UPDATE: Missing plane ended in southern Indian Ocean: Malaysian PM
KUALA LUMPUR — Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 ended its flight in the southern Indian Ocean based on fresh data from a UK satellite company, Malaysia Prime Minister Najib Razak said tonight (March 24).
Mr Najib said British satellite company Inmarsat and the UK Air Accidents Investigation Board (AAIB) had used a new system to calculate MH370’s flight path.
“I was briefed by representatives from the United Kingdom AAIB today and Inmarsat, who had performed further calculations on their existing data,” Mr Najib told reporters.
“They had used a new type of analysis which had previously never been used before in an investigation like this,” he said. The analysis concluded that MH370 flew along the Southern Corridor and that its last position was in the middle of the Indian Ocean, West of Perth.
“This is a remote location, far from any possible landing site,” said Mr Najib. “It is therefore with deep sadness and regret that I must inform you that, according to this new data, flight MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean,” he said.
http://www.todayonline.com/world/asia/mh370-malaysia-pm-najib-razak-holds-press-conference
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I still get the news-feed from AMSA since the Chris Turney Ships of Fools trapped in ice event, and today it looks like they are going all out with an international effort, so I thought I would pass this on for interested readers. Here is the press release, and a map and satellite imagery follow.
24th March, 2014: 11am (AEDT)
Ten aircraft are involved in today’s search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. Two Chinese military aircraft departed about 8.45am and 9.20am respectively. A RAAF P3 Orion departed for the search area just after 9am.
Two ultra-long range civil jets departed about 10.10am and 10.30am respectively. A second RAAF P3 Orion is scheduled to depart about 11am.
A third ultra-long range jet is scheduled to depart about midday.
A US Navy P8 Poseidon aircraft is scheduled to depart about 1pm. The two Japanese P3 Orion aircraft are scheduled to depart after 4pm.
Media Note: Updated search area charts are now available in AMSA’s media kit for this search. These can be accessed at the following link under Day 7 search area charts: http://www.amsa.gov.au/media/incidents/mh370-search.asp
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Source: http://www.amsa.gov.au/media/media-releases/2014/
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Here is the current search area. Click to enlarge.
Satellite imagery of debris. Click to enlarge.
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I can’t help but think the planes computers were hacked from the ground..
Before this, there were complaints about this birds computer systems not being protected enough
Everything that they know happened…happened exactly like it would happen if they were hacked.
Pilots didn’t know tracking was turned off when they made their last verbal contact, oxygen masks were reconfigured to read 5000 ft at 50,000 feet so they didn’t deploy (not turned off, reconfigured which you can do with a hack), plane navigates to known waypoints (exactly what you would have to do from the ground), etc
If this was a hack…it was a dry run
No mention of any US satellite imagery? Why?
Does anyone know if it is a fact that, just one day before the flight, the pilot attended the trial of a Malaysian political opponent of the present government, a trial in which a previous acquittal was overturned and he was found guilty, and therefore unable to run in the next election.
The trial occurred, it was a political opponent, and he was found guilty in a double jeopardy situation, but did the pilot attend as previously alleged?
If the pilot was distressed enough over the situation that he attended the trial, that would lend credence to the possibility that he “lost it” the next day and commandeered the plane. But did he attend the trial? I’ve seen no followup to the original claim that he did. I’ve also seen very little followup to the original claim that his family deserted his home within a day of the trial, or why they did so, or even if they actually did so.
Instead, the news media is filled with black holes and conspiracy theories, another indication of the sad state of journalism today. Why, for instance, aren’t reporters digging for the ping information for the hours before 8:11? That information would be quite useful in determining at least how far the plane could have traveled after it went off radar.
USA TODAY just reported this from a news conference a few within the last hour,
This was stated in the past hour prior to verifying any MH370 debris from the Southern Ocean.
I think, if the plane is verified to have crashed in the Southern Ocean by identification of its debris there, then this looks like a planned human act (whether successfully achieving its goals or botched) and not an accident.
John
The Keystone Kops of Kuala Lumpur have made the tragedy of MH370 far more painful than it already was, with their constantly changing series of scenarios.
The media with all their “experts” have not made matters any better.
Now that all efforts are focused on the deep Indian Ocean scenario, the only thing that will satisfy will be recovery of the black boxes to settle, once and for all, what happened.
@David Schofield. actually what you have are a few items of information of highly dubious accuracy and a whole lot of hypotheses, some reasonable many completely crazy. As you point out it’s speculation. Nothing against reasonable speculation, but some of the conspiracy theories aired on here and other sites do nothing but support Lewandowsky.
http://washington.cbslocal.com/2014/03/24/high-tech-us-military-search-plane-finds-nothing-in-indian-ocean-after-chinese-plane-spots-suspicious-objects/
He’s basing this statement on new analysis of the satellite ‘ping’ data from the aircraft engines, not from identification of any wreckage or debris.
Jumping the gun?
/Mr Lynn
@John Whitman
I think, if the plane is verified to have crashed in the Southern Ocean by identification of its debris there, then this looks like a planned human act (whether successfully achieving its goals or botched) and not an accident.
The Inmarsat data also suggested that the plane did not alter altitude, and simply turned and flew south. The most likely explanation which is consistent with this news item is a sudden cockpit fire, as happened with a similar EgyptAir 777. Such a fire might allow pilots time to adjust course, but might drive them from the cockpit before any communication could take place, and might also cut power to automatic reporting services. If the crew and passengers then succumbed to fumes or hypoxia as the fire burned through the aircraft skin, MH370 would just continue on the preset course..
Dodgy Geezer says: March 24, 2014 at 3:07 am
… The pilot is in control of all system circuit breakers, so he can probably disable deployment of the passenger masks if he wishes. In any case the mask deployment must be able to be disabled for testing the pressure detection circuits.
I thought that the cabin staff had portable oxygen equipment, which they would need to do their work properly. However, these would be short-lived and the flight-deck door is reinforced. And, of course, if the mask deployment and warnings are disabled, they would never know to put the masks on before they fell unconscious…
The pilots can’t disable the passenger oxygen system. It triggers on high cabin altitude, then pressurizes the lines which pop the masks out. We have a light up front that says the masks deployed, and that’s about it.
There are portable bottles for walk-around use, but the flight attendants also use the same oxygen system that the pilots use.
Here are the panels and controls that the pilot would use to depressurize the aircraft:
The pilot would first turn off the left and right air conditioning packs using the square button switches-
http://www.meriweather.com/flightdeck/777/over/air.html
Then he would open the forward and aft outflow valves by clicking the two square button switches, then toggling the two valves to the open position.
http://www.meriweather.com/flightdeck/777/over/bleed.html
Then he would helplessly look at the “Pass Oxygen” light that came on when the automatic system dropped the passenger masks. There is no on/off control for the system.
http://www.meriweather.com/flightdeck/777/over/heat.html
Rapid decompression in a 777 isn’t exactly rapid. The outflow valves are a couple square feet in size, but the cabin has a huge volume of air.
Here’s the circuit breaker panel where you could disable other items:
http://www.meriweather.com/flightdeck/777/aft-777.html
Back in the last century, I was climbing out of Guadalajara in a 727 when we blew a cabin door seal. Not dangerous, but extremely noisy. The cabin altitude started climbing, so we turned back to the airport, but the minimum enroute altitude over the mountains was above the passenger oxygen trigger, so we had to watch the light come on before we could descend to land. After we landed, we opened the cockpit door to see the masks. The term rubber jungle comes to mind. The subsequent unscheduled layover in Guadalajara was fun for us, but the mechanics were up all night stuffing 150 oxygen masks back up into the overhead panels.
.
Konrad says: March 24, 2014 at 12:35 am
… no pilot planning your scenario would attempt it. The reason is even though oxygen systems are better for pilots, they have limited efficacy at that altitude. Water vapour filling the lungs prevents oxygen being much use at this altitude. If a pilot were planing such an action, any altitude above 30,000′ would do. No need to climb.
At high altitudes, the pilots’ oxygen system supplies 100% oxygen at positive pressure, enough to force the oxygen into the bloodstream. Your lungs fill up without effort, then you have to affirmatively exhale, sort of the reverse of how we normally breathe.
.
Latitude says: March 24, 2014 at 6:47 am
I can’t help but think the planes computers were hacked from the ground. … Pilots didn’t know tracking was turned off when they made their last verbal contact, oxygen masks were reconfigured to read 5000 ft at 50,000 feet so they didn’t deploy (not turned off, reconfigured which you can do with a hack), plane navigates to known waypoints (exactly what you would have to do from the ground), etc
The oxygen system isn’t attached to the computer. A change in altitude requires pilot permission, and any turn can be overridden by the pilots.
The absolute maximum altitude at which a pilot can fly without a pressure suit but with supplemental O2 is called the Armstrong Limit. This is the altitude (about 63k ft) at which water at body temperature would boil. Even so, pressure suits are recommended for flights at above 49k ft.
See: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/research/AirSci/ER-2/pshis.html
So, with supplemented O2 supply, flying a depressurized 777 at 45k ft for 30 minutes should be quite do-able. As for flight characteristics of the 777, the plane could probably fly safely at 45k ft anyway since the FAA had certified it for 40k ft – there would always be a significant margin for safety. The same should probably be true of the cabin pressurization system, so the whole idea of the plane going to 45k ft to asphyxiate its passengers seems a non-sequitor, since it would have been equally effective if the cabin was depressurized at the nominal flight altitude
How is it that this is never mentioned as a possible motive? It’s well-known that passengers from Huawei and ZTE were on board. Both Chinese companies have specifically been declared U.S. national security threats for spying and connections to the Chinese military. Oh, and
selling technology to Iran. There were 20 employees from Freescale Semiconductors a U.S. Dept. of Defense contractor) on board as well. Read this from the New York Times and process how threatening these Chinese spies are for the U.S.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/09/us/us-panel-calls-huawei-and-zte-national-security-threat.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
@Mike McMillan and Dodgy
Mike:”Depressurization can be done by opening the outflow valves and cutting off the air conditioning packs, but that would drop the passenger masks, good for 20 minutes at least, and it would get really cold, so you get cell phones again. The flight attendants are on the same oxygen system as the pilots, so they’d survive and squawk no matter what.”
Thanks for thre expert opinions. I don’t agree with Konrad’s 3 minutes at 45,000 ft but I agree with yours. RE the cell phones: I checked to see the distances involved and at the point where the turn was made, cell communication was not possible. I am not clear if it would have been possible within the lifetime of the O2 packs. Probably not. Someone trying to use a cell phone after 20-30 minutes on a mask is unlikely to find service based on where they started. People climb to the top of Mt Everest without O2 but would not survive at 45,000 ft. Cold, people would cope with, especially for 20 minutes.
On the other hand I agree that the cockpit fire scenario is more plausible than a pilot wiping out the passengers. Maintenance issue? People have too much complacent confidence in complex modern machinery. But if it was a piloted aircraft with a ditching end as the goal, getting rid of the passengers early would have been a move to prevent someone working out how to get through the cockpit door.
The flight path seems to have headed for Jakarta. Could the pilot have done a quick look-up in a smoke-filled seat and picked Jakarta by mistake instead of Kuala Lumpur (which is alphabetically close) and flipped to auto-pilot? The climb could have been initiated to try to put out a fire (oxygen starvation) whether in the hold or the cockpit – standard procedure. There are lots of cargoes that cause fires. Remember the Helderberg and the ammonium perchlorate story. The aircraft depressurised and dived, not climbed.
“The ‘smoke evacuation’ checklist calls for the aircraft to be depressurised, and for two of the cabin doors to be opened. No evidence exists that the checklist was followed, or the doors opened. A crew member might have gone into the cargo hold to try to fight the fire. A charged fire extinguisher was later recovered from the wreckage on which investigators found molten metal”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_African_Airways_Flight_295
But none of that explains turning off the transponders manually.
– – – – – – – –
Dodgy Geezer,
This is a challenging mystery.
I think it is a planned human act (whether it achieved its goals or was bungled) and not an accident based the evidence that after last voice contact with MH370 at 1:19 am Mar 8 there were two drama course changes which occurred more than 2 hours apart. The first dramatic course change was an ~120 degree left turn to a heading of approximately west-southwest that occurred at little after 1:21 am (1:21 am is the time the transponder stopped transmitting). Military radar then about two hours later spots the plane several hundreds of miles to the west a little north of the Strait of Malacca. In that very general area or further west there is another dramatic course change of an ~90 degree left turn on an approximately south-southwest heading to the vast empty Indian Ocean toward nothing.
If the fire occurred at the time of the second course change then what were the crew doing for several after the first course change? They did not do any redirect to an airport or ‘help me’ kind of manuevers.
In addition, there is a problem if one argues that the pilot or co-pilot, before they were disabled by a fire around the time of the first dramatic course change, managed to reprogram the auto pilot to automatically make the second dramatic turn which happened several hours later. The problem is the second dramatic course change was a strange one because it was away from help or hope to the south-southwest toward the vast empty South Indian Ocean. Why would they program that before they became disabled?
I do not think the black box, if found, will tell the story of what happened during the first critical dramatic course change over the South China Sea because I think the box only records the last ~2 hrs of flight deck info and communications. The plane, if it did go down in the Southern Ocean, went down more than 3 hours later. But, on the other hand, if found it might tell us if there was rational human activity on the instrumentation /controls or crew member communication in the flight cabin right before it crashed . . . . if there was then it is a very chilling thought.
John
I doubt the following has any significant role, but it might be worth mentioning. The location off the coast of Australia is pretty close to Beijing with a negative latitude value.
– – – – – – – – – –
Crispin in Waterloo,
If by manually turning off the transponder you mean someone just reached over to the switch on the pilot’s normal display console to turn it off, then that would not be supportive of the fire / accident theory but would support the malicious intent theory.
But how can we know that is how the transponder stopped transmitting? Could they tell from the ground control that that is how it was turned off?
Or was it an electrical distribution panel circuit breaker that disabled the transponder? That could support either fire / accident theory or a theory of planned malicious intent. Would one be able to tell from the ground control if it was by de-energizing the electric distribution panel?
John
Mike McMillan says:
March 24, 2014 at 1:02 pm
“At high altitudes, the pilots’ oxygen system supplies 100% oxygen at positive pressure, enough to force the oxygen into the bloodstream. Your lungs fill up without effort, then you have to affirmatively exhale, sort of the reverse of how we normally breathe.”
———————————————————-
Fair point, I had forgotten that the flight crew masks were positive pressure not demand. (It was over 8 years ago when I went through the manuals when building the 777 cockpit for “superman returns”)
The issue of temperature still remains. Air temp could drop below -50C at that altitude. Crispin was suggesting an extended stay at that altitude. This seems very unlikely to be a planned action.
As a former 777 pilot do you feel that “coffin corner” would be adequately handled in simulator software?
If they had turned off their transponder before speaking with ground, wouldn’t the ground controllers say “who are you?” since their ID code would be absent?
And don’t Global Express aircraft fly at 50,000ft?
@John Whitman – good point about the voice/data recorders…hadn’t thought about the time loop.
Discouraging as I’d had hope it would solve the mystery if/when found.
For me I’d be demanding that all previous and most recent maintenance records be scoured and scoured again. Based on Malaysian gov’s of handling things – leaves me in doubt about their competency in this arena all together.
I don’t believe that anybody would fly the unlucky plane – and passengers – to the middle of nowhere deliberately. Or that the plane would fly there by itself, after developing a huge problem exactly at the border crossing between Malaysian and Vietnamese airspace.
It is a rescuer’s duty to cover the search area, however unlikely it is. But I suspect the northern route more. True, there are military radars there, but it was around midnight, the best crews were probably not on duty, and no military boasts of a failure to detect a huge aircraft.
Just looked up the airport codes: Kuala Lumpar = KUL
Jakarta = CJK
Opps – translation error – Jakarta should be CGK
I don’t know how long they were up that high, but the temperature drop would certainly persuade me to descend. We never took the flight sim up above the certified limit altitude, so we never ran the coffin corner scenario. Even at that, a full stall would merely point the nose down and get you back in the flight envelope within a few thousand feet. The 777 is so aerodynamically clean it recovers flying speed very quickly.
I don’t think the cockpit fire theory is likely. The EgyptAir fire was on the ground, at the jetway, and was caused by an electrical glitch and electrically conductive oxygen lines. The safety board recommended inspection and replacing the lines with non-conductive material, so I’m sure that’s been ordered done on all 777’s. If it did happen, that would have brought the plane down in the Gulf of Thailand, not the Indian Ocean.
Fire is the one thing pilots don’t mess around with. It’s land at the nearest capable airstrip, regardless. The flight display for the pilots will have the nearest emergency airport highlighted, changing as you fly along your route. Re-routing directly to it is a simple matter of punching a couple buttons.
I’m guessing a political, not religious, suicide, trying to embarrass the current Malaysian government.
My heart goes out to kin and friends of the lost, and to those on ships searching the most cold, stormy, rough and miserable quarter of the bounding main.
[‘Mark and two cats’ comment was stupidly insensitive and has been removed – Mod]
————
My post was not about the passengers, rather it was an admittedly cynical comment about the Chinese propensity for technology theft.
It was certainly not intended to upset anyone, but as it appears that it did, I apologise.
I suppose you already know but the air search did find debris, but has been called off because of the weather in the area, but the American ship is ready to find the black boxes. As far as the suicide accusations, I think we should find out what the black boxes reveal.
Seems funny but the Chinese found debris yesterday from the air, then the Australians RAAF somewhere else. The Chinese have been silent seems there is some political stunt going on with the media of both sides. Those roaring forties is a high wind and waves area. So I don’t know how this will affect a big ship? Maybe recovery might be harder, but I was in a storm in the Bay of Biscay, and we had huge waves, it was frightening as the ship had no stablilizers, the old Dunera troop ship. When the ship was down in lowest point of the swell, the waves were at least higher than the ship very much higher. So six or seven metres to a larger boat would be manageable.