If the 2 'unknown' passengers were ticketed all the way to AMS, it makes more sense as to why they were holding stolen passports.

A LOT of people are trying to illegally migrate to EU.

And a lot fail only when reaching their final destination, where checks are better carried out.

I'll try to be polite, because I have the upmost respect for those in your profession, but your privacy concerns should not be influencing the decision to have live video being recorded and sent back to HQ in the case of the safety of an airliner, likewise the passengers have no right to privacy in such an environment, I would argue (much like any privately owned space that's actually a public space e.g. pub, train, bus)

frankly, it would clearly be beneficial to have this data being recorded and transmitted for the safety of millions of travellers every year, and if you or your passengers object to being recorded on the basis of personal privacy being put ahead of safety, one would suggest you find another job/airline

no-one is suggesting these videos be monitored all day long for discrepancies in how you work, they can be deleted at the conclusion of an uneventful flight

would it be more or less intrusive than the x-ray body scans passengers already have to endure??

anyway, one can only imagine the horror of the families of the people aboard this 777

I was struck by how the first shots we saw in the UK were of people who had just seconds earlier been told of the news, and had a scrum of reporters and cameramen sticking cameras in their faces and shoving them around

showing the absolute worst side of human rubber necking behaviour during a horrifying experience for those involved

one other thing while I'm on a roll :rolleyes:

worse than the conspira-loons on threads like this, are the forum police trying to shut down speculation and others posting in a way they are not happy with. you aren't moderators, let the mods decide what's appropriate and what isn't

like this post no doubt :ooh:

There's specialzed hydrophones to locate the pingers. http://www.phnx-international.com/sp..._SpecSheet.pdf

If they're not already in the area - with all the assets already available - I sure they're on their way. As for the talk about a singaporean submarine joining the search, I think some media misreported the Submarine Rescue Vessel, which is a surface vessel equipped for underwater search and rescue, as a "submarine". It will be far more useful than a submarine.

Edit: Cody Blade - exactly :)

ELT
 

For those critical or curious about ELT performance.... Any radio transmitter needs an external aerial to propagate the signal. Here lies the problem in ELT design.... How to have an aerial attached that won't break off or disconnect in a serious collision or explosion. And none are designed to work under water, as far as I know.

Most modern airliners have one or two installed, that are triggered by a collision, or switched on manually. Each slide/raft also has one in the case of ditching.

Mr. Opti:

I can only speak for US ATC en route radar, which are the same as USAF radar. They paint out to 200 n.m. Would an airplane at FL 350 be over the horizon at 200 miles?

But which ELT is used in Boeing 777s? This isn't my area but reading about them is interesting and it seems one can still elect to use a cheaper model that is up to 97% prone for false alarms.

Different types of ELTs are currently in use. There are approximately 170,000 of the older generation 121.5 MHz ELTs in service. Unfortunately, these have proven to be highly ineffective. They have a 97% false alarm rate, activate properly in only 12% of crashes, and provide no identification data. In order to fix this problem 406 MHz ELTs were developed to work specifically with the Cospas-Sarsat system. These ELTs dramatically reduce the false alert impact on SAR resources, have a higher accident survivability success rate, and decrease the time required to reach accident victims by an average of 6 hours.

Presently, most aircraft operators are mandated to carry an ELT and have the option to choose between either a 121.5 MHz ELT or a 406 MHz ELT. The Federal Aviation Administration has studied the issue of mandating carriage of 406 MHz ELTs. The study indicates that 134 extra lives and millions of dollars in SAR resources could be saved per year. The only problem is that 406 MHz ELTs currently cost about $1,500 and 121.5 MHz ELTs cost around $500. It's easy to see one reason for the cost differential when you look at the numbers. However, no one can argue the importance of 406 MHz ELTs and the significant advantages they hold.
NOAA - Search and Rescue Satellite Aided Tracking - Emergency Beacons

Some explanation about beacon searching:
Anatomy of a 406 MHz Rescue using an EPIRB ELT or Personal Locator Beacon | ACR ARTEX
http://www.cap-es.net/NESA%20MAS/Air...c%20Search.ppt

Interesting also:

Artex B406 Boeing Emergency Locator Transmitter | ACR ARTEX

goeasy,

I fly on the 747, 777, 767 and 787, of which none have an ELT per slide/raft in case of ditching. It is part of the equipment removal to be performed by the cabin crew, to remove the one, or two, portable ELT devices and re-locate them to the slide/raft in the case of a survived and evacuated ditching.

>interpol just confirmed no one could be bothered to check its database.

Actually stunned in this day and age there isn't electronic communication back to the issuing organisation to confirm and validate the passport. Particularly for a flight where you've got an hour or so from check in to departure.


Interpol might be helpful but the issuing organisation is the best source of information. Could probably also pick up differences in photos in the passport quickly as well.

No

The rule of thumb we used was radar horizon = 1.23 x (sq rt of the height) [for sea level to aircraft height]

It's not a 'Submarine' as in captain Nimo's.

But a 'SUBMARINE SUPPORT' ship.

Ps get your chart out and check the avrg depth there.

A totally speculative but possibly plausible scenario one can see, based on facts and comment cited in world press and here (from reading every current pprune thread item to this point), is that some unknown circumstance might have very rapidly put the aircraft into an high-g deep flutter mode, possibly with multiple other instabilities and spin, such that the flight crew were physically unable to move enough or to see well enough to respond with corrective control inputs.

In such situation, the instrumentation, flight and airframe sensors and perhaps also the antennas might similarly have been impaired or overloaded by vibration and rotation of the airframe to such extent that data values were beyond allowable limits or range and thus filtered or overridden in some cases.

A relatively high rotation but relatively flat spin ensuing might also have confused any remaining data-link capability to the extent of sync-loss and absolute blocking of resync signalling needed to maintain the links data transfer capability, even while the aircraft was still flying and operating in an impaired but largely intact condition.

End result of this scenario is descent to the sea at moderate velocities with or without final breakup occurring at and after first contact with the sea surface -- leaving little or no floating debris and practically none shed while airborne.

(Foregoing is all guesswork, but based on some personal knowledge and experience with all of the above. Is my attempt to add a different perspective to some of the confusing "facts" that are on the table now.)

EGLD

I don't think you need to be apologetic for asking. It is a sensitive issue and you have every right to comment on it.

I think that 1 issue with this is the amount of data that would have to be transmitted and stored. I think at anyone time there are around 10,000 airliners in the sky... Thats a lot of data. It may be that there are bandwidth and storage limits... Don't know, I'm not a techie.

The other aspect to this, though is the mis use of the information, by your employer. Its already happened with the voice recorder. You only need to go on to YouTube to hear recordings which probably shouldn't be in the public domain...but that has been released by the police or whatever. I understand the desirability of having this information available... but i personally don't want big brother looking over my shoulder every second I'm at work.

But putting this in perspective of this incident/accident... its likely all you might see would be a picture followed by nothing if the power was lost or there was a catastrophic break up. And the problem i personally have... and i can't speak for anyone else... is that incidents such as this one drive the necessity to get this technology in the FD to then "spy" on the people doing their jobs, which is then abused by employers and regulators pursuing their own agenda.

Its a delicate issue.

I wonder if any mechanics on the 777 know? This has a line drawing of the antenna positions Introduction to Antenna Placement and Installation - Thereza Macnamara - Google Books fig 3.7. And a pic of a typical elt http://www.emteq.com/cmsdocuments/EM..._Fixed_ELT.pdf

On the contrary it is such a huge news story with so many people interested because it happens so rarely in comparison with the number of people who travel by air. Why are you not pushing for mandatory cameras to be installed in private cars? Far more die on the roads than in the air and it would be a great way to isolate major reasons for car crashes. Why not have mandatory cameras on everyone that record in a 60min loop, could be a law that requires spectacles with inbuilt cameras? Then whenever something happens it can be instantly decided what the reason was.

When was the last time a commercial aircraft crashed and the reason for it remained unknown? I honestly don't know. Wanting these cameras is a sign of who you are, you want instant answers, hungry to know the reason something happened even though it is in no way connected to you and will probably not affect you in any way. In time I am sure we will all know why this aircraft disappeared just as we have with many other incidents that remained a mystery for some time. Relax, it will all be clear soon and we can stop with the ridiculous knee jerk reactions like suggesting live feeds should be everywhere.

Funny you should mention it - there is more data being released today on BBC News in the UK on the location of Lydia the Great White Shark tagged 19,000 miles and one year ago in Florida and currently mid-Atlantic than there is on this 777.

Weather considerations
 

I delved a little into this in order to get some feeling for possible wind and current drifts. I found the closest stations to be Kuala Terengganu (WMKN) in Malaysia and Phu Quoc (VVPQ) in Vietnam, on both sides of the Gulf of Thailand.

During the last two days, WMKN metars show weak southerly winds with NE in the afternoons, presumably a coastal seabreeze, less than 10 knots. VVPQ reported slightly more breeze at E-SE between 3 and 12 knots.

It is of course possible that winds in the middle of the gulf, where MH370 vanished, are different, but my guesstimate for the area is for light to medium winds from the E-S sector. Which would have kept any debris from an in-flight breakup in a reasonable area, and pushed any debris and oil on the surface in the direction W-N.

Perhaps someone can dig out some upper level wind charts from the area for the last two days. This might help in guesstimating the debris spread from any in-flight breakup at cruise level.

No speculations there
As for the AF447 the locating beacons (ELT) failed miserably in their mission
This is ridiculous to not have some in external location instead in the aircraft
There are also aboard ships and they are not located in the bilge !
It is now hoped that the CVR and FDR pingers will work

<<Nobody seems to have addressed the question of how did those with the stolen passports enter Malayasia – if in transit at KUL from Thailand, how come that Thai exit immigration did not pick up on the stolen passports? Thailand issues entry visas, which should have expired in both the stolen passports. If they were already in Malaysia, where are their photos and fingerprints that Malaysian Immigration take for all arrivals? >>

Perhaps they entered Malaysia using different, valid passports.

I suspect there are many more reasons to travel on a stolen passport than terrorism. Especially if your destination is in Europe: What do the immigration people do with those that arrive on stolen passports? Can they return them? Where to? If the "refugees" don't cooperate, immigration will never know where they're from, thus can't ship them back. Apply for asylum and hope you can establish a foothold. That's how economic migration to Europe works these days as far as I know anyway, happy to stand corrected.

The fact that they were travelling to the same destination (if that's true) and that they bought sequential tickets on CSN, all that proves is that those two probably had something to do with each other. Perhaps they were both from the same family. It would be interesting to see some stats on how many illegals arrive at AMS every day.

Because private cars aren't carrying 300 people? I know that buses in the UK have CCTV and no-one complains, especially not the "pilots"

"We" have decided that we need to know minute details of what is said on an airliner, so it's clearly beneficial. To have this data at least updated remotely as the flight takes place would clearly be of huge benefit, would it not? so why wouldn't video of the cockpit be of even more benefit?

I don't want to derail this thread, I probably should've sought out the no doubt other threads on this subject, but felt I wanted to comment on the privacy issue

The technicalities of whether it's possible are irrelevant if we can't get past the privacy issue

Thanks for the considered responses though, unlike the PM :rolleyes: