25 April 2014: placing a missing 7:11 signal

A missing communication at 7:11 (23:11 UTC) has been recently hypothesised by considering the sequence of Inmarsat "handshakes" with MH370 flight.

The following snapshot from Google Earth, based on augmented KML files, produced by Duncan Steel, and data obtained by reverse engineering of ping rings by Victor Iannello, shows

• • three ping rings (22:40 UTC, 00:11 UTC, and approximation of 00:19 UTC);

  • two flight paths for 300 knots and 350 knots;

  • an assumed acoustic ring produced by detection from Cape Leeuwin (it is not needed for the discussion below, but is useful in pointing out the location of the current search area at the intersection with the approximated 00:19 ring);

  • a segment of a possible flight path (marked in red), leading to the location of the current search area;

  • a point on this possible flight path that corresponds (approximately) to 7:11 (23:11 UTC) timepoint.

It is this point (indicated by a yellow placemark) that is of interest. It is obviously unclear whether a communication event has taken place at this time, 7:11. However, something may have happened, resetting Inmarsat's ground station pinging schedule, so that the next ping occurred one hour later. What could have triggered such an event?

If we assume that at 7:11 the plane's location was somewhere near the marked point, with the approximate coordinates (18.62S, 101.28E), then a logical question would be whether this location is somehow special. Has the plane crossed from one (communication) coverage area to another? Has it been detected by another radar (e.g., Hobart)?.

Interestingly, the longitude of this point is within half-a-degree from the longitude of Kuala Lumpur airport (2.7456 N, 101.7097 E). Perhaps, when a plane crosses the same meridian as the point of origin, a communication event is triggered??

At this stage, no hypothesis is offered, and your suggestions are welcome.