits of wreckage by chance,surely it is very unlikely that the Black boxes will ever be found. Maybe It is time to accept that we will probably never know the fate of all those souls.

[Capetonian]

I am inclined to agree with that, but at the same time it seems almost unbelievably bizarre to me that in this day and age, with all the combined human, mechanical, and electronic resources that have been sacrificed in the search, nothing has materialised apart from a few bits of wreckage, not all of which has been positively identified.

Sometimes life is stranger than fiction, if this were fiction there would be some sort of closure, although not necessarily a happy ending.