jumpjim. ty for trying to uplink sense to my brain...

but i'm still asea, and based upon "no such thing as a stupid question"
(well maybe except this thread)
perhaps you (or someone) could kindly painstakingly address this:

Q: What EXACTLY are THEY talking about when they reference and discuss the so-called "pre-programmed left turn"....
pre-programmed means what? when? where???

TY (and if u reply u believe there was no such datapoint reported on those terms, thats a good answer too)

I would not rule out a crash into shallow water followed by burial into mud near the point of loss of transponder, but I feel that the evidence of a left turn over the peninsular is stronger. The oil rig 'sighting' is very weak and is offset by other 'sightings' including radar in the opposite directions.
The burial scenario is so total, that unless something like fuel seeps to the surface it has very low probability of exposure and makes searching somewhat futile.
It's like the man at night who lost his wallet and was searching under a streetlight. When asked why he was searching there he answered, "because it's the only place that I'm likely to find it".

In the fire scenario, the ACARS would have had only partial disablement in the climb to account for the later pings and this is all very unlikely. But then whatever occurred is also going to be very unlikely.

Thank you very much. I did work as Track Monitor and Identification Officer. You would not be able to recognize a 'blip' on a screen unless it is already assigned as valid track. For this you need valid returns. I know my work, not sure about yours.

I am sure you could go on a bit. So could I!

There are no confirmations of CVR or DFDR deactivation, so once again who cares?

Yes. What makes you think that pax. cellphones will work in all locations ? There are areas of so called "First World" New Zealand where there is no cellphone coverage no matter how much money you pay to Vodafone ! The likelihood of them working in some remote area is nil, even in my urban location I have to step out on to my balcony to get even the weak signal provided by the State provider ! ( and My Dear, the cost !!! )

different perspective
 

Actually no mysteries needed.

Close to IGARI something went terribly wrong, probably leading to or including severe hypoxia for most souls on board. After things calmed down somebody felt it was not a good idea to go home with this mess on board. So he/she decided to hide the mess. Set a flightpath that doesn't touch land again and select south pole as final destination.

One tends to think this was carefully staged, but maybe it was just pure chaos, and in the end somebody decided that the rest of the world better shouldn't know. Even a flightsim geek would be able to program such a flightpath.

Deliberate action to avoid radar? No way. The MAF had them on their radar all the time, they just didn't care. But that was obviously not an achievement of anybody on board MH370.

I am sure you meant groundspeed with only an estimate of airspeed based on assumed winds aloft.

Altitude may also be problematical depending on their type of height finding equipment.

OleOle, oh so simple, just a means of saving face.

In the case of the 777, there is a way to choose only VHF or only SATCOM. If the frequencies are jiggered, the ACARS transmissions will fail. As far as de-racking, the ACARS VHF modem LRU's are fully accessible in the EE bay, however I doubt this was the method used - I was only offering this as a possibility as given to me by a friendly tech.

The ACARS data path choice, by the way, is there primarily due to uplink/downlink costs - it is always cheaper to use VHF.

:{ Oh Dear God :ugh:

Now planes apparently can crash from some 35000ft and simply spear into 150ft of water and embed themselves in 60 feet of mud... all without breaking up. :mad:

No.

Sobering
 

The rate of theory accumulation on public forums and the Press about this plus the contradictions, confusion, assumptions and tech deep dives plus every possible scenario from those on the flight deck to those who are a pain in the neck ensures one fact:-

This investigation needs to have credible answers soon. If not then let's hope the Press become more interested in other "news" and let investigating agencies do their job and PPRuNe go back to BAU. The chaos following MH370 is set to overtake whatever chaos or drama the flight itself experienced. Real time news and instant "Social media" and crowd sourcing.


Anyone here recall a b&w movie about a guy trapped in a deep hole in the US and as word spread about the ensuing rescue a small town sprung up at the site of the rescue? A real jamboree until his fate was known and he died. The circus moved out. It could have been called MH370. But the industry and families of those aboard will be left to deal with it and learn long after all the clowns move on.

It is on the ground in western Xinjiang.
 

I have observed all comments here with interest since Saturday 8 March.
The quality of the technical knowledge on Pprune is, for the most part, the best in the world.

The site.....and the 'Mods' deserve great praise.

Tanto nomini nullum par elgoium

I have not posted here for 12 years.

I was a professional pilot. (7000 hours) Before that, a British Army officer. With experience of terrorism.

For the moment I propose this, for discussion:

The aircraft landed safely in western Xinjiang, the homeland of the Uygurs, at about sunrise on Saturday 8 March. On an unpaved desert strip. The passengers are alive. They are hostages. The plane is now in bits and hidden. It is no longer required.

'Echelon' knows this.

The Chinese are looking there.....furiously. For 3 or 4 days.

I will say more tomorrow.

Perhaps but I thought the helpful post on the Silkair incident was interesting:


Flight 185 remained level at FL350 until it started a rapid and nearly vertical dive around 16:12. While plunging through 12,000 feet (3,700 m), parts of the aircraft, including a great extent of the tail section, started to separate from the aircraft's fuselage due to high forces arising from the nearly supersonic dive.[3] Seconds later, the aircraft impacted the Musi River, near Palembang, Sumatra. The time it took the aircraft to dive from cruise altitude to the river was less than one minute. The plane was traveling faster than the speed of sound for a few seconds before impact.[3]
All 104 people on board, including the 41-year-old Singaporean captain, Tsu Way Ming (朱卫民)[11] and the 23-year-old co-pilot, New Zealander Duncan Ward, died in the crash.
The aircraft broke into pieces before impact, with the debris spread over several kilometres, though most of the wreckage was concentrated in a single 60-metre (200 ft) by 80-metre (260 ft) area at the river bottom.[7] There was not a single complete body, body part or limb found, as the entire aircraft and passengers disintegrated upon impact. Only six positive identifications were later obtained from the few recovered human remains...

RE: "Close to IGARI something went terribly wrong, probably leading to or including severe hypoxia for most souls on board. After things calmed down somebody felt it was not a good idea to go home with this mess on board. So he/she decided to hide the mess. Set a flightpath that doesn't touch land again and select south pole as final destination.

One tends to think this was carefully staged, but maybe it was just pure chaos, and in the end somebody decided that the rest of the world better shouldn't know."

...filling in the blanks...?
a)Captn that flies 10-12 hours a week has daydreamed often in his spare time, or on his FSim, ways to steal a plane, hide one, avoid radar, just general idle no harm intended fantasy. But details exist in mind!
b)Long day in court till 9PM, only to see his idolized opposition leader Ibrahim sent away when the acquital has been overturned by zealous current government
c)Damn, got to fly the red-eye, and with that damn kid who is son of one of those zealot leaders. Oh, and the wife is suing for alimony too. Great!
d)well off we go, wild blue yonder, but if the kid says another word about Ibrahim being a scumbag sodomist who gets what he deserved i am going to slap him!
e) slap slap, big mouth, oh he slaps back. well take that kid, ooops, what is he faking? knocked out? dead? OOPS.
f) chaos, what to do now. Antarctica? what about my plane stealing scene. Or just go to jail, spend eternity in sodomy solo.
g)etc.

I am not serious, of course, right?

So far along in this mystery....and it remains just that....a mystery!

I guess the CIA, NSA, DOD, are not so effective as we thought them to be.

Or.....do they know something they are not releasing?

Break-up into water
 

An aircraft that buries itself into dirt or mud does not imply that it remains intact. It commences breaking up as it hits the water, but the horizontal separation of the parts has not proceeded significantly far in the approx single a/c length involved in this case and each part has sufficient kinetic energy to bury itself. I have watched an a/c bury itself into soft soil at around 600kts vertically and there was almost no above ground wreckage. The shallower the water the greater the chance of burial. It is not intact underground but a series of parts buried at a depth relating to penetrability. In my case the dummy missiles and engine were over 30 feet underground. If it enters water more than a few body lengths deep there will be lots of wreckage on the surface. It all depends on depth, angle and speed.

Please do!

You didn't once operate under the callsign "Redcrown" perchance? :ok:

I risk beadwindow if I dit on anymore but airline pilots reading this...This is the equivilent of somebody saying to you "Having flown the route several times on MS flight simulator I speak with some degree of authority..."

Now when someone starts spouting bull about basic radar principles - I'm diving in to join the water polo.

"Roger That" / "All right, Good night"
 

Maybe a journalist at the next press conference could clarify these rather informal (and in the second case, nonstandard) radio transmissions:
- did they both happen, they have both been variously reported ?
- were they judged to have been said by the same pilot, ie the co-pilot ? (it's fairly normal practice for one pilot to fly the aircraft and the other to handle the radio, though it's not uncommon for both pilots to talk at times on the radio)
- however, at an international boundary it would be quite unusual, though not a sackable offence, for the pilots to get away with such a casual hand-off from Malaysian ATC without at least their callsign
- so perhaps they were just responding to something very trivial, or trying to send a coded message (under duress?) back to the airline / ATC, or a third party unfamiliar with correct radio terminology was making the calls ?

Given the informality, they should really have been asked by ATC for a "readback" of their instructions to "Contact Vietnam on frequency xxx.x" (or something like that) to be sure that MH370 was transferring to the correct ATC in the chain.

Readbacks are a standard requirement between ATC and pilots for key events such as radio frequency handovers and changes to altitude, heading, etc. It would be useful to know what Malaysian ATC said just before the two quoted pilot transmissions above to see what readbacks (if any) would have been expected. One readback ignored by MH370 may be OK on a quiet night, two becomes more suspicious.

eliptic: as good a SWAG as any.

rigby: I note the "truth is stranger than fiction" approach.
Who knows? The FDR. :cool:

It is about 0120 at night when the MAS370 ceased transmitting its ADSB/transponder code.

http://i59.tinypic.com/rud95l.jpg

At that time, there are three other aircraft in the vicinity although not that close. The two CES flights are the closer. I have estimated the CCA flight position because the ADSB signal was lost between 1715z and 1730z. I have drawn a line to the oil ring for reference. The CCA is in the same situation of the MAS370: About one hour into the flight and likely passengers are eating after the departure from SIN.
If we consider the distance and position (white blocks) between these aircraft, I believe that an in-flight explosion of the MAS370 would have been noticed by either crew members and/or passengers on board. I think that the Malaysian authorities will ask to these crew if they have noticed or not something.

We all hope that, for the manifestation of the truth, the aircraft will be located and the boxes recovered. Correct me if I'm wrong:
-The wreck is in the international waters, the country in charge of the inquiry is the state of registration of the aircraft.
-The wreck is on the ground or in the sea bed inside the jurisdiction of a country then this country is in charge of the inquiry.

Finally does Malaysia has an investigation bureau with the technical possibilities to open and exploit the data inside. The NTSB in one of its statement said that he was waiting to know what country would be in charge.

The ping arcs only cover 4 to 5 hrs and a chang of direction thereafter is possible.