8 ms·

Lost Jet’s Path Seen as Altered via Computer

96 points by OWaz 13y ago

andrewrice 13y ago
So is mechanical failure still in play?
- matznerd 13y ago
  It seems that something intentional brought the flight off of the original flight plan.
  - Steko 13y ago
    Intentional =/= terrorist hijacking/pilot suicide/random heist theory. A pilot trying to save an aircraft does things intentionally.
    - lisper 13y ago
      But a pilot trying to save an aircraft does not turn off the transponders.
      - deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
      - peedy 13y ago
        What if that was a part of the failure?
        lisper 13y ago
        There are no failure modes that disable both transponders along with all the rest of the comm gear and all the passenger cell phones that still leave the plane in an airworthy condition.
        tlrobinson 13y ago
        Do cell phones even work at 30,000+ feet? Over the ocean? (No) There was a theory posted here earlier that it was a fire that initially took out the transponder and possibly comms.
        lisper 13y ago
        Many theories have been posted. The only one consistent with the known data is an inside-job hijacking with an intentional cabin depressurization to incapacitate the passengers and non-pilot crew. The fact that the plane has not been found is very strong evidence that it did not crash. If it crashed on water, some debris would most likely have been found by now. If it had crashed on land, someone would have noticed the resulting fire. The in-flight fire theory is not plausible because the 777 is fly-by-wire. A fire severe enough to knock out the comms would almost certainly have taken out the fly-by-wire system as well. And no, cell phones don't work at 30k over water, but they do work at 10k over land. Like I said above, the fact that no wreckage has been found is very strong evidence that the plane landed intact. At some point during that process the plane would have almost certainly come into range of a cell phone tower somewhere.
        tlrobinson 13y ago
        "intentional cabin depressurization to incapacitate the passengers and non-pilot crew" Isn't that what the oxygen masks are for?
        lisper 13y ago
        Yes, but it's possible they can be switched off (I don't know). But even if they can't, the oxygen supply is only enough for an emergency descent. Again, I don't know the exact numbers, but the time until the oxygen is depleted is surely measured in minutes, not hours.
        Steko 13y ago
        > The only one consistent with the known data is an inside-job hijacking False, nothing here is inconsistent with a mechanical problem. When the NTSB/FAA come out and say they've ruled out mechanical problems let me know. > The fact that the plane has not been found is very strong evidence that it did not crash. Almost everyone believes it has crashed. When the NTSB/FAA say otherwise let me know. > A fire severe enough to knock out the comms would almost certainly have taken out the fly-by-wire system as well. This seems like random speculation. Some of those systems would turned off by the flight crew intentionally as they go down a checklist.
    - InclinedPlane 13y ago
      A pilot trying to save an aircraft does not leave the plane on autopilot, does not turn off transponders, does not avoid landing at the closest possible airport, does not maintain radio silence. It would take an even more bizarre set of circumstances than hijacking to explain the behavior of the plane as we know it so far.
      - Steko 13y ago
        Autopilot: pilots leave controls to deal with fire. Transponders: disabled to deal with fire or as a result. Closest possible airport: the one the plane turned towards was arguably the best one to go for. Radio silence: disabled by fire.
        sliverstorm 13y ago
        But that's not nearly as exciting as a terrorist plot. /s
        CamperBob2 13y ago
        Trouble is, there are multiple separate radios they could use, both HF and VHF. A fire that takes out the transponder and all of the radios and still leaves the aircraft capable of flying for hours seems pretty unlikely. Fr. Occam is pacing back and forth and stroking his beard on this one, that's for sure.
        kreeben 13y ago
        It seems to me the most plausible explanation at this point is a hostage situation, not a mechanical failure. Where is the debris? And it can't be a heist to steal a plane. Oh, it's gonna be easy, we just need to kill 250 people, no big deal. There must be easier ways to get hold of a plane. It seems media has ruled this out on the basis "there have been no ransom demand". But there will be. I'd say within a week. Occam?
        CamperBob2 13y ago
        No reason to think we'd be privy to a ransom demand, for that matter. The appearance of bumbling incompetence on the Malaysians' part may just be a facade.
- Steko 13y ago
  This doesn't disqualify a primarily mechanical reason.
- alexeisadeski3 13y ago
  Mechanical failure hasn't really been in play since the satellite data was released.
omarali 13y ago
Non-paywall link https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCkQqQIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2014%2F03%2F18%2Fworld%2Fasia%2Fmalaysia-airlines-flight.html&ei=uNQnU6GFCoSGogSn_oC4Aw&usg=AFQjCNFbtxp_8dZcv3F4AqbKdal00yui_w https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c...
- fizx 13y ago
  Or incognito.
  - notastartup 13y ago
    thank you. Feel like an idiot trying to press the STOP button repeatedly in an attempt to prevent the pay me to read a few paragraphs thing.
  - joshlegs 13y ago
    i think this is actually part of the business model a few newspapers are trying to take on. More of a 'gently encourage' people to buy subscriptions rather than a hard and fast 'Brick Wall' paywall. From what I hear, it's working pretty well.
- nthitz 13y ago
  Well, piracy is certainly not always a distribution problem.
  - aleem 13y ago
    It's by design. It's called a leaky paywall.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
e28eta 13y ago
I wonder if the other 3-4 satellite keep-alive transmissions would narrow down the potential area any?
- Aloha 13y ago
  Not unless the transmissions include that data, its not discernible from a single sat, beyond wide geographic area.
jonah 13y ago
How was this known? Do changes get relayed back?
- sidww2 13y ago
  ACARS is what the article seems to be saying is how they know. Last ACARS transmission was 1:07 am. Any pilots here who know whether ACARS actually transmits FMS information? Edit: And if the report is correct and ACARS sent the information all along, why in the world did it take them 10 DAYS to find this out?
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - tim333 13y ago
    According to wikipedia ACARS can include FMS info. It is odd that this has taken 10 days and even now is kind of leaked by "an American official". You'd think they would have checked that stuff straight away and made it at least semi public so aircraft experts could check it out.
Paddywack 13y ago
My conspiracy theory: The plane was hijacked and there has been contact with Malaysia/China/USA. One of the conditions for hostages to be held safely is that the Authorities do not make this public. This would explain: - the otherwise unbelievable delays and pure misinformation by the Malaysian government. Stalling for time. - the fact that they did not publicly do background checks on all passengers until recently. They already know who the hijacker is. Now that there is pressure because of elapsed time and that people are seeing holes in the story, they need to be seen to be doing something. What makes this implausible: - it still does not explain where the plane landed and has been hidden without trace in the interim (perhaps they know - NW Pakistan, NE Afghanistan maybe, and just can't get to it without harming the hostages) - it would be a diplomatic nightmare to have countries using their assets in a futile search when Malaysia already knows what has happened. (On the other hand, if they took 20 countries into their confidence then they would definitely have had a leak by now.) - talking of leaks - I am sure even if it was a tightly held secret that they were in hostage negotiations, someone would have made it public by now. That's just the way things are these days. EDIT: Formatting
- mseebach 13y ago
  You theory is plausible, but there is no need to explain the lack of public information. It's entirely reasonable that the investigators doesn't feel they require the inputs of thousands of amateurs and thus publicizing every shred of evidence they come across just isn't a priority(1). Specifically addressing public background checks on all passengers: These are people whose families are grieving. The have a completely reasonable expectation of privacy, and I don't think there is good reason to ever publish any but the most rudimentary of information on these individuals. Can you imagine a loved one dying in mysterious conditions and then have Reddit shred through their background information and publishing conspiracy theories about a link between their experimenting with drugs in college, a painful divorce and how that means they might be a suicide-hijacker (or whatever)? 1: I'm not saying there's no value in it, there are clearly some capable people pitching in left and right, but it's a radical paradigm shift in investigation, and while you're looking for a missing aircraft is a time for sticking to procedure, not undertaking paradigm shifts.
dandelany 13y ago
The Times seems to quote officials as saying they know this via ACARS messages. However, assuming the primary radar returns are good enough, this is reasonably inferred by its radar track alone - the chances of hitting 4 separate navigation waypoints (IGARI, VAMPI, GIVAL, IGREX) based on random human flying is pretty much nil. So this may be just confirmation of what most investigators were already assuming. Sad as it is to say, at this point I think the most likely cause is a bizarre pilot suicide. That night one of the pilots likely allowed a dark, dark thought they once had to overtake them for some reason. First this person programmed a set of remote 5-letter nav waypoints into the FMC without the other pilot noticing - not a difficult task by my understanding. Most likely to hide the evidence for insurance reasons, or just out of shame, to hide his actions from the world (a long flight also ensures the CVR will tape over the relevant bits after its 120min loop - CVR/FDR is one of the few things that cannot be disabled from the cockpit of a 777). After the radio handoff, the other pilot left the cockpit for a moment. The perpetrator then set the transponder to standby and disabled ACARS messages from being sent via both VHF and SATCOM. Finally, in order to ensure hypoxia took hold quickly, he set the plane to climb as high as the autopilot would take it (which ended up being ~FL450), and then depressurized the plane, quickly and painlessly killing everyone aboard, including himself. Multiple airline pilots in the airliners.net forums have been discussing these possibilities and they seem to agree that all of these things can be performed by a single pilot, in a few minutes time, entirely from the cockpit. The ghost plane then flew the programmed route until running out of fuel. While this is certainly bizarre, unlikely, and hard to fathom, I posit that it is the least unlikely scenario, because it can be done entirely by one person whose motives we don't understand. Historically, there have been many people who have done bizarre, horrendous things for motives we can't begin to understand - whether due to insanity, sociopathy or zealotry. I truly hope I'm wrong, but I just can't see a grand multinational hijacking conspiracy as being more likely than a sad man wishing to end his sad life in an evil way. If you're thinking of replying to this with your own theory, let me just add that I say all of this not to add flame to the fire of speculation, or to accuse a potentially innocent man of mass murder, but to try and finally put the whole thing to rest in my own mind - I seem to have been rather obsessed with the whole story over the past few days. While the past week has been a flurry of information and misinformation, it's quite likely we will never know what happened to MH370, at least not for a very long time. We need to find the explanations for ourselves that allow us to come to peace with the incident personally, so that we can collectively move on at some point.
harshreality 13y ago
The map with overlayed position information shows an arc of possible last positions given the position of the satellite that received the last known signal. Edit: the satellite getting ACARS pings is apparently geosynchronous, so triangulation is not possible, but... What is the arc of the final position based on? The Earth is not flat, and geosynchronous satellites are at about 36,000 km altitude (compare to Earth's radius of about 6375 km). Shouldn't the position, if based on ranging from a geosynchronous satellite, be much closer to a straight line (and actually dipping to lower altitudes in the center)? Why does the graphic appear to depict a range from a point low over the Indian ocean rather than a point in geostationary orbit? What possible location or ranging information could create an arc like that? If the ping was not to a geosynchronous satellite, that raises questions—the ping couldn't have been from the ACARS system, and it would mean triangulation might be possible. Could it be a range from a low earth orbit satellite, or an over the horizon communications system? In the middle of the Indian ocean? The only thing even close to that is Diego Garcia, but the illustrated location is several hundred miles north of Diego Garcia. I'm discounting over-the-horizon radar, because I think that would have to mean they knew which blip was the missing plane, and isn't the only way to know that to be tracking it? What about the second to last known signal, or the third to last? Given that we're not talking about arcs from points low over the Indian ocean, but from a point in high orbit, and the plane can only be within an ~8 mile slice from max altitude to the ground, and given that the earth is also curving away from the satellite, how can the arc of possible positions from the final ping cover that much ground? Australia has radar coverage of some of the southern area where the plane might have been. Are we to believe nobody's checked Australian radar logs to eliminate part of the southern arc of final positions depicted? Is this search being run by incompetent officials, or are they releasing purposefully incomplete or inaccurate information to the press, or is there some mysterious reason why they generated an arc like that from a geosynchronous satellite and why prior ACARS pings or radar logs don't help narrow the search area at all?
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- dingaling 13y ago
  > The satellite(s) that received those won't be in the same place, Yes they will - the INMARSAT satellites are in geostationary orbit. The arcs are derived from the areas where there is no overlap of coverage between those satellites.
trackofalljades 13y ago
This sounds pretty reasonable, and I have absolutely no technical expertise or personal experience with which to refute it, but does this fit with the claim by Rolls Royce that the engines' feedback systems were still talking to them well after the course change? If you "pull the busses" do the engines still have the ability to send their telemetry data?
georgeorge 13y ago
If the plane didn't crash somewhere in the Indian Ocean but was in fact successfully commandeered by the forces of darkness, here's what's going to happen: A lick of paint and a communications makeover sufficient for fooling the world for an hour or two. One day, an already targeted 777 will be incapacitated midflight and immiditately impersonated by the refurbished MH370, now with unhindered access to the airspace of whatever destination. On board could be anything heavy and unwieldy - a small army or a large, primitive thermonuclear device.
ccarpenterg 13y ago
Maldives island residents report sighting of 'low flying jet' Source: http://www.haveeru.com.mv/news/54062 http://www.haveeru.com.mv/news/54062
ejdyksen 13y ago
American officials and aviation experts said it was far-fetched to believe that a passenger could have reprogrammed the Flight Management System. Unlikely? Sure. Far-fetched? Not as far-fetched as many other ideas that have been floated recently. I recently bought a highly realistic 777 model for MS Flight Simulator X [1], and it has a very good replica Flight Management Computer. Also, when you purchase the software, it comes with thousands of pages of manuals for the real jet. You can see the FMC being programmed inside the simulator here [2]. [1] https://www.precisionmanuals.com/pages/product/777LRF.html https://www.precisionmanuals.com/pages/product/777LRF.html [2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gx_NkdZEGE0&t=0m30s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gx_NkdZEGE0&t=0m30s

96 points by OWaz 13y ago

andrewrice 13y ago

So is mechanical failure still in play?

matznerd 13y ago
It seems that something intentional brought the flight off of the original flight plan.
- Steko 13y ago
  Intentional =/= terrorist hijacking/pilot suicide/random heist theory. A pilot trying to save an aircraft does things intentionally.
  - lisper 13y ago
    But a pilot trying to save an aircraft does not turn off the transponders.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
    - peedy 13y ago
      What if that was a part of the failure?
      - lisper 13y ago
        There are no failure modes that disable both transponders along with all the rest of the comm gear and all the passenger cell phones that still leave the plane in an airworthy condition.
        tlrobinson 13y ago
        Do cell phones even work at 30,000+ feet? Over the ocean? (No) There was a theory posted here earlier that it was a fire that initially took out the transponder and possibly comms.
        lisper 13y ago
        Many theories have been posted. The only one consistent with the known data is an inside-job hijacking with an intentional cabin depressurization to incapacitate the passengers and non-pilot crew. The fact that the plane has not been found is very strong evidence that it did not crash. If it crashed on water, some debris would most likely have been found by now. If it had crashed on land, someone would have noticed the resulting fire. The in-flight fire theory is not plausible because the 777 is fly-by-wire. A fire severe enough to knock out the comms would almost certainly have taken out the fly-by-wire system as well. And no, cell phones don't work at 30k over water, but they do work at 10k over land. Like I said above, the fact that no wreckage has been found is very strong evidence that the plane landed intact. At some point during that process the plane would have almost certainly come into range of a cell phone tower somewhere.
        tlrobinson 13y ago
        "intentional cabin depressurization to incapacitate the passengers and non-pilot crew" Isn't that what the oxygen masks are for?
        lisper 13y ago
        Yes, but it's possible they can be switched off (I don't know). But even if they can't, the oxygen supply is only enough for an emergency descent. Again, I don't know the exact numbers, but the time until the oxygen is depleted is surely measured in minutes, not hours.
        Steko 13y ago
        > The only one consistent with the known data is an inside-job hijacking False, nothing here is inconsistent with a mechanical problem. When the NTSB/FAA come out and say they've ruled out mechanical problems let me know. > The fact that the plane has not been found is very strong evidence that it did not crash. Almost everyone believes it has crashed. When the NTSB/FAA say otherwise let me know. > A fire severe enough to knock out the comms would almost certainly have taken out the fly-by-wire system as well. This seems like random speculation. Some of those systems would turned off by the flight crew intentionally as they go down a checklist.
  - InclinedPlane 13y ago
    A pilot trying to save an aircraft does not leave the plane on autopilot, does not turn off transponders, does not avoid landing at the closest possible airport, does not maintain radio silence. It would take an even more bizarre set of circumstances than hijacking to explain the behavior of the plane as we know it so far.
    - Steko 13y ago
      Autopilot: pilots leave controls to deal with fire. Transponders: disabled to deal with fire or as a result. Closest possible airport: the one the plane turned towards was arguably the best one to go for. Radio silence: disabled by fire.
      - sliverstorm 13y ago
        But that's not nearly as exciting as a terrorist plot. /s
      - CamperBob2 13y ago
        Trouble is, there are multiple separate radios they could use, both HF and VHF. A fire that takes out the transponder and all of the radios and still leaves the aircraft capable of flying for hours seems pretty unlikely. Fr. Occam is pacing back and forth and stroking his beard on this one, that's for sure.
        kreeben 13y ago
        It seems to me the most plausible explanation at this point is a hostage situation, not a mechanical failure. Where is the debris? And it can't be a heist to steal a plane. Oh, it's gonna be easy, we just need to kill 250 people, no big deal. There must be easier ways to get hold of a plane. It seems media has ruled this out on the basis "there have been no ransom demand". But there will be. I'd say within a week. Occam?
        CamperBob2 13y ago
        No reason to think we'd be privy to a ransom demand, for that matter. The appearance of bumbling incompetence on the Malaysians' part may just be a facade.
Steko 13y ago
This doesn't disqualify a primarily mechanical reason.
alexeisadeski3 13y ago
Mechanical failure hasn't really been in play since the satellite data was released.

omarali 13y ago

Non-paywall link https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCkQqQIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2014%2F03%2F18%2Fworld%2Fasia%2Fmalaysia-airlines-flight.html&ei=uNQnU6GFCoSGogSn_oC4Aw&usg=AFQjCNFbtxp_8dZcv3F4AqbKdal00yui_w https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c...

fizx 13y ago
Or incognito.
- notastartup 13y ago
  thank you. Feel like an idiot trying to press the STOP button repeatedly in an attempt to prevent the pay me to read a few paragraphs thing.
- joshlegs 13y ago
  i think this is actually part of the business model a few newspapers are trying to take on. More of a 'gently encourage' people to buy subscriptions rather than a hard and fast 'Brick Wall' paywall. From what I hear, it's working pretty well.
nthitz 13y ago
Well, piracy is certainly not always a distribution problem.
- aleem 13y ago
  It's by design. It's called a leaky paywall.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

e28eta 13y ago

I wonder if the other 3-4 satellite keep-alive transmissions would narrow down the potential area any?

Aloha 13y ago
Not unless the transmissions include that data, its not discernible from a single sat, beyond wide geographic area.

jonah 13y ago

How was this known? Do changes get relayed back?

sidww2 13y ago
ACARS is what the article seems to be saying is how they know. Last ACARS transmission was 1:07 am. Any pilots here who know whether ACARS actually transmits FMS information? Edit: And if the report is correct and ACARS sent the information all along, why in the world did it take them 10 DAYS to find this out?
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- tim333 13y ago
  According to wikipedia ACARS can include FMS info. It is odd that this has taken 10 days and even now is kind of leaked by "an American official". You'd think they would have checked that stuff straight away and made it at least semi public so aircraft experts could check it out.

Paddywack 13y ago

My conspiracy theory: The plane was hijacked and there has been contact with Malaysia/China/USA. One of the conditions for hostages to be held safely is that the Authorities do not make this public. This would explain: - the otherwise unbelievable delays and pure misinformation by the Malaysian government. Stalling for time. - the fact that they did not publicly do background checks on all passengers until recently. They already know who the hijacker is. Now that there is pressure because of elapsed time and that people are seeing holes in the story, they need to be seen to be doing something. What makes this implausible: - it still does not explain where the plane landed and has been hidden without trace in the interim (perhaps they know - NW Pakistan, NE Afghanistan maybe, and just can't get to it without harming the hostages) - it would be a diplomatic nightmare to have countries using their assets in a futile search when Malaysia already knows what has happened. (On the other hand, if they took 20 countries into their confidence then they would definitely have had a leak by now.) - talking of leaks - I am sure even if it was a tightly held secret that they were in hostage negotiations, someone would have made it public by now. That's just the way things are these days. EDIT: Formatting

mseebach 13y ago
You theory is plausible, but there is no need to explain the lack of public information. It's entirely reasonable that the investigators doesn't feel they require the inputs of thousands of amateurs and thus publicizing every shred of evidence they come across just isn't a priority(1). Specifically addressing public background checks on all passengers: These are people whose families are grieving. The have a completely reasonable expectation of privacy, and I don't think there is good reason to ever publish any but the most rudimentary of information on these individuals. Can you imagine a loved one dying in mysterious conditions and then have Reddit shred through their background information and publishing conspiracy theories about a link between their experimenting with drugs in college, a painful divorce and how that means they might be a suicide-hijacker (or whatever)? 1: I'm not saying there's no value in it, there are clearly some capable people pitching in left and right, but it's a radical paradigm shift in investigation, and while you're looking for a missing aircraft is a time for sticking to procedure, not undertaking paradigm shifts.

dandelany 13y ago

The Times seems to quote officials as saying they know this via ACARS messages. However, assuming the primary radar returns are good enough, this is reasonably inferred by its radar track alone - the chances of hitting 4 separate navigation waypoints (IGARI, VAMPI, GIVAL, IGREX) based on random human flying is pretty much nil. So this may be just confirmation of what most investigators were already assuming. Sad as it is to say, at this point I think the most likely cause is a bizarre pilot suicide. That night one of the pilots likely allowed a dark, dark thought they once had to overtake them for some reason. First this person programmed a set of remote 5-letter nav waypoints into the FMC without the other pilot noticing - not a difficult task by my understanding. Most likely to hide the evidence for insurance reasons, or just out of shame, to hide his actions from the world (a long flight also ensures the CVR will tape over the relevant bits after its 120min loop - CVR/FDR is one of the few things that cannot be disabled from the cockpit of a 777). After the radio handoff, the other pilot left the cockpit for a moment. The perpetrator then set the transponder to standby and disabled ACARS messages from being sent via both VHF and SATCOM. Finally, in order to ensure hypoxia took hold quickly, he set the plane to climb as high as the autopilot would take it (which ended up being ~FL450), and then depressurized the plane, quickly and painlessly killing everyone aboard, including himself. Multiple airline pilots in the airliners.net forums have been discussing these possibilities and they seem to agree that all of these things can be performed by a single pilot, in a few minutes time, entirely from the cockpit. The ghost plane then flew the programmed route until running out of fuel. While this is certainly bizarre, unlikely, and hard to fathom, I posit that it is the least unlikely scenario, because it can be done entirely by one person whose motives we don't understand. Historically, there have been many people who have done bizarre, horrendous things for motives we can't begin to understand - whether due to insanity, sociopathy or zealotry. I truly hope I'm wrong, but I just can't see a grand multinational hijacking conspiracy as being more likely than a sad man wishing to end his sad life in an evil way. If you're thinking of replying to this with your own theory, let me just add that I say all of this not to add flame to the fire of speculation, or to accuse a potentially innocent man of mass murder, but to try and finally put the whole thing to rest in my own mind - I seem to have been rather obsessed with the whole story over the past few days. While the past week has been a flurry of information and misinformation, it's quite likely we will never know what happened to MH370, at least not for a very long time. We need to find the explanations for ourselves that allow us to come to peace with the incident personally, so that we can collectively move on at some point.

harshreality 13y ago

The map with overlayed position information shows an arc of possible last positions given the position of the satellite that received the last known signal. Edit: the satellite getting ACARS pings is apparently geosynchronous, so triangulation is not possible, but... What is the arc of the final position based on? The Earth is not flat, and geosynchronous satellites are at about 36,000 km altitude (compare to Earth's radius of about 6375 km). Shouldn't the position, if based on ranging from a geosynchronous satellite, be much closer to a straight line (and actually dipping to lower altitudes in the center)? Why does the graphic appear to depict a range from a point low over the Indian ocean rather than a point in geostationary orbit? What possible location or ranging information could create an arc like that? If the ping was not to a geosynchronous satellite, that raises questions—the ping couldn't have been from the ACARS system, and it would mean triangulation might be possible. Could it be a range from a low earth orbit satellite, or an over the horizon communications system? In the middle of the Indian ocean? The only thing even close to that is Diego Garcia, but the illustrated location is several hundred miles north of Diego Garcia. I'm discounting over-the-horizon radar, because I think that would have to mean they knew which blip was the missing plane, and isn't the only way to know that to be tracking it? What about the second to last known signal, or the third to last? Given that we're not talking about arcs from points low over the Indian ocean, but from a point in high orbit, and the plane can only be within an ~8 mile slice from max altitude to the ground, and given that the earth is also curving away from the satellite, how can the arc of possible positions from the final ping cover that much ground? Australia has radar coverage of some of the southern area where the plane might have been. Are we to believe nobody's checked Australian radar logs to eliminate part of the southern arc of final positions depicted? Is this search being run by incompetent officials, or are they releasing purposefully incomplete or inaccurate information to the press, or is there some mysterious reason why they generated an arc like that from a geosynchronous satellite and why prior ACARS pings or radar logs don't help narrow the search area at all?

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
dingaling 13y ago
> The satellite(s) that received those won't be in the same place, Yes they will - the INMARSAT satellites are in geostationary orbit. The arcs are derived from the areas where there is no overlap of coverage between those satellites.

trackofalljades 13y ago

This sounds pretty reasonable, and I have absolutely no technical expertise or personal experience with which to refute it, but does this fit with the claim by Rolls Royce that the engines' feedback systems were still talking to them well after the course change? If you "pull the busses" do the engines still have the ability to send their telemetry data?

georgeorge 13y ago

If the plane didn't crash somewhere in the Indian Ocean but was in fact successfully commandeered by the forces of darkness, here's what's going to happen: A lick of paint and a communications makeover sufficient for fooling the world for an hour or two. One day, an already targeted 777 will be incapacitated midflight and immiditately impersonated by the refurbished MH370, now with unhindered access to the airspace of whatever destination. On board could be anything heavy and unwieldy - a small army or a large, primitive thermonuclear device.

ccarpenterg 13y ago

Maldives island residents report sighting of 'low flying jet' Source: http://www.haveeru.com.mv/news/54062 http://www.haveeru.com.mv/news/54062

ejdyksen 13y ago

American officials and aviation experts said it was far-fetched to believe that a passenger could have reprogrammed the Flight Management System. Unlikely? Sure. Far-fetched? Not as far-fetched as many other ideas that have been floated recently. I recently bought a highly realistic 777 model for MS Flight Simulator X [1], and it has a very good replica Flight Management Computer. Also, when you purchase the software, it comes with thousands of pages of manuals for the real jet. You can see the FMC being programmed inside the simulator here [2]. [1] https://www.precisionmanuals.com/pages/product/777LRF.html https://www.precisionmanuals.com/pages/product/777LRF.html [2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gx_NkdZEGE0&t=0m30s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gx_NkdZEGE0&t=0m30s