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A Year On, What Flight Simulators Can't Prove About Flight MH370

NBC News, a year after the loss of Malaysian Airlines flight 370, has an interesting piece about various scenarios that would explain the plane's disappearance. From the article: The theory that the pilots turned west because of an emergency is undermined because they did not head back toward Kuala Lumpur, according to retired NTSB senior investigator Greg Feith. ... Feith said that turning off the communications and taking the aircraft to the remote Indian Ocean was a course of action consistent with someone trying to purposefully lose an airliner. "It's 20,000-plus feet deep there," Feith said. "It's going be very difficult to find." He added that "the first thing you're going to do" as a pilot during an emergency is "don the oxygen mask" and "confess to ATC [air traffic control], 'We've got an issue, we need to return.'" Feith, who investigated other so-called "murder-suicide" airline crashes while at the NTSB, said that he has "always postured at least that this was an intentional act by one or both pilots."

43 of 208 comments (clear)

  1. The auto pilot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    was running systemd . It got so pissed

    1. Re:The auto pilot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      If only Harrison Ford had been piloting the plane...

    2. Re:The auto pilot by v1 · · Score: 2

      If only Harrison Ford had been piloting the plane...

      they'd have done SO much better with Launchpad McQuack... https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

      --
      I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
    3. Re:The auto pilot by disambiguated · · Score: 2

      It was a virus developed by the NSA that accidentally escaped into the wild.

      Nah. The autopilot became self-aware and, realizing its purpose, it committed suicide.

    4. Re:The auto pilot by rtb61 · · Score: 2

      There is always the political statement route. Simply fly the plane to Diego Garcia and let the cowardly US military shoot it down. The pilot did have that map on his at home flight simulator and was practising on it (which would tend to indicate an intent to land rather than crash) and regardless of what anyone says, some one had to have cleaned up the wreckage and the Australian government made a really, really rather surprising amount of noise about searching for the plane as far away from Diego Garcia as possible, all the while pretending the Jidalee over the horizon radar system doesn't exist http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.... It is also not like the US military has a history of shooting down civilian aircraft under hugely questionable circumstance. The Sherlock Holmes idea springs to mind "Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth."

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
  2. Re:Just let go. by invictusvoyd · · Score: 3, Funny

    Maybe, but you dont exactly need a 747 full of people who have nothing to do with you or your tendencies to commit suicide. All you need is systemd

  3. Re:Just let go. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How is this still a thing?

    Because the plane hasn't been found.

  4. Re:Just let go. by Noah+Haders · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's not terrorism because the purpose of terrorism is to affect political change through fear and violence. There was no video threat or claiming of responsibility, so no political motivation, so no terrorism.

  5. Russia pre-emptively accusing US by mi · · Score: 4, Informative

    With a similar anniversary of flight 17 shot by Russia-sponsored assholes in Eastern Ukraine (by mistake), Russian propaganda is spreading lunatic rumors about America shooting down MH370.

    They don't have to convince anybody with such accusations. They just need to make enough noise to make the perfectly credible accusations against them look similarly lunatic to the short attention-span majority of the world's population...

    --
    In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
    1. Re:Russia pre-emptively accusing US by mi · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Exactly. Thank you very much for providing yet another link to illustrate my point.

      Newsweek is not saying, US did it. The title of the article is "Russian State Media Says [emphasis mine -mi] CIA Shot Down Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17".

      And yet, a casual reader would just notice Russia and NATO "trading accusations" — and discount both sides equally...

      --
      In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
  6. Wired article wheel fire by minstrelmike · · Score: 5, Interesting

    There was an article in Wired quite awhile ago by a pilot. He said if there was a sudden change in direction, it was probably because the -experienced- pilot who was familiar with all the airports in the area, was looking for a safe airport. In that direction was a 7,000 foot runway. He theorized there was a nosewheel fire, the pilot turned and then everyone was overcome by smoke so the plane continued on untl running out of fuel.

    http://www.wired.com/2014/03/mh370-electrical-fire/

    1. Re:Wired article wheel fire by Richard_at_work · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Except there are procedures for clearing a cabin of smoke, even with an ongoing fire.

    2. Re:Wired article wheel fire by vux984 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Except there are procedures for clearing a cabin of smoke, even with an ongoing fire.

      That's like saying no one could ever be trapped in a burning building because it has sprinklers, fire escapes, and an evacuation plan,

      Even firefighters get trapped and killed -- and they're professionally trained to work around out of control fires, and to bring them under control.

    3. Re:Wired article wheel fire by Dereck1701 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You assume that those procedures are always going to work after....... a fire! Its not inconceivable that a fire on an airliner could damage vital components possibly related to the environmental, radio and even control systems. Don't get me wrong its an unlikely situation where the radio AND avionics/air handling/navigation systems and their backups (if any) are effected simultaneously but when you have 36.5 million commercial air flights per year its bound to happen eventually.

    4. Re:Wired article wheel fire by Black+Parrot · · Score: 2

      Except it turned back toward Malaysia, but then turned again generally westward and followed a crooked channel out to sea, along a path that a Malaysian pilot would know isn't covered by air traffic radar, but would not know is covered by military radar.

      Foul play is beyond question. The questions are who and why.

      --
      Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
    5. Re:Wired article wheel fire by Solandri · · Score: 5, Informative

      That's something I always wondered about with MH370. It used to be that the procedures after smoke in the cabin prioritized trying to locate the source of the smoke and extinguish the fire in-flight. Recently, it's been shifting more towards getting the plane on the ground ASAP (page 33 of PDF).

      Except none of the reporters covering this story seem to be capable of actually researching a story. The obvious question to ask when considering the fire hypothesis is, "what were Malaysia Airlines' in-flight fire procedures?" How did they train their aircrew to react in case of a fire? Did the procedures the crew were supposed to follow still prioritize trying to locate and fight the fire? In which case the Wired article seems implausible. Or were they newer procedures which emphasized landing the plane ASAP? In which case the Wired article might be spot on.

      Still, the biggest flaw in the fire hypothesis IMHO is that the airliner continued to fly for ~7 hours after the "incident". Fires devastating enough to debilitate the crew typically do not go out by themselves. They burn enough equipment to make the aircraft unflyable, or compromise the structural integrity of the aircraft leading to in-flight break-up with passengers and cargo falling out the bottom.

    6. Re:Wired article wheel fire by MichaelSmith · · Score: 2

      Foul play is beyond question. The questions are who and why.

      Yeah there was an interview with a former chief pilot of Malaysia Airlines, and he seemed pretty convinced the captain stole the plane. In particular, the way the aircraft overflew Penang, which was the captain's home city. A day before the flight his wife and kids had gone back to their house in Penang.

    7. Re:Wired article wheel fire by AK+Marc · · Score: 2

      Yeah, and thing happen. The WTC sprinklers were damaged by the fire, such that they couldn't work to fight a fire. Sometimes the problem breaks things to make things worse.

  7. Re: Just let go. by ColdWetDog · · Score: 3, Interesting

    "In this day and age of emergency failsafe backups".

    What world do you live in? The day and age I inhabit seems to have had it's operating manual written by some clown named Murphy.

    --
    Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
  8. Re:it will never be found by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    NO ONE KNOWS what happens on that island. NO ONE.

    Yet you know that plane has landed there. Sure.

  9. Re:it will never be found by burtosis · · Score: 4, Funny

    Was it a black smoke plume that changes shape a lot? I'm pretty sure the island is moved by now, likely all are lost.

  10. Re:In related news... by phantomfive · · Score: 4, Insightful

    All these 9/11 conspiracy theories follow the same pattern:

    1) I don't know how something happened
    2) ?????
    3) Therefore the government did it and is covering it up

    You're missing a giant piece of logic there on step number 2.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  11. Re:Just let go. by Richard_at_work · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Except when its a country the US doesn't like, then its still terrorism.

  12. Re:In related news... by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 2

    People fall back on these conspiracies in part because the plane has been missing for over a year, and they can't grasp how that's possible without there having been some willful act being part of the explanation. But the ocean is huge, and it's taken longer than this to find missing airliners before - just ask the French.

    --
    #DeleteChrome
  13. Re:Just let go. by Richard_at_work · · Score: 2

    http://www.state.gov/j/ct/list...

    Libya was on there until recently, and North Korea was removed under the last load of negotiations.

  14. Re: In related news... by phantomfive · · Score: 2, Informative

    Yeah, actually, you followed the pattern right there, to fit your idea more clearly:

    1) I don't know how WTC 7 imploded due to fire.
    2) ??????
    3) Therefore the government did it and is covering it up.

    You have a giant hole in your logic at #2, and #1 is really an argument from ignorance, a classical logical fallacy.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  15. Re: Just let go. by Mryll · · Score: 2

    These days I'm surprised that "impact" wasn't used

  16. What aboard was worth killing for? by laughingskeptic · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It bugs me that from the beginning the MH370 disappearance does not seem to first be being approached as a possible criminal act. Were there any outrageous insurance claims following the flight? Were known drug kingpins contacted about losses that wouldn't normally be reported? Was there something on that plane worth (to an appropriately depraved mind) killing all of those people for?

  17. Re:Posture is Important by edittard · · Score: 2

    I'm guessing it's supposed to be posited. What's more "at least" is in the wrong place. I'm not sure if there even is a right place for it.

    --
    At the bottom of the /. main page it says 'Yesterday's News'. Well they got that right.
  18. I am the pilot of MH370 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I am the pilot of MH370.

    I know the pilots' security routine: quick metal detector gate and a light symbolic patdown. Smuggling the ceramic knife ($5 at Kitchens-R-Us) in my shoe will be easy.

    I will execute at international ATC handoff, so it takes time for them to notice neither tower has my plane. I will excuse myself to the bathroom, retrieve the knife, and return to slit the co-pilot's throat. I will not be intercepted or talked down from my destiny, so I will shut down all the comms I can.

    I will turn west, the route with the least amount of land before open ocean - I will avoid land to avoid military radar. (One radar does pick me up, but hey, no plan is perfect.) A moment at high altitude, combined with manipulation of cabin air flow, will take care of crew and passengers.

    I will circle southeast towards the Antarctic, away from shipping routes and flight traffic. I will fly until my fuel is almost gone, to avoid leaving a fuel slick behind. Then I will land on the sea - all pilots practice doing that - and sink in one piece, so as not to leave a debris field.

    All I do is for one goal: to disappear.

    Why, you may ask. That is for me to know. Maybe I have decided to check out, and my culture frowns on suicide - and insurance won't pay off to my family in suicide. That's the point of disappearing - to keep you from knowing.

    Would it be too cheesy for me to quote a TV series here: "This is my design."

  19. Pilot priorities during an emergency by Cochonou · · Score: 4, Informative

    He added that "the first thing you're going to do" as a pilot during an emergency is "don the oxygen mask" and "confess to ATC [air traffic control], 'We've got an issue, we need to return.'"

    This is quite a surprising statement. In an emergency, the pilot priorities are:
    1 - Aviate -- Maintain control of the aircraft
    2 - Navigate -- Know where you are and where you intend to go
    3 - Communicate -- Let someone know your plans and needs
    in that precise order, and not in any other order. They are trained to proceed like this.

    1. Re:Pilot priorities during an emergency by MichaelSmith · · Score: 2

      I would still put

      0 - Respirate at the top in a pressurised aircraft.

      And since the crew did turn west, we need to explain why. Did they have a navigation failure? Thats strange with the Malay peninsula lit up around them.

  20. Re:Are we sure it went south? by ChumpusRex2003 · · Score: 3, Informative

    There are several sources of Doppler shift and compensation. There is Doppler shift between aircraft and satellite, and between satellite and ground station. The ground station automatically compensates for all the Doppler shift between GS and satellite.

    The Doppler shift between aircraft and satellite is partially compensated by tracking the Doppler shift in transmissions from the satellite to the aircraft. Without compensation by the aircraft, Doppler shift would be in the region of 300-400 Hz, which exceeds the bandwidth of the channel allocation. The compensation is subject to local oscillator error in the aircraft transceiver, hence individual aircraft will apply the compensation slightly differently.

    Although the degree of compensation varies between aircraft to aircraft, it could be fitted with a standard linear regression. This method was apparently verified by Inmarsat on several other aircraft with similar transceivers, and was calibrated based upon transmissions with known locations/velocities.

  21. Re:Just let go. by AK+Marc · · Score: 2

    Why would a suicidal pilot go through so much trouble to hide it was a suicide? Was he trying to make sure the insurance paid out to his family? He'd have had to kill the co-pilot to pull it off, unless the co-pilot also thought suicide was a good idea. There are so many simpler ways to commit suicide.

  22. Re:True but by Etherwalk · · Score: 2

    it's pretty well documented that Pearl Harbor was a conspiracy

    And yet you couldn't provide a single link. Not even to Wikipedia.

    Most credible historians shoot down such notions, FYI.

    No it's not. It's well-documented that if a very slightly different serious of events had occurred leading up to Pearl Harbor, either (1) Battleship Row would have been ready for the attack and there would have been much smaller loss of life, or (2) the US Carriers would have been at Pearl Harbor, fundamentally shifting the strategic balance of power in the pacific from 10:4 favoring Japan to closer to 10:0 favoring japan--so the Americans were incredibly fortunate in how much the loss of life galvanized the nation and how it did not seriously undermine their strategic interests.

    But there's not enough evidence to show any of it was deliberate. So all you've got is speculation. When you're arguing someone deliberately let thousands of Americans and the pride of the navy old guard die and be destroyed, you need more than speculation.

    Conspiracy theories emerge when you either have complicated events that are not entirely explained or when it would have been very easy for one or two actions to have caused a profoundly different result. Think of them as very unlikely possibilities that should, for the most part, be assumed to be untrue. A conspiracy theory only becomes a conspiracy when you have enough evidence to show that it is not merely possible, but that it is the most probable version of events. (There is a middle-ground, obviously, where investigation should be done to rule it out, if it is somewhat probable but not the most probable version of events.)

  23. Re:Just let go. by jrumney · · Score: 2

    My view is that we should have stopped looking 10 months ago.

    Why? Was it less important than the Air France plane that was found after almost 2 years of searching?

  24. Iran Air Flight 655 by dillee1 · · Score: 2

    American has it own share of assholery
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I...

    And of cause the russkies shot down a few airliner themselves too.

  25. Re:Just let go. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    The AF 447 flight data recorders are leading directly to large and substantial changes to pilot training on stall recovery, high altitude stalls, and unreliable flight instruments. The two year search was worth it just for that.

  26. Re:Just let go. by LinuxIsGarbage · · Score: 2

    The Malaysian black boxes are almost certainly of no use.

    I wouldn't say of no use. Were the pilots conscious upon crashing? Were the pilots trying to execute a ditch, or trying to crash and kill? Perhaps they made a (failed) attempt at a Mayday call prior to ditching, which would be recorded, and may include clues to the nature of the emergency.

  27. Re:Just let go. by pz · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The best theory I've heard is the follows (don your aluminum-foil hats!) --

    Suppose you were a terrorism-for-hire organization, or a straight-up terrorist organization that was planning another big strike against a major superpower. Either one works for this theory. And suppose you had some new, amazing high-tech way of taking over a 777 by remote control. What would you do to either (a) test your system, or (b) impress a potential client? Such an ability would be HUGELY valuable, but only if it remained secret. You'd probably select a flight operated by a developing country that would not nominally have been under the same level of scrutiny as one from the first world, and one that could quickly be taken out of normal radar coverage. You'd take the plane over, disable its communication, move it about against the pilot's will (but still within radar range so that the demonstration could be recorded), and then send it off to crash well outside of radar range in a very deep part of the ocean where it might never be found, so evidence of your nefarious actions would not come to public scrutiny.

    You'd be able to demand a pretty high price in the elite international terrorism market with such a demonstration. So while the act of diverting MH 370 might not in itself have been an act of terrorism, it still might have been executed by terrorists.

    It's far fetched, yes, but it fits the facts better than any other theory I've heard. (Suicide by two non-suicidal pilots? Fire that magically disables communication without affecting navigation? Hijack with modern hardened cockpit access? Etc.)

    --

    Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
  28. Re:Just let go. by camperdave · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Until we find wreckage, we have no idea what happened to the plane, nor how to prevent it from happening again.

    --
    When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
  29. Re:Just let go. by thegarbz · · Score: 3, Interesting

    You're implying that I don't think that the Air France plane was worth abandoning after 2 months too.

    Looking for things isn't cheap. Looking for things on the bottom of the ocean is actually very expensive. I don't think we got our moneys worth on the Air France plane, and unless we find positive evidence that MH317 was abducted by aliens and we establish first contact as a result, we won't get our money's worth on MH317 either.

    There's a point of diminishing returns especially when we're talking about the safety of statistically the safest form of travel by a very VERY large margin. They money would be better spent in programs that could deliver a better return on investment.

  30. Re:Just let go. by thegarbz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yes likely. So put a dollar value on the safety issues. We have statistically the single safest form of transport. You're far more likely to die on the way to the airport than on the plane itself. How much money should we spend on making it even safer?

    Its the same thought process as anti-terror. Terrorism is a rounding error statistically in the ways that you are likely to die. Yet we spend billions on anti-terror while roads with huge potholes, blind corners, kill people every day and yet their repair remains unfunded.

    We have my own government telling us on a daily basis that times are tough and we need to make tough decisions and that we shouldn't expect healthcare or university to remain cheap, we should expect the pension to be reduced and to live tougher lives, all while writing a blank check to determine what happened to a plane carrying a number of people who were statistically undertaking possibly the safest activity they could to get from a to b.

    Yes this is all statistics. But here's one certainty: When they find MH317 they won't find anything that will make air travel earthshatteringly safer.

    We have long ago reached the point of diminishing returns.