Live data from Hacker News

Final two communications from MH370 support controlled descent scenario (2021)

researchgate.net

71–80 of 126 posts

Re: Final two communications from MH370 support controlled descent scenario (2021)

#71
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Malaysia Airlines operations…were tracking the plane on the Flight Explorer website, which, as they would only realize hours later, simply continued to display an aircraft’s projected path if its transponder stopped broadcasting position information.” What in the actual fuck. “…the supposed signals from the black boxes must have been false. Only much later was it discovered that the signals had probably come from th…

> WAT. What what? Do you want to pay for the search? How much do you want to pay for it? Every human endeavour is constrained by resources. The art of doing anything is figuring out how to best employ the available resources to achieve goals. > What in the actual fuck. Is this your first time hearing about humans being confused by complicated technology?

> Every human endeavour is constrained by resources

There is a difference between constraining activities based on resources at hand and adopting a hypothesis because it favours your resource constraints. (Searching for keys under the light is reasonable. Concluding the keys must be under the light is not.)

> Is this your first time hearing about humans being confused by complicated technology?

An airline using a free consumer tool [1] to track its planes is not a problem of complicated technology. (FlightExplorer has a professional edition, but it runs natively. If flightops were looking at a website, they were essentially using Google Flights to track their planes.)

[1] https://travel.flightexplorer.com

Re: Final two communications from MH370 support controlled descent scenario (2021)

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Malaysia Airlines operations…were tracking the plane on the Flight Explorer website, which, as they would only realize hours later, simply continued to display an aircraft’s projected path if its transponder stopped broadcasting position information.” What in the actual fuck. “…the supposed signals from the black boxes must have been false. Only much later was it discovered that the signals had probably come from th…

After a lot of aircraft accident youtube videos, I can think of a couple where people misunderstanding where their computers get their information from and how they work. * This one where the operations team apparently doesn't understand how their flight tracker works, and/or it fails to inform their users that last contact was X hours ago. * One where the aircraft has a broken altimeter, and the suspicious pilots de…

> the operations team apparently doesn't understand how their flight tracker works

The operations team didn't have a flight tracker. The Flight Explorer website is a free consumer tool [1]. The actual flight tracking software is native [2].

Malaysia Airlines' flightops was essentially using Google Flights to track their planes. That's the WTF.

> actually the computer just uses fixed data that does not take such exceptional situations into account

I've never flown a 777. But modern GA flight computers, e.g. G1000, are pretty advanced about projecting fuel consumption. (Of course, this wasn't always the case [2].)

[1] https://travel.flightexplorer.com

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider

[2] https://www.flightexplorer.com/products/professional/FE-Prof...

Re: Final two communications from MH370 support controlled descent scenario (2021)

#73
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sometimes I think UX design should be mandatory for software developers and engineers. Human Factors is very much part of every airplane's design. From the ground up, and it involves all roles and every subsystems. > Even only reading The Design of Everyday Things would probably prevent a lot of catastrophes. I think you have a twisted assumption about how much care goes into aviation UX. The people who do these de…

> Good plan! Looking at an aircraft cockpit I see Billions of Buttons https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BillionsOfButton... Would writing the equation, data sources, and output format for each of those buttons on the button be good UX? No, I agree with you, this is not a UX problem it's a training one - a test question along the lines of "How does fuel prediction work on a B790" etc ...

Exactly. Now if we decide that on some type of aircraft we will display both kind of information to the pilots then it is a user interface task how to present these two similar but different information in such a way that it is clear which one is which.

Re: Final two communications from MH370 support controlled descent scenario (2021)

#74
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sometimes I think UX design should be mandatory for software developers and engineers. Human Factors is very much part of every airplane's design. From the ground up, and it involves all roles and every subsystems. > Even only reading The Design of Everyday Things would probably prevent a lot of catastrophes. I think you have a twisted assumption about how much care goes into aviation UX. The people who do these de…

> Good plan! Looking at an aircraft cockpit I see Billions of Buttons https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BillionsOfButton... Would writing the equation, data sources, and output format for each of those buttons on the button be good UX? No, I agree with you, this is not a UX problem it's a training one - a test question along the lines of "How does fuel prediction work on a B790" etc ...

> Looking at an aircraft cockpit I see Billions of Buttons

Not true for glass cockpits. While there is a lot of skeuomorphism in avionic UI, there is also a good amount of situation-driven dynamism.

Modern GA avionics' fuel estimates are pretty much on the money given a flight plan.

Re: Final two communications from MH370 support controlled descent scenario (2021)

#75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US shooting down a civilian passenger liner because of hypothesized secret cargo headed for China, and successfully covering it up for 10 years doesn't sound like something that passes Occam's Razor at all -- sounds like the very opposite, in fact. One should look for theories with less sophistication, not more.

I obviously don't believe anything but deliberate murder-suicide by the pilot. But just know that these things did happen. There's lots of indications that surfaced recently that the Israeli air force secretly shoot down Itavia Flight 870 in 1980 to stop a transport of nuclear technology to Iran. They had mistaken the correct flight because their intelligence in France (were the uranium was being produced for Iran) p…

From Wikipedia:

"In 2023, former Italian prime minister Giuliano Amato said that France downed the plane while targeting a Libyan military jet in an attempt to kill Muammar Gaddafi. Amato said that Italy tipped off Libya about the planned assassination and consequently Gaddafi did not board the Libyan military jet"

To be honest, this theory of mistaken identity sounds much more plausible than anybody shooting down (or bombing) a random passenger plane flying an Italian domestic flight on purpose. Whether the presumably Libyan plane they actually targeted was transporting nuclear material or Gaddafi, I have no idea. Shame on them anyway for covering it up.

Re: Final two communications from MH370 support controlled descent scenario (2021)

#76
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people can’t breathe at high altitudes due to insufficient air pressure. That’s why airplanes are usually pressurized. If that extra pressure goes away for whatever reason, people are handed oxygen masks and tanks to help them stay alive. What the GP comment says is that the plane may have been depressurized at one point at high altitude. The pilot’s oxygen mask is usually designed to last longer than any of the…

> Most people can’t breathe at high altitudes due to insufficient air pressure. Not most people. Nobody can breath if the altitude is high enough. There are some individual variability in how high is too high. That is of interest if you go mountaineering, but not really in a situation where an aircraft rapidly decompresses at the altitude MH370 was speculated to be flying at.

> Not most people. Nobody can breath if the altitude is high enough.

Read generously, they're talking about with supplemental oxygen. At 35k feet, even with pure oxygen, many people will not be able to breathe and most will not be able to comfortably. (Above 40k feet, supplemental oxygen no longer works--everybody needs pressurised oxygen.)

(Obviously nobody can breathe above the Armstrong limit, but that isn't relevant with a commercial airliner.)

Re: Final two communications from MH370 support controlled descent scenario (2021)

#77
post #67
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they could track MH370 using WSPR (amateur radio), then they could logically track other (similar) aircraft. When asked to prove the above and publish a peer reviewed paper, they were unable to do so. The reader is thus invited to draw their own conclusion.

Publishing a peer reviewed paper would equate to handing their IP over for free. Maybe the right thing to do in the face of such a tragedy is to do that. Or perhaps they genuinely have some cool technology, and it could be sold into aero, military industries and they want to monetize it. In that case the right thing to do would be to hand over their projected track data, which it sounds like they did.

They could prove they can replicate the results without disclosing how.

Re: Final two communications from MH370 support controlled descent scenario (2021)

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I obviously don't believe anything but deliberate murder-suicide by the pilot. But just know that these things did happen. There's lots of indications that surfaced recently that the Israeli air force secretly shoot down Itavia Flight 870 in 1980 to stop a transport of nuclear technology to Iran. They had mistaken the correct flight because their intelligence in France (were the uranium was being produced for Iran) p…

From Wikipedia: "In 2023, former Italian prime minister Giuliano Amato said that France downed the plane while targeting a Libyan military jet in an attempt to kill Muammar Gaddafi. Amato said that Italy tipped off Libya about the planned assassination and consequently Gaddafi did not board the Libyan military jet" To be honest, this theory of mistaken identity sounds much more plausible than anybody shooting down (o…

That is an old theory that has been largely debunked by the book I suggested and the evidence that has surfaced recently. Not only that, but Israel was the only country in the planet that successfully showed to be able to traverse the mediterranean while avoiding completely radar detection flying thousands of miles at extremely low altitudes in Operation Wooden Leg[1] and some others.

Also Amato's words are quite meaningless as he never had an idea, and he was not prime minister at the time.

This reportage[2], albeit in Italian, aired by Italian state tv last year, starts by interviewing the person you quote Giuliano Amato, and he clearly points out that the government has never had a clear idea on who shoot it down. It goes into huge detail on all the elements behind the Israeli thesis and it's the only credible one for which he have substantial proofs, from the fact that France used civilian airplanes to transport uranium, to the fact that special cargo was indeed used on the very same flight (but in a different date), interviews with Israeli and French officials and Italian civilians that had seen fighter jets above the cost of Calabria and all pointed to Israeli fighters (albeit, not the F15s used in Operation Wooden Leg).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Wooden_Leg

[2]https://www.rai.it/programmi/report/inchieste/Il-V-scenario-...

Re: Final two communications from MH370 support controlled descent scenario (2021)

#79
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What legitimate reason would a pilot have to depressurize a plane at altitude, incapacitating or killing the passengers? Just wondering if and if so why that system / function is available.

I have that same question. Why is there a "kill everyone on board" setting?

All vehicles that can be steered have that possibility, even cars: If there is a steering wheel, it is possible to deliberately crash the vehicle. If it is possible to shut down engines, it can also be used for malicious purposes. In other words, there is always the possibility of using everything for malicious purposes.

On the other hand, the ability to shut down a system that has failed can save everyone on board.

There are approximately 40,000,000 flights each year. Almost all occur without incident. In the entire 120-year history of aviation, only a few accidents have resulted from the pilot intentionally crashing the plane.

Re: Final two communications from MH370 support controlled descent scenario (2021)

#80
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After a lot of aircraft accident youtube videos, I can think of a couple where people misunderstanding where their computers get their information from and how they work. * This one where the operations team apparently doesn't understand how their flight tracker works, and/or it fails to inform their users that last contact was X hours ago. * One where the aircraft has a broken altimeter, and the suspicious pilots de…

Which incident are you referring to with the altitude confusion example?

Aeroperu 603.
Post reply on HN