Malaysia Airlines flight MH370-Updates and Discussion

Thrill · 11-03-2014 02:38AM

A Hong Kong pilot has spotted large amount of debris in Vietnamese waters, said the HK Civil Aviation Department: CCTV news

http://english.cntv.cn/program/newsupdate/20140311/100836.shtml

drunkmonkey · 11-03-2014 02:51AM

A lot of passengers phones seem to be ringing....leads me to think there not very far from land within 250km.
I wouldn't rule out a hijacking that landed or if the plane is in the water it must be shallow as there's no way the phones are getting signal at the bottom of the ocean.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/missing-malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370-passengers-mobile-phones-074447403.html#xLCAKkK

CaptainSkidmark · 11-03-2014 03:01AM

This is a highly unusual situation.

Not a single idea what happened.

Not a single idea where the Aircraft is.

Peoples phones still ringing and appearing to have the calls canceled by the recipient.

Dontfadeaway · 11-03-2014 03:07AM

drunkmonkey wrote: »

A lot of passengers phones seem to be ringing....leads me to think there not very far from land within 250km.
I wouldn't rule out a hijacking that landed or if the plane is in the water it must be shallow as there's no way the phones are getting signal at the bottom of the ocean.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/missing-malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370-passengers-mobile-phones-074447403.html#xLCAKkK

It's most likely the network searching and would explain it ringing until it hangs up.

CaptainSkidmark · 11-03-2014 03:09AM

Ive never got that before ever?

Usually if its network is searching you get nothing.... no noise, even if its ringing.

wil · 11-03-2014 03:16AM

Cessna_Pilot wrote: »

I agree. He probably used it to practice emergency scenarios etc. Unfortunately this real life scenario seems to have got the better of him

a tribute page to him here showing his flight sim etc.
Other than seeming fairly ordinary (if you can call captain of a 777 ordinary) might be sensible not to comment on individuals unless hard facts are known.

A MH370 wiki page here with quite a bit of detail.
Mentions a Chinese national whose passport number was listed was not on the flight, an incorrect number may have been recorded as a different name was listed. Might explain previous queries re one Chinese national.

One very significant but old detail
"A Malaysia Airlines spokesman said on Saturday evening that the last conversation between the flight crew and air traffic control in Malaysia had been around 1.30am, but he reiterated that the plane had not disappeared from air traffic control systems in Subang until 2.40am. – March 8, 2014"

by which time it could be in Vietnam.

Haven't seen that confirmed anywhere else, but could go some way to explain the expanded search area.
Or it may have been discounted, but the expanded search area really suggests there is much undisclosed info.

Dontfadeaway · 11-03-2014 03:17AM

CaptainSkidmark wrote: »

Ive never got that before ever?

Usually if its network is searching you get nothing.... no noise, even if its ringing.

Article about it.

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/missing-jet/malaysia-airlines-passengers-phones-ringing-maybe-not-n49371

2 stroke · 11-03-2014 03:22AM

Tigerandahalf wrote: »

That is quite an interesting article. Why would the pilot have a simulator at home? It must not be a common thing. I would imagine he could try out a number of scenarios on it.

This sounds iffy to me. He could practise gliding, flying below radar and waterlandings. Could he have picked out a hiding place for a 777?

jimbis · 11-03-2014 03:24AM

I might have missed it but has any official, or anyone else for that matter explained why the search area has spread to the Malacca strait? Is it possible for a plane to fly over the land in question undetected? Surely there's is a reason they're searching there? Has it been said why?
All I know of is reports of fishermen seeing an aircraft flying at low level at Kota bharu. How true that is I don't know.

cuterob · 11-03-2014 03:32AM

2 stroke wrote: »

This sounds iffy to me. He could practise gliding, flying below radar and waterlandings. Could he have picked out a hiding place for a 777?

and somehow got all 200+ peoples mobile phones off them so they couldnt text what happened?

also water landings are not microsoft sims speciality, i think this is just gonna turn out as something mechanical or a crazy suicide co-pilot or the captain possibly was nearing retirement and about to be f**ked over by the airline, though something of that nature might have appeared by now

wil · 11-03-2014 03:33AM

jimbis wrote: »

I might have missed it but has any official, or anyone else for that matter explained why the search area has spread to the Malacca strait? Is it possible for a plane to fly over the land in question undetected? Surely there's is a reason they're searching there? Has it been said why?
All I know of is reports of fishermen seeing an aircraft flying at low level at Kota bharu. How true that is I don't know.

Malaysian military requested Indonesian navy to search there. Not clear why.

SpaceTime · 11-03-2014 03:53AM

CaptainSkidmark wrote: »

Ive never got that before ever?

Usually if its network is searching you get nothing.... no noise, even if its ringing.

That very much depends on the configuration of the local network you're calling from. (I know a fair bit about this stuff and I'm not just surmising).

Some setups will present a ringing tone while the call is being routed. So, you'll get a couple of seconds of the ring tone followed by either voicemail, or an error message, engaged tone or if the phone were really ringing it will just keep ringing.

Even here in Ireland on certain networks you may get one or two rings before the call's routed to voicemail. That doesn't mean that the handset has been ringing, just that the network has for whatever reason decided to present you with a ringing tone.

You also get it sometimes before wrong number / error announcements on some setups here too.

And as I was saying in a previous post, many networks around the world use the ringing tone as a 'routing tone' or 'comfort tone' as long periods of silence may be confusing. Ireland actually has a specific tone of that (rarely used nowadays) but the network can present this 'bebebebebebe' tone which means 'please wait.. I'm doing something!'

To make it even more complicated, in countries that use the European standard ring tone (the long, flat continental tone which we don't use), GSM mobile phones often generate that tone themselves as it saves battery power and bandwidth.

So, when you make a call, the phone doesn't actually open a voice channel at all until the call connects. Instead the network will send a signalling message back saying "ringing" and the handset itself plays out a tone. You'll see this if you ever live on the continent as your phone will actually display "RINGING" on the screen too which it generally doesn't here as we rely on the network generating our weird ringing tone instead, so there's actually a voice channel open and audio being sent (wasting our battery and tying up radio spectrum unnecessarily)

In Ireland, that only happens for busy / wrong number.

In short, from what I've seen online, that's all that's happening with the 'ringing phones'. Saw a YouTube clip and it appeared to be just 1 ring.
That was happening in China.

When Malaysian Airlines staff tried to call from Malaysia they got no such tones. So, I can only assume the Chinese networks present a ring tone to let you know the call's being routed which is what's causing people to think that they're getting through to relatives.

Remember, people will be grasping at straws at this stage too. It's a very sad situation and nobody want's to believe that their loved ones have almost certainly died.

A Primal Nut · 11-03-2014 03:53AM

drunkmonkey wrote: »

A lot of passengers phones seem to be ringing....leads me to think there not very far from land within 250km.
I wouldn't rule out a hijacking that landed or if the plane is in the water it must be shallow as there's no way the phones are getting signal at the bottom of the ocean.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/missing-malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370-passengers-mobile-phones-074447403.html#xLCAKkK

If the phones are ringing the telecom companies should be easily able to find the location through trangulation. Or at least which cell it is connected to. It's pretty basic for any telecom operator as the phone has to be registered on a network.

Personally I don't think the phones are on the plane and still on, but at least they can rule it out.

A Primal Nut · 11-03-2014 03:57AM

Was reading that Vietnamese officials believe the plane may never be found.

Has there ever be an example of that before. Where a commercial passenger plane was just never found?

I know there are rumours from the bermuda triangle but is it confirmed that a commercial passenger plane has disappeared before and never found?

2 stroke · 11-03-2014 03:58AM

I just drew a rough line from Kota bharu through the Malacca strait. Where could a plane be heading with 6 hours of fuel, and did someone mention Iranians?

CaptainSkidmark · 11-03-2014 03:58AM

FYI In Israel they have music instead of a tone!

SpaceTime · 11-03-2014 04:02AM

CaptainSkidmark wrote: »

FYI In Israel they have music instead of a tone!

A lot of mobile networks in Asia let you personalise the network ringing tone too which apparently can add even more complications to what they're possibly being presented with too as there's a personalised ring tone server sitting in the mix between the network switching system and what people are hearing.

For whatever reason, that never took off in Europe or the US to any extent. There may be regulatory issues around it or something i.e. a ring has to be a ring.

SpaceTime · 11-03-2014 04:06AM

A Primal Nut wrote: »

Was reading that Vietnamese officials believe the plane may never be found.

Has there ever be an example of that before. Where a commercial passenger plane was just never found?

I know there are rumours from the bermuda triangle but is it confirmed that a commercial passenger plane has disappeared before and never found?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aerial_disappearances

Relatively unlikely. They'll find it eventually!

Thrill · 11-03-2014 04:09AM

Malaysia investigating 5 people who checked in to fly on flight MH370, but didn't show up at gate

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304020104579430813560058226?mod=e2tw

wsj. sub required.

Ahhhhh its grand · 11-03-2014 04:16AM

SpaceTime wrote: »

A lot of mobile networks in Asia let you personalise the network ringing tone too which apparently can add even more complications to what they're possibly being presented with too as there's a personalised ring tone server sitting in the mix between the network switching system and what people are hearing.

For whatever reason, that never took off in Europe or the US to any extent. There may be regulatory issues around it or something i.e. a ring has to be a ring.

Very true. I live in China, and when I ring one of my friends here I don't hear a dial tone, I hear music instead. Only happens when I ring her phone, nobody else. Was quite confusing at first.

SpaceTime · 11-03-2014 04:19AM

Sounds like China's becoming a bit frustrated with the pace of the search. Hopefully, it might mean they plough in some more resources.

CNN International wrote:

China called on Malaysia to pick up the pace in its search, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
"We hope Malaysia can fully understand China, especially the mood of the Chinese passengers' families and speed up investigation, search and rescue efforts," Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang told reporters, according to Xinhua.

fits · 11-03-2014 07:01AM

Half way through day four of search and still no sign. Unreal. So tough for the families.

This thread is going round in circles on no information so I think ill bow out until something happens.

irishgeo · 11-03-2014 07:09AM

Nobody seems to mentioning the sonar ping the black boxes are making. No word on if any of the ships have the correct gear to listen for it.

It's not like the aer France plane as that water was miles deep.

Also didn't the plane land on the Hudson and sink. I didn't see any debris on the river. Well apart from the lifeboats but that captain knew he was going to land on water.

It's pretty clear that confusion about error messages and warnings in the cockpit, have led to many crashes. From stalls to planes running out of fuel. So perhaps the pilots didn't warn the passengers about the crash landing and its sunk straight away.

The other theory I have is its had a Radar problem and could have crashed on land. Some of the radar rely on the plane to reply to know where it is even on land. 9 11 proved you can fly around on land in the most tooled up country in the world and no one knew where them planes were not even the military.

irishmover · 11-03-2014 07:23AM

irishgeo wrote: »

Nobody seems to mentioning the sonar ping the black boxes are making. No word on if any of the ships have the correct gear to listen for it.

It was discussed yesterday. The beacon has a 1.8km-3km range depending on conditions so the ships will need to be relatively close to the box in order to get a signal.

fits · 11-03-2014 07:58AM

There was an earlier announcement saying conferences postponed indefinitely, but another conference has just been announced... source mark stone sky news on twitter.... may or may not be something.

Edit: no news

markpb · 11-03-2014 08:25AM

irishgeo wrote: »

9 11 proved you can fly around on land in the most tooled up country in the world and no one knew where them planes were not even the military.

I'm not sure that's quite true. No one knew what their intentions were but I'm fairly sure everyone knew where they were.

irishmover · 11-03-2014 09:07AM

One of the people with stolen passport was a 19 year old man from Iran.

No links at all to any terrorism organisations and believed to be trying to emigrate to Europe. Heard rumours about this before now but authorities confirming it.

Act of terrorism is definitely starting to lose weight.

roundymac · 11-03-2014 10:12AM

irishmover wrote: »

One of the people with stolen passport was a 19 year old man from Iran.

No links at all to any terrorism organisations and believed to be trying to emigrate to Europe. Heard rumours about this before now but authorities confirming it.

Act of terrorism is definitely starting to lose weight.

His mother reported him missing acording to the BBC news, at 8.30am.

brandon_flowers · 11-03-2014 10:17AM

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-26525281

Certainly both of these guys could pass as Europeans.

Edit: And they don't look like Mario Balotelli.

fits · 11-03-2014 10:24AM

Sad. Can't blame anyone for trying to get out of Iran. One place I would love to visit but not a comfortable place to live for politically socially more liberal folk, of which there are lots.

Malaysia Airlines flight MH370-Updates and Discussion

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