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MH370: A different point of view

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Re: MH370: A different point of view

#161

Post by chloraphil »

tzs wrote: post #115
jrockway wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This video demonstrates what actually happens when a widebody airliner attempts to land on the ocean: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WE2Yn0cipTY 767s are bigger than A320s and the ocean is a lot rougher than the Hudson.

That video demonstrates what happens when you try to land in the ocean while you are fighting with hijackers which causes a sudden dip to one side, when you happen to be over a coral reef for the engine on that side to hit. Even with that, the crash was quite survivable. A large number of the fatalities were due to drowning, because people inflated life rafts while still inside, which blocked them in so they drowned…

I believe it was people inflating their vests inside, not rafts.

Re: MH370: A different point of view

#162

Post by bedhead »

hindsightbias wrote: post #156
bedhead wrote: post #69

In every instance of cabin fire, even ones where the fires spread extremely quickly and are eventually fatal such as SwissAir and ValueJet, the crew contacted the ground. And this was the case even when co-pilots were literally out of their seats actually fighting the fires. Yet every single time the ground was alerted about an emergency. This is what veteran pilots do. Also, for a fire to destroy the multiple electr…

An Egypt Air 777-200 had a cockpit fire on the ground. This would complicate a reponse. http://www.avherald.com/h?article=44078aa7&opt=0 Presuming they lost the battle, instrumentation/ap would drop out. Eventually, the fire would burn through the cockpit (see pictures above) and depressurize the a/c. Fire would then go out. Engines would keep going. Eventually, someone will correlate wind directions with any require…

Interesting. Except is it really possible for a 777 that just had its entire avionics destroyed by a fire and a total loss of cabin pressure at 35k feet to maintain relatively level and straight flight? If the fire is really that catastrophic, I would reckon the plane would crash soon thereafter. It would also be unprecedented (as far as I know) to have the crew aware of a fire and unable to alert the ground (either because the comms were inoperative or the pilots were incapacitated). Also, another pilot is now claiming he established radio contact with 370 at 1:30, but that it was "mumbled" and brief. I guess the radio was working and there was a butt in the seat?

I dunno. Who am I kidding, it's all circumstantial at this point.

EDIT: I'm not sure if the Cairo incident is a good example of how quickly a fire can overcome a crew. They were on the ground with the jetway still connected, so it's quite a different situation.

Re: MH370: A different point of view

#163

Post by prodev42 »

i agree with the story, however the author did not write the possibility that the plane could be shot down by air force and was covered up within those 5 hrs that they failed to report.

also i heard somewhere the captain used to live around that airport and is familiar with it..thats why he decided to go there.

Re: MH370: A different point of view

#164

Post by spartango »

larrys wrote: post #159
spartango wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's being reported[1 - NYT] that the 107 "turn off time" is inaccurately quoted. It wasn't that the system was turned off at 107, as much as the next expected report at 137 was not received. This leaves a 30 minute window during which the system was disabled. Note also that the last voice communication was at 119, so it could have been disabled after that. We simply do not know. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/18…

""turn off time" is inaccurately quoted" That is part of the problem with any analysis of what could have happened. We don't know for sure if all the input is correct as reported. The old garbage in garbage out. We don't know if the background checks (some of which are complete some which various countries haven't even released yet) have issues. Everything is speculation based on fuzzy information. All we know is wha…

Much of the information coming from the Malaysian officials tasked with communication is confused or inaccurate. Naturally it's unclear whether this is a case of "right hand not talking to the left" or broader incompetence, but I think you're right to be conservative in building hypotheses atop this information.

Re: MH370: A different point of view

#167

Post by rdsubhas »

wikiburner wrote: post #8

This doesn't explain the zigzagging trajectory of the plane after its disappearance: Indeed, soon after MH370 disappeared, reports emerged that recordings of Malaysian military radar returns showed an unidentified track that could correspond to the flight turning left onto a westward course and descending. At the time it was difficult to assess the validity of that claim. It’s been bolstered, however, by a Reuters re…

And, just curious though, in case there was a fire and they turned the transponders off on purpose - How difficult would it be to just say "Fire" or something over the wire before turning things off? Does abruptly going cold and switching everything off make sense? Would a fire hit so fiercely that the very first response would be to turn everything off without any communication?

Re: MH370: A different point of view

#168

Post by Nacraile »

yock wrote: post #62
confluence wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's from primary radar. Those altitude readings are unreliable at that range.

Can you expound on that? Does it have to do with atmospheric curving of the radar beam?

Radar derives altitude from measurements of distance and elevation angle. The greater the distance, the less sensitive elevation angle is to vertical displacement (simple trigonometry), and hence signal:error decreases.

Re: MH370: A different point of view

#169

Post by stcredzero »

rdsubhas wrote: post #167
wikiburner wrote: post #8

This doesn't explain the zigzagging trajectory of the plane after its disappearance: Indeed, soon after MH370 disappeared, reports emerged that recordings of Malaysian military radar returns showed an unidentified track that could correspond to the flight turning left onto a westward course and descending. At the time it was difficult to assess the validity of that claim. It’s been bolstered, however, by a Reuters re…

And, just curious though, in case there was a fire and they turned the transponders off on purpose - How difficult would it be to just say "Fire" or something over the wire before turning things off? Does abruptly going cold and switching everything off make sense? Would a fire hit so fiercely that the very first response would be to turn everything off without any communication?

Airplane fires can and have been so fierce, that pilots barely have time to utter a single sentence to ground control after they know they're in trouble and before they lose consciousness. It really is that time critical.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ValuJet_Flight_592

Re: MH370: A different point of view

#170

Post by Shivetya »

hindsightbias wrote: post #156
bedhead wrote: post #69

In every instance of cabin fire, even ones where the fires spread extremely quickly and are eventually fatal such as SwissAir and ValueJet, the crew contacted the ground. And this was the case even when co-pilots were literally out of their seats actually fighting the fires. Yet every single time the ground was alerted about an emergency. This is what veteran pilots do. Also, for a fire to destroy the multiple electr…

An Egypt Air 777-200 had a cockpit fire on the ground. This would complicate a reponse. http://www.avherald.com/h?article=44078aa7&opt=0 Presuming they lost the battle, instrumentation/ap would drop out. Eventually, the fire would burn through the cockpit (see pictures above) and depressurize the a/c. Fire would then go out. Engines would keep going. Eventually, someone will correlate wind directions with any require…

Well it should not be too difficult to locate maintenance and build records to determine if such an issue could have existed with the this plane and if it were corrected or not.

However as someone pointed out, could it really continue to fly at this point, let alone where did the debris go?

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