On the logic side; you would have had to of gone back across land yet again (almost certainly picked up on someones radar and/or spotted.) Why bother going across the Peninsula once (leaving your only known trail) just to do it once more? You were over there to begin with and could have just ensured you avoided all radar by staying there

On the technical side; doesn't match the Pings. Earlier pings they have would have indicated that eastward path, plus hitting the 40 degree at 8:11 after a short double back would be impossible. Going East also means they would be very close to/end up pinging a second Satellites range. That would have been unbelievably helpful in this SAR effort! (but sadly didn't happen)

It has been suggested the timing is highly accurate and so should have a fairly precise number. 40.00 (? how many significant figures) seemed a bit unlikely.

As you suggest, it is likely just rounding to a number.

Thanks D.S
If it were possible (Terrain 'hugging', etc) , regardless how unlikely, to double back, then given all eyes appear to be on the Indian Ocean, it's mission accomplished in terms of diverting the SAR effort and execute Pt II of whatever overall plan is?

Spot On....
 

TheShadows post Parallels with prior inflight fires strikes me as the most sensible thing I have read on this tragedy in the past few days.

It would seem to me that in a fire, those thin ARINC 629 cables carrying ACARS data would be first to go. Failure of those might make it appear as if a human was turning knobs as systems can not connect to their LRUs.

Boeing Share Price
 

That's a hell of a good observation.

Wonder what happened to Air Malaysia Share price?

And if the wreck were found?

Right now , not finding the wreck appears to be
a financial plus for them and finding it
a hell of a liability.

No wonder they are sending everyone off on a wild goose chase..

Uploading flight plans to a T7 FMS
 

Is it possible to upload a flight plan previously drafted on a PC to the T7's FMS from a flash drive or a smartphone/tablet USB connection? Is proprietary software required to draft a flight plan or is it available to the general public?

What many of you dont seem to realise is that ACARS outages are pretty common, even in the middle of Europe. ACARS comes in and out sometimes and pilots would think nothing of it, a station might be congested or doing some maintenance or whatever. Likewise transponders fail on occasion, not very often but again if a transponder failed during my flight I would think nothing of it, that is why we carry two of them. I would not know it has failed until ATC told me though and at that point i would just switch to the other transponder.

Flying is not like the high security prison some of you imagine it to be where a change in the FMC triggers loud sirens at a ground facility. There might be 101 reasons why I do or change things in my FMS. There are literary 100 of thousands of flights every day, 99.99999999% of them landing safely. The role of ATC is to make sure that in this very congested airspace airplanes do not collide with each other. They do not have a role to police what I input or not in my FMC.

Most serious emergencies would be dealt with by turning the aircraft towards a suitable landing airport, if heading out across the sea turning initially back towards the coast would seems sensible if confronted with fire or fumes. Although pilots have their own supply of oxygen there have been occasions in the past where the crew oxygen has been filled with nitrogen by mistake. If that was the case the crew would have been incapacitated quite quickly. Passenger oxygen has a limited supply of about 15 minutes, at altitude they would have been incapacitated too. Cabin crew do have portable bottles but can the fly the airplane? They can try and maybe they did but the portable supply doesn't last vey long at the flow needed if the airplane has depressurized, one way or another they would have ended up incapacitated too if they did not manage to descent the airplane to bellow 10,000 feet. Finally incapacitated people can do all sorts of funny things while trying to do something else, that is the nature of incapacitation.

Amazing how the same ideas keep cycling ...

Info on 2009 777 onboard fire - check out the links for pictures of damage.

On the contrary, many of us do realize that. The question must be put, however, is what are the odds of both of them failing on the same flight within minutes of each other? How often has that happened in your knowledge and experience?

What are the odds of flipping a coin and getting heads five times in a row?

Having flipped a coin four times in a row and got heads every time what are the odds of getting heads again if I flip it one more time?

I don't think probability works in the way you imply. ACARS fails quite regularly, once ACARS has failed what is the probability that the transponder fails? The same as it always has been for transponder failures. Unless there is a common mode failure in which case it is much higher.

The statistical approach whilst attractive is fundamentally flawed. Just because an event happens frequently and even more frequently than other events does not mean that it will prove to be the cause of the next incident (if you want a spectacular illustration of this take a look at the Fukushima nuclear power station). The fire explanation is just as far fetched as any of the other explanations - perhaps even more so as it requires an even greater number of unlikely events to happen (which does not preclude it from being the explanation). However, even though the rarity of the hijack or pilot deviance explanation is significant this particular line of investigation still fits the known facts better.

@ Contact Approach

This is exactly what I am trying to say. Electrical fire makes perfect sense for ACARS going off and pilots unaware of ACARS not transmitting, rather than a manual turn-off that everyone is implying.

@Elephant - The St Petersburg paradox and Bermoulli?


@Ramjet555. Yes, I agree with you. It certainly suits Boeing if the aircraft was never found.


If this incident followed the Occam's razor principle we'd have found the aircraft. Looks like we are following Hickam's dictum instead.

There would be an EICAS FDE (message) if an ATC Transponder had failed.





Posted from Pprune.org App for Android

In my A/C it would not show in the 777 I would imagine that it would depend on the failure mode. Either way it would be a low priority message and therefore buried underneath any other higher priority messages resulting from electrical / smoke / fire / pressurisation .

For all the fire/catastrophic failure merchants; How was the aircraft still pinging INMARSAT afterwards? :ugh:

Say the odds are 1 in 1,000 that the transponder fails and 1 in 1,000 that ACARS fails. Then the odds that both fail at the same time are 1 in a million. Easy math.

Considering it was an electircal problem or a slow electrical fire, aircraft flew on autopilot for several hours until it ran out of fuel, or until fire burnt controls electricals first, and the plane crashed.

Hypoxia is nasty and extremely insidious.

I have experienced it in a chamber. After spending 2 mins off Oxygen trying to fill in a worksheet, I only managed to make a start on my name at the top.
The first two letters of my name.

Apart from a big grin, I wasnt aware of any problem.

And this paralysis occured after a rapid decompression from 8000 to only F250.

:eek:

Thai army says that they also monitored the plane for a while after it turned but because nobody asked them, they didnt share the info until now. !!!!!????? Are they for real?!!
Ok, I know the plane was at no time above thailand, so why do they even bother to release this info publicly now? Tell the Malaysians what you have and shut up.

Another thing that it hard to get for me. They see an unidentified plane in the area and they dont scrumble a fighterjet to check it out?! Im referring here to the Malaysians, of course. Wouldnt this be the normal reaction to a plane that fails to be identified through normal sops.


My humble opinion is that they have no clue where this plane is. Americans looking north, aussie searching south, chinese looking in the wrong place initially.......
My heart goes out to those poor souls and their families.

Electrical fire
 

What type of electrical fire is severe enough to cause the failures on this flight, incapitate the crew, yet allow continued flight for 7 hours?

Smoke and or fumes could overcome the crew, if they failed to use the oxy masks,( or if oxy bottles inadvertently filled with nitrogen) however, the way I see it any type of fire that caused the aledged defects would certainly not allow continued flight.

IMHO, it is very likely that continued human intervention is most likely.

There is plenty of evidence to suggest that the aircraft might have been hijacked or commandeered, there is no proof.

Sure the plane might have had some kind of fire or other disaster but the timing is very telling. No better time to disappear than at the hand off. Could be just a coincidence but I kinda doubt it.

That all the com/tracking equipment failed seems deliberate. Sure some disaster could have knocked out all the communications and tracking equipment (or the pilot's ability to use them) but left the ping? Once again, I kinda doubt it.

This completely ignores the satellite ping evidence.

EDIT:

On the side of a possible disaster:

The aircraft might have been flying low to have breathable air rather than to avoid radar.

At risk of causing apoplexy from the herd.

Until all of the six pings and the message format are made public then I cant help but suspect gross incompetence and politics.
Dont you find it strange that the 40 degree arc if completed properly joining north route to south route passes very close to last point of contact.

Yes I know the centre part of the arc has been removed because POR didnt detect mh370 and the aircraft was supposedly detected on primary radar.

Seriously, nobody is really 100% sure that the primary paint was mh370 and if the aircraft was at sea level then POR would not have detected the plane as it would most likely be out of line of sight.

It is really important that the six ping locations nd message format be released to stop all this conjecture once and for all.

What exactly are they hiding and why is Inmarset not allowed to publish their data.

One thing that I consider odd...when over UK/Europe and there loss of comms..certain fast jets will appear beside the aircraft!
If Ho Chi Min ATC were desperately trying to contact the aircraft after It had said Good Night to KL ATC(I did read many posts ago that this was heard) why oh why did they not take the appropriate action then..
Tragic really that this action was not taken..or is it not done in Asia?

Statistics
 

I notice people are misusing statistics on this thread to reject certain of the disapparance theories as being "too unlikely".

What they should realise is that even the more straightforward explanations (e.g. decompression or pilot suicide) are themselves incredibly unlikely and have only happened a minute number of times in the entire history of air travel.

The only certainty is that whatever the explanation is, it has to be extraordinary! And this means, in my view, that you can't discount the whackjob theories, no matter how odd they seem.

Its probably all a massive load of nonsense to keep you all guessing. Aircraft caught fire and crashed somewhere unknown. They can't find it so cling to something else in their desperate attempts...

It's by no means certain that Inmarsat have access to any stored (ephemeral) data on any but the last ping.

Because Vietnam radar saw them turn back west away from them. No threat to them so no action.

Then the Malaysians should have been a bit more thorough IMHO

So because a commercial flight 'turns back' and isn't considered a 'threat', that therefore absolves the relevant ANSP from providing the appropriate and timely SAR response??

Politics is really showing up now. Thailand had radar information about the change of track on day one, but did not share it, because 'they were not asked'.

Search aircraft are sitting on the ground because governments are reluctant to give over flight permission.

The whole thing is becoming a bigger mess as each hour passes.

SOPS

Did you see the report (media) where it said Malaysia had asked (the US and Aust) for the raw data or any info from Pine Gap that might relate to the aircraft ! Not sure they will get a response they will like !

I can understand that 500N.They didn't ask Thailand and look what happened.Worth a try anyway.

regarding somekind of fire, let me quote my own post three days ago :

i of course also can only guess but tell you should the thing will ever be resolved many of you will look as stupid as it can be with all the conspirancy theories. it makes perfectly no sense to hijack an aircraft just to fly it on the open ocean and crash without any word, suicide by pilot for life insurance is if far more easy by car against a tree than with this scenario , an unknown landing can be pretty sure excluded.

look at AF447 - what was speculated by "experts" - and who assumed they just stalled the thing and three pilots were not aware of it for several minutes.

this thread started good with useful info but quickly turned stupid, overhelmed by the usual "professional" entries, and should some people involved in the search or broadcasting serious reports on the incident read this all they surely will only have a laugh. i strongly recommend in future somekind of a system where you have to proof to the admin who you are before contributing in such discussions, otherwise this will ever be only a valve for people searching the thrill in wild speculations without any relationship to reality .

Malaysian
 

Wow, 'increase alt to FL45'??

Mate, stick to FS98 like 99.9% of the posters on this forum!

Any fire/crew incapacitation theory has to account for the fire selectively disabling only comm systems yet leaving the AFDS systems alone so the aircraft then flies along last programmed route until fuel exhaustion and then crashing. I'm pretty sure all that stuff is in the ee bay.

"Worth a try anyway."

I see you changed your post !

Yes, worth a try but I don't like the chances, even if it isn't so "super secret" any more but that is different to handing over data / info. If they did have anything I would say that Aus / US aircraft / ships would use it and suggest to Malaysia to help in that area.

As has been suggested by a SAR person before on another search, a discreet word was said to "search over there" without being told why and that is where they found it.

Boeing Share Price - and following the money
 

Interesting and incisive thoughts about Boeing, and following the money.

In Air France 447, Airbus looked at the ACARS data (released into the public domain only 76 hours after disappearance - and 48 hours before any debris spotted), and formed their own view. Airbus certainly wanted the black boxes recovered, so they could tell their story about Air France. Hence 30m Euro was found by Airbus and Air France (and their insurers) to recover the boxes.

Has anyone asked Boeing publicly what they are actively doing to assist the Investigation?

pax
 

What did the 200 odd pas do during this event. Sit and watch movies for 7 hours. I imagine at least some would try to storm the flite deck. If in fact anyone was still alive. Now we have the Maldives, some fishermen in Malaysia also reporting a low flying jet. And reluctant govts giving out radar data. As for Jindalee doubt if is operating in the wee small hours, it relies on hf prop which is not too good in middle of the night at 17 to 24 MHz.