Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 is missing

[fretn]

According to the latest rumours, a 'Russian' passenger was denied boarding because of an invalid passport.

I don't think this is coincidence tbh.

[Passenger]

Link to the list:
http://www.malaysiaairlines.com/content ... nifest.pdf

[sn26567]

An oil slick has been spotted.

Source: CNN

[wernerrav4]

They showed this picture on VTM's news at 1900 but the rescue teams were not sure that this oil trace was from a ship or from the missing plane.

[Streetstream]

The boxes' emergency beacon only has power for around ~48 hours, so it's a race against the clock.

Actually the signal last for up to 30 days.

[sn26567]

Playback of flight MH370 on FlightRadar24: http://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/mh370#2d81a27

Some explanations:

The last location tracked by Flightradar24 is
Time UTC: 17:21:03
Lat: 6.97
Lon: 103.63
Alt: 35000
Speed: 471 knots
Heading: 40

Between 17:19 and 17:20 the aircraft was changing heading from 25 to 40 degrees, which is probably completely according to flight plan as MH370 on both 4 March and 8 March did the same at the same position. Last 2 signals are both showing that the aircraft is heading in direction 40 degrees.

Today there are reports in media that MH370 may have turned around(*). FR24 have not tracked this. This could have happened if the aircraft suddenly lost altitude as FR24 coverage in that area is limited to about 30000 feet.

FR24 have not tracked any emergency squawk alerts for flight MH370 before they lost coverage of the aircraft.

(*) Radar indicated that it may have turned back from its scheduled route to Beijing before disappearing, and Malaysian rescue teams have expanded their search to the country's western coast, Malaysian military officials said on Sunday.

[sn26567]

Investigative teams have been sent by several US organisations: Boeing (of course), the NTSB, the FAA and even the FBI (to help on alleged terrorist threats in relation with the two passengers travelling on stolen passports). Malaysian investigators have met their FBI counterparts and said the investigation was focusing on the entire passenger manifest.

The NTSB's expertise is likely to play a big role in establishing the chain of events. The NTSB's participation indicates that U.S. aviation regulators are treating the plane's disappearance as an accident rather than an act of terrorism.

Malaysian authorities are investigating the identities of at least two other passengers in addition to two who were found to be using stolen Austrian and Italian passports. The four real names appear to be known by the Malaysian authorities. Five other passengers booked on the flight did not board and their luggage was consequently removed.

The BBC has confirmed that the man falsely using an Italian passport and the man falsely using an Austrian passport purchased tickets at the same time, and were both booked on the same onward flight from Beijing to Europe on Saturday. Both had purchased their tickets from China Southern Airlines, which shared the flight with Malaysia Airlines, and they had consecutive ticket numbers.

Twenty-two aircraft and 40 ships are now involved in the search.

[fretn]

2 days on, and still no sign of the plane... Not even debris. Does anyone know how long it took for the Brazilians to find the first pieces of debris from the Air France flight in the Atlantic. It keeps surprising me, especially because this isn't a remote area in SE-Asia. It's a heavy shipping lane with lots of fishing boats and oil rigs. The fact that nobody saw/heard anything is really surprising.

[quixoticguide]

Within five days of the accident.

[sn26567]

The investigations now look at a possible mid-air disintegration, since search teams have still not been able to make any confirmed discovery of wreckage in seas beneath the plane's flight path almost 48 hours after it took off. If the plane had plunged intact from such a height, breaking up only on impact with the water, search teams would have expected to find a fairly concentrated pattern of debris.

Interpol confirmed "at least" two passports recorded as lost or stolen in its database were used by passengers on board a missing Malaysia Airlines flight and said it was checking for other suspect passports. Interpol said no checks of its database had been made by any country on an Austrian and an Italian passport between the time that they were stolen and the departure of the flight.

The police agency said it was in contact with its offices in the countries involved to try to establish the true identities of the passengers who boarded the flight with the stolen documents. It is also checking all other passports on the flight "which may have been reported stolen". Interpol is frustrated that few of its 190 member countries "systematically" search the database to determine whether documents being used to board a plane are registered as lost or stolen.

[sn26567]

After more than two days of search, nothing has been recovered from the Malaysia Boeing 777. Even worse, nobody has a clue of what has happened: accident, explosion of an engine, bomb, terrorist attack, nobody knows. The flight deck did not send a distress call, did not even give any information by radio.

How can an aircraft just disappear in 2014, with all the technology that was developed through a century of aviation?

Therefore, an old proposal came to the surface again: the streaming (i.e. continuous broadcasting) of black box data. Now, investigators will have to find the black boxes to discover what really happened to the aircraft. If there had been a black bow streaming, they would know where to search for the debris of the aircraft and they would also know what actually caused it to disappear from the radars.

The only explanation why black box streaming is not yet installed on board of all modern aircraft is probably money. It could have been decided in 2009 after the crash of the AF447 Airbus A330, but money has stopped the implementation of the measure.

Now that airlines are spending millions of euros/dollars to equip their aircraft with broadband in-flight connectivity to provide their passengers with Internet, they could spend a similar amount of money to insure for a safe recovery of flight data at all times.

[KriVa]

In some way, that system has already been installed. Rolls Royce keeps track (live) on all its aviation engines in a few central control centers. When an engine shows readings of limits, they often know before the airline does, sometimes even before the flight crew themselves. It's part of their continuous improvement program.
I think GE does the same, or at least for the GE90s.

Also, quite a few flight parameters (altitude, speed, heading,...) are already being sent automatically by modern civil jetliners, through ADS-B. I'm not sure whether there is a central storage of this data (it would be a LOT of data, of course), but instances like Flightradar24 do keep some kind of record. (The last parameter FR24 received was an ADS-B signal at 0 ft, if I remember correctly.) Of course, sending all the parameters recorded on current generations of black boxes, would require HUGE amounts of bandwith, especially since there are so many planes in the sky.
Is it possible? Sure, up to some level. But to be honest, I'm afraid the benefit does not outweigh the cost, not even close. Especially since this kind of event, where the record just stops, doesn't happen that often. At least the transponder seems to have worked up until the end (or maybe it just malfunctioned when showing 0ft.), so maybe the investigators can do something with that data.

[quixoticguide]

I think GE does the same, or at least for the GE90s.

The Malaysia Airlines B777-200ER was powered by two Rolls-Royce Trent 892 engines.

[KriVa]

Not was I was getting at, but nice to know nevertheless

[Flanker2]

Given the lack of ELT signals, lack of debris and shalowness of the waters, I think that the chances are great that the aircraft didn't suffer major damage.

So I still hope that it's a hijacking or that the pilots put it down somewhere within 100km from the last point of contact following a major emergency, such as a fire. A ditched aircraft would not trigger the ELT, unless it comes down hard, the ELT comes in contact with water or is triggered manually. However, the pilots may not be able to access the ELT following a ditching.

A ditched aircraft can be mistaken for a ship from the air, as aircraft in SAR operations would avoid wasting time checking for things that appear too obvious, as they are looking for debris, expecting that the aircraft has crashed violently. But then again, the slides would be obvious to see from the air, and survival equipment includes flares for signaling.

Another possibility is that the aircraft did reach the land and landed or crashed, with passengers waiting for help far away from the search area. Stranded pax would not seek out to find civilisation days away as they expect rescuers to find them instead.

The more time passes without debris on the sea is better and better, as it would rule out the worst possible scenarios.

Jet fuel is colorless and very similar with water. I don't know how the mix would behave on open ocean with waves but usually you can't see it unless up close. I'm not sure it would leave slicks at all, even though hydraulic fluids and engine oil would certainly form slicks.

I'm an optimist...

[Bralo20]

This morning there was another press conference regarding the progress in the SAR mission, there wasn't much news to mention except:

- No debris has been found, previous reports are false or have been other items not related to the airliner
- FAA has arrived
- 40 ships are searching around the clock
- 34 planes/heli's are searching from 7AM to 7PM
- Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, China, Singapore, Phillipines and the USA are involved in the SAR mission
- All bags were X-Rayed
- All angles are examined, this now also includes hijacking
- Up to 5 next-of-kin will be flown to Malaysia

[Boeing767copilot]

MONDAY, MARCH 10
- The United States review of American spy satellite imagery shows no signs of mid-air explosion.
- As dozens of ships and aircraft from seven countries scour the seas around Malaysia and south of Vietnam, questions mounted over whether a bomb or hijacking could have brought down the Boeing airliner.
- Hijacking could not be ruled out, said the head of Malaysia's Civil Aviation Authority, Azharuddin Abdul Rahmanthe, adding the missing jet was an "unprecedented aviation mystery".
- The disappearance of the Malaysian airliner could dent the national carrier's plan to return to profit by end-2014, equity analysts said. Shares in MAS hit a record low on Monday.

[teddybAIR]

In the case of AF447 which went missing on 01JUN09 02:14UTC, the first signs of wreckage were already found on 02JUN09 15:20UTC. That's after only a day. It is really strange that no wreckage is found. A mid-air break-up would result in a widespread field of debris. One would expect such a wide field to be identified early in the search efforts.

[Sean_DM]

that's right, therefore I'm thinking that it was not a mid-air break up and the debris is to be found under water. Some of it will float to the surface at some point, question is ... when

[sn26567]

Vietnam is sending helicopters to check a floating "yellow object", possible a life raft of the missing Malaysian plane.

Edit: Vietnamese authorities say yellow object is not related to plane's disappearance.