Malaysian Flight 370

[tf51d 284]

And it is past dusk in that vicinity as another day passes by with nothing credible pulled from the ocean.  Incredible that the satellites are seeing so many potential items.  Are there reports of anything at all, MH370 or not, being discovered on the surface other than the one reported whale carcass?

The problem is this is an area that no one has looked at before visual or satellite. So they don't know if what there seeing, is what is common for the area, (debris from shipping over time) I wonder could floating debris from the tsunami in 2004 still be out there?

[Kattz 132]

Again, I prescribe to the northern route. It makes no sense the pilot or copilot would have taken the aircraft 7 hours south into the Indian Ocean, in the middle of nowhere, just to commit suicide. It makes no sense that if there was a fire on board caused by batteries (or anything else) that the aircraft did not get completely consumed by fire and taken down sooner. It makes no sense that if the aircraft was somehow decompressed due to a structural failure that it would have survived in tact for another 7 hours and changed its course from a northerly route to the southerly route. There are other theories too but I don't think we can ever remove the northern route theory until the aircraft is found.

 

 

I agree, Jim, and I think there's some truth to this, as the US Navy left the search in the Indian Ocean several days ago; perhaps more than a week ago.  We usually don't stop in SAR or crash searches unless we have a good reason...

[Jim Young 2,356]

Just seems odd that in doing something like that someone would head the plane into the middle of nowhere.

Hi Frank,

 

I saw an article today where they think he went to nowhere so the aircraft could never be recovered and his family would still receive compensation. I've never seen so many excuses/scenarios for making this aircraft fly southbound into nowhere. Something just does not smell right.

 

Best regards,

[xplanery 250]

 

 

Many cockpits have a security code which is also know by the cabin crew.

 

Unless I'm totally wrong the pilots can still deny entrance, otherwise hijackers could just force a flight attendant to type in the code and gain access to cockpit. 

 

 

 

The South China Ocean has great depths too. Slamming into terrain at over 500 mph would have removed all kinds of evidence too.

 

That area has a lot more ship traffic, making discovery of debris and finding the crash site a lot more likely than in case of current search area in Indian Ocean which has rather small amount of marine traffic. 

[geolpilot 88]

 

 

they picked the southern route ONLY because no country in the northern route reported seeing the aircraft on radar -

 

As far as I have read this was not the only reason for picking the southern route.

 

InmarSat used the Doppler effect to analyse the changing frequencies of the satellite pings, caused by the aircraft's motion relative to the satellite, and also fortuitously by a wobble in their satellite's position (it is geostationary but old and running out of propellent to keep it steady in position). They developed models based on this frequency analysis and tested these on other 777 aircraft, flights were they knew where the aircraft was and its direction of flight, and their Doppler models worked accurately for these aircraft. Applied to the MH370 data, these models correlated with the southern arc of points for MH370, but not with the northern arc. That is when they notified Malaysians that the southern arc (corridor) was the most-likely scenario.

 

http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/03/24/malaysia-airlines-inmarsat-pings-idINL5N0ML4GT20140324

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/10719304/How-British-satellite-company-Inmarsat-tracked-down-MH370.html

 

However one must concede, science can be wrong at times! The frequency changes are incredibly subtle, so there is still an outside chance that the northern corridor is in play. Simply dismissing it because no country reports seeing is on their radar is not justification enough. If it flew up over Myanmar to the Chinese Himalayas (the famous WWII "Hump"), I can think of many reasons (political, military inefficiency, and terrain) why it would not have been detected. They would have to be at a min alt of 24100ft to clear the Hump (or else be using the terrain map to hide in the valleys). After that they could have made it to some extremely remote desert areas in Western China on that ping arc.

 

I am also concerned that the flurry of satellite "sitings" has taken the focus completely away from the northern areas of the southern corridor (south of Indonesia / Christmas Island area). The far south Indian Ocean area has been selected on the basis of the plane flying at around 450 knots, plus the early satellite image siting by Digital Globe. What if the plane was flying slower (at just above flaps up IAS)? Then the picture changes and it ends up further north towards Indonesia

[january 19]

 

 

If it flew up over Myanmar to the Chinese Himalayas (the famous WWII "Hump"), I can think of many reasons (political, military inefficiency, and terrain) why it would not have been detected. They would have to be at a min alt of 24100ft to clear the Hump (or else be using the terrain map to hide in the valleys). After that they could have made it to some extremely remote desert areas in Western China on that ping arc.

 

One of the best ideas yet! Why didn't we think of that- they have flown to Shangri La in the Himalayas!! That is the secret  valley - guided by Lamas where aging slows down dramatically and where all live in harmony. (1933 novel "Lost Horizon" by James Hilton.)

january

[oskiatl 27]

But then the next logical step would be that you need someone from the flight attendends to be able to fly the aircraft otherwise you wouldn't gain much ^_^

That's not what I implied in my statement. What was meant was that in the event the flight attendants are sure something is wrong in the flight deck they should be able to have a way to contact ground and inform them of the situation. Something like a panic button that banks have.  It sends out a signal that only the flight attendants and ground knows about, thay way the perpetrator,has no idea ground has been warned and ground can have some sort of idea the aircraft is in trouble. ^_^

[zmak 331]

That's not what I implied in my statement. What was meant was that in the event the flight attendants are sure something is wrong in the flight deck they should be able to have a way to contact ground and inform them of the situation. Something like a panic button that banks have.  It sends out a signal that only the flight attendants and ground knows about, thay way the perpetrator,has no idea ground has been warned and ground can have some sort of idea the aircraft is in trouble. ^_^

What will ground do when the alarm is sent? they will all still die

[oskiatl 27]

What will ground do when the alarm is sent? they will all still die

That's a 50/50, who knows what the perps intentions are,at least ground is aware that something is wrong on the aircraft. Ground has some idea where the aircraft is and the state of the passengers and crew. One signal for suspicious activity and another for a dangerous situation on board. I don't know if people still use morse code,but it could be transmitted over it, if price is the issue. We are sitting here debating ideas and some are good,some are just bad,the one thing in common is "WE" all know something needs to change to prevent incidents like this from happening. I'm open to any idea whether it's good or bad to improve air safety. So nit-picking peoples ideas to better something "We" all love, is not helping at all.

[tf51d 284]

There now moving the search area 680miles NE of the current search area, to to "Credible" data that the plane was traveling faster than thought, burning more fuel faster. That would indicate they think all the satellite images found so far are not likely to be from MH370. IMHO, They have no idea where to look. I think this reopens all the possible scenarios. From fire/malfunction to suicide, hijacking, North or South., and if the Inmarsat data is in question, maybe even west.

[WingZ 547]

They're now moving their search over there...

Let's see if we can flog this topic all the way into 1,000 posts.

[geolpilot 88]

As for the post further up with 25 years experience of looking at satellite photos. Unless he has been given exclusive access to both the French and Thai original satellite images then then I tend to disbelieve his theory. They don't look like white horses at all!

 

I bow to your superior knowledge @vololiberista!

 

No I have not seen the original images. Would love to be called up to analyse them myself though!

 

I have produced the exact same patterns from library imagery I do have over ocean areas, and from near coastal areas on Google (Digital Globe Data) where white caps are present. If you understand anything about satellite sensors and the unavoidable image digitisation that is a consequnce of this technology, resulting in pixellation of a real, continuous "scene", you would understand that telling debris from white caps is not trivial, and a down-right tricky application of satellite imagery.

 

Also has anyone noted that far less than 50% of 9M-MRO is painted white! Entire wings, 50% of fuselage and the horizontal stabilisers are all painted grey. For those pieces to show up white on sateliite imagery you have to meet the unique condition for "mirror-reflection"; the sun angle to the objects has to be 45 degrees, and the satellite angle to the objects also has to be 45 degrees (opposite poistion to the sun), i.e close to exactly 90 degree between the sun and satellite. Otherwise you have to believe that 420 odd pieces of the white upper fuselage are still floating around 2.5 weeks after the "crash", in a churning ocean. I fully expect nothing will be found in the "debris fields at all".

 

How many pieces of the AirFrance 447 fuselage were found on surface after 5 days? Altogether, 50 bodies and 640 items of floating debris were recovered, largest of which were the tail fin, elevators and flaps/ spoliers, radome, pieces of the belly fairing, engine pylons and covers. Most floating items were small items from the cabin and cargo interior, too small to have registered on even high-resolution satellite imagery (p66 and p67, BEA final report on Air France 447).

 

Sorry I do not buy into all these debris fields, and it seems today, with the shift back to the NE for searching, neither are the Australians.They seem very ready to disregard these latest satellite sitings and commit assets to yet another area defined by the Malaysians, this one on the basis of supposed higher speed-higher fuel usage!

 

I am starting to feel very uneasy about all this in the light also of the Malaysians puportedly informing relatives in Beijing that ATC communications, Radar data and Airport Secuity Recordings were "sealed and cannot be made public". To me it suits the Malaysians to have searchers heading off in all directions on fruitless missions; they obviously know something they are not willing to make public.

[tf51d 284]

The thing I don't understand with this Inmarsat satellite pings, is they say it has to be in an arc north or south because of the time response from the pings. Then used a never before used algorithm to determine it was South. If it can't tell position from the pings, why are they ruling out west or east? In fact the last direction on radar was West.

[geolpilot 88]

 

 

If it can't tell position from the pings, why are they ruling out west or east? In fact the last direction on radar was West.

 

Inmarsat have another satellite over the Atlantic ocean (AOR-E above 15.5W, N0.0), which has a footprint that overlaps their Indian Ocean Satellite that detected the pings from MH-370 (stationed above 64.5E; 0.0N). The footprints overlap in the Western Indian Ocean, and over much of East Africa. The fact that the Atlantic Ocean Satellite did not receive/detect ping signals from MH-370, led them to exclude any area covered by that satellite (AOR-E).

[vololiberista 205]

I have to say that if all these debris fields are nothing to do with 370 then what a mess our oceans are in!!!!

 

Assuming that satellite data 'is' correct I still don't go with the suicide theory. It's far too complex and bear in mind the plane went down in daylight after having flown through the night!

 

What made them turn back is the real mystery. It could conceiveably been an attempted hijack. In the manner of say soemone entering the cockpit with a blunt weapon like a truncheon smashing the screens. They perhaps made the initial turn correctly but continuing scuffles in the cockpit meant that the turn to go back home was made too late and they were lost. At night if you are lost it is sometimes quite difficult to know if you are over land or sea. The crew may have thought to head for Perth after rweasling they had been flying too long with sight of civilisation,but were unsure of their longitude (in reality being far too West). As dawn broke still with no land in sight they ran out of fuel and had to ditch. If it was intentional o ditch the a/c then of course it's better to wait until daylight. Just how many pax survived will never be known. As by now almost certainly none will have survived.