Malaysia Airlines flight MH370-Updates and Discussion

Wetbench4 · 20-03-2014 10:39AM

So if this is the wreckage, does this mean that the flight had its course changed again after the transponder was switched off??

Is it possible in this day and age for a plane to have a catastrophic electrical system failure and get lost? Is the fly by wire system separate to the other important systems on board?

I'm sorry if these questions have been already answered on this thread.

SEPT 23 1989 · 20-03-2014 10:41AM

excuse my ignorance but is a 80 foot piece of plane left intact not huge for a high impact crash into the sea?

Wetbench4 · 20-03-2014 10:43AM

SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »

excuse my ignorance but is a 80 foot piece of plane left intact not huge for a high impact crash into the sea?

Maybe it nose dived and the wings broke off? Non-expert here by the way so i'm probably way off.

homerjay2005 · 20-03-2014 10:45AM

SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »

excuse my ignorance but is a 80 foot piece of plane left intact not huge for a high impact crash into the sea?

not really...the tail of the AF plane in 2009 was pretty intact and 24m isnt a huge span to be honest.

fits · 20-03-2014 10:51AM

Had a look at the video on guardian website and am more convinced now that this could be significant find.

homerjay2005 · 20-03-2014 10:55AM

Happyman42 wrote: »

I wonder was the 'other country' with radar data, Australia? Hope for the families this is it, would just be devastating for another false alarm.

well i am pretty sure the families are hoping that its a false alarm and they are found alive and well on land somewhere. unlikely i know, but still..

Happyman42 · 20-03-2014 11:04AM

homerjay2005 wrote: »

well i am pretty sure the families are hoping that its a false alarm and they are found alive and well on land somewhere. unlikely i know, but still..

Of course. I phrased that wrong.
Having been closely involved in a long running search for a person, the constant hope and then dashing of hope tore the family in shreds. It was extra hard on them when the eventual outcome was the worst one.

PlanIT Computing · 20-03-2014 11:04AM

That little lump in the throat has gotten tighter this morning ..

Happyman42 · 20-03-2014 11:06AM

fits wrote: »

Had a look at the video on guardian website and am more convinced now that this could be significant find.

Link here, would be of the same opinion, looks like they are responding based on fairly good assessments of what is there.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/20/mh370-two-possible-objects-may-have-been-found-in-australian-search-zone

K.Flyer · 20-03-2014 11:07AM

RTE Website now has an article on the find with this image..

Happyman42 · 20-03-2014 11:10AM

Journalist on RTE saying that aircraft in the area are getting radar hits from a large object under water.

MuffinsDa · 20-03-2014 11:17AM

Silly question, did the plane even have enough fuel to get to that area?
I thought it could only reach Northern coast of Australia (but admittedly this is quite a bit to the west of Australia)

fryup · 20-03-2014 11:24AM

^^^the debri could have got there by the ocean current

A Primal Nut · 20-03-2014 11:24AM

MuffinsDa wrote: »

Silly question, did the plane even have enough fuel to get to that area?
I thought it could only reach Northern coast of Australia (but admittedly this is quite a bit to the west of Australia)

Well of course there are too many variables to say exactly how far it can go. But given that it was originally due to fly to Beijing, add a couple of extra hours in reserve, then the suggested location seems about right.

ninebeanrows · 20-03-2014 11:25AM

MuffinsDa wrote: »

Silly question, did the plane even have enough fuel to get to that area?
I thought it could only reach Northern coast of Australia (but admittedly this is quite a bit to the west of Australia)

I think the end of the yellow arrowhead lines (image on previous page) indicate the estimated maximum flight distance of the aircraft hence why this find is so significant .

LordSutch · 20-03-2014 11:44AM

Some confusion as to when those satellite pictures appeared. They have 16-03-14 on them, yet the Malaysian say they only appeared today?
Maybe its just a time lag, but its another fuzzy bit of info to add to all the other fuzzy data which has been drip fed to the relatives & the media.

Looks like they've found it this time, with eighteen ships from several countries on the way, and multiple aircraft too. I think an Australian merchant ship is expected to be the 1st on the scene today.

sopretty · 20-03-2014 11:48AM

LordSutch wrote: »

Some confusion as to when those satellite pictures appeared. They have 16-03-14 on them, yet the Malaysian say they only appeared today?
Maybe its just a time lag, but its another fuzzy bit of info to add to all the other fuzzy info which has been drip fed to the relatives & the media.

I'd say they were taken by the satellite on the 16th, but a human probably still has to trawl through the images collected, which wouldn't be instantaneous?
Also, they had the images examined by some geo-spatial agency too, for credibility. That would have taken time also.

Happyman42 · 20-03-2014 11:52AM

LordSutch wrote: »

Some confusion as to when those satellite pictures appeared. They have 16-03-14 on them, yet the Malaysian say they only appeared today?
Maybe its just a time lag, but its another fuzzy bit of info to add to all the other fuzzy data which has been drip fed to the relatives & the media.

Looks like they've found it this time, with eighteen ships from several countries on the way, and multiple aircraft too. I think an Australian merchant ship is expected to be the 1st on the scene today.

Malaysian minister said 'today' but was corrected by Transport minister. They received the news about them today, it seems. Aussies did preliminary investigations with experts first.

Tzardine · 20-03-2014 11:53AM

A friend on Facebook said that God raptured them all and made the plane invisible and no amount of searching or science will help.

.......... and then I clicked the unfriend button.

I hope that the items found off Australia turn out to be the wreckage so the relatives can get some closure as to where the plane is and then a proper investigation can begin.

homerjay2005 · 20-03-2014 11:59AM

a ship has arrived in the area now, so we should have news one way or another in the next few hours.

surely though planes would be able to see this at low altitude what they objects are?

irishmover · 20-03-2014 12:01PM

homerjay2005 wrote: »

a ship has arrived in the area now, so we should have news one way or another in the next few hours.

surely though planes would be able to see this at low altitude what they objects are?

Limited visibility (rain and low cloud) and it's getting dark. Radar would be only use on planes right now.

SpaceTime · 20-03-2014 12:04PM

It sounds like they're using better equipment. What I'd seen to-date was the RMAF looking for items visually.

Flippyfloppy · 20-03-2014 12:05PM

Apologies for asking a novice question, but does the black box remain with the plane or does it detach? If the plane remained mostly in tact would it be easier to retrieve the black box?

Just wondering due to reports of something large being picked up by radar.

MuffinsDa · 20-03-2014 12:05PM

P-8 found nothing!

A US search flight over the Indian Ocean has drawn a blank, according to Fox News and ABC.

US Navy says P-8 Poseidon aircraft completed 10-hour search mission over Indian Ocean and found nothing http://t.co/ElDTwNu4Cm #MH370

— Fox News (@FoxNews) March 20, 2014
US P-8 "spotter" lands back at Perth after searching for possible debris from #MH370. No objects seen says @WrightUps. Full report @GMA

— Jon Williams (@WilliamsJon) March 20, 2014

fits · 20-03-2014 12:07PM

irishmover wrote: »

Limited visibility (rain and low cloud) and it's getting dark. Radar would be only use on planes right now.

its 7pm in Perth and this location is a long way west of that so should be another bit of daylight yet.

SpaceTime · 20-03-2014 12:07PM

As far as I am aware, it's usually in the tail section of most aircraft.

It's contained in the aircraft itself, so finding it relatively intact would make retrieval a lot easier.

Basically it's a very, very, very robust orange box. It's not actually black at all.

irishmover · 20-03-2014 12:08PM

fits wrote: »

its 7pm in Perth and this location is a long way west of that so should be another bit of daylight yet.

Ah you fixed it! There's only about an hour of daylight left.

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/sunearth.html

MuffinsDa · 20-03-2014 12:18PM

I'd say if the P-8 with all the equipment couldn't spot anything and returned empty handed, it would be unlikely for a merchant vessel to find it. But you never know.

Flippyfloppy · 20-03-2014 12:19PM

SpaceTime wrote: »

As far as I am aware, it's usually in the tail section of most aircraft.

It's contained in the aircraft itself, so finding it relatively intact would make retrieval a lot easier.

Basically it's a very, very, very robust orange box. It's not actually black at all.

Here's hoping it has remained with the body of the aircraft, if this is indeed the aircraft.

Hyzepher · 20-03-2014 12:40PM

I still find it very hard to believe that an incident occurred on the plane that caused a total blackout in terms of communication, allowed the crew to set a different course, then somehow incapacitated the crew yet allowed the plane to fly on for hours - undamaged - until it ran out of fuel.

The only thing that would remotely make sense is for some type of toxic smoke that originated from a fire etc that didn't damage the integrity of the plane. I find it unlikely for that to be true for a full 10hrs of flight time

Malaysia Airlines flight MH370-Updates and Discussion

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