777 down

[widgeon13]

Fox news must be on FIRE this morning with this spectacular breaking news!!!

So much to be shared with their audience.

[ossiblue]

I have my doubts about the debris being from the plane. The initial size, nearly 79 feet makes me skeptical. The fact it is in an area that is known as a trash bin of the ocean makes me skeptical.

Like many, I'm sure, I'm a bit torn by this type of news. On the one hand, I hope it is debris because it resolves one part of the mystery. On the other hand, debris means there is no hope for survivors and, as remote a possibility as that might be, I still want the the 238 innocent lives to be safe.

I just don't think this is part of the plane.

[lonewolf]

[QUOTE=ossiblue;7971351]

Like many, I'm sure, I'm a bit torn by this type of news. On the one hand, I hope it is debris because it resolves one part of the mystery. On the other hand, debris means there is no hope for survivors and, as remote a possibility as that might be, I still want the the 238 innocent lives to be safe.


I agree, kinda good ,kinda bad

[AFC-911]

Originally Posted by ossiblue

On the other hand, debris means there is no hope for survivors and, as remote a possibility as that might be, I still want the the 238 innocent lives to be safe.

Whether it's a crash or a hijacking, I can't picture a scenario where the passengers are safe.

[kach22i]

THURSDAY, MARCH 20, 2014
Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 search off Australia ends for day as crews reach site of objects
Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 search off Australia ends for day as crews reach site of objects - NY Daily News

The automobile cargo vessel 'Höegh St. Petersburg' reached an area southwest of Australia where possible debris of missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 have been spotted.

Search crews battled rainy and foggy conditions Thursday night as they zeroed in on the best lead so far about 1,500 miles off the west coast of Australia in the case of a Malaysia Airlines plane missing for nearly two weeks.

By about 8 p.m. in Perth, Australia, a Norwegian ship had reached the site of two pieces of floating debris, one measuring about 79 feet, and second being about 16 feet in length.

But the search was called off for the day as darkness fell. Crews fruitlessly examined some 8,800 square miles Thursday.
The search is expected to resume Friday morning.

Maybe the floating island of garbage will get cleaned up a little in the process.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/flight-mh370-debris-search-australia-ends-day-crews-reach-site-spotted-objects-article-1.1727815

The ocean is some several thousand meters deep in the search area, Young said at the press conference.
And the debris could be the plane — or a piece of sea trash, like what was found off Vietnam shortly after the plane went missing.

[daepp]

Quite a bit OT, but I felt a sense of pride that our Navy was involved along with NTSB as mentioned by the Aus PM. And that we work well with our allies.

OT 2: it takes smart and brave men to fly that far from land and do a multiple hour search as part of their daily job. I can only imagine the advance planning, watching the fuel levels, calculating head winds, not getting lost, maybe planning for plan b or a plan c in case of troubles. Nowhere to land and point of no return are very alien to most. I guess I'm stating the obvious, but when you see the maps of where they were headed, it's just such a different perspective from my daily drive, with 30 gas stations between home and work and plenty of terra firma beneath me. Brave and smart dudes - we still do that (at least )

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by daepp

Quite a bit OT, but I felt a sense of pride that our Navy was involved along with NTSB as mentioned by the Aus PM. And that we work well with our allies.

OT 2: it takes smart and brave men to fly that far from land and do a multiple hour search as part of their daily job. I can only imagine the advance planning, watching the fuel levels, calculating head winds, not getting lost, maybe planning for plan b or a plan c in case of troubles. Nowhere to land and point of no return are very alien to most. I guess I'm stating the obvious, but when you see the maps of where they were headed, it's just such a different perspective from my daily drive, with 30 gas stations between home and work and plenty of terra firma beneath me. Brave and smart dudes - we still do that (at least )

No doubt, they are doing a very difficult and tedious job, but with modern avionics the chance of getting lost is zero. My dad talked about flying C-47s back and forth to Hawaii in the late 50s & early 60s. Even with a full time navigator it was a bit tense flying out over a lot of ocean at night and no backup plan.

[kach22i]

20 March 2014 Last updated at 17:14 ET
MH370: Malaysia Airlines plane search halts overnight
BBC News - MH370: Malaysia Airlines plane search halts overnight

Satellite information released
Meanwhile, a British satellite firm has told the BBC there were very strong indications 10 days ago that the 777 Boeing would be found either in the southern part of the Indian Ocean or in Central Asia - and not in the South China Sea or the Malacca Straits where Malaysia had continued to search.

London-based Inmarsat said its engineers realised at an early stage that the aircraft had probably flown for several hours on a northern or southern track, and it was very unlikely that the plane could have headed north over countries with sophisticated air defence systems.

The company further said that it had informed the Malaysian authorities of the information, through an intermediary company, on 12 March, but this was not publicly acknowledged until 15 March.

Furthermore, the authorities continued to search in the South China Sea and Malacca Straits during that time, despite the information suggesting that the plane had flown on much further.

David Wright, an ABC News reporter who was on the P-8 Poseidon, said all the sophisticated plane had spotted was "a freighter and two pods of dolphins".

A Norwegian merchant ship, the St Petersburg, has also arrived in the area after responding to a shipping broadcast issued by Australia's rescue co-ordination centre.

It will be joined by an Australian naval vessel, HMAS Success and a British coastal survey ship, HMS Echo.

[Baz]

Originally Posted by daepp

Quite a bit OT, but I felt a sense of pride that our Navy was involved along with NTSB as mentioned by the Aus PM. And that we work well with our allies.

OT 2: it takes smart and brave men to fly that far from land and do a multiple hour search as part of their daily job. I can only imagine the advance planning, watching the fuel levels, calculating head winds, not getting lost, maybe planning for plan b or a plan c in case of troubles. Nowhere to land and point of no return are very alien to most. I guess I'm stating the obvious, but when you see the maps of where they were headed, it's just such a different perspective from my daily drive, with 30 gas stations between home and work and plenty of terra firma beneath me. Brave and smart dudes - we still do that (at least )

Great post Dave!

I totally agree.....we have a lot to be proud of as Americans!

Anytime we work with our friends down under I'm stoked!

[jyl]

Suppose the remains of the plane are found and retrieved from the ocean floor. What then can be done to find out what happened?

My understanding is the flight data/voice recorder (black box) only records the last 2 hour in a loop. So it won't show what happened when the plane left its normal course.

[FLYGEEZER]

Question for you Naval Aviators.......Does the Boeing P-8 have IFR (infltrefuel) abilities ?

[HardDrive]

Originally Posted by jyl

Suppose the remains of the plane are found and retrieved from the ocean floor. What then can be done to find out what happened?

My understanding is the flight data/voice recorder (black box) only records the last 2 hour in a loop. So it won't show what happened when the plane left its normal course.

Well if its 2 hours of wind noise and automated alarms, that will say a lot.

[cashflyer]

The aircraft also includes six additional body fuel tanks for extended range from Marshall Aerospace; three of the tanks are located in the forward cargo compartment and three in the rear. In-flight refueling is via a receptacle on top of the forward fuselage, just aft of the cockpit. This receptacle will receive a flying boom that is typically used to refuel United States Air Force aircraft, as opposed to the hose-and-drogue system used by other USN aircraft.
[wiki]

[ossiblue]

Originally Posted by jyl

Suppose the remains of the plane are found and retrieved from the ocean floor. What then can be done to find out what happened?

My understanding is the flight data/voice recorder (black box) only records the last 2 hour in a loop. So it won't show what happened when the plane left its normal course.

Only the voice recorder has the two hour loop. As posted, it may not have the voices at the start of the incident, but any sounds thereafter would be there. The data recorder can record all vital data for thirty-six hours. There is more than one " black box" in the plane.

One discussion to come from this incident is to have a much longer record time for the voice recorder.

[kach22i]

Originally Posted by ossiblue

One discussion to come from this incident is to have a much longer record time for the voice recorder.

One of the recently posted articles discusses the costs of implementing GPS real time cloud based flight data recording.

Some politics involved.

But of course a bunch of people dying can often be the catalyst for change.

[Bill Douglas]

I really thought this would be the end of Air Malaysia but they just got voted Best Airline for their Mystery Destination deal.

[red-beard]

Originally Posted by Bill Douglas

I really thought this would be the end of Air Malaysia but they just got voted Best Airline for their Mystery Destination deal.

I don't care who you are, that's funny right thar!

[futuresoptions]

Was jumping back and forth between Fox News and CNN last night and Fox News had a guest on that stated that he believed that the plane had been hijacked and flown to Pakistan. Also, some interesting bits of information were told that the plane has automatic beacons that should go off if it suffers more than a 1G impact or if it comes in contact with water. Neither of which have gone off....

[kach22i]

Originally Posted by futuresoptions

Pakistan.

That would be at the very limit, a stretch given the terrain and air defenses in that area of the world.



See other maps I've posted for a little more accuracy than my own mark-up.

[futuresoptions]

Yeah, they mentioned that the base in Pakistan where they felt the plane had been taken to was the same distance to where they were headed to in China I believe, I can't remember the guest's name, think he was a retired general maybe? It is weird about the transponders not going off, the one that goes off for impacts and then the water trigger if it gets wet??? I think Bill O'reilly was interviewing him and he asked why they were looking in the water then if that particular beacon had not gone off due to being in the water.