Malaysian Airlines MH370 contact lost

[Pontius Navigator]

Radials radiate. These were arcs subtended by the radial.

Like VOR, is a Radial device and wrongly identified as Range :)

If you are saying you think it flew along those arcs You need to go back and read answers.


Anyway i will tell you those arcs are all the radials from the satellite to the 40 deg range, it did not fly along the arc it could be on anywhere on either one of them.

[oldoberon]

Actually, thinking a bit deeper, he may have something. Two transponders. One with the usual ATC 4-octal Mode A and another with a discrete aircraft ID. The latter would of course need larger and discrete number or maybe the route identified would suffice. It need not be displayed on ATC screens but never the less recorded in the data store.

The military use multi-mode transponders so the principle exists.

The transponder response does have the aircraft ident embedded in it, a techy even told us how it is transferred to a replacement box and what equip is used ( it can only be done if aircraft logic shows ground nor air.

However who on the ground can see or access that data in the return I don't know.

[Pontius Navigator]

The difference between pressure altitude and true height is D-factor.

From memory a D-factor in the far east IRO 2,000-2,500 feet was usual.

[jugofpropwash]

It was the one question I had and it wasn’t until today, buried deep in a secondary article, that this question was answered. A small quantity, all packed, shipped and loaded in accordance with the guidelines. But they were there.

But even if the crew is overcome by smoke, hypoxia, etc - then there's the question of how the plane stays in the air for seven hours with a fire burning in the hold.

[BOAC]

If you are saying you think it flew along those arcs You need to go back and read answers.

Anyway i will tell you those arcs are all the radials from the satellite to the 40 deg range, it did not fly along the arc it could be on anywhere on either one of them. - I take it then you do not subscribe to the current search area (on the 40 degree arc) having started in the South China Sea on the same arc? Perhaps you have another theory as to how it went from one to the other while appearing to be on the '40 degree' arc with 7 hourly signals all at that elevation? Pontious - I assume the same? - You do not believe it went down to the South Indian Ocean off Aus either? By the way, these arcs are NOT subtended by 'radials' but by position lines.

Thank you, Lonewolf - I have always been suspicious of 'co-incidences'. We will share the eyebrows.

Yes, everyone, I do understand the margins of error (as yet unknown) on this '40 degree arc', but I still reckon that the odds of the a/c tracking ACROSS the arcs and at least one ping being at some other angle would be high.

Are we to assume from the sketchy info so far that the 'elevation' of the first ping after comms loss (supposedly Malacca) was the same as the previous (north of Malaysia?).

fg - thanks for PM - don't forget we (some) are assuming the a/c WAS on that arc when it supposedly crashed - co-incidence?

[AirWon]

Excuse the interruption, but don't you think the new satellite photo just released looks a tad like an evacuation slide......?

[malcolmf]

Excuse the interruption, but don't you think the new satellite photo just released looks a tad like an evacuation slide......?
a bit large though, at 22m x 13m.

[peterhr]

Should planes be fitted with something like this in an 'inaccessible in flight location' (maybe on the tail fin) http://www.globaltelesat.co.uk/satphone/SPOT-Gen3-Satellite-GPS-Messenger.html

It's a GPS tracker that can report it's position by satellite every few minutes (5 / 10 minutes would probably be good). Would probably also be useful for oceanic ATC.

[I am aware of the project to have satellite based ADS-B recievers]

[oldoberon]

The assumption it would have been seen (transponderless) on most radars is wrong too. All explained earlier if you look back far enough.

The 'gap' in the arcs is because they commence at LKP.

It was seen on malay and Thai mil primary radar and the Malayasia track was confirmed later

If you think mil radar will not pick up unidentified planes please explain why they have them!

[Msunduzi]

-

Yes, everyone, I do understand the margins of error (as yet unknown) on this '40 degree arc', but I still reckon that the odds of the a/c tracking ACROSS the arcs and at least one ping being at some other angle would be high.




A very valid point, why would anyone navigate along a route exactly the same distance (elevation) from a satellite?

Almost any route of any distance, great circle or compass would cross "arcs" as you say.

[Halfnut]

Even if the currents were at a leisurely walk of 3 Knots x 24 hours in a day (currents never sleep) = Debris Field 72 miles from ditching / impact in just one day

It is now going on 15 days since MH370 went missing

15 days x 72 miles = 1080 NM from ditching / impact

Now going back to basic pilot trainer class if you are one degree off course in 60 miles you will be one mile off course.

1080 / 60 = 18 miles plus or minus the debris field could be located with just one degree change in the ocean currents vs. those who plot the currents.

All of these numbers could be multiplied by two or three with all the verbals in the Southern Indian Ocean.

[AndyJS]

Apart from hypoxia, are there any other scenarios that would account for the crew and passengers being incapacitated AND the plane being able to fly for another 5-7 hours?

[Hunter58]

Primary radar can be used to compute distance as it would be proportional to the transit time taken by a pulse of energy to travel to the object and back again. As they have azimuth, they may be also have SOME elevation resolution.

Military Primary Radar is 3D since the 1960. They beam both in azimuth as well as vertical. The altutude capturing capability is usually quite good, but it needs to be calibrated from time to time. Also it shows geographical altitude, not barometric, which in older systems could be a pain in the backside when trying to correlate own primary targets with civilian secondaries. Software changes later life was good again...

[BOAC]

that to me says you think they searched there because of the arc. - er, no. The Inmarsat data was not known at that time. You need to revisit the timeline.You also still seem to think it flew all along one of these arcs it did not. - this is difficult! A massive search effort is being expended ON THE 40 DEGREE ARC at supposed fuel exhaustion point. Inmarsat tell us the pings were 'all' at 40 degree elevations. Since we know where the first ping was transmitted (roughly), please explain how it got to the SIS, pinging at the same elevation all 7 times without tracking along the arc? It was seen on malay and Thai mil primary radar and the Malayasia track was confirmed later - you obviously believe the reported radar data. Confirmed???? By whom? I have not seen these statements stand questioning.
If you think mil radar will not pick up unidentified planes please explain why they have them! - read the posts in this thread and you will see. Half+ the mil probably asleep at the wheel at the time. Oh, do ask the Russians who popped a Badger up in the Firth of Forth a few years back....................... :-)

[nh1200c]

For all who think that primary radar cannot indicate altitude, please look up the SPS-48 - which entered service in the U.S. Navy over 50 YEARS ago and is just a typical example of a long range 3-D radar type.

Phased array 3-D surveillance radars are common in military air defense service as we really don't like to just have interceptors go wandering around trying to determine if the bogey target is at 10K or FL450.

Now, the fair point here is that the height accuracy is definitely affected by the target range, but less than ~4K foot altitude error at 200 nm range is definitely common.

(Lonewolf50 - I was on the design team for the NTU many, many years ago. It's good to see it spoken of well.)

[MountainBear]

Originally Posted by BOAC http://www.pprune.org/images/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/535538-malaysian-airlines-mh370-contact-lost-367.html#post8394559)
-

Yes, everyone, I do understand the margins of error (as yet unknown) on this '40 degree arc', but I still reckon that the odds of the a/c tracking ACROSS the arcs and at least one ping being at some other angle would be high.


A very valid point, why would anyone navigate along a route exactly the same distance (elevation) from a satellite?The 40 degree arc is based upon the altitude of the plane at the LKP. That's why the satellite polling the device terminal has to contain altitude data. The physical radius of the radio waves (the band) is limited. So if the polling has the wrong altitude the signal will miss the plane entirely and the connection is going to be dropped. So a difference in the arc implies a difference in the altitude of the plane and nothing more. Moreover, since the polling take place only once an hour it only tells us something about the altitude of the plane at that precise moment in time, not what happened in between.

[BOAC]

The 40 degree arc is based upon the altitude of the plane at the LKP. - no. Little to do with aircraft altitude. Forget altitude. Covered in depth in previous posts. You need to compare geo-stat orbit distance with 6 nm to see.

[Anna's Dad]

Just watching a BBC News interview with David Mearns (Blue Water Recoveries Ltd), expert in marine recovery. He was describing where the search may be directed now, assuming drift, and comparisons with the locations of the Australian and Chinese imagery. Also using current information to work backwards to calculate a predicted area for any original ditching.

When asked that all this assumes the material photographed is positively identified as part(s) of MH370, he implied the Australians and Chinese would not be chasing things likely to have another obvious origin.

[MountainBear]

Inmarsat tell us the pings were 'all' at 40 degree elevations. Since we know where the first ping was transmitted (roughly), please explain how it got to the SIS, pinging at the same elevation all 7 times without tracking along the arc? If I understand the complaint correctly, the complaint is based upon a fundamental error. The 40 degree arc that is plotted on a map is a two dimensional representation of a three dimensional reality. There is no claim that the plane moved along the 40 degree arc in two dimensional space, only that it moved along the arc in three dimensional space. If every ping happened along the 40 degree arc all the means is that the plane held to the same altitude for 7 hours, nothing more.

Either that or I do not understand the criticism.

[jimjim1]

@awblain
the number of possible routes likely isn't very large.

RichardC10 has posted that he has used computer simulation to determine that if a set of several Inmarsat arcs is available then if a constant course is assumed then two unique track can be obtained - one for each hemisphere.

http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/535538-malaysian-airlines-mh370-contact-lost-296.html#post8386704

says:
The result is that there is only one constant heading course from the last recorded radar position that matches the example set of ping arcs, that is the destination is uniquely defined by the interim and final ping arcs (if interim arcs exist). There is a (rough) mirror course in the southern hemisphere which may be hard to distinguish as the last recorded radar position was close to the equator.

I have the impression that Mr RichardC10 is cluefull.

In my view the whole post is worth a careful read.

[oldoberon]

BOAC- read the posts in this thread and you will see. Half+ the mil probably asleep at the wheel at the time. Oh, do ask the Russians who popped a Badger up in the Firth of Forth a few years back....................... :-)

they had a track but were not certain it was 370, they tracked it to the straits of malacca until losing contact.

The fact that it was 370 was confirmed at a mid week conference by the minister based on a variety of data, so your sleepy byes argument is like most of your argument -rubbish

[Karel_x]

Primary radar can be used to compute distance as it would be proportional to the transit time taken by a pulse of energy to travel to the object and back again. As they have azimuth, they may be also have SOME elevation resolution.
It is not easy to measure altitude of plane by radar. If I remember times of my military service, the main lobe of parabolic antenna is not narrow enough to measure altitude with good accuracy. To increase accuracy, vertical orange peel antenna was used, but I can remember that a precision was not usually better then +/- 3000 ft. Sometime worse, it depends on distance between plane and radar, clouds, surface objects, size of plane etc.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/Mps-16-1.jpg

To track position of plane like T7 at FL 300+ and distance about 200nm was very easy. Blips were clear and you could see them in a second on the screen.

[sky9]

Inmarsat

I understand that the arcs are based on the time difference between TX and RX of the signal from the satellite. Would such a signal frequency experience doppler shift if the aircraft was travelling towards or away from the satellite?

The other inference of the aircraft ACARS responding to the satellite is that there must have been power on that particular bus.

[davidre]

BOAC:
A massive search effort is being expended ON THE 40 DEGREE ARC at supposed fuel exhaustion point. Inmarsat tell us the pings were 'all' at 40 degree elevations. Since we know where the first ping was transmitted (roughly), please explain how it got to the SIS, pinging at the same elevation all 7 times without tracking along the arc? What is the basis of your assertion concerning what Inmarsat has said? I don't believe I've seen any such statement. Have I missed something?

[Mr Optimistic]

MB, Its the intersection of two spherical surfaces. One being the earths surface the other being the locus of all points a certain distance from the satellite based on signal travel time.

[BOAC]

MB - I don't think you understand the 40 degree elevation actually. Work out please (someone did it way back here) what difference a 6nm change in altitude would make in angular terms over a distance of 22000nm +? Un-measurable, I suggest. Altitude has very little to do with it. The 'red arcs' are probably drawn as ground position but would be near as dammit the same at 40,000' - a 3-D 'corridor' if you like.

[Zorin_75]

Inmarsat tell us the pings were 'all' at 40 degree elevations
No! Only the final 8:11 ping came from a position somewhere on that arc, that's all.

[BOAC]

was confirmed at a mid week conference by the minister based on a variety of data - ah - confirmed??? That's alright then. That would probably be the same minister who has changed tack just a few times?

I remain totally unconvinced so far of any 'stated facts' - except LKP and the 'essence' of the Inmarsat man's words. Everything else is 'subject to'. You, of course, are entiltled to believe all statements from Malaysia.

[rabidstoat]

Apart from hypoxia, are there any other scenarios that would account for the crew and passengers being incapacitated AND the plane being able to fly for another 5-7 hours?

Surely there are. Off the top of my head, hijacker(s) with threat or use of force.

[MG23]

Would such a signal frequency experience doppler shift if the aircraft was travelling towards or away from the satellite?

The terminal probably has to correct for doppler shift, because low bit-rate channels are very narrow; doesn't take much of a frequency shift to end up transmitting on or listening to an adjacent channel. There's a lot more flexibility in timing, which presumably explains why it doesn't try to correct for that.

[Msunduzi]

If I understand the complaint correctly, the complaint is based upon a fundamental error. The 40 degree arc that is plotted on a map is a two dimensional representation of a three dimensional reality. There is no claim that the plane moved along the 40 degree arc in two dimensional space, only that it moved along the arc in three dimensional space. If every ping happened along the 40 degree arc all the means is that the plane held to the same altitude for 7 hours, nothing more.

Either that or I do not understand the criticism.


The 40 degree "arc" has nothing to do with the plane's altitude.

If you plot a great circle map centered on the sub-satellite point, the 40 degree "arc" will be a circle.

Anywhere along that circle, the satellite will be 40deg elevation.

As the satellite is just under 35800 miles above the earths surface, the altitude of the plane will make a small difference to the elevation angle, and the effective circle under the plane on the surface would be marginally smaller than the 40deg circle on the ground.

Another way to look at the "arc" or circle, if you draw an imaginaru line from the sub-satellite point, through the satellite, and out into space, then positioned your self on that line far out past the satellite, then looked back at the earth with the satellite in the middle, the 40 degree "arc" would appear to be a circle, and the circles would get smaller until at 90deg, it is just a point.

[inchman254]

There is no claim that the plane moved along the 40 degree arc in two dimensional space, only that it moved along the arc in three dimensional space. If every ping happened along the 40 degree arc all the means is that the plane held to the same altitude for 7 hours, nothing more.


Let's get something straight. The arc that we are presented with has nothing to do with 40 degrees except it happens to be a 40 degree arc. And it has nothing to do with the path of the aircraft.

The arc is simply a line that marks the potential range of positions of the aircraft at a single, specific moment in time, based on a single ping from the satellite. It is the distance from the satellite computed based on the length of time from the time at which the satellite sends the ping until it receives the response. The aircraft's altitude would have very little effect on the position of the line... perhaps a couple of miles, but there is enough potential error that the altitude makes very little difference

The Inmarsat satellite does not have any azimuth information. The data that we are being presented with is simply a distance from the satellite at the moment of the last single ping. A radar works sort of the same way... the time it takes for the signal to return to the radar head determines the distance. The difference between radar and this type of information is that radar provides the azimuth (direction) of the signal based on the direction the radar antenna is facing at the moment the signal is received. RADAR stands for RAdio Direction And Ranging. All this satellite can provide is RANGE and that's all the arc represents.

Thank goodness they didn't present the arcs from the other pings. It would have been even more confusing.

[BOAC]

Zorin - you cannot dispute that the start (0111??) and finish (0811) were around that arc? Has the elevation for the intermediate pings been published?

[multycpl]

I take it that the search planes can fly in the dark !......So why take off at first light. If it takes 2 hrs to get onsite couldn't they leave 2 hours earlier ??


Sorry, I didn't get that the time change would be so great. I had guessed about 1 hour......seems I was wrong

[AndyJS]

I don't understand why they released information about the final "handshake" but not the others.

It would have made sense not to have revealed information about any of them for security reasons maybe, but once they released information about the 8:11 handshake it seems odd that they didn't do the same for the others.

[BOAC]

The arc that we are presented with has nothing to do with 40 degrees except it happens to be a 40 degree arc. - had to chuckle there - that lightened up a heavy day!:)

[bono]

AMSA reports not sighting objects spotted by Chinese satellite. [Update#10]

"This evening China provided a satellite image to Australia possibly showing a 22.5 metre floating object in the southern Indian Ocean. AMSA has plotted the position and it falls within Saturday’s search area. The object was not sighted on Saturday.

AMSA will take this information into account in tomorrow’s search plans. "

Most likely the objects have floated away.


http://i58.tinypic.com/witvkw.jpg

[Rory166]

Unlike the tidal currents for example in the north sea which are well known and predictable but always subject to variation such as due to weather. Ocean currents can only be predicted in terms of a long term average drift because there are rotational patterns which move generally in the direction of average drift. Consequentially the drift experienced on a particular day may be in any direction even counter to the long term average drift. This in no way can be extrapolated to previous or subsequent days.

When the search planes first arrived on scene bouys were dropped which will provide very interesting information. How useful will depend on the position relationship to any debris. Hopefully there are a significant number of bouys deployed over a wide area.

What is interesting is the dispersal power of the sea, if you observe two items close to each other it is often amazing to watch them drift apart.

There are particular area of the world where debris accumulates, if this sad saga does continue for many years it may be worthwhile stationing vessels in these area to analyse what turns up.

The BBC had a supposed expert on who postulated that because there is new satellite image 75 miles SW of previous then there is a 1.8 knot drift over the whole period (he failed to use the term knot) fortunately they have just now found an oceanographer who has strongly disputed this.

Rory

[oldoberon]

- ah - confirmed??? That's alright then. That would probably be the same minister who has changed tack just a few times?

I remain totally unconvinced so far of any 'stated facts' - except LKP and the 'essence' of the Inmarsat man's words. Everything else is 'subject to'. You, of course, are entiltled to believe all statements from Malaysia.

you must be the only person in the world who now does not accept they tracked MH 370 to the malacca straits. The minister quoted the data that allowed him to make that statement I just can't recall what it was, he wasn't telling us without evidence as you seem to imply.

Why do you think all the debate about did it go to the straits has stopped.

[BOAC]

you must be the only person in the world who now does not accept they tracked MH 370 to the malacca straits. - actually, I think it quite a large club. You are obviously content. As I said, I 'accept' very little except LKP.
Why do you think all the debate about did it go to the straits has stopped. - probably because if it is at the bottom of the South Indian Ocean it becomes slightly less relevant, does it not?

[jmjdriver1995]

I take it that the search planes can fly in the dark !......So why take off at first light. If it takes 2 hrs to get onsite couldn't they leave 2 hours earlier ?? The flight time from airbase to the search area is approximately 4 hours, not 2. The search planes are scheduled for take off at staggered times so as to keep at least one plane in the search area all or most of the daylight hours.

[Sober Lark]

If this was another Sully controlled landing in calm seas, the aircraft wouldn't be floating two weeks later.


If a fuel exhausted aircraft impacted the water from altitude then you just wouldn't have 22 metre pieces of debris still floating. Three metres at a push but not twenty two.

[oldoberon]

BOAC how did it get to the bottom of the southern ocean without crossing the peninsular.

the discussion about whether it was 370 crossing the peninsula stopped before the efforts to identify where on either arc it might be started.

You dip in every couple of days BUT don't read the interim posts, you admitted you only looked back 5 posts for something the other day.

if you don't read them all you won't be up to date.

Oh disbelieving everything that doesn't suit your view is pointless.

[oxo]

I take it that the search planes can fly in the dark !......So why take off at first light. If it takes 2 hrs to get onsite couldn't they leave 2 hours earlier ??

If you are using mk1 eyeballs to look for the debris, you don't want to be starting at dawn when there will be long shadows.

[GarageYears]

Each time the ping occurred it defined a possible arc (i.e. the aircraft is somewhere on that arc? Right we've all got that?

The next ping will give us another arc, the difference between arcs reflects the distance traveled. The aircraft has a minimum and maximum speed that allows the plane to move to the next arc. However the overall distance traveled to the last ping tells us the average speed, and I think we all agree it's unlikely to have done much other than cruise at this average speed...

So, collectively each arc and the next give us a track, right? If the arc doesn't change from one ping to the next the aircraft was either traveling along that arc or intersected it again, or was stationary. The over distance traveled/time will reveal whether the idea the aircraft was stationary at any time seems plausible - personally I doubt it. :hmm:

Can anyone tell what is wrong with the above?

[RichardC10]

AndyJS
I don't understand why they released information about the final "handshake" but not the others.

It would have made sense not to have revealed information about any of them for security reasons maybe, but once they released information about the 8:11 handshake it seems odd that they didn't do the same for the others. I don't understand why they released information about the final "handshake" but not the others.

It would have made sense not to have revealed information about any of them for security reasons maybe, but once they released information about the 8:11 handshake it seems odd that they didn't do the same for the others.The final handshake/ping data had to be released to convince everyone that the aeroplane was far South (or North) and definitely not in the South China Sea. After that there was no benefit to the investigators in releasing extra information, it would just lead to more spam in the e-mail accounts of NTSB, Boeing, Inmarsat, the Malaysian Authorities etc. etc.

[Zorin_75]

Zorin - you cannot dispute that the start (0111??) and finish (0811) were around that arc? Has the elevation for the intermediate pings been published?
I do and it hasn't.

[oxo]

The next ping will give us another arc, the difference between arcs reflects the distance traveled.

Nope, because you don't know what point the plane was on for any of the arc.

All you can tell by consecutive arcs is what component of the track was toward or away from the satellite.

If you know the speed, then using simple geometry, you can then calculate the other component, and that will then give you a position relative to the previous ping.

I assume this is how the NTSB decided on the location in the southern ocean.

[BOAC]

you admitted you only looked back 5 posts - I invite you to 'look back'? I believe I said 5 pages.The final handshake/ping data had to be released to convince everyone that the aeroplane was far South (or North) and definitely not in the South China Sea. - please explain that assumption. Why could it not be ANYWHERE on the arcs? What specific information would be available to position the ping at the extremes?

A further puzzle - the Inmarsat man said that during the 7 hours the 'pings got longer', yet they started around the 40 and finished around the 40. Huh?

[kappa]

Missing jet WAS carrying highly flammable lithium batteries: CEO of Malaysian Airlines finally admits to dangerous cargo four days after DENYING it
MH370 WAS carrying highly flammable lithium batteries admits CEO of Malaysian Airlines | Mail Online (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2586308/Missing-jet-WAS-carrying-highly-flammable-lithium-batteries-CEO-Malaysian-Airlines-finally-admits-dangerous-cargo.html)

How does this affect the thinking on the ‘cause’ of this aircraft being missing?

[Ornis]

GarageYears Each time the ping occurred it defined a possible arc (i.e. the aircraft is somewhere on that arc? The next ping will give us another arc

True. The arc we see is derived from the final ping and is not the track, on it somewhere is one point of the track.

[JamesGV]

....and TOPKIN, NISOK, SELSU and KETIV gets you 1,200NM from Perth.
After 7hr 30mins.

Straight along the line (after the turn around the top of Indonesia)

[sky9]

....and TOPKIN, NISOK, SELSU and KETIV gets you 1,200NM from Perth.
After 7hr 30mins.
Straight along the line (after the turn around the top of Indonesia)


What I am suggesting is that YWKS was put into the FMS as a destination or waypoint.

[RichardC10]

BOAC

Originally Posted by RichardC10
The final handshake/ping data had to be released to convince everyone that the aeroplane was far South (or North) and definitely not in the South China Sea.

- please explain that assumption. Why could it not be ANYWHERE on the arcs? What specific information would be available to position the ping at the extremes?
My interpretation is that NTSB will be modelling the track of the aeroplane and comparing it to the ping data, as I have described previously. On the assumption that a constant heading (or a great circle) course at constant (or near constant) speed was maintained the ping data will rule out all but a small range of possible courses. We must presume that on those assumptions NTSB believe the track West of Australia is the post probable course. Of course, a complex course with changing headings and speeds could emulate the ping data, but given the search time available NTSB will have gone for the simplest solution.

A further puzzle - the Inmarsat man said that during the 7 hours the 'pings got longer', yet they started around the 40 and finished around the 40. Huh?I don't think we can parse the verbal statements of various officials to get closer to the unreleased ping data.

[Ian W]

Missing jet WAS carrying highly flammable lithium batteries: CEO of Malaysian Airlines finally admits to dangerous cargo four days after DENYING it
MH370 WAS carrying highly flammable lithium batteries admits CEO of Malaysian Airlines | Mail Online (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2586308/Missing-jet-WAS-carrying-highly-flammable-lithium-batteries-CEO-Malaysian-Airlines-finally-admits-dangerous-cargo.html)

How does this affect the thinking on the ‘cause’ of this aircraft being missing?

Lithium ion batteries are not highly flammable. However, they can 'run away' and once started they produce their own fuel as the electrical energy discharges through an internal short. OK - so what happens if some cargo catches fire in the hold? Fire warning from the hold sensors to the cockpit and transmitted on ACARS. Crew immediately declare an emergency on their current frequency and squawk emergency.

Can anyone who knows the layout of the 772 give a way that the fire from batteries as cargo in the hold would selectively disable the ACARS, SSR, ADS and VHF/HF but not disable the power to the low gain SATCOM all the way back near the tail? Then that severe fire would extinguish itself and allow the FMS HDG to operate faultlessly and the aircraft to fly for the next 7 hours. This does not seem logical the fire is so severe that it immediately disables a whole raft of duplicated systems but not severe enough to disable all systems or to cause the aircraft to crash.

[x_navman]

My interpretation is that NTSB will be modelling the track of the aeroplane and comparing it to the ping data, as I have described previously. On the assumption that a constant heading (or a great circle) course at constant (or near constant) speed was maintained the ping data will rule out all but a small range of possible courses.


A great circle is not, in general, a line of constant heading.

[Pom Pax]

Originally Posted by multycpl
I take it that the search planes can fly in the dark !......So why take off at first light. If it takes 2 hrs to get onsite couldn't they leave 2 hours earlier ??
Yes I believe most modern aircraft can fly in the dark but can you effectively conduct a visual search in the dark?
When is first light? Well there is civil twilight, nautical twilight and astronomical twilight, take your pick.
Today's time for Perth are
Astronomical twilight 5.00 a.m. local (GMT +8)
Nautical twilight 5.29 a.m.
Civil twilight 5.57 a.m.
Sunrise 6.21 a.m.
Now the search zone is at least 20 degrees West of Perth so Sunrise will 80 minutes later, however the search area is also further South than Perth and being Autumn in the Southern Hemisphere Sunrise will be even later.
So an aircraft leaving Perth at 5.00 a.m will be in the search area shortly after Dawn.
oxo
If you are using mk1 eyeballs to look for the debris, you don't want to be starting at dawn when there will be long shadows.

[Flyboy41]

Still does not explain not giving out a distress call!!!!

[RichardC10]

navman
RichardC10 said
My interpretation is that NTSB will be modelling the track of the aeroplane and comparing it to the ping data, as I have described previously. On the assumption that a constant heading (or a great circle) course at constant (or near constant) speed was maintained the ping data will rule out all but a small range of possible courses.

A great circle is not, in general, a line of constant heading.
Quite so, I was expressing two options that might be modelled. On the line from Malaysia to West of Australia the great circle and constant heading courses to any particular point deviate by about 30km.

[Above The Clouds]

Even though it seems that the ACARS had been disabled the FMC GPS's would probably have still been receiving signals from EGNOS or the MSAS satellite system, are these signals traceable ?

[Hunter58]

All you need is a Li-io based fire to burn the cables to the transponder and VHF3 antenna. Both go dead. And you certainly get some nice hotspot that potentially could burn a small hole into the fuselage.

[deadheader]

Is it ironic/symbolic that, 370 pages into this mystery, many posters here remain in complete & utter denial that the evidence available practically demands human intervention be the most likely cause???


Time will hopefully tell...

[Mesoman]

Even though it seems that the ACARS had been disabled the FMC GPS's would probably still been sending and receiving signals to EGNOS or the MSAS satellite system, are these signals traceable ? Sadly, popular media showing people being tracked by the GPS receivers has confused too many people. GNSS (GPS/GLONASS/...) receivers do not transmit anything. They only receive. They receive signals from several satellites, and using the timing from them, calculate their position. EGNOS and MSAS likewise only receive correction data *from* auxiliary geo-synchronous satellites to make the primary GNSS signals more accurate.

Caveat: almost all radio receivers emit low level signals (leaked local oscillator, digital system clock noise, etc). This is irrelevant to their being trackable except from very close (a few tens of meters).

:ugh:

[charliethenav]

Above The Clouds Even though it seems that the ACARS had been disabled the FMC GPS's would probably still been sending and receiving signals to EGNOS or the MSAS satellite system, are these signals traceable ?

To my understanding SBAS is a one way augmentation system, the GEOs just transmit the GPS corrections and they do not receive anything from the aircraft. Therefore MSAS or GAGAN, the two SBAS systems possibly covering the flight profile would not have 'seen' the aircraft. Furthermore, to my understanding very few 'high end' aircraft are fitted with SBAS receivers.

[Mesoman]

EGNOS and MSAS systems also use ground stations for signal correction, but don't keep banging your head it will hurt.

Yes, which has nothing to do with tracking a receiver.

:ugh::ugh:

[RatherBeFlying]

Until the public sees data that unequivocally shows a strong tie between the last SSR response and the Westbound primary track to the North of Aceh, we need to accommodate the possibility that MH370 took another track that ended up somewhere within an hour's flight time from the last ping arc.

That Westbound track is highly redolent of diversion. Perhaps the NTSB and/or AMSA are privy to data not shared with the public that supports this track.

[Above The Clouds]

Mesoman

Stop banging your head on the wall.

I am asking because our aircraft are fitted with SBAS and depending on where RIMs station are located and if signals from geostationary satellites are being received, the transmission of some SBAS signals currently come from INMARSAT satellites, hence my question are they traceable I.E by INMARSAT.

[flash8]

Crucifying the crew is par for the course in most cases. Nothing unusual there. And if no cause is found... guess who is to blame by default?

As for the sensor software question, I believe all critical systems (including FBW/FADEC) on the a/c were developed by isolated separate design teams in triplicate using the Ada-83 standard (and later rewritten in Ada-95) and use an n-version (n=3) voting system for agreement/disagreement.

I don't think any *Boeing* crash has ever been attributed to software issues (MMI issues are something else), and the architecture has been pretty well proven and refined over the years not unlike all other engineering processes.

[mm43]

The graphic in post #5965 (http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/535538-malaysian-airlines-mh370-contact-lost-post8386973.html) has further been updated with the positions of the LKP at IGARI and a possible PSR position at 1822z, that are interlinked to the possible backtrack position west of Banda Aceh.

[Ian W]

All you need is a Li-io based fire to burn the cables to the transponder and VHF3 antenna. Both go dead. And you certainly get some nice hotspot that potentially could burn a small hole into the fuselage.

But those cables do not route near the fire. There are transponder and VHF antennas in the roof of the aircraft.

Everyone seems to be assuming a magic fire that can take out all the alternate communications - avoid the SATCOM and anything that prevents the aircraft flying normally - but depressurize the aircraft - and all before the hold fire warning and before the pilots notice and squawk or transmit Mayday.

[RobertS975]

If both pilots became disabled, and unable to respond to calls from the cabin crew, would the cabin crew have any means to open the inviolate cockpit door?

Reason I ask is perhaps one pilot disabled the other to carry out some plot, but before that pilot either died or became unconscious, he retaliated in some fashion to disable the other pilot.

Now in this scenario, we have two disabled or dead pilots behind a locked cockpit door, the plane on autopilot until it flames out 8 hours later.

[ZeBedie]

There seems to be an assumption that the aircraft couldn't remain airborne for hours without either a working autopilot or human input. This assumption is almost certainly wrong.

[albatross]

Have the boys in the 777 simulator shut down both engines and seen what the aircraft does until impact?
Airspeed, rate of descent, systems failures, autopilot disconnects ect.
You would have to do a number of scenarios, both engines shut down at the same time and one engine fails then the other, various autopilot setups IAS, Alt, Heading, Nav ect.

[RobertS975]

Flying for eight hours without either the autopilot or human input would require an inherent stability which just doesn't exist!

[mach411]

The graphic in post #5965 (http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/535538-malaysian-airlines-mh370-contact-lost-post8386973.html) has further been updated with the positions of the LKP at IGARI and a possible PSR position at 1822z, that are interlinked to the possible backtrack position west of Banda Aceh.

Hey mm43 thanks for the updated graphic, though as I mentioned before the projection is wrong. You need to either correctly project the satellite ping radius on the map projection you have (it won't be a circle anymore) or use an azimuthal projection centred on the satellite (then you can use a circle for the ping distance). The equidistant projection you are using is only equidistant with respect to latitude (vertical) distance from the equator and not equidistant at any angle from a point (even if the point is at the equator).

[Lost in Saigon]

If both pilots became disabled, and unable to respond to calls from the cabin crew, would the cabin crew have any means to open the inviolate cockpit door?

Reason I ask is perhaps one pilot disabled the other to carry out some plot, but before that pilot either died or became unconscious, he retaliated in some fashion to disable the other pilot.

Now in this scenario, we have two disabled or dead pilots behind a locked cockpit door, the plane on autopilot until it flames out 8 hours later.

Yes, there is a procedure that allows cabin crew to enter if both pilots are disabled. One possible scenario is that in addition to the pilots, the cabin crew and passengers were also disabled.

EDIT:

To "Heli-phile" (who was concerned about my post but won't take PM's)

This information is just common sense. There would have to be a way for the cabin crew to access the flight deck in case of an emergency. And there would also have to be a way for the pilots to keep people out if needed. This basic information is already available online for anyone who cares to look for it.

This procedure varies with each airline and of course I would never describe the exact procedure at my airline.


SKYbrary - Flight Deck Security (http://www.skybrary.aero/index.php/Flight_Deck_Security)
Emergency Flight Deck Access. Most security systems have the facility for emergency access to the flight deck; such systems have safeguards built in to allow the flight crew to prevent access, for example by building in delays to the door opening such that the flight crew, if not incapcitated, can overide the lock release.

[737Jock]

If both pilots became disabled, and unable to respond to calls from the cabin crew, would the cabin crew have any means to open the inviolate cockpit door?

Yes but only if both pilots are incapacitated. Pilots can reject any attempt to open the cockpit door through procedural means from outside.

IOW The cabin crew can try all day to open the door from the outside, but a conscious pilot in the flightdeck can prevent this each and every time.

[donpizmeov]

Robert,
The 777 is FBW. It does not require trimming for power changes, only for speed changes. Once its trimmed, and autothrottles are looking after the speed its very stable, and flies very nicely hands free.
There are plenty of incidents where aircraft have continued on autopilot after the crew have become incapacitated.
If in the cruise and the fuel starvation point is reached, one engine could fail before the other. In this case, autothrust (autothrottle? been a while since I was on the Boeing) would command the live engine towards climb thrust (max cruise setting), and the autopilot would look after the rudder to keep things straight and try and maintain level. As the speed decays, slow speed protection will then cause the aircraft to descend. When the other engine fails, the engines may be rotating fast enough to keep the generators online (if the Tas is high enough), if not the RAT will deploy to keep electrics. Hydraulic pumps too will keep working as long as the engines rotate fast enough. Either way the autopilot and flight controls will remain active until ground impact.
I don't think it will be the dramatic departure from controlled flight that has been explained here previously.

[Howard Hughes]

If you would rather read something factual...

Search Press Release (http://www.amsa.gov.au/media/documents/23032014_Media_Release_Update10MH370.pdf)

AMSA Website (http://www.amsa.gov.au/media/index.asp)

[F-MANU]

Hi,

Not sure if this has been discussed: what would be the maximum remaining fuel onboard at 08:11 (last ping) ?

Knowing that:

"The latest bloomberg article has the following: "The Boeing 777 was carrying 49.1 metric tons of fuel when it departed Kuala Lumpur, for a total takeoff weight of 223.5 tons, according to Subang Jaya-based Malaysian Air."

and assuming it was still flying when last ping was made ?

Thanks

[suninmyeyes]

Donpizmeof

If in the cruise and the fuel starvation point is reached, one engine could fail before the other. In this case, autothrust (autothrottle? been a while since I was on the Boeing) would command the live engine towards climb thrust (max cruise setting), and the autopilot would look after the rudder to keep things straight and try and maintain level. As the speed decays, slow speed protection will then cause the aircraft to descend. When the other engine fails, the engines may be rotating fast enough to keep the generators online (if the Tas is high enough), if not the RAT will deploy to keep electrics. Hydraulic pumps too will keep working as long as the engines rotate fast enough. Either way the autopilot and flight controls will remain active until ground impact.
I don't think it will be the dramatic departure from controlled flight that has been explained here previously.

Almost but not quite.

When the second engine fails the remaining generator and back up generator will drop off line and the autopilot will disconnect. The flight controls will then go into direct mode so you will lose a lot of the fancy stuff like bank angle protection and thrust asymmetry compensation.

The rudder trim that was added by TAC to compensate for being on one engine may or may not have stayed in depending upon how quickly the generator dropped off line. The Ram Air Turbine will deploy (although it takes a while to speed up) and then the autopilot can be reengaged. However if the pilots are incapacitated the autopilot will not reengage on its own and the flight controls will remain in direct mode. With unconscious pilots at the controls, autopilot disconnected and untrimmed since the second engine failure I would not expect the impact with water to be survivable.

However with empty tanks and a pilot flying it to a successful ditching, (much harder at night) I would have thought there was a fair chance of quite a few people surviving the impact. However the chances of getting into a slideraft and staying in it and detaching it in mountainous seas at night are probably not great.

[Ngineer]

If both pilots became disabled, and unable to respond to calls from the cabin crew, would the cabin crew have any means to open the inviolate cockpit door

Still doesn't explain why ATC & ACARS were disabled.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Hunter58
All you need is a Li-io based fire to burn the cables to the transponder and VHF3 antenna. Both go dead. And you certainly get some nice hotspot that potentially could burn a small hole into the fuselage.


He would have detected the fire before ATC and ACARS was lost and would not have flown 8 hours after.

One thing I am learning fast reading posts on this unfortunate circumstance, that is there is more than just a few crazy people flying planes these days.

[kenjaDROP]

@F-MANU

Well, if you take it as 'pinging'=flying, whereas 'not pinging'=not flying - which is the basis of the current search effort/area - then it matters not what actual fuel was at 08.11.

Taking the above, you could assume, then, that the a/c had enough fuel to possibly fly until 09.10.59.9999....at which point, and most probably before that time, it was empty!

[UnreliableSource]

Everyone seems to be assuming a magic fire that can take out all the alternate communications - avoid the SATCOM and anything that prevents the aircraft flying normally - but depressurize the aircraft - and all before the hold fire warning and before the pilots notice and squawk or transmit Mayday.

There are competing sets of assumptions. :-)

The version of events in the media (lots of height, heading, and speed changes; avoids some radars; and then suddenly to make the data fit a straight flight to the southern ocean to finish on the same 40deg satellite contour as the beginning) is also hard to swallow.

I'll agree that the "pilots aren't the bad guys" scenarios require a catastrophe onboard that prevents communication.

[Hunter58]

He would have detected the fire before ATC and ACARS was lost and would not have flown 8 hours after.

Prove it!

If there was a fire, we don't know where it was and how it developed.

Aviate, Navigate, Communicate

Well, if you cannot get past Navigate before whatever event it is kills you, even if your comms work, you cannot communicate. Helios did fly and none of the pilots did communicate.

Fact is, we don't know ANYTHING about what happened on board. And unless you can absoluely exclude a possibility, it is valid.

[Mechta]

A bit of a long shot, but did MH370 have centre tank inerting fitted, and if so, do any pipes carrying nitrogen enriched air pass through the pressure hull? If a pipe were to fail, then the effect on those on board may be similar to a loss of pressurisation.

[currawong]

ettore

the fire/incapacitation theory does not allow for subsequent control inputs

read back over the aircrafts known route after initial diversion

how and where it crossed the peninsula and where/what direction it was going when last seen...

[Cirronimbus]

22m x 13m sounds a bit big for a piece of wreckage from an aircraft that supposedly impacted the ocean a couple of weeks ago. Red herring maybe?

[jcjeant]

Hi,

Aviate, Navigate, Communicate
So .. if it was a real problem on this aircraft (no more possibility to "aviate and navigate") why not communicate ?

[7x7]

I'll agree that the "pilots aren't the bad guys" scenarios require a catastrophe onboard that prevents communication. What's your definition of a catastrophe? Can you discount a Stanley knife (or a couple on non metallic garrottes that could have been brought on board disguised as bloody show laces!!) wielded by intruders who managed to get into the cockpit? Either of those would "prevent communication".

I cannot understand how eager so many people are to lay the blame for this tragedy on the pilots.

[LightBulbBlown]

Debris spotted in search area | Sky News Australia (http://www.skynews.com.au/topstories/article.aspx?id=960517&cid=BP_RSS_TOPSTORIES_1_Debrisspottedinsearcharea_230314)

[mini]

I've followed this thread from day one, initially I was of the opinion that it was a similar scenario to AF447 ie tech problem that overcame the pilots.


At this stage it would seem to me that the most likely scenario is that based on the assumption that the Inmarsat arcs are valid, this aircraft was flown to its final destination in the sea by someone.


The fire theory doesn't stack up, if it incapacitated the pilots so quickly it would most likely brought the aircraft down sooner than several hours later.


The location of the current search focus and the route that would have to have been flown to get there more or less undetected back up my
theory that someone was flying this machine.


Can anyone explain how it could have gone where it 'seems' to have gone otherwise?


A truly awful event whatever the reasons

[flash8]

http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/532abdcaeab8ea0464d7c735-1200-/probability_map.jpg"]http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/532abdcaeab8ea0464d7c735-1200-/probability_map.jpg

Found this quite useful.

[mmurray]

DEBRIS including a wooden pallet has been spotted by one of the aircraft searching for missing flight MH370, Prime Minister Tony Abbott has revealed.

Mr Abbott said he was told late last night a civilian aircraft had sighted a number of objects within the search zone.

It is the first direct sighting of debris and follows two hits by satellite in the past week.

“Yesterday one of our civilian search aircraft got visuals on a number of objects in a fairly small area in the overall Australian search zone,” Mr Abbott said this morning.

He said the debris was: “ A number of small objects, fairly close together within the Australian search zone, including a wooden pallet.”

Missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370: Search resumes after Chinese satellites spot object in Indian Ocean | News.com.au (http://www.news.com.au/news/world/missing-malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370-search-resumes-after-chinese-satellites-spot-object-in-indian-ocean/story-fni6um3i-1226862354302)

[Space Jet]

I mentioned a few pages back that during last nights press conference they said the atc transcript that is going around is false, this is to follow up on that post.

SEPANG: The communication transcript that allegedly took place between the missing Malaysia Airlines (MAS) MH370 and air traffic control (ATC) the night it was reported missing on March 8 has been classified as inaccurate and "tidak sahih" (invalid).
"The transcript is invalid and inaccurate. I have to inform that the transcript between the tower and the aircraft is not accurate," stressed the Department of Civil Aviation Director-General Datuk Azharuddin Abdul Rahman.

He rebutted the transcript which was published today by a foreign media 'The Telegraph' during the daily media briefing on the search and rescue operation for the unfortunate aircraft that entered day-15, at a hotel here, today.

Also present were Acting Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein and MAS Chief Executive Officer Ahmad Jauhari Yahya.

When asked to explain further which part of the transcript was not accurate, Azharuddin refused to comment, adding that: "The transcript by standard procedure cannot be publicly released."

The Telegraph in its exclusive report entitled 'Revealed: the final 54 minutes of communication from MH370' published the cockpit communication from its taxi on the runway to its final message at 1.19am of 'all right, good
night'.

The transcript allegedly between the co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid and ATC started at 00.25 with general instructions from the control tower to the pilots.

The detailed conversation began at 00.36.

Earlier Hishammuddin said that the original transcript of the conversation between MH370 and ATC had been handed to the investigation team, where it was being analysed.

"As a standard practice in investigation of this sort, the transcript cannot be publicly released at this stage. I can however confirm that the transcript does not indicate anything abnormal," he said.

The issue on the lithium-ion battery which was carried in the cargo area of the aircraft MH370 was again raised by the media today, but Ahmad Jauhari had explained in detail on the matter at the media conference yesterday, besides issuing an official statement.

"The battery as cargo is not dangerous. Actually it (the battery) is not dangerous as long as it is handled according to the guidelines specified by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and the International Air Transport Association (IATA)," he said.

MAS Flight MH370, carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew, went missing en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing about an hour after taking off from the KL International Airport at 12.41 am on March 8. It should have landed in Beijing at 6.30 am on the same day.

The fate of the passengers is unknown as the multi-national search for the aircraft has drawn a blank so far.

UPDATE 29: MISSING MH370: Reported transcript inaccurate, says DCA - Latest - New Straits Times (http://www.nst.com.my/latest/font-color-red-update-29-missing-mh370-font-reported-transcript-inaccurate-says-dca-1.526976)

Latest Media Release From AMSA
During Saturday’s search activities a civil aircraft tasked by AMSA reported sighting a number of small
objects with the naked eye, including a wooden pallet, within a radius of five kilometres.

A Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) P3 Orion aircraft with specialist electro-optic observation
equipment was diverted to the location, arriving after the first aircraft left but only reported sighting
clumps of seaweed.

The RNZAF Orion dropped a datum marker buoy to track the movement of the material. A merchant
ship in the area has been tasked to relocate and seek to identify the material.

The search area experienced good weather conditions on Saturday with visibility of around 10 kilometres
and moderate seas.

The Royal Australian Air Force, the Royal New Zealand Air Force, two chartered civil aircraft and two
merchant ships supported Saturday’s search effort in a 36,000 square kilometre search area in the
Australian Search and Rescue Region.

Since AMSA assumed coordination of the search on Monday 17 March, 15 sorties have been flown and
more than 150 hours of air time has been committed by the air crews to the task.

Four military aircraft assisted in today’s search, as well as two ultra-long range jets. Ten State
Emergency Service (SES) volunteers from Western Australia were tasked as air observers today, along
with two AMSA mission coordinators on the civilian aircraft. AMSA runs a training program across the
country to train SES volunteers in air observation for land and sea searches.

The Royal Australian Navy’s HMAS Success has arrived in the search area. Two merchant ships are
also in the search area.

The search will resume tomorrow and further attempts will be made to establish whether the objects
sighted are related to MH370.

This evening China provided a satellite image to Australia possibly showing a 22.5 metre floating object
in the southern Indian Ocean. AMSA has plotted the position and it falls within Saturday’s search area.
The object was not sighted on Saturday.

AMSA will take this information into account in tomorrow’s search plans.

https://www.amsa.gov.au/media/documents/23032014_Media_Release_Update10MH370.pdf

[mmurray]

AMSA has the same on it's media release this morning

http://www.amsa.gov.au/media/documents/23032014_Media_Release_Update10MH370.pdf

During Saturday’s search activities a civil aircraft tasked by AMSA reported sighting a number of small objects with the naked eye, including a wooden pallet, within a radius of five kilometres.

A Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) P3 Orion aircraft with specialist electro-optic observation equipment was diverted to the location, arriving after the first aircraft left but only reported sighting clumps of seaweed.

The RNZAF Orion dropped a datum marker buoy to track the movement of the material. A merchant ship in the area has been tasked to relocate and seek to identify the material.

[AndyJS]

"the search effort has been hampered by the reluctance of all parties in the region admit to what they have actually seen on radar."

To state the obvious, various countries in that part of the world don't want to admit that:

(a) the radars may not be operating all the time.

(b) they may have missed something even when the radars were operating.

For example, India was forced to admit that its radars around the Adaman Islands were not actually on all the time in order to save money.

[AndyJS]

"Apart from hypoxia, are there any other scenarios that would account for the crew and passengers being incapacitated AND the plane being able to fly for another 5-7 hours?"

rabidstoat (http://www.pprune.org/members/214890-rabidstoat): "Surely there are. Off the top of my head, hijacker(s) with threat or use of force."

What I meant was: are there any other scenarios apart from hypoxia that don't involve foul play of some type. I'm struggling to think of any.

[truckflyer]

There is no way you will have network coverage on your phone at 35.000 ft

Still for me there are to many coincidences that and chain of events must have been really overwhelming, that the failures caused the aircraft to become invisible and silent, at the most convenient moment of the flight!

I do not believe the pilots are at blame, maybe it is a combination of unknown factors, as I can't see how a modern T7 could suffer such a failure - in that case it will be a latent failure, also existing on other T7's, and there will be no rest by the authorities and Boeing until something has been found!

There is no way with current available information to put together any even remotely satisfactory chain of events that can explain what happen, based on the facts that we are aware of at this moment.

I do believe some more information is known, and I also believe at the moment we can't even be certain of the current search area being the correct one.

All this uber-info about Pings and Arcs and various explanations means very little, as we have not been presented with all the data required to make such analyses.

[Golf-Mike-Mike]

[I]"Apart from hypoxia, are there any other scenarios that would account for the crew and passengers being incapacitated AND the plane being able to fly for another 5-7 hours?"

What I meant was: are there any other scenarios apart from hypoxia that don't involve foul play of some type. I'm struggling to think of any.

Noxious gas, from somewhere as yet unknown ?

[ramble on]

The recent inflight arson attempt on the EY flight from MEL-AUH?

A similar attempt here with a different outcome?

[flash8]

Assuming Malaysian have an FOQA program couldn't they pull the QAR from previous flights the crew took (what is the history of the QAR?) and analyse any anomalies?

[DocRohan]

I have been looking at as many relevant maps as I can find and one thing has me interested....MH370 went "missing" from primary radar 1hr34min into the flight...If we then assume that it continued to go north-west for lets say 30+ minutes, so as to avoid turning back South over Indonesia (whom denies they tracked it on primary radar), then that is 2hrs of flying time gone out of the 7.3 it was allegedly flying for. That leaves it in the air for 5hrs30mins. If you then calculated a speed of 800kmh, the flying distance would be around 4500km. Looking at one map, the distance from Sultan Iskandarmuda Airport (Banda Aceh, ID) to Perth is 4700km....So how could the plane have ended up 1500-2500km south of Perth....
I may be looking at this all wrong :hmm:

[Howard Hughes]

Apart from hypoxia, are there any other scenarios that would account for the crew and passengers being incapacitated AND the plane being able to fly for another 5-7 hours
All the scenarios at this point are just conjecture. If we look at AF447 for example, it was brought down by something we hadn't accounted for prior to the accident, this may very well be the same. All of the "it must have had human intervention" speculation, is based on absolutely no evidence, or at the very least unsubstantiated evidence. For the most part the investigating authorities cannot even get their story straight.

I can understand countries not wanting to give away classified information, but if there was one shred of evidence that the aircraft followed the Northern route, I am fairly sure it would be provided to the investigators (if not the source).

I don't suspect Australia, New Zealand, China and the US are conducting such a massive search on just a hunch, or even just based on the Immarsat 'pings' for that matter. Whether the information has come from JORN, or US and Chinese satellites we will probably never know, nor do we need to.

I cannot believe the number of so called 'aviation experts' on television pushing their outlandish theories. Time to hand back your ATPL's guys! ;)

[wild goose]

For all the genius so called pilots out there referring to the SOP's of fighting on board fires by decompressing or climbing heavy triple 7's to FL450 to starve them of oxygen.....

They have obviously drifted too far from the classrooms of their youth where they learned that the atmosphere consists of 21% oxygen ALL THE WAY UP!

Decompressing or climbing to FL680 will provide the fire with 21% of oxygen.

You guys should be checking out a career with CNN or the BBC

[DX Wombat]

wild goose, the percentage of oxygen remains the same, what changes is the density which, putting it simply means that the molecules of oxygen are too far apart to allow effective respiration. If this were not the case there would be no need for people to have oxygen supplementation.

[wild goose]

You are in danger of being percieved as missing the point entirely

The issue is fire fighting by oxygen starvation

not,

people fighting by oxygen starvation

[The Ancient Geek]

The search is taking place is the most probable area according to available information.

We must, however, maintain a perspective on what may be found.

The objects seen by satelites are too large at around 70 feet long to be wreckage still floating 2 weeks after an aircraft crash and are most likely the inverted hulls of abandoned yachts known to be in the approximate area. These objects can float at or just below the surface for years or even decades. They can be observed by eye but being made of fibreglass they are invisible to search and rescue radars.

Other clusters of debris will be too small to be photographed by satelites but will be found by visual search by aircraft. A ship will then need to be tasked to examine and recover this debris. The problem here is that the oceans are cluttered with junk so the probability of any debris observed being related to the aircraft are fairly low and there will be false leads.

I am confident that if the search is in the right area something will be found but it will take time. Beware of raising false hopes until something is positively identified.

[Vinnie Boombatz]

A bit premature, but in the hope that this incident gets to this phase, here's some data on recovery of flight recorders and underwater locator beacons (ULBs).

The Wikipedia page on ULBs

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underwater_locator_beacon

links to this 1968 FAA report:

http://www.fire.tc.faa.gov/pdf/na68-7.pdf

"Background

Certain types of commercial transport aircraft are required by regulation to carry airborne flight data recorders for accident investigation purposes. A number of airborne recorders and their records were never located following a crash, especially after an aircraft crashed into water. The CAB requested the FAA to conduct a study for possible solutions to aid in locating the recorders and/or the recorded records from submerged aircraft. Following a crash in 1965 in which a flight recorderr and its record were lost in water and never recovered, the CAB formally requested the FAA to require commercial carriers to install acoustic-type locating beacons on all flight data recorders that are carried for crash investigation purposes."

The report talks about acoustic propagation through aluminum honeycomb fuselage structure, which may imply that was a consideration that drove the ULB acoustic frequency selection.

A set of slides describing at-sea recovery:

http://www.irs.uji.es/2nd-i-auv/presentations/2.3.Lecture-Hubert-Thomas.pdf

Slide 13 lists time to recover flight data recorders for a number of at-sea accidents.

Table 4 of the Metron report on AF447 has a more comprehensive summary of at-sea accident recoveries.

http://www.bea.aero/fr/enquetes/vol.af.447/metron.search.analysis.pdf

Description of Table 4 in the Metron report:

"Table 4 below highlights data on 27 aircraft crashes at sea that were assembled by the BEA. Of the aircraft involved in these crashes, 25 were fitted with 2 ULBs while two had only one. The crashes involved 52 ULBs of which only 5 failed to function. This indicates a more than 90% survival rate which is higher than the 80% assumed for the underwater search analysis in section 4.3.1. The failures in the table include those of the ULBs onboard the South African Airways Flight SAA 295 which were likely to have been caused by an in-flight fire. With this in mind, the estimate of 90% survival rate for the ULBs may itself be low for a crash at sea that does not involve a fire."

While there appears to be some trend between depth and days to recover, there are exceptions, such as Air India 182, 23 June 1985, where the recorders were found 17 and 18 days later at a depth of 3250 meters.

For those cases with depths greater than a kilometer, half (4 of 8) had recorders recovered in less than 30 days. Of 27 cases in the table where at least one recorder was found, only 6 were found after more than 30 days, and only 3 after more than 90 days. The last 3 were all deeper than 1 km.

The design parameters of existing ULBs are close to the specs in the 1968 FAA report. One could argue that the 90% ULB reliability figure cited by Metron does not imply a need for any drastic changes to the ULB design (e.g., frequency).

The FAA appears to have been responsive to the BEA recommendation from AF447 to extend the battery life of ULBs. A 2012 notice of Revision B to TSO-C121:

Federal Register, Volume 77 Issue 43 (Monday, March 5, 2012) (http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2012-03-05/html/2012-5213.htm)

This includes a number of interesting comments from industry.

Also being adopted in Europe:

http://www.easa.eu.int/rulemaking/docs/tor/etso/ToR%20RMT.0186%20%28ETSO.008%29%20Issue%203.pdf

[Neogen]

Unless depressurization would both starve the fire and incapacitate everyone on board...


Plausible..

Pilots get the fire alarm, they turned back. Fire resulted in damage to electronics.

Fire also resulted in slow depressurization - starving the fire and incapacitating everyone on board

Which fire can depressurize ? LION batteries - fire than explosion causing depressurization.

Where were LION in cargo - forward or rear?

Supposedly the zigzag pattern after return is based on Malaysian primary radar - which cant be trusted - given Malaysia's past in sharing conflicting information..

[BrisBoy]

But even if the crew is overcome by smoke, hypoxia, etc - then there's the question of how the plane stays in the air for seven hours with a fire burning in the hold.

Thanks jugofpropwash for your response. It’s a valid point and something I thought about while composing the post. I certainly don’t have any answers. There was only a small quantity and maybe, if they caught fire, the fire burned out. You would imagine other parts of the aircraft would have also caught, or other pieces of cargo, so it’s a long bow to draw. As we know strange things have happened in aviation, but that’s hardly an adequate answer either.
The last paragraph was purely my conjecture and I don’t think your point alters the thrust of scenario C – a major event. Time will tell and that will only be known when the orange boxes are found, but I think this scenario is far more plausible than the previous ones.
The other point is the heading. The turn back was in a general south west direction but the last known radar trace was roughly west. It’s the same as above, who knows what was in the FMC? Maybe another waypoint or discontinuity - but purely conjecture again.
I made a spelling mistake and edited this out. It’s been a long time since I’ve visited Pprune and in an excellent example of finger trouble think I deleted my post in the process. With apologies to those who read it in the mean time I’ve copied it here:

I guess I’m no different to a lot of us. Throughout this whole tragic episode my anger has been steadily rising. It’s not just the disinformation but the so called experts who’ve conjured up theories based on what is obviously minimal aviation experience, if any. I can’t begin to imagine how this cuts into those poor people who’ve suffered so much already.

MH370 took off and climbed to cruising level. The ACARS sent out its routine 30 minute report. Shortly after voice communication was lost along with the transponder. The aircraft made a turn and the next 30 minute ACARS report didn’t send. Up until this point the flight operated normally with communication routine. From this three theories have been put forward.

A: Someone from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Somewhere seized the aircraft. This someone had an in depth understanding of the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System, was a wiz with the Flight Director Autopilot System and had a deft hand when it came to the Flight Management Computer System.
Manipulating the controls, or forcing the pilots to, the hijacker is flush with a sense of satisfaction - this act of piracy will at last focus the world’s attention on the plight of the PFFTLOS.
There’s only one problem here, which should have been evident after a few days – and certainly after almost two weeks.
To add weight to this theory some expert from the Centre for Who Really Cares suggested the standard FIR handoff was a perfect position to turn the transponder off. As this was a sort of ‘No man’s land’ such a devious act would go unnoticed. We could talk about ATC coordination but suffice to say commercial RPT aircraft don’t fly in no man’s land.

B: A decent family man who’s been a loyal employee and worked his way up to check airman in MAS suddenly decides to make a radical political statement. Sure it was a Murdoch publication (so what would you expect?) but is someone in Australia who leans to Bill Shorten’s philosophy a radical extremist?
The FO is a young guy recently promoted from the 737 to the Tripler. His whole career ahead he will shortly marry.
They didn’t ask to be assigned together and if not acting in concert one would have to disable the other. The cockpit door is the most feasible theory but the question remains.
Here the scenario branches to; I’ve had enough - I can’t take it anymore – goodbye cruel world … in seven hours while in the mean time I sip on a brew or two from the Cameron Highlands.

I can’t believe some of these journalists, but then again pathetic journalism is nothing new. With the transponder out the aircraft disappeared off the radar. Radar’s been around since World War II. The transponder, as we know, identifies the radar blip. How do we know the aircraft flew back across Malaysia? It was tracked on radar. MH370 lost its ident but was the same physical object the radar beams bounced off seconds before.

Our simulator sessions are built on operational experience. Every time we do a sim check what happens? We take off and sometime after we have a problem. The problem is always serious enough so as not to continue the flight. We either return to our departure airport or an alternate. It’s a command decision but if serious enough the QRH is explicit – LAND AT THE NEAREST SUITABLE AIRPORT.
The radios are out, the transponder is out and contrary to first reports the ACARS ceased to function sometime between its standard 30 minute reports. It’s probably not a leap in faith to assume this happened when the other communication devices were lost. Who would continue on to Beijing? Through several FIRs, change altitude into metres, three different STARS assigned during the approach and numerous runway changes to add interest.
If you’ve flown a 737 around Malaysia and the region then you get very familiar with the airways and waypoints. Kuala Lumpur would be OK and Penang would be good. There are others as other pilots have pointed out. It would be a quick entry, if not the airway then a quick WMKK or WMKP. Entered into the FMCS and executed Lateral Nav will point the aircraft in the right direction and if not then Heading Select.
There were earlier reports of a climb to 1900’ above the service ceiling and then a dive to 23,000’. I haven’t heard any more of these and assume it went the same way as the erroneous ACARS report. If an event major enough to knock out the communications system then chances are there’ll be other damage. And so to what I believe is the most plausible theory.

C: The aircraft suffered a major problem. The pilots started working through the checklists and decided on an air return. Whatever the problem it was serious and some with greater aircraft engineering knowledge than me have suggested this led to a depressurisation. Whatever happened incapacitated the pilots. The aircraft flew on in LNAV or HDG SEL and at the MCP/VNAV altitude. If in LNAV and passing over the last waypoint the mode changed to HDG HOLD, as per its design. Returning in this direction was roughly South West and further south into the prevailing westerly winds. For a trip to Beijing there was approximately 8 hours endurance. Some used for climb and then traversing West Malaysia would mean, again approximately, 7 hours.

I didn’t make scenario C up. I added a bit from my local knowledge but it’s been out there. So why today do I open the paper and read the same old crap slandering two people, unable to defend themselves, who more than likely were busting their guts trying to save the aircraft and all on it? Some moron talked about ghosting, as if you could fly a 777 just below another aircraft through all the busy airways, some two-way, funnelling in and fanning out, level changes and the rest.

Now I will go out on a limb. It’s pure conjecture and I don’t pretend to have any expertise but it’s something I’m conscious of as I fly both passenger and freighter aircraft. Nearly every time I fly they’re there. In the cargo machines they can be half the load. In the pax aircraft they’re in the hold. I know they’re allowed and shipped in accordance with all the rules and regulations. But that was the case with the other types, before they brought down the UPS and Asiana 744Fs.
It was the one question I had and it wasn’t until today, buried deep in a secondary article, that this question was answered. A small quantity, all packed, shipped and loaded in accordance with the guidelines. But they were there.

[Space Jet]

@The Ancient Geek

You have it back to front, the size is 22M (72ft) wide and 13M (42ft) long.

http://resources3.news.com.au/images/2014/03/22/1226862/278715-mh370.jpg

[Mesoman]

I am asking because our aircraft are fitted with SBAS and depending on where RIMs station are located and if signals from geostationary satellites are being received.For the transmission of the SBAS signals currently some INMARSAT satellites are being used, hence my question are they traceable I.E by INMARSAT. I can understand the concern, but INMARSAT still uses normal SBAS transponders, like on other satellites. They transmit a pseudo-GPS signal on 1575.42Mhz via a "bent-pipe" transponder. The only thing the satellites receive is the SBAS signal from ground stations, which is then retransmitted via the transponder. Thus you cannot be tracked via this means.

Using a normal SBAS transponder makes sense - because this way you don't need a special receiver just for INMARSAT SBAS.

I will quit banging my head, but darn, I love that icon. :O

[jugofpropwash]

Found this quite useful.

Re the graphic Flash8 posted with the red arcs and various possible flight paths shown -

While the area of highest probability to the south is logical, I feel the one in the north should be further back along the upper arc to the southeast. If the aircraft went north, it most likely did it via a convoluted route that avoided radar and may have been at low altitude. That would take additional time and spend additional fuel - meaning they wouldn't have gotten as far, correct?

[somepitch]

You are in danger of being percieved as missing the point entirely

The issue is fire fighting by oxygen starvation

not,

people fighting by oxygen starvation

wild goose - The percentage doesn't matter, the air is still far less dense so there will be less oxygen to feed the fire. If you are in a near vacuum and have 100 "air" molecules and 21 are oxygen, you probably don't have enough to feed combustion, though your ratio is still the same.

[RatherBeFlying]

If I suspend my skepticism that MH370 was accurately tracked by primary through the advertised waypoints to a point North of Aceh, one could theorise the person(s) responsible for an intentional diversion dumped the cabin and waited for depletion of the pax O2 while they/he used the crew O2 supply, which while it runs longer, does eventually run out.

The cockpit masks do have to be put on properly, especially above 25,000'. An improperly fitted mask at 35,000' may not maintain useful consciousness.

Even at 12,500 without supplemental O2 you lose a bunch of IQ points -- and can get confused about which altimeter hand is 1000's and which is 100's :\

[jugofpropwash]

If I recall correctly, it was a couple days ago that officials said that the Captain had made a phone call just before departure, and that they were checking on it. Anyone heard any more on that? I would think that would be something that could be checked and presumably cleared pretty quickly.

[500N]

I spy


The message was phoned through while the press conf was in progress and the dimension was misheard and now corrected.

Read ANY media report and it says this in all the ones I have read.

It is a minor point anyway in the scheme of things as he was only being informed,
The Chinese had already passed it to the Australians for action / acting upon.

[Neogen]

Assets committed to searching the southern corridor:

http://i.imgur.com/nczeJj2.png

[Ngineer]

OK, so this new object spotted by the Chinese allegedly is 22.5 metres by 13 metres floating in the ocean. Why does the picture in the story "New information...Malaysian Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein shows a note from the Chinese ambassador informing him of new satellite images of possible MH370 debris in the Indian Ocean. Picture: AFP Source: AFP" show a piece of paper stating 20 metres long and 30 metres WIDE??????

Chinese whispers. The amount of info bouncing around from various sources is probably being distorted or sensationalised by the time it hits the pages of the news.

On another note, I would of thought any "wooden pallets" in the cargo would be smashed to smithereens on impact.

[parabellum]

If a fuel exhausted aircraft impacted the water from altitude then you just wouldn't have 22 metre pieces of debris still floating. Three metres at a push but not twenty two.


When an aircraft impacts the earth or sea it is not uncommon for the tail to break off and remain intact, more or less, so a large piece floating, like the fin, could still be feasible.


Lawyers: Good luck to the ambulance chasers on this one, the pax are covered by the agreed passenger legal liability insurance, usually stated on the ticket, used to be US$75,000 per pax! It won't be the airline that have to face this one, it will be the insurers, suing the airline for distress etc. is a very long shot as you have to prove the airline is at fault and for that you need indisputable facts, so far there are very few! After all that you have to find a court that will be considered eligible to hear the case and enforce their findings.


Endurance: When estimating endurance based on fuel loaded remember the entire flight probably wasn't at FL350 or similar, there may have been considerable height excursions as well as speed and power changes that will have reduced the overall achievable endurance, 08.11 may well have been just that point.

[p.j.m]

WMKK Kuala Lumpur Control radio traffic 1700-1730Z is available as a downloadable archive.
The transcript suggests there are comms from Malaysia 370 (MH370) at 17:01:14 (+8 01:01:14)
The archived radio recording is silent at the time indicated in the transcript. The other times indicated in the transcript also do not bear these communications, through to 01:19:29.

Each downloadable file is 30 minutes long, so that final transmission would be at 19:29 in that 30 min file.
http://archive-server.liveatc.net/wmkk/WMKK-Lumpur-Control-Mar-07-2014-1700Z.mp3
LiveATC.Net ATC Audio Archives (http://www.liveatc.net/listen.php)

One of the transcript links Revealed: the final 54 minutes of communication from MH370 - Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/malaysia/10714907/Revealed-the-final-54-minutes-of-communication-from-MH370.html)

Maybe I have got the wrong day...


was it WMKK or WMSA last in contact with MH370?

[Space Jet]

@jugofpropwash
If I recall correctly, it was a couple days ago that officials said that the Captain had made a phone call just before departure, and that they were checking on it. Anyone heard any more on that?

MORE details have emerged of a mystery woman who reportedly called the captain of Flight MH370 before take-off, raising fears about his motives.

Phone records of Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah have reportedly revealed he took a two-minute phone call from a mystery woman using a mobile phone number obtained under a false identity, The Mail Online reports.

Investigators are understood to be treating it seriously because anyone buying a pay-as-you-go SIM card in Malaysia has to fill out a form giving their identity card or passport number.

This ensures that every number is registered to a traceable person. In investigations into the Captain’s life, police are believed to have traced the number to a shop selling SIM cards in Kuala Lumpur.

It was bought “very recently” by someone who gave a woman’s name – but was using a false identity. The news comes as police are understood to be keen to speak to the Captain’s estranged wife.

After waiting for two weeks, they will now formally interview Faizah Khan following pressure from FBI agents assisting the inquiry, the Mail Online reports.

“The whole world is looking for this missing plane and the person who arguably knows most about the state of mind of the man who captained the plane is being left alone,” said a source close to the FBI team.
http://www.news.com.au/world/missing-malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370-search-resumes-after-chinese-satellites-spot-object-in-indian-ocean/story-fndir2ev-1226862354302

[onetrack]

Phone records of Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah have reportedly revealed he took a two-minute phone call from a mystery woman using a mobile phone number obtained under a false identity, The Mail Online reports.Comprehensive stats state that more than 50% of men have had extramarital affairs. Those affairs are carried out in secret and with deception in mind.
We're all human, after all, and lust and passion affect all of us to varying degrees.
Acquiring a "secret" phone in a false ID, that no-one knows about, is one way of keeping an affair reasonably secret.


The whole world is looking for this missing plane and the person who arguably knows most about the state of mind of the man who captained the plane is being left alone,” said a source close to the FBI teamThis statement is 100% spot-on, and I cannot believe this line of enquiry wasn't pounced on immediately. Who else knows a mans true nature better, than his wife of many years?

[Innaflap]

It seems that the Captain made a phone call to a recently purchased pay as you go number recently purchased under a fake ID

Missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370: Search resumes after Chinese satellites spot object in Indian Ocean | News.com.au (http://mobile.news.com.au/world/missing-malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370-search-resumes-after-chinese-satellites-spot-object-in-indian-ocean/story-fndir2ev-1226862354302)

[MG23]

Such flight following position information can be provided by an automatic, un-interruptible upload, once per minute, of GPS-derived latitude/longitude, altitude, heading and speed data, on a persistent VHF link when over-land and via a persistent satellite link when out of VHF range, over water. That is not a lot of data, even for what are 30,000 daily overwater airline flights worldwide.

Saying 'that's not a lot of data' is rather like saying you can stick a $200 SSD in the CVR and record for years. It's not a lot of data on your home broadband, but it's a lot of data for a legacy SATCOM system designed decades ago.

[rampstalker]

Yes I agree with some comments made a good few threads back about dumb comments and pure speculation as to the cause or causes of this incident. The so called experts of the press are reading all this and then dress it up and poke it out on the air. Ive watched enough crap being aired and then remebered a comment on here in a prior thread.

Just to let all know I am an engineer that has been involved in this industry from year 1970 to date and have seen a few tragic incidents in that time. But never in all of these years have I ever been witness to such an incident of this nature. The Malays as far as I can see have handled this well. Yes a few bumbling incidents on TV but lets face it, no one has ever had to face this before so there was no script to work to. As for the slagging of the flight crews by a good few on here I find that just unacceptable. There is no eveidence as yet of any actions by the flight crews that have been proven to have caused this to be where it is. I refuse to listen or accept any ones statements untill the investigation has been completed and published. All your words are picked up by the press and as I said dressed up to make a story for the next edition.
The flight crews are members of our industry and we should stand by them in this hour and not allow the reputations to be tarnished. Or is it because some of you veiw them as being 2nd class due to nationality so can be slagged off in this way. Come guys for all we know every on that flight may be totaly inocent and victims of a very tragic accident the likes of which this industry has never seen before.
Let the Malays and the other interested searchers conclude this sad sorry situation and we can await the results and act on them as I am sure there will be changes to equipment and SOPs as a result.

As for the press reading this I will bet my next pay check that they will not report on this thread, but I am calling on all to support the crews(air & ground) untill such time as the results are published.

MAS its for sure a situation no one else has ever faced and I must say I admire the way you guys handle it. If the press handled the coverage a bit better then the pax familys would not be so agitated

[jugofpropwash]

Comprehensive stats state that more than 50% of men have had extramarital affairs. Those affairs are carried out in secret and with deception in mind.
We're all human, after all, and lust and passion affect all of us to varying degrees.
Acquiring a "secret" phone in a false ID, that no-one knows about, is one way of keeping an affair reasonably secret.

The phone was registered to a woman. Doesn't that sort of defeat the purpose of using a fake name, if you're trying to hide an affair from the wife? Seems that if he was trying to hide a girlfriend, HE would have bought the burner phone in his name (or in a male name) and given it to her.

[Space Jet]

Latest Malaysian Press Release

Introductory statement

Diplomatic, logistical and technical efforts continue in the search for MH370. As we intensify the search and rescue operations, the overall emphasis remains the same: using all available means to narrow the search areas in both corridors.

1. Operational update

In the northern corridor, in response to diplomatic notes, we can confirm that China, India, Pakistan, Myanmar, Laos, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan have verbally informed the search and rescue operation that based on preliminary analysis, there have been no sightings of the aircraft on their radar.

With respect to the southern corridor, today two Chinese Ilyushin IL-76s will arrive in Perth to begin operations. The Shaanxi Y-8 which arrived yesterday will be operating from Subang air base in Malaysia. China is also sending an additional two ships from the Andaman Sea to join the five Chinese ships already in the southern corridor. Two Indian aircraft, a P-8 Poseidon and C-130 Hercules, arrived in Malaysia at 18:00 last night to assist with the search.

HMS Echo is currently in the Persian Gulf and is en route to the southern corridor. The ship is equipped with advanced sensors that allow it to search effectively underwater.

2. Australian search area

Five aircraft and two merchant ships were involved in the search and rescue operations in the vicinity of the objects identified by the Australian authorities, which are approximately 2,500km southwest of Perth. Despite improved visual search conditions yesterday, there were no sightings of the objects of interest.

Operations continue, and today they plan to search an area of approximately 10,500 square nautical miles.

The Rescue Co-ordination Centre Australia anticipates that 6 aircraft, 4 military and 2 civilian, will be visually searching the area. Two merchant vessels will also be present during search operations, and HMAS Success was due to reach the search area at 14:30 today.

Generally, conditions in the southern corridor are very challenging. The ocean varies between 1,150 metres and 7,000 metres in depth. In the area where the possible objects were identified by the Australian authorities there are strong currents and rough seas.

A cyclone warning has been declared for Tropical Cyclone Gillian, which is located in the southern corridor. Very strong winds and rough seas are expected there today.

3. Family briefings

The briefing for families in KL yesterday went well. The briefing in Beijing, however, was less productive. Despite the best intentions, I understand there were tense scenes.

I have received a report from the Malaysian high-level team, as well as a copy of the declaration from the Chinese families. I have asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, together with the authorities in China, to investigate what happened.

We will continue to engage with the families. We are working hard with Chinese authorities and the Chinese working group to create a more conducive environment for the briefings. I have instructed my technical team to do a review of both briefings so that we can improve them.

We appeal to all parties to be understanding during this extraordinary and difficult time. My pledge to all the families, wherever they are, is the same: we will do everything in our power to keep you informed.

4. Transcript

The original transcript of the conversation between MH370 and Malaysian air traffic control is with the investigations team, where it is being analysed.

As is standard practice in investigations of this sort, the transcript cannot be publicly released at this stage. I can however confirm that the transcript does not indicate anything abnormal.

5. Cargo manifest

On the matter of MH370’s cargo, the cargo manifest is with the investigations team, and will be released in due course.

Preliminary investigation of the cargo manifest has not shown any link to anything that might have contributed to MH370’s disappearance.

As was stated yesterday, all cargo carried on MH370 was in compliance with International Civil Aviation Organisation and International Air Transport Association standards.

6. Concluding remarks

Over the past two weeks, the search for MH370 has taken many twists and turns. From satellite images to eyewitness accounts, we have followed every lead and investigated every possibility.

Today we are focused on leads from the satellite images announced by the Australian authorities on Thursday. We continue to be updated by the Australian authorities on an hourly basis.

I know this rollercoaster has been incredibly hard for everyone, especially for the families. We hope and pray this difficult search will be resolved, and bring closure to those whose relatives were on board.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all 26 countries who are with us in this effort; from ordinary people to the highest levels of government.

I would also like to pay special tribute to the men and women from all countries who are putting themselves in harm’s way in the search for MH370.

As we speak, people are sailing through a cyclone to help find the missing plane. We are immensely grateful to all our partners for their efforts.

[James7]

BrisBoy C: The aircraft suffered a major problem. The pilots started working through the checklists and decided on an air return

I have to agree with you on this one. There could have been a return in the secondary flight plan and this was activated. Could well explain the points being overflown. The plan then had a discontinuity and so the aircraft maintains the last heading. Aircraft continues until eventually runs out of fuel.

There have been a few instances of aircraft landing after the pilots ejected from mil aircraft.

Taken from the aviationist ..During a training mission from Malmstrom Air Force Base, on Feb. 2, 1970, his F-106 entered an uncontrollable flat spin forcing him to eject. Unexpectedly, the aircraft recovered on its own and made a gentle belly landing and skidding for a few hundred yards on a field near Big Sandy, Montana, covered by some inches of snow...The aircraft, returned to active service after the mishap. The Aviationist » The weird story of a U.S. jet that recovered from flat spin and made a gentle landing. Unpiloted (http://theaviationist.com/2013/10/24/cornfield-bomber/)

Sure it was a fighter and landed on a flat field covered in a few inches of snow, it still survived enough to be serviceable again.
The 777 is built like a tank just look at the video of the San Fran crash.

The plane could quite possible have 'landed' on the water and now sunk. If this happened then the black boxes would not be activated, unless they are activated if immersed in water.

Probably why all the searching is happening where it is. The last heading / track can be deduced from the pings and a plot drawn. The only problem is what the drift was at the height they were flying.

Everything could be at the bottom of the ocean. The water pressure would most likely crush parts of the fuselage but it is that pressure that will stop anything floating up. Eventually due to ocean currents items will be washed up but hundreds of miles away.

Suicide / hijacking does not add up any more. There is no reason to suspect 2 professional aviators. Hijacking well forget it, a call would have been made somehow, even by the cabin crew activating ELT's.

Lithium Fire that is the number 1 suspect. Just how many Lithium batteries were on board. Why the secret!

[Old Fella]

I'm with Ngineer on this one. One or other of the pilots has likely left the flight deck for one reason or another and was locked out by the other pilot. It would be a simple matter to disable the comms, don an oxy mask and depressurise the aircraft so as to render all other occupants unconcious despite the "rubber jungle" deploying as it has only limited duration. One pilot on 100% oxygen is going to have far greater supply than the supplemental pax system will provide.

[onetrack]

I fail to find any supporting evidence for a suicidal Captain or FO. To be suicidal in nature, means that you will definitely have shown suicidal tendencies in the past.
A human being doesn't just snap and become suicidal within minutes - there's always a history of bouts of clinical depression, and quite often, suicidal thoughts communicated to others.

[ensco]

The suicide hypothesis is by far the likeliest.

Just google the words "suicide" and "disappear". It's not as weird as people seem to think.

Murdering 230 others in the process is also not unprecedented.

The likeliest hypothesis: he put that plane down gently in the roaring 40s, a la Sully in the Hudson, opened an aperture (say by lowering the landing gear, or similar) and then killed himself, maybe via a pill.

The plane would be at 16000 feet below sea level, with no debris.

[BPA]

More civil aircaft have joined the search.

From the latest AMSA update:

The civil aircraft are two Bombardier Global Express, a Gulfstream 5 and an Airbus 319.


The A319 would be Skytraders and it normally flies between Australia and Antartica.

[sevickej1]

I have done the NZ-Antarctic trip by sea about 4 times - it is NEVER calm. If it looks calm there is always a huge swell which can be deceptive - like the Great Australian Bight - can appear to be calm but you can't see another ship a few miles away if you are in different parts of the 30-40 foot swell.

[mickjoebill]

One pilot on 100% oxygen is going to have far greater supply than the supplemental pax system will provide.

About the 10th time the subject has been raised, but still it is not confirmed what type of emergency air the passengers had on this flight, bottled or chemical.
Also not confirmed how many portable bottles of air were available to cabin crew, (8 has been suggested)

Without answers to these questions it is not possible to say that the pilot supply would outlast one or two savvy cabin crew using portable supplies and (if chemical air was available) activating any unused chemical masks in loos or in areas where no passengers were seated. There were at least 50 empty seats although one chemical generator is shared between a few seats. (170 generators suggested)

However apparently not everyone can survive for extended periods at 35,000ft without a pressure mask.


So like all the scenarios and sub plots of this event, it is possible yet unlikely.
More detail in previous posts..

[mmurray]

Some interesting maps and graphics on the AMSA media page. They show the areas searched and locations of the sighted objects.

AMSA MH370 Search Media Kit (http://www.amsa.gov.au/media/incidents/mh370-search.asp)

AMSA Newsroom (http://www.amsa.gov.au/media/index.asp)

[UnreliableSource]

Anyone with SAR experience care to talk about the number of rubbish or other objects that are identified as not relevant to a search in open waters?

On land, a crashed aircraft looks like a rubbish dump on a farm. Sadly, there are lots of rubbish dumps. In land searches each search aircraft might further investigate (eg circle) 1-2 candidate crash sites per hour. 99.something percent of these are just dumped rubbish.

Over water off the Australian east coast, I did not see many items in the water.

In my experience: over land a search observer is constantly seeing stuff and deciding not to call it out because it does not meet some threshold of likelihood. Over water everyone is so "weary" that everything gets called out. "Weary" isn't quite the right word, there is a structure and discipline to observing from an aircraft without missing things. Observing is a tiring thing to do, especially when you see nothing.

[Shadoko]

Trying to read all posts, it seems that how the "arcs" were found from time data is a little deceptive for many of us. I have tried to make a diagram showing how time stamps can be converted in "arcs": time is a physical value which is measured with a very high precision (I do think it is the physical value which can be measured with the highest).
The sat is very high (35700 km) compared to the "thickness" of the flyable sky (~15 km). And the Earth is a pretty large body (~12740 km wide). From the sat, an even distance to the Earth is a circle, so, if you only know the distance of an object (flying or not), it could be anywhere on a circle. But even a small distance on the Earth surface outside a given circle can be known by the time an electric signal uses to go to this object and back because the time could be measured absolutly with a high precision: even for times as long as many days, you could "see" a difference of a fraction of a microsecond.

The sat is on the right (a very BIG sat), orbit and Earth the same scale. The black line around our blue planet is more than ten times too thick relatively at the highest an a/c could fly at this scale...

http://i55.servimg.com/u/f55/14/14/01/64/arcs_11.jpg

Hope I didn't make errors there and this could help!

EDIT: after MM43 post (http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/535538-malaysian-airlines-mh370-contact-lost-374.html#post8395701) and remarks by MP, I will add this :
BEWARE: The purpose of this post is just to show the order of magnitude of the travel time of the signal between the sat, the a/c and back. And what could be the time difference for localisations distant of 1/360 of the Earth circumference (that is ~111km).
The 40° on the drawing is not the same 40° of "the arc" from Inmarsat data (but not very far) because the 0° is not the pole but the place from where the sat is view on the horizon.
Sorry if I have confuse somebody for that: I just wanted to show it was very possible to extract something useful from this data. For many of us, just thinking, it could be appeared largely too small according to sat distance. But it is not.

[Coagie]

James7: Lithium Fire that is the number 1 suspect. Just how many Lithium batteries were on board. Why the secret! I had a recent post throwing out food for thought, that Halon may have been deployed as a fire suppressant, putting out the fire, but somehow it got into the cabin or cockpit and displacing the oxygen, but it apparently was taken out by the moderator. I had a link to the Boeing website, so maybe that's why they took it out. Anyway, just like in the AF447 search, you have the cat guarding the canary scenario, because the Malaysian airline is mostly owned by the Malaysian government, and since it was their aircraft, they take the lead in the investigation. If Lithium Ion batteries were illegally shipped knowingly on MH370, and those batteries were involved with MH370's demise, Malaysia would have all the liability, so the Malaysian government would go through the motions and do what they think is minimally required in an investigation, but not with any special insight or focus, hoping that emotions cool off after a couple of years, so they could settle much cheaper with the families of the victims. France didn't bring the US into the search for AF447, except to borrow some equipment, but a couple of years later, an American contractor practically went right to the wreckage. Who knows? Maybe, maybe not on this scenario for both AF447 and MH370, but nothing surprises me anymore.

[evilroy]

Here ya go; this is the standard of media reporting: seaweed has been found (see image down page) Malaysia Airlines flight MH370: Abbott flags breakthrough hopes (http://t.co/ThH7c9LCU3).

[Graham321]

The suicide hypothesis is by far the likeliest.

You are obviously not a pilot with a major airline.
If you were you'd seek help before you LOST that job.
It is simply the most rewarding career.

Edit:

I might add, to the best of my knowledge the two occasions this has happened the crew members job was at risk.

[hamster3null]

Hope I didn't make errors there and this could help!

Looks good to me. You have the radius of the geosynchronous orbit off by about 100 km, but it does not affect the results in any significant way. Intermediate calculations can be reduced to a single formula through "law of cosines".

And, just to be clear, yes, it's entirely possible that the satellite has a clock that could measure signal travel delay down to a fraction of your 620 microseconds. But that assumes the signal being reflected back in a passive way or by a "dumb" device. You can bounce a laser beam off a reflector on the surface of the Moon and use it measure the distance with sub-meter accuracy. That's because the reflector is passive. If the reflector is a computer system that needs to "think" about the answer, that's a source of uncertainty which may or may not be longer than 620 microseconds. Or maybe there's no reflector at all, we just have a transmitter on the aircraft with its own clock that is used to timestamp the transmission, and we're making deductions based on the timestamp and the reception time. Then we also have to wonder how accurate the clock in the transmitter is.

So, the "geometry" of the process, so to speak, is pretty clear, but there are other things which are not.

[wilsr]

My point is that the extra memory required isn't an unbearable cost, and many investigations need much more recording time. The requirements were laid down when aircraft flew into hills; now human interference is something to be taken into account.

[Hempy]

Anyone with SAR experience care to talk about the number of rubbish or other objects that are identified as not relevant to a search in open waters?

On land, a crashed aircraft looks like a rubbish dump on a farm. Sadly, there are lots of rubbish dumps. In land searches each search aircraft might further investigate (eg circle) 1-2 candidate crash sites per hour. 99.something percent of these are just dumped rubbish.

Over water off the Australian east coast, I did not see many items in the water.

In my experience: over land a search observer is constantly seeing stuff and deciding not to call it out because it does not meet some threshold of likelihood. Over water everyone is so "weary" that everything gets called out. "Weary" isn't quite the right word, there is a structure and discipline to observing from an aircraft without missing things. Observing is a tiring thing to do, especially when you see nothing.

^^ accurate post. To be able to get 'eyes' on anything in rough ocean conditions and be able to differentiate 'something' from 'nothing' requires two conditions...the aircraft needs to be close to the surface (< 2000ft AMSL) and even then the observer needs to be switched on! The seas in the Southern Ocean are equal to the roughest anywhere (Google 'roaring 40's'..), so swells/white caps/breakers are constantly in the line of vision. Aircraft paintwork is predominantly white...this does not assist.

Having said that, anything that is 20+ meters long would certainly be spotted on the first pass.

[jugofpropwash]

Your phone may be good, but has been stated many times before, your phone is not certified to withstand the G's or the temperatures and pressures that a CVR is expected to withstand.

I think one way or another, the outcome of this will be that the powers that be will come up with some way to more definitely track airliners. Yes, it may involve more significant costs - but when you look at what this search has already cost, and what it's likely to cost in the future - some sort of GPS tracking device is going to be a bargain.

[I spy]

Quote:
*In my experience: over land a search observer is constantly seeing stuff and deciding not to call it out because it does not meet some threshold of likelihood. Over water everyone is so "weary" that everything gets called out. "Weary" isn't quite the right word, there is a structure and discipline to observing from an aircraft without missing things. Observing is a tiring thing to do, especially when you see nothing."

Couldn't agree more. Was an observer with Surveillance Australia and participated in several searches, including the Malu Sara boat that went missing in the Torres Strait.

We found nothing...no debris, no oil/fuel slick. Half a body washed up on a reef a few weeks later in Indonesian waters, found by Indo fishermen.

There are specific visual scan techniques you employ to maximise effectiveness, but agree, it's a very tiring thing to do. We generally swapped places every hour (front to back) to make sure we didn't start to "fixate", especially when there was nothing to see except water.

[MrDK]

It shouldn't take more than a few lines of code and $10 worth of memory to change the box: my phone can record 200 hrs of speech!

Your phone may be good, but has been stated many times before, your phone is not certified to withstand the G's or the temperatures and pressures that a CVR is expected to withstand.

Agree that $10 and a phone is not a viable option.
SSD using NAND flash is being used in CVR's and which are many times more resistant to shock (G's), can be fully encapsulated (potted) to withstand great temperatures, be waterproof are not sensitive to pressure.
Besides, if worries, use the same enclosures as is currently used.
The only question is how much memory to stuff in the recorder, but I will venture that $1000 will give you many thousands of hours.

If the recorders of MH370 are found and it proves that only the last two hours of (possible) silence is available, when the first two hours of flight may be the most critical, then I hope the industry and regulatory agencies will recognize that improvements are in order.

[Sheep Guts]

ping times


If they have ping records covering the start of the flight, would they have a good idea of te turn-around time and its variability from the initial flurry of messages as the flight became established?

Also if they have done some test flights with a MAS B777 which I'm assuming they have done now( if not why not) they can verify position and signal strength and see if it matches the data they have now. Surely they would have done this before sending everyone on these large area searches. Also to prove the initial turn back and military primary radar hits. Lets hope they have.

[Airbubba]

You are obviously not a pilot with a major airline.
If you were you'd seek help before you LOST that job.
It is simply the most rewarding career.


Hmmm. Are you a 'pilot with a major airline'?

Anyway, I would think that many of us have known occasional instances of pilot suicide in both the civilian and military world. And, sometimes even pilot murderers.

I had a squadron commanding officer who was killed in a 'gun cleaning accident'. More than one pilot has had his wife mysteriously found dead after she said she was leaving (Richard Crafts comes immediately to mind). Wasn't there a case at FedEx in recent years where the pilot was acquitted?

I'd sure like to think pilot suicide/murder couldn't happen with MH 370 but it is a possibility that needs to be explored.

Here's a case years ago from 'a major international airline':

In at least one case, a major international airline allowed a pilot who had expressed suicidal thoughts to continue flying. He flew nearly three more years, without incident, before he resigned in 1982 with severe obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety and depression.

The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper reported that the Workers Compensation Commission heard that the Qantas pilot struggled several times to resist an overwhelming urge to switch off the plane's engines. Once during a flight to Singapore, the pilot's hand moved "involuntarily" toward the start levers and he was forced to "immobilize his left arm in order not to act on the compulsion." [shades of Dr. Strangelove]

"He left the flight deck and, once he felt calm enough, returned to his seat," the newspaper reported.

After telling his colleagues of his urges, the newspaper said, the pilot was examined by several doctors and ultimately declared fit to fly.


Malaysia Airlines Flight 370: Pilot suicide a taboo topic in past crash probes - CBS News (http://www.cbsnews.com/news/malaysia-airlines-flight-370-pilot-suicide-a-taboo-topic-in-past-crash-probes/)

Any Ozmates remember the details on this one?

In the U.S. if you express suicidal ideations, your professional flying career is probably over (unless you somehow make it an alcohol or gender identity issue). If you keep the thoughts to yourself, you keep flying.

[dfstrottersfan]

Mr DK Agree that $10 and a phone is not a viable option.
SSD using NAND flash is being used in CVR's and which are many times more resistant to shock (G's), can be fully encapsulated (potted) to withstand great temperatures, be waterproof are not sensitive to pressure.
Besides, if worries, use the same enclosures as is currently used.
The only question is how much memory to stuff in the recorder, but I will venture that $1000 will give you many thousands of hours.

If the recorders of MH370 are found and it proves that only the last two hours of (possible) silence is available, when the first two hours of flight may be the most critical, then I hope the industry and regulatory agencies will recognize that improvements are in order. And why not Cockpit and cabin CCTV for a reasonable length of time - storage is cheap nowadays.

(Hope I am not modded out this time)

[mickjoebill]

Email Print 23 March 2014| last updated at 03:17PM
MISSING MH370: IGP denies Daily Mail report

By Atiqa Hazellah | [email protected]

0 comments

KUALA LUMPUR: Police have refuted an online version of a British tabloid report that MH 370 flight Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah had received a call from a mystery woman before take-off.
Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar described the report as “mere speculation”.

He added that investigations were ongoing and confidential.

“If the portal can provide the caller’s number, that will help. If not, as I said, it is a mere speculation,” he said in a short messaging message (SMS) to the New Straits Times.

Khalid was responding to a Daily Mail report saying Zaharie had received a two-minute call before take-off from a mystery woman using a mobile phone number obtained under a false identity.

The call was said to be one of the last calls made to Zaharie in the hours before the Boeing 777-200 ER left Kuala Lumpur on March 8.

It also stated that police had traced the number to a shop selling prepaid SIM cards in Kuala Lumpur.

However, police discovered it had been bought recently by someone who used a false identity, the report said.
MISSING MH370: IGP denies Daily Mail report - Latest - New Straits Times (http://www.nst.com.my/latest/font-color-red-missing-mh370-font-igp-denies-daily-mail-report-1.528105)

Not sure how much of the newspaper report has been debunked by police, the whole thing or just the part about the gender of the caller?

Did the pilot received a call from someone who used a fake ID to purchase the phone?
Is it a rare occurrence in that part of the world?


Mickjoebill

[onetrack]

In the U.S. if you express suicidal ideations, your professional flying career is probably over (unless you somehow make it an alcohol or gender identity issue). If you keep the thoughts to yourself, you keep flying.

"He flew nearly three more years, without incident, before he resigned in 1982 with severe obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety and depression."And once again, I re-state - you will show obvious signs of regular "clinical depression" if you have suicidal tendencies. You may be able to keep your suicidal thoughts to yourself (only in about 30% of reported cases) - but the severe depressive bouts will be obvious to any adult with a modest degree of perception.

[mickjoebill]

In the U.S. if you express suicidal ideations, your professional flying career is probably over (unless you somehow make it an alcohol or gender identity issue). If you keep the thoughts to yourself, you keep flying.

Perhaps driven by demands of insurers who want to weed out the risks.

A TV production company sought insurance for a joy flight in a glider of a young person who had a terminal illness.
The person had expressed interest in flying a glider like the birds and hope to imagine being free of his very painful condition.

Insurers said no, unacceptable risk, because he would have controls to hand.:ugh:

To the credit of the pilot, the flight took place anyway:ok:

[DocRohan]

Finally!...Something i can professionally comment about!!....
onetrack, while some people with depression do commit suicide, there is also impulsive suicide...that is, suicide that happens without the person necessarily showing signs of depression at all! Take the person who breaks up with his wife, then goes and hangs himself...Not depressed necessarily, rather an impulsive act due to circumstances.
Not everyone who is depressed commits suicide and not everyone who commits suicide is depressed!

[Seat 32F]

Or maybe there's no reflector at all, we just have a transmitter on the aircraft with its own clock that is used to timestamp the transmission, and we're making deductions based on the timestamp and the reception time. Then we also have to wonder how accurate the clock in the transmitter is.


If you haven't already seen it, post 7124 gives an excellent explanation of how the satellite and aircraft keep in precise synchronisation without having the need for the aircraft to have a clock to the same standard as the satellite's.

[JamesGV]

"...depressive bouts will be obvious to any adult with a modest degree of perception"


I think the "key" phrase there is "with a modest degree of perception".
And what happens when the "perception" goes out the window.

[Coagie]

onetrack: And once again, I re-state - you will show obvious signs of regular "clinical depression" if you have suicidal tendencies. You may be able to keep your suicidal thoughts to yourself (only in about 30% of reported cases) - but the severe depressive bouts will be obvious to any adult with a modest degree of perception. I wanted to say "Everyone knows someone who committed suicide and no one saw it coming", but apparently, "onetrack" has not. There are many suicides where the person who did it, might have been voted "Least likely to commit suicide" among their family, friends, and colleagues, and they are left only to guess the reason. Sad, but it happens all the time. Then you have these sad sack, melancholy people, who live out their long but miserable lives...

[oblivia]

It shouldn't take more than a few lines of code and $10 worth of memory to change the box: my phone can record 200 hrs of speech!

As has been stated already, the limitations are not technical. You can buy CVRs with as much storage as you want. The limitation is that pilots in the US insisted on a two-hour limit for privacy reasons, and that seems to have become a global standard — 30 mins is the minimum, 120 mins the norm.

Of course, none of this matters if someone on board disables it.

[b55]

World Health Organisation website

Every year, more than 800,000 people die from suicide; this roughly corresponds to one death every 40 seconds.
Suicide is among the three leading causes of death among those aged 15-44 years in some countries, and the second leading cause of death in the 10-24 years age group; these figures do not include suicide attempts which can be many times more frequent than suicide (10, 20, or more times according to some studies).
Suicide worldwide was estimated to represent 1.3% of the total global burden of disease in 2004.
Mental disorders (particularly depression and alcohol use disorders) are a major risk factor for suicide in Europe and North America;

(Please take note here!)
however, in Asian countries impulsiveness plays an important role. Suicide is complex with psychological, social, biological, cultural and environmental factors involved.

To totally deny the possibility of one of the pilots doing this, denies that they are human beings. If close family members or friends or workmates could see the total depression or anxiety of a suicidal person many of course would be stopped from doing it. But these people keep it secret to themselves and are successful at completing what they feel they must do for themselves.

[Ollie Onion]

Scruffy, why would the co-pilot just not open the cockpit door using the emergency access???

Graham321, why does being a pilot for a major airline prevent a person from having suicidal tendencies? Having been a commercial pilot in airlines for quite a number of years now I have had the unfortunate job of telling you that I have known / known of quite a few pilots and cabin crew who have taken their own lives. Thankfully none of them have done so at work but we all know of quite a few cases of apparent pilot/crew suicide or attempted suicide (egypt air / silk air / fed ex). The problem we have in our profession is people like you who put these unrealistic expectations on crew which drive the problem underground. Please read: Qantas allowed suicidal pilot to continue flying - Story - Business - 3 News (http://www.3news.co.nz/Qantas-allowed-suicidal-pilot-to-continue-flying/tabid/421/articleID/147794/Default.aspx)

Now I don't know if this is a case of pilot suicide, but to rule it out just because pilots don't do that is stupid. :ugh:

There is a lot of misconception out there around suicide, people who are about to kill themselves are not always depressed, in fact a recent study that I recently read said that often people appear to be happier than normal because they have made the decision to end it all and that is a load off their mind. People don't always do it in an obvious manner, the world is full of people who just disappear, making your aircraft disappear is actually quite a 'face saving' way of doing it as if the aircraft is never found or totally destroyed then suicide is very very hard to prove, this means you may not be labelled as someone who killed themselves and insurance etc. will still pay out.

Take this aircraft, if it is ever found and their are not faults found with it, we will find that the CVR is of little use as it may have only recorded the last 2 hours of silent flight deck, the FDR will be of little use as it will just show that someone flew the aircraft to its final destination (if that happened here). So what we are left with are 239 possible suspects.

[Ian W]

Saying 'that's not a lot of data' is rather like saying you can stick a $200 SSD in the CVR and record for years. It's not a lot of data on your home broadband, but it's a lot of data for a legacy SATCOM system designed decades ago.

Both Iridium and INMARSAT have been or are in the process of upgrading and in any case already have the bandwidth for ADS-C. The specification for ADS-C EPP "report containing the sequence of 1 to 128 waypoints or pseudo waypoints with associated constraints or estimates (altitude, time, speed, etc.), gross mass and estimate at Top of Descent, speed schedule, etc." are already agreed. Aircraft in oceanic airspace equipped with FANS 1/A already transmit ADS-C position reports over SATCOM every 10 minutes so could increase the frequency. Even if ICAO and the various national regulators take no action, the insurance companies involved may 'mandate' use of ADS-C if it reduces their losses.

[Clear_Prop]

MrDK:

If the recorders of MH370 are found and it proves that only the last two hours of (possible) silence is available, when the first two hours of flight may be the most critical, then I hope the industry and regulatory agencies will recognize that improvements are in order.

If that turns out to be the case, 2+ hours of silence would at least clarify that whatever happened on this a/c all took place near to the point of deviation from the FPL RTE.

The investigators will still have forensic science to answer a lot of other questions with enough accuracy to at least rule out or confirm whether the little green men were on board the aircraft the whole time. :rolleyes:

[merlin_driver]

Regarding the Search and Rescue, and having spent many hours doing Visual Searches for missing ships and the like, it is usual to find pallets and stuff like that on the high seas, things get carried by sea currents, and get scattered all over the ocean. Unusual stuff I have seen in the North Atlantic 100+ miles from the Azores include whole tree logs, containers, plastic crates, plastic boots, ropes, fishing nets (lots and lots), etc, etc
As I was watching the images of a ship in the Search Area yesterday on TV, the Search conditions were not good, quite heavy seas. As a P-3 Pilot said already, most of the times you catch an object by difference of contrast, because you are searching for a white greyish object, in a gray sea with withe/gray foam, under gray skies... You don't "see" it, your eye usually captures the different contrast and you then focus. Also, you get very tired very fast, after scanning for one hour you are mentally fatigued and your efficacy drops, we usually have the crew swap places in the cabin to "change gears".
Also, "good weather" may not be good for SAR, if you have sunlight reflection off the water, it gets difficult to spot objects "down sun", so according to sea state a cloud cover may actually help, although in their case I don't think they'll have a calm sea anytime...

[Coagie]

(Please take note here!)
however, in Asian countries impulsiveness plays an important role. Suicide is complex with psychological, social, biological, cultural and environmental factors involved.
I may be wrong, but I think suicide may be somewhat acceptable in some Asian countries, at least, compared to some western countries.

[ChickenHouse]

Suicide mission of the pilot? I treat this as unlikely, because such an impulse reaction would not result in such perfect preparation as switching the XPDR at the perfect location, skip FPL at such moment, disable all communication systems, care for nobody touches the ELT button, disable the automatic ELT, etc etc etc. If he wanted to commit suicide, just lock the door and push nose down forward will give the wished result - why care about all the bells and whistles ringing in such action?

[Speed of Sound]

Non of us are qualified to determine whether Captain Zaharie was suicidal or not, but from what we know about his devotion to aviation, I find it very difficult to believe that he would harm either his beloved plane or passengers if he wanted to end it all.

If he wanted to die doing what he loved, he would have hired a 172 on a day off and flown himself into the sea. In fact you know what? I don't even think he would have done that. He was so proud of his job and presumably his impeccable record that he probably would have found it difficult to 'blot' that record, even at the end.

And the co-pilot was on the point of proposing to his girlfriend, another Malaysian pilot.

I really do think pilot suicide comes way down the list of explanations of this mystery.

[imaynotbeperfect]

Some interesting posts over the past few days on having aircraft sendind more regular location updates and the impact of that on available satellite capacity.

In the maritime world the AIS (ships Automatic Identification System) transmits according to the rate of change of course. A ship stationary or travelling slowly will transmit its position much less often than one travelling faster. A ship changing course will transmit more often than one travelling in a straight line. For anyone not familiar with AIS 'marinetraffic' is worth googling.

I'm sure something similar could be implemented for aircraft to include the gaining or losing height as additional criteria for increased frequency of reporting

[JakartaDean]

I may be wrong, but I think suicide may be somewhat acceptable in some Asian countries, at least, compared to some western countries.
I've lived in Indonesia for 22 years now. I would say that suicide is just as tragic here as in the West. It is not talked about much, almost a taboo subject. Suggesting that someone has committed suicide would likely not be well received at all by parents of the deceased, for example.

[MrDK]

Clear_Prop
If that turns out to be the case, 2+ hours of silence would at least clarify that whatever happened on this a/c all took place near to the point of deviation from the FPL RTE

No it would not clarify much.
It would give timing and subsequent probabilities.
1. Incapacitated crew do not talk
2. A lone crew member will likely not talk
3. A lone hijacker will likely not talk
The only thing you may obtain are sounds that someone in the cockpit was alive along with warning signals from the plane.

[mm43]

Hope I didn't make errors there and this could help!
One small point - the satellite can't see the full earth disc! Why, because it is too close.

Use 35786km as Earth to Satellite distance, and 6371km as Earth radius. The right-angle triangle with 35786+6371 as side'c', 6371 as side 'a', will when solved for side 'b' provide a max distance of 41672.8km. Solving for satellite beam center to max angle (half beam) will provide 8.69°.

Using the above will show quickly that the 90° elevation at the Equator is correct, but the satellite doesn't see the poles.

Enough said, and I'm sure you'll go back and make the necessary changes.

As a help, check post #3929 (http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/535538-malaysian-airlines-mh370-contact-lost-297.html#post8386785)

Also post #5965 (http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/535538-malaysian-airlines-mh370-contact-lost-post8386973.html) will show the earth - satellite elevation angles for some possible positions.

The so-called 'ping' times are of course the time taken for the receipt of the return of the aircraft's ICAO unique ID when polled by the satellite on an hourly basis - divided by 2 and converted to distance allowing for any latency/aircraft SATCOM through time. That timing creates the distance and ultimately the arc position on the earth's surface. The initial 'ping' was most likely at 1611UTC when the STATCOM system was powered up during the pre-flight checks.

[jolihokistix]

While we are discussing rumours/rumors here, it is interesting to see that India has refused China's offer of ships to help in the search, and to wonder if such thoughts may not have crossed Australian minds too regarding Chinese planes in Western Australia.

http://www.malaysia-chronicle.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=248101:india-refuses-to-let-china-ships-enter-its-waters-to-search-for-mh370&Itemid=2#axzz2wm7yhZXa

[Andu]

I would have to agree with your assessment, ChickenHouse. Someone - my guess, a team of someones, with many tech. manuals available to them - spent months if not years preparing for this.

If evidence magically comes to light conclusively implicating either of the pilots as a spur of the moment suicide, I'm firmly donning my alfoil hat and joining the conspiracy theorists - i.e., I will not believe it. If one of the pilots was involved, (and I don't believe this to be so for one moment), it was as part of a highly specialised team with a clear agenda, and NOT a spur of the moment suicide.

[VinRouge]

Anyone know if crew O2 quantity is a parameter on the T7 sfdr?

[tichy]

Looks like even VH-VHD (http://www.flightradar24.com/data/airplanes/vh-vhd) has had a go today. HMAS Sucess is already there and the Xue Long is about half way now. Can you see much out of a 319 window?

[bratschewurst]

I may be wrong, but I think suicide may be somewhat acceptable in some Asian countries, at least, compared to some western countries.

According to the World Health Organization, the rate of suicide in Malaysia is close to the lowest on the planet; a tenth or so of rates in European countries.

The rate of suicide-by-loaded-aircraft amongst pilots is vanishingly low as well; statistically it's zero plus noise. Pilot suicide is a highly unlikely explanation for this incident. Unfortunately, so are all the other possible explanations.

[Speed of Sound]

Anyone know if crew O2 quantity is a parameter on the T7 sfdr?

It is not a parameter on any DFDR.

[Passagiata]

jolihokistiks:
... India has refused China's offer of ships to help in the search, and to wonder if such thoughts may not have crossed Australian minds too regarding Chinese planes in Western Australia.

No, definitely not something that would be crossing Australian minds at all.

[UnreliableSource]

While we are discussing rumours/rumors here, it is interesting to see that India has refused China's offer of ships to help in the search, and to wonder if such thoughts may not have crossed Australian minds too regarding Chinese planes in Western Australia.

India and China are two great nations in the same geographic sphere. Tensions are somewhat inevitable, however this is a moment to be human together; to show sadness and compassion and do all that we can to bring this tragic matter to a close.

This is a moment to build trust between nations, not a time for 1950's paranoia.

[VinRouge]

Just checked the list, only ask as our QAR has a few more parameters stored than the sfdr.

[500N]

jolihokistiks

Considering the Chinese icebreaker was already in port near Perth and two Chinese military aircraft just landed at a RAAF base, I doubt it.

We also don't have the same tensions as India does with China plus the Australia military has visited China and done some exercises with them so working with them is not totally foreign.

[Speed of Sound]

however this is a moment to be human together; to show sadness and compassion and do all that we can to bring this tragic matter to a close.

Exactly!

It was lovely to see footage of the various SAR crews standing shoulder to shoulder with each other, holding their national flags at Pearce RAAF base.

Stuff their corrupt leaders! These are the people who will eventually find MH370.

[GlueBall]

If he wanted to commit suicide, just lock the door and push nose down forward will give the wished result - why care about all the bells and whistles ringing in such action?

Maybe the pilot/hijacker wanted to avoid the adrenaline filled drama of a death spiral into the dark hole of the ocean and instead preferred an easier death, like switching OFF the packs while the autopilot kept motoring on till fuel exhaustion.

[BWV 988]

Though we only have information about the last MH370 ping at 0:11 UTC, a massive search operation in the middle of a remote ocean would only be carried out if the (unknown) hourly pings made that area feasible.

As the flight originated near the equator, a mirror track to the north would also correlate with the returns, then leading to a last ping area in northern China close to the Gobi desert. Bearings more to the west, however, would appear less likely, given ping data is coherent.

[Coagie]

According to the World Health Organization, the rate of suicide in Malaysia is close to the lowest on the planet; a tenth or so of rates in European countries. This, plus the fact that in every picture you see of either pilot, they are smiling, and not forced smiles, but "I'm so happy, I can't help but smile", smiles, are two reasons I lean away from pilot suicide in this case. But, you never know. If I had to guess, I think it was a fire, that may have done damage, resulting in crew and passenger incapacitation or death, then burned out, leaving the aircraft to fly until it ran out of fuel. The "facts" used to debunk the case of a fire may not be any more accurate than the "facts" the Malaysian officials have changed from day to day. BTW: I take back my qualified "some Asian countries" remark. Even qualified, it was far too sweeping. I stand corrected.

[Speed of Sound]

So 4-5 handshakes, if one handshake gives you an arc I don't see why we wouldn't get at least an approximate path, at least north or south

A VERY approximate path and only then after making big assumptions about altitude and heading. And given that the satellite was over the equator, the two sets of 'ping arcs' mirror each other exactly so no information re. a north flight path or a south flight path can be derived.

[freshgasflow]

Yes the oxygen percentage will remain 21 % at whatever altitude. But is it the oxygen percentage or partial pressure that matters ? At higher altitude, the partial pressure drops . ( partial pressure of oxygen = % oxygen X barometric pressure )

[Innaflap]

Just heard a rumour that a French satellite has spotted debris in the same "southern search corridor"

[phiggsbroadband]

If the initial radar returns can be trusted, the plane was piloted in two or three distinct changes of course.


On to 270 degrees, at the loss of the transponder.
(Maybe on to 240 degrees over the Andaman Sea.)
Then on to 180 degrees about an hour after.


So someone was still alive then.

[JamesGV]

Anyone aware of the "unofficial" Jump Seat policy at MAS ?

"Some" countries in Europe are "lax" (no names, no pack drill, Si !).

[Anna's Dad]

The French have just passed on to the Malaysians a new image that shows 'something' in or around the current search area. Apparently such satellites have '2 metre pixel size', hence able to give dimensions for the object in question.

[Space Jet]

@Innaflap

The possible debris spotted by the French satellite was announced during the latest Malaysian press release by the transport minister, this info was passed onto the Aussies this morning. No press conference today just the following release.

SUNDAY, 23 MARCH 2014
1. Search and rescue operational update

a. The search and rescue operation remains an international effort, co-ordinated by Malaysia. A number of countries are leading in their respective search areas and all countries involved are displaying unprecedented levels of co-operation.

b. This morning, Malaysia received new satellite images from the French authorities showing potential objects in the vicinity of the southern corridor. Malaysia immediately relayed these images to the Australian rescue co-ordination centre.

c. Two Chinese Ilyushin IL-76s have arrived in Perth, and will depart for the search and rescue operation tomorrow at 05:00 and 06:00

d. Two Japanese P3 Orions today left Subang airport for Perth.

e. The Australian rescue co-ordination centre will deploy eight aircraft (four military and four civilian) to the southern corridor today, to conduct visual searching.

f. The Australian Defence Vessel ‘Ocean Shield’, which has a sub-sea remotely operated vehicle, is currently en route to the southern corridor.

g. As of 2:30pm Malaysia time, Australian officials have informed us that they have not made any new sightings regarding MH370.

h. One Indian Navy P8 Poseidon and one Indian Air Force C130 left Subang airport today to join the search and rescue operation in the northern part of the southern corridor, which is being led by Indonesia.

i. A number of other sorties from Subang airport to the southern corridor were cancelled today due to bad weather caused by tropical cyclone Gillian.

j. Australia, China and France have now released satellite images that show potential objects, which may be related to MH370, in the vicinity of the southern corridor. All this information has been forwarded to Australia, as the lead country in the area of concern.

2. Family briefing
a. The Malaysian high level team started a briefing in Beijing this morning for relatives of those on board MH370. The meeting lasted more than 6 hours. This is the third such meeting that has been held. The team presented information to the relatives and answered questions. The Government wishes to reiterate its commitment and continued engagement with the relatives of those on board MH370.

3. Update on ACARS transmission
a. The last ACARS transmission, sent at 1.07am, showed nothing unusual. The 1.07am transmission showed a normal routing all the way to Beijing.

-ENDS-

[brika]

Satellite imagery showing "potential objects" in the search area of the Southern Corrider.

BBC news reports today that the M'sian authorities have received the images from the French

[desmotronic]

I've tried to read every post on this thread.

Can i ask, given that the civilian crew spotted a field of debris i am suprised the report of what they saw ins't more descriptive than 'a pallet', surely they had a closer look?

As for the character assasination of the crew by anonymous cowards, im apalled.

Obviously the powers that be are witholding information. :mad:

[25F]

The rate of suicide-by-loaded-aircraft amongst pilots is vanishingly low as well; statistically it's zero plus noise.

You're looking at the wrong statistic. The question is how many airliners have been lost in the cruise with no immediately apparent cause, and of those how many were due to deliberate pilot action?

[atakacs]

I'm really skeptical about all those "satellite sightings" - I'm afraid the ocean is full of junk. Does anyone believe that a positive identification could be obtained on that basis only ? Short of physically retrieving the debris and matching it to the missing airliner (if possible by some serial number or other undisputable identification mean) I would be very prudent about deploying that many resources...

[Passagiata]

atakacs:
I'm really skeptical about all those "satellite sightings" - I'm afraid the ocean is full of junk. Does anyone believe that a positive identification could be obtained on that basis only ? Short of physically retrieving the debris and matching it to the missing airliner (if possible by some serial number or other undisputable identification mean) I would be very prudent about deploying that many resources...

My guess is that, depending of course on ocean currents, it could well be that the sort of debris and junk that is found that far south is normally fishing debris rather than shipping debris. The searchers have good ocean current experts working with them, so there's every possibility that they have advice that a "wooden pallet" used for aircargo fruit exports, say, would be unusual in a fishing & not shipping debris area ...

[Blake777]

The other items mentioned as having been seen near the pallet were "strapping belts" of various sizes.

[max nightstop]

So today's press release says that there was nothing unusual about the last ACARS transmission and the route hadn't been changed. This was the root of all assumptions about a deliberate act, now it is debunked 2 weeks on. Bit of a game changer IMHO.

[ekw]

As for the character assasination of the crew by anonymous cowards, im apalled.

There is a difference between a character assassination and a line of enquiry. In the first case you are accusing, in the second you are merely outlining a possibility which must be considered.

[hamster3null]

Though we only have information about the last MH370 ping at 0:11 UTC, a massive search operation in the middle of a remote ocean would only be carried out if the (unknown) hourly pings made that area feasible.

As the flight originated near the equator, a mirror track to the north would also correlate with the returns, then leading to a last ping area in northern China close to the Gobi desert. Bearings more to the west, however, would appear less likely, given ping data is coherent.

Though the flight originated "near" the equator, last known contact was not on the equator, and you have to account for that when making a mirror track. They are working off the tracks that end up roughly at 40S and 83E to 87E, which would be 2700 NM from the satellite epicenter at heading 155 to 160. Last known position is at heading 78. That would put the symmetrical site at 2700 NM due north (heading 356 to 1) - near Aral Sea in Kazakhstan/Uzbekistan/Turkmenistan.

In addition, current search is based on the premise that the debris drifted substantially to the southeast in two weeks since the crash. They are searching way outside the arcs by now.

One of the reasons why Australians are looking in the exact spot where they are looking is simple. It does not make sense to look further southwest, because the aircraft barely had time or fuel to get to where they are looking as is. On the other hand, it does not make sense to look further northeast, because Australians have a powerful over-the-horizon radar system (Jindalee) with coverage that extends almost to 30S 90E, and, if MH370 had gone down further northeast, it probably would have been picked up. This leaves a pretty narrow area where they could be looking.

[aviator1970]

@jolihokistix

Aussies?Maybe maybe not... the Indians on the other hand would've said NO without any contemplation to any Chinese offer of assistance with ships and aircraft...because in their experience once the Chinese enter a place its rather hard to get rid of them....;);););););)



@zark7

Based on the 'facts' available through the media

Factswrtmedia might be an oxymoron.... as far as MH370 is concerned....:ugh:

[Hogger60]

Shortly after last radio contact with ATC the crew have taken limited, action. I believe the aircraft has been taken into manual control by the Captain and turned approx 90 degrees away from current fight route with the intent of an emergency descent. One of the pilots have recognised the need to sqwark 7700 but due to hypoxia inadvertently turned off the transponder. The effects of hypoxia have resulted in the crew not donning O2 and the aircraft altitude varying as a result of an attempted emergency descent until they became completely unconscious.Why manual control? Decompression protocol on 777 leaves autopilot on during descent.

To tune the transponder to 7700 you never touch the on/off switch.

By the way, the altitude warning horn is very loud and reminds you to put on your oxygen mask. It is the 1st step in the checklist and the pilots would not have not tried to turn away, descend or squawk 7700 without doing this. I know this happened in the Helios accident, but we learn from other's mistakes, and they didn't have an EICAS to tell them what was happening.

Your supposition totally depends on both pilots ignoring a blaring warning horn, EICAS messages, master caution warnings, and doing more than one thing against their training, in other words being a totally incompetent crew, which I do not think they were. My two cents.

[GlueBall]

Based on the 'facts' available through the media, a decompression event is the most plausible scenario. Whether or not this was a slow (10000' cabin alt warnings??) or rapid decompression is unclear.

Are YOU a pilot? At FL350 you wouldn't be instantly blue in the face and pass out... Do you KNOW how long it takes to don a quick-donning oxygen mask? It takes me two (2) seconds to pull the mask out of the slot with one swoop of my left hand and plant it on my face.

[Speed of Sound]

now it is debunked 2 weeks on.

To be fair, it was debunked two weeks ago when it was discovered that ACARS doesn't send changes of waypoints in the FMC without them being executed.

[PPRuNe Towers]

And how many took any notice of that SOS? That's why I made that post stand out for the OP

BTW, we have a special offer on electronic death for the pinger squad until more genuine data comes out.

Rob

[zark7]

If the crew are suffering from hypoxia, ie poor co-ordination, erratic behaviour, memory loss, then this is possible. They may have had the intent to do the right thing (auto response from their training) but been unable to carry it out correctly. Most of us on here have seen enough hypoxia training videos to see how poorly people perform if they don't immediately go on oxygen. All I am supposing is that they have not donned oxygen masks quickly enough. Useful consciousness at 35000' is only around 5 seconds from memory.

[IcePack]

Glue ball would love to see you do that with glasses & a head set on.
2 secs not.
Hypoxia is different for each individual (smokers etc) so maybe slow decomp is a possibility prior to cabin alt warning horn.
Anyway with facts changing by the day speculation is futile but of course interesting. But it does distress the relatives.

[Pontius Navigator]

2. A lone crew member will likely not talk.

I wish. I once flew with a single-seat jock who, not used to a GIB, sang and talked to himself the whole time.

If this aircraft went to one pilot on the flight deck he may well have talked to himself.

[Alycidon]

Donning mask

Glueball is quite correct, you can don the mask very quickly, there is no requirement to remove the headset as the quick don O2 mask is designed to go over the top of the headset and if fitted with integrated smoke goggles, is designed to fit over spectacles.

Removing the headset is not a requirement and IMO is often taught incorrectly by some SFI/TRIs.

The clue here is "quick don".

[Xeptu]

I'm of the view we are down to one of two options, either an extraordinary event which has not been managed well or perhaps was not possible to manage well.

OR

A Deliberate Act, and I don't believe for a minute the flight crew had anything knowingly to do with that, I'm thinking a lone perpetrator, either an employee or a very good friend of the Captain, someone who could be trusted and invited into the flight deck, a good friendship unsuspectingly established over a period of time, a friendship which was no coincidence.

[zark7]

Are YOU a pilot? At FL350 you wouldn't be instantly blue in the face and pass out... Do you KNOW how long it takes to don a quick-donning oxygen mask? It takes me two (2) seconds to pull the mask out of the slot with one swoop of my left hand and plant it on my face.

That's not my point, there was a chain of events that led to the Helios crew not donning their masks, and all I'm saying is that with the limited information at hand, depressurization is the most plausible scenario as it explains strange crew behaviour and strange flight path.

It may have been a hi-jacking or suicide but very unlikely IMO.

[Pontius Navigator]

Time of useful consciousness at 35,000ft is not in seconds. For a start you have a lung full of air, CO2 and water vapour and that will see you OK for quite a time. I can't remember off the top on my head but we used to fly with cabin altitude at 39,000ftand you could certainly drop your mask to blow your nose. The rule changed above 40k and you were down to seconds. IIRC it was something like 20-30 seconds at 45k and you had to initiate a 5k/m descent with a minute. Higher still with considerable overpressure (and you would have had a mask on) you had 30 seconds to initiate the descent.

[SilsoeSid]

Anyone remember this?

New plastic garbage patch discovered in Indian Ocean | Coastal Care (http://coastalcare.org/2010/08/new-garbage-patch-discovered-in-indian-ocean/)

Instead of running around like a bunch of schoolboys at a footbal match all wanting to have a kick of the ball, heading off for every bit of something a poor satellite photograph coughs up, why don't they fine search the programmed flight path and any viable diversion routes from the point of last contact?

When there's a problem with this size of ac, do the airline pilots disengage the autopilot and fly the ac manually !!! Or is the ap reprogrammed allowing the pilots to deal with the immediate problem?

[GlueBall]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HMiF5YlWyk

[HundredPercentPlease]

Time of useful consciousness at 35,000ft is not in seconds.

Hmmmm.....

http://www.skybrary.aero/images/TUC.jpg

[JayGatsby]

Time of useful consciousness at 35,000ft is not in seconds. For a start you have a lung full of air,

A lung full of very thin air - after you've forcibly exhaled most of what was in there during depressurisation - leaving you with oxygen rich blood (relative to what is now in your lungs). O2 will start to flow the wrong way out of your blood stream. Every breath you take will blow more O2 out of your body until you lose consciousness.

Its not like holding your breath under water.

That said - you will still get more than just a couple of seconds @35K, 30 secs, 45??

[flash8]

The aircraft flew on in LNAV or HDG SEL and at the MCP/VNAV altitude. If in LNAV and passing over the last waypoint the mode changed to HDG HOLD

A perfectly valid scenario, and one that puzzled me hasn't been elucidated upon more.. rather than all of this obtuse deliberate zig zag stuff.

[sky9]

All of the reports of the route change having been deliberately pre-programmed into the flight computer.............DEBUNKED.
All of the reports of the change being made at least 12 minutes prior to the 1:19 "alright goodnight" last communication with ATC............DEBUNKED.

Anyone heard of RTE 2 or don't they have it on the T7? I wouldn't have thought that ACARS would show a route change until it has been executed.

[martynemh]

Do we 'know' that the a/c zig-zagged along the FIR boundary (apart from the previous claim that those waypoints had been entered into the FMS?)

[Speed of Sound]

Whatever went wrong, went wrong quickly between 1:19 and 1:22.

And to those who dismiss the various hypoxia theories simply because the cabin altitude warning could not be ignored, there may have been a whole heap of other alerts and warnings going off at the same time. :(

[flash8]

Anyone heard of RTE 2 or don't they have it on the T7? I wouldn't have thought that ACARS would show a route change until it has been executed.

All Smiths (737 Classic and I assume later 737's) and Honeywell (757/767/777/744) FMC's have RTE 2.

[max nightstop]

Anyone know: How does EICAS prioritise cargo fire vs cabin alt warnings?

[Pontius Navigator]

100%, thank you for the table, I was working from very old memory :)

Refuting 'seconds', as I was, I was meaning iro 5-15 rather than minutes, half to one :)

[ZeBedie]

How often does a Malaysian 777 fly with only two pilots? Was the two crew flight an uncommon occurrence?

[SOPS]

Two crew on a flight like the 370 is normal.

[N4565L]

Last nite Sky News UK (approx 2300z) carried piece where Malaysian official stated cargo included lithium batteries that were correctly loaded as Haz Goods. Expert said it was legal but should be made illegal onboard a/c due to dangers posed. Report only noted once & only on that network. Not being carried by any network today (on my TV anyway).Was it :mad:? Tried doing search on here but nothing came up. Apologies if I have missed it.

[larryboy]

maxnightstop, crew would prioritise these warnings, the warnings themselves appear on screen, latest warning on top, in red. Cautions and advisories would be below, in amber, each indented one character to the right.

[Lost in Saigon]

How often does a Malaysian 777 fly with only two pilots? Was the two crew flight an uncommon occurrence?Two crew on a flight like the 370 is normal.

Yes, but what percentage of MAS 777 flights only have two crew?

It could be a rare occurrence if most 777 flights are longer and shorter flights are done with other aircraft types.

[RTD1]

Do we 'know' that the a/c zig-zagged along the FIR boundary (apart from the previous claim that those waypoints had been entered into the FMS?)

IMO, we don't really "know" much of anything after 1:21, apart from the satellite pings. Especially after this latest press release, I would treat the previous reports of zig-zagging along those waypoints with extreme skepticism.

[Speed of Sound]

Anyone know: How does EICAS prioritise cargo fire vs cabin alt warnings?


It doesn't, it prioritises what comes first!

[Ian W]

And there you have it.

All of the reports of the route change having been deliberately pre-programmed into the flight computer.............DEBUNKED.
All of the reports of the change being made at least 12 minutes prior to the 1:19 "alright goodnight" last communication with ATC............DEBUNKED.

Whatever went wrong, went wrong quickly between 1:19 and 1:22.

It also means that ACARS did not report any system errors or emergencies like fire warnings or cabin pressure warnings. Remember the cabin pressure warning from AF447. So presumably this also means that there were no fires or depressurization, unless one can invent an explosion that will take out some but not all communications and power systems and leave the aircraft in a flyable state.

[Capt Kremin]

Then it was very probably a deliberate act....

The "ghost plane after malfunction" theory does not work if any wreckage of MH370 is found in the SIO search area.

If a 777 reaches has a route discountinuity in the FMC, it reverts to HDG mode. All the MCP setting are referenced on magnetic unless in the polar regions (80 degrees N or S) or the HDG REF button is pushed. That would be a deliberate act of someone who knows the systems and implications.

In the case of the "Ghost plane" scenario the aircraft, after it turned WNW would have been either tracking to a programmed FMC waypoint or it would have been in a lateral AP mode referenced on magnetic north, HDG or TRK, it does not really matter. If tracking to the FMC waypoint, once it reached it, it would have reverted to HDG.

For the aircraft to track direct to the area of the last known ping and the current search area, there are only two ways to do it. One is a programmed FMC waypoint and the other is someone flying the aircraft via the HDG or TRK button and taking into account the 30-35 degree change in magnetic variation encountered along the route.

Here is the Isogonal chart for the Indian Ocean. The purple lines are magnetic variation.

http://i1275.photobucket.com/albums/y451/captainkremin/Agonicmap_zps3fab6ace.jpg?t=1395575018

Obviously if a pilot can take magnetic variation into account for 6-7 hours, he can also program an FMC to take him straight to the point. Deliberate action.

If a "ghost plane" had left the northern Malacca Strait and headed south in either HDG or TRK (remember TRK is still magnetic) going towards to the now search area, it would have had around 188 degrees (!) set in the HDG window. The following diagram indicate what would have happened in that case.

http://i1275.photobucket.com/albums/y451/captainkremin/Googleearth1_zps810c179b.jpg?t=1395575076


It is necessarily not definitive and works on a distance travelled every hour of 485 Knots GS and it takes the midpoint magnetic variation value in each leg.

The Pink line is the direct track.

The Yellow line is the approximate path a heading of 188 would have achieved if not changed from the northern Malacca Strait. The distance between the search datum/red line and the end of the yellow line is about 420NM.

The Red line is the approximate last ping satellite arc.

The Green line is an approximate track that a heading of about 197 would have taken to arrive at the search zone.

It is only valid if:

1. the previous pings match this approximate track and,

2. the fuel on board could have kept the aircraft flying for that length of time, and,

3. 197 was the last track set in the HDG window before the crew was incapacitated. This is approx 90 degrees away from the last known track.

It is also about 200nm longer than the direct track.

I haven't seen any evidence that the green line matches the track of the previous pings, nor know of any safety related reason why the crew would have selected a southerly heading after clearing the Malacca Strait.

Here is a closer view.

http://i1275.photobucket.com/albums/y451/captainkremin/Googleearth2_zps25ba9fca.jpg

The Malaysian Govt has stated that direct interference is the primary suspect here. I believe that is based on evidence from the previous pings that would show a direct line being taken to the search area datum, which implies FMC input.

If nothing else, this shows that a "ghost plane" would have taken a curved path to the crash site due to reversionary AP modes and changes in magnetic variation.

Any direct line over such a distance however, must be deliberate programming of the FMC.

[harrryw]

http://www.airbus.com/fileadmin/media_gallery/files/safety_library_items/AirbusSafetyLib_-FLT_OPS-CAB_OPS-SEQ09.pdf

notes that:

The cabin crew must remember that, in cases of continued physical activity, the time of
useful consciousness (Table 1) is significantly reduced.

I think a certain amount of activity would be occuring.

[Ian W]

As of 1:07, that is absolutely correct.

The next scheduled ACARS comm was not until 1:37.

The problem seems to have happened between 1:19 and 1:22.

We're nowhere near solving this thing, but the press release from last night does seem to rule out a couple of widely speculated possibilities.

ACARS would not wait till the 'next scheduled transmission' for an emergency status message like fire or depressurization.

[Eclectic]

This is costing the Chinese massively in Satellite resources.

Photo reconnaissance satellites typically follow a polar orbit. This goes over both poles, whilst the earth rotates underneath, so they spend equal amounts of time in the northern and southern hemispheres.
The timing of the orbits puts them over their targets early in the morning or late in the afternoon, in sun synchronous orbits, to get 3D perspective.
To change orbit to look at a different target uses up manoeuvre fuel. They obviously only have a finite amount of this so using it is incredibly expensive in terms of the life of the satellite. They also use fuel to counter the effects of orbital decay.

During the Falklands war the USA changed the orbit of a KH-11 (which cost well over a billion dollars, more than a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier) to provide the UK with intelligence. Casber Weinberger earned his knighthood.

When the Chinese moved as many as "10" satellites to the Gulf of Thailand/South China Sea it must have cost them an utter fortune in using up the life of these assets.
When they changed the orbits again to cover the southern Indian Ocean it cost them yet another utter fortune.
They will now have a very big shortfall in their reconnaissance capabilities for a few years as they have to manufacture new resources.

These satellites have many sensors, not just the visible spectrum. Use your imagination a bit and they will have tried it. KH-12s weigh about 20,000 kg, which is a huge amount of kit. And they are not the biggest.

They produce immense amounts of data, far more than could possibly be analysed by humans. So the initial analysis is done by computers, unless they are examining a known target.

All this means that they can look at a lot of the sea and can examine it in surprising detail. If you just think of what they have already found it is needle in a haystack stuff.

[Rightbase]

@ Capt Kremin

Is there any info on how disruptive wind be over that flight? Could a significantly different HDG end up there?


Oops - edit region to flight.

[Capt Kremin]

Rightbase, I dont have the winds on the day but a southerly track in that area would generally be all crosswind, there for I have used TAS as GS. It is a guesstimate. Generally in the tropics you have easterlies becoming westerlies the further you go south. they wouldn't even out because the westerlies are generally stronger.. It makes the direct track = deliberate action case that much stronger.

[N4565L]

"Sky asked whether there were lithium batteries on board during one of the press conferences. In my opinion, the answer given was non-conclusive, far from being a confirmation - despite the reports. There might well have been, but I'd rather see the cargo manifest to be certain. "


Thx GobonaStick,

Strange officials will not give clear yes or no answer!

[rh200]

This is costing the Chinese massively in Satellite resources.

Not only them, the BBc are reporting France is retasking one of theres to redo the area as well.

That table showing all the resources that countrys are putting in should have a column for satellites.

[Blake777]

Capt Kremin

There have been a few posts on this thread that have been masterly in their insight. Yours is one of them. Thank you.

[brika]

where Malaysian official stated cargo included lithium batteries

There was covered many pages ago. The MAS CEO (at one of the press conferences) stated there were some small LI batts not big ones. No further elaboration was given. At subsequent conferences, the line was changed to - cargo list is with investigators. Incidentally, in an earlier conference, mangosteens were mentioned.

[RichardC10]

@Capt Kremin

Nice one, very informative.

On the wind issue, a uniform wind over the track would be taken out in the fitting of the ping data, it is just a triangle of velocities. As you say, a changing wind would give more deviation from the tracks you show.

[brika]

only valid if:.....
2. the fuel on board could have kept the aircraft flying for that length of time

MAS CEO had stated that a/c had enough fuel to reach Beijing + contingencies.

Recall many years ago a MAS flight on hold over LHR had to declare an emergency as they had insufficient fuel. Believe UK authorities had investigated and imposed a fine. Don't know if MAS bean counters have changed policy to save fuel.

[RaRadar]

Why would the transponder be switched off if it wasn't unlawful interference. Just a thought but I have seen aircraft switch to standby, change the code and then re-enable the transponder. This is may be done to ensure any incorrect transition code is not transmitted. So 'what if' the pilot switched to standby to select another code, changed the code and then became distracted, either by hypoxia or another event and never switched the transponder back on? What is SOP on MAS?

[jcjeant]

Hi,

Well .... in a few days this was some sat findings (photos) that made the news and officially aknowledged ..
Now the french sat will certainly provide the same kind of data ....
Unfortunately no one of those debris photographied by sats where seen by human eyes ....
Where this is going ?

[brika]

The problem seems to have happened between 1:19 and 1:22.

3 minutes is a long time where an a/c in flight and fire is concerned.

IF a fire, it would probably have started some time before the 3 minutes (e.g. nose wheel heating up and then catching fire), only reaching the critical point somewhere in those 3 minutes - knocking out comms - pilots pulling buses etc.

Other IF scenarios highly unlikely...

[Rightbase]

Not being critical in any way - quite the reverse. Off to look at charts ...

[wiggy]

Just a thought but I have seen aircraft switch to standby, change the code and then re-enable the transponder. This is may be done to ensure any incorrect transition code is not transmitted.

Been answered before, so I suspect this will b yet another short lived answer but....

No need to switch the Xpdr to standby on modern kit of the type installed on the T7, you just punch in the new code..

[formationdriver]

MH370 WAS carrying highly flammable lithium batteries admits CEO of Malaysian Airlines | Mail Online (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2586308/Missing-jet-WAS-carrying-highly-flammable-lithium-batteries-CEO-Malaysian-Airlines-finally-admits-dangerous-cargo.html)

Missing jet WAS carrying highly flammable lithium batteries: CEO of Malaysian Airlines finally admits to dangerous cargo four days after DENYING it
When asked days ago, he said it was carrying 'tonnes of mangosteens'
Lithium-ion batteries have caused 140 mid-air incidents in last 20 years
The devices are commonly used in mobile phones and laptops
Classed as dangerous by The International Civil Aviation Organisation
Reignites theory that missing flight may have crashed after on-board fire
Aviation expert said it re-affirm belief that flames started in cargo hold
One cargo plane crashed in 2010 after attempting an emergency landing
Safety report said battery caught fire and filled the flight deck with smoke
By SIMON TOMLINSON

PUBLISHED: 17:11 GMT, 21 March 2014 | UPDATED: 08:57 GMT, 22 March 2014

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Malaysian Airlines today confirmed that flight MH370 had been carrying highly flammable lithium-ion batteries in its cargo hold, re-igniting speculation that a fire may have caused its disappearance.

The admission by CEO Ahmad Jauhari comes four days after he denied the aircraft was carrying any dangerous items and nearly two weeks after the plane went missing.

He said the authorities were investigating the cargo, but did not regard the batteries as hazardous - despite the law dictating they are classed as such - because they were packaged according to safety regulations.

The revelation has thrown the spotlight back on the theory that the Boeing 777 may have been overcome by a fire, rendering the crew and passengers unconscious after inhaling toxic fumes.

Lithium-ion batteries - which are used in mobile phones and laptops - have been responsible for a number of fires on planes and have even brought aircraft down in recent years.

Malaysian Airlines today confirmed that missing MH370 (pictured on an earlier flight) had been carrying highly flammable lithium-ion batteries in its cargo hold four days after denying it had any dangerous goods on board +14

Malaysian Airlines today confirmed that missing MH370 (pictured on an earlier flight) had been carrying highly flammable lithium-ion batteries in its cargo hold four days after denying it had any dangerous goods on board

Lithium-ion batteries like this one used in laptops were being carried in the cargo hold of the flight, it was revealed by Malaysia Airlines (file picture of unconnected battery) +14
Lithium-ion batteries like this one used in laptops were being carried in the cargo hold of the flight, it was revealed by Malaysia Airlines (file picture of unconnected battery)

CHANGING RESPONSES FROM CEO
What Ahmad Jauhari said four days ago:

When asked at a press conference if there was any dangerous cargo on board, he replied: 'We had a load of mangosteens headed to China.

'It was a large quantity - about three to four tonnes of mangosteens,' he said to laughter from the media.

What he said today:

'We carried some lithium-ion small batteries, they are not big batteries and they are basically approved under the ICAO (The International Civil Aviation Organisation) under dangerous goods.'

According to US-based Federal Aviation Administration, lithium-ion batteries carried in the cargo or baggage have been responsible for more than 140 incidents between March 1991 and February 17 this year, it was reported by Malaysiakini.

In rare cases, aircraft have been destroyed as a result of fires started from the devices, although they have been cargo planes in both incidents.

In one case, UPS Airlines Flight 6 crashed while attempting an emergency landing in September 2010 en route from Dubai to Cologne in Germany.

Flight MH370 disappeared from radar screens two weeks ago on March 8 after taking off from Kuala Lumpur bound for Beijing.

The second day of a new search, concentrating on a desolate area in the southern Indian Ocean, failed to locate two possible pieces of debris from the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777.

Aircraft and ships scoured the seas around 2,500kilometres off the coast of the Australian city of Perth, for 10 hours before darkness fell. Australian officials have vowed to continue the search tomorrow.

Billie Vincent, the former head of security for the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, said the revelation re-affirmed his belief that flames started in the cargo hold, destroying the aircraft's communication systems then filling the cabin with toxic fumes.

This, he says, would have overwhelmed the passengers but may have given the pilots a chance to divert the aircraft for an emergency landing.

He told Air Traffic Management: 'The data released thus far most likely points to a problem with hazardous materials.