6 ms·

Hearing about all the painstaking analysis of this flight made me wonder something: If you look deeply enough, how frequent are inexplicable situations? That is

Hearing about all the painstaking analysis of this flight made me wonder something: If you look deeply enough, how frequent are inexplicable situations? That is, if you took all the info from a normal flight, and cut it off at the halfway point and gave it to a group of enthusiastic investigators, would they find aspects that contradicted or truly did not make sense? My guess is they would. This is not to say MH370 was without incident, only that apparent contradiction may be unavoidable if you look closely enough at anything.

dinkumthinkum 4y ago
I get what you’re saying but I doubt it because air travel now is extraordinarily systematic and well understood.
travisjungroth 4y ago
Even more, I imagine the average flight would look extraordinary. You would always hit some rare event if you looked hard enough. Rare events are so common! What are the odds that this many people on the plane were military / government / communists / CEOs / Jews / elderly? Well, pretty high if you're looking after-the-fact. And if you look into the background of every person and started reaching out a bit it would get weirder. You'd have tons of former whatevers, brother-in-laws of important people, criminals, all sorts. And people would be absolutely certain it meant something. In the case of MH370, this is why I always found the simulator history of the pilot the most relevant. It doesn't require this long chain of relationships like some other things. It is the most impactful person recently doing something related to the event that is extremely weird behavior.
TylerE 4y ago
It's unlikely, since about 98% of the Earth has transponder coverage, so you at least have position and what the aircraft think's it's altitude is, with pretty good precision and sample rate. It's only in a few spots in the middle the ocean that this doesn't exist. This was also relevant in that Airbus crash from maybe 15 years ago between South America and Africa. This is not a problem on the main to/from North America routes because there are enough populated islands along the way (Iceland, Greenland, Hawaii, Guam, etc)
- lxgr 4y ago
  Not sure what exactly you mean by "transponder coverage", but if you mean primary or secondary surveillance radar, this is not true for most of the Atlantic or Pacific. Radar (both primary and secondary, i.e. transponders) as well as ADS-B require line-of-sight, and oceanic air traffic control has to make due without that, which means operating either via ADS-C (i.e. planes self-reporting their position, autonomously determined via GPS or inertial navigation, via satellite communications) or effectively dead reckoning, augmented by occasional position reports via HF radio, which is called procedural control: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procedural_control https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procedural_control
  - hallidave 4y ago
    Space-based ADS-B is now a thing. It is used for coverage of the north Atlantic. https://www.navcanada.ca/en/air-traffic/space-based-ads-b.aspx https://www.navcanada.ca/en/air-traffic/space-based-ads-b.as...
    - lxgr 4y ago
      Yes, but note how this press release is mostly explaining what this technology could eventually be used for. I'm not aware of any ACCs actually using it for oceanic control today or having made an announcement of planning to do so in the future. It's a very exciting technology, sure, but I think it's many years of testing and flawless operation as a secondary data source away from replacing ADS-C on oceanic routes.
- _s 4y ago
  I think closer to 80-90% of all landmass has "active" surveillance, with another 40-50% of sea / oceans. Most of the South Pacific / South Atlantic / Southern Ocean (Antarctic); a lot of the North Pacific / North Atlantic / Indian / Arctic outside of the major islands and direct routes has nearly no coverage.
  - tjohns 4y ago
    I think even this number is high. 80-90% sounds about right for the mainland US and Europe, but definitely isn't true elsewhere. Canada probably has ~50% radar coverage, and oceans have essentially 0% once you're beyond line of sight from from the coast. (And this is if you're a jet flying at high altitude. If you're down where smaller aircraft fly, I can point to areas on the US west coast that don't have radar or radio coverage. Heck, there's parts of the mainland US that don't even have NEXRAD weather radar coverage.)

dinkumthinkum 4y ago

I get what you’re saying but I doubt it because air travel now is extraordinarily systematic and well understood.

travisjungroth 4y ago

Even more, I imagine the average flight would look extraordinary. You would always hit some rare event if you looked hard enough. Rare events are so common! What are the odds that this many people on the plane were military / government / communists / CEOs / Jews / elderly? Well, pretty high if you're looking after-the-fact. And if you look into the background of every person and started reaching out a bit it would get weirder. You'd have tons of former whatevers, brother-in-laws of important people, criminals, all sorts. And people would be absolutely certain it meant something. In the case of MH370, this is why I always found the simulator history of the pilot the most relevant. It doesn't require this long chain of relationships like some other things. It is the most impactful person recently doing something related to the event that is extremely weird behavior.

TylerE 4y ago

It's unlikely, since about 98% of the Earth has transponder coverage, so you at least have position and what the aircraft think's it's altitude is, with pretty good precision and sample rate. It's only in a few spots in the middle the ocean that this doesn't exist. This was also relevant in that Airbus crash from maybe 15 years ago between South America and Africa. This is not a problem on the main to/from North America routes because there are enough populated islands along the way (Iceland, Greenland, Hawaii, Guam, etc)

lxgr 4y ago
Not sure what exactly you mean by "transponder coverage", but if you mean primary or secondary surveillance radar, this is not true for most of the Atlantic or Pacific. Radar (both primary and secondary, i.e. transponders) as well as ADS-B require line-of-sight, and oceanic air traffic control has to make due without that, which means operating either via ADS-C (i.e. planes self-reporting their position, autonomously determined via GPS or inertial navigation, via satellite communications) or effectively dead reckoning, augmented by occasional position reports via HF radio, which is called procedural control: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procedural_control https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procedural_control
- hallidave 4y ago
  Space-based ADS-B is now a thing. It is used for coverage of the north Atlantic. https://www.navcanada.ca/en/air-traffic/space-based-ads-b.aspx https://www.navcanada.ca/en/air-traffic/space-based-ads-b.as...
  - lxgr 4y ago
    Yes, but note how this press release is mostly explaining what this technology could eventually be used for. I'm not aware of any ACCs actually using it for oceanic control today or having made an announcement of planning to do so in the future. It's a very exciting technology, sure, but I think it's many years of testing and flawless operation as a secondary data source away from replacing ADS-C on oceanic routes.
_s 4y ago
I think closer to 80-90% of all landmass has "active" surveillance, with another 40-50% of sea / oceans. Most of the South Pacific / South Atlantic / Southern Ocean (Antarctic); a lot of the North Pacific / North Atlantic / Indian / Arctic outside of the major islands and direct routes has nearly no coverage.
- tjohns 4y ago
  I think even this number is high. 80-90% sounds about right for the mainland US and Europe, but definitely isn't true elsewhere. Canada probably has ~50% radar coverage, and oceans have essentially 0% once you're beyond line of sight from from the coast. (And this is if you're a jet flying at high altitude. If you're down where smaller aircraft fly, I can point to areas on the US west coast that don't have radar or radio coverage. Heck, there's parts of the mainland US that don't even have NEXRAD weather radar coverage.)