Back to the North!
 

Ancient aviator here though still current. But I haven't flown in SE Asia since the mid 60s and that was with the Grey Funnel Line!

So in the FIR in question ( Malacca Straits) could you file a flight plan and pick up your IFR clearance once airborne?:confused:

We can only hope. Although it would seem highly unlikely that there may be survivors we must not forget the Uruguayan Air Force flight with the Rugby team on board, over the Andes. It was over two months before two survivors made it over the Andes to civilisation to let people know. It will depend very much on where and how the aircraft landed.

Pontius

The pressure on the surface is 14.7 PSI. Every 33 feet down in the ocean equates to 1 atmosphere or an additional 14.7 PSI.

Forget a solid container like a cylinder which are normally pressurised to 2000 PS1 but no where near the limits where they would implode.

Take a Balloon filled with air on the surface! At 33 feet or an additional atmosphere the volume of air would be half.

At 66 feet it would be a 1/3rd. At 99 feet 1/4 and so on.
So the given lifting capacity of a volume of contained air would decrease accordingly.

if you took said balloon down to 99 feet and filled it at the outside pressure then that balloon would expand as it rose to lighter pressures as would its lifting ability.

Hence why a diver at 99 feet who has to make an emergency ascent holding his breath will have to let air out of his lungs on the way up to save damage and death in the ascent.
At 20000 feet the pressure would be approx 8900 PS1 Compared to 14.7 PSI at the surface or 1,360 times the pressure of air on the surface

So A Relatively soft sealed structure like a wing would collapse fairly shallow unless the air was expelled and replaced with water.
A pressure cylinder would not collapse unit 8000 to 10000 feet down but that is only a guess

Air Marshals
 

Has there been any information regarding MAS's use of air marshals, and whether any were on Flt. 370?

blind pew,

Are you B777 qual'd? I'm thinking, if t was in an ALT HOLD mode, it would, upon loss of power, try to maintain altitude until the stall warning when the A/P would disengage and it would start down trimmed at that speed.

Air Marshals are an American idea generally I think.

In a few hours it will be two weeks since MH370 disappeared. After two weeks, if it crashed into the Southern Indian Ocean, the savage seas in that area would have dispersed any remaining floating wreckage, and sunk most of it.

Chances of the "debris" spotted on the satellite pics being remnant icebergs, or an upturned hull of a wrecked boat? - Very High.
Chances of the "debris" being wreckage from MH370? - Very Low.
Chances of finding the aircraft in the Southern Indian Ocean when 14 days have passed and there's only a vague idea of its LKP? - Very, Very Low.

Malaysia Airlines MH370: No trace of debris in southern Indian Ocean after second day of searching - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

For those who have posted dream scenarios of "soft landings" or survivable landings in the mid-40 latitudes of the Southern Indian Ocean (equal to the Southern Ocean) - here's some vision of what it's like at sea level.
One day in three is fine, the wind is screaming most days, and the whitecaps and massive swell are constant.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?featur...&v=BhduxaGtNJ8

Galaxy Flyer, I was about to say the same thing. I'm a 777 captain, and I'm sure if you are in ALT HOLD, it would go back to the yellow band, and then descend to maintain the speed at min manoeuvring . Well, that's how I think it would happen, must check it out in the sim.

On the basis that pulling all comms, cutting an "interesting" path across FIR/radar/international boundaries [in what appears at least to be a deliberate act of avoidance] to then travel several 000's kms just to end up in the drink, albeit in the middle of nowhere, I'm inclined to agree with you at this stage.

The Fansweep20 fitted to the RAN vessels is a shallow water system with a typical operating depth of 500m or so. From the surface in 3000m+ of water you need something around 12-24kHz to get any sort of decent compromise of swath width and resolution.

HMS Echo might have something more suitable

Confirmation of previous Inmarsat 'pings'?
 

This information seems to have been missed by most posters on here. That would suggest to me that hourly pings were actually recorded and not overwritten.

Galaxy nope
but it depends on what happens and what order it happens when the engines flame out...and what speed the generators go off line.
It could of course slow up in altitude hold until they stop producing usable electrical and hydraulic power.
Since there have been several theories (reports?) of varying altitude I am assuming that there wasn't anyone flying her.
What I was suggesting that if the crew were incapacitated (or incapable of controlling the aircraft due to electrical problems) then for the aircraft to stay airborne for 7 hours and then crash it would probably descend in a controlled fashion and not nose dive at 10000fpm+ as has been suggested.

MH370's location
 

IF current search area is most likely...

The average depth of the Indian Ocean is 3,890 m (12,762 ft). Its deepest point is Diamantina Deep in Diamantina Trench, at 8,047 m (26,401 ft) deep located about 1,125 km west-South-West of Perth.
Light penetrates up to 660 feet (about where bathyl zone starts – it ends at about 6600 feet where temp drops to 4 degrees C)
The abyssal zone extends from 6600 feet to the bottom about 20,000 feet where the trenches begin. Pressures here range from 200 to 600 atmospheres. The waters though are serenely still.
(Note: The deepest descent by humans was in 1960 by Trieste (to bottom of the Challenger Deep in Marianas Trench in Pacific O – 35,810 feet – pressures of 16,000 pounds/sq inch – 1000 x sea level).

Re AF447, debris and bodies, still trapped in the partly intact remains of the aircraft's fuselage, were located in water depths of between 3,800 to 4,000 metres (2,100 to 2,200 fathoms; 12,500 to 13,100 ft). The Bayesian search theory was used by Metron to map the probable area. AUVs with side scan sonar were then used and found a fairly compact debris field 200x600 metres. The US ROV, Remora 6000, in its first dive found the FDR.

this was confirmed by AMSA on day 2 of the aussie searching and today by the malaysain minister in the daily briefing.


It is not news

Apart from the claimed PSR information of a climb to FL450 and a decent to FL295, there has been no confirmed reports of any varying altitude.

All we can say for definite is that if it continued flying for over 7 hours then most of that time must have been at or above FL300 for the claimed fuel on board.

- is there any link to this statement? Does Inmarsat know in detail what was happening to the signal elevation during the 7 hours? ?Assuming the reception angle is referenced to the earth vertical? I would assume from the above 'quote' that the elevation was increasing at some latter stage. If the information is refined enough it might be possible to re-create multiple paths of likely routes which when meshed with start pos would surely yield some clues? Initially we were told is was a '40 degree' signal, but that does not appear to be the whole story. Logically the elevation would decrease during the supposed 'turn back' and 'Malacca transit' - then what?

HMS Echo
 

Little off topic but let us not get carried away with the capabilities of HMS Echo....

I spent 3 years on board and her sister ship as a civilian contractor providing support for the survey equipment and teaching Navy operators how to use it - (yes as a civilian - really!).

The vessel is fitted with survey equipment for up to 1000m depth. It is great at finding wrecks. A sidescan sonar can only see a 200m wide swathe and you can only survey at 4.5knots. Her hull mounted multibeam will see a much larger swathe, but it is not designed for detecting objects - just changes in seabed. The 'hit' rate per metre squared is too low.

While Echo is a valuable asset, but it is not magic and is limited by the equipment. What may be of more use is her ability to act as a command platform.

I now work as a Survey Party Chief running geophysical surveys (as well as a flight instructor) - so I do know this industry as well as flight instruction.

Hunt for Jet Switches to Visual Search as Radar Empty - Bloomberg

Does that mean, the final ACARS transmission was already made via SATCOM?

If the ping at 1:11 was used for calibration, wouldn't it have been better to do the calibration against the position from secondary radar at 1:11. Transponder was switched off at 1:21.

That statement only makes sense if ACARS at 1:07 already went via SATCOM, which would mean ACARS via VHF was deliberately? disabled before.

CodyBladeProbably best answered by the old saying "It is better to remain silent and be thought an idiot than open your mouth and dispel all doubt." I fear that today is the day Razoray forgot to borrow the family brain cell.
With any luck security services will be monitoring this thread and will be paying special attention to Razoray's posts.

pings, acars and upgrades
 

Here's one
Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 Would Have Been Found If Communications Box Had $10 Upgrade

includes interesting bit about $10 upgrade to ACARS transmissions to send black box data in real time!