Malaysia Airlines flight MH370-Updates and Discussion

Mountainsandh

There is a CNN article that says It's military radar that showed altitude change, which and how they don't say, and it's from ... a source. http://edition.cnn.com/2014/03/23/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-plane/index.html?c=homepage-t

Sam Russell

OK, so no source for the altitude info. That said, why the crazy talk of the plane going to 45,000 feet and then dropping to 12,000 ft (some say 5,000ft).

Maybe Sarah Palin is right - the flight flew straight to heaven.

wil

It is receiving a huge amount of backlash on Chinese social media with many celebs urging boycott.of Malaysia.

I heard a bizarre story that on Sunday families were told there was information they weren't being told for the safety of the passengers.
The next day the announcement it was in the Indian Ocean.
Sent in English by text to Chinese with no English, many thought it was good news.

Something notable even purely from a PR pov is the complete lack of senior Chinese Malaysian staff of MAS. Are there any high ranking Chinese in MAS, seems to be none even to deliver information in mandarin.
Mr Dunleavy (is he Irish, his accent) was there early on but no Chinese.

fits

I think the Chinese are behaving like prats tbh. (I'm not talking about the families).. their behaviour says more about their own way of doing things than the Malaysians., their satellite images last week led the investigation off on a wild goose chase and delayed matters. And as for the government organised 'protest' today. *Rolleyes*. Using the families as pawns for own motives

wil

fits wrote: »

I think the Chinese are behaving like prats tbh. (I'm not talking about the families).. their behaviour says more about their own way of doing things than the Malaysians., their satellite images last week led the investigation off on a wild goose chase and delayed matters. And as for the government organised 'protest' today. *Rolleyes*. Using the families as pawns for own motives

Tbh there does appear to have been many delays and confusion from the off. Comparing the response Ireland gave to air India almost 30 years ago emergency was declared 15 mins after last contact even though no mayday received. Here plane was stIll flying for several hours after last contact and not clear who was watching for it once missing to the extent it had travelled over at least 2 jurisdictions relatively undetected.

MonkieSocks

Usually when Pilots drop to an alitiude of 12,000 feet, it to get to breatheable air posibly due to decompressure.

OR

All three hydraulic systems lost pressure and flight controls were disabled.

The aircraft then pitches rapidly up and down in a roller-coaster phugoid, oscillating between a nose-up and a nose-down position.

______________________________

As far as I'm aware, only one Plane has ever sucessfully landed without hydraulics.

These brilliant Pilots
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Baghdad_DHL_attempted_shootdown_incident

MuffinsDa

MonkieSocks wrote: »

Usually when Pilots drop to an alitiude of 12,000 feet, it to get to breatheable air posibly due to decompressure.

OR

All three hydraulic systems lost pressure and flight controls were disabled.

The aircraft then pitches rapidly up and down in a roller-coaster phugoid, oscillating between a nose-up and a nose-down position.

______________________________

As far as I'm aware, only one Plane has ever sucessfully landed without hydraulics.

These brilliant Pilots
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Baghdad_DHL_attempted_shootdown_incident

But if it was in a phugoid and climbing and descending all the way, it have ran out of fuel long before reaching the place they are looking for it in now, wouldn't it?

MonkieSocks

MuffinsDa wrote: »

But if it was in a phugoid and climbing and descending all the way, it have ran out of fuel long before reaching the place they are looking for it in now, wouldn't it?

Yes, no way it would go as far as they said.

Only other explanations is for decompression or to try evade Pimary Rader

MuffinsDa

MonkieSocks wrote: »

Yes, no way it would go as far as they said.

Only other explanations is for decompression or to try evade Pimary Rader

Question for those in the know: does decompression affect fuel burn in any way (in the long run?).

MonkieSocks

MuffinsDa wrote: »

Question for those in the know: does decompression affect fuel burn in any way (in the long run?).

If the plane was flying at a lower altitude due to decompression.

Lower altitude uses up more fuel.

To get to where they might crashed, the plane would have to be flying at a higher altitude.

MuffinsDa

MonkieSocks wrote: »

If the plane was flying at a lower altitude due to decompression.

Lower altitude uses up more fuel.

To get to where they might crashed, the plane would have to be flying at a higher altitude.

What if they were flying at normal cruise altitude?

2 stroke

wil wrote: »

US law firm launches legal action over MH370

(excerpts below, full article at link)
A US law firm said on Wednesday it has initiated what it called the first civil legal proceedings over the crash of flight MH370 and said it planned to pursue lawsuits seeking "millions of dollars" for aggrieved families.
Chicago-based Ribbeck Law Chartered International said it filed a court petition in the US state of Illinois targeting Malaysia Airlines and Boeing, blaming the two companies for the "disaster".
"We are going to be filing the lawsuits for millions of dollars per each passenger based on prior cases that we have done involving crashes like this one," the firm's head of aviation litigation, Monica Kelly, told reporters in Kuala Lumpur.
The development appeared to mark the start of what legal experts have warned could be a cascade of lawsuits by passengers' relatives livid over the unexplained disappearance of their loved ones.
.
Ribbeck issued a statement earlier Wednesday saying it had filed a "petition of discovery" in Illinois requesting a court to order defendants to provide potential evidence and other information.
.
Boeing and Malaysia Airlines have 30 days to reply, Kelly told reporters, adding that a lawsuit could take years to conclude..
.
Floyd Wisner, another US-based aviation crash attorney, said Malaysia Airlines' liability was "almost certain, no matter what the cause of the crash ultimately is determined to be".
"The fact that the wreckage has not yet been found does not have any real legal impact upon the families' claims against Malaysia Airlines," he told AFP.
However, other lawyers said lawsuits could be bogged down by the lack of evidence.
.
.
.
Kelly said her firm believed equipment failure caused a fire or sudden loss of pressure that rendered the pilots unconscious and the aircraft "a ghost plane" that flew for several hours until it ran out of fuel.
Malaysia Airlines said in a statement to AFP that it was aware of the court petition and that its lawyers had been "advised of this development", but declined further comment.
The national flag carrier has already paid $5,000 to next-of-kin, but they are entitled to up to about $176,000 under an international convention

I realy think this is disgusting. Yes, I do believe that families were unnecessarily aggrieved through misinformation and lack of information, but could the legal profession not have held off untill a cause of the disappearance was established.

Mountainsandh

Yeah it conjures up images of lawyers circling grieving family members like vultures in my mind too. From their point of view it's probably "the earlier the better".

Grandpa Hassan

2 stroke wrote: »

I realy think this is disgusting. Yes, I do believe that families were unnecessarily aggrieved through misinformation and lack of information, but could the legal profession not have held off untill a cause of the disappearance was established.

I am sure that the families will be supportive if it puts legal pressure on various parties to actually divulge more of what they know. And I am sure that there is more known than what is being fed to the families and the public.

And seeing the state of the ocean where they are searching, it looks very unlikely that anything will ever be found. They are some savage seas around there

Neeson

It could be possible that the plane turned toward the sun and then that blinded the pilots or something or broke the glass on the plane and then the people died?

Red Pepper

Neeson wrote: »

It could be possible that the plane turned toward the sun and then that blinded the pilots or something or broke the glass on the plane and then the people died?

It was a nighttime flight.

PS. I think you need some sleep.

Danbo!

Neeson wrote: »

It could be possible that the plane turned toward the sun and then that blinded the pilots or something or broke the glass on the plane and then the people died?

Mystery solved.

MonkieSocks

MuffinsDa wrote: »

What if they were flying at normal cruise altitude?

At normal cruise altitude they could have made it to the vicinity of where they said it ditched.

With the squak off, it would only possible to track it's altitude through Triangulated Military Radar.


On the Flight Data Recorder:


If a plane crashes into the water, this beacon sends out an ultrasonic pulse that cannot be heard by human ears but is readily detectable by sonar and acoustical locating equipment.


There is a submergence sensor on the side of the beacon that looks like a bull's-eye.



When water touches this sensor, it activates the beacon.


The beacon sends out pulses at 37.5 kilohertz (kHz) and can transmit sound as deep as 14,000 feet (4,267 m).



Once the beacon begins "pinging", it pings once per second for 30 days.




Newer FDRs can now transmit as deep as 20,000 ft.


Good read here

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/15/world/asia/malaysia-military-radar.html?_r=0

Silverbling

So so sad for those families, part of me wished for the hi-jacking theory because there was a chance they were alive.

Thank you to those who explained and answered our random questions, I learnt a lot, mostly it is not a flying bus but a very sophisticated piece of equipment and like many frequent travellers I thought the plane took off, cruised and landed on auto pilot while the pilot put on the seat belt sign for the craic when he was bored.

I will have much more respect for pilots, if they get it right in an emergency we will never know about it, if they get it wrong we will die, scary stuff

Meglamonia

Neeson wrote: »

It could be possible that the plane turned toward the sun and then that blinded the pilots or something or broke the glass on the plane and then the people died?

Jesus

andy_g

Neeson wrote: »

It could be possible that the plane turned toward the sun and then that blinded the pilots or something or broke the glass on the plane and then the people died?

Posts like this please bring to the Conspiracy forum no here.

AngryHippie

andy_g wrote: »

Posts like this please bring to the Conspiracy forum no here.

I don't think CT would have that one either.

Doesn't qualify as a conspiracy, unless the sun is a conspirator, or the "something" that broke the glass was conspiring to cause widespread confusion.

I think that needs a whole new forum of the nonsensical ill-conceived troll.

Maybe we need a new forum.....Trollimus Maximus....and we can just put all such posts that completely ignore 116 or 117 pages of relatively well informed dialogue and come out with a statement worthy of Hunter S Thompson on an Ether binge... Mods?

fits

Search called off again today due to bad weather. Planes and ships leaving the area.

Update from AMSA on twitter Update: Ships staying in search area & will attempt to continue searching but all planes returning. Bad weather expected for next 24 hours.

ectoraige

Tea 1000 wrote: »

Deliberately, yes, looks like it. Maliciously, no, I think only recovering voice recorder might reveal that, and seems like because it loops over the last 2 hours only, even getting that back might be useless, unless there were still conversations in the cockpit in the last 2 hours of flight.

If it was some loss of flight control scenario with the people still alive, I don't think I'd be able to read the transcript of those final two hours.

On the subject of satellite transponders that can't be turned off by a rogue pilot, I do have one thought.

Given that the need is to be able to track a plane in an emergency, but that the problem is the inability to isolate a faulty device could lead to an emergency, the obvious thought is for the device to only be activated during an emergency.

So you install a device that is normally left off during normal day-to-day operations. If there is an emergency, it can be activated by the pilot. It should also be possible for cabin crew to activate it too, meaning a rogue pilot cannot prevent the plane from being tracked. It could also be automatically activated by other systems, and be designed to start continous transmission of whatever black-box type data is available.

As pointed out, technical solutions can be found, if laymen can see the problem, so do the domain experts.

It is obvious that cost is the reason such systems do not exist. Development of life-critical infrastructure is costly and does not benefit from economy of scale. It's up to regulators to insist on this, as shareholders won't be the ones pushing it - I'm sure the insurance premiums are less that the R&D fees.

Happyman42

ectoraige wrote: »

If it was some loss of flight control scenario with the people still alive, I don't think I'd be able to read the transcript of those final two hours.

On the subject of satellite transponders that can't be turned off by a rogue pilot, I do have one thought.

Given that the need is to be able to track a plane in an emergency, but that the problem is the inability to isolate a faulty device could lead to an emergency, the obvious thought is for the device to only be activated during an emergency.

So you install a device that is normally left off during normal day-to-day operations. If there is an emergency, it can be activated by the pilot. It should also be possible for cabin crew to activate it too, meaning a rogue pilot cannot prevent the plane from being tracked. It could also be automatically activated by other systems, and be designed to start continous transmission of whatever black-box type data is available.

Technical solutions can be found, if laymen can see the problem, so do the domain experts.

It is obvious that cost is the reason such systems do not exist. Development of life-critical infrastructure is costly and does not benefit from economy of scale. It's up to regulators to insist on this, as shareholders won't be the ones pushing it - I'm sure the insurance premiums are less that the R&D fees.

If transponders go off, device switches on, preferably on the outside of aircraft and unreachable in flight. Powered by independent Ram Air Turbines that give emergency limited power in the event of power failure. No threat of fire then. Can't be that difficult?

Tea 1000

Happyman42 wrote: »

If transponders go off, device switches on, preferably on the outside of aircraft and unreachable in flight. Powered by independent Ram Air Turbines that give emergency limited power in the event of power failure. No threat of fire then. Can't be that difficult?

What powers the FDR's? I don't know of any emergency fire incident where the pilots had to turn those off.

Tenger

Tea 1000 wrote: »

What powers the FDR's? I don't know of any emergency fire incident where the pilots had to turn those off.

Independent and self contained battery unit.

Bill G

Tea 1000 wrote: »

What powers the FDR's? I don't know of any emergency fire incident where the pilots had to turn those off.

Power isolation for overheating/fire is not the only reason for the CB's. A lot of times after an incident and upon landing, the pilots (or indeed regulatory agents) will pull the CB's to preserve FDR/CVR data.

Happyman42

Tenger wrote: »

Independent and self contained battery unit.

Bill G wrote: »

Power isolation for overheating/fire is not the only reason for the CB's. A lot of times after an incident and upon landing, the pilots (or indeed regulatory agents) will pull the CB's to preserve FDR/CVR data.

If the above is true, the only way I can see a technical limitation to sending data to ground independently of the pilot or crew is by looking at the cost of it.

LordSutch

I'm beginning to adopt the theory that the pilot/captain lost his marbles and went on one last simulator 'jolly' after suffering a nervous breakdown at the loss of his marriage. I am thinking that all those 777 simulator hours were used to fly himself and his real plane into oblivion into the middle of nowhere. Totally oblivious to his crew and passengers as innocent victims due to his mind flipping . . . . .

Just a theory^ and the poor chap is more than likely totally innocent, but this theory has been doing the rounds, and (at this moment) it sounds plausible I think?