AERODYNAMICS DEBUNK THE CONSPIRACY THEORY FLYDUBAI FZ1073 COULD NOT HAVE SURVIVED THAT DIVE

There are loud noises in social media that the flyDubai FZ1073 incident is a false flag. The two main points of contention are (1) the cabin in FZ1073 still look well organised despite the ordeal; (2) the plane should have broken up in that kind of dive.

Singapore Airlines Flight SQ321 dropped 178 feet (54 meters) in 4.6 seconds over Myanmar on May 21, 2024, after hitting severe, sudden turbulence. FZ1073 dropped 17,000 ft in under 30 seconds (Reuters). The feature image compares the cabin interior. Surely there is something wrong!

Alex Jones reports : Everyone from airline pilots to military terrorism experts say the official story is 100% impossible. The airplane would have disintegrated.

Most ordinary folks would be persuaded. Something is not quite right. For those interested in the truth, hear me out.

1. SQ321 is a free fall; FZ1073 is a controlled dive. The aerodynamics in the two cases work differently.
2. Alex Jones type of commentary is called a fallacy of appeal to authority. 2 or 3 pilots expressing their opinion is not the same as 200,000 - 300,000 professionals talking. Besides, Jones and his interviewees offered zero evidence. Rhetorics is not a studied proposition.

Let's walk through the physics without the heavy mathematics. After this, you will understand the wholes mechanics and not be fooled by misinformation or disinformation, by the empty vessels and mindless "cut-and-paste" trollers..

Let's take 2 balls -- same size and shape, different mass (say one metal and the other rubber) and drop them from a height:-

a). In a vacuum:
- Both hit the ground at the same time. They fall because they are pulled by the Earth's gravity. The force of gravity is the same for everyone : g = 9.81 m/s². 
- Their vertical acceleration is continuous, i.e. they continue to pick up speed all the way down.

Speed and acceleration -- there is a big difference:

• Speed: Measures the rate of distance covered (e.g., driving at a constant 60 mph).

• Acceleration: Measures the rate of change in speed or direction (e.g., pressing the gas pedal to go from 0 to 60 mph).

b). In the open:
- The heavier ball hits the ground first. This is because in the open there is air. Air provides resistance. So now there are 2 forces at work -- downward force of gravity; upward force of air resistance. The upward force of air resistance has lesser effect on the heavier metal ball than the rubber ball.
- The acceleration of the objects changes. The downward force is gravity 9.81 m/s².  At first they fall very fast and picks up speed, but after a while they reach a stage where the acceleration is constant. This is called the "terminal velocity".  This is where the downward force equals the upward resistance force.

c). Same weight but different shapes:
The aerodynamic effects come into play. The object that offers less air resistance hit the ground first.

When you are standing on solid base (on the ground, on a chair, on a table, in an elevator, in a plane), gravity force is pushing you down to the centre of the Earth, the floor is pushing you up with equal force. You are at a neutral state of natural lG.

The Falling Elevator

Let’s imagine you are in an elevator. When it is standing still, the downward pull of gravity and the upward push of the floor are perfectly balanced. You experience your normal weight at 1 G.

Now, imagine the elevator descends 30 floors. The split second it descends, you feel a bit lighter. The is because the floor pushing up gave way for a split second. Once it gets moving and cruises at a constant speed, the forces balance out again, and you feel completely normal at 1 G.

However, the split second before the elevator comes to a stop, you suddenly feel heavier and your legs buckle slightly. This happens because your body’s momentum wants to keep moving downward, but the elevator floor must actively decelerate. To slow your descent, the floor has to push upward with a force greater than gravity. In that split second, this extra upward mechanical force spikes the G-load above 1 G, making you feel temporarily heavier..   

Let's imagine the elevator cable snaps and ignoring the air resistance in the shaft:

Gravity is the only force left. Gravity pulls downward on the heavy metal elevator cabin. Simultaneously, gravity pulls downward on your body.

Gravity accelerates all objects at the exact same rate 9.81 m/s². Therefore, both you and the elevator cabin begin accelerating downward into the shaft at the exact same speed.

Because you and the elevator are falling at the exact same rate, the floor drops out from beneath you at the exact same speed you are dropping. The physical contact between your feet and the floor is instantly broken. Because the floor is no longer pushing upward against your feet, the mechanical stress on your body vanishes. Both you and the elevator cabin are pulled by gravity at the exact same rate, the floor is never "pushed into" your feet, nor is it "pulled away" faster than you can fall. It moves downward in perfect lockstep with you. You and the cabin falling at the same acceleration, the floor no longer pushing you up, this is the state of 0G. You are floating. Your internal organs float inside your chest, and your arms float by your side. To anyone looking inside the cabin, you are perfectly weightless and floating in mid-air, exactly like an astronaut inside the International Space Station.

If you understand this, then congratulations. Because Einstein said that the moment he understood that gravity and acceleration are two sides of the same coin, he had the "happiest thought of my life".

In a real-world building, you wouldn't float perfectly still for long because of air resistance. As the elevator drops, air gets trapped underneath the cabin in the narrow elevator shaft. This trapped air acts like a cushion, slowing the elevator's downward acceleration to less than 9.81 m/s². However, the air inside the cabin moves with you, meaning there is no air resistance pushing up on your body. Because the elevator cabin is slowed down by the shaft air but your body is not, the floor of the elevator would actually catch up to you and push up against your feet, causing you to feel a very slight, fractional G-force (e.g., 0.1 G or 0.2 G) rather than pure 0 G floating.

Flight SQ321

What I described in the illustration of the elevator in free fall is exactly what happened in the SQ321 incident. Planes often experience free falls during air turbulence or zones of air pockets. The plane just dropped like a piece of metal - there is lift, the upward resistant force, just gravity pulling it down. The plane was flying level when it suddenly had a vertical downward accleration of 178 ft in 4.6 seconds. When planes are flying at level, the cabin load is at 1G. However, prior to the drop, it was passing through turbulence and at the point when it dropped suddenly, cabin load was +1.35G. During the drop it hit -1.5G.

Negative G in the cabin means the floor and the ceiling are dropping faster than loose effects. All unattached effects including passengers not buckled down, hit the ceiling because they are falling slower than the plane. Compartments may fly open and baggages dislodged and hit the ceiling. When the plane levels off again and vertical acceleration stops, cabin load returns to 1G and all effects come smashing down to cabin floor. The cabin is totally disorganised, things get damaged and passengers suffer serious injuries.

This is the common scenario in a plane in free fall situation.

Flight FZ1073

The Reuters report:
Reuters is the first to report FZ1073 plunged 17,000 ft in about 30 seconds. It is based on this data point that so many experts claim the incident is a false flag because no commercial plain could have survived the event.

There are 3 phases in the plane's fall:

Phase 1 (The Entry Phase): To transition a massive airliner from level flight into a catastrophic cliff-dive, the initial push-over has to be incredibly sharp. For the first few seconds, the plane would outrun gravity aggressively, instantly hitting severe negative Gs. Estimated -1G to -1.5G.

Phase 2 (The Mid-Dive Phase): Once the plane is fully established in the dive, it would rapidly accelerate toward terminal velocity. At this stage, terminal velocity is no longer your friend -- the plane would be rocketing past Mach 1.0 (supersonic speeds).Estimated cabin load 0G to +0.2G.

Phase 3 (The Pull-Out Phase - The Destructive Positive G): This is where the "disintegration" math becomes real. To arrest a vertical drop of 34,000 feet per minute before slamming into the ground, the wings must generate a colossal amount of upward lift to change the plane's direction. Estimated Peak Cabin Load: +5.0 G to +6.0 G (Hypothetical)

Why they say it is impossible for FZ1703 to survive:

1. No commercial planes are made to fly at supersonic speed. At near Mach 1.0, the flyDubai plane would have disintegrated. Where did they get this Mach 1.0?  The plane dropped from 34,000 ft to 17,000 ft in 30 seconds. Tracking data say the ground speed reached 598 knots. At 17,000 ft altitude, the speed of sound is 620 knots. Thus 598 is about Mach 0.82.

2. A standard Boeing 737 wing is structurally rated to withstand an ultimate load of roughly +3.75 G (+2.5 G limit × 1.5 safety margin). Attempting a 5.0 G to 6.0 G recovery pull-out would severely exceed this ultimate limit, causing the main wing spars to physically snap upward, resulting in the catastrophic mid-air destruction of the airframe.

The AP report:
AP later on report revised altitude and time:

Time          Altitude

08:20:56   34,000 ft

08:21:48   33,225 ft

08:22:35   18,925 ft

08:22:40   16,600 ft

08:23:25   21,725 ft

08:24:18   14,950 ft

The cabin load is estimates at 1G, -0.2G to -0.5G, low G to 1G, +3.08G, 0.3 to 0.5G and 1G. Points to note:-

1. It did hit negative Gs which means things smashing against the ceiling.

2. The Boeing 777 MAX has legally certified limit of upward pull of +2.5G and downward push of -1G. FZ1703 did not reach critical negative Gs. The stress on the pull out at timeframe 5 required +3.08 G against operating limit of +2.5.G. However, Boeing is built with 1.5 times redundancies so the +2.5G is still well within the plane's actual structural capability. It is stressed, but won't disintegrate.

3. Most importantly, the drop of 17,000 in timeframe (1) to (4) is not 30 seconds as originally reported by Reuters. It is close to 2 minutes and this changes everything. The 2-minute descent means a rate of around 7,000 to 8,500 feet per minute. While still an incredibly terrifying and violent ride for the passengers, it is a speed a Boeing 737 frame can physically handle without exceeding its ultimate aerodynamic design speeds. The plane suffered structural rudder damage because the initial entry and exit were still highly violent, but it remained in one piece because it never had to endure the catastrophic supersonic forces of a 30-second cliff-dive. Time to throw out the claim the plane reached near Mach 1.0 and should have broken up as so many "experts" say.

The Actual Aerodynamics No One Knows

We are still left with the fact the plane reached negative Gs, so why didn't things in the cabin go berserk? Why does the FZ1073 cabin look completely different from the destruction in SQ321?

The difference between SQ321 and FZ1703 is the SIA plane incident was a free-fall (a sudden vertical fall) whereas the flyDubai plane was in a controlled dive (it is still flying). 

In the falling ball illustration, I mentioned shape matters because aerodynamics come into play, even more so when it is a flying aircraft. There are four aerodynamic forces -- lift, weight, thrust and drag for upward, downward, forward and backward forces respectively.  . 

SQ321 is a free fall so the G computation is just like the falling elevator. The G computation considers only the weight and the vertical acceleration. All the "experts" who claim the plane should have broken up all used the simple mathematics of vertical acceleration. Similarly my Gs above are on the same basis. The reason is simple. Acceleration is the only data we have at the moment.

Certain flight data is available to the public from tracking platforms like Flightradar24 and AirNav Radar. That's where Reuters and AP got their info from. But the info is only about time-stamped location and altitude This public macro telemetry data (the rapid changes in altitude over time) only computes a simplified, one-dimensional linear physics.  Missing are the critical information on 
Real-world G-loads, the full 3D aerodynamic data, without which the Gs mentioned all over social media are strictly theoretical mathematical numbers.

Further details are only available from the Flight Data Recorder.  The data it provides can be categorised inti 4 groups:

1. Aircraft motion - what the plane actually did:
Normal Acceleration (Nz), Longitudinal acceleration (Nx), Lateral acceleration (Ny), Pitch, Roll, Yaw, 
Pitch Rate, Roll Rate, Yaw Rate, Altitude, Vertical Speed, Airspeed/Mach, Angle of Attack.

2. Aircraft control -- what the pilot, auto-pilot and systems were commanding. This tells us how the plane got into and out of the dive.
Control-column/control-wheel inputs, Elevator position, Elevator trim, Aileron position, Rudder position, Spoiler position, Autopilot status, Flight-director commands, Autithrottle status, Engie thrust/engine parameters.  

3. Aircraft physical state -- Allows the engineer to answer is this trajectory aerodynamically and structurally plausible for this particular 737 at that particular weight and configuration.
Aircraft weight and time, Centre of Gravity, Mass distribution/moments of inertia, Atmospheric temperature, Pressure, Wind speed direction, Aircraft config, Engine condition,Structural load/limit.

4. Cabin environment - what the passengers actually experienced.
Cabin pressure, Cabin altitude, Cabin-pressure rate of change, Oxygen-mask deployment, Cabin vertical/lateral /longitudinal acceleration. Seat position relative to centre of gravity,Passenger rerstraint status, Seat/tray config, Object mass and position.

If the FDR contains a reliable time-synchronised Nz channel, from this alone we essentially already know the aircraft's normal load factor. If the Nz never registers negative Gs in the cabin at all, that answers why passengers, cups, luggages never hit the ceiling. 

So the question is, if the simple vertical acceleration computation alone shows negative Gs, why will the Nz show a different G? The answer is because unlike SQ321 which is free-falling, thus only vertical acceleration matters, FZ1073 is still flying, so other aerodynamic forces are at work which impact the cabin load. 

The aircraft's aerodynamic lift, that is the force pushing it up, is impacted by not just aircraft speed, wind speed, but the Pitch Angle, the Flight-Path Angle, and the Angle of Attack. (Wing flaps are used mainly for take-off and landing, not a factor in FZ1073).
Pitch angle -- where the aircraft's nose is pointing relative to the horizon.
Flight-path angle -- where the aircraft is moving relative to the horizon.
Angle of Attack -- the difference between the aircraft's reference/pitch direction and the relative airflow. 

Think of an aircraft as having three different "directions":

1. Where the nose is pointing.
That's the pitch angle.The nose can be pointing level, slightly down, or substantially down.

2. Where the aircraft is actually travelling

That's the flight path. An aircraft can have its nose pointing slightly downward while its actual trajectory is much steeper downward. 

3. How the wings are meeting the air

That's the angle of attack. And this is the really important one for G-loading. The wings don't produce lift simply because the aircraft is pointing upward or downward. They produce lift because of how the wings are oriented relative to the airflow.

Here's the mental picture

Imagine an aircraft travelling very steeply downward:

Flight path:

"I'm going down at a very steep angle."

But the nose could be pointing considerably less steeply downward:

"I'm not pointing down nearly as much as I'm travelling down."

The wing therefore still meets the airflow from underneath at a substantial angle. The wing can continue producing a lot of lift. And that lift is what helps determine how heavily the aircraft -- and therefore the passengers -- is being loaded.

So here's the apparent paradox:

Many "experts" look at the aircraft's track and say:

"Good grief, that aircraft is diving almost vertically!"

And that may be completely true. But someone sitting inside the aircraft might not be experiencing anything remotely like free fall.

Why?

Because the direction the aircraft is travelling tells you what the aircraft is doing in space. It does not, by itself, tell you what the passengers are feeling. The wings may still be producing substantial aerodynamic force.

Conclusion:

1. SQ321 was in free-fall and experienced negative Gs. Things and passengers hit the ceiling, stuff gets damaged. Cabin in disarray. This is not the same experience of FZ1073 which was a plane in a controlled dive. 
2. AP's report show FZ1073 never reached anywhere near Mach 1.0. The entry into and the pull out of the dive shows stressed negative and positive Gs, but still within the aircraft's structural capability. This dispels the narrative that the plane could not have survived the dive.
3. The simple vertical acceleration computation based on AP's report shows FZ1073 reached low negative Gs. Passengers' videos and images show a different experience.. The cabin is not in disarray and no passengers hit the ceiling. This will be proven by Flight Data Recorder which will show the Nz never reached negative G. 
4. The paradox is conspiracy theorists are saying 17,000 ft in 30 seconds is impossible therefore it must be a false flag, but even if it were 30 seconds (which we now know it isn't), thus nearing Mach 1.0, the plane survived, so how can it be false?

In closing, just to alleviate anxiety of flying, Boeing planes are built with x1.5 redundancies to make it a very safe aircraft. Their newer "fly-by-wire" planes (digital controls replacing physical levers), has auto-controls that prevent accidental or intentional sabotage actions to input command setting exceeding safety levels. 
 

Do your part. Spread truth and help to diffuse the massive misinformation and disinformation goin round the world.

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