Malaysian Airlines MH370 contact lost

[Australopithecus]

Ditto re stndby on ATC TX. When I learned to fly that was the accepted procedure. Forty-three years ago. Time has marched on since then.

[Pitot Probe]

No never.

Only xpdr change I can think of is a checklist action to go from TA/RA to TA Only following ENG failure/shutdown.

[LASJayhawk]

Jet, I did work on a KA200 that had a duel transponder failure coming into KLAS.

The seal on the R/H cheek panel was no good and they flew through rain.

Both TDR-90s had water pour out of them when I pulled them.

Unless they have added some wiz-bang feature, it is also possible that A transponder failed. And if they were busy, or ATC didn't call them to point it out, I doubt they would know.
No reply does not mean they were turned off...

[Australopithecus]

The common element for the transponders, VHR COMM #1, the GPS recvrs and the Satcoms is the antenna locations on the fwd fuselage.

That said, and with the understanding that there is a lap joint AD in effect, and with the alleged transmission of cabin disintegration received in Utapao yet one more theory emerges.

The Aloha 737-200 was very much shorter and only just held together apparently, so the scenario of a fuselage failure on a 777 being possible, and then allowing for another hour of flight would be astonishing. Although it would explain many data points.

[B777FD]

If the transponder is turned off/on standby, do ATC (civil or military) still get a contact with no associated information? A primary return?

I'm a little confused by the impression I am getting from various posts that a large jet can go "invisible" by switching squawk to standby. Can SSR work where PSR cannot?

[Stanley11]

Ok, let me ask you this...Any of you had ever turned off the transponder on the flight for any reason? If so why?
I regularly operate within Military airspace. We turn it off (Standby) when operating within the circuit. When operating low in the training areas (definitely out of radar and transponder coverage), we turn it on but sqwark a common code.

To add (not relevant for this case), when we operate in such locations, it's known as 'flight monitoring'. I.e. the control agency will not be able to see us but know that we are somewhere in that area. We will call in every half hour to report. If we fail to do so, they will call to check. SAR will be dispatched only when we are way over due. I think this is very common for GA as well.

[LASJayhawk]

B777FD If you go to standby, the transponder will still hear the interrogations, but not send out any replies. So no, it would not show up on SSR.

[mattfl]

This is starting to sound like a variation of Helios Flight 522:

Helios Airways Flight 522 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios_Airways_Flight_522)

The left turn may have been an attempt by one of the remaining crew-members to return to land. Some news reports claim it was a low as 3'000 after turning west - other reports say is was sill up near 30k. If it did drop from the cruse this is further evidence that possibly one remaining member of the crew was making a valiant attempt to save the lives of aboard.

[LookingForAJob]

I'm a little confused by the impression I am getting from various posts that a large jet can go "invisible" by switching squawk to standby. Can SSR work where PSR cannot?Yes. SSR heads typically have greater range than primary heads and, for en-route surveillance, it is quite common for civil ATC to have no primary cover.

[Dendrite]

Thailand will not be wasting their tax payers money over Malaysia authority blame game, sending them to search South China Sea, Gulf of Thailand, Andaman sea, and probably Indian Ocean next.

Missing MH370: Thai Navy may cease hunt for plane (http://www.thestar.com.my/News/Nation/2014/03/12/Missing-MH370-Thai-Navy-may-cease-hunt/)

[pilotday]

All this transponder talk is silly. Why would anyone try to select 7700 and not tell ATC anything?

We won't know what happened until they find the black box…if ever.

this may go down in history as just one of those accidents where you never find the wreckage.

Its a huge ocean…..won't be the first or last time a plane disappears.

[Stanley11]

Why would anyone select 7700 and not tell ATC anything?


Yes:

1) Unable to transmit voice (headsets failure, radio failure)
2) Unable to speak - loud cockpit noise such as canopy failure, partial pilot incapacitation, cannot speak audibly due to 3rd party (terrorist situation)

we even have codes following 77xx, to mean other failures, Hydraulics, Electrical, oxy, etc...

[LASJayhawk]

Jet, it is possible a transponder failed (it happens) Unless ATC yelled at them or the failure caused a TCAS error message they may not have noticed.

The point is, no reply from the transponder does not mean someone switch it off on purpose.

[Stanley11]

@Weary

In a part of the world historically known for the cultural practice of face saving, who would confess to pulling the trigger?

It is not easy to do this in the dark and cover it up. The hoops to go through are very complex. No one would want to do that. Trigger happy loose cannons just do not sit around waiting for opportunities like this. If ever this scenario even happened, the authorities would be very quick to spin it to their advantage, saying that they need to protect the ground from a larger collateral damage. This is not a region where people are staring down each others' barrel. There are just so many ways to disprove this theory.

[jugofpropwash]

I've seen little information about the pilots, other than that the copilot was transitioning. Does anyone know if the pilot regularly flew this route? Seems like someone who "knew" the area well might react differently than someone who didn't in the event of a com and nav failure. He would, perhaps, be more able to determine his position visually based on ground lights, and would be more apt to know of other (even disused) airports. Also, did he usually fly at night? He had a high number of hours and presumably seniority?

[Old Boeing Driver]

On the 777, if a transponder fails, will it auto transfer to another transponder, or is there a message of failure and a manual transfer to an operating transponder?

The last airplane I flew auto transfered, and gave an advisory message and chime.

[TRW Plus]

Checking the back weather data, both KL and Penang were essentially calm and partly cloudy all night during the hours when this flight could possibly have been returning in that direction. Broken cloud layers were reported at or near 3000 ft. From what I recall of the satellite imagery (but I was then concentrating on areas further north) there were tropical thunderstorms quite a bit further south (probably south of Singapore) but as usual in this part of the world, dissipating and remnants drifting west. I think we could rule out weather as any kind of a factor in this event, even some theoretical last stage return to base.

[LASJayhawk]

Old Boeing Driver. I have never seen a setup on an American built plane that auto switches. Doesn't mean there isn't one....

Most failures will trip a fault that will show up but some faults in the receive path won't trigger an error, the transponder just won't know it is being interrogated, and won't reply.

Jet I agree it stinks to high heaven, but that doesn't mean it was a willful act by someone on the flight deck...

[Stanley11]

At the rate this SAR is going, I doubt the debris field, if any, would remain clustered together. I fear that we'll just have to wait patiently for the debris to wash up on some coast, hopefully populated, and then back track the currents and find the crash site.

[onetrack]

The denial by the RMAF chief that he ever stated the aircraft was picked up on radar near Palau Perak is Malaysian face-saving - in case their conclusion was wrong. Radar picks up all kinds of things, not necessarily related to aircraft. The radar results have to be analysed and a conclusion drawn. That conclusion may be right or wrong, when the radar return is from an object that shouldn't be there.

Let's say MH370 definitely was the unknown item picked up by military radar crossing the Malaysian peninsula and tracked to near Palau Perak.

Lets also examine the report by the eight people sitting on the beach at Bandar Marang on the NE coast of the Malay peninsula at 1:30AM, who heard a "loud and frightening noise" that "seemed to come from Kapas Island."

We all know that sounds reverberate and bounce off large solid objects. What if the eight people on the beach heard an explosive decompression of MH370? (they would have been within hearing distance of waypoint IGARI, and sound carries a long way at night, and through the sky).

Let's say an oxygen bottle in the cabin exploded and caused major decompression, and took out a heap of electrical wiring and comms, including the transponder.
The crew immediately commenced a left turn to return to KL and initiated a rapid descent.
However, hypoxia took over prior to reaching a low level and the crew became unconscious. The aircraft continued to fly in a gentle arc, back over the Malay peninsula, at a steadily reducing height, or at a low height preset by the crew on the AP.

In that case, there's a strong possibility the aircraft crashed into the Gunung Leuser National Park - one of the largest, largely unpopulated, mountainous wilderness areas in Northern Sumatra.
An aircraft crashing into a high-elevation area of this park at 3:00AM local time would be heard by very few people - and it would disappear into the jungle just as GOL 1907 did.

It's starting to become obvious that MH370 did not crash into the sea in the current search areas. Vietnam has scaled back its search, obviously confident the aircraft wreckage is not in its search area. The seas in the search areas have been combed by vast numbers of ships, aircraft and even satellites over 4 days, and nothing has been found.
If there was wreckage in the current sea search areas, at least one or two fishing boat crews would have come forward by now. The silence is deafening. The aircraft obviously flew well outside the current search areas.


"Gunung Leuser National Park is 150 km long, over 100 km wide and is mostly mountainous. 40% of the park, which is mainly in the north, is steep, and over 1,500 m. 12% of the park only, in the lower southern half, is below 600 metres but for 25 km runs down the coast. 11 peaks are over 2,700 m and the highest point is Gunung Leuser, which 3,466 m high".

http://www.nst.com.my/latest/font-color-red-missing-mh370-font-loud-noise-reported-believed-linked-to-missing-plane-1.507926

[Tarzanboy]

What if MH370 wanted to perform an emergency landing for whatever reason. Close to IGARI point the crew entered a possible airport to land in their FMS which could be VVCT CAN THO with VOR "TRN", because this one has a 3000m runway which is close to the intended route ahead. But, there is another "TRN" VOR closer by, guess where: TRANG VOR close to the Andaman sea. The crew under severe stress executes the top TRN (closest by) in the FMS and the plane turns immediately to that point. Could this explain the hard left turn after IGARI point towards the Andaman sea?
http://s4.postimg.org/4d8stni21/image.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/4d8stni21/)
"KUALA LUMPUR: The international search for a missing Malaysian airliner has been expanded into the Andaman Sea, hundreds of kilometres (miles) to the northwest of the original search radius, an official said Wednesday."

[Stevee101]

The lack of communication etc etc from MH370 is strange. Having worked as ground maintenance on 777's for 15 yrs or so, I can only think that something catastrophic happened to power supply, and L and R AIMS has shut down, without AIMS, pretty much all communication is lost including transponder, and most displays apart from standby instruments will fail..just a thought..guess time will tell..just pray for the passengers and crew.

[onetrack]

10 countries in the SAR operations - Malaysia, Vietnam, U.S., China, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Phillipines, Taiwan, and Indonesia.

The array of shipping and aircraft in the search is mind-boggling and must be approaching the largest joint SAR force ever assembled in recent years.

BBC News - Malaysia Airlines: How is the search being carried out? (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-26514556)

[Stanley11]

10 countries in the SAR operations - Malaysia, Vietnam, U.S., China, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Phillipines, Taiwan, and Indonesia.

Read yesterday on The New Straits Times that Qatar is offering to join in as well. Not sure in what capacity, surface or airborne.

[Neogen]

If indeed the transponder failed, there were comms problem and it was returning or preparing for an approach for return. How is it possible that sophisticated air force like RMAF failed to detect the plane for over 1 hour and flag it as possible incursion? :uhoh:

[onetrack]

Neogen - I think that's what the Malaysians are trying to hide. An embarrassment of major proportions.
A radar operator sighted an unknown radar return, pointed it out to a "chief" - and it was dismissed as a flock of birds. :suspect:
Either that - or the "chief" was sound asleep at home, and it was common knowledge he didn't like to be awakened, only to find a flock of birds being reported as an "intrusion". :uhoh:

[PancakeRodeo]

I just want to say that Tarzanboy's theory is quite an interesting one upon further reflection. What are the odds that there is a perfectly suitable emergency diversion straight ahead with identifier "TRN", plus another location with identifier "TRN" back near the Andaman sea where the aircraft seems to have flown to instead for no apparent reason?

I must admit, it seems like an easy mistake to select the wrong TRN on the display when they would both be roughly the same distance from the place of last contact.

[Neogen]

Onetrack - or they sighted the radar return, informed the chief, RMAF scrambled the jet and overzealous RMAF .....:mad:

One fact for sure: Malaysian officials have given ambiguous, inaccurate and at times directly contradictory information since the aircraft's disappearance.

[220mph]

@DWS posted (http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/535538-malaysian-airlines-mh370-contact-lost-52.html#post8368150):

ITS now being reported on FOX ( kelley files ) - that 777- BA has had had a request or notice in for change to FBW computer / reporting systems for security reasons- that there IS a common ( wired) link somehow between some of the FBW reporting systems and the inflight passenger entertainment systems- and possibly subject to hacking !
Dont know if this report is factual- but am posting it here to give some people with access to FAA paperwork, etc a chance to look it up.

And hopefully to give the moderators a chance to standby for a flood of

"it was hacked and is now in area 51 .... or somewhere-"

In any case- some factual data on this issue would be appreciated by many on this forum-

Here is the info on this topic:

Special Conditions: Boeing Model 777-200, -300, and -300ER Series Airplanes; Aircraft Electronic System Security Protection From Unauthorized Internal Access (https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2013/11/18/2013-27343/special-conditions-boeing-model-777-200--300-and--300er-series-airplanes-aircraft-electronic-system)

[NYJ]

According to Astro Awani

NEW DELHI: Ships of the Indian Navy that are on patrol in the Straits of Malacca are participating in the search and rescue (SAR) operations for the Malaysia Airlines (MAS) MH370 which went missing last Saturday.

The Indian Navy's satellite Rukmini or GSAT-7 has also been activated to pick up any clue that may lead investigators to the missing aircraft, Indian Media reported.

[Killaroo]

Someone has done something really bad in Malaysia associate with this disaster because there's some royal butt covering going on here..
At some point (probably sometime yesterday) you start loosing more face by not telling than telling what you know!

Matyj I'm beginning to think the same. This is starting to sound like a cover up of something embarrassing to Malaysia.
If the cover up was started in a panic there'll be a lot of buck passing going on, with nobody willing to man up and tell the truth. That's the Malaysian way.

By the way, was MAS conducting any kind of disciplinary action on the FO already?

[hamster3null]

Onetrack - or they sighted the radar return, informed the chief, RMAF scrambled the jet and overzealous RMAF .....:mad:

One fact for sure: Malaysian officials have given ambiguous, inaccurate and at times directly contradictory information since the aircraft's disappearance.

I just don't see RMAF getting all the way through the chain of command from the radar grunt, to whoever has authorization to shoot down bogeys, to a fighter jet, in the amount of time it takes for a 777 to go from the point where transponders were shut down to the point where it exited Malaysian waters on the way into the big unknown (30-40 min), at 2 in the morning.

When Soviets shot down KAL 007, it took 2.5 hours to get the ducks lined up and to give an order to fire.

[onetrack]

Neogen - Come on, you don't really believe that a large commercial, easily-recognisable make of aircraft (clearly marked with their own National Airline markings) was shot out of the sky by an RMAF fighter, without a second thought?? Get real, you've been reading too many novels. :rolleyes:

This is Malaysia we're talking, not North Korea. The Malaysians may have their faults, but shooting first and asking questions afterwards, isn't one of them.

One fact for sure: Malaysian officials have given ambiguous, inaccurate and at times directly contradictory information since the aircraft's disappearance.Correct. But more due to a bumbling bureaucracy, face-saving, and individual little fiefdoms within Malaysian society, who have a need to have their authority pandered to, often at the expense of the embarrassing truth.

[Killaroo]

I don't think it was shot down. I think it sailed across the Malay Peninsula in silent running mode ( hijack or crew gone rogue) then has run out of fuel or been ditched somewhere in the Andaman Sea.

They've been searching in the wrong place. And maybe they knew it.buying time?

[RatherBeFlying]

First of all, I do not know the coverage of Malaysia's military radars.

Do we know if a primary pulse reached the location of the last SSR reply?

There could well be a considerable gap between the last SSR reply and the first primary returns.

While there may have been a series of primary returns, what evidence is there to tie those returns to MH370?

Or was it a smuggler or drone?

The Malaysian Air Force has not published the radar tracks. Most militaries would not as they do not want any opposition to know their capabilities -- or coverage gaps.

In the case of incapacitation, the a/c might run on autopilot until fuel exhaustion or CFIT -- or be brought down earlier by other failure modes.

If those primary returns turn out to be from MH370, we may end up with flotsam somewhere between Malacca and Madagascar. Finding the wreck in those circumstances will make the search for AF447 look easy.

[Machinbird]

Anyone have an idea how a Triple 7 would behave with a complete electrical failure?
I don't think it would simply roll over. If the throttles & flight controls were not touched, natural stability should leave it doing small phugoid oscillations and perhaps gradually turning. I believe the fuel system would likely continue to deliver fuel and the engines would continue to run until the feeding tank ran dry.

Just theorizing a bit, but if the cockpit were breached in some significant way, not only would you lose pressurization, you would likely lose some of the functions normally controlled from the cockpit. A crew would be at a serious disadvantage to do anything meaningful.

The radar returns from the point in space where the aircraft ceased its squawk should be closely scrutinized for evidence of loss of panels or structure. If there is such evidence, then these items would be an absolute priority for attempted recovery since they would probably indicate what happened.

If the aircraft has flown as far as it is capable of after the deviation event, then finding it in a large expanse of ocean is going to involve a lot of luck. That aircraft may look big standing next to it but it is entirely possible to lose it and not find it for years.

[vee1-rotate]

Good work Tom, must be hard work being a journalist these days when all you have to do is constantly refresh an anonymous internet forum for a story !

Missing Malaysia Airlines plane: US issued warnings over Boeing 777s (http://www.theage.com.au/world/missing-malaysia-airlines-plane-us-issued-warnings-over-boeing-777s-20140312-hvhqz.html)

[PlatinumFlyer]

Tarzanboy:
In looking at the image, this makes lots of sense, if indeed, their track was directly toward TRN in Malaysia.

[HNLute]

She was carrying O2 Oxygen canisters...Terrible result.

[dabrat]

1. What was the last radio transmission received from aircraft? If an aircraft goes more than 5 minutes (40 miles ) without a radio transmission someone will key the mike and ask where are you? Where they called on 121.5?
The tapes should be played.
2. What cargo was the plane carrying? Anything of interest? Precious cargo, dangerous goods? Etc?
3. Background of pilots and crew?
4. Cellphone signals can be traced. Last known position of any of the phones of the passengers?
More questions than answers. The Malaysian authorities need to answer .

[Stanley11]

To the guys with the shoot down theory:

Hamster3null: Modern air force now SHOULD have their procedures squared away now. Sure, they can't protect everywhere in a big country but they will have their procedures oiled out to protect the really sensitive areas. Protocols are in place for all types of timelines.

Onetrack: Totally agree with you

I suspect the simple answer to the RMAF angle is they simply do not know. Perhaps they have a scheduled maintenance of the radar, perhaps they have an operator who forgot to turn on the 'recording' function, perhaps there is just a gap in their radar in that region. Again, not that Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam are expecting some conflict of any sort requiring a high level of surveillance. However, it would be too embarrassing to admit to it.
Sometimes the most likely answer is the simplest answer. They simply do not know. Just check out what the Pakistan Chief of Air Force said when the Air Force failed to detect the helicopters going in to get OBL.

[Tarzanboy]

PlatinumFlyer, their route was planned just east of CAN THO VOR towards Hochiminh TSN VOR according flightaware.

[clint_y]

Questions from a "lay man."
How long does the flight recorders continually record data before recycling? I've seen reports of the last 30 minutes of the flight?

If there was a depressurization event and the pilot lost conscious after setting the AP to the new course. The plane would continue until running out of fuel correct? Is there a "deadman" switch similar to a train? If the recorder only records the last 30 minutes and the plane continued for 2-3 hours after the "event" would the recorders even be useful?

[thcrozier]

Time to remember once again that in spite of media reports, the situation is not unprecedented.


Adam Air Flight 574 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Air_Flight_574)

[metro301]

Tarzanboy!! Bravo.....

Ref post #2063

That is actually the first bit of realistic speculation that I have read in 2100+ posts.

[Matvey]

In 104 pages, this is the first post that's made me think "hey, that might be something." If I remember correctly, the AA in Cali featured an FMS input of an identifier that was not the intended waypoint and it commanded a turn off the correct flightpath. While I doubt an erroneous FMS input was the cause of this crash (not much CFIT at FL350!), it's a good hint at a plausible answer to one of the many, many unanswered questions we all still have.

[hkgman]

Could this happen again?! Unreliable Airspeed=nightmare for pilots!!

http://www.pprune.org/spectators-balcony-spotters-corner/389706-malaysia-airlines-flight-124-boeing-777-adiru-incident.html

[A A Gruntpuddock]

Now they seem to be saying that there is no radar record of the flight to the West of the mainland?

MISSING MH370: RMAF chief denies military radar report - Columnist - New Straits Times (http://www.nst.com.my/opinion/columnist/font-color-red-missing-mh370-font-rmaf-chief-denies-military-radar-report-1.509129)

If this was a film script, it would be discarded as just too incredible!

[XB70_Valkyrie]

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.

It is possible the SAR response is orderly and logical and they're doing terrible job with the public information side of thing.

[SICKorSKI]

Does anyone know why in this day and age why an airliner would not have an ISAT system?
With nearly every offshore helicopter operator monitoring all flights in real time with a instant database cache of position reports its ridiculous to think an airline has no idea where thier assets are!

Also for the crew an instant flip of the switch to "emergency" to indicate distress!

Hopefully a wake up call to airlines to look at systems such a skytrac!

[Teal]

The latest expansion of the search area vindicates my thrice deleted posts suggesting searching along the extrapolated IGATI - Pulau island track (basically extrapolate the last known track westwards until fuel exhaustion).

That, and post from @Tarzanboy most plausible to date....

What if MH370 wanted to perform an emergency landing for whatever reason. Close to IGARI point the crew entered a possible airport to land in their FMS which could be VVCT CAN THO with VOR "TRN", because this one has a 3000m runway which is close to the intended route ahead. But, there is another "TRN" VOR closer by, guess where: TRANG VOR close to the Andaman sea. The crew under severe stress executes the top TRN (closest by) in the FMS and the plane turns immediately to that point. Could this explain the hard left turn after IGARI point towards the Andaman sea?

I once watched a BA 747 turn 50° after an incorrect waypoint input. It occurred in darkness and the flightcrew were completely oblivious until asked to confirm their position (heading east to the South Pacific off the New South Wales coast when they should have been tracking to Sydney over land). I can imagine a crew under pressure easily making a similar mistake with no visual references to alert them to a navigation error.

[XB70_Valkyrie]

Thats the most important question: What are they covering up and on whose behest?

In addition to cover-up, why are they misleading the entire world. They knew all the time that plane is not anywhere in or near gulf of Thailand / south China Sea. Then why did they mislead?

I certainly think there is some awful media relations work at foot there, but I've managed aviation SAR incidents (post Sep 11) where we could not disclose information from classified military assets that were being factored into our search plan. Some of these assets make the oft mentioned here "primary ATC radar" look like a joke.

We had to be circumspect to avoid a public disclosure rabbit hole... it was also an incident that was subject to a lot of media coverage.

I almost accidentally mentioned one element during a media interview, it would have created a major issue in terms of cross jurisdiction cooperation for the future. It is possible either their own military or foreign military has provided them information on the condition that the source and type of information not be disclosed, hence the skewed search area (from day 2?) with no explanation. The SOP is to say "we've received information from a variety of credible sources that has led us to move our search in this direction".

The standard SAR methodology is to work from your highest probability of detection areas down. It appears they are doing that. This is usually based on imperfect information, e.g. they have a military track but it is partial and may not connect with the ATC track (and therefore identity of a/c). Or they have clues that are credible but wrong, which misdirect resources.

Ironically we were going to be meeting soon with one of the government SAR departments involved in this search, I assume due to this incident those meetings will move out a bit. Of course I'm going to try to get the scoop on what went on (when all this is over), but it will be the very last thing I ask them in the meetings; I'm sure there will be reticence to discuss.

[porterhouse]

The auto pilot in some Cessna Biz jets will detect depressurization and will automatically turn 90 degrees and descend and level off at 15000 feet.No, it isn't designed to turn 90 degrees, it simply maintains 25 deg bank and Vmo all the way down to 14000 ft.

[StormyKnight]

I once watched a BA 747 turn 50° after an incorrect waypoint input. It occurred in darkness and the flightcrew were completely oblivious until asked to confirm their position (heading east to the South Pacific off the New South Wales coast when they should have been tracking to Sydney over land). I can imagine a crew under pressure easily making a similar mistake with no visual references to alert them to a navigation error.

Oddly the passengers watching the inflight map, would see the plane heading out to sea. Human mistakes are made, when the information they see in front of them they have mentally checked it off as OK. Once checked off, it takes fresh eyes or very good training to reassess the data to reconfirm it is actually correct.

[XB70_Valkyrie]

NineMSN reporting Vietnam has suspended air search and scaled back marine assets until better explanation from MY:

Vietnam suspends air search for missing plane (http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/2014/03/12/15/30/vietnam-suspends-air-search-for-missing-malaysian-jet)

[rampstalker]

Just to put my bit over.

If the Feds issued an AD then they would have put a time line for it to have been done. For sure MAS would have stayed with in the stipulated time frame as would most responsible operations.

[marconiphone]

'Now they seem to be saying that there is no radar record of the flight to the West of the mainland?'

No they aren't. They are saying there is no CONFIRMED record. Quite a different thing. The lack of confirmed information is why they continue to search over such a huge area. That's what anyone sensible would do.

[nick murry]

Yes you can depress manually. About half an hour in a 772 at FL350 until O2 depletion Give or take. That's by memory as they have removed the figures from our manuals now .

No you must make a manual rapid decent.

[StormyKnight]

The masks would automatically deploy, why someone would not be donning one?

But they only last a few minutes, if the pilot stayed at altitude, they would have been next to useless in short time.

[eire.ie]

MISSING MH370: Hopes as fishermen find life raft near PD - Latest - New Straits Times (http://www.nst.com.my/latest/font-color-red-missing-mh370-font-hopes-as-fishermen-find-life-raft-near-pd-1.509222)

Would this be typical of one used in a B777?

[Ex FSO GRIFFO]

Re deanm #2157... (Air Helios B-737 crash)

"The emergency oxygen supply in the passenger cabin of this model of Boeing 737 is provided by chemical generators that provide enough oxygen, through breathing masks, to sustain consciousness for about 12 minutes, normally sufficient for an emergency descent to 10,000 feet (3,000 m), "

Was / is the 777 any different..??

[SOPS]

BBC is reporting just now, that oil rig workers saw a burning aircraft off the coast of Veitnam. Search aircraft are being sent to the area.

[StormyKnight]

@Stormy & Porterhouse: I note that on Helios 522, SLF O2 masks deployed, but were seen dangling unused by F16 chase pilots .....

Helios Airways Flight 522 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios_Airways_Flight_522)

Dean

Yes the Chemical Oxygen Generator lasts only at least 15 minutes....then they are empty. The Helios plane never attempted to descend & the pilot lost conciousness. The plane continued to fly on auto pilot at FL340 (34,000 feet) until fuel exhaustion.

Emergency oxygen system - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_oxygen_system)

[red_october]

MISSING MH370: Hopes as fishermen find life raft near PD - Latest - New Straits Times (http://www.nst.com.my/latest/font-color-red-missing-mh370-font-hopes-as-fishermen-find-life-raft-near-pd-1.509222)

There's a photo there as well - is this a standard kit on the T7? Port Dickson is on the Straits of Malacca. If this belongs to MH370, this could get rather interesting.

[Tokyo Geoff]

MISSING MH370: Hopes as fishermen find life raft near PD - Latest - New Straits Times (http://www.nst.com.my/latest/font-color-red-missing-mh370-font-hopes-as-fishermen-find-life-raft-near-pd-1.509222)

PORT DICKSON: A group of fishermen found a life raft bearing the word “Boarding” 10 nautical miles from Port Dickson town at 12pm yesterday.
One of the fishermen, Azman Mohamad, 40, said they found the badly damaged raft floating and immediately notified the Kuala Linggi Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) in Malacca for assistance to lift the raft as it was very heavy.
"We managed to tie it to our boat as we feared it would sink due to the damages," he said.
When the MMEA boat arrived, the fishermen then handed over the raft into their custody.
However, a Kuala Linggi MMEA spokesman said the raft sunk into the sea while they were trying to bring the raft onboard.


Read more: MISSING MH370: Hopes as fishermen find life raft near PD - Latest - New Straits Times MISSING MH370: Hopes as fishermen find life raft near PD - Latest - New Straits Times (http://www.nst.com.my/latest/font-color-red-missing-mh370-font-hopes-as-fishermen-find-life-raft-near-pd-1.509222#ixzz2vjGMnk3k)

[andrasz]

A group of fishermen found a life raft bearing the word “Boarding” 10 nautical miles from Port Dickson
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but the photo seems to show a maritime life-raft rather than one used in aviation.

[nitpicker330]

The location given by the Oil Rig worker relates closely to the position the Cathay Pacific crew reported debris in the water........

[Bobman84]

It seems very disorganised by the Malaysian Government. Just reading below makes you shake your head at their incompetence over this incident:

Vietnam said it had halted its air search and scaled back a sea search while it waited for Malaysia to offer more detail.

“We’ve decided to temporarily suspend some search and rescue activities, pending information from Malaysia,” deputy minister of transport Pham Quy Tieu told AFP.

Asked about the claim that the plane had last been detected over the Strait of Malacca - suggesting it had crossed the entire peninsula - he replied: “We’ve asked Malaysian authorities twice, but so far they have not replied to us.

“We informed Malaysia on the day we lost contact with the flight that we noticed the flight turned back west but Malaysia did not respond.”

Malaysia’s air force chief denied telling a local newspaper that the aircraft was last detected at 2.40am on the western coast of the Malay peninsula by a military radar - a detail confirmed to news agencies by at least one unnamed military official.

[hoofie]

Andrasz wrote: Please correct me if I'm wrong, but the photo seems to show a maritime life-raft rather than one used in aviation.

Looks that way to me too - it's been in the water a while as well as the top is faded and the ropes are filthy. It certainly matches a maritime one.

An aircraft evacuation slide looks rather different from my point of view. I'm sure though the media will report in breathlessly.

[mm43]

Very convincing..NOT!

Good on position and bearings, but an accurate date and time would make the the so-called sighting more convincing.

[Captain_Snor]

Unfortunate that Mr. McKay's efforts to help has now resulted in his email address, full names and passport details to be revealed.

[nitpicker330]

Why is it suspicious? Looks like a real email at first look to me.

The only sus thing is the NZ passport number on the bottom, too many 8's in it for my liking...

[deanm]

Griffo: if the masks weren't donned (as per Helios) it doesn't matter how long the O2 supply could potentially sustain passengers/cabin crew....

If I were (legitimately or otherwise) up front wearing cockpit O2/smoke mask before manual depress, I would expect my emergency O2 supply to last considerably longer than that for SLF....

[win_faa]

all life raft i've seen installed on widebody have light gray color. Life raft found at Port Dickson is black so this is not the typical life raft on large commercial jet. Its likely that this is use by marine vessels.

http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1392660.1373263398!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_635/usa-crash-asiana.jpg

[SOPS]

Hang on.....the Vietnamese Authorites are now saying that when the aircraft first went missing, they tracked it going west and they told the Malaysians, but they did not respond back to them.

As each hour passes, a huge cover up seems to be more and more possible.

[clayne]

all life raft i've seen installed on widebody have light gray color. Life raft found at Port Dickson is black so this is not the typical life raft on large commercial jet. Its likely that this is use by marine vessels.

Let us also not forget Port Dickson's location in relation to KUL. Even if the source of the raft were ambiguous, that seems much too south. Combined with the amount of ship traffic through that area, it would appear completely unrelated.

[Neogen]

Hang on.....the Vietnamese Authorites are now saying that when the aircraft first went missing, they tracked it going west and they told the Malaysians, but they did not respond back to them.

As each hour passes, a huge cover up seems to be more and more possible.

So far Vietnamese authorities have been consistent in their statements.

Agree - its currently operation cover-up going on.:rolleyes:

[Australopithecus]

Interesting data points, and all so late in the piece.


A note on the oil rig spotting: The range estimate of 50-70km is way too far to identify an aircraft visually. A bright fire you could see that far no problem, but you would not be able to say that it was an aircraft. And at 50km a fire that bright would be pretty fearsome.

I have been spending my life squinting to see known aircraft at known distances and about ten miles is the limit to make out the shape. You can see strobe lights at 20 nm from a very dark vantage point.

So, what did he see?

[hans66]

It's the ACARS you should be worried about in terms of security, not the onboard entertainment system.

[nitpicker330]

He's reporting what he saw and how far away HE guessed it to be. Obviously it wasn't as far away as he thought.

[Neogen]

West of Malaysia, especially Malacca Strait is well under surveillance by Indian Navy. They have their base in Andaman "INS Baaz"which was recently handed over to their Navy:

India Gives Navy Control of Andaman and Nicobar Command | Defense News | defensenews.com (http://www.defensenews.com/article/20131129/DEFREG/311290012/India-Gives-Navy-Control-Andaman-Nicobar-Command)

I am sure they must have been tracking that area, why dont they come forward and share some information.

[mixture]

I think the fact that quite a few relatives of the missing ones are claiming the phones rang or are still ringing after the aircraft “vanished” needs to be investigated.

I would hazard a guess that your post on mobile phones vanished because the topic of mobile phones has been covered again and again and again and again and again and again.

We absolutely need to put a stop to people coming on here with their mobile phone conspiracy theories. As has been pointed out multiple times by multiple people.... the mobile phone stuff is a red herring, a false lead .... really, it is not worthy of discussion, at all, ever.

[lapp]

I think the fact that quite a few relatives of the missing ones are claiming the phones rang or are still ringing after the aircraft “vanished” needs to be investigated.


I'm a telecom engineer. What is normally called "ringing" is actually ringback tones. Unfortunately, there are situations in which ringback is erroneously generated. I think that if one was to try calling all the phones that were on board, 99.9% would not give ringback, but if any does, is false.

I’m no expert on mobile networks but given the laws that govern such things there should be a method by which global mobile operators could simply punch in an IMEI number into the database in order to determine the last radio mast registration. Collect IMEI numbers for all passengers and search through the databases. There’s nothing to lose. Even if one of them registered in the few hours after that plane went missing we would at least have a more accurate trajectory.


It is not so simple, there is no global datababase and while it is know that operator routinely log network registrations, there is no law that obliges them to do that. So since the most likely place where registration last occoured is Malaysia, it would be to their autorities to investigate using this method. For phones roaming from abroad, the home network would only know time, country and operator a give SIM last roamed in, but no other details.

[andrasz]

This only points in one direction - they just want time to cover-up.

It is folly to assume that incompetence has a purpose... Incompetence is just what it says it is. Having lived and worked in the region, the way the communication is being handled fully meets my expectations.

That being said, there is probably plenty we do not know, but that is likely being withheld to save face or preserve egos rather than as a piece of a grander scheme. Everything seems to point in the direction that even those supposedly in the know are just as confused as we are here on the forum, just their high office precludes admitting that.

[humbleppl]

I live in the region and have been following the thread and a lot of the available publications in the press with interest. I am convinced, that something really crazy happened that Malaysia are trying to cover up. Maybe a high jacking gone wrong, just can't make up my mind if they crashed by themseves (but why would Malaysia cover it up) or they were shot down by Malaysian military (or something else very crazy).

I am just sure of something: China will be very very angry very soon, about being fooled by Malaysia. How many millions have been spent by almost a dozen countries looking in the wrong place. Malaysia will have no choice but to come out with the truth. I do not even understand how Malaysia can start searching on its west coast but denying it had any hint that the plane headed that way. There is something so obviously wrong and not matching, I am in fact surprised that China hasn't really made a big fuzz yet....

[nitpicker330]

Pinkman---100% agree. A few of us said back on page 1 that there are a lot of Fishing Boats and Oil Rigs in the region and there must have been someone that saw something......

[viggster]

Here's a thorough rundown of contradictory statements made by Malaysian authorities since this began:

Contradictory statements from Malaysia over missing airliner perplex, infuriate (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/03/12/contradictory-statements-from-malaysia-over-missing-airliner-perplex-infuriate/)

"Azharuddin Abdul Rahman proceeded to issue the latest in a series of contradictory statements on the missing plane – statements from the Malaysians that have added to the confusion, infuriated passengers’ relatives and frustrated nearby governments."

[Tu.114]

On Spiegel.de (http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/air-malaysia-maschine-suche-nach-boeing-777-ausgeweitet-a-958136.html) (German language), it is claimed that the last transmission received from the aircraft was "All right, good night" or the like (translated by Spiegel into German and by me back into English, so exact words may vary). This was received at the occasion of the handover from Singapore to Ho Chi Minh.

If correct, it does not appear abnormal to me: just a standard salutation upon leaving a frequency without any indication of anything untoward.

[compressor stall]

An engine failure at night can emit a huge trail of sparks. Quite possibly one that is visible for miles. Completely plausible that this rig worker did see something. But no wreckage below.

Aircraft then turns westwards towards the wrong TRN VOR (as outlined by tarzanboy, copied below) descends by 10,000 feet -a figure mentioned by the Malaysians (but in meters). That would roughly correlate to drift down to the 777 OEI cruise?

Heads to wrong VOR, overrun with other problems (fumes/smoke) aircraft keeps on trucking westwards.


What if MH370 wanted to perform an emergency landing for whatever reason. Close to IGARI point the crew entered a possible airport to land in their FMS which could be VVCT CAN THO with VOR "TRN", because this one has a 3000m runway which is close to the intended route ahead. But, there is another "TRN" VOR closer by, guess where: TRANG VOR close to the Andaman sea. The crew under severe stress executes the top TRN (closest by) in the FMS and the plane turns immediately to that point. Could this explain the hard left turn after IGARI point towards the Andaman sea?

[Mahatma Kote]

The only thing missing in the report was the actual time of observation (UT+7 for Vietnam, UT+8 for Malaysia)

Reading it, he obviously saw something burning and wrote burning (plane) to indicate he thought the burning could be a plane.

His bearing is basically due West. At the time of interest and given the duration it's unlikely to be a planet. It could be an aircraft at any distance depending on altitude.

The other alternative is a satellite. I've seen naked-eye satellites flare brightly and expand in size due to outgassing while in orbit. Alternatively I've also seen satellites re-entering that flared for about that period of time - tens of seconds. The only unusual thing is it was due west while satellites tend to orbit in an inclined plane, so no lateral movement is a problem for that explanation - though not impossible.

[kristofera]

Pinkman---100% agree. A few of us said back on page 1 that there are a lot of Fishing Boats and Oil Rigs in the region and there must have been someone that saw something......

There's also the possibility that someone (e.g. a fishing boat) has found floating debris and kept it to themselves. Has happened in the region before, the Lauda air 004 where looters carried away personal belongings and aircraft parts: Lauda Air Flight 004 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lauda_Air_Flight_004#Recovery)

[220mph]

An equally interesting comment a long ways back that got little discussion also seems relevant. A question about accessibility and security of the MEC (Mechanical Equipment Center) on the 777.

A little research turns up some very interesting info.

First lets look at the MEC location (http://www.skybrary.aero/index.php/File:B772_MEC_FIRE.jpg) - below and immediately behind the flight deck seems a perfect spot to have catastrophic consequences.

http://www.skybrary.aero/images/B772_MEC_FIRE.jpg

A search seems to show incidents which exhibited characteristics that well fit some of the scenarios discussed here at PPRuNe. Scenarios that address the seemingly unlikely event of loss of comms, loss of telemetry (ACARS), loss of transponder etc.

On 26 February 2007, a Boeing 777-222 operated by United Airlines, after pushback from the stand at London Heathrow Airport, experienced internal failure of an electrical component which subsequently led to under-floor fire. The aircraft returned to a stand where was attended by the Airfield Fire Service and the passengers were evacuated.

After engines start, about the time the engine driven Integrated Drive Generators (IDGs) would normally come on-line, the flight deck instrument displays flickered, the crew heard an abnormal noise and an EICAS message, amongst other related messages, indicated that the Right Main AC Bus had failed.

Some 40 seconds after the engines had stabilised at ground idle, the smoke detector in the Main Equipment Centre (MEC), located beneath the flight deck and forward vestibule, detected smoke. About two and a half minutes after the electrical failure, the crew became aware of a faint smell of electrical burning on the flight deck, following which the right engine was shut down. The crew were alerted by the ground handling crew that smoke was seen to be coming from the MEC vent and, a couple of minutes later, ATC also advised that smoke had been seen coming from the aircraft.

The investigation found (http://www.skybrary.aero/bookshelf/books/647.pdf):

The accident occurred during engine start after pushback from the stand. After the right generator came online an electrical failure occurred in the right main bus. The failure resulted in severe internal arcing and short circuits inside the two main power cont actors of the right main bus. The heat generated during the failure resulted in the contactor casings becoming compromised, causing molten metal droplets to fall down onto the insulation blankets below. The insulation blankets ignited and a fire spread underneath a floor panel to the opposite electrical panel (P205) (see MEC compartment drawing above), causing heat and fire damage to structure, cooling ducts and wiring.

The Report identifies the following causal factors:

*An internal failure of the Right Generator Circuit Breaker or Right Bus Tie Breaker contactor on the P200 power panel inside the Main Equipment Centre resulted in severe internal arcing and short-circuits which melted the contactor casings. The root cause of contactor failure could not be determined.

*The open base of the P200 power panel allowed molten metal droplets from the failed contactors to drop down onto the insulation blankets and ignite them.

*The aircraft’s electrical protection system was not designed to detect and rapidly remove power from a contactor suffering from severe internal arcing and short-circuits.

*The contactors had internal design features that probably contributed to the uncontained failures.

It does not in my opinion take an engineer or accident investigator to see that had this incident occurred at cruise that the results could very well have matched what has been speculated here.

A failure (or even a breach) in the MEC causes fire. As the crew is unable to shut down and deplane, the incident escalates with smoke filling cabin/cockpit, followed quickly by electrical failure as we saw happen in this incident ...

As the fire continues uncontained, with the aircraft deaf and dumb - electrical; and as a result comms, transponder, ACARS etc all down, the fire breaches the aircraft hull - as it was well on its way to doing in this incident - followed by a rapid depressurization.

It seems entirely possible and plausible that in such instance, as the damage would be advanced before the crew even were aware - and with the likely rapid loss of electric bus and all related, that no Mayday would get out between discovery and loss of power.

I think it also at least plausible that the pilots MAY have been able to initiate an emergency procedure, but may have rapidly lost consciousness.

More experienced pilots please comment, but I believe the response to a rapid decompression at cruise is to push the nose over hard into a banked descent. I can imagine pilots initiating the emergency descent maneuver at same time they dial in a heading and lower altitude, then being overcome - by depressurization and as the descent continues, then by smoke.

The aircraft, even in distress, could likely fly a fairly long ways. With in the fairly long delay before anyone realized or were worried about the aircraft being missing, it could have traveled well out of the area.

If the MEC is accessible from the cabin it seems terrorism is at least possible - and seems something to look at. But regardless, this incident seems to show everything necessary to casue the scenario we have been discussing, is present in a previous incident with the aircraft.


References:

Short Version:
Air Accidents Investigation: S2/2007 Boeing 777-222, N786UA (http://www.aaib.gov.uk/publications/special_bulletins/s2_2007__boeing_777_222__n786ua.cfm)


Air Investigation Bulletin - Overview:
http://www.aaib.gov.uk/cms_resources.cfm?file=/S2-2007%20N786UA.pdf

Air Investigation - Complete:
http://www.skybrary.aero/bookshelf/books/647.pdf

[readw]

The guy in the email must have good eyes, the rig is currently located in the Caribbean Sea 22.84518 / -79.38331 (http://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/oldmmsi:538002373/zoom:10/olddate:lastknown)

[kwh]

The other alternative is a satellite. I've seen naked-eye satellites flare brightly and expand in size due to outgassing while in orbit. Alternatively I've also seen satellites re-entering that flared for about that period of time - tens of seconds. The only unusual thing is it was due west while satellites tend to orbit in an inclined plane, so no lateral movement is a problem for that explanation - though not impossible.

Or a military jet on full afterburner, maybe scrambled to intercept the jet that apparently turned off its transponder?

[wiggy]

I believe the response to a rapid decompression at cruise is to push the nose over hard into a banked descent. I can imagine pilots initiating the emergency descent maneuver at same time they dial in a heading and lower altitude,

This was discussed at length earlier in the thread. On the 777 it is not a "push the nose hard over" screaming dive, it is ideally performed with the autopilot "in", and Boeing do not make it mandatory to change heading (left or right).

[The Dominican]

All of these "what if's" would have sent a message to the company:=

[asatelliteguy]

I mentioned the ADIRU in another post.. This airplane (MRG) had an issue a while ago where they had zero authority on the control surfaces while it was in AP. Not saying MRO had this problem, but it's a little weird they were at similar cruising altitudes.



On 1 August 2005 a serious incident involving Malaysia Airlines (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines) Flight 124, occurred when a Boeing 777-2H6ER (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_777) (9M-MRG) flying from Perth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perth_Airport) to Kuala Lumpur (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuala_Lumpur_International_Airport) also involved an ADIRU fault resulting in uncommanded manoeuvres by the aircraft acting on false indications.[14] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_data_inertial_reference_unit#cite_note-14) In that incident the incorrect data impacted all planes of movement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_dynamics) while the aircraft was climbing through 38,000 feet (11,600 m). The aircraft pitched up and climbed to around 41,000 feet (12,500 m), with the stall warning activated. The pilots recovered the aircraft with the autopilot disengaged and requested a return to Perth. During the return to Perth, both the left and right autopilots were briefly activated by the crew, but in both instances the aircraft pitched down and banked to the right. The aircraft was flown manually for the remainder of the flight and landed safely in Perth. There were no injuries and no damage to the aircraft. The ATSB found that the main probable cause of this incident was a latent software error which allowed the ADIRU to use data from a failed accelerometer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerometer).[15] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_data_inertial_reference_unit#cite_note-15)
The US Federal Aviation Administration (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Aviation_Administration) issued Emergency Airworthiness Directive (AD) 2005-18-51 requiring all 777 operators to install upgraded software to resolve the error.[16] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_data_inertial_reference_unit#cite_note-16)

[HamishMcBush]

All the stories about possible turn-back, sightings over the Straits Of Malacca etc are just that... stories. They are qualified by "believed to have", "think that" etc etc.

We are still where we were last Saturday morning - no evidence of what has happened to the flight

[compressor stall]

Who said the company didn't get them?

Maybe no one was reading them, or the initial info was ignored.

Would explain some behaviours of multi-medalled generals.

[SOPS]

It would crash. There is nothing in the 777 systems that would prevent it flying into the ocean. If and it's an if, the fisherman are correct, and the aircraft was flying straight and level at a low altitude, then someone was flying it, or making autopilot inputs.

[tartare]

Latest briefing postponed again according to BBC World just now.

[Dumbo Jet]

At last something that makes sense and 'feels' right for an explanation.

It answers some of the 'whys'

..... and it wouldn't be the first "crash/aircraft loss" due to an incorrect way point input

[rampstalker]

Yes this could be a cause of fire and lead to an accident.

However I am sure that the crew if being faced with smoke and fumes in the front end would go through the QReF and don mask and initiate a long shallow to a lower altitude as rightly stated by a dial in of the autopilot. (at the same time initiate other drills to do something to locate and react if at all possible to the smoke/fire) By this stage there would be four eyes and two pairs of hands on this going through check list. A busy time.

All crews of all types will have practiced this in the SIM many times.

Regarding the search in the other direction.

Lets face facts, one of the radar sites reported a radar hit at about the time it could be reasonable to assume this flight could reach if in fact it made a turn. Reported it was not transmitting mode S.
If the authoritys there did not fully investigate and search these areas then I am sure every one would be up in arms that they have not made all efforts.

This is a very sad situation for the industry regardless untill we know the full outcome and untill the DFDR and CVR are located and the data accessed wwe never will do. However its good that so many front seaters are responding on here with very usefull information.

[kenjaDROP]

@HamishMcBush

Exactly! That's the point I was making in mine #1951.

IMO, after a lot of research here on this thread and elsewhere, there has been no definitive official statement by the SAR investigators that a turn back over the peninsular happened!

[India Four Two]

Some facts:

The Songa Mercur is currently drilling in Block 05-1c in Vietnamese waters.

The reported location in the letter is within that Block - I don't have access to the exact coordinates of the well.

The distance to the last reported location is 306 nm on a true bearing of 276.5 degrees:

http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c309/india42/Mobile%20Uploads/image_zps509f48dd.jpg


Note that the bearing line runs just south of the Con Son Islands and across the tip of the Ca Mau peninsula.

For an aircraft at FL350 to be visible from the rig, it would need to be closer than 230 nm. At FL200, 175 nm.

[StormyKnight]

The guy in the email must have good eyes, the rig is currently located in the Caribbean Sea 22.84518 / -79.38331 (http://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/oldmmsi:538002373/zoom:10/olddate:lastknown)

It does say Last Recorded Position - Recorded on: 2013-02-18 08:15:00 (UTC)

It may have moved since then.

[onetrack]

The guy in the email must have good eyes, the rig is currently located in the Caribbean Sea 22.84518 / -79.38331

@readw - Wrong. Do your research properly before you post crap. The Songa Mercur oil rig is currently in the South China Sea, at the location mentioned in the oil rig workers email - and the company that owns it has reported a 100% successful operational period during February (click on "February fleet update" at bottom centre of page).

Songa Offshore (http://www.songaoffshore.com/#)

[piemanpete]

Is there any possibility the plane came down over land and never made it back across Malaysia? Dense jungle has absorbed planes before, leaving little or no trace, especially if - and I appreciate it's a big if - the plane broke up in mid air. Just a thought, albeit a very amateur one (no flames, please).

[Communicator]

Nobody seems to have responded in any detail to the various points about pax phones.

It is common knowledge that many cell phones are left on during flights. Given the demographics, most MH370 passengers would be using smartphones. This raises one interesting avenue of enquiry, and one non-issue.

"QQ" IP Number Logs

If MH370 crossed Peninsular Malaysia at relatively low altitude, some of those phones could have established contact with cell phone towers along the flight path, if only for short periods. Such contacts are logged by the telephone operators even if no call is made. MH knows the numbers of most phones on board because they were used for passenger registration.

More interesting is the fact that smartphone apps contact certain websites automatically when a cell connection is established. Families of some Chinese passengers are reported to have observed that QQ (similar to Gmail chat) showed the missing passengers as logged in. (Login could be entirely automatic under control of a smartphone app.) If true, this means that QQ (as well as the Malaysian cell phone carrier, and the respective governments) have a log of the IP addresses associated with passenger smartphones during the fleeting connection with the Peninsular cell phone towers.

As regards jamming, it is, of course, possible to jam phones, but considerable power would be required to jam every single phone throughout the length of the fuselage, in the cockpit, crew quarters, etc.

Non-Issue - Phones "Ringing Out" Without Going to Voicemail

Another claim in relation to phones is probably true but irrelevant - families of passengers claim that when they attempted to call the passengers' phones, they encountered a continuous ring tone (ring out) rather than being diverted to voicemail or an error message after one or two rings.

Based on my own experience, Chinese cell phone carriers sometimes handle unavailable phones in very idiosyncratic ways, particularly when a Chinese phone is used outside China. There seems to be official concern that voicemail could be used for surreptitious political communications.

[Capn Rex Havoc]

ReadW- You are wrong, I just plotted the coords from the email and it is SE of Ho Chi Minh City.

Seems plausible

[SOPS]

Some ex airline pilot is on Sky at the moment with a therory that they depressurised, turned 180 degrees and then passed out before they got the masks on. He has them crashing in the middle of the Indian Ocean. He doesn't explain why the transponder went off or the lack of radar coverage however.

[multycpl]

I don't understand how, in an area of fist and sabre waving and military might, including the use of various radar and spy satellites, an aircraft of any size can 'just' disappear !!


What ever happened on board, are we really expected to believe that not one world agency knows where that plane went.


Now l feel really 'safe' post 9/11

[onetrack]

For those convinced that Malaysia is "hiding something", this following article gives a better idea of the inability of the Malaysian leadership - in all three areas - political, military, and aviation - to handle a crisis of this nature.

They have never had to deal with the world spotlight on them, and never had to deal with an issue as huge as this. They're floundering, but they're also trying to play local politics at the same time. They're out of their depth.

Failing to manage MH370 crisis exposes leadership limit | Malaysia | The Malay Mail Online (http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/failing-to-manage-mh370-crisis-exposes-leadership-limit)

[toffeez]

You said: "Landing back in KL with no primary electrical power would not be too much of an issue on standby instruments. Its only a small island with a coastal airport".

Where are you talking about? Certainly not KUL. Did you mean Penang?

[SaturnV]

Graphic of the search area produced by the NY Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/12/world/asia/malaysia-jet.html?hp&_r=0

The image above has an overlay which does not link. Thus, one needs to go to the NY Times site.

Image is part of a NY Times article with much discussion of the confusing, contradicting, and less than forthcoming statements of government authorities.


I've read an explanation that Malaysia does not have a protocol which assigns authority and responsibility to start and conduct an investigation to a specific government body. The result is what you see, --when nobody is in charge, everybody is in charge.

[Andy_S]

Lnding back in KL with no primary electrical power would not be too much of an issue on standby instruments. Its only a small island with a coastal airport, clear night and no need for navigation aids. Even if they were lost, they could of circumnavigated the island coastline

Putting aside the issue of whether Malaysia is "small", the last time I checked it definitely wasn't an island.

AND FOR THOSE ON HERE THAT SAY STOP SPECULATION. I DISAGREE, INVESTIGATION JOURNALISM HAS CRACKED WORLDWIDE INVESTIGATIONS WIDE OPEN!!

If thinking that KLIA is a coastal airport is indicative of the quality of "investigative journalism" on show here then I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that Pullitzer Prize......

[Kubalson]

http://wstaw.org/m/2014/03/12/raft2_1.PNG

[rachcollins]

I haven't seen this Radar coverage map posted yet, apologies if it already has been this thread has turned into a bit of a monster.


http://i58.tinypic.com/rs52ll.jpg




I shouldn't have to say it, but given the amount of uninformed postings on this thread I will :rolleyes:


The map reflects SSR range only.


Primary ranges are listed below.


This map was released by the Malaysian Department of Civil Aviation.


For obvious reasons it does not show the capabilities of Military radar in the area.








In the Kuala Lumpur and Kota Kinabalu FIRs, radar services are provided using the following civil/military ATC


Radars:


a) A 200 NM long range en-route SSR located at Bt. Chin Chin, Genting Highlands, 23 NM east of Subang -


Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport;


b) A 60 NM Terminal Primary Approach Radar co-mounted with a 200 NM monopulse SSR located to the


west of Johor Bahru-Sultan Ismail Airport runway,


c) A 60 NM Primary Surveillance Radar (PSR) co-mounted with 200 NM monopulse SSR located on Bt.


Subang, 1 NM west of Subang-Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport;


d) A Transportable Radar, 60 NM Primary Surveillance Radar (PSR) co-mounted with 200 NM monopulse


SSR located at KL International Airport;


e) KL International Airport Terminal Approach Radar - A 60 NM Primary Surveillance Radar (PSR) comounted


with 200 NM monopulse SSR located at KL International Airport,


f) A 60 NM Primary Surveillance Radar (PSR) co-mounted with 200 NM monopulse SSR located on Hill


Chengkuang 1.5 NM NE of Langkawi International Airport,


g) A 60 NM Terminal Primary Approach Radar co-mounted with a 200 NM monopulse SSR located to the


south of Kota Bharu-Sultan Ismail Petra Airport runway.


h) A 60 NM Primary Surveillance Radar (PSR) co-mounted with 200 NM monopulse SSR located on Bukit


Kepayang, 1 NM NE of Kota Kinabalu International Airport;


i) A 60 NM Primary Surveillance Radar (PSR) co-mounted with 200 NM monopulse SSR located in Kuching


International Airport;


j) A 60 NM Terminal Primary Approach Radar co-mounted with a 200 NM monopulse SSR located at Miri


Airport.


k) A 50 NM Terminal Approach Radar with co-mounted 250 NM conventional SSR located one each at


Butterworth, Labuan and Kuantan Air Forces Bases;

[toffeez]

Everyone should be aware that Malaysia makes high level appointments on the grounds of race, not ability. That has been official policy for decades.

On top of that there's corruption, lots of it ....

[KrispyKreme]

If it hasn't already been mentioned, B773 the other night had a transponder fail and they did a air turn back

https://twitter.com/avherald/status/443644016056229888

[SaturnV]

Stormyknight, the NY Times image link doesn't have the text overlay, e.g., geographical names.

Rachcollins, Thai and/or Indonesian primary radars ought to be able to detect a plane flying over the Andaman Sea. Nothing has been said on whether they saw any sign of the plane.

[Akron36]

This link is in Indonesian but Google Translate indicates this to be a genuine report. Whether connected to MH370 or not is a matter of speculation of course, but that's nothing new here.

http://www.merdeka.com/peristiwa/mayat-ditemukan-di-selat-malaka-diduga-terkait-dengan-mh-370.html

[vctenderness]

Alastair Rosenchine, ex BA pilot, on Sky putting forward the 'Helios' theory. His view is it could have flown on with incapacitated pilots for around 3000 miles ending up in the vastness of the Indian Ocean.

[sky9]

I'm surprised that if there was a total electrical failure the crew made no attempt to use their mobile phone.

During the 2004 Tsunami my son was in the Maldives and although the mobile phone signals were too weak for voice communication, TXT messages got through with the added advantage that they were held by the phone until a signal was received.

[StormyKnight]

Stormyknight, the NY Times image link doesn't have the text overlay, e.g., geographical names.

Yes sorry , just realised that, they are getting tricky with their graphics!

[SOPS]

Much delayed press conference just starting now, everyone.

Well that told us nothing, except they have just realised that it might be a good idea to analise radar data! But they actually have said nothing. So either they know nothing or they are running hard at covering something up.

They just said last radar contact at 02.15 local time. Is that a new time? Now they are saying a turn back might be possible. They were asked about ACARS data, but waffled on about radar. Either they don't know about ACARS or again they are hiding something. Either way they appear to be total amatures. They are even condraticting each other in their non answers.

And I ask again, why are they avoiding questions about ACARS data??

[Anti Skid On]

This relates back to post 2155

This article (http://www.nst.com.my/latest/font-color-red-missing-mh370-font-fishermen-find-life-raft-near-pd-1.509222)

PORT DICKSON: A group of fishermen found a life raft bearing the word “Boarding” 10 nautical miles from Port Dickson town at 12pm yesterday.
One of the fishermen, Azman Mohamad, 40, said they found the badly damaged raft floating and immediately notified the Kuala Linggi Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) in Malacca for assistance to lift the raft as it was very heavy.
"We managed to tie it to our boat as we feared it would sink due to the damages," he said.
When the MMEA boat arrived, the fishermen then handed over the raft into their custody.
However, a Kuala Linggi MMEA spokesman said the raft sunk into the sea while they were trying to bring the raft onboard.



Now, if they dropped that piece of potential evidence in the sea that is bloody awful. Anyone know if this is an actual aircraft life raft?

[aussiepax]

Any links to the presser or live blog ?

[bono]

[Federal Register Volume 78, Number 91 (Friday, May 10, 2013)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 27310-27313]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov] (http://www.gpo.gov])
[FR Doc No: 2013-11063]
Federal Register, Volume 78 Issue 91 (Friday, May 10, 2013) (http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2013-05-10/html/2013-11063.htm)
This proposed AD was prompted by reports
[[Page 27311]]
of smoke or flames in the passenger cabin of various transport category
airplanes related to the wiring for the passenger cabin in-flight
entertainment (IFE) system, cabin lighting, and passenger seats. This
proposed AD would require installing wiring and changing certain
electrical load management system (ELMS) panels and other concurrent
requirements to ensure the flightcrew is able to turn off electrical
power to the IFE systems and other non-essential electrical systems
through a switch in the flight compartment in the event of smoke or
flames. In the event of smoke or flames in the airplane flight deck or
passenger cabin, the flightcrew's inability to turn off electrical
power to the IFE system and other non-essential electrical systems
could result in the inability to control smoke or flames in the
airplane flight deck or passenger cabin during a non-normal or
emergency situation, and consequent loss of control of the airplane.



Electrical fire was discovered aboard a B777-200 during cruise
Electrical fire was discovered aboard a B777-200 during cruise. Source was identified as a speaker c... - NASA ASRS (http://goo.gl/SX5EA8)


FAA: Some Boeing 777s need fixes in case of fires
Without the changes, the FAA says, pilots could lose control of the planes if smoke or fire should break out.
The Federal Aviation Administration says unsafe wiring conditions on some Boeing 777 jetliners need to be fixed to prevent the possibility of
a crash from an in-flight entertainment system fire.
FAA: Some Boeing 777s need fixes in case of fires (http://goo.gl/tOlhgz)



EgyptAir 777 fire probe inconclusive but short-circuit suspected
EgyptAir 777 fire probe inconclusive but short-circuit suspected - 11/30/2012 - Flight Global (http://goo.gl/3cDdc4)


Massive electrical shorting, fire, and smoke explain a lot of what has been observed so far. Lack of communication by the crew, garbled transmission as reported by another pilot and smoke filled cabin perhaps makes this another version of the Swissair Flight 111. Pilots were barely able to control the aircraft in a smoke filled cabin, and because Indians have not yet so far confirmed spotting this aircraft on their radars in the heavily protected Andaman sea, this aircraft perhaps never made it past northern Sumatra even if headed off in that direction.

[Hiflyer1757]

saw the pix of the raft....got to say after lots of years in the industry I do not remember black aircraft rafts...they were bright orange top to bottom for visibility during aerial searches. :hmm:

[rachcollins]

Last Military Radar plot was is now being reported as being 200NM NW of Penang.

Just reported by the Military at the press conference.

They seemed to confirm they have found several radar returns after reviewing the radar recordings from the night in question

[hawkerjet]

The life rafts on board are equipped with electronic tracking devices that are automatically triggered on contact with water. Given the size of a B 777, I would imagine there are quite a few on board. That 1 hasn't gone off is quite puzzling. ( there may be someone here that can tell us how many would be required on board)

[tiger9999187]

Media just questioned the officials regarding the body supposedly found in the life jacket, this was immediately discredited.

[Weary]

With all the bells, lights, and whistles on a modern flight deck, there is a lot of information that needs to be processed by the brain before some complex non-normals can be accurately diagnosed. As a result, it is relatively easy to miss a benign change in the "normal" aircraft status/systems whilst the flight crew are otherwise dealing with what may be a confusing information overload.
This is a human failing you see again and again in sim - essentially a failure to effectively monitor. At night, with a lack of visual cues from the cockpit windows, it isn't that hard to imagine the aircraft heading off in the "wrong" direction (unnoticed by the flight crew) following some hasty and erroneous input to the FMC.
I would dearly like to know what the military policies are in that part of the world in dealing with an unresponsive seemingly rogue aircraft that may appear to be headed straight toward an area that is either heavily populated and/or militarily very sensitive.

[comcomtech]

According to the news conference underway, five passengers were no-shows at the airport and replaced with four standby passengers, consequently no baggage was off-loaded. This contrasts with the statement a few days ago that five passengers who had checked in failed to board and their baggage was off-loaded.

[awblain]

...electronic tracking devices that are automatically triggered on contact with water.

And their signals are not going to be heard after hard contact with water and the shallow sea bed.

If after a diligent search, no sign is found, then I think it inevitably points to a fast, steep impact with the sea. If the sonar signalers from the data recorders are buried in the mud in the tail, then the wreckage may not be found. Perhaps a trawler will eventually unearth something.

[Ollie Onion]

Boy these guys are unbelievable!!

- So we have SSR that disappears (for reasons unknown), then it would appear from that point we have a primary radar trace that shows 'something' leaving that position and moving west.

- Reports today that the Vietnamese passed on information to the Malays, during the event, that an aircraft had deviated from its flightpath and was heading west.

- Despite this evidence the entire search operation was based on where the SSR stopped and it took an unofficial 'leak' of the above information 5 days into the search to move some resources to the point the Primary radar trace disappeared.

- The Malay Government came out today and said there was NO radar information showing the jet moving west yet they continued to search in the new area.

- Now they come out and say there is infact a primary radar trace that shows 'something' moving west but say they dismissed this initially due to the fact that the trace had no identifying features as would be found with SSR.

I hate to say it but the guys running this are absolute muppetts who seem to be letting their own 'face saving' worries and incompetence reduce the effectiveness of the entire search operation, for god sake there could have been wreckage / bodies / a complete aircraft etc etc floating around for 5 days in an area they should have been searching from day one.

I just feel so so sorry for the relatives and friends of all those onboard, it must be devastating to be face with smirking and smiling idiots who change the story at every press conference. :ugh:

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

<<RMAF chief: unidentified plot on primary radar at FL295, >>

How do they determine altitude from primary radar?

[WangFunk]

Where has been ATC in all these live Media Releases??

[Diver-BR]

Hiflyer1757,

It is indeed a life raft, the picture shows mostly the bottom half. But I would guess by its size that it fell off from a boat. This pic shows a similar model.

http://www.rfd.co.nz/media/73277/liferaft-m-dsb-500x300.jpg

Regards.

[deci]

HD: air defense radar

[camel]

News conference

the last rmaf radar plot of an unidentified aircraft was at 02.15 am 200 nm north west of penang.

[Fatfish]

The PC I just watched.
Reporter asked about ACARS but the DCA man evaded the question and answered about Radar. Intentional or just clueless.??????
ACARS sends aircraft systems report down real time.

[captains_log]

Some points picked up so far from conference:

Reports of a body discovered with life jacket dismissed

Military representative reiterates there was no live tracking of this aircraft, a review of the data for this aircraft was reviewed and a potential indication of a turnaround.

Admission more international help is arriving today to help review their current findings.

Poorly handled press breifing and utter lack of disciplined control on press, was a free for all. The military rep looked like he was going to break down in tears.

[Bobman84]

These press conferences are way too short and should be held for one hour, twice daily.

It's almost like they can't wait to leave and don't want to be there either.

[compressor stall]

"What was in the information from the engines that was sent to Rolls Royce?"

"It is imperative to find the aircraft and its black box so that we can put that information into perspective".


Hmmm. Strange reply if all was normal in those data.

[Mahatma Kote]

When I looked at the press conference, especially the parts about expanding the search to Malacca straits and the military radar, I thought it was very consistent and logical.

The initial search was last known position. That's the most logical place to look. When that proved inconclusive, the military ran analysis of recorded military radar over a wider area and noted an unidentified aircraft flying over the Malacca Straits at around the right time.

They had no idea if it was the missing aircraft as it was unidentified. They decided to search the Malacca Straits area as a secondary search based on the possibility.

Pretty straight forward and logical to me.

[Max Tow]

Re the press conference. Don't get too hung up on the smiling - it may seem insensitive to us but in S.E. Asian cultures it's often an expression of emotional pain or embarrassment. Plenty of reason for both.

[MartinM]

<<RMAF chief: unidentified plot on primary radar at FL295, >>

How do they determine altitude from primary radar?

Easy.

I was Swiss Air Force Air Defense Radar operator

Easy thing. I have on my screen the unidentified echo with altitude, speed, heading and intercept course in order to scramble the planes ;-)

[nitpicker330]

They are going to have to conduct and expanding search pattern out to about 2,500nm from KL in ALL directions......

Also get ALL Radar centers in that search area I describe ( both civil and Military ) to check their recorded displays for any strange targets flying through their airspace on that morning......

Big job.

Like I said pages back, you do realise this 777 may be at the bottom of the Indian Ocean 2,500 nm west of Indonesia...

[SOPS]

Fatfish, I asked the same question a few posts ago. Either this muppet has no idea what ACARS is, or, it once again points to some sort of cover up.

The whole media conference was a farce. Late, basically said nothing, a whole lot of contradicting times of radar plots, and much smiling. Smiling and face saving might work locally people, but you are facing the world now.

[D.Lamination]

Transport Minister at the press conference said all radar data from civil and military radar was being shared today with the US NTSB and the FAA. So we may get something independently confirmed tomorrow.
Meanwhile all you conspiracy theorists may want to check the movements of the M.V. Disco Volante and the whereabouts of one Emilo Largo. Maybe you could ask "our man in station H" ( Hong Kong)

[Sporky]

Watching the news conference, it is blatantly clear the Malaysians are in disarray. I don't believe they are intentionally covering aspects up (if anything covering their own backside) it is just the fact they are unable to join the dots. We will never know now if this could have been a rescue operation.
Unfortunately it is too late, I hope to be wrong, but that media conference was farcical.

[1stspotter]

I am wondering:
-how many unidentified plots on a radar were seen at the time MH370 went missing. Not much I guess.
-how much effort does it take to analyze the recording to learn alt, speed, heading of the plot
-how much other radars other than the Malaysia military could have picked up this plot on radar? Phuket?

so why does it take so much time to either confirm or rule out this unidentified plot was MH370?

[awblain]

Ocean surveillance radar satellites should have seen a moving reflector over the ocean if the aircraft turned West and headed out to sea - but then so should Malaysian and Thai radars.

While their operators won't tell you that, I am sure that they could rule out a flight over the Indian Ocean if asked nicely.

[The R.A.T.]

Can someone who has charts to do so, do a plot from there last non position prior to lost of transponder to a position 200 nm NW of Penang and see if it correlates with a time of 0214 allowing for wind!

[StormyKnight]

According to the news conference underway, five passengers were no-shows at the airport and replaced with four standby passengers, consequently no baggage was off-loaded. This contrasts with the statement a few days ago that five passengers who had checked in failed to board and their baggage was off-loaded.

Yes I think this is an example of quoting procedure instead of what actually happened. Similar in the news conference re the "was this aircraft checked for the know fuselage cracking issue", it was yes then clarified with yes that is the procedure, but I will need to check the records. If the speaker didn't have the time or confidence to clarify the answer, then the incorrect information is effectively given that yes this plane was definately checked.

[Swedishflyingkiwi]

All this talk about unidentified Primary radar contact after LOS from the flight....
Surely a check of radar data from before contact was lost would indicate if there was another craft in the air adding to confusion or if the MH bird indeed went silent and changed course.
If there was an unidentified primary trace before the 'event' then the later unidentified signal could be discounted. If not, then that is indeed a track to follow.

[Surely]

In the absence of any other confirmed data the most reasonable explanation is the aircraft did indeed go down where the transponder ceased transmitting.

[harrryw]

THe press conference did say that RR were sending someone from the UK to talk to them about the readouts.

[cynar]

Just watched the press conference, of which only some was in English.

What is so incredibly frustrating is that the reporters don't know what to ask, and even when they do, the spokesmen parry and evade.

The real question (imo) is: what data are you using, where did it come from, and who is analyzing it?

ACARS -- were there ANY notifications during this flight? when? what did they say?

ENGINE -- were there ANY anomalous transmissions? when? and when did the data STOP being transmitted to Rolls Royce?

RADAR -- which radar, from which countries, exactly, indicated a "turn back"? are there recordings? did anyone, military or civilian, flag this at the time? are all radar data from all possible sources being cross-analyzed?

TRANSPONDER -- does the time the transponder stopped transmitting exactly match or otherwise the alleged "turn"? ditto regarding its synchronicity with ACARS and engine data.

We need a timeline of verified data, NOT vague answers like "we need to find the black box." Right, and until we do, we need to know which indicators are indicating where it might be!

The reporters, instead of asking about the core known data and its provenance, are asking second- or third-order questions that require speculation or conclusions that would have to be *based* on the data! And then the officials reply with defection and obtuseness!

No one has said: here's what we know, here's how we know it, here's how it's being analyzed and leveraged, here's who's in charge of each aspect of the investigation and of the SAR, and here's how countries are collaborating and sharing information and dividing responsibilities.

[compressor stall]

In the absence of any other confirmed data the most reasonable explanation is the aircraft did indeed go down where the transponder ceased transmitting.


Totally agree.

Except there would not appear to be anything there.

[1stspotter]

two interesting statements of todays press conference:

1. If FAA/NTSB can positively confirm the unidentified plot on primary radar is MH370 the radar track will be made public on Thursday. Statement of Minister of Defense

2. The plot was according to RMAF chief: unidentified plot on primary radar at FL295, 200nm NW of Penang, at 0215. "We're not saying it's #MH370

[Waghi Warrior]

Who receives the ACARS information, the airline? When I heard the aircraft was missing, the first thing that come to mind was "What's was the ACARS information indicating at the time it disappeared? Hard to believe that a large modern airliner in this day and age can just disappear without trace.......

[YPPH_Dave]

Okay boys and girls. Enough of the moderator bashing.

I've just had a reply from a great guy called Rob and he is dealing with a :mad: storm.

They're trying to trash the stuff that's being repeated over and over again, the stuff that's just plain crazy and trying to keep the posts on topic in succession.

So enough of this:

There`s been lots of mention of it- But you have to be quick to see it, because it just gets moderated by the all knowing moderators! they don`t want any talk of such things for some reason.

See how long these posts last?

Let's just stay sensible and stay on topic for once.

[Octane]

appears to describe a credible eyewitness account of an 'event' seen in the night sky.
Does Michael McKay exist, is the email address valid?
Is the addressee valid? Phu Quoc has an airport and thus presumably a tower (phuquoctwr@gmail)?
Hopefully it's being investigated...

[kristofera]

-how much other radars other than the Malaysia military could have picked up this plot on radar? Phuket?

Potentially worth for them to review tapes (if any) from Phuket, Had Yai, Surat Thani...

http://www.aisthai.aviation.go.th/webais/pdf/ENR/ENR%201.6%20Radar%20services%20and%20procedures[12].pdf

[Surely]

Took 7 days to locate suspected wreckage of Adam air, and 10 days for floating debris.

[kwh]

two interesting statements of todays press conference:

1. If FAA/NTSB can positively confirm the unidentified plot on primary radar is MH370 the radar track will be made public on Thursday. Statement of Minister of Defense

2. The plot was according to RMAF chief: unidentified plot on primary radar at FL295, 200nm NW of Penang, at 0215. "We're not saying it's #MH370"

What the NTSB/FAA cannot say is that they can have conversations with classified US military sources that the Malaysians simply cannot have directly, so the FAA can possibly mysteriously verify or discount certain data to a much higher degree of confidence than the Malaysians can, because some classified US system tracked the plane for all or part of its flight path...

[1stspotter]

The Gmail letter sent by an New Zealand oil rig worker of the coast of Vietnam turned out the be false. The journalist (Florian Witulski @vaitor ) who posted a photo Tweeted:

BBC also reported about the letter but it turned out to be false information... nothing at the Ho Chi Minh coast

[Volume]

Is there anybody un this forum who can shed some light on how modern radar equipment works? On the old fashoned CRT design you could simply adjust brightness to get rid of all the noise on the screen (birds etc.). How is sensitivity adjusted today? How is information filtered (i.e. are single returns filtered automatically by the software, because they are obviously noise, and are only repetitatve returns moving within a certain reasonable speed range shown)?
What exactly is recorded? Raw data? Displayed Data? Analyzed, filtered Data? Can we (the civilians...) run special analysis software on that data to scan through it for interesting details?

[dye]

Checked FR24 at 07 MAR 2014 - 18:10 UTC (08 MAR 2014 02:10 local time)

FR24 shows SQ68 FL300 SIN - BCN B777W approx 200 miles north-west of Penang.

[OleOle]

Military aircraft operating between Diego Garcia and Senkaku (or other islands in the South China Sea) would probably transit exactly through the area where the unidentified radar contact was plotted. Especially if Vietnamese an Indonesian airspace is to be avoided.

Air to air refueling might also happen in this region. Some military a/c is designed to have very small radar cross sections, so it might not be easy to identify plots of those a/c. The radar plots may well be totally unrelated to MH370. Support by FAA/NTSB makes sense.

[GlueBall]

How is it possible that sophisticated air force like RMAF failed to detect the plane for over 1 hour and flag it as possible incursion?

...maybe for similar reasons why during the Cold War days a Cessna 172 could be successfully flown by a teenager, and landed on Red Square, en route from Helsinki to Moscow. :{

[igs942]

Generally, how long are the lift raft provisions designed to sustain life for? Could this still be a rescue operation if the airplane was ditched successfully or has it been too long now?

[rodondo4]

The best PC thus far, they have clarified a few things. I think the pressure put on them to improve the PC has worked slightly, ideally would be nice if they could use the screen behind them to do a little demonstration of the sequence of events so every one is on the same page.

0121 Last radio contact
0130 Last ATC Radar contact
- then onto Military Radar, turn west to west peninsular -
0215 Military Radar loses the unidentified aircraft 200nm NW of Penang at an altitude of 29,500ft (FL295)

They confirmed the 5 passengers did not travel on the plane, but was then replaced by 5 on standby.

1. Would FL295 show the plane was under control by someone (hopefully pilot) for separations from traffic?

2. Which 5 would be on the Manifest? with 239 passengers surely they had space for the standby's anyway?

3. 0240hrs is now null and void?

[Surely]

See dyes post re:sq68 in area at 0210

I have my doubts mh370 was there an hour after initial contact lost, but we will find out eventually.

[awblain]

Radars can give elevation (not directly height), return time lag (not directly distance) and frequency shift (not directly line-of-sight speed), if they can form a 2D beam on the sky from a phased-array, broadcast a series of beams at different stacked elevations, or do an old WWII-Freya scan with a dish.

Analysis of this information, and the measured motion on the sky between scans then gives 3-D velocity, distance and height, correcting for refraction, Earth curvature and trigonometric coupling of height and distance to elevation.

Standard rotating antennas with dipole array transmitters, like the old iconic Heathrow radar on the concrete pillar by the tunnel entrance on the terminal island, don't do elevation, and rely on transponder broadcasts.

[fortuneferal]

Isn't there a radar on top of Penang Hill? It's military and would serve Butterworth? Surely it would have picked up anything coming that way.

[Neogen]

0215 Military Radar loses the unidentified aircraft 200nm NW of Penang at an altitude of 29,500ft (FL295)


Did they mention anything about the direction/heading?

[PaleBlueDot]

The core of confusion is probably that radar data is buried in a lot of noise. That would be the case if the aircraft was flying low, or if it was approaching the limit of radar range, or if the radar is not in a perfect health. They probably have only disconnected groups of dots. If that is the case, they would have difficult time being sure about continuity of any unidentified dots, especially in the presence of many other signals and general electronic noise in the area. The only sure way would be to compare data, possibly even raw radar data of all neighboring counties. However, that would reveal real, practical and not theoretical limits of their radar detection capabilities, and information about early warning capabilities is absolutely crucial for any military. Most likely, that is core problem now, they do not know how to safely cooperate at this extremely sensitive and highly technical level.

[Hempy]

Beginning to change my mind about this,

Massive electrical failure at FIR boundary, with associated control issues (I'm not speculating on cause). Pilots attempt to set course for home on compass bearing, possibly maintaining level flight until it was no longer available..

[Red Chilli]

Out of ATC/primary/SSR radar coverage or not, any Mayday call will almost undoubtedly have been picked up by any nearby commercial aircraft which will have been monitoring 121.5

Thus it would appear no Mayday call was transmitted, which suggests catastrophic failure or deliberate action as the only plausible options (IMO).

[Tfor2]

1. It was a hi-jack (transponder turned off, no Mayday), and the plane was not under the control of the pilots. It flew to wherever was demanded, and something happened thereafter causing it to crash, probably from an effort to regain control (as with United 93 during events of 9/11). So it could be anywhere. An eye-witness will eventually come forward.

2. The most fearsome worry to come out of this is how come an aircraft can invade national territory without military or civil or satellite detection? This leaves a hole in the defense systems of all countries.

[nitpicker330]

Latest blog from Ben Sandilands.

MH370 Day Five yields a new last possible radar fix | Plane Talking (http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking/2014/03/12/mh370-day-five-and-a-new-last-possible-radar-fix/)

MH370 Day Five yields a new last possible radar fix
BEN SANDILANDS | MAR 12, 2014 10:14PM | EMAIL | PRINT
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After running more than two and a half hours late the day five media briefing in Kuala Lumpur has come up with a new last possible radar trace for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.

It was picked up by defence radar at 2.15 am on Saturday morning, 200 nautical miles or 360 kilometres NW of Penang as an unidentified aircraft at 29,500 feet according to the chief of the Royal Malaysia Air Force, Rodzali Daud.

This is almost precisely where Mr Rodzali earlier today denied saying to the Malaysia Media that this was where defence radar saw the missing airliner after it was tracked flying across the Malaysia peninsula to the northern approach to the main Strait of Malacca.

In other words, in this very chaotic media conference, the air force chief confirmed what he denied he said yesterday, although he did not go into as much detail as was reported in the national media.

This time he said “I am not saying it was MH370.” And he also gave the radar trace a new time, 2.15 am local time, not 2.40 am, which was coincidentally or otherwise the time of last contact with the airliner originally given by Malaysia Airlines before it began a process of changing times and event descriptions on a regular and confusing basis.

It was made clear, through the clutter of the media conference, that this radar sighting inspired the original extension of the search area from the Gulf of Thailand to include the western side of the Malaysia peninsula, and today’s further extension much deeper into the Andaman Sea.

MH370 was a 777-200 service carrying 239 passenger and crew on a regular Kuala Lumpur to Beijing service. To recap, it left KL at 12.40 am, it disappeared as a commercial radar trace at 1.22 am close to the area where such radar visibility to the Malaysia air traffic control system drops off, and was never observed as entering Vietnam controlled air space on a path intended to cross that country to the South China Sea and continue past Hong Kong toward its destination.

There are reports of emergency frequency radio contact with MH370 up to 1.30 am, which haven’t been convincingly ruled out, and which was originally the revised time Malaysia Airlines said it had its last contact with the airliner in the same breath that it said it lost the radar trace at 1.22 am.

It is this constant stumbling over what should be precise and unambiguous markers for the progress of MH370 which have helped undermine the credibility of the airline, which seems to be rewriting the basic information every time it opens its mouth.

This Wednesday night’s delayed media conference was a hair tearer for the technical aviation media because for its brief duration the panel reversed the usual definition of primary and secondary radar, referring to the primary radar used by Malaysia defence as being secondary in purpose, and the secondary commercial radar as performing the primary role. Which is both right sounding but wrong.

The commercial radar uses transponders on airliners to identify them by flight number to air traffic controllers. The defence radars primarily records flying objects without using transponder generated identification for commercial flights.

The acting transport minister and minister of defence Hishammuddin Hussein said that apart from looking further into the Andaman Sea, the search would also maintain a dual focus on the South China Sea between Vietnam and Hong Kong.

The air force chief Rodzali Daud said the agencies from other countries were helping Malaysia reconcile the radar traces picked up by defence radar with those recorded by the commercial air traffic control radars as well as enable a better understanding as to what the military radar saw near Pulau Perak, as he didn’t say it did to the Malaysian media yesterday.

If it wasn’t an airliner looking like an airliner at 29,500 feet in Malaysia airspace that was seen by the defence radar, at a point where it should also have been easily discoverable by normal civilian ATC radar that in itself on a ‘normal’ day would be a puzzle that the authorities would presumably try to resolve without delay.

What is so frustrating in the lack of detail given by the Malaysian authorities is their failure to address such obvious questions. It would have known precisely what by way of scheduled airliners was flying over western Malaysia on Saturday morning. It doesn’t need military radar to answer that question.

These evasions or omissions in the briefing last night make it overwhelmingly likely that the original reports attributed to Rodzali Daud were correct, and that there is a cover up of important detail being attempted by the authorities, with less and less success with every day.

If they are in the Andaman or South China Seas, the traces of those who were on board MH370 are rapidly vanishing, and the dispersal of floating items of wreckage will make the location of the crash site and the black box flight data and voice recorders, which would have sunk, that much more difficult to find.

[Barking_Mad]

Hi. This was posted earlier:

0121 Last radio contact
0130 Last ATC Radar contact
- then onto Military Radar, turn west to west peninsular -
0215 Military Radar loses the unidentified aircraft 200nm NW of Penang at an altitude of 29,500ft (FL295)

At 29,500ft, wouldn't conventional 'airport' radar have picked the plane up too?

[22/04]

I think we need to wait until the radar trace is published now-

But I suspect we will eventually find the aircraft not far from the last position where it appeared to be ops normal.

Anything else just seems too far-fetched to me.

[awblain]

Bob…
If there were survivors, they'd be in rafts with beacons, and their location would have been know within the time it took to broadcast to and from satellites 10,000km up.

[davionics]

Concerning Data:

Why has nobody confirmed/announced if there were any transmissions sent via SATCOM? Seems to be the elephant in the room - the media currently appears to have an unhealthy tunneled obsession with; radar, ads-b, voice comms, gps, black boxes, etc.

Surely ACARS and engine telemetry data could shine a good dose of light on this incredibly sad fiasco.

Many aircraft today also have Panasonic Avionics high-bandwidth eXconnect GCS (Global Communications Suite) to augment SATCOM.

[barrel_owl]

My two cents.

So far I see no conclusive evidence that the aircraft last seen on primary radar 200 nm NW of Penang was actually MAS370. In addition, this would raise a lot of questions, for example why the aircraft had turned off its transponder and was NORDO and why it turned West.

At post 1835 (http://www.pprune.org/8366873-post1835.html) I posted a report from a guy in Marang who claims a strong unusual noise was heard at 1:20 MTY on Marang beach, exactly the same time the aircraft was last seen on flightradar24 at N 6.38 E 103.46. The distance from Marang is 89.315 nm, however this report would deserve more attention, in my opinion.

[Nakata77]

Guys please... If it was 'massive technical failure' they would've elected to ditch not try to attempt a return to KUL

[SOPS]

The question about ACARS was asked in the PC, but the muppet who answered the question, completely ignored the fact he was asked about ACARS data and waffled on about radar returns. Incompetent or covering up?

[Airclues]

The International Seismological Centre has stations in that area. I'm not sure if a 777 crashing would produce a reading but there would be nothing lost by the investigators asking them;

Seismological contact information (http://www.isc.ac.uk/projects/seismocontacts)

[MarkJJ]

I believe a good radar system works like a layered brick wall, different sites overlapping and giving depth.

I'd say the lack of detailed information would be regarding miltary capabilities and also from a legal standpoint.

Early post showed guys operating in the area, I wonder if they have had time to collect their thoughts and can shead and light on anything they may have seen in the search areas.?

Deepest of sympathy to families and friends

[Sporky]

Not knowing the geography of that part of Asia at all. Is there anyway they tried to get back with massive technical problems VFR and impacted land not necessarily mainland Malaysia? What are the chances of this been unseen by eyewitness due to jungle or lack of densely populated area?

[EDMJ]

It was picked up by defence radar at 2.15 am on Saturday morning, 200 nautical miles or 360 kilometres NW of Penang as an unidentified aircraft at 29,500 feet according to the chief of the Royal Malaysia Air Force, Rodzali Daud.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this position seems to me to be a mere 25 NM or so south of Phuket in Thailand, and a line connecting this and the other known position crosses Thailand. Have there been any comments from them?

[awblain]

OK… so boats are typically separated by less than 20km.

An intact 777 descends rapidly from 10km. No lights or very fast-moving lights?
No moon. Steeply into the sea.

No one need see anything, not even hear a splash.

And do they all have radios?

[SaturnV]

There are two US Navy guided missile destroyers participating in the SAR, one assigned to the Strait and the Andaman Sea, the other in the Gulf of Thailand. It would be interesting to know where they were when MH370 went missing, and whether their phased array radar coverage can rule out any transit of MH370 within the operating range of their radars.

[Hunter58]

The more I think of it the more I can only see one scenario fitting all open questions: slow developping inflight fire. It would explain complete loss of comms, the need to turn back and the still inknown location of impact. As long a the aerodynamics are not affected by the fire an airplane could go very far before coming to its final rest.

It is a horrible thought, but not that unprobable.

[AAKEE]

How does the latest info about radar pilot and time sum up with distance/speed from last konen position ?

[p.j.m]

So far I see no conclusive evidence that the aircraft last seen on primary radar 200 nm NW of Penang was actually MAS370.

I concur, this seems to be a furphy, there were a couple of reports of fishermen in the Malacca straits seeing a low flying aircraft, then the next thing we have a lot of "unidentified" primary radar logs being leaked by "military sources" and on it goes.

What it really shows (which we already knew) is that Primary Radar is pretty much useless in identifying aircraft, especially after the fact, isn't designed to do so nor to find "missing" aircraft, and no one is watching it except for "threats". Commercial aircraft are not threats, and not bearing down on military installations or ships, so not of any military significance.

Seems there are some people trawling through a lot of logs trying to make sense of a lot of almost meaningless data with no real clue what any of it means, probably under lots of pressure to "find something", and drawing conclusions from media speculation rather than facts.

[Capt Scribble]

Nakata, if the massive technical failure was electrical (possibly caused by an explosion), the aircraft may have been able to fly in a degraded mode. However, navigation and handling would have been challenging.

[nitpicker330]

pjm----rubbish.primary radar especially primary radar used by the Military would be extremely useful in tracking an Aircraft whose SSR was switched off. Otherwise the Military might as well remove them all as a waste of money in detecting illegal entry. Do you think the enemy fighter Jets and bombers inbound to their target will switch on their SSR!!!

What do you think we did before SSR was developed?? Yep used Primary Radar skin paint returns.

[p.j.m]

pjm----rubbish.primary radar especially primary radar used by the Military would be extremely useful in tracking an Aircraft whose SSR was switched off.

Rubbish yourself, unless there was a "hot" threat launched from North Korea or Russia (etc) and bearing down at great speed on a military target, the Military wouldn't notice or be interested.

ATC don't use primary radar these days. There's no way they could manage the amount of traffic with such a primitive system.

[SgtBundy]

What it really shows (which we already knew) is that Primary Radar is pretty much useless in identifying aircraft, especially after the fact, isn't designed to do so nor to find "missing" aircraft, and no one is watching it except for "threats". Commercial aircraft are not threats, and not bearing down on military installations or ships, so not of any military significance.

Perhaps look at Korean Air 007 - part of the reason it was shot down was because the Soviets believed the US were using the cover of regular air traffic to try run surveillance flights - when the flight deviated from course by accident they took this as being an incursion. A "threat" won't always be a nicely lit up formation of mach 2 paints heading directly for major military areas. That said, 1983 was a far more paranoid time but I would have expected an unresponsive aircraft flying on a non standard route should have raised some suspicions - possibly not a threat level, but at least a "what is going on here".

[nitpicker330]

You don't think the military would be interested in a Un-identified target doing 450kts at 29,500' ( not a common Airline level ) flying smack across their country???

I tell you what, if that happened over the Ocean and this target approached an US navy Battle group they would get detected 200 nm out, tracked, intercepted, identified visually and then shot down if they didn't turn away from the Carrier. ALL USING PRIMARY SEARCH RADARS.

Just because the Malaysian Air Force was asleep at 2 am and didn't notice at the time does not mean that Primary Radar is useless and not needed.

And yes I'm aware civilian ATC don't use Primary Radar these days thanks all the same.

[Greenlights]

I really start thinking that Malaysian do not have incompetence in SAR. :ugh:
It is time to be honest. They should give explanation and be honest with everybody, we would save time.
China is impatient now and I really understand them.
This case starting becoming boring and give nerves.

[dolbster]

I thought this seemed a bit odd.

At the news conference, they said 5 no-shows pax were replaced with 4 pax on standby.

The MH T7s can carry 282 pax (35 in business and 247 in economy); there were 227 pax listed on this flight. Why the need for a standby list?

[Australopithecus]

Be aware that there are several HF frequencies in use in any particular area depending on time of day. Hailing an aircraft on HF via selcal is iffy at best when you have no idea which frequencies the HF radios were last tuned to.

Also, LOS is from altitude to sea level in most calculations. If the ground antenna is on a 400' hill then you can add 28 miles to the numbers. Similarly, between planes at high altitude you can reach out 450 miles or so.

[nitpicker330]

Speaking of long range radars.

The Australian military has a over the horizon system called "jindalee" that may be able to track Aircraft as far away as Malaysia.

I wonder if the Malaysians have bothered to ask if Australia could check its files of radar traces for that time?

Jindalee Operational Radar Network - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jindalee_Operational_Radar_Network)

[RussellBrown]

Can I make everyone aware that satellite imagery provider DigitalGlobe has upload over 25000 high resolution maps taken from their satellites pointed at the search area on March 9th. As this is an ongoing search they are appealing for those interested in helping the search effort to scroll through images and tag what might be rafts, wreckage, oil slicks or other markers. Many people noticing the same thing in the same spot would trigger an alert on the company's end.

Tomnod (http://www.tomnod.com/nod/challenge/malaysiaairsar2014)

I have already spent 6 hours searching and have found some objects of interest.

[Capt H Peacock]

A catastrophic failure of the fuselage, perhaps due to these supposed cracks near the GPS antenna, could lead to the rapid break up of the aircraft.

The explosive decompression and rapid onset cluster of system failures would overwhelm the best of us.

35'000' would give useful consciousness of about 20secs, probably insufficient for meaningful diagnosis and response.

No large pieces would make tracking by primary radar difficult.

I'd be looking for wreckage in a plume downwind of the last known position. Didn't see the high level chart, but I'm guessing that the seasonal jet would be westerly at 60-90 kts at that position?

Perhaps someone could enlighten us?

[1stspotter]

Summary:

1. Malaysian authorities do not have a clue where the aircraft is.
2. Malaysian authorities have seen an unidentified object flying at FL295 NO of Penang. Not sure if this is MH370. Maybe on Thursday more info on this.
3 SAR continues both east and west of Malaysia
4 Much unconfirmed info like eyewitness reports about seeing debris.
5 We do not know anything about the cause. We only know all comms were gone.

[sandos]

To get an idea of how messy primary radar can be, just read the TWA-800 article on Wikipedia:

TWA Flight 800 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWA_Flight_800#Live_missile_or_bomb_detonation)

Lots of conspiracy theories about the various tracks, such as the 30-knot one. Imagine if they released the tracks from Malaysia radar, I could only imagine the speculations.

[givemewings]

1asoundasleep- 777 sliderafts are large, silver in color and rectangular. Aviation liferafts of the hexagonal shape (Goodrich brand iirc) are bright yellow. A slideraft gets any yellow/orange colour from the canopy which is separate and would be erected by the crew once the raft is seaworthy.

As for provisions, it would totally depend on the amount of people in each slideraft, time adrift, etc... I believe two weeks would not be out of possibility but tbh I've never seen quantities listed in my manual... only general list of items.

[MartinM]

USS Kidd (DDG-100) Radar is multi-function, phased-array, three-dimensional (range, altitude, and bearing) and 500Km range

But even if these guys where close and having an eye on anything closing in onto the helicopter carrier they are protecting, they would not be interested in an object flying at 29'000 feet.

I don't know about the capabilities of the Malaysian, Indonesian and Vietnames Radar systems. Swiss, French and US Navy are 3-Dimensional, which means range, altitude and bearing.

For me there is too much confusion and miscommunication. First they have the aircraft east coast, then all of a sudden west coast and 1000m, then they suspect it in front of Ho-Chi Min City and now finally it is located south of Phuket.

Why none has asked the Indonesian guys yet to deliver any a radar data. It could be interesting to know if an unidentified object was flying over the area of Banda Aceh in direction of the indian ocean. Would this be the case, you could stop searching ...

[LiveryMan]

MISSING MH370: Fishermen find life raft near PD - Latest - New Straits Times (http://www.nst.com.my/latest/font-color-red-missing-mh370-font-fishermen-find-life-raft-near-pd-1.509222)

What does a 777 life raft look like?

Silver/Grey. The door slides are detachable as life rafts. An orange detachable canopy is stored with it.

[Toruk Macto]

Need to keep in mind that the blokes standing up at the press conference are very senior military and govt officials . They are not used to having their words interrogated or mistakes pointed out to them . Having the worlds media point out inconsistencies is not sitting well with them and they are not handling it .

[givemewings]

As fr a standby list on a plane that appears not to be full- it is possible they were operating a restricted passenger load due to cargo/weight restrictions. Any T7 drivers care to comment?

My lot do this regularly but it is usually on much longer routes...

[wombat13]

If your posts are deleted and you don't understand why, can I suggest you stop posting? Find somewhere else on the internet other than PPRUNE to share your thinking. Most certainly stop clogging up such an important thread whining about such deletions.

This is not a site for conspiracy theorists or fantasists.

In summary, the apparent loss of MH370, along with hundreds of souls including a highly experienced crew from an airline with a good safety record Is not a spectator sport. There are families of passengers and crew who will look anywhere for information, including the Internet. God forbid they would end up reading some posts on this thread before the Mods can do their work.

[Acklington]

This website gives wind and water current details.

earth :: an animated map of global wind and weather (http://earth.nullschool.net/#2014/03/07/1800Z/wind/isobaric/250hPa/orthographic=110.53,8.81,1952)

[Stanley11]

jindalee

Don't believe everything you read on wiki and don't place too much expectations on Jindalee.

[nitpicker330]

Information I had years ago from friends in the RAAF was that it was "bloody amazing" to quote them directly. Yes it works....

Quote--

Operation and uses[edit]

The JORN network is operated by No. 1 Radar Surveillance Unit RAAF (1RSU). Data from the JORN sites is fed to the JORN Coordination Centre at RAAF Base Edinburgh where it is passed on to other agencies and military units. Officially the system allows the Australian Defence Force to observe all air and sea activity north of Australia to distances of 3000 km. This encompasses all of Java, Irian Jaya, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, and halfway across the Indian Ocean. Other sources put the range at 4000 km from the Australian coastline,[17] as far away as Singapore[18]
The JORN is so sensitive it is able to track planes as small as a Cessna 172 taking off and landing in East Timor 2600 km away. Current research is anticipated to increase its sensitivity by a factor of ten beyond this level. It is also reportedly able to detect stealth aircraft, as typically these are designed only to avoid detection by microwave radar.[4] Project DUNDEE[19] was a cooperative research project, with American missile defence research, into using JORN to detect missiles.[20] The JORN is anticipated to play a role in future Missile Defense Agency initiatives, detecting and tracking missile launches in Asia.[21]

[answer=42]

OK, I'll try.

If I've understood correctly, the flight lost contact while it was crossing a fairly narrow corridor of airspace that is covered neither by Malaysian nor Vietnamese civil radar. Is this correct? If incorrect, mods, please delete post.

At this point, some catastrophic event is surmised to have occurred that caused all other forms of communication to fail. At the same time, there is as yet no evidence of an explosion, an in-flight collision or any wreckage at this point.

The coincidence that this surmised event happened during the 'radar-blind' corridor crossing is, logically, either relevant or irrelevant.

If relevant, then all sorts of wild theories, such as plane theft, become less implausible. But that nice Mr Occam and his razor tell us to look for simpler theories. The 'civil radar blind corridor' is, presumably, a fairly widely known phenomenon. Who might make use of this corridor? Various militaries, presumably. Is there evidence of illegal / unregistered / unrecorded aviation in the region and at this altitude?

[SgtBundy]

If you go by the Wiki then Jindalee does not have the range to see where this crashed. Of course I expect the operational range is significantly better than indicated on Wikipedia - I guess it comes down to if the RAAF want to give that away. They might just send suggestions to the P-3Cs that are over there helping with SAR.

[compressor stall]

Jindalee does work very well, but where was it pointing / recording at the time?

And it would be beyond its advertised limit that far north. If they did track it around the Thai border, they won't admit to it.

[RenHoek]

Has anyone seen any details on any cargo that MH370 may have been carrying?:rolleyes:

[SgtBundy]

Jindalee does work very well, but where was it pointing at the time?

My understanding of how it works is it points everywhere in its arc at once.

[theredbarron]

Reading all of the various reports, I can't help but get the feeling that the Malaysian authorities are covering something up. Is it their air defence set-up's incompetence in failing to observe the unidentified trace heading towards their airspace and crossing the peninsula? Or is it that they did indeed see it but that a panicking command structure had sudden visions of their own 9/11 and the Petronas Towers, and took action that, given the consequences, they would rather not now be made public?

[SOPS]

Re the standby list. They could have been easily sitting a max ZFW with cargo, even if they were not full of passengers. I do flights like that on the triple all the time.

[island_airphoto]

Here it is
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4d/JORS.svg/500px-JORS.svg.png

[SLF3]

Post 2282:

"We do not know anything about the cause. We only know all comms were gone."

Not a leading question, but do we know the comms were gone? Or can we only say they / it stopped communicating?

[nitpicker330]

I've passed on a request to Air Force HQ to look at their Jindalee data..and if they can't disclose anything to at least tell their own P3 crew where to look.

They will most likely ignore my request anyway.

I had to ask.

[snow5man]

Car Nicobar airport is only 500 miles NW of Penang, another 300 miles further NW from where Malaysian radar lost the trace of the unconfirmed object.

Here's how the Indian Express of 23 February reported the Indian Home Ministry's assessment of the Nicobar islands ....

Andaman and Nicobar Islands a potential terror hub: Home Ministry | The Indian Express (http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/andaman-and-nicobar-islands-a-potential-terror-hub-home-ministry/)

The island was over-run by a tsunami a few years ago. Is the airport still operational?

[CodyBlade]

''Jindalee''

The Aussies are not going to advertised the full capabilities of Jindalee.

For sure it can 'look' future than what Wiki indicated.

[Aireps]

In reply to #2283.

Based on meteorology from Mar 1, NOAA Hysplit shows these winds on Mar 7, 17:00 UTC:

http://s4.postimg.org/44ogeh8ml/Screen1345.jpg
http://ready.arl.noaa.gov/hypubout/11641_trj001.gif

The star is the point of lost radar contact at 17:22Z. (Model time used is 17:00Z.)

The red triangle shows the position of a floating (not falling) object at FL350 (10,668 m) at 18:00Z.
The blue square shows the position of a floating (not falling) object at FL230 (7,000 m) at 18:00Z.
The green circle shows the position of a floating (not falling) object at FL164 (5,000 m) at 18:00Z.

According to this model, the wind at FL350 was about 085 deg at 10 kn. Wind at FL164 was about 100 deg at 20 kn.

[Nightingale14]

Fliegenmong - we can argue semantics but I am happy to say she has been cabin crew on 777s for ten years most recently on Qantas. If you said she was just a passenger she would be very cross indeed. She regards herself as very experienced and highly trained. I only relay her comments, where do you know that she is wrong? I will refer back.

[rh200]

I've passed on a request to Air Force HQ to look at their Jindalee data..and if they can't disclose anything to at least tell their own P3 crew where to look.

I'd be fairly confident that if they had the range they would already do that. The big issue is if they did have something and how to disseminate it!

[Ian W]

Is there anybody un this forum who can shed some light on how modern radar equipment works? On the old fashoned CRT design you could simply adjust brightness to get rid of all the noise on the screen (birds etc.). How is sensitivity adjusted today? How is information filtered (i.e. are single returns filtered automatically by the software, because they are obviously noise, and are only repetitatve returns moving within a certain reasonable speed range shown)?
What exactly is recorded? Raw data? Displayed Data? Analyzed, filtered Data? Can we (the civilians...) run special analysis software on that data to scan through it for interesting details?

Normally with modern systems the display shown to the controllers is totally synthetic and is made up of information from different radars and from other sources such as Automatic Dependent Surveillance (both Broadcast at half Herz and sometimes Contract every 10 minutes). The radar information is normally 'digitized' at the remote radar sites, this process can remove some of the primary radar noise. Similarly the secondary radar normally will have up to 20 'hits' on the aircraft even out at 150 miles less than 10 and the response may be discarded. The digitized signals and other position reports from other sensors are then fed to the control center where a 'multi-sensor tracker' changes them into 'tracks' these are built as soon as the aircraft transponders switch on on the ground and are continually updated with sensor positions as they are received. Filters are then used to ensure that there is no jitter due to slight inconsistencies in the reported positions. It is these tracks that are sent to the controller display processors.
The tracks are correlated with the known flight data of the aircraft so that the controller can access flight data by clicking on the position symbol, but also the flight data can be used by the tracker to 'expect' when aircraft will turn. If the aircraft is tracked and late the surveillance processing can update the flight data processing so that times remain correct. The system can also alert when aircraft deviate from cleared levels etc.

What the controller sees is entirely synthetic and the controller has no control over gain etc. It is not normal for an ATC controller to use primary radar only indeed many will switch it off to reduce clutter. However, once an aircraft is being tracked the primary response is 'correlated' with the other track data, so that if the aircraft transponders cease for some reason the labeled display will continue with just the primary response if there is one. If all surveillance sensor data for a track is lost the systems may coast the position symbol for a period along the projected ground track sometimes modified by flight plan track data. This is actually quite common in oceanic areas where position reports may be only every 10 minutes on ADS=C. (Coasting can be seen on systems like Flight Aware.)

Data is recorded at almost every point in the process with greatly differing accessibility. The recordings at the radar heads will be mainly for maintenance purposes not normally for investigation. Once information comes into a center it is recorded again mainly for maintenance and fault finding. All data delivered to controllers for their use is recorded and stored in accordance with ICAO rules which is normally 28 days or more. Most centers will have almost immediate playback capabilities for incident resolution.

[island_airphoto]

Jindalee "official range". Apparently it can do much better. It just might have been able to see this event. Someone would have had to have it on and recording though.

From our Wiki Friends

allowing it to have both long range as well as anti-stealth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stealth_technology) capabilities. It has an official range of 3,000 kilometres (1,900 mi) but in 1997 the prototype was able to detect missile launches by China (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Republic_of_China)[6] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Over_the_horizon_radar#cite_note-6) over 5,500 kilometres (3,400 mi) away.
Jindalee uses 560 kW as compared to the US's OTH-B's 1 MW, yet offers far better range than the US 1980s system, due to the considerably improved electronics and signal processing.[7] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Over_the_horizon_radar#cite_note-colegrove-7)

[AAKEE]

How does the latest info about radar pilot and time sum up with distance/speed from last known position ?

Qouted myself.

Did a simple check on flightradar24 map, and it looks to be around /roughly 380 Nm between last radar spot and "200Nm NV Penang".

Roughly gives a ground speed of 460-500kt, depending on actual time if/when it turned westly. Seems plausible to me.

[training wheels]

Here it is


Seems like it doesn't have the range required to 'see' that far north. But it is impressive and explains why Cobham's coastwatch contract ends in 2020. :(

[Global Warrior]

The Iranians appear to know what happened

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370-us-kidnapped-missing-plane-094609091.html#n7aeQdr

[giblets]

Some of the theories on here are getting quite impressive!
Seems like the South China sea could be the most logical place to look, this 'fire in the sky' 300km off Vietnam is at least in the same vague direction it was heading.
Making some assumptions here, but if they pilots suffered a 'major mechnical issue' (however it was 'induced'), this could send the aircraft off course, but the pilots main issue would surely just be trying to control the aircraft before trying to get the direction sorted?

[aterpster]

G.W.

The Iranians appear to know what happened

Yahoo News UK & Ireland - Latest World News & UK News Headlines (http://uk.news.yahoo.com/malaysia-ai...1.html#n7aeQdr)

That's a definite keeper. I am passing it on to all my curious non-aviation friends.:D

[SpeedHumpCat]

Hello, my first contribution to this thread.

Don't believe everything you read on wiki and don't place too much expectations on Jindalee.

I was a Radar Operator on Jindalee OHR.

Yes Jindalee does work very well, obviously i cant say how well or i might be in a wee bit of trouble.

Jindalee is a HF based skywave radar, it bounces radiowaves off the ionosphere onto the target.

Have a look at the correlation between HF, the ionosphere and usage at night, and you will understand that picking up MH370 would never happen, even if Jindalee could see that far.

[awblain]

Rather than Australian OTH radars, if you want ocean surveillance information, talk to the US, and perhaps Russian (?), operators of what might perhaps be orbiting SAR radars. That would especially rule out any implausible trip over the Indian Ocean until the fuel ran out.

[spmd11]

Ok, I'll jump in.. I don't normally speculate (I'm a heavy Captain for a US airline with a lot of overwater experience in an ac like the 777), but I will add this, with CPDLC, HF, VHF, ACARS and SATCOM, I'll find some way to get a message out under duress.. especially CPDLC, for it's a couple of key strokes.. would take me.. 5 seconds, tops.

- Chances of complete loss of comm on the 777, very, very slim...

- Bomb explosion we would have found the pieces long ago...

- I don't like structural failure theory cause it would have led to disintegration of airplane and then aircraft pieces would have already been found...

my theories fall into these two areas:

1. Hi-jack (terrorism from outside or crew)
2. Hypoxia event leading to incapacitation of all life on board.. (has happened in the past)

[Aireps]

In reply again to #2283:

The upper winds measured by weather balloons launched by the Kota Bharu weather station are different from the ones calculated by NOAA Hysplit.

( University of Wyoming - Radiosonde Data (http://ClearUrl.Net/210) )

Kota Bharu Mar 7, 12Z sounding:

FL350: 020 deg at 10 kn.
FL230: 060 deg at 23 kn.
FL164: 095 deg at 16 kn.

Kota Bharu Mar 8, 00Z sounding:

FL350: 020 deg at 15 kn.
FL230: 090 deg at 17 kn.
FL164: 100 deg at 24 kn.

[SpeedHumpCat]

Is the JORN monitored 24/7 , or is there some peacetime reduced monitoring? And things in the night...are they only detected then at crazy ranges instead of astonishing?

Sorry wont say, but you airline pilots out there would know how well HF works at night.