Fortunately, cooler, more experienced heads will be making that decision.

AF447 took almost 2 years to locate, mainly because they were searching the area at some distance from the LKP. Finally they got some of the best minds and searched near the LKP and found it in short order.

In the case of MH370, they indicated that they had two different pingers in part of the search zone if I recall correctly. That means they were darn close. These things take patience and perseverance.

Mahatir blames Boeing for the "loss" of MH370

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/m...-disappearance

Looks like Dr. M has spent too long reading PPRuNe ....

'To add my take, I would also add that if it the mission was completely unsuccessful it may be expected that there would be some expression of regret which was not present in the statement.'


I wonder if it is simply not within their remit to express regret or any other sentiment regarding the success or otherwise of the exercise.


That would be for the JACC surely?

Interview on HMS Tireless' role

BBC News - Royal Navy withdraws HMS Tireless from search for MH370

Squarecrow

I have very few politicians that I have ever admired and he is no exception.

The Malaysian government has not done MAS any favours throughout this ordeal and politicians looking for sound bites has, on occasion, been quite repulsive.

In the government's unseemly rush to get involved in the MH370 incident it has managed to encake itself in the brown stuff and this rather backfired on them.

Blaming Boeing for having equipment that can be isolated is like blaming a car manufacturer for having a light switch or a fuse box.

Dr MAHATHIR, formerfirst Minister of Malaysia, should read or reread ICAO Annex 17. That text applies in case of criminal action against air security, which Dr MAHATHIR says it should be the case in MH370.
Annex 17 says, in that case, the responsibility belongs to the arline - MAS - and the State - Malaysia Dr MAHATHIR is the head from -, not the manufacturer Boeing:rolleyes:

'That text applies in case of criminal action against air security' would imply that the Malaysian government is aware that some sort of terrorist or criminal act was committed.


The question is (still) how they are aware of this. I don't think we are any further on in this.

as far as i can tell the 'criminal' investigation was only fired up when they wanted to start accessing things like the pilots homes and other records.
they needed the power to increase their investigative avenues.

it has nothing to do with their suspicion of a criminal act involving the disappearance of the flight

so all those hanging their theories on the word 'criminal' can give it a rest

I agree completely. They were tasked. They carried out the mission. The boss was proud. Job done for that asset.

Search similarities
 

Have been looking into an incident that took place 25 years ago over the Pacific (UA811), which involved search and eventual recovery of a relatively small piece of debris in similar depths, although the topography appeared to be a little easier.
Like many others I have found it difficult to comprehend, with all the resources being used and what we have been told was a much more focused search owing to the information from the ULB pings, that still nothing of importance has been identified.
UA811 lost its cargo door with a little of the fuselage, and about half a dozen seats. These relatively small pieces were found, and in the case of the door, recovered from approx 14000 feet.
The difference was that the search team had "a nominal radar accuracy of 1 nautical mile in range and 1 degree in bearing, resulting in a 90% probability search area for the debris of 5.5 nautical square miles".
It still took them the best part of 1 month to find the debris, even with the luxury of solid information so I do now understand the complexity of the search in this case.
What I do not believe for 1 minute unlike many of you (drivers as well?) is that this aircraft 'ditched'. If indeed it did come down in the general area, isn't it far more likely that it was destroyed completely on surface impact, as in SR111?

UA811
 

From the NTSB report: "The undersea search operation was begun on July 22, 1990, using the Orion, a state-of-the-art Navy side-scanning sonar “fish.” Searching in the area selected by analysis of radar data and undersea currents, the Orion located a debris field on its first pass over the 14,200-foot-deep ocean floor. The second pass located a significant sonar target, which later analysis indicated was probably the cargo door. Since the Orion is only capable of searching, the debris field was marked with transponders for use during the subsequent recovery phase."
Advantage was that the falling debris had been seen on radar...

Innaflap I agree with what you say. Always try to excuse the mistakes and then try to talk out of the bag as it were.

A two year old recommendation:
 

To quote the BEA final report on AF447, page 207:

"On the basis of this work, the BEA recommends:

that EASA and ICAO study the possibility of making mandatory, for
aeroplanes making public transport flights with passengers over maritime
or remote areas, the activation of the emergency locator transmitter
(ELT), as soon as an emergency situation is detected on board."

Source:
http://www.bea.aero/docspa/2009/f-cp...p090601.en.pdf

Has this recommendation been implemented in any form since the release of the AF447 final report?

Seems to me that it could have simply been added to an emergency check list for aircraft fitted with an automatic fixed ELT and associated control panel in the cockpit.

Another thing I've noticed in this CNN video and related article:
Why didn't Flight 370's emergency beacon work? - CNN.com

The video only explains why an ELT would not work but does not mention how an ELT can be switched from ARMED to ON in the cockpit (provided the control panel is installed) although the accompanying article does mention this possibility.

The mods deleted my earlier post dealing with this subject and wonder why?


Without drawing any conclusions about the reason the plane was lost (mechanical or criminal intent) the question remains:
Why, with the automatic fixed ELT installed in 9M-MRO and provided that the control panel was installed, was it not switched to ON in the hours after it deviated from its original flight plan?

In case of a mechanical single point of failure regarding all the other communication systems located in the center pedestal, the ELT would have been the last option to "communicate" with the switch normally located on the overhead panel in a B777.

Think through what that means in practical terms, on a flight deck, when the distinction between a malfunction and an emergency isn't always as clear as hindsight indicates, or for cases when a malfunction becomes and emergency and the Flight Deck Crew have no idea such a change of condition has occurred? Such a trigger would be more likely to generate false positives than do much of any good.
.Seems like an extraneous requirement to me. They were called upon to look into, not implement. Perhaps, looking into it shone a little light on a few issues and unintended outcomes of such a system.

Now, apply that to a situation where either the crew are incapacitated, they are under duress, or maybe even are in on the deal?

Of no use beyond what is already in place.

Possible signature of a south trajectory in the Inmarsat's BFO ?
 

Hi there,
I would like to submit an idea (for falsification purpose) about a possible clue/signature in the Inmarsat's BFO to decide whether the real underlying trajectory is toward the south or north corridor. My (MonteCarlo) simulations show that while there are some trajectories toward the north able to mimick most of the BFO profile, none is able to generate a doppler peak in the BFO around 120 minutes of flight (labelled "possible turn" by Inmarsat) with the same magnitude like the one observed for the MH370 measured data:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3sr...E9yck1mTWVjNEE

@Hyperveloce

Excuse my ignorance, but are not all those theories concerning the Inmarsat Data analysis based on constant track, constant altitude and constant speed?

And the measurement only took place at one specific tenth of a second with a time gap of about 1 hour in between those plots?

Now if at that exact time of measurement (when the ping occurrred) the jet was maneuvering like turning away from the sat thus changing the doppler shift for only this specific time frame, would then your statement from before still hold ?

At the end, we only have few pings which create distance rings from the sat plotted to the earth and a specific doppler shift asociated with those rings. But what happened in between those pings concernng height changes, speed changes and track changes is not known at all.

Could you explain, with what percentage those asumptions would be true?

Regarding the fixed ELT, which according to the CNN article was the same type as was fitted incorrectly to the 737 which crashed in Resolute Bay in 2011. (Honeywell RESCU 406 AF-type)


From the accident investigation report:


'1.15.2. Emergency locator transmitter


There was no record of any agency detecting an emergency locator transmitter (ELT) signal from the aircraft. The investigation determined that the ELT had been installed with the activation switch in the OFF position and therefore could not automatically transmit upon impact. The cable leading from the ELT to its antenna was severed on impact, which would have significantly reduced the transmission signal had the ELT been armed. It was also determined that the aircraft interface module (dongle) contained the identifier code from the previous aircraft on which it was installed. Having the incorrect identifier programmed in the ELT would not have prevented it from performing as designed, but it would have indicated to Search and Rescue that a different aircraft was transmitting an emergency signal.'

@Hyperveloce

Thank you for your work on the BFO, I've been attempting similsr analysis but I've been stalled because of a few anomalies.

The first is the offset shift at 1:07 and the implication this shift provides,
the only explanation I can come up with is that the turnaround must have happened at 1:07. (This fits the timing for a turn south at 2:25. But these conclusions are a drastic departure from the Malaysian timeline of events so I haven't posted about this until now.)

The second is the seemingly odd times of the data points in the BFO chart, why was the handshake taking place at 1:07, 2:25 and 2:29?

Why are there no data points for the hourly pings if they happened at 2:11, 3:11, 4:11, 5:11........ as we have been told they occurred?

I was under the impression that Inmarsat had detected a shift about the time of crossing the equator, but I see nothing at that time.


What are your thoughts?