370 latest search area
 

so 65000 sq m to be covered. presume they will use at least two sets of wreck location equipment, starting from opposite sides or ends of the search area and finishing in the middle. using only one might result in the worst case scenario of not finding the aircraft until the very end or of course the opposite happy outcome of finding it on day one.

"If Zahari's aim was to hide the plane forever, to punish the Malaysian government or whatever, he might have seen the prospect of his own death as collateral damage. During times of war, men sometimes do things even when their death is inevitable; we regard them as brave warriors. One clinical psychologist talking about his experience of typical suicidal patients is irrelevant, there is nothing "usual" about this case - it is weird, whatever the "final" explanation is presented to us."

but he wouldn't have to kill himself nor anyone else, landing on one of australian islands would do a job

when we are at that, have they searched the northern areas at all?

Perhaps, but perhaps not if their radios comms were damaged. I think there are lots of gaps that investigators are filling in with assumptions, simply because they don't know. This can be a blessing and an Achilles heel in their investigative process.

These highly ranked officials coming out and making claims about what happened is really poor showing in my mind. They stuffed up the sonar pings and they were so Gung-ho confident prior to that. It appears they haven't even confirmed the source of the so called false pings. Thus were they really false? when prior they were extremely confident.

Deputy PM now claims the plane was likely on auto pilot. He could be right but that's not a proven fact. What if they used GPS navigation? I think the officials should only be reporting facts, but I guess they have few to go on so they are filling in the gaps, however given the errors they have already made, it's difficult to have confidence.

HeyIts007
They are merely assumptions intended to narrow down the search area. The report is quite clear on this pointing out that the assumptions have no bearing on the accident investigation.

Perhaps, but that sounds contradictory. If assumptions are intended to narrow down the search area, then how can they not have a bearing on the investigation process? I grant they need to make some assumptions and test them, but I think the public reporting of unproven assumptions might not be beneficial, as it creates public speculation and false expectations.

Of course they need to make assumptions
 

And if they had not made, used and explained their assumptions we'd have had another 6 months of incessant whining about "why are they concealing the details?" or "how can they do this without giving me, personally, every detail of their actions and decision making along with hourly updates?"

Hey, it is apparent that your reading differs from ours.

Investigators are those that will determine the possible or probable causes. There is no certainty that they will discover the certain cause.

The search organization's only link with the investigators is to deliver evidential material to them. Assumptions are purely there to create a viable search plan. Those assumptions may be modified in time.

Now politicians are different again. They are generalists, and while experts at saying one thing and meaning something else, the are not technicians. They may not appreciate or reflect the nuances in the experts report.

For those that are aware, the report is a model or clarity and caution.

Strange logic.
If you have just one you start most likely in the most probable place - say the center of the yellow rectangle and then proceed in circular/rectangular motion around it.

assumption: flight ends with spiral
 

From the report
http://www.atsb.gov.au/media/4911984...370-report.pdf

"- loss of radio communications
- long period without any en route manoeuvring of the aircraft
- a steadily maintained cruise altitude
- fuel exhaustion and descent
This suggested that, for MH370, it was possible that after a long period of flight under autopilot
control, fuel exhaustion would occur followed by a loss of control without any control inputs.
Note: This suggestion is made for the sole purpose of assisting to define a search area.
The determination of the actual factors involved in the loss of MH370 are the responsibility
of the accident investigation authority and not the SSWG
.
Also allowing for the fact that a maximum glide distance of 100+ NM would result in an
impractically large search area, the search team considered that it was reasonable to assume that
there were no control inputs following the flame-out of the second engine. Accordingly the aircraft
would descend and, as there would be some asymmetry due to uneven engine thrust/drag or
external forces e.g. wind, the descent would develop into a spiral."

I still haven't got that. Maybe because I'm just a CPL/MEPL, but why should fuel exhaustion under autopilot end in a spiral dive? Is the auto pilot on the B777 completely disconnecting on fuel starvation? I'd guess the Ram Generator would deliver the power for autopilot + controls, the envelope protection of the AP would prevent a stall and the AP would maintain the track. That would place the center of the search area about 100 NM forward in flight direction.

An airline that has shown the world how badly it was caught out with such a a long list of outstanding safety recommendations that it had failed to implement must be very frustrating for investigators.

It all depends on whether the A/P throws out on loss of power to its bus (it probably does) and what bus the RAT powers on double engine failure.

AndiKunzi:

The RAT on the 777 can't power all the aircraft systems. It only supplies power to a few essential systems, such as the Capt and FO flight instruments and the flight control power supply assemblies. The autopilot is not considered essential and is not powered by the RAT.

As stated on p33 of the ATSB report, the assumption is that one engine flamed out first, followed by the second, resulting in a loss of power to both AC busses. At that point, the flight control system would have reverted to a degraded mode, the autopilot would have disengaged and 'if there were no control inputs then it would be expected that eventually a spiral descent would develop'.

When operating in a degraded mode, the flight control system has no envelope protection, i.e. no stall, overspeed, overbank protections, etc.

- can you explain (simply, please! - or offer a link) what an eclipse is in this context?

what will we learn from finding MH370?
 

Let's say the next search is successful and for some n million $ we get a look at the wreckage and even retrieve the black boxes.

With the (reasonable) scenario most lately discussed we aren't going to find an intact airplane, but rather a whole bunch of bits widely scattered, except a lot of them will be held together by wiring etc. No hope of recovering bodies at this point, at least not for autopsy.

While it is possible the CVR might have comments made in the last hour, but even that seems unlikely. FDR will tell you it ran out of fuel, when, and maybe some info on the descent, but nothing about WHY unless it captured some sort of failure, but this airplane appears to have been mechanically fine.

So what if anything is gained by finding the bits, except perhaps a sense of finishing the job?

strange question
 

"So what if anything is gained by finding the bits, except perhaps a sense of finishing the job?"

the probable cause and any associated safety implications for the manufacturer and worldwide operators of the B777 and other aircraft types perhaps ?

Not sure, but what I do believe is that the US military have the airborne drone technology to conduct arial drone searches quickly. Thus they could have been checking out near all of the suspect areas for surface debris fairly promptly. With a Global Hawk RQ-4A or RQ-4A BAMS drone. They have high resolution cameras, approx. 1 metre resolution capable. They can search 40,000 square miles ( 200 x 200 miles ) in 24 hours.

MrDuck - could be lots of things. Has the onboard oxygen supply been used? Are there fire-damaged panels? Evidence of a struggle in the cockpit, or that people have tried to force the cockpit door? If the plane was uncontrollable but the passengers were still alive, we might find video on phones, last letters, etc.

The CVR and FDR may well contain meaningful data too; for example they should cover whether or not there were control inputs during the descent (which could be the difference between everyone being dead, the pilot(s) deliberately crashing, and the pilot(s) doing their best to achieve a water landing).

If/when they do find it, I suspect that they'll be able to get a pretty good idea of what happened.

Eclipse: on page 23 (page 28 of the PDF) of the last report.
Around the equinox, all the satellite in "geostationary" orbit are for a time in the shadow of the Earth, and so have to run on batteries and have their temperature dropping which can induce a frequency drift even if the oscillator is in a special location (in the sat architecture) which try to maintain it constant.

search area
 

correction; "priority" search area is 350km by 50km ie 17500 sq km.
presumably if aircraft is not found there the search will be extended.

Thanks Shadoko