Missing MH370 thread cont...

[Pennies]

Old thread here

New thread here.

But military radar are not very prevalent over the Indian Ocean? Or have I got that wrong.

Goldie, do you think there's any realistic chance that these people could still be alive? Why haven't the passenger's photos been shown yet?

also non expert nonny but i guess it depends how 'wide' a corridor is. it may well be that it's a corridor because even if they headed away at 90 degrees for the half hour/hour they would still be in that band iyswim. i guess it also depends on winds and stuff - random recollection that some flights take longer in one direction than on the return due to factors. sorry - that last bit prob massively irrelevent.

"Why does it delete after two hours; is it privacy concerns on the part of pilots? "

I would assume it's partly to do with data capacity and partly necessity/applicability - voice recordings take up a fair amount of disk space and most investigations would be of crashes where presumably the last several minutes or so are the "crucial" window of time.

About 30 of them have been - think it was CNN, poss Sky I saw them on.

I imagine part of the issue with photos is that it takes a pretty hard-nosed journo to insist on barging their way into a room full of anxious relatives, who don't know whether the passengers are dead or alive, and ask for pictures. There are also cultural issues at play. I don't think it was a coincidence that the first pictures in the western media were of the NZ and American guys.

Also I doubt DVRs were designed with a @hijack and disappear" scenario in mind - other hijacks have been for demands which were made quickly,

I think we would have seen pictures if there had been Brits on board

If you do a quick search you can see pics of several of them..

"Has there ever been a situation (apart from perhaps the present one) where this has caused problems for investigators? Why does it delete after two hours; is it privacy concerns on the part of pilots? "

One of the suicide crashes was hampered by this. It's generally thouhgt that if an aeroplane crashes that the info you'll need to reconstruct the crash is held int he last 2 hours of recording.

"what's the significance of the fact the last pilot contact was made after the transponders/communication equipment had started being shut down?"

I can't see that there is something really significant in it.

Perhaps the Chinese media are more tactful than ours. The New Zealand lot shoving a camera is the face of that poor woman, a probable widow, seemingly within hours of her learning the first news of the tragedy... it's bloody disgraceful.

Just had a flick through the news channels

The flight simulator isn't going to show the pilot practising flying to deserted island with premade runway?
Or into petronus towers surely?

If the hijackers are a bright enough bunch to hide a plane.
Leaving a whacking great clue in the pilots flat is a bit of an oversight.

Unless they've left to incriminate the pilot?

"Or is it just too early to speculate?"

No way to know yet.

"have to say i find the news that all of these 'black box' and other recording devices can just be switched off a bit of a shock. are they just tokenistic look we're doing something installations or what?"

No - consider if you have an incident (a technical problem or an attempted hijacking) during the flight but you're more than two hours fromt he nearest airport. You pull the circuit breaker to preserve the data during the incident.

honey and it may well be that they're releasing information about search areas on a need-to-know basis and they don't feel that I need to know!

Tbh I think it's more the media interpretation - they're all reproducing graphics showing the satellite arc and saying the plane must be along that line. Actually that's not what the Malaysian authorities are saying at all, and they haven't released graphics of the suggested corridors, AFAIK. So maybe the corridors are a few hundred miles wide, for all that can be interpreted from the statements.

I'm not even really getting at anything here, just musing aloud and thinking that's a bloody enormous area to try to search.

"with a more common plane might outweigh the benefits of a larger range?"

For a hijacking with reuse, they mustneed either the range or the size - or a smller plane would have done the job. Plus, if you are trying to hide the plane somewhere, if the authorities have to search a 6000 mile radius rather than a 2500 mile one... makes you much harder to find.

I do like the way that mumsnet have not come on and told people off for speculating.
Speculating may just help in the search for the missing people.

HeyNonny on the surface of it, I can't find anything wrong with what you've said.

It is quite noticeable that we only have short bios and pictures of just a few of the passengers, I think I am correct in saying that we know nothing, apart from nationality, about at least 3/5 of them, maybe more. Its in contrast to other tragedies. Sandy Hook, for example, iirc, we had bios and pictures of all victims very fast.

TBH I'm finding this heartening. I'm assuming-hoping-it means that the media have only taken those pictures and interviews they have been offered, and not intruded on the relatives.

"Goldie, do you think there's any realistic chance that these people could still be alive? Why haven't the passenger's photos been shown yet?"

Realistically? I think it's probably very unlikely unless there is some sort of super-secret conspiracy theorists wet-dream going on to negotiate something behind the scenes.

"But military radar are not very prevalent over the Indian Ocean? Or have I got that wrong."

You're completely right. But one of the published tracks runs up north over a lot of countries that should have good military radar coverage.

Reading this thread and the one before it is so much better than the news. Ive been lurking all day :)

Would the flight simulator be able to show areas not covered by radar/tracking capabilities .... so for extreme practice they can be programmed you are in a X situation, in Y plane, you have Z damage....no one will be able to advise you for 40 minutes. What do you do??

I mean I suppose this info would be/is "classified" for pilots use only if it even exists, or is this a nonsense wondering?

Or is it out there if you look hard enough? As Goldie said upthread, terrorism is usually a long game, well planned for specific reasons.

a quick search found me a list of names of all passengers and crew but no pictures or information.

None of us are likely to sit in or influence the jury in any trial of the hijackers - MNHQ are normally fine with general speculation.