@awblain
Right... Maldives fall roughly at the 75º circle from the sat footprint. Definitely, the plane [reportedly] seen there is not the same as the one that was pinged within the 40º arch a couple of hours later.

Because that's not the final direction, and is meant as a red herring? Or because the timeline is tight, and he needs to turn at that point so as to keep to the route he's already laid out?

ATC tapes?
 

Just a thought but should there not be a tape of all comms from ATC to the aircraft including Ground, clearance delivery, tower, departure or centre?
Should these tapes not provide an opportunity for voice recognition software to confirm who was talking when and what was said.
I am sure everybody would like to see a complete transcript of the last contact both from ATC and the aircraft.

Sorry if I was unclear in the original post. What I meant to ask was why have the authorities not referred to them. It would clear up, at least, the actual terminology used in the last contact.

bsieker said

I have read in numerous reports the pings are from an attempted Boeing AHM connection, and that it doesn't include data because MAH is not signed up for that report.

That does not mean Boeing initiated contact, just what would regularly be a scheduled contact was attempted regarding a Boeing report that would normally be transmitted to MAH if the contract had been purchased.

I would have to assume Boeing has a contract with INMARSAT in which each of their planes automatically attempts this contact, making future purchase/cessation of the airlines contract to receive said data easy to accomplish with a simple update.

DS, doesn't make a lot of sense to set up a "link" unless you use it. I repeat:

Does Acars send data routinely for Boeing's and Rolls Royce's use, even if the airline is not paying for a maintenance programme?

SATCOM for voice also?
 

I keep seeing questions related to why the SATCOM system was sent pings, etc, and discussion related to ACARS use, MAS subscription to the ACARS reporting service to Boeing (or not), but isn't it also the case that the SATCOM transceivers at ALSO available for voice comms?

@overthewing

And it doesn't seem like the mangosteen crop is early this year.

(from a Malaysian newspaper on Monday)

Dry spell causes drop in fruit production | theSundaily

have to be on the radial to get the maximum space between rings, any other angle will reduce the ring spacing. after ring 2 look at the distance to ring two, if less than that for a radial note how much less.

npw treat ring 2 as your start again you know the max to ring three on a radial, if at ring 3 ping that distance is less than the radial spacing distance, note the difference.

compare the two noted differences if they are the same the plane is on a constant heading, that si the only info I could get from the previous ping rings.

Now I don't believe the 60, 55, 50 45 etc rings are the only fixed points he could come up at 38, 33 etc

Accuracy of data on sites like flightradar24, planefinder, ...
 

FR24 : if you look at a "rewind" of what was ("legally" I suppose...) in the sky near between Kabul and Mazari Sharif (Aghanistan) on the 3/08 at 00:00 UTC (that is 8am Malaysian Time, 11 minutes before "last ping" of MH370), you find 4 a/c (direct link below in the post):
- THA960 (TG960 / THA960), B777 (HS-TKQ)
- KLM872 (KL872 / KLM872), A330 (PH-AKD)
- BAW142 (BA142 / BAW142), B747 (G-CIVC)
- TSO9184 (UN9184 / TSO9184), B767 (EI-DBG)
On planefinder.net, the three first are found with routes consistent with where they show on FR24 (on the right day):
THA960 : BKK to ARN
KL872 : DEL to AMS,
BAW142 : DEL to LHR
But for the TSO9184, planefinder doesn't find it on a search by UN9184 nor TSO9184, but finds it by EI-DBG and tells it was (on 2014-03-07) on the route CUN to DME as flight UN9184 (so the one near Mazari Sharif on the same day). And tells also it is a B763 (vs B767 on FR24). It is also found by direct typing of the searched address (see below).

On FR24, the flihgt TSO9184 disappears at 00:12 or 00:13
Flight disappearing for some minutes on FR24 is not uncommon, and KL872 disappears also at the same time and at 00:19 just the BA142 is remaining, and after 00:28 nothing in the sky near Mazari Sharif ! Probable problems with air data.
But what about the same a/c (EI-DBG) flying NE in Afghanistan and between Cancun and Moscow the same day? Some mispelling anywhere?

"Replay" from 03-08 00:01 between Kabul and Mazari Sharif : Flightradar24.com - Live flight tracker!
UN9184 flight info - Plane Finder

Is it "business as usual"? And so, not very more useful than newspapers?

Sorry if all this is some more trash :uhoh:

Roger that....and how would they have escaped the Diego Garcia sphere of surveillance?:hmm:

Ref the Maldives sighting;a `Mega Maldives 767 `landed about 0600-30, lots of other local traffic,also upper transit stuff.

Cargo
 

Likely what is being reported as the cargo is based on the manifest. Inasmuch as airplane cargo is crated no one really would have noticed whether or not what was going into the cargo hold was what the manifest claimed it to be.

Sat Pings
 

For the Sat pings (besides the one at 8:11), was any information on the satellite distance arcs provided?

Turnback and radar
 

Malaysia-today postulates that "The Malaysia military took full delivery of one of the advanced Thales Raytheon Systems early last year with an integrated Sentry command and control system and the Ground Master 400 3D radar.

According to Thales, the MADGE system operates in real-time and features multi-radar tracking and a flexible human-machine interface.

The GM 400 radar also provides long-range surveillance capabilities for the Royal Malaysian Air Force.

Its reach is up to 400 km and it is more than sufficient to detect the MH370." Further " It is now clear that the four-man crew in the three air defence stations, who were supposed to be watching the radar screens, either did not notice or failed to report to their superiors that an unidentified plane was flying across the country."

So a high tech radar system was unmonitored and then when the lights came on, formed the basis of the turnback.

Possible scenarios along corridor routes then.:suspect:

If the aircraft was shot down soon after it turned back where did the pings over the next several hours come from? These were detected independent of Malayasia.

Must have missed it somewhere in the preceding 250 odd pages, but where did the info that the aircraft climbed to 450 come from? Secondary turned off so no mode C, so where was it from and what was the timescale ie just after turn back or when?

See Listen to Live ATC (Air Traffic Control) Communications | LiveATC.net

Listen to the archives from WMKK for 16:30 UTC 7 March onwards. Takeoff was at 16:41 UTC

Now where did you get the idea and evidence that the a/c was shot down soon after turnback?:confused:

If the FO was in the flight deck and made the last radio transmission but then didn't re-establish comms with the next ATC, and with systems shutting down 2 minutes after that, I'm thinking it is highly likely he was in the flight deck. It seems unusual to decide to go for a bathroom break or similar at that short time between the radio calls.
Also, if there's any night you don't want the Captain paying too close attention, that was a good night. We know he had a long, stressful day(s) and no doubt had the day's events heavily on his mind. I wouldn't be surprised if the Captain was already resting in the cabin when things started to go wrong.

I'd like to know more about the FO...did he have any associates / friends onboard? Were they in the flight deck with him? Maybe he even had a simulator at home too. Lots of focus seems to be on the Captain but something isn't adding up with the FO either.

DaveReidUK,

The reply was to a comment that the aircraft could be flying rather than stopped, and still remain equidistant from the satellite (if it ever was) - but that only works if it flies so that it's on the red arc at two points an hour apart. The red arc is not great circle. The coincidence for it to fly for an hour on a route that links two points on an arc equidistant from the satellite seems unlikely.

Without having information about the other satellite details though, it remains an enigma, and the only thing that's available is the red arc from Inmarsat.