EgyptAir 804 disappears from radar Paris-Cairo
Join Date: Oct 2015
Location: USA
Posts: 415
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
@striker26
Last para in your own post #213 answers first para in you post.
Also, in the past Egypt's conclusions contradicted with other agencies like NTSB on MS990 and MAK on 7K9268. So it is natural for foreign media to be skeptical.
I have to say they appear to be more open minded this time around.
Last para in your own post #213 answers first para in you post.
Also, in the past Egypt's conclusions contradicted with other agencies like NTSB on MS990 and MAK on 7K9268. So it is natural for foreign media to be skeptical.
I have to say they appear to be more open minded this time around.
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: here and there
Age: 69
Posts: 76
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
@HT
There was tranfer from 'Makedonia control' sector to "Athens control" south sector (both being part of Athens ATS, just before KEA at 02:47 or so.
like i wrote earlier Egyptair gets regular ACARS from their fleet. Surely somebody would have said something -from their side- if anything abnormal or irregular was noticed from the data received which the aircraft transmitted manually or automatic. they claim 'operations normal' so to speak, till the time it disappeared from radar and that proves ONLY that the 'machine' was in good condition and nothing else.
There was tranfer from 'Makedonia control' sector to "Athens control" south sector (both being part of Athens ATS, just before KEA at 02:47 or so.
like i wrote earlier Egyptair gets regular ACARS from their fleet. Surely somebody would have said something -from their side- if anything abnormal or irregular was noticed from the data received which the aircraft transmitted manually or automatic. they claim 'operations normal' so to speak, till the time it disappeared from radar and that proves ONLY that the 'machine' was in good condition and nothing else.
Join Date: Dec 2014
Location: Bangor, Northern Ireland
Posts: 10
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Sky News are reporting that a body part has been found. 
"Greek Defence minister says Egyptian authorities have found a body part, seats and suitcases in the Egyptair MS804 search".
"Greek Defence minister says Egyptian authorities have found a body part, seats and suitcases in the Egyptair MS804 search".
Last edited by eZathras; 20th May 2016 at 11:34. Reason: typo
Signal to noise ratio here is, as said elsewhere, dreadful. Could the amateurs and non pilots (please see the title of this forum) please keep their musings to themselves? Incoherent ramblings by spectators aren't helpful or useful.
Facts seem to be;
Whatever occurred could have occurred or started to occur anytime during the 40 something minutes after the last communication during which the a/c flew on normally and perhaps continued to occur all the way to the sea.
It is perfectly normal not to talk to an a/c for that length of time if remaining on its cleared route. Why on earth not? Pilots and ATC tend not to jabber pointlessly, unlike some here.
Comms were not established as the FIR boundary approached. Loss of comms in that area is, as previously stated not unusual due to extreme range. For those with no imagination at all had a mayday been made than all other aircraft within c. 200 miles would have heard it even if ATC didn't. Ergo none was made.
40 sec later the a/c began to descend rapidly and entered a series of turns. This is not inconsistent with the drill for rapid depressurisation/rapid descent though the 360' turn is not usually included in that. The 90' turn however most definitely is used in some companies's drills. The decisive turn off airway and immediate rapid descant is a well known and unique signature.
The fact that these events occurred almost immediately upon entering Egyptian airspace may or may not be a coincidence.
The turns are confidently reported as 90' left followed by 360' right. These numbers are precise parts of a whole turn and therefore do not look like the random gyrations of an out of control aeroplane. It seems most likely/almost certain that the aircraft was under a good measure of control at this point. Using these manoeuvres to speculate or infer damaged controls is simply not logical and beyond what the evidence supports. (not saying it's impossible, just there is no evidence to support it). It is, however, vanishingly unlikely for those turns to be random. It seems we can assume reasonable lateral control at least at this point.
"Spin". Oh dear. A spin is a manoeuvre where the a/c rotates almost about it's wingtip. It also only occurs at stall speed (except certain high g cases which an Airbus is most unlikely to ever reach). That loss of speed has not been reported. Bar an Extra at an airshow no aircraft - let alone an airliner does just one 360' spin, let alone a quarter one way and then a single turn the other. Airbi don't/can't spin in any but the most unusual circumstances, the flight control laws just won't allow it. If one did I'm pretty sure it would have to be in direct law (how did it get there?) and would almost cetainly be totally unrecoverable by any normal pilot and therefore result in multiple spins all the way down. Damage sufficient to cause a spin would have to be huge and catastrophic (loss of a large proportion of a flying surface or possibly t/r activation is about all I can think of) and most unlikely to result in a single turn - all but impossible. No radar will identify a spin at the 100+ mile ranges we're talking about - as the aircraft is effectively going vertically downwards the spin had no or virtually no "width" for radar to see. Compare with a 360' turn which requires two - four mies at any flying speed. Forget spin. A 360' turn was reported as observed and we have to go with that for now.
The separation interval between the left and right turns would be helpful. Were they contiguous or separated and distinct manoeuvres?
Timescale between leaving FL370 and loss of radar return at FL150(?) would be helpful.
We don't seem to know much more. No doubt we soon will.
Facts seem to be;
Whatever occurred could have occurred or started to occur anytime during the 40 something minutes after the last communication during which the a/c flew on normally and perhaps continued to occur all the way to the sea.
It is perfectly normal not to talk to an a/c for that length of time if remaining on its cleared route. Why on earth not? Pilots and ATC tend not to jabber pointlessly, unlike some here.
Comms were not established as the FIR boundary approached. Loss of comms in that area is, as previously stated not unusual due to extreme range. For those with no imagination at all had a mayday been made than all other aircraft within c. 200 miles would have heard it even if ATC didn't. Ergo none was made.
40 sec later the a/c began to descend rapidly and entered a series of turns. This is not inconsistent with the drill for rapid depressurisation/rapid descent though the 360' turn is not usually included in that. The 90' turn however most definitely is used in some companies's drills. The decisive turn off airway and immediate rapid descant is a well known and unique signature.
The fact that these events occurred almost immediately upon entering Egyptian airspace may or may not be a coincidence.
The turns are confidently reported as 90' left followed by 360' right. These numbers are precise parts of a whole turn and therefore do not look like the random gyrations of an out of control aeroplane. It seems most likely/almost certain that the aircraft was under a good measure of control at this point. Using these manoeuvres to speculate or infer damaged controls is simply not logical and beyond what the evidence supports. (not saying it's impossible, just there is no evidence to support it). It is, however, vanishingly unlikely for those turns to be random. It seems we can assume reasonable lateral control at least at this point.
"Spin". Oh dear. A spin is a manoeuvre where the a/c rotates almost about it's wingtip. It also only occurs at stall speed (except certain high g cases which an Airbus is most unlikely to ever reach). That loss of speed has not been reported. Bar an Extra at an airshow no aircraft - let alone an airliner does just one 360' spin, let alone a quarter one way and then a single turn the other. Airbi don't/can't spin in any but the most unusual circumstances, the flight control laws just won't allow it. If one did I'm pretty sure it would have to be in direct law (how did it get there?) and would almost cetainly be totally unrecoverable by any normal pilot and therefore result in multiple spins all the way down. Damage sufficient to cause a spin would have to be huge and catastrophic (loss of a large proportion of a flying surface or possibly t/r activation is about all I can think of) and most unlikely to result in a single turn - all but impossible. No radar will identify a spin at the 100+ mile ranges we're talking about - as the aircraft is effectively going vertically downwards the spin had no or virtually no "width" for radar to see. Compare with a 360' turn which requires two - four mies at any flying speed. Forget spin. A 360' turn was reported as observed and we have to go with that for now.
The separation interval between the left and right turns would be helpful. Were they contiguous or separated and distinct manoeuvres?
Timescale between leaving FL370 and loss of radar return at FL150(?) would be helpful.
We don't seem to know much more. No doubt we soon will.
Join Date: May 2012
Location: Australia
Posts: 131
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
@Wageslave Open forum open comments sorry...
Regarding the turn of 90, wasn't there some discussing with MH370 that if it had to change altitude, the pilot may do a turn of 90 degrees in order to get away from the flight line possibly used by other aircraft?
Regarding the turn of 90, wasn't there some discussing with MH370 that if it had to change altitude, the pilot may do a turn of 90 degrees in order to get away from the flight line possibly used by other aircraft?
How can primary radar returns indicate an aircraft’s instantaneous heading?
It is said MS804 turned 90 degrees left and then 360 degrees right, giving the impression they were balanced turns. The primary plot may well have described such a path, but who knows where the nose was pointing?
Couldn’t it have been ‘tumbling’, inverted, slipping backwards/sideways, etc.? Very unlikely, I admit, but possible?
The greater the turn radius the greater the probability the turn was balanced/controlled, but do we know the approximate radius?
It is said MS804 turned 90 degrees left and then 360 degrees right, giving the impression they were balanced turns. The primary plot may well have described such a path, but who knows where the nose was pointing?
Couldn’t it have been ‘tumbling’, inverted, slipping backwards/sideways, etc.? Very unlikely, I admit, but possible?
The greater the turn radius the greater the probability the turn was balanced/controlled, but do we know the approximate radius?
Join Date: Dec 2013
Location: Norfolk
Age: 67
Posts: 1
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
The use of Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites for official announcements is now well established. The reason for using these sites is that they are equipped to handle millions of requests per second and can adjust their capacity to respond. Government networks are usually much more limited in their capacity to handle requests and cannot scale up beyond a certain limit. This means that a constant barrage of enquiries to official websites would result in most requests being met with a "Server not found" error message.
A 90 degree turn off the flight path is a standard manoeuver when initiating an emergency descent following a depressurisation or other incident. The idea is to maintain separation from other aircraft that might be flying at different altitudes on the same airway. So an indication that something may have occured that resulted in depressurisation, but no more than that. As the aircraft descended the range of any radio transmissions would also have reduced drastically, so it is unlikely that a distress call, if made, would have been received.
A 90 degree turn off the flight path is a standard manoeuver when initiating an emergency descent following a depressurisation or other incident. The idea is to maintain separation from other aircraft that might be flying at different altitudes on the same airway. So an indication that something may have occured that resulted in depressurisation, but no more than that. As the aircraft descended the range of any radio transmissions would also have reduced drastically, so it is unlikely that a distress call, if made, would have been received.
Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: Buckinghamshire
Posts: 34
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
@Wageslave: I'd add that the public ADS-B records do not show the turns or descent. If this is a "conventional" failure, and you are correct in your interpretation of the pilot having control at these times, then it is odd or very unfortunate, that the ADS-B failed.
And covering an item that we do not know..... I don't think we know of any ACARS transmissions....
And covering an item that we do not know..... I don't think we know of any ACARS transmissions....
Join Date: Mar 2014
Location: UK
Age: 74
Posts: 54
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
"I think the assumption is that this is a shallow water area but it's not, this part of the Mediterranean is really quite deep,"
Join Date: Dec 2014
Location: Schiphol
Posts: 475
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
from that same BBC conversation, see BBC hyperlink above ... crash location, but if it is where this debris has been found then it sits on a boundary where the ocean floor is more like the Alps, very rugged and contoured. "That area borders a large, deep plain about 3km down." Dr Simon Boxall said an A320 could easily "slip through the cracks" of the ocean floor in the area."This is a very soft sediment area and wreckage could sink very quickly,so they need to find it fast," he said. The ocean floor ridges could also act to block signals from the black box pinger, and sonar from vessels searching for the wreckage, ...
Join Date: Dec 2014
Location: Schiphol
Posts: 475
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
According to ESA Sentinel1 satellite image, an oil slick in the search area was found at 33°32' N / 29°13' E – about 40 km southeast of the last known location of the aircraft. And that information relayed to the search authorities.
A0283 note - Sentinel1 is one of a series of satellites of the ESA Sentinel series. There is an 1a and a 1b. Most likely this is from 1a (the older one). Claiming that the slick is from the aircraft is very very premature.
Join Date: May 2001
Location: UK
Posts: 71
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Does anyone know if any revisions to CV/FDR design are in the pipeline, after MH370 and AF447, such as auto-jettisoning, floating units?
I find it rather depressing that here we are, several years on, with the risk, again, of potentially being unable to locate the data recorders.
I find it rather depressing that here we are, several years on, with the risk, again, of potentially being unable to locate the data recorders.
Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: london
Posts: 33
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Does anyone know if any revisions to CV/FDR design are in the pipeline, after MH370 and AF447, such as auto-jettisoning, floating units?
I find it rather depressing that here we are, several years on, with the risk, again, of potentially being unable to locate the data recorders.
I find it rather depressing that here we are, several years on, with the risk, again, of potentially being unable to locate the data recorders.
Here we are in the year 2016..if an a/c ditches in the sea:
We rely on... A 37.5 kHz (160.5 dB re 1 μPa) pinger which can be detectable 1–2 kilometres (0.62–1.24 mi) from the surface in normal conditions and 4–5 kilometres (2.5–3.1 mi) in good conditions.
Yes from the surface... 3miles.
How far down might this a/c be located? How long have we been looking for MH370 towing a sonar device from the back of a boat @ 5mph on a very narrow sweep. Because the batteries on the pathetic ULB(Underwater locator beacon) died yonks ago??
We should be ashamed, dont blame the coffers, blame the people who make the regs in the first place for the public airspace, this should be stipulated no a/c can fly without a new and considerably improved FDR/CVR detection/recovery system in place which is not from the dark ages. /RANT
(Please excuse the rant, it is somewhat related to the issue here, RIP to all those souls lost, and thoughts to families loved ones involved.)
Last edited by captains_log; 20th May 2016 at 14:13.
Ejectable/jettisonable Recorders
The technology is available and has been in use by the military for some time, as the background material in this Reuters article on AirAsia QZ8501 makes clear:
AirAsia crash makes case for ejectable black boxes | Reuters
In theory, it was discussed at the ICAO High Level Safety Conference in February last year
HLSC
but I can't quickly find anything in the publicly available documentation. Enhanced tracking was discussed, as these reports make clear - see page 60 of the pdf
http://www.icao.int/Meetings/HLSC201...s/10046_en.pdf
and
Air Transport News
and
ASN News » ICAO member states recommend new flight tracking performance standard
AirAsia crash makes case for ejectable black boxes | Reuters
In theory, it was discussed at the ICAO High Level Safety Conference in February last year
HLSC
but I can't quickly find anything in the publicly available documentation. Enhanced tracking was discussed, as these reports make clear - see page 60 of the pdf
http://www.icao.int/Meetings/HLSC201...s/10046_en.pdf
and
Air Transport News
and
ASN News » ICAO member states recommend new flight tracking performance standard
It is said MS804 turned 90 degrees left and then 360 degrees right, giving the impression they were balanced turns.
This is a summary of their interpretation of such radar information as they had, so note that it is "possible movements" not "this is God's own truth!"
The primary plot may well have described such a path, but who knows where the nose was pointing?
Reviewing Wageslave's post directly above yours, the answer ought to be obvious.
Track information is a collection of data points over time that tell you the aircraft's path over the ground. When an aircraft is flying (rather than falling in a stall or spin) track and "where the nose is pointed" generally coincide. (with a few degrees of crab as needed for cross wind ...)
Couldn’t it have be n ‘tumbling’, inverted, slipping backwards/sideways, etc.? Very unlikely, I admit, but possible?
From my own experience: years ago, when I was flight instructor, I reviewed radar tapes of an aircraft that had crashed while in a spin. The track information for the maneuvers before spin entry showed the usual time/distance lapse and ground track. The lateral distance covered once spin entry (and the ensuing failure to recover) was significantly less, both on the practice spin initiated and recovered from, and on the subsequent one initiated and not recovered from.
The greater the turn radius the greater the probability the turn was balanced/controlled, but do we know the approximate radius?
Again, see the points Wageslave made in the post above yours.
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Wollerau, Switzerland
Age: 48
Posts: 1
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Does anyone know if any revisions to CV/FDR design are in the pipeline, after MH370 and AF447, such as auto-jettisoning, floating units?
I find it rather depressing that here we are, several years on, with the risk, again, of potentially being unable to locate the data recorders.
I find it rather depressing that here we are, several years on, with the risk, again, of potentially being unable to locate the data recorders.
Last info I came upon around a year ago is essentially nothing. There seem to be thoughts thrown around about adding GPS coordinates to the ACARS messages plus preventing the pilot from turning off ACARS. But no concrete action yet.
You can imagine the objections, and indeed they are sensible: what if there's an electric fire? Does the benefit from pretty rare events justify the risk? And so on.
Join Date: Oct 2011
Location: Jerusalem Israel
Posts: 2
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Where on the seabed will the debris field be?
If you look at the seabed map a few posts ago on this page (14), and measure 300 km from Alexandria, you find an arc that is on the smooth area south of the northeast-southwest ridges and well south of the rough terrain that is closer to Crete. I hope that will speed the recovery of clues to the wreck.