A new paper into the recent loss of a Cessna 551 Citation has confirmed the MH370 WSPRnet tracking which is expected to lead to a new search for the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 that disappeared in 2014, in 2023/4.
The 142-page paper authored by Richard Godfrey and Hannes Coetzee states that “in previous papers, we have successfully detected and tracked both large aircraft such as a Boeing 777-300ER and small aircraft such as a Diamond DA40. In this paper, we analyse the tragic flight of a Cessna 551 Citation II/SP registration OE-FGR, which crashed after fuel exhaustion into the Baltic Sea off the coast of Latvia on Sunday 4th September 2022.”
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This case study is similar to the tragic flight of MH370 in as much as the aircraft flew until fuel exhaustion and then crashed into the sea. The airspace around the aircraft was cleared of other air traffic over the Baltic Sea with the exception of the fighter jet assigned to follow and observe the Cessna.
The authors said that they “have demonstrated how aircraft can be detected and tracked both in the cruise phase of a flight in straight and level flight, as well as in the descent phase whilst descending and turning.
The authors also investigated alternative hypotheses and anomalies in relationship to WSPRnet links and said that while the WSPRnet data was noisy, with care it is possible to extract useful information.
They add: “The analysis in the report supports our previous belief that using WSPRnet data to detect and track MH370 together with the Boeing 777-200ER performance data and the Inmarsat satellite data provides a reliable method to determine the crash location.
“The results of the WSPR-based analysis align with previous work by the Oceanographer Prof. Charitha Pattiaratchi of the University of Western Australia who has performed a drift analysis of the floating debris found from MH370.
“We recommend further studies applying the same approach to quantifying the performance of WSPRnet detection and tracking to other aircraft (and in particular the Boeing 777 which was used for the MH370 flight) over longer time periods in the Indian Ocean region.”
The authors also said: “We are very grateful to Prof. Simon Maskell of Liverpool University for reviewing our work and making a number of helpful comments and suggestions on our approach and the presentation of our results.
“We would like to thank Prof. Charitha Pattiaratchi for his MH370 oceanographic drift analysis and Blaine Gibson and many others who have recovered MH370 floating debris items. We are very grateful to Ocean Infinity for reviewing our work and proposing a plan to search again for MH370 in 2023 or 2024.
“We dedicate this work to the MH370 families and friends and acknowledge their great personal loss and tireless efforts to achieve a new search for the wreckage of MH370.”
