MH370 A NEW STUDY

 

MH370 Flight Path Analysis

Case Study

by Richard Godfrey, Dr. Hannes Coetzee (ZS6BZP) and Prof. Simon Maskell

30th August 2023

At 17:19:26 UTC Malaysian Air Traffic Control (ATC) at the Lumpur Radar station contacted

MH370 with a routine message: “Malaysian Three Seven Zero contact Ho Chi Minh one two zero

decimal niner good night.” Captain Zaharie Shah responded at 17:19:30 UTC: “Good night

Malaysian Three Seven Zero.” At 17:20:36 UTC, just 66 seconds later, the Mode S transponder

symbol of MH370 dropped off the Malaysian ATC radar display. MH370 had gone ‘dark’ and

disappeared into the night sky diverting back over Malaysia to the Malacca Strait according to

primary civilian and military radar data.

This case study examines the use of radio waves from the Weak Signal Propagation Reporter

(WSPR) and the historic database called WSPRnet. WSPR data can be used as a multi-static

passive radar system to detect and track aircraft, where WSPR links between radio transmitters

and receivers align with the aircraft position along a great circle path. Signal level and signal

frequency modulations can result, when an aircraft flight path intersects with the propagation path

of a WSPR link. Together with the Boeing aircraft performance data, the MAS Operations fuel and

engineering data, the weather data enroute, the Inmarsat satellite data and the drift analysis of the

41 items of possible MH370 floating debris that have been recovered from around the Indian

Ocean, a comprehensive picture of the final hours of flight MH370 can be collated.

The purpose of detecting and tracking MH370 across the Indian Ocean is to ensure the reliability

of the flight path analysis during the 7 hours 46 minutes the aircraft was in the air and therefore

the accuracy of the end point position, where MH370 ran out of fuel after 7 hours 35 minutes and

then subsequently crashed around 11 minutes later. The alignment of the WSPR analysis with the

analyses from Boeing, Inmarsat and the drift analysis from the University of Western Australia is a

significant multi-disciplinary outcome, which all point to the same crash area. There have been 41

items of confirmed or possible MH370 floating debris recovered from round the Indian Ocean.

Flight MH370 was diverted to the Indian Ocean, where it crashed after fuel exhaustion on 8th

March 2014 at some point after the last satellite signal was received at 00:19:37 UTC. At the time

of writing of this case study, MH370 still has not been found despite extensive surface and

underwater searches. Around 10 million commercial passengers fly every day and the safety of

the airline industry relies on finding the cause of every aircraft accident.

MH370 - Forensics Strongly Supports Malaysia Airlines B777 Plunged into the Ocean in a Nosedive Attitude

Hypothesis 1 

Hypothesis 2

 

 

Hypothesis 3

Hypothesis 4

 

 Hypothesis 5

 

 



MH370 - Water Entry of an Airliner

Texas A&M University at Qatar

Mathematician Goong Chen, “forensics strongly supports that MH370 plunged into the ocean in a nosedive”.

 

DITCHING POSSIBILITY ANALISES

See 3-D Animation

https://www.dropbox.com/s/pbjhrovlqrqiizm/smooth-cin40.avi

 https://www.dropbox.com/s/6zakw7js7kbcwed/comb-3.mp4

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vaf0qenjw0lk5yz/comb-90.mp4

By

Goong Chen, Cong Gu, Philip J. Morris, Eric G. Paterson, Alexey Sergeev,Yi-Ching Wang, and Tomasz Wierzbicki

On March 8, 2014 Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared less than an hour after take-off on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. The Boeing 777-200ER carried twelve crew members and 227 passengers.

Em 8 MAR 2014 o voo MH370 da Malaysia Airlines desapareceu em menos de uma hora após a decolagem em um voo de Kuala Lumpur para Pequim. O Boeing 777-200ER carregava 227 passageiros e 12 membros da tripulação.

 

The CFD software we have adopted here is OpenFOAM, which is open-source and is now widely used by industry and research communities.

O software CFD que adotamos aqui é OpenFOAM, o qual é de código fonte aberto e agora é amplamente utilizado pelas comunidades de investigação e indústria.

 

 

See Animation

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vaf0qenjw0lk5yz/comb-90.mp4

 

Such simulations can help to understand the physical mechanisms at work and also to improve passenger safety. But these are highly challenging simulations that require the cooperation of engineers, mathematicians and computational scientists. Any scientific investigation of the mishap, apart from human factors of foul play and conspiracy, must consider factors of an engineering nature, such as machine and instrumentation breakdown, midair explosion, weather, navigation, etc. But this should not prevent mathematicians’ curiosity—and our fascination with airplanes since childhood—from entering the fray to add and contribute something valuable regarding this investigation and recovery effort.

Tais simulações podem ajudar a entender os mecanismos físicos no trabalho e também melhorar a segurança dos passageiros. Mas estas são simulações altamente desafiadoras que exigem a cooperação de engenheiros, matemáticos e cientistas computacionais. Qualquer investigação científica do fatal acidente, à parte os fatores humanos de jogo sujo e conspiração, deve-se considerar fatores de uma natureza de engenharia, tais como colapso de máquina e instrumentação, explosão no ar, meteorologia, navegação, etc. Mas isto não deve impedir a curiosidade dos matemáticos — e o nosso fascínio por aviões desde a infância — de entrar na rixa para adicionar e contribuir com algo de valioso sobre este esforço de investigação e recuperação.

The fact is, mathematics is closely intertwined with engineering and is not detached from the “real world” as some people may think.

O fato é, matemática está intimamente entrelaçada com a engenharia e não está isolada do "mundo real" como algumas pessoas podem pensar.

The splashing and piling up of water waves surrounding the submerged part of the aircraft are close to realism, as the motion of the free (water) surface is modeled and computed by the volume-of-fluid method. We have also used the level-set method and obtained similar graphical results. However, several other physical factors and phenomena have not been taken into account:

(1) The deceleration of the aircraft motion, as its speed is maintained at 70m/sec. In addition, in general, the presence of water will cause deflection of the flight path.

 

(2) At the speed of 70 m/sec, structural fracture and disintegration of aircraft are likely to occur.

 

(3) Hydrodynamic force, fluid buoyancy, and drag force have not been incorporated into the model.

 

Box 1. Commentary on the water-entering motion of aircraft as shown in Figure 1 and its video animation.



As várias fases de um projétil entrando na água de acordo com Mackey [Mac79]: (a) uma cavidade de ar se abre; (b) uma cavidade de bolsa ar engloba o projétil quando ele está totalmente submerso; e (c) a cavidade começa ser isolada do projétil, o deixando totalmente envolvido pela água. Parte de vapor de água poderá existir na cavidade e formação de cavidades na estrutura usualmente ocorre. (Adaptado de [Abr 1, p. 060803-2]).

Os salpicos e acumulando de ondas de água envolvendo a parte submersa da aeronave estão perto do realismo, como o movimento da superfície livre (água) está modelado e calculado pelo método do volume de fluido. Usamos  também o método de conjunto de nível e obtivemos resultados gráficos semelhantes. No entanto, vários outros fatores físicos e fenômenos não foram levados em consideração:

(1) a desaceleração do movimento da aeronave, enquanto sua velocidade é mantida a 70 m/s. Além disso, em geral, a presença de água causará desvio da trajetória de voo. 

(2) na velocidade de 70 m/s, desintegração e fratura estrutural da aeronave são prováveis de ocorrer. 

(3) força hidrodinâmica, empuxo do fluido e força de arrasto não foram incorporadas ao modelo.

Caixa de Texto 1. Comentário sobre o movimento da aeronave em entrar na água como mostrado na Figura 1 e seu vídeo de animação.

Table 1. Parameter values for Boeing 777 used in CFD calculations

Total weight	Peso Bruto	1.8 x 105 Kg
Wing span	Envergadura da asa	60.9 m
Fuselage cross section	Seção transversal da fuselagem	29.6 m2
Length	Comprimento	63.7 m
Roll Moment of Inertia	Momento de Inércia de Rolagem	1.06 x 107 Kg m2
Pitch Moment of Inertia	Momento de Inércia de Atitude de Subida ou Descida	2.37 x 107 kg m2
Yaw Moment of Inertia	Momento de Inércia de Guinada	3.34 x 107 kg m2

Table 2. Parameter values for fluid flow used in CFD calculations

 

We are dealing with two fluids: air and water. Depending on the operating conditions (speed and altitude), we can regard air either as compressible or incompressible. For water, as a liquid, it is generally considered as incompressible. However, if we choose incompressibility as the model for water here, the CFD calculations will have severe difficulty of convergence. A likely cause is that, in water landing situations, local contact interface pressure can get very high, on the order of 106 Pascal, causing a compressed state of water. Therefore, we choose compressibility for both air and water as in [GLQW13]. Box 2. Modeling selections: compressible or incompressible?

Estamos lidando com dois fluidos: ar e água. Dependendo das condições operacionais (velocidade e altitude), podemos considerar ou ar compressível ou incompressível. Para a água, como um líquido, é geralmente considerado como incompressível. No entanto, se escolhermos incompressibilidade como o modelo para a água aqui, os cálculos CFD terão severas dificuldades de convergência. Uma causa provável é que, em situações de pouso na água, a pressão de interface de contato local pode ficar muito elevada, da ordem de 106 Pascal, causando um estado de água compactada. Por essa razão, escolhemos a compressibilidade para ambos, ar e água, como em [GLQW13]. Caixa de Texto 2. Seleções de modelagem: compressível ou incompressível?

Box 3. Does nose-dive have anything to do with the lack of debris?      https://www.dropbox.com/s/vaf0qenjw0lk5yz/comb-90.mp4 CASE 4	Caixa de Texto 3. O mergulho de nariz tem algo a ver com a falta de detritos?
If an aircraft stalls in a climb, or if any control surfaces—ailerons, rudder, or stabilizers— malfunction, or if it runs out of fuel and the autopilot stops working (while the pilots are incapacitated or if the action is deliberate), it can fall into a steep nose-dive or even vertical drop (our Case 4 here).	Se uma aeronave estolar em uma subida, ou se qualquer superfícies de controle —ailerons, leme ou estabilizadores —funcionarem mal, ou se ela fica sem combustível e o piloto automático pára de funcionar (enquanto os pilotos estão incapacitados ou se a ação for deliberada), ela pode cair em um mergulho de nariz íngreme ou mesmo vertical queda (nosso caso 4 aqui).
What happens upon water-entry? Here, we directly quote [syr]:	O que acontece com a entrada na água? Aqui, citamos diretamente [syr]:
“ …The wings and tail would be torn away and the fuselage could reach a depth of 30 meters or 40 meters within seconds, then sink without resurfacing. Wing pieces and other heavy debris would descend soon afterward.	“ … As asas e a cauda pode seriam arrancadas e a fuselagem poderia chegar a uma profundidade de 30 metros ou 40 metros dentro de segundos, em seguida, afundar sem emergir novamente. Peças da asa e outros detritos pesados desceria logo depois.
Whether buoyant debris from the passenger cabin—things like foam seat cushions, seatback tables and plastic drinking water bottles—would bob up to the surface would depend on whether the fuselage ruptured on impact, and how bad the damage was.	Se detritos flutuantes da cabine de passageiro — coisas como espuma de almofadas de assento, mesas de encosto de assento e garrafas de plástico de água mineral — subiriam para boiarem oscilando na superfície e  dependeria se a fuselagem se rompera com o impacto, e quanto grave foi o dano.
“It may have gone in almost complete somehow, and not left much on the surface,” said Jason Middleton, an aviation professor at Australia’s University of New South Wales.…”	"Ele pode ter entrado [na água] quase inteiro de alguma forma, e não ter deixado muito na superficie," disse Jason Middleton, um professor de aviação na Universidade de New South Wales da Austrália..."
This may well offer a powerful clue as to why, so frustratingly, none of the debris of MH370 has been found so far.	Isto bem pode oferecer uma poderosa pista do porquê, tão frustrantemente, nenhum dos detritos do MH370 foi encontrado até agora.

 

Goong Chen is professor of mathematics at Texas A&M University (TAMU) and Texas A&M University at Qatar (TAMUQ). He is also a member of the Institute for Quantum Science and Engineering at TAMU. His email address is gchen@math.tamu.edu.

 Cong Gu is a PhD student in the mathematics department of TAMU. His email address is gucong@math.tamu.edu  .

Philip J. Morris is Boeing/AD Welliver Professor of Aerospace Engineering at The Pennsylvania State University. His email address is pjm@psu.edu .

Eric G. Paterson is Rolls Royce Commonwealth Professor of Marine Propulsion and department head of Aerospace and Ocean Engineering at Virginia Tech. His email address is egp@vt.edu .

 Alexey Sergeev is postdoctoral fellow at the Qatar Environment and Energy Research Institute in Doha, Qatar. His email address is asergeev@asergeev.com .

Yi-Ching Wang is a PhD student in the mathematics department of TAMU. Her email address is ycwang@math.tamu.edu  .

 Tomasz Wierzbicki is professor of applied mechanics and Director of Impact and Crashworthiness Laboratory at MIT. His email address is wierz@mit.edu .



MH370 - The Aircraft Experienced a Power Failure

29 Jun 2014

Inmarsat, the company that officially analyzed flight data from MH370, has confirmed the assessment but says it does not know why the aircraft experienced a power failure.	Inmarsat, a empresa que oficialmente analisou dados de vôo do MH370, confirmou a avaliação, mas diz que não sabe por que a aeronave experimentou uma falha de energia.
"It does appear there was a power failure on those two occasions," Chris McLaughlin, from Inmarsat, told The Telegraph. "It is another little mystery. We cannot explain it. We don't know why. We just know it did it."	"Parece que houve uma falha de energia nessas duas ocasiões," Chris McLaughlin, da Inmarsat, disse ao The Telegraph. "É mais um pouco de mistério. Nós não podemos explicar. Não sabemos o porquê. Só sabemos que foi isso. "
The Australian report released by Australian authorities has revealed that the Boeing 777 attempted to log on to Inmarsat satellites at 2.25am, three minutes after it was detected by Malaysian military radar.	O relatório australiano divulgado por autoridades australianas, revelou que o Boeing 777 tentou fazer log-on nos satélites da Inmarsat às 02:25 AM, três minutos depois que foi detectado pelo radar militar da Malásia.
This was as the plane was flying north of the Indonesian island of Sumatra. The aircraft had already veered away from the course that would have taken it to its destination of Beijing, but had not yet made its turn south towards the Indian Ocean.	Isto foi quando o avião estava voando ao Norte da ilha indonesiana de Sumatra. A aeronave já tinha se desviado para longe do curso que ele teria tomado para seu destino Pequim, mas ainda não tinha feito a sua vez para o Sul em direção ao Oceano Índico.
The aircraft experienced another such log-on request almost six hours later, though this was its seventh and final satellite handshake and is believed to have been caused by the plane running out of fuel and electrical power before apparently crashing, somewhere in the southern Indian Ocean. The other five handshakes were initiated by the satellite ground station and were not considered unusual.	A aeronave experimentou outra solicitação de  log-on quase seis horas mais tarde, embora este foi seu sétimo e último ‘handshake’ com o satélite e é acreditado ter sido causado pelo avião ficar sem combustível e energia elétrica antes de aparentemente se despencar, em algum lugar ao sul do Oceano Índico. Os outros cinco ‘handshakes’ foram iniciados pela estação terrestre de satélites e não foram considerados incomuns.
Asked whether the power interruption could have been caused by a mechanical fault, Mr Gleave said: "There are credible mechanical failures that could cause it. But you would not then fly along for hundreds of miles and disappear in the Indian Ocean."	Perguntado se a interrupção de energia poderia ter sido causada por uma falha mecânica, o Sr. Gleave disse: "existem falhas mecânicas críveis que causariam isso. Mas você não voaria depois ao longo de centenas de quilômetros e desapareceria no Oceano Índico".
Another aviation expert, Peter Marosszeky, from the University of New South Wales, agreed, saying the power interruption must have been intended by someone on board. He said the interruption would not have caused an entire power failure but would have involved a "conscious" attempt to remove power from selected systems on the plane.	Um outro especialista em aviação, Peter Marosszeky, da Universidade de New South Wales, concordou, dizendo que a interrupção de energia deve ter sido intencionada por alguém a bordo. Ele disse que a interrupção não teria causado uma falha de energia inteira, mas teria envolvido uma tentativa "consciente" para remover energia de sistemas selecionados no avião.
"It would have to be a deliberate act of turning power off on certain systems on the airplane," he said. "The aircraft has so many backup systems. Any form of power interruption is always backed up by another system.	"Teria de ser um ato deliberado de desligar a energia em determinados sistemas no avião", ele disse. "A aeronave tem vários sistemas de suporte. Qualquer forma de interrupção de energia é sempre sustentada por um outro sistema.
"The person doing it would have to know what they are doing. It would have to be a deliberate act to hijack or sabotage the aircraft."	"A pessoa fazendo isso teria que saber o que elas estvam fazendo. Issoteria que ser um ato deliberado para seqüestrar ou sabotar a aeronave."

Electrical Power

There are three individual power systems dedicated to the Primary Flight Control System, which are collectively referred to as the Flight Controls Direct Current (FCDC) power system. An FCDC Power Supply Assembly (PSA) powers each of the three power systems. Two dedicated Permanent Magnet Generators (PMG) on each engine generate AC power for the FCDC power system. Each PSA converts the PMG alternating current into 28 V DC for use by the electronic modules in the Primary Flight Control System. Alternative power sources for the PSAs include the airplane Ram Air Turbine (RAT), the 28-V DC main airplane busses, the airplane hot battery buss, and dedicated 5 Ah FCDC batteries. During flight, the PSAs draw power from the PMGs. For on-ground engines-off operation or for in-flight failures of the PMGs, the PSAs draw power from any available source.

Fault Tolerance

‘‘Fault Tolerance” is a term that is used to define the ability of any system to withstand single or multiple failures which results in either no loss of functionality or a known loss of functionality or reduced level of redundancy while maintaining the required level of safety. It does not, however, define any particular method that is used for this purpose. There are two major classes of faults that any system design must deal with. These are

 

·         A failure which results in some particular component becoming totally inoperative. An example of this would be a loss of power to some electronic component, such that it no longer performs its intended function.

·         A failure which results in some particular component remaining active, but the functionality it provides is in error. An example of this failure would be a Low Range Radio Altimeter whose output is indicating the airplane is at an altitude 500 feet above the ground when the airplane is actually 200 feet above the ground.

 

 One method that is used to address the first class of faults is the use of redundant elements. For example, there are three PFCs in the 777 Primary Flight Control System, each with three identical computing ‘‘lanes” within each PFC. This results in nine identical computing channels. Any of the three PFCs themselves can fail totally due to loss of power or some other failure which affects all three computing lanes, but the Primary Flight Control System loses no functionality. All four ACEs will continue to receive all their surface position commands from the remaining PFCs. All that is affected is the level of available redundancy.

Likewise, any single computing lane within a PFC can fail, and that PFC itself will continue to operate with no loss of functionality. The only thing that is affected is the amount of redundancy of the system.

The 777 is certified to be dispatched on a revenue flight, per the Minimum Equipment List (MEL), with two computing lanes out of the nine total (as long as they are not within the same PFC channel) for 10 days and for a single day with one total PFC channel inoperative.

Likewise, there is fault tolerance in the ACE architecture. The flight control functions are distributed among the four ACEs such that a total failure of a single ACE will leave the major functionality of the system intact. A single actuator on several of the primary control surfaces may become inoperative due to this failure, and a certain number of spoiler symmetrical panel pairs will be lost. However, the pilot flying the airplane will notice little or no difference in handling characteristics with this failure. A total ACE failure of this nature will have much the same impact to the Primary Flight Control System as that of a hydraulic system failure.

The second class of faults is one that results in erroneous operation of a specific component of the system.

The normal design practice to account for failures of this type is to have multiple elements doing the same task and their outputs voted or compared in some manner. This is sometimes referred to as a “voting plane.’’

All critical interfaces into the 777 FBW Primary Flight Control System use multiple inputs which are compared by a voting plane. For interfaces that are required to remain operable after a first failure, at least three inputs must be used. For example, there are three individual Low Range Radio Altimeter (LRRA) inputs used by the PFCs. The PFCs compare all three inputs and calculates a mid-value select on the three values; i.e., the middle value LRRA input is used in all calculations which require radio altitude. In this manner, any single failure of an LRRA that results in an erroneous value will be discarded. If a subsequent failure occurs which causes the remaining two LRRA signals to disagree by a preset amount, the PFCs will throw out both values and take appropriate action in those functions which use these data.

Additionally, a voting plane scheme is used by the PFCs on themselves. Normally, a single computing lane within a PFC channel is declared as the ‘‘master” lane, and that lane is responsible for transmitting all data onto the data busses for use by the ACEs and other airplane systems. However, all three lanes are simultaneously computing the same control laws. The outputs of all three computing lanes within a single PFC channel are compared against each other. Any failure of a lane that will cause an erroneous output from that lane will cause that lane to be condemned as ‘‘failed” by the other two lanes.

Likewise, the outputs from all three PFC channels themselves are compared. Each PFC looks at its own calculated command output for any particular actuator, and compares it with the same command that was calculated by the other two PFC channels. Each PFC channel then does a mid-value select on the three commands, and that value (whether it was the one calculated by itself or by one of the other PFC channels) is then output to the ACEs for the individual actuator commands. In this manner, it is assured that each ACE receives identical commands from each of the PFC channels.