[FatBoy]

An interesting event in the South China Sea.  It will be interesting to find out what actually happened (if we ever will).

Malaysia Airlines plane missing: Oil slicks spotted, Australians on board amid

[Surferdude]

An interesting event in the South China Sea.  It will be interesting to find out what actually happened (if we ever will).

Malaysia Airlines plane missing: Oil slicks spotted, Australians on board amid

ABC radio news at 6am today mentioned that it had been confirmed two European men (from different countries) who were listed as on the plane, were in fact, safe at home and not travelling anywhere.
Each had his passport stolen in SE Asia in recent years.

Now THAT'S interesting.

[FatBoy]

One of the interesting possibilities.  Apparently the FBI are providing assistance to the Malaysian authorities.

I'll bet the two people with the stolen passports were surprised to hear that they were missing, suspected dead.

[Eureka]

I'll watch for this on Air Crash Investigations.

[Dazzler]

Somehow I think I would prefer it to be Pilot error or mechanical failure than terrorism!

Is that a strange attitude or fairly normal? 

[Phil №❶]

Doesn't matter what the cause, it's tragic. Where is the debris. There are a lot of things that don't add up here.

Given GPS and sophisticated radar tracking etc, they should have known where to commence searching and I've never heard of a plane disintegrating at high altitude and not leaving a very wide trail of floating debris. Even the bodies would surface after a few hours.

I have no proof of course, but was there a stray rocket lurking from somewhere and it there a cover up.

No matter who they were, it's not a nice way to go.  for them and their remaining families.

[Eureka]

Only very slightly off topic ... was it mentioned on this forum(?): a couple of weeks ago there was a flight (from Oz, I think) to Dubai (?) with a stop in Singapore (?) and someone lit three fires in the toilet.   

[Hati]

Given GPS and sophisticated radar tracking etc, they should have known where to commence searching

Commercial flights are tracked by transponders only, they don't "light up" aircraft like military radars do. The blips on air traffic control radars are the transmissions from commercial transponders stating flight information and aircraft ID. Not the reflected radar image. If you turn off the transponder, the blip will just  fall off air traffic control radars.


On the other hand if the neighbouring military was looking in that direction with their radars...

[Phil №❶]

@Hati,

I expect to have my ADS-B receiver delivered soon and linked to flightradar24, so the coordinates of the plane's position just before it's disappearance should be known. There is a flight track showing the termination of the flight in question on FR24, but I don't know if the signal loss is from out of range or ????

[FatBoy]

The search area will be massive!!  Some of the things to consider are:
what happened (mid air explosion, deliberate pilot action, shot down) which won't be determined until the wreckage is found;
the altitude it happened at;
any currents; and
was the last reported ADS-B position the actual last position of the aircraft before the event.

For those that have never been for a search over the ocean, the sea is unbelievably massive.  It would be like looking for a coin in your yard while standing on the roof of your neighbours house.  You basically need to know exactly where the aircraft hit the water to begin looking for it.  They have not detected an emergency beacon as yet, which should be transmitting regardless.

[Phil №❶]

Understood, Fatboy, but I don't remember such a long time to find any hard evidence. There have been other sea crashes. Why aren't the black boxes transmitting 

[FatBoy]

Remember how long it took to find the Air France Airbus? Over one year. I agree about the ELT. It should be transmitting, unless it has been destroyed too.

[Phil №❶]

No, I don't remember this one.

I thought ground engineers got the same telemetry from the plane. They did in the case of r the Qantas A380 incident.

[FatBoy]

Here is the story of the Air France Airbus (Flight 447 - Airbus A330).  It wasn't located for two years after the event.

Air France Flight 447 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As for the telemetry of the A380.  That aircraft was still flying, and therefore able to transmit the engineering data.  The engineers will never receive the information from the "black box" or the Flight Data Recorder.  That is protected information, and can only be accessed by accident investigation teams.  From memory, the information contained in the FDR can not be used as evidence in a court, only for accident investigation.

[Hati]

The 777 i quite an old plane, I would be surprised if it had "ET phone home" built in. I remember watching the A380 story and one of the things they made a big deal of is this feature, that, from the explanation, seemed like a new thing.


My point re transponder was that if the plane had a power failure that shut down the transponder, it could have travelled quite a distance after it dropped off the air traffic control radar. So, modern radars and GPS notwithstanding, unless some military radar was looking in the right direction, the last position known could be meaningless.

[Phil №❶]

Fair point, Hati. 

[Dazzler]

Missing MH370 last contact times revised to much earlier | Plane Talking

Getting closer to locating it by the look of this!

[FatBoy]

I just saw on the ABC that the search area has been expanded!! 

[Just Rick]

All suspicions,All speculations,All put aside,this is still a tragedy.whether there was 1 or 1000 on the plane

[beerman]

Air Crash Investigation S12E13 Air France Flight 447 Crash. - YouTube

[eye30]

So where is it?


Seems very odd that now after some 6 days that no wreckage etc has been found.

Remember the TV programme LOST.

Wonder if this plane has gone the same way............

[beerman]

Yes, it surprises me that a plane can disappear without a trace.

[FatBoy]

The ocean is very, very big.  It takes a lot of assets to cover even a small search area.  The area they need to search expands daily, and the chance of finding something decreases daily.

[Phil №❶]

What about this extra engine time as logged by RR in the UK. Surely, they are telling the truth.

1+1=3 in this case.

[Dazzler]

I am still hoping for some miracle they are alive.. extremely unlikely, but not impossible if they came down on land...

Make for a great story too!

[The Gonz]

The process is search / rescue / investigate in that order. Sadly the longer it takes to get through the earlier stages, the more speculation will grow.

I'm braced to provide official comment if and when the cause is determined to be at all related to a mistaken identification and missile strike. However, to come out now on the possibility and add to all the armchair speculation is downright irresponsible and insensitive. My briefing at the EW conference in KL occurred with this search as backdrop - quite a context given my surveillance / intercept related topic!

[eye30]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-26583342

Lost Malaysia plane 'may have flown on for five hours'

It is believed the plane was sending automated signals to a satellite system long after radar contact was lost.

This would mean the jet could have flown more than 1,600km (1,000 miles) beyond its last confirmed position.

[Dazzler]

Yes that was on the news here too.. Makes finding the plane and finding out what happened very much harder to say the least!! 

[Phil №❶]

Like I said, something doesn't add up.

The latest data shows that the plane could have traveled along 2 routes for some hours. Now, it seems that this was known a week ago, but only released publicly yesterday, so all participating countries have been wasting resources and searching for a non existent plane in the wrong place.

Here's a link I'm following, regarding this topic.

Breaking news on Malaysia Airlines flight missing, March 2014 - breakingnews.com

[The Gonz]

Just speculating here on a tangent but I wonder how many copies of Flightradar24 have been downloaded during this period. Now there's you true conspiracy lead!