Flying on for 5 hours would completely erase the flight voice recorder as they are on a 4 hour loop and increase the chances of the jet never being found to create what is becoming the greatest mystery in aviation history.

 

If that plane is never found people will spend the next 100 years speculating and searching for it.

CVRs are typically on a (not four hours) loop. FDRs are typically on a (much longer) hours loop.

 

Edited to remove the actual values.

I'm confident we'll find the plane (or enough parts of it). My fear is never conclusively determining what happened, and that this was either a botched terror event, or a dry-run for a future event.

 

EDIT: Question about the data recorders. If the A/P is disengaged (for whatever reason), do they have capability/resolution to identify which side (CA/FO) controls were providing input to fly the plane? Or is it just the total input from both into the system?

These investigators are entirely barking up the wrong tree with the pilots. All the information that is coming out speaks of somebody who has had flight training, not actually 777 or jet rated, but who had obtained 777 manuals to study, that somehow took control of the aircraft. Here are some reasons.

 

1. The last radio call of 'Alright, goodnight' shows that it was not a pilot employed by that airline at the controls. Anybody that has flown professionally will tell you that your company callsign that you are used to saying will spit out of your mouth practically involuntarily. Conversely, an unfamiliar callsign, anybody that has ever taken a private pilot lesson can tell you, takes a good portion of brain power to extract out of the mouth. If it was one of the Malaysian pilots talking, then the callsign would have flowed out very easily with the 'goodnight'. Yes, sometimes we are very casual, but only when appropriate. If that transmission was following solely the handoff, then that kind of casualness would not be indicative of a commercial pilot speaking. Therefore, whoever at the controls at that moment probably found it hard to say 'Malaysian three seventy' and managed only to spit out 'alright goodnight' meaning it was not one of the two assigned pilots.

 

2. The timing of the deactivation of the ACARS and transponders shows that it was also probably not the actions of a professional pilot familiar with ATC. A professional pilot who wanted to disappear his plane like this would have waited until after handoff and radar service termination to turn off the transponder. The timing of those activities indicates to me that it was performed by somebody who knew that turning those things off is required to disappear a plane, but not familiar enough with day to day flying to know that he should wait until after the hand off to do it.

 

3. The erratic altitude changes indicates to me somebody at the controls who was not experienced with hand flying a jet. I dismiss the conjecture that climbing to 45000 was meant to put all the people to sleep. You do not need to go that extra bit higher than they already were to kill everybody in the cabin by depressurizing. Depressurizing at 30000 is plenty high enough to knock everybody out. The wild climbs and descents indicate to me a novice trying to hand fly a jet for real for the first time.

If one of them had a "meltdown", why did they decide to fly on for another 5 hours?

 

To destroy (and reduce the chances of discovery) of any evidence of a melt down, along the Southern corridor - deep in the Indian Ocean perhaps?

The changes in altitude could be indicative of a struggle for control between the pilot and co-pilot - if it was one of the two, it was likely only one of them - I don't believe they requested to fly together. Likewise, if the reports are that the plane was flying navigatinal waypoints, then it is likely that the FMC was reprogrammed. Granted, that doesn't necessarily mean it HAD to be a professional pilot, but I find someone having the sophistication to program the FMC yet being unable to maintain altitude inconsistent.

Sorry, but if someone was having a "meltdown", would they really care whether evidence was discovered or not?

The changes in altitude could be indicative of a struggle for control between the pilot and co-pilot - if it was one of the two, it was likely only one of them - I don't believe they requested to fly together. Likewise, if the reports are that the plane was flying navigatinal waypoints, then it is likely that the FMC was reprogrammed. Granted, that doesn't necessarily mean it HAD to be a professional pilot, but I find someone having the sophistication to program the FMC yet being unable to maintain altitude inconsistent.

Anybody that has purchased any number of msfs addon products can program an fmc. Actually hand flying a jet without wild changes in altitude is not so easily purchased.

 

Although I do agree that the altitude excusions could likely be the result of an ongoing struggle in the cockpit.

News sites are showing him wearing a "democracy is dead T shirt" and 5 hours before the flight the leader of the opposition whom he apparently passionately supported goes to jail.

Add to this a pending divorce or perhaps a cancer diagnosis and you get the picture. As mentioned it does sound like there was a struggle in the cockpit

I agree with your point regarding programming the FMC as well; I earlier had disagreed with experts who claimed only a professional pilot could have done so. But by the same token, if I had learned to program the FMC using add-ons, I'd likely also know how to activate the AP, especially if I was flying waypoints. And we know that the aircraft was on stable heading and altitude subsequent to the transponder being turned off, and before the last communication with ATC and before the change in heading, so whoever flew the plane after that was already in the cockpit. If they reprogrammed the FMC, I believe they would have known how to change heading without the deviation in altitude. That's why I don't believe it's necessarily indicative of an inexperienced pilot. You do raise an interstitng point about the last communication. I don't know if there was anything immediately preceding it, or if it's atypical on an over the ocean red eye flight. It didn't seem to raise any alarm bells to my recollection even after the flight disappeared.

I do not at all find it IN ANY WAY suspicious that the captain was an FS enthusiast.  Could be a valuable tool for getting familiar with approaches and departures that he didn't have real world experience with.  I know myself I have "simmed" a flight before I flew it for those exact reasons.

Sorry, but if someone was having a "meltdown", would they really care whether evidence was discovered or not?

By meltdown, I should have been more specific - I don't mean a spontaneous, spur of the moment decision, but something the person had thought of previously and decided to go through with. And in that case, yes, of course they may care.

 

One, like I said before, if there was a life insurance beneficiary then you wouldn't want people to discover it was a suicide. Two, as I also previously mentioned, look at the narcissistic and self-ossessed manner in which some people choose to kill themselves, seeking an immortality that we, the living, find oxymoronic and absurd. If you are someone who is an avid aviation buff, maybe you seek that same immortality in your death not by shooting up two dozen of your classmates, but attempting to create one of the greatest aviation mysteries ever, and draw the attention of the entire world to your disappearance, as opposed to a simple been there and done that nosedive into the ocean.

@Dan  - It all depends how the FDR is setup. AF447 for example did not record anything from Bonin's primary flight display. It did however record his inputs.

 

@Kevin - I think you and the media are looking too deeply into the last transmission, that kind of casual talk happens a lot, at least in the mid east & Asia.  

 

Still cant quote posts from some reason

With regards to the speculation about the aircraft being hijacked for the future purpose of using it as a flying bomb...

 

...I cannot imagine any scenario where a large, unidentified aircraft flying anywhere in the world would not be intercepted by armed fighter aircraft from any nation who's airspace they violated. :ph34r:

 

I agree, but the question is whether that would mean that some people won't try it. 

 

Next week there's the Nuclear Security Summit in The Hague with more than 50 world leaders. It was announced in January that security measures would include the deployment of Patriot air defense sytems, the continuous presence of AWACS aircraft, and continuous air patrol by F16s. Still, the thought came up whether the disappearance of MH370 could be related to the summit. 

By meltdown, I should have been more specific - I don't mean a spontaneous, spur of the moment decision, but something the person had thought of previously and decided to go through with. And in that case, yes, of course they may care.

 

One, like I said before, if there was a life insurance beneficiary then you wouldn't want people to discover it was a suicide. Two, as I also previously mentioned, look at the narcissistic and self-ossessed manner in which some people choose to kill themselves, seeking an immortality that we, the living, find oxymoronic and absurd. If you are someone who is an avid aviation buff, maybe you seek that same immortality in your death not by shooting up two dozen of your classmates, but attempting to create one of the greatest aviation mysteries ever, and draw the attention of the entire world to your disappearance, as opposed to a simple been there and done that nosedive into the ocean.

Good post Brian

@Dan  - It all depends how the FDR is setup. AF447 for example did not record anything from Bonin's primary flight display. It did however record his inputs.

 

Rgr, thanks. Hopefully when recovered (assuming a crash), if the CVR is nothing by silence, there will be enough data on the FDR to piece together what likely happened.