Thanks, would you please provide the link?
Trying to make a sense out of "ACARS was not necessarily OFF at time of goodnight".

it's got nothing to do with being "Blocked"... The cellphones, if they manage to log on to a cell at all, will also be logging on to multiple other antennas. The system blocks them out as it knows they are likely to be airborne, before they overload the network.

I would suggest that multiple hijackers and a bin bag would solve the problem after landing...

cell phones and the like.....
 

I hate to be a pessimist but IF the flight excursion to 45,000 feet did occur, then it might explain lack of phone signals texts etc.....

It cant really be that, if it disintegrated then how are signals still being sent 8 hours after it took off, that's pretty much evidence that it was still intact up until 08:11 ,

The rig worker may have seen a bright light in the sky that could have been anything, then the next day hears a plane might have crashed near his area and its human nature to just draw conclusions of your own....(still personally think this was a hoax)

I suspect some journalists (and others in the mix) are following this thread and at times discover fields of follow-up inquiry.

SO:
Summary:
ACARS reported at 1:07 (maybe with the left turn pre-programmed waypoint maybe not
F>O> (or someone) signed off 1:19 no mention of problems
ACARS DID NOT "send" the scheduled 1:37 update
BUT it was still ON (CB not pulled or circuits disrupted) for all latter handshake attempted pings, with the satellite

Leaves this technical question i think:
What would be the causative factor that, with ACARS ON, the 1:37 report (and others) was skipped?
How/what would switch ACARS to satellite from other broadcasting method?

Waypoint change in 1:07 ACARS message?
 

If you wanted to "steal" an aircraft (and I don't) wouldn't you want it to look like it had simply disappeared? Presumably they'd have been flying on LNAV (maybe VNAV too). Since there is circa 10 miles IIRC without radar cover between Malaysia and Vietnam what was to stop whoever was flying choose heading select towards IGARI, enter VAMPI as next waypoint in the FMC, turn further 40° right after IGARI still on heading select then go back to LNAV? Now you see us, now you don't!

777 drivers, does the content of outgoing ACARS messages show on EICAS or MCDU? If it does, maybe it was noticed, hence the turning off of ACARS. Transponder off would have been a given, to appear "invisible".

Lets just hope MH370 is found soon.

re cellphones.

Just collect them off the passengers under duress and put them in a metal box.

Faraday cage lets no signal in or out.

Any chance that the oil rig worker might have seen a missile fired in the general direction of the plane, possibly a near-miss that convinced whoever was then flying to take evasive action?

Obviously he didn't see the plane itself, unless all of this later info about a westward flight path is false.

But if so, this missile would have been fired rather early in the sequence of events to suggest anything other than a very early recognition of a hijacking. That could only have come about if the legit pilots somehow communicated the fact before the handover and radio silence, possibly without alerting the hijacker(s). The missile would have changed that dynamic.

Also, would a missile be visible further away than a burning aircraft as the oil rig observer reported? That might make it more plausible since I think we established the oil rig was about 300 miles from where the plane last made radio contact and most indications now suggest an immediate westward jog after that. So in other words, a missile fired eastward that missed or failed to have its intended result, soon afterwards seen by one oil rig worker who happened to be looking in the right direction.

Question would then be, who fired it, and why didn't they continue their attack? The other point I considered was that a smaller aircraft flying off the system somehow came to grief after a close brush with MH 370, and that one came down in the sea. I'm saying smaller only because anything larger than a private jet would have been reported missing too.

I personally have discounted that area (well had until the news that MAS now saying acars was not necessarily turned of before last vhf message)

However the rig worker may have deliberately used a non professional/generic description to not confuse the intended readers.

About the satellite pings
 

I note many posts referring to earlier pings and asking the question why no information has been released concerning anything other than the “last ping.” Maybe I can shed some light on this.

Summary
1) It is most unlikely that data relating to anything other than the most recent ping would be retained onboard the satellite, and
2) Each ping must necessarily contain an unique identifier.

Communication satellites generally use time division multiple access (TDMA) to enable them to service many “clients” simultaneously. This works as follows: the satellite allocates time slots to each client for them to uplink their data, so that in normal operation client A transmits a brief burst of data then Client B, client C and so on. The whole sequence repeats many times per second in so-called frames. For this to work, the sat’ needs to keep a record of all its potential clients and the time slot(s) allocated to each one. This is the TDMA scheduling table and it is maintained by the satellite’s on-board computer.

Periodically, the satellite broadcasts a channel access frame, inviting any new client wanting to use the satellite’s services to identify itself and the services it wants to access. The timing of the replies received during the channel access frame enables the satellite to work out the most suitable time slot(s) to allocate to that client. Note that in doing so, the satellite has implicitly calculated the round-trip time for radio waves to that client.

Once a client (aircraft, sat-phone, etc.) has established channel access it periodically pings the satellite to check its time slot allocations. (Hello this is client XYZ. My time slot is 36ms after the frame. Is that still OK?) If the client has moved significantly, the satellite may notice the timings have changed and update its TDMA tables with a new time slot for that client. Note that all of this TDMA stuff is merely to maintain access to the satellite if needed and has nothing to do with actual data transfer, which is negotiated separately as and when needed.

The operative word is update in that paragraph. When the tables are updated, previous values are overwritten and lost. There would be no reason to log or down-link all the technical details of the TDMA protocol as that information has no commercial value to the satellite operator.

When a client falls silent, its entry will remain in the TDMA tables until expunged to make room for a new client. It would appear that Inmarsat were able to interrogate their bird before this happened and down-link the data for MH370. Unless the satellite was logging useless, out-of-date information, this record would contain only the most recent ping data.

At oldoboron

Quote:

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

http://malaysiaairlines.com/content/...777_200_lo.pdf

and unrelated but similarly the A333 only has Business and Economy. The only aircraft in the fleet fitted with First seats are the 6x A388 which has 8 First seats.

You will find the original source of the waypoints Vampi, Gival and Igrex in this Reuters article, only quoting "sources".

Exclusive: Radar data suggests missing Malaysia plane deliberately flown way off course - sources | Reuters

But it does tie in with the Malaysian Prime Minister's address on STurday in which he stated that Malaysian primary radar tracked the plane to a point north west of the Malacca Strait.

Today the New StrIts Times gives the last tracked position as being 320km north west of Penang.


MISSING MH370: 'Plane flew low to avoid radar' - General - New Straits Times

Hope this helps.

Taliban issues statement re: MH370
 

Taliban issues statement re: MH370

Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban in Afghanistan, who are seeking to oust foreign troops and set up an Islamic state, said the missing plane had nothing to do with them.

"It happened outside Afghanistan and you can see that even countries with very advanced equipment and facilities cannot figure out where it went," he said. "So we also do not have any information as it is an external issue."

A commander with the Pakistani Taliban, a separate entity fighting the Pakistani government, said the fragmented group could only dream about such an operation.

"We wish we had an opportunity to hijack such a plane," he told Reuters by telephone from the lawless North Waziristan region.

SOURCE
Malaysia Airlines MH370 live: 26 countries now involved in search - Telegraph

ELT
 

I understand that the ELT is practically mute if it’s underwater.
If it is so, also because of this ugly episode (it's not the first), from which we must learn something, is it not possible to invent something that can transmit the emergency message and its location even after a ditching?
I think of a panel that breaks down when immersed in salt water and so allowing the expulsion and emersion of the device.
IMO
DOVE

Maybe?
MISSING MH370: Debris found at Straits of Malacca - Latest - New Straits Times

on the topic of mobile phones and why no apparent contact to/from any of them:
If you set up an open femtocell in the aircraft, would that not capture all the mobiles on board, which would all see it as their nearest and most powerful "cell tower". Any call from such a mobile would go nowhere other than the femtocell. And since mobiles wind their RF down to the minimum required, with a strong local cell tower signal they would all be on minimum RF power.

(For the record, I am not an aviation professional, nor am I a mobile phone specialist)

Any chance we can get clarification on the Inmarsat ping business as requested above? Since I understand that a SATCOM service for a cars was not subscribed to then neither the aircraft nor the satellite would be motivated to ping so presumably this relates to voice comms. Unless a time stamp is sent I do not see how a handshake initiated by the a/c would allow signal transit time to be calculated by the satellite.

On another issue is it now understood that the acars shutdown was not the tidy logging off procedure believed up to a few pages back.

On another issue would the a/c have been visible to Vietnam ATC at the time of last voice message.

And finally, following normal protocol, when would first voice contact have been expected with Viet ATC in relation to the time of the OK roger message?

Thank you for your patience!

Not sure about your second, but you can read some of LukeSkyToddler's posts in this thread regarding when Vietnam ATC was trying to make contact with MH370. Search of this thread by his user name should get you to the posts in question.
EDIT:
?? Just did a search, and find that I cannot dig up any of his posts. He made quite a few about hearing Vietnam ATC calling for and getting no response from MH370, as he was in the air and on that freq at the time.

Don't know what to make of this. :confused:

Saw this idea somewhere, water soluble bags of highly concentrated fluorescent dye in wings and cargo holds,. I liked it because they were passive, ie no batteries or activation needed

Thanks re ATC. I read those posts relating to what another flight heard. What I don't know is whether ATC witnessed them disappear or whether they were operating by the clock only.

Re ELT. EM waves are going nowhere through water at that frequency so the thing would have to escape and swim to the surface.