From http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/malaysia-pilot-t-shirt-fuels-talk-hijacked-flight-article-1.1723724:

"The mystery of the missing Malaysia Airlines jet deepened Sunday as a photo surfaced of its pilot wearing a T-shirt with the slogan “Democracy is Dead” and searchers set course for the Indian Ocean.

The T-shirt further fueled fears that Capt. Zaharie Ahmad Shah, an ardent supporter of jailed Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, hijacked Flight 370 along its path from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in an act of anti-government protest."


So let me get this straight. Because the Captain is wearing a shirt declaring "Democracy is Dead" in protest of the overall UMNO/BN approach to government (and the obvious treatment of Ibrahim), and is a supporter of Ibrahim he is now more strongly considered to be some kind of hijacking suspect? What century are we in?

The pilot's viewpoints on politics and support of PKR are nothing special. There's quite a sizable contingent of people in MY with the same opinions and support for the opposition has been growing for years.

Secondly, Anwar Ibrahim is *not* jailed. The accuracy of modern media and "journalism" these days is just flat out appalling. It's no longer about being precise or accurate - it's completely driven by eyeballs.

Terrorists have won, haven't they? Time to burn some witches.

If the information that's been made public is accurate, it appears that the flight was very carefully planned to avoid radar detection - and it's possible that some of it was done at a low altitude in the dark. Further, depending on exactly where they went, the northern arc might have mountains to dodge.

Seems like if someone was going to try something like that, they would want to practice that route until it was automatic - the same way that various emergency procedures are practiced. And I can't imagine that they would want to do it on the simulator at work.

Here are some acars reports, these were taken off a site that streams acars online

ACARS mode: 2 Aircraft reg: .VH-OQC Operational Coms
Message label: 87 Block id: 1 Msg. no: U58A
Flight id: QF0012
Message content:-
TO OPERATIONS
DELAY. LAST DOOR CLOSED ON SCHEDULE HOWEVER JUST AFTER DOOR CLOSURE
ECAM FOR SURV-WX RADAR AND TAWS. SPOKE WITH ENGINEER AND COMPLETED
A RESET. PUSHED BACK AT 0602
-------------------------------------[16/03/2014 06:30]

ACARS mode: S Aircraft reg: .CC-CQF System Status
Message label: H1 Block id: 0 Msg. no: C18A
Flight id: LA0801
Message content:-
#CFB.1/WRN/WN1403152001 732102506MAINTENANCE STATUS ECU3 CHAN A
-------------------------------------[16/03/2014 07:00]

ACARS mode: S Aircraft reg: .CC-CQF
Message label: H1 Block id: 1 Msg. no: C19A
Flight id: LA0801
Message content:-
#CFB.1/WRN/WN1403152001 732103006MAINTENANCE STATUS ECU3 CHAN B
-------------------------------------[16/03/2014 07:00]

ACARS mode: S Aircraft reg: .VH-OJU Inbound With PAX Details
Message label: 86 Block id: 4 Msg. no: M05A
Flight id: QF0108
Message content:-
ARI
ETAB 2125YSSY
WHLCHR 02 / MED
ASST MINORS PAX
SICK N
SI NO TO AQIS.
h M O $O
-------------------------------------[16/03/2014 07:45]

ACARS mode: 2 Aircraft reg: .VH-OJU AMDAR Weather Report - Lat,Long,Alt,Turbulence etc
Message label: H1 Block id: 5 Msg. no: D26A
Flight id: QF0108
Message content:-
#2TBKLAXYSSY
AMDAR 1521
D3330S15305E2101F340M507272041008
D3337S15251E2103F301M401281029009
D3343S15239E2104F266M308298025010
D3349S15229E2106F236M235303035009
D3354S15219E2108F208M168299034007
-------------------------------------[16/03/2014 08:08]

ACARS mode: 2 Aircraft reg: .VH-OGR Engine Report
Message label: H1 Block id: Msg. no: D004
Flight id: QF0091
Message content:-
#2UBBLD-TKO
VH-OGR QFA0091
2207 15MAR14 SYD- NOU- CL 7 VER026
LEFT ENG RIGHT ENG
======== =========
CL NO CL NO HPSOV POS
NC NO NC NO PRV POS
98 1
-------------------------------------[16/03/2014 09:11]
ACARS mode: 2 Aircraft reg: .VH-OGR
Message label: H1 Block id: Msg. no: D005
Flight id: QF0091
Message content:-
#2UB00 PRV EXIT PRESS
NC NO NC NO FAV POS
H H TEMP RANGE FLG
181 196 FATS TEMP
NC NO NC NO PRSOV POS
0 0 ISO VALV
-------------------------------------[16/03/2014 09:11]

A question to Lost in Saigon,
Is there (or was there ever) an Emergency Descent Mode available on the 777 AFCS? Some of the more recent systems initiate a 90 degree turn away from the programmed heading followed by a maximum rate descent to around 10,000 feet after a cabin depressurisation is detected.
The similarity of this scenario to the latest version of MA370's possible flight plan - even to matching the SATCOM line of position - bears review.

None that I know of, and certainly not on the B777 fleet that I fly.

Thanks.

One answer …

The gap between the red arcs over south east asia can be explained because those points lie well within the coverage of the Pacific INMARSAT POR.

http://www.inmarsat.com/wp-content/u...ember-2013.jpg

The Malaysian SAR map

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BiwPWMOCYAAG3ZC.jpg:large

omits red over that area and puts dashed lines in the region under POR coverage.

Thus we assume that the expert teams are satisfied that POR would have picked up the 8:11am ping if it was in that region and that it did not.

Obviously there must be some fuzziness to the ends of the arcs and the POR region because a satellite which is very low over the horizon but still above it may not pick up a signal.

However, when you look at places on the arcs at e.g. the south coast of Vietnam then the POR satellite is at about 10 degrees apparent height and it should have heard a ping.

Having a sim at home allows someone to run and rerun scenarios. Obviously the control feedback isn't the same as a real a/c or sim but the visual fidelity is certainly there, especially compared to say an older Thales sim (I was just in a Thales B747-400 sim).

But the FMS/FD/FMC are terribly dumbed down on most of the PC sims.

GF

I think that we can conclude that the experts have no way of getting azimuth estimates from the pings.

They are using (very accurate) ping timings to gauge the distance between aircraft and satellite.

But that just gives you a circle of candidate locations on the earth.

(As I have said, bits of the circle can be ruled out by using other reasoning, e.g. lack of ping receipt by other satellites and time of flight).

Ana1936

Would you hazard a guess to the accuracy of the location? Within a degree, maybe 2?

I mean if the plane was a degree or so west, it would be out of view of the POR if I'm reading the map right. Could that be withing the margin of error?

The B737 I know is the following op guide. I assume the 777 is much more elegant and automated.

Automatic Downlinks
The FMC can be configured by the airline to automatically transmit downlinks of
FMC data at predetermined points during the flight or in response to specific
information requests from the airline dispatcher. The FMC response in these cases
is completely automatic and no crew action is necessary.

Accuracy of location from pings.

My understanding is that "width" of the circle on the earth corresponding to timing/distance measurements (satellite to aircraft) could be very small. Satellite messages often have very accurate clocks on each end.

The accuracy of limits of the gap area, the missing arc over SE asia under POR coverage, would be much less. With POR at a very low altitude above the horizon the possibilities for signal transmission may be affected by the surrounding landscape.

Eg, you may be in a valley in Vietnam and POR is above the hypothetical 0 degree horizon but is obscured by a mountain.

Apparently these modern aircraft have a "secret" compartment underfloor that even pilots are unaware of......if so, why ?

With overseas airlines, something similar to the American concept of an offline jumpseat rider is very rare in my experience. Sometimes you might be allowed to ride in the cockpit on a full aircraft but you still have to buy a ticket (BTDT on LH years ago).

As you perhaps know, there was some offline jumpseat involvement in the planning for the 9-11 attacks.

That would be where the "chemtrail" solution is held.:eek:
There are no "secret" compartments.
There are access panels to? ...... yes access the internals of the aircraft for maintenance.

Pings and arcs
 

ana1936 said:

In today’s (Sunday) press conference, the DCA Director also referred to calculations of the aircraft’s minimum and maximum speeds from last point of contact as considerations in determining the arcs.

ana1936,

Thanks, sir. Then is it fair to say the plane could have been "holding" for hours at any point on the arcs as well as traveling in a track that could be describing those tracks?

Cloaking
 

Mahatma Kote: I hope others will answer that (because I can't) but in conjunction with or separately from that there surely has to be a possibility that this aircraft is sitting in a hangar or other enclosure somewhere and is being repainted. If it is to be used for something clandestine then it will not emerge as a Malaysian Airlines plane but in the colours of another airline. A bit like the process that a stolen car goes through, except in this case, at least externally, it would somewhat easier (other than the scale of the paint job), because airlines like to advertise themselves in distinctive livery. Under those conditions, surely, more checks would have to be made in any interception. I hope that susceptible countries are alert to this possibility. Yes, it is only a possibility, but someone needs to be thinking outside the box and I haven't seen that possibility mentioned (forgive me if it has been).

ana1936

Understood. The "look angle" might also come into play. IE if the aircraft was flying north along the red line, but was banked left wing low the fuselage might shroud the antenna from the POR satellite with it that low in the sky.

multiple pings
 

cockpitvisit

"From the 6 pings, there must be 6 different rings. But we are only shown curves from a single ring (probably from the final one). Is there any information about the other 5 pings? It would at least help determine the lateral motion of the plane (how much it moved "towards" or "away" from the satellite)"

Maybe somebody has explained this already but you are absolutely right - we have to assume 'they' only had the transit time for that single last ping - if not there would seemingly be a treasure trove of further information from the other pings. However I think we can rely on 'them' to have extracted every last scrap of useful data.

WPT CHG
 

@D.S.

ADS-C can send route data either on a periodic basis or if changed:

Predicted Route Group

• Latitude at next waypoint
• Longitude at next waypoint
• Altitude at next waypoint
• ETA at next waypoint
• Latitude at next +1 wpt
• Longitude at next +1 wpt
• Altitude at next +1 wpt

If so equipped and engaged the a/c could send this data w/o pilot knowledge. ADS-C update with info listed above would be sent from plane to ground automatically when the pilot changed the next or next +1 WPT.

I'm not saying this is what happened. Just saying that what has been reported is possible.