News Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 crash

[Evo]

I can't believe that the plane landed anywhere. Once the passengers realized that they weren't where they should be, they would have turned on their cell phones. Sooner or later one of those phones would connect with a passing cell tower and there would be a record of it. Maybe some NSA spook could look that up.

If they had their phones and if they were alive.

 

[Borg]

If they had their phones and if they were alive.

A phone left on in their luggage (in the cargo bay) would also ping towers as it passed.

 

[Borg]

Now the rumors are it was tracked passing waypoints used by airliners headed toward mideast and Europe.

http://www.straitstimes.com/the-big...ts-missing-malaysia-airlines-mh370-flown-deli



A fellow on pprune ( A self described blog for RUMORS) posted the day of disappearance a suggestion it went that direction, a couple days later posted an aero chart with a course drawn on it to Yemen with no coment.
I wonder who he is and what he knows.

It's worthy of Tom Clancy.

I looked on pprune and ran into one interesting bit on info on the potential engine pings. It was mentioned that the pings identify the engine and not the aircraft. If the engines were swapped, they could be on a different aircraft.

 

[arildno]

I looked on pprune and ran into one interesting bit on info on the potential engine pings. It was mentioned that the pings identify the engine and not the aircraft. If the engines were swapped, they could be on a different aircraft.

Why should the pinging then have stopped, as it has done?

 

[Borek]

I looked on pprune and ran into one interesting bit on info on the potential engine pings. It was mentioned that the pings identify the engine and not the aircraft. If the engines were swapped, they could be on a different aircraft.

But swapping engines is more complicated than swapping slippers or gloves, so I find it hard to believe nobody would notice engines were on a different plane.

 

[Czcibor]

A phone left on in their luggage (in the cargo bay) would also ping towers as it passed.

People should switch off their mobiles before loading them to cargo bay. Setting aside all matters concerning that's required, doing otherwise would be a wasting of batteries.

 

[Borg]

Why should the pinging then have stopped, as it has done?

Good point. It was a quick post as I was walking out the door. It was one of the last posts on that forum and nobody had thought about that yet. Of course this assumes that people are continueing to look. If the engines were on a different aircraft, it could have landed for the night (five hours later) and would stop pinging when the engines shut down. If the ping search was only done for that day, the engines could be pinging today. I would hope that someone is still looking for pings from the engines but, I'm always nervous about making assumptions.

But swapping engines is more complicated than swapping slippers or gloves, so I find it hard to believe nobody would notice engines were on a different plane.

According to the members on that site, engine swaps do occur often enough for this to be thought about. But, as arildno pointed out, they should have started pinging again eventually.

 

[Borg]

People should switch off their mobiles before loading them to cargo bay. Setting aside all matters concerning that's required, doing otherwise would be a wasting of batteries.

Just noting another scenario where phones could ping a cell tower. I wouldn't even put a phone in my luggage but I would bet that there's a phone or two in every cargo hold. Someone who's careless enough to put a phone in their luggage doesn't seem to me to be someone who is going to be careful about turning it off.

 

[lisab]

Just noting another scenario where phones could ping a cell tower. I wouldn't even put a phone in my luggage but I would bet that there's a phone or two in every cargo hold. Someone who's careless enough to put a phone in their luggage doesn't seem to me to be someone who is going to be careful about turning it off.

Totally agree. But we don't know what the cell companies know. Perhaps they did get pings, reported them, but didn't go to the media about it.

Seriously, what percent of the population would forget to turn off a device, or just disregard the rule -- maybe 1%? Maybe 5%? Well, there were over 200 people on that plane.

And I wouldn't limit that to only people who put their phone in luggage.

 

[Pythagorean]

A Malaysian government official involved in the probe told the Associated Press on Saturday that investigators are now certain that one or more people with significant flying experience hijacked the missing Malaysia Airlines jet, switched off communication devices and steered it off-course. The official said that hijacking was "conclusive" and no longer just a theory.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/03/14/malaysia-airlines-search/6409061/

 

[gfd43tg]

If the plane was hijacked, I don't think the hijackers successfully landed it, even somewhere remote. Someone would have noticed it, and the passengers would have starting calling on their cell phones.

 

[jim hardy]

Is there any group on Earth who:

1. Is sophisticated enough to pull this off
2. Would want for hostages a hundred Chinese artists, twenty or so electronics experts on western military stuff, and a handfull of Malaysian civilians?
3. Is crazy enough ?

 

[Monique]

1) Phones do not need to be turned off with all airlines
2) Phones still ping when turned off, in a similar manner that the airplane still pinged with communication devices turned off

 

[Pythagorean]

Sources told the Reuters news agency on Friday, meanwhile, that the path Flight 370 appears to have taken after diverting from its intended route strongly suggests that a trained pilot was still in control of the aircraft.

The news agency said investigators believe the missing jet appeared to follow a known air navigational route, based on the radar blips seen by the Malaysian military.

That would have taken the plane into the Andaman Sea and toward the Indian Ocean, and according to Reuters, "could only have been set deliberately, either by flying the Boeing 777-200ER jet manually or by programming the auto-pilot."
Reuters cited another source as saying the official investigation was increasingly focused on the possibility that someone with training as a pilot deliberately diverted the flight.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/malaysi...still-no-answers-in-search-for-missing-plane/

 

[Monique]

1) Phones do not need to be turned off with all airlines
2) Phones still ping when turned off, in a similar manner that the airplane still pinged with communication devices turned off

I can't trace the answer to point 1, and I don't know where I've heard point 2 (probably some crime show on TLC). Anyway, here some support:

from: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world...3cf4-f0b1-11e2-bed3-b9b6fe264871_story_2.html
By September 2004, a new NSA technique enabled the agency to find cellphones even when they were turned off. JSOC troops called this “The Find,” and it gave them thousands of new targets, including members of a burgeoning al-Qaeda-sponsored insurgency in Iraq, according to members of the unit.

 

[Pythagorean]

Apparently, the cellular network is acting as if it can't locate the phones:

27. What about reports that passengers' cell phones continued operating after the flight's disappearance?

The answer to the question about meteors and conspiracy theories applies here, too. When phones are disabled or turned off -- which would presumably happen after a plane crash -- calls to those cell phones go directly to voice mail. Friends and loved ones of the missing passengers, however, reported ringing when they called. Technology industry analyst Jeff Kagan says a call would connect first to a network before trying to find the end user, and the ringing sound callers hear masks the silence they would otherwise hear while waiting for the connection to be made. "If it doesn't find the phone after a few minutes, after a few rings, then typically, it disconnects, and that's what's happening," he said.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/13/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-questions/

Which implies they're out of reach of cell phone towers. I think this could be the case whether the plane is crashed or hijacked.

 

[Pythagorean]

Here you go:

Missing Malaysian Jetliner: Could Phone Tracking Help?

Locating the mobile phones of the 239 travelers on the Boeing 777 that vanished Saturday isn't as simple as activating a "Find My iPhone" app, given the speed the plane was traveling, its altitude and the fact it was probably flying over water. Many people assume smartphones to be all-powerful tracking devices. Often police, rescue units and others can use a person's phone to pinpoint the user's precise location. Even so, there are large portions of the planet that don't have the transmission towers that are necessary for mobile communications. In the case of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370, smartphones are unlikely to lead investigators to the plane.

http://www.cio-today.com/story.xhtml?story_id=0330042BAMG9

 

[Borg]

It's pretty clear that someone was deliberately attempting to conceal the flight path and it looks like it was headed toward the Indian Ocean. What if one of the pilots decided to kill himself and didn't want to ever be found. What would be the best way? Could the plane have been soft landed in the middle of nowhere so that it floods quickly with little or no floating debris?

 

[nsaspook]

It's pretty clear that someone was deliberately attempting to conceal the flight path and it looks like it was headed toward the Indian Ocean. What if one of the pilots decided to kill himself and didn't want to ever be found. What would be the best way? Could the plane have been soft landed in the middle of nowhere so that it floods quickly with little or no floating debris?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...e-paths-for-missing-malaysia-airlines-flight/

If it flew deep into the Indian Ocean and crashed we might not ever find it. I just don't see how it could have flown the Northern track and been missed by paranoid military operators in that part of the world as an incoming 'UFO'. The released map shows the mirror image of possible ping locations (not a flight path) seen with stationary single detector tracking when dealing with just a EM signal time and phase delays/shift wavefront. I'm pretty sure the official positioning is much narrower due to additional data that's being kept private so far.

If the officials have hard evidence that this was something other than a mishap I think they have an obligation to at least say how they know that without giving away details. If it's impossible for this to be an accident then say it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world...-11e3-af5f-4c56b834c4bf_story.html?tid=pm_pop

In the most comprehensive account to date of the plane’s fate, Najib drew an ominous picture of what happened aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, saying investigators had determined there was “deliberate action by someone on the plane.”

 

[arildno]

Well, if the plane did go the northern route over India and Pakistan, say, there is no particular reason why we should expect either of these countries to be forthcoming with what they know and, also, what they DON'T know.

To publicize their own military surveillance capacities (or the limitations of it) would be tantamount to disclosing state secrets.

 

[nsaspook]

Well, if the plane did go the northern route over India and Pakistan, say, there is no particular reason why we should expect either of these countries to be forthcoming with what they know and, also, what they DON'T know.

To publicize their own military surveillance capacities (or the limitations of it) would be tantamount to disclosing state secrets.

They don't have to be forthcoming, for obvious reasons the US closely monitors that area for alert activity. We might not directly see what they see but we do see their reactions to events in near real-time and have a very good idea about the limits of their capabilities. An incoming object the size of a 777 simply can't be missed with active air search radar looking for targets. You see all kinds of weird crap on long range air search radar moving in all directions from ducting and random reflections but when it's steady and headed your way you tell someone about it.

Maybe the Aussies can find something on their systems (Jindalee Radar) after a review but the plane looks to have been tracking away from it if it went south.
https://www.airforce.gov.au/Technology/Surveillance44-Command-and-Control/Jindalee-Operational-Radar-Network/?RAAF-dq9yQKwX6WliV2hNVcj38sG4oMWiAMtQ

 

[Czcibor]

On Polish media (one of the main TV station) there is a rumour that in cargo of that plane there were a few tones of gold. (if it was true then many of already knowns pieces of info would suddenly have logic...)

I'm waiting whether this got confirmed or debunked.

 

[arildno]

Right now, I'm beginning to think Ernst Stavro isn't dead, after all.

 

[Borg]

On Polish media (one of the main TV station) there is a rumour that in cargo of that plane there were a few tones of gold. (if it was true then many of already knowns pieces of info would suddenly have logic...)

I'm waiting whether this got confirmed or debunked.

I saw something like that on the other forum thread that I've been reading. It started with one troll post at 6am today and it's been like candy to the conspiracy nuts on the thread. Not one link to a single source though - just a lot of ifs, ands and maybes about how the crew landed in a secret location to offload the gold. Even if there was any gold, the main problem is that the flight crew wouldn't know about the manifest until right before the flight. That doesn't give them any time to plan or coordinate something out of a Tom Clancey novel.

 

[Czcibor]

I saw something like that on the other forum thread that I've been reading. It started with one troll post at 6am today and it's been like candy to the conspiracy nuts on the thread. Not one link to a single source though - just a lot of ifs, ands and maybes about how the crew landed in a secret location to offload the gold. Even if there was any gold, the main problem is that the flight crew wouldn't know about the manifest until right before the flight. That doesn't give them any time to plan or coordinate something out of a Tom Clancey novel.

Thanks for info.

I thought that at this moment coolheaded people create stories in style of Tom Clancy. This time, to become a conspiracy nut, one would have now write a story in style of Stephen King :D

 

[SteamKing]

I saw something like that on the other forum thread that I've been reading. It started with one troll post at 6am today and it's been like candy to the conspiracy nuts on the thread. Not one link to a single source though - just a lot of ifs, ands and maybes about how the crew landed in a secret location to offload the gold. Even if there was any gold, the main problem is that the flight crew wouldn't know about the manifest until right before the flight. That doesn't give them any time to plan or coordinate something out of a Tom Clancey novel.

Yeah, right. Like no one's ever had their luggage pilfered and things taken from a commercial flight. I'm pretty sure any reputable insurance company covering such a shipment would insist on a wee bit more security than this.

 

[StevieTNZ]

A new twist:

Someone deliberately diverted Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 and shut down communications with the ground, and the jetliner continued flying for six hours, Malaysia's prime minister said Saturday.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11220613

 

[nsaspook]

Just another data point on why the southern path is more likely. Being hijacked to land in Pakistan or anywhere else north is a real stretch when most of the facts now point to crew interference or a weird set of non-deliberate events that mimic that.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...airspace-Kolkata-ATC/articleshow/32091364.cms

Speaking to TOI, air traffic controllers' guild secretary Sugata Pramanik said that while flight MH370 could have avoided detection on the Secondary Surveillance Radar, the blip by the huge Boeing 777-200 ER aircraft would surely have been spotted by the Air Force that uses Primary Surveillance Radars to detect such intrusions. Any flight that moves in the north-western direction towards Kazakhstan from Malaysia, as suggested by Razak, is bound to pass through Kolkata Flight Information Region. (FIR).

"If an aircraft wants to avoid being seen, they can easily become invisible to a civilian radar by switching off the transponder that relays information about the plane. But it cannot avoid defence systems. The Indian Air Force has radars in multiple installations across the country and it is inconceivable that none of them spotted the odd blip with no flight clearance," he said.
...
There are nine Air Defence Identification zones in the country that are manned 24x7 to prevent an enemy aircraft from violating Indian airspace.

Guild member Sushil Mondal concurred, explaining that all hell would break loose if Air Force detected an aircraft that did not have air defence clearance. Any plane flying through Indian airspace is first required to submit the flight plan and manifest to the air traffic controls in its flight path. This is then relayed to the Air Force for permission.

 

[m k]

Any idea how many satellite pings there have been?

 

[nsaspook]

Any idea how many satellite pings there have been?

Most reports don't have an exact number but once or twice a hour is what I've heard. Unfortunately extra pings captured by one geostationary bird at the edge of it's coverage still generates a huge arc of possible positions (unilateration/near or far) that can't be used to narrow the flight path just from that information. You need extra timing data from separate points to use Multilateration/TDOA with fixed detectors in space.

One thing we might be able to deduce from a single detector at that distance is if the plane seemed stationary (at the same measured distance) over several pings. It could mean the plane is circling at a point, landed or is following the arc path.