Malaysian Airlines MH370 contact lost

[AAKEE]

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

[p.j.m]

Originally Posted by barrel_owl

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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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.
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]

4 standby passengers replaced 5 no-shows?

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]

LOS comms

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

[RussellBrown]

Help in the search

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

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]

primary radar

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

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]

Originally Posted by 1a sound asleep

MISSING MH370: Fishermen find life raft near PD - Latest - New Straits Times

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...