Malaysia Airlines loses contact with Flight - 239 pax/crew

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US investigators have apparently released information revealing that the MH370 aircraft continued to send routine maintenance data as part of the operator's engine contract with Rolls Royce. The data was apparently sent in thirty minute increments via a maintenance communication network (presumably terrestrial ACARS) long after all other communication had ceased. By reviewing this data the investigators have determined the aircraft continued flying for up to four hours longer than previously indicated and that this discovery could place the aircraft thousands of miles beyond where most search efforts are currently focused.

Link: http://online.wsj.com/news/article_email/SB10001424052702304914904579434653903086282-lMyQjAxMTA0MDEwMzExNDMyWj

radiusmap.gif


Radius map (via Flyertalk c/o beowl) of estimated aircraft range.

Inner circle is the radius of the distance to original destination;

outer circle is an assumption about radius plus fuel reserves, winds aloft.

This development would create an even more massive and unprecedented search area. It also potentially includes landing sites in countries with poor security and pseudo lawless areas. It just gets stranger and stranger and there is no way I'd want to be associated with this flight, directly or indirectly, in any shape or form.

Paulus said:
Devil's Advocate said:
Paulus said:
This is not an unprecedentedly or even unusual length of time to be searching for the aircraft.
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Then it should be easy for you to name some incidents involving widebody commercial aircraft operating in scheduled service with a major airline that took forty or fifty reconnaissance craft from a half dozen countries (including two superpowers) five or more days just to locate the first signs of the crash area. Good luck with that.
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Air France 447 took five days before wreckage was found, two years before black boxes found, and that was with a much better idea of where the plane went down. Also, quite frankly, you are overspecifying. What exactly makes a scheduled commercial flight easier to find than say an RB-36H which similarly disappears (no specific incident in mind, merely another big plane)?
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As already mentioned initial searching for AF447 found physical evidence by the next day. I think it's important to separate reconnaissance from recovery. Nobody is disputing that it can take months or even years to recover an aircraft lost in remote locations or unusual circumstances, but initial discovery of scheduled commercial passenger accidents rarely takes more than a day or two. AF447 is a recent and famous accident that is featured in numerous articles, a documentary, and a book. An incident or accident involving a scheduled commercial flight will generally occur in or around a major population center or along a major traffic route and have many more people and resources looking for it than a general aviation aircraft. MH370 has something like sixty ships, thirty aircraft, a dozen helicopters, ten satellites, and a few hundred news organizations looking out for any trace of the plane. Even those dopey morning show families who place their "gifted" offspring at the controls of a private aircraft don't get this kind of coverage when baby Einstein brings down the plane.
 
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the_traveler said:
jis said:
Chinese satellite images may have some images of parts of the crashed plane...

http://www.theguardian.com/world/blog/2014/mar/12/mh370-search-extended-into-andaman-sea-live-updates

The location is south-east of the last contact location.
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If a satellite photographed the (possible) debris on Sunday, why did they wait 3 days to release that potential data? :huh: Especially if there are many nations, ships and planes searching for the missing plane.
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China now says it was released by mistake and it does not show anything relevant to the search. Very strange.

Meanwhile the WSJ report has been refuted by the folks who are managing the search, and neither Boeing nor Rolls-Royce have corroborated the story. So maybe it is Rupert Murdoch spicing things up a bit, or maybe not. Who knows?

Maybe NSA knows all along what exactly happened too, and are leaking small bits as they see convenient to chosen recipients like the WSJ???? This is getting really maddening.

The cycle seems to be, publication of new rumors in reputable news outlets while it is night in Asia, followed as surely as night follows the day, by denials and refutations as it becomes daylight in Asia and night in the west.
 
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I have begun to lose track of the number of supposedly significant findings and surprise reversals at this point. New information is becoming almost impossible to believe. Between the unusual nature of the event itself and the terrible track record of the folks releasing and disseminating updates it's looking more and more like one massive charlie foxtrot.
 
I love The Onion:

KUALA LUMPUR—Following a host of conflicting reports in the wake of the mysterious disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 last Saturday, representatives from the Kuala Lumpur-based carrier acknowledged they had widened their investigation into the vanished Boeing 777 aircraft today to encompass not only the possibilities of mechanical failure, pilot error, terrorist activity, or a botched hijacking, but also the overarching scope of space, time, and humankind’s place in the universe.
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http://www.theonion.com/articles/malaysian-airlines-expands-investigation-to-includ,35524/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=SocialMarketing&utm_campaign=LinkPreview:1:Default
 
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What I've been wondering is, if it was hijacked, how did they prevent passengers from using their electronics to "call home"? I suppose there are things available for blocking signals.
 
AmtrakBlue said:
What I've been wondering is, if it was hijacked, how did they prevent passengers from using their electronics to "call home"? I suppose there are things available for blocking signals.
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If both pilots in the cockpit were in it together no one in the back would have known for quite a while that anything was amiss, and by then they were over open vast ocean with no cell connectivity. Just speculating of course, like everything else related to this bizarre sequence of things unfolding on this one.
 
Does anyone remember if any wreckage from KAL 858, the Korean Airlines flight that was bombed from the skies in November 1987, was found and if so, how soon after the bombing was it found? My memory is a bit hazy but the two incidents kind of remind me of each other.
 
AmtrakBlue said:
What I've been wondering is, if it was hijacked, how did they prevent passengers from using their electronics to "call home"? I suppose there are things available for blocking signals.
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Under normal circumstances you cannot place phone calls via personal electronics during 95%-99% of a commercial flight. Under special circumstances, such as flying very low near a major metro area, you may be able to get a short call or text message through, but not at cruising level or over a large body of water. Some airlines provide internet or other connectivity through their own hardware but all of that can be disabled through various means.
 
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