Did anyone else catch the episode of NOVA last night on PBS about MH370? Thoughts? I hadn't heard about how the satellite communication company had used the timing of the satellite "handshakes" with the plane to track its probable route. That was really an ingenious idea, although I wonder just how accurate it can be.
For anyone who didn't see the episode, it's available to watch online: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/space/why-planes-vanish.html
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- MaverickM11
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RE: PBS Nova Episode On MH370
| Quoting Yflyer (Thread starter): Did anyone else catch the episode of NOVA last night on PBS about MH370? Thoughts? |
Watched it last night...was hoping for something new or interesting and didn't catch much of anything I didn't already know, and I haven't been following it that closely.
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- Wingtips56
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RE: PBS Nova Episode On MH370
I saw the episode and did find it interesting ... and summed up the unmanageable number of a.net threads I could no longer keep up with.
The satellite handshakes I guess are all that really show the plane kept flying. However as you saw from the two broad arcs, it's hardly accurate enough to really pinpoint where to look. Interesting, though, how they compensate for a wobbling satellite and it's feedback.
The show didn't really provide much new, though. The only real 'new' information I think we'll ever get is the wreckage finally being found ... somewhere.
I do wholeheartedly agree with the opinion that transponders should not ever be able to be turned off. I don't know when, if ever, Next Gen may happen, but it sounds like the whole system would be totally reliant on the transponders.
The satellite handshakes I guess are all that really show the plane kept flying. However as you saw from the two broad arcs, it's hardly accurate enough to really pinpoint where to look. Interesting, though, how they compensate for a wobbling satellite and it's feedback.
The show didn't really provide much new, though. The only real 'new' information I think we'll ever get is the wreckage finally being found ... somewhere.
I do wholeheartedly agree with the opinion that transponders should not ever be able to be turned off. I don't know when, if ever, Next Gen may happen, but it sounds like the whole system would be totally reliant on the transponders.
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- 32andBelow
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RE: PBS Nova Episode On MH370
| Quoting Wingtips56 (Reply 2): I do wholeheartedly agree with the opinion that transponders should not ever be able to be turned off. I don't know when, if ever, Next Gen may happen, but it sounds like the whole system would be totally reliant on the transponders. |
And what happens if your transponder starts going off in error? Do you just have it continue in busy airpsace?
RE: PBS Nova Episode On MH370
| Quoting 32andBelow (Reply 3): And what happens if your transponder starts going off in error? Do you just have it continue in busy airpsace? |
But how often does that scenario happen? Extremely rarely I imagine.
[Edited 2014-10-09 15:40:35]
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- 32andBelow
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RE: PBS Nova Episode On MH370
I had not paid much attention to the MH370 story for a while. As such I found this program rather refreshing to see. I agree that out current system of searching for the black boxes after a crash with virtually no idea of where the wreckage is located needs to change.
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RE: PBS Nova Episode On MH370
| Quoting 32andBelow (Reply 5): I work for an airline. ELT's go off fairly frequently, and we disable them until we can get it fixed |
Once a week? Once a month? Once a year? Every few years? Just curious.
RE: PBS Nova Episode On MH370
One new piece of information(at least new to me), Inmarsat started logging ping times post AF447.
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- 32andBelow
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RE: PBS Nova Episode On MH370
| Quoting reality (Reply 7): Once a week? Once a month? Once a year? Every few years? Just curious. |
Probably a few times a year. The ELT in our fleet type is notoriously bad. I'm sure newer tails don't have better reliability. But the fact is, there are always a few generations of aircraft types flying at any given time.
RE: PBS Nova Episode On MH370
I still don't understand how so much as even a life vest has not washed up on someone's shore. It really is one of those mysteries to me. Knowing it took a 1.5-2 days to find debris floating on the surface in the wake of AF447, I think they just really have no idea where to look for MH370... Sorry, that's a bit low tech.
If this is the case, then there should be a separate GPS protocol which is linked not to ATC, but to the airline dispatch or manufacturer which cannot be disabled.
Maybe the plane is in Diego Garcia and the text messages are real.
| Quoting 32andBelow (Reply 5): I work for an airline. ELT's go off fairly frequently, and we disable them until we can get it fixed |
If this is the case, then there should be a separate GPS protocol which is linked not to ATC, but to the airline dispatch or manufacturer which cannot be disabled.
Maybe the plane is in Diego Garcia and the text messages are real.
Keep on truckin'...
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- Wingtips56
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RE: PBS Nova Episode On MH370
| Quoting 32andBelow (Reply 9): Probably a few times a year. The ELT in our fleet type is notoriously bad. I'm sure newer tails don't have better reliability. But the fact is, there are always a few generations of aircraft types flying at any given time. |
I assume that's why there are two of them. Are more transponders on each plane the answer? If not, what is? ...the aircraft needs some always-reliable way of identifying itself and where it is if Next Gen or other ATC system becomes totally reliant on the aircraft, rather than unidentified 1940's radar returns.
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RE: PBS Nova Episode On MH370
My problem with is when they showed a map of alleged worldwide radar coverage, and showed almost no radar sites in Canada... wildly inaccurate. Cool how they came up here to talk to YUL center, though.
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- Revelation
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RE: PBS Nova Episode On MH370
I watched it and was surprised how it was so focused on the tech and so little on the humans. So much talk about primary versus secondary radar, satellites, transponders, GPSes, ADS-B, etc. So much more of that than talk about the human element given that there's no plausible way the aircraft itself could have done what it did without lots of human intervention!
They talked about how key equipment was not operating and discussed a bit about whether or not pilots should be able to turn off transponders, they showed exactly how one gets into the EE bay on the 777 and that the entrance is outside the cockpit, and even mentioned the two people traveling on false documents but seemed to spend NO time on the two humans with the most knowledge about the 777 and the two who had the best ability to turn off ACARS and transponders right at the instant when control was being passed from Malaysia to Vietnam and then successfully put the aircraft on a new course, which of course is the pilot and the co-pilot.
They didn't mention either pilot or co-pilot by name, they didn't explore any motivations they or any other humans on board were known to have that might lead them to disable the key systems and change the flight's course. I kept wondering when they would get to the human aspect, and IMHO it was odd to me that they never did.
Of course, part of me wonders if they weren't afraid of lawyers or politicians...
They talked about how key equipment was not operating and discussed a bit about whether or not pilots should be able to turn off transponders, they showed exactly how one gets into the EE bay on the 777 and that the entrance is outside the cockpit, and even mentioned the two people traveling on false documents but seemed to spend NO time on the two humans with the most knowledge about the 777 and the two who had the best ability to turn off ACARS and transponders right at the instant when control was being passed from Malaysia to Vietnam and then successfully put the aircraft on a new course, which of course is the pilot and the co-pilot.
They didn't mention either pilot or co-pilot by name, they didn't explore any motivations they or any other humans on board were known to have that might lead them to disable the key systems and change the flight's course. I kept wondering when they would get to the human aspect, and IMHO it was odd to me that they never did.
Of course, part of me wonders if they weren't afraid of lawyers or politicians...
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- Wingtips56
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RE: PBS Nova Episode On MH370
It wouldn't be like PBS/Nova to speculate on the human element, and that's all anybody can do: speculate. Even if the wreckage and black boxes are found, if the cockpit was silent for the last 30 minutes, nobody will ever know what was said in flight.
Worked for WestAir, Apollo Airways, Desert Pacific, Western, AirCal and American Airlines (Retired). Flight Memory: 181 airports, 92 airlines, 78 a/c types, 403 routes, 58 countries (by air), 6 continents. 1,119,414 passenger miles.
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RE: PBS Nova Episode On MH370
The EE bay access on the 777 was surprising to me. The fact that there would be a maintenance terminal in there is concerning... Someone please tell me its at least password protected.. 
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- Revelation
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RE: PBS Nova Episode On MH370
| Quoting Wingtips56 (Reply 14): It wouldn't be like PBS/Nova to speculate on the human element, and that's all anybody can do: speculate. |
Perhaps, but there certainly are facts about the key humans that could have been explored, IMHO.
Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world
The heart has its beaches, its homeland and thoughts of its own
Wake now, discover that you are the song that the morning brings
The heart has its seasons, its evenings and songs of its own
The heart has its beaches, its homeland and thoughts of its own
Wake now, discover that you are the song that the morning brings
The heart has its seasons, its evenings and songs of its own
RE: PBS Nova Episode On MH370
Are they still looking for the A/C? I thought I read an article that they had given up for the time being. Though I'm sure no government would "give up" on such a deadly disappearance.
I'm sure in a period of time, whether it be months or years, we will find out what happened to it. I remember reading an article in Popular Mechanics stating "the chances of finding AF447's black boxes is virtually nil" in late 2009/early 2010. A year later, they found them, and the mystery was solved.
-LPDAL
I'm sure in a period of time, whether it be months or years, we will find out what happened to it. I remember reading an article in Popular Mechanics stating "the chances of finding AF447's black boxes is virtually nil" in late 2009/early 2010. A year later, they found them, and the mystery was solved.
-LPDAL
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- NWAROOSTER
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RE: PBS Nova Episode On MH370
| Quoting Wingtips56 (Reply 14): It wouldn't be like PBS/Nova to speculate on the human element, and that's all anybody can do: speculate. Even if the wreckage and black boxes are found, if the cockpit was silent for the last 30 minutes, nobody will ever know what was said in flight. |
The cockpit voice recorders now record more than the last 30 minutes of conversation in the cockpit, unless the Circuit Breaker was pulled. This whole scenario will ultimately force the airlines and manufactures to put something on the aircraft that cannot be disabled that will report their current and previous locations of their current flight to ground locations. It can be enforced by having countries that have a large amount of airspace that the aircraft would need to fly through or by not allowing aircraft that do not have the equipment to report to have landing rights in that country. It could be made retroactive to any aircraft already flying. You would be surprised how fast the airlines would comply to these new regulations. Instalation could be fast tracked.
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- Wingtips56
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RE: PBS Nova Episode On MH370
| Quoting NWAROOSTER (Reply 18): unless the Circuit Breaker was pulled. |
Hmmm... odds are that this could have happened in line with all the other elements of the crew-participant theories.
Worked for WestAir, Apollo Airways, Desert Pacific, Western, AirCal and American Airlines (Retired). Flight Memory: 181 airports, 92 airlines, 78 a/c types, 403 routes, 58 countries (by air), 6 continents. 1,119,414 passenger miles.
Home airport : CEC
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RE: PBS Nova Episode On MH370
| Quoting LPDAL (Reply 17): Are they still looking for the A/C? I thought I read an article that they had given up for the time being. |
Yes. A new search program has recently been undertaken in a 350nm swath of ocean based on new models that presume the airplane spiraled into the sea after fuel exhaustion of the right engine, followed by the left.
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- ETinCaribe
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RE: PBS Nova Episode On MH370
| Quoting Revelation (Reply 13): I watched it and was surprised how it was so focused on the tech and so little on the humans. So much talk about primary versus secondary radar, satellites, transponders, GPSes, ADS-B, etc. So much more of that than talk about the human element given that there's no plausible way the aircraft itself could have done what it did without lots of human intervention! They talked about how key equipment was not operating and discussed a bit about whether or not pilots should be able to turn off transponders, they showed exactly how one gets into the EE bay on the 777 and that the entrance is outside the cockpit, and even mentioned the two people traveling on false documents but seemed to spend NO time on the two humans with the most knowledge about the 777 and the two who had the best ability to turn off ACARS and transponders right at the instant when control was being passed from Malaysia to Vietnam and then successfully put the aircraft on a new course, which of course is the pilot and the co-pilot. |
| Quoting Revelation (Reply 16): Quoting Wingtips56 (Reply 14): It wouldn't be like PBS/Nova to speculate on the human element, and that's all anybody can do: speculate. Perhaps, but there certainly are facts about the key humans that could have been explored, IMHO. |
I tend to agree that they could have at least mentioned who the pilot and co-pilot were, their backgrounds, services with the airline, etc. which would be all facts. One of the guest said you look at facts and let the facts lead you, but the problem here is the lack of data/facts...
I really enjoyed the part about Inmarsat analysis and how they calculated the projected trajectory of the plane based on the RTT of the pings and the relative movement of the unstable geostationary satellite.
In sum, a great episode, like most NOVA programs.
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