Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

admiralcloudberg.medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 457 posts

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

#141

Post by lukewrites »

fosk wrote: post #119
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?

I think it's most likely that governments with radar in the area don't want to admit they have it.

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

#142

Post by sdk16420 »

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…

>Sometimes, people want a more efficient way to read articles, rather than actually reading them.

Is it too much to assume that readers have had at least high school education and know about lead sentences and summary paragraphs?

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

#143

Post by maegul »

paranoidrobot wrote: post #127
_Adam wrote: post #118

> ... 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.

Your assumption is that it's a "kill everyone" button. Yes, used incorrectly or maliciously, in the right circumstances, it can do so. By the same reasoning, a huge percentage of the controls and switches in the cockpit can also have the same result. Just disconnect the fuel to the engines, or push the control stick forward.

I feel like the need for qualified pilots is essentially that it’d be easier to identify what isn’t effectively a “kill everyone” button in the cockpit if used in the wrong way.

It’s a fricken giant metal tube flying through the air!

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

#144

Post by moffkalast »

ak_111 wrote: post #113
canjobear wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well the found wreckage pieces apparently point to a controlled ditching, so it's not entirely impossible for the guy to be alive somehow.

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

#145

Post by duxup »

RobRivera wrote: post #50
interestica wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Operational Testing Lead Quality Assurance Tester El Pollo Hermano

Excuse me sir, it is:

SENIOR OTL-QA-TEPH

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

#146

Post by maegul »

roxgib wrote: post #133

At this point the data from his computer, at least the data from the flight simulator software, should be released publicly so that those with experience can apply their knowledge to reconstructing the data. It's entirely possible that someone with more knowledge of the software in question, rather than a generic computer expert, might have more luck.

Agreed. Whenever I return to this story I’m always astounded at rereading that part of the story (even though I know it’s coming). I’m also surprised it isn’t given more weighting.

Surely it’s the biggest reddest flag in all the evidence and underemphasised purely because of the political implications of a murderous pilot.

The main question about it in my mind is one for aviation experts … why would any pilot plot and practice that course? Is there any possible motivation other than wanting to crash a plane in the middle of nowhere?

Because if not, it’s almost a closed, albeit morbid and troubling case and the rest would be details.

It also raises interesting questions about the importance of pilot mental health that are maybe uncomfortable for the industry, in addition to the fact that aviation tech could still completely lose a plane.

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

#147

Post by duxup »

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…

It is very strange. At the same time I imagine a lot of actions in flight simulators are odd choices you might not make in real life.

I know I did a lot of poor flying….

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

#148

Post by themodelplumber »

interestica wrote: post #42
dml2135 wrote: 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

[flagged]

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

#149

Post by Daneel_ »

interestica wrote: post #121
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After the joke fiasco, and since it's a government job, i'm sure there is someone employed there to thaw them first :D

What joke? was it related to https://cdc.gov/chikungunya

I believe they're talking about this one: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/catapoultry/

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

#150

Post by XorNot »

lxgr wrote: post #112
chem83 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 dat…

I will say it seems utterly bonkers, given the cost of airliners, that we're talking about transmission costs on the order of minutes and not doing per-second updates.

Admittedly a lot of this was before our new era of satellite constellations, but surely the future should now be "per second updates and streaming audio/video via satellite"?

Post reply on HN