MH370 - 24 April 2014 update! (30 June 2014 update)

The updates feature in reverse date order. My main article of 27 April 2014 follows below & after the updates:

30 JUne 2014:

TELEGRAPH

Pilot of missing Flight 370 has been named ‘chief suspect’

By Danika Fears    June 23, 2014 | 5:52amMORE ON:

 http://nypost.com/2014/06/23/pilot-of-missing-flight-370-has-been-named-chief-suspect

"Investigators have named the pilot of the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 as the “chief suspect” in the plane’s mysterious disappearance after clearing everyone else on board.
 

Malaysian detectives grew increasingly suspicious of the pilot after discovering that Capt. Zaharie Ahmad Shah programmed his flight simulator with a route that would land a plane on a small island in the Indian Ocean, the Sunday Times of London reports.

Shah had deleted the drills, but computer experts were able to recover them.
 

The official police investigation cleared all of the other 238 people on board the Boeing 777 that vanished on March 8."
 

29 June 2014 Update: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/malaysia/10933917/MH370-New-evidence-of-cockpit-tampering-as-investigation-into-missing-plane-continues.html 

My COMMENTS ON THE ABOVE TWO ARTICLES:

The article regarding cockpit tampering confirms that experts believe someone in the cockpit deliberately switched off a power unit. This analyst is not in the least surprised. This was NEVER anything but an unlawful act, by a hijacker, crew member or pilot. Said so at the outset and still remain of that view.

As so the Captain's elevation: Although the pilots must rank highly as likely suspects (in addition to other crew or hijackers) that at least one of them was involved, or even solely responsible, I do not consider it fair to suggest that one deleted flight to an Indian Ocean Island on his Flight Simulator Computer at home can be regarded as compelling evidence for or against the Captain.

As a flight simulator pilot myself, I can say that half the fun of the programme is to fly to exotic places and to try to land larger airliners on shorter runways or at airports known to be difficult. The saved flight could have been entirely innocent for all we know.

The fact that he was the last person to speak to ATC is something which might be a pointer to his involvement. But that assumes the absence of any 3rd party cockpit incursion which may have caused the Captain to operate under duress.

Unlawful cockpit interference remains the most likely cause, and one of the two pilots must rank as persons of interest, but I would be reluctant to take it further than that on the evidence available.

AND SEE: My blog of 29 June 2014 re: ATSB Report. New ATSB theory no game changer. Does not exclude cockpit interference

http://siegfriedwalther.blogspot.com/2014/06/mh-370-new-atsb-theory-does-not-exclude.html

16 April 2014 update:

*The latest news is that Mr Houston (for whom I have immense respect) has again stressed how difficult discovery and recovery of the wreck will be. In the absence of wreckage, all I can say is:

"Houston, I think you've got a problem!"

24 April 2014 Article follows below:

In this update, I shall deal with the absence of any confirmed debris from the aircraft and later, I shall elaborate on my theory, first published on this Blog 36 hours or so after the aircraft disappeared, as to the likely causes of such disappearance.

The signals or pings picked up a couple of weeks ago in the search area in the Indian Ocean seemed to suggest that the search for the missing Flight MH370 was being conducted in the actual area in which the aircraft went down.
 
Satellite handshake data obtained from Britain, which emanated from the aircraft, caused experts come up with two flight corridors: a southern one ending in the Indian Ocean around 800km or more off the Western Australian Coast, and a northern one ending somewhere in Asia.

The Northern corridor was apparently dismissed because Indian military radar and that of other countries in to the north of India apparently did not pick up any unidentified flight on the evening/morning the airliner went missing. In addition, searches conducted along the "northern corridor" apparently were unable to locate any signs of a crash.

Submersible craft have searched the seabed in the area where the pings were detected. So far nothing has been detected. To be fair, the depth of the ocean and the uneven terrain in the search area were factors which were always going to make the search a less than straightforward exercise.

However, the absence of any debris from the aircraft is becoming a serious concern, particularly since seven weeks have elapsed since it vanished.

Experts in Ocean currents have suggested that debris from the search areas linked to the Southern Corridor is likely to travel westwards, and could end up either on the Western Australian Coast  or the Western Tasmanian Coast. This ought to have occurred by now.

Yesterday at 11 am UK time, it was reported that debris which may be linked to the missing MH370 airliner may have washed up on a beach to the south of Perth, Australia. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau have reported that this debris is NOT part of flight MH370. I assume that regular searches of the entire Western Australian Coast, much of which is apparently remote, are being conducted in addition to the searches at sea. If not such searches should be initiated at once.

If debris which is identified as coming from the aircraft does not turn up on the said coasts reasonably soon, it will raise serious questions as to whether the missing airliner's black boxes were indeed the source of the pings which were detected. The chances that the aircraft remained intact after it crashed, or even a pilot controlled water landing at sea are highly remote.

It is so that the aircraft remained intact during the recent miracle landing on the Hudson river in New York. Firstly, the river was relatively flat, and the pilot involved demonstrated superb airmanship. One cannot, however, compare a river to that part of the Indian Ocean, which usually has high swells. If a wing or an engine of the aircraft, were to strike the a wave or the water, slightly before the other engine or wing, the forward momentum of the remainder of the aircraft would force the plane to cartwheel around the point of that strike and a partial or total breakup of the aircraft would be inevitable. I refer people to the Ethiopian Airlines crash off the Seychelles, which was filmed and is available in the Internet.

If we accept the "suicidal pilot" theory, and further accept that he was alive and in control until the end, then its likely he tried to replicate the Miracle landing on the Hudson. After all, if his plan was to make the aircraft disappear in a deep part of the ocean where it would be difficult to find, it would make sense to make the plane's recovery even more difficult by attempting to land it intact so it could sink intact. However, as stated above, it is unlikely that such an intact landing and sinking at sea would be successful.

It can thus be assumed that the aircraft is likely to have broken up and that significant floatable debris, from seat cushions to items of luggage would have been strewn across the point of impact. Further items would have floated to the surface later.  


Given the costs involved of an expanded underwater search, it is now imperative that debris from the plane is found. Although I still favour the generally accepted theory that the Southern Corridor is the likely route the aircraft followed, and I also accept that the pings are most likely to have originated from the aircraft, the absence of any debris after all this time is causing me, and others, to wonder whether the Northern Corridor, or perhaps other flight paths were perhaps prematurely excluded. The longer the period without any debris becomes, the more the view that everyone in the search may have to go back to the drawing board will continue to gain ground.

You will recall that I suggested that cockpit incursion by a hijacker and/or crew was the most likely cause of the disappearance of the airliner in a blog I published here about 36 hours or so after the aircraft disappeared. Of course, when I referred to cockpit incursion and the possibility of crew involvement, this included a suicidal or rogue pilot gaining unlawful control of the cockpit.

My reasons for concluding this were and are based upon the following:

• The fact that the transponder was switched off causing the aircraft to disappear from ATC secondary radar.

•  The fact that the aircraft reporting system was switched off.

• The fact that the aircraft signed off from Malaysian ATC and did not thereafter make contact with Vietnamese ATC. If anyone wanted to take control of an aircraft without attracting prompt attention, then the handover between area controllers is the ideal time to do so. It gave the aircraft time to divert and to do so unnoticed. Malaysian ATC assumed that the Aircraft was under the Control of Vietnamese ATC and Vietnamese ATC must have assumed that the scheduled airliner was either late or had been delayed at Kuala Lampur for some reason.

• The fact that the aircraft immediately changed course after the hand-off from Malaysian ATC.

• The fact that the change of course was not accompanied by any communication with ATC, which is normal practice for a diversion. Although such failure to communicate with ATC immediately could be explained by an emergency which required AVIATION & NAVIATION prior to COMMUNICATION, the fact that such failure to communicate persisted indefinitely was highly suspicious to me. There are various ways for the pilots to communicate an emergency, including using the transponder to enter a transponder code for radio failure or a hijack situation.

• Ultimately however, it was the combination of all the above factors in one event which lead me to my conclusion.  The 777 is a very reliable aircraft with backup systems in case certain essential systems fail. I could not, and still cannot conceive of a technical emergency which was so catastrophic that it was capable on the one hand of disabling all the above systems, yet on the other hand it nonetheless permitted the aircraft to stay aloft for five or so more hours.

For all these reasons, I concluded then already that an unlawful act by one or more of the pilots and or/someone else must have caused the aircraft to disappear.

Since then, we have learned that the aircraft apparently changed altitudes, and after flying over back over Malaysia in a Westerly direction, it then apparently again changed course and turned South on a course which, quite conveniently prevented it from appearing on Indonesian military radar, or that of anybody else.

In the weeks following the crash, many experts tried to suggest that the accident could well be explained by a massive technical failure, such as decompression, which could have incapacitated the crew, and which could have left the aircraft flying itself...either on auto-pilot, or using its flight computers which will, apparently, in the absence of flight input from a pilot, try to keep the plane aloft by adhering to the last inputs received. This is the so-called zombie plane theory.

When the zombie theory was first advanced, I considered it an unlikely outside possibility. Outside, because the five or so facts in the bulleted paragraphs above, considered cumulatively, scream unlawful interference with cockpit operations by someone, whilst a technical failure which could explain those events in addition to the continued five hour flight did not readily suggest itself. The zombie theory is also rendered even more improbable against the backdrop of the superb safety record of the Boeing 777.

But in my view, the altitude changes, the heading changes by the aircraft, and the final course change onto the Southern or Northern Corridor cannot be satisfactorily explained by the zombie plane theory.

Although the zombie theory was advanced and initially supported by more than a few aviation experts and pilots, it seems that the weight of opinion amongst aviation analysts now heavily favours the unlawful cockpit interference theory i.e. Hijack (with or without pilot assistance, Suicide/rogue pilot.

One of the reasons why the zombie theory was favoured by some experts was because the Suicide/Rogue pilot, or Hijack theories were regarded as implausible. In support, they argued that a suicidal pilot would not have flown the aircraft around the world. Instead, they suggest that he would have crashed it immediately. And if hijackers were involved, they were probably quite organised, and would not have ordered the aircraft onto a pointless flight path which would end in the sea.

The problem is that the facts we do know point strongly towards unlawful cockpit interference and not catastrophic technical failure. When one eliminates all the likely causes on the evidence available, leaving one cause which cannot be discounted, then however unlikely it may be, that is your cause. Alternatively stated, you can't discount human interference because the motives or methods seem improbable in an endeavour to support a theory, like the zombie plane, which on the known facts, is even more improbable.

As for pilot suicide, there are two incidents, one in Egypt and one in Indonesia, where pilot suicide was found to be the cause by the NTSB. To be fair, in both cases, the NTSB were accused by the locals of bias against the pilots and bias in favour of Boeing and the findings were disputed.

If one of the pilots did wish to commit suicide, I can think of several reasons why that pilot may have decided that he wanted to do so in a way which might prevent the aircraft from ever being found:

1. Firstly, he may have feared that his life-insurance would not pay out if suicide was the cause of his death. If the aircraft was simply lost, the insurers would not discover the cause and would be compelled to pay out to his beneficiaries if any.
2. Secondly, the pilot may not have wished his friends or family to find out that he had committed suicide for any number of reasons.
3. Thirdly, the pilot could have held some grudge against his employer and could may have relished the idea of committing suicide in a manner which would also embarrass his employers to boot. The thought of his employers funding a costly search or having to explain the unexplainable vanishing of the aircraft to the world may have appealed to him.
4. Fourthly, the pilot may have wanted to commit suicide in a way which would, in his mind, also amount to the perfect crime.
5. The pilot's actions could have been politically motivated.

There are those who suggest that some importance attaches to the fact that neither pilot asked to fly together or was necessarily aware in advance that they were scheduled to fly together. That may or may not be true.  If a pilot was involved, however,  it is probable that he would have acted alone and that his plans would have included attacking and disabling the other pilot.

It is dangerous to discard theories which remain the most probable simply because they seem to involve conduct which is unlikely or far-fetched. Most of us would never have dreamed of the 9/11 scenario and, were we to have been told of it in advance, many would  probably have rejected the idea as a far-fetched and second rate Hollywood-type plot.

Prior to 9/11, the world understood why hijackers might take control of an airliner with a view to demanding a ransom or the release of prisoners etc. They accepted the idea that hijackers might kill all on board as a last resort - if their hands were forced. However, hijacking with a view to taking control of an aircraft, and committing suicide by using the aircraft as a veritable missile, was simply unthinkable.

The audacious Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour in 1941 was also clearly unthinkable to many until it occurred. How else can you explain the total lack of preparedness?

People who plan to commit suicide may not always think or plan rationally, and rejecting the possibility of pilot suicide because it makes little sense ignores that reality.

As for possibility that hijackers were involved, I accept that it is unlikely that they would have gone to the trouble to take the aircraft simply to have it crash in the sea. And yet, the Ethiopian Airlines aircraft was hijacked over Africa and told to fly to Australia. The hijackers were told there was insufficient fuel to reach Australia, but they claimed the pilot was lying and they insisted he proceed. Inevitably, the aircraft ran out of fuel and it crashed into the sea near the Seychelles. This story seems so outrageous, and the conduct of the hijackers so preposterous, that it all beggars belief. And yet, it happened.

I doubt that the hijackers on MH370, if there were any, were quite as ignorant. On the contrary, their operation, if there was one, was probably well planned. Perhaps their intention was to land somewhere and later use the plane as a missile (al la 9/11), and maybe it went wrong somehow.

One possibility I can offer is that one or both pilots may have tried to overpower one or more hijackers in an attempt to retake control of the cockpit at some point after they crossed back over Malaysian airspace and were heading west.  Or perhaps they tried to save the situation and in the process risked not complying fully with the instructions from the hijacker. Anything like that could have resulted in a violent situation in which  a firearm or an explosive might have been discharged and perhaps the aircraft depressurised.

The aircraft could have been deliberately or accidentally turned South during such an incident.

This could leave us with a more plausible explanation of a zombie plane that flew on to the Indian Ocean. It's a zombie theory I could buy into, since its root cause would remain unlawful interference.

A blogger suggested that perhaps the aircraft descended until it could ascend  to fly below another scheduled aircraft heading somewhere West or North. Civilian radar, and perhaps even military radar, would then not picked it up on radar as only the transponder of the scheduled aircraft would be detected.

The possibilities are many and the conspiracy theories abounding on the internet are just as plentiful. The truth is that there is not enough evidence available now to say which is the correct theory.

All I can say with almost total certainty is that unlawful human conduct must have been the cause. There are also those who suggest that we should all wait until the cockpit voice recorder reveals what really happened. They seem to forget that the cockpit voice recorder, which only normally only records the last hour of the flight, will be probably be silent and reveal little or nothing.

A suicide pilot, if there was one, may have committed suicide well prior to the end. If he stayed on to watch the end, he may have kept silent for the last hour to avoid being recorded. It is sad that the voice recorder, in these modern times, only records one hour, but there it is.

The flight data recorder, however, will give the data for the entire flight, and this will at least enable one to establish what pilot inputs occurred at the time the transponder was disabled in addition to the circumstances in which they occurred. This may be instructive, or indeed, even conclusive.

In the meantime, the waiting continues.

+MH370 News

+Malaysia Airlines MH370

+Air Crash Investigation

+Cockpit-Simulation

Extraditon to South Africa & human rights

There has been much negative reaction by members of the South African public in response to reports that a man, extradited to Cape Town from a European Country to face trial in South Africa, is being held in pre-trial custody in conditions which are superior to the mostly dreadful conditions experienced by the overwhelming majority of awaiting-trial prisoners in this country.

Their objections are, of course, based on the salutary principle that all people should be treated equally before the law. The objection to foreigners accused of committing crimes in this country receiving preferential treatment to those received by South African awaiting-trial prisoners is understandable, but misguided.

Conditions in most South African prisons are generally regarded to be deplorable. Awaiting-trial prisoners in this country are often held in grossly overcrowded facilities. Apart from anything else, the overcrowded conditions make it very difficult, if not impossible, for the authorities in charge of prisons to prevent awaiting-trial and convicted prisoners from becoming victims of serious crime. It is no exaggeration to say such conditions violate a whole host of the human rights of those being held in custody in those facilities.

Whilst Britain also has what it regards as an overcrowding problem in its prisons, the conditions which apply in British prisons are, for the most part, vastly superior and far more humane than those to be found in most South African prisons.

In my view, the above disparity is something which any European Court, faced with an application for extradition of one of its citizens to South Africa, is obliged to consider prior to granting any such application. The human rights of all European citizens are guaranteed and protected by the European Convention of Human rights. No European Court can grant any order which results in the violation of the human rights enjoyed by any of its citizens. In this regard, if someone wishes to avoid extradition to South Africa from a European Country, they would be perfectly entitled to raise the fact that their extradition to South Africa is likely to expose them to horrendous awaiting-trial or post-conviction prison conditions which are in violation of their human rights.

A European Court faced with any such objection would be compelled to examine the conditions applicable in South African prisons to establish whether there is any merit to such claims. If it is found that that the human rights of the person, whose extradition to South Africa is being sought, would be placed at risk if extradition were granted, the Court would be entitled to refuse the application. Alternatively, the Court could seek guarantees from the South African authorities that the conditions which the person to be extradited would be exposed to in South African prisons would be in accordance with European or international standards.

To my knowledge, the person whose extradition was recently sought did not pertinently raise the issue of South African prison conditions as a defence to extradition. However, and as I understand it, the South African authorities nonetheless quite rightly guaranteed that the person concerned would receive access to medical treatment of a standard comparable to that he would have received in the United Kingdom. This is a variation on the theme I refer to above. But for such assurances, the extradition would probably not have been ordered.

If I recall correctly, the issue of whether an accused could expect to receive a fair trial in a South African Court was raised in the English Court and, quite rightly, that objection was dismissed.

There is nothing unusual about the prosecution from a country or state seeking the extradition of a European citizen offering guarantees which make it possible for a European Court to order extradition without compromising the human rights of the accused person involved.

The most striking example of this is where DA’s from American states like Texas, which has the death penalty, have to guarantee that the death penalty will not be sought prior to obtaining an order for extradition from a Court in a European Country, where the death penalty is not permitted on human rights grounds.

Applying this approach, there is nothing to stop a European whose extradition to South Africa is sought from similarly seeking guarantees from South African authorities about both the conditions of his pre-trial custody and about the conditions applicable to his custody in prison should he be convicted and sentenced.

South African authorities applying for extradition could easily offer appropriate guarantees in regard to pre-trial custody. Any number of suitable arrangements which would be acceptable to a European Court could be put in place.

As far as the prison conditions which await a European, whose extradition to this country was successful, after conviction is concerned, the picture is more complicated. As is apparent from recently publicised pictures of two young convicts which were taken in a Gauteng prison, prison conditions in South Africa tend to vary.

There is one easy solution to this problem. The deal the South African prosecution can offer is that any sentence handed down by a South African Court would be served in the prisons of the country from which the extradition order is sought. That, together with appropriated guarantees of safe and humane pre-trial custody, would leave the foreign Court with little or no room to refuse extradition.

Yes, this does lead to a situation where such foreigners will always be entitled to better treatment than locals, but instead of bemoaning this, we should seek to correct this inequitable situation by ensuring that all our prisons meet international standards of human rights for all who pass through them. Or we could just do nothing and simply hope for some form of divani intervention.

And as for the argument that he who chooses to commit a crime here should be prepared to do the time here, this can only apply to those who are also caught while still here.

Once we have to go to a British Court, cap in hand, to ask for their assistance to bring a foreign accused to justice, one cannot expect that Court to close its eyes to the injustices we inflict on our own prisoners.

 Nor can we expect a British Court to deprive a British citizen who at the time of the extradition application is on British soil, of that person’s European human rights simply because he is accused of being foolish enough to choose to commit a crime in country where human rights for prisoners are still a work in progress. After all, the English Court must start from the position, must it not, that all accused persons are presumed to be innocent?

 

 

 

MH 370: I'm sceptical about reports of rapid descent.

http://siegfriedwalther.blogspot.com/2014/04/mh370-24-april-2014-update.html

CNN has been reporting a new revelation which some aviation analysts are describing as a game changer. You will recall that about an hour into the flight MH 370, then flying at cruising altitude of 35 000 feet (Flight Level 350) signed off from Malaysian ATC in the Gulf of Thailand and then disappeared from Radar after the transponder was switched off.

New reports from an "insider" now suggest, for the first time, that at the time the transponder was switched off, military radar picked up the Airliner entering a steep dive to the left, and descended rapidly from FL 350 to around twelve thousand feet before disappearing from radar. Ten thousand feet is the altitude pilots head for during emergency descents since its an altitude where one can breath normally.

Apparently, some analysts who say that this information is a game changer, now suggest that this could be a pointer to some catastrophic technical or structural failure on board as opposed to the theory I favoured from day two on common sense grounds, and which a week later, I was belatedly joined by other aviation experts.

Whilst I still favour the theory of cockpit incursion or pilot involvement or a combination of both for reasons set out in two previous blogs, published on this site, it would be foolish to completely exclude the possibility of catastrophic failure or, such a decompression.

That said, my theory remains unchanged and I urge caution in regard to the latest "revalations."

First of all, radar mostly cannot determine an aircrafts altitude or speed without receiving such information from the aircraft's transponder which was off. Admittedly military radar does have better capability than civilian radar, but I understand that one needs to be reasonably close to the radar in order for any reliability to be attached to the readings.

Secondly, the timing of the turn, which occurred after handing off from one area controller, and before being handed over to the other, (which allowed the aircraft considerable time to slip away) is a little too convenient.

Thirdly, my previous point gets even stronger if one factors in the simultaneous switching off of the transponder and the aircraft's automated reporting systems. Quite frankly, the odds of all three these occurrences, all of which are suspicious, coincidentally being accompanied not only be a catastrophic failure, but one which also disabled these systems too, must be extremely remote. Any catastrophic event with all those consequences, and which prevent communication with ATC during descent, would have to be sufficiently catastrophic to bring the airliner down within the hour, which, by all accounts did not happen.

Finally, in order to reach the present search area in the Indian Ocean on the available fuel, the aircraft could not possibly have remained at 10 000 feet for any length of time. The air is too dense here and the much higher fuel consumption would have rendered any such lengthy flight impossible.

But here's the killer point, even if we assume that all the above did occur and that the aircraft was forced by some technical emergency to descend to 10 000 feet, this does not explain why the aircraft, then, instead of landing, must have, (if all the satellite pictures and news reports are correct), then ascended back to over thirty thousand feet in order to allegedly end up where the search planes are now looking. This could only occur with the assistance of a hijacker or a pilot with ill intentions.

Game changer then. Sorry, I'm having none of it from these so-called aviation experts unless you can produce a wreckage much closer to Malaysia. So far, nobody favours any such theory.

So, all this means two things. No game change, and do take the "rapid descent" story with a massive pinch of salt for now. Of course, new and proper information could still surprise us all.

Why there has to be a referendum in Crimea.

I believe that the current impasse between the USA and Russia over the Ukraine and Crimea can be resolved by permitting a proper referendum in Crimea about whether Crimea should opt for independence, remain as part of Ukraine, or be re-incorporated into Russia.

Most of the population of Crimea are Russian speaking and Crimea was in fact Russian a generation or so ago until Khrushchev of the former USSR granted it to the Ukraine.

Why that was done is a mystery to me since Russia has always sought a "warm" water port for its Black Sea Fleet. At present, its fleet is still in Crimea by agreement with the Ukraine.

However, since Crimea is presently part of the state of Ukraine, there are various conditions which must apply to the referendum.

Firstly, since any vote for independence or for reincorporation into Russia is constitutional in nature, a simple majority in any such referendum will not suffice. In order to change the status quo, the majority should be anything from 60% to the traditional two thirds mark. Perhaps a compromise of something between that would be in order.

Since Russia seems confident of overwhelming support of the people of Crimea, this should not present a problem to it.

Secondly, the referendum must permit the people of Crimea the choice to remain a part of the Ukraine. The present "illegal" referendum to be held tomorrow is illegal for many reasons, including its failure to permit the Crimeans a choice to remain a part of the Ukraine.

Thirdly, the referendum should be conducted under UN supervision and international monitors should be permitted.

Fourthly, the referendum should permit sufficient time and a proper democratic environment for people to conduct a proper campaign. The present conditions, in which armed Russian soldiers or militia are marching about, are intimidatory and not conducive to the conduct of a free and fair poll.

If Russia is so confident of the overwhelming support it claims and, to be fair, seems to have amongst the majority in Crimea, it should have no difficulty in agreeing to the above as a compromise.

The present referendum is a farce which will not be recognised internationally.

That said, I think the West has failed to recognise the fact that the spread of the EU towards Ukraine, and the growing number of NATO countries in former Soviet Bloc countries leaves Russians feeling uneasy. Russians see the Ukraine, and particularly Russian speaking parts of it, as part of their so-called "area of influence." A failure to appreciate that Russians feel a certain solidarity with Russian speakers in this area of influence -former Soviet republics which border on Russia - will do nothing to resolve the present impasse.

Malaysian airliner MH370: How close to the mark?

http://siegfriedwalther.blogspot.com/2014/04/mh370-24-april-2014-update.html


On Sunday evening already, I concluded that Cockpit Incursion or Crew (Pilot) Sabotage was the most likely cause of the missing airliner. This now seems to have become the governing theory.

Today is Friday, and little has changed. I argued on Sunday that the Airliner, if it maintained its course, ought to have crossed the Vietnam mainland after 1hour and fifteen minutes. I argued that any period in the Gulf of Thailand in excess of that must then be regarded as suspicious since the aircraft would clearly be in the wrong place.

The initial reports were that the airliner was last seen in the Gulf of Thailand, midway between Malaysia & Vietnam, after TWO HOURS. If this was so, I argued that the last forty five minutes of the flight on radar was suspicious since the airliner was in the wrong place.

Based on this, I was able to exclude catastrophic failure as a likely cause, since catastrophic failure is usually a sudden event which occurs quickly and seldom allows the pilots a chance to communicate with ATC. Since the pilots had 45 minutes of flying at cruising altitude, I concluded it was safe to exclude catastrophic failure. Had there been such a failure it would not have lasted forty five minutes. During the said "missing" 45 minutes, the pilots would have had sufficient chance to use one of the many communication systems on boards to communicate with ATC. Even the aircraft's sophisticated automated systems would have had a chance to send automated reports during those forty five minutes. No such reports were apparently sent we were told.

This is not to say that catastrophic failure can be excluded altogether, rather that it must move to the bottom of the pile of usual causes.

Mechanical failure can also be excluded for the same reason. Any mechanical failure which permits the aircraft to fly for another forty five minutes is also one which must allow the crew and the aircraft's automated alert message system a chance to communicate with ATC.

Pilot error could also be excluded, I felt, since I could not imagine a pilot error which would cause the pilots not to communicate with ATC for forty five minutes on any platform or one which would prevent the automated systems from broadcasting messages. The absence of:

1. ATC transmissions by Pilots for forty-five minutes;
2. The suspicious timing of the transponder being switched off, and no other unit being switched on in its place for forty five minutes, and
3. The apparent failure of the aircraft's automated systems to broadcast any messages to satellite to indicate any problems for forty five minutes 

           all happening at the same time for forty-five minutes suggests a deliberate attempt to interfere with these systems. All this suggested Hijack or Pilot Sabotage as the most likely cause of the disappearance and I went so far to aver that whoever interfered with these systems had knowledge of aircraft's systems.

It then transpired that the initial reports might have been wrong in that the aircraft's transponder went off after only an hour, shortly after handover from Malaysian ATC to Vietnam ATC. The aircraft said goodbye to Malaysian ATC, but never contacted Vietnam ATC and the aircraft's transponder was switched off.

This, I thought was the kiss of death to my theory since it permitted Mechanical Failure & catastrophic failure to return as theories.

Worse still, the false passport theory was also generally dismissed as being unrelated.

And yet, there remained various clues to suggest that my theory of Pilot Sabotage could yet hold water:

1. The Gulf of Thailand is shallow and relatively small and surrounded by many highly populated countries. The Gulf is also relatively shallow. So the failure to find the aircraft's wreckage again suggested that the aircraft may indeed have flown for some time after it disappeared from radar due to the transponder being switched off; Boats, people on the beaches in surrounding areas, search planes etc should have found something after four days.
2. Reports began to emerge that the aircraft may have turned around to attempt a return to Malaysia.  The longer the aircraft took to turn around, and to attempt a return, the more my theory in favour of pilot sabotage / cockpit incursion /hijacking must return to being the most prominent theory.
3. The timing of the transponder switch-off, immediately after being handed over to another area controller in Vietnam, is also a factor to be considered. It will be a while before Vietnam's area controller notices that the aircraft has not made contact. This would allow a pilot a chance to switch off the transponder without drawing attention of either the former area controller or the new controller for several minutes.
4. Further suggestions came to light that military radar spotted an unidentified aircraft heading from the Gulf of Thailand and crossing over Thailand. (Again, the aircraft is flying and is in the wrong place.)
5. Finally, it was suggested that there was one automated aircraft transmission to satellite which also placed the aircraft somewhere heading towards the Indian Ocean. This system apparently also stopped transmitting.
6. Apparently the latest is that aircraft automated messages indicate aircraft was flying on a new and recognised route towards the South West. This seems self evidently deliberate. Aircraft don't usually change course without being programmed to do so by changing the autopilot heading hold or changing the route the Autopilot Nav is using.

Taken together, and if some or all of the above are true, then it serves to exclude Pilot Error, Catastrophic failure, Mechanical failure as likely causes and it elevates Pilot Sabotage or Hijacking or Terrorism(with or without pilot involvement) by people who know aircraft systems well.

If I am correct, I still don't have any theory as to the reason for the said conduct or as to what eventually occurred. Was it pilot suicide by one of the pilots? If so, why wait so long? Was it a failed attempt to gain an airliner to use it as a missile by flying it into a US base in the Indian Ocean? Was it a bomb that eventually went off by accident. Has the plane landed somewhere and are the passengers currently hostages? I understand that many relatives are praying for this possibility which seems to be their only hope, albeit an unlikely one. I hope for a miracle!

Who knows what actually occured? These are the real questions which cannot be answered before the aircraft is found.

Missing Malaysian 777, Cockpit Interference likely scenario

See Map Below & Timeline on it:

Whilst it is inadvisable to speculate about the causes of any air crash prior to the wreckage being recovered and a proper investigation is conducted, certain of the facts which have come to light scream that a deliberate unlawful act occurred.


Most likely, this involved one of the pilots, perhaps both. Others may also have been involved.

 

We are informed by the Malaysian authorities that the aircraft may, according to Military radar, have turned to return to Kuala Lampur.

 

If the crew experienced a sudden emergency, their failure to communicate with ATC would not be strange. However, it is difficult to conceive of an emergency which would have prevented one of the crew from using one of the on-board systems to communicate for an entire forty five minutes.

 

If indeed the pilots felt it necessary to return to Kuala Lampur, communicating their intentions prior to doing so is standard protocol. Perhaps an emergency prevented this from occurring immediately.  But failing to communicate the change in intentions for forty-five minutes is almost unprecedented.

 

I refuse to accept that the pilots were unable to use one of the many means of contacting ATC to advise of the emergency during this period. The aircraft’s transponder code can be changed to indicate cockpit intrusion or some other emergency such as failed radios. We know that the transponder was probably working since this is how the flight was tracked and identified.

Apart from various radios, an on board “texting” system also exists.  

 

I can only conclude that if neither pilot was involved, other parties, must have prevented the pilots from using any of these methods to communicate during the controversial last forty five minutes of the flight. Alternatively, it seems one or more pilots chose not to use these methods to communicate.

The fact of the matter is, if one or both pilots wished to make an aircraft disappear, the moment to do so in this flight would be after hand-off from Kuala Lampur but before communicating with Vietnamese ATC.

More later....

 

 

 

 

 

Malaysian Flight MH370 777 Missing

See Blog of http://siegfriedwalther.blogspot.com/2014/04/mh370-24-april-2014-update.html
for last and latest update


Malaysian 777 missing on flight from Kuala Lampur to Beijing, China. Reports suggest aircraft went missing two hours into flight. If so, reports from a Vietnamese Naval officer that  the aircraft went down in near Vietnam in Gulf of Thailand makes no sense. It would take no more than one hour and fifteen minutes for the 777 to cross the Vietnam coast from Kuala Lampur. i.e. Unless the aircraft had problems or was forced to turn around.

Edit: It now seems that the airline dropped from radar one hour after take-off. That would indeed place it in the Gulf of Thailand, around 15 min cruise flight from crossing Vietnam's coast. Estimate it crashed around 200km from point it would have crossed mainland, all things being equal.

The lack of any ATC transmission or any electronic transmissions from any automated systems suggests, unfortunately, a likely catastrophic event or mid-air break up.

Structural damage? Terrorism. Another Air France 447 type incident is unlikely despite the similarities. There were too many accidents like that prior to 447 to prevent all airlines from learning the lessons about how to deal with pitot tube failure and about how to handle airliners at high altitude.

The fact that two passengers were on false passports is worrying. Can't imagine that anyone on a false passport would pick China of all countries to try and mislead authorities. The price for failure would be very high. Leads me to wonder whether they intended to reach their destination.

Anyhow. Will have to wait for more evidence before trying to work out what occurred.

Watch this space.