Plausible Explanation for the "Orange Glow" of the Mystery Airliner
as
seen by British Sailoress Katherine Tee
near NOPEK Waypoint
at 19:20 UTC on March 7th, 2014.
The theory presented in detail below postulates that the "orange glow" seen by by Katherine Tee on the night in question was caused by a vertically oriented wingtip device, commonly referred to as "winglet", that was painted bright red/orange on its inboard face, and was radiantly lit by the aircraft's wing illumination lights, thus reflecting its vibrant red/orange color onto an all white fuselage, which in turn adopted the color of the source light and caused the entirety of the aircraft to appear to be "glowing orange".
As there are airlines with large fleets of aircraft with winglets who operate exclusively in the area and whose proprietary color schemes perfectly match the criteria needed for the phenomena to occur, a serious consideration of the theory by those who may have further insights, effective methods of cross-evaluation, or expertise in the subject matter is humbly requested.
The potential importance of the theory is, that should it be judged to be a robustly plausible and likely explanation of the "orange glow" phenomena, it would categorically EXCLUDE MH370 as having been the mystery aircraft because the winglet components and inherent coloring needed to trigger the phenomena were not present on MH370 (9M-MRO).
The focus here is primarily on the mechanism by which the "orange glow" could have occurred. Though clearly warranted, further investigation into why and how any "non-MH370" aircraft would have logically been at that location- and - at the relative altitude and heading Ms. Tee observed, has not been included or expanded upon here. Further effort in this direction could potentially strengthen or weaken the likelihood of the theory postulated herein, and may be examined in a subsequent stand alone report.
For those unfamiliar with Katherine Tee's reported sighting of MH370 please see these links for background information.
The "orange glow" phenomena as described by Ms. Tee is without doubt the most troubling and enigmatic aspect of her sighting. Though it's the most omnipresent visual clue as to what she saw, it's also the most puzzling element to unravel.
Up to now, the importance of properly interpreting it - because it cannot be easily explained - has been either set aside, misdiagnosed, or simply ignored. But it cries out for a plausible explanation. How can an airliner "glow orange" in the manner Ms. Tee has so consistently and repeatedly described? I've been unable to escape the nagging feeling that perhaps the act of seeking answers to this anomaly might hold the key to determining once and for all whether or not the aircraft in question was - or was not - MH370.
It's vitally important to know this one way or the other. Not only to save the ongoing work by the many talented independent investigators trying to unravel MH370's possible flight track from having to be continually mindful of fitting Ms. Tee's sighting time and location into the equation, but more importantly, for Katherine herself, who's been increasingly haunted by not yet knowing one way or the other. In succumbing to the responsibility she felt to share her story, she bravely came forth and has spent the better part of two months reciting articulate and consistent versions of what she saw and politely answering any and all questions asked. At the risk of great personal ridicule, she's either possibly provided an indispensable clue to unraveling the greatest mystery in aviation history - or - opened a Pandora's box upon who's unresolvable anomalies might never allow her life to be the same.
Ms. Tee along with the dedicated league of independent investigators deserve as much clarity on the matter as can be determined. But can it be determined?
If one believes in what Ms. Tee described she saw (which I wholeheartedly do) then until the conundrum of the orange glow can be satisfactorily explained there's still a big white elephant in the room that's just not going to go away by ignoring it. It must be dealt with if any true understanding - and possible resolution - to the Katherine Tee mystery aircraft can be revealed.
Toward A Plausible Explanation
The following theory postulates a simple method by which the mystery aircraft could have appeared to exhibit an "orange glow" that closely matches the evenly distributed fuselage-wide illumination that Ms. Tee has frequently described.
It does not require an on board fire or any form of unusual atmospheric phenomena, be it twilight, the moon, or other celestial entities for the aircraft to have appeared as it did. It conforms well with the requirement that the orange glow remained easily perceived, well distributed across the entire fuselage, and visually consistent throughout the entirety of the sighting. It provides a means by which the aircraft would have appeared to have had no markings, and offers a surprisingly logical explanation for the prominent halo observed around the fuselage.
By the sheer weight of its simplicity, rather than complexity, the theory argues strongly that it be given serious consideration as a possible - perhaps even likely - method by which the mystery aircraft could have appeared to Ms. Tee as it did. It achieves this goal with an absolute minimum of assumptions having to be postulated. By contrast, other theories to date, though not outside the realm of possibility, which require a uniquely configured set of onboard circumstances to have converged in just such a manner for the "orange glow" to have been generated, often fail to explain how this "glow" could have sustained itself in a steady, non-flickering, relatively bright, and uniformly distributed fashion across the entire exterior of the fuselage for the duration of the encounter. Ms. Tee has stated time and time again, she is absolutely certain beyond a doubt that she observed this.
Possible MH370 Exclusion
Most importantly, should the theory subsequently be judged to present a viable explanation, it's importance is potentially game changing because it would categorically exclude MH370 as having been the mystery aircraft. The aircraft structural elements required to induce the "orange glow" phenomena as described below are not only completely absent on MH370, but even if they were present, MH370's combination of paint colors and their particular configuration would have visually violated Ms. Tee's insistence that the mystery aircraft to appeared to have "no markings" whatsoever.
The Illusive Light Source
To bathe the entire fuselage in a diffuse orange glow the light source would have had to come from a location somewhere outside the fuselage itself. It's just physics, plain and simple, and cannot be reasonably postulated to have occurred otherwise without serious difficulties arising in the logic. Even the idea of an all orange aircraft (as I myself had originally postulated) fails to satisfactorily explain how, in the dark of night and at some distance away, it could have been lit in such a way that it was suddenly and unexpectedly "noticeable" as a full bodied "glowing" object.
At the time of the sighting (approximately 19:20 UTC at NOPEK waypoint) both sun and moon were much too far below the horizon to have played any role in lighting the exterior of the aircraft. Neither celestial body was even close their remotely visible extreme twilight elevations.
Planetary, galactic, and other external celestial or atmospheric light sources at the time, regardless of their nature and relative associations simply do not have the magnitude or combined lumens to light even the most fluorescent day-glo paint job to what would amount to a "glowing" state in the dark of night, especially at the range she likely observed the aircraft.
That leaves the aircraft lights. This is also problematic as Ms. Tee has stated time and again that she did not perceive any running lights on the aircraft. And in any case, there are no lights aboard airliners that are specifically configured - or may be used in any combination - to light the entire fuselage anyway.
That doesn't leave much else except fire, which, for obvious reasons is also problematic because it's hard to imagine a fire scenario that would illuminate the entire exterior without being observed to emanate from, or display a visual bias of being concentrated in, a localized source or hotspot. And there's the "flickering" aspect of fire that also makes this problematic. Ms. Tee has repeatedly stated she did not see either. And even if a fire scenario were to be entertained, at what location on the aircraft could it be "burning" so as to evenly light the entire fuselage from nose to tail? She says the aircraft just "glowed". Steadily and evenly. So what are we left with? Not much it seems. But there has to be some explanation. She has to be mistaken then somewhere right? Maybe not to a very high degree, but somewhere nonetheless. Airliners just don't "glow" on their own.
So could she have been wrong about any of the many aircraft lights? Could the sheer unexpectedness of a "glowing orange" aircraft popping into view have caused her to not notice at least one pair of aircraft lights were on?
The following scenario proposes that the wing illumination lights, and perhaps only the wing illumination lights, were on. And - that the aircraft in question may have been a newer generation Boeing 737, though any aircraft with a white fuselage and the inboard faces of their winglets painted orange to red would qualify as a likely subject. There are however, two airlines that stand out immediately as possible suspects: Indonesia's Lion Air or it's relatively new sister airline Malindo Air.
Both airlines currently feature identical paint schemes that are simple and stark: Bright white fuselages with bright red/orange winglets and red/orange tail and fuselage logos. Both operate substantial fleets on a widely traveled schedule of daily flights throughout the region.
The Winglets / Lion and Malindo Airlines
Many of today's airliners can be seen to have large and prominent winglets, otherwise know as "wingtip devices". These are the often seen and prominently upturned "fins" at the end of the airliner's wing tips that give it a sleek new age look.
Winglets have now become quite commonplace on many airliners, especially the newer generation Boeing 737's. They reduce the aircraft's drag by partially recovering the wing tip vortex energy, and can also improve aircraft handling characteristics, enhance safety for following aircraft, and increase fuel efficiency. Not all aircraft utilize winglets however.
MH370 was a non-winglet Boeing 777-200ER, an important point to remember.
To be sure, winglets are utilized or have been retro-fitted on a variety of other aircraft that include Boeing, Airbus, McDonnell Douglas, and many others (a 737 retrofit is pictured at left). So the aircraft in question could have been any number of aircraft that had a white fuselage, and red/orange winglets, but for the sake of this discussion we'll focus on Lion and Malindo Airlines as they are the mostly frequently seen aircraft in the area that clearly match the pre-requisite winglet-fuselage-color schemes. Boeing 737's (with winglets) are by far the most numerous aircraft in their fleets.
According to Wikipedia, Lion Air has a total of 108 737's currently flying regular routes. Their newer sister airline Malindo has 19 thus far. (Lion Air also operates two aging - circa 1989 - Boeing 747's, painted in their proprietary colors, that make regular runs to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. One of these in particular caught my interest while researching this theory but I'm still looking into some particulars about it's flight history.)
Winglets are surprisingly large structures. Huge in fact when seen up close and several feet taller than the average human. B737-700 and B737-800's have winglets that are 2.49 meters high, or 8 feet, 2 inches. Winglets for B737-300's are only slightly smaller at 2.1 meters or about 7 feet high. All are at least a meter or more wide at their base for a total square meters similar to that of a small billboard. The average wingspan for a 737 with winglets is around 35.8 meters (or about 117 feet) with a fuselage width of just under 4 meters, so these winglets sit perched over 15 meters (or about 50 feet) away from the fuselage and thus have a commanding view of the entire fuselage from nose to tail.
All the 737's in both Lion Air and Malindo Air's fleets are pure white, with bright red/orange logos on the tail and either "LION" or "MALINDO" painted across the forward flanks of the fuselage in the same bright red/orange. Other than that, the only other parts of the aircraft that are painted red/orange are the engines and BOTH SIDES OF THE WINGLETS:
One aspect of having the inboard facing side of the winglets (and engines) painted bright red/orange is that the inboard side of the winglets can be lit very brightly, as seen in the YouTube video below of a Malindo Air 737 coming in for a night landing in Kota Kinablu. This is apparently not an uncommon occurrence. You can search YouTube for "Lion Air Night" or "Malindo Air Night" and find dozens of videos taken by passengers aboard similar aircraft that illustrate just how neon bright these winglets appear when they're lit.
Though it may be disorienting at first, what is prominently seen in the video below is the inboard face of an upright winglet on the right wing of the aircraft, as seen from a passenger window just aft of the wing base:
The implication is clear. On a dark night, if a winglet were lit in this manner and the aircraft were of a lighter color, especially pure white, it would very likely cast a substantial "orange glow" on the whole of the fuselage, for as is usual with the color white, it fully adopts the color of any color that illuminates it. In this case, the bright red/orange inboard winglet surfaces.
Notice too that there's a rather substantial full length reflection of the winglets that gets cast onto the wings themselves, a large swath of which is seen reflecting on the right side of the wing surface in the video above. If seen from the section of fuselage directly over the wings this would essentially double the already large surface area of source light that shines back onto the aircraft in the central part of the fuselage.
In a darkened sky, especially at a distance, this effect would likely greet the eye with a high degree of unexpectedness, leaving its mysteriously luminous appearance to further confound the senses. And interestingly - from the perspective of someone standing at some distance, especially broadside to the aircraft, the winglets themselves wouldn't appear illuminated in the least, as their outward facing sides would remain completely in shadow. What would appear to "glow" however would be the fuselage, from nose to tail, bathed in the warm and brightly lit wall of color emanating from the enormous winglet faces.
Of course this all requires that the winglets themselves are lit by at least one set of the aircraft's lights. It's not apparent at first which set of the many lights on the aircraft are actually doing the lighting here. And that brings up another problematic question...
"The glowing plane did not have nav lights...."
Ms. Tee has repeatedly stated she didn't notice any lights on the aircraft. So it's important to determine which lights on the aircraft are responsible for the winglet illumination. The winglets themselves do not have dedicated lights, so that leaves three possibilities: the aft position lights (just inboard of the winglets on the back of the wings), the landing lights (when illuminated and perhaps reflecting fuselage light), or the wing illumination lights (the most likely source). A little quick web sleuthing with comparative analysis of a few YouTube videos nails it down.
In this video of a night landing at Adi Sumarmo International Airport at Solo, Central Java, Indonesia....
1.
As the video begins the winglets are brightly lit during descent.
2.
The aircraft touches down at 7:11
3. At 8:03 the winglets suddenly lose their primary illumination leaving only a sliver of light bleeding onto them from the aft position lights.
4. At 8:21 the camera pans back down to the engines to reveal that the landing lights arestill on.
5. At 8:28 the landing lights go off (assumedly in favor of the taxi lights which are on the nose wheel).
Based on the above analysis and several other carefully observed videos where a similar series of observations can easily be made, it's clear beyond a doubt that the lights responsible for the very bright inboard winglet illumination are the wing lights. Period. Neither the landing lights nor aft position lights can do this.
But how does this reconcile with Ms. Tee's observation "...the plane did not have nav lights"?
The wing illumination lights on most airliners (the yellow beams highlighted at left) are set into the side of the fuselage just forward of the wings and shine a bright white light along the wing's forward edges at a roughly 40 degree angle rearward. This is a directionally restricted beam of light no more than about 15 degrees in width. They're used primarily at a pilot's discretion to inspect the wings for icing or other problems.
In the Lion Air 737 photo previously featured above, the small dot in the open area of the letter "n" in "Lion" is where the wing light is mounted in the side of the fuselage.
The wing lights are extremely bright and nearly rival the landing lights in intensity but are so well recessed into the fuselage and so well restricted to this narrow beam of light that it's only when viewing the aircraft from the handful of degrees where this beam is focused that the wing lights are noticeably intense.
Outside of this beam the wing light sockets are still very noticeable however so that raises the question of whether Ms. Tee would have readily noticed them during her sighting if they had been the only lights that were on at the time.
Without reenacting the scene with a real aircraft on location it would might hard to judge. The closest thing then is to take a look at a similar aircraft from an available video and see just how bright (compared to the other lights on the aircraft) that the wing lights actually look when a viewer is not directly in their beam path. Luckily I was able to find such a video on YouTube. Here are a few stills pointing out the wing light sockets when viewed from differing angles:
Here's the entire video:
As can be seen, unless a person is directly within the narrow range upon which the full intensity of the wing light beam shines, it's doesn't present an imposing presence. That's not to say in the dark of night with no other lights emanating from the aircraft that it wouldn't have been noticeable. Or would it?
If a person were focused on trying to decipher what the strangely glowing aircraft was, ponder it's smoke trail, look for navigation lights on its wings and tail, not to mention just having the crap scared out of them while trying to get the Aaza Dana settled onto a new tack, and was over 4000 meters away where the length of the entire aircraft might not be any wider than the full moon, then perhaps that pin prick of wing light forward of the wing could have very well gone unnoticed. Unless of course you were suddenly swept by that ferociously bright beam.
But - according to Ms. Tee's own "Perception of Track" drawing, she had gone below deck for a short period of time. When the wing light beam alignments are laid upon that image, it clearly shows that at the time the beam would have shone directly at the Aaza Dana as the aircraft made its slight turn, she would have been below deck. Upon returning topside the beam world have already swept by....
It must also be remembered that the aircraft was at a moderately good altitude and at a 30 degree or so elevation from her line of sight, so it's possible that even if she had been topside during the alignment of the beam, the Aaza Dan may have been below the angle at which the beam's most noticeable "cone of intensity" would normally shine. Especially had it been making the slow turn to it's right as she reported because it's left wing would have been angling slightly upward and away from her position at sea level.
"I do not recall any markings of any kind...."
Good point - but here's the real the kicker. Being as the light source (i.e. illuminated red/orange winglet) is identical to the color of the tail logo and airline name splashed across the forward half of the fuselage, these markings would tend to blend, perhaps even disappear, into the normally white surfaces of the fuselage because white adopts the color of its source light. Acting as any routine optical filter would, this phenomena would tend to render the aircraft rather featureless, especially at a distance. With the fuselage bathed in the same red/orange light as the airline name and logo, they would essentially appear to have vanished, or at least be diminished so greatly in relative contrast that they went unnoticed.
You can simulate this effect yourself by conducting the following quick experiment:
1. Download this image and put it on your smart phone or tablet. It's just a solid splotch of Malindo Air red/orange.
2. Print out this PDF on an 8.5'x11" sheet of paper (landscape orientation). Print it in full color. It's of a profile of a Malindo Air Boeing 737.
3. Go into a completely dark room or closet (completely dark!)
4. Open the Malindo air red/orange splotch image in full screen on your smart phone or tablet.
5. Shine it on the image of the Malindo 737.
Here's how the printed PDF (with white margins cut off) and Smart Phone look in White Light:
And here's the Printed PDF in the Smart Phone's "Winglet" Light:
As you can see, the tail logo and airline name essentially disappear. Without them the aircraft appears to have few markings whatsoever and is otherwise just a "glowing orange" featureless plane. This is precisely what Ms. Tee repeatedly insists she saw. Had all or most of the passenger window shades been pulled down at the time, they too could have easily adopted the red/orange source light and been rendered near invisible from a distance.
This rudimentary experiment clearly cannot invoke the true manner in which a brightly lit winglet may have reflected back upon the glossy white surface of a highly polished cylindrically shaped fuselage gliding through a very dark night, but it's not hard to imagine that some kind of richly colored and unusual looking lighting effects would certainly have to have been in evidence.
Thus far, I have not been able to find any photos or videos on the web that illustrate a similar aircraft in this "illuminated" state, but this is quite understandable. The effect is easily "spoiled" by any substantial backlighting or ambient light that might be at play in the proximity of the aircraft, such as those found at airports and in anything other than a dark moonless night devoid of any other light sources.
For instance, if conducting the experiment above in a dark closet, cracking the door to allow even a minimal amount of "white light" to flood in diminishes the effect. That said, I can see no theoretical reasons why, if under a very dark sky, and otherwise devoid of any other substantial light sources, that the effects postulated herein would fail to manifest themselves.
As stated previously, should this theory be judged to present perhaps the only conceivable explanation for why an entire airliner would "glow orange" in the manner Ms. Tee observed it, it categorically excludes MH370 as being the culprit. It had no winglets, and its paint scheme and tail logo would have been difficult to mask or visually diminish under any other conceivable lighting scenario that would allow for the illumination of the entire fuselage.
"...it was just a plane glowing orange and surrounded by an orange glow like a halo... The ‘halo’ was fuzzy though."
Ah, the halo. This one may finally have a plausible answer too...
Grab a flashlight and go into your bathroom (one preferably without a window). Turn the hot water on in the shower and let the room steam up for a few minutes. Turn off the bathroom light. Hold the flashlight at arms length, and point it at your face. Place your hand a few inches in front of the flashlight so as to completely eclipse the lens. Now turn on the flashlight. Presto! A fuzzy halo.
The unseen and similarly illuminated starboard winglet (out of sight on the opposite side of the plane from Ms. Tee's perspective) provides the perfect mechanism by which to generate a fuzzy orange halo. Just add moisture and/or atmospheric particulates and you're there. In this case, the fuselage (your hand), is brightly backlit by the starboard winglet (the flashlight), which shines through atmospheric water vapor or particulates (the shower steam) and creates a halo. The more moisture or particulates in the air, the greater the effect.
There were massive fires raging across central Sumatra at the time. Mt. Sinabung had been erupting for some days previous. But even if the smoke and ash from these Central Sumatran natural disasters hadn't drifted in sufficient quantities as far north as the Andaman Sea, ocean related atmospheric moisture could easily have been prevalent enough to provide the "shower steam" needed to generate a halo. Having a bright enough backlight is the key. And it would have been perfectly placed. And orange.
In Closing - Smoke Trails, Altitude, Heading, A Halo, and other Pesky Conundrums
Assuming for a moment that the theory herein proposed were true, it subsequently begs a host of additional questions that cannot be easily ignored and must also be addressed with an objective mind. The foremost of which is: Why would an airliner (i.e. Lion, Malindo, whomever...) be traveling from north to south at that particular location in the first place? Does it make any sense in terms of airway protocols and regional traffic patterns?
I've searched high and low on the internet for even the slightest hint of any aircraft having been reported to have been passing through the area at the time with an in flight incident that would have been characterized by black smoke and and a lowered altitude. Both of these two conditions aren't necessarily unusual for an airliner to experience (it happens somewhere everyday around the world), but thus far I've found absolutely nothing in the record that mentions such an aircraft. That doesn't necessarily mean it couldn't have happened, just that there isn't any easily available record of such an occurrence.
Smoke indicates either very old engines, such as the now aged but still flying P&W JT8D's (a topic I presented in a Cruisers Forum post which Ms. Tee has reviewed and feels does not represent the much thicker smoke she saw) or something burning like oil from a blown engine, or a cargo or electrical fire. So far as altitude, had the issue that created the smoke caused or triggered accidental or purposeful decompression the standard operational procedure is to descend to a lower altitude to avoid hypoxia. The recommended altitude in most Flight Crew Operation Manuals for emergency descent is 8,000 feet unless a higher altitude is mandated by mountainous terrain. This is approximately the altitude Ms. Tee has estimated the aircraft to have been cruising.
Why most of the running lights may have been switched off is a trickier matter, but had there been electrical problems associated with the emergency it's not unusual that all but the most essential equipment might be shut down as a precaution. Why the wing lights would have been considered "essential" is of course open to conjecture.
So far as records of an occurrence being reported in the area at the time, it's not altogether unusual that no public record would exist of this aircraft passing NOPEK at that particular time. Incidents involving cargo or passenger airliners on routine maintenance or delivery operations that are not carrying passengers at the time, and result in no loss of of life or injury to the crew, often go unreported to anyone other than the operations manager of the airline or company. Their main focus may be nothing other than issuing a repair order, and if possible get the aircraft back to their company MRO (Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul) center, so as to get it back in service ASAP. In United States, even the death of an animal (not traveling with its owner while in transit, such as a pet on a cargo plane) does not require reporting to the authorities. Lion and Malindo Air might have innumerable reasons to be flying through that area with no more than a skeleton crew aboard coming to or from a charter run, specialized maintenance facility, a "wounded bird" hop to their own MRO from a breakdown elsewhere, and the list goes on. So just because there's no easily discovered record of a plane being there, certainly doesn't mean there wasn't one.
There's an additional consideration - one that especially relates to Lion Air of late. For the last several years, they've been plagued with a variety of incidents that have brought their safety record under considerable scrutiny in the press. In 2007 (along with all other Indonesian airlines apparently) they were banned from operating flights in European Union airspace. In one recent mishap in April of 2013 a rookie pilot broke a 737-800 clean in half when he undershot the runway and dumped 108 people and a shiny new airliner into the ocean while attempting a landing in Bali. Thankfully no one was killed, but press like that is hard to live down. Thus, unless it involved passengers that might report their experience via the press or social media, which would have commanded full disclosure, an outfit like Lion would have every good reason to downplay any mechanical difficulties experienced by an aircraft in their fleet whenever and wherever possible.
In spite of these potential roadblocks, deciphering the observed behavior and heading of the aircraft at NOPEK in terms of what of a plausible scenario for any "non-MH370" aircraft might be still begs to be addressed. Unless of course - it was MH370. But until someone can offer up a plausible explanation of how the entire length of 9M-MRO's fuselage could possibly have appeared to steadily glow orange, I'll favor putting my bets on another explanation.
Closing Thoughts
I feel the greatest admiration for Katherine for having risked public ridicule and her sanity by coming forth with what she rightfully felt might help resolve the greatest aviation mystery of all time (sorry Amelia... you got bumped). Luckily the former wasn't too badly handled by the press. I hope that the latter may be somewhat assuaged by the theory herein proposed.
Readers with comments or questions may contact me personally at edtruthan@gmail.com
2014/08/11 - 21:30 PST: ~
Corrected 737 average wingspan from 117m to 35.8m (is actually 117ft, duh).
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Added 737 fuselage width (approx 4m) note.
~ Changed MH370 aircraft type from "777-200" to "777-20ER".
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Minor typos found & fixed.