Missing Airplane Flew On for Hours • Hacker News Board

Re: Missing Airplane Flew On for Hours

#31

Post by ars » Thu, Mar 13, 2014, 7:21 AM UTC

melling wrote: post #20

dingaling wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well, if the engines were transmitting, can't someone figure out the direction of the plane? Unfortunatley not; the flight-data transmitting systems ( ACARS and ADS-B ) that do include position data appear to have been turned-off or disabled deliberately. The engine telemetry feed is part of Rolls-Royce's 'Power by the Hour' system, which aims to identify faults or under-performance in the engines whilst still in-f…

What is it transmitting to every 30 minutes (fixed: seconds)? If more than one satellite was involved, that might give direction. traceroute?

Minutes, not seconds.

Re: Missing Airplane Flew On for Hours

#32

Post by justinzollars » Thu, Mar 13, 2014, 7:21 AM UTC

Reminds me of Lost, I never thought that was a plausible plot even in 2004. I thought our technology has made losing aircraft, impossible.

Very strange that the transponders were turned off. Very strange that the Rolls-Royce data wasn't released days ago. Was this an oversight?

Re: Missing Airplane Flew On for Hours

#33

Post by lucaspiller » Thu, Mar 13, 2014, 7:21 AM UTC

digitalengineer wrote: post #9

So we have a plane that flew to another destination without communication and several people with bogus passports on board. Familymembers have reported cellphones that kept 'rining' instead of going directly to voicemail (as they would have if the plane was at rhe bottom of the ocean). Hijacking looks to me the only reasonable explenation.

Article: http://the-tap.blogspot.com/2014/03/mh370-passengers-phones-...

Re: Missing Airplane Flew On for Hours

#34

Post by jonah » Thu, Mar 13, 2014, 7:21 AM UTC

sitkack wrote: post #14

digitalengineer wrote: post #9

So we have a plane that flew to another destination without communication and several people with bogus passports on board. Familymembers have reported cellphones that kept 'rining' instead of going directly to voicemail (as they would have if the plane was at rhe bottom of the ocean). Hijacking looks to me the only reasonable explenation.

Annnd, why aren't we reading about cell logs of every IMSI of every passenger on board. Isn't this baby stuff? Continually ringing doesn't mean the phone is still on a network.

Continuously ringing means the network still thinks the phone's on the network. When you power down your phone it sends a signal to the network saying it's going off. If you just pull the battery or something else where it doesn't send that signal, the network still assumes (maybe only for a time) that the phone is still on but isn't connected to a tower.

Re: Missing Airplane Flew On for Hours

#35

Post by ekianjo » Thu, Mar 13, 2014, 7:23 AM UTC

Blahah wrote: post #27

ekianjo wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> * On February 22nd, aircraft 9M-MRO underwent maintenance. During this, or during a previous maintenance cycle, an empty oxygen bottle was installed by mistake for a full one, or a valve was jammed, or some other undetected fault rendered the flight deck crew's emergency oxygen supply inoperable. That sounds extremely unlikely. Standard procedures for equipment checks in plane are usually done at 9 sigma standards,…

He does reference the case of Helios Airways Flight 522[0], where a similar situation happened as a result of human error (leaving the pressurisation system set to manual). 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios_Airways_Flight_522

This was not the same place (737 is damn old in design, from the 70s, 777 was designed in the 90s), this was not an international flight (security standards for international flights are stricter), so I'm not sure he even tries to compare both of them. Why not reference a Cessna incident as well ?

Re: Missing Airplane Flew On for Hours

#36

Post by jonah » Thu, Mar 13, 2014, 7:24 AM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #24

nostrademons wrote: post #7

Interesting hypothesis that would square with this: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2014/03/a-hypoth...

> * On February 22nd, aircraft 9M-MRO underwent maintenance. During this, or during a previous maintenance cycle, an empty oxygen bottle was installed by mistake for a full one, or a valve was jammed, or some other undetected fault rendered the flight deck crew's emergency oxygen supply inoperable. That sounds extremely unlikely. Standard procedures for equipment checks in plane are usually done at 9 sigma standards,…

Do we know for a fact that it disappeared from military radar?

Also, how low of an altitude would it have to fly to avoid radar? Maybe they dropped down to a thousand feet and changed course?

Re: Missing Airplane Flew On for Hours

#37

Post by notthetup » Thu, Mar 13, 2014, 7:24 AM UTC

x0x0 wrote: post #6

melling wrote: post #4

"Aviation investigators and national security officials believe the plane flew for a total of five hours, based on data automatically downloaded and sent to the ground from the Boeing Co. 777's engines as part of a routine maintenance and monitoring program." Well, if the engines were transmitting, can't someone figure out the direction of the plane?

I wonder if the necessary transmission origin data wasn't recorded? I bet the fbi is right now going through boeing's network trying to figure that out though. Is it bounced through satellites? You'd think a XXX million dollar plane would have a gps beacon or something though, just like atm machines. It would be a miracle if it where hijacked and there's even a chance those people are alive.

They have a GPS beacon. The ADS-B system is exactly that. It just stopped transmitting. Apparently it can be manually turned off from the cockpit. Or it malfunctioned.

Re: Missing Airplane Flew On for Hours

#38

Post by mbreese » Thu, Mar 13, 2014, 7:26 AM UTC

banachtarski wrote: post #25

nostrademons wrote: post #7

Interesting hypothesis that would square with this: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2014/03/a-hypoth...

Damn that is an interesting theory. I think there should be a way of getting into the cockpit if it can be determined that the pilot and copilot are incapacitated. That would be a miserable way to go. :P

Basically, a dead mans switch for the cockpit door lock? Where the pilot/co-pilot has to hit a button every N minutes? That might not be a bad idea...

Re: Missing Airplane Flew On for Hours

#39

Post by nostrademons » Thu, Mar 13, 2014, 7:28 AM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #24

nostrademons wrote: post #7

Interesting hypothesis that would square with this: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2014/03/a-hypoth...

> * On February 22nd, aircraft 9M-MRO underwent maintenance. During this, or during a previous maintenance cycle, an empty oxygen bottle was installed by mistake for a full one, or a valve was jammed, or some other undetected fault rendered the flight deck crew's emergency oxygen supply inoperable. That sounds extremely unlikely. Standard procedures for equipment checks in plane are usually done at 9 sigma standards,…

The other thing to consider is that there are roughly 90,000 flights/day and 365 days in a year, so even if such an event has a probability of 1 in a billion (that's roughly 9 9s reliability), you'd expect it to happen once every 30 years on average. Extremely unlikely events become plausible when large numbers are involved.

Re: Missing Airplane Flew On for Hours

#40

Post by lucaspiller » Thu, Mar 13, 2014, 7:32 AM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #28

sitkack wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Annnd, why aren't we reading about cell logs of every IMSI of every passenger on board. Isn't this baby stuff? Continually ringing doesn't mean the phone is still on a network.

Because the "cell" is the microcell generated by the plane's internal GSM/sat uplink... which has no GPS attached and cannot really be traced.

Even if there is no GPS, it should still be possible to tell whether a number is registered/active on the network. When a phone connects to a network (including roaming) it's location is stored in the operator's HLR (home location register) where it is used to route calls. I'd assume it stores the time the phone was last seen as well.