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Wow... Admittedly I have no idea how radar and planes interact but that does sound scarily plausible. The next question would be why did they want those people/that plane. Chinese military secrets/researchers?
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On March 18 2014 01:49 Hryul wrote:Show nested quote +On March 18 2014 01:39 FFW_Rude wrote:On March 18 2014 00:59 Hryul wrote:unlikely, since radio waves don't travel that far underwater. to communicate with submarines, the US and USSR build radios with antennas > 52 km (!!). with this they told the submarines to come to the surface to use their "real" communication devices. see wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication_with_submarines Oh ok. I really thought blackboxes could transmit underwater  I just read that the black box sends a sonar signal with a reach up to 3km. that is "easier" to spot, but given the area, it's still not easy.E: but the Black Box is not the Transponder.
Oh i thought one of two blackboxes contained the transponder. I just read it is not the case. It's an entirely different system.
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On March 18 2014 13:58 SidianTheBard wrote:
Why do these planes even have the option to turn off radar / ACARS / whatever else that tracks their location? Just seems something like that shouldn't really have a deactivation option.
Security measures. Thing could cause electric problem and i believe that it is because maintenance turns them off while working. So if the maintenance forgot to turn them back on, crew have the option of correcting this. It's not like maintenance never made mistake like duct tape not removed that caused a crash.
Damn i need to stop that double post thingy.... sorry.
On March 18 2014 17:22 Scarecrow wrote:Wow... Admittedly I have no idea how radar and planes interact but that does sound scarily plausible. The next question would be why did they want those people/that plane. Chinese military secrets/researchers?
I'm going to try to send this to my cousin see if it is plausible for him (he's an air france pilot). Because i really wonder.
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00:41 Local time the plane departs from Kuala Lumpur on its normal route towards Beijing.
(Between 01:07 and 01:37) The primary ACARS system is shut down, meaning it stopped sending informations to the ground. It kept pinging the satellite. Shutting down ACARS is a longer sequence so it cannot have been done by accident by a pilot.
01:19 The co-pilot says "All right, good night" when the plane is handed off from malaysian airspace.
01:21 The last data from the transponder is received near the Igal waypoint in the South China Sea.
01:22 The Vietnamese air traffic controller is not getting contacted by the plane as scheduled.
01:30 The plane leaves civil primary radar.
01:30 A pilot from another plane claims to have contacted the plane on the emergency frequency, but he only heard mumbling before the connection was lost.
(According to a malaysian airforce radar the following unspecified sequence occured) The plane is reaching FL450 which is above recommandations for the plane. It is taking a sharp turn to the west and descends to FL230, lower than normal cruising altitude where it passes Penang and flies westward towards the Igal waypoint near Phuket. It then turns northwest towards the Igrex waypoint in the northern part of the Indian Ocean. From the westward turn, the way the plane reacts is consistent with how FMS reacts, alas it is highly likely the planes new route was programmed, either by the dispatcher or a pilot.
02:15 The plane is no longer visible on military radar, contact is lost northwest of Andaman Islands with the plane flying towards the Indian Ocean and the Igrex waypoint.
(Likely from the satelite data analysis) The plane flew in either a northern corridor towards the middle east or a southern corridor towards the vast nothingness of the southern Indian Ocean.
08:11 The last ping is recieved from the plane. The satelite only logs distance to the plane and not GPS-coordinates, but by calculation, a semi-circle around the satelite has been determined as the source of the final ping. Further data analysis on flight path and pings has narrowed the likely northern and southern end-points to 1.12 million square nautical miles each. The fuel reserve at the time of the last ping is estimated to about 30 minutes.
Repost with latest public information bolded.
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If i understand correctly the TL:DR is
there was a problem on the plane. the pilot pointed the plane towards the nearest airport, the pilots became incapacitated with the plane in auto pilot. the plane continued to fly for hours with no control.
this doesn't seem more credible than any of the other theories to me.
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On March 18 2014 23:54 ComaDose wrote:If i understand correctly the TL:DR is there was a problem on the plane. the pilot pointed the plane towards the nearest airport, the pilots became incapacitated with the plane in auto pilot. the plane continued to fly for hours with no control. this doesn't seem more credible than any of the other theories to me.
Please read the entire article word for word. He explains most (if not all) occurrences, including the sharp turn, then shutdown of comm systems, the altitude change 45k and 25k... etc. It isn't necessarily an ironclad explanation, but it is by far the most credible I've read. And I've been following this pretty closely.
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i read the whole article... he has good explanations for his theory.
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Maybe stupid question as I might be missing something obvious (I don't have much experience with flying), but: I thought mobile phones are free to use on planes, apart from starting and landing situations? Assuming the plane continued flying in a false direction for several hours, wouldn't at least some of the passengers realize it and try to call relatives etc. (or even just make make regular phone calls)? As was the case on 9/11 iirc. Is there any technical reason that prevents any mobile phones from getting a connection as long as the plane itself has communication systems shut down?
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Yeah, the problem with that theory seems like the plane made further turns. This was published on the 14th so it is not fully up to date.
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On March 18 2014 17:22 Scarecrow wrote:Wow... Admittedly I have no idea how radar and planes interact but that does sound scarily plausible. The next question would be why did they want those people/that plane. Chinese military secrets/researchers?
While we're in the realm of theories, while certainly not impossible it's also pretty damn unlikely.
Let's assume the pilot(s) are compromised, good enough and well informed enough to pull such a maneuver and have the proper equipment for it (e.g. an ADS-B receiver)... The main thing you need to know about Radar that makes this plausible at all is that it sucks at estimating distance. If you have a single radar station it's completely possible to hide in the shadow of the other plane without being seen under most circumstances.
However, from different angles you might appear as a slightly larger bleep (which is also likely not be noticed due to human error) but you can also appear as a different plane. It's physically impossible that you're undetectable from all angles so that theory assumes that whoever was sophisticated enough to compromise pilots and plan out a hijack was willing to gamble on radio operators being bad to make it work fully.
Obviously it shouldn't be dismissed but e.g. an electrical fire and a crash site that was simply not found yet are still more plausible.
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Good theory. I agree that it is the most credible. The fire was somewhat isolated since the aircraft was able to fly for another 6 hours. Which makes me think, it was the smoke that disabled the people, and after that the fire probably stopped because of lack of oxygen.
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On March 19 2014 00:31 Mafe wrote:
Maybe stupid question as I might be missing something obvious (I don't have much experience with flying), but: I thought mobile phones are free to use on planes, apart from starting and landing situations? Assuming the plane continued flying in a false direction for several hours, wouldn't at least some of the passengers realize it and try to call relatives etc. (or even just make make regular phone calls)? As was the case on 9/11 iirc. Is there any technical reason that prevents any mobile phones from getting a connection as long as the plane itself has communication systems shut down?
Height. Anything above FL100 (10000ft) isn't exactly awesome for mobile phones.
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What is possible to disable autopilot ? Only cabin warning ? fire/smoke or something doesn't deactivate it ? (since pilot needs to extinguish fire and can't pilot at the same time ?)
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On March 19 2014 00:45 arbiter_md wrote:
Good theory. I agree that it is the most credible. The fire was somewhat isolated since the aircraft was able to fly for another 6 hours. Which makes me think, it was the smoke that disabled the people, and after that the fire probably stopped because of lack of oxygen.
This also needs a lot to come together. There was the case of Helios Airways Flight 522 that had a similarly eerie story. You'd basically need a fire that, for whatever reason, either quickly disables all forms of communication (unlikely) or something that causes incapacitation of the crew due to hypoxia before being able to communicate it (also unlikely but this is a case where it happened).
An example of a flight where a fire was underestimated (but in this case communicated to ATC) would be Swissair Flight 111.
Nigeria Airways Flight 2120 is an example of the bursting tire -> fire theory. Those things don't just happen without anyone noticing.
tl;dr: The issue with all the fire-theories is that you need a fire so subtle that the crew doesn't notice it (which would be immediately communicated and is also highly unlikely) but also strong enough that it disables communication so suddenly that you can't communicate it before it ate up your ways of communicating. That's really, really hard to pull off. =P
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On March 19 2014 00:09 ComaDose wrote:
i read the whole article... he has good explanations for his theory.
That is one of the more mundane theories I have heard but it's also very believable. If that is true, it's a really sad story. Experienced pilot makes all the right decisions but eventually becomes incapacitated.
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"They flew one of two "arcs" for 7 hours"
Right there I knew the guy had no clue.
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On March 19 2014 01:07 r.Evo wrote:Show nested quote +On March 19 2014 00:45 arbiter_md wrote:
Good theory. I agree that it is the most credible. The fire was somewhat isolated since the aircraft was able to fly for another 6 hours. Which makes me think, it was the smoke that disabled the people, and after that the fire probably stopped because of lack of oxygen. This also needs a lot to come together. There was the case of Helios Airways Flight 522 that had a similarly eerie story. You'd basically need a fire that, for whatever reason, either quickly disables all forms of communication (unlikely) or something that causes incapacitation of the crew due to hypoxia before being able to communicate it (also unlikely but this is a case where it happened). An example of a flight where a fire was underestimated (but in this case communicated to ATC) would be Swissair Flight 111. Nigeria Airways Flight 2120 is an example of the bursting tire -> fire theory. Those things don't just happen without anyone noticing. tl;dr: The issue with all the fire-theories is that you need a fire so subtle that the crew doesn't notice it (which would be immediately communicated and is also highly unlikely) but also strong enough that it disables communication so suddenly that you can't communicate it before it ate up your ways of communicating. That's really, really hard to pull off. =P
The pilot would be the one disabling the comms, not the fire, as stated in that article.
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The breaker box is actually there so you can pull the fuses in case of electrical fire.
So the theory goes something like:
1) Co Pilot Signs off
2) Within a few minutes a fire is detected
3) The pilots programs the aircraft to fly towards the nearest runway using a waypoint in the Strait of Malacca (weird)
4) One of the crew pulls the breaker box to try and control the fire which kills the comms
5) Crew is overcome before they can re-enable comms or communicate with anyone.
What this doesn't explain is the subsequent turn towards the 2nd waypoint beacon.
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EPT
