Tuesday, March 11, 2014

A new conspiracy on MH370?

No debris. No oil slick. No emergency beacons triggered. No nothing.



Where is MH370?

Though I am an avid reader of science fiction and believe there's a lot we don't know yet, just as our ancient forefathers weren't aware that the earth was a circular globe (and not a flat landscape) which circled the sun rather than the other way around, I don't believe or have yet to bring myself to believe in a Bermuda Triangle.

I decided to lean on Air Chief Rodzali Daud's claim that Butterworth military radar might have detected MH370 turning around from its original track towards China.



'Might have' is the operative word, meaning military radar saw a return on its screen but there was no Secondary Surveillance Radar (SSR) or transponder information giving its identity (callsign or flight number) and flight information (altitude, speed, etc), but which the air force believes to be MH370.

The search in the Malacca Straits has also been another puzzle. I had in an earlier post described it as a desperate' measure, though I had generously and understandingly said:

That MAS and the DCA have even scoured the Straits of Malacca have been an indication they covered every possibility including the highly unlikely probability of MH370 flying in the opposite direction, not when it's equipped with modern navigational aids and that it was already reported over the South China Sea off our peninsula east coast.

But desperate for information, they did the desperate act. I can't blame them for covering every conceivable angle including the 'backyard'.


But when there's nothing, zilch, zero, nada, meiyu in the South China Sea, then where could MH370 be? On land in Vietnam or even Cambodia?

I had even stretched my thinking into suspecting that it was brought down by accidental missile fire or had encountered an accidental air collision with one of those black ops drone of a country which is capable of intercontinental operations with its vast stable of military drones.

But I hesitate to be the culprit of a conspiracy theory based on mere suspicions. Besides, where were the consequential debris of a MH370 being shot down or involved in a fatal air collision with a military drone? A sanitizing cleanup by those responsible? Too farfetched lah!

But Straits of Malacca? Yes, it then drew me into merging that fact with Air Chief Rodzali Daud's claim of MH370 'turning around'.

Of course, a disintegrating aircraft either due to structural failure or an onboard explosion would have been spun/tossed around to give radar the impression of its change of direction, as had been the case for Air France 447 where investigators said the aircraft changed directions a number of times after it went out of control following its deep stall. But then, where were the debris?

When reporters asked the DCA director-general Azharuddin Abdul Razak about the necessity of a search of the Malacca Straits his answer was, to say the least, most cryptic, being: "There are some things that I can tell you and some things that I can't."

That was when an alarm bell rang in my head.

I began to suspect they knew more than what they were prepared to let the public know. But to be fair to them, I remind you all that what Air Chief Rodzali Daud had said was 'military radar might have ...'

In other words, they weren't even sure whether that blip on the air force defence radar was MH370?

Today, Malaysiakini has a scoop of sorts when it reported MH370 detected above Malacca Straits at 2.40am and quoted Air Force chief Rodzali Daud saying MH370 might have reversed course further than expected while on its scheduled flight.

Now, what follows is the best bit so hold on to your horse while not forgetting to remember that what Rodzali Daud had said has been qualified as ‘might have’ rather than for sure:

Based on military radar readings from its station in Butterworth, MH370 may have turned west after Kota Bahru and flew past the east coast and Kedah, and that "The last time the plane was detected was near Pulau Perak, in the Straits of Malacca, at 2.40am."



For a start, it explains the anomaly of the two different times given for losing contact with MH370, to wit, 1.30am and 2.40am. 

Now at least we know the former was the time MH370 disappeared from ATC radar while the latter was the time 'what was suspected to be a radar blip of MH370' disappeared from military radar.

But then, why is Malaysia still conducting and allowing allied and neighbouring nations to conduct searches over the South China Sea?

I suspect it's because the Malaysian SAR authorities still aren't all that sure whether that radar blip was indeed that of MH370.

But the possibility it was is growing stronger every day they can't find any evidence in the South China Sea.

If indeed MH370 was that blip on the air force radar, then what had happened for the aircraft to fly in an opposite direction, why was its transponder (and radio) switched off, where had it gone to, and most important of all, where is it now as its fuel endurance had long been exhausted.

What did its Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS), an automated digital datalink system for transmission of aircraft technical & performance data between an aircraft and MAS ground stations, independent of pilots activation), say?

I need to think a bit more.

To be continued ... (hopefully).

33 comments:

  1. I suspect the military is reluctant to say what they can and cannot confirm because it would reveal limitations of Malaysia's air defence radar system.

    State of the art digital military radar + software can ID and track hundreds of objects in the air, as well as pin down their longitude, and latitude location, at least up to the resolution and range of the radar, up to the latest radar sweep.
    They just needed to match the recorded track with Subang air control's transponder data from MH370 to confirm which blip belonged to MH370.
    The Americans, British, Australians, Chinese and - yes - Singapore military - have such systems, but I'm not sure Malaysia's capabilities.

    The Americans had the opposite problem when the shooting down of KAL 007 occurred. They had everything - clear recordings of the Soviet pilot vs. ground control conversation, second-by-second radar tracking of location, attitude and altitude of the Korean plane, various Soviet fighters sent to intercept. The US military was reluctant to expose to the whole world their extensive ELINT capabilities - it took a Presidential order from Reagan to release the information at the UN Security Council session, even then heavily censored. There was the other question - if the US military knew what was occurring at that time, why didn't they do something to prevent the tragedy from happening - call the Soviets, try to call the Korean airliner, do something....?

    If MH370 crashed far from the last known position, that would explain a lot of what is happening now - but WHERE is the plane ?
    MH370 still had enough fuel to fly as far as India or far into the Indian Ocean.
    What caused the plane to lose all communications but still able to fly ?

    What if there were survivors at the moment of the crash - certainly dead by now ?

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  2. The way the search is unfolding is symptomatic of what is wrong with so much else which is Wrong with the Malaysian Government.
    Lack of Competence, Lack of Accountability and Lack of Transparency.
    I don't want to say much more about this out of respect for the pain of those whose loved ones are still missing, and the need to continue searching for the missing plane.



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  3. 'what was suspected to be a radar blip of MH370'
    Padam muka. As the country still using 1970's system. A plane with transponder turn off fly pass Bolehland(TM) and does not trigger any alert?
    You can bet USA 7th fleet happily send their drone fly pass Bolehland(TM) without problem, stealth? Why waste money on stealth drone when you just fly pass a place without worries.

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  4. The case of pilot suicide has become more likely.

    Has the police investigated the two pilots for possible sign of mental stress? Anyone going through their personal memos/letters/computer files?

    Just remember, the lost of total telecommunication links COULD be caused by someone switching them off intentionally.

    Let do a hypothesis scenario;

    After taken off from KLIA & reaching cruising altitude, everyone were settling down to their own business. Time, just after 0100.

    Suddenly one of the pilot changed flight direction by overriding the auto-pilot engagement, which was normally set at cruising altitude & doing an ATB at about 0130. He also turned off all the telecommunication links. Thus the plane is now dark to all ATC's radars.

    Sometime later, the other pilot discovered course changed & start querying his colleague about this unscheduled change. He probably also noticed that all the flight comm links had been turned off. Time ~0200.

    A scuffle happened within the cockpit. One thing led to another, the plane stalled due to lost of manual control & started to lost altitude fast. Time ~02.20

    http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/aviation-lawyer-mary-schiavo-said-malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370-may-have-stalled-before-crashing-into-the-sea/story-fnizu68q-1226851545011

    By 0240 plane hit water at region North of Strait of Malacca, disintegrated on hard impact & sink. This accounted for the military radar's last blip.

    Fiction?

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    Replies
    1. Re the link, I believe Ms Schiavo is too much influenced by the Air France case, about the aircraft stalling. If MH370 has inadvertently stalled, there was more than sufficient height for the aircraft to recover even if both pilots took NO action. Air France 447 was in a totally different situation where severe icing had rendered the airspeed indicator unserviceable and certain systems protection were also displaced due to the plane's systems being run by alternative laws/modes kicking into play. MH370 was in good clear weather. Ignore Ms Schiavo's suggestion.

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    2. I've thought about what u mentioned.

      But remember if the plane was on manual & nobody was piloting it then it couldnt correct automatically the stalling of the plane.

      The single body hard impact, with few large broken wreckages could also explain why there wasnt any large amount of debris. In fact, as in AF447, most of the passengers died while still trapping in their seats as confirmed by the salvages 2 yrs later.

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    3. re-establishing stable trimmed flight from a stall without pilot input is NOT dependent on the autopilot. It's the pilot's trimming of the aircraft into a specific flight profile (straight & level, climb or descent) which an unstalled aircraft will return to once it has recovered from the stall - if there is sufficient height (which MH370 had, all 35000 feet of it) then an aircraft stalling will progresses by itself into recovery, unless of course deliberately held on by a pilot.

      But why should one of the MH370 pilots take the trouble of changing aircraft flight direction if he wanted to commit suicide? He could have done it earlier, at 1.30 am, the last position heading towards China before the aircraft was said (by air force) to have changed direction or better still much much earlier, during takeoff which would be the most dangerous part of a flight. I would rule out the suicide part.

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  5. Hmmmm..........Why the military now say that MH370 is tracked to Malacca straits instead

    http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/malaysian-military-now-reveals-it-tracked-mh370-to-malacca-straits

    If suicide is ruled out, then what next? Hijack? Pilot or Equipment error

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtXQTfRFh7o

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    Replies
    1. Your good friend, CLF in Aussie land is holding his breath.......Then for you guys to meet up........Hahahaha! Aiyaaa.....

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  6. This surprise on the 4th day of the search is utterly unacceptable.
    You cannot spring this kind of surprise on the public and the anguished families.
    Have they been looking in the wrong place ?

    Who the F*k is in charge here ?
    Don't they realise the whole world is watching us ?
    Right now, apart from the on-going crisis in Ukraine, the biggest international news story is MH370. Its front page on CNN, AlJazeera, BBC, New York Times, Times of London.

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    1. actually after back reading the news I discovered the Air Chief Rodzali Daud had mentioned MH370's change of direction on 9th, just one day after the aircraft was reported missing. That was when teh authorities began searching the Straits, But I agree they had kept mum about the air force observation

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  7. A big question - how do the military radar identified that the blip it tracked was MH370?

    The ATC from DCA can do that due to the feedback from the transponder fixed on the plane.

    Whereas the military radar works purely on tracked echo. It could follow the blip & tagged the plane iff it was done right from the beginning of the trace. There r more sophistical electronic gadget that can do more but the Msian air-force has none of those available, thus the hesitation in confirming the blip's identity until all options were exhausted & guesstimate took over.

    Now if the military radar had locked onto MH370 right from when it took of from ground & discovered that it had done a ATB, why was there NO alarm raised. The ATB could be caused by unforeseen circumstances - plane hijack, equipment failure etc. The military personnel tracking this blip should had called forward to the ATC for emergency preparation.

    Apparently it didn't & continue tracking it to the air space above Pulau Perak at the Strait of Malacca until it disappeared.

    Now, ever since 911, any civilian/commercial aircraft doing an unscheduled route diversion in uncharted air space would be met with fighter plane escorting until it landed. Why didn't the M'sian air-force doing so?

    Tak tau? Tak apa? Or no SOP for unauthorized air space intrusion? Is that why the 'training' jet fighters of red-dot treat the Johor air space as their backyard-come & go as they please?

    Many questions & yet no straight answers about the fate of MH370!

    Meanwhile all the correctly inferred answers point to;

    A) zero crisis management ability
    B) porous (maybe none) border defense & surveillance setup

    Perhaps all the on-going prayers should add another tag for the future of this memang bolihland!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. the military also can read transponder transmissions but MH370's SSR was switched off - don't know why. I can of course speculate but that's as far as I can do - in my next posting as I prefer to await more information before I speculate

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  8. the mean machine11:40 pm, March 11, 2014

    Like the jet liner that belly landed at the Hudson River in Manhattan,the missing jet then could sank to the bottom of the ocean and it will take ages to locate the plane.If it do crash there will at least be debris ,wreakage or fire and will be easily spotted.Or it could have dis-intergrated at high attitudes and never be found forever.

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  9. This is a very serious allegation

    http://my.news.yahoo.com/legal-limbo-hampers-probe-missing-mas-plane-142134965.html

    No wonder ktemoc's alter ego, CL Flamiaris are beri upset! Seriously I really hope that it does not resemble Lahad Datu 2.0. OMG!

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  10. Right now my kampung Bomoh may have as much chance of finding MH 370 as the Malaysian military.....

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  11. I know where it is.

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  12. The riddle on the baggage of the five people who check-in but did not board Flight MH370 - re the contradictory statements by DCA, IGP and MAS - is enough to make a joke on a very material information. Malaysia is making the whole world laughing.

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  13. M'sian govt becomes the joker of the world;

    http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/malaysian-authorities-slammed-for-contradicting-statements-in-search-for-mh

    Meanwhile, another BIG contradiction;

    http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/malaysias-air-force-chief-denies-saying-mh370-detected-over-malacca-strait

    Hey, perkasa where r u? R u not going to raise up to defense yr race maruah, since the criticisms r all directed at a majority blur-sotong controlled/ran/managed govt?

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    1. “Hey, perkasa where r u? R u not going to raise up to defense yr race maruah, since the criticisms r all directed at a majority blur-sotong controlled/ran/managed govt?”

      Hello you blur anon…

      Comment by anon 7.49am March 11 2014 on post “MH370 - claim of responsibility by Chinese terrorist group a hoax?” ; and also comment on this post by anon 6.58am were by hasan [your blur sotong].

      KT… since yesterday I am using a different IP. I am having some problem with the IP that I normally used.

      Kind regards,

      - hasan

      Delete
  14. This is what we're are pressing on - what Anon 11.22pm says make correct sense. Since 9/11, there are new protocols since civilian aircrafts have been used for an act of war. The US president has a call whether to shoot down a civilian airliner if it is in direct danger to other civilian lives.

    By 3am, then 4am.. as KTee mentions, the next stage should be in place. Now RMAF says that it was traced by them for another hour at a lower altitude. Due to the blunders in the last few days like the 2 criminals, the 5 off loaded luggage etc, is this another back track & blunder? RMAF should have been scrambled around 3.00-3.30am based on 9/11 experience.

    In our discussion the last few days in this blog, we can finally establish that SAR is the responsibility of DCA. However, when did the DCA DG appear? It either before noon or shortly after noon to take a press conference. From 9.30am till late morning, it was MAS CEO fielding questions.

    This points that no one knew who should be in charge, let alone the involvement of our armed forces or missing ministers.

    As for the photos of the 2 criminals, was it so hard to release the photos earlier so that we can clear one element? Even KTee's Thai sweetie came out to say something after Thai police interviewed the tour agent and quickly tracked down the Iranian who purchased the tickets.

    What is clear is that everyone in control tower was waiting for 6.30am to arrive in order to establish contact with BJ. Then the protocols started.

    This morning piece give a definitive view on how we handle protocols, security & "friendly" entities:

    http://www.thestar.com.my/Opinion/Columnists/Along-The-Watchtower/Profile/Articles/2014/03/12/Security-lapse-extends-beyond-airports/

    A leader and his/her quality always shine in a crisis of this magnitude. Where was our commander in chief? He was leaving it to the boys while freeing up space to introduce RM1 chickens (which we know do not exist unless in some alternate chicken universe). Who ever handles his PR needs to be shot.

    From the latest info, it makes the pilot look bad. He took a "joy" ride, cut all communication unknown to his crew before plunging the jet. Hopefully the truth be told, that RMAF has made another judgment call error for all our sakes, especially people on the flight.

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    1. Anon 9.36am,
      Well said!
      The reported confusion and ineptness managing this crisis are grounds enough for the families to sue the RMAF, MAS officials and the DCA

      Delete
    2. http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/failure-to-manage-mh370-crisis-exposing-malaysias-leadership-limit-say-anal

      Delete
  15. Anon 09:28,
    There're lots of what's-not-right with the way the crisis been handled. But to bring in the "race" element here is equally not right too, to put it nicely..


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    1. This is ONLY a reminder about the double face of perkasa! The race issue is there for them to take!

      Teresa was easy meat - bcoz she is a 'pendatang'.

      Now facing international criticism, suddenly ibrahim/zulklifi silenced as mosque mouse, with their koro sign everywhere.

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  16. By this inept approach, we are now "victimizing" the passengers. CNN's newscaster trying not to laugh but with new trajectory and 7 hours travel fuel, he is implying jet could be in Indian Ocean and new grid to be established.

    Vietnam has just called off the search because getting mixed signals or undisclosed info. This means that China will take up the slack especially moving their frigates into the Straits of Malacca which Asean opposes. But what are they suppose to do? Are our ministers on-line with Vietnam & China or is that the role of IGP & DCA?

    Due to 4th day disclosure, its probably not bomb. Now its up to radar triangulation with other air controls both civilian and army plus satellite photos from China and other space agencies to re-confirm "back tracking" hypothesis. Time is ticking and we are about to start a global "where the hell" search....

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  17. A new twist in the misery ???? Now military says the flight has changed it path towards Malacca and after that they lost the signal ... then what ??? even with the advanced technology we are unable to track an missing aircraft ... its shame ..... common some one trace it down ...

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  18. MH370 could well be UMNO-Jib's "Katrina moment".

    The Bush Administration's incompetent handling of the Hurricane Katrina crisis led to the loss of trust among the American public. Thereafter he was just a very lame duck President. It was Katrina , more than Iraq or other issues which destroyed his Presidency.
    Malaysia doesn't have that sort of open press, so UMNO-Jib may well survive for a long time more, protected by the Utusan-TV3 Kampung crowd and the Long-house crowd. But a big chunk of the more well informed public won't trust them anymore.

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  19. I think most Malaysians will not want to bring race into this crisis, but my Australian friend, who is a retired engineering lecturer from an Australian university sent me this observation.

    "It is apparent from the international news coverage of this crisis that the Malaysian government is an almost mono-ethnic institution. Surely your country needs to utilise its very best talent, .
    In my time, I had many very bright Malaysian students in my classes. Many of the best engineering and mathematical brains from your country are ethnic Chinese and Indians. I don't see any of them in your government, certainly not in this tragic crisis".

    I think my friend is not being racist, he's just stating the obvious.

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  20. Another magic involved ?
    Usually only magicians will not reveal anything.

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  21. The transponder was not switched off at 1:21am. MH370 gave some transponder returns three hours after take off at 3:49am to 3:51am.

    Also the radar track of an aircraft flying over Pelau Perak to waypoint MEKAR at 29,500ft is faked. MEKAR is beyond the radar horizon from Butterworth.

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    1. Rodzali did NOT mention tracking MH370 to MEKAR. What he said was "The last time the plane was detected was near Pulau Perak, in the Straits of Malacca, at 2.40am."

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