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The Case of the Missing Airbus

MMike

MMike

A fowl peckerwood.
Sep 5, 2001
18,207
105
just sittin' here drinkin' scotch
Well Im not going to claim any expertise as I am not a pilot. All I will say though is that I just submitted a flight test plan to transport Canada a few days ago that includes a section for airspeed calibration. We will be ensuring that the standard aircraft airspeed instrumentation will match the gps ground speed (within reason). This will be in a bell 412.

I've done this test once before and the gps speed indication is pretty accurate. So I really don't know what to say. Of course the airplane's systems most likely run off the the indicated airspeed, and don't even consider the gps. But I'm just speculating.

But wow. Gives me chills reading that.
 
c101aviojet

c101aviojet

Monkey
Oct 30, 2010
178
1
...where the sky is blue below and dark above...
That transcript had me on the edge of the chair. I guess they didn't believe what was coming at all. :shocked:

This next video is a bit "excessive" (a RC plane with automatic stabilization and ~2:1 thrust to weight ratio it's far from a typical airliner), but I think it gives the general idea of what happened:
With my very basic aviation knowledge, it seems to me that the crash was something like:
full power + high wing angle = stalled drop with slow forward airspeed.

Apart from confusion and/or nervous crisis, I can't think of a single reason why would any pilot pull back during the whole maneuver (that's like hitting steep hill with the bike and switching to a bigger ring). But that just seems the biggest fail of a chain of errors between humans and machine.
Why was the captain taking a nap while approaching a storm? Was he taking a mandatory rest perhaps?
Why didn't the pilots mention a single word about the the stall warnings (which are specially designed to be "annoying")? Or even talk to each other about what to do?
Why didn't they double-check the instruments (radar, airspeed, etc.) and activate anti icing devices before entering a region known for it's consistently adverse weather?
What is the advantatge of having an averaged control input? At a certain point, one pilot tried to correct the pitch, but having the other stick locked back the whole time, it was impossible to put it nose down.

Reading the notes, I have the feeling that the pilots were terribly confused about the plane's attitude, but once they started to realise they were ****ed up, they got far too nervous to "think" well.
 
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spam16v

spam16v

Monkey
Oct 27, 2004
284
0
Buffalo, NY
If the black boxes that contain the flight recorder are designed to survive any crash, why don't they make the whole plane out of what the black box is made of?
 
$tinkle

$tinkle

Expert on blowing
Feb 12, 2003
14,591
6
who'du thunk 200 browns would be raptured? the american church is very confused...
 
StiHacka

StiHacka

Compensating for something
Jan 4, 2013
21,560
12,510
In hell. Welcome!
My take: flight plan violation -> Chinese shoot it down -> CIA knows, is helping with cover-up, trading it for favors (with Russkies / Ukraine)

Crazy enough?
 
valve bouncer

valve bouncer

Master Dildoist
Feb 11, 2002
7,843
114
Japan
Pesqueeb said:
:crazy:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-15/malaysia-sets-new-search-zone-as-flight-deliberately-diverted.html
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Asked whether Australia had picked up any signals consistent with the aircraft on its Jindalee Operational Radar Network, which covers large swathes of the southern Indian Ocean, Leonie Kolmar, a spokeswoman for the Australian Defence Department, said the department “won’t be providing comment” on the military surveillance system.
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Rumour has it that Jindalee can "see" stealth aircraft among other capabilities. Suffice is to say that if MH370 came down the west coast Jindalee would certainly have seen it.
More tinfoil (this story is a gold mine)- the projected range that MH370 could have flown extends as far as Diego Garcia as Bloomberg's map so extraordinarily renders.
 
Pesqueeb

Pesqueeb

bicycle in airplane hangar
Feb 2, 2007
42,339
19,846
Riding past the morgue.
Found this via Reddit. He makes a very compelling argument.

MH370 A different point of view. Pulau Langkawi 13,000 runway.

A lot of speculation about MH370. Terrorism, hijack, meteors. I cannot believe the analysis on CNN - almost disturbing. I tend to look for a more simple explanation of this event.

Loaded 777 departs midnight from Kuala to Beijing. Hot night. Heavy aircraft. About an hour out across the gulf towards Vietnam the plane goes dark meaning the transponder goes off and secondary radar tracking goes off.

Two days later we hear of reports that Malaysian military radar (which is a primary radar meaning the plane is being tracked by reflection rather than by transponder interrogation response) has tracked the plane on a southwesterly course back across the Malay Peninsula into the straits of Malacca.

When I heard this I immediately brought up Google Earth and I searched for airports in proximity to the track towards southwest.

The left turn is the key here. This was a very experienced senior Captain with 18,000 hours. Maybe some of the younger pilots interviewed on CNN didn't pick up on this left turn. We old pilots were always drilled to always know the closest airport of safe harbor while in cruise. Airports behind us, airports abeam us and airports ahead of us. Always in our head. Always. Because if something happens you don't want to be thinking what are you going to do - you already know what you are going to do. Instinctively when I saw that left turn with a direct heading I knew he was heading for an airport. Actually he was taking a direct route to Palau Langkawi a 13,000 foot strip with an approach over water at night with no obstacles. He did not turn back to Kuala Lampur because he knew he had 8,000 foot ridges to cross. He knew the terrain was friendlier towards Langkawi and also a shorter distance.

Take a look on Google Earth at this airport. This pilot did all the right things. He was confronted by some major event onboard that made him make that immediate turn back to the closest safe airport.
For me the loss of transponders and communications makes perfect sense if a fire. There was most likely a fire or electrical fire. In the case of fire the first response if to pull all the main busses and restore circuits one by one until you have isolated the bad one.


If they pulled the busses the plane indeed would go silent. It was probably a serious event and they simply were occupied with controlling the plane and trying to fight the fire. Aviate, Navigate and lastly communicate. There are two types of fires. Electrical might not be as fast and furious and there might or might not be incapacitating smoke. However there is the possibility given the timeline that perhaps there was an overheat on one of the front landing gear tires and it blew on takeoff and started slowly burning. Yes this happens with underinflated tires. Remember heavy plane, hot night, sea level, long run takeoff. There was a well known accident in Nigeria of a DC8 that had a landing gear fire on takeoff. A tire fire once going would produce horrific incapacitating smoke. Yes, pilots have access to oxygen masks but this is a no no with fire. Most have access to a smoke hood with a filter but this will only last for a few minutes depending on the smoke level. (I used to carry one of my own in a flight bag and I still carry one in my briefcase today when I fly).

What I think happened is that they were overcome by smoke and the plane just continued on the heading probably on George (autopilot) until either fuel exhaustion or fire destroyed the control surfaces and it crashed. I said four days ago you will find it along that route - looking elsewhere was pointless.

This pilot, as I say, was a hero struggling with an impossible situation trying to get that plane to Langkawi. No doubt in my mind. That's the reason for the turn and direct route. A hijack would not have made that deliberate left turn with a direct heading for Langkawi. It would probably have weaved around a bit until the hijackers decided on where they were taking it.

Surprisingly none of the reporters , officials, other pilots interviewed have looked at this from the pilot's viewpoint. If something went wrong where would he go? Thanks to Google earth I spotted Langkawi in about 30 seconds, zoomed in and saw how long the runway was and I just instinctively knew this pilot knew this airport. He had probably flown there many times. I guess we will eventually find out when you help me spread this theory on the net and some reporters finally take a look on Google earth and put 2 and 2 together. Also a look at the age and number of cycles on those nose tires might give us a good clue too.

Fire in an aircraft demands one thing - you get the machine on the ground as soon as possible. There are two well remembered experiences in my memory. The AirCanada DC9 which landed I believe in Columbus Ohio in the eighties. That pilot delayed descent and bypassed several airports. He didn't instinctively know the closest airports. He got it on the ground eventually but lost 30 odd souls. In the 1998 crash of Swissair DC-10 off Nova Scotia was another example of heroic pilots. They were 15 minutes out of Halifax but the fire simply overcame them and they had to ditch in the ocean. Just ran out of time. That fire incidentally started when the aircraft was about an hour out of Kennedy. Guess what the transponders and communications were shut off as they pulled the busses.


Get on Google Earth and type in Pulau Langkawi and then look at it in relation to the radar track heading. 2+2=4 That for me is the simple explanation why it turned and headed in that direction.

Smart pilot. Just didn't have the time.
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Pesqueeb

Pesqueeb

bicycle in airplane hangar
Feb 2, 2007
42,339
19,846
Riding past the morgue.
$tinkle said:
http://marklberry.com/2014/03/16/high-alert-mh370-found/

did someone say :tinfoil:?
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Yea, that's pretty tinfoil-y. Lets assume that even part of that is plausible. 1.: A 777 is a big fvck plane, where do "they" even begin to hide something like that? Never mind the giant strip of concrete you need to land something like that on. 2: The flying bomb "they" are building needs more than 300,000 lbs of fuel to top off. That's a metric fvck ton of fuel someone also has to hide.
jonKranked said:
was talking about this at lunch.

its probably in like, pakistan or some ****
Click to expand...
3: It stretches credibility that someone flew a giant ass civilian airliner into/across some of the most heavily radar scrutinized airspace in the world.
4: The airstrip you would need to launch a fully loaded 777 is going to have to be even bigger (much) than the one you need to land and hide an unladen 777. Again, where not talking about some obscure goat path in the tribal areas of Pakistan.
 
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