Missing planes

[blandy]

Interesting idea here about how the plane could fly undetected.

 

it's how Client Eastwood got the Firefox home so it's possible 

 

I don't' know enough about the workings of radar to know if that's plausible or not ..how close would he have to fly to the other plane to only appear as one object ?

 

thing I cant understand is if they got this "Ping" 7 hours later , why they heck can't they trace the ping  ?

Me too. If only we had a poster who knows about aircraft engineering and stuff.

the radar question is a very good one. It depends on the type of radar. Traffic control radar is less able to discriminate than perhaps some of the military radars, but we don't know the detail of the various mil radars in the area. Even then , the timing of turning off the IFF and colocation with the other airliner would have to be very precise. It seems unlikely, but possible, to me. I haven't followed the story due to my own travelling and location, but has anyone raised the timing point? Was the IFF lost and then the aircraft disappeared from radar at the location of the SAL flight?

The Ping question. Do you mean an IFF squawk?or a single return on the radar? Or an IFF transponder response. IFF tells you the aircraft ID and altitude. A squawk tells you more. A radar return tells you distance Azimuth + elevation. Levi's point about GPS is not quite accurate, you generally need 5 satellites for an accurate fix, but that's kind of irrelevant, as it tells you where you are, not where someone else ( the missing aircraft) is.

In summary it's possible to turn off/ disable all the aircrafts emitters to try to hide your position. It's possible for aircraft to be missed by radar, depending on range radar type etc. it's possible for two very close aircraft to seem to be just one aircraft. To do all of those things and so them without raising alarm would require a deal of knowledge, skill, timing, luck and outside help or outside incompetence from the various air traffic and military installations for it to be carried off, I'd think. It seems quite unlikely, but then again all the likelier theories have not led to it being found

[CarewsEyebrowDesigner]

[Meath_Villan]

 

 

 brilliant .....call of the search lads she's found it !!!!

[Jimzk5]

Just 2 minutes between last verbal contact with the pilot and the transponder being turned off, 2 minutes, is that enough time to storm the cockpit, subdue the pilots, take control of the plane and turn the transponder off?

[Electric Avenue]

That may not have been the pilot they last spoke to

[bickster]

That may not have been the pilot they last spoke to

It wasn't, it was confirmed today that it was the co-pilot

[Jimzk5]

I just don't buy the hijack theory, 200+ people on a plane, even if just a handful had working phones, how would you stop someone sending a txt, or even an email? And how do you hijack a plane without the use of half decent weapons?

i think whatever happened with that plane, 1 or both the pilots had something to do with it

[limpid]

I just don't buy the hijack theory, 200+ people on a plane, even if just a handful had working phones, how would you stop someone sending a txt, or even an email? And how do you hijack a plane without the use of half decent weapons?

i think whatever happened with that plane, 1 or both the pilots had something to do with it

How many cell towers do you think there are in the middle of the ocean?

[Electric Avenue]

I think a lot of information is being held back from the public. Just look at the body language in the press conferences and the facial expressions and language. Big cover up .

[Jimzk5]

I just don't buy the hijack theory, 200+ people on a plane, even if just a handful had working phones, how would you stop someone sending a txt, or even an email? And how do you hijack a plane without the use of half decent weapons?

i think whatever happened with that plane, 1 or both the pilots had something to do with it

How many cell towers do you think there are in the middle of the ocean?

most planes are now fitted with onboard wifi

[limpid]

 

 

I just don't buy the hijack theory, 200+ people on a plane, even if just a handful had working phones, how would you stop someone sending a txt, or even an email? And how do you hijack a plane without the use of half decent weapons?

i think whatever happened with that plane, 1 or both the pilots had something to do with it

How many cell towers do you think there are in the middle of the ocean?

most planes are now fitted with onboard wifi

 

I bet that's easier to turn off than the transponders.

[Jimzk5]

A different point of view. Pulau Langkawi 13,000 runway.

A lot of speculation about MH370. Terrorism, hijack, meteors. I cannot believe the analysis on CNN - almost disturbing. I tend to look for a more simple explanation of this event.

Loaded 777 departs midnight from Kuala to Beijing. Hot night. Heavy aircraft. About an hour out across the gulf towards Vietnam the plane goes dark meaning the transponder goes off and secondary radar tracking goes off.

Two days later we hear of reports that Malaysian military radar (which is a primary radar meaning the plane is being tracked by reflection rather than by transponder interrogation response) has tracked the plane on a southwesterly course back across the Malay Peninsula into the straits of Malacca.

When I heard this I immediately brought up Google Earth and I searched for airports in proximity to the track towards southwest.

The left turn is the key here. This was a very experienced senior Captain with 18,000 hours. Maybe some of the younger pilots interviewed on CNN didn't pick up on this left turn. We old pilots were always drilled to always know the closest airport of safe harbor while in cruise. Airports behind us, airports abeam us and airports ahead of us. Always in our head. Always. Because if something happens you don't want to be thinking what are you going to do - you already know what you are going to do. Instinctively when I saw that left turn with a direct heading I knew he was heading for an airport. Actually he was taking a direct route to Palau Langkawi a 13,000 foot strip with an approach over water at night with no obstacles. He did not turn back to Kuala Lampur because he knew he had 8,000 foot ridges to cross. He knew the terrain was friendlier towards Langkawi and also a shorter distance.

Take a look on Google Earth at this airport. This pilot did all the right things. He was confronted by some major event onboard that made him make that immediate turn back to the closest safe airport.

For me the loss of transponders and communications makes perfect sense if a fire. There was most likely a fire or electrical fire. In the case of fire the first response if to pull all the main busses and restore circuits one by one until you have isolated the bad one.

If they pulled the busses the plane indeed would go silent. It was probably a serious event and they simply were occupied with controlling the plane and trying to fight the fire. Aviate, Navigate and lastly communicate. There are two types of fires. Electrical might not be as fast and furious and there might or might not be incapacitating smoke. However there is the possibility given the timeline that perhaps there was an overheat on one of the front landing gear tires and it blew on takeoff and started slowly burning. Yes this happens with underinflated tires. Remember heavy plane, hot night, sea level, long run takeoff. There was a well known accident in Nigeria of a DC8 that had a landing gear fire on takeoff. A tire fire once going would produce horrific incapacitating smoke. Yes, pilots have access to oxygen masks but this is a no no with fire. Most have access to a smoke hood with a filter but this will only last for a few minutes depending on the smoke level. (I used to carry one of my own in a flight bag and I still carry one in my briefcase today when I fly).

What I think happened is that they were overcome by smoke and the plane just continued on the heading probably on George (autopilot) until either fuel exhaustion or fire destroyed the control surfaces and it crashed. I said four days ago you will find it along that route - looking elsewhere was pointless.

This pilot, as I say, was a hero struggling with an impossible situation trying to get that plane to Langkawi. No doubt in my mind. That's the reason for the turn and direct route. A hijack would not have made that deliberate left turn with a direct heading for Langkawi. It would probably have weaved around a bit until the hijackers decided on where they were taking it.

Surprisingly none of the reporters , officials, other pilots interviewed have looked at this from the pilot's viewpoint. If something went wrong where would he go? Thanks to Google earth I spotted Langkawi in about 30 seconds, zoomed in and saw how long the runway was and I just instinctively knew this pilot knew this airport. He had probably flown there many times. I guess we will eventually find out when you help me spread this theory on the net and some reporters finally take a look on Google earth and put 2 and 2 together. Also a look at the age and number of cycles on those nose tires might give us a good clue too.

Fire in an aircraft demands one thing - you get the machine on the ground as soon as possible. There are two well remembered experiences in my memory. The AirCanada DC9 which landed I believe in Columbus Ohio in the eighties. That pilot delayed descent and bypassed several airports. He didn't instinctively know the closest airports. He got it on the ground eventually but lost 30 odd souls. In the 1998 crash of Swissair DC-10 off Nova Scotia was another example of heroic pilots. They were 15 minutes out of Halifax but the fire simply overcame them and they had to ditch in the ocean. Just ran out of time. That fire incidentally started when the aircraft was about an hour out of Kennedy. Guess what the transponders and communications were shut off as they pulled the busses.

Get on Google Earth and type in Pulau Langkawi and then look at it in relation to the radar track heading. 2+2=4 That for me is the simple explanation why it turned and headed in that direction.

Smart pilot. Just didn't have the time.

theory from a pilot

Edited March 17, 2014 by Jimzk5

[Risso]

 

the radar question is a very good one. It depends on the type of radar. Traffic control radar is less able to discriminate than perhaps some of the military radars, but we don't know the detail of the various mil radars in the area. Even then , the timing of turning off the IFF and colocation with the other airliner would have to be very precise. It seems unlikely, but possible, to me. I haven't followed the story due to my own travelling and location, but has anyone raised the timing point? Was the IFF lost and then the aircraft disappeared from radar at the location of the SAL flight?

The Ping question. Do you mean an IFF squawk?or a single return on the radar? Or an IFF transponder response. IFF tells you the aircraft ID and altitude. A squawk tells you more. A radar return tells you distance Azimuth + elevation. Levi's point about GPS is not quite accurate, you generally need 5 satellites for an accurate fix, but that's kind of irrelevant, as it tells you where you are, not where someone else ( the missing aircraft) is.

In summary it's possible to turn off/ disable all the aircrafts emitters to try to hide your position. It's possible for aircraft to be missed by radar, depending on range radar type etc. it's possible for two very close aircraft to seem to be just one aircraft. To do all of those things and so them without raising alarm would require a deal of knowledge, skill, timing, luck and outside help or outside incompetence from the various air traffic and military installations for it to be carried off, I'd think. It seems quite unlikely, but then again all the likelier theories have not led to it being found

 

 

http://newsthump.com/2014/03/17/us-military-stealth-bombers-to-try-turning-off-transponders-instead/

[maqroll]

It's adorable how they share the toy airplane with no temper tantrums

 

[peterms]

 

 

the radar question is a very good one. It depends on the type of radar. Traffic control radar is less able to discriminate than perhaps some of the military radars, but we don't know the detail of the various mil radars in the area. Even then , the timing of turning off the IFF and colocation with the other airliner would have to be very precise. It seems unlikely, but possible, to me. I haven't followed the story due to my own travelling and location, but has anyone raised the timing point? Was the IFF lost and then the aircraft disappeared from radar at the location of the SAL flight?

The Ping question. Do you mean an IFF squawk?or a single return on the radar? Or an IFF transponder response. IFF tells you the aircraft ID and altitude. A squawk tells you more. A radar return tells you distance Azimuth + elevation. Levi's point about GPS is not quite accurate, you generally need 5 satellites for an accurate fix, but that's kind of irrelevant, as it tells you where you are, not where someone else ( the missing aircraft) is.

In summary it's possible to turn off/ disable all the aircrafts emitters to try to hide your position. It's possible for aircraft to be missed by radar, depending on range radar type etc. it's possible for two very close aircraft to seem to be just one aircraft. To do all of those things and so them without raising alarm would require a deal of knowledge, skill, timing, luck and outside help or outside incompetence from the various air traffic and military installations for it to be carried off, I'd think. It seems quite unlikely, but then again all the likelier theories have not led to it being found

 

 

http://newsthump.com/2014/03/17/us-military-stealth-bombers-to-try-turning-off-transponders-instead/

 

 

Doh!  If they wanted the plane to seem like a bird, they could just have glued feathers on it.  Would have been so much cheaper.

[maqroll]

It took a while to find the plane from Rio to Paris that crashed in the Atlantic a few years back. And they knew where to look, but it still took several days, IIRC. 

[Electric Avenue]

They found wreckage and a couple of bodies within days . This has been what, 11 days now ?

Then again, they are scanning about 10% of the worlds surface as a viable search zone

[StanBalaban]

This is an overlay of the Singapore Airlines SIA68 flight plan and the flight track of MH370 according to a poster on Reddit

 

 

SIA68 was scheduled to depart at 16:40 UTC (12:40 SGT). The planes were supposed to leave the airport within a minute of each other. However, SIA68 was delayed by 20 minutes. So it possibly wouldn't have been exactly where 370 would have expected when it veered off course to join it.

However, it landed almost on time, making up for the lost time early in the flight when it was zipping along at 511kts.

But when could MH-370 have joined it? The latest seems to say that it was spotted off the Malaysian coast at 2:15am SGT, 18:15 UTC.

Here is where SIA 68 was at that time, although it had departed 20 minutes late. (Blue line- red was as planned.)

Here is the flight track of MH-370 at that time. Chasing down SIA-68.

HERE is an overlay of the two images. It is absolutely clear as day it was pursuing SIA-68, and probably met up with it shortly before the Andaman islands.

While we can't be certain, it's far and away the best explanation for that erratic and frantic flight path back across Malaysia.

MORE: Here is the relevant flight path of SIA-68, at 6:43AM Malasian Time, 22:43 UTC.

Here is the "northern arc." Where 370 last pinged at 8:11AM Malaysian Time, 00:11 UTC, or about an hour and a half later.

Once again, here is an overlay of the two- (scale was hard to get just right but you get the picture.) Obviously MH-370 veered off through Pakistan at some point.

 

http://www.reddit.com/r/MH370/comments/20lvyl/malaysian_airlines_370_disappeared_using_sia68/

[AshVilla]

600 + possible sites it could have landed at apparently

 

Better start checking

[LondonLax]

 

A different point of view. Pulau Langkawi 13,000 runway.

A lot of speculation about MH370. Terrorism, hijack, meteors. I cannot believe the analysis on CNN - almost disturbing. I tend to look for a more simple explanation of this event.

Loaded 777 departs midnight from Kuala to Beijing. Hot night. Heavy aircraft. About an hour out across the gulf towards Vietnam the plane goes dark meaning the transponder goes off and secondary radar tracking goes off.

Two days later we hear of reports that Malaysian military radar (which is a primary radar meaning the plane is being tracked by reflection rather than by transponder interrogation response) has tracked the plane on a southwesterly course back across the Malay Peninsula into the straits of Malacca.

When I heard this I immediately brought up Google Earth and I searched for airports in proximity to the track towards southwest.

The left turn is the key here. This was a very experienced senior Captain with 18,000 hours. Maybe some of the younger pilots interviewed on CNN didn't pick up on this left turn. We old pilots were always drilled to always know the closest airport of safe harbor while in cruise. Airports behind us, airports abeam us and airports ahead of us. Always in our head. Always. Because if something happens you don't want to be thinking what are you going to do - you already know what you are going to do. Instinctively when I saw that left turn with a direct heading I knew he was heading for an airport. Actually he was taking a direct route to Palau Langkawi a 13,000 foot strip with an approach over water at night with no obstacles. He did not turn back to Kuala Lampur because he knew he had 8,000 foot ridges to cross. He knew the terrain was friendlier towards Langkawi and also a shorter distance.

Take a look on Google Earth at this airport. This pilot did all the right things. He was confronted by some major event onboard that made him make that immediate turn back to the closest safe airport.

For me the loss of transponders and communications makes perfect sense if a fire. There was most likely a fire or electrical fire. In the case of fire the first response if to pull all the main busses and restore circuits one by one until you have isolated the bad one.

If they pulled the busses the plane indeed would go silent. It was probably a serious event and they simply were occupied with controlling the plane and trying to fight the fire. Aviate, Navigate and lastly communicate. There are two types of fires. Electrical might not be as fast and furious and there might or might not be incapacitating smoke. However there is the possibility given the timeline that perhaps there was an overheat on one of the front landing gear tires and it blew on takeoff and started slowly burning. Yes this happens with underinflated tires. Remember heavy plane, hot night, sea level, long run takeoff. There was a well known accident in Nigeria of a DC8 that had a landing gear fire on takeoff. A tire fire once going would produce horrific incapacitating smoke. Yes, pilots have access to oxygen masks but this is a no no with fire. Most have access to a smoke hood with a filter but this will only last for a few minutes depending on the smoke level. (I used to carry one of my own in a flight bag and I still carry one in my briefcase today when I fly).

What I think happened is that they were overcome by smoke and the plane just continued on the heading probably on George (autopilot) until either fuel exhaustion or fire destroyed the control surfaces and it crashed. I said four days ago you will find it along that route - looking elsewhere was pointless.

This pilot, as I say, was a hero struggling with an impossible situation trying to get that plane to Langkawi. No doubt in my mind. That's the reason for the turn and direct route. A hijack would not have made that deliberate left turn with a direct heading for Langkawi. It would probably have weaved around a bit until the hijackers decided on where they were taking it.

Surprisingly none of the reporters , officials, other pilots interviewed have looked at this from the pilot's viewpoint. If something went wrong where would he go? Thanks to Google earth I spotted Langkawi in about 30 seconds, zoomed in and saw how long the runway was and I just instinctively knew this pilot knew this airport. He had probably flown there many times. I guess we will eventually find out when you help me spread this theory on the net and some reporters finally take a look on Google earth and put 2 and 2 together. Also a look at the age and number of cycles on those nose tires might give us a good clue too.

Fire in an aircraft demands one thing - you get the machine on the ground as soon as possible. There are two well remembered experiences in my memory. The AirCanada DC9 which landed I believe in Columbus Ohio in the eighties. That pilot delayed descent and bypassed several airports. He didn't instinctively know the closest airports. He got it on the ground eventually but lost 30 odd souls. In the 1998 crash of Swissair DC-10 off Nova Scotia was another example of heroic pilots. They were 15 minutes out of Halifax but the fire simply overcame them and they had to ditch in the ocean. Just ran out of time. That fire incidentally started when the aircraft was about an hour out of Kennedy. Guess what the transponders and communications were shut off as they pulled the busses.

Get on Google Earth and type in Pulau Langkawi and then look at it in relation to the radar track heading. 2+2=4 That for me is the simple explanation why it turned and headed in that direction.

Smart pilot. Just didn't have the time.

 

theory from a pilot

 

Except that the last satellite ping was some 7 hours after the plane made the left turn. If it was wanting to make an emergency landing on that island it wouldn't have circled for 7 hours.