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Prudence Tomblin's avatar

Once again Jeff, complete and utter sense. I have to wonder if nothing is found, what will the narrative be then.

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Jeff Wise's avatar

Thanks Prue!

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Tom Brown's avatar

Jeff, you've mentioned several times that Victor had at least theorized how the BFO data could have been hacked, but seems to have felt that the flaperon appearing on La Reunion obviated the need for further work on the spoofing hypothesis. Is that correct? However it begs the question of why he explored BFO alteration in the first place. He doesn't impress me as one fond of wild goose chases.

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Jeff Wise's avatar

As I recall, he was initially suspicious of the first piece of debris that Blaine found ("No Step"), but once Blaine started finding a lot of pieces he took a U-turn and decided that the evidence was overwhelming in favor of a southern terminus. It's funny: the thing that seemed so deeply suspicious to me (one guy finding all the stuff) apparently struck Victor the opposite way.

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Tom Brown's avatar

Hi Jeff, I was just watching this again and have a question. In another exchange we had, you said that the wobbly satellite was what enabled Inmarsat to conclude that the plane went south. If the satellite had been working properly, then the BFO value would presumably have been zero. Of what use, then, would Victor's changing of one parameter in the SDU have been in making it appear that the plane went south?

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Jeff Wise's avatar

If the BFO value had been zero, there would have been no way to break the symmetry of the two paths implied by the BTO data. Search officials would had to have taken a much more serious look at the northern route, or else explained why they knew it went south (perhaps, say, from some primary radar data not otherwise disclosed)

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