[Peetwo]

Byron chucks another rock on the ATSB roof -  

BB is back with another crack at the ATSB, question is will Hoody again take the bait??

BB via the Oz: 

So-called experts have their head in the sand over MH370

• Byron Bailey
  
• The Australian
  
• 12:00AM August 19, 2016
  

Not long after the “mysterious” disappearance of MH370’s B777 over the South China Sea, the head of ­Emirates stated live on German TV that “MH370 was flown under control for over seven hours and pilots should not be able to turn transponders off in flight”.

This opinion from Tim Clark, head of the world’s largest inter­national airline and largest B777 operator, should have sounded a warning to the Australian Transport Safety Bureau that it may be wrong in its baffling ­decision to support an unresponsive-pilot ­theory. It’s an important opinion despite protests from the ATSB and its cohorts of armchair supporters who have no flight deck ­experience and are not interested in “who, what, why, when”, but only “where” MH370 ended its flight.

The ATSB analysis of the ­doppler shift of the last satellite ping was predicated on no pilot input, that is, a dead or unresponsive crew.

An email to me from a mathematician, concerning the mathematical modelling, pointed out that input of such a large variable as “pilot control” would render the calculations invalid and likely to produce significant miscalculations in where Flight MH370 rests.

Why did the ATSB go with an unresponsive-pilot theory when there was no evidence to support that scenario in the vital three minutes when captain (Zaharie Ahmad) Shah said goodnight to Kuala Lumpur air traffic control and then MH370 changed direction, obviously under control?

When Shah made this final radio transmission, MH370 was tracking nicely along the airway between Kuala Lumpur and ­Beijing. If a sudden event took out the pilots but the autopilot ­remained engaged, the aircraft would have flown itself to Beijing.

If the event was so serious that the autopilot disengaged, then with unresponsive pilots the aircraft would have quickly crashed. The point is, a jet needs either auto­pilot or a pilot keeping the wings level in controlled flight, otherwise it would crash.

Getting back to those vital three minutes where the aircraft was still under autopilot control monitored by Kuala Lumpur — which is quick to point out any off- airway deviation — the ATSB ­suggested a decompression or similar event to render the pilots unresponsive.

However, pilots are trained to react in seconds to any sudden event by putting on oxygen masks — one pilot then starting a rapid ­descent (to get to a safe cabin altitude while passengers are sucking on their 10-minute chemically generated oxygen-mask supply) and the other pilot immediately selecting emergency squawk on the transponder and radioing “mayday” to air traffic control.

The time of useful consciousness at 35,000 feet is 30 to 60 seconds, so that is plenty for a well-trained crew to comply with Boeing emergency procedures. The same applies to a flight deck fire or any event that is not so catastrophic as to take out the pilots.

I and some airline colleagues realised early that the ATSB was barking up the wrong tree.
When Clark made his statement concerning obvious pilot control of MH370, why did not the upper echelons — especially the flight training departments of Qantas, Virgin, Jetstar and Tiger — speak up and point out the inconsistencies in the ATSB theory of unresponsive pilots.

The Civil Aviation Safety Authority, too, has professional ­pilots, but it has also adopted a head-in-the-sand silence.

Qantas has excellent rigorous pilot simulator training using world’s-best Boeing flight deck emergency procedures.

All airlines operating B777 do so with their pilots undergoing ­Boeing emergency procedures simulator training. The ATSB ­theory ignored, or did not ask and receive, input from professional pilots about what could have happened in those vital three minutes.

By their silence, Qantas, Virgin, Jetstar, Tiger and CASA have ­allowed a non-aviation entity such as ATSB to muddle along for 2½ years and use the Australian taxpayer to fund the world’s longest and most expensive search that has been proved to have been done in the wrong area.

A 200-tonne B777 is a huge bit of metal and the search by the ships involve very sophisticated technology, so MH370 would have been found if the ships passed over it.

Ok just so I don't get accused of not providing balance to the standard BB diatribe, here is the very first comment which attempts to take apart the 'pilot did it' consensus...

Gil

22 minutes ago

The reason the others have not commented is most likely because they disagree. A review of the Swissair 111 crash in 1998 is interesting in its closeness to many other assessments of the MH370 situation. A fire resulted in the shut down of transponders and recorder, with the Captain absent from the flight deck at the time of impact, believed to have been fighting the fire.

One view of the MH370 situation by some other pilots is that fire created an onboard emergency that had the crew shutting down circuits to isolate the fire. This explains the loss of transponders. The aircraft made a controlled turn which brought it on track to Penang, the closest major airport without a mountain in between. Aviation and navigation are the priorities, communication only occurring when the other elements are in place - a Mayday call would alert authorities but not assist crew with their hands full. How and why the aircraft re-engaged autopilot is another matter but the most likely scenario is that this occurred as the crew realised they were losing consciousness, and the aircraft then continued with crew and passengers incapacitated.

A final observation that hasn't been mentioned by conspiracists: in other incidents where crew actions, terrorism or equipment failure preceded a crash, numerous passengers used their mobiles to call family. There is no record of a single call.

 
Unfortunately Gil's theory does not explain the FMT, nor does either BB or Gil consider a 3rd party involvement, like ET (electronic terrorism) -
Oh well the 'he said, she said' wars continue seemingly unabated...
MTF...P2