Malaysia Airlines 777 - Missing

[Expat]

FYI. Traffic at this time of night in the area. Picture provided by Flightradar24.
http://www.flightradar24.com/12.32,102.42/5

[boeingboy]

Interesting theory here ........what do you guys think ?

I'm going to post the article in fleet16b's link because it really needs to be read by the followers of this forum given that this thread is in it's 12th page of speculation (and it was written by an experienced pilot)

There is so much wrong with that article - it's as bad as some of the nutball theories showing up here! Worthless.

[boeingboy]

Also no I saw no mention of ELT signals. So a land crash is out of question.

That doesn't mean anything. How many times have you read accident reports where the ELT didn't work?

Too many to count.

[goldeneagle]

Hmmmm... It seems they were shut down due to the ongoing investigation. Too strange otherwise...

A little more digging, the coverage issue for spot on that map, was posted on Feb 20, and from the shape of the outage area, looks like it's the singapore downlink that is currently unserviceable.

That's a really tough sell co-incidence to me. The outage covers exactly the area where this whole episode took place.

[fleet16b]

Interesting theory here ........what do you guys think ?

I'm going to post the article in fleet16b's link because it really needs to be read by the followers of this forum given that this thread is in it's 12th page of speculation (and it was written by an experienced pilot)

There is so much wrong with that article - it's as bad as some of the nutball theories showing up here! Worthless.

Please elaborate
Thats why I posted it

[Gino Under]

The idiots on CNN are trying to suggest this aircraft could "possibly" have flown in the shadow of another commercial airliner to hide from radar.

Yeah? Well it wouldn't 'hide' from TCAS!

Where does this drivel come from?

Gino Under

[JDW]

Yeah? Well it wouldn't 'hide' from TCAS!

not that i support the hiding theory any more than you do but doesnt tcas work off of transponder signals?

[garfield]

For me there's only one logical answer. From the beginning, I think that the aircraft did a 180, flew southwest until there's no fuel remaining and crashed in the middle of the indian sea, thousands of kilometers from the nearest coast. And if it's that, I highly doubt that they'll ever find it...

[HavaJava]

Yeah? Well it wouldn't 'hide' from TCAS!

Where does this drivel come from?

Gino,

Do a little bit of research on how TCAS works and you will see that it is your post that is the drivel.

[pdw]

Yeah? Well it wouldn't 'hide' from TCAS!

not that i support the hiding theory any more than you do but doesnt tcas work off of transponder signals?

Don't think so ... if someone's following above you a few hundred feet back with transponder off then they can see you but your tcas can't see them.

[Gino Under]

Yes. You need a mode S transponder. Which, apparently was turned off. So you wouldn't show up on TCAS shadowing another aircraft.

But the confusion is more than xpndr operation, it's also radar tracking, pings, things being transmitted from an aircraft that had apparently disappeared but not really because it might have shadowed another commercial airliner.

It was either seen or it wasn't.

[JDW]

JDW wrote:
Quote:
Yeah? Well it wouldn't 'hide' from TCAS!


not that i support the hiding theory any more than you do but doesnt tcas work off of transponder signals?


Don't think so ... if I'm following above you a few hundred feet back with my transponder off then I can see you but you can't see me
Post Posted: Tue Mar 18, 2014 6:15 pm

....which is because my transponder is off and the other guys tcas picks up its target by interrogating transponders!

OK, one more time,
tcas picks up other ac's transponders, thats how it sees em!! if our accident plane had transponders off, the flight it was (purported to be) following would not get a tcas warning. of course even that is likely moot because this is a pretty insane theory

[TheStig]

Interesting theory here ........what do you guys think ?

I'm going to post the article in fleet16b's link because it really needs to be read by the followers of this forum given that this thread is in it's 12th page of speculation (and it was written by an experienced pilot)

There is so much wrong with that article - it's as bad as some of the nutball theories showing up here! Worthless.

Please elaborate
Thats why I posted it

I'd like to know too, I'll admit to not know all the specific details that the 24 hour networks have been providing, because from what little I've watched they don't know much more than this; MH 370 is missing, it's transponder signal disappeared and what is believed to be the missing aircraft was spotted by military radar headed west. Everything else still seems pretty uncertain.

I'll agree that the author is speculating on the cause of his theorized fire, but I believe the premise that fire on board could be the most logical explanation at this point. I have to say that the media coverage I have watched and read is nothing short of appalling and is doing the public a massive disservice. Look at the National Post article titles:

-Flight MH370 went missing after transponder was shut off: Why do planes even have an off switch for crucial device?

Obviously pilots cannot be trusted not to hijack their own airplanes right?

Flight MH370’s diversion was manually programmed into cockpit computer

Well…that seems like a pretty logical way to divert to an alternate if in distress...

This article goes onto say:

Speaking alongside Hishammuddin, he said that while the final data transmission from ACARS, which gives plane performance and maintenance information, came before the co-pilot’s words, it was still unclear at what point the system was switched off.

Its signal didn't disappear before the last transmission as one poster here had stated.

I've seen the graphic of the "suspected flight path" and I have no idea where it was sourced from, does anyone here? As pilots we should all take a minute to consider how these two professionals are being portrayed in the media and consider for a minute that their final moments could have been spent trying to save the lives of everyone on board a distressed aircraft with failing avionics, in a smoke filled flight deck at night over the ocean.

[jump154]

Yeah? Well it wouldn't 'hide' from TCAS!

not that i support the hiding theory any more than you do but doesnt tcas work off of transponder signals?

Don't think so ... if someone's following above you a few hundred feet back with transponder off then they can see you but your tcas can't see them.

Is this possible? For all the transponder panels I have seen you need to switch through mode C to get to the TCAS positions -- can you enable TCAS display without turning on the transponder first? i.e a single rotating switch is labelled STBY - ALT RPTG OFF - XPNDR - TA ONLY - TA/RA

[kev994]

Deleted- I'm an entire page behind

[Castorero]

TheStig wrote:


"I've seen the graphic of the "suspected flight path" and I have no idea where it was sourced from, does anyone here? As pilots we should all take a minute to consider how these two professionals are being portrayed in the media and consider for a minute that their final moments could have been spent trying to save the lives of everyone on board a distressed aircraft with failing avionics, in a smoke filled flight deck at night over the ocean."

Amen...

[pdw]

... As pilots we should all take a minute to consider how these two professionals are being portrayed in the media and consider for a minute that their final moments could have been spent trying to save the lives of everyone on board a distressed aircraft with failing avionics, in a smoke filled flight deck at night over the ocean.

If a hijack attempt caused that smoke though ... consider that those pilots might have been the first to say 'do whatever it takes to get to the truth' (even if we are suspects at the beginning).

[cncpc]

... As pilots we should all take a minute to consider how these two professionals are being portrayed in the media and consider for a minute that their final moments could have been spent trying to save the lives of everyone on board a distressed aircraft with failing avionics, in a smoke filled flight deck at night over the ocean.

If a hijack attempt caused that smoke though ... consider that those pilots might have been the first to say 'do whatever it takes to get to the truth' (even if we are suspects at the beginning).

No, I don't think they would say that.

I'm with the original poster who made this observation about the two crew and the speculation about them.

[boogs82]

Lovely how Thailand is now saying they didn't share information they held onto with Malaysia in the beginning because they were never asked for it.

[co-joe]

I like your ideas fleet. Lots of plausibility there. I'd be interested if the waypoints that were supposedly flown to would have either been a fuel dump/emergency descent route that just got cut short by fire/smoke, or if they would make good transitioning waypoints to a STAR arrival or IAP into that 13k runway you spoke of. I don't have any maps of charts for that end of the earth so maybe someone who does could look them up.

What if the FMS menu was used and a few nearest waypoints were selected a la nearest-Direct-to-enter at random just to keep moving towards that field while the crew tried to brief an abnormal approach there, probably frantically trying to communicate through wires that had already been turned into acrid smoke... God I hope they weren't planning a fuel dump to save an overweight landing like the Swissair crew did. Theres that answer to the interview question: when is it ok to deviate from SOP's?


Or maybe Putin and his one eyed one horned flying purple people eater are to blame.... All I know is that having 9500nm range (wiki) makes any search daunting.