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MH370 disappearance: Goodfellow's theory about fire and Langkawi is wrong.

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Re: MH370 disappearance: Goodfellow's theory about fire and Langkawi is wrong.

#11

Post by tomkarlo »

pedalpete wrote: post #2

Can somebody explain to me how "pings narrowed the location of MH370 at that moment to one of two arcs"? If a ping is picked up, shouldn't it be somewhat definitive of where it came from?

It seems similar to how GPS is used to find location - you only know the distance from each satellite, not the direction. Contact with one satellite places you on an arc (or circle), two sats put you on one of the two spots where the arc around each intersects, and three isolates your position to a single intersection of three arcs at established distances from each satellite. (And four gives you altitude.)

Re: MH370 disappearance: Goodfellow's theory about fire and Langkawi is wrong.

#12

Post by United857 »

Any onboard fire fast and strong enough to suddenly disable the crew would almost certainly also bring the plane down in short order, rather than letting it fly on for hours (as the supposed satellite data shows).

See Swissair Flight 111 and ValuJet Flight 592 as past examples.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swissair_Flight_111

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ValuJet_Flight_592

Re: MH370 disappearance: Goodfellow's theory about fire and Langkawi is wrong.

#13

Post by LoganCale »

pedalpete wrote: post #2

Can somebody explain to me how "pings narrowed the location of MH370 at that moment to one of two arcs"? If a ping is picked up, shouldn't it be somewhat definitive of where it came from?

There's only one satellite, so they only have (as far as we know) the delay time between sending out the ping and hearing a response to determine distance from satellite to aircraft, with no ability to triangulate the position as something like GPS (which uses many satellites) would do. So they can figure out a large curve around the satellite's position, and the aircraft could have been at any point (within the limits of its fuel capacity) when it sent out that final ping.

Re: MH370 disappearance: Goodfellow's theory about fire and Langkawi is wrong.

#14

Post by alexeisadeski3 »

tim333 wrote: post #9
alexeisadeski3 wrote: post #5

The theory was obviously wrong even when it was on the front page of HN two days ago: 1. It does not account for course changes made after the initial diversion from the flight path. 2. It does not account for the final known location of the aircraft along the infamous "arc" off of Australia and Kazakhstan. The popularity of the theory was and remains puzzling.

Dunno. 1 and 2 could be experimental error. Here's his rebuttal cut and pasted: GOODFELLOW REBUTTAL...Interesting analysis of my analysis. New information surfaced today of several people in the Maldives seeing a large white airliner with three red stripes flying overhead at 6:15am the following morning. This coincides nicely with the 2000 nautical mile distance from the original turn made 5 hours before approx. 400…

Thank you for posting that.

It seems that the rebuttal consists of claiming that the evidence we public thus far have been presented is wrong, people involved are not providing the entire truth, etc.

That's possible. But why not work with the information as presented instead of willing it away?

Also:

The change in direction was made at least 12 minutes before co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid said "All right, good night," to controllers on the ground, the sources said.

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/missing-jet/missing-jets-u-...

Re: MH370 disappearance: Goodfellow's theory about fire and Langkawi is wrong.

#15

Post by tim333 »

scott27 wrote: post #10

My problem with Goodfellow's theory, and what really makes this disappearance so intriguing, is that they never found any wreckage anywhere. I would figure with the plane crashing in the ocean somewhere(which would be the most likely scenario in Goodfellow's theory) I would figure they would find SOMETHING by now considering how many resources are being poured into this search.

In Goodfellow's hypothesis the wreckage will be found west of the Maldives shortly. It wouldn't have been found up to now because they have been searching in the wrong places. I have not been blown away by the Malaysians efficiency in doing the search and analysis.

Re: MH370 disappearance: Goodfellow's theory about fire and Langkawi is wrong.

#16

Post by LoganCale »

tim333 wrote: post #9
alexeisadeski3 wrote: post #5

The theory was obviously wrong even when it was on the front page of HN two days ago: 1. It does not account for course changes made after the initial diversion from the flight path. 2. It does not account for the final known location of the aircraft along the infamous "arc" off of Australia and Kazakhstan. The popularity of the theory was and remains puzzling.

Dunno. 1 and 2 could be experimental error. Here's his rebuttal cut and pasted: GOODFELLOW REBUTTAL...Interesting analysis of my analysis. New information surfaced today of several people in the Maldives seeing a large white airliner with three red stripes flying overhead at 6:15am the following morning. This coincides nicely with the 2000 nautical mile distance from the original turn made 5 hours before approx. 400…

The ping data did not come from Rolls Royce, it came from the SATCOM provider. Rolls Royce did not receive data after the aircraft reached cruise altitude, despite early false reports that they did.

The early maneuvering was seen on military radar and is confirmed (Malaysia flew another 777 along the same route and monitored it on radar and the signature matched). The positional arc that has been frequently shown is from the final SATCOM ping the aircraft responded to, roughly 7 hours after takeoff.

Re: MH370 disappearance: Goodfellow's theory about fire and Langkawi is wrong.

#17

Post by einhverfr »

alexeisadeski3 wrote: post #14
tim333 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dunno. 1 and 2 could be experimental error. Here's his rebuttal cut and pasted: GOODFELLOW REBUTTAL...Interesting analysis of my analysis. New information surfaced today of several people in the Maldives seeing a large white airliner with three red stripes flying overhead at 6:15am the following morning. This coincides nicely with the 2000 nautical mile distance from the original turn made 5 hours before approx. 400…

Thank you for posting that. It seems that the rebuttal consists of claiming that the evidence we public thus far have been presented is wrong, people involved are not providing the entire truth, etc. That's possible. But why not work with the information as presented instead of willing it away? Also: The change in direction was made at least 12 minutes before co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid said "All right, good night," t…

I think that one has to be clear about the possibilities here:

1. The plane was hijacked (this seems the most likely for now but let's see what develops)

2. The engine data and satellite ping data was erroneous, perhaps confused with another source.

3. You have a slow issue like slow decompression combined with an avionics failure which caused the plane to follow a long and complex course.

Under normal circumstances none of these three are reasonable explanations. For it to be a hijacking, someone has to have been interested not merely in takin the plane somewhere else but in stealing the plane and concealing it. And the other are remarkably complex.

At this point, though, those are the three scenarios we are discussing. The author of the theory suggests that investigators are using bad data. I wouldn't say it is impossible, and we are already talking about the margins of what is possible in all of our possible scenarios.

Re: MH370 disappearance: Goodfellow's theory about fire and Langkawi is wrong.

#18

Post by einhverfr »

LoganCale wrote: post #13
pedalpete wrote: post #2

Can somebody explain to me how "pings narrowed the location of MH370 at that moment to one of two arcs"? If a ping is picked up, shouldn't it be somewhat definitive of where it came from?

There's only one satellite, so they only have (as far as we know) the delay time between sending out the ping and hearing a response to determine distance from satellite to aircraft, with no ability to triangulate the position as something like GPS (which uses many satellites) would do. So they can figure out a large curve around the satellite's position, and the aircraft could have been at any point (within the limi…

Distance alone should give you a full circle, but remember you also have processing time which is significant.

If they have two possible arcs, this suggests that the same ping was heard by two satellites (and no more), and that these are the places where the difference in time that the satellites heard the pings would work for both satellites.

You have basically three intersecting spheres (one is the earth and the other is based on the satellites' light cones). They all meet in two locations. If you had a third satellite, you should be able to determine which of the two locations was right.

Re: MH370 disappearance: Goodfellow's theory about fire and Langkawi is wrong.

#19

Post by einhverfr »

ekianjo wrote: post #6
alexeisadeski3 wrote: post #5

The theory was obviously wrong even when it was on the front page of HN two days ago: 1. It does not account for course changes made after the initial diversion from the flight path. 2. It does not account for the final known location of the aircraft along the infamous "arc" off of Australia and Kazakhstan. The popularity of the theory was and remains puzzling.

Indeed. It's been so far very clear that the simple accident or suicide scenarii were a little too simple to explain all the data that was gathered so far.

And for this matter, it was no simple hijacking either.

Re: MH370 disappearance: Goodfellow's theory about fire and Langkawi is wrong.

#20

Post by marshray »

Sure he's an experienced pilot, but he doesn't seem to have access to any better information than the rest of us. There are plenty of other aviation experts and informed amateurs doing equally interesting analysis and speculation.

So what did Goodfellow do so right to get everyone buzzing about "his" theory?

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