Did US Navy search planes spot MH370?

In the search for MH370 numerous incongruities between the official determination of facts and observed reality have forged a strong perception of deception by investigators. Whilst this may or may not be true if the conflict of evidence stands the only rational alternative is either incompetence in the search effort or that false assumptions have misdirected search efforts.

It was interesting therefore when Australian researcher Annette Mansfield shared with me several images released to her under the Freedom Of Information Act this image grabbed my attention:



Annette herself thinks it is a satellite image, however to me this is more likely an oblique camera image from an aircraft. So being curious I followed it up. It appears that one of two US Navy P-8 Poseidon search aircraft based from Perth did make a sighting on 21 March 2014. It has also been reported as 20 March 2014 for the simple reason that Australia is one day ahead of the United States.

Removing all doubt however, a handful of news sources did report sighting by this P-8 aircraft.

The file link is often more useful.




files.abovetopsecret.com...

a reply to: smurfy

I remember hearing about a p-8 and possible interesting returns. Nothing more after. Very deep there.. very few countries have the capability to deploy and search on a whim. The fact that wreckage has shown up on opposite sides of this area is to me important. We may never know.

This area looks to be way south of the primary search area(s).

I wonder why?

ETA...I have long advocated that much more is known about the disappearance of MH370 than what has been shared with the international team searching for the wreckage. I never understood this.

I don't have an exact theory of what happened, but I stand by my long-held belief that the disappearance of MH370 was no "accident", but rather an 'intentional' act by those on-board.

I'm trying to figure out what the coordinates are for the location, it's hard to read at this resolution, anyone help?

Oh, and my theory is, the Captain asked the co-pilot to get him something, he then barricaded the door, opened the exterior cabin de-pressure valves, set the autopilot for 45K feet, everyone aboard died, and the autopilot took the plane on a pre-established course taking the plane deep into the indian ocean at low altitude and the most fuel efficient speed as possible.

When the wreckage is found (private people will be trying to find it for YEARS), they will find it in surprisingly intact condition. With the cabin valves open, the water would have slowly filled the cabin, and the aircraft could have survived the landing intact. The fact that so little debris has been located, tells you that the cabin didn't break apart on impact.

The Captain wanted to commit suicide, but knew his family would most likely not be able to collect insurance.

Elaborate suicide, and mass murder.

originally posted by: Flyingclaydisk
This area looks to be way south of the primary search area(s).

I wonder why?

This was the official search area from Saturday 22 March to Monday 24 March 2014. On 25 March 2014 all search planes were grounded and on 27 March after three days of protests by the Malaysians, Australia relented to Malaysia's wishes and shifted the entire search 1,500km north.



P-8 Sighting

originally posted by: fredrodgers1960
Oh, and my theory is, the Captain asked the co-pilot to get him something, he then barricaded the door, opened the exterior cabin de-pressure valves, set the autopilot for 45K feet, everyone aboard died, and the autopilot took the plane on a pre-established course taking the plane deep into the indian ocean at low altitude and the most fuel efficient speed as possible.

The elapsed flight time correlates to a flight at Mach 0.82 which can't be flown at low altitude.

On 24 June 2014 in an interview JACC boss Angus Houston disclosed that two Thales Raytheon radar engineers employed by the JACC had reviewed all Malaysian radar data and found no evidence that MH370 climbed to 45,000ft & then dived West. Furthermore at the Gross weight over IGARI, MH370 was incapable of climbing higher than 39,000ft due to basic laws of physics.

When the wreckage is found (private people will be trying to find it for YEARS), they will find it in surprisingly intact condition. With the cabin valves open, the water would have slowly filled the cabin, and the aircraft could have survived the landing intact. The fact that so little debris has been located, tells you that the cabin didn't break apart on impact.

Within a 300nm radius of this sighting by the P-8 aircraft were spotted two distinct debris patches with 500+ floating objects plus an oil slick. I hardly call 500+ debris "so little debris."

122 Objects sighted by satellite

300+ Objects sighted by Thai satellite

The Captain wanted to commit suicide, but knew his family would most likely not be able to collect insurance.

Zaharie had no insurance policy. He was not suicidal. I have spoken to people who socialized with the Captain the night before when he went out with the Mila Jirin fan club for a fun night out on the town. He was upbeat lively and joking all night long. His housemaid Nur Hiyati said he was quite normal and not restless the night MH370 took off. She says she carried his overnight bag to the airline's crew van waiting to drive him to the airport. As she walked back from the van she saw Zaharie in the hallway embrace his wife and kiss her on both cheeks. There was no conflict or tension between the couple. His wife Fazaih decided to spend the night with friends after he left for the airport for company. Zaharie called her from the cockpit before take-off.

Elaborate suicide, and mass murder.

Elaborate fairy tale story but quite remote from the facts. Zaharie was planning a family holiday in Italy.

a reply to: sy.gunson

That's all fine and good, but the right turn over the Malacca Straight and the left turn west of Banda Aceh has absolutely no rational / technical explanation except "intentional" act...whoever it was!

This was all well after the alleged altitude incident over the Gulf of Thailand/S China Sea

originally posted by: Flyingclaydisk
a reply to: sy.gunson

That's all fine and good, but the right turn over the Malacca Straight and the left turn west of Banda Aceh has absolutely no rational / technical explanation except "intentional" act...whoever it was!

Not so

There was a significant power failure to the SDU detected between 18:03 & 18:25 UTC. In fact because a satellite handshake was missed at 17:37 UTC it probably stretched from 17:37 to 18:25 UTC.

Inside the SDU is a hermetically sealed AFC Oscillator crystal. That crystal has to be kept warm by an electric heater, yet for almost an hour there was no electrical power to the heater. This means the crystal contracted and altered the Doppler BFO frequency giving a false indication that MH370 flew towards the satellite once power was restored'

In fact the indications from 18:25 to 18:40 UTC were the result of the heater excessively heating the crystal to restore normal temperatures.

a reply to: sy.gunson

Okay, that's good information I hadn't seen previously.

How/who restored the power?

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

ELMS automatically restored power at 18:25 UTC.

On a Boeing 777 the default primary electrical relay is always the Left AC Bus relay. Only this relay powers the SDU satellite antennae controller.

The 120KVA Right AC Bus Relay is near identical but does not supply power to the the SDU. In order for the SDU to keep working after 17:37 UTC a pilot would need to consciously close the tie breaker and connect both Bus relays to the Right engine's IDG generator.

The 120KVA APU is another alternative, but we know from communications analysis by Australia's Defence Science & Technology Group (DSTG) that this did not start until the very last moment when it auto-started.



AC Standby reversion

When a conscious pilot does not intervene and the Left AC Bus goes offline the aircraft itself automatically switches to AC Standby Bus. This draws power from the 20KVA Left DC Back-up generator through a DC/AC converter. Whenever the AC Standby Bus comes online another system called the Emergency Management Load System (ELMS) cuts power to all non essential systems and the SDU is top of that list.

Had a suicidal pilot deliberately cut power to the SDU there is no logical rational reason for such a pilot to ever restore power to the SDU at 18:25.

Had pilots isolated the SDU due to an electrical fire and then been overcome by hypoxia, the SDU would not have come back to life at 18:25 either.

Only the ELMS could have restored power if the crew were hypoxic.

ELMS would also explain the simultaneous loss of both ACARS and the transponder. Electrical failure could have preceded a hypoxic incident or decompression. The electrical failure would have been sufficient cause for pilots to turn back from Vietnam.

Hypoxia is not identical to decompression. Hypoxia can be a gradual incapacitation like on Helios 552. On Helios 552 the pilots got a warning horn for decompression but thought it was a warning horn for something else so took the wrong corrective action. If likewise the MH370 crew mistook cabin pressure warnings for a fire warning or similar then they may have taken the wrong response.

The two US Navy Poseidon P-8 aircraft were seen here at Perth during the search for MH370

p-8 Aircraft at Perth

An ABC News reporter David Wright on the flight excitedly tweeted that they were getting radar hits of significant size. The tweet time is given as US Eastern Standard time therefore 7:23 pm EST was 7:23am in Perth on 21 March 2014.



David Wright's Tweet

a reply to: sy.gunson

Excellent information (again)! Much Appreciated.

However, the 1815Z contact had MH370 on a NW Hdg NW of GIVAL and heading toward IGREX (that's really more like a NNW heading).

Your scenario would possibly explain getting to this point, but not the later left turn to the south off the west coast of Indonesia.

Any thoughts?

Excellent research Sy, I have missed your contributions.

So do I take it you give some credibility to the cockpit window fire scenario on the captains #1 or #2 window? That would explain the LH side bus and therefore the SDU dropping offline. And if as you deduced it was manually switched to the RHS AC bus that would tie in with a flight crew who were anything but suicidal and genuinely attempting to save the aircraft.

LEE.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

There are two bases for asserting that MH370 flew west. First is the inference from satellite data between 18:25 & 18:40 UTC suggest MH370 flew west. However the BTO data between 18:25 & 18:28 change at a rate comparable with 4,000mph or Mach 5. That is a physical impossibility.

More likely is that the data itself is wrong.

Given that the end of flight was characteristic of historical known hypoxic flights when you factor in an assumption that MH370 was hypoxic before 18:25 the answer becomes self evident. Lack of electrical power to the SDU also means an electric heater vital to proper operation of the temperature sensitive AFC Oscillator crystal.

The function of this was to create a steady frequency reference point for transmissions back to the satellite so that MH370 could alter frequency in the High Gain Antenna to track the satellite's Doppler shift. Had hypoxia chilled the AFC Oscillator crystal to - 44 degrees Centigrade before 18:25, then restoration of power to the SDu would have caused a huge frequency spike as if MH370 was flying west.



AFC Oscillator effect


Likewise a significant drop in temperature for the rest of MH370's avionics would have reduced the BTO bias which reduced the signal path travel time (ie BTO bias)

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

The second basis for claiming MH370 flew west was of course the alleged radar sighting. The Malaysian Government has always refused to release original recordings and keep changing the information or claims which they provide.

The only original radar data ever disclosed was a screen grab at the Lido Hotel in Beijing.

Lido Radar Image



The Lido Hotel radar image was presented to Chinese NOK by the RMAF's Lt. Gen. Ackbal bin Haji Abdul Samad therefore it can be considered as official information.

The point I make is this. We know Emirates Flight EK343 was there at the same time flying the same route. So if MH370 was also there why are there not two aircraft in the radar shot?

a reply to: thebozeian



Thanks for the kind words

I have been too lazy to update the website which I created in late 2014. I no longer hold to a cockpit fire being the most likely scenario. I now believe electrical fire led to communications failure & gradual incapacitation by hypoxia as the crew turned back.

As you can appreciate I have dug & dug doing a lot of research. Whilst reading this report on a United Airlines fire in the avionics bay (MEC) at Heathrow in 2007, it suddenly occurred to me that the Boeing 777 itself reacts to smoke in a manner that could cause gradual hypoxia:

Heathrow B777 Fire 2007 (pdf)

I have become friends with some of Zaharie's siblings. They have listened to the ATC audio recordings and they confirm that after MH370 leveled off in cruise at 17:07 it was Zaharie that performed the radio calls. In their visit to me in NZ his sisters volunteered to me that his voice was abnormal and slurred.

I fact checked their claim and found that Zaharie's wife Fazaih made a similar claim to the media in 2014.

Now that the ATSB have disclosed signal data analysis supporting hypoxia it seems that this was a clue which we all overlooked at the time. I now consider gradual incapacitation in the climb coupled with electrical failure as the cause.

I discovered there was an automated response by the air conditioning system, which used differential pressure between cabin air and outside air to ventilate smoke from any fire inside the Avionics Bay (MEC). I also discovered that whilst the B777 itself is aware of fire in the MEC, pilots do not get a warning of fire or smoke in the MEC, except an ambiguous alert stating "EQUIP COOLING OVRD"

Great discussion as always guys a couple of thoughts/points:

Even if the 777 could not climb higher than FL39, in an un-pressurized aircraft, useful consciousness is measured in seconds at that level.

Also, it is plausible that if he did lock out the co-pilot and started a climb, the copilot is unlikely to have raised an alarm for fear of freaking out the PAX and no doubt spent time trying to figure out what was going on, A gradual decompression would basically take out everyone over minutes assuming there are no alarms outside of the cockpit. In fact if the PAX freak out their oxygen consumption would escalate reducing the useful consciousness level even further.

Even if the emergency oxygen systems are activated (and my understanding is that they are automatic) , they would be of limited use because they have a finite ability to generate said o2 and are designed for a rapid emergency decent to lower altitudes and nothing more .


lastly if the P-8's got something it highlight the problem with these systems. They gather so much data its hard to look at everything in real time and sort it out.

originally posted by: FredT
Great discussion as always guys a couple of thoughts/points:

Even if the 777 could not climb higher than FL39, in an un-pressurized aircraft, useful consciousness is measured in seconds at that level.

You misunderstood my point. MH370 physically could not exceed FL390 at IGARI therefore there is no credibility to the 45K claim whatsoever.

Second, Angus Houston told the Malaysian Chronicle 24 June 2014 that radar experts from Thales had reviewed all the data and there was no evidence of such a climb anyway.

Also, it is plausible that if he did lock out the co-pilot and started a climb, the copilot is unlikely to have raised an alarm for fear of freaking out the PAX and no doubt spent time trying to figure out what was going on, A gradual decompression would basically take out everyone over minutes assuming there are no alarms outside of the cockpit. In fact if the PAX freak out their oxygen consumption would escalate reducing the useful consciousness level even further.

The co-pilot's primary responsibility under CRM rules is to challenge erratic behaviour. The only basis for these claims are speculation.

Even if the emergency oxygen systems are activated (and my understanding is that they are automatic) , they would be of limited use because they have a finite ability to generate said o2 and are designed for a rapid emergency decent to lower altitudes and nothing more .

9M-MRO had chemical generators with about 12 minutes of supply. Cabin crew had 30minute walk around bottles. I have just asked a flight attendant friend at MAS a series of questions on the matter and will post her response.

My understanding is they will drop down if the cabin reaches an equivalent of 14,500ft inside the cabin. Elsewhere I have also heard 18.000ft cited and hope to resolve this conflicting advice soon.

lastly if the P-8's got something it highlight the problem with these systems. They gather so much data its hard to look at everything in real time and sort it out.

The image taken was an oblique camera view through cloud. For an oblique view using the electro-optical ball camera this means the P-8 radar operator cued the camera operator to find the target in real time.

The image was later marked by a photo interpreter which suggests they returned to the location on a subsequent flight.

a reply to: sy.gunson

SY

Last night I finished reading an article you posted on veternstoday. good one.

To me, why the plane went down doesn't intrigue me. What intrigues me is why hasn't the US Government revealed the location of the plane, either through flat out coming out and saying here it is, or through back channels by dropping a bread crumb to Australia.

Does anyone actually believe the NRO doesn't have live video stream of that entire region through multiple spectrums? Or that this plane wasn't tracked by US naval ships? Or that this plane wasn't tracked by heat signature satellites?