Beijing-bound MAS plane carrying 239 people missing as of 20 mins ago.

Arbitrageur

rabourby
Am I right in think g google earth doesn't have updated satellite imagery ?
Can you get latest satellite imagery for it though ?

Last time I used Google Earth, there was a time slider where I could look at various images over time, but none of them were very recent. The tomnod images are recent, that's why you see people talking about and posting images from tomnod.

edit on 18-3-2014 by Arbitrageur because: clarification

I find tomnod very very frustrating

Can you select a location from a map to look at as appose just looking at what is loaded up ?

RocksFromSpace

They have that 'button' to shut of it's tracking device because it's necessary.
If you have a busy airport and you have the transponders of hundreds of planes going off, it would overwhelm the hub.
There has to be a way to turn it off.

reply to post by stargatetravels


Indeed...


How about they turn it off from the Ground only!!!

If that's too much effort...

Build a better Hub!!!



Peace SG!

jsl2837
Does anyone have a credible source for the claim that disabling ACARS after takeoff is standard operating procedure for Malaysian Airlines flights?

This I think is extremely important in judging whether it was an accident or a hijacking.

I can't find any news articles that discuss this. Maybe my Google skills are inadequate.

I've posed this thought several times. Given the lack of official statements on this from any agency it would seem to indicate it is not true.

Given how information has flowed who the heck knows. Also if it requires open a breaker then the MA pilots do it on all their flights? I guess they have a post it note stuck to it to make sure no one opens the wrong one.

rabourby
I find tomnod very very frustrating

Can you select a location from a map to look at as appose just looking at what is loaded up ?

Maybe a Tomnod user can answer that...it was too much trouble for me since I don't have time to search.

stargatetravels
They have that 'button' to shut of it's tracking device because it's necessary.
If you have a busy airport and you have the transponders of hundreds of planes going off, it would overwhelm the hub.
There has to be a way to turn it off.

Do they turn the transponder off when the arrive at the gate? The normally shut off the engines when they arrive at the gate. Maybe it could be designed to run while the engine was running? At least in my experience, when the engines are operating is when it's needed.

Someone said the reason it can be turned off is for fire control, but I'm not sure if that's a good enough reason, since I never heard of a fire control off-switch for the black boxes. The other thing I noticed in the video I posted showing how to turn the transponder off, is that the "off" position wasn't really off....it said "STBY" so that would imply to me the power isn't completely off, that it's just not transmitting, and it kind of kills the fire control argument. He said the three transponder switch modes were "standby", "auto" and "on".

I would think this episode has some aircraft designers and aviation officials thinking about how aircraft tracking can be improved in cases like this.

I favour H.
But questions to experienced aviators
Could an electrical/fire type problem take out all ability to
communicate and also effect the plane mechanically so that
control of the plane was lost which caused the change in direction
and resulted in the plane stuck on a course heading out into the
Indian ocean and the plane eventully run out of fuel.
Would there be an independent operation satallite phone onboard?
Would the crew be able to still communicate a problem in some way?
Could the flight deck crew have been made unconcious in some way so
their was no one capable of flying the plane and at the same time
comms went out?

If the above is highly unlikely then barring a suicide whereby it took
the pilot time to pluck up courage to crash the plane then surely
Hijack is the only conclusion?

appols if this has all been covered

roadgravel

jsl2837
Does anyone have a credible source for the claim that disabling ACARS after takeoff is standard operating procedure for Malaysian Airlines flights?

This I think is extremely important in judging whether it was an accident or a hijacking.

I can't find any news articles that discuss this. Maybe my Google skills are inadequate.

I've posed this thought several times. Given the lack of official statements on this from any agency it would seem to indicate it is not true.

Given how information has flowed who the heck knows. Also if it requires open a breaker then the MA pilots do it on all their flights? I guess they have a post it note stuck to it to make sure no one opens the wrong one.

Read this:

PPruNe transponders

reply to post by RP2SticksOfDynamite


But even if comms were lost in the cockpit, the airphone still worked.

It's one of the pings they picked up during the flight.

civpop
From pprune quite a good timeline I think although it's better viewed on the pp rune site
...
""
...3:11 - INMARSAT ping received, as apparently Boeing's AHM report attempted to automatically transmit (thru Satellite)
...4:11 - INMARSAT ping received, as apparently Boeing's AHM report attempted to automatically transmit (thru Satellite)
...5:11 - INMARSAT ping received, as apparently Boeing's AHM report attempted to automatically transmit (thru Satellite)
...6:11 - INMARSAT ping received, as apparently Boeing's AHM report attempted to automatically transmit (thru Satellite)
...7:11 - INMARSAT ping received, as apparently Boeing's AHM report attempted to automatically transmit (thru Satellite) near 40 Degree line
...8:11 - INMARSAT ping received, as apparently Boeing's AHM report attempted to automatically transmit (thru Satellite) (thru Satellite) on 40 Degree line
""

Any idea why no-one seems to care about 'which' Degree line the first four pings (listed above) were near?
Thanks for the timeline!
Great resource (for future reference).

Betting on a post-it note...

Arbitrageur
I'm impressed with your research skills!

Yes the lower the pressure the more easily water boils, and even the pressurized compartment in an airplane for passegers/cargo is not pressurized to sea level pressure, which is why I can't fly within 24 hours of scuba diving...there's too much gas dissolved in my blood and it would sort of boil or form gas, aka "the bends".

It's also why I drink way more fluids when flying than at other times...it's easy to get dehydrated in the low pressure even in the plane's pressurized compartment.

Exploding fruit doesn't seem too likely though it's possible if it wasn't pressurized at all, but it seems like the consequence would be to make a mess on the inside of the boxes the fruit was packed in, and maybe make the bottoms of the boxes soggy, but I can't see how it would rupture the hull of an aircraft or anything like that. A pressurized gas cylinder could though because they are metallic and the metal fragments from an exploding cylinder could pierce the hull.

edit on 18-3-2014 by Arbitrageur because: clarification

I guess I was having a Macgyver moment

What if the mangosteens were in boxes in those funny shaped metal containers that I always see at airports going into the cargo hold? Would that help? Clutching at straws?

roadgravel

jsl2837
Does anyone have a credible source for the claim that disabling ACARS after takeoff is standard operating procedure for Malaysian Airlines flights?

This I think is extremely important in judging whether it was an accident or a hijacking.

I can't find any news articles that discuss this. Maybe my Google skills are inadequate.

I've posed this thought several times. Given the lack of official statements on this from any agency it would seem to indicate it is not true.

Given how information has flowed who the heck knows. Also if it requires open a breaker then the MA pilots do it on all their flights? I guess they have a post it note stuck to it to make sure no one opens the wrong one.

Sounds about right.

Also, if the truth was indeed being suppressed, insiders from Malaysian Airlines would very likely have leaked the information to make peace with their conscience. But no one has done so.

I think this is also an indication that the rumor is false.

I mentioned earlier my concerns about why Israel is making a big point of amping up their air defenses.

I just came across this writeup from a pilot named Mark L. Berry. In a sense he is saying what appears to be what Israel is doing. He thinks all countries should be doing this now and as of the moment I am not hearing of anyone else doing it. So again is Israel just this smart, getting ahead of the game, or do they know they are the target?

LINK TO WRITEUP

Hmmmmmmm
reply to post by RP2SticksOfDynamite

 

But even if comms were lost in the cockpit, the airphone still worked.

It's one of the pings they picked up during the flight.

Malaysian Airlines were not willing to pay for satellite bandwith to provide ACARS or SATCOM phone links.

i.e. no airphone.

I wonder how long they knew it was sighted over the Maldives without telling us?

Maldives sighting

auroraaus
I guess I was having a Macgyver moment

What if the mangosteens were in boxes in those funny shaped metal containers that I always see at airports going into the cargo hold? Would that help? Clutching at straws?

You were thinking outside the box which can be good for creative ideas. Some work out better than others, but creative ideas are good.

What you need to make an explosion is for a lot of pressure to be built up, then suddenly released. The pressurized cylinders only need to fail to explode. In the cargo containers you're talking about, I don't think they can build up pressure inside, though I'm not 100% sure, but I say that because I've never noticed any pressure seals on them. By the way one way to imagine what might happen to various fruits at low pressure is to microwave them, which also tends to make the liquid boil like low pressure might. This video shows what happens to various fruits in a microwave, though the mangosteen isn't one of them, but it might give us some inkling of what MIGHT possibly happen at low pressures:

www.youtube.com...

I thought the watermelon would be more impressive than it was, but the egg was one of the most impressive.

reply to post by onehuman


Interesting post!

Israel is always ahead of the game. They are in state of war, they know that they are one of the favourite target of the wannabe terrorists, so they are always preparred for the worst. On the other hand, they are also very well informed, so who knows...

soccerinco
I'm no pilot and don't know if this has been discussed yet. If there were a fire in the cabin, would it be plausible for the pilot to climb to 45k ft to put out possible flames? said fire could cause smoke/visibility issues and pilot would want to enter coordinates into the computer to try and head to another airport. Reduction in altitude, erratic maneuvers to help compensate for lack of visibility and the need to be low to ditch if necessary. Pilot gets disoriented/succombs to smoke and heads out over Maldives

Egyptair flight 667

Look at this, scroll down and look at the photos on that page tell me if any pilot could survive a fire in the avionics bay under the cockpit?

reply to post by tothetenthpower


Don't know if this has been posted yet...

news.yahoo.com...