Malaysian Airlines MH370 contact lost

[pthagonal]

Marine traffic's track for Elka Athina does at least tally with the location for this- note the track ends yesterday unless you have a paid sub:

https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais...bf40a08225fef2

[xyze]

See ELKA ATHINA Current position (IMO 9249116) - Vessel Finder

[GvonSprout]

Re Daily Mirror "expert" claiming the plane was hacked..

Rent-her-as-an-expert-on-any-disaster...
She's your expert..
From hailstorms to the Chilean miners.

Disaster doctor on call in London | Toowoomba Chronicle

Not sure her doctorate in economics is really something that qualifies her to comment on how this plane was taken over.

Still, the Mirror has engaged her. Hopefully on an exclusive basis so that she stays away from any sensible outlet.

[aviator1970]

Tracking an aircaft

The older days (pre 406.25 MHz) the position of downed aircraft was with the the Doppler shift of 243MHz signal,,, if my memory serves me right... It was done by INMARSAT satellites in conjunction with Local user terminals... if a stationary crashed aircraft position can be located than why not a slow flying one?

[joy ride]

So we can easily find the position of the ship which might possibly find the plane which we cannot find?

[gci2]

cvr

"CVR would record the last two or three odd hours... the initial part is overwritten... earlier they'd use a continuous tape, nowadays they use solid state devices...In the present context the CVR wouldn't have anything from the early part of the sortie..."
Strange limitation to have persisted despite the advent of solid state technology and secure data transmission possibilities.

[VinRouge]

Snowfalcon,

The geostationary point in the Sputnik case was the observation point on the ground. In this case, it's whatever observation birds picked up the transmissions, be they sat datalink or otherwise (radalt, weather radar etc)

Go into the login pages of your aero-I or aero-h system and most have Doppler listed.

Doppler analysis (analysis of the signal frequency and it's shift) doesn't need a continuous login, it needs the same ping to be sampled by 2 separate satellites, whether they are national assets or part of the satcom network, matters not a jot.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit_(satellite)

[harrogate]

The confusing thing about the Greek tanker development is that there are clearly other vessels that are closer to the quoted coordinates when looking at up-to-the-minute vessel tracking data.

I imagine this is just one of numerous potential sightings that vessels in the area have been tasked to look at, except someone on this ship, or someone a crew member has spoken to, is a bit more social media savvy or connected to the outside world than your average salty sea dog, and so this particular tasking has landed on some journo's radar.

[brika]

Turnback point Engine issue

Originally Posted by dicks-airbus

riginally Posted by dicks-airbus View Post
Why bother going to FL450 and then back to FL295 and making a lot of unexplainable turns?

Too many whys
The lobe patterns for some primary radars may limit their high altitude coverage.

The routing may have been designed to skirt the presumed edge of some search radars.

The reduction of height to 295 may also have been planned to get below long range cover of the ground radars.

A Question for Engineers and T7 pilots

Given that

1 Malaysian police said there were witnesses on the coastal area near the turnback path of MH370 who saw a/c lights and heard a loud bang

2 an oil rig worker (on the oil rig Songa Mercur, off south east Vietnam) ( about 360nm from turnback point saw a “burning in the sky in the direction of the plane for 10 to 15 seconds,

3 Compressor stalls can be transient and intermittent or steady state and severe. Indications of a transient/intermittent stall are usually an intermittent “bang” as backfire and flow reversal take place. If the stall develops and becomes steady, strong vibration and a loud roar may develop from the continuous flow reversal. Quite often the cockpit gauges will not show a mild or transient stall, but will indicate a developed stall. Typical instrument indications include fluctuations in r.p.m., and an increase in exhaust gas temperature. Most transient stalls are not harmful to the engine and often correct themselves after one or two pulsations.
Turbine engine thrust varies directly with air density. As air density decreases, so does thrust. While both turbine and reciprocating powered engines are affected to some degree by high relative humidity, turbine engines will experience a negligible loss of thrust. (US Private pilot ground school source)

Can the "sound and light show” at turnback point be explained by the above?
Can pilot perform such deliberate aerobatics in the lower reaches of the stratosphere for whatever purpose and recover?(Radar signals recorded by the Malaysian military appeared to show that the missing airliner climbed to 45,000 feet (NYT).

[Nicolaus Silver]

If

If this was a hijack then the perpetrators had a purpose and the cargo may have been mineral, military, narcotic or expertise.

They would have been very smart and using a decoy we were meant to believe that MH 307 went west to give MH 307 time to complete its journey probably to a military or a private strip.

If we follow hi jack scenario we need to know what was really on board. Cargo may have been anything with folk just accepting what the paperwork stated. All cargo should therefor be back tracked and verified. Might be a good exercise as we may find other items of interest to authorities.

Pax may now get nervous and want to know who and what cargo they are travelling with in future. "Yes madam, travelling with us today are 8 mafia guys, a ton of uranium and a passenger with the recipe for Coca Cola".

Guess search be called off and one day.....

[oviano]

Meekmok

How would that explain the investigators apparently focusing on the arcs to the north and South though?

Perhaps they must have more information, maybe the interim ping 'locations'? Or something else?

Whatever, it seems to me that the Malaysian government, whether prompted/using info by/from the US is quite confident in their belief this was a deliberate act, that certainly seems to be what is being widely reported. Did they not even use the words 'deliberately disabled' in the case of ACARS - or is that simply impossible to determine?

I find it interesting that many in this forum still prefer to put forward other more 'natural'/accidental explanations, despite this 'official' word. Perhaps the official sources are pulling wool over people's' eyes for whatever reasons?

Disclaimer - my only connection to the aviation industry is....as a passenger! I've found this discussion fascinating, I feel I've learned a lot. As with no doubt many lurkers/observers (7m views!) my interest stems from the deep rooted worry many of us have about flying and the need to know what happened to this plane. I'm grateful to all those pros who have posted here.

I hope I don't offend anyone by posting here (I've seen mixed opinions as to whether the likes of me are welcome?), but I noticed the other thread seems to have now disappeared.

[BWV 988]

@pjm#4523

The drawing appears to underestimate how far MH370 could have traveled before its last ping (00:11 UTC). As pointed out by ETOPS, SIA68 was around the point of MH370's last mil radar contact at the same time (18:15 UTC) and made it to the Mashhad/Asgabat area in less than 6 hours.

[Ian W]

Originally Posted by acad_l

The prime minister of Malaysia merely said that the known facts were "consistent with" foul play.

He said the ACARS were disconnected. Basically they failed to send further data. How can one distinguish between intentional vs. result of some failure?

ACARS has a log-on and a log-off protocol. If the log-off protocol was followed it would not raise any suspicions on the ground at the time. However, following the log-off protocol would also show that the system was closed down normally not as a result of some [explosion|fire|MEC access|wild elephant in the hold == choose one]. The wording in the briefings has been quite precise that the ACARS was turned off. The ACARS was also turned off at 1:07 before the aircraft's last transmission to Sebang which by all accounts was laid back and over casual - not I suspect what would be the case if a fire had been raging for 15 minutes or if there had been an explosive decompression. This is why the authorities are saying this must have been 'an inside job'.

The possibility of a rogue pilot is one that ought to have the professional members of this forum extremely concerned. The potential consequential ramifications are significant.

[hornetgr]

Guys , the sublieutenant of the ship stated in a phone call from the greek media , that them among other ships had informed to be careful at their route for possible suspect things floating . They do not instructed to change course, i thing it a media overact.

[onetrack]

"Elka Athina" is on a trip from Singapore to Port Said and is nearing the top of North Sumatra (Aceh Province).
The co-ordinates provided by the Indos to the "Elka Athina" are in the Southern Andaman Sea, in waters off the tip of Aceh Province.

[mseyfang]

...ACARS had been disabled BEFORE the final voice transmission...

In the legal terms, this is known as introducing facts not in evidence; the issue being the word "disabled". There is no factual evidence whatsoever to establish that ACARS was disabled. It remains speculation without a factual basis. It may be the most probable explanation, but without facts to back up the assertion, it is still simply a theory.

The simple and unfortunate truth is that we have very few facts with which to work and most of what is being discussed here is theory and speculation, no matter how informed it may be. There's nothing wrong with theorizing about this -- it is a fascinating and compelling mystery.

Nevertheless, I think it is important to differentiate between what is established fact and what is theory. Unless and until the aircraft is recovered, there is little to work with here. Even the "facts" here remain somewhat confused and incomplete.

One last point: I think the flight crew is entitled to the benefit of the doubt and the presumption of innocence absent facts to the contrary. Pilots have been scapegoated in the past (Google TWA flight 260 as a case in point) and the last thing the profession needs is an unwarranted public concern, stirred up by the media, that professional pilots can't be trusted. There are a lot of eyes on this thread and that should give us all pause in theorizing that the flight crew was involved.

[snowfalcon2]

VinRouge

I stand corrected on this Doppler thing . Perhaps some RF experts are even working on it.

[Wantion]

I think they should try re-enacting the flight ..(not on a sim ..which they have said they have already done)..but on a 'real' 777...and see if they can recreate the sequence of events and correlate the results.

[mixture]

but on a 'real' 777...and see if they can recreate the sequence of events and correlate the results.

And who exactly do you suppose is going to fund this little jolly ?

They're already running up a hell of a SAR bill as it is !

[Shutterbug]

Regarding "investigations" on the ground, I would lend zero credence to any findings. What do we know with certainty? This a/c went missing 6 full days ago; Malaysian authorities launched serious investigations into the crew yesterday. That's five FULL days where serious investigation has simply not been done. Unforgivable.

The decision-making processes and investigative acumen of the Malaysian authorities inspires contempt.