Malaysian Airlines MH370 contact lost

[compressor stall]

If it's seen to have crashed by military hardware (eg Jindalee) why would any nation say that and reveal their hand? It's not as if it would save a life.

Might help the relatives for the interim, but that's not a concern of governments.

[NigelOnDraft]

There is much talk of "the ELT" and "how it would go off in a crash".

Can anyone confirm whether all airliners now have crash activated ELTs? Or whether just newer ones do, and the older ones just have ELTs in the cabin / rafts for manual activation?

And if the latter, what about this vintage 777? I have (slight) reason to suspect that this 777 might not have a "fuselage mounted ELT" (i.e. the location / type / crash activated that got the LHR 787), whereas newer 777s do?

[Old Boeing Driver]

Have been off for 12 hours. If already answered, apologies.

Lots of range discussions regarding 6 to 7 hours.

I assume that would be for FL350.

What would be the range possibilities at 3,000 feet or lower?

[compressor stall]

That reddit rumour about the SOS and forced landing is 2 days old and the translation 17 hours old.

Where's that info (if true) been?



Re fuel burns. As best as I could read Boeing documents, I worked out that it would use 50% more fuel at FL100.

[Scruffy_77]

Working out the basic co-ordinates - there are some 600 miles between the last known position and the Malacca Straits. Even at cruise that is at least an hour of travel. Radio silence from the aircraft, comms, or even pax mobile's from the land crossing at least in a state of upset flight / wrong direction is weird.

[Evanelpus]

The MAS series of dangerously low fuel emergencies into Heathrow lead to bare faced denials and cover ups by MAS. UK authorities couldn't rely on assurances given and in the end had to insist that MAS provided weekly reports on fuel levels of aircraft arriving into the UK as a condition of being allowed to fly there.

A bit of a red herring in this case, methinks.

Flights from Malaysia approaching Heathrow with low fuel have been in the air for 8-9 hours, MH370 wasn't long out of KL.

[Yancey Slide]

Can anyone confirm whether all airliners now have crash activated ELTs? Or whether just newer ones do, and the older ones just have ELTs in the cabin / rafts for manual activation?

At least in FAA land ELT's are required and have been as long as I can remember (http://www.ntsb.gov/news/events/2012/GA_Search_Rescue/presentations/Smith.pdf)

They are activated (theoretically) by a G switch and/or cockpit remote switch (I don't recall seeing one in an airliner but I haven't spent much time up the pointy end of those). They don't (just like all normal radio) transmit from underwater even if it was activated.

As for debris from mid-air explosion, I'd be looking for something a-la TWA800 TWA Flight 800 disaster - a look back - Photo 16 - Pictures - CBS News (http://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/twa-flight-800-disaster-a-look-back/16/) in the water if it came apart in mid-air. Apparently they have nothing of the sort in the area they've been looking at.

[SOPS]

I think the point he is making is about cover ups, not fuel amounts.

[NigelOnDraft]

Yancey At least in FAA land ELT's are required and have been as long as I can remember (http://www.ntsb.gov/news/events/2012...ions/Smith.pdf)

They are activated (theoretically) by a G switch and/or cockpit remote switch (I don't recall seeing one in an airliner but I haven't spent much time up the pointy end of those). They don't (just like all normal radio) transmit from underwater even if it was activated.Your link is as I say - it is required to have an ELT. That link does not specify "g activated" - just "fuselage mounted as far aft as possible" (to survive a crash). Older airliners have them "attached" in the aft cabin, and they are crew activated.

Yes - for FAA land (and some European) GA now seem to require 'g' ELTs, but I am not sure all airliners in service do?

Leading on, were the ac "interfered with" which seems to include Xpdr, ACARS, VHF etc. then I am sure ELTs were considered as well.

[MrSnuggles]

In the Air Inter 148 crash at St Odile the ELT did not work.

Survivors had to wait several hours before a TV-team was directed to their site by a survivor who had gone out to find the rescue team.

Can we now please let those ELT signals be? Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't.

[Xeque]

#1673 the photos of the two "Iranians".
Why do they have the same legs, feet and hand baggage?
This has to be one of the poorest examples of Photoshopping ever.
How can we believe anything the Malaysians are saying?
This whole thing has gone well beyond "ludicrous"

[Sober Lark]

A few days on and all we really know is that the data they have been using to reach their primary objective of defining a first position for the searches has been pretty flawed.

[J.O.]

#1673 the photos of the two "Iranians".
Why do they have the same legs, feet and hand baggage?
This has to be one of the poorest examples of Photoshopping ever.
How can we believe anything the Malaysians are saying?
This whole thing has gone well beyond "ludicrous" The news article I read said that it was two pictures of the same individual.

[Mahatma Kote]

#1673 the photos of the two "Iranians".
Why do they have the same legs, feet and hand baggage?
This has to be one of the poorest examples of Photoshopping ever.

If you look carefully, the left photo has part of the right photo at the bottom. It's a mis-feed of a scanner or printer or fax. Pretty common.

[ekpilot]

So chances are that the military tracked the airplane across Peninsular Malaysia to the west coast. The military have stated that it descended 1000m, i.e. either 3000 or 3500 feet. Both these new flight leveles make sense from a pilot's point of view. Last known flight level was FL350. FL320 would be a correct level if they turned to a reciprocal or westerly track. If you wanted to be cautious and follow e.g. NAT contingency procedures, FL315 would also make sense. At this point it would appear that someone is atleast in partial control of the airplane.

I think for those of you unfamiliar with this part of the world, it is almost impossible to understand the ramifications of the "saving face" aspect of the information dissemination part of this ordeal...

[whoateallthepies]

Network and MartinM
Just reviewed your posts in light of my question. So I understand there should be data from ACARS regarding the status of the aircraft and you believe Malaysian are sitting on it?

[SOPS]

As I said earlier, the leaks are starting, the stories are beginning to change. And as EK Pilot has stated correctly, I bet face saving has an awful lot to do with what is going on behind the scenes.

[Chill]

...and wish I didn't have to read half of it (but good on the Mods for clearing some of it up).

Not highly relevant I feel but those who wondered about seat-belt sign off policy it's 10,000' on the way up unless wx/turb dictates otherwise. On odd occasion below 10 they maybe off on short sectors as a courtesy to the crew if it's deemed safe/practical to do so.

There's often good reporting from Australia and then there's over hyped trash and the "A Current Affair" expose was a sad example of the latter. Yes the lads were not in compliance with company policy (indeed Civil Regulations) but the portrayal was appalling - utter trollop as a ratings grab, but given the owners of Nine Network no surprises there (and how much did they "pay" the lass for her story I wonder?). Undoubtably it's all true as evidenced by the photos and in another era it was okay but now showed poor choice of action by the crew (especially to be photographed). The FO can't defend himself now and the Captain will surely answer to the Company once they find out - might even get dismissed due to the public nature of this report in the current situation (perhaps he should sue Nine). Bad choice of broadcasting. Suffice to say jump-seat policy in MAS is quite strict (as MAS has pointed out to the program) and smoking in the cockpit is strictly forbidden, but does still happen as I'm sure it does in other companies - the Captain calls the shots.

And who said it was a B767... It's one of MAS' B737-400 still in operation in 2011. Look closer before you post.

Now I'm as perplexed as everybody else as to how, where and why, I'm open to any rational idea at this stage. Admittedly favouring hijack with the passport issue earlier perhaps it's just back to something more mundane like a badly crippled aircraft in some way with a major electrical problem (still wouldn't rule out a bomb which crippled avionics but not their ability to fly). For a long time now people have been saying why on earth are they on the west side of the pennisula (when the first news of search efforts in the Straits of Malacca hit)... I have no reason to disbelieve if these guys thought they could get the aircraft back safely they would try their damned hardest to do so. Yes if there was a raging fire onboard they might have tried WMKN (TGG) but from FL350 there's a heck of a lot of height to lose in a short distance. Same for WMKC (KBR) and anyone who's been there it's not much of an airport in a populated area. WMKP is more logical for a rapid descent to land in a straight line - if their controls were compromised who wants to man-handle a 777 more than necessary except a turn to finals and we've have no idea if they could get the gear out for example so even PEN might only be a second choice. Bear in mind all these airports are closed for the night (PEN maybe not, but very low key) at this time so crashing on the field is a last resort action especially since there appears to be a lack of communication they've no way of announcing their imminent arrival. I wouldn't be surprised if the crew felt KUL was their best, safest option and on top of that (and for the life of me can't fathom why nobody posting here didn't say it earlier) there is a Lost Comms approach procedure for KUL which this crew would have known. If they were down to basic night VFR flying then how best to get to KUL and comply with the procedure... find the west coast, turn south and fly until you pass KL. They could line up for a straight in similar to a KIKAL2 for RWY14L or give ATC a chance to guess what they are doing (if they hadn't already) and head down towards the lights of Malacca to come back for RWY32R approximating a LAPIR2 arrival. Makes logical sense if they were comms crippled so why people think it's stupid for the authorities to be searching the West Coast is a bit rich. If the guys were trying to get back to KUL then it's sad they might have been within reach of KUL and dropped it in the drink for whatever reason.

Having said that, why they're searching so far north is a bit odd but perhaps they have their reasons due radar information at their disposal and who are we to say. Just my thoughts on the situation.

[Yancey Slide]

Leading on, were the ac "interfered with" which seems to include Xpdr, ACARS, VHF etc. then I am sure ELTs were considered as well.The ELT unit itself contains the G switch to set it off. Nobody said they're perfect (and do have a pretty good failure to activate rate). Point is if it's underwater, who cares? The only thing that would bring attention to the black boxes are the pingers, which are water activated. AFAIK the ELT is mounted outside the pressure bulkhead (usually) and someone would have to go pull the ELT battery out (there's one in the ELT container so it keeps transmitting when it doesn't have ships power after activation), as well as disable ships power. Now you're involving maintenance activities or a large gang of people to go around pulling power and batteries from devices. I know of no evidence pointing to the likelihood of such an organized event taking place here.

And as other non-US airlines have ELTs installed, it's probably safe to say it comes from the factory pre-installed, so one would have been here. Probably something the FAA wouldn't allow them to make a customer option during type certification but I know little of that beyond some paper-pushing on some 337s I had to do.

[andrasz]

I promised myself I shall remain silent until some new facts become known, but the official acknowledgement by the Malaysian Air Force chief that MH370 was tracked for over an hour after loss of transponder signal calls for some re assessment of what we know till now:

(NOTE: below deductions are valid IF the acknowledgement is substantially true)


The loss of primary radar contact at 2:40 EXACTLY matches what was initially reported by MAS in their very first statement (still on their website). This was subsequently modified to 1:21 when transponder signal was lost (as reported by FR24), and a seemingly plausible explanation was given that the 2:40 is to be understood as when Subang centre notified MAS on the loss of comms.
In a press conference on the 9th March, the Air Force chief already hinted that the aircraft 'may have' turned around. This was downplayed in the next couple of days, as SAR efforts concentrated around the last known transponder position.
Clearly in the mean time significant SAR efforts have commenced in the Straits of Malacca, however in the past 2 days they were not commented on, or were dismissed with 'we are exploring all possibilities'. Only after if became clear (and extensively discussed on forums like here) to anyone with some knowledge that the search is now concentrated to the west of the Malay peninsula was the admission made.
From the initial slips of tongues (understandable in the evolving crisis situation) it would appear that already at the start of the events this was known, and possibly much more. In light of above, any official statement on (non)existing ACARS messages need to be treated with a good degree of caution.

All this is combined with the well known dread of 'losing face' in the region, which may result is some quite irrational decisions even quite high up in the hierarchy.

Of course several questions remain:

Can we believe this information, after it is contradicting previous earlier statements (but add up with yet earlier ones) ?
Do they have any more information on what could have happened other than the position of the aircraft ?
Was the wild-goose chase in the Gulf of Thailand a diversion, or they genuinely had no clue which information to believe ?

[Murexway]

Well, I can now join the ranks of those whose posts have disappeared just as mysteriously as the 777. Perhaps there's a storage problem at PPRuNe and the server is dumping in order to stay under limits?

In any case, I posted a theory last night that perhaps the captain, upon becoming aware of a problem simply called dispatch and they suggested that he not continue, but return to Kuala Lumpur. Why he might have done so without informing ATC could have to do with losing his HF radios due to electrical problems. He might have still had VHF contact with company via the emergency bus.

That could explain why the company thinks he might have turned back. It's also why the wreckage isn't along the radar plot in the Gulf of Thailand to the North.

Even if he proceeded directly back along his route, he might have swung wide to the North and West of the airport due to limited flight control, in order to set up for a long final to runway 32 L or R. Thus he may be down in the northwestern end of the Malacca Strait.

As for why not a straight in to 14, he might have been conserving altitude and upon seeing the lights of the peninsula, realized he would be too high for that.

[Carjockey]

@ThomasDoubting

According to this report they descended to 1000m.

The daily also reported that a Singaporean air traffic surveillance and control unit had also picked up the signal to show MH370 "made a turn back before its altitude suddenly dropped from 10,000m to 1,000m".

Maritime agency says no information about signals from missing plane - The Malaysian Insider (http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/maritime-agency-says-no-information-about-signals-from-missing-plane)

But then again...

It was also reported that a Singaporean air traffic surveillance and control unit also picked up the signal that MH370 "made a turn back before it was reported to have climbed 1,000 metres from its original altitude at 10,000 metres”.

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/malaysian-military-now-reveals-it-tracked-mh370-to-malacca-straits

Which report is correct? Take your pick...

[TheShadow]

""The missing plane was involved in a crash in August, 2012, when it damaged the tail of a China Eastern Airlines plane at Shanghai Pudong Airport, according to unconfirmed reports.

....in the incident, the tip of the wing of the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 broke off..."


http://cdn.feeyo.com/pic/20120810/201208100951017177.jpg
http://i6.hexunimg.cn/2012-08-09/144577673.jpgChina Eastern
http://news.xinhuanet.com/energy/2012-08/10/123563968_11n.jpg


One might assume that the wing(tip)(?) destroyed during the MH370 airframe's 2012 taxiing accident was repaired properly. However (see image) it did take one almighty clout when it struck the China Eastern acft's tail a few years back. That wing actually lost quite a few jagged feet of span. It was a classic case of a dominant force striking an immoveable object - and the failure was well inboard. A very pedestrian and mundane accident you might say. The fore-aft (i.e. chord-wise) propagation of the collision forces would have tended to concentrate, via the main- and sub-spar(s), at the wing-root - but the wing-root wouldn't necessarily be the weak focal point of any future turbulence (or metal fatigue) induced failure. I'll explain why below.

The wing out as far as the engine pylon mounting is quite beefy and rigid, because it has to contend with the inboard fuel tanks and the engine's weight and thrust - as well as minimizing the flexure caused by its inertia (you've seen how much the wing-mounted engines appear to move inflight relative to the fuselage, right?). From the engine's pylon-mount out to the wing-tip is less rigid, i.e. it's designed to allow a high aspect ratio wing to soak up turbulence-induced flexing. The mid-span of this pylon-to-tip distance was where the 777's RH wing was torn off. Not just damaged or dented, but TORN OFF. Did Boeing replace the entire RH wing? No it didn't. That starboard wing was "repaired". You'd have to wonder how the assessment of an "adequate" repair was done, given the extensive damage to a large section of outboard (i.e. missing) wing. Wingtip taxiing accidents tend to be dismissively "ground rash". This one may have been just a bit more than that. Wing repairs are several orders of magnitude more consequential than fuselage or tail repairs. "G", I wonder why? - you might ask. Obviously the considerations go far beyond the cosmetics of incidence, conformity and airflow-friendly re-skinning. Justifiably, the main concern would've been for ongoing operational structural integrity. This often leads to a very beefy repair scheme. No engineer would endorse or certify any repair less sturdy and reliable than afforded by the original structure..... and also because the question of "how much is enough?" is a tough one when considering a major wing repair scheme and the implications of undetected additional hidden damage. Replacement is often the better option. But that might not be what the insurance company is prepared to pay for, especially since there's a considerable history of simply replacing the wing-tip or its endplate winglet fairing after a bit of "ground rash". But this one was a little more than just a wing-tip. Try and convince an insurance assessor of that, in a circumstance that's so very familiar to insurance assessors and their bean-counters.

Catastrophic failure of a wing repair inflight is almost incredibly incomprehensible. But then again, the China Airlines 747's tail-scrape repair led to a high altitude instantaneous break-up at max cabin pressure differential a few years later - and consider as well the Boeing repair on the JAL 747 rear bulkhead that failed and led to a fatal loss of control? These events (and there have been similar others) should be convincing enough for an argument that a "sufficient" structural repair may not stand the test of time and the unforgiving operational environment. Consider also that a fuselage repair and a wing repair is chalk and cheese from a structural fatigue point of view. The wing-span is always "soaking up" an incredible continual imposition of very variable flight-loads, whilst the fuselage is merely taking a pressurization "hit" just twice per flight. So what are the chances and likelihood of the wing failing in the vicinity of the repair-patch? What could cause that and what would be the subsequent chain of events?

Consider that a wing is designed to have a natural harmonic and that this is achieved by a laterally harmonious gradation of each wing's structure from its wing-root to its wing-tip. Each side's original wing will have an almost identical natural harmonic (i.e. if you loaded up each wing-tip on the ground and simultaneously released those loads, each wing-tip's diminishing movements around the mean would be graphed as identical - as each wing's oscillation faded away cyclically to its static position). Would this be the case with a repaired wing? Not really, as the extra internal structure introduced by the repair's ironmongery would significantly change that sides' wing-flexure characteristics. Would Boeing engineers have compensated for this by ballasting (or beefing up?) the other wing? Not at all likely methinks.
Would a flight-crew detect any such dissimilar lateral flexure characteristic in the aircraft's gust responses? You have to take into account the "active controls" used in modern airliners for gust alleviation. Flight Control Computers compensate for turbulence-induced wing movements by minuscule aileron responses. It's designed to soak up and take the "bounce" out of turbulence and promote a more comfortable ride. If the wing on the collision side was slowly failing (i.e. structural fatigue damage propagating along micro-cracks in its repair doublers?), would the "active flight control" system disguise and (to a certain extent) alleviate or mitigate this? Possibly. Alternatively, could it exacerbate the cracking of a failing spar? Don't know .... but someone might. My suspicion is that "active flight controls" would promote crack growth in a weakened structure that was spider-webbing towards eventual failure. It would achieve a repetitive concentration of stress in its ongoing opposition to natural flexing.

If the taxiing collision occurred just two years ago, the MH370 aircraft may not have undergone a major servicing since its wing repair. Such servicings are predicated upon total flight-time and certainly that interval's not ever varied just because a major structural repair has been carried out. So anything going on inside that wing may have gone unnoticed in the long interim. It's unlikely that Boeing would have mandated any "how's it going?" non-routine inspection to see whether that repair was holding up OK - or to see whether there had been any further fatigue damage or developments (perhaps further inboard) that was beginning to manifest itself. As the manufacturer, Boeing would've been inclined to demonstrate "sight unseen" confidence in its repair work. Arrogant or not, the FAA wouldn't intervene. It's a Boeing supplicant.
When would such a culminating inflight failure be most likely? Possibly while the aircraft was still at its heaviest and on encountering clear air turbulence at or near top of climb (or whilst accelerating to cruise Mach). Would that be its most vulnerable point? If that repair gave way, (as most inadequate or improper wing repairs eventually do), what would be the sequence of events? Remember that up until the point of failure, the gust alleviation system would have been disguising (and even moderating?) any signs of imminent failure. In my opinion any such failure in turbulence would be in a DFDR identifiable two parts - firstly the progressive failure (over a few seconds) of primary structure (wing spars and internal bracing buckling as flight loads quickly transfer to inferior sub-structure) - and then the rapid deterioration of the scenario as the secondary structure failed under the increased loadings (the secondary structure being the wing-skin -as the skin does assume much of the inflight loading). As the wing folded, the aircraft would begin to roll to the right quite rapidly (at circa 180 - (increasing to about) 360 degrees per second - around its fore-aft axis). The pilots would be out of the equation at this point - as the aircraft spiralled rapidly down. However there are reports of a garbled transmission. This is likely to have been during the first phase of failure as the pilots became aware that something was happening. However they are unlikely to have discerned that the wing was slowly folding.... or rapidly losing its structural integrity.

What about ACARS reporting of these sudden developments? I'm wondering just what it could (or would) have reported to the company by way of exceedances or untoward abnormalities (??). Engines and systems would still be running normally, but the g forces in the spiral would've been quite high. In any case, would the ACARS report transmission succeed in a rapidly rolling and spiralling scenario? Or must its antenna be more or less static and upright in order to retain a synchronous lock with its associated satellite? Lastly, would the DFDR record of prior flights retain any record of differentially dissimilar flight control activity that may have indicated any deteriorating structural integrity in the RH wing? Probably not, as the compensating activity would've been via mutually synchronous aileron inputs - and not just the RH or LH spoilers. What would be the effect of landing arrivals impact be upon any propagating failure? Likely it would not tend to add to the deterioration of any cracking. It would be acting in the opposite sense.

If the pilots were disabled by the g forces and shock of a rapid roll into a spiral descent, the engines may have remained at high power and thus the aircraft's spiral would have tightened. The impact would have been at high speed under high positive g by an intact fuselage - and the damage would've been smithereening..... i.e. all fragments would likely have lost flotational dimensions - at least for anything visibly significant to aerial searchers.

Feel free to dismantle or disparage or to relate an alternative version of such an explanation. It is starting to look like a case of the simplest explanation being the most likely one. Falsetto passports don't necessarily promote accidents. Actual accidents always come complete with herrings rouge to some degree. Sometimes crashes just stem from the unexpected consequences of false economies. I'm reasonably confident that this will be the lesson learnt. They're always hard lessons and often they are quite revelational. Wing loadings are up. Think about that and respect that fact. It's an attritional process, post-repair degradation. Even when it's "just ground-rash", failure is never an option. How many other simplistic ground-rash repairs are out there awaiting their turn to insult Boeing or Airbus expertise? Think about it. Now repair the despair.

Accidents happen. But sometimes/oft-times, they are just a result.

[gear lever]

So reading through many of the posts, cannot see many theories that seem to fit what appears to have happened.

No debris spotted (still)
No mayday calls
No messages sent from aircraft via ACARS etc.
No transponder info

Which would appear to equal

Steep descent into water (small debris field and needle in a haystack)
No transmissions made (why?)
ACARs switched off or disabled (why?)
Transponder switched off or disabled (why?)

[dicks-airbus]

What we heard/know:


MH370 made a turn at about 2:40 and at the same time all comms die
At 2:43 a US base supposedly receives a message from MH370 that the cabin is "disintegrating"
1:10 later MH370 is spotted on military radar being near Pulau Perak
No debris anywhere along route
Two PAX with stolen passports are not related to any terrorist org

Conclusions:


MH370 did not crash on/near the route
Turn was manually initiated & comms disabled at same time (why)
Plane was evidently still flying 1:10 after it had "disappeared"
Most likely not a terrorist related event

But what it it then? It is starting to make less and less sense to me. Unless all the comms equipment is in the tail of the 777 and the airframe (cabin, not wing) had structural issues (why?).

[philipat]

So, as predicted (And challenged) way back in the thread, the Malaysians were indeed witholding information.

Don't we need to ask why, especially since it resulted in the waste of so many resources in the Gulf of Thailand/SCS for at least two full days.

The next question would be what else are they witholding? The aircraft was tracked with Military Primary radar into The Straits of Malacca. You can guarantee that the Indonesians were doing the same because its flight path would be towrads Aceh Province in North Sumatera, where the security forces are still very jittery. So with all this Military technology brought into play, surely they must have a much better idea of where to look.

As an earlier poster said, this aircraft could have continued to fly West into the Indian Ocean for another 5 hours before running out of fuel. Is Malacca yet another red herring?

[Trim Stab]

I have no reason to disbelieve if these guys thought they could get the aircraft back safely they would try their damned hardest to do so. Yes if there was a raging fire onboard they might have tried WMKN (TGG) but from FL350 there's a heck of a lot of height to lose in a short distance. Same for WMKC (KBR) and anyone who's been there it's not much of an airport in a populated area. WMKP is more logical for a rapid descent to land in a straight line - if their controls were compromised who wants to man-handle a 777 more than necessary except a turn to finals and we've have no idea if they could get the gear out for example so even PEN might only be a second choice. Bear in mind all these airports are closed for the night (PEN maybe not, but very low key) at this time so crashing on the field is a last resort action especially since there appears to be a lack of communication they've no way of announcing their imminent arrival. I wouldn't be surprised if the crew felt KUL was their best, safest option and on top of that (and for the life of me can't fathom why nobody posting here didn't say it earlier) there is a Lost Comms approach procedure for KUL which this crew would have known. If they were down to basic night VFR flying then how best to get to KUL and comply with the procedure... find the west coast, turn south and fly until you pass KL. They could line up for a straight in similar to a KIKAL2 for RWY14L or give ATC a chance to guess what they are doing (if they hadn't already) and head down towards the lights of Malacca to come back for RWY32R approximating a LAPIR2 arrival. Makes logical sense if they were comms crippled so why people think it's stupid for the authorities to be searching the West Coast is a bit rich.

Sounds plausible.


If the guys were trying to get back to KUL then it's sad they might have been within reach of KUL and dropped it in the drink for whatever reason.

Would be ironic if it turns out the Malaysians themselves then shot it down with a SAM, mistakenly believing it was some sort of North Korean mischief (the North Koreans have been lobbing missiles around unannounced recently). It would explain the lack of statements from the Malaysian military and government.

[NigelOnDraft]

Yancey The ELT unit itself contains the G switch to set it off .... AFAIK the ELT is mounted outside the pressure bulkhead (usually) and someone would have to go pull the ELT battery out (there's one in the ELT container so it keeps transmitting when it doesn't have ships power after activation), as well as disable ships power. Now you're involving maintenance activities or a large gang of people to go around pulling power and batteries from devices. I know of no evidence pointing to the likelihood of such an organized event taking place here.

And as other non-US airlines have ELTs installed, it's probably safe to say it comes from the factory pre-installed, so one would have been here.OK - we'll have to disagree ;) I have fair reason to believe that some 777s (and know from other ac types I fly / have flown) only have non ship powered ELTs, that are manually activated by crew. They are fixed / stowed in the cabin towards the rear. No 'g' switch.

In each case, I also believe / know the more modern deliveries / variants have ELTs mounted in the roof, that are ship's power / systems connected, and deploy by 'g' switch.

But I am asking of a 777 current pilot to confirm (or not) what I am saying, and how that relates to this 777.

NoD

FAA AD extract posts 787 issue @ LHR:AD Requirements
This AD requires either removing the Honeywell fixed ELT, or inspecting the ELT (for discrepancies associated with the ELT, ELT battery, and associated wiring), and doing corrective action if necessary, in accordance with a method approved by the FAA.
The applicability of this AD is limited to in-service airplanes, which have been delivered with Honeywell fixed ELTs having part number 1152682–2. Future production airplanes will be addressed prior to delivery.
We recognize that various civil aviation authorities (CAA) have different operational requirements regarding the use of ELTs. While the United States does not require a fixed ELT to be installed for operation, operation of an airplane without an ELT in a particular country’s airspace may require coordination with that country’s CAA.i.e. some regulators do require "fixed" ELTs, some do not.

[Murexway]

No transmissions made (why?)
ACARs switched off or disabled (why?)
Transponder switched off or disabled (why?)You are assuming a normal electrical system.....

[Skyjob]

Do you guys remember this image from the DELTA 767 showing the transponder after the MAD incident:

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

Simple question, but where is the same equipment located in the 777?
If as suggested by some an inflight wing issue would have taken place, and if the transponder is located in such wing, then this would then stop operating, all at the same time: 02:40

[balaton]

Hi All,

I have been watching this thread from the begining with considerable self-discipline to refrain from posting.
But the latest news about mil radar tracking of this unfortunate flight for more than one hour on an opposite track gave me the last momentum to post:
IF IT IS TRUE, WHY THE .... THEY STARED A HUGE MULTINATIONAL SEARCH AT THE SITE OF THE LAST CIVILIAN PRIMARY, SSR/ACARS, WHATSOEVER CONTACT AREA NORTH EAST AF MALAYSIA????

b

[V1... Ooops]

GE (Google Earth) doesn't have 100% coverage of the earth, most notably small islands offshore. In Google maps, it is drawn, but only sea is seen in the sat view.
Its not a conspiracy....

I concur with that comment and can support it with my own personal experience. On more than one occasion I have tried to locate a small island (typically in the South Pacific) in order to land on it using a Twin Otter, and the island - though very much present on the surface of the earth - has not been depicted in the Google Earth satellite view.

My guess is that Google Earth has an automated routine that filters out small visual anomalies in the sea surface such as sunlight reflections, oil slicks, stuff like that, and many small islands get caught up in that filtering process.

[Lonewolf_50]

(for Philipat and balaton)
In defense of the Malaysian authorities: it may have taken some analysis by the best radar operators and analysts -- who'd not be on the night shift, but on the day shift -- of radar the tapes/data from the night shift to arrive at the conclusion that the radar contact being tracked was indeed the airliner they had been looking for. Such analysis takes time. As they were undertaking this analysis, their request for US and AUS P-3 searches on that side of Malaysia was a prudent coverage of an unknown that had not been eliminated. Good to have friends like AUS and US, eh? :ok: As it was an unknown, the Occam's Razor search of last known posit was going to be a good best guess for a SAR effort.

Having both areas covered allowed Malaysian team trying to coordinate all this to get some eyes in possible search areas while they sorted out the (seemingly contradictory) information they had and got it into a comprehensible form.

Real life isn't Hollywood. As I noted some pages back, a real Search and Rescue operation confronts the organization tasked with conducting the search with a host of unknowns. If you add to that "face saving" bits, their odd disclosure pattern begins to make some sense, even if our own preference for transparency makes us hungry for more.

@ the Shadow: Thanks for that discourse on repairs. Good food for thought. Skyjob, also thanks for that ponit in re 767.

My problem with accepting the repair failure (fatigue) as the root cause of the missing aircraft is that a wing repair failure would not necessarily disable radios, transponders, nor ACARS. Then again, only some of the pieces of this puzzle are on the table. A few more pieces are needed to beging to recognize the picture taking shape. In support of your idea, some of what you present fits some of what is currently known.

As to the "it's breaking up" SIGINT point (2:43 am) from a Chinese source citing an American listening post in Thailand ... would not the US have confirmed or denied that data point in the interest of assisting the search effort? I'd be interested to see if that report is rubbish, or has some substance to it.

@ Trim Stab
Would be ironic if it turns out the Malaysians themselves then shot it down
with a SAM, mistakenly believing it was some sort of North Korean mischief (the North Koreans have been lobbing missiles around unannounced recently). It would explain the lack of statements from the Malaysian military and government.
I think some of our friendly folks with eyes in the sky would have been tracking any North Korean missile that made its way a few thousand miles towards Malaysia. Just sayin' ;) I think you are reaching on this ... with orangutang arms! :)

[glendalegoon]

1. a 777 is overdue at its original destination.

2. it is well beyond fuel exhaustion by this time.

3. gravity has lead this plane to the earth, somewhere.


4. Search efforts by responsible military units and others have begun.


EVERYTHING ELSE WE HAVE HEARD SHOULD BE IGNORED or held in suspicion for some time.

We really don't know much else.

We can ask questions and the only ones I've asked regarded weather conditions and primary vs secondary radar targets. The weather question was answered and the other question has not been answered adequately by responsible authorities.


SO, I ask the moderators to stop the thread. And start a new thread.

And that we all take a breath. Call the new thread: Search for Malyasia 777 or something similar.

[physicus]

Just looking at this map, at 3000ft from Kota Bharu to Kedha (just north of Butterworth) is a bit of a scudrun… not sure they'd make that. Also, Butterworth is an Aussie station afaik, wouldn't they have sent a friendly welcome fleet on an unidentified inbound? Perhaps Butterworth even was the target, if one wants to believe the terrorism theorists.

SkyVector VFR Chart Kota Bharu - Kedha (http://skyvector.com/?ll=6.031856988737461,101.32415770489726&chart=301&zoom=3)

[MG23]

Don't we need to ask why, especially since it resulted in the waste of so many resources in the Gulf of Thailand/SCS for at least two full days.

No.

Suppose you had tentative information indicating the aircraft was still flying some time after the disappearance. Would you:

1. Say 'Stop! Everyone go home, it's not there'.
2. Continue searching around the last place you know the aircraft was, until you have some kind of confirmation as to whether that tentative sighting is real or spurious?

No-one wants to be sending people off on a wild goose chase, and later find the wreckage right where they should have been looking for it.

[MartinM]

About a week ago I was watching a documentation on a flight in troubles.

Reading aboves post of TheShadow, it does come into my mind.
China Airlines Flight 006 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Airlines_Flight_006)

Basically they lost complete control over the plane. luckly they were able to recover control and land the 747 in SFO.

What if the MH370 pilots were not able to control the situation? Tried to get back and lost control over Malacca strait.

In any case it would not tell us why the pilots would turn off the transponder. makes non sense. Nor it would tell us why tehy would have shut down in a sub menu of the ACARS config, the SATCOM transmission and subsequently switchd VHF3 to VOICE.

I cannot imagine any crew in troubles would do that. That is non sense.

And that would indeed lead back to the original statement, that Malaysia Airlines tries to keep their image and don't want to loose their face. If the aircraft was flying all the way back from 35000 ft down to 3500ft over Malaysian territory and into the strait of malacca, then the ACARS must have been ON and primary radar signal was received of an unidentified object, which of course no one would have initially identified as MH370.

The response in any case would have needed to be scramble Jets. Unless somebody in the ATC was sleeping.

Something went wrong and somebody is trying to play it down to make it look better but more and more it is surfacing and now communications are responding differently to the changing picture.

The passport thing was just to distract the press. I call this crowed control. Every body was all of a sudden looking at the passport issue, rather than to the search of the aircraft.

The truth will surface, the question is when.

[NinerVictor]

Lots of range discussions regarding 6 to 7 hours.

I assume that would be for FL350.

What would be the range possibilities at 3,000 feet or lower?


Under standard conditions:

LRC at 6000' at 220T AUW, the fuel flow is about 7.8T per hour. This is with a TAS of about 340 KTAS.

For endurance, best holding speed of 225 KIAS at 5000' with 220T AUW, the fuel flow is about 6.5T per hour.

Depending on the ZFW, the estimated mission fuel is probably 45-50T for this sector. At position Igari, the fuel used would have been about 7-8T? Just rough estimation.

T = tonnes = 1000kg = 2200lb

[Bobman84]

Anyone's thoughts on this guy's take?

MH370 - what happened (http://mh370lost.tumblr.com/?og=1)

He wrote to the NTSB regarding a directive about cracks under the SATCOM.

Lots of theories on this, but it's just as fun to discount certain scenarios as well.

[Gnadenburg]

their request for US and AUS P-3 searches

And what lousy maritime assets the Malaysians have. A few King Airs and an occasionally servicable MP configured Herc. Yet they have a responsibility to surveil some of the most important international waterways in the world.

But of course, they seem to have one of every available export fighter aircraft from Russia and the US to help keep the face of their Borat-like military leadership.

[geneman]

For what it's worth:

Malaysian Airlines plane: Military believes it tracked missing jetliner over Strait of Malacca (http://www.smh.com.au/world/malaysian-airlines-plane-military-believes-it-tracked-missing-jetliner-over-strait-of-malacca-20140311-hvhjg.html)

[barrel_owl]

I tend to subscribe andrasz' post (http://www.pprune.org/8366674-post1792.html) entirely.
Lonewolf 50 (http://www.pprune.org/8366717-post1810.html) also raises good points. As the amount of leaks and conflicting reports grows, it is becoming obvious that Malaysia Airlines and Malaysian authorithies are being withholding information since day 1. However, this does not necessarily suggest they are deliberately lying or are part of "cover up". Probably, they have themselves conflicting reports and are simply trying to coordinate and verify all information before going public.

That said, if the information from the military source reported earlier today by Reuters will be confirmed, then this changes whe whole picture completely.

Too many ifs, too many unverified reports, too many questions still unanswered. To all those who ask about ACARS: until the logs will be released, if ever, we can only speculate. The information provided by the airline so far are inconclusive, at the very least.

[overthewing]

His theory is rubbish because even if everyone was incapacitated due to slow decompression(highly unlikely), the aircraft's transponder would not have gone offline.

If you read his theory carefully, he says ' It’s plausible that a fuselage section near the SATCOM antenna adapter failed, disabling satellite based - GPS, ACARS, and ADS-B/C - communications, and leading to a slow decompression that left all occupants unconscious.'

ADS-B/C = transponder, I think?

[Lonewolf_50]

phil
Maybe, BUT that doesn't provide a lot of confidence in air defence systems? Gosh that really was a North Korean missile that took out Port Dixon two days ago?
Not sure of your experience in Air Defense Radar, or AAW (Aegis and NTU on USN ships of 80's and 90's is my experience), but a missile heading toward a target gives off a different cue to the radar operator than an aircraft descending and crossing at speeds considerably slower than a missile. ;) That said, I am not up to scratch on Malaysian Air Defense kit, it's been over 20 years since I was at sea in that area and I am sure much has changed.

[Winston-Smith]

If it was tracked by military radar returning back over the Malay peninsula, but all comms from the aircraft were lost, surely there would have at least been an intercept?

I can't help but wonder if they then shot it down, fearing an attack? That might explain the (until now) quiet search in the Malacca Straights while they let a multinational SAR effort continue in the wrong place.

[Thomas Doubting]

Carjockey

Yes I know. Reuters quote the air force chief Rodzali Daud as saying ………” It was flying about 1,000 meters lower than its previous altitude”

Just a missing punctuation mark after 1000 meters makes all the difference in that sentence. So I am not sure what he actually said.

[slats11]

This reminds me of the initial AF447 thread. Some of the same members also.

Theories we can (almost) 100% eliminate:
1. Explosion (bomb or otherwise) near last known point (loss of transponder). This would have generated large pieces of debris over a large area, and we would have found this by now.
2. Vertical dive into water (suicide or hijacking) near LKP. This would have caused severe fragmentation at impact, and we would almost certainly have a more compact field of debris. Even if the everything sank and was embedded in mud as some suggest, the fuel tanks would have ruptured. There were tons of Jet A on board, and this would have surfaced even if nothing else did. Oil is still coming up from the Arizona. In addition, there would seem little point turning off the transponder.
3. AF447 type of event near LKP. Loss of control, and pilots too busy to make a call. Again, we would have found debris by now.

So the plane is not near LKP, and so the plane flew on without communication.

4. Failure of pressurisation and unrecognised incapacitation of crew? Does not explain transponder.
5. Fire, loss of all electrics and comms, plane continued to fly, but crashed due to disorientation etc. Hard to believe such an event could be so quick and so complete as to prevent a call (even if just ACARS).

That seems to eliminate the "innocent" causes of the plane flying past LKP. We are then left with less innocent causes.

So someone disabled all comms and transponder, and flew the plane some distance from LKP. Could have landed or crashed, but most likely crashed.

Why fly on only to crash? Well terrorists are now less keen to claim responsibility - if the plane can't be found it is hard to be implicated. Plus not knowing what happened is more effective at inciting terror than knowing - and terror would appear to be the only motive if no hostage, no ransom, and no demand.

If it was the pilots flying, there may have been concern about the reputation of family left behind. Plus suicide may have implications on any insurance payout.

[Fly26]

What about if it came down somewhere central on the Malaysian peninsula? Picking out bits from what's been reported to go from the original search area (last known contact driven) to the west side of the coast implies it was turning back and would cross back over the land. The MSAs are pretty high in the area up to 9000ft, if it went down in the mountainous areas it could be difficult to locate, especially under a canopy of trees (although I'm not familiar with the terrain details of that area). Maybe the crew were doing their best to manage a catastrophic issue caused by whatever event. However I cannot fathom why the ELT has not been detected unless it was an instant catastrophic event that disabled it but then that would put it closer to the area of last known contact. Unless it was a high G impact of course. However I would have thought ATC/military would clearly track the aircraft if it changed course, surely it would look out of place on radar even if it was trying to make land fall somewhere?

[The Ancient Geek]

Please can we put this recurrent theory to bed.

Short version - the ringing tone returned to the caller is bogus.

Why it happens -
Cellular phone systems first try to route a call to the last cell which was in contact with the phone. If this fails the system tries to locate the phone to other cells and then tries to divert to voicemail.
All of this searching takes time, during which a caller hearing silence would probably hang up before the call can be connected so the system returns a ringing tone to the caller. In most cases this is a successful strategy but it does mean that if the phone is not eventually found the caller is misled into believing that it is working OK but not being answered.

[joy ride]

re posts by TheShadow (1795) and Bobman84 (1821)

I linked to the FAD/Cracks on page 73, and read about the wing repair with great interest.

Not speculating, just asking: is there a possibility that either of these two separate issues could have combined on this plane?

[MOD45]

Comm failure procedures Malaysia AIP:

http://aip.dca.gov.my/aip%20pdf/ENR/ENR%201/ENR%201.6/Enr1_6.pdf

[slats11]

If the plane flew on, I have some doubts about 180 turn and overflying Malaysian peninsula.
1. Although late at night, it was early in the flight. Many passengers would have been awake, and crew may have been doing meal service. People would have noted a 180 turn, even if gradual - although I think the moon had just set.
2. Some people would have been watching flightplan on their TV. Yes the inflght entertainment could have been turned off, but then you heighten suspicion that things are not right.
3. If they crossed the peninsula, I suspect some people would have tried to make a call on their phone. Even if they believed it was a routine turn back for minor tech problem. Especially if they feared something worse. 9/11 changed how people respond to these events - people are less inclined to sit back, do what they are told, and hope for the best.
4. Very difficult to totally subdue 220 uncooperative people, confiscate phones etc


Many passengers don't turn off their phone or even put in flight mode. Just put it on silent so don't get caught. Be interesting to know if any passenger phones tagged a network (ie connected to network even if no call made) - I am sure this has been checked out.


My guess is that someone turned off comms and transponder, flew plane somewhere, and then crashed. More likely a pilot than a hijacker - if only because a hijacking would be more likely to be noted by passengers, things would have become unmanageable, and we would have a crash closer to LKP. And I suspect more likely that the plane never overflew land.

Hopefully some closure for the relatives soon.

[Speed of Sound]

Argh!!!! The Malaysians now say last radar echo was from west of the Peninsular Malaysia?????? Why didn't they say this earlier???.Because it hadn't been confirmed?

I really don't see any big conspiracy over this change of SAR mission from the east of to the west of the peninsula. When the flight first 'went missing', it was positioned east of the peninsula heading NNE so naturally the search was concentrated there.

In the meantime the military has said privately to the government 'hold on we are pretty sure we saw something heading west without identification but need too look at our raw primary data to get a better picture' (and check that nothing classified was being revealed!) On the strength of this some assets were diverted west to the Straits with the caveat "We can't say why" presumably because all the information wasn't in yet, and now the military have come back with confirmation that they did track an unidentified aircraft heading west towards the Straits and today that information was made official.

What's the big deal?

[Roadster280]

Cellular phone systems first try to route a call to the last cell which was in contact with the phone. If this fails the system tries to locate the phone to other cells and then tries to divert to voicemail.

The system pages the mobile in EVERY cell of the Location Area at the outset. When not in a call, the system does NOT know which cell a mobile is in, it only knows the Location Area. Only when the mobile responds to the page should the ring tone be played to the caller (less networks which offer ringback tones). If the mobile does not respond to the page, the network can send the call to VM (if the subscriber has paid for it). When it hits the VM platform, there may be a second or two of ringing before the call is answered by the the system.

[V1... Ooops]

There has been a number of posts made recently that mention ELT (Emergency Locator Transmitters). For the benefit of those who are not familiar with aircraft electronics, there are two main types of ELTs: those which are intended for use on land, and those intended for use on (or in) water.

Virtually all civil aircraft are fitted with a fixed ELT that is located towards the aft end of the fuselage (this to minimize damage in the event of a crash). This ELT is connected to a small antenna on the outside of the aircraft. The fixed ELT is typically activated automatically by G force, although it is usually possible to turn it on manually using a switch in the flight compartment. This type of fixed ELT is of little or no value if the aircraft lands (or crashes) in water and then sinks, because the radio signal emitted is attenuated by the water above it.

The second type of ELT is one that is designed for use if the aircraft lands (or crashes) on water. It transmits the same type of signal as the fixed ELT described above, but it is normally stowed in a quick-release bracket within the cabin, the idea being that it will be manually removed from its mount and deployed by the crew in the event of ditching. This type of ELT activates automatically when it comes in contact with water, and like the other type, can also be activated manually. But, if it is not removed from the mounting bracket and deployed manually after a ditching, the signal it emits will likely not be detected. Same as with the fixed ELT, if this maritime ELT sinks with the aircraft, the radio signal that it emits will be attenuated by the water above it.

Below is a photo showing a marine-type ELT as installed in an Air Canada aircraft. It is stowed in one of the overhead baggage bins, close to the forward left cabin door.

Here is a link to a document published by Honeywell (a manufacturer of ELTs) that provides additional information about the various types of ELTs available. Honeywell 406 MHz ELTs (http://www51.honeywell.com/aero/portal/Common/Documents/myaerospacecatalog-documents/BA_brochures-documents/ELT_For_Web.pdf)

Maritime ELT, as installed in an Air Canada aircraft
http://i979.photobucket.com/albums/ae275/Paneuropean/MaritimeELT2800pix_zps218d0102.jpg (http://s979.photobucket.com/user/Paneuropean/media/MaritimeELT2800pix_zps218d0102.jpg.html)

[Lonewolf_50]

phil, I get your drift, :cool::ok: and I think we are drifting off topic as well.

The piece of the puzzle that is making me scratch my head: if the plane flies for about an hour in directions not part of their original route to PEK, why no comms? Pilot incapacitation or equipment failure, or both? :confused: More puzzle pieces needed to bring this picture into focus.

[A Squared]

4. Very difficult to totally subdue 220 uncooperative people, confiscate phones etc

And yet it's been accomplished on a number of occasions.

[Evey_Hammond]

To add to the enigma, from the New Straits Times:

"MARANG: Eight villagers here lodged police reports today claiming that they had heard a loud noise last Saturday coming from the direction of Pulau Kapas and believed it was linked to the disappearance of a Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight on that day."

[Lost in Saigon]

If you read his theory carefully, he says ' It’s plausible that a fuselage section near the SATCOM antenna adapter failed, disabling satellite based - GPS, ACARS, and ADS-B/C - communications, and leading to a slow decompression that left all occupants unconscious.'

ADS-B/C = transponder, I think?

The Transponder(ATC) antennas are separate from SATCOM antennas and would not be effected.


http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y17/msowsun/photo%20stuff/Photo14/_777.jpg~original

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y17/msowsun/photo%20stuff/Photo14/_777a.jpg~original

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y17/msowsun/photo%20stuff/Photo14/_777b.jpg~original

[glenbrook]

This reminds me of the initial AF447 thread. Some of the same members also.

Theories we can (almost) 100% eliminate:
....

All very logical, except that you are making assumptions about the absence of RT/Transponder/ACARS information which may not be true.

We can't think of any likely scenarios where an a/c disappearance can happen with no comms and no debris near LKP. There are unlikely possibilities of course, but I prefer incompetence over conspiracy. We know the Malaysian authorities have been withholding information. My best guess for this is that they want to find the a/c and keep control of the story to minimize embarrassment.

If there was RT/Transponder/ACARS data which was lost or is being withheld, then perhaps this incident could have a more believable cause, like a flight upset or fault which was inappropriately handled.

I could be wrong, the incident could be a strange hijack or a bizarre failure of multiple systems on the famously reliable T7. But it seems increasingly likely to me that the reason the a/c has not been found is poor communication between the parties.

[Winston-Smith]

Because it hadn't been confirmed?

I really don't see any big conspiracy over this change of SAR mission from the east of to the west of the peninsula. When the flight first 'went missing', it was positioned east of the peninsula heading NNE so naturally the search was concentrated there.

In the meantime the military has said privately to the government 'hold on we are pretty sure we saw something heading west without identification but need too look at our raw primary data to get a better picture' (and check that nothing classified was being revealed!) On the strength of this some assets were diverted west to the Straits with the caveat "We can't say why" presumably because all the information wasn't in yet, and now the military have come back with confirmation that they did track an unidentified aircraft heading west towards the Straits and today that information was made official.

What's the big deal?

What kind of military would be "pretty sure they saw something [the size of a 777] heading west without identification" and just shrug it off for the meantime until they get a chance to go back through their radar data?

[Thomas Doubting]

SoS

It seems quite a big deal to me, due elapsed time and the amount of SAR effort expended in the Gulf of Thailand.

My earlier post was deleted, but the point I tried to make was that the Malaysian Air Force must also know which way it was heading, but haven’t said so. To Pulau Perak From their previous position was approx hdg 250. To KUL hdg 140 and 240nm, to PEN 107 and 80nm. Continuing on 250 would put them in the mountains and jungle of Northern Sumatra.

[Empire]

All airforces surveillance worldwide is being done with primary radar. No enemy will switch on their transponder before they attack, so SSR is kind of useless from a military border-watching point of view.

30 years ago, a normal primary radar was able to follow flocks of birds without any problems at all. Todays radar equipment is of course much more refined and exact. Following a B777 is among the easiest tasks ever. Its massive, not supersonic, no jamming, and it oftens flies quite high and straight.

So, either the normal 24/7 radar surveillance in the area was not operational at this time (how embarrasing for all involved countries), or there are quite a few people within the borderwatching units who has known all the time where, exactly, primary radar contact was lost...

[bono]

"The P-3C and the MH-60 have surface search radar with a range of 5000 to 10,000 feet that can look down and pick up pretty small objects, even non-metallic ones, and down to basketball size," says William Marks, a US Navy commander on the USS Blue Ridge, which is coordinating the US search contribution. "Then the crew will use high zoom cameras to zoom in and check it out. Yesterday, for instance, we found something that looked interesting but it was just a wooden crate."...


Search for missing Malaysian plane goes high tech - tech - 10 March 2014 - New Scientist (http://goo.gl/J9uVHW)
8:38 10 March 2014 by Paul Marks

NEW SCIENTIST

[barrel_owl]

@Evey_Hammond

I am reading the news you reported:

MISSING MH370: Loud noise reported, believed linked to missing plane

MARANG: Eight villagers here lodged police reports today claiming that they had heard a loud noise last Saturday coming from the direction of Pulau Kapas and believed it was linked to the disappearance of a Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight on that day.
All of them, from Kampung Pantai Seberang Marang, made the reports at the Marang district police headquarters at about 10.30 am.

One of them, Alias Salleh, 36, said he and seven fellow villagers were seated on a bench about 400 metres from the Marang beach at 1.20 am when they heard the noise, which sounded like the fan of a jet engine.

"The loud and frightening noise came from the north-east of Pulau Kapas and we ran in that direction to find out the cause. We looked around the Rhu Muda beach but did not see anything unusual," said the lorry driver.

Replying to a question, Alias said they lodged the police report so that it would be of help to the authorities who were trying to locate the missing MAS aircraft.


MAS Flight MH370, carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew, went missing en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing about an hour after taking off from the KL International Airport at 12.41 am Saturday.

It was flying above the South China Sea off Kelantan at that time. It should have landed in Beijing at 6.30 am but has disappeared without a trace.

Another villager, Mohd Yusri Mohd Yusof, 34, said when he heard the strange noise, he thought a tsunami was about to strike.

"My friends and I heard the ringing noise for about two minutes. I decided to lodge the police report after seeing the media reports on the lost flight," he said


Link (http://www.nst.com.my/latest/font-color-red-missing-mh370-font-loud-noise-reported-believed-linked-to-missing-plane-1.507926#ixzz2vfTLpEAx) to full NYT article

The time indicated by this guy perfectly matches the last radar position reported by flightradar24: N 6.38 E 103.46, recorded at 17:21 UTC (01:21 MYT). However, the distance from Marang is 89.315 nm.

[Toruk Macto]

If the Chinese thought the Malaysians where manipulating the story to save national face ( Chinese know this game ) they would be screaming blue murder . They moved 20 odd satellites over the area .
Think it really is a mystery to everyone . Fingers crossed tomorrow there is a break through.

[tdracer]

There seems to be general perception here that ACARS transmissions are more or less continuous - that is NOT the case.

Each ACARS message cost money - not much - but if an aircraft is sending out continuous messages it adds up really fast. Hence, ACARS is set up to transmit only when specific events occur - e.g. a system or LRU reports a fault. Similarly, engine condition monitoring does not continuously spout out data via ACARS or other downlink. Rather there are engine parameter algorithms that look for certain 'stabilized' events - e.g. stabilized takeoff or cruise conditions. If those specific events are not met, nothing is downlinked.

So, the absence of apparent ACARS messages is not in and of itself unusual. What is potentially of interest is that the lack of ACARS messages would either imply either a lack of systems failures or a sudden failure (or human action) that disabled ACARS.

[Lonewolf_50]

It seems quite a big deal to me, due elapsed time and the amount of SAR effort expended in the Gulf of Thailand.
Thomas. Please go back to my post that begins "In defense of Malaysian Authorities." (No, I am not Malaysian, but I made a port call in Penang once).
With contradictory information to hand, seems prudent to search in both areas that may be where one should start while resolving the contradiction in the data available. (That, and maybe saving some face if, for example, at zero dark thirty in the morning one of the radar operators was ... asleep at his post? ;) Don't know, but that might explain why it took a while to uncover what that radar sight had painted that evening ... I admit I am guessing on that but it fits within three sigma what happens to some people on the graveyard shift).
My earlier post was deleted, but the point I tried to make was that the Malaysian Air Force must also know which way it was heading, but haven’t said so.
See above. Not necessarily so until later it became evident what their radar had seen. Add some face saving ... presto, it begins to make some sense.
To Pulau Perak From their previous position was approx hdg 250. To KUL hdg 140 and 240nm, to PEN 107 and 80nm. Continuing on 250 would put them in the mountains and jungle of Northern Sumatra.
What if they were having a hard time maintaining a constant heading? :confused: Something, or a number of somethings, were not quite right with this flight. When the radar track info is made public, if it ever is, it will be interesting to see what flight path that aircraft followed once it left the route toward PEK.

[RexBanner]

None of this seems to make any sense. I think we can put to bed the possibility of terrorism. At least in terms of a large scale organised plot. There have been no claims of responsibility for this event. That tells its own story. Any opportunistic terror group who saw an opportunity to claim responsibility but were subsequently shown to be talking out of their collective asses when the aircraft was found and no foul play was evident would instantly lose any credibility whatsoever and therefore much of their fear factor in the process. Do not think terrorist groups are not aware of this.

[wiggy97]

If as now appears to be the case the Malaysian military were aware that there was a 777 heading west over the Malay peninsula in the early hours of Saturday morning they presumably did not simply ignore it and do nothing but would have sought authority either to intercept and identify or intercept and force it to land. They could of course have been told to ignore it but that would be a positive decision by a senior officer or a politician. Obviously there are therefore many people who risk losing face and the more senior they are the greater the potential loss of face. Their vested interests will make it progressively harder to "do the right thing", whatever that may be.

The longer the SAR mission lasts the greater the potential humiliation , whatever the real cause was and whatever the outcome for the flight. Perhaps the only way to break the seeming deadlock is for an outside party to produce evidence eg the alleged mayday message received by the US/Royal Thai Navy AFB at U-Tapao?

[marconiphone]

Having worked in Singapore/Malaysia for nearly 20 years, I don't believe this stuff about the Malaysians 'covering up' what they know for days, just to save face. They're pretty clued up at senior levels (even if performances at press conferences are not very impressive). They're not stupid enough to think that with ships, aircraft and miscellaneous technically expert personnel of sundry countries running around the search area(s), monitoring every bit of equipment they can lay hands on, they would be able to cover up anything really significant for any time. 'Face' is important in this part of the world, but not to such a lunatic extent. Seems much more likely that they've been working with unconfirmed information, and pending confirmation they've been hedging their bets as to search locations. Isn't that what anyone sensible would do? For all we know they have been sharing unconfirmed information with their international collaborators in the search effort.

Similarly with the passports. They didn't release information publicly until they had something solid to release (and until they had spoken in Frankfurt to the mother of that poor chap, not least). Fair enough, it seems to me.

[Harry O]

Sky news is reporting on TV that the military tracked the a/c heading towards the straits of malacca.

Flight MH370: 13 Things You Need To Know (http://news.sky.com/story/1224061/flight-mh370-13-things-you-need-to-know)

Malaysia Airlines Plane: What Has Happened? (http://news.sky.com/story/1223758/malaysia-airlines-plane-what-has-happened)

The sky picture shows that the Straits are much further south than the previous expected course.

[peteroja]

The 777 use Honeywell FMS system, There are several AD on the FMS. United airlines had an incident in a B747 a few years back, the FMS guided the airplane parallel to the Runway basically offset with a mile over the water in SFO.

Honeywell have had numerous problems with the data base, further you fly greater error. ;)

[Harry O]

Military confirm it turned and flew hundreds of km's away from course.
Yahoo News UK & Ireland - Latest World News & UK News Headlines (http://uk.news.yahoo.com/search-widened-malaysia-air-probe-finds-scant-evidence-052053593--sector.html#0lNLhp3)

[DWS]

If I recall correctly - there is a local time zone difference of one hour between takeoff in Lampur and area of disappearance. IF so, why in the world does the press and way too many reports make a big deal of ' military ' radarr tracking plane about 1 hour after loss of contact when actually it is the same GMT ?...

About the only theory missing from widespread publication is that the plane was secretly refueled and is now in Area 51 . ...:ugh::confused::ugh:

[V1... Ooops]

Why do neither of these ELTs appear to have a buoy attached such that it would float?

The basic (fixed) ELT is attached to the aircraft fuselage, usually in an inaccessible spot. It is intended for use on land only.

It is entirely possible that the maritime ELT (the long thin tube, pictured earlier) does float. I can't think of any reason for that 1 meter long tubular design other than to provide flotation with the antenna pointed up. Normal fixed ELTs are rectangular and no bigger than a carton of cigarettes.

[paddy_22002]

Flight deck oxygen fire? IFE fire maybe? Cargo fire?

It's all happened before quite recently.

[Feathered]

The earlier message about ACARS messages referred to maintenance messages. Maintenance information is only sent when there is something to report. (Boeing calls this service Aircraft Health Management and messages are sent to the airline AOC and Boeing). With AF447, the equivalent Airbus service sent messages as many aircraft systems were functioning normally for a while during the event.

Was the MH370 aircraft equipped (or enabled) with FANS? Was it using ADS-C? I'm curious why we haven't heard more about FANS messages, which could have transmitted position information as long as the aircraft had power.

[alanda]

CCTV - Already been discussed, way way back.

[travelexec]

I have it directly from a good first hand source that has regularly touched this aircraft for line maintenance that this was a well looked after aircraft, and that as of the last time he saw this aircraft a few weeks ago there was certainly no suggestion that the historic wing incident was of any issue.
This is a good aeroplane.

[500N]

And hasn't read back through the thread and seen the two or three other times it was clearly explained why the phones could still be ringing !!!

[RAT 5]

Isn't it time to consider having CCTV on airplanes......Am I being naive?

Yes, I think you might be.

I don't think you are; not in asking the question. It has been considered for years, but perhaps only within the cockpit. The Qantas A380, that had the engine blow up and returned to SIA, had tail mounted cameras for pax entertainment for takeoff & landing and any other time it might be selected. The technology exists and is used as customer options. Hell, buses and metros have CCTV for anti hooliganism. Considering air-rage and the effect it could have on safety why not in the cabin if only for that reason. Thinking further, about live feed, consider a loss on communication a la 9/11 a/c. Fighters are scrambled and fly along side. No communications. Shoot it down yes/no? CCTV might save everyone's life, or save a catastrophe. There was a thought that one of the 9/11 a/c was targeted on Capitol Hill or the White House. The pax saved the day on that one. But imagine a repeat without pax intervention and fighter command having to make the call. We are talking worldwide here; it could happen in any country and considering the attitude in some places that are more trigger happy than others, and where factions are slightly more actively revolutionary as well.
Further, consider all the investigative work, hours and machinery and money, that has gone into searching the sea bed for the 'boxes' because they had no idea what happened. Sometimes the cause still remains a mystery. Ask the AAIB & NTSB their opinion about CCTV.
So no, I don't think it is naive. There are already CVR's, and modern FBW a/c send a massive amount of data back by live link. The amount of data Qantas received about their engine blow up was impressive. It was like a Redbull F1 car telling all, all the time. Ask Vetel if he rather know if he had a slow puncture or not, before it goes pop. Any CCTV would be on a loop as per CVR's and have protection protocols.
It is worthy of debate and not an instant dismissal. Remember the B737 rudder hard-over. The rest of us were wondering if to was going to bite us today. No one really knew, for years, what the hell happened and why. I'm sure there have been many crashes where the conclusion would have been reached if the AAIB/NTSB had eyes inside or outside. If A380/340/330 have live feeds of data back to home base it would seem that all future a/c will have such a feature, so why not add video with the proviso of agreed privacy that it is only used after an event and with mutual agreement.

[Stanley11]

MISSING MH370: Terrorism cannot be ruled out : CIA

CIA Director John Brennan said there had been “some claims of responsibility” over the missing jet that had “not been confirmed or corroborated,” and that he could not exclude the possibility of a terror link.
Read more: MISSING MH370: Terrorism cannot be ruled out : CIA - Latest - New Straits Times (http://www.nst.com.my/latest/font-color-red-missing-mh370-font-terrorism-cannot-be-ruled-out-cia-1.508465#ixzz2vfqSrOOD) MISSING MH370: Terrorism cannot be ruled out : CIA - Latest - New Straits Times (http://www.nst.com.my/latest/font-color-red-missing-mh370-font-terrorism-cannot-be-ruled-out-cia-1.508465#ixzz2vfqSrOOD)

[Skiff]

The subject of imagery on Google Earth convinced me at long last to register for PPRune, as we're finally in a subject I have some knowledge to contribute.

Contrary to popular belief by many, the imagery on Google Earth, Bing, etc. are not realtime imagery. Further, much of the imagery, particularly over urban areas, is not satellite imagery but rather aerial imagery. Google itself does not acquire much ortho imagery itself; it's primarily provided by the large satellite and aerial imagery providers.

Much of the areas outside urban centers that is acquired by satellite imagery is captured at relatively high resolution (40 cm/pixel). However, extremely remote areas may have extremely low resolution, on the order of 30 meters per pixel. Because of this, it's not surprising at all for small, remote islands to appear blurry.

While Digital Globe or their subsidiaries may be retasking satellites to capture high resolution imagery of the suspected crash areas, don't expect that imagery to appear on Google Earth in the next couple of days. More likely DG will post it on their website first, and it will eventually be integrated into GE.

[CogSim]

"It changed course after Kota Bharu and took a lower altitude. It made it into the Malacca Strait," the senior military officer, who has been briefed on investigations, told Reuters.

If this is indeed the case, why would you not scramble?

[slip and turn]

CCTV
Not a problem within the aircraft, but expensive to transmit to an exterior location.

Very expensive . . .So is an $X00M aircraft hull and an $X00M liability loss.

And therein perhaps lies one reason we see only selective steady development on stuff that accurately points at cause even if we see super fast development in all other areas of aerospace engineering.

A surprisingly large part of the worldwide insurance market ultimately shoulders the cost of a loss like this - technology that excuses parts of the risk market from contribution might sometimes put an uncomfortable / difficult to manage burden on the remainder.

Sometimes it is fairer for some mystery to remain ...

Not a criticism - just a likely truth.

The insurance market underwrites aviation and aerospace in all its guises - can't do without it, and I think at some levels they do get a say.

[XB70_Valkyrie]

I have been watching this thread from the begining with considerable self-discipline to refrain from posting.
But the latest news about mil radar tracking of this unfortunate flight for more than one hour on an opposite track gave me the last momentum to post:
IF IT IS TRUE, WHY THE .... THEY STARED A HUGE MULTINATIONAL SEARCH AT THE SITE OF THE LAST CIVILIAN PRIMARY, SSR/ACARS, WHATSOEVER CONTACT AREA NORTH EAST AF MALAYSIA????

Very common in SAR ops. The military radar contact wouldn't have a xpndr id, so while it is potentially a clue, until it is 100% certain the a/c in question, you still have to start the search at the last known point/point last seen, which was the last transponder transmission.

[Vinnie Boombatz]

There have been a lot of references to AF 447, many implying that oil slicks or debris was found quickly. Conversely, BEA reported at least 5 days between loss of aircraft and first sightings.

FLIGHT AF 447 (http://www.bea.aero/en/enquetes/flight.af.447/flight.af.447.php)

http://www.bea.aero/en/enquetes/flight.af.447/discovery.of.the.wreckage.pdf

"During the morning of 1st June, extensive air and naval resources were mobilized to find
any trace of the aeroplane and possible survivors. In spite of this, it was not until 5 days
later, and on the following days, that human remains and floating debris were found on the
surface of the sea, north of the last position transmitted automatically by the aeroplane."

"The discovery of the first floating debris at the surface of the sea, about 70 km north of the
last known position did not, however, make it possible to determine the point of impact,
due to a lack of precise knowledge of the currents that made the debris drift from the time
of the accident."

http://www.bea.aero/docspa/2009/f-cp090601.en/pdf/f-cp090601.en.pdf

"On Sunday 31 May 2009, . . . flight AF 447 . . . departure was planned for 22 h 00. . . . The French and Brazilian navies found debris belonging to the aeroplane from 6 June onwards. . . . The wreckage was localised on 2 April 2011 during the fourth phase of the sea searches. . . . The aeroplane wreckage was found about 6.5 NM on the radial 019 from the last known position, slightly to the left of the planned route."

"The first search phase aimed at detecting and locating the acoustic signals transmitted by the Underwater Locator Beacon (ULB) fitted on each flight recorder. As a priority, the aeroplane’s planned flight path as well as the greatest possible area inside the 40 NM circle was swept by two Towed Pinger Locators (TPL).

No signal from either of the beacons was detected by the sensors deployed in the area despite TPL passing by, on two occasions, not far from the debris field, on 22 and 23 June 2009. "

[EDMJ]

If the point of the last civilian radar return and the point of the last military radar return had been known at the same time, would a search effort not have begun at both points more or less simultaneously and not with a 4 day delay?

[john_curchod]

Passenger Manifest: Published
Cargo Manifest: Anybody seen one?

[hamster3null]

If the point of the last civilian radar return and the point of the last military radar return had been known at the same time, would a search effort not have begun at both points more or less simultaneously and not with a 4 day delay?

You have to ask yourself, "known to whom?"

Civilian authorities only had access to the civilian radar return, which terminated in Gulf of Thailand. Military radar return only existed on a tape somewhere in a military base and consisted of a single track among hundreds if not thousands of plane tracks seen by the military radar every day, without any association between the track and the plane ID.

It took time for a high-ranking officer to order the review of the tapes, and more time to perform the review, and even more time to authorize the release of this info to SAR. All in all, looks like it took about 2 days for this to happen.

[Lonewolf_50]

If the point of the last civilian radar return and the point of the last military radar return had been known at the same time, would a search effort not have begun at both points more or less simultaneously and not with a 4 day delay?
Sir, not a four day delay. (EDIT: sorry, Hamsternull beat me to this).

If you recall a couple of days ago, US and AUS P-3's were tasked to search in the Malacca Straits, and various search areas WEST of Malaysia were up on the board behind the press briefers. That would indicate to me that both areas were being searched. I noticed a number of posters here wondering at why there were search boxes in red WEST of Malaysia. Well, now we know. :hmm:

[EDMJ]

I find it difficult to believe that there should be no active and real-time monitoring by the local military of their radar returns, and that perusal of tapes is required (allegedly taking days?). Why bother with military radar surveillance then?

[Ian W]

If you read his theory carefully, he says ' It’s plausible that a fuselage section near the SATCOM antenna adapter failed, disabling satellite based - GPS, ACARS, and ADS-B/C - communications, and leading to a slow decompression that left all occupants unconscious.'

ADS-B/C = transponder, I think?


A good theory. However, the ADS-B and SSR transponder antennae are not in the SATCOM mount and are duplicated on the top and bottom of the aircraft. So it is unlikely that a corrosion/crack in the SATCOM antenna and decompression would lead to a loss of SSR (which will be what the ATC were tracking) or to loss of ADS-B. It is possible that there could be a common mode electrical failure but that is doubtful.

The aircraft also underwent an extended maintenance ~ 2 weeks ago at which corrosion/cracking around the SATCOM mount should/would have been checked for.

[SOPS]

No wonder we are having huge page drops by the mods....please read the thread before posting!

[Lonewolf_50]

EDMJ, this event took place during the mid watch. Midnight to early AM shift. Consider the human factors involved. Consider also that process one goes through in the military to confirm what one suspects one has seen.

I don't think a radar operator expected a COMAIR to switch off its transponder while heading north/northeast, and begin to head west or southwest, with no IFF reply.

There is a lot we don't know, to include what comms challenges someone on the scope made, or if the person on the scope missed a trick and it was the next day before someone had a good hard look at the radar tracks and began to put one and two together.

In SAR, typical initial datum is LAST KNOWN LOCATION. So, lost IFF contact was most likely foremost in the minds of the national SAR coordinator, and it took some time and effort to establish that there was another possible datum to explore on the search mission.

That it took the authorities a few days to get that info out to the press "there are some things we can tell you and some things we cannot tell you" is a matter for you to take up with the authorities in Malaysia.

[andrasz]

hamster3null

I gave full benefit of doubt to Malaysian statements up till now, but given the initial report of radar contact having been lost at 2:40 (later modified to 1:22, explaining that 2:40 was when the information was received from ATC) and the slip of tongue by the Air Force chief on the press conference of the 9th hinting at a possible return makes me suspect all this information was known very soon after the event, maybe not with the degree of certainty as it was announced today, but with a good degree of probability. There have been unexplained reports of the Straits of Malacca being searched since two days.

[NigelOnDraft]

I find it difficult to believe that there should be no active and real-time monitoring by the local military of their radar returns,One reason could be they are looking for traffic coming into their area, not transiting / exiting.

Secondly, if there is any correlation between the civil and SSR side, the primary return could have been verified as a known / identified / flight planned "target", and thus disregarded / categorised as low risk.

Finally, retrieval from tapes is required in the civil world for various reasons. In the military world I suspect less so, since the basic requirement is real time. Think through what the military system and radar is implemented for - a backup civil / SAR is not high on the priorities.

NoD

[papershuffler]

OFFICIAL STATEMENT BY CHIEF OF ROYAL MALAYSIAN AIR FORCE ON BERITA HARIAN NEWS ARTICLE DATED 11th MARCH 2014 ON SEARCH AND RESCUE OPERATIONS IN THE STRAITS OF MALACCA

1. I refer to the Berita Harian news article dated 11th March 2014 on Search and Rescue Operations in the Straits of Malacca which (in Bahasa Malaysia) referred to me as making the following statements:

The RMAF Chief confirmed that RMAF Butterworth airbase detected the location signal of the airliner as indicating that it turned back from its original heading to the direction of Kota Bahru, Kelantan, and was believed to have pass through the airspace of the East Coast of and Northern Peninsular Malaysia.

The last time the plane was detected by the air control tower was in the vicinity of Pulau Perak in the Straits of Malacca at 2.40 in the morning before the signal disappeared without any trace, he said.

2. I wish to state that I did not make any such statements as above, what occurred was that the Berita Harian journalist asked me if such an incident occurred as detailed in their story, however I did not give any answer to the question, instead what I said to the journalist was “Please refer to the statement which I have already made on 9 March 2014, during the press conference with the Chief of Defence Force at the Sama-Sama Hotel, Kuala Lumpur International Airport”.

3. What I stated during that press conference was,

The RMAF has not ruled out the possibility of an air turn back on a reciprocal heading before the aircraft vanished from the radar and this resulted in the Search and Rescue Operations being widen to the vicinity of the waters of Pulau Pinang.

4. I request this misreporting be amended and corrected to prevent further misinterpretations of what is clearly an inaccurate and incorrect report.

5. Currently the RMAF is examining and analyzing all possibilities as regards to the airliner’s flight paths subsequent to its disappearance. However for the time being, it would not be appropriate for the RMAF to issue any official conclusions as to the aircraft’s flight path until a high amount of certainty and verification is achieved. However all ongoing search operations are at the moment being conducted to cover all possible areas where the aircraft could have gone down in order to ensure no possibility is overlooked.

6. In addition, I would like to state to the media that all information and developments will be released via official statements and press conferences as soon as possible and when appropriate. Our current efforts are focused upon on finding the aircraft as soon as possible.

Thank You

GENERAL TAN SRI DATO’SRI RODZALI BIN DAUD RMAF
Chief of Royal Malaysian Air Force

Released On:

11 March 14
Kuala Lumpur

This was posted on a thread on A.net, but the source was not verified there. IMO, it does have the hallmarks of an official statement.

[Lonewolf_50]

papershuffler:

Presuming that release is genuine, does that put into question the line of thinking that the aircraft changed course and head west, or was he making a targeted press release aimed directly at a particular flight route put forth by the media?

[Clear_Prop]

I think the remark "there are some things we can tell you and some things we can't tell you" is a fairly standard remark where multi-agency data is involved, especially if they only have a few shreds of information, some of which related to manifest items (police matters), some of which related to military radar data.

As with every incident, the only time the investigating collective have a "duty" to tell us anything is when they release a final Accident Investigation Report; and to a lesser degree if they release any initial/preliminary reports beforehand.

Anything else the SAR team mention in the meantime is put out as a matter of courtesy and we can't expect 100% accuracy. We certainly can't judge them for it.

So in summary any old tosh like "people obviously arent telling us everything" is just idiotspeak for the bewilderment of the masses.

Sure, many of us would love to step into the investigation office and see all the fragments and blind alleys they are dealing with, but seriously? If you had access to all their info at this stage, with no further clue where the aircraft ultimately arrived... wouldn't you hold off making comments until you felt you had something worthwhile to report?

[Nightingale14]

One of the uniformed types said at a press conference quite early on that they had extended the search up the Malacca Straits to the Anduram sea. A US P3 surveillance plane has been there from the start tracking and mapping. Ben Sandilands of the OZ website Crikey reported the sighting at Silver Island late this morning. I did try to report the Anduram Sea search early on here but it all sort of got bounced by the mods, presumably as they tried to manage the tidal flow of postings.

[mabuhay_2000]

I seem to have fallen foul of the mods with a comment that asked what seems a highly pertinent question: why would the MAF suit by idly and watch an unidentified blip traverse the spine of Malaysia without taking action to identify it?

Not sure what I did wrong!

[A A Gruntpuddock]

If they thought they might be dealing with a terrorist situation then keeping quiet at the time is understandable.

But why keep it up when they must have known the plane was down?

And I can't help feeling that the instinctive response of military to a suspicious object is to blow it up, just in case. If that happened, then there would be an even greater need for secrecy by those involved.

[CogSim]

Secondly, if there is any correlation between the civil and SSR side, the primary return could have been verified as a known / identified / flight planned "target", and thus disregarded / categorised as low risk.

If this is the case, they should also know the transponder is (switched?) off and unable to make radio contact. At this point, I humbly submit, it becomes a high risk target.

[ika]

Sorry but I felt obliged to share this from The London Evening Standard which has a two page picture spread with an inaccurate report (and transcript) of the AF incident under the headline "Damn it, we're going to crash, this can't be happening." to draw attention.

"There are striking parallels between the two incidents. The Malaysia Airlines flight was at an altitude of 35,000 feet, while the Air France Airbus A330-203 was 3,000 higher at 38,000ft, both planes were state of the art and neither sent a distress signal."

This serves to remind, as I am sure all appreciate, that the media is increasingly desperate to fill space with anything vaguely related to keep the public interest alive, however spurious. The blondes in cockpit is arguably in the same league. It is of course possible, as it always was, that the crew invited someone into the cockpit, but there is no evidence to suggest they did on this flight or that this had any relevance. Hijack was and is a credible possibility. The blonde in cockpit story doesn't sensibly change that either way, unless someone shows a passenger manifest with a stunning blonde model with credible terrorist connections.

I would focus speculation on what might have caused what appears to be a sudden re-route, descent, and loss of multiple comms systems but I sincerely doubt now that we will get any closer at all to picking between hijack and a substantial event, deliberate or structural, until the aircraft is found regardless of how much vaguely related spice the media dredges up before then.

[andrasz]

Not sure what I did wrong!

I think nothing, it seems the servers are giving up, my answer is nowhere too.

In summary I have suggested that if a target was once identified, it will remain as such (and hence 'uninteresting') even if the secondary return is lost.

[mabuhay_2000]

That's exactly my reading of it.

And what happens to high risk threats?

We all know the answer to that conundrum...

[CodyBlade]

''If this is the case, they should also know the transponder is (switched?) off and unable to make radio contact. At this point, I humbly submit, it becomes a high risk target.''

But the Tech crew would know that too..

[Clear_Prop]

mabuhay if it was operating at FL3++ and clearly looked like a widebody jet, they would have NO instantaneous interest in it.

Military outfits are almost entirely monday-friday 9-5 operations, it would take a stuka attack from something very fast moving, heading directly for a military base or major population centre to sound any alarm bells in the mind of the poor guy on duty at O-silly-hundred-hours observing for credible threats.

[TRW Plus]

CNN have totally bought into the new theory that the plane was tracked on radar into the Straits of Malacca and that it was last radar-fixed at some as yet undisclosed location roughly 100-200 miles northwest of KL.

This certainly points to one of two scenarios being more likely than others:

1. The pilot, having lost much of his guidance, was attempting to make a visual return to KL. One must then ask if moonset and local weather (something we left behind when it was assumed that the search would be much further north) played any role. METARS for relevant stations might be useful now.

2. Hostile elements, either terrorists or misguided pilot(s) were in control of the aircraft and the postulated track would suggest a terror attack planned at KL which after all has some of world's tallest buildings. One might then ask why anyone would plan such a thing especially at night (it would be approximately 0330h to 0400h local time if any terrorists managed to execute such a plan.

As either of these seem somewhat difficult to believe, we might then consider a third option, terrorist hi-jack with known landing point in Sumatra, explaining the low-altitude flight path in an attempt to evade primary radar. This even keeps alive the possibility that this plan has been successfully executed but in which case, why no announcement or demands?

Most likely outcome, but not by much, is that crippled aircraft made desperate but ultimately unsuccessful attempt to return to KL and that evidence of this will eventually be found.

[hamster3null]

hamster3null

I gave full benefit of doubt to Malaysian statements up till now, but given the initial report of radar contact having been lost at 2:40 (later modified to 1:22, explaining that 2:40 was when the information was received from ATC) and the slip of tongue by the Air Force chief on the press conference of the 9th hinting at a possible return makes me suspect all this information was known very soon after the event, maybe not with the degree of certainty as it was announced today, but with a good degree of probability. There have been unexplained reports of the Straits of Malacca being searched since two days.

I'm aware of the 2:40 curiosity, but I'm inclined to think that it's purely a coincidence.

Consider that the original statement about the plane being lost at 2:40 was made by the airline (that is, civilians). After that, the search continued in the Gulf for a while; my timeline may be off but I think that the first mention of Malacca Straits happened at least 36 hours after the plane went missing. The plane took off at 16:41 UTC on 3/7. The earliest statement about "turning back" I could find was made by Malaysia's air force chief at 06:00 UTC on 3/9.

Militaries aren't usually big on sharing info with civilians, and it takes an established protocol or an explicit authorization from high command to release stuff like that. It's pretty unlikely that someone would pass the information about last known military contact to the airline within a few hours after disappearance, in the middle of the night. And even if that did happen, it's downright incredible that Malaysia would then waste time and effort on searching the Gulf.

[mabuhay_2000]

Logically, I would have thought an identified target that sudden stopped squawking would be cause for concern, even if only because it would be highly unusual for a commercial airliner to do that and should set a few alarm bells ringing, especially in a post 9/11 world.

[Livesinafield]

Military outfits are almost entirely monday-friday 9-5 operations, it would take a stuka attack from something very fast moving, heading directly for a military base or major population centre to sound any alarm bells in the mind of the poor guy on duty at O-silly-hundred-hours observing for credible threats.


So your saying that, if a plane took off from the UK in the night then halfway out over the sea stopped communicating and transponder stopped working on SSR, then turned back toward the UK and over flew the UK for 1 hour still with no communications, that there would not be military response ?

i am afraid i cannot see that at all, and i find it really hard to believe that is the case here

[Lonewolf_50]

Logically, I would have thought an identified target that sudden stopped squawking would be cause for concern, even if only because it would be highly unusual for a commercial airliner to do that and should set a few alarm bells ringing, especially in a post 9/11 world.
If the radar operator had already marked the contact as COMAIR, while it was squawking valid Mode 3, it might have (depending upon autotrack functions used or not used) retained that track classification with nary a peep out of the radar operator who, not being ATC, may not instinctively know where a given COMAIR is headed to on a given evening.

Do you put your sharpest people on watch at zero dark thirty? :confused:

[Chill]

The not so good:

Fernanset - that was an unmeasured response, perhaps you should too. Execs comment didn't suggest any aircraft, just this particular one and many of the senior LAMEs at MAS could tell the life story of their aircraft. The 777 has been a pretty well maintained fleet and I'd see no reason to doubt their judgement even in spite of the element of human error.

Physicus - it's RMAF Butterworth and has been for sometime, you're living in the 80's.

Slats11 - Meals, a bit too early still, people might have got a drink and peanuts if they were lucky. Skyshow, yes so they would have been able to watch position unless... IFE, yes would have been on after 10'000 so if not sleeping many would be watching. Phones, seriously from my experience there is no reception above 8000', momentary at best. Someone way back mentioned something about EPC (?) maybe that works but how many actually do it. As a digression one MAS 777 was a test aircraft for inflight GSM services (relayed through SATCOM). System was active in cruise, you could switch your phone on and make calls and sms only; the aircraft was it's own cell (charges were high of course). Success had a lot to do with your telco, mine didn't work, but for others it did.

The good:

V1...ooops - your ELT stuff is more or less correct. The tubular model is a Rescue406 and it floats like a buoy - in fact saltwater makes the battery cell work (if you use it on land you have to stick it in water or better yet urine), but there is nothing automatic with it other than in liquid it works and out it doesn't. The boxy unit quite often is an ADT406, it can be automatic (G switch) if armed but otherwise it's off and it can float if it's floatation collar is attached. But if they go to the bottom of the ocean they're not much use.

I was under the impression that all transport category aircraft had to carry an ELT and haven't flown a bird yet that doesn't have one "built-in" in addition to the portables stowed in the cabin (the built in one of course being armed at all times except in the hanger), at least on Boeing aircraft. For those wondering, the missing aircraft contains 1 fixed, 1 portable and 2 slide raft ELTs. The fixed one as per V1s description, the portable on it's own battery and the raft only when deployed in water (spose you could cut it out and drop it in water if you're the boy scout type). Only one unit is G-switched, the rest require human operation.

The Shadow - as someone said to me, plausible. However I would add that in my experience with unusual events affecting the airframe that post repair, said problem area is subjected to more routine inspections than normally required and that is Boeings recommendation. Eg hard-landing gear repairs every so many cycles, tail strike repairs every so many hours, etc. I rather doubt it would be fix it once and forget about it, monitoring would be required much like warped fan blades. I'm not an aerodynamicist, just a pilot, so won't tackle you on the theory, but as crew we get some stuffed up situations in the sim like runaway controls and while that can't mimic surface loss and the rolling moments could be significant, the outer 1/4 of the wing isn't contributing the majority of the lift so managable springs to mind in the best of situations. Regards to major repairs, much much earlier a MAS 777 tail striked in ZRH and it was "pretty" bad, whole tail redone, that aircraft is still flying.

Fly26 - the area you're referring to, it's pretty rugged for the most part and semi-mountainous depending where exactly. Nuri's and light aircraft have disappeared in there for ages and that makes sense due to their size but if a 777 went in with 30,000+kg of fuel onboard I think the haze problems here would be a whole lot worse.

[JG1]

Airliner flies along. Suddenly transponder is switched off/fails at time x, likely causes .. Interference//tech issue//sudden destruction of aircraft, allied with comms possibilities as follows..

A/Radio transmission from flight ends abruptly. Likely cause..explosion/or/explosive decompression. Sudden destruction.
B/No radio calls from crew. Likely cause..Crew wouldn't have Known the transponder had failed and continued.
C/ATC tried to contact the crew in range and there was no response. Likely causes...destruction at x/or/interference at x/or/radios made u/s by same tech issue as transponder eg. Fire//electrical problem.

Mu!tiple eyewitnesses report an unusual large aircraft flying fast and low. Coupled with there being no evidence of sudden destruction, either in the form of debris, infrared flash monitoring, seismic registration or eyewiynesses in a very densely populated area points to either interference or tech issue, fire or electrical. As the eyewitnesses have mentioned that the aircraft was carrying lights, it couldn't have been a total Electrical failure. (If this large aircraft flying in an unusual direction at an unusual altitude on the very night this 777 goes missing is indeed the 777) . if it wasn't a total electrical failure then it would have been almost certainly possible to get either the transponder or com1 or acars or HF going.

Which points to two things. If it was a fire, it was now under control or it would have Been out of control by this time, but wasn't, or the bits would have been found by now. The witnesses specifically mention white light, not fire. If the fire had been contained I daresay the pilots would have landed it asap.

So it wasn't a fire.

Which leaves us with the last cause... Interference. If the aircraft was seized the scenario would fit the facts..seizer/s turned off the transponder, prevented the Crew from transmitting, and forced them to fly somewhere else, or flew themselves, deviating from the flight plan. Where they were seen by eyewitnesses. Or painted by primary radar.

We know two things by deduction..the aircraft was unlawfully taken control of and By now the aircraft is either crashed or landed safely somewhere in the hands of the criminal/s.

[Pontius Navigator]

[QUOTE=Lonewolf_50;8366717In defense of the Malaysian authorities: it may have taken some analysis by the best radar operators and analysts -- who'd not be on the night shift, but on the day shift -- of radar the tapes/data from the night shift to arrive at the conclusion that the radar contact being tracked was indeed the airliner they had been looking for. Such analysis takes time.[/QUOTE]

I am reminded of a similar disappearance nearly 30 years ago. A light aircraft disappeared overland in UK. Our local military suitably qualified SATCO was called upon to examine the radar tapes to determine the probably location of the crash site.

This examination was at least full day after the accident and he was successful. LW is therefore probably quite right.

[hamster3null]

So your saying that, if a plane took off from the UK in the night then halfway out over the sea stopped communicating and transponder stopped working on SSR, then turned back toward the UK and over flew the UK for 1 hour still with no communications, that there would not be military response ?

i am afraid i cannot see that at all, and i find it really hard to believe that is the case here

The way things are done in post-9/11 UK are not necessarily the same way they are done in Malaysia.

[JPcont]

The assumption that something catastrophic happened in short time is not the only possibility. Probability for all chains of events leading to accident are low. One of those has sill happened and probable there are several things that had not gone right.


There was a hint that the plane might turn back. For me it sounds that they have consulted for problems and might have told that they will turn back if they can't solve the problems soon. For that reason the radio might have been in a “wrong” channel and the crew concentrated to “secondary” issues.


Then the situation might be turned rapidly from bad to worse and they have lost the transponder and some other systems. For mixed reasons they have found themselves in a situation where there is no time to establish communication and all the effort is needed to avoid the instant catastrophe. They also knows that the others can not detect them. So the diverted the region where is usually no traffic.


They also might have concluded that the emergency landing can be needed in a with a very short warning time if situation gets even worse. So they prepared to emergency landing by flying low. Then also the primary radars lost them, including military ones.


It could explain the confusion also in the ground. Primary radars detected the plane later but what a plane? They realized the detections only later when the plane was not found. At that time the “search train” was in the wrong rails and time has been lost.


Where the plane is? No idea. Lets hope not too far in the ocean.

[Ong88]

In a flight with 200+ pax, what are the odds of someone leaving their 4G mobile phones on, having forgotten to put on airplane mode?

If the craft was traversing Peninsular Malaysia at low alt, with the mobile on autoroam and the switching between the many local telcos, there should be a traceable gprs footprint.

[overthewing]

Presumably the aircraft might have come within detection of the military radars of other countries - Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia? Does anyone know what their coverage is? Unless the plane headed out into oceanic airspace, it must surely have been picked up on land-based radars as it went over land?

[flight_mode]

I am asking if it is possible for a satellite station to know an aircraft is "live" even though no data stream is received.

That is, does the system log on then log off, regardless of systems data?

The satellite has internal session management logging what is attached, recently attached and due to expire due to no transmission for a certain period but this info is not generally sent back to a ground station, only data destined for an earth based recipient is sent back down because bandwidth is too expensive. Session length depends on the provider. 2 hrs is the norm, upto 24 hrs with some operators.

[Chill]

Legal limbo hampers probe into missing MAS plane
- Reuters March 11, 2014

Investigators trying to solve the disappearance without trace of a Malaysia Airlines plane face an extremely rare challenge that could hinder their efforts: they lack the powers of a formal air safety investigation.

Four days after flight MH370 went missing in mid-air with 239 people on board, no nation has stepped forward to initiate and lead an official probe, leaving a formal leadership vacuum that industry experts say appears unprecedented.

Malaysian officials are conducting their own informal investigations, in cooperation with other governments and foreign agencies, but they lack the legal powers that would come with a formal international probe under UN-sanctioned rules.

Those powers include the legal rights to take testimony from all witnesses and other parties, the right to have exclusive control over the release of information and the ability to centralise a vast amount of fragmentary evidence.

A senior official familiar with the preliminary Malaysian probe said Malaysian authorities could not yet convene a formal investigation due to a lack of evidence on where – namely, in which national jurisdiction – the Boeing 777-200ER jet crashed.

He said this was not hampering their work, that preliminary investigations had begun and that they were working with their neighbours, US officials and the jet's maker, Boeing.

The Malaysians have begun collecting information from neighbouring countries without any problems, including air-traffic control communications and radar data, he said. "There have been no issues in getting that information."

But Southeast Asian waters are rife with territorial disputes, and any decision by Malaysia to unilaterally open a formal investigation under UN rules could be seen as a subtle assertion of sovereignty if the crash site turns out to be inside another country's territory.

Without a formal investigative process being convened quickly under rules set out by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a UN agency, there is a risk that crucial early detective work could be hampered, and potential clues and records lost, air accident experts said.

Full article - http://my.news.yahoo.com/legal-limbo-hampers-probe-missing-mas-plane-142134965.html

[dmba]

Lots of talk of the FO having 2700hrs. But how many of those are on the 777? I've read reports he started on the 737, and at age 27 I'm guessing he's a fairly new convertee onto the 777. Senior training captain in the left hand seat, would support the theory this may have been a training flight?

First officer on missing jet was transitioning to 777-200s - CNN.com (http://edition.cnn.com/2014/03/08/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-first-officer/)

[Evey_Hammond]

2 questions are nagging at me and I hope someone can answer them please. I'm pretty sure they haven't already been asked but if they have I apologise now! :ouch:

1. We've seen images & diagrams of how far the plane could have gone based on the likely fuel-load but could it get to those places without being spotted on any radar?

2. Now, I feel really awful thinking this, but has/will the pilot's home sim setup be scrutinised? By all accounts he is a great guy and a good pilot so was his home sim there to increase his skills/for his pleasure or to work out how to fly MH370 to point X without being noticed...?

[glendalegoon]

IF you really know things, some foreign (not USA) carriers DO allow visitors to the cockpit in flight.

DOES anyone really KNOW The MALAYSIAN rules regarding cockpit visitors and smoking?

And to tell you the truth, if USA airlines allowed visitors to the cockpit, I would authorize it as captain. When I was 8 years old (prehistory) I rode in the cockpit of a convair 240 airliner (UAL) and loved it. And the guys didn't mind me being there.

SO, if someone actually KNOWS, please let us KNOW.

[Unixman]

This has just appeared in New Scientist

( Mods feel free to delete if this is a repeat)

Malaysian plane sent out engine data before vanishing - tech - 11 March 2014 - New Scientist (http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25201-malaysian-plane-sent-out-engine-data-before-vanishing.html#.Ux9pm_nV_c8)

[doubtfire]

Decompression drill for my airbus is:
Alt Selector Knob. Turn left and pull
Hdg Selector Knob. Turn left and pull

That could explain the 90 degree left turn (in hdg, hence the drift) and the descent.
Oxy mask failure gives a time of useful consciousness of 1 min or less.
I`ve had flights in parts of Europe where acars has "lost signal"
The only flaw in my theory is the transponder but lets suppose the PNF selected 7800 instead of 7700 in his haste.
Just a thought....

[dmba]

This has just appeared in New Scientist

( Mods feel free to delete if this is a repeat)

Malaysian plane sent out engine data before vanishing - tech - 11 March 2014 - New Scientist

But it's not exactly unexpected...'before vanishing' yeah, but not just before. For all we have been told the plane was performing normally until it suddenly disappeared. These were regular, not at the time of the disappearance, weren't they?

[andrasz]

Unixman,

Thanks, that is the first credible confirmation that RR does indeed have engine parameter data, and it also supports earlier speculation on this thread that such data feed is not continuous, but sent as packets after reaching certain phases of the flight. I would assume the last packet was sent as the engines throttled back on attaining cruise altitude.

I would imagine the your first thought would be to return to KL
Not realy... Kota Bharu with a 2400m runway right on the coast was about 90NM from their last reported position. Doing a 180 the city lights would have been clearly visible, and exactly in range for a straight-in continuous descent. In case of a complete electrical failure I'd like to see the thing on the ground at the closest suitable runway, and worry about anything else on the deck.

[Chill]

By using this South African girl, Nine Network single-handedly smeared what maybe the last memory of the co-pilot's friends, family and reputation and will undoubtably land the Captain in some very hot water which could possibly receive a punishment far exceeding the crime because of the timing of a ridiculously portrayed event. Crying shame neither the girl or the network used their brains for one second and showed some restraint.

Company policy prohibits non-airline staff in the cockpit unless approved from the top. Then there's a bunch of rules over which airline staff are allowed to jump seat and when they cannot. It maybe argued there's Captain's discretion but only sooo far. He took a big risk doing what he did - pax might have reported him (smack on the wrist), LSS/crew might have reported him (get a warning), splashed all over National TV and the Web during a major crisis with admissions of smoking (probably sacked). Airline has to save face too, couldn't have come at a worse moment.

[overthewing]

Even if the military radar DID pick up something unidentified moving west, what would they have been able to work out about it? Presumably there would need to have been some communication with civilian ATC to find out if an aircraft was known to be in the vicinity. Would Malaysian ATC have known at that point that the plane wasn't happily over Vietnam? Is there any established channel of communication between military and civilian structures (the muddled nature of Malaysia's response to this would suggest not)?

Is there any possibility that the low-flying aircraft seen off the east coast of the peninsula were actually fighters, scrambled to intercept an unidentified plane?

[atr-drivr]

In addition to Yancey Slides post, what was the weather conditions from T/O to loss of signal? If I recall an earlier post the cloud coverage was nil over the area off the coast, was KL in the clear? After a 180 back toward the T/O point, if a loss of com/nav I would be looking for a big group of lights...not heading toward the narrowest portion of ML....

[Ian W]

If this is indeed the case, why would you not scramble?

You are tracking an outbound airliner from your own country. It does a turn back toward KL. Civil have not declared an emergency and the aircraft is not squawking emergency.

Why would you scramble an aircraft to shoot it down? You might perhaps scramble an aircraft to intercept - but you will have to justify the scramble if you get it wrong and perhaps it takes an hour or so to scramble an armed fighter. (9/11 showed that it took more than 30 minutes to get armed USAF aircraft airborne). It's only paranoid Europeans that have armed aircraft on QRA.

[LASJayhawk]

Just seems like a turn back and loss of radio contact can only point to two things.

1) the aircraft was taken over by party's unknown.
2) massive electrical buss failure.

3 hole Falcons have a scenario that goes like this:
Buss 3 shorts out, pilot cross feeds bus 3 from 2. This takes buss 2 out, so he cross feeds 2 and 3 from 1. Now all 3 busses are dead.

It seems like there might be a failure mode that could take out both primary generators and the apu. At that point you would be down to "critical systems" like the FCS, pilots windshield heat, etc. that can be powered by the backup gen and emergency AC power.

Any 777 drivers know if a comm is part of the buss of last resort?

[FMC]

If the A/C did commence a turn back and over flew the mainland as reported and hypoxia was a factor it could be half way to Africa with its 2.6knm endurance?. That is one massive search area and could take weeks or months to locate. The lack of hard evidence as to its last known location will prove to be a significant factor in when and if the A/C is found.

[Yancey Slide]

Just seems like a turn back and loss of radio contact can only point to two things.

1) the aircraft was taken over by party's unknown.
2) massive electrical buss failure.

3 hole Falcons have a scenario that goes like this:
Buss 3 shorts out, pilot cross feeds bus 3 from 2. This takes buss 2 out, so he cross feeds 2 and 3 from 1. Now all 3 busses are dead.

It seems like there might be a failure mode that could take out both primary generators and the apu. At that point you would be down to "critical systems" like the FCS, pilots windshield heat, etc. that can be powered by the backup gen and emergency AC power.

Any 777 drivers know if a comm is part of the buss of last resort?
Don't the standby instruments have their own pitot/static systems and batteries to run them for the case of complete main system failure?

[monkou]

Well what do you know - we now have admission from officials at last that they tracked MH370 to the Strait of Malacca!! So why has everyone been searching Between Malaysia & Vietnam? If you were one of those searchers you'd be feeling rather PO wouldn't you? I mean how long have they known this - surely it just didn't come to light as of now. Raises the questions now that there is much more yet to be told that is obviously being held back. So much for SAR co-operation in the future. Politics/borders etc - first casualty is always the truth which we may never know.:ugh:

[doubtfire]

What other flaws then?. It just seemed to me a coincidence that the aircraft turned left by a turn of the hdg knob by 90 degress and descended 10,000ft, again a full turn left of the Alt knob. If the flight deck door was not compromised then the flight deck initiated that action for what reason? If decompression was not an issue then why no comms. If suicide was the reason then why fly for another hour especially with the pax watching the in-flight map and not one person making a phone call.

[wiggy]

we now have admission from officials at last that they tracked MH370 to the Strait of Malacca!!

I thought it was an admission that an aircraft of unknown type may have been tracked.


doubtfire:

What other flaws then? It just seemed to me a coincidence that the aircraft turned left by a turn of the hdg knob by 90 degress and descended 10,000ft, again a full turn left of the Alt knob.

Well one other is that the 777 Rapid descent procedure as described in the Boeing FCOM/FCTM is not the same as the procedure you detailed for "your airbus"....

[JFZ90]

Could an unlucky un-contained engine disc failure explain this?

Looking at the damage to the main spar of the qantas a380, it seems possible that if a similar failure (trent 900) occurred through a smaller spar (assume 777 is smaller than a380) and the trajectory was unfortunate and it took out say the top half if the spar (you might recall the a380 went through middle) then total and unsurvivable structural failure of the wing is plausible, no?

[monkou]

Check Reuters News for Malaysia Military man's quote re tracking it to Strait of Malacca.

[doubtfire]

Wiggy.
Can you tell me what is the Rapid descent procedure as listed in the Boeing FCOM/FCTM?

[Yancey Slide]

Looking at the damage to the main spar of the qantas a380, it seems possible that if a similar failure (trent 900) occurred through a smaller spar (assume 777 is smaller than a380) and the trajectory was unfortunate and it took out say the top half if the spar (you might recall the a380 went through middle) then total and unsurvivable structural failure of the wing is plausible, no?
That would likely leave a large amount of debris floating in the water as the craft broke up would it not?

[Chronus]

Accepting that the aircraft turned from its intended course and commenced a descent from its assigned altitude would suggest deliberate crew action. The reasons for this may only be attributable either to unlawful intereference with flight or some technical malfunction(s). We are informed the former is most unlikely. This therefore must leave only the latter.
The nature of technical malfunction(s) must have involved a total loss of communications and in a short period of time thereafter escalated to limited control of the aircraft so as to prohibit further changes in course and altitude. The safe option under such circumstances would have been to keep clear of high terrain by remaining over water. At least dawn, by which time the crew may have become incapacitated leaving the aircraft to continue on its predermined course over the water, until its fuel was exhausted. Such actions would have taken the flight well beyond the areas within which SAR operations have commenced. No use looking in the wrong haystack for the needle.

[Chill]

Andrasz

WMKC (KBR) might be just long enough to crash in but the PCN wouldn't accomodate a 777 assuming that you could land it on an unlit strip in the dark - the airport is closed after midnight (actually earlier) so no ATC, no aids except for the VOR and an aerodrome surrounded by kampung. Nice black hole approach... :rolleyes:

WMKN (TGG) on the other hand is longer, supports a B747, is perpendicular to the coastline (KBR is inland), but also closed at this time and in the dark.

V1

That's the new Rescue406 (has a different cap on the bottom - I've not seen one for real). The previous model in your Canadian pic and indeed on some MAS aircraft has water soluble tape holding the antenna down so in water it should release. There needs to be some electrolyte in the water - pure water will not trigger a cell reaction, neither will alcohol and the operating instructions warn against this - for this reason for land ops there is a plastic bag strapped to the ELT with salt in it so you just have to add clean water... or pi$$ in it)... but we're getting off topic.

[monkou]

Appear Reuters News has the headline but the main page content has now been removed!! Australian papers running it. Says MH370 was tracked to Strait of Malacca where it was low level and then signal disappeared. We're being fed morsels.

[NWA SLF]

Having read here and heard from additional sources about how it is impossible to stream continuous data, even a limited amount, is prohibitive due to bandwidth limitations, raises questions in my mind. Many of the planes here in USA have the satellite bulge for passengers using in-flight WiFi. Knowing the bandwidth I can use through my satellite Internet provider when I am streaming movies or uploading pictures how can it be that coded compressed coordinates transmitted lets say every 10 seconds, or even every minute, can use so much more? My upload speed to HugesNet right now is 12 Mbps. We know the aircraft can transmit anomaly information as the aircraft is in flight - but so can all of the earthmoving equipment the company for which I work. Granted we only set machines to transmit 4 times daily unless an anomaly occurs but we are talking machinery that doesn't move that fast. So if lets say 100 passengers aboard are using their iPad all at the same time without problem how can transmitting must relevant position, altitude, velocity information absorb so much bandwidth?


When the Ethiopian 787 had its fire at Heathrow and the cause was determined to be the ELT, did they not issue an order to disconnect the device on all 787's because in the present day this information was not considered important on large commercial aircraft? Did the directive go out on other aircraft fitted with the same Honeywell ELT? I may have missed comments regarding this although I think I have gone through every comment on this thread multiple times.

[Sober Lark]

With so much technological advancement, perhaps this event is the watershed moment for FDRs and CVRs as we know them.

[747-8driver]

The only flaw in my theory is the transponder but lets suppose the PNF selected 7800 instead of 7700 in his haste.

"Your airbus" has a very special transponder having the digit 8 available...

[Speed of Sound]

So why has everyone been searching Between Malaysia & Vietnam? If you were one of those searchers you'd be feeling rather PO wouldn't you? I mean how long have they known this - surely it just didn't come to light as of now.

It didn't come to light 'as of now'.

There has been SAR in the Straits for nearly three days now, based on an admission that military radar had observed a turn towards a westward heading. :rolleyes:

[tdracer]

Many of the planes here in USA have the satellite bulge for passengers using in-flight WiFi.

Not sure which operators you're referring too, but the US based airborne WiFi I'm familiar with (Go-Go - used by Delta and Alaska among others) is ground based, not satellite based. It's also quite slow - similar to the old dial-up.

[wiggy]

doubtfire...the rapid descent is laid out in a nice little diagram which I won't reproduce here, but in sequence the important part of the text is:

"Initiate turn if required using HDG/TRK SEL"
"Select lower altitude on MCP" "
select "FLCH" .......

Some operators teach changing the MCP altitude before the heading for "flow" purposes across the panel but in any event Boeing simply specify rotating two knobs without nominating the direction in the hdg case and without specifying the initial increment in either case, and then a third button to push to get the beast descending, you then refine heading, altitude ( and speed) once you are in the descent.

There's obviously a chance on a 777 you might choose to go for 90 left but it's not Boeing SOP, not in the manuals and as such a 90 left is not an automatic or conditioned response/setting if you train in accordance with Boeing procedures.

(Apologies to claybird who beat me to it)

[covtom]

Two bursts of engine data before disappearance (http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25201-malaysian-plane-sent-out-engine-data-before-vanishing.html).

[Fly26]

Also in support of WMKN there was a post a few pages back regarding people on/close to Murang beach hearing strange bang/turbine noises which coincides with the timings of the lost aircraft. On pulling out a map WMKN it sits jutting out as you said perpendicular to the coast just to the north of these reports, it would be a very reasonable diversion airport to aim for in the event of any major failures. (As long as it's not closed of course, I'm unfamiliar with the region). However being that close in towards land/people I would suspect evidence of the aircraft would have been more visible to find.

[DType]

One assumes (!) that it was not at take off power when it "vanished", and there is much less stress on most engine components at cruise power.

[LASJayhawk]

Yancey, standby has its own power afaik. There is also battery power and an inverter in the event both generators, apu and emergency generator fail.

But as you start to loose power sources, loads get removed to maximize what's left to the things essential for the pilot to try and save the aircraft... That's why pilots windshield heat, even though your talking a lot of power, is one of the last things to go. Hard to land an airplane by hand if you can't see out the front. Or that's what the pilots tell me, anyways. :)

[doubtfire]

Ok, then 7701 or 6700 or anything that was close to 7700. I`m just saying that the chances of a compos mentis flight deck flying for an hour an not making radio contact on vhf1 which will run of the battery is not plausible.
Therefore I`d go with either decompression or unlawful access to the flight deck. If no-one is claiming the latter then I`d go with the former.

[Aisle2c]

Malaysian military now reveals it tracked MH370 to the Malacca strait, now being quoted on the Malaysian Insider.


Malaysian military now reveals it tracked MH370 to the Malacca strait - The Malaysian Insider (http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/malaysian-military-now-reveals-it-tracked-mh370-to-malacca-straits)

[rodondo4]

Reading your post on Kota Bahru and Kuala Terengganu as possible landing site. Adding the CCN theory of the plane turning across the north of Malaysia with KUL as their aim. What about Penang as the target? An active airport with cargo traffic at night would keep the airport open, big enough runway and should they not be able to make it have the sea around them.

My thought on the crossing to the west towards the north missing the Titwangsa range at the highest point and crossing at a less densely populated area (just in case).

[james ozzie]

It seems the 2 fake passports look like a red herring - probably just everyday drug smugglers/people smugglers/asylum seekers going about their daily business and now victims too.

I would not be surprised to learn that there are one or two of these types on most flights in that region.

[Una Due Tfc]

Wiggy, Claybird, if there was a departure from FL, there would have been Alarms generated at the ATCOS station alerting them to the departure of a cleared level, fed from SSR data AND ADSB data

[Black Knat]

So; No crash site where expected. Aircraft seems to have carried on flying but with transponders etc off. Another thought-what was the aircraft carrying in it's hold? Would be interesting to know if there was anything of great value such as gold bullion. Theft?

[doubtfire]

Claybird, Wiggy.
Ok, so both seats have established comms. initiated descent and initiated a turn because they thought it was required. Then they run out of useful consciousness. Autopilot carries on.
Is that so implausible?

[JFZ90]

Disc failure unlikely???
One assumes (!) that it was not at take off power when it "vanished", and there is much less stress on most engine components at cruise power.


Maybe, but as on the trent 900 it was an oil fire due to a failed mismanufactured pipe that caused the disc burst on qantas. this could occur at any time in the flight in theory. i'm not saying its the same cause at all - just that it is a plausible explanation of sudden total loss of ac without comms - in theory - which the media is sort of implying is impossible.

It wouldn't explain the turn back etc. rumours.

[deagles007]

doubtfire
Ok, then 7701 or 6700 or anything that was close to 7700. I`m just saying that the chances of a compos mentis flight deck flying for an hour an not making radio contact on vhf1 which will run of the battery is not plausible.
Therefore I`d go with either decompression or unlawful access to the flight deck. If no-one is claiming the latter then I`d go with the former.
Wiggy, doubtfire, claybird have valid points. At any rate, since its not SOP to turn a specified 90 degrees left or right, seems a moot point since it appears that it turned more like 120 degrees left based on LKP and Pulau Perak. Doesn't dismiss decompression/ghost flight as a possibility.

[wiggy]

Ok, so both seats have established comms. initiated descent and initiated a turn because they thought it was required. Then they run out of useful consciousness. Autopilot carries on.
Is that so implausible?

I have no problem with that as a theory, but in your post earlier you seemed (and maybe I misunderstood ) to be linking the reports of a left turn to the west with what sounds like a pretty much mandatory left turn in the Airbus procedure, hence my comment.

Wiggy, Claybird, if there was a departure from FL, there would have been Alarms generated at the ATCOS station alerting them to the departure of a cleared level, fed from SSR data AND ADSB data

Una -

I don't doubt it ( if as you say, SSR and ADSB are working), but that wasn't the subject of our little discussion - see above.

[Una Due Tfc]

ZOOKER

Alarms probably not the best choice of word, but label turns red or yellow depending on the situation. FL turns yellow to indicate selected level and cleared level are not the same if clear of traffic and info is from ADSB

[Chill]

Rodondo4

Ordinarily PEN would be a good option during the day when everyone is awake but I'd be less inclined at night. There's high terrain on the west side of the runway, Penang Bridge to mind out for on the east side, without knowing their control capabilities the Rwy22 approach over Georgetown is higher risk than the Rwy04 approach over water (and 04 has the ILS). If they drop it in the drink on approach I've no idea what their emergency water recovery capabilities are like though RFFS would be decent on land. If I HAD to land PEN is #1 (assuming TGG was no go), but if I felt there was 20-25mins up my sleeve I'd go to KUL - 2 runways (so won't close up the airport), well lit, far superior RFFS, better survivability for the pax (depending on the nature of the problem). Wasn't there so can only guess what they were going through, but these guys know the penninsula like the back of their hand.

Jaberwocky

I agree :ok:, it's not a DC7 or 707 and MAS Engineering isn't so sloppy. They knocked a winglet off plus some on a 738 in a towing accident once and a new one went back on. No sticky tape, reinforcement job there. The only time that happens is when the ramp/catering guys bang trolleys, etc into the fuse skin.

[Staggerwing]

I presume that anywhere in the probable oceanic area where MH370 could have overflown, there would be several vessels form various navies carrying out patrols/exercises/operations. I also assume that most of these vessels would carry primary radar to detect incoming hostile aerial vehicles. Have there been any reports from any of these vessels that they had tracked MH370 at any stage?

[B738bbjsim]

I too wondered about the search of the Malacca Straits for an aircraft believed headed elsewhere.

Then I came across this AIP from the Department of Civil Aviation Malaysia.

It details the available radars and the rules to be followed in communications failure; in short, if able, continue to destination as assigned, or if unable, maintain VMC and land at the most suitable aerodrome, which may be the aerodrome of departure. For KUL, that is an approach to land on runway 14L.

http://aip.dca.gov.my/aip%20pdf/ENR/ENR%201/ENR%201.6/Enr1_6.pdf

Maybe now, if MH370 was there, it all begins to make sense.

[1fm]

Sky News' latest expert's hypothesis is that following a decompression, the pilots set the AP on a reciprocal course, and passed out after failing to put on their oxygen masks.

If that's the case, based on the expected flight distance and allowing for a bit of extra fuel, the aircraft could be down somewhere between Madagascar and Perth (Australia).

Is there any reason why pilots would fail to put on their oxygen masks? Could they fail?

Is there anywhere a decompression could occur that would take out the various communication systems?

[mm43]

@nitpicker

Many posts have been deleted over the past 12 hours, so not sure if anyone gave a definitive reply to whether the debris reported by a CX flight in the South China sea had been investigated.

From the New Straits Times in the last 30 minutes - The [Vietnamese] naval ship HQ888 has examined waters off southern Ba Ria Vung Tau province without finding any fragments spotted by a Hong Kong commercial aircraft on Monday, according to the National Committee for Search and Rescue.The same article describes how the Vietnamese are expanding their on land searches etc...

[overthewing]

Latest Twitter excitement via the Tomnod project.

Malaysia Airlines MH370 / TomNod crowd-search - CNN iReport (http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-1103537)

No idea about the scale.

[ZOOKER]

The PA103 disintegration occurred at cruising level. Admittedly there were strong westerly winds at the time.
After SSR data was 'discontinued', the primary radar plots of the airframe break-up were extensively scattered. Some small items of the debris field reached the North Sea coast. I have seen the radar replay.
No such extensive 'debris-field' has yet been seen, 5 days down the line, in an area of fairly intense commercial aircraft operations/marine activity.
I did wonder whether an in-tact impact on the ocean surface had caused the a/c to disappear into an ocean trench, but there are non on the flight-planned route, unless of course the a/c continued north-eastbound, (outside radar cover), until it ran out of fuel.
Earlier, someone pointed out that the waters surrounding the last known position are shallow, but the bottom sediments are often thick, loosely-consolidated pyroclastic deposits. Could these sediments 'absorb' a B777, travelling at speed?
We do not actually know the extent of PSR/SSR coverage, civil/military, in this region, or the credibility of the various 'sighting (visual and radar) reports'.

[thcrozier]

Maybe this Island?

https://www.google.com/maps/@9.1871473,92.7746808,22310m/data=!3m1!1e3


Might even fit in the hanger there.

[kenjaDROP]

Taking stock and getting back to basics, have I missed something re. the flight's stated turn back and flight into the Malacca Straits?

Are all the facts (quoted both herein these posts and going round-and-round the media), about this departure from original track and on-going flight from point of lost contact, stemming from the Berita Harian story? If so, has not the Chief of Malaysia's AF refuted these facts were ever disclosed to the BH reporter?

Or is it that the Reuters-gathered intel from the RMAF - to the effect that the plane HAD been tracked back by airforce radar - is fact?

Much media content seem to me to be swinging on the Berita Harian release, which is denied.

There again, I would assume the tracking back to the West must have been confirmed somewhere otherwise the resulting SAR effort in that area wouldn't be on-going.

I'm confused as to what's been confirmed and what's circulatory BS! :ugh:

[OPENDOOR]

Latest Twitter excitement via the Tomnod project.

Malaysia Airlines MH370 / TomNod crowd-search - CNN iReport

No idea about the scale.

Looks strangely like a ship, from the on-screen scale, about 175' long.

[dfens42]

OPENDOOR:

175' is about right for a 777 also. Just saying

[bubbers44]

Pilot oxygen mask failure post. I picked up a B737 one day in the afternoon and flew it several legs and the next morning we got the same aircraft. Doing our first flight of day checks hit the 100% flow button and guess what? After two seconds the flow stopped. Maintenance had replaced the bottle the day before and didn't turn the valve on. All we had was trapped line pressure the previous day.

[PuraVidaTransport]

Average Effective Performance Time for flying
personnel without supplemental oxygen:
15,000 to 18,000 feet ..........30 minutes or more
22,000 feet ...............................5 to 10 minutes
25,000 feet .................................3 to 5 minutes
28,000 feet............................2 1/2 to 3 minutes
30,000 feet .................................1 to 2 minutes
35,000 feet ............................30 to 60 seconds
40,000 feet ............................15 to 20 seconds
45,000 feet ..............................9 to 15 seconds



With questions about the time it would take to fall unconscience, made me do a little research. Found this at: Aviators Breathing Oxygen... Page 4 FAA Publications and requirements of oxygen at Altitude. Chart of Average Performance time for flying personnel without supplemental oxygen. Cannulas type breathing devices. Cylinder hydrostatic tesing requirements (http://www.c-f-c.com/gaslink/docs/abo4.htm)

[drdino]

Looks strangely like a ship, from the on-screen scale, about 175' long.

Just saw it, definitely a ship with maybe a tender next to it.

[john_curchod]

No information on the cargo on this forum whatsoever.

Very odd.

Other websites mentioning that the plane was loaded with too many lithium batteries.

[Capt Scribble]

Simply turning a transponder off is not going to make a modern airliner disappear; there are too many systems sending information into the ether. On Airbus the loss of all electrics is regarded as impossible but some major power failures have happened. I'm not sure how the 777 is configured electrically, but a major electrical failure or fire in the E&E bay might cut all the aircraft communication systems and leave the crew poorly placed in the middle of the night.

[overthewing]

Looks strangely like a ship, from the on-screen scale, about 175' long.

I managed not to notice the scale marker! Fine spotter I'd be.

Yes, I make it about 54m from point to blunt end. Bit to the left, which 'might' be a tail is about 20m. Close to the size of a 777-200ER?

If you squint...

File:B777FAMILYv1.0.png - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:B777FAMILYv1.0.png)

[andrasz]

If the altitude is reduced to a point where sufficient oxygen becomes available again, how soon would people start to regain conciousness

That depends on the amount of time spent in an oxygen deprived state, and the physiology of the actual person. Reinhold Meissner could climb Everest without supplementary oxygen, I would probably die in 15-20 minutes if spending any time above 8000m.

Losing consciousness is the body's protective mechanism, shutting down the massively oxygen-dependent brain and keeping up a slow circulation to maintain basic life functions - for a while. Beyond a certain time the process becomes an irreversible coma soon followed by cardiac arrest.

Assuming a 2000/3000 fpm descent, from 35k ft the aircraft would descend to an altitude that is capable of sustaining life in under 5 minutes, and in under 10 minutes to a level where full consciousness can be regained in a matter of minutes. However if there is any extended time spent above 8000m (that is more than max 5-10 minutes), then the answer is probably never.

Looks strangely like a ship...

Because it is a ship, nothing strange about it. There is a smaller vessel docked to its port side.

[MrWooby]

Sounds to me like depressurisation, but you need to link depressurisation and transponder loss. This could be caused by structural failure taking out antennas, or electric supply loss on a common supply. Not sure about the 777 elec system but should have enough redundancy to ensure backups.

Following depressurisation, aircraft turned to return toward Malaysia and emergency descent. This is usually done on autopilot, so heading select and select alt of 10,000 or 14,000. Pilots would have donned oxy masks. However I wonder if there was a problem with the flight deck oxy supply. The company I worked for had a recent incident where the oxy supply to the flight deck was turned off. Not sure of the exact sequence but something like this. In doing the preflight oxy checks there was enough pressure in the oxy lines to enable oxy flow for the quick flick of the oxy test to ensure flow, at some stage during the flight the oxy pressure was found to be below minimum, it was then discovered that there was no oxy flow.

During emergency descent there would have been no flow if 100% oxy was selected, but if diluter demand air was selected they would have been breathing cabin air and would have passed out/died on descent. Aircraft would have descended to selected altitude. Level off and continued flying.
Looks like the track flown would have possibly taken them over Aceh, where terrain goes up to about 9000 feet in some areas, and then continued on in the Indian Ocean towards Diego Garcia until fuel exhaustion. Given endurance of say 7.5 Hours initially, aircraft would been flying about 5 hours at around 10,000 feet with speed brake out. Maybe at cruise speed around 300 kts.

Still many questions though. Pax oxy would have deployed, so pax should have been ok, but if only 15 mins oxy it would depend on the descent rate used in the descent. If pax alive over land then mobile phones would have probably been used. Cabin crew would have eventually entered the flight deck. If they found the crew deceased, maybe they tried to fly the aircraft and lost control.

Very Perplexing.

[Speed of Sound]

Assuming a 2000/3000 fpm descent, from 35k ft the aircraft would descend to an altitude that is capable of sustaining life in under 5 minutes, and in under 10 minutes to a level where full consciousness can be regained in a matter of minutes. However if there is any extended time spent above 8000m (that is more than max 5-10 minutes), then the answer is probably never.Thanks for that, although why my original post positing a hypoxia theory has vanished, I don't know.

Unlike the Helios tragedy where the aircraft kept flying in the 'death zone', flight MH370 started descending so at some point pasengers and crew would have begun to regain consciousness. Would the aircraft then have been too far from the mainland to make cell contact?

[VH-XXX]

We need confirmation that the military radar tracked the aircraft in a perfectly straight line which would quite obviously indicate autopilot and could discount hijacking as hijackers would unlikely be flying in a straight line.

[Sporky]

Ok, so IF (and a big if at the moment) it was a depressurization and for whatever reason the pilots were unable to keep/regain consciousness. When would ATC realise something was wrong and get some fast jets scrambled to check it out? Surely that would be a common sense approach.

[wiggy]

Very Perplexing.

It is.

Sounds to me like depressurisation,

Possibly an option if we accept the idea that the aircraft was indeed the object detected on radar crossing the Malay peninsula.

but you need to link depressurisation and transponder loss. This could be caused by structural failure taking out antennas, or electric supply loss on a common supply

I wonder if there was a problem with the flight deck oxy supply

Perhaps it's worth asking a suitably qualified engineer for his/her opinion on the proximity (or not) of the crew oxygen bottle to significant electronic/electrical components :hmm::confused: . Could a problem with one cause a problem with the other?

Not speculatin', just askin'.....

[tartare]

What's the MSA over the part of the Malaysian peninsula that they might have flown to get to the Malacca Straits?
I've looked on Google Earth but can't seem to find the elevation.
I wonder what altitude they were at tracking west?
Edited:
I see the RMAF are saying contact lost at 2:40am at FL29 near Pulau Perak.
I wonder if this is a de-pressurisation event over the Igari waypoint, an attempted turn onto a reciprocal track, some failure of flight deck 02 and hypoxia setting in before turnback complete... and a ghost flight heading out to sea westbound.
Why was mode C lost though - perhaps a partially hypoxic pilot selecting the wrong setting?
Still doesn't explain how some sort of jet-upset would happen to put the aircraft in the sea though.
Very strange indeed.

[mickjoebill]

Earlier, someone pointed out that the waters surrounding the last known position are shallow, but the bottom sediments are often thick, loosely-consolidated pyroclastic deposits. Could these sediments 'absorb' a B777, travelling at speed?

Yes, raised in Post 1470.http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/535538-malaysian-airlines-mh370-contact-lost-post8364903.html
The theory has not yet been debunked.
As a result of a near vertical dive imagine the small craters we have seen on land (flight 93 9/11) occurring in the muddy 20-40 meter sediment in shallow 30 meter waters of Malacca Straights.

Also references crashes in water where there was very little evidence of a fuel slick.(flight 990)

[griffin one]

http://www.dca.gov.my/Division/Airworthiness/Notices/AN%2091.pdf

A possibility of inflight decompression

[Calldepartures]

No digital communication from the aircraft following decompression? Also, o2 masks would explain the 'mumbled' radio transmission?

[andrasz]

What's the MSA over the part of the Malaysian peninsula that they might have flown to get to the Malacca Straits?

Generally ~3000 feet, but there is a mountain range parallel to the coast east of George Town with ridges rising to 4000ft and the highest peak over 6000. Just to the north though there is a wide flat corridor inland where the entire peninsula may safely be crossed at 3000ft.

[TURIN]

Perhaps it's worth asking a suitably qualified engineer for his/her opinion on the proximity (or not) of the crew oxygen bottle to significant electronic/electrical components . Could a problem with one cause a problem with the other?

Crew 02 bottles are on the left side of the forward EE Bay tunnel. Just forward of the EE bay/Cabin access hatch.

There are significant electrical and electronic systems adjacent to the bottles but I'm pretty sure the ATC transponder boxes are far enough away not to be compromised immediatley should a bottle fail are a fire begin in that area.

[B777FD]

What's the MSA over the part of the Malaysian peninsula that they might have flown to get to the Malacca Straits?

The minimum off route altitude is at its highest around Ipoh (WMKI). It is 9500ft there.

[Jabawocky]

Anyone remember the three Ugly Sisters at QF, one developed a massive crack in the fuse which could have easily sent it to the bottom of the Pacific.

I hope not but could the ex MAS B744 crack, caused by illegitimate sealant removal using a box cutter, be repeated again? :uhoh:

Often it pays to look at history, as it has a habit of repeating itself.

[andrasz]

The theory has not yet been debunked.

On land gravity keeps things at the bottom of the crater. In water buoyant objects rise to the surface. Also don't underestimate the arresting and destructive force of 50-100 metres of water in a high-speed impact.

[Capt Kremin]

A semi-retraction from the RMAF.

IMHO this is ridiculous butt-covering. Any credible SAR effort would not commit such serious assets to a search area so diametrically opposed to the track of the aircraft in question without very good reasons.

The Malaysian political imperatives now seem to be taking over, leading to an impression of a confused SAR effort.

The Malaysians need to be upfront here. Already the suspicions of a cover up are beginning.

OFFICIAL STATEMENT BY CHIEF OF ROYAL MALAYSIAN AIR FORCE ON
BERITA HARIAN NEWS ARTICLE DATED 11th MARCH 2014 ON SEARCH AND RESCUE OPERATIONS IN THE STRAITS OF MALACCA

1. I refer to the Berita Harian news article dated 11th March 2014 on Search and Rescue Operations in the Straits of Malacca which (in Bahasa Malaysia) referred to me as making the following statements:

The RMAF Chief confirmed that RMAF Butterworth airbase detected the location signal of the airliner as indicating that it turned back from its original heading to the direction of Kota Bahru, Kelantan, and was believed to have pass through the airspace of the East Coast of and Northern Peninsular Malaysia.

The last time the plane was detected by the air control tower was in the vicinity of Pulau Perak in the Straits of Malacca at 2.40 in the morning before the signal disappeared without any trace, he said.

2. I wish to state that I did not make any such statements as above, what occurred was that the Berita Harian journalist asked me if such an incident occurred as detailed in their story, however I did not give any answer to the question, instead what I said to the journalist was “Please refer to the statement which I have already made on 9 March 2014, during the press conference with the Chief of Defence Force at the Sama-Sama Hotel, Kuala Lumpur International Airport”.

3. What I stated during that press conference was,

The RMAF has not ruled out the possibility of an air turn back on a reciprocal heading before the aircraft vanished from the radar and this resulted in the Search and Rescue Operations being widen to the vicinity of the waters of Pulau Pinang.

4. I request this misreporting be amended and corrected to prevent further misinterpretations of what is clearly an inaccurate and incorrect report.

5. Currently the RMAF is examining and analyzing all possibilities as regards to the airliner’s flight paths subsequent to its disappearance. However for the time being, it would not be appropriate for the RMAF to issue any official conclusions as to the aircraft’s flight path until a high amount of certainty and verification is achieved. However all ongoing search operations are at the moment being conducted to cover all possible areas where the aircraft could have gone down in order to ensure no possibility is overlooked.

6. In addition, I would like to state to the media that all information and developments will be released via official statements and press conferences as soon as possible and when appropriate. Our current efforts are focused upon on finding the aircraft as soon as possible.

Thank You

GENERAL TAN SRI DATO’SRI RODZALI BIN DAUD RMAF
Chief of Royal Malaysian Air Force

Released On:

11 March 14
Kuala Lumpur

[JamesCam]

Are there two completely separate bottles/regs/valves etc, ie independent systems for each pilot?

Is there a portable oxygen supply stowed in the cockpit?

[Murexway]

DType
Disc failure unlikely???
One assumes (!) that it was not at take off power when it "vanished", and there is much less stress on most engine components at cruise power Certainly true, but it certainly can happen. United flight 232 suffered a catastrophic fan disc failure in cruise at FL370.

United Airlines Flight 232 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_232)

[FE Hoppy]

DAUD is covering his ass here as reuters reported the story was confirmed by another military source.

[TURIN]

Are there two completely separate bottles/regs/valves etc, ie independent systems for each pilot?

Is there a portable oxygen supply stowed in the cockpit?

James

Two bottles feeding a common system to both pilots & jump seat occupants. ( I think-it's been a while).

Portable 02 in the cockpit? Not to my knowledge.

[GroundedDinosaur]

If for some reason, all electrical went out to lunch .. all of the major control surfaces might go to neutral? (remember, the 777 is the first fly-by-wire commercial jet) You'd be flying similar to the Sioux City aircraft without hydraulics? Only the engines to control left/right/up/down with? I think you'd have major problems with the up/down .. it might go into a phugoid oscillatory mode. Very difficult to control .. flying low .. you might get an idea of land/water to see where you were, but, you're cooked. You have to figure a place to land, and it's not going to be pretty. But, I'd think that there would be battery power for the critical items .. flight control computers, comm radios? Unless it was some sort of power surge throughout the system?

[Majorbyte]

in my opinion from the little evidence available, it had a depressurisation problem rendering the flight crew and passengers unconscious, resulting in the aircraft flying solely on autopilot and completely unmonitored from the malacca straights on an approximate track taking it over the indian ocean towards the island of madagascar via diago garcia, where at some point it ran out of fuel.

[K9P]

Jabawocky:-

I had the exact same thoughts, same airline same paint removal process

[Count Niemantznarr]

Isn't about time all data is transmitted/streamed live from an aircraft, rather than just information on engine condition to the manufacturer? With the AF A330 crash, investigators had a reasonable idea of what happened through the final ACARS messages.

Searching for the CVR and Black Box can be a challenge, in this case, the authorities cannot even find the aircraft!

[tartare]

OK.
So the RMAF are now saying they didn't track it westbound?
I'm a little confused.
Without intending to irritate anyone, or appear callous in regard to the souls missing, transponder appears to be located on the pedestal next to the FO's left arm... tries to squawk 7700 while passing out and instead accidentally switches it off...?

[prayingmantis]

Diego Garcia - now there's a place with limited radar capabilities!!! Surely they would have missed an incursion into their airspace :rolleyes:

[grumpyoldgeek]

Without intending to irritate anyone, or appear callous in regard to the souls missing, transponder appears to be located on the pedestal next to the FO's left arm... tries to squawk 7700 while passing out and instead accidentally switches it off...?

Doesn't seem likely. The code change switches have a different and distinctive feel from the mode selector switch.

[Buster Hyman]

Anyone remember the three Ugly Sisters at QF, one developed a massive crack in the fuse which could have easily sent it to the bottom of the Pacific.
Very well, my Brother in Law was on that flight. (Assuming you mean the one where the O2 broke loose & ran amok in the cabin before exiting the fuselage). I thought of this in relation to the crew oxy & electronics location question. Massive damage from a rogue cylinder there.

[Old Boeing Driver]

I lean to your theory, although we still haven't been able to rule out foul play, and that the airplane was taken for a reason.

[overthewing]

In all these posts, the only real facts known are that the transponder was turned off, the plane turned back, and descended, and was last detected by the military radar westbound until the signal abruptly disappeared.

Do we know that the signal disappeared, or simply left Malaysian radar range?

[flt001]

I've completely missed the source saying the military are retracting their statement that the plane changed track westbound. Anyone?

If true it fits into their PR mode of making some vague statement, leaving it one news cycle then retracting said statement.

[TURIN]

If for some reason, all electrical went out to lunch .. all of the major control surfaces might go to neutral? (remember, the 777 is the first fly-by-wire commercial jet) You'd be flying similar to the Sioux City aircraft without hydraulics? Only the engines to control left/right/up/down with? I think you'd have major problems with the up/down .. it might go into a phugoid oscillatory mode. Very difficult to control .. flying low .. you might get an idea of land/water to see where you were, but, you're cooked. You have to figure a place to land, and it's not going to be pretty. But, I'd think that there would be battery power for the critical items .. flight control computers, comm radios? Unless it was some sort of power surge throughout the system?

A320 was the first fly by wire airliner.

B777-You would still have engine driven and air driven hydraulic pumps running.

B777-Spoilers No.4 & No.11 have backup cable controls. So some roll control still.

[Willoz269]

This is baffling, at first I thought "up to 7 days before they find it"...now I am not so sure.

If reports are true that theaircraft turned back, it begs more questions than answers:

-Why was it no longer transmitting any comms, either radio, transponder, acars, nothing? (I would hazard a guess at fire onboard)
- What was so serious that necessitated a turn back?
- Why did they descend (if indeed eyewitnesses did see the aircraft), did they lose all instruments? all electrics, all displays, which explains loss of comms, etc as well?
- I was around 2AM...dark night, did they lose sight of mainland, no instrumentation, descended to get visual?

If so, this aeroplane could be absolutely anywhere. :uhoh:

[Old Boeing Driver]

The quote above in Post #1977 was what I was going by.

"the signal disappeared without any trace"

Was it because it got to end of their coverage?

I think this is the only "official" statement, but does not retract the westbound statement. (Maybe I read it wrong)

[GarageYears]

Until someone can convincingly explain how depressurization can be linked to the loss of the transponders... yes, there are two transponders in the T7, left and right, selectable via the transponder panel, it seems difficult to see how depressurization would lead to the transponders failing.

The external antennas are in different locations (though I can't find my reference to where exactly). Turning off the transponder isn't just a toggle or push-button, the switch is a rotary and you'd have to move it two positions to get it into the standby condition.

[mm43]

Another "expert" is now being quoted in the New Straits Times (http://www.nst.com.my/latest/font-color-red-missing-mh370-font-aviation-expert-suggest-6-reasons-for-disappearance-1.508503)According to him, the Under Water Beacon (ULB) can emit a signal for hundreds of miles but if the black box is covered with debris or falls into a trench at the bottom of the sea, then the strength and range of the signal would be lower.For the record a Towed Pinger Locator (TPL) can only be expected to detect an operational ULB 37.5kHz signal when no more than 2 - 3km from its source. Ninety percent reliability is around 1,800 meters, and water temperature inversion layers can often create a variable outcome.

[wishiwasupthere]

First up, I'm not an airline pilot but a mere lowly GA charter pilot. But in the aircraft I fly, before changing a code on a transponder you turn it to standby. Is this the same in airliners? Following the path of some sort of catastrophic depressurisation, is it possible that Hypoxia dealt the crew it's fatal blow as they were in the process of changing the transponder code, hence it appearing to be turned off?

[Ranger One]

Very well, my Brother in Law was on that flight. (Assuming you mean the one where the O2 broke loose & ran amok in the cabin before exiting the fuselage). I thought of this in relation to the crew oxy & electronics location question. Massive damage from a rogue cylinder there.

Negative, he's referring to an incident about ten years ago where a QF 744 was discovered to have a serious structural crack in the fuselage during a heavy check.

IIRC from the bumpf that circulated at the time, the crack was determined to have been caused by improper paint removal during an earlier repaint, using a metal scraper tool, which gouged the metal; the gouge then acted as a stress-raiser, precipitating the crack.

Someone correct me if I'm wildly wrong on the above?

[Old Boeing Driver]

That's the issue I keep coming back to.

A few posts ago, someone asked if the transponder could be turned off in the haste of changing codes in an emergency.

The response was that the knobs have a very different feel.

I lean the same way. I think it was turned off manually.

Why was the transponder turned off?

[JamesCam]

GarageYears :

'Turning off the transponder isn't just a toggle or push-button, the switch is a rotary and you'd have to move it two positions to get it into the standby condition.'

True, but you are supposed to go to standby before changing the code, so possibly he forgot to switch it back on or passed out before he'd done so.

That said, I don't believe the above scenario to be the cause of the failure, it doesn't appear to be just the transponder that went quiet..

Edit: Sorry wishiwasupthere: missed your comment saying the same thing...

[Ex FSO GRIFFO]

Question...
What is the RADAR facility / range at FJDG, anybody?
Track from 'disappearance point' to DG is approx 245T, and quite within the fuel range..?

Just curious.....

[GarageYears]

OBD... and I'll add that I don't think they could be turned off "accidentally" even in a hypoxic state. The mode control knob is completely different from the code rotary.

[Old Boeing Driver]

I have never flown an airliner, and I can't remember any corprate jet where you had to switch the transponder to standby before changing codes.

Some corporate jets actually have a control wheel button that changes the squawk to 7700 if pushed.

Not saying some don't require this, just none I've seen. Don't mean to sound rude.

[pigboat]

I have never flown an airliner, and I can't remember any corprate jet where you had to switch the transponder to standby before changing codes.
The idea of switching to STBY between codes was to avoid inadvertently hitting a 7000 code during the code change.

[Acute Instinct]

http://www.dca.gov.my/Division/Airworthiness/Notices/AN%2091.pdf

Will the DCA re-issue a follow up of this Airworthiness Notice, if this aircrafts last repaint took place in the mid to late 2000's?
Will the DCA direct the operator/MRO to conduct immediate inspections of its fleet to discount this possibility?
Will the DCA investigate whether the MRO continued to have, or took disciplinary action against employees who were found to have unapproved implements in their possession in the years following the issue of this AN?

[Old Boeing Driver]

Great Handle.

I have run across the concept you mention. I think the original post was questioning whether it was a requirement to go to standby before changing codes, or a procedural one like you mentioned.

Maybe someone here with knowledge of MH procedures could clarify this.

It may he helpful in determining why the transponder was turned off.

[NSEU]

in my opinion from the little evidence available, it had a depressurisation problem rendering the flight crew and passengers unconscious, resulting in the aircraft flying solely on autopilot and completely unmonitored from the malacca straights on an approximate track taking it over the indian ocean towards the island of madagascar via diago garcia, where at some point it ran out fuel.

Very unlikely. If the cabin altitude went to even 10,000', there would be a loud aural alert in the cockpit plus an EICAS message telling the flight crew that there was a pressurisation problem. I'm sure the pilots are regularly checked for health and wouldn't find 10,000' much of a problem. If they did succumb to lack of oxygen without realising there was anything wrong with pressurisation, the autopilot would have taken them to their destination and beyond (at their current cruise altitude). Also, as previously stated, depressurisation shouldn't have affected their transponders.

[gulfairs]

The reason one switches to standby before changing the code, is that if one cycles the code numbers it does flash other transponder codes.
Which is also a reason for having "Ident".
The transponder is a radar aid, it is not a training line to air traffic control.
If there is no transponder, or its off , ATC just read a target: no identity, no altitude no TAS/IAS.no supplementary information

[clayne]

The aircraft also underwent an extended maintenance ~ 2 weeks ago at which corrosion/cracking around the SATCOM mount should/would have been checked for.

No doubt this plane was taken care of - MAS typically has things in order. On the other hand, what about the aspect that the plane was last "touched" as short as 2 weeks ago?

[Creampuff]

Surely the 777 does not have those steam-driven transponders with rotary code select knobs. Surely it would be fitted with the newer push-button code entry controllers that don’t change the transmitted code until the fourth number in the code is entered. :confused:

[ad-astra]

With the older rotary Transponders the policy of turning the unit to STBY has merit but with modern keyboard Transponders the likleyhood of an incorrect code is slim and is easily rectified.
The problem with turning the Transponder unit to STBY is that TCAS protections are now lost which in my mind is not an ideal situation.
By all means turn it to STBY but just realise the repercussions whilst it is off and god forbid if it is not turned back on.

[Creampuff]

Turning it off is only one explanation, out of numerous, for a transponder ceasing to operate.

[Icarus2001]

Surely the 777 does not have those steam-driven transponders with rotary code select knobs. Surely it would be fitted with the newer push-button code entry controllers that don’t change the transmitted code until the fourth number in the code is enteredQuite right Creamie.

Also in some jets I fly with the rotary code selector knobs, as soon as the knob is turned to change the code the TCAS/Transponder goes to standby mode until all digits are selected and set for something like 3 seconds, not sure of exact timing.

As far as this thread goes...Never have so many understood so little but written so much about it!

[LASJayhawk]

Jet we don't know that. Both transponder antennas are close together. It the section of skin they are both mounted on departed the aircraft.....

Just as likely a major loss of electrics....or for some reason multiple databuses went down at once.

IMHO: until we recover her, were gonna drive ourselves crazy guessing.

Asking again any 777 or 767 drivers remember what the load shedding scheme is?

[Frenchwalker]

Just to point our on some of the information provided by the Malaysian military last night around its last know position, more so around the fact the the aircraft descended to around 3000ft would this simply be to maintain VFR , cloud base in kl usually sits between 3000ft and 10,000ft

this would indicate the the PIC certainly had control of the Aircraft

[1a sound asleep]

The stream of news and rumors is ridiculous

Malaysia's air force chief denied a media report that the military last tracked a missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner over the Strait of Malacca, far from where it last made contact with civilian air traffic control when it disappeared four days ago.

"I wish to state that I did not make any such statements," air force chief Rodzali Daud said in a statement on Wednesday.
Malaysia air force denies tracking missing jet to Strait of Malacca (http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-news/se-asia/story/malaysia-air-force-denies-tracking-missing-jet-strait-malacca-20140312)

[training wheels]

Reagarding the transponder and why it was not returning a secondary paint on radar could be as mentioned above. If a decompressurization did occur, and in the process of changing the code from assigned code to 7700, the PNF left it in Standby mode and not return it to TA/RA mode due to increase in workload or partial or deteriorating awareness due to hypoxia, it may explain why the transponder was 'off'. Quite plausable and we all know how overloaded we can become during simulator proficiency checks for similar scenarios.

[er340790]

It's the only scenario which I can piece together which fits the evidence. The aircraft could be anywhere from the last primary radar return to 3000nm west of there. - and may not be found for a very long time.

Given the arguably chaotic S&R response thus far - with zero results - you'd think it might be worth at least one attempted ariel or surface sweep along that path... if not already too late.

[ManaAdaSystem]

I have never switched the transponder to standby before changing code.

[win_faa]

On the B777, if the SATCOM antenna is damage as a result of fuselage mount cracking could this disable ACARS transmission as well!??

[Stanley11]

I have never switched the transponder to standby before changing code.


@ManaAdaSystem, I agree. In my 20+ years of flying, I've never done that. In fact, every time I changed code, I'd hit the 'ident' button (or toggle switch) to give out a pulse.

[jet_noseover]

Ok, let me ask you this...Any of you had ever turned off the transponder on the flight for any reason? If so why?

[lilkim]

Latest:

@STForeignDesk: #Malaysia official replies "it's not the right time yet" to question from #MH370 families if govt is hiding military data
#MalaysiaAirlines

[Lonewolf_50]

Compromised cockpit remains an open possibility. :mad:
So do a few other not so happy scenarios. :uhoh:

The transponder thing was true in my fledgling days, but I doubt that 777 has such archaic avionics.

It is amazing how quickly the mods are ditching posts. Wow.

jet noseover:
Yes. Was trouble shooting mine. Turned it off, recycled the CB, turned it back on to stby to warm it up. A few minutes later, with the code assigned, it seemed to work based on ATC getting a good squawk out of me. This was over 20 years ago.