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Engine Data Reveals That Flight 370 Flew On For Hours After It "Disappeared"
Advocatus Diaboli writes "Aviation investigators and national security officials believe the plane flew for a total of five hours based on data automatically downloaded and sent to the ground from the Boeing Co. 777's engines as part of a routine maintenance and monitoring program. As part of its maintenance agreements, Malaysia Airlines transmits its engine data live to Rolls-Royce for analysis. The system compiles data from inside the 777's two Trent 800 engines and transmits snapshots of performance, as well as the altitude and speed of the jet. Those snippets are compiled and transmitted in 30-minute increments, said one person familiar with the system."
Update: 03/14 11:41 GMT by S : The WSJ has since updated its report to say the data was from the plane's satellite-communication system. However, Malaysian authorities have denied both scenarios, saying neither Boeing nor Rolls-Royce received data past 1:07am (the flight initially disappeared off radar at 1:30am).
~500 mph * 5 hours = 2500 mile radius = 19.6 million square miles.
That's about 10% of the surface of the planet. They're going to need some sort of heading information; you can permanently hide a 777 in that much ocean/mountain/jungle/etc.
Anyone know if the radar hits were meaningful yet?
It was the SATCOM system of the plane itself, which has the capability of transmitting health and positional data of the entire plane's system for analysis by third-party service and maintenance providers. Airliners have the option to purchase service plans for that but Malaysia Airlines chose to only purchase a separate plane related to data the engine's themselves can transmit (from Rolls Royce, the engine's manufacturer).
Even though Malaysian Airlines didn't have an online service monitoring plan for this specific plane, the plane still performs periodic searches/connections to satellite data communication providers - akin to an unregistered cell phone searching and connecting to a cell tower but without licensed service. This periodic connection occurs approx once every hour on the plane, and by counting the number of attempts (4), authorities believe the plane was either flying or in-tact for at least 4 hours from the last secondary radar ping.
Well, apparently the source of this information was credible enough that the United States Navy, on its own initiative, is sending a ship to the Indian Ocean.
There's clearly a ton of misinformation out there. But which is more likely--you're misinformed, or the U.S. Navy is misinformed?