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VH-TGG is owned by the Gandel Group. John Gandel owns a large private property business. He is a multi-billionaire. It looks like the aircraft was chartered by AMSA.
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Quote: Sometimes the aircraft stays together and floats for days.
Hardly likely if it goes down in the roaring 40s |
FWIW: The recorders are rated to survive for 30 days at 20,000 feet.
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The Hoegh St Petersburg was diverted 3 days ago. When was the news broken?
http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g1...ps7a3fe31f.png |
The CVR and FDR will last for years (depending on impact damage) its the sonar pinger batteries that are certified for at least 30 days. Anything over 30 days is gravy.
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DOES ANYONE KNOW if malyasian air has a pilot's union? IFALP? wondering why we haven't heard from them if they have one? We don't know if the pilots were HERO or ZERO, and 'suggestions' that the pilots might have been implicated in some deliberate way are perfectly valid at the moment but until any unproven allegations are made against them the Union has no role to play - yet. |
BBC News
BBC News just now "It's far too early to be jumping to conclusions." !!:)
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In spite of the SNR “signal-to-noise ratio”, I prefer to get my info on this forum rather than on the TV. I know I will read everything that is said or published anywhere and whether it is, or becomes, a reliable “known”.
Tonight I was glancing at a news article on the web and saw a reference to the info that it has been confirmed that there were multiple “pings” recorded (a deduction here many days ago). But what was new to me was that it was reported the later “pings” indicated (in addition to what has been the accepted data) that the aircraft was “over water” and that was a/the reason the search had shifted to the southern arc. I didn’t bother to mentally record where I saw this because I was sure I would see it on these pages; but I see nothing. Is this more press speculation and made-up “facts”? |
Or is it possible to "create" a WP by entering latitude and longitude in the FMG? |
Originally Posted by kappa
(Post 8391598)
I didn’t bother to mentally record where I saw this because I was sure I would see it on these pages; but I see nothing. Is this more press speculation and made-up “facts”?
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...that the aircraft was “over water”... |
Regarding the CVR and FDR lifespan at the bottom of the ocean:
The FDR/CVR for Itavia Flight 870 which was shot-down on June 27, 1980 were only recovered in July of 1991 at a depth of 3700m (12140ft). Both were in excellent condition and manufactured in 1966. |
Old FDR had stainless steel tape , I think modern technology would be solid state and possibly more easily destroyed.
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Some insights from an ex-RAAF P3 pilot.
As one of the ex P-3 people with experience of searching for things in the Southern / Indian Oceans I thought I might be able to contribute some informed comment on this thread. Re the P-3 endurance - it is not crew duty but engine out depressurized considerations (3 engine 10,000' cruise) that is the real limiting factor. You have to base everything on returning to Perth / Pearce. We were able to fudge this a bit by using a tailwind component on some flights but you don't actually know the 10,000ft winds so you don't want to get too greedy. There are also issues with loitering engines which is a normal P-3 procedure to extend time on station. Because of the risk of a prop overspeed on a restart you need to be able to start the engine at some altitude with a relatively high TAS or the drag could be really high and you will end up in the drink off SW WA. If there are icing conditions, even a thin layer of cloud can cause a loitered engine to ice up in a flash - can take days to thaw out the solid lump and you are struggling to get back to PER / PEA so you won't loiter. With a limited on station time the benefits of loitering are small and while the risks of a malfunction during engine shutdown are small as well you have to decide if it is worth it. In my series of searches very few captains loitered engines and then only when the weather was clear enabling hi alt shutdowns and restarts. If the crews are on the ball they will be taking off overweight, using true cruise climbs to on station (i.e set max cont engine temp and max range cruise speed and slowly climb continually) and using min operating reserves (15 mins fixed and no variable). However, to get more than three hours on station would be great going. You actually land with plenty of gas because of the 3 eng 10 considerations. Re the search Objects will be very hard to spot!!!! Especially if they are awash. I was asked by an artist to describe the colours I observed so he could do a painting of one of the yachtie rescues. He painted it but when I described the colours you could see is heart sink - I told him we were in a grey aeroplane over a grey and choppy sea with grey cloud and a hazy grey horizon. We spotted one sailor visually but what we spotted was him standing on the top of the cabin of his sinking yacht which was awash - it was the contrast (he appeared black) which made him visible and we had a beacon location accurate to about 5nm enabling a dense sector search over a reasonably low sea state (3 - 4) and about 2 - 3 mile vis. The other two were radar homings to upturned yachts which stuck above the surface and made good radar and infrared targets - and we had reasonably recent satellite beacon positions to go on. (N.B. none of them had proper EPIRBS but used a French tracking system where the beacons only sent signals intermittently for short periods). You couldn't make them out visually until fairly close as they were white hulls in very angry seas with lots of white wave crests, sea spray, etc; even though they were sticking well out of the water. I did 4 missions searching for stuff down there and the weather was never good and one of the most striking features was how the conditions changed rapidly with time and over small distances. With any potential MH370 wreckage, there won't be much temperature contrast to help infrared and if the sea state is up, picking out a radar target against sea clutter will be hard (although both the radar and IRDS are better than in my day). I think the best chance is for any items picked up on satellite to be quickly passed to the crews so they can narrow the area of probability. This will be difficult as detecting and interpreting any images may take some time. I hope it is quicker than AMSA passed on satellite beacon data when we searched for the yachties (it was 17 years ago but the importance of speed in transferring the info was one of our biggest debrief points to AMSA). At least they should start to be getting some actual drift rates from beacons and buoys that will have been dropped which should help, and awash objects shouldn't have high wind drifts to complicate the issue. I can understand sending HMAS Success down there as it is a versatile ship with the ability to lift and store items out of the water - carry a decent helo, etc. However, I would love to see an ASW ship (ie an ANZAC class) and better yet a submarine heading South to search for the data recorder beacons (in the predicted flight path) - their batteries will only last a couple more weeks at best. While the area is large making detection probability low, detecting the beacons is the best way of speeding the time and reducing the cost of finding and recovering the recorders. |
Originally Posted by svhar
(Post 8391510)
There is only one logical explanation. But nobody wants to say it out loud. No technical failure nor hijack could have taken MH 370 to this place of all places.
Some suicidal people choose not just to kill themselves, but to vanish in the process; this incident looks an awful lot like a very nearly successful attempt to do just that, thwarted only by the satellite pings proving the aircraft remained intact for many more hours and hinting at it's location. But Egyptian investigators aren't the only ones who feel that the possibility of suicide must not be acknowledged. Doubtless both our posts will vanish like previous posts suggesting that, actually, aviation experts are not qualified to determine that no pilot would ever commit such an act. Move right along people, there is no elephant in the room, nothing to see here.... |
Is the search area within the boundaries of the flight time availiable to the 777 , what was the fuel load, has it been published anywhere.
Forgive me for not reading nearly 7000 posts |
It's not deliberate suicide
Why would he deliberately fly that far? Same disappearing act could have been achieved at much shorter distance.
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Last ping showed MH370 over water at cruise speed and altitude?
@kappa
Here's Andy Pasztors March 14th WSJ article. Malaysia Airlines' missing jet transmitted its location repeatedly to satellites over the course of five hours after it disappeared from radar, people briefed on the matter said, as searchers zeroed in on new target areas hundreds of miles west of the plane's original course. The satellites also received speed and altitude information about the plane from its intermittent "pings," the people said. The final ping was sent from over water, at what one of these people called a normal cruising altitude. They added that it was unclear why the pings stopped. One of the people, an industry official, said it was possible that the system sending them had been disabled by someone on board. The people, who included a military official, the industry official and others, declined to say what specific path the transmissions revealed. But the U.S. planned to move surveillance planes into an area of the Indian Ocean 1,000 miles or more west of the Malay peninsula where the plane took off, said Cmdr. William Marks, the spokesman for the U.S. Seventh Fleet... |
Great post Kremin.
You've got to take your hat off to those young P3 crews, hell of a job. And it's often bumpy as sh!t out there too. I stood behind an RNZAF P3 Captain, holding onto the back of his seat as we did sharp low levels turns over the Manukau Harbour in 2003 - had me nearly puking - not quite the g's but just as nausea inducing as fast jets. And the guys down the back just carried on staring at their screens with no windows, as if nothing was happening. |
Agree with tartare. I remember spending many hours in a Nimrod S&R over the North Sea. Hour after hour of very low level 90 degree turns had even the most hardy of crew reaching for the bags.
Good luck to everyone involved in the operation :D |
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