The pings carry the ID of the sender - that is how INMARSAT know what to do with the ping, reject it or accept it and what level of service it should get. If you get a cell phone and turn it on - the first thing it does is start pinging the networks with its IMEI - the networks that do not service that phone take no notice the ones that do respond. So in this case no ACARS data but electronic identity data.

OK, I see your point. I will correct "impossible" with "highly implausible". Does it sound better?

As long as I will see the ACARS log with a clear indication about the change of the flight plan, I will maintain that that report is a piece of misinformation, if not deliberate disinformation. Not the only one I noticed in the last 9 days, of course, but one I can clearly disprove with hard evidence.

GSM portable jammer
 

The bad guys might carry these - GSM portable jammer - see here:

Cell Phone Jammer :: Phonejammer.com :: Buy Here ! …

@ Zooker

At 500ft below the other aircraft wake turbulence would not be an issue. Wake turbulence sinks at a given rate behind an aircraft, so the 'following' aircraft couldn't lag too far behind without getting WT effect.
Vertical separation for wake turbulence is 1000ft, although I have had A321s complaining and asking for offsets when following below an A388 and being around 5 or 6 nm in trail.

Quite. Bill MacGillvary said this 4 days ago.

It is one of the options other than hijack etc where the consequence was not planned. It might have come down when fuel was exhausted in which case little or no fire and much of the aircraft buried.

Where could this have happened? Well looking at the maximum range arcs to the NW I think we can assume that it did not fly a direct track across India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and probably none of the Stans. Similarly it may never have reached China but that still leave plenty of land area where it could have penetrated undetected and then crashed.

Peter: The passenger sat phone system can be disabled in seconds from the flight deck and block all calls. I would be very surprised if , having found out how to disable ACARS, "they" didn't also disable the phones.

I am still mystified by this theory that ACARS reports all waypoints as you pass over. It doesn't. If you are logged on to ADS then the aircraft usually reports it's position over every waypoint, and then every 18 mins if running a standard "contract" with ATC. The aircraft would not report every waypoint as a matter of course.

As for cellphones, you are hard pushed to get ANY service above about 2000' unless in remote areas (Afghanistan, some parts of Russia, Africa) where you have 60k mast spacing and your phone isn't logged onto multiple masts simultaneously. Even then your phone will only hold a connection for a matter of 2-3 minutes max.

One of the biggest aviation mysteries! Though the alleged manual switching off the transponder does confuse things, perhaps the search in the vicinity of the last known position should be intensified. That aircraft, or the remains of it has not vapourised.

The oil rig sighting ..... I have never seen a time quoted yet when he saw this.
Anyone ?

Inmarsat have now two statements on their website, they tell us very little:




http://www.inmarsat.com/

I started reading the thread at page 65 and recently started posting mainly with queries related to the satellites and the resulting arcs.

I am ABSOLUTELY sure I have read MANY TIMES that they did not subscribe to acars over satcom and did not subscribe to ACARS to Boeing only RR.

press releases

just because they chose it for their 737 in 21010 doesn't mean they did when they purchased the 777 many years earlier and neither would it indicate a retro contract for 777

Phones, there is a post just above/below yours stating 777 no 1st class therefore no phones

I find it hard to believe they don't have 1st class but there we are, perhaps they use that area for business class .

This post implies that the AIRCRAFT initiates the ping.
Other posts have stated that the SATELLITE initiates the ping.

Obviously both can't be right. The pings seem to be a critical part of the information available right now.
Can someone with firsthand knowledge of SATCOM/ACARS architecture help us out here?

Assuming the ping data for MH370 are Kosher (Halal?), how 'accurate' are the range/distance estimates (aka the red arcs) that have been generated?
Are we talking +/- 10km? 50km? 200km?

Amen
 

Agreed FakeSealion.

As yet, there has been no MOTIVE for any of that.

Human Factors or mechanical failure. I struggle with the latter if the plane was airborne for 5+ hours and there were NO comms effort made by anyone aboard via any means. I think the only additional salient and sobering fact is that MH370 is not airborn anymore. However, there is an industry and SLF that need to find out why.

The oil rig worker seems strangely elusive since the email.
....and he probably would not describe it as an "oil rig" if he was a genuine worker on whatever form of oil thingy it actually was.
So my best guess is that is was yet more lies and disinformation.

Can you seriously suggest that circa 200 cell phones can be "blocked" from around 2000ft to landing and thereafter, for about 8 days without one single text getting out to the outside world?

WTG BARREL: " Question: have you considered that that report could be simply inaccurate or false?"

CNN 11AM EST Just announced that the Malaysian Government has corrected this time element, and says ACRS was NOT (necessarily) OFF at time of Goodnight!

That is well observed. The text of the email was precise, yet that term is distinctly 'plane'-like for a professional to use in that context.

A big elepant in the room.
 

The inmarsat data is derived from ACARS pings.
The press releases say that ACARS had been deliberately switched off.

MAKE UP YOUR MIND.

Theory - ACARS can communicate via VHF and via satellite.
The VHF antenna or its cable were damaged (depressurisation or structural ?) but the ACARS unit was NOT switched off, it simply switched to using the satellite.

Either someone is lying or this takes us back to a catastrophic failure rather than human intervention.

SEENITALL #5243 page 263

my statement re "the question you are afraid to ask because it may may you look dull" was a principle not just aimed at this thread or your comments, I also I believe your answer was not specifically to me.

With regard to your reply I joined at page 65, my routine is every morning (I am retired) pick up at the page I left read through to last posting, noting any I want to comment on if they are still there when I go back i comment. I am sure many others do not follow this system

Don't confuse SOPs with Cultural practice.

I asked some days ago about the cultural practice amongst the airline pilots or about the cultural practice of this captain.

If all the company pilots adhered strictly with the rules then you are correct. But we know they don't. Remember the FO was acknowledged to have had passengers in the cockpit. If that rule was breached it suggests that there was laxity in other areas.

To dsc810 -

Actually 'oil rig' is how most of those who work on mobile drilling rigs would describe them. That is what this vessel is - a deepwater capable semi-submersible rig.

So the language used sounds right - even it seems unlikely the sighting was of MH370. Not impossible.