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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.

#21

Post by InclinedPlane »

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…

GPS relies on extremely precise timing as well, and extremely precise knowledge of the orbits of the satellites. If you have 10 millisecond timing on signals that narrows things down to a 3000km range of distances.

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

#22

Post by leoc »

United857 wrote: post #12

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

It might be possible to find a Goldilocks explanation. Maybe a smaller fire, located in the cockpit, which the crew eventually extinguish only to find that the cockpit instrumentation is destroyed? Or maybe which they successfully extinguish, but only after both pilots are unconscious from smoke inhalation, and no-one else knows how to fly or use the radios? Sounds a bit contrived, but this is an unusual situtation.

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

#23

Post by truantbuick »

There's something that particularly bothers me about Goodfellow's article. He condescends about crazy theories while making ridiculous assumption after ridiculous assumption while acting very authoritative about each one. Just because his theory is less "sexy" (it doesn't involve hijacking or terrorists or suicide) doesn't make it any more valid. I'm appreciative of commentary that urges a more prudent approach, not a condescending and equally implausible theory that happens to be boring.

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

#24

Post by alexeisadeski3 »

einhverfr wrote: post #17
alexeisadeski3 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The hijacking and crazy pilot theories are most plausible. Hijackera were simply irrational and forced them to go to Australia or something like that. Has happened before.

Or the pilot wanted to commit suicide in a bizarre manner. Or he had a psychotic episode.

All of these are more plausible than Rube Goldberg mechanical failures or James Bond terrorist plots.

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

#25

Post by alexeisadeski3 »

einhverfr wrote: post #19
ekianjo wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A simple bungled hijacking is very much a possibility.

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

#26

Post by hatbert »

einhverfr wrote: post #18
LoganCale wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ot…

You're misunderstanding. There is a single circle, which people are calling two arc. That is because they know the airplane can't fly more than a certain distance from its last known position (this reduces the circle to an arc) and because they know where the airplane isn't from radar data (that breaks the one arc into two pieces, which happen to be roughly the same size).

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

#27

Post by einhverfr »

alexeisadeski3 wrote: post #24
einhverfr wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The hijacking and crazy pilot theories are most plausible. Hijackera were simply irrational and forced them to go to Australia or something like that. Has happened before. Or the pilot wanted to commit suicide in a bizarre manner. Or he had a psychotic episode. All of these are more plausible than Rube Goldberg mechanical failures or James Bond terrorist plots.

My problem though is that getting the plane onto the ground without anyone noticing (which is the only explanation I can think of that ties in the lack of the transponder to this as well as no followup sightings at, say, major airports).

That's a big question, and it suggests a level of clandestine resources I have trouble imagining being the case in Australia.

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

#28

Post by einhverfr »

alexeisadeski3 wrote: post #25
einhverfr wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

A simple bungled hijacking is very much a possibility.

Flying into the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night with no transponder never to be seen again? If it is a bungled hijacking it is still not a simple "take me to this airport or I will start killing people" case.

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

#30

Post by FatalLogic »

LoganCale wrote: post #16
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…

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…

>Rolls Royce did not receive data after the aircraft reached cruise altitude, despite early false reports that they did.

It casts much doubt on Goodfellow's ability to analyse this case if he didn't know basic facts about it, such as this.

He also referred to the supposed sighting in the Maldives, which appears to be wrong, as it was nowhere near any of the final positions indicated by the SATCOM pings, and occurred about an hour after the plane should have run out of fuel.

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