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New Straits Times is reporting that another Malaysian Airlines flight made contact with MH370 at "just after 1:30am";
SEPANG: A BOEING 777 pilot, who was flying 30 minutes ahead of the missing Malaysia Airlines aircraft, said he established contact with MH370 minutes after he was asked to do so by Vietnamese air traffic control. The captain, who asked to not be named, said his plane, which was bound for Narita, Japan, was far into Vietnamese airspace when he was asked to relay, using his plane's emergency frequency, to MH370 for the latter to establish its position, as the authorities could not contact the aircraft. "We managed to establish contact with MH370 just after 1.30am and asked them if they have transferred into Vietnamese airspace. "The voice on the other side could have been either Captain Zaharie (Ahmad Shah, 53,) or Fariq (Abdul Hamid, 27), but I was sure it was the co-pilot. "There were a lot of interference... static... but I heard mumbling from the other end. "That was the last time we heard from them, as we lost the connection," he told the New Sunday Times. He said those on the same frequency at the time would have heard the exchange. This, he said, would include vessels on the waters below. He said he thought nothing of it, as the occurrence (of losing contact) was normal, until it was established that MH370 never landed. "If the plane was in trouble, we would have heard the pilot making the Mayday distress call. But I am sure that, like me, no one else up there heard it. Read more: Pilot: I established contact with plane - General - New Straits Times Pilot: I established contact with plane - General - New Straits Times |
I think Al Jazeera was referencing this Vietnamese story:
Vietnam Navy says Malaysia Airlines plane crashes off Tho Chu Island | Tu?i Tr? news The Admiral who was mentioned has since said that he had been misquoted and that his only reference had been the oil slick. So there is nothing factual. Even the oil slick may be a red herring, as it may not be from aviation fuel. I'm astonished that a plane stuffed with all manner of floatable items can disappear so completely. |
Carrying water on board: Serious water problems in KL at the moment, have been for some time, quite possible the rules have been relaxed whilst the shortages continue. Friends in KL say they are often without water for several hours a day, sometimes more than a day. Let us hope that the carriers of the stolen passports haven't exploited this loophole.
Coral Spawn or Oil Slick?: What those yellow slicks remind me of is the mucky liquid, including some oil, that you see when a ship has washed it's tanks at sea. Often forbidden but that doesn't stop it happening! |
Not only 2 passengers travelling on stolen passports, the Chinese redacting the name of one passenger from the Xinjiang province, one Russian listed on the passenger manifest denying he was on the flight, now the FBI are getting involved.
FBI to investigate disappearance of a Malaysian Airlines jet - latimes.com No "evidence" of terrorism according to FBI officials, though "images they find can be used with the bureau's vast counter-terrorism technology to look for matches with known members of Al Qaeda or other terrorist organizations" |
Not the first plane crash where passengers had fake passports
RiskandForecast.com | Risk Watch | At least 10 passengers of crashed Air India plane had fake passports |
Lots of updates here...
Oil slicks spotted in search for missing Malaysia Airlines plane | World news | theguardian.com |
The story coming to light about the stolen passports on MH370 isn't surprising.
When we passed through WMKK in January, my wife was able to get through immigration on my sons passport - it appears that not too many visual checks were made. The error was noticed when my son attempted to go through immigration a few minutes later, which caused some angst in the family but didn't appear to spook the officials who simply looked at my wife (now airside), and processed her passport accordingly. -edit... Just to put it into perspective though, we travel through 4 or 5 times per year... first time there was any issue... |
The Malaysian Civil Aviation General has confirmed that no ACARS message linking to malfunctions of the aircraft were sent to Malaysia Airlines Operations Centre at press conference just broadcast on Sky News.
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24 hours plus now and the most intriguing part of this is the absence of any reports of a crash or wreckage from the numerous boats/aircraft in the area.
All of the main scenarios discussed have some sort of inflight breakup as the main explanation. So far there seems to be no witnesses to anything like that. Where are the seat cushions, suitcases and pieces of magazines floating on the water that we usually associate with such an event? No bodies either. Even large pieces of floating wreckage aka AF447? We are not talking the mid Atlantic here. It is a smallish body of water heavily populated with all sorts of marine traffic. It is very strange. There are air defence radars scattered though out the area. Surely they must be being reviewed for primary traces to aid the search. |
Rumour, supposition, insight, speculation and deduction are what makes PPRuNe so popular... Having read each and every post on this thread, as always it was gratifying to get an early industry perspective. It is timely, argumentative and deductive with an oversight of critical introspection and thoughtful supposition and counter argument that relegates the commercial media to the back seat; I am sure every crash investigator has it bookmarked. For MH370 there are social, engineering and military aspects that are yet to be investigated before a reasonable cause can be allocated. As with most incidents there will be a chain of events uncovered that will lead to that final event. Here we seem to have a catastrophic inflight failure with no current reports of debris or electronic/human distress/ACARS signals in a proven Boeing aircraft in clear weather with as yet no terrorist claims. Whatever the reason for “MH370 contact lost” it seemed to have happened instantaneously…hopefully with least suffering to the unfortunate victims. |
Re the report that the other aircraft reportedly contacted them around 1:30.
If the other pilot is uncertain whether it was pilot or copilot that he contacted, could it not also have been someone else in the cockpit? And he claims he heard "mumbling" - could that suggest that the crew was somehow partially incapacitated? Either under threat/control, injured, or possibly the presence of toxic fumes/pressurization problems? Is there an incident timeline posted anywhere with take off, scheduled landing, last contact, etc? Thanks. |
Maybe this is a silly question, but is it possible that they're just looking in the completely wrong area? So far the SAR efforts are concentrated in the central part of the Gulf of Thailand. Is it possible the plane made landfall over Vietnam and crashed in a remote area there? Or perhaps even in the South China Sea?
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regarding that conversation, he said others on the frequency could have heard it. could the mumbled reply actually come from one of them?
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Did anyone watching the Sky News press conference awhile ago notice how defensive the general became when a reporter questioned Malaysia's passport scrutiny? there seems to a plug on information or maybe just like us they are clueless as to what happened.
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Originally Posted by jugofpropwash
(Post 8360731)
Re the report that the other aircraft reportedly contacted them around 1:30.
If the other pilot is uncertain whether it was pilot or copilot that he contacted, could it not also have been someone else in the cockpit? And he claims he heard "mumbling" - could that suggest that the crew was somehow partially incapacitated? Either under threat/control, injured, or possibly the presence of toxic fumes/pressurization problems? Is there an incident timeline posted anywhere with take off, scheduled landing, last contact, etc? Thanks. My logic is that if it was indeed MH370 they would have had a meaningful conversation and had them establish contact with the appropriate ATC facility. |
What time is daylight? Presumably air SAR will recommence?
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During the search for AF447, BEA convened experts in the field of oceanography to come up with an estimated position (The Drift Group).
Toward the end of the report, they reported an unreconciled observation by the synthetic aperture radar (SAR) on board the COSMO SkyMed 1 satellite. The shape of the slick was cusp shaped, not elongated as it would be from a ship. I hope people are looking for this type of information now. |
@LiamNCL
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. |
If a completely destructive explosion would it be possible there could be no discernible debris? Even if a big bomb went off amidships, the tail and wings would fall off but would still be in big pieces for the float down to the ocean. And all the stuff in the cabin, cushions, furnishings wouldn't just be vapourised. |
What time is daylight? Presumably air SAR will recommence? |
Speculation
Speculation is part of the research and investigation process.
As long as you can't rely on conclusive evidence, you can only speculate based on the few ascertained hard facts. That said, if ACARS do not indicate any mulfunction, as reported by the airline, this is an additional indication of a sudden catastrophic event. My two cents. |
Lost in Saigon -
Yeah, to me hearing "mumbling" buried in static isn't any sort of positive connection. As you say, it could have been another aircraft, and even if it was the right flight, no actual meaningful information was exchanged. The lack of debris bothers me. Unless they're looking in the wrong place, if there was a bomb or a breakup, it seems that there should be a fairly large debris field. It's been daylight for awhile now, and yet no reports of debris, and no one claiming to have seen a fireball or other explosion. What if the pilot attempted a ditching? As I recall, when Sully landed in the river, there was little debris other than the rafts and life jackets. If the plane was ditched, and for some reason the passengers were unable to get out before it sank, would that explain the lack of debris? |
Besides the usual wild speculation from the plane spotters and wannabe pilots does anyone one have any factual /concrete infromation of what happened to this aircraft. Seems an inane and frustrated comment so far into this thread and adds absolutely zero to the discussion. Just what contribution would you be making to aviation if you had this factual/concrete information other than to inject some hind-sighted speculative comment for all of us plane spotters and wannabe pilots to read. |
Does anyone know about the last reported tracking? Was it primary radar? SSR? ADS-B?
The reports say "radar" but lots of laymen throw that term around generically. |
Re: post 528
I wonder about the credibility of the Captain who was quoted as saying he had a conversation:
"He said those on the same frequency at the time would have heard the exchange. This, he said, would include vessels on the waters below." The Maritime Mobile Service uses frequencies in the range 150-160 MHz using Frequency Modulation, and well as some HF SSB. The aeronautical service uses frequencies between 108 and 132 MHz, using Amplitude Modulation, as well as some HF SSB. The HF SSB frequencies are not in common between the services, unless we are talking about 2182 or 5680 kHz, the distress frequencies. Two aircraft half an hour apart at 35,000 feet should be able to talk very clearly on VHF, where the boats below would not be listening (unless military). However I wonder why he would be using HF if VHF was adequate? |
Even if a big bomb went off amidships, the tail and wings would fall off but would still be in big pieces for the float down to the ocean. And all the stuff in the cabin, cushions, furnishings wouldn't just be vapourised. |
Sully landed in daylight. I am not aware of any successful night ditching of a passenger jet at sea.
Just my .02 worth. |
I will be surprised if a fisherman did not see something , the sea is littered with powerful lights at night , think its related to squid fishing . Maybe someone knows something out there but has no way of communicating it .
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Onetrack said
I was under the impression that any dive into the sea from cruise at FL350 would still result in rapid breakup as VNE was exceeded? Perhaps the 777 airframe is exceptionally robust, more so than we thought. I remember watching a doco about the design and build of the B777 and the wing structural test was very impressive as it allowed something like a 6m flex up and down before failing. My guess is it would be pretty robust. |
What if the pilot attempted a ditching? As I recall, when Sully landed in the river, there was little debris other than the rafts and life jackets. If the plane was ditched, and for some reason the passengers were unable to get out before it sank, would that explain the lack of debris? Think of the Gol 737 flight after collision. Pilots were probably under too high of G load to operated anything other than the yoke or pedals if that. Aero forces broke the tail off, but it was still in large intact pieces until ground impact. It's still a large search area, so lack of debris reports less than 2 days after search started I think is not unexpected. It's hard to be patient after something like this. |
Originally Posted by truthinbeer
(Post 8360775)
Good point. What about debris from a plunge? Strange nothing is floating about though thinking about the Brazil crash...
Really, at this point we know almost nothing other than the aircraft has gone missing while cruising at 35,000' without a distress signal of any kind. Everything else is speculation. |
I wonder about the credibility of the Captain who was quoted as saying he had a conversation: |
Xiamen Daily, a relatively reliable chinese newpaper has reported another idenitity dismatch (name and passport no didn't match) was found on the boarding list, according to the exit&entry administration authority of Xiamen city.
A different media also reported they found the original owner of doubtful passport number was at home (at China) and didn't go aboard recently. (The second news has not been confirmed by China authority yet.) |
WRT to crew incapacitation; the aircraft was shown steady at 35000 feet so presumably the auto pilot had been engaged not long after departure. Crew incapacitation at this point would mean the aircraft simply flew on at 35,000 till fuel exhaustion.
This Aviation Herald report has the crew in contact with ATC as well so incapacitation at that point can be ruled out. The report states that both radar and radio contact was lost around 0122 local. It will be interesting to see primary and secondary radar traces from that point on. The lack of transponder information from then on points to either massive electrical failure, or deliberate switching off. |
stolen passports
I've followed this thread and enjoyed everyone's insight. I just wanted to add this to the mix:
They are reporting an additional 2x possible stolen passports being used on the flight. Two more Europeans passengers with suspect identities onboard missing MH370 - The Malaysian Insider I can not believe that the stolen passports are a red herring. |
Does not the absence of debris pretty much eliminate the various in flight breakup options?
No in flight breakup and no Acars suggests purposeful action rather than accident. |
Uncommanded reverse thrust in flight...
possible or not on the 777?
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Just throwing this out there...
In the crash of MI185 at Palembang of a 737 in 19 Dec 1997, the crash site had very little debris. The aircraft apparently went into a steep dive and plunged into the palembang river. There were some debris that were on the surface (due to the inflight breakup) and surrounding dry land but at the impact area, most of it went straight into the riverbed due to the immense speed. Pilot suicide was concluded by the NTSB but the Indonesian government official report could not definitively state it as a concrete finding. A group of families took their own action to sue the manufacturer of a part which commands the rudder and was awarded some settlement (in USA courts). The vid is available on youtube. If there is anything to take from this incident, it would be that the high speed of impact will leave few floating debris. Any that were generated during the breakup would be scattered over a wide area and very difficult to find (compared to a narrow river). As for the lack of comms and silence in the cockpit, apparently the MI185 incident captain had a history of disabling the CB to the CVR which was NTSB's key link to the suicide theory. Though investigators also revealed that there was a history of problems with the power to the Black boxes in the preceding flights. Really hope to find out what happened soon so that the families can get some closure. |
Two more Europeans passengers with suspect identities onboard missing MH370
Two more Europeans passengers with suspect identities onboard missing MH370
Regards the above post, it's almost unanimously accepted that was a case of pilot suicide something that is primarily disputed in Indonesia. |
Does not the absence of debris pretty much eliminate the various in flight breakup options? |
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