The US has some pretty impressive IR and visual surveillance satellites -- which may have picked up an airframe off route over the Indian Ocean along with several other airframes and surface craft on various civil and military missions.

In reply to mixeduptransistor ("Why would the US need to BS for a few days if they really knew where it was at? Does anyone really doubt the level of technology the US Government has available to them worldwide? Would it really be that damaging to the US intelligence community for them to say "we know where it's at, we'll tell you where, but we're not going to tell you how we know")

We didn't know instantly, obviously. Then, I'm sure, various agencies needed to both share intelligence and get a plan.

But if the Malaysians, in cooperation with neighboring countries, could find the plane, or be nudge-winked to the plane, that would yes be far preferable, for many geopolitical reasons.

And, in fact, that seems to be what's happening. In the NBC version, it is the *Malaysians* who have *asked the U.S.* to go a bit further west. And the U.S. "denies" we have specific intel. IMO exactly the reverse is true, and we are seeing a historical narrative being shaped.

U.S. Ship Moves to Strait of Malacca In Search of Missing Jet - NBC News

Water Impact Depth
 

A high calibre bullet fired into water gets about three feet. The idea that a 777 would have enough energy to get through 200 feet of water with enough energy to bury itself in the bottom seems surprising to me, especially as it is highly unlikely to be actually vertical at the moment of impact. Perhaps someone with a better understanding of fluid dynamics or, heaven forbid, some empirical data, could explain?

:bored:

Thank you, beast :) I've been scratching my head over that for forty years. Even spent a bit of time online trying to figure it out. Your explanation makes it clear.

depressurisation
 

Having read the comments of the National Transportation Safety Board following its 'major investigation' into the loss of the Lear Jet in 1999, in which they opined that

"Investigations of other accidents in which flight crews attempted to diagnose a pressurization problem or initiate emergency pressurization instead of immediately donning oxygen masks following a cabin altitude alert have revealed that, even with a relatively gradual rate of depressurization, pilots have rapidly lost cognitive or motor abilities to effectively troubleshoot the problem or don their masks shortly thereafter. In this accident, the flight crew's failure to obtain supplemental oxygen in time to avoid incapacitation could be explained by a delay in donning oxygen masks of only a few seconds in the case of an explosive or rapid decompression or a slightly longer delay in the case of a gradual decompression. "

1999 South Dakota Learjet crash - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And the speculation here that the pilot's oxygen supply may have been compromised by airframe damage, am I to assume that there is no redundancy in the event that the primary oxygen supply is compromised?

I, as I'm sure many members on this forum have been totally astounded how a modern commercial airliner such as 777-2 could simply disappear without trace. We understand the limitations of radar coverage and that of SSR. Moreover the mystery of a final ACARS message at 1:07 and nothing from RR is worrying at best.

It is appreciated that all these systems fulfil separate and important functions pertaining to flight and health but there appears to be an apparent omission in terms of off radar tracking. It certainly appears that the 777 in question was certified for ETOPS 330 operation but that certification excluded the requirement for real time SATCOM tracking when out of radar coverage. (In reality such tracking would be continuous from TO to Land but legally required when out of radar coverage.

Such technology is readily available and deployed by law enforcement agency's and private firms. 3 separate SATCOM units fitted to the nose, mid-section and tail that feed continuous data on the A/C track, altitude, speed and fix in 30 second intervals. The SATCOM units retain battery backup so can transmit for up to 10 hours after power loss. In this situation even if the 777 had exploded in midair there would be likely data transmitted to alert SAR response.

The fact that this aircraft has been missing for nearly six days is an indictment and embarrassment to the regulations, manufacture, and the various agencies that control civil aviation. This is not dissimilar to the Titanic board of inquiry that focused on the actions of the crew rather than the fact that Titanic was certified to sail with only 50% lifeboat capacity. My point is how can you certify to 330 if you have no ability to find it in an emergency?

The cost to implement such tracking is too often traded off against the probability of such an incident. The hull loss in this case will prove to be insignificant against the civil actions . The wider issue is the perceive loss of confidence in the ETOPS system by pax who may vote with their feet on long oceanic routes such as ANZ1 NZAA - KLAX on 777-3ER where nearly the entire flight is out of coverage.

My point is that this incident has wide and powerful implications for the airline industry. NOTE: before you say it ( yes it also pertains to 4 holers)

Yes, that's a pretty good analogy. The confusion in previous posts probably arises because "Aircraft ID" (ACID) is the term used in the ADS-B spec for the crew-configurable callsign/flight number, as distinct from the aircraft's hardwired 24-bit ICAO address.

The tail number isn't transmitted via the transponder, except in cases where it's being used as the callsign for the flight. It can, of course, be ascertained from the 24-bit address, so it's not really necessary.

Perhaps they want to get to it first? To make sure that the cause of the crash is properly established?

Remember MS990.

When a radio transmission is attempted but fails because of no hand shake response from the ground station, it will retry at a set interval. If the a/c is out of range from ground receiver then other sensitive (surveillance) radio equipment might passively detect these pings without responding. The signal can then be decoded given the appropriate signals analysis equipment.

Think of your cell phone. When out of range it sends a ping periodically seeking a handshake back from the tower. A radio receiver can detect that ping passively without any response and the receiver could even decode it if they have the right equipment. This is one explanation of how the signal was detected yet not relayed to RR or Boeing. To clarify the ping is only a short high power signal giving some very basic ID and ready to send data. It is not the full data transmission. If you have more than one receiver it is possible to triangulate the transmit location.

This technology in WW2 gave British fighter command an early warning of the German bombers coming over for raids. Needless to say signals analysis has come a long way since then.

the West turnback theory
 

Despite MAS and Boeing/RR saying no data was transmitted after 1:07 am, the US are proceeding to search the Indian Ocean:

Communications satellites picked up faint electronic pulses from Malaysia Airlines flight 370 after it went missing on Saturday, but the signals gave no indication about where the stray jet was heading nor its technical condition, a source close to the investigation said early today.

The "pings" equated to an indication that the aircraft's maintenance troubleshooting systems were ready to communicate with satellites if needed, but no links were opened because Malaysia Airlines and others had not subscribed to the full troubleshooting service, the source said.

Two sources familiar with the investigation into the disappearance of the jet five days ago also confirmed that manufacturers Boeing and Rolls-Royce did not receive any maintenance data from the jet after the point at which its pilots last made contact.

Only one engine maintenance update was received during the normal phase of flight, they said, speaking on condition on anonymity.

Boeing and Rolls-Royce declined comment. - Reuters, March 14, 2014.

In a statement released today, the US Navy announced that from March 15, a P-8A Poseidon will be commissioned to the Strait of Malacca to aid in search efforts.

MARCH 13, 2014 - themalaysianinsider.com

The insurance angle
 

One way or another this loss (and it is one) is going to trigger a MASSIVE insurance pay-out. There must be hordes of very nervous insurance underwriters and reinsurers currently scouring the small-print of the MAS policies.

Have there been any estimates as yet on the 'hull-loss' of a 2002 777-200ER?

It will also be interesting to see how the personal life-assurance 'relativities' for those pax from China and other ASEAN nations stack-up compared to those from other / developed nations.

Even the most conservative figures must already run into many hundreds of millions of $s. Factor in any possible negligence and the sky's the limit (excuse the pun). That is before S&R / recovery operations are factored in.

Did any 'final' figures ever get published for AF447?

There are multiple O2 bottles aside from the a/c built in supply.

None will work if you dont know you are incapacitated.

The question I still have is how long does it take to 'wake up' once the aircraft is below about 15,000'? I would have have thought that unless it was descending very fast there would be time to regain consciousness prior to impact.

Anyone know?

Maybe they didn't.... but perhaps those able to monitor at a lower level... could see something: MISSING MH370: Satellites picked up "pings" from Malaysia jet, source says - Latest - New Straits Times

What is not said in the article is at what times/for how long these pings occurred... and if it was possible to work out the location of where the signal was....

All well and good to bang your fists on the table and shout and scream, but allow me to remind you of one thing.

First flight of the 777 was (according to Wikipedia) June 12th 1994.

That means design, development etc. would have been occurring in the 5-10 years prior to 1994.

The world of technology was a vastly different place then.

Retrofiting onto an old design is probably a right pain from both a manufacturing and regulatory point of view.

That is probably why it is the way it is, and why, going forward we'll probably see developments. But the developments will be as result of technology making it easier / cheaper to do stuff than it was in 1994 ... rather than as a specific consequence of this incident.

What I am surprised at though, is given satellites and other secret squirrel monitoring systems out there, that the aircraft has not been located by the intelligence community by now..... (although I guess the conspiracy theorists might suggest they've been gagged by the big cheeses in the name of "national secewwity"!).

The ICAO code translates to the aircrafts registration number. It is part of the squitter message and is sent out about once a second if the transponder is on even if the transponder is not being interrogated by a ground station or a TCAS box.

Aircraft striking water and disintegration
 

A high calibre bullet fired into water gets about three feet. The idea that a 777 would have enough energy to get through 200 feet of water with enough energy to bury itself in the bottom seems surprising to me, especially as it is highly unlikely to be actually vertical at the moment of impact. Perhaps someone with a better understanding of fluid dynamics or, heaven forbid, some empirical data, could explain?

The aircraft is not a solid object; it is a skeleton structure. Water, when impacted at speed, has the effective resistance of concrete. Water is an incompressible fluid; it has no "give." The aircraft will NOT penetrate through the water surface; instead, the skeleton will collapse and disintegrate (the point loads on the skeleton members are way above the points of deformation and failure). To understand this, look at photos of the re-assembled TWA 800 in that hangar on Long Island. Thousands of pieces.

You end up with a large debris field. The denser items will sink; structures where the density of the whole is less than water (which is conveniently calibrated as 1.00) will float. You might be surprised at how much of the aircraft components are less dense than water: all the plastics, the seats, carpeting, various thermoformed panels, clothing, most luggage, the fuel, and so forth. Even sections with aluminum may float if less dense items remain attached, or air becomes trapped in a pocket section. Also, invariably a large number of the bodies will be floating. In both TWA 800 and Iran Air shoot-down in the Persian Gulf by the USS Vincennes, large numbers of bodies floated and were recovered.

The suggestion is made that fishermen would not recognize aircraft parts as being from an aircraft. Perhaps. Yet, fishermen are not going to misunderstand that bodies floating about are from anything other than some disaster. That, at least, would be reported. It is because of these two aspects - large debris field and over 100 bodies, perhaps 200 floating bodies - that it is implausible to me that this aircraft, after six days of searching by over 100 units in calm seas, went down where the search is going on. And if the A/C did not go down on the water, then my conclusion is that it continued North on its flight path and crashed on land. And if on land, then assuredly not in a populated area; the further conclusion is that it bored a hole in the jungle, at a 70-degree (inverted?) angle, making a 30-ft diameter bore hole, and you don't find it. Gone.

Unless, it really did make that 90-degree turn to the West, and kept on flying, and .....

If this was a 787 that disappeared I doubt it would be any easier to find it.

Because ETOPS 330 refers to the aircraft redundancy and resilience to cope with a significant failure and continue for fly for up to 330 minutes and land at a suitable airfield. It does not refer to your ability to find it.

barrel_owl
 

One of the million or so scenarios that have been offered is that there was an explosive decompression, which involved the elctronics bay and crew O2 area beneath the cabin floor and just aft of the cockpit.

Whatever happened rendered the radios and transponder, as well as the crew O2 inop. Apparently it did not affect the A/P.

The crew had a enough useful consciousness to get a bit of a descent and a return heading set, possibly to an FMS waypoint before passing out.

The plane descended to the preset altitude and went west.

Elephant & Castle yes I know but a glaring omission in the certification. Clearly this aircraft was just out of coverage and no one has a clue after six days so time to change the certification as one can only imagine the SAR ability if this was 240 or 330 minutes over the pacific?