Might want to include a few other quotes that are more balanced:

"This followed MAS' confirmation of records that showed that the pilot had not made any amendments to the plane's fuel requirements. It was enough to take it to Beijing, with a 45-minute reserve in case of diversion to an alternate field."
[…]
"Meanwhile, another highly-placed source told the NST that initial forensics checks on Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah's flight simulator showed that it was "clean"."
[…]
"A source with Malaysia Airlines, meanwhile, confirmed that both pilots were on that plane as rostered.
They had not swapped flight schedules with anyone. MAS pilots get their rosters at the end of every month."

Galaxy Flyer

This seems quite informative

The Aviationist » What SATCOM, ACARS and Pings tell us about the missing Malaysia Airlines MH370

(Assuming it is correct !)

Why fly at FL295 (if that is accurate)? It gets it just above the highest terrain (Everest 29k) if it was heading that way, but it isn't a particularly "stealthy" altitude?

The relationship between Captain and F.O. has been subject of some scrutiny, as if they co-conspired maybe.

On the contrary, with F.O. son of a current government leader and Captain being an ardent fan of the opposition, they might even have occasion to argue the matter. Like Ibrahim's reversal of acquital on trumped up charges, (some say) which happened that same day.

Arguments can of course get out of hand on occasion. Taken to a logical conclusion (or perhaps illogical?) seems this might be more of a trigger to some impulsive craziness than a divorce even.

Crazy things can happen, and we know crazy things DID happen. Just sayin. Its keeping me up thinking about it, and the awful consequences of whatever is the actual cause of this tragedy.

mm43 - thanks ... found this link to TSB report on Swissair 111 TSB on ACARS ... a good educational link

And the next sentence is:

When I was going through my divorce I was offered time off, maybe it was felt that I wouldn't have my mind on the job and perhaps be a danger as a result ?

I requested that I be allowed to continue as normal, my life at the time was collapsing around me, and the flying was the one stable thing that I knew I had control of, could achieve, and was the only 'normal' thing still available to me at the time. Had my flying been taken away from me as well, I may well have tipped over the edge, it was truly a life-saver.

( mind you, had I come across the one-time colleague who was the cause of my distress, in some back alley in Calcutta one dark night - it could have been another story !! - history now.)

Psychology and Responsibility
 

My field is psychology. Whilst it would be absurd to assert that the pilot's possible family issues must have a bearing here, it is equally absurd to suggest that the possibility has been 'eliminated' by talking to his maid or his friends. Indeed, the person who would open up to their friends and let the mask drop in front of the maid is the kind of person more likely to 'cope' successfully. On the other hand, someone determined to keep up a front, ashamed to seek help, or in deep personal denial of the situation until the moment their family actually move out is more likely to be prone to 'snap'. Just to reinforce: I'm not saying that the pilot acted in such a manner, just that the reasoning for elimination of this possibility presented in some previous posts is unconvincing.

As regards an entirely different hypothesis, terrorism, multiple posts have expressed incredulity that responsibility would not have been claimed by now. Several answering posts have rationalised why the hypothetical terrorists might have chosen to remain silent. My personal hunch is that probably dozens of conflicting claims of responsibility have been made, that these are being looked into according to their apparent credibility, and that if any one of these claims starts shaping up evidentially as possibly genuine, we will likely then hear of it. Incidentally, this may offer one amongst many reasons not to put all known facts in the public domain: a good challenge to a claim of responsibility is to say 'OK, if you did it, tell us something about the events which we know or can verify but which is not yet public knowledge'.

I think aircrafts like the 777 get more than only 45-60 mins reserve fuel for a 6 hour flight.. Logically they would obtain at least haft the trip back if not the whole trip back as reserve (thus 3hrs fuel reserve if not more).


Very interesting read about how ACARS, SATCOM and PING works for a 777 in simple terms, and also explains how investigators figured out the possible flight paths of the missing aircraft.

R/T
 

Good morning,

Just curious about the use of Goodnight being considered abnormal.

I was a controller at London Airways for 33 years and I can`t remember a time when I didn`t say Good-day, Goodnight or whatever on transferring an aircraft.

Not standard ICAO phraseology, I agree, but was almost universal.

Dave

Learn something new every day here on PPRuNe...

I would like to make a valid point and I would appreciate all those who believe whole heartedly and without any doubt the pings are the be all and end all to this search that they not hyperventilate.

Its interesting to me that the arc from the satellite has been deleted in the area where the aircraft lost contact. I have gathered the reason for this is two fold:

1. Theaircraft was detected on primary radar in that region
2. The next satellite over did not receive a ping so the assumption is made that the aircraft could not have been in range of that satellite.

The point I would like to make and not withstanding the ping id message because it is my belief nobody has seen an example of that message to see what information is contained within a typical ping message. Inmarsat have said that there is no message other than a handshake although their equipment measures the time it took for the ping to be returned to determine the approx distance from the transmitter give or take 300 to 500 miles.

Now take a deep breath D.S, If.... The unit sending that ping message was on the ground in Kuala Lumpur it is then conceivable that :

1. The second satellite would most probably be on the horizon since it was apparently at the edge of its range in that area and at sea level may not have line of sight with the unit sending the ping.

2. It was my understanding that civvie radar had not tracked the target primary paint over the malay peninsula. I understand military radar had but there was a collective agreement that it was most probably mh370. What does that mean? Because they couldnt explain what the paint was then they have used confirmation bias and decided it must be mh370? So if the aircraft returning that ping was on the ground there would not be a primary paint.

3. Should that arc have been removed?

The point I'm making is it is entirely possible that this ping is from other Malaysian airlines aircraft at Kuala Lumpur where the arc from the satellite cuts through nearby?

What I would like to know is what exactly was in the ping handshake from both the initiating transmitter (inmarset) and mh370's supposed handshake response.

Before you all fall about with apoplexy or ignore this post all together.
Lets look at the statement from the Malaysian PM, only a few hours before the statement, the lead investigator and the minister of transport denied the satellite ping info as being relevant and just one of many leads. If they were in posession of irrefutable evidence which nobody here has seen and still has not seen then they would have undoubtedly have supported it 100%. Instead we have the PM front up who mentions the FAA, ATSB, AAIB and the deputy minister of transport, why? To put those agencies on the hook if the satellite info is wrong and to take pressure off Malaysia and it worked an absolute treat. The lead investigator and the minister were not mentioned during the statement. Why? Because they obviously had differing views but the PM has rendered this investigation completely political by stepping in.

There is a lot more to this and I am very uncomfortable being told what to think by the uninformed media.

Now, nobody has seen these messages or pings, nobody except those involved in the investigation, is it possible these pings may well be from elsewhere. Until the handshake format in its entirety is made public then my theory cannot be discounted.

For the record I believe this aircraft will be found near its last confirmed position as I stated thousands of posts ago and stopping the search in the South China Sea is a mistake.

@robdean - Good post. Thanks for the additional professional insight. I have personally known several people who suicided, and in every case they exhibited regular bouts of depression and discussed how they "felt like ending it all" on numerous occasions to friends or associates.
It's true, there's the occasional personality who is totally secretive and doesn't divulge anything and suicides with no warning - but in the overwhelming majority of suicides, the warnings are there.

lots of unanswered questions.

Who's going to pay for the monitoring, and storage (and retrieval) of all this data, and who's going to monitor it in case 1 aircraft stops transmitting (for whatever reason), and even if they did detect an anomoly, who are they going to notify?

Even if they had access to 24*7 military numbers for every country, would they scramble jets on the say so of a civilian company who says one of the aircraft it monitors didn't "check in" ?

I think, with all due respect, Speedbird 33, that you should be over your problems by now!

Just maybe the cloak of secrecy is a hint that authorities are still negotiating with hijackers .

Hijack of PPRuNe - Confirmed
 

Exoixx and others. The only thing that's definitely been hijacked is this forum - PPRuNe. The clue's in the title - Professional Pilots Rumour Network - and no longer safe from the keyboard warriors, know-nothings, weirdos and others reiterating what's already been said or with nothing better to do. Shame.

Flight Path or Last Location Locus?
 

The 40degree arcs are greatly misunderstood, much of the press seem to think the plane was flying ALONG one of these arcs. As I understand it, these arcs show all the possible positions of the last contact, NOT the route.

Having said that, if you have all the previous transmissions (pings), and the last radar position, then assuming[Big IF] a constant speed and direction, you could come down to a choice of two actual routes AND two choices for the last actual position.

Anyone got the full list timestamps and latitude?

(All providing of course they are not constantly 40degrees, in which case, it is flying round the arc, and we have no final fix)

Engineer Pilot..I fly the 777 and I can assure you that we do not carry 3 hours reserve under any normal operations. 45 to 60 minutes reserve, as reported, sounds about reasonable to me.

@xgjunkie
"The point I'm making is it is entirely possible that this ping is from other Malaysian airlines aircraft at Kuala Lumpur where the arc from the satellite cuts through nearby?"

Surely any pings detected from other a/c would have been followed by handshake and data exchange? So can be eliminated as being from MH370?