Surface search ...

For those interested, the Sunrise Time is 2313 UTC at 7°N 104°E, and Civil Twilight is around 20 minutes earlier.

FR 24 have an analysis of their data. They reckon it's sound above 30000'. Read it here: https://www.facebook.com/flightradar24

BEA offers assistance
 

French accident board offers help recovering missing flight MH370


"We have communicated to Malaysian and Vietnamese authorities that we are ready to assist with the underwater search operations or recovery of wreckage," a spokeswoman for the Paris-based BEA accident investigation branch said on Sunday.

The radar returns suggesting a turn back may be artifacts of large parts of the plane coming apart on different trajectories.

If I remember correctly, on TW800, after the center fuel tank blew, the fuselage was severed forward of the wingbox, the engines briefly continued to deliver thrust, the rear fuselage pitched up and forward in a parabola before arcing over.

Question about use by pax of false (stolen, apparently, in this case) passports
 

A fairly significant proportion of this thread comments upon the aspect of the incident that involves use (evidently) of stolen passports. These subject-matter posts have been very largely factual. So I ask this question:

Is there a relationship between how passports are handled under the current ICAO civ av int'l legal and regulatory scheme, and the legal and juridical structures in place for the PIC to subdue, restrain, otherwise deal with "unruly pax"? Asking this because - as many posters know I suppose - ICAO soon convenes its Air Law conference to consider amendments of the Tokyo Convention to update or clarify juridical and jurisdictional provisions pertaining to PIC authorizations to control (& etc) unruly pax.

If a hard look at tightening up passport handling (broadly defined, as the facts of this incident still are being revealed) is in order, do you think it can legitimately be fit into the upcoming ICAO gab-fest on "unruly pax"? My legal mind senses a link between reforms on the conference agenda - about juridical structures and jurisdictional limitations and assignations of PIC authority to control bad-acting pax- and the emerging passport issues. Thank you for your attention to this inquiry.

OR

They are looking in the wrong place!!!

TIME reports SAR spotted floating debris
 

Vietnamese Officials Say Airplane Debris Found in South China Sea - TIME

Vietnamese officials claim to have found fragments of an inner door and part of the tail from what might be a missing Malaysia Airlines jet

Ditto the NTSB, who have a team enroute (probably in the region by now), including technical advisers from Boeing and the FAA, although of course they don't know yet which country's AIB will be leading the investigation as that depends on exactly where the aircraft went down.

https://www.ntsb.gov/news/2014/140308.html

Are you sure about this?

I don't see any provision for air resistance in that equation...

@golfyankeesierra
I am afraid you misinterpreted my post or deliberately tried to show your self-proclaimed ACARS "knowledge" to this community disqualifying my statement.

Where did I suggest in my post that I have hopes in ACARS?
Where did I suggest in my post that "downlink" is synonym of manual transmission? I simply didn't.
The aircraft is constantly in contact with the CPS through a bi-directional automatic transmission (uplinks/downlinks) based on "tech acks". The downlinks from the aircraft contain, among the others, positional data. This has nothing to do with manual messages and nothing in my post suggested this.

Yes I can. If the CPS does not receive downlinks from the aircraft for a certain period of time, a failure report is automatically originated and sent to dispatchers (among others). What I tried to explain in my post is that, unlike the case of AF447, we do not have the logs here, only the word of the Malaysian Civil Aviation General stating that "no malfunction ACARS" were received. It would be interesting to analyze such logs, but they were not released so far.

Again, where did I suggest a conspiracy theory?

Yes, 40s is about right for an object released with no initial velocity.

If an aircraft pitches down, however, some part of the horizontal velocity becomes the initial velocity (100% if it goes vertical) so it will take less time even if it breaks up.

True - but it's still probably closer than the 3 minute figure.

For comparison, it took just under 50 seconds between the PA103 explosion (at FL310) and the wing impacting the ground at Lockerbie.

Based on the assumption the aircraft continued to accelerate in a uniform manner all the way down. That equation (better expressed as v^2=u^2 + 2as) gives a velocity after 8000 metres descent of 396 metres/sec or approx 900mph. Is it reasonable to assume that kind of velocity could have been achieved?

"Yes, 40s is about right for an object released with no initial velocity.

If an aircraft pitches down, however, some part of the horizontal velocity becomes the initial velocity (100% if it goes vertical) so it will take less time even if it breaks up."

Please stop using a formula for motion under gravity in a vacuum in relation to the descent of aircraft falling through the air.

Air resistance is the dominant factor, downward velocity will stop increasing once air resistance equals weight. Erratic of course if tumbling, but far far slower than in a vacuum, where speed keeps increasing until impact.

Oops :hmm: Yes that logic you've used (with a=g=10m/s/s) also requires that the falling object hits the deck at 400m/s which ... er ... I fancy is a bit off for the reasons Messrs Gruntpuddock, dude, Cheer Up and 32 have gently reminded!

Terminal velocity.

Lakedude: indeed no air resistance- this is the lower limit to freefall. But another alternative in the post I tried to quote was nose down. In that case, a>g, so t<40s.

That's not right - but the point highlights that if the aircraft is pitched down and assuming the motors are still running the thrust is added to the gravitational acceleration so a is going to be > 9.81 m/sec squared.

What's the terminal velocity of a 777 pointed towards the centre of gravitational attraction?

Look up the 447 dynamics for the timeline of one trajectory from 35000.

It's been awhile since I took physics, but I came up with 46 seconds doing the conversion. Problem is, that particular equation does not take into account air resistance and terminal velocity (around 60 m/s). I'd say 3 minutes is probably closer the real answer. I found an equation that does take air resistance into account, but I don't feel like doing calculus today.

@WillowRun6-3

ICAO/civil aviation des not deal with passports of passengers excepting that all international passengers must comply with immigration requirements of destination state to be permitted to board. The PIC has authority over all souls on board, irrespective of nationality. What is currently under some review is how to handle any possible conflicts between the law under which the PIC exercises authority (the law of the state of registry) and the law of the destination where anyone ordered to be restrained by the PIC is taken over by local law enforcement.