Disappearing Aircraft 5652


I had fairly well concluded that the most likely cause was a fire disrupting the electrical and control systems, when CNN now say the sharp left turn was pre-programmed 12 minutes before sign off from Malaysian Air Traffic control, which was followed fairly quickly by that left turn.

CNN claim to have this from an US official, from data sent back before the reporting systems went off.  It is hard to know what to make of it: obviously there are large economic interests that much prefer blame to lie with the pilots rather than the aircraft.  But if it is true then the move was not a response to an emergency.  (CNN went on to say the pilot could have programmed in the course change as a contingency in case of an emergency.  That made no sense to me at all – does it to anyone else?)

I still find it extremely unlikely that the plane landed or crashed on land  I cannot believe it could evade military detection as it flew over a highly militarized region.  Somewhere there is debris on the ocean.  There have been previous pilot suicides that took the plane with them; but the long detour first seems very strange and I do not believe is precedented.  However if the CNN information on pre-programming is correct, and given it was the co-pilot who signed off to air traffic control, it is hard to look beyond the pilots as those responsible for whatever did happen.  In fact, on consideration, the most improbable thing is that information CNN are reporting from the US official.


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5,652 thoughts on “Disappearing Aircraft

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  • michael norton

    Incidents and accidents FOR 777

    As of October 2015, the 777 has been in 14 aviation accidents and incidents, including four hull-loss accidents, one hull-loss due to criminal act, and three hijackings, for a total of 540 fatalities. Before 2013, the only fatality involving the twinjet occurred in a refueling fire at Denver International Airport on September 5, 2001, during which a ground worker had sustained fatal burns. The aircraft, operated by British Airways, suffered fire damage to the lower wing panels and engine housing; it was later repaired and returned to service.

    The type’s first hull-loss occurred on January 17, 2008, when British Airways Flight 38,
    a 777-200ER with Rolls-Royce Trent 895 engines flying from Beijing to London, crash-landed approximately 1,000 feet short of Heathrow Airport’s runway 27L and slid onto the runway’s threshold. There were 47 injuries and no fatalities. The impact damaged the landing gear, wing roots and engines. The aircraft was written off. Upon investigation, the accident was blamed on ice crystals from the fuel system clogging the fuel-oil heat exchanger (FOHE). Two other minor momentary losses of thrust with Trent 895 engines occurred in 2008. Investigators found these were also caused by ice in the fuel clogging the fuel-oil heat exchanger. As a result, the heat exchanger was redesigned.

    The type’s second hull-loss occurred on July 29, 2011, when EgyptAir Flight 667 a 777-200ER registered as SU-GBP suffered a cockpit fire while parked at the gate at Cairo International Airport. The plane was successfully evacuated with no injuries,[226] and airport fire teams extinguished the fire. The aircraft sustained structural, heat and smoke damage. This aircraft was written off. Investigators focused on a possible electrical fault with a supply hose in the cockpit crew oxygen system.

    The type’s third hull loss and first involving fatalities occurred on July 6, 2013, when Asiana Airlines Flight 214, 777-200ER registered HL7742, crashed while landing at San Francisco International Airport after touching down short of the runway. Surviving passengers and crew evacuated before fire destroyed the aircraft. The crash led to the death of three of the 307 people on board. These were the first fatalities in a crash involving a 777 since entering service in 1995. The NTSB accident investigation concluded in June 2014 that the pilots committed 20 to 30 minor to significant errors in their final approach, and that complexities of the automated controls contributed to the accident.

    On March 8, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, 777-200ER registered 9M-MRO, carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew, en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing was reported missing. Air Traffic Control’s last reported coordinates for the aircraft were over the South China Sea at 6°55′15″N 103°34′43″E. After the search for the aircraft began, Malaysia’s prime minister announced on March 24, 2014 that after analysis of new satellite data it is now to be assumed “beyond reasonable doubt” that the plane was lost and there were no survivors.As of July 2015, the cause remains unknown, but the Malaysian Government declared it was an accident in January 2015.[237][238] On July 29, 2015 an aircraft piece was found on the French island of Réunion. The piece was sent to France where it was later identified as the flaperon of a Boeing 777. On August 5, 2015 Malaysian authorities confirmed that the piece was in fact from Flight 370.

    On July 17, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, a 777-200ER registered 9M-MRD, bound for Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam broke up in mid-air and crashed in Donetsk province in eastern Ukraine, after being hit by an anti-aircraft missile. The formal accident investigation began in July 2014; the official report was expected to be ready by mid-2015. The incident has been linked to the ongoing Donbass insurgency in that region. All 298 people (283 passengers and 15 crew) on board were killed.

    On September 8, 2015, British Airways Flight 2276, a 777-200ER registered G-VIIO, caught fire during take-off at Las Vegas McCarran International Airport after a General Electric GE90-85B engine suffered a serious uncontained engine failure. Take-off was aborted and all crew and passengers were evacuated with only minor injuries occurring. Investigators discovered that the engine case had ‘multiple breaches’.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_777#Incidents_and_accidents

  • Q

    The weakest link is solder? Would welders know anything about that? A nuclear welder met up with a mechanical engineer who had worked on an Airbus A320 galley, several of which have caught fire…oh, sorry, wrong thread.

  • YouKnowMyName

    Interesting idea I don’t know if it was you who posted
    at PPrune but someone did respond to a question on solder.
    post 3454

    No that wasn’t me, but I know where they trained! We had a big boss who was mostly interested in racehorses

    I designed/built/tested things to keep the UK safe, years ago. We fully understood leaded solder ( a 60Sn40Pb soldered connection has four layers on microscopic analysis, the fourth & deepest layer is the one that ensures electrical connections under nearly all circumstances )

    We even went to the trouble, not just to use *real* mil.spec components, but we carefully removed the gold plating from the mil.spec devices that we built into our systems, (gold dissolved into the solder matrix and later promoted the growth of filamentary crystals that caused shorts) , we had a real failure analysis system – and component that failed, anywhere in the world came back to base for a rigorous analysis (Helium pressure chamber, electron microscopy type of analysis) We tested things the size of a tank, seriously vibrated them at various frequencies for hours, whilst at minus 40 centigrade. What looks like a decent electronic system, when driven through its resonance, becomes a mush of flailing wires

    it is worrying that economic pressures, combined with the small market for avionics, means that the EU waste legislation – if even partly at fault – might ‘help’ cause future victims. According to PPrune it’s not mandatory for avionics to use Lead, and it’s harder to find producers who bother with it.

    I have kilos of 62Sn436Pb2Ag stocked at home (my fave mixture)

    now let’s check Wikipedia/Solder

    Lead-free solder has a higher Young’s modulus than lead-based solder, making it more brittle when deformed. When the PCB on which the electronic components are mounted is subject to bending stress due to warping, the solder joint deteriorates and fractures can appear. This effect is called solder cracking.[13] Another fault is Kirkendall voids which are microscopic cavities in solder. When two different types of metal that are in contact are heated, dispersion occurs (see also Kirkendall effect). Repeated thermal cycling cause the formation of voids which tends to cause solder cracks. Lead-free solder can cause short life cycles of products, as well as planned obsolescence.[13]

    Ref 13 is https://product.tdk.com/info/en/techlibrary/archives/techjournal/vol05_mlcc/contents06.html

    which website is down due to ‘overload’ but has these comments:

    Conventional solder, which is an alloy of tin and lead, has a low melting point, is inexpensive and easy to work with, but it is also an environmental pollutant that is harmful to humans. Therefore different types of lead-free solder composed of tin (Sn), silver (Ag), and Copper (Cu) or similar but no lead are now being used as a replacement. However, lead-free solder has a higher Young’s modulus than conventional lead-based solder, making it more susceptible to expansion and contraction, and it is also harder and more brittle. Therefore, when the printed circuit board on which the chip components are mounted is subject to bending stress due to warping or other influences, the solder joint deteriorates and cracks can appear. This phenomenon is called solder cracking.

    Another defect that can occur with lead-free soldering is the so-called Kirkendall voids which are microscopic cavities, also causing reduced cohesion. When two different types of metal that are in close contact are heated, atomic dispersion occurs. After the name of the scientist who discovered it, the effect is known as the Kirkendall effect. As the speed of the dispersion differs depending on the type of atom, repeated thermal cycling involving heating and cooling tends to cause the formation of voids which eventually lead to solder cracks. The temperature in the engine compartment of a running car regularly reaches 100 degrees centigrade and higher. This causes populated circuit boards to expand and contract, leading to bending stress that can result in cracks and voids in solder joints, thereby lowering the joint reliability.

    TDK have photo-micrographs of deteriorating solder connections after 1000/2000/3000 temperature/shock cycles

    Does Airbus really need the consumer goldmine of Lead-free solder -> “planned obsolescence” in an aircraft component?

  • Q

    What do you know about Airbus A350 XWB pre-FAL and AREVA TA?

    Would a welder from AREVA’s Ugine operation know anything about AREVA’s Airbus project, and the reasons behind extensive delays?

  • Pink

    The top one of your two links flags up a threat for some reason I assume its a picture of the map .
    Be interesting to see what the chatter will be when it gets noticed.

  • michael norton

    Turkey shoots down Russian bomber over Syria – consequences

    President Vladimir Putin said Turkey’s shooting down of a Russian military jet was a war crime and that the Kremlin would punish Ankara with additional sanctions, signaling fallout from the incident would be long-lasting and serious.

    Minutes after Putin had finished speaking, his energy minister, Alexander Novak, said Russia was halting talks with Ankara on the Turkish Stream gas pipeline, a symbolic move designed to emphasize the strength of Kremlin anger.

    Putin, who made the comments during his annual state of the nation speech to his country’s political elite on Thursday, said Russia would not forget the Nov. 24 incident and that he continued to regard it as a terrible betrayal.

    “We are not planning to engage in military saber-rattling (with Turkey),” said Putin, after asking for a moment’s silence for the two Russian servicemen killed in the immediate aftermath of the incident, and for Russian victims of terrorism.

    “But if anyone thinks that having committed this awful war crime, the murder of our people, that they are going to get away with some measures concerning their tomatoes or some limits on construction and other sectors, they are sorely mistaken.”

    Turkey would have cause to regret its actions “more than once,” he said, promising Russia’s retaliatory actions would be neither hysterical nor dangerous.
    http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/12/03/us-russia-putin-idUKKBN0TM0YF20151203
    The rhetoric Putin used will dash hopes of any early rapprochement and deepen a rift between the two countries.

    “It appears that Allah decided to punish the ruling clique of Turkey by depriving them of wisdom and judgment,” he said.

    Repeating a call for a new broad international coalition against terrorism, Putin, in an overt reference to Turkey, called on countries to avoid “double standards, contacts with any terrorist organizations, and any attempts to use them for their own ends.”

    Turkey has strongly rejected Russian allegations it has any links with Islamic State militants. On Wednesday Russia made it personal, saying Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan’s family was directly profiting from Islamic State oil smuggling.

    Russia has already banned some Turkish food imports, including selected fruit and vegetables, as part of a wider retaliatory sanctions package.

    Nine days after the incident, Moscow and Ankara still have starkly different versions of what happened and Putin is furious Erdogan has not apologized for the episode, something the Turkish leader has said he will not do.

    Turkey insists the SU-24 fighter bomber violated its air space and was warned repeatedly before being shot down. Russia says the plane, which was taking part in the Kremlin’s air campaign against militants in Syria, had not strayed from Syrian air space.

    Erdogan sought a meeting with Putin on the sidelines of a climate change conference in Paris last week, but was snubbed. Nor has the Russian leader taken his phone calls.

  • YouKnowMyName

    Sorry Pink, I accidentally triggered a CDN (content delivery network) ‘problem’

    This server could not prove that it is s.telegraph.co.uk; its security certificate is from a248.e.akamai.net.

    the simple image can equally well be delivered over an HTTP connection

    http://s.telegraph.co.uk/graphics/MobileSwitcher/v2/images/737-1425677513602857387.png

    (the Telegraph/Akamai image request does spawn a very large bunch of metadata, about 1600 characters e.g.Cookie: optimizelyEndUserId= xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx. . . xxxxx as it loads tho’, but that’s also fairly harmless) I run a lot of obfuscation software

    This is the Akamai CDN trace from IPv4 002.18.240.144
    HTTP/1.1 200 OK
    Server: Apache
    ETag: “40129c6ed5f9e7b36b5976bd5eec241d:1425677516”
    Last-Modified: Fri, 06 Mar 2015 21:31:56 GMT
    Accept-Ranges: bytes
    Content-Length: 141204
    Content-Type: image/png
    Date: Thu, 03 Dec 2015 14:16:37 GMT
    Connection: keep-alive

  • Q

    Is today’s news and the announcement that all are confident MH370 will be found very soon more of the same old bravado? Is anyone jumping out of their seats, and is the area in question the same spot that made some jump out of their seats before? I wonder if the discovery of MH370 on the ocean floor will coincide with the Chinese vessel’s arrival at the scene of the crime. China to the rescue!

  • Pink

    @
    YouKnowMyName
    3 Dec, 2015 – 2:35 pm

    No worries I didn’t open it as it threw up a warning I guessed the map was what it was .

  • Q

    So am I correct in understanding that the whole search is based on a lie and sketchy data? Seems like a whole lot of money wasted on a futile exercise just for show (and to prevent lawsuits from surviving family members). They couldn’t just say from the outset that they don’t want to find MH370.

    You could say I’m a cynic, but I would be happy if this charade actually ended with proof positive for the families about what happened to their loved ones.

  • michael norton

    Air strikes on the cards from IRAQ to TURKEY

    Iraq has called on Turkey to “immediately” withdraw troops near the Islamic State-held city of Mosul, saying their presence is a “violation” of international law.

    Some 600 Turkish soldiers and 25 tanks have been sent to Bashiqa in northern Iraq.

    Turkey claims the camp is a “training facility” to support volunteer forces in the fight against terrorism.

    But Iraq’s President Fuad Masum called the move a “violation of international norms, laws and Iraq’s national sovereignty”.

    Hakim al-Zamili, the head of parliament’s security and defence committee, called for airstrikes against Turkish troops if they remained in Iraqi territory.

    http://news.sky.com/story/1600566/iraq-calls-for-withdrawal-of-turkish-troops

  • michael norton

    I wonder why Tayyip Erdogan assumes it is alright for TURKEY to over-fly GREECE, SYRIA and IRAQ,
    why it is O.K. have have troops and tanks adjacent to Mosul,
    yet if a RUSSIAN PLANE clipped a bit of TURKEY ( which until just before WW2 was Syrian)
    for a few seconds they blow it out of the sky ( from behind) then shoot a rescue helicopter up, shoot the pilot as he ejects, then shoot dead a rescuer?

    https://www.rt.com/news/325677-erdogan-iraq-unsc-not-honest/

  • michael norton

    Tayyip Erdogan is trying to provoke a military response from
    the Syrian government, the Iraqi government, the Iranian goverment and the Russian government.

    Presumably this will then lead to NATO being obliged to assist Turkey
    then Erdogan will take control of Northern Iraq and Northern Syria,
    stopping a Kurdish homeland and taking control of the OIL.

    Very dangerous times.

  • michael norton

    Police shot a man dead as they acted to disrupt a suspected plot to break out a key player in an organised crime syndicate from a prison van which was taking him to court for sentencing over firearms offences.

    A 28-year-man was killed on Friday morning by an undercover Scotland Yard firearms officer who fired a single shot on a quiet residential street in Wood Green, north London, as people went to work.

    Detectives tackling organised crime were lying in wait after suspecting a group of men were planning to spring Izzet Eren from a van taking him to Wood Green crown court for sentencing from Wormwood Scrubs prison.

    Eren was arrested in October while travelling through north London riding a motorbike. He and another man were found with a Skorpion machine pistol and a Tokarev 9mm pistol, both of which were loaded.

    Hours after the police shooting, Eren and his accomplice appeared in court and were both sentenced to 14 years’ imprisonment, having pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing.

    The Independent Police Complaints Commission, the police watchdog, is investigating the shooting of the suspect. It said a gun had been found at the scene and it did not belong to the police, a strong indication that the suspect is believed by investigators to have had a weapon.

    http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/dec/11/police-shoot-man-intelligence-led-operation-north-london

    One to watch, I think these people are Turkish, motorcycle 9mm people!

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