Kiwiconhead:
Um this is a territory of Australia. Populated with Australians.

Add to that the understanding that JORN is not manned 24/7. Whether or not the traces are available 'outside operating hours' is the classified bit

I believe it has been. From CBC: 'Police on Saturday went to the Kuala Lumpur homes of both the pilot and co-pilot of the missing plane, according to a guard and several local reporters. Authorities have said they will investigate the pilots as part of their probe, but have released no information about how they are progressing.'

Just the thing for Australian P3's performing a SAR in the southern arc :rolleyes:

@D.S.


From what I remember reading, Vietnam ATC informed Malaysian ATC about the missing a/c at 02.40L (Malaysian time). This is pretty much exactly the time when the mystery a/c disappeared from the military radar to the west of Malaysia. I imagine the news sent the Malaysians scurrying to replay their recordings of what radar operators had failed to see? So there were two instances of '02.40', which may have confused a few people.

Limitations of JORN
 

A further limitation of JORN, according to ADF publications, it doesn't scan like a conventional radar, but rather it is tasked to scan a particular 'tile' and either airborne or surface targets. I don't know how quickly it can be retasked, but it seems very unlikely that it would have accidentally painted MH370. If it deliberately painted that part of the sky then that's a whole other story.

MAS Fined in New Zealand
 

This was probably mentioned here earlier, but MAS was actually fined by usually mild New Zealand.

According to the report below, MAS deliberately violated an order not to allow a named passenger to leave the country. The passenger's passport details were falsified to circumvent automatic checks.

Malaysia Airlines has previous conviction for 'falsifying passport details to allow passenger on board' | South China Morning Post

I'm thinking about the final non standard radio transmission. As this happened after the ACARS was turned off I presume that someone has done an analysis of the transmission to see if it is either of the pilots voices. The opinion of some of the comments on this site is that it is an Americanism, is it a normal term of speech for Malay pilots?

Snowfalcon,

But every crew is only ever 90 seconds from voluntarily spearing into the ground/sea, as Egyptair showed.

Circuit breaker design isn't going to stop a deranged crew, or fraction thereof, of going postal.

Legacy aircraft can't have their power systems and the location of their avionics bays redesigned as a result of a one-off freak event. If you want a permanent locator, then fit an independent transponder.

I wonder if any knee-jerking legislators might consider having arbitrary numbers of security persons with much less education, training and judgement than the crew themselves installed in the jump seats to watch the crew and each other?

My thoughts exactly. What airfields has he practised landing at?

Question:

How long is passenger oxygen supposed to last? Obviously with fewer passengers it would last longer. With high anxiety it would last less.

How long will cockpit oxygen last supposing it is a different supply?

PS:

Remember the film Thunderball. Has the pilot got that at home too?

Todays Press Conference will be in about 30 minutes at 17:30 MYT (+8GMT)

It should be able to be seen on this video stream like previous press conferences.

Live TV | Astro Awani

Indeed, or for that case any other country's assets that may be able to help. I wouldn't think anybody would object, the hard bit would be keeping up with the consumables.

awblain,

No, of course, but they may think twice if they know they can be traced.

My post was actually partly inspired by a BEA study post-AF447 investigation, referred to somewhere in the early part of this thread. It had a slightly different theme - the scope was to detect when the airplane is doing unusual maneuvers (as AF447 did) and then communicate relevant alert messages over ACARS satcom.

So the main intention was the same - to ASAP inform the outside world that something unusual was happening to the plane, with some details (such as position)

I don't know what has been the result of the BEA study, which recommended implementation in aircraft getting certified in 2018 and in legacy aircraft by 2020 IIRC. I thought it notable in this context anyway.

Linking to the legacy equipment hardware is of course slightly more difficult than linking to the flight instruments (which presumably are already connected to ACARS in most a/c types) as in the BEA study. But there may be some easy wins, especially for future airplane designs.

If it was a hijacking, they end up on the northern arc.

If it was suicide, they end up on the southern arc.

At this stage of the investigation there is precious little real news and probably will not be until physical evidence is found, then it is a question of whether it is a criminal act (including suicide) or an accident.

Either way, I think one result of this might be that the "Loneliness of Command" might get a bit deeper: extra toilet and E&E both accessible only from Flight Deck, plus refreshments for flight crew passed in through double hatches.

Erwin Schroedinger said

The answer to that, sadly, might be this

Now I will say, reports are his home was also searched. (as seems to have been addressed by others)

But that quote might possibly give some indication as to why more official attention seems to be paid to Zaharie Ahmad Shah rather than Fariq Ab Hamid. It might also be why the prior against-policy actions of Fariq seemed to have flown so far under the radar as to not only apparently result in a lack of discipline, but even seemingly proved no resistance in his resent promotion to the cockpit of a 777.

(this works off my belief that the incident with the ladies/smoking can not be a one-time thing, and that the airline had to have been aware at some point. I could be wrong, of course, but...)

That said, if I had to pick one of the two as being involved, I would go with Zaharie. Mainly because of that initial sharp Ascent/Descent and the skill it likely would have taken to pull it off seemingly rather smoothly (even if was not as extreme as reported, it was still drastic.) Was Fairq experienced enough to do that? Then add in all the radar avoidance tricks and all... And on second thought, stuff such as that could be playing a huge role in their seemingly leaning towards Zaharie as well.

@ overthewing

Interesting. Do you happen to know where you might have read that?

Whittle

I prefer Sherlock Holmes's version: "How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?"

Why bother going to FL450 and then back to FL295 and making a lot of unexplainable turns?

Too many whys

Nothing new from the press conference, other than confirmation they've formally contacted and briefed representatives from governments in the expanded search zone. They're currently taking questions from Malaysian journalists. Other journos to follow.

There is nothing elaborate or complicated about the home Sim.

1. Just split the visual display in 3 individual screens.
2. MCP,FMC,EFIS,Overhead 2D panels on separate screens.
3.Simple consumer yoke.

Fuel - press conference
Whilst not speaking Malay? the second answer to the local journalist's question included the words along the lines of "normal to fill it up" which suggested to me something along the lines of "Eco tankage" and that the aircraft had full tanks.
Did anyone understand the question and answer?

Aircraft took on only planned fuel. No additional fuel.
- Minister.

GobonaStick,

Avoided radar. If you are committing suicide but want an insurance payout for your family, you need to obscure your suicide.

Making everything look like a hijacking and ditching the plane in about as difficult of waters to search as you can find seems like a pretty brilliant plan to accomplish just that, imo.

I'll really be impressed if we eventually learn the tail was drug somewhere along the trail to drop the black box away from the wreckage. (unbelievably unlikely, I know - but hey, look where we already are!)

@ snowfalcon2

I think you are referring to the

Oceanic Position Tracking Improvement & Monitoring (OPTIMI) project

Check the sesarju website for info......

Sea landing
 

I believe the aircraft 'landed' in the ocean and is now resting on the sea floor.

Most likely it is still in tact if the landing (suicide) was smooth enough.

If it is really deep then no debris (from hull collapsing under pressure) will surface, maybe in a few weeks it may due to ocean currents but then several hundred miles from its resting point.

Time to drop some sonars.

If this is the case then the aircraft could never be found. Think of the hundreds of ships lying at the bottom of the ocean containing vast treasures and not found.

Unless there is debris found within the next week then most certainly this is where the aircraft is.

Terrorist activity is unlikely as someone could have got a transmission out.

Even using the portable ELTs

He was following waypoints.
Next question is what did he do after he was out of Primary Radar range.

Acting Transportation Minister, "this will possibly change the history of aviation".

Chief of Police, "all pax have been checked by various agencies from around the world and cleared"

I for one am very glad not to be crew in an airline operation or a wanna be looking for an airline job in the future :eek:

uhhhmm..here we have many things similar to what happened on 9/11.
Aircraft diverting and no too much ATC enquiry about it.
The military "got distracted" at the beginning.
Many different scenarios proposed and then a direct accusation, in this case to the pilots, that will make all the parties happy isn't it?

So the Malaysian government is saying that the only way to detect an "intruder" is having the transponder ON?
If the intruder has it OFF the military will not intervene cause the spot is too tiny and almost invisible to the radars?
What sort of radar they got not detecting a 70 x 70 meter airplane without transponder?
No datalink from the 777 to the MAS HQ after the initial turn back?

The Vietnamese promptly reported to the Malaysian that the aircraft turned back and the Malaysian did not reply at all. It was silence, silence, silence.
It seems to me a very bad managed inside job.
May be those 2 pilots and the crew were really able to "stop the plan".
Otherwise why the Malaysian Government let 8 country search the aircraft where the Malaysian knew very well it was not even close to that area?

A similar accident happened in Italy in 1980 where in the following 10 years 40+ military people died in very strange circumstances. Al those people were witnesses of the ditching of the Itavia DC9 in the Mediterranean sea.

Hope no strange accidents will happen in the future the those military that for sure have witnessed many things and are now under an enormous amount of pressure from their Government and not only.

Exactly my post at 23:50 UTC last night that was deleted, so sadly yours and mine may now also be deleted. Just before the mods do that could someone with the 777 / electronics expertise please categorically confirm that the ACARS system and later the transponder / ADS-B systems can ONLY go offline by the "deliberate act of someone on board". The Malaysian authorities are so definite on this point they are categorically ruling out equipment failure / fire / etc.

Was there 2 or 4 PAX travelling on someone else's passports?
That is still a question MAS need to answer.

Along with their prior history of allowing people with dodgy passports onboard
Malaysia Airlines has previous conviction for 'falsifying passport details to allow passenger on board' | South China Morning Post

That thinking has been repeated here again aind again but after a biref reality check it doesn't hold water.
which terrorists got which publicity that would support their cause?

Can you say that again in English?

Impressed, 239 dead and you are impressed at their cunning. Okay, up to you.

"All in all the entire event still does not make a lot of sense"
 

SLF here. Perhaps it didn't go 'according to plan' and the bizarre disappearance we now have was unintended.

Most deliberate actions are a consequence of trying to attain a premeditated goal. If that includes long-planned suicide (or the remainder of one's life as an international criminal) by persons intelligent and informed enough to carry out this act, I fail to believe that they would throw away their lives lightly. I think they thought they had a decent chance of success, and as Occam's Razor tells us, the simplest plans with the least dependencies are the most likely to work.

It might be helpful to try to figure out what was intended, in the most basic way:

* An influential public statement, like 9/11?
Once its perpetrators had decided to act unconstrained by behavioural norms the 9/11 plan itself was quite simple and straightforward, with few dependencies. Even so, it only partly succeeded. As a public statement, so far MH370 seems to have a pretty obscure purpose, whereas 9/11 was clear and comprehensible.

* A disappearance intended to precipitate an insurance payout?
MH370 seems so far to be an unnecessarily complicated way of going about it. There have been plenty of prior instances and I'd expect an intelligent perpetrator to try to avoid their complexities, weaknesses and failures.

* An attempted theft of the airframe, its cargo, or passengers?
Sure, but once you have them, what are you going to do with them? Again, if the overall plan is complex with many dependencies its chances of success are low. As has been pointed out before it's probably easier to seize the cargo before flight. It's probably easier to kidnap individual passengers before flight. And what are they going to do with this particular airframe which couldn't be done with another? I'd have thought it would be far easier to seize a freighter or bizjet on the day if the goal was to drop a dirty bomb on a city or disrupt The Hague talks.

Live from KL
 

Malaysian investigators have categorically denied speculation that the pilot and/or FO asked to fly together.

-investigation has entered a new phase with involvement of more countries along the North Corridor (11 countries making a total of 25 countries involved in SAR). Malaysian PM has spoken to the PMs/Presidents of some countries along the Northern Corridor. Focus has shifted away from South China Sea.

-Police are using Acts covering sabotage, hijacking etc in their investigations including cargo manifest, personal problems including all ground crew, pilot's flight sim, pax background checks (some international police agencies have cleared all pax- no negative records on them). Section 130 (c) applied and data release classified.

-satellite and radar info has been requested from all countries concerned in possible flight path and those who have global coverage over suspected areas.

-Immediate financial assistance (not compensation) being given to families of pax

-Plane took off with plenty of fuel for original flight plus some extra for contingencies. There was no extra fuel (otherwise).

-Flight simulator has been taken by Police and is being examined by experts

-Primary military data (revealed to investigative partners when normally not done), with satellite data is the reason for shift of focus

-no hazardous substance in cargo manifest.

-new information received yesterday being investigated - will be verified and corroborated before being released

-cannot divulge military radar data from other sources

-minimum speed and max speed a/c can fly has been taken into account in determining the possible flight path corridors

(Factual summary of the full live press conference this morning from KL)

Future implications
 

Why are so many on this thread speculating about the cause of this incident rather than the outcome? If it were a hijacking, what will be done about it if there were a rogue airplane waiting somewhere to be used for an attack?

Will air-corridors be monitored more thoroughly in future, will there be finally telemetry in real time mandatory for airlines rather than old fashioned black boxes, considering all the money spent on retrieving black boxes from the ocean over the last decades?

So what will be the implications for the airline industry?

I'm thinking about the final non standard radio transmission. As this happened after the ACARS was turned off I presume that someone has done an analysis of the transmission to see if it is either of the pilots voices. The opinion of some of the comments on this site is that it is an Americanism, is it a normal term of speech for Malay pilots?


An analysis of the voice would have been one of the first things done. Being based in this region many local flight crew and even cabin crew have "Americanism" or Western slang terms. This is a result of being around many expats and some are educated in the American and British Schools in these countries.

Nice to see them answering valid questions that they have been avoiding for a week now!

Quote:
Originally Posted by X-37
How can they be sure that communications weredeliberatelydisabled?
It could be that a chain of events cut the ACARS, transponder and VHF and that chain caused them to turn back but the crew were themselves overcome by the events.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Golf-Mike-Mike
Exactly my post at 23:50 UTC last night that was deleted, so sadly yours and mine may now also be deleted. Just before the mods do that could someone with the 777 / electronics expertise please categorically confirm that the ACARS system and later the transponder / ADS-B systems can ONLY go offline by the "deliberate act of someone on board". The Malaysian authorities are so definite on this point they are categorically ruling out equipment failure / fire / etc.
========================
Yes guys, a spill of substantial water over the Aisle Stand, in the middle of the 2 pilots, would have generated many short circuits including the TCAS and all the radios and further leaking into the E&E bay would have done the rest. Including switching off all the 6 CRTs that helps the pilots for navigation.
it was night + smokes and fumes in the cockpit + no navigation display.
This scenario may be has more credit than a UFO or an asteroid impact....

From Press Conference: the cargo did not contain 'any hazardous materials'.