![]() ![]() ![]() This signal contains a unique four-digit code, called a squawk, that corresponds to that specific flight. ![]() Secondary radarĪir traffic controllers who manage commercial air traffic rely on secondary radar, which also sends out electromagnetic waves, but when the plane picks them up, its transponder sends back a signal identifying the plane and giving its altitude, speed and bearing. It's unknown if any military primary radar picked up Flight QZ8501. It's believed the radar saw the flight change course and head west toward the Andaman Sea. While the transponder on Flight MH370 stopped transmitting, the Boeing 77 should have remained visible to any military primary radar that was scanning the area at the time. Primary radar is generally used more for military air defence than civil aviation, which relies on secondary radar. It can just see a point on the screen," says Mikael Robertsson, co-founder of, a flight-tracking website based out of Sweden that gets about six million visitors a week. ![]() "This primary radar can see everything no matter if the transponder is on or off, but the primary radar can't identify the object. Passport trafficking concerns raised in wake of missing flight.Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 search marked by 'confusion'.Key developments in Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 search.Primary radar sends out electromagnetic waves that are bounced off any object in their path - in this case, an airplane - and does not rely on the plane's transponder having to send any signals back. There are two types of radar: primary and secondary. In the case the plane was detected, Mr Godfrey said, "the pilot also avoided giving a clear idea where he was heading by using a fight path with a number of changes of direction.Radar was first widely adopted by air traffic controllers in the 1950s and is still the mainstay of most air traffic control systems around the world today. "The pilot appears to have had knowledge of the operating hours of Sabang and Lhokseumawe radar and that on a weekend night, in times of little international tension the radar systems would not be up and running." "The flight path follows the coast of Sumatra and flies close to Banda Aceh Airport. "The pilot of MH370 generally avoided official flight routes from 18:00 UTC (2:00am AWST) onwards but used waypoints to navigate on unofficial flight paths in the Malacca Strait, around Sumatra and across the Southern Indian Ocean," he said. The findings are largely consistent with previous analysis of the plane's satellite data and of the location of floating debris from the plane, which also suggest it crashed into the southern Indian Ocean.īut Mr Godfrey's research suggests the pilot had changed direction and speed multiple times to avoid giving any clear idea where he was heading. His analysis points to a crash site at 34.5 degrees south, south-west of Western Australia, near the imaginary line known as the "seventh arc" - which shows possible locations of the plane at the time of its seventh satellite "ping". Mr Godfrey - seen as one of the world's leading investigators of the MH 370 disappearance - invented his own aviation tracking system known as GDTAAA (Global Detection and Tracking any Aircraft Anywhere Anytime) to analyse these WSPR signals every two minutes over the specific period that MH370 was in the air, in March 2014. He says these radio signals can be used in conjunction with data sent from the Malaysian Airlines plane to Britain's Inmarsat satellite, to help solve the mystery of MH370. "WSPR is like a bunch of tripwires or laser beams, but they work in every direction over the horizon to the other side of the globe," Mr Godfrey says. He says any plane - commercial, private or military - will set off invisible "electronic tripwires" as they cross these signals, which can then be used to trace their location. Instead, the pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah had made numerous turns and changed speed to avoid commercial flight routes and leave "false trails" on unofficial routes around the western end of Indonesia and the Indian Ocean.Īerospace engineer Richard Godfrey - a member of the so-called Independent Group of Scientists set up to try to solve the MH370 mystery - says global tracking of aircraft is possible using weak radio signals that cover the globe, known as WSPR, or the "weak signal propagation report" network. The research indicates the Boeing 777 crashed around 34.5 degrees south, which aligns with previous searches for the plane, but that its flight path was "significantly different" from earlier theories based on satellite data. ![]()
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