Finally - BBC reporting that Chinese officials have released satellite photos of what they claim are large floating objects in the South China Sea - east of last known position.
I must say the photos look fairly promising, albeit not good news.

Not sure if already discussed but did they have CPDLC capability and were they logged on?

bille1319
 

Early posts indicate this part of the world is watched by the satellites constantly.

do civil airliners not have a big red do not flick depress switch that does the packs off outflow valve stuff for you? my type has one on the centre console next to auto/semi/man selections and is one of the biggies not to miss on preflight checks.

There is no CPDLC with Lumpur and HCM.

Barrel_owl ... The likelihood of China revealing its overhead imagery capability online is minimal.

Please consult Google Earth instead. :p

43,100 is the certified maximum altitude, but it could fly higher. There would not be structural failure. It would simply stop climbing at the limit of its performance for the power and weight. There is also a possibility of the wing stalling or aerodynamic buffet due to the speed of the air flowing over the wings.

You can read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffin_corner_(aviation)

Radar contact would not be lost at high altitude.

The autopilot would not be able to maintain the desired flight path and would then automatically disconnect. At that point the aircraft would be uncontrolled and would eventually crash.

BarrelOwl
At 16.55, KAL672 previously heading 054, turns to an apparent heading of 234 for a full 10 mins (until 17.05). It then Reverts to a heading of 041 before racing across the page (presumably in some sort of data catch-up). At all points in between, the data reports its heading as 234, which, if FA24 is to be believed, is data coming from the ADS-B transponder, itself reflecting the GPS coordinates of the aircraft.

CCA970 "appears" to do something similar for approx 2 mins at 17.01

Presumably this is corrupt/misinterpreted data, but perhaps goes to show just how (in)accurate FR24 is. Perhaps something else is going on - your guess is as good as mine, what that might be.

the sat recon birds which were alluded to are typically on very high apogees, and may (or may not) work in the visible spectrum.

geostationary is pointless for a recon sat (unless its a weather bird) as you can only take a picture of a limited area. so unless you want to look at a particular area constantly for a long time, most of the sorts,of assets that would be useful would be non geostationary.

Memories seem to be very short, hull losses over ocean are very rare and in two of the most recent it was some time before wreckage was found. It is also worth remembering that it took 22 months to locate AF447 on the ocean floor, despite the location being very close to its last known position.

What is the B777-200ER`s endurance/range at 10,000 feet, at say 75% MTOW.

Vin Rouge
 

You may be correct, but a couple of thousand posts ago, so very knowledgeable posters were very sure the area was watched 24/7, especially watching for flashes (missiles), etc., etc.

There have been no other sea, ground, or air witnesses to any type of explosion or fireball.

Chronus
 

Early posts indicated they would burn 50% more at 10K.

That would have given MH370 a 3 to 4 hour range at that altitude at a TAS of about 340Kts.

Vin Rouge
 

As I recall form when this first started, the ocean is about 30 to 100M deep.

Retrieval would be possible

IF you had excellent radar coverage, or satellite images of a neighbours territory, but didn't want to reveal that, maybe using a shaman to reveal the location of the wreckage would be one way of doing it.

Hi,

This is normal
The zone near the last know position was the first zone investigated but with no good search devices ..
Two years later they find it because the US investigation company used good devices ....

It's time to summarize again.

* All transponders were lost or shut down in the middle of Gulf of Thailand, at N6.92 E103.58, at 1:20 local time.

* No debris related to the plane were found anywhere near the spot.

* Shortly thereafter (~1:45), multiple witnesses saw a large plane flying at low altitude above Kota Bharu, 90 NM southwest of last known location.

* Shortly after that (~2:15), Malaysian air force reports tracking an unidentified radar target at FL295 in Malacca Strait off the coast of Phuket, 320 NM west-northwest of last known location.

* We know about a report by a Kiwi rig worker who saw a burning plane. He is unsure about the range, but his observation puts the plane roughly at N8.3 E107.5, or 250 NM east-northeast of last known location.

* Chinese satellites picked up large floating objects at N6.7 E105.63, or 120 NM east-southeast of last known location.

Eye witness on rig
 

Having read the Mike McKay eye witness email it appears to fit with the scant info we know. He would not at the time be able to see the a/c (night) or have known its flight path. Seeing a cruise altitude flame trail would I think be possible given dark, clear skies and if he had his night vision.
A 10-15 second time frame makes it sound like a single catastrophic failure took the a/c down which would agree with the total lack of comms. This is probably the best (only?) available evidence so hopefully they will trawl/sonar the reported area.
Given that his identity has been released it is unlikely to be a hoax.

I hope the latest news leads to finding the aircraft. Honestly, as scattered as the search has been so far, they are about as likely to find Amelia Earhart as the 777. :{

if i were a betting man, the chinese naval exercise around taiwan may have already picked up a pinger from the fdr. as alluded to, it looks as if the chinese know where it is, as the organisation they used to release the sat pics is probably state run.

matter of time before they find the wreckage.

I'm not sure if I'm buying this. Object dimensions they are reporting are too big to be pieces of the 777. Its fuselage is only 6 m in diameter. First two could be the large pieces of wings, third one would have to be the tail section with a chunk of fuselage, and even then it wouldn't get to 22x24 m.

From your six points, 1 & 2 are verified.

3 is hearsay, based on unverified news reports which have been neither confirmed nor denied by any competent authority

4 was hinted, confirmed, denied and admitted in this order. Make of it what you like.

5 was pretty convincingly discredited by a number of posts on this forum

6 seems to be from a credible source, let's see...

So far aside 6, not much new if compared to my summary in post 997 (http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/5...ml#post8362282) on page 50.

(Original post quoted in full in case server mis-behaves again)

Along the same lines, an exceptionally good summary of what we know so far from the Straits Times: http://www.straitstimes.com/the-big-story/missing-mas-plane/story/possible-sighting-mh370-north-west-penang-mystery-and-confusion (They even explain the difference between primary and secondary radar, something 99% of the word press failed to comprehend. Only in Singapore...)

It has puzzled me throughout his thread that there has been little focus on the Vietnam aspect. After all it now seems likely that it is Vietnam who lost contact not Malaysia since the last words from the plane were to acknowledge a 'contact Vietnam on xxx.yyy.After that its goodnight as far as The Malay or Singapore area controller is concerned isn't it? So now we have an ATCO in Vietnam no doubt with a flight strip or electronic equivalent telling him MH370 is going to check in any moment.-Trouble is , it doesn't ,so what does he do-since an Atco needs decent English as well as an ability to work with complex equipment he is probably a young and keen and therefore alert guy since that's probably a good job in 'nam. He waits and waits and then starts calling MH370 gets no reply and then contacts the handing over party to say-where is MH370 . and given Vietnams status and history he probably has a Mil controller to hand who he can talk to in order to see if he can spot MH370 on his Mil kit. How long does all this take because it seems to me it could easily take 15-20 mins which is about 150 miles further down whatever track MH370 was headed and if the comms went before the plane headed downwards for whatever reason the real search area is pretty huge. And as has been suggested if the Chinese military have good satellite imagery coverage of the area they are not going to immediately blurt out 'guess what we have just seen' are they.

In addition some posters way back suggested that the engine parameter monitoring by RR was not continuous in terms of reporting but only when thrust levels change. If the 'transponder off-dive to 500' asl people are to be believed surely the engine thrust has to be substantially reduced (this triggering another set of engine data) to avoid the plane just wildly over speeding by diving with cruise thrust settings. What link is used to send the engine data to RR

Re Chinese satellite images -

Depth of water at 6°42'N 105°38'E is 45 meters

The largest piece spotted by the Chinese satellite is 79 feet by 72 feet.

My first instinct is that it seems too large to be from a 777. Especially since it is floating on the surface.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y17...r.gif~original

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y17...m.jpg~original

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y17...3.jpg~original

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y17...2.jpg~original

Geostationary
 

Maybe. All I can tell you is the US launches a lot of highly classified satellites from Vandenberg AFB, California directly to the south. Those go into polar orbits as you describe, and as the earth rotates underneath them, they are able to "mow the lawn" every 24 hours.

We use that location because there is only ocean south of Vandenberg for 1000's of miles, so if the booster fails, their is a low probability of damage to anything on the surface.

We also send up a lot of highly classified birds out of Cape Kennedy, Florida. There are 2 reasons to use Kennedy. First, you've got about 1000mph of speed because of the earth's rotation, and that saves a lot of fuel. The other reason is that it's the most efficient base we have from which to launch satellites into geostationary orbit. Geostationary orbits have to be about 25,000 miles above the planet, far higher than the polar orbit birds launched out of Vandenberg.

Geostationary does not mean it cannot be moved and parked over a specific area. It can, depending on what you want to look at. But it does have to be near the equator. South or north of the equator the angle of view becomes more oblique, and the light passes though more atmosphere, causing increasing scintillation and a corresponding degradation of the image.

Tail, one wing and then everything else? As was said it would be surprising if the fuselage would still float.


The 2nd picture does look like a fuselage with wings or a tail section if you take away the cloud in the middle.

If the water is only 40 meters deep, some of what you see in the images might be sitting on the bottom.

Looks like, yes. I would have said the same. Tail section with elevators

What about a partially inflated escape slide-raft?

First thing I thought was "sitting on the bottom of the ocean" when I saw picture 2

http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p...1985/001m3.jpg

Not entirely similar... :confused:

I believe the point being made is that connecting non-flight critical systems to the same common communications network is a bad idea. Once such a system is connected to an aircraft data bus, it becomes possible to jam the bus with traffic that disrupts flight critical communications. This can be done in any number of ways and has been an issue in telecomms (we called it "the babbling bus problem" back in the 1960s), RF comms ("being stepped on", jamming, interference), and the internet (DOS (Denial of Service) attacks, SYN flooding, etc.). One can design ways to address these issues but it adds complexity and is difficult to test, as you must prove nothing bad can possible happen.

Reduced to the absurd, it is the same as connecting the highways at an airport to the runways with paved roads and trusting the planes and cars to play nicely - what could go wrong?

Forgive me if this has already been posted, but when the server is not melted down anyone can help search for MH370 with current satellite photos at:

Tomnod

My guess is that this is 370. Chinese imagery is much sharper
resolution than what they're showing for obvious reasons so they
must be confident. Image is from Sunday so backtracking water and wind currents will lead to underwater material. But, the way this mess has gone
it could be another false lead.

A poster asked about CPDLC.

Yes SINGAPORE AND HOCHIMINH both have and use CPDLC ADS-C

However on the flight plan MH370 used they would have gone straight from Lumpur Control to Hochiminh and NOT spoken or logged on to WSSS.

They may have logged on to VVTS....? VVTS ATC haven't said.

But yes VVTS CPDLC does work and I use it all the time.:ok:

Guess the Gmail from the rig worker could have been correct based on the position of the chinese images.

Well, just measured it on google maps and it's not that close after all. over 20° error. The distance is a moot point as he didn't really know.

I'm quite curious about the very time of the obviously (and clearly documented) first incident (all other data are speculative/non-confirmed, as of right now):

that was right after the pilot said 'good night' (verbally) to KL/Subang via VHF and before saying 'hello' to Saigon/HCMC, which obviously never happened.

What would be a reasonable time gap between such messages on a 'normal' flight on this route? 2 minutes? Is that a fair number?

Instead of this, the flight disappeared at the (almost) very same time on secondary radar.

Coincidence?

Given the standard route from Lumpur to Beijing, that point in time / position would make a perfect time stamp to make the flight 'vanish' to primary and secondary radar for whatever reason.

Any 'takes'?

Rig Worker
 

I hope this is a find.

I wonder why, with all the other eyes on land, air, and sea, that he was the only one to come forward.

Not saying he isn't truthful, but there are thousand of other eyes that saw nothing.