Av Herald: A possible debris field reported by Cathay Crew enroute to KL
 

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BiYLRfzCIAAT9XF.jpg

The left red box is a long way to not be spotted on primary radar!

Hedge, probably because the whole industry is jittery right now. And that includes the PAX. Its in the interest of all, for whatever happened, be released as soon as possible, as they have always done. People, given something concrete to deal with, find is easier than facts kept behind closed doors. The industry needs to know what happened to that aircraft, and as soon as possible.

Re: Earlier comment about the 2009 Air France recorder recovery:
Debris does not mean answers. With AFR447, there were some details transmitted from the aircraft via ACARS that night. However, the full picture of what actually happened (including the prolonged stall and a stall warning that only functioned when the aircraft was starting to recover from the stall due to the computer disregarding very low airspeed indications) as well as crew inputs were not known until the flight recorders were recovered. That happened in mid 2011, about two years after the accident. Air France and the French government tried with great effort to locate the flight recorders before giving up and hiring Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution to find the recorders. Phoenix International recovered them shortly thereafter.

Also - China deploys 10 satellites to help in search for Malaysia jet

China deploys 10 satellites to help in search for Malaysia jet | Reuters

Aside from the Payne Stewart Learjet incident there has been another prominent case of crew and PAX being knocked out by hypoxia. Helios Airways flight 522 in 2005, a Boeing 737.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios_Airways_Flight_522

The problem was simply that the pressurisation system was set to "manual" instead of "automatic". The 737 flew on auto until fuel was empty and crashed.

In case of MH370 I wonder where it would have ended up in such a scenario. For sure it would have gone far, but it should have attracted attention somewhere on the way?

If they think the aircraft attempted to turn back, then why are they looking in the Malacca Strait? Unless the maps are deceptive, from the last known location, a return to origin would be just west of south. The Malacca Strait is west. That doesn't sound like "turning back."

A shootdown ?

What target do you go in search of in darkness and at 2 am ?
Any hi-jackers may have done just a little planning I would have thought.


If that would be a serious option perhaps closer to the end of the flight would make a statement and be some form of possibility, certainly as far as seeing a potential target goes.

I don't see anything that suggests the aircraft has been taken over.
After 3 or 4 days I also doubt very much that the media, and us, are getting told anything like the real facts. This certainly is a strange one and I feel for the friends and relatives.

Oh, trust me - I agree with the need to get pertinent information out as quickly as possible. However, I don't believe any pertinent information yet exists.

If, by chance, some miscreant or gang of miscreants brought this aircraft down by force (be it an explosive or a hijacking gone wrong), we won't know the full nature of their actions for quite some time. As a result, we can't be any more mindful of our environment than we are at this very moment.

If the aircraft failed, we won't know THAT for a long time, either.

And yes, I agree that the Malaysian government bears a responsibility to our industry to disseminate whatever information they glean from this case as quickly as possible. I just don't think they know anything.

The general public, facts or no facts, will be unnerved by this incident. Regardless of the cause, the perceptual damage to the industry is already done, yet the flying public seems to have an unreasonable expectation that the case be wrapped up before the evening repeat of American Idol (42 minutes, if you record it and skip the adverts).

It seems the local guv has plainly stated that the odd search area is due to the possibility that the aircraft turned. What else could be covered up at this point?

Thanks to Pom pax link we now have times an cycles.
AFTT: 53465.2
Cycles: 7525

I would note on the Southwest 737 the total cycles was 39,786. BUT, they estimate the first crack started at about 1500 cycles.

Ntsb report in word format, with pretty pictures of the bird is here: http://www.ntsb.gov/doclib/reports/2013/AAB1302.pdf

It is not beyond the realm of possibility that this could be a failure do to a hidden manufacturing defect.

Their search may have nothing to do with aircraft turning or not turning (evidence of either can be sketchy) . Perhaps they simply want to search everywhere their search assets can be easily dispatched because of easy logistics and/or distance - clearly other countries are covering other areas.

I'm still scratching my head here ...
 

The last known location for MH 370 @ IGARI.
The initial SAR efforts were centered around IGARI. (East of Peninsula Malaysia)

Then we get a cryptic statement that radar indicates a turn back may have occured. MMEA starts by initiating a search in the Malacca Straits centered around Pulau Perak

We now have an expanded SAR area that includes the Malacca Straits and up to the Andamans. This is west of Peninsula Malaysia. The new search area is HUGE, nearly five times that of the search area centered around IGARI.

The head scratcher for me is this ...

How is it possible for a large commercial airliner to fly from IGARI to the Malacca Straits, without getting picked up by an assortment of civil/military radar?

If you straight line IGARI to Pulau Perak, you come within spitting distance of 2 military airbases (Butterworth and Gong Kedak) and 2 civil airports (Penang and Langkawi)

I do not know for sure what is the radar coverage like in that region but surely, in a border zone between Malaysia/Thailand with 4 airport/airbases on the Malaysian side alone, there must be some kind of comprehensive coverage?

So unless MH 370 did some really spectacular low level flying to get under radar coverage, then either ...

i) It did get picked up by radar crossing the peninsula, hence the rather large west coast search area. IF SO, then why are the people "in the know" still searching IGARI?

ii) It did not get picked up by radar approaching/crossing land. IF SO, why the humongous search area in the straits of malacca on the basis of a short radar track indicating a turn back? Unless they had a much longer radar track of MH 370 beyond the turn back?

iii) In which case, Gong Kedak airbase operates SU-30 MKMs, Butterworth airbase operates F/A-18Ds. These are front line fighters for the RMAF, with at least a couple of birds on Alert 15/30/60(?) that could have been scrambled to have a look-see? To me, a large commercial jet deviates 180 deg and does not respond to comms, heading back towards land surely warrants an intercept to have a look-see?

I can understand a difficulty in locating MH 370 if it crashed outside radar coverage and expanding the search area further with a bias towards no-radar coverage areas.

I find it difficult to understand searching a supposedly high radar coverage area, unless they know it did crash there and are not telling us ...

Much appreciated if anyone can shed some light on this.

Some Questions and an Observation
 

Was MH370 equipped to send ACARS data stream - if so to whom, the airline, Boeing?

What is the range of the of the emergency signal emitted from the black box?

If the plane ditched in the Malacca Straits it must have overflown Malaysia; but its transponders must have been turned off or the flight path would have been visible to FR24 etc right? But visible to military defence systems right?

AF447 should have been much harder to find but for the relative transparency of Air France and other authorities concerned and therein I suspect, lies the rub.

Assiduous moderating (for which, thanks!) has not avoided this PPRUNE mention in the Sydney Morning Herald:
Missing Malaysia Airlines plane: the conspiracy theories

As of this morning (Tues, March 11, Vietnam local time), Vietnamese SAR have widened their search area to 20,000 sq km, out to Con Dao Island, which is 97NM SSW of Vung Tau (approximately 180kms).
The Vietnamese SAR crews are searching to the East of the Vietnamese mainland as far out as Con Dao, and also the area South of Con Dao.
Vietnamese SAR currently have 12 aircraft airborne, including 2 x CASA-212's equipped with "modern technical devices to European standards".

@ Long Time in CX:

The video purports to have been or contributed to someone's master's degree thesis. I couldn't comment. The fact remains, though, that since it was (and remains coz I just looked it up) on YouTube, then, for as long as it has been published, it has to be considered to have been in the public domain. If terrorists have used the internet to exchange bomb "recipes", buy weapons etc, they might well also know how useful YouTube is for making a homemade particle accelerator (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIkP9V_n9OU) !!! Look, everyone knows how to conduct an internet search and if YouTube is such a useful source of "know-how", then access to videos such as the B777 underfloor equipment bay hatch would be a cinch. If the matter had been discussed in the classroom before making it into a video, then it was no longer a secret even before the publication date. I suppose society needs to decide whether such talk is deemed careless or otherwise. Either way, in this case, the cat was already out of the bag.

You are very right, though, CX old-timer, to highlight the matter of disclosures. If pilots, engineers or other crew/staff spot a glaring error, there are channels of communication. It is a shame if, as people like the original poster of this video on here claimed, their efforts to use those channels to highlight a glaring problem go instantly to File 13! On this note, is this an innate problem of our wonderful communications technology? Is there just too much information going around? Does technology at once confound the innocent and assist those with ill-intent?

The best that can happen, now, over this particular matter is a modification, licketty-split!

Perhaps French (and Brazilian) were more technically competent and lucky, they found debris relatively quickly and luck may also have something to do with it. But I see zero evidence of lack of transparency in this case. As a 777 pilot explained - ACARS transmission is not 100% reliable specially when SATCOM is involved.

No ELT transmission heard yet (impact unlikely)

No Seismic data

No Mayday call

No Flashbang registered

No debris so far (70+ vessels)

All happened at a waypoint where radar contact lost (supposedly)


All comms lost and no eye witnesses

Military radars could have seen it but it takes a human being to actually crunch the data and call a target a 'threat' and act upon it. It isn't military business to sort out a stranded traffic. I bet I could fly in a jet over most of Europe, turn transponder off and none would try to pursue me, shoot me down, unless I ventured over very sensitive areas, perhaps I would be met by stern-faced aviation authorities after landing...

Interesting quote from a Jakarta newspaper (How can jet disappear? In the ocean, it's not hard | The Jakarta Post)

The powers that be are indeed holding something back. How important the information is and why they're keeping quiet is of course unknown.