Malaysian Airlines MH370 contact lost

[Chronus]

Beg to disagree with bigglesbrother on his following comments:

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

This can be halved if a/c below 10,000. Chances of detection greater at higher altitude + assumption of hypoxia invalidated.

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

Less likelihood of technical malfunction for a/p to remain operative.

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.

This assumption would contradict no3 above.

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.

Assumes a highly competent took control, not just in flying aircraft, but also well versed in close combat. We have no information to suggest that either member of the crew fulfill this criteria.

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

6 Aircraft in the sea somewhere.

Highly likely.

7 USA knows far more than it has disclosed

On what basis could this become a reasonable assumption. There are no good reasons for the USA to withhold even if it is defence sensitive. Particularly after such a long lapse of time. Can you imagine the world reaction to such an eventuality. It would be considered callousness at the extreme. I cannot even for a moment accept that the US would be so unwise.

[duvin]

MAS adverts say 1st class has sat phones

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


MAS only has 1st class on the 380.

[The Wawa Zone]

Should the story change again, and again, and an 'ACARS Off' event at some point in time, is used as a means of casting suspicion on the crew because they may have had some reason of their own to turn it 'off', then consider that the ACARS unlawful interference page has been made public knowledge at:

www.cockpitseeker.com/wp-content/uploads/A320/pdf/data/datalink.pdf

sk200.wikispaces.com/file/view/Manual++Operaci%C3%B3n+Normal+de+Vuelo+LAN.pdf

users.telenet.be/evics/content_11_1.pdf

.. and therefore a well researched interloper may have invited the crew to turn off ACARS as well. The crew should therefore be less suspect to the extent that an interloper could have trawled sufficiently deep to pull up these pages (or even got something out of the base Tech Library).

Nothing lasts forever, so we'll just have to think of a new method.
Meanwhile, have a think about who/what would gain from the blame being shifted towards the crew.

[costalpilot]

CNN now cant figure out WHEN the acars was deactivated. So maybe all those " here is what we KNOW" lists are , eh, invalid. Maybe we don't actually KNOW very much at all.

[er340790]

Well, it's becoming quite a marathon to keep up with the Thread. But in those quiet moments, when the techno-babble all fades, there are two posts which keep coming to mind. And, when all said and done, things are often far simpler than we ever suspected...

avionics/electronics have been shown to do weird stuff when shorting out or on fire. Humans do odd things when hypoxic, especially if not aware.

One day a fisherman will pull some strange plastic up in his net.

[Pontius Navigator]

wouldn't be surprised if the idea came from shark repellant dyes

Back in the 50s and 60s when the battery life of a PLB was short we used to carry a flurocine dye marker. In the tropics we also carried a similar small quantity of shark repellent.

It was rumoured that the dye marker attracted sharks and the repellent didn't work. A packet, probably about 250 grams would create a bright patch around 10 feet diameter.

Obviously, 50 years on, improved dyes will be available but in other than a calm sea dispersion is likely to be rapid.

[WillFlyForCheese]

Just to inform this issue.

An aircraft at 35-40kft will rise above the visible horizon of a sea level observer at a surface range of some 230-240 miles or so. You can add a few tens of miles for the height above sea level of an observer on a rig platform. So, the aircraft would be theoretically visible from a range of about 250 miles. It'll be extremely low to the horizon at that stage however, and very difficult to see until closer.

So the rig's 370 miles displacement from the aircraft's last reported position certainly presents a problem, but it's nothing like as big a discrepancy as most people would imagine based on their experience of viewing objects at and from ground or sea level, in which case the horizon is only a few miles away. Also, bear in mind that if MH370 did indeed come to grief over the Gulf of Thailand, it is unlikely to have done so at its last reported position and its normal flight path would have been carrying it generally toward the rig.

Unfortunately, the rig worker didn't specify the precise time of his observation, and I for one have rather lost the plot in terms of the confirmed time various events and positions occurred or were reported in reading this utterly unwieldy and rambling thread in which rumours and misunderstandings are frequently being promulgated repeatedly as unswervingly reliable facts.

"Send three and fourpence, we're going to a dance" about covers it, for those above a certain age... The supposed oil-rig workers observation still makes no sense. If you read his email, he says
"I observed the burning (plane?) at high altitude"

So - even if he was able to see this aircraft from more than 350 miles away, it would not appear "at high altitude." All he would have been able to see, if anything, is a bright light on the HORIZON.

He would not have seen a plane at high altitude, could not have seen that it was "on fire" or "all in one piece."

it is either a hoax or he simply saw something else.

Can we please stop with the nonsense that someone 350 miles away saw a plane "up in the sky on fire?"

[DespairingTraveller]

You would need to be over 37,000 feet to be visible at that sort of range. Add heights of aircraft, find square root and then multiply by 1.25. I believe that approximation is only valid near sea level.

I went back to basics and did the trig. I may have made a mistake, so would be happy to be corrected if someone wants to check the calculation.

[bratschewurst]

Had there been a truly robust system for flight tracking in place that reported 3D position every minute or so from takeoff to touchdown:

1) those with malign motives would have to rule out the possibility of "disappearing" a large commercial aircraft and a few hundred people simply by turning a few cockpit switches or flipping a CB;

2) whether or not this was not the result of a malign act, the CVR and FDR would have been found by now.

Had such a system been in place for AF447, the cause of that crash would have been known with a high degree of certainty at least a year earlier than it was.

ELTs are simply not sufficiently reliable in a crash into water, as AF447 again demonstrated. And it's very hard to find a crash site when it's somewhere in a large body of water without knowing within a a pretty small radius where it was likely to occur. See Varig 707 1979 disappearance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_Boeing_707-323C_disappearance), not to mention the Northwest DC-4 that vanished (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Orient_Airlines_Flight_2501) over Lake Michigan and, almost 65 years later, still has not been found.

I understand the concern over not being able to shut down an electrical device in case of suspected fire. But there have to be solutions for that. A GPS receiver reporting current 3D position to a satellite every few minutes via SATCOM (perhaps more often in case of altitude or heading changes) does not require a lot of power, nor would one need Li-Ion batteries to power it.

A truly robust system of flight tracking would achieve about 95% of what live streaming of CVR/FDR data would do at far less expense or pilot resistance, and pilots do have a legitimate interest in not having their every remark monitored by the ground.

[robbreid]

Suicide by Captain or FO feels intuitively wrong to me. Generally, how often do suicides deliberately take many other innocent souls with them? I've tried googling, can't find anything useful. Japan Airlines 350 Japan Airlines Flight 350 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Airlines_Flight_350)

Royal Air Maroc flight 630 Royal Air Maroc Flight 630 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Air_Maroc_Flight_630)

Silk Air flight 185 SilkAir Flight 185 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SilkAir_Flight_185)

EgyptAir 990 EgyptAir Flight 990 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EgyptAir_Flight_990)

Linhas Aéreas de Moçambique - LAM 470 LAM Mozambique Airlines Flight 470 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LAM_Mozambique_Airlines_Flight_470)

[Pontius Navigator]

Lemain, if you read back through the thread you will find an instance where the pilot did exactly that which is why suicide is a discussion item.

Then the question of minimum runway length for take-off obviously depends AUW of which fuel load is the major variable. To assume it needs a full fuel load to reach a distant target assumes that the target is indeed distant. It might also be conceivable that any plan could be for a short field, light load take-off followed by a brief stop at a compliant larger airfield for refuelling.

Personally I think that is a nonsense and I suspect the aircraft crashed or ditched.

[givemewings]

ELTs

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,This jumped out at me, is that confirmed by the airline or another reliable source? Just doesn't sound right to me, to have something like that easily accessible to pax. The number of times I've caught them fiddling with a halon or o2 bottle... On the flip side, it seems counter-productive to have them inside the slideraft pack/door bustle (if that is what was meant) because of maintenance/checking issues. (Assume poster was referring to portable ADT406 or similar)

That model (I'm assuming in most) airlines requires a check by the CC prior to departure. I don't see the beancounters allowing one on every door (would be 8 on a 772) when one or two would do the job... The idea being of course that after successfully exiting the aircraft into the rafts the CC would join them up and operate the existing 406s as a group

Anyway, carry on....

[GarageYears]

This handy calculator will allow everyone to experiment with the likely visual horizon for two points of any altitude:

Horizon calculator - radar and visual (http://members.home.nl/7seas/radcalc.htm)

If you use 35K for the aircraft and say 150ft for the rig worker then the horizon is at 244 miles...

Unfortunately, even allowing for some distance covered, at 370 miles away there's just NO WAY this rig worker saw the aircraft... it was something else. My bet is on a meteorite. Just another case of putting 2 and 2 together and getting 5.

[ETOPS]

I'm struggling with idea - seen in previous posts - that you can use TCAS with your transponder off.

The rotary selector on the 777 transponder control has these settings..

Stby
Xpdr
TA only
RA/TA

As you rotate the selector from Stby the first setting is "Transponder on" followed by the TCAS selections - thus there is no way to see other aircraft on your ND without showing you own ...

[KevJGK]

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??

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

So the Pings allow the radius of a circle centred on the Inmarsat Satellite to be calculated to approximately 100 miles. The Aircrafts location being somewhere along the circumference deduced as a function of its presumed initial location and its potential range? Puts the SAR task into perspective.

[Pontius Navigator]

I believe that approximation is only valid near sea level.

I went back to basics and did the trig. I may have made a mistake, so would be happy to be corrected if someone wants to check the calculation.

DT, no, the results are additive - we used 1.14 for nautical miles so:

1.14*sqrt Ha + 1.14*sqrt Ho would for 37k and 250 feet give 219 + 18 = 237 nm.

Now there is a phenomenon of analogous propagation where the light waves are bent by atmospheric ducting. However at night I believe such ducting is unlikely. One would conclude that an observer at 370 miles (nm or statute) would be unsighted. Now if that distance was kilometres :)

[papershuffler]

Posts http://www.pprune.org/8371899-post2745.html & http://www.pprune.org/8380914-post4609.html

Still confusion about this so let's put it to bed, I was flying and on the same frequency at the time, Ho Chi Minh ATC started going mad trying to contact the MH370 on 121.5 at around 00.30 local Vietnam time. That is 01.30 Malaysia time, 1730 Z. Quote:
The alleged radio contact with MAS370 made by the anonymous captain of a Japan-bound airliner makes me smell rats. Why should a real pilot with a verifiable record refuse to give his own name and his flight number in such a situation? What's the problem with it? Wouldn't this help the investigation? His alleged statement is also highly suspicious. He heard nothing, all he says is that "there were a lot of interference… static… but I heard mumbling". In short, he is unable to refer the content of the transmission, he is unable to say whether he spoke with the captain or the F/O, the alleged time of the radio transmission is after the time the datalink had been turned off and the transponder had been turned off. Sorry, but to me this smells like a typical piece of disinformation. Someone planted this interview just to "prove" that the captain and the F/O were still at the controls of the aircraft at that time. I will believe this captain as soon as he will come out with a real name and the exact position of his aircraft, which should not be so difficult to verify with a map and radar data. I really wouldn't read too much into that one. I was on frequency at the time, I heard the other MH aircraft transmitting on 121.5 trying to contact the MH370 (along with many transmissions from HCM control) and never heard anything resembling a reply, mumbled garbled or otherwise.

There's a fairly common interference phenomena around SGN that seems to cause short 5-10 second bursts of buzzing static on VHF. He might have heard that, there was plenty of that going on that night but nothing out of the ordinary.

To locate posts by a specific person, click on Search then Advanced Search then start typing the person's name in the search box on the right. And search.

[Heli-phile]

The arc's showing north and south 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 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 arc points, giving them a 630nm error radius (or put another way 1260nm wide!) Perhaps someone could apply these distance and post the revised arc's.

[WillFlyForCheese]

DT, no, the results are additive - we used 1.14 for nautical miles so:

1.14*sqrt Ha + 1.14*sqrt Ho would for 37k and 250 feet give 219 + 18 = 237 nm.

Now there is a phenomenon of analogous propagation where the light waves are bent by atmospheric ducting. However at night I believe such ducting is unlikely. One would conclude that an observer at 370 miles (nm or statute) would be unsighted. Now if that distance was kilometres :)

The supposed "burning plane" would still not appear at "high altitude."

Why does everyone miss that part of his email? Even if he could see that far - the object would appear on the horizon! It would not appear to be a "high altitude!!!!"

:ugh:

[golfbananajam]

@ Geneman

great article you linked to, as was the Global Operational Data Link Document it linked to.

It suggests (to me at least) that the a/c reg is sent in the various messages

[redmin888]

givemewings

The adt406 is the fix elt. We are talking about the water triggered elt that are carried on the aircraft

406AS Aeronautical Survival Beacon (406 MHz) S1823502-03 Features, Specs, Price, and Availability (http://www.sea-avionics.com/lc/cart.php?target=productDetails&model=406AS&substring=S1823502-03)

[OleOle]

So the Pings allow the radius of a circle centred on the Inmarsat Satellite to be calculated to approximately 100 miles

I gave some arguments, that the arcs likely are more precise. The problem is MH370 might have flown for almost another hour after the last ping which could equate to almost 500nm.

[flown-it]

This question came up about 3000 posts ago. 1.23 X square root of height was posted. I always used 1.25 since that was easier to do mentally ( only had whiz wheels for math back in the 60s!) and we needed to know PDQ when we were looking for the odd Bear D or Badger inbound to the carrier.
Actually Pontius I started this to remind you that the correct term is"Anomalous Propagation"
AND it's real. I've been flying in the North Malacca Straits between an upper and lower inversion acting like an enormous wave guide and seen returns from way outside my normal radar range

[Lord Spandex Masher]

@ Lord Spandex Masher

TCAS and Transponder are two totally separate pieces of equipment.
TCAS receives the transponder signal of other aircraft and then displays them on its own display or an integrated display. It does not show the height (altitude) of an aircraft but rather the relative altitude difference between the TCAS receiver and the other aircraft.
The transponder operates on a generally ATC allocated code. It is totally independent of the TCAS. Without a transponder you are invisible to the TCAS hence the need for transponder mandatory airspace.
So yes the one can operate without the other.
If you were going to piggy-back you wouldn't need more than the relative altitude difference between yourself and the other aircraft. To identify the other aircraft you could monitor the ATC frequency being used.

As an aside, if a transponder is only operating in mode A there will never be a TCAS RA only a TA as the TCAS receiver has no altitude information to work with.

They are NOT totally separate. It is an integrated unit.

The semantics of height versus altitude in the case of TCAS are irrelevant, but it is height above or below you and it will also display absolute height of a target aircraft.

One cannot operate without the other. Even if you select 'transponder' only, TCAS still operates normally except you will not have a TCAS display.

[dfish]

The Captain did not "build" a flight sim, that is Microsoft flight simulator 10 and is a very popular software. He probably used it to hone his skills. The add on software is quite good at replicating the systems of a t7 or many other aircraft

[Hunter58]

Return to Stand

you could probably fly a 777 in formation with another one, but not at the required distance as to become one single target. That distance is dependent of the resolution of the radar used. However the early 1960 Radars were capable of resolutions of less than 600 ft, modern are down to 300 ft of resolution. As shadow formation you would have to fit within the resolution of the radar.

Nope, not with an airliner...

[Captain Charisma]

@ Lord Spandex Masher

You are correct. I have done a bit more delving into the issue and TCAS II using S mode transponder would appear to be an integrated unit and fitted in the B777. I have deleted my post accordingly.

[givemewings]

Redmin, the one pictured is the one I am asking about. Not fixed, but it was said they were carried on all the doors. I find that difficult to believe because as CC having flown onmore than 10 aircraft types all ELTs accessible by people without tools have never been in public view... it just sounded odd to me but of course is probably not important.

Unless of course they were taken out of the equation by someone not wishing the location of the aircraft to be found. It seems unusual to have more than 2 on a widebodied aircraft. Or are MAS particularly keen on spending lots of money on them.? Why?

[MPN11]

BBC News just had a reasonably adult summary ... With reservations, of course.

Just for info for those who can access IPlayer.

[EJGeiginni]

There's been a lot of talk about the northern track going through various nations which enforce their airspace security tightly.

Is anyone familiar with the air defense quality/enforcement of Myanmar?

It would appear that there is a 7,000'x100' runway at Puta-O in northern Myanmar in the Himalayan foothills, that also happens to meet with the intersecting arc of the Inmarsat over the Indian ocean that is being circulated. It would also seem to be within fuel range, especially if flying below 5000' as speculated. It's also very remote and possibly not 'connected' readily to the outside world?

Just found it to be an intriguing possible search location, but have little familiarity with Myanmar's air defense capabilities or enforcement.

[Pontius Navigator]

Flood-it thanks for the correction. During training my instructor told how they were visual with Cyprus some 570 miles out. Also during the '72 Olympics we could receive the band 1 TV from Greece a few hundred miles away. Once I receive Italian RAI FM radio in UK. Also when at school we could see the Isle of Man over 65 miles away when we were on the beach.

No, my point was that ducting at visual wave lengths we less likely at night.

[Eclectic]

FWIW it looks like the "Japan bound captain RT" and the "Oil worker fire in sky" stories are both full of holes and probably hoaxes.

The Nanning landing story is more credible. Just.

People seem to have forgotten that the authorities think the last two pings came from the same location and that the last ping was on the ground.

Also we know the ELT hasn't gone off.

These are amongst the hardest evidence we have.

So the flight hasn't crashed.
Isn't under water.
Hasn't ditched.

It really does look firstly like it is northern route and secondly that it has successfully made a proper landing at one of the thousands of possible locations.

Whoever planned this was meticulous.
It would help investigation if it was known what their motives are.

[galaxy flyer]

EJGiannai

You can bet your paycheck the US NRO has used every satellite capability to look at every possible landing spot anywhere in Asia with multiple spectrum analysis--visible, IR, radar, etc. Pretty assured it's not on land. Not impossible, but very, very unlikely.

GF

[Pontius Navigator]

Is anyone familiar with the air defense quality/enforcement of Myanmar?

Ah, you have mentioned the elephant in the room at last.

Burma - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burma#Military_relations)

[Monsun]

Regarding the theory that MH370 got close to SIA68 so as to transit Indian airspace without suspicion, it reminds me of a story I heard from a former RAF Lightning pilot who was based at Akrotiri in Cyprus in the late 1960s.

The Soviets were up to their usual tricks at the time and one of said Lightning pilots compatriots was scrambled to investigate an unidentified radar blip (just one). This turned out to be not one Tu-16 Badger, but two flying in a mirror formation, one high, one low.

I suppose that this proves that it can be done (in daylight), but I would be interested to know from any 777 drivers on here how they fancy a bit of night formation?

[mkenig]

Much as I'd like to be an advocate for the Northern Arc, it has just struck me that it is Winter in the Northern Hemisphere. Landing conditions may not be remarkably good along a lot of the arc at some Remote Field "X".

Landing a T7 without navaid in nice weather is hard enough (see Asiana 214...). Doing it in Winter weather? You might be able to use AP and FMC to program it to a remote locale. Landing is another thing entirely. Ditto for terrain flying.

Has anybody looked at the WX along the Northern Arc?

Also, some terrorist org would have to get an enormous amount of Jet A to the A/C to get it airborne again for some non-trivial flight. At a remote field. Out in the desert or mountains. Uh, Right.

[Airbubba]

enough with the Flight Sim talk


The Captain did not "build" a flight sim, that is Microsoft flight simulator 10 and is a very popular software. He probably used it to hone his skills. The add on software is quite good at replicating the systems of a t7 or many other aircraft

He certainly put it together from parts he ordered, he posted pictures on his Facebook page. I commented earlier on the domestic U.S. Mail Priority box, it looks like he had some of the items delivered somewhere in the States for pickup.

He had a high end Asus motherboard, a 1000 watt power supply and multiple Nvidia video cards in the upgrade to his existing homebuilt computer.

[redmin888]

givemewings

On all our aircrafts including 777 we carry 2 ( fwd door and aft door) they are stow in the life raft stowage ie out of sight of passengers . The also have a guard to prevent it being accidently switch on by nosey curious passengers. The only way to switch it on is to take it out of its stowage which will enable the gaurd to expose the on position of the switch therefore enabling to be manually switch on. It can also be switch on by it's water switch on contact with water. Other airlines (malayaian included) may or may not carry them but ours does.

[Jetset Jimbo]

Don't think so. The keyword is 'could' in the below:

Today, Malaysia's civil aviation chief Azharuddin Abdul Rahman said that the plane may have been grounded when its final satellite signals were sent.

He said the satellite "pings" that were last read at 8.11am on Saturday, six hours after the military radar last detected the airliner over the Malacca Strait, could have been transmitted from the ground if the plane had indeed landed, The Guardian reports.

"The plane can still transmit pings from the ground as long as there is electrical power," he said.

[tailend]

Mediator: I have searched for mentions of this angle, apologies if it’s covered and delete.

FAA Dismisses 'PlaneSploit' Creator's Claims (SecurityWeek April15th 2013)

The Federal Aviation Administration has said that a researcher’s claims that he could hack an aircraft in-flight using only an Android application and a desktop computer are not possible. The FAA’s dismissal comes after Hugo Teso, a German information technology consultant, presented his findings during the Hack in the Box conference earlier this month.

According to Teso, security issues with the Honeywell NZ-2000 Flight Management System (FMS), allowed him to send signals via his Android device, compromising the FMS within a simulated environment. His research was carried by many news outlets, and sparked some concern.

However, the FAA, in a statement sent to SecurityWeek, says that there is no risk - as the technique doesn’t work against certified flight hardware.
“The FAA is aware that a German information technology consultant has alleged he has detected a security issue with the Honeywell NZ-2000 Flight Management System (FMS) using only a desktop computer,” the statement said.

“The FAA has determined that the hacking technique described during a recent computer security conference does not pose a flight safety concern because it does not work on certified flight hardware. The described technique cannot engage or control the aircraft’s autopilot system using the FMS or prevent a pilot from overriding the autopilot. Therefore, a hacker cannot obtain “full control of an aircraft” as the technology consultant has claimed.”

The dismissals have additional significance as the FAA was given access to the complete process Teso used to exploit the FMS, something that wasn’t publically released.

This is a year old story but Forbes expanded on the subject last year and it has a certain resonance:-

See Researcher Says He's Found Hackable Flaws In Airplanes' Navigation Systems (Update: The FAA Disagrees) - Forbes (http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/04/10/researcher-says-hes-found-hackable-flaws-in-airplanes-navigation-systems/2/) for more on Teso’s test rig, but of interest is this extract:

‘Teso focused on a different protocol called Aircraft Communications Addressing and Report System, (ACARS) a simple data exchange system that has evolved over decades to now include everything from weather data to airline schedules to changes to the plane’s flight management system. (FMS)
Teso says that ACARS still has virtually no authentication features to prevent spoofed commands’.

Does the 777 use the Honeywell NZ-2000 FMS? I believe it's Honeywell, but whether it is similar to the above ebay purchased system Teso used is questionable.

Google it for more info.

[mixture]

Mediator: I have searched for mentions of this angle, apologies if it’s covered and delete.

FAA Dismisses 'PlaneSploit' Creator's Claims (SecurityWeek April15th 2013)

Well you didn't try searching very hard did you ?!! :ugh:

Please, NO MORE mentions of this stupid PlaneSploit stuff and its publicity seeking creator Mr Teso.

The topic has been done to death on this thread ! His "findings" were full of flaws. Both the US and EU regulators investigated and found nothing of concern.

The chances of someone in row 27 of a 777 controlling it with their iPhone are zero, nada.

[Lonewolf_50]

It is strange for an entire planeload of passengers to be phone/internet silent for several hours.

If you follow the line of thought that evil persons for nefarious rasons have absconded with the plane and its passengers, then the door is open for these same evil persons to hold a gun to the head of each pax and demand their phone and laptop. (Or other suitable means of force/intimidation if not a gun per se). This scenario being considered also makes one wonder "who were on the aircraft, and how many were part of the nefarious plot?" Unknown.

[Ian W]

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.

What ACARS reports depends on the 'contract' set up with the recipients signed onto the ACARS reports. The pilot may have no idea what is contracted by the ground systems. If they ask for every waypoint, every vertical speed higher than n fpm and every drift off track more than x.y nautical miles and every change in the active route - they will get that and the pilot will not know that is what has been contracted. :ooh:

[Pontius Navigator]

Anyone remember the Payne Stewart tragedy in a Lear? Is this possible in a 777 flying 10000 feet lower?

Yes. All that changes is time of useful consciousness. A sedentary passenger can be comfortable at a cabin altitude of 12,500 feet. With a cabin altitude of 25,000 feet some will lose consciousness after a minute or so. Others will experience euphoria for a minute or so but be unable to do anything useful. If they have oxygen restored in a few minutes they will recover and have no memory of loss of consciousness. If oxygen is not restored then they will eventually die.

If the cabin altitude was 37k then we are talking seconds before loss of consciousness - say 30 seconds.

[TRW Plus]

There was a question about weather in central Asia around the possible time of landing this plane. I looked up Tashkent (Uzbekistan) and Almaty (Kazakhstan) for the time and date (to about 0500h local) and the situation was fairly benign. There was evidently low pressure to the north drawing in mild air, it was above freezing at both locations and light rain was falling but visibilities were moderate. The cold front of this disturbance can be seen moving through somewhat later in the morning to mid-day. But by these reports, there was no severe winter weather going on the morning of March 8th in that region. Yet at the same time it was not perfect flying weather for anyone, let alone a hi-jacker.

People had also made reference earlier to landing on long, straight desert roads. Surely these would not be wide enough to attempt such a thing, but also, once landed, where would you stash the airplane? My feeling all along is that partially abandoned airfield is in play in this scenario, and it would make sense to be looking at those that are surrounded by some type of cover. An airport out in the middle of some vegetation-free flat region would require an extensive structure available. However, it has probably occurred to many that the perpetrators could have refuelled and this plane could have gone on further later in the day.

Anyway, not to say I totally believe this scenario, but that's what the weather reports say FYI.

[Blacksheep]

http://rgl.faa.gov/Regulatory_and_Guidance_Library/rgad.nsf/0/d91639a24674ca8f86257c920050edf7/$FILE/2014-05-03.pdf

[John in YVR]

Has anybody asked "What was in the cargo hold?"

Was there something on board worth the effort to set up what is appearing to be a very well thought out (and executed) crime.

[mixture]

Has anybody asked "What was in the cargo hold?"

PLEASE !! Use the SEARCH function !!!

If I had a penny for every time someone asked that question, I'd be a billionaire by now ! :ugh:

[Token Bird]

Has anybody asked "What was in the cargo hold?"

Only about a gazillion times.

[cowhorse]

No, no one has asked that, apart from every second post.

This thread can be closed this instant, the amount of useful info/fruitful debate equals zero.

[rgbrock1]

mixture wrote:

PLEASE !! Use the SEARCH function !!!

If I had a penny for every time someone asked that question, I'd be a billionaire by now !Hey mixture? What do you think was in the cargo hold? :}:}:}

Does this also mean that if the aircraft is never found that this thread will continue ad infinitum?

[Ian W]

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.

The aircraft was equipped with SATCOM, apparently the airline had not subscribed to the SATCOM ACARS service. All the limited engine health monitoring that they had paid for went over VHF to SITA. However, the SATCOM was still fitted and still powered and the low level link protocols sill set up an empty connection which was then kept alive with the pings. It is likely that the SATCOM link would always be set up automatically by the low level protocols even though ACARS was happily using VHF and the SATCOM service was not being used. Just like carrying a spare cell phone and not using it - it still links to the network with its ID.

[monkou]

Southern Arc - Indonesia? Sometimes people can't see the wood for the trees. If northern route air defences are so good & it is believed it didn't go that way then perhaps it's on land and was landed very early in the process. Perhaps it's sitting right under their noses. I would not however, believe much of what the Malaysian government are saying based on performance so far. Perhaps somewhere quite close is where they need to look. There are enough radical groups in the SEA area for this to be a well thought out & prepared plan. This subject to of course no other country coming forward with radar information showing possible airspace incursion at the time.:ugh:Just my sixpence worth.

[pilotmike]

@MPN11BBC News just had a reasonably adult summary ...
Wot?!:{ Even with the nonsense they spouted about proving the FO was flying the aircraft, based on the FO apparently making the last RT call?

In the normal course of events, the FO making the call is a strong indication that he was PM, and it was in fact the captain who was PF.

There are of course a number of situations where the FO would be making RT calls as well as being PF, some perfectly innocent, others not. But would the reported calm, relaxed, even colloquial 'non-CAP413' style of the final call fit with the FO knowing that the captain had just become incapacitated for whatever reason?

[SLFguy]

PLEASE !! Use the SEARCH function !!!

If I had a penny for every time someone asked that question, I'd be a billionaire by now !

Mixture - you are fast becoming the most annoying poster in this thread.

For the love of God please just leave it to the mods.

[OleOle]

Always add in a moonless night and most of the elctronic landing gadgets probably turned off. Sim experience mostly useless there, some real old school flying required.

[Mats Hosan]

Why hasnt someone come of with the idea of a global FAQ page on that case. This repetitive and redundant stuff is annoying.

[BYMONEK]

Who is that 'dude' on CNN who's supposed to be an instructor with UFly. Never heard of UFly, even less that they operated B777s. Goatie, silver neck chain, Tshirt. Couldn't they find someone professional to fly the simulator? :mad:

[dillboy]

As much as I almost want to believe that this event stems from some organised/pre-planned hijack or 'terrorist' action, I keep coming back to day 1. Whether you want to believe it or not, it was reported at that early stage when it was fresh in everyone's mind that a pilot flying relatively close to this a/c did make contact and stated that amongst the static he heard munbling from 370's flight deck.

To me that is symptomatic of hypoxia or similar debilitating environment, howsoever caused.

No doubt, some people will say look at the facts, but these 'facts' appear to have started to now have some contradictions. My guess is that it is down, most likely in the ocean, back near (and i use that term loosely) its original path.

[MPN11]

pilotmike... ISTR it was the Malaysian speakers who said the FO was "in charge". I do understand the protocols, I assure you. In the past I have occasionally had to ask to speak to the captain :p

My reference was to a BBC summary of many days of chaos and gibberish. Would anyone care to summarise this thread? ;)

[Lord Spandex Masher]

Any chance of a resize?

[snowfalcon2]

I'm trying to sketch a workable technical solution that makes it all but impossible to go invisible the way MH370 did.

From the various comments, it's evident that there are indeed legal occasions where the transponder could be turned off in flight. Malfunctioning transmissions and equipment fire are the two main reasons. However, ALL these cases imply a coordination with ATC so that ATC is aware that the transponder is off.

Or can you think of any legal situation where the transponder can be switched off without making ATC aware of it? Please tell?


Now then for the solution sketch of handling the illegal use cases using a "Smart Circuit Breaker" at least for the transponder. This is a proposed "intelligent" CB networked with the plane's systems and ACARS. What it does is send alerts to ACARS as follows:

1) Manual intervention alert: If manually pulled, it breaks the current and sends a message to ACARS "CB123 for equipment xx was manually pulled at time yy:zz".
This is for the case that a) someone tries to illegally make the plane invisible, OR b) a fire or other event when the crew tries to manually isolate a faulty equipment.

2) Overcurrent alert: If triggered by overcurrent, it breaks the current and sends a message to ACARS "CB123 for equipment xx was triggered by overcurrent at time yy:zz".
This is the intended normal function of a circuit breaker, to protect the electrical system in case of a short circuit or similar.

3) Turn-off alert: For a smart CB associated with a piece of equipment that normally is never turned off in flight (such as a transponder) and triggered by current that stops flowing (or drops below some normal idle current), it sends a message to ACARS "CB123 for equipment xx was triggered by turn-off event at time yy:zz". In this case it will not break the circuit, just send the alert.
This is for the case that someone illegally turns off the transponder in-flight from the power button.

4) For a smart CB associated with communication-critical equipment such as ACARS itself, VHF,or Satcom, it waits for a certain delay to allow ACARS to transmit the alert message by VHF or Satcom to the outside world before breaking the circuit.

Summarizing: This solution allows manual depowering of the transponder, but will send out alert messages if done in-flight. Moreover, existing transponders would not need to be modified. The engineering challenge would then be to design a plug-in replacement for those existing CBs that would need to be replaced, as well as the interface to ACARS.

The complete solution obviously also must include software mods that will cause similar alert messages to be sent out if someone dectivates the ACARS in-flight. This sketch focused only on the transponder.

Doable? I think so. Just a daydream? I hope not. Good solution? You tell me.

[Lonewolf_50]

My reference was to a BBC summary of many days of chaos and gibberish. Would anyone care to summarise this thread? ;) "many days of chaos and gibberish" :E:ok:

[Xeptu]

Satellite Pings

I see it now, had to sleep on this.
Satelllte ping says, Mary are you there, eight Mary's respond, because I know where Mary's 1 through 6 and Mary 8 are, the one I'm looking for must be Mary 7

Very Clever

[grimmrad]

This thread is growing faster than I can read...

Quote "the authorities think the last two pings came from the same location and that the last ping was on the ground." /Quote

Is that confirmed?

And - hasn't the BBC reporter who brought (I think) the story of the oil rigger stated that it turned out to be false? So why is this still discussed. I think we need a summary of the current facts and the possible implications.

We all know this is an unprecedented event, pilots, SLF and all other ones as well. And unprecedented in ALL aspects, the actual event and the reaction of the authorities, first and foremost Malaysia itself, which acts as if not coming clean fully.

[FE Hoppy]

@snowfalcon2

You might be better off worrying about how to see if the pilots have shut down the engines in flight.

[Trackdiamond]

Any shipping lines along that southern arc trajectory that might possibly be used to play a role in the SAR?

[pilotmike]

@MPN11I do understand the protocols, I assure you.
My dig was at the reported presumptions, not you!:ok:

[Airbubba]

Air bubba,

VATSIM, you know it? You can check routes on there eh? What guys have flown ect

I'm one of those folks who tries to avoid the sim, since it is too much like work to me. Still, I should look into getting some of this software to practice FMS work and the like for my annual training. You get some wacko route modifications that you will never ever see in the real world but the folks in the sim building think are somehow essential. Of course, you never learn how to do an offset while still on the SID in China for example.

See Researcher Says He's Found Hackable Flaws In Airplanes' Navigation Systems (Update: The FAA Disagrees) - Forbes for more on Teso’s test rig, but of interest is this extract:

‘Teso focused on a different protocol called Aircraft Communications Addressing and Report System, (ACARS) a simple data exchange system that has evolved over decades to now include everything from weather data to airline schedules to changes to the plane’s flight management system. (FMS)
Teso says that ACARS still has virtually no authentication features to prevent spoofed commands’.


I certainly agree with Teso that legacy protocols like ACARS (and even worse maybe, CPDLC) have little in the way of security and authentication. They were designed years ago to replace civilian voice procedures which are similarly unsecure and weakly authenticated.

I'm sure the network engineers will remind me that security and authentication can be added at the transport layer as with the Satcom transmissions discussed here. However, VHF ACARS is still usually sent in the clear with little security other than the formatting and some internal airline codes.

There are secure ACARS protocols available, in my observation, they are still not in common use:

Avionics Magazine :: Securing ACARS: Data Link in the Post-9/11 Environment (http://www.aviationtoday.com/av/issue/feature/Securing-ACARS-Data-Link-in-the-Post-911-Environment_955.html#.UydIh5VOW_I)

From the article above:

So far, ACARS messaging seems to have been relatively incident-free. "I don't think we've ever seen an instance of spoofing," comments Arnold Oldach, principal marketing manager for surveillance and data link products with Rockwell Collins Commercial Systems. (Spoofing is when an outsider is able to pose as the sender of a message.) The worst thing that has occurred, experts say, was the apparent decoding of an ACARS message about a passenger disturbance, which made its way into a newspaper.

Here's a couple of ACARS messages I posted here years ago, logged with simple equipment and software:

ACARS mode: 2 Aircraft reg: .N468UA
Message label: 5Z Block id: 6 Msg. no: M07A
Flight id: UA0231
Message content:-
/C4 IADOAK TERRELL...CONT ON PAX
MAN HAS 35MM WITH A
ZOOM LENS...MIDDLE EAST
DESSENT...NOTED BY FA
AND CAP
CAP XXXX XXXXX
-------------------------------------[16/07/2002 08:12]

ACARS mode: 2 Aircraft reg: .N468UA
Message label: 5Z Block id: 0 Msg. no: M09A
Flight id: UA0231
Message content:-
/C4 IADOAK JOHN...I NOTICED HIS
ACTIVITY IN THE TERM...
TWO FA NOTICED HIS ACTIV
ON THE AIRCAFT DURING
TAXI OUT...RECMD FBI
BE ADVISED...GLEN
-------------------------------------[16/07/2002 08:24]

http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/62910-impostors-steal-uniforms-stalk-crews.html#post593825

The hack of simulated aircraft systems with an Android phone may have been an overstated media stunt and perhaps not a possibility with MH 370.

However, as we go more and more digital on the flight deck, this computer and digital comm stuff is a threat surface we really need to consider in my opinion.

[jugofpropwash]

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.

It does seem unlikely - and extremely difficult if not impossible to actually do - but we've already seen that radar coverage is a bit lax in the middle of the night. If an operator did see what appeared to be a 777 shadowing another 777, what would be his first instinct? I suspect that it would be that he's seeing some sort of echo or ghost artifact, rather than that someone really is trying to do that in a jumbo jet. Chances are, it might be ignored - or that the radar repairman might be called.

[Murexway]

Well, after all the movie-plot theories, mechanical possibilities, crew conspiracy/suicide suggestions; after all the pings and turns, descents and climbs, and despite volumuous discussions of switch positions, radio phraseology, and aircraft systems, we're still left with nothing more than what we started with:

An extremely reliable airplane, maintained by a reputable airline, flown by a professional, qualified crew, on a normal route with no adverse weather.... that inexplicably doesn't make it to its destination and disappears.

Since everyone has their own opinion as for why, I'll offer mine and make this my final post on the thread.

A security failure at some point resulted in a person or persons, as yet unknown, interfering with the flight crew's performance of their duties, for the purpose of terrorism. The crew died trying to thwart that effort, resulting in the tragic loss of the aircraft and all on board. As for why no group has yet claimed responsibility, they failed. Whatever building or major city was their target is still intact. No terror group will advertise their failures.

[Shaka Zulu]

Fyi:
ADS-B is only available on the L Transponder on the 777 (with standard fit).
As soon as the R Transponder is selected the aircraft is unable to send ADS-B info.

Disabling ACARS (both VHF and SATCOM) is very easily done via the COMMS pages.

Would be interested to see the parameters of the engines that RR received for a good view hours.

If someone has punched in LITEX & GIVAL into the FMC there is a good likelihood that incapacitation isn't on the cards, more a considerate attempt to go somewhere.
FYI: (that airway is used lots by all airliners to transit over Port Blair towards NE India, VOMF AND VOCF FIRs

[Hunter58]

Jugofpropwash

to try to shadow a 777 would be not possible ( read some pages back ). Also military operators do not look at the blips but track symbols. Depending on the radar you would get two very overlapping symbols (one identified, the second not), drawing attention to the situation.

The best chance to fool the military is to fly like everybody else on a published airway. Chances are best you will not be discovered, even if not automatically identified. Unless there is a very good relationship between military radar and ATC, nobody will raise an alarm in the middle of the night.

[Jumpjim]

What ACARS reports depends on the 'contract' set up with the recipients signed onto the ACARS reports. The pilot may have no idea what is contracted by the ground systems. If they ask for every waypoint, every vertical speed higher than n fpm and every drift off track more than x.y nautical miles and every change in the active route - they will get that and the pilot will not know that is what has been contracted.

Once again, ACARS DOES NOT DO POSITION REPORTS WITHOUT BEING LOGGED ONTO ADS!!!! The ground systems cannot setup a contract without the aircraft logging on.

If the pilots haven't logged the ADS onto the FIR ADS address the ACARS will not send position reports. ATC cannot log on to the aircraft without the pilots requesting it first as far as I know.

There seems to be a common misconception throughout this thread that ACARS is sending back position reports constantly. It doesn't.

[mixture]

Hey mixture? What do you think was in the cargo hold?

Some air and some ULDs.... that's what I think was in the cargo hold. :E

Like the mobile phones, the meteorites and every other theory under the earth that has been mindlessly discussed here, my answer is simple.... until proven otherwise by hard facts, the contents of the cargo hold had nothing to do with this incident !

[mixture]

The hack of simulated aircraft systems with an Android phone may have been an overstated media stunt and perhaps not a possibility with MH 370.

However, as we go more and more digital on the flight deck, this computer and digital comm stuff is a threat surface we really need to consider in my opinion.

For fear of repeating what I said a mere 3114 posts prior to yours.....

Well, sure they could perhaps, maybe do something to something.

But how much could they do to safety critical systems ? I suspect the numbers plummet dramatically, if not to zero.

How much could they do to safety critical systems that the flight crew could not overrule by flicking a switch or pulling a CB ? I suspect the number is exactly zero.

Therefore, as you say.... it was an "overstated media stunt". We all know how the media like a good aviation story they can hype up... and what better than an aviation security story for the journos to have a field day on !

Both regulators and the manufacturers looked at his claims and found no issues with aircraft systems.

[GarageYears]

:ugh::ugh::ugh:

The very idea that someone could "hack" the aircraft systems is so laughably ridiculous I really don't know why I'm bothering, but for the sake of my sanity... this is impossible in the context of the 777. The T7 was introduced into service in 1995, so you can be sure the computer systems on the aircraft date back to technology from the late 80's at BEST. Most of the worlds so-called hackers weren't even BORN then, let alone have any experience working with a system from this era. This is a proprietary architecture, with no open "network ports" or wireless links or anything accessible. Please stop this rubbish. The Teso guy repeatedly mentioned here, did NOT hack an aircraft - he hacked a PC-based ACARS rehost. So he hacked a PC....

On another oft repeated mis-information, R-R did NOT receive any engine data after the ACARS system was deselected. The SATCOM system continued to receive SATCOM pings.... oh, I give up -> READ THIS:

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

[Heli-phile]

By being "in the doors" read: affixed to the inflatable slides which double for rafts in the case of an on water landing.

[GarageYears]

Dear POSTERS THAT INSIST ON POSTING THE SAME RUBBISH OVER AND OVER.... like this Keith Ledgerwood blah, blah, blah... please STOP IT. Learn to use the *search* function. It isn't hard and will avoid mindless repetition and save my blood from boiling.

[mixture]

The very idea that someone could "hack" the aircraft systems is so laughably ridiculous I really don't know why I'm bothering, but for the sake of my sanity...

Well said GarageYears, and sort of how I feel too when people here give Teso yet more stupid publicity ! :ugh:

[220mph]

Had there been a truly robust system for flight tracking in place that reported 3D position every minute or so from takeoff to touchdown:

As others have noted above - what you describe largely exists - at least as far as flight tracking - it is comparatively low cost to install and to operate. It is standalone, unconnected to aircraft systems, which should make it largely tamper-proof.

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

[bratschewurst]

"Japan Airlines 350 Japan Airlines Flight 350 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Airlines_Flight_350)

Royal Air Maroc flight 630 Royal Air Maroc Flight 630 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Air_Maroc_Flight_630)

Silk Air flight 185 SilkAir Flight 185 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SilkAir_Flight_185)

EgyptAir 990 EgyptAir Flight 990 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EgyptAir_Flight_990)

Linhas Aéreas de Moçambique - LAM 470 LAM Mozambique Airlines Flight 470 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia"

Regarding the pilot suicide theory: 5 instances in 30 years is statistically equivalent to none at all.

Say there are 100,000 or so pilots working for all the airlines on the planet at any given time. The average suicide rate in countries developed enough to have airlines of any size is, at best, a guess, but 10 per 100,000 would seem reasonable based on this chart (http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/cause-of-death/suicide/by-country/) (which is based on World Health Organization data from 2011). Given that a large majority of pilots are men, and male suicide rates are generally higher, 10 per 100,000 may even be low.

So, over a 30-year period, there would have been approximately, and at least, 3,000 suicides by airline pilots. 5 of those might have been suicide-by-loaded-aircraft. Statistically that's zero plus noise. And none of those five seem to have involved the kind of advance planning and convoluted thinking that would be required in this case.

No, that's not dispositive. Yes, pilot suicide has to be considered as a possibility, based on what's known to date. But I suspect we would have heard days ago if there was any real evidence to suggest that pilot suicide was really plausible, as opposed to simply one of many possibilities.

It's worth noting, by the way, that Malaysia has the third-lowest suicide rate of the 192 countries listed.

[cairnshouse]

A security failure at some point resulted in a person or persons, as yet unknown, interfering with the flight crew's performance of their duties, for the purpose of terrorism. The crew died trying to thwart that effort, resulting in the tragic loss of the aircraft and all on board. As for why no group has yet claimed responsibility, they failed. Whatever building or major city was their target is still intact. No terror group will advertise their failures.

This plane flies west over the populated land of a relatively sophisticated country. Yet no-one with any recollection of UA 93 makes a call from a concealed phone.

Either the passengers are dead, unconscious or unaware what is happening.

[Airbubba]

There seems to be a common misconception throughout this thread that ACARS is sending back position reports constantly. It doesn't.

Perhaps not constantly but ACARS on some planes it definitely sends out a periodic position report.

Here is hobbyist software that will plot those ACARS position reports:

PlanePlotter plots aircraft positions, altitudes and times decoded from the message traffic that it receives. These include embedded position reports, AMDAR reports and ADS reports contained in ACARS messages,

PlanePlotter from COAA (http://www.coaa.co.uk/planeplotter.htm)

Also, see:

Can ACARS send postion, altitude and heading information automatically?

ACARS itself can not, but other systems like the Flight Management Systems (FMS) or ADS-C on board the aircraft can use ACARS to send reports like this automatically, and in some cases they do.


avionics - What data does ACARS send back to base? Can it be used to track a plane? - Aviation Stack Exchange (http://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/2278/what-data-does-acars-send-back-to-base-can-it-be-used-to-track-a-plane)

Looking at VHF ACARS logs, some carriers seem to still spit out a periodic position on ACARS, others don't, perhaps like the engine data, depending on the avionics, service providers and level of service purchased.

Commercial versions of ADS-B tracking software may have already rendered this ACARS position reporting obsolete but there is a lot of legacy stuff at a money losing national carrier from my past experience.

[GarageYears]

@Trackdiamond: Have you EVER worked with ANY aircraft avionics, especially a T7s? Well I have. I worked for many months on a Level D T7 flight sim, which happened to use the AIMS avionics boxes... and a complete bastard they were to integrate. I won't expand on this, except to say that even with access to the source code and all interface diagrams, etc, all that was possible was to stimulate the system. There was absolutely no way to back-door into the system to allow the injection of simulated malfunctions, and other simulator behaviors. So, I'm bloody sure some Johnny with an Android phone is out of luck.

[Dumbo Jet]

Apparently according to MAS here was nothing hazardous in the cargo hold. We have no other information, no cargo manifest, rien, nada!

The ping is initiated by the satellite asking the aircraft if it is still active - the aircraft replies to ping only with the statement 'I am live' however that maybe configured in satellite speak. NO DATA is passed. The satellite continues to ask the aircraft on an hourly basis in order to keep the communication line open 'in case' the aircraft wishes to pass data.

There is no confirmation that the last 'reply' from the aircraft was from the ground; However we do know that if the aircraft had landed and the engines were still powered it would 'reply' with an 'I am live'.

The passengers have not responded because why bother taking mobile phones at gun point when you can just 'dump' the cabin and then take the aircraft up to 45000 feet or so (I say or so because primary radar cannot confirm with the parameters it has it was exactly 45000 feet) to make the process faster!

I think the answer is going to be a combination of several scenarios already mentioned on here - amongst the more literate responses. Which ones who knows - but my personal opinion is Murexway at #5488 was pretty close together with a previous poster who also mentioned cabin dumping and once dumped surely the cockpit is going to get pretty cold! Something not even a SIM can prepare you for!

[givemewings]

affixed to the inflatable slides which double for rafts in the case of an on water landing.

Heli-phile, again that does not make sense to me because it would not be 'logical' in the minds of the beancounters... it also assumes that particular slide/raft makes it off the airframe.

Are they any actual, documented airlines who have this setup? I'm just really curious now... as I said I have flown on more than 10 aircraft types and have never seen/heard of this setup...

[msjh]

I have some experience as an ethical hacker, starting in the 1970s.

1995 era code on an aircraft is perfectly hackable; quite easy in fact.

Now I am not saying this happened. I have no idea what happened. But hacking is not out of the question, even if the code is not accessible over a network.

[oldoberon]

by oldoberon
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.

It does seem unlikely - and extremely difficult if not impossible to actually do - but we've already seen that radar coverage is a bit lax in the middle of the night. If an operator did see what appeared to be a 777 shadowing another 777, what would be his first instinct? I suspect that it would be that he's seeing some sort of echo or ghost artifact, rather than that someone really is trying to do that in a jumbo jet. Chances are, it might be ignored - or that the radar repairman might be called.


that quote is of one of my post and your response is fair point

[MG23]

The SATCOM system continued to receive SATCOM pings.... oh, I give up -> READ THIS:

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

That's a good summary that's consistent with everything I know on the subject.

[deadheader]

Unnamed "top officials" close to investigation team:


''While the ongoing search is divided into two massive areas, the data that the investigating team is collating is leading us more towards the north"


(Published by SMH)

[SLFgeek]

This plane flies west over the populated land of a relatively sophisticated country. Yet no-one with any recollection of UA 93 makes a call from a concealed phone.
Keep in mind that on 9/11 much of the US still had AMPS cellular service, and there were many dual mode AMPS phones about. AMPS is now completely deactivated in the US. Some countries never had AMPS, and began service with GSM. AMPS had longer range and better coverage than GSM.

If people were able to actually place cell phone calls from UA 93, it may have been over AMPS (although one mention way back in this thread suggested they used a special aircraft phone service).

[GarageYears]

HawkEye Media Boeing 777 Avionics Compartment VR Panoramic Photography (http://hawkeyemedia.com/panos/777_Avionics.asp)

The EE bay is not accessible from the cockpit. It is accessed via a door in the floor in the vicinity of the forward entry door.

Boeing-777 - Warbird Photo Album (http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/album/showfull.php?photo=20730)

[Ian W]

Once again, ACARS DOES NOT DO POSITION REPORTS WITHOUT BEING LOGGED ONTO ADS!!!! The ground systems cannot setup a contract without the aircraft logging on.

If the pilots haven't logged the ADS onto the FIR ADS address the ACARS will not send position reports. ATC cannot log on to the aircraft without the pilots requesting it first as far as I know.

There seems to be a common misconception throughout this thread that ACARS is sending back position reports constantly. It doesn't.

Do try not to get too excited. :)

The ACARS reported the Waypoint Change so it was contracted to do so, which shows that the ACARS was logged in on a contract with Sebang. There were also routine health monitoring reports every 30 minutes as the expected one after 1:37am local was not received.

[ex_matelot]

to try to shadow a 777 would be not possible ( read some pages back ). Also military operators do not look at the blips but track symbols. Depending on the radar you would get two very overlapping symbols (one identified, the second not), drawing attention to the situation.

The best chance to fool the military is to fly like everybody else on a published airway. Chances are best you will not be discovered, even if not automatically identified. Unless there is a very good relationship between military radar and ATC, nobody will raise an alarm in the middle of the night.

I'd advise people to disregard the above quoted. It is wholly wrong on several points. I speak from years of experience operating several different types of medium / long range air defence radars,associated command systems and datalinks. The bread & butter is in the "blips" - the track idents come afterwards in many cases. I could go on but that would be a bit naughty.

[surfcat]

View inside the EE compartment
HawkEye Media Boeing 777 Avionics Compartment VR Panoramic Photography (http://apicdn.viglink.com/api/click?format=go&key=1e857e7500cdd32403f752206c297a3d&loc=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pprune.org%2Frumours-news%2F535538-malaysian-airlines-mh370-contact-lost-277.html&out=http%3A%2F%2Fhawkeyemedia.com%2Fpanos%2F777_Avionics.asp&ref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pprune.org%2F)

The EE bay is not accessible from the cockpit. It is accessed via a door in the floor in the vicinity of the forward entry door.

Boeing-777 - Warbird Photo Album (http://apicdn.viglink.com/api/click?format=go&key=1e857e7500cdd32403f752206c297a3d&loc=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pprune.org%2Frumours-news%2F535538-malaysian-airlines-mh370-contact-lost-277.html&out=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ww2aircraft.net%2Fforum%2Falbum%2Fshowf ull.php%3Fphoto%3D20730&ref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pprune.org%2F)



That's an amazing room. But don't tell O'Leary as he'll want a few more seats down there.

[OleOle]

It would be very interesting to see a plot of the distance to satellite rings for the all the SATCOM pings which should have occurred about every hour after 01:07.

I mentioned earlier that the geometric problem still would be symetrical (to the axis satellite position projected to the ground <-> LKP). For determining if it's the northern or southern arc it wouldn't help.

[glenbrook]

Doppler from multiple geostationary sats would give you derived heading, speed and possibly location. It's how the Americans tracked Sputnik.

Doppler is no use in this case.
For a start Sputnik was moving about 7km/sec relative the ground and because it was in low-earth orbit the motion relative to a ground observer was very high.

A Geostationary satellite has no motion relative to a fixed point on earth, and the only motion relative to the aircraft is the component of its velocity moving toward or away from the satellite. If the a/c is moving at say 290m/s parallel to the satellite which is 35,786,000 meters away and the earth curves at about 12 cm per km, then the motion relative to the satellite directly overhead is about 3.5cm/sec. Of course at the far end of the satellite's range the relative motion will higher, but only a couple of m/s at the maximum edge of the satellite footprint. To measure a speed that small using doppler is very difficult and I doubt very much that Inmarsat is set up for that.

[cairnshouse]

Keep in mind that on 9/11 much of the US still had AMPS cellular service, and there were many dual mode AMPS phones about. AMPS is now completely deactivated in the US. Some countries never had AMPS, and began service with GSM. AMPS had longer range and better coverage than GSM.

If people were able to actually place cell phone calls from UA 93, it may have been over AMPS (although one mention way back in this thread suggested they used a special aircraft phone service).

I accept this, but one is not looking for a connection long enough to make a meaningful phone call, just a connection long enough register on the network (not even with the recipient) that a call had been made. Certainly, and obviously this is in a horizontal rather than a vertical plane,there are problems in the Dover, England area where callers connect to French mobile networks in error where the French signal is at least 22 miles away. Yet there is no suggestion any calls were made.

[Ngineer]

The EE bay is not accessible from the cockpit. It is accessed via a door in the floor in the vicinity of the forward entry door.

Who cares. Disabling VHF and Satcom part of ACARS takes all of 30 seconds from the Comms MGR page. Anyone requiring EE bay access inflight can do so easy enough ATM (however this will change in future)

[Jumpjim]

Re: (IANW) "The ACARS reported the Waypoint Change so it was contracted to do so..."

The reporting (incl CNN) has the ACARS timeline issues sorted out finally, more or less mimicking what's has been "established" here. OTOH the recorded/reported waypoint change ("pre-programmed left turn"?) is not being addressed. I assume that is what you are posting in above quote.

We had the 25-degree to 40-degree Vn ATC issue in focus as something that cast doubt on this as on ACARS-at-1:07 event. Even ABC NEWS and FOXnews that reported this "turn on ACARS" had vague "sources say" and that has been it. CNN has not really addressed it as fact or otherwise.

IF it is FACT, it would seemingly confirm deliberate human action rather than other mishap. For how could that left turn be in the FMC at 1:07 otherwise?

IANW, CNN, any journalists reading this: Can we pin this down as FACT or otherwise discard it as a supported detail please?

So the suggestion is that the pilots manually logged on to ATC, let the aircraft broadcast a turn, including their next re-programmed waypoint which apparently they had reprogrammed into the FMC prior to the aircraft broadcasting a pos report, and then successfully made the aircraft disappear?

Do you not think they may have skipped the ADS log-on procedure, if in fact local ATC even HAS ADS, prior to trying to go dark??? For the aircraft to be "Contracted" as you say above, the crew would have had to manually request a log-on. This makes absolutely no sense given what subsequently transpired. What possible reason would they have had to do this? If the reports said they had logged on, broadcast a position report including the next flight-planned waypoint, THEN disabled the ADS and ACARS PRIOR to turning onto a new track then I could sort of understand it....

The arguments on here get less and less logical by the minute...

[jeanlyon]

Yes I had noticed that the last "over" had changed from "All right, roger that" to "all right, goodnight". Could someone have misheard that when it was first reported. Maybe.

[GarageYears]

Quote:
The EE bay is not accessible from the cockpit. It is accessed via a door in the floor in the vicinity of the forward entry door.
Who cares. Disabling VHF and Satcom part of ACARS takes all of 30 seconds from the Comms MGR page. Anyone requiring EE bay access inflight can do so easy enough ATM (however this will change in future) 17th Mar 2014 16:59

The context for this was disabling the CVR and FDR....

[Heli-phile]

Oxygen generators or piped...it does not matter really. At that altitude you require a pressurised mask. Those are only available in the cockpit. All irrelevant anyhow as the aircraft would not be able to reach that altitude, not with that load and fuel!

[Jumpjim]

Rigbyrigz: The FMC does not downlink every legs change. I think it is HIGHLY unlikely, as I've posted above, that the aircraft was logged onto Kuala Lumpur ADS (WMFC) at the time the FMC was reprogrammed by whoever was altering the flight route. This is extremely easy to verify.

If it was logged on then it could have conceivably have downlinked the change in next waypoint ONLY, but after flying 777's for 10K hours so far I'm still unsure whether it does this immediately the change is executed in the FMC or at the next waypoint/18 minute reporting interval.

Either way, as stated previously, unless the crew had manually initiated an ADS log-on ATC would be clueless what they had in their FMC.

[vapilot2004]

O.K. Serious question for 777 Avionics Techs.

Is it possible to alter the ICAO unique airframe code in the transponder using pilot available menus; or engineering menus using pilot accessible equipment?

While there is an MAT (maintenance access terminal) in the cockpit, in order to change the airframe code, there are 2 prerequisites - one, the Air/Ground logic must indicate Ground and two, new ID data is uploaded only via disk file which is created by a GBST software package - something a pilot is not going to have access to - usually the operators are dispatch and maintenance.

[RifRaf3]

The left turn towards P. Lankawi makes sense.
It would imply a fire in the climb taking out the acars with a positive fire warning such as smoke intrusion after the last transmission, followed by turning off all cockpit electronics, hence loss of comms.
There are still problems with it as there are with all other scenarios.

[oldoberon]

VApilot2004

thanks for that info, it is what I would have expected and like the air/ground bit, so even if you had a MAT in the air bit of a problem, data possibly from a undercarriage weight on limit switch

[FE Hoppy]

costalpilot

Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: world
Posts: 8
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.
costalpilot is offline Report Post

I don't think FE Hoppy has made any such claim. You may be miss attributing the analysis.

[jeanlyon]

If that suggestion of a fire and no comms is correct, then surely it would have come down in the sea and there would be debris? How long after AF774 went down was there debris. I can't remember. In that case they had a Mayday call though.

[Lonewolf_50]

OK, jean. OK eliptic.

If captain heads for Langkawi with a catastrophe on his hands, where did it end up? What's your thought on that? Had it landed there, or on that island, a trace would by now probably have been found.

If not, why not?

Second point: if it goes down in the first two hours of flight, signficant amount of fuel on board.

[flash8]

1995 era code on an aircraft is perfectly hackable; quite easy in fact.

I am not sure how you reached this conclusion but nothing could be further from the truth. In fact substantial analytical work went into the n-version (voting) Ada development, including Z/VDM specifications and absolutely strict and correct interfaces (this was for the 744 and I am sure has been enhanced and developed since).

I spent time working with the 744 FADEC Software so I do know at least a little about what I talk about (as well as having time on the 737 Classic).

To criticize code in the sense of vintage is a complete misnomer. Software tools in the mid 80's were starting to get very serious in terms of system provability and verification, and the Ada compilers were excellent in picking up all sorts of nasty things (static and dynamic). All the development teams were isolated and all produced seriously good provable engineering.

Yes, time has moved on since those early days, but essentially most of the work stands intact as well it should.

Rogue data insertion into the architecture would be completely non-trivial.

[AndyJS]

It's remarkable that India's radar covering the Andaman Islands was turned off at the time MH370 might have flown over because apparently "it was too expensive" too keep it on all the time, although I'm sure they really didn't want to have to reveal that information.

It makes you wonder how many other countries' radar systems are not all they're cracked up to be, which would of course improve the chances of MH370 having successfully flown over other areas.

[mickjoebill]

Can anyone confirm where the search for underwater ELT pings has occurred?

A strong contender is loss of control and nose dive into shallow water with wreckage jn the 20-40 meter thick mud.
Can the ping be received if it is buried in a few meters of mud?

If that suggestion of a fire and no comms is correct, then surely it would have come down in the sea and there would be debris?

In the loss of control scenarios (bomb, fire, mechanical) and suicide, it is feasible that massive in flight disintegration need not occur and like Egypt air it impacts nose first, leaving very little floating wreckage or fuel slick. Particularly in the marshy areas around Malacca straights.

In respect to the sat pings they are not verifiable, is the transmitter attached to the airframe? Also no way of knowing if the transmissions have been cloned.
In respect to the claim that a unique un-hackable and secure address is attached to the ping I submit the theory the protocols are not battle hardened to withstand a 21st Century hijacking.



Mickjoebill

[arewenotmen]

@RifRaf3, what problems do you identify with it?

I'm also inclined to believe that it was catastrophic failure at approximately 01.21.

The confusing picture built up by Malaysian radar data describing flight to the west would fit the presence of a SIA (or other) 777, although you would expect this to have been thoroughly checked.

At a shallow depth, it fits with the timeline, and fits with the oil rig account.

The problems I see are apparent lack of wreckage, the possibility of tidy ACARS shutdown (still claimed?), and what would seem to be the slim chance of functioning Inmarsat equipment in the sea after the catastrophic destruction of the AC. There's also the question of why such huge efforts have been made pursuing anything but this obvious, Occam's razor scenario.

The missing piece would seem to be the six other satellite pings. If they were all the same range, then I can't see any other possibility.

[RifRaf3]

The Langkawi scenario would imply incapacitation and continued flight either until fuel exhaustion, or a/c breakup, or loss of control. That's wide open as far as search areas are concerned. If cockpit smoke is so severe as to destroy landing capability a a climb into thinner air might be a last ditch attempt to extinguish the smoke.

[Lonewolf_50]

Mickjoebill:

If it's underwater, and if the nose hits first, I'd expect the tail not to be buried. IIRC, tail is where FDR and CVR are mounted. (If wrong on location, apologies). By the time the wreckage hits the bottom, acceleration in the "down" direction would be pretty small. Granted, once in a bit of mud, sound of acoustic beacon pings would be muffled, no idea as to the dB loss.

How deep is the water in your consideration of "shallow water." (Muddy bottom granted in the area I think you are talking about).

Dozens of pages ago, a very succinct explanation was provided of how an aircraft at those speeds find hitting water a lot like hitting land, in terms of the decel at impact on the water's surface. FWIW.

[Andu]

It is feasible that savvy cabin crew survived the 45000ft excursionNot with a standard walkaround bottle and mask, even at high rate.

In a cabin above 40,000', surviving beyond a few seconds is a full time business involving pressure breathing and a real oxygen mask (like a fighter pilot would wear) with pressure breathing capability that pins the mask so tightly to the face with an overcentre lever, it's almost painful. If you're not familiar with the term 'pressure breathing', look it up; it's possibly on Wiki.

It would also, very quickly, become unbelievably cold. And I mean COLD, to the point of incapacitation.

[RatherBeFlying]

Distance readouts and times from all Inmarsat pings
3D Primary radar position readouts and times from at least Malaysia and hopefully Thailand, Indonesia, Burma, China and India if willing to share.

At a minimum the Malaysia primary radar positions would yield airspeeds, altitudes and last heading. Until I see radar echoes at the zigzagging waypoints, I'll remain skeptical about the announced course.

We can then apply DR or a compass to plot possible positions on the various ping arcs. It may even be possible to eliminate one of the 8:11 arcs -- or perhaps shorten them.

North arc possibilities include: CFIT, hard landing, clandestine landing perhaps with a serious quantity of tarps or paint or sand to cover up. Planes trying to stay below radar in the dark in the Himalayas or Pamirs have a good chance of hitting one of them.

South arc: ditch in open ocean or bay of a French rocky island or hard landing -- or plunge into ocean.

I suspect spysats have already had a careful look over the TAAF, terres australes et antarctiques francaises.

How many months would it take for cushions, baggage etc. to drift to the Patagonian fiords? How long would it take for somebody to spot any of it there?

[rigbyrigz]

jumpjim. ty for trying to uplink sense to my brain...

but i'm still asea, and based upon "no such thing as a stupid question"
(well maybe except this thread)
perhaps you (or someone) could kindly painstakingly address this:

Q: What EXACTLY are THEY talking about when they reference and discuss the so-called "pre-programmed left turn"....
pre-programmed means what? when? where???

TY (and if u reply u believe there was no such datapoint reported on those terms, thats a good answer too)

[RifRaf3]

I would not rule out a crash into shallow water followed by burial into mud near the point of loss of transponder, but I feel that the evidence of a left turn over the peninsular is stronger. The oil rig 'sighting' is very weak and is offset by other 'sightings' including radar in the opposite directions.
The burial scenario is so total, that unless something like fuel seeps to the surface it has very low probability of exposure and makes searching somewhat futile.
It's like the man at night who lost his wallet and was searching under a streetlight. When asked why he was searching there he answered, "because it's the only place that I'm likely to find it".

In the fire scenario, the ACARS would have had only partial disablement in the climb to account for the later pings and this is all very unlikely. But then whatever occurred is also going to be very unlikely.

[Hunter58]

I'd advise people to disregard the above quoted. It is wholly wrong on several points. I speak from years of experience operating several different types of medium / long range air defence radars,associated command systems and datalinks. The bread & butter is in the "blips" - the track idents come afterwards in many cases. I could go on but that would be a bit naughty.

Thank you very much. I did work as Track Monitor and Identification Officer. You would not be able to recognize a 'blip' on a screen unless it is already assigned as valid track. For this you need valid returns. I know my work, not sure about yours.

I am sure you could go on a bit. So could I!

[Ngineer]

The context for this was disabling the CVR and FDR....

There are no confirmations of CVR or DFDR deactivation, so once again who cares?

[ExSp33db1rd]

If the aircraft has NOT been destroyed with the loss of all on board there would have been some distressed cell phone traffic. Or am I missing something here.

Yes. What makes you think that pax. cellphones will work in all locations ? There are areas of so called "First World" New Zealand where there is no cellphone coverage no matter how much money you pay to Vodafone ! The likelihood of them working in some remote area is nil, even in my urban location I have to step out on to my balcony to get even the weak signal provided by the State provider ! ( and My Dear, the cost !!! )

[OleOle]

Actually no mysteries needed.

Close to IGARI something went terribly wrong, probably leading to or including severe hypoxia for most souls on board. After things calmed down somebody felt it was not a good idea to go home with this mess on board. So he/she decided to hide the mess. Set a flightpath that doesn't touch land again and select south pole as final destination.

One tends to think this was carefully staged, but maybe it was just pure chaos, and in the end somebody decided that the rest of the world better shouldn't know. Even a flightsim geek would be able to program such a flightpath.

Deliberate action to avoid radar? No way. The MAF had them on their radar all the time, they just didn't care. But that was obviously not an achievement of anybody on board MH370.

[Pontius Navigator]

At a minimum the Malaysia primary radar positions would yield airspeeds, altitudes and last heading.

I am sure you meant groundspeed with only an estimate of airspeed based on assumed winds aloft.

Altitude may also be problematical depending on their type of height finding equipment.

OleOle, oh so simple, just a means of saving face.

[vapilot2004]

As per my experience even changing the data frequency to an unused frequency wont help as in most cases the system uses SATCOM to communicate automatically in case no VHF handshake takes place.... reracking etc is impossible in air too!!!

In the case of the 777, there is a way to choose only VHF or only SATCOM. If the frequencies are jiggered, the ACARS transmissions will fail. As far as de-racking, the ACARS VHF modem LRU's are fully accessible in the EE bay, however I doubt this was the method used - I was only offering this as a possibility as given to me by a friendly tech.

The ACARS data path choice, by the way, is there primarily due to uplink/downlink costs - it is always cheaper to use VHF.

[GarageYears]

:{ Oh Dear God :ugh:

Now planes apparently can crash from some 35000ft and simply spear into 150ft of water and embed themselves in 60 feet of mud... all without breaking up. :mad:

No.

[BoughtTheFarm]

The rate of theory accumulation on public forums and the Press about this plus the contradictions, confusion, assumptions and tech deep dives plus every possible scenario from those on the flight deck to those who are a pain in the neck ensures one fact:-

This investigation needs to have credible answers soon. If not then let's hope the Press become more interested in other "news" and let investigating agencies do their job and PPRuNe go back to BAU. The chaos following MH370 is set to overtake whatever chaos or drama the flight itself experienced. Real time news and instant "Social media" and crowd sourcing.


Anyone here recall a b&w movie about a guy trapped in a deep hole in the US and as word spread about the ensuing rescue a small town sprung up at the site of the rescue? A real jamboree until his fate was known and he died. The circus moved out. It could have been called MH370. But the industry and families of those aboard will be left to deal with it and learn long after all the clowns move on.

[leanderandhero]

I have observed all comments here with interest since Saturday 8 March.
The quality of the technical knowledge on Pprune is, for the most part, the best in the world.

The site.....and the 'Mods' deserve great praise.

Tanto nomini nullum par elgoium

I have not posted here for 12 years.

I was a professional pilot. (7000 hours) Before that, a British Army officer. With experience of terrorism.

For the moment I propose this, for discussion:

The aircraft landed safely in western Xinjiang, the homeland of the Uygurs, at about sunrise on Saturday 8 March. On an unpaved desert strip. The passengers are alive. They are hostages. The plane is now in bits and hidden. It is no longer required.

'Echelon' knows this.

The Chinese are looking there.....furiously. For 3 or 4 days.

I will say more tomorrow.

[Trigbush]

Perhaps but I thought the helpful post on the Silkair incident was interesting:


Flight 185 remained level at FL350 until it started a rapid and nearly vertical dive around 16:12. While plunging through 12,000 feet (3,700 m), parts of the aircraft, including a great extent of the tail section, started to separate from the aircraft's fuselage due to high forces arising from the nearly supersonic dive.[3] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SilkAir_Flight_185#cite_note-fsa-3) Seconds later, the aircraft impacted the Musi River (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musi_River_(Indonesia)), near Palembang (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palembang), Sumatra (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumatra). The time it took the aircraft to dive from cruise altitude to the river was less than one minute. The plane was traveling faster than the speed of sound for a few seconds before impact.[3] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SilkAir_Flight_185#cite_note-fsa-3)
All 104 people on board, including the 41-year-old Singaporean (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore) captain, Tsu Way Ming (朱卫民)[11] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SilkAir_Flight_185#cite_note-12) and the 23-year-old co-pilot, New Zealander (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand) Duncan Ward, died in the crash.
The aircraft broke into pieces before impact, with the debris spread over several kilometres, though most of the wreckage was concentrated in a single 60-metre (200 ft) by 80-metre (260 ft) area at the river bottom.[7] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SilkAir_Flight_185#cite_note-ntsc-7) There was not a single complete body, body part or limb found, as the entire aircraft and passengers disintegrated upon impact. Only six positive identifications were later obtained from the few recovered human remains...

[rigbyrigz]

RE: "Close to IGARI something went terribly wrong, probably leading to or including severe hypoxia for most souls on board. After things calmed down somebody felt it was not a good idea to go home with this mess on board. So he/she decided to hide the mess. Set a flightpath that doesn't touch land again and select south pole as final destination.

One tends to think this was carefully staged, but maybe it was just pure chaos, and in the end somebody decided that the rest of the world better shouldn't know."

...filling in the blanks...?
a)Captn that flies 10-12 hours a week has daydreamed often in his spare time, or on his FSim, ways to steal a plane, hide one, avoid radar, just general idle no harm intended fantasy. But details exist in mind!
b)Long day in court till 9PM, only to see his idolized opposition leader Ibrahim sent away when the acquital has been overturned by zealous current government
c)Damn, got to fly the red-eye, and with that damn kid who is son of one of those zealot leaders. Oh, and the wife is suing for alimony too. Great!
d)well off we go, wild blue yonder, but if the kid says another word about Ibrahim being a scumbag sodomist who gets what he deserved i am going to slap him!
e) slap slap, big mouth, oh he slaps back. well take that kid, ooops, what is he faking? knocked out? dead? OOPS.
f) chaos, what to do now. Antarctica? what about my plane stealing scene. Or just go to jail, spend eternity in sodomy solo.
g)etc.

I am not serious, of course, right?

[SASless]

So far along in this mystery....and it remains just that....a mystery!

I guess the CIA, NSA, DOD, are not so effective as we thought them to be.

Or.....do they know something they are not releasing?

[RifRaf3]

An aircraft that buries itself into dirt or mud does not imply that it remains intact. It commences breaking up as it hits the water, but the horizontal separation of the parts has not proceeded significantly far in the approx single a/c length involved in this case and each part has sufficient kinetic energy to bury itself. I have watched an a/c bury itself into soft soil at around 600kts vertically and there was almost no above ground wreckage. The shallower the water the greater the chance of burial. It is not intact underground but a series of parts buried at a depth relating to penetrability. In my case the dummy missiles and engine were over 30 feet underground. If it enters water more than a few body lengths deep there will be lots of wreckage on the surface. It all depends on depth, angle and speed.

[ex_matelot]

Thank you very much. I did work as Track Monitor and Identification Officer. You would not be able to recognize a 'blip' on a screen unless it is already assigned as valid track. For this you need valid returns. I know my work, not sure about yours.

I am sure you could go on a bit. So could I!

Please do!

You didn't once operate under the callsign "Redcrown" perchance? :ok:

I risk beadwindow if I dit on anymore but airline pilots reading this...This is the equivilent of somebody saying to you "Having flown the route several times on MS flight simulator I speak with some degree of authority..."

Now when someone starts spouting bull about basic radar principles - I'm diving in to join the water polo.

[Golf-Mike-Mike]

Maybe a journalist at the next press conference could clarify these rather informal (and in the second case, nonstandard) radio transmissions:
- did they both happen, they have both been variously reported ?
- were they judged to have been said by the same pilot, ie the co-pilot ? (it's fairly normal practice for one pilot to fly the aircraft and the other to handle the radio, though it's not uncommon for both pilots to talk at times on the radio)
- however, at an international boundary it would be quite unusual, though not a sackable offence, for the pilots to get away with such a casual hand-off from Malaysian ATC without at least their callsign
- so perhaps they were just responding to something very trivial, or trying to send a coded message (under duress?) back to the airline / ATC, or a third party unfamiliar with correct radio terminology was making the calls ?

Given the informality, they should really have been asked by ATC for a "readback" of their instructions to "Contact Vietnam on frequency xxx.x" (or something like that) to be sure that MH370 was transferring to the correct ATC in the chain.

Readbacks are a standard requirement between ATC and pilots for key events such as radio frequency handovers and changes to altitude, heading, etc. It would be useful to know what Malaysian ATC said just before the two quoted pilot transmissions above to see what readbacks (if any) would have been expected. One readback ignored by MH370 may be OK on a quiet night, two becomes more suspicious.

[Lonewolf_50]

eliptic: as good a SWAG as any.

rigby: I note the "truth is stranger than fiction" approach.
Who knows? The FDR. :cool:

[Squawk_ident]

It is about 0120 at night when the MAS370 ceased transmitting its ADSB/transponder code.

http://i59.tinypic.com/rud95l.jpg

At that time, there are three other aircraft in the vicinity although not that close. The two CES flights are the closer. I have estimated the CCA flight position because the ADSB signal was lost between 1715z and 1730z. I have drawn a line to the oil ring for reference. The CCA is in the same situation of the MAS370: About one hour into the flight and likely passengers are eating after the departure from SIN.
If we consider the distance and position (white blocks) between these aircraft, I believe that an in-flight explosion of the MAS370 would have been noticed by either crew members and/or passengers on board. I think that the Malaysian authorities will ask to these crew if they have noticed or not something.

We all hope that, for the manifestation of the truth, the aircraft will be located and the boxes recovered. Correct me if I'm wrong:
-The wreck is in the international waters, the country in charge of the inquiry is the state of registration of the aircraft.
-The wreck is on the ground or in the sea bed inside the jurisdiction of a country then this country is in charge of the inquiry.

Finally does Malaysia has an investigation bureau with the technical possibilities to open and exploit the data inside. The NTSB in one of its statement said that he was waiting to know what country would be in charge.

[RifRaf3]

The ping arcs only cover 4 to 5 hrs and a chang of direction thereafter is possible.

[fantom]

"Roger That" / "All right, Good night"

That was not sent by an operating pilot, in my opinion.

Who was on that FD?

[OleOle]

The ping arcs cover the place where MH370 was close before fuel starvation.

[RifRaf3]

The ping arcs only cover 4 to 5 hrs and the endurance was up to 7 hrs followed by a 20 min glide of over 100nm. Many here seem to believe that the arcs are routes whereas the route is a connection of successive intersection points merely indicated by the arcs.

[Swedishflyingkiwi]

An aircraft that buries itself into dirt or mud does not imply that it remains intact. It commences breaking up as it hits the water, but the horizontal separation of the parts has not proceeded significantly far in the approx single a/c length involved in this case and each part has sufficient kinetic energy to bury itself. I have watched an a/c bury itself into soft soil at around 600kts vertically and there was almost no above ground wreckage. The shallower the water the greater the chance of burial. It is not intact underground but a series of parts buried at a depth relating to penetrability. In my case the dummy missiles and engine were over 30 feet underground. If it enters water more than a few body lengths deep there will be lots of wreckage on the surface. It all depends on depth, angle and speed.
The KQ507 crash in Cameroun pretty much buried itself in mud and there was very little debris at ground level making discovery and recovery very difficult.
So, if the 777 went nose down into mud, we may not see much. I think I also remember in the KQ crash the recorders were 20-30 feet down too.

[Heli-phile]

@OleOle
Er not quite correct.
Up to 59 minutes error, so +/- 480nm plus glide distance of up to 120nm to 150nm. So add possible error of 630nm radius to those arc's in any direction.

(based on 480kts speed, 20:1 glide ratio from FL390)

[Pontius Navigator]

That was not sent by an operating pilot, in my opinion.

Who was on that FD?

The ITV news (UK) tonight stated that it was the FO that made the RT calls.

As I said before, we know that the FO did not follow proper procedures with respect to smoking and access to the cockpit so there is no reason to suppose that his RT procedures were any more correct.

The Airline clearly would not want to admit that the inflight culture was as lax throughout the company but the actions of that FO suggest otherwise. I would expect in due course an enquiry will hear from other aircrew about the culture in the cockpit.

[Hotel Tango]

fantom, when things are relatively quiet at night r/t discipline is often a little more relaxed. Having worked many years in ATC I can assure you that I have heard "Roger that" and other short non-standard phrases. I really don't think that there's anything particularly unusual in that exchange at that time of night and especially in that area of the world.

[ex_matelot]

I'm sure a read a thread in the CRM forums on here about cockpit culture in Malaysia or some other similar place a few years ago. A F/O posting some concerns. Pretty sure it was Korea though.

[No Hoper]

Reference who made the last RT.
In my understanding, it is normal procedure for the pilot not flying(PNF) to handle the radios.
The fact that the FO was transmitting may well be another red herring

[sardak]

D.S.
Your summary post #5484 states
A few other things we know(/might know) and notes
- ELT never activatesbut your earlier summary post #5473 states
- there are no Black box or ELT transmissions found in the area I'd stick with the original wording about the ELT. We don't know that the ELT never activated, but we do know that no one has reported (publicly) an ELT signal detected by satellite, from the air or ground in the area. I've worked enough ELT searches to safely say that an ELT can activate but not be detected except within a very short distance, measured in tens of yards or meters.

Mike

[MountainBear]

The ping arcs only cover 4 to 5 hrs and a chang of direction thereafter is possible.NO


The last known ping was at 8:11 am the next morning, seven hours later. That ping means that aircraft MUST have been at least at that point. Given the fuel range, we can say for certain that it likely did not go much further than that unless it stopped an refueled along the way.

Up to 59 minutes error, so +/- 480nm plus glide distance of up to 120nm to 150nm. So add possible error of 630nm radius to those arc's in any direction.


NO. The ping happens in real time. The aircraft was on that arc somewhere at 8:11 AM. There is no margin of error.

[ILS27LEFT]

"Meanwhile, claims that a 35-year-old Uighur man from China’s troubled autonomous Muslim province was on Flight MH370 may be looked at in a new light. The group claimed responsibility earlier this week but were dismissed as opportunistic and not credible, but Malaysian reports now say the passenger had taken flight-simulator training in 2005."
Uighur separatists? claim over missing flight MH370 may be re-examined | News.com.au (http://www.news.com.au/national/uighur-separatists-claim-over-missing-flight-mh370-may-be-reexamined/story-fncynjr2-1226855911080:mad:)

[dmba]

The idea of the First Officer being the one who spoke in the final received message wasn't 'confirmed' today, as some news sites are saying. In the press conference it was stated that it appears that way. That's not confirmation. Appearances have not proven to be too helpful so far so it is certainly not confirmed.

Also stated in that news conference was that it was not known for sure if the ACARS was switched off before the last vocal message received from the cockpit. It was specified that at 01:07 the last ACARS message was received and at 01:19 the last voice contact was made. Then, there were no more ACARS messages. The official specifically stressed that this is not confirmation that the ACARS was turned off prior to the last voice message...only that is was after the last ACARS message that was received and then the one that should have been received 30 minutes later never arrived.

I'm unaware of any official update to this, which was what happened during the press conference this morning UK time (17th March), so please update me if needed.

I'm finding it irritating that the media is using the word 'confirmed' in their headlines and then using 'suggested' in the meat of the article.

[OleOle]

I must say, I think you have it all figured out

Well it's just try thinking from the other end.

The flight path over the peninsula can be just the aftermath of the chaos. If the flightpath was carfully figured out to miss the radar, that attemp was a complete failure. The radar plot is there and is part of this investigation.

PS.: Not all tragedies on this planet are related to terrorism, probably more than 99% are not !

[sp3ctre]

If you go down the route of someone (flight crew or hijacker) taking the plane without the need for the passengers (for ransom etc) the obvious way of dealing with them is to knock them out by whatever means during the flight rather than having to shoot them... The only way these people would still be alive is if they are to be used as hostages, surely?

[D.S.]

RifRaf3 (http://www.pprune.org/members/428226-rifraf3)

An aircraft that buries itself into dirt or mud does not imply that it remains intact. It commences breaking up as it hits the water, but...

Mythbusters did an experiment not long ago. They found

In their first experiment, the experimenters shot the 9mm pistol straight down into the water. At a range of up to seven feet, the 9mm round was effective in completely penetrating the ballistics gel – meaning a person at the same range would be killed. At eight feet, the bullet entered but did not exit the gel, indicating a possible non-fatal wound. Past eight feet, the gel was undisturbed.

The shotgun, loaded with a 3” deer slug instead of buckshot, not only "killed" the ballistic gel target at six feet, it destroyed the acrylic water tank, ending that method of testing.

The team then switched to a swimming pool to continue the experiments – and to make the test more realistic, switched from shooting straight down to an angle of twenty to thirty degrees off the vertical, approximating a shooter standing on the edge of the water and shooting out into it.

The first candidate for this test was the Civil War rifle. At a range of 15 feet, the ballistics gel was completely unharmed; likewise at five feet. Only when the range was reduced to three feet did the bullet finally penetrate the gel, suggesting that diving under water was probably a pretty effective way of dodging slugs during the Civil War.

The experimenters moved on to the hunting rifle, which was loaded with a full-metal jacket .223 round that emerged at roughly 2,500 feet per second. At ten feet, the bullet disintegrated and the gel was untouched. At three feet, the bullet again broke up, with its tip coming to rest on the gel – not nearly enough power to damage flesh.

A bullet from the M1 Garand, with a muzzle speed of 2,800 ft/sec, also disintegrated at the ten-foot range. At two feet, the slug penetrated about four inches into the gel, suggesting a non-fatal wound. The armor-piercing .50 caliber round didn’t do any better – it, too, came apart at distances greater than five feet and lost most of its punch by three feet.

The Mythbusters team concluded that you’d be safe from firearms even if they were fired straight down to a depth of eight feet, and probably safe at much lesser depths, especially if the bullet was aimed at an angle.

...now, we have a body of water 150-350 Feet deep, and you have the plane and absolutely all the parts which shattered on the surface going how deep into mud again?

:D

[RifRaf3]

DS
Mythbusters were using bullets. In the a/c situation the preceeding pieces make a swathe for the following bits and it is nor comparable. I reiterate that I've seen real a/c buried and there are the instances of Sil Air and others. I'm not implying no possible wreckage, but perhaps sufficiently little to be noticed. Some may drift to the surface later if the mud is fluid enough.

I'm not an absolutist like so many here addicted to closure. I'm happy to keep juggled balls in the air. I consider the buried a/c scenario my lowest priority, but I can't rule it out.

[D.S.]

sardak (http://www.pprune.org/members/415990-sardak),

Thanks, was a poor word choice on the second post. Updated the post as to not cause confusion.

[vapilot2004]

The 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.

It is a changeable item, generally accessed through maintenance terminals (there are several PMAT ports, three of which are only accessible on the ground) or the primary MAT located in the cockpit, however access to specialized software (GBST) is required in order to create encoded data disks for upload. In addition, while some LRU's can be manually put into 'ground' mode, the central areas of the AIMS system require the air/ground logic to be in ground mode.

I suppose a Macgyver type or perhaps 007's Q could find a way to program the info into the relevant card memories, but this is now getting into the realm of fiction, particularly if we consider a de-rack/reprogram process would require the shutdown of the AIMS - not something one should or could do while airborne.

[MountainBear]

It is a changeable item, generally accessed through maintenance terminals (there are several PMAT ports, three of which are only accessible on the ground) or the primary MAT located in the cockpit, however access to specialized software (GBST) is required in order to create encoded data disks for upload. In addition, while some LRU's can be manually put into 'ground' mode, the central areas of the AIMS system require the air/ground logic to be in ground mode

@vapilot. What about the possibility of spoofing, rather than changing, the identifier?

[Airbubba]

- however, at an international boundary it would be quite unusual, though not a sackable offence, for the pilots to get away with such a casual hand-off from Malaysian ATC without at least their callsign

Given the informality, they should really have been asked by ATC for a "readback" of their instructions to "Contact Vietnam on frequency xxx.x" (or something like that) to be sure that MH370 was transferring to the correct ATC in the chain.

I would comment that not everyone, and especially not younger pilots, shares the PPRuNe obsession with textbook R/T procedures, particularly on a quiet, familiar VHF channel.

At worse, if you got the wrong freq, you'd flip the switch back on the radio panel and ask the last controller again. I fly though the VVTS FIR from time to time, seems like the southern frequency is 133.05 from memory. If I got it wrong, I could also try to look it up on these new fangled electronic charts (not trivial with the new Jepp software in my opinion), listen on guard, call on 8942 HF or whatever. But, in all probability, the frequency would be easy to find if I botched it on the handoff in the middle of a moonless night.

Also, media reports of an aircraft transmission always seem to get things garbled. Unlike, say, the NTSB which has several pilots and non-pilots carefully vet the CVR transcript, these press reports may be sound bites repeated from an early briefing to government ministers. Once these 'details' are put out to the families and later announced at a media conference, it is hard to tell whether subsequent differing versions are corrections or more misunderstanding of the original transmissions.

[papershuffler]

Tyre fire?

A link from here

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)

18.09 Could the pilot have been trying to navigate to Langkawi after a fire on board knocked out the transponder and secondary radar tracking? Could this theory, put forward by a chap called Chris Goodfellow on Google Plus (https://plus.google.com/106271056358366282907/posts/GoeVjHJaGBz), be a rational explanation for Flight MH370?
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01817/blog_1817841a.gif The left turn is the key here. This was a very experienced senior Captain with 18,000 hours. Maybe some of the younger pilots interviewed on CNN didn't pick up on this left turn. We old pilots were always drilled to always know the closest airport of safe harbor while in cruise. Airports behind us, airports abeam us and airports ahead of us. Always in our head. Always. Because if something happens you don't want to be thinking what are you going to do - you already know what you are going to do. Instinctively when I saw that left turn with a direct heading I knew he was heading for an airport. Actually he was taking a direct route to Palau Langkawi a 13,000 foot strip with an approach over water at night with no obstacles. He did not turn back to Kuala Lampur because he knew he had 8,000 foot ridges to cross. He knew the terrain was friendlier towards Langkawi and also a shorter distance.
led me to Chris Goodfellow's page

https://plus.google.com/106271056358366282907/posts/GoeVjHJaGBz

For me the loss of transponders and communications makes perfect sense if a fire. There was most likely a fire or electrical fire. In the case of fire the first response if to pull all the main busses and restore circuits one by one until you have isolated the bad one.

If they pulled the busses the plane indeed would go silent. It was probably a serious event and they simply were occupied with controlling the plane and trying to fight the fire. Aviate, Navigate and lastly communicate. There are two types of fires. Electrical might not be as fast and furious and there might or might not be incapacitating smoke. However there is the possibility given the timeline that perhaps there was an overheat on one of the front landing gear tires and it blew on takeoff and started slowly burning. Yes this happens with underinflated tires. Remember heavy plane, hot night, sea level, long run takeoff. There was a well known accident in Nigeria of a DC8 that had a landing gear fire on takeoff. A tire fire once going would produce horrific incapacitating smoke. Yes, pilots have access to oxygen masks but this is a no no with fire. Most have access to a smoke hood with a filter but this will only last for a few minutes depending on the smoke level. (I used to carry one of my own in a flight bag and I still carry one in my briefcase today when I fly).

What I think happened is that they were overcome by smoke and the plane just continued on the heading probably on George (autopilot) until either fuel exhaustion or fire destroyed the control surfaces and it crashed.

Also a look at the age and number of cycles on those nose tires might give us a good clue too.

Fire in an aircraft demands one thing - you get the machine on the ground as soon as possible. There are two well remembered experiences in my memory. The AirCanada DC9 which landed I believe in Columbus Ohio in the eighties. That pilot delayed descent and bypassed several airports. He didn't instinctively know the closest airports. He got it on the ground eventually but lost 30 odd souls. In the 1998 crash of Swissair DC-10 off Nova Scotia was another example of heroic pilots. They were 15 minutes out of Halifax but the fire simply overcame them and they had to ditch in the ocean. Just ran out of time. That fire incidentally started when the aircraft was about an hour out of Kennedy. Guess what the transponders and communications were shut off as they pulled the busses.


Get on Google Earth and type in Pulau Langkawi and then look at it in relation to the radar track heading. 2+2=4 That for me is the simple explanation why it turned and headed in that direction.

Smart pilot. Just didn't have the time.Add to the theory I read earlier that if autopilot was knocked off, the plane would just make random turns depending on wind conditions (is that viable?) and the fire 'somehow' burned itself out (the sticking point for me) to leave the plane flying uncontrolled and randomly for hours?

I can't recall a tyre fire being discussed. Is it possible?

(Apologies if the above have already been covered - PM me delete and I'll delete.)

[oldoberon]

:{ Oh Dear God :ugh:

Now planes apparently can crash from some 35000ft and simply spear into 150ft of water and embed themselves in 60 feet of mud... all without breaking up. :mad:

No.

come on you know that's not what was meant, this is what was meant

Now planes apparently can crash from some 35000ft and simply spear into 150ft of water and GENTLY embed themselves in 60 feet of mud.

[anotheruser]

If the disappearance of MH370 was caused by suicide of one of the pilots and his goal was to commit the "perfect suicide", to disappear without a trace and leave the world mystified, then we will probably never find out.

We have no clue where the plane is. The pilot might have ditched the plane in a controlled way to avoid breaking it apart and any floatable parts separating from the aircraft, and then let it sink as a whole in a remote and deep part of the ocean.

If we ever find it, we will most likely find that the CVR and the FDR had been disabled before the events started.

[RifRaf3]

Without an autopilot wind conditions other than wind sheer/turbulence are hardly relevant as you are flying relative to the air mass. Wind is relative to the ground. Most a/c wind (sic) up in a spiral dive after a while although high stability types have been known to go on for a long time. Jet airliners are not particulaly stable as they rely on computers for some stability.
Wind will not cause two 90 degree turns.

No offence, but if your level of basic understanding of aviation is this low you should really post elsewhere.

[henra]

The missing piece would seem to be the six other satellite pings. If they were all the same range, then I can't see any other possibility.


Indeed this would be an important bit of Information: Has the signal level changed between the last pings and how does that correlate with the INMARSAT radians?
Moreover: Were the pings prior to that flight consistent with the profiles and timings of these previous flights.
It would also be interesting to follow an assumed flight path based on the result of these considerations with a 777 and verify the results. Can assumed Radar Returns and ping signal levels and timings be reproduced?
This might be a good idea compared to Weeks and Months of fruitless searches in the wrong area based on false and unverified assumptions.

[RifRaf3]

Bearcat.
All the scenarios are far fetched, that's how accidents happen in an environment of high safety and redundancy. Yes, the fires would have to occur in that 'far-fetched' manner for this to occur. So what.
I'm interested in the least far-fetched scenario.

[Lazerdog]

How accurate were those left, right, left turns and the vectors on the images a few hundred thread pages back? The right turn after crossing the peninsula appears headed back to Phuket which may have been the nearest airport. Might suggest one of the FD crew momentarily recovered from the initial/onging event or hypoxia and was trying to get the airplane on the ground. Also, if the initial event took out the ARINC 429 buss, that might explain the loss of ACARS, Transponder, and all communications.

[vapilot2004]

@vapilot. What about the possibility of spoofing, rather than changing, the identifier?

The answer to this is beyond my pay grade, but considering the 777 CMCS and AIMS core network arrangement and multiple data busses used, I would think the answer would be no.

[galaxy flyer]

A few posts, professional pilot working for an OEM, not Boeing.

GF

[shawk]

If an oxygen bottle failed in the avionics bay and pierced the hull, would the temperature in the bay fall to -40C quickly?
How well would the electronics work at -40C?
Would the humidity in the air exiting the aircraft coat the cables and electronics with ice?
How well would the electronics work at -40C and coated with ice?

[MountainBear]

I was one of the first people to bring up the possibility of fire many days ago. i reject that hypothesis now. The problem is the simple and basic truth that at 8:11 AM, seven hours later, the airplane pinged a satellite. I'm convinced that this data is legit. I've looked into the computer side of it closely and it makes sense. There is no possible fire scenario that I can imagine that would allow power to that specific unit and not allow power to any other unit. For one, all the SATCOM share the same power circuit. If a fire took out ACARS and the transponder it took out all other SATCOM too. Since the SATCOM was live seven hours later, no fire. Not possible.

[RifRaf3]

Shawk
Electronics are speced differently for a/c compared with your TV and they don't necessarily ice up. It's a reasonable point however for a non aviator.

Backoffice
Are you saying that the nose wheel was hundreds of miles ahead of the a/c?
The oil worker was too far away as has been covered many times before. His evidence is not infallible. Please read earlier posts.

[aerobat77]

Is there anyone posting on this thread who is either:

1 A professional pilot?

2 Has any evidence other than 'MH370 has disappeared'?

basicly no, for sure not a 777 or another widebody rated even when some claim here. its an open forum with no proof who you are, so do not take it too serious here. the most valid entries here seem to come from people with satellite / electronics knowledge. and of course it will be overhelmed with wild speculations.

[nitpicker330]

There certainly is a lot of crap being written in here by people that don't know much about Airlines or Flying Jet A/C.:D

Yes the post above this is a PRIME example of utter rubbish.
1/ You do realize that the 772ER most likely wouldn't reach much above FL400 at the weight they were even with the GEAR UP!! Let alone the crew selecting gear down to Extinguish a wheel well fire.
2/ the nose gear wheel well does not have Fire detection anyway....

3/ under inflated wheels will not catch Fire......

4/ the 777 is equipped with a tire pressure monitoring system ( TPIS ) and the crew would get an EICAS message if any wheels were under inflated.

5/ I've got nothing more except utter contempt for the rubbish I read in here by people that quite obviously know nothing about Wide body Jets or the Airlines that fly them.


Please remember that the media do read this site people.

Try to keep it real.

[Flyinheavy]

@Papershuffler

Interesting theory, would make sense.
If, yeah if there wouldn't exist some other facts(?), that we seem to know by today.
But still, after reading a lot of garbage in this thread, at least something that would make sense..

[RifRaf3]

Mountain bear
Your point is a valid one, but perhaps a little dogmatic. If it's correct that last ping was picked up by only one sat as opposed to two sats at 4 to 5 hrs giving intersection arcs, then fire gets less likely.
Those reasons, assuming the pings are reliable evidence, make a hijacking to a distant Nthn, or Sthn area the best scenario and that's just what the authorities seem to be opting for.

[VH_BIL]

I've discounted this oil rig story since the first report.

One factor that hasn't been considered is humidity. Even given the time of year, this is still a very warm place. And the sea creates a lot of haze, vapor and spray when it is warm.

I'm sure if we have any tropical sailors here, they will tell you that it's very difficult to see something close to the horizon in these conditions at any reasonable distance, let alone hundreds of miles. Certainly that's been my limited experience.

So the sighting is simply totally wrong.

I think he saw meteorites if it was anything.

[slats11]

Please lets dismiss this report. It is too unreliable. He either didn't see the plane (maybe a meteor), or it is an unfortunate hoax.

1. I could not find a time for this sighting. Did I miss this? Its not on the original photo. This seems very strange given the precise details given (his coordinates, bearing to sighting).
2. Gives a precise bearing but no elevation other than "high altitude"
3. If he saw MH 370, we know that he could not possibly have seen anything more than a light right on the horizon. How would he conclude this was "high altitude".
4. A fire visible from that distance? I don't think the plane would have flown much further. Where is the wreckage? Would the SATCOM have been destroyed in such a fire? If so, what is the source of the ongoing pings?
5. If he really did see MH370 in one piece and at high altitude, it must have been much closer. 10-20 miles away perhaps. So it flew on for another 30 minutes or so after transponder turned off. Despite Vietnam very early on stating it had reversed course. And anyway, where is the wreckage and where did the pings come from?
6. Nothing more heard from him since.

If you get rid of this datum, what other evidence is there that the plane flew on. This sighting seems to be the only "evidence", and it simply doesn't hold water.

[ve3id]

Commercial chips are mostly designed and tested from 0 to 70 C. Industrial chips go to wider ranges, sometimes -40 to +105 C, sometimes more. Military/Aerospace spec are generally qualified from -55 to +125 C and are warehoused in a secure cage separately from commercial and industrial quality chips, with documentation attached to prove their having been tested.

Complete systems are temperature cycled between the limits while cycling the power supply between its limits.

I believe avionics uses mil/aerospace qual chips, therefore should not be a problem at -40.

That's why avionics is so expensive.

[Mahatma Kote]

I believe avionics uses mil/aerospace qual chips, therefore should not be a problem at -40.

That's why avionics is so expensive. No it's not. Chip components are a tiny fraction of the built device price - perhaps 1%. The vast majority is profit and to a lesser extent insurance. This is followed by certification costs, QA costs, and materials.

Work on manufacturing costs of around 10% of final device price.

NB Software costs are often a component of the final price. But that is a fixed cost per product line rather than a marginal cost.

[D.S.]

RifRaf3 (http://www.pprune.org/members/428226-rifraf3)

I'm happy to keep juggled balls in the air. I consider the buried a/c scenario my lowest priority, but I can't rule it out. I disagree with your assessment that the two are completely different, specifically regarding the physics. But fine, let us just move past whether it is even physically possible and instead move onto the second issue with the theory

If a plane did this, think of the force of impact that would be needed. (and we will just skip the waves and particle displacement, jumping straight to...)

The impact would be unbelievably strong, and certainly picked up on the many geological instruments in the region (including those of USGS) ~ China already proved to us there wasn't suspicious activity until 2 hours later though (activity which was later explained as being an earthquake off the coast of Sumatra)

Is all of it possible this all happened, while leaving zero trace of it happening? I guess theoretically, if absolutely everything went absolutely perfectly right - but it would be one of the more amazingly unexplainable incidents ever witnessed and therefore unbelievably unlikely.

Most likely? Someone who knew what they were doing did what they knew how to do - darkening then piloting the plane to a location we are unaware of (as the experts concluded off the known evidence)

[imaynotbeperfect]

From ve3id ... I believe avionics uses mil/aerospace qual chips, therefore should not be a problem at -40.

That's why avionics is so expensive.

....... That's part of the reason but also the need for extensive qualification and type testing amortised over a relatively low production base contributes also the the cost.

I

[shawk]

Aviation electronics are specified to -55C, non-condensing atmosphere.
In the case of a hull breach and sudden drop in temperature, the humidity in the atmosphere will be condensing and could coat internal electronic components with ice / water.
Under this unusual condition, how well would the avionics work?

[Anotherday]

The Malaysians are saying it's the F/O on the radio because the captain flies the plane, the co-pilot does the radio. There's no PF or PM to those unfamiliar with how sectors are operated, and those giving the media briefings don't actually know that first officer also often gets to fly a sector in the modern world.
That's my understanding, from the Malaysian press briefings. I wouldn't place any value on what the Malaysians are saying as to who made the final radio call, I'd wait until someone knowledgable like the NTSB comes forward with their information.
Or explains to the Malaysians how a commercial airliner works and how the crew retain currency in their operation.

[Lemain]

Thinking of the future, what can be done about FDR/CVR? Maybe there should be several devices, synched, one fixed as at present and two ejected by force - compressed gas, spring, or a small pyrotechnic charge? The technology is off the shelf and has been for decades in 'cluster bomb' systems which survive incredibly high forces. One to my knowledge survives > 100,000g (sic). We cannot accept the present designs as fit for purpose.

[lakedude]

NO. The ping happens in real time. The aircraft was on that arc somewhere at 8:11 AM. There is no margin of error.
There is a margin of error on the final resting place for several reasons, the biggest being that there is no way to know how much fuel was left after the last ping. Sure the plane must have been very near that arc @ 8:11 but then there is up to 59 minutes more fuel to burn plus glide time.

Y'all might be talking about 2 different things. One thing is where the plane was @ 8:11 which is very near the arc. The other thing is the final resting place of the plane which could be hundreds of miles away from the arc...

[D.S.]

RifRaf3 (http://www.pprune.org/members/428226-rifraf3) said

All the scenarios are far fetched, that's how accidents happen in an environment of high safety and redundancy. Yes, the fires would have to occur in that 'far-fetched' manner for this to occur. So what.
I'm interested in the least far-fetched scenario. Regardless of how the fire would have to act, how is it ACARS never sends out a message saying the fire is there?

Edit to say, also see this great post from MountainBear (http://www.pprune.org/members/331164-mountainbear) (just in case you missed it before reading my question)

http://www.pprune.org/8384502-post5470.html

[oldoberon]

Mountain bear
Your point is a valid one, but perhaps a little dogmatic. If it's correct that last ping was picked up by only one sat as opposed to two sats at 4 to 5 hrs giving intersection arcs, then fire gets less likely.
Those reasons, assuming the pings are reliable evidence, make a hijacking to a distant Nthn, or Sthn area the best scenario and that's just what the authorities seem to be opting for.

to the best of my knowledge no ping has been picked up from two satellites, where is the source for that?

[ve3id]

Picky picky picky.

The cost of the parts is not just what you pay to the supplier, but the qualifying and testing that has to be done to mil spec standards. I stand by my original statement.

[Lost in Saigon]

RifRaf3 (http://www.pprune.org/members/428226-rifraf3) said

Regardless of how the fire would have to act, how is it ACARS never sends out a message saying the fire is there?

Edit to say, also see this great post from MountainBear (http://www.pprune.org/members/331164-mountainbear) (just in case you selectively missed it before reading my question)

http://www.pprune.org/8384502-post5470.html

I have no idea what level of ACARS reporting Malaysian has but.....

ACARS is not all knowing. If there is un-annuciated fire, ACARS will not know about it and will not report it.

How could it?

[TelcoAg]

I see some comments about 1 v 2 satellites. When CNN started drawing two boxes a few days ago, I assumed they had reads from two satellites. Now that they've released the single arc picture, it makes sense why. Even if the plane was in range of two Inmarsat satellites, it doesn't mean both recorded the ping registration.

Think of that ping like your cell phone. Even if you hit 3 towers, the only one that will record your checkin is the one that holds your registration at that moment. It's very possible that, like your cell phone, the SATCOM decides which sat is the right sat to register with, and it will make that clear in it's ping. Then, the other one knows to disregard it.

Can't answer Q's right away since I'm driving.

I'm really curious as to why Inmarsat hasn't released the arcs for the other 5 pings. Couldn't hurt anything.

[JPK]

Ornis:

Could you elaborate on what you said re the plane linking up to a satellite in the Perth area? You seem to be the only one with a sane (or sober) mind left? Thank you.

[FlightDream111]

Thinking of the future, what can be done about FDR/CVR? Maybe there should be several devices, synched, one fixed as at present and two ejected by force - compressed gas, spring, or a small pyrotechnic charge? The technology is off the shelf and has been for decades in 'cluster bomb' systems which survive incredibly high forces. One to my knowledge survives > 100,000g (sic). We cannot accept the present designs as fit for purpose.

Great question. it seems ludicrous to assume anything will wok perfectly in a crash, including ELT systems.

Firstly let me say I am not a pilot, however there are some common-sense options that we can all see, and have been suggested before.

I have been for a long time advocating a live video feed of the cockpit and tailcam video streaming to a remote black box - something like Skype . It can be done today. Many airlines host internet facilities.

Failing this we should have an on - all - the -time ELT tracking system - satellite based. When it stops, we know there is a problem, and any time the signal is lost it should be the subject of an immediate investigation and intercept by the closest air force.

Also, mandate the immediate notification of loss of online tracking of any aircraft to the relevant military and handover to military radar tracking for resolution.

Mandate the carrying on person of a satellite tracking device on the pilots and flight crew.

Many ideas, all been said before, it is upto the ariline industry to step up to the plate and start giving us passengers some assuarance that they can take better care of us.

[D.S.]

lakedude (http://www.pprune.org/members/287806-lakedude)

Y'all might be talking about 2 different things. One thing is where the plane was @ 8:11 which is very near the arc. The other thing is the final resting place of the plane which could be hundreds of miles away from the arc...

While I agree 100% with everything else you said, it needs to be pointed out Fuel Levels would indicate it likely touched down extremely close to the last ping. (if it were not already grounded)

The plane being in the air at 8:11 itself is already pushing what they would have been able to do (barring the extremely unlikely landing/refuel option, of course)

[Wunwing]

nitpicker.

Your point 3, "under inflated wheels will not catch fire" is not quite true.
Research the DC8 fire in Jeddah in 1991 operted by a Canadian company,National? on behalf of Nigerian Airways.

Cause of fire and subsequent loss of aircraft, under inflated tyre(s).

Wunwing

[adirondack]

LD7, perhaps flip your question around and ask 'can you get out of the electronics bay in flight?'

Under the scenario that some third party had access to this area in order to shut down comms, who's to say they weren't occupying the avionics compartment prior to pax boarding?

[oldoberon]

I see some comments about 1 v 2 satellites. When CNN started drawing two boxes a few days ago, I assumed they had reads from two satellites. Now that they've released the single arc picture, it makes sense why. Even if the plane was in range of two Inmarsat satellites, it doesn't mean both recorded the ping registration.

Think of that ping like your cell phone. Even if you hit 3 towers, the only one that will record your checkin is the one that holds your registration at that moment. It's very possible that, like your cell phone, the SATCOM decides which sat is the right sat to register with, and it will make that clear in it's ping. Then, the other one knows to disregard it.

Can't answer Q's right away since I'm driving.

I'm really curious as to why Inmarsat hasn't released the arcs for the other 5 pings. Couldn't hurt anything.

the inmarsat coverage data shows it could only ever have been picked up by one sat, except for possibly a tiny period around the time the incident started.

I doubt if the decision to release the data from the other earlier pings is now int he hands of inmarsat.

[JRBarrett]

Commercial chips are mostly designed and tested from 0 to 70 C. Industrial chips go to wider ranges, sometimes -40 to +105 C, sometimes more. Military/Aerospace spec are generally qualified from -55 to +125 C and are warehoused in a secure cage separately from commercial and industrial quality chips, with documentation attached to prove their having been tested. Complete systems are temperature cycled between the limits while cycling the power supply between its limits. I believe avionics uses mil/aerospace qual chips, therefore should not be a problem at -40. That's why avionics is so expensive.

On many biz jets, which do have the space for EE bays within the pressure vessel, the majority of the avionic boxes are located in compartments which are completely unheated and unpressurized in flight e.g. the Lear 45, in which the central avionics computer, air data computers, nav and com radios, transponders, attitude/heading computers etc. are all located in the nose, forward of the flight compartment. There is nothing between the avionics and the intense cold found at the flight levels but the thin metal skin of the two removable doors used to access the equipment on the ground.

A similar situation exists on a Hawker 800, where all sorts of avionics are crammed into a space in the upper portion of the nose gear wheel well. Again, this compartment is completely unheated and unpressurized, and is also exposed to wind blast and moisture anytime the nose gear is deployed.

The point being that the majority of commercial avionics systems are designed to operate perfectly well over a very broad range of environmental conditions, including prolonged exposure to extreme cold.

[tartare]

Could any B777 drivers explain what the problems are with flying at FL45 with an aircraft configured and loaded as MH370 was?
Is it simply that you are much closer to coffin corner?

[slats11]

The KQ507 crash in Cameroun pretty much buried itself in mud and there was very little debris at ground level making discovery and recovery very difficult.

In mud, yes.

In very shallow water over mud, yes OK.

With 50 m or more of water over mud. Nope. The plane ail fragment if it hits the water at high speed. Some of these pieces will be small with little momentum. Some won't be very aerodynamic (? hydrodynamic). Can you see a detached aileron flying through this much water and digging itself into the mud.

Even a high velocity (supersonic) bullet will travel a short distance, rapidly decelerate due to deformity and tumbling, and then slowly sick to the bottom. A bullet has much greater density, (and therefore greater momentum relative to surface area) than a plane. But if you fired a bullet into mud, sure it will go below the surface.

[DCrefugee]

I'm really curious as to why Inmarsat hasn't released the arcs for the other 5 pings. Couldn't hurt anything.

Unless there's some Sekrit Skwirrel Blowing Snow going on preventing it, we'd all be a lot better off if Malaysia would turn this over formally to the NTSB. The incompetence is staggering.

That said, the previous ping plots won't be released until it's in someone's interest to do so. It's probably not Inmarsat's call.

But some people know where those pings were, and you can bet their surveillance satellites are burning some fuel to take a close look.

[Carborundum]

I'm away from my PC, so can't back run the data, but did anyone consider the oil rig worker might have seen an iridium flare? Duration about right, but I'm not able to check the angles.

He seems a pretty savvy guy, so I doubt he is that easily fooled.

[HarryMann]

Is it simply that you are much closer to coffin corner?

You'd probably be close to at least one CC boundary at 1g. Not a 7777 pilot though...

[D.S.]

Lost in Saigon (http://www.pprune.org/members/93381-lost-in-saigon)

ACARS is not all knowing. If there is un-annuciated fire, ACARS will not know about it and will not report it.

How could it?

That's kind of the whole point of ACARS - to report issues. If a fire affected a single system somewhere, ACARS would have reported it.

See, for example, the 25 automatic messages sent from AF447's ACARS system during its 4 minutes of catastrophic issues

[divdby0]

Regarding under inflated tires, they can certainly cause a fire. I had a tire burst at v1 in a biz jet, which was duly aborted. But if the same tire is retracted, it becomes a ticking time bomb

Nigeria Airways Flight 2120 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigeria_Airways_Flight_2120)

[rigbyrigz]

No one has come up with authoritative reference for the "preprogrammed turn" that seems to clearly indicate human deliberate action, so I have spent some hours researching. I refer to "news" comments such as CNN:

"Adding to the intrigue, ABC News reported that the dramatic left turn was preprogrammed into the plane's navigation computer. It's a task that would have required extensive piloting experience."

While Foxnews, and others including some posters here, join CNN in that reference, extensive searching suggests it all stems from ABC reporter David Kerley's comment on March 16, ABC ThisWeek, transcript quote:

"KERLEY: The prime minister confirming the report by ABC News the communications gear was deliberately shut down. Now we have learned from a source close to the investigation that whoever was controlling the plane preprogrammed that sharp left turn right off of the flight path, convincing investigators that someone was in control of the jetliner, either a rogue pilot or a hijackers."

No more detail or sourcing information for the above has shown up anywhere I could find. It would be nice if this could be established as fact as it rules both in and out many paths of logic. For now, I personally am tempted to treat it as non-credible, and reluctantly lower my own bias towards an obvious human deliberate cause (a change which started with the ACARS shutting "correction" today from the MH CEO.)

[arearadar]

As an air traffic controller of 33 years experience (retired) I have already posted:
The use of Goodnight etc, although non ICAO standard phraseology, is the norm.
Can we have no more posts querying the use of it.
It has no relevance.

[oldoberon]

Xcitation-

Hasn't the 45k be refuted by the daily conferences as an anomaly, it didn't happen

[BobT]

I'd expect that the PC boards in the E-bays will have been "conformal coated". This is a flexible and waterproof coating that prevents damage from condensation (or spillage).

[bubbers44]

Isn't it obvious the 1,000 plus posters who normally participate are all gone? Wonder why?????

[JakartaDean]

Now CNN is saying that MAS are not saying that ACARS was deliberately shutdown, but that an expected signal 30 minutes after the last received signal was not received. That means a key piece of the puzzle for the last week has been taken away. (I did try to investigate ACARS protocols to find a logoff command but the manuals are $144 each and there are a lot of them, so I gave up. Anyone with more knowledge could usefully chip in.)
I also see that CNN is beginning to adopt a policy of criticizing everything the Malaysians do. Not helpful IMO. Once they get their hackles up the news flow will only get worse.

[arearadar]

Perhaps we should all do the same until the loonies have exhausted their ideas ?
May take some time, there are a lot more of them than us !!

[bekolblockage]

As an air traffic controller of 33 years experience (retired) I have already posted:
The use of Goodnight etc, although non ICAO standard phraseology, is the norm.
Can we have no more posts querying the use of it.
It has no relevance.

Dave

Similar ATC experience, half of it in this region.
While I agree with you on the "goodnight" bit, its the "alright,..." that sounds a bit odd to me togther with the lack of callsign if that is the case.
I've spoken with hundreds of MH flights over the years and can't recall anyone acknowledging a frequency transfer with just "alright, ......"

Granted he is answering his own countrymen ATC, so maybe a little more familiarity crept in there.

[Lost in Saigon]

Lost in Saigon (http://www.pprune.org/members/93381-lost-in-saigon)



That's kind of the whole point of ACARS - to report issues. If a fire affected a single system somewhere, ACARS would have reported it.

See, for example, the 25 automatic messages sent from AF447's ACARS system during its 4 minutes of catastrophic issues

As I said before, I have no intimate knowledge of Malaysia's ACARS reporting capability. I doubt you do either. From what I have seen so far, I bet the Malaysians don't even know....

In any case..... If the fire did NOT effect another system, ACARS would NOT have reported it.

Is that not true?

[rigbyrigz]

Well, I wouldn't be so bold as to suggest this forum's questioning is a reason why, but just minutes ago NT Times confirmed the computer pre-programming angle:

at http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/18/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-flight.html?_r=0

it says:
"WASHINGTON — The first turn to the west that diverted the missing Malaysia Airlines plane from its planned flight path from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing was carried out through a computer system that was most likely programmed by someone in the plane’s cockpit who was knowledgeable about airplane systems, according to senior American officials.

Instead of manually operating the plane’s controls, whoever altered Flight 370’s path typed seven or eight keystrokes into a computer on a knee-high pedestal between the captain and the first officer, according to officials. The Flight Management System, as the computer is known, directs the plane from point to point specified in the flight plan submitted before each flight. It is not clear whether the plane’s path was reprogrammed before or after it took off."

Hmmmn....

(UPD: WSJ reporter David Ostrower also just corroborated this new NY Times report in an on-air interview)

[rigbyrigz]

RE: "Isn't it obvious the 1,000 plus posters who normally participate are all gone? Wonder why?????"

IMHO, "not invented here" and turf are all well and good in their place, but here we have one of the world's all-time mysteries and tragedies in play.

If the investigators, the media, the common folk looking for both comfort and answers, and even the affected families, find some sense amongst the weeds here, well, kudos to those that did not leave but are still here to refine ideas and theories and facts, as might be appropriate.

Priorities, please.

[xcitation]

@oldoberon

US government snr official rate it "not wholly reliable".

See for yourself on CNN

Malaysia Flight 370: 10 of the most compelling questions - CNN.com (http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/15/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-questions/)

The analysis, conducted by the United States and Malaysian governments, used radar data and satellite pings to calculate that the plane diverted to the west, across the Malayan Peninsula, and then either flew in a northwest direction toward the Bay of Bengal or southwest into another part of the Indian Ocean. Malaysian military radar registered dramatic changes for Flight 370 in altitude -- going up to 45,000 feet, before descending to 23,000 feet -- and cut an erratic path as it flew across Malaysia in what are some of the last known readings of the plane's location, according to a senior U.S. official.
The same official, who is familiar with analysis of the data and declined to be identified because of the sensitive nature of the information, cautioned that this assessment is not definitive. The readings may not be wholly reliable because of the distance the plane was operating from the radars that detected it, the official said.

[DX Wombat]

we'd all be a lot better off if Malaysia would turn this over formally to the NTSB.Really? On what do you base that idea? As far as I recall the NTSB is involved as is the AAIB which has an excellent reputation. None of us knows exactly what is happening and none of us is entitled to, only those involved directly in the attempt to discover what has happened are. Any information passed to the general public is done as a courtesy not as a right. Information passed to the relatives may differ in quantity but they are involved directly in what has happened and take priority over the rest of us. Some time back somebody (an official I think) said that it would be cruel to raise the hopes of the relatives by informing them of every alleged sighting of the aircraft or possible wreckage and I'm sure we would all agree - especially in view of some of the posts on here. I have my own feelings and ideas about what has happened but that is just what they are - feelings and ideas NOT facts so you won't see them posted here.

[SoaringXc]

I’ve read all 5500+ of the posts to this thread, and I’m struck by the lack of known facts. Focusing on position, the last known position we know for certain is where MH370 was when its XPDR went dead. Many theories have been set forth on what MH370 did next. Please allow me to offer one that I haven’t seen presented yet.

Consider that a primary radar return signal has no inherent identification data in it. Thus, one knows the “where” of the target causing the return, but one don’t know the “what” or the “who” with certainty. This leads to the possibility of spoofing. Admittedly it wouldn’t be easy, but it might offer an explanation why only the MAF’s primary radar seemed to detect MH370 - they were following a false trail. The spoofing signals might also explain the wild altitude excursions the MAF reported for MH370.

Similarly, the Inmarsat pings could be spoofed. If the SATCOM on MH370 was turned off, someone could be located anywhere along one of the famous red arcs, responding to the Inmarsat ping on an hourly basis using the electronic identity of MH370’s SATCOM. Again not easy to do, but if someone did they could create yet another false trail.

Why go to the trouble of spoofing radar and satellite signals? Possibly because it would let the real MH370 go east, where no one was (or is) looking, buying time for the perpetrators to do...something.

[xcitation]

@simon001
Also, there are parts of Malaysia and Indonesia between point 2 and the top of the southern red arc. Was there no military coverage in these areas?

I am expecting there is a good reason for this but it would be nice to see some detail behind the maps. I'd be wondering if I was a family member.

According to the military chief for India on the Andaman islands they only operate when required to. I have heard that this is during normal working hours and they turn off in the evening.

[felix505]

Assuming the person on the "oil rig" had a viewing platform at an elevation of 30m above sea level, and he was observing a large light source at an elevation of 35,000 ft, then that light would be below the horizon at any distance greater than ~388.5km, that ignoring the effect of atmospheric refraction.
If he was at 40m above sea level then that light would be below the horizon at any distance greater than ~391.5km
He provides no time of the observation, that limits any projection of the aircraft along it's intended flight path.

So perhaps it would be informing to look toward IGARI at 6° 56' 12N 103° 35' 6E
If the observer was on a 40m elevated platform, viewing an aircraft on fire at 35,000ft, from his 40m elevated viewpoint at the cord position of at 08° 22' 30.23 N, 108° 42' 22.26 E as stated in his email, then IGARI is ~584km to the SW on a heading of ~254.7° from the oil rig, and the light would have been below his visible horizon (at ~391.5km).

Con Dao Airport (VCS) on Côn Sơn Island is ~230km to the west on a heading of 280⁰ from the oil rig position, it has a 1830m runway with a wet parking area at both ends.

The email indicates the light was seen high in the sky on a bearing of 265-275⁰ and it was "difficult" to determine distance, "50-70km" distance was approximated by the observer in his email.

[Blake777]

The following article says that a 777 has indeed been flown in a re-enactment of the west turn and verified that the same primary radar and satellite data can be reproduced.

MISSING MH370: Re-enactment shows plane veered off course - Latest - New Straits Times (http://www.nst.com.my/latest/font-color-red-missing-mh370-font-re-enactment-shows-plane-veered-off-course-1.515942)

[galaxy flyer]

nsxtasy

Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: Dubai
Age: 37
Posts: 9
Let's try this again...
How plausible would it be that MH370 followed SIA68/SQ68?

Keith Ledgerwood ? Did Malaysian Airlines 370 disappear using SIA68/SQ68 (another 777)?


Let's not--it's a rubbish idea posted by an idiot

[SLFplatine]

rigbyrigz
Quote of yours this AM
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?)

Quote of yours this eve
Well, I wouldn't be so bold as to suggest this forum's questioning is a reason why, but just minutes ago N[Y] Times confirmed the computer pre-programming angle:

Article states "...according to senior U.S. officials..."
Confirmation?

[rigbyrigz]

I just tweeted this to Don Lemmon at CNN:
#370QS what is the reason so many facts are coming out as "US officials say" rather than direct from Malaysian govt?

I agree this "US officials say" approach is yuk. And when I found one main reason, the ABC NEWS story, it gave me serious cause for doubt. Now that NY Times and WSJ are both very definitely saying this is what they have also learned from sources and just recently, folks we do know are not allowed to give their names, it seems to ring true. Not a good state of affairs, but true.

[lakedude]

While I agree 100% with everything else you said, it needs to be pointed out Fuel Levels would indicate it likely touched down extremely close to the last ping. (if it were not already grounded)

The plane being in the air at 8:11 itself is already pushing what they would have been able to do (barring the extremely unlikely landing/refuel option, of course)
Sure, but that is making some assumptions about information we don't really have at this point AFAIK. For example nothing anywhere I've read (so far) says the plane was flying for the whole time. Once they lost it on radar it could have gone anywhere in range. It could have landed and took off again.

With only one ping an hour and only arcs from one satellite there is a lot we don't know, especially since we have only been shown the arcs from the final ping. Too bad the plane was not in range of another satellite, that would narrow things down in a jiffy!

Now I'm not saying I think the plane landed but it could have based on what little information we have. I'm guessing a plane saves a bit of fuel while sitting on the ground...

Just as landing would save fuel the plane might also have been "hypermiling". Low and slow might not give max range but it might increase flight time?

[Blake777]

FWIW there is also a video of some of the re-enacted 777 flight here but it provides not much detail. They did try the terrain masking scenario.

MISSING MH370: Re-enactment shows plane veered off course - Latest - New Straits Times (http://www.nst.com.my/latest/font-color-red-missing-mh370-font-re-enactment-shows-plane-veered-off-course-1.515942)

[LASJayhawk]

So let me get this straight. They are now saying the 1:07 ACARS report included the current and next waypoint, and that indicated the flight plan had been changed.

It's a text message not many characters longer than a tweet. And it took them 10 DAYS to figure that out.:eek:

Either this is just another red herring, or or or I don't know what.:(

[DCrefugee]

Quote:
we'd all be a lot better off if Malaysia would turn this over formally to the NTSB.
Really? On what do you base that idea? As far as I recall the NTSB is involved as is the AAIB which has an excellent reputation. None of us knows exactly what is happening and none of us is entitled to, only those involved directly in the attempt to discover what has happened are. Any information passed to the general public is done as a courtesy not as a right. Information passed to the relatives may differ in quantity but they are involved directly in what has happened and take priority over the rest of us. Some time back somebody (an official I think) said that it would be cruel to raise the hopes of the relatives by informing them of every alleged sighting of the aircraft or possible wreckage and I'm sure we would all agree - especially in view of some of the posts on here. I have my own feelings and ideas about what has happened but that is just what they are - feelings and ideas NOT facts so you won't see them posted here.

You're right, none of us are entitled to know anything, but as a member of the general public, it would kinda/sorta be nice to know if there's a rogue T7 out there somewhere. There's also a not-small matter of ongoing confidence in the worldwide air transportation system.

That said, the Malaysians have lost all credibility by releasing information and then retracting it or modifying it. Their officials are too afraid of losing their jobs, and they're tripping over each other to obfuscate and save face. Someone with some experience and professionalism needs to take over this investigation and reinstill confidence, and at least set straight several confusing data points. I nominate the NTSB, but it could just as well be the BEA, TSB or whomever has done something like this before.

The only thing about the way the Malaysians are handling things that makes any sense is the adults working behind the scenes like it this way, which may make things more confusing for the Bad Guys, whoever and wherever they are.

[Airbubba]

Well, I wouldn't be so bold as to suggest this forum's questioning is a reason why, but just minutes ago NT Times confirmed the computer pre-programming angle:


This NYT article seems to confirm earlier reports that the plane was detected as a primary radar blip passing over the waypoints west of Peninsular Malaysia, not just going in that direction.

If you're cruising out there with lights and TCAS off, would you do SLOP? Or just stay on the centerline, incorrectly using the Big Sky theory?

Years ago aircraft would be scattered a mile or three off the centerline out over the water due to INS drift and lack of precise long range radio navaids. Nowadays with GPS, the planes will appear to be within 10 meters of each other laterally when they pass at (hopefully) different altitudes. MH 370 staying on airways instead of going random route would sure indicate someone was conscious and driving, at least initially. And trying to blend in with the commercial traffic.

The reversal route back past Penang wouldn't normally be loaded for the KUL-PEK flight. However, would it be part of a canned company flight plan stored in the FMS for, say KUL-DEL or KUL-KHI? These canned flight plans seem to go in and out of favor depending on the carrier. Many planes can uplink the route directly to the box. However, internationally, sometime this doesn't work and a canned flight plan, even with some changes, may be less prone to error than typing in the whole thing from scratch.

The report from the New Straits Times about MH 370 descending to 5000 feet doesn't seem to be corroborated elsewhere so far.

[galaxy flyer]

DCRefugee,

Review ICAO Annex 13, then get back to us as to having the NTSB, AAIB, BEA takeover. That ain't happenin' due to international treaty.

rigby, is "yuk" a technical term or do you have something specific to say in that paragraph on "official sources"? You do know the legal relationship the US must abide by? If not, read Annex 13, too.

[DCrefugee]

DCRefugee,

Review ICAO Annex 13, then get back to us as to having the NTSB, AAIB, BEA takeover. That ain't happenin' due to international treaty.

Under Annex 13, Malaysia can request/obtain formal assistance or delegate responsibility to anyone they want at any time.

[rigbyrigz]

RE: " is "yuk" a technical term or do you have something specific to say in that paragraph on "official sources"? You do know the legal relationship the US must abide by? If not, read Annex 13, too."

Of course the US "helpers" must abide by Annex 13 restrictions. It's YUK that the Malaysians, who obviously have the same info, or could have it from US analysis sharing, aren't bringing it out in a venue where it can be asked about, confirmed, have some semblance of reliable fact. And in a timely fashion.

[galaxy flyer]

True, DCRefugee, however care to bet on the Malaysians doing so in a public way, admitting defeat? I didn't think so.

[galaxy flyer]

They certainly aren't doing a great, or even fair, job of it and I wouldn't expect much seeing as they are facing an historically difficult task with little capability to work it. But, them's the rules; I'm sure the US and others are assisting in every way possible. This is hideously difficult search using the few tools available, mostly tools being engineered from systems never designed to be used in that manner. The BEA was criticized until they finished the job reasonably well, perhaps excellently.

[rampstriker]

Unless there's some Sekrit Skwirrel Blowing Snow going on preventing it, we'd all be a lot better off if Malaysia would turn this over formally to the NTSB. The incompetence is staggering.

That said, the previous ping plots won't be released until it's in someone's interest to do so. It's probably not Inmarsat's call.

But some people know where those pings were, and you can bet their surveillance satellites are burning some fuel to take a close look.

The thread search function is down now and I am unable to locate the superbly informative post from a satellite expert made here earlier today, but in it he said essentially that there is probably not a log of the earlier hourly Inmarsat pings. They are just written to an overwritable memory buffer and it's probably lucky the last ping had not been overwritten when Inmarsat searched for an MH370 record.

[papershuffler]

Fire I was one of the first people to bring up the possibility of fire many days ago. i reject that hypothesis now. The problem is the simple and basic truth that at 8:11 AM, seven hours later, the airplane pinged a satellite. I'm convinced that this data is legit. I've looked into the computer side of it closely and it makes sense. There is no possible fire scenario that I can imagine that would allow power to that specific unit and not allow power to any other unit. For one, all the SATCOM share the same power circuit. If a fire took out ACARS and the transponder it took out all other SATCOM too. Since the SATCOM was live seven hours later, no fire. Not possible.


But, after initiating the left turn, could the flightcrew have been cycling through the XYZ checklists to eliminate the causes and switched it off themselves, and been overcome/forgetting before they were able to switch it back on? Then the fire goes out*.

I've seen very intelligent and well-trained people freak out at the sight of a small fire, and the smoke/smells can become worse after the fire is out. Forgetting to flip a switch or two back into place wouldn't be totally surprising in a high-pressure situation. Just that one action causing all this prolonged agony, and more holes are lined up...


No, I'm not a pilot but I am an ex-investigator, and my work wouldn't have sent people down if I hadn't bottomed out every line of enquiry and spent months going through and double-checking evidence. Despite all the depravities of human nature I've seen firsthand and the lack of evidence here, I'm still of the belief that this event was caused by some kind of malfunction. (I'm rather frustrated that I can't reference the technical work I read earlier which explained the changes of direction, and what systems would have been disabled/enabled as part of XYZ system actions, just so I could link to it for you to critique, but I cleared my cache earlier. Gah.)

So, I ask of any pilots still reading this, if you smell smoke on the flightdeck, (and it's not pax trying to have a crafty fag in the loo), what would your actions be? You have your checklists to go through, you want to get the plane down on the ground ASAP, so you decide and head for your chosen airport; you know where you're going. You suspect you know what's causing the smoke, do you try something a little off the wall (in any way, not necessarily approaching coffin corner** when your plane's fully laden), or stick to procedure? And all the time, the smoke's just getting worse...


*Is there any record of inflight fires burning themselves out, or have they all escalated? Is it possible for the crew to have located the problem, acted correctly, and then been overcome? How fierce/smoke-heavy must the fire have been if flight crew, cabin crew and all pax are incapacitated, yet the plane continues flying? Any precedents?

**many opinions I've read find those FL readings dubious or likely to contain a high error ratio due to the methodology used to calculate, or as the 'US source' says 'may not be wholly reliable'. I'm taking most of the other readings, unless they are tested in the same circumstances and proved to be both reliable and accurate, with a pinch of salt.


Fire > action taken for landing > partial checklist completed > incapacitation of all > fire extinguished > plane wanders undetected.
It almost fits, but not quite. Total incapacitation and the generation of no additional ACARS messages seem a little hard to believe.

Bloxin's exploding oxygen bottle seems a better fit, apart from whether the aircraft would still 'ping', and no additional messages...
Hypothetical
Hello.
This is my third attempt to make a post here. Maybe, as I'm new here I'm doing it wrong.
I am a licenced engineer, B747.
This post attempts to describe, with precedents, a possible single failure that would cause loss of coms, depressurisation and crew disablement due to hypoxia.

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

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

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

I wonder what the maintenance records say, what tyre maintenance was or wasn't done recently, or oxygen bottle servicing (remembering that lack of evidence is sometimes as important as the presence of evidence, as per 'the Curious Incident...') and so on. Was the runway at KL ever checked for debris from MH370?

[OldDutchGuy]

It is perfectly logical that Malaysian would be tankering fuel running up to China. It is a govt-owned carrier that reportedly is running well into the red. For all we know, the fuel guys up there will not extend credit, or keep a tight leash on the outstanding receivables, or are demanding a prepaid surety account, or have cut the carrier off completely. TWA got into that bind in its last days (actually, the last year). Nobody would sell them fuel on open account. Since Malaysia is a "producer," and the govt has its fingers in that pie, likely some brother-in-law has the supply contract and gets the fuel at say 17 cents a gal. and re-sells it to the Carrier at say $2.20. Meanwhile the Chinese guys are demanding cash up front at (pick your number) $4.00. The solution is driven by the economic realities: they tanker.

I noted that everybody was being very cagey about saying "the normal fuel load was taken on." Normal for what? Normal for the flight parameters, or normal for their not having open-account credit in Beijing? Or, normal for the brother-in-law? Nobody knows. Hey, it's Asia; things are opaque as a matter of course. :O

[femanvate]

From my angle, I’d feel a wee bit safer if I thought that my flight was always broadcasting its location.
When your "always on" device shorts and catches on fire, you'd wish it had a breaker to fully disable it...

[Sheep Guts]

Maybe the Satellite antenna on B777 is smart in itself and can send basic handshake pings to the Satellite. Only a B777 avionics guy could tell us any takers?

[twotigers]

CX/KA normally tanker fuel to PEK too.
It's super expensive to buy it there.
I see no issue if this was MHs practice.

[GarageYears]

Please read the following for a very clear and understandable explanation of the INMARSAT <> aircraft linkage:

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

[TxAggie94]

So, to help locate this aircraft, you'd be willing to put future flights in danger by removing the ability of the flight crew to address a problem?

I'll wager as an industry we've seen more unit malfunctions, fires and overheated equipment than we have rogue pilots/terrorists turning systems off to intentionally hide.

[MountainBear]

But, after initiating the left turn, could the flightcrew have been cycling through the XYZ checklists to eliminate the causes and switched it off themselves, and been overcome/forgetting before they were able to switch it back on? Then the fire goes outSure, anything is possible. It also possible that the disconnection of the transponder and ACARs is a red herring. After all, it exists within the realm of imagination that both the transponder and ACARs could fail independently of each other for mechanical reasons. The odds that two robust systems failing independently of each other within minutes is miniscule but it is non-zero.

The problem is that one begins to pile one miniscule probability on top of another miniscule probability in an additive fashion hoping to get to one (certainty). But in fact statistics multiplies probabilities. So the odds of one rare event followed by another rare event is more rare, not less rare. So the odds of the transponder failing followed by ACARs failing, then a fire breaks out, then the crew is overcome by smoke just as the fire burns itself out is to be so wildly improbable that it beggars belief. That doesn't mean it didn't happen. Even one in a trillion odds will come to pass sooner or later over an infinite number of trials. But speaking only for myself I would not be dedicating scarce resources on such scenarios.

The other poster is correct when they said I was being "too dogmatic" by saying a fire is "not possible" because anything at this stage is possible. But it's way down of my list of likelihoods.

[md80fanatic]

With 50 m or more of water over mud. Nope. The plane ail fragment if it hits the water at high speed. Some of these pieces will be small with little momentum. Some won't be very aerodynamic (? hydrodynamic). Can you see a detached aileron flying through this much water and digging itself into the mud.There are some "out-there" theories present, this is NOT one of them. All you say is absolutely true and provable 100% of the time. I always wonder how people, en masse, can be under such a wrong impression about how matter interacts in our world. This one, for me, needs little investigation. There was a crash of a airliner in the early part of this century that contradicts this physically sound concept. That event did little to reinforce what we should understand about impulse and momentum. On this point then I am willing to give the public a pass, considering ...

The other wild threads that are being pulled though really do deserve to be examined on another forum. IMHO of course.

[Lazerdog]

GarageYears... Thanks for that article. Makes sense that the protocol to keep the satellite link subscribed is in the satellite transceiver itself so it will ping as long as it has power, even without incoming data.

Hopefully someone is looking into how ARINC 629 cables failing could make it appear that ACARS and Transponders were turned off by a human. Failure of that buss would also mean that the VHF and HF control heads (as well as others) on the flight deck could not connect to their LRUs. Even a short duration fire could cause a real mess in a hurry.

[CowgirlInAlaska]

Time of India reports: Practice runways for Male, Indian, Sri Lankan airports and 1 US military base found on seized flight simulation software.

What do you all make of this?? :sad:

[nitpicker330]

Look, let me put to bed the tyre failure/overheat/fire scenario.

The 777 is fitted with:

1/ TPIS, which stands for "Tyre pressure indicating system" which is monitored by EICAS, the crew WILL get a message if a tyre deflates. If they suffered a major tyre failure on takeoff they would have felt the problem ( especially if it was a nose wheel tyre ) and then received an EICAS message.
2/ if there was a Wheel Fire in the main Wheel Well they would get a EICAS Fire Wheel Well Warning and they would have followed the QRH procedure and then declared a Pan or Mayday as required. This would certainly NOT include climbing to FL450 to put out the Fire!!! :mad:
( the QRH from memory says to slow below MLO .82/270kias and extend the gear, if the warning continues LAND ASAP. )

I've had tyres deflate on T/O at MTOW on a 77W out of LAX, no big deal. We had a slow deflation and nothing found on the runway, we continued. Tyre was flat on landing.

[mrangar]

Time of India reports: Practice runways for Male, Indian, Sri Lankan airports and 1 US military base found on seized flight simulation software.

What do you all make of this??
Probably that the Flight Simulator had a thorough database?

[India Four Two]

Please read the following for a very clear and understandable explanation of the INMARSAT <> aircraft linkage:

TMF Associates MSS blog » Understanding ?satellite pings?? (http://apicdn.viglink.com/api/click?format=go&key=1e857e7500cdd32403f752206c297a3d&loc=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pprune.org%2Frumours-news%2F535538-malaysian-airlines-mh370-contact-lost-278.html&out=http%3A%2F%2Ftmfassociates.com%2Fblog%2F2014%2F03%2F15%2 Funderstanding-satellite-pings%2F&ref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pprune.org%2Frumours-news%2F535538-malaysian-airlines-mh370-contact-lost-278.html)

An excellent article, as is the follow up:

TMF Associates MSS blog » Locating ?satellite pings?? (http://tmfassociates.com/blog/2014/03/17/locating-satellite-pings/)