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MH 370 KUL-PEK Missing: 15 - 21 Mar 2014 UTC - ARCHIVE WEEK #2

Old Mar 29, 2014, 8:45 pm
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This is ARCHIVE WEEK #2 (15 - 21 March UTC) of older posts from the original thread, MH 370 KUL-PEK Missing: now Search and Recovery [PLEASE SEE WIKI].

This thread contains a very few posts after midnight UTC, for reasons of post continuity.

THIS THREAD HAS BEEN LOCKED.
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MH 370 KUL-PEK Missing: 15 - 21 Mar 2014 UTC - ARCHIVE WEEK #2

Old Mar 15, 2014, 3:17 am
  #211  
 
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Originally Posted by SingaporeDon
SQ 68 SIN-BCN which left SIN at 12:59 was mentioned. Again, may be pure speculation, and mods please delete if inappropriate for here

From PPRune, posted by ETOPS, with 1211 posts to his name, at 15th Mar 2014, 09:06 GMT

And another thing..

I have operated SIN LHR for the last few years routing over KL, Port Blair then over Calcutta. The new info about this flight being flown over this similar route makes we wonder if it "tailgated" such a flight heading towards India.
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Old Mar 15, 2014, 3:24 am
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Originally Posted by alanstarr
Well, that's the one. It is odd it follows so strictly to a circular path though. The southern route looks pointless compared to the northern route now, by comparison.
It is just drawing concentric circles using the satellite as centre!
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Old Mar 15, 2014, 3:24 am
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8.11am sounds like the max regular fuel range for a regular flight to Beijing from KL. That corresponds to 7.5 hours from takeoff. Actually, EXACTLY! It is 7 hours 29 mins, just a minute short.

Now, if somehow the pilot managed to get a few more hours of fuel on board, it is possible he PURPOSELY disabled the satcom at 8.11am. To make the authorities think the plane crashed due to lack of fuel, or that it landed somewhere.

But then, he actually flies elsewhere for another 3-4 more hours. Sounds far fetched, but the plan was too perfectly planned out that I find it hard to believe the pilot genuinely overlooked the satcom aspect of it.
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Old Mar 15, 2014, 3:25 am
  #214  
 
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Here is the final ping map overlayed with more detailed maps, to help anyone become better oriented

And with runway data overlayed as well:


Again click on either of the maps for a larger version.

Edit: I should mention that the red circle is an approximation of the fuel remaining from the last signal in the Gulf of Thailand.

Last edited by Nrg800; Mar 15, 2014 at 3:44 am
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Old Mar 15, 2014, 3:26 am
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Originally Posted by SingaporeDon
It is just drawing concentric circles using the satellite as centre!
So I assume an elliptical pathway is still possible? Doubt the plane would have rigidly stayed to a concentratic circular path originating from a specific angle from the centre of the satellite for his path.
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Old Mar 15, 2014, 3:27 am
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Originally Posted by alanstarr
So I assume an elliptical pathway is still possible? Doubt the plane would have rigidly stayed to a concentratic circular path originating from a specific angle from the centre of the satellite for his path.
Yes
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Old Mar 15, 2014, 3:30 am
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So based on that satellite map of the last ping, they were actually farther outbound than that- correct?

The southern Indian ocean seems less likely somehow- no valuable targets, few accessible runways. That leaves a great deal of difficult terrain in the 'stans and possibly western China to consider.
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Old Mar 15, 2014, 3:32 am
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Originally Posted by trailboss99
@RadioGirl Oke I stand corrected but as you point out the system has a general idea where you are. That's generally within a few hundred miles at worst as it needs to know which beam to talk to you on. It appears however that with the system in use here the infomation is longtitude only although even then I'm not sure how they came up with such different tracks purportedly only a 100 miles or so wide. Any thoughts?
If the satellite coverage from a single satellite is divided into spatial beams (not all do this), knowing which beam (or better yet, being in the overlap of two beams) narrows down the location. If the data transmission is timestamped, the time-of-arrival allows an estimate of distance (but not direction) from the tx to satellite. Depending on the precision of the timestamp this estimate will have some variability.

(I have to admit that my work has been about the antennas themselves and what happens to the signals between one antenna and the other, and not so much on what the data in the signal is.)
Originally Posted by trailboss99
PS: I'm on Inmarsat and it knows where you are to within a few miles using my handset or the larger units I have installed in shipping.
Inmarsat's first market was communications for the maritime sector, from big ships to private yachts. One obvious application is emergency comms, where position location is essential. In the last two decades as GPS became (a) open to civilians, (b) more accurate and (c) implemented in cheap chipsets, it was inevitable that most transponders (for terrestrial and maritime use) would include GPS chips and would send location information as part of the data exchange. It's a really useful, and now a really cheap, feature. I'm just saying it's not essential.

The MH370 "ping" don't seem to have been a full data stream, just a signalling alert.
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Old Mar 15, 2014, 3:33 am
  #219  
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Originally Posted by alanstarr
So I assume an elliptical pathway is still possible? Doubt the plane would have rigidly stayed to a concentratic circular path originating from a specific angle from the centre of the satellite for his path.
The bold lines are not meant to suggest a path. All that map is showing is the possible locations of the last ping between the plane at the satellite. How MH 370 got there between the last point of radar detection and the last satellite contact is not known.
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Old Mar 15, 2014, 3:35 am
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Originally Posted by SFOPhD
The bold lines are not meant to suggest a path. All that map is showing is the possible locations of the last ping between the plane at the satellite. How MH 370 got there between the last point of radar detection and the last satellite contact is not known.
Ah ok, my bad. I got absolutely mixed up. Thanks for clearing this up for me!
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Old Mar 15, 2014, 3:36 am
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Originally Posted by alanstarr
So I assume an elliptical pathway is still possible? Doubt the plane would have rigidly stayed to a concentratic circular path originating from a specific angle from the centre of the satellite for his path.
Because there was only one satellite that heard the ping that means they are unable to triangulate the location. The only estimate of location is from how long it took the ping to reach the satellite from the aircraft, thereby calculating the approximate radius of a circle from the satellite to the aircraft, hence the circle. There is no attempt to visualise the track taken, only the distance to the final ping.

I hope no one minds me making lots of maps, but here's another one with the Jindalee Radar range overlayed, it makes the South Indian Ocean look like a very undesirable target.

Again, click the map for a larger version.
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Old Mar 15, 2014, 3:40 am
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Originally Posted by Nrg800

I hope no one minds me making lots of maps, but here's another one with the Jindalee Radar range overlayed, it makes the South Indian Ocean look like a very undesirable target.
Your maps are fantastic IMO, keep 'em coming! ^

Agreed, if we are talking about a hijacking, the northern route seems far the more likely.
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Old Mar 15, 2014, 3:41 am
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Originally Posted by Nrg800
Because there was only one satellite that heard the ping that means they are unable to triangulate the location. The only estimate of location is from how long it took the ping to reach the satellite from the aircraft, thereby calculating the approximate radius of a circle from the satellite to the aircraft, hence the circle. There is no attempt to visualise the track taken, only the distance to the final ping.

I hope no one minds me making lots of maps, but here's another one with the Jindalee Radar range overlayed, it makes the South Indian Ocean look like a very undesirable target.

Again, click the map for a larger version.
If I understand this correctly, it means that the aircraft was somewhere on the dark black circle during the last ping. So, it had turned back east or north or northwest again from the last radar contact.

Last edited by greg5; Mar 15, 2014 at 3:47 am Reason: could be more than just east.
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Old Mar 15, 2014, 3:41 am
  #224  
 
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Originally Posted by Nrg800
Here is the final ping map overlayed with more detailed maps, to help anyone become better oriented
And with runway data overlayed as well:

Again click on either of the maps for a larger version.
Assuming no radical course deviations, it seems like the most likely places to look would be near where the two concentric circles overlap - the satellite ping radius and the distance travelled from last contact radius.

The northern one lies near the eastern 'stans, near the border with China. To get there would require somehow avoiding radar detection, almost certainly by India, plus at least one or more of the following: Pakistan, US/NATO (in Afghanistan), and China.

On the other hand, the southern intersection is just about as far from land in any direction as you could reach with that amount of fuel. As I said earlier, if someone wanted to deliberately crash this plane in as difficult and inaccessible a place as possible, you couldn't do much better than that with 7.5 hours of fuel from KL. Speculation as to WHY someone might want to do that is probably veering towards OMNI range, however.

I think it's time for Mauritius, South Africa, France (via Reunion) and the US (via Diego Garcia) to start searching the southern Indian Ocean. I suspect overtures by Malaysia have already been made in that direction.

EDIT: Seeing the Jindalee radar range, were MH370 to turn south somewhere out in the Bay Bengal, it seems possible to reach that area of the Indian Ocean without flying into territory covered by Jindalee.
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Old Mar 15, 2014, 3:42 am
  #225  
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Originally Posted by SingaporeDon
The Sky reporter was a showing a map handed out to him ( and others I guess) after the press conference by an English PR firm ( now hired by MH?) which showed the satellite in question roughly where Diego Garcia is and had concentric circles drawn from there to show the two corridors Najib mentioned. Would be good to get hold of that map.

Here
https://twitter.com/9Joe9/status/444.../photo/1/large
Thanks. This seems to scotch the reports that they'd tracked location - the lines are equidistant from the satellite.
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