How long between the final 'good night' message as it left Malaysian airspace, the transponders being turned off, and it turning around?
How long between the final 'good night' message as it left Malaysian airspace, the transponders being turned off, and it turning around?
A few ships at sea may have seen aircraft lights, or can they be switched off at night.
I personally don't buy the idea of a fire because I can't see it being bad enough to occupy the pilots to the extent that they didn't make an emergency call but small enough that the plane can still fly for 5 hours or so. The usual scenario is smoke in the cockpit followed by emergency call followed by either a safe landing or disaster.Originally Posted by 9999
However, that little idea of double IDG failure and APU fail and battery overheat is not so far-fetched as I first imagined. Here's a little more flesh to add to the scenario. NB for amusement only whilst awaiting the discovery of the plane and the true reason.
There was a B-777 that had a double IDG failure back in 2011. It's possible that the plane had a recent overhaul and the IDG oil was replaced but, for some reason or other, the oil was not refilled or the drain plug was left off etc and this led to a double overheat/failure. The secondary generators would be put on line but certain systems would not be working such as IFF and SatCom. Now attempts would be made to start the APU but they should have dropped down to a lower altitude for it to run up (don't know max altitude for APU but doubt it is FL350). Anyway the attempts to start the APU could have led to a battery overheat and then the ACARS goes down.
Lots of things going on in the cockpit with multiple failures caused by the dropping off of the IDGs and pilot flying drops altitude for APU start and changes course to return home. FO meanwhile tries to contact the ground but on wrong radio and fails miserably. Captain is pre-occupied with getting power back and misses the error. Attempt to start APU is too early and causes overheat and battery goes offline along with ACARS.
It's pretty dark outside due to a new moon and not much better inside with only secondary power. The overheating battery exudes toxic gas/smoke that overcomes the pilots rendering them unconscious and the plane turns South at its last pre-programmed waypoint and stays on that heading since no other waypoints have been entered.
No suicidal pilot and no religious nutters or other hijacking sorts on board...just a chain of small errors that lead to disaster....much like any other accident.
^ remember, this guy writing this is a veteran pilot...
Originally Posted by 9999
^ I agree with 9999. I think the suicide thing is so elaborate, overly complicated, and with no reason (found yet) behind it. The only thing that is certain is that the plane and 200+ souls are lost.
One wonders if they will ever find the site of the crash. 2 weeks left for the transponders and still all the efforts have yet to yield a single piece of identifiable wreckage. I wonder why the US and others cannot seed certain areas with sonar buoys that would pick up the pings?
The area is just too huge. Even if they find debris tomorrow they need to calculate ocean currents back to the crash site with big error margin. But they would have something to start with and have a chance. Without it there is almost none and they would waste assets that they need once they have a clue.Originally Posted by Sailing into trouble
"don't attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by incompetence"
Actually they will be;
Missing Plane: '122 Objects' Spotted In Ocean
See video on right hand side entitled 'The sub searching for the black box', you need to scroll down a little.
(Note Video link will expire - don't how long it will remain active).
Cheers Ronin. I was thinking more on the lines of what navies use to detect subs. Dropped in strings across areas to listen for "noise" any sonar ping would stand out very clearly you would have thought.
Still it is a step in the right direction. Still a hard task for one vessel. friggin huge area.
I find it strange that the world media can discuss a 'pilot suicide' as though it has nothing to do with terrorism. Surely, surely the average person can see through this spineless attraction to a pilot suicide over a Jihadi operation that went right, or wrong.
Might be just my way of thinking, that dumping a plane loaded with random souls into the sea moves it beyond an unprecedented elabotate personal death wish, with the consistently ignored 'coincidence' of two stolen passports on board held by sequential tickets purchased in cash by a third party.
And anyway, the pilot would have known that Sharia strictly prohibits suicide by Muslims unless they take infidels along for the ride.
And ftr, I find it laughable that some folks are so desperate to avoid the J-word that they'll accept and even promote a fire that happened so quick the pilots were instantly overcome and did not have time to press the emergency button which allowed the plane to change course at low altitude to avoid detection but it ran out of juice and crashed. Wouldn't surprise me if some media idiot finds cause to blame the mankoot.
As understand it (!!), the pings are quite high frequency. Most sub detection apparatus is geared for quite low frequency.
To my mind its a fairly big piece of water for nobody to have an ear in, especially something akin to SOSUS.
However, all that being said, it is still a bloody big bit of water.
May be SOSUS like system but the owner ain't talking. Considering the cost to install and maintain such a system is very high and this particular area not of much interest doubt such a system is in place.Originally Posted by nidhogg
Malaysian Airlines MH370 contact lost - Page 408 - PPRuNe ForumsA few thoughts from a man who designed bits and pieces of the missing airplane
Gentlemen-
Let me share a few thoughts from a man who designed bits and pieces of the missing airplane, and probably bits and pieces of half the jets you folks fly on.
You should be highly suspicious of these stories about fires. Have any of you folks ever seen a cargo compartment smoke test? Modern jetliners will detect a burnt napkin in a space the size of a living room in under 3 minutes.
You should be highly suspicious of stories of large volumes of smoke propagating out of the cargo compartment. That’s because after we supplier types detect a teensy puff of smoke in all that big space, the airframer types goes back and flood it with smoke so dense you can hardly see and makes sure not one bit of smoke comes up into the passenger compartment.
Those folks at Hamilton aren’t sitting still, neither. Once we find smoke, they turn off the air conditioning fans and turn up the packs to keep smoke downstairs.
Now you’re going to say to me, what about Swissair? To which I’ll say, no modern jetliner is lined with insulation blankets made of tinder and oily rags, and no competent designer wires up a disreputable pile of entertainment boxes so the breakers won’t trip when it arcs.
Did the fire burn a hole in the fuselage and decompress it? Well, I have to say I followed the 787 lithium battery incident in great detail and was privileged to see pictures of the damage. That fire didn’t burn through a plastic fuselage. I would say it beggars the imagination to come up with a fire that burns through an aluminum skin without setting off a smoke detection a considerable time previous.
What about carbon monoxide? Well, you’re going to have to tell me what could generate CO in the airplane without making detectable smoke. Have you ever been on a jetliner when an engine leaked some of that wonderful fireproof oil they use? It’s a smell you’re not going to forget, let me tell you!
Now you’re going to say, what about a fire in the avionics? Most new jetliners automatically goes into smoke override, and the 777 is no exception. I have not personally witnessed it, but I’m told the override clears smoke so dense you can’t see the instruments in under 90 seconds.
And now let’s talk wiring – did you know that we have to supply extra long wire bundles for critical equipment? That’s because the airframers have to meet FAA separation requirements. So now your undetected fire has to burn through two different redundant wire bundles kept over 12 feet apart. That’s a darned big undetected fire! This is a modern jetliner – everything is multiply redundant to the point of absurdity.
If that isn’t enough, read this excellent post by Albert Driver, who covers all the points I didn’t:
Malaysian Airlines MH370 contact lost
And auraflyer: Malaysian Airlines MH370 contact lost
Now I can’t say there isn’t some magic bullet that takes out the transponder and disables ACARS and depressurizes the airplane but somehow leaves the plane able to fly to fuel exhaustion after making several apparently commanded turn. Maybe some near impossible common mode failure in the load management system shut down a dozen isolated, multiply redundant systems without bringing up the backups. But I’ll tell you, it’s darned hard to believe.
Malaysian Airlines MH370 contact lost - Page 380 - PPRuNe ForumsJust when you thought you'd finally drowned it, the issue of fire just keeps on springing up
So, for the benefit of non-pilots, let's talk about fire - from the point of view of this former 747-400 commander's experience.
Cargo Fire:
The T7 is fully equipped with cargo fire detection and suppression for some 30 minutes or so (T7 drivers will fill in the number).
I've had a cargo fire warning. It rattles your eyeballs and soaks you with adrenaline. You can't ignore it. You do the drill and fire the bottles, put out a Mayday, ask for radar assistance, point the aircraft at a runway and get going down (in whichever order is appropriate, or all at once). It's just like we regularly practice in the sim. Mine turned out to be a false warning - but still......
In the position of MH370 there would have been radar assistance, a choice of runways within the fire suppression time available supported by the familiarity of being near base.
There is no way a cargo fire caused the loss of MH370, with no Mayday call, plenty of assistance available and time in hand to land.
Wheel bay fire:
If there had been a fire in the wheel bay the crew would have known about it from the sensors immediately after take-off. They would not have got as far as leaving departure control without asking for a return to land. Let's put this one to bed.
Flight-deck fire:
If a fire occurs behind a flight-deck instrument panel you know about it immediately. From experience, you smell it and see the smoke long before it takes hold. This type of fire can be difficult to deal with but there are extinguishers and axes/jemmies to hand. Oxygen masks on, Mayday, descent and diversion by the handling pilot while the other crew member(s) deal with the problem, is the response. There may be loss of some services depending on which panel is affected but at the end of the day the handling pilot can just take out the autopilot and fly the aeroplane, for which radar assistance resulting from that Mayday call is most helpful. Provided the fire is controlled to keep the smoke down and a runway is within reach there is no reason why a safe landing should not result.
For the reasons given for Cargo fire, a flight-deck fire did not cause the loss of MH370.
Electrics Compartment fire:
I've experienced smoke in the electrics bay. The compartment has a high airflow for cooling purposes and we smelt it on the flight-deck immediately, before there was any visible smoke. A quick check of the flight-deck panels, a zoom out into the cabin to check for smoke. a call to the galley-slaves to check the galley equipment - and it became immediately apparent where it must be coming from. In my case the appropriate CBs tripped themselves and the problem solved itself but in a more severe case it would be little different to the flight-deck fire case as above, except for some small extra difficulty of access (although our engineer was down there like a mole in a hole).
For the same reasons an electrics bay fire did not cause the loss of MH370.
Cabin fire:
Causes can be many. I've experienced a small furnishings fire (caused by an illegal cigarette we think). Smoke identified the source long before fire took hold. The cabin crew were on to it straight away with more extinguishers carried to the scene than I thought existed on the aircraft!
I've also had an electrical cabin fire. That was more difficult to locate as the smoke was distributed by the recirc fans. It eventually scorched a side panel revealing itself and the cabin crew pounced upon it relishing, it seemed, the opportunity to use the axe to get to it! We were already on approach by then but I'm confident that had we been in the middle of the Atlantic we would have dealt with it just as safely.
Incendiary devices:
In the cargo hold it becomes just another cargo fire, unless it is also an explosive device, in which case case the aircraft either breaks up (which we know MH370 did not do initially) or it may cause a decompression as well as a fire. In the latter case the fire suppression systems would likely be rendered inoperative or ineffective - clearly a more critical case. But pilots practice loss of cabin pressurisation drills frequently. If this had happened and the aircraft survived the initial explosion and the emergency descent they were still within range of a runway and they would have declared an emergency. Pilots do not forget to put on oxygen masks. In this case you just need a closer runway - and MH370 had one.
In the cabin, it's just a bigger fire. Trust me, the cabin crew will be there with extinguishers within seconds. There are more than enough extinguishers around.
If it is also an explosive device then we are back to the cargo hold explosion situation as above. The cabin crew may be stunned and react slowly but the flight crew will descend the aircraft and declare an emergency. There is no evidence that happened in this case.
The point I am making is that all fires on aircraft can be dealt with by the crew. There is ample equipment on board and sufficient crew members trained to use it. The problem is not in dealing with the initial fire but whether there is a runway close enough to use while the fire remains suppressed. That is what causes hull losses due to fire in flight. In the case of MH370 there was a choice of places to go and a radar controller to talk to and get help from.
there is a story from a chinese newspaper claiming that the pilot hijacked the plane, demanding the release of the imprisoned malaysian ex prime minister, and after hours of negotiations with the malaysian government who would not agree to release him, downed the plane.
given the pilots political leanings, and his precarious state of mind due to his wife and children leaving the family home that day, it is not not an impossible scenario to believe.
The damned thing was obviously commandeered/hijacked/diverted by a human agency.
Where the plane is now is anybody's guess, but it could be anywhere within a 1,200 mile radius from where it was reported on radar.
There's not much being reported about the US IT company, twenty of whos employees were on Flt MH370.
Radio-controlled flight as an option on Boeings was put in place well before the end of last century.
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"Two aspects not reported regarding the mystery are: 1) using today's electronic weaponry, a plane can seemingly "vanish," and
2) passengers aboard the missing Malaysia jet linking to contracts with the Department of Defense defense and high-tech electronic weaponry.
Today's electronic warfare (EW) capability includes weaponry that can hide planes. Electronic weaponry is not only available, it is being deployed. Is this being used to hide or "cloak" the "vanished" plane?
Cloaking technology
New electronic weapons allow jamming, blinding, deafening and more, so that a plane could possibly vanish from radar detection and security systems would not be activated. Basic radar Electronic Counter-Measure strategies used in electronic warfare (EW) are: 1) radar interference, 2) target modifications, and 3) changing electrical properties of air.
For example, a U.S. intelligence assessment described to The Daily Beast by current and former U.S. intelligence officials, concluded any Israeli attack on Iran would go far beyond fighter plane airstrikes and would likely deploy EW against Iran’s electric grid, Internet, cellphone network, and emergency frequencies for firemen and police officers.
“For example, Israel has developed a weapon capable of mimicking a maintenance cellphone signal that commands a cell network to “sleep,” effectively stopping transmissions, officials confirmed. The Israelis also have jammers capable of creating interference within Iran’s emergency frequencies for first responders.”
In a 2007, “the Syrian military got a taste of this warfare when Israeli planes ‘spoofed’ the country’s air-defense radars, at first making it appear that no jets were in the sky and then in an instant making the radar believe the sky was filled with hundreds of planes.”
Last year, it was announced that new stealth technology makes airplanes invisible not only to radar, it also renders them hidden to the human eye as well — “just like an invisibility cloak in a Hollywood sci-fi thriller,” reported Military.com.
China had just touted its work on a “cloaking” technology using a hexagonal array of glass-like panels to bend light around an object, obscuring it from view, as though hidden by an invisibility cloak. Experts confirmed that the technology was legit — and not unlike American and European projects from the past few years.
“The general public … might not hear about how far the U.S. has really come, because it is and should remain classified,” firearms expert Chris Sajnog, a former Navy SEAL, told FoxNews.com. “Other countries are still playing catch-up — but they’re closing the gap.”
Military.com stated, “But while classified work progresses, several public projects from universities and military supply companies show just how real this futuristic technology is.”
“Major arms developers such as BAE Systems readily acknowledge work on this kind of technology, such as the Adaptiv program, which aims to hide armored vehicles.”
“The U.S. military is among many who have expressed interest in Adaptiv, which could be transferred to other platforms, such as ships and helicopters,” said Mike Sweeney, a spokesman for BAE.
On the other hand, some experts dispute these new technologies can work at all.
“Invisibility cloak is a poorly chosen term,” Thomas Way, associate professor of computing science at Villanova University, wrote to FoxNews.com in an email. “Invisible to what? We already have stealth aircraft that are invisible to radar (usually), but there is absolutely no way given our current understanding of physics that something could be made invisible to the naked eye… If that’s what they are claiming, it’s a hoax.”
In Electronic Warfare jargon, however, electronic countermeasure exists. ECM is an electrical or electronic device designed to trick or deceive radar, sonar or other detection systems, like infrared (IR) or lasers.
ECM can be used offensively and defensively to deny targeting information to an enemy.
The system can “make the real target appear to disappear or move about randomly. It is used effectively to protect aircraft from guided missiles.
“Most air forces use ECM to protect their aircraft from attack. It has also been deployed by military ships and recently on some advanced tanks to fool laser/IR guided missiles. It is frequently coupled with stealth advances so that the ECM systems have an easier job. Offensive ECM often takes the form of jamming. Defensive ECM includes using blip enhancement and jamming of missile terminal homers.”
Austin-based Freescale Semiconductor (NYSE:FSL) launched a major initiative dedicated to serving RF power needs of U.S. aerospace and defense (A&D) sector. It has a team of specialists dedicated to supporting defense customers.
Freescale confirmed yesterday that of the 239 passengers on Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, 20 are employed by the leading edge electronic company: twelve from Malaysia and eight from China.
The company’s key product solutions include those for electric vehicles, as this reporter highlighted yesterday:
“Freescale Semiconductor (NYSE:FSL) is a global leader in embedded processing solutions, providing industry leading products that are advancing the automotive, consumer, industrial and networking markets,” the company says on its website and in its statement today. ”… our technologies are the foundation for the innovations that make our world greener, safer, healthier and more connected.”
Freescale says its “key applications and end-markets include: automotive safety,hybrid and all-electric vehicles, next generation wireless infrastructure, smart energy management, portable medical devices, consumer appliances and smart mobile devices. The company is based in Austin, Texas, and has design, research and development, manufacturing and sales operations around the world. Freescale Semiconductor | Embedded Processing Solutions.
Malaysia jet hidden by Electronic Weaponry? 20 EW defense-linked passengers - National Human Rights | Examiner.com
What do you call the fire in the cockpit theory then?
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"The Malaysian military tracked this plane for a full hour with military radar after it “vanished from civilian radar because “the transponders were switched off” (B.S.) radar is radar, it does not need a “transponder” to track a plane and they can eat dog poo. And Awacs would have shut down any transponder for a plane kidnapping anyway, it took no terrorist to do it.
ANYWAY, the plane did a u-turn and was “last spotted” on the other side of Malaysia. They made the mistake of saying it was “flying low” when it was still at 29,500 feet, far higher than needed to show on radar, to deceive people into believing THAT is why it “vanished” from radar. A whole bunch of lies were hatched about how it disappeared from civilian radar because “the transponder was switched off” but RADAR IS RADAR AND ONLY COMMERCIAL AIRLINERS ARE REQUIRED TO HAVE TRANSPONDERS, PRIVATE PLANES ARE NOT REQUIRED TO HAVE TRANSPONDERS. Radar is there to prevent private planes that have no transponders from hitting commercial ones among other things, and if radar can see a private plane that has no transponder it certainly can see a huge jumbo jet. So you can take the transponder lies and trash them.
But the plane DID disappear from civilian radar even though military radar tracked it for a now admitted full hour longer.
What could make a plane disappear from civilian radar while at 36,000 feet yet still be visible on military radar?
ONE THING, and it looks like a UFO (as some have speculated) only it’s attached to a boeing jet – the antenna on a U.S. Air Force AWACS plane.
The fact that this missing jet vanished from civilian radar yet remained visible on more robust military radars proves well enough for me that this indeed was an AWACS hijacking, just like we saw on 9/11 where AWACS planes were seen on video observing if not controlling the crashes into the twin towers. Once the plane flew far enough West, Awacs was obviously enough to jam both civilian and military radars, probably because they entered a zone where the angle of both incoming signals allowed for their simultaneous cancellation. That is where the plane finally “vanished” forever, an hour after the “official” vanishing act. The final vanish happened while at 29,500 feet. Though AWACS was originally released as a radar platform there are many variants of awacs type planes now that serve many types of radio oriented missions including jamming and takeover, and they all have the same antenna dome."
Malaysian Airline Missing Plane – AWACS Hijack Proven | In Pursuit of Happiness
Last edited by ENT; 27-03-2014 at 11:54 AM.
Simple question, but that's where it all gets weird. Who says the plane turned, first we are told someone entered a new flight path into the navigation computer, confirmed by ACARS, but no it didn't, last signal from ACARS, all good, on it's way to China.
Next, Malaysian military radar observed the turn and as the plane flow north west they forgot what plane it was they were watching.
Who knows what is fact and what's fiction.
Pure "Ent-asy".Originally Posted by ENT
Originally Posted by ENT
I don't think MAS B-777's carry an ECM pod and f they did, it didn't work very well since the plane was tracked but ignored by the military.Originally Posted by ENT
what on earth are you on about, cant you read?He is a pilot, he leaves his family most days for a flight. NEXT
Anything?
the marriage was over, had been for a while although they were still living together in the same house. he was in a relationship with another woman but did not want the family to be split up. On the day of the flight, or the day before, the wife and two kids left the family home and moved to live elsewhere. he was apparently distraught about it.
What happened to this theory? And were the disease scients flown to Diego Garcio? And if so why.
I like this one.
Straight out of a Ludlum novel.
The two guards of the suspicious cargo murdered to look like drug overdoses, a massive conspiracy coverup by multiple agencies of multiple countries, mad scientists flown in from all over the world, 20 High tech experts on various defense mechanisms gone missing.
This has all the hallmarks of a riveting suspense.
“If we stop testing right now we’d have very few cases, if any.” Donald J Trump.
Once was enough, when Super Kook KK posted it weeks ago.
Radar is most definitely not 'Radar'
ATC uses two radars, a Primary Radar that returns surface paints which is good to about 50 miles. This is used to track civilian aircraft which are expected to contact ATC when they come in range, or will be queried by ATC likewise.
Secondary Radar is used out to 200 odd miles and requires the use of transponders. It does not collect surface paints.
The radar hitting the plane triggers the planes transponder and the radar receives and displays the transponder information.
AWACS cannot make a plane selectively disappear. Stop saying it can.
There is no current tech that can make a plane invisible to sight. Yo can stop saying that too.
Do you have a link for that?Originally Posted by taxexile
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