After what looks like roughly 9,107 posts talking about this mystery with the 777, and only now somebody just happens to mention this about the flightdeck door???

Personally, I’m thinking a power interrupt to explain the partial ping is plausible. If shortly after the 0811 ping the left engine were to flame out, that would cause a momentary loss off AC power to the left AC bus (Satcom unit powered by the left AC bus) would it not, until auto AC crossfeed joins the AC busses.
A momentary power interrupt could cause the satcom unit to reboot and re-establish the satellite connection, this could be interrupted by either a steep bank to the left shielding the antennae or a flameout of the right engine removing all AC power available to the satcom unit.

What do you think. plausible and worthy of a forensic investigation or impossible.

777 door unlocks when depressurised? Really?

None of the aircraft I have experience with do. Even if it had this feature it would not unlock the manual operated mechanical lock.
Security doors have a blow out panel for rapid depressurisation but (afaik) no unlocking feature I am aware of.

Turn at IGARI
 

While pondering why a turn back to the mainland at IGARI would not have reentered KL FIR I came across the following tidbit dated 2007:

"KUALA LUMPUR FLIGHT INFORMATION REGION
CHANGES TO AIRSPACE STRUCTURE OVER THE EASTERN PENINSULAR...

1.3 Under this improvement, a new surveillance radar has been installed at Kota Bharu and this will enhance radar coverage (expected to be commissioned in July 2007) and provides redundant surveillance coverage to the current radar networks.

http://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w...ARI-Last-2.jpg

I think it can be taken as a given that if/when the drift calculations show that debris from the search area could have drifted onto a coastline, the RCC will task aerial littoral search missions.

The timing of the AES interrogation is set by the GES software; dependent on packet traffic.

In other words, the GES polls the AES.
That is valid following any short-term power outage or loss of the GES P channel signal.

The special closed briefing for Family that traveled to Malaysia (video-conferenced to China) is over; no news yet on the result of the Powerpoint presentation of the Family Committee "loop map" that showed 270 degree turn. (They submitted it for "consideration").

News will probably "leak out" soon enough, although Civil Aviation Director-general Rahman said a report would be given out later.

The PM and trans minster were out of the country, but the meeting included several biggies:
"It is learnt that the briefing was also attended by Malaysian prime minister's special envoy to China Tan Sri Ong Ka Ting, China ambassador to Malaysia Dr Huang Huikang, Royal Malaysian Air Force chief General Tan Sri Rodzali Daud and the investigation team."

I stand corrected. In either case, after successful interrogations at 19:41, 20:41, 21:41 and 22:41, the gap at 23:41 is at least curious. Especially since 23:41 is middle of the night for most of the coverage area of Inmarsat 3-F1, and traffic should be at the daily low.

Although, if I'm reading the spec correctly, failure to respond to an interrogation (due to LOS or for whatever other reasons) is supposed to result in attempts to resend it every 10 seconds until either the AES comes back or it misses 5 requests. At which point it would be kicked off the table and there would be no 0:11. So maybe the satellite was just too busy. (Or maybe I have an outdated spec.)

Incidentally, do you have any idea what, if anything, other than temporary loss of power / reboot, could cause the aircraft to send 3 packets in 18:27 to 18:29 as it was turning?

It seems unlikely that both Captain and First Officer would conspire to bring about the vanishing act. Have the Malasian police turned up any evidence of collusion? We know the Captain was concerned about recent political events; he may not have intended a fatal outcome.

The first officer was handling the RT, and all seemed routine up to the incomplete handover. If the captain was acting alone, what excuse could he make to the first officer for turning off course? a technical failure that required a return to base? a call from the cabin crew that somebody was setting fire to the waste bin in the WC and the First Officer was needed to sort things out? This could leave the captain alone locked in the cockpit to carry out his plan, which may not have included vanishing at sea. Apoxia leads to inappropriate decisions.

Gaps in Radars?
 

Still puzzled by the lack of detection by radar. Malaysia has a new very sensitive radar system, procured among other thingsfor the purpose of detecting intrustions by the Singaporean Air Force:
Air Force caught napping, MH370 could have been saved | FZ : Malaysia News - General, Political, National, Business, World

If they were able to detect airspace instrusions by medium sized fighter aircraft, presumably in real time, why would they not detect the B777?
Does Malaysia lack active real-time air defences?

Perhaps similar gaps exist in the radar systems of other countries - nothing is 100% perfect after all.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/19/wo...path.html?_r=0

Which means that it may make sense to search the northern route.

Maybe they were told to ? :suspect:
I'm usually quite reluctant to follow conspiracy theories, but this event is quite special. Don't forget that some Malaysian officials publicly stated that there were some informations that could not be made public.

No-one had seen an incident like this before and the Malaysians were clearly not prepared for it. I think seeing the haphazard way that information has come out, it is fair to say that the Malaysians did not share information with the other nations promptly or accurately enough. In fact I would guess that even within Malaysia the different agencies did not coordinate well. They wasted their own resources as well as others. They didn't share the satellite data for several days after it had been given to them and even then they only shared the barest conclusions, not the analysis. One of the particular complaints of the Chinese families was that they were only shown two powerpoint slides as proof that their loved ones were dead.

Personally I think the Malaysians should now come clean with the entire data set and analysis. Maybe not to the massive sewing-circle of amateur sleuths on PPRUNE, but at least to other competent authorities in China, US, Australia and UK. That way the analysis can be checked by independent experts. I don't believe this will change any of the conclusions, but at least it would negate the charge that they are hiding things.

The handling of the SAR may be embarrassing for some parties, but ultimately it is hard to see we would be any closer to finding the aircraft, even if they had worked better.

Without going back and checking the spec; it is possible this particular SATCOM installation was also equipped with IRS ability to compute the satellite position and therefor calculate the doppler shift. The rate of doppler change may well have triggered an AES to GES packet, if the the P channel hadn't already done so.

Posted by Propduffer: "Now, why did the Malaysian government let 8 nations search the South China Sea looking for an airliner they knew wasn't there for the next week??"


Perhaps because they were believing the radar returns they saw were not from MH370.


Perhaps they were right.

Glen

Re "No-one had seen an incident like this before and the Malaysians were clearly not prepared for it."


It is not a case of an incident like this, it is how you handle disasters and emergencies full stop and they obviously do nit gave SOPS in place and rehearsed, especially the media side.

There is not a complete lack of radar data. There is some of the data available which can be found if you search for it - printed in Chinese media, as shown to Chinese relatives. However, not all the data is available as it seems the sensitive data of exactly how the turn around was achieved hasn't been seen by anyone in the public arena.

Vietnamese authorities advised Malaysia in real time of the westbound course but did not receive an official reply.

There was not an immediate connection between MH 370 dropping off communication and the westbound unidentified aircraft. It would be most natural to believe in the immediate aftermath that the aircraft was lost shortly after last contact and was in the South China Sea. The Malaysian Prime Minister did not want in the circumstances to make a definitive public announcement of a connection of the lost aircraft and the westbound track until other data corroborated the primary radar data. Whether this was wise in hindsight is another matter but it is unusual behaviour for a public carrier to suddenly go dark and head seemingly purposefully in another direction without a mayday.

We aren't privy to any corroborating satellite data other than what has been released by Inmarsat, nor are we privy to radar data from other countries. I think it best to leave super conspiracy theories of a Malaysian shoot down to one side - there are other more likely (but still not palatable) reasons the aircraft was diverted.

You do, however, get the distinct impression that there were facilities in place for whatever reason and the people manning these were in effect sleeping on the job.
…just when they were needed :ugh:

I think if you let data leak out via private press conferences that way you are almost guaranteeing that people will fill the void with conspiracy theories.
I think not releasing the satellite data for four days is almost unforgiveable. In particular it takes days to reach the current search zone and a few days delay makes it much worse. Spy satellites could have been tasked to the site earlier. Perhaps debris which was floating sank in the mean time. Even if they did not want to make a public announcement and tell the press, they should have shared the Inmarsat data immediately with the Chinese, US and Australian authorities.

multycpl - there are only three known facts about the flight:
1 The aircraft took off.
2 The aircraft has disappeared.
3 Various communication devices failed to communicate whether by deliberate action or other failure has yet to be determined. There is a plethora of ideas on this forum for the cause of this which you can spend a happy week or two working your way through.
We who are not directly involved in the SAR efforts are not entitled to any information and any which we are given is done so as a courtesy.
No country is going to reveal details of its surveillance measures but will often find ways of conveying relevant information to those who need it.
The AAIB and INMARSAT have done a brilliant job of attempting to determine where the aircraft may have flown but until definite proof, ie identifiable wreckage, is found even this remains a theory.

hedge:

Hedge, if you followed the news, you'd know that the spotlight has been comprehensively and internationally turned onto the Malaysian Government over the Anwar Ibrahim issue consistently and persistently for at least ten years. This is just nonsense, sorry.