Claims naval base signal caused Qantas nosedive

Claims naval base signal caused Qantas nosedive

www.abc.net.au

Air safety investigators say they will look into claims signals from a naval communications base near Exmouth in Western Australia's north may have caused last week's Qantas mid-air emergency.

(visit the link for the full news article)

That's a big call! A plane 30,000 feet + up in the atmosphere being affected by communications from the US Naval abse at Exmouth?

Exmouth naval base enters new phase

Operations at the Harold E Holt naval communications base in Exmouth in WA's north-west will change dramatically this week as the Navy activates a new high frequency automated communications system.

I wonder if this new automated system ahs anything to do with it?

www.abc.net.au
(visit the link for the full news article)

They've been using HF radio for decades and it's never caused a problem with any aircraft. They use it to talk to people around the world. We used to use it in Hawaii to talk to people in Australia. I doubt that this would have had anything to do with it. It's a lot more likely that it was just a bad computer.

You know something, this was exactly the very first thought that occurred to me when I heard of this.
I've done a little research on that naval base and the beast in question Tower zero.
I first became interested a few years ago when I spotted the 5km + hexagram on google earth. This is an old pic.


I'm not sure if the tower is still in operation, I beleive the base has been inactive since 2003. Not sure it's been a while since I've investigated.
Dozen of far out tales can be found in relation to tower zero and anomalous events in WA.

Thats strange, just yesterday they were saying it was an internal computer error.

www.theaustralian.news.com.au...

I was looking for news articles yesterday because I was going to post a thread on this too. They said on the morning news that back in 2005 a Malaysian airlines Boeing jet experienced an identical problem in the same location, which I thought was strange as they said it was a 1 in a million event and the 2 incidences were the only ones ever recorded.

This is the only thing I can find on the other incident.

In August 2005, as reported in the Wall Street Journal (5/30/06), a Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 flying from Australia to Malaysia suddenly ascended 3,000 feet, with no input from the flight crew. The pilot disengaged the autopilot and pointed the nose down to avoid a stall, but the plane went into a steep dive. When he throttled back on the engines to reduce the speed, the plane arched into another climb. The flight crew eventually got things under control and returned their 177 passengers safely to Australia. Investigators determined that a faulty computer program recently installed on all 777s had provided incorrect information about the plane's speed and acceleration, confusing flight computers.

www.pbs.org...

Strange, maybe it was the exmouth naval base as they are now saying? Unless its something much more mysterious ......

Thanks for posting!

I'm with you there, Squiz. I tried to find a photo of that base for the post.

They are currently building a new US defence base in Geraldton for the purpose of linking to satellite comms for middle east operations. Exmouth is likely still performing some of these functions until the enw base is built.

reply to post by JSarge


Interesting the same thing happened to a Boeing, as the recent one was an Airbus I believe. If they truly are the same problem, then that rules out components/software as a fault.

This is a different cause than a software upgrade issue. This appears to be caused by a sensor saying that it was at an angle that it wasn't. It could have been caused by either the sensor or the data computer. If it was caused by a communications system then why would it have only happened twice in over three years? It would have happened more, Singapore to Perth isn't exactly an uncommon route to be flying.

It isn't an uncommon route but until the investigation occurs we don't know the volume and timing of transmissions from Harold Holt Base in Exmouth. The timing and location of the incident mentioned above (good find JSarge!) seems way too coincidental.

I too believe as they say about the computer error.

But! On the topic of the communications station, which some information can be found here: en.wikipedia.org...
and here: www.exmouth.wa.gov.au...


Here's where it gets interesting though. From the wiki article:

In July 2002, the Australian Navy handed over operation of the station to the Defence Material Organisation.[3] The base is currently operated under contract by Boeing Australia, Ltd.

Shire of Exmouth:

As of July 2002 all naval personnel have departed the Base and the facility is now managed by a civil company Boeing Australia.

Now I'm fairly certain that a Boeing aircraft flying past a Boeing operated communications station and being affected by the signal is pure coincidence...isn't it?

reply to post by stumason


Additionally, this base has been mentioned here on ATS in connection with HAARP - radio transmission that down a plane? Must be crystal clear and in surround sound

ColoradoJens

Another article from the West Australian.

Air safety investigators are examining concerns that electro-magnetic interference from a top secret US base at Exmouth could have sparked an emergency aboard a Qantas flight from Singapore to Perth earlier this month in which almost 70 people were injured.

It is understood the Australian Transport Safety Bureau will look into claims that transmissions from the Harold E Holt base caused a computer malfunction on QF72 which caused the Airbus A330-300 to climb unexpectedly before diving twice.....

.....It is known that fears about the possible effects of transmissions from the base on aircraft have been raised before and the ATSB has now factored those concerns into the wider incident investigation.

Yes a computer failure but what caused it?

The ATSB said on Tuesday night it had narrowed the cause of the accident down to a fault in one of the Airbus’s complicated computer systems, known as Air Data Inertial Reference Unit, though investigators admit they remain clueless as to the specific cause.

The connection to the other flight is also mentioned.

Revelations the ADIRU was at the centre of the scare led to claims the accident may have links to a similar event involving a Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 flight between Kuala Lumpur and Perth in August 2005 also involving a fault in the ADIRU.

However, it is thought the ATSB has ruled out any connection between the two events, as the problem in that case was traced to a specific software fault in the system.

But Capt. Mike Glynn, vice-president of the Australian and International Pilots Association, said it was unusual that computer faults had occurred in two different ADIRUs on two different aircraft in the same region of WA.

www.thewest.com.au...

I used to watch the TV show called 'LOST' up to around season three.

I remember that their plane was brought down by some type of magnetic-beam weapon? Sure, it's fictional, on TV.

However, it would be more than interesting if the base did interfere with the plane. Who knows!

The A330 has three Air Data Inertial Reference Units (ADIRU). They take information from sensors, even external NAVAIDS, and GPS, and provide the information to the pilot - including air speed and altitude and inertial reference (position). Obviously the autopilot and Fly-by-wire system uses this, so a fault with these systems would affect the whole aircraft. Both the 777 and A330 use avionics made by Honeywell, or, Northrop Grumman (formerly Litton), not Boeing or Airbus.

But I don't see how it's possible for any type of radio to interfere with it, as -

• Altitude, angle of attack, and airspeed are from sensors on the airframe, that physically measure data. If data from these were faulty then it could of caused the problems...
  
• GPS updating is always given priority over crap on the ground, if any data received is a dramatic mismatch then it doesn't get used. Faulty GPS data doesn't cause the aircraft to nose dive...
  

Therefore, I can only see what happened as possible as if it were a bug, or failure within the ADIRU which caused the failure - that's what happened with the 777 back in 2005. Sensors that control attitude and speed are mounted on the airframe and do not rely on external data. I thought this was clear air turbulence at first, I was wrong, so obviously I may be wrong again (but my experiance says that I am not). It is good they're investigating it!

Hope this helps.

[edit on 16/10/2008 by C0bzz]

Why has the aircraft plunged ?
because the flight control computer commanded to do so
Why the flight control computer (FCC) commanded nose down ?
Because in auto-pilot configuration, the ADIRU fed the flight control computer with wrong data
Why the FCC did not detect the data were wrong ?
The ADIRU fault flag was not set, but this is to be investigated
Why the ADIRU generated wrong data ?
The ADIRU is interfacing many sensors, some of them are analog, the signal between one sensor and the ADIRU could have been pertubated by RF signal
Where do these RF signal come from ?
On board cell phones, naval base, ... to be investigated
Why ADIRU did not declare itself as defective, authorizing FCC to switch to the second ADIRU ?
This is to be investigated by the vendor (Litton).
B777 with Honeywell ADIRU faced similar issue in Aug-2005 at about same location.

Defence station interference suspected in Qantas mishaps

January 3rd 2009 - A MALFUNCTION has forced a Qantas jet to return to Perth, prompting concerns for the second time in three months that interference from a defence station in northwestern Australia may be to blame for a mid-air drama on the national carrier.

Qantas flight 71 was on route to Singapore with 277 passengers about 8.30am last Saturday when it had to return to Perth after the jet's autopilot disconnected because of a problem with a unit that supplies key information to flight control computers.

The Airbus A330-300 was 45 minutes into the journey and about 380 nautical miles south of the Harold E. Holt Naval Communications Station - 15km north of Exmouth - when the autopilot switched off.

After being notified that the plane was experiencing a problem with the air data inertial reference unit, the crew responded in less than a minute and followed revised operation procedures issued by Airbus after a similar emergency in October.

In a preliminary report on the October incident, the bureau said it did not know why the ADIRU started sending false data, keeping alive speculation that interference from the station might have contributed to or caused the problem.

Aircraft engineer Peter Marosszeky said yesterday it was possible that interference from radio transmitters at the station could have caused the malfunction in both incidents.

"Even though the plane was 260 nautical miles (from Exmouth), those radio transmission signals are very powerful when they are transmitted," Mr Marosszeky said.

"These signals are supposed to travel around the world to reach submarines in the water and naval vessels, so they are very powerful. Whether there was one being transmitted at the time I don't know but you certainly have to look at the event log at the station."

The Defence Department would not comment yesterday.

[edit on 2-1-2009 by silentenigma]