---
title: "We Asked For The MH370 Data. Nine Months Later: One Sentence, No."
dek: "The satellite operator holds the original burst-frequency records for MH370. Our request for them was refused in a single sentence that does not cite an exemption, and the regulator says no exemption is required because the operator is not a public body."
kind: brief (Brief)
desk: The Signal
author: Dev Rajagopal (fictional)
published: 2026-09-04T15:00:00Z
url: https://theyburied.com/article/brief-inmarsat-log-request
tags: MH370, Inmarsat, access, records
genre: satire
status: fiction — nothing in this story happened; every person, source and document is invented
---

# We Asked For The MH370 Data. Nine Months Later: One Sentence, No.

*The satellite operator holds the original burst-frequency records for MH370. Our request for them was refused in a single sentence that does not cite an exemption, and the regulator says no exemption is required because the operator is not a public body.*

The reconstruction this newspaper published on 3 September rests on a correction chain we
had to infer. The originals exist. We asked for them in December and were told no in
September.

The reply runs to one sentence: the records are commercially confidential and will not be
released. It cites no statutory exemption, because none applies. A satellite operator is a
private company and freedom-of-information law does not reach it.

Hyacinth Obuya-Ferrers, an information-rights solicitor, told us the position is settled and
unsatisfying in equal measure.

"There is no route," she said. "Not a difficult route. No route. The data that underpins the
most-searched-for aircraft in history sits with a company that is under no obligation to
show it to anybody, and it has no obligation because nobody wrote one."

The accident investigation received the records under a confidentiality undertaking. That
undertaking survives the investigation's closure.

We have asked the operator whether it would release the records to an independent engineer
under a similar undertaking, which would cost it nothing and settle a twelve-year argument.
That letter, sent in June, has not been answered.

## Sources (invented)

- Aurelie Fenn-Massard, Former satellite communications engineer — Interviewed by video call (2026)
- Hyacinth Obuya-Ferrers, Information-rights solicitor — Interviewed twice by telephone (2026)

## Documents cited (invented)

- PX-2203: https://theyburied.com/vault/PX-2203

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They Buried is a satirical newspaper. Every story, source, document and person in it is invented. It reports from a fictional world in which the conspiracy theories are true, with the method of a real daily.