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These aircraft constantly stream data to ATC, the airline, Boeing. Very little is done by conventional radio contact anymore. I was talking to a friend, a 777 captain with Emirates, and the industry is at this point, mystified. Malaysian Airlines has simply lost a 777 without trace.

Maximum depth of the entire gulf is 260, average is 150. Amazingly shallow.

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But the Gulf of Thailand is not deep at all. Compared to where Air France ended up, it's like wading.

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Originally Posted by Aurel (Post 7955053)

This.

Once active, the Dukane DK120 emits a pulse once a second that can be detected by sonar equipment up to two nautical miles away. The beacon works at a depth of 20,000 feet — far deeper than the waters where officials believe the Malaysian plane went down.

Read more: Malaysia Airlines Black Boxes - Business Insider

But has a sensitive sonar array come within 2 miles of the beacon? Big ocean, little ships.

ELTs also emit a radio signal, we frequently have them set off by accident at work. No idea of the range when under water, it's far greater than 2 nm under normal circumstances.

Well here's an interesting twist. "International Business Times reports that 19 families have signed a joint statement saying that passengers' cell phones connected after the flight had been reported missing. In each case, the phone would ring, but the call would be hung up. "

Bizarre: missing Malaysia Airlines passengers' phones ring, but no one answers | News24

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Originally Posted by onewhippedpuppy (Post 7955135)

Everything that I've read indicates that the ATC in that part of the world has sparse radar coverage and relies instead on the aircraft transponder signal and location reporting from the crew. Unlike the USA, this is apparently pretty common in less developed nations. Were that the case, loss of contact could have been as easy as switching off the transponder.

Different world, but in the USA if you switched off the transponder and quit responding to radio calls you would have some F16 escorts pretty quickly.

Not particularly relevant but that is the case for the majority of US airspace as well. Painting with primary radar is a seldom used backup now and is only effective for a discrete distance around the radar. Transponder systems are the primary radar system worldwide.

So....The little green men wanted a new Boeing?

But the plane was on Vietnamese military radar when it vanished.

from the Wiki "According to Admiral Ngo Van Phat of the Vietnamese Navy, military radar lost the aircraft "some 153 nautical miles (300 km)" south of Thổ Chu in the Gulf of Thailand."

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<div style="font-style:italic">I'm going to bring this up again, for the third time, because I'm becoming more and more convinced it will play a part in the final outcome.<br>
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The plane lost <b>contact/communication</b> at ~1:22 am, when it failed to turn over contro of the flight path to Vietnamese controllers. This <b>could</b> be the beginning of the incident whether it be from electronic failure or human intervention. Regardless, the plane continued to fly <b>and be identified </b>for another hour and nineteen minutes. It is most likely this identification was from the plane itself, <b>not land based radar</b>. During this hour plus flying, the plane changed course, apparently heading for home, when the <b>identification signal </b>stopped. It was 2:41 a.m. <br>
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Whatever caused the initial loss of contact with the Vietnamese controllers could account for any future failures at voice communications--that's why the crew never called out for help nor notified home of their plight. Perhaps the communication failure was being addressed as they continued on, discovered to be more serious that originally believed, and the crew decided to turn back. During the return flight, whatever caused the initial communication failure compounded into a failure of the broadcast system that identifies the plane, and so the plane "disappears" from ground receptors at 2:41 a.m. How far did it travel in that hour and nineteen minutes? What direction was it traveling? Did the plane continue to fly after the identification signal stopped? If so, how much longer? <br>
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All the above is just speculation, of course, based on limited information. However, I'm beginning to think they will find the plane far from where the initial search has taken place. Further, and for no logical reason, I'm starting to doubt the terrorist angle. I offer these thoughts as fodder to us all in a general discussion of this mystery, and in an attempt to move away from the tin foil hat explanations of aliens, Bermuda Triangles, and complicated kidnapping plots.</div>
</div>Plausible. But what event could 100% disable the communications system on the airplane while still allowing it to fly for AT LEAST another 1:20? Remember that it's a modern 777 with three VHF radios, two HF radios, satellite phone, and satellite datalink. It also likely had satellite internet access. These systems would be isolated for safety and redundancy so that one incident couldn't take them all out.

Hypoxia

Hypoxia, what a ****ty way to go.

Anyone ever heard of JAL 1628? It'll make the hair stand up on the back of your neck.

And listen to what the CIA says about it:

<iframe width="640" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/P51LmirTJI8?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Air_Lines_flight_1628_incident

I think it crashed, and they'll eventually find it.

On NPR this morning they discussed one of the so called fake passport passengers and it turned out he was 19 years old, Iranian and was looking for assylum in Germany. They scratched him off the suspect list for possible terrorism. It appears less likely that it was a terrorist act, unless it was the crew.

The search area is now back to land.

Close Envounters of the Third Kind was on the TV last night. How ironic!

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Originally Posted by AZ_porschekid (Post 7955442)

Hypoxia, what a ****ty way to go.

According to what I could find on Wiki, at 40,000 ft you have 15-20 seconds of consciousness before blacking out, enough for an experienced crew to don their masks. I'm not sure what altitude they were at when contact was lost, if lower they have more time. It would have to be catastrophic rapid decompression that either incapacitated the crew or was distracting enough that they disregarded their training. Plausible but again - what would cause catastrophic rapid decompression on an otherwise normal flight? Modern airplanes are pretty damn good, very rarely do they suffer from major airframe failure that isn't instigated by some form of human activity.

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Originally Posted by onewhippedpuppy (Post 7955695)

Would they have O2 apparatus on their necks already, just wondering?

When I was in the Boeing 777 simulator a few weeks ago at the Delta flight training center, I thought I saw the masks attached to the side and slightly to the rear of the seat. I am sure they practice decompression and donning the mask on a routine basis.

According to the manufacturers of the black boxes who were interviewed yesterday, the "ping per second" will last 30-days on its battery power and operate to a depth of 20,000 feet under water. I do not know if their flight path at loss of signal was over the water with the bottom at that depth or deeper, but its interesting to note the maximum depth for the "ping", which would be picked up with passive sonar.

Delta's Boeing 777 (LR - long range) flight simulator. About 14-million bucks worth.http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1394548187.jpg

Yep, masks to the side of the seats but they're inflatable and pulling them out and putting them on is really easy. You're trained to do that first no matter what happens.

lot's of crazy stuff coming up.

okay. so if some of the phones are still active should they be able to identify the nearest cel tower and simply find the plane within two miles of it?

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Originally Posted by livi (Post 7955437)

Alien abduction.

What he said ^^^