Malaysia Airlines flight MH370-Updates and Discussion

sopretty

From Thrills quote:

"For further information, please contact Malaysia Airlines.


http://www.malaysiaairlines.com"


I'd nearly ring them meself at this stage!

fits

One thing I will say is companies like Boeing, rolls Royce, Inmarsat shouldn't be expected to release information to general public. Their responsibility is to their clients and the investigation, not the media.

I think the Malaysian authorities are coming in for a lot of unfair criticism too. They are absolutely right not to release info before its validated. The Vietnamese took that approach from the start and just ended up retracting the whole time.

Mountainsandh

I'm not at all into CTs, but it seems to me that if some group or an individual were smart enough to organize a plane theft, they might very well have organized a refuelling stop also, and it could now be anywhere where authorities are not too diligent of who enters their airspace. No ?

expectationlost

eatmyshorts wrote: »

From avherald.com.....

"During the press conference in the afternoon of Mar 14th 2014 Malaysia's Transport Minister provided more details about the primary radar observation stating, the target was first picked up at waypoint IGARI at FL350 (editorial note: waypoint IGARI nearly conincides with the last secondary radar position of MH-370) at 01:21L moving towards waypoint VAMPI, then waypoint GIVAL and finally turning northwest towards waypoint IGREX. The target was lost at FL295 after GIVAL at 02:15L."

The most noticeable thing to me is the fact that the target was at FL295.
Flying 500 feet off standard levels is the procedure when diverting through most track systems when not in receipt of an ATC clearance.

can you translate that into english for us plebs

adamski8

Anyone remember an tv interview with one of the pilots friends and they were talking about how great he was and him having his home flight sim etc (i dont think this is weird at all).

Then he was asked how he knew the pilot, ge said that they met through having a passion for political and activistism? It would be interesting to find out what his views were.

I always think in general that people at the top of their proffessions are so focused on their job that they usually dont have a big interest in other things. This caught my attention even though at the time i wasnt thinking anything other that a mechanical problem or pilot error

booth70

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/14/missing-malaysian-flight-mh370-india-search-andaman-islands

Military radar tracks the plane heading west towards the Andamans....

theKillerBite

adamski8 wrote: »

Anyone remember an tv interview with one of the pilots friends and they were talking about how great he was and him having his home flight sim etc (i dont think this is weird at all).

Then he was asked how he knew the pilot, ge said that they met through having a passion for political and activistism? It would be interesting to find out what his views were.

I always think in general that people at the top of their proffessions are so focused on their job that they usually dont have a big interest in other things. This caught my attention even though at the time i wasnt thinking anything other that a mechanical problem or pilot error

If you check out his Youtube page you can see he is fairly liberal and an atheist.

https://www.youtube.com/user/catalinapby1

crazygeryy

fits wrote: »

One thing I will say is companies like Boeing, rolls Royce, Inmarsat shouldn't be expected to release information to general public. Their responsibility is to their clients and the investigation, not the media.

I think the Malaysian authorities are coming in for a lot of unfair criticism too. They are absolutely right not to release info before its validated. The Vietnamese took that approach from the start and just ended up retracting the whole time.

Just curious but does their "clients "include missing passengers relatives?

fits

crazygeryy wrote: »

Just curious but does their "clients "include missing passengers relatives?

Not if releasing information at this stage (such as cargo manifest etc) would compromise the investigation, the recovery operation or the safety of the passengers if they're still alive.

D3PO

Silverbling wrote: »

I have a question

If the plane was hijacked and then ran out of fuel, would the engines just cut out like on a car so it crashed into the ocean or could a spark ignite the fumes in the empty tanks?

The engine will do whats know as a flame out and then just stop.

How far could the plane have flown on the amount of fuel that it was carrying?

6 hours after last secondary radar sighting

Edited to add is it possible to glide a large plane with no fuel so that it can land

Yes its possible. A flight from New York bound for Lisbon had both engines flame out before and managed to glide and emergency land in the Azores. Gliding for about 15 minutes before it landed. Flight number escapes me right now.

However if you mean could it glide down and touch down on water safely. Not a hope in hell.

.

DexyDrain

theKillerBite wrote: »

If you check out his Youtube page you can see he is fairly liberal and an atheist.

https://www.youtube.com/user/catalinapby1

Trying not to analyse too deeply the fact that his last 'liked' video was '5 crazy pranks to play on your friends and family'.

A Primal Nut

MuffinsDa wrote: »

If the plane was flying low over mainland Malaysia, wouldn't plenty of passengers' mobile phone pick up enough signal to make calls / send SMS to alert?

Also is it really possible to fly a big yoke like 777 over a country so low that it won't get picked up by radar? It's not exactly an agile F-16!

Not if its travelling too fast. It wouldn't have time to register on one cell before moving to the next. Cellular handovers happen at the speed of cars passing, not planes.

D3PO

expectationlost wrote: »

can you translate that into english for us plebs

basically hes saying that they have tracked "something" going on that waypoint track at FL295 which means flight level or altitude of 29500 feet 500 feet below cruising altitude.

He then points out that flying 500 feet below standard crusing altitude is what would be done to avoid air traffic in an area when not in reciept of air traffic control clearance your flying at that level to essentially avoid a mid air collision.

expectationlost

D3PO wrote: »

basically hes saying that they have tracked "something" going on that waypoint track at FL295 which means flight level or altitude of 29500 feet 500 feet below cruising altitude.

He then points out that flying 500 feet below standard crusing altitude is what would be done to avoid air traffic in an area when not in reciept of air traffic control clearance your flying at that level to essentially avoid a mid air collision.

another deliberate move, flying low knowing you won't be contacting ATC (or can't ?)

Panda_Turtle

D3PO wrote: »

However if you mean could it glide down and touch down on water safely. Not a hope in hell

What about the water landing in the Hudson?

elmolesto

Panda_Turtle wrote: »

What about the water landing in the Hudson?

That was different, it was daylight on a river, there is no hope to replicate that on the ocean at night.

Silverbling

If it is a hijack they must be rubbing their hands with glee, all that manpower, time and money being spent to locate the plane and when they are ready they can say you wasted your millions and we outsmarted the biggest nations in the world.

I hope it is a hijack and those poor people are still alive

theKillerBite

Panda_Turtle wrote: »

What about the water landing in the Hudson?

The Airbus A320 that landed in the Hudson was a narrow body jet, a wide body jet would be a disaster if it hit water.

D3PO

expectationlost wrote: »

another deliberate move, flying low knowing you won't be contacting ATC (or can't ?)

potentially thats assuming that it is infact MH370 in the first place. If it is then its easily explainable if your flying blind with no comms that would be the first thing you would be doing tbh.

D3PO

Panda_Turtle wrote: »

What about the water landing in the Hudson?

narrow body jet in the daylight and on a calm river

versus a widebody 777 in the dark in the middle of the ocean.

very very different circumstances.

A Primal Nut

jasonb wrote: »

Looking at Google Maps and some quick calculations shows the landing strip on Coco Island isn't big enough for a 777 to land on...

J.

It might not be big enough to meet safety regulations, but of course safety regulations overestimate for good reason.

But maybe it's big enough that a good pilot could be confident of landing it there (let's face it, safety probably isn't his no.1 priority if he diverted the plane).

The above could also apply to a hijacker, not necessarily the original pilots.

geneva geneva4444

If one were to assume the unlawful interference hypothesis for a moment;

I would love to know if the primary radar track was showing the unidentified aircraft flying consistently at FL295 for the duration of coverage. If so, that is of considerable significance.

In terms of the psychology of whomever was in control of the aircraft (again I'm just hypothesising here), it would lead one to assume there was an intended destination rather than a simple attempt to send the aircraft into ocean. As mentioned earlier, the use of a half level (FL295) is non-standard procedure, normally reserved for emergency situations where radar control cannot guarantee separation (eg: in oceanic airspace). Therefore, the half level would indicate an intent to remain clear of any other traffic in the airspace at the time. If it was a simple suicide mission, surely there would be no attempt to avoid other aircraft they may have crossed.

As to where then the intended destination was who knows. But assuming the initial hypothesis, there was a destination in mind and that in itself would be a significant breakthrough in my opinion.

A Primal Nut

Here is some really good technical info about picking up mobile signals in the air, transponders and ACARS:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/03/14/heres-how-we-know-mh-370-kept-flying-for-hours/

Should answer a lot of people's questions.

Colser

Just thinking aloud here...How long (or do we know) was the plane at the airport before it took off? Who has access to planes in between flights...just cleaners or is there more that needs to be done before passengers board ?I know food drink ect needs to be stocked but Im just wondering if there would be any strict monitoring really done around this as long as people looked like they were going about their daily routine? Could anyone actually board and stay there unknownst to someone?

LordSutch

Just to take things one stage further; Do we know for sure that the plane on the runway was MH370? and was it really MH370 that was tracked before it disappeared? or what about a double bluff wherby MH370 was indeed tracked, but then turned off its transponder and then carried on towards Beijing, and landed somewhere in China, but with a different identification (reason currently unknown) . . . .

Crazy ideas admittedly, but then every current hypothesis connected to this mystery (from suicide to hijacking) may be well off the mark in this Twilight Zone mystery.

Silverbling

Could 239 passengers and crew be transferred to a smaller plane?

DieselPowered

Did anyone spot this yet? There have been Flight 370's flying since the disappearance, why cancel it now?

KoolKid

LordSutch wrote: »

Just to take things one stage further; Do we know for sure that the plane on the runway was MH370? and was it really MH370 that was tracked before it disappeared? or what about a double bluff wherby MH370 was indeed tracked, but then turned off its transponder and then carried on towards Beijing, and landed somewhere in China, but with a different identification (reason currently unknown) . . . .

Crazy ideas admittedly, but then every current hypothesis connected to this mystery (from suicide to hijacking) may be well off the mark in this Twilight Zone mystery.

Time to look here
http://touch.boards.ie/forum/576

Calina

Flight has a new number; route has not been cancelled. It's not unknown.

relaxed

Silverbling wrote: »

Could 239 passengers and crew be transferred to a smaller plane?

Ryanair would be able to pack 'em in.