Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak has announced that, based on satellite data analysis from UK company Inmarsat, Malayian Airlines flight MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean, and no one on board survived.
In a press statement this afternoon, Mr Razak said: "Inmarsat, the UK company that provided the satellite data which indicated the northern and southern corridors, has been performing further calculations on the data. Using a type of analysis never before used in an investigation of this sort, they have been able to shed more light on MH370’s flight path.
"Based on their new analysis, Inmarsat and the UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) have concluded that MH370 flew along the southern corridor, and that its last position was in the middle of the Indian Ocean, west of Perth. This is a remote location, far from any possible landing sites. It is therefore with deep sadness and regret that I must inform you that, according to this new data, flight MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean."
Inmarsat’s role in the search for Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 began immediately after the aircraft disappeared. Although the main aircraft communications addressing and reporting system (ACARS) was switched off, one of Inmarsat’s satellites continued to pick up a series of hourly 'pings' from the plane, which would normally be used to synchronise timing information.
By analysing these pings, Inmarsat was able to establish that MH370 continued to fly for at least five hours after the aircraft left Malaysian airspace, and that it had flown along one of two 'corridors' – one arcing north and the other south.
This information was relayed to Malaysian officials by 12 March, but Malaysia's government did not publicly acknowledge it until 15 March, according to the Wall Street Journal. Malaysia began to redirect the search effort that day, to focus on the areas the information described. However, the lost days and wasted resources have threatened to impede the investigation, according to some officials involved with the probe.
These pings from the satellite – along with assumptions about the plane’s speed – helped Australia and the US National Transportation Safety Board to narrow down the search area to just 3 per cent of the southern corridor on 18 March.
"Effectually we looked at the doppler effect, which is the change in frequency, due to the movement of a satellite in its orbit.
What that then gave us was a predicted path for the northerly route and a predicted path the southerly route," explained Chris McLaughlin, senior vice president of external affairs at Inmarsat.
"What we discovered was a correlation with the southerly route and not with the northern route after the final turn that the aircraft made, so we could be as close to certain as anybody could be in that situation that it went south."
"Where we then went was to work out where the last ping was, knowing that the aircraft still had some fuel, but that it would have run out before the next automated ping. We don't know what speed the aircraft was flying at, but we assumed about 450 knots."
Inmarsat passed the relevant analysis to the UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) yesterday. The cause of the crash remains a mystery.
- Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/10719304/How-British-satellite-company-Inmarsat-tracked-down-MH370.html
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