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The satellite position analysis only says where the plane likely was near the end of its flight. How it ended up in the water matters greatly. For example if

The satellite position analysis only says where the plane likely was near the end of its flight. How it ended up in the water matters greatly. For example if there was someone conscious in the cockpit then it could have glided way outside of the search area. Even an uncontrolled spiralling into the ocean describes a potentially large area. One thing that keeps resurfacing is that the whole affair is unlike anything before. Suicidal pilots have crashed quickly in all other cases, various things have involved extraordinary good luck or extraordinary knowledge (eg avoiding various radar coverage), explanations for satellite systems going offline/online require precise fiddling with various electrical busses, there aren't any credible explanations for deliberate act or accident, the Malaysian government has either covered things up or is very incompetent (or both), and it goes on. Air France 440 was also shrouded in mystery (but nowhere near this degree), and turned out to be very poor airmanship by one pilot. For anyone curious about more of the technical aspects behind the scenes then Jeff Wise writes about it frequently. http://jeffwise.net/ http://jeffwise.net/

gnaffle 11y ago
> Air France 440 was also shrouded in mystery (but nowhere near this degree), and turned out to be very poor airmanship by one pilot. It was poor airmanship by two pilots (and other factors, including the feedback mechanisms and the lack of training for this particular high altitude scenario).
- encoderer 11y ago
  My understanding is that the pilot in the left chair didn't realize that the pilot in the right chair kept pulling his stick back. In boeing planes, the sticks move together, so that wouldn't be possible. And the pilot in the right chair clearly didn't understand that in the alternate law the fly by wire system was running in, his stick movements put the plane at risk.
  - mikeash 11y ago
    Yes, it was a completely incorrect reaction by a single pilot, combined with a catastrophically bad design for the controls, which caused that crash. It is completely insane to me that anyone would think that averaging inputs from two pilots and providing no feedback would be even remotely a good idea.
    - radiowave 11y ago
      The aircraft does provide feedback, it says, "DUAL INPUT, DUAL INPUT". IIRC this can be heard on the cockpit voice recorder of Air France 447.
      - mikeash 11y ago
        I mean physical feedback. In any rationally designed aircraft, the controls are physically linked, such that moving one moves the other (or at the very least this arrangement is faked with servos). When two pilots attempt to give contradictory inputs, they immediately know it because they can feel the other one fighting.
        engi_nerd 11y ago
        Yes, in the Air France tragedy, the aural warning clearly wasn't enough. Through fear and panic, the pilots failed to understand what the plane was telling them. But the feeling of having a control yoke fight against you doesn't require much mental effort to process.
        mikeash 11y ago
        Aural warnings are so easy to ignore. There are a ton of stories that go like, "What is that annoying buzzing sound? Well, no time to worry about it now, I'm landing. <CRUNCH> Oh, it was the gear warning." Happened to a friend of mine, even. I think it ultimately comes down to engaging with the primary sense you're already using. If you're doing something visual, then a visual warning (on whatever you're looking at) can be effective, while an aural warning won't. If you're listening to something then interrupting it with an audio warning will work great. Hand flying is a tactile experience, so that's the sense you want to work with.
  - gnaffle 11y ago
    That's correct (even though he did mention "watch the height" and could have followed up on that). If I remember correctly, even the left chair pilot also applied nose-up inputs at some point in time.
- rogerbinns 11y ago
  Well we could go into the whole 'swiss cheese' theory of accidents, and include a long list of causes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model
dzhiurgis 11y ago
Not an expert, but doesn't the flap already indicate that they crash landed? As otherwise plane would have sunk to the bottom ocean in one piece? I guess further analysis will say whether flap detached via chafe or on impact. Also is there a chance they will be able to detect smoke debris on it (to confirm or deny chemical battery fire theory)?
neurotech1 11y ago
> Air France 440 was also shrouded in mystery (but nowhere near this degree), and turned out to be very poor airmanship by one pilot. It was flight 447. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447 IMO The mystery of MH370 is partially due to some incorrect assumptions, which can't be proven or disproven until the main wreckage is found, and/or the blackboxes recovered. Where the wreckage ended up could depend several factors. eg. glide ratio of a 777 (~18:1), or how the 777 Fly-by-wire control system works under certain failure modes. There hasn't been a crew incapacitation crash in a fly-by-wire airliner before. A small fire in the electrical bay could disable aircraft systems in unexpected ways, and possibly even burn out on its own, and the damage doesn't actually cause the jet to crash immediately. If the cockpit crew were incapacitated at cruise altitude, the jet could still end up 100 miles away from the point the engines flamed out.
- ProblemFactory 11y ago
  Part of the mystery is due to the radical change in the flight path. It was supposed to fly North from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. But for some reason, the plane was turned around, and flew towards the Indian Ocean instead of China for at least an hour: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/MH370_flight_path_with_English_labels.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/MH370_fl... Merely incompetent crew or a technical failure would not cause that - it has to either be a hijacking or an unstable pilot doing it on purpose.
  - Steko 11y ago
    Turning around is a common procedure under mechanical events and mechanical explanations for what happened to MH370 are still one of the leading 2 theories.

gnaffle 11y ago

> Air France 440 was also shrouded in mystery (but nowhere near this degree), and turned out to be very poor airmanship by one pilot. It was poor airmanship by two pilots (and other factors, including the feedback mechanisms and the lack of training for this particular high altitude scenario).

encoderer 11y ago
My understanding is that the pilot in the left chair didn't realize that the pilot in the right chair kept pulling his stick back. In boeing planes, the sticks move together, so that wouldn't be possible. And the pilot in the right chair clearly didn't understand that in the alternate law the fly by wire system was running in, his stick movements put the plane at risk.
- mikeash 11y ago
  Yes, it was a completely incorrect reaction by a single pilot, combined with a catastrophically bad design for the controls, which caused that crash. It is completely insane to me that anyone would think that averaging inputs from two pilots and providing no feedback would be even remotely a good idea.
  - radiowave 11y ago
    The aircraft does provide feedback, it says, "DUAL INPUT, DUAL INPUT". IIRC this can be heard on the cockpit voice recorder of Air France 447.
    - mikeash 11y ago
      I mean physical feedback. In any rationally designed aircraft, the controls are physically linked, such that moving one moves the other (or at the very least this arrangement is faked with servos). When two pilots attempt to give contradictory inputs, they immediately know it because they can feel the other one fighting.
      - engi_nerd 11y ago
        Yes, in the Air France tragedy, the aural warning clearly wasn't enough. Through fear and panic, the pilots failed to understand what the plane was telling them. But the feeling of having a control yoke fight against you doesn't require much mental effort to process.
        mikeash 11y ago
        Aural warnings are so easy to ignore. There are a ton of stories that go like, "What is that annoying buzzing sound? Well, no time to worry about it now, I'm landing. <CRUNCH> Oh, it was the gear warning." Happened to a friend of mine, even. I think it ultimately comes down to engaging with the primary sense you're already using. If you're doing something visual, then a visual warning (on whatever you're looking at) can be effective, while an aural warning won't. If you're listening to something then interrupting it with an audio warning will work great. Hand flying is a tactile experience, so that's the sense you want to work with.
- gnaffle 11y ago
  That's correct (even though he did mention "watch the height" and could have followed up on that). If I remember correctly, even the left chair pilot also applied nose-up inputs at some point in time.
rogerbinns 11y ago
Well we could go into the whole 'swiss cheese' theory of accidents, and include a long list of causes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model

dzhiurgis 11y ago

Not an expert, but doesn't the flap already indicate that they crash landed? As otherwise plane would have sunk to the bottom ocean in one piece? I guess further analysis will say whether flap detached via chafe or on impact. Also is there a chance they will be able to detect smoke debris on it (to confirm or deny chemical battery fire theory)?

neurotech1 11y ago

> Air France 440 was also shrouded in mystery (but nowhere near this degree), and turned out to be very poor airmanship by one pilot. It was flight 447. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447 IMO The mystery of MH370 is partially due to some incorrect assumptions, which can't be proven or disproven until the main wreckage is found, and/or the blackboxes recovered. Where the wreckage ended up could depend several factors. eg. glide ratio of a 777 (~18:1), or how the 777 Fly-by-wire control system works under certain failure modes. There hasn't been a crew incapacitation crash in a fly-by-wire airliner before. A small fire in the electrical bay could disable aircraft systems in unexpected ways, and possibly even burn out on its own, and the damage doesn't actually cause the jet to crash immediately. If the cockpit crew were incapacitated at cruise altitude, the jet could still end up 100 miles away from the point the engines flamed out.

ProblemFactory 11y ago
Part of the mystery is due to the radical change in the flight path. It was supposed to fly North from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. But for some reason, the plane was turned around, and flew towards the Indian Ocean instead of China for at least an hour: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/MH370_flight_path_with_English_labels.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/MH370_fl... Merely incompetent crew or a technical failure would not cause that - it has to either be a hijacking or an unstable pilot doing it on purpose.
- Steko 11y ago
  Turning around is a common procedure under mechanical events and mechanical explanations for what happened to MH370 are still one of the leading 2 theories.