No they would not, there is no such requirement in Europe or anywhere else but the US.

Sea current
 

earth :: an animated map of global wind and weather - the prevailing current below the last reported position MH370 would carry debris towards the east coast of Malaysia.

Don't think this qualifies as a Singapore Submarine!

http://i920.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps1a54b311.jpg

Like I said filter out the BS.

Chilling words...

You Must Read This Test Pilot's Story of an SR-71 Disintegrating During Flight | Gizmodo UK

Re Amsterdam and use of API/PNR data, I couldn't see anything newer than this. Answer to a written question - Use of PNR in the Netherlands - E-007686/2011

Of course, if the power makers had extracted their digits earlier ...? http://www.defenceweb.co.za/media/ju...mas_Marten.pps and http://www.worldtek.com/wp-content/u...mas-Marten.pdf

Readded NL does have API requirements as verified on sites such as Emirates.com. Delivery announcement-http://www.arinc.com/news/press_releases/2012/03-13-12_arinc_delivers_apis.html

Summary of Previous 46 Pages of Discussion
 

Since the first post on this thread, the following information has been received:

Aircraft missing.

Everything else is interesting reading, but sheds absolutely no light on what has happened.

OK, back to the chatter...

I've been led to believe by our in house security folks that these days in many parts of the world your passport is more valuable to a thief than your wallet ( that's certainly correct in my case :rolleyes:).

Before getting bogged down on the significance of these passports to this flight is it worth considering how many passengers on widebody flights are travelling on false documents....right now?

I only posted this because i think it describes what an in flight break up feels like... from someone that survived one. The A?C type to my mind doesn't matter... But if something like this happened to MH370... it sheds light on why there was no comms and probably how (fortunately) quick it could have been :(

RIP

False passports
 

Via BBC:
When an Air India plane crashed in Mangalore in 2010 en route from Dubai, with the loss of 158 lives, as many 10 fraudulent passports were recovered.

A Silk Air 737 that dived in to the Musi River in Palembang was obliterated when it hit the water, but the FDR survived and was recovered with useable data. Google Silk Air MI 185. The aircraft nose dived from a similar flight level to MH 370.

So if any of the passengers are carrying fake passports, that immediately means it was their fault if it crashed? :ugh:

I'm not down-playing the seriousness of the theft of passports, but it is getting just a little ridiculous.

In other (real) news, after the loss of secondary RADAR from MH370, they are saying the aircraft possibly turned around, according to primary RADAR track.

thanks luoto.

The Malaysian authorities say they are examining video of the two individuals traveling on European passports with European forenames and surnames. It will be interesting to see how European they look.

lapp, according to Air Canada, there are 16 countries that require API besides the U.S., including China.

http://www.aircanada.com/en/travelinfo/APIS/apis.html

For those who don't know about ATC radar, I hope the following can help a little.

An example of a relatively modern primary surveillance radar (PSR) produced by SELEX - the ATCR-33S - is quoted as having a detection range of 60-100 NM in S-band. I recall that the lower limit is a guaranteed level of performance in bad weather with some failed transmit modules, so a fully functional radar in good weather is likely to exceed the upper limit quoted.

They have another model that works in L band which is claimed to have a range of approximately double that - so 100-200 NM.

I would imagine that the ranges quoted above would be typical of PSR available in relatively modern ATC systems that wanted primary radar. Legacy systems from the 1970s and 80s would likely be at the lower end of the quoted ranges, but almost anything is possible with enough watts. Military specific radars are likely to have longer ranges.

PSR can give some idea of altitude because (some types) can scan "beams" at different angles to the vertical and have processors that convert the angle plus the range into height, but this isn't going to be precise.

Secondary Surveillance Radar (SSR) generally has a significantly longer range than primary, because it relies on the aircraft transponder replying to an interrogation pulse. The return signal identifies the aircraft and should by now also include height data.

Without confusing matters by attempting to go into the details of Mode-C, Mode-S etc, ADS-B as used by the public air traffic websites relies on an (ad-hoc network of) receiving antennas that eavesdrop on the replies from (extended) SSR interrogations. The receivers decode extended data that is generated by the aircraft, but are susceptible to overlapping transmissions by other aircraft in range, and I suppose by other RF noise.

*IF* ADS-B data is received correctly by a receiving antenna *AND* the aircraft was transmitting its position (and altitude) data correctly *THEN* the position reported should be correct.

If however the data packets were corrupted by other transmissions, or the aircraft was no longer reporting its position correctly, you could receive anything, or nothing. There are mechanisms (checksums, for example) that should reject corrupted data, but nothing is foolproof.

Apologies in advance to those I've offended by errors, omissions or by teaching the art of egg sucking. This was intended to be a simple factual post. As always, corrections are welcome.

Point 2 is not unusual. Almost every major accident, someone comes up with some "divine intervention" story of having missed the flight due to traffic / impulsive change of plans / other issues. It turns out that almost every successful flight has a few people who missed or avoided the flight. If that were not the case, airlines would not oversell flights.

Failing to board... could be one group got lost in the bar/shopping/restaurant. Not notable. It is certainly NOT a sign of terrorism. What terrorists would want to call attention to the flight (for which something nefarious was in the works) through something like this?

Point 1... statistically unusual events do happen. But it might be simpler. This might be two people travelling together... both "needing" fake passports for the same reason, eg migration as suggested in various posts.

Some US figures about prevalence of fraudulent documents: http://www.cbp.gov/linkhandler/cgov/...doc_detect.doc Another link suggested 9/11 hijackers had modified documents but I appreciate some of the facts in that case are controversial to many (chances of two passports belonging to hijackers surviving a massive fire unscathed). One can be sure that if the authorities state the problem is X, the real figure will be much, much higher due to those who escape detection.

But surely red lights would have flashed when those two passengers travelling on stolen showed up at the Schengen border at AMS - given that the passports produced to the immigration officer were registered as stolen with Interpol?

@FREDAcheck

The transmission power output. Theoretically a 200NM range is possible, but in normal civilian operations unnecessary, and power requirement increases exponentially with target distance.

I flew as an f/a doing long haul for years, if I was given a quid every time someone tried to bin or burn their passports in the lavs on arrival into egll I'd be a millionaire, then they would tell immigration they where from a different country,have been persecuted and have just so happened to have lost their passports and please Mr Blair can I have asylum..

Why people are so surprised illegals are on flights is example of how naive I'll informed and unqualified people can be...

Let's see if this post survives

This is journalists taking a sensational approach here. These might have been management prospects but no 30 year old Malaysian based employee of Freescale who can be spared for a month long course is in top management.

For anyone familiar with the semiconductor industry, this has as much truth to it as media reporting on aviation details. :)

Good (and rare) post, David Bass. I would have expanded more in my earlier one, but England v. Wales took priority :)

My background in Terminal ATC spanned the decades from the old GCA truck MPN11 to AR1 and AR15. In Area Radar (more pertinent here) I spent years working the T82 (with stacked beam height-finder capability) and remotely fed Air Defence T84/T85. Then at LATCC with its multitudes of radars feeding a computerised combining machine that gave the best radar cover for each 15x15 mile box.

I suspect the Malaysian and Vietnamese authorities will have some radar recordings to assist, once processed. Whether either one wishes to reveal the extent of their Air Defence radar cover is a separate issue. I suspect there would be discreet hints to their National search assets, but I doubt we would see that revealed.