Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 is Missing

[delft]

Re: Malaysia Airlines Plane is Missing

I agree mostly with plawulf, let's get some tin foil hats.
When the German diplomatic Tu-144 crashed in the South Atlantic after collision with another aircraft, it were the French, who brought the necessary equipment to retrieve the black box from the bottom of the sea. Germany at this time lacked the capabilities to do that.

This is one example to highlight how a crash far out at sea limits the number of actors capable of retrieving information. I have doubts that China has the technology to contribute much to the retrieval effort, but they are very active and do their utmost. This event can serve to highlight useful applications of blue water naval capabilities. These go beyond going somewhere and roughing up green water navies, but can be defined as the ability to maintain sea lines of communication away from shore. These sea lines of communication are ships, underwater cables (where the French have a large market segment) and aircrafts flying over sea. Part of the maintenance are SAR, retrieval of objects, repairs and espionage.

It is odd that Vietnam has an active air control, while the Australian counterpart stays silent and just observes on radar a large aircraft on unscheduled flight to the Antarctic. To go to the wreckage area from the last point of contact in the South China Sea, one has to pass Malaysian and Indonesian airspace. So these have zero radar observation of what is going on in their airspace?

Correction: It was a Tu-134. The Tu-144 is a very different aircraft.

 

[Quickie]

Re: Malaysia Airlines Plane is Missing

Much work was done by the experts to come to the conclusion.

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Published: Tuesday March 25, 2014 MYT 6:35:00 PM
Updated: Tuesday March 25, 2014 MYT 6:54:33 PM
MH370 crash: Hisham on how it was concluded that flight ended in south Indian Ocean

PETALING JAYA: Malaysia concluded that Flight MH370 ended in the southern part of the Indian Ocean using data that was analysed by Inmarsat and UK's Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB), said acting Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein.


Here is an excerpt of the statement read out by Hishammuddin at the daily press briefing at PWTC on Tuesday:

"In recent days Inmarsat developed a second innovative technique which considers the velocity of the aircraft relative to the satellite. Depending on this relative movement, the frequency received and transmitted will differ from its normal value, in much the same way that the sound of a passing car changes as it approaches and passes by. This is called the Doppler effect.


The Inmarsat technique analyses the difference between the frequency that the ground station expects to receive and that actually measured. This difference is the result of the Doppler effect and is known as the Burst Frequency Offset.

The Burst Frequency Offset changes depending on the location of the aircraft on an arc of possible positions, its direction of travel, and its speed. In order to establish confidence in its theory, Inmarsat checked its predictions using information obtained from six other B777 aircraft flying on the same day in various directions. There was good agreement.

While on the ground at Kuala Lumpur airport, and during the early stage of the flight, MH370 transmitted several messages. At this stage the location of the aircraft and the satellite were known, so it was possible to calculate system characteristics for the aircraft, satellite, and ground station.

During the flight the ground station logged the transmitted and received pulse frequencies at each handshake. Knowing the system characteristics and position of the satellite it was possible, considering aircraft performance, to determine where on each arc the calculated burst frequency offset fit best.

The analysis showed poor correlation with the Northern corridor, but good correlation with the Southern corridor, and depending on the ground speed of the aircraft it was then possible to estimate positions at 0011 UTC, at which the last complete handshake took place. I must emphasise that this is not the final position of the aircraft.

There is evidence of a partial handshake between the aircraft and ground station at 0019 UTC. At this time this transmission is not understood and is subject to further ongoing work.

No response was received from the aircraft at 0115 UTC, when the ground earth station sent the next log on / log off message. This indicates that the aircraft was no longer logged on to the network.

Therefore, sometime between 0011 UTC and 0115 UTC the aircraft was no longer able to communicate with the ground station. This is consistent with the maximum endurance of the aircraft.

This analysis by Inmarsat forms the basis for further study to attempt to determine the final position of the aircraft. Accordingly, the Malaysian investigation has set up an international working group, comprising agencies with expertise in satellite communications and aircraft performance, to take this work forward.

Technical background

The new analysis I have described above was convincing enough for the AAIB to brief the prime minister that MH370 flew along the southern corridor, and that its last position was in the middle of the Indian Ocean, west of Perth. Within a few hours, the families had been informed, and the prime minister announced the new development to the world."

 

[broadsword]

Re: Malaysia Airlines Plane is Missing

Search Crews Will Need To Pinpoint A Small Crash Site To Find The Black Box Signal From MH370
Alex Heber, Business Insider Australia Mar. 25, 2014, 6:49 AM 168


REUTERS/Jason Reed


The window is closing to locate the black box of the missing Malaysian Airlines flight which disappeared 16 days ago but to pinpoint its location search crews need to narrow a search area to within tens of kilometres, an aviation expert says.

Now that authorities have concluded flight MH730 ended up in the Southern Indian Ocean, they are focusing on trying to find any debris and track currents to try and determine where the plane may have crashed into the water with its 239 passengers and crew.

But the search area is a vast region some 2,500km southwest of Perth, and the critical flight data recorder – one of two “black boxes” from the plane – has only two weeks of battery life left.

Once it runs out of battery it’s going to be almost impossible to retrieve it, according to Jason Middleton, Head of UNSW Aviation School – but in order to find it search crews are going to have to get very close to the object at first.

The boxes are fitted with acoustic pingers which send out an audio signal that sonar can detect.

“Sonar receivers can hear pings if they’re tens of kilometres away – not hundreds,” he said.

“This is why the US has dispatched ships with specialist equipment.

“There’s only a limited window to find the pinger. Once pingers lose battery, you’re done.”

The black box will contain critical flight data that will help establish what happened to the Malaysian Airlines jet after it took off from Kuala Lumpur on March 8.

“You can see whether settings have been turned off, if there was a fire or any malfunctions,” Middleton said.

The cockpit voice recorder might also “may tell something if the pilots are talking”.

He said locating debris from a wreckage was important but if the wreckage was found in the ocean, search crews would still need to review two weeks of current data to estimate a wreckage location.

“Then they have to look and listen to the pinger but they’ve only got two weeks,” he said.

“The trouble is it’s so remote.

“Pingers are very effective when you know where the accident is.”

If the back box is found it could be in very deep ocean so efforts to recover it would probably involve remote operated vehicles, Middleton said.

 

[bd popeye]

Re: Malaysia Airlines Plane is Missing

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KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — China demanded that Malaysia turn over the satellite data used to conclude that a Malaysia Airlines jetliner had crashed in the southern Indian Ocean, killing everyone on board, as gale-force winds and heavy rain on Tuesday halted the search for remains of the plane.

The weather is expected to improve so that the multinational search being conducted out of Perth, Australia, could possibly resume Wednesday. But the searchers will face a daunting task of combing a vast expanse of choppy seas for suspected remnants of the aircraft sighted earlier.

"We're not searching for a needle in a haystack — we're still trying to define where the haystack is," Australia's deputy defense chief, Air Marshal Mark Binskin, told reporters at a military base in Perth as idled planes stood behind him.

Australian and Chinese search planes spotted floating objects in an area 2,500 kilometers (1,550 miles) southwest of Perth on Monday, but none was retrieved. Now, with the harsh weather and a 24-hour delay in the search, those objects and other possible debris from the plane could drift to an even wider area.

In remarks to the Malaysian Parliament, Prime Minister Najib Razak cautioned that the search will take a long time and "we will have to face unexpected and extraordinary challenges."

 

[solarz]

Re: Malaysia Airlines Plane is Missing

Wolfie, I have been of a very similar opinion from very early on and the reason being is that it is the only answer that makes sense of the total absence of everything.
I would still be looking in rebel held areas of Myanmar and think it would be gratifying if an Entebbe style raid was able to save the day.

We are highly unlikely to ever know the full truth and the exact details, the best we can hope for is to be right in the broad thrust.

If we were to apply Occam's Razor, I think the simplest and most likely explanation is that there was a malfunction on the plane that incapacitated the crew and passengers. The malfunction was detected by the pilots before they were incapacitated, who decided to turn the plane back, and thus reprogrammed the autopilot. However, because they were under duress, or were incapacitated shortly after, the autopilot was programmed incorrectly and the plane flew into the Indian Ocean.

 

[delft]

Re: Malaysia Airlines Plane is Missing

Some remarks:

Civilian aircraft maintain a cabin pressure equivalent to the atmospheric pressure at 8000 ft altitude. If an aircraft goes over its rated altitude it may not be able to maintain that cabin pressure but their is no reason why it will loose all cabin over pressure unless the hull was breached. This means that no people or only a few would be knocked out by the loss of air pressure.

Looking for floating debris far out at sea might more easily been done using a medium size airship, say about 50 tons or even less, with an endurance of a week or more. When considering producing airships this is one use to think of.

Looking for debris on the bottom of the ocean might take years, as it did in the case of the Air France plane. China might do well to produce a number of autonomous unmanned submersibles to map that area of Indian Ocean bottom using side scan sonar.

 

[Lezt]

Re: Malaysia Airlines Plane is Missing

Some remarks:

Civilian aircraft maintain a cabin pressure equivalent to the atmospheric pressure at 8000 ft altitude. If an aircraft goes over its rated altitude it may not be able to maintain that cabin pressure but their is no reason why it will loose all cabin over pressure unless the hull was breached. This means that no people or only a few would be knocked out by the loss of air pressure.

Looking for floating debris far out at sea might more easily been done using a medium size airship, say about 50 tons or even less, with an endurance of a week or more. When considering producing airships this is one use to think of.

Looking for debris on the bottom of the ocean might take years, as it did in the case of the Air France plane. China might do well to produce a number of autonomous unmanned submersibles to map that area of Indian Ocean bottom using side scan sonar.

Are you also suggesting that China build a Sonus network on the SCS and Indian Ocean as well? to find where to Kilos are?

 

[airsuperiority]

Re: Malaysia Airlines Plane is Missing

Since there's only 2 weeks left to look for the crash site, will there be enough time at all to find the plane on time? Can the USN or the Australian Navy or even the PLAN deploy more assets to the area to search for the plane?

 

[PanAsian]

Re: Malaysia Airlines Plane is Missing

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One would think that in handling this kind of situation that Malaysia would be sharing the information leading to a conclusion with everyone involved when they declare that conclusion. Otherwise it might as well be you or I declaring a conclusion.

 

[PanAsian]

Re: Malaysia Airlines Plane is Missing

Hindsight is always 20/20. Fact is the aircraft did get painted. The deviation near igari to the subsequent southwest heading to Indian ocean until primary radar lost track was literally in minutes. We're talking maybe 3-400 miles max in which a t 7 can do in 30 or so minutes.

We're also talking a civilian heavy here not a squadron of unidentified bogeys coming in low and fast originating from a neighboring country. By the time the radar operator finished scratching his head and wondering if he should wake up the colonel at 0200 on why a MAS t7 was flying toward the Indian ocean, it has probably flew past the primary radar coverage. Malaysia AFAIK is also not in a state of war nor in any imminent danger of one so I seriously doubt they have alert 5 fighters on standby. To presume why there is no mid air interception in this case is assinine and shows ignorance. It's one thing if the pilot keyed in hijack codes or if the plane was red flagged in flight for whatever reason but it wasn't.

The same reasoning probably applies to Indonesia as well. If I have to nitpick i guess I could have wondered why Malaysian air force or ground control didn't notify India or Indonesian authorities of a possible runaway jet and have them track the plane but this goes back to the waking up the colonel scenario. Actually in this instance the colonel after being woken up will have to wake up the general who may then have to wake up the SecDev. By this time MH 370 would've long flew past everyone's radar coverage if she actually flew the path they think it flew.

I didn't say anything about mid-air interception so you can save your personal attacks for someone else. Was there any attempt to even communicate with the unidentified aircraft when this was happening? That seems pretty basic to me, I hope that doesn't require going all the way up the chain of command.