Has it been confirmed the 'pings' are definitely from MH370?
 

Or from another aircraft sneaking through for legitimite or nefarious reasons?
That would explain if there was 'strategic planning' along the 'flightpath', if it was a completely different aircraft en route elsewhere.

How much information is contained in these 'Hello, I'm here' pings?


The following questions haven't been answered, have they been asked?
- Which countries within the search area have positively ruled out MH370 crossing into their airspace? Have any?
- Which countries did/do not have the capability to confirm whether MH370 entered their airspace? (I've read that southern Thailand was not covered, it may be the case that parts of Indonesia weren't too. How widely is this known?)

Simply a heads-up (as a change of programme), on TV Channel 5 here in the UK tonight (14th) at 9 pm/2100z for one hour - 'The Plane that Vanished: Live'.

So, has the aircraft crashed into the ocean or landed in some far away place ?

What is the general feeling ?

Thanks for reminding me not to watch this - no doubt more armchair experts being wheeled out for it now.

Nobody knows what happened.

I am beginning to think there are two heros in waiting here, who have negotiated to at least prolong the inevitable or possibly save lives. They appear, to me, to have left a quite specific trace with what they had available.

The idea that pilots would take a plane should surely be the least conceivable on this forum...

Tracking
 

Once the aircraft was low enough and in range of mobile phone masts then all mobile phones could be tracked and positioned with some degree of accuracy.

The phone does not even have to be on. Just the battery installed.

Once a few mobile numbers of the pax have been identified, pretty simple task, then the position of these phones should be easy to locate.

Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah - RE Flight Simulator
 

"Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah was in command of MH370 at the time of it's disappearance. Captain Shah was well known to many in the flight simulation community because he had developed an online presence in which he dedicated many hours of his time to promoting the enjoyment of flying generally, and flight simulation specifically.

In a manner of speaking, our community appears to have lost one of our own by virtue of the fact that he was also an accomplished 777 captain flying for a well respected airline.

There has been some conjecture in various locations around the internet as to what Captain Shah's relationship with PMDG might have been. Some have posited that since he is a flight simulation enthusiast and a 777 captain, he must therefore have been involved in the development and/or testing of the PMDG 777-200LR/F product line.

Aside from being a PMDG customer, Captain Shah had no relationship with PMDG Simulations.

Currently there are significant questions and mystery surrounding the circumstances of MH 370. As is always the case when something cannot be explained, there are many folks attempting to explain the event to the public using theories, guesswork and good, old-fashioned imagination. Some of these individuals are indeed experts attempting to apply reasoned thought process to the event in order to help the public understand what happened. Still others are working with outdated expertise, or lack of expertise in the type of flying involved, the aircraft involved or the technology involved.

Some of these commentators have focused on Captain Shah's love of the flight simulation hobby as a suggestion that he may somehow have played a role in the disappearance of MH 370. Such wild conjecture is not only insulting to those of us who wear or have worn the stripes of a captain, but has the potential to be damaging to the flight simulation hobby."

Please bear this in mind, regarding pointing the finger at Captain Shah.

What very precise changes?

If the ACARS 'pings' information is correct, then this route was constructed from between 5 and 10 triangulated positions at 30 min intervals. Just because someone has drawn a 'line of best fit' using known waypoints then superimposed it on a map of the area, that does not make it a verified route.

It is just a guestimate of where it may have gone.

dmba...The idea that pilots would take a plane should surely be the least conceivable on this forum...

History is not on your side. Only recently an Ethiopian plane was hijacked by the co-pilot with the Captain locked out. Aircraft landed in Geneva etc..

Thanks
 

James, your humility is appreciated. Fly safely and keep the f'ing door locked!
Cheers,
Muddy.

I think you'll find that they are supposed to be doing that anyway.

There is so much bizarre theories bandied about, we should remind ourselves of what we really know

1) A/c vanishing in mid flight is incredibly rare.
2) Hijack or terrorist action is much rarer (20-50x less likely) than pilot error or technical fault
3) We have no solid information beyond the LKP in the Gulf of Thailand, only rumors.

Then list what we don't know:

SAR is searching both sides of Malay peninsula, South China Sea and Andaman Sea, because they do not know where to look.
We don't know the transponder was switched off, just that it never showed up in Vietnam airspace.
We don't know that the a/c produced no RT or mayday, just that none was heard or recorded.
We don't know if the plane turned back or not
We don't know if the engines were running for hours afterwards
We have no evidence of a hijacking, ransom or terrorist action.
We have no evidence of a rogue or suicidal pilot, which are also incredibly rare and unlikely.
Lack of debris around LKP does not mean that it did not crash there.

There have been so many false leads now, we can't really believe anything beyond what was known in the hours after the disappearance. I don't expect an imminent breakthrough. Rumors and theories are flying around the internet, but what it seems to me is that the authorities and SAR resources really don't know much more than we do. They seem to be chasing rumors too. The internet has given "legs" to some of these rumors. This does not turn rumor into evidence.

It is deeply unsatisfactory, but there is no other conclusion. We as crew and passengers just have to live with no understanding of this unsettling incident until something turns up. Don't be surprised if this takes a few more weeks.

No.

Nothing can be disabled from the cockpit. All of the switches are fake. They are only there for show. The pilots can control nothing. It's all an illusion to make the flying public feel safer.

The pilots are actors.

It's all a show controlled from the ground, and choreographed through the transponder.

:rolleyes:

If the routing IGARI-VAMPI-GIVAL-IGREX is indeed correct, we're looking at a routing that is NOT following any high altitude airways. At 450kts GSP, this routing would have taken 1.5h, this another 2.5h short of when the pings ended. And at FL295…? This is looking more and more like a deliberate action to me.

Oyviv:
Quote
I just don't see that many suspicious sleepers in the passenger list.
Unquote

I thought there was a confirmed Chinese Uigher on board, from the same minority group that includes some terrorist activists who (apparently) murdered 29 at a train station in China a fortnight ago?

Seriously I have been reading this thread over the last few days and really with those that are so hung up on the whole flight sim issue I must say I'm quite disappointed.
I know a lot of professional pilots who use or have built flight sims at home, some due to passion of flying and some just to practice emergency procedures and approaches on the types they fly if they are feeling a little rusty.

The fact he has a home built sim really has nothing to do with the issue.

Pings
 

From WSJ, not clear if pings did actually transmit data or were just pinging. Data would have included altitude, heading, speed etc if actually received.

Not sure if this post will stay but I have a question I'd like to ask: How are the professional pilots taking this ongoing story? Is it all that's talked about? Does the not-knowing make you nervous when you turn up for work? As a non-pilot I can hardly begin to image how un-nerving this occurrence must be and I am curious as to how you deal with this on a daily basis :confused:

Xyze
50 pax at 75kgs (just an approximation of average weight) each plus 20kgs baggage would be a possible 4750kgs of freight. 1kg gold is currently about £27,000 GBP. Of course we have no idea what the freight was or whether it had any bearing on this ongoing mystery

There remains the possibility that data was triangulated using Spook sats. If so, they aren't going to divulge anything further. We will know whether there is anything to it within the next 24 hours if they locate the site. Or not.

oyviv
 

As a retired senior detective and AVSEC specialist, I laugh when somebody says they can't spot too many, sleepers in the PAX manifest.

If it were as easy to catch hijackers by reading down the PAX manifest, we'd catch them all easily.

Hijackers don't necessarily have the same profile as your average terrorist. Why? Because not all hijackers are terrorists.

As for the crew, the captain and first officer have nothing, it seems, in common. There is a large age gap. There is a large disparity in experience. One appears to be a man dedicated to his job, the other a bit of a playboy (if earlier reports are at all accurate).

And no one planning this type of op would have drawn attention to himself by publicizing that he had a fairly good mock simulator in his house.

If the aircraft has been nicked, its more likely to be via hijacking.

What is the source of FL295 as the altitude? If it is from primary radar, keep in mind that the altitude will be quite approximate, and that it will be in geometric altitude (like you would measure with a tape measure). Aircraft cruise altitudes are barometric altitudes, based on measuring air pressure and converting to altitude, assuming that the air pressure vs altitude is the same as the Standard Atmosphere. But, in the real world, with variations of air temperature and local atmospheric pressure, the relationship between barometric altitude and geometric altitude can easily vary by 1000 or 2000 ft at high altitude.

So, a report of FL295 from primary radar could easily be an aircraft cruising at FL280, FL290, FL300 or FL310 based on its barometric altimeter.

Personally no. I don't want to sound as if I'm callous or unsympathetic for the plight of the relatives, that's not the case and I'd like to know what happened but no two flights/accidents are the same and my job is to prevent another one from happening, not worrying about one I have no influence over.

TBH it's report for work as normal, get airborne, probably spend some of the time in the cruise talking about the accident and having a special chuckle about some of the theories in this place.....pretty much a routine day at the office.

FL295 was confirmed by the RMAF Chief.

So the captain builds and flies an advanced sim on his off days instead of going to the mosque 5 times a day - and HE is the suspect one!!?? Get real!

It's been 2000 posts since I last contributed, and whereas I truely appreciate the input from fellow professionals, from the aviation industry and others, I can't help but being angered by those writing here with the only purpose of satisfying their own curiosity and/or writing mindless nonsense. GO AWAY! Find another forum. Or stay. Read.. And learn.

As a retired senior detective are you satisfied that there is no reason the search the Pilot's homes?

Or would you prefer to help eliminate them from the enquiry by checking for any evidence?

+1


Also. I am taking Cockpit Entry Procedures a bit more seriously at the moment!

This seems a very clever job. Disappear at handover, change route a couple of times. Disable all communications.

The Malaysians and the US for sure know more than willing to tell the public. Too many smokescreens and confirm/unconfirms of leads. I am pretty sure those satellite images released by error by a Chinese state agency was another smoke screen to win time.

911 has proven the capabilities of Taliban. They know about aircraft. They never claimed the attacks.

What about hijacking the plane to a Taliban controlled area in Pakistan?
Or more likely just ditch the aircraft in a part of the Indian Ocean being certain it will be hard if not impossible to find?
Or was it heading for Karachi or a city in India and shot down?

Most passengers were Chinese. Uighur/Taliban terrorist attack?

so annoying to see these posts about the Capt and his flight sim hobby. What the heck! We fly airplane, love airplane (for most) and many of us have flight sim as a hobby. All these non-aviation people fishing for stuff on here need to use their brain a tiny bit: he's already a T7 captain, he doesn't need a home flight sim to learn how to hijack his own flight.
:mad:

The fact of a commercial pilot with 18000 hrs having a flight simulator set up at home is VERY VERY suspicious indeed. Sure, some of us airline pilots fly small planes on days off, but flying a 777 computer flight simulator in your spare time is unheard of in my experience and highly unusual. Apart from flying line trips, there are also the twice annual obligatory commercial simulator rides, very few pilots - if any - would have the desire to then also fly from home in some sort of low-fidelity set up, unless you were testing out certain dodgy scenario's.....

unusual for pilot with 18000 hrs, for many above 10000 hrs or so the fun fades and it really becomes more of a job. Ever heard of any pilots asking crewing for more flying rather than less? Didn't think so.

Evey_Hammond
 

Your answer lies in the word I have highlighted.

I'd say that although it will be a topic for discussion and much speculation, it will be business as usual.

Its not a crime to have a flight sim
 

For the love of god, pilots have flight sims,

i am a simply student pilot and i use my flight sim day in a day out practicing and refreshing on procedures and at $700 a nav flight its smarter to practice my navigation on a flight sim with my ipad

how do you think a Airline pilot practices? i wonder what the going rate for a 777 per hour is :ugh:

i practice aproaches and even emergency situations so that i am ready for when the worst happens "excluding the wings falling off of couse"

it is very common place for any pilot to have a flight sim

drop the nonsence

@Brika

The way I understand it, the way the logic works is like this:

If (engines running) then {
Every half hour {
Get (time, direction, speed, altitude);
If (engine event) then Get (engine status);
Get (other information);
Ping (time, direction, speed, altitude, engine status, other information) to recipients;
}
}

But, because the engine status and other information reports have been switched off, what was actually happening was:

If (engines running) then {
Every half hour {
Get (time, direction, speed, altitude);
Ping (time, direction, speed, altitude) to recipients;
}
}

On reception by Rolls Royce, this ping is automatically detected as null information and is therefore filtered out, probably with no record.

The ping with time, direction, speed, altitude comes from a source other than Rolls Royce.

What we know as a consequence of the US analysis is the location at the last ping, its then current time, direction, speed, altitude and when the engines were switched off.

There appears to be a gap in time between the last way-station and the reported engine off time. This is because the way-station is in the middle of the ocean. Hence, this does not tell us much.

Question: if the routing had been maintained after the last way-station passed, what would be the identity of the next way-station and when would it have been passed?

@James7 (sorry I cannot find the quote function...)
Ref your post in italics below:


"dmba...The idea that pilots would take a plane should surely be the least conceivable on this forum...

History is not on your side. Only recently an Ethiopian plane was hijacked by the co-pilot with the Captain locked out. Aircraft landed in Geneva etc.."


Also recently (Nov 2013) a LAM Embraer 190 was "hijacked" by the Captain and flown into the ground enroute between MPM and LAD, killing all 27 occupants.


http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/5...rashed-11.html


Maybe not so inconceivable anymore...?

Not professionals.

Some have light airplanes, some fly gliders; most try to forget about all of it on their own time.

About the 'pings'
 

Those of you postulating about whether the 'ping' paging addresses from the aircraft's SATCOM system reporting would contain GPS, flight level, speed, heading, etc.....it clearly didn't because it didn't pass over ANY data string. Get it into your heads, as confirmed officially, the airline was not signed up for this aircraft to pass SATCOM data of this type to Boeing.

Why do you posters keep going over the same ground asking about data transfer from the aircraft?!

What the plane WAS doing is, nevertheless, continuing to page the (non-contracted into) satellite monitoring system with its 'pings'.

Now, if there were two satellites or, better, three which had logged only those pings against accurate time, that would - when all the mountain of data is analysed - provide a position. The continuing repeat 'pings', with known time frequency, would enable the monitoring organisation to extrapolate the heading and speed, and maybe the altitude, for as long as the 'pings' lasted.

As most incidents have multiple factors. Adecompression with mec fire with multiple bus failures, and in doning oxy masks the oxy bottles were refilled with nitrogen(the ground ones that is) this transfered to aircraft.
They just tried to turn back before being overcome with toxic fumes.Drop to FL295 give best TAS

Like UPS and asiana 747s
Everything supposition until they find something

I've got an air rifle in my loft, a selection of knives in the kitchen, a pilot's licence and a map of the World.

I don't believe it - I'm a knife wielding, gun toting, international suicide pilot - AND I NEVER KNEW IT!!!

Seriously though, I'm pleased no one's mentioned the parachutes kept in the flight deck - just in case we decide its a bad day and we've had enough!

@aterpster and Comanche
 

I've been flying commercial (747 and AB340s) for longer than I care to admit, and I have a flightsim at home in the basement. Does that make me crazy or a criminal?

Lots of my colleagues fly sims at home, or go to a location near YYZ where they have a near professional grade simulator that one can rent. Simulators allow you to fly situations that you hope you will never encounter in real life, or simply try other virtual AC just for the fun of it.

You guys...

@KenjaDROP

Your statement:
is TRUE.

But there were other recipients than Boeing of data transmissions (via ground station or SATCOM). These include RR, who have confirmed that they received the first two normal transmissions.

bcmpqm
 

"Could MH370, if it had been flying for 4-5 hours have successfully landed on a 4500' runway at sea level?"

Yes, but it would have to be a real pilot with some practice at same.