^^^ But the mode control is rotary and two clicks from 'normal' to get to STBY

You are not even close for a B777's Emer Descent procedures!!

"takes ages to sort through logs"
 

Actually it does not. There are now automated log scanning tools that look for anomalies which they can find in seconds if properly used.

As for why RR did not receive any reports from the ACARS that would have been because MAS did not subscribe to the service. Does'nt mean the signals were not received by the satellite and then sent to a master subscriber (er...maybe the NSA).

WSJ now reporting that the pings included "location, speed, and altitude."

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/...LEFTTopStories

marconiphone
 

I'm with you & all you say & thanks for your comments. I still would suggest, there does seem to be this Cvil V Military thing, on just who is in charge.
As you rightly say, nobody can say for certain at this time, what happened & where is the 777. To me, it would help if there was just one single agency, tasked with handng out the information.
Unfortunately, whatever the outcome, it will not be good I'm afraid.

Does the B777 not have an automatic Emergency Descent Mode?

9M-MRL had rotary transponder as of 2008:
Photos: Boeing 777-2H6/ER Aircraft Pictures | Airliners.net

9M-MRM in 2011 too:
Photo: 9M-MRM (CN: 29066) Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-2H6(ER) by A. W. Raeven - JetPhotos.Net

sonar
 

REALLY, how is making a comment on dropping a sonobuoy from a P8 to listen for pingers worthy of being dropped from this thread?

P8 can drop sonor buoys or hydrophones and one is being sent to look/listen in the indian ocean?


comment pasted above from an earlier thread.
well to be honest they may be doing just that as well as the use of dumking sonar.

Only time will tell just what the pros are up to out there, but rest assured they will not have left any stones unturned or procedure possible untried.

Its all to easy for us to sit back and say they should have done this or done that or go here go there.

As for the passing of info to the media.
Lets just take a short breath here.
What if this situation was the result of a security lapse or its tied to an act of terror then of course the powers that be would not want to pass on all the info that they may have to hand as it may have an effect on possible actions they have or are planning. Untill the dust settles we wont know all the facts we can only continue to speculate.
However from where I am sat nice and cozy in China reading the threads and watching BBC and CNN, I can see vast sums of money and effort being expended by not only Malay but from some governments close by and all in an effort to assist close this out. So hats off to them guys.

grumpyoldgeek
Unlikely. The ocean is very large, and submarines are very few. If the plane is in the Indian ocean, the pingers are likely too deep to be heard by a sub or sonobuoys unless nearly overhead. See: Pinger Range, much of which could apply to this situation.

Edit: I should have mentioned, that reliable reception of these pingers, if they are deep, requires a deep (towed) receiver. That is why the US Navy has deep-towed pinger locators, which were used (unsuccessfully) to search for AF447.

Easy access within the cabin via E11 to the SATCOM, would disable all telemetry.

But I'm still interested whether this 777 is equipped with Satphones... unlikely I guess seeing it would completely redefine the scenario.

That picture is from FCOM1.

The normal position for the switch is TA/RA.
It NEVER leaves that position except when called for by the Checklist (normally following an engine failure. Then it goes from TA/RA to TA ONLY).
It is completely inconceivable to me that any 777 pilot can accidentally select standby on this type of XPDR.

Switching it to STBY will also create an TCAS advisory message on EICAS.

----

WRT Emer Descent and the XPDR:

There is no changing of the XPDR mode in ANY checklist associated with Emer Descent.
The Emer Descent checklist only calls for 7700 set.
This is normally accomplished by the PM (we are trained to do it at the same time as we transmit a MAYDAY message).
The PF will be getting the aircraft in a descent and will not touch the XPDR as he's too busy with flying.

---

Disclaimer: I do not fly 777s for MAS

All Thai airports are Military Air Force bases and hence the statement that they do not have them on the peninsular is not correct.

Fire in the Main Equipment Center (MEC)?
 

Given the sparse but interesting data of pings of the ACARS system but no data, - a hypothesis to explore is: could this be this is another SwissAir Flight 11 – a fire in the Main Equipment Center (MEC) underneath the cockpit? If there’s a fire a smoke detector illuminates the ‘EQUIP COOLING OVRD’ message on the cockpit EICAS.

see diagram here: http://www.skybrary.aero/images/B772_MEC_FIRE.jpg

It’s possible after seeing a message the crew began a turnback to Malaysia. But if the fire continued it could knock out communications equipment, which would explain the loss of comms, and blow out the crew oxygen bottle which could cause rapid decompression and crew hypoxia if it went off through the fuselage and/or the fire could have damaged the fly-by-wire flight controls which could explain the continued flight.

While just a hypothesis, unfortunately a 777 had a fire in this exact location – luckily for them on the ground in London Heathrow in Feb 2007. See the UK AAIB report:
http://www.aaib.gov.uk/cms_resources...7%20N786UA.pdf

The report said, “…Prior to this accident the aircraft manufacturer was involved in investigating 11 in-service reports of power panel overheat events, three of which involved major damage to the panels. The affected panels were the P200 and P300, and the affected contactors were the RBTB, Auxiliary Power Breaker (APB)and the Primary External Power Contactor (PEPC).

Now imagine if the fire occurred in the air at 35,000 feet.

@Opsmarco
Technical faults do happen. The more times you fly, the more likely it is that something will eventually happen somewhere. I think you're alluding to a modified diluted version of the anthropic principle here - in that obviously something must have happened to the plane - in your view, possibly sequential multiple failures, hence the low likelihood is of less relevance. The trouble with this reasoning is that we don't actually know what happened to the aircraft. All we can say is that we have an a priori probability of various events occurring. When you stack unlikely events, the overall sequence becomes even more unlikely.

I agree to some extent with your chain reaction idea. In particular, if the plane is damaged and the environmental conditions change such that the crew are incapacitated then it significantly hampers their recovery efforts. However, largely these crew don't respond to crises in the same way than an unprepared individual might (i.e. not be ready etc.). A large part of their training incorporates being ready to fly broken planes insofar as I would actually say that these professional pilots are experts in flying broken planes more than unbroken ones. Obviously, the jet pilots out there can correct me on this point if I'm mistaken. But my impression is that it takes a whole lot more skill to fly a broken plane than a perfectly functioning one, and that's exactly why these experienced pro's are up in the sky not just anybody.

cockpitvisit
 

Whatever passport you used, the airline would still need to see a valid passport, either belonging to the final destination country or with a valid visa for said country.

@flash8The aircraft appears to have been fitted with an Inmarsat Aero L package which works through an omni-directional antenna in the global beams of the I-3 series of satellites.

Aero L is used for low speed (600 - 1200 bps) real-time, packet data comms used mainly for ATC (CPDLC) and ACARS services.

In short, no SatPhone services.

AFAIK: the only things I can think of witha push button type of mode select is the Collins PL4/21 with RTU's for tuning the radio or the Honeywell equivalent ( primus 800?) while quite nice in your King Air or Gulfstream, not quite the thing Boeing is in to.

Ok sorry I stand corrected. Didn't think anyone but the USN had them yet.

No.
But the Pax will most likely run out of oxygen before the pilots do.

(I cannot give you exact numbers because of the following variables:
1. How many passengers are loaded on the aircraft and how many puts on and activates their masks.

2. Oxygen duration for the pilots is also dependant on the amount of crew (2/3/4) and the setting of their mask. 100% or not. EMER or not.)

My background is healthcare with no knowledge of aviation except that it takes me to nice vacation locales.

While a shortage of O2 would be a critical event, might I also suggest an increase of CO2 as an equally important factor. Thank you.