Malaysian Airlines MH370 contact lost

[Trigbush]

Perhaps but I thought the helpful post on the Silkair incident was interesting:


Flight 185 remained level at FL350 until it started a rapid and nearly vertical dive around 16:12. While plunging through 12,000 feet (3,700 m), parts of the aircraft, including a great extent of the tail section, started to separate from the aircraft's fuselage due to high forces arising from the nearly supersonic dive.[3] Seconds later, the aircraft impacted the Musi River, near Palembang, Sumatra. The time it took the aircraft to dive from cruise altitude to the river was less than one minute. The plane was traveling faster than the speed of sound for a few seconds before impact.[3]
All 104 people on board, including the 41-year-old Singaporean captain, Tsu Way Ming (朱卫民)[11] and the 23-year-old co-pilot, New Zealander Duncan Ward, died in the crash.
The aircraft broke into pieces before impact, with the debris spread over several kilometres, though most of the wreckage was concentrated in a single 60-metre (200 ft) by 80-metre (260 ft) area at the river bottom.[7] There was not a single complete body, body part or limb found, as the entire aircraft and passengers disintegrated upon impact. Only six positive identifications were later obtained from the few recovered human remains...

[rigbyrigz]

RE: "Close to IGARI something went terribly wrong, probably leading to or including severe hypoxia for most souls on board. After things calmed down somebody felt it was not a good idea to go home with this mess on board. So he/she decided to hide the mess. Set a flightpath that doesn't touch land again and select south pole as final destination.

One tends to think this was carefully staged, but maybe it was just pure chaos, and in the end somebody decided that the rest of the world better shouldn't know."

...filling in the blanks...?
a)Captn that flies 10-12 hours a week has daydreamed often in his spare time, or on his FSim, ways to steal a plane, hide one, avoid radar, just general idle no harm intended fantasy. But details exist in mind!
b)Long day in court till 9PM, only to see his idolized opposition leader Ibrahim sent away when the acquital has been overturned by zealous current government
c)Damn, got to fly the red-eye, and with that damn kid who is son of one of those zealot leaders. Oh, and the wife is suing for alimony too. Great!
d)well off we go, wild blue yonder, but if the kid says another word about Ibrahim being a scumbag sodomist who gets what he deserved i am going to slap him!
e) slap slap, big mouth, oh he slaps back. well take that kid, ooops, what is he faking? knocked out? dead? OOPS.
f) chaos, what to do now. Antarctica? what about my plane stealing scene. Or just go to jail, spend eternity in sodomy solo.
g)etc.

I am not serious, of course, right?

[SASless]

So far along in this mystery....and it remains just that....a mystery!

I guess the CIA, NSA, DOD, are not so effective as we thought them to be.

Or.....do they know something they are not releasing?

[RifRaf3]

Break-up into water

An aircraft that buries itself into dirt or mud does not imply that it remains intact. It commences breaking up as it hits the water, but the horizontal separation of the parts has not proceeded significantly far in the approx single a/c length involved in this case and each part has sufficient kinetic energy to bury itself. I have watched an a/c bury itself into soft soil at around 600kts vertically and there was almost no above ground wreckage. The shallower the water the greater the chance of burial. It is not intact underground but a series of parts buried at a depth relating to penetrability. In my case the dummy missiles and engine were over 30 feet underground. If it enters water more than a few body lengths deep there will be lots of wreckage on the surface. It all depends on depth, angle and speed.

[ex_matelot]

Thank you very much. I did work as Track Monitor and Identification Officer. You would not be able to recognize a 'blip' on a screen unless it is already assigned as valid track. For this you need valid returns. I know my work, not sure about yours.

I am sure you could go on a bit. So could I!

Please do!

You didn't once operate under the callsign "Redcrown" perchance?

I risk beadwindow if I dit on anymore but airline pilots reading this...This is the equivilent of somebody saying to you "Having flown the route several times on MS flight simulator I speak with some degree of authority..."

Now when someone starts spouting bull about basic radar principles - I'm diving in to join the water polo.

[Golf-Mike-Mike]

"Roger That" / "All right, Good night"

Maybe a journalist at the next press conference could clarify these rather informal (and in the second case, nonstandard) radio transmissions:
- did they both happen, they have both been variously reported ?
- were they judged to have been said by the same pilot, ie the co-pilot ? (it's fairly normal practice for one pilot to fly the aircraft and the other to handle the radio, though it's not uncommon for both pilots to talk at times on the radio)
- however, at an international boundary it would be quite unusual, though not a sackable offence, for the pilots to get away with such a casual hand-off from Malaysian ATC without at least their callsign
- so perhaps they were just responding to something very trivial, or trying to send a coded message (under duress?) back to the airline / ATC, or a third party unfamiliar with correct radio terminology was making the calls ?

Given the informality, they should really have been asked by ATC for a "readback" of their instructions to "Contact Vietnam on frequency xxx.x" (or something like that) to be sure that MH370 was transferring to the correct ATC in the chain.

Readbacks are a standard requirement between ATC and pilots for key events such as radio frequency handovers and changes to altitude, heading, etc. It would be useful to know what Malaysian ATC said just before the two quoted pilot transmissions above to see what readbacks (if any) would have been expected. One readback ignored by MH370 may be OK on a quiet night, two becomes more suspicious.

[Lonewolf_50]

eliptic: as good a SWAG as any.

rigby: I note the "truth is stranger than fiction" approach.
Who knows? The FDR.

[Squawk_ident]

It is about 0120 at night when the MAS370 ceased transmitting its ADSB/transponder code.



At that time, there are three other aircraft in the vicinity although not that close. The two CES flights are the closer. I have estimated the CCA flight position because the ADSB signal was lost between 1715z and 1730z. I have drawn a line to the oil ring for reference. The CCA is in the same situation of the MAS370: About one hour into the flight and likely passengers are eating after the departure from SIN.
If we consider the distance and position (white blocks) between these aircraft, I believe that an in-flight explosion of the MAS370 would have been noticed by either crew members and/or passengers on board. I think that the Malaysian authorities will ask to these crew if they have noticed or not something.

We all hope that, for the manifestation of the truth, the aircraft will be located and the boxes recovered. Correct me if I'm wrong:
-The wreck is in the international waters, the country in charge of the inquiry is the state of registration of the aircraft.
-The wreck is on the ground or in the sea bed inside the jurisdiction of a country then this country is in charge of the inquiry.

Finally does Malaysia has an investigation bureau with the technical possibilities to open and exploit the data inside. The NTSB in one of its statement said that he was waiting to know what country would be in charge.

[RifRaf3]

The ping arcs only cover 4 to 5 hrs and a chang of direction thereafter is possible.

[fantom]

"Roger That" / "All right, Good night"

That was not sent by an operating pilot, in my opinion.

Who was on that FD?

[OleOle]

The ping arcs cover the place where MH370 was close before fuel starvation.

[RifRaf3]

The ping arcs only cover 4 to 5 hrs and the endurance was up to 7 hrs followed by a 20 min glide of over 100nm. Many here seem to believe that the arcs are routes whereas the route is a connection of successive intersection points merely indicated by the arcs.

[Swedishflyingkiwi]

An aircraft that buries itself into dirt or mud does not imply that it remains intact. It commences breaking up as it hits the water, but the horizontal separation of the parts has not proceeded significantly far in the approx single a/c length involved in this case and each part has sufficient kinetic energy to bury itself. I have watched an a/c bury itself into soft soil at around 600kts vertically and there was almost no above ground wreckage. The shallower the water the greater the chance of burial. It is not intact underground but a series of parts buried at a depth relating to penetrability. In my case the dummy missiles and engine were over 30 feet underground. If it enters water more than a few body lengths deep there will be lots of wreckage on the surface. It all depends on depth, angle and speed.

The KQ507 crash in Cameroun pretty much buried itself in mud and there was very little debris at ground level making discovery and recovery very difficult.
So, if the 777 went nose down into mud, we may not see much. I think I also remember in the KQ crash the recorders were 20-30 feet down too.

[Heli-phile]

arc pings

@OleOle
Er not quite correct.
Up to 59 minutes error, so +/- 480nm plus glide distance of up to 120nm to 150nm. So add possible error of 630nm radius to those arc's in any direction.

(based on 480kts speed, 20:1 glide ratio from FL390)

[Pontius Navigator]

Originally Posted by fantom

That was not sent by an operating pilot, in my opinion.

Who was on that FD?

The ITV news (UK) tonight stated that it was the FO that made the RT calls.

As I said before, we know that the FO did not follow proper procedures with respect to smoking and access to the cockpit so there is no reason to suppose that his RT procedures were any more correct.

The Airline clearly would not want to admit that the inflight culture was as lax throughout the company but the actions of that FO suggest otherwise. I would expect in due course an enquiry will hear from other aircrew about the culture in the cockpit.

[Hotel Tango]

fantom, when things are relatively quiet at night r/t discipline is often a little more relaxed. Having worked many years in ATC I can assure you that I have heard "Roger that" and other short non-standard phrases. I really don't think that there's anything particularly unusual in that exchange at that time of night and especially in that area of the world.

[ex_matelot]

I'm sure a read a thread in the CRM forums on here about cockpit culture in Malaysia or some other similar place a few years ago. A F/O posting some concerns. Pretty sure it was Korea though.

[No Hoper]

Reference who made the last RT.
In my understanding, it is normal procedure for the pilot not flying(PNF) to handle the radios.
The fact that the FO was transmitting may well be another red herring

[sardak]

D.S.
Your summary post #5484 states

A few other things we know(/might know) and notes
- ELT never activates

but your earlier summary post #5473 states

- there are no Black box or ELT transmissions found in the area

I'd stick with the original wording about the ELT. We don't know that the ELT never activated, but we do know that no one has reported (publicly) an ELT signal detected by satellite, from the air or ground in the area. I've worked enough ELT searches to safely say that an ELT can activate but not be detected except within a very short distance, measured in tens of yards or meters.

Mike

[MountainBear]

The ping arcs only cover 4 to 5 hrs and a chang of direction thereafter is possible.

NO


The last known ping was at 8:11 am the next morning, seven hours later. That ping means that aircraft MUST have been at least at that point. Given the fuel range, we can say for certain that it likely did not go much further than that unless it stopped an refueled along the way.

Up to 59 minutes error, so +/- 480nm plus glide distance of up to 120nm to 150nm. So add possible error of 630nm radius to those arc's in any direction.

NO. The ping happens in real time. The aircraft was on that arc somewhere at 8:11 AM. There is no margin of error.