MH370 Message Logs Were Edited – Updated

Fellow MH370 Independent Group members Don Thompson and Richard Godfrey have found some anomalies in the message logs that were included in Factual Information (FI) released by Malaysia on March 8, 2015, and the Safety Investigation Report (SIR) released by Malaysia on July 30, 2018. The logs from these two reports document the communication between MAS Operations Dispatch Center (ODC) and service providers that route messages over SATCOM and VHF paths, as part of the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS). The anomalies suggest the traffic logs appearing in the reports are not complete, and what appears in the reports has been modified.

A simplified schematic of the ACARS is shown in the figure. For MAS, the service provider for satellite communications is SITA using the Inmarsat network and the service provider for VHF communications is ARINC using a network of ground stations.

Missing Messages Between 18:15:23 and 18:43:33

According to text in both the FI and the SIR, an urgent message from MAS ODC was submitted at 18:03 and then re-transmitted multiple times:

The first message sent to the aircraft cockpit printer from the MAS ODC was at 1803:23 UTC. The ACARS message requested the crew to contact the HCM ACC immediately. The incoming downlink message at 1803:24 UTC showed the message failed to reach the aircraft. Messages are auto transmitted every 2 minutes and the message was retransmitted until 1843:33 UTC but all messages failed to get a response. Automated downlink message by ACARS showed ‘failed’.

However, the last message from MAS ODC that was shown in both the FI and SIR traffic logs occurred at 18:15:23, and not the 18:43:33 stated in the text. This means that either the explanatory text is wrong, or the traffic logs do not contain all the message traffic.

VHF Messages Not Included

The missing messages could be explained if they were routed via the VHF link. For the ACARS traffic log in the FI, the filter parameters used to extract the message records included only SATCOM traffic for the time period 12:48:00 to 20:00:00, so that if any VHF messages were exchanged, those messages would not be included in the traffic log. (The filter parameters appear at the top of each page of the traffic log in Appendix 1.9A.)

The facts surrounding the ACARS traffic log in the SIR (also Appendix 1.9A) are more suspicious. For Page 1 of the log, the filter parameters did not limit the messages to only SATCOM messages. In fact, at 15:54:31, there is a message submitted by MAS ODC over the VHF link that requests personnel on the aircraft to re-configure the center VHF radio so that future messages would be exchanged via SATCOM. However, starting with Page 2 of the report, the filter parameters used to generate the remaining pages of the report were changed so that VHF messages, if any occurred, were excluded.

The change in filter parameters after Page 1 is unexplained. Two messages received by MAS ODC at 15:54:41 and 15:54:53 appearing at the bottom of Page 1 are repeated at the top of Page 2. The change in filter parameters and the repeated messages are clear evidence that the traffic log in the SIR is actually two reports that were pieced together and presented as a single report.

Edited Text

As it appears in the ACARS traffic log in the SIR, the text message that was sent by MAS ODC at 18:03:23 is:

URGET [sic] REQUEST

PLS CONTACT HO CHI MING [sic] ATC ASAP

THEY COMPLAIN CANNOT TRACK YOU ON THEIR RADAR

I RECEIVED CALL FROM SUBANG CENTRE

PLS ACK THESE MSG

REGARDS

However, the last line of the message appears to have been edited. By examining the ASCII characters embedded in the PDF version of Appendix 1.9A, the following text can be extracted:

REGARDS

MXXXXX

where MXXXXX is an actual name with six letters beginning with M.

There is also a misplaced © symbol on the bottom of the page that appears after the report page number on Pages 2 and later, but properly appears before the name “SITA” on Page 1. This is yet another indication that the traffic log in the SIR was edited.

Request for Complete, Unmodified ACARS Logs

It is disappointing that more than four years after MH370’s disappearance, we are still asking Malaysia to release withheld data. The military radar data is another example of a data set that has never been released in full despite its significance in providing information about how the aircraft was flown after the diversion from the flight plan.

It is important that Malaysia provide a complete, unmodified log of all ACARS communications on SATCOM, VHF, and HF paths for the period between 12:48 and 20:00 on March 7, 2014. This is particularly significant in light of questions surrounding the delayed response of Malaysian authorities after MH370 went missing.

Update on Sept 4, 2018

The Daily Star reports that it has received a statement from Malaysia Airlines about the anomalies in the traffic data logs that were reported in the article above:

A spokesman told Daily Star Online: “Malaysian Airline System Berhad (Administrator Appointed) (“MAS) is aware of the recent media reports alleging anomalies to the traffic data logs in the Safety Investigation Report published by the Malaysian ICAO Annex 13 Safety Investigation Team for MH370.

“MAS wishes to state that MAS has provided full cooperation and assistance to all respective authorities on the investigation for MH370, including the submission of relevant documents necessary for the investigation.

MAS will continue to cooperate with the Authorities and if necessary, provide any information to them in line with international requirements and applicable laws.”

Conspicuously absent is an explanation for the missing messages and the edited logs.