Missing Malaysia Air plane MH370 - Part 3

[KenAdams]

Thread 1

Thread 2

Whatever kind of wine you like I think!

Just a quick update from the Guardian:

'Aviation officials in India, Pakistan and Central Asia, and Taliban spokesmen from remote areas said they had not seen or tracked the plane and its chances of penetrating inland undetected were slight.'

Doesn't mean it's not there of course as I think we mentioned radar coverage not being like Europe but still with all the military activity in the area chances are slim?

Wannabe, was the locator beacon disabled?

The design may have changed since 1997?!

I found further explanation of the arcs when reading PPrune earlier today. It's substantively what I said above I think?

On the arcs and the pings, the published arc represents points on the earth's surface which are equidistant from the satellite and where the aircraft could be - we understand this was from the last ping received.

If, during its flight, the aircraft had been at some point, other than on the published arc, an earlier ping would have shown this - with a concentric arc of different radius - this would be pretty valuable information giving further hints as to speed and direction e.g. if two arcs an hour apart had almost the same radius then it's pretty likely the aircraft's path would have been substantially along that arc.

Again, if transit times for the earlier pings are available, all such data will surely have been already extracted but, seemingly, not yet published.

goldie There were two points coming through from earlier discussion, one about the plane being flown at around 5,000 feet and also about flying in the slipstream of another aircraft. Will see if I can find more news articles to make it a bit easier.

wannabe so they haven't been made more durable since '97?
you'd have thought tech advancements would've protected them better nowadays

X-posts SnatchDoctor

high fives Goldie

Here's the 5,000 feet theory which Malaysis Airlines is now disputing:

'The missing plane could have flown as low as 5,000ft (1,500 metres) after diverting from its course, allowing it to avoid detection by radar, writes Tania Branigan citing Malaysian media reports.

Investigators are working to narrow down the last possible observation of flight MH370 after analysis of satellite information revealed it was in one of two vast corridors: a northern area stretching from the border of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to northern Thailand; and a southern range stretching from Indonesia to the southern Indian Ocean. Twenty-five countries are now involved in the search for the plane, which officials believe was diverted from its route to Beijing deliberately not long after it took off from Kuala Lumpur just after midnight on 8 March.

Malaysia’s New Straits Times reported that investigators were considering the possibility that the Boeing 777 dropped to 5,000ft or potentially even lower to avoid detection.

It suggested that the aircraft might not have roused the suspicions of those watching military radars if it followed commercial routes. It also cited unnamed sources as saying the plane had flown low over the Malay peninsula.

It is unclear where the altitude estimate originated and experts said that if it came from radar data it could well prove incorrect.

Update: Asked about this story Malaysia Airline chief executive said: “We are not aware of that report. It is something that the investigation team has to look into. [After prompting from Hishamuddin] It doesn’t come from us”.'

"Second is a question for goldie : a lot of people on pprune are writing off the "sighting" on the oil rig as being too far away from the last satellite ping (at closest point), at 300 odd miles away. But surely, if the plane possibly flew for another hour after the ping, it could be close enough?"

I think this is based on the fact that in order to be at the point where it was tracked over the Straits of Malacca - i.e. in the opposite direction to the oil rig, the timings simply can't work.

is whatever your favorite is

I'm quite shocked that the black boxes can be disabled. Obviously, I always thought they couldn't be. But that's probably an assumption I picked up from watching various "Aircrash Investigations" programmes where the black boxes are significant in finding out what happened. I wonder why the circuit breakers are accessible on the flight deck, as that seems to be contrary to commonsense.

this is interesting

Oh and this discussion about the flight path being pre programmed

edition.cnn.com/2014/03/14/opinion/goyer-malaysia-flight/

Can't find the slipstream stuff but basically was it possible for a 777 to slip behind another one and go undetected thus gaining entry.

If you have time to ponder any of this that would be great - I think these were some of the main points from earlier but do correct me if I'm wrong.

and many thanks to you for your excellent insights.

" The US shot down an Iranian passenger jet in 1988 killing all 230 aboard and although they eventually reached a repayment settlement with Iran they never accepted full responsibility. The US had mistaken it for a fighter jet."

They admitted they shot it down. The only quibbling was whether it was genuinely thinking it was a hostile flight, as the US said, or if it was a deliberate act targeting a civilian flight, as the Iranians said. Though I suppose US politicians might make a different decision now than they did way back in the days of Reagan when the pane was ship down, and Clinton when the Chinese embassy was shot up.

I'm super late to the party and haven't read the other two threads but -

If this has been done by the pilots or a very knowledgeable group of terrorists, could the plane have flown along a different route without cabin crew knowing? So if it was the pilot's, they just re routed without a word?
Would the cabin crew have a panic button of sorts to tell the ground something was amiss?

Then, if the pilots landed the plane, handed the passengers (who had no idea of a re route!) over to a hijacking group with guns etc the passengers could be alive. For now.

Then, they could attempt to fly the plane, with passengers and explosives at a country. My guess would be China purely because of the amount of Chinese on board (my only logic hear being if it was a different country this was aimed at they would have chosen a different flight) then China would shoot the plane out of the sky before it got to land, therefore killing their own and causing mass hysteria.

This would explain the silence. I also believe (my opinion and i'm welcome for it to be dis proven!) that Rolls Royce new where the engine was many days ago but probably chose to to share the information with the US first rather than China/Malaysia. If the US send in their secret service to the location they believe the plane is (totally dependent on it having been landed!) then this could be done without other countries knowing, similar to when they went into Pakistan for bin laden.

In my opinion, the media is being drip fed info to keep them busy, Malaysia probably doesn't even know the full extent of what is happening behind the scenes, other countries do believe it is terrorism as they wouldn't be helping as much if they were not worried about a security risk and we'll only be told anything substantial after its happened. Plus where they are searching, according to the Media, may not be true as to make the hijackers believe they are looking elsewhere.

A total theory with no evidence to back it up but seems more likely to me than a pilot suicide or something going wrong.

"goldie There were two points coming through from earlier discussion, one about the plane being flown at around 5,000 feet and also about flying in the slipstream of another aircraft. Will see if I can find more news articles to make it a bit easier."

The slipstream thing - yes. I've been reading that.

It's not really the slipstream - you wouldn't fly close behind because that'd be highly dangerous. The disruption in the air caused by the 400 tonne jet in front of you (SQ68 is a 777-300ER, not a -200ER I think, which is a much bigger plane) and its monstrous engines would disrupt the airflow over your wings and into your engines.

If you think of the air-to-air refuelling you see on TV, you fly behind and below. You'd have to fly incredibly close, though to hide the radar signature. You could probably, by observation of previous flights on something like Flightradar24, duplicate the SQ flightplan and programme the same into your own FMS. The problem is that you can't guarantee that the turns at the waypoints would be executed at the same millisecond. So you're left with trying to hand-fly. No pilot I know of - which includes test pilots - could hand fly a 777 as close as you'd need to in the dark for 7 hours. Is it impossible? No. But it's very improbable.

Second is to use the TCAS to locate the 'shadow' aircraft. The problem with this is that the TCAS uses data from the ADS-B transponder, that we know was turned off, to identify the aircraft and give height, speed and heading data. The TCAS on both aircraft effectively talk to each other. The whole point of TCAS is to warn about aircraft that are too close to you and pose a collision risk. By definition, if you can 'see' the other aircraft on your TCAS, because you're using ADS data, the other aircraft can see you, too. And if you're getting close enough to see him, as you continue to get closer, he will not only see you but will be alerted to a collision (what's called a 'RA' - Resolution Advisory) which will tell him to climb so you don't hit him. The aircraft will literally shout 'CLIMB! CLIMB!' at the pilot of the aircraft you're trying to sneak underneath.

Sorry for use of the male pronoun all you feminists out there but it's just an easy way to describe things.

What's the 5000ft thing?

Sorry goldie my last two posts was for you forgot to put your name

Were not was! I'm going to bed.....

"Would the cabin crew have a panic button of sorts to tell the ground something was amiss?"

No.

How could the cabin crew know what course they were on?

SKY now, a collection of experts on this, including someone called Mischa who I saw earlier and who explains everything to do with mobiles, radio, radar etc reall ywell.

livingzuid Don't go to bed sweetie - please!

I see the 5000ft article you posted but what's the question? Yes, it could be flown at 5000ft. Definitely not for more than 7 hours though. The 'thick' air at 5000ft would mean the flight was out of fuel long before that.

March is a sensitive time in Tibet because of the failed 1959 uprising that was crushed by the Chinese state. But if this has anything to do with that, I will eat my entire hat collection.

Not sure what to make of your answer re a possible cyber attack Goldie.