Not totally correct
 

The fixed ELT is activated that way, but airlines may have also portable ELTs, some are activated with fluids (even urine) like water, seawater and they float, also have a self erecting antenna, others are handheld with push to talk feature! These portable ones are stored in the cabin for the flight attendants, or directly with the liferafts. Only a lurker here, but more than twenty years of breathing cabin air for a living!
I just hope that this freak story gets a proper explanation soon. My thoughts are with our colleagues, the passengers and all their families!!!

Volcanicash
As you say, these published maps are just cartoons and don't reveal anything exact about the route derived by NTSB from the pings. The original AMSA maps showed the search area straddling two courses stated as being the NTSB solutions, but AMSA said then they had already corrected for currents since the 8th March, so the NTSB course solutions must have been well to the West of the search area. Therefore, the course lines on the AMSA maps were just sketched in to give a general idea. The fact that the search area has moved significantly to the East in the last few days may suggest the original AMSA West to East drift correction is was wrong.

May I suggest that that is an invalid assumption. It is true that there should be 3 pilots but no one has answered my earlier question:

What was the culture amongst MAS aircrew? We know there were acknowledged breaches of the rules, was it the norm for the PNF to have a kip on a red eye?

ELTs switch on when the aircraft crashes but often the aerial breaks so the transmission is not heard and they don't work under water. Hence the suggestions of having EPIRBs that float. Life rafts have PLBs with an ON switch.

Whatever is done to improve security, nothing can stop determined pilots killing passengers; it might make it more difficult to disguise the fact and get them the benefit of the doubt.

Golf-Mike-Mike, very possible the media is confusing the aircraft-mounted ELTs with the portable ones in the cabin. Most are designed to float while tethered to a slide raft and many of those models have a water activation mode... the older style was such that to use it on land you needed to use dirty water or urine in a bag and stand the beacon in it... needless to say the newer ones are much easier to use....

SLFJB- what you describe would be consistent with a 3-pilot crew, I wouldn't think any 2-pilot crew would take rest like that (with one outside the cabin) In my experience it'd be one captain 2 f/os unless a training sector where it may be 2 captains one f/o, so if one did rest in the cabin there'd still be 2 pilots up front

Turin
 

Most article's mention 2 pilots

One very experienced ( over 15000 hrs) and one less experienced ( but still very able). Did not see reference to a staff of three.

Given that it is reported that the senior pilot had attended some political event that day, - possibly even likely that he was getting some shut eye outside the flight deck.

As stated above have NOT seen any reference to 3 on the flight deck

Would you have three for a 6 hour flight?

Planned route
 

Is there any way of getting the actual flight planned route filed, including the waypoints that would have been programmed into the FMS for the flight before departure? Just something that is niggling me at the moment.

Pings
 

Anyone notice that Hishamuddin definitely said six pings were received at the press conference tonight?

Press conference / INMARSAT data / last radio call
 

Further clarification today from the Malaysian authorities that the data came in from INMARSAT but was sent to and from the US and the investigation team twice for further processing and then corroborated by the UK's AAIB.
SAR assets were dispatched to both corridors immediately they concluded that analysis. So explaining timescales over which they got it, processed it, and announced conclusions from it.

They've also just re-confirmed their belief that the first officer made the "All right, good night" call.

Yeah he did say so. But we already were quite sure about that right?
This being now confirmed brings in a whole new angle in.

Now finally being revealed that the the aircraft was carrying a consignment of Lithium-Ion batteries !

Phone call??
 

At the end of the press conference that ended just now, a journalist from ?Reuters asked about a phone call that was given from ? the cockpit to ??? and the answer was "we are investigating". The sound was not good. Anyone heard about this phone call??

SLFJB- not sure what you mean about turning the Comms off when away from the home airport. I've never heard of that before. And napping down the back presumes three crew and no bunks.

At my old airline, three crew kicked in at about 8:30 flight time and 9+ for a daytime report. The blanket FAA 8 hr thing does not apply everywhere and I don't know what kind of FTL's Malaysia use.

I would hope that we wouldn't sleep off the flight deck leaving only one pilot alone up there. It sort of defeats the purpose of having two pilots, non? Rather than getting away with an emergency, I would think it more likely that the cabin crew or a savvy pax would complain to management and you'd have an interesting time explaining yourself.

@Squawk_ident
Yes apparently the captain made a personal phone call to someone before take-off. Last I heard was the matter is being investigated, nothing out of it yet.

refer to link: Pilot 'made call in cockpit minutes before take off'

I still find the suicide theory very hard to accept.
If this is suicide it is surely one of the most complicated and bizarre suicides in history. Leaving aside the astonishing cruelty of taking 226 others with you, what counts against murder-suicide, in my opinion is the infeasibly elaborate nature of the plan. You have to ensure the FO (or Captain) was out of the cockpit, passengers and crew incapacitated, you have to make sure this happens on an ATC handover, then you have to sneak past the radar of half a dozen countries and fly seven hours into the Indian Ocean somewhere.
Furthermore this audacious and intricate plan must be executed perfectly by an individual who is so miserable that he no longer wants to go on living. So many things could go wrong with this.

Admittedly there have been pilot suicides in the past, but they have been simple and quick. If murder-suicide is the best explanation that can be made fit the data so far, then I prefer no explanation until something else turns up.

El Grifo

can you give us a source for this invaluable information?

Today's press conference.

They covered it in some detail.

ULB battery life
 

I think I suggested doubling or tripling the underwater locator beacon battery size already in one of the AF447 threads. One Dukane ULB only weighs 7 ounces (200 grams), battery included, so the amount of added weight would not be much more than a pound or so for two slightly larger ULBs. Besides, they are located on the outside of the recorder boxes, so finding space for them might be easy.

caution re New Straits Times
 

@wewereborndrunk

I'd caution about reporting from the New Straits Times. The piece you cite is a television report based on a New Straits Times story that *speculates* that Australia is holding back vital data sourced from its Jindalee radar.

I have noticed that repeatedly the New Straits Times takes a hypothetical (e.g. the Australians have amazing radar and therefore must have seen the plane), combines it with a fact (the Australians would not tell Bloomberg news agency if they saw anything) and then creates a sensationalist story (Australians know and are refusing to share). There is no original reporting, no news, and it's not what I would call journalism.

As to the Jindalee, it's been discussed a lot on here. It would have had to be on and pointing in the right direction. The Australians, no more or less than any of the other nations, are hardly going to publicly announce when and where their radar is pointed.

However, imo, the data or lack of data (and either is helpful) gathered by Jindalee is obviously going to be internally leveraged within the Australian SAR effort. That imo is part of why they're taking the lead in the south. They can leverage their intel without routing it through other countries. They certainly are not hiding it from their own SAR effort -- otherwise they'd be putting on a multi-million-dollar theatrical event! Let's show some good faith that what seems to be a well-conducted and earnest search in the Indian Ocean is exactly that.