I Respond to the YouTube Video About Me [S2Ep56]

A popular YouTuber called Aviation Files has published a detailed critique of my work. Here's my response

I’ve been unflinchingly critical of other people’s videos about MH370, and now the shoe’s on the other foot. An account called Aviation Files has put up a video entitled “MH370: Why It Never Crashed” that gives a detailed account of my investigative efforts into MH370. It’s gotten quite a response — as I write these words, about a month after its release, it has been viewed nearly 180,000 times. As far as I know it’s the first time anyone has done a detailed third-party critique of my work and of course I’m interested to see how the ideas I’ve been developing have been making their way out into the information ecosystem. In today’s episode I watch and give my response in real time.

Overall, I think that the video does a good job of describing my work and the response that it has gotten. It seems deeply researched and even-handed. I confess to being a little uneasy about the heavy use of AI-generated graphics; a viewer who hasn’t reviewed the original source material might have a hard time judging what’s real and what’s not. But I don’t think these images are used in a misleading way.

There are a few places where the video makes a serious enough mistake that it’s worth pointing out the error. To wit:

1. When the plane went electronically dark at the edge of Malaysian airspace, it isn’t the case that the satcom was inadvertantly left on while the transponder and ADS-B were turned off; rather, the satcom was also depowered, and then later turned back on. This reboot is itself one of the most important clues in the case, because there is no on or off switch. Depowering and repowering the system would require tampering with the plane’s electrical system in a sophisticated way that no airline pilot would ever do—and I’ve asked a lot of them.

2. Mike Exner has certainly been very critical of my work, but the idea that the Inmarsat data can’t be spoofed is simply not accurate. The Honeywell MCS-6000 Satellite Data unit aboard the plane calculates the frequency transmission value internally using navigation data and a preset algorithm. Another Independent Group member in good standing, Victor Iannello, long ago published a detailed white paper explaining how a spoof could be carried out by changing a single parameter in the algorithm.

3. Mohd Fuad Sharuji, a Malaysia Airlines employee, pretty much demolished my theory in the Netflix documentary by declaring that it is physically impossible to steer a 777 from the electronics bay. After the show aired I reached out to him on LinkedIn and I asked him how he could be so sure, and he said in essence that to do so would require specialized equipment. I don’t think that’s the same as saying it’s physically impossible. My hypothesis has always assumed that an electronic hijack of this sort would require an extremely sophisticated and well-resourced attacker who would be able to produce such a device. In episode 54 of this podcast I explained in detail how it works. To demonstrate that this is not just a random claim, I’ve filed a patent application for this device with the German patent office.

I have one other major disagreement with the video that isn’t about identifying an error, but rather has to do with the philosophy of how to approch the case. At the very end, the narrator says that the families of the missing passengers and crew “deserve answers — no more theories or debates.” I get that some people might think it unseemly to discuss dispassionately a subject which has caused so much emotional pain for the loved ones of the missing. But I will never apologize for trying to solve this mystery. Yes, the family members deserves answers, and the only way to get there is by generating theories and debating their strengths and weaknesses.