The Search for MH370

Serving the MH370 Global Community

During the timeframe of the MH370 flight between 7th March 2014 16:00 TC and 8th March 2014 01:00 UTC there are 60,627 WSPR links over distances greater than 1,000 km, thanks to many dedicated radio amateurs world wide. There is an average of 224 WSPR links every two minutes over a total of 270 data points.

After 18:28:15 UTC there are only 7 Inmarsat satellite BTO values which allow a distance between the aircraft and the satellite positions to be measured. This is an average of one BTO value every 40 minutes over a total of 7 data points. There are two large gaps in the Inmarsat satellite BTO data of 72.8 minutes at the start of the trajectory into the Indian Ocean between 18:28:15 UTC and 19:41:03 UTC and 89.6 minutes towards the end of the trajectory over the Indian Ocean between 22:41:22 UTC and 00:11:00 UTC. In addition there is a gap of 10 minutes between the last ADS-B data before diversion at 17:20:35 UTC and the first civilian terminal area radar capture at Kota Bharu at 17:30:33 UTC.

It will be interesting to see what information can be gleaned from the 270 WSPR data points to help fill in the gaps we have in the MH370 flight path analysis. A paper describing the process of using WSPR to help find MH370 with a worked example can be downloaded here