Malaysia Airlines flight MH370-Updates and Discussion

eatmyshorts

theKillerBite wrote: »

I don't know about the FDR in the MH370 plane, but modern recorders are supposed to eject & fly away from the plane so as to avoid the burning wreckage and possible damage from fire etc. I think the NTSB made recommendation of such recorders in 1999.

Don't know where you got that idea from. No such FDR or CVR exists.

theKillerBite

eatmyshorts wrote: »

Don't know where you got that idea from. No such FDR or CVR exists.

..

``(2) Deployable recorder system.--The term `deployable
recorder system' means a digital flight data recorder, cockpit
voice recorder and emergency locator transmitter housed as one
unit within an assembly that is -designed to be mounted
conformal to the surface of the airframe, eject from the
aircraft upon accident and fly away from the crash site, and
float indefinitely on water.''.

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-108hr2632ih/html/BILLS-108hr2632ih.htm

eatmyshorts

theKillerBite wrote: »

..

It was never developed and installed on commercial aircraft.

wil

NST reporting likely the black box batteries have died as no new signals since 8th
NST

Might deploy submersibles now as they were holding off until the pings search was exhausted.

pclancy wrote: »

Bloody media, I see no evidance of a "desperate" or "urgent" call, just a brief signal from a phone trying to find a tower. They really love steching the boundary of truth

I thought (really hoped) I had learned a new word, probably meaning something along the lines of misunderstanding or not understanding technology, and showing off mistaken knowledge thinking it was cool or highly informed.
Boy was I steched:o

verb (used with object)
1. to fill or gorge (one's stomach) with food.

verb (used without object) 2. to eat voraciously.

Don't care, from now on, it means what we said:cool:

ProfessorPlum

theKillerBite wrote: »

I don't know about the FDR in the MH370 plane, but modern recorders are supposed to eject & fly away from the plane so as to avoid the burning wreckage and possible damage from fire etc. I think the NTSB made recommendation of such recorders in 1999.

One of the many dangers of google........

K.Flyer

eatmyshorts wrote: »

The FDR and CVR are strongly fixed into the aircraft structure in the tail area. The boxes will still be in the wreckage.

This is what I thought, I couldn't understand the comments of looking for them first and then going looking for the plane.

seal57

SINTOK: Police are looking into the catering and cleaning companies servicing Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) to shed more light into the disappearance of flight MH370.

Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar said the move is to ensure that all angles are thoroughly investigated.

However, he declined to reveal more information on the probe

Read more at: http://english.astroawani.com/news/show/mh370-cleaning-catering-companies-investigated-33769?cp

Mountainsandh

ProfessorPlum wrote: »

One of the many dangers of google........

Google is great for learning stuff, you just have to be very thorough, and dedicate the time to read as many links as possible, or cross check important bits, and then there's how much you retain of the information. Time consuming.

I think I remember reading about a proposal for the FDR and CVR to be in one box ? Or not ? Is/was that ever the case ?
I think I keep reading about "boxes" in this instance so I take it it's definitely 2 boxes that are being searched for in this case ? Bit confused.

Daffodil.d

K.Flyer wrote: »

This is what I thought, I couldn't understand the comments of looking for them first and then going looking for the plane.

This is what I meant by my comment. On every news station and quotes from Australian pm and Malaysian officials it's like they've already assumed that the wreckage is separate from bb. The fact that previous news has reported that they found 300 pieces of debris but NOT ONE was connected to the actual plane is weird. If the plane met the water at speed surely something would show up even something small? Also it's a little uncomfortable to think that our oceans are that full of waste.

Tenger

K.Flyer wrote: »

This is what I thought, I couldn't understand the comments of looking for them first and then going looking for the plane.

Well they are looking for the black boxes......as its these that are sending out signals and these that contain data that may explain the incident. The assumption is that the black boxes will be found amongst any wreckage.

CVR's/FDR's designed to be ejected from an aircraft introduces more fail points into a system designed to be as failproof as possible.
Additionally what would eject them? Explosives?

Mountainsandh wrote: »

.....I think I remember reading about a proposal for the FDR and CVR to be in one box ? Or not ? Is/was that ever the case ?
I think I keep reading about "boxes" in this instance so I take it it's definitely 2 boxes that are being searched for in this case ? Bit confused.

Definitely 2 separate devices. 1 located near the tail and 1 near the nose. These are the bright red/orange items that you may have seen featured in news snippets over the last 2-3 weeks.

wil

pablo128 wrote: »

This time it was the middle of the indian ocean, with the loss of 239 lives. Next time a major city, or football stadium or something. For fcuk sake if a Toyota has a fault with an accelerator pedal and one person dies, there's international outrage and a massive recall.
I don't think you're seeing this mh370 situation in proper context at all.

or so it was thought until barely a few weeks ago:eek:

(sorry that one couldn't go without response even if it does fuel the CTs)

Unfortunately yes, sometimes big companies do view brand as more important than lives.

Japanese car giant hit with massive fine by the US Department of Justice as Attorney General describes company’s conduct as shameful

"“The $1.2bn payment represents the largest criminal penalty imposed on a car company in US history. This is appropriate given the extent of the deception carried out by Toyota in this case.
“Put simply, Toyota’s conduct was shameful. It showed a blatant disregard for systems and laws designed to look after the safety of consumers.
“By the company’s own admission, it protected its brand ahead of its own customers. This constitutes a clear and reprehensible abuse of the public trust.”

brandon_flowers

wil wrote: »

Unfortunately yes, sometimes big companies do view brand as more important than lives.

Sometimes = pretty much always. From day 1 MH finance dept will have been on an aggressive marketing and sales campaign to get their share price back up. Boeing/RR will be pumping money into the search effort to protect their share price/market segment.

Corporate world is pretty cold and cynical about these kind of things. We had a guy killed on one of our projects two weeks ago, he was a contracted to us so technically not a member of staff. The first line was "there has been a fatality" second line "he was not a full time member of staff but an external contractor.. none of our employees were injured" third line "sympathy to his family" fourth line "we will investigate" fifth line "work has resumed"

Anyway I see they have spotted an oil slick 5.5km downwind of where they last picked up signals. ROV going down today.

squonk

sopretty wrote: »

You're not getting the point I'm making cuterob. I'm not allowed to repeat it though haha. Hard to argue a point that way.
Suffices to say, that I would love for the world to spend every cent it has investigating every death lost. That's not going to happen.
I wonder as to the motivations for this investigation.

I haven't checked this thread over the weekend but I thought things would have moved on from this particular thread of conversation! . FFS is you are in any doubt about the motivations at play here, take a look at almost any episode of Air Crash Investigation and you'll find plenty of justification there. Oftentimes accidents are due to fairly incidental or innocuous things that are not at all evident in the majority of the data from the actual crash. Even last night I watched an episode about an A320 on an acceptance flight that crashed because maintenance crews powerhosed the plane with water which led to water ingress in the angle of attack sensors which froze once the plane climbed to 30,000ft which, in turn caused bad data being sent to the on board computers which in turn caused the computers to disconnect leaving the plane on manual however the pilots were found to be too reliant on the automation so did not expect the occurence, and further steps required were not taken. To be fair to the flight crew they had a very short period of time to adjust to the situation as they were flying quite low. The point here is that it was a non obvious cause. Great lengths were taken to investigate the issue and in this case new information was ascertained, such as the temperatures typically reached inside the angle of attack sensors during flight. It wasn't said but no doubt this is new information that has been factored into the design of these items in newer or future aircraft. The upshot is that each improvement incrementally makes aircraft safer for us all.

Air travel is already incredibly safe to the extent that we always expect to get from airport A to airport B and it's a very rare occurence not to. It's even rarer to die as a result of an accident. While air accidents are always terrible events, the investigations shouldn't be seen in a negative light. They are a positive aspect to the entire misfortunate occurence and ultimately save more lives in the long run than were lost in the accident in the first place.

I'm certain that manufacturers too would prefer to pay for R&D than for claims from airlines due to design flaws or accidents due to faulty systems. For them also there has to be a large future aggregated ecconomy in investigating these incidents and taking the lessons learned on board for future aircraft.

So can we stop with this particular line of discussion now please?

pfurey101

squonk wrote: »

I haven't checked this thread over the weekend but I thought things would have moved on from this particular thread of conversation! . FFS is you are in any doubt about the motivations at play here, take a look at almost any episode of Air Crash Investigation and you'll find plenty of justification there. Oftentimes accidents are due to fairly incidental or innocuous things that are not at all evident in the majority of the data from the actual crash. Even last night I watched an episode about an A320 on an acceptance flight that crashed because maintenance crews powerhosed the plane with water which led to water ingress in the angle of attack sensors which froze once the plane climbed to 30,000ft which, in turn caused bad data being sent to the on board computers which in turn caused the computers to disconnect leaving the plane on manual however the pilots were found to be too reliant on the automation so did not expect the occurence, and further steps required were not taken. To be fair to the flight crew they had a very short period of time to adjust to the situation as they were flying quite low. The point here is that it was a non obvious cause. Great lengths were taken to investigate the issue and in this case new information was ascertained, such as the temperatures typically reached inside the angle of attack sensors during flight. It wasn't said but no doubt this is new information that has been factored into the design of these items in newer or future aircraft. The upshot is that each improvement incrementally makes aircraft safer for us all.

Air travel is already incredibly safe to the extent that we always expect to get from airport A to airport B and it's a very rare occurence not to. It's even rarer to die as a result of an accident. While air accidents are always terrible events, the investigations shouldn't be seen in a negative light. They are a positive aspect to the entire misfortunate occurence and ultimately save more lives in the long run than were lost in the accident in the first place.

I'm certain that manufacturers too would prefer to pay for R&D than for claims from airlines due to design flaws or accidents due to faulty systems. For them also there has to be a large future aggregated ecconomy in investigating these incidents and taking the lessons learned on board for future aircraft.

So can we stop with this particular line of discussion now please?

Well said Squonk! Although you will find that the norm will continue with many posters. Then a new poster witll join in not having even bothered to look at even the previous 10-15 pages or any of the previous posts - and it starts all over again.

All most of us can do now is sit and wait as they continue to search. Speculation based on very few facts, while maybe great gas to some, is a waste of bandwidth.

wil

brandon_flowers wrote: »

Sometimes = pretty much always. From day 1 MH finance dept will have been on an aggressive marketing and sales campaign to get their share price back up. Boeing/RR will be pumping money into the search effort to protect their share price/market segment.

Corporate world is pretty cold and cynical about these kind of things. We had a guy killed on one of our projects two weeks ago, he was a contracted to us so technically not a member of staff. The first line was "there has been a fatality" second line "he was not a full time member of staff but an external contractor.. none of our employees were injured" third line "sympathy to his family" fourth line "we will investigate" fifth line "work has resumed"

Anyway I see they have spotted an oil slick 5.5km downwind of where they last picked up signals. ROV going down today.

odg, I was going to put a polite footer to sopretty:) not to jump on that as inspiration for the last umpteen pages:(, and then you say that.:eek:

Just to avoid repeat, could you just remind us, you meant to write "pretty much sometimes":cool:

What is it they say hmmm

Still think I'd trust a pilot over most other professionals - comes with a handy built in proviso

Oil slick, yes hard facts, good.:)

brandon_flowers

wil wrote: »

odg, I was going to put a polite footer to sopretty:) not to jump on that as inspiration for the last umpteen pages:(, and then you say that.:eek:

Just to avoid repeat, could you just remind us, you meant to write "pretty much sometimes":cool:

What is it they say hmmm

Still think I'd trust a pilot over most other professionals - comes with a handy built in proviso

Oil slick, yes hard facts, good.:)

I know I'm sorry, its the cynic in me on a Monday morning. I think sopretty is hinting at something far more sinister than my black and white argument though

And yes I would always trust a pilot to do his job, in fact I have no choice because I board a plane 6 or 7 times a month. If I didn't trust them I wouldn't be getting on.

Nice to see the American media calling the Bluefin a drone sub. If this thing doesn't pick up something in the next few days then it is going to be a far more pain staking search than it already is.

eatmyshorts

brandon_flowers wrote: »

And yes I would always trust a pilot to do his job, in fact I have no choice because I board a plane 6 or 7 times a month. If I didn't trust them I wouldn't be getting on.
.

Placing your trust in someone with control over your fate is one of the top reasons for people being afraid of flying. It's up there with the "lack of control".
I can totally understand where they're coming from. My wife is terrified of flying so I have first hand experience of what it can do to people.

brandon_flowers

eatmyshorts wrote: »

Placing your trust in someone with control over your fate is one of the top reasons for people being afraid of flying. It's up there with the "lack of control".
I can totally understand where they're coming from. My wife is terrified of flying so I have first hand experience of what it can do to people.

I know it well also, my father has often left finger indents on hand rests because of his fear of flying. And my gf is terrified of small planes to make it better.

But I guess I don't see it as fate, I just assume that if anything does go wrong the Cpt or FO knows what they are doing. In effect that is their job and that is what they are trained to do (not meant to dumb your job down in anyway).

pfurey101

eatmyshorts wrote: »

Placing your trust in someone with control over your fate is one of the top reasons for people being afraid of flying. It's up there with the "lack of control".
I can totally understand where they're coming from. My wife is terrified of flying so I have first hand experience of what it can do to people.

I've been involved in aviation since 1972 and this is the first time I have heard this reason. Its' normally the shakes, bumps and mad noises the plane makes that puts people off. Maybe your reason is in the smaller percentage. I do not know.

Does your wife travel on a bus, train, ship, taxi or as a passenger in a private car? What is she like when getting a tooth out or has to go through some minor surgical operation?

She won't be in much control for any of the above. She must have had a worse time than the rest of us with what our politicians, bankers, solicitors, property developers and troika did to us - we had no feckin control over that lot.

2 stroke

pfurey101 wrote: »

I've been involved in aviation since 1972 and this is the first time I have heard this reason. Its' normally the shakes, bumps and mad noises the plane makes that puts people off. Maybe your reason is in the smaller percentage. I do not know.

Does your wife travel on a bus, train, ship, taxi or as a passenger in a private car? What is she like when getting a tooth out or has to go through some minor surgical operation?

She won't be in much control for any of the above. She must have had a worse time than the rest of us with what our politicians, bankers, solicitors, property developers and troika did to us - we had no feckin control over that lot.

You must have your head in the sand since 1972. Lack of faith in the airline is what realy scares people. Passengers are lied to, and told half truths on a regular basis. A typical example is showing a plane as delayed, when nobody has a clue where the plane is. So when they hear that strange noise or feel a bit of turbulance it makes them worry whats realy happening.

Jack1985

My father is the same, its an absolute ordeal to get him to fly although he goes every year, it's the not being in control is what gets to him.

LordSutch

Re the Bluefin 21 search, would'nt it be great if they had the same luck they had with the 'Richard III' search, which resulted in the discovery of his remains in the very first dig of a massive car park! What a stroke of luck that was.

I'm fascinated that the bluefin scans the seabed 600 metres to its left and 600 metres to its right as it crawls along close to the sea bed, at walking pace . . . . .

mbur

I read somewhere an MH370 conspiracy theory that relied upon the new "safety" feature of all Boeing Aircraft that allows a remote controller to 'take over" from the aircrew. This apparantly was done in response to 911.

In the case of MH370 we have a strong suspicion that someone in control of the aircraft attempted to disabled all communications equipment. If this was the case it is interesting to note that this was unsuccessful. The aircraft was able to communicate with a monitoring satelite despite the wishes of the crew.

So maybe the takeover feature is only fully enabled over continental US or on certain satellite networks. Maybe that final "ping" from MH370 was an automated system which, having detected that the aircraft was in dire need of a decent pilot and was inviting a remote controller to take over?

It looks to me that the development of such remote control is well underway.

It is a pity that someone somewhere didn't notice that series of mysterious handshakes from that 'missing' commercial airliner and take appropriate action while the aircraft was still in the air. I'm sure such alerts could be automated to some degree. My worry is that someone did notice and for reasons unknown did nothing

owenc

Jack1985 wrote: »

My father is the same, its an absolute ordeal to get him to fly although he goes every year, it's the not being in control is what gets to him.

We are going to America in June and I am really not looking forward to listening to mines moaning..

He has a plane but hates flying for hours and hours.

wil

K.Flyer wrote: »

This is what I thought, I couldn't understand the comments of looking for them first and then going looking for the plane.

Daffodil.d wrote: »

This is what I meant by my comment. On every news station and quotes from Australian pm and Malaysian officials it's like they've already assumed that the wreckage is separate from bb. The fact that previous news has reported that they found 300 pieces of debris but NOT ONE was connected to the actual plane is weird. If the plane met the water at speed surely something would show up even something small? Also it's a little uncomfortable to think that our oceans are that full of waste.

Tenger wrote: »

Well they are looking for the black boxes......as its these that are sending out signals and these that contain data that may explain the incident. The assumption is that the black boxes will be found amongst any wreckage.

...

I think I get where the questions are coming from, it almost appears they are looking for the black boxes independent to the plane, and submersibles are not being used to search until now.
If this is the question then AFAIK the answer is along the lines of Tengers reply above.

It is a question of time and narrowing down the search area.
All resources are dedicated to locating the black box signals for the limited time they are produced. There is little point sending down submersibles until that information is exhausted.

To continue the needle in a haystack analogy, it is like identifying which field the haystack is in, then hopefully identifying the particular haystack while it is still emitting a signal. If you don't get it narrowed down to that haystack before the 30 days, then the task of finding it with a submersible crawling along the bottom with sonar is so much greater.

Once the signal is dead, then you have exhausted all possibility of reducing the search area, really unless you get very lucky


As for full of oceans full of waste, one oceanographer described "It's like a toilet bowl that swirls but doesn't flush," said Moore
Read more here

A Primal Nut

CapriKorn wrote: »

I completely agree about the wasted money. I do not believe we will find out anything of major significance (like a design flaw) or even why it happened. The money spent on this search could be so much better spent on other things (even though it's naive to expect that it would be). Another perspective: Lots of people disappear with no explanation every day, and we do not commit unlimited resources to finding them. Why is it that a dramatic tragedy makes people endorse this kind of effort and expense, but the day by day unsolved murders and disappearances (which add up to way more than 239) don't seem to bother them?

There is plenty of money spent on missing people, unsolved murders and disappearances. Look at Madeleine McCann.

A Primal Nut

Growler!!! wrote: »

QUOTE=sully2010;89902190]T
Seems like the phone was left on in his flight bag and picked up a signal.

According to the article, the phone was detached before the plane took off; that means on the ground and well in range of the cell towers. The only reason for it to be detached would be if the phone was turned off or put into flight mode.

For it to re-attach it would have to have been turned on again or taken out of flight mode manually.

It re-attached over Penang, after the plane had turned back away from its original route. It's safe to say he wasn't turning it on to play a game of Candy Crush.

Edit: It's possible he turned it back on after the plane took off but it didn't pick up a signal until that point over Penang. That said, if he is careful enough to turn it off before the plane took off, I doubt he would turn it back on (and not in flight mode) within an hour of the flight taking off under normal conditions.

the_monkey

owenc wrote: »

We are going to America in June and I am really not looking forward to listening to mines moaning..

He has a plane but hates flying for hours and hours.

what ??

pfurey101

mbur wrote: »

I read somewhere an MH370 conspiracy theory that relied upon the new "safety" feature of all Boeing Aircraft that allows a remote controller to 'take over" from the aircrew. This apparantly was done in response to 911.

In the case of MH370 we have a strong suspicion that someone in control of the aircraft attempted to disabled all communications equipment. If this was the case it is interesting to note that this was unsuccessful. The aircraft was able to communicate with a monitoring satelite despite the wishes of the crew.

So maybe the takeover feature is only fully enabled over continental US or on certain satellite networks. Maybe that final "ping" from MH370 was an automated system which, having detected that the aircraft was in dire need of a decent pilot and was inviting a remote controller to take over?

It looks to me that the development of such remote control is well underway.

It is a pity that someone somewhere didn't notice that series of mysterious handshakes from that 'missing' commercial airliner and take appropriate action while the aircraft was still in the air. I'm sure such alerts could be automated to some degree. My worry is that someone did notice and for reasons unknown did nothing

Oh dear! Here we go again, perhaps you should read through the entire thread before you post - difficult I know. Every one of your comments are either incorrect or have been proven false on numerous occaisions here and on the various pilot forums.

BTW it was a ground station via an INMARSAT satellite that routinely contacted the aircraft to ask "Hello" and "Are you there?" The aircraft didn't communicate with a monitoring satelite. And these were only tracked back through historical logs while trying to work out the track.

As for "remote control" - a huge job and I guess you missed the efforts of those trying to remote control a B727 crash into a desert.

Wanderer2010

Interesting to hear how people cite a lack of control as their fear of flying. I wonder how many of the same people drive a car, where you are statistically far, far more likely to die in a crash? Essentially its the same thing when driving a car- you have zero control over another person, so a joyriding maniac on the wrong side of the road can end your life no matter how careful you were when merging lanes, stopping for obstacles etc. Same with a bus, you are putting your life in the hands of a bus driver and presuming nothing from the start to the end of your journey will affect you. When in reality you are much more likely to die on the road than in the air..