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

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Keef
Malaysia has done a piss poor job of conducting the search from the beginning as we all know, and since I haven't followed this in months I don't know if it's been taken out of their control and given to somebody else.
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I can't disagree with that at face value. Right now (this being awkward me), I can't resolve that face value with the facts that I feel the most sure of.

prisonermonkeys
The current line of thinking is to treat the search as a commercial salvage operation, combining maritime salvage with oceanographic exploration.
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Yup, there's genuine industrial interest in having the leverage to map the seabeds (not just visually) in those seas, from one perspective that's a cynical outlook but from another it's probably common sense that it's the only reason to keep deploying equipment and personnel into such a remote area.

I still can't understand this; Inmarsat worked up the ping-times to the satellites and, matching those against other flights in that region, established which direction the plane was heading in (South). They say this information was presented in full to the search authorities (it was certainly well-covered by news channels at the time) but now they say that the search hasn't actually reached that area. Why has it taken until now for Inmarsat to make that worry public?

That's not putting any blame on Inmarsat but it's yet another fact (aside from the staggering suspension of reality I find myself making even to justify the aircraft being in that situation) that raises a number of concerning possibilities, some centering on ineptitude by the search teams and others on plain outside interference.
 
TenEightyOne
Yup, there's genuine industrial interest in having the leverage to map the seabeds (not just visually) in those seas, from one perspective that's a cynical outlook but from another it's probably common sense that it's the only reason to keep deploying equipment and personnel into such a remote area.
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If there is a commercial benefit to the project, that means more money is coming in, which in turn means that the search can go on for longer.

I still can't understand this; Inmarsat worked up the ping-times to the satellites and, matching those against other flights in that region, established which direction the plane was heading in (South). They say this information was presented in full to the search authorities (it was certainly well-covered by news channels at the time) but now they say that the search hasn't actually reached that area. Why has it taken until now for Inmarsat to make that worry public?
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I get the feeling that this is a chain of command thing: Inmarsat provided their findings, but couldn't guarantee their accuracy, and so the decision was taken to search areas that were considered more cost-effective, no doubt supported by evidence provided by governments and militaries. Inmarsat would only be speaking up now that the search is being run as a commercial operation, because the people in charge of the search have much more at stake.
 
prisonermonkeys
If there is a commercial benefit to the project, that means more money is coming in, which in turn means that the search can go on for longer.
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That's what I meant by "leverage", another way of saying that in Engineering is "getting someone else to pay for the thing you want to do" :)

I take your point about the chain of command, it's been quite some chain thus far.
 
There was a documentary on TV last night which seemed to suggest that the reason for the flight path might be the same as Helios Airways Flight 522.

Flight crew incapacitated due to lack of oxygen and then a cabin crew member or passenger trying to take control of the aircraft, modifying the autopilot route and then loosing consciousness themselves. Which then meant the plane few depressurized in a straight line for hours to the middle of nowhere.
 
prisonermonkeys
...Inmarsat provided their findings, but couldn't guarantee their accuracy, and so the decision was taken to search areas that were considered more cost-effective...
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Similar reasoning as to why the drunk searches for his lost keys only under the streetlamp - that's where the light is! :lol:
 
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Robin.
There was a documentary on TV last night which seemed to suggest that the reason for the flight path might be the same as Helios Airways Flight 522.

Flight crew incapacitated due to lack of oxygen and then a cabin crew member or passenger trying to take control of the aircraft, modifying the autopilot route and then loosing consciousness themselves. Which then meant the plane few depressurized in a straight line for hours to the middle of nowhere.
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I'd struggle to believe that scenario on this aircraft. The cockpit door on a 777 is pressurised as part of the preventative measures that protect against this kind of scenario. It also has (in some cases, just trying to see if that existed on this airframe) pressure "popouts" to prevent cockpit glass failure in the event of a dramatic PAX-side depressurisation that bends the door or cockpit bulkhead.

For that to be a workable theory the following things would need to have happened;

- Both pilots would have to have failed to receive or use either the deployed emergency oxygen system or the standby standalone oxygen bottles in the cockpit.
- The cockpit event would have to have disrupted the full length of the plane in order to kill all the transmitting systems, electrics and cabin crew emergency radios.
- For anyone to reach the cockpit and make changes the cockpit door would have to be open (they're not easy to open, especially after depressurisation) which may well kill the whole theory anyway.

The event described on the documentary that I missed (do you have a name/channel please? :D) could conceivably have partially happened on an older type (Helios was a 1997 737-800) but not on a 777.

Helios 522 actually has a direct bearing on this case in that the pressurisation warnings on 737s are much clearer (the crew had initally misinterpreted the warnings as T/O configuration alerts, unprofessional to take of with those but apocryphally not unusual), when you get to 777s there are a number of physical indicators and a text warning on the CFD that has to be physically accepted by both pilots. I believe that all 7x7s now deploy masks ahead of anticipated depressurisation events (in the case of Helios they didn't deploy until the plane climbed out of pressure, now they would drop several thousand feet before), I'll check if that's correct though.

Here's what I'm struggling with... anoxia seems the most likely scenario other than a direct (and presumably hostile) intervention that led to the hiding of the aircraft or, by design or accident, its destruction. But it seems an impossible scenario on an aircraft that is so hugely automated, so communicative and which has the lessons-learned from so many air accidents built into its safety philosophy.

EDIT: I guess it's BBC Horizon? I'll watch this tonight, Horizon's normally pretty good so I'm looking forward to having some facts to check... :D Programme available in UK until 25th June, I think.
 
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Yesterday there was an episode of Air Crash Investigation which covered the story of Korean Air Lines Flight 007 which was shot down by the Russians. The American military helped in the search for this plane by using data from their passive radar thing. A Passive radar can find any object in orbit all over the planet at any given time.

Why can't they use this passive radar thing to see where flight MH370 was when it disapeared?
 
Grayfox
Because radar does not work when things are below water.
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I said that they can see where a flight was at any give time. When it disappeared it was still above the water. And who says that it crashed in the ocean?

The American military handed over their data from the passive radar, in case of KAL 007, I believe it was weeks after the crash. This plane crashed in the ocean and was still located, when it was still above the water prior to crashing in the water, due to the data of the passive radar.

It seems that you didn't understand my previous post.
 
They would have to be looking in that location to start with.
There is nothing for them to look in that area.

But with KAL 007 was near USSR at the time, the US would be would have been watching them like a hawk since tensions were high at that time.
 
kikie
Yesterday there was an episode of Air Crash Investigation which covered the story of Korean Air Lines Flight 007 which was shot down by the Russians. The American military helped in the search for this plane by using data from their passive radar thing. A Passive radar can find any object in orbit all over the planet at any given time.

Why can't they use this passive radar thing to see where flight MH370 was when it disapeared?
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Only works if you're recording, only works if you can exclude all the signals that aren't important... only works if it genuinely has the coverage described, lots of ifs and buts and a lot of hindsight required.

I watched half of the Horizon documentary (I linked it previously) before work, I'll watch the rest later tonight. So far they've explained that blue is blue and that aeroplanes can fly. Not up to Horizon's old standard :\
 
They said in this programme that a passive radar can "see" anything in the sky all over the world. Because it is military, you can be assured that they are recording, if that is even necessary.
 
This is quite funny the fact that our embarrassing prime minister Tony Abbott said that he would find the plane. But 3 weeks later search has stopped and we have heard nothing good one Tony. Never make promises if you can't deliver oh wait its to late he's been doing that ever since elected.
 
kikie
They said in this programme that a passive radar can "see" anything in the sky all over the world. Because it is military, you can be assured that they are recording, if that is even necessary.
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This was also touched on in the BBC Horizon documentary last week. MH370 WAS tracked by passive millitary radar. They saw that it turned back towards Malaysia flew up the Malacca Strait. However there are passive radar blind spots and there is a huge one in the South Indian ocean.
 
http://www.news.com.au/travel/trave...ot-prime-suspect/story-fnizu68q-1226962811653

AN OFFICIAL police investigation into the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight 370 has identified the captain as the prime suspect — if it is proven human intervention was involved.

Captain Zaharie Shah became the focus of the special investigation in Malaysia after all other passengers were cleared of any suspicious motives, The Sunday Times reported.

After conducting 170 interviews, investigators noted strange behaviour by the pilot.

He had made no future plans - socially or professionally - and his home flight simulator was programmed with a flight path into the depths of the Southern Ocean before landing the plane on an island with a small runway.

The drills were deleted from the computer but specialists were able to retrieve the files.

In the greatest aviation mystery of our time, MH370 vanished without a trace with 239 people on board while en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur on March 8 this year.

Although the new conclusion gives insight into the police focus, it does not solve the riddle of the disappearance as the investigation has not ruled out the possibility of terrorism or mechanical failure.

There is also speculation his home life was fraught with difficulties, though this has been denied by his family.

The Sunday Times reported although the results of the inquiry have not been released publicly, they have been shared by those close to the investigation.

Malaysian police said in a statement: “The police investigation is still ongoing. To date no conclusions can be made as to the contributor to the incident and it would be sub judice to say so. Nevertheless, the police are still looking into all possible angles.”

The Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak hinted on March 15 the government believed it was possible a “deliberate action by someone on the plane” was behind the MH370 mystery.

Family and friends of Mr Shah claim he was a good man and the truth will be revealed when investigators find the missing black box.
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Robin.
This was also touched on in the BBC Horizon documentary last week. MH370 WAS tracked by passive millitary radar. They saw that it turned back towards Malaysia flew up the Malacca Strait. However there are passive radar blind spots and there is a huge one in the South Indian ocean.
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Thanks for the answer and clearing it up for me!
 
GTboyz
That flight simulator thing is interesting...
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Pages 1-15 ish, I think :D

Re: the Horizon documentary watched previously; @Robin or @kiki mentioned it... they spent an hour explaining The Bleeding Obvious. One Air Crash Expert (known in his field so credible in context if not in the edit) drew parallels with Helios 522, he stopped short of offering anything further. And naturally so.

The Inmarsat guy was interesting although it took 15 mins for the programme to eke out his story.

There were interesting points to note; firstly was that this was the first time I'd heard a journalist from a credible source (ie Horizon itself) firmly link US military radar with the "claimed" track back towards Andaman. There'd been lots of speculation about it but I'd missed a firm source, if this programme was such a source.

The second was a fact that I was amazed I hadn't heard before; the final out-of-sequence ping was a boot-up handshake. If the editors had any sense (they seem to have little) they'd have looked into this much more. The theory presented was that the plane ran out of fuel and that, as it rolled into a terminal stall, fuel made its way into the engines and restarted them. For that to happen a number of things would need to be true, including that the system had been 'primed' for boot and that the engine starters were active, and that the fuel pumps were on (not normal in cruise). That all implies some human preparation; that's not an automatic programme on any Boeing or Airbus that I know of.

So, overall, the programme had 1.5 facts and one was a biggy that they stepped right over in favour of long scenes with The Expert looking at a map projected onto a bomb or something. Genius.

For me Helios 522 is the most likely parallel... except that the improvements made to systems and procedures on the older type make a reoccurence nigh-on impossible... improvements that were already part of the 777s much wider-reaching control and instrumentation philosophy.

I still believe that the end to the flight was accidental but that the circumstances leading up to it were part of one or more deliberate human interventions, I just don't see the aircraft shutting down in that way and flying for so long afterwards.

Back on recent-topic... news of new search areas is becoming tired, even to the media that particularly love a good crash. The investigation can't get any further meaningful data (imo) without solid wreckage/FDRs. I saw some footage of families "readjusting to life" the other night and, frankly, it was heartbreaking. That's two good reasons not to give up... but one starts to wonder if it might be years before anything is discovered.
 
BobK
Probably meaningless though. After all, I have a flight plan filed on my flight simulator from Finland to Moscow but that doesn't mean I'm contemplating a Mathias Rust type move.
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well, true but it still could be suspicious when the plane that he piloted disappeared like that. When people see that flight simulator plan, people will surely think the pilot had something to do with it.
 
GTboyz
well, true but it still could be suspicious when the plane that he piloted disappeared like that. When people see that flight simulator plan, people will surely think the pilot had something to do with it.
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Or it could be practice by recognition of landmarks during the flight on his computer...

I've done KATL-KPIT enough times I can tell you how many turns after T/D and how long it is to each one of them when on the FEWGA Two STAR in a 752
 
GTboyz
well, true but it still could be suspicious when the plane that he piloted disappeared like that. When people see that flight simulator plan, people will surely think the pilot had something to do with it.
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Add that together with the facts that the pilot's wife and children had left him only the day before, and the central guru figure of his life had been sentenced to prison for child molestation only 5 hours before take-off!

Only now can you begin to appreciate the emotionally rattled and disturbed state-of-mind the pilot might have been in.
 
Swagger897
Or it could be practice by recognition of landmarks during the flight on his computer...
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Absolutely right. During night-time flights over the greatest expanse of ocean on the planet one needs to know one's landmarks*.

Swagger897
I've done KATL-KPIT enough times I can tell you how many turns after T/D and how long it is to each one of them when on the FEWGA Two STAR in a 752
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Then you also know enough that with the kind of hours this pilot had and the 777 FMC he could take the aircraft to any destination in the world unsighted. Pilots do it in real-life diversions all the time.

Maybe this is the result of the actions of the pilot and the pilot alone. The existence of any particular flight plan on his sim doesn't go to that in any way. If he completed his plan to perfection then he flew back over territory and navaids that he already knew very well and then turned south into The Ocean That Cannot Be Missed. You'd be able to do that without any practice, right?



*On "Opposite Day", of course.
 
Dotini
Add that together with the facts that the pilot's wife and children had left him only the day before, and the central guru figure of his life had been sentenced to prison for child molestation only 5 hours before take-off!

Only now can you begin to appreciate the emotionally rattled and disturbed state-of-mind the pilot might have been in.
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wait... the wife and kid left him ?! i thought the family was alright, nothing odd happened between them
 
Dotini
Add that together with the facts that the pilot's wife and children had left him only the day before, and the central guru figure of his life had been sentenced to prison for child molestation only 5 hours before take-off!

Only now can you begin to appreciate the emotionally rattled and disturbed state-of-mind the pilot might have been in.
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I hope the black box or (boxes?) are found one day but it is an awfully big ask it seems. Despite those much more knowledgeable than me here saying otherwise I tend to favor the sudden depressurization theory & everyone onboard dead as the plane flies onwards for thousands of miles.... But who knows could have been hiijacked and hiijacker got lost at night. Regardless it is rather creepy the thought of a loaded up Jumbo Jet flying along at 500 mph with a full DEAD crew.
 
Planes have GPS onboard, and the auto pilot has computer which you tell it where you want to go and it takes you there.
 
Grayfox
Planes have GPS onboard, and the auto pilot has computer which you tell it where you want to go and it takes you there.
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Absolutely, not to mention the wealth of charts and maps that are available to the pilots in the system and in backup laptops. Even a mobile phone could be used to get most of the navaid/heading data you'd need to plot a roughly-correct course.
 

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