Malaysian Airlines MH370 contact lost

[chrisms86]

The scary thing to me is if the two-men theory is correct these investigators will have a hell of a time identifying the culprits. I'm just thinking of the possible evidence that would exist in a case like that and it could be very little. The main lead would be what some shady stolen passport dealer in Thailand? And CCTV footage.

Obviously whatever networks they would have been involved in are not well penetrated by intelligence agencies.

Malaysia does scan fingerprints on arrival but who is to say that procedure wasn't bypassed also.

I'm just thinking of the wider implications, it seems to still be fairly easy to blow up a plane. Allowing myself to engage in rampant speculation to address an issue larger than the incident itself

[Old Boeing Driver]

@henra

Thanks very much for your explanation.

In one of the early posts on this thread, the flightaware, or other source, showed a heading of 024 degrees. The next heading, in the same minute showed a heading of about 340 degrees (if I remember correctly). That was the last data transmission.

Some "reliable sources" had said that radar data shows the plane turning back.

I wonder if this could have been the start of a high speed problem from which there was no recovery.

Regards,

OBD

[scoobys]

"WTF is a simulator fan???"

Most of the unqualified posters on here

[Kentot Besar]

Submarines In SAR

Malaysia has " highly sophiscated " Scorpene submarines which have French made technology....why are these assets not used? AF447 was in deep ocean waters. I believe the depths of the Gulf of Siam is shallower but should be able to accommodate the Scorpenes; they would certainly be a crowning moment for the much ridiculed decision to buy the subs.

[JetBandit]

Nice to wake up this morning around 3.00 am and see that some or most of the fringe dwellers have yet to surface.

Talk of meteorites, aliens, mid air collisions, suicide, SR71 and craziness from our IT Expert, EGLD with his laughable CCTV suggestions have all but disappeared!

Just some late night dogs kicking the topic round in a fairly professional fashion.

I too am both amazed and a little disappointed to notice the severe culling of posts that are there one moment and then suddenly gone the next.

I had the decency, I thought, to tell the Mods what a "fairly" good job they were doing considering the pressure they have been under on the highest traffic topic for many a long year.

Let's hope today brings the mystery to a close! The pros in the business are mostly leaning towards terrorism whilst the rest of the pack live in a world of fantasy, understandable I guess in the circumstances of such a mystery.

[henra]

Originally Posted by CaptainDrCook

While completely true, this is handling skills and knowledge that must be demonstrated before being granted a PPL. The PIC on this flight had nearly 20,000 hours... he would know how to break out of a spin wouldn't he?

In VMC and proper daylight and in an intentional maneuver I would take that as a given .

Unprepared at night over Sea or ín IMC?
Not quite as easy. The Instruments will be apparently 'tumbling', g load will be straight vertical into the seat and without external reference even identifying the direction of rotation will not be that easy, especially when a significant rate and g load has already developped.
Vertigo included for free.
In AF447 they even didn't manage to identify a simple stall...
A spiral dive or spin w/o external reference is in a different league compared to that.

[AlphaZuluRomeo]

Hi Coagie,

The topic of my PM being raised here, let's pick it from here:

Originally Posted by Coagie

I poured over thousands of facts about AF447, over the last 5 years

So did I.

Originally Posted by Coagie

Maybe someone else remembers the French having to review the sonar tapes?

Yes, I remember the review of the sonar tapes. OTOH, I don't remember the part where the french submariners were so silly as to not know what they were looking for. The review itself is far from enough to arrive to such a conclusion.

[fastcruise]

Fastcruise

Is recovery from spin part of PPL training, a aerodynamic flutter would lead to mid air disintegration. I would say that a ADIRU malfunction could lead to mishandling of controls to a deep stall, which would cause an almost intact descent till impact.

[Acklington]

It's track was 25 deg. Just before it disappeared its track changed to 40 deg combined with a slight drop in airspeed

[cats_five]

Originally Posted by snowfalcon2

<snip>
Interesting rainbow pattern on the sea as well, might indicate oil but hard to tell.

Looks like digital noise from a high ISO to me.

Edit: I see MSJH agrees with me.

[slip and turn]

Originally Posted by YRP

Coagie, do you have a reference for the claim that the French submarine was not listening for the right signal from the AF447 black boxes?
I find it very hard to believe ...

Originally Posted by Coagie

Originally Posted by YRP

"I find it very hard to believe. People generally are not that stupid. Sonar operators (if that is how they were listening) would have in depth technical knowledge of their equipment."

YRP, They may have knowledge of their equipment, but not knowledge of what frequency to listen for from an aircrafts acoustic beacon. That's not something they do everyday.
And yes, people are generally that stupid. They just front like they know what's going on. It's a natural defense mechanism.
As far as a reference, look it up yourself. You'll remember it longer. Believe me, if you do your own research, you'll find how competent/incompetent people, governments, businesses, etc really are!

Coagie makes a good point. If you are seriously interested in effective research I recommend learning a few quick-win effective research techniques so you don't have to bash fellow PPRuNers for their sources! E.g. start with Google and a few well chosen search words like AF447 acoustic locator sonar frequency.

Then in seconds you might easily stumble over stuff like:
BEA to examine why acoustic sweep missed AF447 recorders - 5/5/2011 - Flight Global
https://fenix.tecnico.ulisboa.pt/dow...issertacao.pdf

Hope that helps

[MaxReheat]

If, and I repeat 'if', this was a mid-air explosion, would it not be 'normal' for the initiating organisation to have publicly claimed responsibilty by now?

[Dumbo Jet]

MH370 may have turned back

Malaysia’s air force chief, Rodzali Daud, said radar indicated that the plane may have turned back, but did not give further details on which direction it went or how far it veered off course. (Source: National Post)

Air force chief Rodzali Daud said the investigation was now focusing on a recording of radar signals that showed there was a "possibility" the aircraft had turned back from its flight path. (Source: bbc.co.uk)

Is it not possible that an inflight disintegration may cause what seems to be a significant course change on a set of radar signals, due to parts of the aircraft falling in different directions?

[STN Ramp Rat]

Off topic

What do the immigration people do with those that arrive on stolen passports? Can they return them? Where to? If the "refugees" don't cooperate, immigration will never know where they're from, thus can't ship them back.

I can confirm that if a passenger presents themselves at immigration having "forgotten" where they boarded the aircraft then the immigration can ,and do, look at the CCTV footage between the aircraft and gates to work out which aircraft they arrived on. once this has been done removal directions are issued and the passenger goes back to whence they came at the cost of the airline. it is not fool proof but it does work

[southern duel]

max reheat- dont you read anything. !!! Its been mentioned in a lot of posts already !

Lockerbie !!!

Oh by the way where is the debris field . Idf that happened at FL350 it would be spread far and wide.

[Sorry Dog]

Pinkman, the WSJ article links to the same photo of the 'window panel' that we have already seen, could be any piece of unrelated floating debris (eg. some large piece of Styrofoam packaging). Until it is retrieved and confirmed as an aircraft part, it's no new information.

Agreed. It actually looks to me more like the inside of a porta-pottie missing the lid. If you've ever had to search or retrieve anything from sea you will know that it's hard to identify something like that from 200 feet much less several thousand... it has to be physically retrieved. I don't mind seeing leaps in conclusions from arm chair posters, but to that from professional reporting outfits like WSJ is kinda bothersome.

[Global Warrior]

While completely true, this is handling skills and knowledge that must be demonstrated before being granted a PPL. The PIC on this flight had nearly 20,000 hours... he would know how to break out of a spin wouldn't he?

Well....we're not taught to recover from a spin...on instruments...at night!

I have NO KNOWLEDGE of the 777 FBW system but i assume, it won't let you get close to a stall, let alone a spin.

If an aircraft departs controlled flight, its probably the result of the secondary effect of a malfunction (recovering from a failure results in the departure) a primary effect malfunction (the malfunction itself causes the departure)...or a catastrophic failure that left no options for a recovery.

[treacletopping]

MH653 Circumstances unsolved!

My heart goes out to all the families of the passengers on flight MH370. As a daughter of one of the passengers killed on flight MH653 Yes we are still waiting for answers some 35 years later I don't expect in my lifetime to get one I just hope to god those poor families get some answers sooner rather than later.

[lakerman]

acklington I think you will find if you read all the posts the track was 025 and then it turned to 340.

maxreheat
Your comment re interested parties claiming responsibilty was made about 750 plus posts ago and repeated by many others who do not read previous posts.

[wiggy]

I have NO KNOWLEDGE of the 777 FBW system but i assume, it won't let you get close to a stall, let alone a spin.

I wouldn't say the 777 FBW in normal mode will prevent you from stalling, but it certainly drops a heck of a lot of hints on the way to the stall that you are doing something wrong.....

If the FBW has degraded into secondary/direct modes then those hints/protections are absent.