New Information On MH 370

Art VanDelay said:
Keep in mind too that if I had a nickel for every time my ACARS lost datalink I'd be able to afford a Cessna Mustang ! ACARS drops offline all the time all by itself. Why it do I don't know maybe it's a stray homoetron in there ?
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Do you know how often ACARS makes transmissions? From my limited research, I get the impression that while the last ACARS (presumably over VHF) transmission occurred before the last audio and transponder responses, the time between ACARS transmissions would have been large enough that one can't really say when ACARS VHF stopped working. So ACARS VHF, audio comms VHF (I assume they were not on HF), and transponder transmitters could have failed simultaneously and still be consistent with reported information.

For what it is worth, according to the map assembled by some Wikipedian based on published radar information, the direction of the first turn appears to have placed them on a course for the nearest large airport, at Khota Bharu, which would be consistent with your theory (since one would divert to the nearest airport one could land at):
Malaysia-Airlines-MH370_insert.png


https://www.google.com/maps/search/.../@6.0482626,104.3238342,855509m/data=!3m1!1e3
 
Jim Logajan said:
Do you know how often ACARS makes transmissions? ...
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Good question. I think on the 777 ACARS is basically a software function, as are many systems, so there isn't anything like an ACARS circuit breaker you could just pull to turn it off. You'd have some sort of control of it through the CDU but again, I don't think you can just disable it. The bottom line is that ACARS isn't going to tell anyone where you are.
 
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dtuuri said:
I've been thinking along those same lines too, with respect to how they might shadow an airline flight over the north pole to Toronto or Chicago to make an attack on us or possibly feign a legitimate flight like a cargo DC-8. I'd say the guy nailed it (if his 'facts' are true).



dtuuri
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We already discussed that.

First keep in mind this dude in the article is using what has been reported in open source with a tool like skyvector. His arguments about how close the two aircraft were are not based on the actual radar data. He is just presuming they were that close. And also assuming that whoever was directing MH370 knew exactly where to find the other 777 while pulling off such a stunt. That is pretty far fetched.

For radar to confuse the two 777s as a single target, they would have to fly in extremely close formation for a very long time. And even if they were close enough that radar operators on duty did not notice it at the time, someone would have noticed the anomaly in the radar analysis since then. I'm not buying it.

Just another internet theorist trying to get his share of attention.
 
Fearless Tower said:
We already discussed that.
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I haven't read all the posts in each of these threads

Fearless Tower said:
First keep in mind this dude in the article is using what has been reported in open source with a tool like skyvector. His arguments about how close the two aircraft were are not based on the actual radar data. He is just presuming they were that close. And also assuming that whoever was directing MH370 knew exactly where to find the other 777 while pulling off such a stunt. That is pretty far fetched.
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I think it's reasonable to assume airlines fly pretty predictable flight schedules. If a rendezvous was planned it could have been tested with a simulator using the same data the blogger had. In fact, I just looked it up on Flight Aware and note that of the last six departures, including the one the night MH370 vanished, they were all within a ten minute span: http://flightaware.com/live/flight/SIA68/history/20140307/1640Z/WSSS/LEBL . At the last time MH370 was painted on radar, SIA68 was at 24,000' and climbing (http://flightaware.com/live/flight/SIA68/history/20140307/1640Z/WSSS/LEBL/tracklog). Isn't it thought MH370 descended to about that same altitude?

Fearless Tower said:
For radar to confuse the two 777s as a single target, they would have to fly in extremely close formation for a very long time. And even if they were close enough that radar operators on duty did not notice it at the time, someone would have noticed the anomaly in the radar analysis since then. I'm not buying it.
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Maybe someone has and chose not to share the information with the world.

dtuuri
 
dtuuri said:
I think it's reasonable to assume airlines fly pretty predictable flight schedules.
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There is a huge difference in coordinating flight schedules and making an intercept.

As people wildly speculate based on information that has been released, people need to understand something:

This has, for all intents and purposes, shifted from a SAR effort to a criminal investigation. Even US officials involved seem to agree that the actions were deliberate. And like any criminal investigation, authorities are not letting on everything they know.

So with that in mind, any attempt to theorize what happened based on what has been released is nothing more than mental masturbation.
 
Fearless Tower said:
There is a huge difference in coordinating flight schedules and making an intercept.
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Not when one airplane has a head start and according to Flight Aware, MH370 departs before SIA68. That's more like an ambush than an intercept.

dtuuri
 
dtuuri said:
Not when one airplane has a head start and according to Flight Aware, MH370 departs before SIA68. That's more like an ambush than an intercept.



dtuuri
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Flight aware is not accurate enough to base an intercept with any kind of reliability. Sometimes it is right on and others very delayed. For a heist of this significance, no one is going to rely on that hit or miss reliability/accuracy.
 
Dear Fearless,

You keep trying to inject facts into the conversation/debate. Don't you understand that that's taboo on the internet, especially here?

I mean, really, please try to keep your posts more on the entertainingly absurd side.

Facts have no business here. You, sir, are spoiling all the fun.

:rolleyes:
 
Fearless Tower said:
Flight aware is not accurate enough to base an intercept with any kind of reliability. Sometimes it is right on and others very delayed. For a heist of this significance, no one is going to rely on that hit or miss reliability/accuracy.
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Doesn't look like rocket science to me. SAI68 takes the same departure path every night. As long as you intersect it ahead of time, you can just circle and wait for it to come along. Of course, you can hear it on frequency too, so you can pretty much tell where it is from that.

dtuuri
 
dtuuri said:
Doesn't look like rocket science to me. SAI68 takes the same departure path every night. As long as you intersect it ahead of time, you can just circle and wait for it to come along. Of course, you can hear it on frequency too, so you can pretty much tell where it is from that.
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You also wouldn't have to do close formation flying. If your transponder is off, just fly the same track at an altitude close enough to look the same on altitude-discriminating primary radar. Listen on frequency for any route or altitude assignments, and stay on the dot using TCAS.

I would think it's the initial intercept that would be tricky, not the flying along once established.
 
dtuuri said:
Doesn't look like rocket science to me. SAI68 takes the same departure path every night. As long as you intersect it ahead of time, you can just circle and wait for it to come along. Of course, you can hear it on frequency too, so you can pretty much tell where it is from that.

dtuuri
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How much formation flying have you done? It isn't that simple and takes some coordinating. One minor mistake in the intercept , which is likely, and MH370 would never even be able to catch the airliner it's trying to intercept.

Not saying it's not possible just saying it's pretty damn hard.
 
dtuuri said:
Doesn't look like rocket science to me. SAI68 takes the same departure path every night. As long as you intersect it ahead of time, you can just circle and wait for it to come along. Of course, you can hear it on frequency too, so you can pretty much tell where it is from that.

dtuuri
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Or if it has ADSB-OUT, you can receive it's position updates in real-time.
 
jesse said:
How much formation flying have you done?
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Enough to know I don't like it. I'm too mistrusting of others' skill. A primary target following behind might not get ATC's attention and might not qualify as "formation flying".

jesse said:
One minor mistake in the intercept , which is likely, and MH370 would never even be able to catch the airliner it's trying to intercept.

Not saying it's not possible just saying it's pretty damn hard.
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Well, it shouldn't take much of an effort to try it out with MS Flight Simulator. Maybe somebody can give it a try and report back? All the data you need is available. Unfortunately, I'm not geek enough for it or I'd do it myself.

dtuuri
 
Maybe someone already posted this (sorry if it is repeat) But I just had a sinking feeling this morning when I thought about the account of MH370 climbing to FL450 shortly after lost contact then rapidly descending to FL230.

Can the cabin be depressurized manually at FL450 and not allow the oxygen to supply in passenger cabin? This would be bad for the 230 passengers aboard.

:confused:
 
I asked this before, If the intent was to hijack the aircraft and render the passengers unconscious by slowly decompressing the cabin, is it possible to disable the cabin O2 masks from deploying? i.e. pull a breaker? I would imagine that the masks deployment is controlled by a pressure switch individual to each mask. Can the flow of oxygen to the masks be disabled in flight?
 
I hate seeing people comment on news articles with something like, "why would the transponder have an off mode?" Well if there is an electrical fire do you want everything electrical on or try to isolate the fire by turning everything electrical off
 
jordane93 said:
I hate seeing people comment on news articles with something like, "why would the transponder have an off mode?" Well if there is an electrical fire do you want everything electrical on or try to isolate the fire by turning everything electrical off
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Not to mention that ATC really doesn't care for malfunctioning transponders, especially if they start broadcasting erroneous squawk codes.
 
inactive15 said:
is it possible to disable the cabin O2 masks from deploying? i.e. pull a breaker?
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No

Can the flow of oxygen to the masks be disabled in flight?
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The oxygen masks are supplied from chemical oxygen generators. The act of pulling the masks to one's face activates the generators. Once activated, they produce oxygen for between 15 and 20 minutes. After that, they are depleted and cannot produce any more oxygen.

The crew oxygen is supplied by a bottle which has a bit more capacity.
 
If there were complete cabin depressurization at 45,000 feet I don't think the drop down O2 masks are going to be of much use, especially if that altitude were maintained for any period of time.
 
Jim Logajan said:
From my limited research, I get the impression that while the last ACARS (presumably over VHF) transmission occurred before the last audio and transponder responses, the time between ACARS transmissions would have been large enough that one can't really say when ACARS VHF stopped working. So ACARS VHF, audio comms VHF (I assume they were not on HF), and transponder transmitters could have failed simultaneously and still be consistent with reported information.
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My research was right! ACARS transmissions are too intermittent during cruise to make the claim that the Malaysian Prime Minister made:

On Saturday Najib Razak stated that the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS), which transmits key information about the plane to the ground, had been deliberately switched off while the plane was still flying over Malaysian territory north of Kuala Lumpur. The implication was that voice contact with the flight deck had taken place after the shutdown.

But today, the transport minister, Hishammuddin Hussein, said: “ The last ACARS transmission was 1.07am. It was supposed to transmit at 1.37am but that never happened.” Therefore no conclusion can be drawn that the last voice transmission, at 1.19am, took place after the shutdown began.​
From: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/missing-malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370-confusion-deepens-over-missing-30-minutes-at-heart-of-mystery-engulfing-stricken-jet-9197375.html
 
mcmanigle said:
You also wouldn't have to do close formation flying. If your transponder is off, just fly the same track at an altitude close enough to look the same on altitude-discriminating primary radar. Listen on frequency for any route or altitude assignments, and stay on the dot using TCAS.



I would think it's the initial intercept that would be tricky, not the flying along once established.
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As discussed earlier, you would have to be extremely close not appear as two separate targets on primary radar. Even if the operators on watch didn't notice it at the time, you would stick out like a sore thumb in the later review of the tapes.
 
timwinters said:
Dear Fearless,



You keep trying to inject facts into the conversation/debate. Don't you understand that that's taboo on the internet, especially here?



I mean, really, please try to keep your posts more on the entertainingly absurd side.



Facts have no business here. You, sir, are spoiling all the fun.



:rolleyes:
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Yeah, you're right. I don't know what I was thinking.
 
Silvaire said:
If there were complete cabin depressurization at 45,000 feet I don't think the drop down O2 masks are going to be of much use, especially if that altitude were maintained for any period of time.
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Ambient temp that altitude is -70. How long would the cabin and cockpit maintain temperature if pressurization was lost?
 
Silvaire said:
A triple seven scheduled to fly to Beijing has enough fuel to fly to Beijing, they don't top off the tanks and carry a bunch of fuel they aren't going to use.
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Unless fuel was more expensive in Beijing. Don't airliners tanker fuel frequently when flying to high cost airports, or airports that aren't served by fuel companies with which they have entered into a hedging contract?
 
nddons said:
Unless fuel was more expensive in Beijing. Don't airliners tanker fuel frequently when flying to high cost airports, or airports that aren't served by fuel companies with which they have entered into a hedging contract?
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Good point.. And since the plane left from the home base for the airline, there is a good chance he was "tankering" a full load..:idea:
 
Engine-Out Glide

Question:

If a well-trained "pilot" was flying a rehearsed mission, would it be possible to power down the RR Trent engines in flight (thus originating the last ping) and then glide a rehearsed, trained glide path on battery power - 100 or so miles to a landing site?

Risky - but so is hijacking an airliner. If this was possible, even if authorities knew the exact location of the last ping, they would still need to search around 11,000 square miles for the possible landing sight.

Thoughts?
 
nddons said:
Unless fuel was more expensive in Beijing. Don't airliners tanker fuel frequently when flying to high cost airports, or airports that aren't served by fuel companies with which they have entered into a hedging contract?
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Only if they have the excess capacity in which to do so. Otherwise the cost to carry the fuel comes into play.
 
Re: Engine-Out Glide

WBI Flyer said:
Question:

If a well-trained "pilot" was flying a rehearsed mission, would it be possible to power down the RR Trent engines in flight (thus originating the last ping) and then glide a rehearsed, trained glide path on battery power - 100 or so miles to a landing site?

Risky - but so is hijacking an airliner. If this was possible, even if authorities knew the exact location of the last ping, they would still need to search around 11,000 square miles for the possible landing sight.

Thoughts?
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If he had known the engines were pinging, I think it's likely he would have tried to shut them down somehow, since he tried to shut down everything else. My guess is that the group responsible were not aware of the engine pings.
 
Re: Engine-Out Glide

airguy said:
If he had known the engines were pinging, I think it's likely he would have tried to shut them down somehow, since he tried to shut down everything else. My guess is that the group responsible were not aware of the engine pings.
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How do they know the pilots "shut" anything off ? If power is removed from a system we do not know exactly by what means the power was removed.
 
Lindberg said:
Ambient temp that altitude is -70. How long would the cabin and cockpit maintain temperature if pressurization was lost?
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Well, if pressurization is lost, the cabin air will immediately cool, thanks to adiabatic cooling. (Just like what causes water to condense into clouds as air parcels rise.) So, some sort of temperature drop would occur quite rapidly. (My back-of-the-envelope calculation says the drop would be about 200 degrees Fahrenheit going from a 8000-foot pressure altitude to a 45000-foot pressure altitude, so you'd actually be colder than ambient.) Of course, the rate that your body would lose heat to the air would be proportional to the density of the air, and that -70 (or whatever) air wouldn't feel nearly so cold as air with the same temperature at sea level. My guess (and it is only a guess), is that with normal clothing you could easily maintain your body temperature in -70 degree air at a 45000-foot density altitude for longer than the passenger oxygen supply would last.

A question for anyone who's done training in an altitude chamber: How cold does it feel? The air must cool substantially when they pump it down to 30,000 or 40,000 feet. Does it feel particularly cold?

But, I understand that the bleed air that is used to ventilate the cabin ordinarily needs to be cooled substantially, both by a pre-cooler heat exchanger and by an air-conditioner, before it can be sent to the cabin. Now, air from the environmental control system will itself cool significantly as it expands when it is introduced into a 45,000-foot pressure altitude cabin (thanks to adiabatic cooling), but wouldn't the pre-cooler and air-conditioner be thermostatically controlled, and thus not cool the bleed air when the cabin temperature is really low? I would think that the bleed air would still be a good deal warmer than ambient when it reached the cabin, assuming the pre-cooler and air-conditioner would be effectively by-passed. Exactly what temperature you would end up with, I wouldn't hazard to guess.
 
dtuuri said:
Doesn't look like rocket science to me. SAI68 takes the same departure path every night. As long as you intersect it ahead of time, you can just circle and wait for it to come along. Of course, you can hear it on frequency too, so you can pretty much tell where it is from that.

dtuuri
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Was there any evidence that 370 did any circling?
 
Lindberg said:
Ambient temp that altitude is -70. How long would the cabin and cockpit maintain temperature if pressurization was lost?
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Not just temperature, the pressure at 45,000 feet is only a little over four inches of Mercury. I think you're entering the realm where you really might need a pressure suit and a dixie cup oxygen mask just isn't gonna cut it.
 
Silvaire said:
Not just temperature, the pressure at 45,000 feet is only a little over four inches of Mercury. I think you're entering the realm where you really might need a pressure suit and a dixie cup oxygen mask just isn't gonna cut it.
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Yep. 40k' is roughly where pressure breathing becomes necessary, so drop down masks (with no real seal) aren't going to cut it.
 
Jim Logajan said:
My research was right! ACARS transmissions are too intermittent during cruise to make the claim that the Malaysian Prime Minister made:
On Saturday Najib Razak stated that the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS), which transmits key information about the plane to the ground, had been deliberately switched off while the plane was still flying over Malaysian territory north of Kuala Lumpur. The implication was that voice contact with the flight deck had taken place after the shutdown.

But today, the transport minister, Hishammuddin Hussein, said: “ The last ACARS transmission was 1.07am. It was supposed to transmit at 1.37am but that never happened.” Therefore no conclusion can be drawn that the last voice transmission, at 1.19am, took place after the shutdown began.​
From: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...f-mystery-engulfing-stricken-jet-9197375.html
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Oh look. Information that they were certain of yesterday isn't true today. Surprise!

It's interesting that 999 times out of 1,000 when a plane goes missing it's because it crashed. But people are basing all sorts of wild theories on the garbage information coming out of this keystone cop operation.
 
Lindberg said:
Oh look. Information that they were certain of yesterday isn't true today. Surprise!

It's interesting that 999 times out of 1,000 when a plane goes missing it's because it crashed. But people are basing all sorts of wild theories on the garbage information coming out of this keystone cop operation.
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The Malaysian Transport Minister was correcting the Prime Minister - the former was being precise, the latter was either jumping to conclusions or was being fed junk from someone other than his Transport Minister.

The bulk of the nonsense being presented as "fact" is coming from places outside Malaysia - like the New York Times who are reporting total inventions by anonymous "senior" American officials. The latest being:
"The first turn to the west that diverted the missing Malaysia Airlines plane from its planned flight path from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing was carried out through a computer system that was most likely programmed by someone in the plane’s cockpit who was knowledgeable about airplane systems, according to senior American officials."
​
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/18/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-flight.html?_r=0

Of course there is nothing to support any of the many assertions claimed in that sentence. The rest of the article is, to me, a WTF are they using for brains? The alleged "officials" and "investigators" the NYTimes is quoting from are making no attempts to view the data objectively and dispassionately; yielding this:
"Investigators are scrutinizing radar tapes from when the plane first departed Kuala Lumpur because they believe the tapes will show that after the plane first changed its course, it passed through several pre-established “waypoints,” which are like virtual mile markers in the sky."
​
 
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