Malaysia Airlines flight MH370-Updates and Discussion

Lee H Gee

Quick question to any who may know... and I apologise if I lack the most fundamental understanding of how it all works...

What is the procedure if you have a fire on board? Would you ever increase altitude to provide less oxygen?

Xpro

Flippyfloppy wrote: »

Link?

http://news.sky.com/story/1226767/missing-plane-may-have-sent-signals-on-ground

Growler!!!

Spanish Eyes wrote: »

Sorry, that made me smile. :pac:

Tea breaks, toilet breaks, are all chinks in the armour I would have thought.

A cabin crew standing outside is not enough now..... Maybe. I always wondered about the flight crew leaving for comfort breaks, and the opportunity for those who may want to rush in.

Smile away:D

But my point still stands. You will not find information of the cockpit locking devices online.

Roger_007

Xpro wrote: »

Now the US suspects that plane could have landed somewhere and it could possibly be turned into a cruise missile ( loaded with bombs) for future attacks.

A bit big and conspicuous for a cruise missile, methinks.:eek:

Xpro

Lee H Gee wrote: »

Quick question to any who may know... and I apologise if I lack the most fundamental understanding of how it all works...

What is the procedure if you have a fire on board? Would you ever increase altitude to provide less oxygen?

No. You use fire extinguishers.

Lee H Gee

Ah, fair enough.

Duiske

cml387 wrote: »

There is a body of evidence for pilot suicide, and they have already been mentioned in this thread (Silk Air and Egyptair).

In both cases there was a sudden descent and crash.
I just cannot see how a suicidal pilot would prolong the agony by flying on for hours. It makes no sense.

He wouldn't have had to prolong the agony for hours. If cabin pressure was set to a high level, he could have slipped into unconsciousness in minutes simply by choosing not to use an oxygen mask. Or he could have worn the mask for any lenght of time, max 2hrs, and just removed it when he decided it was time to go.

CollyFowler

andy_g wrote: »

Too make it look like an accident.

Surely just plunging the plane into the sea would make it look more like an accident or at least harder to prove.

LordSutch

My latest theory . . .

Windscreen fails for whatever reason, followed by instant decompression, both pilots get disorientated & knocked out, plane climbs to 40k feet+ then drops like a stone, auto pilot kicks in and plane carries on for many hours till the fuel runs out . . .

Admittedly thast leaves one or two holes in my theory, like why was the ACARS/Transponder deliberately turned off :cool:

andy_g

CollyFowler wrote: »

Surely just plunging the plane into the sea would make it look more like an accident or at least harder to prove.

Not quite as the company i work for the FDR records all control inputs. So they would know it was not an accident if the box was found.

Spanish Eyes

Growler!!! wrote: »

Smile away:D

But my point still stands. You will not find information of the cockpit locking devices online.

I don't think I made any reference to that fact at all.

Just the apparent ease which allows one (anyone)

A. To get into the cockpit if a comfort break is happening.

B. to get the transponder info on www.

Roger_007

LordSutch wrote: »

My latest theory . . .

Windscreen fails for whatever reason, followed by instant decompression, both pilots get disorientated & knocked out, plane climbs to 40k feet+ then drops like a stone, auto pilot kicks in and plane carries on for many hours till the fuel runs out . . .

Admittedly thast leaves one or two holes in my theory, like why was the ACARS/Transponder deliberately turned off :cool:

So..............Back to the drawing board.

ctrl-alt-delete

News report on SKY1 about it now for anyone wanting an overview or catch up.

Ninjamonkey

Hmm..
Have been reading this board for years, and seldom, VERY seldom, do I feel I should partake in threads.

But ..... this one... Hmm... Smell something odd I do.


So ... open and closed case ... plane disappears off radar, = pilot home searched = pilot has flight simulator = pilot is extremist = pilot disabled all comms,and hijacked plane = killed all passengers, and crashed plane = ( not sure on that = killed all passengers and landed plane = not sure on that = ..........wait a minute - the authorities are cooking up a story.

So what do we KNOW ......

The Aircraft was passed to Thailand Airspace. - the Crew acknowledged, and said goodnight.

The captain was a veteran , many years of flight experience.

The plane, - unlike the Air France flight, did not show a decent on radar, and show under 200ft, at high speed. It simply disappeared from civilian radar.

( **my thought** -- If I pilot can make a plane disappear from radar he should be working to design stealth, because all tin cans reflect radar, and there is nothing a pilot can do about it **)


So it disappeared at 35,000 Ft. there were no comms. it continued flying for over 7 hours - and only a WEEK later - the US authorities decide to publish that it was pinging a US satellite for 7 hours AFTER is disappearance.

There is no wreckage, there are no demands, there are no terrorist groups who are claiming responsibility ( ** excluding the attention seekers who are known not to be responsible for it)

So we turn to the pilots. - this just stinks .... the whole story stinks. Why doesn't someone actually try to understand WHERE the aircraft actually is.

Something about this whole scenario is not right. Of Course the pilot will take the blame, he will be " undoubtedly proven to be an [Islamic/Buddhist/seek/Hindu/Christian fundamentalist/scientologist/cult of the flying spaghetti monster] .........{fill in the blank} Terrorist, who "Obviously" either [hijacked , crashed, .......{fill in the blank} the plane either [ in the ocean/ or on the land] .......{fill in the blank} because he was just an extremist, who didn't like the government. - oh wait, this is a captain, who has flown since the 80's hugely experienced, and responsible. Riiiiiigghhhhttt ..... okay .. I of course believe all that ....

oh wait .... he had a flight simulator .... OOOOHHHH then he was Obviously a Terrorist .... ( um..... actually he was a pilot and a flight enthusiast, .. so would it be .. um ... unusual to expect him to like flight simulation .... ) ... Errr.... Obviously ... Terrorist, Terrorist ... people. I don't like this... It would seem there are other powers at work here, and we may not know Who or what they are ....... but ... as usual the media, and the populace will accept the fodder they are fed from the news spool, and go about their lives happily as usual, and forget this event ever took place .... - SHEEP !!! .... I crawl back under my rock.

Wanderer2010

After all these theories and speculation, which dont really have any concrete backing, we are left with the facts. Which are the transponder was switched off, and the last known ping from the plane was picked up several hours later in one of 2 possible areas. Which leaves the pilots as the most likely explanation- suicide gone wrong, a nervous breakdown etc. It seems to point in that direction at the moment. Surely if it was terrorism some group would have claimed it by now and after all the attention this plane has received, its nigh on impossible to fly it into a heavy populated area without being spotted.

Which just leaves 2 explanations- whatever about the "how did he do etc etc" part.

1. Pilot goes mad, kills co pilot, locks himself in cockpit, strangles passengers by pressurisation, turns plane around and does the same to himself (as posted before), drifts out to Indian Ocean, fuel runs out, plane hits the ocean floor, never to be seen again. Only one flaw to that- surely SOME passenger could have sent a text or rang a loved one in that period before air pressure became fatal?

2. A Supernatural Explanation.

So, it all leads to option number 1. Unless someone can come up with a credible number 3?

LordSutch

Ninjamonkey wrote: »

So what do we KNOW ......

The Aircraft was passed to Thailand Airspace. - the Crew acknowledged, and said goodnight.

Thai airspace? surely they passed into Vietnamese airspace?

I might be wrong.

Roger_007

Ninjamonkey wrote: »

Hmm..
Have been reading this board for years, and seldom, VERY seldom, do I feel I should partake in threads.

But ..... this one... Hmm... Smell something odd I do.


So ... open and closed case ... plane disappears off radar, = pilot home searched = pilot has flight simulator = pilot is extremist = pilot disabled all comms,and hijacked plane = killed all passengers, and crashed plane = ( not sure on that = killed all passengers and landed plane = not sure on that = ..........wait a minute - the authorities are cooking up a story.

So what do we KNOW ......

The Aircraft was passed to Thailand Airspace. - the Crew acknowledged, and said goodnight.

The captain was a veteran , many years of flight experience.

The plane, - unlike the Air France flight, did not show a decent on radar, and show under 200ft, at high speed. It simply disappeared from civilian radar.

( **my thought** -- If I pilot can make a plane disappear from radar he should be working to design stealth, because all tin cans reflect radar, and there is nothing a pilot can do about it **)


So it disappeared at 35,000 Ft. there were no comms. it continued flying for over 7 hours - and only a WEEK later - the US authorities decide to publish that it was pinging a US satellite for 7 hours AFTER is disappearance.

There is no wreckage, there are no demands, there are no terrorist groups who are claiming responsibility ( ** excluding the attention seekers who are known not to be responsible for it)

So we turn to the pilots. - this just stinks .... the whole story stinks. Why doesn't someone actually try to understand WHERE the aircraft actually is.

Something about this whole scenario is not right. Of Course the pilot will take the blame, he will be " undoubtedly proven to be an [Islamic/Buddhist/seek/Hindu/Christian fundamentalist/scientologist/cult of the flying spaghetti monster] .........{fill in the blank} Terrorist, who "Obviously" either [hijacked , crashed, .......{fill in the blank} the plane either [ in the ocean/ or on the land] .......{fill in the blank} because he was just an extremist, who didn't like the government. - oh wait, this is a captain, who has flown since the 80's hugely experienced, and responsible. Riiiiiigghhhhttt ..... okay .. I of course believe all that ....

oh wait .... he had a flight simulator .... OOOOHHHH then he was Obviously a Terrorist .... ( um..... actually he was a pilot and a flight enthusiast, .. so would it be .. um ... unusual to expect him to like flight simulation .... ) ... Errr.... Obviously ... Terrorist, Terrorist ... people. I don't like this... It would seem there are other powers at work here, and we may not know Who or what they are ....... but ... as usual the media, and the populace will accept the fodder they are fed from the news spool, and go about their lives happily as usual, and forget this event ever took place .... - SHEEP !!! .... I crawl back under my rock.

Well, I'm glad that's sorted.............ish.

SimonTemplar

A Primal Nut wrote: »

There is no way Boeing or Rolls Royce can make software changes while the plane is in the air. That would be insane.

Airplanes cannot be controlled remotely, only by someone in the cockpit, making them unhackable.

I actually can't believe these two scenarios are being discussed. :eek:

sopretty

In the absence of physical evidence, all you've got is 'profiling' i.e. looking back through individuals' histories, for motive, means and opportunity for wrongdoing etc.. Certainly, experts on aviation, aviation systems etc. can help negate certain probabilities, but really, they've nothing to work from physically.

I think one might be naïve to believe that 25 countries 'helping' are going to reveal details of weaknesses in their defence systems/military radar for e.g., nor that they are going to fully expose the level of detail of information held on everything, to another country or to the global public!

It is highly political situation in my opinion. Certainly, I feel information is STILL being held back (though I can understand the potential reasons why). I mean, the enormity of both the civil and military detection system limitations potentially being revealed here are extraordinary.

I still believe it was a dry run to detect response times to an event/various countries' abilities to track an aircraft despite all comms systems being turned off. I think it would be silly for the international Aviation community to await finding this aircraft, before putting speculative security measures in place. Unless of course, that they do know what has happened!

Anyway, those are my thoughts for the day!

has anyone even bothered with Tomnod the last day or two?

adamski8

It is really amazing that it nearly seems that turning off your transponder makes you invisible!

microsim

SimonTemplar wrote: »

I actually can't believe these two scenarios are being discussed. :eek:

Not only that, these ideas are gone mainstream. Headlines on some papers today

aphex™

It's weird no submarines or US acoustic ocean sensors picked up a large crash into the sea.

They should get a list of all submarines and sensors, plot their location/times when the plane disappeared and rule out a radius around them all in the ocean.

But, that would involve some cooperation with many countries which appears to be a problem here.

Mountainsandh

This is completely subjective, and a bit nonsensical since pilot suicide has happened before, but I can't get my head around a person who chose to spend their life safely and comfortably depositing people where they wish, suddenly flipping to the point of sacrificing more than 200 people for their own suicide.

Someone who simply likes to fly surely has several career options, so I tend to just assume that a commercial pilot likes people, and their job of serving the people.

Mountainsandh

Jake1 wrote: »

has anyone even bothered with Tomnod the last day or two?

I haven't. I don't believe it's in the sea there any more. What areas is Tomnod showing now ? If it's on the arc suggested I might have a look tonight.
I think now I might be better at spotting real stuff instead of just waves, whales, and boats.

bryangiggsy

adamski8 wrote: »

It is really amazing that it nearly seems that turning off your transponder makes you invisible!

Surely someone is bound to have their phones or ipads turned on.. Would these have pinged with satellites ?

Duiske

Wanderer2010 wrote: »

Only one flaw to that- surely SOME passenger could have sent a text or rang a loved one in that period before air pressure became fatal?

No flaw there. Highly unlikely a mobile could connect to a cell at that altitude. And even if conditions were perfect and it did happen to make a connection, signal would drop in seconds due to the speed of the plane.

eatmyshorts

2 stroke wrote: »

I hate to disapoint you, but I worked in such an industrial plant. Those pings to Immarsat came as no suprise to me & I'll bet that Boeing can tweak those engines in the air. I wouldn't be suprised if every electronic device on those planes would be programmed to look for updates regularly.

The only person who can "tweak" my engines in the air is me. The airline and GE can monitor them, but have no control or access.

zoe 3619

wondering what information the black box contains,and should it be found will we get any answers?we already seem to know about altitude and should the plane be found we'll know about direction.adoes black box for instance record conversation in the cockpit?

eatmyshorts

Spanish Eyes wrote: »

God that looks so easy to do. Even I could do it!

Is it prone to being accidentally switched to the off position I wonder? Not saying prof pilots would be careless like that, but in an emergency situation with lots of things going on?

Surely there must be more to it than turning a knob?

Does an alarm sound when it's switched off?

Actually, there is no OFF position. It's just STANDBY.
On the 777 turning the transponder to standby brings up an amber TCAS OFF advisory on EICAS. There is no aural warning.