Communicator:

The last time I went looking for my dog, I had a few ideas on where to find him, and a report from my neighbor that he'd seen the dog heading down the street "about ten minutes ago," toward the intersection by the local gas station.

Lucky for me, I didn't have the whole world's media looking over my shoulder and barking at me about what data I was using to find my dog. I got to conduct the search without being second guessed. It took me about an hour, and asking a few more people if they'd seen a golden retriever go by, before I got a good lead and found the little rascal lying under a tree happily chewing on a plastic water bottle.

Whilst I appreciate your points, those who are involved really don't need a globe full of back seat drivers to help them find this "dog."

Pontious

There was no threat.. my question is when it became a threat.. what was military intel doing?

Next Singapore..I know that singapore spends more on its airforce ..enough to have powerful radar which overlaps into the malacca straits and the south china seas given its importance to shipping and air routes into Singapore?

24X7x365 response .....if anything thats what the military..and not from IT. There are operational and reserve units going into a rota at all times. But again this is based on good monitoring and intel and eventual activation.

Was everyone really caught by surprise and did no one in the region not react?

And it would be appropriate for the data to be released to qualified individuals or agencies for independent verification of InMarSat's findings.

One of the early news stories said independent teams in the US and UK had calculated positions from the raw data, and both ended up with the same arcs. So it has been independently verified to that extent.

I was worried that I'd find him dead, run over by a car, or that I'd not find him and he'd run off, never to be found again. In a search, with limited information, one still searches with such info as one has. In a more complex search, such as for a missing aircraft over the ocean, when you have conflicting input, where do you begin? Best estimate, which was probably something related to LKP. As other info gets to you and shapes your understanding, you may change your area of search. I find no intentional screw ups there, but their handling of the PR and press has been sub par, at best.
Respectfully disagree. I try not to ascribe to malice what is usually explained by incompetence.
This leads one to question how many experts Malaysia actually have on staff. ;) See my first point. :} Add in the pride factor, and it makes sense to me how the early search efforts ran adrift.

ADDED later:

Communicator, for you to assert intentional waste of search time and assets, by someone in the Malaysian circle involved in this, you can't just leaved it hanging there.
Where does this assertion/assumption take you? It takes you to someone with material involvement in this search who wants this plane not to be found, or, wants to embarrass MAL, the government, the various ministers, high officials, etc.
Where does that lead you?
Deliberate sabotage, and a human agency either linked to a passenger who is not whom he/she seems to be, or collusion with a member of cockpit or cabin crew to deliberately stage a crash of that aircraft to achieve ... what political end?

To take the heat off of the trial of the opposition leader?
To deliberately piss of that large and powerful neighbor to their north?

What sort of conspiracy theory are you harboring? Or, if not, why didn't you think that through before making that accusation?

Duncan Steel Theory
 

Specifically regarding the Duncan Steel post, three people including active airline pilots well versed with airline procedures and airliner capabilities and controls who wish not to be identified due to the obvious high degee of conjecture involved at present have responded to my inquiry regarding the Steel theory with these comments:

1. Route over land would have been easily picked up by numerous radar
sites. Any plane without a transponder signal at cruising altitude, without a transponder signal, would stick out like a sore thumb. 2. The first initial turn (if correct) is a classic "return to safety" in an emergency. 3. Total (electrical) power loss would have created the known fact of Transponder and ACARS loss. 4. The two engines can continue running with full aircraft (electrical) power loss as in they have isolated generators that continue to running EEC power. The engines will continue to maintain performance, and all necessary functions independent of aircraft central inputs. 5. All opinions/theories resulted in: The aircraft flew statically on the last course. The last course was a sloppy 180 most likely set in by pilots in a rush, or with limited visibility to PFD or CDU. Pilots lost consciousness, aircraft continued on course. If you go by such a scenario, the aircraft most likely took a western route as that was the initial turn programmed by hurried pilots.

They hv a G5 eye in the sky 24/7.

Can we hit something on the head now before it comes up yet again. Area radar controllers do not use primary radar, they are not interested. All the aircratft in their airspace are transponding and their systems label the display with all the required information. A primary track will not even be noticed by most civilian area controllers.

Primary radar cover from military radars is geared to identifying threats; aircraft that are known are labeled and their primary response is correlated with their secondary (transpomder) response. If their secondary response stops then the correlated label still follows their primary response - that is why they are correlated. So MH370 transponder goes off but the label carries on as a non-threatening Comair track. 9/11 is something that happened to the USA - who is going to attack Malaysia? So don't expect anyone to react to a 777 from a local airline with no transponder.

Primary cover is extremely sparse as it is expensive. Civil area control do not use it or reallly want it, airports use it but don't really need it. Military are then given the bill of runnig it and set up their radars where threats may occur. There is very little primary cover over the CONUS for this reason; However, Thai long range primary probably saw the MH370 track but it was no threat, same for Indonesia. What do people expect? Woulld the USA go on alert for a Mexican commercial airliner that turned back to Mexico in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico?

Random primary tracks are common - nobody is going to react to them. This may be why the transponder was turned off.

UK AAIB and Inmarsat Arcs
 

The published graphs are illogical and clearly misleading on their face.

I prefer to think that UK AAIB can do and is doing rather better than the pretty but grossly misleading graphs of spurious "elevation angles" that have been bandied about.

Same for investigators in Australia, the U.S. and even Malaysia itself - one certainly hopes and expects that their efforts are not based on pretty but largely meaningless graphs. There are lots of smart and competent Malaysians, but they have to live and hold on to jobs under a venal and opaque political system.

Primary Radar Ignored - Malaysia's Baffling Initial Reaction
 

Another poster (D.S.) pointed out long ago that Malaysia was aware of the primary radar track on Day 1 - they referred to contact with MH370 having been lost at 2:40 am. This is the time when the aircraft went beyond the reach of primary radar.

As to what may have motivated the Malaysians subsequently to deny the existence of the primary radar information from their own radar, it is indeed difficult to think of any political rationale that makes remote sense even by their own lights.

Most likely, there was internal wrangling between military and civilian authorities within Malaysia and/or a misguided and ultimately counterproductive attempt to portray MH370 as a routine, "nothing-to-see-here" crash.

radar
 

What do people expect?

Well one things for sure a serviceman can not reveal classified data, no one in MIL is going to jump onto CNN and risk a court martial and time in the stockade.
And yet I am quite sure under the scrutiny and intense interest in finding this plane, anyone with half a heart or morality would risk it, not even wiki leaks has picked up on any traffic..

As for having a G5 or AWACS in the air 24/7, impossible, cos then you need a tanker or another G5 and so it goes, and what is the current threat situtation in the region, mild to luke warm.
Govts don't have that sort of cash to throw around, look at the fuel cost alone in boats and planes from Western Australian, millions per week, which we the tax payer will foot the bill for..we are already 70 billion in the red in the budget and cuts are starting even in defence budget..

JINDALEE OTRH runs on Diesel fuel at some sites so again need to have transmitting and not at night.



Anyone found as much as one piece of foam or Mylar or any other floating object anywhere yet?
If it broke up on impact and the Mylar insulation was still in that plane body there could be hundreds of pieces floating around like the Halifax Nova Scotia fire and crash.

More Easterly Search Areas
 

#MH370 search areas in perspective

"A graphic which puts the changing search areas for Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 into a clearer context has been produced by Scantherma, an Australian remote sensing and thermal imagery company commissioned by a global insurance company to find debris from the missing Boeing 777-200ER."

Scantherma web site:

Scantherma - Specialists in Thermal Energy Inspections & Remote Sensing

I believe it was the AAIB and the NTSB that concurred with Inmarsat's conclusion about the Southern arc theory.

Malaysia's politician are risk averse when it involves the world's spotlight on them. I highly doubt the Malaysian PM would make such a bold statement (plane ended in South Indian Ocean) if he wasn't 100% sure that the 'westerners' told him they themselves are 100% sure of the Southern arc route.

anyway just my 2c.

So will the Chinese government foot the bill in this search effort or are they just going to sit back and enjoy the moment as the victims families blame every non-chinese government or organization for the lack of results in this search?

Leightman 957

Except for the continued operation of the Satcom system. Someone will have to propose an electrical system failure that takes the transponder and ACARS down but leaves Satcom up.

And then there's the 'Goodnight' message after the transponder shut down. I understand the need to aviate first. But if you've got the time to key the mic and say goodnight, a little aside to note the ongoing systems failures wouldn't be out of line. Its possible that the ACARS/transponder losses may have presented as passive failures at the outset. But here again, some serious systems analysis is in order to identify the sorts of failures possible. VHF comm was still up at this point, adding another constraint to the problem.

A thought on the partial ping.

An explanation for this occurs to me. If the last ping was sent at the moment of impact with the water there probably were other electronic devices collapsing and shorting themselves out at the same time, these might have created EMP pulses strong enough to overpower the ping in progress. The EMPs might even have come from batteries being crushed.
If the 777 struck the water forcefully, there would have been an electromagnetic splash as well as a H2O splash.

Steel Theory
 

Ian W, James GV, and EEgr--I was passing on very carefully limited opinions of three aviation people with current operational familiarity with 777 systems, radar, and airline operation who have more knowledge than I and who were responding specifically to the Steel theory after conversing together about that site. I had hoped their opinions might be useful but I can't answer the questions you pose. I can add something that came after I made that post:

....your question about flight controls with total loss of power. Yes, they would maintain course. All flight controls stay at neutral when there is no input. The only time flight controls deviate from neutral is during hydraulic failure, a situation that would not arise as long as the engines are spooling.

If their opinions cause further dispute I apologize for the post. The one thing that is not in short supply is differences of opinion--not a good thing if those in contention are all aviation people with current operational familiarity with 777 systems, radar, and airline operation.

Switched off?
 

Hamster:
It is 'known' (or, we have been told by the Malaysian authorities) that the transponder and ACARS stopped transmitting at different times prior to the final communication with ATC. It is, however likely, still an assumption that they were actually switched off. What actually occurred to stop them transmitting and the reasons for this occurring, are still the subject of conjecture.

The Malaysian PM might get an eye opener today when he visits RAAF Base Pearce and JACC and gets a briefing ;)

Will be interesting to see what the media do and how they cover it as I doubt they will be allowed to "run amok" in press conferences like they did originally.

Luckily the families of those lost don't arrive until after he has left !

Leightman 957
 

Leightman 957

I am merely pointing out that in the absence of anything, the situation is confusing.

I may even "self quote" myself in the future with that "Rumsfeldism" !

In the event of complete electrical failure, it would appear that, at various stages, there was a variety of inputs, up until, what appears to be the "navigated" turn "due south"....along with a (singular) component response, which continued for what appears to be the duration of the flight.

...and no one appears to have a clue what happened.
Now "something" happened. We know as much as that.