Having looked out for MH370 crossing the same area this evening , The coverage seems very stable in that region on FR24 to suggest that when it indicated altitude 0 last night it was infact not receiving data due to something sudden.

Perhaps they were not attacking the aircraft but someone on it. There are two 'stolen passport' IDs on the aircraft and a 'redacted' ID.

The fake pair of pax would not be bothered about Chinese immigration officers detecting 2 stolen passports at Beijing if they had no intention of arriving there, or anywhere else for that matter.

FlightRadar24
 

DaveReid (at 124 or 124),

I'm not really sure what obscure point of terminology you were trying to make about my reference to "publicly available" radar information and I don't really care. I posted twice to let people know that FlightRadar24 shows radar/transponder tracking information with the aircraft disappearing in an area with good coverage at 17:19 UTC, not the time initially misreported by the airline and ATC. I posted this at a time when most commenters were still operating under the incorrect belief that the plane flew for two hours before crashing.

I think I contributed something of value to the discussion. How about you?

BTW, all subsequent data confirms that the plane went down at the place and time shown by the FlightRadar24 data I was mentioning

So, please excuse the :mad: out of me if my non-aviator terminology didn't liveup to your expectations.

One of the New Zealanders was not Asian: Two Kiwis feared dead on missing Malaysia Airlines aircraft - National - NZ Herald News

No but I am a Pilot at Biggin Hill Airport, I don't claim to be someone I'm not. But the T7 has a set fuel burn rate [SFCs] for different periods of flight which for this flight worked out to be 40T of trip fuel. I assume you know this.

The aircraft going missing had probably 70℅ of it's fuel uptake left - so 5-6hours unburned at time of dissapearance.

No, those are initial misinterpretations of what FlightRadar24 is and isn't capable of telling us.

Quote:
Curious to know if Dangerous Goods were onboard... specifically lithium batteries. While we are D/G approved, that is one of a few items I refuse to carry on my jet.


Yes there were. In the ELT, each ULB, FMS not to mention cell phones, iPads, notebook computers...


I wonder if we should consider adding a baro switch to the ELT? That way a major failure that depressurized the cabin would start the ELT and might provide a better position fix prior to impact. If the aircraft is recovered by the flight crew they can always reset it from the remote switch.

What is an ADR? God give me strength

I agree that it is unlikely that MH370 had time to make a call, but it is possible they had time, but were too preoccupied to do so. Just as with AF447.

Precisely what I also think, but apparently its unwise to think of such things!

Just re the stolen passports, is there not a high crime rate of stolen passports in Thailand, and possibly could this simply have been immigrants trying to get into China? I would be unaware I have to admit of immigration trends to China, initially I would have though it wouldn't be that high - But its the only real concrete information in relation to MH370 at the moment, alike AF447 I think it will be a while before we actually know what happen this aircraft.

FR24 released the last tracking file of MH370 take a look at there twitter. And I hardly believe you are in a high position to determine if its misinterpretation are you?

And a T7 has how many of these devices?

I am probably wrong with this but I believe on the T7 there are two ADIRUs (Air Data Inertial Reference Unit) for each pilots section complemented by a secondary attitude air data reference unit (SAARU) as well as standby instruments, stand to be corrected on that!

Last time I checked the 777 had no ADRs, but when I get to work tomorrow, I will check.

777-200 'planned' fuel burn equates to an average of 6 tonnes an hour in the cruise. Extra needs to be taken into account for climb and cruise climbs.


Minimum reserve fuel for our fleet 'tends' to be around 3 tonnes.
Taxi fuel, contingency fuel and diversion fuel on top.


For example a recent flight of mine, 10 and 1/2 hours.
Trip fuel 77.3 tonnes
Contingency 2 tonnes
Div 3 tonnes
Reserves 3 tonnes
Taxi 500kg
Total 85.8 tonnes.


Make of that what you will if you want to calculate how much fuel they would have had on board.


As a previous SAR pilot kerosene will show up as smooth 'rainbowing' on the surface of the sea. Crude oil produces the brown slicks and grey water discharges from merchant vessels.


My condolences to the crew and passengers, I will await the accident report with interest.

Andrasz (post #372)
The advisory on the MAS website that contact with MH370 was lost at 0240 local is obviously in error, perhaps unintentional or a misinterpretation.

Rockhound

So (correct me if I am misquoting you, please) you are seriously suggesting that the aircraft's final ADS-B squitter indicated a true altitude of zero, presumably at the precise instant when (obviously intact, despite no voice or ACARS comms during the descent from FL350) it impacted the sea. :ugh:

Which bit of your scenario have I got wrong?

Nope, no ADR. ADIRS. Air Data Inertial Reference System provides


primary, secondary and standby air data.
Inertial reference information.


Components are:
One ADIRU
One SAARU
Eight air data modules
six static ports
three pitot probes
two angle of attack vanes
two TAT probes.

T777 is pretty bullet, idiot proof in its design, so if the ADIRU went off then the SAARU would have taken over, if every thing failed the aircraft is capable of being hand flown all be it in a degraded state.



The guys flying it were pretty experienced, and giving the captains age and experience would have been able to hand fly it, having probably flown steam driven planes prior to getting on the T777.

If as its been said here its altitude went from 35000ft to 0 in one minute, its either blown up (bomb or massive structural failure) or the wings come off due to fatigue from previous damage and its torn its self apart.

Does anyone recall if the guys in TWA800 got a mayday call out.

No sorry I apologise, what I was basically saying is last night people discredited FR24, but now the location FR24 last broadcast the flight seems to be fairly accurate, although admittedly as there is no wreckage that's unconfirmed. And of course you are correct, the final altitude and speed are erroneous on FR24, sorry if I implied the opposite.

Wirbelstrum

Indeed, that's what my "books" say as well....

First, total ADR failure is wildly improbable.
Second, even when it has happened it is still possible to fly the plane by turning the systems off.
Third, as such incidents have shown with ADR failure communications are important to get independent confirmation of airspeed.

Finally, I do not recall any ADR fault that has been found to be the primary cause of a hull loss.

This talk of ADIRS failure is pure nonsense - simply doesn't explain the situation.

With the available info (admittedly quite sparse), I can't get passed the idea of a catastrophic structural failure. What I wouldn't like to speculate on is the cause, except to note that in 20 years of 777 operation, nothing like this has even come close to happening (compared with the likes of the 747 and DC10 where there were several structure-related occurrences).

Some good input from actual real airline pilots, if like me you don't post in here 'cos you know you'd look a proper eejit very quickly, then might some of you consider taking the nonsense over here?
MH370 Malaysian Airlines B772 Missing Enroute KUL-PEK Part 4 — Civil Aviation Forum | Airliners.net

That's very true.

Simple questions:
1/ What's the flight time Kul-pek?
2/ Would there have been fuel in the centre tank?

1 - 6hrs
2 - The MAS VP last night said it had over 7hrs of fuel

Apparently now also some uncertainty whether the Russian passenger on the manifest was on board or not....

Fake/stolen passports
 

I'm only SLF, so I'm anticipating being insulted by the experts in the next few minutes.
I'm troubled and puzzled by the two passengers travelling on fake/stolen passports.
I think previous posters have suggested that the passport checks at the airport of departure are only to establish that you look like the picture in your passport and that you match the advance passenger information you supplied. Is there any check against the database of the passport issuing country - I don't think so.
There is also of course a difference in the procedure if you need to check a bag or if you go straight to departures with hand luggage - in the latter case it is only the airport that looks at your passport until you reach the departure gate.

No one has yet speculated on the possible significance of two rather than one false passport holders. If the false passports are merely a way of entering China illegally (possibly because of the visa rather than the passport) then this may be unrelated to the loss of the aircraft; if it is a way of getting bad guys on board to do harm or damage, then why two?

Could the fake passengers/passports be a way of disconnecting a passenger from their hold baggage?

All this meandering thought leads me to think that it would be interesting and possibly important to know whether the fake Italian and Austrian (a) came from a connecting flight, (b) was it from the same place and (c) did they check in bags or not?

I do hope as this speculation concerns passengers not the airplane you will forgive me for posting.

There probably was fuel in the center tanks at the time of take-off, but what difference could it possibly make?

What is your thinking?

If you scroll half way down the following link, what is the 19:51 report, at N 22.6397 and E 114.0839? (somewhere in the HongKong area, doing 511 kts.


Flight Track Log ? MAS370 ? 07-Mar-2014 ? WMKK / KUL - ZBAA / PEK ? FlightAware

Enos

"Does anyone recall if the guys in TWA800 got a mayday call out."

No call IIRC.

Stalins ugly Brother
777-200 Holds 28300kgs per wing tank total wings 56600 Sg .803 (correct me if im wrong) if the Sg is less than this you may get about a ton less per wing.


777-200ER Holds 29100kgs per wing tank 58200 total.


Anything above this goes in the CTR tank.


If it was RR powered, bank on a fuel burn between 7-7.5T per Hr so you would have about 7hrs gas, before you start putting fuel in the CTR tank.


Would think a sector like this is about 4 or 5 hrs long 37.5 ton, plus 3.0 ton reserve plus contingency say 1500kg and an alternate say 4 ton 700 kg taxi.


I don't think the CTR tank would have any fuel in it.

A posting on Airliners.net saying that this was a code share flight with China Southern Airlines, and that only 7 pax were ticketed by them, including the 'Italian' and the'Austrian'

Given that each wing tank holds 29.1 tonnes and the centre tank holds 79.3 and a published fuel endurance of 7 hours then I would estimate the fuel loading to be somewhere in the figure of 53 tonnes given trip, 3 tonne reserves, 6 tonne (guessed) diversion, 2 tonne contingency.


If so then the wing tanks would take that without using the centre tank.


Some aircraft (300 series definitely and some 200 series) have a nitrogen generation system to reduce the flammability of the centre wing tank fuel. I don't know if this aircraft had it fitted.


Reasonable to assume the centre tank was empty at take off.


I personally will happily wait for the official report on this one.

It's correct that in the case of AF447 the crew did not have time to communicate. But the aircraft did, via ACARS. There were several status messages sent during the upset which were recovered right away and communicated pretty fast. The aircraft was able to "communicate" due to the fact that its systems worked until impact.

In the case of the 777 we have no such indication so far. While I don't know if the 777 has the same kind of capability to send out ACARS maintenance status messages, it would surprise me if not. And, assuming it can, if nothing has been received, it would be one more indication that at least some of the the aircrafts systems ceased to work instantaneously.

From where I am sitting, whatever happened to this airplane was totally unexpected to the crew and catastrophic enough to prevent any coms. WHAT that was, we won't know until the aircraft is found and recovered.

The search area is correct. The "2 hours out of KL" is wrong.

AN2 Driver


The T777 sends all sorts of messages back to the company and definitely sends system status messages when things are wrong.

I assume they were outside VHF comms at the time? Would they have been CPDLC at the time? If so you can declare mayday via datalink using satcom. If not then its possible to lose HF contact or at least make it difficult to put out a mayday. As you say though, if decompression etc then would probably expect maintenance messages to have been sent.