6 ms·
Malaysia Airlines MH370: Possible debris in Indian Ocean
- antonius 13y agoHoping this is true and the plane's black box can be located as well.
- laurencei 13y agoEven if some debris is found, it might still take years to locate the actual aircraft wreck deep underwater, and recover the black box(s) and get any real answers (like in the Air France crash).
- zxexz 13y agoThey still have about 2 weeks before the pinger runs out of battery. So there is a decent chance they could find it within 2 weeks, but if the wreck isn't found by then, it could definitely take years to find it, if ever.
- marshray 13y agoI suspect this kind of sonar application is why TI is making analog-to-digital conversion chips with 31 bits of resolution: http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/ads1282-ht.pdf http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/ads1282-ht.pdf Compare to 16- to 24- bit resolution in your typical audio processing chain.
- paul_f 13y agoIn the case of Air France 447, it did take 2 years to recover the black box. I'm guessing this one will be quicker because of the potential terrorism angle.
- kinleyd 13y agoIt would mean no survivors. So sad.
- hudibras 13y agoUnless the debris includes a liferaft. But I'm not keeping my hopes up.
- thesis 13y agoI really hate to be negative about this but isn't this highly unlikely considering the rafts on the planes have emergency locator radio beacons?
- Trezoid 13y agoOther things on the plane also have similar beacons (the flight recorder, most notably) but have yet to be found, so it's not completely out of the question that they be deployed but not located.
- ricardonunez 13y agoAnytime an airplane disappears the probability to find anybody alive is small. The day it happened I was already feeling sad about it. I just can't imagine how the families must feel every time news are announced.
- knodi123 13y agoWhere do you think survivors could possibly be? A mysterious tropical island, lost in time and space?
- kinleyd 13y agoHow about a widely held view so far: Possibly held captive by hijackers or terrorists? Not desirable, but better than certain death indicated by debris (if confirmed).
- grej 13y agoUnfortunately even if this is the case (and color me skeptical given the sheer volume of media misinformation that this story has generated), the cockpit voice recorder only records the last two hours of data, so regrettably we may never know what happened in those moments when the flight was diverted, even if the wreckage is found and the black box is salvageable. EDIT - Clarification that the cockpit voice recorder (not flight data recorder) only captures the last two hours. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockpit_voice_recorder http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockpit_voice_recorder
- ekianjo 13y agoWe may be able to understand what happened through the last 2 hours of data though. If there's pure silence in the cockpit we could infer a number of things about what occured, plus the debris would give additional information as well.
- AlexMuir 13y agoI believe the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) only keeps two hours, but the Flight Data Recorder (FDR) records for considerably longer. Both make up a black box. It will certainly be far more difficult to establish what happened without voice recordings though.
- Eliezer 13y agoI guess they try to keep the airplanes cheap enough that they can't spring for a 16gb card in the CVR.
- marshray 13y agoIf you think the rule about turning off your electronics during takeoff and landing is conservative, try to imagine what it would take to certify a solid-state memory card for use in that application.
- 001sky 13y agoWhy would doubling or quadrupuling the storage be a problem? Assuming you have the cost of a new chip paid for, I dont see the capacity issue. Or are you saying solid state is incompatible with the engineering parameters of a black box altogether? In that case, the answer is even simpler: just add more of what's already in there.
- 3327 13y agoWell, Finally a credible source of information. Things we take granted in "western" news organizations and research come to light when you see how investigation is done in the hands of some people. No disrespect to the Malaysians I love their country and culture but the authorities did a disaster of a job handling it all. More disinformation than anything.
- oliyoung 13y ago"credible source of information" you're not Australian are you? ;)
- ghiculescu 13y agoI think the Australian Maritime Safety Authority is a pretty credible source.
- oliyoung 13y agoVery true, I was just making cheap funnies :)
- pm 13y agoIt's not reddit, Oliver.
- awittygamertag 13y agoReddit for redactors that don't want to sort through the garbage.
- Stratoscope 13y agoFriend, hundreds of people may have died. Do you think cheap funnies are really appropriate?
- oliyoung 13y ago
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- danbmil99 13y agoGood thing we've got this covered here on HN, because there's been like a media blackout on this subject...
- oh_sigh 13y agoNew theory #239858935: The copilot killed the pilot with an axe, set the plane onto auto pilot towards the southern seas, then cut his own throat and let the rest of the passengers die helplessly.
- r0h1n 13y ago[EDIT] Adding a couple of more recent tweets from Micah Grimes indicating this may be the end of the search for MH370: > JUST IN: @WrightUps from above Indian Ocean says US P-8 crew "getting radar hits of significant size;" trying to get visuals on hits. > Australian maritime authority official calls objects credible and of "reasonable" size; largest object about 24 meters. ====================== ABC journalist David Wright [[0] is currently on the P8 plane that is searching for the debris. Here's a tweet [1] from ABC's social media editor who (apparently) must have spoken to him over voice comms: >.@WrightUps from Navy P-8 search plane: "We are just descending through clouds right now ... about 1,300 miles southwest of Australia." [0] https://twitter.com/WrightUps https://twitter.com/WrightUps [1] https://twitter.com/MicahGrimes/status/446501269155618816 https://twitter.com/MicahGrimes/status/446501269155618816
- sien 13y agoIt'd be really interesting to know if Australia picked up some trace of the plane on the Jindalee over the horizon radar. [0] Check the range there. The path of the plane may just have touched the radar's range at some point or some idea of the track may have been worked out. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jindalee_Operational_Radar_Network http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jindalee_Operational_Radar_Netw...
- hartror 13y agoPossible. Our Foreign Minister wouldn't comment except to say that the government is providing all resources at our disposal in the search. Some more info: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/could-australia-hold-the-key-to-the-missing-flight-370/5332916 http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/could...
- demallien 13y agoProbably not. The aircraft would have been at the extreme edge of the radar's range, and in an area that is probably not getting scanned terribly often. Jindalee uses a directable beam to scan the area or interest. It takes hours to do a full sweep of its entire range (bear in mind that with over the horizon radars you have to do a 2D sweep, not the 1D sweep of a standard line of site radar). Generally speaking, the radar tends to be targeted on areas of specific interest, not just randomly sweeping (the sweep pattern depends on current threat profiles). Maybe if Malaysian authorities alerted Australia quickly enough they may have pointed the beam to the right area, but as I understand it the alert didn't start going out until much later. Disclaimer: ex RAAF radar engineer...
- Steko 13y agoLargest piece is 24 meters, location in the zone identified by the NTSB.
- madads 13y agoWhat are the chances that it is just ocean debris? I would say it's quite high. > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Ocean_garbage_patch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Ocean_garbage_patch ?
- damian2000 13y ago24m is too large for some junk?
- NamTaf 13y agoAs per that, the vast majority of mass is small and sub-surface, not visible from satellite or ship.
- damian2000 13y agoAMSA: One of the objects on the satellite image has been assessed to be 24 metres in size #MH370 #Malaysia Src: https://twitter.com/ABCNews24/status/446508379783974912 https://twitter.com/ABCNews24/status/446508379783974912 From their press conference, held about 30 mins ago.
- triggercut 13y agoFrom the photos of the two objects posted on @MicahGrimes (https://twitter.com/MicahGrimes https://twitter.com/MicahGrimes) http://t.co/gFZJhGfTNG http://t.co/gFZJhGfTNG http://t.co/SRYeeZfkc2 http://t.co/SRYeeZfkc2 Distance between: 43:58:34S 090:57:37E 44:03:02S 091:13:27E is 22.72km according to WolframAlpha https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=distance+between+43%3A58%3A34S+090%3A57%3A37E+and+44%3A03%3A02S+091%3A13%3A27E https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=distance+between+43%3A...
- minusSeven 13y agoThere are just so many stories in the media it is hard to know what to believe. This airline disappearance is becoming a place for all sorts of conspiracy theories. I hope people take cognizance from the disappearance and learn how such a thing was even possible in our high tech world of today.