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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).
... by malaysian officials: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/13/malaysian-officials-deny-flight-mh370-missing-plane-flew-hours
~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?
You could fly from San Francisco (SFO) to Orlando (MCO) That's a pretty big search radius, if this story is true.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I have no special gift, I am only passionately curious. --Albert Einstein
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.
A satellite transmitter on the plane was active for about five hours, indicating the plane was operational after its transponder shut down less than an hour after takeoff, said three U.S. government officials. The 777 can cruise at 500 miles (805 kilometers) an hour or more, meaning it may have flown for as far as 2,500 miles beyond its last point of contact if it was intact and had enough fuel. Link (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-13/missing-malaysian-jet-said-to-have-flown-with-beacon-off.html)
The United States was founded on a conspiracy. Literally.
That the people are being conditioned to automatically consider anything labeled a "conspiracy" automatically laughable says a lot about the degeneration of the U.S.
Mod down people who tell people how to mod in their sigs
Ah, the Important Person has spoken. The rest of us are the wackos this time!
Was this actually Oceanic flight 815?
Say they are doing their best to reassure the domestic population that they are in competent control of the disaster, but they're in over their heads...
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Authorities quickly debunked this story this AM.
Denied, not debunked. Big difference.
Nope.
It's a "conspiracy theory." when you have no actual data to back up a statement. Usually note be the ever expanding circle the conspiracy must encompass when you raise questions about the person uttering the conspiracy theory.
I'm sorry* reality doesn't coincide with your pet narrative. Doubly sorry* you seem to be aware of critical thinking, yet have no idea how to use it or what it actually is.
*I'm no really sorry.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
It's when a theory is implausible and the "critical thinkers" spend years obsessed with beating a dead horse they get labeled conspiracy nut tinfoil hat wearing wackos, like the 911 truthers, the we-didn't-go-to-the-moon people, or the nutbags who are still asking for Obama's birth certificate. Critical thinking is fine and welcome in this country. Obsessing about implausible made up scenarios driven by agendas or outrage isn't.
Tired of being "punished" by the Slashdot $rtbl since 2002. I'm now over at http://soylentnews.org/ .
Something I don't understand is how the plane disappeared from radar yet kept flying. Switching off a transponder does not make a plane disappear from radar, it just means there is a blip on the radar without the data a transponder provides. The fact that no one is bringing this up leads me to believe I'm missing something big here, because as far as I know the only way that plane could have disappeared completely from radar was if it disintegrated.
Evidently the aircraft had enough power to run the pinging transmitter for over 4 hours after the transponder went dead (or was turned off). This implies that the aircraft also had enough power and structural integrity for at least some of its communication systems to work. But the experienced pilots did not make even one distress call or issue a single distress code. Why not? What prevented them from doing it?
Come on guys, it's been DAYS already! How come aliens still not in the picture???
Ah yes, the spelling ad hom and no actual refutation.
Brilliant!
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
As someone else has already mentioned, this has been denied by Malaysian officials. Just like China has now said that those satellite images which were supposed to show plane debris did in fact not show debris, but indeed, said satellite images were "released by mistake". Just like that admiral of the Vietnamese Navy saying they had lost radar contact with the plain just over the Gulf of Thailand, but apparently it was just incorrect information (another mistake).
It seems clear that no-one knows where the fuck that plane is, but due to the pressure to find something, ANYTHING to satisfy the media as well as political pressure (not to mention relatives of those missing), anything that could be seen as a clue is pushed out as something important before it's even checked or verified.
At least it can be assumed that those on the flight must be well and truly dead by now, if only because the alternative would be more horrifying...
Account abandoned. I can't fucking spell for shit and Slashdot doesn't even allow time-limited edits of posts. Plus you'
The satcom device does not have to have been on the aircraft.
Bruce Perens.
Yes that is interesting. Although we are just going on hearsay to an extent. Is there PROOF that passengers' phones were ringing (i.e. those phones were definitely on the plane, and definitely rang)? Or is it just a case of some relatives believing what they want to believe (which I don't blame them for, in the traumatic situation they are in).
Furthermore there are other potential explanations for that, including phones auto-forwarded to other numbers or diverted to a malfunctioning voicemail or answering machine system when not in range of a tower. This is especially possible for internationally routed calls (which sometimes do some pretty weird things).
If it is true, it certainly does suggest that the plane remained flying (and at a low altitude) for some time after 'disappearing', or at least that the plane crashed somewhere within range of a cell tower and some phones survived the crash.
Ignoring all the speculation for a bit, let me present a few completely irrefutable facts that point to a different theory of what happened to the plane.
Fact 1: There are many active volcanoes in this region of the world.
Fact 2: There were virgins on the airplane.
Fact 3: The Great Old Ones have not arisen to destroy us all.
We should thank them for ensuring the continued existence of the human race.
The phones weren't "ringing." the ring tone the relatives heard was supplied by Central Office Equipment to give the illusion that the phones were "ringing." That's what happens when someone picks up the phone and you say, "But it hadn't started ringing yet." Yes, it had. It's just that your simulation-ring hadn't reached you yet--two different tones. Think about it. There is only a single cable pair that hooks up a typical phone. How could you possibly "hear it ring"?
The cell network mimics the POTS network. It's just part of the "aural interface" phones have used for over a hundred years.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
"Two U.S. officials tell ABC News the U.S. believes that the shutdown of two communication systems happened separately on Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. One source said this indicates the plane did not come out of the sky because of a catastrophic failure.
The data reporting system, they believe, was shut down at 1:07 a.m. The transponder -- which transmits location and altitude -- shut down at 1:21 a.m."
-- ABC News, Thursday March 13, 2014
Curiouser and curiouser.
My money is on something like what heppend to flght ZU 522 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H...
Such people are a distinct minority. There are people who believe in anything you can imagine. The fact that they are not ignored by the mainstream media but are in fact paraded in front of society for the purposes of mockery and as an example to all is telling.
The fact is, these imbeciles are used as material to condition people to automatically reject ANY possibility of ANY conspiracies, by their idiocy, when in fact most of history is the history of conspiracies.
The on board engine monitoring module is only *ON* when the engine is turned on.
When the engine is off, the transmission module goes to sleeping mode, relies on it's tiny battery backup on keeping the date/time current.
Saying that the module keeps on transmitting AFTER the plane has broken up is not only inaccurate, it's downright irresponsible !
One bit of info that *might* be of interest... cell phone towers beacon to announce their presence to phones, but individual phones actually *poll* towers every few seconds. The reply from the tower lets them know when there's an incoming call, deliver SMS & voicemail notifications, etc. In theory, at least, if the mobile phone of any passenger came within range of a cell tower it was allowed to poll, there's probably a log of it somewhere.
That said, if the jet was at cruising altitude, the likelihood of a phone on board *doing* that is almost nil, because tower antennas are generally aimed downwards... partly, to minimize interference from airborne mobile phones that could otherwise splatter noise over a 40-100 mile radius (the line of sight when your transmitter is 5+ miles up in the air).
The aircraft is currently parked on a remote jungle runway in Sumatra taking Grand Theft Auto to a whole new level..
On original POTS circuits the ring tone was actually the 25Hz signal sent to the phone with the phone's bell coils supplying some of the ringback harmonics along with a ring generator. With a good ear you could estimate how many phone sets were ringing. The audio path was already set-up while the phone rang. If the called party was too near an AM broadcast transmitter you might even hers some of the program between rings. The off-hook condition on the called party just disconnected the ring generator at the CO and started any billing equipment.
Of course this all ended with the last of the Stroger and crossbar offices.
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
"some illegal military operation" Why does it have to be illegal? It could be a simple as we don't want to disclose our full worldwide surveillance capabilities. We've also been told that the transponders were turned off or quit working. But I haven't read anyone claim the same of the radios. Possibly the circuit breakers on the VHF/HF transceivers weren't pulled and the plane did to continue sending ACARS engine performance data on VHF/HF and for whatever reason MAS didn't receive or is denying receiving it, and US signal intelligence did pick it up.
Picking up signals transmitted over the open ocean by military vessels in international waters isn't illegal.
This is what we know so far, a good summary ...
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Really small. I'll bet the number of floating cell towers in the middle of the South China sea is an integer that approaches zero.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
"What happened to Helios 522" would not turn off transponders.
US Dispatches USS Kid to Indian Ocean. Yes the Russians scared Turkey with jets near them, but US has unconfirmed info that the jet went way into Indian Ocean. I think the US was monitoring Facebook traffic from the pilots. Facebook released info under subpoena because pilots bought hard drive space from Google. Conspiracy??????
Malaysia is a country which is filled with lies.
Really what do you expect from an Islamic state? Name one that isn't!
More importantly, when something is very important it is impossible for general people to know of its truths through the traditional investigation and media mechanism.
At every stage of the fact copying process between persons, there is a huge incentive to distort facts. Distortion could be in any direction.
Given this, it is a waste of the time by the "critical" thinkers to worry too much about learning the truth. There can be no hope of the truth in really important matters. That is why such people are nutjobs - like people believing in fairies.
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
"individual phones actually *poll* towers every few seconds"
I highly doubt that. A 2G gsm phone left next to an audio cable will only generate the familiar "bidibip" noise once an hour or so. I assume it does that in response to an "are you still there" request from the tower.
The radio transmitter in a cellphone is about one watt. For battery lifetime, you really don't want the transmitter to activate every few seconds.
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http://www.reuters.com/article...
Completely correct - for 1930.
Getting progressively wronger over time till it's now brimming over with wrongness.
Not completely correct, but on the right lines...
GSM and 3G phones listen to the cell tower's Pilot carrier, which contains a whole bunch of data (which network, neighbouring cells etc). thenetwork will broadcast a request for a particular phone to contact it when there is incoming traffic (eg call or SMS) for that phone.
To reduce the volume of traffic, it only broadcasts this request over a small(ish) no of cells, called a Location Area (LA). And how does it know which LA to poll - because part of the broadcast data on the pilot channel is the LA identifier - so when a phone switches from listening on one cell to listening on another (which it doesn't inform the network about unless it is mid call) it checks the LA number, and then updates the network with it's new LA when the LA identification changes.
So if anyone on the plane left their mobile switched on (and with a couple of hundred people on the plane this is a racing certainty), then by checking the operater records for all the phones, LA updates will be there (and yes, operators are required to keep this meta-data for the intelligence services).
In consequence, I would be extremely surprised if the NSA / GCHQ / KGB and Chinese Military Intelligence did not already have a good indication off where the plane was (or was not).
You don't need a tinfoil hat to know the theory is entirely within the realms of possibility. VHF ACARS could certainly be received by a LEO bird. It could also be received by a passive ground source just as easily. You can even build your own receiver for a few hundred $USD.
Wait, so you're saying that critical thinking isn't important, except that it is and people should simply stop calling "critical thinking" the thing that has nothing to do with critical thinking? If so, then you've done so in an extremely convoluted way.
Ezekiel 23:20
Naturally, this has already been confirmed by one satellite (that 370 flew for 4 to 5 more hours and then landed, but it would take two more satellites receiving the aircraft's transmissions, at the same time, to triangulate where it landed at). Obviously, by this time even the dumbest of the dumb (that would be the typical American) should realize this was a sky heist or air heist not a hijacking, most likely involving the AC (aircraft commander) and perhaps both pilots. There was something mighty valuable aboard that bird, and since the cargo manifest included special handling instructions for a container of highly sensitive digital electronics, the rumor that a radically new chip was aboard might be true. If such a chip prototype were being transported on a passenger flight, instead of a private jet, it begs the question whether the Freescale Semiconductor engineers were taking it to China for manufacturing purposes, or to hand off to the Chinese government. We do know that Freescale Semiconductor is owned by the Blackstone Group and Carlyle Group (with investments by AIG) and whenever you have the Carlyle Group, murky things happen, and times one thousand when the Blackstone Group is involved, because, really, the Carlyle Group is simply a subset of the Blackstone Group, as anyone familiar with the two private equity/leveraged buyout firms will attest.
Everything electrical in the aircraft has to be under the control of the pilots in order to respond to emergencies. For example, an electrical fire might require shutting down the two busses carrying he redundant transponders. Or a generator failure might mean powering down non-critical equipment, which could easily be the transponder if the pilot is already near an airport and in radar contact. There is simply no practical way to protect most equipment from malicious onboard actors.