Persistent airborne position reports would allow aircraft to be tracked but not necessarily alter the outcome of an occurrence for the passengers.

From a safety point of view, better for an airline to spend the money on pilot training.

From the New Straits Times:

"One Orion commenced searching the Indian Ocean to the north and west of the Cocos Islands yesterday. The next sweep will take place this evening as an AP-3C Orion transits from the Cocos Islands to RAAF Base Pearce in western Australia," he said in a statement yesterday."
Abbott said he also informed Najib that Australia would make additional maritime surveillance aircraft available to extend the effort to locate MH370.

It's a despairingly isolated and vast area to cover.

NST also reports that Malaysian investigators are currently favouring the theory that MH370 headed north.

normal atc outage
 

According to historical data this flight normally loses ATC contact around the area of the last report. Most flights regain contact just short of the Vietnamese coast. It was coming right at the time of last report, towards the oil rig. That lends credence to his claim the plane was coming straight at the rig, not moving left or right from his perspective. I would imagine the ASW towed array sonar on one of the A-B class destroyers could pick up the pinger if they ran down that bearing line to the oil rig. Anyone know what frequency that thing pings at?

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 - Australian Press Conference

Sheep Guts..

The Low gain and High gain antennas require a couple of things to work--

1/ ADIRU aligned so the sat dish knows where to look for the satellites
2/ Power supply from the Aircraft

So NO it would not work on a crashed Aircraft in the Sea unless the above requirements were met!! Yes not likely I'd say.

p.s. Low gain for data, high gain for data and voice.

Australian search: description and maps

Malaysia Airlines MH370: AMSA to coordinate new search 3,000 kilometres south-west of Perth - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

You can save a flight so you can load it and be straight on approach or finals etc. perhaps flights were saved for approaches or landings at certain airports. That would raise the significance somewhat.

I certainly hope Boeing is running flight simulations using MH Aircraft spec data to calculate exactly where they think it would run out of Fuel considering all the data they know about the flight profile from Radar traces. ( FL295 over Penang, 5,000' later on etc )

They should be able to see the expected Range.

AMSA media release with links to search area maps.

https://www.amsa.gov.au/media/docume...370Update2.pdf

(It seems you can not show their maps directly on PPRuNe.)

Nice find ana thanks for sharing ! :ok:

The information below was extracted from "Understanding Satellite Pings" to be found at: TMF Associates MSS blog » Understanding ?satellite pings??

Can anyone confirm that this chart was indeed released today by the Malaysian Government ?? Or is it somebody's interpretation ?? The reference to "range at minimum speed" is perplexing.

"UPDATE (Mar 17): This picture was released by the Malaysian government today. It shows clearly that the ends of the arcs were determined based on the minimum and maximum speed of the aircraft, and were not based on the overlap of the Inmarsat satellite coverage areas."

http://tmfassociates.com/blog/wp-con...H370_Mar17.jpghttp://tmfassociates.com/blog/wp-con...H370_Mar17.jpg

Search area for 18th March:

http://i.imgur.com/tDE0hfd.png

deplorably dismal data
 

Is anyone else troubled by the lack of accurate empirical data released to date?

1. Was ACARS log-off received?
2. Was AMSS log-off message received?
3. Was ADS logged on and contract established and, if so, for which reports?
4. The pings were sent to AES
5. The pings were received from AES
6. 6 pings - list UTC for each ping
7. 1 "ping position plot" from last ping released - where are the other 5?
8. Is Inmarsat unable to preserve details of past pings and, if so, how do we know 6 pings occurred ?
9. Either "pre-programmed waypoint(s)" were or were not reported by ADS contract over ACARS and, if not, how do we know this?
10. Did both Vietnamese and Malaysian primary radar paint a/c altitude excursions?
11. If FL430+ confirmed, did pilot practice 777 flight on home sim in coffin corner?
12. There must be a map of locations wreckage is known to NOT be located!

Every one of these items can be determined without FDR or CVR. I believe these things have been known to investigators for days now. :ugh:

Interesting...
 

So if the new seemingly supported (at least multiple organizations verifying it through "unidentified sources") news is true, then a couple things might be able to be put together to come up with an explanation for another glaring, and rather inexcusable, issue.

First, we (might) now have verification that initial Turn/WP change was actually programed into the system prior to 1:07

Then handover contact with plane at 1:19 or 1:22* which was at least rumored/questionably "verified" to be Co-Pilot
(*both times are frustratingly seemingly "confirmed," as is typical for absolutely everything the Malaysian Government says)

We also have the very unconfirmed but possible contact with Japan-Bound plane/MH88(?) saying they spoke to who they believed was the Co-Pilot shortly after 1:30 (if it is true, it is very reasonable that pilot was told by investigators to say absolutely nothing more about it while the investigation is ongoing. It is also likely a recording of said communication exists, and is now in the investigators hands. Again, if it is true, at least)

Could those things (and who knows what else that hasn't leaked) possibly be the reason behind the simulator sitting unchecked for at least 9 days?

Maybe they only took said simulator now because of the public outrage over the seemingly unexplainable and inexcusable ignoring of possible evidence as to the whereabouts of the passengers. Was their not doing so prior because they already had a solid reason to believe the pilot was not the one who was even in question here when they were tossing around their possible involvement?

More ifs and maybes than I usually like to work with, but makes sense while merely connecting some suspected/semi-confirmed/possible facts without conflict to absolutely everything else we do know.

I would gain back quite a bit of respect for the Malaysian Government if the above was true. And I do really, really want at least the Pilot to be clear in this - he seems like a truly fantastic guy from what little I know about him

Just a reminder of my own maps posted on PPRuNe from last Saturday …

http://www.csse.uwa.edu.au/~mark/per.../australia.png

This showed where the red ping circle meets the blue max range circle, outside the white JORN radar circle.

So, if you look at the AMSA search area, (link posted above) you see they are searching exactly that area.

(Although ``exactly'' is a bit of a misnomer for such a large deserted search area).

ana1936
 

Hmmm... Does that search area map for the Australians give a hint that JORN may have been on??

In regards to 'runways' on the sim:
Then why, pray tell, release the information now in this form. Either the 'unnamed source' is looking for something, anything, to tell someone, or this is part of some attempt to blame the owner of the sim.

This is very much in keeping with the controlled release of drivel that has characterised the last 11 days.

BOSSIE; I'd prefer the .45 Glock any day !

Red circle meets the blue circle. Nothing to do with JORN.

techgeek said

It is worse than just that - so many of the actual known facts are only confirmed facts depending on the Malaysian Press Conferences you happened to have caught. Everything they say is seemingly kinda-facts, with their details fluctuating slightly just enough to leave plenty of speculation. (and every so often they throw in some good old flat out contradiction for good measure!)

I can honestly say I have never seen anything like it before. Just mindbogglingly frustrating, really

If MH370 actually did go into the Indian Ocean, in the region of the latest search area - then it's highly likely a % of any floating, surviving wreckage will almost certainly, eventually wash up onto the West Australian coast, due to constant prevailing S/Westerly surface winds.