Malaysian Airlines MH370 contact lost
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The insurance angle
One way or another this loss (and it is one) is going to trigger a MASSIVE insurance pay-out. There must be hordes of very nervous insurance underwriters and reinsurers currently scouring the small-print of the MAS policies.
Have there been any estimates as yet on the 'hull-loss' of a 2002 777-200ER?
It will also be interesting to see how the personal life-assurance 'relativities' for those pax from China and other ASEAN nations stack-up compared to those from other / developed nations.
Even the most conservative figures must already run into many hundreds of millions of $s. Factor in any possible negligence and the sky's the limit (excuse the pun). That is before S&R / recovery operations are factored in.
Did any 'final' figures ever get published for AF447?
Have there been any estimates as yet on the 'hull-loss' of a 2002 777-200ER?
It will also be interesting to see how the personal life-assurance 'relativities' for those pax from China and other ASEAN nations stack-up compared to those from other / developed nations.
Even the most conservative figures must already run into many hundreds of millions of $s. Factor in any possible negligence and the sky's the limit (excuse the pun). That is before S&R / recovery operations are factored in.
Did any 'final' figures ever get published for AF447?
There are multiple O2 bottles aside from the a/c built in supply.
None will work if you dont know you are incapacitated.
The question I still have is how long does it take to 'wake up' once the aircraft is below about 15,000'? I would have have thought that unless it was descending very fast there would be time to regain consciousness prior to impact.
Anyone know?
None will work if you dont know you are incapacitated.
The question I still have is how long does it take to 'wake up' once the aircraft is below about 15,000'? I would have have thought that unless it was descending very fast there would be time to regain consciousness prior to impact.
Anyone know?
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Like how come RR and Boeing apparently have no data supporting the theory?
What is not said in the article is at what times/for how long these pings occurred... and if it was possible to work out the location of where the signal was....
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The fact that this aircraft has been missing for nearly six days is an indictment and embarrassment to the regulations, manufacture, and the various agencies that control civil aviation. This is not dissimilar to the Titanic board of inquiry that focused on the actions of the crew rather than the fact that Titanic was certified to sail with only 50% lifeboat capacity. My point is how can you certify to 330 if you have no ability to find it in an emergency?
All well and good to bang your fists on the table and shout and scream, but allow me to remind you of one thing.
First flight of the 777 was (according to Wikipedia) June 12th 1994.
That means design, development etc. would have been occurring in the 5-10 years prior to 1994.
The world of technology was a vastly different place then.
Retrofiting onto an old design is probably a right pain from both a manufacturing and regulatory point of view.
That is probably why it is the way it is, and why, going forward we'll probably see developments. But the developments will be as result of technology making it easier / cheaper to do stuff than it was in 1994 ... rather than as a specific consequence of this incident.
What I am surprised at though, is given satellites and other secret squirrel monitoring systems out there, that the aircraft has not been located by the intelligence community by now..... (although I guess the conspiracy theorists might suggest they've been gagged by the big cheeses in the name of "national secewwity"!).
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The ICAO code translates to the aircrafts registration number. It is part of the squitter message and is sent out about once a second if the transponder is on even if the transponder is not being interrogated by a ground station or a TCAS box.
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Aircraft striking water and disintegration
A high calibre bullet fired into water gets about three feet. The idea that a 777 would have enough energy to get through 200 feet of water with enough energy to bury itself in the bottom seems surprising to me, especially as it is highly unlikely to be actually vertical at the moment of impact. Perhaps someone with a better understanding of fluid dynamics or, heaven forbid, some empirical data, could explain?
The aircraft is not a solid object; it is a skeleton structure. Water, when impacted at speed, has the effective resistance of concrete. Water is an incompressible fluid; it has no "give." The aircraft will NOT penetrate through the water surface; instead, the skeleton will collapse and disintegrate (the point loads on the skeleton members are way above the points of deformation and failure). To understand this, look at photos of the re-assembled TWA 800 in that hangar on Long Island. Thousands of pieces.
You end up with a large debris field. The denser items will sink; structures where the density of the whole is less than water (which is conveniently calibrated as 1.00) will float. You might be surprised at how much of the aircraft components are less dense than water: all the plastics, the seats, carpeting, various thermoformed panels, clothing, most luggage, the fuel, and so forth. Even sections with aluminum may float if less dense items remain attached, or air becomes trapped in a pocket section. Also, invariably a large number of the bodies will be floating. In both TWA 800 and Iran Air shoot-down in the Persian Gulf by the USS Vincennes, large numbers of bodies floated and were recovered.
The suggestion is made that fishermen would not recognize aircraft parts as being from an aircraft. Perhaps. Yet, fishermen are not going to misunderstand that bodies floating about are from anything other than some disaster. That, at least, would be reported. It is because of these two aspects - large debris field and over 100 bodies, perhaps 200 floating bodies - that it is implausible to me that this aircraft, after six days of searching by over 100 units in calm seas, went down where the search is going on. And if the A/C did not go down on the water, then my conclusion is that it continued North on its flight path and crashed on land. And if on land, then assuredly not in a populated area; the further conclusion is that it bored a hole in the jungle, at a 70-degree (inverted?) angle, making a 30-ft diameter bore hole, and you don't find it. Gone.
Unless, it really did make that 90-degree turn to the West, and kept on flying, and .....
The aircraft is not a solid object; it is a skeleton structure. Water, when impacted at speed, has the effective resistance of concrete. Water is an incompressible fluid; it has no "give." The aircraft will NOT penetrate through the water surface; instead, the skeleton will collapse and disintegrate (the point loads on the skeleton members are way above the points of deformation and failure). To understand this, look at photos of the re-assembled TWA 800 in that hangar on Long Island. Thousands of pieces.
You end up with a large debris field. The denser items will sink; structures where the density of the whole is less than water (which is conveniently calibrated as 1.00) will float. You might be surprised at how much of the aircraft components are less dense than water: all the plastics, the seats, carpeting, various thermoformed panels, clothing, most luggage, the fuel, and so forth. Even sections with aluminum may float if less dense items remain attached, or air becomes trapped in a pocket section. Also, invariably a large number of the bodies will be floating. In both TWA 800 and Iran Air shoot-down in the Persian Gulf by the USS Vincennes, large numbers of bodies floated and were recovered.
The suggestion is made that fishermen would not recognize aircraft parts as being from an aircraft. Perhaps. Yet, fishermen are not going to misunderstand that bodies floating about are from anything other than some disaster. That, at least, would be reported. It is because of these two aspects - large debris field and over 100 bodies, perhaps 200 floating bodies - that it is implausible to me that this aircraft, after six days of searching by over 100 units in calm seas, went down where the search is going on. And if the A/C did not go down on the water, then my conclusion is that it continued North on its flight path and crashed on land. And if on land, then assuredly not in a populated area; the further conclusion is that it bored a hole in the jungle, at a 70-degree (inverted?) angle, making a 30-ft diameter bore hole, and you don't find it. Gone.
Unless, it really did make that 90-degree turn to the West, and kept on flying, and .....
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how can you certify to 330 if you have no ability to find it in an emergency?
barrel_owl
One of the million or so scenarios that have been offered is that there was an explosive decompression, which involved the elctronics bay and crew O2 area beneath the cabin floor and just aft of the cockpit.
Whatever happened rendered the radios and transponder, as well as the crew O2 inop. Apparently it did not affect the A/P.
The crew had a enough useful consciousness to get a bit of a descent and a return heading set, possibly to an FMS waypoint before passing out.
The plane descended to the preset altitude and went west.
Whatever happened rendered the radios and transponder, as well as the crew O2 inop. Apparently it did not affect the A/P.
The crew had a enough useful consciousness to get a bit of a descent and a return heading set, possibly to an FMS waypoint before passing out.
The plane descended to the preset altitude and went west.
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Elephant & Castle yes I know but a glaring omission in the certification. Clearly this aircraft was just out of coverage and no one has a clue after six days so time to change the certification as one can only imagine the SAR ability if this was 240 or 330 minutes over the pacific?
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Cameras from Space
It would probably be the first time that NASA's technology would be tested in Aircrash investigations:
"Activities under way include mining data archives of satellite data acquired earlier and using space-based assets, such as the Earth-Observing-1(EO-1) satellite and the ISERV camera on the International Space Station, to acquire new images of possible crash sites," NASA spokesman Allard Beutel told Space.com.
March 13, 2014 10:42 AM - ibtimes.co.uk
"Activities under way include mining data archives of satellite data acquired earlier and using space-based assets, such as the Earth-Observing-1(EO-1) satellite and the ISERV camera on the International Space Station, to acquire new images of possible crash sites," NASA spokesman Allard Beutel told Space.com.
March 13, 2014 10:42 AM - ibtimes.co.uk
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Intelligence Assets
Rest assured that American (and presumably Chinese and Russian) intelligence
assets have capabilities far in advance of what they are wiling to publicly advertise.
In the mid 1990s I was involved with a lengthy SAR effort with ground searchers
And Civil Air Patrol assets. We were running up quite a fuel tab with the CAP when it was discretely suggested by the Air Force liaison that we go to such and
Such a position, hundreds of miles away from the last known position and nowhere near what we had brainstormed as a possibility. The airplane and crew were found by us immediately albeit with no chance that the people on board had survived the crash. No information was ever given to us as to how they had ascertained this particular location.
I suspect that something similar is going on with the USN assets steaming to the
scene now.
assets have capabilities far in advance of what they are wiling to publicly advertise.
In the mid 1990s I was involved with a lengthy SAR effort with ground searchers
And Civil Air Patrol assets. We were running up quite a fuel tab with the CAP when it was discretely suggested by the Air Force liaison that we go to such and
Such a position, hundreds of miles away from the last known position and nowhere near what we had brainstormed as a possibility. The airplane and crew were found by us immediately albeit with no chance that the people on board had survived the crash. No information was ever given to us as to how they had ascertained this particular location.
I suspect that something similar is going on with the USN assets steaming to the
scene now.
Last edited by averow; 13th Mar 2014 at 18:43. Reason: Spelling
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I tried to make the point that, in the past, it was common practice to select STBY on the transponder before selecting a new code, but my post disappeared into the ether!
So what if, TOC, one pilot goes back for a comfort break (likely time for it), explosive decompression, remaining pilot, stunned by events, starts a descending turn, put transponder to STBY, selects 7700 and then goes hypoxic, having failed to make donning the mask his first action?
So what if, TOC, one pilot goes back for a comfort break (likely time for it), explosive decompression, remaining pilot, stunned by events, starts a descending turn, put transponder to STBY, selects 7700 and then goes hypoxic, having failed to make donning the mask his first action?
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Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I can't find the exact quotes buried several days ago in the thread.
But haven't all of the statements from Malaysia denying ACARS messages been very cautiously worded, and stopped short of complete denials that there was any signal received by ANYONE, ANYWHERE?
The first statement, from several days ago, if I recall correctly, seemed to be "the last message MAS rec'd was at 1:07" and then the next sentence was worded a bit differently--"no distress signals were sent."
The wording the other day was that the US claims were "inaccurate," and that Boeing, RR and MAS did not receive any ACARS messages -- but that does not exclude the possibility that someone else DID receive this (or something).
And I thought Boeing and RR themselves did not directly comment.
I've just thought that these "denials" have stopped short of complete denials, and indeed, have been awkwardly worded in so doing.
But haven't all of the statements from Malaysia denying ACARS messages been very cautiously worded, and stopped short of complete denials that there was any signal received by ANYONE, ANYWHERE?
The first statement, from several days ago, if I recall correctly, seemed to be "the last message MAS rec'd was at 1:07" and then the next sentence was worded a bit differently--"no distress signals were sent."
The wording the other day was that the US claims were "inaccurate," and that Boeing, RR and MAS did not receive any ACARS messages -- but that does not exclude the possibility that someone else DID receive this (or something).
And I thought Boeing and RR themselves did not directly comment.
I've just thought that these "denials" have stopped short of complete denials, and indeed, have been awkwardly worded in so doing.
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What is the maximum recording time for the FDR and/or CVR on a 777? It occurred to me that if MH370 indeed flew on for several more hours after the incident (whatever it was) that the relevant portion of the data stream may have been over written by the later stages of the flight so we may never know precisely what transpired.
Last edited by areobat; 13th Mar 2014 at 18:54. Reason: typo
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transponder
The fact of transponder being off - it bothers me - such a simple thing,
-result of the unknown systems failure-all out?
-off accidentally by a disabled(smoke or O2 loss), stumbling, crew without ill intent?
-ill intent? What is the significance of transponder being off, if that is the case?
- coincidental malfunction like on AI127 at the time when a major event leading to the plane loss was occurring or just about to occur?
What do the 777-200 pilots think is most probable- how soon would you know that the transponder malfunctions, what are the remedial steps?
Apologies to mods, but it is not just about speculations- the transponder was off, it is the first known fact and undisputed fact
-result of the unknown systems failure-all out?
-off accidentally by a disabled(smoke or O2 loss), stumbling, crew without ill intent?
-ill intent? What is the significance of transponder being off, if that is the case?
- coincidental malfunction like on AI127 at the time when a major event leading to the plane loss was occurring or just about to occur?
What do the 777-200 pilots think is most probable- how soon would you know that the transponder malfunctions, what are the remedial steps?
Apologies to mods, but it is not just about speculations- the transponder was off, it is the first known fact and undisputed fact
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Iridium localization
OleOle,
I have no idea what satellite assets are used for the aircraft maintenance comms: Iridium, Inmarsat or something else. However, if Iridium is involved, then the satellites locate the terminal (modem) to within about 10km E-W and 1km N-S. The asymmetry has to do with orbits or antenna patterns or something. Iridium was once able to tell us to about this accuracy where to find one of our assets, and, sure enough, it was within or near to those parameters.
I understand the "satelite ping" thing as the iridium/inmarsat equipment of MH370 logging in to the iridum/inmarsat network. So it seems the backlogs of the network have been evaluated. I don't know how precise the position of the iridium/inmarsat transceiver can be infered from those logs.
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FAA AD
Forgive me if someone's already covered this, my search revealed nothing.
The FAA have issued an airworthiness directive for 777s regarding fatigue cracks around the SATCOM atenna adaptor which could lead to "rapid decompression and loss of structural integrity"
Effective April 2014
The FAA have issued an airworthiness directive for 777s regarding fatigue cracks around the SATCOM atenna adaptor which could lead to "rapid decompression and loss of structural integrity"
Effective April 2014
