jcubpilot #4053 page 203
Someone took the time to highlight a massive security threat with regards to the 777 E&E. Given that this information will find its way to anyone who wants it, the only remaining group left out is the general public and they're the ones who can demand change. There is only one reason this threat still exists - it's a financial burden to fix it.
Yes my detailed treatise on what may have happened onboard MH370 in respect of that vulnerability was quickly removed by the PpruneGods as was the later detailed post in support by Woodja51 (wherein he provided details of the various respected institutions - about 20 in all, including the aviation faculty at UNSW Armidale - who'd been trying to get this E&E bay hatch security anomaly addressed). He even linked to a youtube video depicting the detail. The crux of these concerns is that most (if not all) avionics systems can be easily disabled from outside the cockpit....and that this fact can place the pilots in a parlous position as their ability to navigate and control (or even see at night) is progressively disabled. This can be done without pax being aware of their imminent or ultimate fate.
But not to worry. It's now in the hands of a respected aviation journo (Pulitzer holder) and posted on other forums as a deleted Pprune post. Hopefully Woodja51 will do likewise.
It's a pity that Captain Pprune decided to sell Pprune to the censorious present owners. Danny would never have removed posts for spurious reasons of perceived security threat. Then again he ran the show prior to 911.
IMHO (as I said to the journo who I used to work with as Editor-in-Chief of a major aviation safety mag):
"But I'm of the view that "too late/ the horse has bolted"." i.e. MH370 was likely the first such terrorist exploitation of this glaring industry-wide security vulnerability."It's not as if it's a subject that's sacrosanct secure: see
HawkEye Media Boeing 777 Avionics Compartment VR Panoramic Photography
(stop/zoom in and rotate for microscopic details of the 777 E&E Bay interior).
It's indeed unfortunate that the industry-preferred (and Malaysian) slant on MH370 is likely to be a pilot-suicide scenario.... with any dissent and viable alternative propositions being universally suppressed by the cost-factors bean-counters and bolstered by the political unacceptability of admitting any sins of blatant omission on E&E accessibility (complete with an FAA nod of approval). MAS liability would also be minimized or zero'd out by a pilot suicide finding - so for that to be the "across the board" choice of a country and industry under siege is quite understandable (however morally insupportable it might also be).
The turn shortly before the transponders were powered down may have been the result of an FA's advice to the cockpit that men had descended into the E&E bay. The pilots, noting a loss of comms, may have decided that their only option was to turn back and await further developments. Navigation and flight control could've then become increasingly difficult as systems were rendered inert.
Because the eventual MH370 report will have to address this E&E ingress/invasion aspect (or be laughed at derisively), "truth will out" and the situation will consequentially be addressed by hardware changes and regulation. Hopefully, but that will be some years downstream. In the interim, nothing breeds imitation like success.... and that should send a shiver up the collective pax spine. Maybe we will witness the rebirth of the sky marshall concept? .... as an interim fix.
If you repeat something often enough, it becomes embedded in the popular psyche: "The Transponder and Flight Data STOPPED indicating a catastrophic explosion." i.e. until the next catchcry takes over with new impetus: "Somebody deliberately switched off the comms and transponder".
I wonder whether they are invading and searching the home of the MAS mechanic who was travelling onboard MH370? Did he have a role to play in disabling systems in the belly of the beast? Given the difficulty of ever now recovering the DFDR/CVR it's improbable that it will ever emerge that it was never the elephant in the room, but the elephant below the room.