Malaysian Airlines MH370 contact lost

[Memetic]

SSD for CVR / FDR

Markdem.

CVR do use SSD e.g. (Aircraft Data Recorders | Rugged Solid State Drives | CWC-AE) selcted as it was one of the first results on Google.

However, beware when lookiing at the data you have for that SSD you use for logging. There is a difference between MTBF and drive endurance. SSD are only guarenteed to be written to a certian number of times. Enterprise grade drives are typically specified to endure 5 years of being written to a certain number of times per day. So you buy different endurance levels for different applications.

It is also not as simple as assuming because you can have 100k programme / erase cycles you can expect to write to the entire avaliable memory 100k times, short verison, you cannot write to individual memory cells, you have to write in blocks of cells, so even changing one wears many cells (Write amplification) of course there are clever flash memory management algorithms in the SSD controller working to reduce these effects and extend life.

[Evey_Hammond]

@rigbyrigz

I posted the original instructions and had that problem too until I worked out why. I'll wager that the reason why you're ending up over mainland China is because you've missed out the comma separating the 2 co-ordinates or left an erroneous character in. To get the correct location the co-ords should be 4.607861, 90.746107.
Hope that helps

[VH-XXX]

Any idea who the civil Gulfstream just launched to the search area would be?

This wouldn't be the first time that a privately owned aircraft has joined the search in Australia.

Abby Sunderland and Tony Bullimore are examples of this.

There are some very generous businessmen in Australia and they would likely not charge for their services as they have not charged in the past.

[Markdem]

Yes, this is all very nice and all that but you must meet the following:

Number of channels ................. 4
Impact tolerance ...................... 3400 Gs /6.5ms
Fire resistance .......................... 1100 deg C /30 min
Water pressure resistance ........ submerged 20,000 ft

That's just the executive summary.

The first item is software - not related to storage device (except for recording length)
Item 3 and 4 have to do with the CVR\FDR it self, not the storage device. (I have never seen a PCB that can withstand anywhere near 1100C).

Item 2 - Honest question. Why would you need to withstand acceleration\deceleration for 6.5ms? Besides, proper shock absorption will take care of it anyway. How do you think they do it now?

[Neogen]

Day 4 search area is narrower than day 3.

[MountainBear]

In theory you can get data off a hard disk that has been overwritten. You can see the faint traces of the magnetic fields from the previous data writes and try to deduce information from tat.

In this case though someone says the CVR is solid-state so different technology.

SSDs are actually easier to recover erased data from than magnetic based drives, a little appreciated truth. However, because of the way that consumer SSDs are designed this recovered data tends to be less contiguous making it more difficult to extract coherent information. Overall, I wouldn't be optimistic but if they pass the CVR along to the NSA I wouldn't be entirely pessimistic about their chances either. I'm sure they would find it a nice challenge.

[rigbyrigz]

Evey: "I posted the original instructions and had that problem too until I worked out why. I'll wager that the reason why you're ending up over mainland China is because you've missed out the comma separating the 2 co-ordinates or left an erroneous character in. To get the correct location the co-ords should be 4.607861, 90.746107.
Hope that helps"

Thank you Evey for providing this useful API info to me and many others!

Turned out the problem is NOT the punctuation (takes the comma, or ignores it) but if you Google the Lat + Long, you get China, if you Google-MAP it, you get the ocean off Indonesia. Google is a bit quirky here if you don't specifically choose MAP function there. Cheers.

[Vinnie Boombatz]

Gulfstream

The Japan Coast Guard has been flying a Gulfstream:

Sailors looking out windows trump technology in jetliner search | Malaysia | The Malay Mail Online

But the press release says civilian.

From a year ago:

Second chance at life comes at a cost - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

"Along with the Orion, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority had at various stages of the rescue mission five planes in the air. Two of those were chartered commercial jets - a Bombardier global express and a Gulfstream 550."

[brika]

Sea currents

Neogen's map

The consecutive search areas show a pattern of a large swirl - probably following data of sea currents in that area.

[Airbubba]

The owner of one of Australia's major television networks lives in Perth....he has major business interests in West Australia.
I suspect he would own a private jet...so my money would be on the fact that there is a television crew down the back.
This is the same network that had a cameraman on-board the Australian navy vessel that picked up Tony Bullimore. The cameraman was smart enough to stick a network branded cap on Mr Bullimore's head, just before he went public.

I had the same thoughts that there would be media on board the Gulfstream.

AMSA is doing a great job with its media kits including TV camera ready graphics and hi-res photos. You can see the number one engine loitered on an AP-3C in some of the cockpit shots. Why number one? No generator on that motor.

[BPA]

Looks like a Global Express VH-TGG is on it's way to the search area.

[Alloyboobtube]

The possibilities are still endless , without the Data recorder to see who or what was controlling the A/C and the CVR probably of no use , then sadly the questions will forever remain unanswered.

[Coagie]

Map the Ocean Bottom, While Scanning for Wreckage

awblain:There were rumors that the French submarine Emeraude that went looking for AF447 couldn't really exploit its listening equipment to the full because while it was large, it didn't have much sensitivity at such high frequencies.

Do the Australian navy have ships with suitable big sonar to hand? They seem to Leeuwin-class survey vessel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia but on the wrong side of the country. Looks like there should be room for some extra stuff onboard if the US has a special 40+ KHz sensitive device.

awblain, contact the Australians and get them to deploy this ship to the search area immediately! Use my name if you have to ... Actually, if this ship can paint a picture of the bottom of a 20,000 ft deep ocean, as well as that top of the line "Hummingbird" brand fish finder out of Eufaula, Alabama can paint the picture of the bottom of a typical lake (It's as if the lake is drained. You can see sunken boats and other features in detail), and I'll bet that it can, then they should deploy it. Maybe they haven't mapped that area yet, and they can kill two birds with one stone, by mapping the area, while reviewing the maps as they are scanned for the wreckage. That ship sounds totally bad ass for it's application. Thanks for sharing the info.

[AndyJS]

"The British satellite company, Inmarsat, says it had indications the missing Malaysia airlines flight may have crashed into the Indian Ocean as early as 9 March, two days after the aircraft disappeared."

MH370: Search for missing plane resumes at daybreak - live | World news | theguardian.com

[Neogen]

This is where India was searching till 15th March before they suspended the search after analyzing their radar data:

[brika]

Bombardier

..with a range of 9360 km. Used by private orgs and military. ?18 pax.

[brika]

Leeuwin class..

..I believe they have another Leeuwin class ship as well -HMAS Melville - may already be in area.

[Porker1]

@ AndyJS

Am still trying to get my head around that quote! "....as early as 2 days after the aircraft disappeared."! What are the journalists drinking? Are they including some bizarre refueling theory that hasn't been shared with us?

[Andu]

but the speed would start to bleed off due to the thrust reduction and control inputs. As the speed bleeds off the A/P will try to hold the altitude and then eventually disconnect.

Not on the 777 I flew. If the TAC can handle the asymmetry, (debatable without a bit of help from a friendly foot - the TAC is not designed to do all the work, just to assist, and it gives different percentages of assistance in cruise than on takeoff), once the speed reduces to the lower envelope protection, the aircraft will descend, maintaining that min safe speed, I think at 300fpm, a more than acceptable rate of descent for a ditching.

[AndyJS]

@Porker1

Some more information about the Inmarsat data:

"Malaysia failed to act on satellite data that showed missing flight MH370 flew for another seven hours after it disappeared, it has been revealed.

Inmarsat, a British satellite company, has told the BBC that it knew on March 11 that the plane was likely to be in either the southern Indian Ocean or central Malaysia and not the Malacca Strait or South China Sea.

The company handed the information over to Malaysia on March 12, but then the country apparently failed to act on the data.

Inmarsat has now spoken out over fears that the search has been mishandled because Malaysia did not publicly acknowledge the data until March 15."

Flight MH370: Malaysia 'knew plane flew for another seven hours at least three days before widening the search' - Mirror Online