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Malaysian Airlines MH370 contact lost

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Malaysian Airlines MH370 contact lost

Old 8th Mar 2015, 13:58
  #11681 (permalink)  
 
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Originally Posted by ETOPS
I've just read all the ATC transcripts in the report.

The lack of action and confusion as the events unfolded would be comical if not so serious. All concerned appeared as "rabbits in the headlights" and thus laid down protocols went out of the window.

Why did the Vietnamese wait over 15 minutes before querying the Malaysians as to the location of MH370?

Why did ATC not declare an "uncertainty phase" as per their own laid down procedures?

Why was "aircraft overdue" not declared 30 minutes after the IGARI estimate?

When MAS ops failed to get a response to their ACARS messages what did they hear when they called the aircraft via Satfone? Was it ringing, busy or unavailable?

When they called again a few hours later what did they hear? And, by then, were the SAR team aware MAS ops were able to try to call the aircraft.

More questions than answers I'm afraid...
Yes why not blame the controllers for not responding immediately to a routine event as if it was an emergency.

All controllers have had aircraft handed to them that do not call. It is not a startling event, in some instances such as crossing from oceanic to en-route airspace it is relatively normal to get a delay. SSR responses drop out and return to the extent that many ATC computer systems 'coast' a pseudo response to show the controller where the aircraft should be if it continued on its previous vector (some even turn that coasting response at waypoints).

So it is 1am on a quiet weekend night and an aircraft handed off drops off your radar. Not your problem - you handed it off. The receiving controller gives it a bit then buzzes you and says hey MH370 has not called me, is he still with you? You call, (it's not your problem really) and no answer. No he's not with me. END. The aircraft was handed off and not in my airspace. Yes the controller could have alerted people but they would have said where is it - it's in Vietnamese airspace and they know about it - why are you telling me then?

All these hindsight ideas of how controllers _could_ have responded are just that. About as useful as comments on how pilots _could_ have responded.

I hope that what this incident leads to is a far more rigid approach to aircraft dropping out of surveillance contact. The only way that things would have been different is a full scale emergency response when surveillance is lost. But remember that this is such a routine occurrence that coasting is built into ATC system software, so it will need to be very carefully done. I suspect that ADS-C SATCOM and VDL2 (VHF Data Link) will be mandatory for commercial aircraft within 5 years with continual ADS-C SATCOM at a 4 minute update rate (that supports RNP-10). Then when ADS-C SATCOM from an airborne aircraft stops reporting a full scale emergency will be declared.

However, in MH370's case would that have helped? Only if the military primary radars had immediately started tracking the aircraft. But what then? They see the aircraft out into the Indian ocean going West. No-one has interceptors on alert that would be able to fly into the Indian Ocean. Then outside primary radar cover MH370 turns South. And from then on we are where we are now - but without the search of the South China Sea.
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Old 8th Mar 2015, 14:43
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Now that a factual report has been released, we can at least focus on it.
I find the following timing sequence of particular interest.

UTC

1701:43 a/c at 34998ft
1706:43 a/c at 35004ft
1707:56 with over 12 minutes to run to IGARI, crew report level at 350 without previous ATC instruction to report reaching or when level.
1708:02 ATC response instructing to maintain level.
1719:26 8.26nm to IGARI ATC release a/c
1719:30 a/c acknowledges
1720:31 a/c at IGARI
1720:36 MODE S off
1721:13 a/c drops off primary radar, turns left and then right before commencing descent and increasing speed.

It is inconceivable that between 1720:30 and 1721:13, in 73 seconds, a failure of all electronic/electrical systems may have ocurred so as to render all communication systems and life support systems inoperative and yet allow the aircraft to execute two turns before descending and continuing to follow a diversionary routing, towards an area outside all radar coverage.
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Old 8th Mar 2015, 14:48
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Ian W

Having spent a lot of the last 12 years going back and forth over IGARI (4 years B772 and 8 years B744) I'm well aware of the ATC set up and their capabilities. I am very surprised that no "overdue" action was taken..
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Old 8th Mar 2015, 14:57
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Chronus,

Quite obvious really, the autopilot is also knocked off so the a/c is randomly roaming the skies after the single mechanical failure event.
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Old 8th Mar 2015, 15:12
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@ Chronus: "It is inconceivable that between 1720:30 and 1721:13, in 73 seconds, a failure of all electronic/electrical systems may have ocurred so as to render all communication systems and life support systems inoperative and ....."

Some kind of outstandingly & extraordinarily different fault has to rise which could be 1 in 1000 - some thing that aviation industry encountered first time !

Or else, some one "forced" that fault ............. either in MAS ..... or in cockpit ...... or perhaps under the cockpit.
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Old 8th Mar 2015, 15:29
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Goodness knows, there are so many questions that have been asked, discussed, and discarded. One that has consistently been on the forefront of my mind is why, that after one year, not one piece of the airplane or the contents therein have been seen or recovered. Yes, the oceans of the world are big, but sooner or later, they return things to land, somewhere.
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Old 8th Mar 2015, 15:36
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Ian W
It is extremely unlikely that the person(s) flying MH370 were aware of the SATCOM tracking that could be done, therefore it is also extremely unlikely that they were spoofing the tracking.
If we assume that the disappearance was deliberate by person unknown, then after 1 year of not finding one single scrap from the aircraft, one can also assume that whoever did so was aware. He would have gone through every possible scenario of a search operation. So far he has succeeded.
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Old 8th Mar 2015, 16:26
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Originally Posted by DespairingTraveller
Similarly I see a reference to the IFE not logging on to the SATCOM system late in the flight whereas it had previously, but not that this was the result of deliberate action.

Am I missing something in the 500+ pages? Is there something buried in the logs that I don't understand?
I don't believe there's any way to tell for sure why the IFE didn't connect to the ground after the final SATCOM logon to the satellite. It could be the aircraft was out of fuel and the IFE had no power. It could have failed. It could have been turned off. The aircraft could have hit the sea before the IFE noticed the SATCOM connection was up and set up its connection to the ground. All that's known is that it didn't connect to the ground after the final logon, and didn't explicitly disconnect from the ground before that.
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Old 8th Mar 2015, 16:40
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MH370 report: Underwater locator beacon battery had expired

Locator beacon battery had expired over a year before departure.
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Old 8th Mar 2015, 17:00
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etops. luckily ian w speaks only for himself. I can assure you and others that here is one controller who would have been highly interested in an aircraft that dropped off my radar seconds after I had spoken to it regardless of "not my airspace/problem etc". wait four hours to initiate a search? unbelievable. icao will have much to say about this incompetence alone.
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Old 8th Mar 2015, 17:03
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For me, the single most remarkable fact about the event is that communications were 'lost' at EXACTLY the most 'convenient' time to facilitate a 'disappearance'.

As Ian W has eloquently explained - when Malaysian ATC handed the flight off that was probably the end of their interest in it.

Before Vietnam was contacted by the aircraft they would have no urgent reason to suspect anything was amiss.

So, for only that initial 10 - 15 minute time period there was the perfect 'window of opportunity' for something to happen.
And it happened.
Right then.
How convenient! What a coincidence!

In fact, the time window was shorter in reality, because the NORMAL practice is an immediate transfer. So whatever happened had to happen within seconds of the handoff by Malaysia.
How INCREDIBLY more coincidental!

Well, yes, there may well have been a purely coincidental MECHANICAL failure/event at just that instant. Its possible.
But common sense and experience would tend to suggest that's so far fetched it is really beyond the realms of possibility.

Whats much more likely is that SOMEONE took an initiative at that ideal moment to carry out whatever plan of interference they had already prepared.

Does anyone still seriously cling to the 'mechanical failure' scenario, rather than the 'unlawful interference' one?
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Old 8th Mar 2015, 17:44
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At 1707:56 when the crew made their unsolicited report of their cruise level, the aircraft had 60nm to run to IGARI. See ACARS position report for speed at 34998 given as 278kts. I find this rather curious. This kind of call is made more commonly when the frequency has gone silent for a while and the crew politely remind the controller of the approach to their next reporting sector. In this instance, the report clearly shows that atc were in communication with other aircraft on the frequency. Perhaps they were expecting an earlier release to the next sector. The question is why the rush.
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Old 8th Mar 2015, 17:46
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Algol I quite agree....therefore with that 'unlawful interference' theory it would have to be months in the planning, because the events after position IGARI what ever that maybe would unlikely be spontaneous. A plan was excecuted or attempted to be executed for what ever agenda. Also that would start pointing fingers within the flight deck, as when the aircraft reaches position IGARI, it could only be known from within the FMC/ND legs page and radio handover...no one down the back could determine when this position was reached i.e. The so called window of opportunity. Therefore clues could be found by further in depth investigation to the backgrounds of the Cpt and F/o.....something may have been missed that aids the investigation/search.
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Old 8th Mar 2015, 17:55
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Yes Fly26 - I totally agree. In fact it was my next step in teasing this out.
Only the Flight Crew (or anyone else on the FD at that time) could have known that NOW was the moment to act.

The apparent lack of stress in the crews voice(s) - if we are to believe the statements from the authorities who have reviewed the tapes - would seem to indicate there was nothing 'untoward' going on right up to the point of handover.
Or else the crew member making the transmission was remarkably composed under duress?
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Old 8th Mar 2015, 18:21
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No I dont think it's possible to sound that composed under duress, from what I remember the hand over and transcript sounded completely normal, as we do day in day out. if we look at the minute by minute time frame leading up to the 'event' the normal hand over is quite eery. It could imply that crew member had no clue about what was to happen next or was in on the plan. I have not reviewed in depths the flight path and altitudes of the aircraft after position IGARI, could it show some form of a struggle in the flight deck? Of course everything after IGARI is guess work, which is why more should be done to investigate the pilots, that's information that can be obtained, even if you need to go through it 100 times, it might uncover something to help. I think your theory Algol is that right direction.
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Old 8th Mar 2015, 18:36
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Now that a factual report has been released, we can at least focus on it.
I find the following timing sequence of particular interest.

UTC

1701:43 a/c at 34998ft
1706:43 a/c at 35004ft
1707:56 with over 12 minutes to run to IGARI, crew report level at 350 without previous ATC instruction to report reaching or when level.
1708:02 ATC response instructing to maintain level.
Report at 17:07:56 : Could this have been a deliberate action by whoever was going to change the plane's flightpath to confirm to ATC that all was well, immediately prior to the ensuing diversion ?
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Old 8th Mar 2015, 18:49
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Report at 17:07:56 : Could this have been a deliberate action by whoever was going to change the plane's flightpath to confirm to ATC that all was well, immediately prior to the ensuing diversion ?

Yeh it's possible....it certainly keeps things to appear normal before a sudden change.
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Old 8th Mar 2015, 19:09
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It seems obvious that the initiative was taken by someone on the FD. Someone who was meant to be there, hence no panic in the voices.

It kinda narrows things down a lot, doesn't it.

It also potentially eliminates a lot of the conspiracy theories.
Unless you believe the FD were in cahoots with other actors on board.
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Old 8th Mar 2015, 19:25
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KL ATC graveyard shift staffing "arrangements"

From page 94 of the Factual Report - 16 controllers were on the floor until midnight, after which half were sent off for a 3 hour sleep (or smoke or feed or whatever). Significantly for the region of interest (sectors 3 & 5), 2 controllers suddenly were tasked with controlling an area that 6 staff covered up until midnight. And the controller who took the last radio exchange with MH370 was off on break when more and more questions were asked higher up and from other centers. It surprises me that the numerous other AC in those sectors that night made it safely home. Reading between the lines the stress level eventually became palpable.
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Old 8th Mar 2015, 19:28
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Yes it does..so if we take it further it begs the question what would be the plan after position IGARI? There's obviously a hundred possibilities, but in theory you would want people to know about it after the event, a statement made from your action...which leads to me to suspect it wasn't seen through and the final position of the aircraft is almost random depending upon the last inputs to the flight controls/MCP.
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