That Oil-Rig Worker

https://twitter.com/guywalters/status/443651290015338496/photo/1 (above) is the letter he wrote before being fired. (attached copy here). The fact that he daily saw contrails on the same air-route would seem to add weight to his claimed sighting, bearing in mind that the brilliance of such a flare-fire at night (and background cloud-cover) may have actually increased the night-time visual sighting range by a factor of 2 to 2.5. i.e. it could have been in excess of 300 kms away from him and still in a valid line-of-sight at its cruise altitude. The reported duration of the observed flare-fire (10 to 15 seconds) also very closely accords with what would have happened in an oxygen flare eruption. There was also the sighting by the lone yacht-sailor lady, but I’ve not pursued that for any detail. My theory is that all aboard would have perished from anoxia and cold within around 10 minutes of the flare erupting. It is possible that some aft-end crew may have survived longer due to walk-around bottles, but they would have been powerless (although they may well have been able to enter the flight-deck). I believe that depressurization would auto-release the flight-deck door-lock.

For an oil rig platform 100 m above the ocean, and an object 348 Km away at 38,000 ft MSL, the line of sight would be 0.33 deg above the horizontal line of sight. At 100 m elevation, the horizon is 0.32 deg below horizontal. So the object would appear to be approximately 0.65 deg above the visible horizon - slightly more than the width of a full moon.

Certainly on a perfectly clear night you can see the moon rising, so it's obvious that you might be able to see that far. But it requires perfectly clear conditions nearly down to the horizon for a 348 km range - not common. The airplane clearly wouldn't appear so high in the sky as to be obviously an airplane - not on a dark nearly moonless night in the middle of the ocean with no visible horizon and thus no clear reference for where the water ended and sky began.

(According to some atmospherics pages, refraction will affect these numbers, but it's hard to predict and may actually be either a positive or negative effect, meaning the farthest visible horizon can appear closer or farther, depending on the reflective temperature gradients in the atmosphere.)

You asked: "I have read reports that the oil worker could not have seen MH370 due to distance and line-of-sight geometry.

Pupil
The pupil appears as a black dot in the middle of the eye. This black area is actually a hole that takes in light so the eye can focus on the objects in front of it.
Iris
The iris is the area of the eye that contains the pigment which gives the eye its color. This area surrounds the pupil, and uses the dilator pupillae muscles to widen or close the pupil. This allows the eye to take in more or less light depending on how bright it is around you. If it is too bright, the iris will shrink the pupil so that they eye can focus more effectively.
Lens
The lens sits directly behind the pupil. This is a clear layer that focuses the light the pupil takes in. It is held in place by the ciliary muscles, which allow the lens to change shape depending on the amount of light that hits it so it can be properly focused.
Retina
The light focused by the lens will be transmitted onto the retina. This is made of rods and cones arranged in layers, which will transmit light into chemicals and electrical pulses. The retina is located in the back of the eye, and is connected to the optic nerves that will transmit the images the eye sees to the brain so they can be interpreted. The back of the retina, known as the macula, will help interpret the details of the object the eye is working to interpret. The center of the macula, known as the fova will increase the detail of these images to a perceivable point.

What controls what the retina sees and transmits to the brain?

I answered that in my "blog". Yes it was quite possible due to a phenomenon known as "empty field myopia". On a very dark night (such as over the South China Sea off Vietnam from an oil-rig, there is no light pollution and so the eyes are almost 100% dark-adapted and lack anything on which to focus; therefore they tend to focus at only a few feet - but quickly zoom in on any sudden bright light in the distance, making it appear closer than it is. Retina feed-in is very open on a dark black night as the pupil tends to open up fully to try and take in any available light at all.... and thus, being already "opened up", makes the eyes very receptive to a sudden infusion of bright light on a pitch-black background, no matter how distant. Doesn't work with the moon as background, as the eyes are already acclimated to its significant visible light level. A bright flare or explosion will tend to "sear" the retina, no matter how distant -because of the stark contrast and the pupil being fully dilated.

When we were night-searching for the "One and All" survivors (late 1970's), I recall seeing the photoflash of another Squadron's search aircraft from 500 feet at night off the North Queensland coast. He was supposedly in a completely different search area but had used his photoflash to illuminate and image a radar target. We checked with him on UHF just where that target was - and when our Nav plotted it out, it was actually more than 200nm away from us at the time and that aircraft was also at 500ft AMSL.. As we got closer to the edge of our search pattern's boundaries some hours later, we saw his 30 second searchlight strikes (80 million candlepower) from 150nms away. It was being magnified by middle level cloud. So a 777 cockpit's DDT oxygen flare "explosion" at height (35,000ft), coming out of a dark black sky, would be visible for hundreds of miles to an observer on an oceanic oil-rig.

"Empty Field Myopia" is a little-known phenomenon, but a very real scientific fact. I've addressed this in my blog (or its links) at http://tinyurl.com/or9bzf2

DDT = Deflagration to Detonation Transition Overpressure (aka oxygen flare) - this is a sudden short duration flare precipitated by the oxygen enrichment levels reaching 87% in the presence of an ignition source such as any arcing wire or terminal (source of this is the NASA Centre for Oxygen Related Fires). In an enclosed space such as a fully shut-off flight-deck, oxygen enrichment time to danger levels can be measured in mere minutes (NASA source).... even with the background aircon swap-out air levels. This is the logical development in any LP hose oxygen leak in a confined area - such as a flight-deck. DDT is the prime candidate for MH370's self-extinguishing flare as well as for MS804 (May, 2016 Airbus A320 crash in the Mediterranean -link). Airbus crew oxygen cylinder is in the Airbus electronics bay ceiling just below the RH seat. Think (for MH370) pressurized aircraft and an oxygen blowtorch weakened fuselage side + DDT overpressure spike ==>> holed and depressurized. Just an airborne Nefertiti (SU-GBP) style event (link). It's automatically LETHAL at cruise altitude for all onboard. I guess that I should also restate the bleedingly obvious: Once the fuselage is holed, the aircraft depressurized and the oxygen level dissipated, "the fire is then instantly OUT". This is an abiding aspect of disbelief for all MH370 theoretical pundits..... the bland assurance that any such fire would soon have brought the 9M-MRO airframe down. Not so - in this particular flash-fire scenario.

DDT likely equals the initiator for MH370's fate (i.e. a self-extinguishing fire once the hole is blown out in the oxy blowtorch weakened fuselage side - by the DDT's overpressure spike).. The additional side-effect of the DDT flare is to partially melt, sear, trigger or trip all oxygen "wetted surfaces" such as flight-deck plastics (LED's, paddle switches, pushbutton switches, screens, CB's etc etc) This is a very transient and transitory condition for electrical connectivity and continuity, so that upon cool-down, many disrupted circuits will re-latch and/or back-up alternative paths to power will kick in (think fail-safe redundancy and fault-tolerance) - but only for those critical systems imbued with a system survival prioritization by design. It's worth remembering that the electrical design philosophy first used by Boeing in the B717 was also developed further into the 777 design. It has some unique characteristics. See link on Boeing Aero Magazine describing the 717's IEPS (Integrated Electrical Power System). Quote: "In this no-break power transfer system, electrically-held relays were also selected because they are simpler and more reliable than the magnetically latched type." In a flash-fire they can "break", but once cooled down, they can re-make their circuits. This feature could explain some MH370 apparent anomalies.

One final important thought is that the progression to a flight-deck oxygen flare fire is quite likely an insidious development. Why? How? An arcing wire inaudible/invisible/unsmellable (?) behind a side-panel and a close adjacent oxygen hose is compromised and begins leaking (or has always been leaking?). The enrichment levels build up but you will NOT notice that. Just like carbon monoxide poisoning, there is absolutely NOTHING to alert you, whether this is happening beneath a side console or below in the avionics compartment. At this stage (i.e. pre-DDT event) the pilots may or may not be on oxygen (i.e. they are likely not masked up as there'd be no reason to be) - but even if they were, it'd be pointless. Their oxygen supply has just killed them - and it's not there as a life-saver anymore..

https://tinyurl.com/ya74fzpk [Empty Field myopia, fully dilated pupils and the image left on the retina via a distant explosion in a pitch-black night sky]