
MH370 disappearance: Goodfellow's theory about fire and Langkawi is wrong. - acjohnson55
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/03/18/mh370_disappearance_chris_goodfellow_s_theory_about_a_fire_and_langkawi.html
======
alexeisadeski3
The theory was obviously wrong even when it was on the front page of HN two
days ago:

1\. It does not account for course changes made after the initial diversion
from the flight path.

2\. It does not account for the final known location of the aircraft along the
infamous "arc" off of Australia and Kazakhstan.

The popularity of the theory was and remains puzzling.

~~~
tim333
Dunno. 1 and 2 could be experimental error. Here's his rebuttal cut and
pasted:

GOODFELLOW REBUTTAL...Interesting analysis of my analysis.

New information surfaced today of several people in the Maldives seeing a
large white airliner with three red stripes flying overhead at 6:15am the
following morning. This coincides nicely with the 2000 nautical mile distance
from the original turn made 5 hours before approx. 400 knots/hr. The Maldives
lie on an extended line from the initial heading the plane took.

The writer says MH370 made several course changes at various waypoints. This
is based on Malaysian radar data which may well have been tracking the other
aircraft which is mentioned in the piggy back scenario while MH370 continued
on in a southwesterly direction.

This morning I posted a new piece that calls for Rolls Royce to come clean
with its data. I think they have the keys to the puzzle so to speak. After all
it took two days for the information to filter out they had been collecting
the databursts for a further six hours. (this was after I penned my original
piece). The key to whether this was a "ghost plane" for 6 hours or a hijack is
in their data. Again simple. If the data shows the engine parameters did not
change - constant rpm - and normal cruise settings throughout the six hours
then the aircraft for all intents and purposes was a ghost flight with no
human input. If on the other hand as this writer asserts the plane maneuvered
and changed direction and particularly if we were led to believe it performed
a the piggy back operation to avoid radar as it moved up the Bay of Bengal
there would be many power setting changes in the data. Rolls Royce needs to
clarify this asap.

I would dearly love to be proved wrong and for this aircraft to have been
hijacked and landed somewhere and the passengers although being held were at
least alive. However, I cannot come to that conclusion on my interpretation of
the scant facts. I still believe the craft flew on until fuel exhaustion
somewhere west of the Maldives. The sighting, if correct, in the Maldives ties
together the timeline and heading. The 777 when trimmed is a very stable plane
and theoretically could just fly on if a heading was entered.

The New York Times has written that the initial turn south west was initiated
by an entry into the Flight Management System and the plane was not manually
turned. I don't know how they can determine this but I'll give them the
benefit of the doubt. I too have GPS in my car and in two keystrokes I can hit
go home and the route is plotted. Guess what? All the airports in the region
of operations of this aircraft are already loaded in the FMS. All the pilot
had to do was enter the identifier for Langwaki and they craft turned and
headed for the initial approach waypoint. He may well have had time to do this
before events overwhelmed him. In any event the plane took up a heading for
Langwaki which appears incontrovertible at this point.. Many people wrote me
about airports on the north coast of Malaysia. KBR in particular but this is a
6,000 foot strip with an approach over land and hills. Few pilots would opt to
try and stuff an obviously damaged craft of this type at this point into a
6,000 strip at night. I still believe the turn was to initiate an approach to
Langwaki where he had a long clear obstruction free approach over water. His
craft was likely above max landing weight and he knew it. He couldn't dump
fuel if he had fire. The best scenario is a very long runway.

Unfortunately I still think they were overcome by events.

I am an optimist and I believe we are going to have a resolution within the
next couple of days because at least now I feel they are searching in the
right place....namely at the place I said in the first post on an extension of
the heading they had set up for Langwaki. I said it would be either at a point
where the plane crashed becausefire destroyed the flight surfaces OR at the
end of fuel exhaustion. We now know it motored on six hours. We now know there
was a sighting in the Maldives. I hope and pray they find it west of the
Maldives very soon.

Today I received calls from all major networks CNN FOX ABC NBC MSNBC AL JAZ
CBS. I declined all interviews. I am not interested in 15 minutes of media
fame or more speculation. I am interested in seeing this aircraft found and
now feel they are looking in the right place. If found west/southwest of the
Maldives I shall travel to New York for a press conference at my own expense
and the media can have a go at me at that time. Until then all I'm interested
in is the fate of 239 souls and the families concerned and with the enormous
interest in this story it seems the whole world is too.

Thank you for your interest and time in this story.

~~~
LoganCale
The ping data did not come from Rolls Royce, it came from the SATCOM provider.
Rolls Royce did not receive data after the aircraft reached cruise altitude,
despite early false reports that they did.

The early maneuvering was seen on military radar and is confirmed (Malaysia
flew another 777 along the same route and monitored it on radar and the
signature matched). The positional arc that has been frequently shown is from
the final SATCOM ping the aircraft responded to, roughly 7 hours after
takeoff.

~~~
FatalLogic
>Rolls Royce did not receive data after the aircraft reached cruise altitude,
despite early false reports that they did.

It casts much doubt on Goodfellow's ability to analyse this case if he didn't
know basic facts about it, such as this.

He also referred to the supposed sighting in the Maldives, which appears to be
wrong, as it was nowhere near any of the final positions indicated by the
SATCOM pings, and occurred about an hour after the plane should have run out
of fuel.

------
truantbuick
There's something that particularly bothers me about Goodfellow's article. He
condescends about crazy theories while making ridiculous assumption after
ridiculous assumption while acting very authoritative about each one. Just
because his theory is less "sexy" (it doesn't involve hijacking or terrorists
or suicide) doesn't make it any more valid. I'm appreciative of commentary
that urges a more prudent approach, not a condescending and equally
implausible theory that happens to be boring.

------
United857
Any onboard fire fast and strong enough to suddenly disable the crew would
almost certainly also bring the plane down in short order, rather than letting
it fly on for hours (as the supposed satellite data shows).

See Swissair Flight 111 and ValuJet Flight 592 as past examples.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swissair_Flight_111](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swissair_Flight_111)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ValuJet_Flight_592](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ValuJet_Flight_592)

~~~
leoc
It might be possible to find a Goldilocks explanation. Maybe a smaller fire,
located in the cockpit, which the crew eventually extinguish only to find that
the cockpit instrumentation is destroyed? Or maybe which they successfully
extinguish, but only after both pilots are unconscious from smoke inhalation,
and no-one else knows how to fly or use the radios? Sounds a bit contrived,
but this is an unusual situtation.

------
jmpeax
Half of the article is an ad hominem style attack against Goodfellow. It would
be nice if it was 50% shorter, with only real content. Wise up Jeff.

------
erddojo
I absolutely think a fire theory would be valid, after all the plane was
carrying a large load of lithium batteries.

However, that's precisely the factor that calls Goodfellow's fire theory into
question (for me). If a fire broke out that was strong enough to disable comms
and/or knock out pilots, then it was strong enough to set off those batteries.

No way the plane flew seven more hours in that scenario. Even if the fire was
contained to the cabin and there wasn't a pilot left to fly the plane, someone
at some point in those seven hours would've found a cell signal to call for
help.

Unless, of course, there was no 7 hours and that satellite ping was for
another plane. In that case, I'm thinking is the plane would've gone down soon
after the transponder went off and the wreckage would've been found by now.

Personally, I have no clue what happened to this plane.

------
pedalpete
Can somebody explain to me how "pings narrowed the location of MH370 at that
moment to one of two arcs"?

If a ping is picked up, shouldn't it be somewhat definitive of where it came
from?

~~~
LoganCale
There's only one satellite, so they only have (as far as we know) the delay
time between sending out the ping and hearing a response to determine distance
from satellite to aircraft, with no ability to triangulate the position as
something like GPS (which uses many satellites) would do. So they can figure
out a large curve around the satellite's position, and the aircraft could have
been at any point (within the limits of its fuel capacity) when it sent out
that final ping.

~~~
einhverfr
Distance alone should give you a full circle, but remember you also have
processing time which is significant.

If they have two possible arcs, this suggests that the same ping was heard by
two satellites (and no more), and that these are the places where the
difference in time that the satellites heard the pings would work for both
satellites.

You have basically three intersecting spheres (one is the earth and the other
is based on the satellites' light cones). They all meet in two locations. If
you had a third satellite, you should be able to determine which of the two
locations was right.

~~~
hatbert
You're misunderstanding. There is a single circle, which people are calling
two arc. That is because they know the airplane can't fly more than a certain
distance from its last known position (this reduces the circle to an arc) and
because they know where the airplane _isn 't_ from radar data (that breaks the
one arc into two pieces, which happen to be roughly the same size).

------
scott27
My problem with Goodfellow's theory, and what really makes this disappearance
so intriguing, is that they never found any wreckage anywhere. I would figure
with the plane crashing in the ocean somewhere(which would be the most likely
scenario in Goodfellow's theory) I would figure they would find SOMETHING by
now considering how many resources are being poured into this search.

~~~
tim333
In Goodfellow's hypothesis the wreckage will be found west of the Maldives
shortly. It wouldn't have been found up to now because they have been
searching in the wrong places. I have not been blown away by the Malaysians
efficiency in doing the search and analysis.

------
marshray
Sure he's an experienced pilot, but he doesn't seem to have access to any
better information than the rest of us. There are plenty of other aviation
experts and informed amateurs doing equally interesting analysis and
speculation.

So what did Goodfellow do so right to get everyone buzzing about "his" theory?

------
checker659
As far as the trajectory is concerned, isn't going near Maldives just about
right (let's not forget about map projection and the shape of the earth).

~~~
alexeisadeski3
Just about right for what?

