Earlier this week Inmarsat with the help of IIAB released what has since been called “groundbreaking but traditional mathematics-based process” to plot what would have been the best case lead as to the route that MH370 took. It was never mentioned if this data was the only findings that were used by Malaysian Authorities to announce that the plane ‘ended’ its journey in the South Indian Ocean, and with the lack of any nearby land mass that all on-board would be presumed dead.
The Inmarsat findings used assumed variables on flight altitude, speed and even fuel burn rate – assuming the plane had slightly more fuel than required for a KL-Beijing flight. Inmarsat then “compared its predictions with six other B777 aircraft flying on the same day in various directions, which resulted in a good match.” Again this really puts a lot of holes in the findings, a lot of assumed variables that could throw the calculation way off if any one of these variables changed. There has been no precedent set before for this calculations to compare against as well. This alone is one of the main reasons why the friends and families of those on board, and the general public are still highly sceptical about the Inmarsat findings.
Even the Inmarsat guys who did the calculation were not completely confident. “The review group concurred on March 23. Inmarsat took its findings “with some degree of nervousness” to the U.K. Air Accidents Investigation Branch, which presented them to Malaysian authorities heading the search, McLaughlin said.” They revealed the data and calculation to be further studied, to be verified, to be proven beyond reasonable doubt. It was not to be taken as the final and conclusive calculation in any way.
There is a simple solution to this. Everything needed to replicate and verify Inmarsat’s finding is readily available. This is not as complicated as trying to proof Einstein’s theory of relativity. All that is needed is a fueled up Malaysian Airlines B777-200ER. Together with independent investigators, Malaysian Authorities, Inmarsat representatives, press representatives and even representatives from the families on board, the test plane should be flown in the general direction plotted by Inmarsat, closely following the route, speed and altitude that was completed by MH370 before it lost radar contact. By then plotting the ‘handshakes’ between this test flight and the actual data measured by Inmarsat of MH370, it can be conclusively ascertained whether MH370 did indeed travel in the calculated direction or not.
It would also confirm once and for all that we are looking in the right direction on where the plane could have ended its journey. It would give a boost to those searching for debris knowing for a fact that the plane did indeed reach the search area, and that there is a haystack to look for. Or if the data from the test flight doesn’t match up, then there is a whole different route that needs to be looked at. Why hasn’t this been done i don’t know. All the satellite images, all the days of searching when it would take at most 7-8 hours to verify the Inmarsat findings.
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