MH370 missing (Part 2)

a reply to: Arbitrageur
You could be correct but if true it shows how messed up the Malaysia powers handled it at the start. Maybe it is just the way the world is.

Reminds me of scenes where the big guy is talking until his lawyer taps his should and takes over.

a reply to: roadgravel
Thanks for that link. It is a good chance that the lithium-ion batteries in the cargo hold were defective and being returned to China as part of the massive recalls. Just do a search on lithium-ion battery recalls, there are pages and pages of results.

Also since it has been mentioned here many times about the very warm temperatures in Malaysia regarding take off weight and runway length. I saw the below part of the article that you linked to and thought this was important.

" Lithium-ion batteries are heat intolerant, according to a potential whistleblower familiar with... Lithium-ion batteries are heat intolerant, according to a potential whistleblower familiar with their technology. "Too much heat on those things, they will go into a thermal runaway, they will explode." The informant, a former senior engineering technician of Securaplane Technologies, was fired in 2007 for repeated misconduct, but he says it was in retaliation for voicing concerns about the batteries. The NTSB acknowledges that the lithium-ion batteries in Boeing's (BA) Dreamliner experienced a thermal runaway, but insists there's no connection between the incident and the whistleblower's claims. " "The Japan Transport Safety Board makes a number of interim points. This battery, unlike one that burst into flames in a Japan Airlines 787 earlier in January, did not actually ignite. It experienced a thermal runaway, as a result of a build up of heat, yet the materials affected did not start burning. While the semantics might escape the casual observer the safety investigator said:- “The battery was destroyed in a process called thermal runaway, in which the heat builds up to the point where it becomes uncontrollable. “But it is still not known what caused the uncontrollable high temperature”. In simple language, uncontrollable rises in temperature will if uncontrolled most likely result in a fire, including one that can burn through structural composites and alloys, and prove almost uncontrollable by fire fighters, even on the ground. It took a Boston airport fire brigade detachment 99 minutes to put out the Japan Airlines fire using equipment unavailable if the airliner was hours away from an emergency landing strip in the high arctic or north Pacific, which that particular flight had only recently traversed before the fire broke out after landing.

lithium-ion.weebly.com...

a reply to: Mikeultra

The runaway is bad and happens if the batteries are not cooled quickly. The FAA video shows that even piling ice on the batteries still allows them to reignite because they do not cool quick enough.

A fire is just one problem the batteries pose. Don't forget some very deadly gases are produced in these battery fires. And if the Halon ate up all the oxygen putting a fire out, all that would be left to breathe is noxious poisoning fumes. Thus making a ghost plane theory very plausible...


PS- Glad to see some realistic discussions being had.

a reply to: OatDelphi

Given the cargo hold halon protection, I would think it is sealed from the cabin.

I wonder what happened when those batteries went to the bottom of the ocean (if so).

Really, it does not take a whole bunch of intelligence to just jam a signal locally so that any transmission gets garbled and cannot be read by the satellite (or whatever).

I am sure it is easy for the military (or Freescale engineers) to produce a small box of tricks to do the jamming and a mil aircraft to take on the transmission of the MH370 identity signal. All they would have to do is to fly close enough to catch the MH370 transmissions, steal the hex code, and retransmit as if they were MH370 once the real signal is jammed. Rather like catching infrared TV handset signals to reprogram a new handset. They would not even need a similar piece of hardware to do it, just some fancy electronics which would do the transmitting job.

It would not even need the comms to fail (as we have been told it has done) as, as soon as the jamming started, it would look like it failed to any observer on the ground due to the signals getting garbled.

a reply to: qmantoo

Wouldn't the jamming deal with the same data and frequency the jamming craft would use to impersonate the flight?

So destroy the plane then impersonate?

edit:

Or something like block the signal that 370 receives to ask for it's position and data, then return it for 370?

originally posted by: roadgravel

The cargo manifest is 'secret' but it has been revealed there were lithium batteries on board. May be more than stated. May be the amounted stated was enough for a disaster. Also radios. Did they have lithium batteries installed?

This is an FAA video, seems to be for air crews, about dealing with lithium battery fires in passenger lap tops, etc. Halon 1211 will put out the flames but it does not cool other cells which might be near ignition temperature.

My understanding is the 777 cargo bay is protected will halon.

The point is that if cargo batteries somehow started burning, Halon will stop the flames but without cooling the other cells quickly, thermal run away can occur and allow additional batteries to ignite. Lithium induced fire seems quite serious.

Just thought some here would be interested in this material and the background on lithium battery fires.

What a load of nonsense... It is not secret!

3-4 tons of Mangosteens and 200kg of lithium batteries

Where do you get these nonsense ideas?

a reply to: sy.gunson

This seems like a lot of extra fuel for such a distance and thus a lot of extra weight.
Even with the extra fuel for up to two hours it seems to be carrying a lot more fuel than needed.

Am i wrong?

originally posted by: sy.gunson

What a load of nonsense... It is not secret!

3-4 tons of Mangosteens and 200kg of lithium batteries

Where do you get these nonsense ideas?

Really?

PKR de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim had urged the government to make public the cargo that was on board flight MH370, which has been missing since March 8.

Keadilan Daily reported Anwar as saying that every flight would have its own cargo manifest which detailed the items carried on a particular plane.

“Every flight has it cargo manifest. So far, the government said that MH370 was carrying four tonnes of mangosteen and lithium ion batteries.

“But the government has not revealed everything and is being secretive. Why are you afraid? What is it that was being taken to China? Tell us Najib ( Tun Razak),” asked Anwar at a ceramah session in Perak on Friday.

He added that to date the Australian government, which is leading the search and rescue mission at the Indian Ocean, has yet to receive MH370′s cargo manifest from Malaysia.

Link

originally posted by: earthling42


Well your plotted route would be consistent with the frquency offset.
Flying the same course after BITOD or even more to the east would indicate an even greater velocity away from the satellite.

The fact that the angle is less steep then right after taking off from KL can indicate that it had diverted its course heading south west before the handshake at 18:29.

It did not necessarily turn at 18:29 UTC. That is merely when the Satellite interrogated the cell which it was in.

It is plausible for the aircraft to have turned around before an explosion at 17:57 UTC, felt on the seabed.

It would sure be a logical explanation to everything happening that night, including the testimony form the man on the oilrig, this aircraft would have been a lot closer to the oil-rig.

....He estimates the distance at 50-70 km.

The last information from CNN is contradictory, this man said it was flying at a lower altitude, so it did not climb to 39.000ft.

At night it is hard to judge height or distance. I doubt there is any evidence anywhere that it climbed.

The aircraft could have been turned by selecting a new course in L-Nav function and possibly also selecting a new speed hold in the auto-throttle. Whatever disaster overcame the flight deck crew could have followed. The time elapsed 6.5 hours does not fit with an aircraft flying at 473 knots, but rather 278kt.

That is a speed more in keeping with lower altitudes. Of course if the fuselage had a hole blown through it then drag would have slowed it.

edit on 21-4-2014 by sy.gunson because: (no reason given)

originally posted by: earthling42

At night it is hard to judge height or distance. I doubt there is any evidence anywhere that it climbed.

After it diverted from it's normal flightplan, it must have been descending to a much lower altitude, because according to this plot the speed with which it travelled during normal flight was 473kn, and 330kn after 18:29 until it crashed at the spot where the signals were picked up.

It is hard to imagine if pilots were incapacitated that the plane would fly a curve on autopilot. More likely the movements of the INMARSAT satellite explain the curves after 18:29 UTC.

Satellite movements north of equator

If you take that into account you may find that when plotted to a chart they could in fact straighten the flight path. I tried to visualise my suggested path from the angle that INMARSAT would have seen it like this:



Larger image

and this is the same image with normal orientation:



Enlarged

Of course the red line is the plotted path, black lines are flight corridors.
It has been even further away from the satellite, but the handshake was at 18:29 when it was closer to the satellite again. The path until it crashed.

I imagine the aircraft flew a Rhumb line rather than a great circle route so possibly your's is a Rhumb line (constant heading). Have you thought to investigate if the heading was constant along your plotted line?

originally posted by: roadgravel

originally posted by: sy.gunson

What a load of nonsense... It is not secret!

3-4 tons of Mangosteens and 200kg of lithium batteries

Where do you get these nonsense ideas?

Really?

PKR de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim had urged the government to make public the cargo that was on board flight MH370, which has been missing since March 8.

Keadilan Daily reported Anwar as saying that every flight would have its own cargo manifest which detailed the items carried on a particular plane.

“Every flight has it cargo manifest. So far, the government said that MH370 was carrying four tonnes of mangosteen and lithium ion batteries.

“But the government has not revealed everything and is being secretive. Why are you afraid? What is it that was being taken to China? Tell us Najib ( Tun Razak),” asked Anwar at a ceramah session in Perak on Friday.

He added that to date the Australian government, which is leading the search and rescue mission at the Indian Ocean, has yet to receive MH370′s cargo manifest from Malaysia.

Link

The Malaysians are being secretive and deceptive about everything... You are latching on to one thing to prop up your conspiracy theory. The fact is if you calculate the weight of passengers, baggage allowance, flight catering, fuel weight, Mangosteens and Lithium batteries it comes out at 266,000kg and that just happens to be the maximum weight for the runway length available.

You're not even asking the right questions because you're so fixated on trying to prove a conspiracy about the cargo you miss entirely that they burned the maintenance records.

You are so fixated you have not asked why they will not release the military radar tracking data either.

Instead of being selective, try taking in the bigger picture.


...yes really

a reply to: sy.gunson

My theory?

I am just pointing out facts that could be part of any of this. The non release is a fact that many question. I have discussed other ideas people have brought up. That doesn't make it my theory.

You seem to have a single theory though. Hopefully we find out what did happen that night.

originally posted by: roadgravel
a reply to: auroraaus

Are all plane accidents criminal cases? If not why this one. That would mean there is fact that isn't known to the public, something like a bomb or high jack.

They can mention some cargo but not other but it's sealed. Don't sound straight up to me. If concealing cargo is standard, why did they mention it in the first place?

This question has clearly been answered already. They are and have been looking into this as apotentially criminal matter involving one or more of the pilots.

Using the plot from Vietnam to Ocean Shield's position which I have published previously, I added a series of red pins as a datum 2,230nm from INMARSAT. This is the distance of Kuala Lumpur's airport from INMARSAT at 16:41 UTC.



Enlarged image

I have continuously replotted the datum ring and ping track from correlated satellite positions so that for each distance cited, they were correct from the satellite's continuing position.

Then I have also calculated the track's displacement from the datum. This was the result:

Displacement from Datum / Track Distance from INMARSAT

17:07 UTC 69.5nm / 2,299nm
18:27 UTC 305nm / 2,542nm
19:40 UTC 262.5nm / 2,490nm
20:40 UTC 248nm / 2,476nm
21:40 UTC 273nm /2,486nm
22:40 UTC 291nm /2,515nm
00:11 UTC 376.5nm / 2,605nm
00:19 UTC 397.6nm / 2,611nm
00:19 UTC distance flown to Impact 85nm

The glide distance can also give a fair inference of the considerable altitude when engines cut out.

In my opinion MH370 flew beyond the normal INMARSAT F3 coverage range and when the first engine surged and cut out there was some sort of handshake exchange whilst at 00:19 the second engine surged and cut out but this time the attempted handshake failed due to generators falling offline.

reply to sy.gunson

It is so obvious that you've never been a pilot.

MH370 took off with 31,000 US gallons (69.5% full tanks) and was limited to 266,000kg take off weight by the length of runway.

You can't just take off with full fuel tanks and full payload. Most aircraft are incapable of that and even were that not the case you would need a runway halfway to the moon with full tanks.

In actual fact aircraft are not only limited by runway length, but also by the load bearing capacity of the runway/tarmac and even by the load bearing capacity of their structure and undercarriage.

If all you care about is creating a fantasy fiction novel then anything goes I suppose, but pilots live in the real world.

Yes you are right (and I hope you feel good about obviously guessing this correctly) - I have never been a pilot.
However, I am fairly certain I read this on the pprune.org forum as I would not have made up something like that. I just would not have thought of it by myself. Of course, it is possible that the member on pprune was not a pilot and was making it all up but it is strange for someone to claim that extra fuel is placed on board for flights to Chinese destinations.

OK, so I can see your points about needing the longer runway etc that makes sense, but so also does the extra fuel - particularly since MAS is/was trying to save money. I am sure the load bearing capacity of the aircraft undercarriage would be designed to take a maximum fuel plus some extra load as safety margin. Same for runways and tarmac.

Was the figure for fuel of 31000 an officially released figure of one that was unofficially released by "a source close to the investigation"? I will try and find the pprune post which references the extra fuel and post it for you to look at. Of course, it may be a practice which was done a few years ago and not a current practice.

a reply to: sy.gunson

Yes, i see what you mean, i plotted that theoretical route with the man on the oilrig in mind and the pilot controling the aircraft after some kind of malfunction.

This route shows that it must have been closer to the satellite at 20:40 which is contradictory to the data, it was moving away from the satellite with a higher velocity than it did at 18:29 and 19:40.


Larger image

So i made a new route wich takes it over the spot of where the Vietnamese authorities said it had crashed. (246km south of the island Phú Quốc)
That means it did made a left turn as was mentioned not long after the aircraft went missing, and also in recent days.
Of course, the route can be somewhat different than this, but now we see that the distance between the aircraft and the satellite is the same at 18:29 and 19:40 and then the velocity away from the satellite increases.


Larger image
The orange line is another possible route it could have flown


Larger image

There is a little mistake which i made, after 18:29 i calculated the distance of an hour instead of 1 hour and 11 minutes, so the pins starting from 19:40 should move a little towards 00:11.

Now the question, if it indeed lies at the spot where the signals were picked up, that would mean it did not flew very far and thus it must have been flying with a very low speed.
Is it possible to maintain a flight level while flying with a speed of 280kn?

Looks like the search area maybe expanded yet again. So what were the underwater "pings" that were being picked up in the southern Indian Ocean.?
Back to square one, we are no further knowing what happened to MH 370 today than we were on 10th of March.
I think it's time to look again at the passenegers and a possible hijack.

KUALA LUMPUR: Members of the International Investigation Team (IIT) who have been putting their heads together since day one to find Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 are now looking at the likelihood of starting from scratch in hopes of finally solving this unprecedented aviation mystery. Sources within the team that is based in Kuala Lumpur told the New Straits Times that among areas they were revisiting was the possibility that the Boeing jetliner had landed somewhere else, instead of ending up in the southern Indian Ocean.

The sources admitted that it was difficult to determine if the plane had really ended in the Indian Ocean, though calculations carried out pointed to the direction. They pointed out that the Malaysian-led investigation team, together with experts from Inmarsat and the United Kingdom's Air Accidents Investigation Branch, had to rely on a communications satellite (Inmarsat), which did not provide any definite details, including the plane's direction, altitude and speed.

"A communications satellite is meant for communication... the name is self-explanatory. The reason investigators were forced to adopt a new algorithm to calculate the last known location of MH370 was because there was no global positioning system following the aircraft as the transponder went off 45 minutes into the flight," one of the sources said.

New Straits Times


This from the Daily Mail;

The Mail reported early in the search that fishermen and villagers living in north east Malaysia had filed official statements with police claiming to have seen - or heard - a low-flying aircraft at the time when MH370 lost all contact with ground control.
Their descriptions of a 'very loud engine' and headlights like those switched on by an aircraft about to land at night suggested that the aircraft was flying to the west, across jungle, very fast, at a low altitude.

Daily Mail

In Part 1 of this topic was there not a picture posted of a plane in what looked like a jungle?

a reply to: sy.gunson

Hope I do this right...

Big Development in Search for Missing Malaysia Flight: It May Have Landed Somewhere Else

“We may have to regroup soon to look into this possibility if no positive results come back in the next few days … but at the same time, the search mission in the Indian Ocean must go on,” a source on the investigation team told the newspaper. “The thought of it landing somewhere else is not impossible, as we have not found a single debris that could be linked to MH370.”

www.theblaze.com...