Originally Posted by
Shadoko
Is there any clue in the published data that the 00:19 'partial ping" was a flameout from fuel exhaustion or from ditching? Or from another event?
Something caused the SATCOM terminal to send a message to the satellite at that point, and it would certainly have been close to the limits of the available fuel. There have been a number of comments here about how fuel running out could cause it to lose power temporarily and reboot, so it seems one likely explanation for the anomalous behaviour.
If that was the case, I'd be surprised that the aircraft would be found within a few km of that point, since it should still glide some distance afterwards. However, I believe the comment some time back about testing fuel exhaustion in a simulator said the 777 banked as it dove to gain velocity, so perhaps it spiralled in.
Edit: I guess another possibility is that there was enough fuel remaining somewhere in the system to run the APU briefly during the descent, so, by the time the terminal finished booting, the aircraft
was about to hit the sea.