What Really Happened to Malaysia’s Missing Airplane

a reply to: Blue Shift

IIRC all the bodies recovered from AF447 were either from the initial recovery efforts, or after they found the fuselage a couple years later. None washed ashore.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: Blue Shift

IIRC all the bodies recovered from AF447 were either from the initial recovery efforts, or after they found the fuselage a couple years later. None washed ashore.

Did they ever recover any of the bodies, or luggage? Again, it seems like some of that stuff would float unless it all went down in a pretty big, intact piece. I'm reminded that they still occasionally find tennis shoes with feet still in them washing up in the Pacific Northwest. Not from this crash, but from somewhere.

a reply to: Blue Shift

They recovered 50 bodies in 2009, during the initial search, along with luggage and debris on the surface. They recovered 604 pieces all told, including the vertical fin. In 2011 Woods Hole went back with a new search plan, and found the aircraft on the ocean floor. They recovered both recorders, and 104 additional bodies. There were 228 on board when it crashed.

a reply to: Zaphod58

My theory that I had was canned when the 90 day private company search turned up empty. I had absolutely convinced myself that our black world would leak a convenient search pinpoint to that crew via some channel. But when they turned up nothing I figured this was meant to be hidden for a very long time

As zaphod May or may not admit, the US has 24/7 multi-spectrum coverage of most if not all of the planet and especially in this area near the South China Sea. For anyone to believe that the US Doesn’t have very clear recordings of this area, showing what happened to the plane is VERY naive.

a reply to: BigTrain

We don't have 24/7 coverage. That would require more satellites than we have in orbit. Imaging satellites are not geosynchronous, so you'd have to have them going one after the other at fairly close intervals to constantly have one over the area at all times. The early imaging satellites died when they dropped their film canisters. The KH-11 series of satellites are in sun synchronous orbits, of between 96 and 100 minutes. This is the best orbit for an imaging satellite because it will pass over at about the same time, so can take advantage of lighting.

There are some geosynchronous satellites over the area, but they aren't imaging, they're SBIRS and warning satellites watching for missile launches.

The georesonance press releases are a much better read than this. Highly recommend reading them along with this.

a reply to: Zaphod58

That’s what they want you to believe.

a reply to: BigTrain

Funny that with all the amateurs tracking satellites all over the world no one has noticed the ones covering that area in geosynchronous orbit.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Not even worth it. The US knows exactly where the plane is. Don’t tell me 800B a year in funding and we clueless? I surely don’t believe it.

The NRO has the tape.

a reply to: BigTrain

Maybe if you understood how the budget works you'd stop giving mythological capabilities to the government.

a reply to: BigTrain

Based on what?
The plane crashed in the middle of nowhere. Spaceborne air surveillance isn't a thing.
At best they have some very inaccurate tracks from OTH facilities they refuse to release as to not disclose the capabilities of those systems.

a reply to: mightmight
Which is why I'm betting Australia has an idea but doesn't want to say. Revealing would give away Jindalee capability to China and that's not on. I am sort of surprised that a hint hasn't been given by now though, maybe it has and the searchers have missed the location. My money is that AF447 was actually caught by a satellite at the time but it was pure luck so the search location was leaked after a "we computed it with some advanced algorithms from known data" suggestion was put out after a while. I agree (reluctantly) that it was most likely the Captain who orchestrated it. He is hardly the first pilot to suicide and take his pax with him. And I wouldn't trust the Malaysian government as far as I could throw their duplicitous and incompetent asses to not save face by lying. Who knows, maybe some nation worked it out and cut a deal to get something from Malaysia? If so we may never know.

originally posted by: thebozeian
a reply to: mightmight
Which is why I'm betting Australia has an idea but doesn't want to say. Revealing would give away Jindalee capability to China and that's not on.

Or disclosure could reveal a lack of Jindalee capability, at the time the plane approached Australia and went down.

Jindalee Over-the-Horizon (OTH) radar relies on bouncing radar off the ionosphere, which only works reasonably well if the ionosphere is reasonably stable. If there's no solar storm disrupting the ionosphere it can be stable through much of the day and much of the night, but during the transition between day and night, the ionosphere changes a lot and isn't stable. It just so happens MH370 went down a little after sunrise and before that was at sunrise which is when the ionosphere is the least stable, and OTH radar is probably the least effective of any time of day (though at sunset it would have problems too, when the ionosphere again becomes unstable, but the changes to the ionosphere at sunrise are even more rapid than at sunset). This paper mentions the problem:

OTH radar system evlauation, p26

...there is a distinct decrease in the confidence of the accuracy of the fitted peaks near sunset and sunrise because of the rapidly changing ionosphere.

However I do still wonder if anybody has some data on MH370 they don't want to publicly reveal so as not to disclose their capabilities, but I'm not expecting over-the-horizon radar to have its best capability at sunrise, when it may be the least capable. I also suspect Australia wouldn't want to reveal details of exactly how much their over-the-horizon radar capability is degraded at sunrise and sunset.