Malaysian Airlines MH370 contact lost

[joe_bloggs]

Transcript

Having read the radio transcript something is not right. All the conversations prior to contact with departure radar use MAS370 not Malaysian 370.

But after radar contact the transcript show Malaysian 370 being used by both ATC and the aircraft.

It doesn't appear to be an accurate transcript. Or am I missing something?

[MartinM]

SSN wouldn't help
Due to changes in temperature at different depths, it's unlikely that the sound of a beacon a few thousand meters deep would be detected by a submarine at a couple of hundred meters depth. The sound tends to radiate at about the same depth, which is good in that it doesn't decay as fast horizontally, but in this case would keep the sub from hearing it. Nice idea, but it just wouldn't work.

This is called the thermal layer. All you need to go is beyond the thermal layers that isolate. At some point, the temperature are no longer significant as the temperature will stay the same throughout the year.

e.g. here in Switzerland the lakes tend to be all year the same temperature at a depth of around 20m. The lake stays at 5°C. At the surface diving down it can change
In winter times you have from 3°C at the surface down to 20m and increase in temperature. In summer at the surface to 3m you get around 20°C decreasing as you go down. In summer you have drastic jumps.

The ocean follows the same principle.

[Pontius Navigator]

Originally Posted by MartinM

This is called the thermal layer. All you need to go is beyond the thermal layers that isolate. At some point, the temperature are no longer significant as the temperature will stay the same throughout the year.

There is more to the ocean than that. Unlike a lake it is hugely different and you are likely to get more than one layer. An ocean surface current often has a subsurface counter current and also deep to shallow currents too.

[Luc Lion]

Originally Posted by joe_bloggs

Having read the radio transcript something is not right. All the conversations prior to contact with departure radar use MAS370 not Malaysian 370.
But after radar contact the transcript show Malaysian 370 being used by both ATC and the aircraft.
It doesn't appear to be an accurate transcript. Or am I missing something?

Yes, you're missing something.
Obviously, delivery, ground and tower parts of the transcript have been written by another person than the approach and radar part.
When you read "MAS370", you should understand that it is pronounced "Malaysian-three-seven-zero".

[igs942]

Sat Data

I did post a question over the weekend about validating the sat data but it was culled.

Would it be possible to employ an aircraft with a greater range to fly the suspected route and compare the ping signature with what Inmarsat already have. Wouldn't that validate the suspected route and speed and therefore the search area?

Or are there too many variables for this to be accurate?

[SOPS]

Ok, please stop this....they did not read back the frequency nonsense.....it happens hundreds of times a day. Especially when you are handing off from a home ATC.

IT MEANS NOTHING.Stop hanging on to it.

[Capn Bloggs]

You guys need to chill out about the radio calls! Radio calls are messed up every day by virtually every pilot flying. A few hiccups/errors here and there mean absolutely nothing in the big scheme of things.

[Capn Bloggs]

Originally Posted by Glueball

Why would you need to freeze the occupants and "yourself"...? Is it not possible to raise the cabin altitude by manual control of outflow valves, without shutting off the packs?

Interesting concept. Cabin altitude of 40,000ft/-56°C OAT with the packs on full hot trying to keep it warm enough for the driver. I wonder if that would work?

[GlueBall]

Capn Bloggs . . .

Interesting concept. Cabin altitude of 40,000ft/-56°C OAT with the packs on full hot trying to keep it warm enough for the driver. I wonder if that would work?

You don't need to raise the cabin altitude to FL400 to asphyxiate occupants; 25,000 feet will do it gently.

[Smudger]

Apropo of nothing.... hypoxia / anoxia is a good way to go... having done several decompression runs in the RAF chambers I can say fron experience that it is not unpleasant... you don't gasp for breath as in the movies, you are breathing air, it just doesn't have enough oxygen in it to maintain conciousness... you just gently drift away.... (until the doctor in attendance puts your oxygen mask back on for you that is)... should I ever consider ending it all that is the way I would want to go for sure.... not that I am I hasten to add

[portmanteau]

I trust you mean thin as in not much to tell us. you can forget any suggestion that things will be left out deliberately. accident investigators dont work that way, read any report on any accident certainly by icao/aaib/ntsb and you will see how thorough they are.

[gayford]

Portmanteau, Your assumption is only correct if the controller is using both primary and secondary radars. However, on this occasion I suspect that the en-route control centres might have been operating utilising secondary radar only, a common mode of operation within regulated airspace, where authorised.

[G0ULI]

igs942
Even if the exact position was known where the engines ran out of fuel, the aircraft could still have glided for over 100 miles in any direction. So pi times the radius squared gives a search area of 3.14 times 10000 = 31,400 square miles as a minimum.

Because of the depth of water, a towed sonar array would be needed to pick up debris on the sea floor and the maximum speed would be in the region of 5 knots. Perhaps you could survey as much as 250 square miles a day with side scan sonar. It would still need 125 days just to totally cover this relatively small area. It could be many years before any wreckage is discovered on the sea bed.

[MarkJJ]

I think the point is with the last radio call, yes he didn't read back the freq, yes this happens a lot, but there's normally a reason for not reading it back, perhaps you were day dreaming, filling in a log book, A nav check, systems check, shoving food down your face, chatting. The list is endless. But, what was the reason that the PNF didn't read back the frequency? What was is that lead him not too, an innocent reason? The start of something that distracted his attention? As this was the last human interaction from the flight it deserves an analysis?

[old,not bold]

Once upon a time, Gulf Air lost a Skyvan in the Gulf, not very far from Das Island, following a double engine failure.

The pilot did a successful ditching, and was picked up, along with his only passenger, from the top of the aircraft by a helicopter which was in the area and heard his Mayday. The aircraft sank shortly afterwards. The helicopter pilot had obtained a very good fix on its location; plus/minus 100m, say?

We wanted to recover the aircraft to find out exactly what had happened, especially the fuel cross-feed settings. The seabed was flat, sandy and quite shallow; about 30m is my recollection, but I can't remember.

We hired an oil industry service vessel equipped by Decca and capable of finding almost anything made of metal on the seabed, down to a large wrench.

We paid for 10 days searching by that expensive piece of kit, and they found nothing. After that time the magnesium in the engines would be trickling on to the sand, so we gave up.

With that experience, I have to say that finding any part of MH370, let alone the FDR and CVR is unimaginably difficult by comparison with our search, with the position uncertainly, great depth and seabed topography. Any success will be the result of very, very intelligent guesswork, a lot of experience of the ocean, and a huge dose of luck.

[albatross]

Read back

Not /forgetting too read back a freq is certainly not uncommon especially if you, in anticipation, already have the freq set up in standby on the radio.
ATC clears you from his freq, gives new one - you glance at the radio to confirm it is as you entered it.
Say goodbye to ATC, forget to read back the freq.
Switch freqs on the radio.

Not reading back the freq is not going to cause any reaction on the part of ATC.

Certainly no: "My Gawd he didn't read back the freq! We had better scramble the fighters!"

If by analysis you mean endless posts of speculation, let's not do that.

[PA28Viking]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BkIAPZMCEAAogfL.png:large

Would you normally wait 4 minutes before checking in on the new frequency?

Change from Delivery to Ground: 32 sec delay
Change from Ground to Tower: 11 sec delay
Change form Tower to Approach: 1:27 minutes delay (from take off clearance)
Change from Approach to Radar: 3:59 minutes delay

Yes, you could have important things to do (aviate, navigate) but 4 minutes ...?

I guess what I'm saying is; Was there some problem developing at that time already?

[core_dump]

Would you normally wait 4 minutes before checking in on the new frequency?

The transcript does not include transmissions to/from other aircraft. The frequency could have been busy at the time.

[WeeJeem]

Originally Posted by PA28Viking:8413696

Yes, you could have important things to do (aviate, navigate) but 4 minutes ...?

I guess what I'm saying is; Was there some problem developing at that time already?

...like procrastinating on reaching a go/no go point before committing to an preplanned but irreversible course of actions? Is that what you're saying?

[PriFly]

Knowing human nature in all honesty probably not a good idea. Why? because you will have 'experts' and laypeople alike coming out of the woodwork trying to decipher every single word, every single annunciation, grammar, making 'guesses' as to what the 'garbled' part really means etc not to mention have 100000000 different people arguing who's voice was really speaking etc.

What I like the Malaysian authroities to do however is to release the transcript like they did HOWEVER to also add on that it is literally VERBATIM word for word transcribing so there are no controvercies at all as far as what the actual words spoken are concern.