Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 vanishes without trace

[kebabking]

for all the confidence the Aussies have expressed that this is probably the aircraft - they've gone very public and deployed a lot of assets - they've made a couple of points that its worth repeating: firstly that the datum point was 5 days old when they first started looking, so whatever it was has had five days worth of wind and tide to move it elsewhere, secondly that whatever it was, assuming its metal, has had 5 days to get broken up in 17m swells and sink, thirdly that the airframe of this aircraft is largely built of aluminum, which will not show up very well on the Magnetic Anomaly Detectors the search aircraft will use to look for submerged structures, and fourthly that the water in this area is deep, 16,000ft and change deep... its also about to become winter and the searching aircraft are using 75% of their fuel just getting there and back.

if they do find it, its going to be both a stroke of luck, and a stroke of genius.

 

[1%er]

for all the confidence the Aussies have expressed that this is probably the aircraft -................

The picture they released may well not have been the best picture they have. The problem with a lot of this is that Governments and agencies may not want to show their full capabilities. They must have seen something that showed a better image than the one in the press to divert so many resources, in my view.

 

[existentialist]

And you just took the troll bait!

Do you think he's trolling? Or just being a dim, mouthy git? Fair point, though - either way, he's not exactly contributing anything to the thread.

 

[existentialist]

To be fair, the Chinese have been hinting in a gentle and roundabout way that they are not entirely comfortable with how the Malaysians are handling the investigation.

Completely different matter. I think Malaysia has clearly handled this badly, but then I think that this kind of thing is probably out there at the far end of what any nation has to deal with in terms of civil (rather than, say, warfare) matters.

There's a big difference between acknowledging that, and making thinly-veiled racial slurs, I think.

 

[Barking_Mad]

In a "oh and by the way..." moment, it appears the plane had a "limited quantity" cargo of Lithium Batteries on board.

 

[Spymaster]

Do you think he's trolling? Or just being a dim, mouthy git? Fair point, though - either way, he's not exactly contributing anything to the thread.

Well Thriller's a tit of large size. Why bother at all?

 

[weltweit]

So, I only caught a bit of news today but as I understand it, aircraft made no sightings yet of bits of plane in the deep sea west of Perth.

 

[2hats]

It is of course quite possible that the large items (if aircraft debris) seen at incident+8 days are now semi-submersed at the near surface or anywhere between there and the ocean floor. They are going to need synthetic aperture radar, side scan sonar to locate. If there is any debris to be found then, as time progresses, it is going to increasingly be the light, buoyant material, which by its nature will tend to get dispersed wider, more quickly. As regards visual sightings, aircraft seat cushions are usually designed to act as floatation devices and are usually a good indicator, but being the size they are, would need some extensive low flying to spot (which, of course, reduces the area that can be searched per unit time).

 

[weltweit]

It is of course quite possible that the large items (if aircraft debris) seen at incident+8 days are now semi-submersed at the near surface or anywhere between there and the ocean floor. They are going to need synthetic aperture radar, side scan sonar to locate. If there is any debris to be found then, as time progresses, it is going to increasingly be the light, buoyant material, which by its nature will tend to get dispersed wider, more quickly. As regards visual sightings, aircraft seat cushions are usually designed to act as floatation devices and are usually a good indicator, but being the size they are, would need some extensive low flying to spot (which, of course, reduces the area that can be searched per unit time).

I don't know about you 2hats but the possibility they went down where the Australians are looking makes me feel a bit low, the occupants would have had no chance.

 

[2hats]

I'm afraid that, on the balance of probabilities, the evidence thus far points to it being at the bottom of the southern Indian Ocean (barring a really unlikely chain of events and, equally unlikely, either the total ineptitude or connivance or a major party such as a state).

The sea wouldn't have been much more favourable (temperature, conditions) than say a few hundred miles west of Lands End is right now, yet with no passing shipping traffic, no overflights and a 1000+ miles to the nearest land. Survivability is extremely low (as in close to zero).

Possibly they weren't aware of it by that stage and it would have been over quickly.

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

In a "oh and by the way..." moment, it appears the plane had a "limited quantity" cargo of Lithium Batteries on board.

Seen lots of stuff about a cargo on board that the Russians were tracking. Can't remember where I read it, but probably by conspiracy types

 

[kebabking]

I don't know about you 2hats but the possibility they went down where the Australians are looking makes me feel a bit low, the occupants would have had no chance.

the occupants had little chance anyway, pretty much regardless of the scenario - tbh, the aircraft hitting the sea, cart-wheeling, breaking up and sinking in fairly cold, rough water is about as close to 'at least it was quick' as was ever going to happen.

successfully ditching an aircraft in those weather/sea conditions would be a magnificent achievement for the most skilled crew with as much fuel as they wanted for manouvering, i fear that thinking the aircraft even tried to ditch - let alone achieved it - is being wildly optomistic. it either fell into the sea, or was flown into the sea - and no one survives that.

 

[Dogsauce]

If they were to put it down in the sea intentionally (with the intent of some chance of survival) it would have been done earlier, closer to land. Everything points to it continuing until the fuel ran out, quite probably with nobody in control.

 

[2hats]

If they were to put it down in the sea intentionally (with the intent of some chance of survival) it would have been done earlier, closer to land. Everything points to it continuing until the fuel ran out, quite probably with nobody in control.

That (cf Ethiopian 961) and the cabin crew taking the portable ELTs with a view to activating them post ditching. And in that scenario, if it had been unsuccessful, someone would have seen a large debris field not far from the coast.

 

[Dogsauce]

Palin's solved the riddle, this is definitely what happened:

http://www.codewit.com/north-americ...-malaysian-flight-370-flew-directly-to-heaven

 

[2hats]

 

[skyscraper101]

There was a guy on Coast To Coast AM last night, James Saunders, a retired police who specialised in accident investigation who believes that a more likely explanation is that the plane has landed somewhere and theres a government cover up with the current search being just a "public relations routine" and the 'debris' being searched for is most likely just "ocean trash" which is common in that area.

Sanders investigated the TWA 800 crash and concluded there was a US government cover-up of a missile launch hitting the plane. He now suspects the media is being manipulated or fed inaccurate information regarding the Malaysian jet disappearance. The country of Somalia is in one of the possible flight paths, "and that whole area around there...has either no government or minimal government," but no one is talking about it being a likely landing spot, he remarked. The plane will probably resurface in some kind of horrendous attempted attack, he added.

There was also a guy who phoned in claiming that he had intelligence gained illegally from the FBI and the NSA who siezed the pilot's home flight simulator data and from this has concluded along with satellite data, that the plane was flown to an area West of Khasaksthan and had landed on a "sandy" airstrip surface and everyone was well but being held hostage in a warehouse in advance of a hostage negotiation for release of gitmo prisoners.

God love late night radio.

 

[Dan U]

Ha. The people of Hobart will be pleased to see that.

ETA actually it's not quite Hobart.

Where did you see that?

 

[kabbes]

Seen this morning on a 24 hour news channel:

BREAKING NEWS!
Missing plane

Nothing of significance found.

 

[2hats]

Where did you see that?

It's a local NBC TV station in Austin, Texas (clock the ident, lower left).

 

[weltweit]

I'm afraid that, on the balance of probabilities, the evidence thus far points to it being at the bottom of the southern Indian Ocean (barring a really unlikely chain of events and, equally unlikely, either the total ineptitude or connivance or a major party such as a state).

Well I read a report by an experienced accident investigator who said that if it is in the Indian Ocean about where the satellite saw the debris, the sea there is two miles deep and basically - even if they find some floating debris, they may never find the aircraft.

The sea wouldn't have been much more favourable (temperature, conditions) than say a few hundred miles west of Lands End is right now, yet with no passing shipping traffic, no overflights and a 1000+ miles to the nearest land. Survivability is extremely low (as in close to zero).

Yes, apparently massive seas down there. Even if some managed to get out and into a liferaft, they would likely never be found.

Possibly they weren't aware of it by that stage and it would have been over quickly.

 

[weltweit]

.... There was also a guy who phoned in claiming that he had intelligence gained illegally from the FBI and the NSA who siezed the pilot's home flight simulator data and from this has concluded along with satellite data, that the plane was flown to an area West of Khasaksthan and had landed on a "sandy" airstrip surface and everyone was well but being held hostage in a warehouse in advance of a hostage negotiation for release of gitmo prisoners.

God love late night radio.

It is a truly bad situation where I am hoping they were abducted by terrorists as hostages, because that is the only hope most of the occupants are still alive.

 

[CheckWivKarl]

Speculation can stop. With an insight to aviation, I can tell you that the only other time that an aircraft has "disappeared" was a US Air Force fighter, when it was shot down just above the East Sea in the 70s, as such I feel the overpowering economic might that is China has held this appalling act from public domain, as it would sure as hell spark a nuclear fueled war (WW3!?). Every aircraft in civil aviation has a transponder, which every second the APU is switched on is sending its lat/long to a receiver on land. As it is a Boeing it will have been transferring data to the US; however non-bit-tapped data can be deflected, which i feel that the Chinese did so to the Malaysian Airlines flight following measures by the Malaysian government to restrict free movement between the two states.

 

[butchersapron]

Speculation can stop. With an insight to aviation, I can tell you that the only other time that an aircraft has "disappeared" was a US Air Force fighter, when it was shot down just above the East Sea in the 70s, as such I feel the overpowering economic might that is China has held this appalling act from public domain, as it would sure as hell spark a nuclear fueled war (WW3!?). Every aircraft in civil aviation has a transponder, which every second the APU is switched on is sending its lat/long to a receiver on land. As it is a Boeing it will have been transferring data to the US; however non-bit-tapped data can be deflected, which i feel that the Chinese did so to the Malaysian Airlines flight following measures by the Malaysian government to restrict free movement between the two states.

Is that ye courtney?

 

[2hats]

Well I read a report by an experienced accident investigator who said that if it is in the Indian Ocean about where the satellite saw the debris, the sea there is two miles deep and basically - even if they find some floating debris, they may never find the aircraft.

If they knew roughly where to look ie could narrow the seabed search area to a thousand square km or so, say, rather than many hundreds of thousands of sq km, then they might well locate it and be able to retrieve sufficient items to inform an accident investigation. Clearly the problem at present is finding surface debris which can then be modelled back to constrain a reasonable sized seabed area to map with sonar.

4km or so depth isn't beyond current tech but if pieces end up somewhere like the Diamantina Deep (8km), then that might prove more than challenging.

Yes, apparently massive seas down there. Even if some managed to get out and into a liferaft, they would likely never be found.

This (along with the southern Pacific) are areas typically selected for targeting re-entry of initial rocket stages (on sub-orbital trajectories) due to their remoteness (virtually all shuttle flights to lower inclinations, such as Hubble servicing and early satellite releases, had the external tank targeted hereabouts).

edit: adjusted the area that could be surveyed and search areas to more realistic ballpark figures (though the ratio of searchable area to survey area is still the same )

edit2: double checked and the HST servicing missions tended to punt the ET to the central Pacific, but the earlier missions in the 80's (two stage orbit circularisation) tended to put it in the Indian Ocean north of where they are looking. Later missions, direct ascent trajectories, dropped the ET in the Pacific.

 

[Lazy Llama]

the only other time that an aircraft has "disappeared" was a US Air Force fighter, when it was shot down just above the East Sea in the 70s,

My friend Amelia Earhart sent me this NYT article which lists several other missing planes. Maybe it's non-bit-tapped data so it got deflected from you?

 

[existentialist]

If they knew roughly where to look ie could narrow the seabed search area for a hundred square km or less, say, rather than many tens of thousands of sq km, then they might well locate it and be able to retrieve sufficient items to inform an accident investigation. Clearly the problem at present is finding surface debris which can then be modelled back to constrain a reasonable sized seabed area to map with sonar.

4km or so depth isn't beyond current tech but if pieces end up somewhere like the Diamantina Deep (8km), then that might prove more than challenging.


This (along with the southern Pacific) are areas typically selected for targeting re-entry of initial rocket stages (on sub-orbital trajectories) due to their remoteness (virtually all shuttle flights to lower inclinations, such as Hubble servicing and early satellite releases, had the external tank targeted hereabouts).

So they could start side-scan sonarring and picking up all kinds of bits and bobs, which would turn out to be rocket bodies rather than aircraft?

 

[laptop]

Seen lots of stuff about a cargo on board that the Russians were tracking. Can't remember where I read it, but probably by conspiracy types

Icke forums if you really, really want to know what that story is.

 

[2hats]

So they could start side-scan sonarring and picking up all kinds of bits and bobs, which would turn out to be rocket bodies rather than aircraft?

Most of that debris will actually be to the north of the main search zone and far more dispersed than any aircraft in this scenario. The main ocean floor debris field of AF447 was only some 200x600 metres in extent.

e2a: re-entry footprint is not untypically a (or several) thousand km long by a couple of hundred km wide.

 

[laptop]

The Telegraph has a transcript of cockpit communications: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...l-54-minutes-of-communication-from-MH370.html

Or, rather, an English translation of a Mandarin translation of the English transcript.

Doesn't seem to clear anything much up.

And www.pprune.org is down... clearly black helicopters