MH 370: Missing Malaysian Airliner

[Albert Doyle]

That's what I was saying is that officials should be made to speak up about how and when they reacted to Flight 370 going off radar. That way we could figure out what tracking equipment they used and what they should have known. The authorities and media have been silent on when they reacted and how. A large jet makes a heat signature like a flare in the sky that is one of the most basic trackable features well within current technology. When they show you all this windmilling speculation, just like with Flight 800, they are holding you in contempt because they aren't letting you in on what they are capable of and what they knew.


This has all the earmarks of an Operation Northwoods trying to get a hijacked jet near to Iran. The first climb to 45,000 feet could be the sign of remote flight control hijacking not quite getting the altitude control right when they first took over. Though I'm not quite clear where the source of that remote control would be.


I'd also like to know if the Flight Management System computer sends a trackable beam to its locator beacons.

[Peter Lemkin]

I'm coming around to being inclined to believe a likely trail leads to Western China. China has both said that they checked out all Chinese passengers and none were suspicious, BUT they have also said they are looking in remote Western areas of China for the plane! Perhaps they have been given a ransom message by the hijackers and the passengers are fine [if hostages] and the plane has been either hidden or disassembled in mountainous and desert terrain. The area the plane would fly going that direction has few radar stations and whoever pulled this off knew how to avoid [or jam] such things. I can't see taking a long flight only to ditch the plane in the ocean off Oz...... Most of the other possible scenarios make little sense. China has also told its media to not speculate on the fate of the plane....hmmm..... Uhigers might just have pulled this off..with some help from unknown friends.::captain::

[Albert Doyle]

CIA should have master access to the region's ATC radar. Using its satellites CIA's computers could separate out the known traffic and isolate the specific heat signature of an unidentified 777 in about 10 seconds. It makes sense that since they had 7 hours to react that CIA would bring their best technology to bear. I find it unbelievable that they wouldn't have known exactly where Flight 370 was all considered. Heat signature satellite is simple technology by today's standards and something that couldn't be switched-off. The transponder being turned-off would actually aid location of the errant aircraft in these circumstances since it would then stand-out against those with their transponders on.

[Peter Lemkin]

The Guys Who Can Make Oil Tankers Disappear, Virtually

Oct. 15, 2013
By LEE FERRANLEE FERRANMore From Lee »
Investigative Reporter












MarineTraffic.com is one of several websites that track international shipping vessels in real time.
MarineTraffic.com







Over the weekend a tugboat chugged along the mighty Mississippi River, heading for the Gulf, when, in a flash, it disappeared completely. Moments later it reappeared, popping into existence a few hundred miles away on a small lake in Texas.
At least, that's what it would've appeared to do for anyone watching the ship's unusual journey on the popular vessel tracking website MarineTraffic.com. In reality, the ship didn't go anywhere and presumably had no idea it was the star of a demonstration put on by cyber security researchers meant to reveal vulnerabilities in online portals for a worldwide vessel tracking system.
The researchers, part of Trend Micro's Forward Looking Threat team along with an independent researcher, said they've figured out how to "spoof" information going from a ship's Automatic Identification System (AIS) to the online tracking services -- meaning on a whim they can change not only the vessel's location on the website's map, but it's size, type, origin or even the cargo it's listed as carrying. The team said they can take an oil tanker sitting in the New York Harbor and drop it off the coast of North Korea or create a luxury yacht out of thin air, all just with their laptops.
The AIS is a safety feature, described by the U.S. Coast Guard as "foremost a navigational tool for collision avoidance," that is a mandatory for all ships carrying passengers and any cargo vessels over a certain size, according to the International Maritime Organization. It allows others ships, port officials and governments to track hundreds of vessels at the same time.
Privately owned websites, such as MarineTraffic.com and similar sites, also take the data and distribute it publicly on live maps for their own "informational purposes" -- keeping up with billions of traffic records for business owners, suppliers and maritime trade academics.
While a neat trick for the thousands of people worldwide that check the online vessel trackers, the researchers said hacking those private websites would likely not disrupt actual port operations which rely on their own AIS tracking systems. To do that, the researchers discovered they just had to attack the AIS directly by being close to a particular port.
According to Trend Micro's Marco Balduzzi, he recently was able to sit within a few miles of a port he did not identify and manipulate a VHF radio frequency to make his own fake AIS signals and have them appear as if they are coming from the port or other ships. Balduzzi claimed that if he wanted, he could potentially convince other ships' AIS trackers they were on a collision course with a fictional vessel, make a lighthouse pop up out of nowhere or trick the system into basically shutting itself down completely.
Radars, voice communications and other redundant safety systems at ports could stave off disaster, but Balduzzi said to him it's still "scary."
"This kind of protocol was designed at a time when it was not easy to create such [spoofing] software. Nowadays, it's possible," said Balduzzi, who worked on the AIS project with fellow Trend Micro cyber security expert Kyle Wilhoit and independent researcher Alessandro Pasta.
Demitris Memos, Managing Director of MarineTraffic.com, told ABC News this is not a new problem and it would not be difficult to spoof AIS signals, as the AIS hardware itself can be purchased for just a few hundred dollars.
"This is not encrypted, this is open," he said. "Anyone with a device can broadcast their position and then they're a vessel."

[Peter Lemkin]

What we know* timeline
(*or at least have a separate "unidentified official" verification on from a reputable source)

- 1:07 - ACARS last transmission (thru VHF) which apparently includes notation of a WP change having been entered into system since last scheduled report at 12:37
- [B]1:11 - INMARSAT ping would have been received, as apparently Boeing's AHM report attempted to automatically transmit (thru Satellite?)
- [B]1:19 - 'Alright, Good Night' at handover (supposedly by co-pilot)
- [B]1:22 - Transponder goes off
(note: those previous two might be reversed, we have multiple sources seemingly confirming both possibilities. One happened at 1:19, one at 1:22 though. I'm putting them in this order mainly because...)
- [B]1:22 - Plane goes out of range/black from Thailand Radar (likely from the transponder going black and not the plane going out of range)
- [B]1:28 - Unidentified plane shows up on Thailand Radar roughly off the Kota Bharu, Malaysia coast (at Malaysia/Thailand border) and this apparently shows plane crossing the Peninsula to the Straights of Malacca (unknown endtime for this path)
- [B]somewhere between 1:15-1:30 - Vietnam sees plane turn around.
(note: they have not told us a specific time of turn or if they know this because of a Military or ATC radar hit, but they told Malaysia they 'watched plane turn around' sometime shortly after contact was lost)
- [B]roughly 1:30-forward, Vietnam is "frantically" trying to contact the plane
- [B]1:37 - ACARS misses scheduled transmission
- [B]1:30-1:45 - at minimum 11 eye witness reports from around and past the Kota Bharu, Malaysia/Thailand border areas (including one saying 'plane descending fast' like one of the later radar hits indicates)
- [B]2:11 - INMARSAT ping would have been received, as apparently Boeing's AHM report attempted to automatically transmit (thru Satellite)
- [B]between 1:30-2:40 - Malaysian Military and Civilian radar picks up an "unidentified" plane flying over peninsula (Daud says "this was corroborated by civilian radar" in the March 9th press conference). Those include a couple radar WP hits we have specifically been told about* (and who knows how many that haven't been provided/leaked):
... VAMPI
... GIVAL
... IGREX
(note: we are not sure of the timing of the radar hits, and there is very contradictory evidence here. The most recent seemingly-official time is 2:15 for the last hit. Which hit that was, we don't know for sure)
[B]post 2:15/or/2:40 apparent absolute complete blackout of plane (except...)
- [B]3:11 - INMARSAT ping received, as apparently Boeing's AHM report attempted to automatically transmit (thru Satellite)
- [B]4:11 - INMARSAT ping received, as apparently Boeing's AHM report attempted to automatically transmit (thru Satellite)
- [B]5:11 - INMARSAT ping received, as apparently Boeing's AHM report attempted to automatically transmit (thru Satellite)
- [B]6:11 - INMARSAT ping received, as apparently Boeing's AHM report attempted to automatically transmit (thru Satellite)
- [B]7:11 - INMARSAT ping received, as apparently Boeing's AHM report attempted to automatically transmit (thru Satellite) near 40 Degree line
- [B]7:24 - Statement released by Malaysian Officials saying contact lost at 2:40 and SAR efforts are underway
- [B]8:11 - INMARSAT ping received, as apparently Boeing's AHM report attempted to automatically transmit (thru Satellite) (thru Satellite) on 40 Degree line

*those way-points on map


(Note on map: the Thailand radar data, as we understand it, indicates a straight path from IGARI to VAMPI is not possible, so there are more unknown/unreleased turns in there somewhere. Please do not read that map as a 'straight flight' from WP to WP; it was not a straight path over the peninsula, in the very least)[/B][/B][/B][/B][/B][/B][/B][/B][/B][/B][/B][/B][/B][/B][/B][/B][/B][/B][/B]

[Peter Lemkin]

Of all the crazy things I've heard, the craziest was just uttered as 'authoritative' by the BBC....they said they had 'inside information' that the plane after the zig-zag [above] to the NorthWest headed....wait for it...DIRECTLY FOR THE SOUTH POLE. I kid you not....maybe to the old Nazi secret base there...::face.palm:: anything is possible...but if this is...this was something out of James Bond and the plane landed at sea only to have all picked up by some secret ship. They didn't have enough fuel to get to the S. Pole and if they got there they'd have a very difficult time as few of the penguins speak Chinese or Malay.

[Lauren Johnson]

from Astro Awani

The airport runway of Diego Garcia is among the top five locations the investigative team discovered on the simulator programme in Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah's residence in Shah Alam last Saturday, as reported by Berita Harian.

The newspaper cited a source which said that the investigative team took this discovery as an investigative element in the disappearance of MH370 flown by Zaharie.

"So far from the software, we have investigated Male International Airport in Maldives, an airport owned by the United States (Diego Garcia) and three more landing tracks in India and Sri Lanka, all which have a distance of 1,000 meters of runway.

"Although the Defence Minister Datuk Seri Hishamuddin has denied allegations that MH370 landed in Diego Garcia, investigations will still continue based on Zaharie's flight simulator software," said the source to Berita Harian.

On Saturday, the investigating officer of the Royal Malaysian Police (RMP) dismantled the flight simulator found in Zaharie's home in Shah Alam.

It was then and re-assembled in Bukit Aman to search for clues on the MH370 mysterious flight disappearance.

The United States has denied claims that the plane which carried 239 passengers landed in their territory.

The source also said that they were also investigating possibilities that the pilot might have landed on the other runways he practiced on the simulator.

The source explains that the investigation by RMP is in collaboration with the Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) to search for clues on MH370 disappearance.

Read more at: http://english.astroawani.com/news/show/...r-32034?cp

Of course, now we are told that all the information was really erased and techs are trying to recover it.

[Albert Doyle]

Diego Garcia Airfield

Not many places to land and hide a 777 there. (Enter Diego Garcia in the link)



https://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&tab=wl

[Lauren Johnson]

another false lead?

Two objects possibly related to the search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 have been sighted, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said on Thursday.
Abbott told parliament "new and credible information" had come to light nearly two weeks after the plane vanished.
He said an Australian air force Orion had been diverted to look into the objects. He did not specify where they were but Australia has taken charge of the search in the southern Indian Ocean.
"The Australian Maritime Safety Authority has received information based on satellite information of objects possibly related to the search," Abbott said.
"Following specialist analysis of this satellite imagery, two possible objects related to the search have been identified."

[Albert Doyle]

If that is it then there's going to be some serious explaining to do by the agencies that should have seen an isolated track way far away from normal flightways headed south in the Indian Ocean. It would stand out like a sore thumb.