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

291–300 of 457 posts

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

#291

Post by _0w8t »

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

Those guns are not cheap. I once worked in a startup that wanted to put thermal cameras on commercial planes to measure volcanic ash concentrations. The cameras had to be behind a special glass that is transparent for thermal radiation. But as the glass size exceeded certain size, it required to certify against bird strikes. It turned out the cost of the certification was like 500K euros.

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

#292

Post by heleninboodler »

scirpaceus wrote: post #256
agnos wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlikely that he's still alive, but the evidence of a controlled landing makes the whole thing more puzzling from a psychological perspective. Why slowly and consciously drag it out until the very bitter end when you've already completed your suicide mission?

I find the controlled ditching hypothesis less psychologically puzzling, not more, for at least three reasons: ego, agency, and practicality. First, successfully ditching an aircraft at sea is the ultimate test of piloting skills, and possibly one difficult to resist for the ego of a seasoned captain on his final flight. Second, it seems out of character for a meticulous pilot to just let the aircraft slip out of his…

Fourth, if he had any last minute regrets about offing himself (which he had hours to contemplate), it would probably be practically reflexive to keep the plane aloft as long as possible and ditch it as smoothly as possible.

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

#293

Post by washywashy »

Once on a flight headed west I happened to look out the window and just then another plane flew beneath the plane I was on headed north-ish and quickly off into the distance. I remember thinking two things: 1. It was far away from us so quickly it kind of shocked me, although it makes perfect sense of course. 2. I felt like i got a really good view of it. It didn’t look far away at all altitude-wise as it passed beneath the plane I was on.

I’ve always wondered how normal this is to cross paths with other planes that closely. I’ve seen other planes way off in the distance before but never that close.

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

#294

Post by __sy__ »

washywashy wrote: post #293

Once on a flight headed west I happened to look out the window and just then another plane flew beneath the plane I was on headed north-ish and quickly off into the distance. I remember thinking two things: 1. It was far away from us so quickly it kind of shocked me, although it makes perfect sense of course. 2. I felt like i got a really good view of it. It didn’t look far away at all altitude-wise as it passed bene…

Pretty common. You can check out Skyvector "World Hi" [1] to get a sense of intersecting flight routes.

[1] https://skyvector.com/

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

#295

Post by phire »

alexitosrv wrote: post #287
cyber_mock wrote: post #262

So 12 minutes of oxygen, i just learn that

Yeah, like it's not that long. They should add that disclaimer to the safety messages at the beginning of the flight. "In case of an emergency, you will have 12 minutes of oxygen, which while we know is not that much, is better than to die instantly."

It only needs to be long enough for the pilots to descend to a safe altitude.

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

#296

Post by avidiax »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #184
leplen wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They never found the plane. Most likely the lead pilot crashed it intentionally, but we don't really know. The person writing this blog post is more certain about that than the Malaysian authorities, but bloggers are allowed to speculate more than government commissions. There's some neat math people used to try and find the plane that gets alluded to, but not explained in depth, and the post is a reasonable summary,…

The smoking gun IMO is that deleted simulated flight path. If that is legit, then I think it's case closed.

There are several smoking guns. The disabled transponder right at ATC handoff. The high-skill turn. The special flight path that skirts several jurisdictions, then blends with other traffic. The final turn off that path to somewhere far away. Lack of fuel being what ended the flight. The home simulator with the same flight path, i.e. one of these pilots has a history of flying this path.

Not something a passenger can do. Not something that can be explained as the first & last presentation of an unknown technical flaw.

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

#297

Post by gymbeaux »

monkeywork wrote: post #285
wiredone wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a trained pilot, flight planning is a huge part of your job. Navigation is also a big part of the job. if you assumed you had to turn off parts of your nav equipment to avoid detection, then visual reference (ie flying the path to visually memorise/familirise yourself with wayppoints) would be something you'd certainly do - and a flightsim would be perfect for this.

was the terrain modeling good enough at that time to really train you for that? Current MSFS sure but the version he was running?

Sure. Flight Simulator X came out around 2006 and at max settings looked great. Current FS is obviously better, but FSX was adequate.

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

#298

Post by gymbeaux »

SteveNuts wrote: post #265
duxup wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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….

Miegs field. Cessna 172. Enable slew mode.

Flight Sim 95? Outstanding.

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

#299

Post by TylerE »

phire wrote: post #284
TylerE wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It won't unless there is some sort of major hull leak. If it was off long enough it would start to be a problem. Its basically the same same as turning off recirc on your car's climate controls. (Also, the pressurization controls are almost always on the overhead panels, which contains things that are used almost always for startup/shutdown steps so it's not like the pilot is going to reach over to adjust a radio or…

> and actually hitting the emergency pressure dump control Wait, is there an emergency pressure dump control? I kind of just assumed turning off bleed air would be the only option, and I would have assumed that turning off bleed air would complete depressurisation within a few min.

Yes. You’d use it in the case of something like a fire where you need to get the smoke out NOW

Here’s what it looks like on a 737: http://www.b737.org.uk/images/cpcspanel.jpg

The switch is the guarded toggle a bit left of center on the bottom, next to the two round gauges.

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

#300

Post by sva_ »

washywashy wrote: post #293

Once on a flight headed west I happened to look out the window and just then another plane flew beneath the plane I was on headed north-ish and quickly off into the distance. I remember thinking two things: 1. It was far away from us so quickly it kind of shocked me, although it makes perfect sense of course. 2. I felt like i got a really good view of it. It didn’t look far away at all altitude-wise as it passed bene…

I think if you're close to any airport, it is very normal. If you're, for example, landing in Chicago, I'd be shocked if you can't see a bunch of other planes out of the window. I also once had some delay when having to fly over Dubai, where we had to fly in circles before landing, and I saw a large amount of airplanes circling around the same area above and below us. But I'm no expert in aviation by any means, so I can't really comment on the appropriateness.
Post reply on HN