Malaysian Airlines MH370 contact lost

[etudiant]

Not sure the satellite image site is within the Chinese claimed part of the South China Sea, but it is mighty close. Would be unsurprising if China uses this incident to buttress their claimed jurisdiction on that basis, if there is anything there. They also seem to have more assets in the area than anyone else, just to back up their eventual stance.

[scottsig97]

From the Telegraph

02.00 An update from Malcolm Moore in Beijing.

The Americans don't seem to be taking the Chinese satellite pictures seriously, he reports, they are not changing their search pattern based on the information.

[win_faa]

territorial claims

if in the event that the wreckage lies at the bottom of the south china sea... it will be interesting to know who will have jurisdiction on the investigation given the current territorial dispute in asia

[bvondross]

the depth is
184 feet

[HappyAs]

My guess is the answer to the root cause of this accident is in the cargo manifest.

[NG ExPat]

How about we consider this. If in fact the Chinese Photos turn out to be the wreckage, then a lot of the early on statements by the Malays make some sense. Such as approximately a 40 degree heading change, a loss of Altitude of 600'.




In the case of a Explosive or Rapid Depressurization obviously get the freaking mask on, but then make a turn to diverge from your track 45 to 90 degrees, depending on where in world you are. Descent is initiated, Level Change Selected, A/T Off, Speed Brakes Out, and so on.


Probably shortly after all that was accomplished all hell broke loose.
It would certainly account for the airplane ending up in the area that the Chinese have said that they think the wreckage is.

[onetrack]

The area where the possible MH370 wreckage has been sighted is outside any expanded Chinese territorial area of the South China Sea, and is within Vietnams territorial seas area.
However, there's a large Chinese force of vessels in the general South China Sea area, and I'd expect the Chinese will produce more definitive results today.

http://hwebb.freeservers.com/slidesh..._china_sea.jpg

[aterpster]

shadow:

There'd appear to be a lot of CNN and "expert" agonizing over the apparent size of the objects constituting the satellite imagery of the possible debris field SE of the MAS370 track. Apart from it conceivably being a partially deflated/inflated escape slide, it could also be a concoction of wreckage linked by wiring looms. You only need a few wiring looms to remain partly intact and interweaved to keep a debris field together in one clump.

unlike ABs, the 777 has one wiring loom from fore to aft.

[DWS]

tdracer 2613 re 777 networks at 17.59

Thanks for the update as to what the FAA directive ..

and this bit " 220mph - the Special Condition is issued as a pre-requisite to certifying a new system (generally Special Conditions are issued when the FAA believes that the existing FARs are not adequate for certification of new or novel technologies - the 787 had a boatload). The 777 system that the FAA issued SC against is still in development and won't enter service for some time."

My point in raising or trying to get facts on the issue was to hopefully tamp down the news reports much like the ridiculous press efforts re the AD and corrosion issues.

Even so - IMHO- the concept of NOT using a completely isolated public system from FBW systems ( and certain comm systems ) is stupidity squared or cubed. IF and when such a system is merged/implemented/ installed, and x years later a 737 or 777 has an upset or accident, there will be more time $$ and effort proving that that tie in was NOT involved than to simply pay for an extra server and cabling, etc.

IMO a 99.9999 probability that such can not happen is not sufficient.

Many years ago, Boeing was responsible for sneak circuit analysis on apollo. Did an excellent job of finding such.

Yet the 787 battery issue and a fire on board in electrical panel during flight test sort of showed that capability was ignored, lost, or not followed up due to cost and schedule. IMO this proposed system will eventually bite them in the **** simply from PR...

[WillowRun 6-3]

@ tartare in #2634 (resp to WR in #2629)
Thanks for post. Disclaiming, on my part, specific knowledge of satellite orbital parameters. But carrying on the logic chains: .... point earlier was made or asserted that timing of release of imagery by PRC can be understood with background of time it took to review and analyze what their birds saw. Another factor asserted relative to lapse of time was need to adjust resolution of released imagery to protect against disclosure of asset capabilities (though this, as a timing factor, has fallen into a teakettle of pro's and con's). Your post noted high-density array of assets in the subject region. If that is affirmative, and I have no reason to question it (see, disclaimer, above), then here is a further item: to extent satellite and other coverage is so thick and sophisticated, does it not follow that, (i) PRC assets were able to be surveyed immediately upon news of major airliner incident underway, and (ii) PRC had reason to leap forward and find the facts - precisely because it (the region) is one of such interest? So (and no I don't know enough about these assets to have tried to joke about it) if no reason existed for the birds to have to be moved, then does it not follow they had the imagery pretty early on? So on these premises - specifically on this chain of inferences and explicitly disclaiming any speculative purported knowledge - I'm amending my post in #2629: to extent PRC had imagery quite early on, maybe Uncle made a po-lite request to do the data dump thing? Again tartare, thanks for talking this over.

[onetrack]

HappyAs - No, an exploding crew oxygen bottle, starting and feeding an electrical fire, has a much higher likelihood than a cargo fire, of putting out the comms and transponder feed within a very short time.

[RBeardsell]

Re weather balloons:

Depends on the type of balloon being released and general conditions but on an average day an 800gm balloon with radiosonde attached would obtain 34-37km, 350gm balloon also with radiosonde attached approx 26-28km and a 100gm balloon wind-only flight around 17-20km.

Size wise, the 350 and especially 800gm balloons at burst are around the size of a small house at burst.

Hope this helps

[Neogen]

I am beginning to think whether Malay authorities are even acting on the leads provided to them.

How come China is revealing the information online not sharing directly with Malay authorities.. how come they don't pay any head to McKay's (oil rig worker) email.

IMHO they should be more transparent and forthcoming than just giggling during the PCs.

[Stanley11]

I'd like to say something about the lack of comms. As pilots, we are always taught to do the following steps in any emergency:
1) Fly the aircraft, i.e. regain control of the aircraft
2) Communicate, tell someone. Mayday calls need not be made on 243 or 121.5, switch only when time permits
3) orientate and subsequent actions.

However many times pilots train in the simulator, when an actual emergency happens, especially in the most benign portion of the flight, there is usually the mental inertia/shock to realise what is happening. We see this in MANY accidents and often wonder how a seemingly simple emergency can cause the inaction or wrong actions by the crew to worsen the recovery actions.

I'd been part of several accident investigations and this is replayed many times. Even in minor incidents, pilots may be unwilling to call out for a simple reason, they don't want to unnecessarily raise alarms. Many have to be taught to call out first, and downgrade the emergency later.

[roving]

This link is an Australian depiction of the original flight path, the location of the debris shown in the Chinese satellite images and the location of the oil rig from where Mike Mackay says he saw a burning aircraft.

http://media.news.com.au/nnd//38883f.../assets/01.jpg

[220mph]

@tdracer

220mph - the Special Condition is issued as a pre-requisite to certifying a new system (generally Special Conditions are issued when the FAA believes that the existing FARs are not adequate for certification of new or novel technologies). The 777 system that the FAA issued SC against is still in development and won't enter service for some time. The current 777 does not yet have an "Onboard Network System" (ONS), and the flight deck avionics are not linked to the passenger accessible systems in any way. There is simply no way for someone sitting in the back to access the flight deck avionics - there is no link they could use.

The special condition was announced Nov 18, 2013. A few days later Teledyne announced certification of their Airborne Wireless LAN for the 777. This AWLU appears to have been available for other aircraft for some time, and appears it is installed in 787 aircraft among others.

I agree these systems are not likely in operation in 777's currently. I don't think you can definitively say aircraft systems and passenger systems are not linked in any way ... that was the specific concern addressed in the special conditions - that they could be.

I agree its highly unlikely anyone could access from PAX area or outside, however the system does have WiFi, Cellular and similar access and as other have noted just about any system can be hacked today. It DOES contain a flash card as well - and there are Wifi enabled flash cards.

Again I agree its unlikely the public can access, however, workers most certainly could, having access to the MEC. And while I again agree it wouldn't be easy, it certainly does seem plausible that someone with access to the system could conceivably manipulate it.

I don't think its relevant to this incident, but it IS an interesting conversation on its own.

On the other hand the electrical failure in the MEC, which has occurred in 777's in the past, DOES make a great deal of sense to this scenario, as I posted here.

[HappyAs]

onetrack - That is a possibility, however you would then expect to see debris in the vicinity of the last know position if the fire was fast and catastrophic. If this aircraft had time to reach the Malacca Straits the pilots may have turned the transponder / ACARS off themselves as they struggled to fly the aircraft to a controlled ditching before being overcome.

[China Flyer]

Stanley:

As pilots, we are always taught to do the following steps in any emergency:
1) Fly the aircraft, i.e. regain control of the aircraft
2) Communicate, tell someone. Mayday calls need not be made on 243 or 121.5, switch only when time permits
3) orientate and subsequent actions.

That's not what I was taught. At all. Ever.

In fact, it was along the lines of:

1. Aviate
2. Navigate
3. And last of all, time permiting, Communicate.

[barrel_owl]

neogen
How come China is revealing the information online not sharing directly with Malay authorities.. how come they don't pay any head to McKay's (oil rig worker) email.

Actually the possible crash site location would be roughly consistent both with the report by the oil rig worker and with this report by other witnesses in Marang.

[WillowRun 6-3]

Jurisdiction (in re upon, and under, the high seas)

Poster win_faa in #2632 leads thread into questions of jurisdiction, proceeding from settled provisions of the ICAO formal juridical architecture. Query, do not the generalized disputes as to claims in this region undercut the efficacy of ICAO's juridical structure in dealing with the legal dimensions of this still-unfolding incident?

Quite a while ago (almost 2 thousand posts earlier), this community member questioned whether territorial assertions by PRC might hamper the SAR efforts or make such efforts more complicated (see post #386).

I'm more than fifty percent convinced that the juridical scheme of the present system may not be in the best overall interest of the international civil aeronautics and aviation order. To wit, what SPECIFICALLY happened to this flight is a set of unknowns with tremendous importance to Boeing and the T7 program, and thus and by extension, to the U.S. and no less, the international order within which civil aeronautical and aviation take place. This is no assertion against ICAO - rather it is an advocacy for the question whether the above-referenced international order has progressed to a point where a higher order of trans-national juridical concept would apply.

So it's not only about territorial disputes and assertions impacting SAR, but also about the legal efficacy of an ICAO juridical structure which long, long predated September the Eleventh - yet neither anticipated the way the world would change, nor provided the legal tools Counsel need to get things to happen the right way, make them happen fast, as in, "give me summa that fancy lawyer-talkin'".....

If this is off the mark and the world civil aeronautics and aviation legal framework needs no significant adjustment, this is to urge community members to explain.