Though it's ostensibly an analysis of the "Monty Hall Paradox," often employed on the old game show, "Let's Make a Deal," it's really an explanation of Bayesian statistics, and how they cut against "human nature" leading to doubt, disagreement, and even hostility. Very much in keeping with your friends in the Independent Group.
There are some excellent questions and ideas in response to today's video. Looking forward to seeing your responses! The question that keeps going through my mind concerns the navigational error shown in the BFO data, and how much that led to Inmarsat's determination of the plane flying south, or was it simply "noise" that the fancy mathematics had to erase in order to make a determination of the southerly route? And has the discrepancy between the BTO and BFO data in the likely crash site been satisfactorily explained?
Thanks for this, Tom. Trying my best to answer as many of the questions as possible. I'm not sure I understand your question about the navigation error shown in the BFO data. Of course, the BFO data was never intended to have navigational data, it only wound up having clues to the plane's location because the satellite was low on fuel. As for the discrepency between the BFO and BTO data, it's more of a different probability distribution of the plane's end-point than a contradiction.
As for the BTO/BFO divergence, I recall you saying that the search team then active (I believe it was the Australians) rushed north to where the BFO data indicated. But very soon decided the BTO was the more promising search area. It just seemed curious that the same event could produce such divergent data.
Oh, I see, I wondered if you might be referring to that. Yes, it's true that flight paths that best match the BFO wind up in a different part of the ocean from those that best match the BTO data. That's always struck me as... interesting. Ultimately investigators decided (rightly, I think) that the BTO data was much more precise and easy to interpret, and they only used the BFO for the purpose of deciding that the plane had gone south.
Thanks for your reply, Jeff. I'm afraid my question was poorly stated. I was aware that the BFO data was never intended to contain navigational information. I was just wondering what role, if any, the wobbly satellite played in Inmarsat's conclusion that the plane went south, or if it was just noise that the mathematics had to work around.
The fact that the satellite wobbled was the entire reason that they were able to deduce where the plane went -- because it caused the Doppler precompensation algorithm to work imperfectly and not cancel out all the effects of the relative motion of the plane and satellite.
Jeff, thanks for your persistence. Several questions. There are many holes in this straw man but I think we need to put together some type of realistic scenario.
It would seem that it might look something like this.
One person enters ee bay prior to take off or during initial ascent and plugs into comms and autopilot.
new destination entered and engaged on autopilot at the same time of good night.
Cabin depressurized
Crew and cabin oxygen masks come out.
3 hijackers have oxygen supply from scuba hijacker.
2 hijackers enter cockpit.
Announcement made returning to KL for emergency.
New route sets to exit strait and come out to ocean.
Passenger oxygen depleted followed by crew.
New destination input to autopilot.
Heading north on 7th arc unaware of satellite.
Plane goes north and crashes or lands in Russia.
I would bet lands based on the response of hijackers daughter.
The intent could have been to keep passengers alive with little oxygen but when they all perished, everything needed to be hidden quickly.
China has no problem hiding the deaths and I’m sure got something in return from Russia.
As I’ve said motive is money Russians invested and lost in 1MDB.
As I’ve said before I lived in Shanghai in 2014 and traveled to KL on Malaysia Air on red eye. On these flights the lights are on for at least the first hour while the stewardesses hawk merch. Chinese are always active on their phones and frequently ignore staff direction. It’s hard to believe that pax wouldn’t be actively trying to use phone if they were awake. That’s why copilot got a ping.
The idea is that if the Russians took the plane north to their homeland, they could subsequently pull off any pieces they wanted to and put them in the ocean for a while so that they could grow sea life on them.
In 2014, Aeroflot operated 10 Boeing 777-300ER aircraft, which were leased from an Irish company. These were part of a fleet of 22 777s operated by Aeroflot, 10 of which were owned by the airline and 10 leased from Russian and Chinese lessors. In 2013, Aeroflot began leasing the aircraft from an Irish lessor, and by 2014, it had expanded its fleet to include the 10 leased
Does anyone need to fly the plane from the e/e bay? Depowering the left a/c bus, which includes the system that locks the cockpit door, would have given access to the flight controls. That argument supports a multiple person hijack theory - one to fly with the skill required for the aggressive turnback, another to run a computer programme to manipulate the satellite data, maybe another with a weapon to threaten the passengers and crew.
Question About the Timing and Integrity of MH370 Satellite Data
Hi Jeff,
I’ve been following your work on MH370 and find the podcast incredibly compelling—thank you for your persistence and insight.
There’s a question I’ve been turning over: is it possible the Inmarsat satellite data was altered after the fact—not during the flight, but at some later point, once its significance became clear?
I wonder if, at the time of the disappearance, even those who may have had access to or control over the data didn’t yet realize its potential importance. But once it became known that the satellite pings were central to the investigation, could the data have been retroactively manipulated?
Has that scenario been considered or ruled out?
Thanks again for keeping this mystery in the public eye.
I noticed that the Armada 7806 is now heading to Maurituis, close to Reunion, where the first important piece of the the plane, the flaperon, was found. Do you think this is just coincidence, or could there be a peticular reason - such as MH370 related - why they move to that island?
They started out from Mauritius, too, before they headed east to the search area. I think it's a conveniently located seaport for Indian Ocean operations, I don't think there's any connection to the fact that the flaperon washed up there.
My first few words after the report of this plane being “ missing “ ,told tothe authorities, I believe what ,by dowsing ,to still be true-that the mh370 came down _”On or close to Madagascar “I do not believe that suicide has been on the pilots mind at any time and in fact he is still alive ,though the rest of the planes persons are not .The reason for the action taken by the pilot was explained on the internet ,by ground staff ,but soon redacted afterwards .This failed negotiation occurred when “The plane still had 5 hrs of fuel on board “ it was said .
Thanks for this, I'm surprised I haven't seen it because I subscribed to Air & Space for a long time. I've tried to reach out to Santamarta but without success. This piece is giving me some ideas, though.
Hi Jeff - this is a v. good article. Ignoring the fact that it is MH370 for a moment, I agree with your underlying point around the importance of testing your hypothesis against the data available and, if what you find doesn't back up your hypothesis, then perhaps you should reconsider it. This is wholly uncontroversial.
I think the problem is two fold - what if your alternative hypothesis looks either a) incompatible with other "facts" or b) looks very much like a conspiracy theory? This gets people very nervous as you can see as the risk is that properly investigating a) or b) becomes EXTREMELY difficult, potentially very time consuming and, as you point out, potentially at the cost of ones professional reputation.
So whilst I agree ego may be a significant part of this, there could be an element of logic in too - if the alternative theory you propose is essentially too difficult, costly or time consuming to disprove or prove, then is it really worth addressing in a serious way until we've absolutely exhausted the main one?
For what it is worth, I don't agree with this line of thought myself and would tend to agree with you that there the alternative theory that there was third party involvement should be exhaustively investigated and not dismissed out of hand as an absolute "it did not happen".
Thanks for keeping up the work on this - it is extremely important to keep people aware of the challenges with the search.
Thank you, Lee! I'm not sure what you mean about my hypothesis being incompatible with other "facts" --certainly it requires a different interpretation of the facts, for instance it supposes a different origin for the BFO data, and it's worse at explaining the simulator files, but I don't think it is flatly contradicted. At any I appreciate your kind words and support.
HI Jeff - apologies, i probably wasn't as clear as i should have been.
I just meant that if the likes of Mr. Exner or Mr. Fuad Sharuji believe that your hypothesis is genuinely incompatible with key "facts" or interpretations of the facts as they understand them, then they may categorise it as a conspiracy theory. That would then "allow" them to dismiss any further investigation into it as being pointless or, effectively a waste of time and resources as it would be impossible to prove or disprove.
Basically, i was agreeing with you, but just saying that the story they tell themselves about why not to take what your suggesting seriously looks to me to be about more than just their ego and will carry an element of "well we cant go around trying to prove or disprove every idea and have to focus on what we know".
I agree what you've suggested is not flatly contradicted and would prefer that it was properly and thoroughly investigated.
Your piece in vanity fair was super interesting too - i had a read of that yesterday and thought it was great.
Jeff,
Purely by happenstance, I came across this last night:
https://youtu.be/kDz0ERQw57o?si=VyQIphAY-CBBl6f8
Though it's ostensibly an analysis of the "Monty Hall Paradox," often employed on the old game show, "Let's Make a Deal," it's really an explanation of Bayesian statistics, and how they cut against "human nature" leading to doubt, disagreement, and even hostility. Very much in keeping with your friends in the Independent Group.
There are some excellent questions and ideas in response to today's video. Looking forward to seeing your responses! The question that keeps going through my mind concerns the navigational error shown in the BFO data, and how much that led to Inmarsat's determination of the plane flying south, or was it simply "noise" that the fancy mathematics had to erase in order to make a determination of the southerly route? And has the discrepancy between the BTO and BFO data in the likely crash site been satisfactorily explained?
Thanks for this, Tom. Trying my best to answer as many of the questions as possible. I'm not sure I understand your question about the navigation error shown in the BFO data. Of course, the BFO data was never intended to have navigational data, it only wound up having clues to the plane's location because the satellite was low on fuel. As for the discrepency between the BFO and BTO data, it's more of a different probability distribution of the plane's end-point than a contradiction.
As for the BTO/BFO divergence, I recall you saying that the search team then active (I believe it was the Australians) rushed north to where the BFO data indicated. But very soon decided the BTO was the more promising search area. It just seemed curious that the same event could produce such divergent data.
Oh, I see, I wondered if you might be referring to that. Yes, it's true that flight paths that best match the BFO wind up in a different part of the ocean from those that best match the BTO data. That's always struck me as... interesting. Ultimately investigators decided (rightly, I think) that the BTO data was much more precise and easy to interpret, and they only used the BFO for the purpose of deciding that the plane had gone south.
Thanks for your reply, Jeff. I'm afraid my question was poorly stated. I was aware that the BFO data was never intended to contain navigational information. I was just wondering what role, if any, the wobbly satellite played in Inmarsat's conclusion that the plane went south, or if it was just noise that the mathematics had to work around.
The fact that the satellite wobbled was the entire reason that they were able to deduce where the plane went -- because it caused the Doppler precompensation algorithm to work imperfectly and not cancel out all the effects of the relative motion of the plane and satellite.
Ah, suppose the satellite had performed as intended. Would there be no way to break the symmetry of the north/south routes?
Exactly. The expected BFO value would be zero.
Jeff, thanks for your persistence. Several questions. There are many holes in this straw man but I think we need to put together some type of realistic scenario.
It would seem that it might look something like this.
One person enters ee bay prior to take off or during initial ascent and plugs into comms and autopilot.
new destination entered and engaged on autopilot at the same time of good night.
Cabin depressurized
Crew and cabin oxygen masks come out.
3 hijackers have oxygen supply from scuba hijacker.
2 hijackers enter cockpit.
Announcement made returning to KL for emergency.
New route sets to exit strait and come out to ocean.
Passenger oxygen depleted followed by crew.
New destination input to autopilot.
Heading north on 7th arc unaware of satellite.
Plane goes north and crashes or lands in Russia.
I would bet lands based on the response of hijackers daughter.
The intent could have been to keep passengers alive with little oxygen but when they all perished, everything needed to be hidden quickly.
China has no problem hiding the deaths and I’m sure got something in return from Russia.
As I’ve said motive is money Russians invested and lost in 1MDB.
As I’ve said before I lived in Shanghai in 2014 and traveled to KL on Malaysia Air on red eye. On these flights the lights are on for at least the first hour while the stewardesses hawk merch. Chinese are always active on their phones and frequently ignore staff direction. It’s hard to believe that pax wouldn’t be actively trying to use phone if they were awake. That’s why copilot got a ping.
Thanks, Trip. I think it's a plausible scenario.
But in this case, suppose it is true, what about the flaperon found on Reunion? Is that there dropped manually later for throw it off track?
The idea is that if the Russians took the plane north to their homeland, they could subsequently pull off any pieces they wanted to and put them in the ocean for a while so that they could grow sea life on them.
So Aeroflot owned this type of aircraft.
In 2014, Aeroflot operated 10 Boeing 777-300ER aircraft, which were leased from an Irish company. These were part of a fleet of 22 777s operated by Aeroflot, 10 of which were owned by the airline and 10 leased from Russian and Chinese lessors. In 2013, Aeroflot began leasing the aircraft from an Irish lessor, and by 2014, it had expanded its fleet to include the 10 leased
Does anyone need to fly the plane from the e/e bay? Depowering the left a/c bus, which includes the system that locks the cockpit door, would have given access to the flight controls. That argument supports a multiple person hijack theory - one to fly with the skill required for the aggressive turnback, another to run a computer programme to manipulate the satellite data, maybe another with a weapon to threaten the passengers and crew.
Question About the Timing and Integrity of MH370 Satellite Data
Hi Jeff,
I’ve been following your work on MH370 and find the podcast incredibly compelling—thank you for your persistence and insight.
There’s a question I’ve been turning over: is it possible the Inmarsat satellite data was altered after the fact—not during the flight, but at some later point, once its significance became clear?
I wonder if, at the time of the disappearance, even those who may have had access to or control over the data didn’t yet realize its potential importance. But once it became known that the satellite pings were central to the investigation, could the data have been retroactively manipulated?
Has that scenario been considered or ruled out?
Thanks again for keeping this mystery in the public eye.
Steve
Excellent point. And could the death of the Inmarsat engineer be involved.
Hi Jeff,
I noticed that the Armada 7806 is now heading to Maurituis, close to Reunion, where the first important piece of the the plane, the flaperon, was found. Do you think this is just coincidence, or could there be a peticular reason - such as MH370 related - why they move to that island?
They started out from Mauritius, too, before they headed east to the search area. I think it's a conveniently located seaport for Indian Ocean operations, I don't think there's any connection to the fact that the flaperon washed up there.
My first few words after the report of this plane being “ missing “ ,told tothe authorities, I believe what ,by dowsing ,to still be true-that the mh370 came down _”On or close to Madagascar “I do not believe that suicide has been on the pilots mind at any time and in fact he is still alive ,though the rest of the planes persons are not .The reason for the action taken by the pilot was explained on the internet ,by ground staff ,but soon redacted afterwards .This failed negotiation occurred when “The plane still had 5 hrs of fuel on board “ it was said .
Jeff if your interested in the hacking of an aircraft.. read this https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/will-your-airliner-get-hacked-180976752/
Maybe try to contact the guy who does aircraft hacking he may be able to answer your questions on the theory as to how possible it really is
Thanks for this, I'm surprised I haven't seen it because I subscribed to Air & Space for a long time. I've tried to reach out to Santamarta but without success. This piece is giving me some ideas, though.
Hi Jeff - this is a v. good article. Ignoring the fact that it is MH370 for a moment, I agree with your underlying point around the importance of testing your hypothesis against the data available and, if what you find doesn't back up your hypothesis, then perhaps you should reconsider it. This is wholly uncontroversial.
I think the problem is two fold - what if your alternative hypothesis looks either a) incompatible with other "facts" or b) looks very much like a conspiracy theory? This gets people very nervous as you can see as the risk is that properly investigating a) or b) becomes EXTREMELY difficult, potentially very time consuming and, as you point out, potentially at the cost of ones professional reputation.
So whilst I agree ego may be a significant part of this, there could be an element of logic in too - if the alternative theory you propose is essentially too difficult, costly or time consuming to disprove or prove, then is it really worth addressing in a serious way until we've absolutely exhausted the main one?
For what it is worth, I don't agree with this line of thought myself and would tend to agree with you that there the alternative theory that there was third party involvement should be exhaustively investigated and not dismissed out of hand as an absolute "it did not happen".
Thanks for keeping up the work on this - it is extremely important to keep people aware of the challenges with the search.
Thank you, Lee! I'm not sure what you mean about my hypothesis being incompatible with other "facts" --certainly it requires a different interpretation of the facts, for instance it supposes a different origin for the BFO data, and it's worse at explaining the simulator files, but I don't think it is flatly contradicted. At any I appreciate your kind words and support.
HI Jeff - apologies, i probably wasn't as clear as i should have been.
I just meant that if the likes of Mr. Exner or Mr. Fuad Sharuji believe that your hypothesis is genuinely incompatible with key "facts" or interpretations of the facts as they understand them, then they may categorise it as a conspiracy theory. That would then "allow" them to dismiss any further investigation into it as being pointless or, effectively a waste of time and resources as it would be impossible to prove or disprove.
Basically, i was agreeing with you, but just saying that the story they tell themselves about why not to take what your suggesting seriously looks to me to be about more than just their ego and will carry an element of "well we cant go around trying to prove or disprove every idea and have to focus on what we know".
I agree what you've suggested is not flatly contradicted and would prefer that it was properly and thoroughly investigated.
Your piece in vanity fair was super interesting too - i had a read of that yesterday and thought it was great.
Thanks, Lee.