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US Navy Strategists Have a Long History of Finding the Lost
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Benedict Carey reports at the NYT that the uncertainties surrounding Malaysia Airlines Flight 370's disappearance are enormous, but naval strategists have been unraveling lost-at-sea mysteries as far back as the U-boat battles of World War II, and perhaps most dramatically in 1968, when an intelligence team found the submarine Scorpion, which sank in the North Atlantic after losing contact under equally baffling circumstances. "The same approach we used with Scorpion could be applied in this case and should be," says John P. Craven who helped pioneer the use of Bayesian search techniques to locate objects lost at sea. "But you need to begin with the right people." The approach is a kind of crowdsourcing, but not one in which volunteers pored over satellite images, like they have in search of Flight 370. "That effort is akin to good Samaritans combing a forest for a lost child without knowing for certain that the child is there," writes Carey.
Instead, forecasters draw on expertise from diverse but relevant areas — in the case of finding a submarine, say, submarine command, ocean salvage, and oceanography experts, as well as physicists and engineers. Each would make an educated guess as to where the ship is, based on different scenarios: the sub was attacked; a torpedo activated onboard; a battery exploded. Craven's work was instrumental in the Navy's search for the missing hydrogen bomb that had been lost in the Mediterranean Sea, off the coast of Spain in 1966 and this is how Craven located the Scorpion. "I knew these guys and I gave probability scores to each scenario they came up with," says Craven. The men bet bottles of Chivas Regal to keep matters interesting, and after some statistical analysis, Craven zeroed in on a point about 400 miles from the Azores, near the Sargasso Sea. The sub was found about 200 yards away.
In the case of the downed Malaysian plane, forecasters might bring in climate and ocean scientists, engineers who worked on building the plane's components and commercial pilots familiar with the route. Those specialists would then make judgments based on the scenarios already discussed as possible causes for the disappearance of Flight 370: terrorism, pilot error, sudden depressurization and engine failure. Sound-detection technology in and around the Indian Ocean may aid this forecasting. The sound of the airliner's fall — if it hit the water — might already have been picked up by submarines watching each other. "In that case the information would be classified," says former submarine commander Alfred Scott McLare, "and we wouldn't know anything until it was released through back channels somehow.""
Instead, forecasters draw on expertise from diverse but relevant areas — in the case of finding a submarine, say, submarine command, ocean salvage, and oceanography experts, as well as physicists and engineers. Each would make an educated guess as to where the ship is, based on different scenarios: the sub was attacked; a torpedo activated onboard; a battery exploded. Craven's work was instrumental in the Navy's search for the missing hydrogen bomb that had been lost in the Mediterranean Sea, off the coast of Spain in 1966 and this is how Craven located the Scorpion. "I knew these guys and I gave probability scores to each scenario they came up with," says Craven. The men bet bottles of Chivas Regal to keep matters interesting, and after some statistical analysis, Craven zeroed in on a point about 400 miles from the Azores, near the Sargasso Sea. The sub was found about 200 yards away.
In the case of the downed Malaysian plane, forecasters might bring in climate and ocean scientists, engineers who worked on building the plane's components and commercial pilots familiar with the route. Those specialists would then make judgments based on the scenarios already discussed as possible causes for the disappearance of Flight 370: terrorism, pilot error, sudden depressurization and engine failure. Sound-detection technology in and around the Indian Ocean may aid this forecasting. The sound of the airliner's fall — if it hit the water — might already have been picked up by submarines watching each other. "In that case the information would be classified," says former submarine commander Alfred Scott McLare, "and we wouldn't know anything until it was released through back channels somehow.""
"US Navy Strategists Have a Long History of Finding the Lost..." WITH DRONES!
Some of the earlier "finds" referenced in this article had a lot more evidence and a lot less of a geographic area. I think right now the flight is determined without a doubt to be "somewhere in asia, maybe." It was maybe being flown by a pilot but maybe by hijackers. It was maybe flying for 0 more hours after it last checked in or maybe 5 or maybe something in the middle and at a unknown speed.
They have about the same odds of finding it on the moon as they do at any particular geographic point with the current level of evidence. So what they need is more evidence, not just a really good search team from the Navy.
Respond with one ping!
Navy guys will need more data.
Those much hyped arcs from Inmarsat are pretty much bogus. The trouble is that the problem is badly conditioned - because satellite is way too far (geosynchonous orbit - not your friendly neighborhood gps) and it's right on top of the search area. In other words - small errors in time/distance measurements, satellite position, etc. produce huge errors in estimation. They're lucky they placed the airplane on earth.
We've seen maps of where MH770 could be based on the angle of last ping received from the engines. Here's one: http://static01.nyt.com/images/2014/03/16/world/asia/16flight-map/16flight-map-superJumbo.jpg
We have a Last Known Position (indicated on that map). We know how fast 777s can fly. If we had the ping arc data as shown in red on the above map for every ping received, we could determine MH770's course, and narrow down where it ended up significantly.
The following numbers are wrong, but a concrete example is easier to follow. Say the first ping occurs 15 minutes after the Last Known Position, and we think the 777 is flying at 500 mph. Set your compass for 125 miles (scale), put the pointy end on the last known position, and draw a circle. That circle will intersect the First Ping Arc in two places (we hope). If it doesn't, we need to rethink assumptions. Anyway, the plane was in one of those positions (more or less) at the time of tyhe first ping.
Do it again for the second ping arc. And again. Some of these potential courses will make no sense and no longer need to be followed. With any luck. though, there will emerge a Most Probably Course for the aircraft.
It may be necessary to rerun this analysis for different speeds - if MH770 was flying low to avoid radar it would travel more slowly. Do it. Hell, throw the entire problem to a computer and let if grind out possibilities.
Has the satellite angle data, or the location arcs at particular ping times, been released? Can it be released?
The plane was stolen. Forget about failures that there are no reason to think happened, about explosions or mechanical failures, about suicides or searching the ocean for debris. Just figure out where a stolen 777 was taken and you'll find the plane.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
They mention looking at the causes "terrorism, pilot error, sudden depressurization and engine failure" to estimate likely search locations. Of course, that's true.. But, if the cause is a rogue pilot who doesn't want to be found (as evidenced by the manual disabling of communications) things get tough really quick.
I guess at that point you're working with the fuel radius and removing areas covered by some form of tracking that would have definitely detected them.
The Malaysian military radar showed an unidentified plane without a flight plan fly across their country and over the Indian Ocean. The radar operators didn't notice it. So they missed the opportunity to send up fighter jets to find out what the fuck was going on.
Instead they were were searching the wrong sea, on the east of Malaysia.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03...
Series of Errors by Malaysia Mounts, Complicating the Task of Finding Flight 370
By KEITH BRADSHER and MICHAEL FORSYTHE
MARCH 15, 2014
Chivas Regal is whisky, not whiskey.
This is a job for...Ingo Swann!
You are welcome on my lawn.
US investigators are interested in the Southern ping arc because radar installations along the Northern arc would be hard to evade though some mention is now made of traversing Myanmar on the Northern arc. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03... However, in the graphic, an envelope of 1 hour flight distance is shown for each arc. The envelopes for the North and South arcs don't overlap. In fact it looks like it would take three hours to get from one arc to the other. Drawing radii from the arc ends to the satellite position, it looks like you'd have to get to Sri Lanka before the arc ends are within an hour's travel distance. But, news reports indicate detection of hourly pings. If similar arcs are associated with the other pings, then there may never be time to jump from one arc to the other if they are never consistent with a position near Sri Lanka, so the Southern arc might be excluded on geometric grounds.
Not so fast. The Scorpion was found because the U.S. had an extensive underwater listening array in the Atlantic (SOSUS) designed specifically to (wait for it...) locate and track submarines. Soviet submarines, but it worked equally well on U.S. submarines which were making a lot of noise - like one in its death throes from an onboard explosion and imploding as it passed crush depth. One of their first clues that something disastrous had happened was when those sounds showed up on SOSUS audio tapes.
Yes the same methodology can (and should) be applied inn locating MH370. But we're talking about uncertainties in location and time an order or three in magnitude larger than for the Scorpion or AF447.
If the plane got low enough over land, I wonder if any of the passenger or crew cell phone connected to a tower.
Even if they took the plane up high and decompressed the cabin, someone's phone may still have been powered later in the flight.
Not everyone turns off their phone - some forget, aren't paying attention, or just think they are special.
I would ID every cell phone and try to get cooperation to determine if any were detected somewhere.
Have gnu, will travel.
Don't waste time speculating on a motive. It doesn't prove anything and does not find the plane.
Don't waste time speculating on who. It is on;y speculation and does not find the plane.
Focus on determining where the plane went, where it is and how it is being hidden. That will lead to the other answers.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
If we want to find the most likely cause of the plane going missing, a sensible question might be:
In what situation would this be the best location to "disappear" a large jet?
For example: if you wanted to steal it, intact, is there anywhere else in the world where the combination of remoteness, lack of radar coverage, getting "your" aircrew on board and easy (without much technology) landing and concealment would offer a greater chance of success? If there are places that would make the theft easier to get away with, then maybe it would rule out that particular possibility for the disappearance.
Just go through the list of possibilites until this location bubbles up to the top, then assume you've got the reason - search accordingly.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
The delays in turning off the transponder and the data stream to the modem, flying between way points on a well known path etc might be explained by confused and disabled pilots too.
Hypoxia can set in as little as 90 seconds of oxygen deprivation and will severely incapacitate and confuse people. Cabin pressure loss is the most common theory for hypoxia. But cabin pressure loss would deploy oxygen masks, sound alarms and the pilot would have been alert in the first few seconds to declare emergency and radio out. The captain seems to be nerd with home made flight simulator, he would have reacted correctly to oxygen masks dropping from the ceilings.
Carbon monoxide is a way for hypoxia to set in. If there was a slow smoldering fire in the cockpit, not hot enough to trigger fire alarms it could result in incapacitated confused pilots. Again there are CO detectors, and warnings and associated with it.
I am not sure how regularly these systems that detect cabin pressure loss and CO detectors are tested. It is quite expensive to actually deploy all those oxygen masks. So even the regular testing protocol would require the maintenance crew to disable the actual deployment of the oxygen masks and test the detection and deployment signals. They could forget to turn them back on, like the did in the Helios flight disaster I mentioned in another thread. CO detector is chemical based. They have to be replaced regularly and this is an old plane.
Once the pilots flip switches on and off in confused state lose their consciousness completely, the plane would fly on autopilot following the way points that happened to be programmed.
If there is foul play involved, it would be worthwhile exercise to make sure every flight plan that was file in that duration and every flight directed by the control towers in that time is legit and locate those planes. The pilot(s) could easily turn off the transponder, drop out of radar, pop back in and start using a different call sign. Without a transponder, air traffic control completely trusts the pilot to self identify the plane correctly. If the malefactors had filed a fake flight plan, the plane could change its identity mid flight without attracting attention.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
1 The last fix from Inmarsat gave a Line of Position (LOP) which is a very broad arc.
They had a ping every hour, each of which should have resulted in an LOP.
Is there a way to combine these LOP's to get a better idea of the flight path?
(Old school marine folks would walk the old LOP's forward in time and combine them.)
One would have to guess a direction and speed to do this which makes the logic somewhat circular.
Still, there should be more information in the rest of the LOP's.
2) Who benefits from all this?
This has focused attention on the flight and not on what's happening in with Russia.
This seems an unlikely motivation, but it is a definite consequence.
I certainly hope this is not the motivation behind this.
It is the Scottish who say that the only thing the Irish have contributed of possible meaning to the whisky universe is an 'e'.
That cooperation would have likely happened with the axe kept in all cockpits.
yes you know stop redireticting me to beta
As said by one of the english papers, they turn the radars off to save money. Which implies the radar is turned on about enough time for the commuter flight to come in. And america is in a money saving mode since Fair haired Regan. Makes you wonder if some of those fair haired generals shouldn't be getting part time pay for defending our country.
There could have been problems with the aircraft. Along with intercepted and diverted for other reasons. And it could have been other then the aircrew. Won't know till we find out.
The pings that were recorded after the other communications gear was shut down were emitted by the Rolls Royce engines. The engine vendor apparently wants to maintain records separate from the black box (might not be recovered) in the event of a crash. This way they can document exactly when their engines stopped. If it's at point of impact, then they avoid blame.
So, I do not believe that anyone inside the plane could have shut off the engines' transponders without shutting down the engines.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
You really thing someone who would steal a 777 would stop selling the parts because paperwork didn't match? For gods sake people travel with false passports all the time, sell stolen cars with forged papers, print money for themselves etc. I don't think creating some very real document for any parts would be a big problem. Nobody is going to look at them anyways if the parts somehow come from the right place, which they will. There won't be some shady person appearing at the airline HQ suggestin gthey might have something of interest in the trunk of their car.
Because the pilot that's on your plan happens to fly passenger planes? It's not like anyone doing that kind of plot could just pick any pilot they want. I mean, why not steal some military plane with a crew of 1 and weapons? I think the "stolen plane" theory is palusible, not very likely, but still remotely possible. I'd say some sort of catasthropic failure is the most likely explanation, suicide maybe the second. After that bomb on board, failed terrorists, stolen plane, and then all the other crazy theories.
Sosus net is an amazing tool.
The US Navy never found the SS Minnow
Why is it that we can track submarines based on their metal content using MAD (Magnetic Anomaly Detection), but we can't find a similarly-sized aircraft?
What about the other pings? What angle did they come from? What degree of uncertainty is there in the receiving phased array on the bird? My current hypothesis is that they fly south easterly to Sri Lanka and then skirted the west coast of India and landed in coastal Iran. My (primitive) calculations say that's possible. If the last ping was heard at approx 40 from the Inmarsat located at 25 E, that would place them in the area of southern Iran, which supports my hypothesis from last week which was based solely on the distance they could fly.
Has anyone considered what if acquiring a fully operating jet or more explicitley a Boeing 777 passenger jet was the plan of the hijackers. Where could it fly without it raising alarms on radar etc.?
NO!
Some of the earlier "finds" referenced in this article had a lot more evidence ......without a doubt to be "somewhere in asia, maybe."
Given the abysmal date set we have to work with here it is clear
that long range (and even local) aircraft need to talk to each other.
At 20-40,000 feet the line of sight high frequency options are clearly untapped.
While satellite communications are expensive a p2p (aircraft2aircraft)
store and forward messaging system is an obvious opportunity.
There are wide open very high frequency lightly regulated bands that
seem to me to be an obvious thing to use.
The number of aircraft flying in any half hemisphere is a lot less
than the early days of uucico prune the map with GPS data and
some interesting transmission patterns are very possible.
One enhancement is clearly an option and that is store/ cache/ forward.
The value of this is that there is no dependency on the politics of a single
aircraft.
And yes I would be happy to be a co-inventor should someone run with this.
The interesting subtext of this the astounding line of sight and astounding
bandwidth of point to point data links. Air2air radio traffic could profit from
old school and classic satellite pointing technology.
Should air2air traffic be unavailable satellite traffic is still an option.
Isolating air2air traffic from other avionics bands is also possible
and adds some isolation and thus safety to this. There is also
cash to be made. Air2air like car2car mesh traffic technology is
at hand and all highways could supplement internet backbones.
I should also note that China has some astoundingly fine submarines.
They are mostly diesel electric and run silent and deep enough to be able to
search for the transponder. As good as they are they could find the
"black box acoustic ping" with "gosh darn luck" and not divulge their
capability. I do hope they have been dispatched. Further I would like
to believe that the naval traffic folk have established regions and depths
for subs to operate in the way air traffic control has established simple traffic
management with altitude (vs. depth) limits. And yes keep clear please
regions....
True China is not the only one with fine quiet submarines more than a couple
boats should be moving toward this region.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
didn't the Chinese just claim the south china sea as theirs?
didn't they just say that not filing flight plans with THEIR govt would or could result in extreme results (or something like that?)
I personally think the Chinese shot it down...