6 ms·

> how could an entire rogue airliner not be traced to within sqm's of impact/landing Because nobody is looking. Umbra doesn't provide realtime global coverage,

by crote 2y ago

> how could an entire rogue airliner not be traced to within sqm's of impact/landing Because nobody is looking. Umbra doesn't provide realtime global coverage, any location is only visited once per week. The chances of a specific location being captured right as a rogue airliner is flying over it are basically zero. I also wouldn't be surprised if it didn't record any data over the open ocean. The vast majority of it is just waves, and nobody is ever going to pay for petabytes of empty images, so why bother? Same with capturing airlines at all: they are essentially always image artifacts, so I would expect them to be deliberately filtered out quite early in the pipeline. I wouldn't be surprised if the US military had the capacity to track airplanes from space. But tracking every single commercial airliner, on the extremely remote chance that one of them goes rogue over a remote ocean? Not a chance, it'd be extremely expensive and provide zero strategic benefit.

robxorb 2y ago
This kind of makes sense, but to me, in a post-9/11 world, the US military would definitely be scrambling whatever they have to track a rogue airliner that's gone completely dark, yet is still verifiably flying (sat pings).
- ianburrell 2y ago
  What is the point of tracking rogue airliner in the middle of the ocean? It isn't a threat to anything except itself. Regular radars can track it when gets close to land, and scramble fighters. Also, tracking has gotten much better. There are ADS-B receivers on satellites that can cover the whole globe. But nothing helps if plane turns off its transceivers.
- 14u2c 2y ago
  In Southeast Asia? The US military probably didn't even hear about it until after it was missing for a bit.
  - robxorb 2y ago
    As is often the case almost anywhere in the world, there's a major US military base nearby. In this case it's Diego Garcia, and is absolutely huge: https://veteranlife.com/military-history/diego-garcia/ https://veteranlife.com/military-history/diego-garcia/ "The base is home to thousands of American troops, sophisticated radar, space tracking, and a communications facility."
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > it's Diego Garcia, and is absolutely huge You know what’s huger? The Indian Ocean. Add to that the lack of blue-water competition in it and it’s totally reasonable that any birds we have in the area are craning their necks north, not down.
    - _djo_ 2y ago
      “Nearby” is doing a lot of work there. The presumed flight path of MH370 went tens of thousands of kilometres from Diego Garcia, certainly outside the range of even the latest over-the-horizon radars. Meanwhile the tracking stations on that base are mostly focused on space activity and missile launches. No amount of money can break the laws of physics and, like any sensor, radar has fundamental limits in range and resolution. MH370 flew into one of the most remote parts of the ocean it’s possible to reach, it would’ve been a miracle if it was tracked by any radar.
      - ianburrell 2y ago
        Not tens of thousand of kilometers. Diego Garcia to tip of Indonesia is 2800km and 3000km to Australia. But the rest of your post holds. Also, the over the horizon radars are in Australia. I think they could have picked up the flight but were offline that day.
        _djo_ 2y ago
        Appreciate the correction, I meant thousands. Yes, that’s the JORN system. The western sector might’ve picked it up if it went near western Australia as presumed, but it wasn’t operating.
- Cthulhu_ 2y ago
  They kinda do, via sattelite pings, radar, etc. Whether they have radar coverage is another matter. I'm confident they have coverage all along the US coast and military bases, but other areas are temporary, like the AWACS flying over UN territory looking into Russia and Ukraine to provide the Ukrainians with intel (one from the French air force flying over Romania: https://apnews.com/article/ukraine-russia-surveillance-defense-war-65b93d45f67204c9db7a07330e722097 https://apnews.com/article/ukraine-russia-surveillance-defen... and another over Poland: https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/flying-with-nato-awacs-1.6619471 https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/flying-with-nato-awacs-1.66194...)

by crote 2y ago

robxorb 2y ago

This kind of makes sense, but to me, in a post-9/11 world, the US military would definitely be scrambling whatever they have to track a rogue airliner that's gone completely dark, yet is still verifiably flying (sat pings).

ianburrell 2y ago
What is the point of tracking rogue airliner in the middle of the ocean? It isn't a threat to anything except itself. Regular radars can track it when gets close to land, and scramble fighters. Also, tracking has gotten much better. There are ADS-B receivers on satellites that can cover the whole globe. But nothing helps if plane turns off its transceivers.
14u2c 2y ago
In Southeast Asia? The US military probably didn't even hear about it until after it was missing for a bit.
- robxorb 2y ago
  As is often the case almost anywhere in the world, there's a major US military base nearby. In this case it's Diego Garcia, and is absolutely huge: https://veteranlife.com/military-history/diego-garcia/ https://veteranlife.com/military-history/diego-garcia/ "The base is home to thousands of American troops, sophisticated radar, space tracking, and a communications facility."
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > it's Diego Garcia, and is absolutely huge You know what’s huger? The Indian Ocean. Add to that the lack of blue-water competition in it and it’s totally reasonable that any birds we have in the area are craning their necks north, not down.
  - _djo_ 2y ago
    “Nearby” is doing a lot of work there. The presumed flight path of MH370 went tens of thousands of kilometres from Diego Garcia, certainly outside the range of even the latest over-the-horizon radars. Meanwhile the tracking stations on that base are mostly focused on space activity and missile launches. No amount of money can break the laws of physics and, like any sensor, radar has fundamental limits in range and resolution. MH370 flew into one of the most remote parts of the ocean it’s possible to reach, it would’ve been a miracle if it was tracked by any radar.
    - ianburrell 2y ago
      Not tens of thousand of kilometers. Diego Garcia to tip of Indonesia is 2800km and 3000km to Australia. But the rest of your post holds. Also, the over the horizon radars are in Australia. I think they could have picked up the flight but were offline that day.
      - _djo_ 2y ago
        Appreciate the correction, I meant thousands. Yes, that’s the JORN system. The western sector might’ve picked it up if it went near western Australia as presumed, but it wasn’t operating.
Cthulhu_ 2y ago
They kinda do, via sattelite pings, radar, etc. Whether they have radar coverage is another matter. I'm confident they have coverage all along the US coast and military bases, but other areas are temporary, like the AWACS flying over UN territory looking into Russia and Ukraine to provide the Ukrainians with intel (one from the French air force flying over Romania: https://apnews.com/article/ukraine-russia-surveillance-defense-war-65b93d45f67204c9db7a07330e722097 https://apnews.com/article/ukraine-russia-surveillance-defen... and another over Poland: https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/flying-with-nato-awacs-1.6619471 https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/flying-with-nato-awacs-1.66194...)