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

hopefully some other cool # can be found on the bottom of the ocean whilst searching for this plane

reply to post by RP2SticksOfDynamite

Keeping an open mind here. Not jumping to "cause". My only minimal guess is it flew until it couldn't any more - and possibly ended-up in the Indian Ocean (possibly where they are currently looking, but maybe somewhere else).

Whether anybody was still alive at that time or not - totally unknown. I also think people are jumping to blaming the flight crew way too early. They might have been incapacitated, they might have had the cockpit rushed - who knows. Also, even if they did take it off course "intentionally" it might have been under direct duress (being threatened in-flight), or in-direct/advance duress (i.e. somebody threatening their families / threatening to kill way more people in some other act if they don't comply, etc.). It's all speculation at this point. I understand its a path that law enforcement and other investigators need to pursue. But, I don't think the media should really be entertaining a lot of speculation on that level of finger-pointing.

At least the flight data recorder will (eventually if/when they find it) tell us the technical details of what happened with the plane itself. However, if what they mentioned on CNN is true (that the cockpit voice recorder only keeps the last 2 hours of audio), then we may still never have a "conclusive" picture of why the plane did whatever it did.

Well, night has fallen now, so we well may not hear anything more for hours. They may be able to find debris with sonar, as they did mention using subs to locate possible debris underwater, due to it being on the abyssal plane floor, several thousands of feet deep.

He did refer to the sat imagery as "blobs", so not denying the imagery is poor. Not all satellites are designed for close-up imaging, in fact, they had stated they had taken satellites off the area, then reprogrammed some to go back. Perhaps they used better ones for another area.

If, as was stated, certain portions of the plane were designed to float, they may well find portions of the craft that had been sat tagged.

They had mentioned dropping bouys to determine drift and help program the possible tidal tables, so they could likely do that at night.

This group specializes in Search and Rescue, so I am feeling assured they know what they are doing.

The area they are now concentrating on is relatively small, considering they area they had before. Since the dates on the images was the 16th, I am sure they are also factoring in for further drift.

Prayers for better weather at daybreak.

Most of the destined arrivals should be there by then. The more, the merrier.

reply to post by Libertygal


Huh??? I thought it's only like 4:45pm in Kuala Lumpur, they are searching west of there so they should have like +2 more hours of light.

reply to post by OatDelphi

I was going by the times they gave at the press conference. That was at roughly 4:30 pm Australian time, 12:30 Eastern Daylight Savings time, so they said they only had a few hours, roughly 3, to nightfall. So, apologies if I am mistaken.

reply to post by OatDelphi


Authorities could not confirm who the satellite belonged to but said they were awaiting further imagery for analysis.

www.abc.net.au...

DIGITAL GLOBE BS

reply to post by Libertygal


It's cool, it just made me take a double look out my window because nightfall there means sunrise where I'm at. Messed me up a little bit.

reply to post by Libertygal

Yeah, Australia has a few diff time zones. Like it's 8pm here in east aust and the sun has just gone down, but it's 5:00pm in Perth, and the search zone is a couple of hours behind that IIRC, So they have a few hours of daylight to have a stickybeak.

reply to post by OatDelphi


Anybody happen to catch the approximate latitude & longitude of those satellite hits?

If so, I am wondering how far south they are. Might be far enough for wierd "polar night" or "polar day" due to polar proximity / earth axis tilt, etc.

Found this chart on Wikipedia too: Wikipedia Article on Day Length.

thetruth2014
reply to post by Libertygal

 

I dont know how many times this has to be said or you guys dont get it.. lol auto pilot is not some change altitude plane turns by itself nook and cranny aspect and decide to turn southwest towards Australia its effectively cruise control at ideally cruise altitude hence someone was controlling the plane and people were not all "aphexiated" while magically like some magical Dragon flew for 8 hours with no one conscious...like really people this is not a 15 kg drone this is a 15 tonne airliner use some common sense

thetruth201 you might be too young to remember this aircraft, wallowed around the sky for 32 minutes without a tail fin porpoised up and down etc until it hit a hill.

JAL flight 123

When you learn to fly a plane one early lesson an instructor gives you is to make trim the plane and take your hands off the controls. They still fly y'know.

reply to post by OatDelphi


It is now 8pm in Sydney and 5pm in Perth Western Australia still about 2 hours of light left

reply to post by EnhancedInterrogator


All I got, was it's at the roaring forties or close to it.

Edit to add:

A flight crew scouring the southern Indian Ocean for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 say that they were getting radar hits of “significant size”, indicating something was below the water’s surface.
ABC News’ David Wright who is on board the US Navy P-8 Poseidon, said the crew told him the radar indicated “there is something down there”.
However, Commander William Marks, spokesman for the US Navy’s 7th Fleet, later said the radar return was typical, and not connected to the missing plane.

If the debris spotted some 2,500km southwest of Perth is part of the missing MH370, then it is floating in the roughest part of the ocean known for its giant swells.
The Sydney Morning Herald in a report said the debris has been located close to the ‘Roaring Forties’, where winds create giant swells and waves.
Quoting an Australian oceanographer, the newspaper said while there were debris at the surface of the Indian Ocean, the bulk of the ill-fated Boeing 777-200ER could be at the bottom of the sea.
”You may have debris at the surface but the bulk of the aircraft would be at the bottom of the ocean. It is very deep down there, about five kilometres,” said Professor Chari Pattiaratchi, from the University of Western Australia.
“Trying to get something out from five kilometres in the roughest part of the world is going to be extreme,” he was quoted by the Sydney Morning Herald.
The currents in the area move from west to east, he added.
”So if it has been in the water for about 10 days it would have drifted about 300 to 400 kilometres to the east towards Perth,” said the expert.
The debris would likely have been travelling about one nautical mile per hour, or one knot.
“If it keeps going it’ll go to the south of Perth or south of Australia,” he said.
The Roaring Forties is located forty degrees south, where there was almost no land to slow down the winds. These create strong, high waves and swell, he said.
The currents extend right through the water column because the area is so deep.

Crew: Something big down there

reply to post by EnhancedInterrogator


Coordinates are shown on the photos you posted... middle top

auroraaus
reply to post by Libertygal

 

Yeah, Australia has a few diff time zones. Like it's 8pm here in east aust and the sun has just gone down, but it's 5:00pm in Perth, and the search zone is a couple of hours behind that IIRC, So they have a few hours of daylight to have a stickybeak.

...and the Canberra zone where the politicians can bore you to sleep anytime, night or day

reply to post by EnhancedInterrogator

Never-mind, it's in the images: Approximately 44-degrees South.

reply to post by sy.gunson


I grew up in Canberra and didn't find it boring at all. A magical place. Beautiful parks and gardens, nature reserves, wonderful treasures at the national library, questacon (science activity centre), parliament, national archives, the war memorial (absolutely awesome), gosh the list goes on.

But as for politicians boring me to death... well... I like to watch Parliament Question Time of TV from time to time... heh

reply to post by OatDelphi


yea bro, I did...... thats my point.

cheers

Well, its past my bed-time here in the undisclosed insecure location in North America. Hope you .AU's can keep the thread updated with new releases, and then maybe the .UK folks or somebody after that.

At some point, when I get a chance tomorrow, if the Australian Maritime Safety Authority's web-site becomes available again, and their is some update (temporarily) available there that isn't available in enough detail in the MSM, I will to capture it and post here.

[PS: Starting to remind me of the 2011 Japan Earthquake / Tsunami thread]