I promised myself I shall remain silent until some new facts become known, but the official acknowledgement by the Malaysian Air Force chief that MH370 was tracked for over an hour after loss of transponder signal calls for some re assessment of what we know till now:

(NOTE: below deductions are valid IF the acknowledgement is substantially true)

• The loss of primary radar contact at 2:40 EXACTLY matches what was initially reported by MAS in their very first statement (still on their website). This was subsequently modified to 1:21 when transponder signal was lost (as reported by FR24), and a seemingly plausible explanation was given that the 2:40 is to be understood as when Subang centre notified MAS on the loss of comms.
• In a press conference on the 9th March, the Air Force chief already hinted that the aircraft 'may have' turned around. This was downplayed in the next couple of days, as SAR efforts concentrated around the last known transponder position.
• Clearly in the mean time significant SAR efforts have commenced in the Straits of Malacca, however in the past 2 days they were not commented on, or were dismissed with 'we are exploring all possibilities'. Only after if became clear (and extensively discussed on forums like here) to anyone with some knowledge that the search is now concentrated to the west of the Malay peninsula was the admission made.

From the initial slips of tongues (understandable in the evolving crisis situation) it would appear that already at the start of the events this was known, and possibly much more. In light of above, any official statement on (non)existing ACARS messages need to be treated with a good degree of caution.

All this is combined with the well known dread of 'losing face' in the region, which may result is some quite irrational decisions even quite high up in the hierarchy.

Of course several questions remain:

• Can we believe this information, after it is contradicting previous earlier statements (but add up with yet earlier ones) ?
• Do they have any more information on what could have happened other than the position of the aircraft ?
• Was the wild-goose chase in the Gulf of Thailand a diversion, or they genuinely had no clue which information to believe ?

Well, I can now join the ranks of those whose posts have disappeared just as mysteriously as the 777. Perhaps there's a storage problem at PPRuNe and the server is dumping in order to stay under limits?

In any case, I posted a theory last night that perhaps the captain, upon becoming aware of a problem simply called dispatch and they suggested that he not continue, but return to Kuala Lumpur. Why he might have done so without informing ATC could have to do with losing his HF radios due to electrical problems. He might have still had VHF contact with company via the emergency bus.

That could explain why the company thinks he might have turned back. It's also why the wreckage isn't along the radar plot in the Gulf of Thailand to the North.

Even if he proceeded directly back along his route, he might have swung wide to the North and West of the airport due to limited flight control, in order to set up for a long final to runway 32 L or R. Thus he may be down in the northwestern end of the Malacca Strait.

As for why not a straight in to 14, he might have been conserving altitude and upon seeing the lights of the peninsula, realized he would be too high for that.

@ThomasDoubting

According to this report they descended to 1000m.

Maritime agency says no information about signals from missing plane - The Malaysian Insider

But then again...

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/m...alacca-straits

Which report is correct? Take your pick...

On a Wing and a Prayer?
 

""The missing plane was involved in a crash in August, 2012, when it damaged the tail of a China Eastern Airlines plane at Shanghai Pudong Airport, according to unconfirmed reports.

....in the incident, the tip of the wing of the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 broke off..."


http://cdn.feeyo.com/pic/20120810/20...0951017177.jpg
http://i6.hexunimg.cn/2012-08-09/144577673.jpgChina Eastern
http://news.xinhuanet.com/energy/201...563968_11n.jpg


One might assume that the wing(tip)(?) destroyed during the MH370 airframe's 2012 taxiing accident was repaired properly. However (see image) it did take one almighty clout when it struck the China Eastern acft's tail a few years back. That wing actually lost quite a few jagged feet of span. It was a classic case of a dominant force striking an immoveable object - and the failure was well inboard. A very pedestrian and mundane accident you might say. The fore-aft (i.e. chord-wise) propagation of the collision forces would have tended to concentrate, via the main- and sub-spar(s), at the wing-root - but the wing-root wouldn't necessarily be the weak focal point of any future turbulence (or metal fatigue) induced failure. I'll explain why below.

The wing out as far as the engine pylon mounting is quite beefy and rigid, because it has to contend with the inboard fuel tanks and the engine's weight and thrust - as well as minimizing the flexure caused by its inertia (you've seen how much the wing-mounted engines appear to move inflight relative to the fuselage, right?). From the engine's pylon-mount out to the wing-tip is less rigid, i.e. it's designed to allow a high aspect ratio wing to soak up turbulence-induced flexing. The mid-span of this pylon-to-tip distance was where the 777's RH wing was torn off. Not just damaged or dented, but TORN OFF. Did Boeing replace the entire RH wing? No it didn't. That starboard wing was "repaired". You'd have to wonder how the assessment of an "adequate" repair was done, given the extensive damage to a large section of outboard (i.e. missing) wing. Wingtip taxiing accidents tend to be dismissively "ground rash". This one may have been just a bit more than that. Wing repairs are several orders of magnitude more consequential than fuselage or tail repairs. "G", I wonder why? - you might ask. Obviously the considerations go far beyond the cosmetics of incidence, conformity and airflow-friendly re-skinning. Justifiably, the main concern would've been for ongoing operational structural integrity. This often leads to a very beefy repair scheme. No engineer would endorse or certify any repair less sturdy and reliable than afforded by the original structure..... and also because the question of "how much is enough?" is a tough one when considering a major wing repair scheme and the implications of undetected additional hidden damage. Replacement is often the better option. But that might not be what the insurance company is prepared to pay for, especially since there's a considerable history of simply replacing the wing-tip or its endplate winglet fairing after a bit of "ground rash". But this one was a little more than just a wing-tip. Try and convince an insurance assessor of that, in a circumstance that's so very familiar to insurance assessors and their bean-counters.

Catastrophic failure of a wing repair inflight is almost incredibly incomprehensible. But then again, the China Airlines 747's tail-scrape repair led to a high altitude instantaneous break-up at max cabin pressure differential a few years later - and consider as well the Boeing repair on the JAL 747 rear bulkhead that failed and led to a fatal loss of control? These events (and there have been similar others) should be convincing enough for an argument that a "sufficient" structural repair may not stand the test of time and the unforgiving operational environment. Consider also that a fuselage repair and a wing repair is chalk and cheese from a structural fatigue point of view. The wing-span is always "soaking up" an incredible continual imposition of very variable flight-loads, whilst the fuselage is merely taking a pressurization "hit" just twice per flight. So what are the chances and likelihood of the wing failing in the vicinity of the repair-patch? What could cause that and what would be the subsequent chain of events?

Consider that a wing is designed to have a natural harmonic and that this is achieved by a laterally harmonious gradation of each wing's structure from its wing-root to its wing-tip. Each side's original wing will have an almost identical natural harmonic (i.e. if you loaded up each wing-tip on the ground and simultaneously released those loads, each wing-tip's diminishing movements around the mean would be graphed as identical - as each wing's oscillation faded away cyclically to its static position). Would this be the case with a repaired wing? Not really, as the extra internal structure introduced by the repair's ironmongery would significantly change that sides' wing-flexure characteristics. Would Boeing engineers have compensated for this by ballasting (or beefing up?) the other wing? Not at all likely methinks.
Would a flight-crew detect any such dissimilar lateral flexure characteristic in the aircraft's gust responses? You have to take into account the "active controls" used in modern airliners for gust alleviation. Flight Control Computers compensate for turbulence-induced wing movements by minuscule aileron responses. It's designed to soak up and take the "bounce" out of turbulence and promote a more comfortable ride. If the wing on the collision side was slowly failing (i.e. structural fatigue damage propagating along micro-cracks in its repair doublers?), would the "active flight control" system disguise and (to a certain extent) alleviate or mitigate this? Possibly. Alternatively, could it exacerbate the cracking of a failing spar? Don't know .... but someone might. My suspicion is that "active flight controls" would promote crack growth in a weakened structure that was spider-webbing towards eventual failure. It would achieve a repetitive concentration of stress in its ongoing opposition to natural flexing.

If the taxiing collision occurred just two years ago, the MH370 aircraft may not have undergone a major servicing since its wing repair. Such servicings are predicated upon total flight-time and certainly that interval's not ever varied just because a major structural repair has been carried out. So anything going on inside that wing may have gone unnoticed in the long interim. It's unlikely that Boeing would have mandated any "how's it going?" non-routine inspection to see whether that repair was holding up OK - or to see whether there had been any further fatigue damage or developments (perhaps further inboard) that was beginning to manifest itself. As the manufacturer, Boeing would've been inclined to demonstrate "sight unseen" confidence in its repair work. Arrogant or not, the FAA wouldn't intervene. It's a Boeing supplicant.
When would such a culminating inflight failure be most likely? Possibly while the aircraft was still at its heaviest and on encountering clear air turbulence at or near top of climb (or whilst accelerating to cruise Mach). Would that be its most vulnerable point? If that repair gave way, (as most inadequate or improper wing repairs eventually do), what would be the sequence of events? Remember that up until the point of failure, the gust alleviation system would have been disguising (and even moderating?) any signs of imminent failure. In my opinion any such failure in turbulence would be in a DFDR identifiable two parts - firstly the progressive failure (over a few seconds) of primary structure (wing spars and internal bracing buckling as flight loads quickly transfer to inferior sub-structure) - and then the rapid deterioration of the scenario as the secondary structure failed under the increased loadings (the secondary structure being the wing-skin -as the skin does assume much of the inflight loading). As the wing folded, the aircraft would begin to roll to the right quite rapidly (at circa 180 - (increasing to about) 360 degrees per second - around its fore-aft axis). The pilots would be out of the equation at this point - as the aircraft spiralled rapidly down. However there are reports of a garbled transmission. This is likely to have been during the first phase of failure as the pilots became aware that something was happening. However they are unlikely to have discerned that the wing was slowly folding.... or rapidly losing its structural integrity.

What about ACARS reporting of these sudden developments? I'm wondering just what it could (or would) have reported to the company by way of exceedances or untoward abnormalities (??). Engines and systems would still be running normally, but the g forces in the spiral would've been quite high. In any case, would the ACARS report transmission succeed in a rapidly rolling and spiralling scenario? Or must its antenna be more or less static and upright in order to retain a synchronous lock with its associated satellite? Lastly, would the DFDR record of prior flights retain any record of differentially dissimilar flight control activity that may have indicated any deteriorating structural integrity in the RH wing? Probably not, as the compensating activity would've been via mutually synchronous aileron inputs - and not just the RH or LH spoilers. What would be the effect of landing arrivals impact be upon any propagating failure? Likely it would not tend to add to the deterioration of any cracking. It would be acting in the opposite sense.

If the pilots were disabled by the g forces and shock of a rapid roll into a spiral descent, the engines may have remained at high power and thus the aircraft's spiral would have tightened. The impact would have been at high speed under high positive g by an intact fuselage - and the damage would've been smithereening..... i.e. all fragments would likely have lost flotational dimensions - at least for anything visibly significant to aerial searchers.

Feel free to dismantle or disparage or to relate an alternative version of such an explanation. It is starting to look like a case of the simplest explanation being the most likely one. Falsetto passports don't necessarily promote accidents. Actual accidents always come complete with herrings rouge to some degree. Sometimes crashes just stem from the unexpected consequences of false economies. I'm reasonably confident that this will be the lesson learnt. They're always hard lessons and often they are quite revelational. Wing loadings are up. Think about that and respect that fact. It's an attritional process, post-repair degradation. Even when it's "just ground-rash", failure is never an option. How many other simplistic ground-rash repairs are out there awaiting their turn to insult Boeing or Airbus expertise? Think about it. Now repair the despair.

Accidents happen. But sometimes/oft-times, they are just a result.

So reading through many of the posts, cannot see many theories that seem to fit what appears to have happened.

No debris spotted (still)
No mayday calls
No messages sent from aircraft via ACARS etc.
No transponder info

Which would appear to equal

Steep descent into water (small debris field and needle in a haystack)
No transmissions made (why?)
ACARs switched off or disabled (why?)
Transponder switched off or disabled (why?)

What we heard/know:

• MH370 made a turn at about 2:40 and at the same time all comms die
• At 2:43 a US base supposedly receives a message from MH370 that the cabin is "disintegrating"
• 1:10 later MH370 is spotted on military radar being near Pulau Perak
• No debris anywhere along route
• Two PAX with stolen passports are not related to any terrorist org

Conclusions:

• MH370 did not crash on/near the route
• Turn was manually initiated & comms disabled at same time (why)
• Plane was evidently still flying 1:10 after it had "disappeared"
• Most likely not a terrorist related event

But what it it then? It is starting to make less and less sense to me. Unless all the comms equipment is in the tail of the 777 and the airframe (cabin, not wing) had structural issues (why?).

Why?
 

So, as predicted (And challenged) way back in the thread, the Malaysians were indeed witholding information.

Don't we need to ask why, especially since it resulted in the waste of so many resources in the Gulf of Thailand/SCS for at least two full days.

The next question would be what else are they witholding? The aircraft was tracked with Military Primary radar into The Straits of Malacca. You can guarantee that the Indonesians were doing the same because its flight path would be towrads Aceh Province in North Sumatera, where the security forces are still very jittery. So with all this Military technology brought into play, surely they must have a much better idea of where to look.

As an earlier poster said, this aircraft could have continued to fly West into the Indian Ocean for another 5 hours before running out of fuel. Is Malacca yet another red herring?

Sounds plausible.


Would be ironic if it turns out the Malaysians themselves then shot it down with a SAM, mistakenly believing it was some sort of North Korean mischief (the North Koreans have been lobbing missiles around unannounced recently). It would explain the lack of statements from the Malaysian military and government.

Yancey OK - we'll have to disagree ;) I have fair reason to believe that some 777s (and know from other ac types I fly / have flown) only have non ship powered ELTs, that are manually activated by crew. They are fixed / stowed in the cabin towards the rear. No 'g' switch.

In each case, I also believe / know the more modern deliveries / variants have ELTs mounted in the roof, that are ship's power / systems connected, and deploy by 'g' switch.

But I am asking of a 777 current pilot to confirm (or not) what I am saying, and how that relates to this 777.

NoD

FAA AD extract posts 787 issue @ LHR:i.e. some regulators do require "fixed" ELTs, some do not.

You are assuming a normal electrical system.....

Do you guys remember this image from the DELTA 767 showing the transponder after the MAD incident:

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

Simple question, but where is the same equipment located in the 777?
If as suggested by some an inflight wing issue would have taken place, and if the transponder is located in such wing, then this would then stop operating, all at the same time: 02:40

Hi All,

I have been watching this thread from the begining with considerable self-discipline to refrain from posting.
But the latest news about mil radar tracking of this unfortunate flight for more than one hour on an opposite track gave me the last momentum to post:
IF IT IS TRUE, WHY THE .... THEY STARED A HUGE MULTINATIONAL SEARCH AT THE SITE OF THE LAST CIVILIAN PRIMARY, SSR/ACARS, WHATSOEVER CONTACT AREA NORTH EAST AF MALAYSIA????

b

I concur with that comment and can support it with my own personal experience. On more than one occasion I have tried to locate a small island (typically in the South Pacific) in order to land on it using a Twin Otter, and the island - though very much present on the surface of the earth - has not been depicted in the Google Earth satellite view.

My guess is that Google Earth has an automated routine that filters out small visual anomalies in the sea surface such as sunlight reflections, oil slicks, stuff like that, and many small islands get caught up in that filtering process.

(for Philipat and balaton)
In defense of the Malaysian authorities: it may have taken some analysis by the best radar operators and analysts -- who'd not be on the night shift, but on the day shift -- of radar the tapes/data from the night shift to arrive at the conclusion that the radar contact being tracked was indeed the airliner they had been looking for. Such analysis takes time. As they were undertaking this analysis, their request for US and AUS P-3 searches on that side of Malaysia was a prudent coverage of an unknown that had not been eliminated. Good to have friends like AUS and US, eh? :ok: As it was an unknown, the Occam's Razor search of last known posit was going to be a good best guess for a SAR effort.

Having both areas covered allowed Malaysian team trying to coordinate all this to get some eyes in possible search areas while they sorted out the (seemingly contradictory) information they had and got it into a comprehensible form.

Real life isn't Hollywood. As I noted some pages back, a real Search and Rescue operation confronts the organization tasked with conducting the search with a host of unknowns. If you add to that "face saving" bits, their odd disclosure pattern begins to make some sense, even if our own preference for transparency makes us hungry for more.

@ the Shadow: Thanks for that discourse on repairs. Good food for thought. Skyjob, also thanks for that ponit in re 767.

My problem with accepting the repair failure (fatigue) as the root cause of the missing aircraft is that a wing repair failure would not necessarily disable radios, transponders, nor ACARS. Then again, only some of the pieces of this puzzle are on the table. A few more pieces are needed to beging to recognize the picture taking shape. In support of your idea, some of what you present fits some of what is currently known.

As to the "it's breaking up" SIGINT point (2:43 am) from a Chinese source citing an American listening post in Thailand ... would not the US have confirmed or denied that data point in the interest of assisting the search effort? I'd be interested to see if that report is rubbish, or has some substance to it.

@ Trim Stab
I think some of our friendly folks with eyes in the sky would have been tracking any North Korean missile that made its way a few thousand miles towards Malaysia. Just sayin' ;) I think you are reaching on this ... with orangutang arms! :)

WHAT WE REALLY KNOW:
 

1. a 777 is overdue at its original destination.

2. it is well beyond fuel exhaustion by this time.

3. gravity has lead this plane to the earth, somewhere.


4. Search efforts by responsible military units and others have begun.


EVERYTHING ELSE WE HAVE HEARD SHOULD BE IGNORED or held in suspicion for some time.

We really don't know much else.

We can ask questions and the only ones I've asked regarded weather conditions and primary vs secondary radar targets. The weather question was answered and the other question has not been answered adequately by responsible authorities.


SO, I ask the moderators to stop the thread. And start a new thread.

And that we all take a breath. Call the new thread: Search for Malyasia 777 or something similar.

Just looking at this map, at 3000ft from Kota Bharu to Kedha (just north of Butterworth) is a bit of a scudrun… not sure they'd make that. Also, Butterworth is an Aussie station afaik, wouldn't they have sent a friendly welcome fleet on an unidentified inbound? Perhaps Butterworth even was the target, if one wants to believe the terrorism theorists.

SkyVector VFR Chart Kota Bharu - Kedha

No.

Suppose you had tentative information indicating the aircraft was still flying some time after the disappearance. Would you:

1. Say 'Stop! Everyone go home, it's not there'.
2. Continue searching around the last place you know the aircraft was, until you have some kind of confirmation as to whether that tentative sighting is real or spurious?

No-one wants to be sending people off on a wild goose chase, and later find the wreckage right where they should have been looking for it.

About a week ago I was watching a documentation on a flight in troubles.

Reading aboves post of TheShadow, it does come into my mind.
China Airlines Flight 006 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Basically they lost complete control over the plane. luckly they were able to recover control and land the 747 in SFO.

What if the MH370 pilots were not able to control the situation? Tried to get back and lost control over Malacca strait.

In any case it would not tell us why the pilots would turn off the transponder. makes non sense. Nor it would tell us why tehy would have shut down in a sub menu of the ACARS config, the SATCOM transmission and subsequently switchd VHF3 to VOICE.

I cannot imagine any crew in troubles would do that. That is non sense.

And that would indeed lead back to the original statement, that Malaysia Airlines tries to keep their image and don't want to loose their face. If the aircraft was flying all the way back from 35000 ft down to 3500ft over Malaysian territory and into the strait of malacca, then the ACARS must have been ON and primary radar signal was received of an unidentified object, which of course no one would have initially identified as MH370.

The response in any case would have needed to be scramble Jets. Unless somebody in the ATC was sleeping.

Something went wrong and somebody is trying to play it down to make it look better but more and more it is surfacing and now communications are responding differently to the changing picture.

The passport thing was just to distract the press. I call this crowed control. Every body was all of a sudden looking at the passport issue, rather than to the search of the aircraft.

The truth will surface, the question is when.

Under standard conditions:

LRC at 6000' at 220T AUW, the fuel flow is about 7.8T per hour. This is with a TAS of about 340 KTAS.

For endurance, best holding speed of 225 KIAS at 5000' with 220T AUW, the fuel flow is about 6.5T per hour.

Depending on the ZFW, the estimated mission fuel is probably 45-50T for this sector. At position Igari, the fuel used would have been about 7-8T? Just rough estimation.

T = tonnes = 1000kg = 2200lb

Anyone's thoughts on this guy's take?

MH370 - what happened

He wrote to the NTSB regarding a directive about cracks under the SATCOM.

Lots of theories on this, but it's just as fun to discount certain scenarios as well.