MH370 burst frequency offset analysis and implications on descent rate at end of flight

Abstract

Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 veered off course unexpectedly during a scheduled trip from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on the 7th of March 2014. MH370 was tracked via military radar into the Malacca Straits and, after disappearing from radar, was subsequently believed to have turned south towards the southern Indian Ocean before crashing approximately 6 hours later. This article discusses specifically the analysis of burst frequency offset (BFO) metadata from the SATCOM messages. It is shown that the BFOs corresponding to the last two SATCOM messages from the plane at 00:19:29Z and 00:19:37Z 8th March 2014 suggest that flight MH370 was rapidly descending and accelerating downwards when message exchange with the ground station ceased.