Malaysian Flight 370

[pete_auau 1,152]

True  unless it landed in one piece and sunk

[KevinAu 441]

True unless it landed in one piece and sunk

Which would be why there had been no ELT signal detected. A ditching that was soft enough to not trigger the ELT or a hard hit and quick enough sinking that the ELT is submerged quickly.

[BilboBaggins 82]

Sadly, I keep getting mental images of a 777 full of dead passengers, whether suffocated at altitude or machine gunned once on the ground, sitting at a "secret" Al Qaida airbase in Africa or someplace, in a hangar thus preventing sattelite detection, and being packed full of explosives and radioactives. Dirty bomb at it's best.

 

Not to try and sound harsh or anything like that, but I sure hope to heck I'm wrong and it's the bottom of the I/O or something like that....It's pretty much a foregone conclusion by now that the passengers and most of the crew are most likely gone...they don't list civilians as MIA...

 

Pat

Ya I saw that Sherlock Holmes TV episode, too. Well-done series.

 

Waiting for the CNN report wherein they describe how the senior Malaysian pilot secretly installed an AN/PG-70 into the 777 for terrain-following purposes. Given to him by Iran from one of its crippled F-15s. So the Ayatollah can park the 777 in a secret cave, waiting for the nuclear bombs he is building to destroy Israel with.

 

Meanwhile... welcome, Crimea! It's always nice to see a new country being born! Join Slovakia, Serbia, Croatia! But shhhh.... don't give any ideas to those Texans!

 

Sad for the families. The ambiguity must be absolute torture.

 

I wouldn't put it past the Malaysian pols that they'd concoct this, "it might have landed safely somewhere, guided by terrorists" story to a) keep the Chinese from breathing down their necks, and b) fulfill contracts with CNN for spectacular news stories generated for regular mass consumption.

 

Oh plus it helps John McCain save face, somehow.

 

My thoughts go out to all those whose friends and relatives were onboard. I'm glad such tragedies are as rare as they are.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Captain_Barfbag 31]

 

 

...in a hangar thus preventing sattelite detection, and being packed full of explosives and radioactives.

 

It's hard to imagine this kind of operation being a success, though.  There are a limited number of runways where this plane could have landed, and a limited number of hangars big enough to hide it.  Then, they would need to get jet fuel there, plus whatever else they wanted.  After that, they would be flying an unidentified aircraft towards a population center.  The chances of detection and interception would be very high.

 

On the other hand, the 9/11 aircraft, fully loaded with fuel, did a staggering amount of damage and the chance of detection and interception was very low.  Once they took over this aircraft, they could easily have flown to Singapore, Kuala Lumpur or Bangkok.

Which would be why there had been no ELT signal detected. A ditching that was soft enough to not trigger the ELT or a hard hit and quick enough sinking that the ELT is submerged quickly.

 

I don't think there was ever an ELT signal from Air France 447.  However, there was debris still floating several days after the crash.

[fppilot 4,339]

And who is Nancy Harding ? I don't watch American TV

 

Sorry if you tried to Google that.  My mistake.  Was Tonya Harding.  Olympic figure skater who had her boyfriend hire a henchman to whack one of her Olympic competitors (Nancy Kerrigan) on the knee with a police type blackjack weapon.  Was quite publicized on an international scale in 1994.

 

BTW, I am American and also watch little American TV.  Primarily sports and motorsports....

[HighTowers 1,434]

So many speculations , it makes your head spin. In the end of it all, its a tragedy for alot of lives assuming they didnt land some secret location which doesnt seem very plausible. 

 

The most annoying thing for me right now, is the picking apart of our hobby. Oh my gosh, a professional pilot has a flight simulator at home. Big deal. Is he learning something new?  Of course not. Stop picking it apart for the so many that love aviation and can embrace it for what we cannot do in real life. 

[january 19]

If you are light on fuel after a long flight, you don't need a huge runway to land.

If you don't plan on going anywhere, you don't need more fuel.

If you have a lot of hostages, you don't need to hide the airplane- but you do need a supply of food and water.

Motives? Not difficult to come up with a couple.

january

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

I don't know if theories are appreciated here anyway, but after over a week of speculation and still not a trace, here is my own theory:

 

I can buy into this, but the Boeing engineers would have to support the theory that the FMS and autopilot might still be operational if all those other control systems were destroyed..

Edited March 17, 2014 by n4gix
Removed excessive quote!

[Dillon 2,197]

 BTW, I am American and also watch little American TV.  Primarily sports and motorsports....

 

I'm in the same boat, trash T.V. is on a whole other level. I see the Omish had things figured out a long time ago. They saw it coming. Time is better spent on things that matter, productive hobbies, and occasional news (just to make sure your on top of the craziness going on in the world).

[exodus1977 37]

Is the FO typically the person who programs the FMC?  Or is this a traded duty?

[n4gix 4,947]

Something isn't tracking well for me. It's been consistently reported that the last words transmitted from the cockpit were "Alright. Good night."
 
What specifically was the conversation immediately proceeding those three words?

[vr-pilot 11]

Sorry but I think this is nonesense. If it was true there would be lots of floating wreckage or if over land fire.

 

Maybe the wreckage will be found. There are a few cases were unfortunately not a single piece was found...

 

True unless it landed in one piece and sunk

 

Could have randomly "landed" or ditched during a step-descend flare. But that is the shortest sequence of such a "climb until stall" and step descend. More likely the plane crashed quite hard with a high rate of descend and high air speed.

 

Which would be why there had been no ELT signal detected. A ditching that was soft enough to not trigger the ELT or a hard hit and quick enough sinking that the ELT is submerged quickly.

 

That would make sense, although I am afraid that the latter is more likely.

 

I don't think there was ever an ELT signal from Air France 447. However, there was debris still floating several days after the crash.

 

Yes, there was no ELT signal received from AF447. The final investigation report recommends an improvement of ELT technology by triggering the signal already (quote:) "as soon as an emergency situation is detected on board."

 

I can buy into this, but the Boeing engineers would have to support the theory that the FMS and autopilot might still be operational if all those other control systems were destroyed..

 

Thanks for the support. MH370 was reported to initially fly a stable heading and than later following waypoints while making those climbs (FL450) and descends (FL230). I assume that the crew used the T7 autopilot ability to use separate lateral and vertical navigation. So A/P HDG selected by heading bug first, than A/P LNAV via FMC waypoints. Probably the crew used a manual thrust setting or A/T to reduce the amplitudes of altitude excursions to a minimum.

The question if it is possible to have the FMC working while the XPDR()s are damaged by fire or explosion I can not answer as I have not found a T7 electronics bay layout so far. But if you take a look at the link below it can be seen that parts of the equipment may be badly damaged while others might still be intact after a fire (battery fire in this case):

 

http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/possible_solutions_for_the_battery_problem_on_the_boeing_787

 

Greetings,

Claus

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

I'm still left with the question of why the pilots would choose to fly west, if their home base was to the south..

 

Even with marginal controls, you would think that they would head home..

[IAF747 8]

Something isn't tracking well for me. It's been consistently reported that the last words transmitted from the cockpit were "Alright. Good night."

 

What specifically was the conversation immediately proceeding those three words?

ATC of Makaysia directing pilots to contact Vietnam ATC. Thus Goodnight. Normal as far as I am concerned.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/03/17/lawmaker-missing-airliner-may-have-landed-in-southeast-asia-for-use-as-weapon/

 

 

Then this: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/20/passengers-terrified-fires-lit-etihad-airways-flight-australia

 

A fire could have been used to negotiate the pilots opening the cockpit door.

[n4gix 4,947]

Daniel, I already knew all that was in that article. I've been hearing and reading about this for the past week.

 

However, I want to read - or better yet hear - a transcript of the entire "last exchange," not simply the last three words allegedly spoken. As has been pointed out numerous times, it is very unusual for any transmission, regardless of how short to not include the call sign of the flight...