Missing Malaysia Airlines jet carrying 239 triggers Southeast Asia search

[balo]

Maybe they will never find the black box . Or maybe it will be like Titanic , it will take years .

[Chicog]

Or maybe like AF447, a couple of years.

Sent from my SM-N9005 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

[boomerangutang]

I wouldn't doubt several independent movie scripts have been started, with a lot of blank pages left to fill.

Or, it could be chronicled something like those odd books which start a story, and then go on to several varying outcomes. "If you think it was hijack, go to page 19" "if you think it was pilot suicide, go to page 28" "if you think it was fire on-board, go to page 37" .....and so on.

[tigermonkey]

Oil slick detected in search area

Agence France Presse

SYDNEY: -- An oil slick has been detected in the Indian Ocean within the search area for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 but has yet to be analysed, the Australian leading the operation said on Monday.

"I can report that (Australian ship) Ocean Shield detected an oil slick on Sunday evening in her current search area," Angus Houston said.

Meanwhile, an Australian vessel leading the hunt for missing Malaysian jet MH370 will deploy a mini-sub "as soon as possible", the head of the search said on Monday.

"Ocean Shield will cease searching with the towed pinger locator later today and deploy the autonomous underwater vehicle Bluefin-21 as soon as possible," said Angus Houston, who fronts the Joint Agency Coordination Centre.

-- The Nation 2014-04-14

Five weeks later, after a variety of bad weather including a cyclone?

Possibly lubricant oil seepage from one of the engines. It's yet another long-shot, but not to be ignored since it was found only 5500 metres from one of the ping 'locations'. We will need to wait until samples have been analysed in Perth. I have no idea how long it will take to get the samples there and analysed - probably days.

If it is found to be the same lubricant as used in the Rolls Royce Trent engines, it will be another small breakthrough.

[tigermonkey]

News has been sparse the last few days, and the media have consequently been gearing up their attention to rehashing old news, inventing new "theories", bringing forward new self-proclaimed experts, and uncovering more fiendish conspiracies. Hang on ! It will now start to get worse.

With Bluefin 21 being deployed, the only news will be:

- Bluefin has just been deployed

- 20 hours later - Bluefin has just been brought back on-board

- 4 hours later - Bluefin, data has all been downloaded and Bluefin is re- deployed with new batteries

- data is being analysed

- repeat daily

Edited April 14, 2014 by tigermonkey

[F4UCorsair]

On a more serious note, this news item has just come up

https://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/22622328/mh370%20-thrown-around-like-a-fighter-jet/

If true, it does throw a new perspective, or perhaps confirms a perspective, on the incident, although not one on which there hasn't already been speculation.

Once again, it's a 'newspaper report', so...................put on it whatever credibility you choose

If there's an external fire you fly as high as you safely can, if the cabin depressurises you drop below 10,000 feet.

One possibility is there was a break in the fuselage near an electrical system (probably something to do with the comms), the pilot takes the plane up to kill the fire and turns it around to the nearest airport. Taking the plane up high causes the break to rapidly expand (due to the increased pressure variance), fearing disintegration the pilot takes the plane down lower again before putting on his oxygen mask and both are subdued by hypoxia (the communication reported by another pilot at 1:32 noted them to sound like they were in a disoriented state consistent with this).

If the plane is left slightly ascending banking slightly to the left it would keep ascending until eventually steadying and would fly a curved course around the west of Sumatra then back towards the west of Australia until it ran out of fuel.

The problem with the pilot suicide theory is that the plane was equipped with satellite phones, why didn't anyone call for help?

I can't imagine any 'external fire' on a jet aircraft, except in the engines, and there are fire extinguishers built in to extinguish those. A match barely strikes, and won't remain alight at 10,000' due to a lack of oxygen, so how could a fire outside the aircraft be sustained above that altitude, certainly not at 35,000'!!

Why would it eventually 'steady' after ascending?

I hear what you say about a slight turn, but after turning slightly left around Sumatra, heading toward Australia, it was then put on a more SSW heading to the point of impact. What mode would the autopilot have been on to achieve that?

I don't think the break in the fuselage affecting comms theory could possibly hold water. Do you know where the E&E bay is on the 777?

NanLaew asked,

"Regarding the statement "... meaning that they will not last long beyond their certified 30 Day life." Was that exactly what Dukane said, CNN assumed or you made up?.".

That came directly from a post on PPRuNe by somebody who had undertaken some research into FDR battery life, and a statement by a Malaysian official, indicating that the battery was due for replacement in June 2014. They have a life of about 8 years, but 6 years at worst allowing for 'shelf life', and its time was up in June, so one may assume, rightly or wrongly, that it probably wouldn't last much beyond its stated life, but once again, who knows? I think that's possibly a realistic assumption, and it may be borne out in reality since the 'pings' were fading, and there haven't been any reported for a day or two now, but I may be wrong on that, because it could just be that it's on reduced power??

"Why would it eventually 'steady' after ascending?"

The speed graph for any fixed level of thrust relative to altitude is a bell curve (as it increases at low altitudes due to decreasing wind resistance but decreases at high altitudes to a lack of air for the engines to push). Once the altitude reaches the right of the bell curve the plane begins to decelerate slowly straightening the plane up, as the plane straightens up, the rate of ascent decreases, the rate of straightening up therefore decreases in turn until it meets a point of equilibrium. For a 777 it would straighten up a little over 30,000 feet.

"hear what you say about a slight turn, but after turning slightly left around Sumatra, heading toward Australia, it was then put on a more SSW heading to the point of impact. What mode would the autopilot have been on to achieve that?"

There always exists a perfect curve between any two points on the globe. I hadn't looked at the co-ordinates of the positions when noting it headed towards Australia. The curve between last known location and the location of the alleged black box signals puts it heading roughly west over the Thailand Malay border, just over the top of Sumatra, heading to a peak westerly point of about 3000km west of Australia before starting to curve back in towards its final resting place.

"I don't think the break in the fuselage affecting comms theory could possibly hold water. Do you know where the E&E bay is on the 777?"

There are many ways comms could fail, they could manually be shut down in the event of an electrical fire, the decompression could affect wiring related to the comms systems, etc. A decompression event and the comms failing could be unrelated too and while theories that require multiple unrelated failures are typically unlikely, most modern aviation disasters are in fact a result of multiple unrelated failures (mainly because safety systems typically prevent a single point of failure). My main point was to illustrate that there is no evidence to indicate that the plane was piloted once it had reached the low of 5000 feet.

I don't want to be offensive, but where is this information coming from? Air Crash Investigation on Foxtel?

You need to have some understanding of the capabilities of the autopilot on a modern jet transport, as well as the workings of a Flight Management Computer. The autopilot will determine at what level the aircraft levels out (not 'steadies'), and the mode selected largely determines what happens next. It's not as simple as asking google or wikipedia, e.g., climb (or descent) could have been VNAVSPD, VNAVPTH, VSPD, or LVLCHG. Jet aircraft don't normally climb on a fixed level of thrust because speed would fall off so badly over 20,000 feet that there would be no climb!

At altitude it isn't a lack of air for the engines to push, but a lack of air for the engines to burn that causes the drop off in efficiency.

I notice you left the fire outside the aircraft theory alone this time round.

I think the track that has been published in the media can be discounted as being accurate. My guess is that it was created by a graphics artist after being told that satellites 'tracked' the aircraft, and was given a rough line on a map/globe. It may be close, but I think that's probably more good luck than actual knowledge.

As an aside, apparently the CVR circuit breaker isn't on the flight deck on a 777, but in the E&E bay, inaccessible to the pilots, so if a crew member, or two, was conscious throughout, it will reveal any cockpit sounds for the last two hours.

Edited April 14, 2014 by F4UCorsair

[Chicog]

News has been sparse the last few days, and the media have consequently been gearing up their attention to rehashing old news, inventing new "theories", bringing forward new self-proclaimed experts, and uncovering more fiendish conspiracies. Hang on ! It will now start to get worse.

With Bluefin 21 being deployed, the only news will be:

- Bluefin has just been deployed

- 20 hours later - Bluefin has just been brought back on-board

- 4 hours later - Bluefin, data has all been downloaded and Bluefin is re- deployed with new batteries

- data is being analysed

- repeat daily

Then 'Bluefin lost'... 'Search for Bluefin black box intensifies' etc.

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

[wprime]

I don't want to be offensive, but where is this information coming from? Air Crash Investigation on Foxtel?

You need to have some understanding of the capabilities of the autopilot on a modern jet transport, as well as the workings of a Flight Management Computer. The autopilot will determine at what level the aircraft levels out (not 'steadies'), and the mode selected largely determines what happens next. It's not as simple as asking google or wikipedia, e.g., climb (or descent) could have been VNAVSPD, VNAVPTH, VSPD, or LVLCHG. Jet aircraft don't normally climb on a fixed level of thrust because speed would fall off so badly over 20,000 feet that there would be no climb!

At altitude it isn't a lack of air for the engines to push, but a lack of air for the engines to burn that causes the drop off in efficiency.

I notice you left the fire outside the aircraft theory alone this time round.

I think the track that has been published in the media can be discounted as being accurate. My guess is that it was created by a graphics artist after being told that satellites 'tracked' the aircraft, and was given a rough line on a map/globe. It may be close, but I think that's probably more good luck than actual knowledge.

As an aside, apparently the CVR circuit breaker isn't on the flight deck on a 777, but in the E&E bay, inaccessible to the pilots, so if a crew member, or two, was conscious throughout, it will reveal any cockpit sounds for the last two hours.

"I don't want to be offensive, but where is this information coming from? Air Crash Investigation on Foxtel?"

I have said nothing that someone with an understanding of secondary school level physics can work out.

"The autopilot will determine at what level the aircraft levels out (not 'steadies'), and the mode selected largely determines what happens next."

The plane would level out without autopilot.

"Jet aircraft don't normally climb on a fixed level of thrust because speed would fall off so badly over 20,000 feet that there would be no climb!"

If it wasn't on autopilot it would climb at a fixed level of thrust. You've just illustrated my point, the point at which there is no climb is where it levels off at. The altitude at which it steadies is dependent on several factors, mainly its level of thrust.

"At altitude it isn't a lack of air for the engines to push, but a lack of air for the engines to burn that causes the drop off in efficiency."

It's both, propulsion is achieved by pushing air backwards at high speed, thereby pushing the plane forwards. The rate of acceleration is proportional to the relative speed that the air is pushed back squared times by the mass of the air. As you increase in altitude the density of the air decreases, therefore less air is pushed back resulting in less acceleration.

"I think the track that has been published in the media can be discounted as being accurate. My guess is that it was created by a graphics artist after being told that satellites 'tracked' the aircraft, and was given a rough line on a map/globe. It may be close, but I think that's probably more good luck than actual knowledge."

I don't know which track you're referring to, but they have only two points after the plane descended to 5000 feet. There are an infinite amount of curves between two arbitrary points. My path was calculated by eliminating the curves that are not within the fuel range of the plane to produce a broad range of curves. The fact that such a path exists means that the possibility that the plane was unpiloted from the point that it was at 5000 feet cannot be ruled out.

I mean no offense with this, but you're the one arguing like you get your information from some television program. E.g. statements like "At altitude it isn't a lack of air for the engines to push, but a lack of air for the engines to burn that causes the drop off in efficiency." and "Jet aircraft don't normally climb on a fixed level of thrust because speed would fall off so badly over 20,000 feet that there would be no climb!" show that you haven't actually put any thought into what you wrote, but rather just regurgitated something you've heard. While both statements are for the most part true they don't illustrate the full story and if you had put some thought into them before posting, you'd have realised that they don't actually contradict what I'm saying.

[coldfusionPaul]

most of the 2 years spent looking for AF447 was waiting for permission from various governments to conduct the search. another large chunk of that time was wasted because the search model was based on the assumption that the blackbox pinger was actually working. once they re-worked the model, it took about 6 days to find the wreck.

[boomerangutang]

It's too bad Malaysian defense forces, when they purportedly detected a large wayward craft heading to and over Malaysian territory (just after the flight's turn around), didn't seem to do anything more than contrive; "maybe it's a plane searching for a place to land. Oh well, let it be." ....and didn't scramble jets or appear to anything in pursuance of the strange plane and its errant flight plan. Similarly, but less dire, was Thailand's military's lag of several days, before announcing radar evidence of an errant plane near its southernmost border. If either of those sightings had been dealt with responsibly, the search would have been 2 to 3 days ahead of where its at. In other words, searching for pings and floating debris might have been focused on the area it's at now, several days earlier. Now it appears the black boxes' batteries are dead, and the only pings picked up were at its dying hours, several days ago.

[F4UCorsair]

wprime,

You're talking in riddles, and the fact that you said that for a fire outside the aircraft you climb to an altitude as high as is safe, and your incorrect use of aviation terminology, shows you have NO knowledge of aviation. A fire cannot be sustained outside the aircraft at altitude. An aircraft levels out at an altitude, not 'steadies'.

The aircraft would only climb on a fixed thrust if the auto throttle was disengaged (you're confusing autopilot and auto throttle), and would only stop climbing if the altitude was set in the FMC way above what it could realistically achieve at the weight, at which time it would descend and climb in an oscillatory pattern. That would also depend on the climb mode selected. Pilots don't like disengaging the autothrottle, and many airlines mandate that it not be disengaged, except for training/demonstration purposes, and that's more likely to be done in a simulator. Disengaging the SPD mode is far safer, and still gives minimum speed protection. The B777 that crashed at SFO had the ATP disengaged. If had only had SPD mode disengaged, it wouldn't have crashed.

I recently retired with 20,000+ hours aviation experience, most of it on high performance jets, and I choose not to engage further with somebody who has no idea, but please don't post such rubbish because you do no more than make a fool of yourself.

Edited April 14, 2014 by F4UCorsair

[kaveh]

people forgets so fast seems like nothing has happened!

[khaosai]

wprime,

You're talking in riddles, and the fact that you said that for a fire outside the aircraft you climb to an altitude as high as is safe, and your incorrect use of aviation terminology, shows you have NO knowledge of aviation. A fire cannot be sustained outside the aircraft at altitude. An aircraft levels out at an altitude, not 'steadies'.

The aircraft would only climb on a fixed thrust if the auto throttle was disengaged (you're confusing autopilot and auto throttle), and would only stop climbing if the altitude was set in the FMC way above what it could realistically achieve at the weight, at which time it would descend and climb in an oscillatory pattern. That would also depend on the climb mode selected. Pilots don't like disengaging the autothrottle, and many airlines mandate that it not be disengaged, except for training/demonstration purposes, and that's more likely to be done in a simulator. Disengaging the SPD mode is far safer, and still gives minimum speed protection. The B777 that crashed at SFO had the ATP disengaged. If had only had SPD mode disengaged, it wouldn't have crashed.

I recently retired with 20,000+ hours aviation experience, most of it on high performance jets, and I choose not to engage further with somebody who has no idea, but please don't post such rubbish because you do no more than make a fool of yourself.

Hi,

All good points F4UCorsair however the B777 auto throttle is far safer with speed (SPD) mode engaged. The threat comes from hold (HLD) mode. No auto throttle wake up if in hold mode.

[RubbaJohnny]

Appreciate informed comments from professionals as the means and the opportunity,dynamics and practicalities,likelihoods.

The manouevres would seem to preclude any mechanical error or catastrophic event,exposion etc?

I wonder however will we discover the motive?

I doubt even with a black box we'll ever findd the whole truth soon.

However like so many mysteries the relatives will keep pressing.

RIP.

En passant having seen most of this thread and media reports esp BBC can anyone recall seeing one map with the plane returning over Thailand,if so waht would be the time it entered.left Thai airspace or at least rradar.If it was to fly over Pulau Pinang from lasr position would almost certainly have passed over S Thailand?

[NeverSure]

wprime,

You're talking in riddles, and the fact that you said that for a fire outside the aircraft you climb to an altitude as high as is safe, and your incorrect use of aviation terminology, shows you have NO knowledge of aviation. A fire cannot be sustained outside the aircraft at altitude. An aircraft levels out at an altitude, not 'steadies'.

The aircraft would only climb on a fixed thrust if the auto throttle was disengaged (you're confusing autopilot and auto throttle), and would only stop climbing if the altitude was set in the FMC way above what it could realistically achieve at the weight, at which time it would descend and climb in an oscillatory pattern. That would also depend on the climb mode selected. Pilots don't like disengaging the autothrottle, and many airlines mandate that it not be disengaged, except for training/demonstration purposes, and that's more likely to be done in a simulator. Disengaging the SPD mode is far safer, and still gives minimum speed protection. The B777 that crashed at SFO had the ATP disengaged. If had only had SPD mode disengaged, it wouldn't have crashed.

I recently retired with 20,000+ hours aviation experience, most of it on high performance jets, and I choose not to engage further with somebody who has no idea, but please don't post such rubbish because you do no more than make a fool of yourself.

I don't disagree with anything you said, but for laymen may we clarify a bit? Yes engines lose some power at altitude due to lack of oxygen, but they more than make up for it due to lack of wind resistance on the airframe in the thinner air. Cruising altitude is where they get their best fuel economy.

Yes, of course planes level off after climb or descent, but they begin a round off well before they get there for, if no other reason, to keep the passengers from feeling the change.

Planes burn a lot of fuel during climb out, but more than make it up by cruising in the thin air. Then they get the bonus of the descent when they glide back down with little to no power, but still maintaining speed due to the descent.

Take a lightly loaded Lear jet. It can climb out at 4,000 feet per minute and reach 40,000 feet in 10 minutes. There's a lot of fuel. But if it cruises for an hour, traveling about 600 miles, it will make it up. Then the bonus is that it must begin a descent from about 200 miles out, which is almost free as the descent keeps the speed up without much power.

If the plane starts down at 200 miles out traveling 10 miles per minute and descends at 2,000 feet per minute, it will take it 20 minutes to descend. That's 200 miles of nearly free flight.

The one thing I'm not sure about is that in a Lear, we blasted all the way to the beginning of the round over at nearly full throttle. I don't know what a 777 does.

Cheers

[3NUMBAS]

quote

Speaking to the Sunday Times, a source claimed: "It was being flown very low at very high speed. And it was being flown to avoid radar."

Reports in the Malaysian newspaper the New Straits Times claim that the plane's co-pilot, Fariq Abdul Hamid, tried to use his mobile phone while the plane was in the air. This has fuelled speculation that captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah hijacked his own plane after tricking Hamid into leaving the cockpit.

"If it's true it would lead to the possibility that the pilot shut the co-pilot out of the cabin - asked him to go for coffee and then promptly locked the door - and then took over the plane.

"The co-pilot, unable to gain access, may have tried to use his mobile phone to alert the authorities," said the source.

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370-thrown-around-fighter-jet-155152623.html#SFGaE4B

[3NUMBAS]

its a flawed idea as the route down into the area to turn off the power is via a hatch outside the cabin door.^^

[Tywais]

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370: US underwater drone takes over search

With no pings in several days from what could be the black boxes of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, the US Navy has launched the Bluefin-21 sub, which was designed in Quincy, Mass

The multinational investigators searching for missing Malaysian airliner MH370 are taking the search underwater with an American-made undersea drone.

Search vessels detected some promising pings this month believed to be produced by the missing jet's black boxes. However, those signals went silent several days ago, leading investigators to believe that the flight recorders' batteries have finally reached the end of their life.

The US Navy’s Bluefin-21, an autonomous underwater vehicle manufactured by Bluefin Robotics in Quincy, Mass., is picking up the search where ping locators left off.

“Today is Day 38 of the search,” search coordinator Angus Houston said during a news conference. “We haven’t had a single detection in six days, so I guess it’s time to go underwater.”

More here - csmonitor

[F4UCorsair]

wprime,

You're talking in riddles, and the fact that you said that for a fire outside the aircraft you climb to an altitude as high as is safe, and your incorrect use of aviation terminology, shows you have NO knowledge of aviation. A fire cannot be sustained outside the aircraft at altitude. An aircraft levels out at an altitude, not 'steadies'.

The aircraft would only climb on a fixed thrust if the auto throttle was disengaged (you're confusing autopilot and auto throttle), and would only stop climbing if the altitude was set in the FMC way above what it could realistically achieve at the weight, at which time it would descend and climb in an oscillatory pattern. That would also depend on the climb mode selected. Pilots don't like disengaging the autothrottle, and many airlines mandate that it not be disengaged, except for training/demonstration purposes, and that's more likely to be done in a simulator. Disengaging the SPD mode is far safer, and still gives minimum speed protection. The B777 that crashed at SFO had the ATP disengaged. If had only had SPD mode disengaged, it wouldn't have crashed.

I recently retired with 20,000+ hours aviation experience, most of it on high performance jets, and I choose not to engage further with somebody who has no idea, but please don't post such rubbish because you do no more than make a fool of yourself.

Hi,

All good points F4UCorsair however the B777 auto throttle is far safer with speed (SPD) mode engaged. The threat comes from hold (HLD) mode. No auto throttle wake up if in hold mode.

we agree khaosai. What I said was that disengaging SPD mode is far safer than disengaging the auto throttle.

[F4UCorsair]

wprime,

You're talking in riddles, and the fact that you said that for a fire outside the aircraft you climb to an altitude as high as is safe, and your incorrect use of aviation terminology, shows you have NO knowledge of aviation. A fire cannot be sustained outside the aircraft at altitude. An aircraft levels out at an altitude, not 'steadies'.

The aircraft would only climb on a fixed thrust if the auto throttle was disengaged (you're confusing autopilot and auto throttle), and would only stop climbing if the altitude was set in the FMC way above what it could realistically achieve at the weight, at which time it would descend and climb in an oscillatory pattern. That would also depend on the climb mode selected. Pilots don't like disengaging the autothrottle, and many airlines mandate that it not be disengaged, except for training/demonstration purposes, and that's more likely to be done in a simulator. Disengaging the SPD mode is far safer, and still gives minimum speed protection. The B777 that crashed at SFO had the ATP disengaged. If had only had SPD mode disengaged, it wouldn't have crashed.

I recently retired with 20,000+ hours aviation experience, most of it on high performance jets, and I choose not to engage further with somebody who has no idea, but please don't post such rubbish because you do no more than make a fool of yourself.

I don't disagree with anything you said, but for laymen may we clarify a bit? Yes engines lose some power at altitude due to lack of oxygen, but they more than make up for it due to lack of wind resistance on the airframe in the thinner air. Cruising altitude is where they get their best fuel economy.

Yes, of course planes level off after climb or descent, but they begin a round off well before they get there for, if no other reason, to keep the passengers from feeling the change.

Planes burn a lot of fuel during climb out, but more than make it up by cruising in the thin air. Then they get the bonus of the descent when they glide back down with little to no power, but still maintaining speed due to the descent.

Take a lightly loaded Lear jet. It can climb out at 4,000 feet per minute and reach 40,000 feet in 10 minutes. There's a lot of fuel. But if it cruises for an hour, traveling about 600 miles, it will make it up. Then the bonus is that it must begin a descent from about 200 miles out, which is almost free as the descent keeps the speed up without much power.

If the plane starts down at 200 miles out traveling 10 miles per minute and descends at 2,000 feet per minute, it will take it 20 minutes to descend. That's 200 miles of nearly free flight.

The one thing I'm not sure about is that in a Lear, we blasted all the way to the beginning of the round over at nearly full throttle. I don't know what a 777 does.

Cheers

Quite right, engines do lose power due to rare air, but pick up TAS (true air speed), but that's not at the usual cruising altitude, typically, mid 30,000's, to 43,000. The best TAS for fuel burn for most engine/airframe combinations is around 28-30,000'. Thereafter, fuel burn increases, and TAS decreases, but the benefits are generally a smoother ride, and greater groundspeed due to higher upper level winds if flying east. Flying west is generally at lower altitudes.

High fuel burn on climb is just part of the game, it's unavoidable if you want to get to altitude as you must.

Descent is almost free as you say, and if you spend 30 minutes climbing, and 20 minutes descending, it does reduce the . If you were burning 20-25 tonnes an hour on climb, that would be 12-12.5 tonnes on climb, and then on descent, it would only be about 2 tonnes per hour, so about 700 Kg (.7 tonne) burnt, a total for 50 minutes of about 13 tonnes (15.6/hr), still more than cruise of 10 tonnes per hour by 50+%, but much better than cruising lower. The fuel burn at low altitude in a jet makes the company accountant's eyes water.

Tallking Lears, I recall reading about Bill Lear's personal aircraft many years ago, and it could climb at 12,000 fpm!! Many years ago I flew a 737/500 with 24,000 lb thrust engines, and one of the airports we operated out of required a 270 degree turn from 500'. We could set heading over the top of the field coming out of the turn at 12000, fully load of pax, but not max weight, a climb rate of 8000 fpm!!

Back to the search. The hard work is just beginning and even with a search area of 40,000 sq kms, (200 X 200 kms) it could take a long time, if in fact they have reliably narrowed it down to that zone. It would seem that the oil slick may be a good lead though if it's proven to be from MH370, and is still leaking. If it's just drifiting, it could be worthless.

The headline on the aircraft being flown like a fighter seemed a bit sensationalist, and typical of the press. Flying low isn't flying like a fighter because they typically operate at altitude, and it still wouldn't avoid radar if manoeuvering in tight turns etc.

Edited April 14, 2014 by F4UCorsair

[F4UCorsair]

News has been sparse the last few days, and the media have consequently been gearing up their attention to rehashing old news, inventing new "theories", bringing forward new self-proclaimed experts, and uncovering more fiendish conspiracies. Hang on ! It will now start to get worse.

With Bluefin 21 being deployed, the only news will be:

- Bluefin has just been deployed

- 20 hours later - Bluefin has just been brought back on-board

- 4 hours later - Bluefin, data has all been downloaded and Bluefin is re- deployed with new batteries

- data is being analysed

- repeat daily

Unfortunately tigermonkey, I believe that's the way it will go, and the press will call on aviation 'experts/consultants' for comment, and no doubt somebody who once knew a guy who said he had a cousin who met a 777 pilot in a pub who said.....................will also get a run.

[Carmine6]

Though it seems like it has to be a different data mechanism as ACARS was shut down early in this flight.

Why a different "data mechanism" (whatever that is)?

I said "... making it RAT powered when the electrical supply is interrupted".

I.e. if the power supply is interrupted (e.g. by manual intervention), the RAT triggers irreversibly and powers ACARS from that point onwards.

Well this chain of discussion has moved on, but what I meant by mechanism was method, and not some additional equipment. Doesn't make sense to me to have a system that can be shut down and then have an automatic power backup that would light it up again. Why not instead take away the ability to shut it down, then there's no need to mess with any special backup power? Same result without all the extra work. But I'm not going to second guess why they have the shut off for the ACARS in the cockpit. As you've noted, the satellite system seems a reasonable solution.

[boomerangutang]

....however the B777 auto throttle is far safer with speed (SPD) mode engaged. The threat comes from hold (HLD) mode. No auto throttle wake up if in hold mode.

If you were having that conversation with a Thai bar girl, she might respond, "You wan bee-ah?"

....can anyone recall seeing one map with the plane returning over Thailand,if so waht would be the time it entered.left Thai airspace or at least rradar.If it was to fly over Pulau Pinang from lasr position would almost certainly have passed over S Thailand?

I did see one map, but can't recall its source, which showed the plane passing over southernmost Thailand, just north of Yala, going east to west.

[retell]

....however the B777 auto throttle is far safer with speed (SPD) mode engaged. The threat comes from hold (HLD) mode. No auto throttle wake up if in hold mode.

If you were having that conversation with a Thai bar girl, she might respond, "You wan bee-ah?"

....can anyone recall seeing one map with the plane returning over Thailand,if so waht would be the time it entered.left Thai airspace or at least rradar.If it was to fly over Pulau Pinang from lasr position would almost certainly have passed over S Thailand?

I did see one map, but can't recall its source, which showed the plane passing over southernmost Thailand, just north of Yala, going east to west.

https://www.google.co.th/search?q=map+flight+370&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=MJ1MU6GFLoPtrQePmYC4AQ&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ&biw=962&bih=601#facrc=_

Just pick one

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[hawker9000]

....however the B777 auto throttle is far safer with speed (SPD) mode engaged. The threat comes from hold (HLD) mode. No auto throttle wake up if in hold mode.

If you were having that conversation with a Thai bar girl, she might respond, "You wan bee-ah?"

....can anyone recall seeing one map with the plane returning over Thailand,if so waht would be the time it entered.left Thai airspace or at least rradar.If it was to fly over Pulau Pinang from lasr position would almost certainly have passed over S Thailand?

I did see one map, but can't recall its source, which showed the plane passing over southernmost Thailand, just north of Yala, going east to west.

I've seen that flight path passing through Thai airspace often depicted as well. Have never known whether to consider it just somebody's guess, or substantiated by radar observations, or just a straight line between the last comms and a known radar contact point, or that last point on his planned route of flight before hitting the Vietnamese FIR and last radar contact, or what. Just google "MH370 route of flight" or something similar.

[boomerangutang]

Mini-sub aborts first search for MH370
April 15, 2014 8:05 am

SYDNEY - A mini-sub hunting for Malaysian jet MH370 aborted its first search of the remote Indian Ocean seabed after just six hours because the water was deeper than its operating limits, officials said Tuesday.

The unmanned submarine loaded with sonar to map the ocean floor deployed Monday night from the Australian ship Ocean Shield which has spearheaded the hunt for the Boeing 777 that vanished on March 8.

"After completing around six hours of its mission, Bluefin-21 exceeded its operating depth limit of 4,500 metres and its built in safety feature returned it to the surface," JACC said, without detailing the exact depth of operations.

"The six hours of data gathered by the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle is currently being extracted and analysed," JACC said.

The AUV had been due to spend up to 16 hours collecting data.

AFP / source: Nation

[catterwell]

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370: US underwater drone takes over search

With no pings in several days from what could be the black boxes of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, the US Navy has launched the Bluefin-21 sub, which was designed in Quincy, Mass

How many Bluefins are they deploying?

[tigermonkey]

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370: US underwater drone takes over search

With no pings in several days from what could be the black boxes of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, the US Navy has launched the Bluefin-21 sub, which was designed in Quincy, Mass

How many Bluefins are they deploying?

Only one.

[tigermonkey]

Mini-sub aborts first search for MH370

April 15, 2014 8:05 am

SYDNEY - A mini-sub hunting for Malaysian jet MH370 aborted its first search of the remote Indian Ocean seabed after just six hours because the water was deeper than its operating limits, officials said Tuesday.

The unmanned submarine loaded with sonar to map the ocean floor deployed Monday night from the Australian ship Ocean Shield which has spearheaded the hunt for the Boeing 777 that vanished on March 8.

"After completing around six hours of its mission, Bluefin-21 exceeded its operating depth limit of 4,500 metres and its built in safety feature returned it to the surface," JACC said, without detailing the exact depth of operations.

"The six hours of data gathered by the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle is currently being extracted and analysed," JACC said.

The AUV had been due to spend up to 16 hours collecting data.

AFP / source: Nation

Has anyone heard of any action being undertaken to bring in an AUV/ROV which is capable of going to a depth of more than 4500 meters. The 'plain' where the search is being undertaken apparently varies in depth from 4,000 meters to 5,300 meters, although I surmise that depth knowledge and mapping of this area is far from complete.

I find it rather disappointing that Bluefin was found to be inadequate so early in it's efforts. It was scanning guided by "distance above the ocean floor", when it automatically de-deployed because it was going below its depth capability ( 4,500 meters). I suppose they can continue with Bluefin and leave out the areas that are too deep - perhaps later map and scan those deep areas with HMS Echo's sonar.

It leaves one wondering "what now ?"

[canuckamuck]

I am sure they will keep using bluefin, they just need to manage it better.