EEVblog Electronics Community Forum
General => General Technical Chat => Topic started by: RichardK on March 09, 2014, 12:10:13 am
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It's being reported that (http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/08/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-plane-missing/index.html) at least 20 of the passengers on Malaysia Air flight 370 are employees of Freescale semiconductors...
http://online.wsj.com/article/PR-CO-20140308-902237.html (http://online.wsj.com/article/PR-CO-20140308-902237.html)
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More detailed story here
http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/semiconductor-firms-top-management-onboard-missing-mas-flight (http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/semiconductor-firms-top-management-onboard-missing-mas-flight)
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The news say that 2 stolen pasport is used by passenger to onboard.
Oh man,this is really raise some horrible speculation.
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The news say that 2 stolen pasport is used by passenger to onboard.
Oh man,this is really raise some horrible speculation.
Someone I know from the region said the terrorism speculation is a bit premature. He said stolen/forged passports are easy to get in certain areas and that they are commonly used by drug smugglers to avoid suspicion. So it's possible a couple of drug smugglers got very unlucky on their choice of flight. Though it's equally possible two passengers were terrorists loaded bombs in their luggage and blew up the plane.
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20 top management from the same company? I wonder if they were working on something for someone.
As for terrorism, yea I find that idea to be stupid. No one claimed anything like they would normally do. Plus I think its rediculous that it so easy to use a stolen passport. Whats the point of having one if anyone can steal yours and use it?
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The passports were both stolen from an Austrian and an Italian. The people using them were found on CCTV and not of Asian, but of African appearance.
I will shut up now before Dave labels me a racist.
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Barely got 20mins into the flight. Still climbing at the last ADS-B report.
http://flightaware.com/live/flight/MAS370/history/20140307/1635Z/WMKK/ZBAA/tracklog (http://flightaware.com/live/flight/MAS370/history/20140307/1635Z/WMKK/ZBAA/tracklog)
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Today I read a news article saying they still don't rule out the plane has been hijacked and forced to land somewhere else. I hope they are right even though a technical failure or even a meteorite strike are more likely.
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The people using them were found on CCTV and not of Asian bbc is using that line too all trhis speculation is silly might as ell conclude a fart from god knocked the plane down.
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Today I read a news article saying they still don't rule out the plane has been hijacked and forced to land somewhere else. I hope they are right even though a technical failure or even a meteorite strike are more likely.
No, this isnt possible. Radar would have found them over any land. Or someone trained really hard to be able to fly a plane that large below where radar could detect it which of course is quite doubtful.
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Oh man,this is really raise some horrible speculation.
The usual hysteria. People flying on stolen passports are very common. Regular criminals are many orders of magnitude more numerous than "terrorists" who want to blow up planes. The fact that no one has taken responsibility for it indicates that's almost certainly not the case.
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Though it's equally possible two passengers were terrorists loaded bombs in their luggage and blew up the plane.
They aren't equally possible. One is very very much more common than the other.
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If we take this one flight then almost 1% of its passengers were traveling with stolen identities. Other media report there are even more suspect passengers, pushing the number to something like 1.6%. If we assume for a moment that that single sample is typical (which is a very bold assumption), but stick with the lower number than it would still mean that maybe 1% of all air travel passengers use stolen IDs.
That would be an enormous amount of people with unknown identities entering aircrafts every day. And that is rather worrying. It would mean that all that anti-terrorist security check stuff can in no way be designed and intended to keep suspicious people away from aircrafts. It would mean that all this security stuff is indeed what some conspiracy people claim: Means for spreading fear and terrorizing the own population. And it probably also means that the influence of organized crime is enormous, because those are the ones profiting most from improper checks of passenger identities.
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It's called Security Theater. It's meant to make people feel safer, even if the actual increase in safety is minimal or non-existent. Or even more dangerous!
I've been through airport security with a 2.5" pocket knife that I forgot I had on me. I went through the X-ray body scanner and everything. They didn't spot shit. I was quite surprised, when I felt it in my pocket while in line to board!
I've also heard that you can sneak a small handgun, like a Glock 26 or 27 through, just by turning it sideways in your pocket. It's almost invisible in the pictures the X-ray scanners take, though obviously it wouldn't make it through a metal detector.
But god forbid if I take my bottle of water through security! We've got to get that shit under control!
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Today I read a news article saying they still don't rule out the plane has been hijacked and forced to land somewhere else. I hope they are right even though a technical failure or even a meteorite strike are more likely.
No, this isnt possible. Radar would have found them over any land. Or someone trained really hard to be able to fly a plane that large below where radar could detect it which of course is quite doubtful.
IMHO radar coverage is highly overrated. Most radar systems need a line of sight with the object. Hills or high buildings could easely prevent a radar system from detecting an airplane.
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If we take this one flight then almost 1% of its passengers were traveling with stolen identities. Other media report there are even more suspect passengers, pushing the number to something like 1.6%. If we assume for a moment that that single sample is typical (which is a very bold assumption), but stick with the lower number than it would still mean that maybe 1% of all air travel passengers use stolen IDs.
The 1% figure is of course bogus. If you actually look at it the same way as deaths from airline accidents, you almost always get big numbers when an accident occurs. Statistically across all flights the number of death is almost zero, but examine any one incident and the numbers look worse. Same thing with the stolen passports. It's very likely that criminals would be flying together for whatever reason, so if you get one stolen passport on a plane, then there is likely to be two or maybe more. Majority of flights would have zero.
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But god forbid if I take my bottle of water through security! We've got to get that shit under control!
You can't even take an EMPTY bottle!
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Today I read a news article saying they still don't rule out the plane has been hijacked and forced to land somewhere else. I hope they are right even though a technical failure or even a meteorite strike are more likely.
No, this isnt possible. Radar would have found them over any land. Or someone trained really hard to be able to fly a plane that large below where radar could detect it which of course is quite doubtful.
IMHO radar coverage is highly overrated. Most radar systems need a line of sight with the object. Hills or high buildings could easely prevent a radar system from detecting an airplane.
Hence why I said flying low enough. It aint easy to fly a plane like that close to the ground.
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Having sat with the guys running ATC, you have a pretty good picture of whatever is in range. While most ATC radar units are old ( in many cases older than the operators by decades) they are pretty good at tracking and assigning numbers to flights from the IFF transponders on the planes. Even if you turn off the plane transponder no plane can move far in the time it takes the beam to rotate, so you will still have the track but with a block where it was and a warning of a non transponder aircraft. Only way they could have had it not show is if it was set to not display non transponder aircraft, which strips all but aircraft movement, and overlays a generated map of borders and boundaries. You do not do that as there are plenty of non transponder light aircraft around, and plenty of older planes with poor transponders as well. That also removes birds, which are a problem, as Scully found out.
At the altitude the plane was at over water there is little ground clutter, so they stand out, and for the plane to disappear it would have had to dive nearly 10km in under 30 seconds. 777 might be able to do the dive but will not do the pull out at the bottom in one piece, the control surfaces are both not big enough and the wings would tear off from the loading.
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Most radars used by civilian radar control centers these days, are secondary radars. Targets without transponders can only be detected by primary radars, which are mostly used by the military.
There should be plenty old Russian sets left in Vietnam and it is probably one of those air defense radars that tracked the B-777 before it disappeared completely.
http://www.timawa.net/forum/index.php?topic=34788.0 (http://www.timawa.net/forum/index.php?topic=34788.0)
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I've been flying for more than twenty years, and have spent a lot of that time talking to ATC as they tracked me on radar. Here are my observations, combined with some technical background learned during training:
Within or near any large city (which will typically have multiple controlled airports) there's virtually no place that is below/outside radar's range. You are typically being interrogated by multiple radar units, and at any given moment at least one can track you unless the city is in very mountainous terrain and you're in just the right spot.
Outside of populated areas (or more accurately, in areas without large controlled airports), it is quite easy to be out of range of radar, either by flying low (which BTW is no challenge at all for a 777, it's simply slower and uses more fuel), or more likely, by not following established routes. Keep in mind, in addition to having distance limits, radar units tend to be tilted upward a few degrees because they're optimized for maximum range in the area they're needed - and that's at altitude, along established routes. Any coverage off those routes is mostly by accident. There can also be dead spots directly over the top of a radar dish in some cases. I've flown distances of up to about 50 miles while talking to ATC as they had no radar contact at all - and it usually happened by accident, while flying at least several thousand feet above the ground. I'm pretty sure I could fly across an entire state without coverage it it were a goal.
That said, a terrorist or any other hijacker is unlikely to know how to avoid radar with complete success. They'd have to know the quirks of radar coverage in the specific area, and be in absolute control of the plane because any airline pilot would be smart enough to stay in range even under duress in a hijack situation.
I feel sure this plane was not hijacked. It disintegrated in flight, whether due to an explosion on board, or because of a mechanical issue which caused it to endure unusual flight attitudes which the airframe couldn't survive. It could have been sudden full travel of a control surface which ripped part of the tail or wings off. It could have been hit by a military rocket either by accident or on purpose. It could have had a fuel tank or something in the cargo area explode by accident. And yes it could have been a terrorist on board, but I think that least likely because they usually can't wait to take credit for such events.
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This is what Freescale posted the other day:
(http://i.imgur.com/Aqy0UIT.jpg)
I thought this was a really nice gesture from TI. They didn't have to say anything but the fact that they did I think was really classy.
(http://i.imgur.com/eaI9xCe.jpg)
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I feel sure this plane was not hijacked. It disintegrated in flight, whether due to an explosion on board, or because of a mechanical issue which caused it to endure unusual flight attitudes which the airframe couldn't survive. It could have been sudden full travel of a control surface which ripped part of the tail or wings off. It could have been hit by a military rocket either by accident or on purpose. It could have had a fuel tank or something in the cargo area explode by accident. And yes it could have been a terrorist on board, but I think that least likely because they usually can't wait to take credit for such events.
I read that they are considering the possibility of a very small nuclear device that went off, one just enough to take out a plane and remove most of the traces of it.
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I read that they are considering the possibility of a very small nuclear device that went off, one just enough to take out a plane and remove most of the traces of it.
I thought about that too, because virtually no conventional explosive would be strong enough to fracture every bit of the plane into small enough pieces that nothing would float. However, seems there shouldn't be oil slicks in that case. Surely the fuel would have been consumed in the blast.
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I read that they are considering the possibility of a very small nuclear device that went off, one just enough to take out a plane and remove most of the traces of it.
I thought about that too, because virtually no conventional explosive would be strong enough to fracture every bit of the plane into small enough pieces that nothing would float. However, seems there shouldn't be oil slicks in that case. Surely the fuel would have been consumed in the blast.
Well from what I read a few hours ago they determined those oil slicks weren't related.
Now how about this?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2578020/Why-cellphones-missing-Malaysian-Airlines-passengers-ringing-Family-members-claim-loved-ones-smartphones-active.html (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2578020/Why-cellphones-missing-Malaysian-Airlines-passengers-ringing-Family-members-claim-loved-ones-smartphones-active.html)
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Now how about this?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2578020/Why-cellphones-missing-Malaysian-Airlines-passengers-ringing-Family-members-claim-loved-ones-smartphones-active.html (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2578020/Why-cellphones-missing-Malaysian-Airlines-passengers-ringing-Family-members-claim-loved-ones-smartphones-active.html)
Good smartphones, which brand? ;)
Man this starts to look more and more like the plot of LOST.
Hopefully they solve this mystery soon so if it did crash the families may find closure. That french plane that crashed between south america and africa took 2 years to be found.
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There goes the passport terrorist theory, just some dudes looking to sneak out of Iran:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-26525281 (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-26525281)
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They definitely chose the wrong flight then.
My sister was due to fly on the Helderberg on that last flight, but was not on it, she was in Hong Kong, luggage was in Macau, so she took a flight to get it. Came back the next day.
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I thought this was a really nice gesture from TI. They didn't have to say anything but the fact that they did I think was really classy.
(http://i.imgur.com/eaI9xCe.jpg)
It is not classy, it is plain jumping to conclusions without any evidence the 20 passengers are dead, so why the condolences? All the 20 Freescale passengers might still be alive. Show us the evidence. A bit of science would go a long way rather than guessing. There are many possibilities in all of this.
Frederick Valentich (a former classmate of mine), has never been presumed dead. His disappearance has no explanation, even though there was an extensive Victorian government investigation into his disappearance. He may still be alive... somewhere.
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I read that they are considering the possibility of a very small nuclear device that went off, one just enough to take out a plane and remove most of the traces of it.
Any nuclear blast would show up on a wide range of sensing satellites run by multiple countries.
Pretty sure it would show up on weather sats too.
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Now how about this?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2578020/Why-cellphones-missing-Malaysian-Airlines-passengers-ringing-Family-members-claim-loved-ones-smartphones-active.html (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2578020/Why-cellphones-missing-Malaysian-Airlines-passengers-ringing-Family-members-claim-loved-ones-smartphones-active.html)
Good smartphones, which brand? ;)
Man this starts to look more and more like the plot of LOST.
Hopefully they solve this mystery soon so if it did crash the families may find closure. That french plane that crashed between south america and africa took 2 years to be found.
:o Wouldn't they be able to triangulate the position if they were able to send/receive signals from the phone?
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I read that they are considering the possibility of a very small nuclear device that went off, one just enough to take out a plane and remove most of the traces of it.
That's just so wacky.
But for giggles let's for a minute assume a terrorist organisation actually had a small scale nuclear device of such a description:
1) it would be infinitely easier to just detonate it in public place instead of trying to smuggle it though screening and rigging it to explode at altitude (or time in flight).
2) it would be far more beneficial politically and "terror-like" to use it in a populated city or some such.
3) they would be bragging from here to Timbuktu
The human mind is great at finding patterns were none exist, or the links are so ridiculously tenable, so best to occam's razor.
Most likely: The plane had a mechanical issue that caused it to break up in the air.
A small possibility: A pilot went rouge
Buckley's chance: A terrorist bomb of some sort
Sweet FA: A nuclear device
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"Buckley's chance (http://andc.anu.edu.au/ozwords/Oct%202000/Buckley%27s.html)", eh! Another Oz one which sent me to the google!
I'll be filing it alongside 'ducks guts. :)
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Onboard ACARS didn't report any mechanical malfunction. (Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System, which sends out data automatically)
Malaysian and Singapore military are now saying they may have tracked the flight turning back and was last spotted over the straight of Malacca! (N65515 E1033443)
It gets stranger as time goes by.
If that is the case, it could mean that the crew were incapacitated (depressurization, smoke, toxic fumes?), with the autopilot switched off.
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That french plane that crashed between south america and africa took 2 years to be found.
Not so. Major wreckage was found within 5 days, and some wreckage was found within a day or two, and 50 bodies were recovered within 2 weeks.
Not to mention they had live transmitted data from the plane showing faults:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447
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Not so.
Indeed, it was the black box that took 2 years to be found.
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It's called explosive decompression, and it's happened before:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Airlines_Flight_611 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Airlines_Flight_611)
I remember reading that the 777 in question had been involved in an accident a while back. Maybe an improper repair.
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It's called explosive decompression, and it's happened before:
scary how fragile planes are, and how long they are being operated.
The most remarkable thing I read is that airline companies are allowed to make their own repairs without final check from the factory.
This accident would never have happened if the repairs were made according to the guidelines of the Boeing company.
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scary how fragile planes are, and how long they are being operated.
All the structural integrity of a beer can
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They have that all, the real time monitoring systems, the EPIRB with float activated by water pressure and even the FDR and CVR having both pingers and beepers. Not going to work if the plane impacts at 200 knots though. The issue is if there was a monitor, and as this is a very busy air corridor there should have been multiple radars watching, not all of them civilian.
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Recorders and beacon are designed to survive impact, but you can only go so far that way and have it work always. Problem is the beacon is a one time use item, and who knows when it was last changed, or just deferred as non critical. Recorders at least are used during maintenance if they are digital, and most now are. They give a lot of history data.
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Now how about this?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2578020/Why-cellphones-missing-Malaysian-Airlines-passengers-ringing-Family-members-claim-loved-ones-smartphones-active.html (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2578020/Why-cellphones-missing-Malaysian-Airlines-passengers-ringing-Family-members-claim-loved-ones-smartphones-active.html)
I'm not buying the "still active smart phone" theory one bit. For one thing, cell phones have a max range on the order of 10's of miles, so if any were still active they'd have the location of the aircraft located to within a short distance by merely seeing which cell tower was able to ping the phone(s). Also, it's likely that anywhere there was adequate cell coverage there's probably also ATC radar coverage. This is probably just people misunderstanding the behavior of the cell phones when they're inactive.
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Now how about this?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2578020/Why-cellphones-missing-Malaysian-Airlines-passengers-ringing-Family-members-claim-loved-ones-smartphones-active.html (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2578020/Why-cellphones-missing-Malaysian-Airlines-passengers-ringing-Family-members-claim-loved-ones-smartphones-active.html)
It is the Daily Mail, aka Daily Fail. One of the worst British "news"papers. They don't check facts. Instead, if necessary they invent them.
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Now how about this?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2578020/Why-cellphones-missing-Malaysian-Airlines-passengers-ringing-Family-members-claim-loved-ones-smartphones-active.html (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2578020/Why-cellphones-missing-Malaysian-Airlines-passengers-ringing-Family-members-claim-loved-ones-smartphones-active.html)
It is the Daily Mail, aka Daily Fail. One of the worst British "news"papers. They don't check facts. Instead, if necessary they invent them.
They state "ELectronic Warfare." 20 were experts in technology. They were MANAGEMENT. And why would all 20 Freescale employees crash a commercial jet?
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Well now I'm seeing the active cell phone thing showing up on the major US news networks.
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This is probably just people misunderstanding the behavior of the cell phones when they're inactive.
yep, its common for the ringing sound to be generated during call handoff while the system tries to contact the phone.
Cellphones are not the same as old analog phones where the ringing sound is actually ringing at the other end.
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Well now I'm seeing the active cell phone thing showing up on the major US news networks.
Ofcourse or did you think US tv was any better then "One of the worst British "news"papers"?
They are all selling their credibility for ratings.
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I always find aircraft stories interesting. This is one of my favorites.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider)
There is no need to make things up in these cases the truth is far more interesting.
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I always find aircraft stories interesting. This is one of my favorites.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider)
There is no need to make things up in these cases the truth is far more interesting.
That's nothing compared to this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Baghdad_DHL_attempted_shootdown_incident (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Baghdad_DHL_attempted_shootdown_incident)
Mayday - S03E02 - Attack Over Baghdad (http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x18udw1)
Probably the greatest feat in civil aviation ... only nobody gave a crap, because it was just a cargo plane. :-\
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They state "ELectronic Warfare." 20 were experts in technology. They were MANAGEMENT. And why would all 20 Freescale employees crash a commercial jet?
Exactly!
That is because dismissing from a job twenty working stiffs on salary is relative costless (in financial terms for any large company) to firing twenty management executives.
For anyone looking for patterns, the same 'plane accident' happened recently, wiping out a large portion of Poland’s leadership (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8612825.stm) ('Poland’s management') in one fiery explosion.
'And in a chilling twist, it happened at the moment that Russia and Poland were beginning to come to terms with the killing of more than 20,000 members of Poland’s elite officer corps in the same place 70 years ago' according to The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/world/europe/11poland.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0), referring to the WWII Katyn massacre (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre).
<EDIT>
Why the Polish plane crash is called 'Katyn 2' (http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/worldview/100413/katyn-polish-history)
-George
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Just came in that this was investigated and found to be erroneous.
This is interesting, according to the Wallstreet Journal, the engines had their own datalogging system that kept sending information for another 5 hours after the plane dissapeared:
Aviation investigators and national security officials believe the plane flew for a total of five hours, based on data automatically downloaded and sent to the ground from the Boeing Co. 777's engines as part of a routine maintenance and monitoring program.
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Now how about this?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2578020/Why-cellphones-missing-Malaysian-Airlines-passengers-ringing-Family-members-claim-loved-ones-smartphones-active.html (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2578020/Why-cellphones-missing-Malaysian-Airlines-passengers-ringing-Family-members-claim-loved-ones-smartphones-active.html)
It is the Daily Mail, aka Daily Fail. One of the worst British "news"papers. They don't check facts. Instead, if necessary they invent them.
indeed, and i hope they are never quoted here again. They are tabloid scum.
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Apparently a Chinese satellite has now spotted large floating objects.
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Apparently a Chinese satellite has now spotted large floating objects.
Already discounted as being anything to do with the missing plane.
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Apparently a Chinese satellite has now spotted large floating objects.
Already discounted as being anything to do with the missing plane.
Dammit CNN
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Just a theory:
Maybe it was hijacked and tried to fly under the radar to crash on a city but the pilot tried to stop it by landing on the water but the landing went wrong....and they basically sunk with little debris.
edit
Terrorist may still wait to claim it if there is more coming (not showing their hand), or they need to update pre-recorded videos since the plan partially failed.
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Ok, so now they are saying the engine data stream says the plane was flying for 4-5 hours post transponder failure. Why the heck did it take them several days to realize the engine data had still been flowing in?
Some classified BS reason while thousands of man hours were spent searching the ocean?
And why the hell does the transponder have an off switch?
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Ok, so now they are saying the engine data stream says the plane was flying for 4-5 hours post transponder failure. Why the heck did it take them several days to realize the engine data had still been flowing in?
Some classified BS reason while thousands of man hours were spent searching the ocean?
Already determined to be a false report. See post above.
And why the hell does the transponder have an off switch?
A few reasons. The most important being that transponders can and do malfunction, and can jam an entire radar area. ATC will request "stop squawk" to tell the pilot to turn it off. Also, they are supposed to be off on the ground to prevent overloading radar systems in the vicinity of busy airports.
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A few reasons. The most important being that transponders can and do malfunction, and can jam an entire radar area. ATC will request "stop squawk" to tell the pilot to turn it off. Also, they are supposed to be off on the ground to prevent overloading radar systems in the vicinity of busy airports.
Mmmmm, likely some thought here could fix the issue, keeping them on 24-7 without causing an issue. Losing a plane IMO is not an acceptable situation, this incident will probably drive some industry change, let's hope for the better.
Or they could just ask my wife, she knows everything, just ask her. ha ha ha ha :-DD
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A few reasons. The most important being that transponders can and do malfunction, and can jam an entire radar area. ATC will request "stop squawk" to tell the pilot to turn it off. Also, they are supposed to be off on the ground to prevent overloading radar systems in the vicinity of busy airports.
Mmmmm, likely some thought here could fix the issue, keeping them on 24-7 without causing an issue. Losing a plane IMO is not an acceptable situation, this incident will probably drive some industry change, let's hope for the better.
Or they could just ask my wife, she knows everything, just ask her. ha ha ha ha :-DD
Then they should just ask her where the plane is :-DD
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Gallows humor:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/malaysian-airlines-expands-investigation-to-includ,35524/ (http://www.theonion.com/articles/malaysian-airlines-expands-investigation-to-includ,35524/)
Malaysia Airlines Expands Investigation To Include General Scope Of Space, Time
'Why Are We Even Here?' - Officials
More seriously, my collection of MH370 news & commentary links:
http://everist.org/archives/links/_Flight_MH370_disappearance_links.txt (http://everist.org/archives/links/_Flight_MH370_disappearance_links.txt)
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http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/missing-malaysia-airlines-flight-live-3239624 (http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/missing-malaysia-airlines-flight-live-3239624)
(https://twitter.com/TerraHall/status/444725171174518784/photo/1)
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The plane has been missing for over a week now, and they're only now saying it went somewhere else...? :palm:
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Now they are saying it flew for 7 hours after last contact and changed course. Could be anywhere on a 3rd of the planet.
And the captain is now starting to sound a bit iffy politically, and the plane flew above its service ceiling driving some speculation there.
One thing is for sure, this is one of the best who-done-it's in a long time :-+
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My gut feel is that the crew lost consciousness after some mechanical failure and the plane was left to wander erratically until it ran out of fuel. Auto pilot and transponder could have been turned off by mistake during the emergency. I'm not sure how ACARS failed, but there may be a simple explanation. It is not unusual for ACARS to go off line for quite a while, during a flight.
Hijacking or pilot willful misconduct doesn't make much sense to me, but should be investigated.
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One thing is for sure, this is one of the best who-done-it's in a long time :-+
Moderator: As you seem unable to make a post on the subject without invoking some personal conspiracy theory, most of the content of your post has been deleted. If for no other reason that consideration for those missing on flight MH370 and those missing them.
I've left in the link to Conspiracy Central should users be interested in your views.
Anyway, this is of course all speculation. To be immediately hotly disputed, ridiculed and probably deleted, I expect. Never mind, just more entertainment for me.
Still updating my list of MH370 news articles: http://everist.org/archives/links/_Flight_MH370_disappearance_links.txt (http://everist.org/archives/links/_Flight_MH370_disappearance_links.txt)
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My gut feel is that the crew lost consciousness after some mechanical failure and the plane was left to wander erratically until it ran out of fuel.
Doubt it. Apparently they went via known waypoints that were totally different from their normal flight path.
Also, the crew have oxygen at the ready, and I'd imagine that any extreme G induced blackouts (that didn't break the plane apart) would only be temporary.
Hijacking or pilot willful misconduct doesn't make much sense to me, but should be investigated.
Having just finished reading QF32 (awesome book), my feeling is that it's got to be a deliberate act is the only logical conclusion. These planes just have far too many redundant backup systems to not get out a mayday call or some other indication of trouble. If it was total sudden breakup then that would be understandable, but otherwise, no way.
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Maybe the 'authorities' know more than they are letting on, maybe they don't. Either way it seems the public are being drip fed as to the aircrafts final detour/route/location, why I have no idea. It's either because they need to, or it's
From what I've read it seems there is an alternative airplane tracking system besides the transponder beacon. Ofcourse they won't divulge too much about how that works. I just hope they landed somewhere. It wouldn't make sense to hijack a plane and fly it over the ocean along standard waypoints but run out of fuel before reaching a destination. There are enough rural places (Indonesia) with dense jungle forrests over there where it would be hard to find plane even if it's really big.
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I don't understand why a battery-backup GPS tracker which sends data via satellite (e.x. Inmarsat) isn't standard.
They have them in each engine, how hard would it be to add a GPS receiver and set the data rate to every 30 seconds?
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@ Dave:
Don't forget the human factors.
The planes have many system redundancies, but the captain may not have been in the cockpit at the time of the incident. The first officer had just transferred on the B-777. This was his first big jet and he was a rookie.
A real explosive depressurization is very stressful. Noise, wind, cold and thick mist making it difficult to see anything in the cockpit. At 35,000ft, they had 10-15 seconds to fit their O2 masks, assuming the O2 system was not damaged.
The crew of the Air France A-330 lost control of the aircraft, but it was airborne for about 5 minutes before it hit the water and they never had time for a mayday call.
The area is full of waypoints and airways and primary radars are not precise at long range. It could be just a coincidence.
An inflight hi-jack is not impossible, but very difficult nowadays, with a protected cockpit door.
A rogue suicidal crewmember is a possibility, but it has its problems too. A pilot wouldn't climb his airplane above max certified ceiling from 35,000ft to 45,000ft, as radar plot analysis conveys. Then why fly for 5-6 hours before crashing into the sea, assuming the southern route is the more plausible one (too many radars on the northern track). So far, there is also no real evidence of unstable personalities among the crew.
All very mysterious so far, with no simple explanation yet.
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I thought the Australian over the horizon radar looked further than it did.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jindalee_Operational_Radar_Network (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jindalee_Operational_Radar_Network)
So it looks a long way, but not quite far enough
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It's either because they need to, or it's because the 'authorities' are pretty much incompetent and don't really know what they are doing, or maybe they are just trying to cover their arses.
I think they are incompetent and later started trying to cover their arse. Right from the beginning it seemed that every official and his dog with a more or less impressive job title or military rank was holding press conferences or at least doing press releases, and throwing around "facts" (dodgy theories made up out of thin air or isolated data, not related to the event).
Later in the game, after many false statements they started trying to save their face. Partly by putting out more junk press releases and speculation.
What they lacked was someone really high up who whipped all the show-offs into shape and made them shut up. Then coordinating the collection and analysis of facts and running them through experts, not some brass keen to read their names in the press.
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What if it wasn't terrorism or anything nefarious?
There was a case of Swissair 111 where a fire in the cockpit started taking out systems one by one - initially they just had malfunctions, loss of autopilot, then loss of control.
Maybe they did not report the occurrence because they could not, the radio had been damaged by the fire, which slowly took out systems, it explains the long delay between shutting off the transponders (why would someone wait ~20min between the two?)
Although terrorism/deliberate act seems a lot more likely.
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Maybe they did not report the occurrence because they could not, the radio had been damaged by the fire,
Nice idea, but if the latest time-line is to be believed (...) then the last radio contact with the "All right, good night" message was after some of the communication systems were already turned off.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/16/flight-mh370-last-message-communications-disabled-malaysia (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/16/flight-mh370-last-message-communications-disabled-malaysia)
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ACARS failure wouldn't be reported to air traffic control. It would be listed in the post flight failure report and ground engineers would run a test on it and fix it before the next flight.
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Just read our local news that reported a "speculation" about the conspiracy theory, since the informations are so scattered in pieces like a puzzle that looks like its deliberately orchestrated in timely fashion to extend the time and also to confuse the exact search location. ???
With the assumption its hijacked and not crashed, then it can be done only with a precision military operation type, a poor man/low tech hijacker just can not afford to do this in this scale. Currently the best spot is Diego Garcia island that is still within fuel range.
The island owned by British and also serves as US military airbase which is the plane can land safely, its also known for CIA's dirty secret place for "interrogation". >:D
Garbage speculation ? ::)
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Maybe they did not report the occurrence because they could not, the radio had been damaged by the fire,
Nice idea, but if the latest time-line is to be believed (...) then the last radio contact with the "All right, good night" message was after some of the communication systems were already turned off.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/16/flight-mh370-last-message-communications-disabled-malaysia (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/16/flight-mh370-last-message-communications-disabled-malaysia)
How do they know ACARS was actually turned off? Afaik it just sends a status message at a certain interval.
My theory would be some failure causing slow decompression. Pilots get oxygen deprived and makes poor decisions. Maybe even punching something weird in the autopilot. People often don't realize they are actually oxygen deprived, even well trained people (like divers) don't always recognize the symptoms.
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A slow decompression is unlikely. There is a cockpit warning when the cabin altitude climbs through an unsafe level and the oxygen masks will drop automatically in the cabin.
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Another theory which still explains much of what is known today: http://therealsingapore.com/content/mh370-what-happened (http://therealsingapore.com/content/mh370-what-happened)
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In the case of Helios 522, a similar event occurred, the crew misunderstanding the warning while climbing as a "takeoff config error"
As the aircraft climbed, the pressure inside the cabin gradually decreased. As it passed through an altitude of 12,040 feet (3,670 m), the cabin altitude warning horn sounded.[3] The warning should have prompted the crew to stop climbing,[10] but it was misidentified by the crew as a take-off configuration warning, which signals that the aircraft is not ready for take-off, and can only sound on the ground.[10]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios_Airways_Flight_522#Flight_and_crash (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios_Airways_Flight_522#Flight_and_crash)
A similar event could have occurred, perhaps in the case of the SATCOM de-pressurisation, the crew may not have been able to react fast enough?
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Maybe the 'authorities' know more than they are letting on, maybe they don't. Either way it seems the public are being drip fed as to the aircrafts final detour/route/location, why I have no idea. It's either because they need to, or it's because the 'authorities' are pretty much incompetent and don't really know what they are doing, or maybe they are just trying to cover their arses.
Usually governments can be relied upon the screw things up completely, that's how they work, too many cooks, and too many arses to cover.
But if they do know more, then I wouldn't be telling the press anything, because that limits their response options. e.g. if the plane did secretly land somewhere, then you don't want the world knowing that you know.
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A real explosive depressurization is very stressful. Noise, wind, cold and thick mist making it difficult to see anything in the cockpit. At 35,000ft, they had 10-15 seconds to fit their O2 masks, assuming the O2 system was not damaged.
That's plenty of time to put on their masks, and AFAIK, their tanks are completely independent, so almost impossible to destroy them and not the pilots and cockpit.
So unless both pilots were out of the cockpit at the time of an incident, I don't buy any theory about decompression knocking out the pilots and then the plane flying on it's own through waypoints that weren't entered etc.
An inflight hi-jack is not impossible, but very difficult nowadays, with a protected cockpit door.
I'd be willing to bet a few guys could get through that door in a few minutes.
But of course that means that the pilots would have time to alert ground control of what's happening before they get in, not to mention time for passengers to beat the crap out of them.
So yes, not easy to hijack a plane these days, unless the door is already open for you...
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An inflight hi-jack is not impossible, but very difficult nowadays, with a protected cockpit door.
I'd be willing to bet a few guys could get through that door in a few minutes.
But of course that means that the pilots would have time to alert ground control of what's happening before they get in, not to mention time for passengers to beat the crap out of them.
So yes, not easy to hijack a plane these days, unless the door is already open for you...
Meh ... you only needs blonde chicks to get the door opened voluntarily by the captain. :P
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Meh ... you only needs blonde chicks to get the door opened voluntarily by the captain. :P
And that's not a sexist comment either, in this specific case it's a documented fact!
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Meh ... you only needs blonde chicks to get the door opened voluntarily by the captain. :P
And that's not a sexist comment either, in this specific case it's a documented fact!
It's quite frankly the truth. Sex sells, people.
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Meh ... you only needs blonde chicks to get the door opened voluntarily by the captain. :P
And that's not a sexist comment either, in this specific case it's a documented fact!
It's quite frankly the truth. Sex sells, people.
Before the phony hijack paranoia created by 911, it was pretty common for passengers to request to visit the cockpit, and be allowed to sit in back for a while. I used to do this in domestic flights in Australia. Twice asked, twice given permission. So long as you don't make a nuisance of yourself, pilots like to have company. They'd ask you to leave just before beginning landing approach, understandably.
Also the TSA-style madness hasn't penetrated so far into non-US airlines, especially Asian ones. So I don't see anything unusual at all in that captain having passengers up in the cockpit during a flight. Nor in his having a flight simulator at home. People who like flying often do set up some amazing simulators. One of the really good flight sims is by an Australian company btw.
There's quite a bit more I could say on this, but my posts are being deleted. See sig for details.
I'd also like to discuss the technical aspects of the official "It's on these arcs" chart published yesterday (see below), but it's impossible given the unacceptable conduct of a certain mod.
Also, can we have an official clarification please? Is it acceptable in this forum to discuss scenarios in which there was high level State involvement in the disappearance of MH370, or is it forbidden?
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Also the TSA-style madness hasn't penetrated so far into non-US airlines, especially Asian ones. So I don't see anything unusual at all in that captain having passengers up in the cockpit during a flight.
Except for the fact that it's against the policy of most airlines, including Malaysian.
Nor in his having a flight simulator at home. People who like flying often do set up some amazing simulators. One of the really good flight sims is by an Australian company btw.
Yes, complete red herring that one. Unless of course the logs show the tracked diverted path, so of course they should at least check the logs (if it has any).
Also, can we have an official clarification please? Is it acceptable in this forum to discuss scenarios in which there was high level State involvement in the disappearance of MH370, or is it forbidden?
Generally not, no. Especially from you, because you have done it time and time again, which is why a moderator is editing your posts when you do. You've been warned before but continue to post stuff like this at every opportunity. So you don't get covered by the usual common sense one-off rules, you're a three-striker. Congratulations. There are plenty of other places to go publish all your thoughts.
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A real explosive depressurization is very stressful. Noise, wind, cold and thick mist making it difficult to see anything in the cockpit. At 35,000ft, they had 10-15 seconds to fit their O2 masks, assuming the O2 system was not damaged.
That's plenty of time to put on their masks, and AFAIK, their tanks are completely independent, so almost impossible to destroy them and not the pilots and cockpit.
So unless both pilots were out of the cockpit at the time of an incident, I don't buy any theory about decompression knocking out the pilots and then the plane flying on it's own through waypoints that weren't entered etc.
The problem isn't so much the time, it's that the symptoms of hypoxia aren't something you notice by yourself unless you're extremely vigilant. You can become unconscious without ever being aware of having been impaired:
hypoxia (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTNX6mr753w#ws)
This is what happened in the Helios Airways crash linked above. Now, there are warning systems, but the Helios story shows that they can be misinterpreted, especially if the pilots are already too far gone.
Check out this story where a plane kept flying for five hours after everyone on board was already dead:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Australia_Beechcraft_King_Air_crash (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Australia_Beechcraft_King_Air_crash)
Edit: here's another one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_South_Dakota_Learjet_crash (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_South_Dakota_Learjet_crash)
Obviously, the crash site would be very hard to find if the plane kept flying over the ocean for several more hours.
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So I have a couple questions some relate some are just personal interest.
The ACARS system, sends information about the plane. One comment was that the navigation system was reprogrammed for a direction change, is that information that would be sent? I know engine information is sent is that the same system? ACARS is a radio system does it share the vhf/uhf transmitter/antenna that the pilots can use?
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My gut feel is that the crew lost consciousness after some mechanical failure and the plane was left to wander erratically until it ran out of fuel.
Doubt it. Apparently they went via known waypoints that were totally different from their normal flight path.
Also, the crew have oxygen at the ready, and I'd imagine that any extreme G induced blackouts (that didn't break the plane apart) would only be temporary.
Hijacking or pilot willful misconduct doesn't make much sense to me, but should be investigated.
Having just finished reading QF32 (awesome book), my feeling is that it's got to be a deliberate act is the only logical conclusion. These planes just have far too many redundant backup systems to not get out a mayday call or some other indication of trouble. If it was total sudden breakup then that would be understandable, but otherwise, no way.
Lack of pressurisation,rather than loss of it,has occurred in the past,notably with a FIFO charter
which was intended to go to a WA mining town.
It ended up running out of fuel & crashing in outback Queensland.
Ironically,I worked with the Pilot of that aircraft,& he told us that the biggest danger was not noticing
the pressurisation wasn't on.
At least in the aircraft he flew,there was a visual indication of low cabin pressure,but no audible one.
He explained that people basically just gently "dropped off to sleep",& never regained consciousness.
I was surprised that he got caught out by the very thing he was warning about,but that was the conclusion
of the Air Crash Investigation.
I guess it's the same as when we warn about Electrical safety,but once in a while get zapped!
In our case,there are degrees of danger,but in that case it was all or nothing!
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Re: Post Censorship.
If this is a "General Chat" part of the overall forum, I don't think it fair that certain topics are considered 'off limits'. If posters wish to express their views about something that might even be total tin-foil hat then they should be allowed to - with perhaps some reasonable limits on numbers of posts and lengths of posts (that should be stated in advance).
It then is up to the readers of the posts to determine whether or not any opinions might be valid. And if they disagree, then just ignore the post. With a topic as completely speculative as this (at this stage), then I don't think ANY theories are completely off limits.
Yes, this IS your backyard and you set the rules, but I think the application of those rules has been a bit unfair.
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But of course that means that the pilots would have time to alert ground control of what's happening before they get in, not to mention time for passengers to beat the crap out of them.
So yes, not easy to hijack a plane these days, unless the door is already open for you...
Apart from locked doors (yes, as a kid I got taken to the cockpit several times - sometimes cabin crew offered a trip without even asking), probably the biggest actual improvement in anti-hijack security since Sept. 11 is that passengers are now much more likely to fight back.
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I have no idea if this fact is relevant in this case, but as it doesn't seem widely known, I will post this link:
TL:DR, B777 avionics bay is accessible inflight from pax cabin.
B777 E/E ACCESS - MSc. RESEARCH (Copyright - M WUILLEMIN) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLmzvF2qkDY#)
Edit:spelling
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This case has gotten a lot more interesting in the past few days. The new information about the extended flight path is perplexing, but doesn't necessarily point to deliberate human action in my mind. At first glance it would seem to be on purpose and under human control, but here are a few things to consider:
1. There is no logical reason for a human to decide to take that plane to 45K'. The speculation has been that this was to knock the passengers out, but it would be completely unnecessary. The pilots have direct control of the pressurization system, and could easily depressurize the aircraft at 35K' and have all passengers unconscious within about 2 minutes max (and dead shortly thereafter). By the way, I've heard and read all kinds of numbers about the amount of time the fight crew would remain conscious after explosive depressurization at 35K'. "Time of useful consciousness" is considered to be 30-60 seconds at that altitude. Here's a chart: http://expertaviator.com/2012/04/19/oxygen-requirements-time-of-useful-consciousness-and-intercept-procedures/ (http://expertaviator.com/2012/04/19/oxygen-requirements-time-of-useful-consciousness-and-intercept-procedures/)
EDIT: Time for passengers to become unconscious would be about 2 minutes + however long the emergency oxygen masks supplied oxygen (which might be slightly shorter at 45K'). But that's still not a long time because it's expected that after accidental depressurization the pilot's will immediately start an emergency descent to a safe altitude. The oxygen generators don't need to have a lot of capacity.
2. The spread in airspeed between stall and mach buffet is less than 10 knots for that plane at that altitude (it is often this small spread that ends up determining service ceilings for jets). Go below the low end and you stall and possible spin etc. Go above the high end and you hit mach buffet which can quickly destroy the plane or result in dramatic loss of control. It's nearly impossible for a well trained, skilled pilot to keep the airplane within that tiny spread - especially as it was climbing because the numbers change with altitude. That means if it went to that altitude, it probably did so under autopilot control because only an autopilot would be likely to succeed at it.
3. The one bit of convincing evidence would seem to be the "Good night" declaration by radio -after- the transponder was already off. But this is a bit fishy because if the transponder had been off for even a minute before that call, ATC would have noted it, and would have queried the pilots about it when they made that last call. Yes, it may have just been human error there. Most aviation accidents result from a stack-up of at least 3 human errors.
I heard a former 777 captain discuss what he believed was a plausible scenario on the news last night. Basically, he thinks it was all about a slow burning fire which took out avionics systems one by one in slow succession. This has been known to occur before (in other aircraft - not the 777). The smoke may have even incapacitated the pilots before they even knew it was happening. He stated the 777 (and apparently most Boeing aircraft) is designed to tolerate/survive an extensive fire in the avionics bay, and that it would eventually burn itself out without spreading to other areas of the aircraft. The fire may have already started, and taken out the transponder before the "Good night" call, but the pilots weren't yet aware of it. That would be a bit of a coincidence in the timing, but this whole event is something like a 1 in a million occurrence, so coincidences can't be ruled out.
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The only problem I see with the slow burning fire theory is it's happened many times before and the plane was either a total loss (Swissair 111 comes to mind) or was able to land with most instruments failed. There aren't any instances I could see where a pilot would keep flying for hours. In most cases, the autopilot disconnected after just a few systems were lost. It's possible the fire only took out a few systems then stopped but wouldn't the pilots notice things like the radio malfunctioning?
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You are telling me that in our houses we all have fire/smole sensors at $10 a piece but in a multimillion dollar plane those are absent? :palm:
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There are smoke detectors in most compartments of an airliner, including the avionics bay.
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You are telling me that in our houses we all have fire/smole sensors at $10 a piece but in a multimillion dollar plane those are absent? :palm:
Nope. Didn't say anything of the sort. At some point, the pilots would surely have become aware of it, but since you and I weren't there, we have no way of knowing how things unfolded. Keep in mind that in fires, most people die of smoke inhalation rather than burning. As altitude increases and air gets thinner, people become dramatically more sensitive to smoke - especially carbon monoxide. Our lungs have 100x the affinity for CO that they do for oxygen, so with thin air it takes very little CO to cause big problems very quickly.
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Anyway whatever the cause if the plane crashed there should be a lot of wreckage and nothing has yet been found. :-//
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You are telling me that in our houses we all have fire/smole sensors at $10 a piece but in a multimillion dollar plane those are absent? :palm:
It's a harder engineering problem than it first seems. What about dust from the undercarriage? That can trigger false alarms. Such a bay is rarely cleaned and has many fans from the equipment running continuously.
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"The story goes that a long time ago, in a faraway, and mythical country, which we'll call China, everyone wanted to know how long the Emperor's nose was. Of course to be seen even trying to look closely at the Emperor's visage - let alone to hold up a (different!) ruler to it - would have invited instant, or I should say, far from instant, death. But so many people were curious, that a group of sages got together to look for a method of finding the answer, and this is what they came up with.
Questionnaires were printed and sent out in bundles to cooperating village chiefs, who distributed them to the peasants. Literacy was at a sufficient level that most were able to complete the single question, which was, of course: "How long do you think the Emperor's nose is?"
When the forms were collected, mathematicians added up all the values, and divided by the number of forms. Thus it was known that the length of the Emperor's nose was 6.734602 cm. The complete set of data was of course preserved, and many years later, with advances in statistical understanding more advanced mathematicians pointed out that fringe values - obviously the product of deranged minds - were distorting the honest opinions of the rest, and by eliminating them and using the very latest numerical modelling techniques, the mathematicians corrected this value to 4.980403 cm. To this day, no-one has produced a better estimate."
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I have no idea if this fact is relevant in this case, but as it doesn't seem widely known, I will post this link:
TL:DR, B777 avionics bay is accessible inflight from pax cabin.
B777 E/E ACCESS - MSc. RESEARCH (Copyright - M WUILLEMIN) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLmzvF2qkDY#)
Edit:spelling
Huh, that is quite a glaring problem.
It would require two hijackers one to subdue the crew and the other to pull breakers.
I presume you pull the breaker to the cockpit door lock? And it opens? Is there no mechanical override?
If you wanted to crash the plane it would be as simple as pulling power to the engine management systems, presumably.
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Re: Post Censorship.
If this is a "General Chat" part of the overall forum, I don't think it fair that certain topics are considered 'off limits'. If posters wish to express their views about something that might even be total tin-foil hat then they should be allowed to - with perhaps some reasonable limits on numbers of posts and lengths of posts (that should be stated in advance).
Yes, this IS your backyard and you set the rules, but I think the application of those rules has been a bit unfair.
For the record, I also think it's unfair, but it is what I and the moderators have to do.
This has been debated many times, and as big an advocate for free speech as I am, it pisses me off to have to do this. But I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that is must be done, otherwise the forum will just go to crap.
If left as free-for-all then religion threads will dominate the Top 10 list, only to be matched by the equally passionate conspiracy theory people.
The result is that the "Unread post" thread gets filled up with this crap and turns people away form the forum who are here for the electronics.
I am trying to build a community of people who like talking about electronics, and that simply can't happen if it's a free-for-all.
But I also understand that this is a community, and people come here to chat to the friends as well as talk electronics, so some limited off-topic threads like these are allowed. Because a heavily moderated forum forced always on-topic is just as bad as a free-for-all.
The number of posts we have to edit here is very limited. Maybe one of two a week out of the 700+ a day. So self moderation and leading by example on this forum is working well.
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guys, you can stop worrying about it now, courtney love is on the case. this will be solved in no time now.
http://www.mediaite.com/online/master-sleuth-courtney-love-thinks-shes-solved-the-malaysia-airline-mystery/ (http://www.mediaite.com/online/master-sleuth-courtney-love-thinks-shes-solved-the-malaysia-airline-mystery/)
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You are telling me that in our houses we all have fire/smole sensors at $10 a piece but in a multimillion dollar plane those are absent? :palm:
It's a harder engineering problem than it first seems. What about dust from the undercarriage? That can trigger false alarms. Such a bay is rarely cleaned and has many fans from the equipment running continuously.
I would have gone with temperature sensors rather than particulate sensors. In fact, having the sensors spread around would probably be of great value in notifying the pilots etc if there was an abnormal high temperature at some location that needed to be checked. Whether the manufacturers or anyone else would find the cost/benefit worth it is up for debate.
In regards to what happened, the plane either crashed in practically one piece or it didnt crash; or perhaps its just a fluke they havent looked in the right area yet.
So far what I have heard from something more out there is that there was warning of an aircraft like this being electronically high-jacked before this happened. Putting together that with the fact of that last transmission, what if someone sent the pilots orders to turn off the transponder/etc?(acting as an imposter to the normal traffic controllers) The pilot responded with that last transmission and then whoever it was took it from there.
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If an actual fire I would expect multiple system failures (that would show up in the cockpit). Smoke detectors would probably be the best bet because if an actual fire did break out it would be magnitudes worse. In any case fire + airliner = bad.
I read about the flight computer reprogramming. Apparently 8 keystrokes added a single way-point to the flight plan (8 keystrokes was from the CBC Canada web site the rest was from the nytimes website). Timing either not reported by the computer or to the media.
This link is a fairly interesting bit relating to how the flight computer is programmed. I've been ignoring all the stuff about the pilots but it does seem that the last voice contact was from the copilot.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/18/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-flight.html?hp&_r=0 (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/18/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-flight.html?hp&_r=0)
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Well at least I have a much better insight why they still haven't found Amelia Earhart (http://Amelia Earhart)s plane, if they even can't find a Boeing jumbojet in 2014 with all those satelites up there.
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A couple of interesting articles in the New York Times, yesterday and today:
20140318
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/18/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-flight.html?hp&_r=0 (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/18/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-flight.html?hp&_r=0)
Lost Jet’s Path Seen as Altered via Computer
Key point summary: The FIRST deviation from planned course involved MH370 turning to and flying through newly entered waypoints, under control of the flight management system. Ie not under manual control via the yoke.
They don't say exactly _how_ they know, which is a pity. But between the lines it seems this may have been deduced from something in the ACARS messages around that time. Read the article over a couple of times, it's kind of mixed up.
It seems the Malaysian authorities are still assuming these new waypoints were entered via the console in the cockpit. They say it would require the entry of the appropriate numeric string and commands to set new waypoints therefore the pilot or copilot must have done it. But they don't say they actually know that's how the waypoint list was edited, and can't suggest any reason why the pilot or copilot might have done so.
Also they have no idea why 'hijackers' or 'suicide pilot' would do it that way (as opposed to manually flying it), and do remark that it seems odd (to them.)
For those who've heard of Boeing's 'Uninterruptible Auto Pilot' system (also known as Homerun), there's not so much mystery. But that leads into topics forbidden here. Google them.
The other NYT article is:
20140317
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/18/world/asia/questions-over-absence-of-cellphone-calls-from-missing-passengers.html (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/18/world/asia/questions-over-absence-of-cellphone-calls-from-missing-passengers.html)
Questions Over Absence of Cellphone Calls From Missing Flight’s Passengers
They mean no calls while in flight, for 7 hours and something obviously wrong. Again, can't talk about that here. But some of us who followed and archived the years of retractions, rewriting and revelations regarding some other famous 'calls from planes' will understand the significance. It's kind of grimly amusing, don't you think? Seems MH370 was a rushed job, with no time to set up backstory beforehand.
There's another relevant article, published in New Scientist.
http://web.archive.org/web/20010925191746/http://www.newscientist.com/hottopics/usterror/usterror.jsp?id=ns99991280 (http://web.archive.org/web/20010925191746/http://www.newscientist.com/hottopics/usterror/usterror.jsp?id=ns99991280)
Just thought I'd mention it, since we're on the topic of autopilots and waypoints. Summary of the article: It theoretically would be possible to remotely control a plane via the autopilot, but such a thing definitely isn't implemented. Absolutely no siree.
Oh, that article was published Sept 12th, 2001. I especially like the comments gathered from several aviation experts around the world. Damned fast work, that. Prescient too, since there was no other public mention of such an idea till well over a year later.
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Well at least I have a much better insight why they still haven't found Amelia Earhart (http://Amelia Earhart)s plane, if they even can't find a Boeing jumbojet in 2014 with all those satelites up there.
I think they did:
20130530
http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/05/29/amelia-earhart-plane-found-sonar-images-may-have-pinpointed-wreck/?intcmp=features&cmpid=twitter_fn (http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/05/29/amelia-earhart-plane-found-sonar-images-may-have-pinpointed-wreck/?intcmp=features&cmpid=twitter_fn)
Amelia Earhart's plane found? Sonar images may have pinpointed wreckage
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Well at least I have a much better insight why they still haven't found Amelia Earhart (http://Amelia Earhart)s plane, if they even can't find a Boeing jumbojet in 2014 with all those satelites up there.
I think they did:
20130530
http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/05/29/amelia-earhart-plane-found-sonar-images-may-have-pinpointed-wreck/?intcmp=features&cmpid=twitter_fn (http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/05/29/amelia-earhart-plane-found-sonar-images-may-have-pinpointed-wreck/?intcmp=features&cmpid=twitter_fn)
Amelia Earhart's plane found? Sonar images may have pinpointed wreckage
No they still have not, it is another TIGHAR attempt to raise another multi million dollar mission to that place. THey have been there already a couple of times but never found absolute proof. Now the last time they took a lot of sonardata and miracle after two months of processing they found another interesting anomaly. It prooves nothing because they had exactly the same kind of anomaly last time but didn't find anything then. So perhaps this time it is the real thing but unless they actually go there and pickup a real identifyable piece of the actual aircraft it is still speculation at most.
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No they still have not, it is another TIGHAR attempt to raise another multi million dollar mission to that place. THey have been there already a couple of times but never found absolute proof. Now the last time they took a lot of sonardata and miracle after two months of processing they found another interesting anomaly. It prooves nothing because they had exactly the same kind of anomaly last time but didn't find anything then. So perhaps this time it is the real thing but unless they actually go there and pickup a real identifyable piece of the actual aircraft it is still speculation at most.
Ah, that's a shame. That link and this: http://rense.com/general59/amelia.htm (http://rense.com/general59/amelia.htm) are the only two in my Amelia folder. Still not solved eh?
Let's hope MH370 doesn't turn into the same kind of permanent mystery.
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[Let's hope MH370 doesn't turn into the same kind of permanent mystery.
Indeed it must be terrible for any relatives not to be able to find closure.
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A couple of interesting articles in the New York Times, yesterday and today:
The other NYT article is:
20140317
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/18/world/asia/questions-over-absence-of-cellphone-calls-from-missing-passengers.html (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/18/world/asia/questions-over-absence-of-cellphone-calls-from-missing-passengers.html)
Questions Over Absence of Cellphone Calls From Missing Flight’s Passengers
The chances of getting a 2-way phone signal inside an aircraft at altitude, to a basestation antenna that will mostly be directed horizontally seem pretty remote, so I don't think much can be inferred from that.
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It's being reported that (http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/08/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-plane-missing/index.html) at least 20 of the passengers on Malaysia Air flight 370 are employees of Freescale semiconductors...
http://online.wsj.com/article/PR-CO-20140308-902237.html (http://online.wsj.com/article/PR-CO-20140308-902237.html)
Depending who you happened to be, it was pretty standard for our "customer" to only allow a couple of people on the same flight, and for certain people not to fly with each other. On the one hand, it's nice to be wanted. On the other hand, it's not something you really want to think about. LOL.
Anyhow, I think they will find the plane in the Indian Ocean just as soon as they look in the right spot, and I'm still not 100% convinced that anything sinister took place. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how useful the black box is going to be. It can record flight data for the entire flight, but only 2 hours of voice. Watch for that to change in the future, NO doubt. I'll bet they bump the voice requirement to match the data requirement because of this flight.
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The only reasons you got calls from the hijacked 911 planes was: the planes were low and above land, where cell signals were available. That's not available at 35000ft or over most of the ocean.
Not content with your patent theory. Why would someone go to all this trouble for some patents? And why would they remove them from the manifest ... Wouldn't they want absolute proof of their death? Hiding it, after all the trouble they've gone to seems unwise.
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It's being reported that (http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/08/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-plane-missing/index.html) at least 20 of the passengers on Malaysia Air flight 370 are employees of Freescale semiconductors...
http://online.wsj.com/article/PR-CO-20140308-902237.html (http://online.wsj.com/article/PR-CO-20140308-902237.html)
Depending who you happened to be, it was pretty standard for our "customer" to only allow a couple of people on the same flight, and for certain people not to fly with each other. On the one hand, it's nice to be wanted. On the other hand, it's not something you really want to think about. LOL.
Anyhow, I think they will find the plane in the Indian Ocean just as soon as they look in the right spot, and I'm still not 100% convinced that anything sinister took place. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how useful the black box is going to be. It can record flight data for the entire flight, but only 2 hours of voice. Watch for that to change in the future, NO doubt. I'll bet they bump the voice requirement to match the data requirement because of this flight.
Preventing the ACARS from being shut down while you are at high altitude is probably up on that list too.
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Pilots should be trusted to know what system to turn off. If there was a fault in ACARS, would they not be allowed to turn it off? I think though that a GPS datalogger should be a requirement, transmitting every minute over satellite comms.
Then you could never lose a civilian plane again.
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http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26609687 (http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26609687)
10 theories of what could have happened, explained with BBC impartiality.
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That 'twin arcs' diagram. Does anyone have any idea how that might work?
What few details I could find are here: http://everist.org/MH370/mh370_arcs_rubbish.htm (http://everist.org/MH370/mh370_arcs_rubbish.htm)
It doesn't seem technically possible to me.
Or do Inmarsats use phased arrays for transmit and receive? Even if so, it still seems unlikely.
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A nice article on wired:
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2014/03/mh370-electrical-fire/ (http://www.wired.com/autopia/2014/03/mh370-electrical-fire/)
Pretty straight forward, basically says they were aiming for Palau Langkawi.
Says all of the evidence so far pretty much can fit within normal SOP in a fire.
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A nice article on wired:
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2014/03/mh370-electrical-fire/ (http://www.wired.com/autopia/2014/03/mh370-electrical-fire/)
Pretty straight forward, basically says they were aiming for Palau Langkawi.
Says all of the evidence so far pretty much can fit within normal SOP in a fire.
The author thinks that the ascent to 45,000ft was, if not a radar anomaly, due to the pilot trying to gain altitude to extinguish the fire. This seems foolish, as it would be extremely hazardous to both the plane and passengers. I think it's possible instead that if the fire damaged elevator controls. This could cause a pitch up that is difficult to counteract. The plane could have risen to 45,000ft, stalled, then dived. Once in a dive the pilot would have the option of leveling off using spoilers and flaps. The plane likely would not be stable in the air however, and I can't imagine it could have flown for more than a couple dozen miles after that without crashing.
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A nice article on wired:
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2014/03/mh370-electrical-fire/ (http://www.wired.com/autopia/2014/03/mh370-electrical-fire/)
Pretty straight forward, basically says they were aiming for Palau Langkawi.
Says all of the evidence so far pretty much can fit within normal SOP in a fire.
"Fire in an aircraft demands one thing: Get the machine on the ground as soon as possible. "
The rule of thumb they taught me was (a statistical) seven minutes to get the plane on the ground in the event of an uncontrollable fire. Beyond that, you're basically done for.
Its probably the worst thing that could happen to a pilot. Even a complete loss of thrust is an easier situation to deal with and its the real reason you want someone with 18k hrs on board.
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@TerraHertz
Here is an article that may be of intrest
http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-news/se-asia/story/missing-mh370-how-satellites-communicate-plane-malaysia-airlines (http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-news/se-asia/story/missing-mh370-how-satellites-communicate-plane-malaysia-airlines)
It certainly sounds as if they have a method but it may have been simplified for the media. Certainly would be interesting to find out what was done.
@the fire
As for a fire, if there was one big enough to take out, or cause a pilot to disable part of the planes electronics you'd think the plane would have crashed quickly. But that's just speculation and I prefer facts.
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The plane likely would not be stable in the air however, and I can't imagine it could have flown for more than a couple dozen miles after that without crashing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Airlines_Flight_123 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Airlines_Flight_123)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Baghdad_DHL_attempted_shootdown_incident (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Baghdad_DHL_attempted_shootdown_incident)
If the terrain had been more favourable, the Japan Airlines aircraft may have been able to make a landing.
Do not underestimate the abilities of a skilled flight crew. An F15 was once landed with only one wing.
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Do not underestimate the abilities of a skilled flight crew.
..who will die along with everyone else if they don't get it right....
like these guys who landed with no flight controls
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_232 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_232)
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like these guys who landed with no flight controls
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_232 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_232)
I can highly recommend the book QF32 written by the pilot about the in-flight explosion of a Qantas A380
http://qf32.aero/ (http://qf32.aero/)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qantas_Flight_32 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qantas_Flight_32)
Lots of technical details about the massive computer system onboard and the hundreds of thousands of sensor, and how they landed basically a flying wreck with not even one fully working engine out of 4
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And for anyone to lazy to read.
Air Crash Investigation S13E10 - Qantas 32: Titanic In The Sky (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usK2kcj7BHg#ws)
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A nice article on wired:
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2014/03/mh370-electrical-fire/ (http://www.wired.com/autopia/2014/03/mh370-electrical-fire/)
Pretty straight forward, basically says they were aiming for Palau Langkawi.
Says all of the evidence so far pretty much can fit within normal SOP in a fire.
Yep, smart money has to be on that. Occams' razor and all.
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And for anyone to lazy to read.
I can assure you that's not even close to covering the extent of stuff that happened on that plane.
Definitely read the book.
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Here is an article that may be of intrest
http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-news/se-asia/story/missing-mh370-how-satellites-communicate-plane-malaysia-airlines (http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-news/se-asia/story/missing-mh370-how-satellites-communicate-plane-malaysia-airlines)
It certainly sounds as if they have a method but it may have been simplified for the media. Certainly would be interesting to find out what was done.
Thanks for the link. Extra interesting in that even an article purporting to explain, still contains massive internal contradictions. Quote from the text:
"4. Through the hourly "handshakes", the satellite can determine the approximate location of the plane so that it can relay messages efficiently. A plane that is flying directly under a satellite would be at a 90-degree angle to the satellite. An aircraft flying at the poles would be at 0 degrees, the CNN report said. The last message sent by MH370 was at 40 degrees.
5. A satellite can “see” in an arc that stretches north and south of its fixed position, but without global positioning system (GPS) on the plane, the satellite can say only how far away the electronic "ping" from the aircraft is, not where it is coming from, a source told The New York Times."
You see that these two points directly contradict each other? #4 is the version supporting the 'arcs chart', while #5 is what I'd expect to be true. Except that there's a difference between 'ping' and 'handshake', and it's important since you can't get ranging time-of-flight from a one-way ping from the plane. If the satellite pings the plane and the plane responds, that's a handshake, and gives you some ranging info, albeit with an uncertainty due to the potentially variable response lag at the plane.
The media are using the terms as if synonymous.
Then there's a reader comment:
"RocketRob
The initial handshake is established when the plane powers up (on the ground) -- perhaps around 12:11 am based on the approximate one hour ping cadence. Flight took off at 12:41 am so first in-air ping would have occurred around 1:11 am -- about 10 minutes after the plane reached its cruising altitude of 35,000 feet, and only 4 minutes after the final ACARS transmission was sent. (As a reminder, we don't know when the ACARS was disabled, other than it happened sometime after 1:07 but before 1:37.)
So there should be a total of 8 in-flight pings from MH370 -- from 1:11 am to 8:11 am. The Inmarsat-5 F1 satellite (located at 63 degrees east longitude in geosynchronous orbit) cannot determine the azimuth from which it receives pings from the aircraft, only the range (which can be calculated from speed-of-light roundtrip time between the satellite and the plane, assuming you know the response latency by the plane). For the final ping, the roundtrip speed-of-light time appears to have been around 252 milliseconds, implying a range to the plane of about 37,800 km. That works out to a circle on the ground, centered on 0N, 63E, of radius 4850 km, or a little over 3000 miles.
Of course, much of that circle can be ruled out based on the impossibility of the plane reaching it from its last known position. This is why NTSB and other authorities have plotted an arc (actually a pair of them) where the plane could have been at 8:11 am. I'm assuming the gap between the two arcs must be based on information gleaned from the prior pings which would provide a series of hourly range-rates. I would rather have *all* the arcs so that I could draw my own conclusions. I'd also like to know the measurement uncertainties in the computed ranges, which are a function of satellite clock accuracy (presumably excellent) and aircraft response latency (probably the main source of uncertainty)."
Emphasis is mine. Notice he calls it 'Inmarsat-5 F1'. My satellite almanac is old (1997) which is where I got 'Inmarsat-3' from. But it would have reached EOL by now.
So, we still have the awkward situation where the assumptions of that official 'arcs' chart may be invalid - and all that means.
Really need to find some accurate, definitely have not been fiddled with, technical information on the capabilities of the Inmarsat-5 F1. Anyone have anything that's in physical print form, or files they've had in their possession since at least a year ago?
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@TerraHertz
The rocketbob comment seemed really plausible. I can see the polling having timestamps but would they be that accurate. The satellite would have an accurate enough clock but would you record that kind of accuracy? I have no clue. Interesting though, I could also see how that could confuse the media, basically saying that they worked out the "angle" but not how.
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As for a fire, if there was one big enough to take out, or cause a pilot to disable part of the planes electronics you'd think the plane would have crashed quickly. But that's just speculation and I prefer facts.
Reading the QF32 book made me realise that engines are incredibly robust and hard to shut down, and they have their own local fuel tanks that will keep them feed for many hours, even if the rest of the plane is completely dead and all but a burnt out shell. But of course to keep the thing in the air for those hours requires the autopilot to still have at least partial control of enough control surfaces.
I can picture a scenario where the fire forced a calamity, with the pilots being knocked out as described, and then the plane continuing to fly for many hours as the fire just smoulders or is unable to spread etc. Still quite plausible I think.
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@dave
It seems jet engines can run on anything once they get going, it was a big problem when they where first being developed (shutting them down).
There was a flight where a slow decompression knocked out everyone on board. Some military jets checked it out and found one person walking up an isle. In the end it crashed, I'll see if I can remember the flight info.
I could see the scenario you posed happening very easily.
It will be very interesting to see where it ends up.
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The decompression crash I was thinking of was Helios 522
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios_Airways_Flight_522 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios_Airways_Flight_522)
Looks like there may have been a sighting while it was still n flight. The page is translated so read with caution.
http://www.haveeru.com.mv/news/54062 (http://www.haveeru.com.mv/news/54062)
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Looks like there may have been a sighting while it was still n flight. The page is translated so read with caution.
http://www.haveeru.com.mv/news/54062 (http://www.haveeru.com.mv/news/54062)
If that's the case then it couldn't have been more than maybe a few thousand feet, and in the middle of nowhere like that, it probably didn't have much further to go...
I haven' confirmed, but one commenter pointed out:
If you fly from the last know position IGARI towards the waypoint VAMPI, which primary radar data suggests and maintain the same magnetic heading / track from that point on - you will end up over that island!
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Same area and an interesting sat image.
http://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/22048564/missing-plane-spotted-over-maldives/ (http://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/22048564/missing-plane-spotted-over-maldives/)
Sorry ignore this, the plane is in the air.
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@dave
It seems jet engines can run on anything once they get going, it was a big problem when they where first being developed (shutting them down).
Any non-spark ignited engine will have that problem. As long as it has something to eat (in some cases its own lubrication), it will run.
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The sighting in the Maldives, if it ties up with the rest of the data, is a significant development and will narrow the search area to a zone more easily accessible from the Seychelles and the Maldives.
It could also mean to the aircraft was still under some control, either from a pilot or (partial) autopilot. If it flew at a low altitude all the way from the Malaysian peninsula, its range and ground speed would have been severely reduced.
Scratch that. False report investigated by Maldives police. Assuming the report about the police investigation is true. ::)
Don't know what to believe anymore.
Would be amazing if anything is ever found of this aeroplane!
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I just read this about the possibility of hacking planes controls with mobile phones.
w.hwwuffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/03/17/malaysia-mh370-hacked_n_4977688.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular
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The CBC has done a pretty good job describing the situation. I wonder what the reasoning is behind Australia choosing to focus on that particular search area.
http://www.cbc.ca/news2/interactives/malaysia-airlines-mh370-dashboard/ (http://www.cbc.ca/news2/interactives/malaysia-airlines-mh370-dashboard/)
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This fellow has a very well researched explanation for how it traveled back over Malaysia without appearing on radar systems. He's found another flight that was in the right place and time, to allow MH370 to 'merge' with it on radar.
20140321
http://mh370shadow.com/post/79838944823/did-malaysian-airlines-370-disappear-using-sia68-sq68 (http://mh370shadow.com/post/79838944823/did-malaysian-airlines-370-disappear-using-sia68-sq68)
Did Malaysian Airlines 370 disappear using SIA68/SQ68 (another 777)?
http://mh370shadow.com/post/80154688823/questions-answers-follow-up-1-how-did-malaysian (http://mh370shadow.com/post/80154688823/questions-answers-follow-up-1-how-did-malaysian)
Questions/Answers Follow-Up #1 - How Did Malaysian Airlines 370 disappear using SIA68/SQ68?
He assumes MH370 would have followed SQ68 all the way up into Europe. But that's an assumption.
I'm still maintaining the links collection: http://everist.org/archives/links/_Flight_MH370_disappearance_links.txt (http://everist.org/archives/links/_Flight_MH370_disappearance_links.txt)
Incidentally, I'd never heard of the Kerguelen Islands - French Southern & Antarctic Lands.
Interesting place to look at in google maps. Pretty much the calibration standard of barren, rugged, windblown, cold and remote.
Link is zoomed to the major settlement - Port Aux-Francais:
https://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=-49.351296,70.214996&spn=0.045512,0.050468&z=14 (https://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=-49.351296,70.214996&spn=0.045512,0.050468&z=14)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerguelen_Islands (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerguelen_Islands)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port-aux-Fran (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port-aux-Fran)çais
Also here's a youtube video on the history of Diego Garcia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxVao1HnL1s (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxVao1HnL1s)
Published on Oct 28, 2013
Producer Andrew Tkach and correspondent Christian Amanpour report on the hushed up eviction of the indigenous people of Diego Garcia to make way for one of America's most strategic air and navy bases. The full story aired on CBS News 60 Minutes.
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Here is a map showing the sat image hits. Apparently 1 meter per second currents, that sounds fast but I'm just going by what was in a news story. Regardless the sat images have a good grouping. Of course it means nothing until they can actually verify.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-J9Voi5giBqw/Uy2aTO0JLeI/AAAAAAAAEi8/-LZBrQM11D0/s1600/indian_ocean_map.png (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-J9Voi5giBqw/Uy2aTO0JLeI/AAAAAAAAEi8/-LZBrQM11D0/s1600/indian_ocean_map.png)
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Apparently 1 meter per second currents, that sounds fast but I'm just going by what was in a news story.
Its like 2 knots. When your top speed is 15 knots, its a non-trivial current.
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2 knots is pretty common here (Juan De Fuca Straight), I really should have looked that up.
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MH370 was carry a cargo of lithium ion batteries:
http://www.smh.com.au/world/malaysia-airlines-defends-battery-cargo-on-missing-mh370-20140323-35b41.html (http://www.smh.com.au/world/malaysia-airlines-defends-battery-cargo-on-missing-mh370-20140323-35b41.html)
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According to the wiki
"Malaysian Insider noted that Lithium ion batteries are considered dangerous by the ICAO, and their transportation on passenger planes as cargo was prohibited as of February 2013"
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Unbelievable! They are quite happy to accuse the crew of foul play from day one, but hide the fact that the plane was carrying dangerous goods among its cargo for a fortnight. Wankers... :rant:
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I thought planes had fire detection/suppression systems?
The question everyone probably most wants to know the answer to now is not what events specifically occured, but where the bloody hell is the plane!?!? (Or whatever is left of it.)
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The question everyone probably most wants to know the answer to now is not what events specifically occured, but where the bloody hell is the plane!?!? (Or whatever is left of it.)
Wherever it is, they'd better find it quick smart, the black box transmitter only has a week or two of power left. The Indian ocean ain't shallow either.
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The probabilities of finding that plane are not encouraging.
With the lack of concrete evidence, it is important to reconstruct a scenario that fits with what clues are available, without invoking extreme possibilities, so that it doesn't happen again. The presence of lithium ion cells in the cargo should have raised some red flags a long time ago.
http://biz.maxell.com/en/product_rechargeable/?pci=6&pn=rb0013 (http://biz.maxell.com/en/product_rechargeable/?pci=6&pn=rb0013)
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The presence of lithium ion cells in the cargo should have raised some red flags a long time ago.
http://biz.maxell.com/en/product_rechargeable/?pci=6&pn=rb0013 (http://biz.maxell.com/en/product_rechargeable/?pci=6&pn=rb0013)
We don't even know what type they were. And it seems they are allowed and common anyway provided they met some international standard?
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Yes they are allowed, but they may not have been packed properly, according to the latest regulations. The consignment should be investigated thoroughly. Were they defective cells being returned to China?
I'm not saying the batteries caused the accident, but the possibility should be way up there, with the rest of the stuff being considered.
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Shades of the Valujet 592 incident, and a similar vanishing act.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ValuJet_Flight_592 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ValuJet_Flight_592)
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I know the range of the pingers is usually quite small when underwater but cant they just get super high sensitivity receivers with high gain antennas?
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About the AF 330 accident:
Within five days of the Air France Airbus 330’s plunge into the Atlantic, search teams found the first major wreckage from the airplane — a seat, a barrel, an orange buoy and what were described as “white pieces.”
Within two weeks, 50 bodies had been recovered in two groups, separated by more than 50 miles. Twenty-five days after the crash, Brazilian officials ended the search after collecting 640 pieces of debris.
But no black box. It took almost two years, until May 2011, for the box to be located on the ocean floor.
The hunt for that box was exhaustive.
It was begun by a French nuclear submarine five days after the plane went down. The sub, the Emeraude, worked with a mini-sub, the Nautile, and sonar was used to listen for the flight recorders’ pings.
Though the ocean depths in that part of the Atlantic could be much deeper and the underwater terrain was quite jagged, the searchers took hope from the 1988 recovery of a black box that was 16,100 feet deep.
The two French submarines were able to cover 13 square miles of the Atlantic each day.
Two French surface vessels towed “pinger locator hydrophones,” borrowed from the U.S. Navy, that could pick up signals almost four miles below the surface.
By late July, it was calculated that the 30-day battery life powering the pingers had expired.
With the black boxes located in the tail section of the plane, searchers hoped that the recorders might be lodged in a large piece of debris that could be picked up by sonar. A research vessel towing sonar worked an area with a 47-mile radius from the plane’s last position without success, until late August 2009.
Oceanographers from several nations were brought in for the third phase of the search in 2010. They covered 2,400 square miles of ocean and came up empty-handed.
The next year, a team from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, using autonomous underwater search vessels, discovered a large debris field from the flight on a relatively flat section of ocean bottom at depths between 12,500 and 13,100 feet.
On May 2, 2011, a remotely operated vehicle found the flight recorders and carried them to the surface. By June of that year, 154 bodies, of the 228 people on board, had been recovered. The search ended with 74 bodies unrecovered.
(https://www.whoi.edu/cms/images/mediarelations/msn109a700m_137636.jpg)
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Interestingly, it's likely the Australian Navy will drop some Barra sonarbouys that I helped design and build back in the day.
http://www.engineeringicons.org.au/engineering-icons/australian/barra-sonobuoy-system/ImagesVideosAudio/design.pdf (http://www.engineeringicons.org.au/engineering-icons/australian/barra-sonobuoy-system/ImagesVideosAudio/design.pdf)
Oh wow, some old photos there and a couple of familiar colleagues.
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Nice to see your old design work is still in production and is being used actively.
I have a sheet of card I roughed out a circuit change which was laminated and incorporated as a design alteration ( still on the cardboard piece just with a stamp and engineer signature) in a lift where I used to stay. Simple change that did not involve anything other than a single wire moving to another connector, but as it is a safety circuit it had to be signed off as an alteration and they were too cheap to have a new page drawn up for this simple change.
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I'm sure it is being discussed in high places right now .
At the moment, they are lots of ways to monitor a flight in remote places, but they all assume that the crew is in control and able to operate those systems.
HF, ACARS, SATCOM, CPDLC, ADS, ELT, to name most of them.
The Emergency Locator Transmitter doesn't need aircraft electrical power and can be activated at anytime by the crew from the cockpit. It will also transmit after a high-G impact, but is unlikely to survive a high energy event.
Nobody placed a telephone call from the cabin through SATCOM, pointing to a sudden event, assuming the 777 was equipped with such a facility.
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So do these planes now also have buoys that automatically deploy when hitting the water and transmitting SOS or something like in submarines that are stuck on the seafloor ? Would be nice with a planet with such big oceans ;)
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So do these planes now also have buoys that automatically deploy when hitting the water and transmitting SOS or something like in submarines that are stuck on the seafloor ? Would be nice with a planet with such big oceans ;)
The black box does, but you've got to be close to hear it ping.
I could easily picture a device (floating bouy) that automatically deploys from the plane a few moments before impact. Wouldn't be hard to have an autonomous pod that detected rapid descent and impending crash (like those emergency parachute deployment devices), and then jettisoned itself (to avoid being smashed to bit along with the plane) and started transmitting.
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They are there, but really only deploy if it lands on water slowly. Will be destroyed if it goes in vertical, as it has to float and any float is by definition fragile. CVR and FDR are a lot more rugged, but sink. The outer cases as well do not have to survive for them to be useful, just the inner data vault.
funny thing is the parts of a rocket second stage that are most likely to survive mostly intact are the engines, because they are rugged, and the pressurisation tanks because they are light and are released from the disintegrating structure very early so they do not get burnt up too much. that and large plates that break away and drift down relatively slowly at terminal velocity. see the Skylab debris.
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Longer battery life for the recorders was one of the things implemented from the Atlantic Air France crash. There has been a fairly big push to get cockpit cameras in, that has met a great deal of resistance. I always thought an automated radio/text that reported extreme cockpit warnings (stall, fuel low, speed) to flight controllers with GPS would be beneficial.
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have you seen cnn laest theory battery fumes from the plane turned them into zombies
http://www.examiner.com/article/zombie-plane-did-missing-malaysia-777-mh370-become-a-zombie-plane-of-the-dead (http://www.examiner.com/article/zombie-plane-did-missing-malaysia-777-mh370-become-a-zombie-plane-of-the-dead)
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I have to say that the Wiki is the most sane.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_370 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_370)
The zombie story is basically a pressurization loss story.
I think a fire that self extinguished or smoldered for a long time is far more plausible.
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sorry here it is
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/03/21/us/malaysia-airlines-flight-370-theories/ (http://edition.cnn.com/2014/03/21/us/malaysia-airlines-flight-370-theories/)
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Now the latest news from Malaysia Airlines is that the plane went down in the Southern Indian Ocean west of Perth.
No hard evidence yet though just new data from satelites or ?????
http://www.malaysiaairlines.com/my/en/site/dark-site.html (http://www.malaysiaairlines.com/my/en/site/dark-site.html)
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The info is from the satellites radio comms/pings, I'm thinking they have a bit of overlap with another satellite and that is what will give the direction (north/south). Assuming they are just timing using the signal transmissions from a log file then it could be thousands or millions of log events to look at? Certainly seems solid even if it does not pinpoint the location.
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maybe just maybe dave using his telepathic powers landed the plane in his backyard read for teardown tuseday :P
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Crap, they dopplered the location. Could they have not just said that in the first place? That has been bugging me.
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Crap, they dopplered the location. Could they have not just said that in the first place? That has been bugging me.
I think Malaysia knew about what happened well before this.
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I think Malaysia knew about what happened well before this.
Of course they have known for some time. The Australian search crews went straight to this location and found and reported stuff straight away. It was in the middle of bloody nowhere and well outside of the "arc" with it's error bars.
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Saving face, conspiracy or stupidity. I vote stupidity.
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or perhaps cautious not to release another unconfirmed story to upset the families.
Anyway it is about time to find some real debris and know for sure.
Unfortunately it looks like the search is abandoned due to bad weather. :(
Side note to myself: If the pilot didn't want the plane to be found he couldn't have picked a better location.
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or perhaps cautious not to release another unconfirmed story to upset the families.
You mean like they just did telling the families without having found any actual confirmed debris yet?
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You mean like they just did telling the families without having found any actual confirmed debris yet?
:D you think the "experts" mis-dopplered?
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The evidence is pretty much ironclad now that the plane ended up in the Indian Ocean.
Something more tangible would be preferred, but pieces of the airplane may never be found.
It is heart wrenching for the families, but there is no sense keeping them in limbo, when there is no hope to find anybody alive.
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You mean like they just did telling the families without having found any actual confirmed debris yet?
:D you think the "experts" mis-dopplered?
No, but I think it's quite poor form to tell the families it's all official without actually having seen or photographed any confirmed debris yet. Especially so given the shamozzle this thing has been in terms of communication.
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They suspect the pilot to have done all this, but it could have been the new guy in the cockpit (the co-pilot). Until the flight recorder (the black box) is recovered we'll never really know what exactly happened.
Even if they recover the back box intact, it only records the last two hours of cockpit audio before the engines are shut down. So if it was a ghost flight, or the crew were taken out at the turn around point, there will be no audio to know who if anyone conscious was at the controls when it crashed.
Either way, their is nothing to stop it happening again. Maybe it's time for them to do something about it, although how would you exactly stop the pilot or co-pilot doing this?
You can't, and any possible solution to do so would introduce others problems that may be worse.
But then, as it's such a rare occurrence, maybe just say sod it and take it as just another one of lifes dangers? .. Their are plenty more risks in life that are much more likely that we each face in each and every day.
There are no shortage of ways for a single person to take out large numbers of people in their care with them.
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You can learn a great deal from recorded sounds, whether it contains human chatter or not.
Sure, but it likely won't resolve the issue of who did it (if it was deliberate)
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With the latest development of the announcement made by the "Prime Minister" level that officially declared there are no survivors, even though there are no hard proofs, speculations now have a bunch of new fresh branches :
* Either the Malaysian govt. are cracked open under pressures that they just gave up by declaring that to make their life easier. :palm: Although very unlikely (still not 100% sure), "WHAT IF" there are a survivors ? |O
* They know "something" that is a hard proven fact but still a top secret to public, that made them so bold to announce it. Still but why announce it knowingly they can't expose it yet ? ::)
Which your pick ? or any other else ?
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If the plane has indeed gone down out there in the deep wide open ocean, their will be NO survivors now, it's been far too long since the day they took off.
Agree, its just we're talking human lifes here, you just can not easily & arrogantly declare they're gone just like that without any hard proof, not even a single tiny plane debris. :palm:
What is wrong with a bit (just a tiny bit) of "humble" attitude that honestly announce that its a very-very tiny chance to see them alive, instead of "gloriously and officially" declare they're ALL dead. :-\
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If the plane has indeed gone down out there in the deep wide open ocean, their will be NO survivors now, it's been far too long since the day they took off.
Agree, its just we're talking human lifes here, you just can not easily & arrogantly declare they're gone just like that without any hard proof, not even a single tiny plane debris. :palm:
What is wrong with a bit (just a tiny bit) of "humble" attitude that honestly announce that its a very-very tiny chance to see them alive, instead of "gloriously and officially" declare they're ALL dead. :-\
Are you suggesting they should be lied to, against all evidence and left on tenterhooks for weeks on end, until maybe, just maybe, some flotsam is found? That wouldn't be honest.
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Are you suggesting they should be lied to, against all evidence and left on tenterhooks for weeks on end, until maybe, just maybe, some flotsam is found? That wouldn't be honest.
What hard evidence are you talking about ? As we speak of now of course.
So are you saying that the expressions of "tiny-tiny chance of seeing them alive" vs "they all confirmed dead" is just the same for you ?
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Very likely, but we can't not try, we just don't know for sure what will be found.
Of course, the search can't stop until the black box is found.
But unfortunately, once the ping dies in week or two (if it's even operational), it might be very tricky to find in the deep expanse of the Indian ocean because the debris on the surface could be many hundreds of km from the original crash site, almost at a minimum. So finding the original crash site where the black box likely is could be just put luck. Unlike the Air France crash where they knew were the crash site was within a day, but it still took them 2 years to find it.
Unless of cause we're still being drip fed unreliable info from the incompetents involved in it all.
Guaranteed.
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Are you suggesting they should be lied to, against all evidence and left on tenterhooks for weeks on end, until maybe, just maybe, some flotsam is found? That wouldn't be honest.
No need to lie, just the truth. "We don't know yet" is the truth, as is "All evidence points toward it crashing here, but so far we have not recovered anything" is also the truth.
What if this "wreckage" actually turns out to be garbage or something else? which, whilst remote, is still a very real possibility, as has happened the other week. That could be worse than saying we simply aren't 100% sure yet.
IMO they shouldn't have come out and declared it done and dusted without having recovered real tangible proof of wreckage they could actually show everyone. Doing so simply shows how desperate they are to appease people, and that's really bad form, and has been the officials problem time and time again in this investigation. It takes as long as it takes. That sucks for the relatives and friends but unfortunately life can suck sometimes.
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I think they did the right thing this time by informing the relatives what they now know so they can start grieving and find peace.
How long must you wait? As Dave said it can take years and years and it might never be found out what really happened.
So do you wait till you have 100% certainty and physical proof before you have to inform the relatives?
In that case some relatives would have been already waiting for over 69 years now to find any rest because some events are never ever solved:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_19 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_19)
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I think they did the right thing this time by informing the relatives what they now know so they can start grieving and find peace.
How long must you wait? As Dave said it can take years and years and it might never be found out what really happened.
So do you wait till you have 100% certainty and physical proof before you have to inform the relatives?
In that case some relatives would have been already waiting for over 69 years now to find any rest because some events are never ever solved:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_19 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_19)
Since your country flag is Holland, which is a developed country, I guess you've never have to deal with bureaucrats at developing/less developed country, right ?
Let me tell you the real deal here, which is probably you don't even realize or aware what that announcement will affect. By officially declared they're all "officially" dead, especially by the no.1 guy in the country, this means ... :palm: ... the search & rescue effort, energy, resources, time, money ... etc can be reduced down to "necessary" level, and so on ..... :'( , hell, they will quote the Flight 19 if needed as a reason in their announcement like you just did.
Just a reminder of what was happening not too long ago, not the same case, but there is a moral story IMHO that worth something -> Here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Copiap%C3%B3_mining_accident)
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What is the size of the ring buffer of the new solid state type of voice recorder? Is it still ~2 hours? If so the CVR will be missing some critical data.
Alexander.
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I think they did the right thing this time by informing the relatives what they now know so they can start grieving and find peace.
How long must you wait? As Dave said it can take years and years and it might never be found out what really happened.
So do you wait till you have 100% certainty and physical proof before you have to inform the relatives?
Yes, otherwise it's stating the bleeding obvious for appeasement or political purposes.
People are not stupid, they know the plane crashed.
What they don't want is further bullshit, incompetence, and lack of evidence, which is all the officials seem to have come up with so far.
It seems relatives are not happy after the announcement:
http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-news/se-asia/story/angry-chinese-relatives-mh370-passengers-plan-protest-malaysia-embassy-2 (http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-news/se-asia/story/angry-chinese-relatives-mh370-passengers-plan-protest-malaysia-embassy-2)
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/466734/MH370-Angry-relatives-try-to-storm-Malaysian-embassy-in-Beijing (http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/466734/MH370-Angry-relatives-try-to-storm-Malaysian-embassy-in-Beijing)
The problem is that this announcement would have been ordinarily fine in itself under other circumstances. But when you factor in the peeved off relatives and the way they have botched the whole thing again and again, the least they could have done now is to have shut their mouths and waited a few days until a boat can find some actual wreckage. It doesn't need to wait years, just at the least the courtesy of finding some actual wreckage first before mouthing off.
An official government announcement does usually serve one purpose though, it allows them all to be declared legally dead, which allows commencement of sorting out their affairs.
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It seems strange that not even one military satellite didn't pick the plane's change in course, red flag it and mark the crash site.
Alexander.
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Well I do not think they could have said anything to not angry those people, biggest damage was already done from the start (how can you loose track of a plane and not know directly about it and take action).
But you are right that they could have waited a bit more for evidence searching vessels to have had at least a try/go for it.
It seems strange that not even one military satellite didn't pick the plane's change in course, red flag it and mark the crash site.
Yeah thought about that as well but it is not a high strategic area such as Afghanistan/Pakistan/Nord Korea etc. and we still do not know what the evidence exactly was that now surfaced.
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With Helios 522, when contact was lost the civilian responsible for the communication contacted Hellenic Air Force and within minutes fighter jets was accompanying the 737.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios_Airways_Flight_522 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios_Airways_Flight_522)
They lost a plane from radar screens and didn't notified military radars/satellites?
Alexander.
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Not minutes, hours, nearly 2 hours to be precise (09:30 to 11:24). And the intercept only happened because the 737 was in a holding pattern.
The B-777 had just left KUL airspace, when the incident occured. It took a while to liaise with Vietnam's controllers who couldn't find the traffic on their scopes or communicate with it. They usually assume the aircraft is on the wrong frequency. They call on the emergency guard frequency and then ask other traffic in the area and neighboring control centers to try to establish some contact with the airplane.
All this takes time, before a search procedure is initiated. The lack of a transponder contact in all zones, initially meant that the aircraft probably crashed in the Gulf of Thailand.
Nobody thought at the time, that the aircraft turned around stealthily, heading towards the Indian Ocean. As the threat level is very low in Malaysia, it is not inconceivable that military radar coverage would be minimal, especially after midnight. I'm not even sure that the alarm was raised with the military in time to identify a target and scramble interceptors, as the plane was thought to be somewhere else.
Satellites are good at picking up distress signals, but not at finding stealth aircraft in the middle of nowhere, in real time.
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I think lack of radar contact could be pilot related. If they new they had no transponder skirting the outside edge of military / primary radar to avoid getting shot at is conceivable.
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Not minutes, hours, nearly 2 hours to be precise (09:30 to 11:24). And the intercept only happened because the 737 was in a holding pattern.
The B-777 had just left KUL airspace, when the incident occured. It took a while to liaise with Vietnam's controllers who couldn't find the traffic on their scopes or communicate with it. They usually assume the aircraft is on the wrong frequency. They call on the emergency guard frequency and then ask other traffic in the area and neighboring control centers to try to establish some contact with the airplane.
All this takes time, before a search procedure is initiated. The lack of a transponder contact in all zones, initially meant that the aircraft probably crashed in the Gulf of Thailand.
Nobody thought at the time, that the aircraft turned around stealthily, heading towards the Indian Ocean. As the threat level is very low in Malaysia, it is not inconceivable that military radar coverage would be minimal, especially after midnight. I'm not even sure that the alarm was raised with the military in time to identify a target and scramble interceptors, as the plane was thought to be somewhere else.
Satellites are good at picking up distress signals, but not at finding stealth aircraft in the middle of nowhere, in real time.
I think it is quite likely other Nation's aircraft often contravene Malaysia's air space,the Military know about it,& no longer "hit the panic button",but just keep an eye on them.
Perhaps they were expecting just such a "fly through",& wrote off MH370 as one of those.
Mechanical/Electrical failure is,in my opinion,much more likely than any actions of the crew,or anybody else.
All the stories about the plane possibly landing somewhere were never anything but fantasy,in any case.
As soon as it was overdue long enough for the fuel to have run out.it was obvious MH370 had crashed somewhere,the question was always where?
And as for the Southern Indian Ocean,there's a whole lot of nothing out there!
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I think it was mechanical or fire as well. I should have said if I was a pilot, the plane is on fire, no transponder I would head for the closest runway which is unarmed.
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It creeps me out thinking that the plane may have flown on for 6 hours by itself.
Engines running, autopilot flying the plane, everyone dead, mostly quiet.
A few hours later the dull sounds coming from passengers headphones begin to end one by one as movies finish on the flight entertainment system.
Quietly the plane continues for 5 hours with the flight computer making ongoing corrections for crosswinds to maintain course and altitude.
The fuel gauges slowly drift down until the silence is interrupted by cockpit alarms sounding as the engines flame out one by one....
A few extra minutes of dead silence follows....
Then the last words ever spoken on the plane are uttered by the flight computer over the cockpit speaker...
"Too Low, Terrain"
:(
It sends chills down my spine
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That is the stuff of nightmares and even worse it is very likely.
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That is the stuff of nightmares and even worse it is very likely.
Everyone being dead from smoke/fumes is much better than being awake for hours panicking on a plane that no one can fly.
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That is the stuff of nightmares and even worse it is very likely.
Everyone being dead from smoke/fumes is much better than being awake for hours panicking on a plane that no one can fly.
Still creepy, and hopefully there was no pain for the crew and passengers.
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At least there's *finally* a semi-decent explanation of how Inmarsat came up with those two arcs originally, and then narrowed down a final location. That's what has been bothering me most, of all the many strangenesses in this story.
Some recent articles. The last one is the tech explanation.
20140325
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2588109/How-got-After-Malaysia-Airlines-jet-said-crashed-Indian-Ocean-look-ended-far-course.html (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2588109/How-got-After-Malaysia-Airlines-jet-said-crashed-Indian-Ocean-look-ended-far-course.html)
Does the revelation that missing Malaysian jet crashed into the ocean prove its crew WERE overcome by smoke? News supports theory the plane ran out of fuel after flying 'unmanned' for hours
(Includes video and Inmarsat spokesman offering a few shreds of info on how the flight path located. 'Doppler'. )
video:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2588109/How-got-After-Malaysia-Airlines-jet-said-crashed-Indian-Ocean-look-ended-far-course.html#v-3386538487001 (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2588109/How-got-After-Malaysia-Airlines-jet-said-crashed-Indian-Ocean-look-ended-far-course.html#v-3386538487001)
Interesting screens in the 'control center walkthrough'.
20140325
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/10719304/How-British-satellite-company-Inmarsat-tracked-down-MH370.html (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/10719304/How-British-satellite-company-Inmarsat-tracked-down-MH370.html)
How British satellite company Inmarsat tracked down MH370
The British company that provided vital information on MH370’s whereabouts explains its calculations
video: http://player.ooyala.com/iframe.js#pbid=7dfd98005dba40baacc82277f292e522&ec=FyYzNkbDofp0-Lb9KtV9yjM3Nf_K2FMx (http://player.ooyala.com/iframe.js#pbid=7dfd98005dba40baacc82277f292e522&ec=FyYzNkbDofp0-Lb9KtV9yjM3Nf_K2FMx)
Chris McLaughlin - Inmarsat senior vice president
20140324 (linked via JimStone)
http://www.rtlnieuws.nl/nieuws/binnenland/twee-f-16s-onderscheppen-vrachttoestel (http://www.rtlnieuws.nl/nieuws/binnenland/twee-f-16s-onderscheppen-vrachttoestel)
Two F-16s intercepted freighter (google translated from Dutch)
From the Brabant Volkel airbase, two F-16s took off to intercept. A freighter
It turned out this was a cargo plane, a Boeing 777F LAN Cargo, which was en route to the airport. The unit flew from Miami in Dutch airspace and they could not connect to the device.
A spokesman for the Coordinator for Counterterrorism and Security unit had previously requested permission for the flight. That is because of the nuclear security summit in The Hague is mandatory.
The jets have the cargo plane accompanied this had left. Dutch airspace The unit flew independently to the airport in Frankfurt, Germany.
20140326
http://presstv.com/detail/2014/03/25/355988/china-demands-data-on-missing-jet/ (http://presstv.com/detail/2014/03/25/355988/china-demands-data-on-missing-jet/)
China casts doubt on fate of Flight MH370
A Senior Chinese official has demanded Malaysia to turn over satellite data it used to conclude that a missing airliner has crashed in the Indian Ocean.
Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Xie Hangsheng told Malaysia’s ambassador to Beijing that China wanted to know exactly what led the Kuala Lumpur government to announce that the plane has plunged in the ocean.
“We demand the Malaysian side to make clear the specific basis on which they come to this judgement,” Xie said during an urgent meeting with Malaysian Ambassador Iskandar Sarudin in Beijing.
20140326
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking/2014/03/25/mh370-last-incomplete-ping-from-jet-not-understood/ (http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking/2014/03/25/mh370-last-incomplete-ping-from-jet-not-understood/)
MH370: Last incomplete ping from jet ‘not understood’. Includes link to explanation from Inmarsat (on Facebook? WTF?):
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=740971779281171&id=178566888854999&stream_ref=10 (https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=740971779281171&id=178566888854999&stream_ref=10)
This new revelation at this evening’s media briefing in Kuala Lumpur by Malaysia’s acting transport minister and minister of defence Hishammuddin Hussein is described in a detailed explanation added to the Ministry of Transport Facebook page.
---------------------
The doppler story seems reasonable. But looking at their chart of the doppler shift from each of the contacts with MH370, do you see something odd?
I have questions.
* Why are there 'predicted' points for the start of the flight (when it was flying as intended) and why don't they match with the measured data points?
* How many contacts were there in total? That number seemed to keep changing, but wasn't it 7 or 8 finally? In this chart there are 12 points (each a contact).
* We're told the system interrogated the plane at hourly intervals after contact was lost. And mostly during the final hours of flight the contacts were hourly. But why is the final interval between contacts an hour and a half?
* The vertical scale... Huh? All frequency offsets were positive? But in the initial part of the flight, the plane was getting closer to the satellite (positive doppler shift) but the later section of the flight was going away from the satellite. Definitely. So the shift should be negative. But not according to the chart. I can't see how to reconcile that. Unless... Is this a case of some low level flunky being ordered to fabricate a technical looking chart, and thinking "f*ck you, pointy headed boss." and deliberately including impossible errors, to let all thinking people know it's a lie?
Edit to add: The satellite is geosynchronous, but doesn't have a perfect orbit. Online data says current apogee 35808.97Km, perigee 35762.22Km. Could the satellite have been in downwards drift the whole time of MH370's flight, hence the always positive doppler shift? But still, you'd think the doppler chart would show bias above and below the reference of the plane's doppler shift while parked on the runway.
Can anyone think of a way the offsets could always be positive?
The original 'two arcs' chart as published by the Malaysian government is here: http://everist.org/MH370/mh370_arcs_rubbish.htm (http://everist.org/MH370/mh370_arcs_rubbish.htm) (Needs an update, just linking for the chart.)
Supposedly the 'final position' is located at the intersection of the arc defined by the signal round trip delay (a circle centered on the satellite's ground lat,long) and a path consistent with the doppler shift.
But I'd *really* like to see both those factors for each of the successive contacts. Just to see for myself. Not that the whole dataset couldn't be entirely fake. Can certainly see the Chinese government's point in demanding the raw data.
Does anyone know a way to save a copy of videos from newspaper sites like this?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2588109/How-got-After-Malaysia-Airlines-jet-said-crashed-Indian-Ocean-look-ended-far-course.html#v-3386538487001 (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2588109/How-got-After-Malaysia-Airlines-jet-said-crashed-Indian-Ocean-look-ended-far-course.html#v-3386538487001)
Really want to keep a local copy of that video, and some others. YTD can't grab them.
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122 objects spotted:
(https://s.yimg.com/ea/img/-/140326/260314genmh370satellite1_19j5cus-19j5cvj.jpg)
It certainly impacted intact.
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Everyone being dead from smoke/fumes is much better than being awake for hours panicking on a plane that no one can fly.
This article is interesting:
http://www.smh.com.au/world/search-for-mh370-how-cockpits-security-door-may-have-left-conscious-passengers-helpless-in-midair-20140326-zqn41.html (http://www.smh.com.au/world/search-for-mh370-how-cockpits-security-door-may-have-left-conscious-passengers-helpless-in-midair-20140326-zqn41.html)
However, other commercial airline pilots have since revealed there is a secret emergency procedure that would allow airline staff to get into the cockpit in the event that the pilots were, for example, rendered unconscious by a mechanical fault.
Fairfax Media has chosen not to detail the procedure.
But it can be by overriden by the flight deck, meaning the pilots do have the ability to block passengers and crew from contacting the outside world.
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Yes, there is a procedure. The crew of the Ethiopian 787 that was commandeered to Geneva by the asylum-seeking copilot, were denied cockpit entry, as he kept overriding the safety system, even threatening to crash the airplane if they tried to force the door open.
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/02/17/world/europe/ethiopian-airlines-hijacking/ (http://edition.cnn.com/2014/02/17/world/europe/ethiopian-airlines-hijacking/)
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So what track was MH370 following? It seems odd to me that the pilot would have set a magnetic heading to find an emergency airport.
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If it was a depressurization or any other serious emergency, it is customary to set a rough magnetic heading off the airway for an emergency descent or a diversion to the nearest airfield. Proper navigation is refined later, once the emergency is under control.
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So the time period between first indication and overwhelming problem was pretty quick... like ones of minutes.
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I think it is quite likely other Nation's aircraft often contravene Malaysia's air space,the Military know about it,& no longer "hit the panic button",but just keep an eye on them.
Perhaps they were expecting just such a "fly through",& wrote off MH370 as one of those.
Or they do it like in Switzerland. The Swiss air defense only works during office hours 0800 to 1700. Outside of the office hours they need to ask for help from neighboring countries.
When they had the incident with the Ethiopian hijacker they needed to ask the Italian and French air forces to have an eye on the aircraft, because at 6 am the Swiss pilots where still in bed.
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So the time period between first indication and overwhelming problem was pretty quick... like ones of minutes.
If you subscribe to the uncontrollable emergency scenario, instead of the hijack, it seems that way.
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So the time period between first indication and overwhelming problem was pretty quick... like ones of minutes.
If you subscribe to the uncontrollable emergency scenario, instead of the hijack, it seems that way.
A knock on the cockpit door and the door being busted down doesn't fit into my explanation? :)
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Looks to be lots of stuff to pickup, a least 300 at current count:
(http://resources1.news.com.au/images/2014/03/27/1226866/769189-acd6e48e-b58c-11e3-995d-6099a80e173b.jpg)
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Interestingly, there's also a circuit breaker in the avionics bay of the 777-200 which lets you disable the cockpit door lock -- and you can access it from the galley.
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Which one? :-X
http://hawkeyemedia.com/panos/777_Avionics.asp (http://hawkeyemedia.com/panos/777_Avionics.asp)
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Which one? :-X
http://hawkeyemedia.com/panos/777_Avionics.asp (http://hawkeyemedia.com/panos/777_Avionics.asp)
Left Left Right Right Press......... ;)
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Which one? :-X
http://hawkeyemedia.com/panos/777_Avionics.asp (http://hawkeyemedia.com/panos/777_Avionics.asp)
eenie meenie miney mo....
(http://076dd0a50e0c1255009e-bd4b8aabaca29897bc751dfaf75b290c.r40.cf1.rackcdn.com/images/files/000/378/212/original/original.jpg)
"Ryan, some things in here don't react well to bullets."
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You could just download the instruction manual.
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I'm glad to hear that Dave is paying attention to the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH 370. There's lots of speculation and apparent misinformation floating around out there. Some of it might be cleared up by those who understand engineering. Are there any potential guests that might understand some of the systems on board commercial airliners?
I am still curious:
-What causes fire from lithium ion batteries?
-Is the cargo area of an airliner pressurized?
-If there's little O2 in the cargo area at cruise altitude can lithium ion batteries in the cargo area burn?
-If the batteries will burn at cruise altitude, would it help to take the plane to a higher altitude where there is even less O2?
-What is "proper packaging" for lithium ion batteries that I heard the Malaysians talk about in front of the press?
-Can the pilot really throw a switch and depressurize the cabin where the passengers are?
-Is throwing circuit breakers a practical method of extinguishing or tracking down the source of a fire?
-How fast might the battery life drop off in the black boxes?
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You could just download the instruction manual.
wouldn't you be pissed off if the download corrupted at 99% downloaded.
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I started to think of another plausible theory - plane was diverted to remote area by pilots in order to steal some very important cargo aboard. It is compatible with clues about someone turning off tracking device.
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Cargo theft idea doesn't really make sense - who steals an entire aircraft including 270 passengers for cargo? Why not steal it when it is being loaded/unloaded? Cargo security on passenger airlines isn't super strict; I'm sure it'd be a thousand times easier... not to mention it doesn't require you to murder over 200 people.
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My thinking on the theories is this. If they lead you to the location of the crash then fine they are useful, even if they are incorrect. In this case many theories fit but it was the Imarsat guys that came up with the first real clue so, two thumbs up for whomever at Imarsat came up with the doppler idea and those that executed it. Science wins.
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I started to think of another plausible theory - plane was diverted to remote area by pilots in order to steal some very important cargo aboard. It is compatible with clues about someone turning off tracking device.
Not plausible. It would require the government of the country you land in to be in on it, and those to dispose of the plane and people on board. Not going to happen.
And of course doesn't fit in the almost-fact it's been found in the middle of the Indian ocean, headed nowhere.
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Which one? :-X
http://hawkeyemedia.com/panos/777_Avionics.asp (http://hawkeyemedia.com/panos/777_Avionics.asp)
Probably the one labeled cockpit door ;D
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I think it would be possible to lose all communications systems except for a transmitter and some electronics connected directly to it. It could also be that the flight controls where operational and the pilots where fighting against massive amounts of smoke in the cockpit. Hard to land if you can't see your instruments or outside the aircraft. Is there a way to use the autopilot to give them more time to clear the cockpit? Did they try that and fail. It will be an interesting story.
If it was a fire the interior will show smoke damage.
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I'm glad to hear that Dave is paying attention to the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH 370. There's lots of speculation and apparent misinformation floating around out there. Some of it might be cleared up by those who understand engineering. Are there any potential guests that might understand some of the systems on board commercial airliners?
I am still curious:
-What causes fire from lithium ion batteries?
-Is the cargo area of an airliner pressurized?
-If there's little O2 in the cargo area at cruise altitude can lithium ion batteries in the cargo area burn?
-If the batteries will burn at cruise altitude, would it help to take the plane to a higher altitude where there is even less O2?
-What is "proper packaging" for lithium ion batteries that I heard the Malaysians talk about in front of the press?
-Can the pilot really throw a switch and depressurize the cabin where the passengers are?
-Is throwing circuit breakers a practical method of extinguishing or tracking down the source of a fire?
-How fast might the battery life drop off in the black boxes?
I know little about lithium batteries,but I can answer some of the other stuff.
-Is the cargo area of an airliner pressurized?
Yes,as aircraft have suffered loss of pressurisation due to losing a cargo door.
Also,animals are often carried in the cargo area.
Another important point is that air pressure sensitive bombs could be set to operate at high altitude in an unpressurised cargo area,but it is not so easy to make one which will trigger in the small difference between sea level & 2000ft,or whatever aircraft pressurise to the equivalent of.
If there's little O2 in the cargo area at cruise altitude can lithium ion batteries in the cargo area burn?
Covered in the above answer.
Can the pilot really throw a switch and depressurize the cabin where the passengers are??
I doubt it--remember the volume of an aircraft cabin is quite large,so the pressure cannot instantly disappear.
What can happen is for the cabin & cockpit to not pressurise in the first place,but large aircraft have audible pressurisation alarms,which should have warned the pilots.
-Is throwing circuit breakers a practical method of extinguishing or tracking down the source of a fire?
This is pretty much standard procedure with an electrical fire anywhere---in many cases ,if there is no current to feed whatever is getting hot,it drops below the temperature at which it can cause other material to burn.
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Looking at it from any angle, it is pretty hard to hide a 777. The only place I can think of is North Korea.
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Pinger life:
Assuming it's the 30 day variant of the pinger. Full output pings for the 30 days and then dropping off with the maximum expected around 7 days and the minimum 3 days, ping range diminishes as battery power lowers after the 30 day mark.
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Looking at it from any angle, it is pretty hard to hide a 777. The only place I can think of is North Korea.
I think it's technically possible but would take some serious effort and money.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Azorian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Azorian)
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Another important point is that air pressure sensitive bombs could be set to operate at high altitude in an unpressurised cargo area,but it is not so easy to make one which will trigger in the small difference between sea level & 2000ft,or whatever aircraft pressurise to the equivalent of.
I don't think this is the case. Apart from the fact that aircraft cabins are pressurized to an altitude of between 6000 - 8000 ft, it is trivial for the humble barometer in your home to measure much smaller differences than that when giving a fine/fair/rain/storm indication.
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Timers seem to be the preferred method for bombs in a cargo hold.
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Another important point is that air pressure sensitive bombs could be set to operate at high altitude in an unpressurised cargo area,but it is not so easy to make one which will trigger in the small difference between sea level & 2000ft,or whatever aircraft pressurise to the equivalent of.
I don't think this is the case. Apart from the fact that aircraft cabins are pressurized to an altitude of between 6000 - 8000 ft, it is trivial for the humble barometer in your home to measure much smaller differences than that when giving a fine/fair/rain/storm indication.
I stand corrected!
I just seem to remember reading the figures 2000-2500ft many years ago.
Question is,how well would a domestic barometer survive being bounced around during the loading procedure?
Usually,the more rugged a device is,the less sensitive it is.
Also, if the aircraft doesn't pressurise till 6000 ft or so,it would still be fairly close to the airport,so may survive.
Saboteurs would probably prefer it to be further away,which suggests a high altitude setting.
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And again they have re-calculated the crash site to be more to the north/east due to the fact that the plane was flying faster then anticipated.
https://www.amsa.gov.au/media/documents/28032014MH370Update23.pdf (https://www.amsa.gov.au/media/documents/28032014MH370Update23.pdf)
But now I am totally confused, they are re-targeting the satelites, so does this mean that the 130 pieces of debris first found are not from the plane? And what are they now actually going for, the plane it self on the bottom or the debris that was earlier found on the satellite images?
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... they are re-targeting the satelites, so does this mean that the 130 pieces of debris first found are not from the plane?
Those were NOT the droids they were looking for. I'm already on my 4th bag of popcorn !!
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Saboteurs would probably prefer it to be further away,which suggests a high altitude setting.
Why?
Anyone who wanted to blow up a plane obvious wants to kill as many people as possible and make as a big statement as possible, and have the least risk possible.
So going higher and further before detonating lessens the effectiveness of all three of those things.
If you detonate just after takeoff then:
a) The plane is likely over a populated area and hence more chance of collateral damage on the ground
b) There is more likelihood it will get filmed, thus maximising your public and hence political exposure.
c) Less chance that the plane can recover and land. You can land a flying wreck when you have enough altitude.
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And again they have re-calculated the crash site to be more to the north/east due to the fact that the plane was flying faster then anticipated.
https://www.amsa.gov.au/media/documents/28032014MH370Update23.pdf (https://www.amsa.gov.au/media/documents/28032014MH370Update23.pdf)
But now I am totally confused, they are re-targeting the satelites, so does this mean that the 130 pieces of debris first found are not from the plane? And what are they now actually going for, the plane it self on the bottom or the debris that was earlier found on the satellite images?
Basically they are racing against the clock, going wherever the leads take them.
All of the images have the potential to be correct. The Tai image sounds to be radar and should be easier to find due to the size. If they find the field and it turns out to be incorrect on to the next one. Looking at large fields can help eliminate areas faster and thus cover a larger area. Re-targeting the satellites will cover more ground but also give a better idea of the current flow in that area. Current flow information is needed to help locate any items that have sunk.
Even though it seems like a large area consider how much it has been reduced. It's like searching a beach for a single grain of sand compared to what is now probably a sandbox. Next will be getting that down to a bucket.
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I started to think of another plausible theory - plane was diverted to remote area by pilots in order to steal some very important cargo aboard. It is compatible with clues about someone turning off tracking device.
Not plausible. It would require the government of the country you land in to be in on it, and those to dispose of the plane and people on board. Not going to happen.
And of course doesn't fit in the almost-fact it's been found in the middle of the Indian ocean, headed nowhere.
Most likely you are right.
But if it is possible to "re-label" plane in mid flight so that it reappear as completely different plane and lands at some remote airport without any government noticing. And why do anything to passengers? Just say "ops emergency stop" and let them go few weeks later. It is easier to steal what is already on plane this way than steal and then find way to transport it.
If it was a malfunction then most likely there would be enough means to send emergency signals out.
If tracking system was in fact tempered with then it was probably intentional and in that case - "follow the money!". That is my logic anyway.
If plane crashes and falls apart wouldn't those emergency flotation devices activate as soon as they fall into water sending beacon signals to satellites? If I recall even small boats often have those orange "save me" beacons aboard.
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I assume the lifeboats have beacons but have no idea if they inflate / activate in the event of a crash (I would assume they do not inflate). No signal would probably mean they are submerged.
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I started to think of another plausible theory - plane was diverted to remote area by pilots in order to steal some very important cargo aboard. It is compatible with clues about someone turning off tracking device.
How many places are there which have the space to land a 777 and not be seen by spy satellites or local observers?
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I started to think of another plausible theory - plane was diverted to remote area by pilots in order to steal some very important cargo aboard. It is compatible with clues about someone turning off tracking device.
How many places are there which have the space to land a 777 and not be seen by spy satellites or local observers?
A hangar in North Korea comes to mind.
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I started to think of another plausible theory - plane was diverted to remote area by pilots in order to steal some very important cargo aboard. It is compatible with clues about someone turning off tracking device.
How many places are there which have the space to land a 777 and not be seen by spy satellites or local observers?
Why would you try to hide it? Everyone can look at it as long as they want - it is just another 777 as thousands of others.
It is not that easy to determine exact type/model by looking at satellite images as you may think - pattern recognition software often fails to do a match.
Here is a Google maps - What airline?
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A new hypothesis I've heard recently suggests the pilot has (deliberately or accidentally) crashed the plane - in the Diamantina Trench. It's near the area they are searching, about 50km across. The depth there is beyond the rating of the black box (~4,500m rated, up to 8,000 m deep) - the data may be lost forever.
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A new hypothesis I've heard recently suggests the pilot has (deliberately or accidentally) crashed the plane - in the Diamantina Trench. It's near the area they are searching, about 50km across. The depth there is beyond the rating of the black box (~4,500m rated, up to 8,000 m deep) - the data may be lost forever.
I believe the cockpit voice recorder only lasts 2 hours, so even if it is found it may have limited usefulness. Finding the main fuselage will probably be more important. The FDR is probably more critical.
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So much speculation, next there will be sightings of it by the Mars rovers.
Anyway, it is not unknown for 777s to burst into flames: http://avherald.com/h?article=44078aa7 (http://avherald.com/h?article=44078aa7)
So how does your modern 'fly by wire' aircraft work? Are the 'controls' in the cockpit no more than computer screens, buttons and joysticks connected to the brains in the avionics bay? An O2 fuelled fire
as per the photo below would takeout the 'controls' in seconds, the smoke and eventual lack of O2 from burning through the skin would soon kill the people on board. Leaving the aircraft as the Mary Celeste of the sky, continuing on her way until the fuel ran out.
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Yep, something as lethal as that particular failure is the most plausible explanation.
Explosive de-pressurization combined with severe cockpit fire and smoke and compromised O2 system. Doesn't get much worse than that!
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It's funny, but since this incident I had a look online for flight trackers. My mum and aunt went for a 3 day break to Budapest, Hungary from Manchester, UK a few days ago. I could track the flights and even see the plane making flight corrections in 3D using http://www.flightradar24.com (http://www.flightradar24.com). It relies on enthusiasts uploading data to their server.
Some places are lacking coverage - so they will send you a low power beaglebone box to plug into your router for free! http://www.flightradar24.com/free-ads-b-equipment (http://www.flightradar24.com/free-ads-b-equipment). Of course you need to erect a decent aerial too.
ETA: They even provide the aerial and cable too!
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So far, lots of satellite photos of what could be just sea ice. Still not one single actual aircraft piece picked up by the multiple ships in the area. The more days this goes on, the stranger it gets.
Speaking of strange, why has Israel had an identical looking 777, in the exact same paint scheme as the missing MH370, warehoused in Tel Aviv since November 2013? That's a lot of cash to leave sitting idle for 'no reason'.
http://www.bollyn.com/are-the-israelis-planning-another-9-11-using-the-missing-777/ (http://www.bollyn.com/are-the-israelis-planning-another-9-11-using-the-missing-777/)
It's also fascinating to see how Inmarsat can issue estimations of where the plane was when last heard, then later there's a new 'last estimated area' for whatever reason and no one mentions the previous Inmarsat diagrams again.
This makes three times now. First it was 'somewhere on these two arcs', then the southern ocean site shown with a couple of flight paths to it (none of which are anywhere near the original 'two arcs'). Now it's "the plane was going faster than we thought, so must have run out of fuel sooner, giving a location more to the NE." But wait... isn't fuel efficiency the determinant of distance possible on a tank? Faster & sooner doesn't necessarily mean shorter distance.
Well, I just keep saving local copies of all this stuff. The more tangled the stories get, the easier it is to see who is lying. Especially if anyone starts redacting online articles to cover their arses.
So much disinformation!
For instance, all that stuff about the MH370 right after final spoken contact climbing to above rated altitude, then descending, and passing back over Malaysian airspace and landmass without showing up on radar.
I've concluded it's all bollocks. For starters, the claimed climb rate is impossible, even for fighter planes. Also MH370 was at the very limits of the Malaysian radar, and had just turned off its transponder. It's the transponder that gives ATC computers the craft's true altitude, bearing and speed. Suddenly that data feed stopped, and the ATC systems were left with just the raw radar echo (and faint at that.) So I think the 'rapid climb' was just a radar system processing artifact.
As for the 'evaded radar on the westerly return over Malaysia', I now think that is just the Malaysian government flat out lying to save face. MH370 very likely flew over them at a normal altitude, but with no transponder data it was just an unidentified dot on radar screens. At around 1am in the morning. I think the Malaysian air traffic control were just asleep on the job, or incompetent, and the government is unable to admit their ATC is a joke. Notice how the Malaysian air force commander who broke the story that in fact they _had_ seen MH370 on radar, got stomped on hard in just a few hours, and was forced to claim on camera that he'd never said that (which he had, the day before, on camera.) Nonetheless the official search area was switched to where he said it had been last detected, off the SW coast of Malaysia.
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So far, lots of satellite photos of what could be just sea ice. Still not one single actual aircraft piece picked up by the multiple ships in the area.
Are the ships even in the area yet?
If so, hundreds of objects reported and they can't find one?
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Speaking of strange, why has Israel had an identical looking 777, in the exact same paint scheme as the missing MH370, warehoused in Tel Aviv since November 2013? That's a lot of cash to leave sitting idle for 'no reason'.
http://www.bollyn.com/are-the-israelis-planning-another-9-11-using-the-missing-777/ (http://www.bollyn.com/are-the-israelis-planning-another-9-11-using-the-missing-777/)
I see no links to credible data that says the plane is stored there. Just some entry in some plane spotters database?
If it is, then there is almost certainly some technical reason for it, who has investigated that possibility? probably no-one, because some conspiracy theory is always much more exciting than reality. Who wants the boring truth?
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Here is my understanding of the Inmarsat situation.
Inmarsat originally gave the arc information saying "The data indicates this" (no direction) . The direction (north south) was determined by comparing the signals to other aircraft, this was probably more than a guess but I wouldn't go to court with it. The suspected direction was given early on but probably in the form "We think it went south". The range was determined by expected fuel consumption, not done by Inmarsat.
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So far, lots of satellite photos of what could be just sea ice. Still not one single actual aircraft piece picked up by the multiple ships in the area.
Are the ships even in the area yet?
If so, hundreds of objects reported and they can't find one?
Yes, there have been several ships on location for days now. This is why the Oz search aircraft were dropping smoke markers near 'possible objects'. No point unless there's a ship in range to go look. Or, just doing it for the reporters on the plane.
Google 'ships MH370'. For eg:
March 28
http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/thai-satellite-spots-300-objects-possibly-part-of-missing-malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370/story-fnizu68q-1226865929215 (http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/thai-satellite-spots-300-objects-possibly-part-of-missing-malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370/story-fnizu68q-1226865929215)
"However, five vessels including the HMAS Success and four Chinese ships continued to visually scour the waves."
March 29
http://www.smh.com.au/world/11-objects-spotted-in-search-for-malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370-20140329-zqobk.html (http://www.smh.com.au/world/11-objects-spotted-in-search-for-malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370-20140329-zqobk.html)
"A Chinese ship has arrived at the new search area to relocate objects thought to be part of the missing Malaysia Airlines plane. Another five ships, including Australia's HMAS Success, are enroute and expected to arrive in the search zone later today."
Also there's supposed to be a US warship, but no mentions of that recently.
So, why is there so little media mention of the ships on site? How about because that would make too many people wonder about the lack of actual pieces found.
Having said that, maybe any moment now someone will find an aircraft piece with a 'Property of Malaysian Airlines' tag. Though my paranoid tinfoil-encased mind suspects that won't happen till after the flight recorder acoustic pinger batteries are definitely dead, just so there's no chance at all of having any idea where the wreckage on the bottom may be. If there is any.
That's pretty soon, apparently.
If any of this is related to the ex-Malaysian Airlines 777 sitting in a hangar in Israel since Nov 2013, or the 777 that a few days ago tried to fly into the Dutch protected airspace around the nuclear summit meeting with it's transponder turned off, then this pic someone did about magic tricks comes to mind. Because a good disappearing act requires the object to reappear somewhere very unexpected.
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If any of this is related to the ex-Malaysian Airlines 777 sitting in a hangar in Israel since Nov 2013
Your inability to provide links to back this up is duly noted.
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If he eats that chip, does the Prestige happen when he's on the toilet?
Magic can only happen when you want to be fooled.
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@TerraHertz
In all likelihood they would have had to find debris well over a week ago to make some use of the acoustic pinger.
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If any of this is related to the ex-Malaysian Airlines 777 sitting in a hangar in Israel since Nov 2013
Your inability to provide links to back this up is duly noted.
http://www.planespotters.net/Production_List/Boeing/777/index.php?p=2 (http://www.planespotters.net/Production_List/Boeing/777/index.php?p=2)
BUSTED! Israel Caught Housing Flight 370 'Twin' Airplane in Tel-Aviv! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWYANJzVJvY#ws)
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I think it might help the discussion if certain speculations are clarified:
Pressurisation: The pressurisation controller allows the cabin to climb (and descend) at a much lower rate than the actual aircraft, typically less than 500 feet per minute. The aircraft itself can easily climb and descend at >3000 fpm. This is done to minimise discomfort to pax ears.
Typical cruise pressure differential is about 8psi (Pounds/Sq in) - equivalent to about an 8000ft cabin. That is why airliners are tubular with hemispherical pressure domes at either end and the underfloor cargo area cannot be independently depressurised. I'll leave it as an exercise to calculate how many thousands of tons of force is on the skin of the fuselage pressure vessel, but that force is why even a tiny bomb can have a big impact. This cyclical force once per flight is also a significant source of metal fatigue and is one limiter on the safe life of the aircraft.
Fly By Wire (FBW): Yes, the B777 does have FBW computer enhancements to the flight controls. But like all Boeings there is always a direct mechanical connection between the control yokes/pedals and the flight control surface hydraulic actuators. In the event of some runaway FBW/autopilot activity (or the hypothetical "remote control"), this direct steel cable control can overpower any autoflight control input.
This Boeing architecture is VERY different to an Airbus. In a typical Airbus, there is NO manual/direct connection - the joystick is used by the crew to inform the flight control computers what they want to do, and if the computer agrees then it moves the control surfaces. Even in degraded modes the pilot is still essentially flying through the computer.
I find it interesting that in all the events where modern airliners have allegedly been "remote controlled", not a single one has involved an Airbus, always a Boeing.
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If any of this is related to the ex-Malaysian Airlines 777 sitting in a hangar in Israel since Nov 2013
Your inability to provide links to back this up is duly noted.
http://www.planespotters.net/Production_List/Boeing/777/index.php?p=2 (http://www.planespotters.net/Production_List/Boeing/777/index.php?p=2)
BUSTED! Israel Caught Housing Flight 370 'Twin' Airplane in Tel-Aviv! Youtube Video as "evidence" ?
Your idea of actual substantive evidence is amusing. So what if a 15 year old ex lease aircraft is sitting on the ground somewhere? It happens all the time. And FWIW, there are over 1100 B777 built, so a few sitting around waiting for the airline capacity demand to cycle up is totally normal.
I would have thought that participants on a site like this could have sense enough to avoid the tinfoil.
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I would have thought that participants on a site like this could have sense enough to avoid the tinfoil.
Dave asked TerraHertz for a link and I just posted it. Not my video. :box:
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I wonder if there is an agreement between the searchers to first notify to the families. I don't think that would be unreasonable. I suppose it could also be a free for all.
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http://www.planespotters.net/Production_List/Boeing/777/index.php?p=2 (http://www.planespotters.net/Production_List/Boeing/777/index.php?p=2)
Whoopdy-doo. Some entry in some database that says the plane is stored in Israel?
Who entered the data?
Who last actually saw it?
Does anyone know why it was bought, or why (presumably) it's being stored? - No.
Why is it so unusual that it's being stored in Israel?
Is is so suspicious that a company actually bought a plane from an airline? - No.
Who bought it? GA Telesis, that's who, a huge company that does exactly that, buys planes and uses them for parts or leases them as fleet planes etc, and does all sorts of stuff. For them to buy and store a plane is completely usual business. They have a billion dollars worth of assets under management.
This is a pretty dumb conspiracy theory, because if you step back and take a look, nothing unusual has happened here at all.
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This Boeing architecture is VERY different to an Airbus. In a typical Airbus, there is NO manual/direct connection - the joystick is used by the crew to inform the flight control computers what they want to do, and if the computer agrees then it moves the control surfaces. Even in degraded modes the pilot is still essentially flying through the computer.
Yes, but there are several degraded modes, and as I understand it, the lower level mode you go, the less the computer actually tries to do. To the point of the computer making no decisions at all and simply relaying the stick commands directly. But strictly yes, there are no physical control lines from the stick, it's copper wires.
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Airbus flight laws
http://www.airbusdriver.net/airbus_fltlaws.htm (http://www.airbusdriver.net/airbus_fltlaws.htm)
- Normal law - Plane is almost impossible to stall - can run with one failed flight computer
- Alternate law - Some protections omitted. Multiple failures required to enter alternate law (such as loss of two computers, loss of pitot reading, etc.)
- Direct law - No protections, all controls still available.
There is no true mechanical backup. In the case of complete systems failure, the aircraft will be uncontrollable aside from limited pitch and rudder control. However, such a failure is incredibly rare - it's more likely all four engines will fail for example. There are 7 redundant computers and Direct Law is possible with just one computer.
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. There are 7 redundant computers and Direct Law is possible with just one computer.
I often wonder about the logic used to implement the redundancy in systems like this, and how they guard against faults in the redundancy hardware - I'm sure they know what they're doing but I'd be interested to know the technical details of how it's done.
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What operating system such a system depends on? VxWorks?
Is the computers of the redundancy array clones of each other?
Alexander.
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KISS. Discrete logic is very reliable compared to software, and you can have very reliable units providing you take care to protect it against overvoltage, power transients and such. If that dies you are up the creek and heading to a trip over Angel falls without a parachute. As well you have 3 mechanical actuators and simply rely on the fact that 2 can still control even if the third is not happy or is trying to hit an end stop. There are plenty of single point failure modes in the system, and they try their best to engineer the overall system such that those points are very rarely going to fail.
Airbus tried their best to mitigate bugs by requiring the computers to each have different logic designs internally and to have both different operating systems and different processors. The code in each just has to agree on outputs for inputs and do so within IIRC 200mS of each other, otherwise the redundancy management logic restarts the errant unit and lets it try again. Too many reboots and it is flagged and locked out. You can do all of that without having a processor just using discrete logic. Might be a programmable logic device, but it is NOT running code, just a configuration of internal logic.
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Airbus tried their best to mitigate bugs by requiring the computers to each have different logic designs internally and to have both different operating systems and different processors. The code in each just has to agree on outputs for inputs and do so within IIRC 200mS of each other, otherwise the redundancy management logic restarts the errant unit and lets it try again. Too many reboots and it is flagged and locked out. You can do all of that without having a processor just using discrete logic. Might be a programmable logic device, but it is NOT running code, just a configuration of internal logic.
I would expect the final hydraulic drive control unit to have dedicated logic, and then dedicated logic for the Direct Law mode. The higher level ones would requires smarter control, so very likely not 7 of the same redundant control computers. As you say, pretty easy to implement in basic logic. i.e. each computer would have a "system ok" flag which the hydraulic control unit could interpret easily the priority inputs and ignore the units not working. The Direct Law would be just that, direct stick to hydraulic control. And there might be a master switch to override enable that in emergencies?
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No master override, as any fault situation where all computers are out implies the electrics are dead, the engines are dead, the batteries are all dead and the RAT is no longer deployed. No power or hydraulic pumps working either, and as the control surfaces are too heavy in flight for a stick movement to operate anyway a direct cable or linkage would not help anyway. That is the time you bend over and kiss your sorry ass goodbye. In that instance you better hope you filled in the IATA insurance form properly so next of kin can get paid out. I only thought about that one time.
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No master override, as any fault situation where all computers are out implies the electrics are dead, the engines are dead, the batteries are all dead and the RAT is no longer deployed.
I was thinking more in terms of one of the flight computers going completely whacky based on sensor data or something, like what happened in QF32.
IIRC the pilot said he could always switch to Direct Law mode if he felt that the computers in the other modes might give problem?
This is on the A380.
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http://www.smh.com.au/world/push-to-take-control-australia-to-lead-the-probe-into-mh370-20140328-35onf.html (http://www.smh.com.au/world/push-to-take-control-australia-to-lead-the-probe-into-mh370-20140328-35onf.html)
:wtf:
Changing the search area again? away from the hundreds of items shown on the satellite image, and now they are saying those hundreds of pieces are not related to the plane? How do they go from those images being the most credible leads, to simply discounting them as not from the aircraft without actually inspecting them?
:-//
Who's in charge here?, Abbott and Costello? (no, not those one's, the other ones)
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But like all Boeings there is always a direct mechanical connection between the control yokes/pedals and the flight control surface hydraulic actuators. In the event of some runaway FBW/autopilot activity (or the hypothetical "remote control"), this direct steel cable control can overpower any autoflight control input.
Interesting fact: the 737 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737#Flight_systems) is the only remaining Boeing that can be flown even with all failed hydraulics.
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Interestingly: even in the instance of total system failure the engines are self powering, which permits directional thrust.
Each engine computer is independently powered by two onboard generators above about 12% thrust. And the thrust levers/controls do not require cockpit power to control - they are routed via control lines straight to the engine computers mounted near each engine.
So even in the absolute worst case if the aircraft is still flying level you can probably land it if all 7 computers fail or if a total loss of all four AC busses (115V/400Hz), APU power, two emergency DC busses (28V DC battery backup), two emergency AC busses and two normal DC busses occurs.
Such a failure is extremely unlikely, but I suppose it's not impossible.
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Any fault taking all those busses out likely is a fire that burns through the main wiring looms, and will take out engine control wiring as well. Then the engines will either remain at previous power or will drop back to idle and stay there until fuel runs out. Depends on the EMU as to what it does with controller wiring fault. Worst case is as the wiring fails one side is commanded to full power while the other drops to ground idle, and then you have a self augering plane or it shreds itself apart in mid air.
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:wtf: Changing the search area again?
It now shows that they really don't have any clue where to look/search :palm: All is pure speculation.
What I find embarassing is that they still hold press conferences over these 1000km area changes, as if anybody cares where they are looking if they keep finding nothing.
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I often wonder about the logic used to implement the redundancy in systems like this, and how they guard against faults in the redundancy hardware - I'm sure they know what they're doing but I'd be interested to know the technical details of how it's done.
I have done some of that work in software in the past. My not-so-favorite references were "Fault Tolerant Systems" by Koren Krishna and "Software Fault Tolerance" by Laura L. Pullum. Last one was very watered down so I did not like it, but it covers some important subjects like NVP (N-version programming) and Data Diversity pretty well. To keep things on subject I noticed that often describing fault tolerance in software they refer to solutions and techniques that were and still are extensively used by hardware designers but software allowed engineers to take it to another level if they want to of course.
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How hard is the search?
Just a couple things to keep in mind.
- The Tai Satellite image with about 300 items covers 500 square kilometers, or put another way that 1 item per 1.6 square kilometers(ish). And that is the best lead to date, it does not even mean that is the place. If your searching you have to look where the satellite and data tells you.
- The amount that they suspect the plane flew south relates to the suspected speed and the last ping. Remember the plane could have went down at any time after the last ping but before the next. That is a full hour.
The search is obviously difficult, and no matter what, when or where, someone will say I told you it would be there.
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Has anyone seen any information on the winds aloft data for that region? I mean, I can't imagine they launch balloons in the middle of the ocean and any numerical data that exists probably exists only to feed computations for populated areas.
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This is good weather info.
http://www.weathergraphics.com/malaysia/iozooms.shtml (http://www.weathergraphics.com/malaysia/iozooms.shtml)
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First objects picked up by boat are just rubbish!
http://www.malaysia-chronicle.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=253601:hopes-dashed-three-objects-retrieved-from-new-mh370-search-zone-revealed-to-be-floating-rubbish&Itemid=2#axzz2xPwA3Bob (http://www.malaysia-chronicle.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=253601:hopes-dashed-three-objects-retrieved-from-new-mh370-search-zone-revealed-to-be-floating-rubbish&Itemid=2#axzz2xPwA3Bob)
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I see tomnod had moved south. Those are the crowdsource guys asking people to search. You would think radar imaging would be more effective. Even so I guess just having people look at data instead of theorizing on aliens is good. I could also be totally wrong and the images they have cover areas not yet looked at.
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Ooops here is the Tomnod link
http://www.tomnod.com/nod/ (http://www.tomnod.com/nod/)
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People like you or I who have not suffered any loss from this tragedy can afford to consider the press conferences a waste of time if they don't tell something new or solid. However the people who still want to cling to some glimmer of hope or who just want to know what happened so they can try to move on probably have a different outlook. They press conferences are probably as much a political exercise to protect officials from criticism about not doing enough.
Perhaps you're right. To me if I try to imagine (as far as that is possible in this situation) I would rather just hear that they are doing their best searching then that they shift the search region every 2 days another 1000km's I mean that is from Netherlands to the South of France, ergo they have simply no clue where to search. That is information you probably don't want to know as a relative but perhaps I am mistaken.
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When it comes to the families I think trust was lost early on. Without trust in the investigator the stress simply magnifies. I'm not sure if you could ever gain that back. I'd think that making the Australians the primary investigators would be something of a help. Hard evidence of course will also help.
Personally I think the damage has been done and it will be years or never to reduce the pain.
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Orange the colour of man-made things that float, searchers love orange.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2014/mar/31/orange-debris-found-in-search-for-malaysia-airlines-mh370 (http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2014/mar/31/orange-debris-found-in-search-for-malaysia-airlines-mh370)
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Orange things not the plane:
http://www.smh.com.au/national/orange-objects--in-search-for-malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370-just-buoys-20140331-35u9v.html (http://www.smh.com.au/national/orange-objects--in-search-for-malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370-just-buoys-20140331-35u9v.html)
And WTF, they got the final words from the pilot wrong?
http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/final-words-from-missing-malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370-were-actually-good-night-malaysian-three-seven-zero/story-fnizu68q-1226870418218 (http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/final-words-from-missing-malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370-were-actually-good-night-malaysian-three-seven-zero/story-fnizu68q-1226870418218)
And they still don't know who said it?
These people are simply unbelievable :palm:
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I don't understand why not simply publish the whole recording on some website "as is" and let everyone to hear it for themselves. Why does it always have to be presented through some kind of dumb ass "expert opinion" or stupid "official team of investigators". I can build my own conclusion on every object matter if I have raw data.
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Too busy to write up my thoughts atm. Just...
"The individual is handicapped by coming face to face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists."
-- J. Edgar Hoover, FBI Director 1924-1972, quoted in The Elks Magazine (August 1956).
MODERATOR EDIT:
Removed link to one of the whackiest conspiracy theory sites on the net. They won't get SEO from here.
Once you have decided an information source is habitually misleading, it's still possible to extract useful information from it by observing meta-attributes. The rate of change of their version, and how that correlates with the timeline of reliably known events. Logical and physical inconsistencies in their version. Things they *don't* mention. And so on.
Usually such meta-attributes reveal aspects of the source's motivations - what they are trying to achieve.
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And WTF, they got the final words from the pilot wrong?
http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/final-words-from-missing-malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370-were-actually-good-night-malaysian-three-seven-zero/story-fnizu68q-1226870418218 (http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/final-words-from-missing-malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370-were-actually-good-night-malaysian-three-seven-zero/story-fnizu68q-1226870418218)
And they still don't know who said it?
These people are simply unbelievable :palm:
This thing is turning into a joke for them isn't it ?
Don't they have any decent and "adequately" smart people there in the Malaysia government officials ? Not even a single one ? :-DD
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If any of this is related to the ex-Malaysian Airlines 777 sitting in a hangar in Israel since Nov 2013
Your inability to provide links to back this up is duly noted.
Your inability to remember that I keep an online chronological list of all MH370 links I've found and thought even vaguely interesting, that I've mentioned that URL several times, and which I still update regularly, is duly noted.
Or would it be that you deliberately forget, because you consider it 'conspiracy crazy stuff'?
Despite that 80% of the links are mainstream media sources.
http://everist.org/archives/links/_Flight_MH370_disappearance_links.txt (http://everist.org/archives/links/_Flight_MH370_disappearance_links.txt)
Secondly, if you'd bothered to google 'MH370 Israel' or anything like that, you'd have found multiple sources of that story about the 777 painted identically to Malaysian Airlines MH370, who bought it, where it came from, how it got to Israel, and when. There's even a photo on an Israeli site supposedly of that plane on the ground at an Israeli airport, about to be hangared.
But it's OK. Don't let yourself get upset wondering if maybe your entire 'governments are good, and would never lie to us or engage in horrific conspiracies for truly evil ends' worldview might be a delusional fantasy. Just keep watching the TV news. Everything is fine.
Btw, Christopher Bollyn (who dug up the Israeli MH370-double info) is a truly top notch independent investigative reporter. Very meticulous. It's kind of surprising he hasn't been Wellstoned yet.
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Secondly, if you'd bothered to google 'MH370 Israel' or anything like that, you'd have found multiple sources of that story about the 777 painted identically to Malaysian Airlines MH370, who bought it, where it came from, how it got to Israel, and when.
I did, and there is nothing to see there. Only if you have a hard-on for government conspiracy theories do you extract something from nothing.
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I thought some would like to take a look at this. This is the Doppler information and the letter that explained it to the Malaysian team.
Here is a link to an Inmarsat interview. The most interesting thing I see and that was in another interview what that the passed the information off to another (undisclosed) satellite group and Boeing. That was a peer review (of sorts) and then passed it on.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-25/malaysia-jet-traced-with-physics-in-pizza-fueled-inmarsat-huddle.html (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-25/malaysia-jet-traced-with-physics-in-pizza-fueled-inmarsat-huddle.html)
So far this appears to be only thing they have to go on.
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The cargo manifest hasn't been released to the public, or to the Australian authorities yet.
Something fishy going on there, which could possibly incriminate the airline, if the dangerous goods were not packed properly.
http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/22136527/malaysia-continues-to-refuse-to-release-full-mh370-cargo-manifest/ (http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/22136527/malaysia-continues-to-refuse-to-release-full-mh370-cargo-manifest/)
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Secondly, if you'd bothered to google 'MH370 Israel' or anything like that, you'd have found multiple sources of that story about the 777 painted identically to Malaysian Airlines MH370, who bought it, where it came from, how it got to Israel, and when. There's even a photo on an Israeli site supposedly of that plane on the ground at an Israeli airport, about to be hangared.
No offense, but I fail to see how an Israeli airline buying a plane, which just happens to have a similar paint scheme proves anything. If the intent of Israel was to secretly steal MH370 (or any other nefarious act), why would they need an identical plane? Why not save $30+ million and just, I don't know, take the plane? Seems to me that buying an identical plane would just raise more suspicion.
And why would they even need the plane? A bunch of businessmen, families, and lithium batteries... not exactly hard to find things in Israel.
So yes, I agree with the moderators on this one. As no reasons have been provided why it is relevant, it just seems to be a pretty great coincidence. And in this discussion, needless information that is just mere speculation.
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No offense, but I fail to see how an Israeli airline buying a plane
It's an American company HQ'd in Florida:
http://www.gatelesis.com/company/ (http://www.gatelesis.com/company/)
Nothing to see here...
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No offense, but I fail to see how an Israeli airline buying a plane
It's an American company HQ'd in Florida:
http://www.gatelesis.com/company/ (http://www.gatelesis.com/company/)
Nothing to see here...
:palm: :palm:
Either way...
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http://www.planespotters.net/Production_List/Boeing/777/index.php?p=2 (http://www.planespotters.net/Production_List/Boeing/777/index.php?p=2)
Whoopdy-doo. Some entry in some database that says the plane is stored in Israel?
Who entered the data?
Who last actually saw it?
Does anyone know why it was bought, or why (presumably) it's being stored? - No.
Why is it so unusual that it's being stored in Israel?
Is is so suspicious that a company actually bought a plane from an airline? - No.
Who bought it? GA Telesis, that's who, a huge company that does exactly that, buys planes and uses them for parts or leases them as fleet planes etc, and does all sorts of stuff. For them to buy and store a plane is completely usual business. They have a billion dollars worth of assets under management.
This is a pretty dumb conspiracy theory, because if you step back and take a look, nothing unusual has happened here at all.
Incidentally, my original reference to that plane was:
Speaking of strange, why has Israel had an identical looking 777, in the exact same paint scheme as the missing MH370, warehoused in Tel Aviv since November 2013? That's a lot of cash to leave sitting idle for 'no reason'.
http://www.bollyn.com/are-the-israelis-planning-another-9-11-using-the-missing-777/ (http://www.bollyn.com/are-the-israelis-planning-another-9-11-using-the-missing-777/)
How did you come to say that I didn't provide a link?
There's no 'conspiracy theory' here. Just some people pointing out that there is an identical model 777, in the same paintjob as MH370, sitting in a hangar in Tel Aviv. When you have a disappeared plane with 230 people on board, and various other international situations that may also be relevant, and so far NO SOLID EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER of what ultimately happened to MH370 after it left Malaysian radar space, such details as a perfect 'body double' for MH370, are absolutely worth noting.
What they may or may not mean, and whether any solid connections turn up later, are separate issues.
As for people speculating on possible connections - of course all such speculations involve conspiracy theories - by definition. It's very silly to dismiss them because they are conspiracy theories.
The tree of possibilities, at top level is quite limited:
MH370 missing because:
1. Fault/misshap/fire onboard.
2. Deliberate action involving only one or both pilots.
3. Deliberate action involving persons/groups external to the plane. May or may not also involve pilot(s).
#1 can perhaps be discounted. Someone entered new waypoints, made no radio messages, but the plane kept flying and systems kept pinging Inmarsat for hours, etc. I don't believe the 'climbed to 45K feet' part, since the climb rate quoted is impossible - must be a radar systems artifact, likely due to cessation of transponder data feed. This scenario is only possible if somehow both pilots and everyone else lost consciousness very suddenly - no chance for the pilots to grab oxygen masks. Which they do have.
If there was poison/incapacitating gas... but then it becomes Case #3.
Only thing I can think of, is pilots became aware of a problem in the hold, set new waypoints to get back to a runway, then BOTH went down to the hold to deal with the situation. And while there (with no breathing equipment) were overcome by fumes or there was a hull breach. Then everyone else lost consciousness too, AND the fire or whatever had killed ACARS then did no further damage so the plane could fly on under autopilot. BUT... then how come the final turn south much later? And they BOTH left the cockpit? This really doesn't work.
#2 is ridiculous. Anyone wanting to suicide with a planeload of people will (does) just do it, not stealthily wait till crossing an airspace border then vanish the plane. Anyone wanting to make demands with the plane as hostages wont act that way either. Even sudden complete insanity seems very unlikely due to the calculated actions.
#3 leads into a very messy branching maze of vague possibilities, made worse by the near total absence of clues.
By definition, this entire branch involves conspiracy. Anyone who rejects all consideration of #3 on principle "because conspiracy" is frankly suffering from a serious cognitive defect.
To quote Sherlock Holmes (Doyle) "When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."
#1 is still a faint, faint possibility. But finding things like a 'plane body double' hidden away; someone trying to fly a no-transponder 777 into Dutch airspace during the nuclear summit meeting recently; the attempts to paint the two Iranian refugees onboard as likely hijackers (complete with photoshopped image); the total non-mention in the MSM of Diego Garcia and its long range radars, and many other curious details, certainly aren't helping eliminate #3 from consideration.
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"#1 can perhaps be discounted"
Yes, obviously, since it doesn't fit into any conspiracy theories.
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#1 is still a faint, faint possibility. But
#1 is still by far the most likely scenario for anyone but a nutjobber who's obsessed with government or other conspiracy theories.
You seem to be slipping in such conspiracy theories in an ever nicer way to prevent yourself being banned or having your posts deleted. So I'll make this clear, don't post in this thread again, I won't have it turn into conspiracy central. There are plenty of other places were you can post that stuff. I'd ban you from this thread, but SMF does not allow that.
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"#1 can perhaps be discounted"
Yes, obviously, since it doesn't fit into any conspiracy theories.
:D
Perhaps it landed/crashed in a desert and is buried under the sand. Let's get back to reality and wait till the Australian search team find something relevant.
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Let's get back to reality and wait till the Australian search team find something relevant.
I'm beginning to think they'll never find anything. The pinger is all but dead, and the odds of having the gear in place to detect it and be in the right location to detect it in the remaining time is practically zero. All they have turned up is garbage, and the Indian ocean is a big-arse place. Seems like it'll just be pot luck if they recover anything at all, let alone actually find the crash location.
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I'm beginning to think they'll never find anything.
Is there already a discussion in your country who is going to pay for all this, I mean there goes millions of taxpayers $.
I could understand that there would be some sort of opposition already and if not now in not too long time.
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Is there already a discussion in your country who is going to pay for all this, I mean there goes millions of taxpayers $.
I could understand that there would be some sort of opposition already and if not now in not too long time.
Every country has obligations to help out in search and rescue in their various waters, or where they are best able. In our case we are closest and also have the required technical capability. I believe there is some sort of formal definition of this and the areas involved, and that Australia has massive areas officially allocated to them.
No one complains about this sort of thing, most generally take pride that we can help. The military are always just pissing away our tax dollars regardless.
Ah, just checked, here it is, we are responsible for half the Indian Ocean:
http://www.amsa.gov.au/search-and-rescue/sar-in-australia/arrangements-in-australia/ (http://www.amsa.gov.au/search-and-rescue/sar-in-australia/arrangements-in-australia/)
(http://www.amsa.gov.au/search-and-rescue/sar-in-australia/arrangements-in-australia/images/srr-coverage.jpg)
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wow that is a huge area. :scared:
Yesterday was the international courtruling that Australia won against Japan and it's "scientific, yeah right" whalehunters, excellent result :-+
And yeah the military, we also thought like that but recently when Russia moved it's troops towards the Ukrain we are rethinking our investments ;)
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I'm beginning to think they'll never find anything. The pinger is all but dead, and the odds of having the gear in place to detect it and be in the right location to detect it in the remaining time is practically zero. All they have turned up is garbage, and the Indian ocean is a big-arse place. Seems like it'll just be pot luck if they recover anything at all, let alone actually find the crash location.
The search for the Air France A-330 took 2 years, in a much smaller area. Even then, finding it took a great dollop of sheer luck. A proper survey of an expansive area of the Indian Ocean floor, would be a massive undertaking, very slow and extremely costly.
I hope it will be done for the sake of the relatives and the airline industry, but realistically, the wreckage may never be discovered.
http://robots.stanford.edu/isrr-papers/final/final-37.pdf (http://robots.stanford.edu/isrr-papers/final/final-37.pdf)
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Dave said no more posts from you in this thread.
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The search for the Air France A-330 took 2 years, in a much smaller area. Even then, finding it took a great dollop of sheer luck.
But didn't they find some wreckage with in a few days? :'(
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AF went down with working ACARS, which gave a small search area. So far all they can say about MH370 is it went down somewhere in the Indian Ocean. Sodding big area of water, starting 3km from me. only thing they are sure of is it went down in the Indian ocean, not the Arctic or Atlantic. If it went in the Pacific then you basically have to find a small needle in a haystack half the size of the planet. even if it landed in Australia there is a very small chance of it being found in what is basically the world's largest sand trap. Saddam hid his planes in a much smaller pile of sand, and they have not been found yet, along with his gold.
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Yes, with AF447, they immediately knew approximately where it went down, and aircraft spotted floating debris within the first couple of days. Ships recovered the debris and positively identified it as being from that particular plane a few days later.
What took two years was finding the fuselage and the majority of the wreckage, including the black boxes, on the floor of the ocean.
In the MH370 case, there has been no floating debris yet identified. If and when that does happen, the debris will have been adrift for a much longer time. The distance between the floating debris and anything that might be on the ocean floor may be considerably larger than it was in the AF447 case. So far, it's not looking like the MH370 search will be any easier or quicker than the AF447 search was.
Finding anything will be helpful, but it's possible that floating debris will still leave most of the serious questions unanswered. The FDR and CVR would be very valuable in figuring out what was going through the pilots' minds when the transponder was shut off and the course was changed, and it should go a long way toward ruling out either hijacking, pilot suicide, or mechanical/electrical trouble of some sort. But those recorders are very unlikely to be floating or easy to recover quickly.
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The CVR will only hold the last 2 hours of cockpit audio, but should still yield some clues as to what was going on aboard this flight.
(Incidentally, the original CVR system was developed in Australia and was first made compulsory by Australia)
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The CVR will only hold the last 2 hours of cockpit audio, but should still yield some clues as to what was going on aboard this flight.
(Incidentally, the original CVR system was developed in Australia and was first made compulsory by Australia)
Damn, Australia... AC/DC *and* the CVR. Next, you're going to be telling me that Australia gave the world the SCRAM jet or box wine.
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Not sure about the scramjet, but the inflatable escape slide, yes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Australian_inventions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Australian_inventions)
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I was re-reading the wiki article on the AF accident. It makes me so mad to see an accident like that happen because of a lack of basic airmanship. I mean, thrust at 100(+)% , stick pulled back to the stop, *and* maneuvering? If I died riding on the plane, I'd haunt him for the rest of eternity.
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I just had an unrelated discussion at work and I had an idea - what if tracking system on plane was turned off as result of error due to bad user interface?
Trying to switch emergency navigation system they turned it off. Something like when I rented a car and trying to turn on wind shield defroster I opened a trunk (it was Buick I rented in US with obscure controls). I have UI problems like that quite frequently at work. Does anyone have high-resolution image of that panel?
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According to other pilots, the turning off of the transmitter was almost certainly a deliberate action: it requires you to access several menu pages in succession and then set the mode to OFF.
The only real way it could not be pilot action would be fire/computer fault or maybe deliberate but as part of some checklist? (Radio malfunction check or something, not sure.)
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According to other pilots, the turning off of the transmitter was almost certainly a deliberate action: it requires you to access several menu pages in succession and then set the mode to OFF.
The only real way it could not be pilot action would be fire/computer fault
Given that when planes crash, something has always gone horribly wrong (and usually a big succession of things), fire or some of major fault is the obvious culprit, by several orders of likeliness magnitude. None of the evidence really fits hijacking/deliberate suicide etc.
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There is are a few things I've been thinking about.
- The partial handshake at 0019, that is the last communication meaning the aircraft was lost between then and 0051. It was off the standard 1 hour. First is why? Was there a system trying to communicate? Next is that this is about a 30 minute window at least it was not a 60 minute window which narrows down the suspected area.
- I don't think they have attempted to fly a similar aircraft along the route. It's probably worthwhile if only to verify the satellite data. Flying the northern route is also valid to prove the validity of the data. Malaysia air must have an aircraft that could do the job and it would be good pr. Of course if they disable part of the com system another aircraft would need to fly along with them to ensure safety (radar presence).
- Assuming that they ran out of fuel on the southern route what are the minimum and maximum ranges.
- Other than the plane landing on the Hudson river has there ever been a large airliner that landed in the ocean without breaking up? I can't think of any. That goes to the question of debris, the odds say that there must be floating debris if it broke up on impact with the sea.
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Cockpit transcript has been released
http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2014/apr/01/mh370-cockpit-transcript-full (http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2014/apr/01/mh370-cockpit-transcript-full)
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Cockpit transcript has been released
http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2014/apr/01/mh370-cockpit-transcript-full (http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2014/apr/01/mh370-cockpit-transcript-full)
Whether it's accurate or not... anyones guess.
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Whether it's accurate or not... anyones guess.
After all that has happened so far, better to just wait a week for the edited and proofread version. :-DD
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Switching the transponder off is easy. It is just a rotary on-off switch and could have been done by mistake, but unlikely.
Disabling the ACARS system is more complicated and involves many steps that most pilots would be unfamiliar with.
The SATCOM could also have been disabled, but it wasn't.
Altitude and speed information is crucial to calculate range and it is all guesswork, at the moment.
Successfully ditching a B-777 is feasible but fraught with danger, especially if done at night, in rough seas. If the plane was uncontrolled, it would be more like hitting a brick wall, with dire consequences.
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The CVR will only hold the last 2 hours of cockpit audio, but should still yield some clues as to what was going on aboard this flight.
(Incidentally, the original CVR system was developed in Australia and was first made compulsory by Australia)
I'm no plane junkie but if this is all that the "black box" is, if the plane got depressurized (most likely IMO), and flew on for several hours, wouldn't the CVR just basically have a recording of static? (Correct me if I am wrong). I'm sure if the plane was found it would likely show signs of what happened, but no black box recordings wouldn't help matters for sure.
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CVR, You should be able to hear the engines run out of fuel and cockpit alarms, impact.
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Cockpit transcript has been released
http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2014/apr/01/mh370-cockpit-transcript-full (http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2014/apr/01/mh370-cockpit-transcript-full)
The double confirmation of FL350 is a bit weird. So is the lack of read back on MH370's final transmission.
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I'm no plane junkie but if this is all that the "black box" is, if the plane got depressurized (most likely IMO), and flew on for several hours, wouldn't the CVR just basically have a recording of static? (Correct me if I am wrong). I'm sure if the plane was found it would likely show signs of what happened, but no black box recordings wouldn't help matters for sure.
The CVR records the last two hours before the last engine is shut down (or it crashes). In which case if it was a ghost flight then all you'd hear are the ambient cockpit and engine noises, and maybe some controls surfaces operating before the splat.
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Cockpit transcript has been released
http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2014/apr/01/mh370-cockpit-transcript-full (http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2014/apr/01/mh370-cockpit-transcript-full)
The double confirmation of FL350 is a bit weird. So is the lack of read back on MH370's final transmission.
My thoughts exactly. It's like they had communication issues or were a bit busy, which is strange once you're up there, above 10,000ft.
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Yes, they should have read back the new frequency. Repeating the flight level is also strange, which means distraction or tiredness. More likely distraction as the flight had just started, even if it was past midnight.
Difficult to read much into it, but it could have been due to the first symptoms of a problem on board.
No much is being said about the Japan Airlines flight that tried to contact them 10 minutes later and got a garbled reply on the guard frequency, if I remember correctly. Perhaps they were on oxygen masks at the time and quite busy.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/03/08/pilot-on-way-to-japan-says-he-made-contact-with-missing-malaysian-flight/# (http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/03/08/pilot-on-way-to-japan-says-he-made-contact-with-missing-malaysian-flight/#)
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The CVR will only hold the last 2 hours of cockpit audio, but should still yield some clues as to what was going on aboard this flight.
(Incidentally, the original CVR system was developed in Australia and was first made compulsory by Australia)
I'm no plane junkie but if this is all that the "black box" is, if the plane got depressurized (most likely IMO), and flew on for several hours, wouldn't the CVR just basically have a recording of static? (Correct me if I am wrong). I'm sure if the plane was found it would likely show signs of what happened, but no black box recordings wouldn't help matters for sure.
In addition to the CVR there is a separate digital recorder called the Flight Data Recorder (FDR).
An FDR records aircraft flightpath and system performance parameters; airspeed, altitude, heading, engine data etc.
Recording time for an FDR is many times longer than a CVR, often 17 - 24 hours. If the FDR is recovered, the entire history of this flight (except voice) should then be understood.
Some technical info if interested - including survivability standards:
http://www.skybrary.aero/index.php/Flight_Data_Recorder_(FDR) (http://www.skybrary.aero/index.php/Flight_Data_Recorder_(FDR))
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The best solution I can think up (following Occam's Razor) is that there was an electrical fire in the plane, which originated in the radio and somehow spread to the radar. The pilots lose the radio first, try to make an emergency landing at the closest airport they can, but then lose the radar, which puts them completely blind, and they aim wantonly for land, not realising that they are slowly turning south, and further and further away from land.
-kizzap
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The best solution I can think up (following Occam's Razor) is that there was an electrical fire in the plane, which originated in the radio and somehow spread to the radar. The pilots lose the radio first, try to make an emergency landing at the closest airport they can, but then lose the radar, which puts them completely blind, and they aim wantonly for land, not realising that they are slowly turning south, and further and further away from land.
-kizzap
Even very hi-tech aircraft such as a B777 have a completely old school 'wet compass' that has no integration with any avionics. Apart from the lighting, it requires no electricity and it cannot fail.
All pilots know how to read a compass.
It is that little box at the very top of this image:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2031/2264742995_e10991959b.jpg (http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2031/2264742995_e10991959b.jpg)
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The best solution I can think up (following Occam's Razor) is that there was an electrical fire in the plane, which originated in the radio and somehow spread to the radar. The pilots lose the radio first, try to make an emergency landing at the closest airport they can, but then lose the radar, which puts them completely blind, and they aim wantonly for land, not realising that they are slowly turning south, and further and further away from land.
-kizzap
Even very hi-tech aircraft such as a B777 have a completely old school 'wet compass' that has no integration with any avionics. Apart from the lighting, it requires no electricity and it cannot fail.
All pilots know how to read a compass.
It is that little box at the very top of this image:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2031/2264742995_e10991959b.jpg (http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2031/2264742995_e10991959b.jpg)
I think it also has backup insturments independent of the computers like an altimeter, a heading indicator, attitude indicator and an airspeed indicator. But I don't know if the 777 has all of these. It should, I guess.
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The best solution I can think up (following Occam's Razor) is that there was an electrical fire in the plane, which originated in the radio and somehow spread to the radar. The pilots lose the radio first, try to make an emergency landing at the closest airport they can, but then lose the radar, which puts them completely blind, and they aim wantonly for land, not realising that they are slowly turning south, and further and further away from land.
-kizzap
Even very hi-tech aircraft such as a B777 have a completely old school 'wet compass' that has no integration with any avionics. Apart from the lighting, it requires no electricity and it cannot fail.
All pilots know how to read a compass.
It is that little box at the very top of this image:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2031/2264742995_e10991959b.jpg (http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2031/2264742995_e10991959b.jpg)
That's all true. Furthermore, stars were visible. As a passenger, even without a compass I can tell roughly what direction a plane is flying at night by watching the constellations. Most pilots I know have some rudimentary familiarity with the constellations, and even if these pilots didn't, somebody on that flight would have had similar skills, at least good enough to point them roughly northwestward toward the Asian continent instead of out toward open ocean. They wouldn't have remained completely disoriented for multiple hours with no clue what direction they were flying. My conclusion is that either the crew was incapacitated or they were deliberately trying to head for open ocean.
Occam's razor is a valuable tool, but it doesn't give one good criteria for determining which is the simplest explanation. I've heard it invoked to support the "lunatic suicidal pilot" option, and the "electrical fire, causing pilots to shut down systems, and eventually causing breach of fuselage and crew incapacitation" theory.
The attractive thing about the "lunatic pilot" theory is that, once you've decided that the person at the controls is a crazed and irrational lunatic, you don't necessarily have to come up with answers to question like the motivation for going out to the open ocean instead of simply pointing the nose down and crashing immediately.
On the other hand, if a fire similar to the Egyptair MS-667 occurred during flight, the logical pilot response would be to immediately shut down the electrical systems and turn toward the nearest runway. If it burned through the oxygen hose and the fuselage like the Egyptair fire did, the pilots would not have supplementary oxygen available, and would very quickly be incapacitated. The loss of pressure could extinguish the fire, leaving the plane to fly uncontrolled until it ran out of fuel.
As far as I can tell, there's nothing about either theory that is contradicted by evidence. I think Occam's razor points toward the latter option, but I've heard others who believe it points toward the first. They have a different view of which scenario is "simplest" than I have.
Regardless, Occam's razor is only something to fall back on when you have little evidence to choose among alternatives. As more evidence is uncovered, it may be that the more complex alternative is the only one which fully explains the new facts.
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Even very hi-tech aircraft such as a B777 have a completely old school 'wet compass' that has no integration with any avionics. Apart from the lighting, it requires no electricity and it cannot fail.
All pilots know how to read a compass.
It is that little box at the very top of this image:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2031/2264742995_e10991959b.jpg (http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2031/2264742995_e10991959b.jpg)
I think it also has backup insturments independent of the computers like an altimeter, a heading indicator, attitude indicator and an airspeed indicator. But I don't know if the 777 has all of these. It should, I guess.
Indeed the B777 does have backup primary flight instruments (airspeed, altitude, attitude). These do have independant sensor inputs and dedicated displays. However, in the B777 they still require electricity to function and although they do operate off the standby bus (which is powered by the battery and ram air turbine), if the worst case does happen with the power supply (bus short or open circuit, eg; fire in equipment bay), then these displays will cease to function, unlike the wet compass.
These standby instruments are the three small vertically orientated LCD displays between the 2nd and the 3rd large display (counting from the left): (top to bottom - attitude, airspeed, altimeter)
http://wl15www815.webland.ch/travelinfos/images/cockpit/b777panorama/cockpit_B777.jpg (http://wl15www815.webland.ch/travelinfos/images/cockpit/b777panorama/cockpit_B777.jpg)
Depending on customer preference, an all-in-one standby instrument is available (same basic location):
http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4135/4792497493_0073782c52_z.jpg (http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4135/4792497493_0073782c52_z.jpg)
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The best solution I can think up (following Occam's Razor) is that there was an electrical fire in the plane, which originated in the radio and somehow spread to the radar.
Doesn't need to start in the radio. Just needs to be a sufficiently serious incident for them to be tied up responding to it.
A pilots priority is always in this order:
1) Aviate (i.e fly the plane and keep it in the air)
2) Navigate (so you don't crash into a mountain etc, and are in a position to know and point your plane toward an alternate airport or suitable landing site like the hudson river)
3) Communicate
People wrongly think the first thing a pilot does when a big incident happens is to radio what's hapepned. Nope, that's the bottom of the list!
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Indeed the B777 does have backup primary flight instruments (airspeed, altitude, attitude). These do have independant sensor inputs and dedicated displays. However, in the B777 they still require electricity to function and although they do operate off the standby bus (which is powered by the battery and ram air turbine), if the worst case does happen with the power supply (bus short or open circuit, eg; fire in equipment bay), then these displays will cease to function, unlike the wet compass.
I fear that some unprecedented incident has occurred that took out all the electrics and they were helpless to do anything at all until they eventually crashed. Like a QF32 incident, but not as lucky.
The very last thing that will fail is the engines, they have their own fuel supply and don't need plane power to operate, they just keep going and nothing will stop them.
Although if that was the case, then I'm surprised it apparently flew so far? As I presume if there was no computer left to drive the hydraulics to the control surfaces to keep it level, then a plane would crash pretty quickly?
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My thought was a fire, pilots disable power to the appropriate system. No damage to the flight control system or autopilot, massive amounts of smoke in the plane, pilots fly by autopilot for safety (including the final turn), oxygen runs out (crew and passengers die) before any further actions can be taken, plane on autopilot. The fire goes out because of the pilots original action.
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Damn, Australia... AC/DC *and* the CVR. Next, you're going to be telling me that Australia gave the world the SCRAM jet or box wine.
Or wi-fi
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....Although if that was the case, then I'm surprised it apparently flew so far? As I presume if there was no computer left to drive the hydraulics to the control surfaces to keep it level, then a plane would crash pretty quickly?
With the exception of a late generation fighter jet that is designed with negative stabilty, all aircraft generally exhibit positive natural stability. Once trimmed for a certain speed then any aircraft can be flown hands off for a long time. Yes, any gusts will disturb the flightpath, but the aircraft will naturally seek to return to the pre-gust condition. Pitch upsets will result in what is called a phugoid, a long period vertical oscillation - eg, if the gust results in a climb, then the airspeed will decrease. As the airspeed decreases then the aerodynamic download generated by the tailplane reduces, lowering the nose. As the nose lowers, then the climb becomes a descent, airspeed increases, download on the tail increases, nose comes up. Repeat many times. Eventually this damps down to essentially level flight again.
Roll stability is provided by the dihedral of the wings (upward bending). Many aircraft are fairly neutral in roll stability and a large gust upset can lead to a roll angle that won't naturally restore (typically > 5 or 10 degrees), leading to what is known as 'the graveyard spiral'. But since a B777 has a very flexible wing and a lot of dihedral in cruise, I suspect that a B777 has quite a strong dihedral effect/roll stability.
Swept wing aircraft are also prone to a coupled yaw/roll oscillation called "Dutch Roll" and often require active yaw damping. But more modern designs usually exhibit this behaviour a lot less than earlier aircraft. Dutch roll in a modern airliner is usually more of an inconvenience for pax than a serious risk of becoming divergent.
So, as long as the aircraft remained clear of thunderstorms/convective turbulence and jetstream related clear air turbulence, I can conceive it remaining in the air for many hours with no active control, although it will wander up and down and left and right. Essentially the natural aerodynamic forces of a well designed aircraft provide a negative feedback loop.
This scenario may even explain how it was initially heading west and ended up going south - a slight fuel imbalance may have resulted in a very slight left roll bias and gentle turn to the south. Speculation of course.
I hope this isn't too long an explanation of basic aerodynamics.
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So, as long as the aircraft remained clear of thunderstorms/convective turbulence and jetstream related clear air turbulence, I can conceive it remaining in the air for many hours with no active control, although it will wander up and down and left and right. Essentially the natural aerodynamic forces of a well designed aircraft provide a negative feedback loop.
Nice, thanks.
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Roll stability is provided by the dihedral of the wings (upward bending). Many aircraft are fairly neutral in roll stability and a large gust upset can lead to a roll angle that won't naturally restore (typically > 5 or 10 degrees), leading to what is known as 'the graveyard spiral'. But since a B777 has a very flexible wing and a lot of dihedral in cruise, I suspect that a B777 has quite a strong dihedral effect/roll stability.
Airplanes have no natural roll stability with respect to the ground. Dihedral only functions in what is called 'uncoordinated flight' which deals with the orientation of the aircraft with respect to the relative air stream. Dihedral is added to make airplanes 'easier' to fly, not to give them self-righting ability.
Aerodynamics for Navy Aviators (PDF)
http://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/handbooks_manuals/aviation/media/00-80T-80.pdf (http://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/handbooks_manuals/aviation/media/00-80T-80.pdf)
pg 300: "If the airplane is unrestrained and sideslip is allowed, the affect of the directional stability and dihedral effect can be appreciated."
Also "graveyard spirals" are a pilot induced phenomena. They have nothing to do with the stability analysis of an aircraft. Ironically, they occur precisely because pilots are not trained to understand and respond to the inherent lack of roll stability found in all airplanes.
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Roll stability is provided by the dihedral of the wings (upward bending). Many aircraft are fairly neutral in roll stability and a large gust upset can lead to a roll angle that won't naturally restore (typically > 5 or 10 degrees), leading to what is known as 'the graveyard spiral'. But since a B777 has a very flexible wing and a lot of dihedral in cruise, I suspect that a B777 has quite a strong dihedral effect/roll stability.
Airplanes have no natural roll stability with respect to the ground. Dihedral only functions in what is called 'uncoordinated flight' which deals with the orientation of the aircraft with respect to the relative air stream. Dihedral is added to make airplanes 'easier' to fly, not to give them self-righting ability.
Aerodynamics for Navy Aviators (PDF)
http://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/handbooks_manuals/aviation/media/00-80T-80.pdf (http://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/handbooks_manuals/aviation/media/00-80T-80.pdf)
pg 300: "If the airplane is unrestrained and sideslip is allowed, the affect of the directional stability and dihedral effect can be appreciated."
Also "graveyard spirals" are a pilot induced phenomena. They have nothing to do with the stability analysis of an aircraft. Ironically, they occur precisely because pilots are not trained to understand and respond to the inherent lack of roll stability found in all airplanes.
"Airplanes have no natural roll stability with respect to the ground"
I believe that to be an unnecessary complication. And unless there is some factor causing a sustained sideslip it is not relevant to this general discussion.
Page 295 of that document you quoted says this on the topic of lateral stability (roll stability):
"The principal surface contributing to the lateral stability of an airplane is the wing. The effect of the geometric dihedral of a wing is a powerful contribution to lateral stability."
Yes, in practice there is always roll/yaw interaction, especially with a swept wing configuration. I was trying to distill the topic from a few hundred pages to a para or two and I still assert that basically my simplified explanation is correct.
Your quote of page 301 is in the section marked 'control' not 'stability'. The two concepts are highly interactive, but in this case we are talking about an aircraft that has no control inputs, therefore only the intrinsic stability is relevant.
"Also "graveyard spirals" are a pilot induced phenomena."
They can and usually are exacerbated by pilots pitching up before rolling out, but even with no pilot interaction an aircraft will exhibit spiral divergence:
Page 299:
"Spiral divergence will exist when the static directional stability is very large when compared with the dihedral effect. The character of spiral divergence is by no means violent, The airplane, when disturbed from the equilibrium of level flight, begins a slow spiral which gradually increases to a spiral dive. "
Further on the topic: (page 300)
"The choice is then the least of three evils. Directional divergence cannot be tolerated, Dutch roll is objectionable, and spiral divergence is tolerable if the rate of divergence is low. For this reason the dihedral effect should be no more than that required for satisfactory lateral stability. If the static directional stability is made adequate to prevent objectionable Dutch roll, this will automatically be sufficient to prevent directional divergence, Since the more important handling qualities are a result of high static directional stability and minimum necessary dihedral effect, most airplanes demonstrate a mild spiral tendency. As previously mentioned, a weak spiral tendency is of little concern to the pilot and certainly preferable to Dutch roll."
I would add here a note that a 'weak spiral tendency' is fine if there is someone/something in the loop to rectify it. In practice very small bank angles as typically encountered in mostly smooth air will not diverge - the sideslip will be dealt with by the fin (this will lead to dutch roll), but a larger gust will pass the neutral point and cause spiral divergence.
Anyway, the point I was trying to make is that any aircraft's intrinsic natural positive stability (unstable fighters excepted) makes the immediate "stall, spin, crash, burn, die" event unlikely - especially for an airliner where maneuverability is not a high priority and even more so in smooth air.
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Anyway, the point I was trying to make is that any aircraft's intrinsic natural positive stability (unstable fighters excepted) makes the immediate "stall, spin, crash, burn, die" event unlikely - especially for an airliner where maneuverability is not a high priority and even more so in smooth air.
You're correct with respect to an aircraft's pitch attitude. Most airplanes (including most fighters) exhibit a natural pitch stability which extends to all modes of flight -- normal, stalled, and spinning. Some modern designs (namely UVA's) are unstable in pitch which makes them more maneuverable and more efficient to operate but more difficult to control. You either need special training (e.g. the Wright Flyer) or a sophisticated computer aid to fly a pitch-unstable airplane.
But, again, airplanes have no stability in roll. Some can be highly damped, which is what you are talking about. But no airplane is self-righting in roll. A control loop must be added to keep the plane's wings level -- the pilot looking at the horizon, the pilot looking at the gyroscopic instruments, or an autopilot.
But back to the point about MH370 zombie'ing across the Indian Ocean -- no pilots and a broken control system. 1) The engines would probably keep turning. I'm not familiar with the engines on MH370, but in general turbines are designed to fail in the 'on' direction under the notion that more thrust is better than no thrust. 2) The plane probably wouldn't stall. As we've both noted, most airplanes have a natural pitch stability. So baring some extreme event -- like a thunderstorm -- I don't think it would stall. But... 3) Airplanes have no natural roll stability. How far a plane could get without functional feedback (e.g. autopilot or roll control surfaces) is a matter of statistics. But for light aircraft flying in convective conditions accident studies have shown it to be 178 seconds (oddly specific huh?).
How far could MH370 in such a condition? Its anybody's guess, but its not on the order of 'hours'. Personally, I'd put the mark at ones to tens of minutes. If it flew for any longer than this, something on board the plane was keeping the wings level.
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Perhaps the stupidest questions of the day.
- If a pilot turns on the autopilot, is that a single button affair? Could it be invoked by anyone to maintain level flight?
- Is the Autopilot the same as the Flight Management System (I'm thinking no)?
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Perhaps the stupidest questions of the day.
- If a pilot turns on the autopilot, is that a single button affair? Could it be invoked by anyone to maintain level flight?
- Is the Autopilot the same as the Flight Management System (I'm thinking no)?
I've asked my fair share. :)
To get a good answer you'd need to ask someone that's type rated for the B777. However, certain modes of lighter aircraft autopilots can be switched on with 'a single button'. Typically, this would be a wing leveler mode (see previous post), or magnetic bearing track mode -- anything more involves programming the nav computer (e.g. FSM).
But how all that stuff is hooked up -- how its integrated, what bus its powered from, what shelf or box its in, what wire looms it shares -- is beyond my pay grade. These are exactly the kinds of questions you get when you sit for a type rating: If Bus B trips, will the autopilot kick off? Will it default into a certain mode or just shut down completely? If you suspect a fire in the _____, should you rely on the autopilot? Why or why not?
That being said, every large plane has *a very specific* enumerated list of actions to take during an emergency of any type. These actions are rehearsed by the crew to be performed at a moment's notice. There's no room for 'creativity' in these events. Pilots are trained to fly the checklist, and baring some crazy crazy event -- like the second coming of jesus on this particular flight -- that's what these pilots did. If you really wanted to know if the autopilot was (or should have been) switched on an the event of an emergency, you'd need to see what the emergency checklist specifies.
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Not really, the autopilot is always used in an emergency (if it is available), except in some specific situations, like TCAS and GPWS warnings.
They would have been on autopilot in the cruise and it would have been left on throughout the emergency they encountered, the pilot taking over controls only if the autopilot drops out.
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Ok, so you'd use the autopilot to give yourself time to evaluate the problem (if possible).
So how would you evacuate smoke from the aircraft? Switch off potential causes, lower the altitude so the air is breathable when the masks run out. Then what? Not like you can open a window.
I was in a training situation years ago with full face protection and an air tank, the room was so full of smoke I couldn't see my hand 2 inches from the mask. Even so I was barely able to see for the next 10 minutes (and I had full face coverage), I could imagine without eye protection you'd be in real trouble.
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There is a lengthy smoke checklist. If the smoke can't be brought under control, the aircraft is taken to 10,000 feet, depressurized and one of the cockpit side windows is opened.
The cockpit oxygen mask is a full face mask to protect against fumes and smoke.
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Today (in the US), NPR aired an interview with Richard Branson and the CEO of Delta:
http://www.npr.org/2014/04/03/298779764/transatlantic-duo-looks-into-the-future-of-flight?ft=1&f=1006 (http://www.npr.org/2014/04/03/298779764/transatlantic-duo-looks-into-the-future-of-flight?ft=1&f=1006)
They were asked about transponders and ELT's -- specifically why after 9/11 nothing was done to improve the technology of either. They didn't mention ADS-B, but I think the intent of the questions was more about how we can loose a plane with our current state of technology.
Does anyone know if MH370's ELT was set up to broadcast on 121.5Mhz or did they dump that completely in favor of 406?
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All three:
121.5MHz (Civil)
243MHz (Military)
406MHz (COSPAS-SARSAT satellite system)
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You're correct with respect to an aircraft's pitch attitude. Most airplanes (including most fighters) exhibit a natural pitch stability which extends to all modes of flight -- normal, stalled, and spinning. Some modern designs (namely UVA's) are unstable in pitch which makes them more maneuverable and more efficient to operate but more difficult to control. You either need special training (e.g. the Wright Flyer) or a sophisticated computer aid to fly a pitch-unstable airplane.
But, again, airplanes have no stability in roll. Some can be highly damped, which is what you are talking about. But no airplane is self-righting in roll. A control loop must be added to keep the plane's wings level -- the pilot looking at the horizon, the pilot looking at the gyroscopic instruments, or an autopilot.
But back to the point about MH370 zombie'ing across the Indian Ocean -- no pilots and a broken control system. 1) The engines would probably keep turning. I'm not familiar with the engines on MH370, but in general turbines are designed to fail in the 'on' direction under the notion that more thrust is better than no thrust. 2) The plane probably wouldn't stall. As we've both noted, most airplanes have a natural pitch stability. So baring some extreme event -- like a thunderstorm -- I don't think it would stall. But... 3) Airplanes have no natural roll stability. How far a plane could get without functional feedback (e.g. autopilot or roll control surfaces) is a matter of statistics. But for light aircraft flying in convective conditions accident studies have shown it to be 178 seconds (oddly specific huh?).
How far could MH370 in such a condition? Its anybody's guess, but its not on the order of 'hours'. Personally, I'd put the mark at ones to tens of minutes. If it flew for any longer than this, something on board the plane was keeping the wings level.
1: In general, modern FBW fighter aircraft (gen4 or 5) ARE pitch unstable and cannot be flown without artificial stability.
2: "But, again, airplanes have no stability in roll." Some do not, but this statement is NOT correct for all aircraft, especially a transport category airliner. Why do you insist with this false information?
Quote from Flight Training handbook:
" If a momentary gust of wind forces one wing of the airplane to rise and the other to lower, the airplane will bank. When the airplane is banked without turning, it tends to sideslip or slide downward toward the lowered wing. Since the wings have dihedral, the air strikes the low wing at much greater angle of attack than the high wing. This increases the lift on the low wing and decreases lift on the high wing, and tends to restore the airplane to its original lateral attitude (wings level); that is, the angle of attack and lift on the two wings are again equal.
The effect of dihedral, then, is to produce a rolling moment tending to return the airplane to a laterally balanced flight condition when a sideslip occurs.
The restoring force may move the low wing up too far, so that the opposite wing now goes down. If so, the process will be repeated, decreasing with each lateral oscillation until a balance for wings level flight is finally reached. "
From Aeronautics Learning Laboratory website:
"The dihedral angle is the angle that each wing makes with the horizontal. The purpose of dihedral is to improve lateral stability. If a disturbance causes one wing to drop, the unbalanced force produces a sideslip in the direction of the downgoing wing. This will, in effect, cause a flow of air in the opposite direction to the slip. This flow of air will strike the lower wing at a greater angle of attack than it strikes the upper wing. The lower wing will thus receive more lift and the airplane will roll back into its proper position."
"But for light aircraft flying in convective conditions accident studies have shown it to be 178 seconds "
I have no doubt about that at all - turbulence and a low inertia aircraft is not conducive to stable flight.
But this is not the same as a 200 tonne airliner with a very high dihedral angle (have you seen how high the wingtips are in the cruise of a B777?) potentially flying in glass smooth air (speculation, but possible).
All I am saying is that technically it IS possible for an aircraft to fly hands off for some considerable period of time - the larger the aircraft the better as it will have higher moments of inertia. The length of time would be determined primarily by atmospheric conditions. If those conditions ARE conducive, then minor upsets will NOT result in the aircraft entering a spiral dive.
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Perhaps the stupidest questions of the day.
- If a pilot turns on the autopilot, is that a single button affair? Could it be invoked by anyone to maintain level flight?
- Is the Autopilot the same as the Flight Management System (I'm thinking no)?
1: Yes and no. You will get stable flight with a single button push to engage the autopilot. This switch is on the Mode Control Panel (on the glareshield located between and in front of the pilots) - but if the aircraft was in a turn then this bank angle will be maintained and if wings were level then it will maintain the current heading.
The vertical speed of the aircraft at moment of engagement will be maintained.
To get proper level flight you must also press the Altitude Hold button and if not already wings level, you press the Heading Hold button. Then rotate the dials associated with those functions to fly the aircraft to a different heading or altitude - together with FLCH button and Autothrottle (A/T arm).
2: The FMS and the AP are highly integrated, but you can operate the AP directly through the glareshield controller. The FMS keyboard/displays are located near the pilots knees and with a lot more button pushing you can program or modify an entire flight, both course over the ground (lateral navigation) and altitude variations (vertical navigation).
If this is set correctly, then the AP can be coupled to the FMS by pushing the LNAV and VNAV buttons on the mode control panel as desired.
source: B777 Flight Manual
In these images you can see the mode control panel:
http://www.flightglobal.com/assets/getasset.aspx?itemid=33315 (http://www.flightglobal.com/assets/getasset.aspx?itemid=33315)
https://www.metabunk.org/data/MetaMirrorCache/761fa24f12c6e98528b1e4006f7230d0.jpg (https://www.metabunk.org/data/MetaMirrorCache/761fa24f12c6e98528b1e4006f7230d0.jpg)
And this is the FMS (one for each pilot):
http://www.fs21.com/images/Rimg0052.jpg (http://www.fs21.com/images/Rimg0052.jpg)
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Ok, so you'd use the autopilot to give yourself time to evaluate the problem (if possible).
So how would you evacuate smoke from the aircraft? Switch off potential causes, lower the altitude so the air is breathable when the masks run out. Then what? Not like you can open a window.
I was in a training situation years ago with full face protection and an air tank, the room was so full of smoke I couldn't see my hand 2 inches from the mask. Even so I was barely able to see for the next 10 minutes (and I had full face coverage), I could imagine without eye protection you'd be in real trouble.
B777 Flight manual emergency checklist: (there are two other pages for SMOKE / FUMES / FIRE ELEC and SMOKE / FUMES AIR COND)
SMOKE / FUMES REMOVAL:
Condition: Smoke / fumes removal is required.
Oxygen Masks And Smoke Goggles (If Required) .................................. ON
Crew Communications (If Required) ....................................... ESTABLISH
Flight Deck Door................................................................................... CLOSE
Prevents smoke / fumes from penetrating onto the flight deck.
Recirculation Fans Switches...................................................................... OFF
Stops recirculation of smoke / fumes and increases fresh air flow.
Equipment Cooling Switch........................................................................ OFF
Attempts to discharge smoke overboard by using the equipment cooling
override mode.
Note: After 30 minutes of operation at low altitude and low cabin
differential pressure, electronic equipment and displays may fail.
Do not accomplish the following checklist:
EQUIP COOLING OVRD
IF Most Smoke / Fumes Is In Cabin Forward Of Mid-wing And Outflow
Valve Manual Control Available:
Aft Outflow Valve Switch................................................................. MAN
Aft Outflow Valve Manual Switch.............................................. CLOSE
Position outflow valve fully closed.
Concentrates smoke / fumes in the forward part of the aircraft and
attempts to remove it through the forward outflow valve.
Do not accomplish the following checklist:
OUTFLOW VALVE AFT
* * * * ~
IF Most Smoke / Fumes Is In Cabin Aft Of Mid-wing And Outflow Valve
Manual Control Available:
Forward Outflow Valve Switch ................................................... MAN
Forward Outflow Valve Manual Switch ................................. CLOSE
Position outflow valve fully closed.
Concentrates smoke / fumes in the aft part of the aircraft and
attempts to remove it through the aft outflow valve.
Do not accomplish the following checklist:
OUTFLOW VALVE FWD
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Today (in the US), NPR aired an interview with Richard Branson and the CEO of Delta:
http://www.npr.org/2014/04/03/298779764/transatlantic-duo-looks-into-the-future-of-flight?ft=1&f=1006 (http://www.npr.org/2014/04/03/298779764/transatlantic-duo-looks-into-the-future-of-flight?ft=1&f=1006)
They were asked about transponders and ELT's -- specifically why after 9/11 nothing was done to improve the technology of either. They didn't mention ADS-B, but I think the intent of the questions was more about how we can loose a plane with our current state of technology.
Does anyone know if MH370's ELT was set up to broadcast on 121.5Mhz or did they dump that completely in favor of 406?
ELT’s are an integral part of the slide / rafts at doors 1L and 4R.
· Automatically activated upon deployment of slide raft.
· May be manually activated by pulling pin at transmitter base and touching contacts with damp finger.
· Frequencies that are used are VHF 121.50, UHF 243.0 and UHF 406Mhz.
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Ok, so you'd use the autopilot to give yourself time to evaluate the problem (if possible).
So how would you evacuate smoke from the aircraft? Switch off potential causes, lower the altitude so the air is breathable when the masks run out. Then what? Not like you can open a window.
I was in a training situation years ago with full face protection and an air tank, the room was so full of smoke I couldn't see my hand 2 inches from the mask. Even so I was barely able to see for the next 10 minutes (and I had full face coverage), I could imagine without eye protection you'd be in real trouble.
B777 Flight manual emergency checklist: (there are two other pages for SMOKE / FUMES / FIRE ELEC and SMOKE / FUMES AIR COND)
SMOKE / FUMES REMOVAL:
Condition: Smoke / fumes removal is required.
Oxygen Masks And Smoke Goggles (If Required) .................................. ON
Crew Communications (If Required) ....................................... ESTABLISH
Flight Deck Door................................................................................... CLOSE
Prevents smoke / fumes from penetrating onto the flight deck.
Recirculation Fans Switches...................................................................... OFF
Stops recirculation of smoke / fumes and increases fresh air flow.
Equipment Cooling Switch........................................................................ OFF
Attempts to discharge smoke overboard by using the equipment cooling
override mode.
Note: After 30 minutes of operation at low altitude and low cabin
differential pressure, electronic equipment and displays may fail.
Do not accomplish the following checklist:
EQUIP COOLING OVRD
IF Most Smoke / Fumes Is In Cabin Forward Of Mid-wing And Outflow
Valve Manual Control Available:
Aft Outflow Valve Switch................................................................. MAN
Aft Outflow Valve Manual Switch.............................................. CLOSE
Position outflow valve fully closed.
Concentrates smoke / fumes in the forward part of the aircraft and
attempts to remove it through the forward outflow valve.
Do not accomplish the following checklist:
OUTFLOW VALVE AFT
* * * * ~
IF Most Smoke / Fumes Is In Cabin Aft Of Mid-wing And Outflow Valve
Manual Control Available:
Forward Outflow Valve Switch ................................................... MAN
Forward Outflow Valve Manual Switch ................................. CLOSE
Position outflow valve fully closed.
Concentrates smoke / fumes in the aft part of the aircraft and
attempts to remove it through the aft outflow valve.
Do not accomplish the following checklist:
OUTFLOW VALVE FWD
So if this occurred, then it is pretty likely that some (or most) electronics would fail, with the equipment cooling set off, with the combination of a fire, and as the crew tries to vent the smoke, the fire spreads, and eventually leads to cabin depressurization, which ends up killing the crew... Plausible?
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So if this occurred, then it is pretty likely that some (or most) electronics would fail, with the equipment cooling set off, with the combination of a fire, and as the crew tries to vent the smoke, the fire spreads, and eventually leads to cabin depressurization, which ends up killing the crew... Plausible?
Part of the prior two smoke checklists that I didn't post advise the crew to 'plan to land at the nearest suitable airport' if the smoke/fire persists after carrying out the immediate items - turning off airconditioning packs (one at a time), APU off, recirc fans off, In flight entertainment off, cabin power off etc .
If not already on descent to a nearby airport and the pressurisation fails then the crew are already on their oxygen supply due to the smoke/fire. As this is unlikely to be an explosive depress then it isn't a huge drama, the crew will get an alarm of either airconditioning pack failure or cabin altitude climbing. They will then descend fairly quickly to the lowest safe altitude considering terrain or, as in this scenario, 10,000ft.
The crew oxygen supply (gaseous) is good for about 30 minutes. If the cabin climbs above 14,000ft then the pax oxy masks automatically deploy. I understand these are released from the overhead bin area via a barometric device and should not need elec power.
I believe MAS uses a gaseous ring main with ~15-20mins of pax oxy, but there is an customer option to fit the aircraft with chemical oxygen generators but these have less capacity.
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So if this occurred, then it is pretty likely that some (or most) electronics would fail, with the equipment cooling set off, with the combination of a fire, and as the crew tries to vent the smoke, the fire spreads, and eventually leads to cabin depressurization, which ends up killing the crew... Plausible?
Whatever scenario it was, the flight control electronics (at least some of them) had to have remained active for the autopilot to still work, as the plane just flew for far too many hours for there to be no flight control at all I think.
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So if this occurred, then it is pretty likely that some (or most) electronics would fail, with the equipment cooling set off, with the combination of a fire, and as the crew tries to vent the smoke, the fire spreads, and eventually leads to cabin depressurization, which ends up killing the crew... Plausible?
Whatever scenario it was, the flight control electronics (at least some of them) had to have remained active for the autopilot to still work, as the plane just flew for far too many hours for there to be no flight control at all I think.
Stranger things have happened.
Do a search for "The Cornfield Bomber"
Also, if you search for "Continental Airlines - Boeing 777 flight manual.pdf"
you can read about the systems and procedures yourself (if interested).
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First thanks for the info.
- "The Cornfield Bomber" = awesome
- The details on the autopilot, FMS really interesting. The fact that the autopilot maintains a turn would have never occurred to me. Sounds like you could operate the controls for both even if the cabin was heavily smoke filled.
- Reading the smoke in the cabin routines I can see that it is geared around the air supply for the pilots. Not a good situation no matter what.
I'm not big on the speculation stuff but man a fire sure would fit. Takeoff to loss of contact about 40 minutes, 50 minutes later the last primary radar contact. 30 minutes worth of pilot oxygen. It would be interesting to have seen an image on takeoff I wonder if the nose gear (tires) could have caught fire. I'd expect that there would be a smoke alarm in the landing gear storage areas. Be a bad place for a fire though.
I do wonder about the statement that the FMS was programmed with an incorrect waypoint prior to liftoff. I would assume that a pilot would notice that. I wonder what the actual source of that information was and if there was a possibility of having it keyed in wrong (96 instead of 69 for example)?
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In a fire, the flight data and cockpit voice recorders often fail, which in a way could be useful for the investigators as they would have the moments leading up to the fire on the CVR (which normally only records the last 2 hours.)
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Content removed
Another user got taken to task for posting conspiracy theories in this thread.
It's only fair that everyone is treated the same.
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Reports that a Chinese vessel has detected a signal on the frequency of the black box beacon.
Location reported (' about 25 degrees south latitude and 101 degrees east longitude') is far to the north of the previous search area.
Link here:http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2014-04/05/c_133241023.htm
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All the media is running with the story. Not confirmed yet. The Chinese navy is under a lot of pressure to find something.
Someone involved in the search for the SAA Helderberg said that, at the time, the ships' detector sensitivity was turned up so high, that many false pings hampered the search for the aircraft, with constantly changing search areas.
I hope this is a valid detection, but the laws of probabilities are really against it.
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Funny enough I was at my local Ham meeting today, and there was an old EPIRB, made in 1997. Battery very flat, not surprising seeing as it expired in 2008. Tried the self test and it barely beeped, no strobe etc. Would have bought it to tear down but had already spent $20 on buying a nice Fluke 1900A frequency counter ( no options installed) that was there as well. Tried it out and it works, mae in 1984. Only issue was a cracked display hold down collar, which was replaced with a plastic sleeve and a drop of glue. everything else works. Not worth making the battery back up board and installing it, and in any case I would prefer to use higher density batteries other than NiCd. Only need to make an inverter to give the -12v rail and a 5v rail then.
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I have seen this map become more and more hopeless over time. They left coordination and planning at home it seems :palm:
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That's a massive amount of ground (ocean) to cover. I can't even find my keys in the kitchen half the time.
If the Chinese have actually found the box then that's pretty amazing, I'd imagine the background noise would be deafening.
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black box signal found according to sky news;
Radar expert Professor David Stupples told Sky News:
If there has been a signal received, it could be the black box or it could be something extraneous. "I don't know anything (else) that puts out the 37.5kHz signal."
http://news.sky.com/story/1237620/missing-plane-ship-detects-signal-in-ocean (http://news.sky.com/story/1237620/missing-plane-ship-detects-signal-in-ocean)
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I wonder what the procedure would be? They are pretty far from the search area, I guess that would make it quieter, I suppose they are checking without engines running as well?
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But, again, airplanes have no stability in roll. Some can be highly damped, which is what you are talking about. But no airplane is self-righting in roll. A control loop must be added to keep the plane's wings level -- the pilot looking at the horizon, the pilot looking at the gyroscopic instruments, or an autopilot.
If this were true, then uncontrolled model gliders could not fly. Yet they manifestly do. Such a glider if subjected to mild roll disturbance will return to stable, level flight all by itself. Only if the size of the disturbance crosses the stability threshold will the aircraft pitch downwards into a dive.
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Airplanes have no natural roll stability with respect to the ground. Dihedral only functions in what is called 'uncoordinated flight' which deals with the orientation of the aircraft with respect to the relative air stream. Dihedral is added to make airplanes 'easier' to fly, not to give them self-righting ability.
This argument does not have logical consistency. The force vector due to gravity always acts at the aircraft's center of mass and points towards the ground, regardless of the direction of any local air currents. Therefore an aircraft in flight is always referenced to the ground. Only an anti-gravity machine could take that away.
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Well, don't take my word on it.
Boot up your flight sim, load a B777, and see how far you get.
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Just heard on the radio that the Australian ship has also picked up a ping, but NOT on the same area as the Chinese ship :o
Secret CIA controlled sub, or giant octopus mating?
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Water layers?
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Thermoclines and layers of different density ( salinity) can duct sound for very long distances. They were used by submarines to hide from active sonar or to hide from passive listening by staying just outside a layer while moving and this hid them from detection. You could also pick up subs a long way away and think they were close by from the volume, the layer acting as an acoustic waveguide.
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Just a wild thought, is there any chance even remotely that the sound was one of the harmonic from other non nature sources like from ship/subs engine ? I'm not sure exactly what I'm talking about here, its just pop out from my head.
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It's 37.5kHz 10~20 cycle burst about once a second. Whilst not impossible, it's very unlikely it could be from another source... unless it's another plane transponder or something similar.
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Just heard on the radio that the Australian ship has also picked up a ping, but NOT on the same area as the Chinese ship :o
Secret CIA controlled sub, or giant octopus mating?
You guy's got strange spiders and snakes in Australia but more surprising local octopus that have sex generate that 37.5 Khz ultrasound when getting an orgasm :-DD :-DD :-DD :-DD
Yeah you got even an Belgian minister over there in your government so everything is possible :-DD :-DD :-DD
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Just a wild thought, is there any chance even remotely that the sound was one of the harmonic from other non nature sources like from ship/subs engine ?
No. There is a 37.5KHz carrier and a 1Hz repetition rate. To get these two combined with anything other than the purpose designed transponder is just too silly to even contemplate.
If this was any other regular air crash investigation, they'd be reporting unequivocally that they have found it (or heard it at least). But this is MH370, the most botched investigation/search/official screw up of all time, so they are just playing silly games and once again trying to cover their already spanked arses.
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Thermoclines and layers of different density ( salinity) can duct sound for very long distances. They were used by submarines to hide from active sonar or to hide from passive listening by staying just outside a layer while moving and this hid them from detection. You could also pick up subs a long way away and think they were close by from the volume, the layer acting as an acoustic waveguide.
I guess that would mean both the sender and receiver would be in the same layer.
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There is a 37.5KHz carrier and a 1Hz repetition rate.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=mQehX0rVYuY#t=225 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=mQehX0rVYuY#t=225)
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@Mike
The best doorstop ever!!
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So 300 nautical miles between the two pings. That's extremely far for a device that has an operating range of under 10 miles. So assuming one is bad I guess they will drag a listening device between the two points. I would be inclined to think that the origin of the ping would be closer to the Chinese ship. They probably have less sophisticated equipment (less range) and made 2 contacts one being 90 seconds. I'm not sure about the Australian contact. I'd really like to see what the signals looks like.
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This does not inspire confidence, note the power supply.
Here is the actual news story, the reporter shown at the end looks totally lost. There are two vids on the page the one I am referring to is half way down and is names what's inside a black box.
http://time.com/50937/black-box-signal-australia-malaysia-airlines/ (http://time.com/50937/black-box-signal-australia-malaysia-airlines/)
Here is the confidence builder. It's about 30 seconds in. Dave recognize the brandname?
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Looks like a solid signal
From the handout
The Australian navy's Ocean Shield, picked up two separate signals within a remote patch of the Indian Ocean far off the west Australian coast.
The first signal lasted two hours and 20 minutes before it was lost. The ship then turned around and picked up a signal again - this time recording two distinct "pinger returns" that lasted 13 minutes.
"Significantly, this would be consistent with transmissions from both the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder,"
The position of the noise needs to be further refined, and then an underwater autonomous vehicle can be sent in to investigate.
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That Chinese "discovery" from the inflatable boat is rigged. The gear they have is not good enough by a factor of 10 to pick up the signal. No idea why they did such a stupid stunt.
It will be amazing if they find the aircraft in one piece. I am betting on it - by far the simplest explanation, though very unsavoury.
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It's difficult to believe that luck or skill accounts for how the Chinese managed to drop their detector right on top of the wreckage (if that is what has happened). Maybe the Chinese knew exactly where to look.
Maybe one night their radar picked up an unidentified aircraft heading into the middle of the Indian Ocean in the middle of the night. Maybe a sight like that caught their attention but they didn't make the connection between the aircraft they were watching and Malaysia 370 - and why would they? When the news about Malaysia 370 broke, it was reportedly headed north toward Beijing. Maybe the Chinese continued to watch the unidentified aircraft until it went down. Only after new data pointed the search to the south did they put "two and two together" and realize that what they had been watching days before was 370. Maybe by then it was too late for the Chinese to say anything about what they had seen because people would blame them for not making the connection sooner.
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Rather than is being unusual the simple answer is normally the best. Either they caught a weird signal bounce or found surface wreckage. In either case it makes no difference as long as it leads to the site. The same holds for any and all theories, they are often incorrect but may allow you to develop or eliminate another.
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The Chinese detection is unlikely to be BS or false, as it's just way too coincidental that the Aussie ship found a solid signal with 300nm of there. That's on top of the luck of having been in the right place to begin with.
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The signal seems to have stopped according to the latest reports :(
Last week I read that the batterypack was going to be replaced this summer as standard maintenance so it was at its end of commercial life.
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The signal seems to have stopped according to the latest reports :(
Cue the conspiracy theorists even more. Signal conveniently stops just as they are getting close to recovery, but been there long enough to make everyone confident that's where the plane ended up.
Seems bad luck that both would have died at the same time. Could just be thermal layers etc playing silly buggers again, probably a good chance one or both are still active.
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I'd have to say the searchers have done awesome so far, not to mention crazy lucky. I bet you could ask any one of them and they'd say "I"ll take what we have".
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Looks like they reacquired the signals. Canadian news CBC.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/malaysia-airlines-mh370-underwater-pings-relocated-1.2603564 (http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/malaysia-airlines-mh370-underwater-pings-relocated-1.2603564)
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:-+ :-+
Really hoping they will zero in on this.
Still, it's pretty crazy that they've gotten this far. I mean, the amount of data they had to extrapolate, and trawling hundreds of thousands of square miles is no easy task, combined with the sheer improbabilities of finding a jet in the middle of a gigantic ocean... :scared: To even find the tracking signal is pretty crazy.
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Apparently they are spending over 2 million USD daily (all countries combined).
I can imagine the pinger manufacturer is looking for some old stock batteries (that match the ones on the plane), rechecking current draws just to make sure the numbers are as good as they can be. I'd love to see a behind the scenes documentary on this.
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Looks like they reacquired the signals.
Sweet.
Odds are they would have I'd thought.
As much a I like unsolved mysteries, the truth can be stranger than fiction. Hope they find and can recover it.
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Apparently they are spending over 2 million USD daily (all countries combined).
Well maybe when they find the plane it lies above the Flor do Mar and they break even :palm:
The fortune on board was said to be enormous, making the Flor do Mar the most sought after lost shipwreck in history. The ship is said to have carried the treasure of the Melaka kingdom, located in modern day Malaysia, which reportedly included more than sixty tons of gold.
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Apparently they are spending over 2 million USD daily (all countries combined).
I can imagine the pinger manufacturer is looking for some old stock batteries (that match the ones on the plane), rechecking current draws just to make sure the numbers are as good as they can be. I'd love to see a behind the scenes documentary on this.
Hard to model as it will be dependent on temperature amongst other things. I would assume there is a FAA or whatever spec on required minimum lifetime, and one would hope that any manufacturer would add significant margin to that.
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Hard to model as it will be dependent on temperature amongst other things. I would assume there is a FAA or whatever spec on required minimum lifetime, and one would hope that any manufacturer would add significant margin to that.
For our underwater stuff (sonarbuoys, ocean bottom recorders, + others, military and civilian) we had to characterise the battery life over various storage/transport temperature cycles, and then again with operations temperatures ranges. And non of this accelerated testing stuff, if it was a months battery life, we'd run groups of them for a month under the real loads.
Then on top of that you'd have vibration as well, and there are standards for for aircraft, trucks etc. Not to mention different suppliers, and batch differences.
So it's very complex business if you take it serious, remember that batteries like this get hot and cold cycles and vibrated during transport as well as operation. .e.g parts of the the back deck of a seismic boat in the hot sun could get to 60C+, and then the ocean can be below freezing due to the salt water. And all that before they get used.
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I'd love to see a behind the scenes documentary on this.
you can be sure it will end up on air crash investigation eventually
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And non of this accelerated testing stuff, if it was a months battery life, we'd run groups of them for a month under the real loads.
The problem with something like this is that shelf life is also a very important issue, which is somewhat less practical to do non-accelerated testing for.
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- When it comes to the batteries, both the manufacturer of the cells and the pinger would have an interest. Both in estimating the expected life and death of the cells. It's a rare opportunity to do these kind of estimates. I would bet both have requests in to obtain the cells (perhaps jointly) to get the data.
- "Air Crash Investigation" (Mayday in Canada) probably has people on location already, made in Canada series.
- The spec after the Air France crash was 30 days pinger operation at specified range and 2 years battery life. No requirement for operation past that but it noted that the old pingers would often run on for 3-7 days at reduced output levels. This may have been an early spec.
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Random semi-related question - when there's a high-profile crash, do they change the flight number for future schedules?
( I was actually on the previous week's AF447 )
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Yes they do.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_number (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_number)
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How accurately can they actually locate the wreck based on those pings? Would they actually know it when they pass straight over it?
A quick look at the map shows that it's at least 3km deep at the search location, same as the Titanic wreck. That ship was only found because it left a large debris field with huge parts that could be seen by a camera. Sonar didn't really work for them. They also had a reasonably accurate (compared to this plane) position, the position sent by the radio operator was "only" 30km out. The search area for this plane is orders of magnitude bigger, the plane itself is much smaller and likely didn't leave lots of large debris. Maybe it will be found in 80 years, just like the Titanic :-//
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My understanding is this.
When they are at the range limit of the pinger, everything is hard, there are reflections, shadows background noise. As they get closer these are less of an issue. It's important to get as much acoustical data as possible so that if the pinger does fail they will still have a good chance of locating the wreck. The next stage will be a sidescan sonar.
I think if they get another 5 days of pinger activity they could well be grabbing the first flight recorder.
I assume (because of the lack of debris) there are going to be some really big sections.
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Considering the relatively slow propagation speed, I'd have thought it would be pretty feasible to get a more accurate location using multiple hydrophones with precise timing, just like GPS.
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There is a British sub on site, I think subs use multiple hydrophones for that purpose.
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Considering the relatively slow propagation speed, I'd have thought it would be pretty feasible to get a more accurate location using multiple hydrophones with precise timing, just like GPS.
If only the forum had an expert on this subject ... ;D
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well, it did, not but a few wanted to hear any of it.
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Random semi-related question - when there's a high-profile crash, do they change the flight number for future schedules?
( I was actually on the previous week's AF447 )
The MH370 route is now known as MH318.
http://worldairlinenews.com/2014/03/13/malaysia-airlines-retires-mh-370-and-mh-371-flight-numbers-9m-mro-may-have-flown-for-four-hours-after-losing-contact-no-debris-found/ (http://worldairlinenews.com/2014/03/13/malaysia-airlines-retires-mh-370-and-mh-371-flight-numbers-9m-mro-may-have-flown-for-four-hours-after-losing-contact-no-debris-found/)
FWIW, the AF447 route was renamed as AF445 and there was an incident on this same route that freaked a few people not long after the AF447 incident:
http://avherald.com/h?article=42380873 (http://avherald.com/h?article=42380873)
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There is a British sub on site, I think subs use multiple hydrophones for that purpose.
Subs with use either a towed array and/or a hull based array strip.
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Considering the relatively slow propagation speed, I'd have thought it would be pretty feasible to get a more accurate location using multiple hydrophones with precise timing, just like GPS.
Yes, and that is why sonobuoys are dropped in groups, usually not on their own.
A typical sonobuoy will have an array of sensors, in the case of the one I worked on, 5 arms with 5 sensors each, a few meters long.
http://www.engineeringicons.org.au/engineering-icons/australian/barra-sonobuoy-system/ImagesVideosAudio/design.pdf (http://www.engineeringicons.org.au/engineering-icons/australian/barra-sonobuoy-system/ImagesVideosAudio/design.pdf)
Each one has an accurate digital compass that knows which way the arms are pointed.
If you only have one sonobuoy then target positional accuracy is not that great, that's why they almost always drop more than one.
And BTW, they work for 4 hours and then automatically sink themselves to the bottom. $5K a pop, likely more these days.
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These are the submersible items at the search location that I know of.
- HMS Tireless is the sub from the UK it does have a towed array and hull mounted flank array sonar. The sub is 85 meters long.
- The towed "black box detector" is currently running a grid pattern over the suspected area.
- The Bluefin 21 is loaded with a side scanning sonar.
There is no word of an ROV capable of picking up the flight recorders but that must be in the works. I would think the sooner the better (cost wise).
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Why do they need to sink? Can't they be retrieved and recharged? $5K seems a bit borderline for being disposable. Perhaps I am wrong in assuming they are deployed from a boat.
Sorry, I forgot to mention these are military sonobuoys. They can be dropped some planes, helicopters, or ship decks. They would automatically scuttle themselves to the bottom so that the "fishing trawlers" from *insert current enemy country* (Russia during the cold war these were developed and speced) couldn't come along and pick them up. Once they have one, they can determine the capabilities and how well they can detect their submarines. So the ocean floor is lettered with these things. I'm sure most countries militaries would have this same policy too.
The alternative is towed array sonars they would winch out behind behind ships or submarines. But by the time you have detected a sub using one of those, it's probably close enough to blow you out of the water.
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They would automatically scuttle themselves to the bottom so that the "fishing trawlers" from *insert current enemy country* (Russia during the cold war these were developed and speced) couldn't come along and pick them up.
Does the pressure typically kill them?
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They would automatically scuttle themselves to the bottom so that the "fishing trawlers" from *insert current enemy country* (Russia during the cold war these were developed and speced) couldn't come along and pick them up.
Does the pressure typically kill them?
Pressure will collapse any sealed voids, but they rely on it being a big ocean and a really small target. think of trying to find the plane and not having a pinger giving data to narrow the search area, and then think of searching the entire ocean bottom looking for a submerged object the size of an office chair, with a whole lot of other litter and rock there as well.
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They would automatically scuttle themselves to the bottom so that the "fishing trawlers" from *insert current enemy country* (Russia during the cold war these were developed and speced) couldn't come along and pick them up.
Does the pressure typically kill them?
Pressure will collapse any sealed voids, but they rely on it being a big ocean and a really small target. think of trying to find the plane and not having a pinger giving data to narrow the search area, and then think of searching the entire ocean bottom looking for a submerged object the size of an office chair, with a whole lot of other litter and rock there as well.
Tamper protection for sure, at least no power no software.
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As these are likely supplied with a battery soldered in ( or otherwise not removeable without opening sealed covers) then that will work. Then they have a shelf life and are not store and forget until needed then pop in a pair of D cell units.
Missiles were a lot easier, no battery, firmware stored in ROM and a 90 second after firing self destruct. Power supplied by the aircraft bus when on the wing, and in flight by a small gas generator that did double duty as sensor cooling.
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Does the pressure typically kill them?
Very likely, they are only designed for 50m or so, and for only 10 hours maximum. The bungie cord dangles the sensor array about 30m under the water.
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As these are likely supplied with a battery soldered in ( or otherwise not removeable without opening sealed covers) then that will work. Then they have a shelf life and are not store and forget until needed then pop in a pair of D cell units.
Yep, a really custom expensive lithium primary battery is soldered in place.
Our commercial seismic ocean bottom used rechargable battery packs and were recovered to extract the data, charged, ad then redeployed. They were designed to operated at several thousands meters depth for up to several months, continually logging data.
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The latest, even on topic.
"On Wednesday, Australia sent a P-3 Orion military aircraft to drop 84 sonar buoys in a remote patch of the southern Indian Ocean, broadly in the same spot where the Australian defense vessel Ocean Shield detected the stream of signals. Each sonar buoy is equipped with a set of underwater microphones that unspool on wires to a depth of 1,000 feet."
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So here is the updated handout. The green circle is my guess. I figure they are trying to follow a strong signal but there is a "shadow" blocking the signal. Of course I could be completely wrong.
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So here is the updated handout. The green circle is my guess. I figure they are trying to follow a strong signal but there is a "shadow" blocking the signal. Of course I could be completely wrong.
The correlation with (one of) the satellite handshake arc is impressive.
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Each sonar buoy is equipped with a set of underwater microphones that unspool on wires to a depth of 1,000 feet."
Either my memory is shot and the 30m was actually 300m, or they have a new model since the 6PC (6th Production Contract) one I worked on. Or the report is wrong and it's 100ft. IIRC the production contract was 15,000 units.
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Each sonar buoy is equipped with a set of underwater microphones that unspool on wires to a depth of 1,000 feet."
Either my memory is shot and the 30m was actually 300m, or they have a new model since the 6PC (6th Production Contract) one I worked on. Or the report is wrong and it's 100ft. IIRC the production contract was 15,000 units.
- 60 feet is generally considered to be the upper ocean layer so 30m / 100 feet seems more reasonable.
- The satellite guys did an amazing job both with the idea and execution.
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Either my memory is shot and the 30m was actually 300m, or they have a new model since the 6PC (6th Production Contract) one I worked on. Or the report is wrong and it's 100ft. IIRC the production contract was 15,000 units.
After deploy of the units is it necessary to collect it? Is it reusable? Is there an ad-hock network between the units?
Alexander.
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After deploy of the units is it necessary to collect it? Is it reusable?
No, they are single use disposable. A little resistor in the float bag burns after 4 or 8 hours (selectable) and the whole thing sinks to the bottom.
Is there an ad-hock network between the units?
No, they do not receive any information, they only continually transmit the hydrophone data and compass heading. Not even GPS to know their position, they just tag that when they drop them and they rely on the currents not drifting much of significance within the operational time.
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I guess the sink is a measure to avoid any encounter with ships and marine life (sharks etc).
Alexander.
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$5k a piece sounds like a lot of money untill you know what ammunition costs esp. the larger shells.
When I was in the army in the 1980's the dragons (anti tank missiles) were already costing $10k a piece and for practice those guys shot around 5 pieces a person (6 persons) in a weekend, and that was just the yearly training. Add tankshells, mortars hell laserguidedmissiles and $5k is peanuts.
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- 60 feet is generally considered to be the upper ocean layer so 30m / 100 feet seems more reasonable.
I recall there was a mechanical depth stop so you could select between two depths. This was almost 20 years ago though, so my memory is a little fuzzy. I started work on them in 1995.
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I guess the sink is a measure to avoid any encounter with ships and marine life (sharks etc).
The float bag would eventually degrade and leak anyway, and the whole thing would sink.
But the scuttling was built into the spec as a "security measure".
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When I was in the army in the 1980's the dragons (anti tank missiles) were already costing $10k a piece and for practice those guys shot around 5 pieces a person (6 persons) in a weekend, and that was just the yearly training. Add tankshells, mortars hell laserguidedmissiles and $5k is peanuts.
IIRC the production contract of 15,000 units was based on a 5 year supply for the navy. Do the math :o
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IIRC the production contract of 15,000 units was based on a 5 year supply for the navy. Do the math :o
15k*5k = 75M$ that is a bit more then the price of a Boeing AH-64D Apache helicopter, I mean in the defense industry the numbers are huge ;)
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IIRC the production contract of 15,000 units was based on a 5 year supply for the navy. Do the math :o
15k*5k = 75M$ that is a bit more then the price of a Boeing AH-64D Apache helicopter, I mean in the defense industry the numbers are huge ;)
Now do the numbers for mobile phones, televisions and PCs.
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Now do the numbers for mobile phones, televisions and PCs.
:-//
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IIRC the production contract of 15,000 units was based on a 5 year supply for the navy. Do the math :o
15k*5k = 75M$ that is a bit more then the price of a Boeing AH-64D Apache helicopter, I mean in the defense industry the numbers are huge ;)
I used to know a crew chief for an Apache. He said the Apache has a set of frangible main rotor tips that run $100,000. They're designed as a safety measure for low-level maneuvering. If the pilot gets too close to a tree, these tips hit first, shatter, and protect the main rotor and blades.
This crew chief said that during each training mission, there would be at least one Apache that came back without its tips. And this is perfectly OK.
The view isn't: $100,000 is a lot of money. Its: $100,000 to save a $15M aircraft is a good bargain.
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Its: $100,000 to save a $15M aircraft
And more importantly, the lives of the men/women inside! :-+
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Its: $100,000 to save a $15M aircraft
And more importantly, the lives of the men/women inside! :-+
True, but there's a reason only the pilot gets the airbag. It doesn't have anything to do with the crash-worthiness of the front seat.
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The view isn't: $100,000 is a lot of money. Its: $100,000 to save a $15M aircraft is a good bargain.
Make that an $52M to $61M aircraft ;)
http://www.aircraftcompare.com/helicopter-airplane/Boeing-AH-64D-Apache-Longbow/263 (http://www.aircraftcompare.com/helicopter-airplane/Boeing-AH-64D-Apache-Longbow/263)
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Most of this info is from the CBC website in Canada.
- The sona-buoys do have a 300 meter operational depth. The Australians are described as "world leaders in the field"
- 4500 meters is the approx depth of the signals. There is a deep trench (Diamantina) near the signals 5800 meters and there is no indication it is in the trench.
- Expected battery life for the pingers is less than 10 days, described failure mode is decreasing signal strength until it stops. This was from an internal briefing (for the members of the search team) that was leaked.
- The Bluefin robot with the sidescan sonar will not be launched until pinger contact is definitely lost. I guess that means 10 days or more. The dive will be a the maximum operational depth for the robot.
- There are a number of other deeper diving subs that can be used if needed. That would delay things while they are transported.
- Still no mention of an actual ROV to visit the site. The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is mentioned and they have a vast array of ROV's so that would be my guess.
- The British sub has been doing a search around the initial Chinese ping contact and there has been no reports on any more signals found in that location. There has also been no reports of it moving to another search location.
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This is magic - almost like a Mars rover landing - perhaps not quite as advanced but still impressive!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eidMDdMK38s (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eidMDdMK38s)
(not the same as used for the aircraft search - not sure what this is for...)
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This is magic - almost like a Mars rover landing - perhaps not quite as advanced but still impressive!
Yes, trust me, it's not easy to get that stuff right.
I'm not sure what one that is, but our Barra 6PC Sonobouy deploys almost identically. It has the same extending 5 arm design with 5 hydrophones each.
We spent years perfecting the design of the "gravity jerk" technique of the arms self extending and unfolding, not to mention the coiling of the wires so they didn't get tangled etc.
I remember drop testing those, you can buckle half inch steel plates if it hits the water at the wrong angle, it can be like hitting concrete.
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For this purpose it seems a little silly that they wouldn't modify the sonarbouys to not sink, so that someone can come pick them up later. I get that you don't want this tech public knowledge, but it just seems silly.
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For this purpose it seems a little silly that they wouldn't modify the sonarbouys to not sink, so that someone can come pick them up later.
They are not designed to be reusable, so it's pointless picking them back up. Also, it costs more money to retrieve them than it does to let them sink.
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These are the guys that are responsible for the black box finder and own the side scan robot. The web site is interesting and they are fully equipped to handle the recovery. They did the Air France recovery, at least 50 recovery's for the military, Space Shuttle Columbia and so on. It would make an interesting documentary.
http://www.phnx-international.com/uw-search.html (http://www.phnx-international.com/uw-search.html)
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The view isn't: $100,000 is a lot of money. Its: $100,000 to save a $15M aircraft is a good bargain.
Make that an $52M to $61M aircraft ;)
http://www.aircraftcompare.com/helicopter-airplane/Boeing-AH-64D-Apache-Longbow/263 (http://www.aircraftcompare.com/helicopter-airplane/Boeing-AH-64D-Apache-Longbow/263)
just do not ask how the pilot ejection system works, it removes the main rotor blades by firing a jam block into the main gearbox ring gear and this then fractures the rotor hub allowing the blades to fly free, the pilot and copilot then going up through the place just vacated. Biggest difficulty was making the fuses armoured well enough so they would not fire if the engine bay was on fire, or to fire if hit by small arms fire or even larger fire that did not disable the gearbox instantly.
If you think the purchase price is high, look at the cost of running any military aircraft, and as they typically operate for decades your spares cost makes the purchase price seem like just a minor cost. It may well cost more for a regular major airframe overhaul than the original purchase price. The regular sceduled services and line service as well is not cheap, and the funny thing is an aircraft running cost is more or less constant, more flying is not a linear rise in cost, as things still fail or time expire even if not in use. There is an incredible amount of rubber and synthetic rubber in hoses tanks and wiring looms in the airframe, all of which has a service life in both hours, cycles and time that need regular scheduled replacement with new.
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Time for the robot to get wet. It may already be in the water. The sonar data is on board I'm not sure if they have any real time info. The Navy has several of these but it appears that at least two are on site. No mention of the search pattern but that would be interesting. Expected coverage is 40 square miles per day.
Here are the details from the US Navy (Naval Sea Systems Command) http://www.navsea.navy.mil/SitePages/TPL25_bluefin21_faq.aspx (http://www.navsea.navy.mil/SitePages/TPL25_bluefin21_faq.aspx)
Bluefin-21
Q. What is the Bluefin-21?
Bluefin-21 is an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) that can be equipped with either a side-scan sonar or a still camera to gather underwater data. Bluefin-21 is 16.2 feet long, has a diameter of 21 inches and its dry weight is 1,650 lbs. Its depth rating is 14,763 feet and has a maximum speed of 4.5 knots. Its mission endurance is 25 hours with standard payload at a speed of 3 knots.
Q. How does this system work?
Technicians program the Bluefin AUV to search a specific area before the vehicle goes in the water. During the search, the system uses a side-scan sonar or a still camera to gather data. Once an area search mission is completed, the AUV is removed from the water and plugged into a processing suite for data download. The data is then analyzed. While data is being analyzed, a subsequent mission may be programmed and the AUV may be deployed to perform its next area search.
Q. How much ocean can be covered by the Bluefin-21?
The effective range of a sonar device and therefore the Bluefin-21 is dependent upon a number of factors. These factors include the water depth within the search area, the contours of the sea floor, and the size of the material being searched for. Therefore it is not possible to provide a standard maximum range for the side-scan sonar/Bluefin-21. However, as a rough estimate, the Navy expects to be able to search approximately 40 square miles per day using the Bluefin. This estimate will be affected by the specific environmental factors encountered.
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If they have fairly well pinpointed the location enough to send down the sub, I'm surprised they haven't found any debris yet. Debris is always the first thing found in these ocean crashes.
It would be hilarious if they found the black boxes, but not a single piece of wreckage.
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If they have fairly well pinpointed the location enough to send down the sub, I'm surprised they haven't found any debris yet. Debris is always the first thing found in these ocean crashes.
It would be hilarious if they found the black boxes, but not a single piece of wreckage.
My nephew said that 2 hours ago!
I suppose it's possible that the fuselage could be in one piece but that's hard to imagine. Luckily when it comes to things like this the evidence will be waiting there you just have to go get it.
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Don't hold your breath, finding anything could take a couple of years or more, if someone still pays the bills. But it seems that luck has been on their side so far, so let's see.
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I wonder how much input the Phoenix International crew have on the search? They certainly have the hands on experience.
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What if................
they flew so low (under radar) and made a belly landing on the sea, so no crash just plain landing on the sea, would there still be debris or would it just sink to the ocean floor?
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I wonder why they didn't sent in HMS Echo to do a sonar sweep first, to get at least a broad picture of what is down there, then send the sub.
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It would be hilarious if they found the black boxes, but not a single piece of wreckage.
That would be a real WTF... implying that somehow, they were able to remove them from the plane and throw them out into the ocean while still flying? :o
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What if................
they flew so low (under radar) and made a belly landing on the sea, so no crash just plain landing on the sea, would there still be debris or would it just sink to the ocean floor?
Well, that's actually a possibility if the auto-pilot ghost plane theory is true.
I'm of the understanding that an autopiloted plane will do a half decent job to keep a plane in the air as the fuel runs out in each engine, sacrificing height for speed to keep it going until it eventually glides into the ocean?
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While that is true, the speed will be close to 180kts, with no slats or flaps extended, at a glide angle of 3 degrees or more. So the impact would still be severe and the plane would break up.
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According to a 777 pilot on the pprune forums, he ran that scenario on a simulator which resulted in the autopilot disengaging when power was lost after both engines cut out and before the RAT could kick in. The plane then performed a series of "phugoid" oscillations (nose down till speed picked up, followed by the nose raising for a while until speed died down. He suggested it was very unlikely that the plane would have landed smoothly, rather he implied that the rate of descent during the downward parts of the oscillation was such that disintegration would be inevitable on impact with the water.
(500+ pages of some really interesting postings from pilots, and crap from conspiracy theorist nut jobs can be found here http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/535538-malaysian-airlines-mh370-contact-lost.html (http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/535538-malaysian-airlines-mh370-contact-lost.html) )
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We don't know if it was, but if the APU had been started during the initial emergency, the autopilot might not drop out.
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Why doesn't the auto pilot attempt a smooth landing?
Like the Hudson River birdstrike landing.
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Because it needs an ILS runway guidance and the autopilot has to be set in auto land mode. It may not even engage in that mode, with reduced electrical power, when the engines are off.
Many system conditions have to be fulfilled first and that's not going to happen with a 250 ton glider over the sea.
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Why doesn't the auto pilot attempt a smooth landing?
Like the Hudson River birdstrike landing.
That was flown manually, and it was a textbook ditching under perfect conditions. But even that severely damaged the plane. It sank within a day.
Be aware that the touchdown speed of these airplanes is well above 200kmh, even if you do it smoothly the deceleration and stress on the airframe will be huge. Hitting a wave would be like hitting a brick wall.
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I can understand that it would currently be nigh impossible, but it does seem like something to aim for.
I mean why use power to try to keep a plane up till the last second, that is eventually going to fail at some stage anyway.
When you could save a bit of that energy, you have power if you have autopilot, and get the landing speed and angle of attack as nears possible to optimum as you approach the sea.
Then hope for the best. (ps excuse my ignorance on this subject.)
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What if................
they flew so low (under radar) and made a belly landing on the sea, so no crash just plain landing on the sea, would there still be debris or would it just sink to the ocean floor?
I suspect the stall speed is high enough that the margin between "belly landing" and "flip over and break up" is vanishingly small. Water is not much different to concrete at any significant speed.
And if it had made a belly landing and stayed intact, would it have ever sunk?
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I wonder why they didn't sent in HMS Echo to do a sonar sweep first, to get at least a broad picture of what is down there, then send the sub.
The Echo was searching around the Chinese signal, as was the sub.
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Bluefin cycle
The submarine takes 24 hours to complete each mission: two hours to dive to the bottom, 16 hours to search the seafloor, two hours to return to the surface, and four hours to download the data.
Oil slick
Here is a map, the oil slick is said to be 5.5km North of the last ping detected.
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So, now we have discovered that the water is over 4,500m deep and the Bluefin 21 may have been damaged.
What's next in the arsenal of tools?
BTW, I see the Glomar Explorer is back operation, am sure TerraHertz can fill us in on its capabilities ::)
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There is very little oil on an aeroplane. Some 20 liters per engine and some 50 liters of hydraulic fluid. Fuel tanks would have been close to empty. Most of it would have dissipated by now, unfortunately.
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- I was thinking hydraulic fluid. If nothing else the proximity is correct.
- The bluefin just did a "return to surface" because it passed it's depth limit setpoint. It's capable of another 150+ meters according to the US Military. Even if it was damaged they have another one on site.
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I assume the Bluefin is set to track the sea floor at a preprogrammed height.
Any idea what that is? I assume it is easy to raise it, at the cost of range / resolution.
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50 meters above seabed.
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If the deep areas are random valleys, I assume it could be programmed not to exceed 4500 and keep going, mapping their locations for later investigation.
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My understanding is that the US military (who owns the device) is willing to allow it go another 150 meters deep if needed and that will still allow a small safety margin.
The first day was probably more of a systems check than anything. Having the unit come up early is probably good from that point of view.
I would be interested to see what the initial search pattern will be. Will they make a north south run up the middle looking for a field and perhaps an east west? You would think that would be the quickest. To cover the entire search area should be 25-30 days. Much less if debris is found.
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Probably they will do a drunkards walk and survey patches in an area then move to another random point in the search area, that way they can use side scan sonar during the move to get a more detailed image of the sea floor and possibly detect interesting areas to search later. They will likely find any large pieces along with a lot of dropped containers and other rocky outcroppings.
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This does not inspire confidence, note the power supply.
Here is the actual news story, the reporter shown at the end looks totally lost. There are two vids on the page the one I am referring to is half way down and is names what's inside a black box.
http://time.com/50937/black-box-signal-australia-malaysia-airlines/ (http://time.com/50937/black-box-signal-australia-malaysia-airlines/)
Here is the confidence builder. It's about 30 seconds in. Dave recognize the brandname?
Csb time: about two years ago receiving at work opened up a box and inside was a "black box" that looked exactly like that one. Turns out UPS screwed up and delivered that too us instead of Lufthansa in Germany. Took them almost two weeks to pick it back up. I'm guessing it wasn't urgent. We all made jokes about some FAA investigation delayed because the black box ended up at a biotech firm.
</csb>
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Turns out the oil slick is unrelated...
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/04/17/malaysia-ocean-bluefin-airline/7808643/ (http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/04/17/malaysia-ocean-bluefin-airline/7808643/)
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This story is ringing my Snake Oil alarm - detecting elements from Sat imagary....?
Breakthrough or Woo Woo?
Even the name "http://georesonance.com/ screams pseudoscience
https://au.news.yahoo.com/sa/a/23036893/exploration-company-believes-it-may-have-found-mh370/ (https://au.news.yahoo.com/sa/a/23036893/exploration-company-believes-it-may-have-found-mh370/)
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Modern day dowsers.
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Maybe, but isn,t it worth to take a look? It would mean the flight did not go south but stayed on west course.
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Remember what TWA 800 looked like after they collected all the bits?
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/TWA800reconstruction.jpg)
Now compare that to this...
(https://s.yimg.com/dh/ap/default/140428/mh370_wreckage_found_adelaide.jpg)
Planes typically have wings before they crash.
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The wings usually break off. I think this is a case of fishing for investment or just plain spam but the news corp don't care either way it makes a good story. Likely it is complete bullshit - no way the plane would remain that intact unless it basically landed. It will be spread over a couple hundred meters minimum but more likely over kms.
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GeoResonance? sounds complete pish to me and their website does nothing to make me think otherwise
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TWA 800 broke apart in the air due to an explosion. We're not sure what happened to MH370, but it seems possible that it flew until the fuel ran out, and then glided down to the sea surface, perhaps keeping the wings more-or-less intact.
I'm not sure what to make of the georesonance story. I will say that, if they're right, then they are going to have a lot of business in the future. If they're wrong, they may be committing corporate suicide to make such a public claim. Time will tell soon enough, I hope.
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We're not sure what happened to MH370, but it seems possible that it flew until the fuel ran out, and then glided down to the sea surface, perhaps keeping the wings more-or-less intact.
That's got to be by far the most plausible explanation. Otherwise some floating debris would have been found. I recon the plane is all but intact on the bottom, and the autopilot did a damn fine job of gliding it in when the fuel ran out.
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This story is ringing my Snake Oil alarm - detecting elements from Sat imagary....?
Breakthrough or Woo Woo?
Even the name "http://georesonance.com/ screams pseudoscience
I haven't looked into the details, but I was of the understanding that georesonance imaging was a real technology.
A friend of mine used to work for a company that mapped most of New Zealand over several years from helicopters and planes. IIRC it was part of mineral exploration survey. And I believe the technology worked below ocean floor as well.
Maybe possible from lower altitude plane, but a satellite seems to be stretching it.
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If they're wrong, they may be committing corporate suicide to make such a public claim.
There is no such thing as bad publicity ;D
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The method of detection "Georesonance Inc." is using is fairly legitimate, as long as it's done properly - it's been used for oil prospecting. However, what they're doing with MH370 is definitely a marketing ploy. It's easy for them to fudge the data and claim they found the plane.
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Well how would you guys describe the "doppler" method the other company used to locate the last location of the plane?
Exact science? hmmmmmmm
Let me remind you that they still have not found anything not even a small piece of debris ;)
Still it would not explain why they heard the blackbox signals in the area where they are now searching.
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This story is ringing my Snake Oil alarm - detecting elements from Sat imagary....?
Breakthrough or Woo Woo?
Even the name "http://georesonance.com/ screams pseudoscience
https://au.news.yahoo.com/sa/a/23036893/exploration-company-believes-it-may-have-found-mh370/ (https://au.news.yahoo.com/sa/a/23036893/exploration-company-believes-it-may-have-found-mh370/)
Not to mention that despite claiming to have projects dating back to 2000, the company was registered just last year:
http://abr.business.gov.au/SearchByAbn.aspx?SearchText=77+161+803+201 (http://abr.business.gov.au/SearchByAbn.aspx?SearchText=77+161+803+201)
https://connectonline.asic.gov.au/RegistrySearch/faces/landing/panelSearch.jspx?searchType=OrgAndBusNm&searchText=161803201&_adf.ctrl-state=chcjuhij8_4 (https://connectonline.asic.gov.au/RegistrySearch/faces/landing/panelSearch.jspx?searchType=OrgAndBusNm&searchText=161803201&_adf.ctrl-state=chcjuhij8_4)
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Well how would you guys describe the "doppler" method the other company used to locate the last location of the plane?
Exact science? hmmmmmmm
Not "exact", but comparing ping delay and doppler signatures to signals from other planes on known flight paths seems somewhat more plausible than some unspecified "proprietory" technology that appears to be able to identify elements through thousands of metres of seawater using just photography.
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I call marketing, the meeting would go something like this. Inmarsat has gotten great press, the investigation is in a slow spot, the media will show anything at this point. All we have to do is run the numbers and publish what we find.
If these guys where serious then show the numbers to a group that can evaluate the seriously. Inmarsat did that before going public to ensure they had viable data. Better yet hire a plane and have a look before publishing.
Inmarsat is not the same in any way.
- They communicated with a real system on the plane.
- The path pointed to a location that had active pingers in the water. Has everyone forgot? That is the real evidence of the location.
- Being off by a few hundred miles is nothing when you consider the alternative. These things take time that's the way it is.
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more plausible than some unspecified "proprietory" technology that appears to be able to identify elements through thousands of metres of seawater using just photography.
Not much of a miracle - we can determine the composition of atmospheres of planets light years away just by looking at the light from them.
Specific spectral lines betray specific elements.
There is a thing called an imaging spectrometer - a camera that takes an image in hundreds of "colours" corresponding to specific wavelengths.
And such camera can do exactly what is claimed there - show what elements are present in the area being imaged, i.e. from a satellite.
It's easy to underestimate the amount of evidence a given event can leave.
So, their claims are plausible, even if their name stinks of marketing and deception.
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more plausible than some unspecified "proprietory" technology that appears to be able to identify elements through thousands of metres of seawater using just photography.
Not much of a miracle - we can determine the composition of atmospheres of planets light years away just by looking at the light from them.
Yes, compositions of transparent gases, light _from_ them.
Somewhat different from IDing solid, cold metal through tons of water.
If this were possible even at close range, directly, though air, why do they need x-ray fluorescence spectrometers to identify metal compositions?
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The large scale search operation is terminated.
Alexander.
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The large scale search operation is terminated.
Meaning? Are they cancelling searching the location near the last heard blackbox pings?
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Costs probably are getting to the point where the insurers are squealing. They most likely will then be dropped on the airline, which will bankrupt it. This most likely will be then a low key search and if it is not located it will be another unsolved flight.
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Not much has been said about the pings the Chinese heard 300 miles a way apart the British sub was searching the than region.
Dave, how far can pings travel, given that the water is very deep and would have different terminal layers to bounce them off?
Is it possible they can travel 100s of miles, much like a low power radio TX with the right skip conditions?
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Did I hear correctly on CNN that the cargo flight manifest showed 8K lbs of lithium batteries? If so that is a lot more then was being reported earlier.
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4 tons of HE and noone said this before? Lithium batteries have about the same energy density as low quality dynamite, just they do not explode as easily with shock, but rather burn rapidly.
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I just heard on the radio that they keep searching but worst case it can take upto 8 months to scan the designated area.
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Did I hear correctly on CNN that the cargo flight manifest showed 8K lbs of lithium batteries? If so that is a lot more then was being reported earlier.
2450kgs of Lithium batteries in 200 packages, according to the cargo manifest (2.3m^3).
There should have been a NOTOC also for the dangerous goods, signed by the captain, indicating the position of the consignment on the aeroplane. That hasn't been released, as far as I know.
(http://www.avsim.su/forum/uploads/monthly_08_2011/post-8544-0-38669000-1313665000.png)
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That's a bunch of batts, still legal at the time I think.
Here is the preliminary report (attached).
The surface search is pretty much over.
New sub on hand for deeper dives, search area increased by about 10 times around the ping area.
There are a few good maps here
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/malaysia/10801185/Malaysia-Airlines-releases-report-into-MH370.html (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/malaysia/10801185/Malaysia-Airlines-releases-report-into-MH370.html) couldn't find the original source.
I have heard a few comments about the search stopping. It's basically just getting started, just switching over to the next phase.
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Looking at the volume and weight, it seems that the batteries were packed very tightly. 1000kgs per cubic meter!
58 boxes 60x26x22 cm
9 boxes 42x36x19 cm
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That's pretty scary.
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There was a report from some New Zealander on an oil rig that he saw what seemed to be the plane on fire...
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Oh bollocks. You are all trying to make me feel guilty for importing my dirt cheap "Hao Qi Xin" voltage ref, complete with lithium battery! Imported without a plane blowing up I might add. :phew:
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So today's lesson - next time I need something with batteries I will order 2 or 3 items and ask to send them with different shipping companies. This way even if one plane blows up I still get my item!!!
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So today's lesson - next time I need something with batteries I will order 2 or 3 items and ask to send them with different shipping companies. This way even if one plane blows up I still get my item!!!
I got a chuckle out of this, and did not feel bad about it.
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In the meantime the search has been temporarily stopped due to malfunctioning equipment.
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Are they really searching or using this as an exercise to map the ocean financed by a 3rd party?
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C,mon Danny not yet another conspiracy theory
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Malaysia Airlines jet MH370 pings 'may have come from searching ship'
http://www.smh.com.au/world/malaysia-airlines-jet-mh370-pings-may-have-come-from-searching-ship-20140529-zrrdr.html (http://www.smh.com.au/world/malaysia-airlines-jet-mh370-pings-may-have-come-from-searching-ship-20140529-zrrdr.html)
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2637359/Scientists-say-pings-not-MH370-search-debacle.html (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2637359/Scientists-say-pings-not-MH370-search-debacle.html)
From that article:
Yet the scientists claim the 33.3 kilohertz frequency of the signal was significantly different to the 37.5 kilohertz generated by underwater acoustic beacons and say the signals were detected 30 kilometres and four days apart.
HTF do you get the frequency wrong?
Surely they know without even the remotest doubt at all what the frequency of the pinger on MH370 was? :-//
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You'd think they'd pay attention to the Malaysians problems and double check, then triple check then quadruple check.
I suppose the mentality could have been "We are hearing pings a 1 second intervals that must be it regardless of the frequency". One guy says it and that the end of the discussion.
I still think Inmarsat is the only group with a leg to stand on. The data they had was published a few days ago.
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Surely that had some sort of recorder going while searching, surely they did?
Cant they just play it back.
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The 33K frequency was mentioned just lightly then and I was puzzled as to why no one raised a doubt about it.
I continue to think this is a 3rd party financed mapping of the ocean floor.
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But like in those comments in that link , some there are so practical , >that dude who questioned why a $100 million plane has not got a $100 EPIRB or several epirbs when its law for $1000 boats to have one?
Because a $100M plane usually does not land gently when it crashes, nor does most of it float.
You can't just strap a $100 EPIRB to a plane and:
a) expect it survive the crash
and
b) expect it to break lose and float and transmit as intended.
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Its got me too , this all seems so slack or incompetent that I'm really starting to think that something else is going on Dave
Nope. Just apply Occam's razor.
This was such a high profile case, and there was so much riding on this, and so much pressure for everyone involved to find answers and do something, that once a signal was detected, news broke out like wildfire and no one wanted to back track. Assuming this frequency mixup business is true, anyone who would have been brave enough to stick their hand up and say "hang on guys, this is the wrong frequency" would have likely been ignored by the rest of the chain of command.
What the hell anything was doing transmitting in that search water though is beyond me. And it's not rocket science to audit what devices were on what ships, and if they transmitted, and on what frequencies.
It's not like this was active pinging going on here, it's all passive.
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I am reminded of the quote " If it is either a conspiracy or a cock-up, go for the cock-up every time" ;D
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I found this back on the 9th April:
http://www.airlineratings.com/news/276/mh370-more-possible-black-box-pings-detected (http://www.airlineratings.com/news/276/mh370-more-possible-black-box-pings-detected)
General manager Jim Gibson said the team was cautiously optimistic about the pings picked up.
However, it was revealed the frequency detected was 33kHz, which is below the 37.5kHz the pingers are designed to emit.
This shift could be attributed to the ocean depth of 4500m, a failing battery or damage to the unit and is within the range of past experience with the beacons.
So if it was within the ballpark of previous searches, then I guess it was a fair call.
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But like in those comments in that link , some there are so practical , >that dude who questioned why a $100 million plane has not got a $100 EPIRB or several epirbs when its law for $1000 boats to have one?
Because a $100M plane usually does not land gently when it crashes, nor does most of it float.
You can't just strap a $100 EPIRB to a plane and:
a) expect it survive the crash
and
b) expect it to break lose and float and transmit as intended.
I was not suggesting one just gaffa tapes on a EPIRB , but it might work?
I was more in the line of a dedicated epirb or epirbs just for planes , automatic in some way after detecting being underwater or whatever the mind boggles on how it could be done but the main idea is there ain't one yet , they invented black box's so why not a epirb as yet ..
Here the BBC reports the plane is not in that area now
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-27615173 (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-27615173)
This technology already exists and is often used on Naval helicopters - very obvious orange dome tacked on the side of the tailboom or fuselage.
Image here:
http://www.helis.com/h/seaking_ran_20_2.jpg (http://www.helis.com/h/seaking_ran_20_2.jpg)
The correct terminology is "Automatically Deployable Beacon (ADELT)"
http://www.drs.com/Products/c3a/CPI406.aspx (http://www.drs.com/Products/c3a/CPI406.aspx)
http://www.caledonian-airborne.com/CPT%20900.html (http://www.caledonian-airborne.com/CPT%20900.html)
http://www.hr-smith.com/hr-smith-news/item/7-new-cpi-with-flight-data-recorder-cockpit-voice.html (http://www.hr-smith.com/hr-smith-news/item/7-new-cpi-with-flight-data-recorder-cockpit-voice.html)
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\ps> my thoughts were a cylindrical tube , sealed and with some sort of external sensor that knew when it was under water and at a predetermined depth fired a small rocket that knew which way was "up" and then let out the EPIRB gizmo , sorta like this sub launch but much much smaller .
How about something completely passive? A boyant beacon, behind some sort of burst disk that busts at about 4 bar (60-70 PSI).
Once under about 100 ft of water the burst disk could rupture and a strong spring behind the beacon could then eject it.
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When it comes to the pinger I think a simple solution like a bigger battery or getting creative with the pinger is a good solution. I'm sure they could increase the duration the pinger operates by increasing the time between pings. You could have one ping every second for the first week and double (the delay 2,4,8 seconds) for each additional week under water. That would not only increase battery life but help eliminate false positives.
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You could have one ping every second for the first week and double (the delay 2,4,8 seconds) for each additional week under water. That would not only increase battery life but help eliminate false positives.
Or a constant stream of pings spaced 2,4,8 repeat 2,4,8 repeat 2,4,8 repeat ... That way you would still extend battery life and have an ongoing identifiable signal pattern.
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@Geuser: 747s always make weird growling noises you can feel under your feet. It is some kind of compressor or generator to make the food warm. Nothing to worry about. Opening the covers was necessary to look for your 'bomb' :palm:. You are lucky you where allowed to board the airplane. Nowadays you'd probably end up in jail for a couple of years.
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Lower galley lift, assorted Hydraulic pumps, assorted parts of the aircon and assorted low pressure fuel pumps, valving and fuel balancing going on automatically makes that noise. You have never flown on non commercial aircraft, where you can tell what is working just from the noise. C130 I would always sit near the Aux hydraulic pump, even though it was incredibly noisy during flight. It sits at wing centre line, so the least pitching, and I could always make at least one other nervous soul toss his cookies by having a bottle of cooldrink and drinking it in turbulence, turning the bottle to keep the level flat in the bottle. I was kind, kept a good supply of the appropriate bags handy, as the logo was - yours you clean it up. Never used the gents, made sure I went before flight. I was not going to go in the pipe on the wall for various reasons.
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There are many CPIs, UABs and ISTs options out there. Use what ever acronym you country uses, there is still only 3 types.
The largest problem is regulations. It takes many years to certify avionics safety equipment. The industries approach seems to be, is it is better to have nothing than have something bad.
There are 3 CPI frequencies, 3 UAB Frequencies and 3 IST signatures. Yes, spectrum regulators in the USA are relocating the 121.5MHz frequency and making the change a requirement to fly in USA airspace. SAR providers will search all emergency frequencies they are able to. And there are intelligent trackers out there that will compensate for many environmental factors, but they are expensive and not all SAR operators have the abilities.
Lastly commercial aircraft are gravitation away from electable CPIs because if licensing and regulations. So often SAR is left with looking for a stronger beacon in a "black box". Unfortunately many environmental factor easily overcome any advantage of a stronger beacons. Of example as little as a few feet can reduce the signals strength by 80%. And the reason for UABs. Unfortunately UABs becoming use less. And the third IST's are even more expensive, and are seldom used.
So yes there are several options and will become available when they are certified for use by the various agencies. If they are installed in an aircraft also depends on your local regulators. The only cost factors considered are the arguments aircraft manufactures can muster during regulation review. The largest factors are safety and that is indirectly effected by perceived public opinion.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
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Goofy auto spell checker. Ejectable was changed to Electable. Used was changed to Use.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
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I like this:
http://www.ibtimes.com/malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370-search-indian-ocean-noise-analyzed-possible-link-missing-1593554 (http://www.ibtimes.com/malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370-search-indian-ocean-noise-analyzed-possible-link-missing-1593554)
Not because of the technology, but because if the pilots turned the plane back to Malaysia then put it on autopilot while they were trying (but failed) do deal with a major problem, then the plane would have overflown Malaysia and dropped into the Indian Ocean - but farther west than previously searched. I know it is a hypothesis, but at this point, I think it is proper to begin with hypotheses then run them down.
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Then this turns up today coincidently
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2647096/Female-sailor-thinks-spotted-MH370-sky-Indian-Ocean-night-disappeared.html (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2647096/Female-sailor-thinks-spotted-MH370-sky-Indian-Ocean-night-disappeared.html)
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She dresses for confidence, :).
Her story has more holes than my fishing net.
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She dresses for confidence, :).
Her story has more holes than my fishing net.
How about casting that net over "All" the other storys :-//
The Latest > http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2648125/Scientists-recorded-moment-MH370-crashed-ocean.html (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2648125/Scientists-recorded-moment-MH370-crashed-ocean.html)
with a rundown of >>
"WHERE IS MH370 NOW? THIS WEEK'S THEORIES ABOUT THE MISSING PLANE
The latest 'possible evidence' suggests the Malaysian Airlines jet came down in the Indian Ocean south of India almost 4,000 miles north of where 26 nations, using either ships, aircraft or technical expertise, have been searching the waters off the Australian coast.
British woman Katherine Tee also claimed this week that she saw a burning plane as she sailed from Cochin, in southern India, to Phuket in Thailand on the night of March 8.
Just 24 hours before Ms Tee told her story on Tuesday, Duncan Steel, a New Zealand space scientist and physicist, said it would not be impossible for the missing jet to have flown north west across the ocean and crashed either in the sea or even in central Asia.
A fourth theory came early in the search, when a worker on an oil rig off the southern coast of Vietnam said he saw a burning plane at around the time MH370 made a 'u-turn' over the South China Sea and headed west.
A fifth possible clue came from Malaysian wife Raja Dalelah Raja Latife who insisted she saw an aircraft partially submerged on the surface of the Indian Ocean near the Andaman Islands as she flew on a commercial flight from Jeddah to Kuala Lumpur during daylight about 12 hours after MH370 disappeared.
And a sixth report of a what might be a sighting of the Boeing 777 has come from residents on the remote Maldives island of Kuda Huvadhoo who say they saw a low flying 'jumbo jet' at around 6.15am on March 8. It was white, they said, with red stripes - like the planes operated by Malaysian Airlines."
.
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I now recall I saw what looked like a smoking jet flying over the lab on the 8th march, it looked like Elvis was the controls, and it was followed by what looked like five vintage Avenger torpedo bombers. I swear. Should I contact the news agencies?
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I now recall I saw what looked like a smoking jet flying over the lab on the 8th march, it looked like Elvis was the controls, and it was followed by what looked like five vintage Avenger torpedo bombers. I swear. Should I contact the news agencies?
You might, if you fancy wearing a straightjacket and all soft white fluffy walldecoration as a final view. ;)
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I now recall I saw what looked like a smoking jet flying over the lab on the 8th march, it looked like Elvis was the controls, and it was followed by what looked like five vintage Avenger torpedo bombers. I swear. Should I contact the news agencies?
whatever fits the official story eh?
anyone taken a look at a map and those 6 or so accounts to see if a few of them link together?
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This is probably worth reading:
http://news.morningstar.com/all/dow-jones/market-digest/2014060961/malaysia-airlines-flight-370-search-zone-poised-for-another-shift.aspx (http://news.morningstar.com/all/dow-jones/market-digest/2014060961/malaysia-airlines-flight-370-search-zone-poised-for-another-shift.aspx)
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Sound thinking from Mary Shiavo today:
"Mary Schiavo, a former inspector general for the U.S. Department of Transportation, says there's a tremendous need to find the plane, particularly if mechanical failure, and not foul play, is to blame.
"The longer time that goes on, the more it appears it was not terrorism, hijacking, sabotage, (or) suicide, and it does appear that something else happened -- something mechanical, some kind of a catastrophic failure, an explosion, something that debilitated the persons on board; and they really need to solve that mystery because until we solve it we can't improve air safety,"
http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/16/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-how-long-will-search-continue/index.html?hpt=hp_t3 (http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/16/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-how-long-will-search-continue/index.html?hpt=hp_t3)
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They still have not searched the area that the Inmarsat experts have given at the start of the investigation.
Just before they would reach that area those pings the chinese picked up made the entire search party change target course.
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-27870467 (http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-27870467)
The UK satellite company Inmarsat has told the BBC that the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines jet has yet to go to the area its scientists think is the plane's most likely crash site.
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"The longer time that goes on, the more it appears it was not terrorism, hijacking, sabotage, (or) suicide,
What's the rationale there for that statement?
They still have not searched the area that the Inmarsat experts have given at the start of the investigation.
Those guys also supported searching in the more northern site.
They cannot have it both ways.
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They still have not searched the area that the Inmarsat experts have given at the start of the investigation.
Those guys also supported searching in the more northern site.
They cannot have it both ways.
As I understood it the Inmarsat experts had signal timing data that was unable to determine the direction, only distance. So they can't not have it both ways.
Not as I understand it. Timing response gave them distance estimation, and Doppler shift of the signal differentiated that the southern arc was the direction estimate. They have published their raw data so it should have been peer reviewed by now?
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FYI there is a BBC Horizon program going out tonight on MH370
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b047czkj (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b047czkj)
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"The longer time that goes on, the more it appears it was not terrorism, hijacking, sabotage, (or) suicide,
What's the rationale there for that statement?
You are right to question that statement. I think what she means is that criminal investigations can take a long time in order to run down every lead - especially for international investigations that must coordinate between different jurisdictions and probe into secretive terrorist organizations. It has been a long time now, I'm pretty sure that investigators have been working all this time, but they keep finding nothing.
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"The longer time that goes on, the more it appears it was not terrorism, hijacking, sabotage, (or) suicide,
What's the rationale there for that statement?
You are right to question that statement. I think what she means is that criminal investigations can take a long time in order to run down every lead - especially for international investigations that must coordinate between different jurisdictions and probe into secretive terrorist organizations. It has been a long time now, I'm pretty sure that investigators have been working all this time, but they keep finding nothing.
That and most terrorist groups cant help gloating and making public statements about their success and no one has.
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FYI there is a BBC Horizon program going out tonight on MH370
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b047czkj (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b047czkj)
Nothing new, other than that it appears they got so distracted chasing pings that they have yet to look at the location that the Inmarsat data suggests is the most likely area.
ISTR reading a while ago a report that cast doubt on the Inmarsat doppler results as others who analysed it came up with different answers, but not heard anything about that since.
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not seen it yet, it's on iplayer download ready for me... i was dicking around with scope demos while it was on
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I don't understand why, if they are going to the expense of putting ships into the area to "map" the ocean, they don't just put ships into the area to "find" the plane? Could it be that the mapping will result in a product that can be sold to buyers such as mining companies, and oceanographic institutions then use those revenues to recover some of the costs of the search?
Apparently they are going to use "multibeam echosounder equipment" to do this mapping. Is there a chance that this technology might also discover the plane?
https://my.news.yahoo.com/dutch-vessel-begins-mapping-ocean-floor-next-phase-031636377.html
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Here's a quote from today's NY Times that speaks to the importance of calibrating electronic equipment and how failure to do so may have led to false conclusions in this case:
"... a comprehensive international review has found that the Malaysian radar equipment had not been calibrated with enough precision to draw any conclusions about the aircraft’s true altitude. “The primary radar data pertaining to altitude is regarded as unreliable,” said Angus Houston, the retired head of the Australian military who is now coordinating the search.
Mr. Houston said in a telephone interview that it was clearly possible that at some point during the tracked part of the flight, the plane flew at 23,000 feet. But he said he doubted whether anyone could prove that the plane had soared and swooped the way the initial reports suggested."
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/24/world/asia/new-search-plan-for-malaysia-airlines-flight-370-is-based-on-farther-controlled-flying.html?mabReward=RI%3A12&action=click&pgtype=Homepage®ion=CColumn&module=Recommendation&src=rechp&WT.nav=RecEngine&_r=0 (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/24/world/asia/new-search-plan-for-malaysia-airlines-flight-370-is-based-on-farther-controlled-flying.html?mabReward=RI%3A12&action=click&pgtype=Homepage®ion=CColumn&module=Recommendation&src=rechp&WT.nav=RecEngine&_r=0)
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“The primary radar data pertaining to altitude is regarded as unreliable,” said Angus Houston, the retired head of the Australian military who is now coordinating the search.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/24/world/asia/new-search-plan-for-malaysia-airlines-flight-370-is-based-on-farther-controlled-flying.html?mabReward=RI%3A12&action=click&pgtype=Homepage®ion=CColumn&module=Recommendation&src=rechp&WT.nav=RecEngine&_r=0 (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/24/world/asia/new-search-plan-for-malaysia-airlines-flight-370-is-based-on-farther-controlled-flying.html?mabReward=RI%3A12&action=click&pgtype=Homepage®ion=CColumn&module=Recommendation&src=rechp&WT.nav=RecEngine&_r=0)
This is the second time that electronic falsities have misled investigators. The first time was the false pings, and now this. But I think it is a good thing that investigators are re-tracing their steps.
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Now its in a different spot they reckon
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/malaysia/10927078/MH370-latest-Malaysia-Airlines-plane-deliberately-set-to-autopilot-over-Indian-Ocean.html (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/malaysia/10927078/MH370-latest-Malaysia-Airlines-plane-deliberately-set-to-autopilot-over-Indian-Ocean.html)
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The mapping of the key search area of the Indian Ocean floor is just about completed now, and the actual search for Malaysia Flight 370 will begin in late September. Below is a link to another lost ship (missing since 1845) that was found this week by using the latest electronic search equipment. These things can be found and I am hopeful that news of the discovery of MH370 will splash across the headlines soon.
http://news.ca.msn.com/top-stories/lost-franklin-expedition-ship-found-in-the-arctic (http://news.ca.msn.com/top-stories/lost-franklin-expedition-ship-found-in-the-arctic)
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Yes some dutch firm got the assignment, could take up to two years for a (relatatively) small designated area, if it is in that area they will find it but if it is not.....
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if it is in that area they will find it but if it is not.....
I agree. If it's there, they will find it. It will be like finding a needle in a haystack … with a metal detector. Even better, since the area is so desolate, their sensing equipment won't be hampered by extraneous signals which could mask the target.
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The search has officially resumed.
http://news.yahoo.com/underwater-search-malaysian-airliner-resumes-004833507.html (http://news.yahoo.com/underwater-search-malaysian-airliner-resumes-004833507.html)
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The GO Phoenix, the first of three ships ......... is expected to spend 12 days hunting for the jet before heading to shore to refuel
Weird, does that ship have to refuel every 12 days? Can't they just anker a small oiltanker in the vicinity or something like that :)
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The search has officially resumed.
http://news.yahoo.com/underwater-search-malaysian-airliner-resumes-004833507.html (http://news.yahoo.com/underwater-search-malaysian-airliner-resumes-004833507.html)
Oh, right, MH370. I vaguely recall something about that a long time ago... what happened again? ;D
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So who's paying for all this searching I wonder?
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So who's paying for all this searching I wonder?
Malaysia and Australia it seems, half each:
http://www.foxnews.com/science/2014/09/08/six-months-later-mh370-search-comes-up-short-but-unlocks-scientific-secrets/ (http://www.foxnews.com/science/2014/09/08/six-months-later-mh370-search-comes-up-short-but-unlocks-scientific-secrets/)
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So who's paying for all this searching I wonder?
Hollywood? :-X :-X :-X
Alexander.
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Bizarrely I suspect that may learn a lot more than expected, some of these areas of ocean floor have never been mapped.
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Oh, right, MH370. what happened again? ;D
That is exactly what everyone wants to find out. There was an interview recently with an expert who doubts if the flightrecorders will have more info since the cockpitvoicerecorder has such a relatively short loop that the long flight to where everybody now thinks the plane is will be longer then the loop. So if oxygen depreviation was the cause there will only be static on it :( If there was a fight between the cpt and copilot it will also be overwritten.
Anyway what I recall his conclusion was based on everything we now know that it was human intent to obfuscate the plane, if it was the pilot/ copilot or a third person that managed to invade the cockpit is unknown.
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Did they searched Diego Garcia Island?
gmaps: Diego Garcia Island at the middle of Indian Ocean (https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Diego+Garcia+Island&hl=en&ll=-6.620957,89.121094&spn=29.530177,46.538086&sll=-18.771115,87.769775&sspn=7.110915,11.634521&hnear=Diego+Garcia&t=m&z=5)
UK & US government was able steal whole nation to build his military bases there :o
Stealing a Nation - How the UK/US Stole the Diego Garcia Island (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjNfXK6QpqY#)
Do you see any problem to hide truth about less than 300 passengers from MH370? ???
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12 days at sea is probably dictated more by water and food issues, along probably with needing consumables for the search equipment, as the ship bunkers will more than likely last at least a month. You could send that by a dedicated supply ship but going to a port where the crew can have a day off probably works out cheaper.
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I know the ACARS was not reporting actual data (just pinging) but the computer that records the service information would still have been working. I guess after this amount of time the data would be in a very sorry state. It could be very good evidence for a fire or really anything else.
I guess the system would be backed up on a regular basis during regular service operations. If so then certainly that information has been examined.
Certainly is an interesting event.
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They probably want to see if they can find evidence of fire in the cargo hold, and if there is damage to wiring looms consistent with that, or if there was another fault that shows up otherwise. Even after this time there will be fire evidence, at least in the cabling where you will have plastic char still visible. Organics will be long gone, along with a lot of the lighter metals by now. Larger castings might still be close to recognisable.
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So who's paying for all this searching I wonder?
You are. Mostly.
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So the search is ended and today there is news leaked from the Malaysian police that makes it look like another German Wings incident where the pilot was the root cause.
The FBI has found on the computer of the pilot six deleted Flightsimulator simulations.
In those simulations the plane follows in the beginning exactly the path the mh370 took, it then deviates till the fuel ran out and then crashes in the indian ocean.
They don,t call it hard evidence, personally I think the chance that this is a coincidence is too small.
It shows to me that pilots should be better psychologically evaluated, tested and get more R&R between flights. Whats next? A suicidal warplane pilot? :(
Maleisië heeft de Amerikaanse federale recherche FBI de harddrives gegeven die Zaharie gebruikte om zijn simulatiepraktijken op te zetten. De FBI ontdekte zes data-eenheden van het programma Microsoft Flight Simulator X, die waren gedeletet. Die datagegevens brachten de virtuele crashpogingen in beeld.
De data laten zien dat Shah een vlucht nabootste die vertrok vanuit Kuala Lumpur, vervolgens over de Straat Malakka vliegt, dan links naar de Indische Oceaan draait en doorvliegt tot de brandstof is verbruikt. Onderzoekers zien overeenkomsten, hoewel de werkelijke route voor zover die kon worden getraceerd, op een bepaald moment afweek van de simulatie. Er waren al enige tijd geruchten dat de FBI dergelijke gegevens had, aldus New York Magazine.
De piloot was al geruime tijd verdachte, maar hard bewijs ontbrak. Ook nu is het nog niet zo dat de oorzaak van de ramp officieel is bewezen. Zijn zus ontkent met klem dat Shah in staat was om het vliegtuig opzettelijk te laten crashen. 'Ik ken mijn broer', zei ze eerder tegen de BBC. 'Hij zou nooit zo'n afschuwelijke misdaad plegen. Zo zit hij niet in elkaar.'
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So the search is ended and today there is news leaked from the Malaysian police that makes it look like another German Wings incident where the pilot was the root cause.
The FBI has found on the computer of the pilot six deleted Flightsimulator simulations.
In those simulations the plane follows in the beginning exactly the path the mh370 took, it then deviates till the fuel ran out and then crashes in the indian ocean.
They don,t call it hard evidence, personally I think the chance that this is a coincidence is too small.
Yes, not a coincidence.
Why are they only finding this now?
Surely it doesn't take all that time to covered deleted data?
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Did they search the place the simulation ended?
Alexander.
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Did they search the place the simulation ended?
No point if the intention was to "deviate till the fuel ran out".
No way they could know that precisely enough to be of any use.
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I was under the impression that the simulated routes (the recovered simulations was mentioned before) was planed to avoid any kind of RA.D.A.R. systems. So he might followed "the plan".
Alexander.
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Yes, not a coincidence.
Why are they only finding this now?
Surely it doesn't take all that time to covered deleted data?
No indeed they (FBI, Malaysian government and airliner) already knew this information for a long time but they kept it secret.
We the public only hear about it now because some american newspaper got their hands on classified FBI documents through a non disclosed contact.
The reason is probably that it is as the link below states it, circumstantial evidence at most, it is not hard proof that this is the root cause.
Now with hundreds of grieving families do you want to tell them this without 100% being sure this is what happened :-//
Perhaps what also was in the consideration of the airliner was the risk of getting millions in claims, just as German Wings is now experiencing.
The reason that this non disclosed contact now at this moment in time releases this document is ofcourse pure speculation, I myself can think that if I had this knowledge and knowing that the search came to an end and we never would find out the real cause due to unable of finding the wreckage, and the relatives would never know this part of the story (perhaps the truth) that would very well be a damn good reason to personnaly leak that document to the press.
Another more commercial reason could be that this will vent of the suspicion that there was something wrong with this new plane, I mean it was pretty new and any crash is bad commercial news for such a product. If you know how much one such airplane costs and that airliners base their buying on how reliable the planes are, this could well have been also a reason to release the document.
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/07/22/asia/mh370-pilot-simulation/ (http://edition.cnn.com/2016/07/22/asia/mh370-pilot-simulation/)
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No indeed they (FBI, Malaysian government and airliner) already knew this information for a long time but they kept it secret.
Then someone needs to be held account for that.
Information should never have been withheld.
We the public only hear about it now because some american newspaper got their hands on classified FBI documents through a non disclosed contact.
Whoever made that call should lose their job, or worse.
The reason is probably that it is as the link below states it, circumstantial evidence at most, it is not hard proof that this is the root cause.
It doesn't matter, you shouldn't hide information like this in an investigation.
And quite frankly, with all the crackpot theories that got thrown around about because of the lack of information, I'd say this was the most credible evidence they had.
Now with hundreds of grieving families do you want to tell them this without 100% being sure this is what happened :-//
Everyone deserves to see any evidence uncovered.
Perhaps what also was in the consideration of the airliner was the risk of getting millions in claims, just as German Wings is now experiencing.
The airliner should get zero say in what evidence gets released.
Another more commercial reason could be that this will vent of the suspicion that there was something wrong with this new plane, I mean it was pretty new and any crash is bad commercial news for such a product. If you know how much one such airplane costs and that airliners base their buying on how reliable the planes are, this could well have been also a reason to release the document.
Anyone who withholds information for such commercial gain should be prosecuted.
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The pilot crashing the plane on purpose would also explain why they found only pieces of it so far. I know this sounds like talking in hindsight but since they found debris of the airplane I had the feeling the plane somehow got smashed into pieces which is why the search parties never found a sunken airplane. There is no airplane to search for, only small bits and pieces because flying into water at high speed has a similar effect of flying into a mountain.
Still the FBI shouldn't have sat on this information for this long! The search parties could have adjusted their search method long ago and look for parts instead of a large part of on an airplane.
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Then someone needs to be held account for that.
Information should never have been withheld.
Whoever made that call should lose their job, or worse.
It doesn't matter, you shouldn't hide information like this in an investigation.
And quite frankly, with all the crackpot theories that got thrown around about because of the lack of information, I'd say this was the most credible evidence they had.
Everyone deserves to see any evidence uncovered.
I agree with that personally, for me all information also on government level should be made public, not after 75 years as sometimes is the case.
Another more commercial reason could be that this will vent of the suspicion that there was something wrong with this new plane, I mean it was pretty new and any crash is bad commercial news for such a product. If you know how much one such airplane costs and that airliners base their buying on how reliable the planes are, this could well have been also a reason to release the document.
Anyone who withholds information for such commercial gain should be prosecuted.
[/quote]
No the last remark was that they DID provide this information now for commercial gain.
Just so no-one will think the airplane itself could have been the cause.
Now no black boxes or other physical evidence can ever shed light on what truely happened the planemanufacturer can never proof its innocence and suspision on this plane would be made. Now with this story about the pilot all suspicion is gone, well almost all.
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The pilot crashing the plane on purpose would also explain why they found only pieces of it so far. I know this sounds like talking in hindsight but since they found debris of the airplane I had the feeling the plane somehow got smashed into pieces which is why the search parties never found a sunken airplane. There is no airplane to search for, only small bits and pieces because flying into water at high speed has a similar effect of flying into a mountain.
Still the FBI shouldn't have sat on this information for this long! The search parties could have adjusted their search method long ago and look for parts instead of a large part of on an airplane.
I am not an expert but I do remember in the beginning saying that if the plane crashed in the water under such an angle it would be totally smashed to pieces they would have found all kinds of floating debris on the ocean through satelites, however they couldn't find a single piece floating. Only a year and months later some pieces got found washed ashore on the african coastline.
My guess is that the pilot went for an extremely deep part of the ocean and flew plain in vertically so it would sink to the deep with the least amount of damage, but I have no idea if this is possible or it is better to land the plane horizontally so it floats on the ocean an than calmly sinks in the water. If the latter would be the case, i can not understand why the flightattendants would not have opened the doors and let the passengers out, so I think the crash must have been lethal to all passengers and the plane lies somewhere incredibly deep. If you look at the depth charts of the indian ocean it can be incredibly deep in some places, I don't think the technology exists yet to chart those depths at reasonable speed and accuracy. And the pressures at that depth could crush the plane in size.
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The pilot crashing the plane on purpose would also explain why they found only pieces of it so far. I know this sounds like talking in hindsight but since they found debris of the airplane I had the feeling the plane somehow got smashed into pieces which is why the search parties never found a sunken airplane. There is no airplane to search for, only small bits and pieces because flying into water at high speed has a similar effect of flying into a mountain.
Still the FBI shouldn't have sat on this information for this long! The search parties could have adjusted their search method long ago and look for parts instead of a large part of on an airplane.
I am not an expert but I do remember in the beginning saying that if the plane crashed in the water under such an angle it would be totally smashed to pieces they would have found all kinds of floating debris on the ocean through satelites, however they couldn't find a single piece floating. Only a year and months later some pieces got found washed ashore on the african coastline.
My guess is that the pilot went for an extremely deep part of the ocean and flew plain in vertically so it would sink to the deep with the least amount of damage, but I have no idea if this is possible or it is better to land the plane horizontally so it floats on the ocean an than calmly sinks in the water. If the latter would be the case, i can not understand why the flightattendants would not have opened the doors and let the passengers out, so I think the crash must have been lethal to all passengers and the plane lies somewhere incredibly deep.
Your reasoning sounds very plausible but leaves the question on how it is possible they didn't deploy any of the life-rafts because it seems to me an airplane which is intact doesn't sink within seconds. Or would it be possible for the pilot to disable the air supply to the passenger cabine rendering the crew and passengers unconscious? And how about the co-pilot?
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The co-pilot issue: that we have seen on German Wings how that could have expired. He would be higher in rank so could have asked the co pilot to check something or fetch something outside the cockpit and then lock the door. With German Wings the co pilot had to wait for the pilot to go to the bathroom because he was not in charge.
The oxygen, i really do not know if a pilot could do this, perhaps some pilot could elaborate on this?
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So who's paying for all this searching I wonder?
The chinese, mostly.
I said this awhile back: this "search" is #1 a jobs program; and #2 a mapping program for the ocean floor for the military.
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The Chinese government is responsible for only 10% of the search cost (total of $130 million). Australia has financed the largest part of the search operation ($80 million). Up to July 2015, China hadn't paid a cent of their share, providing only military assets. A salvage vessel with towed sonar was sent in January 2016.
The search area is tiny in the vast expanse of the Indian Ocean and totally irrelevant strategically.
As for Australian jobs, the main search contractor is Fugro, a Dutch company. https://www.fugro.com/mh370 (https://www.fugro.com/mh370)
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-15/mh370-the-hunt-for-malaysia-airlines-missing-flight-in-numbers (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-15/mh370-the-hunt-for-malaysia-airlines-missing-flight-in-numbers)
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/aviation/questions-over-mh370-search-funding-shortfall/news-story/eeb63585f74a33391e67af7658d313e0 (http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/aviation/questions-over-mh370-search-funding-shortfall/news-story/eeb63585f74a33391e67af7658d313e0)
http://www.ibtimes.com/mh370-search-hits-record-price-tag-malaysia-government-spends-70m-aviation-2344123 (http://www.ibtimes.com/mh370-search-hits-record-price-tag-malaysia-government-spends-70m-aviation-2344123)
http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/incidents/china-refusing-to-contribute-funds-to-mh370-search/news-story/b8dbd09adcdf5cc9e514f14006a95780 (http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/incidents/china-refusing-to-contribute-funds-to-mh370-search/news-story/b8dbd09adcdf5cc9e514f14006a95780)
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Why the hell did they make us spend years searching the wrong section of the ocean, when they had the flight simulation. :palm: :palm: :palm:
I always suspected it was further north than the area we (mostly Australia) searched. The distribution of the debis found so far implies to took the northern edge of the Indian Ocean, rather that the Eastern side off Western Australia.
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It was rightly based on tangible satcom data, not dubious circumstantial evidence.
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Why the hell did they make us spend years searching the wrong section of the ocean, when they had the flight simulation. :palm: :palm: :palm:
Because they are the kind of people who also follow their GPS to their own demise as well.
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You don't seem to know much about the actual search, but feel knowledgeable enough to insult people connected with it (British and Australian). Are you trolling by any chance?
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Why the hell did they make us spend years searching the wrong section of the ocean, when they had the flight simulation. :palm: :palm: :palm:
I always suspected it was further north than the area we (mostly Australia) searched. The distribution of the debis found so far implies to took the northern edge of the Indian Ocean, rather that the Eastern side off Western Australia.
There is no reason to think that he flew the exact same route, but the fact it's a southerly route to nowhere is pretty suspicious. Unfortunately the satellite data leaves an infinite number of possible flight paths, plus the plane could glide ~100 miles from the last ping arc, also assuming that the last ping coincides with an engine flameout due to fuel exhaustion.
The search team made the best guess based on a reasonable flight track, but without knowing why the plane was flying the track (either human in control or pre-programmed autopilot), it was just a guess.
It very much seems like a deliberate act by one of the pilots, and he wanted the plane to be never found. Unfortunately there is no psychological screening that can reliably identify the tiny number of pilots who are likely to attempt murder-suicide.
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So the search is ended
No, that's not what was said at all.
What was said was "We said we'd search this 120,000 square KM of ocean floor, and we've done 110,000 to date. We're behind schedule due to weather and other events and we'll complete the remaining 10,000KM." Unless credible evidence turns up they'll stop searching there because at the moment it's a wild goose chase. They never said the search was ended right now.
There was speculation about the pilot from the first time they examined his simulator in the weeks after the disappearance, so this is really nothing new. All it does is add a bit more weight to the theory they are vaguely searching in the right area. That, along with the predicted tidal data correlating the little debris found and the approximate information from the limited satellite comms just means that their best guess is really their best guess.
At the moment Australia is burning a crapload of money with some minor input from other parties searching for the remains.
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Correction then for the peanutpickers: the search has ended FOR now.
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Correction then for the peanutpickers: the search has ended FOR now.
The search *will* end sometime between October & December.
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Probably the best place to get factual updates is here. AVHerald has details on pretty much aviation incident.
http://avherald.com/h?article=4710c69b/0526&opt=0 (http://avherald.com/h?article=4710c69b/0526&opt=0)
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The oxygen, I really do not know if a pilot could do this, perhaps some pilot could elaborate on this?
Not an airliner pilot, but still, close enough.
The cabin altitude can be manually adjusted. That was, for example, the main cause of the Helios 522 accident.
Therefore you can let the passengers suffocate on purpose, although the oxygen masks will be deployed automatically. But as the oxygen generators for the passenger masks only last for about 10 minutes, most passengers will be knocked out permanently after about half an hour. Also, see the following FAA handbook, the cabin pressure control part starts at page 27: https://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/handbooks_manuals/aircraft/amt_airframe_handbook/media/ama_Ch16.pdf (https://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/handbooks_manuals/aircraft/amt_airframe_handbook/media/ama_Ch16.pdf)
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There is an article in popular mechanics about what went wrong with the failed search.
Having read that article, I would put their failure to recognize model risk on top of my list. They never thought about the what if early on: what if the models they used to pin point the flight path were wrong?
By the time they realized that and adjusted the search strategy, it was a little too late.
You see a lot of that, even among scientists, or when tons of money were at stake.
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Isn't that science? Trying to put reality in a model and then emperically try to see if the model matches reality?
You have to start somewhere. They had no opportunity to search the whole ocean. The biggest problem is the transmitter of the black box, it has not much reach and hence the suggestions for floating devices that could be tracked by plane within hours.
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As I mentioned before, there is an infinite number of tracks that match the satellite data. In order to come up with an end point, one has to assume something like a fixed speed and course. Even then there is a lot of fuzziness. To search the whole of the last arc would take too much time or money.
Airbus and others are looking at better tracking systems and jettisonable flight recorders. That might not help in the case where the pilot or hijacker knows about them and can deliberately disable them.
In fact, the vast majority of plane crashes are found within a few weeks, there are only a handful of cases out of thousands where the plane has never been found. Finding the crash site quicker would not save lives, nor help the crash investigation much.
I think the best system will be a satellite link to transmit flight recorded data in the case of emergency. This will add cost to a lot of flights (many don't have satellite link), and would probably not help for cases like MH370.
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A simple GPS-based coordinate blinker using a satellite would be a good start.
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"Isn't that science? "
Absolutely. They could have done a better job preparing themselves for the possibility that the crash site may not be what the models said it would be.
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"think the best system will be a satellite link to transmit flight recorded data in the case of emergency"
Such services are commercially available today. The airline in this case decided that it didn't want to purchase it.
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A simple GPS-based coordinate blinker using a satellite would be a good start.
You'd think they still fly vfr after all these years?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_dependent_surveillance_%E2%80%93_broadcast
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A simple GPS-based coordinate blinker using a satellite would be a good start.
You'd think they still fly vfr after all these years?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_dependent_surveillance_%E2%80%93_broadcast
Well, something is wrong in that scheme as the plane's path couldn't be tracked.
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A simple GPS-based coordinate blinker using a satellite would be a good start.
You'd think they still fly vfr after all these years?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_dependent_surveillance_%E2%80%93_broadcast
This doesn't work if they are outside the radar or there are no other planes nearby. Using a satellite link to send the GPS location should fix this problem (if one or more comm satellites are within the horizon).
Edit: Ok, there is a possibility for the satellite based link - if it works: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_dependent_surveillance_%E2%80%93_broadcast#ADS-B_Out_Satellite_reception
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To my understanding the engines transmitted telemetry data long after the plane disappeared from radar. The didn't however transmit any GPS data.
/stefan
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No indeed they (FBI, Malaysian government and airliner) already knew this information for a long time but they kept it secret.
Then someone needs to be held account for that.
Information should never have been withheld.
We the public only hear about it now because some american newspaper got their hands on classified FBI documents through a non disclosed contact.
Whoever made that call should lose their job, or worse.
The reason is probably that it is as the link below states it, circumstantial evidence at most, it is not hard proof that this is the root cause.
It doesn't matter, you shouldn't hide information like this in an investigation.
And quite frankly, with all the crackpot theories that got thrown around about because of the lack of information, I'd say this was the most credible evidence they had.
Now with hundreds of grieving families do you want to tell them this without 100% being sure this is what happened :-//
Everyone deserves to see any evidence uncovered.
Perhaps what also was in the consideration of the airliner was the risk of getting millions in claims, just as German Wings is now experiencing.
The airliner should get zero say in what evidence gets released.
Another more commercial reason could be that this will vent of the suspicion that there was something wrong with this new plane, I mean it was pretty new and any crash is bad commercial news for such a product. If you know how much one such airplane costs and that airliners base their buying on how reliable the planes are, this could well have been also a reason to release the document.
Anyone who withholds information for such commercial gain should be prosecuted.
What if this turns out to be wrong? What if indeed it is the plane? What about the family of the pilot or co-pilot blamed for this (and will have to go into hiding)? Or the airline?
The public has a hard time distinguishing fact from fiction. And it is becoming harder every day. Whatever surmises the researchers have are theirs. Get the NTSB (or whomever the heck is responsible for these things in the area) to figure out what happened and leave the fuel for the conspiracy theories in the dark where it belongs.
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During the course of an investigation the facts are not published for the simple reason that any new progress in the investigation might involve people. And people can change their statement if they are being biased by such information.
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For every official explanation there will be at least three conspiracy theories coming up.
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That is the trouble though Assafl , quite a lot of times fiction and fact are deliberately used to smokescreen a reality , sometimes its just stupidity that masks itself as fiction or fact but in general terms and in a lot of cases it has been deliberate and when people come across the bullshit more than once a conspiracy starts to develop .
Take that airline Germanwings in where the pilot deliberately drove the plane into the ground in southern France , on TV out here very 1st there was the "official" spokespersons saying the passengers would not have known that it was slowly descending and going to crash , i thought what a weird thing to say at that time , then report after report they kept stressing that , so to me it got even weirder .
Then after all settled down and actual facts started to arrive it turned out EVERYONE would have known as they were trying to break into the cabin , in a small plane , with windows , so as you know now how it turned out the very first comments were deliberately targeted to insurance company's for the dollars sake and those poor people were not even cold yet ! Total bullshit .
Right from the start those spokespersons were on about that and that's how smokescreens and conspiracy are , some are very real and i personally think that there is something up with this saga in this thread .
It would not surprise me if it was not over near southern India one bit .
imo of course .
edited>spelting
Everything you say is 100%. Yet they do not know - hence - whatever they will say *now* can turn out to be wrong *later*. So they'd rather wait until they can have a clear - and as fact laden as possible - story. Facts are hard to turn to conspiracies (not that it is impossible - just harder).
As for insurance companies - The public's right to know is indeed being curtailed by insurance companies and government offices ALL-THE-TIME.
It is safe to walk in Oakland at night. We got rid of crime. This car is safe. Of course this medicine cures and is 100% risk free.
It is a double edged sword.
People are afraid of flying once a year and yet stuff 3000 Calories a day. How do you figure our human perception of risk and personal responsibility there? (and I am not talking marathon runners).
People are scared their kids will get hit by a car so they don't let them ride bikes. Yet a large size Ice Cream is great. (So now there are groups trying to promote riding sans-helmet as riding bikes makes the general kids population healthier - even at the risk of an odd injury from not wearing a helmet - crazy! - and they use actuary to prove they are right - and they indeed are).
People don't vaccinate their children. They don't. They think Louis Pasteur was a hoax by the government to control them or get money.
Perception is everything and those of actuary sciences discipline understand that and help compensate for public perception of risk by releasing only the requisite level of knowledge - and not a iota more.
And yes, as an intelligent being, I hate being included in with the other monkeys. But then again I am terrified of what these monkeys will do if they get to know ANYTHING. (See how easy it is for a group of intelligence officers from the baath party to manipulate some medieval thinking and make people do atrocious deeds. See how easy it is turning out to be to turn Turkey from a democracy to a dictatorship - just by getting people out of their house to fight *as if* for democracy - ironic really. As curious as I am - the disastrous results of humanities ability to cope with free access to all knowledge is simply not worth it.)
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To my understanding the engines transmitted telemetry data long after the plane disappeared from radar. The didn't however transmit any GPS data.
/stefan
They didn't transmit secondary radar/ADS-B transponder information because the pilot pulled the breaker.
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People are scared their kids will get hit by a car so they don't let them ride bikes. Yet a large size Ice Cream is great. (So now there are groups trying to promote riding sans-helmet as riding bikes makes the general kids population healthier - even at the risk of an odd injury from not wearing a helmet - crazy! - and they use actuary to prove they are right - and they indeed are).
Risk of head injury per million hours traveled
Cyclist - 0.41
Pedestrian - 0.80
Motor vehicle occupant - 0.46
Motorcyclist - 7.66
http://www.howiechong.com/journal/2014/2/bike-helmets (http://www.howiechong.com/journal/2014/2/bike-helmets)
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"People are afraid of flying once a year and yet stuff 3000 Calories a day. How do you figure our human perception of risk and personal responsibility there?"
Risk evaluation is highly subjective: flying may be totally unacceptable to others but totally acceptable to you.
So it is entirely reasonable for different people to settle on different compromises yet both are optimal to their respective risk takers.
It is totally unreasonable to think that others risk compromises are wrong simply because they differ from your compromises.
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What if this turns out to be wrong? What if indeed it is the plane? What about the family of the pilot or co-pilot blamed for this (and will have to go into hiding)? Or the airline?
The public has a hard time distinguishing fact from fiction. And it is becoming harder every day. Whatever surmises the researchers have are theirs. Get the NTSB (or whomever the heck is responsible for these things in the area) to figure out what happened and leave the fuel for the conspiracy theories in the dark where it belongs.
I do not see your point if the agency discloses only the facts which is that the pilot trained this route on his simulator.
They should not judge or make other conclusions however it will fuel the discussion.
If you plee for withholding information to the public you are censoring. Perhaps in the mideval times the public were uneducated fools that easily could be manipulated today in this age almost all people are educated and can draw their own opinion and conclusions but not without objective information.
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"People are afraid of flying once a year and yet stuff 3000 Calories a day. How do you figure our human perception of risk and personal responsibility there?"
Risk evaluation is highly subjective: flying may be totally unacceptable to others but totally acceptable to you.
So it is entirely reasonable for different people to settle on different compromises yet both are optimal to their respective risk takers.
It is totally unreasonable to think that others risk compromises are wrong simply because they differ from your compromises.
Risk evaluation is a science. It is not subjective. It is based on evidence and statistics - and if not manipulated - pretty good at forecasting future statistics.
However, like most statistical based practices, it is highly counter-intuitive (especially for the public) and is also prone to changes over time (e.g. the inventions of seat belts and electronic traction control have changed car accident related statistics considerably).
The public has a tough time even grasping the (rather simple) difference between statistical correlation and demonstrating causality. Hence some people in the public really believe that being a Vegan makes you healthier... (of course - if they wouldn't have mistaken correlation with causality they would have asked to compare the health nuts in the Vegan and Non-vegan groups - numbers change considerably once the right question is asked...).
People in any case will make up their minds based on anything they want to. But dragging them through multiple stories will not help them focus on facts (when the flight went down on FB were like "terrorism", "fire", "fault", etc.; now with the German and Egyptian airliners, some people are now like "all the pilots are now committing suicide all over the world"). Why?
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Everything you say is 100%. Yet they do not know - hence - whatever they will say *now* can turn out to be wrong *later*. So they'd rather wait until they can have a clear - and as fact laden as possible - story. Facts are hard to turn to conspiracies (not that it is impossible - just harder).
As for insurance companies - The public's right to know is indeed being curtailed by insurance companies and government offices ALL-THE-TIME.
It is safe to walk in Oakland at night. We got rid of crime. This car is safe. Of course this medicine cures and is 100% risk free.
It is a double edged sword.
People are afraid of flying once a year and yet stuff 3000 Calories a day. How do you figure our human perception of risk and personal responsibility there? (and I am not talking marathon runners).
People are scared their kids will get hit by a car so they don't let them ride bikes. Yet a large size Ice Cream is great. (So now there are groups trying to promote riding sans-helmet as riding bikes makes the general kids population healthier - even at the risk of an odd injury from not wearing a helmet - crazy! - and they use actuary to prove they are right - and they indeed are).
People don't vaccinate their children. They don't. They think Louis Pasteur was a hoax by the government to control them or get money.
Perception is everything and those of actuary sciences discipline understand that and help compensate for public perception of risk by releasing only the requisite level of knowledge - and not a iota more.
And yes, as an intelligent being, I hate being included in with the other monkeys. But then again I am terrified of what these monkeys will do if they get to know ANYTHING. (See how easy it is for a group of intelligence officers from the baath party to manipulate some medieval thinking and make people do atrocious deeds. See how easy it is turning out to be to turn Turkey from a democracy to a dictatorship - just by getting people out of their house to fight *as if* for democracy - ironic really. As curious as I am - the disastrous results of humanities ability to cope with free access to all knowledge is simply not worth it.)
The thing reading back on that posted in which i never actually mentioned but was the main criteria i was trying to put across was Intent .
The deliberate intent way before any real information came out , the future perceived deliberate intent to mislead , a sick perverted planned intent imo .
See , when a accident or whatever happens like that there is compensation of a certain amount available to people/relatives/survivors , but when it is know there is proven pre-knowledge of impending doom that compensation rises dramatically and that was their intent , before the victims were even cold they had intent .
It would not surprise me that the Law will be fiddling around with the "Law" to alleviate costs even though people pay for it anyway (insurance/ticket fees / tax's) , scum .
imo of course .
100%!
FAA, IATA, NTSB and everyone else are aware of the implications of people deciding not to fly. Much of the product reliability that we all take for granted was based on the assumptions that planes falling are very bad for the global (and hence - generally speaking - for the local) economy. That ability to design highly redundant systems with failovers etc owes much thanks to that (just as food safety guys - think HACCP - can thank the space program).
Full intent is keeping the public flying. Now: Are shysters like insurance companies using this "governance" (call it "government" if you want it to sound conspiratorial) decree - to keep the public flying - to hide fault? Yes, that is intent as well. Unfortunate - but they will do what they can....
I am hopeful that the FAA and IATA and NTSB and whomever else will design better processes to keep these kamikaze pilots out of airliners; and if indeed the insurance company or airliner is at fault - put the responsible parties in jail.
I expect the FAA and NTSB (as well as the CDC and GAO and many others) to continue to be as close to 100% correct in anything they say as possible. They do not "think"; they "analyze"; they do not have "reasons to believe"; they verify. That is what keeps me (and I assume many others) flying.
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Just spoke to a friend who is an airline pilot and he says that whomever did this was actually very calculated, turning off the systems in a specific sequence that does not disclose them being turned off; that he changed course right between towers so people won't look for him for some time, and more. He says Doppler from the Satellite carrying the Rolls Royce telemetry is the only way they have vague estimates of where they are - somewhere in the south Indian Ocean - a very bad area.
He is firmly on the bandwagon of intent by the Pilot (or someone else) - and says this was known for a very long time - at least in the industry.
Given the time it takes to find the proof, and due to geopolitical reasons (hence quiet from the authorities), it is now firmly in the hands of the insurance companies who are distributing their share of the pie.
This would make a nice TV Matinee movie....
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"He says Doppler from the Satellite carrying the Rolls Royce telemetry is the only way they have vague estimates of where they are"
Don't get onto his flight: the "pilot" friend of yours has no idea of wha he was talking about.
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I'm fairly confident in saying that MH370 will probably never be found, and it's disappearance will remain a mystery. Planes go missing quite a lot : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_missing_aircraft, but MH370 is by far the one with highest number of passengers on board. Those reasons alone will mean it attracts a lot of attention, so perhaps one day some determined (and wealthy) searchers might find it. They managed to relocate the Titanic.
But overall, the disappearance of MH370 is mostly unprecedented. I guess no significant changes will result - unless such a similar thing happens again.
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But overall, the disappearance of MH370 is mostly unprecedented. I guess no significant changes will result - unless such a similar thing happens again.
Aren't planes now tracked now? How about phys evaluations for pilots? Seems I have read those changes have or will be made (based also on the German plane)
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But overall, the disappearance of MH370 is mostly unprecedented. I guess no significant changes will result - unless such a similar thing happens again.
Airliners don't fall into the same type of statistics that cars fall into - it is enough that 1 occurrence happened for Boeing and others to make changes. Unfortunately, a pilot becoming deranged is a difficult situation to resolve (albeit there are ways - e.g. have a flight attendant fill in for the pilot - but even then remember Egypt Air where the Black Box showed that the Pilots were fighting each other). But one can prevent a situation where the fuses are taken out sequentially with no telemetry; that transponders can be disabled etc.
Engineers will add that to the millions of other safeguards that start with a 10$ rivet and will now end with telemetry for fuses.
Happy flying everyone. If too terrified, watch the Documentary Airplane!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNkpIDBtC2c (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNkpIDBtC2c)
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Thinking of another point though, the planet is 70% oceans so it would make sense to release yellow or bright colour stuff on impact in water, enough so satelites could pick it up. That would not be too expensive, could also help with impacts on mountains since that sometimes seem to be equally difficult.
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But overall, the disappearance of MH370 is mostly unprecedented. I guess no significant changes will result - unless such a similar thing happens again.
Airliners don't fall into the same type of statistics that cars fall into - it is enough that 1 occurrence happened for Boeing and others to make changes.
Unfortunately not. Accident investigators frequently make lots of recommendations which are then routinely ignored. For example, after AF447 BEA recommended better flight tracking which was ignored. If the airline industry says "that's too expensive!" nothing gets done.
Sure there are minor tinkering like adjustments to training, or getting cabin crew to act as door guards, but it is generally regarded among pilots that these are window dressing and do nothing about the fundamental issues.
ICAO are recommending that airplanes have real-time tracking by 2020 or something, but ICAO have no legal authority and it would require member states to make it mandatory.
Generally speaking, pilots are trusted to fly and navigate safely and they are the ones solely responsible for the plane while it is in the air, and I don't expect that to change despite the quite rare cases of pilot murder-suicide.
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Malaysia have now admitted it:
http://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2016-08-05/malaysia-confirms-flight-370-course-was-on-pilots-simulator (http://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2016-08-05/malaysia-confirms-flight-370-course-was-on-pilots-simulator)
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I bought Microsoft Flight Simulator X a couple of years ago on Steam and it runs like a stuck pig. Totally incompatible with any modern graphic card. But take it out of highly populated cities and out on to open seas and it's ok. Maybe he was just as pissed off as I was with trying to do a twin-towers re-run or my Austrian holiday landing at Innsbruck and went out to the open sea to flex his wings?
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Unfortunately not. Accident investigators frequently make lots of recommendations which are then routinely ignored. For example, after AF447 BEA recommended better flight tracking which was ignored. If the airline industry says "that's too expensive!" nothing gets done.
SNIP
ICAO are recommending that airplanes have real-time tracking by 2020 or something, but ICAO have no legal authority and it would require member states to make it mandatory.
Real-time tracking will never prevent an accident.
Real-time tracking could allow the investigators to quickly find the wreckage.
But unless I am mistaken, Real-time tracking would not improve safety.
:)
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And two news items within 24 hours about MH370
The latest search action will be stopped next week:
https://home.bt.com/news/world-news/search-for-missing-mh370-plane-to-end-next-week-says-malaysia-11364273667980 (https://home.bt.com/news/world-news/search-for-missing-mh370-plane-to-end-next-week-says-malaysia-11364273667980)
Doubt if pilot deliberately crashed the plane:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-44216778 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-44216778)
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Real-time tracking will never prevent an accident.
Real-time tracking could allow the investigators to quickly find the wreckage.
But unless I am mistaken, Real-time tracking would not improve safety.
Faith based dogmatic predictions about an unknown future are hardly worth responding to. There is at least one recent accident where real-time tracking would have prevented it occurring, so you are clearly mistaken.
On MH370, the potential search area is too vast to search completely, I guess it will go down as one of the great aviation mysteries. They had a reasonable fix on AF447 but it took a few attempts to find it. Unless some billionaire decides to stump up the money for an exhaustive search, the evidence that might definitively explain the disappearance will stay on the bottom of the sea bed. In the meantime, speculation and conspiracy theories will dominate.
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Real-time tracking will never prevent an accident.
Real-time tracking could allow the investigators to quickly find the wreckage.
But unless I am mistaken, Real-time tracking would not improve safety.
Faith based dogmatic predictions about an unknown future are hardly worth responding to. There is at least one recent accident where real-time tracking would have prevented it occurring, so you are clearly mistaken.
And what is this accident that could have been prevented?
:)
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does anyone wanna see lost with a bunch of electrical engineers?
maybe they are having fun in another dimension
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does anyone wanna see lost with a bunch of electrical engineers?
maybe they are having fun in another dimension
Their families have a lot of grief and can't bury their loved ones, some can't have disclosure, this could have a serious psychological impact on that family for a couple of generations.
How I know? My grandmothers brother dissapeared in a submarine in WW2 never found until end of the 80s when it was found by sonar. It ran on a frienly UK minefiled that was laid a week before. Anyhow it is terrible to loose someone and not knowing what happened or be able to bury them, the moarning period can last a long longer time.
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does anyone wanna see lost with a bunch of electrical engineers?
maybe they are having fun in another dimension
i want to see a documentary where 10 engineers are given $50k each to fill up a shipping container with whatever they want.
Then they all get dumped on a deserted island along with their 10 shipping containers and the documentary begins.
No survivor style games or competitions, ya just let them build/hack/play with all the gear and supplies they brought.
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make your list...
I want to see what you'd pack with 50K...
Steve