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Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 missing

PracticalMac said:
Cell signals are very, very limited.
They are mainly horizontal, and max to about 10 miles if lucky.

The airliner would have been both too far away horizontally and far too high for any ground cell tower to work.

(the few cases of mountain hikers calling from 20 miles was due to mountains acting like a dish).
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While en route, I agree. But it's more of a possibility now that the aircraft is static. It isn't moving. If we get into some range of where a signal could be created, then make the signal mobile, we could make a rolling range of coverage.

It may be futile, but couldn't be any worse than where we are now.

BL.
 
bradl said:
If we get into some range of where a signal could be created, then make the signal mobile, we could make a rolling range of coverage.
.
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I have no clue what your talking about.

You cant create more signal power then the max a cell phone can send.
It is possible to move a cell phone laterally to a more ideal location, a node.
 
PracticalMac said:
I have no clue what your talking about.

You cant create more signal power then the max a cell phone can send.
It is possible to move a cell phone laterally to a more ideal location, a node.
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What I am saying is this. Say you have a small fleet of ships. 5 or 6 for example.

Each ship has some sort of network connectivity between them. So you pretty much are creating a 5-port switch, made of ships.

Each one of those ships then creates a hotspot of some type (either from a carrier or WiFi, take your pick), that then extends the range that the "switch" provides (by inherently being WiFi).

When in range, a smartphone should pick up that WiFi signal. That gets them network access, which could either be monitored at the network level; If a device joins, the ships stop, and (hopefully it is left on), Location Services could do the rest of the work; Find My iPhone, for example.

This creates a roving mobile network, that could help in locating the phones, which in turn would help find the aircraft.

If you're into Star Trek: TNG, have a look at the show Redemption, Part II. I'm taking the idea off that network of ships they built as a blockade. But instead of locating and blocking another ship through their network, we use the network to locate the phones that the passengers had on the aircraft.

BL.
 
bradl said:
What I am saying is this. Say you have a small fleet of ships. 5 or 6 for example.

Each ship has some sort of network connectivity between them. So you pretty much are creating a 5-port switch, made of ships.

Each one of those ships then creates a hotspot of some type (either from a carrier or WiFi, take your pick), that then extends the range that the "switch" provides (by inherently being WiFi).

When in range, a smartphone should pick up that WiFi signal. That gets them network access, which could either be monitored at the network level; If a device joins, the ships stop, and (hopefully it is left on), Location Services could do the rest of the work; Find My iPhone, for example.

This creates a roving mobile network, that could help in locating the phones, which in turn would help find the aircraft.

BL.
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You already have radio beacons on the black boxes, which can be triangulated to find their positions. The real problem however is that none of this will work under water, since radio frequencies are strongly absorbed in water, and antennas couple very differently to water compared to air.

Looking for the ULB (see some posts above) with its 2 mi radius might not be so difficult. It would allow a search pattern with maybe 3 miles distances, so a ship going eg. at 20 kt could cover an area of 3x480 mi. per day moving in a straight line. with 10 ships and 10 days, this would scale up to 300 x 480 mi, which should cover most of the sea between Malaysia and Vietnam.
 
Berlepsch said:
You already have radio beacons on the black boxes, which can be triangulated to find their positions. The real problem however is that none of this will work under water, since radio frequencies are strongly absorbed in water, and antennas couple very differently to water compared to air.

Looking for the ULB (see some posts above) with its 2 mi radius might not be so difficult. It would allow a search pattern with maybe 3 miles distances, so a ship going eg. at 20 kt could cover an area of 3x480 mi. per day moving in a straight line. with 10 ships and 10 days, this would scale up to 300 x 480 mi, which should cover most of the sea between Malaysia and Vietnam.
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If this plane never crashed and is sitting on a tarmac somewhere would the black boxes send a signal? There has to be enough electronics on that plane that would be looking for a connection.
 
chabig said:
He's suggesting making a mobile cell phone tower that could attempt to interrogate passenger's cell phones. It's an intriguing idea.
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The problem with that is assuming it crashed on land, in water any phones would be destroyed, either it is somewhere in cell coverage in which case they probably would have already found something or else all the phones would have a dead battery, be destroyed in the initial crash or have been turned off. Have you ever left a phone on when it is out of service? It drains the battery quickly, so even if the plane is on land and a phone which was left on survived the crash this wouldn't work.
 
The latest.


Two U.S. officials tell ABC News the U.S. believes that the shutdown of two communication systems happened separately on Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. One source said this indicates the plane did not come out of the sky because of a catastrophic failure.

The data reporting system, they believe, was shut down at 1:07 a.m. The transponder -- which transmits location and altitude -- shut down at 1:21 a.m.

This indicates it may well have been a deliberate act, ABC News aviation consultant John Nance said.

U.S. investigators told ABC News that the two modes of communication were "systematically shut down."

That means the U.S. team "is convinced that there was manual intervention," a source said, which means it was likely not an accident or catastrophic malfunction that took the plane out of the sky.
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http://abcnews.go.com/International...cation-crashed-indian-ocean/story?id=22894802
 
MacNut said:
If this plane never crashed and is sitting on a tarmac somewhere would the black boxes send a signal? There has to be enough electronics on that plane that would be looking for a connection.
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According to this, it would be broadcasting some information if it was on the tarmac somewhere.

bradl said:
So we should probably leave any conspiracy out of the picture
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I now think that it would be foolish to leave out any discussion that the plane was taken.
 
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MacNut said:
If this plane never crashed and is sitting on a tarmac somewhere would the black boxes send a signal? There has to be enough electronics on that plane that would be looking for a connection.
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I would say no, because the aircraft is intact.

Quagmire, correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I was told by my instructor, the ULB would active as soon as the device hits water. If it lands successfully, there is nothing wrong with the aircraft, as far as it is concerned.

mrkramer said:
The problem with that is assuming it crashed on land, in water any phones would be destroyed, either it is somewhere in cell coverage in which case they probably would have already found something or else all the phones would have a dead battery, be destroyed in the initial crash or have been turned off. Have you ever left a phone on when it is out of service? It drains the battery quickly, so even if the plane is on land and a phone which was left on survived the crash this wouldn't work.
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Assuming the power is turned on.

However, If they did indeed survive, hopefully some people there weren't too comfortable in their urban lives to remember any survival skills. Power consumption would be one of them, if not should be one of them, especially if it is for a device that could be used to locate them.

What I am thinking of is obviously assuming best chance scenario here. Until we find out otherwise, I'm taking the stance of the glass being half full instead of half empty. So if they did survive, at least give them a chance to be located and rescued.

BL.
 
MathBunny123 said:
I know this is a stupid question...but are falsified passports a common occurrence? With both Qatar, Iran and Malaysia all major hubs for extremist groups, I'd say that without question a terrorist act would be evident in this... :confused:
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They happen often enough for illegal immigration, and smuggling. They've already looked into them and determined that they were most likely trying to illegally immigrate to the EU.
 
Huntn said:
Black boxes are only triggered in crashes.
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Flight Data Recorders record up to twenty five hours of data, in a continuous loop. If they only started recording when a crash occurred, investigators would be unable to tell what led up to the incident.

In addition to the Flight Data Recorder (which records data such as engine rpm, airspeed, control surface position, etc.) there is also the Cockpit Voice Recorder, which can help give investigators an idea of what was occurring on the flight-deck i.e. - was the crew aware of a problem, and if so what steps did they take.

Both the Data and Voice recorders are designed to survive most aircraft crashes, being resistant to high g-forces, high and low temperatures, high water pressure, as well as puncture and vibration forces. Contrary to their name, they are usually bright International Orange in color, to aid in their recovery.
 
I think he was talking about when black boxes start sending the locating signal, not when they start recording data.
 
vrDrew said:
Flight Data Recorders record up to twenty five hours of data, in a continuous loop. If they only started recording when a crash occurred, investigators would be unable to tell what led up to the incident.

In addition to the Flight Data Recorder (which records data such as engine rpm, airspeed, control surface position, etc.) there is also the Cockpit Voice Recorder, which can help give investigators an idea of what was occurring on the flight-deck i.e. - was the crew aware of a problem, and if so what steps did they take.

Both the Data and Voice recorders are designed to survive most aircraft crashes, being resistant to high g-forces, high and low temperatures, high water pressure, as well as puncture and vibration forces. Contrary to their name, they are usually bright International Orange in color, to aid in their recovery.
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He meant the locater beacons for the black boxes.
 
aristobrat said:
I think he was talking about when black boxes start sending the locating signal, not when they start recording data.
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quagmire said:
He meant the locater beacons for the black boxes.
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Yes, thank you boys. They don't transmit until a crash. :D A response to MacNut's question:
If this plane never crashed and is sitting on a tarmac somewhere would the black boxes send a signal?
 
afp3.jpg
 
I still think this could be suicide by Pilot. Possible scenario. One of the pilots leaves cockpit to go to the bathroom. Other pilot locks himself in the secure Cockpit turns of Various systems like tranponders etc to hide his location, turns aircraft in completely different direction so that it would be difficult to
locate and then ditches it in the sea.
 
nebo1ss said:
I still think this could be suicide by Pilot. Possible scenario. One of the pilots leaves cockpit to go to the bathroom. Other pilot locks himself in the secure Cockpit turns of Various systems like tranponders etc to hide his location, turns aircraft in completely different direction so that it would be difficult to
locate and then ditches it in the sea.
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Could be. Weird that a pilot intent on ditching the plane at sea would fly it for so much longer after turning off the transponder (based on ground radar and reports of the automated reporting system on the airliner pinging satellites for hours after its last reported contact with air traffic controllers).
 
superstarmc said:
Considering the military is sending two destroyers over seas they must know something we don't.
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The Kidd and the Pinckney were both in the area, they aren't being sent overseas, they were already in the south china sea and are moving to help with the search. They were just two of the closest (and best equipped) vessels in the area.
-Tig
 
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