Bill Tracy

AI#171: "Carly Simon" Moment for Aviation? Anticipation is her song. Air India final report soon. However, public shrugs off pilot-deliberate crashes, perhaps now the No. 1 problem. Wake-up call last week was ChinaEastern MU5735's incredible FOIA disclosure from the U.S. NTSB after a Chinese citizen requested it. OK, one person on the planet is NOT in denial. EgyptAir990, China Eastern, Air India (probable), Alaskan Air (2023 attempted) all featured fuel cut-off. In the non-Western world, all vehemently denied for cultural reasons. That list does not count GermanWings, SilkAir185, Malaysian MH370 and other cases, where pilots apparently figured other creative ways to end it all, such as nose dive, aircraft depressurization, and flying towards the South Pole (we aren't sure yet if he was heading for the Geographic South Pole or the Magnetic South Pole -- but I disgress). Is anybody listening? Song is here, sad pics below youtube.com/watch?v=6izHvF…

@Rainmaker1973 Where do I get one? Some kind of fancy set-up getting picture from bottom side

A microscopic tardigrade, also known as a water bear, walking across a glass slide. Extremely resilient, it can survive decades without food or water and are the only known animal that can survive in direct exposure in space. [📹 Tobin Sparling]

Truth is, I had thought the 2025/26 search's unspoken concept was give Ocean Infinity a level, "practical" place to search so OI could show their "lawn mowing" capabilities. Also Malaysia would have to be comfortable that it was not a serious search for the crash. I had a joke with Blaine Gibson that Malaysia's old rule was "no search unless we know where the plane is" and he new rule is "no search if we do know where the plane is". Blaine and I have many differences of opinion, but we both feel the plane is probably in the Broken Rudge area. Thus we both felt the 2026 search was unlikely to find the aircraft unless there was a continuous effort at new locations besides 34s. Blaine was a huge supporter of OI and further searching, even if he had to sacrifice his and Chari's accomplishment of finding so much MH370 debris based on a Broken Ridge crash site hypothesis. I was a bit less supportive of a perfunctory OI search in the wrong places, to put it mildly. Broken Ridge graphic below courtesy Mike Chillit from Aug_2014 apparently from the SIO seafloor mapping phase before the first ATSB MH370 search.

MH370 Analysis: Why was the 2026 Ocean Infinity (OI) Search a Bust? (These 5 reasons are speculation, but I can do that) 1. Search was a Publicity Stunt? If so, the search succeeded beyond OI's wildest expectations, before it even got started. Mass media was touting near 100% chance of finding MH370 with OI's advanced use of AI for defining crash location and also the AUV's have Search-AI. Let's call it OI_AI. I called it BS (at least re: crash location). 2. Lost Shaker of Salt (AUV/ROV)? Long timers will recall OI lost an underwater search vehicle south of 34s in 2018, and spent some time then trying to find it. I can't recall if they ever found it? Is that why OI wanted to continue searching at 34s all these years? Just to find a lost multi-million$ ROV? 3. New Armada Boats not up to the SIO Task? The Seabed Constructor of 2018 was a capable, large, rental mother ship vessel. Ocean Infinity's new Armada ships are smaller, carry less AUV's, and perhaps were found to be non-ideal for the rough and tumble remote SIO search area. 4. Lack of Cooperation from Malaysia? It has been observed, and it is probably true, that Malaysia currently does not support finding MH370. Keep in mind, the whole motive for the aircraft disappearance may have been political: an Anti_PM_Razak protest in favor of the then jailed Anwar Ibrahim, who is the current Malaysia PM (you just can't make this stuff up). So, are we really expecting Anwar to support finding an aircraft his compatriot scuttled on his behalf? Parenthetically, I do feel we fail to appreciate that PM Razak tried to help find the plane from 2014 until 2018. Since Mahathir's rule starting mid-2018, the MH370 search has been effectively dead. 5. Lack of Confidence in Ghost Flight Scenarios? Ocean Infinity has no smarts for figuring out where a rogue Boeing 777 may have flown. That type of estimate would undoubtedly need FBI/CIA criminal behavior logic. Lacking FBI involvement, aviation experts instead recommended a Wishful-Thinking approach, of not "unfairly" blaming pilot/design of a nefarious flight to e.g.; a Broken Ridge hiding spot. I am not a betting man, but I betcha $100 bucks the crash is in fact in the Broken Ridge, which is ruled out for searching, despite that's where the pilot's home sim cases, and Inmarsat BTO/BFO, and Prof Chari's debris drift calcs seem to say, that's where it probably flew. At this point I am hearing no bona fide interest in future searching from Ocean Infinity. Which is weird because OI had been pushing for more searching since the end of the 2018 search. Over the last 8-years Malaysia dragged its feet and finally lost the interest of Ocean Infinity. Which if you follow my logic above, why is anyone expecting post-Razak Malaysia to support finding MH370? I also feel the 2018/2019 Boeing 737MAX fiasco may have played a role in aviation folks being less open to intellectual honesty about what happened to MH370, in the interest of protecting the aviation industry from further public criticism and pressure-a noble objective: right?

MH370: The Emperor (Search) has no Clothes Ugh, some serious technical flaws in the cartoon, but correctly putting focus on the apparent search failure (which has gone somewhat unnoticed due to other world events). The 2026 search was a letdown after over-hype from the mass media, smaller search than expected and tiny compared to 2015-2018 searches. Basically we are spending 99.9% of the time since 2018 not searching, and if not looking, we cannot find. It probably wasn't a ghost flight, and part of the problem with that is industry/public opposition to unfair blame of pilot without black boxes and 100% proof, Sort of a Catch-22 we cannot support looking for a nefarious flight to a hiding spot without first having 100% proof of that intent, which I think we have enough proof, but nobody willing to go there. youtube.com/watch?v=oHfbGG…

Re: Air France 441 (MH370) Yikes 17-years to settle. This crash is often mentioned re MH370: it took 2-years to find AF441 black boxes in deep ocean despite knowing almost exact crash location. MH370: we do not know location, not good. youtube.com/watch?v=Axe2Xf…

My comment on Linked-In to Vincent: Nice paper addressing some of vulnerabilities. The other improvement has been the 25-hr voice recorder, vs. 2-hr for MH370, which possibly allowed a long flight as a technique to erase incriminating content. I am not sure if the new GADSS is globally adopted/agreed to as of yet.

@elizanow1 Good article even tho there probably room for technical correction/improvement. Vincent is talking about issues industry does not want to talk about with the public, including weaknesses & why "wishful thinking" was the industry-preferred approach in MH370 data interpretation.

New Article by Vincent Lyne 22 May 2026 Title: Global Aeronautical Distress and Safety System (GADSS) and the Response to Aviation Vulnerabilities from #MH370. Link to full Article: linkedin.com/pulse/gadss-re…

@sjford1950 No why? I guess Day of the Jackal famously features mercury tipped bullets for 1963 attempt on France's de Gaulle

@HDTBill Did you see the movie the ‘Irishman’?

Re: JFK Case-Limo Windshield-Altgens#7 Unprocessed crop from Getty Altgens7 if you look closely, the spider cracks can definite be seen on Elm St, suggesting may not be too much further crack growth when the FBI photo was taken in WH garage later (FBI was front-on view)

@sjford1950 It is James Files account in his book. He says he was the shooter w/ mercury bullet, but it is considered highly questionable. Perhaps he did know some 3rd hand gossip. I am interested from perspective of analytical testing on fragments maybe windshield.

@HDTBill Bill , that would be like something out of James Bond…love it..

I need some advanced, possibly mafia-style firearm mods. I am wondering if James Files could be directionally correct about mercury filled frangible bullet from Grassy Knoll? Is mercury bullet a real "thing"? if so mercury might be found on fragments. Mercury amalgamates with lead/copper

@HDTBill Yeah I agree without knowing a lot more it’s anybodies guess

@Edward_767 @TheRagingElk I did not realize the TWA800 wreck was moved from NY to a few miles from me near IAD Dulles. I would have tried to see but public prob not allowed. NoK could see it I think. 2023ish they dismantled I am thinking.

@HDTBill @TheRagingElk Should be plenty archival images. I doubt a 3D model was made (possible though)

Re: MH370/Helios- Loss of Cabin Pressure Helios revisited by Mentour Pilot Petter Hornfeldt. My comments: From a Chemical Engineering safety perspective, I believe this incident also demonstrates an aviation safety weakness regards Confined Space Entry. In industry, we do not let a single person enter an enclosed vessel without monitoring O2, CO2, CO, combustibles, Temp, Pressure. There is also a ManHole Watch with radio to call out in an emergency (that would have to be SATCOM call-out in a plane). Unless I am mistaken, for Helios we do not even know Cabin Temp, and I believe mass media was erroneously reporting frozen bodies, which was not correct, but just saying how bad the safety monitoring situation is. I realize EU is finally moving to improved ELT for some of this function. But this is where aviation industry tends to drag its feet for many decades, on economic grounds, what should be non-negotiable safety needs that OSHA forces other industry types to do for 40-50 years now, at least. Shocking to have up to 300 PAX and no monitoring, it needs to be tamper-resistant too. Shades of MH370 here. youtube.com/watch?v=iWUG1q…

For both MH370 and JFK, people assign enormous cover-up talent to CIA MH370: U.S. shoot down in South China Sea, debris was relocated to below Australia. All evidence radar/SATCOM was frauded. JFK: All movies/pics altered, Limo Windshield faked with BB gun/pics fraud

Below is what real bullet holes looks like. Experiments surprisingly showed not too much difference in hole size or appearance for 22 shell up to high velocity rifle bullets. The holes all seemed bigger than "pencil size" reported by several eyewitnesses.

Re: JFK Windshield Simplified version of spider crack to show how view angle distorts measured crack angles. Windshield itself about 40deg slope. Orig drawing is 45deg right angles. Popular YouTube theory is CIA/FBI made a fake windshield in Archives