Malaysia Airlines flight MH370-Updates and Discussion

Tigerandahalf

From reading a few articles on line the Malaysians appear reluctant to share info on their defence systems with other countries, not surprising given the tensions that have been in that area.
The pings it seems were being sent to a Boeing satellite. Malaysian airlines it seems were not subscribed to this service where their planes would upload data but the pings to the satellite are still made. What hasnt been revealed is whether Boeing can identify every plane sending pings and can identify its position from them.
Also drip feeds apparently from sources at Rolls Royce that engine data was still been sent hours after last contact.
It seems information wasnt being shared and there doesnt seem to be anybody in overall charge of the operation who has access to all information.

homerjay2005

latest search area confirmed :P

Tigerandahalf

What about space and the aliens!

Mumha

Tenger wrote: »

On another note I read an interesting article about how China is using this SAR operation as a way to should its military muscle to its South China Sea neighbours. Satellite, warships, naval aviation, etc

In fairness, the Chinese would be damned if they did, and damned if they didn't. They have their own public to respond to as well.

Setun

Singapore Today update with the "latest and most accurate flightpath":https://twitter.com/sgify/status/444421777280614400/photo/1

Mumha

Tigerandahalf wrote: »

From reading a few articles on line the Malaysians appear reluctant to share info on their defence systems with other countries, not surprising given the tensions that have been in that area.
The pings it seems were being sent to a Boeing satellite. Malaysian airlines it seems were not subscribed to this service where their planes would upload data but the pings to the satellite are still made. What hasnt been revealed is whether Boeing can identify every plane sending pings and can identify its position from them.
Also drip feeds apparently from sources at Rolls Royce that engine data was still been sent hours after last contact.
It seems information wasnt being shared and there doesnt seem to be anybody in overall charge of the operation who has access to all information.

It does seem that way alright. Depressing.

Kunkka

Setun, why don't you go get the papers, get the papers

Setun

Kunkka wrote: »

Setun, why don't you go get the papers, get the papers

Kunkka

Setun wrote: »

Duplicate post, Goodfella's references

Happyman42

Setun wrote: »

Singapore Today update with the "latest and most accurate flightpath":https://twitter.com/sgify/status/444421777280614400/photo/1

Where is the next waypoint after IGREX?

Setun

Kunkka wrote: »

Duplicate post, Goodfella's references

Ah! It's been a while since I've seen it

JONJO THE MISER

It seems likely that the plane was hijacked and they flew it to land somewhere else, why else would it divert off course hundreds of miles.

Setun

Happyman42 wrote: »

Where is the next waypoint after IGREX?

Well it depends on what the plane's heading was I guess - there seems to be plenty in the region. I'm no expert so I think others can answer the question with much more clarity, but I did find this google map with flight waypoints in the region - https://www.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=203227712206365221567.000489e27e482f31f8a4c Oddly enough I couldn't find any mention of the waypoints quoted by Singapore Today.

Grandpa Hassan

JONJO THE MISER wrote: »

It seems likely that the plane was hijacked and they flew it to land somewhere else, why else would it divert off course hundreds of miles.

Yup, I think this is the most likely. There seems to be some more clarity now about the route it took. And maybe something happened like the 4th plane on 9/11, and it went down before reaching its intended destination

Tigerandahalf

Watching Sky news there and a radar expert was on. He gave a few interesting bits of info. He mentioned that if the plane flew west back over the Malaysian peninsula it would have come back into the primary radar of various countries but that if the plane flew at a lower altitude the range of the primary radar would be reduced and thus the plane could have been navigating a route back over the peninsula where it would avoid radar contact. In this theory it would all seem to indicate someone navigating the plane who knew what they were doing and had an indepth knowledge of the radar capabilities of the area.
He also mentioned that the Malaysians had recently installed a very high tech radar defence system (one of the most modern in the world) which because it has 3D capability could pinpoint the altitude of an object crossing its radar.
Concerns about showing up its defence systems seem to be a factor with the Malaysians wanting to share information.

ABC101

Interesting article in todays Financial Times

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/16e849e8-a9e5-11e3-adab-00144feab7de.html?siteedition=intl#axzz2vw92YC68
Malaysia struggles to manage crisis after flight’s disappearance

Various countries are becoming critical of the Malaysian authorities approach to the crisis.

In addition Vietnam has stated that it is scaling back its search and rescue efforts due to the "insufficient information" from the Malaysian side.

For all the Malaysian authorities know.. MH370 could be on the other side of the galaxy by now.

Does make one think... if something like this were to happen to a plane approaching Ireland... would the radars used by the IAA be capable of tracking a plane with transponders switched off?

I don't think there is any military radar of any appreciable range in Ireland at all.

geneva geneva4444

ABC101 wrote: »

Interesting article in todays Financial Times

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/16e849e8-a9e5-11e3-adab-00144feab7de.html?siteedition=intl#axzz2vw92YC68
Malaysia struggles to manage crisis after flight’s disappearance

Various countries are becoming critical of the Malaysian authorities approach to the crisis.

In addition Vietnam has stated that it is scaling back its search and rescue efforts due to the "insufficient information" from the Malaysian side.

For all the Malaysian authorities know.. MH370 could be on the other side of the galaxy by now.

Does make one think... if something like this were to happen to a plane approaching Ireland... would the radars used by the IAA be capable of tracking a plane with transponders switched off?

I don't think there is any military radar of any appreciable range in Ireland at all.

Yes we have good primary capabilities all built into the system and sites stretching from Malin Head down to Southwest Cork so there is good range attached. Plus, UK Military heavily monitor everything coming their way as well.

Tigerandahalf

In terms of primary and secondary radar are they both radio signals (at different frequencies) coming from the same ground tower, except the secondary radar gets info back from a plane's transponders?
Do they essentially have the same range or does it depend on the radio signal?

ABC101

geneva geneva4444 wrote: »

Yes we have good primary capabilities all built into the system and sites stretching from Malin Head down to Southwest Cork so there is good range attached. Plus, UK Military heavily monitor everything coming their way as well.

So you're saying Primary radar operated by the IAA can track an aircraft which does not have a transponder operating?

Do the UK military have a radar site in N.I.? Because if it was based in the UK... it would have to have a very long range... i.e 500 miles or more. Is that possible? Any ideas?

As far as I know... radar operated by the IAA has a range of 250 miles approximately... is that correct?

Supercell

If the satellite ping story is true and it corresponds to these way points then its hard to see this as anything but a hijacking. Only question that remains is whether the hijackers were overpowered and the plane crashed into the Indian Ocean somewhere or not.
If they didnt, its a very scary thought as to what's planned next for this plane

Tigerandahalf

From the WSJ.........

"Aviation consultant Doug Maclean said the secondary radar typically has a longer range than the primary radar—around 200 miles at 35,000 feet versus around 115 miles for primary radar. It would therefore be "normal for an aircraft to disappear from primary radar first" as it traveled over water, Mr. Maclean said. But in Flight 370's case, it disappeared from the secondary first. It still had seven hours' worth of fuel.

Mr. Maclean said it would have been possible for the aircraft to have reached that point undetected.

If the secondary system had been disabled, the plane could have descended to an altitude of around 10,000 feet and remained below primary coverage, only to re-enter coverage west of Malaysia after having regained altitude."

cml387

ABC101 wrote: »

So you're saying Primary radar operated by the IAA can track an aircraft which does not have a transponder operating?

Do the UK military have a radar site in N.I.? Because if it was based in the UK... it would have to have a very long range... i.e 500 miles or more. Is that possible? Any ideas?

As far as I know... radar operated by the IAA has a range of 250 miles approximately... is that correct?

The phased array radar at Fylingdales in Yorkshire has a range of over 5000 km I believe.

vonbarracuda

Could this Airfield on right at Car Nicobar handle a 777 I wonder?

Kalyke

cml387 wrote: »

The phased array radar at Fylingdales in Yorkshire has a range of over 5000 km I believe.

From Wikipedia.

The primary radars of RAF Fylingdales are Active electronically scanned array (AESA) (phased array) radars, mounted on each face of a truncated tetrahedron, typically referred to as the "pyramid". This makes Fylingdales unique amongst its peers in that it covers a full 360 degrees. Each of the three arrays contains around 2 560 transmit/receive modules; total peak power output equates to some 2.5 MW, with a tracking range of 5 556+ km




But then KL is about 10000km from the UK.....

geneva geneva4444

ABC101 wrote: »

So you're saying Primary radar operated by the IAA can track an aircraft which does not have a transponder operating?

Do the UK military have a radar site in N.I.? Because if it was based in the UK... it would have to have a very long range... i.e 500 miles or more. Is that possible? Any ideas?

As far as I know... radar operated by the IAA has a range of 250 miles approximately... is that correct?

Yes we can. But for all the information that we can get from secondary returns, primary really is very basic. Sometimes it can pick up high waves or boats on windy days and you get a lot of other spurious signals every now and then. The range is indeed roughly 250NM but it depends on the day. The edge of coverage can vary by several miles with bad weather. That's why our minimum seperation is 10NM at the outer edges of Irish airspace and 5NM closer in. See link below for a map of our high level airspace. Corner points of Sunot and Bedra are typically the edge of coverage and on bad days aircraft will disappear before they reach them heading westbound.

https://www.iaa.ie/enroute-services


Not sure about UK sites in N.I but western Scotland allows them to see a long way west anyway.

Tigerandahalf

vonbarracuda wrote: »

Could this Airfield on right at Car Nicobar handle a 777 I wonder?

How do you upload an image to this page? I want to upload a picture of the radar coverage.

Panda_Turtle

Supercell wrote: »

If the satellite ping story is true and it corresponds to these way points then its hard to see this as anything but a hijacking. Only question that remains is whether the hijackers were overpowered and the plane crashed into the Indian Ocean somewhere or not.
If they didnt, its a very scary thought as to what's planned next for this plane

Not sure why the plane would of zig-zagged like that?

At Igrex it looks like plane is headed straight towards Pakistan area?

Panda_Turtle

Tigerandahalf wrote: »

How do you upload an image to this page? I want to upload a picture of the radar coverage.

Could attach it, using the paper clip symbol. You can also link to the image using the Insert image tag (looks like two mountains) this will show up directly in the post.

check_six

vonbarracuda wrote: »

Could this Airfield on right at Car Nicobar handle a 777 I wonder?

Wikipedia says that runway is 8000ft+ and is used by Indian Air Force. I think that would accommodate a big jet, in theory.

Tigerandahalf

Panda_Turtle wrote: »

Not sure why the plane would of zig-zagged like that?

At Igrex it looks like plane is headed straight towards Pakistan area?

It seems from what we have been told that the zig-zag pattern was attempt to avoid radar.
I presume these waypoints can be entered into the plane's autopilot which will then fly to the waypoint and then onto the next waypoint when its corrdinates have been entered.
It would clearly need a person to have knowledge of the waypoints around the area and the path that could be taken to avoid radar contact. Not sure if these waypoints would have a reference for altitude.