Wrt to the early reports of another MAS pilot on MH088 having established contact on 121.5, the so called static and mumbling could be feeble replies from a hypoxic pilot using a poorly adjusted O2 mask.

In an abrupt explosive decompression, people with glasses or beards normally do not don the O2 masks properly especially in a busy, highly stressful emergency situation. Just saying.......:\

Wrt a breakup and a debris trail.. It could have ditched... And sank... Nobody knows yet ...until the airframe is found.

GobanaStick, the 9/11 terrorists used forged passports.


govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/staff_statements/staff_statement_1.pdf

That's no door but it did remind me of a cabin window dado panel.

Admittedly it is unlikely, but there have been multiple instances of ADIRU failures that have resulted in uncommanded and unexpected aircraft maneuvers. Malaysia had one in 2005 in a T7 as I recall. While these faults have supposedly been fixed, one never knows; these are devices that are highly complex and they are only as good as the programming that goes into them.

Almost all accidents involve multiple causes. An ADIRU fault resulting in an uncommanded maneuver plus an incorrect response to that maneuver could, at least in theory, explain an inflight breakup.

In any case, I readily admit that this is idle speculation. The aircraft will be found, the investigators will do their work based on facts and evidence and the cause identified and hopefully something will be learned that makes aviation safer going forward.

Early in this thread some posters, who I believe identified themselves as flight crew who regularly overfly the Gulf of Thailand, mentioned the density of squid fishing boats, with their bright lights to attract the squid. Looking down at night like looking at a starry sky. One poster suggested the fishermen would have been unlikely to see any object falling from the sky precisely because of the brightness of their own lights. With which I would agree entirely. At sea, with lights on, you can see nothing outside the immediate surroundings of the boat or ship.

I'm just wondering whether the area in in which the aircraft is presumed lost is also a regular fishing ground (it may not be the same area the early posters were referring to). And, if it is, what has become of the boats over the last two days. Would they have been dragooned into the search and offered rewards for finding anything, or would they have been chased off by the navies involved due to a perceived looting risk or that of naval vessels running them over? My own guess is that fishing boats would be warned to stay clear; it would be ironic, not to mention some loss of face for the authorities involved, if it were a fisherman who came up with the first piece of wreckage.

The two Australian Air Force Orions are used to looking for needles in haystacks, so to speak, given the large distances they are used to searching, hopefully they will come up with something. The agony of the families concerned is becoming too much, this is appalling, and becoming increasingly bizarre, its almost like a movie set. Lets hope today, the answer comes.

There is an emergency code for access to the flight deck in case of both pilot incapacitation.

The cabin crew have portable oxygen bottles so if they have passed out they could gain access to the flight deck, fit the oxy masks and recover the pilots.

They have to remember the code of course, and be somewhat pro active.

Assuming the aircraft disintegrated over the sea, or struck the sea intact, surely by now debris would have been found (see AF447).

Lack of the above would suggest the aircraft coming down over land, whether intact or otherwise. Valujet in the Everglades comes to mind. Jungle canopies can make SAR very difficult, such as in southern Vietnam or even Malaysia itself.

Igari is a long way off shore.

Not sure I've seen a lot of prawn boats out that far.

There is probably more chance of another aircraft seeing an in flight explosion, and not much chance of anyone seeing a nose dive at night.

Strong Jetstream at 10,800 metres
 

The weather was said to be good for the flight but at 35,000' was it possible the Jetstream was causing severe turbulence on the flight?

I cannot find a historic Jetstream map, but by reversing the time using the following link to 0.00 hours and assuming the trend continued since the early hours of March 8th then there appears the Jetstream was strong at the time.

Weather Model - Asia Jet Stream Wind and 250 mb Pressure (STORMSURF)

Maybe there was severe turbulence early into the flight once it reached its cruising altitude which seems to correspond to the strongest part of the jetstream (if I am reading this right)

Apologies if I am way off, but I at least have read this entire thread before dipping my toe in.

AVHerald writes that some flotsam apparently made from composite has been located and will hopefully be recovered at local dawn (in 2-3 hours).


If it can be shown to belong to a 777, the probability for a crash instead of an unexplained disappearance becomes rather high and the area for further search can be narrowed down a little bit.

I was pondering the same thing, went researching, returned here and found that post. My research dug up this article about seismology and aircraft crashes:

http://www.ctbto.org/fileadmin/conte...ctrum_2/p1.pdf


It makes specific mention of Lockerbie, and Swissair. It does say that such events are typically equivalent to magnitude 2 or smaller though. It'll be interesting to see whether this incident will have left any seismological clues...

Floating Object - Dead End
 

By Jim Clancy and Mark Morgenstein, CNN updated 3:19 PM EDT, Sun March 9, 2014.

One promising lead has turned out to be a dead end. A "strange object" spotted by a Singaporean search plane late Sunday afternoon is not debris from the missing jetliner, a U.S. official familiar with the issue told CNN on Sunday.:confused:

Not on the Helios 737-300 I am afraid. The aircraft crashed after running out of fuel. Passengers were alive and making calls during the infinite holdings.

"There is an emergency code for access to the flight deck in case of both pilot incapacitation."
Yes, but if someone has gained control of the flight deck and knows what switch to toggle, that access is denied. It is just one position.

Looking around the internet tonight there are some fascinating, wild theories that sadly the longer the time to find the aircraft is, the slightly more believable they could be. The trouble is nowadays with governments, one doesn't always know what to believe and even stopped clocks can be right at times.

At the moment one shouldn't assume official intervention is the reason for delay when incompetence or just plain bad luck is the reason. Although as TWA800 and elements surrounding September 11 show, many people articulate reasoned counterpoints to the officially stated narratives. The real reasons? Way out of my league and knowledge just like most posters here.

Don't know, ask Mr Boeing, I only fly the things...

It provides significant assistance, whilst leaving the pilot(s) to do some of the foot work and any required trimming.

Excellent.....

Err, Hello, .....or do you want another triple driver

ACARS
 

The most useful piece of evidence is possibly the ACARS DATA. Why have we seen nothing of the ACARS info

For those that dont know what ACARS is - (ACARS) is a digital datalink system for transmission of short, relatively simple messages between aircraft and ground stations via radio or satellite.

That statement is wrong. These sightings were east of the track and south of the Last Known Position There were suggestions on PPRuNe that AF447 had turned around and was trying to land near the islands of the Arquipélago de São Pedro e São Paulo, off the coast of Brazil. These sightings turned out to be false; they had the effect of diverting SAR resources away from the actual crash location, which turned out to be a bit northwest of the track.