Flying and aviation stuff

I'm not even rated to fly an 8.5 x 11 paper airplane, but I'm really having a hard time believing that a triple-seven can go missing for a week with a continent-sized area of uncertainty regarding its location.

I'm having some trouble with the suicide-by-airplane theory.
Why did the guy or THOSE guys in the front office turn the transponders off? If the pilot wanted to do an EgyptAir Flight 990, then why bother with stealth?

Aren't there more than one O2 systems on this bird?
I can almost buy the depressurization scenario, but again to what end?

We'll see in the end no doubt.
My favorite conspiracy theory?

Publicity Stunt for a follow-on to the series Lost!

 

Well, me and the Eveready Battery Bunny (rabbit type, not Playboy centerfold) have a thing going--I'm "battery powered" too! Just had my fourth pacemaker maker installed.

JOKE:
Q: Why do people with pacemakers need TWO medical doctors?
A: Because they need a Cardiologist to install them, but need a Proctologist to replace the batteries (wink,wink)!

 

Well, it's certainly long, confusing and deeply unsatisfying so far. So that would fit.

Thanks for starting this. It's a very weird story, and I was thinking I should start a thread if no-one else did.

I can certainly see the suicide argument: it is all sounding a bit SilkAir 185 so far.

The other thing it reminds me of is Helios 522, but I don't know enough about the similarities in air supply between a 777 and a 737 to know whether that's even possible.

Ditching a 777 on the ocean would be very hard, I'd have thought. Looking at that Ethiopian 767 ditching, the problem always seems to be the engines hanging under the wings. I think Chesley Sullenberger got away with it because A320 engines are smallish and don't hang too low (and because it was a smooth river rather than a wavy ocean), but a 777's engines hang so low I think they'd make an intact ditching just about impossible. I've always thought that if I had to ditch, I'd want to be in something smooth-bottomed like an MD80.

But an intact ditching would explain the lack of debris.

As you know, I get the Beijing-Shanghai train a lot. It travels at just under 200mph, so nowhere near as fast as a commercial jet. And I find that my cellphone is useless: it can't handle the regular high-speed handover from cell to cell.

So I'm not sure cellphone technology would work. But a satellite-based system would, and I'd have thought it would be cost-effective these days. And a regular burst of GPS and aeroplane date transmitted over the satellite system would help everyone track where planes are and what's going on. And I don't see any reason to make it possible for pilots to disable this.

The whole thing is bloody weird though.

The Chinese press is getting increasingly annoyed with Malaysia. It's absolutely beyond them how Malaysia has managed not to notice whether or not a big shiny 250-foot long plane did or did not enter and/or leave its airspace. If I were the Indonesian, Filipino, Singaporean or Thai air force, I'd remember that fact in case hostilities ever broke out: it seems that an invasion of Malaysia would be extremely easy.

At least they bought the shamans in yesterday, with their coconuts, magic sticks and magic binoculars. That should solve everything.

With satellites unsuccessful in plane search, Malaysian shaman tries coconuts

 

I've just seen a report on my phone suggesting that it might have risen to 45,000 feet soon after the transponders were switched off - which is well above what a 777 is approved for, and then dropped to 21,000 near Penang.

And it's headed in a potentially interesting direction - towards the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. I remember hearing ages ago that these islands are very sparsely inhabited, and that the local people have no contact at all with the modern world. The Indian government oversees them, and planes and boats are not allowed to go anywhere near them in case the presence of something so modern confuses the locals. So I don't know how that could affect things.

There are also some extremely deep bits of the ocean there. If whoever was flying the plane wanted to hide the evidence, maybe they specifically chose an area where you could sink a plane thousands of feet and make it almost impossible to find.

And the 45,000-ft thing could tie in with what you mentioned about starving the passengers and crew of oxygen: I assume you could do it even more quickly and easily up there.

Hmmm.

 

To find a runway long enough for a large jet is not that difficult on an island in south Pacific and south east Asia left behind by the Japanese in WWII.

 

Today they are saying evidence defintiely indicates hijacking by crew or others.
Until today, I thought it could be fuel tank explosion like TWA800 - many similar factors.

Well, at least we solved one mystery...cops yesterday picked up apparent serial killer who may have shot 3 Alexandria prominent citizens. He had mental disorder, and had been fringe candidate for mayor twice.

 

Yeah,the news did mention the 777 had enough fuel to fly 8k miles. That covers parts of Africa, Yemen, Iraq - area that are breeding grounds for terrorist activities. Or, whoever was in control of the aircraft ditched it at sea.

Time will tell.

I pray for the victims and their families for ever passing minute, hour, day must feel like going through hell.

DBCassidy

 

Why do transponders have an off switch? In light of recent developments, perhaps it would be better if they didn't.

As for final destination, my wild nice person guess in North Korea. Yes, that's crazy, but no less so than a whole plane just vanishing.

 

If the plane has landed, the question is: how will the aircraft be repurposed?

DBCassidy

 

It's stripped inside and loaded with explosives and turned it into a BIG, piloted, under-the-radar, conventional explosives, cruise missile.

So, that they can be cycled ON/OFF to identify a single A/C amongst many nearby A/C...and, to re-cycle embedded "codes" that are supposed to change automatically (think rebooting your computer).

 

OK, that makes sense.

Still, there should be some way to make the things idiot-proof.

 

Ah, thank you. I'd been wondering this too.

 

I agree 100% with you except the rush looking for a black box. If the pilot knew how to disable transponders, he knew how to pull fuses on flight recorders.

see this incident of pilot suicide:
SilkAir Flight 185 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This pilot learned from the SilkAir incident, combined it with the knowledge from Helios experience and wanted to pull off a perfect untraceable airplane disappearance. He almost pulled it off, except for the satellite ping. Sadly, there is a chance plane will be never discovered (depth and vastness of Indian ocean west to Australia).

Here are the lessons from this and similar accidents:

1. As planes became very safe mechanically, the crew emerged as a major safety thread.
2. Every commercial plane should have GPS trackers (as private planes and trucks have).
3. Transponders, tracking devices, and black boxes should be electrically isolated from the main power supply and not switchable by the aircrew, but only ground crew.
4. Do more profiling of the pilots and screen them better for mental problems, gambling problems, investment losses, too high or too new life insurance, extremist links, etc. They are doing this only now after the fact.

 

It's all speculation, and those who know aren't talking, for one reason or another. I can understand a crash, and I can understand a hijacking slash terrorism, but I don't see why someone would go to so much time and trouble to kill themselves. If that were their aim, there are far simpler and quicker ways.

 

Not for a pilot. Pilots like to use planes in suicides. Besides, some people like to go with as many people as they can.

ASN News » List of aircraft accidents caused by pilot suicide

 

If it can't be proved to be suicide, his family should still get the life-insurance payout. So there's certainly a reason to go to all that effort.

I think the only way this story could get any weirder now is if the plane turns up, without passengers or crew, in an uninhabited bit ofTurkmenistan or Western Australia or somewhere.

 

Or someone might have tried (or succeeded) to pull off a DB Cooper.