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Malaysian Airlines MH370 contact lost

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Malaysian Airlines MH370 contact lost

Old 27th Mar 2014, 14:47
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Marine search will take months

Just looking at the marine AIS track of the search vessel 'XUE LONG' shows that she is doing 3 hour E-W tracks then side-stepping 3nm and doing W-E passes. All this at 12kts in seas chopped up by 26kt winds.


So to fully search an area of 600x600nm would take 10,000 hours or 417 days.


The underwater search will also be a slow process, as any underwater towed device will travel even slower.


A faster method would surely be a U2 type spy plane with high definition digital cameras... Do the Orions carry these cameras?
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Old 27th Mar 2014, 15:32
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U2 overflights

U2 has a synthetic aperature radar (SAR) payload which sees through the clouds. I have wondered why this has not been deployed. I don't know if NASA has this capability, but I know DOD has this capability. The government could collect and view this data in real time, either overflying the search vehicles, or going out the night before, to help and narrow the search area.

BTW, Tomnod is using satellite SAR data on some of their images.
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Old 27th Mar 2014, 15:54
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The next phase -- underwater search -- is going to be really hard

Over the past week, four satellites have reported sighting a debris field:
1. Photos taken on March 16th by an Australian satellite and released by an American company showed two large objects about 2,500 km (1,550 mi) southwest of Perth, Australia.
2. Photos taken on March 18th by a Chinese satellite showed one large object (22.5m x 13m) about 120 km (75 mi) from the Australian debris.
3. Photos taken on March 23rd by a French satellite showed 122 objects up to 75 feet long at a place about 120 km from the Australian debris.
4. Photos taken on March 24th by a Thai satellite showed up to 300 objects up to 52 feet long at a site about 200 km (125 mi) south of the French debris.

During a search like this, there will be a tendency for each satellite control team to try to confirm the other teams' observations first, before looking at new patches of the ocean. One hopes that all these teams are not simply chasing down the debris field that was sighted first, but are looking elsewhere, too. Many commentators have said that debris tends to collect here in the south Indian Ocean. Perhaps we should be asking why there have not been more satellite reports of debris.

In due course, some of this debris will be picked up. Assuming it is from MH370, the underwater recovery phase will begin. Even if some pieces were picked up and positively identified today, time has run out for the ELTs (Emergency Location Transmitters). It has been more than 20 days since they were activated; 15 or fewer days remain before the batteries die. There is no prospect that an underwater listening device will pick up the signal. The current location(s) of the debris field(s) are now so far from their locations when the satellite images were made, and they in turn are so far from the original ditching site, that a lengthy search pattern will have to be used.

The reality is that the ocean floor is going to have to be searched visually or, at the very least, with underwater radar. The travel speed of these devices is miniscule compared to the size of the search area. By way of comparison, consider the length of time it took to find the remains of the "Titanic" and remember that she sank only ten miles from the ship "Carpathia", whose position was known with much greater precision than the point of impact of MH370.

The cost in time and money of finding MH370 on the ocean floor may be too much to pay. It may be that the authorities will have to make a tough decision: not to search for the wreckage.
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Old 27th Mar 2014, 16:04
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Is it just me, or do people here seem to overestimate the capabilities of modern technology, satellites, submarines and vastly underestimate the size of the Indian Ocean?

Even if MH370 left 10000 pieces of floating debris in a 5kmsq area, it is not surprising in the least that nothing been found yet. The search area has only been narrowed to an area the size of Texas, in a region which gets the some of the worst weather on the planet. With no landmasses to check the waves the swell is huge. Satellites can only pick out large contrasting pieces, and radar has difficulty seeing anything that doesn't break the surface, especially in large ocean swell.

And suggestions that submarines should just listen at random for the pinger are hopeless. The pings will only travel 2km and with a 500,000sqkm search area (at best) it would take years to search it all. In any case submarines tend not to hang around in this region of the world, because there is nothing there. Any submarines on there way will take some time to arrive.

It's remarkable we know as much as we do, but it's still not enough. Perhaps if we get a break in the weather and something is found soon, then maybe there is a chance to work backwards to the impact site. As the RAAF guy said, maybe then we will know which haystack to search.
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Old 27th Mar 2014, 16:08
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glenbrook,

At this stage in the AF447 investigation the BEA issued an interim report with everything known, including full details of the ACARS messages, crew bios, cargo manifest, the works.
Not quite true. The AF447 accident happened on 1 June 2009 and a preliminary report was issued on 2 July 2009.

ICAO Annex 13 prescribes that a preliminary report shall be issued within thirty days of the event. This is what BEA did, give or take one day. Despite the agony surely felt by all those affected by the MH370 disappearance, the Malaysian authorities still have 12 days to comply with the Annex 13 requirement.
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Old 27th Mar 2014, 16:09
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Synthetic Aperture Radar

RichManJoe
U2 has a synthetic aperature radar (SAR) payload which sees through the clouds.
Synthetic Aperture Radar is wonderful. I worked on it in early days.
The problem with radar is that a very narrow beam requires a very large antenna.
Too large for an aircraft.
So a large aperture is "synthesised" by processing. This combines the returns from successive positions along track, to build a mathematically equivalent antenna hugely extended in the along track direction. This gives effectively an intensely narrow beam pointing out sideways, painting the entire surface below with across-track scan lines in very fine detail.
Works equally well for satellites.

It just so happens I was in the Nasa's JPL control room in 1978, and watched the very first image arrive from Seasat.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasat
Everyone present was gobsmacked by the quality of the images, with every individual ship (and even its wake, if I remember correctly) outstandingly clear.
This was much better than had been expected. This non-military satellite clearly had crushing military significance.
Three months later its catastrophic failure was announced. Those of us in the business had our doubts.
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Old 27th Mar 2014, 16:19
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Thank you GarageYears.
LoboTX, here is the image, and the map # is on it.

et al,

I made this from it to compare. Could it be a cockpit window?

[IMG] http://t.co/doYdB0ryCG [/IMG]

It doesn't seem to want to insert the image... here is the link to it: http://t.co/doYdB0ryCG

Last edited by CowgirlInAlaska; 27th Mar 2014 at 16:23. Reason: it censored cock pit to dog pit LOL so I changed it to cockpit? LOL
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Old 27th Mar 2014, 16:21
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Submarines

I understand the point made by Lonewolf about the US not wanting the positions known of any of its tactical nuclear submarines but there are many types of submarines and I am surprised that considering all the assets deployed there has been no mention of any other types.

For example, Malaysia itself has 2 French built submarines, the Australians have 6 Collins Class subs based in Western Australia, Japan has 16 and heaven knows how many the Chinese have.

As people experienced in SAR have pointed out, it is extremely difficult to spot semi submerged debris even in calmish conditions so surely a submarine at a shallow depth should be able to scan the surface of the sea above it using radar/sonar. There has to be an explanation as to why they are not being used. Taking the 6 Australian ones as an example, it does not seem to make sense that the positions of all have to remain secret as presumably some have to come back to base for resupply and then they would be visible by satellite.

Surely there must be submarines there - anyone have an educated answer/guess ?
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Old 27th Mar 2014, 16:26
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CowgirlInAlaska
I found something…
Best I've seen, by miles
Tomnod
Two windows indeed. About 8m square?
It appears to be at lat -43.78731 lon 95.335332
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Old 27th Mar 2014, 16:30
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No submarine can do anywhere close to that depth. If the ocean is as deep as they say it is the onlt way to go down thee is via ROVs or speciliazed submersibles.
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Old 27th Mar 2014, 16:35
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re: I found something

I tweeted it to @tomnod, I don't know if there is anyone else I should tell?
You gotta see this on a bigger screen. Really looks like cockpit windows and MAS stripes underneath.

paultr Cowgirl - "I found something"
Quote:
I found something on tomnod in the S Indian Ocean that really looks like two windows (one full one partial) with bad marks/damage on the white underneath. I need to know what the size are of the windows in feet and meters please, so I can compare. If anyone wants to see, click here:
Tomnod Bottom left area... See it?
Hard to see what you mean as the image moves around as I am on a tablet and the image is too big to be presented whole but there appears to be quite a few suspicious looking objects. Have you told Tomnod ?
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Old 27th Mar 2014, 16:39
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"Surely there must be submarines there - anyone have an educated answer/guess ? "


There very well could be, but experience from the search for AF447 seems to say that submarines get in the way of towed pinger locaters, and vice versa, because of noise and cables. So even though it sounds impressive, that submarines, especially "Nuclear" submarines, are deployed, it seems that deploying purpose built equipment is preferable. Also, the subs would have to have sonar equipped to hear a 37.5khz ping from the ULB, which most submarines do not have. Of course, before any pinger locaters are deployed, I don't guess it would hurt to have submarines, or anything else, such as yachts, fishing boats, & etc, out there looking.
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Old 27th Mar 2014, 16:40
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@pn
Seriously, a submarine is not best suited as a radar search platform, pretty useless, and very uncomfortable, as a visual platform, and exactly what is it expected to detect on sonar?
I did not really mean radar as I envisaged having the sub just submerged so it is safe from shipping above and then searching the surface above and ahead of it. Surely they must have some kind of echo based technology that could detect objects awash ?
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Old 27th Mar 2014, 16:47
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Unfortunately, that section of an aircraft including the flight deck windows would not float without significant help. i.e. some kind of floatation device.
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Old 27th Mar 2014, 16:52
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It's highly likely that all that stuff floating is garbage from a Tsunami. Not to rain on your parade or anything.
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Old 27th Mar 2014, 17:01
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"Surely they must have some kind of echo based technology that could detect objects awash ?"


It's a new fangled thing called "Sonar". But don't tell anyone. It's top secret!
Why would a submarine care about relatively small pieces of <something> floating on or close to the surface?

I think some here have been watching too many WWII sub movies or something. The use of active sonar (i.e. the issuance of a sonar "ping") is a bit like suddenly standing up in the middle of a battlefield in a fire-glo orange suit and yelling "I'M HERE!", which is pretty much the last thing a modern submarine wants to do.

Vastly more effort has gone into passive listening sonar, which is certainly not going to help.

The French sub that tried to find AF447 had to have a special software update from Thales to allow it to listen to the 37.5kHz pinger frequency, so any sub that happened to be within cruising distance of the suspected crash zone is unlikely to be of any use at all...
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Old 27th Mar 2014, 17:18
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How helpful were satellite images of the sea in the search for debris from AF447?


For MH370, these constant reports of satellite photos can only serve to diminish SAR morale when in reality we know they are doing a great job.
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Old 27th Mar 2014, 17:34
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Going back just a bit:

SupplierSam #8157
Onetrack. #8161

I think it is too soon to dismiss fire/smoke as the primary cause of this aircraft disappearance. Have a look at this link:

http://www.aaib.gov.uk/cms_resources...ection%201.pdf

This fire in a B777 MEC burnt for little more than 15 minutes but the damage is considerable. The P200 and P300 panels ( containing ELMS, the power managment and distribution centre) were badly damaged and there was fire damage to the actual aircraft structure and wiring. During the incident, flight instrument displays were disrupted and there were no EICAS Warning or Caution aurals tones. Boeings opinion was that if this had occured in the air the crew could have received fire warnings for both engines.
Note that there is no smoke detection in the MEC that is visible to the flightcrew on EICAS, just a EQUIP COOLING OVBD advisory. There is no MEC fire detection or suppression.
There were similar incidents prior to, and after, this one. The cause was molten metal at up to 1000 deg C being released from BTB and GB contactors. The reasons why this happens is still not fully understood.
An airborne failure of this kind could have left the crew with an unmanageable situation due to multiple systems failure: VHF disabled, ACARS fail, dual FMS failure, flightdeck smoke, alternate nav diversion, loss of situational awareness, oxygen depletion, unconciousness, a/c nav to incorrect lat/long entry....
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Old 27th Mar 2014, 17:39
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Waves

Re 'I found something'

Whatever it is, if it is anything, I would'nt like to be sailing through that sea with those waves. Don't see how it could float with all that churning going on.

Last edited by PlainSailing1; 27th Mar 2014 at 17:43. Reason: missed out reference
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Old 27th Mar 2014, 17:47
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re: I found something

PlainSailing1 Whatever it is, if it is anything, I would'nt like to be sailing through that sea with those waves. Don't see how it could float with all that churning going on.
If it's one section of it, sure.. as someone else has said, it could be afloat with objects or an air pocket, and this sat img was from the 16th.
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