MH370 is Not Lost in the Indian Ocean
Inmarsat has pulled off the hoax of
the century by directing the search for MH 370 to the Indian Ocean.
The probability of finding the plane
in the present search area is no higher than for any other randomly selected
area in the Indian Ocean.
Inmarsat is guilty of some combination of scientific
incompetence and fraud. The original
interpretation of the purported measurement of distance between the satellite
and plane based on time shift of the pings may have been an honest
misinterpretation of the data and failed to recognize the plausible conclusion
that the measurement was not sufficiently precise to accurately determine the
distance. This was the basis for the
conclusion that that plane would be found in the Indian Ocean west of Australia
and initiated a massive search and rescue operation. Subsequently, the Doppler data clearly showed
that the original conclusion was wrong, but instead of admitting their error
and telling the world that they had absolutely no credible information about
the location of the airplane they produced a flight path consistent with the
Doppler data pointing toward the same general area in the Indian Ocean. The search continued. Inmarast failed to note that the proposed
flight path was only one of at least 14 equally probable paths pointing in
totally different directions. This is
fraudulent.
This fraud has unfortunately shifted the focus from the
information that is available from the Doppler measurements. The position and direction of the plane at
the last radar detection provides a starting point for predicting the probable
end position of the airplane. We know
that the plane flew for 7 hours and the Doppler data provides information on
the direction of the airplane at the time of each ping. To the extent that the speed of the plane is
known, the position and direction of the plane at the time of each ping is
determined. This allows the flight path
of the plane to be plotted and the end point determined. The accuracy is limited only by the
uncertainty in the speed and the accuracy of the Doppler measurements. It is true that the Doppler shift depends
only on the magnitude of the angle between the airplane velocity vector and the
vector pointing at the satellite, and does not depend on the sign of the
angle. Thus, at each measurement two
complementary directions are possible, and Inmarsat picked the one that led to
their desired conclusion rather than others that were equally probable.
I have neither the Doppler data nor a good estimate of the
expected speed of the airplane, but any competent person with that data can
determine the endpoint of the flight with an accuracy only limited by the
uncertainties in the speed and Doppler frequency shifts. This calculation will clearly show the areas
where the plane is most likely to be found.
The mysterious
disappearance of MH370
The Malaysian government has now officially declared that
flight MH 370 has crashed in the Indian Ocean.
The people on the plan are dead, and the plane is located at an unknown
place and the chances that the plane will ever be found are remote. End of story.
“The plane automatically sent a brief signal — a "ping" — every
hour to a satellite belonging to Inmarsat, a British company, even after other
communication systems shut down. The pings indicated that the jet kept flying
for seven hours after its last radar contact.
Inmarsat was able to calculate two long arcs indicating where the plane
might have flown.”
“But how did they do that calculation
and what was the precision???
But perhaps it is only the beginning of the real story. It is a tragic testimonial to the scientific
ignorance of the media, government officials, and the public at large. If an
“expert” states that something is true and no other “expert” disputes the statement,
then it is accepted as established fact.
Early in this tragedy an expert stated that analysis of the data on the
hourly pings between the aircraft and a stationary satellite showed that the
plane travelled in a circular arc either to the north or the south as depicted
in Figure 1. The northern route was
quickly discounted on the grounds that an airplane travelling on that path
would have been detected by radar of the numerous air defense systems along
that path. The southern path was
accepted as truth and a massive, and so far fruitless, effort was launched to
find the wreckage of the plane. This
conclusion ignored the possibility that the purported distance measurement
between the plane and the satellite lacked sufficient precision to provide any
believable information about the flight path of the airplane. What was really observed was that the plane
travelled for 7 hours with no detectable variation in the distance between the
airplane and the satellite.
Figure 1. Flight
paths on circles about satellite according to Inmarsat.
I am a physicist with expertise in time-of-flight mass
spectrometry and have no expertise in either control of aircraft or aircraft
communication. I have made a good living
for more than fifty years applying logical analyses to empirical observations
and have learned many times that the seemingly obvious answer is not always
correct. I am surprised that no one has
challenged the original conclusion that MH370 followed either a northern arc or
a southern arc and could not have continued on its last observed westerly
direction. No one has pointed out the
obvious fact that the routes supposedly followed arcs that were exactly
equidistant from the satellite. This
could have been correct, but there is another more likely explanation. The alternative is that the signal used to
determine the distance from the satellite did not, in fact, correlate with the
distance from the satellite, because the resolution of the measurement was
inadequate. If so, the data from the
pings confirms that the flight remained in the air for 7 hours but nothing
about the direction of travel. We routinely measure distances and times with a
precision of 1 part per million. This
employs sophisticated instruments and software designed for this application. The apparatus used for determining the path
of the airplane was not designed for that purpose and the precision and
accuracy expected for the measurement has not been stated. If the plane had instead followed the
trajectory such as illustrated by the red arrow pointing west, determining the
apparent distance to the satellite would have required a precision of about 1
part per thousand to distinguish the straight trajectory from the circular one.
(See Figure 2) No data have been
provided about the expected accuracy and precision of this purported
measurement.
Figure 2. Maximum
change in the distance to the satellite for the straight path vs. the circular
path.
The data from the Doppler affect measurements clearly
show that the flight did not follow the circular route initially determined.
If the flight had followed the circular route, there would be no Doppler
shift because the airplane velocity is then perpendicular to the direction of
signal propagation. The Doppler measurements may give an accurate
determination of the flight path, but these data cannot distinguish between
equivalent paths north or south of the satellite. If the plane did not
follow the circular route, then the reasons for discarding the northern
direction disappear. Inmarsat did not
admit that without the Doppler data there was no evidence about the direction
that the plane had flown and that there was no reason to believe that the plane
would be found anywhere in the southern Indian Ocean.
Rather than admit their error, Inmarsat attempted to
interpret the Doppler data to indicate that the plane was in the south Indian
Ocean even though that flight path had no basis in fact and represented only
one of 14 flight paths consistent with the Doppler data.
Illustration of 6 of
the 14 flight paths consistent with the Doppler data. At each ping the angle between the flight
path and the vector to the satellite is the same magnitude for either of 2
directions. The distances between the pings should be equal to distance
travelled in 1 hour. The positions shown
here may not be accurate and are only for illustrating the principle.
Ignoring the speculations and faulty analyses, the
established facts related to the disappearance of fight MH30 are the following:
1.
A competent person or person switched off the
airplanes’ communication systems and directed the plane in a westerly
direction.
2.
There is no credible data on the flight path
following its last observation by radar.
The southern route generally accepted is not supported by the Doppler
data.
3.
According to the interpretation by Inmarsat of
the Doppler data the plane would have flown west until near the tip of India
and then executed a sharp turn to the south.
4.
The Doppler data is consistent with the proposed
route by Inmarsat, but it is equally consistent with the plane continuing on
west and passing within ca. 2000 km of the satellite. In the absence of any data indicating such a
turn to nowhere, the latter seems most plausible.
5.
The plane flew for seven hours along one of the
possible paths. If it continued west,
then it would have arrived at somewhere in Somalia, Ethiopia, Yemen, Oman, or
if diverted to the north in Iran or Pakistan.
In the absence of
other credible data it seems reasonable that the plane continued in a westerly
direction and would have arrived at the coast of Africa in about 7 hours. It would have arrived there at about 3 am
local time and may not have been observed, and whether it landed at an airport
or crashed somewhere is impossible to know with the data available. It has been
established that the plane was directed to a new flight path by a competent
person on the plane who was also able to turn off the normal airplane
communication systems. If that person or persons had a definite destination in
mind, then it would be logical to continue on the original course until that
destination was reached. It might also
be reasonable that people on the ground at the destination were prepared to
assist in landing and concealing the plane and in dealing with the people on
board.
Continuing to search in the south Indian Ocean is unlikely
to yield other than negative results, even if the plane were there. On the other hand if the plane is on the
ground in one of the countries above, then an exhaustive search may provide
some answers. In particular:
If the plan did reach the coast of Africa at about 3 am
local time on March 8, the US and other countries may have satellite
surveillance images that would indicate a plane arriving at a lighted airport
or crashing somewhere in that area.
These data must be examined in detail.
If the plane did in fact land and has been concealed, then
it may take a concerted international effort to find it, but such an effort
makes more sense than continuing to pick up trash in the Indian Ocean.
Starting from the position and direction observed in the last
Radar sighting of the plane, and given the Doppler data and a good estimate of
the expected speed of the airplane, any competent person with that data can
determine the position of the plane at each ping and the endpoint of the flight
with an accuracy only limited by the uncertainties in the speed and Doppler
frequency shifts. This is true for all 14 of the possible paths. About half of these will indicate end positions
in the Indian Ocean and many of the others to the north can be rejected on the
same grounds as the original rejection of the northern path. This calculation
will clearly show that there are at most 2 or 3 areas where the plane is likely
to be found.
Without hard information it is
fruitless to speculate further about who is responsible and why it happened. Those questions will be answered if and when
the plane is found. Also the fate of the
239 people on board will remain a mystery.
After nearly a month has passed It is hard to be optimistic about the
eventual outcome, but in the absence of definite information to the contrary it
is possible that some or all of the people on board MH370 are still alive.
Notes for the Future
This should never be
allowed to happen again. If both the
transit time of the signal from the plane to the satellite and the frequency
shift of the signal were accurate, and the speed of the plane accurately
estimated, then the position and direction at the time of the “ping” could be accurately
determined for all possible flight paths.
Further, if the signal were detected by two satellites separated by a
known distance, the results would be more accurate since the speed could then
be directly determined and this would remove all ambiguity about possible
flight paths. This allows the flight
path to be accurately monitored in real time and the future position determined
unless the plane changes direction between “pings”.
Marvin Vestal
CEO SimulTOF Systems
