Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 is missing

[FlightMate]

Maybe he couldn't contact anybody, for the same reasons the transponder stopped working.
Loss of electrical power?

I don't think we can rule out anything just right now.

[Lysexpat]

the only thing is the climb to FL450, as reported by medias.
but then, could an heavy b777 (217 pax + 7h of fuel) get to FL450 straight away?
for info, an empty B744 with 4h of fuel can't.

How do you know the 744 can't? Did you try?
The people who were doing this did not operate the aircraft according to the manuals. It is possible to climb a lot higher than what manuals or FMS say, if you accept lower or even no margins.

[quixoticguide]

B747 Maximum Operating Altitude: 45,100 ft
(http://www.aftd.com/TCDS_PDFS/A20WE_35.pdf)

B777 Maximum Operating Altitude: 43,100 ft
(http://www.aftd.com/TCDS_PDFS%5CT00001SE_18.pdf)

[FlightMate]

Max operating altitude (service ceiling) is a certification which i.e. allows the aircraft to get down quick enough to a safe altitude in case of depressurization.

The 747-8 was limited to a lower altitude than the 747-400 due to a better wing, and a slower time to get down.

As for trying, do it in an IPT. Coffin corner at around 44000ft on the 744.
I don't know about the 772 though. But I find it odd that, giving an optimum cruising level of FL350 (or FL370), they'd be able to climb to FL450 straight away without stalling.

So I'd be wary about the 'info' that the aircraft climbed to FL450 just after they lost contact.
Could the primary radar be not that precise, maybe?

[Desert Rat]

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/03/19/world ... ?hpt=hp_t1

[teddybAIR]

I wonder which type of satelites they are using to scan the ocean. One of the pieces that is possibly from MH370 and measures 24m. I thought satelite imagery was extremely detailed, but all that is bublished are very blurry images of pieces that measure 20+ metres.

[BrightCedars]

Out of my head, if one follows the theory of a (self) hijack, could it be they went to fly higher wearing masks in order to suffocate and kill all passengers on board? Would it have that effect to fly at 13Km+? Would the oxygen masks deploy automatically or is that controlled from the cockpit? How long would the oxygen supply last for the cabin? I'm pretty sure the supply for the cockpit must be a separate reserve, right?

[FlightMate]

Indeed, supply different for pilots and pax.

Masks would deploy automatically, but the pilots can shut down the oxygen supply with a switch.

[KriVa]

It depends on the type of Oxygen System installed, for the passengers at least.
There are chemical generators, and bottles. Both will deploy automatically when cabin altitude reaches ±14500 ft. They also both look the same to the passengers.
However, Chemical Generators only last about 20 minutes, but can NOT be shut off once started. Bottles will last, well... until the bottle is empty, but can be shut off from the flight deck.
I'm not sure which system Malaysian installed.
Also, the oxygen supply for the cockpit is always an independent system from the oxygen system installed for pax and cabin crew. This is a legal requirement. (The flight deck will also always be supplied by bottles, not by a chemical generator)

[teddybAIR]

Any cabin altitude above 14.000ft will trigger automatic deployment of the pax oxygen masks. The cannisters that generate oxygen for the pax have a legal requirement to provide sufficient oxygen for the pax to survive an emergency descent to 10.000ft. The time it takes for the cannisters to deplete therefore depends on the route network the aircraft is sheduled on as some routes do not allow immediate descent to 10.000ft because of high terrain. But typically the cannisters will empty in 12-15 minutes. So theoretically, you could decompress the cabin, maintain FL350 for anything above 15 minutes and incapacitate (or worse) all pax.
Next to the supplemental oxygen, there is also first aid oxygen available in portable dispensers, which would allow some of the cabin crew to survive longer.
Oxygen for flight crew is a completely independent system that provides oxygen for 2 hours for the entire flight crew in any aircraft certified to fly above FL250

[FlightMate]

I didn't know airlines had the choice between chemical / bottles.
I thought they were standard for each airplane type. I.e. chemical on avro - bottles on B777.

But I admit I have no idea about MH, then.

[teddybAIR]

They don't have the choice. The requirements for passenger oxygen (simplified) are:

> supplemental oxy for all passengers supplied automatically when cabin alt is above 14.000ft. The amount of dispensers has to be 10% higher than amount of seats to account for infants & people walking the aisles. This will typically be provided via chemical oxygen generators in the cabin ceiling
> first aid oxygen: top of my head it has to be sufficient to provide oxygen for 2 pax or 5% of passengers, whichever is more.

Now, if your airline flies routes over high terrain where you cannot descend to 10.000ft in 10 minutes, more oxygen will be required. I think at JAF that some routes over the middle east could only be flown by TUC or JAP because of oxygen.

[quixoticguide]

And the cabin crew can't enter the cockpit?
Who can change the code for entering the cockpit? The pilots I guess?

[KriVa]

teddybAIR:
They do have the choice, but not on all aircraft types. Some aircraft are limited to chemical/bottle, others have the choice. Lufthansa famously has some 744s with chemical generators, and some with bottles. This means that certain 744s can't operate certain routes. Or at least, they'll have to route another way, because their escape route doesn't get them at 10000 ft in time.
Also, when I say bottles, I do NOT mean the first aid bottles (I know those very well, being Cabin Crew myself). I am talking about bottles attached to the structure of the airplane.
EDIT:
To give you an example, this is a look in the avionics bay of a 727. The green bottles in the back are to be used as supplementary oxygen.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-AZIGbvxofI8/U ... sBay+2.jpg

[KriVa]

Quixotic: I won't mention how or what, this being the post-9/11 era.
However, access to the flight deck, from the outside of the flight deck can be blocked, for obvious reasons.

[tsv]

I do not believe in an accident neither in suicide. Accident : why the pilot did not inform ATC? Suicide for that he does not have to change the direction !
Now they are searching at the Maledives but as it was a 777-200ER the aircraft could even reach African coast !
Are there unused airports in that area where he can land ... in secret?

No there are no Airports where you can land a 777 without anybody noticing :_) 777's are big. They are noisy. And they look rather out of place when they suddenly appear at an unused Airport. And they are easily spotted by Satellites. It would be very unusual for any place to go from having a Population sufficient to support an Airport, usually at least 50 people, to having nobody at all living within many kilometres of the Runway or driving past the Runway.

Others have speculated that the Aircraft landed in an empty Desert somewhere. But the problem is the world has just about run out of empty deserts. There are Mining Camps, Farmers or Native Settlers/Nomads scattered pretty much everywhere except the South and North Poles. And even if you managed to land the Plane without being noticed there is no way that the Aircraft could be refueled, stored etc without somebody noticing something.

It remains to be seen whether it was Hijacked, Crashed intentionally or Crashed Accidentally but unfortunately there is no doubt it has crashed - almost certainly into the Sea.

[RTM]

I agree that it must be in the ocean somewhere...
How much I would like the scenario to be that it landed somewhere, and everybody on board is safe but hostage, I don't think it is realistic anymore.
With that in mind, I hope the debris the Australians have pinpointed now, turns out to be a first clue of where to look in more detail. And then we at least know, and the mourning process for the struck families can start.

As for finding the wreckage itself... That will not be easy, even if we now know where to look, assuming the Aussies found it... No way of telling at this point how hard the plane struck the water, but if it was hard, then it is looking for small pieces several kilometers down... Hopefully it was a more shallow impact, and major sections could be identified on sonar. 24m sections floating do in any case suggest it did not completely desintigtate on impact.

As for finding the black boxes... That will be the main focus. But what will they reveal...? DFDR could show wheater it ran out of fuel and crashed, or intentionally ditched/crashed. That is, if it hasn't been switched off. The hijacker appearantly knew what he was doing, so this could have been done. The CVR the same thing. If it wasn't switched off, than it would have captured the last moments and hours, but if the hijacker was silent... this wouldn't be helpfull. Just audible warnings generated by the plane would be on there, which can provide clues. But... if he/they did switch it off... It may reveal the moments of the hijack itself. If it was one of the pilots, how did he dispose of the other? Was it someone else entering the cockpit? etc... The CVR can not be erased in flight.

[teddybAIR]

As for finding the black boxes... That will be the main focus. But what will they reveal...? DFDR could show wheater it ran out of fuel and crashed, or intentionally ditched/crashed. That is, if it hasn't been switched off. The hijacker appearantly knew what he was doing, so this could have been done. The CVR the same thing. If it wasn't switched off, than it would have captured the last moments and hours, but if the hijacker was silent... this wouldn't be helpfull. Just audible warnings generated by the plane would be on there, which can provide clues. But... if he/they did switch it off... It may reveal the moments of the hijack itself. If it was one of the pilots, how did he dispose of the other? Was it someone else entering the cockpit? etc... The CVR can not be erased in flight.

If it turns out to pe where the Australians think, then I would not hope for too much intelligence on the CVR or FDR. It would mean hijackers were expert enough to shut down all communication, confidently cross Malaysia towards the Indian Ocean, fly it to one of the most remote places on earth and ditch it in the ocean, knowing that a search would take weeks (based on the confustion you've just created) and the knowledge that intact pieces sinking to extreme depths are more difficult to spot when 1500NM in the ocean compared to floating debris.

If it is where the Aussies say it is, then we've just witnessed the ultimate suicide mission where the goal is to strike fear. The western world tends to manage that fear by investigating every single occurence and implementing improvements based on what we've learned from the analysis. If you want to ultimately hit the western world hard, then you make it impossible to analyse the situation, ie dissappear.

[RTM]

I agree. Though the CVR could have intersting things to reveal... IF it was switched off...

I would think that the most logical sequence would be that the communications and CVR/DFDR be switched of after the plane was hijacked. For the flight recorders this would have to be done by pulling some CB's, but since the hijacker definately knew what he was doing, he would be aware of this. This would render the data on the DFDR useless. IF he did this also for the CVR, this would mean the recording stopped right after the hijack, and then this event would have been recorded, and could provide clues about het identity of the hijacker. But if he really knew what he was doing, he would not have swiched off the CVR, and just let it overwrite itself by flying on for at least 2 hours, and be silent. There is an erase function on the CVR, but that can only be used on ground with parkingbrake set en engines off, no way of bypassing this. Hopefully time will tell...

[Flanker2]

The Australian pic doesn't look like anything from a B777 or an airplane at all.
I think that too many false leads are being propagated, I think that their source should be investigated, as they are hampering the SAR efforts.

As I predicted, the Maldives sighting was ruled out by Malaysian authorities, as it would not be in line with satellite routing patterns.

IMO they most probably landed in one of the deserts in China.
After all, that's your best combination of no cell phone coverage, discretion, easy to camouflage using sheets and plenty of landing area.

Terrorism can be ruled out, if that was the idea, they would have targeted Singapore or Kualka Lumpur instead of ditching it in the middle of nowhere.