Airliner missing between Malaysia and Cambodia/Vietnam, terrorism possible

[Dayuhan]

WSJ has now issued a correction to the previous link... same link as above, but at the bottom of the page:

U.S. investigators suspect Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 flew for hours past the time it reached its last confirmed location, based on an analysis of signals sent through the plane's satellite-communication link designed to automatically transmit the status of onboard systems, according to people familiar with the matter. An earlier version of this article and an accompanying graphic incorrectly said investigators based their suspicions on signals from monitoring systems embedded in the plane's Rolls-Royce PLC engines and described that process.

There's also this:

In a CNN appearance on Thursday, the former National Transportation Safety Board vice-chairman Bob Frances called the WSJ story “remarkable”. In an interview with the Washington Post, he said:

“Andy Pasztor is a very reputable journalist who knows his stuff in aviation as much as anyone. For him to create this article out of whole cloth for me stretches credulity … So you don’t know where to go. I would go with what Andy said because I have great faith in him and he doesn’t have any political ax to grind, as do the Malaysians.”

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...0-media-claims

From the same link:

the signal came not from the engines but from a “satellite-communication link designed to automatically transmit the status of some onboard systems”. The paper is standing by the substance of its story, though, and Reuters and CNN are also quoting unnamed sources as saying that “pings” continued after 1.07am, with Reuters explaining:

The ‘pings’ equated to an indication that the aircraft’s maintenance troubleshooting systems were ready to communicate with satellites if needed, but no links were opened because Malaysia Airlines and others had not subscribed to the full troubleshooting service

and this, which is interestimng:

Two U.S. officials tell ABC News the U.S. believes that the shutdown of two communication systems happened separately on Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. One source said this indicates the plane did not come out of the sky because of a catastrophic failure.

The data reporting system, they believe, was shut down 1:07 a.m. The transponder -- which transmits location and altitude -- shut down at 1:21 a.m.

This indicates it may well have been a deliberate act, ABC News aviation consultant John Nance said.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/...ry?id=22894802

That would seem to indicate either coercion or pilot complicity, but at this point there's nowhere near enough information out to support anything but speculation.

The combination of the satellite pings and the time gap between the system shutdowns suggest there's more going on than was originally told, and that the Malaysian government is either not so well informed or has been holding back information. It's interesting that this stuff is coming from the US side. It does certainly suggest that the potential search area is, as David points out, a whole lot larger than initially thought.

I have heard nothing at all about cargo.

There has been some speculation that nations in the area are hesitant to reveal military radar data as it might mean revealing information about their capacities (or lack thereof) that they would rather keep private.

I wonder if there's some reason why the transponders can be manually shut off, rather than operating automatically any time the plane is airborne. I suspect that this may change, as it seems an invitation to problems.

[ganulv]

[carl]

I wonder if there's some reason why the transponders can be manually shut off, rather than operating automatically any time the plane is airborne. I suspect that this may change, as it seems an invitation to problems.

You have to be able to stop the transmission if the system is sending out incorrect information. And if it starts to burn you have to be able to shut off power.

[AmericanPride]

Since the aircraft was flying at night, is it possible that a malfunction could lead the pilots to losing their direction? I'm not familiar with the technical aspects of flying and aerial navigating. Is it also possible that a series of technical malfunctions or human error led to the sequential loss of navigation, transponder, and communication system(s) before the total loss of the aircraft (perhaps running out of fuel)? Does the 20-something minutes between the shut down of the data reporting system and the transponder preclude, say, the loss of cabin pressure and the aircraft operating on auto-pilot? And if the flight was deliberately taken off course, what destinations are in the Indian Ocean? Did they get lost? I'm also not familiar with the history of hi-jackings in this part of the world.

[carl]

American Pride:

There is probably a plain magnetic compass in the cockpit. Every airplane I've flown had one and there appears to be one in the 777 cockpit photos on the net. It was mandated on the smaller planes I'm familiar with and probably is on a 777 too.

If that didn't work I'll bet at least one of the pax had a hand held gps in their carry on bag. That would be good enough to find your way.

(The above is if the primary nav systems all fail. I should have said that.)

There have been at least two accidents that I know of where the crew and pax passed out due to oxygen deprevation due to depressurization. Both planes eventually crashed. But that probably doesn't account for the transponder not working.

Beyond that I don't know anything.

[Dayuhan]

Beyond that I don't know anything.

None of us do at this point, though the evidence that the plane may have been flying for some time after the last contact does provide a reasonable explanation for the failure of the search so far.

This quote:

U.S. officials said earlier that they have an "indication" the missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner may have crashed in the Indian Ocean and is moving the USS Kidd to the area to begin searching.

does not specify the nature of the "indication", but if it was sufficiently compelling to redeploy a destroyer it must be something fairly substantial.

[Biggus]

American Pride:

There is probably a plain magnetic compass in the cockpit. Every airplane I've flown had one and there appears to be one in the 777 cockpit photos on the net. It was mandated on the smaller planes I'm familiar with and probably is on a 777 too.

If that didn't work I'll bet at least one of the pax had a hand held gps in their carry on bag. That would be good enough to find your way.

(The above is if the primary nav systems all fail. I should have said that.)

There have been at least two accidents that I know of where the crew and pax passed out due to oxygen deprevation due to depressurization. Both planes eventually crashed. But that probably doesn't account for the transponder not working.

Beyond that I don't know anything.

Not only would they have a backup set of rudimentary aviation and navigation instrumentation, they have a lost-comms approach procedure for KL which they'd be very familiar with.

The pressurisation system is one of the checklist items, and if I recall correctly, it's a simple mechanical knob that you turn to increase or decrease the pressure. It's pretty unlikely for a crew to miss setting it up correctly on the ascent, so the question is what caused the depressurisation?

[slapout9]

Why the aviation experts explain the engineering an technical aspects I will stick with my universal small wars, big wars, basic Police theory that People cause crimes and wars. in this case I say the backround of the flight crew stinks. Start with the pilot.

[Biggus]

Why the aviation experts explain the engineering an technical aspects I will stick with my universal small wars, big wars, basic Police theory that People cause crimes and wars. in this case I say the backround of the flight crew stinks. Start with the pilot.

It's happened in the past a few times, so I'm open to the possibility. Do you have anything to add to the background of the flight crew beyond what you've said? All I can say to be aware of is that the Captain was incredibly experienced, the FO was reasonably experienced for an FO, and I know nothing of any other crew.

[Dayuhan]

You have to be able to stop the transmission if the system is sending out incorrect information. And if it starts to burn you have to be able to shut off power.

Apparently we also need a way to track a plane even if the transponders are shut down, willingly or under coercion, by the pilot. Seems like with the technology available today that ought to be possible, but WTFDIK?

[Biggus]

Biggus & Dayuhan:

You guys are on top of this. Have there been any reports about what kind of cargo/freight the aircraft was carrying? Another idle thought on my part.

There's a conspiracy theory doing the rounds that suggests that there was a large proportion of the staff of a semiconductor company on board, and that a competitor might have planted a bomb on board to assassinate them.

Since the aircraft was flying at night, is it possible that a malfunction could lead the pilots to losing their direction? I'm not familiar with the technical aspects of flying and aerial navigating. Is it also possible that a series of technical malfunctions or human error led to the sequential loss of navigation, transponder, and communication system(s) before the total loss of the aircraft (perhaps running out of fuel)? Does the 20-something minutes between the shut down of the data reporting system and the transponder preclude, say, the loss of cabin pressure and the aircraft operating on auto-pilot? And if the flight was deliberately taken off course, what destinations are in the Indian Ocean? Did they get lost? I'm also not familiar with the history of hi-jackings in this part of the world.

I don't yet buy into the hijacking theory. I don't see enough evidence just yet.

There's really not a lot that can go wrong in terms of navigation. Part of the pre-flight process is to set up the waypoints along the appropriate airway (think of it as an imaginary multi-level highway in the air) in the flight control system, and most airlines these days tend to make it SOP to do nearly everything on autopilot post-takeoff. Everything is done by checklist.

A very mild decompression loss would explain most of the unknowns reasonably well at this point. The scenario would effectively be that the crew would catch the onset of hypoxia early enough to start an emergency descent (spoilers and speedbrakes, close throttle, set the autopilot MCP to a lower altitude which might or might not initially have been FL295, hit HDG mode to change course and get out of the airway, transponder to 7700) but late enough to not go through the second part of the emergency descent checklist before succumbing. In this case, you'd have an aircraft that could fly until it ran out of fuel with no human input.

The transponder seems to be the most troubling aspect. Two other aircraft in the relevant timeframe experienced anomolies in their transponder output in a fairly small geographic area, KAL672 and CCA970. Some are suggesting perhaps an electronic warfare surface vessel might be responsible, but I don't really want to speculate too much on that. It might very well have been accidentally turned off in the rush to get the emergency descent procedures started, which would be within the realms of possibility. I'm neither familiar with the transponder in question nor MAS's checklists and I'm going from input from B777 crews from other airlines. It might very well be necessary to turn the transponder to standby before putting in the new code.

The ACARS data is one of the pivotal pieces of data right now. If it's true that there were data packets of any kind being sent from MH370 beyond 0107 local time, then the entire game changes in terms of searching for wreckage.

[Biggus]

Apparently we also need a way to track a plane even if the transponders are shut down, willingly or under coercion, by the pilot. Seems like with the technology available today that ought to be possible, but WTFDIK?

The question isn't purely technological. It's also a question of whether the owners of the technology (ie, various defence forces) are willing to share with the civillian world in real time. I would be extremely surprised if at least some of the event wasn't tracked by Jindalee, for example.

[carl]

Apparently we also need a way to track a plane even if the transponders are shut down, willingly or under coercion, by the pilot. Seems like with the technology available today that ought to be possible, but WTFDIK?

You may be right. Biggus knows more about large jets than I so he might know.

[carl]

Biggus:

We have a gift for posting at the exact same time.

Do you know if they can backtrack and get an approximate position of a satcom transmission, sort of like triangulating?

[Biggus]

You may be right. Biggus knows more about large jets than I so he might know.

I don't know about that. I just read a lot from the big jet drivers and look for solid explanations.

Biggus:

We have a gift for posting at the exact same time.

Do you know if they can backtrack and get an approximate position of a satcom transmission, sort of like triangulating?

I'm out of my depth on this question. I have three possible answers, though:
1. Yes 'they' do, but they're not sharing.
2. No, they don't.
3. They have the ability to do so, provided the transmission is live for x amount of time, and the nature of pinging a satellite with a few small packets of data precludes the ability to locate.

I did just notice this:

The satellites also received speed and altitude information about the plane from its intermittent "pings," the people said. The final ping was sent from over water, at what one of these people called a normal cruising altitude. They added that it was unclear why the pings stopped. One of the people, an industry official, said it was possible that the system sending them had been disabled by someone on board.

Apparently ACARS does include location data. MAS did not subscribe, so I wonder whether the slow leak of this is simply because RR don't want to let on to everyone that they're monitoring their engines regardless of the wishes of the airlines.

[ganulv]

Apparently ACARS does include location data. MAS did not subscribe, so I wonder whether the slow leak of this is simply because RR don't want to let on to everyone that they're monitoring their engines regardless of the wishes of the airlines.

Hmm. Perhaps this is metadata that the U.S. Intelligence Community collects as a matter of course?