Malaysian Airlines MH370 contact lost

[Staggerwing]

I presume that anywhere in the probable oceanic area where MH370 could have overflown, there would be several vessels form various navies carrying out patrols/exercises/operations. I also assume that most of these vessels would carry primary radar to detect incoming hostile aerial vehicles. Have there been any reports from any of these vessels that they had tracked MH370 at any stage?

[B738bbjsim]

Aircraft turned towards Malacca Straits

I too wondered about the search of the Malacca Straits for an aircraft believed headed elsewhere.

Then I came across this AIP from the Department of Civil Aviation Malaysia.

It details the available radars and the rules to be followed in communications failure; in short, if able, continue to destination as assigned, or if unable, maintain VMC and land at the most suitable aerodrome, which may be the aerodrome of departure. For KUL, that is an approach to land on runway 14L.

http://aip.dca.gov.my/aip%20pdf/ENR/...1.6/Enr1_6.pdf

Maybe now, if MH370 was there, it all begins to make sense.

[1fm]

Sky News' latest expert's hypothesis is that following a decompression, the pilots set the AP on a reciprocal course, and passed out after failing to put on their oxygen masks.

If that's the case, based on the expected flight distance and allowing for a bit of extra fuel, the aircraft could be down somewhere between Madagascar and Perth (Australia).

Is there any reason why pilots would fail to put on their oxygen masks? Could they fail?

Is there anywhere a decompression could occur that would take out the various communication systems?

[mm43]

@nitpicker

Many posts have been deleted over the past 12 hours, so not sure if anyone gave a definitive reply to whether the debris reported by a CX flight in the South China sea had been investigated.

From the New Straits Times in the last 30 minutes -

The [Vietnamese] naval ship HQ888 has examined waters off southern Ba Ria Vung Tau province without finding any fragments spotted by a Hong Kong commercial aircraft on Monday, according to the National Committee for Search and Rescue.

The same article describes how the Vietnamese are expanding their on land searches etc...

[overthewing]

Latest Twitter excitement via the Tomnod project.

Malaysia Airlines MH370 / TomNod crowd-search - CNN iReport

No idea about the scale.

[ZOOKER]

The PA103 disintegration occurred at cruising level. Admittedly there were strong westerly winds at the time.
After SSR data was 'discontinued', the primary radar plots of the airframe break-up were extensively scattered. Some small items of the debris field reached the North Sea coast. I have seen the radar replay.
No such extensive 'debris-field' has yet been seen, 5 days down the line, in an area of fairly intense commercial aircraft operations/marine activity.
I did wonder whether an in-tact impact on the ocean surface had caused the a/c to disappear into an ocean trench, but there are non on the flight-planned route, unless of course the a/c continued north-eastbound, (outside radar cover), until it ran out of fuel.
Earlier, someone pointed out that the waters surrounding the last known position are shallow, but the bottom sediments are often thick, loosely-consolidated pyroclastic deposits. Could these sediments 'absorb' a B777, travelling at speed?
We do not actually know the extent of PSR/SSR coverage, civil/military, in this region, or the credibility of the various 'sighting (visual and radar) reports'.

[thcrozier]

Maybe this Island?

https://www.google.com/maps/@9.18714.../data=!3m1!1e3


Might even fit in the hangar there.

[kenjaDROP]

Turn back and continue to West of Malaysia?

Taking stock and getting back to basics, have I missed something re. the flight's stated turn back and flight into the Malacca Straits?

Are all the facts (quoted both herein these posts and going round-and-round the media), about this departure from original track and on-going flight from point of lost contact, stemming from the Berita Harian story? If so, has not the Chief of Malaysia's AF refuted these facts were ever disclosed to the BH reporter?

Or is it that the Reuters-gathered intel from the RMAF - to the effect that the plane HAD been tracked back by airforce radar - is fact?

Much media content seem to me to be swinging on the Berita Harian release, which is denied.

There again, I would assume the tracking back to the West must have been confirmed somewhere otherwise the resulting SAR effort in that area wouldn't be on-going.

I'm confused as to what's been confirmed and what's circulatory BS!

[OPENDOOR]

Latest Twitter excitement via the Tomnod project.

Malaysia Airlines MH370 / TomNod crowd-search - CNN iReport

No idea about the scale.

Looks strangely like a ship, from the on-screen scale, about 175' long.

[dfens42]

OPENDOOR:

175' is about right for a 777 also. Just saying

[bubbers44]

Pilot oxygen mask failure post. I picked up a B737 one day in the afternoon and flew it several legs and the next morning we got the same aircraft. Doing our first flight of day checks hit the 100% flow button and guess what? After two seconds the flow stopped. Maintenance had replaced the bottle the day before and didn't turn the valve on. All we had was trapped line pressure the previous day.

[PuraVidaTransport]

Interesting chart

Average Effective Performance Time for flying
personnel without supplemental oxygen:

15,000 to 18,000 feet ..........30 minutes or more

22,000 feet ...............................5 to 10 minutes

25,000 feet .................................3 to 5 minutes

28,000 feet............................2 1/2 to 3 minutes

30,000 feet .................................1 to 2 minutes

35,000 feet ............................30 to 60 seconds

40,000 feet ............................15 to 20 seconds

45,000 feet ..............................9 to 15 seconds

With questions about the time it would take to fall unconscience, made me do a little research. Found this at: Aviators Breathing Oxygen... Page 4 FAA Publications and requirements of oxygen at Altitude. Chart of Average Performance time for flying personnel without supplemental oxygen. Cannulas type breathing devices. Cylinder hydrostatic tesing requirements

[john_curchod]

No information on the cargo on this forum whatsoever.

Very odd.

Other websites mentioning that the plane was loaded with too many lithium batteries.

[drdino]

Originally Posted by OPENDOOR

Looks strangely like a ship, from the on-screen scale, about 175' long.

Just saw it, definitely a ship with maybe a tender next to it.

[Capt Scribble]

Simply turning a transponder off is not going to make a modern airliner disappear; there are too many systems sending information into the ether. On Airbus the loss of all electrics is regarded as impossible but some major power failures have happened. I'm not sure how the 777 is configured electrically, but a major electrical failure or fire in the E&E bay might cut all the aircraft communication systems and leave the crew poorly placed in the middle of the night.

[overthewing]

Looks strangely like a ship, from the on-screen scale, about 175' long.

I managed not to notice the scale marker! Fine spotter I'd be.

Yes, I make it about 54m from point to blunt end. Bit to the left, which 'might' be a tail is about 20m. Close to the size of a 777-200ER?

If you squint...

File:B777FAMILYv1.0.png - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[andrasz]

If the altitude is reduced to a point where sufficient oxygen becomes available again, how soon would people start to regain conciousness

That depends on the amount of time spent in an oxygen deprived state, and the physiology of the actual person. Reinhold Meissner could climb Everest without supplementary oxygen, I would probably die in 15-20 minutes if spending any time above 8000m.

Losing consciousness is the body's protective mechanism, shutting down the massively oxygen-dependent brain and keeping up a slow circulation to maintain basic life functions - for a while. Beyond a certain time the process becomes an irreversible coma soon followed by cardiac arrest.

Assuming a 2000/3000 fpm descent, from 35k ft the aircraft would descend to an altitude that is capable of sustaining life in under 5 minutes, and in under 10 minutes to a level where full consciousness can be regained in a matter of minutes. However if there is any extended time spent above 8000m (that is more than max 5-10 minutes), then the answer is probably never.

Looks strangely like a ship...

Because it is a ship, nothing strange about it. There is a smaller vessel docked to its port side.

[MrWooby]

Sounds to me like depressurisation, but you need to link depressurisation and transponder loss. This could be caused by structural failure taking out antennas, or electric supply loss on a common supply. Not sure about the 777 elec system but should have enough redundancy to ensure backups.

Following depressurisation, aircraft turned to return toward Malaysia and emergency descent. This is usually done on autopilot, so heading select and select alt of 10,000 or 14,000. Pilots would have donned oxy masks. However I wonder if there was a problem with the flight deck oxy supply. The company I worked for had a recent incident where the oxy supply to the flight deck was turned off. Not sure of the exact sequence but something like this. In doing the preflight oxy checks there was enough pressure in the oxy lines to enable oxy flow for the quick flick of the oxy test to ensure flow, at some stage during the flight the oxy pressure was found to be below minimum, it was then discovered that there was no oxy flow.

During emergency descent there would have been no flow if 100% oxy was selected, but if diluter demand air was selected they would have been breathing cabin air and would have passed out/died on descent. Aircraft would have descended to selected altitude. Level off and continued flying.
Looks like the track flown would have possibly taken them over Aceh, where terrain goes up to about 9000 feet in some areas, and then continued on in the Indian Ocean towards Diego Garcia until fuel exhaustion. Given endurance of say 7.5 Hours initially, aircraft would been flying about 5 hours at around 10,000 feet with speed brake out. Maybe at cruise speed around 300 kts.

Still many questions though. Pax oxy would have deployed, so pax should have been ok, but if only 15 mins oxy it would depend on the descent rate used in the descent. If pax alive over land then mobile phones would have probably been used. Cabin crew would have eventually entered the flight deck. If they found the crew deceased, maybe they tried to fly the aircraft and lost control.

Very Perplexing.

[Speed of Sound]

Assuming a 2000/3000 fpm descent, from 35k ft the aircraft would descend to an altitude that is capable of sustaining life in under 5 minutes, and in under 10 minutes to a level where full consciousness can be regained in a matter of minutes. However if there is any extended time spent above 8000m (that is more than max 5-10 minutes), then the answer is probably never.

Thanks for that, although why my original post positing a hypoxia theory has vanished, I don't know.

Unlike the Helios tragedy where the aircraft kept flying in the 'death zone', flight MH370 started descending so at some point pasengers and crew would have begun to regain consciousness. Would the aircraft then have been too far from the mainland to make cell contact?

[VH-XXX]

We need confirmation that the military radar tracked the aircraft in a perfectly straight line which would quite obviously indicate autopilot and could discount hijacking as hijackers would unlikely be flying in a straight line.