MH 777 missing - MH370 media statement

[markis10]

The data reporting system (I believe the one to Boeing) only transmits every half hour or so, whereas the transponder is a more continuous transmitter (that admittedly can be turned off).

The data reporting system in the quote is referring to the coughpit ACARs, the transponder will transmit everytime it gets an interrogation from the secondary radar. The engine reporting system as posted is a different end of the same network, while it provides 30 min transmissions in stasis, it will go live when abnormal situations occur or alerts are raised.

 

[SeatBackForward]

The data reporting system in the quote is referring to the coughpit ACARs, the transponder will transmit everytime it gets an interrogation from the secondary radar. The engine reporting system as posted is a different end of the same network, while it provides 30 min transmissions in stasis, it will go live when abnormal situations occur or alerts are raised.

So if the pilot turned off the transponder, and landed the plane, that would count as being "nothing abnormal" ?

 

[markis10]

Is it possible to determine if the systems have been shut down, vs have stopped working due to a catastrophic failure? Is there some form of signal? The quote seems pretty definite so just after some clarity.

It would appear so, its possible a type of heartbeat is pre-coded into the coughpit ACARS so the ground station knows its listening, as messages are pushed to the coughpit as well as the return path.

 

[markis10]

So if the pilot turned off the transponder, and landed the plane, that would count as being "nothing abnormal" ?

I would imagine so, the sensors in the engine would not be smart enough to be fed position data and flight plan to know otherwise.

 

[Anna]

I remember how much trouble they had turning the RR engines off on QF32 even after they had landed safely. Those babies are designed to keep working no matter what. I'm not going to assume that 4 hours of further transmissions means the engines were still flying - and that's if there were 4 more hours of transmissions, which has been denied.

The so-called unidentified aircraft supposedly flying over Malaysia towards Penang could well be some drug smuggling plane or other nefarious activity hoping to remain undetected.

A deliberate act from the coughpit doesn't have to have been by crew or terrorists. It could even have been an accidental act from the coughpit if the pilots were incapacitated and some other crew or pax were trying to save the plane without really knowing what they were doing.

What I think is - the oil rig worker saw it go down, there are Chinese photos of wreckage in that vicinity, Malaysia has been to that site and for whatever reason has denied that there is any wreckage there from MH370. That's either because they are a bunch of bumbling incompetent buffoons, or because they are liars because they don't want anything found until it has deteriorated so much in the water that nobody will be able to establish what really happened.

And I will be ecstatic if they find the plane in the Indian Ocean (or anywhere else) and prove me wrong, because at least then they will have found the thing and the families can get the first tiny piece of certainty.

 

[harvyk]

I remember how much trouble they had turning the RR engines off on QF32 even after they had landed safely. Those babies are designed to keep working no matter what. I'm not going to assume that 4 hours of further transmissions means the engines were still flying - and that's if there were 4 more hours of transmissions, which has been denied.

That's something completely different. There one of the control lines between the coughpit and the engine was severed basically meaning the signal to turn off couldn't get through... In a crash, if the engine itself is damaged or fuel no longer gets to the engine, it will turn off pretty quickly....

 

[cmon0005]

That's either because they are a bunch of bumbling incompetent buffoons, or because they are liars because they don't want anything found until it has deteriorated so much in the water that nobody will be able to establish what really happened.

I think if there is nothing found and questions are left unanswered MH will see a huge drop in bookings, due to lack of confidence in MH, its in their interest (even if it was MH's fault) to expose the cause and put in place real/appropriate measures to stop it happening again, some people may be spooked but most people will probably be comforted that they know what the cause was and couldn't possibly happen again.

 

[JessicaTam]

Anna, that's not speculation creeping in there is it?

 

[drron]

Even the Chinese are saying their satellite photos don't show wreckage of 370.

 

[harvyk]

Malaysia has been to that site and for whatever reason has denied that there is any wreckage there from MH370. That's either because they are a bunch of bumbling incompetent buffoons, or because they are liars because they don't want anything found until it has deteriorated so much in the water that nobody will be able to establish what really happened.

They are also searching for a single plane crash (where it's more than likely some of the wreckage has sunk) in an area the same size as tassie, with the media going into overdrive and reporting anything which has the letters MH or the number 370 as fact regardless of who actually said it...

 

[marki]

Sitting here in the lax t4 aa lounge waiting for QF16.. swmbo commented as I read out the latest updateS, that the AA 777 just behind us was a lot of aeroplane to just lose..
Security seemed a bit tighter.. qantas are x-raying the cases with a portable set up as they are checked in..and the tsa line seemed a bit on edge too.
All not a lot of fun for the cattle….

Cattle class syndrome is is never fun

 

[QF WP]

Here's 16 possible (with some far-fetched) scenarios:

Where Is the Plane? 16 Possible Scenarios

Not a bad summary. I guess it could still fall outside these.

It could. Another that was reviewed on the Ch7 documentary last night was industrial espionage - because there were 15 people from the same Chinese company returning from a Conference in Malaysia. Actually, this story says it's 20 from Freescale, the company mentioned in the Ch7 story - but other pax mentioned in the story mean that more questions are raised.

I've given up trying to work all the commutations and permutations of the event. I'll switch back on when they have found the plane and black boxes.

 

[docjames]

Typically when choosing between a conspiracy and a stuff up, doesn't the stuff up typically win?

 

[markis10]

Typically when choosing between a conspiracy and a stuff up, doesn't the stuff up typically win?

Depends on what hat you are wearing.

 

[QF WP]

Look, I even found another story that I haven't seen reported here previously:

How a math equation could solve the Malaysia Airline mystery - Yahoo!7

Wow, which maths genius wants to try and explain that theorem to us.

 

[docjames]

Depends on what hat you are wearing.

A tin foil one??

 

[amaroo]

That's either because they are a bunch of bumbling incompetent buffoons, or because they are liars because they don't want anything found until it has deteriorated so much in the water that nobody will be able to establish what really happened.

I'll admit I had one foot in the cover-up camp......both are now firmly planted in the incompetent tent Missing Malaysia Airlines flight puts rare spotlight of scrutiny on leaders

 

[anat0l]

Look, I even found another story that I haven't seen reported here previously:

How a math equation could solve the Malaysia Airline mystery - Yahoo!7

Wow, which maths genius wants to try and explain that theorem to us.

I don't know too much about Bayesian Theory, but it's probability based, not definitive, viz. the answer out of the math would be "the plane is most likely around here", not "the plane is located exactly here". It would likely only yield an academic approximation of what everyone (except for those whose technique is throwing a dart randomly at a map) is proposing right now; likely only better than current if one can brand the current attempts as haphazard.

 

[medhead]

Look, I even found another story that I haven't seen reported here previously:

How a math equation could solve the Malaysia Airline mystery - Yahoo!7

Wow, which maths genius wants to try and explain that theorem to us.

That's relatively easy, if I understand the story. Just uses available info to determine the probability of the aircraft being in any particular area for a particular scenario. For example the scenario that it fell out of the sky immediately that contact was lost would have a probability distribution that shows very high probability in a narrow corridor along the direction of travel out for, say, 50km, with low probability elsewhere.

It sounds like they develop similar probability distributions for all scenarios based on the available information. Then combine them to develop an overall distribution for all possible scenarios. That should then give them a few hot spots to check.

We've seen about 16 options so far combining all those might spit out 100 square km in Nepal as high probability.

Basically that evil statistics thing.

 

[DrA]

Look, I even found another story that I haven't seen reported here previously:

How a math equation could solve the Malaysia Airline mystery - Yahoo!7

Wow, which maths genius wants to try and explain that theorem to us.

Huh. I can explain this one.

Bayes' Theorem basically looks at probabilities of an event occurring. A simplified explanation is that you calculate the probability of an event occurring at random (prior probability), and then calculate the probability of an event occurring given a particular particular circumstance (conditional probability). Update the prior probability using the conditional probabilities for a bunch of different circumstances to generate a posterior probability. And that's the probability of the event occurring given a set of circumstances.

We use this in geology, but it's also used in medical diagnosis (what's the probability of the patient having [x] given the following set of symptoms).

In this case it would be "what's the probability of finding the plane [here] given [these events]". If I actually had access to the data that the government has, I could run a full simulation in a couple of hours.