Malaysian Flight 370

[fuelpumps]

Is there some new evidence to prove the aircraft was definitely flying north and not of south? 

 

Malaysian Prime Minister said the two corridors are possible. The full script is available 

[ultra_porthos]

Has anyone checked Ebay or Craigslist for a missing 777?

[PiperFM]

Hijack seems to be a real contender.  The fact the transponders were shut off is enough all by itself to tell me someone ELSE was in control.  Yes, if a pilot was bent on suicide, he/she could have switched to Standby, but the lack of cell phones makes the hijack scenario more likely.

 

The government(s) involved likely have a real tight lid on 'all the facts'.  Nothing is more terrifying than the thought that some organization has a plane with the range of a Triple 7 at their disposal.  It's not a ransom deal, IMHO.  The terrorists/pirates were after the metal, not the bodies.  The people are a liability.  I'm betting that plane is on the ground being repainted, or beneath camo nets.  It's in the perpetrators' best interest to hide the plane.  If its location were known, no power on Earth would stop the efforts to recover the plane and passengers.  It would be Seal Team 6 time, for sure.

 

Good post Mr McDonald, but people used their cellphones on Flight 93, while they were being hijacked.  IMO, the fact that the MH370 passengers didn't use theirs does not necessarily point to pilot suicide more than anything else.  I don't often personally make cellphone contact with towers while I'm flying in a jet, although most of my flying has been in Alaska.    I think the fact that there is probably a much lower density of cell phone towers over the more remote Malaysian peninsula than the heavily populated Eastern US, even in 2001, might also lead to no cell calls being made.  nvm, more speculation.  I agree with your post Mr. McDonald, just not that part.

 

At first, I had a hard time considering what the PM said to be true, that they "KNEW" the plane was hijacked, but

 

A. they definately have access to more information than we do, and

B. it's not like planes spontaneously turn almost 180*, onto an airway, then (or sometime around that event) disconnect the ACARS, and turn off the transponder.

 

I believe the PM knows what he's talking about.

 

[speculation]Ya know, an inflight fire might do that.  It wouldn't take more than a few seconds on the flight computer to turn the aircraft back to land, or on the HDG control knob, to set another course.  All this, while the cockpit might be on fire, the pilots might have had to evacuate the cockpit, everything burns, and the passengers just have to sit while the plane runs out of fuel.  Perhaps the fire occurred in the radios and transponder first.  It would explain no distress call and squawk 7700.[/speculation]

 

Yeah, I have no idea.  I've got nothing to do, I thought I might imagine a scenario somewhere in the universe.  I don't really know where the transponder, radios, and ACARS are.

[n4gix]

Given the known facts that several course changes were made over a few hour period would make a cockpit fire highly unlikely...

[KevinAu]

[speculation]Ya know, an inflight fire might do that. It wouldn't take more than a few seconds on the flight computer to turn the aircraft back to land, or on the HDG control knob, to set another course. All this, while the cockpit might be on fire, the pilots might have had to evacuate the cockpit, everything burns, and the passengers just have to sit while the plane runs out of fuel. Perhaps the fire occurred in the radios and transponder first. It would explain no distress call and squawk 7700.[/speculation]

 

Yeah, I have no idea. I've got nothing to do, I thought I might imagine a scenario somewhere in the universe. I don't really know where the transponder, radios, and ACARS are.

I think your take on why there were no phone calls out from the passengers is correct. You are not going to get a cellphone signal while you are way out over the water.

 

However, something mechanical like an inflight fire is looking less and less plausible. The latest information being put out is that the last transmission to ATC from the aircraft, a simple 'Alright, goodnight.' when the flight was being terminated by Malaysian control, occurred after the ACARS had already been deactivated. So whoever was speaking on the radio, trying to make a normal sounding transmission, was in control of the aircraft after the troubles already began. If that was indeed the exact words of the last contact, to me, it sounds too casual. Unless that transmission was immediately at the end of a longer series of conversation between the pilot and ATC, it is way too non-conforming, being without a callsign. To me, it sounds like a non-pilot on the radio trying to make things sound normal.

[PiperFM]

I think your take on why there were no phone calls out from the passengers is correct. You are not going to get a cellphone signal while you are way out over the water.

 

However, something mechanical like an inflight fire is looking less and less plausible. The latest information being put out is that the last transmission to ATC from the aircraft, a simple 'Alright, goodnight.' when the flight was being terminated by Malaysian control, occurred after the ACARS had already been deactivated. So whoever was speaking on the radio, trying to make a normal sounding transmission, was in control of the aircraft after the troubles already began. If that was indeed the exact words of the last contact, to me, it sounds too casual. Unless that transmission was immediately at the end of a longer series of conversation between the pilot and ATC, it is way too non-conforming, being without a callsign. To me, it sounds like a non-pilot on the radio trying to make things sound normal.

 

I'd like to see that source, interesting revelation.

 

And yes, I agree the cockpit/electronics fire is way out there; I didn't think it was too likely either.

[KevinAu]

Just the latest on CNN's nonstop coverage. I'm sure it will hit your favorite news outlet soon enough.

[Polar]

A plane is missing, forget everything else till it is found. You cannot rely on the news, especially when you hear things that are absolutely false, or misleading.

[mganz121]

The latest information being put out is that the last transmission to ATC from the aircraft, a simple 'Alright, goodnight.' when the flight was being terminated by Malaysian control, occurred after the ACARS had already been deactivated. So whoever was speaking on the radio, trying to make a normal sounding transmission, was in control of the aircraft after the troubles already began. If that was indeed the exact words of the last contact, to me, it sounds too casual. Unless that transmission was immediately at the end of a longer series of conversation between the pilot and ATC, it is way too non-conforming, being without a callsign. To me, it sounds like a non-pilot on the radio trying to make things sound normal.

 

I think it is fairly safe to assume that if that last transmission was made by somebody other than one of the pilots, that fact would have been picked up by now by a simple voice comparison test from the ATC recordings.

[Bob Scott]

I wonder why transponders don't have a feature that squawks a tell-tale code for a few minutes after it is turned off in flight.  It might be very useful for the ATC controllers to have their attention called to the fact that the track dropping is due to an intentional crew action and not a system failure or flying out of range.  Maybe this incident will give cause to consider installing some air-to-ground tell-tales that can't be disabled by the crew, at least not before the jet phones home with a WTFO message.

As far as the whole passenger cellphone discussion...consider this scenario:  While over water, well out of cell tower range, ACARS reporting is disabled, preventing any automatic reporting of aircraft system events, then the aircraft is manually depressurized at cruise altitude, incapacitating (or killing) everyone outside the flight deck in minutes due to lack of access to a pressure-breathing O2 mask (the pax "dixie cups" provide unpressurized O2 and as a result are pretty much useless at cabin altitudes above 25,000 ft).  Or worse, the "crew" shuts off the cabin O2 system(s) entirely prior to depressurizing the jet.  Then the radar transponder is turned off, eliminating ATC's ability to track the aircraft's altitude.  Then an altitude excursion to FL450, as was reported in this incident by the news media, would administer the final, fatal coups de grace to the occupants of the depressurized cabin.  There would be no problems with pax making cell phone calls or otherwise getting in the way after that.

 

I can't think of a plausible scenario where the plane could keep flying for 7 hours, executing a series of course changes, and yet where the pilot would be unable to get off a single radio call before losing all comms (or even getting off an emergency cell phone call once over land).  Then there are the reports of the plane seen flying low over Kota Bharu--with its lights on--not a loss of power scenario at all.  And the indications that the plane was flying for a total of 7 hours would also imply that the jet had to have climbed back up and flown at a high cruise altitude for most of the time it was missing, since the high fuel burn at low altitudes would have exhausted the fuel load much sooner than that.

As to the "pilot suicide" theory...the pilot sitting at the controls could roll inverted and pull anytime he wanted to.  Why would he go to such convoluted means if his intent were just to kill himself?  That sure doesn't make sense to me.

 

The talking heads keep mentioning the need for a long runway to land this plane.  Well...no, not when you're willing to take on risk by tossing safety margins aside.  If the crew were involved, they wouldn't 'zackly be following company SOP on minimum runway length.  Actual landing distance from a below-Vref approach using a max-effort stop by an experienced pilot ignoring traditional safety margins is *significantly* below the oft-quoted 7500 ft runway requirement I've seen bandied about by the TV "experts."  And if this plane were successfully landed on a short runway on the night it disappeared, it also could have been repositioned--several times by now--to a place more suitable for hiding it, say in a failed state like Yemen, Somalia or Afghanistan.

 

If someone were able to surreptitiously divert this plane and land it in flyable condition, they'd have in their hands an aircraft capable of flying a significant load to nearly any other point on the planet non-stop. That would enable a 9/11 style suicide sneak attack anywhere in the world that lacks decent air defenses (that'd be most of the world), or worse, use of the jet to deliver a radioactive dirty bomb or even an improvised nuke made by a bad actor that has the means to create, but not to deliver such a weapon.  That possibility oughtta be keeping some people awake at night until we find this plane.  Or, hopefully, maybe the guys charged with keeping us all safe in our beds know something they're not able to tell us...

[scott967]

I wonder why transponders don't have a feature that squawks a tell-tale code for a few minutes after it is turned off in flight.  It might be very useful for the ATC controllers to have their attention called to the fact that the track dropping is due to an intentional crew action and not a system failure or flying out of range.  Maybe this incident will give cause to consider installing some air-to-ground tell-tales that can't be disabled by the crew, at least not before the jet phones home with a WTFO message.

 

The talking heads keep mentioning the need for a long runway to land this plane.  Well...no, not when you're willing to take on risk by tossing safety margins aside.  If the crew were involved, they wouldn't 'zackly be following company SOP on minimum runway length.  Actual landing distance from a below-Vref approach using a max-effort stop by an experienced pilot ignoring traditional safety margins is *significantly* below the oft-quoted 7500 ft runway requirement I've seen bandied about by the TV "experts."  And if this plane were successfully landed on a short runway on the night it disappeared, it also could have been repositioned--several times by now--to a place more suitable for hiding it, say in a failed state like Yemen, Somalia or Afghanistan.

 

On the xponder, I think the problem is designing just for this case.  AFAIK, all of them xmit on the same freq, so what do you do when some xponder goes ape and continuously xmits, effectively jamming the area?

 

For landing, BA38 shows you can walk away from a pretty short field landing in a T7!

 

scott s.

.

[Bob Scott]

On the xponder, I think the problem is designing just for this case.  AFAIK, all of them xmit on the same freq, so what do you do when some xponder goes ape and continuously xmits, effectively jamming the area?

 

 

No, it wouldn't work like that.

 

When the transponder's mode 3 is on, the transponder sends a short data burst reply every time it is interrogated by the ATC radar beam.  The idea is that, rather than just immediately ceasing to reply when the crew turns the transponder off in flight, for a few minutes after being selected off, it continues to reply, but using a specific mode 3 code that tells the ATC radar that mode 3 has been intentionally turned off by the crew.  Even if it were "stuck on" it would just be responding to the radar interrogation the same as if mode 3 were turned on...not really a problem.

 

Regards

 

[KevinAu]

I think it is fairly safe to assume that if that last transmission was made by somebody other than one of the pilots, that fact would have been picked up by now by a simple voice comparison test from the ATC recordings.

I'm sure that is exactly what they are doing right now. At the very least, a quick comparison with the last transmissions with tapes from ground, tower, departure and other earlier contacts to see if it is of the same voice may give an indication of whether the assigned pilot/s or a passenger is behind this.

[Airbus Commander]

I wonder why transponders don't have a feature that squawks a tell-tale code for a few minutes after it is turned off in flight.  It might be very useful for the ATC controllers to have their attention called to the fact that the track dropping is due to an intentional crew action and not a system failure or flying out of range.  Maybe this incident will give cause to consider installing some air-to-ground tell-tales that can't be disabled by the crew, at least not before the jet phones home with a WTFO message.

 

A feature like that would defeat the purpose of the off switch on the transponder, if the transponder needs to be turned off, then it should be, not turned to some semi-off, but still squaking state. If the pilot needs to isolate the system, be it because it's overheated, or is transmitting bad info (which causes a whole host of problems for nearby aircraft), then it needs to be isolated, not partially isolated. That is why there is an off switch. It's worked perfectly fine for years, changing it I feel will only give rise to more issues.

 

Regards,

Ró.

[fppilot]

 

 

ANZ121, on 15 Mar 2014 - 6:12 PM, said:
I think it is fairly safe to assume that if that last transmission was made by somebody other than one of the pilots, that fact would have been picked up by now by a simple voice comparison test from the ATC recordings.

I'm sure that is exactly what they are doing right now. At the very least, a quick comparison with the last transmissions with tapes from ground, tower, departure and other earlier contacts to see if it is of the same voice may give an indication of whether the assigned pilot/s or a passenger is behind this.

 

One would think that happened on about day two of this.