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Australia Rebooting Search For MH370

Posted by Unknown on from the soon-to-be-best-mapped-area-on-earth dept.

McGruber (1417641) writes "The Wall Street Journal reports that two months after pausing its search for the missing Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777-200ER, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) is ready to reboot its search. The ATSB is poised to select among bids from the world's most-advanced deep-water specialists, including offshore oil-and-gas companies, maritime research institutions and treasure hunters eager to use their technologies and experience to solve the Flight 370 riddle—and potentially raise their own profiles in the process. ... With no hard evidence of where the plane went down, the search will test the recovery industry's abilities like nothing before. In June, Australian authorities shifted the search zone for a third time — by about 600 miles to the southwest — after reanalyzing satellite transmissions. Even then, they said it was impossible to know whether the fresh search area would prove correct."

92 comments

  1. Time for Restart by smittyoneeach · · Score: 4, Funny

    Time for restart
    Mustn't lose heart
    For Malaysian air dart
    That went all Earhart
    Burma Shave

    --
    Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
    1. Re:Time for Restart by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      "Where is it?" you wonder
      Its black box was plundered
      Don't refrain
      Look in Ukaine

  2. More information by GumphMaster · · Score: 4, Informative

    A current bathymetric survey progress map is here. The earlier underwater search area was around the Zenith Plateau region. Elsewhere on that site are routine updates, although they are getting less frequent of late.

    --
    Patent litigation: A doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction... in which everyone seems willing to push the button
    1. Re:More information by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I'm sorry about all the people who were on the plane, but if there's any bright side in this it is that the world will get to map a bit more of what's around us. It's shocking how little we know about the depths of the oceans.

      So I hope all the multibeam data collected about the sea floor features gets published to free and open databases like GMRT:

      http://www.marine-geo.org/port...

  3. Re: Conspiracy theory alert! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Your theory blows! They know where it went down. The new search effort is just to distract the public! (*Warning - sarcasm is objective)

    (

  4. ANOTHER reboot? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Is J.J. Abrams going to direct the search this time?

    1. Re:ANOTHER reboot? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      MH370, brought down by excessive lens flare.

    2. Re:ANOTHER reboot? by jythie · · Score: 2

      Well, lens flare might make it easier to find at least.

  5. I know what happened. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_(film)

    1. Re:I know what happened. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      or perhaps maybe... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...

  6. Us with Ebola by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    It's the shit we're not looking for that gets us.

    I came back from Capetown in February fevered, vomiting, with diarrhea, sore throat, sneezing, coughing. Had to go to Mt. Sinai and have tests run and fluids pumped into me. It was e. Coli. I had a 26 hr. flight. No one asked me anything.

    We almost had an American from Minnesota working in Liberia come back to the Us with Ebola. He died en route.

    But first he pissed all over the hospital workers looking after him. I can't think of a more frightening epidemic.

    Fatal in 90% of cases. Vomiting, fever, diarrhea, aches, sneezing, coughing, plus you bleed from every orifice in your body. Despite claims to the contrary, it can become airborne. It can also be sexually transmitted through male semen of asymptomatic carriers for up to two months. This is like AIDS meets the bubonic plague with a little influenza thrown in.

    Then we flew two do gooder fucktards into the US with it. I don't care how nice they are. They broke containment.

    Why would we do that? Maybe for cover, because it was already here. This shit has me freaked the fuck out.

    The first plane bound for Atlanta from Africa refueled in Bangor. Why would it fly to Maine?

    Then I thought, it's the Appalachian trail. It starts in Maine and ends in Georgia. They want to kill the teahadists, as the IRS and DHS call them. The facility these workers were stationed at in Africa was run by a Soros-funded NGO.

    Do you think this hasn't been brought to Obama'd attention? I seriously don't think he gives a fuck. More likely the House set us up for amnesty before they went on vacation, so he can quit bluffing, worthless cocksuckers that they are.

    1. Re:Us with Ebola by gmhowell · · Score: 1

      Makes as much sense as the rest of that screed.

      --
      Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
    2. Re:Us with Ebola by Lotana · · Score: 1

      Hey, at least everyone shut up about everything being Bush's fault!

  7. I hope they find it by mtthwbrnd · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Just so that people stop sending me links to conspiracy theories about it. The problem with all of the conspiracy theories about MH370 that I have encountered so far is:

    1. There is no motive for a conspiracy.
    2. There is no evidence of a conspiracy.

    Other than that all of the conspiracy theories are "interesting".

    1. Re:I hope they find it by Black+Parrot · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Just so that people stop sending me links to conspiracy theories about it.

      Since when did facts put an end to conspiracy theories?

      --
      Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
    2. Re:I hope they find it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I reckon someone on the plane wanted to disappear, so they hijacked the plane, landed it, killed everyone else on board and buried the bodies.

      (Hey, why not? It's more realistic than anal probing, and will probably spin off a Hollywood film.)

    3. Re:I hope they find it by jythie · · Score: 1

      Who needs evidence... they KNOW the truth! Every fact saying otherwise is planted by the powers that be.

    4. Re:I hope they find it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A huge contingent of aids researchers was on that plane. Big Pharma had the plane shot down to put the research back a decade so they can still sell overpriced medicines that don't cure the base cause....

    5. Re:I hope they find it by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 2


      1. There is no motive for a conspiracy.
      2. There is no evidence of a conspiracy.

      We should be honest in our assessment of what these people think, even if we disagree with their conclusions. The predominant theory holds that MH370 was hijacked to Diego Garcia for future use as a false flag operation (motive). They point to things like the window configurations being the same in the MH17 wreckage and MH370 but different in ground shots of MH17, or rotten corpses in the wreckage (evidence, if it were true).

      Their theories have trouble more on the level of "OK, so what happened to the real MH17 then?" and other logical inconsistencies, or even just showing evidence that "evidence" is in fact true ("why do you think that window configuration photo is MH17, because somebody said so? - where's the wide shot with the tail number?").

      It doesn't help them much that Joe Biden's son just got appointed to the board of Gazprom in Ukraine or that Israel launched a ground invasion of Gaza as soon as MH17 went down - the willingness of certain groups of people to do evil, nefarious things isn't in question.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    6. Re:I hope they find it by BenSchuarmer · · Score: 1

      That's just what the lizard aliens want you to think.

    7. Re:I hope they find it by mikael · · Score: 1

      The "rotten corpses" is more likely to be due to the 1300kg of Lithium batteries that were on board that flight. Interestingly both flights were carrying lithium batteries and travelling towards the Far East.

      --
      Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
    8. Re:I hope they find it by TemporalBeing · · Score: 2

      Just so that people stop sending me links to conspiracy theories about it. The problem with all of the conspiracy theories about MH370 that I have encountered so far is:

      1. There is no motive for a conspiracy. 2. There is no evidence of a conspiracy.

      Other than that all of the conspiracy theories are "interesting".

      Well, you don't really know any motive until you can identify who did it.

      While I'm not one for conspiracies, I think the MH370 incident is a prime example of what could be the next "9/11" - hi-jack an airline in remote region, kill everyone on board, transport it somewhere where you want to make a statement, then load with explosives and make your statement; only after which you announce you were behind it. Such a task could take years to carry out, so it's not going to be evident for potentially a long time who did it or why; and you'll only discover it by looking at the wreckage (if recoverable) after the final terrorist act occurs.

      The only thing that gives the above any credence is the fact that they haven't found it yet.

      Could there be other explainations? Certainly; but the likelihood is low given the (public) information and critical timing (e.g the plane "disapparing" just after a hand-off between two regions in a remote area that had little if any radar coverage, among government regions that are fighting each other more than helping out so as to point the finger elsewhere, etc).

      Do I hope the find it? Certainly; but the current information (or rather lack thereof) only makes my hypothesis (sadly) stronger.

      --
      Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
  8. How much have they spent already? by J.R.C.L. · · Score: 0

    Still no clue whatsoever? And they have spent millions of dollars already.http://bit.ly/1zQ4qub

    1. Re:How much have they spent already? by geogob · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Still no clue whatsoever?

      And this is exactly why we should keep searching for the wreckage and find it. Knowing what happened is the key to prevent it from happening again. More than in any other fields, aviation safety is build upon knowledge gained from past incidents and accidents. This is why it is worth investing both the time and the money to understand the events that lead to the crash.

    2. Re:How much have they spent already? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Here's my problem.

      It went into the ocean. Everyone is pretty certain of that. Since it did, it either broke up, or was able to remain intact. Highly unlikely it remained entirely intact, statistically speaking, given what we know about pilots, aircraft, water landings.... So, that means it broke up. Now I imagine most debris would sink. Most! However, there was quite a bit of material on that plane that wouldn't, or shouldn't sink. Ever! I realize the ocean is big, and search efforts are rather small comparively, but I have a hard time believing we haven't found a single shred of debris from the plane. Maybe it's just a matter of time, but to me, the most disconcerting things is that we've found no trace of it, at all! Nothing!

    3. Re:How much have they spent already? by AikonMGB · · Score: 2

      You are of course correct for the initial search, but at some point you hit diminishing returns. Even if the failure were a technical one, the value of locating the wreck and determining the cause is likely of limited value. There are only so many systems that can fail, and we already do thorough failure modes analyses when designing aircraft. That's why flying is so safe these days.

      The 777 has a pretty good track record with 1,212 units built and five hull losses, only two of which were due to failure of flight systems. If the hull cost $261.5M and you estimate the value of a human life $10M, then the MH370 incident had a base cost of around $2.6B. If you only had one failure out of 1,212 hulls, that suggests you'd be willing to spend 0.08% or ~$2.1M to make sure it doesn't happen again.

      This is just one formulation of the cost/benefit and of course excludes some important factors like the public relations cost to MA and airlines in general, but hopefully it illustrates that there's a bound on how much we should reasonably be expected to invest in understanding the events of the incident, and that it is not an absurdly high value.

    4. Re:How much have they spent already? by Cinnamon+Beige · · Score: 2

      You are of course correct for the initial search, but at some point you hit diminishing returns. Even if the failure were a technical one, the value of locating the wreck and determining the cause is likely of limited value. There are only so many systems that can fail, and we already do thorough failure modes analyses when designing aircraft. That's why flying is so safe these days.

      You forget to factor in that sometimes the point of the search will (has, likely, already) become more than anything else a way to improve and prove the techniques used to search, and hopefully they're keeping good records.

      There will, I assure you, be scientists waiting patiently to mine the data for things useful to their own research, that they would have been unable to justify the costs of doing themselves. It's like basic research that way.

    5. Re:How much have they spent already? by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      More than in any other fields, aviation safety is build upon knowledge gained from past incidents and accidents.

      Say what? More than in any other field, like automotive technology? Fail, fail.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    6. Re:How much have they spent already? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think one thing we learned from this disaster is that black box recorders are not good enough on their own. We need flight data and cockpit recordings to be sent to satellites in realtime.

    7. Re:How much have they spent already? by AikonMGB · · Score: 1

      You don't need a downed aircraft to do that kind of research though, you can just go out and look for something, maybe something that isn't even there.

    8. Re:How much have they spent already? by wired_parrot · · Score: 1

      The money isn't being wasted. The search for the plane is creating a detailed oceanographic survey of the Indian ocean in an area of the sea that is not well explored. Even if the plane is never found, I'd say the sonar survey of the ocean bottom that will result from this search will be worth the money spent.

    9. Re:How much have they spent already? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The southern Ocean is huge, as ist the swell, and we don't even know if it crashed there. It'll take years until debris washes ashore anywhere, and bits and pieces will probably be found for decades to come.

    10. Re:How much have they spent already? by Deadstick · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Yes, pieces of debris should start washing up on beaches, but it can take a while. The first of the "lost rubber duckies" of 1992 took ten months to be found, and finds continued for at least fifteen years: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...

      Also, the floating debris won't include a lot of specifically airplane material. It will be seat cushions, clothing, plastic bottles...and the sea is already full of floating crap, so an object isn't certain to be recognized even if it appears on Waikiki Beach.

    11. Re:How much have they spent already? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How much time and how much money do you want to spend too investigate this? Put some numbers to it. When you do take into account you are taking about the statistically safest form of travel already.

    12. Re:How much have they spent already? by Cinnamon+Beige · · Score: 1

      You don't need a downed aircraft to do that kind of research though, you can just go out and look for something, maybe something that isn't even there.

      You do, however, need funding, and which means that you have to pick a something that people will fund you looking for. Securing the money necessary to do basic research is amazingly difficult, especially when the honest answer is that your work is not expected to be of practical use to anybody but fellow researchers for whom it will lower the costs of doing their research.

      Thus, it needs to have a good perceived value, and people need to believe there is a good chance it will be found. Getting money to search for polar bears in Honolulu is highly unlikely to happen.

      There probably is very little expectation of actually finding the downed plane at this point, but people currently will fund any search that looks to be in the right area & actually finding it would prove we've gotten to the point where we can find such things.

    13. Re:How much have they spent already? by camperdave · · Score: 1

      I think one thing we learned from this disaster is that black box recorders are not good enough on their own. We need flight data and cockpit recordings to be sent to satellites in realtime.

      Or, at a minimum, real-time position telemetry.

      --
      When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
    14. Re:How much have they spent already? by mikael · · Score: 2

      The first things we'd expect to find or see from satellite photographs are bits of wing and tail. The shock of a crash-landing would fracture them off. Then if the fuel tanks were ruptured, those would create oil slicks even if they were underwater. Live vests and seat cushions should also float, as well as bits of trimming from the passenger cabin. Then all sorts of passenger belongings should also float.

      So the chances are the pilot aimed for a controlled landing in the ocean. There were witnesses who claimed to see a burning aircraft (from an oil-ring), and another who said they saw an aircraft flying low towards Garcia Diego.

      --
      Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
    15. Re:How much have they spent already? by Marxist+Hacker+42 · · Score: 1

      Where is the Indian Ocean Gyre? Bits and pieces might be there by now.

      --
      SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
  9. Might want to check eastern UA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    good as place as any.

    1. Re:Might want to check eastern UA by guacamole · · Score: 1

      Very funny.

      hahaha

      not

  10. Why the Australians? by nukenerd · · Score: 3

    Serious question, why are the Australians taking the lead in this? There were only 6 Australians on board out of 239 people, and waters near (but not all that near) Australia are only one area of many that the plane might have ended up. Most pasengers were Chinese or Malaysians. I'm suprised no-one has come up with a conspiracy theory on this point - there have been some more fantastic ones.

    1. Re:Why the Australians? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Because it's in Australia's maritime search zone - see https://www.amsa.gov.au/search-and-rescue/sar-in-australia/arrangements-in-australia/ for more info.

    2. Re:Why the Australians? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I think of Abbot as a wannabe Putin. But without the power. Or the looks. Or the ability to kill someone with his bare hands. Or shoot tigers. Or rescue babies and dolphins. But asides from all that, he's just like Putin.

    3. Re:Why the Australians? by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      That says why Australia, but a more important question is why at all?

      This isn't a search and rescue mission. There's no one to rescue. How long and how much money should be dedicated to finding why 239 people drowned, and how much is there really to be gained from knowing this information in full?

    4. Re: Why the Australians? by Type44Q · · Score: 1

      You left out the ability to apparate - even inside places that normally forbid it (Hogwarts, for example).

    5. Re:Why the Australians? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe read up on why organizations such as the NTSB and ATSB were created in the first place.

    6. Re:Why the Australians? by Richard_at_work · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It took 2 years of searching before the black boxes from Air France flight AF447 were found, and during that period there was a massive amount of speculation and doubt about what happened, leading to total uncertainty about how to prevent another crash. Airbus took a beating as everyone assumed it was an aircraft fault which led to the crash.

      When they found the black boxes, the real problem turned out to not be a systems fault (although there was a momentary loss of air speed data due to icing, it didn't cause the crash) but a crew training problem so spending the time and money to find and recover them after 2 years has lead to small systems changes but significant pilot training changes.

      So while everyone assumes that MH370 crashed due to the pilot committing suicide, there is always that element of doubt because we really don't know what transpired until we have evidence - so what happens if that assumed 0.001% chance of this particular crash being caused by something else, something mechanical or systems related, comes real and it causes another crash?

    7. Re:Why the Australians? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And according to the dickheads in charge there's a budget fucking emergency.... and we're spending 100's of millions on a fruitless search?

    8. Re:Why the Australians? by Charliemopps · · Score: 2

      That says why Australia, but a more important question is why at all?

      This isn't a search and rescue mission. There's no one to rescue. How long and how much money should be dedicated to finding why 239 people drowned, and how much is there really to be gained from knowing this information in full?

      Because if an Australian airline went down in Chinese waters they'd expect China to expend the same amount of effort. In the modern world we don't just let people vanish if we can help it.

    9. Re:Why the Australians? by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Serious question, why are the Australians taking the lead in this? [...] I'm suprised no-one has come up with a conspiracy theory on this point

      Because they're the only nation missing people which is not involved in the conspiracy?

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    10. Re:Why the Australians? by Black+Parrot · · Score: 2

      See also the first entry in this list.

      --
      Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
    11. Re:Why the Australians? by plaukas+pyragely · · Score: 2

      Maybe they're just being nice?

    12. Re:Why the Australians? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      finding why 239 people drowned

      . Because we don't even know if they drowned. They may have suffocated (due to lack of air or smoke) or have burned. If they didn't, most of them were probably smashed to pieces when the plane impacted the ocean.

    13. Re:Why the Australians? by AikonMGB · · Score: 2

      Using your number of 0.001% probability of this crash being something technical, and my estimated value of MH370 of $2.6B, then $26,000. The 777 has a lot of flight hours; if there's a technical problem with it, its a corner-case quirk, not a fundamental design issue. Maybe it doesn't sit well with you, but it is not reasonable to expect 100% safety from any system -- it would be prohibitively expensive.

    14. Re:Why the Australians? by jittles · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It took 2 years of searching before the black boxes from Air France flight AF447 were found, and during that period there was a massive amount of speculation and doubt about what happened, leading to total uncertainty about how to prevent another crash. Airbus took a beating as everyone assumed it was an aircraft fault which led to the crash.

      When they found the black boxes, the real problem turned out to not be a systems fault (although there was a momentary loss of air speed data due to icing, it didn't cause the crash) but a crew training problem so spending the time and money to find and recover them after 2 years has lead to small systems changes but significant pilot training changes.

      So while everyone assumes that MH370 crashed due to the pilot committing suicide, there is always that element of doubt because we really don't know what transpired until we have evidence - so what happens if that assumed 0.001% chance of this particular crash being caused by something else, something mechanical or systems related, comes real and it causes another crash?

      There is a serious control fault with the Airbus that did result in the crash of AF447. One pilot was nosing the plane up as hard as he could. The other was nosing it down as hard as he could. There was absolutely no feedback from one pilot to the other indicating that they were fighting each other. Instead, the control system took the stronger force and allowed the plane to continue to try and climb and eventually stall and fall from the sky. Was there a huge mistake on the part of the pilots? Absolutely. But you can't deny that there was a critical problem with the controls in the aircraft as well. A problem that so many people try to say doesn't exist.

    15. Re:Why the Australians? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      At 0.001%, that's $26,000 of increased risk PER FLIGHT. With a thousand 777s flying daily, that's $9 billion in losses PER YEAR.

      Might be worth spending some money on investigating...

    16. Re:Why the Australians? by GameboyRMH · · Score: 0

      Damn, I didn't know that, I thought the only problem was the pilot's terrifyingly noobish response to an incorrect airspeed indication. If this is a fly-by-wire system, it might be best to mechanically interlock the two sets of controls. This worked well for decades with hydraulic controls.

      --
      "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
    17. Re:Why the Australians? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It took 2 years of searching before the black boxes from Air France flight AF447 were found, and during that period there was a massive amount of speculation and doubt about what happened, leading to total uncertainty about how to prevent another crash. Airbus took a beating as everyone assumed it was an aircraft fault which led to the crash.

      When they found the black boxes, the real problem turned out to not be a systems fault (although there was a momentary loss of air speed data due to icing, it didn't cause the crash) but a crew training problem so spending the time and money to find and recover them after 2 years has lead to small systems changes but significant pilot training changes.

      So while everyone assumes that MH370 crashed due to the pilot committing suicide, there is always that element of doubt because we really don't know what transpired until we have evidence - so what happens if that assumed 0.001% chance of this particular crash being caused by something else, something mechanical or systems related, comes real and it causes another crash?

      The cause of the crash of AF 447 was pitot tubes that froze up, causing loss of airspeed indication.

      If there were no "aircraft fault[s]", why did Airbus replace the pitot tubes on its planes after AF 447 crashed?

      More Pitot Tube Incidents Revealed

      New reports of Pitot tube malfunctions on Airbus jetliners during severe weather have prompted additional safety concerns about their reliability.

      ...

    18. Re: Why the Australians? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wrong. The British Commonwealth means very little these days. There would be very little difference whether it was a Malaysian or Indonesian plane.

    19. Re:Why the Australians? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because Australia is an US outpost heavily involved in covering up for the CIA.

    20. Re: Why the Australians? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because, you know, 777s are falling out of the sky at the rate of 3 a year...

      0.001% is clearly too high.

    21. Re:Why the Australians? by thegarbz · · Score: 2

      And the Airbus crashed in a more known search region in far shallower water. Before we found the black box air travel was the safest form of travel available. After we found the black box nothing changed. Statistically with enough planes in the air eventually one would fall from the sky. Now if every plane from that model starts exhibiting a problem then you damn well want that flight recorder.

      But right now, how much money do you want to our into the search for this plane for the potential to find out that there write likely was nothing wrong with it and if there was that it was an isolated incident? Saying we should spend years is foolish. Spending the time looking for the Airbus was equally foolish given the money and effort spent on a disproportionately small improvement in safety.

    22. Re:Why the Australians? by Richard_at_work · · Score: 5, Informative

      Actually, no, your description of what happened was completely wrong. Airbus side sticks have a "priority" button, there is no "fighting each other" - if a pilot wants to take over command then all he has to do is press the priority button and he has command authority.

      What happened to AF447 had little to do with how the Airbus controls are set out - after all, the exact same thing (pilots stalling the aircraft because they were unsure as to what was happening) has happened on both the 767 and the DC-9, which both have linked control columns.

      What really happened to AF447 is that the pilots lost their situational awareness, they didn't carry out the right procedures in the case of an airspeed mismatch, they didn't recognise that they were approaching a stall, and then they disregarded further airspeed warnings after the airspeed issue was resolved - by reacting badly to the initial fault, they stalled the aircraft and didn't realise until far too late.

      The right hand seated pilot kept his stick hard back, which is against all of his training - he shouldn't have been trying to raise the nose that much at all, and yet he kept the stick hard back for minutes at a time. It wasn't until the senior pilot, being summoned from the cabin where he was resting, queried the action being taken that the pilot flying stopped his action, but by then they were seconds away from hitting the water.

      There is no issue with the Airbus flight controls, despite what many anti-Airbus people say - as I said above, the same issue has happened on non-Airbus aircraft.

      Also a side note - at abso-fucking-lutly no time should two pilots be "fighting for control over each other". Should never happen. The designated pilot flying should be the only one on the controls, the designated pilot-non-flying should be doing the instrumentation and only ever have his hands on the controls at the explicit request of the pilot flying. Your "description" of what happened would be a huge failure of training and crew relationships.

    23. Re:Why the Australians? by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      No of course. We make a reasonable effort. In just asking you to define reasonable. How many millions so we spend for the sake of the 0.1% of people who died that day? How many more people could be saved if those resources were allocated else where?

      Honestly I expect if a plane went down of the Chinese coast that they'd look for 2 weeks and declare it over.

    24. Re:Why the Australians? by Richard_at_work · · Score: 2

      The inability for people to read an entire paragraph is simply astounding....

      Oh, and the pitot tube icing issue had been highlighted nearly a year before, and Air France aircraft were undergoing staged replacements under an Airworthiness Directive at the time of the AF447 crash.

    25. Re:Why the Australians? by jrumney · · Score: 2

      As always, it was a combination of factors. No one of the factors by itself was the cause of the crash. The absence of any one of the factors would have saved the plane. If the pitot tube was not frozen, then the control systems would not have detected conflicting inputs and reverted to "direct law" (manual override), and the infamous Airbus fly-by-wire autopilot would not have allowed the copilot to stall the plane. If the controls had positive feedback, the pilot would have noticed that the co-pilot was doing the opposite of what he was being instructed to do. If the training for managing such a situation had been better, the co-pilot may have handled the situation calmly and been able to think through what he was doing better.

    26. Re:Why the Australians? by camperdave · · Score: 1

      It's not about finding out why 239 people drowned. It's about finding and fixing the hole in the supposedly foolproof safety surveillance net that is big enough to let a multi-million dollar plane vanish without a trace.

      --
      When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
    27. Re:Why the Australians? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      At 0.001%, that's $26,000 of increased risk PER FLIGHT. With a thousand 777s flying daily, that's $9 billion in losses PER YEAR.

      No, it's $26,000 per unexplained airframe loss of a loaded 777, which is unusual among documented losses, which themselves are incredibly rare in the collective 20 year history of this aircraft. The actual PER FLIGHT risk is essentially zero, since there are over a thousand 777 flights per day and several thousand service days since commercial launch in 1995, and this is the only such incident in literally millions of data points.

      Ignoring the fact that both the $2.6B and the 0.001% are WAGs, even if they're accurate, we don't even lose 3 Boeing 777s a year taking into consideration all causes of loss, let alone unexplained ones without evidence of mechanical failure.

      Someone doesn't understand probability.

    28. Re:Why the Australians? by kbahey · · Score: 1

      For AF447, wreckage was spotted 2 days after the plane went missing, and bodies of passangers were recovered 4 days after that. That gave a rough area to search for the black boxes.

      Not a single piece of wreckage from MH370 was found to give a clue on roughly where it went down.

      The area is vast, so it is a mind boggling task.

      --
      2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
    29. Re:Why the Australians? by jayveekay · · Score: 1

      The right hand seated pilot kept his stick hard back, which is against all of his training - he shouldn't have been trying to raise the nose that much at all, and yet he kept the stick hard back for minutes at a time. It wasn't until the senior pilot, being summoned from the cabin where he was resting, queried the action being taken that the pilot flying stopped his action, but by then they were seconds away from hitting the water.

      There is no issue with the Airbus flight controls

      The issue is that neither of the other 2 pilots in the cockpit visually observed what the junior pilot was doing with his stick. If it had been visually obvious to the other pilots that the junior pilot was pulling his stick hard back then they would have corrected his mistake and the plane would not have crashed.. They couldn't see what the junior pilot was doing with the stick. Lack of control input visibility would seem to be an issue.

      That's what I read on the internet, anyway.

    30. Re:Why the Australians? by Cochonou · · Score: 2

      Yes, but you should read the investigation report which is publicly available instead of second sources on the internet.
      You would see that both the pilot flying (junior) and the pilot non flying (senior) successively had the controls. You would also see that they had the same reaction: pull back on the stick.
      The point is at no time, any of the 3 pilots were aware that they were in a stall, despite the stall warning sounding repeatedly. They were just puzzled at what was happening. And one of the main reasons for this is that they were inadequately trained to recognize this situation.
      Finally, you would see that the investigation authority made numerous recommendations about pilot training, about the display of the cockpit instruments (behavior of the stall warning, behavior of the flight directors, etc..), and none about the control inputs.

    31. Re:Why the Australians? by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      I'm all for that idea except that thinking anything is foolproof is naive at best.

      Lets dedicated resources to the problem, but first define the upper limit. How much is it worth investigating this issue which has led to the deaths of 239 out of 2.5 billion people who took to the air last year.

      You're disproportionately spending money on what is already the safest form of travel. Now if you spend the same money per person on the road toll you would bankrupt entire nations.

    32. Re:Why the Australians? by tipo159 · · Score: 1

      So while everyone assumes that MH370 crashed due to the pilot committing suicide ...

      Who is this everyone of which you speak? A pilot committing suicide drops the plane into water/ground when he decides it is time to go. MH370 flew until it ran out of fuel and then went down. That does not seem like what a pilot committing suicide would let happen.

    33. Re:Why the Australians? by Richard_at_work · · Score: 1

      Yes, the internet is full of anti-Airbus shite these days, a lot of it centred around the flight systems - and yet Airbus aircraft are not crashing with any more frequency than Boeing aircraft...

      When you next get on a Airbus aircraft, ask for a cockpit visit - sit in either of the pilots seats and then look over at the other pilots seat. When you are normally seated, and there is someone in the other seat, you can still see the other pilots control stick, so a quick glance over would be enough to tell you what the other pilot is doing.

    34. Re:Why the Australians? by uninformedLuddite · · Score: 1

      So while everyone assumes that MH370 crashed due to the pilot committing suicide,

      You might believe that but the majority don't.

      --
      The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
  11. Reboot? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Will it be darker and grittier, or all flashy with a sexy young new cast, and lens flares?

    1. Re:Reboot? by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 1

      It's been on the bottom of the ocean for 8 months, of course it'll be darker and grittier. Probably slimy too.

  12. Hey, MH370: by tux0r · · Score: 2

    âoeWhere the bloody hell are ya?!â

    --
    ( Redundancy is ) ^ n
    1. Re:Hey, MH370: by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      Ya flamin' galah.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
  13. REBOOT by lindseyp · · Score: 0

    Can this just die already?

    --
    j'ai découvert une démonstration vraiment admirable (de ce théorème général) que cette si
  14. ATSB HA! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The ATSB couldn't find their own backsides if thier lives depended on it. Thier about as competent as a bunch of kindergarten kids.

  15. Oh no! by nospam007 · · Score: 1

    Whatever you do, don't switch to CNN.

    1. Re:Oh no! by camperdave · · Score: 1

      Whatever you do, don't switch to CNN.

      Can't. CNN has been removed from basic cable around here. We're down to less than a dozen real channels (about half of which are alternate language channels), and a dozen "infotainment" channels (Weather, Business, local news, and infomercial channels). There is literally almost nothing worth watching unless you get a digital set-top box.

      --
      When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
  16. argh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    our government is so corrupt - I wish Abbott was on that plane, if it ever existed.

  17. satellite transmissions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    too bad the investigators don't have the exact GPS co-ordinates of the flight path or a mayday call from the pilot/co-pilot. Then the investigators (NTSB, Australian and Malaysian officials) would've found the plane by now. :( That's all I have to say.

  18. They knew roughly where AF447 was by nessman · · Score: 1

    AF447 transmitted ACARS data via either satellite or HF with trouble codes when the aircraft began having trouble with iced-up pitot tubes and the resulting issues from the pilots' errors. Along with this data was GPS coordinates. They found the wreckage about 5-6 miles from the last reported position sent via the aircraft's ACARS system.

    MH370's last-known position is a series of educated guesses at best. If it hit the water like US Airways 1549 did in the Hudson, it may have landed relatively intact, but the underside of the fuselage on US1549 was torn open from the landing, and eventually sank where it was towed to before it was fished out of the river. If passengers/crew were incapacitated when they hit the water - they likely drowned if they weren't already dead from asphyxiation.