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^^^ the link to the greek one, stated an air steward entered the cockpit 2 hrs after air loss!
Dan, I work LL buz/wob and bpk's and lam/bnn inbounds. Don't have much to do with kk.
[quote=toys19 ]
such as ACARS being turned off before the last radio comms and several changes of course being made after last contact.
This has been clarified and is not proven.
Both pretty well established facts - the turns based on radar tracks from 2 different countries. I'd suggest that scenarios which don't allow for those happenings are far, far less likely. No matter how implausible a deliberate flight into the South Indian Ocean might seem, it's about the only one which does fit with the known information, so anything else is less likely.
BTW the pilots didn't deliberately climb to starve a fire of oxygen - that's not in any standard procedure for fire.
I didn't think it was likely, to be fair - but this whole thing is such a mystery, the only scenario that seems entirely unlikely is that the culprit will be unmasked by Scooby Do, and he would have got away with it if it wasn't for those pesky kids.
low oxygen due to fire, pilots tried to reprogramme plane to fly back knowing O2 was short, but messed it up/ never finished it?
ACARS wasn't definitely turned off before the last Tx. The last recorded response was beforehand, but it only pings every hour, therefore it could have been turned off at any point in between the two pings, which takes in the period both before and after the last voice contact.
CobraKai - I fly both LL & KK, so no doubt we've spoken!
ACARS is a satellite communication system used when out of normal radio range - basically a satellite based txt msg system. It automatically sends a report from the a/c to ATC when a waypoint is crossed. Over the Atlantic, for example, waypoints are often 45 min apart, so no msg for 45 min doesn't necessarily mean it was switched off 45 min ago. If the link is actually terminated, the other party is notified, so ATC will know exactly what time the link terminated.
As for mobile phones, there is NO Mobile coverage at high altitude. Also, more than 5 miles offshore I doubt you'd get a signal either, so no matter what happened you wouldn't get people using mobiles.
Helios522- That is a very sad read. At least he went down fighting, if you could say that with decorum.
[quote=dantsw13 ]ACARS is a satellite communication system used when out of normal radio range - basically a satellite based txt msg system.
I accept that you're a pilot of these things, so maybe should know, but I'm afraid that is incorrect - ACARS is a datalink protocol which is used over VHF and HF as well as Satcom - in fact from the information provided Malaysian had no contract to send ACARS over Satcom, so updates were only via VHF.
Can't find a reference right now, but I'm fairly sure they did determine that ACARS was acually turned off before the last radio message, rather than it simply failing to report again - there was much discussion of this issue on pprune. I think they also determined that the transponder was turned off before the last radio message, but less sure about that. I believe it was also suggested that the last ACARS report had the programmed turn back in it (well before the last radio message), but that may have been a rumour.
Oh and kimbers, as already discussed above that scenario doesn't fit in with the very well established fact of the turns after passing over the Malaysian peninsula.
Aracer - you are correct. ACARS is being used as a term to cover all datalink communications between the aircraft and ground agencies, whereas in reality there are many independent systems, all controlled and linked through central processors. I was trying to talk in laymans terms, as being discussed elsewhere.
I don't know exactly what Malaysian Airlines 777's have on board, but I'm pretty certain what we are talking about is the CPDLC system, used to keep datalink comms between the a/c and ATC in remote areas, such as the South China Sea. It's pretty hard to tell, as much of the info released is from news agencies, on whom the intricacies of such details are lost.
[quote=dantsw13 ]It's pretty hard to tell, as much of the info released is from news agencies, on whom the intricacies of such details are list.
It's worse than that - most of them seem to be willfully ignorant of many of the important details of how aircraft systems (and comms systems in particular) work, hence are actually misreporting stuff. I should point out that whilst I don't have any direct experience of the aircraft systems we're talking about, as mentioned upthread I have worked on comms systems on military aircraft and know quite a bit about stuff like this in general (apart from being an aviation fan and so knowing quite a bit from that perspective).
aracer, I was only talking about the acars not the turns. I'll find you the link, clarified by the malaysians that they do not know for sure if the ACARS was deliberatly turned off before the last transmission.
The Malaysians had a change of mind as to when the ACARS was switched off.
Thanks Imnotverygood.
Quote below from [url= http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/18/-sp-malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370-how-the-search-has-unfolded-day-by-day ]here, scroll down to Monday[/url]
Malaysia said it believed the final spoken words from the plane came from Fariq, the co-pilot, not his colleague or an intruder on the flight deck. However, they appeared to backtrack from their earlier belief that the words were spoken after communications devices were deliberately switched off.The co-pilot of the missing Malaysian plane’s last words heard from the cockpit were ‘all right, good night’, according to the airline’s chief executive
The voice communication came at 1.19am, two minutes before the plane’s transponder was seemingly turned off. While the last signal from the Acars data communication system came earlier, at 1.07am, it was not due to transmit again until 30 minutes later, Hishammuddin, the interim transport minister, told reporters, meaning that could have seemingly been turned off at any point before 1.37am.
So they say the last transmission was made between the possible window of when ACARS went off..
It still leaves the window open for accident rather than deliberate.
& the part of the system they seem to be referring to is the FMS interface automatically reporting the a/c health to Airline Ops.
Ah, fair enough - I'd missed that. I'll take back my comments about ACARS being turned off (what is explained there is what I assumed the situation was before it was stated that they knew it had been turned off). It seems I was also incorrect about the transponder.
We are however still left with the turns, confirmed by two sets of radar, which do not correspond with any scenario involving the pilots being disabled.
We are however still left with the turns, confirmed by two sets of radar, which do not correspond with any scenario involving the pilots being disabled.
No but they do not preclude some kind of evolving diasater..
What sort of evolving disaster would result in a series of turns and the aircraft then flying on for another 7 hours? All of this with the pilots incapacitated.
Whatever explanation you might have for that, it is doubtless far, far less likely than the more straightforward explanation of it all being flown deliberately. I'm still not sure why people are so reluctant to accept that explanation.
I suspect there was a zombie out break on the plane and to save civilization as we know it the pilots flew it out over the most remote bit of ocean they could find before crashing it into the sea.
It's the apparent lack of motive aracer
Ming the Merciless - MemberI suspect there was a zombie out break on the plane and to save civilization as we know it the pilots flew it out over the most remote bit of ocean they could find before crashing it into the sea.
Anyone who's read World War Z knows that an ocean isn't enough to stop teh zombies!
I do not have an explanation, I have absence of evidence, therefore it is all conjecture.
Could have been deliberate, could have been an accident.
I'm happy to accpet whatever conclusion comes out of the investigation.
Right now I am not 100% convinced that the investigators have got it all correct and I think there is still a possibility that none of the "debris" identified so far is from mh370.
That may well change in the next few hrs..
What sort of evolving disaster would result in a series of turns and the aircraft then flying on for another 7 hours? All of this with the pilots incapacitated.
two assumptions there.
The plane was powered up for 7 hrs
The pilots may not have been incapcatiated.
Imagine somehow losing all comms, and only having partial control of the aircraft, and gradually bleeding to death..
All are possible.
I suspect there was a zombie out break on the plane and to save civilization as we know it the pilots flew it out over the most remote bit of ocean they could find before crashing it into the sea.
You've clearly failed to take the megashark into account there. 🙄
eg united airlines 232 had engine failure which flung engine parts into the controls, and hence [url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_232 ]suffered loss of flight controls[/url] and was crash landed using the engines to adjust lift etc (read the link).
The same could have happened and the pilots could have been injured and struggled to regain control, and gradually bled out..
Preposterous as it sounds, there are many possibilities. What is believable? Dunno, whatever the evidence shows us.
or this one, air transat [url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Transat_Flight_961 ]flight 961[/url] which lost a rudder but landed safely hrs later.
This makes you wonder if there might be wreckage off malaysia and off australia..
Any theory I come up with would be pure speculation. I am pretty certain, on the back of the INMARSAT* data, that the aircraft flew off into the Southern Ocean, at which point it lacked the fuel to reach land. How, why, or who put it there, I haven't the foggiest.
* a highly reputable satellite company, who wouldn't make statements like they have without being very sure of their data.
Dan, I am pretty certain too. And I am not dissing Inmarsat, but given the fast moving nature of this investigation and the limited data they had I would not be completly suprised if they were discover an error at some point in the future.
It makes sense though, in as much as an aircraft flying anywhere else would have been detected by that nations military.
Just to throw in my twopenneth. Another ATCO here, and what I find most interesting is, if the debris site is confirmed to be at the furthest limit of the endurance of the flight then I'd assume the aircraft continued at its optimum flight level to be most efficient. If the aircraft was down at 5A then there's no way it would have made it so far unless it's climbed back up to its planned level. I'm no expert in how autopilot would control in this situation, but I reckon both pilots were overcome by fumes and the autopilot has resumed a 'normal' flight profile. Or the whole 5A thing is a red herring to explain the lack of primary ident.
It makes sense though, in as much as an aircraft flying anywhere else would have been detected by that nations military.
Yeah on primary inspection, but lots UK and US military analysts think that there are holes not just in coverage, but in how flights are monitored.
eat_more_cheese if you look at maps of where the first debris was reported that got the aussies all excited, its at about 80% of range. The later "finds" are after days and days of drifting..
I agree, but when all those military nations going back over primary radar footage, finding nothing, and add that to the INMARSAT data, I think we get "beyond reasonable doubt"
[quote=toys19 ]Imagine somehow losing all comms, and only having partial control of the aircraft, and gradually bleeding to death..
All are possible.
Except it is well documented that they didn't lose all comms.
I don't see why motive is such a big deal. It being deliberately flown to crash land in the Southern Indian Ocean fits all the known facts. Pretty much none of the other theories do. Personally I prefer a theory which fits the known facts where you only have to come up with a motive - it's really not so hard to imagine somebody being mad enough to do that, not given all the cases of blokes driving into rivers with their kids on their cars, or jumping off balconies holding their kids.
Except it is well documented that they didn't lose all comms.
how so?
What was it they were picking up 7 hours into the flight?
that was the automated ping from the satelite
that checks if the planes computer is still on every hour, im not sure exactly what computer that is!
Engine data
yes well that may have been one of only few systems working after something catastrophic occurred. The point is that your "theory" is just as invalid as any of the others proposed on here, there is very little to go on.
[quote=toys19 ]yes well that may have been one of only few systems working after something catastrophic occurred.
I thought under your theory they pulled all the plugs and lost everything? Again this fails Occam's Razor - the likelihood of that system remaining live (well that and the autopilot and everything else required for that to keep working) in the event of a catastrophic failure sufficient to take out all other means of comms, including the front end needed to use Satcom for vox is so implausible that it can't have possibly happened. Not when compared to the pilot doing something mad, which is both totally plausible, but fits all known facts without the need for any unlikely scenarios.
I'm [b]still[/b] not sure why the pilot doing something mad is such a difficult concept for so many.
so what did he do to the co-pilot?
Locked out of the cockpit when he went to powder his nose.
Stabbed him?
The homicidal/suicidal pilot seems to be the most probable to me as a total ignorant amateur.
Again this fails Occam's Razor - the likelihood of... is so implausible that it can't have possibly happened.
C'mon, you're better than that!
This just came up on my Facebook, read it with a pinch of salt but it seems quite compelling.