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

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

#111

Post by civilized »

ak_111 wrote: post #97
rippercushions wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And we also have discovered numerous pieces of MH370 debris, all in the kinds of places in eastern Africa where the simulations said they should end up.

I don't think the amount of debris found is that great, a tiny piece of wing...

I'm kind of surprised anything was found. Most of the materials the plane is made of are heavier than water and sunk to the bottom of the ocean. A few small floating pieces drifted thousands of miles and happened to wash up in inhabited areas.

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

#112

Post by lxgr »

chem83 wrote: post #15
zxcvbn4038 wrote: post #7

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.

Huh? A lot[0,1,2] has been done considering how little we know about what has actually happened and a trivial search would enlighten you. Also, real-time streaming of GPS position for the thousands of flights in the air at any given time is not a trivial problem (but technology is improving and ICAO is pushing for such solution[3]). [0] https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/08/us/mh370-fifth-anniversary-ma... [1] https://www.c…

Given that the very flight in question had Inmarsat equipment on board, I think it's fair to be at least somewhat surprised by the lack of periodic location updates.

But technology in aviation moves (generally for very good reasons!) at a different pace than in many other industries, and in this case it unfortunately meant having an operational satellite communications system on board (used for engine performance data telemetry transmitted to the manufacturer), but not having it wired up to ADS-C, an existing standard which allows automated position reporting over that same connection.

Inmarsat has modified their offerings [1] since MH370: One free ADS-C position report every 15 minutes for planes that do support it (implying that transmission cost is a concern for not activating the option unless required for air traffic control via FANS), and the ability to piggy-back a position report onto a "handshake/ping" for those that don't, which would presumably have included MH370.

For aircraft not equipped with any Satcom, some satellite constellations (including e.g. the latest generation of Iridium satellites) include payloads that allow direct tracking of ADS-B signals as well.

[1] https://www.icao.int/Meetings/GTM/Documents/Inmarsat.pdf

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

#113

Post by ak_111 »

canjobear wrote: post #76
hiidrew wrote: 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

Imagine one day all of a sudden a low-quality few seconds long video is uploaded to the channel showing only someone filming their feet as they stroll on on a beach.

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

#114

Post by lamontcg »

sleton38234234 wrote: post #94
gautamcgoel wrote: post #3

Can someone TL;DR this please?

There seems to be a knee jerk reaction to react negatively to anyone who doesn't read the article or doesn't read it in depth. i don't think the comment about TL;DR OR asking chatgpt is completely out of line. I could see businesses being built on top of chatgpt to create summaries of articles on the internet. This is a pretty big use case. Sometimes, people want a more efficient way to read articles, rather than act…

Particularly when over half the article is Atlantic-style lengthy exposition about the history which a lot of us already know, and I don't really care if the author is that good of a writer or not.

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

#115

Post by somat »

O__________O wrote: post #37

Curious, based on actual evidence, is there any reason to believe the pilot didn’t exit the plane prior to it crashing?

I don't think you can open the door on a 777 in flight.

For comparison the plane that D B Cooper used had a stairway in the back(sometimes called airstairs). He was able to override the in flight lock and get out that way. My understanding is that the db cooper incident is in a large part why they don't put airstairs on planes any more.

But now you have me watching videos on 777 doors. they open outward than forwards, like most airline doors they probably have a interlock to prevent them from opening in flight, if you could override that, I don't think you could push them forwards against the slipstream.

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

#117

Post by mannykannot »

digitalsankhara wrote: post #69
nobrains wrote: post #27

The article doesn't mention the amateur ham radio interference pattern research data to figure out the flight path. See this: https://youtu.be/Jq-d4Kl8Xh4

The methodology of using aircraft scatter of radio signals encoded in the WSPR protocol is described in [1]. I was so sceptical when I heard about this - mainly due to the normally mangled reporting in mainstream media - that I really didn't think there was any merit in it. The thought of being able to detect aircraft scatter using very low power HF signals over variable ionospheric propagation conditions at long ran…

I took a look at this a few months ago, and when I left off, I was unsure exactly how they conducted the validation of the technique. In particular, there was a test on June 3 2021 where they attempted to reconstruct the path of a flight from Samoa to Australia[1]. Certain phrases in the report leave me wondering whether the test simply amounted to looking for anomalies in the WSPRnet data in close spatiotemoral proximity to where the airplane was known to be:

"There are no WSPRnet anomalies observed at departure. At 03:30 UTC there is a drift anomaly 2 minutes behind the aircraft as well as 5 WSPRnet links just behind the aircraft, which may be due to the wake." [my emphasis here and below.]

"There is no obvious way to choose whether the aircraft turned to port or starboard to execute a 180° turn back towards Australia. I tried out both options and the best fit appears to be a turn to starboard."

And from a comment by someone apparently involved:

"There was one error of note, the initial turn of the aircraft after departure was to port and not starboard. Mike commented 'I should have told you that aircraft departing NSFA on RWY 08 will always turn to port due to terrain clearance considerations. If you’d known that then no doubt the first part of the route would have been a bit more accurate.'”

These quotes seem to suggest, if not outright imply, a detailed knowledge of the airplane's track by the person(s) searching the WISPRnet data for indications of that track, and if this is the case, then the test falls short of demonstrating an ability to determine the previously-unknown track of an airplane, which is what is needed for the MH370 investigation. I would be more than happy to update this opinion once I get a clearer picture of how these tests are conducted.

[1] https://www.dropbox.com/s/1cox7y91m89sjsv/GDTAA%20V2%20Blind...

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

#118

Post by _Adam »

> ... reaches up and flips the pressurization switch, cutting off bleed air to the cabin. The airplane rapidly begins to depressurize ...

I cannot believe that a "kill everyone" switch actually exists, and if it really does this seems like a bug. Especially because not hitting the switch would also kill everyone.

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

#119

Post by fosk »

LatteLazy wrote: post #65

To me, the most interesting thing about all of this is that civilian airports don't really have radar. You can disappear from an ATC screen just by turning off a transponder. If they'd had radar we would at least of known which way the plane went. A curious controller could have asked "unidentified object at height X, region Y" who they were and why they were in controlled airspace without a transponder on. The artic…

Radar is not exactly “new” technology, to your point I wonder why airports are not equipped with one. Shouldn’t break the bank.

Plus don’t militaries have radar anyways for air defense? How is it possible that no radar from multiple countries picked up a silent Boeing 777 flying to nowhere?

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