News Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 crash

[Greg Bernhardt]

I think this is a very interesting story. Let's get some discussion on it!
http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/10/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-plane/index.html

At the moment CNN is reporting

"Tickets linked to stolen passports for missing Malaysia flight were purchased by Iranian man, authorities say"

If it were terrorism, what could be the motive? Who has a beef with the Malaysians?

 

[Vanadium 50]

The plane was going to China. The Chinese government and the Uyghurs aren't exactly getting along - c.f. Kunming. And some of the Indonesian Islamist violence was led by Malaysians: the 2002 and 2005 Bali bombings, the 2003 and 2009 Djakarta Marriott bombings, and the 2004 Australian Embassy bombing.

I have no evidence - but there are plenty of suspects.

 

[arildno]

I wouldn't be too sure that just because somebody traveled with fake passports, then this must have been terrorists.

Apart from the human tragedy involved , what I at present (not knowing if this was a malignant terrorist attack) find the most shocking is the revelation that, apparently, all the security measures are just sham, in particular, airport security do not even bother to check up passports against Interpol's lists of stolen passports.

I'm sure criminals all across the world knows this, and are happily flying around the globe on stolen passports ALL THE TIME.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

what I at present (not knowing if this was a malignant terrorist attack) find the most shocking is the revelation that, apparently, all the security measures are just sham, in particular, airport security do not even bother to check up passports against Interpol's lists of stolen passports.

I'm sure criminals all across the world knows this, and are happily flying around the globe on stolen passports ALL THE TIME.

I agree, there needs to be outrage. We all know airport security is just for show, but I still had faith in the passport side of things. In this day and age it shouldn't be difficult or costly to properly run passport checks.

 

[arildno]

I agree, there needs to be outrage. We all know airport security is just for show, but I still had faith in the passport side of things. In this day and age it shouldn't be difficult or costly to properly run passport checks.

I'm sure there already exists a software that in the course of a few milliseconds would determine whether a particular passport was on the interpol alert list.

Nor should it be difficult to institute an obligatory measure for airport security to regularly send into some central authority traffic data over registered numbers of passport-dependent passengers versus computer registered checks on how many passports were actually checked. It should be easy to make this a wholly automated process.

 

[Borek]

What sense does the terrorist attack make when it is not obvious it is a terrorist attack?

 

[arildno]

What sense does the terrorist attack make when it is not obvious it is a terrorist attack?

Timer of bomb having been set too early, prior to planned broadcast of terror message??

 

[jim hardy]

Any weather gurus here?
This is supposed to be water vapor of the area at the time.

http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/goes/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/140307_coms1_wv_mh370_anim.gif
click the link - image is too big...


You just don't mess with thunderstorms that get up to 35,000 feet..

Also in 2012 this happened to its wingtip.

courtesy http://airflightdisaster.com/index.php/9m-mro-fender-bender-long-before-flight-mh370/


One hopes [STRIKE]fiberglass[/STRIKE] repairs are done by a trustworthy shop.
(oops - i forget which models are plastic, which aluminum)

 

[micromass]

What sense does the terrorist attack make when it is not obvious it is a terrorist attack?

Could be a test run?

 

[arildno]

Anyhow, the latest I've heard is that they are going to check through seismic data that would contain traces IF there was an explosion up in the air. (Some sort of registerable shock wave would have to have been generated in that case?)

 

[Borek]

Anyhow, the latest I've heard is that they are going to check through seismic data that would contain traces IF there was an explosion up in the air. (Some sort of registerable shock wave would have to have been generated in that case?)

No idea about air explosions. But I do remember explosion on Kursk was registered by some seismographic stations near you (well, in Scandinavia, could be Sweden or Finland).

 

[DevilsAvocado]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kursk_submarine_disaster#Secondary_explosion

"The second explosion was equivalent to 2-3 tons of TNT, [...] was measured 4.2 on the Richter scale on seismographs across Europe and was detected as far away as Alaska."

 

[Borek]

Perhaps reports from Scandinavia were just the first that hit the news here.

 

[DevilsAvocado]

Yes probably, NORSAR apparently have lot of 'equipment' up there, arildno probably knows more about this.

 

[AlephZero]

"The second explosion was equivalent to 2-3 tons of TNT, [...] was measured 4.2 on the Richter scale on seismographs across Europe and was detected as far away as Alaska."

Sound travels through water with much less dispersion than through air - think whale songs, for example. There is also the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOFAR_channel effect.

But there may be an equivalent mechanism in the upper atmosphere. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Mogul

 

[arildno]

Well, I dunno. It was a snippet I overheard on the public radio. Last I read, suspicion of terror is less marked now.

 

[mheslep]

What sense does the terrorist attack make when it is not obvious it is a terrorist attack?

Exactly. Could have been, but the absence of some message at least after the fact argues against it.

 

[mheslep]

No idea about air explosions. But I do remember explosion on Kursk was registered by some seismographic stations near you (well, in Scandinavia, could be Sweden or Finland).

That was TNT or a derivative, which doesn't require air and therefore can explode rapidly with a large shock wave. If explosive was smuggled on the plane it's unlikely it was more than a few kilos, and jet fuel requires an air mix thus burns relatively slowly without help.

 

[lisab]

Wouldn't shallow water (~100 meters) reduce the distance that signals from "black boxes" can travel?

 

[edward]

The aircraft was equipped with a maintenance computer capable of talking to the ground automatically through short messages known as ACARS. "There were no signals from ACARS from the time the aircraft disappeared," a source involved in the investigations said.

How about signals before the aircraft disappeared?

Also raising doubts about the possibility of an attack, the United States extensively reviewed imagery taken by spy satellites for evidence of a mid-air explosion, but saw none, a U.S. government source said. The source described U.S. satellite coverage of the region as thorough.

No explosion, at least no big explosion.


http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/10/us-malaysiaairlines-flight-idUSBREA2701720140310

We seem to be getting a lot of "a source said" type of statements.

 

[SteamKing]

Wouldn't shallow water (~100 meters) reduce the distance that signals from "black boxes" can travel?

It's not clear what you mean by 'reduce the distance'.

The flight recorders are equipped with a device which emits underwater pings at a constant rate. If a ship equipped with a hydrophone is nearby, the pings should allow for the location of the recorders.

http://rjeint.com/pdf/DK120.PDF

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underwater_locator_beacon

The search for the debris from Air France flight 447 was so extended that the pingers had ceased functioning. Although a rough search area on the bottom of the Atlantic was determined by analysis of sonar data taken early in the search, the wreckage was located only after side-scan sonar was used to examine the ocean bottom and find the debris field, much like had been done when searching for the wreck of the Titanic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447

At least the searchers for the Air France jet had some clues as to where to look in the form of recognizable debris which search vessels found floating after the crash. In the case of Flight 370, these clues appear to be lacking.

 

[AlephZero]

No explosion, at least no big explosion.

People can do amazingly dumb things when flying planes. I once talked to a pilot working for a large UK company who flew freight aircraft, mostly night flights between the UK and Europe. One time, crossing the North Sea he suddenly became aware of a loud bang. ("Suddenly because aware" may or may not imply that he was asleep at the time - that piece of information might be self-incriminating!). Looking at the instruments, the altimeter was reading zero. Assuming the altimeter was faulty, he put the plane into a gentle climb, and then started to investigate. Finding nothing apparently wrong except the altimeter, when he had climbed about 10,000 ft he asked air traffic control to give him an altitude check, which said he was flying at ... 10,000 ft.

He landed uneventfully at his scheduled destination, and walking round the aircraft discovered a large stain on the underside of the fuselage that looked rather like dried salt.

His conclusion: for some unknown reason the autopilot had disconnected, he had gently descended to sea level, and by good luck the fuselage hit a wave before the engines did.

Some you win, some you lose - find somebody happy to wash the salt off with a hosepipe for a small cash payment, and no incident report required

(His co-pilot had no involvement in any of this - he was in the galley cooking their dinners).

 

[Monique]

I agree, there needs to be outrage. We all know airport security is just for show, but I still had faith in the passport side of things. In this day and age it shouldn't be difficult or costly to properly run passport checks.

According to Interpol in 2013 more than a billion travelers boarded an airplane, without their passport being compared to the SLTD database.

 

[arildno]

According to Interpol in 2013 more than a billion travelers boarded an airplane, without their passport being compared to the SLTD database.

Wouldn't most of those be, say, passengers on intra-state travels, or within regions not requiring passport identifications, such as within the EU?
Or are those not included in the Interpol stats?

Anyhow, Interpol has made a statement that they are inclined to believe this incident was NOT a terrorist attack; saying, for example, that the one traveling on the Austrian passport was trying to reach his mum in Germany.

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/03/11/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-plane/index.html?hpt=hp_t1
As for the other one, traveling on "Luigi" passport, a Norwegian newspaper today has spoken with a man in Sweden, who says his cousin was seeking to get to Sweden, in order to seek asylum there.

Fake passports for hopeful asylum seekers has become big business.

 

[Monique]

Wouldn't most of those be, say, passengers on intra-state travels, or within regions not requiring passport identifications, such as within the EU?
Or are those not included in the Interpol stats?

This includes people traveling within Schengen countries, for instance. It does make a no-fly list quite useless, if flying with a stolen passport is something that remains undetected.

Anyhow, Interpol has made a statement that they are inclined to believe this incident was NOT a terrorist attack; saying, for example, that the one traveling on the Austrian passport was trying to reach his mum in Germany.

Indeed, traveling with a stolen passport does not make one a terrorist.

 

[lisab]

It's not clear what you mean by 'reduce the distance'.

The flight recorders are equipped with a device which emits underwater pings at a constant rate. If a ship equipped with a hydrophone is nearby, the pings should allow for the location of the recorders.

http://rjeint.com/pdf/DK120.PDF

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underwater_locator_beacon

The search for the debris from Air France flight 447 was so extended that the pingers had ceased functioning. Although a rough search area on the bottom of the Atlantic was determined by analysis of sonar data taken early in the search, the wreckage was located only after side-scan sonar was used to examine the ocean bottom and find the debris field, much like had been done when searching for the wreck of the Titanic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447

At least the searchers for the Air France jet had some clues as to where to look in the form of recognizable debris which search vessels found floating after the crash. In the case of Flight 370, these clues appear to be lacking.

By distance, I mean how far the "ping" signal can travel and be picked up by a hydrophone. How does water depth affect that distance?

 

[arildno]

This includes people traveling within Schengen countries, for instance. It does make a no-fly list quite useless, if flying with a stolen passport is something that remains undetected.

That some countries decide to dispense with passport requirements for travellers between their countries doesn't mean one shouldn't keep track of travellers traveling across passport-zones. But, evidently, that lack of inspection is precisely what happened in this Malaysian case.

 

[SteamKing]

By distance, I mean how far the "ping" signal can travel and be picked up by a hydrophone. How does water depth affect that distance?

The surface and bottom of the ocean act as reflectors of sound waves generated underwater. Like radio waves bouncing off the bottom of the ionosphere, this can help sound travel farther than one would expect. There are many other factors involved in how sound propagates underwater though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underwater_acoustics

 

[SteamKing]

It seems that in the absence of evidence that Flight 370 went down in the South China Sea, the search effort has been extended to cover possible areas where the plane may have crashed on land. Reuters is reporting that the Malaysian military radars last picked up Flight 370 over the northern end of the Strait of Malacca, well to the west of its course to Beijing, so looking in the South China Sea or the Gulf of Thailand would not turn up anything.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/11/us-malaysiaairlines-flight-idUSBREA2701720140311

The search area has shifted to the west and five new search regions in the Andaman Sea have been established.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world...6882-a875-11e3-b61e-8051b8b52d06_graphic.html

 

[DevilsAvocado]

Anyhow, Interpol has made a statement that they are inclined to believe this incident was NOT a terrorist attack; saying, for example, that the one traveling on the Austrian passport was trying to reach his mum in Germany.

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/03/11/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-plane/index.html?hpt=hp_t1
As for the other one, traveling on "Luigi" passport, a Norwegian newspaper today has spoken with a man in Sweden, who says his cousin was seeking to get to Sweden, in order to seek asylum there.

True, Pouria Nour Mohammad Mehrdad was going to Germany and Delavar Seyed Mohammad Erza was going to Sweden.

Delavar Seyed Mohammad Erza, 29

Pouria Nour Mohammad Mehrdad, 19

(source www.aftonbladet.se)

 

[arildno]

OKay, it seems that about 800 million searches in the Interpol database is done every year, above 50% of those by the US, UK and United Arab Emirates.
Here are the results of such searches:
"Interpol's Stolen and Lost Travel Documents database was created in 2002, following the September 11, 2001, attacks, to help countries secure their borders. Since then, it has expanded from a few thousand passports and searches to more than 40 million entries and more than 800 million searches per year.

About 60,000 of those 800 million searches yield hits against stolen or lost documents, according to Interpol."
Thus, slightly less than 0.01% seems to be the best guestimate here (not including non-registered stolen ones, that is).
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/03/10/travel/malaysia-airlines-stolen-passports/index.html

 

[Bobbywhy]

Just for everyone's information, the underwater "locater pinger" that will emit acoustic pulses for at least 30 days is described here:
http://rjeint.com/pdf/DK120.PDF

 

[SteamKing]

Just for everyone's information, the underwater "locater pinger" that will emit acoustic pulses for at least 30 days is described here:
http://rjeint.com/pdf/DK120.PDF

See Post #21.

 

[Bobbywhy]

See Post #21.

OOPS! Excuse me, please. I missed your inclusion of that website in post #21!.

 

[DevilsAvocado]

Here is a playback of the ADS-B transponder on MAS370 at Flightradar24.com:

http://www.flightradar24.com/2014-03-07/16:54/12x/MAS370/2d81a27

For those interested in more info on the MAS370 radar stuff, here's the thread on the Flightradar24 forum:
http://forum.flightradar24.com/thre...t-Goes-Missing-En-Route-to-China-Flight-MH370

And for those with spare time, DigitalGlobe has launched a "Crowdsourcing Campaign" where you can help find the (remains of) MAS370 on satellite images:
http://www.tomnod.com/nod/challenge/malaysiaairsar2014

(apparently too many with spare time... server overload today...)

 

[jim hardy]

pprune dot org is a pilot's forum. While they too are puzzled and speculating, it's interesting to watch the exchange of ideas between folks knowledgeable in aviation.

What if MH370 wanted to perform an emergency landing for whatever reason. Close to IGARI point the crew entered a possible airport to land in their FMS which could be VVCT CAN THO with VOR "TRN", because this one has a 3000m runway which is close to the intended route ahead. But, there is another "TRN" VOR closer by, guess where: TRANG VOR close to the Andaman sea. The crew under severe stress executes the top TRN (closest by) in the FMS and the plane turns immediately to that point. Could this explain the hard left turn after IGARI point towards the Andaman sea?

[ aero chart at http://postimg.org/image/4d8stni21/ ]

http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/535538-malaysian-airlines-mh370-contact-lost-103.html#post8368195

EDIT a
late entry :

That email that showed up late last night from the oil rig worker at 8 deg 22 minutes North,
http://beforeitsnews.com/alternative/2014/03/malaysia-flight-370-seen-in-flames-by-new-zealand-oil-rig-worker-2916646.html
puts the "burning plane" due West of him
which is just about the same latitude as the left turn in the chart that pilot posted.

 

[SteamKing]

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that engine data sent to the mfg. (Rolls-Royce) indicate that MH-370 was flying for several hours after it disappeared from radar:

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304914904579434653903086282?mg=reno64-wsj

This report, if accurate, just increased the area of the search tremendously.

 

[jim hardy]

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that engine data sent to the mfg. (Rolls-Royce) indicate that MH-370 was flying for several hours after it disappeared from radar:

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304914904579434653903086282?mg=reno64-wsj

This report, if accurate, just increased the area of the search tremendously.

If it's accurate, we've got a "Red October" scenario.

My instincts say WSJ has a blooper here, rare as that may be.

The pilot is quite an aviation buff though, had a quite elaborate flight simulator in his living room.. Maybe he took the plane to his own 'Fantasy Island' someplace ?

 

[nsaspook]

If it's accurate, we've got a "Red October" scenario.

My instincts say WSJ has a blooper here, rare as that may be.

The pilot is quite an aviation buff though, had a quite elaborate flight simulator in his living room.. Maybe he took the plane to his own 'Fantasy Island' someplace ?

After 6 days of searching it's ok to forward almost any plausible theory of what happened. We might have a 'ghost' plane where the pilots were incapacitated because of depressurization and loss of oxygen shortly after turning the plane around and setting the auto-pilot after a bomb or other catastrophic event that caused a communications blackout. The plane could have flown for thousands of miles at a high altitude and crashed anywhere in the vast Indian Ocean.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_South_Dakota_Learjet_crash

 

[jesse73]

I wouldn't bother speculating. Experts in the field in interviews have said they don't have enough information to do anything other speculating. Some basic information from the wreckage is needed.

 

[SteamKing]

Well, unless somebody saw a Sharktopus or an Imperial Destroyer along the flight path, it's more than passing strange that no sign of any debris from the plane has been confirmed.

The USN is moving one vessel into the Indian Ocean to search for the plane. Officials said they have an 'indication' that the plane may be found there:

http://gma.yahoo.com/us-officials-indication-malaysia-airline-crashed-indian-ocean-170011087--abc-news-topstories.html?vp=1

 

[AlephZero]

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that engine data sent to the mfg. (Rolls-Royce) indicate that MH-370 was flying for several hours after it disappeared from radar:

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304914904579434653903086282?mg=reno64-wsj

This report, if accurate, just increased the area of the search tremendously.

See the "corrections and amplifications" at the end of the link:

U.S. investigators suspect Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 flew for hours past the time it reached its last confirmed location, based on an analysis of signals sent through the plane's satellite-communication link designed to automatically transmit the status of on-board systems, according to people familiar with the matter. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said investigators based their suspicions on signals from monitoring systems embedded in the plane's Rolls-Royce PLC engines and described that process.

In any case, "data sent from systems embedded in the engines" doesn't necessarily mean the data was sent to the engine manufacturer, who doesn't have any particular interest in real-time access to it, and the correction doesn't imply that either. The aircraft operators DO have real time interest in it, since it might be sending data about items to be checked by maintenance engineers at the destination airport. So it seems rather far-fetched to me that such data transmissions would have existed but nobody knew about them.

 

[AlephZero]

We might have a 'ghost' plane where the pilots were incapacitated because of depressurization and loss of oxygen shortly after turning the plane around and setting the auto-pilot after a bomb or other catastrophic event that caused a communications blackout. The plane could have flown for thousands of miles at a high altitude and crashed anywhere in the vast Indian Ocean.

Reminds me of an incident years ago when a military fast jet pilot thought he had a major problem, and ejected into the sea off the west coast of England. (The pilot was rescued safely). Actually there were no problems with the plane, except for a fault in the warning system.

Having "forgotten" to put the plane into a dive before ejecting, it soon became clear it was likely to crash through lack of fuel somewhere over North Africa. Luckily, that was prevented by the Spanish Air Force, who succeeded in shooting it down into the Bay of Biscay - but only after three separate sorties had used it for target practice, and missed.

 

[AlephZero]

The WSJ story seems to be unraveling. Malaysian airlines does not subscribe to the real time data collection service where the data was alleged to have been sent.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-26572172

The Boeing 777-200 was not transmitting data to the satellite, but was instead sending out a signal to establish contact, said the official, who was not named.

If true, it could suggest the aircraft was still flying.

Boeing offers a satellite service that can receive a stream of data during flight on how the aircraft is functioning. Malaysia Airlines did not subscribe to that service, but the plane was still automatically sending pings to the satellite, the official said.

 

[nsaspook]

I've heard rumors on PPRUNE for a few days about the possibility of a long flight out of radar contact into the IO. I've traveled by air and ship in that area, once you get a few hundred miles west of the the Strait channel headed southwest of Indonesia there is nothing to track you on the ground until Diego Garcia. Most of the primary radars and sensors are looking for incoming tracks so is unlikely someone would alert on the plane headed out to sea even if they saw it but it would be recorded in the database to be looked at later.

 

[nsaspook]

In any case, "data sent from systems embedded in the engines" doesn't necessarily mean the data was sent to the engine manufacturer, who doesn't have any particular interest in real-time access to it, and the correction doesn't imply that either. The aircraft operators DO have real time interest in it, since it might be sending data about items to be checked by maintenance engineers at the destination airport. So it seems rather far-fetched to me that such data transmissions would have existed but nobody knew about them.

I'm not saying this is true but it's possible that RF transmissions/pings (VHF/UHF/SHF) from engine/plane monitoring systems were detected by ELINT birds designed to track ships in that area. We and Russia have several systems that can detect, locate and target ships at sea using RF emissions.

http://www.fas.org/spp/military/program/surveill/noss_andronov.htm

 

[lisab]

The WSJ story seems to be unraveling. Malaysian airlines does not subscribe to the real time data collection service where the data was alleged to have been sent.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-26572172

If they don't subscribe to the service, that actually strengthens the WSJ's story. The Malaysians argued that the plane was suddenly "gone" after it stopped its transponder signal. But that may be because they were not getting the ACARS signal. Perhaps the civilian politicians giving the public updates simply didn't know it even existed (I didn't before this incident).

The US Navy is reported to be shifting the search much further west, which further strengthens WSJ's story -

http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/13/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-plane/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

Some reporting about the ACARS signal (bolding mine):

Sources familiar with the investigation reiterated that neither Boeing nor Rolls-Royce had received any engine maintenance data from the jet after the point at which its pilots last made contact. Only one engine maintenance update was received during the normal phase of flight, they said, speaking on condition on anonymity.

That said, the latest evidence of an electronic whisper from the plane, extending an electronic handshake to satellites but containing no data, suggests the aircraft was at least capable of communicating, though nothing else is known about its situation or whereabouts.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/13/mh370-engine-data_n_4958050.html

 

[AlephZero]

... suggests the aircraft was at least capable of communicating...

I'm not familiar with the complete system, but AFAIK the engine-related parts of it are effectively powered independent of the plane's electrical system (the electrical parts of the engine control system are powered independently of the rest of the aircraft for the obvious safety reasons).

So it might not imply any more than that a box of electronics was floating in the sea for a while. As your report says, since they weren't actually using the system, there is no data content, just a "ping". But why anybody would configure a system that wasn't being used to transmit any data, to waste bandwidth by repeatedly pinging satellites, is another question.

But the HuffPost report has so many vaguely self-contradictory statements, it's hard to take any of it too seriously. Statements like "the engines could have run for 4 hours" are easy to make based on the on-board fuel load. That then changes to "the engines did run for 4 hours"...

Maybe the USN wants to be seen to be involved, while keeping well clear of any hotheads in the Chinese navy who might try taking pot shots at them?

 

[Borg]

An update on lisab's ping articles.

Jetliner 'Pinged' Satellites With Location, Altitude for Hours After Disappearance

 

[jim hardy]

A clarification


http://news.yahoo.com/rolls-royce-concurs-malaysia-missing-jets-engine-data-100810333--sector.html

LONDON (Reuters) - Rolls-Royce said on Friday it concurred with denials from the Malaysian government that reports a Malaysia Airlines passenger jet may have flown on for hours after it vanished from radar screens were not true.

The Wall Street Journal said U.S. aviation investigators and national security officials believed the plane flew for a total of five hours, based on data automatically downloaded and sent to the ground from the Boeing 777's engines as part of a standard monitoring program. (http://r.reuters.com/ruw57v )

Malaysian Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said on Thursday that the reports were not true.

"Rolls-Royce concurs with the statement made on Thursday, 13 March by Malaysia's Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein regarding engine health monitoring data received from the aircraft," a spokeswoman for the company said.

"Rolls-Royce continues to provide its full support to the authorities and Malaysia Airlines."

So if the engines weren't sending engine data,,,
could be their handshake includes location,
or the pings were triangulated by those spooky satellites.

The latter would explain the delay - presumably they had to go back through days old data.
Also explains sketchy information - nobody wants to reveal details of their capability.