WSPR technology can be used to detect and track aircraft. This paper underpins the flight path report published 31st December 2021 which provided the findings every two minutes during the entire flight of MH370 from 7th March 2014 16:42 UTC to 8th March 2014 00:20 UTC. The alignment of the predicted position of MH370 with the great circle path of one or more anomalous WSPR links occurred at 125 different times during the flight, involving a total of 186 anomalous WSPR links out of a database of 76,097 WSPR links during the MH370 flying time. In 45 cases multiple WSPR links intersected at the predicted position of MH370. The crash location identified is 33.2°S 95.3°E. The previous report (124 pages, 55 MB) can be downloaded here
The results of the WSPR based analysis align with previous work on the Inmarsat satellite data, Boeing 777-200ER fuel model and Oceanographer’s drift analyses of the floating debris found from MH370. Blaine Gibson and others have found 36 items of MH370 floating debris, either confirmed from part numbers and serial numbers or confirmed from a Boeing 777-200ER aircraft type. Prof. Charitha Pattiaratchi of the University of Western Australia predicted where floating debris would be found and Blaine Gibson successfully searched on his advice. Prof. Charitha Pattiaratchi has identified a crash location between 32°S and 33°S near the 7th Arc based on his drift analysis.
WSPR technology provides credible new evidence to help determine the crash location of MH370 and we therefore recommend a further search be authorised. The offer by Ocean Infinity to recommence an underwater search in 2023 should be accepted. Our latest technical report (100 pages, 45 MB) can be downloaded here
@Spencer Healy,
Welcome to the blog!
There are over 150 books on MH370 and every one is entitled to their opinion.
I have not been contacted by Byron Bailey and have received no invitation to travel to Australia from Germany to meet him. I have however listened to his many TV documentary interviews and disagree with his views.
@Richard, Gentlemanly put.
@George G,
Thanks!
Hi Richard
Thank you for your response. Out of all the opinions and possible crash locations listed, I have to say, I agree with your theories and coordinates more than anyone else.
I have just finished watching the Netflix documentary and wondered what your opinions were on that? The second episode particularly whereby Jeff Wise presents theory 2. He claims Russians were involved.
@Spencer Healy,
Here is a list of things that are wrong with the Netflix documentary series:
1. The Inmarsat satellite data is captured and distributed in real time from the ground station and cannot be manipulated or fabricated in real time in multiple databases.
2. The MH370 floating debris has been confirmed in 8 cases by part numbers, in 6 cases by stencil marks, in 4 cases by Malaysian Airlines System materials, laminates or livery and in 5 cases with conformity to Boeing 777-200ER drawings and specifications.
3. It is not possible to fly the aircraft from the Main Equipment Centre (MEC). You cannot plug in to the Airplane Information Management System (AIMS) computer in the MEC and fly the aircraft remotely. AIMS uses four ARINC 629 buses to transfer information. There are 2 cabinets on each plane (left and right). The ARINC 629 bus operates as a multiple-source, multiple-sink system; each terminal can transmit data to, and receive data from, every other terminal on the data bus. This makes it impossible to connect to any part of the system and take over the entire operation of the aircraft remotely.
4. It is not possible to enter the MEC in the forward service are of the aircraft undetected by any of the crew and passengers.
5. The Satellite Data Unit that manages the connection to the Inmarsat satellite system is not housed in the MEC but in an overhead locker in the aft cabin.
6. If the aircraft had flown to Kazakhstan, then it would have been picked up by the military and civilian primary radar systems of India, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and China.
7. Blaine Gibson, Johny Begue, Schalk Lückhoff, Neels Kruger, Liam Lotter, Milson Tovontsoa, Rija Ravolatra, Eodia Andriamahery, Jean Dominique, Suzy Vitry, Barry McQade, Jean Viljoen and others have found 39 items of debris, which have been confirmed or are likely to have come from MH370. That these items of debris were flown intact to Kazakhstan, then subsequently damaged to simulate a crash, then subsequently exposed to marine life for a month and finally planted in 27 locations in 7 countries for 14 different people to find, is preposterous nonsense.
8. Blaine has travelled to 185 countries and speaks 6 languages fluently including Russian. This is not proof of anything suspicious. It is public knowledge that Blaine worked on various government sponsored projects between the US and Russia from 1998 until 2005. This included the US independent verification of the Russian reform of the Atomic Industries Enterprises (including the Atomic Weapons Program), which was based in the closed Russian Nuclear Cities of Snezhinsk, Zarechny and Obninsk. Blaine was based in Washington DC and Seattle, but travelled extensively to Russia. Blaine has not travelled to Russia in the last 15 years. This is not proof of anything suspicious.
9. A Tomnod satellite image of debris in the South China Sea analysed by Cyndi Hendry is not proof that the debris was from MH370. No debris from MH370 has been found in the South China Sea.
10. The Copilot’s mobile phone was detected by a tower at the BBFARLIM2 base station at Bandar Baru Air Itam on Penang Island at 17:52:27 UTC. An aircraft without an active transponder was detected at the same time by the civilian primary terminal area radar for Penang Airport and RMAF Butterworth Airbase. We have the raw data from both the mobile phone detection and the civilian radar. The radar trace shows an aircraft turn back over Malaysia that aligns with the radar trace of MH370 up until both transponders were switched off.
Hi Richard. Thank you for you swift response. I’ve just finished watching part 3 of the documentary and I’m disappointed in it. It tried to cover the conspiracy theories rather than looking at the hard evidence.
I came across someone online called mako search on YouTube and he has made a video with these coordinates –
32°39’56″S 96°00’42″E
What am I looking at here? When I zoom in, it almost looks like fuselage with wings. Is this location close to the area where you want to search again?
Kind regards,
Spencer.
Re point 10: Have any Contributors postulated why the Copilot’s phone was not off/flight-mode so that it could ping Penang BBFARLIM2? Regarding the associated raw data file did any investigators cross-check phone records of all passengers and crew for phone tower pings there and elsewhere?
@Andrew,
A copilot on his first official flight as a Boeing 777 type rated First Officer under the responsibility of a senior training Captain, would be keen to follow the company rules and switch off his mobile phone whilst the aircraft was operating.
Having said that, the copilot would have witnessed the Captain logging in to check his messages on his mobile phone whilst MH370 was lined up on the runway waiting for the ATC message that they were cleared for departure.
Most analysts conclude the reason the copilot’s phone was detected is that he had switched the phone back on after diversion to try and call for help.
To my knowledge only the mobile phones of the crew members have been checked. There was no check made of all the passengers mobile phones.
Netflix documentary on MH370 is the latest example of information manipulation, focusing on conspiracy theories more than on the few facts available, discrediting anybody coming up with a version of events close to the official report. No mention of WSPR technology or Godfrey’s findings. I am not an expert in this sort of things, but I have the ability to comparatively assess the quality of any information and I found this Netflix series utterly disappointing. My heart goes out to the relatives of the victims: this documentary hasn’t helped them at all.
Hi Richard,
The French woman Florence made a point that the debris floated for years before it was found. Is that even possible with ocean currents?
@Spencer Healy,
The US Department of Commerce has a research department called the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which maintains a global set of drifters in all the oceans around the globe. The longest lasting drifter on record transmitted for 10 years, 4 months.
So far MH370 floating debris has been recovered after between 508 days (1.4 years) and 1,626 days (4.5 years).
The University of London Imperial College have an ocean drift simulation model called Adrift, which shows the drift from any particular start location for a 10 year timeframe.
It is perfectly possible that there is MH370 floating debris that is still adrift after 9 years 2 months.
Any news on the latest possible renewed search efforts for 2023-24 regarding debris field data and your data ?
@Chad Joice,
Welcome to the blog!
There is a lot going on behind the scenes in preparation for a new search, which is still on track for end 2023 or beginning 2024.
We plan to publish a new case study on 1st September 2023.
This will be followed by another paper by Prof. Simon Maskell. Simon is developing a variant of the algorithm developed by DSTG and presented in their paper titled “Bayesian Methods in the Search for MH370” and dated 30th November 2015, but modified to incorporate the WSPR data.
The plan is that the paper will be independently reviewed and that the results will be presented in a separate paper in due course.
Is a no find no fee required or can Ocean Infinity initiate a new search without Malaysia’s approval ?
@Mike R,
Ocean Infinity have stated that they require an agreement with Malaysia before searching again. They are willing to search on a no find no fee basis, but if they do find MH370 then they will want compensation.
Hi. I was curious about your research. However, in a ham radio discussion on social media, some mentioned your theory was debunked. I could not find any links mentioning that. The detractors claim, “This was the method used. Take others’ position guesses, then find WSPR signals to pigeon-hole into “data” to support his nonsense. It worked to get his name in the news, but not to locate anything ever. 🙁”. What is your response?
In my estimation, it should be fairly straightforward (?), if your method is sound, to get positions of aircraft using WSPR data and buck that against radar data of those same aircraft. If the method is sound it should work every time. Has it been proved in this way?
@Lance,
Welcome to the blog!
In our latest case study published on this website, we reference 5 other case studies, where we have tracked aircraft using WSPR and compared the result just as you suggest against known radar, ADS-B or GPS data from the aircraft:
“In previous case studies we have successfully detected and tracked both large and small aircraft, such as Emirates flight EK421, which was a Boeing 777-300ER, a small aircraft such as a Diamond DA40, a private jet, which was a Cessna 551 Citation II/SP, an Alouette II helicopter SE313B and Qatar Airways flight QTR901, a Boeing 777-300ER.”
In the latest case study we detect and track MH370 from the last known radar position for 6.5 hours, where we do not have any radar, ADS-B or GPS data using the same WSPR based method. The result does not align with any other people’s position guesses.
In addition there are currently a large number of academic institutions around the world independently investigating the use of WSPR signal anomalies to detect and track aircraft.
Prof. Simon Maskell is developing a variant of the algorithm developed by DSTG and presented in their paper titled “Bayesian Methods in the Search for MH370” and dated 30th November 2015, but modified to incorporate the WSPR data. The plan is that the paper will be independently reviewed and that the results will be presented in a separate paper in due course.
We have presented a null hypothesis and an alternate hypothesis. The null hypothesis is: WSPRnet links show statistically significant anomalies when an aircraft is not on the great circle path between the transmitter and receiver. The alternative hypothesis is: WSPRnet links show statistically significant anomalies when an aircraft is on the great circle path between the transmitter and receiver. The objective of these case studies was to demonstrate a statistically significant number of examples of the alternative hypothesis and show that the alternative hypothesis is generally true, whilst at the same time demonstrate a statistically significant number of examples of the null hypothesis and show that the null hypothesis is generally false.
Regarding the scepticism, I think it is hard to argue that a Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve that is distant from the y=x line is measuring pure noise. We presented 7 such ROC curves in our case study titled “Flight QTR901 GDTAAA WSPRnet Analysis” published 8th June 2023.
The plot of the True Positive Rate against the False Positive Rate is a standard test and is called the ROC curve. It is a test of sensitivity and specificity. Sensitivity (true positive rate) refers to the probability of a positive test, conditioned on truly being positive. Specificity (true negative rate) refers to the probability of a negative test, conditioned on truly being negative.
All the results for both the null hypothesis and the alternative hypothesis are recorded in the results table for each two minutes of the flight, for both anomalies (SNR and drift) and non anomalies alike. The ROC curve is generated from the overall results and for each phase of the flight from take off, through the climb, the initial cruise and turns/climbs at later times during the cruise.
As you say: “In my estimation, it should be fairly straightforward, if your method is sound, to get positions of aircraft using WSPR data and buck that against radar data of those same aircraft. If the method is sound it should work every time.”
It works every time, with different aircraft and in different locations and in different years, seasons, solar cycles and at different times of day.
There will be another underwater search for MH370 at the location we have defined. Obviously that has not yet happened and of course, that will be the final proof. Hopefully the sceptics will then be convinced.
Do you happen to know any other aircrafts that have gone missing and can possibly be found by WSPR, in my opinion publishing more studies and demonstrating other examples should boost the credibility of the method ?
@MikeR,
Wikipedia has a long list of missing aircraft:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_missing_aircraft
MH370 with 239 passengers and crew is by far the largest loss of lives in a missing aircraft.
The WSPRnet historic database goes back to 2008 and since then there have been 14 missing aircraft:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/z7okhphfhelj3bvgqnef8/Missing-Aircraft.pdf?rlkey=tljj0x580soz8t6nwuy9pt53a&dl=0
We are still running tests with aircraft flying over the Indian Ocean, such as the Boeing 737-484(SF) registration ZK-TLL which operated a Toll Airways flight TFR14 from Christmas Island (XCH) to the Cocos Keeling Islands (CCK) on the 8th September 2023.
The only question with your suggestion is whether the authorities in the countries or flight regions with missing aircraft have any interest in a further search.
Hello Richard!
Is there any update on when Ocean Infinity resumes the search? I think it is not going to happen this year. But hopefully next year.
@Mikko,
I am in regular contact with Ocean Infinity and they have not indicated any update to their plans. They are still eager to get back out into the Indian Ocean and search again.
Oliver Plunkett, the Ocean Infinity CEO, stated in the annual MH370 remembrance event on 6th March 2022, that it is their intention to conduct another underwater search for MH370 later in 2023 or early in 2024. Their Armada programme is on track and meanwhile 6 ships have been launched. 3 ships have been equipped with electronics in Norway and the remote operations centre in Southampton, UK is fully online.
Ocean Infinity do require an agreement with the Malaysian authorities to search again for MH370, but they are still willing to search at their own risk, on a no find, no fee basis. Ocean Infinity are making careful plans for their next search and are consulting with a wide range of experts.