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The assumption that something catastrophic happened in short time is not the only possibility. Probability for all chains of events leading to accident are low. One of those has sill happened and probable there are several things that had not gone right.
There was a hint that the plane might turn back. For me it sounds that they have consulted for problems and might have told that they will turn back if they can't solve the problems soon. For that reason the radio might have been in a “wrong” channel and the crew concentrated to “secondary” issues. Then the situation might be turned rapidly from bad to worse and they have lost the transponder and some other systems. For mixed reasons they have found themselves in a situation where there is no time to establish communication and all the effort is needed to avoid the instant catastrophe. They also knows that the others can not detect them. So the diverted the region where is usually no traffic. They also might have concluded that the emergency landing can be needed in a with a very short warning time if situation gets even worse. So they prepared to emergency landing by flying low. Then also the primary radars lost them, including military ones. It could explain the confusion also in the ground. Primary radars detected the plane later but what a plane? They realized the detections only later when the plane was not found. At that time the “search train” was in the wrong rails and time has been lost. Where the plane is? No idea. Lets hope not too far in the ocean. |
In a flight with 200+ pax, what are the odds of someone leaving their 4G mobile phones on, having forgotten to put on airplane mode?
If the craft was traversing Peninsular Malaysia at low alt, with the mobile on autoroam and the switching between the many local telcos, there should be a traceable gprs footprint. |
Presumably the aircraft might have come within detection of the military radars of other countries - Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia? Does anyone know what their coverage is? Unless the plane headed out into oceanic airspace, it must surely have been picked up on land-based radars as it went over land?
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I am asking if it is possible for a satellite station to know an aircraft is "live" even though no data stream is received. That is, does the system log on then log off, regardless of systems data? |
Congratulations to those who said cross-border issues.
Legal limbo hampers probe into missing MAS plane
- Reuters March 11, 2014 Investigators trying to solve the disappearance without trace of a Malaysia Airlines plane face an extremely rare challenge that could hinder their efforts: they lack the powers of a formal air safety investigation. Four days after flight MH370 went missing in mid-air with 239 people on board, no nation has stepped forward to initiate and lead an official probe, leaving a formal leadership vacuum that industry experts say appears unprecedented. Malaysian officials are conducting their own informal investigations, in cooperation with other governments and foreign agencies, but they lack the legal powers that would come with a formal international probe under UN-sanctioned rules. Those powers include the legal rights to take testimony from all witnesses and other parties, the right to have exclusive control over the release of information and the ability to centralise a vast amount of fragmentary evidence. A senior official familiar with the preliminary Malaysian probe said Malaysian authorities could not yet convene a formal investigation due to a lack of evidence on where – namely, in which national jurisdiction – the Boeing 777-200ER jet crashed. He said this was not hampering their work, that preliminary investigations had begun and that they were working with their neighbours, US officials and the jet's maker, Boeing. The Malaysians have begun collecting information from neighbouring countries without any problems, including air-traffic control communications and radar data, he said. "There have been no issues in getting that information." But Southeast Asian waters are rife with territorial disputes, and any decision by Malaysia to unilaterally open a formal investigation under UN rules could be seen as a subtle assertion of sovereignty if the crash site turns out to be inside another country's territory. Without a formal investigative process being convened quickly under rules set out by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a UN agency, there is a risk that crucial early detective work could be hampered, and potential clues and records lost, air accident experts said. |
Crew experience levels
Lots of talk of the FO having 2700hrs. But how many of those are on the 777? I've read reports he started on the 737, and at age 27 I'm guessing he's a fairly new convertee onto the 777. Senior training captain in the left hand seat, would support the theory this may have been a training flight? |
2 questions are nagging at me and I hope someone can answer them please. I'm pretty sure they haven't already been asked but if they have I apologise now! :ouch:
1. We've seen images & diagrams of how far the plane could have gone based on the likely fuel-load but could it get to those places without being spotted on any radar? 2. Now, I feel really awful thinking this, but has/will the pilot's home sim setup be scrutinised? By all accounts he is a great guy and a good pilot so was his home sim there to increase his skills/for his pleasure or to work out how to fly MH370 to point X without being noticed...? |
SIMPLE QUESTION
IF you really know things, some foreign (not USA) carriers DO allow visitors to the cockpit in flight.
DOES anyone really KNOW The MALAYSIAN rules regarding cockpit visitors and smoking? And to tell you the truth, if USA airlines allowed visitors to the cockpit, I would authorize it as captain. When I was 8 years old (prehistory) I rode in the cockpit of a convair 240 airliner (UAL) and loved it. And the guys didn't mind me being there. SO, if someone actually KNOWS, please let us KNOW. |
This has just appeared in New Scientist
( Mods feel free to delete if this is a repeat) Malaysian plane sent out engine data before vanishing - tech - 11 March 2014 - New Scientist |
Decompression drill for my airbus is:
Alt Selector Knob. Turn left and pull Hdg Selector Knob. Turn left and pull That could explain the 90 degree left turn (in hdg, hence the drift) and the descent. Oxy mask failure gives a time of useful consciousness of 1 min or less. I`ve had flights in parts of Europe where acars has "lost signal" The only flaw in my theory is the transponder but lets suppose the PNF selected 7800 instead of 7700 in his haste. Just a thought.... |
Originally Posted by Unixman
This has just appeared in New Scientist
( Mods feel free to delete if this is a repeat) Malaysian plane sent out engine data before vanishing - tech - 11 March 2014 - New Scientist |
Unixman,
Thanks, that is the first credible confirmation that RR does indeed have engine parameter data, and it also supports earlier speculation on this thread that such data feed is not continuous, but sent as packets after reaching certain phases of the flight. I would assume the last packet was sent as the engines throttled back on attaining cruise altitude.
Originally Posted by "UnderDriven
I would imagine the your first thought would be to return to KL
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Urrgh... for the last time.
By using this South African girl, Nine Network single-handedly smeared what maybe the last memory of the co-pilot's friends, family and reputation and will undoubtably land the Captain in some very hot water which could possibly receive a punishment far exceeding the crime because of the timing of a ridiculously portrayed event. Crying shame neither the girl or the network used their brains for one second and showed some restraint.
Company policy prohibits non-airline staff in the cockpit unless approved from the top. Then there's a bunch of rules over which airline staff are allowed to jump seat and when they cannot. It maybe argued there's Captain's discretion but only sooo far. He took a big risk doing what he did - pax might have reported him (smack on the wrist), LSS/crew might have reported him (get a warning), splashed all over National TV and the Web during a major crisis with admissions of smoking (probably sacked). Airline has to save face too, couldn't have come at a worse moment. |
Even if the military radar DID pick up something unidentified moving west, what would they have been able to work out about it? Presumably there would need to have been some communication with civilian ATC to find out if an aircraft was known to be in the vicinity. Would Malaysian ATC have known at that point that the plane wasn't happily over Vietnam? Is there any established channel of communication between military and civilian structures (the muddled nature of Malaysia's response to this would suggest not)?
Is there any possibility that the low-flying aircraft seen off the east coast of the peninsula were actually fighters, scrambled to intercept an unidentified plane? |
In addition to Yancey Slides post, what was the weather conditions from T/O to loss of signal? If I recall an earlier post the cloud coverage was nil over the area off the coast, was KL in the clear? After a 180 back toward the T/O point, if a loss of com/nav I would be looking for a big group of lights...not heading toward the narrowest portion of ML....
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Originally Posted by CogSim
(Post 8367059)
If this is indeed the case, why would you not scramble?
Why would you scramble an aircraft to shoot it down? You might perhaps scramble an aircraft to intercept - but you will have to justify the scramble if you get it wrong and perhaps it takes an hour or so to scramble an armed fighter. (9/11 showed that it took more than 30 minutes to get armed USAF aircraft airborne). It's only paranoid Europeans that have armed aircraft on QRA. |
Just seems like a turn back and loss of radio contact can only point to two things.
1) the aircraft was taken over by party's unknown. 2) massive electrical buss failure. 3 hole Falcons have a scenario that goes like this: Buss 3 shorts out, pilot cross feeds bus 3 from 2. This takes buss 2 out, so he cross feeds 2 and 3 from 1. Now all 3 busses are dead. It seems like there might be a failure mode that could take out both primary generators and the apu. At that point you would be down to "critical systems" like the FCS, pilots windshield heat, etc. that can be powered by the backup gen and emergency AC power. Any 777 drivers know if a comm is part of the buss of last resort? |
If the A/C did commence a turn back and over flew the mainland as reported and hypoxia was a factor it could be half way to Africa with its 2.6knm endurance?. That is one massive search area and could take weeks or months to locate. The lack of hard evidence as to its last known location will prove to be a significant factor in when and if the A/C is found.
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Just seems like a turn back and loss of radio contact can only point to two things. 1) the aircraft was taken over by party's unknown. 2) massive electrical buss failure. 3 hole Falcons have a scenario that goes like this: Buss 3 shorts out, pilot cross feeds bus 3 from 2. This takes buss 2 out, so he cross feeds 2 and 3 from 1. Now all 3 busses are dead. It seems like there might be a failure mode that could take out both primary generators and the apu. At that point you would be down to "critical systems" like the FCS, pilots windshield heat, etc. that can be powered by the backup gen and emergency AC power. Any 777 drivers know if a comm is part of the buss of last resort? |
MH370
Well what do you know - we now have admission from officials at last that they tracked MH370 to the Strait of Malacca!! So why has everyone been searching Between Malaysia & Vietnam? If you were one of those searchers you'd be feeling rather PO wouldn't you? I mean how long have they known this - surely it just didn't come to light as of now. Raises the questions now that there is much more yet to be told that is obviously being held back. So much for SAR co-operation in the future. Politics/borders etc - first casualty is always the truth which we may never know.:ugh:
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