Quoting rightrudder (Reply 23): March 8th by what time zone? Malaysian time or another zone? Flight Awares indicates otherwise. http://flightaware.com/live/flight/M...0/history/20140306/1635Z/WMKK/ZBAA Departure date is set by departure origin.

Malaysian of course. That link is to the MH370 the day prior ... that's why it says "landed"!!!

New Sanity Check.

A slight update to the sanity check I did in thread 16. Been trying to do this for 12 hrs - I can't keep up with the rumors,
The facts have not changed much.
Stuff that has changed is marked with * and italic

I'm going to try to list what we know, not what we think - we being the public. And sadly it is very short.

- The ship took off normally and headed on course to Beijing
- The last comms were a normal handoff from Malaysia to Vietnam control.
- It was a normal 'good night' on the Malaysian side, but Vietnam was not contacted.
- The aircraft dropped off secondary radar with no communication from the cockpit.
- There are some reports of a descent and turn - based on primary radar.
- But there is confusion about the veracity of that.
- There is some confusion (in the press) about if the descent was 3000ft or to 3000ft
* Update: I think we have concluded it was descent by 3000ft, the a/c remained at or near 29,500 feet.
- There was a primary radar return tracked west over the Malacca straits.
- Since it is primarily - a reflection - we do not know that it is the accident a/c.
- We do not know if it was a track (multiple returns) or a few points returns.
- We have no ELT signal detected.

* Update:
* ACARS: 2 ACARS messages were sent to Rolls Royce - both before the LOS (loss of signal) event. None after that.

* SATCOM Pings: There are (unconfirmed?) reports that the a/c SATCOM continued to send network interrogations (pings) for some hours after the LOS.
* These pings are simply short signals from the a/c to the satellites that are a sort of "I'm here" signal. No data was sent.
* This IS Significant, if it is true because that means the a/c was in flight and that comms were NOT disable.
* However, these pings provide no location, direction or any other kind of info - simply a 'ping' sent to the satellite.
* There is confusion about these pings being primary radar returns - that is not correct - they are communication signals.

Airworthiness Directive
* The airworthiness directive about the SATCOM antenna does not apply to this ship.
* The ship DOES have SATCOM - but uses a different antenna


Based on this information - authorities are searching 2 areas - near the planned route and in the Malacca straight.
* In addition - there may be some extension to the Indian Ocean.
* This makes sense if the primary radar returns in the Malacca Straight were MH370 and it was heading west at altitude.
* The fact that we have found nothing in the most likely areas drives expansion based on either new data or less reliable data.
- Frankly - this is quite reasonable. You search where you have evidence the a/c may be.

There are lots of conspiracy theories out there - from the Malaysian government hiding something to pilot suicide, to hijacking to whatever.
- We have no data to support any of them.
- The breadth of the countries searching alone makes me discount many of the 'government is hiding it' aspects
- It is likely there are covert (secret) resources in the area that are trying to provide the info without revealing themselves.

We have lots of complaints about incompetence.
- I've been in and in command of large emergencies and been the one responsible to communicate to large groups.
- Even in the best situations, with cooperating agencies - it is easy to portray incompetence when what is really going on is hard work that is not providing the desired result.
* Complaints continue and will despite what any authority does till something happens.

Mobile phones
- We know that if any mobile phones were connected to the tower - we would have a location and would search there.
- We don't have any reports or evidence of that - so I conclude that it is not viable to consider.

We have had a lot of "false" sightings
- This is common and we need to investigate the credible ones. Most will be false.
- The Chinese Satellite data has not resulted in any findings.

----------------------
In summary
We KNOW 4 things.
- The a/c disappeared from secondary radar and stopped communicating. We do not know why or what happened to it.
- There is some evidence that it traveled west. But that evidence is not conclusive or sure.
- We have not found it despite multiple governmental agencies from multiple countries searching hard.
* We have a better idea were it is NOT

That is all.
(Perhaps somebody can do an Insanity Check - all the wild theories have been discussed, proven or not).

[Edited 2014-03-13 15:46:08]

[Edited 2014-03-13 15:46:33]

9M-MRO is a modern aircraft, but one with a lot of use. 53,465 hours & 7525 cycles. Taking a good look at the maintenance records is a more logical start than investigating the captain's home flight simulator, as an example.

My speculation is that we're looking at an explosive decompression, something which affected the oxygen systems as well as electrical systems. Similar to the Payne Stewart tragedy, this could involve the aircraft flying for some time, being affected by the wind, which could explain how it got to the Indian Ocean, should that info be credible. In the case of Mr. Stewarts Learjet, pilots acknowledged an ATC transmission and then were not heard from again. The aircraft flew for approx 4 hrs more over 1500 km with all on board having succumbed to hypoxia. Eventually it entered a sharp turn and lost altitude, resulting in a crash.

This is also reminiscent of Helios 522.

Quoting KIAS (Reply 14): I personally do not subscribe to the hijiacking theories. I think we will learn this was a catastrophic event which may have also involved the electrical systems.

You know I looked at as much passenger info as I could get and I just didn't see it happening. How would the passengers even know how to turn off the various comms devices. I don't see the pilots slamming it into the sea either but its certainly possible.

Is it possible they got signals from under the sea? Somehow off battery power?

Quoting rcair1 (Reply 31):

Awesome. Thanks!

If the shutdown of communication systems (ACARS, transponder, etc.) occurred sequentially over several minutes it could indicate a progressively worsening mechanical / electrical failure. For example, a fire that was taking systems out one at a time. No distress signal could mean that the pilots were too busy trying to keep the airplane in the air to make a distress call, or that the failure took out radio communication early in the process.

The SATCOM/VHF/HF radios are all discrete avionics blocks and are separate from the avionics blocks generating the message traffic on the radio signals. The radios aren't dumb signal-forward devices, they have intelligent modems that build the digital link over the radio wave. Think the PHY device on a network card or the optical transceiver module in a router or switch. The data messaging level is one step back, you push the message onto the radio's input channel and it encodes it into a modulated analog signal and sends it on over the antenna.

If you disable or fail the block that generates the ACARS messages, or the transponder block, and the SATCOM block remains powered and operational, you would get the situation where the SATCOM keep-alive signals are present, but no data can flow.

Quoting deconz (Reply 30): Quoting rightrudder (Reply 23): March 8th by what time zone? Malaysian time or another zone? Flight Awares indicates otherwise. http://flightaware.com/live/flight/M...0/history/20140306/1635Z/WMKK/ZBAA Departure date is set by departure origin. Malaysian of course. That link is to the MH370 the day prior ... that's why it says "landed"!!!

I stand corrected. Thank you for the explanation.

Tomnod just put out EXACT image locations and all hits with associated pictures in a kmz (Google Earth) file for those who are interested. http://bit.ly/MalayResults14

Quoting nm2582 (Reply 12): Are you saying that CNN just came into the possession of a FDR and CVR which are believed to be from a 777 owned by Malaysian Airlines? Source??

No way, they got hold of some model plane/recorder to enlighten viewers. I may be wrong but the transponder they are showing may be from a Cessna.

Quoting katekebo (Reply 35): If the shutdown of communication systems (ACARS, transponder, etc.) occurred sequentially over several minutes it could indicate a progressively worsening mechanical / electrical failure. For example, a fire that was taking systems out one at a time. No distress signal could mean that the pilots were too busy trying to keep the airplane in the air to make a distress call, or that the failure took out radio communication early in the process.

Provided that the captain's "all right good night" to Malaysian ATC came after ACARS failed. I'm not sure but I thought it came right before the transponder failed. Which would mean:

1) ACARS fails
2) Comms still up but Cap't indicates everything is ok
3) Transponder fails
4) Turn, descend, fly for many hours, or so we are told.

Quoting rightrudder (Reply 37): I stand corrected. Thank you for the explanation.

Reading comprehension is a key skill.

Quoting IADCA (Reply 41): Quoting rightrudder (Reply 37): I stand corrected. Thank you for the explanation. Reading comprehension is a key skill.

So is prescribing vision glasses.

Quoting katekebo (Reply 35): If the shutdown of communication systems (ACARS, transponder, etc.) occurred sequentially over several minutes it could indicate a progressively worsening mechanical / electrical failure. For example, a fire that was taking systems out one at a time. No distress signal could mean that the pilots were too busy trying to keep the airplane in the air to make a distress call, or that the failure took out radio communication early in the process.

But that doesn't answer why there was engine information data bursts sent via satellite to Rolls Royce for four or five HOURS after the transponder went silent.

Quoting DTW2HYD (Reply 39): No way, they got hold of some model plane/recorder to enlighten viewers.

Ok. I thought your statement meant they were CVR/FDR's from the 777 model of aircraft. That would have been an incredible announcement.

I don't know if this is already posted.... Looks like the two transponders went off separately and not at once, thus indicating not a catastrophic systems failure. This is per ABC nightly news.

Disregard this. See #52.

[Edited 2014-03-13 16:13:45]

My guess is that this was a pilot suicide perpetrated by the captain. The loss of the transponder, no distress call and the inability to find any wreckage anywhere near where the aircraft was supposed to be all point to this as a possibility. Egyptair 990, LAM and Silkair all are past examples of this type of scenario. Being almost a week since the airplane vanished, the odds are slim that we will ever truly know what happened to this flight.

Just rewatched the Swissair 111. Accident Investigation.

One thing clearly stands out. A fast impact with the ocean will leave few pieces larger than
your typical floor mat, and no structure of the aircraft will retain airpockets large enough to float.
that leaves Overhead compartments contents and pieces of foam from seats.

Hi all,

After years reading this forum I decided to join, sorry for my spelling English it’s not my mother language.

I have more speculation that have not being discussed, based on that the airplane is not near where it disappeared, SAR procedures from 4 countries cannot miss the plane in 150 ft. of water.

I need answer for these 2 questions:
1 Where are located the flight computers in a 777?
2 If the cockpit gets destroyed the autopilot and the computer can keep the airplane flying?

If the answer is yes to my 2nd question this could mathematically be possible:

Cockpit hit by a very small meteor, destroy the instruments and incapacitate or kill both pilots, no instruments no transponders no comms, the damage is not enough to break the plane and debris so small that impossible to trace on ground, computers still working and able to keep control on surfaces and throttle, due to destruction of the autopilot console the computer may have received any signal, for example heading 280, altitude FL298, and it flew until ran out of fuel somewhere in the world?

Sounds pretty crazy but as an engineer I have seen stuff that only could happen 1 in a trillion happening!

Thanks again

Btw- pretty scary to realize that when the plane was missing by the authorities, the plane was still flying somewhere...
(IF the plane has flown for 4 to 5 more hrs (if!))

[Edited 2014-03-13 16:05:45]