Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine February 2018 - 25

summary of work previously presented in [2]. The next two sections
describe the effects of aircraft position and velocity on the BFO and
the settling behavior of the SDU's frequency oscillator for 9M-MRO
after power-up. This is important because the SDU is believed to
have undergone a power outage between 00:11Z and 00:19Z on 8
Mar 2014, immediately preceding the last two SATCOM transmissions from MH370. The effect of oscillator warm-up on the BFO
after power-up can be used in bounding the descent rates for MH370
at 00:19:29Z and 00:19:37Z. Finally, the last section is an analysis
of the descent rate of MH370 based on the last two BFO values.
This analysis derives lower and upper bounds on the descent rate at
00:19:29Z and 00:19:37Z.

During the flight, messages were passed between the aircraft and a
ground receiving station located in Perth, Australia, via the Inmarsat-3F1 satellite. Figure 1 illustrates the SATCOM system in use
during the flight. The aircraft is called the Aircraft Earth Station
(AES), and the ground receiving unit is called the Ground Earth
Station (GES). Inmarsat-3F1 is a satellite in geosynchronous orbit
at 64.5° E, and it was used exclusively for the duration of the flight.
An AES is equipped with an SDU comprising a satellite modem with auxiliary hardware and software. Transmission of data

TIMELINE OF EVENTS DURING THE ACCIDENT FLIGHT
A comprehensive description of the events occurring during the
MH370 accident flight is provided in [7]. A summary of salient
events to this article is provided in Table 1.

REVIEW OF SATCOM MODEL
The accident aircraft was fitted with a SATCOM terminal that used
the Inmarsat Classic Aero system [1], which uses geosynchronous
satellites to relay messages between aircraft and ground stations.

Figure 1.

System model of the satellite communication system [2].

Table 1.

Timeline of Events During MH370
Date and Time Stamps

Description

Comments

7 Mar. 2014 16:42Z

MH370 departs Kuala Lumpa Airport

Normal takeoff

Last ACARS transmission

7 Mar. 2014 17:07Z

Everything normal, on path to Beijing

Loss of secondary radar

7 Mar. 2014 17:21:13Z

Onboard transponder goes inactive;
last civilian radar

7 Mar. 2014 18:22:12Z

Last Malaysian military radar
contact

MH370 shown tracking NW through
Malacca Straits

7 Mar. 2014 18:25Z-18:28Z

SDU log-on sequence

If flying level, MH370 still tracking NW

7 Mar. 2014 18:39-18:41Z

Unanswered ground-to-air phone call

If flying level, MH370 tracking southward

7 Mar. 2014 19:41Z to 8 Mar. 2014
00:11Z

SATCOM metadata approx. hourly
from MH370

[1], [2] suggest flight into Southern
Indian Ocean

8 Mar. 2014 00:19:29Z-00:19:37Z

Partial SDU log-on sequence

Implies rapid descent

FEBRUARY 2018

IEEE A&E SYSTEMS MAGAZINE

25



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