Malaysian Airlines MH370 contact lost

[onetrack]

Re the fuel question -

"The plane had enough fuel to fly for a total of about seven-and-a-half to eight hours, Malaysia Airlines' Chief Executive Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said on Sunday."

[xgjunkie]

Its a good point Lakedude but just to throw a question back at you,

Malaysian Airlines apparently economically was not doing to good and airlines in that kind of climate tend to swap parts backwards and forwards between aircraft to keep them operational.
Is the part responsible for this ping swapped into another aircraft.

Also has any info on the other ping distances been released? Or are they all on the same arc.
Its been mentioned that they are only position fixes along that arc and not proof the plane was flying the arc.
What if all the pings are on the same arc....then it is quite conceivable that the pings are coming from exactly one stationery point! .....on the ground....at Kuala Lumpur

It cannot be discounted.

[Lord Spandex Masher]

The Spidertracks product linked above

Smart airlines should be stepping all over each other to see who can announce and install these quickest - as a safety and PAX security tool.

How is a little pinger going to improve your safety and security as a passenger?

[volcanicash]

"An Inmarsat official, while declining to discuss specifics of Flight 370, tells CNN the satellite system is highly reliable, that each signal to an aircraft is met by a return signal and that those signals always contains a code verifying the identity of the aircraft. It is "virtually impossible" to change an aircraft's identifying code or to confuse one aircraft with another, the Inmarsat official said."

Source: CNN (http://edition.cnn.com/2014/03/17/world/asia/satellite-signals-plane-identity-flight-370/)

[elche]

For those in the know, What is the range of a 777 flying at SL?

[ana1936]

KL is not on the 40 degree circle. The signals would not be coming from there.

As far as I know the other ping details have not been released. They would be very useful for deducing a track.

[pilotchipmunk]

It's been discussed many posts back
Aircraft Pings Satellite " hello you there ? "
Satellite pings aircraft back " yes I'm here "
Then comes the handshake " ok let's do business"
Data transfer follows.

[ana1936]

Malaysians go south

MISSING MH370: RMN and RMAF to deploy assets to the southern corridor - Latest - New Straits Times (http://www.nst.com.my/latest/font-color-red-missing-mh370-font-rmn-and-rmaf-to-deploy-assets-to-the-southern-corridor-1.517857)

[xgjunkie]

ana.KL is not on the 40 degree circle. The signals would not be coming from there.

As far as I know the other ping details have not been released. They would be very useful for deducing a track.
So how far is it? 300-500 miles?
Its pretty close, while I accept that it is not right on that line, its within the degree of error. Considering distance is calculated from the return ping then there will be a large fudge factor
Also the original distance was calculated with an aircraft at 35,000ft. Well recalculate that for sea level.

[Seat 32F]

@xgjunkie: if you were correct in your hypothesis that previous pings (the details of which have not been published) might also be on the same arc thereby indicating the possibility of a stationary aircraft, then surely the SAR efforts would be focussed on airfields positioned along those lines?

Not saying you are wrong, but just pushing back to test the logic of your thoughts.

[ana1936]

The ping timings are very accurate. Expect accuracy of the order of 10 km or below (although details have not been released).

The satellite is roughly 40,000 km away so whether the aircraft is at altitude 0 or 12km does not make much difference.

[SQGRANGE]

Thanks OneTrack, I had not seen this previously but would be logical. I have been retired for a few years but unless SOPs re fuel had changed dramatically, 3 hour excess did not make sense - simply not economical.
If these reports are to be believed we have had the jet flying at varying altitudes up to FL450.
This would dramatically increase fuel consumption, so the 8 hour flight time seems exaggerated ........unless the last ping was received after fuel was exhausted, wherever that may be.

[VH-XXX]

Strategically Australia will not want to divulge it's radar capabilities in full, so if they don't go looking or appear to only be putting in a token search effort, I suspect it will mean that the aircraft never came near Australia.

[pilotmike]

@SQGRANGECorrect me if I am wrong, but the jet supposedly has flown for 8 hours, with a certain amount of time at low altitude yet only had enough fuel to get to Beijing (slightly under 6 hours) and say 45 -60 minutes reserve?
I think someone is a creative accountant.
I'll correct you. A commercial flight typically departs with trip fuel (6 hours as you have supposed) + alternate (some have assumed about 1 hour) + 10% contingency (about 40 mins based on the presumed figures) + final reserve (30 mins) + whatever the captain deems appropriate, having good knowledge of most aspects he is likely to encounter on the flight.

If the flight continued until flame-out or into final reserve, the figures above come to over 8 hours, unuseable fuel and other factors aside.

On the contrary to your creative accountant supposition, I think someone is displaying confusion based on ignorance. You claim to be an ex 777 jockey - are you sure about that?

[mario77]

I am a satellite communications engineer and just want to give a bit of insight on the ping data that was used to draw the two corridors.

First of all I want to comment that the ping data can provide a pretty accurate (within a few km) picture of the range of the target to the satellite. In that respect the target can be within a circle that has as a centre the sub satellite point. Someone also mentioned about multiple satellites just to remind that the inmarsat system uses geostationary satellites and there is just one that covers that part of the globe otherwise known as IOR (Indian Ocean Region)

The result corridors are not an outcome of just ping ranging but I would assume that they are correlated with other data. What I would have done is start from the last point of radar contact and draw a circle that would define all the possible locations of the aircraft at the time of the next ping. That circle would intersect to at least at one point the ranging circle see here (http://theaviationist.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/INMARSAT-positions.jpg) that are defined by the next ping roundtrip delay. Then repeat the same for every ping I got and should end up with some locations across the final arc. Each one of them can have an associated probability by correlating the probabilities of altitude and ground speed of the plane.

I therefore see no problem at the depicted arcs, although I am sure certain locations or sub arcs have higher probabilities than the others. Good luck to them this is a very tough case.

[Bobman84]

Strategically Australia will not want to divulge it's radar capabilities in full, so if they don't go looking or appear to only be putting in a token search effort, I suspect it will mean that the aircraft never came near Australia.

I tend to believe Abbott will share the data available with Malaysia. This is a major international event involving Australians on board as well.

There's also a lot of things we as the public won't know that they (the investigators) do as well.

[VH-XXX]

I tend to believe Abbott will share the data available with Malaysia.

He probably will.... off the record though, we won't hear anything of it I suspect.

[jcjeant]

Hi,

Where is KLM 836 when MH 370 is detected at 29.500 near Pulau Perak ?
Interesting to know ...
"Shadowing" ?

[Foxed Moth]

There has been discussion of what the Royal Malaysian Air Force (abbreviated to TDUM in the native language) did or did not do on the night when this frustrating, perplexing tragedy began.

A quick look suggests that the RMAF had its radars at Kuantan and Butterworth modernised in 2005 and that two Vera ESM units were introduced in 2007.

There has been mention of RMAF F-16s, only it appears their small but diverse fleet of combat aircraft includes Sukhoi Su-30s, F/A-18Ds and some Mig-29s. As recently as last year a sum of US$100 million was allocated to improving the Su-30s combat readiness from 65-70percent to 80percent or more.

Such data suggests the RMAF takes its role as providing aerial defence and airspace dominance of Malaysian airspace and territory seriously.

One of the characteristics (to which I am of course adding) of posts on this topic is that they come from civilian people based far away from Malaysia so views on what may or may not have occurred within RMAF bases that night are unlikely to be highly accurate.

It would appear, though, that the country does possess the sensors and the aircraft to have responded to a radar track not exhibiting normal identification and not conforming to a scheduled or filed flight plan, although the time to do so would perhaps have provided little opportunity to do so.

Only the country always was and remains relatively narrow, so the timings are always going to be squeezed and presumably the air defence system is rigged accordingly, if only in theory.

[KeyPilot]

Press conference underway. Little new info.

They did say that they (Malaysians) are dispatching 2x ships with 1x SuperLynx helo between them to the southern zone. He did stress that the (single) helo can operate from either vessel!

This is a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of the resource needed to stand even a chance of finding any wreckage. I wonder whether, if the entire US Navy were deployed to the Indian Ocean on SAROPS, even they would find any trace?

I now believe it's unlikely that MH370 will ever be found, but rather that this will be an enduring mystery that our grandchildren ask us about. We can tell them we followed it closely in real-time on long-defunct aviation forum PPRuNe...

[CodyBlade]

The cargo was mainly Mangosteens.

[parabellum]

The UK, USA and Russia have submaries capable of staying out there for many months at a time, not sure how long the recorders can transmit for but I suspect the search will go on for a long time yet, officially or unofficially.

[SOPS]

Recorders will only ping for 30 days, and it already been missing for 9 days.

[offa]

500 to 600 hours a year flight time would be about right ....

[d71146]

I must say the officials fielding the questions this morning still look uncomfortable and looking at one another for inspiration.

[Ulight]

I'd suggest if there are no real developments in the next few days the international search assistance will reduce considerably. Most of the countries would have had time to get some updated aerial surveillance/intel of the area and contribute to the search effort. The fuel and resources are going to add up and with no new intel + the work done to date + satellite imagery, etc. there aren't good signs of it being found at the moment.

I'm sure digitalglobe could get some coverage there and use automated software/crowdsourcing to cover a bigger area over time.

As someone put earlier, the longer SAR goes on, the longer it takes to find something.

[ana1936]

Press conference just told that something that seems to contradict idea that there was a signal indicating ACARS manually switched off. Just said that ACARS failed to report from 1:07am and especially at about 1:37am when it was due to report.

[sandos]

Did I hear they based the famous "arcs" on minimum and maximum speed?

But... what about being landed? Minimum speed is 0! I wonder how long a airplane would float. I seem to remember from the Hudson-ditching that they will float for quite some time, or was it just that they moored it quickly? Also, I guess batteries etc might get a bit waterlogged...

[Andu]

There has been mention of RMAF F-16s, only it appears their small but diverse fleet of combat aircraft includes Sukhoi Su-30s, F/A-18Ds and some Mig-29s. As recently as last year a sum of US$100 million was allocated to improving the Su-30s combat readiness from 65-70percent to 80percent or more.

Such data suggests the RMAF takes its role as providing aerial defence and airspace dominance of Malaysian airspace and territory seriously.From my experience of Malaysia and the RMAF, so long as it happens between 0930 and 1630 hrs Monday to Friday.

[ana1936]

Press also just told that the gaps in the 40 degree circle are from speed calculations.

I assumed that they were because of overlap with the other INMARSATs.

So it does seem possible that the plane ended up in the South China Sea, or Java at 8:11am as long as it went around in zig zags for 6 hours before hand.

[nigf]

Did I hear correct the MAS offical say the following?

Final ACAS transmitted at 1:07
Pilot's final words to ATC saying "aright, goodnight...." at 1:19
ACAS sends reports at 30 min interval so it would've been before 1:37
As such ACAS got tuned off within 30mins of 1:07 ie. 1:07 - 1:37 so could be after

As such no confirmation that ACAS was switched off before Pilot's final words.

[KeyPilot]

Press conference STILL a shambles. Better than the initial ones, but still shambolic. Also with journo questions: better but still poor.

E.g. why no .ppt presentation setting out facts?; flashing up a couple of A4-sized images for a second or two; no mics for journo questions => they are hard to hear; journo: "do you hold out any hope that aircraft is still intact"; ...

Just revealed under journo questioning that:
- ACARS may in fact have been switched off AFTER last VHF comms
- these location arcs are based on minimum and maximum 777 speed from last recorded position; this seems odd as there is clearly the possibility that the aircraft can turn; so I would infer that the two arcs should therefore be one continuous one?

[brika]

No new change really from press conference.

the 2 iranian suspects had already been checked out and china had pax list. M'sia has asked China to look at them again.

Australia apparently going to take charge of most of Southern corridor.

France joining investigation team because of their expertise re AF442.

Northern corridor countries report a blank on their radar - however we have no idea how alert they were on the Saturday night red eye shift and therefore if that blank is true!

No doubt MH370's tale is unprecedented and therefore all bets are still on.

Above all, 239 souls are at stake including the perpetrator(s).

[LegallyBlonde]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-03-17/missing-flight-mh370-good-night-issued-from-plane-after-shutdown/5325816
Updated 23 minutes ago
Video: Australia to lead southern Indian Ocean search for missing MH370 (Photo: ADF) (7pm TV News NSW) (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-03-17/australia-leads-search-for-missing-plane/5326830)
http://www.abc.net.au/news/image/5325898-3x2-340x227.jpg (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-03-17/ap-3c-orion-patrol-plane-mh370-search/5325926)Photo: An Australian pilot in an AP-3C Orion patrol plane scans the surface of the sea west of Peninsula Malaysia for the missing plane. (ADF: Cameron Jamieson) (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-03-17/ap-3c-orion-patrol-plane-mh370-search/5325926)
External Link: Boeing engineer explains three scenarios for missing flight MH370 (http://www.abc.net.au/newsradio/content/s3964606.htm)

Map: Malaysia (http://maps.google.com/?q=2.5,112.5(Malaysia)&z=5)


Australia has been handed control of the southern Indian Ocean search for missing jet MH370, after investigators revealed someone broadcast "good night" from the cockpit after the plane's tracking systems were switched off.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott told Question Time today that along with assuming responsibility for the "southern vector" search, Australia has also committed more resources to the operation.

[overthewing]

However, I'm sure some quick checking on actual aircraft movements into SIP very early on the 8th would soon eliminate any doubts, or confirm what they saw.

According to Flightradar24 for that time, the only a/c anywhere near Kelantan was a Chinese Eastern Airbus (MU5093) which was at 37,000ft. So unless another plane with no transponder was in the air, there was nothing else for observers to see.

[Ian W]

Yes, we now have news media reporting that the Malaysians are saying the turn was "Pre-programmed". What they aren't aren't saying is how they know this.

I fly the B777 and I can't think of a way for anyone to know what was programmed on the FMC of MH 370.

Some airlines can upload a flight plan directly to the aircraft, but even so, the pilot has to request the upload and activate the route.

This just seems to me like more bad information and more bad media reporting.

Perhaps you should read the FANS Operations Manual. If a waypoint is inserted and activated in the active route a Waypoint Change Event Report is triggered in ACARS.

[DADDY-OH!]

I think the 'Minimum Speed' is it's Minimum 'Clean' Speed Vref30+80 on the B757 & 767. 'Maximum Speed' would be Mmo (Max. Mach Operating no.). Quite a mileage difference over 7 hours between M0.78 (e.g) & M0.86 (e.g)

Can any B777 Pilots on here suggested a Range/ Endrance improvement figure for flying at Cost Index 0 in ECON?

[FE Hoppy]

Ian W
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lost in Saigon View Post
Yes, we now have news media reporting that the Malaysians are saying the turn was "Pre-programmed". What they aren't aren't saying is how they know this.

I fly the B777 and I can't think of a way for anyone to know what was programmed on the FMC of MH 370.

Some airlines can upload a flight plan directly to the aircraft, but even so, the pilot has to request the upload and activate the route.

This just seems to me like more bad information and more bad media reporting.
Perhaps you should read the FANS Operations Manual. If a waypoint is inserted and activated in the active route a Waypoint Change Event Report is triggered in ACARS.

It could have triggered the 07 transmission.

[FE Hoppy]

DADDY-OH!

Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: Behind you all the way!
Posts: 335
I think the 'Minimum Speed' is it's Minimum 'Clean' Speed Vref30+80 on the B757 & 767. 'Maximum Speed' would be Mmo (Max. Mach Operating no.). Quite a mileage difference over 7 hours between M0.78 (e.g) & M0.86 (e.g)

Can any B777 Pilots on here suggested a Range/ Endrance improvement figure for flying at Cost Index 0 in ECON?

I can fly for 8 hours at 0.86 and go nowhere.

[Hempy]

Agree that the latest press conference was disingenuous at best. It seems that they are suggesting that the ACARS was turned off prior to the last VHF call from the aircraft.....made by the FO. This would suggest they are trying to say either
a. the Captain and FO are both implicit in all this, or
b. the Captain had already been 'silenced'
The fact that the FO was alive and speaking on the radio AFTER the initial 'disturbing actions' seem to have taken place suggests he was involved...

p.s either they are suggesting the FO is the man in the spotlight, or they really are completely incompetent and are just throwing speculation to the wind in the pressers. Considering the information that has obviously NOT been released in previous pressers one can really only assume it's the former.

[volcanicash]

New north/south corridor maps issued at today's press conference:

http://s23.postimg.org/zajuz69dn/MH370_North.jpg

http://s23.postimg.org/poqaivi7v/MH370_South.jpg

[SOPS]

If it's in the southern corridor, it may never be found.

[FlyingOfficerKite]

Someone questioned how Capt Zaharie could have only 18,000+ hours if he joined airline in 1981 as it equates to 12 hours per week.

If you work on an average of 500 FLYING hours a year, then you would have expected the Captain to have 36 years' employment - which reconciles approximately with the length of his career to date.

That is 18,000 hours total flying experience, including his training and time employed as a first officer (co-pilot) before gaining a command (captain).

Naturally the hours he has worked in total, as with any job, will equate to far more than that. I think some of the low-cost carriers have a minimum working week of 55 hours, of which only 20-25 hours (at the most) will be flying time. The rest of the time is for briefings, preparing the aircraft and the time between flights

[Toruk Macto]

On the topic of fuel , its very commen to carry enough fuel into china to get home again . Due to cost of fuel in china its cheaper to take return fuel from KL to Beijing that will get you home plus reserves . This may explain why they had empty seats but standby pax only got on due to no shoes . So 9 hours endurance would be normal for 4 hour flight for example . Cat B fuel .

[Diver-BR]

Malay Mail posted an update quoting MAS CEO saying that initial investigation indicate that those final words were spoken by the F.O. He also said that while last ACARS was sent at 1:07, it is not clear when it was switched off. This info seems to cast a doubt on what was published by many news sites that the ACARS was disabled before the last radio communication.

[aviator1970]

I guess I will get flak for this question but:
Has it been absolutely & positively confirmed that the shown pilot & co-pilot were actually onboard & flying the aircraft at the start of the flight ?, I know possibly a ridiculous idea but could someone else have been flying the aircraft, substituting the listed crew at KL & has something happened to the original listed pilot & co, kidnapped, being held, part of the situation etc, I know this will get me grief but has anybody looked into that theory ? so many unanswered questions & as my previous posts, still no cargo manifest or info as to what was onboard, apologies if my question offends any one. PH.


I know its been flagged earier... but sounds coherent and plausable.... any views? Especially keeping in mind the point raised #5142?

Keith Ledgerwood ? Did Malaysian Airlines 370 disappear using SIA68 (another 777)? (http://keithledgerwood.tumblr.com/post/79838944823/did-malaysian-airlines-370-disappear-using-sia68)

[Tallman]

From the new information given at today's PC is seems that the last "All right" transmission may or may not have happened after ACARS was switched off/failed:

Last ACARS: 1:07am
Next expected ACARS: 1:37am - this did not happen so switched off/failed somewhere in between

"All right" message: 1:19am so this could be either before OR after ACARS was switched off/failed. When probed by a journo the Minister did not want to go into it which is strange to say the least - is there some other info not being shared with us on this as to my knowledge they were saying that it was switched off before the "All right" message.

[Mr Optimistic]

I understand that a/c carry a manually deployable ELT unit. If this is correct if activated inside the cabin would the signal be detectable ?

[SOPS]

I don't even understand why the sequence of what order the shut down of equipment and radio transmissions even matters. Can some one please explain what I'm missing?

[grassyknell]

Speaking as a dumb pax, I’ve been appalled/astonished to learn from all this that comms/tracking systems can be simply ‘switched off’. So if the mod’s will permit:

1. Under what circumstances (terrorism aside) would these systems be switched off by crew?

2. Putting aside the who/why of the MH370disappearance, what do you pilots want or anticipate will happen with these systems in the future? Will they or should they be configured so that they can never be turned off?

From my angle, I’d feel a wee bit safer if I thought that my flight was always broadcasting its location.

[DADDY-OH!]

FE Hoppy

And how much further could you go at ECON Cost Index 0 for the same fuel load?

If your speed was 0, indeed you're going nowhere, but for the purposes of establishing a search area, I think assuming the speed of the aircraft was 0 is irrelevant.

All anyone can do is:

Look at how much more than Flight Plan fuel was loaded.

Take the FOB (Fuel On Board) figure from the last ACARS position report or estimate it from the PLOG at the waypoint where the ATC handover took place if the ACARS didn't report it, amending for any extra uplift of fuel, pre-departure.

Establish Maximum & Minimum Range markers based on facts including potential crew instigated cruising Mach/IAS variation techniques (ECON CI '0', LRC, Mmo etc.) & 'best guessed' fuel on board for endurance from the last known position.

When new information comes to light such as the aircraft may have been 'Terrain Masking' it would probably add a much smaller 'theoretical' range than originally thought because of the increased fuel burn at low level, ergo reducing range.

Using 'Minimum Airspeed 0' will only keep you at the last KNOWN position. And it aint there.

[Lord Spandex Masher]

Aviator1970

Wouldn’t the SIA68 flight have detected MH370? NO! The Boeing 777 utilizes a TCAS system for traffic avoidance; the system would ordinarily provide alerts and visualization to pilots if another airplane was too close. However that system only operates by receiving the transponder information from other planes and displaying it for the pilot. If MH370 was flying without the transponder, it would have been invisible to SIA68.

In addition, the TCAS system onboard MH370 would have enabled the pilot(s) to easily locate and approach SIA68 over the Straits of Malacca as they appeared to have done. The system would have shown them the flight’s direction of travel and the altitude it was traveling which would have enabled them to perfectly time an intercept right behind the other Boeing 777. Here is a picture of a TCAS system onboard a 777.

It won't work if it's turned off but it's turned on so they can locate the SIA which means...?

[Seat 32F]

I wish the journalists would ask for the info on the other pings.

The lack of info on previous pings from MH370 might mean:

1 - the data is not available. Seems unlikely
2 - the data doesn't correlate with other known observations and is regarded as irrelevant.
3 - the data is not being released because it might compromise something happening behind the scenes.

Given that the aircraft tracked eastwards initially, perhaps the POR satellite picked up its signals, rather than IOR. Furthermore, if this happened during climb prior to ACARS becoming disabled, there would probably be some useful data to look at. The collective expertise of others on this forum might well hold the key to solving this puzzle, given the right information.

[sandos]

Using 'Minimum Airspeed 0' will only keep you at the last KNOWN position. And it aint there.

It will of course not. You can fly for 30 minutes, then crash. You can fly for 1 hour, then crash etc.

[HazelNuts39]

I am just an occasional visitor of this thread looking for any substantial development in this mysterious disappearance.

Can someone please explain to me the origin of the 'corridors'?

I understand that the red circle represents the distance between the airplane and the satellite at the time of the last 'ping'. I suppose there is another circle centered on the position of the aircraft at the last radar contact, and a radius equal to the distance flown in the time between the last radar contact and the last ping. So the last possible positions of the aircraft are the two intersections of these two circles or somewhere in between. Why would the airplane proceed from these points along the red circle?

[FE Hoppy]

If you use the minimum flight speed to define the nearest point on the arc you are neglecting the fact that the aircraft could fly in circle at the minimum flight speed rather than a straight line.

I know having spend far too many hours flying in circles in large aircraft.

[Mr Optimistic]

Terrain masking? Couldn't a descent be in response to depressurization, or at least announced to pax as such if nefarious to keep up appearances?

[Mahatma Kote]

It won't work if it's turned off but it's turned on so they can locate the SIA which means...? A laptop with a $20 USB radio receiver can pick up and display ADS-B data no problems. No need to turn on any active systems.

[physicus]

Every device that draws power from the airplane's electrical system needs to be able to be switched off or at least needs to have circuit breaker which trips or can be manually pulled in case something in the device shorts. This CB trips ideally before a fire erupts. Fire and airplanes are a bad combination and have on far greater occasions led to tragedy than terrorism or auto-hijacks have.

If anything, we should be seriously reconsidering the hijack proof doors, as many have noted, once someone is in there who's crazy, nobody can get to them to stop them. At least in the days of the plastic toilet doors, there was an easy way in.

[aviator1970]

any list of old disused/abandoned airfields of any vintage in the southern Indian Ocean? I am sure its been discussed...

[Flugbegleiter]

Before too much time passes, the best way to find MH370 (if it hasn't crashed) is to take advantage of passengers' cellphones...
I agree, and I'm surprised no cellphone pips have shown up anywhere. I know that passengers are required to have their phones in "airplane mode", but I also know that you never get 100% compliance with that. So it would be reasonable to assume that at least some GSM phones would have been switched on, either in passengers' pockets or bags. I know I have left my phone on between SIN and FRA (by mistake) and have received "Welcome to xxxx" messages from one or two countries along the flight path.

That said, GSM jammers are quite cheap and easy to come by in parts of Asia...

[Lord Spandex Masher]

A laptop with a $20 USB radio receiver can pick up and display data ADS-B no problems. No need to turn on any active systems.

In which case his TCAS theory is rubbish.

Can a laptop track accurately enough to allow an intercept? I doubt it as TCAS isn't that accurate and it does NOT show you direction of travel in any case.

[EngineeringPilot]

okay so the airline CEO is now saying that the plane's cargo contained mostly 3-4 tonnes of mangosteens that it was carrying to China. He also added, "no hazardous cargo" on board.

[oldoberon]

The arc's showing north and south 'routes' potential locations for the final SATCOM 'ping' are only very approximate guides. Added to this, in the most extreme scenario the final 'ping' could have been sent up to 59 mins before the aircraft had actually landed or its engines were shutdown or had flamed out. (I.E. final event could potentially occur only 1 minute before the next ping was due to be transmitted)
This being the case we need to add that extra 59mins potential range, so at 480kts add another 480nm!
Also if still at altitude and the engines flamed out on this 59th minute then at FL390 you could easily add an additional glide distance of a further 150nm. (still air) Therefore, in this extreme scenario there is (very roughly) a potential further 630nm of omni directional error. Effectively you can redraw these arcs, giving them a 630nm radius (or put another way 1260nm wide!) Perhaps someone could apply these distance and post the revised arc's.

Valid point someone did about 25 pages back making the arcs look like a big "sausage)


Just looked back it is post#4521 on page 227 posted by PJM.

[FE Hoppy]

HazelNuts39

I am just an occasional visitor of this thread looking for any substantial development in this mysterious disappearance.

Can someone please explain to me the origin of the 'corridors'?

I understand that the red circle represents the distance between the airplane and the satellite at the time of the last 'ping'. I suppose there is another circle centered on the position of the aircraft at the last radar contact, and a radius equal to the distance flown in the time between the last radar contact and the last ping. So the last possible positions of the aircraft are the two intersections of these two circles or somewhere in between. Why would the airplane proceed from these points along the red circle?

You're better off staying away.

However,
The there is no inference that the aircraft proceeded along the red line. The red line simply plots all the possible positions at the time of last ping.
The extremes of the line are based on range from last known position and I assume they are now wind corrected and take into account possible fuel remaining at time of last ping.

There is some confusion now over the gap in the middle as the explanation given at todays press briefing is what we would call "bobbins" in my part of the world.

[Mahatma Kote]

Can a laptop track accurately enough to allow an intercept?

It can track as accurately as the resolution of the ADS-B location inputs. All the laptop does is listen to the ADS-B broadcasts and display the location, elevation, and call-sign data sent in the broadcast.

I don't know if the same location data (GPS? and/or INS?) is used in TACAS.

I would guess the location and elevation data is at least as good as GPS data - i.e. a couple of tens of metres laterally and twice that vertically.

[Golf-Mike-Mike]

If a waypoint is inserted and activated in the active route a Waypoint Change Event Report is triggered in ACARS.


Had the waypoint been inserted on the ground, before activating the flight plan, admittedly a check of the whole route would be visible to the crew, but would an ACARS report be triggered then ?

[RetiredBA/BY]

As I posted earlier, I have little doubt that after AF 447 and now MH370 there is a need for a complete re-think on Flight Data Recorders for long range aircraft, with ETOPS sectors, becoming ever longer.

My thoughts on real time FDR transmission through ACARS or other SATCOM is not entirely new but I see the major consideration seems to be cost even though the technology exists. Whilst that cost issue MAY be the case if there was continuous data streaming can any electronics or satcom engineers explain if the technology exists to make a burst of compressed data, lasting only a fraction of a second , say every 30 seconds. Data to include basic flight data, alt. airspeed, hdg, and GPS position. A 30 second interval could at least fix the aircraft to within 5 miles or so at Mach.8. AND even with basic data give an idea of the problem and greatly assist in the recovery of the full FDR and CVR.

A number of unsolved accidents led to the introoduction of FDRs and CVRs (and eventually, I guess, cockpit video recorders) so I have little doubt that, after the AF and MH problems, we WILL get this live data sooner or later.

[ronstv]

Seat 32F
I think the data is there, its just that Boeing dont look at it

[Lost in Saigon]

Perhaps you should read the FANS Operations Manual. If a waypoint is inserted and activated in the active route a Waypoint Change Event Report is triggered in ACARS.

Thanks for the suggestion. The FANS Operations Manual makes for interesting reading. Way more info than we get in our regular training. It looks like whoever programmed the turn didn't know about it either, and it likely triggered the last ACARS transmission.

http://overlookci.com/files/Download/FANS-1A%20Operations%20Manual%20-%20Version%206-0%20.pdf


6.2.2 The event contract
An event contract specifies a request for reports to be transmitted by the aircraft whenever a defined “event”
occurs. Only one event contract can be established between a ground system and a particular aircraft at any one
time, however the event contract can contain multiple event types.

Note that multiple ATSUs with ADS-C connections can each establish their own event contracts with an
aircraft.

Once an event contract has been established, it remains in effect until the specific event requests are fulfilled, or
it is cancelled by the ground system.

The Vertical Rate Change Event is triggered when the aircraft’s vertical rate is either less than or greater than
a parameter defined in the contract.

The Lateral Deviation Change Event is triggered when the aircraft’s actual position exceeds a lateral distance
parameter from the aircraft’s expected position on the active flight plan.

The Altitude Range Change Event is triggered when the aircraft’s altitude exceeds the altitude ceiling or floor
defined in the contract by the ground system.

Once a vertical rate change, lateral deviation change, or altitude range event trigger has occurred, a recurrence
of this event no longer triggers an event report. The ground system must initiate a new event contract every time
that one of these specific events occurs.

The Waypoint Change Event is triggered by a change to the next or the next-plus-one waypoints. Such a
change normally occurs due to routine waypoint sequencing. However, it will also be triggered by occurrences
such as a change to a non-ATS waypoint entered by the pilot for operational reasons, or execution of a new
route affecting the next or next-plus-one waypoints. Unlike the other event contracts, the waypoint change
event
trigger remains in effect for all waypoint changes.



6.3.3 Flight crew modification of active route
The flight crew will often insert non-ATS waypoints into the active flight plan in the FMS for flight system monitoring, or will modify the active route for planning purposes. Once the change is activated, a Waypoint Change Event report may be triggered. If so, non-ATS waypoints included in the active flight plan will be reflected in the Predicted Route Group, as well as the Intermediate and Fixed Projected Intent Groups, which may result in the next, or the next-plus-one waypoints from the report not being waypoints expected in the ATS flight plan or flight data record.

[sandos]

Before too much time passes, the best way to find MH370 (if it hasn't crashed) is to take advantage of passengers' cellphones. If you place a cellphone base station on a flight, and beam the signal down to earth, as the plane flies over, passenger's cellphones will connect to the "network" giving away their location. Can be done quickly.

This is actually a neat idea for over-land searches!

[Space Jet]

Few tonnes of mangosteens in the cargo?

Well if it has landed somewhere remote and the pax are still alive at least there is food!

[StormyKnight]

From todays press conference, the estimated fuel after the last ping was 30 minutes....

They did not explain how they came to that number considering they do not known the altitude or speed of the track it took to get to the last ping point.

I believe it is an estimate & it could also be an average since the shortest time after the last ping to flight end would be 1 minute & the longest 59 minutes.*

* assuming 1hr pings (has this been confirmed?)

[Golf-Mike-Mike]

The photo's I have seen of the Captains sim indicate to me it is little more than a toy... Maybe he simply wanted to generate an interest in aviation in his children?

I thought it had already been reported here a while back that he was doing some work for the flight sim software development company (PMDG?)

[Pontius Navigator]

There have been many statements that the two pilots did not ask to be on the same flight.

There have also been musing as to why the aircraft turned back to the west if the intention was to go west why not take an aircraft that we routed to the west.

Is it possible that the two pilots took the opportunity presented when chance scheduled them on the same flight? That the flight was scheduled for the wrong direction would account for the turn back.

Against this is the appearance of evasive routing to avoid or confuse detection.

So, had the two pilots flown together before? Had they flown this sector before? When were they scheduled for this flight?

We know the Captain was probably fatigued following his activities before the flight; what about the FO? Was he properly rested and might he have been the PIC?

This appears to suggest one or other pilot was to blame but I don't think these questions have been posed or answered, especially given that initial positive statement that they didn't ask to fly that sector.

[Token Bird]

It is indeed frustrating that they haven't published the arcs generated by any pings except for the final one.

I notice that now they consider the primary contact that was picked up by Malaysian military radar to have definitely have been MH370. It is now being labelled on maps in the media as 'last radar contact'.

What led them to believe that this contact was definitely MH370 and not just probably MH370? Are we to assume that the arcs from the intermediate pings confirm this?

Curious as is it not possible that the aircraft went straight from its last known secondary radar position direct to a point on one of the two arcs generated by the final ping?

[Andu]

Am I the only one who thinks that if the 'pilot suicide' line currently in favour by many commentators turns out to false (as I suspect it is), we may well see all airlines forced to adopt what I think is already the El Al system where the pilots are totally isolated from the cabin for the whole flight? (Does El Al allow a small servery hatch for meals, or is everything the pilots require, including food, put in with them before the flight?)

If I'm right, you can see why the airlines are so keen to accept the pilot suicide line, for any such moves will cost a fortune to implement, with precious First Class revenue space lost as the security door is moved aft to incorporate a toilet, a mini galley, and for some airlines - (many of you will know the one I'm talking about) - a pilot rest area.

Can you imagine what that would be like on ultra long haul, with two crews cooped up together for fifteen hours in what I know will be the smallest area the companies can get away with providing?

[Flugbegleiter]

Am I the only one who thinks that if the 'pilot suicide' line currently in favour by many commentators turns out to false (as I suspect it is), we may well see all airlines forced to adopt what I think is already the El Al system where the pilots are totally isolated from the cabin for the whole flight?
I think this would (unfortunately) be a good idea. For someone in the know, you wouldn't need a bomb to get onto the flight deck. Despite the extra security these days, there are still a few holes in the Swiss cheese...

[jcjeant]

Hi,

lexoncd
The last words to atc apparently from the co pilot were "All right, good night" some say this was rather casual. It was also several minutes after scars was switched off. Was this an attempt by the pilot to draw attention to something going on in the cockpit? Then major altitude changes 43,000 ft to 25,000.
"It was also several minutes after the ACARS was switched off"
Yes and no!
It's a ACARS send
About 10 minutes later it's the last voice com
As you know the gap between each ACARS sending is 30 minutes so .. you can't know precisely if the last voice com was made after or before ACARS switch off

[EngineeringPilot]

@StormyKnight


* assuming 1hr pings (has this been confirmed?)


Yes, 1hr interval pings have been confirmed.

[EngineeringPilot]

Am I the only one who thinks that if the 'pilot suicide' line currently in favour by many commentators turns out to false (as I suspect it is), we may well see all airlines forced to adopt what I think is already the El Al system where the pilots are totally isolated from the cabin for the whole flight? (Does El Al allow a small servery hatch for meals, or is everything the pilots require, including food, put in with them before the flight?)


If this happens, God help us all! I'm pretty sure FAA will come up with another idea though, as locking up the pilot and co-pilot together in a box for a 12hr flight, while being in charge of the aircraft and everyone on board, is simply inhumane.

[Golf-Mike-Mike]

@PA28Viking

"...all three types of transmission could have stopped/been disabled at the same time due to human action or technical malfunction"

I believe the authorities have said/implied that they know that "ACARS was disabled by someone on board" and readers here have suggested that's because it did a tidy "log-off", which itself sends out a transmission, rather than suddenly stopping transmissions. But (I think) you're right in saying that all 3 of comms, xpdr and ACARS could have been disabled at the same time at or around the FIR boundary

[Captain Charisma]

@Lord Spandex Masher

Correct TCAS does not display direction of travel per se, it does however show the position of the other aircraft relative to yourself.
Hopefully a TCAS is that accurate otherwise the sole purpose of its use is for naught.

[sky9]

"Malaysia Airlines revealed the plane’s co-pilot, Fariq Abdul Hamid, was the last person to communicate to the ground from the cockpit, apparently after the communications system was shut off."

[Yancey Slide]

I thought it had already been reported here a while back that he was doing some work for the flight sim software development company (PMDG?)
PMDG has said this is not correct.
PMDG Simulations Comments on the loss of MH 370 - PMDG General Forum - The AVSIM Community (http://forum.avsim.net/topic/436853-pmdg-simulations-comments-on-the-loss-of-mh-370/#entry2943050)

[DADDY-OH!]

FE Hoppy

What is the elapsed time from the last known position (Malaysian/Vietnamese FIR boundary) to the nearest point on the 'arc inducing, satellite-based ping'?

What is the distance from the last known position (Malaysian/Vietnamese FIR boundary) to the nearest point on the 'arc inducing, satellite-based ping'?

Do the facts suggest that the aircraft 'flew in a circle'?
If the flight crew, a member of it or a knowledgable intruder into the flight deck were trying to make the aircraft 'disappear', why would they fly around in circles inside airspace that has SSR & Primary radar capability? Isn't the airspace around there fairly busy at that time of night?

The flight had NO crew-actioned communication whatsoever, post the 'Goodnight' sign off at handover. The transponder & ACARS were manually selected OFF. If the aircraft had a bonafide emergency, the crew still had 2 or 3 VHF radios & probably a pair of HF radios & maybe even a SATPHONE on the flight deck, depending on the MAS fit, in order to communicate a problem. Lots of communications methods available, none were utilised.

[PA28Viking]

It was clarified at the press conference today, that they do not know when the ACARS was turn off/stopped. They only know that the last transmission was at 17.07 and that the next transmission expected 17.37 never happened.

[rgbrock1]

As many others, I am thoroughly perplexed by this whole incident. Some of the questions is my mind are:

1. If this was a case of pilot suicide (which I personally highly doubt) why would he have gone through the bother of shutting comms systems down and taken another course instead of simply ditching the plane as soon as possible?

2. If this was a case of a hijacking this would also be highly unusual in that hijackers usually want to make some sort of statement and have their demands met.

3. If this was a case of mechanical failure then why did the aircraft 'ping' a satellite(s) hours later?

4. If this was a case of cabin depressurization, and resulting hypoxia, then the aircraft would not have been able to be turned around to another flight path?

5. Why would anyone fly the aircraft to 45,000'? What purpose would this serve other than "ridding" the aircraft of coherent, or semi-coherent, passengers?

I'm sure there are several other questions I'm not asking.

However, having said all that and this is just my own feelings on this issue: I wonder if the aircraft and passengers landed somewhere else and was refueled to await "further orders"?? I know this scenario is a bit "out there" but......

[Lord Spandex Masher]

@Lord Spandex Masher

Correct TCAS does not display direction of travel per se, it does however show the position of the other aircraft relative to yourself.
Hopefully a TCAS is that accurate otherwise the sole purpose of its use is for naught.

Yes it'll give you a rough indication of other aircraft positions but it's sole purpose is to provide vertical separation/guidance. It is notoriously inaccurate laterally and certainly not good enough for interception and that's not even counting it's extremely limited range.

I guess that's why fighters have expensive radar kits as opposed to TCAS.

[SLFplatine]

Quote:
something about a Flight Engineer as a PAX on board the aircraft? any one else heard about this?
-early article in WSJ indicated a Malaysian aircraft engineer aboard -did not indicate whether Pax or crew

[DespairingTraveller]

It was clarified at the press conference today, that they do not know when the ACARS was turn off/stopped. They only know that the last transmission was at 17.07 and that the next transmission expected 17.37 never happened.
Which presumably means that, contrary to supposition, no tidy "system logoff" message was received, and that in fact there is nothing to support the hypothesis now rampant that the crew or some other person deliberately disabled the transmission of ACARS data, and reopens the possibility that it was lost through some failure event or other?

[PA28Viking]

It was clarified at the press conference today, that they do not know when the ACARS was turn off/stopped. They only know that the last transmission was at 17.07 and that the next transmission expected 17.37 never happened.

We have three phases of the flight:

1) The known part which took MH370 to IGARI. Around 17.20 we had the last voice comm and transponder stopped. Last ACARS was 17.07 and next expected ACARS was 17.37. So all three types of transmission could have stooped/been disabled at the same time due to human action or technical malfunction.

2) The primary radar part where the flight is seen tracking towards VAMPI/GILVA/IGREX. We know little about that track. Important is if the aircraft could be seen to be manoeuvring in a way indicating humans controlling the flight path.

3) The 'dark' part where MH370 is travelling to its faith on the 40 dgr arc north or south. This could either have been under control of humans as intended by pilots/hijackers OR just a continuation of whatever was programmed at some stage before loss of control (HELIOS style).

Remember that what happened may not be what hijackers intended or the pilots tried to accomplish in an attempt to save the aircraft.

[Xeptu]

I think since every second post is about the pings, we need to put that into perspective.
Firstly its very clever and definitely a line of enquiring worth persuing, however it must still be treated with caution, there are some assumptions made just the same as in any other theory.
Firstly the ping is literally just that a ping, it has no identifiable data with it. Its purpose is purely to check a devices readiness it is not limited to just aircraft satcom systems.
The assumptions that have been made in this particular case is that MH370 satcom unit has pinged one hour after its last transmission or acars shutdown and that MH370 was in fact the unidentified military radar target in the malacca strait at the time of the ping. If the assumptions are correct then we listen out for each hourly ping. If on the other hand the assumptions are not for example the ping came from another source say SQ68 bound for Barcelona, then that line of enquiry ends right there.
The 0811 ping is the last one received at the expected time, not necessarily the only ping received that could be from MH370 because the next expected time would be beyond the time that the satcom could possibly be powered. (fuel)
The difficulty is that as the hours tick by the probability of a ping at the expected time becomes more likely that it could be from a different source, particularly towards Europe on the northern arc as aircraft and satcom units start powering up for their days work. I hope this puts the satcom ping back into perspective.

[oldoberon]

About 8 pages back EPPo posted today's update and says they had 6 pings that is basically 1 an hour after falling of milrad.
Please follow me through this.


If you look at the map by Volcanicash page 203 #4043 ( http://s8.postimg.org/ye87yekz9/isat.jpg )

Counting back that is 40, 45,50,55,60 65. He clearly could not have gotten that close to the centre of the elevation rings ,and still get to those final arcs, so he must have flown at tangent to them, My best guess is

1st ping 45 - west bound from final radar loss point
2nd ping 50 still west ish bound
3rd ping 55 still west ish bound
he then turns NW or SW
4th ping 50
5th ping 45
6th ping 40

and ended up on the north or south arc.

But there was a rush to the north (Andam sea) why?


Finally if you look at this link from Vinnie_boombatz p201 #4011
http://telecom.esa.int/telecom/media/img/hiresimage/BGANX1-Obj4-hres.jpg


It shows the beaming arrangement of the I-4 series inmarsats (3 cover the world), there is wide beam (the whole area), a number of regional beams and finally the narrow beams. ( used I-3 diag for explanation purpose only)

To my knowledge the signals were picked up by the old I-3 sats which use 4 to cover the world and only have wide and regional beams.

As I understand the workings of the system the sat send a "hello anyone there" signal using the wide beam and if a reply is received it calculates the best regional beam to use transmits back to the response using the regional beam. Sat engineers pls confirm/correct.

The point of this post is to ask an expert if it can do that why don't we know a more accurate position ie a shorter arc based on the regional beam.

yes it is my own post from late night early morning but still hoping satellite savvy person can confirm because it would tell us it is possible to significantly shorten the arcs. MY hypothesis below could rule out the northern one

CAN PINGS GIVE CONFIRMATION OD A CONSTANT HDG ( not the actual hdg)

Most of the investigators work seems to assume a constant speed (presumably based on distance between pings.

The following assumes the rings shown are just the five degree rings for clarity ie they not fixed aerials on the satellite but dependent on aircraft position and all others are possible ie 51,52,53,53 etc

If you used this speed and assumed at any previous ping the aircraft crossed 1st ring at 90 deg, then you can calculate at which ring the next ping should occur at, if it is less than this radius , you should be able to using this difference calculate the angle at which he crossed the second ring to give this reduced distance ( ie actual distance traveled is the same but not at 90 deg to 2nd ring. If following pings show the same ring spacing he is on a constant track. You will not know where on the arc he crossed it or the hdg.

If plane on a constant track I would suspect heading south because north would certainly end up with a contact on radar unless evasive action taken.

Any maths folk out there who can confirm this is a valid idea.

[DADDY-OH!]

FE Hoppy

I've re-read your posts. How big a circle are you talking about? Enough to 'lose' a bit of time until MH370 could get close enough to another airliner, for example SIA68, to 'shadow'? To use this unsuspecting 'host' to mask MH370's transit through SSR, Primary & Procedural airspace?

It's feasible but isn't it all a bit too 'James Bond'?

[mixture]

As an IT professional I have been wondering about the following the last few days. We all have seen tomnod publishing DigitalGlobe maps where users can search for the plane. Wouldn't it be possible for someone smarter than me to come up with an algorithm to scan all the satellite imagery from DigitalGlobe to eliminate big parts of the ocean in the search operation. Water has a characteristic pattern / color and I'm sure an algorithm could be developed to search for patterns out of the ordinary (floating debris). Then these hits could be checked by specialists or even through crowdsourcing.

As an "IT Professional" you should know better ! Exactly how long do you think its going to take someone (or rather, as you well know, a number of someones... known as developers !) to (a) come up with a viable algorithm (b) code it (c) test and debug it ........ seriously man ! Its a non-starter of a hairbrained idea to think someone would expend so much resource !

The best you can hope for in that area is that, seeing as they are in the business of analysing satellite images for people trying to hide stuff, the intelligence agencies already have such an algorithm already in-use and that their masters may permit them to use it for this purpose to see what they can come up with (obviously findings would never be publicly released for obvious reasons, but would be passed in some obfuscated form to the nations taking part in the SAR). But I suspect satellite resources in that part of the world may be busy elsewhere... and they'd need a lot of fresh imagery becasue of the vast search area of seas + some landmass.

As for "crowdsourcing" don't make me laugh. Tomnod is no more than marketing PR excercise for its owners. Have you seen the sort of nonsense the "crowdsourcing" community have been highlighting on the images ? People with no SAR and no satellite imagery analysis experience are not going to come up with anything of remote use.

[Finn47]

The police have been looking into the background of this so-called flight engineer travelling as pax and it seems he has been employed as an engineer by a business jet outfit, for what it´s worth.

As an engineer specialising in executive jets, Khairul would not necessarily have all the knowledge needed to divert and fly a large jetliner.
Khairul had said he worked for a Swiss-based jet charter firm called Execujet Aviation Group, but the company declined to say whether it still employed him.
In a picture posted on Khairul's Facebook account in 2011, he identified himself as an employee of Execujet's Malaysian operations.
Missing MH370: Flight engineer aboard plane under probe - Nation | The Star Online (http://www.thestar.com.my/News/Nation/2014/03/17/Missing-mh370-flight-engineer-investigate/)

[Alloyboobtube]

My first post and sorry I haven't read all previous.
I was wondering is it possible the signals from MH370 could be replicated by another party on another aircraft while 370 diverts to wherever it is now.
I remember getting a Tcas RA ONCE due to a person on the ground calibrating a transponder, to us it looked like an aircraft was coming up from beneath at a very fast pace and we got an RA but there was nothing there.
Equipment could be used to show it went to 45,000 when it actually didn't or that the signal was a decoy.

[oldoberon]

Xeptu I understood even a basic ping containing the embedded code for the aircraft frame number.

Also if SQ68 (and assuming SIA use satconm for acars) that would definitely identify it as SQ68

[Lord Spandex Masher]

I believe what he's saying is that MH370, with transponder off, is invisible to any other TCAS system switched on nearby. However, MH370 could still have TCAS switched on, and detect any a/c nearby with its transponder working. His TCAS theory holds water, it seems to me.

If your TCAS is on then you are visible to other aircraft.

[syllogism]

I think since every second post is about the pings, we need to put that into perspective.
Firstly its very clever and definitely a line of enquiring worth persuing, however it must still be treated with caution, there are some assumptions made just the same as in any other theory.
Firstly the ping is literally just that a ping, it has no identifiable data with it. Its purpose is purely to check a devices readiness it is not limited to just aircraft satcom systems.
The assumptions that have been made in this particular case is that MH370 satcom unit has pinged one hour after its last transmission or acars shutdown and that MH370 was in fact the unidentified military radar target in the malacca strait at the time of the ping. If the assumptions are correct then we listen out for each hourly ping. If on the other hand the assumptions are not for example the ping came from another source say SQ68 bound for Barcelona, then that line of enquiry ends right there.
According to an Inmarsat official quoted by CNN, these handshakes contain a unique code verifying the identity of the aircraft. Indeed, the whole purpose of the handshake is to verify whether the specific aircraft's system is still responding, so what you are proposing makes no sense.

Help from above: Satellite signals can confirm a plane's identity - CNN.com (http://edition.cnn.com/2014/03/17/world/asia/satellite-signals-plane-identity-flight-370/)

[FE Hoppy]

@ ALL THE PRESS

There is a distinction between an aircraft engineer and a Flight Engineer. Please use the correct term.

Regards
FE

[Golf-Mike-Mike]

PMDG has said this is not correct.
PMDG Simulations Comments on the loss of MH 370 - PMDG General Forum - The AVSIM Community (http://forum.avsim.net/topic/436853-pmdg-simulations-comments-on-the-loss-of-mh-370/#entry2943050)

Thanks for setting me right. Good, measured press release by them, worth others reading :)

[ZOOKER]

overthewing,
It's an interesting theory. It may have already been covered, but if MH370 was at FL295, behind another heavy at FL300, how would that work in respect of wake vortex, which descends and spreads laterally behind the leading aircraft?

[Token Bird]

4. If this was a case of cabin depressurization, and resulting hypoxia, then the aircraft would not have been able to be turned around to another flight path?

Is it possible that the crew were partially incapacitated from insidious hypoxia caused by a slow decompression and tried to reprogramme the FMS to take them back to Kuala Lumpur. However, they failed to do this correctly and the aircraft turned onto an approximately southerly track, taking them past but not to Kuala Lumpur?

With complete unconsciousness and death following some time later for everyone on board, the aircraft just flew on this southerly track until it's fuel ran out, shortly after it gave its last ping, at which point it was positioned on the southern arc.

In other words, could this still possibly be just a terrible accident? No suicides, no hijackers, no nefarious goings on of any kind?

[SgtBundy]

As an "IT Professional" you should know better ! Exactly how long do you think its going to take someone (or rather, as you well know, a number of someones... known as developers !) to (a) come up with a viable algorithm (b) code it (c) test and debug it ........ seriously man ! Its a non-starter of a hairbrained idea to think someone would expend so much resource !

Most image algorithms you would need are part of your basic photoshop or image tools already - there are some you could probably apply from existing freeware tools without more than 10 minutes testing a few sample images.

There are some simple algorithms as a simple sysadmin that I can think of off the top of my head, that no doubt the sorts of people who work in image analysis and geo-mapping software could probably easily do:

1. Simple divide and conquer - take large areas of ocean, divide into uniform sections. In a parallel process apply a simple averaging of each section to reject any that are all ocean or all cloud. Feed the remaining images up for crowd sourcing in the manner tomnod are. I would not be surprised if they are not doing this already.

2. Same process, but use edge detection (as mentioned above) to find interesting sections and feed them up for more analysis.

There are probably more advanced methods that could be used to identify shapes or eliminate other noise, but the above could certainly cut down the workload and its hardly a difficult thing to do with an elastic platform like Amazon or the sorts of environments Google and Facebook have at their disposal.

I think its a bit naive to outright reject something that is quite technically feasible and hardly difficult for someone used to working with this sorts of technology. Especially at the sorts of places that deal with satellite imagery day in day out.

[deptrai]

Apparently the last r/t, the "good night", was made by the FO.

Not that that piece of information will help a lot, but it's more interesting than knowing an alleged bizjet mechanic was on board. Obviously every pax is getting thoroughly scrutinized, and the media will jump on everyone with an aviation background, in the absence of other news. No need to discuss that here...

[volcanicash]

FE Hoppy said:

There is some confusion now over the gap in the middle as the explanation given at todays press briefing is what we would call "bobbins" in my part of the world.Bobbins or not, the implication of the press briefing is that max/min speed calculations are among the data that have been used to bound the arcs or corridors. The diagram below shows roughly what was described (note this is not an official document - just my own interpretation of the words used in the press briefing to answer a question about the extent of the corridors):

http://s28.postimg.org/bjjshx7q5/MH370_Mar17.jpg

As others have suggested, clearly there are circular/zig-zag paths that could leave you on the red line inside the minimum range circle - but there may be other data (including earlier "pings") that allow this possibility to be discounted.

Perhaps one of the watching media reps will ask about this at (or before) tomorrow's press briefing.

[SLFplatine]

The current 'official' operational theory is this plane was, for lack of a better word, 'stolen' by person or persons unknown who knew what they were doing (disable transponder, ACARS, etc., took flight path to avoid radar detection) and who had meticulously planned the operation in advance. A turn west from/after IGARI was entered into the active flight plan in the FMS; this is known as the last ACARS report indicated this waypoint change event.
So, how come the highly knowledgeable careful planning 'perp(s)' left this big fat clue? -yes, perhaps the were unaware ACARS would report a waypoint change event however if one has carefully planned this type of operation one would certainly not do anything out of the ordinary before disabling ACARS.
So, again the Q

[flightdecksoftware]

As an "IT Professional" you should know better ! Exactly how long do you think its going to take someone (or rather, as you well know, a number of someones... known as developers !) to (a) come up with a viable algorithm (b) code it (c) test and debug it ........ seriously man ! Its a non-starter of a hairbrained idea to think someone would expend so much resource !

The best you can hope for in that area is that, seeing as they are in the business of analysing satellite images for people trying to hide stuff, the intelligence agencies already have such an algorithm already in-use and that their masters may permit them to use it for this purpose to see what they can come up with (obviously findings would never be publicly released for obvious reasons, but would be passed in some obfuscated form to the nations taking part in the SAR). But I suspect satellite resources in that part of the world may be busy elsewhere.

As for "crowdsourcing" don't make me laugh. Tomnod is no more than marketing PR excercise for its owners. Have you seen the sort of nonsense the "crowdsourcing" community have been highlighting on the images ? People with no SAR and no satellite imagery analysis are not going to come up with anything of remote use.

I'm not an expert in image processing, but when processing these images I would expect that if you find debris you would see a lot of white-ish colors. So already a "simple" color histogram could already indicate anomalies. The only problem then remains that all clouds would also appear as false positives. But maybe these can also be filtered out somehow ? And even if this is not possible you would already eliminate a lot of area to search over. I'm sure there are a lot of algorithms and filters already available to do the job (maybe with some modification).

Maybe tomnod is indeed a PR stunt, that's why I said it could be checked by specialists.

[mixture]

SgtBundy,

A week is a long time in technology.

If something remotely viable and simple to implement could have been done, it would have been done by now. The Tomnod marketing excercise was rolled out in a couple of days.

Fact of the matter is that implementing and debugging algorithms takes some time and effort... and therefore manpower and money.

Add onto that you're expecting satellite companies to retask their satellites for a vast area of fresh imagery..... who's going to pay for that on top of the development manpower for your magic algorithm.

Your optimism and faith in existing "simple algorithms" is commendable, but that's all it is.

[Golf-Mike-Mike]

Is it possible that the crew were partially incapacitated from insidious hypoxia caused by a slow decompression and tried to reprogramme the FMS to take them back to Kuala Lumpur. However, they failed to do this correctly and the aircraft turned onto an approximately southerly track, taking them past but not to Kuala Lumpur?

With complete unconsciousness and death following some time later for everyone on board, the aircraft just flew on this southerly track until it's fuel ran out, shortly after it gave its last ping, at which point it was positioned on the southern arc.

In other words, could this still possibly be just a terrible accident? No suicides, no hijackers, no nefarious goings on of any kind?

Except (I understand) they have primary radar "confirmation" of a north-easterly course after the westbound one (ie IGARI - VAMPI - GIVAL ....)

[volcanicash]

Xeptu said:

The difficulty is that as the hours tick by the probability of a ping at the expected time becomes more likely that it could be from a different source, particularly towards Europe on the northern arc as aircraft and satcom units start powering up for their days work. As previous noted, Inmarsat, while declining to discuss specifics of Flight 370, have said that each handshake always contains a code verifying the identity of the aircraft and it is "virtually impossible" to change an aircraft's identifying code or to confuse one aircraft with another. (Source CNN (http://edition.cnn.com/2014/03/17/world/asia/satellite-signals-plane-identity-flight-370/)).

[HAWK21M]

7.5hrs later the last recorded Ping picked up by Imarsat.Means the aircraft was on land and in one piece with power on.

[Xeptu]

If SQ68 had no message to send, the acars would remain silent and the satcom would ping. There is definitely no identifiable data in a ping

EDIT: If data is to be sent either way then it will be preceded by a connection request (handshake) and yes that has identifiable date of course, I understood we were dealing with a ping.

[oldoberon]

This has been extensively covered and debunked.

A pilot told us he once flew across india shadowing a LARGER aircraft, the post sounded like a military excerise I assumed from it he was in a fighter and the biggy was a tanker.

he stated he had to sit almost under it's wing, now to know that the pair of aircraft must have been in contact with the radars tracking them.

In that scenario the biggy would inform him of any flight path / alt changes about to happen, not the stealth shadowing scenario.

Also you could only shadow from radar in on direction., so if crossing air defence you are still likely to be picked up at radar overlap points.

James bond was not flying it and Cubby Broccoli was not plotting the flight path

[overthewing]

If you're TCAS is on then you are visible to other aircraft.

I'm afraid I don't know enough about TCAS to know what will happen if the a/c using it has no working transponder. Certainly, it won't co-ordinate with nearby TCAS systems as a collision advisory. But does the pilot get to see some kind of display of a/c in the vicinity? Does it still give data, but with no alarms going off?

And I don't think TCAS on /transponder off makes you visible to other a/c? Does it?

[ChickenHouse]

Does anyone have an editable version of that map and could plot the flight data of SIA68 onto that? I have done some playing around with the flightaware data and can confirm that, if the westwards sightings are half way correct, it could be possible to let MH370 sneak under the radar hood of SIA68 at about IGREX, They could even squawk the same and any radar would interpret these double echos as faulty.

Anyone aware of the radar coverage around IGREX and later NW? If this theory holds, MH370 could sneak out later for i.e. Myanmar or Pakistan or or or ...

[HAWK21M]

No transponders....no TCAS.
Except for MH370, the other Aircraft would never know.

[FE Hoppy]

@ Volcanicash

They specifically said max/min speed with no mention of other factors which is why it goes in the "bobbins" file.

And they should have said maximum range speed not maximum speed. Maximum speed would (by my back of a fag packet calculation) be more restrictive.

[skytrax]

Guys, forget about robbery scenarios and all that nonsense. Forget about the cargo, tones of gold etc that might have been on board.
Nobody in the right mind and familiar with the aviation field would try something like this because you cannnot get away with something like this. Too complicated to put in practise such thing.

I personally belive this was planned but for completly other reasons which are yet to be revealed. Hopefully we will get to know one day. Without finding the plane and black boxes information is very limited.

[Kiwiairgurl]

Re: SgtBundy

Google do public things during disasters like putting up people finder sites for people to find one another.

But they also do a lot of silent assistance and seem to be happy not to have to go public and bask in glory. So not only do they 'do no evil' they apparently 'do awesome' as well:)

I was involved in a govt role during a serious natural disaster. Google arrived within days, with the purpose of determining what logistical and expert assistance it could provide to the govt and they made available 24/7 assets by utilising Google teams located around the world.

I reckon they're already in KL and already putting their considerable capabilities where it's needed. With google earth in their asset collection they would more than have the ability to write algorithms.

[The Bullwinkle]

@ ALL THE PRESS

There is a distinction between an aircraft engineer and a Flight Engineer. Please use the correct term.

And while we're on the subject, there is a difference between a Captain and a Chief Pilot.

The Australian press keep referring to the Captain as the Chief Pilot!
If he was the Chief Pilot then this story would be even scarier!

[Mahatma Kote]

"virtually impossible" to change an aircraft's identifying codeThe identifying code has to be changeable. Every time there is a maintenance swap-out of equipment the code has to be reprogrammed in the new equipment.

The only question is whether it requires physical access to the relevant PCB or whether it can be done using independent maintenance systems or using pilot interfaces operating in maintenance mode.

[AerocatS2A]

Overthewing, all of the TCAS units I've played with have been integrated with the transponder. Turn the transponder off and you don't have a TCAS, at all, not for receiving or transmitting. Think of TCAS as a type of transponder rather than a separate system.

[macilrae]

On the subject of the "experts" who are continually trotted out by the likes of CNN and BBC - many of these folks are Professional Experts and they have spent a working lifetime polishing their credentials, rather than actually contributing to their field. They sit on the right committees, they acquire the right letters after their names and as 'talking heads' they sound super-authoritative - they excel in self-promotion. In fact you can find these people in every profession. The real experts, who can give the most insightful answers, are seldom seen - partly because they prefer to be doing real stuff - and maybe also because they are lousy presenters and shun the limelight.

[xyze]

Skytrax:

At the risk of pointing out the obvious, they HAVE gotten away with the cargo.

Whether that was their aim is anyone's guess!

[SeenItAll]

Moderators: Since it seems impossible to completely shut down this thread and the repetitive uninformed drivel that characterizes the majority of the posts, I have an alternative suggestion: split this thread into five separate threads.

One thread will be for posts suggesting that terrorists having hijacked the plane to land it or to plunder its cargo and then relaunch the plane as a bomb.
A second thread will be for the pilot suicide or "crash the plane where it will never be found" theory.
A third will be for the mechanical malfunction theory.
A fourth thread will be for a discussion of Search and Rescue operations.
And a final thread will be for posters who have not adequately read the previous posts but who want to pose a question to those that have.

By doing this, it will allow those who are absolutely convinced of terrorism not to be burdened by reading analysis about suicide or malfunctions; those who can see no logic in terrorism not to be burdened by endless X-Files speculation about cargo and Flying Dutchman relaunches; those who are sure the plane malfunctioned not to waste time discussing pilot or terrorist actions; those who just want to figure out where the plane is now not to listen to the previous three groups; and those that think they are on to something but don't want to the the research themselves to query from those that have.

This would save all of us a great deal of reading time. Thanks for listening.

[currawong]

On the balance of probability -

the northern arc is mainly over China...

the pax are mainly from China...

the cargo is mainly mangosteens...

therefore -

no, you work it out for yourselves.

Thoughts to the families of the pax and crew at this difficult time.

I remain optimistic.

(And all that without lighting up anyone's radar screen, across several countries. Outstanding.)

[litinoveweedle]

If on the other hand the assumptions are not for example the ping came from another source say SQ68 bound for Barcelona, then that line of enquiry ends right there.

IMHO pings are probably TDMA channel sync or frequency sync bursts. This means, that inside of data, there could be probably two low level identifiers.
1. the HW identifier (something like serial number of your phone (IMEI) or MAC address of you computer)
2. artificial identifier of the connection (which could be correlated with connection information stored previously in time of connection handshake)

There would be no data inside of these burst, as these serve only to SATCOM to keep connection to satellite synced and alive,

I would say that forging data connection on TDMA is possible and it is used for example to intercept GSM connections (man in the middle attack), but this process is definitely not trivial.

I would say, that probability, that these pings were mistakenly from another plane or forged to pretend to be from HM370, is really low.

[owenshaw]

Sorry if this has already been mentioned...

The 40deg contour heading north covers the Xinjiang Province/ East Turkestan. (political unrest in the area)
According to Wikipedia an East Turkestan flag was found at the Kunming Massacre.
Will any of this end up being related?

[ana1936]

some of us, maybe myself included, have been a but loose with the term ping perhaps.

Just to clarify this a little.

My understanding is that the satellites in the INMARSAT network which deal with ACARS check on the presence of their registered aircraft every hour by initiating a ping operation. This involves the satellite asking to see if a particular aircraft will answer. Only the specified aircraft will answer. And it will only answer if its engines are operating and it hears the satellite request.

[Token Bird]

Except (I understand) they have primary radar "confirmation" of a north-easterly course after the westbound one (ie IGARI - VAMPI - GIVAL ....)

That was what I was trying to figure out. I recall reading that days ago but was unsure as to where that info had come from, and if it was primary radar, was it later confirmed by the Inmarsat ping data. Since they have only released info about the final ping it's not possible to tell.

I'm going to trawl back through this thread and see if I can find the reference regarding the theory they flew IGARI-VAMPI-GIVAL.

[FlyingOfficerKite]

I wonder if the aircraft and passengers landed somewhere else and was refueled to await "further orders"??

Assuming the aircraft is intact and on the ground, what would be the purpose of this silence by the hijackers/sky pirates?

1. Secret negotiations already in progress?
2. Stealing of valuable cargo/VIP hostage?
3. Time to disperse the pax and crew with a view to hostage negotiations individually and/or
4. Preparing the aircraft to be used as a 'flying bomb' at some future date?

All mentioned before, but if the aircraft has landed safely what other explanation could there be?

If any or all of these scenarios are acted out a new dark age of aviation will be upon us.

[SgtBundy]

If something remotely viable and simple to implement could have been done, it would have been done by now. The Tomnod marketing excercise was rolled out in a couple of days.

Fact of the matter is that implementing and debugging algorithms takes some time and effort... and therefore manpower and money.

Add onto that you're expecting satellite companies to retask their satellites for a vast area of fresh imagery..... who's going to pay for that on top of the development manpower for your magic algorithm.

Your optimism and faith in existing "simple algorithms" is commendable, but that's all it is.

Tomnod was setup in the past for some Typhoon Haiyan and they were able to source/request fresh satellite passes from I believe the day it disappeared, seeing as they own the satellites. Their current effort is re-using an existing platform for a fresh task. Marketing maybe, but hardly a futile effort when at the time they were looking for a crash site, they had the satellites to do it and the technology platform to deliver it.

No doubt to yield good results it takes time to tune and improve the methods. All I am saying is that at a high level the effort to discount large sections of ocean appears trivial, and as I said I would expect this is probably something they are smart enough to have done already. If you are talking about recognizing an aircraft or specific aircraft from this imagery, yes that would be a significant effort.

Elastic infrastructure is easily available reasonably cheaply so I don't think some of what I suggested is that far fetched.

[Alloyboobtube]

Lack of signal means it could also be in 20,000 ft of water.
Could it have been landed gently in the Indian Ocean with outflow valves open and a gentle sink to the bottom intact..

[The Bullwinkle]

One thread will be for posts suggesting that terrorists having hijacked the plane to land it or to plunder its cargo and then relaunch the plane as a bomb.
A second thread will be for the pilot suicide or "crash the plane where it will never be found" theory.
A third will be for the mechanical malfunction theory.
A fourth thread will be for a discussion of Search and Rescue operations.
And a final thread will be for posters who have not adequately read the previous posts but who want to pose a question to those that have.

How about a sixth thread for those who wish to wait till the aircraft is found and the real answer is discovered?

Just a thought!

[geneman]

Simple question:
Does a ping transmitted from an aircraft and received by a geostationary satellite UNEQUIVOCALLY identify the aircraft, in the absence of any other data?

(Sorry if this has already been covered...but I couldn't find an answer to this fundamental question.)

[SLFplatine]

I think we can really forget the 'Uighur terrorist' angle -their ops expertise extends no further than hand held knives and crude VBIEDs that generally do not work as intended.

[rgbrock1]

Nortwest Orient Airlines flight 2501 was a DC-4 aircraft which was flying between NYC and Seattle, WA in June 1950, carrying 55 passengers and 3 crew members.

Last contact with the aircraft was when it was flying over Lake Michigan at 3,000 ft. She abruptly disappeared from radar and the presumed wreckage was never located. This despite the use of sonar and dragging the bottom of Lake Michigan with trawlers.

Even with modern technology in use (side-scan sonor, etc) the presumed wreckage was never found.

[Lord Spandex Masher]

And I don't think TCAS on /transponder off makes you visible to other a/c? Does it?

Like others have said you can't have one without the other. So for you to be able to track an other aircraft using TCAS the other aircraft will be able to see you, as will all the other SSR receivers in the area.

Buy like you said, I'd would be pot luck as to which aircraft you came across, there's no info from TCAS except height and to visually identify the type and the airline you need to be within about ten miles at the most.

[oldoberon]

If SQ68 had no message to send, the acars would remain silent and the satcom would ping. There is definitely no identifiable data in a ping

EDIT: If data is to be sent either way then it will be preceded by a connection request (handshake) and yes that has identifiable date of course, I understood we were dealing with a ping.

As you have only just joined the thread let me bring you up to speed as I understand it.

yes they are pings

MAS did not subscribe to acars on satcom

MAS adverts say 1st class has sat phones

PAx, engineers etc say this aircraft does not have sat phones

It does not use the newer satcom aerials which were subject to AD for corrosion but has the older two aerials.

"established" opinion and understanding over the read says that it was obviously on and pings include the unique airframe code as that is embedded into all data transmitting devices (If that is not the case there will be loads of aircraft in a similar config where satcom keeps pinging with unidentified sources.)

Not being rude can you tell us what your filed is to make your statement so emphatically, if it is sat comms pls read my post #5173 page 259

[oldoberon]

Guys, forget about robbery scenarios and all that nonsense. Forget about the cargo, tones of gold etc that might have been on board.
Nobody in the right mind and familiar with the aviation field would try something like this because you cannnot get away with something like this. Too complicated to put in practise such thing.

I personally belive this was planned but for completly other reasons which are yet to be revealed. Hopefully we will get to know one day. Without finding the plane and black boxes information is very limited.

in the 60's we would have said you can't rob a train carrying £2m but Biggsy and co did, yes it was less complicated but had you hypothesised that in the 60's the reaction would be the same as yours. WHERE THERE IS A WILL THERE IS A WAY

However I agree your last sentence.

[ana1936]

Since the pings are initiiated by the satellite the idea of the pings being from the wong aircraft need some one else to want to pretend to be MH370 for six hours.

[rigbyrigz]

SLF: " A turn west from/after IGARI was entered into the active flight plan in the FMS; this is known as the last ACARS report indicated this waypoint change event."

IF this is TRUE and corroborated, it is extremely important, since said "last ACARS rpt" is 1:07
Ongoing events timing, including goodnight signoff, would CLEARLY RULE OUT electro-mechanical mishap, hypoxia as major cause, etc. It would make deliberate human action part of the equation for sure!

I am sure this is obvious to even the non-believers. If someone entered this waypoint request into the FMC in the 30 minutes before the 1:07 automatic (when ON) ACARS report (which listed it in event log) then it is what it is.

SO: Can this SLF quote be substantiated by any source other than "XYZ NEWS says unnamed sources tell them that..." and so forth? (or can a journalist viewing this thread ASK this of PM next chance?)

SO: Does the 40degree flight correction turn tracked by FR24 at IGARI around 1:20, ALSO show on the ACARS? IS it consistent with a pre-programmed LEFT turn? Or would it override the 40degree course correction for Vietnam. Credit to BARREL for raising this confliction.

[overthewing]

Overthewing, all of the TCAS units I've played with have been integrated with the transponder. Turn the transponder off and you don't have a TCAS, at all, not for receiving or transmitting. Think of TCAS as a type of transponder rather than a separate system.

Thanks for this. Not sure this is relevant to the current thread, but does that mean that your working TCAS becomes inop if you switch the transponder to Standby?

[macilrae]

On the arcs and the pings, the published arc represents points on the earth's surface which are equidistant from the satellite and where the aircraft could be - we understand this was from the last ping received.

If, during its flight, the aircraft had been at some point, other than on the published arc, an earlier ping would have shown this - with a concentric arc of different radius - this would be pretty valuable information giving further hints as to speed and direction e.g. if two arcs an hour apart had almost the same radius then it's pretty likely the aircraft's path would have been substantially along that arc.

Again, if transit times for the earlier pings are available, all such data will surely have been already extracted but, seemingly, not yet published.

[Hang Jebat]

Hi Clayne. ARB is correct. It's indeed "Indian Muslim" restaurant. "Mamak" is a colloquial term, a corruption of the South Indian Tamil word, "Maama", which means Uncle. Nevertheless, in M'sia, you would almost certainly say "mamak" instead of "Indian-Muslim" restaurant:)

Mahatma, the pilot is Malay. Which in Malaysia means he is a Muslim. No two ways about it. It is certainly possible he may have Indian blood. M'sia is often touted as being multi-racial. However, in the old days, we actually attempted to be a melting pot of cultures and inter-racial marriages were common. Hence he could be a mixture of Malay, Indian, Chinese, Arab, etc for all we know.

Regarding usage of the words/terms "all right", "roger that", "good night" etc, I can't speak on behalf of M'sian pilots, but it is certainly commonly used here. In my organization, gentle instructions to the chaps I supervise is usually met with an " All right, Boss" response. A more terse order usually elicits a "Roger that, Boss!"
And no, I don't work for the military.

Lastly, plenty of Malaysians, yours truly included, are fervent supporters of the Opposition party. I'm happy to state here that the Oppositon party in M'sia espouses the principles of democracy and equal rights for all Malaysians.
It is certainly not run by a bunch of zealots who would encourage their members to show their affiliations to the party cause by bringing down an aircraft full of innocent people. Or hijack a plane just to vent their anger at court rulings favouring the BN government.

Hope this helps.

Cheers

[Eclectic]

The northern route potential land area is immense and a big plane going in fast and vertical only makes a fairly small crater. Also the ELTs wouldn't survive the impact.

This is a 757:

http://www.rense.com/1.imagesH/94_150.jpg

Do this where there are no population and it may never be discovered.

[Beanbag]

There must be a finite number of airfields that can receive a 777 with full pax & cargo load, even with low fuel load. It's hardly going to land on a grass strip in the middle of nowhere. So in the unlikely event it's landed in one piece how hard could it be to find?

[500N]

Beanbag

The media said over 600 airfields within the range of the 777 !

[oldoberon]

IMHO pings are probably TDMA channel sync or frequency sync bursts. This means, that inside of data, there could be probably two low level identifiers.
1. the HW identifier (something like serial number of your phone (IMEI) or MAC address of you computer)
2. artificial identifier of the connection (which could be correlated with connection information stored previously in time of connection handshake)

There would be no data inside of these burst, as these serve only to SATCOM to keep connection to satellite synced and alive,

I would say that forging data connection on TDMA is possible and it is used for example to intercept GSM connections (man in the middle attack), but this process is definitely not trivial.

I would say, that probability, that these pings were mistakenly from another plane or forged to pretend to be from HM370, is really low.

Good post

yes it was posted earlier about the Imei/mac code principle I like it.

your 2nd point not valid MAS did not use satcom for any data transfer (no contract) used vhf (and perhaps HF)

[barrel_owl]

The current 'official' operational theory is this plane was, for lack of a better word, 'stolen' by person or persons unknown who knew what they were doing (disable transponder, ACARS, etc., took flight path to avoid radar detection) and who had meticulously planned the operation in advance. A turn west from/after IGARI was entered into the active flight plan in the FMS; this is known as the last ACARS report indicated this waypoint change event.
So, how come the highly knowledgeable careful planning 'perp(s)' left this big fat clue? -yes, perhaps the were unaware ACARS would report a waypoint change event however if one has carefully planned this type of operation one would certainly not do anything out of the ordinary before disabling ACARS.
So, again the Q
I dedicated not less than five posts last night trying to explain why it is impossible that VAMPI had been programmed in the FMC as next waypoint after IGARI.
The behavior of the aircraft completely disproves this claim. As anybody else here, I have no clue what the aircraft did after 1:21 MYT, but it is safe to say that BEFORE 1:21 it was still following its original flight plan.

http://www.pprune.org/8381692-post4796.html
http://www.pprune.org/8381648-post4781.html
http://www.pprune.org/8381726-post4809.html
http://www.pprune.org/8381732-post4810.html
http://www.pprune.org/8381954-post4864.html

Please note that this "report" comes from Daily Mail and ABC News, both quoting unverified and unverifiable sources.

[cavortingcheetah]

It's not the potential existence of a landing field based upon length that should be concerning anyone as much as the location of a runway based upon the take off requirement for a heavily loaded machine.

[aterpster]

Malaysian Flight 370: A Great Show of Smoke And Mirrors - Jetwhine - Jetwhine: Aviation Buzz and Bold Opinion (http://www.jetwhine.com/2014/03/malaysian-flight-370-a-great-show-of-smoke-and-mirrors/)

[Msunduzi]

Beanbag

The media said over 600 airfields within the range of the 777 !


The one that "landed" at Heathrow took less than 300m to stop. depends whether you want it down, or want it to be able to fly again.

So add up all the flat pieces of ground, beach etc. ..................................

[FE Hoppy]

barrel_owl

Join Date: Mar 2014
Location: Brazil
Age: 45
Posts: 37
Quote:
Originally Posted by SLFplatine View Post
The current 'official' operational theory is this plane was, for lack of a better word, 'stolen' by person or persons unknown who knew what they were doing (disable transponder, ACARS, etc., took flight path to avoid radar detection) and who had meticulously planned the operation in advance. A turn west from/after IGARI was entered into the active flight plan in the FMS; this is known as the last ACARS report indicated this waypoint change event.
So, how come the highly knowledgeable careful planning 'perp(s)' left this big fat clue? -yes, perhaps the were unaware ACARS would report a waypoint change event however if one has carefully planned this type of operation one would certainly not do anything out of the ordinary before disabling ACARS.
So, again the Q
I dedicated not less than five posts last night trying to explain why it is impossible that VAMPI had been programmed in the FMC as next waypoint after IGARI.
The behavior of the aircraft completely disproves this claim. As anybody else here, I have no clue what the aircraft did after 1:21 MYT, but it is safe to say that BEFORE 1:21 it was still following its original flight plan.

Malaysian Airlines MH370 contact lost
Malaysian Airlines MH370 contact lost
Malaysian Airlines MH370 contact lost
Malaysian Airlines MH370 contact lost
Malaysian Airlines MH370 contact lost

Please note that this "report" comes from Daily Mail and ABC News, both quoting unverified and unverifiable sources.

You might have dedicated 5 posts but you proved nothing.

Insert waypoint at 07. Approaching boundary sync and select heading(incase you failed to make the waypoint a flyover).

After waypoint faint right then shortly afterwards when you think you are out of range turn left.

All the time you have your next waypoint in view for reference.

Prove that what I have written is "Impossible"!

[cribbagepeg]

The main barrier to requent, rich-content data packets is the infrastructure to support the comms. Terrestrial no big deal, but satellite bandwidth is another story. Haven't done the math, but ACARS context stuff was widely discussed in the AF447 thread, with cost also being a major hit.

[Lost in Saigon]

You might have dedicated 5 posts but you proved nothing.

Insert waypoint at 07. Approaching boundary sync and select heading(incase you failed to make the waypoint a flyover).

After waypoint faint right then shortly afterwards when you think you are out of range turn left.

All the time you have your next waypoint in view for reference.

Prove that what I have written is "Impossible"!

You are correct. It is possible.

1) The aircraft could have turned right while still on autopilot if someone put it in heading mode and selected a new heading

Or...

2) The autopilot could have been disconnected and was being hand flown.

Or...

3) It could also mean the autopilot was off and no one was at the controls while there was a struggle in the flight deck. (That could also account for the altitude variations)

[clipstone1]

Having travelled on MH 148/9 in Jan/Feb 2014, there is no First Class on the 777, hence why there's no satphones on board.

[deadheader]

No speculation here, these points are all a matter of public record. For anyone interested in all potential lines of inquiry:

Just days before the MH370 incident, Taiwan alerted China’s aviation authorities to a potential terrorist threat involving Beijing airport.
A known local organisation - Tanzim al-Qaeda Malaysia Group - has proven links to global jihadists, including Malaysian-born fighters on the ground in Syria.
The Jemaah Islamiah network (implicated in the Bali nightclub bombing 2002) includes at least one Malaysian with personal links to two of the 9/11 hijackers.
Convicted former Al Qaeda member Saajid Badat (part of failed trans-Atlantic flight shoe-bomb attack), stated in 2012 that a Malaysian Islamist Jihadist group were “plotting to hijack a passenger jet”.
Badat also said “the Malaysian plot was being masterminded by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the principal architect of 9/11”.
Prof Anthony Glees, director of the University of Buckingham’s Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies, stated “there is evidence of a Malaysian terror cell with ambitions to carry out such an attack”.

>


An opinion only: *IF* we are indeed looking at human intervention re missing MH370, given the knowledge, planning & skills needed for such a feat, it would bear all the hallmarks of a well-resourced organization, far from merely a disgruntled or suicidal member of crew. IMHO.

[geneman]

ana1936 (http://www.pprune.org/members/427356-ana1936): Some of us, maybe myself included, have been a but loose with the term ping perhaps.

Just to clarify this a little.

My understanding is that the satellites in the INMARSAT network which deal with ACARS check on the presence of their registered aircraft every hour by initiating a ping operation. This involves the satellite asking to see if a particular aircraft will answer. Only the specified aircraft will answer. And it will only answer if its engines are operating and it hears the satellite request. So presumably the aircraft being 'pinged' will still reply even if the onboard ACARS has been turned off (or has failed for some reason)?

It seems that a lot of commentators in the media seem to believe that it was the AIRCRAFT that was initiating a 'ping', every 60 minutes.

[litinoveweedle]

your 2nd point not valid MAS did not use satcom for any data transfer (no contract) used vhf (and perhaps HF)

Thank you, although are you really sure Malaysia Airlines not using SATCOM?

press release dated 21/07/2010 (https://www.thalesgroup.com/en/content/malaysia-airlines-selects-thales-satcom-0)

Malaysia Airlines has chosen Thales’ TopFlight satcom (TFS) for its new B737s. This new ARINC 781 standard of satcom continues to support Inmarsat aero services for flight deck voice and data connectivity. In addition, for airlines that have the Thales IFE system, the TopFlight satcom enables data throughput to the passenger seat for internet connection......

and another older press release about inflight mobile phone usage. (http://www.cellular-news.com/story/36777.php)

"We are also very well placed to upgrade our capability with Malaysia Airlines as, uniquely, the Honeywell avionics are already in place on their fleet to enable future Inmarsat SwiftBroadband upgrades later this year".

The first Malaysia Airlines B777-200 was installed with the AeroMobile system during a routine maintenance check.



Very nice article covering MH370 and SATCOM in detail. (http://tmfassociates.com/blog/category/operators/inmarsat/)

[barrel_owl]

You might have dedicated 5 posts but you proved nothing.

Insert waypoint at 07. Approaching boundary sync and select heading(incase you failed to make the waypoint a flyover).

After waypoint faint right then shortly afterwards when you think you are out of range turn left.

All the time you have your next waypoint in view for reference.

Prove that what I have written is "Impossible"!
I already answered this objection.
Why should you insert VAMPI as next waypoint at or before 1:07 in first place if you plan to turn 40° right after IGARI? Where is the rationale? You change your flight plan in your FMC just to override it? What for? Just to leave a trace of your foul play in the ACARS log? Makes no sense.

The sequence you describe is absolutely possible itself, still does not explain the behavior of the aircraft BEFORE 1:21 MYT. The right turn is a clear indication the aircraft was still following its original flight plan at the time it disappeared from radar, therefore next waypoint BITOD, not VAMPI.

Note. I do not and can not rule out foul play by the cockpit AFTER 1:21. It is absolutely possible that the flight plan was changed after 1:21. But I see no evidence that such change was made before 1:21, nor I see any rational explanation as to why it should be programmed more than 10 minutes before, so that it could be reported by ACARS.

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

[SLFgeek]

Including several "airfields" in Somalia.

Plus one very capable, but currently disused, air-strip in Pakistan ...
Shamsi Airfield - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamsi_Airfield)

[BoughtTheFarm]

If:-
a. Heist
b. Plane theft
c. Hijack
d. Collusion with a militant country or sect

And:-
Authorities, US, NASA, Inmarsat and all the others mentioned during each briefing knew of this and were in "negotioations",

Then one might expect the "baddies" to go and let the world know by now to make the biggest PR disaster in the history of cover-ups!

BTW, I doubt many hijackers demands are to see how long they can play hide and seek for...

A wierd one is this. Still wonder if a gas entered the enviroment to render the pax inefective and the pilots to become paranoid and lose all sensibility leaving just a "muscle reflex" to keep the plane up until gravity won over gliding. Strange things Human Factors.

[FE Hoppy]

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

Yes of course. But it has not been proved either way. You are confusing lack of motive with lack of evidence.

You believe there is no motive to do so and therefore it didn't happen.

Someone reported that it did.

There is a way that could be proven through ACARS FMC WPR.

I have seen nothing to verify this did or didn't happen so it is currently possible.

[NigelOnDraft]

"Apparently after". This should mean that Fariq Abdul Hamid must have been aware of the comms shutdown which happened prior to his last message. A planned job I would recon. Was Fariq Abdul Hamid the PIC? Perhaps he was already alone as the captain stepped out to rest (was up for already about 15hrs).

Btw - someone pointed out a few thousand posts back that a heavy 777 is unable to get to FL450. Thoughts?
I would think it possible to disable ACARS without the pilot alongside knowing. There are plenty of Maint functions via the MCDU type boxes that some pilots know a lot about, some play with, others (like me) have no clue!
It was a 2 crew flight, Capt would not "go back to rest". He might go out to use the toilet, but any "rest" would be in his seat.
How "heavy" was this flight? Relatively short flight - just because FL450 is above the "Max Permitted FL" does not mean it could not get there. If one is prepared to fly at a reduced buffet level, say <1.3g, then my research shows FL450 is not out of the question, esp if the FL450 is a primary radar value (hence inaccurate, and not related to FL450 in altimeter terms). NB the 50 empty seats might relate to cargo v MZFW, not MTOW.

[Lord Spandex Masher]

Thanks for this. Not sure this is relevant to the current thread, but does that mean that your working TCAS becomes inop if you switch the transponder to Standby?

Effectively. In standby the TCAS is powered but won't interact with other TCAS.

[Ian W]

My understanding is that if engine parameters dont change then no data other than a handshake occurs. That handshake essentially has no data.

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

[barrel_owl]

Yes of course. But it has not been proved either way. You are confusing lack of motive with lack of evidence.

You believe there is no motive to do so and therefore it didn't happen.

Someone reported that it did.

There is a way that could be proven through ACARS FMC WPR.

I have seen nothing to verify this did or didn't happen so it is currently possible.
OK, I see your point. I will correct "impossible" with "highly implausible". Does it sound better?

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

[APLFLIGHT]

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

Cell Phone Jammer :: Phonejammer.com :: Buy Here ! (http://www.phonejammer.com/home.php?cat=249) …

[Captain Charisma]

@ Zooker

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

[Pontius Navigator]

The northern route potential land area is immense and a big plane going in fast and vertical only makes a fairly small crater. Also the ELTs wouldn't survive the impact.

Do this where there are no population and it may never be discovered.

Quite. Bill MacGillvary said this 4 days ago.

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

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

[Jumpjim]

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

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

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

[Avitor]

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

[TylerMonkey]

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

[The Sixties]

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




http://www.inmarsat.com/ (http://www.inmarsat.com/)

[oldoberon]

Thank you, although are you really sure Malaysia Airlines not using SATCOM?

press release dated 21/07/2010 (https://www.thalesgroup.com/en/content/malaysia-airlines-selects-thales-satcom-0)



and another older press release about inflight mobile phone usage. (http://www.cellular-news.com/story/36777.php)




Very nice article covering MH370 and SATCOM in detail. (http://tmfassociates.com/blog/category/operators/inmarsat/)

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

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

press releases

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

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

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

[geneman]

Ian W (http://www.pprune.org/members/161813-ian-w):
"The pings carry the ID of the sender - that is how INMARSAT know what to do with the ping, reject it or accept it and what level of service it should get. If you get a cell phone and turn it on - the first thing it does is start pinging the networks with its IMEI - the networks that do not service that phone take no notice the ones that do respond. So in this case no ACARS data but electronic identity data."This post implies that the AIRCRAFT initiates the ping.
Other posts have stated that the SATELLITE initiates the ping.

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

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

[BoughtTheFarm]

Agreed FakeSealion.

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

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

[dsc810]

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

[Fake Sealion]

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

[rigbyrigz]

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

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

[Cheerio]

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

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

[The Ancient Geek]

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

MAKE UP YOUR MIND.

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

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

[oldoberon]

SEENITALL #5243 page 263

Asking a question is fine -- just so long as you have done your own research to see whether or not that question has been asked and answered (multiple times maybe) previously. Not to do this is lazy and wastes everyone else's time.

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

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

[Pontius Navigator]

It was a 2 crew flight, Capt would not "go back to rest". He might go out to use the toilet, but any "rest" would be in his seat.

Don't confuse SOPs with Cultural practice.

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

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

[biscuit74]

To dsc810 -

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

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

[barrel_owl]

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

CNN 11AM EST Just announced that the Malaysian Government has corrected this time element, and says ACRS was NOT (necessarily) OFF at time of Goodnight!
Thanks, would you please provide the link?
Trying to make a sense out of "ACARS was not necessarily OFF at time of goodnight".

[Jumpjim]

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

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

[A310bcal]

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

[Livesinafield]

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

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

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

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

[rigbyrigz]

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

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

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

[B738bbjsim]

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

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

Lets just hope MH370 is found soon.

[Eclectic]

re cellphones.

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

Faraday cage lets no signal in or out.

[TRW Plus]

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

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

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

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

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

[oldoberon]

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

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

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

[zipwire]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[clipstone1]

At oldoboron

Quote:

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

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

http://malaysiaairlines.com/content/dam/mas/master/en/pdf/mh-experience/Boeing777_200_lo.pdf

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

[Blake777]

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

Exclusive: Radar data suggests missing Malaysia plane deliberately flown way off course - sources | Reuters (http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/14/us-malaysia-airlines-radar-exclusive-idUSBREA2D0DG20140314)

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

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


MISSING MH370: 'Plane flew low to avoid radar' - General - New Straits Times (http://www.nst.com.my/nation/general/font-color-red-missing-mh370-font-plane-flew-low-to-avoid-radar-1.516965?cache=03%2F7.197673%3Fkey%3DKuala+Lumpur%2F7.258950 %2F7.288047%2F7.288047%2F7.358894%2F7.465036%2F7.490557%2F7. 490557%2F7.490557%2F7.490557%2F7.490557%2F7.541994%2F7.54199 4%2F7.577604%2F7.577604%2F7.577604%2F7.577604%2F7.577604%2F7 .577604)

Hope this helps.

[BOSSIE]

Taliban issues statement re: MH370

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

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

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

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

SOURCE
Malaysia Airlines MH370 live: 26 countries now involved in search - Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/malaysia/10700892/Malaysian-Airlines-MH370-live.html)

[DOVES]

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

[kbrockman]

Maybe?
MISSING MH370: Debris found at Straits of Malacca - Latest - New Straits Times (http://www.nst.com.my/latest/font-color-red-missing-mh370-font-debris-found-at-straits-of-malacca-1.517746)
MISSING MH370: Debris found at Straits of Malacca

Read more: MISSING MH370: Debris found at Straits of Malacca - Latest - New Straits Times MISSING MH370: Debris found at Straits of Malacca - Latest - New Straits Times (http://www.nst.com.my/latest/font-color-red-missing-mh370-font-debris-found-at-straits-of-malacca-1.517746#ixzz2wEb66jI2)

[toboev]

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

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

[Mr Optimistic]

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

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

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

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

Thank you for your patience!

[Lonewolf_50]

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

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

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

[oldoberon]

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

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

[Mr Optimistic]

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

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

[island_airphoto]

RE FLOATING ELTs:
These are common on boats. They break loose if submerged and come to the surface and activate themselves.
If you read the tech log, it is possible to get something like this for airplanes but not common.

[GunpowderPlod]

On radar:

It seems to me that if a passenger aircraft is flying on established routes and at established flight levels with its transponder deactivated, provided it does not trespass into secure airspace, it will be ignored by military radar and invisible to ATC. This is rather worrying if I am correct.

On flight deck security. Surely it has to be improved now:

1. additional door to prevent anyone following crew through the single door when open i.e. an airlock type system

2. three flight crew, not just two, so that nobody is left alone on the flight deck while someone leaves for a break. The third member could be security instead of pilot.

[diginagain]

Saw this idea somewhere, water soluble bags of highly concentrated fluorescent dye in wings and cargo holds,. I liked it because they were passive, ie no batteries or activation needed Some slight consideration might be given to a few scenarios. Flight in clouds, standing in the rain, or being washed, perhaps?

[rigbyrigz]

Re: "Unless a time stamp is sent I do not see how a handshake initiated by the a/c would allow signal transit time to be calculated by the satellite"

The expert interviewed on CNN clearly said that at a regulated time interval (1 hour?) the satellite initiates the handshake attempt with a faint ping something like " are you there, got anything for me", and seems to id the a/c is same handprint as last time, and how far way it is based upon ping return time.

IE; The a/c did not initiate the pings we are hearing about.

[oldoberon]

floatation water activated ELts are fitted to all PAX aircraft

Someone has already posted on this aircraft there was one on one of the pax doors (may have been all pax doors), BUT you have to manually release them from their stowage,

[Wirbelsturm]

The ELT is embedded in a foam floatation device. It does, however, need to get free of the hull in the event of an accident as they are normally stowed within the hull space!


fluorescent dye is excellent BUT it is a short term solution as it does disperse very quickly dependant upon sea state, swell and wind.


There is a sonar locator beacon which will activate when submerged. This is normally good for 30+ days dependant upon water temperature and depth. The detection range for this device is also dependant upon depth, salinity and the isothermal properties of the water (layering). Depending upon the sensitivity of the detecting equipment (read the military won't tell you) the detectable range of the sonar locator beacon can be huge.

[Pontius Navigator]

GPP, potentially correct. Except that as a non-transponder it will not have a 'friendly' track ID and the IDRO will contact the ATC to confirm identity if the track is inbound. In this case, before the turn back it would have excited no interest from the Malaysian AD.

[GarageYears]

If you want to keep posting the same questions over and over, then this is going nowhere fast... how about you READ the THREAD before posting questions that have been answered over and over and over and over....

1) Rig worker - was 370 miles from the last reported position... you figure out where that puts the horizon even accounting for the aircraft being at 35Kft.... Also the fact that nothing more from the alleged source makes this even less believable.

2) Pings... The SATCOM sub-system is entirely SEPARATE from the ACARS system. The SATCOM terminal is simply one of the available transmission systems fitted to the aircraft. Just as the voice transmissions can be sent via HF, VHF, or SAT, so can ACARS messages. Therefore the act of deselecting ACARS does nothing the SATCOM transceiver itself. The INMARSAT system is effectively maintaining a "stay-alive" connection to the aircraft. The fact that the ACARS system was not subscribed to the SATCOM service isn't really relevant.

[Sawbones62]

This is from the Tech Log thread - the ejectable, floating ELT called a Crash Position Indicator (CPI) has been around since WWIi. CPIs have fitted to helicopters, transport aircraft through the Tornado and Starfighter. The ELT is fitted into a floating "tumbling airfoil" and can contain a CVR/FDR.

Here's an example for the USAF C-141 original CPI, including multiple damage sensors throughout the aircraft and provision for a tape recorder for the CVR AN/URT-26 Crash Position Indicator (http://c141heaven.info/dotcom/training_materials/section_6_20_elt.pdf)

Other offshore industry and military examples can be found on Google.

The extra cost over ELTs made the CPI unpalatable for regulators and airlines, but that may change...with modern electronics it can be a very much smaller device using the 406Mhz technology and solid-state memory for FDR/CVR:

http://www.hr-smith.com/images/stories/503-CPI.pdf

[slats11]

1. Kidnap passengers as hostages? You would have to know that the pax on this flight were typically Chinese (most) and Malaysian. I can't imagine China would be keen to negotiate, nor to facilitate negotiations by the relatives. So this would seem a very poor choice of flight for this purpose.

2. Theft of cargo? For this to work, you would need accomplices and logistics at other end. This takes time to set up. How much notice would you have of an upcoming valuable shipment? Presumably not enough to get yourself onto that flight and organise the other end. Could it have been a spur of the moment opportunistic theft? Possibly. But the details we have suggest the reversal of course (and other things) was done very skilfully, and this suggests detailed planning. And you would still have to set up the other end. So theft seems unlikely.

3. Steal plane for some future terrorist plot? This is probably the most likely scenario for the "northern corridor." However, you would imagine the customer was most likely in the Middle East. You would also imagine the customer would like his plane stolen with the least chance of things going wrong. So why steal a plane heading east, and then have to reverse course and avoid radar of Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia etc? There are plenty of MAS flights from KL heading to Europe or Middle East. Why not steal one of these flights? You could even cross India (legally) and then disappear - which would give you much greater range (Pakistan or Iran). For ME terrorists, an added bonus of a Europe bound flight would be a greater number of westerners. Do we know if the crew flew other routes?

4. "Southern corridor" scenario. Hard to think of a reason other than suicide and disappear. If this happened, the guy didn't want anyone to know for sure - he could have left a note, or even come up on the radio and announced his intention. Nor did he want the plane found. Reverses course and possibly flies low to avoid primary radar - unlike the customer in option 3 who has nothing to gain by playing games with radar, it is possible the pilot here enjoys the challenge of defeating radar. He then heads NW up Straits of Malacca, before turning SW when he is sure he is out of primary radar coverage. Why turn NW first? Well he does not want to be found. If he is picked up by primary radar, heading NW he looks like lots of other traffic heading out of KL or Singapore. If he went immediately SW over Malaysia and then Sumatra, this would seem unusual if anyone did see him on primary radar.

[oldoberon]

Some slight consideration might be given to a few scenarios. Flight in clouds, standing in the rain, or being washed, perhaps?

and Wirbelsturm

Regarding other water sources yes, but they can be a lifed item or salt water soluble ( not good for the great lakes).

Regarding dispersal missed out that the idea was they were a gel to slow down the release and dispersal.

Still neither of you (like me) ruled them out as a good passive aid .

Still a place in the world for low tech! KISS keep it simple.

[geneman]

To the precision of the ping arc:

GSM base stations have to know the timing delay between cell phone and base station. This timing delay is determined by "pinging" them. The precision of this measurement gives the distance between phone and base station with an accuracy far better than 550 meters.

That is an example for what precision is possible with everyday consumer electronics. I don't know the exact specs for inmarsat, but taking into account unfavorable geometry, I would expect a precision in the range of better than 5 km.Given that the satellite is at an altitude of about 36,000 kilometres, a 5km precision would be about +/- 0.014% of the distance, which would be truly remarkable.

[formationdriver]

Reading the last 70-odd pages of posts I suspect the PPRuNe moderators have been magically transported onboard # 370.
Come back.
Please.

[Towhee]

.
So let me get this straight. Because the Captain is wearing a shirt declaring "Democracy is Dead" in protest of the overall UMNO/BN approach to government (and the obvious treatment of Ibrahim), and is a supporter of Ibrahim he is now more strongly considered to be some kind of hijacking suspect? What century are we in?

The pilot's viewpoints on politics and support of PKR are nothing special. There's quite a sizable contingent of people in MY with the same opinions and support for the opposition has been growing for years.

Secondly, Anwar Ibrahim is *not* jailed. The accuracy of modern media and "journalism" these days is just flat out appalling. It's no longer about being precise or accurate - it's completely driven by eyeballs.

Terrorists have won, haven't they? Time to burn some witches.


:ok: :ok:::ok:


It's outrageous to impugn the pilot based on his political support for an opposition candidate. Opposition, factionalism, dissent is the essence of democracy.

Unsurprisingly, these scurrilous allegations seem to be promulgated by the Daily Mail.

The DM is an aggressively right wing tabloid that mixes infotainment with ultra.conservative diatribe. It has a Nazi supporting lineage. Its US readership consists of white trailer trash and devotees of Faux news.

Malaysia is still a quasi authoritarian nation with limited press freedoms. It lacks a completely independent judiciary. It's had one party rule for way too long.

Reputable publications have covered the Ibrahim saga for years, so it surely doesn't take this tragedy to advertise the deplorable situation.

[VH_BIL]

This is a fairly nice layman's description of 'ACARS pings' that have been wildly misunderstood on this thread...

Understanding ?satellite pings? ? Tim Farrar - The Malaysian Insider (http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/sideviews/article/understanding-satellite-pings-tim-farrar)

For those still reading - this gives an overview of ACARS:
https://www.sita.aero/file/1569/Aircom_new_generation_services.pdf (https://www.sita.aero/file/1569/Aircom_new_generation_services.pdf‎)‎

There are some AEEC standards documents in that document that contain the protocol definitions of ACARS.

From the document: "the AeeC Characteristic 741 for the satellite Data Unit specifies the use of an X.25 based protocol, which Inmarsat originally intended to be used for packet data communications across the AMss network. this complies with the protocol specified in the ICAO AMss standard described later in this document."

So it uses X.25 - there's some DTE address fields there.

It seems the ACARS "SATCOM" data stream in this aircraft was based on the Inmarsat Swift64 service and these terminals use an ISN which is a "12 character Inmarsat Serial Number" - so there's the layer 1 ID.

Although I haven't found those standard definition documents for this service, it seems like these 'pings' would be addressed directly to a terminal address (i.e. unicast to the specific ISN) rather than some random broadcast/multicast across the whole beam/coverage area (pointless thing to do).

X.25 can do the same thing - and the AeeC can do the same on top of that - apparently (according to AEEC 620 standard for ACARS) it uses a 7 letter IATA address (from the aircraft registration mark).

So there are three different addresses at three different layers that would be able to identify the signalling terminal.

As an aside, especially when talking about mobile/cellular phone systems, just because you know something about one system does not mean every system works similarly - (this thread contains mounds of rubbish on this topic).

Remember that there are 2G, 2.5G, 2.75G, 3G, 4G, LTE systems using Analogue, TDMA, CDMA, W-CDMA, FDD, TDD, etc all on different bands, with different design trade-offs and varied methods of implementation and completely different performance characteristics (and I haven't even mentioned the Chinese varieties like TD-SCDMA).

BTW - in the beginning "ping" was a UN*X utility designed to send ICMP packets for IP networks - named after the Sonar 'ping'.

[OleOle]

slats11

Good assessment of possible motives. What's missing is
- something spontaneous
- something not going according to plan
- a change in plan.

[G0ULI]

For those who are frustrated at the apparent inability of modern technology to find a large passenger jet even after days of searching it may help to consider the following.

The total surface of the earth covers around 510 million square kilometres.
Water covers 361 million square kilometres and land 149 million square kilometres.

Assuming that a 777 jet (or wreckage) covered an area of 50 by 50 metres (a large over estimate), then that still only represents 1/400th of a square kilometre.

Given that the theoretical range of the jet covered nearly a third of the earth's surface (call it 150 million square kilometres), investigators are looking for a single point measuring at best 50 metres by 50 metres in all of that area. So 150 million square kilometres times 400 = 1 point in 1,600,000,000 possibilities at best. That is assuming the aircraft or wreckage are visible from the air. If it is under water or has made a smaller impact crater on land, the odds become even greater against locating anything.

Obviously the investigators are doing everything in their power to try and reduce the odds by calculating the most likely flight path, but the search is going to take a long time.

Yes, we can fly around the world by jet in under two days, or in 90 minutes with a spacecraft in low earth orbit. But the earth is still unimaginarily huge, despite the wide angle shots from ISS and the blue pebble photo taken from the moon (also with a wide angle lens).

[Wirbelsturm]

Regarding dispersal missed out that the idea was they were a gel to slow down the release and dispersal.


I don't disagree. As a former SAR captain I have found the dye to be fantastic however it has a lifespan. The trade off between liquid dispersal and the slow release of a gel limiting the size of the visible area is one for the scientists.


I would guess that if the search area was located in the wrong area then the intervening time between dispersing passive aids and looking for them would defeat both liquids and gels.


Self detaching ELT's and SARSAT beacons are not very common on commercial airliners as they are, generally, not out of contact for as long as this scenario therefore the area of search is normally smaller and more located.

[OleOle]

Given that the satellite is at an altitude of about 36,000 kilometres, a 5km precision would be about +/- 0.014% of the distance, which would be truly remarkable.

Relative precision doesn't matter. If you can measure 1 microsecond precisely then you can also measure 250001 microseconds with the exact same absolute precision.

[GarageYears]

For those who seem to be struggling with the SATCOM/INMARSAT operation the following gives a very good overview:

TMF Associates MSS blog » Understanding ?satellite pings?? (http://tmfassociates.com/blog/2014/03/15/understanding-satellite-pings/)

Hopefully this will put-to-bed the repeated questions regarding this!

[rigbyrigz]

JUST to summarize what I gleaned from Richard Quest's painstaking questioning on-air of the test pilot:

ACARS can be "degraded" from the screen, by selecting VHF OFF or SATCOM OFF or DATALINK OFF.

That would allow a 1:07 reporting (ON) and no 1:37 report (OFF).

But unless the CB is pulled or cut, the outside antenna receiver would remain active. The Satellite "ACARS handshake attempt" faint-ping would find the antenna (and the a/c) and make the report of pings we have seen and heard so much about until 8:11 AM.

[Dont Hang Up]

It seems to me that if a passenger aircraft is flying on established routes and at established flight levels with its transponder deactivated, provided it does not trespass into secure airspace, it will be ignored by military radar and invisible to ATC. This is rather worrying if I am correct.

You are wrong if you are assuming military have only primary and civil have only secondary and they never speak to each other.

Military will almost always have both. They may not all have the latest Mode S & ADS-B, but certainly Mode A/C plus military IFF modes. So they will see any civil transponder that is switched on. If an aircraft on a recognised civil route is not transponding they will notice. Indeed it is one the key incursion methods they should be looking for.

Civil controller will often have both also.

And in many states it is not uncommon for mil and civil controllers to be sitting in the same room. Or even for mil personnel to be offering the civl ATC service.

[Hornbill88]

These questions were raised by Golf-Mike-Mike and Token Bird about 3 hours ago:

Quote:
Except (I understand) they have primary radar "confirmation" of a north-easterly course after the westbound one (ie IGARI - VAMPI - GIVAL ....) That was what I was trying to figure out. I recall reading that days ago but was unsure as to where that info had come from, and if it was primary radar, was it later confirmed by the Inmarsat ping data. Since they have only released info about the final ping it's not possible to tell.

I'm going to trawl back through this thread and see if I can find the reference regarding the theory they flew IGARI-VAMPI-GIVAL.

The authority is Reuters report at 8.11am GMT on Friday 14th March: "Military radar-tracking evidence suggests a Malaysia Airlines (http://uk.reuters.com/subjects/airlines?lc=int_mb_1001) jetliner missing for nearly a week was deliberately flown across the Malay peninsula towards the Andaman Islands, sources familiar with the investigation told Reuters on Friday.
Two sources said an unidentified aircraft that investigators believe was Flight MH370 was following a route between navigational waypoints - indicating it was being flown by someone with aviation training - when it was last plotted on military radar off the country's northwest coast."

I'd quite like to hear a journalist ask for confirmation of that in the next press conf to bring the "sources" out into the open.

[cockpitvisit]

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


Here is the email from the oil rig worker (http://www.todayonline.com/sites/default/files/styles/photo_gallery_image_lightbox/public/18311453.JPG?itok=LRMm_xk_) that is being quoted everywhere.

It doesn't specify the time - just says "the timing was right".

[oldoberon]

Of course, enough dye to be useful in the open ocean would weigh enough to prevent the airplane from taking off.

THAT, I admit, would certainly prevent future accidents...

is that comment based on knowledge of the size and weight of a gel or solid block or just straight forward dismissive guess work/comment.

I googled various bits and wouldn't be surprised if the idea came from shark repellant dyes

reads this patent explanation seems they are getting a good time distance coverage from a bout 29 SMALL blocks of dye attached to a the diver
So upgrade them to the weight of a pax and what could you get, plus make the contents wax covered so they get dissolved at staged time periods.

Patent US4080677 - Portable diver distress signalling device - Google Patents (http://www.google.com.mx/patents/US4080677)

[bigglesbrother]

Thank goodness for FE Hoppy and his common sense: his posts are well reasoned amid a myriad of posts which do little to provide an explanation for the disappearance of MH370.

As a sometime Laker DC-10 pilot and later as a pilot for many years of Gulfstreams fitted with upmarket avionics I can claim some familiarity, albeit getting very dated, with the MH370 night transit scenario.
Having followed the huge number of pprune versions of events for MH370 we had some non pprune chat three days ago amongst fellow aviators & produced this analysis ...... nothing seems to have changed since then.


1 Aircraft now appears to have kept flying until fuel exhaustion – about 6-7 hrs.

2 On autopilot – or it would probably have crashed earlier.

3 All major comms and auto electronic readouts disabled: BUT it seems that auto R-R engines monitor satellite report pinging cannot be deselected manually.

4 One of the crew is the culprit? Aircraft depressurised and all except hijacker pass out & die due to lack of oxygen. Eventually he goes too through cold or running out of his own oxygen supply.

5 Hijacked, but did hijackers have enough technical knowledge to disable all major systems yet keep flying?

6 Aircraft in the sea somewhere.

7 USA knows far more than it has disclosed.

All above are our best guesses on current hugely varied info.

[geneman]

For those who seem to be struggling with the SATCOM/INMARSAT operation the following gives a very good overview:
TMF Associates MSS blog » Understanding ?satellite pings?? (http://tmfassociates.com/blog/2014/03/15/understanding-satellite-pings/)
Hopefully this will put-to-bed the repeated questions regarding this! Thanks for the tip. I checked this website and found the following conclusions, although I obviously can't vouch for their accuracy:

"Key point 8: The position of the aircraft is being estimated based on the signal timing/power measured at the satellite. Its not based on the data content of any message and is not highly accurate.
... it is unlikely that the measurements are more accurate than within say 100 miles." (Emphasis mine.)

[Livesinafield]

If the PSR last had it tracking towards the Andaman islands then i would say the "northwestern corridor" as they call it is much more likely than the Indian ocean theory

[cockpitvisit]

But the earth is still unimaginarily huge, despite the wide angle shots from ISS and the blue pebble photo taken from the moon (also with a wide angle lens).

Exactly. You can fit over 600,000 of such airplanes around the equator.

It is like searching for a small ant on a square mile of mostly rugged terrain.

[Howard_500]

I have been reading this topic with great interest for more than a hundred pages now.

As some mentioned earlier, the MH370 event has brought here a lot of curious, non-pilot people (including myself), and among them, journalists, who relay information they read here, information which is in turn relayed here by news readers.

My question is : wouldn't it be better for everyone, if the prime users of this forum, namely aviation professionals, took advantage of this "infinite loop" to influence the press in doing some more serious work ?

Example : i have read a lot of you complaining about the inaccuracy or uselessness of some press conference questions. Maybe you could make a short list of precise, logical questions for the journalists to ask, that would clarify some points and reduce the amount of confusion.
At least to obtain, for the whole world reading all this, some bits of certainties re this unprecendented disappearance.

Because, as this whole story begins to resemble George Boolos's "hardest logic puzzle in the world", the main fact remains that 239 people are still missing.

[NiclasB]

Apologies if this question has been posted already. Have read most but not all previous posts.

Assuming the "incapacitated crew, flying on AP at FL 2XX until fuel exhaustion" scenario, could some with technical knowledge on the T7 supply the details of how the scenario would unfold at the "...until fuel exhaustion" end?

1) Would both engines shut down at approximately the same time, i.e. do they have a common fuel source, or could one run, say 15 minutes longer?
2) At which point does the AP disconnect, immediately as the first engine shuts down or does it stay connected in some degraded mode?
3) What is the likely profile during descent? Nose-dive to (beyond?) VNE or are there any protections to prevent over-speed? Fly as close to VMD as possible? Follow-up: How much time would the crew have in oxygen-rich air, e.g. below FL100, to recover? I'm guessing not much.
4) Given the above scenario, is the high or low vertical speed impact the most probable outcome?

I would assume a high vertical speed impact on the last questions, which would translate to a small debris field, correct? That would make the search effort harder, especially over the ocean or un-populated high terrain.

Still hoping for a non-foul play reason for the missing plane...

PS. Many thanks to all that have contributed with technical and/or operational input to this thread! :D As a GA pilot with basic ATPL knowledge, some posts give very good chances for self-education. Other...eh, less so. ;)

[geneman]

Pontius Navigator (http://www.pprune.org/members/63011-pontius-navigator):
If all the new low post Ppruners posts were added up, would they reach 100?Perhaps quantity does not necessarily equate quality.

[Lonewolf_50]

One of the comments on that CNN thread was actually useful:

in 1972, a plane disappeared over Alaska carrying the then-current House Majority Leader, Hale Boggs, and another Congressman. Fifty years later, that plane still has not been found. Alaska covers 663,300 square miles. The total area of the Indian Ocean is in excess of 28 million square miles. There are reports that the total potential search area for the plane is some 2 million
square miles. That's about 3 times the size of the entire state of Alaska. Not so hard for a plane to just "completely disappear" in that large a potential
area when so much of it is remote
Puts the search team's challenge into some perspective.

[Token Bird]

Hornbill88 - I did trawl back and find the reference to some Twitter feed which then led to the Reuters report, which spoke of sources who wished to remain anonymous. It indicated that the postulated track of IGARI-VAMPI-GIVAL, then possibly IGREX, was put together from military radar (presumably primary?)

Still not convinced it went west at all. Came across this which quotes another unnamed source as saying they now believe it is off the coast of Perth: Combing Ocean for Flight 370 Harder Than 2-Year French Hunt - Bloomberg (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-14/combing-ocean-for-malaysia-jet-tougher-than-two-year-french-hunt.html)

I actually think they may be looking in the right area now. Ocean depth there is such that it may take years to find, though.

This article is a couple of days old but I haven't come across anything else indicating they are favouring the southern arc over the northern arc.

[costalpilot]

My problem with fe hoppy's analysis is: if a person is smart enuff to heist and enroute hide a t7 they arent going to be dumb enuff to die of lack of 02 or heat.

imo.

[MPN11]

If I may offer a small ATC insight to those who know little or nothing about ATC systems, and are fixated by concepts of Primary and Secondary radar, please have a look at the following link. This might give an insight into what actually goes on. The Civil ATC world does NOT run on radar: it runs on filed Flight Plans updated by radio communications, with radar providing supplementary information for conflict resolution or sequencing in the Terminal environment.

(Aircrew and ATC professionals are generally excused from reading the link ;) )

Flight progress strip - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_progress_strip)

[Sophiasocrates]

It seems the Indian side is also frustrated with Malaysian authorities for hiding information. They are also offended with them for postulating that the a/c could have landed in andaman. To the Indians this is preposterous, for the airfields there belong to the air force and navy ; and such theories underestimate the vigilance of the indians especially as these islands play a pivotal role in India's security .

[oldoberon]

For those who seem to be struggling with the SATCOM/INMARSAT operation the following gives a very good overview:

TMF Associates MSS blog » Understanding ?satellite pings?? (http://tmfassociates.com/blog/2014/03/15/understanding-satellite-pings/)

Hopefully this will put-to-bed the repeated questions regarding this!

Thank you very much for that link it has answered my question have they got more accurate data from the regional beam, no they haven't because pings are handled by the global beam.


One of the comments also went along the path I did. Assuming a constant speed you can calculate the maximum distance between the rings of the hourly ping, and if it is less than this distance work out some other data. I suggested if the difference between max and actual was constant it would indicate a constant (but unknown track/hdg, in which case I favoured the southern route, suicide or dead and auto pilot on.

BTW perhaps we should all bookmark the link and use it to answer any future repeat questions,

[Khashoggi]

Authorities reportedly looking at flight engineer, plane altitude in missing Malaysia jetliner investigation | Fox News (http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/03/17/pilots-become-focus-malaysia-airlines-investigation/)

"Authorities are also examining the possibility that the plane flew at an altitude of less than 5,000 feet to avoid radar coverage after it turned back from its planned route to Beijing, the Malaysian newspaper New Straits Times reports.

The newspaper said officials are reviewing the plane’s flight profile to determine whether it used “terrain masking” techniques during the time it disappeared from radar coverage.

"It's possible that the aircraft had hugged the terrain in some areas that are mountainous to avoid radar detection,” an official told the newspaper. “The person who had control over the aircraft has a solid knowledge of avionics and navigation…it passed low over Kelantan, that was true.”

Kelantan is a province in central Malaysia."

If this news is correct, it contradicts the hypoxic pilot theory, unless that happened after another climb out. Passengers must have been out or controlled because they would likely notice being at less than 5000'

[toffeez]

I'm not sure what you mean by "Not enough attention is being paid to the Muslim connection."

The Malaysian media has commented that Capt Zaharie is a religious doubter (at best) or a closet atheist (at worst, if you happen to be a Malay).

I still wonder, given his support for Anwar, whether he got word that someone was thinking of trumping up charges against him. Of course no-one will admit it.

[EDTY]

...what the oil rig workers saw, was the tail of a bigger meteor, which were common on that weekend. I had a lot of meteorscatter reflexions in my ham radio on that day.... . My thought about the oil plattform theory :cool:...