Strange Plane Disappearance...

[Gob]

Try this BigRR

Kuala Lumpur: The final words from the cockpit of a missing Malaysian jetliner gave no clue of anything wrong even though one of the plane's communications systems was disabled, officials say.

The finding, they say, adds to suspicions one or both of the pilots were involved in the disappearance.

Authorities have said someone on board the plane first disabled one of its communications systems - the Aircraft and Communications Addressing and Reporting System or ACARS - at 1.07am.

About 14 minutes later, the transponder, which identifies the plane to commercial radar systems, was also shut down.

The fact they went dark separately is strong evidence the plane's disappearance was deliberate.

On Sunday, Malaysian Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said the final words from the cockpit - "All right, good night" - were spoken to air traffic controllers after the ACARS system went off.

Whoever spoke did not mention any trouble on board, seemingly misleading ground control.

Air force Major General Affendi Buang told reporters he did not know whether it was the voice of the pilot or co-pilot.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/missing-mal ... z2w9u5rv7X

There are three pieces of evidence that aviation safety experts say make it clear the missing Malaysia Airlines jet was taken over by someone who was knowledgeable about how the plane worked.

Transponder


One clue is that the plane's transponder - a signal system that identifies the plane to radar - was shut off about an hour into the flight.

In order to do that, someone in the cockpit would have to turn a knob with multiple selections to the off position while pressing down at the same time, said John Goglia, a former member of the National Transportation Safety Board. That's something a pilot would know how to do, but it could also be learned by someone who researched the plane on the Internet, he said.

ACARS

Another clue is that part of the Boeing 777's Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) was shut off.

The system, which has two parts, is used to send short messages via a satellite or VHF radio to the airline's home base. The information part of the system was shut down, but not the transmission part. In most planes, the information part of the system can be shut down by hitting cockpit switches in sequence in order to get to a computer screen where an option must be selected using a keypad, said Mr Goglia, an expert on aircraft maintenance.

That's also something a pilot would know how to do, but that could also be discovered through research, he said.

But to turn off the other part of the ACARS, it would be necessary to go to an electronics bay beneath the cockpit. That's something a pilot wouldn't normally know how to do, Mr Goglia said, and it wasn't done in the case of the Malaysia plane. Thus, the ACARS transmitter continued to send out blips that were recorded by the Inmarsat satellite once an hour for four to five hours after the transponder was turned off. The blips don't contain any messages or data, but the satellite can tell in a very broad way what region the blips are coming from and adjusts the angle of its antenna to be ready to receive message in case the ACARS sends them. Investigators are now trying to use data from the satellite to identify the region where the plane was when its last blip was sent.

Guided flight

The third indication is that that after the transponder was turned off and civilian radar lost track of the plane, Malaysian military radar was able to continue to track the plane as it turned west.

The plane was then tracked along a known flight route across the peninsula until it was several hundred kilometres offshore and beyond the range of military radar. Airliners normally fly from waypoint to waypoint where they can be seen by air traffic controllers who space them out so they don't collide. These lanes in the sky aren't straight lines. In order to follow that course, someone had to be guiding the plane, Mr Goglia said.

Mr Goglia said he is very sceptical of reports the plane was flying erratically while it was being tracked by military radar, including steep ascents to very high altitudes and then sudden, rapid descents. Without a transponder signal, the ability to track planes isn't reliable at very high altitudes or with sudden shifts in altitude, he said.

AP

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/missing-mal ... z2w9vYY8Qc

[Big RR]

Gob--I do think there is evidence one or more crew members may have been involved; my question to RayThom is why he believes it was the copilot as opposed to any other crew member. I haven't heard anything that indicates the copilot had some sort of mental or emotional problems.

[Lord Jim]

As speculation grows that there may be a slim chance Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 landed somewhere after it suddenly disappeared from radars, WNYC published a map to illustrate all the possible runways that could have been used. The WNYC Data News team used information from X-Plane that provides runway coordinates from around the world to determine all the possible spots that could be available for the plane to land within 2,200 nautical miles, considering a Boeing 777 would need a runway of at least 5,000 feet.

There are a total of 634 runways that fit the criteria, spread out across 26 countries. But of course the number of places the plane could have landed is much larger as it assumes the plane used a formal runway in the first place. Slate’s Jeff Wise spoke to a pilot who flies 777-200s who said the plane could be landed on a highway. “A runway wouldn’t even necessarily have to be paved,” wrote Wise, “hard-packed dirt would likely be good enough.”

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/ ... anded.html

[rubato]

If you wanted to put explosives on a plane (in addition to the thousands of gallons of kerosine jet fuel) you would be better off in Europe again where there are a lot of sources of explosives and the things to make them from; most of the biggest chemical companies in the world are in Europe.

But if you wanted to put the plane on the ground non-destructively the Maldives would be an attractive option. All of the routes across Asia are non-starters. India and Pakistan are both nuclear powers with capable militaries; paranoid, edgy and in the habit of shooting, the remaining route crosses China which would certainly shoot the plane down so that's just off the chart.

Bill Clinton knew where all of the Al Qaeda sites in Afghanistan were back in the 1990s which is how he bombed them with cruise missiles. The Al Qaeda sites are tiny compared to a runway for a 777.

But the Maldives are a possibility for a landing site. More than 1,000 islands. All very low and very flat. The highest point in the whole place is 8ft above sea level. Many ringed by beaches which are wide and very open. I don't know if the surface is hard enough for either a completely non-destructive landing or a takeoff. You could more likely get a plane down than get it back up again.

But the greatest chance is that they drilled it into the ocean.

I'm voting for either pilot or co-pilot took over the plane for reasons of their own. They may have disabled the life-support systems so that the passengers and crew all asphyxiated in a few seconds and maybe one of them (pilot or co-pilot) even killed the other that way. If the cabin was exposed to the air pressure and partial O2 pressure at flight altitude you would not remain conscious for much more than 30s.

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[rubato]

P.S. I would not research if a pilot can disable the cabin air system and if I did I would not publish the results here, or anywhere else.


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[Gob]

The Mary Celeste of the century? (So far.)

[Jarlaxle]

I have a gut feeling the copilot wasn't as mentally sound as friends and family say he is/was.

What makes you say that; I haven't seen anything that remotely suggests any kind of mental instability (have you heard any such reports?).

I heard one of the pilots was having serious financial problems and was basically penniless and a few days away from losing everything.

[rubato]

In that case (the Mary Celeste) the mystery was because the ship had been discovered with no one on board. Not because it vanished. There are a lot more 'vanished' ships to contend with.



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[Crackpot]

I'm for the "Donnie Darko" theory.

[Lord Jim]

I have what seems like a pretty basic question:

What legitimate reason could there possibly ever be for a commercial jet liner to have its transponder turned off?

Maybe there is one, but I can't think of it...

And if there isn't a legitimate reason, then why do pilots have the access to do it?

[RayThom]

RayThom sez: I have a gut feeling the copilot wasn't as mentally sound as friends and family say he is/was.

What makes you say that; I haven't seen anything that remotely suggests any kind of mental instability (have you heard any such reports?).

... but what isn't said. And for me, in this instance, it's more about feeling than it is about the cognitive process. All this intellectualizing and speculation is fine but it fails to recognize the intangible emotional component. Everyone is so busy making noise they're missing the all-important silence. And to me, that silence speaks volumes. Don't get me wrong -- I'm not big on metaphysics -- I just often see (in my mind's eye) what others do not.

Now, I'm just going to sit back and wait until the group under the big top comes out with something definitive. Any day now... any day. Come back then and we'll discuss.

[Joe Guy]

I have what seems like a pretty basic question:

What legitimate reason could there possibly ever be for a commercial jet liner to have its transponder turned off?

Maybe there is one, but I can't think of it...

And if there isn't a legitimate reason, then why do pilots have the access to do it?

In order to repair it? I'm sure it would need to be turned off if it stopped working or was faulty and some work needed to be done on it. That's the only reason I could think of...

[Gob]

Landing sites: The red dots show all the places MH370 could have landed within the search area

[dgs49]

Doesn't the available fuel cut this down dramatically? My first thought was Somalia, but I was under the impression there was insufficient fuel to get there.

[Jarlaxle]

I have what seems like a pretty basic question:

What legitimate reason could there possibly ever be for a commercial jet liner to have its transponder turned off?

Maybe there is one, but I can't think of it...

And if there isn't a legitimate reason, then why do pilots have the access to do it?

They NEED access to the breakers in case of a short. Also, they are turned off on the ground.

[Big RR]

I have what seems like a pretty basic question:

What legitimate reason could there possibly ever be for a commercial jet liner to have its transponder turned off?

Maybe there is one, but I can't think of it...

And if there isn't a legitimate reason, then why do pilots have the access to do it?

I imagine if it were malfunctioning, it might have to be turned off or it could be an interference to other air navigation. And like a lot of electronics, there may have to be a time when you have to turn it off and reboot. Other possibilities like overheating, shorts, and fires might also require the pilots have access to it.

Likewise, I'm not certain what information the transponder transmits; if it includes the flight number (which I think it does), the pilots may have to program that numberin at the beginning of the flight and any time there is a problem.

Slate’s Jeff Wise spoke to a pilot who flies 777-200s who said the plane could be landed on a highway. “A runway wouldn’t even necessarily have to be paved,” wrote Wise, “hard-packed dirt would likely be good enough.”

I heard a pilot on NPR saying a long paved runway would be necessary for landing due to the weight of the 777.

I imagine it could land on a highway, but it would have to be a pretty wide and straight one free of obstructions (like telephone polls). When I was consulting for Aramco in Saudi Arabia in the early 80s, most of the compounds had a very wide (6 lanes) main street that ran for 2-3 miles straight and had telephone polls that could be easily snapped off and collapse to allow for the landing and taking off of large passenger planes if needed for evacuation.

[Jarlaxle]

A 777's landing gear is a bit past 75' wide...thaT would need to be a REALLY wide highway!

[Econoline]

A plausible theory as to how MH370 could have passed through Indian and Pakistani airspace undetected.

[Long Run]

Why is there a transponder switch in the first place? Until recently, transponders had to be off when a plane was on the ground, to avoid sending signals that disrupted airport radar. The designs for some private aircraft — but not yet the large commercial planes — deal with this by using automated transponders that turn on when the planes become airborne, then turn off when they slow to taxi speed.

Lately, major airports have installed ground-scanning radars that don’t get confused by transponders on taxiways. Large jetliners like the 777 typically operate from such airports, and when they do, they never have a reason to switch the transponder off.

The transponder’s off switch is a vestige of an earlier era, before reliable chip-based electronics. Older model transponders sometimes sent out spurious altitude readings. “Air traffic control would call and tell you to ‘cycle’ the transponder,” meaning switch it off and then back on in a reset sequence, noted Patrick Smith, a veteran pilot and the author of the 2012 book about air travel, “Cockpit Confidential.”

In case cycling does not correct the fault, all jetliners have backup transponders. Flight 370 had a backup transponder — but as with most such units, someone in the cockpit must switch the backup on. No one did that on Flight 370.

The solution is a location-broadcasting system that the flight crew cannot switch off. Over the next few years, much of the world plans to adopt an aviation tracking standard called ADS-B, which should make it harder for a plane to stop reporting its position. Automated transponders should be part of that transition.

Of course, automation of complex systems can have unintended consequences. But most of the flight time of modern jetliners occurs on autopilot — every day, millions of lives worldwide are in the hands of autopilots for extended periods. If automation can be trusted to fly the entire plane, why can’t it be trusted to keep the transponders in the correct setting?

Autopilots can be turned off, because a malfunctioning autopilot may cause a crash. A malfunctioning transponder might broadcast flawed data, which is a concern. But a switched-off transponder can spell doom.

Five of the last 10 major air disasters — the four 9/11 flights, and Flight 370 — began with the transponder’s being switched off. A few design changes can make that impossible.

Gregg Easterbrook, a contributing editor at The Atlantic, wrote the chapter on aviation security for the book “How Did This Happen? Terrorism and the New War.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/18/opini ... .html?_r=0

[rubato]

A plausible theory as to how MH370 could have passed through Indian and Pakistani airspace undetected.

The interesting thing about that theory is that, while there are a lot of difficulties with it, it does provide an interesting motive for someone who is a real obsessive about flying, like the pilot. It is the kind of thing he might see as a challenge. He might ask "could I do that?" and become very wrapped up in speculating about it. A deeply technical question. But he would also have to be far over on the scale of 'anti-social personality disorder' to act on it.


The technical problems are: How close would the planes have to be to appear as one? How would he connect with the other flight and not be detected? He would have to approach from behind and so would have to have a very accurate position on the other plane. Did he plan this in advance? How? And then at the end he would have to separate from the other plane's flight path and still not be detected.


Still very implausible but it provides a potential motive.

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