MH370 final location via its two origin BTOs
Abstract
Since the MH370 disappearance with all 239 passengers and crews onboard on 8th March 2014, the authorities for search and rescue missions from various countries have tried to locate its final location. The 7th Arc, in the South Indian Ocean, has been identified as the official search corridor that the authorities put all their best efforts to locate it. This location is said to have been derived from the 7th Burst Timing Offset (BTO) ping ring signal that the MH370 had sent down close to the last BTO signal transmission for that day. The other type of signal that had been sent down by this airplane is Burst Frequency Offset (BFO). To track a missing aircraft on earth coordinate system two times synchronization ping rings should have been drawn from two known and stationary origins are the least requirements. The true location of the tracked aircraft could be either one of these two intersections. Therefore, if the BTO and BFO readings would have been taken as a dedicated airplane tracking model they have to be viewed as to have two fixed and known origins. The two fixed origins used by the MH370 to model the said tracking model are the Inmarsat 3F1 sub satellite earth point located at its nominal coordinates, O3F1 (0°0.0ʹN, 64°30.0ʹE) and the Ground Earth Station (GES), Perth, Australia located at (31°48.3ʹS, 115°53.2ʹE).
Publication details
- Journal / source
- Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
- Publication date
- 1 January 2026