How to find Malaysia flight MH370?

[Field physics]

I tend to love watching videos by a yt content creator called "Mentour Pilot" his videos debrief aviation accidents, explains lots of the physics involved and engineering.
One of his recent videos had me thinking for a little while now and I would like everyone's opinions.
This video is about a hour long but is well worth it and really keeps you interested.

My question to you is do y'all think this may actually help find the aircraft? Does anyone have any thoughts to narrow the search? Or perhaps, widen it? Some of the things I though about was Ocean currents, foul play/tampering, and perhaps ground effect extending the distance. I am unsure if ground effect was also calculated with all the other probabilities. Thought?

-Aspiring Physicist

 

[Field physics]

Could a third transponder that was more redundant be helpful? Perhaps one that runs on the RAT or ADG? Or Maybe even a individual power source reserved for if all transponders fail? Maybe powered by a pre-charged battery that can be changed regularly like many more applications have been formed and being formed with Lithium Ion cells?

 

[Baluncore]

Engines are expensive items, so are often leased from the manufacturer. Each should now have its own internal processor, GPS receiver and data uplink to the manufacturer.

 

[Field physics]

Engines are expensive items, so are often leased from the manufacturer. Each should now have its own internal processor, GPS receiver and data uplink to the manufacturer.

What's the power source? If it's bleed air powered or air compressed would they still work with a engine failure or shut off? That would definitely be helpful and they do have a internal processor and the power source is redundant that would be excellent. I am just curious if there is anything we can find that may need additional redundancy.

 

[berkeman]

This video is about a hour long

Could you summarize the main points for us please? Thanks.

 

[Baluncore]

... would they still work with a engine failure or shut off?

No, but they would have sufficient power available to make a shutdown call. When the last engine shuts down, the manufacturer will know approximately where their engines are.

The problem with the MH370 search is that it is a wide area, not a line.

 

[Field physics]

From the description of the mentour pilots channel these are the sources used for that video and really tell you what we need to know now.

SOURCES-----------------------------------------------------Final Report:https://reports.aviation-safety.net/2...Capt. Blelly and Jean-Luc Marchand study:https://www.mh370-caption.net/wp-cont...The WSPR study:https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/nn3eed...Capt. Blelly’s website:https://www.mh370-caption.net/Richard Godfrey’s (WSPR) website:https://www.mh370search.com/Latest WSPR tracking test of other aircraft (Feb 15th 2024):https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/vzftcv...Details of the ocean search:https://web.archive.org/web/202003101...KLATCC Building:https://img.astroawani.com/2021-09/41...https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/p/A...https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/p/A...https://www.facebook.com/CivilAviatio...https://buletinklatcc.blogspot.com/20...
The Main Points:
Foul play is speculated due to lots of mechanical knowledge of the aircrafts systems were used to disable all forms of known tracking. Such as shutting engines off and turning off APU auto-start to avoid the satcom systems to resume data transmission.

Another important point is by the time all forms of data including the newly obtained data has ended the aircraft had lost all forms of power both electrically and mechanically so that limits the crash sites radius quite a bit.

WSPR technology is able to provide that circle that the crash could have been depending on pilot optimization and glide distances. One question I still have is was ground effect included in the calculations. Which is when the wings have increased aerodynamic drag that starts generating lift when the air starts hitting the ground, it's also known as floating. The air speed is too slow to climb but the energy over fixed wings are too high to land.

Some of my person interest is, do we think that ocean currencies may have effected this radius? If the accident was foul play them do we need to suspect foul player after the accident with tampering? Also any other factors anyone thinks may result is differences between suspected location and where it may actually be?

 

[Field physics]

No, but they would have sufficient power available to make a shutdown call. When the last engine shuts down, the manufacturer will know approximately where their engines are.

The problem with the MH370 search is that it is a wide area, not a line.

interesting point about the area and radius of the accident search, do you think that ocean sonographs may assist in the search? What would be some of your ideas on the search?

 

[Flyboy]

Hmmm. There’s a huge trade off to be made here. Adding further complexity in the form of multiply redundant power/transponder systems to ward against an exceptionally unlikely scenario.

Honestly, as a mechanic by training and an avid student of aviation, I don’t see what the point would be. Sure, you would know where to look, but to what end? Everything I’ve seen points to it being a mass murder/suicide, and in truly unique fashion. There’s nothing that would be able to be learned in that scenario, as if the suspect was that thorough in disabling tracking, I guarantee that the CVR was disabled too.

Hell, I’m not even sure anyone was still alive at the end. I think it just smoked in, a la Payne Stewart, or that Citation last year in Virginia. The few bits of debris found seem to point towards that outcome.

Any other, sunken wreckage is scattered across several square miles of seafloor in quite deep water, and on a largely unmapped seabed that’s believed to be quite rugged. It’s going to take an enormous search to ever find it, and it’ll basically only give confirmation of the final moments.

 

[Field physics]

Hmmm. There’s a huge trade off to be made here. Adding further complexity in the form of multiply redundant power/transponder systems to ward against an exceptionally unlikely scenario.

Honestly, as a mechanic by training and an avid student of aviation, I don’t see what the point would be. Sure, you would know where to look, but to what end? Everything I’ve seen points to it being a mass murder/suicide, and in truly unique fashion. There’s nothing that would be able to be learned in that scenario, as if the suspect was that thorough in disabling tracking, I guarantee that the CVR was disabled too.

Hell, I’m not even sure anyone was still alive at the end. I think it just smoked in, a la Payne Stewart, or that Citation last year in Virginia. The few bits of debris found seem to point towards that outcome.

Any other, sunken wreckage is scattered across several square miles of seafloor in quite deep water, and on a largely unmapped seabed that’s believed to be quite rugged. It’s going to take an enormous search to ever find it, and it’ll basically only give confirmation of the final moments.

Very excellent points as well, why dig for something that won't change anything? What would be the point in additional redundancy if the scenario is unlikely? Indeed that's a good argument.

Counter argument:
With the knowledge of what happened can help avoid it in the future, even though situation is unlikely the odd of more planned attacks and terrorism increase due to current war.

Extra- redundancy is another good point you made because its both expensive and most likely unnecessary, however this is a investigation that's been longer then 10 years already and could the addition redundancy speed up the process if this was to tragically happen again?

Your points due have validity I do agree so I agree the extra Redundancy may not be necessary, however answers for how and who may still be important for prevention and closure. I appreciate your thoughts on the case as well.

 

[phyzguy]

Realize that over $200 million has already been spent searching for MH370 with no success. The points you raise above are interesting, but is that knowledge worth another $100 million or $200 million? Who are you expecting to pay for more searches?

 

[Field physics]

Realize that over $200 million has already been spent searching for MH370 with no success. The points you raise above are interesting, but is that knowledge worth another $100 million or $200 million? Who are you expecting to pay for more searches?

Okay you got me there your honor nothing further lol, On a serious note that's a good point that I don't have a answer or guess so I understand your point and probably the point of the search stopping.

 

[Flyboy]

Very excellent points as well, why dig for something that won't change anything? What would be the point in additional redundancy if the scenario is unlikely? Indeed that's a good argument.

Counter argument:
With the knowledge of what happened can help avoid it in the future, even though situation is unlikely the odd of more planned attacks and terrorism increase due to current war.

Extra- redundancy is another good point you made because its both expensive and most likely unnecessary, however this is a investigation that's been longer then 10 years already and could the addition redundancy speed up the process if this was to tragically happen again?

Your points due have validity I do agree so I agree the extra Redundancy may not be necessary, however answers for how and who may still be important for prevention and closure. I appreciate your thoughts on the case as well.

My biggest point against the added tracking is that this is basically the only major lost aircraft case on an airliner in how long? 30+ years? Every other crash I can think of was located within a fairly reasonable time except for the Air France flight over the Atlantic, and even that was located after only a few years, iirc. But they knew roughly where to look from the wreckage and the flight path. Every other case I can think of, it would have been unnecessary or redundant to have extra tracking.

MH370 is arguably a freak occurrence. If you want to prevent another one, put more efforts on human factors and aircrew mental health than on figuring out how to find a plane that’s been hijacked and sabotaged.

 

[berkeman]

I apologize if this has been discussed upthread, but a fairly inexpensive addition to commercial airliners that fly over water would be something similar to what is on submarines to help with distress position reporting. When the crash is in the water, an automatic buoy is deployed to ascend to the surface and send a distress signal to hopefully notify the searchers of the problem and location last known...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_position-indicating_radiobeacon

 

[Flyboy]

I apologize if this has been discussed upthread, but a fairly inexpensive addition to commercial airliners that fly over water would be something similar to what is on submarines to help with distress position reporting. When the crash is in the water, an automatic buoy is deployed to ascend to the surface and send a distress signal to hopefully notify the searchers of the problem and location last known...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_position-indicating_radiobeacon

Not a bad idea… but there’s really two kinds of crashes on long overwater legs: controlled ditch, and uncontrolled impact.

For the ditching, you will have plenty of time to broadcast your location over satcom or HF radio and receive confirmation that your coordinates have been received by rescue forces. An EPIRB would be useful if integrated into the life rafts, and I’m sure there is such a unit, or some other radio beacon, on the rafts. As I am not a survival technician and never worked with that kind of gear, I can’t say with any certainty that there is a beacon in the rafts, but it would be sensible.

As for the latter case, the uncontrolled impact, I can see the argument for it, and I think it’s theoretically possible. The issue I see is figuring out the best location to integrate it, and how to design it to break away from wherever it’s installed after the impact. The plane is going to get really torn up, and I don’t know if you can design it so that it will have a guaranteed safe deployment, regardless of the state of the wreckage and the orientation of where it’s installed. Oh, and it will need to be able to withstand, oh, 10 years of regular commercial airliner service conditions without breaking loose in flight, and also be accessible for routine inspection during phase checks.

It’s absolutely doable, but I think it boils down to if the airlines, manufacturers, and regulators feel it’s worth the extra effort, cost, and engineering work to retrofit it to existing aircraft.

 

[Baluncore]

Having thought about the search strategy for an area of 3 km deep sea floor, I would drop a line of hundreds of sonar listening buoys about 500 metres apart, across the current. They would be solar-powered, and uplink GPS position and significant audio via satellite link. Mobile phone satellites have spare capacity over the oceans.

Together, the 1D line would passively sweep the ocean with sonar, quickly becoming a 2D array. Any nearby buoys will receive reflections of common natural noise events, which can be reconstructed into a sea floor image. Whale calls have evolved to generate the broadband chirps needed for reconstruction of the sea floor image.

Buoys could be recovered by any fishing boat, for redeployment as part of the concentrated drifting groups.

Not only can that array find the MH370, given time, but the sea floor will be progressively mapped. There may be dozens of other lost hulls found.
Where is the København ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/København_(ship)

 

[Flyboy]

Not a bad idea for coarse mapping of the region, but given the depths involved, it lacks sufficient resolution from the surface to pick up the debris field from MH370. It will, however, give you a much better idea of the topography so you can deploy deep diving, high endurance AUVs to get that higher resolution map that is needed for finding any debris field.

Deep ocean sonar scanning is hard. If you could do it from the surface alone, they would have done it already.

 

[Baluncore]

Deep ocean sonar scanning is hard. If you could do it from the surface alone, they would have done it already.

I would suspend the transducer well below the buoy and the local wave noise.

 

[Flyboy]

The issue is less about waves and noise and more about the resolution of the scan. My understanding is that the sonar scans used to locate prospective targets for investigation are accomplished from 1-2k feet above the seafloor, tops. Beyond that there are issues with losing detail in exchange for larger area coverage. Think of it as a wide angle survey lens from the surface, or a telephoto lens for the sidescan sonar not far off the seabed.

 

[Field physics]

Deep ocean sonar scanning is hard. If you could do it from the surface alone, they would have done it already.

I found this article about a analysis of sonar data used in the case of MH370 in 2022 but in the Indian ocean that came up clean. The mapping made it to the ocean floor and still came up negative but with the exact coordinates 33.177°S 95.3°E so maybe if Geo-Australia widened the search or another party widened the area we can locate the accident as well. I also noticed Geo-Australia identified 11 contact sites but only analysed the one site. Maybe ATSB can request them to finish the mapping since they are the party that requested the first analysis.

Just an idea
https://www.flightglobal.com/safety...ar-data-fails-to-turn-up-mh370/148365.article

 

[Baluncore]

The issue is less about waves and noise and more about the resolution of the scan.

That is why a chirp sound is used, to get higher resolution. The sea floor will produce a smooth and steady return. A hull or a debris field will produce a patch of image noise where there should have been a smooth and steady return. I am not looking for a hi-res picture of the wreckage, just a field survey of places where it appears not to be, so we don't need to look there. I am prepared to tolerate many false positives, because they will also be interesting objects, while ten thousand square miles of mud will not be interesting.

 

[Baluncore]

The mapping made it to the ocean floor and still came up negative but with the exact coordinates 33.177°S 95.3°E so maybe if Geo-Australia widened the search or another party widened the area we can locate the accident as well.

I have my analysis, assuming a malicious pilot, and I think those coordinates are about 500 km off track.

 

[Baluncore]

How would an experienced Malaysian pilot martyr and hide an aircraft?

1a. Fly without transponders south around Penang airspace, then onto the regular course to Mecca. A plane without identification was tracked there.
1b. The radar track could be mistaken for a USAF transport on route to the Middle East, from the Philippines or Guam.

2. Waypoint APASI (7.905833°N, 92.648056°E ) is 20 NMi south of the Penang – Mecca great circle. Waypoints are easy to program into the autopilot.

3. An experienced Muslim pilot will know that pilgrimage route very well, with prayers conveniently facing Mecca.

4. Before turning due south at altitude, MH370 should wait until out of radar range, at that altitude, about 150 NMi.

5a. APASI is too close to radar at Campbell Bay Airport, ( S&R training, short 1 km runway. Range 93 Nautical Miles.
5b. APASI is too close to radar at Car Nicobar, (Indian Air Force Base, 2.8 km runway). Range 75 NMi.
5c. So delay the turn until the APASI to Mecca track reaches the very obvious 90°E line of longitude.
5d. The closest ground radar observer is then 170 NMi behind at Car Nicobar Airbase.

6. There are only those two rational choices for a clear route due south, they will converge at the South Pole.
6.1. The most obvious and probable route is to fly due south down the 90.000°E line of longitude.
6.2. An easier to program, but more visible alternative is to fly due south from APASI, 92.648056°E.

7. The nearest points in the Indian and Southern Oceans to those tracks will be;
7a. The route south from APASI passes 248 NMi west of the Cocos Islands at 12°S.
7b. South down the 90°E line of longitude passes 404 NMi west of the Cocos Islands at 12°S.
7c. Later, the route down the 90°E line passes 592 NMi east of Amsterdam Island at 38°S.

8. With more fuel, those tracks would cross the Antarctic coast between Casey and Davis stations. Casey Station would be the closest, being 264 NMi west of the southern tracks. The Russian Mirny Station is very much closer at 93.0°E.

With GPS, an autopilot flies an accurate course. Lines are much easier to search than areas. Using the above planning logic, an initial fast line search strategy can be proposed.

Given the extreme latitudes of the MH370 loss as end points.
First search the 90°E line of longitude.
Then search the APASI track on the 92.648056°E line of longitude.

 

[Nik_2213]

IIRC, one remarkable result from the searches was the sheer complexity of the deep Southern Ocean's sea-bed topography. Like those glacier-penetrating scans of Antarctica etc, there were vast, unsuspected mountain ranges with steep canyons, chains of sea-mounts etc etc etc. You'd need a fleet of autonomous side-sweep sonar submersibles to glean even a 'guide' map, never mind identify an aircraft's shattered debris...

Sorry. Serendipity might produce a near-term result, but I fear #370 is one for the next millennium's marine archaeologists...

 

[Flyboy]

Absolutely. It’s basically the worst possible spot for it to have to search for it.