Precisely. I would expect:

1. Quite a lot of information from pax cell phones - especially if panic broke out by the cockpit door.
2. A full DFDR which would provide all the information necessary to find out what was done from SSR deselect.
3. A useless CVR unless it was left selected and 'someone' was awake within 2 hours of ditching and talking.

All that information would be sufficient to identify root cause, and remove a lot of speculation. The root cause in turn would identify who if anyone would be the subject of litigation.

It is really important to find that airframe.

Retrieving information
 

Good points about the potential to retrieve information from passengers cellphones, laptops, tablets, etc.

I am curious if any telecomms folks on the forum could comment on the likelihood of being able to retrieve such information after what is likely to be months underwater at great pressures. We all know that FDRs and CVRs are "hardened" in such a way as to enable this (e.g. AF447) but I imagine that commonly used memory in such consumer products might be considerably more fragile. Thoughts ?

:ok:

that makes sense
 

Thanks Ian W. I get it now.
Like most everyone here I am semi-obsessed with this puzzle.

But surely there's an upper limit on costs.
We aren't close yet but I think it is clear that this could get really expensive.
There's not much economy of scale in a detailed search.
Some billions but not 100s of billions?
If we have to wait 5 years for an answer, doesn't the value decline?

It is a big ocean. I hope they find it early in the search.

I can't believe every time I come here this thread is at the top of the forum with almost 20 Mil views.

Now listen. They are not going to find it and if they did any evidence would be useless after getting dragged up from 3 miles deep.

Jeez let it go and move on. Sometimes s*^t happens and you can't plan for events like these.

And if you think cell phones would have any useful info after being submerged in a saline solution at great depth for such a period you may have to go back to school for some more chemistry and physics classes.

FDR
 

I think there is a pretty clear consensus that the track taken by the aircraft was the results of deliberate human inputs by someone familiar with the aircraft systems.

Now those on this forum who fall in this category will know precisely where to look for the CB which will render the quoted assumption invalid. I have already suggested (but was modded out) that the most likely scenario when/if wreckage found is that FDR recording stops at/about the same time the transponder was deactivated, and the FDR will contain 2 hours of silence.

Of course there is a slim chance that the FDR/CVR and possibly some other non-volatile memory from aircraft and passenger devices might yield some useful clues. Memory chips are enclosed in a fairly robust plastic casing, while the external contacts will corrode, the actual encased chip has a good chance of remaining undamaged. I know of several cases of lost / damaged underwater cameras retrieved with the sd card retaining the photos taken after a couple of years spent underwater.

@on the top bunk
Recently a camera was recovered that had been submerged in the ocean for over a year and the memory card was readable.

If you are frustrated when you come here and see the number of views, then save yourself the irritation and don't. Your rant here isn't useful.

I am curious if any telecomms folks on the forum could comment on the likelihood of being able to retrieve such information after what is likely to be months underwater at great pressures. We all know that FDRs and CVRs are "hardened" in such a way as to enable this (e.g. AF447) but I imagine that commonly used memory in such consumer products might be considerably more fragile. Thoughts ?

I don't know for sure, but keep in mind that integrated circuits are basically sophisticated rocks, and probably pretty sturdy.

"I think there is a pretty clear consensus that the track taken by the aircraft was the results of deliberate human inputs by someone familiar with the aircraft systems."

BBC

"The Australian authorities have laid out much of the analysis, and their reasons to go with the new search area, in a 64-page report.


While no-one yet can presume they know what happened on MH370, it is clear from reading this document that investigators are working on the idea that the crew was unconscious for the larger part of the flight. Everything we know about MH370, and everything we've learned from previous accidents, would seem to point to the jet ending its flight after having spent a long time on autopilot."

No, it isn't clear at all.
Being on autopilot says absolutely nothing about the state of the crew. A perfectly alert crew would also spend most of this trip on autopilot.
Also the document clearly states in bold type some of the assumptions were only made for the purpose of assisting in the search and may have nothing to do with the actual causes of the accident (page 35). They emphasize they are not accident investigation committee and shouldn't be confused with one.

SD cards and similar solid state storage are close on impossible to erase/destroy apart from being burnt. Data has even been recovered from SD cards that have had nails driven through them.

The electronics of the phone will die almost immediately on immersion but the solid state phone memory not at all. (A warning for all those who discard bricked cellphones one of the first things techies do on receiving such a phone is check and read the solid state memory and old SD cards, and run undelete to see if there is anything 'interesting')

'

Remember the Silk Air MI 185 Boeing 737 suicide crash? The investigation found that the two cockpit FDR circuit breakers had been pulled just prior the aircraft being pushed over into its dive. That meant no info after that was available to investigators. The CVR circuit breaker had also been pulled a few minutes earlier which is why the only CVR info that was available was the period before the CB were actuated by someone. If someone in the 777 went to the trouble of switching off the transponder and ACARS, chances are the same person may have tried to hide more vital information by disabling the CVR and FDR by some means (circuit breakers in the 777?)

Quoting MrDuck
"With the (reasonable) scenario most lately discussed..."

Because we don't KNOW:

If the scenario is what actually happened
If the boxes will have data or not (as others mentioned, this itself can be telling)
Heck, there is not a lot we do KNOW for sure other than the plane did not land as expected, millions of people are still fascinated by this and many families are in a lot of pain.

I know there are some other facts but they don't really tell us a whole lot. We reasonably believe this and that but we don't KNOW much at all. I think this is where the fascination comes from.

I think it's important to avoid the appearance of conflation of the notion of being on auto pilot or not with sinister or innocent intent. Not suggesting that's occurred, however it's easy for that impression to be formed. We simply don't know for certain. I would not presume the human motivation at this stage and I think to do that to some extent masks the technical process of discovery.

I'm wondering if auto pilot might be the only way to keep an aircraft under some resemblance of controlled flight, if it sustained damage to its pilot control mechanisms?

H. Harry:


It that premise is true, then it seems the crew would have been dead after a time rather than unconscious.

If they are accessible and they are confirmed as pulled it virtually confirms this was not a fire/accident/decompression scenario especially if done prior to or during the initial deviation from flight path.

Assuming recorder CBs are accessible can any 777 pilot tell us how long with practice it would it take the pilot (LH seat) to pull all comms, CVR & FDR breakers , 10sec, 30sec ? and out of interest could it be done as quickly from RH seat.

Seems to me that unconscious pilots would imply an uncontrolled entry into the ocean and unlikely to be a gentle impact. Apparently the autopilot could have remained engaged following the first engine flame-out but would have disengaged after the second engine flamed-out. This would apparently result in a spiral decent into the ocean with no control inputs. Thus a severe impact would have been likely with debris scattered, yet no debris found.

I suggest this Thread is held until any relevant further information is received?!

Nothing worthwhile is being added at the moment.

After a re-read of the last report, it seems that the length of the search zone is principally deduced from the aircraft fuel endurance (figure 20, page 22 (27 of PDF)). The length on the arc between the northern and the southern points is about 2800 kms.
It would have been "fair" if the fuel remaining quantity presumed included in the last ACARS have been given in the report... And what is the accuracy of the fuel quantity measurement?

The BFOs study then came to reduce this length, but "The potential aircraft location, where the derived flight paths cross the 7th arc, is very sensitive to variations in BFO frequency. A 10 Hz variation in the fixed frequency bias can result in the derived flight path at the arc moving 1,000 km." (page 42, 47 of the PDF)...

The general impression, IMHO, is that there is some tautology in the report, like presuming the flight was on AP after the south turn ... and finally finding it was.

Is there any news about the possible faulty line of the table 6 (Downlink Doppler) page 58 (65 in the PDF)? If the values are the same in the three columns (as it could be presumed), then nothing can be deduced about a 5° latitude location change from the registered BFO!

Here are the results of a MonteCarlo simulation, for constant speed/altitude final leg (from 18:29) like for the analysis B of the report ""Definition of the underwater search areas" available at the bottom of the web page:
http://www.atsb.gov.au/mh370/mh370-defi ... areas.aspx

The simulated ground speeds range from 320 to 520 kts and cover the final ping ring from -21 to -39° in latitude (see last link).

Only the top two deciles in the fitting criteria ( max_t|BFOsim(t)-BFOobs(t)|+µ * max_t|BTOsim(t)-BTOobs(t)| ) are displayed.

The more red the fitter: the hottest spot ranges from 28° to 32° south along the last ping ring (best run at 31°):
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3s...it?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3s...it?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3s...it?usp=sharing
It seems very close to the results of the analysis B of the report (see page 27) when the fitting criteria (on the BFO and the BTO/angles of elev.) uses only the last 5 hanshakes (handshakes after 18:29). When the criteria use all the handshakes, the hottest spot shifts 1.5° to the south.

I am no pilot (I'm a software engineer, for what it's worth), but I'm pretty certain that hundreds of pages ago it was stated that the 777 FDR & CVR breakers are downstairs in the EE bay, unlike in earlier Boeing aircraft where they are indeed cockpit-accessible.