Malaysia Airlines MH370

[ChicosBailBonds]

Man I loved that movie as a kid....especially the part where Joe Patroni (George Kennedy) was available to help/solve every major 747 airline disaster....at sea, in the snow, in mid-air, and at supersonic speeds....he was like the postal service of mechanics.

LOL.  Yup...very well stated

[Hards Alumni]

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2014/03/mh370-electrical-fire/

[mu03eng]

Your buddy is correct that in ASEAN only Singapore has a civilian 3D phased array radar system that can provide height finding (and even then, it is really for the SAF air defence system.) But what your friend might not be aware of is the RMAF inherited the base at Butterworth near Penang from the RAAF. (In fact, the RAAF still fly C 130s out of there for, ironically, SAR missions.) And Butterworth has an A Band air search radar system with HF capability.

The problem in this case is that the Butterworth radar system faces 270 and the filed flight path and unusual maneuvers for this flight occurred on the 045 from Butterworth. So Butterworth would not have detected the flight until it passed overhead but as it went outbound that radar should have had skin on the 777 for the next 250 NM.

Butterworth also uses the VERA passive ESM system as part of its national IADS. VERA provides typical tracking data (range, altitude, course, speed) but requires a target to be rotating, radiating, or squawking so a passive ESM system would not have seen a bird in EMCON.

As you mention, it does not appear there was ever an ATC hand off from KL to Saigon Center. In order for Saigon ATC to accept the flight they need positive radar skin but this never happened. So the only ATC for this flight was KL. So the real question is why didn't KL Center escalate once it lost contact with this aircraft? 

As for terrain masking - this 777 didn't have the gear and the 2 drivers had never been tactical in their lives. The idea of a fully loaded 777 yanking and banking 30' off the deck is ridiculous. I have flown that low in an A 10 and it is a sphincter puckering experience that makes Space Mountain seem like a kiddie ride. An A 10 has the responsiveness, agility and on-board systems that allow it to fly tactical low levels; a 777 does not. And for a chunk of steel that large to avoid radar tracking it would need to be down in the dirt like an A 10. I guarantee those 2 sticks would have dropped a wing or a tail in the drink flying that low - the sink rate alone would have ensured the slightest error brought the flight to a very bad end.

As I have said before, the talking heads on tv keep trotting out various theories that are uninformed, silly, or preposterous. The real questions need to be asked of the Malaysian authorities as they know more than they are telling. Having lived in SE Asia I will say that Malaysian Air Systems is considered a national asset and a lot of this is the Kingdom Checking Six. Reporters in Malaysia who wrote bad things about the Proton were invited to explain themselves by the government. Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia are very prickly about negative news and they go to great lengths to ensure bad news simply does not happen. 

I assumed Butterworth had something, knew about VERA but didn't know they had A band there.  You are right, it's facing the wrong way to acquire the flight coming back to the island, but should have picked it up going outbound to the IO.  That tells me it either went down short of Butterworth but after the standard turn/course change or someone at Butterworth/Malaysian military isn't sharing for some reason.

An interesting read of one of the local papers
http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/mh370-throws-spotlight-on-malaysias-air-force-and-radar-capabilities

And we are in agreement again on the terrain masking, the radar cross section is huge and even a radar from the 60s could break the 777 out of the ground clutter at anything over 1000 AGL.

For those playing the home version, a 777 can't go slow in a terrain masking scenario, takes too long to spool the engines up to full power to gain altitude(the one place you NEVER want to be is behind the power curve at less than 500 ft - See Asiana Airlines 214 for confirmation).  Let's assume its going a modest 360 miles an hour or roughly twice it's typical landing speed but 200 mph below it's cruise speed.  Let's also assume they spot a terrain feature 1 mile out(at night without night vision, very unlikely but still) that is roughly 500 feet above their flight level(a simplification but basically they have 1 mile to increase their altitude by 500 feet).

Got all that?  At that speed they have 10 seconds to spot the feature, apply power, control the climb so that they climb no more than 1000 feet and then spot the next feature.  How much power do they have to apply in that scenario?  Lets assume they are at max landing weight, 470,000 lbs(thanks wikipedia) that means they need to add roughly 20 mph of speed to generate the lift required to climb the 500 feet and that means applying roughly 67% of the available thrust to the engines to get that gain in the required time(again based on wikipedia).  Not to mention I didn't even factor spool time, or the time from when the pilot commands the thrust to the time the engine delivers the requested thrust if it is available.  This could take at least 3 or 4 seconds, probably closer to 6 or 7 with the power required in this scenario.

Keefe you might need to check my napkin math it's been a while.  However the point remains, they ain't goin' low in a 777.

[Eldon]

Occam's razor?

http://www.businessinsider.com/malaysia-plane-fire-2014-3

Keeping a theory as simple as possible is great for science, but, of course, that doesn't mean that the simpler theory is the more realistic.  This ultimately leads to the question of whether the ultimate goal of a theory is to be realistic or to be useful--the two do not always coincide.  But enough philosophy.

If this theory is true, shouldn't we be able to find the plane in no time, say, a couple of hours?  I mean, if this theory is true, then wouldn't we know the exact location, give or take a hundred miles or so?  (note aviation is one subject that I know absolutely nothing about.  Nothing.)

[mu03eng]

If this theory is true, shouldn't we be able to find the plane in no time, say, a couple of hours?  I mean, if this theory is true, then wouldn't we know the exact location, give or take a hundred miles or so?  (note aviation is one subject that I know absolutely nothing about.  Nothing.)

Short answer is no.  last ping just means last time it talked, there could be several hours of flight time in there, you don't know when it runs out of fuel and impacts the ocean.  You also don't know if it hits in the ocean where it sinks to(how deep, did it remain intact, etc).  You could certainly narrow the search boundaries but it would still take a considerable amount of time to find something especially if there is no debris on the surface.

[Benny B]

I assumed Butterworth had something, knew about VERA but didn't know they had A band there.  You are right, it's facing the wrong way to acquire the flight coming back to the island, but should have picked it up going outbound to the IO.  That tells me it either went down short of Butterworth but after the standard turn/course change or someone at Butterworth/Malaysian military isn't sharing for some reason.

An interesting read of one of the local papers
http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/mh370-throws-spotlight-on-malaysias-air-force-and-radar-capabilities

And we are in agreement again on the terrain masking, the radar cross section is huge and even a radar from the 60s could break the 777 out of the ground clutter at anything over 1000 AGL.

For those playing the home version, a 777 can't go slow in a terrain masking scenario, takes too long to spool the engines up to full power to gain altitude(the one place you NEVER want to be is behind the power curve at less than 500 ft - See Asiana Airlines 214 for confirmation).  Let's assume its going a modest 360 miles an hour or roughly twice it's typical landing speed but 200 mph below it's cruise speed.  Let's also assume they spot a terrain feature 1 mile out(at night without night vision, very unlikely but still) that is roughly 500 feet above their flight level(a simplification but basically they have 1 mile to increase their altitude by 500 feet).

Got all that?  At that speed they have 10 seconds to spot the feature, apply power, control the climb so that they climb no more than 1000 feet and then spot the next feature.  How much power do they have to apply in that scenario?  Lets assume they are at max landing weight, 470,000 lbs(thanks wikipedia) that means they need to add roughly 20 mph of speed to generate the lift required to climb the 500 feet and that means applying roughly 67% of the available thrust to the engines to get that gain in the required time(again based on wikipedia).  Not to mention I didn't even factor spool time, or the time from when the pilot commands the thrust to the time the engine delivers the requested thrust if it is available.  This could take at least 3 or 4 seconds, probably closer to 6 or 7 with the power required in this scenario.

Keefe you might need to check my napkin math it's been a while.  However the point remains, they ain't goin' low in a 777.

What about going NOE over open water (assuming it could be done)?  Would that do anything to avoid detection in this part of the world?

[mr.MUskie]

You know we are clueless when alien abduction is one of the most probable causes 

Goddamn aliens.

[Benny B]

The reporting here is just getting ridiculous
http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/maldives-residents-report-seeing-low-flying-aircraft-on-day-mh370-disappear

Local news site Haveeru Online reported on Tuesday that residents of Kuda Huvadhoo, a remote Maldives island in Dhaal Atoll saw a "low-flying jumbo jet" on the morning of March 8.

Coincidentally, Bahasa Malaysia newspaper Berita Harian also reported on Tuesday that investigators have found five airport runways, which included the Male International Airport in the Maldives, loaded in MH370 pilot Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah's homemade flight simulator.

Oh no... the natives saw a jumbo jet flying over their island.  It's not as if there isn't an airport nearby.  And don't forget that MALAYSIAN AIRLINES HAS SCHEDULED SERVICE BETWEEN THE MALDIVES AND KL.   *smh*

Now the second part of the above makes it interesting, but my guess is that if there was an unscheduled landing at a major international airport, we would have heard about it by now.

[JWags85]

The reporting here is just getting ridiculous
http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/maldives-residents-report-seeing-low-flying-aircraft-on-day-mh370-disappear

Oh no... the natives saw a jumbo jet flying over their island.  It's not as if there isn't an airport nearby.  And don't forget that MALAYSIAN AIRLINES HAS SCHEDULED SERVICE BETWEEN THE MALDIVES AND KL.   *smh*

Now the second part of the above makes it interesting, but my guess is that if there was an unscheduled landing at a major international airport, we would have heard about it by now.

All were airports with regularly scheduled service from Malaysian Airlines, with the exception of Diego Garcia.  Looking into the pilots is interesting and potentially valuable, but this storyline is a non-starter and dumb.

[mu03eng]

What about going NOE over open water (assuming it could be done)?  Would that do anything to avoid detection in this part of the world?

Sea state again comes into play(how high are waves), plus you have to worry about altimeter and barometric altitude differences to establish an accurate altitude.

And you would have to be really low especially coming to and away from land as that radar is up high and can "look down" on you(especially the one at Buttermore) and there is no real ground glutter to hide in at sea.

Keefe could answer this better than I, didn't spend much time low with my hair on fire....just what I thought I could get away with in a T-45.

[mu03eng]

Think of active radar as ripples in a still pond.  Throw a stone in, it creates ripples which travel until they hit something and bounce back.  Now imagine that pond with a bunch of rocks on the surface, the reflection pattern changes as it hits the rocks such that a leaf could be placed near one that the ripples never "see".

Over the open ocean there are no rocks to divert the radar waves so all they see is the ocean and the airplane...easy to make that out.

[Benny B]

Think of active radar as ripples in a still pond.  Throw a stone in, it creates ripples which travel until they hit something and bounce back.  Now imagine that pond with a bunch of rocks on the surface, the reflection pattern changes as it hits the rocks such that a leaf could be placed near one that the ripples never "see".

Over the open ocean there are no rocks to divert the radar waves so all they see is the ocean and the airplane...easy to make that out.

Understood... but I'm talking that part of the world, specifically... is there radar capable of picking up those ripples anywhere in the IO?

[mu03eng]

Understood... but I'm talking that part of the world, specifically... is there radar capable of picking up those ripples anywhere in the IO?

Buttermore, the RMAF base on the north side for sure....once they got west of it for at least 250 nautical miles.  To east side, not sure but probably.

[keefe]

Sitting here in Starbucks with some colleagues, one of whom was a lead on Boeing's ACARS. He says that ACARS is mounted in the forward main mount wheel well which is only accessible through the flight station during flight. What it means is that one of the two pilots had to physically descend into the hull after they went feet wet and accessed ACARS through a panel in the wheel well bulkhead. He physically had to turn it off and there is no legitimate reason for deselecting ACARS.

This says at least one pilot wanted the flight to go dark which would have required shutting down ACARS. I assumed ACARS could be accessed on the flight deck but somebody needed to go down into the hull in order to switch it off.

[ChicosBailBonds]

Sitting here in Starbucks with some colleagues, one of whom was a lead on Boeing's ACARS. He says that ACARS is mounted in the forward main mount wheel well which is only accessible through the flight station during flight. What it means is that one of the two pilots had to physically descend into the hull after they went feet wet and accessed ACARS through a panel in the wheel well bulkhead. He physically had to turn it off and there is no legitimate reason for deselecting ACARS.

This says at least one pilot wanted the flight to go dark which would have required shutting down ACARS. I assumed ACARS could be accessed on the flight deck but somebody needed to go down into the hull in order to switch it off.

Or, does this point to an electrical fire of some kind....I know it sounds a bit too coincidental.

[Eldon]

Or, does this point to an electrical fire of some kind....I know it sounds a bit too coincidental.

They're now saying the "good night" sign-off came after the flight was changing directions, which, if true, throws a wrench into the fire theory.

[ChicosBailBonds]

They're now saying the "good night" sign-off came after the flight was changing directions, which, if true, throws a wrench into the fire theory.

Yes, it certainly would.  Pretty crazy stuff

I can't imagine being a relative....thinking that your loved ones might actually be alive somewhere (highly unlikely) and stringing this along seems in a weird way to be worse than if their was finality from crash news.  Not knowing would make it worse for me.

[brandx]

Keeping a theory as simple as possible is great for science, but, of course, that doesn't mean that the simpler theory is the more realistic.  This ultimately leads to the question of whether the ultimate goal of a theory is to be realistic or to be useful--the two do not always coincide.  But enough philosophy.

If this theory is true, shouldn't we be able to find the plane in no time, say, a couple of hours?  I mean, if this theory is true, then wouldn't we know the exact location, give or take a hundred miles or so?  (note aviation is one subject that I know absolutely nothing about.  Nothing.)

It took over two years to find Air France Flight 447 off the coast of Brazil - even knowing the general area where it crashed.. It was the fifth search that finally found it.

Information about using probability & statistics to find that flight can be found here.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-statisticians-could-help-find-flight-370/

[keefe]

Or, does this point to an electrical fire of some kind....I know it sounds a bit too coincidental.

If there was a fire the last thing a pilot would do would be to leave the flight station and go down into the hull to deselect a vital piece of comms gear. The other thing, beyond discrepancies in the timeline, is that the final radio call made by the FO was not through an O2 mask...meaning there was no fire at that point.

[brandx]

If there was a fire the last thing a pilot would do would be to leave the flight station and go down into the hull to deselect a vital piece of comms gear. The other thing, beyond discrepancies in the timeline, is that the final radio call made by the FO was not through an O2 mask...meaning there was no fire at that point.

Appreciate your input on this. Hopefully, you can add more as more facts come out.

You have said the Malaysian gov't knows more than it is saying, which I have no doubt about. Do you think there is a lot of involvement of the US gov't because of possible terrorism involved or is there a protocol where they would need to request our intervention?

[keefe]

I did not see the interview, but my mom said they interviewed Sully over the weekend.  He basically stated your thoughts.  He said because it was dark and the ocean is far more unstable than a river that a safe water landing would not have a good chance of success.

As MU03 pointed out, the ocean is a far more volatile surface than a river so an airframe will break up much faster at sea. Another major factor is the wing of the 777 versus the wing on other older airframes. The wing loading on the 777 and 78 are far superior and so they have much less surface area which is a major factor in buoyancy. Bottom line is that a 777 or 78 ditching at sea would be far more likely to break up on impact or remain afloat far shorter than a 737.

[keefe]

....especially the part where Joe Patroni (George Kennedy) was available to help/solve every major 747 airline disaster....at sea, in the snow, in mid-air, and at supersonic speeds....he was like the postal service of mechanics.

That guy was my IP for UPT flying T-38s at Vance AFB. Thought he knew more about flying than the Wright Brothers, Billy Mitchell, Bernoulli, Chuck Yeager, and Robin Olds combined. I still break out in a cold sweat when I think of him...

[mu03eng]

That guy was my IP for UPT flying T-38s at Vance AFB. Thought he knew more about flying than the Wright Brothers, Billy Mitchell, Bernoulli, Chuck Yeager, and Robin Olds combined. I still break out in a cold sweat when I think of him...

Sweet jebus I could only imagine, my IP was the nicest guy in the world, was kind of a let down.  There was almost nothing to grouse about at the end of the day.

[Benny B]

What about sabotage?

In theory, would it be possible for a mechanic on the ground (or someone with knowledge of and access to the 777's electromechanicals) to install several "squibs" in a manner that would be readily detected in a pre-flight check and that would - at a preset altitude - sequentially:

1) Kill the transponder
2) Kill ACARS
3) Kill the comms/navigation
4) Disable emergency O2
5) Depressurize the cabin

For all of the cultural differences that exist, I still find it extremely difficult that any suicidal person would take out hundreds of innocent victims, unless the person was trying to make some sort of statement, in which case, you would assume there would be a note or explanation of said statement that would have been found by now (unless they did was and the Malaysians are covering it up for whatever reason).

While atypical, if someone who did this as a way of making a "statement," the only credible explanation as to why we still don't know what that statement is (nearly two weeks later) is that such person is still alive and is deliberately withholding disclosure.

[keefe]

What about sabotage?

In theory, would it be possible for a mechanic on the ground (or someone with knowledge of and access to the 777's electromechanicals) to install several "squibs" in a manner that would be readily detected in a pre-flight check and that would - at a preset altitude - sequentially:

1) Kill the transponder
2) Kill ACARS
3) Kill the comms/navigation
4) Disable emergency O2
5) Depressurize the cabin

For all of the cultural differences that exist, I still find it extremely difficult that any suicidal person would take out hundreds of innocent victims, unless the person was trying to make some sort of statement, in which case, you would assume there would be a note or explanation of said statement that would have been found by now (unless they did was and the Malaysians are covering it up for whatever reason).

While atypical, if someone who did this as a way of making a "statement," the only credible explanation as to why we still don't know what that statement is (nearly two weeks later) is that such person is still alive and is deliberately withholding disclosure.

There are too many problems with the grand sabotage theory:

1. No one person could pre-program catastrophic failure as you outline

2. Those systems are not integrated so cascading effects would not ensue

3. Killing comms requires manual action and not electronic/silicon-based impulse

4. The flight deck crew could not begin to taxi with any of those systems disabled or non-functioning - Failure in all of them had to occur once airborne

Let me point out the rub in all of the speculation you hear on tv or read in the press and why I suspect piracy.

- Disabling comms systems doesn't bring down the jet. Whoever shut down IFF and ACARS wanted to prevent the on-board systems to stop telling people on the ground where the jet was, where it was heading, at what speed, and where it landed. If you are going to crash the jet you don't really need to disable those systems. Disabling these systems suggests someone wanted to mask course, speed, and landing data from authorities.

- Flight deck crew don't need to incapacitate themselves through hypoxia in order to bring about catastrophic failure. The pilot simply needs to push the yoke forward, hard. And if he wants to bring about that result there is no reason to disable comms systems. Especially ACARS, which required one of the two pilots to open a panel in the flight deck floor, climb down into the hull, open another panel in the wheel well, reach in and flip a series of switches. From what my colleague told me, Boeing designed the manual shut down system for emergency purposes but they made it difficult enough that a person would really want to shut it down.

- The pilots wouldn't need to do depressurize the cabin in order to incapacitate the passengers. Start yankin' and bankin' violently. Anyone not strapped in is going to get thrown around and people actually wearing a seat belt are going to be vomiting. Depressurizing is difficult to do and there are far easier ways to subdue the passengers. Besides, given flight deck security measures, nobody can access the flight station without blowing up the airframe. 

- Remember that pilots don't need to sneak weapons or bombs on board. They are already in control of the aircraft. Terrorists try to sneak weapons on board so they can take control of the aircraft. The 9/11 hajis didn't throw box cutters at the towers or the Pentagon. They used the box cutters to take control.

The question is really why did the flight deck crew secure all of those systems designed to tell the world where the aircraft was located, headed, and landed? All the rest is chaff.

I would recommend looking into the background of Anwar Ibrahim. I lived in Jakarta and Singapore and and am familiar with the story of Anwar who was the hand-picked successor to Dr. Mahatir, Malaysia's long-serving PM. Anwar fell out of favor and Mahatir and the ruling UMNO party went after him hard. He was accused of pedophilia and jailed under Islamic morality laws. This is a divisive issue in Malay politics and it has come out that the Captain of this flight was not only a supporter of Anwar's but attended Anwar's trial the day of the flight.

If there was malfeasance I am guessing the Captain's support for Anwar is significant. There is no evidence the aircraft crashed and everything we know about the flight is that its comms systems were disabled and the bird deviated from its filed flight plan. Whoever did all of that wanted to take the asset intact.