The disappearance of the Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 on a routine flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing has become one of the greatest mysteries of aviation history-especially as no wreckage has been found after several years. There is only indirect evidence of its flight path for the latter part of its flight after contact was lost, of course there has been speculation as to the causes, so I thought I would add my own theory to the mix.
Initially a brief introduction to the relevant features of radar, communications between ground and plane and the role of the ACARS system are discussed as they are critical to understand the sequence of events.
However, careful analysis of available data does provide several indicators of what caused the aircraft to disappear. The fact of communications being switched off at a critical time indicates deliberate action by someone flying the plane. There is a small possibility of a sudden fire or explosion currently, but this does not seem to satisfactorily explain later events.
The path of the aircraft was tracked by primary radar as making several turns which could be interpreted as attempts to avoid detection by radar. Due to negligence by various authorities (mainly the Malaysian aviation authorities and air force, also the Vietnamese air traffic control) no prompt action was taken to investigate the unusual path of the aircraft. It would have been possible to send up fighter aircraft to intercept the airliner. This would not have prevented the disaster, but a knowledge of its path would have made it much easier to track it until it crashed, and the wreckage would have been recovered promptly, especially if the black boxes were recovered.
A brief description of the analysis of the Inmarsat data is given at this point, so that its implications are understood.
From this data, it appears clear that the aircraft flew steadily for several hours in a straight line which would be consistent with flying with the automatic pilot even if the flight crew were dead or unresponsive. An approximate time of the crash could be estimated, but even then, there is uncertainty about the point of impact as the aircraft could have glided for a long distance after fuel exhaustion.
Another point which has not been highlighted much is that the satellite communication system was working all the time, but there was no response to two calls made by the Malaysian authorities to the aircraft after it had disappeared from the radar.
Based on the evidence available today, it can be concluded that the disappearance of MH 370 was most likely due to deliberate action of somebody in the cockpit, which would almost certainly be the pilot or the co-pilot or both. Hijacking by other persons seems to be ruled out as thorough investigations have been carried out on all the passengers. There is indirect evidence which seems to indicate the pilot was responsible, though it is difficult to understand the motives behind such an act.
Another possible scenario involves a sudden intensive fire in the cockpit which incapacitated the pilots and destroyed the communication systems. There has been one instance of a sudden fire in a Boeing 777 cockpit in 2011 which caused destruction of the aircraft. This scenario may explain some of the evidence, but it is strange that there was no distress call made. And it seems strange that a severe fire did not result in the destruction of the aircraft at an earlier stage. It is possible that the wreckage may never be found. And even if it is found, the exact sequence of events may never be clear. But there are some pointers to what can be done to ensure that such accidents never occur again. These are:
1) Managerial: clearly there was a long delay in realizing something was wrong and taking corrective action-for which various agencies were responsible. It is quite likely that such an occurrence in other parts of the world would have been dealt with more promptly.
2) Real-time monitoring of a flight always is possible with the satellite communication systems available today. This has not been implemented yet due to the cost factor, but costs of data transmission through satellite have dropped considerably in recent years.
3) If this is implemented then the need to locate the “black boxes” is less as the data would be transmitted in real time and could be recovered immediately.
4) There have been several incidents where airliners have crashed with heavy casualties due to some deliberate action by the pilot or co-pilot (leaving aside hijackers). This aspect needs to be studied more carefully.
MH370: Could the missing Malaysian Airlines plane finally be found?
The disappearance of a Malaysia Airlines flight, carrying 239 passengers and crew, is one of the world’s biggest aviation mysteries. a British aeronautical engineer, who has spent more than a year working on the disaster, thinks he has calculated where MH370 crashed.
Richard Godfrey believes the Boeing 777 crashed into the Indian Ocean 2,000km west of Perth, Western Australia, the aircraft vanished from radar during a flight in March 2014. “we’ll be able to give closure to the next of kin and answers to the flying public and the aviation industry on exactly what happened with MH370 and how we prevent that in the future”.
Godfrey combined different data sets that were previously kept in separate domains, to align to this new location in the Southern Indian Ocean. he said it was a “complicated exercise”, but previously there was simply a lack of lateral thinking, across multiple disciplines, to bring this together.
“No one had the idea before to combine Inmarsat satellite data, with Boeing performance data, with Oceanographic floating debris drift data, with WSPR net data,” he said. work with his team has been progressing for a year now, and “we’ve done quite a lot of testing of this new idea, and we’ve came to the confidence to apply it to MH370”.
Having “filtered out the needle in the haystack”. It looks like the riddle of flight MH370 has been solved, the exact point determined by data calculations is around 33 degrees south and 95 degrees east in the Indian Ocean. There have been two extensive searches of the Indian Ocean for MH370, which have yielded inconclusive results.
The searches have cost hundreds of millions of dollars, and whilst there is demand from family members to find their loved ones, the costs associated are enormous.
“It’s really just been an ongoing nightmare. There is never an end. We just seem to be going in circles and hitting one brick wall after another.
“We’ve been hoping for the longest time for something new – a new breakthrough, something new that would warrant the search starting again and at least there being a more precise location for the search being conducted at and to increase the odds of finding the plane”
Ms Nathan, a criminal defence lawyer who lives in Kuala Lumpur, wants the new data to be tested by aviation experts who can understand the science and physics behind the location and to test the theory is credible. “We welcome all new findings, especially as in this case it is based on tangible evidence. It’s things that can be calculated. It’s not based on just Google images or loose things that can’t be backed up.” At 4,000 metres deep “The wreckage could be behind a cliff or in a canyon on the ocean floor,” “And you need maybe three or four passes before you start to pick things up.” The wreckage could lie as far as 4,000 metres deep, Dr. Bill Pomfret added. More than thirty pieces of aircraft debris have been washed up on the beaches of the African coast and islands in the Indian Ocean.
“I’ve done a lot of work on information systems and handling lots of data and that’s important on this analysis. There is a huge amount of data to get through and filter out the needle in the haystack.”
Dr. Bill Pomfret expects there to be a new search, saying: “The funding of the new search will be the issue.
Given that we now have additional accurate data as to where the crash site might be, that appears to be entirely credible and consistent with other theories”.
The timing and launch of another search will depend on the availability of specially designed equipment and the sea state.
Pomfret said: “Realistically we want to be in the Southern Ocean in the southern summer – which is about now. So quite when the search will be, it may start again in 12 months, because you can’t get the assets together and on site in a short period of time, I think either the Chinese will take responsibility and look for their victims. Or private companies might search, sponsored by insurance companies.”.
“Any decision to resume the search for the aircraft would be a matter for the Malaysian government, as the state of registry of the aircraft.”
Dr. Bill Pomfret concluded: “It’s in the interests of global aviation safety that this plane is found so we can prevent something like this happening in the future, “It goes beyond our need for our closure.”
BIO:
Dr Bill Pomfret; MSc; FIOSH; RSP. FRSH;
Founder & President.
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