New Information On MH 370

dans2992 said:
So why is it that large air carrier aircraft are not required to have ELTs like other aircraft? That just seems odd.
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The only reason we are required to have them is because a couple of politicians crashed in Alaska in 1972 and we never found them so they made a law....
 
Piloto said:
So for quicker rescue you just get out the raft in the water and start farting. So who needs an ELT when a good fart will do better. I will make sure I eat plenty of beans before that overwater flight.

Thanks for the tip.:D

José
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Oooh sht!!! better reconsider the above. Sharks may be on the look out for farts too. Better get back in the raft and turn the search light on and hope Obatman will rescue me. After all I am taxpayer.

José
 
Luvrv8 said:
I will start this question with the statement I have never seen the cockpit of a 777 and have only flown on one one time. With all of this ELT stuff flying around and FAA regs being pulled up does any of this apply to a foreign registry airplane?
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Depends upon the country and it's regulations. Since most countries follow ICAO, the majority of ELT's are carried in the survival pack as portable units.
 
Piloto said:
Air transport planes air certified under FAA Part 25 not part 91.

Part 25
This part contains airworthiness standards for airplanes in the transport category.

Transport category airplanes are either:

Jets with 10 or more seats or a maximum takeoff weight (MTOW) greater than 12,500 pounds (5,670 kg); or
Propeller-driven airplanes with greater than 19 seats or a MTOW greater than 19,000 pounds (8,618 kg).
The Boeing 737 and later types, and Airbus A300 series, are well-known airplane types that were certificated to FAR Part 25.

Most of the Federal Aviation Regulations, including Part 25, commenced on February 1, 1965. Prior to that date, airworthiness standards for airplanes in the transport category were promulgated in Part 4b of the US Civil Air Regulations. The Boeing 707 and 727 are two well-known airplane types that were certificated to CAR Part 4b.

José
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You are going around in circles here Jose. Face it, you don't have a clue as to what you've been posting about.

And with that I've wasted enough time debating a fool.
 
dans2992 said:
So why is it that large air carrier aircraft are not required to have ELTs like other aircraft? That just seems odd.
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These aircraft are flown on IFR routing under ATC control in a much more structured environment. There is a dispatch tracking the flight as well.

There are ELT's on board, just portable units stored in the survival gear.
 
RotorAndWing said:
These aircraft are flown on IFR routing under ATC control in a much more structured environment. There is a dispatch tracking the flight as well.

There are ELT's on board, just portable units stored in the survival gear.
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Well....... Except for this flight...:idea:..........;)
 
N801BH said:
Well....... Except for this flight...:idea:..........;)
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And Air France 447 . . . . . and that Egypt Air flight . . . . . and those folks who sank in the Everglades . . . . .

"No installed ELT required for airlines because they fly under positive ATC control in a regulated environment" works well until something happens. The ELT is dead weight and unnecessary maintenance expense, until something happens. Murphy is the whole reason we have ELT's in the first place!!

Something happened to MH 370, and they didn't have an ELT that was reachable or that activated . . . . .
 
Latest newspaper theory was that the pilot was trying to save the airplane - drop to 10K and turn to the nearest airport probably due to a fire which could have shut down communications. Then things got worse and the airplane flew off on it's own.

Makes more sense than turning and diving to avoid radar...

http://news.yahoo.com/pilots-tried-save-mh370-193000845--politics.html
 
Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
Latest newspaper theory was that the pilot was trying to save the airplane - drop to 10K and turn to the nearest airport probably due to a fire which could have shut down communications. Then things got worse and the airplane flew off on it's own.
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A good number of knowledgeable people saw this as the most likely scenario from the get-go. Only after the rulers of the country started to disseminate misinformation to achieve maximal political gain the picture got confusing.
 
weilke said:
A good number of knowledgeable people saw this as the most likely scenario from the get-go. Only after the rulers of the country started to disseminate misinformation to achieve maximal political gain the picture got confusing.
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And the "political gain" from saying the aircraft was heading northwest on military radar is.. what?

dtuuri
 
Piloto said:
Here are some pictures of the 787 ELT that was called for an FAA AD

https://www.google.com/search?q=B78..._0FJTC2gXzvYCoAg&ved=0CHcQsAQ&biw=652&bih=350

FAA B787 ELT AD
http://www.flyingmag.com/news/faa-require-boeing-787-elt-inspections

José
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Again, just because they MAY be installed on a 787 does not mean they are installed on other airplanes.

Again, I know for a FACT that SOME 777s have ELT's and some DO NOT.

And my only caveat to that is that it applies to domestic airlines. I have no first hand knowledge what foreign carriers are required to have.
 
dans2992 said:
So why is it that large air carrier aircraft are not required to have ELTs like other aircraft? That just seems odd.
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Because they operate over relatively fixed routes on a relatively fixed schedule. Also, they are in contact with the dispatchers on a fairly regular basis. If they miss a report, the red flags are raised and an investigation is begun as to where the plane is.

As far as it being over the ocean, just how effective would an ELT be under several miles of ocean?
 
Hank S said:
And Air France 447 . . . . . and that Egypt Air flight . . . . . and those folks who sank in the Everglades . . . . .

"No installed ELT required for airlines because they fly under positive ATC control in a regulated environment" works well until something happens. The ELT is dead weight and unnecessary maintenance expense, until something happens. Murphy is the whole reason we have ELT's in the first place!!

Something happened to MH 370, and they didn't have an ELT that was reachable or that activated . . . . .
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And who is going to hear it out in the middle of a HUGE ocean, and how long will it transmit underwater. And again, what is the range of an ELT signal that originates underwater?
 
Greg Bockelman said:
And who is going to hear it out in the middle of a HUGE ocean, and how long will it transmit underwater. And again, what is the range of an ELT signal that originates underwater?
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A GPS harnessed 406mHz ELT would start putting out good coordinates while the aircraft is still in the air. It doesn't care where on the plant the red switch (or secret foot-pedal :wink2: ) is actuated.
 
Greg Bockelman said:
Also, they are in contact with the dispatchers on a fairly regular basis. If they miss a report, the red flags are raised and an investigation is begun as to where the plane is.
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That worked like a charm in this case.
 
Postulated on PPRune, most submarines do not have equipment tuned to the black box pingers and are unlikely to be able to detect the ping while listening for gaseous emanation from shrimp (evidently those are in the right frequency range). There are towed arrays with inline frequency down conversion that can interface to the submarine's sonar equipment. With the towed arrays they are still limited to 5 knots, and widths of about 1 nm. Odds are not good they will find the black box in time based on the current search area dimensions.
 
masloki said:
Postulated on PPRune, most submarines do not have equipment tuned to the black box pingers and are unlikely to be able to detect the ping while listening for gaseous emanation from shrimp (evidently those are in the right frequency range). There are towed arrays with inline frequency down conversion that can interface to the submarine's sonar equipment. With the towed arrays they are still limited to 5 knots, and widths of about 1 nm. Odds are not good they will find the black box in time based on the current search area dimensions.
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I am not a submariner, but I can say from hunting subs with surface ship sonar and mines with underwater vehicles, sound propagation through water is problematic. All kinds of dead zones that are constantly changing with temp, pressure, salinity ....etc. Finding something making noise underwater can be really hit and miss at times, even when you know where they are. It isn't as easy as Hollywood makes it seem.

Not saying they won't find it, but it is a big challenge.
 
Fearless Tower said:
I am not a submariner, but I can say from hunting subs with surface ship sonar and mines with underwater vehicles, sound propagation through water is problematic. All kinds of dead zones that are constantly changing with temp, pressure, salinity ....etc. Finding something making noise underwater can be really hit and miss at times, even when you know where they are. It isn't as easy as Hollywood makes it seem.

Not saying they won't find it, but it is a big challenge.
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I was in the submarine service, and I agree it's never as easy as a Hollywood script. Considering the time of year and that the surface searches are already being hampered by sea states and surface conditions, I think a submarine has the best chance of locating the man made noise maker (whatever its characteristics) before it dies.
 
Who knows................. Maybe this is a ploy to draw our assets to that region so we show good faith and neighbors and the bad guys do something stupid half a world away...

Oh wait... We are the ones a half a world away..:yikes:
 
RotorAndWing said:
These aircraft are flown on IFR routing under ATC control in a much more structured environment. There is a dispatch tracking the flight as well.

There are ELT's on board, just portable units stored in the survival gear.
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Dr. House

B777ER are not intended for domestic flights but for long oceanics flights. On oceanic flights ATC control is exercised via HF radio and there is no radar coverage. Over the North Atlantic you are either in contact with Gander Radio, NY Radio and Santa Maria Radio. Company contact is provided by HF LDOC ARINC stations. If you lose total radio contact and have a mishap a rescue mission is sent two hours after missing the ETA. However if the pilot activate the ELT in-flight while going down to Gilligan's island a rescue mission is sent right away. Not activating the ELT while airborne could make a difference of days in rescue, specially on the Pacific and Artic Routes

Portable ELTs have no G switches to activate on impact. If the plane crash land like those you see on TV were they go in flames, the portable ELTs get burned with them. On a burning plane nobody is looking for ELTs but to get out. Passengers are not even informed where to look for a portable ELT.

New 406MHz ELTs have the ability to convey the aircraft GPS position within 50 seconds of activation and repeat the message every 50 seconds to the satellites above. In addition pilots over the NAT routes are required to listen on 121.5MHz for old ELT transmissions.

I am familiar with the above because I have flown myself the NAT routes multiple times. Suggest you get familiar with the various ICAO and FAA documents on the Internet

José
 
Piloto said:
B777ER are not intended for domestic flights but for long oceanics flights. On oceanic flights ATC control is exercised via HF radio
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Well, that isn't entirely true anymore. With CPDLC, which most companies have nowadays, it is done electronically via satellite.

Company contact is provided by HF LDOC ARINC stations.
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If one needs voice communications.

If you lose total radio contact and have a mishap a rescue mission is sent two hours after missing the ETA.
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I will take your word for the time frame.

However if the pilot activate the ELT in-flight while going down to Gilligan's island a rescue mission is sent right away.
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Point 1: That is IF the pilots have time to activate the ELT while inflight. And that is not a normal procedure.

Point 2: I will take your word, again, on the timeframe, but I doubt the mission can get organized that fast.

Not activating the ELT while airborne could make a difference of days in rescue, specially on the Pacific and Artic Routes
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Again, that isn't a normally accepted procedure. Not saying it can't or shouldn't be done.

In addition pilots over the NAT routes are required to listen on 121.5MHz for old ELT transmissions.
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Sure, but the range at which they can be received is limited.

I am familiar with the above because I have flown myself the NAT routes multiple times.
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So have I. I have told you what MY qualifications are. Unless I missed it, I have not seen what yours are. For all I know you are just a passenger in the back.

Suggest you get familiar with the various ICAO and FAA documents on the Internet
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Yeah, well how about a link to a couple?
 
Greg Bockelman said:
Well, that isn't entirely true anymore. With CPDLC, which most companies have nowadays, it is done electronically via satellite.

Not all airplanes are CPDLC equipped. And not all regions are CPDLc capable Inmarsat does not cover the artic routes.


If one needs voice communications.



I will take your word for the time frame.



Point 1: That is IF the pilots have time to activate the ELT while inflight. And that is not a normal procedure.

How long it takes to set a switch? On the B777 there is Master Caution system that can activate the ELT. And of course is not a normal procedure, it is an emergency procedure.

Point 2: I will take your word, again, on the timeframe, but I doubt the mission can get organized that fast.

It depends on the nearest country. I heard that the US Coast Guard is quicker than the Haitian patrol.



Again, that isn't a normally accepted procedure. Not saying it can't or shouldn't be done.

What would you have done instead to expedite rescue?


Sure, but the range at which they can be received is limited.

An airliner at 40,000 feet can hear an ELT 100nm away. When you get handover from NY Radio on HF to San Juan Radio on VHF distance is over 300nm.



So have I. I have told you what MY qualifications are. Unless I missed it, I have not seen what yours are. For all I know you are just a passenger in the back.

An avionics engineer at Boeing on the 7J7 program that produced the B777

Also with United at SFO.

Which airline you work for? Malaysian airlines maybe? They don't set ELTs on during emergencies.


Yeah, well how about a link to a couple?
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Do not disappoint me or I will stop flying on your airline.

José
 
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Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
Latest newspaper theory was that the pilot was trying to save the airplane - drop to 10K and turn to the nearest airport probably due to a fire which could have shut down communications. Then things got worse and the airplane flew off on it's own.

Makes more sense than turning and diving to avoid radar...

http://news.yahoo.com/pilots-tried-save-mh370-193000845--politics.html
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weilke said:
A good number of knowledgeable people saw this as the most likely scenario from the get-go.
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But there are those that are hell-bent on getting a Tom Clancy novel out of this at all cost. After all, the pilots were :rolleyes:. and they had a flight simulator with deleted files:yikes: and they said goodnight!

I just saw a talking-head on FOX say "a preponderance of evidence suggest that the plane was being flown by someone for the entire time".

Where is this "preponderance of evidence"? :rolleyes2:
 
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As I said earlier ELT's were mandated by Congress after two of their members disappeared on a flight in Alaska in 1972 and were never found. At this time 406Mhz ELT's are NOT mandated and the old 121.5Mhz units that we are required to carry have been relegated to obsolescence as they are no longer monitored by satellite as of 2009. The performance of the new 406Mhz ELT's has not exactly been stellar either, Senator Ted Steven's is a good example since his aircraft was equipped with one and it failed to activate.

All this outcry about how come they didn't have ELT's on FH370, well what are you basing that on? How do you know they didn't? Further outcry to mandate them on ALL flights, which is probably going to happen because Congress does so love to make new laws, is a typical knee jerk reaction as if to say that what happened with MH370, which was a freak occurrence, is something that is suddenly going to start happening ALL the time and by golly we gotta DO something about it. :rolleyes2:
 
Silvaire said:
Further outcry to mandate them on ALL flights, which is probably going to happen because Congress does so love to make new laws, is a typical knee jerk reaction as if to say that what happened with MH370, which was a freak occurrence, is something that is suddenly going to start happening ALL the time and by golly we gotta DO something about it. :rolleyes2:
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Probably going to end up with a new law to require ELTs with some kind of dead man's switch that if you don't hit a "snooze button" every few minutes to prove someone is really awake and flying the plane, that it will automatically start transmitting by itself.

EDIT: Better put a sarcastic :frown2: on this in case somebody might think I'd actually like the idea.
 
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Piloto said:
Notice that the statement above says – "Equipped to carry not more than one person" That would imply a cargo plane. So the rule for a B777 still applies.

If you were in an emergency event over the North Atlantic with no HF/VHF coms because there is no electrical power how you were instructed to convey your location so they can quickly assist you?

BTW I was working with Boeing at Everett during the B777 FAA certification and can tell you that the ELT on the B777 is not an option but standard equipment. In fact some of them had dual ELTs at differnt locations.

During the 911 event none of the airplanes involved had their ELT activated, which would had helped identify them. This is why they grounded all air traffic.
It is suspected that the hijackers kept the pilots from turning them on. Since then ELT switch location on many ATP planes is not viewable to the hijackers but maybe disguised as another switch or pedal switch activated, very useful when the pilot has his hands on the head. Some airlines go to the extreme of having a fake ELT switch on the console so the hijackers don't bother to look for the true switch.

In severe turbulence you may get an ELT ON warning on the EICAS display. Check with your company how to re ARM the ELT. Flight simulators have no ELT switches

José
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I would press the button for the SAT phone and call Gander or Prestwick just like l always do when I can't get comm. Tell me how many hours you have in a 777 ? or are you just an internet picture snipper ?
 
We should invent a new term, he's a wikigooglist, and a very determined one at that :rolleyes:
 
dtuuri said:
Interesting plot of Inmarsat's logic at two cruising speeds, 450 & 400 kts:
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Speaking of Inmarsat - I'm impressed that their satellites record and log as much information as they do - even for heart beat pings. I would have thought that no information would have been recorded that allowed doppler analysis.
 
Jim Logajan said:
Speaking of Inmarsat - I'm impressed that their satellites record and log as much information as they do - even for heart beat pings. I would have thought that no information would have been recorded that allowed doppler analysis.
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That was a surprise for me too.
 
Jim Logajan said:
Speaking of Inmarsat - I'm impressed that their satellites record and log as much information as they do - even for heart beat pings. I would have thought that no information would have been recorded that allowed doppler analysis.
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I don't think it's actually information, the handshake signal is of a specific duration which would either be compressed or expanded (by microseconds or nanoseconds, maybe even picoseconds) depending on whether the aircraft was moving away or towards the satellite
 
Silvaire said:
I don't think it's actually information, the handshake signal is of a specific duration which would either be compressed or expanded (by microseconds or nanoseconds, maybe even picoseconds) depending on whether the aircraft was moving away or towards the satellite
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Correct but they would have to be saving precise data and timing info about that handshake for them to be analyzing this later. Not something done with "hand shakes" in most systems. Granted I don't build satellites (outside of KSP).
 
Art VanDelay said:
I would press the button for the SAT phone and call Gander or Prestwick just like l always do when I can't get comm. Tell me how many hours you have in a 777 ? or are you just an internet picture snipper ?
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But that takes longer than activating the ELT switch. And that is assuming you have power on the SAT phone and you don't get a busy tone or the annoying message "Please try again later" BTW is rare to lose contact with Gander. Perhaps you had the wrong frequency. At night is best to use the 5 MHz frequencies and during daytime the 8 and 11 MHz frequencies

5 years on the B777 development program.
Plenty of hours on the Boeing Iron Bird making sure the FBW does not hick up on you. And plenty of hours on flight testing before you had a chance to fly it.

Just what B777-??? you fly? All three digits please.

José
 
Piloto said:
But that takes longer than activating the ELT switch. And that is assuming you have power on the SAT phone and you don't get a busy tone or the annoying message "Please try again later" BTW is rare to lose contact with Gander. Perhaps you had the wrong frequency. At night is best to use the 5 MHz frequencies and during daytime the 8 and 11 MHz frequencies

5 years on the B777 development program.
Plenty of hours on the Boeing Iron Bird making sure the FBW does not hick up on you. And plenty of hours on flight testing before you had a chance to fly it.

Just what B777-??? you fly? All three digits please.

José
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777-200 and I actually FLY the aircraft not just stand around and watch. AND THERE IS NO MAGIC ULTRA SECRET ELT BUTTON !!!!! But hey, keep it up Josey it's really starting to get entertaining !!! What else do you have for us ? I almost can't wait to hear.
 
Only the real insiders call it "the FBW"

Piloto, how many ACE's on a 777 and where are they?
 
I know Bill, I'm just trying to find out if he uses Google or Bing :D
 
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