Resources

Deep Dive: MH370 Episode Three — The Turn Back

Deep Dive Podcast Network · 28 September 2023 · 31:12

Podcast reconstruction of the air turn-back after IGARI: military primary radar, heading 273°, altitude and speed blips the 2018 report itself flags as noisy.

Turn back across the Malay Peninsula

17:21–17:52 UTC

Primary radar shows a left turn off the Beijing airway, a crossing of Malaysia, and a track toward the Andaman Sea. The official report calls this diversion likely the result of manual inputs.

Malaysian military primary-radar track

17:21–18:22 UTC · westbound after IGARI

Primary radar paints a left turn off the Beijing airway, a crossing of the peninsula, and a track up the Strait of Malacca until 18:22 UTC. Altitude/speed blip-to-blip in the file are noisier than 777 performance.

MyCERT: MH370-themed backdoor and fake-transcript spear-phish

MA-381 · 24 March 2014 · MA-386 · 18 April 2014

Confirmed public advisories, a different campaign from the 9 March official-network intrusion. 24 March: a Facebook-app lure dropping a backdoor with remote-control (C2) capability. 18 April: emails posing as an investigation team / ICAO portal item, password-protected archive, fake MH370 transcript, command-and-control. Aimed at organisations and the public, not shown to be the DCA/NSC/MAS breach.

The Search for MH370 is Back ON!

Mentour Now · 24 March 2025 · 23:19

Follow-up on Malaysia’s 2025 Ocean Infinity restart. Recaps BTO as range and BFO as Doppler, the southern-arc choice, and overlays Godfrey’s WSPR figure-eights on a line through the captain’s simulator coordinates.

Satellite data unit logs back on

18:25:27 UTC · Handshake 1

Three minutes after the last radar paint, the aircraft SDU sends a log-on request to Inmarsat. Investigators treat this as a power restoration to the SATCOM avionics.

Asset denial of the Freescale team

Quiet Exodus thesis · not adopted as a finding

Hypothesis: the United States removed twenty Freescale employees from China’s reach, using a clandestine compact-fusion platform, because they were the programme’s irreplaceable integration unit. Headcount is confirmed. The programme-link, the intercept, and the 18:22 structural kill are not.

Blue Devil I operational demonstration ends

31 December 2013 · four King Airs returning to Leidos

Attributed via Inside the Air Force, 22 Jan 2014, quoting USAF officials. The four leased King Airs were returning to Leidos, so the original Afghanistan fleet was not an operational candidate on 8 March 2014. The multi-INT sensor package remained US Government property and was being assessed for reassignment (MC-12 and MQ-9 mentioned, not selected). The sensors did not disappear with the lease.

Fuel exhaustion, then uncontrolled descent at the 7th arc

Prevailing official end-of-flight model

After a long southern cruise the aircraft flames out near 00:19 UTC, the SDU logs on from APU/emergency power, and the aeroplane leaves controlled flight. Wreckage should lie on or near the 7th arc.

Kok Soo Chon

Chief inspector · Malaysian Annex 13 team

Presented the 2018 report: diversion likely from manual inputs; who made them unknown; cause undetermined.

Malaysia releases the safety investigation report

30 July 2018

The ICAO Annex 13 team, led by Kok Soo Chon, publishes hundreds of pages and cannot determine the cause. Diversion is judged likely from manual inputs. Third-party intervention is not excluded.

Manufactured plasma orbs in alleged footage

Not adopted. Drive backup records a negative scientific finding.

Ashton Forbes has claimed laboratory-scale manufactured plasma spheres. The Ashton Hall backup concludes Mead/AFRL propulsion literature does not support metre-scale autonomous plasma orbs.

MH370: The Plane That Disappeared

Netflix · three episodes · March 2023

Louise Malkinson’s three-part series gives one episode to each of three tellings: the pilot, a Russian hijack (Jeff Wise), and a US intercept (Florence de Changy). Families and Malaysia Airlines crisis staff are interviewed. It is a survey of hypotheses, not a finding.

Surface search begins in the South China Sea

8 March 2014

Ships and aircraft search the Gulf of Thailand / South China Sea along the filed route — the wrong ocean for several days.

The diversion likely resulted from manual inputs

Official 2018 consensus. Who made the inputs is not identified. Mechanical-only stories are a poor fit for a coherent reverse course plus comms dropout.

West-track disclosure lag — ministerial 10:30, ARCC 22:30, Thai 9–10 days

8 March and 18–19 March 2014

Hishammuddin 1 May 2014: military radar playback ~08:30 MYT 8 March, Air Force ops ~09:00, minister informed ~10:30 of a possible turn-back; a military aircraft west at 10:54. KL ARCC was not informed by RMAF of the western last-known until 22:30 MYT — a roughly 12-hour operational gap. Thai Surat Thani radar disclosed 18–19 March.

What was actually taken on 9 March — and did it include radar?

CSM said minutes of crisis meetings and classified documents, some related to MH370. The working chart asks whether radar information or discussions of the turn-back were in that set. No public loot list answers it. A negative would also be a finding.

Flight MH370 — 17 Fascinating Facts

J. Jericho / The Free School · March 2019 · Drive backup PDF

Independent compilation of official-file facts with annexes (simulator pages, passenger list, cargo docs, Boeing patent, ACARS log). Not an official report. Several numbered “facts” still need MOT/ATSB cross-check.

Flight-crew diversion

Manual inputs from the cockpit — who, and why, unproven

The 2018 report says the turn-back likely resulted from manual inputs. It does not identify a crew member as perpetrator and did not treat the home simulator as a plan.

RMAF notifies KL ARCC of the western military track

22:30 MYT 8 March 2014 · ~12 hours after the minister

SAR chronology: civilian rescue centre informed of the possible turn-back / western last-known at 22:30 Malaysian time. Ministerial awareness ~10:30. The gap is a documented information-latency issue, not by itself a finding of a cover-up.

BD764 and BE144 — named radar feeds, and a gap after 18:02:59 UTC

Secondary ends with the transponder · primary westbound · later points still to source

The working chart labels two Malaysian Air Defence datasets: BD764 (secondary, 10-second intervals, early flight, ends 01:21 MYT with the transponder) and BE144 (primary, 10-second intervals, westbound after the turn, ends 18:02:59 UTC). The 2018 reconstruction then shows a last military return at 18:22:12 UTC after a gap. Those later points exist in the official track. Their raw source is not public.

MH370: The Forensic Evidence

Capt. John Cox · Sit Down With Sid · 13 June 2026 · 37:10

US accident investigator. Reads the transponder drop at the FIR boundary, the southwest run to MEKAR, the northwest turn, and the 300-mile ocean leg as too many coincidences for a random failure. Preponderance, in his view: a deliberate act, high likelihood the captain.

Remote-control claims versus evidence gaps

Patent, QF-16, Teso FMS proof-of-concept · installation on 9M-MRO still open

Working chart: unmanned flight of a fighter-class jet was demonstrated in 2013; Boeing’s uninterruptible-autopilot patent exists; Hugo Teso showed an FMS proof-of-concept the same year. Boeing told Malaysian investigators there was no commercial implementation on the 2002 delivery. Radar proves a turn at IGARI, not who commanded it. Ten data requests remain.

Two waves of MH370-themed cyberattacks

9 March official-network intrusion · March–April public malware lures

Working chart of two separate campaigns. Attack one: 9 March spear-phish of officials at the Department of Civil Aviation, National Security Council and Malaysia Airlines — CyberSecurity Malaysia’s public account, disclosed in August. Attack two: MyCERT alerts on 24 March and 18 April about MH370-themed backdoors and a fake investigation-transcript phish aimed more widely. Destination IP in China is not the same as a finding that Beijing ran the operation.

Andaman Sea / last primary radar

18:22:12 UTC

Final military primary return, northwest of Malaysia. After this, only SATCOM.

Last primary radar contact

18:22:12 UTC

The final military primary-radar return is recorded northwest of Malaysia, over the Andaman Sea approaches. After this, only the satellite terminal speaks.

New Evidence, New Answers? The Endless Search For Flight MH370

Independent overview of debris and Ocean Infinity

Survey of African-coast debris identifications and whether a marine-robotics return can close the case. No new wreckage coordinate.

Oliver Plunkett

Ocean Infinity leadership (2026 search close-out statements)

Publicly closed the January 2026 phase: nothing found in the surveyed box; commitment to return if circumstances allow.

Safety Investigation Report — MH370

Malaysian ICAO Annex 13 Team · 30 July 2018

The official accident report. Cause undetermined. Diversion likely from manual inputs; third-party intervention not excluded; 00:19 log-on treated as fuel exhaustion. No wreckage, no recorders.

Secondary radar lost

17:21:13 UTC

Mode S transponder returns cease. Primary (military) radar continues to paint an unidentified westbound track consistent with MH370.

They May As Well Have Been Flying the Plane

MH370 song, February 2026

Nic Moneypenny’s MH370 song: who signed off the project; FOIA walls; families still waiting. Dedicated to the search for what is still held back as national security.

Transponder dropped in two steps, not as a single failure

Mentour Pilot and others: Mode S / TA-RA selected off seconds after IGARI; the remaining secondary-radar symbol gone ~37 seconds later; then the left turn. A total electrical failure would have blanked every emitter at once.

Waypoint IGARI

17:20:31 UTC

MH370 passes IGARI, the FIR boundary between Kuala Lumpur and Ho Chi Minh, seconds before disappearing from secondary radar.

Wikipedia timeline — night of 7–8 March 2014

Duty sign-in through failed 09:15 handshake

Compiled public chronology: captain sign-in 22:50 MYT 7 March, F/O 23:15, SDU log-on 00:00, push 00:27, takeoff 00:42, FL350 01:01, last ACARS 01:07, last voice 01:19:30, transponder 01:21:13, Penang cell 01:52, last radar 02:22, SDU log-on 02:25, hourly pings, last transmission 08:19:37, no reply 09:15.

A NEW Trace! The FULL MH370 Story, so Far

Mentour Pilot · Petter Hörnfeldt · 16 March 2024 · 56:06

Type-rated 737 captain’s reconstruction from the 2018 report, Inmarsat BTO/BFO, and the Blelly–Marchand end-of-flight paper. Argues the transponder was selected off in two steps, not failed as a unit. Closes with a WSPR lead and a request to restart the search.

Blue Devil I / II

Operational Block 1 WAAS + SIGINT · Block 2 residuals to BIG SAFARI

Block 1 was operational: manned aircraft carrying Angel Fire-derived wide-area imagery integrated with SIGINT. Block 2, the airship, was terminated — but its equipment, including GFE, was packed and sent to a BIG SAFARI facility in Greenville, Texas, available for other programmes. The technology did not vanish with the airship.

BTO range rings and BFO Doppler residuals

Inmarsat / Ashton et al. · Journal of Navigation

Burst Timing Offset describes distance from the satellite (an arc on the Earth). Burst Frequency Offset encodes relative motion and is why official analysis went south, not north.

Flap-track fairing found in Mozambique

27 December 2015 / identified 2016

A right-wing no. 7 flap support fairing is recovered at Daghatane Beach, Mozambique. Stencilling matches Malaysia Airlines practice; ATSB judges it almost certainly MH370.

Investigation networks spear-phished the day after MH370 vanished

CyberSecurity Malaysia · ~30 PCs · disclosed 20 August 2014

Confirmed as CSM’s public account. On 9 March, officials at the Department of Civil Aviation, the National Security Council and Malaysia Airlines were sent malware disguised as a news article that the aircraft had been found. About thirty computers were infected. Outbound mail carrying confidential files, including meeting minutes and classified documents, some related to MH370, was traced to an IP in China. CSM shut the machines down and asked Chinese providers to block the traffic. Police and Interpol were involved. What exactly was stolen is still unpublished.

Last voice contact

17:19:30 UTC · “Good night Malaysian three seven zero”

Lumpur Radar transfers MH370 to Ho Chi Minh. The reply — attributed to the captain — is the last recorded voice transmission from the flight.

MAGIC, Aurora and Boeing/NRL patents drop from the paper trail in 2014

Follow-up briefing: Aurora’s remote-operation work for the US military from about 2010; MAGIC and several Boeing and NRL patents then become hard to find in open documents in 2014. Redacted Blue Devil letters are shown with matching date cut-offs.

MH370 departs Kuala Lumpur

16:42 UTC · 00:42 MYT 8 March 2014

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, a Boeing 777-2H6ER registered 9M-MRO, takes off from KLIA runway 32R bound for Beijing Capital International Airport with 227 passengers and 12 crew.

Ocean Infinity

Private seabed search · 2018 and 2025–2027

No-find-no-fee searches along the 7th arc. 2018 ~112,000 km². 2025–26: 7,571 km² of a 15,000 km² box. Contract extended to 30 June 2027.

The 7th arc

00:19:29 UTC aircraft-initiated log-on

BTO range ring at the last transmission. Official and Ocean Infinity boxes are arguments about a segment of this arc plus a stand-off. It is not a crash pin.

The radar story and the 9 March cyberattack

Working chart · tracks, delays, and a spear-phish of the investigation

Two panels. Left: civilian secondary, Malaysian military primary, Thai paint disclosed ten days later, and the 12-hour lag before the civilian rescue centre was told. Right: one day after the loss, officials on the investigation were hit with a spear-phish that CyberSecurity Malaysia later said stole classified material toward an IP in China. Presence of a hack is confirmed as that agency’s public account. What was in the take — and whether it included radar — is still open.

Thinking About the U.S. Military’s Next-Generation UAS Force

OSD Office of Net Assessment · September 2013 · 112 pp. · HQ0034-09-D-3007-0013

Pre-MH370 OSD-commissioned report. Gorgon Stare / ARGUS-IS / ARGUS-IR: multi-lens arrays, lower frame rate and resolution than HD FMV, areas up to ~40 km². Comparison figure labels conventional FMV 30 fps and Gorgon Stare 2 fps.

Why did SAR start in the wrong ocean for days?

Military primary radar and live SATCOM existed while the public search flew the South China Sea. Minister ~10:30 MYT; KL ARCC 22:30; Thai Surat Thani 18–19 March. GADSS is the policy answer; the night-of organisational failure is still a research subject.

Zaharie Ahmad Shah

Pilot in command · MH370

Last attributed radio call: “Good night Malaysian three seven zero.” Home simulator files exist; the 2018 report did not treat them as a reconstructed plan. Who was flying after IGARI is open.