Malaysian Airlines MH370 contact lost
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"The Pilot"
philip2412
There are two pilots on the flight deck...
One is the 'Captain' and the other is the 'First Officer'
Which one are you referring to? ...
For what it`s worth.
10 minutes ago ,i talked to one of my clients ,who stays every year in Malaysia from De. til March-
He told me public opinium there is,that the pilot has stronger ties to radical/anarchistic circles than the authorities have told us.
10 minutes ago ,i talked to one of my clients ,who stays every year in Malaysia from De. til March-
He told me public opinium there is,that the pilot has stronger ties to radical/anarchistic circles than the authorities have told us.
One is the 'Captain' and the other is the 'First Officer'
Which one are you referring to? ...
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Black boxes
We (the industry) has to address this issue now and ensure that 'black boxes' are interrogatable for years if not decades. It isn't that hard, it's down to cost and the will.
The unfortunate reality of this is, having seen this happen in numerous parallel industries, and after 9/11, is the vigilance increases for a period (days, weeks, months, years or decades) and then eventually laxes and something happens. Even in this instance, a heavily contested piece of ocean, with undoubtedly immense surveillance, was not being watched at the time.
Airline travel remains one of the safest around, and these events are thankfully rare.
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I disagree.
They just had a plane and 239 people disappear on their watch. Despite the fact that no physical evidence has been found, the Malaysian President said the plane is destroyed and all the passengers are dead. A profoundly disturbing conclusion like this needs a better explanation than "oh some clever satellite guys in England worked it out."
They have a duty to explain this conclusion in excruciating detail, not just morally, but legally under agreements signed under the auspices of the ICAO.
Personally, I don't doubt the conclusion that the a/c is somewhere in the Indian Ocean, but I am starting to doubt the Malaysian authorities competence and commitment to transparency in this investigation.
They just had a plane and 239 people disappear on their watch. Despite the fact that no physical evidence has been found, the Malaysian President said the plane is destroyed and all the passengers are dead. A profoundly disturbing conclusion like this needs a better explanation than "oh some clever satellite guys in England worked it out."
They have a duty to explain this conclusion in excruciating detail, not just morally, but legally under agreements signed under the auspices of the ICAO.
Personally, I don't doubt the conclusion that the a/c is somewhere in the Indian Ocean, but I am starting to doubt the Malaysian authorities competence and commitment to transparency in this investigation.
They have no duty to do that whatsoever. They don't owe you or any other unaffected but morbidly, curiously or fearfully interested third party anything. Even if it was on their (stupefyingly cliched) "watch". I'm sure obligations to ICAO and international legal obligations are well understood and I'm sure they are getting better legal advice than you could give.
Maybe Malaysia is less competent at this than other nations. It's pretty naive to think that all countries will be equally competent at all things. But how could anyone possibly know that from a removed vantage point? Whether they have been any less transparent than they should be, by some stakeholder derived criteria, is impossible for anyone to make a call on at this stage.
It's also naive to think that international politics and limits on communication and resources are not going to play out.
In other posts, there are idle flaneurs coming to the conclusion that amongst all the countries and companies involved individuals have not worked through the panoply of scenarios and lack the requisite technical rigour. That's ignorant and arrogant.
Most of the critics might be unable to realise that in their lives they are going to encounter events which have no precedent, events for which countries are not prepared for, and for which there are no immediate answers. This is one of the many cognitive biases that are writ large in this thread.
All these posts originate from a logical fallacy underpinned by one or more cognitive biases. The logical fallacy is that not being able to locate the aircraft proves incompetence. There are too many cognitive biases to list.
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For what it`s worth.
10 minutes ago ,i talked to one of my clients ,who stays every year in Malaysia from De. til March-
He told me public opinium there is,that the pilot has stronger ties to radical/anarchistic circles than the authorities have told us.
10 minutes ago ,i talked to one of my clients ,who stays every year in Malaysia from De. til March-
He told me public opinium there is,that the pilot has stronger ties to radical/anarchistic circles than the authorities have told us.
I'm currently in Malaysia. I have heard all of the speculation from the locals from day 1. The captain/co-pilot having stronger ties to radical/anarchistic circles is a new one to me.
Several of my friends and neighbours are working for MAS, Firefly and Air Asia. I spoke to a colleague of Captain Zaharie on the Sunday after the flight had been declared lost. He had nothing but praise for the guy, he believed the Captain to be one of the best pilots within the company and he himself had been a student of Captain Zaharie. He continued to say that if anyone could recover an aircraft from an almost impossible situation it would be Zaharie.
I'm not ruling out anything but suicide and hijacking are way down my list!
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Personally, I don't doubt the conclusion that the a/c is somewhere in the Indian Ocean, but I am starting to doubt the Malaysian authorities competence and commitment to transparency in this investigation.
Notice that the US and other countries involved in the SAR (with the exception of China) - or at least the professionals and experts directly involved - have not pressured Malaysia to announce anything. It's reasonable to assume that a lot of the critical data had come from surveillance resources outside Malaysia, given to the country on a need to know basis specifically for the SAR operations. This data and details aren't to be handed out to the public, and end up with "not friendly" countries. This is China's main grouse: it claims Malaysia "is hiding informations." That's true - information that isn't Malaysia's property which the country is trusted not to reveal without owner's permission.
Don't forget nothing from the aircraft is recovered yet. In fact, even the proximity of the plane's last location isn't known. First things first. Joe Six Pack will not be happy about the lack of news but the release of data isn't his call to make. Nor China's. All in good time.
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There is still the possibility that close analysis of satellite pictures taken on the day it went missing could find a contrail or cloud track as the aircraft descended.
It’s quite amazing what detail you can see of the clouds on the Worldview site if you zoom to max plus you can go back to the date in question.
These are 250m resolution with no timestamp, but the raw data or better resolution must exist somewhere.
https://earthdata.nasa.gov/labs/worldview/
It’s quite amazing what detail you can see of the clouds on the Worldview site if you zoom to max plus you can go back to the date in question.
These are 250m resolution with no timestamp, but the raw data or better resolution must exist somewhere.
https://earthdata.nasa.gov/labs/worldview/
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For what it`s worth.
10 minutes ago ,i talked to one of my clients ,who stays every year in Malaysia from De. til March-
He told me public opinium there is,that the pilot has stronger ties to radical/anarchistic circles than the authorities have told us.
10 minutes ago ,i talked to one of my clients ,who stays every year in Malaysia from De. til March-
He told me public opinium there is,that the pilot has stronger ties to radical/anarchistic circles than the authorities have told us.
Which tells me only that possibly the Malaysian government has an interest in blaming its opposition for this incident. I will not let a colleague left to twist in the wind based on mere speculation connected to his support for an opposition party and a party leader that may well have been convicted of trumped-up changes.
Here in the US, many pilots tend to be politically conservative -- I'm not, which leads to a lot of "agree to disagree" conversations -- but my opinion is not swayed one way or another as I assess each on their flying ability and nothing else. Politics in the cockpit can be poisonous, though, and I as a Captain, will gladly "agree" with someone with strongly held views in the interest of getting a flight safely to its destination.
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Lets look at a graphic of aircraft speeds. The following is a map illustrating flights following the same ping-rings with different airspeeds. (For illustration only, not drawn to a particular speed-scale.)
Red is the median TAS.
Yellow is faster TAS.
Purple is slower TAS.
(disregarding wind, as it will be te same in each case.)
Each hourly checkpoint is set to the same ping-ring location. And remember that the ping-ring location is a known fixed point (a location on an arc). For instance, if the aircraft ended up on the 40 degree ping-ring after 6 hours, then that is where it must have been - somewhere on that arc. Same for all the previous ping-ring locations at the previous hourly pings (that we still have not been given).
But notice how the faster TAS speed-track trends westerly, while the slower TAS speed-track trends easterly. So if they are looking at a new track (purple) to the northeast of the original (red) track, then they must be looking at slower aircraft speeds, not faster speeds.
I presume what they meant was that the aircraft was flying lower, so it had a faster IAS but a slower TAS.
ie:
39,000' 260 kts IAS = 463 kts TAS. (slower speed = faster TAS)
10,000' 290 kts IAS = 335 kts TAS. (faster speed = slower TAS)
((Remember that if the aircraft flew for 6 and a bit hours, then it flew for 6 and a bit hours - so the fuel burn is irelevant. The aircraft flew until 08:11, whatever the fuel burn was. So if it flew faster it went further. UNLESS, of course, they were referring to IAS rather than TAS.))
Red is the median TAS.
Yellow is faster TAS.
Purple is slower TAS.
(disregarding wind, as it will be te same in each case.)
Each hourly checkpoint is set to the same ping-ring location. And remember that the ping-ring location is a known fixed point (a location on an arc). For instance, if the aircraft ended up on the 40 degree ping-ring after 6 hours, then that is where it must have been - somewhere on that arc. Same for all the previous ping-ring locations at the previous hourly pings (that we still have not been given).
But notice how the faster TAS speed-track trends westerly, while the slower TAS speed-track trends easterly. So if they are looking at a new track (purple) to the northeast of the original (red) track, then they must be looking at slower aircraft speeds, not faster speeds.
I presume what they meant was that the aircraft was flying lower, so it had a faster IAS but a slower TAS.
ie:
39,000' 260 kts IAS = 463 kts TAS. (slower speed = faster TAS)
10,000' 290 kts IAS = 335 kts TAS. (faster speed = slower TAS)
((Remember that if the aircraft flew for 6 and a bit hours, then it flew for 6 and a bit hours - so the fuel burn is irelevant. The aircraft flew until 08:11, whatever the fuel burn was. So if it flew faster it went further. UNLESS, of course, they were referring to IAS rather than TAS.))
Last edited by silvertate; 29th Mar 2014 at 14:21. Reason: addition of 'on the arc'
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Apologies if this has been dealt with in earlier posts.
Highly unlikely after 3 weeks perhaps, but if at some stage bodies are recovered what is the likelihood of tests being able to show hypoxia as the cause of death, that is, all on board passed out before impact?
Highly unlikely after 3 weeks perhaps, but if at some stage bodies are recovered what is the likelihood of tests being able to show hypoxia as the cause of death, that is, all on board passed out before impact?
Controversial, moi?
But the bottom line is that every time the public get on an aircraft, they put their trust and lives in the hands of pilots with absolutely no idea just how skillled, trust worthy or mentally balanced they are.
There is no knowledge either of just how well the aircraft has been maintained. Virtually every aircraft takes to the skies with a list of deferred faults which can cause problems in an emergency.
The fact that a large aircraft can just disappear or that another 911 type scenario could have been enacted with apparently no chance for the passengers to intervene just serves to demonstrate that profit and not public safety is the primary concern for airlines.
The public have been browbeaten into behaving like cattle and subjected to ridiculous security procedures, which have been proven to be singularly ineffective in preventing bombings and hijackings, all in the interests of maximising profit, by giving the impression that aviation has been made safer.
It hasn't and if MH370 has served to demonstrate anything, it is that it still only takes one thing to go wrong for a flight to end in disaster.
Last edited by M.Mouse; 29th Mar 2014 at 12:16. Reason: Parsing.
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Silvertate,
I thought the wind would have a greater effect on a slower speed aircraft but if correct no idea if that difference would be significant to the position of the area of search
I thought the wind would have a greater effect on a slower speed aircraft but if correct no idea if that difference would be significant to the position of the area of search
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There seems to be an acceptance of the idea that the aircraft had to fly to fuel exhaustion. What about the possibility of it flying to the point that the person, hijacker or pilot, in the flight deck finally thought, well that is long enough, and pulled the two engine fuel levers to shut off.
Therefore a higher than assumed speed seems indeed somewhat contradictory to the position of the plane being more to the East.
The Problem in this is probably to do with the level of accuracy of these calculations based on Signal strength and Timing. Would be interesting to know the tolerances of these calcs.
Apart from that I somewhat share your confusion about the combination of higher Speed and more Easterly Search Location.
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M.Mouse
Well if money isn't an issue, let's make a start by reinstating three crew members on the flight deck. Can't see many airlines prepared to sign up to that.
Current security procedures serve only to irritate the public and promote some belief that safety has been improved. Complete nonsense of course. There are YouTube videos demonstrating how an improvised device can be made from objects bought in duty free areas of an airport after all the security checks. There have been several incidents over the past few years since 911 of inert explosive packages and ammunition found on aircraft left behind by training search teams.
I maintain that the entire industry is primarily motivated by profit and that public safety is incidental to airline operations. It is only the total loss of an airframe, passengers and crew that seem to motivate airlines to attempt any genuine improvements and that is only to mitigate increased insurance costs.
I learned to fly because I was terrified of being in an aircraft with no prospect of being able to do anything if something happened to the pilot. A completely irrational reason because the likelyhood of being able to actually rescue the situation is nil. But it helped calm my fear of flying to the extent I can now board an aircraft in the knowledge that I am not completely powerless if the worst should happen and at least I'd have a good idea of what was going on if it did.
People are irrational and it is the (remote) possibility that one irrational person was responsible for what has happened to MH370 that is most disturbing.
Well if money isn't an issue, let's make a start by reinstating three crew members on the flight deck. Can't see many airlines prepared to sign up to that.
Current security procedures serve only to irritate the public and promote some belief that safety has been improved. Complete nonsense of course. There are YouTube videos demonstrating how an improvised device can be made from objects bought in duty free areas of an airport after all the security checks. There have been several incidents over the past few years since 911 of inert explosive packages and ammunition found on aircraft left behind by training search teams.
I maintain that the entire industry is primarily motivated by profit and that public safety is incidental to airline operations. It is only the total loss of an airframe, passengers and crew that seem to motivate airlines to attempt any genuine improvements and that is only to mitigate increased insurance costs.
I learned to fly because I was terrified of being in an aircraft with no prospect of being able to do anything if something happened to the pilot. A completely irrational reason because the likelyhood of being able to actually rescue the situation is nil. But it helped calm my fear of flying to the extent I can now board an aircraft in the knowledge that I am not completely powerless if the worst should happen and at least I'd have a good idea of what was going on if it did.
People are irrational and it is the (remote) possibility that one irrational person was responsible for what has happened to MH370 that is most disturbing.
There is a misplaced belief in the pervasiveness and effectiveness of nameless national surveillance bodies.
The fact is surveillance costs big money, a few billion apiece for each of the large NRO payloads, so the number of satellites is small and they are fully tasked. The US push to use commercial sources more extensively simply underscores these economic realities.
If any of these entities had a clue, the searchers would not be stumbling around as at present, trying to 'find the haystack' in the lapidary words of an Australian search leader.
The fact is surveillance costs big money, a few billion apiece for each of the large NRO payloads, so the number of satellites is small and they are fully tasked. The US push to use commercial sources more extensively simply underscores these economic realities.
If any of these entities had a clue, the searchers would not be stumbling around as at present, trying to 'find the haystack' in the lapidary words of an Australian search leader.
There is still the possibility that close analysis of satellite pictures taken on the day it went missing could find a contrail or cloud track as the aircraft descended.
It’s quite amazing what detail you can see of the clouds on the Worldview site if you zoom to max plus you can go back to the date in question.
These are 250m resolution with no timestamp, but the raw data or better resolution must exist somewhere.
https://earthdata.nasa.gov/labs/worldview/
It’s quite amazing what detail you can see of the clouds on the Worldview site if you zoom to max plus you can go back to the date in question.
These are 250m resolution with no timestamp, but the raw data or better resolution must exist somewhere.
https://earthdata.nasa.gov/labs/worldview/
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Feel free to delete if this is not helpful - or ask me to delete in a PM.
I don't work for Inmarsat, but I know a certain amount about satellite and radio systems, inference and imaging.
The radar data I see as at best very badly presented, and at worst useless. The zigzagging also: I have seen no solid evidence for it. Perhaps your request might throw some up, BOAC.
I suspect Inmarsat won't want to confirm details, as their clients probably wouldn't want any precedent set for revealing their business.
a) My understand is that there was no data transfer from the aircraft via satellite, but that there was an account - so the satellite checks in with the aircraft (every hour?) to know if it's awake. That signal is timed, and the distance of the aircraft from the satellite can be found. The signal frequency can also be used (it is now discovered) to provide a Doppler measurement of the aircraft's speed in the direction of the satellite.
b) No information. All reports I've seen are hourly.
c) The 40 degree arc: reflects that the distance from the aircraft to the satellite is such that the satellite is at an elevation of about 40-degrees above the horizon as seen from the aircraft. A 35 degree arc would have the aircraft further away, and the satellite lower in the sky. The Doppler velocity tells you only the component of velocity along the satellite-aircraft straight line. Thus it is not ambiguous. The satellite is also moving in a north-south ~1000-km figure-8 about its geostationary station every 24 hours, which helps the Doppler analysis.
d) There's a plot in the Straits Times. Malaysia releases satellite analysis by UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch, reportedly from the AAIB. But there isn't an equivalent plot for the distance/elevation time series. So, to answer your question: no, only from a plot from a powerpoint presentation. The Australians went off at a tremendous rate in their search once this was published though, and so in my mind that lends a great deal of credibility to the result.
e) No information. To analyze the Doppler and arc information to find possible tracks isn't difficult, but there are some problems: there isn't a public set of Doppler and elevation data, and the initial conditions for the problem are not well determined. There are similar classes of problems that have been solved to find the wreck of the submarine Scorpion and to recover nuclear weapons lost at sea. [I suspect the solution is a ~500-mile wide swath that sweeps from 2500miles from Perth to 1000miles from Perth, which will make the search for the data recorders very challenging - but that's just my opinion.]
[Finally - another opinion - I have yet to see a single photo of any "wreckage" that doesn't look like a whitecap, or waves washing over a freight container. The visual search for items three weeks after the crash seems to be a waste of time, and even if anything is found, it will be less helpful after all the drifting it's done in terms of locating the data recorders than the Inmarsat data.]
Q1) To start with the satellite:
a) We were told, I believe (Inmarsat?) that the signal was a/c to sat only since Malaysian have no monitoring contract with RR. I see folk talking about returns from both sat and a/c now?
b) We were told the pings were ‘hourly’ until the 0019(Z) ping. Now it is being said half-hourly. Which is it and what do we know about any half-hourly ping factors?
c) Inmarsat initially talked of an ‘elevation’ component to the received signal (the ’40 degree arc’). Now I understand they are talking only about Doppler shift. It should be remembered that Doppler shift is only ‘valid’ when motion is to or from the receiver and that tangential shift is zero.
d) Do we know for sure what the Doppler variations were?
e) Are we sure that the a/c was still transmitting at 0019Z having tried a ‘regular’ ping at 0011Z? If so, what do we make of this confusing statement that the a/c appears to have flown at a higher speed for the same time but travelled less distance (s=ut and all that)? Is there a given Doppler factor for the 0019 ping?
a) We were told, I believe (Inmarsat?) that the signal was a/c to sat only since Malaysian have no monitoring contract with RR. I see folk talking about returns from both sat and a/c now?
b) We were told the pings were ‘hourly’ until the 0019(Z) ping. Now it is being said half-hourly. Which is it and what do we know about any half-hourly ping factors?
c) Inmarsat initially talked of an ‘elevation’ component to the received signal (the ’40 degree arc’). Now I understand they are talking only about Doppler shift. It should be remembered that Doppler shift is only ‘valid’ when motion is to or from the receiver and that tangential shift is zero.
d) Do we know for sure what the Doppler variations were?
e) Are we sure that the a/c was still transmitting at 0019Z having tried a ‘regular’ ping at 0011Z? If so, what do we make of this confusing statement that the a/c appears to have flown at a higher speed for the same time but travelled less distance (s=ut and all that)? Is there a given Doppler factor for the 0019 ping?
The radar data I see as at best very badly presented, and at worst useless. The zigzagging also: I have seen no solid evidence for it. Perhaps your request might throw some up, BOAC.
I suspect Inmarsat won't want to confirm details, as their clients probably wouldn't want any precedent set for revealing their business.
a) My understand is that there was no data transfer from the aircraft via satellite, but that there was an account - so the satellite checks in with the aircraft (every hour?) to know if it's awake. That signal is timed, and the distance of the aircraft from the satellite can be found. The signal frequency can also be used (it is now discovered) to provide a Doppler measurement of the aircraft's speed in the direction of the satellite.
b) No information. All reports I've seen are hourly.
c) The 40 degree arc: reflects that the distance from the aircraft to the satellite is such that the satellite is at an elevation of about 40-degrees above the horizon as seen from the aircraft. A 35 degree arc would have the aircraft further away, and the satellite lower in the sky. The Doppler velocity tells you only the component of velocity along the satellite-aircraft straight line. Thus it is not ambiguous. The satellite is also moving in a north-south ~1000-km figure-8 about its geostationary station every 24 hours, which helps the Doppler analysis.
d) There's a plot in the Straits Times. Malaysia releases satellite analysis by UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch, reportedly from the AAIB. But there isn't an equivalent plot for the distance/elevation time series. So, to answer your question: no, only from a plot from a powerpoint presentation. The Australians went off at a tremendous rate in their search once this was published though, and so in my mind that lends a great deal of credibility to the result.
e) No information. To analyze the Doppler and arc information to find possible tracks isn't difficult, but there are some problems: there isn't a public set of Doppler and elevation data, and the initial conditions for the problem are not well determined. There are similar classes of problems that have been solved to find the wreck of the submarine Scorpion and to recover nuclear weapons lost at sea. [I suspect the solution is a ~500-mile wide swath that sweeps from 2500miles from Perth to 1000miles from Perth, which will make the search for the data recorders very challenging - but that's just my opinion.]
[Finally - another opinion - I have yet to see a single photo of any "wreckage" that doesn't look like a whitecap, or waves washing over a freight container. The visual search for items three weeks after the crash seems to be a waste of time, and even if anything is found, it will be less helpful after all the drifting it's done in terms of locating the data recorders than the Inmarsat data.]
Last edited by awblain; 29th Mar 2014 at 21:50. Reason: Scorpion not Thresher - thanks for the PM
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Malaysia Airlines Flight 370: Ships retrieve possible debris in ocean - CBS News
Possible debris recovered, say CBS. Not confirmed.
"For the first time, ships taking part in the massive search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 retrieved debris in the ocean Saturday, CBS Radio News correspondent Steve Futterman reports from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
According to a statement from the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, which is overseeing the search, so far no objects recovered are confirmed to be related to the missing jet.
Two ships - one Australian and one Chinese - were able to pick up what is described as a number of objects."
Possible debris recovered, say CBS. Not confirmed.
"For the first time, ships taking part in the massive search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 retrieved debris in the ocean Saturday, CBS Radio News correspondent Steve Futterman reports from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
According to a statement from the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, which is overseeing the search, so far no objects recovered are confirmed to be related to the missing jet.
Two ships - one Australian and one Chinese - were able to pick up what is described as a number of objects."
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ULB
There has been some discussion on here about making the ULB an 'active' system where it scans for an 'initiation' signal from searchers and then replies, therefore extending battery life.
What can be done much more simply is to double the time intervals between 'pings' which will roughly double the battery life. This increased 'capacity' could alternatively be used to power a frequency lower than 37.5KHz for the same 30 days but with an extended range or indeed a combination of the two things depending on what SAR believe would be more useful.
Personally I believe an extended range would be more beneficial than greater endurance, especially in situations like we have with MH370 where we don't have an exact location. In fact I would suggest that the frequency of pings are reduced from once per second to an interval which will provide enough power to support a frequency that allows the range to extend above the surface of the sea in most areas.
Then a ULB search could be done from the surface or the air without having to rely on the much slower towed array.
What can be done much more simply is to double the time intervals between 'pings' which will roughly double the battery life. This increased 'capacity' could alternatively be used to power a frequency lower than 37.5KHz for the same 30 days but with an extended range or indeed a combination of the two things depending on what SAR believe would be more useful.
Personally I believe an extended range would be more beneficial than greater endurance, especially in situations like we have with MH370 where we don't have an exact location. In fact I would suggest that the frequency of pings are reduced from once per second to an interval which will provide enough power to support a frequency that allows the range to extend above the surface of the sea in most areas.
Then a ULB search could be done from the surface or the air without having to rely on the much slower towed array.
