Malaysian Airlines MH370 contact lost

[etudiant]

Not sure the satellite image site is within the Chinese claimed part of the South China Sea, but it is mighty close. Would be unsurprising if China uses this incident to buttress their claimed jurisdiction on that basis, if there is anything there. They also seem to have more assets in the area than anyone else, just to back up their eventual stance.

[scottsig97]

02.00 An update from Malcolm Moore in Beijing.

The Americans don't seem to be taking the Chinese satellite pictures seriously, he reports, they are not changing their search pattern based on the information.

[win_faa]

if in the event that the wreckage lies at the bottom of the south china sea... it will be interesting to know who will have jurisdiction on the investigation given the current territorial dispute in asia :}

[bvondross]

the depth is
184 feet

[HappyAs]

My guess is the answer to the root cause of this accident is in the cargo manifest.

[NG ExPat]

How about we consider this. If in fact the Chinese Photos turn out to be the wreckage, then a lot of the early on statements by the Malays make some sense. Such as approximately a 40 degree heading change, a loss of Altitude of 600'.




In the case of a Explosive or Rapid Depressurization obviously get the freaking mask on, but then make a turn to diverge from your track 45 to 90 degrees, depending on where in world you are. Descent is initiated, Level Change Selected, A/T Off, Speed Brakes Out, and so on.


Probably shortly after all that was accomplished all hell broke loose.
It would certainly account for the airplane ending up in the area that the Chinese have said that they think the wreckage is.

[onetrack]

The area where the possible MH370 wreckage has been sighted is outside any expanded Chinese territorial area of the South China Sea, and is within Vietnams territorial seas area.
However, there's a large Chinese force of vessels in the general South China Sea area, and I'd expect the Chinese will produce more definitive results today.

http://hwebb.freeservers.com/slideshow/south_china_sea.jpg

[aterpster]

shadow:


There'd appear to be a lot of CNN and "expert" agonizing over the apparent size of the objects constituting the satellite imagery of the possible debris field SE of the MAS370 track. Apart from it conceivably being a partially deflated/inflated escape slide, it could also be a concoction of wreckage linked by wiring looms. You only need a few wiring looms to remain partly intact and interweaved to keep a debris field together in one clump.

unlike ABs, the 777 has one wiring loom from fore to aft.

[DWS]

Thanks for the update as to what the FAA directive ..

and this bit " 220mph - the Special Condition is issued as a pre-requisite to certifying a new system (generally Special Conditions are issued when the FAA believes that the existing FARs are not adequate for certification of new or novel technologies - the 787 had a boatload). The 777 system that the FAA issued SC against is still in development and won't enter service for some time."

My point in raising or trying to get facts on the issue was to hopefully tamp down the news reports much like the ridiculous press efforts re the AD and corrosion issues.

Even so - IMHO- the concept of NOT using a completely isolated public system from FBW systems ( and certain comm systems ) is stupidity squared or cubed. IF and when such a system is merged/implemented/ installed, and x years later a 737 or 777 has an upset or accident, there will be more time $$ and effort proving that that tie in was NOT involved than to simply pay for an extra server and cabling, etc.

IMO a 99.9999 probability that such can not happen is not sufficient.

Many years ago, Boeing was responsible for sneak circuit analysis on apollo. Did an excellent job of finding such.

Yet the 787 battery issue and a fire on board in electrical panel during flight test sort of showed that capability was ignored, lost, or not followed up due to cost and schedule. IMO this proposed system will eventually bite them in the **** simply from PR...:ugh:

[WillowRun 6-3]

@ tartare in #2634 (resp to WR in #2629)
Thanks for post. Disclaiming, on my part, specific knowledge of satellite orbital parameters. But carrying on the logic chains: .... point earlier was made or asserted that timing of release of imagery by PRC can be understood with background of time it took to review and analyze what their birds saw. Another factor asserted relative to lapse of time was need to adjust resolution of released imagery to protect against disclosure of asset capabilities (though this, as a timing factor, has fallen into a teakettle of pro's and con's). Your post noted high-density array of assets in the subject region. If that is affirmative, and I have no reason to question it (see, disclaimer, above), then here is a further item: to extent satellite and other coverage is so thick and sophisticated, does it not follow that, (i) PRC assets were able to be surveyed immediately upon news of major airliner incident underway, and (ii) PRC had reason to leap forward and find the facts - precisely because it (the region) is one of such interest? So (and no I don't know enough about these assets to have tried to joke about it) if no reason existed for the birds to have to be moved, then does it not follow they had the imagery pretty early on? So on these premises - specifically on this chain of inferences and explicitly disclaiming any speculative purported knowledge - I'm amending my post in #2629: to extent PRC had imagery quite early on, maybe Uncle made a po-lite request to do the data dump thing? Again tartare, thanks for talking this over.

[onetrack]

HappyAs - No, an exploding crew oxygen bottle, starting and feeding an electrical fire, has a much higher likelihood than a cargo fire, of putting out the comms and transponder feed within a very short time.

[RBeardsell]

Re weather balloons:

Depends on the type of balloon being released and general conditions but on an average day an 800gm balloon with radiosonde attached would obtain 34-37km, 350gm balloon also with radiosonde attached approx 26-28km and a 100gm balloon wind-only flight around 17-20km.

Size wise, the 350 and especially 800gm balloons at burst are around the size of a small house at burst.

Hope this helps

[Neogen]

I am beginning to think whether Malay authorities are even acting on the leads provided to them.

How come China is revealing the information online not sharing directly with Malay authorities.. how come they don't pay any head to McKay's (oil rig worker) email.

IMHO they should be more transparent and forthcoming than just giggling during the PCs.

[Stanley11]

I'd like to say something about the lack of comms. As pilots, we are always taught to do the following steps in any emergency:
1) Fly the aircraft, i.e. regain control of the aircraft
2) Communicate, tell someone. Mayday calls need not be made on 243 or 121.5, switch only when time permits
3) orientate and subsequent actions.

However many times pilots train in the simulator, when an actual emergency happens, especially in the most benign portion of the flight, there is usually the mental inertia/shock to realise what is happening. We see this in MANY accidents and often wonder how a seemingly simple emergency can cause the inaction or wrong actions by the crew to worsen the recovery actions.

I'd been part of several accident investigations and this is replayed many times. Even in minor incidents, pilots may be unwilling to call out for a simple reason, they don't want to unnecessarily raise alarms. Many have to be taught to call out first, and downgrade the emergency later.

[roving]

This link is an Australian depiction of the original flight path, the location of the debris shown in the Chinese satellite images and the location of the oil rig from where Mike Mackay says he saw a burning aircraft.

http://media.news.com.au/nnd//38883f6b16834a161e570e03da1cb918/desktop/assets/01.jpg

[220mph]

@tdracer (http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/535538-malaysian-airlines-mh370-contact-lost-66.html#post8370660)

220mph - the Special Condition is issued as a pre-requisite to certifying a new system (generally Special Conditions are issued when the FAA believes that the existing FARs are not adequate for certification of new or novel technologies). The 777 system that the FAA issued SC against is still in development and won't enter service for some time. The current 777 does not yet have an "Onboard Network System" (ONS), and the flight deck avionics are not linked to the passenger accessible systems in any way. There is simply no way for someone sitting in the back to access the flight deck avionics - there is no link they could use.

The special condition was announced Nov 18, 2013. A few days later Teledyne announced certification of their Airborne Wireless LAN (http://www.teledynecontrols.com/pdf/Aircraft_Wireless_LAN_Unit_brochure.pdf) for the 777. This AWLU appears to have been available for other aircraft for some time, and appears it is installed in 787 aircraft among others.

I agree these systems are not likely in operation in 777's currently. I don't think you can definitively say aircraft systems and passenger systems are not linked in any way ... that was the specific concern addressed in the special conditions - that they could be.

I agree its highly unlikely anyone could access from PAX area or outside, however the system does have WiFi, Cellular and similar access and as other have noted just about any system can be hacked today. It DOES contain a flash card as well - and there are Wifi enabled flash cards.

Again I agree its unlikely the public can access, however, workers most certainly could, having access to the MEC. And while I again agree it wouldn't be easy, it certainly does seem plausible that someone with access to the system could conceivably manipulate it.

I don't think its relevant to this incident, but it IS an interesting conversation on its own.

On the other hand the electrical failure in the MEC, which has occurred in 777's in the past, DOES make a great deal of sense to this scenario, as I posted here (http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/535538-malaysian-airlines-mh370-contact-lost-54.html#post8368583).

[HappyAs]

onetrack - That is a possibility, however you would then expect to see debris in the vicinity of the last know position if the fire was fast and catastrophic. If this aircraft had time to reach the Malacca Straits the pilots may have turned the transponder / ACARS off themselves as they struggled to fly the aircraft to a controlled ditching before being overcome.

[China Flyer]

As pilots, we are always taught to do the following steps in any emergency:
1) Fly the aircraft, i.e. regain control of the aircraft
2) Communicate, tell someone. Mayday calls need not be made on 243 or 121.5, switch only when time permits
3) orientate and subsequent actions.

That's not what I was taught. At all. Ever.

In fact, it was along the lines of:

1. Aviate
2. Navigate
3. And last of all, time permiting, Communicate.

[barrel_owl]

neogen (http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/535538-malaysian-airlines-mh370-contact-lost-133.html#post8370693)
How come China is revealing the information online not sharing directly with Malay authorities.. how come they don't pay any head to McKay's (oil rig worker) email.
Actually the possible crash site location would be roughly consistent both with the report by the oil rig worker and with this (http://www.nst.com.my/latest/font-color-red-missing-mh370-font-loud-noise-reported-believed-linked-to-missing-plane-1.507926#ixzz2vfTLpEAx) report by other witnesses in Marang.

[WillowRun 6-3]

Poster win_faa in #2632 leads thread into questions of jurisdiction, proceeding from settled provisions of the ICAO formal juridical architecture. Query, do not the generalized disputes as to claims in this region undercut the efficacy of ICAO's juridical structure in dealing with the legal dimensions of this still-unfolding incident?

Quite a while ago (almost 2 thousand posts earlier), this community member questioned whether territorial assertions by PRC might hamper the SAR efforts or make such efforts more complicated (see post #386).

I'm more than fifty percent convinced that the juridical scheme of the present system may not be in the best overall interest of the international civil aeronautics and aviation order. To wit, what SPECIFICALLY happened to this flight is a set of unknowns with tremendous importance to Boeing and the T7 program, and thus and by extension, to the U.S. and no less, the international order within which civil aeronautical and aviation take place. This is no assertion against ICAO - rather it is an advocacy for the question whether the above-referenced international order has progressed to a point where a higher order of trans-national juridical concept would apply.

So it's not only about territorial disputes and assertions impacting SAR, but also about the legal efficacy of an ICAO juridical structure which long, long predated September the Eleventh - yet neither anticipated the way the world would change, nor provided the legal tools Counsel need to get things to happen the right way, make them happen fast, as in, "give me summa that fancy lawyer-talkin'".....

If this is off the mark and the world civil aeronautics and aviation legal framework needs no significant adjustment, this is to urge community members to explain.

[isca]

Link from Roving's post above.

I reckon if this is the wreckage it probably went into the water around the "km" of 387km, .

Earlier in the week there was a post showing the prevailing currents and that would have taken the wreckage from my assumed crash point to the location area

[StormyKnight]

Link from Roving's post above.

I reckon if this is the wreckage it probably went into the water around the "km" of 387km, .

Earlier in the week there was a post showing the prevailing currents and that would have taken the wreckage from my assumed crash point to the location area

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BikXd9ECcAAUMJt.jpg

Yes I Agree but perhaps a little higher as the oil rig sighting was 265-275 (270 is direct west)

[Australopithecus]

At 387 km from Chinese satellite image to oil rig a problem arises:

An object at 35,000' would be below the horizon of the observer on the rig.

[harrogate]

Isn't there a relatively simple process of deduction re: the possible primary radar sighting of an aircraft over the Malacca Strait, I.e. if it wasn't MH370, then what aircraft was it? That issue is a sub-story in itself.

If it was another aircraft with a low radar sig, did it play a part in the demise of MH370, either intentionally or unintentionally? Did one plane limp off west and the other limp off east? Was it fast moving from east to west and collided with MH370?

Are the Malaysians behaving like they're under duress from another nation (China or the US) with regards to what they're comfortable saying publicly about what actually happened?

It's just another theory, but speculation will continue 'til some hard facts emerge.

[Livesinafield]

I wonder what uncle sam is thinking now that they know that the chinese have these kinds of imaging capabilities.


I am pretty sure the americans are fully aware of Chinese satellite capabilities


These pieces look too big to be wreckage of a 777, but what the hell else could it be, its promising but i am fully expecting to be "let down" again

[lateott]

Thanks Stormy Knight for putting up that graphic.

This is very much as Mike McKay described his observation in the email.

From his description the course was maybe not so direct from last known location. Maybe the plane paralleled the coast (consistent with two sets of eyewitness/earwitness reports) then turned more NE.

His email described the burning plane as coming toward him (or away) on a heading somewhat crossing the normal flight paths and contrails. I believe he even guessed the angle from his rig.

This is sadly fitting together.

[Bleve]

If it was another aircraft ... did it play a part in the demise of MH370 ... Did one plane limp off west and the other limp off east?

I've been wondering that from the beginning. Loss of contact with MH370 occurred at or near waypoint IGARI, where three airways intersect.

[StormyKnight]

Thanks Stormy Knight for putting up that graphic.

This is very much as Mike McKay described his observation in the email.

From his description the course was maybe not so direct from last known location. Maybe the plane paralleled the coast (consistent with two sets of eyewitness/earwitness reports) then turned more NE.

His email described the burning plane as coming toward him (or away) on a heading somewhat crossing the normal flight paths and contrails. I believe he even guessed the angle from his rig.

This is sadly fitting together.

My only question now on this line of investigation is what about Vietnamese Primary Radar?

[roving]

Although there has been much criticism of Malaysia's planning and coordination of the SAR, the planning is only as good as its execution and this Reuter's note suggests that whatever the Satellite images are, it was the Vietnamese who searched that grid reference. That is not surprising given it is within its territorial waters.



PHU QUOC ISLAND: Vietnam has already searched the area where Chinese satellites showed objects that could be debris from the missing Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight MH370 but a plane has been sent to check the area again, Vietnamese military officials said.

“We are aware and we sent planes to cover that area over the past three days," Deputy Transport Minister Pham Quy Tieu told Reuters. “Today a (military) plane will search the area again,” he said.

Another military official said Vietnam was waiting to see photographs taken by a Chinese satellite on Sunday in waters northeast of Kuala Lumpur and south of Vietnam in order to identify the exact location for further inspection. – Reuters

[Hedge36]

Gentlemen: a serious question from a rotary pilot which may have an obvious answer that as yet escapes me:

In an emergency descent in reaction to an explosive (or other) decompression, what is the rationale for a major heading change?

This is one scenario I don't often find myself having to consider.

[spelling_nazi]

How do we know transponder was off if it was out of secondary radar area?

Edge... Traffic below on same airways . With GPS accuracy is such that you don't miss

[413X3]

Why would China release photos but do nothing? Surely they would want to be first on the scene to prove how capable their Navy is and because the majority of passengers were from China.

[thcrozier]

I'm not buying the reported dimensions of the objects in the Chinese images as gospel, unless someone can explain specifically how they were derived. Given that uncertainty, all this imagery analysis on the news is baloney.


It seems as though the Media wants to keep the uncertainty going. Very shorty, surface and air assets will be on location, and we'll know; but I'll bet a nickel the Chinese have found it.

[onetrack]

ABC News (Aust) states - "China said the objects were spread across an area with a radius of 20 kilometres, in sizes that appeared to be 13 x 18 metres, 14 x 19m, and 24 x 22m."

If the fuselage and wings opened out on impact, this would explain the large sizes of the items sighted. Those sizes eliminate sea containers.
Items were stated to be "floating", possibly just below the surface? Light refraction under the water could account for variances in size estimation.

[LASJayhawk]

Just watched the latest update on an US cable network... Honestly, some of the silliest posts on this board that the mods have deleted bear more weight than the crud they are dispensing

BTW: several posters have commented that they are required to switch the transponder from TA/RA to TA In the event of a depressurization.

There is a damn good reason to do this. If another aircraft is in your flight path as you hit the deck, and you are both in TA/RA the TCAS solution might be to have you climb ( not likely you're gonna do that ) and the other aircraft descend. IMHO, this is adding to the workload in an emergency, and I can't think of a reason a cabin baro switch couldn't do this for you...

Once we figure what happened, I DO think we as the aviation family need to kick some ideas around. Any step we can eliminate in an emergency procedure allows more time for the drivers to fly.

[Oro-o]

I'm not buying the reported dimensions of the objects in the Chinese images as gospel, unless someone can explain specifically how they were derived.

I do not see a conflict here - given the height of the satellite, resolution of optics, and angle of incidence, it's simple trigonometry. The satellite operator will know this fairly accurately. I believe the Chinese have calibration ranges in their western deserts for their imaging/spy satellites; if sophisticated satellite operator says this is the computed size, I'm going to give them benefit of the doubt.

[Dai_Farr]

Stanley11: I'd like to say something about the lack of comms. As pilots, we are always taught to do the following steps in any emergency:
1) Fly the aircraft, i.e. regain control of the aircraft
2) Communicate, tell someone. Mayday calls need not be made on 243 or 121.5, switch only when time permits
3) orientate and subsequent actions.


China Flyer: That's not what I was taught. At all. Ever.

In fact, it was along the lines of:

1. Aviate
2. Navigate
3. And last of all, time permiting, Communicate.

Aircrew react well to Standard Operating Procedures. Unfortunately, the challenge illustrated in the above quotes reveals a great difficulty that can arise when a maxim becomes a dictum! If you chant it, and act on it as though it was a liturgy, you can come unstuck. We live in a world where cosy soundbites rule. Alas this can all too easily undo the good that was intended by the snappy "Aviate, Navigate, Communicate" maxim.

Sure, there are three separate actions. Whilst I cannot conceive of removing AVIATE from top priority, if the motor skills you have acquired through experience prevent you from flying the aircraft AND paying heed to one or other of the remaining tasks, you must consider that you need help. Communicating this need would be good at this point in the proceedings. SHOVE the navigation task onto someone else: like ATC?

The terrain you are over might also make an early call for help desirable.

In an aircraft that has two pilots, two people sharing three tasks is easier than one person. Of course, if one of you has become incapacitated, then calling for help early takes much pressure off you!

Aviate, navigate, communicate ought to be viewed as a collection of requirements and not a by numbers drill.

There are two ways of problem solving: intellectually or procedurally.

An intellectual approach allows EVERY problem to be novel and brings a pilot's primary and background knowledge plus experience to bear to come up with a solution. All well and good.

Unfortunately, no two people will resolve a given problem in the same way. There will quickly come a time when some pilots will always be in demand, more so than others! In military or civil aviation, you have n aircraft and require n crews to operate them.

Standard Operating Procedures (S.O.Ps) came from military forces. S.O.Ps and the concept of checklists take the heat out of a situation by freeing the brain to cope with anything novel to deal with. Too many S.O.Ps makes the task difficult while people try to find the best-fit procedure.

If you're not careful, the "Aviate, Navigate, Communicate" maxim renders its execution a conundrum for rule-based people drilled in the concept of S.O.Ps.

[Radio Guy]

Post 2548 makes an excellent point... at 35000 feet, the distance to the horizon is ~229 miles, or 368 km. But, an object at 50-70 km at a heading of 265-275 degrees, as he reported, would be.

The point I see a conflict with is the current in the area; from what I have seen, the currents in the area would have moved debris to the SE of the crash site. The debris in the Chinese satellite pictures is SW.

Thanks to all for an excellent forum.

[Neogen]

formulaben,

Before you roll your eyes..explain what can turn the transponder off on the 777. Do not give me the electrical failure. Too many redundancies. Including RAT. This one is a true puzzle. One SAFETY system you never want off unless you are up to a mischief. So yes, you bet human hand turned it off.

So what happens here:

Transponder fault forces AI flight to return to Delhi | The Indian Express (http://indianexpress.com/article/cities/delhi/transponder-fault-forces-ai-flight-to-return-to-delhi/)

Does anyone have further details on recent transponder fault with AI 127 (another 777)

[glendalegoon]

why the heading change?


if you are on an airway the presumption is that there might be traffic below you and if you descended while on course you might collide.

a 45 degree or 90 degree turn takes you off the airway and away from potential traffic.

HOWEVER

in many places where radar is quite good, like in the good old USA, a descent on the airway will be noticed by ATC and they will radio conflicting traffic and have them turn.

leaving an airway means leaving the safety of an MEA etc.

some airlines teach it, others don't. depends.


I hope this answers your intelligent question. one of the few I've seen here.

[A A Gruntpuddock]

"Post 2548 makes an excellent point... at 35000 feet, the distance to the horizon is ~229 miles, or 368 km."

But the deck of an oil rig is well above the sea so you would have to add the sight distance from the rig to the horizon.

Add in refraction then it might well be possible to see at that distance.

And if currents took the debris away from the rig it could well have been closer than where it was found.

Not saying he did see it (could have been a meteorite) but that it does not appear to be completely impossible.

[jet_noseover]

Neogen,

The plane will not go missing if the transponder fails. There are other means of communications as you might be aware of. This one is highly suspicious since it traveled additional milage..Or so we are told.

[Neogen]

The plane will not go missing if the transponder fails. There are other means of communications as you might be aware of. This one is highly suspicious since it traveled additional milage..Or so we are told.

So is it possible that the transponder failed due to some reason ?? Then crew was busy in addressing that issue and in that process they failed to notice other emerging problems. May be just a simple case of poor resource management.

Then the question would be why didnt they communicate back ?

[TheShadow]

Quote:
There'd appear to be a lot of CNN and "expert" agonizing over the apparent size of the objects constituting the satellite imagery of the possible debris field SE of the MAS370 track. Apart from it conceivably being a partially deflated/inflated escape slide, it could also be a concoction of wreckage linked by wiring looms. You only need a few wiring looms to remain partly intact and interweaved to keep a debris field together in one clump.
Aterpster (#2533) unlike ABs, the 777 has one wiring loom from fore to aft.

If that's the case (one singular and very robust loom running the length of the 777), then that would tend to support the theory. There would of course be a number of subsidiary looms running off that central wire bundle..... and they would tend to clump the wreckage in an apparent cohesive "whole" - as far as satellite imagery could discriminate. (see my post #2516).

[isca]

#2548 Australopithicus and gruntpuddock #2566

At 387 km from Chinese satellite image to oil rig a problem arises:

An object at 35,000' would be below the horizon of the observer on the rig.

but as I said in my post #2546 the wreckage was not at that point on the day of the crash, it was probably about "km" of 387km, and if you look at that it is about 70 miles from the rig, ( the distance estimated in the email was 50-70).

Look back and find the post with the prevailing currents and you will see they sweep down from G/Tonkin around tip of Vietnam and SW (in my original post I did say SE but meant SW)which is virtually the track from rig to wreckage.

If this is wreckage the guy on the rig saw the crash and it was on fire and had probably been out of control for a while before descending.

[China Flyer]

Forgive me if I you mistook "A,N,C" as the required processes, that must be followed every time there is an emergency.

That's not the case, and it is not what I was stating. The military-style "chant" is an easy way for younger minds to be taught what is important, and the order of importance. The more the sky gets filled with young pilots who have known nothing other than following the green/magenta line, the more important it becomes to remind them that they must fly the aircraft - when needed - to the exclusion of everything else, until it becomes safe to do other stuff.

In an emergency, the pilot must prioritise. If ATC can help you navigate whilst you aviate, that's fine: use them. But don't crash because you think you need to make a radio call..

[BubbaMc]

Anyone know where to find the Malaysian press conference videos online?

Cheers

[Australopithecus]

Isca...

It was my post saying that line of sight was impossible to the rig. Let me rephrase with elaboration: the formula for distance to the horizon is sq root of altitude x 1.23 for Statute miles.

Elevation is additive, so the extra 12.3 SM the observer gains from deck elevation is added to the aircraft to horizon distance

Can you explain again, in English, what your coordinates mean? "Km of 387" is cryptic to me.

llne of sight from the rig, assuming a deck height of 100' and a target of 35,000' is 392 km, but the aeroplane would be observed to be ON THE HORIZON. And that would need to be a spectacular fire to be seen from almost 400km away.

Factoring the reports of the aircraft descending from 35,000' it becomes impossible due to the earth's curvature

The Chinese images are from the day after the event, hence within a few km of actual impact, assuming drift.

In any event, I did not read any emphasis in the purported email about the sighting to be so low as to be on the horizon.

[StormyKnight]

Shahidan to fly to undisclosed location to verify possible sightings.

KUALA LUMPUR: Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim confirmed that he will be flying to an undisclosed location late Thursday morning to verify possible sightings of the missing Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight MH370.

Missing MH370: Shahidan to fly to undisclosed location to verify possible sightings - Nation | The Star Online (http://www.thestar.com.my/News/Nation/2014/03/13/Missing-MH370-Shahidan-to-fly-to-undisclosed-location-to-verify-possible-sightings/)

[humbleppl]

I previously posted that I believed the Malaysians were hiding something. I assumed something so crazy happened that they think they can't tell but pressure from China would force them to communicate all they know.

Noticing the latest developments, I now believe, the only thing the Malaysians are trying to cover up is their own complete incompetence about what happened and that they have neither proper equipment, nor people, to do something as simple as tracking their own aircraft and speak more than 2 straight sentences in a press conference, without contradicting themselves. The truth would simply disclose that they are completely defenseless and clueless, about what is going on at their borders and in their airspace. Living in Malaysia, that is a scary thought, particularly that they have sighted that "UFO" north west of Penang.

As far as the missing flight is concerned, I truly hope the crash site is soon being confirmed, black boxes recovered and the reasons for all the tragic riddles being solved.

[philipat]

If the 777 has only a single wiring loom, how does it provide Redundnacy? Is the loom encased in carbon composite shields with "Sub-bundles" within??

[threemiles]

1) A 777 has at least two transponders, if not three. One transponder inop does not make the plane disappear or fall out of the sky. The Air India 777 return after departure makes sense, because if the second transponder would have failed on a 15 hours flight it may have needed to land somewhere, where it would not like to be. Most FIRs over land do not allow to fly without transponder anymore, think of TCAS.

2) The primary radar of Malaysia is far from covering the whole area and peninsula. There are big gaps. This is the biggest problem for the Air Force chiefs to admit. It is even doubtful if the last position spot is under primary surveilance.

3) The suspect plane at 02.15 LT 200 km Northwest of Penang was likely SIA68 at FL300. It is standard for SIN departure traffic to Europe to fly through that area that low for the first three hours due to weight.

4) The Chinese crash site is not in any territorial waters. Territorial waters do not extend beyond 12 NM.

5) The Kiwi sighting was west and probably at a spot well above the horizon. The Chinese site would be SouthSouthWest and well below the horizon.

[isca]

on the map posted below mine original post there a map the same as the one I am commenting on.On this map is a line from the wreckage to the rig, that line is annotated 387km, i believe the km part (of that annotation) is about 70 km from the rig which is the distance the observer thought he was looking at.

[INTEL101]

on Twitter. Estimated distance 50-75 km. Gave his name & NZ passport No as well as Lat & Long. said he had told the authorities but received no response:

https://twitter.com/guywalters/status/443651290015338496/photo/1

[philipat]

I posted a similar matter earlier regarding the competence of Malaysian air defences but it was deleted. Enjoy it while you can:)

But yes, I agree that this shambolic performance is designed to cover-up the total incompetence of the Malaysian Government team. I opined that neither a hijacked commercial airliner nor a subsonic military aircraft would likely have transponders active when entering peninsular Malaysia with "The twin towers" as the target. But the Malaysians would be able to confirm what happened after two days, then change their minds.

I now share the view that believing they were covering something else up was giving them too much credit.

[bem411s]

Missing Malaysia Airlines jet: Chinese satellite photographs possible wreckage | smh.com.au (http://m.smh.com.au/world/missing-malaysia-airlines-jet-chinese-satellite-photographs-possible-wreckage-20140313-34ned.html)

My first post got dropped or was not evaluated.

The path from the origin to the point of lost com/transponder in the map shown is familiar to us all. The dis-ambiguous turn that would have had to led to the anomalous primary radar return off the west side of Malaysia is not depicted. But the supposed wreckage that China promotes as potential is perfectly in line with the original statement made a few days ago that referred to the fact that the a/c "may have turned back." They did not come out and state that it may have been spotted on radar temporarily off the west coast for another day or so. As a result. It is reasonable to conceive from the location of the supposed wreckage, in relation to the original known flight path and last known position, that it executed a roughly 170-180 degree turn to head back.

This isn't typical of what I have heard of a hijacker. They usually do not ask to return to where they came from. Not like they left their wallet and need to go home and get it.

If the turn is roughly a 180, it would place in my head, the idea that the plane had suffered a mechanical failure and was attempting a return.

Or is that just what they want us to believe?! Lol

[BrandonSoMD]

But the deck of an oil rig is well above the sea so you would have to add the sight distance from the rig to the horizon.Excellent point. But the math doesn't help the oil worker's case.

Running the computations for an oil rig platform 100 m above the ocean, and an object 348 Km away at 38,000 ft MSL, the line of sight would be 0.33 deg above the horizontal line of sight. At 100 m elevation, the horizon is 0.32 deg below horizontal. So the object would appear to be approximately 0.65 deg above the visible horizon - slightly more than the width of a full moon.

Certainly on a perfectly clear night you can see the moon rising, so it's obvious that you might be able to see that far. But it requires perfectly clear conditions nearly down to the horizon for 348 km - not common. And the airplane clearly wouldn't appear so high in the sky as to be obviously an airplane - not on a dark nearly moonless night in the middle of the ocean with no visible horizon and thus no clear reference for where the water ended and sky began.

(According to some atmospherics pages, refraction will affect these numbers, but it's hard to predict and may actually be either a positive or negative effect, meaning the farthest visible horizon can appear closer or farther, depending on the temperature gradients in the atmosphere.)

I also must question the oil rig worker's assertion that he could tell the plane was in one piece, and that it wasn't changing aspect and thus going towards or away from him. The best human eye can resolve a 30cm object at 1km; at 348 km this translates to about 100 m. The airplane would thus be slightly below the resolvable size to the human eye with perfect vision - possibly visible but only as an unresolved dot. Any aspect change would be far to slow to be detectable, and any debris cloud or fireball would appear as a single object no matter how segmented.

It would be far more likely that this oil rig worker saw a light flaring from a fairly close ship at that low elevation, than an airplane at 38,000 ft 348 miles away. Both would be at approximately the same location in his field of view. On the other hand, if he saw anything high enough in the sky to be certain it was an airplane instead of a ship, it was far closer than this flight would have been, based on other "known" data.

I'm sure he's not misleading anyone intentionally, but it doesn't pass the math sniff test.

Dip of the Horizon (http://mintaka.sdsu.edu/GF/explain/atmos_refr/dip.html)
Visual acuity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_acuity)

[false_horizon]

best summary yet threemiles..more pls

[gchriste]

The comments re being able (or not able) to see the plane burning from the oil rig, you are assuming he saw it at point of impact re the satellite photos. As he described it, it was still flying, though moving towards or away form him. We just don't know how long it may have remained in the air after this time.

I am not saying I buy into the credibility of the photos, we need more information, but don't discount things just because the oil rig is too far away from the purported crash site. He never claimed to see it crash from memory.

[safelife]

German newspaper now reports Chinese admitted the photos don't show remains of MAS370, after thorough examination.

[Samehada]

Are aircraft required to establish HF communications / SELCAL check with WSSS or VVTS before leaving WMKK FIR?

[mabuhay_2000]

I agree with your scepticism.

Of course, what we don't know is how the guy on the rig guestimated the 50-70km distance he gave, or what the guestimated altitude was.

Estimating distance and altitude at night is very difficult, so I would take those numbers with a bit of a pinch of salt.

Of course, it would still be nigh on impossible to spot even a burning aircraft at anything like 380-odd kilometres. Even assuming perfect conditions, it would be nothing more than a faint pin-prick of light in the sky, so quite how one would deduce it to be a burning aircraft is another question!

[OzBob]

If you look at the currents in the Gulf,
Ships at sea: positions and weather observations (http://www.sailwx.info/shiptrack/index.html)

there is one drifting buoy quite close.
Buoy 53520 (http://www.sailwx.info/shiptrack/shipposition.phtml?call=53520)


http://i1241.photobucket.com/albums/gg515/Aussiebob1/53212432_40c9_0_zpsb7207bc7.jpg

Its movement in the last 5 days has been from
2014-Mar-09 06:01N 06°33' E 104°06' to
2014-Mar-13 02:01N 06°31' E 103°49'

http://i1241.photobucket.com/albums/gg515/Aussiebob1/5321247a_4393_0_zpsb438f9ce.jpg

[mabuhay_2000]

I'm sure it would be possible to calculate, from prevailing currents, how far the supposed wreckage could have drifted between the time the guy spotted what he thinks was a burning aircraft and the Chinese took their sat snaps.

If we supposed a current of 4 knots, or about 7.5km/h, seeing as the guy worked in Kilometres, it would have drifted about 180km in 24hrs. So it would still have been about 200km away from him when he spotted it. That's still a very long way and it would still have been a small object in the sky and mean that his guestimated distance was way out.

[Australopithecus]

I am actually an aviator, been staring at planes out the window for a while*. Even when I know exactly where in the sky to look, courtesy of the TCAS, I cannot spot a 777 beyond about 90km in the very best visibility and high contrast light. And thats with better than standard vision, from any of the many modern airliners I have flown.

I once saw (at altitude) the space shuttle launch from about 230 miles away, at night. It was barely discernible. Now that's a fire!

The US already volunteered that their flame detecting satellites saw nothing in the area, so we have inconsistent data.

*still learning though.

[jcjeant]

Hi,

Seems bad news ... for China ... and researches
Geisterflug MH370: Angeblich Fotos von Trümmern der Boeing gefunden - News Ausland - Bild.de (http://www.bild.de/news/ausland/flugzeugunglueck/teile-gefunden-35048724.bild.html)
The Chinese satellite image should show wreckage - marked with the cross. Hours later disillusionment

[INTEL101]

This time from Reuters:

A search by two Vietnamese aircraft responding to information provided by a Chinese satellite has failed to locate objects suspected of being wreckage from a missing Malaysian airliner, a Reuters journalist on board a search plane said on Thursday.

:ugh::ugh::ugh:

[KrispyKreme]

Beat me too it INTEL ......so MAS release your ACARS data! It's sent thru the same coms system!

[hans66]

Now we need to know whether the engine data feed ends with a shutdown, a flameout or something worse.

[David75]

Perhaps the best thing that can come out of this is a journalist code of practice for reporting of SAR events.(probably needed for the people running the media briefings as well.) The reporting of this incident has been worse than the SAR operations.

1) report all times as UTC with a conversion to local time for your readers
2) separate fact from interpretation - last secondary surveillance contact at lat/long at time(UTC) - interpreted to mean that a power failure occurred
3) report data as given rather than try to interpret for your readers - ie the radar contact in the straights - state a contact was observed - not that it was the missing aircraft.
4) state sources - if you pick up a Reuters feed attribute to the source publication - so translations etc can be cross checked.
5) don't try to read subtle meanings into the language of non native English speakers
6) publish corrections to articles when shown to be misleading - ie the mobile phone ringing reports.
7) speak to technical experts ie telecoms engineers for the mobile phone reports / aircraft engineers for ACARS etc.

[etrang]

A flight time of five hours is interesting because the flight time from KL to Beijing is 5:55 hours, including fuel for diversion, etc, the 777 should have been fulled for at least 7:00 hours flight time. Suggesting that it flew on for several hours but didn't necessarily crash from fuel exhaustion, although if it was at a low altitude all that time fuel burn would have increased.

[thehawk]

In short, someone somewhere should have detected that plane. Either that someone is incompetent or is hiding some facts. :eek:

Never underestimate the power of incompetence, or probably more accurately the power of people ambivalent about their jobs and not particularly being alert to anything out of the normal. If they aren't looking they won't see it.

[jugofpropwash]

P.S. If true, the "unidentified object" tracked by MAF comes back in play. The plane was in the air for the total of 5 hours. That makes 3.5 after it was lost by the military radar off Phuket. Continuing on the same heading at a reasonable cruising speed, it would've ended up in Maldives or Lakshadweep.

If someone shut the transponder off and headed out, they had to know that crossing Malaysia they'd be picked up on radar and probably visually spotted as well. The logical thing to do would be to make another turn once off primary radio and out of sight of land - so don't assume the same heading.

[nigf]

Malaysian Air Said to Opt Out of Boeing Jet-Data Service - Businessweek (http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-03-11/malaysian-air-said-to-opt-out-of-boeing-plan-to-share-jets-data)

"
Malaysian Airline System Bhd. (MAS) opted out of a Boeing Co. (BA:US (http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/snapshot/snapshot.asp?ticker=BA:US)) service to collect real-time performance data from jets like Flight 370 for use in planning maintenance, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The carrier harvests the same information itself, said the person, who asked not to be identified because Flight 370 is under investigation. "

[StormyKnight]

With ACARS, i thought it transmits when there is a change in flight profile as in finish of take-off, finish of climb etc & then perhaps every 30 minutes in cruise....

Is it likely that you can descend to landing without any ACARS messages being sent even if you manage it under the 30 minutes time frame?

[techgeek]

Here is a link to the RR web page about their engine monitoring system. It does piggyback on ACARS for the comm link.

http://www.rolls-royce.com/about/technology/systems_tech/monitoring_sys
tems.jsp

[GroundScot]

I do wonder if the Malaysian Prime Minister's trip late this morning to an undisclosed location indicated in link 2575 earlier is related to this new information....

[dr dre]

If Rolls Royce can monitor engine data, i'd assume this means N1, reverser status?
They should be able to know whether the recording ended with the A/C at full power, low EGT (fuel exhaustion), a lower powered approach setting or maybe with reversers (having landed)?

[Mahatma Kote]

Here's a link to behind the WSJ pay-wall

U.S. Investigators Suspect Missing Airplane Flew On for Hours - WSJ.com (http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304914904579434653903086282?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702 304914904579434653903086282.html)

Summary: The engine systems kept on telemetring engine parameters for up to four hours after last contact. Giving a total flight time of around five hours.

[MG23]

Why would malaysia or RR hold back on release of such info- while search was still going on ???

No-one's going to say 'sorry guys, the plane was still flying for hours' when that conflicts with other sources, until they've exhaustively checked their data to verify that it's real. In the meantime, you keep checking the obvious places to make sure it's not there.

However, I wonder whether this really is RR ACARS data, or someone just said 'ACARS' and they assumed it was that data.

[ricfly744]

Lithium battery fire ,

Why no one takes this in consideration?
These fires cannot be extinguished with halon, and if in the cargo hold, it can take, as we know it had before, a large aircraft down in a few minutes.

IATA and ICAO allows lithium battery cargo, and I repeat Cargo, and not some spare pax luggage containing one battery here or there, I mean a or a few pallets of lithium battery cargo in PAX flights.

Take a look at UN3480 as an example, and it's drill code ERG 9FZ.

[techgeek]

This article (http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25201-malaysian-plane-sent-out-engine-data-before-vanishing.html#.UyFFZ_mzFWg) indicates only 2 data reports were received by RR.

"One was broadcast as MH370 took off from Kuala Lumpur International Airport, the other during the 777's climb out towards Beijing."

Unless there was a 3rd report in cruise flight after loss of radar contact this information is insufficient to justify new claims of continued flight for 5 hours.

[armchairpilot94116]

This incident has become unprecedented. How can a 777 fly for hundreds of miles invisibly?

Taiwan is sending another frigate to join search


Second Taiwanese warship to join search for missing Malaysian jet - Taiwan News Online (http://www.taiwannews.com.tw/etn/news_content.php?id=2434628)



Taiwan only has one citizen onboard

[MG23]

Of course the ACARS downlink only works within VHF range of a downlink station. That would limit where they flew to.

This is what puzzles me. If they were talking about VHF ACARS, surely they'd be able to figure out which station received it, and hence get a good idea of where the plane went?

[SMOC]

Lithium battery fire ,

Why no one takes this in consideration?
These fires cannot be extinguished with halon, and if in the cargo hold, it can take, as we know it had before, a large aircraft down in a few minutes.?

For one reason they don't cause a complete comm shutdown, there is time to take action and notify someone, if it was so sudden and catastrophic they would be a huge debris field.

[ana1936]

VHF range is under 160 km so the engine data was not sent from the middle of the Indian Ocean. Why can't we know where the data was received?

Some ACARS is sent to satellites though. Is that the case here?

[Neogen]

Clearly, we cant trust any information that is coming from Malaysian authorities. Their command and control structure seems to be non-existent.:ugh:

Its high time that some other country should take charge of SAR. Also, all the other countries that are participating in SAR should now share all the information that they have. Else, their credibility will also be questionable.

[Australopithecus]

Two things:

1. I cannot open the link to Rolls Royce's blurb on how they get their data packets, and how much info each contains. They may be limited to engine parameters only, and just get added to a file for each powerplant, attracting no attention until someone goes looking for them.

2. Regarding the theory of stealing the aircraft: if it was the captain, there is nothing to say he was limited to seven hours of fuel. With sinister intent he could have taken several hours more.

3. OK, three things: It is still possible that the acars was disabled subsequent to the fourth hour if it occurred to the pilot.

4... While this aircraft did not have the satcom antenna that was the subject of the AD it still may have had one, allowing the ACARS to make its scheduled engine health update.

[jugofpropwash]

Captain Zaharie Shah's you tube channel with 5 videos he made. zaharie shah - YouTube

and a tribute page, with pictures of the extraordinary home made sim.
TRIBUTE: Who exactly is Malaysia Airlines Captain Zaharie Shah of MH370?* - Sharelor


That sim has been bothering me since the first time I saw the photo. $10,000 worth of equipment, maybe? That's an awful expensive toy, for someone who flies the real thing every day.

[Rabbitwear]

This link shows the article about the 20 Freescale employees , the Captain also shared a keen interest in electronics.

Freescale Semiconductor Employees Behind Missing Malaysia Airlines Plane? One of Many Conspiracy Theories (http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/555475-freescale-semiconductor-employees-behind-missing-malaysia-airlines-plane-one-of-conspiracy-theories/)

[Australopithecus]

The theories that include an unconscious crew and an aircraft in HDG mode flying on until fuel starvation remain valid BTW, and seem still more likely to me.

[techgeek]

From the RR web site:

EHM = Engine Health Monitoring

"A critical aspect of the EHM system is the transfer of data from aircraft to ground. Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) digital data-link systems are used as the primary method of communication. This transmits the Aircraft Condition Monitoring System (ACMS ) reports via a VHF radio or satellite link whilst the aircraft is in-flight.

A worldwide ground network then transfers this data to the intended destination. The positive aspect of this system is its robust nature and ability to distribute information worldwide. On the other hand, the Airplane Condition Monitoring Function (ACMF) reports are limited to 3kB, hence the acquisition systems need to work within this limitation. Future systems are being deployed to increase data volumes through wireless data transmission as the aircraft approaches the gate after landing. This will enable more data to be analysed, but will not be as immediate as ACARS, where data can be assessed well before the aircraft lands again."

[nitpicker330]

Just looked at the Captains site.

A true Aviation enthusiast like a lot of the Malay crews I had the pleasure of flying with, they have a passion for the job and it showed.

I'd be confident in saying that whatever went terribly wrong that night he was not responsible.

[Wantion]

Press Conference scheduled for 5pm KL local time today...bet it runs late again ! See it here:


Live TV | Astro Awani (http://www.astroawani.com/videos/live)

[Mark in CA]

Is it reasonable to assume that someone who builds a sim like that with malicious intent would publicly display it and discuss it in an open forum on the Internet? I think not.

[underfire]

From this article on the 787 real time Operations Center, while it is for the 787, right at the end of the video, they note that the Center also monitors the 777 real time, but just not as much data...

Boeing operations center tracks 787 flights in real time | KING5.com Seattle (http://www.king5.com/news/aerospace/Boeing-tracking-every-787-flight-in-real-time-213335671.html)

[jugofpropwash]

If the plane was snatched, I don't think it was terrorism related. But I'd sure like to know what was in the cargo.

[training wheels]

Most people I know, regardless of how much they like their job, don't want to go home and recreate it. Now, I know a lot of airline pilots fly gliders and such in their free time - but recreating their day job? Especially for someone who''s been doing that job for years? Just seems odd.

Jeez, mate, he's probably set it up for his kids and friends as well to share his passion for flying. Nothing wrong with that. Actually I'd be more worried about pilots who don't have the passion anymore, than one who did. :rolleyes:

[nitpicker330]

Seems it may be time to 100% monitor the position of all Airline Aircraft with independent power supplies so they cannot be tampered with.

Such as this.

Welcome | spidertracks (http://www.spidertracks.com)

[Dai_Farr]

I asked much the same in post http://www.pprune.org/8363027-post1109.html.

Since the responses were in the negative, I suggested a UN regional approach in http://www.pprune.org/8363132-post1130.html.

[Stoove]

I wonder if anyone is considering just one possible motive for an apparent controlled flight (however far-fetched it may seem) to nowhere of 3.5 hours or so? A symbolic gesture?

Without spelling it out might it not be a good idea to search the area along that heading where the fuel might have been expected to run out from the last reported radar sighting west of Peninsular Malaysia towards a certain revered destination? Such a compass-bearing is seen in most hotel rooms for example.

Interestingly a quick glance at the map suggests that such a route might avoid all places where radar coverage would have lit them up.

If rescue is still an even remote possibility time is of the essence and if RR engine records are truly indicating 5 hours flight time this is certainly worthy of investigation.

[ianwood]

Why did it take 4 to 5 days to reveal. granted it takes some time to match data with timelines and data in burst mode every xx minutes depending…


It is curious. Being that the US security agencies were probably contacted by Boeing right away, they held it back for a number of days. Does that mean the ACARS messages led them to believe it landed somewhere or does it mean the messages didn't conclude with a definitive event leaving a successful landing not out of the question. If they knew it flamed out or ran out of fuel, they probably would have been more comfortable putting it out there sooner.

[wiggy]

Earlier an engineer mentioned the (MEC??) and its location relative to an O2 bottle. Could a failure of or within the MEC cause a simultaneous hypoxic inducing event as well as a communications severing one?

This was covered in detail in several posts at the time but since it's a new day...the oxygen bottle in question is the supply for the emergency oxygen masks on the flight deck.

[onetrack]

Safe to say, if an intentional reroute (by crew or others on board) is indeed what happened, the best spot to do it would be approaching TOC, out in the middle of the ocean, as opposed to straight after take off whereby the response from authorities would be a lot quicker...It struck me as odd, from the beginning, that a catastrophic event would happen right at the point of handover to another countrys ATC, where Comms were weak, and where radar coverage was nearing its limit. Not to say all the holes in the cheese lined up, it's definitely happened before, but .... if you planned to divert an aircraft, where else would you select? :ooh:

[Um... lifting...]

That range ring example whilst mildly helpful, is still air.

Roughly, any westbound travel will have less range due headwinds encountered.

That's as may be, but the ring requested wanted KUL as the center point. To add winds into a poorly chosen datum (which I did not choose) would only introduce further error.

There's a process to determining search areas which involves reducing uncertainties. Starting with a ring centered about an airport isn't part of that process unless there is no other information available. I provided what was asked for without compounding the ~500nm error inherent in the request. Adding winds (which can only be guessed at without knowing altitudes) would have done just that. Without more data than appears to be available to the general public it is pretty unlikely that any individual or small group will settle upon a high probability search area.

[Global Warrior]

Wiggy

Thanks

This was covered in detail in several posts at the time but since it's a new day...the oxygen bottle in question is the supply for the emergency oxygen masks on the flight deck.

I should have worded the question better... I meant forgetting the effects of any O2 bottle malfunction....just the MEC itself.

[EngineeringPilot]

As a sign of respect, MAS has decided to discontinue the use of two flight codes associated with the missing plane, mainly MH370 and MH371 will now be changed to MH318 and MH319 as from tomorrow, for the route KL to Beijing and back.

[mabuhay_2000]

By their very nature, accidents can happen at any time, even the most unlikeliest times.

I don't think there is anything like enough evidence, at the moment, to suggest this is a deliberate seizing of the aircraft.

[rog747]

the Chinese satellite images of large debris pieces were taken 9th march and now they say they cannot find any trace of these so far - does it take this long to download and sift images?

also one of the debris pieces looked (imho) like a large aircraft wing centre section

then now we have the new twist of the WSJ article of 5 hours of engine data

goodness this is so deep

[onetrack]

Both Malaysian and Vietnamese SAR officials have stated emphatically, that their aircraft have previously searched - and again searched (today - Thursday, 13th March) - the area where the Chinese satellite reputedly identified possible wreckage - and "there is nothing there". :confused:

One U.S. official at the SAR frontline, is reported to be scathing of the Chinese "find", as a "red herring". :confused:

Search planes find no sign of missing airliner at spot located by China | Reuters (http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/13/us-malaysiaairlines-flight-idUSBREA2701720140313)

[ricfly744]

in 1979, A Varig Cargo B707 has vanished not long after its departure from Tokyo in route to LAX. Nothing was ever found, no trace.

In the case of this B777, I would not be surprised if there was a cabin or cargo, fire, the crew being under a high work load and using oxy masks had other priorities and ATC was not the most important. Fire became uncontrollable and the Captain made a successful ditching. Unfortunately, all pax were already dead due to smoke inhalation, and no one evacuated. The aircraft did not brake apart and remained in one piece that is now in the bottom of the ocean. No debris to float. Captain and or FO, could have initially survived.

[EastofKoksy]

It is now being reported in the UK Telegraph newspaper that downlinked engine data shows the aircraft "may" have flown for four hours after contact was lost. Why is this story such a fact free zone? The aircraft either flew four more hours or it did not there is no may or probably about it.

It would help the investigation if people resisted the temptation to give the media a headline and checked their facts before opening their mouths!

[Pom Pax]

If they were carrying a substantial amount of gold
Living where I do this a very regular event. It also appear a very secure and professional event. Last on, first off with plenty of armed on lookers.

[andrasz]

My 2c's worth on the topic of the contents of the cargo manifest...

Given the total lack of information, the valuable cargo theory is at this stage not an entirely implausible one. BUT:

Having some experience in ground ops, I can safely say that high value shipments have some rather special security procedures, and information is circulated on a very limited need to know basis. In many cases even the shipper does not know which actual flight it will be on until airborne, and the crew does definitely not know in advance.

IF one would want to divert an entire T7 to get at the valuable cargo, that would need to involve some very sophisticated advance planning, and would need the crew as well as several other individuals high up in the decision making chain in the cargo and security areas as accomplices, not to mention the logistics at the other end. It is certainly not something any crew would be able to organize on impulse once seeing the cargo manifest.

Until cargo manifest is released I would call this scenario not impossible, but highly improbable.

Anyone heard of any official reaction on the claims of the WSJ article from any of the involved parties ? It is definitely not a claim to be taken lightly.

[itflewinitflewout]

So if the manufacturer RR was ever to confirm receipt of engine performance data - and then the assumption of several subsequent hours of flight becomes more sound - then what of the 200 pax and there being no word from then (presumably) since? Can it be assumed that they didn't reach landfall? in this case I suppose fuel exhaustion becomes the premise of speculation.

With the eyes of the world's media upon them, the Malaysian authorities ought be stating verifiable facts of what is known, not simply flight number change niceties on their incident website.

[onetrack]

Pom Pax - Malaysia isn't Kalgoorlie - and there have been numerous gold thefts in transit in Australia (including Kalgoorlie - and I am quite familiar with Kalgoorlie, and the lovely yellow metal that has turned many a mind to criminality). :)
A bloke working in the Perth Mint even got away with a substantial gold theft (for a while). :)

[mabuhay_2000]

Again, speaking as a retired detective, I have to question the rationale that the cargo would be seized mid-air by taking the whole aircraft.

Having been involved in an investigation of a bullion seizure which was being transported from the airport to its destination, the easiest time to grab the cargo is during its transfer to or from the airport, not while it's in the air.

There are too many unknowns involved in seizing the entire aircraft, including the matter of the 239 persons on board, the risks of detection whilst trying to spirit the aircraft away, finding a place to land the aircraft on the QT, etc.

I just don't buy the "seize the whole aircraft" theory.

[milkandhoney]

Initial reports had the aircraft landing in China. Those reports were rapidly dismissed.

Hmmmm... :hmm:

[itflewinitflewout]

Receipt of engine performance data for several hours is compelling, it assumes serviceable electrical channels, serviceable data busses from wing to main equipment centrex serviceable ACARS VHF systems. If this is verified, it's a game changer.

And btw I'm not into conspiracies, just evidence.

[Sober Lark]

"4 hours of engine data"


If that was so then why would they let their own search an area they know it couldn't be in?

[ExSp33db1rd]

The report said data automatically downloaded and sent to the ground from the Boeing 777’s engines indicated the plane remained in the air for a total of five hours – a further four hours after contact was lost.

but how could it fly on for a futher 4 hours without some sort of radar trace, if only as a large lump of metal i.e. without transponder, and if not following the original flight plan route what were various ATC jurisidictions doing, they must have noticed an unplanned intruder ?

[barrel_owl]

Engine performance data are sent automatically through ACARS.

Now, IF such data were actually downlinked by the aircraft and indicate an additional 4 hour flight time, then two questions arise:

1) Where did the WSJ take this information from? Boeing? ARINC?
2) Why did Malaysia Airlines declared at an earlier stage of the investigation that no ACARS had been received after the time the aircraft had disappeared?

Either someone is speculating without any shred of evidence or someone is withholding vital information for some reason.

[volcanicash]

It struck me as odd, from the beginning, that a catastrophic event would happen right at the point of handover to another countrys ATC, where Comms were weak, and where radar coverage was nearing its limit. Not to say all the holes in the cheese lined up, it's definitely happened before, but .... if you planned to divert an aircraft, where else would you select?

Maybe somewhere that didn't involve immediately flying back over land, being tracked on primary radar and possibly having someone come up to take a closer look.

If I wanted to take an aircraft and head west, I might choose a flight that at least started off in the right direction and was heading out of (rather than into) PSR coverage...

[nitpicker330]

Now don't assume.

Engine/ACARS data is via VHF or Satcom datalink connection.

Only some are using HF data connections in the polar regions where Satcom is not reliable.

[training wheels]

Now we're getting some pilots casting aspersions about the unfortunate captain because he liked to play about with FlightSim on his days off? Seriously?

If you look at the profile of the one casting those aspersions, you'll find an 'artist' and not a pilot. Actually, a lot of pilots were infact saying it's normal for pilots to be passionate about their jobs and use flight sims at home. I use one when it's close to my proficiency check and yes, it does help to home in on those manual flying skills since most of the time when we fly on the line, the aircraft is on automatic pilot.



Casting aspersions about his actions and character, without a shred of evidence, is in very bad taste and people should know better.

Totally agree, and you'll find those who were defending the captain with his home flight sim, are infact pilots and regular posters on Pprune. Unlike the many "one post wonders" who are now swarming this thread with their far fetched and ridiculous Hollywood movie script conspiracy theories.

[EngineeringPilot]

Interesting read about what Malaysia is not telling us :uhoh:

Is Malaysia Airlines telling us the truth about Flight MH370? | News.com.au (http://www.news.com.au/world/asia/is-malaysia-airlines-telling-us-the-truth-about-flight-mh370/story-fnh81fz8-1226852557616)

[DaveReidUK]

They may be limited to engine parameters only, and just get added to a file for each powerplant, attracting no attention until someone goes looking for them.There is clearly more to this than meets the eye.

We're asked to believe that an aircraft known to be fitted with Rolls' engine health monitoring system goes AWOL, and that it doesn't occur to anyone in Derby until several days later to go and look at how long EHM reports were being received from said aircraft.

That beggars belief - if it turns out to be true, heads should roll.

[itflewinitflewout]

Yes it is nitpicker, usually VHF 3 in my humble type exp. There's been no mention of HF I can see on the posts recently.

Regardless, I intend to sit back and watch the scenario unfold, and let the authorities do the vital work they're paid for. Noted your post below, Rgds for now

[nitpicker330]

UKSATCOMUK mentioned "HFDL" which I took under the comments to mean HF DATA LINK.

[EDMJ]

I've not seen it mentioned yet....

Has anyone considered similarities to Helios Airways Flight 522?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios_Airways_Flight_522

But in a much more 'remote' location and at night and over sea.

Yes, on every second page of this thread, by approximately 500 different posters.

In the case of Helios 522, the xpdr didn't stop working and the crew communicated pressurisation problems on the company frequency already during initial climb, just to name two dissimilarities. It has no bearing on this accident.

[hamster3null]

Engine performance data are sent automatically through ACARS.

Now, IF such data were actually downlinked by the aircraft and indicate an additional 4 hour flight time, then two questions arise:

1) Where did the WSJ take this information from? Boeing? ARINC?
2) Why did Malaysia Airlines declared at an earlier stage of the investigation that no ACARS had been received after the time the aircraft had disappeared?

Either someone is speculating without any shred of evidence or someone is withholding vital information for some reason.

It's my understanding that Malaysia Airlines would only receive ACARS messages which were specifically sent to it. For most messages (like the ones sent by AF447 before it crashed), the airline would be at least CC:'d. Here we're talking about engine maintenance data packets, which would end up in the inbox of the engine manufacturer, Rolls-Royce (or possibly Boeing).

[Sheep Guts]

We have seen the pax manifest. Was there cargo on board as well? That question needs to be asked today at the news conference today?

[jsypilot]

Does anyone know when we can expect the next official press conference to be scheduled?

[7x7]

What kind of radar tracking capability would Myanmar have, would it be possible to sneak up through their airspace? Having flown in Burmese airspace on quite a few occasions (in a B777), (both East-West and North-South) in virtual radio blackout for an hour or more, I'd say it would be possible to take half the commercial airline fleet of western Europe in line abreast through that area without anyone being the wiser.

And mods, that is not meant to be flippant. Any pilot who has flown over those routes would agree with my sentiments, if perhaps not my overstatement.

[threemiles]

What else we know or guess?

1) COM: The crew saluted the Lumpur ACC when requested to switch frequency to HCM. Normal procedure. They never contacted HCM. Optimum point of time to take control of an airplane as the next sector would not immediately start asking . Catastrophe? Could be, but coincidental. Conspiracy? Needs support from the cockpit crew to hit this spot in time.

2) Transponder: went off at about the same time (obviously a little later than COM). Catastrophe? Could be, but airplane and debris should have been found. Decompression theory would leave transponder uneffected and on. Conspiracy? Crew needs to be involved or very smart hijackers as 9/11

3) ACARS (airframe): only two packets were sent on and after departure. Correlates with limited VHF ACARS coverage in the area. Also depends on the ACARS reporting settings if more was to expect. Every airline has its unique scheme.

4) ACARS (RR engines): packet(s) were received up to 4 hours after last contact. These packets come every 30 minutes. If the airplane had SATCOM AND ACARS via SATCOM was enabled (I doubt) these packets could be sent from elsewhere. A SATCOM antenna does not mean data can go via SATCOM! If the airplane had VHF only the associated ground station may be known, but it may take days to identify it or the data has been overwritten already.

5) Why is RR so late? a) Weekend. b) It takes time to crawl through the data, when they do not popup because of a technical anomality. c)It may be late, they may be archived.

[Neogen]

4) ACARS (RR engines) - Is there any official verification for this one?

[nitpicker330]

Our 777's were fitted with HF DATA LINK only when they needed to fly over the Polar regions where Satcom was not always available.

VHF is normally the preferred cheaper option, followed by SATCOM. HF is only used if the other 2 channels won't work. Probably due to the fact HF connections can be scratchy as they are time of day and weather effected etc.

[VinRouge]

Earlier Qn,

Diego doesn't have a radar, certainly no freqs listed.

I commented on this ages ago, but some form of unlawful interference combined with depressurization (did someone have a grenade that went off, were the individuals trying to gain access using a device?), jet stuck in heading mode, poodles on into Indian Ocean, Abdul and his mate switch off modes, jet left unfortunately without a trace.

Having flown recently in that part of the world, ( Indian Ocean) it's pretty bloody remote! Flying for a good 30 mins with absolutely no HF comms across a couple of boundaries (dream of cpdlc...)

As for regaining consciousness, not a chance if you were up at 300 for a few hours without oxy.

Unlikely though, I think that anything would have got through security.

Does VHF/hf acars connect to an arinc ground station direct or is it pushed along to other aircraft in the vicinity? I use hf data regularly, nowhere near as reliable as one would hope.

[SpaceCat]

I thought that data feedback to RR was only on engines installed on newer planes over the last few years, not the older plane on this flight?

[PyroTek]

I'm not too educated, being a humble GA pilot...

Is it possible for a 'failure' - not of the airframe, but of the systems/electrics, to render transponders/ACARS etc. (but not engine health reporting) unserviceable all at once?
Would that affect the flight controls to the point that they are useless?
If not:
One would expect that the pilots, having so much experience, could use the 'old fashioned' map and pencil (or even iPad) techniques to find their way back to solid ground and even perhaps pull their phone out and make a phone call from a realistic within somewhere in reception?

Or, I could just be a big fan of conspiracies...:ugh:

[wiggy]

Receipt of engine performance data for several hours is compelling, it assumes serviceable electrical channels, serviceable data busses from wing to main equipment centrex serviceable ACARS VHF systems. If this is verified, it's a game changer.


As you say, if it's verified. But I bet very shortly in this place subsequent the receipt of the data will become fact/an article of faith/a given, so to speak, and off we'll go again....until someone either confirms it or reins it in - such is the nature of speculation and this place.

Frankly most of the stuff coming from the authorities contains an "if" or a "may" (e.g. the primary radar track), whether those on the spot choose to report that, or whether we choose to register the caveat is another matter.

Despite all the debate I'm still of the opinion that this investigation is still at the "nobody's got a ****** clue" stage, which is very sad for the relatives.

[VinRouge]

Is depressurisation part of the elec smoke fumes drill on civil airliners?

[Wizofoz]

Is depressurisation part of the elec smoke fumes drill on civil airliners?

At Altitude? No- Part of Main Deck Fire drills on some freighters, but AFAIK not on any Pax aircraft.

[pberrett]

<quote> ACARS (RR engines): packet(s) were received up to 4 hours after last contact. These packets come every 30 minutes. If the airplane had SATCOM AND ACARS via SATCOM was enabled (I doubt) these packets could be sent from elsewhere. A SATCOM antenna does not mean data can go via SATCOM! If the airplane had VHF only the associated ground station may be known, but it may take days to identify it or the data has been overwritten already.</quote>

Hi all
I am not a pilot but a radio amateur and wish to make a couple of points which may be useful.

1. VHF range is proportional to how high you are (effectively line of sight) . So if you are lowered in altitude for any reason your vhf range is diminished.

2. If the ACARS (RR engines) packets were received via VHF and the plane was at a lowered altitude then the plane would be over land or relatively close to land because there would be few VHF ACARS receiving stations in the middle of the ocean.

3. Assuming that ACRS (RR Engines) packets were received at several different stations it should be possible to estimate the general direction and speed of the airplane. The times at which signal contact is lost with a particular ACARS ground station can also be used to estimate the height of the aircraft. If for any reason the plane was flown very low the range to a particular ground station would be extremely diminished and also affected by anything in the line of sight between plane and ground station eg very high mountains.

4. ACARS packets are not just received by ground stations but also by enthusiasts with scanners and freely available decoding software. There is a remote (very) chance that a radio amateur might have received and decoded some ACARS packets. I think this extremely unlikely as the packets sent appear to be different from the regular ACARS packets and may be encoded differently.

Hopefully some of the above is of some use.

[Pitot Probe]

Quite a lot of theories on the Oxy bottle creating havoc in the MEC bay.
I havent seen pictures yet, so here:

http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/xx292/CX150/OxyBottle_rsz.jpg

Full size picture here:
http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/xx292/CX150/OxyBottle.jpg

Note that the bottle "points" forward.

[wiggy]

VR

Is depressurisation part of the elec smoke fumes drill on civil airliners?

Don't know of any where you would deliberately depressurise at high level ( for all the previously discussed reasons ;))

There are some types where after descending to a sensible level you possibly would depressurise in order to carry out items of the smoke removal checklist (e.g I seem to recall it was a possibility on the 744 but only at lower altitudes).

Deliberate depressurisation at high level is certainly not part of the drills on the 777.

[StormyKnight]

Does anyone know if/when there will be a news conference today?

Possibly in 15 minutes 5pm local time (GMT+8), live video below shows preparations at the news conference right now....not in english so I have no idea what she is saying....

Live TV | Astro Awani (http://www.astroawani.com/videos/live)

[RetiredF4]

While the speculation about the new (unconfirmed?) information is ongoing, i like to coment on MC. Kay's oil rig observation.
Even professionals will have a hard time to judge distance further away than 2 miles at night, especially when there is no way to compare the observed object against a known object. Mc Kay testifies, that the object was either moving toward his position or away from it, but at the end he observed something not showing lateral movement. He testifies that the object was burning, but can you see flames at a distance greater than 2 miles or do you see some kind of light source? Due to the continuos noise on an oil rig he probably couldn't hear any noise asociated with his observation. And he talks about 50 to 70 km distance.

We can assume that he saw something what got his attention, and his testimony is biased by the knowledge, that MH370 was missing.
Was he observing the afterburner of a fighter aircraft? His description would fit, the plume can be observed during night for some distance, and a tight turn does not produce much lateral movement some distance away. Deselect burner, and the fire is gone. The noise would be blanked by the noise of the oil rig.
There is testimony of loud frightening noise observed landbased and reported (cant find the reference in all the posts). But the observers could not see an aircraft despite looking for it. Modern engines like on the T7 are very quiet, to be frightening the jet has to pass in very close vicinity and then should be observable.

My take on both observations: There had been fighters in the air searching for MH370. Maybe from Malaysia, maybe from Vietnam, maybe from both.

[p.j.m]

<quote> ACARS (RR engines): packet(s) were received up to 4 hours after last contact. These packets come every 30 minutes

yes.... .the plane may have flown for a total of five hours based automatic data sent by the on-board monitoring system to engine manufacturer Rolls-Royce.also A total flight time of five hours means the Boeing 777 could have travelled about 2200 nautical miles after leaving Kuala Lumpur and potentially have reached the Indian Ocean, the border of Pakistan or even the Arabian Sea, the Wall Street Journal said..I think now we are starting to get a better idea where the aircraft may be....

Malaysia Airlines plane may have flown for hours after dropping off radar (http://www.smh.com.au/world/malaysia-airlines-plane-may-have-flown-for-hours-after-dropping-off-radar-20140313-hvibj.html)

[bradders147]

My theory is from the knowledge from what I know flying the 737.

If the cabin depressurises the cooling fans warning lights in the electric bay will go on ,as the thin air struggles to keep the temperatures cool in the electronics bay. This could result to systems shutting down or CBs popping due to over heating. Could result in the transponder failing

Just an idea anyone also think the same or disagree be good see

[VinRouge]

Saturn, wasn't aware there was a radar.

Ref depress, it's on our jet, the idea is you create as much flow from the packs though the outflow to suck out the nasties. As well as the option of opening up various bits n bobs which again assists with smoke extraction. Obviously his is less of an option for civil liners.

[p.j.m]

Either way, the plane may have been in the air longer than 5 hours. In the first case, 5 hour mark is the last moment MH370 was in range of a VHF network. Time wise, this would be consistent with passing India on the westbound heading.

I found this VHF coverage map, not sure how current it is:


And the VHF coverage would be even less the further below 30,000 feet the aircraft was.

[ekw]

Good point. If all comms are out then get within range and make a telephone call. If there was gradual loss of cabin pressure resulting in a hypoxic event then they would be none the wiser and the aircraft would follow its assigned course. If it was a sudden event that damaged systems then how come altitude and heading changed in a seemingly controlled manner? Acars must have useful information that would answer many of these questions. I only suppose that there is something the Malaysians havent come to terms with yet.

[Tex37]

RR must receive many thousands of ACARS per day and only irregularities would be flagged up.
Do RR actually know which airframe the engines are fitted to or does it just send the serial number followed by mx message?
If this is the case then assuming the engines were functioning normally then nothing would have appeared abnormal and maybe RR have only just been asked for data?

[StormyKnight]

News Conference on in 30mins

Mark Stone ‏@Stone_SkyNews 9m
Watch the #Malaysia news conference on missing #MH370 live on @skynews & Sky News - Latest News From The US And Around The World (http://www.skynews.com) in 30 mins.

Live TV | Astro Awani (http://www.astroawani.com/videos/live)

[Airbubba]

4. ACARS packets are not just received by ground stations but also by enthusiasts with scanners and freely available decoding software. There is a remote (very) chance that a radio amateur might have received and decoded some ACARS packets. I think this extremely unlikely as the packets sent appear to be different from the regular ACARS packets and may be encoded differently.

Actually, the data may indeed be logged on some enthusiast's computer. I've logged ACARS in the past, was amazed what was sent in the clear to and from my own planes, crew lists with passport and employee numbers, APU oil needs servicing and, yes automatic engine readings with lat longs and altitudes. These messages were formatted but not encoded, no harder to read than NOTAMS or WX.

Also, HFDL is easily logged thousands of miles away, there is a small user group on Yahoo. I've logged it with free software, the traffic was similar to ACARS.

Hobbyist ADS-B receivers are all over Asia, they form the basis for the networks that feed Flightradar24.com - Live flight tracker! (http://www.flightradar24.com) and RadarBox24.com - Airspace Live (http://www.radarbox24.com/) . The initial transponder loss was tracked by FR24 as noted here.

[VinRouge]

One would have thought rr would have process in place the minute an aircraft is missing or goes in to lock down all data related to the engines fitted. I can't imagine they would risk losing valuable data that could prove or disprove any engine related faults.

[Neogen]

Any connection or inference that can be drawn:

Search of missing Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 carrying 239 persons, it revives memories of the extensive and unsuccessful search carried out by seven countries in the same area for a Learjet carrying Sri Lankan business tycoon Upali Wijewardene and five others in 1983.

Malaysian plane search revives Sri Lankan tycoon?s missing jet mystery | The Sri Lanka Reporter (http://lankareporter.com/lr/2014/03/11/malaysian-plane-search-revives-sri-lankan-tycoon%E2%80%99s-missing-jet-mystery/)

[SaturnV]

Vinrouge,

Air Operations (http://www.cnic.navy.mil/regions/cnrj/installations/nsf_diego_garcia/om/air_operation.html)

Aerial of the runways.
http://map.vbgood.com/diego%20garcia/diego_garcia2.jpg

[Tu.114]

RR must receive many thousands of ACARS per day and only irregularities would be flagged up.
Do RR actually know which airframe the engines are fitted to or does it just send the serial number followed by mx message?
If this is the case then assuming the engines were functioning normally then nothing would have appeared abnormal and maybe RR have only just been asked for data?


An airliner going AWOL is about as irregular as it gets. Taking four days to request/gather possibly elementary data would constitute a monumental negligence.

As has been said, there must be MUCH more to this disappearance than is publicly known. Time will tell.

[kbrockman]

MAS official disputes RR data showing MH370 flew on for four hours | Malaysia | The Malay Mail Online (http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/mas-official-disputes-rr-data-showing-mh370-flew-on-four-hours)

Malaysia
MAS official disputes RR data showing MH370 flew on for four hours

March 13, 2014

KUALA LUMPUR, March 13 — A Malaysia Airlines spokesman today contested reports that Rolls Royce received bursts of engine information from missing flight MH370, insisting that the data link was severed the same moment the plane dropped off civilian radar. - See more at: MAS official disputes RR data showing MH370 flew on for four hours | Malaysia | The Malay Mail Online (http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/mas-official-disputes-rr-data-showing-mh370-flew-on-four-hours#sthash.bMWSYKoj.dpuf)

[EDMJ]

Any connection or inference that can be drawn:No; for this reason:

"At 9:02 pm the aircraft suddenly shattered the speed of sound, traveled at 1,352 km/h"

And regarding "MAS official disputes...":

These guys need communication coaching. Surely they must be in a position to state clearly whether the engine ACARS signals are transmitted only to themselves, or not.

[StormyKnight]

Day 6 Press Conference in 5 minutes...
Live TV | Astro Awani (http://www.astroawani.com/videos/live)

[p.j.m]

it was suggested by an apparently knowledgeable source that only two packets of data were received by RR, one after take off, the other nearing TOC, pretty much in line with transponder data.

Given that anyone can receive and decode ACARs, even if MAS think they are the only source of truth about its reception, they clearly are not.

[EngineeringPilot]

Just saying, given the fact that RR received engine data for 5hrs of flight, while Malaysia Airlines presumably assumed it's B777 flew for only about an hour, I can assure you that those real-time engine data are obtained/accessible to both Malaysia Airlines engine's department of engineering as well as RR.

It is just unclear how, on the 5th day of searching, that they decided to check engine data, both from RR and Malaysia Airlines (who are apparently opposing that 5hrs engine flight data that RR is saying to have obtained). All I am saying is, there is a lot not being told.

p.s. What are they saying at the press conference? I don't have access where I am..

[ianwood]

Everyone is speculating about why RR and/or Boeing didn't report the ACARS messages right away. Please consider the likely possibility that they did report it right away to their national security services in the UK and/or US. When these security services were notified, they must have considered the very real scenario that a plane has gone completely missing and has flown for several hours without any communication. Their primary interests at that point are going to be to quietly ascertain as much information as possible about that plane and its intentions/possibilities/potential whereabouts and act accordingly. They would want to do so prior to telling the world that they have acquired all this data.

I bet if the ACARS showed a normal looking descent or shut down event (i.e. a landing), we won't know about it for some time. It leaves the baddies thinking we still don't know if they survived or where they might be. Not to mention telling the world there's a plane in rogue hands could spark false alarms and panic.

[tumtiddle]

Briefely:

* Engine data is 'inaccurate'
* Chinese satellite photo was released by 'accident' and nothing found in that area.
* Malaysia is accepting all help from any one offering, they are not hiding anything.
* Military radar data released to China and USA
* Last ACARS transmission at 1.07am local time, nothing else after that.
* Boeing and RR have not recieved any data.

[awblain]

the fact that RR received engine data for 5hrs of flight

Is that really a "fact"?

The idea that RR would leak engine information seems difficult to credit.

That a "Malaysian Airlines executive" who's lost a large airplane can know more about engine data transmission than RR is preposterous.

The report in a post above that RR received two bits of information from the aircraft at take off and top of climb smells much more realistic.

[desmotronic]

They said categorically no ACARS transmissions after 1.07 local.

[SRMman]

My take on the press briefing taking place live (09.40 GMT) is that the official verbal statement seems honest, open and clear. He has dispelled the "engine data" rumours as not true, also that the Chinese satellite photos were released in error. In any case a Malaysian aircraft dispatched to search the area found nothing. He said they were duty bound to search the Malacca straights area because of the 'possibility' of evidence that the aircraft had turned back; nevertheless he said their main search area remained to the east of Malaysia. He also said they had accepted all offers of help from other nations, and particularly referred to the FAA and NTSB assistance they were receiving. Briefing Q & As continue.

[FMC]

What can I say having just watched the debacle of the news conference, it is clear that the Malaysian Authorities are in over their abilities and it's starting to fall apart. Sense of panic on their faces. A very sorry and unacceptable state of affairs for those awaiting news of kin.

[tumtiddle]

Chinese 'leak' was the result of an individual action, not sanctioned by China. This individual is now under investigation.

[StormyKnight]

Clarification ACARS can be programmed to report on events & or time.

Events like Takeoff, TOC (Top of climb), reach waypoint
Time e.g. every 30mins

OR if an abnormality occurs...

The ACARS report at 1:07am local time indicated no issues with the aircraft.

[fft100]

FMC,


'sense of panic' ? not sure you have watched the same press conference. As the minister said, this is an 'unprecedented situation' (in the modern age any way). If journalists/others have been propagating unchecked rumours and wasting everyones time then maybe some self examination should be performed later.

[glenbrook]

I think the truth is probably the simplest solution.

I expect the a/c suffered something sudden and catastrophic close to LKP.
Debris has not been found because it ditched and no large floating debris broke off at this time. Eventually smaller pieces will be found or wash up in Vietnam.

[Golf-Mike-Mike]

43 ships and 40 a/c searching (26/25 in S China Sea, 17/15 in Malacca Straits). Some key points to clarify ...

1 Reports of a/c continuing to fly for some time after its last transmission are "inaccurate" - and specifically Boeing and RR agree they are "inaccurate"

2 SAR assets couldn't find anything at the position of the Chinese satellite image and the Chinese Embassy has since said the image was released by mistake

3 A/c had been fully serviced and up to date with FAA ADs, was fit to fly and all maintenance checks were in order. Last routine maintenance on 23Feb14

4 Have a duty to investigate any possibilities, eg radar track in Straits of Malacca, however main effort has always been in S China Sea.
FAA and NTSB agree reasonable grounds to investigate turnback to the western side of Malaysian peninsular

5 On release of raw data, they wish to corroborate data before release, eg radar tracks west of planned route, doing so too early could add anguish to relatives, Malaysia has nothing to hide and is sparing no expense

6 Reports that the flight crew's homes have been searched are not true.

[StormyKnight]

Categoric reiteration at the press briefing that at the point when they lost contact with the aircraft (at 1.07) there was no data subsequently received by Boeing or Rolls Royce.

No the ACARS does not report constantly, it reports on events....The last ACARS was 1:07am but the last signal at all from the aircraft was 1:22am.

[ianwood]

Seems almost all the information is bad. And it's coming from sources that ought to be credible. A lot of contradictions and back tracking. Zero leads. I'm finding it hard to swallow. Something's rotten.

We'll see if the WSJ stands behind their article or it vanishes as quickly as the plane did.

[tumtiddle]

ACARS does not equal transponder so what you see on FR24 is not ACARS data.

[SRMman]

Continuing to watch. I also do not agree that there is any sense of panic shown by the 3 briefing personnel, actually the opposite. They answered most of the questions in a calm and confident manner. They not surprisingly didn't answer a Sky question on the range or capability of their military radar.

[sysconx]

No one knows where to peek. Everyone is clueless. And that is our understanding if it. If there is a cover up we will still be clueless.

Malaysia does their best with what they have. No need to rub their faces about their inabilities. They do what can be done best on their part with the resources they have including $$ budgets.

When the big boys get there with all of their resources we will know what we will "need" to know and news crews will "show it all".

[Frenchwalker]

pberrett i belive its +8

Last contact Acars\ engines 1:07am GMT+8

[SRMman]

No the ACARS does not report constantly, it reports on events....The last ACARS was 1:07am but the last signal at all from the aircraft was 1:22am.

I repeated exactly what was said at the press briefing. He said 1.07

[StormyKnight]

ACARS does not equal transponder so what you see on FR24 is not ACARS data.

Just to clarify, on a plane the
ACARS only transmits on events. i.e. not constantly last report was at 1:07am

ADS-B transponder transmits twice a second (used by flightradar 24)
How it works - Flightradar24.com - Live flight tracker! (http://www.flightradar24.com/how-it-works) - last report 1:21am

The Radar transponder responds to a air traffic control radar painting the aircraft, the transponder then transmits information such the planes registration number, speed & altitude. Secondary surveillance radar - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_surveillance_radar) - last report 1:21am

After 1:21am the plane ceased to transmit anything at all.

[Interflug]

1 Reports of a/c continuing to fly for some time after its last transmission are "inaccurate" - and specifically Boeing and RR agree they are "inaccurate"

They say "inaccurate", not "false"…

Accurate would be, if precise data would be named, not only "some time"…

just saying… :cool:

[SRMman]

Livery Man

The Minister was asked that question and his answer was, effectively, yes.

[valvanuz]

Thats about it...

I would add: no emergency beacon so either under water or intact on land.

[SaturnV]

For those wanting to read the Wall St Journal's reaction to the news conference, here is the link to their twitter stream.

Rolls-Royce, Boeing Decline to Comment on Jet Report - Wall Street Journal - WSJ.com (http://stream.wsj.com/story/malaysia-airlines-flight-370/SS-2-475558/SS-2-479770/)

The original WSJ article appeared to have been heavily sourced to U.S. national security officials in Washington. And as Mr. Snowden has revealed, the U.S. captures everything in the ether. You are free to infer whether this capture includes ACARS data.

[LiveryMan]

I would add: no emergency beacon so either under water or intact on land.

The ELT could have been completely destroyed.

[Golf-Mike-Mike]

They say "inaccurate", not "false"…
Accurate would be, if precise data would be named, not only "some time"…
just saying… :cool:

Good spot, that's why I emphasised "inaccurate" as a quote. More to follow maybe.

[Feathered]

Pberret,

Ads-b is sent over the 1090 mhz mode s link.

[philipat]

I would add: no emergency beacon so either under water or intact on land. Why would you say that? There is also an ELT which operates in water. It is a long narrow tube-like device designed to float with a weighted down end and a transmittor at top.

Also, there have been many land accidents in which ELT devices have failed.

[etrang]

The original WSJ article appeared to have been heavily sourced to U.S. national security officials in Washington. And as Mr. Snowden has revealed, the U.S. captures everything in the ether. You are free to infer whether this capture includes ACARS data.

Yes, and the Malaysian transport minister specifically said that they asked Rolls Royce and Boeing about ACARS messages, but no mention of asking the US if they know anything.

[simon43]

ACARS does not equal transponder so what you see on FR24 is not ACARS data.
and


What frequency (or band) does the ADS-B transponder transmit on? Or is it sent to a satelllite?
ACARS transmits around 135MHz (VHF). The actual frequency depends on the region of the world where the plane is. At these types of frequency, once can expect reception to extend to perhaps 250nm.

ACARS signals are sent from the a/c and received by a ground station, for onward processing etc. AFAIK, the relevant ground station in that region is Hat Yai in southern Thailand.

Here is a copy of SITA's map of their VHF ACARS ground station coverage in Asia:

http://bbr.asia/sita.jpg (http://www.pprune.org/bbr.asia/sita.jpg)

Although the map resolution is not so good, VHF coverage exists throughout the region between KL and the Vietnamese coast. The only area where no coverage is shown is a region to the north of Phuket Island (west coast of Thailand) and out towards the Andaman & Nicobar Islands, (but there does seem to be an ACARS ground station somewhere on the latter islands).

HF ACARS is also used, with Hat Yai again the relevant ground station, operating on 5,655MHz and 13,309MHz.

ADS-B operates on 1090MHz (UHF). Transmission is generally over a line of sight path.

From the above, you can deduce that when a plane is outside the range of reception for VHF ACARS or UHF ADS-B, no data/signal can be received, unless an alternative channel (satellite or HF is used).

[No longer ATC]

My better half (retired BA 747 skipper) says on the 744 the power for the engine data transmission is shared by the radios..same source ( I think he said main sby bus). So if power is lost to eng data transmission it must also be lost to radios-yet there was a radio call after the last eng data transmission was there not? Or does the 777 have a different system?

[Harry O]

http://news.sky.com/story/1225034/malaysia-nothing-to-hide-over-plane-search

US officials said on Wednesday none of the country's satellites detected a mid-air explosion when the plane lost contact with air traffic controllers.

Malaysia's air force chief confirmed military radar detected what could have been the airliner in an area in the north of the Strait of Malacca at around 2.15am local time on Saturday - 45 minutes after the plane vanished from air traffic control screens.

[underfire]

Forget conspiracies, look at reality.

Ops Centers for airlines, ac manufacturers, and of course governments, monitor ac systems real-time or near real time.

Currently, due to security issues, public outcry, other issues, it is not generally known the level of surveillience on virtually all ac.

From the automated FDR broadcasts, to sats, wifi, and of course, the mobile devices of the passengers, it is out there.

In my opinion, the exact reasons and location all already known by these methods.

Much like AF 447, the search went on for a very long time and was then abandoned. Yet, a contractor was able to virtually go directly to the site a few years later?

I think this is much the same. With methods currently available by National Security Agencies, the location and uotcome is already known. Therefore, it is not in their best interests to reveal the information and associated levels of surviellience.

There is no need to rush, the outcome is the same, if the search takes 5 days or 500 days..and therefore, no need to compromise security.

[Dick Spanner]

On a B777 when VHF stations are out of range ACARS uses Satellite coms automatically.

[OPENDOOR]

LiveryMan;
So, we are essentially back to square one. A 777 is missing. We know how many were supposed to be aboard, the airline and flight number.

That's about it.

So, depressingly, the scenario posted by Bloxin fits all the (few) known facts;

Hypothetical
Hello.
This is my third attempt to make a post here. Maybe, as I'm new here I'm doing it wrong.
I am a licenced engineer, B747.
This post attempts to describe, with precedents, a possible single failure that would cause loss of coms, depressurisation and crew disablement due to hypoxia.

Precedent: QF30 25 July 2008 Pax oxygen bottle "explodes" tearing a hole in fuselage.

Ref: Please google "Qantas oxygen bottle explosion" and view photos of damage.
The picture taken inside the fwd cargo compartment shows one bottle missing.
there is no evidence of shrapnel damage in the photo. Therefore, no eplosion.
The bottle appears to have detached itself from its connections and propelled itself down through the fuselage skin.

777: The crew oxygen bottle is mounted horizontaly on the left aft wall of the nose wheel well structure with the fittings (propelling nozzle) facing forward. This aims the bottle, in the event of a QF30 type failure, directly into the MEC containing all boxes concerned with coms and a lot more.
Before all of its energy is spent, an huge amount of damage could be caused to equipment and the bottle could, conceivably, cause a decompression.
When the crew respond by doning oxygen mask, there is no oxygen and hypoxia is the next link in this proposed chain of events.
This link is entitled "Hypothetical" and is only that. I believe it ticks a few boxes.
Hoping this post make it and generates some discussion.
Bloxin.

So the a/c would continue on heading and flight level until, at fuel exhaustion, the auto pilot would disconnect and (thanks Lost in Saigon) "....enter a turn, begin a shallow dive, and impact at high speed."

[OleOle]

Thanks for the drawing of that oxygen bottle.

http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/535538-malaysian-airlines-mh370-contact-lost-136.html#post8371268

I understand that the bottle is located within the MEC. So even if a potential failure of the bottle or its connection is not catastrophic, a scenario in which a pure oxygen atmosphere in the MEC bay is created seems possible? Apollo 1 comes to mind.

On the other hand it is hard to imagine the A/C continued on autopilot with the MEC destroyed by fire.

A report of a previous fire in the MEC of a 772 probably linked here before :
http://www.aaib.gov.uk/cms_resources.cfm?file=/S2-2007%20N786UA.pdf

[awblain]

Hornbill,

I wonder why RR aren't saying?

Probably because a) they don't have any and b) even if they did, they're unlikely to put out a press release about an ongoing investigation unless someone alleged that the engines were part of the chain of events in the accident.

[philipat]

This is strange as it suggests that Subang was tracking it for another hour after the transponder stopped being received. Am I missing something here? Perhaps, yes. The times are all LOCAL not UTC. So remember that Vietnam time is one hour BEHIND Malaysia time (Even though further East).

[philipat]

If it did a u turn they would have known.

One would assume that, BUT, even the Primary Military radar is obviously, well, inconclusive. That's not the kind of air defence radar that most of us would like. Especially with high profile "Targets" in KL.

[StormyKnight]

Perhaps, yes. The times are all LOCAL not UTC. So remember that Vietnam time is one hour BEHIND Malaysia time (Even though further East).

The other explanation I have read is that It later emerged that Subang Air Traffic Control had lost contact with the aircraft at 01:22 and notified Malaysia Airlines at 02:40.

Quoted from Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_370)

Wiki reference 18 points to Crash: Malaysia B772 over Gulf of Thailand on Mar 8th 2014, aircraft missing (http://avherald.com/h?article=4710c69b&opt=0)

[Global Warrior]

Quote:
if RR were to say that they had engine information, it might be of considerable use to the accident investigators, even without any wreckage being found
.

I wonder why RR aren't saying?


Theres probably a protocol in place that dictates that any info found is sent to the situation controlling agency then a controlled/verified/spun release of the info would be made. I think it would be quite improper for RR or Boeing or the Comms vendor to make a statement without either being invited to do so or given the permission of the Malaysians at this time. There are still relatives to consider too.

Maybe thats why.

[jeanlyon]

Passengers on 911 a/c managed to make calls?

My earlier question did not appear. The last message from the a/c was "Ok - roger that" Isn't that rather an unusual response when leaving one ATC for another, surely you always give your callsign?

[andrasz]

Having never tried it, or even thought about it, is it possible to send a text from a cell phone from a aircraft?

As demonstrated by UA93 and several others on this forum, yes. However typically only from below FL250, and in areas of low cell density.

I think it would be quite improper for RR or Boeing or the Comms vendor to make a statement...

Under normal circumstances yes, but in current situation it is quite unusual that RR does not confirm the categorical statement made by the Malaysian authorities. I this case the source of data is RR, so if the Malaysians make any statement based on this data, I see little reason why RR would not want to second it to dispel any lingering doubts.

[TURIN]

777: The crew oxygen bottle is mounted horizontaly on the left aft wall of the nose wheel well structure with the fittings (propelling nozzle) facing forward. This aims the bottle, in the event of a QF30 type failure, directly into the MEC containing all boxes concerned with coms and a lot more.


NO IT ISN'T!!

The fittings are on the rear/aft facing end of the bottle. If the fitting was to fail and the restraining straps were also to fail, then potentially, the bottle would go forwards not aft. That would send it either straight through the radome or potentially deflected upwards into the below flightdeck area. This contains the backdrive mechanisms for the control column and rudder pedals.

The possibility (of an O2 bottle failing as such) is remote at the extreme but not unprecedented.

I don't buy it.

[wiggy]

The last message from the a/c was "Ok - roger that" Isn't that rather an unusual response when leaving one ATC for another, surely you always give your callsign?

It may be "wrong" but then I'm afraid not all of us comply 100% all of the time to the phraseology described the various manual of R/T...

As for cell phones and aircraft (yet again), hands up all those who have flown between say western europe and the far east and never, ever found the likes of a "welcome to CIS telecom" ( or something similar) text on their phone on arrival in NRT.....:uhoh: :uhoh:

[safelife]

Myanmar DCA now reports search has been expanded into their airspace area.

http://www.irrawaddy.org/burma/search-malaysian-plane-expands-burmese-airspace.html

[AndoniP]

Theres probably a protocol in place that dictates that any info found is sent to the situation controlling agency then a controlled/verified/spun release of the info would be made. I think it would be quite improper for RR or Boeing or the Comms vendor to make a statement without either being invited to do so or given the permission of the Malaysians at this time. There are still relatives to consider too.

There are probably client confidentiality agreements in place that prevent RR or Boeing from making statements regarding systems telemetry and so on. It wouldn't be their place to do so publicly anyway, any information would be passed to the Malaysians or whoever was leading the investigation and then broadcast from there if deemed fit to. That's the way it works with many other vendor / supplier agreements of this magnitude.

[Discorde]

My earlier question did not appear. The last message from the a/c was "Ok - roger that" Isn't that rather an unusual response when leaving one ATC for another, surely you always give your callsign?

This RT exchange certainly sounds non-standard. Was the aircraft transmission spoken by someone in the flight deck other than the pilots? Would an ATC transcript of the handover yield more clues?

Apologies if this suggestion has already been posted.

[KAFE]

News update conference today: last auto maintenance message timed at 1.07 - (presumably UTC?) - all systems normal. No other ACARS / Maint messages.

I guess this coincided with exiting VHF range. As previously stated here, ACARS SATCOM not active / fitted so no possibility of MAINT messages to report at time of problem.

[TURIN]

So is there any truth to cell phones ringing the next day?


No. Please read back through the thread.

[bono]

philipat

Perhaps, yes. The times are all LOCAL not UTC. So remember that Vietnam time is one hour BEHIND Malaysia time (Even though further East).


I do not want to sound harsh but:


1. Why will Subang radar tracking station, located in Malaysia near KL, use Vietnam time when reporting the time at which radar contact was lost?


2. if Vietnam is one hour behind, then it would mean that it is 1:40 AM in Vietnam when it is 2:40 AM in Malaysia. Or if the radar tracking was only done for 40 minutes, then using Vietnam time it would mean that radar contact was lost around 12:20 AM Vietnam time or 1:20 AM Malaysia time.


Simply stick to Subang statement that radar contact was finally lost at 2:40 AM Malaysia time, which means that the aircraft was tracked (at multiple locations according to reports) till around 2:40 AM Malaysia time and no effort was made to intercept, a major security blunder in most professional airforces but apparently not in Malaysia.

[Ida down]

EDMJ, you could also ask, did someone nick it, FOR a 9/11 style attack as well. Getting back to the SATCOM, when the problem arose with the A380, the QF duty engineer was right onto it, before the news from the flight deck came thru. This should also apply to the T7 and MH engineering, if a donk or donks were not performing.

[HEALY]

I don't think you can take much from the last transmission, as they said it was the last words, for all we know they may have acknowledged a frequency transfer and used correct terminology. ATC then have added at the end something they forgot to mention, like logon to CPDLC with VVTS. I think we are all guilty at 2 am of making a less stringent call to ATC with correct terminology. Nothing out of the ordinary at all, having said that it would be nice to know the full transcript.

[wilyflier]

Hi .
Any follow up on your pprune 343 at 3.46 of 8 March 2014
re cabin break up message from Thai source ???

There was also a reported incomplete reply on 121.5 , "garbled , muffled , with static"
with a company aircraft flying some half hour ahead on poughly the same route which had been asked to try to make contact

Im wondering about pressurisation /dorsal skin fatigue, Coupled with decal removal damage refurbishing older aircraft ... Boeing has had a number of cases...... Hawai..etc
Wilyflier

[isca]

underfire page 132 #2630

From this article on the 787 real time Operations Center, while it is for the 787, right at the end of the video, they note that the Center also monitors the 777 real time, but just not as much data...

Boeing operations center tracks 787 flights in real time | KING5.com Seattle

It has been stated more than once MAS chose not to share date with boeing but only with RR

[Old Boeing Driver]

I've been away for a few hours, and it looks like I've missed several hundred posts.

It appears that the Chinese satellite pictures were nothing and ACARS did not really track the plane 4 more hours. Please correct me if wrong.

So far, the only facts known are that the plane took off, and contact was lost.

Disregarding all the million or so reasons why contact was lost, let's look at some of the underlying, maybe unverified, but possible facts.

Oil rig worker reports seeing fireball near area of lost contact
(not to discredit him, but there were thousands of other eyes on land, sea, and air who saw nothing at the same time)

Malaysian radar MAY have detected a turn back of the plane
Malaysian radar MAY have tracked the plane westbound over the Straits of Malacca
Boat captain on north end of Malaysia reports low flying plane
Local men on north end of Malaysia report loud noise (I think similar to airplane, but I can't remember)
Most sophisticated search assets have been deployed since day 1 in the Straits of Malacca

Any additional possible facts that should be added?

[Surely]

The facts are contact was lost at 121

All the rest is speculation.


The most logical conclusion is the flight went down at around 121

[possibleconsequences]

'
There are only two facts; it lost contact at 1.30 am and is now on the bottom of the ocean.'

Neither of them you mentioned are facts.


They are facts aren't they?
Contact was lost at 1.30 ( give or take a few mins)
And the aircraft cannot conceivably be anywhere else surely?

[deadheader]

From SMH:

"Police investigating the backgrounds of all 239 people aboard the missing Malaysia Airlines flight are paying “special attention” to a 35 year-old Chinese Uighur man who undertook flight simulation training, according to a report in a leading Malay language newspaper in Kuala Lumpur"

[Golf-Mike-Mike]

Fact 3, it won't be found in the next ten hours

Not a fact unless you can predict the future with certainty. Couldn't SAR assets continue scouting for bleeps and pingers at night ?

[Luke SkyToddler]

.I was under the impression ATC informed mas at 240 that last contact was 121

Still confusion about this so let's put it to bed, I was flying and on the same frequency at the time, Ho Chi Minh ATC started going mad trying to contact the MH370 on 121.5 at around 00.30 local Vietnam time. That is 01.30 Malaysia time, 1730 Z.

[SLFplatine]

At the point the transponder ceased to respond the plane was approaching the coast of Vietnam and would be on Vietnamese military primary radar, no? IF the plane did turn west and transited the Malay peninsula (and the possibility it did so was considered sufficient to deploy SAR assets to the Malacca Strait) it would have been picked up by Thai military primary radar and Indonesian also -so why have none of these countries said anything? Awhile back someone did post that at FL295 it would not be picked up by military radar but it was picked up (maybe) by Malaysian military radar. Being a Commair it would have been of none the interest to the Vietnam operator as it approached the coast, however a turn off of filed flight path would -if it happened. Perhaps it did not turn west?
Another Q: If SAR assets were committed to the Malacca Strait why were not recon flights made over the largely uninhabited jungles of Sumatra to the west. A couple of days back Onetrack posted a plausible scenario that had the plane crashing into that area.
Unrelated but to the RR engine data bit -my understanding is protocol in this situation is to turn over anything they know to the investigating entity and it is the investigating entity's call as to release or not release (or authorize RR to release)

[philipat]

At this point, I think it appropriate to send a vote of thanks to the moderators of this forum. It is so fast moving and contains so much repetition and rubbish, including some of my own, that it must be a major challenge for them. Thanks Guys.

[bono]

Surely:
I was under the impression ATC informed mas at 240 that last contact was 121

Two different things.
[A] Last contact with crew at 1:21 AM, Malaysia Time.

"Malaysia Airlines has said that ground controllers had their last radio communication with the pilots about 1:30 a.m" - Boston Globe
Confusion over plane?s route frustrates families and search - World - The Boston Globe (http://goo.gl/NYGqv5)


[B] Last Radar contact of an unknown aircraft flying in Malaysian airspace allowed to proceed unchallenged around 2:40 AM, Malaysia Time. This is the only reason search shifted to the west of the peninsula.

[flt001]

So after lots of messing around with westerly radar tracks it looks like we are back where were started Day 1.

Which to me makes the most probable outcome being a catastrophic event at FL350 leading to a crash on the flightpath with the debris mostly sinking and now some floating to the north and east, soon to be washed up on some beaches.

What that event was will be discovered when the boxes are found.

[bono]

Davidsoffice

IF the rogue radar track was our aircraft..... Where would it reach, in that general direction, outside of friendly radar coverage before needing fuel?


This is THE most important question today obviously and if the aircraft turned west as most believe now, the only party that can help answer this question is India. Just now the news came out that India has deployed 3 ships and 3 aircraft to search effort east of Andaman islands. However, their unexplained silence on tracking an unknown large aircraft near Andaman islands is curious to say the least, unless, like Malaysia they also have been caught in a situation where they cannot confess to holes in their radar coverage.

[paddylaz]

Reports coming in of relatives of flight 370 passengers reducing malaysian airline staff in their hotel to tears during press conference and shouting at them "you are not leaving" after a 4 hour Q & A

Sounds like this situation is getting more and more toxic. Is there any precedent to something like this? (except air france 447).

[awblain]

There are arrays of suitable satellites. I'm sure that if it turns out a mystery remains, then their owners can be quietly asked if they can help, and in an informal way they would. Countries with ocean surveillance radar constellations and missile warning imaging satellite, along with even some weather coverage from moderate and geostationary locations might be able to shed some light.

In the meantime, a fisherman with a bit of plastic is likely to be the first to shed light on the location of the wreckage.

[bakerpictures]

..a fisherman with a bit of plastic is likely to be the first to shed light on the location of the wreckage.

Some of the truest words I've read in six days.

[isca]

Turin #2796

The fittings are on the rear/aft facing end of the bottle. If the fitting was to fail and the restraining straps were also to fail, then potentially, the bottle would go forwards not aft. That would send it either straight through the radome or potentially deflected upwards into the below flightdeck area. This contains the backdrive mechanisms for the control column and rudder pedals.

The possibility (of an O2 bottle failing as such) is remote at the extreme but not unprecedented.

I don't buy it.

What is the distance between the bottle's forward end and the bulkhead?

Accepting all your reservations I comment as follows.

If it hasn't built up max momentum it will not pierce the bulkhead, being round at the "front end" it will deflect and bounce around ( may even get stuck) but if it ever got to face aft this would propel it into the MEC, which by now is a fairly oxygen rich environment.

As an aside to those speculating the aircraft could have been "secretly" fully fueled you obviously don't know much about refueling procedure.

It is not like pulling up at the pumps needing 1/2 tank and deciding you might decide to go the scenic route and filling up instead.

At your hub ops will have informed refueling of the required load and that is all they will put in.

We once landed at an airport which was a regular stop and the refuelers knew pretty well how much we need to depart full and would send out a bowser and trailer. On this occasion we needed more, the driver would not let me have more, he asked to check the flight deck gauges, read the fuel content subtracted the input and stated we had landed below minimum reserve. I confirmed this and stated pilot was filing a report right then. I still had to fill in loads of paperwork for the fuel company.

YOU CANNOT JUST TOP UP

[Volume]

What that event was will be discovered when the boxes are found.What that event was will be discovered if the boxes are found. And If the CVR does still include the initial event, and did not overwrite it during 4 hours flight with anyone on board being unconscious, containing 30 minutes of silence in the cockpit...

[Lost in Saigon]

Faking your ID:
In a Mode A/C transponder, you are whomever you want to be.
AFAIK with Mode S and ADS-B the identity of the airplane is hard coded into the transponder and not changeable in flight. Nothing stopping anyone from carrying around their own transponder, but setting it up in a 777 with access to an antenna would likely be quite the challenge ;)

As far as popping up on a new code, this would work great in the middle of the USA at 4500 feet and 150 knots. Hi there! This is uncle Bill going to get a $100 burger and hit on the waitress. As far as flights crossing international borders and in the Class A - not so much.

AFAIK the aircraft identity is not coded into the transponder. ATC enters the aircraft ident into their system when they assign the transponder code. I would expect that if you select the same code it would cause problems with ATC.

Now if you were to coordinate with another known flight in the area and have them turn off their transponder as you turn yours on with the same code, that would be seamless with ATC.

[Watercannon]

Would the supposed conversation the Narita-bound 777 pilot had with MH370 about 10 minutes after the transponder loss, where he reported hearing "mumbling", be preserved on the CVR of his plane, or would it have been over-written by the time he reached Japan?

[hefy_jefy]

I hope someone is doing a carefully controlled sonar survey of the area where contact was originally lost. Swissair 111 was found almost exactly where it was lost several days after the search had moved on, due to poor control of the original sonar survey, later inspection of the records showed that the debris was seen on the very first track. Needless to say it didn't look much like an aircraft.

[TURIN]

That may be true, but the "Satellite coms" don't talk directly with the Satellites. They talk to a ground station that relays the information up to a satellite, so if the aircraft is out of range of a ground station, the messages won't go through that system.

Er, are you sure?

What would be the point? AFAIK satcom is used when out of range of VHF. EG over mid atlantic. The a/c communicates directly with satelites.


https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=aircraft+satcom&espv=210&es_sm=93&tbm=isch&imgil=Ukiffn0NFxymJM%253A%253Bhttps%253A%252F%252Fencrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com%252Fimages%253Fq%253Dtbn%253AANd9GcQ1mJecMv UaTxdjUOe8HveOZ-ythNct6PU1fXp-pqfFqtvad-NK%253B581%253B526%253BMOxLUJ3j5wEAXM%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F %25252Fforum.prisonplanet.com%25252Findex.php%25253Ftopic%25 25253D128510.0&source=iu&usg=__Uzf5_XP9OoRc6NkGLuu4mgLslwE%3D&sa=X&ei=zrghU4-vEZPX7AbVzoGoDg&ved=0CF0Q9QEwCA#facrc=_&imgrc=Ukiffn0NFxymJM%253A%3BMOxLUJ3j5wEAXM%3Bhttp%253A%252F% 252Fi224.photobucket.com%252Falbums%252Fdd121%252F88Badmachi ne88%252FB767SATCOM.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fforum.prisonpla net.com%252Findex.php%253Ftopic%253D128510.0%3B581%3B526

[etudiant]

Re the fuel load, it was stated very early in this event that the aircraft had 7 and a half hours of fuel loaded. So there was plenty of gas to go even further than the 4 hours post loss of contact.

[michael0658]

I worked on flight profiles for avionics system tests at Naval Air Test Center (Pax River) for a couple years back in the late 1980s. Based on the reports I've heard, my analysis is as follows:

' ' Point S1 - Last ATC contact
txtStartLatitude = "6.9208"
txtStartLongitude = "103.5786"

' Point S2 – Contact, ADSB system (web track FR24)
txtStartLatitude = "6.9208"
txtStartLongitude = "103.5786"

' Point S3 - Last ATC contact, ADSB system (web track FR24)
txtStartLatitude = "6.9208"
txtStartLongitude = "103.5786"

' Sanga Mercur Oil Rig - known position
txtStartLatitude = "8.3667"
txtStartLongitude = "108.7026"

' Oil rig (Sanga Mercur Oil Rig) sighting report was:
' 265 - 275 bearing, high, minimal lateral velocity, on fire
' Plane had to be below 15,000 ft to not be on SGN ATC
‘
' Maintaining 65 deg course from S4, gliding @ 7:1 on fire?
' max range = 17.3 nm
' could have just reached the rig if turned toward it immediately, but
' rig was only 15 deg off to right so might have maintained course since
' that's where SAR would look (assuming SAR doesn't know about rig)
' Oil rig report: 265 - 275 bearing, high, minimal lateral velocity,
' on fire. Plane had to be below 15,000 feet to not be on SGN
' (Ho Chi Minh City) ATC as reported. Not sure how oil rig bearing was
' determined. If phone more accurate, but if just memory from rig true
' north, then maybe +/- 25 deg instead of +/- 5 deg.
'
' Point S4 - Location at oil rig sighting (assuming due west as reported):
txtStartLatitude = "8.3667"
txtStartLongitude = "108.4186"

' Maintaining 65 deg course, with 7:1 glide ratio.
' Not sure on glide ratio, 7:1 is for 747 (my memory).Also that's max
' with optimal AOA. Some time would have been used before attempting
' max glide and on fire (damage) would have probably reduced it.
'
' Point S5 - Final point (end of glide – crash/ditch) is at:
txtStartLatitude = "8.4885"
txtStartLongitude = "108.6825"

Obviously, there is some uncertainty in this position. I'm not sure about the FR24 system (I believe it extrapolates minute to mintute) Points (S2 & S3). I'm also not sure about the oil rig sighting bearing and distance (S4). Best guess on my S5 estimate uncertainty is +/- 15 nm. We probably have subs scanning gulf bottom by now (as well as ships) and they will probably find it soon.

[GarageYears]

@ TURIN

Totally agree - once out of LOS radio range, ACARS would switch to direct Sat link.

[petervee]

...or it would switch to HFDL....

[formationdriver]

Good. Common sense is not totally dead.

One caveat: anyone notice,what was a semi-strange answer for a basic question on a civilian jet's NAVCOM equipment on Day 2 or 3.

"Asked to detail the communications devices aboard the missing jet, Boeing spokesman Doug Alder said, "It’s not appropriate for us to discuss that right now."

[Dai_Farr]

MountainSnake "On 5 June 2009, the French nuclear submarine Émeraude was dispatched to the crash zone, arriving in the area on the 10th. Its mission was to assist in the search for the missing flight recorders or "black-boxes" which might be located at great depth.[93] The submarine would use its sonar to listen for the ultrasonic signal emitted by the black boxes' "pingers",[94] covering 13 sq mi (34 km2) a day. The Émeraude was to work with the mini-sub Nautile, which can descend to the ocean floor."

Source Wikipedia.

Are they trying to listen to the FDR/CVR pingers in the area where the transponder stopped emitting? Maybe they are but I have never heard anything about yet.

There are a lot of naval and air assets out there. Some have an anti-submarine warfare capability and with it, an underwater acoustic capability. The areas west and east of the Malaysian peninsula so far searched have consisted of shallow water. Any continuance beyond the Straits of Malacca starts to run off the continental shelf to deeper water in the Indian Ocean.

Shallow water makes for a notoriously difficult acoustic environment. Those waters are chock full of fishing vessels. Man made noise and natural noise in the water adds to the ambient noise, which will be much increased over that of an open ocean environment. Reverberations will be rife. There will be surface reflections and bottom bounce (depending what the bottom is made of).

In deep water, sounds spread spherically, greatly dissipating the intensity. Shallow water, constrained by the surface and sea bed, causes the sound to spread cylindrically, meaning in a given volume the noise is greater. It's logarithmic and I can't be 4rsed digging out my old notes! 10Log versus 20Log.

That said, the shipping noise is low frequency whereas sonic locators on Flight Data Recorders is not. Regardless of the frequency, ambient noise is still a factor and higher frequencies are subject to greater attenuation than low frequencies.

In the Air France 447 case, the location was open ocean; much quieter acoustically and a submarine could manoeuvre in the deep water there. Submariners are notorious liars about where they are and where they've been but if they tell you they are loath to go anywhere a prang might ensue, I'd (guardedly) believe them. They certainly don't like shallow water.

They could use a surface vessel with a decent SONAR suite to listen for the location device. To cover any area AND listen is almost mutually exclusive. They may need to sprint and drift, otherwise their Own Ships Noise (OSN) may mask what they're listening for. Otherwise, drop sonobuoys from fixed or rotary-winged aircraft. That might do it.

Look, an acoustic search really requires a half decent datum to start with. An acoustic search of the South China Sea or the Indian Ocean, or even a corridor of the Indian Ocean, is really not a practical primary search tool. Searching for this aircraft now, entering the sixth day with so many false starts, will have left any traces on the surface in a much diminished state.

I flew SAR on Air India 182 back in 1985. I was an acoustic specialist on my Nimrod Maritime Reconnaissance crew. We dropped buoys but heard nothing. The water there was over the 1000fathom line and was "quiet". Plus we dropped buoys at each of the 2 datums of wreckage on the surface, so we were as near to the source as one could be, under the circumstances. We heard nothing. To be fair, sonic location devices then were in their infancy and I've no idea if the Air India 182 aircraft had been fitted out with such a device.

[Australopithecus]

Isca: are you serious that you had such a discussion with a pump jockey?

In my part of the world, which overlaps yours, I tell the guy how much fuel, and he pumps it. Period. He does not get a vote on how much fuel goes in, and I cannot fathom a scenario where you would have to explain yourself to a fuel dealer. Man up!

And if I decide last minute to add 20 tonnes of fuel, it goes on or I don't. Its really that simple.

[LongTimeInCX]

Quote from ISCA As an aside to those speculating the aircraft could have been "secretly" fully fueled you obviously don't know much about refueling procedure.
Well it appears unfortunately you do not either.
Different Airlines bestow different levels of responsibility and authority in allowing their crews to upload whatever fuel they feel is justifiable.
Therefore, unless you know exactly what MH crew refuelling policy and procedures are, the view you are espousing carries no weight.

Their fuel load was I believe still an area of discussion.

[awblain]

To be fair Dai, your sonobuoys in the central Atlantic were designed to hear a submarine a couple of hundred meters below, within a km or so, and not a pinger from 4km down.

Emeraude also has a much larger sound collecting area than those buoys.

You're absolutely right that listening for data recorder sounds in 100-foot deep water full of shrimps, raindrops and shipping, large and small, is not going to be easy.

In water as shallow as the South China Sea, towed arrays are also going to come into problems, as they are going to be in water whose depth is comparable to their length.

I would bet that a trawler has to be the most likely to find the wreckage.

[Dress]

MAS confirmed in the Beijing press-con at 6pm just now that the signal of the ringing phone of a missing passenger is now traced to the US.

[Dai_Farr]

Australopithecus Isca: are you serious that you had such a discussion with a pump jockey?

In my part of the world, which overlaps yours, I tell the guy how much fuel, and he pumps it. Period. He does not get a vote on how much fuel goes in, and I cannot fathom a scenario where you would have to explain yourself to a fuel dealer. Man up!

And if I decide last minute to add 20 tonnes of fuel, it goes on or I don't. Its really that simple.

It depends if your airline has been paying the bills. I worked for one that did not! But then you're into different problems like repatriation and is the money in the bank on pay day?