Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 vanishes without trace

[Citizen66]

1 leave mine in Everet

Slaughterrobe's doppelganger?

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

That sounds a bit pricey.

It's the hardware (obvs) that costs the wedge. The pro ones are situated on top of state of the art motion platforms. You could probably build a convincing boeing cockpit sans motion hardware for thirty grand. Fourteen million sounds a bit steep but if it's a warts and all exact replica including movement to match then I guess it could stretch to that. Well at that level it isn't off the shelf stuff and you're paying engineers and boffins to bring it together I guess. Still sounds a lot! I thought they were more 250k but no idea where I got that figure from. Whatever you got a go on must be way ahead of the curve.

Here's his set up. I can't view the video though so I don't know what he's saying, but there's pics all over the place

 

[classicdish]

The pilots then spoke to the Vietnamese traffic control and said "All right, good night" knowing that the ACARS system had been turned off.

Malaysian traffic control.

 

[clicker]

The pilots then spoke to the Vietnamese traffic control and said "All right, good night" knowing that the ACARS system had been turned off. Following this the transponder was turned off..

maybe it wasn't the pilots who said 'good night'?

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

maybe it wasn't the pilots who said 'good night'?

I was wondering that. Wonder if they've let anyone who knew him well listen to confirm it's him

 

[classicdish]

Re. the story about the pilot's support for opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim...

Ibrahim & his party are a fairly centrist and non-extreme http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People's_Justice_Party_(Malaysia) and he has been subject to loads of smears and dodgy trials over alleged 'sodomy' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_Ibrahim_sodomy_trials

I'd therefore be cautious about the Malaysian government trying to make out that the pilot is some kind of pro-Ibrahim terrorist - it doesn't really make a lot of sense.

 

[Citizen66]

Here's his set up. I can't view the video though so I don't know what he's saying, but there's pics all over the place

YouTube Video

It has an intro with him sitting in his home cockpit then spends the rest of the video talking about air conditioning systems, presumably because that's what needs to be discussed when setting something like that up in a warm country with humidity issues.

Was a nice cockpit (3 monitors!) but still very basic in the whole scheme of things. You would be able to learn how to fly a jet in such a set up but that knowledge wouldn't be necessarily carry over to the real thing. Sort of like you could learn to drive or race a car with an xbox controller but, although the knowledge is transferable, the buttons are in different places in the real thing. He had a yoke there, but jets are more complex than piston aircrafts. The software itself simulates all of it though if you could be arsed learning it all with a mouse. Good for textbook instruction, not so useful in an in flight emergency.

 

[purves grundy]

Pilot's wife and three kids moved out the family home the day before the flight.

 

[2hats]

The Indian authorities have been asked to pause their search around the Bay of Bengal/Andaman Sea as the focus moves to the southern Indian Ocean. Suspected area is most likely roughly along the red arc below between the two orange arrows (red line is arc of points tallying with Inmarsat data derived last position, light blue limit of aircraft range, white Australian radar coverage) where the ocean depth varies from around 2-4km (assumes radar data precludes the position being further NE along that red arc).

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Photographs of the co-pilot of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 have emerged showing him entertaining teenage tourists in an aircraft cockpit during a previous flight.
The images came to light on the day Malaysian officials said they were investigating potential "psychological problems" of the crew or passengers for possible reasons as to why the aircraft could have gone missing.

The first officer, Fariq Abdul Hamid, 27, invited two South African teenagers in to the flight cabin for the entirety of a flight in 2011 from Phuket to Kuala Lumpur. He and his colleague entertained the two girls, smoked cigarettes and posed for photographs with them.

Jonti Roos, one of the passengers, told Australia's A Current Affair: "They were actually smoking throughout the flight, which I don't think they're allowed to do.
"At one stage, they were pretty much turned around the whole time in their seats talking to us. They were so engaged in conversation that he [Hamid] took my friend's hand, and he was looking at her palm and said, 'your hand is very creased – that means you're a very creative person', and commented on her nail polish."

http://www.theguardian.com/world/20...ght-mh370-copilot-teenagers-fariq-abdul-hamid

 

[weltweit]

Pilot's wife and three kids moved out the family home the day before the flight.

link?

 

[purves grundy]

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/missing-malaysian-airlines-fears-over-3247649

Embedded in a lot of hysteria about his links to 'the opposition', as if the latter are some mad bunch of radicals. Unlike the loveable, cuddly, permanently ruling Alliance Party

 

[weltweit]

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/missing-malaysian-airlines-fears-over-3247649

Embedded in a lot of hysteria about his links to 'the opposition', as if the latter are some mad bunch of radicals. Unlike the loveable, cuddly, permanently ruling Alliance Party

Oh, ok .. not sure how much I trust the mirror but interesting.

In this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-26599394
they don't say anything about the pilots family leaving .. but they do say:

Mr Razak told a news conference on Saturday that new satellite evidence shows "with a high degree of certainty" that the one of the aircraft's communications systems - the Aircraft and Communications Addressing and Reporting System - was disabled just before it had reached the east coast of Malaysia.

ACARS is a service that allows computers aboard the plane to "talk" to computers on the ground, relaying in-flight information about the health of its systems.

But then they go on to say:

A satellite was able to pick up a signal from the plane until 08:11 local time - more than seven hours after it lost radar contact - although it was unable to give a precise location, Mr Razak said.

But if the satellite communication was not the ACARS I wonder what it was.

 

[purves grundy]

Daily Mail investigators are joining investigators in Malaysia in a bid by the newspaper to step up its search for the flights from Bulgaria and Romania – which vanished with more than 5,000,000 passengers on board after failing to arrive in the UK on January 1st – after the hunt was given new impetus by the recent mysterious disappearance of Flight MH370.

http://tompride.wordpress.com/2014/...as-missing-flights-from-romania-and-bulgaria/

What the DM is really doing today, though, is labelling the pilot a 'political fanatic' for having the temerity to turn up at Anwar Ibrahim's trial. Along with thousands of other people who didn't like to see an opposition politician sent down by a dictator. So, he probably fits the DM's 'fanatic' profile quite well.

 

[mauvais]

Oh, ok .. not sure how much I trust the mirror but interesting.

In this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-26599394
they don't say anything about the pilots family leaving .. but they do say:

But then they go on to say:

But if the satellite communication was not the ACARS I wonder what it was.

Inmarsat systems are used for lots of things, such as onboard telephony and Wi-Fi - but not just passenger-oriented stuff, and it sending idle pings also doesn't mean it was in active use.

http://www.inmarsat.com/aviation/

 

[2hats]

But if the satellite communication was not the ACARS I wonder what it was.

Some sort of carrier/link frames from the transmitter end - the saboteur may have disabled ACARS by pulling the ACARS hardware out of the data transmission chain (might be as simple as just twisting and popping the appropriate BNC connector or similar UHF family type).

e2a: It appears that (certainly at least on more recent 777 avionics options) one can easily disable ACARS by deselecting VHF and SATCOM options in the cockpit display manager functions menu. This stops the downlink of ACARS datagrams (broadcast from the aircraft) though it can still receive uplinked data (messages sent to the aircraft). A flight would normally default to auto for these and the system would downlink data by whichever means is most appropriate (generally VHF over land, satellite over sea).

 

[2hats]

Australians are searching along the 40th (S) parallel with P3 Orions. Buoy data suggests debris would drift towards the SE of any initial position. Area would be roughly as marked on bathymetric map below; depths from 2-4km on the slopes of the SE Indian Ridge.

 

[barney_pig]

Sounds just as reasonable as some theories that are floating around.
It does seem unlikely the pilot, esp the more experienced one would be a badun ..

Somewhat unfortunate choice of words

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

Pilot's wife and three kids moved out the family home the day before the flight.

Moved moved, or just went away to second home for a few days?

 

[2hats]

From the NYT an idea of the potential range either side of the last satellite signal location:

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

http://tompride.wordpress.com/2014/...as-missing-flights-from-romania-and-bulgaria/

What the DM is really doing today, though, is labelling the pilot a 'political fanatic' for having the temerity to turn up at Anwar Ibrahim's trial. Along with thousands of other people who didn't like to see an opposition politician sent down by a dictator. So, he probably fits the DM's 'fanatic' profile quite well.

I looked at the DM for the first time yesterday re this story. They seemed to feel the need to keep pointing out that he had a "luxury" home. So? He's a pilot, no doubt well-paid, had been in the same job for over 31 years so probably financially stable. Not sure why they kept needing to use the word

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

Pilot's wife and three kids moved out the family home the day before the flight.

I read somewhere that he had a second home in Subang. Is it possible that he worked from both airports (KLIA and the old airport) and therefore needed homes close to both of them?

Scrap that idea, don't think MAS operates any flights from there.

However, when they used to years ago, maybe that's where he had his first home before moving nearer to the new airport?

 

[weltweit]

19:30 in Malaysia, almost another day gone with no visible results in the investigation.
Must be very trying for the families.
Hopefully behind the scenes they are making progress.

 

[2hats]

There are reports out of Greece that a Greek ship has seen luggage floating in the outer Malacca Strait. Since there are quite a few ships around there it should be verified (or otherwise) soon.

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

I wonder if something has been lost in translation here.

All I can find is that the Captain's family had "camped" at their second home

THE family of Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, pilot of the vanished MH370, had moved out of their residence in Laman Seri even before the flight's disappearance last Saturday.

The Malay Mail visited the family's house yesterday but discovered no one at home, except their 38-year-old maid.

"Captain Zaharie's wife and three children had camped at their second house in Subang a day before the incident," said Norhayati Wahiduddin.

"They only came back once to collect some clothes and they just asked if everything was alright around the house."

Norhayati also dismissed claims that police had raided the house as reported by a local Malay daily.

"No one has come in," she said, adding that Zaharie's wife had move out with their three children.

"The eldest is already working, the second recently completed studies in Australia and the third is still studying. "They're not that close to the neighbours here because they don't always live in this house."

 

[equationgirl]

I wonder if something has been lost in translation here.

All I can find is that the Captain's family had "camped" at their second home

Could that be a slight mistranslation of 'visited', Minnie?

 

[quimcunx]

or decamped.

It's not unusual for people who have a 2nd home to sometimes be at that 2nd home.

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

Could that be a slight mistranslation of 'visited', Minnie?

Well either way, I think the last paragraph of that report is the most important, and even it it was "visited", he has two houses, so I don't know why they're making a big deal out of it

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

and I wonder if Malay Mail spoke to the maid in English or Malaysian? If they spoke in English and she replied in English but wasn't fluent, then that could explain the wording

 

[equationgirl]

It's hardly the biggest detail in all of this. Wonder why the press are so fixated on him having two houses? I guess we've reached the 'scraping the bottom of the barrel for any new details' part of the media coverage.