Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 is missing

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regi
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Re: Malaysia Airlines says it has lost contact with flight M

Post by regi »

Too many strange things are happening.
First of all the fact that the remains of the airplane have not yet been officially found.
The story about the stolen passports.
The pictures of the 2 Iranian passengers who have the same under body but different upper part. With a simple remark by the authorities that this is a camera hick up. I haven't seen those camera's yet at Cebit !

Why crashing the airplane in that area? Because it is very difficult to retrieve evidence.

I am still convinced that China as nation is the target here.
It is a geo strategic action with far reaching consequences for the next decades.

I am not surprised that the authorities launch the suicide idea. That would be the simpliest.
But the anomalies out of reach of a suicidal pilot have piled up too high to believe that.

FlightMate
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Re: Malaysia Airlines says it has lost contact with flight M

Post by FlightMate »

Yes, rafts come with chemical sea water distiller.
and if weather was bad, they could collect rain.

But I wouldn't keep my hopes up.

Inquirer
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Re: Malaysia Airlines says it has lost contact with flight M

Post by Inquirer »

I think we have become too accustomed to getting all the answers right away these days, IMHO.
Something bad happens, and we all want to get a full picture presented including an action plan to avoid it from happening ever again by the time the evening news shows go live.
It's just not like that in this case, just as it hasn't been for the past hundreds of years when something tragic happened: see the Titanic and how that news slowly broke and evolved, until the full picture of the tragedy finally settled in. It took decades to locate the ship too and most people were never found either.

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sn26567
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Re: Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has crashed into Indian O

Post by sn26567 »

MH370 search in southern corridor has been called off due to bad weather and a neighbouring cyclone, which has whipped winds to 80 km/h.

Investigators are yet to find debris spotted in Indian Ocean, the largest of which measures 23m x 13m and is thought to be from the plane.
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Bralo20
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Re: Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has crashed into Indian O

Post by Bralo20 »

A Chinese vessel has arrived at the debris that was spotted on the French satellite images. They didn't find plane parts but found a 15 meter carcasses of a whale. So another negative sighting.

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sn26567
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Re: Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has crashed into Indian O

Post by sn26567 »

Cockpit voice recorders keep two hours of tape before overwriting.

If ever the CVR of 9M-MRO can be retrieved, it will be missing the most important part of the flight, when the plane diverted from its original itinerary.

Shouldn't the CVR record a longer period of time?
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teddybAIR
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Re: Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has crashed into Indian O

Post by teddybAIR »

The duration of the CVR recording depends on The date of ceetification of your aircraft model. If my memorystick serves me right, legal requirements can go up to 25hrs...Will look into it

RTM
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Re: Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has crashed into Indian O

Post by RTM »

Unless the CVR was switched off... In that case it should contain the moments of diversion.

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Re: Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has crashed into Indian O

Post by sn26567 »

RTM wrote:Unless the CVR was switched off... In that case it should contain the moments of diversion.
I don't think a pilot (or anyone else on board for that matter) could switch off the CVR. If it were possible, pilots could erase their mistakes: certainly not the purpose of that device.
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RTM
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Re: Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has crashed into Indian O

Post by RTM »

You can switch it off by pulling the CB. Not something a pilot usually does, but normally is possible. Allthough I've to be honest that I'm not familiar with the 777.

But switching it off does not erase the contents. So everything (2 hrs) up to swiching it off, wich would normally be post hijack, should be on there.
There is an erase function on the CVR, but that is disabled on flight, so impossible to utilize till after landing, shutdown and parkingbrake set.

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Re: Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has crashed into Indian O

Post by teddybAIR »

IT is sometimes even switched off. on request off ATC to prevent incidents from being overwritten with new data

FlightMate
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Re: Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has crashed into Indian O

Post by FlightMate »

Yes, they can be switched off by the pilots. So they don't overwrite after an incident.

Apparently, pilot suicide was not taken into consideration.

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Re: Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has crashed into Indian O

Post by Flanker2 »

The CVR issue exposes one of the biggest issues that aviation is facing.
Nowadays it's possible to record 100 days of good quality audio on a micro SD card... yet they still use those old useless solid state recorders.

A lot of things are still evolving way too slow in aviation, IMO.

Fortunately Airbus brought us FBW, but even so, when I step into an A320 cockpit that hasn't the displays switched on, it feels like being in a 1970's server room, much like the E&E bay.

Even more embarassing is the approach to SAR used in this case.
They fly at high speed over waters looking out from tiny and dirty windows, spot objects, relay coordinates to ships that travel at low speeds to intercept them.
By the time they get there, the objects either aren't related or they have vanished.
Don't they have helicopters with refueling capabilities that are much better suited for such missions?
Japan sent a Gulfstream and P-3C's while they have the much better suited US-2, that would be optimised for this mission. I thought that they were trying to sell the thing for export... IT would have been a great advertisement for them if they were used succesfully... I don't get it.

The US-2 has surface radar, IR camera and trained crews who will spot you things that there is no way an untrained crew can spot from a Gulfstream or an A319 window. If one of the search planes sees something, they can better send the US-2 to investigate instead of relaying it to ships.


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earthman
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Re: Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has crashed into Indian O

Post by earthman »

So perhaps they let the plane fly for so long precisely to overwrite the CVR recording?

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Re: Malaysia Airlines says it has lost contact with flight M

Post by teddybAIR »

Acid-drop wrote:Apparently the latest statement is only based on calculation from data they must have from the first day. :shock:
I hope that such a demonstration of human incompetence will be the first and the last.
Dear Acid-drop, what is your best suggestion at this point, really? It's easy to judge with hindsight knowledge.

I think that we don't have the slightest idea just how complex these calculations must have been. They have tried to determine the position of the aircraft based on dopler shift from data pings that have been sent by the aircraft. You need to understand that the Inmarsat system was not designed for this purpose and therefore this analysis is unprecedented. I think they are following every possible lead and attracting the necessary experts to mine whatever little intelligence is available. Don't make the mistake of thinking they didn't open a database that was available from the first day and please don't judge their on the spot actions with your hindsight knowledge.

It is logical for an air crash investigator to look for the wreckage near the last known position of an aircraft, no? It is only as additional info became available that the unbelievable scenario we are faced with today unfolded. But you can't blame an investigation branch for what happened.

We seem to be used to having full answers at a moments notice, but we need to accept that it is simply looking for a needle in a haystack when an aircraft goes missing in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Nevertheless, we should - and I am confident that we will - look for solutions to prevent this in the future.

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sn26567
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Re: Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has crashed into Indian O

Post by sn26567 »

Malaysia's acting transport minister said 122 "potential objects" had been seen around 2,557 km from Perth based on new French satellite images. Good luck to check on all of them!

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Re: Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has crashed into Indian O

Post by Acid-drop »

I think that we don't have the slightest idea just how complex these calculations must have been. They have tried to determine the position of the aircraft based on dopler shift from data pings that have been sent by the aircraft.
I'm not sure it's that complex, a road radar uses a similar technique, but the idea of doing it is a just great ! That company did a great job, don't missunderstand me.
My complain is going toward malaysia air, who looks like a bunch of clowns ... They haven't done one thing right from the begining of the story.
My messages reflect my personal opinion which may be different than yours. I beleive a forum is made to create a debate so I encourage people to express themselves, the way they want, with the ideas they want. I expect the same understanding in return.

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Re: Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has crashed into Indian O

Post by teddybAIR »

My condolences go to the families of those who perished. And my sympathy also to the spokesperson of malaysia airlines. What can the guy do? If he doesn't communicate a possible lead, or communicates it late, he's accused of withholding critical info. If he communicates about what he knows, he is accuses of a lack of certainty.

We have to accept that we don't have answers to a lot of questions and that there is pressure from the general public to come with answers. We have to accept that answers will not come soon. And we have to accept that in exceptional cases, accidents will happen where existing technology will not readily provide the answers we seek. That is the very reason for technological progress, by the way. So please accept that just like you and me, investigation branches around the world are going through a very steep learning curve at this very moment.

We have an entire fleet of boats, planes, sattelites looking for aircraft debris more than 2 weeks after a crash in an area that is 2.500km (ever thought about how far that actually is?!) away from nearest land. That's some serious efforts that is being done as we speak, day in day out.

Oh and by the way: applying the doppler principle to data pings is not that straight forward. It is probably based on frequency shift of the data streams, but remember that those pings have never been designed for ranging or plotting. Since those data pings travel at speed of light (300.000km/s), the slightest error of 1 microsecond generates a 300m error...for 1 microsecond. Now factor in refraction of your data ping signal when it travels through the ionosphere and changes direction to maintain speed of light at best and that in an ionospheric condition that changes in geography and time and you have a slight idea of just how complex those calculations must be. The GPS solves this by sending signals in different frequencies and comparing both signals, but data pings are very likely to be sent over a single frequency. I'm not an expert in the matter at all, but I fully understand how challenging the search must be. It's not "as easy" as the police radar on the curbside of the road!

And believe me, I guarantee you that investigators, SAR teams, malaysia airlines, the different governments involved, Boeing, etc. all want to find the crash site very very bad.

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Re: Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has crashed into Indian O

Post by teddybAIR »

Thai officials now say they just sent the malaysian authorities new images showing up to 300 pieces of floating debris in the Indian Ocean. The debris is spotted about 200km from the search area.

Search is suspended today due to weather.

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Re: Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has crashed into Indian O

Post by luchtzak »

teddybAIR wrote:Thai officials now say they just sent the malaysian authorities new images showing up to 300 pieces of floating debris in the Indian Ocean. The debris is spotted about 200km from the search area.

Search is suspended today due to weather.
On our Facebook page you can see a movie why there is reason Search and Rescue (SAR) finding it hard to find the missing #Malaysia #Airlines Flight #MH370.

https://www.facebook.com/www.luchtzak.be?ref=stream

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