but the key words of PILOT can answer where and what a plane can do
Ftfy.
No location, altitude or speed data are sent with the system being reported as the MH370 trying to check in with a handshake signal to the satellites.
The satellite can tell an antenna angle from those transmissions - whatever they were or from wherever they originated.
That antenna angle, mapped back to the Earth, is shown in the two arcs in the infographic from Mike's BBC link -
Without triangulation, that's the best info you can get from a housekeeping system like that.
Those are not flight paths. Those are possible regions, mapped back down to the ground, of what the satellite can say about position - if and only if all reported data are true.
The #1 point in this graphic says "one communications system disabled" -
That would be ACARS.
I don't know how they're proving that it was switched off on purpose or at that point.
That was about the location of one scheduled ACARS transmission and before the next.
So, the flood of reports coming out say:
- radar shows them going in one direction - if true
- by unnamed sources, last I saw, we had a confirmed position only, and other radar tracks not confirmed to the MH370 but could have been
- if the radar direction is true anyway, the arcs derived from the satellite antenna angle don't agree that would be the final heading
- so the mysterious satellite data may not agree at all with the mysterious radar reports
- and many sources are insisting that the plane was tracked thanks to ACARS data
- that whole theory is in disagreement with the satellite arc reports
- and that whole line of thinking is at odds with the reports that ACARS was switched off
So - we have:
- radar, satellite arc, and ACARS reports getting blended together across the internet (safety tip - those things don't blend yet)
- the Malaysian *police* leaking the story that this was a hijacking but not going on record because they weren't authorized to speak to the press (because the police would know when no one else did, and please check if you don't believe me - the hijacking thing was leaked by the *police* first)
- official Malaysian authorities saying that anything is possible, nothing being ruled out, including hijacking
- He said the "movements are consistent with the deliberate action of someone on the plane."
My opinions of the press and what's going on haven't changed, so I'm restricting this post to none of my opinions, just the reports being claimed to be facts.
Maybe it helps to see them all side-by-side, so that's what I've tried to do.