Malaysian 370 alternate crash site

Alternative crash Site of Malaysian 370

Alok Otta, Ashwini Otta 

Introduction

Background

One of the planes of Malaysian airlines took off as scheduled from Kuala Lumpur airport on 8th March 2014. This plane, MH370, disappeared from the radar screens about an hour after what was an eventless take off. The plane was scheduled for destination Beijing, China, but was found to have deviated westward from its scheduled route. The best guess by Experts for the last location of the plane before crashing was south-west of Australia, what is now known as the 7th arc zone. The plane was thought to have plunged into the Indian Ocean in this area. Massive search of the sea-bed in the 7th arc zone undertaken by multiple countries over a period of three years after the disappearance did not yield any detection or discovery of the plane MH370.

Present Objective

An alternative location for the crash landing of the plane to the sea is presented in this article. The hypothesis for the present location is based on a combination of (a) last-received handshake signal received by the INMARSAT satellite (b) eye-witness accounts. The hypothesis is further corroborated by examination of the ocean current between Mozambique and Maldives and how the wreckage discovered in different places could have been carried by this ocean current from this proposed crash site. The proposed crash site is about 1000km in on the Indian Ocean westward of the Maldivian island Kuda Huvadhoo.

In the following, sequence of the events after the take-off of MH370 and the justification for the alternate crash site are presented.

Flight details of MH370

Table 1 Basic Flight information

Aspect	Details
Plane type and information	Type: Boeing 777-200ER Maiden flight: 14th May 2002 Delivery: 31st May 2002 Number of Hours: 53471.6 hours, 7526 cycles Any incidents: broken wingtip while taxiing Registration: 9M-MRO Other comments: Last type A check found no anomalies Oxygen replenished day before the crash
Start point -> Endpoint	Kuala Lumpur (KLIA) -> Beijing Capital (PEK)
Captain details	Name: Zaharie Ahmed Shah Age at time of the crash: 53 Hours of experience: about 18000 hours Previous experience: B737-400, A330-300, 777-200 Known facts: Connected to jailed opposition leader Had a home built simulator at home Experienced marital difficulties just before crash
First officer details	Name: Fariq Abul Hamid Age time of crash: 27 Hours of experience: about 2700 Previous experience: 737-400, A330-300, B777-200 Known facts: About to get married Once invited some women and made sheep’s eyes at them while taking a few puffs in 2011 Described as pious and sincere towards his career
Passenger and crew number (excluding the 2 pilots)	237
Fuel filled	37,200 kg
Mass of cargo	14,296 kg
Maximum possible endurance	7 hours 31 minutes

Events preceding the disappearance

It was on the 8th of March 2014 at 42 minutes past 12 MYT, the 777-200er began to throttle up and started its take-off run. The plane took off without any reported faults and climbed normally, receiving clearance to 18,000 feet. About 5 minutes later, the plane received clearance to climb to 35000 feet. At 0100 MYT the ATC controllers received confirmation that the plane had reached 35000 feet. At 0119 the MYT the plane bid its final good bye to the Malaysian ATC. Prior to this goodbye, the last ACARS transmission at 0107 MYT indicated there were no faults. After leaving the Malaysian airspace, the plane was directed to the waypoint IGARI and was handed over to air traffic control in Ho Chi Minh.

Everything went off normally thus far. But, what happened shortly afterwards was baffling. The ATC didn’t receive its expected call and the plane disappeared off radar 0120. Another nearby plane tried to reach the crew of MH 370 but received only a “numbing static” without any reply from the crew just after 0130 MYT. Separate calls were made but they received no response, however they were acknowledged. Between 1:21 MYT and 1:28 MYT the plane was picked up by the Thai military radar and was found to have made a change in course in the westward direction. At about 0130 the plane would have been still in the airspace between Malaysia and Vietnam, but there could be no contact with the plane. The loss of contact persisted as the plane didn’t send its half-hourly periodic report at 1:37 MYT, suggesting that the ACARS were no longer in action.

At 0215 a plane had been sighted by Thai military radar off the coast of Pulau Perak, which was confirmed to be the plane in question. At 0240, Malaysian Airlines received the word that its plane had gone missing. Till 0345 Malaysian Airlines combed through their records of communication with the plane after which they issued a code red. At 0724 an official announcement of the disappearance of the plane MH 370 was made on the Facebook. One of the crucial leads to this case was the fact that detection of a plane by a satellite, which was confirmed to have come from Malaysian MH 370, was made at 0819 MYT. Unfortunately, however, they were unable to determine the location due to the type of data.

In summary the last confirmed location of the plane was at 0215 MYT westward of Thailand. This was a deviation from the plane’s scheduled route. The last detection of the plate was at 0819 MYT. However, location of the plane at that time is unknown.

Information about the first search

Following the unexplained disappearance of the plane, underwater search was initiated after the surface search. This summary details the events of the underwater search and doesn’t address the surface search.

From 8th March 2014 to 17th January 2017, there was a multinational effort by 26 countries (notably Malaysia, Australia and China) to carry out a surface search and underwater search funded by these countries. The underwater search was carried out by Phoenix International which is a company with extensive experience of recovery of aircrafts from the sea having been involved in accidents such as Air France 447 and South African 295. The search was conducted at the region of the West Australian coast labelled as the 7th arc. The final search area was extended to   a 120,000 km2 area from the initial target of 60,000 km2  . The search was conducted with the use of a deep- tow remote operated vehicle capable of operating up to a depth of 6000m, an underwater camera, sonar and a capacity of working for up to 6 hours. All these were contained on an underwater vehicle PROsas supplied by China. The sonars in use, can work within a range of frequencies of 30 to 120 KHz with a strike distance of up to 6km. This was replaced by an improved version called the Dong Hai Jiu 101 in March 2016 offered by China.

Despite comprehensive effort, the search yielded no results on the location of the wreckage. Along with that, there was no discovery of black box signals during the first 30 days, which would have served as an aid.  The search was terminated on 17th January 2017.  In the process, the whole sea floor of the area has been mapped, which would support future oceanographic studies, although the search was not successful in its primary objective.

Arguments for an Alternative Crash Site

The 7th Arc zone was based on deductions of the likely place using the signals received by the satellite till 819 MYT. It should be noted however that the actual flight direction of the plane and its direction and its location were not known for over 6 hours since 215 MYT when the plane was detected last by the Thai military radar. This paper combines two other sets of evidence and makes a case for a crash site different from the 7th arc zone. These two sets of   evidences are:

1. The eyewitness accounts of a low flying plane over Kuda Huvadhoo,
2. The discovery of the wreckage at various locations along the African East Coast.

Ground Witnesses

There were several visual sightings made by people with a confined region. These locations are listed in table (Table 2). The sighting reported from Maldives is of interest as eyewitnesses were able to give detail, which suggest the presence of the missing Malaysian plane.

The Maldivian sighting occurred on the Kuda Huvadhoo Atoll, which is one of the southern atolls of Maldivians. The sighting occurred at 1:15 UTC (9:15 MYT). The reported timing of the sighting is one hour after the last detected signal by the satellite. There were 6 key witnesses in a community of 2506 people (sep 2014 census) who were interviewed by the police. Their descriptions of the plane were consistent with one another and these also matched those in the Malaysian airlines livery. Common narration of the sighting had these three points:

• Low flying
• Large
• Red and blue

In fact, one of the eye witnesses described the ‘Red and Blue’ to be on the side: the hallmark of a Malaysian airlines plane. Two other airlines, British Airways and Air France, which also have ‘Red and Blue’ are most improbable to fly over the atoll while on regular flights.  

Researchers from the Curtin university discovered low frequency acoustic signals just after UTC 1:30 am (9:30 MYT) on 8th March 2014, which were picked up by receivers in the Rottnest Island (Curtin2014). Crashing of the plane to the sea could have generated these sound waves. However, there are also other sources such as undersea tremors that generate acoustic waves. Therefore, it couldn’t be determined with certainty if the acoustic wave discovered by the Curtin researchers was result of the crashlanding of MH 370.  

Another reported eye witness is a lady on a yacht going from Cochin to Phuket. She reported having seen a plane in flames. She described it as an elongated orange object.

Table 2 gives detail of other sightings:

Table 2 Locations of eye witness of the plane.

Place and time	Detail
Kota Bharu, Malaysia 50 minutes after taking off	From a fisherman Azid Ibrahim: Unusually Low flying Looked like a coconut Could see lights
Oil rig 286 miles South East off Vung Tao No exact timing	Oil rig worker Mike McKay: Appeared in one piece Seemed to be on fire Lower altitude Lateral movement Observed “perpendicular/ southwest of normal flight path”
Around strait of Malacca Note: witness said he saw plane on March 9th at 11 am local time	Saw white plane crossing and circling Smoke from rear portion Suspects the plane crashed in the sea, but couldn’t go due to lack of fuel off East Aceh Problems Sighting 24 hours after crash No plane found on Indonesian radar
Kuda Huvadhoo island, Maldives (1:15 UTC)		6 eyewitnesses interviewed Stated low flying plane Described as incredibly large Said it looked red and blue
Katherine Tee on a Yacht from Phuket to Cochin No given timing		Saw a burning 777 Low flying

Wreckage sighting

A year after the disappearance, a piece of the plane’s flaperon washed ashore on the Reunion Beach of Saint-Andre. This caused intense media frenzy as they suspected that the flaperon originated from the doomed Malaysian 370 Boeing 777-200.  A serial number on the part been left intact on the flap, allowed the investigators to check if it matched with the serial number recorded in the logs which turned out to be the case.  Soon over time, there had been finding of other parts like the flap tracking segment, a fragment of the engine cowling, interior piece panel were among the pieces found: All of which were proved to belong to a 777. At that time, Malaysian 370 was the only 777 to have gone missing or crashed over water (excluding Asiana 214 which crashed near the airport). What is even more intriguing being that the wreckage even though wide spread, was found in a confined zone which was Westwards from Sri Lanka and India and was also exclusively found in the Southern Hemisphere. The northern most location of the wreckage was Pemba Island, Tanzania.  Table 3 lists the wreckage debris discovered, locations of discovery, reported date of find and the status of the debris.

Table 3 Wreckage location

Photo	Which part?	Location and Date	Features
	Flaperon from the trailing edge of the wing, which is extended during take-off and landing to maintain lift	29th July 2015 in Saint Andre, Reunion	Barnacle Growth Serial number Paint colour
	Flap fairing segment which shields the wing flap and reduces drag	27th December 2015 in Xai Xai, Mozambique	As evident in the photo, the stencil on the piece
	Horizontal stabiliser, which moves when the pilots have to change the vertical orientation	28th February 2016 in Vilankulo, Mozambique	The stencil marking seen was unique to Malaysian airlines The surviving fastener matches the one used on the aircraft built after that particular plane
	Engine cowling segment which covers the engine	21st March 2016 Mossel Bay, South Africa	The serif fonts used by MAS are thicker that those painted by Boeing
	Main interior panel	30th March 2016 Rodrigues Island, Mauritius	Fasteners, match those on Malaysian airlines planes The markings are distinctive for Malaysian 370
	Wing Flap, extended to increase lift during landing and take off	Pemba Island, Tanzania: 23rd June 2016	The serial numbers on the piece also includes a date stamp.

Signals Detected

After the plane’s anticipated contact with the radar while passing over the Waypoint Igari (UTC 1720:31) between Malaysia and Vietnam, there has been a series of signals received from the plane. About a minute (UTC 1721:13) after the plane passed over the assigned waypoint Igari, there was the last detection on the secondary radar of the plane, in a location still between Vietnam and Malaysia. This was also very close to time during which the plane’s Transponder (Transmitter to secondary radar and the ACARS) transmitted maintenance data to the company base.  

About 40 minutes later at UTC 1752:27 there was detection of the Cell Phone registered to the First officer (Co-pilot) Fariq Abdul Hamid by the Penang communication system. During that time, the plane made an approximate 40o to the left passing over the waypoints ABTOK, KADAX, GOLUD and PUKAR indicating that the plane turned left from its scheduled flight path. What’s more: there was the last primary radar sighting of the plane off the Indonesian island of Sumatra (more in the northern direction) by the Thai Surveillance military radar. This was the last detection by the radar. However, even after this detection the plane made a sequence of contacts with the INMARSAT satellite basically saying, “I’m alive, can you see me?”  which went on for 6 hours.  This showed that even though the plane was out of contact with the radar, it had still been aloft for an overwhelmingly long time. The reason the plane wasn’t detected by Diego Garcia, Male or Colombo was because it was out of coverage. The fact that no other radar contact was made is an indication that the plane was flying over the Indian ocean which has no radar stations.

To sum up, a list of the ACARS transmissions from the plane is presented in Table 4.

Table 4 Chronology of handshakes received by the satellite.

Time (UTC)	Action of the plane
1825:27	1st handshake from the ground
1839:52	Unanswered ground to telephone call
1941:00	2nd handshake from the ground
2041:02	3rd handshake from ground
2141:24	4th handshake from ground
2241:19	5th handshake from ground
2313:58	Unanswered call from the ground
0010:58	6th handshake from the ground
0019:29	7th handshake by the plane
0115:56	Failed handshake

With every transmission, there is also the transmission of BTO and BFO standing for Burst Timing offset and Burst Frequency offset. This can be used to determine the location of the plane. The analysis showed that the plane turned south at a point of time. This was perhaps the reason why the plane was not picked up by Sri Lankan and Indian radar. Shown below, is the photo of the BTO and BFO analysis carried out by the ATSB. These outlines formed the basis for extensive search. However, no wreckage was found in the outlined zone (the 7th arc) even after two years of search.

Figure 5 the BTO analysis as taken from ATSB report (ATSB2017) .

Does the Range of the Plane Support Eye Witness Timing?

The Plane had been filled with fuel enough to last a flight for 7 hours 31 minutes according to operational guidelines. A plane flying at lower altitude, as would have been the case for MH 370 by witness description, may still maintain about the same duration of flight by reducing the speed. In case the plane lost power, it would have a gliding time of 15-30 minutes, enabling a maximum range of 8 hours.

Thai radar last sighted the plane 1 hour 41 minutes after take-off. This left 6.5 hours more for the plane to fly beyond this point. This is also consistent with the number of responded handshakes that happened every hour till 8:19 MYT. This shows that the plane was aloft for at least 6 hours after the disappearance. What is more is that a flight from Kuala Lumpur to East Africa is also about the same duration for commercial flights from Singapore to Mauritius.

Therefore, physical presence of the plane above the Maldivian air space is perfectly feasible and the eye witness accounts may be relied upon

Present Proposition for the crash site

The series of events described above establish credence to the fact the plane could have flown just past the Maldivian atoll before plunging into the Indian Ocean. In the following, we put forward a hypothesis for the explanation of the locations and the timespan of the discovery of the plane wreckage.

A cursory glance of the ocean currents will show that a westward current with a southernly orientation exists just west of Maldivian coast (Figure 6). This current stream merges with the well-known Aghulus current at the southern end of the African eastern coast. If the floating pieces of the plane were carried by this current; the three immediate questions that arise are

1. What is the timespan it will take to reach the east coast locations of Africa; e.g. Pemba Island, Reunion?
2. How can any wreckage piece get west ward of Madagascar island to Reunion?
3. How can any wreckage piece get northward to place like Pemba Island?

Examination of the oceanographic currents at a higher resolution reveals the presence of a current gyro between west coast of the Maldives to the east coast of Madagascar (Figure 6). This gyro has divergent stream at south-west end heading to merge with the Aghulus current and at the north-west end. With the focal point of the present proposition that the plane was sighted dipping very low over the Maldivian atoll, the plane would have plunged to the sea not very far from Maldives’ west coast, perhaps a couple of hundred kilometre at the most.

The complete gyro, in Figure 7 Gyro and locationsFigure 7, is approximately 7200 km. The divergent going off towards Cape of Good Hope is about 2500 km. The flight path from Kuda Huvadhoo atoll to the assumed location is about 1000 km.

It is important at this stage to discuss the magnitude of the current along the Gyro and its divergent streams.  The ocean currents near Mozambique have two distinct circulations. One of this circulation is formed by the eastward current flowing from near cape of Good Hope towards southern end of Western Australia, moving north and then going westward towards Reunion and Mozambique island. The northern part of this circulation forms the southern part of the other circulation.  The northern part of this (north) circulation flows eastward towards Mauritius and then moves southward merging with the lower branch flowing westward to Mozambique. These streams have some divergent branches near Mozambique. At the southern end, one stream branches off south-west joining eventually with the Aghulus current.

In reality, the currents have both spatial and temporal variations. These variations need to be accounted for to determine the actual trajectory of any debris. That, however, becomes a rather involved task and is not considered necessary for discussing the basic premise of the present paper.  A reasonable value for the average magnitude of the current over March 2014 and July 2015 is therefore taken to be 0.2 m/s based on the NOAA estimate.    

As the plane hits the sea west of Kuda Huvadhoo atoll, the floating debris will be carried eastward by the prevailing circulation and will reach Rodrigues and Reunion Islands. Debris continuing further can diverge off at the eastern end of Madagascar to Mossel Bay by the Aghulus current. It is also likely that some debris can go further west-northward before being caught by the divergent branches going towards Pemba Island, Tanzania and southward toward Vilankulo and Xai, Mozambique.

Using the distance of the trajectory along the suggested route, time is calculated for the debris to take to reach a site from the proposed point crash on the sea. Table 5 shows the calculated days for the locations where finding of wreckages of the plane has been reported.

The distance shown in the table is measured from the proposed crash site to the location using Google Earth. Two different magnitudes of current are used around the average value 0.2 m/s to show the change in the trajectory time.

Table 5 Days  of finding

Place	Distance (Km)	avg. current (m/s)	no. days	no. days for discovery
Réunion	3900	0.2	225.6944	508
	3900	0.15	300.9259
	3900	0.25	180.5556
Rodrigues Island	3150	0.2	182.2917	753
	3150	0.15	243.0556
	3150	0.25	145.8333
Vilankulo, Mozambique	7970	0.2	461.2269	722
	7970	0.15	614.9691
	7970	0.25	368.9815
Xai, Mozambique	8420	0.2	487.2685	660
	8420	0.15	649.6914
	8420	0.25	389.8148
Mossel Bay, South Africa (eastward of Madagascar)	7450	0.2	431.1343	744
	7450	0.15	574.8457
	7450	0.25	344.9074
Pemba Island	7260	0.2	420.1389	838
	7260	0.15	560.1852
	7260	0.25	336.1111

Comparing the estimated number of days for the debris to reach the locations where they have been discovered, it is found that the estimated are days are of the same order of magnitude although less by nearly 50 to 100% from the number of days of discovery. There are a few reasons for this:

1. It is quite possible that the debris may have been discovered after many days of reaching the shore.
2. The average current that has been used as indicative may need to be refined reflecting spatial and temporal variation of the current along the trajectory in a more accurate way.
3. The crash site may also be farther westward than assumed in this paper

Conclusion

The Malaysian airlines plane: MH370 disappeared on 8th March 2014 after a normal take off for its flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. This event has aroused a lot of interest since it is not that common to lose track of a plane from the radar sights. From what is known from available radar sightings the plane had deviated westwards from its scheduled course or route. The reason that there is no available track of the plane by the radar, although signals were received from the plane by the INMARSAT satellite for a substantial length of the plane being aloft, indicates that the flight path of the plane during this time was mostly over the Indian ocean which doesn’t have any radar tracking stations. Soon after the disappearance an investigation committee including members from Australia, Malaysia and China concluded that the plane had crashed into the sea near off the south-western Australia coast. A surface and under-water search conducted in the area failed to yield any results.

This paper doesn’t deal with the causes of the disappearance of the plane. This is a compilation of the time for which the plane was aloft, the eyewitness statements and the location were wreckage had been discovered from a period of 1 to 2 years after the disappearance. This paper makes cases for an alternative crash site on the sea near the west of the Maldives. This location as a possible crash site is also supported by the fuel the plane carried and the direction towards which the plane had diverted from its scheduled route. The locations where the plane debris have been discovered lie on the east coast of Reunion island and along the eastern coast of Continental Africa. Examination of the ocean currents between Maldives and the East Coast of Africa shows that there are two dominant calculational patterns between Maldives and the east coast of Africa. There are also divergent streams from this circulation pattern near the reunion island both in the northerly and the southernly direction. This paper has discussed about how the ocean currents can lead to trajectories carrying the debris to various places where the wreckage has been found; such as Reunion island, Mossel bay and Pemba Island. The discussion presented in this paper therefore strongly suggests that the crash site is east of Maldivian coast far northwest from the originally assessed crash site in the 7th arc zone.   

References

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