Malaysian Flight MH370

[Merkle]

Anyone thought about who will have access to the lower compartment of the aircraft where all the electronics are stored? Anyone with 777 knowledge know if the compartment is only accessible through the cockpit?

If that lower compartment is only accessed through the cockpit, who's to say the captain wouldn't be the first one down to check out the electronics then get locked out or something by the first officer or vice versa?

It's usually the flight engineer, mainly to check out circuitry and the forward landing gear.

 

[nakenyon]

The probable location of the plane is on the order of 1/2 the continental US in size. That's the mind-boggling thing to me.



That, and all the failsafes for the transponder were defeated, likely before the plane took off.



Inb4 LOST references.

When a plane is thought to have been able to fly for 7 hours, you get a huge search area. The real problem is that, we don't know that it did actually fly for 7 hours. Just had the potential.

based on everything I've heard and some of which has been posted in this thread, that plane is somewhere - safely - it was not crashed into anything to make an "attack", but its definitely chillin' in a hanger or some place some where, from the sounds of it. They did not crash it, based on what little we do know. But the motive and "what next steps" part is really the confusing thing here.

Then the question becomes, why was someone so motivated as to steal a single plane and kidnap 230+ people. Presumably, they would also have killed all occupants as well, given no random requests.

I am more curious if it did land somewhere, its gotta be much easier to narrow down the location based on that assumption and do some satellite imaging to take a look see. You need a decent size runway to land a plane like that, even if its a temperary run way. And then hiding something that big will not be at all easy. I know a whole lot of the effort is focusing on the wreckage in the ocean, but I'd think looking at the ping location, and tasking image satellites to look at places near those where its possible to land something like that would be a priority...

This is quite true. Constructing a temporary runway for a plane that size would be a huge task as well. They aren't really designed to land on a dirt runway. MSNBC had an interesting map of potential landing sites earlier. I'll have to look for that the.

If it crashed in the Indian Ocean I have my doubts they will find the main wreckage. Some debris might wash up somewhere but that might be it. At least with Air France they knew generally where the plane was and it still took 2 years to find the main wreckage. Even if they find the black boxes the cockpit voice recorder only has 2 hours of tape. I find it asinine that you can defeat all the tracking systems on a $200M plane. I think this incident will spur a change in airplane data tracking and transfer. There's no reason to rely solely on on board systems to track what happened and why when that stuff can be backed up through satellites.

+1 on not finding it for a long time if it's in the Indian Ocean.

And I give you a vast list of aerial disappearances:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aerial_disappearances

Pretty scary, especially if you read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Missing_air_passengers

Well then. I know what I'll be doing for the next hour.

^ that list may very much change in the coming weeks if there are no solid leads.

With more then a dozen nations looking for this plane and good enough assets being used. It almost appears something big is about to happen soon rather then later.

In other news not to go off topic, North Korea did fire short range missiles.

I doubt NK could have fired anything without someone noticing. Let alone actually be successful.

 

[emk6]

It's usually the flight engineer, mainly to check out circuitry and the forward landing gear.

As far as we know right now, there was only a civilian flight engineer that is not listed as crew. In a short haul flight like this one, there wouldn't be flight engineer with the crew would there? If something was to happen with the circuitry while in mid-flight wouldn't the captain be the first to check?

Captain does have 18,xxx flight hours while First offer barely has 2xxx.

I also find this article very interesting.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...es-lost-relatives-threaten-hunger-strike.html

 

[intanetfreak]

great read: http://www.wired.com/autopia/2014/03/mh370-electrical-fire/

 

[syonxwf]

great read: http://www.wired.com/autopia/2014/03/mh370-electrical-fire/

Great article for sure. That guy sounds like he knows what he's talking about.

 

[Bender1]

great read: http://www.wired.com/autopia/2014/03/mh370-electrical-fire/

was JUST going to post this.

 

[XGC75]

Obama took the plane down hoping the news monopolizing story would keep people from noticing Putin bitch slapped him.

:clap:

 

[emk6]

and the plot thickens in the Malacca Strait.

Now how is everyone convinced that satellite picked up a ping in the Indian ocean does belong to MH370? If the ping from the Indian ocean did belong to MH370 they are far away from Palau Langkawi.

The likelihood of electronics failing on the aircraft sounds very surreal at this point. No communications, flying blind, ran out of fuel and down she goes.

 

[maxtdi]

flying for at least 4 hrs after an "electrical fire" don't think so.

 

[emk6]

Could have been a electric short and not a fire. The short probably short circuited the communications system allowing it only to transmit and not receive. (I point to maintenance records on this to see whether the communication was repaired or replaced during its last aircraft check).

But then again, doesn't explain the 45,000ft in altitude the plane climbed.

More theories...

 

[XGC75]

That Wired article sounds like clickbait. The guy goes out of his way to use big terms that'll scare readers into submission and he doesn't account for the mayday transponders, for which there are two and are powered by batteries completely separately from the rest of the plane.

Those were clearly not functional, either by negligence or otherwise.

 

[intanetfreak]

I'm telling you guys. Once again:

 

[emk6]

At this point yes it is lost. No solid leads or anything just going in a bunch directions with the he said she said.

 

[Do Work Son]

Rest easy, guys, Courtney Love is on the case.

http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2014...for-missing-malaysia-airlines-flight-370-jet/

 

[Bender1]

With Maxtdi and Courtney love throwing in their two cents, it sure seems like this will be solved rapidly.