Where is MH370, or where MH370 is?

Continuing from my previous post A new conspiracy on MH370?, which was based on what Air Force Chief Rodzali Daud said, that: "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", I'm going to ignore his denial today of his alleged statement above.

Even though some of our Malaysian media reporters are renowned (or notorious) for their 'creativity', wakakaka, there are too far too many details in above statement allegedly (though now denied) by Rodzali Daud for it to be just another of their 'creativity'.

Yes, to an extent I believe in the details of that statement though as I had posted earlier, it's qualified by Rodzali's 'MH370 might have ...'.

Also my inclination to believe in Rodzali's statement has been influenced by the circumstances where nothing has so far been found in the South China Sea as well as DCA director-general Azharuddin Abdul Razak's answer to reporters querying about the necessity of a search of the Malacca Straits: "There are some things that I can tell you and some things that I can't."

And I suspect poor Rodzali Daud has being told off by higher ups for upsetting a number of people including the Vietnamese government with his revelation.

The Viet government has now suspended its search because they feel (rightfully so) being 'played out' by the Malaysian authorities for not sharing complete information on MH370. Not good for international/ASEAN relationships lah!

First of all, let me get rid of a few unnecessary interference to what I wish to discuss with you, as follows:

(a) I'm going to ignore that sleazy story coming out from Australian media about two sweeties and the MH370 copilot Fariq in a flight from Phuket to KL. The downside of a free Australian media is that some of the media misuse their freedom during their strive for higher ratings by promoting gossipy scandals.

Recently their vulture-like antics in Bali during the paroling (conditional release) of an imprisoned Aussie woman jailed by the Indons for possession of drugs ten years ago, Schapelle Corby, had nearly caused the paroled woman to be re-imprisoned.

They paid Schapelle's sister, a least admirable character, to comment on/review Schapelle's case, during which the sister offended the Indonesian government by suggesting that Schapelle was framed with the marijuana by someone in Indon, implying Schapelle was wrongly convicted and thus wrongly imprisoned. She subsequently apologized profusely when she realized her big mouth would have re-imprisoned Schapelle.

But hell, Australian media loves such shit, as they did years ago when they bought wholesale the fabricated story of MAS maintenance f**king up the servicing of Qantas aircraft when MAS didn't even have any contract to do so on that particular type of Qantas Boeing. Ignore them and their offering of shameful sleaze about a man who's now missing and grieved over by his family.

(b) I believe Interpol has more or less ascertained that the two blokes with stolen passports were not terrorists but rather Iranian refugees seeking to join their relatives in Europe.

(c) Pilot's suicide. This has become a somewhat popular notion/suspicion with the Western press and authorities since 9/11, but as I commented in my previous post, why would the pilots (or one of them if you like) go to such an extent (turned back etc) if they or he wanted to commit suicide when he could have well done that at any point on the way to Beijing?

Okay, let's get on to my speculation, much as I don't want to speculate, but aiyah, in the absence of any new finding by the Search authorities, will now do so.

Let's recapitulate what we have learned from Rodzali's statement: "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".

• There was a turn back.

• not in above statement but in another Rodzali's briefing, that MH370 changed level to a lower one (am not sure by one thousand metres or one thousand feet). Though a report said that Singapore ATC also recorded data from MH370 indicating a change of level, that report suggested the aircraft climbed to a higher one. I'll ignore the report about Singapore ATC (though it won't make any difference to what I want to say) and accept the earlier one by the RMAF that MH370 descended to a lower level - I'll come back to this later.

The above two points are very significant because they denote that MH370 was still being flown by a professional pilot, whether he was in full consciousness or partially physically impaired, more likely the latter.

In order to explain that, we need to learn just a brief understanding of the selection of IFR cruising levels, where IFR stands for Instrument Flight Rules.

I would dare say 99.99% of airline aircraft fly IFR or are REQUIRED to fly IFR because IFR provide better airspace and separation protection for passenger carrying aircraft.

As I would require more than 10 pages wakakaka to explain the superiority in safety and airspace protection of flying in accordance to IFR instead of VFR (Visual Flight Rules), just accept from me that airlines fly such rules - trust me, I'm a Penangite, wakakaka. The rare exceptions would be some smaller airlines operating in, say, Nepal or perhaps Alaska, or even Australia. High grounds like the Himalayas aren't very friendly with low flying aircraft on IFR.

MH370 was heading out to Beijing in a directional sector contained between the magnetic tracks of 000 degrees (North magnetic) to 179 degrees (almost South magnetic) and so in accordance with IFR, would fly at ODD thousands of feet such as, say, 21,000 feet, 29,000 feet or as was its flight level, 35,000 feet. This is known variously as IFR Cruising Level Rules or Hemispherical IFR Rules or in earlier times, Semi-Circular Rules.

Flights on tracks in a directional sector contained between 180 degrees (South magnetic) to 359 degrees (almost North magnetic) would fly at EVEN thousands of feet such as, say, 20,000 feet, 28,000 feet or 34,000 feet.

The IFR imposed vertical separation rules are further divided into RVSM (Reduced Vertical Separation Minima) and non-RVSM rules. Suffice to say, MAS B777 being a modern airline aircraft with modern navigational-electronic equipment would have been flying the RVSM rules, so MH370 was at 35,000 feet on its way to Beijing.

Once above a certain altitude, the altitude of the aircraft are called 'levels' instead of altitude and abbreviated to just 3 digits such as Flight Level 350 or further abbreviated to FL350 (35,000 feet based on standard ICAO-designated pressure setting).

I won't go into technical details about these aviation niceties because apart from a rough understanding they are not all that relevant to our appreciation of my earlier statement that "The above two points are very significant because they denote that MH370 was still being flown by a professional pilot, whether he was in full consciousness or partially physically impaired."

When MH370 made a turn back, supposedly to KL, the aircraft was noted to have descended, meaning a professional pilot was at its controls and obviously one who appreciated the rules requiring him to fly at EVEN Levels. Thus I suspect he wanted to cruise at, say FL340 or even (if the descent was in thousands of metres) FL320.

Hardly the actions of a suicidal pilot to comply with the Hemispherical IFR Rules of Cruising Levels!

What about Rodzali Daud's statement that "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" and why not Kuala Lumpur?

To answer this, I wish to take you all back to my first post about MH370, namely, Mystery of MAS MH370 where I discussed my thoughts about WHAT could have happened. I had then written:

One factor stands out clearly and indisputably: the crew did not make contact with either Malaysian or Vietnamese air traffic control (ATC) to inform them of any flight problem.

That can mean a couple of things: (a) they were prevented from doing so, or (b) they didn't have time to do so.

The former is less likely as there are ways and means for the flight deck crew (pilots, and in some bigger aircraft like B747, flight engineer) to communicate with ATC, even when under duress or threat. I can't go any further than this.

Thus I opine that it would have been the latter, that was the flight deck crew (the 2 pilots) didn't have time to do so, because of a few possibilities, namely:

(a) gradual depressurization where they and the rest on board suffered incremental hypoxia (deprivation of sufficient supply of oxygen) without realizing that was happening and thus went into, worst case scenario, unconsciousness followed by death.

Again this seems unlikely as the aircraft would then have continued flying on autopilot even if both pilots were unconscious, until the fuel ran out and the aircraft crashed. MH370 carried enough fuel to reach Beijing plus an extra hour of reserve.

Such a fate happened to a light turboprop aircraft in Australia (I think it was a Beech King Air) which took off from either Perth or Adelaide and ended its fatal pilot-less flight around the Darwin area, as well as to an executive Lear jet in the USA some years ago, in which professional golfer Payne Stewart plus five other people crashed after drifting across the country for hours with the pilot (and all passengers) probably unconscious from hypoxia.

The remaining possibility would be something happening with such swiftness that both pilot were caught unaware with no time to transmit a distress call.

Let's ignore the last paragraph about 'the reminding possibility' and return to the issue of gradual depressurization coupled with a failure of the warning system on low pressurization.

In my earlier post, apart from providing two examples of fatal accidents resulting from gradual depressurization, I had dismissed such a cause and written:

This seems unlikely as the aircraft would then have continued flying on autopilot even if both pilots were unconscious, until the fuel ran out and the aircraft crashed. MH370 carried enough fuel to reach Beijing plus an extra hour of reserve.

Then I wan't aware of MH370's turn in direction and its alleged progress towards the West. Now that we have new information, we need to revisit the issue of gradual depressurization.

I suspect that could be the reason for MH370 making a turn back when the pilot (or less likely, both) had felt something was wrong but by then far too late as would be for the perilous stealth of gradual depressurization affecting them.

Wikipedia has this to say about Time of Useful Consciousness (TUC): TUC is defined as the amount of time an individual is able to perform flying duties efficiently in an environment of inadequate oxygen supply. It is the period of time from the interruption of the oxygen supply or exposure to an oxygen-poor environment to the time when useful function is lost, and the individual is no longer capable of taking proper corrective and protective action. It is not the time to total unconsciousness.

Again: It is the period of time from the interruption of the oxygen supply or exposure to an oxygen-poor environment to the time when useful function is lost, and the individual is no longer capable of taking proper corrective and protective action.

And TUC at 35,000 feet for a healthy person is 30 to 60 seconds. There would be enough time for a pilot or a passenger to grab hold of a drop-down oxygen mask to breathe UNLESS the depressurization occurred so slowly that a pilot might not be aware of it until hypoxia had already set it.

One of the insidious effects of hypoxia would also be an euphoric feeling, that of excessive well being and false elation which could further impede a pilot’s correct actions.

Or, unless there was rapid decompression or even explosive decompression which would reduce the TUC by 50%, into just 15 to 30 seconds.

But slow depressurization is like a peril creeping up on you, and hitting you before you know it. I suspect that was what happened, assuming that Murphy's Law had struck with the pressurization alarm not functioning.

Nonetheless, the pilot despite his impaired state still had just that wee bit of mental consciousness to react instinctively-professionally and to turn back to KL as well as descend the aircraft to an appropriate IFR level, though it would have been better if he had kept descending to 10,000 feet or so where he and the others would then have been able to recover from the probable hypoxic condition.

But alas, it would be too much to expect a hypoxic-affected pilot to be be fully conscious of what he was doing. I reckon he did his best as could be for a physically-mentally hypoxic-impaired pilot and turn the aircraft around but not fully towards KL.

But what about the SSR (transponder) being turned off? This would be the real puzzle!

I admit I don't know but can only continue my speculation and say that the pilot by professional instinct had wanted to switch the SSR to the emergency code but in that process, switched it off due to his impaired state.

Captain Azaharie Ahmad Shah

From what I have read about the captain, Captain Azaharie Ahmad Shah, he is the ultimate professional pilot. With such a man, I would not be surprised at all that his professional instinct would have been strong even in a state of physical-mental impairment. But alas, given my speculation that he was already seriously affected by hypoxia, there's a limit to what could be achieved by even such strong professional instinct.

So we then had an aircraft load of unconscious crew and passengers flying towards the West, passed the Peninsula west coast out into the Indian Ocean.

Cell phones of passengers kept ringing as claimed by relatives but there were no answer, because according to my speculation, they were all unconsciousness or even ... you say it, I can't because it's only my speculation!

Why did the defence radar stop picking up the blip at 2.40am?

Did it really stop monitoring it? I personally doubt that because if the radar could pick the echo of MH370 off the coast of Kota Bahru and detect its turn back, why would it not be able to pick it up past Pulau Perak?

So?

So see today's Malay Mail Online news titled Malaysia expands missing plane search to Andaman Sea and MH370 search swings northwest, stoking criticism.

I hope you know where the Andaman Sea is.

I wonder though I haven't actually worked out how far MH370's remaining fuel on crossing the Peninsula coast would have taken it to?

I rest my case speculations.

those wee yellow dots are the Andaman Islands (India)

Also note, India has now joined the search for MH370

Addendum: TMI - Slow decompression may have knocked all onboard MH370 unconscious, says blog