Malaysian Airlines MH370 contact lost

[oldoberon]

Originally Posted by James7

Which it was right up to the point it was turned off.

It was also equipped with ADS and ACARS /CPDLC

It also has an ELT which can be activated any time.

Even real time tracking envisioned by all and sundry is useless when in the OFF position.

Even with the known position of AF entering the water it took 2 years to find the black box.

Resources would be better spent on the design of the Black Box locating devices.

If you look at the size of the search area without inmarsat data it is approx 1/3 of the earth, so 90 days would mostly likely be inadequate.

WE need both upgrades tracking and improved ULBs (longer lasting/more powerful), and still have to cope with the one in a million cases where crew/jackers tries to disable tracking.

[DaveReidUK]

thankfully wildly wrong, DR. Otherwise a country would have no way of detecting any enemy air activity since they are known not to squawk ATC codes for some bizarre reason

Radar is designed to work by bouncing off a reflective surface and does NOT require SSR.

No argument there. But read what I said:

it would only have been trackable while within range of SSR

I didn't say that SSR was required to track it, but if it's out of range of SSR (say 200nm max), then it's surely beyond the range of primary radar, too. Therefore not trackable.

[Propduffer]

As far as I can see, if they were to throw out the April 8th receptions, that changes nothing. It seems to me that they have just raised the bar for the type of data they will accept as the bedrock of their search assumptions.

They still appear to be certain that they have received pings from the dying ULB. For us (with only third hand data) to be second guessing these technical experts at their own game seems nonsensical to me.

This reminds me of those who wanted to question the Inmarsat engineers' technical reasoning, which I found laughable.

I do believe there are people from Malaysia who are withholding and possibly misstating information, but I don't question the experts and engineers at their own area of expertise.

[thommo101]

@propduffer

As far as I can see, if they were to throw out the April 8th receptions, that changes nothing.

Actually, by disregarding the April 8th ping detections then it actually resolves my main concern about the acoustic detections, that is the distance between the 2 days' detections was too far for the expected detection range.

This makes it more likely that the signals are from an ULB, and if so that it is located to the north west region (near the 2hr 20m long sequence of detections). This is also the area NOT search by the AUV.

[underfire]

While this site relates to pilots, there are other websites and group discussion forums with folks that do this sort of underwater work full time. (thankfully, most are closed, and by invitation based on verifiable qualifications) This search has been a technical and logistical fiasco.

I know of many entities in the industry that have been trying to provide input into the search, but like most adventures of this type, it has been relegated to the blowhards.

Good luck.

[acomputerguy]

One turn theory

Has anyone attempted to reconcile Inmarsat data with initial conditions of a single turn? It seems to me that a "one turn" theory requires throwing out all the primary radar returns that evidence further pilot action, which is not an unreasonable thought experiment as long as it doesn't also throw out the Inmarsat observations. Going a step farther, one could list all the evidence, the arguments for accepting or rejecting, and a theory that ties the remaining evidence together. That could lead to a measure of distance out on a limb that each picture of the events represents. Which would for sure be fun, and might be useful.

[Pontius Navigator]

Belgique, interesting post although I submit a steam driven cockpit was equally vulnerable although unintended switch functioning may have been less. Many years ago I saw the results of an intense cockpit fire. The instrument glasses had melted, sagged, and then re-solidified. The switch panels even then were of an electro-luminescent style illuminated by pea-bulbs.

[FE Hoppy]

how does this supposed fire take out all coms voice/data/SSR immediately and yet leave the aircraft able to make deliberate turns for the next X minutes and straight flight for x hours?

[arearadar]

tracked

Albatross and Dave Reid,
Unless I misunderstand, both primary and secondary radar contact was lost.
If true, how was 370 tracked and by whom ?
Never re-identified in an ATC sense.

[Ian W]

Originally Posted by FE Hoppy

how does this supposed fire take out all coms voice/data/SSR immediately and yet leave the aircraft able to make deliberate turns for the next X minutes and straight flight for x hours?

IFF the tracking information is correct and the aircraft made a steady turn followed by a long continuous heading, followed by a turn northward when over the Malacca straits to avoid overflight of Indonesia, and finally a turn to the South when clear of Indonesia THEN the disabled crew/cockpit hypothesis is not supportable. This weakness is common to all the 'emergency on board' ideas.

The Egyptian fire was a blowtorch effect to the right of the first officer's seat. I would expect that the first officer might well be less than impressed and egress the area rather rapidly. The captain only has to press a transmit button to give an emergency call as the crew would have switched from one box to the other not dialed up the HCM center frequency on the same box. They would be on one center's frequency or the other's. So it would be very unlikely that the pilot would not have made a transmission of some kind.

And of course - the Boeing AD would have been carried out so there should not have been a repeat of the Egyptian fire on MH370.

[Pontius Navigator]

arearadar, I thought we had established with 100% certainty that there was no 100% guarantee that a non-squawking, non-communicative, not visually identified aircraft was MH370.

Albatross, did you ever see my answers?

[Ian W]

Originally Posted by arearadar

Albatross and Dave Reid,
Unless I misunderstand, both primary and secondary radar contact was lost.
If true, how was 370 tracked and by whom ?
Never re-identified in an ATC sense.

My understanding was that the transponder stopped but that the primary contact was still being recorded. Not that anyone would be interested as you know many if not most controllers will have primary switched off and base all their work on SSR/ADS. We are not told but have to assume that a primary target was also correlated with the SSR by the air defense agencies. That primary correlation would survive the transponder stopping and remain attached to the primary track.

All this is why the first search was in the South China Sea, then the 'tapes were pulled' and the primary track was then visible. So no the aircraft was not re-identified in an 'air traffic sense' as it was only being followed from the tapes. Since then the Malaysian and Thai military have also said that their systems tracked the aircraft. They are all keeping shtum about their actual capabilities and what they have actually passed to the investigation. But it must be believable or the search in the South China sea would still be going on.

[ZOOKER]

Ian,
you say…"many if not most controllers will have primary switched off and base all their work on SSR/ADS.".
This is incorrect. Certainly in The U.K. PSR and SSR data are displayed together, over-laid on the same screen. The only time SSR only is used is when the PSR has failed or is on maintenance.
I suspect the majority of ATC units work the same way. If ATC operated as you suggest, should the SSR system on the ground fail, the ATCOs would be left with nothing but the video-maps.

[Ian W]

Welcome to the brave new world The symbology in Europe gives some level of precedence to primary. That is not the case elsewhere definitely not in some areas of the USA where only SSR cover is available. NextGen will move to all ADS-B surveillance, in theory without any PSR or SSR. This lead will be followed by most of the rest of the world. All those heavy engineering turning antennae cost a lot to keep going.

I understand all the concerns as I started with a wax pencil and primary radar only. But I have watched controllers who have no primary selected on their displays to reduce the clutter successfully controlling extremely busy sectors.

Perhaps someone can say what the normal selection is for the radar 'picture' out of KL toward HCM

[BOAC]

We are not told but have to assume that a primary target was also correlated with the SSR by the air defense agencies. That primary correlation would survive the transponder stopping and remain attached to the primary track.

- there's that word again..................

[Propduffer]

Ian:

Zooker may be giving us the best understanding so far of what was seen at KL; I have read that the Malaysian radar system was of recent vintage and purchased from Britain. So the British system appears to be what is in place at KL.

I echo your plea for (if that) for someone to tell us what the radar 'picture' out of KL is/was. The silence from that direction hinders our understanding of early events. There are no great military secrets to be kept regarding this subject; the capabilities of garden variety search radars are no secret.

There are people such as I posting here who would like to gain a better understanding of the early portion of the flight, and the absence of detailed radar information hinders that process. There is no reason for all the principles in this matter to provide less than full disclosure IMO.

[Pontius Navigator]

The point that arearadar was alluding to (and clarified in a PM) is that the original air defence track may well have been correlated with the civair SSR flight.

At the time SSR was lost and the only tracking was from primary return the military track was probably of MH370.

When radar contact was lost the probability confidence has to drop.

When radar contact was apparently regained the probability that the regained track was MH370 was depended on fewer values.

1. No other unidentified air track was known to fly that course.

2. No other primary radar track, uncorrelated with SSR was know in he area at that time.

etc etc.

In otherwords, the certainty provided by track conformity, SSR, communications, continuous primary tracking, was lost.

It was probably MH370 but it was not certainly MH370.

[PAXboy]

Propduffer

There is no reason for all the principles in this matter to provide less than full disclosure IMO.

The country of origin and lead investigator, is a country used to saying nothing to no one. Exacerbated by the media who have whipped up the families, there is every reason for all the principles in this matter to provide less than full disclosure IMO.

Only another year or two to go.

[Scubascooby]

This is my first post on this forum, I am not a pilot (would love to learn) but I am an experienced diver and know how serious an oxygen fire could be.

An in-flight oxygen fire would be a nightmare to deal with, I don't think anyone is going to stay in a cockpit with a nearby oxygen fire, just the heat given off would drive them out.

This is an incident that happened in USA some years ago. In the fifth picture you can see the remains of one of the aluminium cylinders, burst and melted.

22-May-06 Palm Bay, Florida. Why we don't fill our own tanks!

As someone who has spent a fair amount of time looking for ship wrecks in <50m of water I have an inkling of the scale of the search task. What worries me is the complete lack of any floating debris.

[portmanteau]

pontious, I think this is one case where a 99% probability outranks a 100% guarantee...but.... how important to establishing where the aircraft went, is this track anyway? in other words if the LKP of any sort was near igari would it have changed the inmarsat calculations ?