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Malaysian Airlines MH370 contact lost

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Malaysian Airlines MH370 contact lost

Old 15th Mar 2014, 13:00
  #3901 (permalink)  
 
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I agree! What happens when the lead Aircraft flys into cloud?? Not easy to formate in IMC at night when you aren't trained for it. Almost impossible I'd say.
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Old 15th Mar 2014, 13:01
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Only the Indian Ocean (64E) INMARSAT was involved in the last ping(s) and so they have ruled out areas (on the 40 degree circle) that overlap with coverage by POR in the Pacific and AOR-E over the Atlantic to the West.
I'm intrigued by the gap between the northern and southern corridors. The coverage maps clearly show this gap exists due to the overlap with POR. However the area of the gap would be at the very edge of coverage with POR, with the satellite very close to the horizon. It is not inconceivable transmissions in this region would only be picked up by IOR. In particular a ditched aircraft in the water may well have difficulty transmitting to a satellite close to the horizon.

From what I see there is a distinct case to make for joining the northern and southern arcs which would once again raise the possibility of the plane being in the South China Sea area. It may have flown a tortuous route to get back to the area it first started - but thats no more unlikely then it ending up over China.

So are the Malaysian SAR authorities being too quick to cease the search to the East of Malaysia?

NB I would love to see similar 'corridors' for the various pings between 1.30-8.11am. This would help rule in/out various flight paths being speculated.
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Old 15th Mar 2014, 13:04
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@Mr philipat - We cover a pretty substantial chunk of air around the Earth with Australian control!

Melbourne | Airservices
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Old 15th Mar 2014, 13:05
  #3904 (permalink)  
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And the fact that we all on here basically agreed almost a week ago it had flown to the west somewhere. But only today have the Malaysians have only formally admitted that to be true today.
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Old 15th Mar 2014, 13:06
  #3905 (permalink)  
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Fuel, fuel, fuel.......

I agree the 'Tailgating' theory is do-able. Is it likely..? No. Too much organisation required to be in the right place at the right time. Way back at the beginning, as soon as the westerly Radar position was revealed, it was clear that the extended westerly flightpath headed for Somalia/Yemen and that a HJ was most likely. Both lawless areas with no ATC/Radar and an all oceanic flight to get there. A little dogleg to the south maybe, to avoid Ceylon. What killed the theory then, was the reported range. However, owing to fuel prices, the a/c may well have had a LOT of fuel on board than we all thought at first. Remember there were also 50 empty seats.... Of course, there were no Somalis on board, but it's an ideal place to take a big a/c without it immediately appearing all over the web. They could unload what they wanted and dump the a/c in the sea, - or just refuel it if they had another nefarious purpose in mind. I think dumping it is more likely.
Personally, I don't suspect the pilots. Whoever did this almost certainly managed to get through the door. The timing of the start of the incident is circumstantially suspicious. If the perps were after all or some of the passengers....there may be surprise happy-ending even yet. If they were after something in the hold....
I'd still like to know what the actual fuel available was.
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Old 15th Mar 2014, 13:09
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Yes agreed. I said before we need to know 2 things more:--

1/ Fuel on board at departure, this will be known by MH
2/ Cargo manifest, what were they carrying?

These things will hopefully already be known by the authorities, but based on the last week I'm not so sure....
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Old 15th Mar 2014, 13:11
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Woah, just because I suggest it probably could be done with practice does not imply that this is what I think happened.

Indeed, I do not, for now (I am currently on something close to the hypoxia or all dead and autopilot/autothrust flying the plane theories).

Indeed, the more I think of it as a concept, the more I would have expected the pilot to have landed the plane and the mobile phones to become active. That apparently didn't happen, so what did? Keep that for next time.

Last edited by daikilo; 15th Mar 2014 at 13:18. Reason: more thought
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Old 15th Mar 2014, 13:11
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Sensitive cargo? Where's the manifest?

Okay, due to the lack of a publicly released cargo manifest...

If the flight was carrying a consigned gold cargo:
50pax * (75kg + 23kg) = 4900kg
Gold is approx US$13xx/oz,
4900kg = 172842oz, therefore,
172842 * 1300 = US$224.7mil

One could agree that this could provide ample motivation, and enough to buy inside help and some media whitewashing too. Valuable or sensitive cargo needs to be ruled out publicly. The aforementioned figures are for example only, and intended just to highlight the scope of wealth that can be transported on such an aircraft.
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Old 15th Mar 2014, 13:12
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I'm finding it hard not to think this was all the pilots undertaking, going by the timing of events.

- ACARS was disabled as the aircraft crossed the Malaysian east coast.
- Aircraft continued on until TOC, whereby their last radio transmission was received as they were handed off to Vietnam? ATC
- Transponder then is switched off

So how has ACARS been disabled and the crew are carrying on as normal until TOC ? Unless someone was in the equipment bay.
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Old 15th Mar 2014, 13:14
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But only today have the Malaysians have only formally admitted that to be true today.
Based on the dates of the leaks it would suggest military/government from other nations were aware much earlier. This is a compilation of classified information from multiple countries so how/when it is released is pretty significant.
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Old 15th Mar 2014, 13:15
  #3911 (permalink)  
 
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A point to consider is that for each "ping" there will be a range calculation from the satellite. the most interesting ones are the first two and the last. The last will give final range but the first two along with the last known position will give an indication of heading or speed.
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Old 15th Mar 2014, 13:16
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Some posters need to take a step back. There is absolutely a 0% (zero) chance this a/c entered Russian airspace.
Did you forget about the Cessna-172 which was flown unchallenged across former Soviet Air Defense Identification Zone from Helsinki to Moscow, and successfully landed in Red Square?
This was dated in 1987, one and half year before whole eastern block collided.

Today's Russia is different. Moreover with Russian/Ukrainian crisis ongoing, Russian military is on high level of alertness. And as you probably know, USAF are on air manoeuvres at Poland, close to Ukrainians borders (with AWACS) and Russia air force over Black sea. I would be highly sceptical to find out, that they missed target huge as 777, even if it was coming from not so exposed direction.
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Old 15th Mar 2014, 13:22
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I'm intrigued by the gap between the northern and southern corridors. The coverage maps clearly show this gap exists due to the overlap with POR. However the area of the gap would be at the very edge of coverage with POR, with the satellite very close to the horizon. It is not inconceivable transmissions in this region would only be picked up by IOR. In particular a ditched aircraft in the water may well have difficulty transmitting to a satellite close to the horizon.

[snip]

NB I would love to see similar 'corridors' for the various pings between 1.30-8.11am. This would help rule in/out various flight paths being speculated.
As much much as I'd also love to see these possibilities, the chances of InMarSat releasing both raw dumps of their telemetry and handshaking data, along with ultra-high resolution keplerian elements for the space platforms in orbit responsible for receiving the data, this will remain a mystery to the lay person: like me.
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Old 15th Mar 2014, 13:25
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ACARS and IFF

It cannot be determined that the ACARS and IFF were switched off. Only that they failed to respond to interrogation or transmit data!
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Old 15th Mar 2014, 13:27
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I find the Northern route more credible with Myanmar the hole in the radar fence. They've then got very high ground to cover any intended Westward movement from the Indian radars. The altitude excursions probably indicate non pro pilots as VNAV is the more complicated mode, whist HDG SEL is adequate for LNAV using just a mobile or tablet FMC app. No need for a/c systems nav at all. I've got doubts that they made it unless the authorities in some country en-route were also in on it.
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Old 15th Mar 2014, 13:27
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That's not the case. It seems that the aircraft did not send position reports as previously thought. INMARSAT and whomever (US gov't probably) were able to distinguish which satellite(s) were handshaking with the aircraft, but only to a degree that established an "arc". That arc goes North, toward the 'stans, or South, deeper into the Indian Ocean.
Even more, typically one satellite has more than one transponder and antenna systems directed to different locations, each with ellipsoid projection over the earth surface. And normally there is no distinction between informations received by different transponders on the same satellite, connected to the same system (ACARS data stream) So there is big chance, that more than one A/C path reconstruction would be possible - as in this case we have two.
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Old 15th Mar 2014, 13:29
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http://www.ctbto.org/fileadmin/user_...ines_MH370.pdf

IDC infrasound search for missing flight
Malaysian Airlines MH370

Summary
This brief report summarizes the analysis and findings using IMS infrasound data and IDC bulletins on
the search for the missing flight MH370 from Malaysian Airlines. The flight MH370 took-off from
Kuala Lumpur airport, Malaysia, on Friday 7 March at 16:41 GMT and was on route for Beijing, China.
It went missing within the first hour of flight (source: BBC).

Infrasound recordings from the IMS infrasound network and IDC bulletins are then searched for
potentially related information. The IMS infrasound network routinely detects commercial flight
taking off and landing from local airports.
However it should be noted that:
- Commercial planes in normal flight conditions are usually detected by IMS infrasound
stations only at close range (within about 100km from stations).
- The only reported commercial plane that could be tracked over large distances (across the
Atlantic) with an infrasound station was the Concorde as it was travelling as supersonic
speed. The Concorde was discontinued 10 years ago.
- For flight MH370 to be picked up by IMS infrasound network at regional or global distances,
it could mean that it crashed, exploded or disintegrated. However it would likely not be
possible to draw any definitive conclusion based on remote infrasound recordings alone..... see website for more..
...seeing as this was from Cocos ... what does this do to the "southern route" theory???
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Old 15th Mar 2014, 13:31
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Theoretical

I understand your logic, but the last info apparently came from Inmarsat.

In theory, they just input and output data, but they have had the bright idea to check if they had any data coming in which they did not tranmsit as it had no content. They seem to have found the needle in the haystack. Bravo Inmarstat.
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Old 15th Mar 2014, 13:32
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I think he is assuming crew incapacitation in order to see if there is an innocent explanation...
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Old 15th Mar 2014, 13:38
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Is any one else wondering about the Freescale Semiconductor Experts on board. 20 highly skilled engineers & developers of hi tech aircraft navigation & weapons systems with radar-cloaking capacity via "aeronautical hardware technology produced by Freescale" as reported in the press.
There is so much rampant speculation going on on this thread !

Go look up Freescale, they do a LOT more than aircraft related stuff.... they are a broad semiconductor company supplying and designing components from aircraft to computers to telephones to everything and anything in between.

Given China's status as a major manufacturing centre for many companies, its perhaps no surprise that bunches of engineers from a major semiconductor company fly there on a regular basis. Freescale have something like 18,000 employees.... sending 20 employees somewhere is no big deal !

Don't believe all the nonsense journalists publish, and certainly don't read too much into it !
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