Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 missing

[0007776]

It's being reported that British and US aviation analysts have managed to narrow down the search area to something the size of Arizona (down from an area the size of Texas - which doesn't really help me or anyone else not from the western bit of the US, but I digress ….). They did this by looking at the satellite data from the engine pings, and refining it. The current priority search area is off the coast of Western Australia. If the new analysis is accurate then something should turn up shortly as the Australians have some good resources to throw at this, and they are being helped by a US Navy sub-hunter plane.

Too late for survivors, I believe, but at least the families will have closure.

That's still a huge area, but hopefully they find something. And hopefully they are able to find enough evidence to actually know what happened.

Assuming they find the wreckage, and are able to recover the black boxes how long does the cockpit voice recorder save information for? If it actually flew for 7 hours after loosing contact will we have recordings to know what was going on in the cockpit then, or will it just be the last bit of the flight?

 

[snberk103]

That's still a huge area, but hopefully they find something. And hopefully they are able to find enough evidence to actually know what happened.
...

Two days ago they had about 30 million sq. miles to search. If the new information is accurate then it's down to about 114,000 sq. miles… or about the size of Labrador. Without the mountains and forests that can completely hide something as large as a plane.

If they find the fuselage they should be able to at least eliminate a bunch of theories.

 

[0007776]

Two days ago they had about 30 million sq. miles to search. If the new information is accurate then it's down to about 114,000 sq. miles… or about the size of Labrador. Without the mountains and forests that can completely hide something as large as a plane.

If they find the fuselage they should be able to at least eliminate a bunch of theories.

It's definitely down a lot, but keep in mind most of the wreckage will be sunk on the bottom of the ocean, which in that area is quite deep and probably mountainous which makes it very difficult to find much. It took a couple years to find AF447, and we knew more or less where that went down.

 

[alent1234]

honestly it seems more ridiculous than interesting. it makes zero sense.

a former israeli spy said he thinks it was iran

 

[0007776]

a former israeli spy said he thinks it was iran

Israel thinks everything is Iran...

 

[0007776]

It may turn out to be nothing, but Australia may have found something.

Australia has sent an aircraft to investigate two objects spotted by satellite floating in the southern Indian Ocean that could be debris from a Malaysian jetliner missing with 239 people on board, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said.

No confirmed wreckage from Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 has been found since it vanished from air traffic control screens off Malaysia's east coast early on March 8, less than an hour after taking off.

"New and credible information has come to light in relation to the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 in the southern Indian Ocean," Abbott told the Australian parliament.

"The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) has received information based on satellite imagery of objects possibly related to the search."

"Following specialist analysis of this satellite imagery, two possible objects related to the search have been identified," he said.

Link

 

[Peace]

It may turn out to be nothing, but Australia may have found something.



Link

The PM said there are 2 larger pieces an a bunch of smaller pieces meaning "could" be a debris field.

The large piece could actually be a bunch of smaller pieces connected by cables and carbon fibre. From the satellite it would look like one piece .

 

[juanm]

interesting one i read is the iranians hijacked it and will use it to nuke israel since they are supposed to be close to an atomic bomb

Why would anyone imagine that, and worse, who would believe that?

Iran has pretty much every kind of aircraft already at their disposal, from fighters to airliners (maybe their military fighters are not the best and latest in technology, but they are certainly much, much faster than a 777). It would be like planning to rob a bank, and instead of using a fast car you already have, stealing an old clunker car in front of the cops.

Since I cannot imagine anyone would be so gullible as to believe such a crazy idea, I can only assume you're just saying that to troll around this forum.

 

[nebo1ss]

The sightings off Australia are actually half way between Australia and Africa in one of the deepest parts of the Ocean. If it turns out to be wreckage it certainly supports the theory that an attempt was being made to bury it so it would never be found.

Hope they get the Black boxes although I am not sure how much more they will learn from them. My understanding is that there are two of them one is a continuous 2 hour loop Audio recording and the second a 25 hour continuous loop recording of parameters on the plane. I cannot imagine the Audio loop will reveal anything.

 

[AX338]

I don't understand coordinates but what sort of coordinates does this refer to?

This is taken from the photo of the debris

COORDS: 43:58:345 090:57:37E

Im trying to quickly teach myself...are these following the GCS notation or the UTM one?...either way I can't fit them into the configurator forund here:

http://itouchmap.com/latlong.html

 

[Huntn]

I don't understand coordinates but what sort of coordinates does this refer to?

This is taken from the photo of the debris

COORDS: 43:58:345 090:57:37E

Im trying to quickly teach myself...are these following the GCS notation or the UTM one?...either way I can't fit them into the configurator forund here:

http://itouchmap.com/latlong.html

I believe it is lat/long, degrees, minutes, seconds, but first glance, that would be too far north, in China. 43° N 90° East. But if I make it -43° Lat, +90°, that seems to work using your link for the central Indian Ocean West of Australia. Use the "show point from Lat Long box" and type in -43 +90.

 

[juanm]

Has any of the more involved people around here heard about this? Is it legit?

http://www.tomnod.com/nod/challenge/mh370_indian_ocean

It seems to be kind of a crowd operated search tool. You'd basically be presented with a series of satellite imaging and a few clues as to what the debris would look like, and be tasked with clearing the area section by section.

 

[Don't panic]

a former israeli spy said he thinks it was iran

and?
a "former israeli spy" cannot say idiotic things?
regardless who said it, how does this make any sense?


it's not like iran doesn't have planes on its own, since they have access to both a military and civilian air fleet. if they wanted to use a plane to deliver a bomb, they most surely did not need to go through this process to do so (and use a better plane for the task). Plus, you really think the iranians believe they can deliver a bomber (DIY or not) into israel without it being shot down?

 

[Huntn]

Has any of the more involved people around here heard about this? Is it legit?

http://www.tomnod.com/nod/challenge/mh370_indian_ocean

It seems to be kind of a crowd operated search tool. You'd basically be presented with a series of satellite imaging and a few clues as to what the debris would look like, and be tasked with clearing the area section by section.

I believe this is legitimate or at least I remember hearing of something like this before.

 

[vrDrew]

The sightings off Australia are actually half way between Australia and Africa in one of the deepest parts of the Ocean. If it turns out to be wreckage it certainly supports the theory that an attempt was being made to bury it so it would never be found.

If the objects sighted in the ocean SW of Australia do turn out to be wreckage from Flight 370, then its highly unlikely we'll ever know much more about what happened to that flight.

The southern Indian Ocean, at those latitudes, is perhaps the worst place imaginable to conduct a Search operation. Not only is the ocean extremely deep, but - as any sailor will tell you - the winds and waves are almost beyond belief. And its literally thousands of miles from nowhere.

Plus, finding wreckage now - two weeks after the plane went missing - gives you very little reliable indication as to where the plane may have impacted the water.

If it does turn out to be part of the missing plane, IMHO it is indication that the pilots were overcome by fumes or lack of oxygen, and the plane flew on autopilot (similar to the Payne Stewart incident some fifteen years ago) before eventually running out of fuel and crashing.

 

[bradl]

I believe it is lat/long, degrees, minutes, seconds, but first glance, that would be too far north, in China. 43° N 90° East. But if I make it -43° Lat, +90°, that seems to work using your link for the central Indian Ocean West of Australia. Use the "show point from Lat Long box" and type in -43 +90.

I just threw this into Google Maps/Earth and found it:

43 58'34.0"s 90 57'37.0e

That should be LAT/LON down to degree/minute/second for the coordinates.

I believe this is legitimate or at least I remember hearing of something like this before.

It definitely is legit, though probably irrelevant if what the Aussies have discovered is true. There's nothing out there. The Heard, McDonald, and French Southern islands are too rugged for anything to land, and the closest suitable airport would be back in Perth.

BL.

 

[chabig]

COORDS: 43:58:345 090:57:37E

Im trying to quickly teach myself...are these following the GCS notation or the UTM one?

It's straight forward Lat/Long but you misidentified "S" as "5": 43:58:34S 090:57:37E

 

[Huntn]

It's straight forward Lat/Long but you misidentified "S" as "5": 43:58:34S 090:57:37E

Bingo!

 

[zioxide]

I want some clarification on the whole 45,000 feet theory I keep seeing floating around:

The first thing I'm hearing is that it's not possible to fly a 777 at 45,000 feet - the service ceiling is 43,000 so it never went up to FL45. That makes sense, but on the other hand, aren't a plane's performance numbers conservative? Boeing doesn't want a 777 falling out of the sky because a pilot took it 2 feet beyond it's ceiling. I'm guessing the actual, maximum altitude a 777 could go is considerably higher than 43,000, but that number was chosen to give some leeway, but 2,000 feet of leeway? That I'm not sure about - so, it it possible or not?

An empty 777 could probably fly up to 45,000 feet, but a 777 fully loaded with passengers, crew, luggage, and fuel would struggle big time. It could probably reach that altitude in a climb, but sustaining level flight would be tough because the plane is so heavy. It would end up falling back to a lower altitude.

Second, let's assume it is possible and they did get to FL45. The theory there is that the pilots (or whoever was flying the plane) took it up there while wearing oxygen to kill everyone else on board. Doing that would necessitate depressurizing the cabin, but why go to FL45 to do that? They could depressurize the cabin at FL35 (the assigned altitude) and kill everyone, it's more than high enough. There's no need to go up to FL45.

Everyone keeps throwing this theory around but it's not valid. The 777 is specifically designed with a failsafe that prevents depressurization below the pressure of 14,000 feet. Even if the pilot opens the valves to reduce pressure, they'll automatically stop that pressure loss when it hits 14,000, and the oxygen masks will drop. There's no way they can prevent/turn this off. The only way to lower pressure even further would be actually blowing a hole through the fuselage.

 

[chabig]

It could probably reach that altitude in a climb, but sustaining level flight would be tough because the plane is so heavy. It would end up falling back to a lower altitude.

If it doesn't have the performance to stay there, it can't climb there. High-performance airplanes can zoom and reach altitudes at which they can't maintain level flight, but not airliners.

Everyone keeps throwing this theory around but it's not valid. The 777 is specifically designed with a failsafe that prevents depressurization below the pressure of 14,000 feet. Even if the pilot opens the valves to reduce pressure, they'll automatically stop that pressure loss when it hits 14,000, and the oxygen masks will drop. There's no way they can prevent/turn this off. The only way to lower pressure even further would be actually blowing a hole through the fuselage.

That's just false. All airliners can be depressurized by manually opening the outflow valve(s). The masks will drop, as you say, at 14,000 ft cabin altitude. The oxygen generators will provide oxygen for about ten minutes--then it's lights out for the passengers.

 

[zioxide]

If it doesn't have the performance to stay there, it can't climb there. High-performance airplanes can zoom and reach altitudes at which they can't maintain level flight, but not airliners.



That's just false. All airliners can be depressurized by manually opening the outflow valve(s). The masks will drop, as you say, at 14,000 ft cabin altitude. The oxygen generators will provide oxygen for about ten minutes--then it's lights out for the passengers.

My mistake. The information I was reading before must have been inaccurate. I've been following the threads on airliners.net and one of their moderators has been compiling a synopsis post of all the info we have so far. It looks like it has been updated a few times since I last read it a couple days ago.

• However, per member mandala499 the pilots could: 1) Open outflow valves, 2) turn off bleed air. The cabin would then depressurize to current altitude.
• I have no data on how quickly this would happen - but I think it would take minutes at least.

That's the part that I either missed or was added before, so you're right, it could be depressurized fully, but it would take time, and the passengers would definitely know it was happening because their O2 masks would deploy.

I found this part intriguing though:

above 40,000 ft cabin altitude - positive pressure oxygen is required - passenger masks do not do this and would not be effective.

I guess this would make the theory possible, but it still seems highly improbable.

Here's a link to the whole post I was reading that has most of the info that's known so far and some good background info: airliners.net

 

[chabig]

Zioxide, please let my apologize for being so direct. I didn't mean to sound so.

As for the comment you just noted, positive pressure would be required. Passenger oxygen masks are only installed to cover the time from depressurization until the pilots can get the airplane down below 14,000 ft.

 

[bradl]

Zioxide, please let my apologize for being so direct. I didn't mean to sound so.

As for the comment you just noted, positive pressure would be required. Passenger oxygen masks are only installed to cover the time from depressurization until the pilots can get the airplane down below 14,000 ft.

This is correct, as per FAR 91.211, all flights above 14000ft MSL are required to have oxygen tanks onboard. When underneath that, all should be okay.

BL.

 

[Huntn]

Listening to reports although it is the "news media", there are aviation experts reporting and it is sounding like it was not a mechanical issue, that steps were taken to remove this aircraft from communications and tracking, and that a route was flown out into the middle of no-where where it would crash, for what ever purpose, suicide, cause problems for Malaysian airlines or Malaysia, or fill in the blank. I'd say who was in control of the aircraft is an unknown.

 

[zioxide]

Zioxide, please let my apologize for being so direct. I didn't mean to sound so.

As for the comment you just noted, positive pressure would be required. Passenger oxygen masks are only installed to cover the time from depressurization until the pilots can get the airplane down below 14,000 ft.

No worries man, I'm not an expert by any means so if I'm off base feel free to correct me.

This is just an extremely intriguing mystery, and I don't think we're ever going to really know what happens.

Even if this new lead from Australia materializes, and they do find the plane crashed in the Indian/Southern ocean, we still may never know what really happened. Even if they find the FDR and CVR, the CVR will only contain the last 2 hours of the flight, so we'll probably never know why the transponder was turned off and why the course was diverted to begin with.