There has to be some form of overheat protection.

NWA SLF

the flight plan would become active at take-off and this message and the relevant times when to expect the aircraft at their area of responsibility is sent on to each ATC unit downline.

However, military centers would not care to look closely at something flying on an airway or outside of their boundaries. And unless they at least receive the data from the civilians they would not know which aircraft is not supposed to be there. And the coordination between the military and the civils does not work all too well in may countries.

Contrail?
 

Would it be possible to calculate from met info and the given FL whether the aircraft would have left a contrail. As I understand it, satellites can look through cloud base to view the surface by using certain filters or wavelength technology. Is it even possible to look for a contrail on the suggested or predicted route for that time.

FE Hoppy: I agree but there is nothing in the transponder that allows us to see if it's overheated. The first we would know on the flight deck is when it fails.

I'm talking about flight crew having the option to manually select the transponder off. By all means retain the option to select another transponder and maybe set the transponder to squawk when the park brake comes off for ground surveillance, but in flight? Maybe going forward we would be better off working around the concerns mooted but lose the ability to disable it so easily.

...OTH/JORN....at night with less range....
 

An OTH radar like JORN works properly when MUF (maximum usable frequency) is high, this almost during daylight, because you have good propagtion up 30 to 35 MHz during high solar flux in F2 layer, as in the last weeks. During nighttime the MUF goes down rapidly to 15 MHz atm, so have less range and resolution. The range of JORN is between 1000km and 3000km, this is limited to MUF and day- and nighttime. The same facts are for the Chinese OTH.....
So JORN may be on, but due to less range, caused by low MUF in nighttime, it couldn't catch MH370 at all. A good short overview of JORN is here: https://www.airforce.gov.au/docs/JORN_FAQS.pdf

my 2 cent about OTH, Michael

Acars
 

Forgive me if this is a repeat, but how do we KNOW that the acars was switched off and not just catastrophically compromised? Ditto IFF.

fe hoppy

Can you give me the post no.?

buttrick read back 3 pages.

disgusted
 

Too many questions still answered. Too much information of dubious authenticity and from questionable sources being used for fancy claims and any kind of speculation. No surprise when this comes from the MSM, but really hard to accept when you read the same in a self-proclaimed professional pilot forum.

Example 1. The alleged radio contact with MAS370 made by the anonymous captain of a Japan-bound airliner makes me smell rats. Why should a real pilot with a verifiable record refuse to give his own name and his flight number in such a situation? What's the problem with it? Wouldn't this help the investigation? His alleged statement is also highly suspicious. He heard nothing, all he says is that "there were a lot of interference… static… but I heard mumbling". In short, he is unable to refer the content of the transmission, he is unable to say whether he spoke with the captain or the F/O, the alleged time of the radio transmission is after the time the datalink had been turned off and the transponder had been turned off. Sorry, but to me this smells like a typical piece of disinformation. Someone planted this interview just to "prove" that the captain and the F/O were still at the controls of the aircraft at that time. I will believe this captain as soon as he will come out with a real name and the exact position of his aircraft, which should not be so difficult to verify with a map and radar data.

Example 2. Someone posted here a video where an alleged "friend" of the captain suggests "you can elaborate scenarios with a flight simulator". Question: did someone bother to verify the authenticity of this report? Who is this guy? How do I know he was actually a friend of the captain? He claims he tried to contact the captain's family, but.. oops.. was unable to talk with any member of it. How convenient.
Not to talk about the thousands of allegations the captain was "obsessed for politics" or had more or less terrorist tendencies just because he owned a simulator at home. Ludicrous, not to say outrageous.

As anybody else, I ignore the truth. Yet it appears to me that two professional pilots with an excellent flight record and an unquestionable reputation are being massacred by the media without any shred of evidence and I can't help concluding that this is part of a deliberate disinformation campaign.
Note to the mods. Feel free to delete this post, I only want to make clear that based on the current verifiable information I do not buy the hijack scenario perpetrated by the cockpit. The theory makes no sense. And I add that I would expect pprune would defend their reputations as far as any real evidence to the contrary exists.

ANA that 8 degree pink ring is the horizon line for the POR. That is to say its on the extreme receptive edge of its coverage. Yet it intersects with the strong IOR 40 degree red band which has received all the pings since 01:07am to 08:11am.
So I would say the fact the POR didn't pick up the 08:11am Ping is pure guess and not certain. So far not enough info has been given to us to eliminate that arc in the South China Sea.

If true, it could be a sign of a struggle in the cockpit. Because at the time, the airframe was too heavy to maintain FL450 and likely stalled, then dropped and was recovered at the lower altitude.

The experienced suicidal pilot/hijacker(s), behind locked armored door, after setting autopilot course to mid Indian ocean, could then have turned off the packs, (airframe pressurization) and leisurely asphyxiated along with the rest of the occupants during the 6 hours' phantom cruise. This gentle death would have spared them the adrenaline filled black-hole drama of violent impact on a moonless night after fuel exhaustion. :ooh:

Inflight Firefighting
 

Would a crew ever consider decompression/high-altitude to fight a fire?
(over the ocean, last gasp, nothing else left to try ...)

That guy? He is apparently involved in politics, strongly. He is apparently the secretary of an opposition party politician...he wears the badge on his chest during interviews.

He never mentions that though...

406 ELT
 

Very little chat here about the lack of any ELT signal from the 406 beacon. This indicates to me that at the end of the flight, there must have been an almost normal deceleration below the G level needed to activate the ELT. Worst case the newer 406 ELT would provide a location within 2km with only a .25 second transmission upon activation.

deja vu
 

As I read this I have one ear to the news coverage on the TV.

I guess it is inevitable that the professional talking heads read this thread but many items here are either picked up by the THs or the contributors here feed back what the THs have said on their goggle box.

A veritable self-licking lollipop.

The 'free' sharing of technical data, such as radar or military capabilities has been mentioned as being less than complete because of secrecy considerations.

While this may well be an elaborate misappropriation of the aircraft it does not follow that it ended successfully. As Bill MacGillvary pointed out back on #2917 That possibility could be true if the northern track is correct. I would suggest that a crash on land would concentrate the debris and be far less noticeable than debris in the open ocean.

I really wouldn't read too much into that one. I was on frequency at the time, I heard the other MH aircraft transmitting on 121.5 trying to contact the MH370 (along with many transmissions from HCM control) and never heard anything resembling a reply, mumbled garbled or otherwise.

There's a fairly common interference phenomena around SGN that seems to cause short 5-10 second bursts of buzzing static on VHF. He might have heard that, there was plenty of that going on that night but nothing out of the ordinary.

Malaysian plane saga highlights air defense gaps
 

"Several nations will be embarrassed by how easy it is to trespass their airspace," said Air Vice Marshal Michael Harwood, a retired British Royal Air Force pilot and ex-defense attache to Washington DC. "Too many movies and Predator (unmanned military drone) feeds from Afghanistan have suckered people into thinking we know everything and see everything. You get what you pay for. And the world, by and large, does not pay."


Separately, a defense source said that India did not keep its radar facilities operational at all times because of cost. Asked what the reason was, the source said: "Too expensive."

Australian civilian radar extends only some 200 km (125 miles) from its coast, an Australian official said on condition of anonymity, although its air defense radar extends much further. Australia's military could not be reached for comment on Saturday and if it did detect a transponder-less aircraft heading south, there is no suggestion any alarm was raised.


Malaysian plane saga highlights air defense gaps | Reuters


... These guys have been caught with their pants down and some very embarrassing holes in their national defense preparedness have been exposed by this errant aircraft. You could not make this stuff up if you wanted to.

I am not questioning the intererence itself, I know it is highly possible in that area given the alleged distance between both aircraft. I am questioning THAT report itself. I can't understand why a pilot should refuse to give his own name. Don't you find it strange? I do.

Most people seems to be assuming that the a/c ran out of fuel then speared into the ocean.
What if all the turns it made were to lose time and reduce the weight of the a/c to a minimum before attempting a ditching over the deepest part of the indian ocean, where a boat was waiting for them. All the pax and crew would already be dead or hypoxic, leaving only the high jackers to evacuate.
If it were terrorists, they could then carry out the same again at a later date, having now gained even more knowledge from the SAR attempt and this forum.
If the ditching was done with the outflow valves open I'm sure it would soon fill with water and sink leaving no trace.

Sheep Guts. The public have not been given much information at all. We were shown a map with two red arcs along a circle marked 40 degrees centred on the point below IOR. The eastern part of the circle between the arcs was not red and is not included in official discussions of searches. Also Western half missing.

We are trying to reconstruct an explanation for that map.

If you want to believe the 40 degrees circle but do not want to believe the gap then that is fine.

If you want a reasonable explanation which explains the circle and gap then the relative positions of the two satellites explains it perfectly.

Bono, don't read too much in to this. If there is no assessed threat then there is no reason to maintain a high air defence alert state. In the UK for instance, with the end of the Cold War, much of the air defence system was dismantled and the number of aircraft on alert was reduced.

Even at the height of the Cold War the US did not keep all its SAM sites on 24 hour alert.

While countries in that region may not all be buddy buddy they do not necessarily feel the need for 24 hour coverage. Where you may well be correct it that they don't want their actual readiness states, or periods of operation, to be published.

It is unfortunate that some people here keep posting nonsense about the aircraft reaching FL450 when it has been repeatedly been explained that the T7 at that weight cannot reach FL450! Not to mention that primary radar at that range has a very large margin of error :ugh::ugh::ugh:

Some take exception to the scrutiny of the flight crew. Whilst they may turn out to be heroic victims of all this, there are still too many questions about the apparent highly skilled manipulation of systems immediately prior to disappearance. In addition the history of Islamic terrorism and the methods of Al Qaida to dress its operatives as harmless secular citizens has already been well documented, as per 9/11 for example. Therefore this scrutiny of the crew is legitimate and called for, despite the unfortunate possibility that they may be innocent. Time will tell and if necessary they will be exonerated and lionized.

NY Times reports that Malaysian authorities now report that pilot spoke to ATC after the ACARS was turned off, and gave no indication of trouble.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/17/wo...flight.html?hp

Also,

Within the land area with 60 minutes of fuel remaining on the northern (final ping) arc is this:
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/china/...y/testarea.pdf

Not sure this area can be reached with 20 minutes of fuel remaining. (Using the NY Times graphic showing distances from the centerline of the arc.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/16/wo...ht-370.html?hp

I have a gut feeling (coupled with false flag information) this a/c has landed. It is known the Malaysian government are 'not as open' as to per maybe western countries as to security issues.

I suggest, nor am a pilot, but logic thinking (as we all understand how government secrecy works) the Malaysian government, behind the smoke screen are negotiating with a ransom request.

>If you want to believe the 40 degrees circle but do not want to believe the gap then that is fine.

By inspection of the map the 40 degree line goes pretty close to the last acars message - if you assume ditching and the plane floats for a couple of hours then you end up back at the starting point for the search.

I think we all want to see the accuracy of the 40 degree reading and the previous pings - if they are all around the 40 degree mark +/- accuracy then I'd say they are barking up the wrong tree.

Must be true. Keep quiet, let 25 countries expend hundreds of man hours, thousands of dollars, all to preserve your privacy.

Then, when all the passengers are released, hope there is no adverse publicity.

Re transponder turn off
 

Yes.
But.
Turning off the transponder in flight without notifying ATC is.... a no-no.

Technology exists that can solve this dilemma, see e g here.

I think that has something to with Najib Razak and the rising revolution with Anwar Ibrahim. There is something going on

That being the point. The adverse publicity is the way to force the PM to resign...the motive

The media keep reporting that the two pilots did not ask to fly together. That of course predicates that it was 'essential' that it was this flight that was chosen.

It might equally have been that the two pilots waited until chance put them on the same flight.

This is not to say that the pilots were the culprits but that not asking to fly together is a red herring.

On a freighter, they would.

Does anyone know if the Vietnamese or Malaysian ATS declared the first SAR phase on the aircraft, and when ? Once declared, would it not be SOP to alert active or inactive RMAF AD radar ? If not done, this would be one more little question for the Malaysians to answer.

Red arcs, as in .. which one ? There should be no reason why an earlier arc did not correspond to near one of the primary radar paints near Thailand, and using that as a fix, or an area of probability, and knowing the max and min ground speeds to later arcs, it would be possible to resolve the 'true' and 'false' arcs with a set of running fixes (or areas). So why at this stage would the Malaysian government have not removed one arc ?

How have they determind that VFR ACARS was disabled before the handover comms?

MH370 reached its cruising altitude FL350 at 17.03 UTC. At 17.07 UTC (01.07 local) the last RR (TOC) message was transmitted).
After that no RR ACARS messages was to be expected for a long time.

So how do they conclude 'disabled' and not just 'not transmitting'?

I would say the ACARS could have been disabled around the same time as the transponder - at 17.21 UTC.

There are PRIMARY radar targets every day in many countries. It involves not just airliners, but corporate and general aviation aircraft with inoperative, faulty, or improperly switched transponders. An aircraft that is not sqwaking a code becomes a PRIMARY target. It's impractical reality to launch interceptors at every Primary aerial target.

The Malay peninsula along the Thai-Malaysian border is only 100 nautical miles in width, about a 15 minutes' cruise. According to the primary targets volunteered by the military, MH370 actually had first penetrated Thai airspace in a straight line towards Langkawi in the northwestern corner of peninsular Malaysia. So, technically the initially unidentified primary radar target had penetrated and crossed the extreme north western tip of Malaysia in less than 10 minutes at high altitude and not in a threatening flight profile suggestive of imminent response.

In my flights en route HKG-SIN, for example, there have been many occasions when we were out of radar contact and unable to establish VHF/HF communications for up to 20 minutes for various reasons: lower assigned flight levels, frequency congestion, weak or degraded VHF/HF transmitters . . . And if our transponder had gone on vacation, I seriously doubt that we would have been intercepted. Air Traffic Control is aware of civil radar & radio blind spots and aircraft system limitations (typically up to 20 Watts transmitting powered radios) and will not alert military assets.

You're taking on China not Malaysia..

There is nothing that is impossible when it comes to software configured environment.

As long as accessibility is available, the cockpit technology configurations can be manipulated in such a way that the intended behavior is subjected to extortion.

If a pilot has malicious intend and he/she is able to hide that from external comprehension, there is nothing that will stop him/her from manipulating cockpit controls to achieve a different goal than anticipated with a normal cockpit configuration.

WP

Previous "pings"
 

Question for ana/snowfalcon;

Would the previous IOR pings be stored somewhere with associated arc positions available for those heading this search?

On a sidenote, it is very interesting to see at the press conference how they do their utmost to make sure not all the facts are presented. Evasive and incomplete answers combined with semi-smart constructions leading the journalists to believe that their questions have actually been answered... I can however, see why some information would be held back if there is the slightest chance that divulging this information would compromise the search and rescue efforts. Personally I would like to see the release of the cargo manifest and the fuel load/endurance. "No hazardous cargo onboard" says nothing about VAL or other sensitive cargo. And as those who are professionals amongst us would know, semantics can make the statement "There was no ADDITIONAL fuel onboard" true but it can also make the unspoken statement "There was EXTRA fuel onboard" true...

Please, don't think for one minute that I do not care about the passengers who boarded this flight. These and thousands like them are the people who pay my wages and put my family's food on the table. But I also quite like my fellow man (women actually)!

But this is where I might start being controversial. There are several interesting aspects to this incident. One of them is is security, both national and international. We can clearly see that very few people are watching anything and those who do see things are either ignored or their observations 'classified'. Therefore it remains that are still vast chunks of unmonitored airspace where you can do whatever you want. Personally, I don't think this a problem but it does show that certain countries spend a fortune in air defence yet when tested, have nothing to show for their investment. But what's really interesting is that they don't have the backbone to admit that nor are they prepared to state that anybody can pitch up by air and they'll not have any advance warning.

That a piece of airspace is not actively monitored should also be announced. Many believe that every single aspect of flight is actively managed by ATC. Europeans generally do not understand the concept of a Procedural Service yet not realising that such a service is the only one on offer in most parts of the world.

Then we have the control aspect. What do airlines do to ensure sanity in their aircrew? Every day, we get accosted by the Gestapo who run airport security, fight the 'system' just to depart, deal with surly cabin crew, bolshy passengers and still carry the baggage of our personal and home lives. Personally, I think I can deal with most things that are thrown at me (just as long as I don't have to fly with a certain F/O!) but there are times... Basically, we are expected to pitch up, do our stuff and bugger off. Just think back to the times when Danny started this site. This was the time when the taxi drivers and caterers knew more about your airline than you did. Hence the rumours! Now, everybody else knows more than you.

Returning to security - just a simple question: Who ensures that the correct people are on the flight deck? With few exceptions there is no real identity confirmation. In the UK, the clowns by the metal arches just want to abuse flight crew and make your life difficult. But the only thing they achieve is to ensure that we're not carrying an effing yoghurt! You couldn't make it up.

Sitting at the pointy end, you have to be able to turn things on and off. To be learn that the entire output of a IDG and two batteries is being directed though a faulty transponder or ACARS unit which can't be isolated because of a campaign by a 'concerned' Daily Mail reader is not acceptable. As yet nothing has changed, yet I feel the political pressure for meddling in aviation affairs.

So how do we prevent re-occurrence? A good start would be to make it so that flight crew have an even greater vested interest in performing well. By that, may I suggest that the consistent attack our T's and C's should stop forthwith. More enlightened and liberal management practices will also help. And then we have to make sure our political systems work. Failure to do so may result in unexpected outcomes.

As to what happened and why, I haven't clue. But my fingers are crossed for those on board and their relatives.

PM

:cool: To prevent an electrical malfunction (albeit rare) from becoming an electrical fire. Any piece of electronic equipment is a hazard to be the source of an electrical fire. Securing current removes some of the problem. That is why. (Yes, malfunctions that severe are very rare).
Because it is a piece of electrical gear. Sometimes, you turn it off and turn it back on, and it works.
That's been true for a long time. Granted, maybe the modern generations of electronic gear are so good one never needs to do that. I'd be skeptical, however, if that is claimed given the problems I have with my current smart phone. :cool:

@ Piltdown Man: well said, sir. At last, a post from the point of view of a professional pilot. :ok:

satellite pics of a/c in flight
 

@uncle_maxwell

That is an interesting proposition. If IR sat photos, taken at night, are available that cover each arc at the time of a given ping it is a reasonable computational exercise to use standard image processing techniques to find the a/c. in a photo. The search algorithm could match a rendered IR image of the a/c with "camera view" of the sat. Big data search techniques like map/reduce on a supercomputer could perform this search quickly. I've written such programs myself and know what I am talking about.

Same goes for daylight photos although the pattern matching would probably be done differently.

This would answer the N or S question and greatly narrow the SAR parameters. IMHO it's is well worth looking into if photos are available.

Totally false.