Missing Malaysia Airlines MH370... Thread 4

[GoldieMumbles]

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No why the bloody hell did hole get autocorrected to whole in that first post? Damn technology.

"If there was a breach in the hull, how could the plane continue to fly for so long ? "

Like trixy says, it depends on the size of the hole (no 'w' that time). It doesn't have to be big enough to cause complete structural failure.

"So, could all this talk of 'criminal activity' by the Malaysian government possibly mean that there was an explosive device on board that caused the depressurisation?"

It might, but God only knows what the Malaysian Government has been up to, frankly.

"she wants to know why passenger jets haven't got parachutes in case of accidents "

Primarily becaue they'd be useless - you'd have to depressurise the aircraft to be able to open the doors, which means you'd need to be down below about 10,000 feet; you'd have to have the time to get 400 passengers to form an orderly queue; you'd have to convince them - all of them - to jump. They take up a lot of space. They weigh a lot.

"Have you always been fascinated by flying?"

Not always but I once travelled to the US as a teenager and was invited into the cockpit. It was allowed in those days - in fact, it was encouraged. From that minute on, I was hooked.

You may do.

"What could have happened is it started out with something not being right which explains the pilot changing course but then a random accident happened causing hypoxia and therefore a crash and total loss of the passengers and plane."

I'd think it more likely that whatever potentially ultimately triggered the hypoxia was what was originally going wrong to cause the divert.

Have just put sky news on as they said at 8.30 there would be a round up of the latest news on MH370. Probably all been discussed already on here (I have some catching up to do)

So - potentially:

Flight is headed for Beijing as planned

Something happens to cause hypoxia and wreck comms systems simultaneously (explosion, hull breach of some sort but not catastrophic, except to systems)...

Pilots decide to turn back/head for nearest safe airport, which may be behind them...

..but are overcome by hypoxia en route, never get to land and autopilot sends them on in a straight line to where they eventually run out of fuel

Is there any reason (or anything we've been told about what happened) that makes that theory unworkable? I guess my only concern would be why the pilot spoke seemingly normally AFTER the comms were switched off - unless this failure somehow switched off the transponder without him being aware of it...?

Sara - the transponder wasn't necessarily turned off before the last message. But it's more that it's last ping was before then. Then there was half an hour before the next ping which didn't happen. So it's a half hour window.

Oh god, they jut showed a clip of that poor woman being dragged away. I hadn't seen that before. The cameras were like vultures crowding round her trying to get a shot. Horrific!

Good point, sara! Forgot about the co-pilot speaking!

"I guess my only concern would be why the pilot spoke seemingly normally AFTER the comms were switched off - unless this failure somehow switched off the transponder without him being aware of it...?"

I've kind of lost track of exactly when he spoke and exactly when the other comms systems shut down because there's been so much info and counter-info from the government.

If it happened in that order, one explanation could be that the flight crew would be experiencing a very high workload trying to troubleshoot what's happened and interpret what the aircraft's EICAS (internal information system) was telling them. They'd be trying to follow checklists. And they may have started to go hypoxic, so the brain was already starting to become woolly - especially if it was the crew oxygen bottle that had ruptired and caused the breach (similar Oxygen bottle failure happened to a QANTAS 747 over the Philippines in about 2010, breaching the fuselage).

If you have just one more thing to bug you - the call from Air Traffic Control - what happens? Woudl you just say something along the lines of 'erm, ok' while you're fighting the plane's systems?

You might just do that.

Again, I'm only hypothesising. I'm not saying any of this is defintiely what happened. But, barring the cockpit crew going beserk, I can't find any other rational explanation that fits most of what we know and leads to a ditching when fuel runs out 6 or 7 hours later.

Ah thank you JKS - hadn't appreciated that. So that might be a viable theory..?

Though would the plane have been structurally ok to fly for as long as if it was damaged along those lines..?

Hull breach: From another "Aircrash Investigations" programme I had watched - that fuselage was constructed of panels, so if there was a crack or a hole, it would be stopped from spreading by the outer edge of the panel. Presumably they're all built that way, for that reason?

"Sara - the transponder wasn't necessarily turned off before the last message. But it's more that it's last ping was before then. Then there was half an hour before the next ping which didn't happen. So it's a half hour window."

That was my last understanding but I didn't know if something else had been said in the interim.

Apologies if this has been done already, I haven't been able to keep up with the thread and on skim reading the bit I missed didn't see it. From the Guardian comments:

^Search in Google maps 40.0800° N, 116.5844° E
Then change the N to S and see where it ends up
coincidence?^

It is quite striking, but I'm not sure whether co-ordinates like these are ever entered into a plane's autopilot. Could the auto pilot have been set incorrectly and then following a depressurisation the plane flown itself to the southerly location? Seems unlikely, but worth a look.

"Though would the plane have been structurally ok to fly for as long as if it was damaged along those lines..?"

It could have been, yes.

"so if there was a crack or a hole, it would be stopped from spreading by the outer edge of the panel. Presumably they're all built that way, for that reason?"

No, all aeroplanes aren't built that way (the Dreamliner is not, for example), though the 777 is. It only stops the crack propagating beyond the panel. It does not stop the crack from widening to become a gash.

This link takes you to a failed panel on a Boeing 757. This would cause depressurisation. It's not in the area of the communications equipment but it shows you the failure mode that is possible. In this case, it simply happened. No bomb. Just fatigue and poor design.

This is the same failed panel

This is the ultimate failure but the aircraft was brought back to earth and almost everyone survived.

"Could the auto pilot have been set incorrectly and then following a depressurisation the plane flown itself to the southerly location? Seems unlikely, but worth a look."

Agreed it seems very unlikely.

Toddling off for an early night. Here's hoping for a better day tomorrow where they find it.

Tiram I don't have Google Maps installed, can you explain the significance of the coordinates? Is it suggesting the pilot manually and incorrectly put in an S instead of an N?

Night, Goldie. Thanks for your patience!

Goldie - are you going to start a new thread before you turn in for the night? I fear this one will be full by the morning and I appreciate your posts being highlighted...

The original coordinates is Beijing airport and if you change the N for an S you get the Indian ocean near Perth.

Thank you for your answers tonight, Goldie.

Fingers crossed for news tomorrow.

This thread is now the second place I look for news every morning (after the BBC) - which I think is testament to the excellent and sensible (largely, with a few amusing digressions) discussion it's become. I'm mostly a lurker rather than a poster, but it's one of the least argumentative and most sane threads I've ever read on here.

It's a very similar theory to the fire one, isn't it? Something happened, an emergency situation, which incapacitated the systems on the plane. In dealing with the situation the pilots perished, and the plane kept going until it fell out of the sky.

It would be a very convincing scenario if it wasn't for the fact that the pilot changed direction twice. Once to get to the closest airport, fine. But then again, a while later, to go south... ?

Psammead, it is similar. I think the main difference is that the idea that a plane could fly for 7 hours or so with a fire on board had been discredited, whereas from what I understand, this might not be the case with a hole in the fuselage.

But you're right, I have no explanation for the changing direction twice.