No submarine can do anywhere close to that depth. If the ocean is as deep as they say it is the onlt way to go down thee is via ROVs or speciliazed submersibles.

re: I found something
 

I tweeted it to @tomnod, I don't know if there is anyone else I should tell?
You gotta see this on a bigger screen. Really looks like cockpit windows and MAS stripes underneath.

"Surely there must be submarines there - anyone have an educated answer/guess ? "


There very well could be, but experience from the search for AF447 seems to say that submarines get in the way of towed pinger locaters, and vice versa, because of noise and cables. So even though it sounds impressive, that submarines, especially "Nuclear" submarines, are deployed, it seems that deploying purpose built equipment is preferable. Also, the subs would have to have sonar equipped to hear a 37.5khz ping from the ULB, which most submarines do not have. Of course, before any pinger locaters are deployed, I don't guess it would hurt to have submarines, or anything else, such as yachts, fishing boats, & etc, out there looking.

@pn I did not really mean radar as I envisaged having the sub just submerged so it is safe from shipping above and then searching the surface above and ahead of it. Surely they must have some kind of echo based technology that could detect objects awash ?

Unfortunately, that section of an aircraft including the flight deck windows would not float without significant help. i.e. some kind of floatation device.

It's highly likely that all that stuff floating is garbage from a Tsunami. Not to rain on your parade or anything.

Why would a submarine care about relatively small pieces of <something> floating on or close to the surface?

I think some here have been watching too many WWII sub movies or something. The use of active sonar (i.e. the issuance of a sonar "ping") is a bit like suddenly standing up in the middle of a battlefield in a fire-glo orange suit and yelling "I'M HERE!", which is pretty much the last thing a modern submarine wants to do.

Vastly more effort has gone into passive listening sonar, which is certainly not going to help.

The French sub that tried to find AF447 had to have a special software update from Thales to allow it to listen to the 37.5kHz pinger frequency, so any sub that happened to be within cruising distance of the suspected crash zone is unlikely to be of any use at all...

How helpful were satellite images of the sea in the search for debris from AF447?


For MH370, these constant reports of satellite photos can only serve to diminish SAR morale when in reality we know they are doing a great job.

Going back just a bit:

SupplierSam #8157
Onetrack. #8161

I think it is too soon to dismiss fire/smoke as the primary cause of this aircraft disappearance. Have a look at this link:

http://www.aaib.gov.uk/cms_resources...ection%201.pdf

This fire in a B777 MEC burnt for little more than 15 minutes but the damage is considerable. The P200 and P300 panels ( containing ELMS, the power managment and distribution centre) were badly damaged and there was fire damage to the actual aircraft structure and wiring. During the incident, flight instrument displays were disrupted and there were no EICAS Warning or Caution aurals tones. Boeings opinion was that if this had occured in the air the crew could have received fire warnings for both engines.
Note that there is no smoke detection in the MEC that is visible to the flightcrew on EICAS, just a EQUIP COOLING OVBD advisory. There is no MEC fire detection or suppression.
There were similar incidents prior to, and after, this one. The cause was molten metal at up to 1000 deg C being released from BTB and GB contactors. The reasons why this happens is still not fully understood.
An airborne failure of this kind could have left the crew with an unmanageable situation due to multiple systems failure: VHF disabled, ACARS fail, dual FMS failure, flightdeck smoke, alternate nav diversion, loss of situational awareness, oxygen depletion, unconciousness, a/c nav to incorrect lat/long entry....

Waves
 

Re 'I found something'

Whatever it is, if it is anything, I would'nt like to be sailing through that sea with those waves. Don't see how it could float with all that churning going on.:yuk:

re: I found something
 

If it's one section of it, sure.. as someone else has said, it could be afloat with objects or an air pocket, and this sat img was from the 16th.

No ELT signal
 

YYZJim

I think you are confusing ELT transmissions and the ULBs on the CVR on FDR.

Cheers

Unless the scale indicator on Tomnod is off, this is probably not a window section, probably something else.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-b...ac_windows.jpg


A 10m section based on the 3 view plan below spans about 19 windows

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-3.../777_scale.jpg

in the Tomnod image, the object relative to the scale marker is approximately 10m in length and I count 4 dark spots in the row. Not enough detail to determine what it is, based on the scales I am doubtful it is a row of windows. That, and a piece of fueslage wreckage that size floating is questionable, I'd think.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-w...77_windows.jpg

Tomnod
 

It's clear that the worsening of the weather has resulted in many more "hey look at this" comments related to tomnod...

From any map if you look around on other maps, for miles and miles, you can see very similar shading and white areas which can only really be the white of the crest of a wave.

CIGA, visually that looks very likely. The question then arises is it possible.

Cockpit windows, unlike passenger windows, will be glass. The nose section contains the radar and the instrument panels.

Could that part of the nose section separate from those heavy components and remain buoyant? The nose dielectric might have integral buoyancy. Really one for Boeing.

Radio is an electromagnetic vibration and is highly attenuated by water. Sound waves are acoustic and propagate very well under water. The DFDR and CVR are equipped with an acoustic device radiating a signal in the ultrasonic region of the audio spectrum.

An oscilloscope connected to a hydrophone through an amplified bandpass filter would be able to detect and display the pings of the ULB.

1. SATCOM

2. None. The early media reports regarding a British company having sussed out the flight's existence post-comms blackout assumed it was Rolls Royce rather than Inmarsat.

3. 00:11 GMT for a complete ground-initiated hourly handshake while at 00:19 GMT there was an unscheduled handshake (assumed to be aircraft initiated) that was incomplete. This last partial ping suggests the possibility of the Left Main AC bus having been lost and reenergized momentarily.

Interesting Sat Orbit Analysis
 

This guy really seems to know what he is doing.

Some Comments on the Final Ping of MH370 by the Inmarsat-3F1 Satellite | Duncan Steel

Interesting that that GeoSync orbits can be so far off!

Great 5 Part Series on Designing and Creation of B777
 

This is a great, 5 part, almost 5 hours long series on conceptualizing, designing, and building B777 by Boeing in early 90s. Interestingly, tail is made of composites so it should float.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oyWZjdXxlw

Outstanding! While not technically true, we are on the same page sir! :ok:

I had read your response, however, the bit regarding audio range, while technically correct, may have confused others due to the usage of "VHF" in describing audio signals so I thought a revisit was useful.

James, this was covered by myself and others a while back. The RAT does not power the AC bus directly and the inverter that does power the AC standby bus is rather small and limited to powering critical flight instruments and not the SATCOM radio pack.