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Originally Posted by slats11
(Post 8366772)
This reminds me of the initial AF447 thread. Some of the same members also.
Theories we can (almost) 100% eliminate: .... We can't think of any likely scenarios where an a/c disappearance can happen with no comms and no debris near LKP. There are unlikely possibilities of course, but I prefer incompetence over conspiracy. We know the Malaysian authorities have been withholding information. My best guess for this is that they want to find the a/c and keep control of the story to minimize embarrassment. If there was RT/Transponder/ACARS data which was lost or is being withheld, then perhaps this incident could have a more believable cause, like a flight upset or fault which was inappropriately handled. I could be wrong, the incident could be a strange hijack or a bizarre failure of multiple systems on the famously reliable T7. But it seems increasingly likely to me that the reason the a/c has not been found is poor communication between the parties. |
Originally Posted by Speed of Sound
(Post 8366808)
Because it hadn't been confirmed?
I really don't see any big conspiracy over this change of SAR mission from the east of to the west of the peninsula. When the flight first 'went missing', it was positioned east of the peninsula heading NNE so naturally the search was concentrated there. In the meantime the military has said privately to the government 'hold on we are pretty sure we saw something heading west without identification but need too look at our raw primary data to get a better picture' (and check that nothing classified was being revealed!) On the strength of this some assets were diverted west to the Straits with the caveat "We can't say why" presumably because all the information wasn't in yet, and now the military have come back with confirmation that they did track an unidentified aircraft heading west towards the Straits and today that information was made official. What's the big deal? |
SoS
It seems quite a big deal to me, due elapsed time and the amount of SAR effort expended in the Gulf of Thailand. My earlier post was deleted, but the point I tried to make was that the Malaysian Air Force must also know which way it was heading, but haven’t said so. To Pulau Perak From their previous position was approx hdg 250. To KUL hdg 140 and 240nm, to PEN 107 and 80nm. Continuing on 250 would put them in the mountains and jungle of Northern Sumatra. |
From a radar point of view...
All airforces surveillance worldwide is being done with primary radar. No enemy will switch on their transponder before they attack, so SSR is kind of useless from a military border-watching point of view.
30 years ago, a normal primary radar was able to follow flocks of birds without any problems at all. Todays radar equipment is of course much more refined and exact. Following a B777 is among the easiest tasks ever. Its massive, not supersonic, no jamming, and it oftens flies quite high and straight. So, either the normal 24/7 radar surveillance in the area was not operational at this time (how embarrasing for all involved countries), or there are quite a few people within the borderwatching units who has known all the time where, exactly, primary radar contact was lost... |
Search for missing Malaysian plane goes high tech
"The P-3C and the MH-60 have surface search radar with a range of 5000 to 10,000 feet that can look down and pick up pretty small objects, even non-metallic ones, and down to basketball size," says William Marks, a US Navy commander on the USS Blue Ridge, which is coordinating the US search contribution. "Then the crew will use high zoom cameras to zoom in and check it out. Yesterday, for instance, we found something that looked interesting but it was just a wooden crate."...
Search for missing Malaysian plane goes high tech - tech - 10 March 2014 - New Scientist 8:38 10 March 2014 by Paul Marks NEW SCIENTIST |
@Evey_Hammond
I am reading the news you reported: MISSING MH370: Loud noise reported, believed linked to missing plane MARANG: Eight villagers here lodged police reports today claiming that they had heard a loud noise last Saturday coming from the direction of Pulau Kapas and believed it was linked to the disappearance of a Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight on that day. All of them, from Kampung Pantai Seberang Marang, made the reports at the Marang district police headquarters at about 10.30 am. One of them, Alias Salleh, 36, said he and seven fellow villagers were seated on a bench about 400 metres from the Marang beach at 1.20 am when they heard the noise, which sounded like the fan of a jet engine. "The loud and frightening noise came from the north-east of Pulau Kapas and we ran in that direction to find out the cause. We looked around the Rhu Muda beach but did not see anything unusual," said the lorry driver. Replying to a question, Alias said they lodged the police report so that it would be of help to the authorities who were trying to locate the missing MAS aircraft. MAS Flight MH370, carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew, went missing en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing about an hour after taking off from the KL International Airport at 12.41 am Saturday. It was flying above the South China Sea off Kelantan at that time. It should have landed in Beijing at 6.30 am but has disappeared without a trace. Another villager, Mohd Yusri Mohd Yusof, 34, said when he heard the strange noise, he thought a tsunami was about to strike. "My friends and I heard the ringing noise for about two minutes. I decided to lodge the police report after seeing the media reports on the lost flight," he said The time indicated by this guy perfectly matches the last radar position reported by flightradar24: N 6.38 E 103.46, recorded at 17:21 UTC (01:21 MYT). However, the distance from Marang is 89.315 nm. |
If the Chinese thought the Malaysians where manipulating the story to save national face ( Chinese know this game ) they would be screaming blue murder . They moved 20 odd satellites over the area .
Think it really is a mystery to everyone . Fingers crossed tomorrow there is a break through. |
ACARS
There seems to be general perception here that ACARS transmissions are more or less continuous - that is NOT the case.
Each ACARS message cost money - not much - but if an aircraft is sending out continuous messages it adds up really fast. Hence, ACARS is set up to transmit only when specific events occur - e.g. a system or LRU reports a fault. Similarly, engine condition monitoring does not continuously spout out data via ACARS or other downlink. Rather there are engine parameter algorithms that look for certain 'stabilized' events - e.g. stabilized takeoff or cruise conditions. If those specific events are not met, nothing is downlinked. So, the absence of apparent ACARS messages is not in and of itself unusual. What is potentially of interest is that the lack of ACARS messages would either imply either a lack of systems failures or a sudden failure (or human action) that disabled ACARS. |
Originally Posted by Thomas Doubting
(Post 8366850)
It seems quite a big deal to me, due elapsed time and the amount of SAR effort expended in the Gulf of Thailand.
With contradictory information to hand, seems prudent to search in both areas that may be where one should start while resolving the contradiction in the data available. (That, and maybe saving some face if, for example, at zero dark thirty in the morning one of the radar operators was ... asleep at his post? ;) Don't know, but that might explain why it took a while to uncover what that radar sight had painted that evening ... I admit I am guessing on that but it fits within three sigma what happens to some people on the graveyard shift). My earlier post was deleted, but the point I tried to make was that the Malaysian Air Force must also know which way it was heading, but haven’t said so. To Pulau Perak From their previous position was approx hdg 250. To KUL hdg 140 and 240nm, to PEN 107 and 80nm. Continuing on 250 would put them in the mountains and jungle of Northern Sumatra. |
None of this seems to make any sense. I think we can put to bed the possibility of terrorism. At least in terms of a large scale organised plot. There have been no claims of responsibility for this event. That tells its own story. Any opportunistic terror group who saw an opportunity to claim responsibility but were subsequently shown to be talking out of their collective asses when the aircraft was found and no foul play was evident would instantly lose any credibility whatsoever and therefore much of their fear factor in the process. Do not think terrorist groups are not aware of this.
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Face saving exercises
If as now appears to be the case the Malaysian military were aware that there was a 777 heading west over the Malay peninsula in the early hours of Saturday morning they presumably did not simply ignore it and do nothing but would have sought authority either to intercept and identify or intercept and force it to land. They could of course have been told to ignore it but that would be a positive decision by a senior officer or a politician. Obviously there are therefore many people who risk losing face and the more senior they are the greater the potential loss of face. Their vested interests will make it progressively harder to "do the right thing", whatever that may be.
The longer the SAR mission lasts the greater the potential humiliation , whatever the real cause was and whatever the outcome for the flight. Perhaps the only way to break the seeming deadlock is for an outside party to produce evidence eg the alleged mayday message received by the US/Royal Thai Navy AFB at U-Tapao? |
Malaysians saving face?
Having worked in Singapore/Malaysia for nearly 20 years, I don't believe this stuff about the Malaysians 'covering up' what they know for days, just to save face. They're pretty clued up at senior levels (even if performances at press conferences are not very impressive). They're not stupid enough to think that with ships, aircraft and miscellaneous technically expert personnel of sundry countries running around the search area(s), monitoring every bit of equipment they can lay hands on, they would be able to cover up anything really significant for any time. 'Face' is important in this part of the world, but not to such a lunatic extent. Seems much more likely that they've been working with unconfirmed information, and pending confirmation they've been hedging their bets as to search locations. Isn't that what anyone sensible would do? For all we know they have been sharing unconfirmed information with their international collaborators in the search effort.
Similarly with the passports. They didn't release information publicly until they had something solid to release (and until they had spoken in Frankfurt to the mother of that poor chap, not least). Fair enough, it seems to me. |
Sky reports different heading.
Sky news is reporting on TV that the military tracked the a/c heading towards the straits of malacca.
Flight MH370: 13 Things You Need To Know Malaysia Airlines Plane: What Has Happened? The sky picture shows that the Straits are much further south than the previous expected course. |
FMS Data base
The 777 use Honeywell FMS system, There are several AD on the FMS. United airlines had an incident in a B747 a few years back, the FMS guided the airplane parallel to the Runway basically offset with a mile over the water in SFO.
Honeywell have had numerous problems with the data base, further you fly greater error. ;) |
Military confirm course change.
Military confirm it turned and flew hundreds of km's away from course.
Yahoo News UK & Ireland - Latest World News & UK News Headlines |
TIME ISSUE RE CONTACTS
If I recall correctly - there is a local time zone difference of one hour between takeoff in Lampur and area of disappearance. IF so, why in the world does the press and way too many reports make a big deal of ' military ' radarr tracking plane about 1 hour after loss of contact when actually it is the same GMT ?...
About the only theory missing from widespread publication is that the plane was secretly refueled and is now in Area 51 . ...:ugh::confused::ugh: |
Originally Posted by Mike-Bracknell
(Post 8366902)
Why do neither of these ELTs appear to have a buoy attached such that it would float?
It is entirely possible that the maritime ELT (the long thin tube, pictured earlier) does float. I can't think of any reason for that 1 meter long tubular design other than to provide flotation with the antenna pointed up. Normal fixed ELTs are rectangular and no bigger than a carton of cigarettes. |
Flight deck oxygen fire? IFE fire maybe? Cargo fire?
It's all happened before quite recently. |
FANS and ACARS
The earlier message about ACARS messages referred to maintenance messages. Maintenance information is only sent when there is something to report. (Boeing calls this service Aircraft Health Management and messages are sent to the airline AOC and Boeing). With AF447, the equivalent Airbus service sent messages as many aircraft systems were functioning normally for a while during the event.
Was the MH370 aircraft equipped (or enabled) with FANS? Was it using ADS-C? I'm curious why we haven't heard more about FANS messages, which could have transmitted position information as long as the aircraft had power. |
CCTV - Already been discussed, way way back.
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