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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)

#421

Post by antognini »

dark-star wrote: post #364
antognini wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It feels a little more reasonable to me than removing your shoes or restricting liquids. Even if the shoe bomber had been successful, he wouldn't have been able to take down an entire plane. But it's trivial for a rogue pilot to kill everyone on board a plane. Since 9/11, cockpit doors have been reinforced so that it's basically impossible for anyone in the cabin to force their way into the cockpit. Ensuring that the…

Maybe, but it's still trivially easy to break the system. Just slip something in your co-pilot's drink. Or knock him or the (probably female) cabin attendant out with something heavy.

It seems like it's at the same level of the rule that the pilot and co-pilot can't order the same meal at the airport before a flight in case they both get food poisoning simultaneously. Doesn't guarantee that they don't both get sick, but it's a relatively minor imposition and reduces the odds by quite a bit.

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

#422

Post by ianburrell »

hammock wrote: post #413
ianburrell wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, there is nothing on Diego Garcia that could shoot down an airliner. There is Air Force base but it is all transports today with bombers in the past. There are no fighters based there and same was true in 2014. I couldn’t find any evidence of SAMs. The Air Force doesn’t believe in air defenses for bases outside of active war zones.

We had two carrier groups in the west pacific

Diego Garcia is in Indian Ocean, 2200 mi from Malaysia. The radar shows that MH370 went into the Indian Ocean not Pacific. If carrier was in the South China Sea, it would be pretty obvious that it was there and involved.

Carrier group is even less likely to shoot down airliner. In middle of ocean or crowded area like South China Sea, carrier group probably doesn't have its defenses on alert. It has fighters that can intercept and visually identify aircraft. In the middle of ocean, there is plenty of time to react. There isn't the hair trigger in middle of war zone that led to Iran Air Flight 655.

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

#423

Post by andrewaylett »

loeg wrote: post #420
andrewaylett wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would I know that the freezing point of water is 32°F? Pretty much nothing in this country is measured in Fahrenheit. I've definitely seen the comparison made, on random US articles which almost invariably show °C as well as °F, but I'm not sure that if someone asked me if I would recall the answer.

If you're even aware that Fahrenheit exists, this might be a thing you know. For example, my country mostly uses Fahrenheit but I know that freezing in Celsius is zero, because I attended school as a child.

Nope, fairly sure it was never mentioned in school. But in any case, that's a while ago now and I don't think I've ever had a need to use Fahrenheit except for reading US articles where they almost invariably also put Celsius.

I know that 100°F is something close to 37°C, and I'll probably not forget 32°F for a while now. But it's fairly useless trivia as far as every day life goes.

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

#424

Post by yellowapple »

listenallyall wrote: post #346
rishav_sharan wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I at least got a chuckle out of it. So it's good enough for me

We're all glad you got an AI-induced "chuckle" in a thread that ponders the tragic death of 200 or so people. Cool stuff. Reddit is just over there to the left...

The HN guidelines are silent on the topic of AI-induced chuckles, yet are pretty explicit about comparisons to Reddit.

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

#425

Post by yellowapple »

listenallyall wrote: post #350
yellowapple wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for your contribution to this discussion.

My contribution was generated by an actual human, I guess that small detail is irrelevant at this point

I bet you're real fun at parties :)

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

#426

Post by epups »

hugh-avherald wrote: post #404
nly wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's bat shit insane that we're 50 years in to the industry and ~20-25 years in to GPS and this is still only happening in 2021.

It won't save lives and wouldn't have saved lives. It's only to improve the efficiency of recovery operations.

It could save future lives to know what happened, though.

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

#427

Post by hammock »

ianburrell wrote: post #422
hammock wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We had two carrier groups in the west pacific

Diego Garcia is in Indian Ocean, 2200 mi from Malaysia. The radar shows that MH370 went into the Indian Ocean not Pacific. If carrier was in the South China Sea, it would be pretty obvious that it was there and involved. Carrier group is even less likely to shoot down airliner. In middle of ocean or crowded area like South China Sea, carrier group probably doesn't have its defenses on alert. It has fighters that can…

How far is the Indian Ocean from the west pacific?

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

#428

Post by rootusrootus »

tjohns wrote: post #288
rootusrootus wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Heck, there's parts of the mainland US that don't even have NEXRAD weather radar coverage. Is that a good comparison, though? It seems like NOAA funding for the NEXRAD sites is perpetually inadequate. The one in Portland occasionally has outages that last a while. I would have guessed that civilian air control radar is better funded than NEXRAD, and military radar probably so well funded that every square inch of C…

Domestic civilian and military radar is the same thing. It's (mostly) all managed by the FAA, and the military just gets a copy of the civilian radar feed as part of the Joint Surveillance System. [1] The limiting factor is geography. Radar coverage in the US is excellent, but the mountains out west make universal coverage hard, and there's some areas that just aren't cost effective to cover. At 40,000 MSL, yes, ever…

That's fascinating information, thanks for sharing! Off to lose some time diving into wikipedia...

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

#429

Post by lordalch »

nly wrote: post #396
zokier wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From tfa > 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.

It's bat shit insane that we're 50 years in to the industry and ~20-25 years in to GPS and this is still only happening in 2021.

There are several redundant tracking systems on an airliner, but the pilot deliberately turned them off. That hadn't been an issue before.

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

#430

Post by interestica »

jszymborski wrote: post #412
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

Obscure fact: Canada had a show called Royal Canadian Air Farce where, during their year-end special, they'd launch a "Chicken Cannon" at cut-outs of that years news makers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLJ5q3-XJtQ

Colonel is an Air Force military rank. Just saying.
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