pretty sure in a later post i stated he said confirmed by other data /sources. I was not meaning to say or imply they claimed they knew for 100% certain the next morning, although they did say contact lost over the Malacca straits. In the 1st instance that was contact of a return suspected to be 370, it was either the next or next but one they confirmed it was 370.

Do you believe it has never been confirmed?

I saw on a map that after the last contact it flew along/to waypoints. That doesn't make sense if a fire has been going on. Except if the FMC reverted to the second route loaded. Don't think its probable, but have to admit that I don't know the 777's FMC that well (737 pilot). To me it looks like someone knew what he was doing, at least navigation wise.

Glueball, of course you can make the left turn without the FMS. But previous and constant reporting over the past week stated that the left turn was programed into the FMS BEFORE the last voice transmission, the "Good night" transmission. That had tremendous implications that the intent to turn off course towards the west was established without the crew reporting anything out of the ordinary.

The left turn may now have been made in response to an emergency, not planned in advance. My larger point was that once again, what we thought we knew, what we thought was factual pieces of the jigsaw puzzle, turns out once again to apparently be false.

oldoberon
 

All recordings I have seen of radars are no less than the originals being replayed in a later time frame... quality or accuracy doesn't really suffer one bit... in fact one can slow it down pause etc...which might not be possible in real time so I think its a non issue..

oldoberon, given I posted a link to the recognised air picture which showed MH370 by military track number and marked with an arrow some 200nm WNW of Butterworth - yes.

Albert driver
 

Thanks for your clear and concise review about fire in the air.
What about about a slow incapacitation, by for example carbonmonoxide poisoning or other invisible products? (The garbled transmission, instinctively turning back not being able to iniate an emercengy descent could be compatable with such a sort of event.
Suggest we should all do some more proper brainstorming!
The WHAT IF and WHY BECAUSE type of thinking ,as the public would expect from professionals (leave the aliens where they belong )
My thoughts are with all the fine people from Malaysian Airlines who dearly miss their colleges

Dear Albert Driver,


Thank you so much.


I also have been in an aircraft we thought was on fire (fortunately it wasn't) but all the smoke and fumes convinced us at the time it was. Thank you for bringing a massive dose of common sense and experience to this debate - I totally agree with you! There is only one priority - GET IT ON THE GROUND ASAP - and at the same time, try to put it out.

Lord Spandex

If the aircraft was in trim with engines providing thrust, it would no longer be trimmed after engine failure.

@Pontius Navigator

Raised the point before re the Indian Navy base at Andaman and Nicobar Islands. You said "its for maritime" (didn't have time to get back).

"The Naval chief said that one of the primary functions of INS Baaz would be to provide information, based on ‘airborne’ maritime surveillance. “Maritime domain awareness is the key to effective and informed decision making in the maritime arena. Despite numerous advancements in the field of information gathering over sea, airborne surveillance, using aircraft and UAVs, remains invaluable,’’ he said".

Guess they "don't" have "Primary" then ???
That's how they "missed" them :oh:

Fire
 

The dissertation by Messrs. Engin Uzuncaova and Miguel A. Ayola, in their paper titled Boeing 777 Flight Control System, gives a useful overview of the FBW system used for the first time on a commercial airliner. Section 4 deals with Safety Analysis and states that the probability of a given failure condition is consistent with its severity, and that all failure combinations producing a catastrophe are extremely improbable.

The paper may be found at.

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc...=rep1&type=pdf

If we accept that the aircraft remained airborne for the whole period of its endurance, then it would be safe to assume that its electrical primary flight control system remained operative throughout the whole of this period. The crew were for reasons yet unknown were unable to divert it from its last assigned course and robotics became their master. Such a scenario does give rise to concerns over total reliance on automation and its implied dependence on electical power. In a similar vein I do recall there was, some years back, a short spell of trying to replace the old clicking cog mags with electronic ignition for light piston aircraft, it was soon abandoned.
What with first for FBW and all computer design, have we heard anything at all from the folks at Seattle. I just wondered whether they have made any comment at all.

The 777 uses an automatic speed trimmer, it would still continue to trim even after an engine failure. If hydraulics & electrics were still available after a double engine failure (Auto RAT deployment or high windmill speed) the system and the autopilot would remain engaged and try to maintain the assigned flight profile.

If you don't know for sure... don't post.

A/P will disengage.
After fuel starvation it becomes a big glider... gliding all the way down at the speed with which it was happily cruising along.

Pontius Navigator

I agree...but Campbell Bay, Camorta, Car Nicobar, Port Blair, Diglipur.
All "asleep".

Good point. I thought the post everyone was responding to (which I can't find now) intimated that it was trimmed correctly after the engines had failed.

In your case wouldn't it be less likely to stall as the loss of thrust would cause a nose down response anyway?

I think you'll find that more sophisticated space imagery users have high-bandwidth relay satellites. Sensitive information need never travel down from low Earth orbit.

As to changing orbit - it can be done, but unless it's a pressing urgent life-threatening need, just wait for the orbit to come good.

Good to see that there's apparently some French radar data being reported. I trust it's close in time to the crash, and might provide a chance to find the sea floor wreck, and with it the data recorders.

Missed communications?
 

Here's one for you to tear apart (please excuse the vague nature of the question, I'm trying to not direct you down any particular line of enquiry):

Can you think of any possible reasons for which a pilot could have thought he were communicating correctly with an ATC but wasn't receiving acknowledgements, or attempting to make contact and failing?

Safe cargo
 

If, and a big if, Malaysia Airlines was carrying something dangerous, but proclaimed not dangerous due all ICAO/IATA regulations having been complied with, then you need your memory refreshed with this incident on 15 March 2000 which totalled one of their A330-332 - 9M-MKB:-

After arrival from a flight from Beijing, baggage handlers were unloading 80 canisters weighing 2,000kg when they were hit by the strong toxic fumes. Five ground handlers became ill while unloading the canisters.
A check by airport fire and rescue personnel revealed the canisters contained a chemical called oxalyl chloride. Several canisters had leaked, causing severe damage to the aircraft fuselage. The aircraft was considered damaged beyond repair.
After a five-year lawsuit a Beijing court ordered Dalian, a Chinese state-run company, to pay USD65 million in compensation, plus interest, for destroying the Airbus A330 with falsely declared cargo with corrosive chemicals. The company had mis-identified the canisters as being a safe powder-type chemical.
(ASN Aircraft accident Airbus A330-322 9M-MKB Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KUL))

I was told the sheet-metal toolboxes belonging to the mechanics who went into the hold to check on the damage, disintegrated due to corrosion within a matter of hours!

follow all leads
 

With an open mind to all possibilities, the skipper's call from a fraudulently-obtained phone story appears to be gathering momentum: Flight MH370: Pilot's last phone call - World - NZ Herald News

Fire hypothesis
 

Swissair 111 offers the best comparison for a hypothesis. The electrical short caused a fire, which was detected by the crew 53 minutes after departure. 13 minutes after that a rapid succession of aircraft systems failure were recorded on the FDR`s. About a minute later comms and SSR were lost. About five minutes later the aircraft crashed into the sea. The crew must have become incapacitated in that time frame of 14 minutes. In the case of Swissair 111 the fire was all too consuming so as to incapacitate not only the crew but also the aircraft.

In such a scenario, in the case of MH370, it follows that the crew alone must have been incapacitated, the aircraft`s flight control systems must have proven sufficently robust and in conformity with their manufacturing specifications and design criteria for the aircraft to have remained aloft for such a long time thereafter. In such a scenario a ground alert system for crew incapacitation, and for its associated remote and/or on board auto electronic reversionary activation and control system ( analogous to drivers safety device "DSD", also known as a dead mans handle on trains and kill switch on boats) could provide a further redundancy measure for future flight safety. In the case of Swissair 111 the recommendations had also referred to a cockpit camera, installed as part of a such a system, along with continuous flight monitoring, would also be a further deterrent to unlawful intereference with an aircraft by any persons on board.

MH370: Bad weather hinders search for missing plane after new satellite images | World news | theguardian.com

Mere SLF here - albeit 40-year, 2-million-plus-mile SLF - but I don't recall seeing a lot of wooden pallets being loaded on aircraft.