Likely MH370 part found by American adventurer

wow, that looks like it should be pretty easy to make a positive i.d.

 

wjtracy, I don't know whether pprune website discussions will help with your addiction, but there they are.

No theory of cause has prevailed, and none will unless substantial bits get recovered. Trouble is, those sink, and the ocean is large and deep. There may well be more small floaty bits later.

Transport of lithium secondary batteries by air has changed, and their possible role here seems to have been the reason.

Another consequence may be better satellite links for trans-ocean flights. Everybody seems to favor that, except if it cuts into profits.

Payouts to families of the lost seems to be what we should follow here in the long term. Maybe that's because I reside in the country providing most of the 'crab food'.

Long transoceanic flights are now done with 2- or 4-engined planes. Those engines are so fabulously reliable that 2 seems to be enough. One hopes that this confidence is well placed. Yet my superstition may rank up with your addiction, and I'll not cross an ocean on 2. For 'over-dirt' flights, I'll go on any old hunk of junk. But oceans? Well, that's my superstition.

To be clear there is no evidence at all that engine count played any role in this loss.

 

Pilot 'software failure' has been shown causative in several air tragedies. It would be a gift if someone could provide clarity on what flight duration requires a second set of pilots (I think it's 8 hours).

In this case, deranged pilot(s) is among the untestable explanations. We can admit it, and wonder if the goal was religious, but nothing seems to have been accomplished.

 

While lithium batteries have been connected to several other crashes and incidents, I don't recall anything suggesting that this incident was one of them. In fact, the satellite pings going all the way out to likely fuel exhaustion of this flight would argue strongly against any catastrophic battery issue.

Those satellite pings are major clues. I'd like to know if that pushed more airlines to pay for service subscriptions to get the vastly greater telemetry available. Such full telemetry was a major assist in the finding and investigation of the missing trans-Atlantic Air France flight a few years back.

 

Yet, the internet recalls.

Surely there is good evidence that fuel exhaustion was the ultimate cause. This does not speak to proximate cause(s).

 

Funny...my last transoceanic flight was on a trijet...
The military never throws anything away, and some of the contract trash-haulers use old DC-10s.

But...yeah.
These days two are enough.

According on a quick search: "Flight crews can now only work a 9 to 14 hour day, versus 16 under the old rules. Only eight or nine of those hours, depending on the circumstances, can be actual flight time, and pilots must get a minimum of 10 hours off between shifts, including at least eight hours of uninterrupted sleep."

It would seem that many over water flights would mandate relief crews - and all of the wide-bodies out there that are in current serial production are usually kitted out with relief crew bunks.

YMMV

 

pilots like to commit suicides while flying. the captain had the perfect storm of marital issues, extramarital issues, financial issues, and his political opposition leader committed to a prison on a (fabricated) charge of homosexuality, just a day before or so. i guess everyone has a breaking point.

this is a big argument for more automation in flying (and anything else). humans are the weakest links.

 

why can't they just do an aubrey mcclendon, and leave everyone else out of it?

 

Doesn't this leave you extremely restricted for flights home? Apart from Philippines' A340s (which I think only do European and Australian routes now - I think they have 777s for America), you'd pretty much be stuck with China Southern or Korean Air A380s.

Goodness. Apart from the military, the only people who've most recently flown transoceanic on a trijet are either (a) old and no longer doing any flying, or (b) disguising themselves as cargo.

In your case, I'm going for (b).

 

i thought he stated military?

 

Are the 747s gone already?

 

He did. I still reckon he's been disguising himself as cargo, though.

Almost. There are hardly any in Asia, which would be tochatihu's problem. Qantas still has a few for its US routes, but it'll be replacing them with Dreamliners soon. I can't think of an Asian airline that still has any: I certainly haven't seen any (other than Qantas ones) in an airport for a couple of years.

There used to be a United 747 that flew out of Sydney, to San Francisco I think, but it's been replaced by a Dreamliner too.

Singapore used to use an A340 for that route, but it just wasn't economic. They're thinking of restarting it soon, though, with an A350 XWB I think.

At the moment, I think the longest flights are Sydney to Dallas (Qantas, 747), Doha to Auckland (Qatar Airways, A350 XWB), and Dubai to LA (Emirates, A380).

I do like getting out to stretch my legs once in a while, though.

Yes, it's down to better range.

One of my friends used to be a Cathay Pacific Stewardess. She was very disappointed when they stopped their Anchorage stopovers.

Hawaiian Airlines flies into JFK, and flies to several cities in Asia. So that must be an option.

And Honolulu is a lovely airport.

 

Actually, both are correct in this case.
I've been retired from the military for a few years now, and haven't been paid enough to consider a flight across a large body of water.
For domestic travel, I eschew flying with extreme prejudice.

Usually people who fly in trijets today are either very wealthy business persons, or they're catching a hop on a cargo carrier, either military or civilian. Some elderly L1011's and DC-10's are used as contract carriers for the military.
It's not as bad as it would seem, since the military and their contractors do not have to abide by all of those pesky rules like not allowing people up on the flight deck for take-offs and landings.
Sometimes on a trash hauler (cargo plane) they'll lower the ramp in flight, greatly expanding the view if only rearward, and generally speaking the seats on the contract flights are the older, and much larger "classic" seats from when you had enough room not to have to alternate intake breaths.
Best of all...
VERY abbreviated customs!!!

Interestingly enough.....trimotors are still in serial production and development thanks to our French friends (Dassault) who probably continue this habit just because they are French and want to be different.....


I wouldn't refuse a ride on one....