Coagie makes a good point. If you are seriously interested in effective research I recommend learning a few quick-win effective research techniques so you don't have to bash fellow PPRuNers for their sources! E.g. start with Google and a few well chosen search words like AF447 acoustic locator sonar frequency.

Then in seconds you might easily stumble over stuff like:
BEA to examine why acoustic sweep missed AF447 recorders - 5/5/2011 - Flight Global
https://fenix.tecnico.ulisboa.pt/dow...issertacao.pdf

Hope that helps :ok:

If, and I repeat 'if', this was a mid-air explosion, would it not be 'normal' for the initiating organisation to have publicly claimed responsibilty by now?

MH370 may have turned back
 

Malaysia’s air force chief, Rodzali Daud, said radar indicated that the plane may have turned back, but did not give further details on which direction it went or how far it veered off course. (Source: National Post)

Air force chief Rodzali Daud said the investigation was now focusing on a recording of radar signals that showed there was a "possibility" the aircraft had turned back from its flight path. (Source: bbc.co.uk)

Is it not possible that an inflight disintegration may cause what seems to be a significant course change on a set of radar signals, due to parts of the aircraft falling in different directions?

Off topic
 

I can confirm that if a passenger presents themselves at immigration having "forgotten" where they boarded the aircraft then the immigration can ,and do, look at the CCTV footage between the aircraft and gates to work out which aircraft they arrived on. once this has been done removal directions are issued and the passenger goes back to whence they came at the cost of the airline. it is not fool proof but it does work

max reheat- dont you read anything. !!! Its been mentioned in a lot of posts already !

Lockerbie !!!

Oh by the way where is the debris field . Idf that happened at FL350 it would be spread far and wide.

Agreed. It actually looks to me more like the inside of a porta-pottie missing the lid. If you've ever had to search or retrieve anything from sea you will know that it's hard to identify something like that from 200 feet much less several thousand... it has to be physically retrieved. I don't mind seeing leaps in conclusions from arm chair posters, but to that from professional reporting outfits like WSJ is kinda bothersome.

Well....we're not taught to recover from a spin...on instruments...at night!

I have NO KNOWLEDGE of the 777 FBW system but i assume, it won't let you get close to a stall, let alone a spin.

If an aircraft departs controlled flight, its probably the result of the secondary effect of a malfunction (recovering from a failure results in the departure) a primary effect malfunction (the malfunction itself causes the departure)...or a catastrophic failure that left no options for a recovery.

MH653 Circumstances unsolved!
 

My heart goes out to all the families of the passengers on flight MH370. As a daughter of one of the passengers killed on flight MH653 Yes we are still waiting for answers some 35 years later I don't expect in my lifetime to get one I just hope to god those poor families get some answers sooner rather than later.

acklington I think you will find if you read all the posts the track was 025 and then it turned to 340.

maxreheat
Your comment re interested parties claiming responsibilty was made about 750 plus posts ago and repeated by many others who do not read previous posts.

I wouldn't say the 777 FBW in normal mode will prevent you from stalling, but it certainly drops a heck of a lot of hints on the way to the stall that you are doing something wrong.....

If the FBW has degraded into secondary/direct modes then those hints/protections are absent.

For those who subscribe to rapid disintegration caused by an explosion, you don't necessarily need something as Machiavellian as a terrorist bomb. As someone else already hinted, what was the cargo? Or perhaps this could be another TWA800?

TWA Flight 800 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

@henra Something I should have taken into account; chalk it up to being up too early this morning when we changed time here in the states. Thanks for responding.

In any case, it's all pure speculation while we wait for actual news and quite unlikely as the airplane was likely in autoflight mode and there were no reported speed abnormalities. Massive structural failure still strikes me as the most likely explanation for reasons yet to be determined.

What it probably won't do is preventing you from entering a spiral dive if the AP kicks out and no one's watching.
Has happened before.
A spiral dive is a quite different matter from a spin. It is not aerodynamically out of control and will ultimately lead to disintegration, something a spin can't do since it is a more or less 1g maneuver and aerodynamically out of control.
But all that is indeed idle speculation. Or rather not. Just musing about general technical possibilities.

Stall/spin
 

Just my $.02/2quid's worth (depending on where you are).

I don't think a stall/spin scenario is an issue here.

Far more likely to be a high speed, mach tuck, and flawed recovery issue.

Re: Debris Field photos
 

My apologies if this has been already covered.

The pic of the debris field looks remarkably like pics I have of the green houses clustered along the coast of Vietnam at night. There is an area with hundreds of rectangle green houses all clustered together and lit up with glowing internal lights. If you look closely at the pic you will see that the lights follow a valley in the top right. There is also a distinctive domed area which is a small hill.

That is why you can see them in the dark.

In addition a flight from KL to ZBAA would fly right over them just over an hour after take off.

Sadly, yes, Five Green :cool:

But it was many, many, pages ago.

Kentot Besar:

What can a sub do that a surface vessel can't in this case which will aid recovery and locating the plane?

CAT
 

I can't help but wonder if this could be the first CAT related in-flight breakup since BOAC 911.

- a satellite photo at the time and location shows high level cirrus clouds
- CAT events have increased in numbers and intensity in the past years
- the area has recently seen a very significant CAT event (SQ 308)
- apparently the aircraft dropped and changed course before vanishing

As unlikely as it is, boats have been swallowed by monster waves of previously unimaginable strengths. Could we be dealing with a monster CAT here?

Sub search
 

It can hear the black-box pinger at 50 km, instead of 3 km.

Silver: some of the navy surface vessels involved in this search, and sonobuoy-equipped p-3s also have capable sonar. Submarines are good at hiding, not necessarily searching a large area for flotsam or pingers (particularly not in shallow water) although of course it won't hurt to use them when they're already there.

it's hard to grasp that a large, modern airliner can seemingly disappear without a trace, and it's very disturbing...but on the other hand, we're speaking about tens of thousands of km2 search area, which will have been expanded several times now. I think it's safe to say by now ELTs wont help. I'd also dare to say that locating debris on the surface of the ocean, despite all modern long-range sensors, will ultimately still depend on mark 1 eyeball verification. In the absence of radio transmissions and acars data, until some physical evidence is found, maybe it's time to freeze this thread?