Malaysia Airlines loses contact with Flight - 239 pax/crew

[SarahZ]

Additionally, it's pretty hard to miss a 777. Also, you need a nice, flat landing strip that's at least 7000 feet in length (1.3 miles).

That's the recommended length. A 777 can land on much shorter runways if the pilot has balls to do it and/or they don't want to takeoff again. Check out this video, from touchdown at 7:30 in the video to slowing down to taxi crawl speed at 7:59, this 777-200ER (same model as MH370) was (almost) stopped in 3200 feet based on my knowledge of this airport and measuring on Google Earth. If a pilot can do it on regular flight with passengers, a rogue 777 can surely do it in even less.

Yesterday NPR published a map showing some 634 airstrips that are at least 5000' long in the range of MH370. If we assume they can land in 3000-3500 feet, that would add a ton of more possible airstrips.

Oh wow. Cool video. Thanks for the knowledge!

 

[Crossover]

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[CHamilton]

Final words from jet came after system shutdown

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia -- The final words from the missing Malaysian jetliner's cockpit gave no indication anything was wrong even though one of the plane's communications systems had already been disabled, officials said Sunday, adding to suspicions that one or both of the pilots were involved in the disappearance.....
Authorities have said someone on board the plane first disabled one of its communications systems -- the Aircraft and Communications Addressing and Reporting System, or ACARS -- at 1:07 a.m. Around 14 minutes later, the transponder, which identifies the plane to commercial radar systems, was also shut down. The fact that they went dark separately is strong evidence that the plane's disappearance was deliberate.
On Sunday, Malaysian Defense Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said at a news conference that that the final, reassuring words from the cockpit -- "All right, good night" -- were spoken to air traffic controllers after the ACARS system was shut down. Whoever spoke did not mention any trouble on board, seemingly misleading ground control.

 

[jis]

I see what this is about . You're too politically correct to assume that I'm making up false statements and jumping to false conclusions and hiding behind them by saying it's just my opinion . I'm not hiding behind nothing .If its a factual statement , yeah , I'll back it up . I don't see nowhere on this forum that says I have to be politically correct to make a response . I joined because I support Amtrak . I didn't join this forum to cause problems but I do play by the rules . Now does this help clear the air ?

Actually no it doesn't. What does political correctness have to do with misidentifying a VOR depicted using standard notation on a Navchart as some other thing which it is not? :unsure: :wacko: You are still being quite incoherent IMHO, and trying to ascribe motives of political correctness to others where there does not appear to be any. Just admit it that you were wrong in interpreting the symbol for VOR on the Navchart, and suggesting that anything in the Navchart shows the location of a radar, instead of spewing all this mumbo-jumbo about "political correctness" and we'd all be squared away nicely.

 

[jis]

Final words from jet came after system shutdown

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia -- The final words from the missing Malaysian jetliner's cockpit gave no indication anything was wrong even though one of the plane's communications systems had already been disabled, officials said Sunday, adding to suspicions that one or both of the pilots were involved in the disappearance.....

Authorities have said someone on board the plane first disabled one of its communications systems -- the Aircraft and Communications Addressing and Reporting System, or ACARS -- at 1:07 a.m. Around 14 minutes later, the transponder, which identifies the plane to commercial radar systems, was also shut down. The fact that they went dark separately is strong evidence that the plane's disappearance was deliberate.

On Sunday, Malaysian Defense Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said at a news conference that that the final, reassuring words from the cockpit -- "All right, good night" -- were spoken to air traffic controllers after the ACARS system was shut down. Whoever spoke did not mention any trouble on board, seemingly misleading ground control.

Does the ACARS system send a "I am now shutting down" message when it is shut down? Since it is a "send a message when necessary, otherwise just remain ready to do so" kind of system, unless it notifies that it is being shut down, how would one know the exact time when it was shut down? Yes you can know when the last message was received from it, but how does that correlate with when it was actually shut down?

 

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[Ryan]

Yeah, that's not going to work for us.

What symbols mean on a map isn't a matter of opinion.

If you get your facts wrong, you're going to get corrected on them. Hopefully politely, but you're burning through goodwill faster than Imelda Marcos burnt through shoes.

 

[jis]

For those interested in a very good summary of the current status of the Search operation of MH370 I would recommend reading Reply 4 on this page: http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/read.main/6027228/

 

[Crossover]

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[SarahZ]

I'm say this again . I'm not going to say I'm wrong . If what I'm saying is make sense to you then respond . If it doesn't , ignore it and move on . That's it . It's that simple .

What is so hard about admitting you were wrong? I do it all the time (look up the thread a bit, where I'm corrected about the 777's landing strip requirements).

Being wrong about a scientific fact is not the same as someone saying you are wrong because your opinion about something arbitrary doesn't match theirs.

If I say oranges are delicious and you think they're disgusting, that is an opinion, and neither one of us is wrong. We just differ.

If I say oranges are orange and you say they're blue, then you are wrong, even if you keep saying it's your opinion they are blue. They simply aren't, and that is a fact, unlike our opinions about whether or not they are delicious.

Also, the people who know radar are not going to let it go because spreading opinion masqueraded as fact is what leads to misinformation. I don't know anything about radar, so if you hadn't been corrected, I may have been tempted to believe what you had said. If people who are wrong about scientific facts aren't corrected, then it leads to others believing what they say and spreading that incorrect information.

 

[Ryan]

I'm say this again . I'm not going to say I'm wrong . If what I'm saying is make sense to you then respond .

Keep on saying it.

Isn't going to change a)the fact that you're wrong and b)you're going to get called out on it.

 

[pennyk]

I'm say this again . I'm not going to say I'm wrong . If what I'm saying is make sense to you then respond .

Keep on saying it.

Isn't going to change a)the fact that you're wrong and b)you're going to get called out on it.

Says the "fact checker ferret." Also.... I would be willing to bet that Jis has facts to back up everything that he is saying.

 

[Crossover]

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[leemell]

.

I said that some areas of the ocean are said to be supernaturally charged with vortex energy . Here's what I meant , some parts of the ocean floor at certain depths may have heavy mineral deposits that are physically charged enough to scramble the instruments on aircraft and ships . In certain cases this has been annotated and documented , yes even Bermuda Triangle. I said I don't believe this is the case by what myself and others may come to believe . I said I believe this maybe a hijacking by terrorists .

What I'm saying is opinionated not based on fact .

OK, you are saying "some parts of the ocean floor at certain depths may have heavy mineral deposits that are physically charged enough to scramble the instruments on aircraft and ships. In certain cases this has been annotated and documented..." Please cite where this is annotated. Second, you than say that this is an opinion. Which is it, fact or opinion.

 

[leemell]

I agree completely with jis on the nav map. The symbols are not subject to interpretation. I have four years working on military combat radars and computers and am a licensed pilot and have fair amount of knowledge in these areas.

 

[jis]

All I said was an observation . There is no right or wrong answers .

The circles on a Navchart with compass directions are VORs. Any other "observation" or "opinion", whether "politically correct" or otherwise is just plain wrong. Period. So yes there are many possible wrong answers and yours was one of them, irrespective of whether you accept it or not.

 

[Crossover]

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[Ryan]

I said I think those points on the map are military satellite/radar stations which send GPS grid coordinates to military aircraft and naval ships by way of satellite . The pink circles you're referring to may mean restricted airspace for military aircraft only (No Fly Zones for commercial aircraft ). They also show the range that the satellites cover in circumference according to nautical miles or square miles . The compass points represent their azimuths that is how grid coordinates are calculated at random and the range in circumference is determined .

These are not opinions. They're factual statements that are false.

The meaning of these symbols have factual meanings and aren't open to opinion or interpretations.

This isn't rocket surgery. Suck it up, say "my bad" and move on.

Or you can take your ball and go home.

Either way, just stop.

 

[jis]

One thing that becomes obvious at looking at the Inmarsat coverage diagram is how they came about creating the two arcs of the last ping. It is also interesting that the last ping was about 7 hours into a flight that supposedly took off with enough fuel for about 7.5 hours. As for the northern arc, it leaves me wondering how good India and China's primary radar coverage is - possibly very good, but who knows?

Here is a very good article from NY Times presenting the band of possible areas where the plane could have landed up based on information known so far:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/17/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-flight.html?hp&_r=0

Another very good summary can be found in this FlyerTalk Wiki post.

Frankly I finally got the complete picture after reading this and the FlyerTalk summary. It does not help when outfits like CNN draw completely wrong diagrams and then try to explain what has essentially become unexplainable because of the wrong diagram being used.

Looking at that diagram in the NY Times article, if you believe that the Chinese and Indians have decent primary radar coverage, the northern arc starts looking very very unlikely.

Also remember, that as they try to fly northwest, they would be facing severe head winds this time of the year, considering the way the monsoons flow. So they would have covered much less ground distance with the fuel that they had.

 

[tp49]

Considering the way the Chinese control their airspace I have a very hard time believing the northern arc is a likely scenario.

 

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[leemell]

To leemell ,That's what this is an opinion .I've been explaining this since last night .You can't base wrong or right answers on an opinion . I was using the paranormal explanation as a figure of speech . As for the map , I didn't draw any conclusions about it at all , I made an opinion . They said I drew conclusions about the map inwhich I didn't thus making them believe I was wrong about the map . They misinterpreted what I said which is the reason why this huge unecessary debate about being right or wrong about what I said .

Is the annotation and documentation opinion. What is the cite?

 

[Just-Thinking-51]

Children please....

 

[XHRTSP]

Considering the way the Chinese control their airspace I have a very hard time believing the northern arc is a likely scenario.

Well, most of us would think that but it's not always true. Radar is expensive to install and operate, and China's a vast country. I couldn't see this situation occurring if it were a KAL jet coasting in from the East China Sea near Shanghai without comm or transponder, you better believe they would have been intercepted. But out west there's a lot of mountainous wilderness, I'm sure there are holes in coverage quite large.