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Seven years on, what do we know about the disappearance of flight MH370? (2021)

admiralcloudberg.medium.com

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Re: Seven years on, what do we know about the disappearance of flight MH370? (2021)

#71
post #29

Fascinating article. I had a chuckle at this excerpt: >The Malaysian investigators did look into whether the cargo could have started a fire, noting that it consisted mainly of ripe mangosteen fruits along with a small number of lithium batteries. Extensive attempts by the investigators to get mangosteen juice to react with the batteries and trigger a fire were unsuccessful. I'm sure plenty of people here have spent…

Investigations have some weird bits. I've always wondered if there's a certain title for the person who prepares the chickens for the 'chicken gun' in airplane testing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_gun

Bird Hit QA engineer

Re: Seven years on, what do we know about the disappearance of flight MH370? (2021)

#72
As someone who doesn't have intuition about these things: what are the chances that an 777 could have crashed and yet many years later very very few of its debris showed up or were spotted anywhere in the world (also factoring in intense search efforts around the most likely places where it crashed)?

Is this one of these 1 in a billion chance thing or is it not as crazy as it sounds? Like even if you were intentionally trying not to leave a trace, it is so hard to plan the drift and spread of debris and get so lucky in them not being spotted.

Re: Seven years on, what do we know about the disappearance of flight MH370? (2021)

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'Black box' is referring to the lack of visibility inside the box and to the fact that you can't tamper with it, what goes in stays in.

Flight recorders are called black boxes because they originally were black-colored boxes. "Black box" in the sense that you are describing is an unrelated term.

Wikipedia agrees! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_recorder#Terminology

Re: Seven years on, what do we know about the disappearance of flight MH370? (2021)

#74

Better question is what has been done to prevent the next MH370 and I bet the answer is nothing much, it took a back burner once the story was out of the headlines. There are only a thousand reasons aircraft operators might want to know where their planes are and if there are any issues. I’m sure that the gps position and black box data could be streamed over radio and/or satellite.

In the US two people must be in the cockpit at all times. If one of the pilots needs to use the bathroom, a flight attendant has to take their place in the cockpit until the pilot returns. This prevents a suicidal pilot from taking down a plane (or makes it much harder anyway). This wasn't a requirement on Malaysian Airlines at the time. (I don't know if the regulations have since been updated.)

That requirement became widespread after Germanwings 9525, which happened a year later.

Re: Seven years on, what do we know about the disappearance of flight MH370? (2021)

#75

Better question is what has been done to prevent the next MH370 and I bet the answer is nothing much, it took a back burner once the story was out of the headlines. There are only a thousand reasons aircraft operators might want to know where their planes are and if there are any issues. I’m sure that the gps position and black box data could be streamed over radio and/or satellite.

Your question is literally answered in the article:

> Even without finding the plane, a number of lessons have been drawn from the disappearance of MH370. Many of the responses to the disappearance centered on the fact that in the 21st century, commercial airliners should not just disappear. In the interest of knowing where every plane is at all times, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) began requiring that all airliners manufactured after the 1st of January 2021 include autonomous tracking devices that broadcast their location once per minute. To give greater coverage of airplanes manufactured before that date, Inmarsat (which supplies satellite relays to nearly all commercial airliners) changed the frequency of its handshakes from once per hour to once every 15 minutes. The European Aviation Safety Agency began requiring that the “pingers” on aircraft flight recorders last at least 90 days, rather than 30. ICAO also amended its guidelines to require that airliner designs approved after 2020 include cockpit voice recorders that record 25 hours of conversations (instead of the current standard of two), and that flight data recorders either stream data to a location on the ground or be designed to float to the surface after a crash. (Like all ICAO regulations, these only come into force if adopted by the member states, which may take some time.)

I think now, after another documented murder-suicide, there's also been a change in regulations requiring at least 2 people to be in the cockpit at all times. Other commenters point to additional changes

Re: Seven years on, what do we know about the disappearance of flight MH370? (2021)

#76
post #24

Just noticing the medium author, this guy posts fantastic breakdowns of plane crashes on r/catastrophicfailure Have to say the simulator part makes me lean heavily towards the pilot crashing it purposefully, from the article - "The most widely reported piece of evidence tying Zaharie to the disappearance was a course he had charted on his home flight simulator about a month before the crash. Zaharie had a number of h…

For reference, Zaharie's Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@catalinapby1

Re: Seven years on, what do we know about the disappearance of flight MH370? (2021)

#77

Better question is what has been done to prevent the next MH370 and I bet the answer is nothing much, it took a back burner once the story was out of the headlines. There are only a thousand reasons aircraft operators might want to know where their planes are and if there are any issues. I’m sure that the gps position and black box data could be streamed over radio and/or satellite.

Feel like if we believe this was a pilot suicide then it would also be important to try to address that - though I'm not sure how unless we fully automated (and people liked that). There has been a German and Chinese flight since with 100+ fatalities where this happened. Given how few crashes there are on commercial flights its one of the biggest risk factors today.

One huge problem for pilots is that any mention of mental illness, in any way, can basically result in you being grounded. Taking medication for your brain can get you grounded.

So fall into a depression and need to talk to a therapist and get a pill to help you out while you get back on your emotional feet? Well now your airline is going to ground you for however long they feel like. They are incentivized to be as careful as possible about known issues.

This means pilots feel like they have to bottle up things like anxiety or depression or suicidal thoughts, which of course means they might not get the help they need.

Re: Seven years on, what do we know about the disappearance of flight MH370? (2021)

#78

This is the crux/TL;DR: "Perhaps the most compelling reason to believe that Zaharie hijacked his own plane is its simplicity. It’s the only explanation that doesn’t rely on a series of independently improbable events: given a desire to do it, everything else falls into place as a reasonable part of the plan. In fact, from the timing of the transponder failure to the specific locations of the turns to the flight path…

The part where he had flown the route in a simulator is compelling as well. What a long article though

Except why go through all that trouble to take a very weird route to avoid detection and "disappear"? Every other pilot suicide has involved just pointing down. Why would the pilot need to make his suicide plausibly deniable?

Re: Seven years on, what do we know about the disappearance of flight MH370? (2021)

#79
post #72

As someone who doesn't have intuition about these things: what are the chances that an 777 could have crashed and yet many years later very very few of its debris showed up or were spotted anywhere in the world (also factoring in intense search efforts around the most likely places where it crashed)? Is this one of these 1 in a billion chance thing or is it not as crazy as it sounds? Like even if you were intentional…

There's not much watching the middle of the southern Indian Ocean, a large fraction of which is literally more than a thousand miles away from any place humans usually inhabit. It's one of the most remote, desolate, hostile regions of the planet.

I can see the appeal as a suicide method. You fly out for a while, it's quiet and pleasant, and before long there's no turning back, no possibility of rescue.

Re: Seven years on, what do we know about the disappearance of flight MH370? (2021)

#80
post #72

As someone who doesn't have intuition about these things: what are the chances that an 777 could have crashed and yet many years later very very few of its debris showed up or were spotted anywhere in the world (also factoring in intense search efforts around the most likely places where it crashed)? Is this one of these 1 in a billion chance thing or is it not as crazy as it sounds? Like even if you were intentional…

Major structures of a 777 are aluminum. I wouldn't expect many large, easily identifiable, parts to float (for long).
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