MH370: New research shows pilot made turns and speed changes to ‘deliberately’ avoid detection

New research by one of the world’s leading MH370 investigators has revealed the pilot in command of the Boeing 777 may have actively attempted to avoid detection before it mysteriously disappeared. MH370 vanished during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014 before plunging into the Southern Indian Ocean — taking 239 passengers with it. Eight Australians died in the crash including WA woman Danica Weeks’ husband and Perth-based mechanical engineer Paul Weeks. The paper, by aerospace engineer Richard Godfrey, uses a revolutionary new technology called weak signal propagation (WSPR) to track the plane’s final movements. “WSPR is like a bunch of tripwires or laser beams, but they work in every direction over the horizon to the other side of the globe,” Mr. Godfrey said. The paper examines the plane’s turn around Indonesia before it settled on a course over the Southern Indian Ocean. “The pilot of MH370 generally avoided official flight routes from 18.00 UTC (2am AWST) onwards, but used (air traffic control) waypoints to navigate on unofficial flight paths in the Malacca Strait, around Sumatra and across the southern Indian Ocean. The flight path follows the coast of Sumatra and flies close to Banda Aceh Airport,” Mr Godfrey said. He said the pilot appeared to have knowledge of the operating hours of nearby radars in Sabang and Lhokseumawe, which would not have been up and running at the time. Mr Godfrey said the pilot also “avoided giving a clear idea where he was heading by using a flight path with a number of changes of direction” — and changes of speed. “These changes of track included towards the Andaman Islands, towards South Africa, towards Java, towards 2°S 92°E (where the flight information regions of Jakarta, Colombo and Melbourne meet) and towards Cocos Islands,” Mr Godfrey said. “Once out of range of all other aircraft, at 20.30 UTC (4.30am AWST) the pilot changed track and headed due south. “The flight path seems well planned and avoids commercial flight routes. The pilot appears not so concerned about fuel usage and much more concerned about leaving false trails. “The significant number of changes of track and speed suggest that there was an active pilot during the flight.” It is widely believed in the airline industry that its captain, Zaharie Ahmad Shah was in control until the end. Mr Godfrey added “the level of detail in the planning implies a mindset that would want to see this complex plan properly executed through to the end.” There are more than 5000 WSPR radio stations across the globe. On the night MH370 disappeared, MrGodfrey said there were 518 unique transmission paths that cross the area of interest around Malaysia, the Malacca Strait and the Indian Ocean. “With the WSPR data provided every two minutes and the ability to check against the satellite data every hour it is possible to detect and track MH370 from two independent sources,” he said. Mr Godfrey has developed a unique software system called GDTAAA (global detection and tracking any aircraft anywhere anytime) to read the WSPRnet archived database every two minutes. Mr Godfrey explains that “global detection and tracking of any aircraft anywhere at anytime is possible using multiple trip wire position indicators and single trip wire progress indicators”. “Position indicators are based on multiple trip wires crossing at a point,” he said. “Progress indicators are based on a single trip wire at the position predicted by the assumed ground speed and track of MH370.” He said all the end of flight analysis points to a spiral dive into the ocean. Of particular interest, Mr Godfrey said, is a more detailed analysis of the end of the flight which will be conducted soon. “The satellite data, the MH370 floating debris drift analysis and the WSPRnet data analysis represent three independent ways of determining the crash location of MH370. When all three analyses come to the same conclusion, then the level of certainty (of the location) increases," Mr Godfrey said. “Applying the WSPR technology to the search for MH370 can provide credible new evidence that was not available during the previous underwater searches by Fugro and Ocean Infinity.” In his first paper on WSPR, published last month on Airlineratings.com, Mr. Godfrey confirmed the new technology agreed with the broad flight path of MH370 from satellite data, and its suspected final resting place west of Perth, from drift modelling, based on the debris recovered. A total of 33 pieces of debris – confirmed and suspected from MH370 – have been recovered by 16 different people unrelated to each other in six different countries.