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.
Katie….
Read what you wrote. You say “pings”. Plural !
They say “ping”.
I believe what you wrote (pings) is correct. Not one. More than one.
Sorry , the last line got cut.
‘So,only when we sleuths asked if the ‘pings’ could continue if the aircraft had landed…did it become clear that they could & that the plane may not have flown very far at all.’
No James, there were 5 pings if I remember rightly. .
‘Malaysian authorities believe they have several “pings” from the airliner’s service data system, known as ACARS, transmitted to satellites in the four to five hours after the last transponder signal, suggesting the plane flew to the Indian Ocean, a senior U.S. official told CNN.’
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/03/13/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-plane/
More on ‘pings’.
“It’s not clear what the indication was, but senior administration officials told ABC News the missing Malaysian flight continued to “ping” a satellite on an hourly basis after it lost contact with radar. The Boeing 777 jetliners are equipped with what is called the Airplane Health Management system in which they ping a satellite every hour. The number of pings would indicate how long the plane stayed aloft.’
http://abcnews.go.com/International/malaysia-airliner-pinging-indication-crashed-indian-ocean/story?id=22894802
James; The ascent to 45k “coffin corner’ (was it revised to 43?) and the rapid descent…..G-forces extant would disable crew, no?
Katie
Then that indicates the Malaysians authorities cannot be trusted at all !
As in…
They must have spoken to the US authorities and confirmed that flight data was transmitting (which I suspect to be true) or the US “own” the satellite !
BUT the US could not “suggest” where it flew to.
That would be impossible given that the “transponder was turned off”.
Unless they have a primary radar track ? Or just guessing ? Or “know” ?
From all of this, we can say that the a/c was “health” at that time.
And I suspect “flying”.
Ben
I fly higher ! But in a different a/c.
I have not got a clue why he went that high.
Thinner air maybe, decrease your burn rate ?
Hypoxia fuelled climb ?
Systems failure ?
I have no idea.
Oddly they had a track !
What they don’t say is, primary radar does have “calcs”.
It has “interceptions calcs”. Even without a correct transponder “ping” or a correct IFF, you can track an intercept. That is after all the whole point.
” ACARS will be superseded by the Aeronautical Telecommunications Network (ATN) protocol for Air Traffic Control communications and by the Internet Protocol for airline communications.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_Communications_Addressing_and_Reporting_System
ATN supercedes ACARS/FANS when?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_Air_Navigation_System
“In the early 1990s, the Boeing company announced a first generation FANS product known as FANS-1. This was based on the early ICAO technical work for automatic dependent surveillance (ADS) and controller–pilot data link communications (CPDLC), and implemented as a software package on the flight management computer of the Boeing 747-400. It used existing satellite based ACARS communications (Inmarsat Data-2 service) and was targeted at operations in the South Pacific Oceanic region. The deployment of FANS-1 was originally justified by improving route choice and thereby reducing fuel burn.
The datalink control and display unit (DCDU) on an Airbus A330, the pilot interface for sending and receiving CPDLC messages.
A similar product (FANS-A) was later developed by Airbus for the A340 and A330. Boeing also extended the range of aircraft supported to include the Boeing 777 and 767. Together, the two products are collectively known as FANS-1/A. The main industry standards describing the operation of the FANS-1/A products are ARINC 622 and EUROCAE ED-100/RTCA DO-258. Both the new Airbus A380 and Boeing 787 have FANS-1/A capability”
James; It may have been fiction but I remember a movie where the pilot had to go into a steep dive to put out engine fire. Can’t remember the name of the WWII movie (B-17). But he was already at 35k, so like you say, if he was seeking thinner air.
P.S.
Ben
When it comes to “Carriers”…they want to avoid “legals” as much as possible.
Do I trust them !!!!!
Not a chance !
Also; Eliminating cockpit chaos, how hard is it to send out a MAYDAY !
James, what do you think of them saying the plane dropped to 5,000ft to avoid radar detection, not only does that put a strain on the aircraft but surely that’s a mountainous region & therefore highly dangerous.
As Pakistan,India,Bangladesh all said [ we are told] they didn’t have any sign on their radar, it cannot be true.
So more questions of where could they fly to at the height of 5,000ft, over the sea,which means surely they are searching in the wrong direction ?
Aha ! It was BASED on a true story…Memphis Belle. No accounting for details.
Ben
No need to do that these days ! (Smiley face button).
Plus, if there was an dual shut down, your air ram will pop out.
Enough for “pan pan pan”.
Job done. Position given.
Hey james; If you want a smiley face…. colon/right Parentheses 🙂
Ben
Check out the South African 747 with a fire onboard (not engine).
That will surprise you !
But engine fires are not a problem. You get “paid” then.
Katie
5000 over sea, that’s “okay”.
5000 “in the mountains”…in an airline ! Scary !
Ben
Me like 🙂
Ben
19 Mar, 2014 – 7:32 pm by the same token it means they were monitoring the relevant area. It just depends on what the satellite is set up for. Just hot spots or other indicators as well. Of course that’s an area SSST was specialist in. In practice we know US strategic thinker have moved their focus of interest to the Indian Ocean. Obama confirmed it. All to do with perceived increased military threat from China added to sabre rattling over the disputed rock outcrops with the Japanese. Throw in N.Korea, an errant Chinese dependant, both with nuclear capability and I suppose you can see why. So China has deployed eleven satellites in the search it is said. Now how does that work when they are in fixed orbit and pre-programmed? And if China has 11 that can search, how many have the Americans (leaving aside the Europeans, Russians and others) got. I don’t doubt for one moment they have pictures of the passengers of MH370 waving out the windows. Nor have the naval assets been discussed. Just the Americans have the third (four carrier based strike groups) and seventh (22 vessels) fleets there, each vessel with huge anti-aircraft radar capability that augments land based facilities. “We have no idea what happened to the plane” MUST be a lie. If that little detail is unreliable I certainly wouldn’t trust any story that seeks either directly or by inference to implicate the flight crew.
Tim;
” Now how does that work when they are in fixed orbit and pre-programmed?”
My understanding is that they can be diverted from the program, but it is very expensive.
Not that MILSPEC isn’t a synonym for budget overkill, and thrice redundant back-up.
Techno: “I wonder whether this is a spy agency – like the CIA – sending a message to another party – China’s government – saying: Look What We Can Do. We can make a plane with your citizens on it – including semiconductor engineers – disappear”.
If you get the message, so do the Chinese, one would assume. problem is even the CIA would not resort to doing away with this many people of so many nationalities, just to “prove the point”. Especially a point that can be proven with far less loss of life.
OTOH, it is possible that there was some kind of a gambit to take over the plane but it failed. Somehow, I don’t think this is likely at this time. The technology is not there yet, especially when it comes to the interfaces with airplane hardware. Not that a cyber attack could not do some damage and perhaps that is what happened.
I just don’t think that flying a boeing remotely is on the same level as flying a drone. The electronic capabilities may be there, but the civilian airplanes are not equipped as of yet for remote piloting to be practical. We’ll know such capability has been reached when we hear of remote piloting of certain military craft that are equipped to carry people.
Fly-by-wire is an onboard function, as I’ve seen from published works. Remote control is outside the present realm but I would expect our best and brightest recruits could be ahead of the learning curve. Orientation, especially at night, makes flying remote control model planes difficult, but not impossible.
@Tim @Ben
The only satellites in fixed orbit are the Geo-synchronous ones, at an altitude of 35,786 kilometres (22,236 mi) above the Earth’s equator. They’re generally used for communications, satellite TV, etc.
Surveillance and spy satellites are at much lower orbits, approx. 150 miles as I recall, with various orientations — mostly polar — and periods, so they view the earth as a series of strips, roughly every one-and-half hours apart.
Some of the spy satellites can be repositioned to concentrate on areas of interest.
http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/international/2014-03-18/malaysia-airlines-plane-area-in-mh370-search-now-larger-than-australia/1281410
“Investigators believe it was diverted by someone with deep knowledge of the Boeing 777-200ER and commercial navigation…”
No cite, and I would like to know who those are.
How long a list of those with deep knowledge? Start interviewing them.
NR;
Early warning; heat signature…day or night.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-Based_Infrared_System
(DSP). The Defense Support Program is a strategic surveillance and early warning satellite system with an infrared capability to detect long-range ballistic missile launches, and has been operational for over 30 years.:
I thought I might remind people of this… http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2013/04/shame-lies-and-secrecy-on-diego-garcia/
From the 1st comment in Guardian on the execrable and hypocritical environmentalism, Craig.
“Whats the strategic value?
What’s been parked on there in the interim?
Whats halfway being parked on there but its not finished yet?
Is anyone else (apart from dark skinned islanders who presumably don’t count) going to move in, who they don’t want to move in, once they fuck off?
The answers there somewhere.”
Yes. The answer is always and perpetually somewhere.
The Sultan of Brunei is one of the world’s richest men and he regularly parks his jumbo at Heathrow to hob-nob with the Queen. Brunei is completely dependent on the oil elite to extract his oil, i.e. UKUSKoreaIraq petroglobals , and completely dependent on the global zio-mafia to protect his gotten gains.
If I was an Al Qaida/USUKIS/NWO tycoon/jihadi terrierist looking for a bit of ready dosh or regime change, I’d be landing my hostages at Brunei with a few marines and waiting for a very big bank draft before flying them to their chosen destinations.
What is one supposed to do when the royal corgis raise their royal legs against the royal Brunei handbag? Smile sweetly and send to Harrods for another one.
“What if it was an experiment to test what ‘could’ be done with a 777 by remote ,with all those techie geeks on board it’s possible, maybe not probable,but then they couldn’t get it back on track ?”
Too complicated. It’s much simpler than that.
The CIA would just offer the pilots more money than they could possibly imagine if they followed the instructions they were given to the letter and keep their mouths shut.
The CIA just gets people to do what they want by offering to pay them for their cooperation and silence. It’s how it’s always worked.
“problem is even the CIA would not resort to doing away with this many people of so many nationalities, just to “prove the point””
I’m not so sure. This is the agency that engineered a successful coup in Iran in the 1950s, and tried to overthrow Castro in the 1960s. And they’re the ones we know about.
If China is the next great superpower, it would be a grave threat to the dominance of the United States. There really is no precedence for this in the modern era.
“I just don’t think that flying a boeing remotely is on the same level as flying a drone.”
Why do people insist in this idea of “flying remotely”? You just buy the pilots off. Offer them a big annual income for the rest of their lives if they do what they’re told on one occasion, disappear to a new place with a new identity and keep their mouths shut. It has always been done this way.
On the other hand, it could have just crashed.
This from the Telegraph:
“16.52 The pilots of the vanished Malaysian Airlines fight were not hijackers and are likely to have died trying to save the aircraft from an onboard fire, an expert in the Lockerbie trial has said.
Billie Vincent, the former head of security at the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA), said he believed MH370 diverted off course in a desperate bid to reach safe harbour as the cabin filled with smoked.
“As opposed to being hijackers, the crew were heroically trying to save the airplane, themselves and the passengers when this catastrophe hit,” he told The Telegraph.
Mr Vincent was a key witness in the civil trial that followed the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, where families successfully sued Pan Am for $500 million in compensation.
The former air traffic controller said he believed MH370 had suffered a “catastrophic event” that filled the cabin with smoke or noxious fumes shortly after the pilots made final contact with ground control at 1.19am on March 8.
Mr Vincent, who helped Malaysia install security procedures at Kuala Lumpur airport, said smoke could have been caused by an electrical fire, hazardous materials in the cargo hold or a small bomb that failed to destroy the aircraft.”
Pure speculation – what if the aircraft was headed on a course to DG and seen as hostile incoming?