Malaysian Airlines MH370 contact lost

[Capt Kremin]

At this stage I find the most intriguing part of this is why they would commit assets like P3Cs to a sea search in the Malacca Strait.

Nothing so far released would justify that. "Evidence of an Air turn back"...?

That is not an air turn back if they are searching there. Some of the journalists, notoriously ignorant on aviation matters, need to start asking some pertinent questions such as;

Why are valuable assets being used to search an area diagonally opposed to the original flight path and what evidence has been found to support that search?

If a primary radar trace has been observed flying in that direction, why is a sea search being carried out there... I.e. what evidence is there that the observed trace went down in the sea at that spot?

The Malaysians seem to be withholding information.

[Lonewolf_50]

Originally Posted by Capt Kremin

Why are valuable assets being used to search an area diagonally opposed to the original flight path and what evidence has been found to support that search?

If a primary radar trace has been observed flying in that direction, why is a sea search being carried out there... I.e. what evidence is there that the observed trace went down in the sea at that spot?

The Malaysians seem to be withholding information.

Capt K, I seem to recall that the AF 447 ACARS info was a leak, not an official release, initially. With that in mind, there may be a bit of data with a time tag that, while not the usual data like radio call, transponder, etc, would take the datum of "last radar/transponder return" and expand a point datum to an area based datum (farthest on circle) on elapsed time.

Why haven't they shared that info yet? Perhaps due to security reasons opaque to you or I, but making much sense to those holding fragments of data and trying to make sense out of it.

If you've had a chance to get involved in a SAR operation, I think you'll appreciate how one has to account for the many unknowns one faces early in the operation.

[Evenrude]

Crew going through security

You Tube

[B Sousa]

Things float. Even things from an exploded plane and falling from 30? whatever thousand feet. Once debris is spotted and an estimate on its drift at least there will be a Ballaprk to play in for wreckage. Next will require a deep sea submersible which are available ...at a price. Im not sure of the depth in that part of the world, but I do think its way over my head. Another big problem, but today not something that cannot be done.
Black Boxes are a must but even they will only tell configuarion and telemtry at the time, not the cause.

[ExSp33db1rd]

[Black Boxes are a must but even they will only tell configuarion and telemtry at the time, not the cause.]

Cockpit voice recorders may.

[VH-Cheer Up]

In an area where maritime rights are sometimes a matter of dispute, isn't it odd that no country's military has yet come forward with their military radar recordings showing how the aircraft tracked after transponders stopped transmitting.

So far, three days, they still haven't been found out.

The truth will come out eventually. Maybe.

[Bedder believeit]

I haven't read the hundred's of opinions both professional and amateur here but I have noticed a few comments re radar both primary and secondary. Allow me a minute to explain. Primary radar is a basic skin paint return and is subject to slant range error. So if an aircraft at 37,000ft overflies a primary radar head, the radar display will not show the return as overhead the radar head's location but will push the return to a point about 5 Nautical miles to one side. This is because primary radar is 2 dimensional. A secondary radar return is synthetically produced by one or more SSR receivers and via a Radar Data Processing computer, a SSR return is electronically produced on the radar display. Thus you could say that a Secondary radar return is in effect 3 dimensional. So if an aircraft was to overfly a co sited primary radar head along with one or more Secondary radar receivers, then as the aircraft flies overhead at 37,000ft a 4 to 5 mile discrepancy between the position of the primary return and secondary return will be apparent.
This is not relevant as to why or what has happened to the Malaysian 777 but is an observation made by a recently retired controller with over 40 years experience

[DX Wombat]

isn't it odd that no country's military has yet come forward with their military radar recordings showing how the aircraft tracked after transponders stopped transmitting

No. We don't know that they haven't. All that is known is that nothing has been said publicly and the only people who need to know are those charged with conducting the search.

[Richard W]

Jetstream67:

Secondary radar stopped abruptly (Flight24)
But Primary radar (where? Whose? What type) continues tracking long enough for searchers to issue a claim it 'turned back' (so 180degs exactly ?? and at what turn rate- a few clues from that maybe ??), Then vanished. (n.b. even small lumps of metal don't just vanish on (presumably) military radar which can also normally tell altitude from return range !!)

Military radar usually measures range and angles (and often closing speed too). However, at low angles, elevation angle measurements, and thus altitude measurements, can easily become unreliable because of multipath and possibly even ducting effects. At this point, the angle seems low enough that measurements may not have been accurate enough to usefully indicate altitude. Multipath effects can also cause the target to vanish.

[SLFgeek]

Originally Posted by GQ2

If some physical evidence in the local area doesn't turn up soon, then we will probably have to invoke Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's hero, Sherlock Holmes;-“Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.”

With all the myriad possibilities, has anyone considered the recent EY461 incident ? I doubt that would cause a sudden disintegration, but it is a recent event, and originated in that part of the world.

Did 9M-MRO have inflight wifi service ? Another method of getting something out, if there were sufficient time to do so.

From what various posters have said, the aircraft was not under civilian primary radar coverage at the time the various signals were lost. If there had been a naval ship in the area, with an air search radar operating, they may have seen something that could lend a clue. Beyond that, if the aircraft ended up transiting some remote land area, would a military radar automatically scramble jets to see what was up there, or would they note it and ignore it (because it wasn't considered a threat) ?

[glendalegoon]

bedder beleivit


your knowledge of radar is a very welcome addition to the thread. as many of us know radar sep is required to be more conservative the farther from the radar antenna.

it would be odd, but believable if the secondary and primary were confused by someone leading to the idea of a turnback.

anyway, I do wish we would get an actual statement from authorities about the way the radar was being used, but there might be a military secret or something else involved.

all I am suggesting is that the searchers may be looking in the wrong spot.

being a good old rooting tooting American, I'm betting our ships and planes spot it before anyone else.

;-)

[FullWings]

Looking at the ever-widening search area, the logical conclusion is no, they don't have any useful primary/military radar plot. It could be that there are some recordings that might produce something when analysed but it's almost past the time frame for that now - I'm sure that was thought of not long after they drew a blank originally.

[training wheels]

Originally Posted by Golf-Mike-Mike

(c) to coincide with the "10,000 foot checklist" of other items.

There is a '10,000 foot checklist'? In my company, the seat-belt signs are in the after take-off checklist, but often that item is deferred until we're clear of weather obviously.

BTW, we do check that pressurization is normal passing 10,000 ft, and I'm sure many other airlines will have the same procedure as well, for obvious reasons. Of the thousands of flights I've done, I've had two instances where pressurization wasn't normal passing 10,000 ft, one resulting in an RTB (return to base) and the other, maintaining altitude until the problem was rectified (as it was a simple fix). In our case, pressurization was a problem; could it have been the same for MH370?

[broadreach]

Fingers crossed that the most recent debris search doesn't turn out to be another false lead. Two comments:

Deletion of posts: I would like to buy a bottle and a bucket of ice for the mod or mods who've been monitoring this thread, to be imbibed as soon as the hubbub's died down. You have done a superb job of trying to keep it credible, even if there might have been a few deletions that could have remained.

Malacca Straits: Think pragmatic, not conspiracy. It's not every day that a superpower has the opportunity to explore sensitive areas with some of the most sophisticated kit available. At this time we have no idea whether there was any real indication the aircraft was heading west. But put yourself in superpower shoes and wonder whether it might not be a good idea to get an update on your existing data, with full support from local governments? Of course you'd go for it.

[Mr Optimistic]

My experience as a pax without any claims to rigour is that things loosen up in the cabin just after reaching cruise. People get to their feet and movement starts.

[Hedge36]

Originally Posted by VH Cheer Up

Well, I'll be... My original post has gone now. GlobalNav, Barti01 and Hedge36's references to it are the only evidence it ever existed.

This IS a rumour network and surely it is permissible to discuss (a) speculative ideas and (b) forum conduct? Why should anyone want to shut that conversation down without simply turning off the whole idea of PPRuNe?

On another forum I frequent, it's often pointed out that the mods do a fairly thankless job decrufting runaway threads such as this, and as such should be spared from their actions being questioned.

The simple rule: no whining.

Rule 2: if you don't like it, feel free to request a refund of your membership.

[bono]

Facts and Conclusions

If you take the point in time where transponders shut off as t=0, or corresponding location as origin point, a few results can be arrived at:


1. Lack of debris on sea surface in the immediate vicinity of origin point lead us to believe that the aircraft did not structurally disintegrate, either due to aerodynamic forces or through explosives .
2. Lack of IR signature confirmation by US SBIRS (Infra red spotting satellite system) also lends credence to the result that the aircraft did not explode in air at origin point.
3. Suicide theory can also be laid to rest because a pilot intent on committing suicide will not linger around in air and in fact will try to head down right away after turning off transponders leading to debris field around origin point.
4. However, since we know as a fact that the aircraft eventually crashed, it leads us to believe that the aircraft was severely impaired at t=0, even if it was structurally intact. Whatever happened around t=0 was catastrophic enough to eventually bring the aircraft down. It not only took out communication ability of the pilots but a lot more than that.
5. A set of pilots finding themselves in a catastrophic situation are highly likely to look for a landing strip ASAP. Given that they have likely lost their navigational ability as well (most likely), at night, they are going to head for nearest land, wherever they might think it is.
6. If we take it as a fact from Malaysian authorities that the aircraft tried to turn around, it could be an indication that the pilots were in trouble and wanted to find land in haste.
7. Malaysian authorities claimed in the beginning (perhaps even now) that they lost radar contact at 2:40AM, more than an hour after t=0, if that is true then they were tracking an aircraft in huge trouble looking to land somewhere or anywhere. But it provides a radius of around one hour flying time from origin point to search for.
8. Regarding US SBIRS lack of IR signature, it could depend on what their system is optimized to detect. A missile launch is sustained bright fire, an aircraft crashing in a fireball is short term quick burning fire. SBIRS probably accurately confirm that the aircraft did not explode in air, however, will it also accurately confirm that it did not burn under jungle canopy for a short time?.

[MG23]

Originally Posted by DX Wombat

All that is known is that nothing has been said publicly and the only people who need to know are those charged with conducting the search.

Bingo. There's sure to be a lot of information being correlated around the world to try to work out where the aircraft is, and there's no need or benefit to putting all that out publicly; just look at the reaction to every new debris report, and then imagine reporting perhaps dozens or hundreds of uncertain radar traces or other possible sightings that are unlikely to be correct, and may well contradict each other.

If nothing else, it would be unfair on the families to raise hopes and dash them when a report turns out to be false.

[henra]

Originally Posted by FullWings

Looking at the ever-widening search area, the logical conclusion is no, they don't have any useful primary/military radar plot. It could be that there are some recordings that might produce something when analysed but it's almost past the time frame for that now - I'm sure that was thought of not long after they drew a blank originally.

+1.

Indeed if they had useful Information they would have had ample opportunity of discretely getting it to a Search Ship or plane by now which would have run 'accidentally' across some wreckage even potentially on its way to the search area if it wasn't close to LKP. Would have been a big PR trump for the corresponding Navy.

Occam's Razor says: Even the Military have not much more Information regarding the final whereabouts or what happened after the last transmission. Since that would be a quite embarrassing fact for them they might be tempted to keep rather silent about it.

Realistically, simply no one was expecting anything critical from a Military perspective in these small hours that particular night. Actual everyday surveillance capabilities might not be as good as everyone assumes.

I'm still confident it will be found soon. A 777 is a big aircraft. That doesn't simply disppear. It might however be somewhere else than where it is being looked for atm.
On the other Hand the question might be how systematic the Search is being carried out when considering how many different (and not centrally managed) parties are involved.

[Willoz269]

There are a few questions here indeed.

The aircraft, if indeed it was in the middle of the Gulf, would have been just outside the Malaysian radar cell and about to enter Vietnam's. Modern birds like the 777 use ADSB (which is what you see in apps like Flight Radar 24, it is NOT a radar feed).

The thought of the aircraft turning back comes not from a radar observation but from ACARS. More investigation is needed. If it was from radar (assuming the return was spotted), means very little. Radar does NOT tell you which direction the aircraft is facing, it simply gives you the next return. For example, you can be going north and move in a sideslip to the right, the radar will show your return to have turned.

If the data came from ACARS it is a different story, but still inconclusive. It could be showing a violent breakup. Without other data such as speed and amount of correlated data showing the "turn", there is not much to go by.

The gulf does not have a lot of strong currents, so any debirs, once found, should be (hopefully) localised.

I am starting to wonder if the initial hunch to look to the north-west and possibly even terrain south west of Ca Mau and around Kota Bharu is correct!