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Malaysian Airlines MH370 contact lost

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Malaysian Airlines MH370 contact lost

Old 10th Mar 2015, 00:36
  #11721 (permalink)  
 
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It's a long shot, but it does focus attention to this area of the coastline, which could possibly lead to a more concrete find, such as a readily-identifiable MH370 component.
According to the article, the towelette was discovered over seven months ago in July. I wouldn't hold my breath on this one.
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Old 10th Mar 2015, 03:55
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and they decide to hand it in 8 months later? they really dont know about the massive search going on down there? ermm...
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Old 10th Mar 2015, 04:37
  #11723 (permalink)  
 
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As with many innocent finds, the finders possibly dismissed the towelette as of no importance for 7 months - then they were urged by others to hand it in, on the basis it may have come from MH370.
It's certainly a very tenuous link, and the towelete may have origins totally unrelated to MH370.

It is possible the towelette was kept unopened from a flight by a passenger, and carried to the area and then dropped, unopened, by that same passenger.
That would all hinge on how many people who have been on a Malaysia flight, and who have a habit of keeping airline towelettes, travel that section of coastline. I'd expect that chance would be extremely low.
Coming from a frugal upbringing, I have a tendency to keep items such as towelettes from flights, but I doubt if very many airline travellers do.
The chances of the towelette floating down from around Malaysia are extremely low. The general current drift is towards the W.A. coastline from the Southern Indian Ocean.

I do not know what the likelihood is of even being able to verify if it came from MH370. It would seem to me to be very difficult to ID it as such.
However, there is a real chance now, that people will step up their beachcombing for MH370 aircraft wreckage along the coastline in the region, so hopefully this may lead to a verifiable find.

Last edited by onetrack; 10th Mar 2015 at 04:48.
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Old 10th Mar 2015, 05:09
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I find it hard to believe (of course... Some news no matter how small can be good news for closure etc...) that of all things on board an aircraft. A Small paper towelette in a wrapper be the first/only piece of MH370 to surface.

There are far more buoyant things on board than a paper towelette. Such as life vests/rafts and seat cushions.
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Old 10th Mar 2015, 08:07
  #11725 (permalink)  
 
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Flotsam

However, that is only a drift of 700 metres per hour (0.4 Kt) from the search area, well within the scope of tide and wind! No evidence is ever wasted, even negative evidence.
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Old 10th Mar 2015, 16:51
  #11726 (permalink)  
 
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This suggested that, for MH370, it was possible that after a long period of flight under autopilot control, fuel exhaustion would occur
followed by a loss of control without any control inputs
.
Note: (...) Also allowing for the fact that a maximum glide distance of 100+ NM would result in an impractically large search area, the search team considered that it was reasonable to assume that there were no control inputs following the flame-out of the second engine. Accordingly the aircraft would descend and, as there would be some asymmetry due to uneven engine thrust/drag or external forces e.g. wind, the descent would develop into a spiral. As the BEA found in their study, in the case of an upset followed by a loss of control, all the impact points occurred within 20 NM from the point at which the emergency began and, in the majority of cases, within 10 NM.
And if there were a hand on the controls all the way down? 777 glide ratio would expand that entry point by quite a bit more than 20 nm.
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Old 10th Mar 2015, 18:19
  #11727 (permalink)  
 
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Sometime last year, there was a claim that the frequency offset in the final satellite logon was consistent with a rapid descent. I don't know whether that's still considered true after the more detailed analysis of that data.

But, yes, if someone was flying at that point, the wreckage could be a long way from the final arc. On the other hand, if they tried to extend the flight as far as possible, you could probably estimate the position by just extending the possible tracks between the last three arcs... still a big chunk of ocean, but not a million square kilometres.
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Old 10th Mar 2015, 21:14
  #11728 (permalink)  
 
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Problem with Math or units?

http://mh370.mot.gov.my/download/FactualInformation.pdf

On page 63 of the Factual Information Report the loadsheet is published with TOW 223469 (Kg?) and TOF 49100 (Ltr or KG?)

On page 64 we have 5 ACARS reports containing the following numbers:
time/ altitude / GW / TotFW /
1641:34 / 10300 / 492520 Kg / 49200 kg
1651:43 / 21193 / 486240 kg / 46500 kg
1706:43 / 35000 / 480600 kg / 43800 kg

The original printout is on page 65.

If my math is still worth a bit, than the GW over the period of time reduced from 1641:43 to 1706:43 by 11920 kg, while the TOTFW reduced only by 5400 kg?

If the fuel is in the same units on the loadsheet as on the ACARS report, than they had more fuel at 10.000 feet than on takeoff.

Could it be, that despite the name factual report they do not have their facts together and the GW in the ACARS report is in lbs and the fuel in Liters?
The GW in the ACARS report is more than double of the TOW, and more than max allowed TOW, maybe the loadsheet GW is in KG ?

Unsure.......
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Old 10th Mar 2015, 21:27
  #11729 (permalink)  
 
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rtd f4. dont know where exactly the mil radar mentioned is located but the turn south would have taken the aircraft down the E94 deg 25" longitude which passes within 45nm of banda aceh at the tip. indonesia has many mil radars so draw your own conclusions.... for the mil radar mentioned to have seen as far as igari would give it a range of around 350nm from java.
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Old 10th Mar 2015, 21:55
  #11730 (permalink)  
 
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On the way to IGARI MH 370 was still squawking, the indonesian contact was probably a secondary radar contact. Then MH370 went dark and I doubt that Indonesia has a primary radar looking that far.

But they sure would see an aircraft on primary radar passing within 40 NM of their landmass over open sea. To assume they saw that aircraft, did not act and are now hiding the fact that they saw it is imho less probable than the assumed turn to south happening later, at another altitude, or not at all. That is my take.
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Old 10th Mar 2015, 23:33
  #11731 (permalink)  
 
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Well done Retired F4

If my math is still worth a bit, than the GW over the period of time reduced from 1641:43 to 1706:43 by 11920 kg, while the TOTFW reduced only by 5400 kg?
The 777-200er (with TRENT 892) MTOW is 299,000 kg (660,000 lb), and it seems quite impossible that an ACARS message sent a GW = 492520 kg

"The Captain ordered 49,100 kg of fuel for the flight" (page 18).

So, GW is given in lb and FW in kg
and 11920 lb = 5400 kg

Last edited by NeoFit; 10th Mar 2015 at 23:36. Reason: typo
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Old 10th Mar 2015, 23:40
  #11732 (permalink)  
 
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RetiredF4;

Refer page 30 of the report; total departure fuel was 49,700kg but recorded on the load as 49,100kg.

The GWTs in table 1.9A "ACARS Position Report" are incorrectly recorded as kgs, this should be lbs.
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Old 11th Mar 2015, 04:26
  #11733 (permalink)  
 
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RetiredF4 wrote:
On the way to IGARI MH 370 was still squawking, the indonesian contact was probably a secondary radar contact. Then MH370 went dark and I doubt that Indonesia has a primary radar looking that far.

But they sure would see an aircraft on primary radar passing within 40 NM of their landmass over open sea. To assume they saw that aircraft, did not act and are now hiding the fact that they saw it is imho less probable than the assumed turn to south happening later, at another altitude, or not at all. That is my take.
If we look at the time DETRESFA (the only phase initiated) was disseminated - over 5 hrs after radio and radar contact was lost - it can easily be explained why adjacent radar units did not pay attention to a lonely and interrupted primary echo creeping along the perimeter of their scopes. If KL ATC had sent out INCERFA and ALERFA at the prescribed times every radar operator in the area would have been on the lookout for unidentified targets.
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Old 11th Mar 2015, 04:31
  #11734 (permalink)  
 
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And if there were a hand on the controls all the way down? 777 glide ratio would expand that entry point by quite a bit more than 20 nm.

According to the table on page 36 of the ATSB report an unpowered glide from FL290 would achieve a max range of 90NM. The search width would therefore be +\- 95NM or 190NM.

It's worse for FL350 reaching to 120NM glide and search width of 250NM.

Therefore it's better to assume no pilot inputs....the search won't take as long!
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Old 11th Mar 2015, 05:06
  #11735 (permalink)  
 
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Best bet might be 2 concentric annuli
1. Current search area i.e. based on the 7th arc. This is the "AP, fuel starvation, spiral scenario."
2. Based on maximal glide (from cruise) distance beyond the 7th arc. This is the "piloted flight, get as far as possible, controlled glide and ditch scenario." Most likely FL350-400 if trying to get as far and fast as possible. If trying to disappear, it would seem illogical to reverse course during glide.

This strategy may be more productive than searching all points between, for which seem to be arbitrary in that there is no scenario pointing to these areas. And I get a sense we aren't going to increase the search area by orders of magnitude. Any further search will need to be relatively focussed.

This of course assumes the BTO rings are accurate. Some have speculated less accurate at low temperatures. However a piloted flight for approx 7 hours wearing normal clothes would require environmental control.
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Old 11th Mar 2015, 14:13
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rtdf4. the aircraft was within radar range of possibly half of java during its transit past the island. I believe the assumption is that it turned south at or around anoko ( fir bdy) and continued down longitude E94 degrees 25 minutes. he would have passed 60 nm abeam of banda aceh, 110 nm from the coast at latitude N4 deg, 243nm from the coast at lat N2 deg, 312nm from the coast at equator and 585nm from coast at S6 deg when clearing southern end of java.

he would have crossed 15 air routes while passing java and another 5 further south. they led to and from malaysia indonesia and australia. if someone was still in control they would presumably have switched off all visible lighting so chances of being seen not high.

I think australian atsb would have been very keen to have some radar contact to back up the inmarsat info before embarking on their immense search. guesswork of course but it must be possible that indonesia discovered the aircraft had passed them when they played the tapes back much later. they would tell australia in confidence who now have the corroborative evidence they needed and press ahead.
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Old 15th Sep 2016, 21:35
  #11737 (permalink)  
 
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ATSB positively identifies part from MH370

Australian investigators report that the part found in Tanzania is from MH370.
Investigation: AE-2014-054 - Assistance to Malaysian Ministry of Transport in support of missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 on 7 March 2014 UTC
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Old 16th Sep 2016, 05:33
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If I'm reading ATSB release correctly, this piece is from the starboard wing (in lay terms).

And IIRC all other pieces found to date, that could be linked to a particular side of the plane, also were from starboard side.

Excludes Rolls Royce logo - they couldn't identify which engine it came from -- and a piece of cabin interior.
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Old 16th Sep 2016, 07:37
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Searching in the right area.

In general the pundits interviewed by Australian media are saying that it proves beyond doubt that the search is taking place in the right "area".
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Old 7th Oct 2016, 05:52
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piece of wing flap found on Mauritius in May is confirmed to be part of MH370

Wing part found on Mauritius confirmed to be part of MH370

Oct 7, 2016

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) -- A piece of an aircraft wing found on the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius has been identified as belonging to missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, Malaysian and Australian officials said Friday.

The piece of wing flap was found in May and subsequently analyzed by experts at the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, which is heading up the search for the plane in a remote stretch of ocean off Australia's west coast.

Investigators used a part number found on the debris to link it to the missing Boeing 777, the agency said in a statement.

Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai also confirmed the identification.
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