Resources

HASC Report 113-102 — Gorgon Stare to recapitalise Blue Devil

House Armed Services Committee · 7 June 2013 · USD(I)/USAF report due 14 Feb 2014

Primary Congressional source: Gorgon Stare is the USAF’s only operational persistent day/night WAMI capability and the logical programme to recapitalise Blue Devil technologies, capabilities and lessons learned. Directed evolution into WAMI + near-vertical direction-finding SIGINT, leveraging Blue Devil PED. Report due 14 February 2014 — 22 days before MH370.

FY2013 Endurance UAV budget jumped via Congressional adds, not a hidden presidential request

PE 0305205F: previous PB $21m → $74.126m. MAGIC $50m add; Endurance UAV Base $9.893m. Documented. Who sponsored the add remains open.

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.

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.

FY2013 NDAA Sec. 927 — integrated SIGINT / WAMI plan

Congressional Record 12 Dec 2012 · ISR Task Force plan due 1 Jan 2013

Statute required a plan for operationally integrated SIGINT able to detect, track and precisely geolocate high-band devices and immediately cue imagery. Named Army Guardrail / ARGUS A160, USAF Blue Moon QRC and DARPA WAND. Consult NSA and USSOCOM.

DODIG-2013-128 — Blue Devil Block 2

DoD Inspector General · 19 September 2013 · 54 pages · Drive source copy

Primary. FA8620-11-C-4024, ~$149m spent, payload stop 4 Jan 2012, residual components absorbed into other Air Force programmes.

Raytheon MTS award for HC/MC-130J — one day before MH370

$10.072556m · 10 systems · 7 March 2014

Chronology fact only. No evidence these turrets or aircraft observed MH370. HD-capable MTS-B was entering USAF inventory through 2013–14.

Boeing / USAF QF-16 unmanned full-scale demonstration, 2013

Pilotless fighter-class jet · not a 777 and not 9M-MRO

Confirmed capability. A QF-16 flew unmanned, including supersonic flight and landing, as a full-scale aerial target. That kills the slogan ‘nothing that size could be flown remotely in 2014.’ It does not place a remote architecture on a commercial 777.

Hugo Teso, 2013 — FMS proof-of-concept

Hack in the Box · research demonstration, not a 9M-MRO finding

Confirmed as a public research talk: Teso showed that flight-management logic could be reached and manipulated in a lab/simulation setting. FAA disputed operational risk. No record in this file places that path on 9M-MRO.

Alleged-video 6 fps ‘Gorgon Stare match’ is contradicted by the 2013 OSD report

The 6 fps ‘Gorgon Stare match’ claimed for alleged video is not established. 2 fps is the documented comparison figure. Increment 2’s rate is unpublished here.

Kok Soo Chon

Chief inspector · Malaysian Annex 13 team

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

Malaysian summary of possible MH370 debris

ICAO Annex 13 Team · updated 2017

Itemised list of wreckage recovered on western Indian Ocean coasts, with confirmation classes: confirmed, almost certain, highly likely, likely.

What platform received the FY2013 dual-band RF Persistent Sensing integration?

PB2015: completed and integrated onto an ‘identified platform,’ then the effort ended. Public exhibits do not name it. FIRST RF / Shadow 200 and ISIS test-facility work are documented UHF/X-band alternatives. Orion is chronology-only.

What was on Orion flights 2–17 between August 2013 and March 2014?

First flight: no mission system. Flight 18 (Dec 2014): ballast. The MH370-relevant interval is the unlisted sorties in between, plus whether the ‘second flight series’ PB2015 said was being scheduled had begun by 8 March.

What were the two MAGIC JUON numbers and the FY2012/13 add sponsors?

USAF says two Joint Urgent Operational Needs for long dwell / persistent ISR. Exact numbers, submitting commands, and the $19m / $50m Congressional language are unresolved.

Aurora Orion RPA

Twin-diesel MALE UAS · China Lake first flight 24 Aug 2013

Selected air vehicle for MAGIC: a multi-day, medium-altitude remotely piloted ISR platform designed to carry multiple sensors. First flight (24 Aug 2013) had no mission system; the December 2014 endurance record carried ballast. Those two flights do not decide what was fitted on sorties 2–17, including March 2014.

FIRST RF Phase II — dual-band UHF/X-band airborne SAR

FA8650-11-C-1016 · $749,593 · start 26 Jan 2011 · topic AF093-138

Official SBIR: lightweight dual-band UHF/X-band SAR on a modified Artemis COTS radar plus FIRST RF single-aperture antenna. SWaP ~20 lb / 150 W. Design target included Shadow 200. A concrete alternative to treating Orion as the unnamed FY2013 RF Persistent Sensing platform.

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.

NAWS China Lake

Orion first flight · 24 August 2013

US Navy air weapons station in California. Orion and GCS shipped here July 2013.

Gorgon Stare documented at 2 fps, not 6 fps

OSD September 2013 comparison figure

Primary pre-MH370 report labels Gorgon Stare 2 fps versus 30 fps FMV. A claimed ~6 fps match to Increment 2 is not established, pending an Increment-2 specification.

Is Flight 370 still sending signals?

CNN · 13 March 2014 · 2:09

Week-one report, before the 15 March Inmarsat southern-arc briefing. Captures the live confusion over whether the aircraft was still electrically alive.

Orion first flight, China Lake

24 August 2013 · ~3.5 hours · 8,000 ft · no mission payload

Remote launch from GCS. Air vehicle and command link demonstrated. ISR stack not yet fitted.

Raytheon MTS-B as Orion payload lead

Reported option · 2012–13 USAF UAV MTS bookings in the $200m class

MTS-B is EO/IR FMV/targeting. Aviation Week 2010 attributed a planned pair of MTS-B turrets on Orion — planned, not fitted on the maiden article. Flight 18 (Dec 2014) carried 1,000 lb ballast. Raytheon 10-K totals do not identify Orion as the customer.

Second unanswered sat-phone call

23:13:58 UTC

Another ground-to-air telephone call is acknowledged by the SDU and unanswered in the cockpit.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Third-party intervention

Official report: cannot be excluded

The Annex 13 team wrote that intervention by a third party cannot be excluded. Remote hijack as implemented technology on commercial 777s was ruled out.

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.

Forensic evidence board — facts, capabilities, missing dossiers

Working chart of intersections · ten target records still outstanding

Cork-board reconstruction: Malaysian military radar and MH370 data on one side; QF-16 2013, UAV/UAS patents, JORN, Kadena P-8A/P-3C, Inmarsat SATCOM and Boeing range models on the other. The bottom row is the live request list — Boeing’s 4 March statement of work, sortie logs, Global Hawk, Pinckney/Kidd tracks, JORN tasking, SBIRS, Five Eyes correspondence, 9M-MRO avionics configuration.

Gorgon Stare

BIG SAFARI wide-area surveillance · podded, not MQ-9-only

Developed through BIG SAFARI. Increment 2 is ARGUS-derived EO plus Exelis IR. Congress treated the podded/open architecture as integrable on more than one aircraft type. MQ-9 is the documented host; an Orion fit by 8 March 2014 is open. 2013 OSD figure: 2 fps, not 6.

Orion’s first flight carried no mission system

Confirmed by contemporary September 2013 reporting and consistent with PB2015’s FY2014 “best of breed” sensor-selection language. December 2014 endurance attempt was flight 18 with 1,000 lb ballast — also not an ISR-payload demonstration. Those two flights do not decide what Orion was, and they do not decide March 2014.

Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems

ISIS radar · MTS for USAF UAVs · large classified SAS bookings

Radar on ISIS; MTS-B is an Orion payload lead. 2013 SAS booked $210m MTS for USAF UAVs and $862m classified. Those totals do not establish an MH370/MAGIC contract.

US military presence in theatre, 7–9 March 2014

Public-source board · confirmed search assets vs records still needed

Working chart of publicly documented US assets around MH370: USS Pinckney already in the South China Sea and diverted to search on 8 March; a Kadena P-3C announced the same day; USS Kidd joined. Guam RQ-4, Diego Garcia sensors, EP-3E, RC-135 and exact 7–9 March sortie lists remain open. Presence is not the same as tracking 9M-MRO.

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.

Alleged thermal / wide-area video is authentic collection

Hypothesis to test — provenance not established

Circulating clips are treated as alleged. If genuine, at least one collector must satisfy geometry, band, FOV, altitude and comms. Platform IDs attached to social posts are not accepted as authority. A ~6 fps ‘Gorgon Stare Increment 2 match’ is contradicted by the 2013 OSD 2 fps figure.

Aurora Orion contract FA8620-12-C-3027

~$86.56m aggregated · completion extending to 2019

Public award aggregation for the BIG SAFARI / Orion definitive contract. Transaction-level FPDS history — especially modifications August 2013–March 2014 — is still open. Budget authority, ceilings and obligations are not the same as cash spent.

Blue Devil, MAGIC, Orion, BIG SAFARI — 2014 window

Briefing collages, 18 September 2026

Nic Moneypenny published investigation collages placing Blue Devil (including an egg-shaped airship), MAGIC, Aurora Orion, BIG SAFARI, Lockheed and DARPA in the same 2013–14 spending window as MH370, with Freescale’s last gyro presentation among the plates.

Capt. John Cox: preponderance is a deliberate act, high likelihood the captain

June 2026 interview. FIR-boundary dropout, reverse course, ocean leg — too many coincidences for a random failure, in his reading. Not a court finding and not the 2018 report’s wording.

Capt. Patrick Blelly & Jean-Luc Marchand

Independent trajectory paper

End-of-flight reconstruction used by Mentour: flame-out, APU, cross-feed, possible glide. Argues the last BFO need not be a wreck on the 7th arc.

Captain’s home flight-simulator files

Imaged by RMP · restored coordinates mapped by commentators

Files exist. A restored route into the southern Indian Ocean has been published. The 2018 report did not treat this as a reconstructed plan.

DARPA WAND

Wide Area Network Detection · coincident WAMI + RF

Live-fly WAMI and RF geolocation fusion in 2012, SOCOM transition, Trident Spectre demonstration. Named in FY2013 NDAA Sec. 927. Part of the overlapping multi-INT ecosystem around Blue Devil and Gorgon Stare. Not shown as an MH370 collector.

Gorgon Stare’s podded architecture was designed for more than MQ-9

HASC 113-102: open/podded architecture permitted integration on multiple aircraft types. Aviation Week 2010 named it as a potential MAGIC payload. An Orion installation by 8 March 2014 is not shown.

Kadena P-3C tasked to the MH370 search

Announced 8 March 2014 · on station 9 March

Confirmed search tasking. Seventh Fleet said a P-3C would leave Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, shortly on 8 March. Naval Today: the P-3 arrived on station the afternoon of 9 March. VP-16 P-8A Poseidon had been in theatre from December 2013 — basing, not a 7–9 March sortie card.

MH370 Disappearance: Minute by Minute

Licensed 53-minute feature · 2025–26 reprints

The same ~53:13 timeline film appears under DocuReal, Spark, Wonder, Real Stories and Progress with new title cards. Content is the public night: 00:41 takeoff, 01:19 sign-off, Malacca radar, Inmarsat, African debris.

MH370 Research Master Log

Investigation chronology · 18–20 September 2026

Running chronology of findings: cargo, 2011–2013 ISR programmes, radar disclosure on the westbound track, MAGIC budget exhibits, and the alleged-video file.

Seyed Mohammed Reza Delavar

Passenger · Iranian · boarded on a stolen Austrian passport

Iranian. Travelled on MH370 using an Austrian passport stolen from Christian Kozel. Later identified by name. The official investigation treated him as a likely asylum seeker, not as a hijacker.

Surat Thani military radar

Thai Air Force · paint ~01:28 MYT 8 March

Documented late-disclosed primary-radar source on the westbound track.

Twenty Freescale employees on MH370

Company-confirmed 8 March 2014

Confirmed passenger fact. Project assignments, especially defence/avionics/inertial work, are unresolved. FXAS21000 gyro sampling in July 2013 is an adjacent product date only.

Two stolen European passports

Italian and Austrian documents · two Iranian travellers

Yes — two Iranian men were on board. They travelled on stolen European passports (Italian and Austrian), not Iranian documents. The official investigation treated them as likely asylum seekers and did not adopt a terrorism finding.

USAF PB2020 — MAGIC/Orion continued after 2014

PE 0305205F · Congressional adds FY2015–FY2018

MAGIC/Orion did not fade from the budget after 2014. Adds: $20m FY2015, $5m FY2016, $50m FY2017, $40m FY2018, on top of $19m FY2012 and $50m FY2013. Post-2016 money was for airworthiness, cybersecurity, interoperability and mission capability toward a deployable Block 1 Orion.

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.

Where is the 14 February 2014 USD(I)/USAF Gorgon Stare / Blue Devil strategy report?

HASC 113-102 required it 22 days before MH370. It may name platforms, residual Blue Devil components, integration status and fielding chronology.

WSPR anomaly set (Godfrey)

Ham-radio SNR disturbances offered as a track · unverified

Richard Godfrey reports ~130 disturbances over the southern Indian Ocean, currently terminating in a 30 km-radius circle near 29.128°S 99.934°E. Not an official sensor. Not peer-reviewed.

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.

645 AESG / BIG SAFARI

USAF rapid acquisition — the office that binds this family

645 AESG / BIG SAFARI ran specialised rapid-development ISR. It executed MAGIC, developed Gorgon Stare, and took Blue Devil equipment into a facility it managed at Greenville, Texas. That is the documented organisational centre of this technology family, not a coincidence of names.

Ashton Forbes

Independent researcher · alleged thermal and wide-area video

Source of widely circulated alleged thermal/WAMI videos and platform identifications. Those identifications are hypotheses, not findings. Plasma-orb claims are treated as unsubstantiated. A third-party extract of 824 of his videos is a claim list, not proof. Edward C. Lin FOIA does not name MH370.

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.

Blue Devil II stopped; hardware to Greenville

Payload stop 4 Jan 2012 · pack-out May 2012 · storage Q4 FY2012

Airship programme killed. Equipment packed and transferred to a BIG SAFARI-managed facility in Greenville, Texas. Components were available for other projects. Residual parts were later absorbed into other Air Force programmes.