MH370: Malaysian Airlines Flight to Beijing carrying 239 people is lost over sea.

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Dennisch
You do realize that water becomes pretty tough stuff when you hit it at speed, right?
Ever bellyflopped from a high diving board?
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prisonermonkeys
How is it going to explode when it has no fuel to ignite?

If it was going nose-first into concrete, maybe. But the surface of the ocean has less tension than earth, and so a streamlined object travelling at speed could penetrate the top layer of the ocean, at which point it proceeded to sink.
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Parts of the front of the plane would likely disintegrate into smaller pieces, and a small section of the fuselage aft of the disintegrated portion would buckle and fold.

BobK
There is no way in hell the fuselage would have maintained airtight/watertight integrity after hitting the water unless the pilot pulled off a Hudson River-type landing, so water pressure would not have crushed the fuselage.
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Even when glided to a stop a la Sully-style, planes are designed to only be water-resistant and prevent enough water from penetrating to float for a few minutes (enough time to evacuate the plane).

BobK
We have no idea how fast or at what angle the plane hit the water, assuming for sake of argument it did in fact hit the water. It may have shattered into a bunch of tiny pieces; as @Dennisch says, water is pretty dang hard if you hit it fast enough. It may have broken into a handful of large pieces.
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Anything that is not landing in the water at a very shallow angle will cause pieces of the fuselage to disintegrate at or near the impact spot, especially at any sort of reasonable. Fuselages are not designed for compression.
 
Crash
Anything that is not landing in the water at a very shallow angle will cause pieces of the fuselage to disintegrate at or near the impact spot, especially at any sort of reasonable. Fuselages are not designed for compression.
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If it did try to land on the water it would have flipped pretty much like Ethiopian airlines plane did.

The just engines just act as big scoops and the first one to hit the water will act as a brake and cause the plane to break up.
 
Yup, the Hudson landing was a combination of very flat water (in comparison to open sea) and the Captain's choice of touchdown moment... and an incredibly calm, skilled piece of flying, of course. Had Sullenberger been over choppy open water in a plane as big and heavy as as 777 the outcome would likely have been disastrous. Sullenberger notes that he didn't pull the "ditch switch" that seals the under-fuselage apertures before a water landing as there would have been no point and, indeed, the impact "tore holes in the base of the fuselage". At around 6 times the mass of the Hudson A320 a 777 would be significantly damaged at any kind of speed above a stalling belly-flop (my signature dive, incidentally).
 
The pings have stopped. AMSA believe that if this is the flight recorder, then the batteries have finally died. It's not altogether unsurprising, given that it has been forty days; longer than expected, but there is still a mammoth task ahead. Even with all of the data that they have collected, the search is still focused on what amounts to a best guess. An automated submersible vessel was deployed, but recalled early after it exceeded its maximum depth

Also, please be wary of any excellent-sounding news coming out of Australia. A corruption inquiry just claimed a major scalp - the New South Wales Premier, after he gave misleading evidence yesterday. He comes from the same political party as the Prime Minister, who is going to be desperate for some positive press following this latest domestic disaster.
 
I have a conspiracy I just thought of... first, can someone answer this upcoming question please, because I really don't know if it's possible.

Can the black box be removed from an airplane and thrown on to another airplane?
 
prisonermonkeys
Every plane has its own black box. And each black box has its own, individual serial number.
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I know that. I mean like... let's say someone took the MH370 black box out midflight and put it on another airplane, and that other airplane (which is now carrying MH370's black box) drops it in the middle of the ocean... is that technically possible? Or is it impossible?
 
How do you get the black box from one plane to the other without landing either of them, and without anybody - either on the flights or manning air traffic control - noticing the presence of a second plane?
 
prisonermonkeys
How do you get the black box from one plane to the other without landing either of them, and without anybody - either on the flights or manning air traffic control - noticing the presence of a second plane?
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The plane climbed to a high altitude when it turned around, correct? Which would make the speed decline. Suppose someone opened a door at the highest altitude recorded (48,000 ft?) And the plane was going roughly 150 mph. A remote, non black boxed plane comes in undetected and catches the MH370 black box and starts flying towards Australia, while MH370 goes... wherever. Let's say West China for now. The other plane, carrying MH370's black box, drops it in the Indian Ocean, leaving no debris. Only a mystery.


But all of that is assuming that the Black Box can be separated from a 777 plane.
 
ildd
The plane climbed to a high altitude when it turned around, correct? Which would make the speed decline. Suppose someone opened a door at the highest altitude recorded (48,000 ft?) And the plane was going roughly 150 mph. A remote, non black boxed plane comes in undetected and catches the MH370 black box and starts flying towards Australia, while MH370 goes... wherever. Let's say West China for now. The other plane, carrying MH370's black box, drops it in the Indian Ocean, leaving no debris. Only a mystery.


But all of that is assuming that the Black Box can be separated from a 777 plane.
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I'm pretty sure there'd be huge decompression, opening a door at 48,000ft.
 
ildd
But all of that is assuming that the Black Box can be separated from a 777 plane.
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Yes, it can be.

But to be perfectly frank, the idea you have put forward, with a second, unidentified, automated aeroplane catching a black box thrown from MH370 at speed and at altitude so that it could be dropped in the middle of the Indian Ocean where it would sink when it is designed to float is, for want of a better word, a very stupid theory.

I'm sorry, but it is ridiculous, complicated, over the top, and does not explain why someone would want to steal a 777 and somehow keep it hidden for forty days.

It's the stuff of bad fiction.
 
Fair enough. I didn't really mean "automated aeroplane," just another airplane or helicopter that is manned. I also was unaware that the black box could float.
But, technically, it is possible. Just very, very unlikely. As to why someone would steal a 777- it can carry a bunch of stuff and go very far.
 
ildd
Fair enough. I didn't really mean "automated aeroplane," just another airplane or helicopter that is manned. I also was unaware that the black box could float.
But, technically, it is possible. Just very, very unlikely. As to why someone would steal a 777- it can carry a bunch of stuff and go very far.
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It's cheaper than a YAL-1 :sly:
 
prisonermonkeys
The pings have stopped. AMSA believe that if this is the flight recorder, then the batteries have finally died. It's not altogether unsurprising, given that it has been forty days; longer than expected, but there is still a mammoth task ahead. Even with all of the data that they have collected, the search is still focused on what amounts to a best guess. An automated submersible vessel was deployed, but recalled early after it exceeded its maximum depth
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I do hope that they eventually find the wreckage, but like you said, it's about right that the batteries in the black box have died. The black box is rated for 30 days, but plus designed and built in safety margin, this is just about right when it would die.

ildd
I know that. I mean like... let's say someone took the MH370 black box out midflight and put it on another airplane, and that other airplane (which is now carrying MH370's black box) drops it in the middle of the ocean... is that technically possible? Or is it impossible?
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No.

adam46
I'm pretty sure there'd be huge decompression, opening a door at 48,000ft.
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A normal person wouldn't even be able to open the door to begin with. The pressure from inside the cabin would push the door against the fuselage structure; someone will have to be able to overcome the atmospheric pressure difference between 8000 feet and 48000 feet.
 
The easiest way to drop a black box in the middle of the Indian Ocean is to drop an entire plane in the Indian Ocean. If they needed the people on the plane, they could have landed it somewhere then dumped the plane in the ocean afterwards. If they needed the plane itself, they would have had to land it, anyway, and then remove all the signalling equipment and the black box.

Overcomplicated schemes involving in-flight interception are so incredibly difficult to perform that you're infinitely better off just stealing the plane and passengers straight off the tarmac with a fake or bribed pilot.
 
ildd
The plane climbed to a high altitude when it turned around, correct? Which would make the speed decline. Suppose someone opened a door at the highest altitude recorded (48,000 ft?) And the plane was going roughly 150 mph. A remote, non black boxed plane comes in undetected and catches the MH370 black box and starts flying towards Australia, while MH370 goes... wherever. Let's say West China for now. The other plane, carrying MH370's black box, drops it in the Indian Ocean, leaving no debris. Only a mystery.


But all of that is assuming that the Black Box can be separated from a 777 plane.
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I'd think that the probability of being able to remove the black box is likely the least of your troubles with this theory...
 
Keep in mind that the "black box" is often two or more separate physical devices, ie the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder to name two. They're also often located in places inside the airplane that are not accessible in flight.
 
There is the CVR which is the Cockpit Voice Recorder, this will be useless to the investigators as it only holds the last 2 hours of flight.
Might just have ramblings of the pilot if he highjacked the plane

There is also the FDR Which is the Flight Data Recorder, this is what shows heading, throttle positions, position of control columns, air speed and more things that I cant even think of.
 
ildd
I know that. I mean like... let's say someone took the MH370 black box out midflight and put it on another airplane, and that other airplane (which is now carrying MH370's black box) drops it in the middle of the ocean... is that technically possible? Or is it impossible?
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I've got a bit more time to answer this one... there are two recorders, as mentioned by @Imari and @Grayfox, the Cockpit Voice Recorder and the Flight Data Recorder. If you look back through the thread you'll see some diagrams showing the mounting point on the 777, they're just below the "point" where the front of tail starts to rise out of the fuselage.

This location isn't normally accessible in flight but isn't inaccessible, but why would you want to access it? To stop the recorders, of course... but it would be as easy for someone who knew the aircraft systems to send "null" to them so that they eventually contain nothing.

As far as I'm aware the ELT frequency isn't plane-specific, FDR/CVR units get parted out for service like any other and it's my understanding that they're of a standard construction and just marked with a serial like any other part, nothing about them differs from unit-to-unit. I can't imagine why you'd have more specific frequency, you're unlikely to be in a situation where you want to find one crashed plane but not another, you head for an ELT whatever the source. So what would be the point of swapping them from plane-to-plane? Given that you can feed "null" in, if you really wanted to you could feed in data from any source, even another plane. That's a lot of effort for not much gain, imo.

In short, this theory's pretty rubbish.

Although... we presume this ELT signal is from the MA jet because we don't know of any other missing aircraft. What can't logically be excluded is that the signal might be from an ELT that's never even been on a plane. Run with that*... :D


* Hint: It was the Chinese.
 
And now lawyers in the United States are looking to make a buck off of it. Class action lawsuits are all the rage. They also don't see the ethical issue here. But that may be why they are lawyers.
 
Blitz24
And now lawyers in the United States are looking to make a buck off of it. Class action lawsuits are all the rage. They also don't see the ethical issue here. But that may be why they are lawyers.
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Sharks don't attack lawyers due to something called "professional courtesy", or so I've read.

The airline do have liabilities in this until such a time that its proven otherwise, potentially Boeing do too. I think in this case Boeing will be protected somewhat by the excellent safety record of the 777 - if this had been an elderly 737 then both the airline and manufacturer would be under equal scrutiny.

As it is, the families of plane crash victims are normally well compensated as are other "parties to loss". Their cases are normally handled by lawyers... and so they begin to circle.

As I wrote about Boeing something occured to me, there was that directive about the aircraft skin around the SATCOM link, I wonder if we'll hear more of that as time goes on? Personally I think it's unlikely to be relevant in any way, but lawyers. Ew.
 
Malaysia Airlines flight MH192 forced to make emergency landing after technical malfunction

Malaysia-Airlines-Boeing-777-200ER-3270914.jpg


Gosh! Another technical blow out for another Malaysian Airliner. 👎​
 
Not too much to worry about and an "emergency" by definition but not a very dramatic one... tower tells plane it blew a tyre on take off, plane burns fuel weight, plane lands. Even the Malaysians could find this one.
 
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Only a tire blowout? That's not too bad then.

And I hate that they use the wrong picture. The article is talking about a B737 and the picture is a B777. For the love of god, finding and taking a picture of a B737 in Malaysian livery can't be THAT hard.
 
The media today is incapable of publishing a story without at least one picture, which may or may not have any relevance to the actual article.
 

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