Malaysian Airlines Flight MH-370 goes missing

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 24 Mar 2014 08:57

the japan P3 orions could drop sonobuoys and listen for pings and also use its radar to sweep the sea surface...this can be done in the dark also.

staging the search a/c over the day means if any a/c discovers a promising lead, there is another a/c with loiter time inbound to take it up. a parallel all out takeoff can cover more area but might result in losing the obj if all return around same time.

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 24 Mar 2014 08:57

Notation:
P(A) = probability of A
P(A|B) = probability of A, given B

Example: we have several conspiracy theories, but we like the one that the plane is in Malaysia.
P(plane in Malaysia)=0.75
P(plane not in Malaysia)=0.25

So in our prior, we judge it 3 times more likely that the plane is in Malaysia than outside (0.75/0.25).

Then some new data comes in, say, the INMARSAT pings from the plane. Suppose we have
P(receive INMARSAT pings|plane in Malaysia) = 0.10
P(receive INMARSAT pings|plane not in Malaysia) = 0.90

Using the Bayes' formula

P(plane in Malaysia|received INMARSAT pings)/P(plane not in Malaysia|received INMARSAT pings) =

P(receive INMARSAT pings|plane in Malaysia) P(plane in Malaysia)/P(receive INMARSAT pings|plane not in Malaysia) P(plane not in Malaysia)

= (0.10 * 0.75)/(0.90 * 0.25) = 0.333333

That is, the receipt of the INMARSAT pings revises the probabilities of our favorite CTs: it is now 3 times more likely that the plane is outside Malaysia than in Malaysia.

If we had had believed initially, that it was equally likely that the plane was in Malaysia or outside it, the new data causes us to revise our belief to (0.10 * 0.5)/(0.90 * 0.5) - it is now 9 times more likely that the plane is outside Malaysia than in Malaysia.

It is more complicated when I have more possible initial beliefs, but the idea remains.

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 24 Mar 2014 08:57

Singha wrote:the japan P3 orions could drop sonobuoys and listen for pings and also use its radar to sweep the sea surface...this can be done in the dark also.

staging the search a/c over the day means if any a/c discovers a promising lead, there is another a/c with loiter time inbound to take it up. a parallel all out takeoff can cover more area but might result in losing the obj if all return around same time.

Thanks, makes sense!

member_28502 · Post by **member_28502** » 24 Mar 2014 09:06

they may use IR imaging as well

The Orion has a crew of 13, some of whom are stationed on an observation deck to search. Yardley said they use their eyesight, as well as a state-of-the-art radar system and three cameras — one infrared, one long-range, and one high resolution. The combination of systems helps them detect almost anything that's on the surface, he said. The crew also films everything so they can review what they've seen after they return to base.

The Orion has sonar to search below sea level, although it's not being used in this search, Yardley said.

BUOYS WITH GPS

The New Zealand Orion plane dropped two marker buoys Thursday, and searchers were planning to drop more buoys from a C-130 Hercules military transport plane.

The buoys resemble a poster tube, each about 1 meter (3.3 feet) long, with an antenna that transmits a GPS signal that can be tracked by searchers.

The idea is that the buoys drift in a manner similar to any debris, giving searchers clues as to where debris might move over time. The system isn't perfect — the wind can move the buoys at a different rate than larger objects — but is designed to factor in some of those variables.

http://tinyurl.com/kq2dl9y

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 24 Mar 2014 09:11

australia have also asked the US for refueling support to extend the endurance of the orions over the zone beyond the current 2 hrs.
I guess the orions seem to all have the receptacle for the probe system (usaf) so any KC-10/KC-135 will work for P3 and P8A.
the rented bizjets will have no AAR....but they are very long ranged being the higher end small payload-ICBM range jobs.
and the Cheen IL76s will not be compatible.

now if only the Tu142 bear were less of a maint hog and capable of high uptimes on austere ground support, we could have sent a couple to Perth..with 6500 km radius of action and maybe more with no sonobuoys or weapons, it could have flown 2500km to search grid and spent around 8-10 hrs loiter time before returning back....around 4 times what the Orions and Poseidons are doing.

CRamS · Post by **CRamS** » 24 Mar 2014 09:24

A_GuptaJi, good analysis. Of course, I have a lot more questions which I will dig around. OT, but on my Dec trip to India, I was reading Nate Silver's book, and he has a chapter on this topic, and how to make good predictions in practice using Bayesian analysis, which I still need to get to

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 24 Mar 2014 09:33

AMSA cumulative search area (PDF)
https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com ... rch_tv.pdf

Main thing to note is that the search area is moving east, now 1970 km from Perth.

chaanakya · Post by **chaanakya** » 24 Mar 2014 10:05

That is because currents should take debris towards Perth Coast line where West Australian Currents bifurcates in North and southern branch, if Plane has indeed crashed West of Perth.

ldev · Post by **ldev** » 24 Mar 2014 10:12

ldev · Post by **ldev** » 24 Mar 2014 10:19

ldev · Post by **ldev** » 24 Mar 2014 10:21

^^
At Subang airport, Malaysia.

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 24 Mar 2014 10:25

The Chinese IL76 spotted something.
http://www.smh.com.au/world/missing-mal ... hvm9a.html

The crew of a Chinese search plane has spotted "suspicious objects" floating in the southern Indian Ocean on Monday while searching for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 off Australia, according to official news agency Xinhua.

The crew has reported the coordinates to the Australian command centre as well as Chinese icebreaker Xuelong, which is en-route to the sea area. Reports indicate the floating objects include "white and rectangular" items.

Also this map:

The United States Navy earlier announced it would send a state-of-the-art black box finder to the search area.

The Navy's Pacific Command, based in the Philippines, is moving the sophisticated equipment into the area "as a precautionary measure in case a debris field is located".

The "Towed Pinger Locator 25" is a hyper-sensitive hydrophone that the Navy claims can locate black boxes on commercial aircraft down to a maximum depth of 6000 metres anywhere in the world.

The locator, which is towed behind a vessel at slow speeds, carries a passive listening device for detecting pingers on black boxes that automatically transmit an acoustic pulse.

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 24 Mar 2014 10:31

The Xinhua item:
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china ... 209551.htm

ABOARD IL-76 AIRCRAFT, March 24 (Xinhua) -- The crew of a Chinese IL-76 plane spotted some suspicious objects in the southern Indian Ocean on Monday while searching for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 off Australia.

The crew has reported the coordinates -- 95.1113 degrees east longitude and 42.5453 south altitude -- to the Australian command center as well as Chinese icebreaker Xuelong, which is en route to the sea area.

A Xinhua correspondent aboard the IL-76 aircraft said the searchers saw two relatively big floating objects with many white smaller ones scattered within a radius of several kilometers.

The reporter added that, as the two Chinese searching planes are heading back, the crew has asked the Australian side to send other planes to the area of interest for further examination.

If you want to plot all the finds so far on Google maps
A - -45°58'33.9996'', 90°37'37.0008'' - DigitalGlobe Object 1 (released by Australia) March 16
B - -44°03'02.0016'', 91°13'27.0006'' - DigitalGlobe Object 2 (released by Australia) March 16
C - -44°57'29'' 90°13'43'' - Chinese satellite March 18
D - -42.5453,95.1113 - Chinese IL-76, March 24.

E - unknown - wooden pallet, sighted from Australian Bombardier Global Express, March 22.
(if anyone spots the coordinates of the wooden pallet sighting, would appreciate it)

Suppose all of these are true sightings of plane debris. How on earth does one trace back to the crash site of March 8? (pessimistic -

)

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 24 Mar 2014 12:06

first priority is to prove its indeed the crashed plane debris by getting onsite and snagging up as many floating pieces as possible. I dont think the cheen are gassing this time, they are flying from same base, would suffer major loss of face and need to close this asap more than anyone else to restore credibility.

then will be 2 yrs of work by deep sea subs and ocean current scientists to locate the major pieces of the wreck.

but atleast it will be proven the plane crashed there and not hiding in deep forest somewhere or alien aduction.

imo the scent is getting hotter and resources are being poured in. a RN ship and the chinese icebreaker are steaming hard into the area to join HMAS success.

I expect major breakthrough within 2 days inshallah.

member_28502 · Post by **member_28502** » 24 Mar 2014 12:39

Extending the Bayesian probabilities

Given that the Mother Earth is covered by 66 2/3 percent water and given the probability of plane flying over water at any given time is greater than zero

We have a pribility of brilliant engineers not devicing a floatation buoy to the black box upon contact with water equal to one

I am sure you don't need a bigger contraption than life saving vest that we are told is under the seat or seat cushion itself is a floatation device

I say just screw the black box to a seat or life jacket of course remove the ehistle and the opening to top the air as the air hostess announce now a days cost cutting had lead to cartoon characters instead of beautiful Aur India aunty announcing

Traveled by AI nonstop yo Delhi the agony of Air Hostess not able to walk in the aisles was pathetic

Lalmohan · Post by **Lalmohan** » 24 Mar 2014 13:30

the flight data recorders are fitted in the tail and normally stay inside the remains of the structure rather than become immediately free (depending on the type of crash). it is difficult to see how one would do a cost/effective 'zero-zero' eject for the FDR's in a crash situation. In all land crashes ofcourse, they are found quite quickly. as a note - extended over water operations are a relatively recent development in civil aviation, some of the safety/rescue thinking probably hasn't evolved given the generally massive improvements in overall reliability.

in military aviation, beacons have been coupled with flotation devices/rescue devices for many decades

harbans · Post by **harbans** » 24 Mar 2014 15:17

Extending the Bayesian probabilities

Given that the Mother Earth is covered by 66 2/3 percent water and given the probability of plane flying over water at any given time is greater than zero

We have a pribility of brilliant engineers not devicing a floatation buoy to the black box upon contact with water equal to one

I am sure you don't need a bigger contraption than life saving vest that we are told is under the seat or seat cushion itself is a floatation device

I say just screw the black box to a seat or life jacket of course remove the ehistle and the opening to top the air as the air hostess announce now a days cost cutting had lead to cartoon characters instead of beautiful Aur India aunty announcing

Exactly! A few pages back i mentioned this, that how easy it really is to develop a develop a device that will compulsorily ping a commercial flights lat/long. Even a hydrostatic release device that can float up and ping a satellite the location is not a big deal.

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 24 Mar 2014 16:24

Aussies see something:
https://www.amsa.gov.au/media/documents ... 0FINAL.pdf

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 24 Mar 2014 16:26

What if you start with a 0.75 probability that there was a transponder scam?

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 24 Mar 2014 16:31

an orange rectangular object.

Now they seem to be on to something. I HOPE that is not a life raft where the people starved to death because no one found them for 3 weeks!!!
Why can't a P-3 Orion do better than that? Don't they have high-res cameras? High waves? Low light?

My huge frustration with the Chinese reporting "large objects" was that at least one seemed very much like a life raft (the escape slide, detached) with two rows of people sitting in it, one along each edge. If they knew the color they could determine right away if it was that - but the picture was many days old.

If it turned out that people starved or died of exposure while all the oiseules were sitting with these data well in hand saying: "I am not willing to release that information", there should perhaps be a few hangings.

One other horrible possibility is that pirates did a particularly cruel operation: dumped the passengers into lifeboats from a container ship and set them afloat in the near-Antarctic region. Along with sundry items such as wooden pallets picked up from the plane as "objects" to be detected weeks later. "Sorry, plane did a water landing but sank".

At this point, the best hope is that they find that it was a plane crash and people became unconscious long before it happened.

member_28502 · Post by **member_28502** » 24 Mar 2014 16:46

In radio shack you get for $39,99 voice activated solid state memory tape recorder which is approxkids palm size of course made in China

This can be fitted right under pilots seat with no option to turn it of ( lesson recently learnt)
It will over write due to limited solid state memory
Preserving the last 20 minutes

Add to that a small transmitter from the playback power amplifier section a RF transmitter to say fly MH xXX

One pooch is it true that Malaysian Airlines is asking people to declare if they are swimmers or not like Doctors or not ?

Just in case any special attention is needed
They also seem to allow 1 1 Lt oxygen bottle per passenger like infant milk bottle
Thanks for answering

I believe the current FDR has wire spool on to which the data is recorded Like my great grandfathers Telefunken tape recorder

Rajiv Lather · Post by **Rajiv Lather** » 24 Mar 2014 19:04

All dead. The Malaysian PM to make a statement soon. Relatives told by the airline company.

Why didn't they do this earlier ?

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 24 Mar 2014 19:11

Conclusive Report on Airplane's Position.
If THIS is their idea of presenting evidence, sorry, it fits right in with CT#1. "Suspected objects" found by suspected planes and reported by suspicious politicians based on suspect data.

Oh! It gets better!

British investigators have concluded that missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370's last position was in the middle of the Indian Ocean west of Perth, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said.

Sitting in Londonistan. Like the MCC sitting there and "concluding" that Tomy Greig's team of Vaseline Cheats did NOT cheat in the test series in India by wearing "forehead sweat bands" soaked in Vaseline to shine one side of the ball.

So there are planes and ships and satellites there from Australia, China, India, US, Japan and PAKISTAN (!!), all there, and it's the BRITISH who came up with this brilliant conclusion!

It's like someone said: The Malaysian pooh-bahs are used to saying:

This is the way it is because that's the way I like it, dont' ask questions!

Rishi · Post by **Rishi** » 24 Mar 2014 19:20

Seems it is on basis of some never before used Maths by Inmarsat that they have concluded that the flight took the southern route for sure. RIP

Harpal Bector · Post by **Harpal Bector** » 24 Mar 2014 19:32

So the Malays have had enough and can't take the media spotlight anymore. They are winding it up in the hope that this will all go away.
Without wreckage found and cogent explanations presented... this kind of behaviour will not improve Malaysia's credibility.

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 24 Mar 2014 19:37

The thing is, they are hours away (if that) from Australian ships finding the "large green and orange objects" and seeing if they came from MH370 (which still leaves other questions). If not, why not announce those results? Maybe they did to the relatives only?

Rajiv Lather · Post by **Rajiv Lather** » 24 Mar 2014 19:39

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razar said Monday that a new analysis of electronic data shows that the missing Malaysian airlines it went down in a remote area of the Indian ocean and that there were no survivors

What can be more cogent than electronic data to prove that there are no survivors.

Rajiv Lather · Post by **Rajiv Lather** » 24 Mar 2014 19:41

UlanBatori wrote:The thing is, they are hours away (if that) from Australian ships finding the "large green and orange objects" and seeing if they came from MH370 (which still leaves other questions). If not, why not announce those results? Maybe they did to the relatives only?

Electronic data == Electrocardiogram pingers fitted to every passenger. They all stopped pinging...

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 24 Mar 2014 19:43

USN moving a towed ping detector into west australia is a indication the hunters have found some clues...

as usual with sher khan, watch his pug marks on the ground, not his distracting growls....and trail quietly...

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 24 Mar 2014 19:44

The French have apparently found something 570 miles north of this area. They are never wrong on numbers. Sign/direction is a different matter, though.

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 24 Mar 2014 19:45

is a indication the hunters have found some clues...

Or that the battery is dying on the black box. They must have had some indication better than "satellite found two vague objects" to focus the search so much on this area. I mean, search ANY area of the ocean and you will find junk floating around, esp. since the tsunamis of 2004 and the Japanese one washed so much far away from land. Entire debris fields have washed up from Japan all the way to Canadian Arctic coast.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 24 Mar 2014 19:47

cynical cynical Ulan...

Rishi · Post by **Rishi** » 24 Mar 2014 19:49

Supposedly Inmarsat accounted for the Doppler effect and concluded that the aircraft took the SIO route

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 24 Mar 2014 19:55

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense ... _path.html

New Information Narrows Missing Airliner’s Flight Path

By Jeff Wise

In a case that is swirling with uncertainties, a few pieces of evidence have stood apart for seeming reliability. Among them was the revelation last Saturday by Malaysia Prime Minister Najib Razak that his country’s investigators, in collaboration with U.S. authorities, had analyzed an electronic ping that MH370 had broadcast to the Inmarsat satellite at 8:11 a.m. on the morning of the disappearance. Based on this data, the investigators had determined that at that moment MH370 must have been somewhere along one of two broad arcs: one which passed through Central Asia, and the other of which covered a swath of largely empty Indian Ocean, far to the south.

The revelation left a burning question unresolved: what about the six earlier pings, which had been exchanged between the aircraft and the satellite about once per hour? Could any position data be deduced from them?

Today, Inmarsat revealed some crucial information. “The ping timings got longer,” Inmarsat spokesman Chris McLaughlin stated via email. That is to say, at each stage of its journey, the aircraft got progressively farther away from the geostationary satellite’s position, located over a spot on the equator south of Pakistan, and never changed its heading in a direction that took it closer—at least for very long.

The last known position of MH370 before it disappeared from Malaysia military radar was over the Andaman Sea, between the Malay Peninsula and the Andaman Islands. The time was about 2:15 a.m., and coincided with the first of the seven Inmarsat pings.

In order for its flight to have taken it ever farther from Inmarsat, MH370 would have had to have traveled within either of two narrow bands. One pointed north, toward India, Bangladesh, and Burma. The other pointed south, across Indonesian airspace and then across the Indian Ocean west of Australia.

The narrower range of possible flight paths reduces the number of plausible scenarios and suggests avenues of investigation. For instance, some have speculated that whoever was at the controls might have flown out over the open ocean, turned left and headed toward the southern arc in order to avoid passing through any areas of military radar coverage. That route is no longer possible. If the plane did travel south, its path should be detectable on stored Indonesian military radar returns.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 24 Mar 2014 20:00

so I dont see how this doppler thing rules out it landing safe n sound in some burmese warlords hideout, though I would imagine chinese moles would be shaking down that patch of woods (south of yunnan) very hard since the incident.

Lalmohan · Post by **Lalmohan** » 24 Mar 2014 20:03

the two arcs are presumeably great circle 'straight lines'?
any real navigators know the answer to this?

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 24 Mar 2014 20:06

you can just look at a student globe and compare to 2D map to make out...I think you are right they are just straight lines on surface of globe

Comer · Post by **Comer** » 24 Mar 2014 20:15

Rishi wrote:Supposedly Inmarsat accounted for the Doppler effect and concluded that the aircraft took the SIO route

If I understood right from pprune.org, Inmarsat is stationary on the equator and could have used the receding ping to plot the path.

member_28502 · Post by **member_28502** » 24 Mar 2014 20:19

Lalmohan wrote:the two arcs are presumeably great circle 'straight lines'?
any real navigators know the answer to this?

Then they would be a line parallel to a longitude (nearly)

to indicate the slice of clementine like

Harpal Bector · Post by **Harpal Bector** » 24 Mar 2014 20:29

I am sorry I dont follow that at all.

If the journalist is saying pings themselves became wider, ie red shifted to longer wavelength oscillations, yes that would indicate the ac was going away from the satellite. In order to get this info, one would have to take actual ping signal and do an fft on it and see all the principal frequency components shift to lower frequencies by an amount that exceeds the width of each peak.

Generally doppler shifts in EM spectra tend to be quite small unless the object is moving very fast. If the ac was doing 900 kph the doppler shift would be very tiny 1e-7 level. To claim the ability to reliably see this level of shift one would need a clock that was stable at the 1e-9 level.Does the internal clock of the INMARSAT satellite have that stability over the course on an hour? over several hours?

Are they sure they are seeing the doppler shift of MH370 and not a systematic error/drift in their on board clock? What is the reported allan variance of the INMARSAT clock? Measuring time is not for the faint of heart...

I dont know what INMARSAT and UKAIB did but if they are claiming the ability to detect 1e-8 level shifts on the base frequency without a clear description of the systematic errors, then I am inclined to call bullshit on this.