Resources

Could the Inmarsat BFO have been spoofed?

Wise’s northern path stands or falls on this. Inmarsat and ATSB treat BFO as a physical Doppler residual. No public demonstration has shown a 2014-era 777 SDU emitting a false BFO while keeping a consistent BTO.

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.

Jeff Wise: northern hijack to Kazakhstan, BFO spoofed

2015 New York Magazine thesis, restated in Netflix episode 2 and in Finding MH370 “Landing MH370.” Keep BTO, discard or spoof BFO, fly borders, land on a long Central Asian runway. Requires the African debris field to be explained away.

Landing MH370

Jeff Wise · Finding MH370 S1E27 · 28 November 2024 · 45:12

The northern-landing telling: discard or spoof BFO, keep BTO, fly borders, land at a long Central Asian runway (Wise’s 2015 candidate was Yubileyniy / Baikonur). Requires the African debris field to be explained away.

Blelly & Marchand: last log-on is not necessarily a straight dive

Independent paper used by Mentour: right-engine flame-out, APU start, cross-feed, possible eastward or gliding end. BFO steep-descent figures can be read as a manoeuvre, not only as a wreck on the arc.

Northern corridor

Inconsistent with BFO sign and with African debris

Early public maps showed a northern Inmarsat ring. BFO and later debris on western Indian Ocean coasts disfavour it.

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.

Inmarsat signalling-unit log for 9M-MRO

Perth Ground Earth Station · 7–8 March 2014

The table of channel, BTO, BFO and message type that underpins every arc on every search map. Released by Malaysia with Inmarsat notes.

Inmarsat signalling-unit logs for 9M-MRO

Perth Ground Earth Station · 7–8 March 2014

The raw-ish tables of channel, BTO, BFO and message type that underpin every arc on every search map. Released by Malaysia with Inmarsat explanatory notes.

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.

Handshake 4

21:41:24 UTC

Fourth SATCOM handshake, still on the southern corridor in BFO reconstructions.

Jeff Wise

Aviation journalist · Finding MH370

CNN-era MH370 analyst. Author of the 2015 northern-hijack / spoofed-BFO thesis. Host of Finding MH370. Treats the default pilot-suicide search as a failed prediction because the wreck is still unfound.

The aircraft ended in the southern Indian Ocean

Supported by SATCOM southern BFO, 7th-arc geometry, and serial-confirmed debris on western Indian Ocean coasts. Main wreckage still unfound.

The Search for MH370 — Journal of Navigation

Ashton, Dickinson, Hall, Roberts, Smith · Inmarsat · 2014/15

The paper that showed how BTO and BFO from routine signalling units can reconstruct a long flight the airline did not know it still had.

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.

Flight MH370 Vanished 10 Years Ago. What’s Happened Since?

CNA Insider · Insight · 8 March 2024 · 47:24

Tenth-anniversary Singapore broadcast: Inmarsat handshake rings, the 120,000 km² ATSB box, family pressure, and the state of independent debris work. Does not adopt a cockpit perpetrator.

Handshake 2

19:41:00 UTC

Ground-initiated hourly handshake. The aircraft remains a live Inmarsat terminal, southbound on the Indian Ocean corridor in later reconstructions.

Handshake 3

20:41:02 UTC

Third SATCOM handshake. Hourly keep-alive continues.

Inmarsat

Classic Aero I-3 · Perth Ground Earth Station

The communications company that became the principal witness to MH370’s last six hours.

Inside the Investigation: The Search for MH370 Truth

7NEWS · Peter Foley, Joe Hattley

Former lead search officials on internal protocol, sonar-mapping mistakes, and why a debris field can still be found. An Australian operational view, not a cockpit narrative.

Malaysia announces the southern Indian Ocean track

15 March 2014

Prime Minister Najib Razak states that new satellite data show MH370 flew for hours into the southern Indian Ocean. The search pivots.

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.

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.

The Operational Search for MH370

ATSB AE-2014-054 · final search report 2017

Australia’s account of how the southern Indian Ocean search box was drawn, refined, and exhausted over 120,000 km². Primary technical home of the 7th-arc argument used in the field.

Wikipedia — search for MH370

South China Sea to Ocean Infinity 2027

Most expensive aviation search. Surface 4.5 million km² in 2014; ATSB 120,000 km² underwater; Ocean Infinity 112,000 km² in 2018 and a 15,000 km² 2025–27 box. No main wreckage.