Missing Malaysia Airlines MH370... Thread 4

[GoldieMumbles]

Thread 1

Thread 2

Thread3

Loss of face is very important to some countries.

I don't know whether to trust this or not but found it on a Metro article yesterday. It's the Metro so dubious..

'The last ‘ping’ signal from the aircraft was detected by a satellite in an area near a US naval base on Diego Garcia and Maldives.'

And yes, June is such a nice month isn't it? Mine was always over the summer holidays and no one was around so I'm glad we can organise parties and stuff.

Sorry, the Metro article was from yesterday afternoon.

This on pings for jonathan. Is that helpful?

'Systems for locating an aircraft may be less sophisticated than for a smartphone, but have proved sufficient for normal operations. An obvious way to establish a plane’s location is to ask the pilots by radio. They constantly monitor their position with GPS and an inertial navigation system (a much older technology relying upon gyroscopes). The other method to locate an aircraft is to sweep the sky with radar. A passenger aircraft is fitted with a transponder, which responds to the radar by transmitting identification details and altitude.

Even though these normal communication systems were disabled – either by accident or design – one channel remained in operation. With many modern jets, if a satellite has not heard from an aircraft for some time, it sends out periodic interrogations. The Independent understands that the aircraft sent out an automated response, which is possible only when the plane is flying.'

So the last ping was from a different satellite?! I'm sure that would have been reported in more than Metro, if it was credible. Surely some of the more robust papers would've picked it up. Sounds like someone getting a bit confused! But we shall see...

Where was it said that the Diego Garcia runway was in the flight simulator's top 5?

Doh Metro article.

metro.co.uk/2014/03/18/flight-mh370-residents-on-remote-island-in-maldives-saw-jet-matching-missing-malaysia-airlines-planes-description-4640688/

I just don't know if it is viable or not, particularly as they are dismissing reports of the Maldives sighting. But what is fact and what is fiction in this whole scenario?

metro.co.uk/2014/03/18/flight-mh370-residents-on-remote-island-in-maldives-saw-jet-matching-missing-malaysia-airlines-planes-description-4640688/

Sorry

I'm stuck on the waypoints (again) & to what the Malaysian authorities are saying.

Are they saying that the west bound diversion & waypoints that the plane appeared to take wasn't entered into the flight management system/autopilot before the plane's ACARS & transponders were switched off (which is what I assumed anyway tbh)?

Diego Garcia was a top 5 destination in the pilot's simulator

www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/malaysia-airlines-mh370-pilot-had-five-runways-programmed-into-flight-simulator/story-fnizu68q-1226858982152

Really don't want to be judgy about the pilots though, and have no clue where the Metro got that location from re the satellite. Whether it was just made up to back up the Maldives theory I have no idea. It may well be an awkward runway he wanted to practice landing on, like Wellington in NZ which is known to require lots of skill to land in adverse conditions.

Still though, if so many islanders in the Maldives are adamant they saw something, a plane flying that low and that big is pretty hard to miss.

This is a bit older from the Wall Street Journal on 14 March but explains a bit more about satellite location and the last ping which was received over water.

online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304185104579437573396580350

'The satellites also received speed and altitude information about the plane from its intermittent "pings," the people said. The final ping was sent from over water, at what one of these people called a normal cruising altitude. They added that it was unclear why the pings stopped. One of the people, an industry official, said it was possible that the system sending them had been disabled by someone on board.'

From the BBc Website ...

Relatives were forcibly removed while trying to speak to journalists at a news conference in Kuala Lumpur

Frustration with the search for flight MH370, boiled over into chaotic scenes as Chinese relatives were dragged away from journalists.

They were attempting to speak to Chinese journalists outside the daily press conference in Kuala Lumpur.

A BBC reporter was also pushed away from the relatives carrying banners criticising the handling of the case.

Or they have been told more than we have or something is very strange I think....

So how the satellite thing works is that the satellite sends out a request to the plane and the plane responds. The amount of time that passes between the request and the response can be used to calculate how far away from the satellite the plane is so all you know is that the plane is somewhere on a circle which is X distance from the satellite.

That WSJ article also claims this, "All of the people said the transmissions included detailed information about the plane's location, speed and bearing." I am guessing this isn't true...

member what the Malaysians said( as I understood it) in a press conference was that the waypoint(s) ie change of direction, was believed to be programmed into the route planner before the last ACARS transmission. I'm sure there was also reference to that it could have happened before the plane left the ground.

I took that to mean that this change of route was sent within the last ACARS transmission.

Whether that was just the first change of direction though or a further number of changes, I don't know. I don't think that was specified.

Thanks Downton my heid is mashed!!

just managed to catch up.

odd news about the journalist/relatives business.

if it was china pulling the strings i would have thought it would have been in preventing them talking to western media - i can see some political logic in that. preventing them to talking to chinese media sound far more like malays preventing them communicating their frustrations and the way they are being treated to the chinese authorities.

The Chinese care about internal PR too, so quite possible that they will try to stop the Chinese relatives talking to the Chinese press.

I just read this article could it be correct? It seems to have been written by a pilot.

Here's the BBC article with info on the relatives and also shows a map which does have the satellite which received the last ping's position as over the Maldives. But that doesn't mean anything.

marigold I think it could be due to older news? Or the stuff that was discussed about RR? Maybe one of those things that no one can talk about again.

Relatives thing is really bad :( a snippet:

'Frustration with the search for flight MH370 boiled over into chaotic scenes as Chinese relatives were dragged away from journalists.

They were attempting to speak to Chinese journalists outside the daily press conference in Kuala Lumpur.

A BBC reporter was pushed away from the relatives who were carrying banners criticising the handling of the case.'

www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-26644085

And this from the Guardian. Apparently the Malaysian government is dismissing reports on Reuters that the search was on a working assumption that the plane had crashed in the Indian Ocean. Also has more on the relatives. They are not being treated too well imo.

www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/19/mh370-assumed-lost-in-the-indian-ocean-live-updates

That is brand new information!

"Relatives were forcibly removed while trying to speak to journalists at a news conference in Kuala Lumpur. Frustration with the search for flight MH370, boiled over into chaotic scenes as Chinese relatives were dragged away from journalists."

I was watching CH4 news yesterday and felt surprised by the images of distressed Chinese relatives on TV. Because we never really see China/Chinese citizens portrayed in the media in an overtly emotional, distressed and 'helpless' way. I think this has a lot to do with it being unacceptable to 'loose face' in some Asian cultures. But more importantly china would not want its citizens and by extension it's own image of power and strength under minded by such images..

I don't think it ties in with the timing of the change of direction as against the pilot's goodnight. But to be honest I don't trust all the timings as too much incompetence has been going on. So maybe the simple explanation is the correct one?

It was a few days ago it was reported the relatives have been told not to talk to the media. I think that is all kinds of wrong .

Titsalina, it seems the most likely and easy explanation.

I feel so awful for those poor women who were dragged away from the press conference. Definitely indicative of how the Malaysians are running the investigation. I was watching on Sky News and Kay Burley was loving it

Dreadful woman.