Malaysia Airlines flight MH370-Updates and Discussion

Bill G

sopretty wrote: »

Can I ask, does this thing have any way of communicating with the surface or is it entirely autonomous when submerged?

It's an AUV, the hint is in the name....

sopretty

Bill G wrote: »

It's an AUV, the hint is in the name....

Frantically googles AUV in order to appear educated. :pac:

sopretty

Well, I've found the following results which are interesting!

http://search.us.com/serp?s=0&filter_level=1&k=AUV&guid=%7BD5077E0B-94BE-44D3-B491-E60D017F207C%7D&action=homepage_search&parent_action=homepage_search&serpv=31&i=&aid=&campaign=&pub=

tharmor

I had said when they found pings first time that after 2-3 days they will say battery is dead....

Its a massive coverup if they dont find anthing in near future....

Calina

sopretty wrote: »

does anyone else find it strange that this amazing submersible, which took weeks to be brought in by the US, has a silly over-ride function which means that if it reaches its lowest functional depth, then it 'abandons ship' altogether?

No I don't find it strange. This strikes me as a perfectly sensible safety mechanism, particularly given some of the fundamentals of operating underwater. Objective is not to lose the thing. They are hardly cheap.

sopretty wrote: »

Why not just go up a little bit to a safer depth!?

Because it may be a signal that the unit is malfunctioning. It's not human.

sopretty wrote: »

Is there no communication between 'it' and the surface? Bit of a white elephant of a piece of technology if that is to be believed.

I don't agree with you on that front. I can't see why anyone would think this to be honest with you.

Peanut

sopretty wrote: »

Why not just go up a little bit to a safer depth!?

If you operate something like that beyond it's design capabilities, you can't really say for sure what will happen if you go beyond that limit.

So, even though it's probably a small chance, if it did go down too deep and sprung a leak or something, I would guess that you probably don't want to keep it too far underwater if it's not clear whether it's damaged or not, since any damage may further reduce it's normal operating range.

Mountainsandh

It would make sense if its safety mechanism simply corrected its depth though, without aborting the mission straight away. (since the mission is such a big deal in the first place)

2 (and/or more) sensors ? one for depth, one for malfunction ?

sopretty

Calina wrote: »

No I don't find it strange. This strikes me as a perfectly sensible safety mechanism, particularly given some of the fundamentals of operating underwater. Objective is not to lose the thing. They are hardly cheap.



Because it may be a signal that the unit is malfunctioning. It's not human.



I don't agree with you on that front. I can't see why anyone would think this to be honest with you.

My reference to it being a white elephant was that it is not 'intelligent' enough to be let out on its own by all accounts! :pac: It was not in reference to the fact that it couldn't communicate with the surface (though I appreciate my question about the communication abilities immediately preceded my final statement).

'A signal that the unit is malfunctioning'? Are we back to that old nugget again? Either it knows how far down it is, or it doesn't. If it does, then it needs to go further up - not back to the bloomin' surface surely!.

Have they no other way of determining the depth of the ocean involved apart from this item?

I realise these 'yokes' are incredibly expensive. It's a little bit of a waste of money though, if you spend a small country's GDP on an item which goes underwater, decides it has gone far enough, then comes straight back up. Unless its sole function is to go down to a certain depth and then come back up.

Calina

sopretty wrote: »

'A signal that the unit is malfunctioning'? Are we back to that old nugget again? Either it knows how far down it is, or it doesn't. If it does, then it needs to go further up - not back to the bloomin' surface surely!.

And if it doesn't? Given that we've spent more than a month debating the possible things which might have gone wrong with a 777 is it really outside your capability to understand that sometimes things malfunction and that things like coming back to surface is a viable response to a possible malfunction?

sopretty wrote: »

I realise these 'yokes' are incredibly expensive. It's a little bit of a waste of money though, if you spend a small country's GDP on an item which goes underwater, decides it has gone far enough, then comes straight back up. Unless its sole function is to go down to a certain depth and then come back up.

Less of a waste than if it goes down and doesn't come back up.

sopretty

Calina wrote: »

And if it doesn't? Given that we've spent more than a month debating the possible things which might have gone wrong with a 777 is it really outside your capability to understand that sometimes things malfunction and that things like coming back to surface is a viable response to a possible malfunction?



Less of a waste than if it goes down and doesn't come back up.

Where are you getting the notion that it was a possible malfunction? Have you a link to that?

It reportedly reached its depth limit, turned around and went back up.

Joeseph Balls

sopretty wrote: »

Where are you getting the notion that it was a possible malfunction? Have you a link to that?

It reportedly reached its depth limit, turned around and went back up.

It would be working beyond its depth. Thus no one knows what way it will re-act. It could possibly malfunction and not comeback.
Possibly.
Sigh.

Calina

sopretty wrote: »

Where are you getting the notion that it was a possible malfunction? Have you a link to that?

It reportedly reached its depth limit, turned around and went back up.

I'm speaking in general terms about a valid response to a situation where it goes beyond its depth limit. However:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/16/submersible-searching-mh370-resurfaces-early-second-day

But an update from Australia’s joint co-ordination centre on Wednesday said the vehicle was forced to resurface “to rectify a technical issue”.

sopretty

Joeseph Balls wrote: »

It would be working beyond its depth. Thus no one knows what way it will re-act. It could possibly malfunction and not comeback.
Possibly.
Sigh.

Does it need to completely abort its mission?

sopretty

Calina wrote: »

I'm speaking in general terms about a valid response to a situation where it goes beyond its depth limit. However:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/16/submersible-searching-mh370-resurfaces-early-second-day

The technical issue they had to rectify was that it just re-surfaced out of the blue!

Sure, if they knew the capacity of it, why bring it in to do something it's not capable of doing? A US ship travelling for days with this iconic piece of technology??

From what I heard on the media, they were hoping to reprogramme it to not simply return to the surface.

Joeseph Balls

sopretty wrote: »

Does it need to completely abort its mission?

In case of damage etc, probably yes. As a previous poster said, it could be letting on water and moving up 100 yards isnt going to stop that. I agree its not an ideal situation but thats what it is.

dees99

Apparently radical Islamist chat rooms are full of chatter about a July 4th attack by an aircraft on the US.

Jack1985

Radicals is all they are, good luck to them trying to hijack an aircraft after 9/11, any attempts to gain access to the flight-deck unlawfully after 9/11 or following manic ''episodes'' by people on jets, have all been met with lots of passengers attacking the ''attacker'' and rightly so.

dees99

A flight deck whos pilots allow women inside the cockpit and pose for photos with, probably in the hope of getting the ride off them in they're destination. Just being honest.

The only passengers who would see such an attack would be the ones in first class up in the nose of the aircraft. Wouldn't be surprised if there was a Curtin hiding the cockpit door.

Ive a sister who works for BA. We flew to Rio in Club/business class. There was a really hot looking woman of about 30 sitting the seat near me. The pilot who looked like he was in his 50's spent nearly half the journey back and forth from the cockpit and down to her. I'd say she was his mistress or something. That would make me believe the flight deck is not as secure as we would like to think. Fair enough it was a flight to Brazil.

Jack1985

A flight deck whos pilots allow women inside the cockpit and pose for photos with, probably in the hope of getting the ride off them in they're destination. Just being honest.

I really think you could have worded that a whole lot better especially when talking about a deceased person, the co-pilot had an 8 year relationship and was planning on getting married - although the media wouldn't have you believe that.. the flight in question where those photos were taken, again I'll say why are no questions being asked of the Captain on that flight who actually asked those girls in?

The only passengers who would see such an attack would be the ones in first class up in the nose of the aircraft. Wouldn't be surprised if there was a Curtin hiding the cockpit door.

There isn't.

That would make me believe the flight deck is not as secure as we would like to think.

There's three pilots required for a sector of that length, two pilots in the flight deck at all times - One on rest and they swap, so who cares if he was talking to a pretty woman? As long as upfront everything is ticking over that's all I and anyone should care about.

warren44

So here we are, 39 days later. No real data coming from the Indian ocean. The pings were never verified as being from the black boxes. Just have been considered a strong possibility. Here is the most likely scenario as provided by another person with a lot of aviation experience. This is as close to what I have believe happened and I have been saying this scenario form day one. This is why there has not been 1 shred of physical evidence found to this day. Also note that it doesnt have to be the flight crew that carried this out, there could have been 2 passengers with extensive aviation experience/knowledge that could have pulled this off by overthrowing the flight crew.

Deconstruct from first data point indicating first deviation from established protocol. That is the first transponder being turned off. You then can start following events and at each bifurcation of possibilities the next known event would logically give rise to, you then follow the most likely choices through. This is going to produce multiple ‘maps’ of possibilities through a course of time. I’m going to take you through the pilot hijack scenario.

Since it is now known that at the first data point (trnxpr off), we know that is not done as SOP by either of the crew, so we can follow the likelihood that one or both crew members have at that time or before initiated a hijacking. Now you investigate the crew for SHARED interests that might enhance the credibility that two ‘dudes’ could agree on anything, let alone something with such grave consequences. If you can’t established ‘something’ within a few days that shows a shared link to some ideology, then (staying on the pilot theory) it was only one of them.

That means one of several possibilities, the simplest being that the one not involved got up just after TOC (top of climb) for a comfort break. This would actually be the expected (and most physiologically probable) time for either the PIC or F/O to leave the flight deck, meaning that the hijacker/pilot can now simply lock the door behind him and take control of the aircraft. Other scenarios, struggle for control ect lead to the same conclusion, so it doesn’t matter HOW it was accomplished; just that it was possibly accomplished. So where are we?

Now the aircraft makes some maneuvers (possibly a climb to 450. We just don’t know for sure but we do know that a heading of appr. 270 was established resulting in an over flight of both Malaysian and Thai airspace. WHY would you chance an overfly of BOTH airspaces if your intent was to keep flying to some – as of now – unknown destination. Answer: you would not. You have just increased the probability of detection by 100% (assuming all other unknowns like radar capabilities ect are even between the two airspaces). That equates to a DECREASE by 50% in mission success. DUMB. If we are even following this scenario, we know that the hijacker was anything but dumb.

That means that either the hijacking pilot KNEW that neither country would detect him. This is his home base and so would in fact be known 100% either they would or would not. Now, the aircraft enters Malacca straits and fly to two waypoints. There is no reason to fly an aircraft that is being hijacked to waypoints. You would simply fly it to your destination taking evasive actions as required.

UNLESS: You knew this. That ACARS would attempt to handshake at precisely time X. You KNOW that there is not contract to transmit data, but that a handshake attempt will take place at time X. You know that as long as ACARS Boeing sees that ACARS MH370 is within the flight group (of expected waypoints), no bells go off. That explains the aircraft staying on waypoints while both transponders were off.

Now you’re loitering along over the Malacca straits with the aircraft totally electronically ‘black’ with the exception of the one system you couldn’t shut off – the ACARS blip. You turn to a north heading and with your NAV and cabin lighting off, you visually watch the NAV lights of the multitude of traffic climbing out of Kuala Lumpur while listening to departure control. You know the times of the west-bound flights and simply pick up the aircraft and follow it north near the Andaman Islands. You follow that aircraft out of the bay of Bengal/north Indian ocean on a westerly track. This is called dead reckoning navigation. With the aircraft totally black, there is nothing below to use to dead reckon, BUT you now don’t need anything; you simply tail the aircraft (which you know everything about in advance as to their flight path, cruise altitude and destination ect). You just slipped out of all radar and have someone leading the way WITH radar which you are surreptitiously stealing as your own.

But where are you going? You’re going to meet your next “guide” aircraft, which is a legal private flight and you just divert off from the close tail you had on (flt068) approaching the Indian coast and while in between radar coverage to the east and west, the two planes assume close formation and fly on a northerly heading up through Burma ect. The ACARS will keep pinging, but it doesn’t matter, because it doesn’t reveal your position.

Here’s where it gets reeeeeally smaaart. The two aircraft overfly several countries into China’s airspace eventually. Why China? Because it is known in advance that you are going to use the satellite’s wide arc which you know will reveal your position as being somewhere along that arc as you cross that arc. You NEED to cross that arc, which on the northern axis of the arc, is in China/Kazakhstan. But why do you NEED to cross that arc?
Because the second you do, your position (to the rest of the world which will inevitably look for you) is now EFFECTIVELY anywhere along that arc, which puts your position in an impossibly large sweep of land/sea area. THAT’s why you crossed over that arc before TTFE (time to fuel extinguish) AND with enough fuel plus reserve/divert to follow your chase plane (if it’s still required) to you final destination.

It’s pure genius to cross that arc when they did, because TTFE now cannot possibly be ascertained and plotted to a know position relative to LOS (loss of signal). You could have gone south, you could have gone north, and no one NO ONE can possibly know for sure. Otherwise, Boeing would be able to tell where you are. But by using the satellite AGAINST ACARS, you now have effectively shut Boeing down from being able to triangulate you using fuel burn time against other knowns. That arc is very effectively a giant Bermuda Triangle electronically, in the way that you have used it against ACARS.
In this scenario, the plane, obviously hijacked is most probably in a ‘Stan’. It’s been fueled and moved again possibly to a location with a hangar door wider than 200 ft. (Now you have to hide it) and use the aircraft and passengers, if they are alive, in whatever way you intended.

warren44

Has anyone seen this starting to pop up?

http://ca.ibtimes.com/articles/547801/20140411/missing-malaysian-airlines-flight-mh370-hijacked-afghanistan.htm

Russian intelligence sources have claimed that all passengers and crew members aboard the missing Malaysian Flight MH370 are alive and the plane was, in fact, hijacked and flown to Afghanistan. (Also Read: MH370's Co-pilot Made Mid-Flight Call from Mobile Phone)

A source in Russian's FSB secret service has reportedly said that the plane was hijacked and flown close to the Afghan-Pakistan border and all people aboard the plane are currently being held hostage.

warren44

Has anyone seen these articles popping up?


Russian intelligence sources have claimed that all passengers and crew members aboard the missing Malaysian Flight MH370 are alive and the plane was, in fact, hijacked and flown to Afghanistan. (Also Read: MH370's Co-pilot Made Mid-Flight Call from Mobile Phone)

A source in Russian's FSB secret service has reportedly said that the plane was hijacked and flown close to the Afghan-Pakistan border and all people aboard the plane are currently being held hostage.

JONJO THE MISER

Exactly it was hijacked and landed, the truth will come out in the end.

pclancy

You're entitled to your opinion.

But how would you explain pings from black boxes off the coast of Perth?

Growler!!!

Why do people keep mentioning Afghanistan?
The entire airspace is controlled by NATO, the only working airfields are run by the military of various nations. It's about the last place you could hide something like a 777.

Bored soldiers talk.

kippy

Growler!!! wrote: »

Why do people keep mentioning Afghanistan?
The entire airspace is controlled by NATO, the only working airfields are run by the military of various nations. It's about the last place you could hide something like a 777.

Bored soldiers talk.

This is it for me really. If therr is a cover up of any description its never gonna stay wuiet for long as too many would know of it.
That aircraft looks to be at the bottom of the ocean unfortunately. The mystery is why it ended up where it did.

warren44

pclancy wrote: »

You're entitled to your opinion.

But how would you explain pings from black boxes off the coast of Perth?

Those pings are not from the black boxes. There is no way the first one discovered by the Chinese is real. They were using a portable hand held locator which in no way could detect those boxes at those depths.

None of the pings have been verified as coming from any type of black box. Every statement that has been released has been with words like "Likely, or Probably or Could Be" Even the last 5th ping was said to NOT have come from the black box and they have no idea where it even came from.

These people are recklessly reporting information that just isnt true in order to hide that they either A: know what really happened and are keeping it under wraps or B: are so in the dark and are looking in an area where the plane is not.

Remember, the Inmarsat PING info they released to the public was not in its entirety. They are going by crude guesstimates. That last ping could have been received when the plane was already on the ground, or have easily been spoofed. Even if it was in fact form MH370, it still is just a ping that doesnt proved any info other than a ping response. Just because they are experts doesnt mean they cant be wrong when guessing how for the plane was form the last satellite that received the ping.

warren44

kippy wrote: »

This is it for me really. If therr is a cover up of any description its never gonna stay wuiet for long as too many would know of it.
That aircraft looks to be at the bottom of the ocean unfortunately. The mystery is why it ended up where it did.

If the aircraft were in fact at the bottom of the ocean in one piece or in huge pieces, it would have been found. They have found pyramids and structures that are buried deep under the ocean for thousands of years with satellites on more than one occasion yet they find this plane or one piece of it?

warren44

Also that wacky looking Malay pilot who had all the flight simulator equipment at his house had a bunch of practice runs landing a plane at Diego Garcia. Maybe he tried this and the plane was shot down?

It wouldnt be the first time. The guvt lies alot. Just like they came up with that whole LETS ROLL story for the hijacked plane that supposedly crashed into a field in Pennsylvania on 9/11. That plane was shot down by fighter jets and they came up with the LETS ROLL story because they would never want the public to know our own guvt would shoot down a civilian commercial airliner in order to prevent it from crashing into its target.

This was told to me by someone who was evacuated from a federal building on 9/11 and when news spread throughout the federal employees about the plane crashing in Pennsylvania, the reply was, that was one of our own that shot that plane down. So nothing really surprises me. Is it 100% truth? I cant prove it, but I sure dont believe anything that the media reports in its entirety with its sorted and blemished track record.

kippy

warren44 wrote: »

If the aircraft were in fact at the bottom of the ocean in one piece or in huge pieces, it would have been found. They have found pyramids and structures that are buried deep under the ocean for thousands of years with satellites on more than one occasion yet they find this plane or one piece of it?

It took them years to locate many objects that have been lost at sea. You underestimate the vastness of the planet and the task involved. Also the finding of these other objects is an entirely different process that I would suggest didnt happen overnight.
If the aircraft were in fact ANYWHERE else but the bottom of the ocean the same question would apply. Why hasnt it been found?