If this is a hijack/rogue pilot crime, I bet the reinforced F/D door made it easy for the criminal(s) and impossible for anyone in the cabin to resist.

It can contain an identifier, but does it have to? It may sound pedantic but if I would be the head of the SAR effort I would insist on a complete information before diverting the ressources to a different location.

And I would not care a single second whether the white house or whoever did comment something feable or not.

Thanks for the clarification. I did some searching and discovered that it's 1 minute for every 1500m of altitude (at the equator), so ~7 minutes in this case (less if they decreased altitude after contact was lost). I thought it would be much more than that...

If MH370 did turn left and head west into the Indian Ocean , and if there was evil intent , it certainly had fuel to reach Diego Garcia (much the same distance as KL-PEK) and I am certain the US has both on island and space based surveillance assets to keep a very close eye on any unknown vessel or aircraft approaching this very important and rather secretive base.

Might explain why US seems to be going along with the 'it turned west theory' without being too specific about why they might support it. Picking a flight full of Chinese passengers is hardly likely to lessen any tensions of something bad did happen either .

Also I believe the India military are pretty concerned to protect their sources and resources in the Andaman islands which they see very much as an eastern frontier of India for maritime purposes.

Whatever happens I can see a mandated introduction of GPS location reporting for all long haul aircraft relaying constant position reports via a secure sat comms link with no access or control function from from flight deck

Of course it will. From a software engineering perspective, a network protocol that can't distinguish between different senders and receivers is of rather limited use.


And even if it didn't it doesn't need to for them to correlate it with the aircraft.


Presumably the satcom system "transport layer" was pinging satellites from takeoff (even if other systems on the aircraft were not trying to send data), and thus plotting the progression of pings will indicate the flight path from takeoff.

@Hunter58

So would you just sit there doing circles in the Gulf of Thailand for the next how ever many months hoping you somehow just kept missing something in a body of water that is largely shallower then the length of the plane itself?

The Gulf is an area where it should be extremely easy to rule out the plane being - it is not an overly large body of water, is extremely shallow, and has been searched like crazy. Sure, it is possible it has been missed, but the odds are unbelievably slim at this point.

Sounds like the SAR efforts are not totally convinced by the pings and are therefore hedging their bets by continuing to also search the South China Sea. Seems prudent. I can't imagine how distressing this must be for the families. No wonder the Malaysians are bing cautious before confirming anything.

Triangulation
 

I don't know if this has been noted but as far as I am aware, Inmarsat uses geostationary satellites so if the signals were received by them then triangulation based on signal strength would be impossible at that distance.

Because transponders have been known to send out incorrect data for one

Trim up
 

Even in this surveillance, gps and tagged world some things will get under our guard. We can stare at thin air and speculate for maybe for 40 years until some one will come across ME. Maybe never.

Closure? In the wars we had folk going missing in action and families accepted that better than having the distressing gory details.

Just accept for now they are gone.

AF and MH are not the first or the last but we try to learn from each if we can. Maybe develop a truly global flight path external tracking system that is definitive and transparent.

If that is possible.

OK - another angle: Has anyone at the intended destination spoken up about not receiving any of their expected (valuable) cargo? Not talking gold/cash necessarily... Maybe technical equipment? Was their a previous MH flight that had gone tech at the intended destination and was awaiting aircraft spare parts? Did someone/somewhere else (within range) needing aircraft spare - or not so spare - parts get wind of what was in the hold and do a high altitude Great Train Robbery...

Glen brook, Not impossible using the Doppler info on the signal from each satellite (frequency shift).

Hunter58,
think of it from the network providers perspective. For billing purposes inmarsat plc has to be able to relate each device seen by the network to someone to send the bill to.

pax

"Whatever happens I can see a mandated introduction of GPS location reporting for all long haul aircraft relaying constant position reports via a secure sat comms link with no access or control function from from flight deck "

Yes, that sounds like a really good idea.
Can't think of anything more sensible than a piece of electrical equipment on an aircraft that cannot be turned off by the pilots in an emergency.:rolleyes:

All those pilots considering murder/suicide will be deterred by a comms unit telling on them.

Absolutely agree with that. The common good must rise above cost.

What happens when said gps reporting system is suspected as the cause of an onboard fire?

I agree with Nikolaus Silver...

Focus on facts and not let relatives and this modern panic for 'closure' keep intruding.

This is a search for the aircraft's fate at the moment.
Nothing more. ..

And if you're not a pilot or an aviation or relevant systems professional please keep the forum noise down by not posting. Thanks...

Tourist, whatever about the sarcasm, if it helps find the plane (or remnants of) quickly, then it should be done.

Makes it almost certain to happen, then :\

OleOle

yes, however, that requires the ping to be a positive one. Your router at home can also only operate once you set it up to contain your specific data. It will however query a line in default setting in any case.

My point is, can we be absolutely certain that a device on board without subscription will be set up individually? And who would have done this?