I had a recent post throwing out food for thought, that Halon may have been deployed as a fire suppressant, putting out the fire, but somehow it got into the cabin or cockpit and displacing the oxygen, but it apparently was taken out by the moderator. I had a link to the Boeing website, so maybe that's why they took it out. Anyway, just like in the AF447 search, you have the cat guarding the canary scenario, because the Malaysian airline is mostly owned by the Malaysian government, and since it was their aircraft, they take the lead in the investigation. If Lithium Ion batteries were illegally shipped knowingly on MH370, and those batteries were involved with MH370's demise, Malaysia would have all the liability, so the Malaysian government would go through the motions and do what they think is minimally required in an investigation, but not with any special insight or focus, hoping that emotions cool off after a couple of years, so they could settle much cheaper with the families of the victims. France didn't bring the US into the search for AF447, except to borrow some equipment, but a couple of years later, an American contractor practically went right to the wreckage. Who knows? Maybe, maybe not on this scenario for both AF447 and MH370, but nothing surprises me anymore.

Here ya go; this is the standard of media reporting: seaweed has been found (see image down page) Malaysia Airlines flight MH370: Abbott flags breakthrough hopes.

You are obviously not a pilot with a major airline.
If you were you'd seek help before you LOST that job.
It is simply the most rewarding career.

Edit:

I might add, to the best of my knowledge the two occasions this has happened the crew members job was at risk.

Looks good to me. You have the radius of the geosynchronous orbit off by about 100 km, but it does not affect the results in any significant way. Intermediate calculations can be reduced to a single formula through "law of cosines".

And, just to be clear, yes, it's entirely possible that the satellite has a clock that could measure signal travel delay down to a fraction of your 620 microseconds. But that assumes the signal being reflected back in a passive way or by a "dumb" device. You can bounce a laser beam off a reflector on the surface of the Moon and use it measure the distance with sub-meter accuracy. That's because the reflector is passive. If the reflector is a computer system that needs to "think" about the answer, that's a source of uncertainty which may or may not be longer than 620 microseconds. Or maybe there's no reflector at all, we just have a transmitter on the aircraft with its own clock that is used to timestamp the transmission, and we're making deductions based on the timestamp and the reception time. Then we also have to wonder how accurate the clock in the transmitter is.

So, the "geometry" of the process, so to speak, is pretty clear, but there are other things which are not.

My point is that the extra memory required isn't an unbearable cost, and many investigations need much more recording time. The requirements were laid down when aircraft flew into hills; now human interference is something to be taken into account.

^^ accurate post. To be able to get 'eyes' on anything in rough ocean conditions and be able to differentiate 'something' from 'nothing' requires two conditions...the aircraft needs to be close to the surface (< 2000ft AMSL) and even then the observer needs to be switched on! The seas in the Southern Ocean are equal to the roughest anywhere (Google 'roaring 40's'..), so swells/white caps/breakers are constantly in the line of vision. Aircraft paintwork is predominantly white...this does not assist.

Having said that, anything that is 20+ meters long would certainly be spotted on the first pass.

I think one way or another, the outcome of this will be that the powers that be will come up with some way to more definitely track airliners. Yes, it may involve more significant costs - but when you look at what this search has already cost, and what it's likely to cost in the future - some sort of GPS tracking device is going to be a bargain.

Quote:
*In my experience: over land a search observer is constantly seeing stuff and deciding not to call it out because it does not meet some threshold of likelihood. Over water everyone is so "weary" that everything gets called out. "Weary" isn't quite the right word, there is a structure and discipline to observing from an aircraft without missing things. Observing is a tiring thing to do, especially when you see nothing."

Couldn't agree more. Was an observer with Surveillance Australia and participated in several searches, including the Malu Sara boat that went missing in the Torres Strait.

We found nothing...no debris, no oil/fuel slick. Half a body washed up on a reef a few weeks later in Indonesian waters, found by Indo fishermen.

There are specific visual scan techniques you employ to maximise effectiveness, but agree, it's a very tiring thing to do. We generally swapped places every hour (front to back) to make sure we didn't start to "fixate", especially when there was nothing to see except water.

Agree that $10 and a phone is not a viable option.
SSD using NAND flash is being used in CVR's and which are many times more resistant to shock (G's), can be fully encapsulated (potted) to withstand great temperatures, be waterproof are not sensitive to pressure.
Besides, if worries, use the same enclosures as is currently used.
The only question is how much memory to stuff in the recorder, but I will venture that $1000 will give you many thousands of hours.

If the recorders of MH370 are found and it proves that only the last two hours of (possible) silence is available, when the first two hours of flight may be the most critical, then I hope the industry and regulatory agencies will recognize that improvements are in order.

Also if they have done some test flights with a MAS B777 which I'm assuming they have done now( if not why not) they can verify position and signal strength and see if it matches the data they have now. Surely they would have done this before sending everyone on these large area searches. Also to prove the initial turn back and military primary radar hits. Lets hope they have.

Hmmm. Are you a 'pilot with a major airline'?

Anyway, I would think that many of us have known occasional instances of pilot suicide in both the civilian and military world. And, sometimes even pilot murderers.

I had a squadron commanding officer who was killed in a 'gun cleaning accident'. More than one pilot has had his wife mysteriously found dead after she said she was leaving (Richard Crafts comes immediately to mind). Wasn't there a case at FedEx in recent years where the pilot was acquitted?

I'd sure like to think pilot suicide/murder couldn't happen with MH 370 but it is a possibility that needs to be explored.

Here's a case years ago from 'a major international airline':

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370: Pilot suicide a taboo topic in past crash probes - CBS News

Any Ozmates remember the details on this one?

In the U.S. if you express suicidal ideations, your professional flying career is probably over (unless you somehow make it an alcohol or gender identity issue). If you keep the thoughts to yourself, you keep flying.

Mr DK And why not Cockpit and cabin CCTV for a reasonable length of time - storage is cheap nowadays.

(Hope I am not modded out this time)

MISSING MH370: IGP denies Daily Mail report - Latest - New Straits Times

Not sure how much of the newspaper report has been debunked by police, the whole thing or just the part about the gender of the caller?

Did the pilot received a call from someone who used a fake ID to purchase the phone?
Is it a rare occurrence in that part of the world?


Mickjoebill

And once again, I re-state - you will show obvious signs of regular "clinical depression" if you have suicidal tendencies. You may be able to keep your suicidal thoughts to yourself (only in about 30% of reported cases) - but the severe depressive bouts will be obvious to any adult with a modest degree of perception.

Perhaps driven by demands of insurers who want to weed out the risks.

A TV production company sought insurance for a joy flight in a glider of a young person who had a terminal illness.
The person had expressed interest in flying a glider like the birds and hope to imagine being free of his very painful condition.

Insurers said no, unacceptable risk, because he would have controls to hand.:ugh:

To the credit of the pilot, the flight took place anyway:ok:

Finally!...Something i can professionally comment about!!....
onetrack, while some people with depression do commit suicide, there is also impulsive suicide...that is, suicide that happens without the person necessarily showing signs of depression at all! Take the person who breaks up with his wife, then goes and hangs himself...Not depressed necessarily, rather an impulsive act due to circumstances.
Not everyone who is depressed commits suicide and not everyone who commits suicide is depressed!

If you haven't already seen it, post 7124 gives an excellent explanation of how the satellite and aircraft keep in precise synchronisation without having the need for the aircraft to have a clock to the same standard as the satellite's.

"...depressive bouts will be obvious to any adult with a modest degree of perception"


I think the "key" phrase there is "with a modest degree of perception".
And what happens when the "perception" goes out the window.

I wanted to say "Everyone knows someone who committed suicide and no one saw it coming", but apparently, "onetrack" has not. There are many suicides where the person who did it, might have been voted "Least likely to commit suicide" among their family, friends, and colleagues, and they are left only to guess the reason. Sad, but it happens all the time. Then you have these sad sack, melancholy people, who live out their long but miserable lives...

As has been stated already, the limitations are not technical. You can buy CVRs with as much storage as you want. The limitation is that pilots in the US insisted on a two-hour limit for privacy reasons, and that seems to have become a global standard — 30 mins is the minimum, 120 mins the norm.

Of course, none of this matters if someone on board disables it.