This can be triangulated with data from Indonesia and Thailand. Thailand has shared their data after 10 days.. so lets see if there is any new update tomorrow

We know there were two people on board who were knowledgeable about the aircraft. Only two?

It wouldn't even tell us that as it is feasible that the track flown could be backwards and forwards across the line. Pretty unlikely granted, but with a +/-5km error it is not outside the bounds of probability.

I accept however that the final two pings being the same distance from the satellite would strongly suggest a stationary aircraft and more coincident arcs than that would suggest the aircraft is on land and not in the process of sinking or drifting and therefore likely to be on the 'northern arc'. Those are the only conditions that I see the prior pings being of any help to the search.

@twothree: Your explanation does not explain why the flight then continued via various waypoints...

Also there is perhaps a simple explanation why the search is south. Because the north end of the arc is not really accessable (politically) for a large scale search.

not B777 rated , but 0ver 10K hours on B737's, I have been thinking about this for a while.

I cannot help but still think its a catastrophic loss of electrical power, similar to to uncapping the battery switch and turning it off.......poof...instant darkness, no back up stby power....just total silence.

The engines will continue to work, being totally capable of suction feed only, as long as no large thrust changes are made.
The hydraulics will still operate as the hydraulic solenoids are only capable of being turned-off with electrical power, and without electrical power they are designed to default to open.

but Autopilot, autoflight systems, avionics, radios ACARS etc and vitally important pressurization will all fail.
If the crew were rendered unconscious thru this, the aircraft could well start a series of climbs and descends because the thin air at 35000ft is not conducive to aerodynamic stable flight.....but once it gets into thicker air at about 20000ft, the aerodynamic forces will allow the aircraft to reach a relatively stable flight regime, especially if the aircraft was in a cruise trimmed position at 35000ft.

the climb to 45000ft also makes sense w.r.t electrical failure......MACH TRIM......the aircraft has a tendency to tuck nose down at high cruise mach numbers, so the electrical mach trimmer applies some "nose-up trim" and then balances this with applied forward deflection of the control column........the loss of electrical power and the aircraft would release its forward control column input, hence the climb, into even thinner air, followed by phugoid action, as it would drop off at the top, eventually it would settle into an "in-trim" cruise at a much lower more dense atmosphere

Why the turn, I cannot explain

Must have missed that about it flew to other waypoints. Which ATC stations noticed it?

pressurisation too?
 

@Romeo
why do you think pressurisation would fail?

Getting the track from pings.
 

I understand all the wrinkles, but assuming constant heading and some assumption about cruise speed, you will actually get a track/position. (Actually 2 in most cases).

If the circles are relatively close together in time, it is flying north (or Sth, depending on the circles), if they are wide apart (or don't change) then it is flying E or W. Anything in between can be worked out with some assumption about cruise speed, possibly even without, I'll have to think about it.

[Not a great example, sort of assumes the satellite is sitting over the pole, which it isn't but it does not really change the viability. Also noted OldOberon post which I failed to credit and should have.]

id
 

After contact was lost, no secondary, track unknown how were these later `sightings` identified as being MH370.
Pure speculation.

You obviously understand this better than me, all I could see would be a constant spacing (assuming constant cruise speed) equals a constant hdg/trk but thought it would /could be anyone one of miilions of tangents with respect to the circle or arc of it.

The fact that it has made someone think about it and get even more info from the scenario is good enough.

BTW i assumed constant speed because a) i think on auto pilot and b) references to cruise speed.

@Romeo

Tell me again what Mach trim does?

Re the Maldives witnesses who claim the plane was so low and close they could "see the doors" -- well, did they happen to catch the word "MALAYSIA" on the side!? Did the media care to ASK this rather important question?

These witness reports are remarkably weak.

Nate Silver
 

Interesting article.

FiveThirtyEight | How Statisticians Could Help Find That Missing Plane

Mach trim
 

As the aircraft speed increases in the transonic regime... the cp tends to move back causing the nose to to dip downwards... a Mach trim counters this nose down movement by deflecting the stabilizer.... true in a B737 NG above .61 mach...

You are assuming the witnesses can read, may be the description was a way to describe how close for people who can not read.

Maybe not weak, maybe just allowing for the ability of the witnesses

Maldives uses dhivehi, not roman script.

I may misunderstand this but if there was constant spacing (between rings?) then it would indicate flight along a radial from the nadir.

Any other angle would eventually result in flight on the tangent or for a short time effectively along the ring.

FMS Ground Test Set
 

Couple of questions for the cognoscenti among us:

a. If an FMS ground test set (such as the FMZ-2000 - used to replicate flight on the ground in a static aircraft) was plugged into the FMS in the avionics bay, would it have precedence over cockpit inputs (whether or not they remained intact and plugged in)?

b. There'd be a headset jack plug in the avionics bay for AVbay to flight deck liaison comms I'd imagine?

I agree it seems a little serendipitous. However, my own experience of low-flying a/c is that by the time I've heard it and raced outside, I'm looking at a plane moving away from me, with little chance of reading any writing on the side. I imagine the 'doors' they mention may well be the undercarriage bay doors.

investigation
 

We touched on the oft displayed denial in this thread, oh about 100 pages ago now (hard to keep up!). Lets at least try to keep pace with the investigation if possible :ok:

If you really must persist with mechanical/tech incidents/scenarios occurring at precisely the moment of ATC handover & during what is statistically the safest phase of flight, against the direction of the professional investigation it must be said, then you first have to reconcile one of the few knowns:

A left turn was entered into the FMS & reported by ACARS before comms went offline & before someone in the cockpit communicated with ATC for the last time [without alerting ATC of any unfolding drama].


Please do try to keep up ;)