Malaysian Airlines MH370 contact lost

[James7]

Nine Lima, not much of a yaw at 300 kts or even 200 autopilot would easily handle it.

[md80fanatic]

The speed of sound is not constant in water. It varies greatly with pressure, temperature, and salinity. One must also consider that the medium itself is moving, and at the bottom of the ocean the currents can be quite swift and unpredictable.

As a pressure wave (longitudinal?) changes in speed of propagation are interpreted by a microphone as a change of frequency, even if the source and target are stationary relative to each other.

[Speed of Sound]

I can see a situation where one engine sucked air first, then the autopilot tried to maintain heading or track and altitude or speed, which resulted in a large yaw with roll angle followed by a spiral into the water.

Rudder? :ugh:

[Finn47]

ICAO has just announced a two-day meeting in May, covering several topics mentioned here, such as new guidelines on ULBs and deployable flight recorders:

"The unprecedented and unusual circumstances of flight MH 370 have been particularly difficult for civil aviation officials to resolve and the lack of definitive answers has been much harder still for the victims' families to come to terms with. They, above all, will benefit from a fuller explanation of this accident," he added.

Aliu also said ICAO recently added a new guideline on underwater locator beacon (ULBs) which will take effect in 2018.

ICAO’s Flight Recorder Panel is reviewing new methods to speed up process of determining accident sites, deployable flight recorders and the triggered transmission of flight data.

Furthermore reviews will be conducted on aviation security, travel documents as well as requirement for the transport of lithium batteries.
MH370 Tragedy: ICOA to meet on global tracking - Latest - New Straits Times (http://www.nst.com.my/latest/font-color-red-mh370-tragedy-font-icoa-to-meet-on-global-tracking-1.556029)

[Propduffer]

FASID CNS/4A states both Banda Aceh and Lhokseumawe/Malikussaleh's PSR ranges are 90 NM. Apparently 60 NM might be closer to the truth.The 90nm figure is obviously a politically motivated figure. 90 nm is about half the width of the Malacca Strait, so by stating 90nm the Indonesians are stating that they can only see over their own territorial water and have no capability over Malaysian territory. The fact is that for a primary radar the range limit will be about equal to the horizon. Factoring in a target altitude and the radar antenna elevation this will work out to something like 200 miles, probably a little more in practice. (The limitation of a radar's range will not be transmit power or receiver sensitivity, as even late 20th century technology has provided ample capability there.) It is possible that the Indonesian radar operators were blinded from seeing into Malaysian territory when looking to the east, but to the north they would have had a full 200 mile view, at least the military people would have had full range capability, if not the ATC too. MH370 was below Butterworth's RADAR horizon for a significant period enroute VAMPI.VAMPI is a little over 200 mi from Butterworth so if the "significant period' part of that statement is true, MH370 would have been flying quite low in order to get below radar coverage. This is certainly possible.
if last known radar contact is near NILAM and MH370 wasn't visible to Indonesian radars at that point, it's pretty straightforward to get from NILAM to 20.8S 104.1E in less than 2000 NM without getting any closer. If radar slide is false though, MAPSO-IGREX-TOPIN-IKASA-Ocean Shield is 2213 NM (370 kts) while giving a wide berth to Indonesian airspace.I am projecting the necessity of a wider berth than you are, along with an assumption of lower altitude for a significant part of the flight, so that does make the fuel expenditure/ground speed to the northern parts of the search area a better fit.

The unknown here is what the Indonesian radar capabilities actually are, or what they were perceived to be at any rate, they have a 10,000 ft mountain about 30 miles south of Malikussaleh and it would seem logical for them to have placed their military radar antenna somewhere on that height.

[rampstriker]

This post was just magically undeleted.
As a 777 pilot I, like many others, have wondered how the 777 would perform in the scenario where the pilots were incapacitated and the aircraft ran out of fuel. I had my ideas but there is nothing like seeing it for "real" so we tried this in a 777-2 full motion zero flight time approved simulator.

We used a zero fuel weight of 175 tonnes. We let it run out of fuel at FL 250 in track hold and alt capture. However it would not make any difference what mode it was in as everything would drop out. In real life one engine uses fractionally more fuel per hour than the other and there is typically a difference between main tanks of a few hundred kilos, so we had a 300 kg difference between the contents of the left and right tank.

When the first engine failed TAC (Thrust asymmetry compensation) automatically applied rudder. The speed reduced from 320 knots indicated to 245 knots indicated. It was able to maintain 245 knots and FL250. When the second engine failed the rudder trim applied by TAC was taken out and the trim went to zero. The autopilot dropped out and the flight controls reverted to direct mode. The speed initially came back to 230 knots but then the nose started to lower. The nose continued to lower and the rate of descent increased to 4,000 feet per minute, the nose kept lowering and the descent rate increased to 7,500 feet per minute with a bank angle that increased to 25 degrees. The speed at this point had increased to 340 knots indicated, above VMO but there was no horn as it was on limited electrics. About this point the RAT (Ram air turbine) chipped in and the CDUs and copilot's PFD (Primary flight display) came alive. The flight controls stayed in direct mode.The eicas screen was full of messages like pitot heat, flight controls, APU fault (The APU had tried to autostart due double engine failure but failed due no fuel to start it) low fuel pressure etc.

Then with a max descent rate of almost 8,000 feet per minute the nose started to slowly rise and keep rising. We had dropped to about FL170 but the nose slowly rose up to 6 degrees pitch up and we started climbing at about 3000 feet per minute and the bank angle reduced to only 5 degrees. It climbed back up to FL210 at which point the speed had come back to 220 knots and then the nose dropped down again and we were soon back to descending at 8000 feet per minute. So basically a series of phugoid oscillations with bank angle between 5 and 25 degrees and pitch attitude between about 9 degrees nose down and 6 degrees pitch up. It was losing about 8000 feet and then gaining about 3 or 4000 feet with airspeed fluctuating between 220 and 340 knots.

We didn't watch it all the way down due time constraints and stopped the experiment at 10,000 feet but it was consistent all the way down. Having watched it I can say with certainty that if the pilots were incapacitated and it ran out of fuel there is no way it could have landed on the water with anything like a survivable impact. Just passing on the info.

[Leightman 957]

> but remember the two navies have worked together before with ship under way and other live fire exercises so it is not totally new to each other.

But that doesn't rule out that they have have differing agendas and must maintain a competitive stance toward each other. Different branches of militaries within a single nation do that all the time so it is a virtual certainty that comaraderie between nations is incomplete.

[DeltaT]

Taking into account the post from Rampstriker, the phugoid oscillations could in affect account for the claims of the plane being flown below 5000ft as reported in the media?? ...it was just on the step down??

[500N]

Leightman 957


Yes, certainly (differing agendas). I have said this from day 1.

China is trying to wave the flag in a big way to remove the stain of criticism that it didn't do anything the last time they had an emergency in the region - which stung them badly - and of course play to the domestic side as well.

And of course they want to find the first confirmed debris et al but that doesn't mean the two can't work side by side. I am sure AVM Rt Angus know full well the Chinese agenda having dealt with them for years.

[portmanteau]

rtd1. an indonesian military chief said " the aircraft was not detected flying over our territory" which is not the same as saying we never saw it. radars often cover large tracts of someone else's territory or airspace under its control and I suppose the convention is that you do not comment on what you have seen going on there. ditto malaysia,
they reported their last radar contact was at igrex which is at the edge of the malaysian administered airspace.

[Mesoman]

CNN just ran a video with the ULB pings in audio coinciding with a waterfall display. I have been unable to find this on the net - I would have expected it to be at JACC's media documents. Does anyone know if it is available.

The video is quite compelling. You can hear the very regular clicks. On the display, you can sometimes see weaker clicks at different times, which could be the other ULB, or could be natural - I couldn't tell. They mumbled that the clicks were computer generated, whatever that means.

Others here with more sonar experience than me might be able to add to this.

The CNN report is at http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/08/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-plane/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

[Note: other link went bad, edited for new one. This shows much less of the pings, but it is there]

[Jilted]

I have been unable to find this on the net - I would have expected it to be at JACC's media documents.The graphic was posted here yesterday.

http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/535538-malaysian-airlines-mh370-contact-lost-475.html#post8423003

[4Greens]

Would the pinger from the recorder be picked up by a warships asdic set or is it a different ball game?

[hamster3null]

CNN just ran a video with the ULB pings in audio coinciding with a waterfall display. I have been unable to find this on the net - I would have expected it to be at JACC's media documents. Does anyone know if it is available.

The video is quite compelling. You can hear the very regular clicks. On the display, you can sometimes see weaker clicks at different times, which could be the other ULB, or could be natural - I couldn't tell. They mumbled that the clicks were computer generated, whatever that means.

Others here with more sonar experience than me might be able to add to this.

The CNN report is at U.S. Navy on MH370 search: We are cautiously optimistic - CNN.com Video (http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/world/2014/04/07/tsr-intv-william-marks-navy-updates-mh370.cnn.html)

By "ran", do you mean on the cable channel? It's not in the linked video.

[AT1]

Search teams fail to relocate pingers in Flight 370 search - CNN.com Video (http://edition.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/world/2014/04/08/newday-australia-releases-possible-ping-audio-flight-370.cnn.html)

Shows the waterfall display "at work" with what is claimed to be the actual audio released by the Australians.

In another CNN item there is a statement that one of the detections was a sound that originated from their own boat, but I cannot work out which it was. I guess it was the "RIB" detection.

[Lonewolf_50]

Would the pinger from the recorder be picked up by a warships asdic set or is it a different ball game?
Not likely. ASDIC is soooooooo last century. Modern naval forces tend to use SONAR. :} SONAR on warships would have a low probability of detecting that pinger. See a few dozen posts covering "why" earlier in the thread. Short answer: frequency band and range.

[solaise]

If the aircraft was ditched just before the fuel was exhausted is it conceivable that the APU would be in a condition to autostart and briefly run?

[kayej1188]

My posts normally get deleted, and this post is not going to help anybody out in any way, but earlier today I decided to start from the beginning and read the first 15-20 pages of posts on this thread. It's quite interesting to see the information along with absurd rumors that were coming in at the time. It's also very interesting to just sense the general mood at that time compared to now. It's also quite haunting to go back and see how sure everybody was that everything involving with this plane would be completely figured out within a short period of time, unbeknownst that we'd still be here exactly one month later still grasping at straws for the most part. If you've got a few minutes I suggest you try for yourself

[tmac21]

Hmm, the plane in the sea and the chinese have heard a ping, déjà vu ?

[mm43]

The graphic below shows some of the AIS position reports received in the last two days.

http://oi59.tinypic.com/3356o9x.jpg

The Red tracks are nominally 203°T , the Yellow tracks 024°T, and the most recent Green track is 293°T. The TPL towing has been carried out at 2.0 KTS at all times, with small increases of speed showing up during the turn and realigning phases.

Though the JACC aren't saying anything at this stage, it appears that an attempt is being made to triangulate and localize detected pings.

EDIT: Updated graphic

[owenshaw]

There has been a lot of expert posts about acoustic properties through water. Salinity, depth, temperature layers etc..
Added to this, what about the geography of the ocean floor?
If the wreckage sits within a valley then this will certainly make it harder to detect the cvr/fdr pings?
Could this be the reason that the 2+ hours capture time with Ocean Shield happened when the towed pinger locator wasn't at its full depth - so was possibly more likely to pick up a signal for a longer period of time?
I.e less affected by peaks and troughs of the ocean floor..

[drwatson]

@Johny B

Yes the lack of real news or spin theories is postive

The Australian newspaper has a headline that proclaims that we have foubd the haystack and now to find the needle but nor much else..


And another has some details on further reducing the size of the haystack...from ABC auz Malaysia Airlines MH370: Search crews confident missing plane's locator beacon still running - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) (http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2014-04-09/crews-think-malaysia-airlines-locator-beacon-still-running/5376592)

"However, the plans have been put on hold until another signal is received, or it is certain the batteries in the black box recorder have expired.

The international search team is focusing on a 600-kilometre arc in the southern Indian Ocean, about 1,600km off the West Australian coast.

US navy captain Mark Matthews is in charge of the equipment detecting the signals.

He says while there is a chance the battery is still working, crews will keeping using their towed equipment, rather than underwater submersibles.

"It's an operational trade-off. The ground I can cover in one day using the towed pinger locator would take me six days with an autonomous underwater vehicle," he said.

"I'm going to keep using my towed pinger locator until I'm prepared to say, 'You know what? The beacons are no longer transmitting'."

He says there is cautious optimism from the sounds that have been picked up.


"The frequency, it was a repetitive signal every second, the pulse whip was about 10 milliseconds in length - that's appropriate for the signal," he said.

"The only thing that was a little off was the frequency of the transmission but based on the age of the beacons and talking to the manufacturers, it is still a signal of interest."

[smiling monkey]

If one combines the Inmarsat data with the assumed flight path data, one gets two lines which intersect at nearly a 90° angle. The intersection point is almost exactly half way between the two ping sightings by the Chinese vessel HaiXun01 at S25°E101° and the Ocean Shield at S21°E104°. This means that the most likely place where MH370 went down is approximately S23°4.24’ E102°27.58’, which is the only point to lie on both the 40° arc and the L894 flight path. Given the short time remaining in the pinger lifetime, it would be well worth searching around this location.

Nice work. Your assumption about the flight path taken, is very plausible as well, as it would be much more convenient to enter a set of waypoints to navigate by than use Heading Select mode (obviously). Your other assumptions also seem to all line up, so hopefully the team at JACC/AMSA are thinking on the same wavelength as you.

[DocRohan]

@Double07.
Yes that is very good work!
Looking at the AMSA search maps earlier in the week, they showed a "predicted" flight path that wasnt straight, rather was arched as it headed toward WA....would that fit with your proposed route from Indonesia??
I have tried to extrapolate the same arc backwards but I am not technically advanced enough to do it!!!....But I would imagine that someone could....If the angle of the arc inwards was back-tracked on the same arc to north of Indonesia, could that give an indication of route?

[Propduffer]

an indonesian military chief said " the aircraft was not detected flying over our territory" which is not the same as saying we never saw it.Thank you, that is an astute observation.

[Nemrytter]

This means that the most likely place where MH370 went down is approximately S23°4.24’ E102°27.58’, which is the only point to lie on both the 40° arc and the L894 flight path. Given the short time remaining in the pinger lifetime, it would be well worth searching around this location.
Is anyone aware if other aircraft would be using L894 at the approximate time of the last satellite ping? I'm interested to know if evidence of an aircraft on that track (near the point Double07 suggests) could belong to any other flight.

[Mahonda]

Hi frequency audio at 30K+ is very high, and highly directional. I wonder of the towed array lost the pings as it moved into the "shadow" of a submerged mountain range. To experience the effect you only need a hi-fi. Put on some music with a lot of top and put your hand between the woofer and your ear- should be little effect on the bass because low frequencies are less directional. Now do the same between tweeter and ear- top loss, right? Now imagine the effect of a mountain between pinger and array, when the ping is over 10KH higher than most hi-fi set-ups go. the cut off "shadow" would be very abrupt.

[rampstriker]

USN Captain Mark Mathews said: "The frequency, it was a repetitive signal every second, the pulse whip was about 10 milliseconds in length - that's appropriate for the signal."

I thought the Dukane Seacom ULB MH370 was outfitted with has a signal interval of 0.9 seconds. Teledyne/Benthos models have a 1 second interval.

[hamster3null]

Nice work. Your assumption about the flight path taken, is very plausible as well, as it would be much more convenient to enter a set of waypoints to navigate by than use Heading Select mode (obviously). Your other assumptions also seem to all line up, so hopefully the team at JACC/AMSA are thinking on the same wavelength as you.

There are two air routes in the area. One, as mentioned by Double07, is L894. The other is further north, M641 through IKASA and UXORA.

Haixun 01 reported hearing pings ~150 nm off L694. Ocean Shield heard them almost directly (within 20 nm) underneath M641. They are so far apart that it's impossible for the same pinger to be heard in both places. If we assume that MH370 was following air routes (not an unreasonable assumption), it's more likely that it was on M641, Ocean Shield's report is the real deal and Haixun's report is false.

It's also possible that Australians thought of this before us, and that they were checking that spot precisely because it is at the intersection of an Inmarsat arc and a flight corridor. (Otherwise the chances of stumbling on a working pinger in the amount of time they spent working with a TPL are too vanishingly small.)

M641 is a priori more likely than L694. If you were going to fly from Strait of Malacca to Perth while following flight corridors and waypoints all the way through, NILAM KALOX IKASA is the shortest route. Timing is wrong (it gets you to the supposed crash site in under 5 hours unless you go <400 kts). Double07's proposed route does a better job of avoiding Indonesia, but it involves a lot of unnecessary and complicated zigzagging and it's still a bit too short.

In either case, logic is still missing in action (what else is new?) Is this not a suicide but a spectacularly botched hijacking to Australia now? IGARI to Learmonth (NW Australia) is 4 hours at cruise speed if you don't try to avoid any radars and simply head south. Running out of fuel and ditching in the ocean because you chose a route that takes nearly twice that time would be head-scratching, to say the least.

And finally, there's Doppler. I'm not too confident in any reconstructions or interpretations of Doppler any more, but I don't think that either of those routes agree with it.

[slats11]

I would submit it is logical - albeit logic serving an outcome we find deeply disturbing and incomprehensible.

If it wasn't for the satellite pings (a detail perhaps not known about or somehow overlooked), we likely would have no idea what happened. But strip away the satellite stuff, and everything else fits with a desire to disappear without trace.

Why? Who knows. But history is full of people who chose to disappear.

Who has been harmed by this? That provides best guess at motive. Well the Malaysian government has been horribly exposed on the world stage. It has generated ill feeling between Malaysia and China (not what he Malaysian government would want).

I am not suggesting it was a particular pilot who supported the opposition. We can't conclude that. But someone (could have been other than pilot) who wanted to damage Malaysia for some reason.

[Sheep Guts]

Thanks Finn47,

ICAO has just announced a two-day meeting in May, covering several topics mentioned here, such as new guidelines on ULBs and deployable flight recorders:



Quote:

"The unprecedented and unusual circumstances of flight MH 370 have been particularly difficult for civil aviation officials to resolve and the lack of definitive answers has been much harder still for the victims' families to come to terms with. They, above all, will benefit from a fuller explanation of this accident," he added.

Aliu also said ICAO recently added a new guideline on underwater locator beacon (ULBs) which will take effect in 2018.

ICAO’s Flight Recorder Panel is reviewing new methods to speed up process of determining accident sites, deployable flight recorders and the triggered transmission of flight data.

Furthermore reviews will be conducted on aviation security, travel documents as well as requirement for the transport of lithium batteries.
MH370 Tragedy: ICOA to meet on global tracking - Latest - New Straits Times

Lets hope they get some solutions and act on it. The fact they are looking at the Lithium Ion battery rules again is good as well. They were only re-written last year due the UPS- Dubai and the Asiana Cargo - Jeju Island accidents and have confused many.

[India Four Two]

USN Captain Mark Mathews said: "The frequency, it was a repetitive signal every second, the pulse whip was about 10 milliseconds in length - that's appropriate for the signal."

I thought the Dukane Seacom ULB MH370 was outfitted with has a signal interval of 0.9 seconds. Teledyne/Benthos models have a 1 second interval.

rampstriker,

It's a 10 ms pulse of 37.5 kHz ultrasound, repeated every 0.9 seconds. That's a duty cycle of 10/900 or about 1.1%.

[Runcible]

Any student of ASW (anti-submarine warfare) would be familiar with the fact that deep ocean areas contain barriers to the direct propagation of sound. Whether or not a sound penetrates a layer depends upon the relative densities, the steepness of the temperature gradient within and between the layers and mixing characteristics at the layer's periphery. There's little mixing at great depths.

It's not unusual for sound to bounce between layers with little loss in dBA and finally reach the surface layer in an annulus (think the area enclosed by two concentric circular rings), once the thermocline's extremities are reached (i.e. due mixing or shelf shallowing in water depth). That "surfacing" can be hundreds of miles away (i.e. 100's of miles away from the source). Nuclear subs use this characteristic of sound to hide beneath or between layers of different temperature, salinity or density. A good airborne sonar operator could distinguish between first and third CZ's (Convergence Zones) due to the fuzziness / distinctiveness of the sonics. However for a "bottomed" source, the topography will make a difference also (think "shouting in a canyon and the resultant directionally deflected echo effects).

Any ship crossing a CZ annulus could do it (unknowingly) at a quite shallow angle and remain in detection for 150 minutes or cross it at an acute angle (eg outer circumference direct to annulus centre) - and ths maintain contact for only 13 minutes.

It's just another (but very debilitating) weakness of the pinger system - in comparison with a satellite relay of streamed system and GPS data before aircraft impact.

37.5 khz acoustic is particularly vulnerable to a channeled sonic bounce between layers. It's one reason why the USN settled upon VLF and ULF broadcasts for reliable contact with its boomers on station. RF or acoustic, within the ocean's layers, it makes little difference.

Chasing a pinger's weak emanations in deep water is like chasing your tail.

[orbitjet]

PC live on news 24...

Signals have been acquired two more times and they believe there searching in the correct area

[hamster3null]

I would submit it is logical - albeit logic serving an outcome we find deeply disturbing and incomprehensible.

If it wasn't for the satellite pings (a detail perhaps not known about or somehow overlooked), we likely would have no idea what happened. But strip away the satellite stuff, and everything else fits with a desire to disappear without trace.

Let me clarify my point.

The "original" southern track scenario, with the crash in the roaring 40's, was weird but at least could make some sense in the way you describe: as a disappearance without a trace in the middle of nowhere.

But this new track does not even "work" as a disappearance. It leads in a definite direction: towards Perth airport. If MH370 continued on this track and had enough fuel, in another 1.5 hours it would end up in Perth.

Here's the route via M641, extended to logical conclusion:

SkyVector: Flight Planning / Aeronautical Charts (http://skyvector.com/?ll=-13.399594570566718,96.90234375379319&chart=304&zoom=11&plan=A.WM.WMKK:F.WS.IGARI:A.WM.WMKP:F.WM.VAMPI:F.WM.NILAM:F. WM.POVUS:F.VC.KALOX:F.YM.D317H:F.YM.IKASA:F.YM.MERIB:F.YM.KE ELS:A.YM.YPPH)

[fotoguzzi]

[Not a pilot] Thanks, Double07. I am trying to deduce from your note whether people are able to take, e. g., the sixth ping and make an arc for it, and then the fifth ping, etc., to try and determine the path from last voice contact based on average speed. I am not able to determine if that is what you have done or not.

[salivamonster]

Houston confirmed that Ocean Shield found 2 instances of acoustic event again, as mm43 forecasted hours ago.

link to mm43's post9623 earlier
http://www.pprune.org/8425618-post9623.html

[500N]

"Two more pings have been detected by the Australian ship Ocean Shield in the search for flight MH370. Air Chief Marshal (ret) Angus Houston, the head of the search's Joint Agency Co-ordination centre, announced the development during a press conference in Perth on Wednesday afternoon.
It revives hope the missing Malaysia Airlines plane's black box is still transmitting data days after its batteries were due to run dead.
http://images.smh.com.au/2014/04/07/5329782/af-tpl3-20140407143359828015-300x0.jpg Crew on the Ocean Shield deploy the towed pinger locator. Photo: AP

Mr Houston said expert data analysis on previously detected signals had found they were not of natural origin, further boosting hopes of a breakthrough.

Read more: Missing Malaysia Airlines plane: two more pings detected in search for flight MH370 (http://www.smh.com.au/national/missing-malaysia-airlines-plane--two-more-pings-detected-in-search-for-flight-mh370-20140409-36cif.html#ixzz2yM7yiEgY)"

[JoeBloggs2]

Excellent news :ok:

Does the pinger detector sled have an IRU and vector sensors or is it just a dumb hydrophone ?

Regardless they presumably now have a cross fix on the position and can launch the AUV...

[500N]

I THINK he said that they won't deploy the UAV until they can pin point the ping because it takes 6 times as long underwater as it does on the surface.

[Shadoko]

For those who read my yesterday (deleted) post about a YouTube film with an alleged recent in-flight visit to the avionics bay of a 777.
I am a little ashamed to have added this comment: 'secutity improvement?' (or something like that) which implied the movie was recent. The truth is that the "date added" of the movie (2014/03/18) NOT implies the movie was recorded since MH370 disparition. And a better look at it (what I should have done before posting) shows it is not:
- the cabin layout seems not very recent ... and it is not: at 7:16, you can read on the exit door 'SAIDA EXIT' (so the company is probably Portuguese) and at 7:23 the name VAR?? is then probably VARIG right font on the sheet of the crew rest bed). The four first letters of the same name were also visible under the oxygen tank at 6:12. This company is out from 2006.
- in the E-E bay, avionics are labelled AlliedSignal (in one word, at 4:51). This name was in use from 1993 to 1999 (see AlliedSignal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlliedSignal)).
I have not be able to find a picture with the same attendant uniform/apron as seen at 00:30.
The crew rest zone don't look like what I can see on 777 net pictures. Is it one?

There is no other video posted on YouTube by the pseudo Jack Jones. So, no credit. And unknown afterthought from the poster.
So ... post deletion was normal!

I do think the movie has been registered on a France to Brazil (or return) flight: at 1:08 the guide (first officer?) said 'Bon, maintenant' [French] and continues in English (not is native, for sure). And the one who has the camera answer 'D'accord' [French] between 1:49 and 1:50. But it is not from me!

[nigf]

Angus Houston says;
Pings are heard twice more on Tuesday. Analysis of the previous pings have confirmed that they are from man made device and consistent with the expected FDR/CVR pingger. This included the 1.1sec delay in the pings. They are still going ahead with trying out TPL to get more data. The time to launch the unmanned sub with side scan sonar is undecided.

So overall it seems another small but important step closer to locating MH370. Lets hope there is some conclusion soon to the families.

[TessCoe]

BBC Also updated story to include latest graphic of all 4 ping detection locations.

BBC News - Missing Malaysia plane: Search 'regains recorder signal' (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-26950387)

[l00g33k]

http://www.jacc.gov.au/media/releases/2014/april/mr_014-2.jpg

[rigbyrigz]

Triangulation or other pin-pointing, possibly made easier if its just the FDR emanating signals not both, still has the complications of refraction and reflection from the thermal layers; perhaps other meterological issues.

This therefore could take some time - certainly days not hours; with the other vessels kept away (looking for drifted debris) to keep the sound environs as clean as possible while more acoustic events are sought.

[Sheep Guts]

Check out this graphic from Washington Post. Just shows what they are up against!


The depth of the problem - The Washington Post (http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/world/the-depth-of-the-problem/931/)

:ok:

[JamesGV]

According to the Australian Joint Acoustic Analysis Centre the pings detected are not "of natural origin".

One more step closer.

[recanted]

FYI Malaysia and Indonesia now deny any evidence exists pointing to the so-called skirt-around-Indonesia track.

MH370 search: Plane had not skirted to Indonesian airspace as reported by CNN, says Hisham - Nation | The Star Online (http://www.thestar.com.my/News/Nation/2014/04/07/MH370-search-Indonesia-radar-CNN-skirted/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter)

The crashed Malaysia Airlines flight, MH370 had not skirted Indonesian airspace in a bid to evade radar detection as reported by CNN, said acting Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein (pic).

"I got the Chief of the Malaysian Defence Force to contact his Indonesian counterpart, and they have confirmed they have had no sighting of the plane," said Hishammuddin at the MH370 press conference held at the Royal Chulan here on Monday.

I am of the view that MH370 never went west at all but instead had an in-flight emergency and turned south towards the nearest airfield, one they'd recently flown over. Turn, drop alt. Decompression/hypoxia, all aboard dead, miss approach. Zombie flight magically goes all the way to where they are searching now.

[Wader2]

Check out this graphic from Washington Post. Just shows what they are up against!

The depth of the problem - The Washington Post (http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/world/the-depth-of-the-problem/931/)

:ok:

Agree, great graphic but there is a question unanswered. If the depth of the hydrophone is 4,600ft and they are correct that it would have to be at 6,000ft to have detected the ULB, then either the hydrophone depth is wrong, or their opinion of the pinger range is wrong (9,000 feet - 2289m) or the pinger is not as deep as 15,000ft.

As they did not seem to pass on top the pinger, maybe it is not even at 15,000ft.

[orbitjet]

I notice on Live Ships Map - AIS - Vessel Traffic and Positions - AIS Marine Traffic (http://www.marinetraffic.com) they have the search area marked out so you can see the ships working within that section.

[lakedude]

Confirming that the Bluefin 21 UAV has reportedly not yet been launched as of the last press conference for the reason 500N specified (narrowing down the search area with the pinger locator first). Seems to me someone said a 3rd pinger hit would be the trigger for launching the UAV and now they have a 3rd and a 4th so I'd expect to the UAV in the water any time now.

As to the lack of debris, is it possible the plane is mostly intact? They did get 2 separate pinger signals (could one be an echo?). I would think that the vertical entry being talked about as a reason for no debris would smash things up but good, perhaps even destroying the pingers. To my mind a gentle landing with the plane in mostly one piece would explain the lack of debris and the still functioning pingers better than a vertical dive.

[mm43]

At 20°53'S 103°58'E the water depth is 18,160 feet (5,535 meters) and well beyond the ability of the Blue Fin 21 AUV. This job could well need the Remus AUVs used during the AF447 search.

[rh200]

At 23°53'S 103°58'E the water depth is 18,160 feet (5,535 meters) and well beyond the ability of the Blue Fin 21 UAV. This job could well need the Remus UAVs used during the AF447 search.

I'm thinking the main thing for it to do would be a good side scan sonar mapping, what depth can it do for that.

Yes a good visual at optical would be good. But I think that at the depths where talking about, a solid confirmation on anything and its position would be a godsend.

Then good practical planning with the right equipment can be done on what can be recovered.

[India Four Two]

A great graphic from the Washington Post, that really puts the problem into perspective. However, I'm amused to see that like most media sources, they can't get their heads around Metric to Imperial conversion.

The two whales can dive to precisely 3280' and 9816'? Really?

How about "about 1000 m" and "about 3000 m"?

[Sheep Guts]

They would probably need to Sonar map the area from the surface before sending the Blue Fin down. So when the they decide to stop using the TPL-25. They will sonar map the area for sure with either HMS Echo purposely built for the job or an RAN ship which I'm not unsure if they are in the area. They Royal Australian Navy have I think 6 survey ships with 4 being hydrographic.
Surveying Ship (AGS) | Royal Australian Navy (http://www.navy.gov.au/fleet/ships-boats-craft/ags)

Just looking at the Australian Navy website the 2 AGS vessels don't seem to have commanders at the moment so maybe they are in dry dock or servicing who knows. Or the website is out of date.
If that's the case the HMS ECHO will be it for sure.

[skadi]

I'm thinking the main thing for it to do would be a good side scan sonar mapping, what depth can it do for that.


This could be the equipment for that task:

World's only three Abyss submarines sent to Indian Ocean for plane search - Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/malaysia/10717323/Worlds-only-three-Abyss-submarines-sent-to-Indian-Ocean-for-plane-search.html)

[Heathrow Harry]

what is really needed is another couple of boats to pick up the same signal at the same time to enable triangulation

at the moment it looks as if we're getting point detections - you sail towards the last one and listen and hope the next one comes from roughly the same direction

[Sheep Guts]

Heathrow Harry,


Commodore Leavy said that P-3C Orions would drop sonar buoys in the water today around the area of the Ocean Shield search area. He was saying during the JACC news conference today the RAAF technicians had modified the sonar buoys to detect 37.5 KHZ signal. He described how when sonar buoys hit the water they drop on a 1000ft wire a hydrophone into the sea below.

They cant afford to have other vessels in the area as it contaminates the sound signature and introduces more background noises. The TPL-25 is towed a few Kilometres behind the vessel at around 2 knots. And all the Ocean shield unnecessary equipment is switched off.


So its a one ship job until the pinger is out of power and or they decide they have enough returns to calculate a reasonable search area.

[FLY400]

Thanks "skadi" for that link.

World's only three Abyss submarines sent to Indian Ocean for plane search - Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/malaysia/10717323/Worlds-only-three-Abyss-submarines-sent-to-Indian-Ocean-for-plane-search.html)

It may explain why HMAS Toowoomba is making turns for her published maximum speed.
As shown on Marine Traffic she appears to be headed for Exmouth/Learmonth on Australia's North West Cape. Exmouth has a port and Learmonth is is a joint user facility with a runway (3,047m) suitable for large airplanes.

Live Ships Map - AIS - Vessel Traffic and Positions - AIS Marine Traffic (http://www.marinetraffic.com/en/)

[India Four Two]

I think that calling it a "pinger" is a bit misleading.

It's a towed listening device - the sonar pings are produced by the main vessel

The reason it's towed is to keep it some kilometers from the ship noise so it has a wider area to listen to

innaflap,

Your reply is even more misleading! :ugh:

The ADV Ocean Shield is NOT putting out any pings. The towed pinger locator is purely a passive device, listening for the 37.5 kHz ultrasound signal from the CVR and FDR pingers.

The reason the cable is very long (several thousand metres) is that it is the only way you can "fly" the towed pinger locator at its operational depth, when the Ocean Shield is moving at two or three knots. It is NOT to do with ship noise. The length of the cable is also the reason that turn arounds take so long. I read somewhere that much of the cable is reeled in before turning and then let out again.

[Luc Lion]

One should be prepared for the possibility that the DFDR and the CVR could have stopped recording early in the flight, with no CB tripping "snap" sound in the last second of CVR recording. Remember MI185.

[Sheep Guts]

Anyone know? The pressure at these depths are very high. I 've found 20000 feet. But no other specs.

[Sheep Guts]

Wikipedia quote
Proposed requirements[edit]

In the United States, the "Safe Aviation Flight Enhancement (SAFE) Act of 2003" was introduced on June 26, 2003 by Congressman David Price (NC) and Congressman John Duncan (Tennessee) as a bipartisan effort to ensure investigators have access to information immediately following commercial accidents.[27] On July 19, 2005, a revised SAFE Act was introduced and referred to the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure of the U.S. House of Representatives. The bill was referred to the House Subcommittee on Aviation during the 108th, 109th, and 110th congresses.[28][29][30] On March 12, 2014 in response to the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, Congressman David Price re-introduced the concept in the House of Representatives.[31] The SAFE Act calls for implementing the NTSB 1999 recommendations. Under the NTSB's recommendations, operators would be required to install two sets of combination Cockpit Voice and Data Recorder (CVDR) systems (or "Black Boxes"). The SAFE Act calls for making the second CVDR set "deployable or ejectable". The "deployable" recorder combines the cockpit voice/flight data recorders and an emergency locator transmitter (ELT) in a single unit. The "deployable" unit would depart the aircraft milliseconds before impact, activated by sensors. The unit is designed to "eject" and "fly" away from the crash site, to survive the terminal velocity of fall, to float on water indefinitely, and would be equipped with satellite technology for immediate location of crash impact site. The "deployable" CVDR technology has been used by the U.S. Navy since 1993.[32] The recommendations would involve a massive retrofit program. However, government funding would negate cost objections from manufacturers and airlines. Operators would get both sets of recorders for free: they would not have to pay for the one set they are currently required by law to carry. The cost of the second "deployable/ejectable CVDR" (or "Black Box") was estimated at $30 million for installation in 500 new aircraft (about $60,000 per new commercial plane). The SAFE ACT legislation failed to pass in 2003 (H.R. 2632) or in 2005 (H.R. 3336) or in 2007 (H.R. 4336).[33]


Interesting lets hope it passes now.

[Luc Lion]

Commodore Leavy said that P-3C Orions would drop sonar buoys in the water today around the area of the Ocean Shield search area. He was saying during the JACC news conference today the RAAF technicians had modified the sonar buoys to detect 37.5 KHZ signal. He described how when sonar buoys hit the water they drop on a 1000ft wire a hydrophone into the sea below.
The buoys could be inoperative if tuned to 37.5 kHz.
Angus Houston has reported that the signals detected by Ocean Shield pinger locator are on 33.331 kHz.
Could that frequency drift of -11% be caused by hydrostatic pressure ?
I understand that a pressure of 50 MPa is compatible with a +/- 10^5 ppm drift.

[dxzh]

Link to the JACC 9 April full press conference (including Q&A) - Press Conference by JACC on MH370 - (11.00am, 9/4/2014) | Astro Awani (http://english.astroawani.com/videos/show/buletin-awani/press-conference-by-jacc-on-mh370-11-00am-9-4-2014-29233).

[Andrewgr2]

The locations at which pinging was detected shown in the map in post 9647 are around 26 km apart. Wikipedia states
A 37.5 kHz (160.5 dB re 1 μPa) pinger can be detectable 1–2 kilometres (0.62–1.24 mi) from the surface in normal conditions and 4–5 kilometres (2.5–3.1 mi) in good conditions. A 37.5 kHz (180 dB re 1 μPa) transponder pinger can be detected 4–5 kilometres (2.5–3.1 mi) in normal conditions and 6–7 kilometres (3.7–4.3 mi) in good conditions
There have been numerous posts about convergence,ducting etc that could result in longer ranges and, I presume, that is how these pings are being detected so far apart. However it shows what a big area of uncertainty there must still be about the location of the pingers. I seem to recall that when the first announcements of hearing the pingers were made at the press conference a few days ago, Angus Houston said they were searching a 3 mile square area to narrow down the source - it now looks quite a bit bigger than that.

[Sheep Guts]

Luc Lion,

I miss quoted the Commodore he said that the Aircraft equipment had been modified and not the sonar buoys themselves to receive the 37.5 khz. I believe they have taken into consideration the frequency drift that has occurred since the 1st acquisition on the weekend.

[Ian W]

Hightflyer40

just thought of something, the unions would probably scupper the whole thing as they would object to live CVR being transmitted in flight!

It would be interesting to see a debate between those unions and the relatives of the 239 missing people on MH370. Perhaps the time has come for something more constructive than worrying about unethical management oversight.

[mm43]

The Ocean Shield is working its way to the south crossing at a right angle the tracks previously taken. The graphic below updates a previous one, and the latest position is noted in Orange. These are the ship's position and the TPL can be over a 1000 meters astern or even out to one side, depending on the effective "drift" component existing between the TPL and the towing vessel.

http://oi59.tinypic.com/nlang0.jpg

Bear in mind that the signal strength received at the TPL can vary considerably due to the effects of deep water sound channel ducting, but will show the least phase distortion and largest signal etc.. normally when the TPL is directly above the ULB.

[India Four Two]

Link to the JACC 9 April full press conference (including Q&A) - Press Conference by JACC on MH370 - (11.00am,
9/4/2014) | Astro Awani (http://apicdn.viglink.com/api/click?format=go&key=1e857e7500cdd32403f752206c297a3d&loc=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pprune.org%2Frumours-news%2F535538-malaysian-airlines-mh370-contact-lost-484.html&out=http%3A%2F%2Fenglish.astroawani.com%2Fvideos%2Fshow%2Fbu letin-awani%2Fpress-conference-by-jacc-on-mh370-11-00am-9-4-2014-29233&ref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pprune.org%2Frumours-news%2F535538-malaysian-airlines-mh370-contact-lost-483.html).


I've just watched the whole news conference. Very informative and I have to say I'm very impressed by Angus Houston. I know senior officers have media training, but he comes across as if he'd had years of experience of doing this and I would never have guessed that he was such a distinguished RAAF officer, if I hadn't known.

Speaking of officers, why is it that the RAN officer (Commander Leavy?) is wearing a camouflaged uniform? Is that normal shore-rig these days?

[Sheep Guts]

India 42,

Speaking of officers, why is it that the RAN officer (Commander Leavy?) is wearing a camouflaged uniform? Is that normal shore-rig these days?

Commodore Leavy actually. Not Commander. Being a Commodore and the Commander of the Military aspect of the search. I would suggest he sets the dress and standards himself. After all it is an operation. Not a passing out parade!

[Blacksheep]

The fact is that for a primary radar the range limit will be about equal to the horizon. Factoring in a target altitude and the radar antenna elevation this will work out to something like 200 miles, probably a little more in practice. (The limitation of a radar's range will not be transmit power or receiver sensitivity, as even late 20th century technology has provided ample capability there.) The detection range of a primary radar is dictated by the pulse repetition frequency - although ground clutter and the physical horizon limit the range at low elevations. A typical PRF for weather radar for example is 400 hz, supporting ranges up to 300 miles or more.

A military radar would use a low PRF for scanning, but would need to switch to a higher PRF for target acquisition and launch that would limit the range to about 90 miles or even less. I expect that is the "implied threat" in Indonesia's claim of a radar range of only 90 miles.

[Kooljack]

Not sure if this has been mentioned - Malaysia Airlines has already been handed $110 million (£67 million) by insurers over the loss of its missing Boeing 777 on flight MH370.

Flight MH370: insurers make first pay out on missing Malaysia Airlines plane - Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/malaysia/10717604/Flight-MH370-insurers-make-first-pay-out-on-missing-Malaysia-Airlines-plane.html)

[Old Ozzie]

The Sonobuoys that will be dropped as listening devices in the larger search area are indeed broad spectrum passive listening devices. The modifications to the aircraft equipment might allow for a narrow frequency spectrum to be more closely monitored so that the returned signal will only scan the chosen frequency range around 37.5kHz.
Depending on the pattern of the sonobuoys and the contact gained on one or many of the buoys, he contact could serve to localise and triangulate a more refined position of the signal source. This technique has been in use for decades but probably not used to date because of the modifications required. The buoys can be monitored by one or several aircraft at altitude depending on the number of buoys deployed and the number of receiver channels on each aircraft.

The limited depth of the sonobuoy hydrophone (about 300m) could make detection through varying thermal layers less likely with weak signals. At least all resources are being employed to solve this mystery.

[FIRESYSOK]

They are trying to introduce the SAFE act again in Congress in response to MH370

Yes, very interesting, SheepGuts.

Are you prepared to finance the government-sponsored/mandated retrofit of the US fleet? Would that have helped the Malaysians? After all, they couldn't be bothered to purchase the upgraded ACARS maintenance package; what makes you think the United States Congress and its knee-jerk reaction (if any) would make a difference in either AF or MH?

It's always up to the Brits, Aussies, or Yanks, isn't it?

[Self Loading Freight]

The latest TV news briefing said that the frequency received was 33.331 kHz, which is very precise.

Back of the envelope calculations assuming speed of sound in sea water at 4 degrees C and 4000 metres is around 1500 m/s, and the ship is towing at around 1 m/s, gives me a maximum doppler shift to the signal of around 20 Hz, which is an order of magnitude greater than the resolution indicated by the news report.

This is best case and assumes movement directly towards or away from the source, that there aren't effects due to currents, and that I haven't got my maths and assumptions wrong. Also, with 10 ms pings and the small windows of acquisition, there aren't that many waves to measure. Further, the signal seemed quite broad on the waterfall on the news report, but I couldn't make out bandwidth.

But - is it possible or even plausible that some further geometric information about the pinger's location wrt the receiver could be obtained this way? Perhaps the thread readers with DSP/hydroacoustic experience could comment...

[NWSRG]

One question has occurred to me. It seems that MH370 may (and I say MAY) have been following airways towards Perth. Would an MH 777 have had a Kuala Lumpur - Perth route stored in the FMC library?

[PriFly]

http://images.smh.com.au/2014/04/07/5329782/af-tpl3-20140407143359828015-300x0.jpg

wow! that TPL 25 is a LOT smaller than I thought. Never saw it in reference to another object before till now next to humans. I thought it would be perhaps the size of an automobile or something!@ LOL

[brakedwell]

One question has occurred to me. It seems that MH370 may (and I say MAY) have been following airways towards Perth. Would an MH 777 have had a Kuala Lumpur - Perth route stored in the FMC library?

Malaysian operate direct flights between Kuala Lumpur and Perth so the answer must be yes.

[Speed of Sound]

One question has occurred to me. It seems that MH370 may (and I say MAY) have been following airways towards Perth. Would an MH 777 have had a Kuala Lumpur - Perth route stored in the FMC library?

Given that MAS fly a scheduled non-stop service from KUL-PER (MH125) I'd say there was an excellent chance that the route was available in the FMC.

[underfire]

I42,

They will use as much cable as possible and when mowing the lawn, will have to make large turns. The towed array is rated with a static depth, so the dynamic load of the towed speed and turn is important.
Due to the time required, they will not raise and lower the array when turning.

The distance between the parallel tracks is a function of the overlap at depth.

There are also Bluefin 21's in use.

http://www.mbari.org/auv/MappingAUV/images/AUV5.JPG
They may also be towing a magnetometer, or multiple beam sonar array to image the bottom. I am sure if Ocean Shield isnt, others are.

[Rollleft]

Re: 9679

Agreed. Doppler signatures were used for ELT locating by satellite before GPS's were integrated with ELT's. The relative doppler shift is a tenth of the under water case.

The lower duty cycle ping pulse will make it challenging. A fellow on the Reddit MH370 group used matlab to find a 0.4 millisec slowing down during a playback of 20 seconds of pings from a news broadcast. Lets put Inmarsat on the case.

[rampstriker]

Due to the time required, they will not raise and lower the array when turning.


Ocean Shield reels the TPL in to to a shallower depth when turning and then lowers it again. They in fact heard one of the first pings at a shallower-than-cruise depth after a turn. Turns take around three hours.

[WillowRun 6-3]

Further to post by Sheep Guts 9 Apr 03:24 regarding SAFE Act:

I am reliably informed that in fact the SAFE Act (Safe Aviation and Flight Enhancement) bill has not yet been introduced. It is in the process of being revised, extended and/or upgraded by certain relevant legislative staffs. It is my understanding that with respect to similar measures introduced in prior Congresses, committee hearings were not held.
Of course the state of facts about what happened with the recorders on the Malaysian T7 is as yet indeterminant. It would be a wiser course not to legislate a mandate for FAA to amend all type certificates until such time as the (reasonably) full impact of this on-going event has been assessed and understood.
At the very least, when it comes to aeronautical technology as the subject of Congressional action....one can always hope.

[Vinnie Boombatz]

No Cookies | Perth Now (http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/missing-malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370-more-signals-detected/story-fniztvnf-1226878441833)

" 'It looks like the signals we’ve picked up recently have been much weaker than the original signals we picked up, so that means probably we’re either a long way away from it, or in my view more likely, the batteries are starting to fade and as a consequence, the signal is becoming weaker,' he [Angus Houston] warned.

'So we need to, as we say in Australia, make hay while the sun shines.' "


DK-Series Underwater Locator Beacons | Radiant Power Corp (http://www.radiantpowercorp.com/dk-series-underwater-locator-beacons.aspx)


"Acoustic Output, Initial: 1060 dynes/cm2rms pressure at 1 meter (160.5 dB)



Acoustic Output, After 30 days: 700 dynes/cm2rms pressure at 1 meter (157.0 dB)"

[WillFlyForCheese]

WillowRun6-3

I am reliably informed that in fact the SAFE Act (Safe Aviation and Flight Enhancement) bill has not yet been introduced. It is in the process of being revised, extended and/or upgraded by certain relevant legislative staffs. It is my understanding that with respect to similar measures introduced in prior Congresses, committee hearings were not held . . .

Reliably informed? You're a lawyer - right? The SAFE Act was introduced and referred to committee twice before (2003 and 2005) and died there. A first year summer clerk could have told me no such act has been "introduced" this year. No need for any inside baseball here - please.

Let's not use big words to state the obvious - or what is otherwise breakfast table newspaper information . . .

[oviano]

I've been following the whole thing closely and reading many of the excellent posts made on this thread.

Not one for the conspiracy theories at all.

However, there is something that I can't help but find strange and that is why they were suddenly able to focus on these areas and miraculously discovered the pings.

First the Chinese then the Aussies/US.

I was under the impression they were searching huge areas, and then suddenly they decide to try the ping detectors and Lo and behold they get what seems like a result.

Isn't that a bit strange?

[archae86]

While the most recent JACC media release (http://www.jacc.gov.au/media/releases/2014/april/mr014.aspx) at the moment I am typing advises that Haixun 01 and Echo are at the southern end of the underwater search area, with Ocean Shield at the northern, the current display of Echo position, track, and speed made good on marinetraffic.com shows Echo making 15.5 knots on a 37 degree course appearing to aim very closely at Ocean Shield's current position.

Meanwhile Haixun 01 shows as 16.7 knots on course 333, having made much progress toward the current surface search area.

They may never say this, but the disposition (and transit speeds, which are inconsistent with acoustic search) of the ships suggests to me that the much-discussed Chinese pinger contact is no longer being prosecuted, and that Echo may be transitting for sidescan sonar or other service at the site of the Ocean Shield contacts.

[WillowRun 6-3]

Dunno, WillFly...Sheep Guts' post on prior page included specific statement that the bill had been reintroduced on March 12 of this year in response to this incident. It hasn't been. Period.

[Lonewolf_50]

oviano: I should have been less cryptic. Sorry. :)

There was nothing "sudden" about their progress in the search. This search has been going on for over a month. We in the public are not priviy to all of the details of what they consider, what they reject, and what their cueing and trigger information have been.

Part of what they are doing involves the process of elimination, and making the most of such clues as are available. If we let the drama infested media influence our understanding of this search, we can fall into the trap of assigning traits like 'sudden' to events that unfolded over time for the search team and various national authorities.

They were indeed searching huge areas, but the areas have been shrinking every few days. Nothing strange, nothing sudden.

What took a lot of people by surprise (myself included) was the public announcenment that the early searches in the South China Sea and Malucca Straits needed to be abandoned, and a search far off the coast of Australia in the middle of nowhere granted precedence.

As I understand the background of this search, the indicators that this was a better course of action did not arrive suddenly, but were derived from the process of vetting and analyzing the sparse information available. No drama: plodding detective work.

[mm_flynn]

of

Something told them to look there...


I thought it was the 'boring' work of ongoing detail analysis of the Inmarsat data coupled with more refined analysis of 777 performance characteristics that fit to the pattern of known arcs and dopplers that lead to deploying listening assets in the 'small arc' where Haixun 01 and Ocean Shield were operating.

It seems quite likely that after a lot more hard analysis of the acoustic data they will have localised a reasonable search area and then in several weeks will have found the wreckage with the side scan sonar.

Nothing particularly sinister in all of this analysis and thinking taking a lot of time.

[deadheader]

Using IATA codes instead of ICAO reveals a bizarre coincidence:


Originally heading for PEK
Turned west to PEN
Turned south to PER


All of which are MH served destinations, alphabetically ordered same as above...


772 FMC uses ICAO codes though, does it not?

[silvertate]

Weebobby:

There was something that led them to that spot in the Indian Ocean, some clue or intelligence that meant Ocean Shield heard the first pings on the very day the black box batteries were due to start weakening. Something told them to look there... I doubt we will ever find out!




It was the realisation that the aircraft was flying lower.

The resulting faster IAS, slower TAS, and thus slower groundspeed - and the resulting shorter range - meant that the search location had to move along the last ping-ring towards the northeast. Simple, really.

What we don't yet know, is why they suddenly realised that the aircraft flew at low-level.


P.S. If someone can post the fuel-burn/altitude tables for 1,000' and 10,000', it would be fairly easy to calculate roughly how low it flew.

[island_airphoto]

Also it is possible a classified asset heard it first and a hint was dropped to get everyone in range of the pinger ;)

[Ian W]

It was the realisation that the aircraft was flying lower.

The resulting faster IAS, slower TAS, and thus slower groundspeed - and the resulting shorter range - meant that the search location had to move along the last ping-ring towards the northeast. Simple, really.

What we don't yet know, is why they suddenly realised that the aircraft flew at low-level.


P.S. If someone can post the fuel-burn/altitude tables for 1,000' and 10,000', it would be fairly easy to calculate roughly how low it flew.

I think the reasoning was the reverse. Assume last ping was at out-of-fuel. That gives a fuel burn rate which can then be reverse looked up to find the cruise levels/speeds that would result in that burn rate now fit those speeds/levels to the several INMARSAT rings the one that most closely fits tells you where on the final ring the aircraft was out-of-fuel. Use simulation of aircraft behavior when fuel is out at that level/speed, then generate a new search area. Pingo :D

[underfire]

It was the analysis of the INMARSAT data that lead them to the current search area, much the same as AF447.

[Chronus]

In response to posts regarding the difficulties posed in recovery operations in the particular search area I would add as follows.
I understand the search area is over the Wharton Basin. A deep drilling operation of the sea bed of this basin has been carried out some years ago for scientific purposes. I would imagine the search effort being conducted employ the benefit of the knowledge gained from this survey. Detailed information on the deep drilling survey, bottom depths and deposits may be found at the following links.

http://www.deepseadrilling.org/26/volume/dsdp26_09.pdf

http://www.deepseadrilling.org/22/volume/dsdp22_appendixI.pdf

http://www.deepseadrilling.org/26/volume/dsdp26_36.pdf

[Propduffer]

As pointed out by hamster3null this location is also in the area where flight path M641 crosses the projected position curve for the last ping.

[porterhouse]

It was the analysis of the INMARSAT data that lead them to the current search area, much the same as AF447. No, there was no INMARSAT analysis performed in the case of AF447, it wasn't needed.

[silvertate]

Underfire:

It was the analysis of the INMARSAT data that lead them to the current search area, much the same as AF447.


Not entirely correct.

While the Imarsat data gave the general area to look in, the final ping-ring still gives us an arc a thousand nautical miles or so long. All the search zones were along that arc - but which segment of that arc is correct?

There needs to be a method of fine-tuning the information.





Ian W


Silvertate:
It was the realisation that the aircraft was flying lower.



I think the reasoning was the reverse. Assume last ping was at out-of-fuel. That gives a fuel burn rate which can then be reverse looked up to find the cruise levels/speeds that would result in that burn rate now fit those speeds/levels to the several INMARSAT rings the one that most closely fits tells you where on the final ring the aircraft was out-of-fuel.




Amended due to post 9719 by Ian W below.

You are right that the fuel burn remains the same, for all the various speed/altitude scenarios, because the fuel load is known and the time is known. But we still have various potential tracks depending on the speed/altitude of the aircraft.

You can have a high-TAS-speed flight at high altitude - and end up south and west of Australia. (Yellow track.)
You can have a low-TAS-speed flight at low altitude - and end up north and west of Australia. (Purple track.)

So we come back to the same question I posed above - what made the search teams decide that the low level scenario was the more likely? Although the burn-rate is a known factor, there are still numerous speed/altitude combinations that will achieve that same fuel burn. Thus there still must be some other information that prompted a look towards lower and thus altitudes/slower TAS speeds (the purple line). Perhaps it became likely that the aircraft never climbed again, after its assumed descent to to low level while skirting Malaysia.



Note how each hourly ping lies on the same ping-ring, but end up hundreds of miles apart - even though the fuel burn is the same for each hour flown.
These tracks below are for illustration only, and are not to any exact speed-scale. *

http://i59.tinypic.com/57cwz.jpg

[underfire]

Ocean Shield reels the TPL in to to a shallower depth when turning and then lowers it again.

They MAY do this if they want to make a tighter turn, but you really try to avoid this when towing, as you lose all the time turning and not searching.
Typically you run a racetrack type of search pattern to optimize the depth and the search area.
While it is called mowing the lawn, it is not efficient to directly overlap paths, you just keep moving the entire racetrack over...

http://i60.tinypic.com/xpyhbm.jpg

[underfire]

"Analysis by the British satellite company Inmarsat and the UK's Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) was cited on Monday by the Malaysian prime minister as the source of information that has narrowed the location where the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 may have crashed into the southern Indian Ocean to a corridor a couple of hundred miles wide."

The new method "gives the approximate direction of travel, plus or minus about 100 miles, to a track line", Chris McLaughlin, senior vice-president for external affairs at Inmarsat, told Sky News"

For AF 447, BEA used the sat data to narrow the search area when it was found by Swire Seabed...it was found long after the pingers stopped working.

[deptrai]

why is there no TPL ROVs yet?

a "towed pinger locator remotely operated vehicle" doesn't make any sense. Neither does an ROV for locating pingers. Any ROV has a huge disadvantage: propulsion noise. I can't think of any advantages, it would still need to be tethered to a mother ship. So why exactly would you want an ROV for that?

[underfire]

why is there no TPL ROVs yet

The Blufin 21 platform can be equipped with a PL, no problem. There is at least one from the US Navy on Ocean Shield.

Currently, it can be also be outfitted with sidescan, magnetometer, and video...it is completely autonomous...

EDIT: You program the path of the fish, and to surface at intervals to charge and send data. You can program it to surface at contact as well.

[Wader2]

Also it is possible a classified asset heard it first and a hint was dropped to get everyone in range of the pinger ;)
That is certainly a possibility and has been used before.

«look here» to a trusted ally then take it overtly from there.

[underfire]

RS, I am quite certain it is not the Capt driving the search pattern parameters. Why would I mention your name?

Coding course paths for surface and subsurface vessels is much the same as a coded flightpath for an aircraft.

When mapping, a surface vessel is typically on a coded course. When towing an array, the coded turns must take into account the towfish depth and dynamic properties. The fish must stay at depth for proper mapping overlap.

Look at the search pattern that I provided, and you will see that it is much more efficient.

I have been providing mapping patterns for autonomous underwater platforms for telecommunications cable laying for several years, so commercially, we understand how to map effectively. When one is paying for fuel, one learns to be efficient.

EDIT: I would also take note of the TPL shown in the image above. (post 9682) IF that is the actual configuration, it is not correct, which is likely why they have to tow it so slowly. A higher speed tow would involve a towfish depressor weighted wing in front of the array. The wing would keep it at depth with far higher speeds, about 7kts instead of 2...

[Ian W]

Not so. The final ping-ring gives a multitude of fuel-burn rates and speeds, all of which can reach somewhere along that long arc. Remember that the track-length between ping-rings varies, depending on whether you fly south or fly east - and that will greatly effect the fuel-burn/speed profile of the flight.

So you can have a low-burn/high-speed flight - and end up south and west of Australia. (Yellow track.)
Or you can have a high-burn/low-speed flight - and end up north and west of Australia. (Purple track.)

The first of these options must be a high level flight. (Yellow track.)
The second of these options must be a low level flight. (Purple track.)

But how low?



You misunderstand.


We know (or at least assume we know) the initial track of the aircraft to loss of radar contact
We know the fuel load the aircraft carried and the last miss-ping gives us the out-of-fuel time therefore we know the burn rate.
That burn rate can be achieved in a limited number of ways - assume it is relatively constant from loss of radar contact.

Then use the different levels and speeds that give that burn rate and see which fit the ping rings.

We may of course be having a noisy agreement - but the burn rate is simple - time of flight and known fuel upload adjusted for initial tracked flight. Assumption necessary is that the aircraft maintained a steady cruise.

[mm43]

While it is called mowing the lawn, it is not efficient to directly overlap paths, you just keep moving the entire racetrack over..Agreed, but AIS data I have just seen from Ocean Shield indicates they are more focused around 21°06'S 103°54'E, and the latest positions indicate the vessel is crabbing its way to the north again on 293°/113°T tracks.

http://oi57.tinypic.com/4ixwlk.jpg

The latest position at 10/04:50 UTC is 21°08.5'S 104°10.2'E and heading 113°T. The speed is currently 1.7 KTS.

[underfire]

I am curious why OS continues all by herself?
The other search area has 6 search vessels..

http://i62.tinypic.com/11iztis.jpg

[Two to Tango]

Suspect Ocean Shield searches by herself to minimize noise disturbance for her ping detector.

[hamster3null]

Not so. The final ping-ring gives a multitude of fuel-burn rates and speeds, all of which can reach somewhere along that long arc. Remember that the track-length between ping-rings varies, depending on whether you fly south or fly east - and that will greatly effect the fuel-burn/speed profile of the flight.

So you can have a low-burn/high-speed flight - and end up south and west of Australia. (Yellow track.)
Or you can have a high-burn/low-speed flight - and end up north and west of Australia. (Purple track.)


Right.

Now let's say that you can narrow down the burn rate and speed to the point where you're certain that it's not yellow track, and it's closer to purple to red. (After all, fuel burn and speed are continuous variables). On your map, the distance between red and purple tracks is ~1000 km. So you need to search the strip running 500 km to either side of the purple track.

You know the partial ping arc with precision of, say, +/-100 km. The aircraft may have glided 100 km after it ran out of fuel. That makes your strip 1000 km long x 300 km wide.

This is all very good fine tuning (you cut down the search area to less than 10% of what you started with).

That's still roughly the size of Germany.

Now you have to search Germany on foot (Ocean Shield's speed while searching, ~2 kts, is comparable to walking speed) while carrying a device that can detect a hidden transmitter if you are within 2 km of its location.

[BillS]

Marine Traffic gives the course data for Ocean Shield (http://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/index/positions/all/mmsi:503728000/shipname:OCEAN%20SHIELD)
They are only achieving 2-3 transects per day so following 023/203 course on the 6th & 7th, they are now following 113/293.
It appears they take parallel transects with some 2nm separation, initial then a track either side.

The cable length can be up to 18,000m which complicates position of the actual TPL but the later detections (by time) seem to be around 103.90; -21.135.

I have been unable to completely reconcile the chart locations issued (http://www.jacc.gov.au/media/releases/2014/april/mr014.aspx) with the AIS track for those times provided in the briefing; in particular #3 and #4 seem to be be reversed.

The good news is that the depth in that particular area is less than 4,500m (4,050m - 4,200m according to GE) although #1 & #2 detections are in an area where depth could be up to 4,800m.

edit -mm43 - they appear to slow (1.2-1.6KTS) when detecting - (also at the end of a pass while reeling in the cable; conversely speed up at the beginning of a pass while reeling out)

The TPL appears to be approaching an interesting area in about 1-2 hours time so hopefully we might have more information at tomorrows brief.

AIS also shows ECHO (http://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/index/positions/all/mmsi:232002894/shipname:HMS%20ECHO) approaching with an ETA in the search area in about 15hrs

[mm43]

The Ocean Shield has in the past couple of hours dropped her towing speed to 1.6 KTS, most likely in an effort to minimize any background noise.

My latest graphic (http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/535538-malaysian-airlines-mh370-contact-lost-486.html#post8427325) has been updated with the 09/23:00 UTC position.

[alph2z]

If you plot a straight great circle line from NILAM to the magnetic south-pole you get extremely close to the search site of Ocean Shield* (last satellite ping not shown but passes over search site).

NILAM (western tip of Indonesia) is at the upper left of the image. Search site is small yellow thumbnail west of northern Australia. Magnetic south-pole is in lower right corner of image.

[180 degree magnetic heading from western tip of indonesia]

http://i.imgur.com/3qZQIns.png

Edit: *

[James7]

Suspect Ocean Shield searches by herself to minimize noise disturbance for her ping detector.

that is another reason why they are delaying any AUV activity and told other ships to keep away.

[underfire]

It's possible that they don't want a higher tow speed due to increased noise from the TPL passing through the water.

Another reason for the wing, it isolates the towfish from the towcable. Harmonics from the cable has a significant effect.

Hydrodynamic drag increases as a square function of velocity, so isolation of the towfish connections is also very important.

If the towfish is isolated, I would expect 5 to 7kts without issue...you can tell pretty quickly.

Again, commercially, time is money, and given that pinger locators are seldom used, I would expect that the technology, and the logistics of using them, may not be the most current.

[Vinnie Boombatz]

BBC News - Missing Malaysia plane: Search 'regains recorder signal' (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-26950387)

"Other key points made by ACM Houston:
- Searchers have no idea what the sea bed looks like in the search area. They think it may be silty
- Silt is bad news. It can be thick and can hide things in a way that rock does not"

A second opinion:

http://iod.ucsd.edu/~amanda/Files/Demopoulos-Ecosystems%20of%20the%20World.pdf

"Owing to strong geostrophic currents and consequent scouring of the sediments, the Wharton Basin, the southern Mascarene Basin, and parts of the Southwest Indian and Australian–Antarctic Basins have little or no sediment (Kennett, 1982). Sediment in these areas, when present, is mostly brown clay."

"There are strong bottom currents, with speeds approaching 10–20 cm s−1, in the Wharton Basin and the southern Mascarene Basin, and in parts of the Southwest Indian Basin and Australian–Antarctic Basins, resulting in minimal sediment deposition (Kennett, 1982; Gage and Tyler, 1991)."

Kennett, J.P., 1982. Marine Geology. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 813 pp.

Same author claims that the average depth, both in the Indian Ocean and world-wide, is nearly 4 km:

"The Indian Ocean, including adjacent seas (e.g., the Arabian Sea, the Bay of Bengal, and the Southern Ocean), covers 73 426 000 km2, roughly one-fifth of the total world oceanic area. It has an average depth of 3890 m, which is approximately equivalent to the average world-ocean depth."

[underfire]

The cable length can be up to 18,000m which complicates position of the actual TPL

It is very important for the operator to know exactly where the towfish is in relation to the surface vessel. The computer system onboard calcs the towspeed, cable length, catenary arc in the cable, and data from the towfish so they pretty much know exactly where the fish is.
Many actually actively ping the surface ship to coordinate surface ship coordinates with their offset and IRU.

[Sheep Guts]

Bill S,

AIS also shows ECHO approaching with an ETA in the search area in about 15hrs


My guess is they will use HMS Echo to do a sonar map of the search area. Whilst HMAS Ocean Shield will prepare the Blue Fin 21. So maybe on the weekend will be the Blue Fins turn finally. Of course then it still takes a long time. They will search grid patterns and retrieve the Blue Fin 21 maybe every 12-20 hrs to download its sonar mapped data and exchange fresh batteries. There is a long road ahead. They may not positive ID the wreckage for another week or 2.

[rh200]

Does anyone know if the black box pingers stay phase stable? Its been mentioned before about folding data to get a better signal to noise. Its a common pulsar technique.

So I'm wondering as the battery weakens and the amplitude gets less, if they can just go to folding the signal on the pulse period. Of course if the phase is drifting significantly then thats not an option.

I presume if they are recording every thing then they would do that any way to bring out the pulse in the areas to produce some kind of spatial map of intensity.

Any one with an understanding of the acoustics side of things care to enlighten me?

[oldoberon]

todays search areas

https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/asset.amsa.gov.au/MH370+Day24/Charts/2014_04_10_searcharea_wide.pdf

I thought the sonar buoys were to augment the towed pinger, seems a long way off to do that.

[Communicator]

Does anyone know if the black box pingers stay phase stable? Its been mentioned before about folding data to get a better signal to noise. Its a common pulsar technique.

Given that the ultrasound signal exhibited very significant frequency deviation (about 33 kHz rather than the nominal 37.5 kHz) it is unlikely that the ultrasound signal itself is phase stable. Thus, digital signal processing techniques predicated on phase stability are unlikely to be of assistance. However, the ULB may have reasonable frequency stability over the short term as temperature and water pressure are static and battery voltage decays only slowly.

The situation is more promising with regard to the timing of the sound pulses. According to Air Chief Marshall Angus Houston, pulse periods of about 1.1 second were observed, indicating that the signal originated from the FDR ULB.

Pulse width and duty cycle are most likely governed by a single crystal oscillator and are thus sufficiently stable for signal integration etc. Of course, as Ocean Shield moves relative to the ULB, pulse phase will change with the effective sound path length between the ULB and the TPL.

Careful evaluation of (i) pulse phase; (ii) sound intensity; and (iii) ultrasound doppler shift of recorded signals correlated with the time and precise TPL location should help narrow the scope of further searches.

[Sheep Guts]

oldoberon,

The small search area highlighted on the map is where The Ocean Shield is now ( Marine tracker website) and that's what they've highlighted for the sonar buoys. If my eyes are correct.

Also interesting on Marine tracker is the warship HMAS Toowoomba is already coming back from Exmouth probably for supplies to the other ships. Nice to a have a speedy supply ship. I'm wandering if these promised German Submersibles capable of 6000m are on board. Also shows HMS Echo heading towards Ocean Shields search zone as well.

Live Ships Map - AIS - Vessel Traffic and Positions - AIS Marine Traffic (http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/home?level0=100)

[HighEyeQueue]

FinalIy!! After yearzzz of reading and learning (most of the time, anyway) and being seriously amused at clever comments/retorts, I can post on a topic that I have a wee bit of experience with... In my former life, I was heavily involved with offshore ROV engineering/installations, specifically the launch and recovery of such. My first out of university project was designing a towfish and it's deployment package to be used to 'talk' with an AUV. Now, I'm a mommy, who has nothing better to do (I wish!) but hang out with you guys.

Anyhoo, I'm not sure of the Phoenix towfish's exact spec, but using a depressor wing serves to decrease the length of cable necessary to be payed out to achieve depth. Without a wing, the ratio is something like 4:1, ie 4x amount of cable for a desired depth vs. with a wing, ratio becomes something like 2:1 (not sure of exactness, I'm going off of memory). I was wondering the same, whether they were using a wing. I searched a bunch looking for broader/more installation/operations view(s) - I was actually curious in the installed winch - to see if a wing was present, but haven't seen anything in the sparse amount of ops pics from the Shield. Perhaps they're using one? If I had to guess, I'd say they would want to take advantage of lesser cable payout (and others mentioned below). It's probably just that noone's taken a shot of it as it is placed on tow cable after a specified length of payout, and at this point, the 'star of the show' TPL is long gone subsea. :)

I do know that a towfish's design is also an important factor in determining whether a wing is deemed necessary because some designs 'fly' better than others. The design I chose for my particular application looks similar to the Phoenix one out there, yet it is a larger version where the housing (hollow inside) was deeper to accommodate the mounting of the 'modems' (one was like 20" or so tall) inside. Point being that towfish designs modelled after nature, ie think sting rays, whose electromechanical termination placement on fish is engineered correctly (our fish flew nose down several degrees) serves to help it 'fly' more consistently at depth:oh:. I agree with all points made earlier about benefits of using a wing re tow cable harmonics and isolating the termination (that's a biggie when you're talking limiting factors). Utilizing a bend restrictor (essentially a rubber 'tube' on tow cable located just after the electromech term, designed with incrementally larger diameter thicknesses along length of restrictor) serves to keep the cable from assuming too acute of an angle during operation, which is essential.

I'm thinking the reason for the chosen 2 naut speed is simply for truly zeroing in on ping location as to not 'miss it' and when ping's located, that they get enough recorded data in a specific region along path for analysis purposes. It also indeed could be to keep cable harmonics at bay, to keep lower forces on electromechanical term because higher speed equals increased drag equals higher forces at term connection (kevlar term is weaker than steel 'potted' type), and/or the tow cable's strength, ie the max design load of the cable may be encroached upon at deeper depths in cases like this at higher speeds. Kevlar's great and all, but a parted cable isn't pretty. And a lost tool is even less pretty haha.

A huge thanks to you guys for the immense knowledge and entertainment.

PS. Reason I believe a TPL AUV isn't readily available is there's rare demand for such a tool at exorbitant costs of design/manufacturing. Dolphins would definitely be cheaper to train haha. :)

[Mahatma Kote]

The reason the pinger detectors are looking for signals over an extended range of frequencies is because the speed of sound in water varies due to pressure changes with depth as well as salinity changes.

The speed varies up to 10% depending on conditions.

This in itself is no problem if the detector and sender are at the same salinity and pressure. However if you have a detector in a different pressure and salinity layer to the source the detected frequency will be altered - doppler shifted if you will - by up to 10% either side of nominal. Pulse duration will also be affected but pulse interval won't be altered.

This also means that a signal detected by a deep towed detector will be different frequency to a shallow towed detector.

[Sheep Guts]

Ten News Tweet :

TEN Eyewitness News ‏@channeltennews · 23m
The command centre coordinating the #MH370 search moves to an RAAF base near Exmouth in W.A




This has been corrected now only the Wedgetail operation is based out of RAAF Learmonth not the Search Coordination and Control it seems to be staying in RAAF Pearce.

Thanks to ONETRACK for info.

[Communicator]

However if you have a detector in a different pressure and salinity layer to the source the detected frequency will be altered - doppler shifted if you will - by up to 10% either side of nominal.

Not so.

The frequency of sound transmitted by the ULB may be impacted by the water pressure etc. in which the transducer operates. However, for a stationary transmitter-receiver (hydrophone) pair, the frequency received will be identical to that transmitted.

Slight frequency variations could, of course, occur if the effective transmission path length through the ocean water between transmitter and hydrophone changes due to currents, changes in temperature, salinity, pressure etc.

[TRW Plus]

So now we are asked to believe that this plane flew for 5-6 hours at about 250 knots? Is that even possible? What could that tell us about the events before the turn southward?

[Shadoko]

(alph2z) If you plot a straight great circle line from NILAM to the magnetic south-pole you get extremely close to the search site of Ocean Shield* (last satellite ping not shown but passes over search site).

NILAM (western tip of Indonesia) is at the upper left of the image. Search site is small yellow thumbnail west of northern Australia. Magnetic south-pole is in lower right corner of image.

[180 degree magnetic heading from western tip of indonesia]IMHO, I don't think so: magnetic declination is very low (around 1°W) near Bandah Aceh: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/28/Mv-world.jpg
With a 180° magnetic heading from western tip of Indonesia, you will fly quite true South at the beginning, with the track slowly turning East and more and more faster. I don't know how to draw the track on GEarth map.

[Sheep Guts]

This is interesting except they didn't get the FDR. Lets hope they can get both with MH370. Its a tough ask.

South African Airways Flight 295 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_African_Airways_Flight_295)

[onetrack]

@Sheep Guts - I don't think that that news item is particularly correct about the "command centre" moving to Learmonth.
Perth is the sensible centre for command due to the availability of every requirement - from fuel, to food, to communications, spares and servicing.

Learmonth has been activated as a base for the Wedgetails. It's normally operated in a "ready" state - but its location and the much lower availability of all necessary requirements to support this huge operation, would make it a poor choice for overall command.

I doubt very much whether Chinese military Iluyshins will be allowed to operate from what is an important Australian military airbase.
I'm hazarding an educated guess there's military stuff at Learmonth that's a whole lot more sensitive, military-wise, than what's at Pearce.

Learmonth base activated for MH370 search | usanews.com (http://www.news.net/article/1171664?utm_source=outbrain&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=outbrainamplify)

[Datayq1]

mesoman:
AMSA :: Australian Maritime Safety Authority (http://www.amsa.gov.au/media/incidents/mh370-search.asp)
For 4-10-14 map try:
https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/asset.amsa.gov.au/MH370+Day24/Charts/2014_04_10_searcharea_close.pdf

[FLY400]

A general information sheet on the capabilities and specifications of the Bluefin-21 Underwater Autonomous Vehicle (AUV) is available at
http://www.bluefinrobotics.com/assets/Downloads/Bluefin-21-Product-Sheet.pdf
This is the vehicle that will be sent down to attempt to find, map and photograph the wreckage.

[mm43]

The following from AMSA (https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/asset.amsa.gov.au/MH370+Day24/Charts/2014_04_10_cumulative_search_handout.pdf) provides a more detailed look at todays search areas. The Sonar buoy drop is in the area Ocean Shield is currently working (marked by a very small yellow triangle).

http://oi57.tinypic.com/34f1yqe.jpg

[thommo101]

The Sonobuoys that will be dropped as listening devices in the larger search area are indeed broad spectrum passive listening devices. The modifications to the aircraft equipment might allow for a narrow frequency spectrum to be more closely monitored so that the returned signal will only scan the chosen frequency range around 37.5kHz

The modifications to the aircraft were to temp-fit new sonobuoy receivers and software capable at looking at the extended frequency range of the sonobuoys they are using.

The sonobuoys continuously transmit their wideband acoustic data which is received by the aircraft. The crew will then focus their attention in the higher frequency bands but all frequencies are available for display at the receiver.

[BillS]

AIS for Ocean Shield updated at 04:50 UTC.
Still on the same 113 pass at 1.7KTS

Echo has slowed from the original 15.5KTS to 11KTS but still on original heading with possible ETA in search zone of ~11:00 but it seems likely to stay out of the immediate area until OS has completed the TPL scans

[Propduffer]

So now we are asked to believe that this plane flew for 5-6 hours at about 250 knots? Is that even possible? What could that tell us about the events before the turn southward? You might want to read silvertate's post #9728 which went up a couple of hours before your post; he explains IAS - TAS and how altitude affects ground speed.

Another factor is how far north MH370 flew in order to not have raised any undue attention from the Indonesians. The last reported radar sighting of MH370 was in the vicinity of waypoint NILAM (Lat: 6.756389 Lon: 95.976389) An Indonesian spokesperson has stated that MH370 did not pass over Indonesian territory so we know the flight did not make its turn south at that point but how far north beyond NILAM it may have traveled is open to question. Probably the shortest conceivable route would have it going to NOPEK (6° 36' 14N 94° 25' 0E) and then possibly to NISOK ( 3° 2' 54N 92° 0' 0E) and from there joining airway M641 south.

However if the flight had followed that route, its path northbound from the Malacca Strait and the turn south would have been visible to Indonesian radar and that might have caused the Indonesians to add two and two and suspect they were seeing the missing Malaysian airliner. So it is possible that it continued on northward from NILAM until it was sure to be beyond Indonesian radar.

And of course the flight altitude would affect the range of visibility to Indonesian radar; and that information is unknown.

[recanted]

An Indonesian spokesperson has stated that MH370 did not pass over Indonesian territory

No, they aren't saying that. They are saying they do not have it on radar and have no evidence that it skirted Indonesia / Sumatra. That's quite a different statement.

Some research into Indonesia radar capabilities leaves me feeling strongly that MH370 could have headed south across Indonesia from IGARI or WMKN or WMKD.

A common theme here - Indonesia seeing nothing; Malaysia radar reports untrustworthy; Thailand unable to hang their had on a 'strange' return - Singapore saying nothing - adds up to an uncomfortable picture for all of them -- MH370 most certainly crossed airspace of one or more yet no one knows where. That's the only 'conspiracy' theory that makes sense and it's simply one of embarrassment.

A route south from near the last known point (hand off to Ho Chi Minh) can't be ruled out at all. Overcomplicating things and relying on radar reports or capabilities that seem to be quite unreliable has caused most to look elsewhere.

IMO the current ping locator search is happening where it is happening based on flight at FL120 on close to due south heading from somewhere on the north east side of Malaysia due to a failed approach, likely all dead on board.

We'll find out soon.

[Howard Hughes]

The Malaysian Govt states that "criminal" events occurred with Flt 370.
They then stated that non of the passengers were of interest in their investigation! So which is it?
Andy...remember 9/11? Different airlines, different cities...same type plane.
It is important to keep an open mind, that's why the World was caught with their pants down on 11/9!

As I have said many times before on this thread, it is more than likely to have been something that was previously un-considered prior, just like AF447! My money is still on a catastrophic event!

[phil gollin]

Lots of concentration on the civilian ships (and ADV) searching for some wreckage, how about any submarines ?

The RN sent a nuclear sub - no updates as to where she might be.

The Australians have some ( 4 ????? ) Collins class submarines which were subject to a very acrimonious procurement process - here there has been no mention of their deployment.

And, of course, the US has a few subs knocking around.

Submarines have extremely sophisticated underwater listening equipment and the lack of publicity is odd.

[sooty655]

Lots of concentration on the civilian ships (and ADV) searching for some wreckage, how about any submarines ?

The RN sent a nuclear sub - no updates as to where she might be.

The Australians have some ( 4 ????? ) Collins class submarines which were subject to a very acrimonious procurement process - here there has been no mention of their deployment.

And, of course, the US has a few subs knocking around.

Submarines have extremely sophisticated underwater listening equipment and the lack of publicity is odd.

Submarines do indeed have extremely sophisticated underwater listening equipment and the lack of publicity is normal and exactly what would be expected. :ugh:

[Wader2]

The RN sent a nuclear sub - no updates as to where she might be.

Why would we need to know where she is?

[mm43]

Originally Posted by phil gollin View Post
The RN sent a nuclear sub - no updates as to where she might be.Lets get it clear, once and for all time. Submarines of whatever color have never been designed for doing what is required in these circumstances.

The French sent L'Emerauld (a nuclear sub) to aid in the initial search for AF447. The first problem that had to be addressed was that their sonar detection was not aligned to the ULB frequency of 37.5kHz. That with some software updates and testing on another Rubic class sub was achieved. Probably too late in the calendar of events.

So, other than making use of their sonar, providing it can address the task, subs are of no particular benefit when comes to searching for aircraft that have become seacraft or any such like UFOs.

[Wader2]

Recanted Malaysia radar reports untrustworthy

Are you saying they lied? Are you saying they created that radar plot they showed the Chinese?

Or are you saying they are unreliable rather than untrustworthy?

[mmurray]

The Chief Coordinator of the Joint Agency Coordination Centre, Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston (Ret'd), has confirmed that whilst conducting an acoustic search this afternoon a RAAF AP-3C Orion aircraft has detected a possible signal in the vicinity of the Australian Defence Vessel Ocean Shield.

“The acoustic data will require further analysis overnight but shows potential of being from a made-made source,” Air Chief Marshal Houston (Ret'd) said.

“I will provide a further update if, and when, further information becomes available.”


http://www.jacc.gov.au/media/releases/2014/april/mr016.aspx

How are the Orion's being used for acoustic searches ?

[India Four Two]

How are the Orion's being used for acoustic searches ?

Angus Houston announced at the press conference on Wednesday that ADF techs have modified sonobouys to detect the pinger ultrasound frequencies. He said that they would be deployed to complement the Ocean Shield's search. The hydrophones will be suspended 1000' deep.

[beamender99]

BBC News - Malaysia plane MH370: Possible new signal in search (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-26972045)


A plane searching for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has detected a possible new underwater signal, Australian officials say.


An Australian P-3 Orion aircraft picked up the signal in the same area where an Australian vessel detected audio pings earlier this week, officials said.


The signal would require further analysis, but could have been from a "man-made source", officials said.

[Wader2]

How are the Orion's being used for acoustic searches ?

They are using standard sonobuoys (I believe) with 1,000 ft cable length.

The tactic would probably be to 'lay a line' of a given number of buoys, each of which will transmit to the P3 on a discrete frequency for possibly one hour although other times could be set.

After one hour a second line of buoys could be laid a given spacing from the first, and so on so that a curtain is swept through the search area.

What we don't know is what spacing there will be between buoys.

As the ULB is static then once a sonobuoy is in range it will continuously receive the signal which would then be picked up at some point in the monitoring schedule.

The above is of course only one tactic. It is possible they may lay a field of sonobuoys on the premise that the detection possibility will vary with local changes to salinity and temperature.

[onetrack]

@mmurray - The Orion carries 84 sonar buoys. The sonar buoys are dropped and release sophisticated underwater hydrophones that unreel on a 1000' (328M) long cable.
The buoy transmits any signal data discovered, back to the Orion for analysis, through a radio system in its surface unit.
The Orions have been re-configured to find the 37.5kHz signal and to contend with fluctuations in the 37.5kHz signal.

[BreezyDC]

Good summary of Inmarsat, it's support for the MH370 search, and potential for positioning information as a safety feature:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/10/business/international/flight-search-brings-satellite-company-unaccustomed-fame.html?_r=0

[IRCG SMC WHITEY]

Regarding MH370 floating wreckage, if any, the following is from The Australian filed on Jan 6th 2014. "AN eight-metre boat believed lost eight months ago after being capsized by a freak wave off Exmouth Western Australia has been found 4000 nautical miles away, washed up on an island (Mayotte) off the coast of Madagascar."

Doing some maths that works out at approx 0.7kts drift.
MH370 was "lost" on 8th March, it is now 10th April say 33 days ago.
I estimate wreckage has drifted 550Nm and dispersed over a vast area. No doubt some may well end up in Mayotte in due course!

[Old Ozzie]

Refer to my post #9674

It was Commodore Levy (Sp) who mentioned at the Wednesday briefing that the RAAF had modified the aircraft systems to allow the deployment of the AP-3C Orions to undertake a passive search in the area. As an ex fish head the use of a sonobuoy pattern in the ocean to detect and localise a target is one of the first and basic detection methods used in Anti Submarine Warfare for over 50 years.

If the ping stays long enough a series of bearings can be obtained, or they were able to in the older P2 and P3 aircraft equipment that would greatly reduce the area of probability for the final underwater search phase.

What a wonderful effort that is going into this search.

[Lonewolf_50]

Presumption:
Beacon emissions are what are being hard. Beacon is still attached to FDR/CVR which is still attached to 9M-MRO.

Concerns:
1. Bottom contour of the local area. If it's particularly rough, filled with valleys and peaks, sound could be reflecting/echoing off of the sides of underwater bluffs or cliffs (and other terrain features) adjacent to site of wreckage. That would have an impact on signal quality, but I am pretty sure the current equipment can account for that. From previous posts, the estimate that bottom is "silty" argues against bottom bounce sound path being available.

2. Chronus provided some interesting links to ocean surveys a few decades old. Are more recent surveys available, or would those be "proprietary" information belonging to a minerals development firm?

3. Recovery effort: what, beyond the CVR/DFDR, would be necessary to recover? As deep as that area looks to be, raising the whole thing seems unnecessary. The salvage/search effort of AF447, and its limitations, informs this question.

4. Related to 3, political/cultural issues in re body recovery? How serious, how expensive? But, as some have discussed earlier from the pathology point of view, would not examining some of the dead provide a clue regarding how all of the people on board died?

Unrelated point: Driver, if your hypothesis is that somebody shot it down, the info released to the public argues against that. If you insist on pursuing a conspiracy theory ... consider how much trouble the Malaysian government have had in dealing with the press. I don't think they have the wherewithal to cover up such a thing.

[nfmike]

Lets get it clear, once and for all time. Submarines of whatever color have never been designed for doing what is required in these circumstances.

The French sent L'Emerauld (a nuclear sub) to aid in the initial search for AF447. The first problem that had to be addressed was that their sonar detection was not aligned to the ULB frequency of 37.5kHz. That with some software updates and testing on another Rubic class sub was achieved. Probably too late in the calendar of events.

So, other than making use of their sonar, providing it can address the task, subs are of no particular benefit when comes to searching for aircraft that have become seacraft or any such like UFOs

I think you understate their potential. Most of the equipment currently involved is not designed for what they are being used for in this search.

Modern military submarines have extremely sensitive passive sonar system with direction finding capabilities, so much so that those capabilities are highly classified. Whether the U.S., for example, would allow such resources to be leveraged or if they could even be placed in time is another question.

Ultimately, the decision by any government to deploy a submarine indicates there is at least some thought that the platform might be useful, so the current activity belies your overbroad statement.

[Ian W]

Lets get it clear, once and for all time. Submarines of whatever color have never been designed for doing what is required in these circumstances.

The French sent L'Emerauld (a nuclear sub) to aid in the initial search for AF447. The first problem that had to be addressed was that their sonar detection was not aligned to the ULB frequency of 37.5kHz. That with some software updates and testing on another Rubic class sub was achieved. Probably too late in the calendar of events.

So, other than making use of their sonar, providing it can address the task, subs are of no particular benefit when comes to searching for aircraft that have become seacraft or any such like UFOs.

I would have thought that the submarine would be told to keep well clear and not distort things while purpose built ULB locators do their work. Not to mention the problems with staying clear of a few kilometers of cable.

Once the ping location has been narrowed down as much as possible and the search moves to sonar searches of the bottom, then the submarine may have a use as a faster way of carrying out a 'quick and dirty' search for metallic debris on the sea bed. But I doubt if their work and results or not will be publicized they are not called the silent service for nothing.

[12mp]

The BBC interviewer asked the Minister if he was embarrassed that an aircraft had flown undetected across his country. The Minister responded by asking the BBC interviewer whether, had they detected the aircraft and scrambled interceptors, the right thing to do would have been to shoot down a civilian aircraft. The BBC interviewer countered by asking the Minister how he knew it was a civilian aircraft and why, if he knew it was a civilian aircraft, he ordered a search in the Gulf Of Thailand, which is 180* in the opposite direction if the aircraft's flight path. The Minster looked as if he was about to walk out of the interview. As David Cameron (British Prime Minister) recently said (in reference to something unrelated): Muppets!

The link is http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-26972045. The interview should still be somewhere on the BBC website.

[onetrack]

Lonewold 50 - We have no real idea of the sea floor conditions in the search zone, apart from that sea floor mapping done decades ago.
This is one of the most unexplored sea bottom regions in the world.

The best we know is from that old mapping - and that is, that the sea floor in the region largely consists of soft, fine, silty clayey sediments.
Think heavy consistency mangrove mud, under 8000-9000psi pressure. :uhoh:

Personally, I'd be deeply concerned about the suction effect of trying to retrieve any wreckage from such material, after having gained extensive experience in trying to recover items buried deeply, in fine silty clayey sediments, on land! :(

[Spotl]

An interesting online part of an Australian media web site is providing up-to-date stories on the search. It can be found here: Plane Talking (http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking/)

Ben Sandilands, the journalist, also provides other aviation stories.

[Carjockey]

RMAF deployed search aircraft on March 8, but did not inform anyone - The Malaysian Insider (http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/rmaf-deployed-search-aircraft-on-march-8-but-did-not-inform-anyone)

[sandiego89]

Sandiego89 suggested that the 777 has an excellent safety record it does. However it does have history of MEC electrical fires which could be the initial cause of this incident. I suggest that he reads 9392 & 9395 to get the background The AAIB report of the US incident in Feb 2007 made several recommendations which were not fully taken up by Boeing & the FAA. Smoke & fire on an a/c can be killers, as such it may have been the trigger for what happened to MH370


OK Walnut I read it, and yes I think everyone on this forum agrees that smoke and fire can be disasterous, I was just disagreeing with your conclusion in post 9170 that this case "has to be assumed...to be mechanical" based on cases of intentional human action begin rare.

[Lonewolf_50]

With respect, this is a non-story (http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/rmaf-deployed-search-aircraft-on-march-8-but-did-not-inform-anyone)Carjockey.
A senior Malaysian government official has revealed that the Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) had scrambled search aircraft at 8am on the morning of March 8, soon after Malaysia Airlines had reported that flight MH370 was missing.
Makes sense. Get some eyes up in the air, be already on station as people on the ground try to figure out the situation and where the LKP is to start a search.
In a surprising new development,
Not A New Development. This tidbit is "filling in the blanks of a month old story."
CNN reported today that it was informed by the official that the RMAF search aircraft were scrambled well before authorities had corroborated data indicating that the missing commercial aircraft had turned back westward from its last-known location over the South China Sea. Per above, they knew something was amiss, and got some planes in the air to have a look. Good job to at least have a look, rather than sitting about twiddling their thumbs.
According to CNN, the source also told them that RMAF did not inform the Department of Civil Aviation nor anyone in the search and rescue operations team until March 11, three days after the aircraft disappeared. BFD. If they'd found something, doubtless they'd have let someone know.

[paultr]

Lonewolf
4. Related to 3, political/cultural issues in re body recovery? How serious, how expensive? But, as some have discussed earlier from the pathology point of view, would not examining some of the dead provide a clue regarding how all of the people on board died?

This must be a huge dilemma for the organisers of the recovery operation. They surely would want to examine some of the bodies but how could they retrieve some but not all ? The Chinese hold the remains on the dead with great reverence although surprisingly cremation is now widely accepted (I suppose it is a case of needs must) but always the remains are interred in a family plot and this is visited each year for 'grave sweeping'. I think they are going to have to recover the whole plane if this is in any way possible.

[Wader2]

What is your source for this?

The source, quoted yesterday, see post #9648 from recanted, was the acting transport minister.

He said he had had the Chief of the Malaysian Defence Force contact his Indonesian counterpart.

Subsequent discuss in this thread suggested that what he said may have been a limited answer.

Source would appear to have been quoted in thestar.com 7 April.

[Mozella]

" ..........................the use of a sonobuoy pattern in the ocean to detect and localise a target is one of the first and basic detection methods used in Anti Submarine Warfare for over 50 years."

As an Ex-Navy pilot, I'm wondering why some agency, aircraft company, or even the CVR/FDR makers, didn't previously contract for a thousand or two sonobuoy's especially configured to detect these signals, perhaps with a cable depth option of greater than 1000 feet. There should have been a stack of these devices sitting in some warehouse just waiting for the next airliner to go down at sea, especially where the water is deep or the exact crash location isn't known.

These special sonobuoys could then be flown anywhere in the world and scattered, if necessary, over a wide area without interfering with any other concurrent search effort. Plenty of aircraft are capable of deploying these devices.

I don't understand why they have to modify an anti-submarine sonobuoy a month after MH370 went down, especially given the Air France search of several years ago.

[roninmission]

HMS Echo now seems to be at edge of Ocean Shield's search area doing a much reduced speed of 7 knots

[Lonewolf_50]

I would be surprised if they planned to recover a sample rather than everything they can.
Not to be undertaken lightly. At a depth of over 10,000 feet, get remote vehicle into the cabin, get a grip on body, bring it to surface, get it into an appropriate box/bag/container, keep it on ice so that it doesn't rot away/become a health hazard. Rinse and repeat 238 more times ... presuming all bodies are still with the aircraft. Grim business. :uhoh:

[Propduffer]

The source, quoted yesterday I believe, was the Malaysian Minister or Defence or similar top Airman who spoke with his Indonesian opposite number.I was hoping for something more specific than that, like the actual quote with a date, source etc. Are you posting under two handles?

[Lonewolf_50]

I see your point, Carjockey, and we sort of agree. The points you make weren't what the story was going on about. ;)

If the initial reaction was to begin with own assets, and they then later called for help because their first estimate on where to look didn't pay off, how is that different from usual procedures?

The larger question strikes me as

"What was going on between about 2 in the morning and 8 in the morning as it became clear that the aircraft wasn't going where it was supposed to be going, and had been out of contact"
rather than
"you went looking for it and told nobody else that you went looking for it."
If the ATC's, military and civil aviation authorities of neighboring countries had been informed of the situation immediately, the chances of 370's flight path being tracked would have increased dramatically and we would not be faced with the present situation.
Not sure if that is true or not, but my gut feeling is that you are right.

Cheers.

[Wader2]

If the ATC's, military and civil aviation authorities of neighboring countries had been informed of the situation immediately, the chances of 370's flight path being tracked would have increased dramatically and we would not be faced with the present situation.

I thought it had been agreed or presumed that they were looking for a ditched aircraft rather than a missing one.

The RMAF response would have been for surface search and not an air search. Depending on what they had available they might either have set up for a day search or an immediate launch to locate survivors based on the ELT. There was of course no ELT so where would you start a night search?

[Lonewolf_50]

Wader2, I think the question being asked about the time between about 0200 and 0800 (KL time) is "why no air search/scramble." I don't think anyone would fault the Malaysians for looking on the surface after first light ...

Regarding that gap.

"What did the folks who got the info that an aircraft had not reported in/was missing think the problem was?"


Did they think it was simply lost comm? Maybe.
Did they think it had gone down? Most likely
Did they think that there'd been a Payne Stewart type problem (depressurization) and was flying about with no hand at the wheel? Maybe.

If so, they'd probably expect to hear from another agency when it wandered further into foreign airspace.

Did they think it was hijacked? Probably not, given a lack of a hijack code
Other estimates inserted here _______________
So what do you do?

Did RMAF have any radar contacts that were heading toward sensitive areas, or 9-11 type targets in KL or other major city?
Assessment was probably "no" on that score. If no, why scramble fighters?
The depressurization scenario would be the assumption where one probably would ... but where was it? Fighters don't have infinite fuel. Did Malaysia have a ready AAR tanker on alert?

Was there certainty that it had gone down, rather than it being still in the air in the early period of the 0200 - 0800 gap?
Probably not.
Was the first practical time to start a search for a downed aircraft during daylight?
Yes.
Well I'll be, they sent some planes up after sunrise to go and have a look.

Seems to me that morning launch is a non story.

The coordination and comms questions, 0200ish to 0800, may be a story. Depends on the facts and what the investigation uncovers.

[James7]

.
ECHO
HMS Echo now seems to be at edge of Ocean Shield's search area doing a much reduced speed of 7 knots


Most likely getting ready for the go ahead. They will not want any submersibles in the area until the Black Box batteries have totally died or they have a really good idea where the plane is.

The weakening signals will give them a more accurate location.

I think the retired AM is doing a great job. He will not be rushing anything that is for sure.

[BillS]

Both Echo & Ocean Shield have maintained locations for over 30mins at opposite ends of the last search pass.
The next AIS data will be interesting.

[Carjockey]

@Lonewolf

The larger question strikes me as "What was going on between about 2 in the morning and 8 in the morning as it became clear that the aircraft wasn't going where it was supposed to be going, and had been out of contact"rather than "you went looking for it and told nobody else that you went looking for it.We don't know what was going on between 2.00am & 8.00am, but something was obviously wrong because the aircraft transponder and comms were "off" or "disabled" for whatever reason. The question must surely be why didn't ATC pick up on this and alert the civil and military authorities of neighboring countries immediately? Why the big delay?

[Leightman 957]

RE Lonewolf #9753: "1. Bottom contour of the local area. If...valleys and peaks....sound could be reflecting/echoing..."

I believe I have read all posts and do not recall any that address whether wreckage located next to a largely vertical and non-sedimented seafloor face (cliff) would reflect pings directionally, and if so might increase distances that a ping could be heard. By now it is improbable that any wreckage is perched high on a promentory with no impediments to pinging in every direction, so ping blanketing must be occuring. Valleys would have an axis; deep circular depressions would not; narrow chasms would have an axis but short duration of pings if transecting, etc. If a pinger was located between two cliffs and a receptor perpendicular to those axes, to what degree would an echo represent additional information? The questions are distinct from thermoclines and salinity issues. Could someone with experience speak to these several situations?

Ocean Shield is not close to the large sea floor variations to the NW and SW but despite sediment the sea floor near it might be quite jagged relative to wreckage. The two hour acquisition a few days ago would seem suggestive.

[Lonewolf_50]

Carjockey:
I was under the impression that Viet Nam ATC alerted someone in Malaysia ATC. (around 0130-0140 or a bit after, when their attempt to contact the aircraft they expected went for naught) What happened within the various bits of Malaysian bodies who keep track of such things remains unclear. I am not sure that the assumptions you are making are correct, but your questions are well asked.
but something was obviously wrong because the aircraft transponder and comms were "off" or "disabled" for whatever reason. What became obvious was that the flight was not on scheduled route. What seems to have become apparent was that attempts to contact and pick it up on secondary via squawk were unsuccessful.
The question must surely be why didn't ATC pick up on this and alert the civil and military authorities of neighboring countries immediately?
Good questions, but the answers aren't on this forum. They are within the various agencies in Malaysia.
I believe I have read all posts and do not recall any that address whether wreckage located next to a largely vertical and non-sedimented seafloor face (cliff) would reflect pings directionally, and if so might increase distances that a ping could be heard.
This is why I asked the question about bottom contour. :ok: The terrain underwater can influence sound propagation.

[India Four Two]

then the submarine may have a use as a faster way of carrying out a 'quick and dirty' search for metallic debris on the sea bed.

Please can we drop the submarine stories? As many posters have pointed out, submarine sonars are not suited to listening in the 30-40 kHz range.

As far as magnetometers go, you cannot detect an engine-sized lump of steel in a depth of 4000 m, using a P-3's MAD or from a surface-towed magnetometer.

A submarine might be able to get one down to a depth of perhaps 500 m, but that still isn't going to help.

[Carjockey]

@Clear Prop

Re the 2am - 8am time span:
Be careful not to look back with the benefit of hindsight and imagine that everyone was wide awake at 2am thinking "Right then! Emergency! Now what?" it was a calm Friday night and the initial moments of this emergency started after the flight had handed off from its departure nation and began flight in an oceanic territory with moderate to poor coverage.
Unless you have significant information of distress beforehand, it is normal not to initiate an alert phase until after the aircraft is confirmed as not arriving where it departed to.It's this kind of casual attitude that I find extremely frightening. No matter if it's Friday or any other day of the week; no matter if it's "calm", no matter what time of day or night it is. An aircraft disappeared from ATC radar and it seems that no one was sufficiently concerned to alert all relevant authorities until six or seven hours after the event. You think that's OK?

[underfire]

The BF21 can be equipped with a mag and sidescan with working depth of 6000M.

You can tow an array at any depth you want, as long as you have cable...

[Ian W]

@Lonewolf

We don't know what was going on between 2.00am & 8.00am, but something was obviously wrong because the aircraft transponder and comms were "off" or "disabled" for whatever reason. The question must surely be why didn't ATC pick up on this and alert the civil and military authorities of neighboring countries immediately? Why the big delay?

From Malaysia ATC point of view nothing was wrong. The aircraft had been successfully handed over to Ho Chi Minh controller in Vietnam. Controller now stops watching that aircraft as it is not hers/his any more. The controller that should take action - and did - was the Vietnamese controller. The repeated calls and requests to call and listen were all initiated by the Vietnamese controller - as they should be - it was her/his aircraft. However, then the Vietnamese went further and said to Malaysia, MH370 seems to have turned back. Malaysia seems to have said - can't see it - handed it to you, not my problem. This is the problem with using cooperative surveillance systems.

The stop squawk and no VHF contact at the handoff meant that there was an administrative problem on who was responsible for initiating SAR. The Malaysian controllers cannot be expected to take SAR action on an aircraft that they handed off in good order, and could then no longer see. In theory an aircraft becomes overdue 30 minutes after it should have landed. That was several hours into the future.

This is yet another area where old protocols are no longer adequate or sensible. I think that this MH370 and to some extent AF447 losses are going to result in a major international rework of procedures and protocols on aircraft overdue/loss of contact, aircraft tracking, and the international protocols for setting up accident investigations.

[N5329K]

Perhaps you're thinking of active sonar? Not applicable here, nor is it much used on the boats for that matter. But the OBERON's Type 197 passive set is very capable of receiving and recording underwater beacon signals in the required KHz band.

[overthewing]

From that same Malaysian Insider article:

The source also revealed that investigators have confirmed that MH370's pilot, Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, was the last person to speak to air traffic controllers with the words "Good night Malaysian three-seven-zero".

According to CNN, the Malaysian source told them that there was nothing unusual about the voice and there was no indication of stress. Confirmation of the voice belonging to Zaharie came after police played the recording to five other Malaysia Airlines pilots who knew the pilot and co-pilot, first Officer Fariq Abdul Hamid.

RMAF deployed search aircraft on March 8, but did not inform anyone - The Malaysian Insider (http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/rmaf-deployed-search-aircraft-on-march-8-but-did-not-inform-anyone)

[hamster3null]

@Lonewolf

I cannot agree that this is a non-story. The minute 370 dropped off the ATC radar, major alarm bells should have been ringing. According to this report RMAF began their search at 8.00am; according to earlier reports 370's transponder and other comms were 'turned off' or became disabled around six or seven hours earlier. Why the big delay? If the ATC's, military and civil aviation authorities of neighboring countries had been informed of the situation immediately, the chances of 370's flight path being tracked would have increased dramatically and we would not be faced with the present situation.

To speak figuratively, you're imagining a "totalitarian state", where you should be seeing a patchwork of chiefdoms which grudgingly deal with each other when they have to, but generally don't like each other very much and don't take orders from one another.

This particularly applies to interactions between military and civil aviation authorities. Unless there are specific protocols for dealing with specific emergencies in place, any kind of interaction and any information sharing has to be explicitly authorized by someone high in the chain of command (defense minister cabinet level).

In this paradigm, getting RMAF fighters in the air by 8:00 AM on the night of the disappearance is a lightning quick reaction.

[MountainBear]

It's this kind of casual attitude that I find extremely frightening. No matter if it's Friday or any other day of the week; no matter if it's "calm", no matter what time of day or night it is. An aircraft disappeared from ATC radar and it seems that no one was sufficiently concerned to alert all relevant authorities until six or seven hours after the event. You think that's OK? That's the wrong question. Let me tell you what I think is extremely frightening. I think it's extremely frightening when people obsess about the last accident as an excuse to avoid thinking about a rational approach to policy. There is no such thing as a risk-less world; it doesn't exist and human being can't make one--we don't have the power.

So the question isn't whether or not losing a plane is OK. It's not OK. The question is what are the costs and benefits to society of one course of action over another? And that means the question is whether losing a plane is an acceptable risk. And given how few planes are actually lost my answer to that question is yes, it is an acceptable risk to lose a plane.

[Bill Harris]

Carjockey:
I was under the impression that Viet Nam ATC alerted someone in Malaysia ATC. (around 0130-0140 or a bit after, when their attempt to contact the aircraft they expected went for naught) What happened within the various bits of Malaysian bodies who keep track of such things remains unclear. I am not sure that the assumptions you are making are correct, but your questions are well asked. I think that this incident may have uncovered a potential loose end in the regional ATC system. Or maybe not. This might be a situation where the regional system looks good "on paper" but in practice may need some fine tuning.

But whatever. I remember that during the major hijacking/ATC incident on 9/11 that there was a lot of confusion during the first few minutes. And those planes were within the same system, in the same country and under radar the whole time.

[Chronus]

I would like to respond to IanW`s post of even date @ 18:27.

The ASEAN states of Brunei, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam responded almost immediately offering varying degrees of SAR assistance. Unfortunately, despite an abundance of resources, the MH370 SAR operation was hampered by poor cooperation and communications, contradictions and an apparent lack of trust in sharing sensitive information between ASEAN countries. Concerns over regional security must have played a significant part in this.

In 2015, ASEAN is expected to put into place an Open Skies Policy, or the Multilateral Agreements on Air Services and the Full Liberalisation of Freight Services, which aims to increase competition in the region’s aviation sector by limiting the restrictions on where airlines can fly and land. With this it is hoped that the region gains more flights, lower costs and greater competition.
The search for MH370 displayed the lack of progress made by ASEAN in developing adequate coordinated maritime Search and Rescue, Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief capabilities.
If anything good is to come of such a monumental tragedy the least we hope for is that it may be the catalyst for ASEAN countries to unite and work together with a common aim of securing all their futures.

Perhaps in the full knowledge and appreciation of the socio-political and economic consequences of this incident that the Malaysian PM has vowed never to abandon the efforts to find the truth behind the mystery of the disappearance of Flight MH370.

[Ian W]

Ian W,
What exactly is a "cooperative surveillance system"?
In over 35 years in ATC, I have never heard that expression, and over the last month, (although not familiar with their local environments), have tried to imagine the mindsets of the offering and receiving controllers involved, many times.

A primary search radar illuminates a target and receives the reflection of its output. It uses the radial the radar antenna is pointing at and the length of time for the reflection to return as range - and then displays these as a primary return in the appropriate position on the controller's display.
A secondary radar sends out repeated queries on 1030Mhz and receives a 'transponder'response on 1090Mhz that is encoded with an octal code and is also followed by a pulse train containing altimeter and sometimes aircraft ID. The radar uses the angle of the antenna and the time of the response to provide bearing and range and puts up a label on the controller's display at the appropriate position with the decoded aircraft information. If the aircraft does not 'transpond' a response - the controller sees nothing - the aircraft is thus 'cooperating' in the surveillance.

Automatic Dependent Surveillance takes this a step furter. The aircraft transmits on 1090Mhz or SATCOM, its position, the time that position was valid, together with a pulse train that carries aircraft ID, Altimeter, and sometimes its future trajectory, etc . The ground system listens to the appropriate frequency and displays a position symbol and label at the position in the message from the aircraft. This is totally cooperative surveillance as without the aircraft transmitting nobody knows where it is. This is why it is called 'Dependent Surveillance' as the other users of the airspace and controllers are 'dependent' on the aircraft transmitting its position.

It would appear that MH370 went from a cooperative target to a non-cooperative target. Worldwide, ATC is more and more dependent on cooperation from the traffic it is controlling.

Hope that helps You can read Automatic Dependent Surveillance (http://www.avionicswest.com/Articles/ADSB.html) for more detail

[Leightman 957]

I do not recall any pings ever having been heard in the search area some hundreds of kms NW of Ocean Shield, or any rationale justifying the concentration of ships there even though they are (mostly) within a current designated search area. Hai Xun 01 has been there for some time and is currently nearly stationary at 0.3kts with two other Chinese ships at 3.3 and 5.6. Yes seperation from Ocean Shield is a result but why the NW search zone and the activity there? Or are reasons simply not known?

[Propduffer]

@Wader2

Thanks for the cite, I had missed part of the earlier post by recanted (#9648). The information at the link he posted tells us that the Indonesians are apparently also revising their earlier releases, but not much else.

In #9648, recanted was making the argument that the flight had flown straight south from IGARI, I believe that to be a previously discounted theory so I didn't open his link or give his post much attention.

Here are the reasons why I reject the "straight south" scenario:

I think there is some confusion about what is meant by a 180 degree turn, which leads back to the old discussion about whether MH370 made a left turn or a right turn at IGARI. The confusion comes from the concidence that the area where the current search is focused (therefore the terminus of the flight) lies very close to the intersection of a heading of 180 degrees from IGARI, and the fact that the flight did make a 180 degree turn from its normal flight path (whether it turned right or left is irrelevant.) The turn from its normal flight path took it over Koto Bharu on a heading of approximately 238 degrees. The aircraft was sighted passing over Koto Bharu and this flight path is in agreement with all previously released information as well as fuel burn calculations.

The 180 degree turn proposed by recanted would have taken it over a large portion of Indonesian airspace and would have put it on a course in the direction of Jakarta (the 180 degree south flight path would have passed within 200nm of Jakarta) and is certain to have not gone unnoticed by the Indonesians.

Once again the focus of the earlier portion of the flight raises the question of "how far north of NILAM did 370 venture before turning south."

The Indonesian "clarification" in the Star interview places the Indonesians as saying that they never had a radar sighting of MH370 at all. This does nothing to discount a northern excursion of MH370 which would have kept it out of Indonesian radar coverage.

[averow]

in reply to Mozella:Now having two of these events under our belts I think that your idea
has some merit. At the very least it would make for excellent training
opportunities for the various Navies of the world. I suspect (unfortunately)
that we may see more of these events either by copycats or terrorists
seeking to create mayhem or embarassment. The devil of course will be
in the details of who might pay for such equipment.

[500N]

Prop

I just don't think they see the need to give infinite detail as to where and why the ships are, just that "searching for debris or preparing for future ops" is enough and go into more detail re locating the pings.


Re "USNS Cesar Chavez is to relieve HMAS Success as SAR supply/support vessel."

They must be chewing through stores / fuel to require replen at sea already
unless another reason ?

[mm43]

@ Lieghtman 957

The major surface search area to the WNW of where Ocean Shield and HMS Echo are currently located, is considered to be the most probable area in which floating debris (if any) will be found if the aircraft had entered the sea where the acoustic search is being undertaken. The difference is the notional drift that will have occurred since the event.

The Mark 1 eyeball surface search is what is required.

[oldoberon]

Underfire oceanShield seems to be leaving the area no approx 15k away from boundary still travelling 332 @2knts

unless doing a huge "turn" to scan north end of area

[jmjdriver1995]

Several posts have commented about the possibility of recovering bodies from the wreckage of MH370 for post mortem examination. While this would be desirable for several reasons, it is probably not at all feasible. First of all, the impact probably would have shattered many if not all of the bodies on the plane, alive at the time or dead for several hours. Five weeks immersion in salt water will do some really ugly things to human tissue. What the water doesn't destroy, marine life likely will. The fish, crabs and other aquatic life we are used to near the surface probably don't exist at 10K to 15K feet deep. But, as confirmed by Trieste and other deep diving submersibles, there definitely is "life" at those depths and those living organisms have to feed on something.

[Lonewolf_50]

jim:
the impact probably would have shattered many if not all of the bodies on the plane, alive at the time or dead for several hour
Not so sure about that. Depends upon how the plane hit the water. How many were in seat belts, at that point? Unknown. Was it a spiral down/smash or some form of ditching? Unknown.

On the less dire side, water that deep is pretty cold. Tissue breakdown would be slowed. On the not to nice side, human bodies aren't very well built for the pressure at that depth.

A grim business, no matter what.

[sSquares]

earth :: an animated map of global wind and weather (http://earth.nullschool.net/#2014/03/09/0000Z/wind/surface/level/orthographic=104.00,-21.00,3000)

[Ian W]

jim:
Not so sure about that. Depends upon how the plane hit the water. How many were in seat belts, at that point? Unknown. Was it a spiral down/smash or some form of ditching? Unknown.

On the less dire side, water that deep is pretty cold. Tissue breakdown would be slowed. On the not to nice side, human bodies aren't very well built for the pressure at that depth.

A grim business, no matter what.

One reason to consider recovery of any bodies is the possibility of personal recordings on smart phones and tablets. These could greatly increase the amount of data for any inquiry. IFF the fuselage is in one piece it may be possible to raise it. The Asiana 'heavy landing'showed how solid the 777 fuselage is.

[oldoberon]

they recovered 75 bodies from af447 after 2 yrs,that was at `13,000ft

75 additional bodies recovered from Air France crash after 2 years - CNN.com (http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/europe/05/31/france.jet.crash/)

[mm43]

Below is an updated graphic of the known tracks made by Ocean Shield while towing the TPL.

http://oi62.tinypic.com/oh4brd.jpg

The latest AIS data is that on the Green track commencing at 10/0822 UTC. At that time the vessel was heading 283°T at 3.0 KTS, and it is assumed that the towing depth has been reduced and she is about to slow and line up for the 293°T track. Towing at 2.0 knots would place her about a mile from the next marked position (15:44) at 15:00. The 15:44 and 16:19 positions are basically the same.

HMS Echo is operating to the East.

EDIT:: The latest graphic shows the Ocean Shield moving on 322°T track, possibly retrieving the TPL. The "stop" between 15:44 and 16:19 could have been to allow the TPL to maximize its depth. The "stop" is highlighted with the Yellow arrow. Ocean Shield heads away to the NW and picks up speed.

At 04:13 HMS Echo is now located near 21°S 104°E. The area of interest is probably very close to her position.

[Alloyboobtube]

This mystery will be solved , the public is deliberately in the dark on this one, because if the authorities don't like what they find it will unfortunately be on the weakest link PILOTS .
Example how could they get the pilots voices mixed up, and that was a simple task.

[Lonewolf_50]

alloyboobtube: how strong is the pilot's union in Malaysia, or at Malaysia Airlines? :confused: Isn't there anyone to act as voice/advocate for the crew on that aircraft?

[Kubarque]

Looks like Ocean Shield is getting out of Dodge. Proceeding away at 7.7 kts/293 degrees. Echo is still outside the pinger search box.

[olasek]

Isn't there anyone to act as voice/advocate for the crew on that aircraft? Accident investigation isn't like a courtroom drama with prosecution and defence. Investigators come up with what is often called the "most probable" cause. NTSB publishes many aircraft accident reports daily and there is no prosecution/defence as pilots are concerned. If you later want some civil lawsuits relating to such accidents - this is where you can get courtroom drama.

[slats11]

I think some people are thinking in retrospect how they would have liked authorities to have acted at the time. But that is often unfair, and 20-20 hindsight is all too easy.

Fact is it was the middle of a routine night right at handover. Could not have been better planned to create doubt and delay. I see some delay and confusion and procrastination as almost inevitable in this setting. It would have been a big call to have immediately escalated things to a more senior level.

Routine things (like transponder failure) are ... well routine.

4 weeks later we are still trying to work out what really happened.

Same as when a child goes missing. Or someone gets diagnosed with a serious illness. Yes in retrospect the alarm could usually have been raised a bit earlier. But do we really want to live in such a world?

I have no idea whether the following oft quoted anecdote is true or not. Probably not exactly. But it does serve to illustrate the different responses inevitable when someone is "primed" versus "out of the blue."

When Jimmy Carter became President [in 1977], an Air Force general promptly came to the Oval Office to explain the procedure for evacuating the Chief Executive if it ever came to that. The general informed Carter that it would take less than five minutes to get him out of the White House and winging toward safety. "Okay," said the President, "go." "Go?" asked the general incredulously. "That's right," said Carter. "Go." The general turned pale and scrambled into action. Aides scurried about. Phones rang. Carter went back to work. Forty-five minutes later, as the general was still shouting orders into a telephone, Carter calmly asked, "Got the time, General?"

[FLY400]

Evey_Hammond those "pink boxes" seem to correspond to the search areas as published By AMSA for each day's search.

I can't find any official legend either but check today's boxes against the boxes on the hand-outs shown at Search and recovery continues for Malaysian flight MH370 (http://www.jacc.gov.au/media/releases/2014/april/mr015.aspx)

[Runcible]

I've been watching the Fox and CNN coverage this morning, where all the theorists are bemoaning the lack of debris and whether or not the black-box pinger batteries are almost spent. It would appear that they are totally disregarding any scientific nexus between the lack of a continuous pinger signal and the total absence of debris.

To me the answer is self-evident:
a. The pinger detections are 2nd or third convergence zone (which in deep water puts the impact area some 100's of miles away from the pinger detections locus - in any direction. And the debris field may be further on in the opposite direction (to the pinger-ensonified area). i.e. debris has floated one way in its wind and current-affected splaying migration, and the pinger detection location is anything up to 180 degrees away directionally (i.e. presently being detected somewhere in the opposite hemisphere of this very largish encirclement of the actual impact area).

b. Because of the I.O.'s sea-floor topography and depth, and the fact that the acoustic sound source for MH370 pingers is ON the bottom, the usual assumptions about bottom bounce propagation over great distances will be to some extent inapplicable. ASW experience has always dealt with a sound source "hiding" beneath a layer (i.e. a steep thermocline) at some intermediate depth - not emanating from a "bottomed" target. In the case of MH370, if it has settled within a sea-floor canyon, anywhere near its vertex, you will have a focused (and thus strengthened) pinger signal compounding the convergence zone effect. There is also an attenuation effect due to any silt and irregularities in the bottom contours (both vertically and horizontally). That can lead to the acoustics displaying a rippling, frequency modified and highly directional characteristic. Those "ripples of sound" have (in my opinion) been passing through the present search area - as they wax and wane. That is a distinct deviation from the toroidal annulus that is the normal ASW experience (the afore-mentioned distorted and incomplete doughnut of sound that reaches up to the towed arrays and passive listening air-deployed sonobuoys).

c. To sum up, it's apparent that the vagaries of sound propagation from a bottomed pinging source in deep water has seduced the searchers into a misbegotten belief that their target is proximate. I doubt very much that it is.

[polarbreeze]

I've checked in on the marine traffic site a number of times since SAR started in that area but have only just noticed the pink boxes. I guess they are new and indicate the SAR focus areas? Can't seem to find a legend that explains them...There's a drop down selector in the top right. One of the entries is "MH370 search area". That's what activates those boxes.

[lucille]

I see Angus Houston has made a cautiously optimistic statement to the effect they have picked up further signals which are consistent with being man made.

Looks like our two Chinese dudes in the inflatable, with an iPhone microphone wrapped in a ziplock bag and dangled under their boat got lucky!

Fingers firmly crossed they will be able to triangulate the remaining few days worth of signals to the point where they can confidently launch the ROV.

If they do locate the aircraft, it will have been due to the genius of the Inmarsat boffins who first narrowed the search area so dramatically. They turned science into magic.:ok:

[Passagiata]

lucille:
Looks like our two Chinese dudes in the inflatable, with an iPhone microphone wrapped in a ziplock bag and dangled under their boat got lucky!

I gather your point is more like, "Looks like they didn't let on about the equipment they were actually using!":cool:

[GAFA]

Press conference at 1:45pm EST. Australian press are saying unconfirmed reports the recorders have been located.

[Sheep Guts]

Paper shuffled,
I agree. When a SAR is initiated and Inmarsat is still getting live handshakes. Maybe they can enable the account so to speak. If Malaysian Airlines had payed for the extra service, they would have had much more info as they had in the case of AF447. I would say this point will be brought up in legal action against the airline by victims families. Bean counters need to be more aware of what to chop or keep as far as Safety is concerned.

[GAFA]

Press conference will be with the Australian PM who is currently in China. Must be big news for him to hold a press conference from there.

[mmurray]

Some information here on the latest rumours

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/unconfirmed-report-says-malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370-black-box-has-been-found/story-fniztvnc-1226880483186

[Airbubba]

News 24 is geo blocked, can only be watched in aus

You can watch Oz TV in the U.S. with a VPN. If you don't know what that is you probably don't have one.

This Malaysian channel has carried almost all of the previous news conferences live and it works in most countries:

Live TV | Malaysia, Breaking news, LIVE streaming | Astro Awani (http://english.astroawani.com/videos/live)

We'll probably get a heads up here when the news conference starts.

That is 0645 UTC correct?

I believe 1:45 pm Perth time is 0545 UTC.

[dxzh]

Link to latest JACC media release 11 April pm - Update on search for Malaysian flight MH370 (http://www.jacc.gov.au/media/releases/2014/april/mr018.aspx). Release reads as follows:

QUOTE:

The Chief Coordinator of the Joint Agency Coordination Centre, Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston (Ret'd), said an initial assessment of the possible signal detected by a RAAF AP-3C Orion aircraft yesterday afternoon has been determined as not related to an aircraft underwater locator beacon.

"The Australian Joint Acoustic Analysis Centre has analysed the acoustic data and confirmed that the signal reported in the vicinity of the Australian Defence Vessel Ocean Shield is unlikely to be related to the aircraft black boxes,” Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston (Ret'd), said.

"Further analysis continues to be undertaken by Australian Joint Acoustic Analysis Centre.

"Today Ocean Shield is continuing more focussed sweeps with the Towed Pinger Locator to try and locate further signals that may be related to the aircraft's black boxes. It is vital to glean as much information as possible while the batteries on the underwater locator beacons may still be active.

"The AP-3C Orions continue their acoustic search, working in conjunction with Ocean Shield, with three more missions planned for today.

"A decision as to when to deploy the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle will be made on advice from experts on board the Ocean Shield and could be some days away.

"On the information I have available to me, there has been no major breakthrough in the search for MH370. I will provide a further update if, and when, further information becomes available.”

UNQUOTE

[Airbubba]

A somewhat confusing 'breaking news' update with headline and URL from CNN :confused::

Australian PM 'very confident' signals are from MH370 black box

By Tom Watkins and Catherine E. Shoichet, CNN

updated 11:50 PM EDT, Thu April 10, 2014

(CNN) -- Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott told reporters in China on Friday that authorities are "very confident" the signals picked up by acoustic detectors are coming from the black box of missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, CNN affiliate Sky News Australia reported.

The remarks came after search officials reported a possible fifth signal detected by a plane on Thursday. But on Friday, the Australian agency coordinating search efforts said that signal "is unlikely to be related to the aircraft black boxes."

"On the information I have available to me, there has been no major breakthrough in the search for MH370," retired Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston said in a statement. "I will provide a further update if, and when, further information becomes available."

It's unclear whether Abbott was referring to four signals detected earlier this week.


5th signal detected 'not likely' from MH370 black boxes, officials say - CNN.com (http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/10/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-plane/index.html)

[Mesoman]

Earlier someone noted that Ocean Shield was departing the acoustic search box at faster than detection speed.

Now, Echo is in the box and almost stationary (.5 kts) - suggesting that they may be doing an active sonar search

Meanwhile, Ocean Shield is headed back towards the box at 2 kts.

[rampstalker]

I read this and must respond

Quote:

Isn't there anyone to act as voice/advocate for the crew on that aircraft?
Accident investigation isn't like a courtroom drama with prosecution and defence. Investigators come up with what is often called the "most probable" cause. NTSB publishes many aircraft accident reports daily and there is no prosecution/defence as pilots are concerned. If you later want some civil lawsuits relating to such accidents - this is where you can get courtroom drama.

I dont think that the press and some of the people that have contributed to this thread have done any justice to both the crew and to the industry.

I keep saying we cannot and must not blame the crew or the aircraft without 150% proof of the events that took the aircraft to where it is.

As for some from this industry that have effectively hanged the crew for being responsible for this I find I cannot accept. This aspect and attitude of those would make me think very hard and fast about them being either crewed or SLF with them up the front.

We dont know what went on up there and as some have said on here that the crew may have tried but failed to recover from a situation. As to what we as yet still do not know.

The captain and FO are from our industry and the protection of reputations rests with us guys untill the facts can prove otherwise.

I see very little support for the crews on here from other flight crews. Or is it because they are not English/Oz/American.

[LH2000]

'Located' would mean visually identified on the bottom of the Ocean.
Clearly this can't be the case.

Why not? If Echo has been able to do scan of a particular area and it is showing clear signs of the wreckage, that would be reasonable to be confident.

When South African Airlines lost a 747 in 1987, after two months of searching for the recorder pingers, a deep sea sonar scan gave them a definite crash site within two days of searching.

If they can find wreckage at 4900m in two days, why is anyone surprised they can do the same more than twenty years later? With MH370 they have pretty much followed the same techniques

[nigf]

Agree with rampstalker (http://www.pprune.org/members/101191-rampstalker)

The crew are innocent until proven otherwise. Everything said so far is speculation even if some facts may point to crew involvement.

JAL123 is a good example where pilots kept the a/c in the air for 32 mins after the vertical stabilizer disintegrated which was never matched by anyone on a simulator.

Japan Airlines Flight 123 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Airlines_Flight_123)

"Elapsed time from the bulkhead explosion to the final crash was estimated at 32 minutes – long enough for some passengers to write farewells to their families.Subsequent simulator re-enactments (of the mechanical failures suffered by Flight 123) failed to produce a better solution, or outcome; despite best efforts, none of the four flight crews in the simulations kept the plane aloft for as long as the 32 minutes achieved by the actual crew."

[Irish21]

I read this and must respond

Quote:

Isn't there anyone to act as voice/advocate for the crew on that aircraft?
Accident investigation isn't like a courtroom drama with prosecution and defence. Investigators come up with what is often called the "most probable" cause. NTSB publishes many aircraft accident reports daily and there is no prosecution/defence as pilots are concerned. If you later want some civil lawsuits relating to such accidents - this is where you can get courtroom drama.

I dont think that the press and some of the people that have contributed to this thread have done any justice to both the crew and to the industry.

I keep saying we cannot and must not blame the crew or the aircraft without 150% proof of the events that took the aircraft to where it is.

As for some from this industry that have effectively hanged the crew for being responsible for this I find I cannot accept. This aspect and attitude of those would make me think very hard and fast about them being either crewed or SLF with them up the front.

We dont know what went on up there and as some have said on here that the crew may have tried but failed to recover from a situation. As to what we as yet still do not know.

The captain and FO are from our industry and the protection of reputations rests with us guys untill the facts can prove otherwise.

I see very little support for the crews on here from other flight crews. Or is it because they are not English/Oz/American.

I think the majority (if not all) here are in support of the Flight/cabin crew...I believe some of the post might only be expressing a point based on the Malaysian Gov't stating that Flt 370 experienced "criminal" action and that they have "cleared the passengers". If you scroll through all of the post from the beginning to now you will see many comments much like yours are support of the Crew. As for the crew not being "English/Oz/American" again I think most pro pilots here can keep religion, race and ethic origin out of their discussion as part of the reason we love to fly is for the simple fact we get to travel & experience different cultures around the world.

[LH2000]

The crew are innocent until proven otherwise. Everything said so far is speculation.

That's true, but the cold hard reality it that "The Crew" have been implicated in accidents significantly more often than not whether wholly or partially at fault.

Of course we very rarely hear of the times The Crew have saved an aircraft, which i am sure i far more common occurrence.

[porterhouse]

Why not? If Echo has been able to do scan of a particular area and it is showing clear signs of the wreckage, ... Why not? Because there is no way to associate 100% a particular scan with a wreckage, at the best you get a something that may look like a wreckage. You still have to get down there to verify. Plus to get a reliable scan they have to lower the submersible and we know they haven't been doing it.

[Northern Hawk]

LH2000,
the "Helderberg" was indeed found with sonar, but the sonar was being towed near the ocean bottom at the end of a 9,000 meter long cable.


HMS Echo has a multibeam echosounder and a sidescan sonar, but I don't know if they can get that equipment down deep. At the very least, they'll want to map the ocean floor...a pre-requisite before sending any AUV down.

[nigf]

That's true, but the cold hard reality it that "The Crew" have been implicated in accidents significantly more often than not whether wholly or partially at fault.

Of course we very rarely hear of the times The Crew have saved an aircraft, which i am sure i far more common occurrence.

If I may speculate too then, this could well be an exception to your analysis. It may in fact be one of the rarely heard occasion where the crew did their best beyond anyone's expectations as in JAL123. So lets extend the same courtesy that we would give a heroic crew until proven otherwise. Until then its all speculation and nothing else. fair dinkum!

[gazumped]

You say that "unless it can be proved 150% that the crew were involved! they cannot be blamed"

What is your point of view about Silk Air in 1997, or Egypt Air in 1999. Do you think a crew member is 150% proved culpable in those accidents?

The burden of proof in a criminal conviction is "beyond reasonable doubt", and damages can be awarded in a civil case " on the balance of probability"

How do you explain MH370 changing heading and altitude several times, without human input? From my understanding there is no way MH370 carried out the manoeuvres it did without intelligent human intervention. If the supposition that the alleged cascading defects so overwhelmed the crew, it is almost unthinkable that NO radio calls were made. Think back to JAL 747 rear bulkhead rupture, the crew were nearly overwhelmed by the cascading defects and were making copious RT calls, the aircraft eventually became unflyable, despite the crews heroic efforts. QF A380 had an enormous workload of cascading defects, but were making many RT calls, the aircraft was severely crippled, but survived.

The assertion that the crew of MH370 had a series if cascading defects, but said nothing, but continued to make intelligent, apparently deliberate MCP inputs, is quite frankly inconsistent with logical preservation of life.

I'm afraid that the Malaysian authorities state the facts when they say that the disappearance of MH370 was a criminal act. The mystery is by whom. But I can state definitively it was not done by a novice aviator.

It will be interesting when the CVR and FDR are recovered as to whether or not they were de-powered ala Silk Air.

[toaddy]

Here's a composite image I've pieced together from various sources for tracks of Ocean Shield and Echo.

http://i1155.photobucket.com/albums/p548/teabone9999/tplPath2_zpse40ceeab.jpg

[GBO]

Does anyone know if the optic fibre repeaters on the underwater submarine cable SEA-ME-WE3, which runs from Perth through the search area to Jakarta, emit any noise? They are powered by internal DC power. Could they be causing interference?

[nigf]

Rampstalker,
I find elements of your post to be very unfortunate (to put it mildly).
May I remind you that it is the lead investigators (ie. Malaysia) who have inferred that there is an ongoing criminal investigation. "Deliberate act" and "criminal act" are but some of the characterizations which they have used.

Fact is that it's far cheaper to blame crew, far more (exponentially) expensive to blame Boeing or MAS any other entity. But this whole argument about who is to blame is a useless waste of time until there is proof. The 239 souls got into MH370 as they were deemed innocent. They should be so until there is proof to say otherwise. In the mean time no amount of speculation makes any difference.

[olasek]

Fact is that it's far cheaper to blame crew, No, the reverse is true, it is far cheaper to blame aircraft manufacturer, airline, there are lawsuits already pending, small army of lawyers already on standby, they only wait for news that wreckage was found. Nobody can make a buck by blaming the crew...

[LH2000]

As a LAME, i just accept that no one thanks me for ensuring the aircraft i inspect and repair are safe to fly. Certainly I'd say its very rare for a pilot to say hey man thanks to keeping our aircraft safe to fly, your the best.

If can be honest i get plenty of groans and moans when i fix an aircraft faster than the crew expected while they watch their duty hours tick by hoping it runs out before the aircraft is fixed.

While speculation is just that, after an accident or incident speculation is rife, and the first thing to be assumed is that something has gone wrong with the aircraft. Some lazy tech has done a dodgy repair.
So by asserting that the crew has done nothing wrong asserts that someone else has.

The basis of all modern aircraft designs is that no single failure should cause an aircraft to crash. Multiple compounding failures are incredibly rare.

So to me its swings and round abouts.

[Glacier pilot]

Do the Malaysian authorities read the experts on this commentary. So now the airplane is placed near the entrance of the Malacca Straits at 5000 feet before it goes off radar. Now not a southbound turn right over Indonesian radar has to be accounted for, but also a climb to conserve fuel to get to the land of pings. How do these dots connect?

[theAP]

rampstalker I agree on what you just wrote below. I have seen many times that posts from those accepted with ease and many of us still keep trying and putting efforts to express our ideas here.:bored:
I see very little support for the crews on here from other flight crews. Or is it because they are not English/Oz/American.

[orbitjet]

Prime Minister Tony Abbott announced his Government was “very confident” that missing flight MH370’s black box recorder had been located.

But his statement seemed to be at odds with a statement released just minutes afterwards by the head of the MH370 search team, Air Chief Marshall Angus Houston.

AND

Government sources told news.com.au they were confident the Prime Minister’s remarks were factual.

It is understood search teams will not announce the discovery of the black box until the flight recorder has been sighted.

Mr Abbott is also due to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping for a state dinner in Beijing tonight. He said that he would hold back on announcing more information until he had briefed the president, out of respect for the many Chinese families who had relatives on board the flight.

No Cookies | Perth Now (http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/confusion-on-mh370-after-conflicting-reports-on-black-boxes-from-tony-abbott-and-angus-houston/story-fniztvnf-1226881056101)

AND

“I look forward to providing President Xi with the latest update when I meet him in Beijing this afternoon. We are confident that we know the position of the black box flight recorder to within about a kilometre.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/unconfirmed-report-says-malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370-black-box-has-been-found/story-fniztvne-1226880483186

[glenbrook]

I wonder if the PM's announcement was just PR for the sake of his China visit?

More than likely.
The best thing Abbot did was to appoint Angus Houston and he should now shut up and let him give out the facts as he has been doing, calmly, clearly and unambiguously.

I never heard of Angus Houston before this tragedy, but I am very impressed. His leadership has been a tonic, bringing order to an investigation which has seen far too much rancour, accusations and misinformation.

[500N]

"I never heard of Angus Houston before this tragedy, but I am very impressed. His leadership has been a tonic, bringing order to an investigation which has seen far too much rancour, accusations and misinformation."


Which is why he ended up head of the Armed Forces is Aus. He has publicly and vocally stared down politicians in the past at a lower rank and still made it to the top job. He is also a decorated SAR pilot so knows what he is talking about.

[JoeBloggs2]

So marinetraffic has HMS Echo motoring straight into the search box and stopping at -21.0061 104.0151. Status is stopped in vessel details box.

[orbitjet]

You do understand that marine traffic is not getting constant coverage as its dropping in an out of VHF aIs coverage.

Unless you are using the satellite feed that costs $299 a month or a free trial, but then again I don't think the sat feed is live.

As i look at HMS ECHO it shows last info received was 3 hours ago.

[MotCap]

I agree with your analyse entirely.

I will try to reproduce a redacted version of a previously deleted post.

At FIR/ATC changeover point somehow ACARS and ATC transponder and VHF fail to respond.

Just because VHF coms or transponder elicit no response does not mean they have failed; ......
If you don't answer the radio doesn't mean the radio is dead.
If you turn the transponder to STBY doesn't mean it has failed
If ACARS is deselected from VHF programing .........? and you don't subscribe to satcom ?


Who is operating the airplane?

[500N]

Re the ships in the two search areas.


The Chinese ships seem to be still searching the western search area.


I see the two supply ships are now together and a big oil tanker on the way
to the search area, heading for the supply ships.

[Wader2]

If the airframe is still intact I wonder if they will attempt to raise it to a depth where divers can get in?

I don't see an answer yet so this is my best guess:

The aircraft or parts would be secured using robots and strops.

The aircraft would be hoisted slowly off the bottom and additional strops put in place. Further slow hoisting would take place until deep divers could reach it and check strops and add additional support as necessary. I would not expect them to enter at this stage as any failure could trap them . . .

Once near the surface they may attach buoyancy chambers and slowly inflate until slight negative buoyancy is achieved. Further raising and inflation until the aircraft is virtually on the surface.

They might enter at this point however that might also cause parts to break off and be lost.

The size of the aircraft would probably dictate provision of a barge and probably removal of wings and tail while still suspended on the water.

[JoeBloggs2]

@orbitjet

Status is stopped in vessel details box.

Yes I understand the free feed is several hours old but the status as of 3 hours ago was 'stopped' NOT 'underway'.

Another interesting tidbit
HMS Echo, Tireless Work Round the Clock to Find Malaysian Airliner MH370 >> Naval Today (http://navaltoday.com/2014/04/09/hms-echo-tireless-work-round-the-clock-to-find-malaysian-airliner-mh370/)

HMS Echo’s hi-tech sonar has been specially adapted so it can pick up any transmissions on the black box’s frequency – this is the first time Echo’s sonar has been used this way and so far it has located several possible contacts – but sadly none of them proved to be from MH370’s black box.

ie from the Haixun01 contacts a couple of days ago

[JoeBloggs2]

That was HMAS Toowoomba as far as I could see it tracked straight back out to the debris search area. One would assume that it would be nearer to Ocean Shield or Echo if it was going to transfer AUV's... [or launch and recover them itself]

You would think that the Germans and / or US would claim the publicity if they where here already...

[MotCap]

How would we go about lifting mh337 debris from 4,000 blaahahab meters?

AF447 recovery produced (75) human remains.

[Wader2]

Some massive recovery ship with crane capable of 500,000lb lifting capacity arrives on-site

Actually weight is really insignificant compared with other deep sea recoveries; it is only 250 short tons. More significant is the size.

If they do recover the fuselage to near the surface then a lift not that difficult.

Whole destroyers and frigates have been brought home on barges. IIRC HMS Nottingham was one and USS Cole another.

[orbitjet]

@JoeBloggs2

This article was printed on 30/03/2014

Three deep-sea submarines used to search for wreckage of the crashed Air France Flight 447 have also been sent to aid in the search for MH370.

The three "Abyss" type submarines can dive to depths of 6,000m and stay submerged for up to 24 hours.

MH370 crash: Deep-sea search tools ready for deployment - Nation | The Star Online (http://www.thestar.com.my/News/Nation/2014/03/30/MH370-crash-deep-sea-search-tools-ready/)

[susier]

Forgive me but is it at all significant that the area where Echo is now 'stopped' looks a paler blue than the surrounding ocean?


Does this mean it is shallower?


I am hoping this might mean recovery would be easier than if it were outside of this area.

[PPRuNeUser0171]

Does anyone know if the optic fibre repeaters on the underwater submarine cable SEA-ME-WE3, which runs from Perth through the search area to Jakarta, emit any noise? They are powered by internal DC power. Could they be causing interference?


They shouldn't have any interference as they are high capacity datalinks and any interference would degrade the throughput. Those cables are normally covered in protective layers to shield any interference and then buried in a trench at the bottom of the ocean to further protect them.

[orbitjet]

http://www.marinetraffic.com received its last data feed 3 minutes ago and its showing HMS Echo stopped on the border of the search area and Ocean Shield moving towards its location at 1.6kn.

Towing the pinger locator again???

[Sheep Guts]

Orbit jet,
Live Ships Map - AIS - Vessel Traffic and Positions - AIS Marine Traffic (http://www.marinetraffic.com) received its last data feed 3 minutes ago and its showing HMS Echo stopped on the border of the search area and Ocean Shield moving towards its location at 1.6kn.

Towing the pinger locator again???



I'm guessing HMS ECHO is all ears at the moment listening for the ULB all engines stopped. And I think your right about Ocean Shield still towing the TPL-25.

[bobstay]

HMS ECHO is all ears at the moment listening for the ULB all engines stopped.

Do you have a source for that or are you just guessing?